It Is Recommendsday, My Dudes #98 · 8:03pm Feb 1st, 2023
So this is kind of-sort of a new writer blog, though it's kind of on the edge? They're all less 'new' and more authors with low story counts that haven't grabbed a lot of attention. I guess that still counts? Ish? Or something close enough if you squint.
Anyway, here's Wonderwall Flurry Heart.
We lead with Moonlight Bloom and Night of the Living Plushies.
Flurry Heart, the precocious imp that she is, has been sneaking out at night and stealing cookies. Shining Armor, being a trained guard, sets out to stop her. She has a small army of magically animated plushies. He has Flash Sentry and a squad of guards.
He doesn't stand a chance.
Okay, so this isn't a complicated story. What you see there is what you get, and it's a pretty straight forward comedy. That doesn't mean it isn't hilarious, though. It's really similar notes to the Equestria Girls snowball fight episode like that - it's wonderfully silly. Shining gets to have some real fatherly fun, Cadance gets to play the long-suffering mom, and Flurry gets cookies. Really there's not a ton to say beyond that. It's silly, it's funny, it's light. Just a wonderful little fun jaunt.
Next up is a slightly more serious (but still quite comedic) entry with Flurry Heart is Evil! by UnknownError.
King Sombra has returned. And been defeated, which means it's the fourth Defeat of Sombra Day this year. But there's a complication: Cadance suspects that Sombra's dark magics have infected her daughter. Flurry Heart is acting strange: she's constantly in a fell mood, locks herself in her room, and won't talk to her mother. She collects strange dolls and has secretive meetings where she and her friends speak in tongues as they discuss eldritch formulae. Shining insists that this is just Flurry being a teenager who enjoys Warhammer and LARPing, but Cadance knows better. She must save her daughter before Sombra uses her to take over the Crystal Empire. Save her - no matter the cost.
So I was actually surprised to read this in December. This is exactly the sort of story I would expect in the Cadance Is A Terrible Mom contest, and that's usually in April. Which is kind of a shame because this is the sort of thing I would expect to win. It's got just a perfect balance going on: it's hilarious as Cadance continually misunderstands her daughter's hobbies and life in the silliest, most over-reacting way possible. At the same time, it's got a really nice undercurrent (and sometimes overcurrent) of poignant loss as Cadance tries to connect with and understand Flurry - somepony she can't grasp having grown up as fast as she has.
It does lean more into the comedy than the drama: Cadance is delightfully ridiculous in how she keeps building up a wider and wider conspiracy to deny the situation, even when she actually asks questions but doesn't like the answers she gets. It's parental cringe comedy, and hits square on the head. The story does take a much more serious turn in the second-last chapter, but it's an appropriate turn. The rather serious climax makes puts the rest of the story into sharper relief, and it helps to soften the blow of Cadance a little - it could have detracted, but I think it managed to turn her performance into something more understandable rather than pure idiocy. And the denouement chapter is just adorable.
So normally I would end there. However, in an "AND THAT ONE'S STILL GREEN" moment, I have ended up with an odd number of stories in the library. Again. Fortunately, I have a story in my stack that fits both parts of today's theming. So I'm quite happy to have an excuse to present Checking it Twice by TheJackOfTales.
It is Hearth's Warming Night and teenage Flurry Heart has a plan. She fears she is on the Naughty List after an accident with her father's O&O stuff, and she plans to correct that directly. Any time now, Kris Kringle was going to show up and when he did? Flurry was prepared to make her case about why she was Nice and that one mistake shouldn't be held against her. But when she drifts off to sleep closes her eyes for just a moment, the disembodied spirit of Sombra takes the opportunity to prey on her fears in an effort to generate enough power to return him to physical form. And he does so with a terrible, terrible 'truth': that he, King Sombra, is in fact Santa Claus.
This one's super gone under the radar, which is really a huge shame. This year's Jinglemas had a ton of amazing stories (I pegged 16 for possible Recommendsday candidates - more than triple the rate of my usual readings) and unfortunately this one kinda slipped by people in the mix.
Where it really steps up is that it has a very straight-forward story at the core - Sombra attempting to convince Flurry Heart that he's Santa - and it hits it spot on. Sombra's argument is just logical enough to make sense if you don't look too hard at it, with plenty of supporting anecdotes that an adult would doubt but work on kids. And Flurry is that perfect middle ground: writing young characters can be pretty tricky, but she's that wonderful crux of being smart, having the unending confidence of a teenager, and utterly lacking the world knowledge of an adult to cast doubt against Sombra's claims.
It all adds up to another great comedy - it's "Luke, I am your father" but played for laughs against a fourteen year old. I love the ridiculousness of it and the overwrought teenage dramatics as Flurry wrestles with the unspeakable betrayal of how Santa is actually an evil enslaving tyrant and how she's on the Naughty List forever. Really, this one deserves way better than its gotten.
New or catching up? Try Recommendsday: The Index for your story needs!
gasp! a third one! :O
I find myself in the unaccustomed position of being happy about Flurry Heart! (I like Oasis but am not a big fan at all of "Wonderwall".)
That first story is so silly and cute and ridiculous sounding that I need to read it!