Story Reviews » Reviews! Round 55 · 3:52am Oct 26th, 2014
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Deathly cold stifled the graveyard and its swirling mists. This would have been quite palatable to the graveyard’s inhabitants, given they didn’t exactly care about such trivialities as the weather anymore, but on this night, they were not alone, and thus the agreeableness of the weather was simply a majority opinion.
“Why is it so darn cold?” asked Burraku Pansa, drawing the black folds of his long robe closer around himself.
“Because October sucks,” replied Belligerent Sock. “It’s the harbinger of darker times to come. Just you watch. As soon as Halloween’s over, the Fatty Who Shall Not Be Named is going to start sticking his red-clad butt into things. Probably even before.”
“Woe betide anyone who dresses as Santa this time of year.”
Sock all but tripped over his own robe’s dragging hem. “Do people really do that? Inconceivable.”
“It is technically a costume.”
“Yeah, but then, so’s the Sexy Ebola Nurse.” He shook his head. “Y’know, I remember when this time of year was all about the thrill of fright and mayhem.”
“And you’re all about fright and mayhem.”
“Darn straight.” He hefted the sack of rattling objects slung across his back. “It’s why we’re here, after all. You spy any good graves?”
BP swung his flashlight around. “Let’s see… ‘Here lie Csquared's hopes and dreams.’ Nope. ‘Here lies Raz's motivation.’ Nah. ‘Here lies Red's favorite acorn. Somewhere around here.’ Hmm…” The cone of light found its way to a narrow grave, set off to the side beneath the gnarled, grasping branches of an old tree. “Oh, how about this one?”
Sock nodded in approval. “Perfect. Let’s get to work.”
Setting the sack down near the grave, Sock started pulling things out and handing them to BP. They were perfectly ordinary things—crow feathers soaked in pitch, bags of black cat bones, a cast-iron pot whose rim was speckled with a greasy purple rime, jars of pickled newt feet, pickled frog eyes, and pickled beets, and finally, a pair of chalk sticks.
BP threw everything but the last away. “Y’know, you might’ve sorted through all that junk instead of bringing the whole bag out here.”
“Meh.”
Sock took one of the sticks of chalk and knelt down, drawing various lines over the tombstone. BP did the same to the earth in front of it, and then drew four packets of paper from beneath his cloak, arraying them in front of the grave. Four stories, freshly chosen. Four, the number of death.
“Now what?”
“Now, we send a message.” Sock’s wide grin glinted in the moonlight, like a knife drawn from beneath the folds of a flowing black cloak. He drew a knife from the folds of his flowing black cloak.
“Uh…” said BP. “You never said to bring a knife.”
“Don’t worry,” said Sock. “You won’t be needing one.”
There was a flicker in the darkness as the blade struck home, again and again.
ROUND 55
You awaken in a glade outside of Ponyville with no idea how you got there. Luckily, Fluttershy will make you feel better.
Howdy, folks. This time around, in honor of dread holiday Spookyween, Sock and I have elected to line up some Dark stories for you. Ideally, horror would’ve been the whole of this four-course meal, but lordy does the pony fandom have slim pickings in that department for a group like ours, focused as we are on both the unknown and the vaguely safe for work. So, general Dark is most of what’s on the menu.
Starting us off, though, is Make You Feel Better, probably the most directly spooky of our selections tonight. As its description suggests, this is a second-person piece starring “you” and Fluttershy, wherein Fluttershy finds you and endeavors to take care of you. To go much deeper into the plot than that would be to risk spoiling it, as this is a very short piece and, moreover, it relies on repetition of plot elements to tell its story.
So I’ll skip to the broader aspects. For one, there are no notable technical issues, which is always an achievement around here. For two, let’s talk about the usage of the second-person perspective—it’s not the greatest I’ve seen, even in this fandom, but it is not without purpose, and that in and of itself keeps it from being cringe-y. Again, to go deeply into why it works would be to spoil key plot happenings, but I will at least assure you that it’s being done right. That’s impressive, considering that this story is from the distant past of 2012; though there’s been a bit of a resurgence of second person recently, with some top authors demonstrating ways it can be pulled off gracefully, there didn’t used to be so many examples to point to for ways to make it work. This is one of them.
If you generally dislike creepy stories, this one won’t be for you, as that’s pretty much the entirety of the piece—we have a fic or two for folks like you tonight as well, so just be patient. If you’re down for this sort of thing, though, you could do a lot worse than Make You Feel Better. Give it a shot.
