Fic Reviews VII · 4:19pm Aug 4th, 2015

(1) — (2) — (3) — (4) — (5) — (6)

So, not been reading or writing much because I’ve been having basically one long meltdown over how broke I am. But I’m getting out of the funk a bit, and have started a Patreon in the hopes it will help alleviate some of that pressure. Support me if you feel like being awesome, or just check it out and tell me what I’ve done wrong with it.

175. A Mad Glimmer
by FanOfMostEverything

Here’s a rare thing — I saw this in the Feature Box on my way in and decided to check it out.

Unfortunately, I can’t say there’s really much to this. It’s really just one long dialogue where Discord taunts and levels implied threats at Starlight, who continues being a delusional megalomaniac (and kind of a bitch) regardless. I mean, he makes good points about just how badly she’d fuck things up, and how he is, by various metrics, better than her, but there’s not really a story. Just Discord talking about some stuff.

Score: (2/5) Slightly Against.

176. Futalestia Impregnates Twilight Velvet
by MegatronsPen

So, this is where I took a bit of a hiatus thanks to life stress. But MegatronsPen was talking about the sequel to this one in the PCaRG Skype chat, so I decided I ought to have a look at them.

Also, I read it on the sales floor at work. It’s the best time for reading cartoon-pony-themed gender-bending erotica.

Okay, so Twilight as Celestia’s daughter. Common enough, sure. But, Celestia as Twilight’s futanari father, in a story about the encounter with Velvet that produced her? Now you have my interest! Although — confession time — I mixed this up with the sequel a bit, and went in thinking it was FutaTwi banging her mother. Kinda disappointed it wasn’t.

Who doesn’t love a little Twicest?

Anyway, there’s a lot of issues with this. It frequently drifts between past and present tense, the writing tends towards the dull with the occasional burst of purple prose that tries to class it up (but mostly comes off as unintentionally comedic due to the awkward contrast), misused words, strange sentence construction, narrative tone that jumps around and sometimes doesn’t match the action, weak character voice, and a failure to convey strong emotions (a big problem in erotica).

On the other hand, I’d like to share my favorite lines from the story (though not necessarily for good reasons):
“her still erect invisible penis”
and
“lost in her mania of unquenchable desire”

All in all, it seems pretty indicative of a lack of care or effort, and the author’s note admits as much.

Score: (1/5) Against, but the world needs more Velvet clopfics.

Twilight’s mom > Button’s mom.

177. Futalight Impregnates Princess Cadance
by MegatronsPen

This is the followup to the previous entry, and when I read it, it sat near the top of the Feature Box, and pulled the original into the Popular Box in its wake.

We are a bunch of perverts.

I, for one, await the three-way (or more).
TwiShineDanceNightVelLestia?

So, this one got some pretty harsh comments early on, but it looks like he got some proofreading help afterward. The wall of text that used to be the opening has been broken up, and the writing as a whole seems stronger, though not perfect.

The characters, on the other hand…

A lot of stories have moments where the characters drift out-of-character. This one more has moments of characters drifting in-character. Cadance is hypcritical, Twilight is too aggressive, Twilight acts seductive, Twilight kinda rapes her.

Date rape, maybe? I’m not sure what you call magically compelling someone to suck your marecock.

Either way, it then pulls a trope I find particularly distasteful — the rape victim starts liking it by the end, magical compulsion or not.

I did like the second chapter a bit more, if only because Twilight regretted her actions but the spell was out of her control by then, and the inner struggle as Cadance fought to resist the spell (at first — see awful trope above).

I’d also like to mention the bit where Cadance read her diary (see: hypocrite). It really was all too forceful, and too sudden. I’d have loved to see her read from the beginning of Twilight’s changes and see a gradual progression from the pure and upstanding Twilight on the show to a desperately-repressed sexual degenerate.

Score: (2/5) Slightly Against, but you might like it more if you like mind control clop and are lenient on characterization.

178. Twilight Sparkle Actually Does Sparkle
by RainbowBob

Oh god, I read this one forever ago. Let me reread it for a refresher.

Actually, just like two or three minutes. Seriously, it’s under 2000 words.

Saying literally anything about it would be spoilers, thanks to how short it is. But in the end, it was dumb but kind of funny back then. Now, it’s still dumb, but hasn’t aged well. The butt of the joke, Stephenie Meyers’ Twilight Saga, has faded from the public consciousness enough that making fun of it really isn’t worth much anymore.

Score: (2/5) Slightly Against, though you might like it if you still like mocking Twilight, or stupid name jokes.

