FimFiction Link - Short ID: 507491/a-changeling-builds-a-house-in-the-everfree-forest
Published: Dec '21
'A changeling builds a house in the Everfree forest' is a four thousand and one hundred-word comedy oneshot. Twilight learns about a strange Changeling and an even stranger talking pebble living in the Everfree forest and decides to investigate them. Upon arriving to the scene, she meets the aforementioned strange duo arguing with Zecora, who's visibly exasperated from the pebble's strange antics. The stone regards Twilight as a plebian and announces how it, along with the Changeling - called Mute - and Zecora are lords, with the former being lords of cinder and the latter being lady of the forest. While Twilight tries to investigate the strange rock, Mute builds a massive palace on a tree in minutes, much to Twilight's confusion, who then promptly leaves the scene in hopes of gathering more information later.
While this story is technically a sequel, I didn't see much point in reviewing that story as this one is less of a separate story and more like an extension. This is further confirmed by the story's Anthology tag. As one can see from the summary, it is very much a story operating on lolrandumb humor, albeit a far more subdued kind than what the term usually implies. My usual disclaimers about comedy fics apply, if things like insignificant characters acting mightily, Twilight getting utterly confused and upset, and weird, almost sentient but still pet-like Changeling behavior sound like your kind of comedy, you'll likely have a great time. For me personally, most of the jokes were misses, because I'm not really into the whole talking pebble shtick, but, to be fair, even the worst ones were just simply not funny, instead of downright detracting from the experience. I did find the group huddle scene fairly amusing at least.
As for the rest of the story, I find the author's prose generally enjoyable, though nothing exceptional. Zecora's lines were alright in terms of rhymes, though, just like with the prose, the author didn't really do anything overly interesting with her either. Similarly the plot itself is very minimal. Twilight ambles into the forest, meets the bizarre scene, Zecora quickly excuses herself, then bookhorse spends the rest of the story arguing with a rock. There is nothing here that I outright dislike, but I really can't find myself caring about anything that's happening. We ultimately learn nothing about the pebble's being (which will likely be revealed in a sequel), nor who their mysterious goddess is, and I'm genuinely unsure if the author is using the name "Lords of Cinder" as a nod to Dark Souls. The allusion seems obvious, yet the story lacks the Crossover tag.
Overall: 5/10 There is nothing inherently bad in this story, but I neither found it funny enough, nor that intriguing to give it a higher score. If the summary sounds hilarious to you, I recommend it, otherwise you probably aren't losing out on much.