SPOILERS: IT WON’T MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER!
Ah, second-person narration. Few things are more terrifying than the second-person, as anyone who’s familiar with a particular song about Shia LeBouf or read certain self-insert clopfics can attest. It’s a perspective that easily lends itself to a certain unease, and that makes it effective for writing horror when utilized properly. When the story addresses you the reader, specifically, it not just dictating the fate of a character. Like any good set of socks, it sets the boundaries of what you can and can’t do, and forces you to accept its will.
With that in mind, this fic does indeed provide a good way to kick off this little spook-fest we’ve got going here. You ought to be able to start guessing at where it’s headed from its description and tag alone, and rest assured that it does not disappoint. I can’t say exactly where it’s heading, because that would just spoil the whole thing, but suffice it to say it’s not your typical “Fluttershy turns out to be a serial murderer/rapist” fare. I will say that there’s some nice, hinting symbolism with some of the description—little details that come around at the end to make you go “ooooh” like a ghost who’s realized he’s actually dead.
So, if you’re up for a short little creep-out as we draw ever closer to the Eve of All Hallows, this one goes down quick and leaves a resoundingly unsettling feel by the end.
Sweetie Belle gives somepony a scarf, and receives something else entirely.
This is a fun one. The Pale Stallion, though it covers somewhat dark topics and presents a nice, subtly dark framing story, is more world-buildy than anything else. It concerns, as you might have guessed from the title and/or general air of how this fic presents itself, Death—specifically his powers and his duty. A good portion of this piece is a sub-story, told to Sweetie Belle by the titular pale stallion, of an old war and heroes therein. This is decidedly not what I was expecting, going in, but in a way that was refreshing. The Pale Stallion is a story that not only wears its dark themes and characters firmly yet nonchalantly on its sleeve—telling its little framed legend about them in such a matter-of-fact way as to not actually merit the Dark tag on their own—but also works in some darkness in subtle ways that really did make me shiver.
Another strength of this story’s is its characters. Sweetie Belle is just the right levels of sweet and childlike, and though she takes a back seat to OCs, the OCs themselves are far from overbearing. In that vein, I greatly appreciated how distinctive the pale stallion’s personality felt to me without him coming off as a willful spotlight grabber.
Apart from the surprise world-buildy stuff, this is a fairly simply put-together piece, but strong. There’s no real complaints I can make, and I bet you’ll like it. Also, if you’re as dense as me, I might recommend that you read it more than once, as I missed the ending’s deeper implication the first time through, and I liked this story all the more once I worked it out.
THIS FIC HAS A RENDEZVOUS WITH DEATH!
Have you ever played chess with Death? He’s a cheater, but fortunately, so are socks.
The idea of the Grim Reaper, of an anthropomorphized version of the End of Life, is one of the oldest in the anthology of human literature. For whatever reason, people are enthralled by the idea of communicating with something that has seen the other side, or especially, something that commands it. It’s a fascinating concept, to be sure.
And when ponies are involved, well, it makes sense that Death would be a pale horse. Though why he’d be interested in Sweetie Belle, one can only guess. Yes, this fic starts out with Sweetie at a train station, chatting up some stallion possessed of curiously archaic speech patterns, and it doesn’t take much to guess at what’s going on. Just in case you missed it, though, he offers to explain everything to Sweetie.
He describes a war that occurred in the long-distant past. So, this one deals with another terrifying subject matter: it’s the New Lunar Republic versus the Solar Empire! As much as that particular bit of fanon deserves ire, though, here it’s used merely as an expedient way of getting ponies involved in a war. The focus is more on the characters involved in the conflict—and in a refreshing bit of worldbuilding, on some of the mechanics of their arms and armor.
There’s also a nice bit of foreshadowing, some well-laid Chekov’s guns in the tale, and they come back in the end like a stray winter draft in an otherwise warm house. The fic is really quite clever in how it handles the roles of not just the mysterious stallion, but Sweetie as well. It’s a full-circle story, and it’s quite satisfying by the end.
And by “end”, I don’t mean that end. Read on while you still have life, readers!
When ponies are being gossipy, they call Inkie and Blinkie "Trottingham Twins." For one month, they are the same age. It was during one such July they murdered their father in cold blood and fled their home.
If Six Months in July’s description grabs your attention, just wait until you start reading. It felt as though every time my mind started to drift, some line or other was there to grab my brain and force-feed it more story. This was a ride, let me tell you.
