FIMFic Reviews IX: The Return of the Slacker · 11:37pm Mar 7th, 2018
Well, I haven’t done a reviews blog since I lost my previous job back in 2015 and realized I couldn’t fill the gap with Patreon. The resulting financial struggle (I’m working again, but at about $2/hour less and 20-30 hours/week rather than 32-40) and… basically everything, has more or less turned my life into a parade of anxiety, which isn’t conducive to reading, writing, or reviewing.
But hey, I did a group review recently, and I’m trying to get back to reading fics again. So, why not start with catching up with all the things in my Favorites that have updated in my absence… mostly.
Some of them are getting dropped, for one reason or another.
Oh, and always in my reviews — be wary of wild suggestive fanart appearing.
201. The Cassandra Chronicles by CassandraMyOCisBestpony (3/5 - Ongoing)
Possibly one of the biggest Mary Sue OC parodies, and widely hated by those who don’t understand satire. Yeah, I still like it, but let’s be honest, the jokes have pretty much run their course: Ponies are idiots, the Mane Six are double idiots, Applejack is a triple idiot, Cassandra easily resolves everything with phenomenal cosmic powers and/or rudimentary common sense, repeat next episode. It’s still funny enough, but not “read 30,000 words to catch up” funny.
202. Letters from an Irritated Princess by Tired Old Man (3/5 - Ongoing)
The other “take cynical potshots at the show episode-by-episode” fic, I’ve given up on this one for pretty much the same reasons as Cassandra Chronicles: too much catch-up to do, the jokes are getting repetitive, and - frankly - there’s more than enough cynicism in the world these days. Still, if you still want a skewering of the stupid logic of the early seasons this far in, it was funny enough to be on favorites for a while.
203. To Love Thyself by Akumokagetsu (2/5 - Incomplete)
This is one I dropped from Favorites upon re-reading and catching up.
Blueblood is upset because he’s become the laughingstock of the castle, goes out to get wasted in the middle of the night, and then meets and presumably bangs Trixie. Wouldn’t anyone? Anyway, the seethingly bitter Trixie and obliviously narcissistic Blueblood play off each other well, and that’s pretty funny, even if their personalities are individually grating enough here that I don’t get particularly invested in their individual problems. The second chapter… it’s not Alien Shipping Syndrome, since it doesn’t really feel out of character for either pony, but they’re certainly rushed into things via a “Shut Up” Kiss. That’s still a bit of a headdesk for me, personally, but I tend to like my romance pretty fluffy.
Either way, though, it’s a dead fic. It got one chapter at the start of 2014, one much shorter chapter at the end of 2014, and hasn’t been updated since. It’s just been languishing in my “New chapters” updates for that long. Of course, it’s an Akumokagetsu story, and he does have something of a… reputation… of…
*coughs*
*quietly slides To Be The King, Legacy, and Balancing Act conveniently out of sight*
Hey! Look! Trixie!
204. Storm by kits (5/5 - Complete)
This is weird. This is one of my older favorites, and it was last updated in 2012, but it’s appearing in the New Chapters list. Poking around, I think this fave is from way back when I first joined the site and was working my way through Chris’s recommendations, though that doesn’t give any hint about why it’s triggering the update flag now.
Maybe it just showed up again in mid-2017, made relevant by Harvey, Irma, and Maria; and I missed it during my long stretch of inactivity.
Anyway, this is a good one (several other, more popular, reviewers have said as much), and it’s one of the rare sadfics that actually hits me. Some people have attributed that to the realism of the storm and its impact (I understand kits was a witness to the April 2011 tornado outbreak in Alabama), but for me it was more that this was an excellent character piece that highlighted all of the Mane Six in a very dire situation. Despite scattered technical errors (I only consciously noticed one, the rest weren’t major enough to stick out), it’s a very strong story that deserves to be remembered as a classic of our fandom.
205. Who Are You, And What Have You Done With Diamond Tiara? by Bucking Nonsense (4/5 - Complete)
Oh hey, something that completed in my absence!
Okay, the first chapter is great. I like this take on changeling integration, Stinkbug is kind of hilarious in his innocent cluelessness, and Diamond Tiara is an awful little bitch in a manner that perfectly aligns with the show. Plus, prior to Crusaders of the Lost Mark, this was about the best possible comeuppance you could get for her: doing something awful yet child-scaled, but which has huge repercussions she can’t escape or ignore.
The second chapter… feels a little heavy-handed, and though I don’t feel this harsh take on Celestia is out of character, it definitely feels like a bit too much for the scene itself. The bigger problem I have, though, is the reveal of another reformed character being involved. I get it’s being done in large part as a tie-in for another of the author’s fics (I’ve had the same set of OCs serving Luna in several stories, so I’d be a hypocrite to complain about tie-ins on principle), but adding another reformation angle (and a very dark character, at that) adds needless complexity to the story.
