Paul's Thursday Reviews CCLIII · 10:02pm Jun 10th, 2021
Looking at how my schedule’s been going and all my goals, I’ve come to realize that a decision needs to be made. My original plan was to cut down on how much I read so that I could focus more on reading original fiction. To help with this, I needed to get rid of the majority of my Big Stories (70k+ words), and so chose to review one every week until I’d whittled them down to near nothing.
This didn’t work like I intended. Because some of these stories are friggen huge (I’m looking at you, Starlight Over Detrot), they effectively clog up my entire schedule, creating bottlenecks and preventing me from reducing my reading like I had originally intended. Even limiting my non-long reviews to 70k/week hasn’t done anything to help. I don’t want to stop the rule though, because it has indeed been great for finally getting to a lot of the bigger stories that were taking up so much room on my lists (even now, they take up almost 2/3rds of the whole schedule).
But I can’t do this forever, not if I want to ever get to reading/reviewing original fiction with some semblance of regularity. This in mind, I have decided to put an end-cap on the reviews for bigger stories. Once I have enough in my schedule to cover the rest of 2022, I will stop adding them to my lists at all.
Before y’all start thinking this means an end to my reviews or even just an end to reviewing longer stories, it doesn’t necessarily mean that. It’s more like a… guidepost. I’ll wait until I’m a month or two out from the end of 2022 and see how I feel about the whole situation. Maybe I’ll stop. Maybe I’ll keep going all-out. Maybe I’ll change things up so I’m reading a lot less. Point is, there’s no way to know until then. At the moment, I don’t see me stopping these blogs then, but I won’t say anything definitively.
In the meantime I’m guaranteed to be around until at least 2023, which gives us a year-and-a-half of reviews to go through! You people haven’t gotten rid of me yet. Speaking of reviews...
Stories for This Week:
Crime and Funishment by Aragon
The Dread Chitin by Karazor
Sunspawned by Masterweaver
Moving On by thatonecoffeemachine
Total Word Count: 149,804
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 0
Pretty Good: 4
Worth It: 0
Needs Work: 0
None: 0
Crime and Funishment
80,012 Words
By Aragon
After reading a really good book on the subject, Pinkie decides that it would be really fun to rob a bank! And she’s not about to let her friends miss out on it. Twilight & Co. are hesitant at first, but when the ‘robbery’ is downgraded to ‘prank’, they conclude there will be no harm done. Then Twilight makes a disturbing discovery…
Oh, but I am entertained. It ends up that robbing banks is just a prelude to robbing a casino, with all the Mane Six taking part. You’ll have to acknowledge early on that this is a story written entirely for laughs and not to be taken even remotely seriously. Fortunately, Aragon makes this clear early on.
I don’t want to say too much, as this is a story that is better off not spoiled. But a few highlights include a veritable herd of Bulk Biceps, elitists slamming their heads against tables repeatedly, Fluttershy trying and failing to gamble away money, Applejack shredding on a banjo, cake-induced explosions, Rarity discovering an absolute loathing of stairs, and the difference between swinging a guitar vs. swinging a guitar like a ukulele. Which, yeah, I know, it sounds like I’ve given away a lot with that little list. In truth, I’ve barely scratched the surface of how crazy this story gets.
I had a lot of fun and spent most of the story giggling. Yes, it’s stupid, but Aragon manages to write ‘stupid’ in a way I can enjoy. If that sounds like your jam, then by all means give this a go.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
I Don't Want To Write This — WHYRTY?
Love Is In Doom — WHYRTY?
A Hell of a Time — Pretty Good
Why She Looks So Good — Pretty Good
The Dread Chitin
63,107 Words
By Karazor
Requested by archonix
Twilight Sparkle has developed a spell that should allow continuous teleportation between fixed locations, a sort of “gate” across space. But as she tries it out with her friends, something goes wrong. The disaster leaves Twilight and Rainbow Dash on a dusty world filled to the brim with untold dangers… and one human who is very surprised and happy to meet them.
