Site Post » Reviews! Round 40 · 7:11am Apr 2nd, 2014
Seattle's Angels is a group that promotes good stories with low views. You can find us here.
Upon the placid blue desert of the open sea, there was no shelter from the sweltering sun or the scorching wind. There was no shelter from the salty air that scratched the throat and leeched the moisture straight from the eyes. There was nothing but the bobbing of the ship, the creaking of the dry, splintering wood on deck, and the two Seattle’s Angels perched at the bow.
One might be tall if he wasn’t hunched over the railing, his eyes pinched into a permanent squint from interminable days of glaring at the unbroken surface of the waters. A heavy blue mariner’s coat, coarse and sticky from dried sweat and the powder of evaporated salt, hung in near tatters over his thin shoulders. His cap still featured the proud logo of the Angels, the forbidden word “Faffing” struck through with red, but the crisp shape it once had was now sagged and forlorn from several soakings in the sea. He had a peculiar habit of leaping from the hull to catch stubborn stories that threatened to slip loose from the nets.
The other occupant of the ship was a red squirrel who looked ready to die.
“We’ve been out here near three months. It’s been two weeks since the last sighting,” the squirrel rasped through a dry throat. “Fresh water’s nearly out.”
“Mmhmm,” grunted the other man.
“I reckon we can still make it back to land if we leave in the next three days, but even that’ll be stretching it.”
“Mmhmm.”
“Core,” said the squirrel, “I think we need to face facts. We missed the deadline. The shoals will not flash their silver fins for us. The sea only heaps a bounty of salt and heat upon our heads. We’ve failed.”
“Only when you give up, m’boyo. That be the only time our actions shall lead to failure.”
“Also I think the heat’s going to your head. You’re talking like a sailor, like, all the time now.”
“I got the beard for it ‘pon this voyage,” replied Corejo, stroking his extremely manly and salt-streaked stubble, “might as well get used ta’ the vernacular, aye?”
The squirrel gave a dusty, windswept sigh. “It’s over, Core. The Angels will starve. The bins will go empty and we’ll be forced to leave.”
“Have faith in the bounty of the sea, matey,” growled Corejo. “Sure, the waters of FIM Fiction are vaster’n they’ve ever been, an’ like a deep-plumbed mine her treasures are a mite harder to find… but she’ll deliver. She always has.”
Red coughed. For a long time there was silence. The sun passed the high noon mark and settled into the sweltering long haul of afternoon, and soon it would be in their eyes again.
“Look,” Red muttered, taking a final swig from his squirrel-sized canteen with Rarity’s cutie mark emblazoned on it, “for best pony’s sake, Core. It’s not worth it to die for something like this—”
“Hold on, boy!” Core said, grabbing Red’s arm, which because of the size difference meant his entire body. There was a distinctly loud and adorable squeak. “D’you feel that?!”
“I feel my stomach twisting in on itself from hunger if that’s what you mean.”
“No, no! Hold yer tail to the east, rodent! Give it a lick!”
Red gave a longsuffering groan, but did as he was asked once Core let him go. He almost heaved at the oceanic tang of a salt-encrusted tail, but when he held the scraggly thing proud and aloft, he nearly dropped it again in shock.
“A breeze,” he whispered. “At last, a breeze!”
The two of them stood there as a cool easterly wind kissed their cheeks. It started as a vagrant whisper, but grew swiftly into a blustering gale that almost knocked them over. On the horizon there was a line of white that soon became a great crest of foam from many splashing bodies.
“Arrr!” growled Corejo. “What’d I tell ye, Squirrel? Even in the worst doldrums our dear seethin’ sea of fics shan’t disappoint! Get the nets! Hoist the jibs! Finagle the yardarms!”
Red swung down to the deck and scampered along the splintery wood, leaping up and curling his fuzzy body around large levers to bring them down. With loud clanks and the beautiful hiss of unraveling rope, great nets collapsed into the water. Corejo dashed to the ship’s wheel and turned them about, picking up his best writer’s pen and bellowing into the gale whipping up great waves around the ship’s hull.
“FANFICTIONS HO!”
ROUND 40
STORY 1
Fall, by Axan Zenith
When a massive snowstorm sweeps through Equestria, the Wonderbolts are called to serve and protect.
Second person fiction, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
You are being used to dramatic effect in this story and it’s working!
In spite of second person fics having a somewhat sticky and unsavory reputation—meaning I generally just don’t like them— this fic manages to try and do what so many second person fics don’t: actually get the reader to immerse themselves in the story. While I’m not sure why, exactly, a genderless and anonymous pony is being cast as “you,” when I got to the end I realized that the faceless protagonist actually made this story work better and feel more touching as a result. Instead of flat out wish fulfillment, I found myself reading a fic that left me a bit more hopeful in anonymous heroism and the idea that bravery can be found in just about anypony, whether it’s their job to be brave or not.
