Fic Reviews VI · 4:16pm Mar 30th, 2015
Man, I haven’t done one of these in ages. I intended to write this up after the Oneshotober reviews, but then I kept getting distracted from reading, writing, or reviewing. Anyway, going off of the Oneshotober ones, I’m going to start numbering these and putting scores at the ends.
Also, going to start trying to read and review things from the people I follow more often, and just work through the Read Later list to fill it out, or possibly alternate between submissions from the people I follow and the least-viewed things in my RIL.
If I’m really ambitious, I’ll try to make these a weekly thing.
162. Princess Celestia's (and Luna's, I guess) Shocking Ultimate Secret Nopony Would Ever Have Guessed
by TheReaderAndWriter
This was… okay, I guess. The entire joke was setting up a big reveal that winds up being, in the end, pretty pointless and unimportant. And that reveal was unexpected, but kind of dumb. Aside from the buildup to the reveal, the humor is derived from either out-of-character behavior (usually on Celestia’s part) or revealing character thoughts that are contrary to their words or actions. And it never amounts to much.
And finally, Celestia is a pony—not a horse—just a very large one. Her body is structured the same way as her subjects’, but larger. The saddle arabians have a thinner build and much narrower faces. Further, they are considered ponies themselves according to the Hub Network website.
All in all, worth a look if you like random or OOC humor, but there’s not much else to see here.
Score: (2/5) Slightly Against.
163. Fusion Fool’s Trash Bin of Various Futalight Stuff
by Fusion Fool the 3rd
Saw it in the feature box and went “Futa Twi? TwiPie? Random clopfic? I’ll enjoy this!”
And then I read it.
So, first, all of the telling!
Not to be confused with this.
Seriously, I don’t think a verb goes by without an emotional descriptor attached to it. Also, the narrative never fails to specify the size of a woman’s chest (it’s anthro), and how it compares to Twilight’s own. And maybe it’s on purpose, but the dialogue and narration are usually so blunt and flippant that it comes off as comedic more often than not. It also ensures that nobody ever sounds in-character.
Well, I guess a Pinkie Pie who was much more sexual than anything the show could ever get away with, and who was friends with two futa-female pairs who were totally open about their sexuality, could wind up sounding like this. But on the whole, everyone is just oversexualized to the point of absurdity.
And the further I read, the more convinced I am this is intentionally over-the-top comedy. While Pinkie and Twilight do manage to be cute at times, virtually every other aspect of the story is just silly, as well as inconsistent at times (I’m pretty sure Twilight was shocked by something she already knew at least twice).
Honestly, unless you’re desperate for some futa or want something that’s more funny than sexy, I wouldn’t bother.
I will, however, credit it for giving me “marestud” as a pony term for futa. Doubt I’ll ever use it, though. Maybe in something involving Rainbow Dash or Applejack. It sounds like something they’d say.
Score: (2/5) Slightly Against.
164. Their True Desires
by Charles Spratt
Okay, so I was reading the Twilight’s Library rejections thread (shows you how long ago I started this review blog), and when twilight-the-pony rejected this on grounds of, basically, “I can’t even”, I had to take a look at it.
So this brony, Jerry, goes to Equestria as his OC, meets the Mane Six, and hangs out with them. But something always seems wrong, like their cheer is forced. So one night, while they’re all out of town, he investigates, only to discover… they’ve been luring popular bronies to Equestria and going all Cupcakes on them (The Living Tombstone is referenced specifically). Pinkie keeps (and sometimes stuffs) the skins. Rarity keeps the manes and tails. Applejack keeps all the various accessories they wear. Fluttershy collects wings and horns. And Twilight is marking them off of a list.
Jerry’s OC is an earth pony, I guess, so he can’t check out Rainbow’s place.
Anyway, they give him a two-hour head start before they come and kill him, too, so he runs and hides at “an abandoned communication center” where he somehow contacts his brony friends on Earth to warn them that they’re on the list, too. And then they find him and the phone clicks off so ominously.
Sorry, but this was hilarious for all the wrong reasons. It reads like a 10-year-old trying to tell a scary story. The pacing is horrible, the descriptions are a bad attempt at purple prose, the grammar is a wreck, telling abounds, and the whole thing is one massive block of text. Also, for some reason, unless the character is actually speaking to the narrator, they’re identified only by their elements. Like he investigates “the house of the element of Generosity” or whatever.
Score: (0/5) Read it for the train wreck.
See, I do use that rating sometimes.
165. RED (No link, Mature/Sex)
by Sir Hat
I actually would have totally overlooked this in the feature box, if someone hadn’t brought it to my attention with a blog. Honestly, I found the whole thing pretty dull and awkward. I mean, honestly — reaching out “at pony ass height”? That’s just silly. All told, the writing is pretty bland, and it suffers from the common clop problem of the pacing being very rushed at the start to go ahead and get to the sex. Said sex was nothing spectacular, and the dirty talk and overall rough nature of it will probably be a turn-off if you, like me, prefer a bit more “make love” and a bit less “fuck you like a cocksleeve” (Sir Hat’s words, not mine).
