Fic recs, July 28th · 3:59pm Jul 28th, 2014
Posting this in a hospital: my dad's coming home today! :D Now comes the hard part. Also, last rec post before Bronycon, most likely.
H: 0 R: 3 C: 2 V: 1 N: 2
Stetson by Scribblestick
Reading by kilodel
Reading by Midnight29
Genre: Sad
The problem with family fics, in regards to the Apples in particular, is any discussion of how Applejack’s parents died is likely going to come up short on being satisfactory. In this case, I’ve seen this sort of story before, with Applejack blaming herself for her father’s death. This piece follows her thoughts leading up to telling Apple Bloom about what happened to their father, with Applejack thinking back over her life and berating herself for every lie she’s ever told. Sadly, while it starts off well, and seeing Applejack as a whiny little filly is tons of fun, all the drama is telegraphed, and the swift intercutting of memory and present-day really numbs the effect of either. The whole thing comes off melodramatic. If you’ve not read a story dealing with the deaths of AJ’s parents, you might consider checking this out, but if you have, it doesn’t add anything new to the genre.
Recommended Only If You Really Like Apple Parent Fics
Until Forever by Pascoite
Genre: Mystery
Twilight, in attempting to better earn her title of Princess of Friendship, decides to go make friends with a dude who sells strawberries in the marketplace. There's a lot of backstory discussed, and of course his cutie mark ends up being a point of contention. (If you ask me, the way that particular mystery plays out is somewhat ridiculous, a holdover from seasons one or two, when the way cutie marks worked was still a thing to be toyed with.) The real draw of this piece, however, is watching Twilight slowly fuck up her own attempts to friend this guy. She basically lives her own version of A Friend Indeed, goaded on by a somewhat reticent Applejack to seek out the truth behind the fellow’s mark. If it sounds like I’m coming down hard on this story, I don’t mean to. In all honesty, the strawberry seller character is quite good, and a lot of aspects of his backstory that you tend to see in every OC fic ever end up resolving in unique and unexpected ways. And of course, this is a Pascoite story, so you can expect top-tier writing. Besides the weirdness surrounding his cutie mark, there’s a lot to enjoy here, and it makes for a nice slice of life mystery.
Recommended
In Which Twilight Balances a Quill on Her Nose by fiendofthet
Genre: Pony Does X
This starts off with what I’m certain is a reference to another story, though I can’t recall which. (Something having to do with Lyra and underwater basket weaving; I know that was in a fic!) Unfortunately, it doesn’t get any better. There are some clever turns of phrase, but overall the writing is a major letdown, very obviously never proofread. I couldn’t even enjoy the Spike abuse joke at the end.
Not Recommended
Live Free or Reinhard by alexmagnet
Reading by Captain Sand
I swear I’ve heard this guy before, but if that’s the case, I must have passed him by. Assuming that is in fact what happened, he’s well improved. Good volume, slightly shaky pacing, but I can hardly fault him for having difficulty with the German. Think I’ll throw him on the list.
Genre: Comedy
To my knowledge, and I could be wrong, Aryanne is a Nazi pony created by /mlp/ to turn all things anti-Semitism into a cute pony. I’m… not sure how you come up with something like that. But she’s been getting some front-page attention lately, and she works well in a story like this, which, aside from its origins, is fairly show-tone. She’s treated by the ponies around her as crazy but harmless, and thus worthy of pity. Twilight acts on this pity and almost ruins her friendship with Aryanne. (Of course Twilight’s friend with the unicorn supremacist. Why wouldn’t she be?) It’s a decent lampooning of the idea of a pony Nazi, but as a story, it falls a little flat. It’s not a laugh-out-loud comedy, though I agree with a comment left on the first page that it might have been had it been about Aryanne continually trying and failing to teach the class about her views. Instead, we get something that more or less washes over any awfulness with some really wide-eyed “friendship fixes everything” innocence. I was looking for the other shoe to drop by the end, but it didn’t, leaving this somewhat unsatisfying and hard to recommend to a general audience. You might get some traction out of it if you’re, say, into Cards Against Humanity and not easily offended, but you may also be disappointed that it doesn’t go far enough in that direction.
Vaguely Recommended
Roll for Initiative by Prak
Reading (part 1) by Goombasa
Genre: Ponies Gaming
With Ponies Play D&D relegated to Hiatus Hell, we need stories like this taking up the slack. It offers everything the other story does — interesting campaigns, fun characters, inter-player conflict — and while it doesn’t focus so much on the ponies’ characters doing amazing stuff, it makes up for that by focusing on what they do while playing. So it starts off with Applejack metagaming and Rainbow Dash being hilariously terrible at playing. Then Twilight institutes an EXP rule to get them to roleplay more, and the dynamic of the story changes in fun ways. Things come to a head as they’re joined by Powergamer Luna, and it resolves with a tricksy campaign that honestly I would like to see someone use to deal with a problem player. (Lord knows, we need more fanfic based on overcoming Geek Social Fallacies.) I honestly have no complaints about this story whatsoever. If you’ve ever played D&D, or you just like the idea of pony comedic roleplaying hijinks, then don’t pass this up.
