Story Reviews » SA Reviews #90 · 11:27pm Sep 11th, 2016
Seattle's Angels is a group that promotes good stories with low views. You can find us here.
“So, know what you’re doing down there?” Plum asked to the body half hidden under an open panel to a console station.
“Nope, not a clue,” came the muffled voice of the intern. There came the sound of something being violently ripped out of its casing, followed by a series of tubes being carelessly thrown out of the small panel opening.
Plum resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Then why are you working on it?”
“Because you have no one else and don’t want to spend the money for a professional.”
This time, Plum indulged his urge. “Oh, right.”
Intern gave a push and slid out from underneath the computer station. His whole upper body was covered in small electrical burn marks. “Hey, now, I was able to recover some of our data. Why don’t you show that while I get this baby purring again.”
“Might as well. On screen!”
“The screen is busted, remember?”
Plum made a mental note to have a doctor check his nose after this was over. “Then we’ll do it the old fashioned way.”
ROUND 88
To alleviate her boredom, Twilight Sparkle decides to write a book.
But when she finds her wellspring of creativity has dried up, she casts an ancient magic spell to make her creativity manifest itself, and interrogates the foallike fragment of her soul for ideas. However, the tricky and restless sprite proves harder to handle than she anticipated.....
The eternal fear of the creative mind is to be faced with an inability to create. Anyone who writes (which I suspect will be most of the people reading this) knows what it's like to be unable to do so. Whether because of time, or lack of motivation, or because of forcing yourself into a restrictive mode of thought that strangles your creativity, the inability to express or to even conceive ideas must be familiar to every creator.
Twilight's solution here is something that I am sure many of you have wished was a possibility. The chance to interrogate your own creativity face to face must surely seem tempting, but perhaps it has downsides.
The result of her efforts just wants to experience the world and enjoy the moment, leading to a madcap adventure as Twilight first tries to get her creativity to follow the rules and then attempts to capture it again, in an obvious but entertaining metaphor for the process of creativity itself. In the process she learns something about herself, as you would hope she might.
Yet this fic doesn't dig into the usual maudlin territory of "I just cloned myself and now I must angst", but instead uses its premise to explore the boundaries and restrictions we set for ourselves and the need for balance between rules and freedom in a light-hearted and above all creative manner. A lesson, I feel, that could be applied to much more than writing.
One rule I learned after reading this story: Never, ever, let a unicorn get bored. Especially one as powerful as Twilight Sparkle.
Taking place during Applejack and Rarity’s mapquest to Manehattan, Twilight is still bored out of her mind. She’s even resorted to reading through Spike’s comic collection, resulting in an amusing bit of comic tropes being commented on. It’s not until Spike makes an offhand comment to get Twilight to bugger off that she finds a solution to her problem.
If she’s read all the books there are to read, she’ll write her own!
Given that this is labeled a comedy, naturally nothing is going to go the way Twilight wants it too. Magic is involved, spells are cast, and Twilight makes her creativity appear before her and ready to shake it down for all the ideas that it has held captive so she can write her book.
What follows is a series of miss-adventures with her copy that culminates with Twilight learning things about herself that she needed to learn in order to be whole again. Very much in tone with the show, and I don’t mind spoiling that for you, but wrapped up in some humorous moments that make the journey worth it. Twilight and Spike are in full-blown snark mode, something that I’ve missed since season one.
This story is great for those that enjoy a good show inspired tale. It’s got its cute, introspective, and funny moments all there for us to experience. I know there are plenty of you out there that dig this sort of thing, so get to reading!
In long forgotten storage rooms beneath Canterlot Castle, two ponies discover rare hidden objects. But how did those treasures get there, and why are there so many of them?
Two ponies working to catalogue a collection deep within the basements of Canterlot Palace stumble across a mystery that only grows deeper and more confusing as they work to unravel it.
