Site Post » Reviews! Round 48 · 8:30pm Jul 20th, 2014
Seattle's Angels is a group that promotes good stories with low views. You can find us here.
Alex sat a rickety folding table in the Seattle’s Angels secret subterranean volcano lair with a bowl of cereal in front of him. Scooping out a spoonful of Trix, he stared at the soggy pieces for a second and then blinked a few times. “Hey,” he said, looking over to Burraku_Pansa who was sitting on the moldy couch, “wanna do an all-Trixie review round?”
BP paused for a moment, then folded the newspaper he was reading in half. Peering over the fold, he shrugged. “Whatever.”
Alex nodded, popping the spoonful of cereal into his mouth. “Cool.”
ROUND 48
As Trixie finds herself performing for her smallest audience yet, questions abound. Can her ego take the strain? Are the old stories still worth telling? And just how did Prince Blueblood get his title, anyway?
Those of you who are aware of Chris probably aren’t surprised to see something of his appearing here again, though it’s been… 42 rounds since the last thing, wow.
To start off, it’s worth mentioning that this story is an older one—over two and a half years old at this point—so there’s a few things about it that feel a bit outdated. The big one is that the main character apart from Trixie is a white-coated, pink-maned mare named “Sunny Days”, and if a thing like that doesn’t date your fic, then there aren’t a ton of things that do. So, yeah, I’m not sure whether the reveal of who this mare is was supposed to be a surprise or not, but either way, two years of hindsight made it feel a bit cliché, though that’s not really the fault of the story or its author.
Moving past that, I have this to say: I love origin stories. I love their grandiose air, I love their godly figures, and I love their weird dramatic logic. In The Showmare’s Tale, the titular tale that Trixie tells to Sunny Days has all of these excellent things and more, but more than the tale itself, I love the way that Trixie tells it. When someone in real life tells you a story, it isn’t often a one-way process—you can cut in, ask questions, express disbelief or wonder, or anything else. That interactive nature is rarely included in stories-within-stories, and we often just wind up with the reactions the listener has before and after the story, but nowhere in between. That’s understandable, in a way, since those sort of stories are often more about the inner story than the framing one, but here in The Showmare’s Tale, it feels as though equal weight is given to each—Sunny is able to ask for extra info and Trixie is free to add notes about how she’d normally perform the story in front of an audience, and so on. If I sound like I’m going on about this one facet a lot, it’s because it really struck me. Chris used it to great effect to craft a piece that bounced between the present time and an origin story in a really living, breathing sort of way.
As far as issues go, I found myself getting caught up on dialogue tag punctuation errors an awful lot, though apart from that, there wasn’t a too much to complain about. This story easily makes up for its flaws and its slightly clichéd points. If you’re down with Slice of Life stories, you’ll probably like it, and if you’re not, I apologize for how many of them there are this round.
Trixie fixed her eyes on the white pony. “Do you wish to hear Trixie’s story or not?”
As a grown man who enjoys reading stories about colorful horses talking to each other and generally being dicks for my amusement, it’s frankly not often that I come across a story which so wholly embraces the art of storytelling. The Showmare’s Tale isn’t just a story, but it’s a story about a story, and both the framing story, and the story within that story are excellent, despite some of the framing story’s weaker aspects.
[Insert your own tired Inception joke here]
If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “Hey, y’know what I’d like to read more of? Stories about Trixie actually doing the thing she’s supposed to do, that being telling stories,” then this fic is for you. Also, why would you think that? There’s like a thousand stories that do that. That being said, you know what those 999 other stories don’t have? Excellent characterization, a compelling, classic-style fairy tale, and an ending so heartwarming you’ll have to start taking Bayer’s aspirin.
What Chris has managed to do with this story is commendable for many reasons, but for me, the one thing I really want to get across in this review here is that this story has a lot of subtlety to it. There’s lots of little things that happen that, in and of themselves aren’t particularly important, but they add to the overall character of the story. This is a fic which continues to build on itself as it goes, and it does it quite well. I won’t spoil who it is that Trixie tells the story to, but it should be fairly obvious to anyone reading, given that there are many hints dropped along the way, and one huge one that, unless you’re familiar with fanon, might pass over your head. But anyway, at the risk of simply repeating what BP said, I just want to reiterate something that this fic does very well. Trixie tells the story extremely well, and it’s compelling in its own right, but the interjections from listener really add to the overall feel of it. It makes it seem like she’s really sitting there telling a story, and the questions asked of her are ones I was asking myself, so it made the breaks in narration feel natural and smooth. Everything flowed perfectly from one scene to the next.