In Fall, the reader is a Wonderbolt doing double-duty as a weather control agent, which sounds really cool until you realize that means you have to plod through a blizzard to hit a switch so FIllydelphia doesn’t suddenly run out of that newfangled electro-magic that’s powering their lights and warmth. It’s an interesting viewpoint, to say the least, but the dull, thankless nature of the job actually lends itself to a blank slate character. Why are you here? Why did you join the Wonderbolts? Why are you the one being sent on this milk run? These are the fun questions you get to answer for yourself.
Of course, the job is only complicated when you realize the blizzard is worse than you thought, and you may not be alone out there in the cold.
Like I said, what really works here is the immersion factor. It’s a lonely, dangerous situation, and there’s nopony who can help our plucky pegasus out of the danger. I can appreciate isolation when it’s combined with good scenery and appropriate stakes, and this story manages to pull them both out of its metaphorical hat. The scenery is the bleakness and solitude of wandering in a blizzard. The stakes are your life. I sincerely wanted to believe that I was capable of handling a situation like that, and being a character who could stand up to that kind of challenge is something we can all get behind.
Okay, maybe there’s a little wish fulfillment, but it’s on my part and it isn’t blatant within the story itself. It even comes with the enduring message that changing the world isn’t as important as doing what you know is right by other ponies. Who can say we were ever really here unless we make an impression on the lives around us, instead of the soil or the air? That this story touches on such themes despite being in a genre you wouldn’t expect and manages to make you feel like they were addressed properly is an accomplishment worthy of note.
In spite of this story being called Fall, it definitely raised my spirits.
So apparently we’re upping the ante on second-person fics we post. Overall, I’m still of the camp that third and first person perspective are inherently better than their second-person counterpart, but things exist for a reason. Today, that reason is Fall, a quick one-shot by Axan Zenith.
Let’s get this out of the way now: this story concept isn’t fresh out of the oven. Lots of other writers have explored the idea of “kicked-to-the-gutters protagonist does something morally subjective.” And I have to say it begins to wear on you after a while. This one, however, at least took it from an original angle.
You are a Wonderbolt assigned the task of fixing the power line that keeps all of Fillydelphia from freezing to death during a blizzard, in a nutshell. Things happen. “Oh, snap!”s are had. Moral ambiguity is shared by all. The pivotal decision made in the story is the safe one of the two—because who wouldn’t pick the same thing?—but it shows Axan Zenith’s awareness of his perspective. After all, you’re making the choice, right? You could argue that, but overall I had a problem with the perspective.
As most who oppose second-person perspective would tell you (myself included), the biggest pitfall of the perspective is how it forces a thought or feeling into the reader. “Don’t tell me I’m sad,” or “That’s not what I would have done,” are examples of what a dissenting reader would say to an according piece of narration. I had my fill of these moments while reading this story. The beginning paragraphs were deceptively enticing, setting the stage for what I thought was going to be a revelation of second-person fics. But then we got to the meat of the story, where the narrator began throwing ‘my’ thoughts and emotions around like a ball. There were moments where Zenith forwent internal monologue for stretches of observation, and lead me to my own conclusions of how I felt, but they were too spread out. For what they were, though, those bits were worth every word in them and gave me a more positive view on this perspective if one were to truly refine it. And I guess while I’m in the negative section of my review I might as well say I didn’t like the ending. It simply felt too forced yet happy.
Overall, I can say I enjoyed reading most of it, even if the narrative assumptions got all up in my grill more than was probably healthy. There was a section in the middle where the perspective switched to third person for story reasons. Though the story event was rather cliché, I definitely enjoyed the writing itself, which was on par with many of your more popular works in the fandom. If you like second-person stories about Wonderbolts, this one might tickle your fancy. To those who, like me, don’t enjoy being told what you feel, go ahead and skip over this one.
STORY 2
Fahr Drill, by MyHobby
Big Macintosh, as the Chief of the Ponyville Fire Brigade, is in charge of training prospective recruits for their noble community service. This time, the recruits are a bunch of young stallions who hope to do their little town proud. They're a little rough around the edges, but that shouldn't be a problem.
So, of course, it turns into a problem.
This would be the day the regular fire brigade is unavailable to fight fires...
Isn’t it amazing that Friendship is Magic manages to take mundane things and make them awesome? This story reminds us of why the show is so entertaining. It finds that little bit of magic in a simple thing and then gently blows on it until it balloons into an out of control explosion, rather like how a fire is started.
