Read it Later story count: 84 (+2)
As you may have guessed from that subject line (or alternatively from actually having read the footnote to PR 399!) this week for the very first time I will be reviewing G5 stories. To mark the occasion, and I suppose also partly to make up for only doing three the other week, I have five fics under the magnifying glass this week. Here we go...
When Magic Returns by Lets Do This
If It's Glowing, Don't Touch It by BikerPon3
DUDE. by Masterweaver
Izzy and the Moonlit Garden by Sledge115
Movie Night: Judgement Neigh by milesprower06
★: 0 | ★★: 2 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 1
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.
When Magic Returns by Lets Do This
Sunny and Twilight
G5; Comedy/Drama/Slice of Life; 3k words; Sep 2021; Everyone
While picking up the pieces of her shattered home, Sunny has an unexpected visitor: an old, old friend that she never knew she had...
This one starts with a short scene set long ago, in which the Princess of Equestria gives a representative from each of the pony tribes part of the Friendship Gem. Many moons later, just after the events of the G5 film, Sunny is still getting used to her somewhat ethereal alicorny additions when said Princess drops in for a chat. At this point the comedy (never very prominent) largely disappears and we hear from Twilight herself (it's hardly a spoiler to name her, since it's so obvious) as she discusses with Sunny the events that led to the breaking of the Fellowship Gem, and what led to the disappearance of magic from Equestria. It's rather talky, understandably, but I enjoyed Twilight's thoughts on friendship and the problems of a perfect world. There are also a few nice moments that could be interpreted as digs at late-era FiM (Twi: "Why bother with a luminance spell when you can just flick a switch?"). The fic was written only a day or two after the film came out, and that does show here and there, but it still works quite well as an epilogue to the movie. Provided explicit G4-G5 links are your thing, of course! A high three. ★★★
If It's Glowing, Don't Touch It by BikerPon3
Izzy and OC
G5; Romance/Comedy/Human; 2k words; Nov 2021; Teen
Human and pony play-fight. Pony cheats. As a result, human and pony discover an awkward and unforeseen side effect of the recently reactivated magical abilities of unicorns.
First up: the human's name is Seth. Hmm. Anyway, this is the kind of fic that uses the word "yeeted" and doesn't even apologise. It's unashamedly silly, and really consists of Seth and Izzy both discovering that once-again-magical unicorn horns are rather sensitive. And Izzy discovering that she rather enjoys Seth making them so. You can probably guess where this is going. Yes, it's a human/pony shipfic, so avoid if you despise those. If not, though, If It's Glowing is cute and fluffy and harmless and – as I say – silly. I didn't find it especially memorable, but then I'm not really the target audience. Add a star if you are. ★★
DUDE. by Masterweaver
Hitch and Sprout
G5; Comedy/Slice of Life; 1k words; Oct 2021; Everyone
Hitch has a talk with his deputy.
Remember when Hitch told Sprout not to start a war? Yeah. Here we see the office-based part of the aftermath. Pleasingly, Sprout doesn't just cringe, but points out a few things that he feels his boss should know, such as when he "chased [his] fillyfriend across the lands with no idea what [he was] getting into!" Whether Hitch considers Sunny his fillyfriend is... an open question. Still, there are consequences for Sprout in the fic, too. So yeah, some fun to be had here. It's a shame the story has a rather dull ending, and that there are a couple of glaring typos in placenames, but it's a fair choice for a "tea-break fic" shortlist. ★★
Izzy and the Moonlit Garden by Sledge115
Izzy and Luna
G5; Drama/Slice of Life; 12k words; May 2022; Everyone
Izzy Moonbow has always felt alone. Until one day, when she comes across a garden hidden amongst the trees and its caretaker, a strange mare named Luna.
