Story Reviews » SA: Round 149 · 10:07pm Apr 20th, 2019
Seattle's Angels is a group that promotes good stories with low views. You can find us here.
Matthew was waltzing through hallway A-27-84-B, music blaring through his headphones, when he came across a very unfamiliar door. Unfamiliar doors are not that odd of an occurrence in the Seattle’s Angels compound, unless you’ve waltzed through this particular hallway as often as Matthew had.
So Matthew did the logical thing and opened the door. Only to stumble into thin air and fall three stories onto a purple mat.
“Oh, hey Matthew,” Cynewulf said, turning her high-backed swivel chair around. “I see you finally found our new research center.” Cynewulf ninja-star threw four files at him. “Now about those reviews that were due last week...”
ROUND 149
Daybreak Dazzler has the best job in the world: Official Caffeinator of Canterlot Castle, and Personal Caffeine Liaison to Princess Luna.
Her life was not always this glamorous, however, and her journey from unknown barista to the Wizard of Wakeup was long and arduous. Fraught with frustrations and setbacks, this Miraculous Mare of the Most Marvelous Mocha refused to stay down.
Her story starts in the rainy downtown streets of Seaddle, at a little shop called Starbits...
There are some stories that win you over, and this is one of them. We all know what it's like to be frustrated by others when they go against the grain of what we expect. We like things a certain way, or expect the universe to proceed apace. C. S. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters has a bit where the “Subject”’s ladylove has a seed of silly but potentially alarming prejudice--and one we all have, where we assume what we know is Right. The knives in the kitchen we grew up in are the Correct Knives, and everyone else’s are silly and wrong.
Our protagonist is a uniquely Equestrian twist on that natural human inclination. She has an innate sense for coffee, and lets herself be controlled by it more than by her common sense. It’s tempting to read this as a kind of “the artist must be free” sentiment, but I don’t think that’s the best reading. Go ahead and give it a shot, and see what yours is--and consider what our protagonist learns.
I’m sure we’ve all had that feeling where we do our best to give someone that which they need, but they get angry because it’s not what they wanted. If you’re a parent, I’d expect you experience this on a daily basis. Well, that’s what Daybreak feels with the customers. But in her line of work, what the customer wants is all that matters. At least, it was until her dream job kicked her out like a dirty rug.
Honestly, there are so many different themes buried within this story, I’m betting everyone is gonna read it differently. Personally, I think it’s about not giving up on your dreams just because one door was slammed on your face. Perk up, pay attention, use what you have to help others, and you never know where it might take you.
Five private heavens have gone horribly wrong, leaving behind five little ponies just trying to find a way out.
I’ve not read much Skywriter, but perhaps I should. This is a kind of… what’s the word for a five part tryptych? We have four ponies giving a kind of confession to an at first mysterious interlocutor… and while you can probably see it coming before the end, it's still rather satisfying. There’s a sense of progression, even though we just have a series of conversations, all of them headed towards the final gentle but fulfilling conclusion.
There’s a lot to like here. The naturalistic confessional narration style is always hit or miss, no matter who is doing it, but it is mostly on point here. It’s decently in line with the character’s voices, and there’s a minimum of interrupting for “verisimilitude” that drags one out of the moment too badly, which is a blessing. Overall, highly recommended.
Gonna be honest, this story is… confusing if you just hop right in. At first, it seems disjointed, like just a collection of diaries with no real relation. But as you go chapter by chapter, a wild narrative in its natural habitat appears! Ok, ok, seriously though. As you read through, Starlight becomes more active in each of the chapters, and a little more forceful -- it’s like the build-up in a good horror story, slow and terrifying once you realize it -- all leading up to the last one... hers. And… it makes you think about Starlight’s redemption differently. And whether or not it’s any different than what she did to the others.
STORY 3
Treasures, by Carabas
When an old ruin is unearthed under Ponyville, it will take the boldest and most adventurous of ponies to dare sound its depths. Daring Do knows she's such a pony.
So what if she's eight and a half, and Dad says she can't go? That's a big age to reach, and he doesn't have to find out. So what if millennia-old dangers and secrets lurk in the darkness? That's the point of adventures.
She's got a saddlebag full of useful tools, countless stories telling her what ought to happen, and her Mom's old helmet. You don't need much more for your first adventure than that.
I adore Daring Do. Since she was introduced, I’ve adored her. The very first episode we had her as a character I was just captivated. It was a simple idea, more of a joke than anything else, but I had grown up watching and rewatching the Indiana Jones movies and hungered for something like it.
So, all that is to say: I loved this. It’s fun, it’s cute, and it has an eight (sorry, eight and a half) year old Daring Do on an adventure! What more could you want for a great fic?