Something that greatly plays into that is what, to me, is the most notable thing about this story: how it utilizes telling. Very, very little is left to my imagination—we’re told what characters think and how they feel, and we’re shown so little of what they do by comparison (and even then, it’s often directly tinged by how they feel about what they’re doing). It’s constant, it’s entirely unlike what I’m used to seeing, and it works so, so well. For example, the perspective will hover around Blinkie and tell me some tangential, at first unassuming fact about her mother’s experience—but through that, I’m given a window into how and what Blinkie thinks. A key thing about telling which makes everyone want to avoid it is that it takes a reader out of a story, but here, that very “flaw” seems to be the desired effect. Author Fiddlebottoms takes telling to such an extreme that he downplays pretty much the entire story, to the point that he’s not telling a story so much as showing you the essence of its characters. If this isn’t the best use of telling I’ve seen in the pony fandom, it’s at least the best I can remember.
I occasionally took issue with this piece’s punctuation, but on the whole, it’s quite well put together. No, if there’s a reason not to read this, it would probably be its subject matter—in terms of relevance to tonight’s theme of the spooksome, Six Months in July has probably the grittiest and most true-to-life creepiness behind it. Sometimes subtly and other times overtly disturbing, this piece never really stops going for your gut, and while it isn’t some gory horror story, there’s no shortage of squick here. Reader, beware, you’re in for okay not a scare I guess but maybe some weird vibes or something.
I SPENT SIX MONTHS IN JULY, TOO! I WAS TRAPPED IN GEORGIA!
So, let’s talk about the impartial omniscient narrator. It’s like a sock, in a sense. It’s not nearly as awesome, but I digress. Like a sock, it provides a viewpoint that is both impartial and all-seeing. Also like a sock, it’s rather tricky to pull off, as it requires a stronger voice than most any other perspective. To be engaging, it needs a certain poetic bend to the prose—a way of telling the story without telling it, as it were.
This fic knows how to do use its viewpoint. It uses the events as a canvas upon which it paints a landscape of tragedy. A number of key phrases are utilized and repeated over the course of the story—like a melodic motif—which gives the scenes a sort of gravitas far beyond the bare and plain prose. It even goes one step further and tells its story in the present tense, which also lends a certain urgency to everything going on.
The subjects of the piece are, of course, the Pie sisters. And since this was written long before Season Four, it focuses solely on the grey pair of the trio. In essence, it’s a sort of biography, showcasing a number of vignettes from their lives together, and how they each deal with the trials of growing up. Interspersed are some intriguing worldbuilding details which lend the whole thing an ever-greater air of believability.
Now, word of warning: this one also deals with some rather dark subject matter—as though that wouldn’t be apparent from the description and opening paragraphs. It’s a harshly mature interpretation of the MLP ‘verse, with all the cynicism, spite, and general mean spirit that implies, and that may not be palatable to all. That said, it’s probably the only instance where the subject of pony estrus is dealt with that isn’t a clopfic, so there’s some novelty to be had with it, as well.
And in the end, this fic still manages to present a surprisingly heartwarming conclusion to what would otherwise be a chillingly dark little affair. There’s a certain, red thread which binds the whole thing together, and it’s a thread worth tugging on.
In the wake of her coronation, Twilight Sparkle worries that the tides of life and responsibility are pulling her away from her friends.
All in all, it's not the ideal time for a mysterious force to suck all the colors from Ponyville.
I’m very happy that Sock discovered this fic for us. Monochrome is one of those solid, show-worthy fics that you can never really get enough of (assuming, of course, that you actually like the show). More than that, though, is that this piece manages to be a story with a show feel and also some undeniably mature themes and concepts, a slice of life and also an adventure, a cold tale with a warm ending—reading it, this fic was very difficult for me to qualify, and judging by the state of the tags, I imagine the author probably felt much the same way.
In terms of its spook factor, Monochrome was the least dark of tonight’s fics, but that’s not to say that it’s without its share of disturbing imagery. Still, though, while nightmares, darkness, and shadowy, stalking figures feature prominently in this tale, the focus is on relationships and self-perceptions. The mystical, colorless wrongness sweeping through the land brings not only fear, but doubt, as ponies begin to lose touch with their world, their companions, and who they themselves are—past the problems’ magical roots, there is a heavy and poignant theme of depression present in this fic, and the portrayal touched me in a lot of the right ways. Emotions run both high and low throughout this piece, at once realer than and still possessed of the heart of the show—it’s like I’m watching one of the many slice of life episodes where a character’s emotions are in the forefront, except that where I might normally be seeing, say, somewhat overblown anxiety over an upcoming big event, I’m instead seeing a character honestly question whether she deserves her own life.
