Wednesday 19 October 2016

Ponyfic Roundup 129: God Save Donald Duck, Vaudeville and Variety

For the last PR before my mini-hiatus, I have another five stories to look at. Unusually for me, two of them are Mature-rated pieces, though neither is a clopfic in the usual sense of the word. Not a week with any standout fics, but there are several in the "if you like this stuff, this fic's worth a look" category.

The Worst Clopfic Ever by Noir de Plume
One Step Closer by InvaderSplorch
Fluttershy's Nice Fanfic by Jay-The Brony
Story of the Blanks by Aoshi Stark
Toola Roola Paints a Picture by Captain_Hairball

★: 0 | ★★: 3 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0

The Worst Clopfic Ever by Noir de Plume
Twilight and Cadance
Comedy; 2k words; Apr 2015; Mature (Sex)
Just because you CAN write does not mean you should...
Yes, it's another "Twilight attempts to write steamy stuff" story, and it's not a bad one. It's not as good as Cold in Gardez's Naked Singularity (PR 2), but then very little is and it's still fairly good fun. In this fic, things aren't as madcap as I'd expected, and there's also less attention than I'd expected paid to how the Princess of Love would surely be well versed in erotica. Also, "Twilight wiggled her plot" – stop that, please. The story does have a great last line, though, which helps pull it up into the three-star bracket. ★★★

One Step Closer by InvaderSplorch
Twilight, Celestia and Other
Sad/Slice of Life; 2k words; Nov 2014; Everyone
Twilight learns about the Tree of Harmony.
A quiet story in which Tia discovers a journal entry about the Tree's origins. It's quite an interesting setup, especially for those who like me enjoy backstory. However, it suffers from taking ages to get going, and some of the journal entries don't really read like journal entries. There's also quite a bit of verse... which sadly doesn't scan well at all. Only really recommended if you're a Treefic devotee. ★★

Fluttershy's Nice Fanfic by Jay-The-Brony
Twilight and Fluttershy
Slice of Life; 2k words; Dec 2015; Everyone
Twilight discovers that Fluttershy has written a fanfiction
A follow-up to Rainbow's Bad Fanfic (PR 123), this is one for people who like calm, very SoL-y SoL without divers alarums getting in the way. I don't mind quiet SoL at all, but this one is rather hampered by the preachy way its message comes across, and by the fact that (as a commenter notes) that doesn't really fit with the moral of the earlier story. ★★

Story of the Blanks by Aoshi Stark
Apple Bloom, OCs, Twilight, Zecora and Other
Adventure/Dark; 15k words; Mar 2012; Teen
Throughout Equestria relics of the past lay forgotten and alone...
Oh, this takes me back. The fic, which would probably be tagged [Horror] if published today, is essentially a storification of the (originally) Newgrounds game of the same title. You do really need to have played the game to get the most out of this, but then you lose a lot of the tension it might otherwise have. It's a reasonably solid adaptation, although there's a lot of LUS: "the little filly" and so on. Sunny Town has certain echoes of the then yet-to-be-seen Our Town, which adds a layer of interest. Might be worth a three to those just getting into SotB, but for me it's a high two. ★★

Toola Roola Paints a Picture by Captain_Hairball
Other [Toola Roola], OCs and Rarity
Random/Slice of Life; 7k words; Sep 2016; Mature (Sex)
When Toola Roola, a sophomore painting major at Smart Cookie Universtity, runs out of red paint the night before a big critique, her search for more sends her into an undergrad underworld of sex, drugs, petty crime and social awkwardness.
This fic is set about four years before FiM opens, and gives a starring role to a pony we haven't seen in G4 at all. Does it work? Actually, yes, for the most part. It's a bit on the crude side in terms of tone, and there are several explicit scenes which justify its rating, but there's an interesting story here as well. The use of "Faust" is annoying, and one or two real-world references grate (Kleenex?) but if you don't mind the tone this does give an idea of just what pony student life among the more dissolute arts set might have been like. ★★★

Next time on Ponyfic Roundup: there won't be one next week because of UK PonyCon. The following week, it'll probably be another mixed bag.

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