Ponyfic Roundup 530

Read it Later story count: 94 (+1)

Words read this week: 31,727

The RiL list count is creeping up again, I know, but don't worry: it will creep down again by the end of the month! Not a lot has been going on in my corner of England over the last week, although up until the last couple of days the weather has been superb for early March, with temperatures reaching the high teens and plenty of sunshine. Anyway, here's today's slate:

The Joy Hive by TheDriderPony
Counting Crows by VashTheStampede
Why Celestia Never Helps... by Huk
Pony Play by Bad Horse
Whatever I Shall Meet On The Road by astrolatryy

★: 0 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 2 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

The Joy Hive by TheDriderPony
Pinkie Pie, Changelings and Mane Six
G4 AU; Comedy/Slice of Life; 19k words; Nov 2019; Everyone

The story of Pinkie, a few changelings, and the world-changing snowball they kicked down a hill.

Shortly after the events of "A Canterlot Wedding", Pinkie finds a small changeling in her room. She decides to shelter it, though given ponies' attitudes to changelings at that time she daren't tell anypony – though eventually she does confide in a close friend. As the years go by, even after Thorax takes over Chrysalis's old hive, more and more changelings join Pinkie. Things escalate, and eventually matters come to a bit of a head... this is a fun comedy drama which works because Pinkie is very Pinkie. She is very clearly the pony we know from the show. The changeling OCs are also given believable and interesting characters. Less to my liking is a longish A/N before the final chapter, which teeters on giving away something and is rather unnecessary for those like me who didn't read its original version. By this I mean that the story's last chapter is not the original: that's added as a separate non-canon chapter at the end, and like almost everyone else I think the current one is better as it avoids a large plothole. As I said above, this is fun. Top-end three. ★★★

Counting Crows by VashTheStampede
Rainbow Dash and Rarity
G4; Romance/Slice of Life; 3k words; Feb 2015; Everyone

Rainbow Dash decides to pull a prank on Rarity. It backfires.

This is a simple tale. Rainbow sets up an elaborate trick, spending weeks building a fake shrine to Rarity in her home, then inviting her over (cloud-walking spell!) to watch a movie. Given the lack of a [Comedy] tag here, you can probably already guess where this is going. That's my problem here: it's so, so predictable. Not badly written, bar the odd piece of LUS, of which "the Technicolor Pegasus" is probably the worst, but if you've ever read a shipfic in your life you'll encounter very few surprises. I actually suspect this would have worked better if it had been played for laughs. Smack in the middle of the two-star band. ★★

Why Celestia Never Helps... by Huk
Celestia and Rainbow Dash
G4; Dark/Sad; 3k words; Feb 2020; Teen (Death)

During the celebration of another victory for Equestria, Rainbow Dash asks Celestia why she never helps them fight the bad guys. She never thought the answer involves ancient history and Daybreaker...

It's a bit of a running joke in this fandom that Celestia never (or at least rarely) really intervenes in monster attacks and so on. While there's the occasional official attempt to explain (the Celestia/Spike Friends Forever IDW comic, for example) mostly it's just made fun of. Here, Huk suggests a serious explanation. It involves a major war (canon centuries ago, not the S5 finale AU) and that [Dark] tag is well justified. Remember, at the time Tia was the only alicorn in existence. The odd minor quibble (I seriously doubt the Badlands area is spherical) but what we see here is a Celestia who had no choice but to take decisions no pony ever should, does so, and owns the consequences. You can be a wartime leader or you can be a saint. Not both. This Celestia is decidedly the former. ★★★★

Pony Play by Bad Horse
Fluttershy
G4; Romance/Tragedy/Second Person/Human; 4k words; Oct 2013; Mature (Sex)

You try to help her, even when her needs disturb you. You're the best person for the job because you understand her. You're the worst, because you have the same needs.

A seriously challenging set of tags for me, and if it were from an unknown author I'd probably have passed. Even with this name on it, I went in with a certain amount of trepidation. And indeed, this is a disturbing and frankly rather off-putting story. It contains (not enormously explicit) sex scenes, but they're not sexy and not intended to be. It's obvious from early on that both Fluttershy and "you" are damaged and hurt. "You" in particular are pretty unsympathetic, to be honest, and I kind of share Soge's feelings on that. It's not as if it has a warm, happy ending either: the [Tragedy] tag is there for a reason. So, it's well written. Very well written, actually. But I can't say I loved it. The inline YouTube links to Leonard Cohen songs are irritating when reading offline, and though I see why they're there they're still irritating. For a [Second Person] story this is very good at getting around the "but I just wouldn't do that" issue, but it's still there to an extent. A high three stars for me subjectively, but in terms of what it achieves with what it has, probably worthy of another one. ★★★

Whatever I Shall Meet On The Road by astrolatryy
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo
G4 AU; Dark/Sad; 2k words; Jan 2022; Teen

While taking a break from helping Rarity sew uniforms in the workshop, Sweetie Belle meets a foal about her age.

Only the second fic I've read by this author, after the very good A Real Pegasus (PR 443). This one was in fact their first. Like Why Celestia Never Helps... above, this is a story with war at its heart (current real-world events notwithstanding, I swear I didn't pick these) but focusing instead on an ordinary filly in the S5 war timeline AU. An ordinary filly who meets another ordinary pony, whose name I haven't spoilered as it's fairly easy to tell early on that it's Scootaloo. This is a hard and bleak world, with the brief glimmers of equinity shown here only slightly lighting the darkness. We get occasional glimpses of just how dark, too. Although Starlight Glimmer doesn't appear, this is a pertinent and very well written reminder that before her reformation, she was a very serious villain indeed. ★★★★

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As vaguely trailed a little while ago, it's now time for another Spotlight edition! The fic I've chosen to read over the next week is a very belated look at the sequel of a much shorter fic I reviewed in PR 49 way back in 2015...

The Night Guard - Night Mares by Georg