Read it Later story count: 95 (+1)
Here we go, a couple of days late, with the penultimate PR before Hearth's Warming. Sorry G5, but I don't really feel like adopting your terminology for the holiday! As I type it's been freezing for days in my neck of the woods, with ice and a little snow lingering all day. At least it's been quite sunny, which takes the edge off the cold. Also taking the edge off the cold: snuggling up indoors and reading ponyfic. Here's the list of today's quartet:
Pirate Battle by Tangerine Blast
Such Sweet Poison by AugieDog
Class Dismissed by Dash The Stampede
Smile by Holocron
★: 0 | ★★: 3 | ★★★: 0 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.
Pirate Battle by Tangerine Blast
Mane Six
G4; Slice of Life; 1k words; Sep 2013; Everyone
Ponies battle it out on the seven seas
A short, silly story written in honour of Talk Like a Pirate Day. It doesn't take itself too seriously (noting that Rarity isn't sure why she's on a pirate ship) and in fact the twist at the end is surprisingly sweet. On the other hand it's one of those fics that's badly in need of a proofread – "threw" for "through", that kind of thing. Cleaned up and expanded a bit, this could be a whole lot of fun. As it is, it's mildly entertaining for those in a forgiving mood. ★★
Such Sweet Poison by AugieDog
Fluttershy and Twilight
G4 AU; Romance/Slice of Life; 21k words; May–Jun 2018; Teen (Sex, Fetish)
Fluttershy agrees to help Twilight investigate how poison joke does what it does. Things don't go as planned.
This is intriguing. Fluttershy's relatively mild poison joke consequences make her a good choice to help Twilight, but a lab accident leaves her drenched in the substance and not only deeper-voiced but larger and more muscly as well. (Explicitly not as huge as her Saddle Rager appearance, as noted in-story.) The thing is... Twilight starts acting odd around Flutters, calling her "ma'am" for a start. Could she find her friend's new appearance interesting for more than just scientific reasons? Well, yes. The [Sex] and [Fetish] warning tags here are precautionary really, as although this story isn't for kids there's nothing terribly explicit. What there is is a tremendously good bit of characterisation for both ponies. Twilight's emotional vulnerability comes through excellently, as does Fluttershy's dawning realisation of what's going on. At one point a single word seems to twist everything on its head, which is generally a sign of a well-thought-out fic. Some Fimf comments from 2020 suggest AugieDog was seriously planning a sequel, but nothing seems to have appeared since. Shame, but unless the whole concept of this fic repels you I would recommend it. ★★★★
Class Dismissed by Dash The Stampede
Cheerilee and OC
G4; Sad/Slice of Life; 1k words; Mar 2013; Everyone
An aging Cheerilee struggles to cope with the city of New Ponyville, and the impending destruction of her beloved schoolhouse.
I really like the setup for this story, and the requisite sense of melancholy certainly comes through. There's also a great passage at one point explaining why Twilight's rule has inevitably led Ponyville to this point. Actually, I'd love to see that one half-paragraph used as the background for a story. Cheerilee's inner thoughts are fairly interesting too, but this is definitely a story that struggles to work in such a small space. This was Dash The Stampede's first completed story, and it's far from being the worst such I've ever seen. I suspect they could have done something pretty satisfying with it a year or two later, but as it stands Class Dismissed is a nice idea that just doesn't quite fit smoothly into its undersized jacket. ★★
Smile by Holocron
Pinkie Pie
G4; Comedy/Random/Slice of Life; 1k words; Dec 2013; Everyone
It's that special day and what will Pinkie Pie's personas do?
We see a lot of Pinkie/Pinkamena fics, especially from older times, but this one adds a dimension in that it features a pre-Wonderbolts Surprise as a third persona. As you can probably guess, Surprise is the happy one, which doesn't tend to sit too well with Pinkamena. Although I dislike the use of coloured text (it's not necessary here and makes the story hard to read in light mode) the last part of the story in particular is rather touching. There's also a nice line from Twilight at one point which, although not startlingly new, did raise a smile. On the downside, I could really have done without Pinkamena issuing Cupcakes-style lines like "You know I only have 'fun' when I'm killing". Fortunately there are only a few, but that's a few too many. This is an old fic and it reads like it, but the use of Surprise does give it an angle that's rarely explored. ★★
Next week, I hope that stories reviewed will include The Hat Man's slice-of-lifer Marble's Horizon.
Ah, I've read that Augie story. As someone whose... interests don't lean that way, it didn't align with me too well, but that's a different thing than evaluating the story's quality, which is right up there with what you'd expect from him. Glad you enjoyed it so well.
ReplyDeleteMine don't lean that way either. I was unsure about the fic for just that reason, but it won me over. That said, I'm not sure I'd want to read another on this topic, except perhaps if that sequel ever does materialise.
DeleteI haven't read any of these, and frankly, I don't know that even the ★★★★ AugieDog story appeals to me.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I am happy to see a story from Tangerine Blast pop up. I'm not too surprised to see one that old is in need of a proof: during my Author Spotlight of him a few months back, he commented that he feels the writing of any of his works from his early era (up to 2015, with his Alt-Nightmare Moon timeline fic Spark Visions of Twilight being the cutoff) are poorer works, both for technical writing reasons and for the content. Hey, it happens, we all start out like that a bit. Between that and none of them looking too appealing to me, I haven't given any of his older fics a look.
It is nice to see that fic is still a mildly fun n' silly diversion, all the same. Nothing wrong with that. Suffice to say, though, he improved quite a bit by the time of his works I've read (2017-on), with a healthy mixture of continuing to do cute, silly n'fluffy stuff, and other genres and tones. So, if you ever read one of his most recent fics, you'll be in for a good times. Spirit's promise!
Which side of the cutoff would you place Spark Visions of Twilight itself? It's one I've been vaguely thinking of Spotlighting eventually.
DeleteHaven't read it, so I can't comment for sure either way, but what I do know, plus viewer comments, points towards it being on the newer, higher-quality side: Tangerine took a year-and-a-half to write a 46K story, and it seems to be a solid and sturdy, if not necessarily fantastic, extrapolation of that timeline's aftermath of Twilight dropping in. And much quicker to get through that a lot of them that are needlessly padded.
DeleteI have heard it does have a little "there's a lot hinted at the margins you could have done more with" there – not quite "you barely scratched the surface", granted. But it's tight and focused, so they say, and that's always nice to see. I think you'll be in safe enough hands giving it a spotlight one of these days. And if I happen to give it a look in soon, that'll be an additional first-hand endorsement on its quality! That I'm considering reading an alt-Cutie Re-Mark timeline fic at all should say a lot (I am largely worn out on them).