179. My Little Pony ~The Phases of Sunset~
by JeNnDyLyOn

I actually have no idea where I picked this one up. The first chapter is Sunset’s diary, and most of the idiosyncrasies I think can be forgiven as being an aspect of that setup. The others are written in a more typical prose, and though it seems well-written enough, for some reason it just couldn’t hold my interest, and I started to find it tedious. Maybe I don’t care quite enough for characters wrestling with inner demons (particularly when that battle becomes near-literal while arguing at a mirror), or maybe I just don’t like Equestria Girls enough (even if Sunset Shimmer has one of the best character designs in the entire show).

Score: (3/5) Slightly For. Might rate higher if this is the sort of drama you enjoy, or if you’re an EQG fan.

180.Twilight’s Dream
by Scratch Fever

Oh wow. Scratch Fever was one of the first authors I followed on here. And then they vanished for like two years, returning with this fic. Only one chapter is up, and it’s just a bit of voyeurism and self-pleasure for her, and a double-team for Twilight, within the latter’s dreams. There isn’t much to it, but what’s there is quite good, though I have to admit that I was more interested in Twilight’s secret love of the macabre and the possibilities of some TwiLuna — except the gothic outfit/makeup for Twi. It’s not a fashion I’ve ever gotten into, and I think it looks a bit silly on ponies.

Still, I do want to see more of this, though I hope it’s more on the shipping end than just clop.

Score: (4/5) For.

181.The Mistress’ Slave
by Scratch Fever

Scratch only has the two fics, and this one has been in my “Favorite Clop” bookshelf ever since that was a thing (and regular Favorites before that). Why not go ahead and review it at last?

(Also, check the comment I left on it — the 18th one. Can you believe there was a time I didn’t touch clop?)

Anyway, I still love how Rarity and Celestia are written, though I could have done without the written-in sight gags for Spike. And while master/slave isn’t a facet of BDSM that I particularly get into, the sex is excellently-done, and it plays up the emotions of both characters in a way that it feels loving, rather than having the undertones of abuse that tend to put me off of this fetish (for example, Fifty Shades). All in all, it holds up just as well as it did when I first saw it, and still deserves its place in my Favorites.

Score: (5/5) Strongly For. So long as you aren’t turned off by the fetish, this is a good read for anyone who likes clop.

Okay, I had a foalcon fic flagged for review right here. Why did I do that? I don’t generally read foalcon. Skipping. I wouldn’t be able to give it a fair rating with my distaste for the subject matter, anyway.

182. Twilight Sparkle gets a Magical Coltfriend
by Jay-The-Brony

I used to follow a lot of Jay’s stuff, ever since I read one fic of his… I think one where Shining Armor tells Celestia off for putting her at risk with that whole Nightmare Moon thing? I’d have to look. Anyway, I haven’t really been keeping up. This one’s on hiatus, but I apparently meant to read it at one point. Anyway, the writing is pretty bland and telly near the start, and it relies on a few obvious tricks to force the plot on course, but once Twilight decides to try the spell, things pick up — particularly when the true nature of the “magical coltfriend” starts to become clearer.

Score: (3/5) Slightly For. Good enough that I’d like to see more of it, and further chapters could possibly push the rating higher.

183.Twilight's Bathroom is Flooded With Semen
by Majin Syeekoh

...This is the one that started that awful fad, isn’t it?

Okay. I have to admit, this first entry into this nonsense is actually pretty funny. From Spike and Twilight’s totally blasé conversation about the copious amounts of semen surrounding them, as well as their parts in its production, to the punchline with Rainbow Dash at the end. There are a few parts in the middle that are a bit gross rather than funny, but on the whole it’s alright.

Score: (4/5) For. Actually pretty funny, unlike some of the spinoffs.

184. Firelight
by MegatronsPen

Hey, a Pen fic that isn’t futa! Which he apparently hates. Anyway, it’s supposed to be cloppy shipping, so let’s see what we have.

I… actually really like this. Not so much for the sex as the rest of it. That’s not to say the sex was badly-done — it was solid throughout — but it’s just that the shipping aspects were cute and funny, and I can’t really fault the characterization at all. Well, maybe Spitfire was a bit more reserved and modest than I’d have thought, but maybe I just have that expectation from her being such a bitch in Wonderbolts Academy and Rainbow Falls.

Score: (5/5) Strongly For and faved.

185. Land of the Unconscious
by Manaphy

Spitfire again! Though it’s Manaphy, so Spitfire is to be expected. While the concept is good, it just feels dull and heavy-handed in the execution, and at times it's hard to understand the intent. But I think the biggest problem is that so little seems to support the conflict. It's a redemption story, but why does Spitfire need redeeming?

