Fandom Classics Part 213: Negotiations

To read the story, click the image or follow this link.

For those of you who keep up with writeoff-related happenings, the most recent minific round has concluded, and I managed to pace well; my story sandwiched neatly in between Ceffyl Dwr's first- and third- place entries.  Seriously, who writes two good stories in 24 hours?  Anyway, look for it to show up in either my minific collection or on its own (depending on how much my edits expand the wordcount) sometime in the near future.

But if my horsewords don't interest you, you could always read my words about horsewords!  My review of Rated Ponystar's Negotiations, below.



Impressions before reading:  I'm not too optimistic about this one going in.  It looks, on the surface, like a bog-standard bit of HFY (that is, "Humanity, F*** Yeah!," i.e. a story in which humans are indomitable badasses), applied to a TCB (that is, "The Conversion Bureau," a story about Equestria overtaking Earth and everyone turning into ponies, which remains massively influential despite being permanently incomplete) setting.  Neither of those bode well to me, and I've found both of the author's stories that I've reviewed to date underwhelming.  We'll see.

Zero-ish spoiler summary: Twilight meets with the human ambassador to discuss the terms of Equestria's surrender after the disastrous war Celestia launched against Earth.  There's just one complication: the ambassador is adamant that Celestia's death be part of the bargain.

A few thoughts: I do not think this can be appreciated as a story, which is unfortunately the vector by which I'm evaluating it.  It's trite, full of unbelievable characterizations, projects individual attributes onto species with impunity, and feels at all turns self-(that is, human-)serving.  It's telling that the author notes, "I kinda made if for the "Humans are Superior" group I'm a part of;" it is, indeed, humanwank through and through.

But more than that, it's an anti-Celestia screed.  Not particularly one opposed to anything she says or does in the show itself; no, the Celestia Rated Ponystar rails against is entirely a secondary construct, possibly rooted in TCB lore (though most of the specifics are unfamiliar to me.  I admit to having only the most rudimentary of knowledge of the setting--I'm not well-equipped to tell which elements are the author reacting to someone else's headcanon, and which are him inventing evils to decry).  Indeed, the vicious, casual-genocidal supervillain depicted in this story bears little resemblance to anything an average ponyfan might picture when they hear the name "Celestia."  Were the story to be about this discrepancy, that would be one thing, but instead it's part of the fic's essential grounding; it's simply a fact one needs to accept, that Celestia is evil and also wrong about literally everything ever.

Meanwhile, the rest of the story feels vaguely masturbatory, in a way similar to the omnipresent military fetishization fics (if you don't know what I'm talking about, consider yourself lucky), only directed at humanity itself.  The fic is full of passages (from Twilight's perspective) like, "Human technology was always so amazing to see, even now. To think an entire race did this without magic. It made me wonder what would happen if magic and technology was to combined? It was a different mind-set than Princess Celestia; she hated their technology," which inelegantly combine clunky writing with the celebration of human ingenuity in contrast to the imagined stagnancy of an imaginary creature from an imaginary race.  To be clear, celebrating how humans are better at something than a species whose relative abilities you define within the fic itself is an accomplishment that rings rather hollow.

In any event, the story is poorly constructed, dropping most of its setting on the reader in awkward reminices of Twilight's which fill the narration.  Even if the characterizations made sense, it would still feel like a lore dump masquerading as a story.  But as-is, it simply feels like a self-congratulatory put-down of a strawman.

Star rating:

  ★☆☆☆☆ (what does this mean?)

The best I can come up with in this story's defense is that it's entirely possible that some or even most of its most distasteful elements and absurd characterizations are directly taken from TCB and/or some of its most important side-stories.  But even in that case, this is still a transparent declamation of ideas that are silly enough not to require declaiming in the first place, and a celebration of traits which feel more banal than laud-worthy.

Recommendation:  Unless you really, really like to reflect on how awesome humans are and how anyone who would want them to behave differently would have to literally be a murderous mindraping "for the Greater Good"-tier villain, then this probably isn't the fic for you.

Next time:  Let’s Find You a Date!, by soundslikeponies