Story Reviews » SA Reviews #115 · 2:19am Nov 4th, 2017
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Corejo stepped into Ferret’s office, hands clasping a manila folder behind his back. “You wanted to see me?”
Ferret sat at her desk beneath the light of a single overhead lamp. She wore a see-through green visor and worked hell on a roller-print calculator. The chu-chug of the calculator filled the air as it spit out what were probably forged tax return numbers. Hard times were upon us now that the movie sucked away most of our reader base.
She rolled her stogie from one side of her mouth to the other. She didn’t bother looking up. “Your reviews. Don’t forget, I need them by tomorrow.”
“You called me down here to remind me to do my reviews on time?” Corejo smirked, taking slow, meaningful strides toward her desk. He flopped a manila folder on her desk.
The chu-chug stopped as Ferret looked at it in surprise, then at him.
“It just so happens I got mine done a day early,” he said, his smirk turning to a grin that had a snowball’s chance in hell of charming a dead rat. Probably less. Definitely less.
“You… You what!?” She shook her head, put her adorable, little paws up to her head. “No. This can’t be. This can’t happen.”
Corejo frowned. “What, so the one time I actually get my reviews in on time you don’t appreciate it? What about Cyne?”
Ferret leapt onto his chest and gripped him by the collar. “No, you don’t understand. You’re never on time with your reviews. You can’t be on time with your—”
The Seattle’s Angels Secret Underground Base and Tree Fort rumbled, startling them both to the floor.
“What in Equestria was that?” Corejo said.
“The Prophecy!” She stared at Corejo, fear in her eyes. “What have you unleashed!?”
The earth heaved beneath them, and all went dark.
ROUND 113 (I think? Where’s Phazon when you need him?)
Even in our darkest moments, the stars shine coldly down – distant and remote, but bright in the blackness. Refuse them, shut them out, and they remain. Let them in, and they may convince you of the warmth in their embrace.
This is not a story about stars.
This is a story about people and ponies, and what they visit on each other in moments of darkness.
I like stories that lean heavily on implication. They force you to read and read into the words on the page. They force you to pay attention to what isn’t stated more than what is.
I will say that the subject matter is rather heavy for those unprepared, but this is a quick oneshot you shouldn’t pass up.
AShadowofCygnus shows her’s capable of this style of writing. Cold Light is indeed not a story about stars, as the synopsis indicates. (It’s hardly even about ponies, but that’s beside the point.) It is a story about a girl coming home late at night to a cold and lonely apartment, and we don’t quite know how or why she ended up in her present situation.
A sharp, pointed, bare-minimum narrative drives home the defensive, paranoid thought processes of this girl in the wake of a slowly unfolding mystery (a mystery to us, not her. Mostly, anyway). The dialogue feels disjointed in that uncanny way only someone in the girl’s situation could make feel natural, and the story is all the more immersive for it.
It’s a story of grasping at and failing to grasp the evils of the world, of coming to terms with their existence and coping in light of them. It’s a story about moving forward despite what these evils can do to you.
And that is a lesson we all need to hear every once in awhile.
I’d like to start this review with a slight warning. This story contains some heavy stuff. In the interest of preserving the integrity of the tale, I won’t tell you unless you ask me directly, but I will give you a heads up that this is kind of heavy.
What is bent cannot be straightened, and what is missing cannot be counted. That’s from Ecclesiastes, if you’re curious. I’ve thought about it a lot. I’ve also thought about another bit--”The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” The idea of time and suffering and the interaction of one with another is a supernal and abiding mystery. How do we move on from things? Not just the awful or the ecstatic, but from anything? How does the world move on? The Mystery of that comes after takes on a lot of forms. It inspired us to dream of life beyond the veil of death. It sent our hearts out into the stars, for what happens after Earth. And sometimes it haunts us after we have been robbed of the peace and hope we held dear, like a mocking albatross. (But what if there were a way, it says, that the thing spoilt and broken might live again?)
This story hit really, really hard for me. I actually did a blog about this subject, and I’m glad to say I got this story on my slate. This is how you write something both sensitive and inhuman. This is how you do it. This is how you communicate the spiritual and physical horror of one of the most vile things that a human can do.
This is also how you communicate that time heals all wounds in a way that does not at all condescend. It is true that time scars over every open wound, but Cygnus has made the correct choice to not pretend that this process is easy, or swift, or that it happens evenly.
STORY 2
Dappled Shores, by MaxKodan
Rarity and Sunset are having their third weekly Dappled Shores marathon.
And then Sunset ruins everything.
Eww, a Sunset Shimmer shipping story? Gross. Why did I agree to this again?
Oh yea. Because it’s good.
It’s a hilarious, feel-good story centered around Sunset and Rarity’s weekly date night, where the two binge watch their new favorite tv show Dappled Shores, for which the story is titled. Like all shows available on Netflix, or whatever internet streaming service you might use, the temptation to binge watch without those you promised to binge watch with is ever present, and Sunset is no stranger to the siren’s call.
She goofs, and the entire story is her trying to make it up to Rarity. Naturally, she goofs that too.
This is a solid roller coaster of laughs, in large part due to the witty dialogue from their friends and the after-the-fact style the narrative takes. It lets each joke flow one into the next, and the sentimental parts play effective bookends to the whole fiasco.
This one’s thoroughly worth your while.
MaxKodan, how is matcha? I’ve always wanted to try it ever since I read about it in a big book with lots of pictures as a kid.
Anyhow. We’ve all done something dumb that was minor but ended up blowing up in our faces. A lot of us have watched ahead on a show when we shouldn’t have or ate the last of the ice cream our roommate had been saving or forgotten to clean the litterbox before leaving town for the weekend. Life is kind of messy, y’all, and the more people you live in proximity with the messier it tends to get. If this story is about anything, it’s about the ridiculous ways in which we navigate the tiny yet huge difficulties of being in close quarters with others.