The ways that Monochrome handles its characters births some its coolest aspects and also some of its most prominent weaknesses. The use of Rainbow Dash in this story is particularly interesting; she and Twilight have pretty much equal billing and they go through comparable emotional turmoil. Furthermore, this piece presented a Dash that I feel many fans of the show (judging, at least, from the increasingly vitriolic comments on her character I tend to see as the show continues) would be interested to see: one who is trying to reconcile her own sometimes self-centered actions and personality with her frequent label of “loyal”. But while I found this dual focus on two different characters intriguing—mainly because it felt like an episode and most of the actual episodes either cast one character as the main one or cast Twilight as the leader of a group—it highlighted a problem. The other characters felt a lot more flat than Dash and Twilight, by comparison, and scenes featuring them (particularly scenes featuring everyone together) felt that much flatter for it, to me. Perhaps relatedly, I also found myself having the occasional issue with characters’ voices, feeling that they (and even Dash) had moments where they sounded a bit too similar to Twilight, all wordy and intellectual. This didn’t happen often, and maybe it was just me, but there you go. As a final complaint, in the area of mechanics, this piece could use something of a proofreading pass. The typos were minor, but many, and sometimes in key moments.
Despite the issues I may have had with it, I still feel that Monochrome is a strong piece, and more than worthy of SA. If you want a fic with the feel of the show but with a mature (lowercase ‘m’) bent, give it a look.
WARNING: THIS FIC IS IRONICALLY NOT FOR THE COLORBLIND!
This is a work of genius. But that’s not what’s remarkable about it. What’s really amazing is that the author is not, in fact, a sock. Oh, and there’s the incredibly criminal fact that we have to call attention to this one here. Seriously, with a premise this well-spun, a plot this well-conceived, and an execution this well… executed, it boggles the mind that it has not received the attention it deserves.
Let’s go down the List of Arbitrary Scoring. From its great premise (+1), we are drawn into a story which effortlessly handles multiple arcs (+2), maintains the integrity of the characters throughout (+5), deals with some complex issues regarding the characters’ psyches (+6.5), balances humor and drama in accord (+3.27), and concludes with a resounding, highly-original, and fascinating take on the show’s values (+1.2 Billion). Oh, and the writing mechanics are solid (+0.5).
To explain in detail, this story is told through different viewpoints over the course of its 40,000 words, with two major arcs overall. There’s the obvious color-sucking calamity which Twilight must correct, of course, but there’s also a great deal of interpersonal conflict involved, as well. Rainbow Dash is the most profoundly affected by the lack of hue in the town, and starts feeling quite a bit of psychological torment about the goings-on of the plot, and this is expressed in a tight bit of symbolism. Each of these arcs is given equal screen time and both spiral back to meet each other beautifully by the end.
The characters’ interactions are all spot-on, with their behaviors making sense in the contexts of both their personalities and the narrative. The midpoint of the story sees Dash talking with each of her friends about her troubles, and the ways the others help her deal with them are sincerely heartwarming. They’re… genuine. If there’s one point where the writing really starts to shine, it’s here—especially given how these interactions all come back in the end.
That’s the other thing: the attention to detail in this fic is marvelous. As you progress, all the little things throughout the story start to make sense, and it’s done with such subtlety that you can’t help but appreciate the mad genius behind it. Absolutely nothing is out of place, and every single scene has something that plays into the wider story going on. Not one scene is wasted; everything comes back by the end. Readers, take note: this is how you handle Chekov’s guns.
Honestly, I can only blame my age-old enemy, the tags, for this one’s lack of views. Perhaps the author was unwilling to constrain themselves to the labels, or perhaps felt they made the fic’s description too colorful, but nonetheless, it makes a story such as this harder to locate. I only stumbled across it by (extremely) happy chance during one of my back-street jaunts through the bowls of FimFic. Again, take note, readers: tags do help. And if you’ve got a story as good as this, you’ll want to give it as much help as possible.
This one has my highest recommendation. It is, without doubt, one of the best I’ve read for Seattle’s Angels. I’ll even emphasize it with an additional link: READ THIS!