If I have any complaints, and since I’m me I do, it’s that while the framing story’s ending was very well done, the fairy tale’s ending was… lackluster. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it well enough, but it sort of sets itself up as this grandiose tale of betrayal and thievery, and then it just kinda ends. Minor complaint since the whole thing still works very well, and there’s a good amount of symbolism and subtlety going on, but I would’ve perhaps liked a more solid conclusion. Anyway, this story is pretty short, and if you have any love for the art of oral storytelling, then I’m sure you’ll enjoy this fic, and it’s by Chris besides, so you know it’s at least going to be pretty good.
The Great and Powerful Trixie is unhappy when her Summer Sun Festival night gig in Manehattan turns out to be a show at an open-air neighborhood festival in a seedy Lower East Side park. When the Sun refuses to rise on schedule, Trixie finds herself giving the greatest performance of her life to an increasingly-terrified crowd. But darker forces are moving events to an inescapable confrontation.
I’ll begin by saying that Jordan179’s An Extended Performance is a sequel/side story to a piece that I’ve not read, and the author’s notes tell me that it borrows a bit from one or more other universes. It didn’t seem to impact my experience, though it seemed like I simply had to accept that the world of this fic is just a tad darker than canon—I was readily able to do so, but perhaps the same might not be true for everyone. Let’s get into it.
This story needs an editor, and there’s no two ways about it. Jordan179 has done awful, sick things to hyphens that I didn’t even think possible, in my tender innocence. If you can’t tell from the fact that I always devote at least a small segment of my SA reviews to mechanical issues, then let me make it clear that they matter a great deal to me, and in force, can easily ruin my impressions of a story. I hope that makes my meaning abundantly clear when I say that I thought this fic was excellent anyway, despite the fact that it might be just about the most poorly edited fic I’ve yet recommended on here.
While there is no reason at all for the author not to grab an editor and go through this, An Extended Performance still speaks very well to the author’s storytelling talent. The world-building was excellently done, and while there were points I feared I might have been being given static, pointless dumps of exposition that wouldn’t factor into the story, the fic was always quick to pull back and relate it fluidly to the present time. If I have a complaint regarding the storytelling, it’s that there might’ve been a few too many points where the narrator told me how a character would feel and/or what would happen in the future, rather than just showing me when it came to pass.
Apart from that, it was an intriguing piece. The characterization was wonderful—perhaps not always for the OCs, but certainly for the main perspective characters of Trixie and Celestia. The story had this interesting sort of feature in that the third-person limited narration would exposit about a character’s past and current feelings the same way we move between our thoughts, in this sort of unbroken chain that only makes sense as a sequence when we see all of the pieces. That, I liked, as well as the way that the tone and subject matter changed almost completely between the thoughts of the different perspective characters. Since this is a piece that retells a moment from canon—the first episodes—the value of the alternate perspective on events is important, and it’s also another thing that this story does well.
I’ve spoken enough about it, I think. Bottom line: there are flaws here, to the point that they do detract from the story, but even still, it deserves your attention. I hope you enjoy it.
Always leave them wanting more.
It’s with a bit of trepidation that I use that pull quote above. You see, An Extended Performance, as BP has said, has many issues, and they do detract from the story somewhat, but the thing I can say with great certainty is that it left me wanting more. But more of what, exactly?
If you could drink this fic, I’d probably taste like Tolkien mixed with Lovecraft.
There are a lot of things to like about Jordan179’s fic, and maybe some about Jordan180’s, but the main thing, I think, is that Trixie’s characterization is excellent. She’s arrogant, haughty, completely full of herself, and yet still likeable in a Han Solo sort of way. She may be rude, and somewhat homicidal, but she’s charming, great at what she does, and has no small amount of flair. Flair is something that I’ve always been attracted to, and it’s perhaps why I like Trixie so much as a character, and this fic has absolutely no shortage of that. Much like previous fic, this is a story about storytelling, though this one, admittedly, has a lot more going on in it than A Showmare’s Tale did.
However, beyond the characterization, there are some problems I have with An Extended Performance. For all that I liked about it, there were quite a few things that rubbed me the wrong way. The world is far darker and more cruel than happy-go-lucky world we’re used to, and a lot of the character actions, specifically Celestia’s, feel too large for a story like this, but I understand it all the same. See, this isn’t so much a story about Trixie, as it is a story with Trixie in the background. She’s not a character who things happen to (except at the end), and she’s not exactly a character who does things to other ponies, but things happen around her, things out of her control. This is a story about Nightmare Moon’s return, and while I could’ve done without the overly melancholy tone, and the somber nature of the story, I like the idea of Trixie being one normal mare who has no way of taking place in any of the major events of the world, but still finds a way to be her own small center of attention.
