Fanfiction Reading Update #155 · 12:28pm May 17th, 2014
Advisory: Unmarked spoilers for the fanfics Death by Dragon, Blood Moon, and Blackacre.
Being on summer vacation's great. Now I just need to stop staying up until 8 AM and start working on Regent again and things will be really great.
Her Majesty's Secret Service updates with a little drama being tossed into the midst of the clop.
Morbid Curiosity updates with Twilight joining Celestia on the merry march down the slippery slope, at the botton of which lays Equestria's incredibly fucked up justice system. Probability of [Grimdark] ending: 70%.
The Lunar Rebellion updates with more political interactions. The story's certainly taking its time—not a bad thing so long as it continues to update.
Ew. Is that the smell of Possible Favorites?
Formless Nameless Ageless Faceless is cut after four chapters. When you've seen one eldrich abomination, you've seen them all. Ridiculously OPed villains who are also cunts just aren't appealing.
The Twilight Empire is favorited for being a comedy in the midst of a dark genre. Now if only the grammar/spelling could improve.
I burn through the entirety of Death By Dragon and I can't help but feel I wasted my time. I've never been a huge fan of long, drawn out fight scenes—but that wouldn't have been so bad had it not been for the story. Tyrantlestia, Luna dying, all coupled with the scent of grimdark that just leaves that burning question of “why?” Why did Equestria turn into a hellhole? Why was Celestia suddenly evil? Why? A question that never received a valid answer. If you’re going to go down the grimdark route, you got to have it make sense. It's not good enough to be upvoted, but not bad enough to be downvoted. As such, Death By Dragon receives no vote and gets...
...moustaches out of five.
I read through yet another fanfic. This time Blood Moon and I just can't seem to escape Luna dying. Some pretty fascinating ethical issues boil under the surface—issues which, sadly, aren't even brought up in the story proper. Instead, the story takes a hardline “Luna's wrong and/or evil” approach when a more middle of the road one would have not only made more sense, but also made the story far more enjoyable. Unlike Death by Dragon, it didn't seem like a waste of time, but instead seemed rushed. Combined with the hardline moral approach, it caused the story to suffer. The promise of evil!Twilight turned into a great disappointment as it seemed hastily tacked onto the end of the story with little rhyme or reason. Despite its problems, it still was a nice, quick read. Blood Moon is upvoted and receives...
...moustaches out of five.
Every once in a while, I'll get a fanfic itch that needs scratching. I'll want to read a story I usually would be a little put off to. Blackacre's one of those stories that has an incredibly vague synopsis, a six digit length, and a terrible rating ratio—a combination that led me to consider just cutting it summarily. But, I decided to give it a chance, read the first chapter and see if I should continue. Five hours and 110,000 words later, I'm glad I did.
In a nutshell, Blackacre can be described in three words: rebellion against Tyrantlestia. The dreaded nickname. In a bygone era, I used to read tyrantlestia fics all the time, but Lines and Webs embittered me to the genre due to its disappointing plot. What could have been a great moral dilemma just turned into the “unlimited power” spiel. Blackacre does what few stories can do: it actually does Tyrantlestia well. The key is in subtlety. No grand evil plans to take over the world. No public executions. No “unlimited power.”
Just a several millennia old alicorn who's having a states' rights problem while also dealing with the underused-as-invaders dragons. There isn't Twilight uncovering Celestia's evil scheme and fighting her, but political maneuvers and a false flag that would make /pol/ moist. There's also war. A brutal guerrilla war between an “empire” and a rebellious providence—the outcome of which is obvious right from the start.
For you see, Blackacre's a prequel story—taking place sometime in the thousand year gap and tying itself quite neatly into canon. Even if the [AU] tag may throw you off, it's quite obvious that if you're not rooting for the empire at the start, you're in for a moderate grimdark fic. Thankfully, as I said, I had a fanfic itch to scratch—one where I root for the villain to win.
The fic's long, and, as it's a prequel, relies almost exclusively on OCs. Lots of OCs. So many, that--in the midst of the fighting, politics, and Celestia's manipulative plans—it can be difficult to remember who's who and what their subplot was about. While Tyrantlestia is more downplayed than in most other stories, it still would have been nice to have her lean a little more toward the “good” side of the morality scale. Her motivations for eventually pulling a Dresden still boil down to “power,” and it would have greatly improved the story to see both sides act more gray.
Still, unlike recent ventures into 100K+ stories, it was a really fun read. I don't always read Tyrantlestia fics anymore, but when I do, they're like Blackacre, which is upvoted and receives:
...moustaches out of five.
It's time for the Oneshot's Show!
To Lose When You Win may be rushed, but it's still and enjoyable short look at an AU of the Wedding.
Retribution douses the glut of evil!Twilight fics in the post S4 world with a little comedy intermixed with the slippery slope fun.
Start of a New Day condenses many of the “fluffier” Twiluna stories that stretch the romance out for dozens of (usually) agonizing chapters into a nice, condensed oneshot.
And that's all I read for the day.
# of story updates remaining: 159.
# of “Read Later” stories remaining: 888.
Sleps
Blackacre sounds like a challenge. I don't think I've encountered a Tyrantlestia yet that I could stomach, but if it's "done right", I'll have to check it out.
Also, you read 22k words an hour?
Well I read Death by Dragon a long time ago, it takes awhile but you do get a good reason, but I understand if someone doesn't want to trudge through it all when they don't even like the long fight scenes.
2119536
I'm not even sure if that is humanly possible. There has to be a point where someone is reading so fast that their mind can't even comprehend what is going on.
Good to see you back, TSG. Also, I have started to actually write the third chapter of Nightmares, so that'll be coming out soon enough.
2119980
My best was something like 30k or 100 pages an hour. Of course at those speeds you might miss some small things and it doesn't really stick with you.