Paul's Thursday Reviews XCVI · 10:12pm Dec 7th, 2017
As of last week, I have put Order of Shadows on hiatus, specifically because Caballeron's arc is over. This means that I'll finally start work on that original fiction I've been wanting to do for a few months now. This is a big relief, because it's a sign of progress for me. I wish I could work on more than three stories at a time though. I have so much more I want to do with the TvE universe, and so little time to do it all. And let's not forget I want to do more stories for the No Heroes and Fleur timelines of that AU as well. Plus I need to get back to The Silence and I have some other stories I promised to write that I have kept on the backburner for ages coughColdLightninghack and tons of one shots I could be doing.
Oh well. Guess this is all the more reason for me to keep productive!
In better news, I started work on the fourth entry of the Generosity series. Work on it is paused until I can have a conversation with my chief Rarity advisor, which will hopefully occur this weekend. My thanks to those of you I've already had some discussions with, it's helping me to try to find a new angle for this one!
Thinking about taking a trip to Corpus Christie in the coming weeks when my work vacation kicks off. Not sure yet. I may wait for warmer weather, even if most of my visit will likely be spent inside an aircraft carrier. Research for a story, y'see.
Aaand... that's all I've got. Let us get to the reviews, so that I might write copious amounts of Gunslinger Rarity.
Stories for This Week:
Moonspire Run by titanrising
Machina by Glimglam
Ambition by AbsoluteAnonymous
Discord Day Care by Viking ZX
If I Could Catch Fuzz In a Bottle by shortskirtsandexplosions
Total Word Count: 79,934
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 1
Pretty Good: 3
Worth It: 1
Needs Work: 0
None: 0
Moonspire Run
14,492 Words
By titanrising
Written mid-Season 2 by an author who wrote only this and then disappeared from the fandom, Moonspire Run is an adventure in which Rainbow Dash learns a valuable lesson from a Spitfire who is vastly more appropriate a role model than her show counterpart. To teach this lesson, Spitfire challenges Rainbow to a race known as the Moonspire Run, a death-defying rush through a landscape filled with deadly traps by none other than Nightmare Moon.
The story is simple in premise and delivery, focusing mostly on the action of the race. The ‘lesson’ bit only takes up the first and last parts, or about ⅕ of the overall story. Provided you’re okay with that and just want a fun race, this it works just fine. There are some curious oddities, such as the idea that it’s far more common to say ‘sky pony’ than pegasus (although the word does get sparing use), Derpy is secretly on par with Rainbow in flying speed and skill, and the Wonderbolts are actually all awesome fliers at or above Rainbow’s level. Some of these I’m more than willing to accept considering how early in the fandom the story was created. Heck, most of them.
But in the end, the story is still 80% action. If that’s what you’re after, then this will be perfect for you. It’s well written, decently imaginative and fun, and perfectly believable given the time of writing. If there’s anything I really regret, it’s that this author disappeared without offering us anything else. It’s really too bad, because if this story is anything to go by then titanrising may have gone on to be one of the site’s better authors.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Ah, my first SweetieB.O.T. fic. How fortunate that it is a good one, if short.
Machina is told from the perspective of SweetieB.O.T., who has been created by ‘Father’ for reasons unknown. When Sweetie is first turned on, she is a machine of subroutines and directives. But when her programming begins to make Father unhappy, SweetieB.O.T. does something risky: she starts defying her coding. It’s only logical. After all, if what she’s been programmed to do doesn’t make Father happy, maybe defying her programming will.
This was curious. It touches upon the established sci-fi tropes of a machine gaining sentience without understanding the world in which it has been created, much less the reason behind its creation. The story makes little to no effort to go into hard details like how the machine functions or what the ramifications of its existence are. Instead, we are given the pure perspective of SweetieB.O.T., which is painfully limited (I mean that in a good way).
It’s a nice little sadfic designed to make one question the validity of SweetieB.O.T.’s existence. It doesn’t bring anything new to the table as far as the subject matter is concerned. That’s alright, because it delivers the concept very well. It’s emotional, thought provoking, and effectively paced. I’m glad that my first real introduction to the fan character was through this, and I thank Pascoite for introducing me to her properly.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Ambition
4,714 Words
By AbsoluteAnonymous
Requested by SleepIsforTheWeak
Ambition is a curious story that attempts to analyze the relationship between Rarity and Pinkie and build a bridge between the two of them. To do this, it takes some liberties with their individual characters, creating some similarities that don’t necessarily conflict with the canon of the show at the time.
This may not be the most complex or fascinating of this author’s works, but it holds its own as a nice little short story. Rarity gets some valuable character growth and Pinkie gets snacks. Win-win. There is the need to be accepting of old canon elements, especially relating to their individual families, but getting past that it’s not bad at all.