Dusty Stone, the protagonist of the piece, is a humdrum sort of chap, working a dead-end job, with some vague dreams of success and a whole lot of mundane nothing to wallow in - for which he shows a remarkable aptitude. Their job starts like any other, with lots of unreliable promises, but before long he and his co-worker are neck deep in what seems to be some sort of conspiracy - one that, from their perspective, makes absolutely no sense.
At least at first.
A well-realised mystery is a wonderful thing to behold. Even if you clock the ending early (which I admit I did) it is nevertheless an engaging and well-written piece, with an interesting cast of characters.
Many of the readers that frequent this site are here to read about the main characters. We like them from the show and want to see these characters in more stories. We know their mannerisms, their ticks, their everything, so it’s easy to get into a story with all the characters already established and get to the good parts.
It’s when a story creates new characters and we end up loving them as much as the original cast that it makes it all the more special. Yep, it’s OC time, and a mystery one at that!
The story follows Dusty Stone, an ordinary pony with a dull job of cataloging and auctioning off old stuff that ponies have lying around. A new job comes in that has him and his co-worker looking through a large storage space in Canterlot Castle that needs to be cleared out and sold off. Things start off routine enough, but soon some very unusual stuff starts being found that Dusty has to investigate in order to determine their worth. To reveal more would ruin the mystery.
This is told in first person, so we learn as Dusty learns. The beginning takes its time setting up the job and the characters, stuff that’s important for the later goings on. Things steadily build from there and after the second chapter, I was completely hooked. I needed to know what was going on, just as much as Dusty does. That’s a sign of a good mystery; unable to put it down until it’s solved.
I had a lot of fun with this. If the notion of new characters doesn’t turn you off, give it a shot. Everything is new to us at some point, even the main cast of FiM that we hold so dearly now.
It's been a long time since Adagio Dazzle lost her powers but she never lost her drive. In a small town far away from Canterlot High, she and her onetime rival Trixie share an apartment and make a tough living together off odd jobs, street racing, and Trixie's magic act. She hasn't thought about the other Dazzlings for years, but one summer night, Aria Blaze turns up on their doorstep with shocking news.
It would be tempting to call this a redemption fic, given that its protagonist is the former siren, Adagio Dazzle. It's not exactly a redemption fic. She isn't redeemed, or turned to good and made whole, or whatever mystical magical process seems to take place when the rainbows smack home and wash away the grime of antagonism.
Instead she's shown simply as human, with regrets, and hopes, and fears and dreams. She races, possibly out of some desire to recapture the thrill of her old life. She has a lover, strangely appropriate, and life that is, if not comfortable, then at least entertaining.
This is a fic that, in my mind, is the very expression of the image used to illustrate it. As the author desired, it's a paean to americana, vivid and colourful and filled with idealised images of a world that never quite existed, but that epitomises everything we want to be real about the American Dream.
The Sirens were a villainous group that I liked well enough but wasn’t chomping at the bit to see more of. They came, did their “take over the world” shtick, got beaten, then left. Done and done. So, with the next review round coming up, I decided to break away from my usual reading grounds and check out a story that dealt with the Sirens dealing with the fallout of the Battle of the Bands (and wasn’t just about Sonata). What I found left me pleasantly pleased as punch that I took the chance.
This story follows Adagio Dazzle and how she’s adapted to human life. The short answer: surprisingly well. She enjoys cars and how fast they can go, so has taken up a racing career that combines the two. She’s got a hot girlfriend (Yeah, it’s Trixie. I guess it’s not so much me stepping out of my comfort zone as looking outside the window of my comfort zone. At another comfort zone.) and is content. The proverbial “but” steps in however in the form of Aria Blaze, who is not adapting well as a human. In fact, she detests humans and finds them beneath her and wants nothing more than to find a way back to Equestria.
This character trait of Aria is what really drew me into this story. Her bitterness of her situation contrasts sharply with Adagio, and the two snipe words back and forth like vipers. It’s through their constant antagonism that we learn more about them than I would have expected. There’s a lot of history hinted at between these two and fanfiction like these compel me to look for more like it.
