Words read this week: 10,000
It rained for about 48 hours non-stop earlier this week. It wasn't much fun. Fortunately, it's not raining as I write this. Anyway... time now for the final part of my look at the fics that won recognition in the Thousand Words Contest II. There are ten of them: five Silver Medallists and five Gold Medallists. Here's the rundown:
Silver Medallists
Her Mothers' Daughter, Unfortunately by TheDriderPony
For a Love of the Arts by The Red Parade
Compound Fracture by Equimorto
What Are You Doing, Stepfish? by TheDriderPony
D E A T H w i s h / meso, strato, tropo by The Red Parade
Gold Medallists
Don't Go Through. You Can't Stop Me. by daOtterGuy
The Woodcutter and the King of the Forest by TheInfamousFly
Bury It by daOtterGuy
Ornithomancy by daOtterGuy
Please don't do this by Kodeake
★: 0 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 3 | ★★★★: 6 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.
Her Mothers' Daughter, Unfortunately by TheDriderPony
Applejack and Fluttershy
G4; Drama/Sad; 1k words; Jul 2023; Teen
The hardest choices in life are the ones you never dreamed you'd have to make.
A rare AppleShy fic. Fluttershy is pregnant and she and her wife are at the hospital... where the doctor has a bombshell to drop: their unborn baby has Tribal Dysmorphic Disorder. This is explained with some interesting and believable world-building, especially in terms of this particular couple. I also appreciate the way Flutters' vocation proves important, as well as the way the fic is a character piece that avoids taking sides or providing unrealistically easy answers. Considering the word count limit, this fic does a very good job. ★★★★
For a Love of the Arts by The Red Parade
Twilight and Apple Fritter
G4; Romance/Slice of Life; 1k words; Jul 2023; Everyone
Twilight tries her hoof at art, and it goes fairly poorly.
Another rare pairing: FritLight!¹ I complained mildly last week about TRP's tendency to be opaque, but this story I found easier to understand. Twilight really, really wants to make a picture for her marefriend, but she's not good at painting and gets frustrated. (I know that feeling, Twi!) Meanwhile, Fritter has an unusual peculiarity but one that fits with her canon appearances. Quite clever and rather cute. ★★★
¹ Sorry, best I could think of!
Compound Fracture by Equimorto
Twilight
G4; Dark/Horror; 1k words; Jun 2023; Teen (Gore)
Something is wrong. I'm in my laboratory. Help will come. Don't panic. Don't look at it.
"Blood is not supposed to fall upwards," begins this internal monologue by Twilight. Something has gone terribly wrong – what? – and Twilight has suffered a horrible injury. I like the way her apparently calm, scientific, Twilighty attitude is also the bizarrely unemotional state often experienced by people in severe shock. Her mind is clearly addled: she notices all kinds of things, but misses something very obvious. What happened is all a bit vague, which is mildly frustrating, but it's still a fine example of this kind of horror. ★★★★
What Are You Doing, Stepfish? by TheDriderPony
Rarity, Sonata Dusk and Other
G4; Comedy; 1k words; Jul 2023; Teen
Rarity's father is getting married! Wait, wasn't he already married? And since when did middle-aged stallions bump into eligible young mares on the docks at midnight?
Quite a change of feel now! This is a broad comedy, in which Hondo Flanks meets, marries and brings to visit Rarity... one Sonata Dusk. She looks barely old enough, but she's actually over a thousand. It's a really original premise, and I like Hondo's personality (well, appreciate more than like him). I didn't laugh quite as much as I was hoping, though, and the payoff in its last line... yeah, I suspect a lot of people will love it, but it's not really my kind of humour. A top-end two for me, but almost certainly higher for people who really adore their bawdy, broad comedy. ★★
D E A T H w i s h / meso, strato, tropo by The Red Parade
Lightning Dust
G4; Drama/Sad; 1k words; Jun 2023; Teen
I will not waver in the line of duty.
