Current stories: Future Considerations, North Ridge's Debt, Schadenfreude, Leprechauns · 5:48am Apr 25th, 2018
It's too late in the evening for me to write reviews, but I looked over some of the recent stories and found some that you might like:
Chris, "Future Considerations":
In the wake of the Crystal Empire’s reappearance and King Sombra’s deposement, a thousand thorny legal, cultural, and practical issues need to be addressed by the ponies of both lands. But there’s one issue that’s blindingly straightforward: the thousand-year-old Equestrian State of Conflict Empowerment Act is still technically in effect, and until it’s revoked, Equestria remains—officially—at war with the Empire.
Under the circumstances, nopony in Parliament could possibly consider voting against its revocation.
Right?
This brief story of ridiculous politicking is basically all humor, and all of the same type: idealistic young politician schooled hard by cynical-but-pragmatic oldster explaining why he has to do something stupid. But it delivers enough for 2200 words, and deserves more than the ~100 views it got.
Monochromatic, North Ridge's Debt
A stallion, a zebra, and a manticore walk into a bar. Years later, only a stallion does.
Another very brief story, one that doesn't rise above the generic in its plot, but does in its characters. Honestly it's too short to do much on its own, but Monochromatic has written more about these characters, and you might find you want to read more about them. Or you might just study it as an example of quick character development.
Daemon McRae, Schadenfreude Does a Thing
Schadenfreude is bored. He decides to get froyo. The apocalypse nowithstanding.
A crackfic at the top of the featured box by an author I don't know--I had low expectations, which it easily exceeded. Nearly all of the jokes are variations on the same pattern, "absurdly dangerous Cthulhian horror threatens Equestria and Schadenfreude reacts with boredom." It features 4 princesses, all mostly OOC, but it comes together in the end. You'll probably enjoy it if you can tolerate repeated variations on a theme for 4000 words.
Estee, The Pot Of Gold At The End Of (The) Rainbow
If you look around the multiverse, you'll find several entities who would behappyto see them, at least initially. Those sapients would be operating on dreams of free wishes and gold -- or, for the more sensible, shoe repair. But Equestria knows nothing of those tales. And so all Rainbow knows is that it's a very important day, one where she absolutelymusthave privacy, and that means she needs to get these miniature green-jacketed lunaticsout of her life.
Must be Crackfic Week again!
There are some good funny parts to this story, and it's all well-written. It's long for the payoff, though, and by "payoff" I mean a final joke that the entire story kept nodding towards, but that was kind of an icky letdown after 9000 words and many repeated foreshadowings. I mean, seriously, 9000 words, that's a sizable story and it ought to have more to it than this. It's clear early on that it's all leading up to some kind of joke about Rainbow Dash taking a dump, and for me this had the opposite of the effect foreshadowing is supposed to have, making me dread rather than anticipate the ending. I was not ... undisappointed.
Hmm, I wanted to make recommendations, but I think my main recommendation is that authors read I'm Afraid of Changeling (and other short stories) and see how short stories can be. All my critiques, positive and negative, keep coming back to the question of how much I got from a story for the number of words I had to read. We talk a lot about how to develop characters, how to plot, how to worldbuild--but not nearly enough about the more-essential, less-analyzable skill of knowing what needs saying and how much of it to say.
DEFINITELY check out
- MLP: FiM
- Dark
- Horror
- Thriller
Ditzy Do's eyes aren't broken. There's nothing wrong with her. She's just watching something. Something in the corner of your eye. For Goddess's sake, don't look.about Fae creatures being creepy evil fuckers.
Also yeah Estee stories tend to be well written but slow.
Just came from "Future Considerations," which really was quite nice and a pretty good insertion of politics (and politicking) into Equestria. I'll probably get to "Pot of Gold" soon, but it sounds pretty par for the course for Estee/their potential failure mode; luckily, I've found I mind the extra words less from them than elsewhere.