Cerulean's Voice On The Matter #27: TRG edition! · 7:15pm Nov 5th, 2015
In case—for whatever reason—you aren't aware yet, I joined The Royal Guard a few months ago. This is because I believe in their cause: to promote stories of higher-than-average quality that may or may not have already made a splash around these parts. Any and all submissions of stories are welcome, although you are of course limited to only one submission per week, and to [T] and [E] rated stories only.
The reason I'm prefacing this blog with such information is for a bunch of reasons. Firstly, I figured it would be a great motivator to get me reading stories again, something I do tend to neglect a lot more than I would like. Secondly, we really need some amazing [Comedy] and [Human] submissions. Seriously.
Thirdly, reading more means getting to review more and helping to spread awareness of stories that might just deserve some more attention... or, y'know, should probably be avoided. It comes with the territory, sadly. Because we're an equal-opportunity review group (minus the [M] rated stories of course), often we need to read stories that would otherwise never hit our radar or have ever made us want to pick them up of our own accord. And yes, sometimes this means we have to force ourselves to read lower quality stories that we take no pleasure in enduring.
There's always the chance we'll find a story in our submissions that we do enjoy as a collective, though, which makes it all the sweeter and more rewarding when we find such opals among the potch.
Today's reviews brought to you by The Royal Guard's submission queue. Check them out below!
Story: Fractured Sunlight
Author: Oroboro
Synopsis:
When Twilight Sparkle was just a kid, her best friend was a girl named Sunset Shimmer. Though their friendship had a bit of a rocky start, they quickly became inseparable, no matter how much everyone thought of them as ‘weird’. They were there for each other.
Were.
Years after the tragic accident that tore them apart, Twilight is determined to move on from her loss, and she sets off on an independent research project to investigate the strange happenings at Canterlot High. Little does she know that she will soon come face to face with what appears to be a literal ghost from her past.
Length: 43,232 words over 10 chapters, averaging 4,323 words per chapter
Status: Incomplete
Review: This is the Equestria Girls story nobody knew they wanted. Until they got it. And suddenly, they really, really wanted it. Written and released before the debut of Friendship Games, and set in such a way as to make it an impossible occurrence, Fractured Sunlight gives us the ingenious premise of Human!Twilight having known Human!Sunset before Pony!Sunset or Princess!Twilight ever set their intrusive hooves through the portal. So what do you do when the human version of your new mentor and extraterrestrial penpal comes face to face with you and has a freakout, believing you to be dead, resulting in hundreds of hours of psychotherapy coming instantly undone?
While far from fully published as of now, FS has the great feel of an epic worth sticking around for. It’s a little slow paced, but other than that, I find very little to fault with it. Not since The Albinocorn’s fantasmagorical Long Road to Friendship have I been so hooked on an EqG-set story. This is more than just competently written. This is an experience worth every second you spend on it. Highly Recommended. Expect an update every week to follow along with, or chuck it on any waiting-for-completion shelf you may have so you can blitz through it in a night or two. Either way, this is not to be passed up.
Story: My Father Used to Say
Author: nightwalker
Synopsis:
The nice thing about living in Appleloosa, Gilda has discovered, is that you don't have to share the skies with anyone else. There may not be many clouds in the sky for perching and napping, but a warm rock on a high pinnacle can work just as well.
The locals are at least tolerable. Earth ponies tend to be a simple, predictable bunch, prone to routine.
It's when you get out-of-towners coming through, though, that problems can erupt. Especially when too much hard cider is involved.
Length: 4,954 words (one-shot)
Status: Complete
Review: This was an entry into Equestria Daily’s Outside Insight competition in the latter half of 2014, so it’s been sitting around for a while collecting dust. Although I really wanted to find a comedy story, I must admit that I was let down in that respect. This is a character examination of both Gilda and the townsponies of Appleloosa. And while the synopsis might hint at some potential hilarity with the mention of too much hard cider being involved, it wasn’t actually all that funny when I got to the relevant parts of the story.
