Cerulean's Voice On The Matter #12 · 7:04am Mar 16th, 2015
With my unread chapters of tracked stories sitting at a very cool zero right now, I figure it’s time to knock off a few other one-shots on my RL. I’m down to 26 fics, and a total of a mere 690k words. If things go how I like, I’ll have the list whittled down completely after a few more weeks. Heck, I could actually start reading stories then and there when recommended to me, instead of them languishing for weeks or months. Whoever thought it could be possible?
Six reviews in here. I do hope you find something to whet your appetite. (This will bring me down to 20! Oboi! 
) And as a special sort of layout, since four stories come from the same ’verse, I’ll be piling ‘Them’ all together as if they were one story. Grab that one at the top.
(Warning: Mature stories below)
Story: Feed Them, Entertain Them, Hunt Them, and Guide Them
Author: RainbowBob and PaulAsaran
Synopses:
Spike takes care of Twilight the best he can. She's sick, but he knows she'll get better and everything will get back to normal. But first, he needs to feed her.
After months of surviving in the ruins of Canterlot, Vinyl finally made a mistake. Now trapped with salvation just beyond her grasp, she waits for hunger to end her life.
Then a miracle comes in the form of Octavia.
Yet Vinyl is about to learn that tough times can really change a mare...
In the gradually deteriorating ruins of Cloudsdale, Spitfire juggles searching for survivors and leading those she has found into the future. With Misty Fly at her side, she devotes everything to giving the last of the city's citizens some hope amongst all the death.
Yet when ponies begin disappearing on routine searches, Spitfire realizes that there's something much worse wandering Cloudsdale than the undead. The survivors are being hunted by something focused, determined... and intelligent. Now she and Misty must find this killer and put a stop to the violence before everything they've worked for is lost forever.
Manehattan has fallen. The princesses are silent. Coco Pommel and Babs Seed are unlikely partners struggling for survival in what's left of a world gripped by death. As they cling to one another through hope and despair, they pray for the chance to escape and meet other survivors. Then, one miraculous morning, it seems their prayers are answered in the form of a new ship at harbor.
Yet salvation comes at a price neither of them may be willing to pay...
Length: 4,537 / 7,480 / 14,561 / 15,756 words over 4 stories (all one-shots)
Status: All Complete
Review: This is a first! Reading four stories in the same ’verse by two different authors. I figured this would be easier than trying to do each story individually, since both of these authors are known to produce high quality writing. Also, the stories bear the same theme and are set in the same AU, so I elected to read them all as if they were different standalone chapters of the same story. How does each one fare, standalone or connected?
Starting with Feed Them, we follow Spike as he does his level best to remain calm in a Ponyville long-gone from salvation. While Spike seems his usual cheery self, the creep factor sets in almost immediately, starting with the way he’s seen running back to the library, latching multiple locks, and opening the basement to a horrific stench. It’s easy to tell from that point on what’s happened, and you might as well stop reading there if you feel knowing what’s up lessens the story… but I was just so intrigued by Spike’s dialogue. It feels like he’s trying to comfort and look after Twilight, when of course he’s really trying to keep himself calm. This definitely takes its cues from I Am Legend, but it’s rather unsettling to read about our favourite ponies having had this tragedy befall them. While fairly predictable past the first thousand words, the story still manages to be satisfying the whole way through, leading up to the rather dark act that Spike must perform, and the open-ended ending only brings more chills. I’ll be honest: I haven’t read many zombie / infected-style stories here, but Feed Them has set the bar. Now, how do the sequels fare?
Opening up Entertain Them, the beginning immediately shows a different tone from Feed Them. Instead of Spike running with a sense of urgency and duty, we have Vinyl Scratch just… lying there in a caved-in shop. Starving. In pain and too lethargic to move. While Feed Them tries to keep the mood light-hearted in spite of the tragedy and overall creep-factor of the theme, Entertain Them gives no such illusion. We start with a bleak situation, to be filled with hope as help arrives for Vinyl in the form of Octavia. A trip through Canterlot allows Octavia to deliver a tonne of exposition about the world, and as with Spike when talking to Twilight, Vinyl is unable to respond, although the difference is due to her near-death weakness rather than an affliction. For a while it seems like things are going to be just fine… and then the chills arrive. One by one. Hot damn. While anyone savvy with PA’s work will spot the twist coming a mile away, it makes it no less disturbing and visceral as the subtleties unfold. Another difference between ET and FT is that ET actually closes off its ending… in a clever but chilling way.