Oh yeah. The transphobia angle. Could have been handled much more maturely, and the fic jumped through some hoops to railroad the characters into having that moment.
Score: (2/5) Slightly Against, unless you like dirty/rough sex and awkwardly-handled transphobia.
166. Octo-Scratch
by Cromegas_Flare + FamousLastWords
Oh, Crome. You and Famous’s ability to make me instantly regret reading and reviewing things from people I know.
Well, it’s random for the sake of random, but I was expecting that. The opening also reminds me of this one story I read where Discord was pregnant with Fluttershy’s child, and one of his professed explanations for how this came to be was that Fluttershy was part seapony. Can’t remember the name of it, though.
Honestly, this is stupid. Like really stupid. The whole thing is an absurd, convoluted setup to make fun of a portmanteau ship name. It’s hardly the best writing either author can produce, either. I made myself finish this one.
Okay, an explanation of the plot. An octopus is a DJ. His stage name is Octo-Scratch. He finds out Vinyl and Octavia appear in celebrity gossip mags as “OctaScratch”. And then he has a DJ battle with Vinyl over the rights to the name. And then ships are rearranged just to make more jokes with the name.
If that sounds funny to you, you might find some merit here. If not, well...
Score: (1/5) Against, unless the name joke is, in and of itself, funny to you.
167. Oneshot clopfic collection (No link, Mature/Sex)
by Derpysasuke
So, I decided to see what the lowest-rated fic in my RIL was. And I found a clop anthology. Well, it only had 1,600 words, so I figured they only had one chapter up.
Nope, three. These are clop flashfics.
Damaramu shall regret this.
Bonus points for obscurity? Though honestly, just go watch Slayers. It’s much better.
Yep. The spelling is atrocious, as is the grammar, and the language is hilariously unsexy. There’s no buildup, no concept whatsoever of pacing, and, honestly, I couldn’t write a single sex scene in only 500 words, much less the whole story.
Score: (0/5) Has merit only as a warning to others.
168. End Of Peaches
by Dash The Stampede
Am I seriously only now getting around to a peaches story? I mean, nobody keeps up with their RIL, but this is ridiculous.
As for the story itself, it’s more peach-themed random for the sake of random, with little to no effort to characterize anypony. Which I suppose it just as well, as what we do get is entirely out of character. There’s not really much of a plot beyond “the end is nigh”, and that’s really more a loose framework to hang the random humor from.
Imagine this, but with Celestia and a peach, and also less funny than that.
You might like this if you like OOC humor like Trollestia/Molestia, but for anyone else there’s nothing here.
Score: (1/5) Against.
You ever go back through your RIL and just ask yourself “why the ever-loving fuck did I mark this to be read?” I don’t particularly like gore and hate sexual violence of any form, but here I’ve got a violent predator-on-prey rape gorefic on my list. I skimmed it to find out just how bad it was, but it’s clearly nothing I’d even remotely enjoy, so let’s just skip it and move on.
169. Skinrender? I hardly know her!
by Ethesto is a Hero
The hell is up with this copyright thing in the opening Author’s Note? I can only imagine it’s done as a gag, since I can’t imagine anyone posting this for serious. Maybe I just don’t get troll humor…
I’m not sure what the writing style is trying to accomplish. Is this meant to be a parody of purple prose? Intentional badfic? Random because lol I’m so random?
I keep finding uses for this video in my reviews.
Anyway. This is basically 1,000 words of rambling, meaningless prose that accomplishes nothing but dropping a reference or two.
Score: (0/5) Want my ten minutes back.
Hey, sorting by lowest rating also gives me the least-viewed story on my list. I think I may have been asked to review this at one point, actually, but I don’t remember anymore. It’s been sitting here a while, because I’ve never been particularly interested in reading it.
So… Trixie’s mother is nobility, and a powerful dark mage, and all of Trixie’s antics have been on her mother’s orders, because her mother is using Trixie as a pawn in her schemes of conquest. And now she decides to take matters into her own hooves and get ahold of some of Star Swirl’s time magic.
The writing is technically proficient, if a bit dull and telly, but I just keep finding the story unengaging. Part of this I imagine comes from the too-rapid pacing, but I think the bigger issue is just that I’m not invested in any of the characters. Lady Lulamoon has dark magic, a bone to pick with the royalty, and megalomania. Jade’s a time traveller, and a bit of a mouthy bitch. I really ought to know the characters better than this by the time we’re already moving through the plot.
I’m not finishing this one.
Score: (2/5) Slightly Against. There are some clever ideas, but the characterization is too weak to carry them.
171. Crushes
by Jay-The-Brony
Here’s somebody I’ve been watching for a while, but I don’t remember the last time I read one of this stories.
There’s a bad habit of over-explaining and taking a paragraph to convey a sentence, as well as some passive voice which throws off the flow of the narrative, and a bit of telling to round it all off. That said, it’s kind of cute, even if it’s little more than a brief look at a couple common foal ships (SweetieMash and Rumbloo). But that’s all it is. It really feels not like an actual one-shot, but rather the incomplete beginning of a longer romance/comedy. At the very least, it gave me a reason for why SpikeBloom seems so common: Sweetie and Scootaloo already have obvious ships, so if you’re trying to straight-ship all three of them, he’s the most obvious choice.
