Story Reviews » Reviews! Round 71 · 3:49am Oct 1st, 2015
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Red Squirrel tried fruitlessly to brush away the clods of dirt stuck to his fur. Sweat had embedded the two together, so he was forced to waddle around like he had been stuffed inside many oversized sweaters. No matter, there was nobody around to see him. There wouldn’t be any at all, not anymore.
The dirt he stood on was more disturbed than a middle school death-metal band, and covered more ground than said band’s drummer’s parent’s garage space. “Everyone’s dead,” he said, kicking aside a tiny plastic shovel. “Finally, at last, there will be no repercussions. Nobody to take away my rockets, or tell me how many nuts I can or cannot have.”
He patted the dirt down with his little paws before shaking them at the sky. “Now I can draw all the Rarity I want! Anywhere I want!” he cried. “The world will tremble beneath the radiance of the one, true best pony!”
A muffled beeping then distracted him from his self-righteous ramblings. Confused, he waddled over to the source and brushed aside the topmost layer of soil. A digital clock stared back at him, its numbers glaring a frantic, bloody red. It yelled at him in its mechanical voice as the two stared long at each other, until finally Red understood the ramifications of his actions.
He glanced aside at a partially buried stack of blank papers and pencils.
“Oh,” he muttered. “Right.”
ROUND 71
STORY 1
The Weak, by Wisdom Thumbs
They say minotaurs live by the scars they bear. Bismuth's hide is a map of the world: his life was the blade, and the blade was his life, carried unto a hundred red fields, down a thousand roads, singing among elk, deer, and dragons. He stood at ramparts long since fallen, and was counted a hero in lands forgotten, when ponies had only begun to dream.
Maybe it's all true, but now he only rocks in his chair, stirring at embers, while his deeds turn to rust in the shadows. What kind of scars call that living? And if you ask him, would he tell you?
Something I tend to find with stories of this sort is that I rarely feel that I’m getting very much more (at least in terms of content) than what I had expected going in. Is that good? Bad? I’m not sure, but it makes it very easy for me to state that you’re likely to know whether or not this story will be up your alley by just reading its description—it’s what it says on the tin, executed in perhaps not an awe-inspiring manner but at the very least a greater than competent one.
In fact, it’s a reason something like that which has me liking this particular story more than most others in its genre: it’s very down to earth, very personal. It’s a story told from minotaur Bismuth’s perspective to a small audience hinted at but never shown, and this story covers a single night in a single campaign—one more emotionally eventful than physically. No grand battles and glimmering kingdoms (at least none that appear directly), no characters speaking in riddles, no one untouchable, nothing unbelievably evil nor unbelievably good. The minotaurs are not a grand warrior people and they are not base mercenaries. None of the deer come off as infallible and/or completely uncaring beings to be all but unequivocally trusted and/or feared.
These are some key facets to me, because this story readily borrows from/builds upon the world of Jetfire’s Dangerous Business, which itself takes from Tolkien, and sources like those are chock full of the truly fantastical. While I don’t mind that sort of thing, Wisdom Thumbs’ The Weak is still a welcome change of pace in that department.
Apart from that and its small, snapshot scope—and this will sound worse than I mean it to—the story is pretty standard fare as these things go. That isn’t to say that you’ve read it a hundred times before, and especially not in this setting, but again, you know what you’re getting into when you pick it up.
Read this if you enjoy high fantasy, or if you like the idea of high fantasy but wish for a little more realism in spite of how paradoxical that sounds.
Who doesn’t love some good ol’ philosophical ramblings about the ramifications of war, the impact horrors leave on the self, and of the psychological weight of loss? Surely, a merry time awaits! Well, no, The Weak is a very somber story, often harrowing and dismal. It isn’t a pleasant read, but is is very heartfelt and has a strong emotional draw to it. It’s super serious, which makes it very satisfying to see it handling itself so well.
The story follows Bismuth, a battle-hardened minotaur in the middle of a war between deer. He, and his kin, work with one side to bring the war to an end. But he soon begins to question the differences between the two sides and his part in this conflict. The narrative follows like Bismuth is telling this story around a campfire, long after the conflict actually happened. It’s an unusual sense of disconnection, with Bismuth telling his tragic story to a presumably much younger audience. Or at least that’s how I interpreted it. And I really, really liked that.
There’s really something about the style of prose that just pulls you in. It’s flowery, but not overly so. It’s straightforward, and yet it’s intricate. It’s clear that a lot of care went into writing The Weak. I’m reminded of high fantasy novels by reading this. There’s a whole world going on beyond Bismuth’s limited scope that makes me crave for.