As an adventure story, bracketing out the nostalgia and the cute young Daring Do, its pretty good! It’s got a good sense of risk, danger, a bit of awe, and that kind of back-brain tingling feeling you get when anything taps into how you felt as a kid. It’s novel length, but generally good at holding your attention and keeping the narrative flowing. It’s a good read in breaks in the day, and the kind of fic I used to get a lot of mileage out of when I was driving for a living and waiting on the next passenger.
I’ve said before I’m a sucker for changeling fics. Well, I’m also a sucker for Daring Do stories.
This one’s a little longer than the others, coming in at 50k words. But the narrative is such that it doesn’t feel like it’s long. Hay, I’ve read 10k fics that feel longer than this. When Daring’s dad is called in to survey a recently discovered ruin, Daring happily tags along. What more could a filly as fascinated by ancient cultures and exploration as she is want? There’s just one problem, Daring won’t be allowed to enter the dig with her dad. And if she went behind him, well, that’d just take all the fun out of it. So she does the logical thing, beat him to it.
What follows is honestly all I want in a story. An adventure with friendships forged, danger avoided, and just the right comedy/seriousness mix. All the better that this adventure contains Daring Do.
Prince Blueblood has everything he could ever want- wealth, power, food, wine. But on Hearth's Warming Eve, he realises he lacks what he truly wants- somepony who genuinely wants him around. Or so he thinks, until a late visitor helps him see that happiness does not have to be so hard to find. In fact, it's right in front of his face.
I love a good slice of life, but more than that I love stories that are “low-power”--no saving the world, no shattered nations or rising heroes, but realistic characters in mostly realistic circumstances. Brasta has painted a picture of a certain prince in bleak straits. While we cannot all know what it is like to feel absolutely isolated, alienated, and atomized (often for pretty understandable reasons) but we do know what it is to be those things at some point. Exploring those feelings through fiction can often be beneficial, and this is a good exploration.
Ah, yes, Blueblood. I can honestly say I love when authors take such an infernal, empty character and make something of him. And that’s just what Brasta did. It’s Hearth’s Warming, and everypony is with their families and friends just enjoying their company. Everypony except for Blueblood. He’s at home, ruminating on his alienation from social circles. Because, well, Brasta wrote him right. Blueblood only ever wanted friends, but no matter how much he tried to fit in or how hard he tried, ponies ridiculed and hated him even more. It’s easy, when you feel isolated, to miss the ones who do genuinely care about you. But when they step into your life, and make it clear they’re there for you, it’s pretty powerful. Pretty powerful indeed.
“And over here we have our 750 Petabyte review archive system, over here we have monitors to view any area within the compound, and this is our computer station for nice and easy reviewing and cute cat memes.” Cynewulf turned to Matthew, her grin as big as physically possible.
“That’s all great, but, um… when do I get to be untied from the dolly?”
“When you’ve figured out how to get reviews in on time, of course!” Cyne said, as cheerfully as bathtub bubbles.
Matthew sighed. “How am I supposed to do reviews without being able to move my arms?”
Cyne looked at him, before walking to the door. “Oh, you’ll figure it out. I’m sure of it. Just remember to lock up when you’re done, ok?”
Feel free to visit our group for more information and events, and to offer some recommendations for future rounds. See you all next time!
Deeply gratified to see Treasures featured, and much obliged to Cynewulf and Matthewl419 for their kind words about it.
Well, you know, one thing to keep in mind with Skywriter is that he's done other writing besides what he has here.
Shaenon Garrity used to do a webcomic named Narbonic, with all sorts of crazy mad sciency things. She often posted fan art and things fans sent her, and one time, she posted a full fanfic that was sent her in several parts. That was by Skywriter. And when she went and did a new webcomic named Skinhorse in the same universe, she teamed up with him, and he's been a cowriter on it for years. He's got a lot of practice by now!
Of course, I personally figured everybody would've read Sun Princess by now:
- MLP: FiM
- Sad
- Slice of Life
In the final days of her life, an exceptionally faithful student muses on the subject of her perfect and immortal mentor Applejack.Or there's Hoardsmiths:
- MLP: FiM
- Slice of Life
They are the Hoardsmiths. And they are completely insane.And he's written silly stuff, too:
- MLP: FiM
- Comedy
- Slice of Life
Rarity will totally chew you out for not using conditioner. Just see if she won't.- MLP: FiM
- Romance
- Comedy
- Random
Twilight Sparkle and her bedside table: like two 'ships that pass in the night.(And, you know, I really hate how copying urls from the url bar in the browser and pasting them inserts them with url bbcode when that's rarely what I actually want to do...)
--Sweetie Belle
Weird that Cynewulf and I have that in common.
It's extremely disorienting to see a Skywriter story eligible for Seattle's Angels. It's some sort of breakdown of a just universe that he's not getting thousands of views by, like, just existing in our proximity.