Ponyfic Roundup 328

Read it Later story count: 165 (-4) 

As I type this, the weather outside is pretty terrible, with wind and rain. As it's about 11 o'clock at night, though, I'm not out in it! Not that I'm out and about much anyway these days, of course. As it happens, one of this week's stories touches on some of those issues from an Equestrian perspective. Anyway, here are today's trio of terrific (possibly) tales:

MLP: Fallen Angel by Dainn
Away by The Cloptimist
Starlight Glimmer, Tomb Raider by Green Akers

★: 0 | ★★: 2 | ★★★: 0 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.

MLP: Fallen Angel by Dainn
Fluttershy, Applejack, Apple Bloom, Angel and Winona
Dark/Comedy; 3k words; Jul 2013; Teen

What started off as an ordinary day on Sweet Apple Acres quickly turns into a nightmare when Applejack makes a tragic discovery.

Applejack sees Winona holding a bloodied Angel in her jaws and jumps to the conclusion that her dog has killed him. AJ then concludes that she has to cover that up – by returning Angel's body, ninja-like, to Fluttershy's cottage. Unfortunately, AJ's little sister turns up at just the wrong moment... this went a slightly different way to what I'd seen done before, and I rather appreciated the ending. The main problem, and unfortunately it's a really major one, is that Applejack spends almost the entire story being fundamentally dishonest, including to her close friend Fluttershy. If you're going to have AJ act so much out of her usual character for so long, you need to justify it really well – and this story doesn't reach that bar. ★★

Away by The Cloptimist
OC, Celestia and Luna
Dark/Slice of Life; 8k words; Apr 2020; Teen (Death)

A unicorn with an unwanted special magical talent isolates herself on a remote hillside, away from other ponies, for their sake and hers.

The winner of the Self-Isolation Contest, and unsurprisingly with more than one nod to our current predicament – though back in April perhaps many of us fondly imagined we'd be through it by now. Anyway, this fascinating story is told in first person by said unicorn, who is never named. She can't bear being near other ponies, except when absolutely unavoidable – so much so that she ran away from home as a youngster. Hence her isolation, for years now, in an abandoned bothy. There's an quiet yet interesting undercurrent here on the subject of unwanted cutie marks, but mostly this is a rather moving human, er, equine interest tale. The narration is somewhat rambling, but that's clearly deliberate, and it's an entirely appropriate style for a pony who talks to herself as nopony else is ever around. I very much like the way Celestia is written; she doesn't turn up for some while, but she's worth waiting for. Luna is perhaps a tad more predictable, but no complaints there either. I personally dislike one type of formatting ("ľ̴͇̜̩͖͆̃̑̒õ̸̞̹̜̭̭͌s̴̜͙͌̕t̶̨͕͉́̈́̓͝ͅ") but that's a general niggle, not specific to this particular story, and in any case it's only used extremely sparingly here. The one thing that did give me slight pause was that maybe the way this fic ends could be considered a little too nice and neat. That said, there's considerable appeal in such an approach, and apparently the contest rules were an influence there. By the end I found myself strongly empathising with the narrator, and hoping for a better future for her. All in all, a satisfying exploration of a form of isolation that could only exist in Equestria but which has clear echoes in our human experience. ★★★★

Starlight Glimmer, Tomb Raider by Green Akers
Starlight Glimmer, Daring Do and Ahuizotl
Adventure; 6k words; May 2015; Everyone

Starlight Glimmer embarks on a quest for a legendary artifact with the power to defeat the Elements of Harmony.

No getting around it: this is a period piece; it was published when Starlight's only appearance had been in the S5 premiere, and we didn't even know whether she'd be seen again in the show. Inevitably, therefore, her characterisation feels a bit jarring to modern readers. Here, yes she's defeated but she still burns with the desire to take the message of equality to Equestria. She just needs a bit more power... the adventure aspects are competent, but Starlight's abilities tend to mean the scenes lack much excitement, which is a slight problem when Daring Do is involved. Comet Tail seems quite interesting, at least – though here that's an ancient mage, not the blind bag figure! ★★

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Next time on Ponyfic Roundup, stories reviewed should include Impossible Numbers' The Dream World Record.