As I said, there are some things about this that I didn’t like, in fact almost everything that wasn’t directly about Trixie I didn’t like, but I dislike it for reasons that are wholly my own. Beyond some annoying technical errors and the like, this is a story that I think will have a lot of appeal to people who aren’t me. If you like darker stories, or darker characters, then you will undoubtedly enjoy this immensely. It does all that very well, I just didn’t care for it. What I did care for, however, is the fantastic world-building. The way Jordan179 goes about expounding upon Manehattan’s history is fascinating, and it makes me wish the story were more about Trixie and Manehattan, than Nightmare Moon’s return. But, alas, that is not the case.
So, I said at the beginning that this fic left me wanting more, right? What I wanted more of was Trixie. Despite nominally being the main character, she has not as much screen time as I would’ve liked, and her story feels somewhat insignificant in the face of much larger events unfolding around her. I think I would’ve much preferred a story where the focus never shifts from Trixie, and we’re only given hints at the larger story happening around her. To me that would’ve made her a much more compelling hero. But anyway, for what it is, An Extended Performance is an undeniably excellent story, and there is much to like and appreciate about it. It’s one of the few multi-chapter fics we’ve reviewed that’s complete, and it’s absolutely worth your time.
It's been a long time since Trixie last came to Ponyville, even longer since she did a show there. Yet here she is, back again, and this time appealing to a new, younger audience. But, as she feared, her past once again comes back to haunt her, this time in the form of an alicorn princess.
I know I’ve likely said it before, but if there’s one thing I love to see, it’s strong characterization. It bothers me slightly that it seems Slice of Life is where I have to turn if I want the best odds of finding it—the bother coming from the fact that, if nothing else, SA rounds that include me tend to be saturated with them—but I suppose that’s just the price I pay.
So, strong characterization. Bootsy Slickmane’s Trixie’s Clubhouse is inundated with it, for so short a piece. The principal characters are Trixie and Twilight, and the former is deliciously proud and bitter while the latter is perfectly understanding-to-a-point. They fit their show counterparts to a tee, even in the sort of casual situation in which this story places them, which the show has no precedent for. The emotion present here is quite powerful for the space it takes to develop it—perhaps a touch too powerful and overt in the final lines for my tastes, I suppose, but still excellent overall.
On top of those points, I’m happy to say that either Trixie’s Clubhouse is perfectly edited, or I was simply too immersed in it to notice any flaws. A very short piece with no real barriers to enjoyment here, so give it a look.
"Hey everypony, where do you wanna go?"
The crowd cried out in unison, "Trixie's Clubhouse!"
There are a lot of things in this world that I want to see. I’d like to see Joan of Arc’s boobs. I’d like to see the edge of the universe, and I’d definitely like to see an animated movie starring Trixie fighting side-by-side with Twilight against hordes of robo-dragons, but Trixie’s Clubhouse is none of those things… it’s even better. This is a fic about Trixie running the pony equivalent of a Chuck E. Cheese (or Showbiz Pizza if you’re one of those people), and it’s a fic about dealing with regret, much like the regret you’d have from going to a Chuck E. Cheese.
Look, I don’t think I need to go into detail about where that bear’s eyes are pointing.
At the risk of introducing bias into this set of reviews about nothing but Trixie fics written by two dudes who love Trixie, I’ll just say that Trixie’s Clubhouse is far and away my favorite of the bunch. That’s not to say the others aren’t good, because they wouldn’t be here if they weren’t, but there’s no denying that good ol’ Bootsy Slickmane is coming out on top of this Trixiepile.
A common theme among this set of fics this time is excellent characterization (which I suppose should be expected), and Trixie’s Clubhouse is no exception. How she’s portrayed in this, to me, is the most accurate and believable characterization. Trixie runs what basically amounts to a daycare where she performs magic tricks for children. She says she’s “world famous” and her name is on the lips of every foal in Equestria… but so what? It feels like Trixie has everything she ever wanted. She’s got fame, fortune, and even her own show running seven days a week, and yet she’s still unhappy with it all. She almost seems to despise the foals she entertains, and she certainly doesn’t seem to derive any happiness from it, despite what she says about it. Because really, what does fame matter when the ponies you’re famous to will forget you the second their baby teeth start falling out? What kind of fame can you really have among children? It’s these kinds of questions that, while never specifically addressed in the fic, are ones that I’m sure Trixie would be asking herself in that situation.
