Drake's Reviews #3 · 1:33am Oct 13th, 2015
I move on from the Read Later list to the Tracking list. I question the purpose of Fimfiction separating these two things and wonder what the intended usage is. Me personally, I use the Tracking list to bookmark the clopfics I don't want other people knowing I read... hm, I'll have to edit that sentence out before I publish this blog.
Moving on, the Read Later list still lots on it, but they're all multi-part stories. Perhaps moving ahead I'll do one fic a week and try to tackle the shorter ones one at a time. For now, fic reviews. A shorter edition for the mentioned reason.
Twilight Shares The Narrator, by Stratocaster
This is a sequel to Twilight Hears The Narrator. If you haven't read it then you should, but judging from how many views and likes it has, you probably already have. And that was a glorious piece, so I'm intrigued to see how a full-length story will handle it. To go off on a tangent, Hironobu Sakaguchi, father of the Final Fantasy series, has said in an interview during the 90s that he felt the games were so good because the team knew they would likely never do a sequel to any of them, so they poured their heart and soul into each game to get it right the first time around. This thinking is on my mind whenever a one-shot is expanded into a full story - the original was so good and complete on its own, so what is going to be explored in a full-length fic?
Also, a shorter tangent - this fic reminds me strongly of Stranger Than Fiction, one of my favorite movies. It's on YouTube, if you think a dramedy flick based on the same idea as the fic sounds good, give it a watch.
The premise, so far, is simple - other ponies begin the hear the narrator, and it re-ignites Twi's interest in figuring out what is causing all this.
The author hasn't lost the charm and humor of the original story. I like the continued addressing of things that would logically come up if this ever happened; Twilight questions if the narrator has a physical place of residence, protests him "following" her into the shower, and the narrator implies he steers Twilights into hijinks because he's bored and she entertains him. Overall it's still a lot of fun and there's a lot of silliness, but there's also an actual plotline going on here that's very intriguing and holds interest.
If I have a nitpick - not to show off, but I think there's some things the author should do and hasn't. The second scene opens with two paragraphs of exposition to set the scene. What if Twilight interrupted to question why the narrator was doing this when she can see the location just fine? Does she question if he's narrating to anyone? How much control does he have over events, exactly? He doesn't make Spike walk in as far as we can tell, but he can make Spike slap himself. Later he writes Twilight sneaking looks at stallions, but Twilight protests she isn't. Can the narrator narrate things that don't actually happen just to troll Twilight? Can she defy him? Later we find out she did things when he wasn't narrating and thus he had no idea she did it. But there's only two chapters so far and maybe these are precisely the kinds of things that will be brought up later, we'll see.
Recommendation: Definitely worth following to see how this unfolds.
So, we're like...goddesses or something? by CrossRedstone
Already read this but I'm tracking it so here it is. This fic takes it from the Friendship Games ending, with a simple premise - the events of the climax of the film have made Sunset and Sci-Twi the Celestia and Luna of the other world, with control over the sun and moon. So far the reveal of this information is all that's happened, so it's been a bit dry. But it's a very interesting concept that I'm keen to see developed, as long as it goes to good places.
Recommendation: Worth at least reading what's up so far to gauge if you want to keep following it.
Shimmercorn as the story image? SOLD!
We open on... a tangent. You know how I said in a past series of reviews that, when done right, there's nothing wrong with fixfics? Well, this first chapter is a mini-fixfic, and it is not done right. The climax of the film is redone with Sunset overpowering Twilight and forcing her to turn back, but still keeping her powers. She then completely blows up with her friends blase attitudes over the presence of magic, and curses at them. With that, Sunset decides magic is too dangerous in this world, and absorbs all of it into herself to return to Equestria. She does so, but somehow time magic gets into the mix and she ends up in the time when she was Celestia's student, and is now an alicorn.
The first chapter is almost wholly unnecessary and immediately sets me against the fic for how out of character Sunset acts, as well as the clumsy rewriting of the film's climax to set up the story. Frankly, it was unneeded - Sunset tries to return through the portal, but the magic goes wonky and she's in the past. We know it has a time dilation effect from the comics, just run with that as your excuse. Unless this is a plot point to come up later, the first chapter is a waste of time. Beyond that, the story is okay. The second chapter is very infodumpy and we have a questionable decision from Sunset to not tell Celestia about what's happened. But, it can take a couple chapters for a story to get going - look no further than my own fics for proof of that.
Recommendation: The start is clumsy but the concept is still promising and nothing's been done to make me lose faith in it yet.
Here's how Tracking is different from Read Later, at least in my view:
Tracking is for stories you are presently reading, but don't quite want to put in your Favorites yet.
3466115 I use the Tracking box thing for placing unfinished stories that catch my interest. I use the Read Later box for stories that are either on hiatus, haven't updated in a year or two, or are complete. Of course, I started to do that fairly recently, so my Read Later box is unorganized.