In the final chapter, things wrap up… a bit too nicely and neatly. It felt a little rushed, and gave the sense of being written just to get it done, and there was definitely a powerful sense of deus ex machina about the whole setup. But hey, we both named a changeling Swallowtail, so there’s that.
Also, there’s a number referenced in the first chapter that I looked up out of curiosity, expecting it to be a reference of some sort. Turns out it was, and not only that, the exactly sort of multi-layered punny bullshit I love to bury in my fics. Extra points just for that.
206. A Sleeping Rose by Admiral Biscuit (5/5 - Complete)
Well, this wasn’t on my Favorites at all.
This is the first in a four-part HiE series from Biscuit, and it’s been in my RIL for a long time. But it was there — and is being done here — because I’d read Braiding and (I think) Dinner and favorited them at one point.
This is a nice, relaxed Slice of Life where the stakes don’t go any higher than personal embarrassment or a bit of social awkwardness. It almost feels like a romance in places, but sticks to the realm of “friendshipping”, and is better for it. Also, one interesting aspect is that Sam is never gendered in this first story (almost never, rather — there are clues, but they’re mostly subtle), though the later entries make it clear from the start. If this looks good to you, I’d avoid the comments, reviews, and sequels until you read it yourself. See how your read of it changes when you assume Sam is male or female.
Braiding by Admiral Biscuit (5/5 - Complete)
I’m including this here because I’m doing the rest of them, but I already reviewed it back in the Oneshotober 2014 mass review. I will say that upon re-reading, there’s a bit more world-building that I didn’t initially appreciate. It makes for a very nice, pre-industrial take on Equestria.
207. Dinner with Rose by Admiral Biscuit (5/5 - Complete)
The third entry in the series continues much in same manner as the first two — a generally light and fluffy HiE fic with a strong emphasis on social mores and fitting into a new culture. I like that, while biological differences are a frequent topic, the bigger issue is how those biological differences impact cultural norms. The relationship between human body modesty and pony tail exposure did also come up, albeit briefly, and not between the primary characters. And more and more I want to fully ship Sam and Rose, but that’s a combination of their cute awkwardness and Rose having a very pretty design.
Kinda want.
Also, from the Author Notes blog:
Wild aster is edible. So are Chrysanthemums; when researching Celestia Sleeps In, I ate several on a sandwich.
Okay, I know I once baked a cake for the express purpose of being thorough in a review of one of Biscuit’s fics, but I think this puts him ahead of me in the “ridiculous things done to research fanfiction” category.
And, looking down in the comments, I actually already had this discussion with him.
208. Breakfast with Rose by Admiral Biscuit (5/5 - Complete)
Frankly, I think I could have combined all four fics into a single review, because the tone and quality are consistent throughout. But bigger numbers appeal to the toddler portion of my brain, so we’re doing it this way. I’m a bit disappointed that we didn’t get to see the presentation Sam is supposed give to Cheerilee’s class, but otherwise, all the things I liked about the first three parts are still going strong in this one.
209. The Tale of the Winter Mare by Crispn (1/5 - Complete)
I thought I’d be done with this blog after the Rose & Sam stories, but then I remembered Braiding was Oneshotober and thus already reviewed. The next bunch of things in my Favorites are all a bit longer than I want to read right now, so instead I went and pulled the least-viewed story from my To-Do shelf. I can’t recall why I added it to the list, but most likely I just saw the story in the New Submissions box and it caught my eye.
Anyway, this is an inoffensive little slice of life about freshly-bewinged Twilight throwing a Hearth’s Warming party, with the help of Spike and the Crusaders, and eventually telling them the ponified tale of Santa Claus. It has some problems with telling and POV switching (sometimes it’s third limited focused on Twilight, sometimes Twilight is in first person), though, as well as grammar and spelling errors throughout, and some painfully stilted dialogue during the story.
That story is honestly the main problem. It’s pretty generic, and though it’s presented as a folk tale explaining the origins of the more Christmas-like aspects of Hearth’s Warming, it never feels like it really explains anything. It doesn’t help that the twist ending is pretty predictable after the story characters read the Winter Mare’s letter.
Kinda makes me want to pull out the Hearth’s Warming story I was sketching out at one point again, though.
I want to pick up with my old standard of 10 short reviews per blog, but I'd rather start each one on an even 10, so I’ll leave off there. Now it’s just a question of whether I keep up with it at all.
The Sam & Rose fics are honestly some of the best HiE I've ever read. And it's weird, because they're just so unassuming, compared to the rest of their ilk.
The king has returned.
And yet you including A Sleeping Rose and Braiding under one number thus the total being one number smaller than it could have been.
I already had this set on my read late list but maybe I should get around to them sooner than later.
4812953
That's because I'd already done Braiding before. It's #69 in Oneshotober Reviews 3 (Review #127 overall).
Faking the numbers by counting the same fic twice is different.