Hunt Them, the next in the series, is actually the one I’m most looking forward to reading. After all, it’s in Cloudsdale! That should be a truly safe place, right? Right? Well, you know how the worst thing you can do to a murderous, out-of-control, starving zombie chasing you is set it on fire, because then you’ll have a murderous, out-of-control, starving zombie on fire chasing you instead? Yeah? How about adding wings to that equation? Okay okay, so the zombie pegasi can’t fly. But the zombie pegasi are the least of your worries. I’m taking time now to warn people that his story does contain graphic imagery and potentially upsetting scenes, the worst of what this ’verse has to offer so far. For those who’ve played The Last of Us, that should be a big enough clue what to expect. What Hunt Them does on opposing levels is a clever piece of writing craft; following two reasonably well-armed pegasi in the beginning (both Wonderbolts, no less), we feel like there might be some measure of hope for them. So, naturally, there needs to be another player in this game besides the hordes of infected, just to level the playing field. It’s a heart-stopper, full of suspense that will keep you reading on with morbid curiosity… assuming the sensitive scenes a quarter into the fic don’t turn you away. If anything, Hunt Them is a character study on humanity as a whole, and it that doesn’t make you sit up and think, then you poor, naive soul. This is the most unapologetic of the bunch by far, and may Celestia have mercy on your soul for experiencing it. The bar has been raised.
Unicorn desolation, pegasus desolation… Guess we all know what’s coming up next, huh? Flying right across the country to the city of Manehattan, Guide Them centers on Coco Pommel in the darkest story I’ve seen her appear to date. The situation has matured her into the role of guardian well, and it’s a delight seeing her try to talk sense into the more cocky and brash Babs Seed. Still, they seem to have it better than any of the other ponies so far in the universe, which sorta makes you have to root for them. If there’s anything negative to say about it, the reveal and the twist came far too easily, and it really made me feel like reading onward from the point of the ship’s arrival—in particular the Lowly Father’s introduction—was about to become something I had committed myself to do rather than genuinely wanting to do. But then, he let them go… and so came the reversal of attitude between characters that I’ve seen in Paul’s writing before. And then suddenly it all went to shit. Subtleties in the intro, for the win. From there on though, it’s a fairly predictable ‘game over’. I caught that reference to Suri Polomare, too.
Honestly, I think Guide Them was probably my least favourite of the bunch, with Hunt Them taking first, Entertain Them in second and the original Feed Them coming in third. Hunt Them was brilliant in setting up the psychological horror and the slow doom of its characters, and I take delicious pleasure reading descriptions of tortured, incinerated, lobotomised characters. Entertain Them took just a little longer to spring its twist than the others (in terms of percentage of words read to get there) and did so brilliantly while offering that actual idea of hope along with the inner machination of a twisted mind. Feed Them kicked it all off, but while it was interesting to see Ponyville and how Spike ended up the lone survivor(?) of the bunch just talking to “himself,” that one felt a little dragged out. And of course, Guide Them, being the longest of the four, unfortunately suffered from simply having too many words; it could have been told in half the count and had a very similar impact, and while I normally love worldbuilding and little tidbits of detail everywhere, I felt that ultimately hurt this one too much.
tl;dr: the Themverse is where it’s at for zombie apocalyse stories, at least for me. Some people should consider contributing to it. Moving on!
Story: A Rose For Luna
Author: Ocalhoun
Synopsis:
Finally, Roseluck's special project is complete. Now, it's time for her to request an audience with Princess Luna, and see if her rose really does give her luck.
Length: 2,884 words (one-shot)
Status: All Complete
Review: Hmmm. Maybe it’s just me, but all of the deliberation and anxiety Rose felt throughout the story seemed far too excessive. I’d say all of her efforts to grow this flower and woo Princess Luna for four years is definitely too obsessive for my liking. I mean, she met the mare once and fell so head over heels then and there? I just can’t accept the over-the-top anxiety and devotion. Still, while I’m not a sucker for romance or things of a poetic nature, the prose was good and the imagery was pretty splendid. Rose obsessing over the flower felt like a Rose thing to do, and not simply because it was intended to be a gift for the object of her affections. Luna’s flat-out “This is a lovely flower, let’s go on a date” though was far too abrupt and forward for me, even though that’s explained a short time later. I think if it wasn’t so presented as a “twist,” it wouldn’t feel as forced. I’d have preferred her to flat out tell Rose that she knew and was very flattered, so the least she could do was indulge her for such an amount of effort, all the while not promising that a romance is possible... just, a reward for effort that might lead to bigger things. A nice story, but not my forté. At the end of the day, there's no denying the writing quality. I found a scattered few things like comma splices that you could fix up, but there were so few it probably isn't worth worrying about.
