Ponyfic Roundup 161: Spotlight on One in a Million

Read it Later story count: 440 (-2)

One in a Million by ocalhoun
Scootaloo, OCs, Twilight, Rainbow Dash and CMC
Drama; 54k words; Dec 2013; Everyone

Scootaloo finally finds her special talent. It's the worst week of her life.

Scoot discovers that she can teleport, and an astonished Twilight pulls strings to get her into Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. Unfortunately for the filly, she's confronted by racist teachers, a bullying room-mate and her own feelings of unbelonging. This is basically a boarding school story, albeit on a much shorter timescale than the Harry Potters of this world. Scootaloo herself is quite nicely drawn, and I do celebrate her little triumphs and commiserate with her when she fails. My problems with the fic are twofold: one, that just about everypony in authority is appalling. It gets a bit wearing after a while. And two, that a major secondary character's dialogue is written in a thick dialect I find tremendously annoying; it's much worse than Applejack's "ah-speak". If you can slog through that, though, and if you can accept Scoot's eventual destiny (which I just about can), Best Filly's own strength of character makes this fic worth the read. ★★★

Come past the break with me for a more detailed, and spoiler-filled, look at some aspects of the story that caught my attention.


Let's talk about Sugar Cookie. He's by far the most sympathetic OC in the entire story, and without him Scootaloo would never have made it through the week. He's likeable, he's wise and he's a spy for Princess Celestia. Conveniently, he's only just been recruited to that role, despite having been working at the school for 25 years, which means the story doesn't have to explain why Celestia hasn't noticed the unpleasantness of the staff all this time. Didn't she have any say in their appointment? If not, why not?

But back to Cookie. His "Dey done told me dat" dialect felt really uncomfortable to read. I think this may be because I'm British, and over here we only really see that sort of dialect written in old, racist books poking fun at "dem darkies". I don't for a second think that's why his voice is like this here, but given that racism is a running theme in One in a Million, it bothered me. Even without that, though, it was deeply annoying. I'd much rather Cookie's speech had been written out normally with just the occasional touch to remind me of how he was speaking.

The awfulness of Scootaloo's time at the school is my other irritation. There aren't any teachers who actually seem to like her. Sure, not everyone is as bad as Herald Dust, the headmaster, but you'd think there would be one or two nice guys in there. (Again, compare and contrast with Harry Potter.) When you add in the way River Star bullies Scoot and her stepsister Night Whisper with impunity, it does get a bit wearing. There were points at which I thought, "Yeah, yeah, she's being picked on, I get it, now give us something else."

So why three stars? Because there are also plenty of aspects I liked. River Star stops just short of physically attacking Scootaloo, though it's scary to think what might have happened had she succeeded in sabotaging her exam flight. Night Whisper turns out not to be quite the S1-Fluttershy doormat she appears, and actually was the OC I ended up liking the most – yes, more than Cookie. The revelation that River was Trixie's sister stretches things a bit with 2017 canon but works better with a 2013 mindset.

And then there's Ruby Shine. You're never quite sure whose side he's on, and you get the feeling he isn't either. The long sequence in which he pretends to fancy Scootaloo, only to reveal it as a River-inspired prank just as Scoot is about to kiss her, hit me harder than anything else in this story. Maybe I should have seen it coming – but I didn't, and so it really worked. After that, I was constantly on tenterhooks to see whether there'd be yet another twist in that relationship.

I suppose it's a bit obvious to have Scootaloo struggle with her final practical test but ultimately triumph, but I still prefer it to having her fail. What I might call the "Scootic Rainboom" feels a bit silly and over-the-top, but I did cheer for her when she showed Herald Dust up in front of everypony else. Having her destiny be fighting against pony racism felt a bit clunky and contrived, but I swallowed it in the end – and again it's possible this has resonances for American readers that it doesn't for me.

One in a Million is a story that gave me what I was hoping it would: Scootaloo succeeding against the odds. Despite the occasionally tedious passages of her facing one misery after another, despite Cookie's voice, despite the mildly annoying ending, it kept me reading and wanting to know how Scoot's tale would end. It gets a three largely because of that. Also, I was hoping Celestia herself would appear eventually to ruin Herald Dust's day, and I was so happy when she did!

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Next time on Ponyfic Roundup: among other things, both a fic and an author with "Horse" in their name.