Story Reviews » Reviews! Round 63 · 11:58pm Feb 28th, 2015
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“So, like,” said Red, “which one are you?”
“What do you mean?” asked CSquared.
“Well, it’s just… a little confusing at the moment. I can’t tell what you are. We seem to have flip-flopped.”
CSquared sighed. “I thought we established this from the very beginning. It’s kind of insulting, you know. I expected you of all squirrels to remember. You could just pick one, you know, it’s no difference to me.”
“I know, I know,” said Red, tapping his fuzzy chin, “it’s just been a while since the last time I checked. Everything else is out of order right now. BP is still a panther, Ferret has taken to riding eagles, Pav hasn’t even mentioned Twilestia in, like, twenty-four hours, alex is off on that journey to find himself, and Corejo got kidnapped by that facsimile of Princess Luna he made from that 3D printer… so I just want to make sure, before…”
CSquared squinted. “Before what?”
“I make my move on you.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“Ha ha, wow, that came out kinda weird,” Red chuckled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head. “Hey, change of subject, it’s funny that we should be having this conversation about everything being backwards and flipped around, given that this is round sixty-th—”
The door burst open. Raz glared at them both. “Reviews. Now.”
“We’re in the middle of something!” Red whined.
“Red’s being indecisive,” CSquared said with an exaggerated eye roll.
“Just choose already and finish this!” Raz thundered.
Red reached out towards the checkerboard sitting between him CSquared and picked up a red piece. “Fine, fine. I’ll be red. King me.”
ROUND 63
An argument and a car crash leave one of the sirens--Adagio, Sonata, and Aria--dead. They know this because Death itself has shown up to chat with them and to ensnare Adagio into a game of wits with the very lives of her companions at stake. Adagio doesn't want anyone to die, but she's not so happy with the way they've been arguing so much lately either...
There was no hint of remorse in its words, only amusement, as though Adagio was playing a game with Death that it had already set up and played through and won, with their actual conversation only a necessary formality.
No, I’m not stealing this style from alex. It just works for this story.
Anywho, that sentence does a pretty great job of summarizing of what this story is about. Except for one thing, that is. It doesn’t mention how Adagio decides to play the game. And that’s where I’ll note the author also wrote The Years of Ar and S, a story I particularly enjoyed for its strong characterization of the Dazzlings. This story is no different when it comes to Adagio.
From the movie, we know that Adagio is pretty smart. She planned ahead and mind-controlled the authority figures. When she realized the Rainbooms couldn’t be mind-controlled, she went for more conventional methods of tearing them apart. Those efforts weren’t fruitless, either. The Dazzlings were so very close to succeeding.
So, naturally, Adagio is not about to just sit down and let Death win. She’s going to poke and prod and find a hole in Death’s game. And in the series of mindgames that follow between Death and herself, she does just that. When she figures out she thinks she’s figured out a way to win, her calm confidence in telling REDACTED to REDACTED serves as an excellent final touch, the icing on the cake, if you will, to Adagio’s game.
Writing about characters cheating Death is a timeless trope. Death is the ultimate heist; you pull a fast one over the most inexorable, unstoppable force known to mankind. And since Death is so ubiquitous, we all wonder what we’d be like when we finally have to confront it, and if possible, defeat it.
Chess masters need not apply.
But what happens when an immortal being who has been around for thousands of years is suddenly confronted not just with Death, but the death of another immortal, specifically one that they had assumed would always be around no matter how annoying or insulting? That’s what this story explores, and while it does in some places stumble and ask the reader to accept some truly extraordinary claims, it is an interesting study of the clash between death and those who believed they would never die.
Death comes to the Dazzlings when they are involved in a car crash during their getaway from the Battle of the Bands. Adagio is presented with an absurd but interesting choice: figure out how to prevent the deaths of her fellow Sirens by convincing them that they are, in fact, friends, and through a convoluted system of “debts” reserved only for immortals who kill each other, keep an of them from dying at all. Death is personified as a ruthless, sarcastic creature who who wishes only to do his job and reap everything, or perhaps this is a bluff to force Adagio’s hand—we’re never given confirmation that anything he says is actually true. Either way, he is an interesting character here for the way he simultaneously tries to trap Adagio and also drive her to make some very harsh choices and discover harsh truths about herself.
Adagio and the rest of the Sirens are in good form, as caustic and spiteful of each other as they are of their victims. It’s almost frightening seeing them struggle with working together when they’re clearly so evil all the way through; this isn’t a story about redemption, nor is it a story about the Sirens actually deciding to become ‘better,’ but if I may read between the lines perhaps there’s an implication that they’re one step closer to help me sleep at night. If you can get through the dense explanations of Death’s rules for dying, any Dazzlings fan will be entertained by this fic.
A visiting Night Light is intrigued when his daughter mentions one of Ponyville's more unusual retailers – Quills and Sofas. Why quills? Why sofas? Why the two in combination? He can't resist the chance to investigate further and find out just how far Davenport is prepared to stretch a definition.
Just Horsing Around makes it very clear what this story is all about the moment you look at the name of the first, and only, chapter: Sofa, So Good. That’s where the wordplay and the puns start, and they don’t stop until you reach the comment section. It’s a rather silly story, and it never tried to be anything else.
