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

Machina



3,310 Words

By Glimglam

Recommended by Pascoite

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?

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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