R4 (Reactions, Reviews, Reference, Redirection) #0024

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Here are five slightly edited old reviews:
A Sun Without A Moon by Mourning Zephyr
Celestia And Luna’s Completely Average Day
Mood Wings by Tchernobog
Mendacity by Dromicosuchus
Trial Run by UnlicensedBrony

A Sun Without A Moon by Mourning Zephyr
[story link] [my original review]

Pretty good. Premise is almost a cliche by now. Well, it certainly is for the fandom, but this is about my reactions so that statement is more subjective than I normally strive for. The story is about Princess Celestia dealing with the loss of her sister after banishing Nightmare Moon. A good read, but nothing really stood out. Just another layer for the headcanon added to Celestia and Luna as characters.

Celestia And Luna’s Completely Average Day
[story link] [my original review]

This was really good. Nice to read another stand-out story to counterbalance the mediocre to average ones I’ve been consuming lately. This is a prime example of the concept of television show events extrapolated out against a more realistic world. Not to mention a great picture of the idea that the events of the show are in fact weird distortions even by the standards of a fantasy kingdom that magic cartoon ponies might actually live in. I do have one little nitpick. Really wish the author had described Orcus as a pony-version of himself.

Mood Wings by Tchernobog
[story link] [my original review]

Another great one. A bit of character-based humor, a heap of subtle worldbuilding, a touch of romance, all perfectly in the style of the show. I wouldn’t say this one pushes my buttons like, say, Eternal. I would hold it up as a example of how to do a good fanfic, a blueprint if you will. Using the show as a foundation and building up to funny and interesting comments on the characters. This is the one where I realized how adorable Rainbow Dash being romantic can be.

Further note:
I've read this several times since the first time. It's one of the fanfics I reread when I need something fluffy and amusing. I found it to have lots of reread potential. Nothing new pops up, but it's still just as nice to go through as it was the first time.

Mendacity by Dromicosuchus
[story link] [my original review]

This was a really good story. It just feels more like european fey folklore than My Little Pony. It just doesn’t feel like MLP at all to me. It would be a wonderful piece of original fiction. Cutting out the MLP bits and writing new stuff to fill in the holes would be easy and make the story even stronger. The story adds too much and doesn’t have a strong enough grounding in the show. Which is kind of weird because it tries to connect itself strongly with the wedding episodes, but does a poor job of that. It tries to weave another series of events with those episodes too tightly and disrupts both stories too much.

Also, even though the writing is very good through the whole story, there is a few points where pacing stumbles. The whole section with our heroine wandering in the caves is the worst one of these trouble spots. There is two or three moments where we think things are going to happen, then some event resets her back to lost and depressed. First time this happened it was a dramatic turn of fate. After that it just seemed like the story wasn’t going to progress to the next part of the plot until the author wanted it to and anytime the actions of the characters tried to advance the plot the author simply hit the reset button. Was frustrating.

Trial Run by UnlicensedBrony
[story link] [my original review]

Pretty good, but missing the something that grabs me. Average? Well written, but no interest in reading it again and nothing in it stuck with me. Characters were faithful to the show, but not realized well enough to add any depth to what I’ve already got in my head about Rainbow Dash or Applejack. Good, but not inspiring? I want to say it was well written, but if it made no impression on me I can’t really call it good writing no matter how technically good it was grammer, spelling, pacing, etc. I guess I’ll just stick with average.

As always, The Big Master Review List is here: { THE MASTER LIST }
If you know of a text-format reviewer I'm not keeping track of, please let me know and I'll see if they meet the criteria to be assimilated into the list.

If you are an author who wants a more detailed review of a story I've covered feel free to message me. My reviews tend to be fairly light, mostly just reactions to a story right after reading it. I am happy to give a more careful read and reply to anyone who wants more precision and/or feedback.