Ponyfic Roundup 430: Spotlight on Three Wishes: The Cutie Mark Crusaders Before They Changed The World

Read it Later story count: 106 (+7)

Words read this week: 69,046

As I said the last time my RiL count jumped like that: don't panic. I've only read one fic this week, after all. That number will fall again soon – and in any case, my aim for years has been to have it bouncing around 100, not to have it dive much further downwards. With that out of the way, it's time to look at a classic CMC story that's not a million miles away from celebrating a decade of publication. I'd thought about reading this on and off for years, but had never quite got round to it. Now I have!

Three Wishes: The Cutie Mark Crusaders Before They Changed The World by Xepher
Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, CMCs [tagged as well] and Mane Six
G4 AU; Adventure; 69k words; Oct–Nov 2013; Teen

The Crusaders learn that they aren't like other ponies. As they uncover the secrets of their origins, the trio grow closer than ever, discovering not only their unique nature, but the incredible power that comes with it as well.

The fillies are in fact not ponies at all, but golems. Interesting! This is not the big spoiler it may appear, as it's revealed pretty early on and it's how the Crusaders come to terms with their true identities that matters. This is done pretty decently overall but covered in a rather uneven way, with some passages almost shouting how much pacier they'd have been if more toughly edited. Other scenes, especially later in the fic, are faster-paced, exciting, moving and satisfying. A few also contain some interesting and quite original world-building. It is worth the occasional slog to get to these – and also worth enduring Pinkie's crucial part in events, which feels much older than late 2013 in tone and is by far my least favourite aspect but which happily doesn't take up much of the overall word count. So, a slightly rough ride in places, but the boat never actually capsizes. If you're struggling with some of the overlong descriptive passages, I think it's worth pushing through. ★★★

Only continue past the page break if you're okay with significant spoilers.

Let's start with the really quite impressive fact that Xepher made a frankly rather silly premise largely work. Although this was written well after Friendship is Witchcraft had made Sweetie Bot a thing, Three Wishes' Sweetie doesn't feel like a copy. Apple Bloom's scarecrow origins have a touch of the fairytale about them, and it's a shame that aspect is barely mentioned later on. Scootaloo's origin is maybe the hardest to swallow, but it doesn't really get in the way of her adventures later on.

The world-building, as mentioned, is quite fun, although there isn't an enormous amount of it. Treating caribou as Viking analogues works pretty well and ties in to the "world tree" Rupert. Yes, Rupert. It's one of the little bits of silliness that the fic can throw at you from time to time, and I found this one really rather endearing. Meanwhile, there's a nice little section in Scootaloo's flight sequence in which she sees the world from above and remembers Luna's help. (When the fic was published, "Sleepless in Ponyville" was under a year old.)

As I touched on in the non-spoilery summary, some of the best stuff in Three Wishes comes in the back half. The fight with the giant timberwolf is a real highlight and is genuinely thrilling and frightening. I'm not absolutely sure that Apple Bloom being able to bring Applejack back from the dead is ideal, even if its "love conquers all" message is very touching – a possible problem for the sequel, if it's ever finished (see below) is that by the end of the fic the fillies seem pretty seriously OP, absent a massively powerful opponent or two. Still, the resurrection scene was apparently the core of Xepher's original idea for the fic, so it's hard to argue too much.

Possibly we see a hint of how this will be dealt with late on, when instead of doling out righteous zaps, the three-legged Sweetie descends from the thousand-foot treehouse to commune and sing with the timberwolves she killed one of all that time earlier. (I do have to acknowledge that a story that can make that work has to be doing something right.) Of course, superheroes make perfectly good, well, heroes – but they do have to have some weaknesses or they quickly become boring. I'll reserve judgement for the moment.

Pacing, as I hinted above the break, can be a significant issue in this fic. While once again things improve after halfway, until then there are several sequences which go on way too long. One clear example of this is the early section with Applejack, Rarity and Rainbow talking about their sisters' origins. The story's apparent desire to mention every little thing for all three fillies means it takes forever and robs the revelations of a little of their magic. Similarly, Scootaloo's race-flying stuff could really have done with a pruning of the detailed science. Mention some, sure, but not that much.

While we're in the realm of problems, I have to address Pinkie Pie. Her part is the one bit of Three Wishes that I found actively infuriating. Granted, in 2013 she hadn't quite become the deeper character we glimpsed from "Pinkie Pride" onwards, but she still wasn't as one-dimensional as she is here. Inexplicably turning up in apparently impossible places to offer magic cupcakes from a genie (via a Genie) is desperately reminiscent of very early fics, and I'm talking the first half of 2011 here. By late 2013, the impression given of "It's Pinkie Pie, I don't gotta explain anything" really doesn't cut it in a tale like this. Fortunately, though she's the catalyst for the whole story, she doesn't actually appear much.

Twilight plays quite a useful supporting role as the pony who (of course) is fascinated by the whole golem thing – in fact, she discovers that word – and works hard to help the CMCs when they need her. Scootaloo's admittedly slightly belief-stretching conversion to theoretical-physics-devouring bookworm is a good example. I also appreciated Twi's canon-compliant rejection of the existence of healing spells when AJ lay dying. Fluttershy has a small but nice part, while Celestia turns up a couple of times, though her appearances although important are not long-lasting.

A few other bits and bobs to mention. Oddly, the scenes when the Crusaders actually get their marks feel a little underplayed. Maybe it was the level of adventure that surrounded them. Much the same applies to Sweetie's "paw", even if it does tie in to her later scene with the timberwolves. The unreformed Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon have minor parts in their bully roles; we didn't know about Diamond's mum at this point, of course. While Lavender Unicorn Syndrome isn't that bad, it is around and "the filly" in particular is considerably overused in places.

Finally... as well as a short Hearth's Warming special, which I expect to read at some point, there's a sequel in progress. The snag there is not so much that it's already almost twice the length of Three Wishes, but that it's been in progress since 2014 and hasn't updated at all for nearly five years. Xepher did state an intention to finish the sequel a year ago, which is more than most authors of long-unfinished fics ever do, but nothing has been added since. I'll probably read it if it is ever done, but it's far from being the certainty it would have been were it complete already.

But Three Wishes itself is an interesting story. Present Perfect's summary was "I won't say this is high art, but I definitely liked it" and that's probably pretty close to my overall opinion too. There is a little frustration that it could have been even better with some technical tidying here and there, a much more convincing Pinkie and a fairly tough touch of "kill your darlings" on some of those protracted descriptive passages. But even as it stands, treat the first few chapters as scene-setting and there's a pretty lively story waiting.

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Next week, I hope that stories reviewed will include The Cloptimist's StarTrix romance Âme Câline.