I don’t think it’s for the faint of heart, but this is easily one of the more engrossing stories I’ve read in awhile. I really wouldn’t mind seeing a sequel of some sort, or just another story in the same universe. This is a good ‘un.
Three times the sun sets.
Three times Granny Smith makes a friend.
Three times a young filly fights a losing battle.
I feel like there’s been an Apple Family SoL in most every round I’ve been a part of, but I swear it wasn’t me that put it forward this time around.
Thrice At Sundown is a well-crafted story, more so than I realized on my first time through it. There is a “twist” that it makes no true attempt to hide—even before you get to the later segments, you’ll probably have figured out what’s going on—but there’s a lot of strength in the details.
The OC filly who meets up with Granny Smith… *ahem* thrice at sundown is the prime example. At the very beginning of my first time through the story, I didn’t like her character—initially, she seemed pointless. As I began to grasp the situation, she then became interesting. On a second read-through with a more complete perspective, though, I caught aspects of her introduction that I had all but glazed over the first time, and realized that she was far more enmeshed in the story than I’d suspected.
The one thing you really don’t want to do in a short piece is eat up words on things that don’t matter, and I found that Thrice At Sundown played with that concept beautifully. This isn’t a perfect story—I would even go as far as to say its Tragedy tag should most definitely just be Sad, or not be there at all—but in its deceptive word economy and other ways, it does what I wish so many more short fics I read around here would do.
I don’t want to spoil any more than I already have. This is a story worth reading, and more than that, it’s a story worth reading twice.
I don’t know what it is, but I really dislike Granny Smith. I can appreciate her character, but there’s something about her I just hate that I can’t put my finger on. Maybe it’s because the show doesn’t seem to care about her. In any case, I’m really conflicted when I see Thrice At Sundown give her so much justice and make her enjoyable.
While I don’t necessarily agree with this being a tragic story, it’s definitely melancholic. We start with Granny Smith at the start of Zap Apple season, staring at the trees and waiting for the tell-tale signs. A young filly then wanders up to her, and before long the two go on a short adventure and create an unusual friendship.
And it’s over the course of this adventure that we get an interesting look at Granny Smith’s psyche. It’s obvious enough in the show that Granny Smith isn’t always “there” and Thrice At Sundown really explores that angle of her. It’s the little things like the varying nicknames for young’uns and repetition that help deliver that, and it’s nice to see these kind of elements come around organically. Given the ultimate subject matter revealed through the ending, the amount of care that went into everything really becomes apparent as the story progresses.
Even if you’re squeamish at the thought of a depressing story, this one is rather light and I recommend everyone give it a read. You can’t go wrong here.
STORY 3
Incomplete, by Vexy
This dress is magnificent, breathtaking, beautiful. This dress is perfect in every way. But this dress is still incomplete.
This one hits pretty hard, at least if you’re a writer or other creative and don’t happen to be perfect.
If you can’t already glean it from the description, you’ll know exactly what this story is setting out to portray no later than its third or fourth paragraph: writer’s block (or its equivalent in other disciplines), specifically when it comes to creating what one believes to be one’s magnum opus. And it portrays it painfully accurately. If you—like me—feel that you’ve been through this kind of struggle yourself, then most every thought that passes through Rarity’s mind in this story has likely passed through your own at some point, and it’s like a cold little slap of guilt or memory thereof. By extension, this Rarity is perhaps the most personally relatable version of her I’ve ever read, and it’s a deliciously unpleasant feeling.
It’s a short piece with few errors, and I can’t really complain about any aspect of it. It is ultimately neither optimistic nor completely pessimistic, so it saves itself from feeling preachy and is able to be something of an actual story, too. There’s little more to say than that, and while my usual excuse for not writing a longer review of “I don’t want to spoil such a short piece” doesn’t really apply (because there’s actually very little to spoil here—the story seems much more about the feeling it gives you than the plot), I simply feel that the story speaks for itself.
Enjoy it—or, failing that, at least enjoy relating to it.
Oh baby, this left an impact on me. It’s not everyday something that’s incredibly simple, straightforward, and doesn’t attempt to be anything more than it is becomes really, really relatable. It’s certainly depressing, but Incomplete is also sobering in a way.
I have a strong feeling this at least started out as a writing experiment of some sort, but it’s nice to see it flushed out to the extent it was. And that ending. Good lord, that ending. Rarity is our protagonist, so it’s strange to me for a canon character to be written so loosely she’s made so relatable, and yet’s she still so her. It’s a confusing mix, but it works so perfectly.
Incomplete is much less a story and much more an experience. It has some glaring repetitive elements and phrases, and some odd directions for Rarity to take, but that’s just what makes it so great. All these things I would usually find as minor annoyances work together to help build up this story’s ending. And really, it’s all about that ending. The read it well worth it.
