Read it Later story count: 91 (nc)
Words read this week: 11,397
Caught by Apple by Borsuq
Wedding Night by paxtofetter
Skies Over Equestria by xScootalooGamer
Part of a balanced breakfast by Hesitant Brony
Airship Down by The Lunar Samurai
★: 1 | ★★: 4 | ★★★: 0 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.
Caught by Apple by Borsuq
Apple Bloom and OCs
G4; Comedy/Slice of Life; 1k words; Feb 2015; Everyone
Api always manages to find her older friends in awkward situations with one another. Because of this, she is the master of blackmail.
"Who is Api?" you may well ask. She turns out to be Apple Bloom's nine-year-old daughter; this is an unmarked AU created by kilala. (Thanks to PaulAsaran for that info.) That probably means I'm missing something, like exactly why she's likely to get a cutie mark in, er, blackmail. All we get, therefore, is a simple story of Api trying to blackmail some older ponies into going camping with her after her mother has told her she's too young. It's pleasant enough, but I'm just missing too much context to score this above a bare two. ★★
Wedding Night by paxtofetter
Cadance and Shining Armor
G4; Romance/Slice of Life; 3k words; Apr 2012; Teen
Shining ArmorxCadence. Takes place immediately after the finale
To be precise, the Season 2 finale. Another simple story, but this time you don't need any background knowledge beyond canon events. There's not a lot to it other than what the title and shortdesc make obvious, but I appreciate that the clop is left off-screen and indeed barely referenced. It's simply a quiet piece of romantic slice-of-life and quite serviceable in that respect. A higher two. ★★
Skies Over Equestria by xScootalooGamer
Scootaloo, CMCs, Spitfire, Soarin' and Wonderbolts
G4; Slice of Life; 5k words; Mar 2014; Everyone
When Scootaloo and her friends go for a weekend away to go see the Wonderbolts in Manehattan, Scootaloo is faced with the decision of friends or idols. What will she choose in this adventurous trip?
The only published story by this author. The longdesc beginning "Being faced with the depiction of picking your best friends or your lifetime idols" was unpromising, but sometimes that's misleading. In this case, sadly not. The underlying tale of Scootaloo finding fulfilment and happiness is entirely welcome, but the execution is severely lacking. There are very frequent basic spelling and grammar errors, and the pace is absurdly rushed, while too many things happen just because the story demands that they do. If this author had stuck around and learned their craft, they might well have improved – but I can't recommend this. ★
Part of a balanced breakfast by Hesitant Brony
Applejack, Apple Bloom, Big Mac and Granny Smith
G4; Comedy/Slice of Life; 1k words; Jul 2014; Everyone
A simple story of breakfast with the Apple family. Although Applejack just can't shake the feeling that something is wrong.
Another one-fic wonder, and in this case apparently the first fanfic the author had ever written. Given that, it's nice to be able to report that it is genuinely cute, and that it has the homespun texture that you'd hope for in an Apple Family slice-of-lifer. There's not much to it, and the joke isn't actually all that funny, but it has some warmth. I'm sad this writer didn't stick around, too. ★★
Airship Down by The Lunar Samurai
OCs
G4; Adventure/Tragedy; 1k words; Sep 2013; Teen
Storm Chaser must make a difficult decision, one that may cost him his life or risk the lives of everyone aboard.
This is not, in fact, a lost Richard Adams novel, even if the genre tags would nearly fit! In fact, it's a classic "Only you can save us... but you will lose your life in the process" dilemma. Nothing wrong with that, and that decision under great pressure is suitably tense. Storm Chaser doesn't get enough build-up for us to care sufficiently for him as a character, and as a Fimfiction commenter points out, airships don't work in the way depicted. The captain is rather unsympathetic, too. This could have been a three with those issues ironed out. ★★
Ah well, not the best week – and that's all before Hearth's Warming! Because of the calendar this year – Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are Wednesdays – I'll be having two weeks off. I will, however, take advantage of that to bring you another Spotlight edition on 6th January – and this story will be a little longer than my recent just-over-40k-words Spotlit fics of late:
Nine Days Down by JoeShogun
Those with longer memories will recall that I announced this several years ago, but JoeShogun deleted the fic before I could review it. Happily, he restored it to Fimfiction in 2023, so it's time for another go!
Ooh, "Nine Days Down" is a very good story. nice follow-up to a slate that ended up seeming pretty lackluster this week. I can't remember if you've had a post before where nothing rated at least three stars, but it might have happened a few times.
ReplyDeleteA couple of times, yes. I think one was a "let the random number generator pick my slate" edition.
DeleteOoh, I remember when you had Nine Days Down queued up and then had to drop it. Never thought I'd see it come back! Given the length, not a fic I'm likely to read anytime soon, but it does have me quite curious, so I'm eager to read your thoughts on it in the new year. When does the fic originally date from? I know before May 2014, given that was when the show introduced Tartarus, but beyond that, I don't know.
ReplyDeleteBut, yeah, this week… I'm not sure I can recall offhand another edition with no fics above two stars that wasn't a random number generator, though I'm sure they exist. Still, in the spirit of the holidays, best to not dwell on this soft slate.