I picked this fic because of Mike's glowing review. He's generally no lover of G4-G5 connections, so for a story with one at its heart to grab him so hard I felt there was likely to be something special about this tale. There is, too. It's a really excellent character-driven piece, bittersweet and poignant, which spans quite a few years of Izzy's life – until just before the events of the movie – but never feels rushed and develops her character steadily. A connection between her and this older, forgotten, lonely (but not alone, not quite...) Luna seems so obvious when you think about it for a moment, yet here it's presented and developed in a wonderfully organic way. Not only this, but we get to experience Izzy's home life in Bridlewood, which certainly isn't all happy. However, the author avoids mawkishness and "woe is me" and weaves this too into Luna's story. There are a few glimpses of older times, dreamwalking plays a significant part, and there's some quiet, non-intrusive imagery of the love that Luna once knew. The writing is lovely as well, and despite a very occasional line where Sledge115 perhaps slightly over-purples the prose ("Izzy knew not how long she'd walked") it's generally an absolute joy to read. I am very impressed. ★★★★★
Movie Night: Judgement Neigh by milesprower06
Hitch and Sunny
G5; Romance/Slice of Life; 2k words; Oct 2021; Teen
Sunny invites Hitch out to go see Poniator 2: Judgement Neigh, and Hitch begins to wonder if this longtime friendship is beginning to turn into something more.
You'll probably know from that short description whether this story is something you want to read. It all follows pretty much the path you'd expect in a fluffy little shipfic, but it does so in a cute and smile-inducing way. It even gets one of the longer and more stand-out of the movie's catchphrases in without making it seem out of place. A cinema cashier asking "separate or together?" after Hitch buys two tickets is rather weird, and there's maybe slightly too much geeky detail about the film's plot, but the story's last scene is quite adorable. The [Teen] rating is very cautious; this wouldn't raise too many eyebrows as [Everyone]. By that I mean that it is, first and foremost, sweet. If you're into sweet'n'fluffy and don't hate this pairing, you may well like this one. I did. ★★★
Next time, I'll be starting on reviewing stories from the "A Thousand Words" contest. I haven't yet decided how I'll organise the posts, so I don't yet know exactly which fics I'll be reading.
First off: Yay, large, round numbers! :D
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I've been generally unimpressed with the G5 fics I've read to date. Nothing awful, but they also tend to be of two minds: either extrapolating how life might work out post-movie (a la season 1 G4 fics) or trying to jam as much G4 connection into the setting as humanly possible.
That is all to say, the fact that I even recognize one of these titles means I clearly need to read it sooner than later, because the hype is real. :)
Yay indeed! If and when I ever get to 500, it'll be even more so.
DeleteI've barely read any G5 stories yet -- only a couple other than those I've mentioned here. I'll be reading more, but I'm not expecting any great shakes. I'd love to find another one as good as that Izzy'n'Luna fic, though.
Knew if anyone would even out a prior lapse with one extra fic, it'd be you! Course, who knows what the follows weeks of thousand-word stories might bring…
ReplyDeleteHe's generally no lover of G4-G5 connections
Can always count on this blog for a right bit of British politeness, it would seem!
As most of these came in the last few months of 2021, when I read many G5 fics even when I knew I probably wouldn't like them, I've actually read all of these. Except that HiE one, because… well, it's a HiE story. As I've stated in many other places, the relatively small number of G5 fics (610 at the time of writing) makes it far more likely a fic one reads will have questionable and slack writing, in both ideas and technical execution. That, and the universe's overall structure often demanding fics grabble with the shaky structure and world building in a way that can't be reconciled… and no, I'm actually not talking about the G5-G5 connection, though that too. Checking my bookshelves, I have… 18 G5 stories with a Pretty Good rating or higher. Hm.
Whether Hitch considers Izzy his fillyfriend is... an open question.
Guessing that's meant to be Sunny?
Present Perfect raises an interesting point; maybe things have started shifting already in the wake of Make Your Mark (though as we're talking not even 60 fics there, probably not), but outside of fics delving into the G4 connection, and quirky little character pieces, prequel or sequel (the former have produced nearly all the G5 fics I'm actively fond of), we really are still in the era of "so, what's next?" for most G5 fanfics. Main difference is that, even compared to now, there wasn't as much fanfic traffic in the early days of G4 in 2010, and by the time the fandom was growing more in Spring 2011 or thereabouts, they had more than enough episodes to allow them to do more things. I'd said before that the lack of other directions might have been in part for waiting for more canon groundwork, and that might still hold true, we'll see after the series in September. But, I dunno… every new bit of content just seems even less fanfiction-inviting, and I speak in a broader sense then one ghost's take. Not that every media needs to be fanfic-fertile to be great! But it's always been a boon for MLP due to the high quality of writing. So it's a pity we're not getting more, though it's totally understandable why there's been so little.