Anyway, the fic starts off strong with some good backstory on why Trixie is where she is now, and it says a lot about Bootsy Slickmane that you can get a really good feel for her character within just a few paragraphs. But this fic really gets going when Twilight shows up, and that is most definitely where it shines the brightest. When Twilight appears, volunteering herself for the show, it brings back a lot of bad memories for Trixie, and forces her to remember a time when she wasn’t the mare she is now. To her, Twilight is a representation of her weakness, her inability to connect, and seeing Twilight again hurts her.
I don’t want to give too much away about what happens, but I will say that despite my affinity for Twixie shipping, I think this story does a really good job of telling what might happen if Twilight and Trixie ever met up again (note: this is pre-Magic Duel). Bootsy Slickmane has something written on his author bio, “Fair warning: I like sucker punches” and he certainly accomplishes that here. The ending of Trixie’s Clubhouse is at once heartwarming and heartbreaking, but above all else it is worth reading.
Are you a pony who travels?
Do you need to communicate on the go?
And do you totally lack any and all dragons in your life?
Then you need -- Slate!
Everypony does!
Unless they can think.
Which just might leave Trixie out.
If there’s one thing I love to see—and if I’m not talking about any of the numerous other one things I love to see—it’s an experimental format being used well. 0G Network Coverage is a story of pure dialogue, which is something I’ve puzzled over how to do properly myself, in the past. Estee’s answer to the issue is so natural that I’m ashamed I didn’t think of it: radio. 0G reads exactly like an infomercial you might hear on a radio, if such a thing actually exists.
And it’s just that, really—a lengthy commercial instead of an actual story. There are but two characters: the enthusiastic but vaguely shady salesman who may or may not be either Flim or Flam, and the random passerby in the form of Trixie. There is no plot but for a sales pitch, almost no action but for discussion, no description but for what comes across in dialogue. And it works, in its own silly way. There isn’t very much substance here, as a result, but it’s a good, light read.
Naturally, there are some unavoidable issues that come along with the format. The largest is probably that anything needing a visual description requires that description to be somewhat awkwardly vocalized by the characters. From one perspective, this adds a bit of a nostalgic feel to the piece, because that’s exactly the sort of thing you’d hear in a scripted radio program—characters describing what they’re doing or what’s around them because that’s the only option. From another perspective, though, the story as it’s presented can’t use that as a leg to stand on because, as far as I can tell, this encounter between the salesperson and Trixie is not scripted, so the descriptions are awkward all on their own simply to fit the format. But that was just a niggling issue, really, and the story was quite decently edited besides, so there’s little to complain about here. A worthy, fun little read.
”How do you take back a mistake?"
"Oh, there's no mistakes..."
"You see that 'demonstrafing' over there?"
"Everypony knows that just means a very high-speed demonstration!”
Now this, this is what I love. Among other things, 0G is a parody fic, and a pretty funny one at that. As should be made obvious by the title, this is really a parody of cellphone companies, but really it could be taken to be a parody of really any sales rep for any product. Having just recently spent several hours myself dealing with a Verizon sales rep while trying to set up my phone (among other things) I can certainly sympathize. My only issue here is that this is almost the only thing really going on here…
At least I only have to deal with Verizon and not Comcast or Time Warner…
See, I say almost because it’s not just a parody fic, but it’s also an interesting experiment. It’s a story told entirely through dialogue, and it actually manages that really well. It’s admirable how easily Estee is able to paint a picture with just two ponies talking. I can picture the cheery grin on the salespony’s face perfectly, and I can see Trixie’s increasingly-annoyed face every time she has to ask another stupid question so she can get another stupid answer.
Unlike the other fics this round, Trixie feels… not out of character, per se, but perhaps a bit less like what I normally see her as, and I’m absolutely okay with that. Trixie still feels like Trixie, but maybe a somewhat watered down Trixie. She doesn’t refer to herself in third person (she didn’t always in the show either, just when she was on stage or in her stage persona), and she’s not particularly arrogant, though she is rather short-tempered. If there’s one thing I really admire about Trixie, and it would be easy to name a dozen or so other things, is that she doesn’t suffer fools. She may be a fool herself, but she at least knows how to deal with those as or more foolish than her.
All in all, while the payoff at the end of the fic may have been a bit lackluster, and I could’ve used a bit more comedy and snarkiness from Trixie, this was definitely an entertaining and short read. If you’ve ever had the displeasure of dealing with a pushy salesperson, then you’ll probably relate rather well to this, and get a kick out of it as well. The only reason I can think of to not read this would be if you’re a heartless soul-sucking monster. But other than that...
