Read it Later story count: 91 (nc)
Words read this week: 24,585
After the detour away from MLP a few days ago, it's back to ponyfic now. Today I'm reviewing five stories which have the [Drama] genre tag. All of them short, because that's just what I've got time for mostly, but at least my weekly word count total looks a bit more reasonable than it usually has of late. I'm writing this info before having read the fics, so I'm working in the dark as much as anyone else at this point! Anyway, here we go:
No Pony Else Was In The Room Where It Happened. . . by Matthias Unidostres
Everyone Lives by Lets Do This
More Precious Than Silver or Gold by Georg
Red Apples by billymorph
Rehearsal by Petrichord
★: 0 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 3 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.
No Pony Else Was In The Room Where It Happened. . . by Matthias Unidostres
Applejack, Strawberry Sunrise, Apple Bloom, OC and Other
G4; Drama/Slice of Life; 5k words; May 2019; Everyone
Applebloom has a plan to make friends out of Applejack and Strawberry Sunrise.
AJ and Strawberry have had a particularly bad argument, revolving – surprise – around fruit insults. Apple Bloom has an idea as to who might be able to resolve the feud: none other than Grand Pear! I like this setup, given AB's part in "The Perfect Pear", and it's a warm, domestic Ponyville piece that feels very Pony. I'm less enamoured of the second chapter, which is an overlong song presented in coloured text, but the story itself is pleasant. Top-end two. ★★
Everyone Lives by Lets Do This
Spike, Rarity, Twilight and Mane Six
G4; Drama/Slice of Life; 5k words; Oct 2019; Teen (Death)
Once all her friends have passed on, Princess Twilight has one final lesson to teach them: what immortality, the afterlife, and having good friends truly means... when everyone lives...
The Ninth Doctor famously said, "Just this once, everybody lives!" Here, they don't. Spike is with Rarity as she becomes the last mortal Bearer to die. Rarity finds herself in the afterlife, which – it turns out – Twilight can visit, although not live in. I found a particular twist on who gets to enjoy this particular afterlife very interesting, and the way the story is resolved is satisfying. I'm less keen on Sparity actually having become a marriage, but it doesn't get in the way too much. Solid three. ★★★
More Precious Than Silver or Gold by Georg
OCs and Cadance
G4 AU; Drama; 8k words; Oct 2017; Everyone
The worth of a dragon is measured by their hoard, so what happens when a dragon travels to a distant abbey to find the most precious treasure of all: a tiny alicorn, named Cadenza.
Because I am an idiot, I didn't realise until after reading that it was a guest fic for Skywriter's Cadance of Cloudsdale series, with which I am only marginally familiar. Despite that, I found this intriguing. Georg has a good track record with me on stories about dragons (not least the superb The Lazy Dragon of Dragonvale), and I found protagonist Piro very interestingly portrayed, with a nice sense of non-pony-ness. The spiritual aspect to the fic didn't click quite so well, probably because of my lack of familiarity with the AU. But it was an interesting alternative origin story for Cadance nonetheless, so a high three. ★★★
Red Apples by billymorph
Luna, Celestia and Applejack
G4; Drama/Slice of Life; 4k words; Sep 2015; Everyone
Nightmare Moon is defeated, Ponyville is celebrating the return of the sun and Princess Luna finds herself a thousand years from the world she knew, where even apples are strange.
This WriteOff-winning story is a refined alternative to all those "Luna struggles to get to grips with modern life" fics that appeared in the fandom's early days. What's fundamentally different is how alien the entire world of modern Equestria seems to Luna here. It's told in first person by her, which gives it a nice immediacy. The ending is lovely, too. I don't think I loved this quite as much as some in the comments seem to have – I found it very enjoyable, not utterly stunning – but it's very good. Also, Egremont Russet is the best commercial apple variety, thank you. ★★★★
Rehearsal by Petrichord
Fleur des Lis and Svengallop
G4; Drama; 2k words; Dec 2015; Everyone
Sometimes, it can be hard to be a model. Particularly a model out of her depth, under the guidance of a complete nutbar.
Presumably on account of its wildly unusual combination of character tags, this story has under 450 views. It's from Fleur's perspective (though told in third person) and you can really feel the tension between her professional determination to do the job she's been hired for, her resentment of Svengallop – who is suitably awful – and her complex sympathies for the pony she'll be appearing opposite on stage. Perhaps a little underdeveloped, but it does the rare pairing (non-romantic, thankfully) justice enough for a solid three. ★★★
Another themed genre edition next time. The horror genre has been on my mind for less than cheerful reasons of late, as my last post here demonstrated, so I feel like reading some horrific stories about entirely fictional characters instead. With that in mind, here's next week's collection of frights and chills:
The Well by BlueColton
We Three Kings by journeyman
Attachment by marmalado
Help by Dominion of Decay
The Thing Behind My Eyes by Ltreaxiose
Wow, a nine-star rating!
ReplyDeleteI read "Red Apples" back when it was in its write-off, and I remember not liking it much, but I don't remember why. It's an old enough write-off that I doubt the comments from it are even around anymore.
Ahem, no nine-star rating there, absolutely not. *cough*
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