You know, the "Stop [whatever]. This is serious" note on TRP's longdescs gets a little tedious when you read it five times in a few weeks. But let's look at this story in particular. The Silver Medal winner in the Experimental category, it's a stream-of-consciousness fic. Coloured text – pay attention to the colours – and non-standard formatting both feature. Lightning's thoughts heavily imply... well, spoilers, but something very significant indeed. As it's Experimental I can't tell whether the occasional little error ("A phenomena") is deliberate, but I'll assume yes. This one stuck in my head the most of all this author's winning fics. ★★★★
Don't Go Through. You Can't Stop Me. by daOtterGuy
Sunset Shimmer and Celestia
G4; Drama/Sad; 1k words; Jun 2023; Everyone
Celestia tries to stop Sunset from leaving.
Now we enter the daOtterGuy Gold section. Though not in the Experimental category, this story is unusual, not least in using a large number of mostly extremely short chapters. It is a type of time loop fic, in which Celestia tries repeatedly to stop Sunset from getting what she believes she's owed. How you feel about it may partly depend on your feelings about fate and destiny. An untagged character appears very briefly, but significantly – I liked that. Cleverly constructed, turning what at first seems a textual gimmick into something considerably more profound. ★★★★
The Woodcutter and the King of the Forest by TheInfamousFly
Burnt Oak, Big Mac, Sugar Belle, Timberwolves and Deer
G4 AU; Sad/Slice of Life; 1k words; Jun 2023; Teen (Death)
Burnt Oak runs across a fawn while cutting lumber in the Everfree Forest.
What an unusual set of character tags! Anyway, this is a fairy tale, both in subject matter and in form, and use of deer seems a good choice for this. Burnt Oak's life story is a moving one, not least in a little detail involving (in passing) none other than the FlimFlams. As with all the best fairy tales, plenty happens that isn't in the actual words of the story. Let down a bit by a few too many technical errors, especially near the beginning. They're frequent enough to get in the way of the atmosphere, which is a shame; perhaps those listening to audio readings will love this. I still liked it. ★★★
Bury It by daOtterGuy
Flash Sentry and OC
G4 AU; Horror; 1k words; Jun 2023; Teen
Something sleeps in the waters of Bilge
If people would stop downvoting fics just because they contain M/M shipping, that would be great, you know? Anyway, to the story. In this alternate world, Flash works as a sea captain, and one day "Cobalt" comes to town and the two stallions form a relationship. One with somewhat disturbing elements, it has to be said, mirrored by the disturbing nature of some of the fish themselves. Then you get an unexpected detail dropped in that changes your perspective substantially, and then there's an ending both dramatic and scary. This might even be my favourite story of the week. ★★★★
Ornithomancy by daOtterGuy
Shining Armor, Thunderlane and OCs
G4; Comedy/Random; 1k words; Jul 2023; Everyone
Pigeons are great for fortune telling.
This is a sequel to Gull Sentry (PR 404), though it can stand alone. The basic premise is that the Royal Guard get their patrol information from Thunderlane acting like not a birdhorse but an actual bird. It's silly and weird and funny, which is what a random comedy should be. A slightly clunky name at the end is a shame, but it does maintain the absurdity throughout. Top-end three. ★★★
Please don't do this by Kodeake
Twilight
G4; Dark/Horror; 1k words; Jun 2023; Everyone
It was supposed to be a simple spell. Not to interact or interfere, just to test. To reach out and see if alternate dimensions really existed. I didn't want to do it.
