Psst, bub, sit down in that speakeasy why don't you? We're going back. We're going to be reading fanfics. Oh, right, I haven't done an episode of this yet, this is basically a series where I am going to review fanfics.
This is completely secret, so don't tell anybody, okay?
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/533466/natural-light-a-solarpunk-story
Review:
This story is honestly, one of my favorite things I've read in the past few weeks, perhaps even couple of months. This is a story about a bunch of ponies trying to install solar energy into various homes and houses, and trying to get past a tyrannical government who outlaws solar energy as sun theft. This is such a unique premise.
I rarely see stories about scientific revolutions. This feels very cause-and-effect. The rebels give out solar heaters for free, but one unicorn lord who owns coal mines orders the pegasi to hold off on ending winter, basically just so peasants have to get coal.
(They all nodded. More and more earth ponies in town were making use of solaether to secretly heat their homes. The Shiners had taken to building heaters and donating them for free, even giving them enough solaether to last through the remainder of winter and through the early spring. It was among the biggest boosts to their reputation, of course, but it had led to an unexpected backlash:
The local coal merchant, a unicorn who owned the mines, had noticed that the number of earthers purchasing coal for their stoves was down by a third since last year. And so, with some generous spending on the local weather teams, the pegasi had delayed the spring rains to mark the end of winter and even diverted more cold winds and snowstorms to the city… but only over earth pony neighborhoods.) What I love is that this story doesn't say stuff too explicitly, but we can understand the unicorn lord bribed them to keep winter up so that way people will buy his coal somehow so he can maintain profits, and I'm totally down with this sort of story. This explains how actual evil works. Solarpunk is also the enemy of heavy industry, so this is exactly the kind of schemes I'd imagine. Another line has a lord say, "Why, rather than resort to violence and give in to revolutionary persuasion, did the labourers not simply take their labour elsewhere? For though earth ponies be of the Third Stable, they are peasants, not slaves. And even a peasant may travel, once he has given notice to his lord, of course.) So you have freedom as long as we give you freedom.
The author doesn't treat the reader like an idiot and handhold but doesn't make the clues completely obfuscated where you wonder if you're reading a mystery novel. I thought this was just a really competently handled story.
The only flaw is that a couple of chapters have "flat endings" where there's no reason for the chapter to end that way.
Some people may think I just hate Dark fanfics, but that's not really true, so much as I like fanfics that adhere to source material. Now does this? No, but yes. This has the lore and feels at home with what we knew about the past in MLP where unicorns really did lord over earth ponies. So I hesitate to say I can really call this fic a true and total violation of the canon that I love, so much as a reasonable way to make a dark anti-authority anti-industry fic in this universe.
The "imps" have strong characterizations from the get-go, and they bounce off of one another and have clear goals. There's also strong dialogue where everyone can be understood by the signatures of their speech, and while this is sometimes overbearing, the accents never go to the verge of unintelligible, and instead the slang and jargon adds a whole lot to this world.
Overall: 5/5
Recommendations:
This actually has more of a steampunk feel, with the way the buildings are described, or maybe even a whimsical dieselpunk feel to me than solarpunk. That was what initially put me off. However, this is pretty much fit for anyone who can deal with feeling like they're in another era.
Total thoughts:
This is exactly what I think a fanfic should be, and I find this very interesting as well. This is one of those fanfics, that, when finished, I feel like I'll have been glad to read, and I have high hopes for the future. At the very least, I'll have these six chapters.
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