Fimfadvent: Day 6 · 12:16am Dec 9th, 2020
Day 6! (It's actually Day 9 but I'm behind, ssssh don't tell anyone)
Today, I've picked The Ballad of Fire and Stone by SkyStrike__. This one's another crossover, although this time I have at least a little familiarity with the material as it's based on A Song of Ice and Fire.
I haven't read ASOIAF, and I stopped watching Game of Thrones around... season 5, I think? I thought GoT was great, I just haven't had a chance to pick it up since then. Let's see what's in store.
So despite this being billed as a crossover, the description says it's actually "A Song of Ice and Fire style kingdom", which makes me wonder how it does actually tie in with the book. I mean, it's presumably taking place on a completely different world with none of the same characters as the book, which feels more like original fiction to me. In any case that makes it easier on me, since I probably don't have to know anything about the original that way.
The story's main character Sky Quake Strike helpfully gives a crash history lesson to get me up to speed by explaining that there's a bunch of Changeling families who rule the land, and are all into that whole marriage and bloodlines thing that royals usually bicker over. Ponies, it seems, are the underclass in this society, which is a reversal of the normal changeling status that I found quite intriguing.
Anyway, Sky Quake's got a problem: he's an alicorn OC, and amazingly, he's a rare alicorn OC who is perfectly justified by the story and actually works as a character. Being a one-in-a-million immortal alicorn breed tends to get you noticed, and being noticed by feuding royals generally ain't good in the land of pointy chairs and dragons.
So, with a soon-to-be-crowned changeling queen in town, he tries to lay low, and somehow doesn't get suspicious when an old pegasus starts asking him questions about being an alicorn. Whoopsie! Fortunately the queen-to-be doesn't seem to be completely terrible, and she seems to be into him. All he's gotta do is convince her that he's not the alicorn she needs. Reckon that's gonna go well.
I liked this one. The first chapter is nicely paced overall, never feeling dull despite being not particularly action-packed. I feel like maybe some parts are maybe glossed over a little too rapidly, like Sky Quake's attempt to evade the royals, which could have been quite tense but is resolved very quickly. Lots of nice worldbuilding too, but never so much that I felt bogged down by details.
Oh, Sky's only just seen the beginnings of it. Fire Strike stopped pushing him because she saw how uncomfortable he was.
Anyways, I'm glad I got your attention with my story. I'm a beginner so and I'm sort of expecting people to poke holes in my story, but I was pleasantly surprised when you only had 1 major issue with it.