Now, it's good to always be ready for exceptions – Izzy and the Moonlit Garden, you know – and if any fandom's fanfic output can produce surprises, this one can. So we'll see.
Yes, oops, Sunny not Izzy. Fixed; thanks!
DeleteI mean, if you've rated 18 G5 fics at Pretty Good or better, that doesn't strike me as too bad a hit rate. I suspect that if I read a hundred or so 2011 G4 fics I might not have that good a result.
Lets Do This has written a few other G5 stories, and mushroompone has one, so I'm reasonably optimistic of at least enjoying more set in that gen. I'm also expecting some ropey stuff, but then you get that with G4 too. We'll see.
I mean, if you've rated 18 G5 fics at Pretty Good or better, that doesn't strike me as too bad a hit rate.
DeleteI should have clarified how many G5 fics that was out of: 117 (only 15 of which were reviews: the other 102 were from when I just rated fics). 3 Excellent, 3 Really Good, 12 Pretty Good, 15 Decent, 31 Passable, 43 Weak and 10 Bad. Not necessarily that impressive anymore, is it? Now, I really did read a LOT in those early rating-only months (it helped that the average word count of G5 fics was barely 5K then), and I'm surprised it took that many quick shelvings into the lower tiers for me to become more selective in reading only what looked at least somewhat appealing.
(For reference, a Pretty Good rating, what I consider the "moderately healthy recommendation" tier, is equivalent to a mid-to-high ★★★ rating round these parts).
I didn't like most of Lets Do This' other G5 fics following When Magic Returns, though Princessy Things got a Decent review off of me; I haven't read any newer then that. I do have his When Ponies Fly on my backlog; it's a fic bouncing off the reimagined-Mane-6-as-Gen-5-leads concept art (Twilight as an inventor earth pony, you know, all that). It's, by a wide margin, the highest-rated G5 fic on Fimfiction, the only one in the top thousand at the time of writing, and only 426th overall (though Izzy and the Moonlit Garden is 3rd and only 1129th!). Despite his G5 fics largely not being winners for me, I'm actually quite excited to read that one.
I've also read mushroomepone's G5 fic Sun in an Empty Room in my pre-review days. It got a Decent rating. Don't remember it much, naturally!
As for other worthwhile G5 fics, just to rattle off some, I would also say about 2/3's of the G5 fics in the Imposing Sovereigns III contest back in October were really solid as well (and no, I don't mean mine), if one is looking for more quick-to-find quality entries. River Road's A Little Bittle of Sunshine actually rivals Izzy and the Moonlit Garden here for me, no joke.
That all was a bit random, I'm sure. But hopefully there is never a bad time to quickly recommend fics in passing!
I read Izzy and the Moonlit Garden because of Mike review, and I liked it quite a lot. Not as much as either of you, but it's the G5 fic I enjoyed most out of the few that looked interesting enough for me to pursue. When Ponies Fly was a close second, if you can consider it a G5 fic at all. G4.5 AU, maybe?
ReplyDeleteI surprised myself in rating it five. I knew almost at once that, barring a horrible stumble, it was a top-end three at the very least, probably a four. But the more I read, the more I liked it, and (bar that very slight over-purpling I mentioned) I couldn't think of anything I didn't like.
DeleteMind you, there may be a little bias in there in that this is the first G5 fic I've read that I think is legitimately on a par with excellent G4 fic, so I'm thrilled that it exists purely for that. As for When Ponies Fly, it's on the RiL list; I just didn't want to do more than one story by a single author this time.
I will admit that my lower rating is probably because I dislike the Wistful Tragedy sub-genre; the writing itself is top-shelf.
Delete