FimFiction Link - Short ID: 474178/the-black-between-the-stars
Published: Aug '20 — Mar '22
The Black Between the Stars is a 98k word crossover (or convergence, as I like to call crossovers in this vein) with the game series Prey, starring Applejack as the protagonist.
Frankly, I don't have much to complain about. It's a solid, engaging read all throughout and I'm generally pretty happy to have gotten around to reading it. I lead with this because my issues with it, on the whole, are pretty minor.
It doesn't exactly sit right with me that the entirety of the main action of the story happened within a few hours in-universe. I felt there were things that could've been expanded on a bit more. Blueblood, specifically, is a good example. We're told he's a total priss/snob, and while that's fair considering he IS Blueblood, it just isn't conveyed that well. We're given a bit of his usual snootiness when he's first introduced, and then we only see him again after the changelings are running about the station. I legit felt Aj/Trix were being pretty damn aggressive toward him in their meeting, he could hardly get a word in to even BE an asshole. Then later on Aj's constantly going on about how surprised she is that he's being non-useless/cooperative. Again, which is fair, but it just feels unfounded because he was nowhere near that bad in the brief time he'd been with them. I just feel he should've been explored a bit more before things went wrong so we could actually see how different the situation had made him act, especially considering his role later in the story.
There were a few errors here and there, but otherwise the prose was solid. There were some... pretty strange word choices. Seeing Lightning Dust use fop, for one. Or AJ using stot, which I outright didn't know the meaning of. And the contraction or probably/prolly into "pr'y" threw me for a loop everytime I saw it.
I can't speak to how much justice it does to the Prey franchise as I know very little about it, but the setting me in well enough. All in all, this was a fun thriller to read with an appreciatively cheesy ending. I'm not sure I can rightfully give it a good, true numerical rating so I rate it AJTrix duo out of 10.