This story is many things, but most prominently it is a crossover adventure. Curiously, it’s not a crossover with one franchise, but two, neither of which I am familiar with. I believe the human, Duran, is from the Warhammer 40,000 universe. He himself gets teleported in similar fashion as Twilight and Rainbow to our setting, which I think is from the BattleTech universe. Again, I am not familiar with either of these, so I could be completely wrong in that regard. My only experience with Warhammer was Total War: Warhammer (which I didn’t play much of) and my only experience with BattleTech was MechWarrior 3 (which I adored, but it was a long time ago). The good news is that, awareness or no, it didn’t have any effect on my appreciation of the story, so it shouldn’t be an issue.
I frequently wondered if the aliens that live on the planet were inspired by the Zerg of StarCraft, but I honestly doubt it. It’s not like “giant, hellish space bugs” is a new idea.
Once you get past the whole “alien world that is constantly trying to kill you” bit, the brunt of the story ends up being about Twilight, Rainbow, and Duran living in an abandoned base together for a few weeks while Twilight tries to figure out what went wrong with her spell and whether she can fix it to get them home. The entire story is told from the perspective of Rainbow and covers a lot of interesting topics, such as the unwillingness of ponies like Twilight to engage in any violence whatsoever, the oddity of Rainbow as one who is, and the clash of cultures they both face while dealing with Duran.
Karazor makes a lot of leaps in this story. Twilight is trying to make magic function in a specific way but, because we’re seeing things solely from Rainbow’s perspective, the technicalities are skimmed over, assuming they’re mentioned at all. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it allows us to move on with the story at a nice pace, but those interested in the magic systems aspect of worldbuilding may be disappointed. Karazor also makes a lot of significant time jumps, which means that a lot of the character-building and relationship-building interactions between our three protagonists are skipped entirely beyond the most impactful bits. Again, this speeds the story up nicely, but it can be a turnoff for readers who really wanted to see the drama unfold. Finally, this rears its head in the fighting, which is often generalized. Karazor’s methods of handling these scenes greatly reduces any sort of tension or worry we might feel in what should be a fierce struggle for survival.
In short, Karazor really likes to summarize the “in between” stuff. Whether that’s good or not will depend upon what you’re looking for in a story. The more detail-oriented you are, the less enthused you’ll be.
Still, I’m pleased with what we got. Rainbow does a great job as our protagonist caught between one of her best friends and her new friend in the “using violence to solve problems” issue, the story is fast but not so much as to feel rushed, and the writing overall is solid. I look forward to seeing what the sequel holds for us.
Oh, and I suppose I should note that this is one of the site’s earliest stories, coming in at #3193. Considering we’re about to hit the 500,000’s, that should say something about it’s age. It has weathered canon remarkably well.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Sunspawned
4,583 Words
By Masterweaver
Sequel to Sunsplit
In Sunsplit, it was revealed that Sunset Shimmer is a magical clone created by Sunburst as a desperate, last ditch effort to have a marefriend and seem more ‘normal’. But we were only seeing them re-united, so how did that come about? Enter Sunspawned, where we get to witness the creation of Sunset Shimmer, the really awkward date, and Celestia’s reaction to her existence.
This was highly entertaining, just like its predecessor and successor. We watch an ever-awkward Sunburst try not to flip his lid as Sunset proves to be very different from everything he imagined. Apparently she was never supposed to be self-aware, but certain shenanigans at a bathhouse Sunburst wasn’t supposed to be in have turned Sunset into not only a sentient being, but one with her own opinions, perspective, and personality. She’s set to have far more magical power than him and, thanks to no longer being bound by his social situation, is free to say and do as she pleases, which leads to some delightful observations and a possible lack of self-preservation (at least as far as her interactions with Celestia are concerned).
The end result is a highly entertaining origin story in which Sunburst’s “sister” is created and starts deciding what her place in the world will be. I love how direct she is with everypony. If this all sounds amusing to you, then jump in!
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Psychadelic — WHYRTY?
Cadance's Educational Video — Pretty Good
Floral Embrace — Pretty Good
Sunsplit — Pretty Good
Sunshipped — Worth It
Moving On
2,102 Words
By thatonecoffeemachine
Sequel to Old Times Sake
In a world where Twilight has become a tyrant obsessed with order over chaos, Discord finds himself alone. Hiding in a nebulous void, he mopes and faces potential madness while longing for his dear Fluttershy.
