Read it Later story count: 99 (+1)
As trailed a fortnight ago, today PR is concentrating on some of the works of one particular author Lets Do This. Several factors prompted me to choose them, including the fact that they only started in 2018, that they have a sizeable body of stories to choose from, and that they have a reasonable variety of genres under their belt. (Lots of Twilight, but I can live with that!) However, I decided I would not be reading any of the significant number of stories in their various AU series. Maybe another time, but not this – when for once I have five fics to look at. These are:
No More Letters by Lets Do This
It's Just Magic! by Lets Do This
Starlight Breaks Magic by Lets Do This
Style Guide by Lets Do This
Flying While Pegasus by Lets Do This
★: 0 | ★★: 0 | ★★★: 4 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.
Twilight and Spike
Drama/Slice of Life; 3k words; Apr 2020; Everyone
Twilight has decided: she's the ruler of Equestria now, so she's done with sending those private letters to Princess Celestia. Just one small detail: she hasn't told Spike yet. Yeah, this'll end well...
We start off between S9E25 and S9E26, with Spike just being appointed Friendship Ambassador. He's still Twilight's confidant, though, which makes it even more awkward for Twi to tell Spike that she no longer needs him to send out those royal letters. On the face of it this is a relatively intimate and light story, with seemingly nothing too world-shaking at stake – although Twilight doesn't really think so. She wouldn't. Twilight and Spike both get good characterisation and there's a pleasant resolution. Twi fans should like this, but I suspect Spike fans will like it even more. High in the threes. We're off to a good start this week! ★★★
It's Just Magic! by Lets Do This
Twilight and CMCs
Comedy/Slice of Life; 2k words; Jul 2019; Everyone
The Crusaders are asking The Question... and they keep getting the same annoying answer. So in desperation, they go to the expert on the subject... Twilight Sparkle!
A bit of light fun now, with a short and amusing fic in which the CMCs' question about where foals come from is answered by everypony with the story's title. As it happens, even Twilight says the same thing. It's just that she is able to add a little bit more context to the response. This can also be read as a clever way of explaining the appearance of foals given cartoon ponies certain... anatomical features, or lack thereof. I'm not sure whether that was deliberate on Lets Do This's part, but I like to think so. Nice ending, too. More satisfying Twilight, and a high three. ★★★
Starlight Breaks Magic by Lets Do This
Starlight Glimmer, Twilight, Sunburst and Star Swirl
Drama; 16k words; Dec 2020; Everyone
Starlight believes she's broken magic itself. Worse, she can prove it. And she's going to need help from her closest friends... because her entire life has been leading up to this moment...
This, on the other hand, is decidedly not a bit of light fun. That's not intended to imply it's bad – it's no such thing – but when a fic's lengthy end A/Ns refer to the programming language Haskell and describe Gödel, Escher, Bach as "a fun read" you know you're in for the kind of mental workout Twilight herself would enjoy. In a way this is a tour de force: Lets Do This allows Starlight to convincingly research "structured magic", which is described partly in a rather formal way (for reasons that will become apparent) and whose concepts will be familiar to those into maths and/or software development. Since I haven't really programmed (I'm too old to say "coded"!) since the days of Delphi, I was pretty rusty on much of this. Anyway, this is tied into Starlight's personal development over pretty much her entire life up to the S7/S8 break. Yes, including the Our Town stuff. This was the hardest of all this week's stories to rate. I am certain some readers will find it a spectacular achievement. Others may find it too demanding to be enjoyable. I'm somewhere in the middle: someone who gets glimpses of the Big Picture and appreciates the undeniable cleverness, but who finds it just a little too much Work and not quite enough Play to be something I could truly say I adore. As such, another three. I'm not entirely satisfied with that score, but in the end it's the least inappropriate option I have. ★★★
Style Guide by Lets Do This
Twilight and Rarity
Comedy/Slice of Life; 6k words; Apr 2019; Everyone
Rarity invites Twilight for an impromptu lesson in fashion design, and discovers an unexpected fatal flaw in her own sense of style. Twilight has an answer, of course. It only requires a small amount of set theory...
The end of that short description is a
pointer to some of the things Lets Do This includes in their fics. See Starlight Breaks Magic just now. In
this case, though, it's not nearly as intellectually demanding and is explained pretty well in-story.
Rarity takes Twilight under her wing and is increasingly impressed by
her work... but then Twi's encyclopedic knowledge of history – even
fashion history – leads Rarity to fear that she may have committed that
worst of all fashion sins: being unoriginal. Twilight and Rarity
are both satisfyingly characterised, and the S4 setting allows alicorn
Twi to be in the Golden Oaks Library, which has a nice, warm feel to it. Well, most of the time. The ending is an interesting little twist, too. Recommended! ★★★★
Flying While Pegasus by Lets Do This
Rainbow Dash and Other
Comedy/Human; 3k words; Aug 2021; Everyone
Rainbow Dash keeps landing in trouble. For flying. Seriously? She's starting to think it's deliberate...
We're back to light silliness now – and this one doesn't feature Twilight. For somewhat vague reasons, Rainbow is in the human world (as a pegasus; this isn't EqG) – and finding that the regulatory environment surrounding flight over here is a lot more restrictive than she's used to back home. She flies too close to others, she doesn't have the correct lighting, her licence isn't compatible with this week's rules, you get the idea. It's one of those fun fics that takes a simple idea and runs with it as far as it will go. The fic does suffer mildly from LUS (one of this author's few recurring annoyances) and there's one major missed Horse Pun opportunity. Still, if you're reading down this week's fics and want some undemanding tea-break amusement, this may well hit the spot. As such. yet another three! ★★★
Next time, it'll be back to the usual mixed bag. Stories reviewed should include Raugos's Friendship is Optimal side story Terra Online.
An interesting crop, and a highly respectable batting average!
ReplyDeleteLet's Do This is certainly an accomplished and reasonable versatile author, and I have read a fair chunk of their stories. However, I got tired of their alternate Twilight and Pals AU a few entries in, and even though stories from that and their alternate post-Movie AU are technically in my Re-Evaluate folder (for stories I read before I started giving ratings), I have no intention of returning to them. They simply traffic too much in characters or aspects or cliches I simply don't care for. But their ability to get inside a character's head and craft compelling, if not extraordinary, characterisation, all through a light, breezy, fun tone (mostly - as you note, some fics are exceptions to this), that's with compelling. A consistently competent writer, and while a lot of their particular ideas about the stories and characters are not my cup of tea, that's quibbling.
ReplyDeleteAh, but their one-shots, now there's something I like and can easily read and enjoy! Hardly read all of them, but a decent chunk - of the five here, I've read "No More Letters" and "It's Just Magic!", both of which I quite liked for largely the same reasons as yourself. "No More Letters" maybe a bit less, due to the era and plot threads its associated with, but what can you do, sure. As for the other three, they're all added to my Read It Later. Irrespective of your ratings, "Style Guide" looks the most appealing to me, even beyond your description and evaluation of it.
What's funny is, this is probably the most words covered between the highlighted fics since your last Spotlight on a feature-length fic, with 30K between the five fics here. Must have meant they kept you gripped, to read that much!