The story is a character piece, exploring what it means for the Sirens to lose their powers and if they should reclaim what they lost or build something new. Read this and judge for yourselves and come away with a bit more perspective.
Ladies do not avoid their problems. If a lady finds herself facing down a lonely Hearts & Hooves Day, she should smile and gracefully accept her lot in life, patiently trusting that more enjoyable times are on the way.
A lady certainly doesn't chase a stranger down the dreary streets of Canterlot, even if that stranger does turn out to be the Madam Inspector of the Equestrian Games. Loneliness and creative distress are no excuse for wild behavior. A lady should know better.
But Rarity has never been just a lady.
Loneliness and solitude are often confused for one another. Superficially that's understandable: they both imply a certain level of isolation from the world around you. Yet, they could not be more different.
Rarity is alone on the most romantic holiday of the year, and for obvious reasons this grates at her. Ms Harshwhinny, likewise, is alone, but her reaction is a little different. And this grates at Rarity as well, yet at the same time provokes her to pursue a... would she call it a relationship yet?
Fahrenheit calls this a romance, but in truth it's an exploration of the difference between the two states of isolation. It begins with the loneliness of two mares, but its climax is in solitude, as Rarity pursues her talent to its very ends, inspired by Ms Harshwhinny's own pursuit of her talent in her daily life, for neither can truly be at their best unless they are alone.
With a few tweaks, this could be the next Friends Forever comic from IDW.
Told in first person from Rarity’s point of view, we jump in learning that she’s getting ready for an upcoming fashion show and her crowning dress has her stumped. Worse, it’s Hearts and Hooves day and she’s sulky about spending another night alone. But, this is Friendship is Magic, and coincidences are as common as monsters of the week. She meets up with Miss Harshwhinny, who’s also spending the night alone, and suggests a girl’s night out on the town.
I love Rarity’s voicing in this one. Her vocabulary, her insistence that she remain ladylike in any situation (and breaks that rule several times in adorable ways), and her timely comments that reference her skill in fabrics and creativity, are all splendidly used to full effect. Why you so fabulous, Rarity?!
Not to be outdone, Miss Harshwhinny also has strong character moments. Without the Equestrian Games to focus on at the moment, we learn plenty of what Harshwhinny does with her time and the type of mare she is when off duty. She comes across as a character that has seen a lot and has plenty of metaphors to dole out wisdom whenever she deems it appropriate. She and Rarity interact very well, despite having seemingly diverse personalities.
And these two have fun! Yeah, I went into this thinking it was going to be somewhat dull and plodding, but the duo get into situations that I had no way of guessing at. I’ve only touched on the plot to this but the real draw are the characters. When it comes down to it, just about any story can be entertaining if we can get behind the leads and like them. Not that the plot is bad, far from it, as it serves as a framing device to have these two bounce off of each other in amusing ways.
Why are you still here?! Go read it!
“Okay, I think I’ve got it!” Intern said, dusting off his hands in dramatic fashion. “Light this sucker up.”
Crossing his fingers, Plum flipped the on switch.
Nothing happened. No lights lit up, no power was heard humming, and most importantly, no explosions occurred.
Intern scratched his head. “Huh, guess I better go back in and ch—“
The whole console blew up.
Plum learned on that day that, in space, someone can definitely hear you scream.
Feel free to visit our group for more information and events, and to offer some recommendations for future rounds. See you all next time!
I just dropped in to read, and... I didn't expect that!
Thanks, Angels. You made my day, er week—possibly year.
Whaaaaat, Solitude is eligible for a Seattle's Angels feature despite winning a silver medal in a hard-fought Writeoff round? *checks story* Whaaaaat, only 400 views?!?
Fahrenheit's story is an absolute gem. Go read it, y'all!
He wasn't wearing a red shirt, was he? Panel explosions are dangerous if you are. In fact, they are the leading cause of death for spacefaring target employees.
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Yeah, I'm also surprised it hasn't gotten more attention. It's good!