Story Reviews » SA: Round 155 · 9:04pm Jul 28th, 2019
Seattle's Angels is a group that promotes good stories with low views. You can find us here.
Ebon Quill wandered down the empty hallway. How long had he been walking? Hours, it seemed. Why did the SA headquarters have a twenty mile long hallway? He wasn’t sure, but he felt with a deep-seated certainty that, if he did know, he’d hate the answer. Pausing to wipe his brow, he knocked on a door with a resigned passivity borne of the knowledge that, if the last 2,231 rooms had been empty, the odds of finding a human in this one were low.
“Coming!” came a chipper voice from inside.
A moment later, Chris threw the door open. “Ah, Ebsy, you’re just in time!” Throwing an arm around Quill, Chris ushered him into the room. “Come on, we’ve got reviews to write.”
Shaking his head violently, Quill pushed Chris’s hand off his shoulder. “Chris? What are you doing here? Where is everyone? What’s going on?” He looked around the room. “Actually, uh… I still want answers to all those questions, but first: why are we in a broom closet?”
Chris took a seat on a box of detergent, and gestured politely towards a stack of stained, damp-looking towels. Quill elected to remain standing. “Because I feel at home in cramped, dark, uncomfortable, and slightly wet spaces. Turns out that’s a common thing among fanfic reviewers; you would not believe how hard I had to fight to get this office!” Chris shuddered, and his eyes glazed over. “Sometimes, late at night, I can still hear the pained cries of Corejo after I…” he trailed off, and focused once more on his comrade. “Anyway, point is, he got stuck with one of those spacious corner-window offices. Sucks to be him!”
“Right…”
“And, to answer your other questions: working on reviews, at Bronycon, and you’re literally the only other person in this fandom who isn’t currently traveling to Bronycon so you get to be my review partner. Respectively.”
“O-kay, I guess I can do that.” Ebon looked around the closet a second time, hoping it would look less like a broom closet and more like a workspace now that he’d acclimated to it a bit. It did not. “But can I work, er, somewhere… well, really, anywhere else?”
Chris shrugged dismissively. “Sure, feel free to grab someone else’s office if you want. Good luck finding a more primo spot than this, though.”
ROUND 155
One Cuil is one level of abstraction away from the reality of a situation.
For example: Twilight Sparkle looks for a book...
Here's a total mindscrew of a fic which doesn’t apologize for its arbitrary capriciousness—either in-story or on the meta-level. One thing I appreciate about it is that you can skim through it knowing basically nothing about the premise and putting little effort in, and still enjoy it as a descent-into-madness dark comedy. I mean, hey, it’s full of random non-sequiturs, horror masquerading as zaniness, and it’s got a classic stinger of an ending. Good, clean, Z-grade fun!
But, if you know what “Cuil Theory” is, then things fall into place (well, as much as a story with this premise can be said to have an “in place” to fall into), and the author does a lot of clever nesting that isn't obvious unless you're specifically looking for it. Cuil Theory may be a joke, but the great thing about this story is that it takes that joke and runs with it. Oh, and in case "Cuil Theory" means nothing to you, this is one of the simpler, better explanations I've read).
But whether you go in fresh or familiar, you’re sure to get a faceful of WTF? out of this. Do you enjoy that feeling? Then consider giving this a try: it’s one of the most carefully, deliberately constructed, and artfully arranged piles of unrepentant absurdity which the site has to offer.
Zero
A beautiful descent into the weird, and also a meditation on subconscious connections between metaphor and reality. Highly recommended.
One
A story is written about madness. It is also appropriately mad. Prepare for turbulence, our reality is about to shift.
Two
Finding yourself on the second floor, you descend a story on a staircase made of angry penstrokes. They gibber in tongues. Somewhere, bells ring. You arrive where you left, on the first floor. The air smells of cotton candy.
This is a tale passed down for generations, a tale of an age before there was peace between the Griffons and the Equestrians.
Here we have a piece of griffon lore, from the old days of Equestria. A story from back when ponies and griffons didn’t get along so well. And, well, if you know anything about the mythological origins of gryphons, you can probably imagine just what “didn’t get along so well” might entail. But don’t make the mistake of dismissing this as just another attempt to graff some violence and death onto the Magical Land of Equestria™; this is a tale about friendship, and learning from one another. It just happens to be framed by a very different creature, from a very different time, than our own Twilight Sparkle.
Told in a reserved, almost fairytale-style, Mountain Clan is dark, tense, and fully into the culture-mind of its protagonist. It's a grim fable about learning empathy, one that doesn't try too hard for a perfect happy ending, and feels much more powerful because of that. Because you can’t really go from “ponies are food” to “let’s all hold claws and sing kumbaya” overnight.
But every journey starts with a single step. And as halting—and ultimately, as tragic—as that step may be, here we get to see that step taken. Empathy is hard, but in the end, the author promises us that understanding will come. It’s an uplifting message, and one which the story never undercuts, even as it subverts expectations.
A tale of a hunter learning empathy for the Other is interesting, and this one is well-told. It reads like a legend, but not one passed orally. There's none of the repetition nor any of the rhythm one would expect. This feeds into the biggest unanswered question in the story, "Whose legend is it?"
If it's a griffon fable, and this seems most likely given the focus placed on them, this is the story of how this clan began to see Friend and not Food. This is interesting, but perhaps not the most unique take I've seen. Similarly, this could be a pony legend about how Foe turned Friend, supported by the curious note that only the pony's emotions are really explored. This is also neat, but also fairly standard.