This is the story of how the Ponyville Fire Brigade fails really, really hard at their jobs. Of course, it’s not all their fault: Big Macintosh is the only responsible one in the group and the rest are a motley assortment taken from the town’s population of young colts and Spike, who can actually cause fires by breathing.
Fan favorites are all here: Rumble, Button Mash, Snips and Snails, Featherweight, and good old Pipsqueak wot wot cheerio chap are all in attendance to help Big Mac not fight fires at all while he tries to help them do otherwise. All the colts are given very distinct personalities in very few words, and while that’s a concise assessment it’s actually an extremely impressive thing. MyHobby knew who he was writing and how he would do it before he even got to their parts in the story, and I applaud him for that.
The story is divided into two sections: the part where Mac tries to train the little colts and dragon, and the part where they actually “fight” a fire. The comedy in the former is derived from a totally normal situation turning rather hilarious because of great character interaction between silly little boys acting their age, and the comedy of the latter comes from the juxtaposition of a normal day in a normal town being interrupted by a very abnormal fire. Why is this important? Well, down-to-earth comedy that you find in ponies acting totally normal in funny ways is really, really hard to do. That Fahr Drill makes it entertaining is good enough on its own. But this turns into greatness when the second variety of oddball strangeness is thrown into the mix, and it’s mostly why I recommend the story.
The characters are flawed, but likeable, and they wouldn’t be funny without those flaws. We laugh because we like them. The story itself is well written and easy to devour in a single afternoon. The writing is above par and I’m kinda running out of good things to say. So the real question isn’t “how many incompetent colts does it take to not put out a fire” but “why aren’t you reading this yet?”
Big Mac is one of those characters we don’t get to see much of through the show. While that has certainly changed here in season four, he’s still the same old, lovable support character we’ve known since season one. Big, strong, and dependable, no other canon character personifies a firefighter quite like him. He was a good pick for this story over any OC MyHobby could have come up with. More importantly, these characteristics are played just so for the comedic factor derived from the trainees that make up the central joke of the story.
Naturally, the trainees—Featherweight, Snips, Snails, Button Mash, Pip, Spike, and Rumble—are the exact opposite of what one would call “firefighter material.” Things quickly get out of hoof for Big Mac, and we as the audience are left to empathize.
It’s a short story—only 2k—so there isn’t much wiggle room for a well-rounded buildup of events, which is the story’s biggest drawback. MyHobby does a great job instilling each character with character, but the silliness we get from their interactions simply doesn’t have time to be what it wants (I liken the thought to the Royal Wedding two-parter: good episodes, but not enough air time to do it justice). I would have loved this story to have been in the 4-6k range, just for the sake of smoothing out interactions and to justify reasons for certain events. But that shouldn’t be a deterrent, as the characters in this story shine far brighter than those in many others.
There’s no reason not to read this one. Come for the laughs, and then stay for them, too.
STORY 3
The Nightmare Sonata, by adcoon
Lyra never had a nightmare in her life, so why did she ever decide to compose a piece embodying the spirit of the night terror in honor of Princess Luna? More importantly, how will she find a nightmare to help her?
Normally a fic about a pony reaching beyond their station to try and achieve greatness has the tragedy tag crawling all over it. There’s going to be a lot of grimdeath and horrordark, somepony’s probably going to die, other ponies will be shocked and traumatized forever, and the whole thing will end in a flash of fiery destruction.
This isn’t one of those stories. In fact, in showing a pony trying to reach out and touch something not usually able to be touched, this story shows how doing such a thing just might help us make a new friend, even with ponies who once frightened or even hurt us in the past. This is a story about finding inspiration in the dark. It’s a story about a creative pony who, in the process of creating, finds out how to be a better pony at the end. Most importantly, it’s a story about Lyra Heartstrings not being obsessed with humans.
Lyra is suffering from musician’s block. She wants to write something great, something inspiring and lovely, and she wants it to be written in the name of Princess Luna. But she can’t. Figuring that Luna is the Princess of the Night, she delves into all things scary to inspire herself. Urban legends, Rainbow Dash’s horror movie collection, and even including summoning an actual Nightmare is on the list of things Lyra will do to be able to write again.
Hm, I wonder if that’ll work for us? Someone look up ‘summoning arcane horrors’ on the list of how well things cure writer’s block.
