Ponyfic Roundup 571

Read it Later story count: 91 (nc)

Words read this week: 6,782

Here we go again with another phenomenal five-fic festival. As I trailed last week, these are all very short as I didn't have a whole week to get through them. And you know what else is very short? This introduction! The stories are:

Friends Forever by Wrangle Wolfe
Mercy by TheNocturnalLoner
There Are Many Gravities by shortskirtsandexplosions
Thankful by LadyKimba
One Night by Mirta

★: 0 | ★★: 4 | ★★★: 1 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

Friends Forever by Wrangle Wolfe
Twilight and Mane Six
G4 AU; Dark/Sad; 1k words; Aug 2014; Everyone

Harmony can be beautiful. And painful.

We see a lot of stories of the "Twilight is immortal but her friends aren't" type, but this one takes a different approach. All the Mane Six are immortal... but only if they remain friends. This is a potentially fascinating idea that could go in all kinds of ways, and there's even a solid explanation for why Cadance and Shining are included, meaning Twilight keeps her loved ones better than the other Manes. But it's so short that there's just no time, there's an insufficiently addressed issue regarding Fluttershy, the paragraphs are often too long, and it feels like it was written out in one go without much in the way of editing. As such I can't go above two stars, but there's three-star potential here. ★★

Mercy by TheNocturnalLoner
OC and Other [Griffons]
G4; Dark/Sad; 2k words; Jun 2013; Teen (Gore)

A young Royal Guard faces certain death, and he prepares himself for the end. Not even a glimmer of hope shines for him, but will an unexpected sympathizer be able to lend a talon in his darkest hour?

We open with this Royal Guard locked in a stone cell of the Gryphon Empire, expecting to be executed shortly. He thinks about his life and the war. He thinks about what awaits him. He hears his neighbour being taken away. And then... it's time. It's all very standard up until that time, and the twist unfortunately has no real build-up so feels unearned. A low two simply because it's smoothly written. ★★

There Are Many Gravities by shortskirtsandexplosions
Rainbow Dash
G4; Random; 1k words; Sep 2021; Everyone

Rainbow Dash doesn't enjoy the things she used to anymore.

In which Logan doesn't really understand a Skirts fic. Rainbow shuffles around, every corridor and stairwell feeling the same. Barely anything actually happens. This story feels like it's related to depression, either in the clinical sense or the more colloquial one, as well as a feeling of malaise that I think many of us had with the pandemic only slowly releasing its grip. Like a number of stories by this author, it's not all that Pony, but it does a job, even if it's not a very cheery job. ★★★

Thankful by LadyKimba
Twilight and Discord
G4; Romance/Slice of Life; 1k words; Aug 2023; Everyone

Queen Twilight and Discord have a talk.

This author's first story on Fimfiction, it places us a year into Twilight's reign as queen [sic] and sees her talk to Discord about how his actions helped her along her journey. In spite of the [Romance] tag it's not a full-on shipfic, and in truth I find the friendshipping parts of it more believable anyway. There's a running subplot of Discord painting a picture, which I liked. Too short to be more than a gentle vignette, but if you don't need a fic to have serious impact then this works for a tea-break. ★★

One Night by Mirta
Starlight and Fluttershy
G4; Slice of Life; 1k words; Jan 2018; Everyone

A one-shot short about Starlight Glimmer and Fluttershy and the evening they end up spending together.

Very much a "does exactly what it says on the tin" fic, this one. In spite of the publication date, it feels like a story from S6, with Starlight being taught how to friendship. I'm glad to see these two teamed up, as we don't see that very often, and they interact fine. It's another quiet story without much of a spark, but its major problem is the sudden and not really justified twist near the end that feels shoe-horned. ★★

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I'm sticking with the classic "five short fics" approach for next week, albeit not quite as short as we had this time. I'll have the following on the judgement table of doom:

Only Now by LunaUsesCaps
Applemania by Leafdoggy
Thank You, Doctor by The Wizard of Words
The Jerk That Time Forgot by King of Beggars
Singing to the Moon by uSea