Recommended
The Tail (Get It ;P) of pRince Martin Willis by apple short
Reading by DancesWithBagelz
Mature: Sex
Genre: HiE
I think this is a trollfic. We’re talking 55% sure here. The fact is, the first few chapters, gleefully telling the story of someone coming to Equestria, becoming an alicorn, and falling in love with Twilight Sparkle, sans most punctuation and standards of writing, could have been written by a fifteen-year-old with a poor grasp of English, as one of the author’s notes suggests. I wasn’t even willing to entertain the idea until about halfway through. However, three things stand out to me. First, at one point, Princess Celest [sic] tells the protagonist that he is “retarted [sic] but nice”. That seems rather a backhanded compliment for a story immersed in self-aggrandizement of the self-insert author character. Second, Applejack’s speech patterns are patently ridiculous and continue to get moreso logarithmically as the story progresses. Third and most important, this guy doesn’t seem to write anything but stories of this nature, so I’m pretty sure he’s an epic troll. Pretty sure. That said, this has poor enough writing, such earnest self-aggrandizement, and bizarre focuses on sex, being in a relationship with Twilight, and Portal that I can’t be completely sure. (And if it really isn’t a troll, I hope this person, who hasn’t been around in a year, has since figured out how interpersonal relationships work, for the sake of those around them.) That said, only those with strong tastes for badfic should attempt this, and even then, I would recommend listening to it rather than reading it. DancesWithBagelz has done all the work of figuring out where the dialogue is for you.
Troll Recommend
Language Barriers by Silver Tongue
Genre: Sad Luna
Luna is sad because she can’t talk right. It may be season 2, but it’s still the same old same old from season 1 at heart. This actually presents some decent sisterly bonding between the two Princesses, but if there’s anything more to this, it’s muffled by some irritatingly subpar writing. Aspect changes in the middle of a sentence, "‘tis" isn’t capitalized at the start of sentences, Luna’s speech is inconsistently archaic, and half the time I couldn’t tell who was speaking. That’s not a good thing to say about a story about the way characters speak.
Not Recommended
Insomnia by Pale Horse
Reading by Goombasa
Genre: Epistolary
Celestia, plagued with nightmares and unable to sleep, writes a letter to Twilight, spilling her guts about everything on her mind. She talks about history and her sister, she mothers Twilight from afar, and she looks toward the future. It’s not often a story focuses on Celestia coping with Luna’s return (those stories tend to be Luna-centric), and this gives a nice look into Celestia’s mindset. Also, it posits an idea I’ve never thought of before: collecting Twilight’s correspondence to Celestia in a special archive. I mean, it’s historically significant, so it makes sense. Ultimately, all I can really say about this story is that it’s “decent”. There’s nothing wrong with it, but nothing amazing either. Still, I’d hardly call it bland, and it’s definitely worth it as a quick read.
Recommended
This post marks the third time I open your review list while you're updating. Seeing you type the whole thing was cute although I kind of spoilered the whole post. Eh.
Definitelly checking Roll for Initiative. We need more D&D humor. In fact, I wouldn't mind that being a genre -- I might try it myself at some point, although I'd probably use characters that are not the M6, if only to make it stand out a little.
2322887
There's been someone else in that document for like two solid weeks, every time I open it. c.c I always figure people are trying to sneak in and see if they can't catch me updating it, but hey, advance warning! :D
2322914
Holy crap, yeah. "Anonymous user 33" is always lurking around that document when you're there. And sometimes when you are not, I think.
I always thought it was just you not knowing how to properly use Drive, to be honest. Or your Internet glitching. But imagining you being unable to work on GDocs is funnier, so I stand by my theory.
2322923
I think someone just left it open and forgot. :B I mean, sometimes I'll be in there twice, but that always goes away after a while.
The fact that Reinhard didn't go far enough is a complaint that many people have leveled at me, and I can definitely see where people are coming from, but in my own defense, I very much purposely set out to write the least offensive fic I could imagine using a Nazi pony. Maybe that was the wrong way to go about it, and maybe I should've gone further, but for what it's worth, I'm happy with how it turned out. I'm also happy that it at least got a 'Vaguely Recommended'. That's more than I could've hoped for .
Beyond that, the reviews were good, as always. Though, it was a bit surprising to see the somewhat lackluster nature of nearly all the fics here. For once, the Vaguely and Nots outweighed the Conditionals. I'm not sure I've seen that happen, or maybe it happens all the time and I 'don't pay enough attention.
Has Until Forever been released? I'm only seeing a couple favorites and just one thumbs up on it, seems fairly low for a Pascoite fic.
2323043
I think he was planning on publishing it today so it can get added into the PR Battle group folder. :B This wouldn't be the first time I've reviewed one of his stories before it was published. He's such a silly pony.
2323043
2323354
The one being added to the PR battles is called "Ragnarok." It'll be published later today. "Until Forever" is also unpublished, and I'll probably put it up in another week or so.
For Pony-related D&D comedy, I always go back to the Friendship is Dragons comic.
Are we finally done with these until Bronycon, or will you still be writing these up even in the hotel room?
2324006
...Is that seriously a pony version of DM of the rings?
Dear god. There go my hours of sleep.
2324126
The next time I can post is the 31st, but I'll be on the road to Maryland then, so no dice. It can just wait until I get back. :B
Martin Willis was such fuckery. The MST was hilarious.