This story isn’t too long, so I recommend everyone gives it a shot. You might not walk away from it feeling better of yourself, but it’s got the sort of masochistic charm that one can really appreciate.
Legend tells of an ancient race
That hides in shadows with changing face
Stealing ponies who wander away
Until revealed by light of day
This is an interesting story, but it has something of a rough start—in actual fact, before I’d started in on the second chapter, I wasn’t quite sure why it was up for recommendation.
This story’s description half implies that it’s one of those darkfics we get now and again where there’s some mysterious entity bedevilling the characters from the shadows, and it’s up to the characters to figure out that the entity is there, what the entity is, and how the entity might be stopped, often dooming themselves in the process. Silverponies is decidedly not that sort of story—never mind the action-centric in media res opening, because even the chronologically first scene of the story makes the threat of the Silverponies all but perfectly clear to lead character Applejack. Because of this, I was under the initial impression that this story was a somewhat failed attempt at horror, or maybe an attempt at action horror that wasn’t really working for me, but…
After the first chapter, the story changes fundamentally. The horror elements get more psychological and enjoyable, Applejack’s goals as well as the story’s direction are turned on their heads, and the setting changes almost completely. This story explores something I often find myself wishing to see more of in the sort of story that I said I initially took this to be: life after the evil entity wins.
In terms of flaws, apart from how weirdly executed that first chapter feels, I have to say that this story’s approach to ordering scenes baffles me a little. It tends to alternate between parallel portions of the story that move forward independently, and meet up where the last scene of one occurs just before the first scene of the other. If that sounds confusing, it’s because it kind of is, and I honestly didn’t feel like there was a reason for Scribblestick to go for this kind of structure (especially in later chapters). Past that, it could’ve been proofread slightly better.
I’ve spoiled the first chapter for you, but I won’t go into its plot past that. In spite of its flaws, I do think this is an intriguing story on the whole—just, as I’ve said, know that if you think you want to give it a try, you’ll probably have to give it the benefit of the doubt for a little while.
Going into this story, I only had a tangential idea of what silverponies are. They’re nothing new, but they aren’t at all common to see. I don’t know if there’s a popular interpretation of them, if there’s a general concept everyone has, or what. Silverponies is my first real exposure to them, and it’s certainly made me want to read more about them.
The story follows Applejack as she comes to discover a mystical species of silverponies are making an appearance, and before she can do anything about it she gets captured by some. What follows is a psychological adventure in some dream-like realm where Applejack is stripped of her identity, and must work to break her trance and save herself.
The horror in this story is mostly atmospheric, which is always great to see. Forcing horror through shock hardly ever works out, so the unnerving buildup of events is as appreciated as it is chilling. On that note, Silverponies does have a faster pace to it than most others like it, given its relatively isolated setting. I might’ve been nice to see that pace slowed down, but given Applejack’s development I can see how the quickened pace betters the story.
People who want time well spent on a decent horror story should check this one out. It leaves more than a few things to think about and I like a story that keeps me thinking about it. Also, we need more silverponies. I want to see these things explored the way Voyager explores the stars: blindly and optimistically.
“I think I spelled their names right,” Red said, neatly stacking the new reviews together. Like himself, they were caked with dirt and were probably unintelligible to some degree: an apt metaphor if there ever was one. “Now all I’ve got to do is get these posted.”
He looked back down at the dirt. “Now where did I bury that laptop?”
Feel free to visit our group for more information and events, and to offer some recommendations for future rounds. See you all next time!
"Over my dead body!"
... is what I would be saying if I had anything resembling clout or influence around here. Also, I don't think Plum would've stopped you from drawing Rarity.
At this point, I'm pretty sure that you just spent an afternoon burying all of the Nightmare Night decorations. Otherwise, several of the lyrics of "I Can't Decide" come to mind. Anyone who actually did get buried, do try to make contact with the mole people, as I'm sure they want to hear more reviews.
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I'll see what I can do.
Dammit, you guys. I'm looking through my RiL, and it's almost entirely Seattle's Angels recommendations.
You're also why I never get anything done while I'm eating lunch. Also, I dropped my phone in my ramen bowl last week.
Thrice At Sundown, Incomplete, and Silverponies. Right, got it. I've never had the need for a Read Later shelf before, but now I do. Whoof, and it's already filling up...
This is it. I finally made it. Ah ha ha, schoolteachers, you said fanfiction would never net me more than a dozen readers. Well... now I have thirteen!
My greatest disappointment is that Redsquirrel had no reviews in this one. I love reading his reviews. They're always so... so... squirrely! How could you?