Score: (2/5) Slightly Against. I can't help but feel this is a spinoff of another unnamed fic, or based on some unexplained headcanon.

186. The Story of Star Shine Sparkle
by Dragonlover553

Apparently I flagged some epic badfic for review. Not sure why I did that, but here we are.

So… this whole thing is just the author’s Gary Stu OC (who is Twilight’s cousin and was born an alicorn and has access to ancient forgotten magic and suffered a tragic backstory and is a cold-blooded killer but not so cold he won’t rescue a mare from her own tragic backstory) explaining to Twilight that everything she knows about magic is wrong…

Warning: Gets a bit seizure-inducing after about 3:20.

…and that he knows the true power of magic. Also expositing his entire own tragic backstory and so goddamn edgy bounty hunter adventures, and taking a brief break to explain, in character, why he’s not a Gary Stu. Cause he’d be weak to enchanters and stuff. And he has to be angry to use his super god-magic.

Score: (0/5) Strongly Against. It’s basically an example of everything to not do with an OC.

187. Attack Of The Flying Penises
by MegatronsPen

Pen, what are you even doing?

Looking at this, I think I’ll have to lump it in with the futa fics on grounds of “barely even trying”. The writing very weak, definitely not at the level I know Pen is capable of. But the main problem with it, for me, is the inconsistent tone. The premise is too absurd for it to be taken as seriously traumatic. But the characters (at least, Twilight and Fluttershy) take it too seriously for me to brush it off as totally random comedy. It definitely takes a turn towards the random side of things in the last chapter (and I’m very disappointed in the refusal to do a stallion-focused sequel), but that doesn’t mesh very well with heartfelt declarations of personal sacrifice and characters sobbing over each others’ fates. It could, with some difference in tone, but for now it just isn’t.

Score: (1/5) Against.

188. Press Me!
by Soaring

I get the idea of writing intentionally purple prose as an aspect of the comedy, but it takes a deft touch to pull it off. Douglas Adams could do it. I consider him one of the strongest influences on my writing, but I doubt I could. And it really isn’t working, here. Rather than painting such a needlessly elaborate picture of the scene, to the point where the scene is lost in the absurdity of the description, this is just repetitive and meandering. And… Honestly, I lost the thread of the story sometime after they went to the Everfree Forest. There’s just so much extraneous writing that I couldn’t even follow the action after a while.

Score: (1/5) Against. This is over-written to the point it’s too confusing to follow.

189. The Peach-Pocalypse
by Dash The Stampede

After I reviewed his other peach fic, Dash said I should have done this one instead. I remember reading it, back when the peach stories were a thing, but I don’t recall anything about it.

...And it was alright. It’s the archetypal slice-of-life MLP fic, in a way. Twilight miscasts a spell and causes havoc. She has a little “what have I done” freakout…

I couldn’t find the meme I wanted, so I had to do my own.

...and then the characters find a simple solution and make amends, and we close on the promise of future hijinks.

Score: (3/5) Slightly For. It was okay.

Alright, now that my “high priority” list is cleared out, let’s start working our way from least- to most-viewed stories in my RIL, which I’ll probably stick to unless something catches my eye on the front page or in my feed.

190. Not All Scars Are Seen
by Shadow_Wolf

First up, hello, fellow Derpy sadfic author! We even seem to share a similar headcanon in making her an injured veteran and widow, though we differ on the details.

Anyway, the story starts strong, though I do notice a few errors. There’s a good relationship between Derpy and her daughters, and the suggestions of Derpy’s past and secrets are a believable, if tragic, explanation for her canon behavior. The next chapter, with Dinky, is cute, but I not sure about the word-confusion gag. I can’t help but think it would work better if the words she stumbled over were closer in sound.

Going on from there, I keep hoping that eventually somepony will recognize Derpy’s “clumsiness” for what it is, but she buries it so deeply that I’m sure it will take some time for that to come out. I’m not entirely sure where this is going, but it does seem to mostly be about Derpy coming to terms with her past. I’m interested enough to follow it and see how that plays out.

Score: (5/5) Strongly For and faved.

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PresentPerfect

Author Interviewer

PresentPerfect #1 · Aug 4th, 2015 · · ·

Man, you read some weird shit. c.c

Rinnaul

Rinnaul #2 · Aug 4th, 2015 · · ·

3294239
I can't exactly contest that, but I can at least claim an excuse in three of the four MegatronsPen stories — I was talking to him, and picked those specifically because they were weird.

Also I have a bad habit of clicking anything with a bizarre title.

Majin Syeekoh

Moderator