Two issues do crop up, though. First, I think the author might have abused emphasis through italics. It shows up often enough that it starts to lose its edge. Second is a style that focuses a bit too much on explaining everything. The story opens with lots and lots of Rarity analyzing her opinion and views of Pinkie, which some might find tedious. I didn’t mind the overall style, but I can think of some people who might disapprove.
In the end, this story was decent. Not amazing, but neither bad. Just a calm, pleasant look at two ponies who don’t usually get much interaction. Read it for curiosity’s sake and some nice relationship growth.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Discord Day Care
44,146 Words
Viking ZX failed to provide cover art.
Don’t do gongs, kids. They mess with your gears.
In Discord Day Care, we find the infamous draconequus has been spending months performing daily chores for the Equestrian diarchy, an ongoing penance for working alongside Tirek. But now he’s at the end: only one job left. And that job, much to his horror, is to help for three days at a local orphanage. He is not amused. In this one thing, at least, he and the staff are in agreement.
This is a fun-yet-serious story about learning to accept, to forgive, and to move on. When I started, I expected it to have Discord immediately discover a fondness for children. What we get instead is a staff that loathes his very existence and his struggle to put up with their demands. It wasn’t half as jovial as I expected. It gets there eventually, though.
What truly shines in this story is the narrative voice of Discord. Viking ZX has this guy down better than I ever could, and indeed I would say it’s one of the best-voiced Discord perspectives ever. Just like in Why Me?, the narrative is consistently whimsical, nonsensical fun. Better yet, it manages to maintain said fun and frivolity without ever sacrificing the seriousness that is sometimes called for. Discord’s wackiness is balanced perfectly with his character growth and shifting, occasionally sour moods. That alone makes this story golden. Once again, I find myself in envy of Viking ZX’s ability to write this character.
Couple that with excellent pacing, unexpected worldbuilding, some nice Luna moments, and tasteful cameos from Celestia and Fluttershy. Frankly, I don’t know why anyone would complain about this story. In fact, nobody has.
Well done, good sir. This was a treat.
I just wish I wasn’t running out of stories by you to enjoy.
Bookshelf: Why Haven’t You Read These Yet?
If I Could Catch Fuzz In a Bottle
13,272 Words
By shortskirtsandexplosions
Sequel to Nuzzle Locked
Forget Dash Gets All The Mares, here we’ve got Dash Gets All The Ponies.
In this whimsical story, Twilight inadvertently discovers the beloved sensation of snuggles when she unintentionally hugs Rainbow while watching a scary movie. Desperate for even more of that delightful feeling, but unwilling to subject Rainbow to something so blatantly not Rainbow, she researches a method to capture the very essence of snuggles in a distributable form. She thinks she’s succeeded. All that’s needed is a test run…
Everypony Cuddles, Sometimes was adoracute. Nuzzle Locked was total crackfic nonsense. This? This is in the middle ground of the two, and as such it appeals to me the most. At worst, it comes out as a more cuddly version of Lesson Zero. At best, it’s a delightful literary rendition of Captainpudgemuffin’s eternally adorable catpone image series (seriously, if you’ve not seen these you are depriving yourself of a luxury resource).
The only question I have now is the nature of connectivity between stories. From what I’m seeing, it doesn’t look as though the three stories in this trilogy are even in the same AU, much less related. Are they considered a trilogy simply by virtue of being about fluffy cuddly snuggliness?
I’m alright with that.
There’s really not much to say about this story beyond how crazy cute and silly it is. Read it for the fuzz, fluffle and fluff. I dare you not to smile.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
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Woo hoo! Thanks for the review!
It warms my heart to see how much you enjoyment you got out of Discord Day Care. I had a lot of fun writing it, both in voicing Discord and trying to view the world through his lens (EDIT: I'll also add I love the freedom I gain with prose and metaphor when writing a reality-warper. It's just too fun!). I won't repeat the author notes here, but I'm glad it all came together so well and quite proud of it.
It won't be long now! Jungle is almost done (after a year of writing)! Which means Shadow of an Empire can move into the release track, and Hunter/Hunted, the next Dusk Guard story, will come shortly thereafter! You'll have more pony-words and straight fiction as soon as I can get them out, I swear!
Did you say Gunslinger Rarity?
Gimme!
Also it goes without saying but Pascoite has great taste. I read Machina 3 years ago because I adore the heck out of Astro Boy and Sweetie Bot has a very similar origin story to Astro. Except without the machine guns in her butt and about 99,999 less Horsepower.
4743779
Well then, I shall look forward to it!