Normally, this might sound like it’s just a silly crackfic, but I don’t think it is. Despite the focus on puns and wordplay, it never went for that barebones approach so it could get to the punchline faster. It didn’t neglect characterization in favor of humor. It had real, successful attempts at characterization for Davenport and Night Light. It used that characterization to complement the humor. It had enough of a story to not feel like a glorified joke that was extended to reach Fimfiction’s word minimum.
I’m usually not one for silly stories like this, but this one did enough things right that I could enjoy the humor for what it was without wondering why it was written as a story.
One of the most important questions we can ask is ‘why?’ Why is life this way? Why is Twilight purple? Why won’t Rainbow Dash and Big Mac just make out already? Rarely do we get answers to these, for the act of asking is meaningful in and of itself. This story answers why Davenport has decided to sell quills and sofas at the same time, and Twilight’s Dad is the protagonist. I’m sure you’ve asked that many times before, so here is a story to fulfill that particular niche.
This story has a distinctly dry wit to it, of the kind you would see in the most sublime of British period comedies. Twilight’s dad Night Light is given an urbane, playfully inquisitive personality that bounces off wonderfully with an eccentric Davenport who is far, more interested in both quills and sofas than even a shopkeep like him probably should be. The both of them converse and Night Light does his best to poke and prod to see how far down the rabbit hole he can go. There isn’t much to the story besides wordplay, some strange yet interesting puns, and the sight of two weird characters playing off one another. But one needs little more than that when looking for a fun, light read on a site about ponies.
STORY 3
A Brother’s Love, by Sendor
Gerulf is a strong and able leader. He is cunning and charismatic. To top it all off, he's the greatest griffin warrior in a century or more. Hartwin, his brother, can play the lute. This is the tale of a gentle soul's journey through hell and back, and how it changed him forever.
Remember that time when the World-Building Alliance had contests, and we featured stories from those contests all the time? Have a blast from the past with an old contest entry.
Honestly, this didn’t do much to stand out for me. It’s a fairly simple concept, a pacifist struggling to live among a society of warriors, and it doesn’t do much more than that. There’s a bit at the end that hints to what may happen in the future, but that’s it. That said, I didn’t leave the story unsatisfied.
I know I just said it didn’t do much to stand out for me, but I think I just stumbled across why I thought it was worth a feature. It was nothing spectacular, sure, but it was solid enough in its execution (if a occasionally a bit lacking on the grammar). Hartwin was a pretty nicely fleshed out character. His struggle to reconcile his pacifism with the warlike nature of his tribe was handled well. That this struggle extended to his brother, who happens to be the chief of their tribe, was a nice extra touch. The fight scene with the unicorns, although fast, provided enough meaning to the story to maintain its relevancy. Hartwin’s decision at the end had enough buildup and enough oomph behind it that the open-ended nature of the ending really wasn’t all that bothersome.
This was a story about that decision and what led to it, not what becomes of that decision. That the story realized that and stuck to its guns, and stuck to them well, is what led to me enjoying this story.
I think I’ve also managed to talk myself into liking this story a lot more than I did when I started the recommendation. Huh.
I usually enjoy griffons. People have taken Gilda’s short showing and taken it to extreme levels, giving her kind a civilization that rivals that of ponydom, albeit often as abrasive and nasty as Gilda turned out to be. Griffons, after all, are carnivores, except for the ones we see eating cake. Would that make griffons cakeivores? An entire race that only eats cheap carbohydrates and sugar? Or is that already ponies? Worldbuilders unite.
This story delves right into some of the general facts we’ve accepted about griffons in the fandom: they are primitive, violent, and in a state of all-out war with ponies, at least long before the unification in Equestria. One griffon, Hartwin, desires to rise above the brutish nature of his brother, Chieftain of their tribe, and struggles not to be singled out as a coward when he really just wants everyone to get along. There’s a lot of heart in this story, not least because we see guts spilled in violent confrontation between griffons and ponies, because even though we have all seen the bit about the gentle brother versus the bloodthirsty one, I still found myself drawn to its solid characters and engaging conflicts. There’s not a whole lot of resolution at the end that I could see; this is seemingly the set-up to something bigger but stops just as Hartwin makes a fateful decision.
Still, apart from a few stumbles in grammar, there is little to dislike about this story, and it is a healthy meal for anyone who devours worldbuilding and species-studies apart from ponies.
"There is only one rule: If you get hit, you're out."
Apple Bloom is dragged into an all-out civil war between the students of Ponyville Elementary, and soon enough the Crusaders are the only ones left to stand against a seemingly unstoppable evil.
Didn’t I just say I wasn’t one for silly, ridiculous stories? Well, here’s another one that has defied the norm. I think this is the part where I’m supposed to hate everything, or something.
The Snowball Fight presents a pretty ridiculous situation: There was a snow day. There was a snowball fight. This fight led to a war which was won by Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, who now lord over all of Ponyville’s children. The CMC are the only remaining resistance. But instead of bastardizing characterization to try and fit that situation (something about incredibly dense minds seems appropriate), it goes, “Well, how would these characters react to this situation, and how would they move on from there?”
