FimFiction Link - Short ID: 510070/princessy-things
Published: Feb '22
'Princessy Things' is a ten thousand-word G5 oneshot. Set after the movie, it portrays how Sunny grapples with the difficulties her newfound power and fame brought upon her.
What slowly became evident as I was reading through this story is how nicely it'd fit an actual episode. Both in terms of narrative and the way events happen, if someone told me this was an actual official episode, I'd might just believe them. Though the base concept is nothing new (humble character suddenly gaining a position of power they don't want) the story does its best to deliver a simple, fun, and lighthearted plot. There is nothing particularly 'deep' in this story. Sunny's ascension to alicornhood isn't really handled as a means of philosophical intrigue, rather as a practical joke and a straightforward plot-device, but the story isn't going for depth anyways. The scenes are nicely written, the characters all act faithful to their movie self, and the whole story is capped off by a heartfelt scene, followed by some nice visual comedy. Speaking of which, the humor is nice, but not really something that will likely make you roar in laughter. I appreciate the author's well-rounded repertoire when it comes to making jokes, but while they were amusing, none of them were really memorable.
The biggest gripe I've had with this story was honestly due to it "doing everything right." The story makes several almost fourth wall-breaking jokes about websites like Twitter and similar IRL things, which, of course, fit the G5 world, but I've regardless found them a bit distracting and annoying. Sunny saying that "Zipp is trolling her" is perhaps the most striking example. The movie itself set precedent for this, and I'm sure to many readers these will actually be enjoyable gags, but I still felt like it was important enough to mention. I also found the two tag-along guards to serve very little purpose except aside from one or two jokes and as a crutch for establishing that Sunny is important. It's not their presence that I have a problem with, rather that they don't even have lines or do anything interesting.
Overall: 7/10 This fic is like, as mentioned before, an episode in text format. This brings both positives (self-contained, satisfying narrative; rapid-fire humor) and negatives (a lack of depth and some less-important aspects not being fully explored.) While I personally mostly enjoyed this story, my recommendation ultimately comes down to how you feel about "episode-like" fics and G5.