But this story is not a horror story. It’s a heartwarming one about Lyra learning how to be a little less focused on being the greatest musician ever and more about being a better friend than she was before. One doesn’t normally find genuine self-improvement in a tale like this, and it drew me to it like a Hollow to a bonfire. Lyra is searching, but the objective of that search changes through the story from ‘write great music’ to ‘maybe fix some of the things I got wrong in life.’ Maybe it doesn’t do that the most organically or the most inventively, but the change is pleasant and made me feel really, really good when I finished this tale.
It does help that Lyra’s characterization is a bit off-kilter—she’s not a wacky comedic sidekick or a crazy conspiracy-theorist or even (Celestia forbid) a depressed hoodie-wearing curse bearer, but a very driven artist who is merely desperate to make something worthwhile. This is a freshness, a newness, an originality to her character that I think is sorely missing when it comes to our fanon. Why isn’t Lyra portrayed as something other than what she has been for the last three years? Why not take her or Derpy or Time Turner in completely new and unexpected directions?
Why not, like Lyra in this tale, reach out beyond the comfort zone and up to the stars themselves?
Mmmm… This story is delicious. Not in an eating sense, silly. I don’t know how that’d be possible, unless I eat my computer—which would be expensive and probably dangerous. What is delicious about this story though is the writing.
This is the final of the four stories in terms of what I’ve read, and I have to agree with the old addage “last but not least.” “Last and definitely first” is more accurate here. adcoon shows off his/her ability to write with the piece The Nightmare Sonata, and does so remarkably well.
The tone of the story is consistent. An initial expectation might be that of something that would progressively become scary, or have some scary parts to it, but adcoon keeps things simple and never strays from his objective. It’s about Lyra seeking something she’s never experienced before: a nightmare. There’s more parallelism and other storytelling things going on here, but it never really lets on until the end, keeping the story fresh and interesting along the way.
Normally this is where I would shift to a ‘bad’ aspect of the story, as is a loose norm of my review process, but frankly, it’d be impossible to do that with this story… There really isn’t anything bad to say about it. The writing is brilliant, never flowery yet always exquisitely interesting; the pacing is spot on, with actions well planned and Lyra’s thoughts chained logically; and dialogue flows effortlessly. The last of that list is key; dialogue is easily the hardest thing to execute in a story, as each character needs their own voice and speech patterns. This story doesn’t disappoint—even the narrative of the book had its own distinct voice! Now that’s knowing your characters.
Did I mention it’s about Lyra? And that it’s not about some obsession with humans or their human-y appendages? It’s a serious story about Ponyville’s own musical mare in a realistic situation. What other reason do you need? You know, besides all the stuff I mentioned above about how objectively great this story is.
How can an entire race be defined by only a few words? There's so much to them than that.
Spike's going to fix that, and maybe learn something about himself along the way.
Short and sweet is something that can describe the very show we watch. So it’s only fitting that most often the inspiring stories that remind us that fine tales are contained even in small packages don’t even break 3,000 words.
In this little vignette, Spike is doing something that almost nobody can envy him for: reading the dictionary! Why is he reading it? Because he’s a growing dragon and maybe he’s actually kind of interested in learning for once? I’m not sure. It’s not the strongest setup, but the payoff comes when Spike discovers that “dragon” is in fact a word in the dictionary. Excited to learn what the rest of the world thinks of his kind, he opens it up to find… a devastatingly succinct summary. Upset at the injustice of his entire race being boiled down to a sentence or two he decides to think up his own definition, going off what he’s learned and just what he intuitively feels.
What results is a short but rather nice exploration of how Spike sees his own kind. There’s some rumination and introspection as Spike lists out the qualities of dragonhood, and some interjection by Twilight Sparkle. This is a quick scene that manages to give some depth to a character many are accusing of being railroaded into incompetent or comedic sidekick territory. One thing that I especially commend it for is being able to write Spike as the young person that he is. He is maturing and developing, but he’s nowhere near finished, and his thoughts are similarly uncertain in this story. One thing we seem to forget is that Spike might show flashes of maturity, but they’re just that. He needs help and guidance and often has very odd ways of doing things that only the young can think of, and he’s very stubborn about those things.
The most heartwarming thing, though, is that it touches on something that the show itself probably needs to address even more than it has already: Spike’s search for identity. I can’t say much without spoiling an already short story, but I can heartily recommend it and suggest that learning authors take a few cues from it.
I congratulate the author for taking a character who so many seem to exaggerate in ways that just feel wrong, and writing a small yet pleasing story that feels so right. Take a look if you don’t believe me!
A Spike story! I don’t read these often. I have nothing against the little guy, it’s just I’ve never seen him as a character capable of being a “main” character. I love his general usage as a voice of reason in the show, but whenever he became the central character of an episode, I was always left feeling disappointed, as his “character development” often entailed a forced series of events/mindset to drive the plot of the episode (like the Owlowiscious episode). And it was often in an over-the-top manner intended to wring out every last laugh from the audience (again, Spike’s villain costume from that same episode).