This is by far my favorite story in this series so far. With all the context handled in the previous two stories, this one focuses entirely on the unravelling of Discord’s fragile psyche. Betrayed, lonely, and scared, the story does great work with its short wordcount in order to really get into his head and let us feel his depressed mood.
The only catch is that you pretty much have to read the first two stories to understand why Discord is like this. On the one hand, the stories are both short, so it won’t take long to catch up. On the other, I was… not impressed by the first one’s writing, so that could be an issue for some people. This story does have a few instances of the same issues, but at nowhere near the same level. A noted improvement, author.
Emotive and painful, this is certainly the most atmospheric story of the series so far. I’m very interested to see if the next story continues to rely on Discord or switches subjects entirely.
Bookshelf :Pretty Good
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Old Times Sake — Worth It
Losing Sight — Needs Work
Stories for Next Week:
Anypony for Doomsday? by PhycoKrusk
Shining Armor Saves Everyone by 42Zombies
Wi-no-na by Ribe_FireRain
Aeroponics by MagnetBolt
Zero-Sun Game by Undome Tinwe
Accelerando by McPoodle
Succor by Rose Quill
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Dread Chitin. More suggested the requested, but 👍. I wholeheartedly recommend the sequel to anyone reading.
For the record, masterweaver is also a decently entertaining writer. Ye.
I've always hated the "Sunset is Sunburst's Sister!" idea. IMO it's lazy. "Oh look, they have the same coat color! Must be siblings!" despite ample evidence in the series indicating that that clearly has no influence in that. (The Cakes, Twilight's family, Fluttershy's family, etc)
The approach that she's a magical creation by a school dropout... eeeeh. At least they're not siblings? I still find it a hard sell for me, even if it's done as a joke.
Ah, Doomsday was great. :D
5533349
Aww man, don't pass on Sunspawned just because it reminds you of that fanon sibling aspect.
It's a short, funny story about a pony getting far, far more than he bargained for when he first set out to create a gender-swapped dummy of himself. It even manages to play around with the implications of magical cloning and how it would affect their psyche, and their interactions with one another and their community is hilarious.
Granted, tastes in comedy might differ, but I think it punches way above its weight considering its length.
5533565
Maybe in a year-and-a-half when my slate's empty and/if I've decided to keep going for another year. Which is probably going to be the case, but you never know.
Yeeeah, not a chance.
Where this comment leads is ultimately a recommendation for Aragon's Pressed For Time.
The review for Crime and Funishment surprised me with how well it went over - though I think the most of it was that I took it too seriously. I'm a giant fan of Aragon's work, even, but something about C&F made me bounce off it twice, and the full read I finally did when this popped up felt like that too.
I'm back here commenting months late - I originally started an arduously complicated comment about the story itself that I actually returned to to work on 2-3x times only to lose the mobile tab I had it in and lose the comment.
It's crossed my mind to come back to this a few number of times because I felt like, with how large your reading schedule is already, weakly selling Pressed For Time by Aragon at its 90k word count by just saying "hey check this out its so good" really didn't cut it in that circumstance. Didn't cut it when its in my top 15 stories on the whole site - while Evil Is Easy Governing Is Hard (a WHYRTY?) had a joke in it so funny that I HAD to share it to non-brony friends, here, take this baby, once Pressed For Time finished setting everything up across the first few chapters it became one of the thoroughly funniest stories on the entire site, between awareness of the show's characters and Aragon's marvelous talent and comprehension of running jokes.
While Crime and Funishment managed some solid 1-2 punch jokes like Fluttershy needing to get rid of a large back of cash quickly only to repeatedly and infinitely win at a slot machine, Pressed For Time managed some 5, 6 and 7 hit combos either in the form of marvelously layered jokes or just some of the poignantly dumbest, greatest slapstick I've read on the site.
Despite its length and relative obscurity, I wish that many more people could read, enjoy, and visit it.