The entire story is absolutely ridiculous, but the characterization remains consistent and reasonable. The characters develop nicely throughout the story, and at no point did I wonder why, say, Scootaloo was acting like this because this is nothing like the Scootaloo I know. This consistent characterization made it quite easy for me to accept all the ridiculous things they’re doing (infiltrating snow castles, for example). And the… other things. I mean, ice katanas? Seriously?
Winter means war. Crops fail, space becomes premium, and all that matters is moving to where there is less snow. Except for foals. In their case, they go to where to all the snow is and bash each other in the face with it, and poor Apple Bloom and the rest of the Crusaders are swept up in the pint-sized battle for Ponyville.
This is a sweet, funny little romp through the overactive imaginations of small foals who have declared D-rated war on each other, the D standing for D’aww. The Cutie Mark Crusaders are all that stands between Diamond Tiara’s Conglomerate and control of snowdrifts everywhere, and they basically try their hoof at non-violent guerilla warfare, complete with the strange rules and exaggerated drama of children—they have to fight their way through four “sub-bosses” of a sort before getting to Diamond at the top of her henchpony hierarchy. Things get progressively more ridiculous as the battle rages on until we’re treated to an all-out action movie spoof at the climax. All in all, it’s very charming. All three of the Crusaders, their foes included, are wonderfully characterized and the humor is genuinely funny, with pony puns and fake death scenes in abundance. I especially enjoyed Scootaloo and her overeagerness bouncing off Sweetie Belle’s straightforward timidness and Apple Bloom’s initial reluctance to take any of this seriously.
With few to no grammatical or formatting errors to distract from the flow of reading, this is a perfect companion now that winter has hit us hard.
“Sometimes I worry about Red,” Raz said as he and CSquared exited the rec room. It was still full of old soda cans and abandoned peanut shells, evidence of the grueling, week-long checkers match that had just concluded in CSquared’s favor.
“What do you mean?” asked CSquared.
“I think he’s a little too obsessed with finding out if things have been switched around now,” Raz shrugged. “You know he’s written a whole story about rule sixty-three, right? Called it his ‘masterpiece’ or something. And now this lunacy about what side of the board he’s on…”
CSquared shrugged. “What can I say, the rodent’s just as scatterbrained as the rest of ‘em. I wouldn’t worry too much. Hopefully he’ll be okay now that the match is over. If not, we do have those old educational videos way down in the basement…”
“Okay, now you’re just thinking of torture.”
----
Meanwhile, deep in the boughs of a secretive-looking acorn tree, a wild-eyed red squirrel typed furiously away at his laptop, biting his lip.
“And then… she kissed… himself…”
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 way you refer to Razgriz as just Raz always leaves me confused for a slight moment before I remember you guys are too engrossed in your shenanigans to even notice me staring in through your window.
I was going into this round expecting all of you to be gender-swapped, but that did not turn out to be the case. Not even Csquared. Actually, come to think of it, the intro and outro didn't use a single pronoun when referring to Csquared, leaving it completely ambiguous what gender (or even species) Csquared is this time around.
Oh well, Phazon is still pleased. Read all later.
Also, looks like this is Just Horsing Around's third time being featured by Seattle's Angels. Quantum Mechanics wasn't bad, and I thoroughly enjoyed Good Intentions. Perhaps I should consider reading more of his work.
Question. How much of what week was taken up by Red trying to decide on red or black?
Red has a R63 fic? Okay, this is news to me...
2838869
You done did miss it.
FEATURED!
2838895
That could've been referring to any MLP character and his/her R63 counterpart, but fair enough.
2838849 Pfft, you're only supposed to think that. Do you know how hard it is to do costume changes without letting the audience know you're playing to them?
There was a very entertaining fanfic called Sofa, So Good. I read it before fimfiction.net came about, but I don't think my memory is so unreliable that recommending it would be amiss.
i.imgur.com/WwZgwJl.jpg
Well this was wholly unexpected, but managed to make my day.
Honestly, I'm just overjoyed that y'all had fun with my silly thing. Even though I got more than enough enjoyment simply writing it, it still means the world to me that others could get some out of reading it.
2838951 ...I wish I could say I know what you mean by that, but I'd be lying if I did. What does that mean?
...kinda?
Falcons, actually. I should know; yamgoth hijacked one of my blogs to ship them.
In any case, I always get a funny feeling when I've read some of the Angels' recommendations, and this time around I'm two for four. Neat.
I'm sorry to have to break it to you, but you failed to meet your quota of changeling-story features this week. We're going to have to revoke your Site Elite licenses.
2840065
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Lord horizon, please have mercy!
Red, the blood of angry gender unspecified.
Black, the dark of Burraku Pansa.
Read, a few of these good fics.
Black, did my comment got through at last?!
2839293 It means i'm making a dumb joke and suggesting we know you're watching and are trying to put on a show for you.
2841663 Oh, right. Well, in that case, may I come in? Please? For Celestia's sake it's freezing out here!
2841768 Wait you weren't standing in front of the window we heated and put a roof over? Fer chrissakes it's practically a porch!