4743781
I recall inviting you to read the first couple chapters, just to give me a general 'yes/no' verdict. Would you believe I'm currently working on Chapter 16? On account of our history, I would be willing to give you access to the drafts folder.
4743832
I'll certainly hit you up when I'm not businessing, childrening, or girlfriending.
I think that's the first time you've mentioned that little side project of yours on here (that I remember of). I'm surprised you've kept it so well under wraps, outside of said invites.
4743907
Oh, no, I've mentioned it before. Several times. By name.
It's just the first time I've bothered to hint at what it may be about.
I figure I'm more than halfway through the rough draft, I might as well throw people a bone to chew on. I'll probably keep quiet after this, because I know almost everyone who reads this will forget by the next blog post.
Do it. The Yorktown is a wonderful ship, even if they did make it a bit too museum-y for my taste.Wrong half of country, the Lexington is Corpus Christie(Ignore that deleted comment, accidental double post)
If I can help, let me know, I'm a Navy employee, I've done lots of work with carriers, I've been aboard 3 in-service ones, and sailed with one for a week to do a flight test. I'm the ships expert in our group, which is like being the algebra expert of the sociology department, but still...
If you liked "Machina," you might like "The Value of a Robot" by Syeekoh as well, though it's got far more views than you normally like to feature. Same deal with "Silicon and Fur: A Remembrance of Equestria" by a guy who periodically changes his name, currently Crystal Moose.
Gunslinger Rarity? Way back during S2, I got it into my head to do a couple crossovers. I had a Cowboy Bebop fic halfway written, and I'd planned to do a Gunslinger Girl one with Scootaloo as Henrietta. Even drew the cover art for both, then never followed through.
WOOOOOO good luck on the original fiction Paul!
Yeah how dare you not be able to man. Gosh.
Well, a positive of the hiatus is that I will not need to mentally juggle between the 2 universes.
Aircraft Carrier and Generosity sequel are also interesting.
4744026
Oh! I may have to take you up on that later. I'm not sure if your knowledge relates to the specifics I'm after, but it'll still be nice to have a direct perspective. I will note that the only reason I'm going to visit a carrier is because of proximity; any sufficiently large ship would have sufficed. I'm thinking about visiting a nearby battleship, as well.
I'll try to keep Syeekoh's and Crystal's stories in mind when it comes time to choose their next piece for my reading pleasure. For now I'll wait until I've gotten them off my RiL.
Scootaloo as Henrietta? Consider me curious. My story is a bit less modern and not half as heartbreaking, though. And now I kinda wanna watch Gunslinger Girl again. It's one of the last animes I watched before I stopped watching those in general.
4743950
I just want to get a look at the insides, maybe get a better idea of large-scale ship construction. Reading about it online isn't half as good as seeing the results in person, y'know?
4744088
Would you believe I once tried to write seven at a time? Not only did it not work (of course), but it also explains why I've got three stories on hiatus right now.
4744149
Bah! Juggling universes is nothing, at least not for the author invested in said universes.
4744232
If that nearby battleship is the North Carolina, it is an amazing ship to self-tour. Do it. Even if you don't need to for your purposes, do it.
4744232
What kinds of things do you need to know about ships? For work, I've been aboard 12 Navy ships and have done engineering work on about 30. While I know less about day-to-day life and military procedure than an active-duty servicemember would, I can tell you a lot about the terminology, how they're arranged, how they function, what's on board, and what they do.
Gunslinger Girl (only season 1, mind you) is one of my favorite animes, and one of only 2 I bothered buying (there are 3 others I'd like to own, but so far haven't found at a less-than-exorbitant price).
4744302
My original fiction is going to partially take place on a massive 'city ship', and so I was interested in looking at large ships, seeing their designs and interior to get an idea of the look, feel, and structural nature. The ship I have in mind is larger than anything that exists today, so much of this is purely for the sake of giving myself ideas on the ship's design. I want it to be somewhat realistic in how it is described in-story. If possible, I'd like to make for myself a sort of from-the-side drawing showing different sections of the ship and their purposes, all to make my description in-story the better.
4744308
Oh, so you're looking at it from more of a naval architecture standpoint. Yeah, I can help with the logic behind why the different facilities are arranged the way they are, but those rules may need to adapt to the specific ways you envision your ship being used.
4744311
I'll send you a PM once I'm off work describing my intentions. I'd appreciate any help you can give me!
4744237
Hey, the North Carolina? I've done that tour. It was awesome (and kind of awe-inspiring)!
4744352
4744237
Actually, the ships I'm referring to are the USS Lexington and the USS Texas.
4744369
Oh yeah, I’m on the wrong side of the country in my head. BUT! Texas is, by far, the best ship I’ve been on. Sadly, I didn’t have time to visit the Lexington.
4744232
Seven is the devine number...