Ponyfic Roundup 197: Baggy Green

There are clearly going to be a large number of fics (by 2018 standards) featuring the School of Friendship. I'll probably give it a while before I read any. I'd like to think some of them will be really good, though. We'll see. Also, I'll be away over Easter, so Text Review Roundup tomorrow will be the last post for a little while. I'll put up a review of episode 3 when I get back.

Read it Later story count: 344 (+2)

A mighty three fics under review this time, thanks to my ongoing dental/medical/similar work. This should finally die down after Easter, so if I'm really lucky I may even be able to get back to somewhere near the five fics a week I used to expect to manage. Anyway, here are the three I have read:

Severe Weather Appreciation Week by Cold in Gardez
Hosting Mr. ████████ by Rinnaul
Party Rock by Casca

★: 0 | ★★: 2 | ★★★: 0 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0

Severe Weather Appreciation Week by Cold in Gardez
Rainbow Dash, Flitter, Thunderlane and Twilight
Comedy/Slice of Life; 9k words; Jan 2018; Teen

Sunny days, gentle breezes and light evening showers. The weather in Ponyville is perfect, thanks to the hard work of the weather team. Everypony loves it. Except, it turns out, the weather team itself. A story about passion and pegasi.

Rainbow becomes frustrated with never being able to make interesting weather and takes on her team leader, Thunderlane, to try to get something changed. This story – which is apparently not set in the show's present – was quite controversial (see its comments after reading) but as a weather enthusiast myself I was predisposed to like it – which I do. After all, nopony actually gets hurt by severe weather in Ponyville, and that's key: this story only works in Equestria. Rainbow's inner voice is quite scratchy, in a good way, and the way she relates to Flitter is a very nice supporting plotline. I'm not sure I can entirely condone some of Dash's actions, but I can at least sympathise. Just remember that this is told from her perspective – including some of her more... private thoughts (though "piece of stallion"? Really?) – and things will fall into place. ★★★★

Hosting Mr. ████████ by Rinnaul
Sweetie Belle
Random; 1k words; Sep 2014; Everyone

Sweetie Belle has tea with an eldritch abomination.

The author is open about the fact that this story – another which is going to mess up my title list in Calibre – was written in two hours as a block-breaker. As such, it's a decent enough little random comedy. You can tell that some editing would have made the absurdist humour sharper, as there's rather too much near-repetition, but it's quite a cute piece. Not desperately memorable, but a fairly entertaining time-passer. ★★

Party Rock by Casca
OC (but see below)
Random; 6k words; Feb 2012; Everyone

TomFalcon friendshipping

Boeing the falcon, the bird who lost to Tank in "May the Best Pet Win!" spends time talking to a rock named Tom, who tells a story of his past life on a certain rock farm. (As such, I think this should be char-tagged [Other] rather than [OC].) It's a novelty, to say the least, to see this pairing, and Discord (who turns up later) has a few nice lines, too. It's an old, old fic, so we get rock farmers named Clyde and Inky (and Hezekiah, apparently), as well as some rather ill-advised non-fandom meme references. An interesting experience, but I agree with one in-fic character that Tom's story really did drag a bit. ★★

---

Next time on Ponyfic Roundup: no edition next week because of the Easter break. The week after, I'll be reviewing stories. Or possibly crisps again. One or the other. Maybe even both. Who knows?