The Hat Man Reviews: Oneshots! (#1) [Luck of the Lyrish, Runaway Train, I So Hate Consequences] · 10:26pm Jul 9th, 2016
Hello my friends! Your friendly neighborhood Hat Man here once again with another short batch of reviews!
Man, I haven't done this since Scribblefest, but I enjoyed doing it before and have been meaning to get back into it. So, without further ado, here are three stories I've read recently that I thought I'd share my thoughts on. Ready? Here we go!
It's St. Paddy Wagon's Day, and Lyra Heartstrings is feeling lucky, so she decides to try and hook up with Bon Bon. Her methodology: the best pick-up lines she can muster!
So, for the purposes of this story, Lyra is apparently of "Neighlish" heritage. So, this story had a lot going for it for me, as it has several things I adore: LyraBon shipping, puns, and... well, honestly that accounts for a lot.
The story starts out cute enough, with a nervously flustered Lyra building herself up to go find Bon Bon at work and woo her with her charms. Her womanly charms, I mean, not her Lucky Charms... this story isn't that stereotypically Irish. She starts off flirtatiously mentioning that Bon Bon isn't wearing green, so Lyra playfully threatens to pinch her (with magic). In exchange for sparing her, she asks Bon Bon out.
With a wry grin, Lyra cut the magic flowing to her horn. “All right, but you’ve got to do something for me. I don’t let go of my Saint Paddy’s Day pinches lightly.”
That seemed enough to convince Bon Bon as she lowered her tail. Caution reflected in her eyes, though, and her shoulders were squared and tense. “What do you want?”
“Well, let’s just put it this way,” Lyra started, leaning across the counter. She took her time looking over Bon Bon’s frame and licked her lips. “You look like you’re magically delicious, and I happen to be a cereal lovemaker.”
Now, here's where the story starts to turn for me. I can forgive Lyra for coming on a little strong, and perhaps regard Bon Bon as a defrosting ice queen type of character, but things get a little uncomfortable after that.
Bon Bon blinked again. Her jaw opened and closed, but no sound came out save for a strangled noise in the back of her throat. Her face flushed a cherry red before she finally managed to sputter out, “E-excuse me?!”
Lyra’s grin faltered. That wasn’t the reaction she was going for. Blushing? Yes. Adorably flustered and unable to speak? Absolutely. Wide eyes filled with shock bleeding away to what she really hoped wasn’t anger? Definitely not. “Um,” she said, clearing her throat and throwing her grin back on, “I said you look like you’re—”
“‘Magically delicious?’” Bon Bon shook her head. “I can’t believe you sometimes, Lyra.” Her voice softened, and Lyra’s ears perked up to better catch her next words. “When are you going to learn that these stupid lines aren’t going to work?”
See that underlined part? Bon Bon directly tells Lyra that she doesn't like her pick up lines. But Lyra actually continues this. And I'll remind you: this is at Bon Bon's place of work in front of customers.
Some of the lines she uses are funny, I won't deny it, but she pretty much spends all day bothering Bon Bon, dropping line after line, each time with Bon Bon telling her very directly that she doesn't appreciate them. Now ask yourself, if Lyra had been a different character, perhaps a male one, propositioning Bon Bon, would it be amusing? Hopefully, your answer is "No," and you can see the problem I have with this story. Lyra's unwanted advances wear on and get tiresome pretty quickly, and she doesn't learn her lesson until the end of the fic, but by that time, I'm not really rooting for her anymore. I just don't feel like she's characterized very sympathetically.
On the upside, I will say that the writing is good, the lines are pretty funny if you can get past the creepiness, and the ending is genuinely endearing and does provide a bit of redemption. Still, this story rubs me the wrong way. It's nowhere near the worst ship fic I've ever read, but it just doesn't stand out as being funny enough or cute enough to really stay with me.
Recommended?: Somewhat - it's funny and cute at times, cringe-inducing and creepy at others.
Set after "Friendship Games" in the Equestria Girls universe, Twilight has met her human counterpart, so she asks her new pal Sunset Shimmer where her counterpart is.
This is a pretty common question in the fandom, and it has its fair share of darkly humorous answers:
That is not the route this story takes, however. The story, titled after a pretty famous song from the 90s, pretty well gives away the answer almost immediately. Granted, that doesn't mean that the story is bad, per se.
Well, it's hard to talk about the story without totally spoiling everything that happens in it, so I'll try to be brief: Twi and Sunset don't find Human Sunset, but they do find her mom, who tells them what happened. The story is dark, depressing and the author claims to hate this story and that it was written more as a "purge."
But surprisingly, I actually found the story genuinely moving and sad. The characterization is on point and the interactions are believable. On the downside, the story is brief and never delves into the specific details of exactly what happened, and the conclusion is actually so dark that it starts to squander the emotional depth by making it so sad it actually goes into maudlin territory. Still, this is a good depiction of a real issue, and I can't deny that it does what it sets out to do.
Recommended?: Yes, if you aren't too easily depressed.
Spike is in the Canterlot Castle archives late one night when he hears a commotion and finds a very drunk Berry Punch tearing the place apart trying to find something. Then as the story description itself tells us, "Spike tries to rescue Berry Punch from herself... and Celestia."
First, of all, I'll just go ahead and put it out there that I don't like the "Berry Punch is the town drunk" meme. It's a tired convention that's right up there with "Lyra is obsessed with humans" and "Derpy is obsessed with muffins." Not that these don't have their place, but I find it easy to get bored with such a premise pretty quickly.
This story does do at least a few things with this premise, though: Spike actually tries to help Berry out, worried that she'll have hell to pay from Celestia if she's found trespassing in the Castle, so he's portrayed in a more redeeming light. Despite the cover image, the story isn't really a ship fic and it's not a clop story where Berry drunkenly molests our little purple dragon, either, although she does get a little flirtatious.
However, overall, this story feels a bit like an episode in a goofy sitcom. Spike tries to lead Berry to safety in his room until she can sleep it off, but she keeps wandering around and wacky shenanigans happen. And in the end, it turns out that, well, he had less to worry about than he thought (which is actually a credit to the story, as it shows the conflict was more serious in Spike's head than it was in reality). There's a little bit at the end when Spike finds out why Berry was there in the first place, and there is a nice bit of sentiment there that flavors things, but it still ends up with things neatly resolved.
Really, Spike is the best thing about this story. FamousLastWords gets his character just right: he's caring and helpful, but also prone to panicking and doing whatever he can to get out of trouble. His struggle and panic are easier to sympathize with, even knowing that nothing awful is going to happen in the end.
Again, it feels a lot like an episode from a sitcom. It's amusing, and there are some genuinely good jokes to be sure (a particularly good meta-humor joke occurs early on which got a hearty laugh out of me), but it relies too much on Berry just wandering around in a clueless stupor. I like Spike's characterization, but Berry is mostly a comedic device until the end, and even then it's swallowed up in the "Berry, you have a problem, and you need to face it" resolution.
Recommended?: If you like Spike, it's a pretty good outing for him; otherwise, not particularly.
Well, that's it for now, folks! I've got a small collection of other stories to review, and I'll try to post them periodically. See you then!
Better than titaniumdragon
Yeah, if you take a quick glance at my library, you'll see that Spike is basically the main feature of all my stories, so I've gotten a lot of practice writing him over time.
Thanks for the review!
4080757 Oh really? I'll have to take a look at them sometime! Good Spike stories are few and far between.
Even though I was a bit tepid about this particular story, you're obviously talented: there were some definite highlights that I enjoyed.