Maniacal laughter filled the room, causing Alex and BP to, well not jump, but sort of vaguely look around to see what caused the noise.
“Huh,” said Alex, scratching his ear. “Wonder what that was?”
BP shrugged. “Probably that ghost that’s been hanging around.”
“Oh, right.”
“You fools!” came a sudden voice from somewhere. It was a girl’s voice, that much was sure, and it sounded haughty and arrogant, almost like it was so obvious who it was that there would be no point in playing coy about it. Suddenly, a door slid open near the back of the kitchen and a smirking pony jumped out, pointing her hoof at the two. “You fell right into Trixie’s trap!”
“Eh?” said Alex, raising an eyebrow, but not getting up from his seat, or even really acting that surprised.
Trixie laughed like a maniacal maniac, saying, “How could you be so foolish!? It’s so obvious, isn’t it? Trixie can’t believe you fell for such a basic trick.”
BP frowned, setting the newspaper aside. “Trixie, ignoring the fact that it’s completely illogical for you to be here… why are you here?”
Standing up on her hind legs, Trixie held out her forelegs like she was going to call down lighting onto the soles of her hooves. “Because Trixie tricked you into spreading Trixie’s greatness through your stupid organization! Muhahahahaha!”
“What are you going on about?” asked Alex.
Trixie smirked, pointed to the bowl Alex was eating from, and then the coffee cup near BP. “Trixie laced your food and drink with a serum that would force you to do her bidding, and it worked!”
“Oh,” said Alex, nodding sagely. “I was wondering why I felt suddenly compelled to write about Trixie. I thought it was just the cereal. Makes sense.”
Frowning, Trixie slumped back to the ground. “Aren’t… aren’t you upset? I tricked you into doing this. Shouldn’t you be mad at me?”
“Nah,” said Alex, waving his hand dismissively. “We probably would’ve done it anyway, right, BP?”
BP nodded. “Yeah, probably.”
“This isn’t how it was supposed to go!” shouted Trixie, taking off her hat and tossing it to the ground. “You’re supposed to do what I command!”
Alex started, “But we—”
“You’re not supposed to like it!” cried Trixie in frustration.
Silence filled the room, reverberating off the walls silently, like a silent ghost… in silence. After what felt like it should’ve been an awkward couple of minutes, Alex held out his cereal bowl. “You want some?”
Trixie made a pouting face. “No.”
Alex shrugged. “Suit yourself. It’s probably better anyway. I don’t think you’re supposed to give a horse sweets… or was that just dogs?” He glanced over at his friend. “Hey, BP, was it just dogs, or was it horses too?”
BP took a sip from his coffee and then set it back down. “Dunno.”
Falling back on her haunches, Trixie crossed her forelegs and seethed. “This sucks.”
Feel free to visit our group for more information and events, and to offer some recommendations for future rounds. See you all next time!
... You know what, Round 47 had some pretty decent stories on it. I think I'll go reread those over the next two weeks.
Okay, fine. I'll dump these all on the top of my Read Later list.
Ooh, an all
best ponyTrixie edition! The Admiral approves!Well, I like to think I know the guy pretty darn well, and I was still shocked to see a story of mine up here again--one of my oldest stories, no less! Sorry about they punctuation and dialogue tagging, guys; I promise I've gotten better at it since then.
Still, I'm glad you enjoyed the story enough to feature it, and to say such nice things about it too! Burraku, Alex, you two are a-okay in my book. Thank you very much for the reviews!
What's a "clubouse?"
Anyway, I shall be giving one of these a read. Not telling which one, though.
Wow, I never really thought I'd see one of my works here. Thanks for the review, guys.
John Perry and Seattle's Angels in the same season.
Desecrating that shrine seemed like such a good idea at the time.
My nickname in school was BP... so that was a little weird to read.
Either way, keep the reviews coming. It gives something fics to look out for.
Two of my favorite authors on the site? Nice.
And yeah, Jordan does do that weird hyphenated adverbs thing.
This is one of the few rounds where I've actually read one of the stories for once: 0G Network Coverage, by the incredible Estee.
For serious, go read it.
2304145 That's happened to me twice.
Yeah, Estee's work is pretty amazing. He/she's underrated as fck, which is a shame because she's one of the few exceptional writers who does good stuff with Spike.
Well, post-Magic Duel. Significantly post-Magic Duel. There's mention of the Alicorn Amulet as well as ponies who sought to kill her over that incident, the rock farm refusing to give her her job back after what she did to Pinkie, and obvious Twilicorn.
2306750
Well if you don't count all that...