Sadly, many of the Spike stories I’ve read follow the same pattern of silliness through forced character extremes. But I was glad to have read Definition of Me.
This story is less a story and more a ‘moment in the life.’ A dictionary arrives for Twilight, Spike decides on a whim to read it, and thoughts/feelings follow. Very little happens, and the moral is simple, albeit cliché. I still like it, however, because it’s short and it knows what it wants to say. And it doesn’t put Spike into a ridiculous situation just for the hell of it. It lets him be him—the young and impressionable dragon that he is—and that’s a lot more than most Spike stories can say. This Spike felt real. He had the simple-minded innocence of a child that fits his assumed age range, and an equally inverted self expectation. Grayson Gears pulls off Spike’s character development from the show to this point well, and that shines toward the end when it comes time for the climax, if there really is one. Again, it’s more of a short non-story, but certainly worth your time.
I have to say that there were lots of grammar errors—mostly comma splices—but they didn’t feel seriously hindering. If you find that these kinds of mistakes give you migraines, stay away. But otherwise this is a nice piece of realistic, relatable Spike.
In less than an hour, after a flurry of activity, it was done.
Corejo and RedSquirrel sat on the deck of the ship, soaked to the bone. A mad scramble to catch as many stories as possible and sift through them to bring home only the best left them exhausted, yet flush with victory. They bore the scars: ink spatters, bits and pieces of run-on sentences and loose letters, even a few dangling entrails of purple prose. It was all splashed on their bodies and across the hull of the ship.
They turned and looked at each other, then turned back to their catch. Four great stories that had been wrestled into submission, reviewed for quality and ready for general consumption. It had come late this year, but still, it had come. The churning sea of fanfiction still had some pearls to be fished from it yet.
“It’s time we got back to port,” said Red.
“Aye, that it be,” whispered Corejo.
Neither of them moved.
“How about we just sit here a while first,” said Red. “Take it all in.”
“Aye,” grunted his shipmate. “I can manage that.”
As the receding story shoal retreated into the distance, the two reviewers sat in silence. They turned their faces up to the next breeze and wondered when the next great rush of stories would come.
They looked up at the mast of their ship, where the proud banner of Princess Neon Boom still flew in the dying wind, weather-beaten but unbroken.
And in their hearts they knew that as long as such sights could be seen, the world still had some great catches left.
Feel free to visit our group for more information and events, and to offer some recommendations for future rounds. See you all next time!
3 things, SA.
> Obs
> You should have waited instead of publishing this at 3-f-am.
> I'm done.
1976396
[angst intensifies]
Wow, I'm ... wow
Thanks for reviewing my story. Now I feel all strangely proud
I'm looking forward to reading some of these. Thanks!
1976396
asset-9.soup.io/asset/1593/7684_9473.jpeg
And then the SS Fimfic crashed on a desert island and they starved.
"Dragon: Mostly harmless."
The dictionary? Geez, what are you Spike, a Sweetie Belle?
Lyra is not obsessed with humans. Thank goodness, I hate that meme. Makes a ton more sense that she's fascinated with preadolescent dragons anyway.
1976473
I was proud to do it! Your story was perhaps the best on the list. Funny story, I actually remembered yours from way back when I first read it in 2012. That's how good it was.
1976942
That's awesome to hear. Even though I can see plenty of flaws now that I look back on it, I was always pretty happy with how it turned out. It's good to know others like it too
Hmm, the more these review rounds come out, the more I realize how little I actually have to say about them. The intro/outro segments have become increasing same-y (no seriously, look at the intros and outros of the past four rounds. They are all the exact same premise, but with different settings and different reviewers), and since I have a habit of waiting until after I read a featured fic to read its reviews, I wind up having very little to say about them (that doesn't end up in the comments of that particular story). At the very least, we have four promising stories from authors I haven't heard of, so that's always good.
It says:
Just a heads up.
All hail thee, king of over-generalization.
You know, I'm tempted to say there's something wrong with this sentence.
Anyway, I'm tossing Story 4 onto my pile of read-laters, simply for the sake of writing better. It's apparently supposed to be a goo read, too.
With a catch like that, you're going to have to do some shady dealings on a foggy wharf to trade it in for your next set of stories.
Oh, awesome. Thank you very much for the feature! And for the spot-on critique.
It's always been my hope to infuse every story with as much character as I can, and I'm happy to see that i'm on the right track. I just need to remember to make my stories long enough to display that character, since that's become a pretty consistent criticism. Heh.