Read it Later story count: 88 (+1)
Words read this week: 25,683
Schadenfreude by Daemon McRae
Carry Me Home by PropMaster
Jade's Adventure by Ni-kun
Backstage by Noriko Nakayama
Derpy Explodes at the End of This Story by Brony_Fife
★: 1 | ★★: 2 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.
Schadenfreude by Daemon McRae
OC, Prince Blueblood, Celestia, Luna and Twilight
G4; Comedy/Random; 2k words; Nov 2013; Teen
Schadenfreude is a butler to Blueblood and he's no stranger to being tossed in the dungeon for ticking him off. He decides to tell the story of how he got there this time.
The Schadenfreude of the title is Prince Blueblood's butler – and with a name like that, you can probably make a fair guess at his character. You see, his special talent is to know when somepony is about to suffer, and he revels in it. Sometimes – well, quite often – he ends up in the dungeons as a result, but hay. We only get a snapshot of Schadenfreude's life, not even a whole day, but what we do see is pretty darn amusing. And, rather fittingly, we see that he is riding for a fall, too. ★★★
Carry Me Home by PropMaster
Spike and Mane Six [and Starlight]
G4; genres; 15k words; Sep–Oct 2017; Everyone
Spike carries each of the most important ponies in his life home after a long day.
This was apparently a "commission-turned-gift" for B_25, an author whose username I recognise but who sadly seems to have nuked their account so I can't cover any of their fics. Back to Carry Me Home, though. The author states in an opening A/N that the fic contains increasingly "intense situations" about loss, grief and so on. As you might guess, the story is set many years hence, with Spike now much larger than the Manes (and Starlight, who also gets a chapter). Early chapters are simple friendshipping slice of life about getting older, and the quiet approach works well. It does lose something later when (inevitably) we reach a pony in her last days; that chapter is a bit too predictable in most of its beats. The final chapter is more of an epilogue, and it helps to avoid the charge that PropMaster is just pulling harder and harder at our heartstrings. Carry Me Home is still somewhat "sad ponyfic" and there aren't many actual shocks, but it does do Spike justice by showing him maintaining such a strong connection to his friends. Fittingly, I think it's Spike that carries this into the threes. ★★★
Jade's Adventure by Ni-kun
Twilight, Celestia, Luna, Cadance and Flurry Heart [and the titular OC...]
G4 AU; Adventure/Mystery/Sci-Fi; 5k words; Jul 2018; Everyone
Jade Hardstone has a dangerous adventure.
This was originally intended for a late June review, but when I had to miss a week PaulAsaran got to it first and I didn't want to be accused of being part of a pile-on, so I delayed slightly. Now, I don't necessarily object to a fic in an AU (Fallout: Equestria in this case) that the author hasn't yet read – indeed, the awkwardness could itself be fuel for fun, especially in a comedy. I mean, my own Kicking Back was written before I'd actually read the Winningverse stories, although that wasn't actually set in said AU. I do, however, object to a story which makes no actual sense. Here, Jade is for some reason a confidante of basically everypony (Celestia, the lot) in a war against Chrysalis. There are multiple deeply irritating authorial intrusions (in coloured text, at that) made worse by said author claiming not to know how Jade is doing various things. Jade has a robotic high-tech suit that apparently blends in with the bandages of injured ponies, because reasons. They get past a spider pony by creating a microwave that can also be a fridge. This E-rated story contains a pony losing so much blood from thorns that she passes out. As PaulAsaran noted, there are remarkably few spelling and grammar errors. But I'll let a character from the fic sum it up. "What nonsense is this?!" —Flurry Heart. ★
Backstage by Noriko Nakayama
Twilight and Sweetie Belle
G4; Romance; 1k words; Oct 2024; Teen
Sweetie Belle confesses her love at a concert.
This author was only on Fimfiction for about six weeks. This is a story that, for most of its short length, seems simply to be a case of an (aged up) Sweetie Belle falling for the now regal Princess Twilight. The fic starts off in first person from Sweetie's perspective, then switches to third-person surprisingly successfully. However, close to the end, Twilight says something (and Sweetie reacts to it) in a way that attentive readers will find deeply uncomfortable. MrNumbers notes it in slightly more detail in this spoilery Fimfiction comment. It stops me enjoying this fic as much as I wanted to, hence two stars. But that's not really a reflection of the quality of the twist. ★★
Derpy Explodes at the End of This Story by Brony_Fife
Derpy
G4; Comedy; 3k words; Dec 2014; Everyone
Derpy wakes up and eats lots of muffins. Then something else happens, but I forget what it is.
You can get an idea about what sort of fic this is from the fact that when Derpy asks her reflection one morning whether she's ready, that reflection nods back. Then she eats a truly enormous muffin. Then she gets truly enormous. At this point, the story looks like being enormous fun – but sadly, it then falls into [Random] disease (even though it's not so tagged) in which the author appears to believe that putting more and more absurdities in, just because, in itself makes a fic hilarious. By the end it's all a bit tiresome, frankly. It's rather disappointing, given its opening, but this is just a middling two at best. ★★
Next week, I'm going to have a themed edition! A rather serious one, at that. Literally so, in that every story I review will have the word "serious" or a version thereof in its name. After all, I had a Silly Edition early last year! The five for next week will be:
Potions Are Serious Business by Rough_Draft
Twilight Sparkle Marries a Book (Seriously, Twilight?!) by ThePinkedWonder
Are. You. SERIOUS?!?!?! by SomeGenericPonyNameHere
Serious about Silly by Grey Faerie [Two for the price of one!]
Apples Are Serious Business by housedoc
aww, B_25 is gone? :( sad face
ReplyDelete"I do, however, object to a story which makes no actual sense."
ReplyDeleteThat got a good laugh out of me! Cheers!