Luckily, [Comedy] wasn’t the only genre it was submitted under. Which is rather fortunate, because as a base [Slice of Life], it shines. The writing flows with a great progression, not going into too much detail about any specific thing, not drawing out conflict longer than it needed to be, while still giving a fairly insightful view of how Gilda would indeed perceive the main residents of a habitat where she is the alien. It’s a good character piece, but certainly not a comedy, so don’t get your hopes up by going in expecting laughs.
Story: The Day After
Author: CaptainPipsqueak
Synopsis:
Last night, Twilight went to a party.
Today she woke up.
Now she wants to kill Pinkie.
Length: 5,713 words (one-shot with a short epilogue)
Status: Complete
Review: It seems like it could be funny from the outset. A simplistic synopsis that doesn’t give anything away, a high enough rating to be plausibly okay, SleepyTwiley cover… Sure, why not? Unfortunately, while the humour has some appeal to a certain audience, I found the way it gave me so many different descriptions of what Twilight’s headache feels like wearing down on me from just a few paragraphs in. So no, the style of humour didn’t grab me at all. Not only that, while we’re led to believe that Twilight wants to kill Pinkie Pie for whatever happened the night before, once meeting up with Pinkie, all of Twilight’s bloodthirst seems to mysteriously evaporate.
Oh, and Twilight left Spike alone with the “Canternomicon” while confronting Pinkie Pie. That she was sent from Canterlot and should have put away when not reading. That she didn’t, allowing her ever-bumbling assistant to somehow summon eldritch horrors because why the hell not. Um, what? That added nothing to the story except to throw in more attempts at random humour, which also unfortunately fell flat. Essentially, not a well written story, too random for my liking. I don’t know what the end goal was here.
Story: Rainbow Dash and the Wild Hunt
Author: NorsePony
Synopsis:
Rainbow Dash gets killed by some jerk in a storm cloud. It's not the best way to start an evening, and things only get more annoying from there. Turns out, that jerk and his pack of hunters want Dash as their prey. It's kind of a bummer. But she's got other ideas, and anyway, what's the worst they can do to her?
Length: 5,099 words
Status: Complete
Review: I don’t think the smile ever left my face while reading this one. It starts off seriously enough, with Rainbow Dash taking charge against a rogue storm front and leading her weather team against it. But then she dies. Oh, but if you thought a simple matter such as dying would be enough to keep the awesome Rainbow Dash down, you’d better think again, because that’s where things get thoroughly… ridiculous. Bordering on trollfic levels of silliness and a nonsensical plot, this fic has the very welcome feel of an old Looney Tunes skit. The banter between RD and her killer (whose ID I won’t spoil because it makes an odd amount of sense) had me chortling. Luna plays a part too, resulting in even more banter. Sure you might come away from this wondering what the heck just happened, but it brings out the good kind of headscratchingness. It's a bit rough in terms of paragraph formatting, and by Jove, Talking Heads is a thing here, but really, you should be sufficiently engrossed enough to barely notice.
Special thanks to Singularity Dream, Super Trampoline, and Horizon for helping to fund this review post. If you’d like your name here as well, in addition to possible other rewards, please consider supporting me on Patreon. Further details about how your support helps can be found in my previous blog, located here.
whoo, that's one off my RIL! :V
3522607
Um, glad to be of service, I guess?
3522679
God damnit it why must you only post one chapter a week3522690 Because a lot the later stuff still needs to be edited and revised, and my editors are but mortals.
It wasn't meant to be anything but harmless fluff - I just wanted to get my feet wet. A lot of people found it funny, so that's okay enough for me. At least I know I can write.
3523113
Oh it was definitely a good effort for a first fic, no disputing that. You should have seen my first story... I'm lucky I had so much help with it, and even now I find it rather pales in comparison to how I've grown over the past two years.
By all means, do put something else out! Last thing I want is to discourage potential talent.
3522690
Only 5530 to go! :D
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