Ponyfic Roundup 476: Spotlight on Spark Visions of Twilight

First up, an extremely rare after-the-fact star upgrade. I discovered that Binky Pie (PR 472) made considerable use of Discworld-style SMALL CAPS for Death's speech. These did not render on the EPUB version I read on my phone. Having them there made a small but significant enhancement to my enjoyment, just enough to push it over the line from a three-star to a four-star rating. :)

Read it Later story count: 95 (nc)

Words read this week: 46,050

Yes, everyone, it's a second Spotlight review in the space of about a month! As I said in my end-notes last time around, this is a fic that I have thought about reviewing time and time again for years, but each time I've ended up looking at something else instead. Well, this week that run comes to an end, because at long last it's time for...

Spark Visions of Twilight by Tangerine Blast
Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Twilight and Mane Six
G4 AU; Adventure; 46k words; Dec 2015–Jul 2017; Teen

After a visit by an Alicorn she's seen before, Rainbow Dash has a chat with her friends.

Originally a quick one-shot written in the wake of the S5 finale, this was progressively expanded to the full adventure you see here. The Alicorn in question is of course Twilight. Why doesn't Rainbow see her all the time? Because this is the "Nightmare Moon won" AU, where Dash is a palace guard. Meanwhile, Pinkie works in (and is largely confined to) the kitchens, and we gradually meet other ponies (and others...) as time goes on. I like the world-building, but several plot threads meander off into nothingness. It's well into the second half before the core of the adventure is on, with the ponies trying to defeat Nightmare. Quite a harsh world, as you'd expect, with violence both open and lurking in the background, and some real heartbreak too. The writing seems rushed, with lots of minor technical errors, and the use of a canon song in-story is strange. A smoother version of this would have scored more highly, but the fact that it was written as Tangerine Blast went along (revealed in the A/Ns that end each chapter) is a little bit too obvious to justify more than a moderate three. ★★★

Given that this is a Spotlight review, inevitably, there be spoilers beyond!

As I said above, a bit of a problem with Spark Visions of Twilight is how disjointed it is. Characters like Zecora and Discord turn up, do their thing and then never appear (or even get mentioned) again, making them seem a bit too much as though the author had thought, "I know who it would be cool to bring in!" I don't mind a few side tracks in a longish story, but it would have been good to have them be more resonant later. I'll come back to this.

The characterisation is generally decent, though from time to time the fic does read as though it had been written half a decade earlier than it actually was. Pinkie Pie from time to time, though her story is one of the most gripping – as an aside, I love the bit near the end where she finds a secret stone with her rock farm skills – can feel less developed than she was by S5 in the show. The whole "Cupcakes" song sequence is fun but weird, regardless of there being both her and Discord involved.

I will take a moment here to lament how little Fluttershy appears in the story. She's a prisoner of Nightmare Moon more or less throughout and doesn't really do much beyond that. Yes, she does show her strength late on and I do appreciate that, but I can't shake the feeling that the author either didn't want to use Flutters much or just didn't know how to fit her into an adventure of this kind. A missed opportunity, but then I am biased on that score!

Rainbow Dash on the other hoof is pretty satisfyingly written, knowing that her work for Nightmare Moon is problematic but wanting to stay near Pinkie to protect her. (It's not dwelt on, but it's clear that Pinkie has been hurt by magical punishments – and for the most part she's not even allowed out of Nightmare's castle.) Rarity is occasionally fun, with a mixture of "darling" stuff and toughness, while Applejack is as you'd expect. Twilight? A nerdy enigma, which I can accept!

I really like the fact that the action in this fic takes place some time after an earlier rebellion against Nightmare Moon, one which nearly succeeded but in the end did not. That adds an extra dimension, and all the more so when we eventually find out that none other than Pinkamena Diane Pie was the leader of that rebellion. Indeed, Pinkie's personal story is a real emotional hit. The explanation for why Pinkie ends up as Nightmare's cook skates on thin ice a bit, though.

I said I'd go back to the inclusion of almost random characters at irregular intervals. I mean, Doctor Caballeron appears at one point! Not Daring Do, however – in this timeline, Twilight and Rainbow don't know that she's real. Annoyingly, Caballeron is one of the characters I referred to above that turns up to advance one specific thing in the plot and then disappears from everypony's consciousness for the rest of the story. Cadance's appearance, though, does tell us something significant.

You do get a lot packed into this fic considering that it's under 50,000 words in length. World-building, guest characters (oh yeah, Sunburst is in there too), fighting – inevitably often involving Rainbow Dash – some briefly handled but quite emotional family stuff, even a little shipteasing bubbling away beneath the surface. I rarely got bored, and even if I did something new would happen pretty soon. That's Spark Visions of Twilight all over: a bit scattergun, but quite a few of the shots do find their mark.

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I'll be taking a week off from Ponyfic Roundup now. As some of you know, I have had some dental work done and I don't know how I'll feel during the recovery period. (The pain is partly in the pocket, but still!) I hope and intend to be back the following Wednesday (6th Feb) with a normal edition. These are the fics I plan to cover then:

A Story About You by CrispySparrow
Assassination Manifestation by TCC56
Lack of Faith by Tennis Match Fan
Stopping Distances by Mica
Daring Do: The Opera by AlexTFish