It Is Recommendsday, My Dudes #150 · 7:49pm January 31st
So this week I'm in a little bit of a rush. The rush is a good thing - I'm working on an extra project (as mentioned here) that's kind of eaten up all my free time for the last several days. It'll be worth it in the end, I think, but it's kind of pulled me away from doing the rest of my content.
This means I'm gonna take a slight mulligan and not actually go into my #recommendsday backlog and instead quickly grab a topic. These two stories are fresh in my mind because they came up in a Discord discussion literally last night. Fortunately they were both in the general pile anyway, but short time means I'm going with them (since I ended up re-reading both last night while they were being talked about) rather than putting them into the queue.
Thus: Let's talk about Celestia, Luna, and a bunch of human gods.
First up is the one we had actually been talking about: Can't Choose Your Family by CyborgSamurai.
Princess Celestia is unhappy. It's Equestria's turn to host the Summit of the Gods and that always means trouble. The rest of the pantheon is such a headache: drinking, carousing, breaking the good china... Hosting the rest of the Norse pantheon was always frustrating. But most of all because it heralds the arrival of one god that Celestia wants to talk to the least: her grandfather/mother, Loki. Who is, of course, the first being Celestia runs into.
Equestrians being related somehow to Slepnir (and thus to Loki) is a pretty common joke, but not many fics actually focus on it. (And most of the ones that do are Marvel crossovers.) This is probably the best of the lot: short, witty, actually serious for the most part. Sure there's a hint of humor here and there, but the core is a wonderfully sweet talk between grandparent and estranged granddaughter.
Because yeah, the two don't get along. There's a great family vibe throughout the story: they're related, they care about each other, Celestia has absolutely had it with her idiot grandfather/mother's BS. Loki's constant plans, lies, betrayals, and manipulations have her squarely in the camp of "Just cut to the chase and tell me what you're up to now." But at the same time, Loki cares for Celestia and she cares for them in return. Even if they kind of want to strangle one another.
The main subject of their talk, too, is appropriate: Loki having both concerns and care for Discord makes sense and is entirely fitting for the trickster god. And, well, we all kinda know Celestia's opinions on the topic.
Most fics that bring Loki into it are action-heavy and deep into the epic adventure vibe. Not many take the tack of being a quiet little family drama. It's refreshing, fun, and excellently written. Kudos on that.
The other story on deck is one that came up in discussion of the first: a few of us were trying to remember the title/author, and this was the closest equivalent I was able to remember. It's still good, but a bit different - it's got the Greeks instead of the Norse, after all. But it's a Georg jam, so There Goes The Neighborhood is top quality anyway.
Mount Olympus is home to the gods. Zeus - Allfather and leader of the pantheon - is excited. There's two new goddesses showing up, and they're sisters. He's going to have so much fun! ...And then he finds out they're horses, which while it honestly wouldn't deter him that much normally, it's a bit off-putting to be surprised by. The real problem comes when the two odd horse sisters start to bring in other horses. As staff and assistants, of course. ...And then the whole mountain goes to the dogs ponies.
Authors enjoy playing with the insidious imperialism of ponies relatively often: particularly after we hit Season 8 and the Student Six, there were a good number of fics about how Equestria slowly corrupts and culturally conquers its neighbors. Usually those are deep drama pieces, heavy with politics and serious themes. Here, it's a hilarious farce comedy as Zeus confronts Mount Olympus being slowly taken over by small adorable horses.
Georg does a great job making it a slow, gradual process too. Zeus hates every step of the way while still enabling each time the ponies encroach further. This could be a deep, meaningful statement on the nature of colonialism and cultural imperialism - but in this case it's mostly just funny. (Helped, of course, by the fact that Zeus is kind of a jerk and a dumbass.)
Most of the ponies that appear remain unnamed - because why would Zeus care about a mortal's name? - but you can pretty easily see a lot of familiar faces. Lyra's little story is hilarious, and there's a top tier Derpy ship as well. Celestia and Luna remain the stars of the show, though, and it's one priceless interaction after another. The damnedest part of everything? I'm still not entirely sure if the sisters did all of this on purpose or if the Equestrian corruption of Olympus happened entirely by accident.
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Oh, I had fun with There Goes the Neighborhood. There are a lot of mythical references, so many so that I felt slightly overwhelmed with them on occasion, but it was still a very enjoyable read. Don't know the other fic you recommend at all, and have never read anything by its author (though I recognise their username) so that one shall be filed away for a possible read one day. I think I may have assumed it was a Marvel crossover and thus passed over it. Thanks!
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I think you pegged it best with your review when you commented
Knowing who the various Greek characters are helps but it also didn't require more than passing awareness of who the likes of Orpheus or Semele are.
The hardest part was writing Zeus to be PG-13 at worst. Disney did a marvelous job with Hercules. And once I was done, the afterward just practically flowed out in one burst.
Some excellent picks this week. Alicorns and deities mix unsurprisingly well if one gives some generous power estimates.
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Yeah, "overwhelmed" was the wrong choice of word here. What I said in my review is more accurate, but then (as you'd expect) I take a bit more time thinking about how I word reviews than how I word comments on blogs! But indeed, I wouldn't want anyone to feel put off from what is a fic that's a good deal of fun.
ahh, Can't Choose Your Family was good :D