Story: Great and Powerful?
Author: Manaphy
Synopsis:
After the events of "Magic Duel", Trixie abandons Ponyville after all the trouble she caused, afraid of what will happen if she were to stay. During her long travel, she stops at a diner to get some food, but this decision will affect Trixie much more than she expects.
Length: 5,270 words (one-shot)
Status: All Complete
Review: After months of witnessing a great amount of self-depreciation from this author—seriously, cut that out; it’s almost as irritating as Starlight Nova’s incessant Equestria Daily comments on every fic they read—toward their writing as a whole, I decided once and for all to see if this level of low self-esteem is actually justified (protip: it’s really not, unless you’re actually a terrible person and you seem kinda nice). Why not start with a Trixie fic? Well, there’s a few odd choices of words, I suppose, such as “surveying at” instead of just “surveying.” That’s not all that’s strange; there’s a part near the start of the story that I think is supposed to be psychological but comes across as a very physical, real event, and when read as such, doesn’t seem to make much sense. Some good similes in here though, which I appreciate. Paragraph structure’s a bit inconsistent. I’m not sure I buy the angsting over why Twilight forgave her either. I mean, she pretty much asked for forgiveness and accepted it in the episode this follows. There’s a lot of dialogue for the first third that might have been better off as italicised thoughts than actual spoken words, as it’s Trixie just addressing herself and her worries without an audience. I do like the imagery presented here, though. I think that might be the story’s strongest point. Despite this, the diner—while described well—didn’t seem like a significant addition to the story overall. Largely, I thought the story seemed rather wooden. Work on making your dialogue feel not so flat or wooden; I can’t say any of the characters really felt like themselves in any sense. No, it felt more like Author Voice coming through the characters rather than the characters saying what should have felt natural. I noticed too that Trixie switched between third person and first person speech with no real reason to. I’ve seen this executed well before but here it just seemed random.
This is far from a bad story though, and the grammar wasn’t too bad. Keep at it. The imagery was indeed the strongest point of the story. Descriptions were pretty great, and you created an atmosphere pretty well in the diner, even if it is a scene that shouldn’t be hard to imagine.
So, guys… what should I read next? Pick up to four one-shots, two mid-range (15–20k) shortfics, or one longfic. I wanna see some suggestions!
Adren
Nice. I didn't expect you to like them quite that much, especially Hunt Them. And let's not forget that as soon as I finish writing Reddux the Tyrant I'll be working on adding four more stories to the Them-verse, completing the official series. Mayhap we'll see another review for those later?
2882130
Hunt Them just reminded me of The Last of Us so much. It also made the cliched phrase "All hope is lost" a great deal more literal and meaningful.
>Tfw my canon Them fic gets passed by
Nah, its cool.
2882219
Wait, what?
*Checks Dash's stories*
Oh. you're right. You know, I completely forgot you did that. Better add it to my queue then.
If I may ask, I wouldn't mind your thoughts on my OC centric story Three from the Forest. It's a mid-range fiction. If not it, how about my 2.6k one shot It's Gonna be a Mathacre?
If not one of my works, I'll dig through my favorites and see what I can suggest.
Cheers!
Remember how you asked me about the recurring moments of Twilight in all the stories? I just remembered: there is a specific reason I was doing that.
2882224
3 months old
>47 views
No wonder it's obscure. >.>
2882413
Uh, I kinda sorta linked this for a reason when I asked that, bud. Trying to clear this out first before I add anything else to it.
2883239 oooohhhhhh.... hehe silly me.
*Hides shamefully in his corner*
I think Rise sounds like a very interesting story to hear about. That'll be my recommendation.
Oy, you missed Becoming Them, you wanker! :V (It goes between Hunt and Guide.)
3145502
Look at the date of these reviews and then tell me I missed Becoming Them again.
Fgt.
3146403
I blame Paul Asaran :|