If I have one problem here, it’s Rarity. I truly wish there could have been a bit more of her in this story. But Sunset’s antics are very in character and it’s a kind of refreshing look at how she might act that I thoroughly enjoyed.
For four years, Sunset Shimmer has carried a torch for Miss Cheerilee, and for four years, she's struggled to look at her without thinking of the one who got away.
What’s this? Another Sunset Shipping story? I swear, you ponies are turning me into one of you dastardly shipping monsters. This is heresy, I say!
But for realsies, these are some prime pony stories plucked from the recent-ish Sunset Shipping Contest.
...But It often Rhymes is on the other end of the spectrum from Dappled Shores. Where Dappled Shores chose the light-hearted, whimsical, funny route, Rhymes chose the dramatic, tension filled one.
This is a story of Sunset Shimmer in two parts: the first in flashbacks to her teenage years during a whirlwind romance with Cheerilee, and to the present day on the eve of graduation. It centers around Sunset’s relationships with both the pony Cheerilee and the human Cheerilee, and how she struggles with the conflicting feelings this causes.
I gotta say, Posh has a gift for writing this sort of thing. There’s a reason this won first place in the contest.
So, I teach High School English. For now, anyhow. You try surviving in downtown Jackson with no back up and a room full of hellchildren.
But this made reading this both strange and delightful. First off, we have a back and forth--this story plays the dual nature of Sunset Shimmer’s experience for every single bit that its worth and I love that. I love when people can use that to their advantage, can really not just look at “oh wow being a human is different!” but really explore what it means to be in a mirror image of your own world. What would that be like? Yes, but more than that--imagine having a second chance with everyone you know. Or imagine being forced to experience everyone you know without any f the things you love about them or the connections you have.
Imagine that. That feeling you get when you imagine it? That’s this story. This is a wild ride, and I can’t recommend it enough. Sunset’s inner turmoil is just a delight.
When Trixie and Starlight find the friendship map after Trixie misplaced it with her wayward teleportation spell, the two discover a horrible mistake that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. After all, there's a reason most ponies don't teleport big things around on a whim.
Good thing Starlight has a plan and the know how that can take care of the whole problem.
"We are going to take these bodies, bury them behind the friendship castle, and hope Twilight never gets a dog."
This line is about 100-200 words into the story, and I was already crying laughing.
So if that quote didn’t make it apparent, this is a crackfic starring Trixie and Starlight, immediately following the events of the All Bottled Up episode. Except, you know, in this alternate version the table landed on some unfortunate ponies, and Starlight, not wanting to go back to prison, acts perfectly in character. Yep. Perfectly. In. Character.
Did I mention this is a crackfic?
This is dark, absurdist humor on overdrive. Every sentence is either a joke or the setup for one, and at 3.3k words, that’s a lot of laughing.
It peters out some toward the end, but I think that lends itself to the story, in that it allows the story to actually try and be a story. Not that there is much, but it helps round out the absurdity enough to validate a random OOC situation.
Those who slay together, stay together. A bit of violence can really bind anyone closer together! MURDER IS AN ACCEPTABLE FORM OF COURTSHIP.
Take Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead, get rid of all of the metanarrative humor, focus on the ridiculous antics, and you’ll have the silhouette of this story. Trixie and Starlight Glimmer are the only ponies that know about the friendship map accidentally killing someone and only they can keep this allllll a secret. Not so hard right? Just gotta hide the bodies.
Oh, and of course get rid of any extra witnesses. Again, not hard! Hell, it’ll even be fun! It’s like a friend date with your best gal pal, but with slightly more blood than that usually entails and a bit more violent than the usual girl’s night out.
This is some freakin’ dark comedy, my dudes. I chuckled quite a bit, but it’s not for everybody. It’s definitely worth a read and a laugh.
“Ow, my head.” Corejo pulled himself out from beneath a treebranch. “What happened?”
Ferret popped out from the rubble an arm’s length away. She shook her head and scanned the area. Her eyes landed on Cynewulf, half buried beneath burning tree branches, a manila folder held defensively against her breast. “Oh no.”
She scurried over to Cynewulf, snatched the manila folder from her hand and fanned through it. She clutched the folder to her chest floof. “Oh, thank Celestia,” she said before scurrying off.
Somewhere in the distant wreckage, the rest of Seattle’s Angels broke free of the rubble, Archonix and Red Squirrel among them. They looked around before meeting each other’s gazes.
Archonix frowned at Red Squirrel. “That’s the last time I let you crisp the crème brûlée.”
Feel free to visit our group for more information and events, and to offer some recommendations for future rounds. See you all next time!
Huh. I talk often enough with three of these people and have had parts in fixing up half of these stories.
I’d say Seattle’s Angels has good taste this go-round.
That is a really cute picture of Cheerilee.
Is it bad I don't remember this incident? I think I should see a doctor.
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You’re a cute picture of Cheerilee
Lol, you guys didn't correct for the round change-up joke before posting. And phazon isn't here to call us out on it. What's going on here?
Good timing on Cold Light, there. :D
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This was scheduled to be on Oct 5th, so we got Cold Light first.
PS, yell at Chris with me pls. He done messed up schedules.
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That's actually how I prefer it, since you guys go for low view counts specifically. It's just always nice to double up on the "hey, this story is really good." :)
I realised that I never thanked you all properly for this. So: thank you.
Don't ask. Just... don't ask.
Would you believe me if I said I'd pulled a Csquared and dropped off the face of Fimfic for two years?