Review #80 - Petunia Paleo and the Giant Coprolite, Two of Swirls · 4:16am Mar 22nd, 2017
P.S. Sorry about the length of this opening, the Youtube vids do that...
Well, I was doing something when I found these three videos on Youtube. They are actually pretty cool videos, you should check them out:
Petunia Paleo and the Giant Coprolite by Admiral Biscuit
Two of Swirls by Trick Question
As always, I will put down my recommendations, but I truly hope that you make the choice on whether to read a fic or not yourself.
Petunia Paleo and the Giant Coprolite by Admiral Biscuit
(Comedy, Mystery, Slice of Life)
Petunia Paleo makes a discovery in the Badlands which turns Equestrian Paleontology on its ear: the largest intact coprolite known to ponykind.
Review
This one is, um, interesting. It has no characters to speak of simply due to the fact it was made for the cover art... why, oh why did you do this Admiral, and, by extension, Bad Horse? Anyway, because this is a cover-art fic, it does not have much for a plot and is therefore quite a short read. I don't know, at least your story is generally well written for what it is, even if it does disappoint a bit. Back in the day when this, and the blog post by Bad Horse that inspired it, came out, it was great, but now it's just weird. I found it good mostly because of the "what?" factor.
The greatest weakness would have to be... it's based off cover art. Cover art fics, at least, most of them, are not so great. Admiral Biscuit managed to pull off an alright one through his writing prowess, but only just barely. My advice for you, don't create fics off cover art unless you really just have to.
Recommendation: Worth Reading once, and only once. (Yeah, reasons stated above).
Two of Swirls by Trick Question
(Drama)
Princess Celestia violates Star Swirl's privacy to learn a dark secret. Upon asking for his forgiveness, Star Swirl makes an unusual request: pay his mercy forward to her future prodigal students.
Review
I'll be honest at the start, I really dislike the plot of this story. Celestia here is different than any other Celestia-s I have read. She, on the surface, seems regretful of what she did to Star Swirl and curious to how he does stuff. Towards the end of the fic, we see her as lonely and worrisome for the future. Star Swirl is quick to forgive Celestia and is quite patient with her, though, not without being somewhat cryptic. The character's strengths are really in their interactions with each other. Now, from a literary standpoint this is a great fic, hence why it's in my favourite list, but from a personal one, I don't like the plot at all. Also, Star Swirl origin stories really annoy me... almost as much as Celestia and Luna born as alicorn stories.
The greatest weakness then is that it's not quite there. I feel like it's a good read but could have been so much more had it been done differently. I'm not really sure how to describe it more than that, so I hope you know what I mean.
Recommendation: Worth Reading/ Recommended. (It's almost there, though I don't know what could use work. That, and I don't like the point of this one).
I did it because Bad Horse dared me. And he probably dared me because he knew I'd do it. It's a vicious cycle.
But yes, that does give it a limited shelf life.
Or have really really good cover art--my top rated fic is also a cover art fic.