Drake's Thursday Reviews #5 · 12:43am Feb 8th, 2019
Let the reading continue!
The Librarian's Torch by Novel-Idea
Twilight attempting to express infatuation with another pony through the medium of being a neurotic bookhorse. i could not imagine a more fitting course of action for her to take in a Romance story. The romance is simultaneously subtle and forefront, insomuch that it's obvious that Twilight is stressed over something, but it isn't immediately apparent what, and I think that's intentional, because there's a lot of conflicting emotions swirling inside her over the story's events and she's just trying to deal with them, or avoid dealing with them, as she can. And in that this story is very sweet, funny and heartwarming and an ending that touches on the sad note long enough to make its point without bringing down the mood too much.
The first chapter was a bit too talky at some points, but that's a nitpick, the talky parts yet provide lots of humor and warmth. I could also say Sunset wasn't needed for this story, but it's been proven with scientific fact that Sunset makes any story better with her presence, and given the author I'd be worried if Sunset wasn't in this story.
Recommendation: A short and sweet little read.
The Winning Formula by Bookish Delight
"Neil deGrassefed Bison"... really? Really? Really?
Anyway, this takes place across two time periods - Sunset and Twilight as a happy couple who make a huge world-impacting decision, and the aftermath of that decision an indeterminate time in the future. This fic does a great job setting up the two as in love and living together, and then creates the tension between them up in a dramatic, sincere way. What they do changes the world, but it keeps focus on the two of them and their personal stake in what's happened because they were the ones that caused it, and examines how what happened effects their relationship.
My only criticism would be that the blatant superhero jokes, including power-up sequences and phrases, are very out of place with the seriousness of the situation. The story/author even seems aware of this, as the last chapter has the two joke about how the "action B-plot" was a bad idea. And, it wasn't, but it kinda walked the line between seriousness and absurdity. As is it's quite an esoteric happy ending with Twilight and Sunset noting their lives as they know them will probably never recover, but it also includes a humorous save that they'll be fine. One or the other, serious or humorous, either could have worked, but it's a bit uneven trying to mix them like this.
But, the occasional tonal problems aside, this has fluff, heart, humor, action, feels, and character, all the good stuff I like to see.
Recommendation: Great Sunlight all around.
Last time I wondered if I had just tired out of Justice's style of humor. This fic proves I have not. After some lighthearted but admittedly pointless banter between Sunset and Twilight, Twilight mentions the topic of the map calling Starlight and Sunburst to go see their parents, and something about what she says strikes a chord with Sunset. Within this fic's continuity, Starlight and Sunset bonded over the fact they were both orphans, and Sunset isn't impressed she was lying about it.
On its own, the fic doesn't work because this conflict is entirely manufactured, depicting a friendship being torn apart over something we didn't know was a thing. The summary does warn it references another fic, so I can't be too harsh to it, but still. Even accepting that background though, I think this fic is mostly to reconcile "oh crap, I wrote Starlight as an orphan in my fic but her dad was in an episode! Well, time to reconcile that!" And, in that regard, I guess this works, but it doesn't offer much else. For Justice's usual fare, this doesn't have a lot of humor to it either, not to say it isn't funny, it doesn't try to be funny that much.
Also, it ends with a PMS joke from Spike that is very forced.
Recommendation: Give this one a pass.
So this was a weird one to read, because I kept thinking it had a couple similarities to one of my fics, "Inferno", though only in a very general sense of "Twilight guys an outrageous gift for her girlfriend"... then I hit the end where Oroboro confirms he wrote it for Iron Authors and I headdesk as I realize the universe has just trolled me.
This is enjoyable, the "curse" twist promised in the summary doesn't go where you may think and it's enjoyable to see the story unfold with that. We also get hints of a bigger world going on to really establish this fic's canon.
Recommendation: A quick booster shot of quality RariTwi.
For the record, that one came courtesy of Tabitha St. Germain. She used it in a Bronycon reading of a script she wrote that Bookish and I attended.
So, if you have to blame anyone, blame Rarity.