I met two friends, both fandom members, last Thursday. Separately, and one meeting was only for a few minutes as they were working, but it was the first time I'd seen any friends in the flesh for more than five months. It actually felt quite odd, though in a very pleasant way. Anyway, three more stories for me to look at today, which are:
Scald by Casca
Wasting Time by Pascoite
Sketchwork by Casketbase77
★: 0 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.
Scald by Casca
OCs
Romance/Drama/Slice of Life; 14k words; Nov–Dec 2015; Teen
Lilac believes she is happy. But a small spark in her life makes her think otherwise. A drama in Sydneigh about coffee, appearances and pain.This fic apparently made both The Royal Guard and Seattle's Angels. It's set in a city that seems pretty modern for Equestria, even when compared with canon Manehattan – they have TV, for example, and coffee machines. It's a very slice-of-lifey fic, one that has no great battles or threats to Equestria or the like. Nothing wrong with that, but the problem is that I didn't really care that much about Lilac or the other main pony, whose name is Percy (there is a decent explanation for that name). Actually, that's not fair: I did care about Lilac, at least, but after a while I lost patience with her. It probably doesn't help that while I like coffee, I have little interest in coffee culture, which plays a fairly substantial role in the scene-setting. Then there's the big reveal late on, which I found disappointingly unoriginal; I've seen something like it so many times now. The writing is very good, to the extent that it's reasonable to call this literature. Reading other reviews, I know some adored it, PaulAsaran for instance. I just didn't find the central characters especially engaging and the high-tech Equestria wasn't really to my taste. ★★
Wasting Time by Pascoite
Twilight, Spike, Minuette and Starlight Glimmer
Comedy/Random; 3k words; Jan 2018; Everyone
How is Twilight supposed to figure out what the cutie map means when it chooses a cutie mark that a bunch of ponies have, and none of said ponies bother showing up?This, on the other hand, is not great literature. Oh, it's well written – that's a given with Pascoite – but its main attraction is being completely ridiculous. The Cutie Map is showing an hourglass, but Equestria is lousy with ponies who have that on their flanks. What's an alicorn to do? Answer: summon a whole bunch of them to the castle, starting with Minuette – who, after all, keeps popping up in the background. I enjoyed this in the silly vein it was clearly intended, little digs at Starlight's over-reliance on magic and all. Dr. Hooves is particularly well characterised, and the reveal is both stupid and funny. Like the fic as a whole, really. A small downside: the in-story links don't all work properly (not even on Firefox as recommended by the author!) which doesn't hurt it much (since you don't actually need them) but does hurt it a little. Still, a good choice when you don't want to exercise your brain cells too much. Quite high in the three-star band as a result. ★★★
Sketchwork by Casketbase77
Applejack and Pinkie Pie
Slice of Life; 3k words; Jul 2020; Everyone
Fierce foalhood bullying taught Applejack to keep a certain hobby of hers to herself. Years of holding it in has made her a bit skittish, but like every pony with a secret, it was only matter of time until she got caught.That hobby? Drawing with crayons. This story was inspired by the cover art and is described by the author as a "[t]ight, dreamlike character vignette" – I'm not sure it's especially dreamlike, but it is solid and satisfying. I particularly like the way Pinkie is portrayed; this is definitely a fic to glance at if you like Pinkie but have had your fill of her as Hyper Pony. Here, she's written as thoughtful and sensitive, while still being, well, Pinkie. I think that's great. Applejack comes across fine too, if not quite so memorably as her friend, and there's an interesting and quite subtle take on schoolroom tribal tensions. I didn't know anything about this writer before, but this fic suggests that's something I should correct. Another high three, and especially recommended if you like slice-of-life vignettes. ★★★
Next time on Ponyfic Roundup: stories reviewed should include Thanqol's Yours Truly.
Oh geez why did you read "Wasting Time." Heh. You definitely enjoyed it as it was intended, as a bit of stupid fun. Another difficulty with the links is that the list of ponies loads so slowly that it may appear they're not working unless you're willing to wait ten minutes or so. Not that that's much of an improvement...
ReplyDeleteI'm also in the camp that loves "Scald," but no matter how good a story is, there will always be some people that just don't click with it. I've also been in the situation of watching a story get repeatedly lauded and wondering what people are seeing in it.
Eagerly awaiting your views on "Yours Truly." I've long held it up as an example of how to do the epistolary format well (though a couple of plot points bugged me), and then seeing so many poorly done ones after it inspired me to take my own stab at it, which ended up being among my favorites of my own stories.
In all honesty, I was feeling a bit down at the time I was picking fics from the list for this week, so stupid fun was just the tonic I needed. :P
Delete