Read it Later story count: 176 (-6)
I'm going to follow my usual practice and have a week off Ponyfic Roundup at the end of the year. I intend to take advantage of that extra time to read a longer fic and give it a spotlight when PR returns in January. I know which story I'll be reading, but I'll keep you all in suspense for a little while longer. Now we turn to this week's three:
In Bloom by Pascoite
The Fault in Our Immortality by The Ravenclaw Queen
Winona the Immortal Dog by sunnypack
★: 0 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 1 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.
Roseluck and OC
Dark/Drama/Slice of Life/Thriller; 9k words; Sep 2013; Teen
In a yard, all alone, a pony whiles away the time caring for the lawn and the roses. Roseluck can understand that, to a point. And she's determined to help.
This is Pascoite's RCL entry, so I was expecting good things from it. The narrator is the pony mentioned in the description, a pony who seems to have a somewhat unconventional view on Ponyville life. Still, we all know that things can look different from the other side of the fence. This is a very good "unreliable narrator" story, and what kept it suitably unsettling for me was that we were forever learning new things – from said unreliable narrator's point of view. I was almost constantly feeling disorientated, but just to the extent I needed to be, as opposed to being totally lost and giving up. Then we have Roseluck, a solid and reliable, friendly figure who we can trust and identify with more than that tricksy narrator. But is what she's doing to "help" really the right thing – and are the narrator's feelings for her touching or disturbing or both or neither? The ending may leave you pondering still. Maybe those who read a lot of [Dark] stories will have seen more of this type of fic before, but I found it pretty striking. I realised in general what was going on fairly early on, but I never fully pinned down the details and the read remained gripping. I'm not sure a plot point about cutie marks entirely convinced me, and I also have a minor gripe with the presence of Actual Police in Ponyville – but that second one's very much in the "personal preference" category. I didn't enjoy this fic exactly, but it was certainly very interesting reading. Pretty high in the fours. ★★★★
The Fault in Our Immortality by The Ravenclaw Queen
Twilight and Discord
Sad/Slice of Life; 2k words; Aug 2020; Teen (Death)
The author of this little tale was active on Fimfiction for only around six weeks this summer, and this was their only completed fic. It's a shame their stay was so brief, since although the starting point of this story is nothing new – how does Twilight cope with outliving her friends? – it still manages to be diverting. That's because it's Discord who turns out to be the only other friend Twi can talk to, barring occasional visits by the other alicorns. I like the way Discord is characterised here, a more sombre and reflective being than he is in the show but for good reason. ★★★Two old friends reflect on the past, and what it means to mourn a soul (spoilers for season 9)
Winona the Immortal Dog by sunnypack
Winona, Angel, Gummy and Owlowiscious
Random/Slice of Life/Alternate Universe; 1k words; Jan 2015; Everyone
In this story's Equestria, at any rate. Four of the Mane Six's pets are immortal, and seem to be gentle guides of some kind to their "owners", though the details are deliberately kept somewhat vague. The feel of the story is a little bit reminiscent of Gummy's monologue in "Slice of Life", although this fic was published before that episode aired. There are some nice touches, especially regarding Angel, but there isn't really enough substance here to make this stick in my memory for very long. ★★There are quite a few immortal creatures in Equestria and Winona is one of them.
Next time on Ponyfic Roundup: stories reviewed should include TCC56's Worshiping At The Altar Of Knowledge.
Always have to wonder about those authors who show up, post something, and then vanish off the face of the earth. Just have to hope nothing bad happened to them. :C
ReplyDeleteIn Bloom is of course a personal favorite because I voiced Two in Scribbler's audio production. :3 That was a good time, and it's a great story.
That author has a second story as well, and they posted 3 chapters at a rate of every other day, then left it incomplete. That at least has me wondering if they'll return to add more.
DeleteYes, and it happens elsewhere too: Phileo is the best example of a one-hit-wonder musician I know of, unless he's secretly around still under another name. "The Way She Flies" isn't a bad one-off, though.
DeleteAh, this was a surprise! You'd said you had a couple of my stories upcoming, but this wasn't one of the 3 I already knew to be on your RIL, so I wasn't expecting to see it.
ReplyDeleteAs to police... I can see a view of the show where nobody does anything that needs policing, though at the very least I would think there'd be some to handle traffic accidents or the like in the big cities. But with the existence of characters like Dr. Caballeron and his henchponies, who steal, kidnap, and assault, I would guess crime is a thing. Plus for Rarity to assume the mantle of detective in "Rarity Investigates!" I would think she was emulating a real thing rather than coming up with that completely on her own. Now I'm wondering if we've ever seen any police ponies in the comics...
Like I alluded to in your review of "The Art and Science of Letter Writing," I'll sometimes take on a type of story I often see done badly to test whether I can follow my own advice and do it well. It's interesting that horror, mystery, and comedy all share one important aspect, and that's escalation. What's funny or intriguing or scary loses its power the more you repeat it, so you have to carefully structure the story so that those things continually ramp up. The outline for this one was just deciding what disturbing things to reveal about the narrator and what order to do them in, which is a reliable way to structure those genres.
I noticed it while I was browsing the RCL inductees the other week. Since I generally like RCL fics and generally like your fics, I felt one that was both was a reasonably safe bet.
DeleteMy personal preference is for the Royal Guards to be the "law enforcement" in Ponyville. This doesn't actually make a great deal of logical sense given they're based in Canterlot, but it feels nicely old-series. The show took a notably long time to show actual police, and that probably had an effect on me.
Oh, there are actual police in the show? It wouldn't surprise me to learn that, but I couldn't come up with an instance off the top of my head.
DeleteS6E03, "The Gift of the Maud Pie":
Deletehttps://derpibooru.org/images/2452959
An easy to forget episode for sure. :P
DeleteScenes like that make me think that police as we know them are a device of really large cities, though probably not Canterlot, since that's where the Royal Guard is. Smaller towns like Ponyville just call on the Guard when they need a crime investigated and lack plucky fashionistas to do the detective work. :V