This last one is really tricky to review, as it's not only very meta but subverts the contest rules in a pretty big way. It also only fully works on a PC, something I'm increasingly irritated by but which I'll accept in an Experimental-class fic like this one. To get the full effect of Twilight's discovery that not only is she a fictional construct but that her time is limited – and the words are running out – you need to count not only the story itself but the longdesc, and the end A/N, and the Fimfiction comments, and a blog post. In other words, the best effect is provided by way more than a thousand words. The judges state that it won the Gold on the story section alone and I don't doubt their word, but I'm still uncomfortable because the tight word limit is so central to this contest. That said, titles don't count towards word limits, so all the fics entered actually went over a thousand in that sense. Plus this is in Experimental. After thinking about this for a long time, I decided that as a one-off I was more impressed than annoyed – though I still find Zalgo text tedious – but that I couldn't simply ignore the massive overrun. As such, this scores highly and reading it is thoroughly recommended as a truly remarkable experience, but I can't justify to myself giving it the very top rating. Others might. But fair warning, I won't be so impressed if someone else does the same thing in a future contest. ★★★★
A long review to finish on, but I couldn't really avoid that! I hope I'll be able to publish a Hearth's Warming themed Roundup on the 20th, but next week I'll be doing a standard edition of PR. That means five fics, which will be as follows:
Barn room brawl by appletini
Cafeteria Control by Justice3442
Five Hundred Little Zombies by GroaningGreyAgony
Beyond a Boundary by The Cloptimist
Sunsplit by Masterweaver
Pity, no 5-star fics this time. Course, they can't all be Womb!
ReplyDeleteStill, overall there were quite a lot of 3-star fics and a fair share of 4-star ones across the lot you covered. I suppose when there are almost 170 fics, it's predominantly the absolute cream of the crop that gets this far. A lot across the lot that looks great, even if I can see myself reading very little of it – it's hard for 1K fics to really grab me these days. But I remain glad for the contest and its continued success, even if it absolutely cannot come anywhere close to this output next year.
Also, for all the people that signed up, a lot of people have repeat performances in the top ranks. Wonder what that says about them, their skill level, or the contest…
Beyond a Boundary by The Cloptimist
Is 11 days between fic publication and review the quickest you've ever gotten to a fic? Probably not, and I doubt there's a reliable way of checking, but it's bloody fast either way! Explainably so, given the cricket gimmick.
Is 11 days between fic publication and review the quickest you've ever gotten to a fic?
DeleteAs you suspected, no. In fact, not even close! My record was set when a fic was nuked almost as I was ready to publish, and I chose to pick one from the Recent list. It happened in PR 333 in 2021, and the fic was CoffeeMinion's short Crowns and Mimosas. I reviewed that one the day after it was published!
I can't tell whether the occasional little error ("A phenomena") is deliberate, but I'll assume yes.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience with this author, no, that was not deliberate, especially lately.
Let down a bit by a few too many technical errors>/i>
Yeah, the above included. Y'know, for all that so many contests say they take mechanical correctness into account, it sure seems like they really don't, when numerous high finishers have easily noticeable editing problems. It feels more often like it's held as a potential tiebreaker or an easy way to weed out unreadable entries. Of course, it's up to the judges how much to weight it, and it's not an issue for this particular contest, but there are some where the judges really aren't qualified to evaluate that.
"Orinthomancy" is the one of these I actually read, and I had the same reaction you did to TheInfamousFly's story in that it felt like the mechanical stuff was wrong often enough to kick me out of the story. I mean... look at the title. I did the same as you with The Red Parade and assumed at first it was deliberate, but it's spelled correctly in the text, and there's no reference in-story where that misspelling would be relevant. I left a comment asking if there was a meaning to that or if he'd just misspelled it, but he didn't reply, nor has he corrected the title, so I don't know. As to plot, I did find it pretty funny. Humor's the toughest genre to get two people to agree on what's effective, but it clicked with me well enough.
I'm wondering whether the difference between assessing a fic by listening to an audio version and by reading it on a screen or paper has been considered sufficiently. I'd be quite wary of a contest where some judges listened to entries and some read them, certainly unless how to handle that was understood and addressed from the start. A nicely designed, imaginative story that's full of minor typos will not suffer in audio but it will in text. The approach and quality of the speaker will matter too. Food for thought.
Deleteyeah, that's... weird c_c I always list readings in my reviews for exactly this reason, and it's why I keep recommending stories that get confused comments because they're actually written pretty poorly XD
DeleteChecking back now, I see that the title has now been corrected. I've updated this blog to account for that, but I'm putting this comment here to acknowledge that it wasn't that way to start with.
Delete