But who needs straight-shipping, anyway?
Score: (3/5) Slightly For.
172. Sunset Meets Starlight
by Manaphy
The writing here is competent and usually easy to follow; I only lost my line of thought a couple times during the back-and-forth between Sunset and Starlight, and that was mainly because they jumped around a little bit and were talking past one another. As well, the ending is a bit flat, and it could have done more with both the conclusion and Sunset’s feelings about returning to Equestria. All told, it’s a good enough piece, but it would better serve as the start of a longer story than the one-shot it is now.
Score: (3/5) Slightly For.
173. For Whom The Belle Tolls (No link, Mature/Sex/Gore)
by Akumokagetsu
Incomplete with the last update over a year ago, but not marked Hiatus? I seem to recall Akumokagetsu having a habit of this, but it’s been a while since I really kept up with his stuff. And this is another on the “why did I RIL this?” list. I like Sweetie Belle, and rarely enjoy the Sex+Gore tag combo. Oh well. At least it looks less flagrantly offensive to my tastes than the last one I asked that on.
I still doubt I’d read this, were it continued, because it seems to be playing a rather offbeat premise for serious darkfic. But it does seem like a pretty solid start to that, for what it is. Pity it seems to be abandoned.
Score: (3/5) Slightly For, but not for me, and fair odds it’s not going anywhere.
174. Garbage Day
by SudokuBrony
So, I see a Sex tag on what looks like a Teen Random Comedy, and I just think, “welp, this can’t end well.”
Nevermind the Crossover tag seems to have been added for the express purpose of including a bunch of video game references.
Well, it’s a first fic, and it has the problems one might expect from a first fic. Repetitive dialogue structure, RP-style infodump character descriptions, weather report opening, and pacing in dire need of Adderall. It’s funny in one or two places, but this is the very definition of mindless randomness masquerading as comedy.
Score: (1/5) Against.
I was going to go to 175, but I just don’t feel like reading any more at the moment. Oh well. Maybe I’ll finally go finish S4 before S5 kicks off. Or watch EQG and Rainbow Rocks at last. Maybe even write some of my own. I’ve got a couple chapters of TBTK to rewrite and a clop thing I keep meaning to do.
Either way, let’s see if I can get another one of these in next weekend.
Oh dude, that fic is going to be the black sheep of Crome's existence.
Thanks for the critique, Rinnaul. I'm glad that I managed to do a few things right with it, but I'm also glad to know what I need to work on. It's also inspiring me to create a longer Sunset Shimmer returns to Equestria fic in the future, though I will need to give it a lot of thought on where to take it first. Anyway, thanks for the review, and I'll keep trying to do the best I can.
2924789
I blame you... and I regret nothing.
2924820 Regret is for pussies.
2924822
I evolved... you see, there's this echo...
(Ya, just watched Predator... so quotes are still on my mind.)
2925197
I've actually read much worse before, and there are three stories in this blog alone that I rated lower. The "sex" tag mostly had me afraid this would be a bunch of bad innuendo, but that bit with the old stallion was actually one of the funny spots. I still don't think you need the tag, but that isn't what got it the low score. The real problem is actually this style of humor. When the comedy basically amounts to "A random thing happens! And then another random thing happens! And then another random thing happens!", the joke really isn't very strong.
I agree 110% with ya. That story was just something I threw together in a couple nights because I was bored (How it became my most popular story, I'll never know). I know it's bad, and I appreciate your honesty. (Also explains where all of the sudden thumbs-downs came from.) Cheers
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Man, nobody reviews clopfics anymore. I can't even remember the last time I read one (well, it wasn't that long ago, but the one before that was considerably longer). So while you didn't find anything worth writing home about, this was a worthy effort. :B
Oh man, of all my peachfics, you pick up the one that I put the least work into following theme on?! D:
If anything, redeem it with Peach-Pocalypse, I promise that one's better :V I mean, Cerulean Voice loved it, so there's that.
I mean, I made five. Stinks you had to slog thru the worst of them all >.> Though that pic is pretty accurate for the plot, I suppose.
2925682
I don't think the downvotes came from my direction. I'm not popular enough to have an effect like that.
2926183
That's one of my main functions in PCaRG. We accept clopfics, but none of the other reviewers like doing them. My RIL is full of shame, so there's probably going to be more of it in here, in time.
2926387
I'll take you up on that one. I also could have sworn I've reviewed fics of yours before, but now I can't find them in my blogs or bookshelf. Must have been back when I just left long comments on everything.
2926727
I do have a few comments of yours on one of the peachers (or one of the blogs about it), namely that I should have slowed down with submitting them xD I sure hope it changes your bland-ish opinion on the writing style. I could point you to some of my competent crackfics, but that'd be overkill at that point :V
Still, a review is a review :D