Ponyfic Roundup 412

Read it Later story count: 86 (-6) 

Preparing for conventions is always a bit of a fraught time, or at least it is for me, so please excuse me if I write anything even stupider than usual today. I have managed to get through the regular four fics, which cover a reasonable variety of genres and characters. One of them has a really annoying title to format, but that's an occupational hazard when you review ponyfic! Here we go:

Autoapproval Was A Mistake by Estee
On Target by Kestrel
“If” or “The Power of Toast”, a portrait of an alicorn. by Owlor
Exiled by The StarsGuide

★: 0 | ★★: 2 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

Autoapproval Was A Mistake by Estee
Spike, Lyra and OC
G4; Comedy/Slice of Life; 14k words; Sep 2021; Teen

Spike thought that if a pony had checked out a book or printed a page once, they could be trusted to do it again without supervision. Spike was horribly wrong.

This fic was inspired by a notorious incident on Fimfiction in which the actual autoapproval process was exploited for purposes of plagiarism. However, it's not a meta fic in the usual sense, and I'm glad about that as it's strong enough to stand on its own merits. Twilight is away on royal business and so Spike is looking after the library. It's a lot of work, especially following Twi's inevitably overcomplicated guides for which ponies can borrow which books when. And as for dealing with the Pony Sexuality section when you're a baby dragon and don't really know what's going on there anyway... inevitably things escalate and get severely out of claw. And, yes, we get to read some self-published fic. You can see where that's going, I expect. The best thing about this fic is its Spike, who's engagingly written and who you'll really root for. You'll need to accept the presence of Actual Police in Ponyville, and a running subplot involving the mysterious Bunko family didn't really take off for me, but it's a more than fun enough read overall. Top-end three, maybe shading into a four if you really love your Spike fics. ★★★

On Target by Kestrel
Other and OC
G4; Sad/Slice of Life; 6k words; Oct 2015; Everyone

In the last Equestria Games, the Ice Archery event almost ended in tragedy. Why did the archer’s shot go astray?

This is the story of that guy from the "Equestria Games" episode, here named Snapshot. The description is slightly misleading in that the fic doesn't build up to that moment, in fact it's passed over lightly and quickly. The real meat here is what happened before and after. Snapshot has lost his beloved mare, tennis champion Ace Spin, and is bringing up his daughter Pin Point alone. The bow he uses at the games has a special connection to Ace, but saying more would be spoilery. This is a quiet, rather slow-paced fic that some readers may feel meanders too much, but the way Snapshot and Pin bond in the second half especially is honest and heartwarming. That nudges it over the line into the threes for me. ★★★

“If” or “The Power of Toast”, a portrait of an alicorn. by Owlor
Other [Princess Erroria]
G4; Tragedy; 1k words; Jul 2014; Everyone

My name is princess Erroria. I’m probably the most powerful pony in all of Equestria, and I doubt you’ve heard my name.

A strange and somewhat unsettling little fic here, and definitely not the silly comedy I might have expected from an Erroria story. There's some quite deep philosophising here about the nature of ponies and of Equestrian society, but I just don't think a thousand words is enough for a fic like this to be any more than odd. This version of Erroria could be fascinating in a longer tale where her character and backstory could be built up – for example, I'd love to know any interactions she may have had with Discord – but as it is, this is a brief moment of Princess Erroria being deep and then it's gone. Probably still worth a look if that appeals despite my rating, since it's not as if it'll take you hours to get through. And yes, the toast reference in the title is explained in-fic. ★★

Exiled by The StarsGuide
Twilight
G4; Adventure/Random; 3k words; Mar 2012; Everyone

Twilight was went into exile after committing a serious crime, but she found a way to get off.

We're told almost at once as Twilight narrates (she's writing a letter to Celestia) that she's "ended the lives of [her] dear friends". She talks of exploring the island to which she has been exiled and finding pony skeletons. She writes to tell Celestia that she has developed a spell to end her (Twilight's) torment, though infuriatingly this is given in the form of a fairly long poem entirely in Latin. Okay, it's translated in the end A/N, but this fic lost me there. On a less significant note, there are several tense mismatches in the fic. The story has a thumbscore of +58/-0, but I'm afraid I'm not especially taken by it. A low two-star rating for those intriguing hints at her island's past, but otherwise not one I'll remember for long. ★★

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There'll be no Ponyfic Roundup next week because of my trip to UK PonyCon this weekend. I hope to return with PR 413 on 19th October. If all goes according to plan, it will be Spotlight time! The fic I'm intending to read is Cerulean Voice's RCL-inducted AU Cadance fic, Essenza di Amore.