There is a third option, and this is why I give this one a recommendation. Whether intended or not, the author has struck on precisely the tone and structure of an anthropologist collecting folklore from their field of study. I am reminded of nothing more (and nothing less) than Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan and other works, where the outsider is relating stories told to them by their host culture. Is this the work of a pony xenologist studying griffons? Or a pony anthropologist (equipologist?) studying the past of a village on the northern frontier? Where did this tale originate?
Come for the surprisingly gritty griffons, stay for the worldbuilding. If the author intended this read, great! If not, they managed to do something even published authors struggle to do. Either way, this is fascinating.
Maybe dragons should be tough.
Maybe they shouldn't care for anybody else.
Maybe they were never meant to hold a needle...
Here’s a story about feeling. Both the emotional kind, and the physical sort.
Because, while it’s really about the former, the story uses the as a deft metaphor throughout. Specifically, Spike's mood was explored primarily through his lack of physical sensation (thick scales, dragonish resistance to heat). There's a very male-expectations-of-reserve poignancy that the emphasis on not feeling gives the whole story, and it gives a very simple story some unexpected weight.
Because, at its core, this is a simple story, one about Rarity and Spike trying to help each other feel—a turn of phrase with at least three applicable meanings, in a fic like this. Never fear, it’s a very chaste fic, but also one that packs a lot of emotions into a small space, all without directly discussing any of them. It makes the whole story feel intensely real; normal people don’t run around spouting their emotions at each other, after all. And through its reserve, it manages to be a more warming tale than many that are twice as explicit, and ten times as long.
When we hurt others accidentally, we can withdraw into ourselves as a response. As the brilliant vibrancy of childhood begins to fade, we can isolate ourselves. We do these things as a defense mechanism. We can't hurt our friends if we don't have any to hurt. We can't lose the bright, shiny life we had as a kid if we never replace those experiences.
Spike is in the middle of both of these, and Rarity won't have it.
However, this is presented with not one whit of the usual melodrama associated with these characters, only a quiet warmth with an undercurrent of concern. It's moving in its minimalism. Give this one a read.
The time streams are in disarray after Twilight and Starlight's escapades. Continuity is threatened, and futures that shouldn't be are at risk of bleeding over into the consensus reality.
Princess Luna's on cleanup duty, leaving her with the task of travelling to all the likely outcomes and making sure they stay within their own continuities, so no villains turn out to have not been defeated in the present. A usual night of travelling outside of her body and fixing things.
Unlike usual, she gets some company in the form of a draconequus. One who apparently has some things he needs to get off his chest, regarding how he's been treated and all the other villains have.
Seems Luna's not the only one with a few chips on her shoulder...
All good stories have something worth recommending. And ultimately, if I had to pick a single reason to recommend Memory Lane, it would be on the strength of its unrelenting interestingness.
The story here is largely composed of character banter, and the premise is a fine one for that purpose: Luna and Discord go to visit the alternate realities that Twilight and Starlight saw during the S6 finale. But this is much more than a tour with some jokes; Wise Cracker uses that all as a backdrop to explore how two creatures who've been on the wrong side of Harmony in the past feel about justice, compassion, and Twilight in particular. Plus, the little whiffs of lorebuilding and explanatory asides (I particularly liked the one about why Starlight can self-levitate) keep the story engaging even outside of its primary plot merits.
The story also plays its protagonists' ages well, using their literal millennia of existence to explore darker and lighter material in a way that could lead to a dreadful case in another fic, but here is grounded in its characters’ sheer oldness. Things then were not the same as things now, and these two have had to grow and change through it all.
But the author doesn’t ask us to agree with Luna when, say, she discusses ancient heretic-burning. In fact, we’re never really asked us to agree with either of the main characters. Instead, we’re simply shown what they’re up to, and what they’re discussing, and allowed to take it in on our own terms. In a word: it’s interesting.
A stroll through various apocalypses with two reformed villains. We wander with them through various other villains triumphant, and hear their musings on each. A fun read resulting in flaming monkeys.
By the end of it, we really feel like we've gotten to know these two personalities, and the question as to why Discord Triumphant never occurred is one I'd also like the answer to. If you like character studies and alt-history fun, this is for you! Especially for subtle worldbuilding. I'm always a sucker for that.
“Well, that was surprisingly painless,” said Ebon Quill, as he lined up another putt. “Also, getting to steal Wanderer D’s office for a couple days has been cool. Hope he doesn’t mind that I’ve emptied out his minibar.” He swung the club, and watched the ball glide cleanly over the artificial turf and into the hole. “Plus, the entire room being carpeted with an in-office green is nice.”
Chris scoffed. “Yeah, I guess. It’s not exactly a bare concrete floor that always seems to have a quarter-inch of standing water despite having a drain right at its center, but I guess not everyone’s office can be as swanky as mine.”
Feel free to visit our group for more information and events, and to offer some recommendations for future rounds. See you all next time!
ghghghghhgh you and your Cuil Theory, Chris >:V
I leave for two days and you maniacs blow up my notifications feed.
Thanks for the review, both as a signal boost and as a good source of feedback. It's nice to know when you're aiming for something and actually manage to land a specific hit. For practice, it can be important if you have something specific in mind to work on.
All that to say: interesting was the basic primary goal, and it's a huge relief to know that it was hit. So thanks again
Bark bark bark....
I generally substitute “hippologist” where we would use “anthropologist”.
Of course, that works for a wide variety of words—I played a pony hippocide detective in a demonstration session of the Roan role-playing game, for instance.
I'm so grateful that you guys decided to review my fic! Thank you!