Deathly warmth stifled the graveyard and its dissipating mists. This was quite unpalatable to the graveyard’s sole inhabitant, given they were one for colder temperatures, and thus found the golden sunlight peeking over the edge of the distant hills quite disagreeable, even if that was simply a minority opinion.
“Why is it so darn warm?” asked Finster the Gravekeeper, loosening the sleeves of his denim jacket. “It’s October, for crying out loud! Christmas is just around the corner, inn’t?”
Oh, well, he couldn’t really complain. He was just a humble gravekeeper. He’d weather the weather just like the graves he kept.
He set off on his morning walk, carrying his superfluous shovel over one shoulder. The rows of graves stood as they always did: in uniform rows completely devoid of sinister import or frightening nature. His eyes passed over them like shepherds watching their flock, until they found one grave in particular, and the scene it held.
It was a narrow grave, standing beneath the gnarled and grasping branches of an old tree. Drawn on the ground around it were many chalky arrows of varying sizes and levels of quality, all pointing at four packets of paper resting just in front of the tombstone. Carved into the tombstone itself was a message:
“THESE ARE TOTES GOOD STORIES. YOU SHOULD READ THEM.”
Finster was not one for melodrama—he was a humble gravekeeper, after all—but he heaved a great sigh nonetheless. Then he drew a smartphone from his pocket and thumbed the profile of one of his contacts.
“Yeah, Barney? I need a… Yeah, they did it again. How soon can you have the new decoy made up? Well, they’re probably going to be back in a couple of weeks, if the pattern holds. Yeah. All right, thanks.”
With another sigh, he leveled a lazy kick at the gravestone. It toppled to the earth and broke into absurdly cheap pieces of plaster. He scooped the four packets of paper up into his arms and looked them over.
“I really wish they’d stop doing that. Meddling kids. I’ve got way too much to read, already.”
With a shrug, he started making his way back to his humble gravekeeper shack. “Oh well, I s’pose I need something to fill my new bookshelves.”
Feel free to visit our group for more information and events, and to offer some recommendations for future rounds. See you all next time!
The best time of the year.
2555682
Dude, I've let you live the past couple of years despite that hat. Don't push me. You wouldn't like me when I'm pushed.
Ugh, tell me about it. I have a friend in New Jersey who told me she'd already seen Christmas lights being put up. My exact response to her was, "Christmas has successfully annexed Thanksgiving and Veteran's Day, and is now invading Halloween."
2555682
But while we're on the subject, now that Christmas is in about two months, you should consider putting a Santa hat on your avatar.
2555749
I'll take it into consideration. Thanks for the thought.
Bowls? We've got bowls?! Why did nobody tell me?! I've been eating my salad off the floor for the last two months!
Second-person pretty much equates to 'automatic suck', so...
Monochrome is super. Everyone read that one. That is all.
Man, I caught so much shit for recommending Six Months in July.
But now I am vindicated! Suck it, everyone from last year! >:B
WHAT THE BLOODY PROTESTANT HELL?!????!!!!!!!!!
2555995
You had to go back and post on that thread, too, didn't you?
For the first time, I read a story before it was recommended by SA. I did like The Pale Stallion quite a bit, especially the last line.
....you've had some very bizarre experiences with socks.
2556190
He is a bizarre experience with socks.
"Seattle's Angels is a group dedicated to obnoxiously pretentious circle jerking and should be discontinued immediately."
There, I fixed it for you.
2556257
Rude.
2556257
I will never understand you.
2556257
i.imgur.com/FKgjB0i.jpg
Banter aside, though, I hope your day improves, and that you'll find some way of channeling your troubles into something productive.
2556257
I'm not going to argue with obnoxious, or pretentious, or what-have-you, because that's mostly a matter of opinion.
But "circlejerkers"? That's objectively not true, as that would imply all they do is promote each others stories, but I've yet to see them do that once. I wouldn't be surprised if that was banned, actually.
2556257
Somebody mad.
derpicdn.net/img/2014/3/28/587452/large.png
Did they not like your story, mate?
2556257
Really?
2556014
My blog, my rules. :V
2556302
A few of them have, but only by technicality. Red, ambion, and BP have each had a story reviewed by the group, but all before they were brought on as reviewers.
Sufficiently spookyIVme. Now for everyone to try out an extreme sports intro/outro.
2556257
>circle-jerking
>2014
>not dodecahedron-jerking
I don't think that means what you think it means.