Fic recs, July 31st! · 11:19am Jul 31st, 2014
I only have two hours to get ready, but I have to poop so THAT MEANS I HAVE TIME TO POST A JOURNAL HAHAHAHA
H: 1 R: 1 C: 1 V: 2 N: 1
Little Talks by BronyDerp117
Reading by Scribbler, Illya Leonov and Lochlan O’Neil
Genre: Slice of Life
Scootaloo tries to fly in the dumbest way possible and winds up in the care of a kindly old hermit. This story gets off to a poor start with the first-person narrator describing his own speech. No one ever says they talk in a “thick country accent”. His self-awareness continues throughout the story, reaching wholly unbelievable levels, and involving repetition of the description of his smile. This ends up being needless, as at the end, Scootaloo draws attention to it, turning what could have been a sweet revelation into a restatement of what the reader already knows. I was also thrown by just how conveniently similar the old stallion’s situation is to Scoot’s. It ends up making the story trite as heck, which is a shame, because it’s otherwise well-written, and the narrator’s character is often revealed quite well. But in the end, this is a fairly un-pony fic that’s likely not to please sticklers for just about anything.
Vaguely Recommended
Ἐλπίς by Bad Horse
Reading by Cherax Destructor
Reading by ShadowOfCygnus
Genre: Literary
Celestia drags herself along a road toward the creation of something. This story is very difficult to sum up easily. It took second place in the most recent writeoff, and was actually my top pick out of the entries (the winner was also fantastic, don’t get me wrong). It’s got some marvelous imagery, lots of symbolism, tons of stuff you’ll have to read between the lines to grasp, and of course a heaping helping of excellent writing. Interestingly, it also features a rather intriguing character in the form of the Butler. You don’t expect stories like this to feature memorable characters so much, but despite his lack of actual speech, I found him compelling. Honestly, I think the best thing I can say about this is I gave it a 10 in the writeoff voting. Don’t pass it up. (Trivia: the title is Greek for “hope”.)
Highly Recommended
Butterflies by adcoon
Reading by TheLostNarrator, Caitbug and Magpie Pony
Reading by Agent0Fluffy
Genre: Grimdark
Fluttershy invites Pinkie Pie to her house, to show off her “secret passion”. It’s not competitive knitting. This actually fits the “Cupcakes with Fluttershy” label better than the story I had originally given that appellate. (It’s Pattycakes for the curious. But for the love of all that is holy, do not read that story. I’m not joking.) However, that’s overselling this quite a bit. Cupcakes was disturbing and upsetting. Even three years on, after having read it multiple times, it still affects me on a deep level. Butterflies is just gorn, and its origins aren’t even halfway believable. Sure, I could see Fluttershy becoming obsessed with death and the renewal of life, and even collecting corpses so that she could raise insects on them (though not butterflies; caterpillars don’t eat meat!), but not killing living ponies for the sole purpose of doing so, and certainly not killing Rainbow Dash and lying about it to her friends for an extended period of time. That requires a bit more thought than is covered by "she's just crazy". Even if you accept that this isn’t Fluttershy, this story just doesn’t work. The background PinkieDash shipping doesn’t help, and actually serves to make the whole thing more absurd. Sadly, I’ve seen better, more visceral imagery in gorn stories before. This just doesn’t hold up to any metric.
Not Recommended
My Little Rarity: Rarity Is Rarity by RainbowBob
Reading by Emogak
Genre: Rarity
In this rardom raredy, we follow Rarity and her friends, the rare six, as they become the most fabulous ponies in all of Rarequestria! (Rarity of course being the most fabulous.) I can only imagine how hard it was to write this story. Admittedly, I was expecting every character to literally be Rarity, but even combining them (their names, amusingly, are all ship names) must have made things confusing for the author. But what a story, Mark. It’s got the right amount of self-deprecating silliness all the way through, and it’s one of those bizarre stories that’s consistently funny enough that I can forgive a lot of things, like some of the meta commentary in the middle. Sure, this could have been a smidge better, likely through some tighter word selection, but for what it is, it’s great, one of the most pleasantly absurd stories I have ever read. I’ll say this, too: I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, to find out whose fanfic this was, but apparently this is meant to stand on its own. Smashing! Just wait until Nightmare Moon shows up, it’s great, trust me. :D
Rarecommended
Grown Up by LuminoZero
Reading by Porpoise Pete
Genre: Sparity
I’m not sure how to approach this one. This being Sparity from Spike’s point of view makes it far less objectionable than usual shipfics of its ilk. It focuses on his feelings for Rarity rather than making their relationship into something beyond his crush. It also portrays Spike as surprisingly mature, which was good for making his feelings a lot more understandable, and bad for a number of reasons. Firstly, he’s not that mature. Seriously, not about this. Second, he thinks of Rarity as immature, and though it’s compared to a gem needing time to ripen, I honestly don’t know what to think about that. The reasons given are pretty sound, and yet I found myself going, “But you’re not more mature than she is, come on.” (It doesn’t help that the narrative sounds like it could be either Spike or Rarity for most of the story.) Ultimately, I find this more compelling than a lot of Spike/Rarity stuff, but it’s still somewhat… off, I guess. I’m not sure it does what it sets out to do.
Recommended for Shippers
Do You Have the Time… by Bronius Maximus
Reading by Intrapulation
Genre: Shipping
Rainbow Dash hits Rarity with a last-minute dress order (don't worry, the oddness of the request is gone over) and Rarity spends the time slacking off and complaining about it. Then she finds out who the dress is really for. The RariDash in this is extremely transparent. Rarity has lingering thoughts about Rainbow that could constitute “feelings”, Rainbow acts nervous around her, and she telegraphs her plans once the dress is done. It’s slightly less poor a setup than I tend to see in shipfics, but overall this wasn’t entirely satisfying, if only because Rarity is set to reciprocate immediately. I think this shows its age. Bronius (Mr. Maximus now) has done far better.
Vaguely Recommended
I had something to say, but forgot what. So um, have fun at Bronycon!
Gonna check out that Rarity fic. Wasn't there a story with a similar premise, only with Trixie?
Also, it will be a cold day in hell when I manage to write a blog in 2 hours...
I didn't find Butterflies to be worse than Cupcakes myself, but then again I don't think too highly of Cupcakes in the first place.
Hey speaking of though, This may be a bad time but did you ever catch my reading of A Toast to Friendship? Sorry for the plug, But I just think this is a fabulous story that does that genre well and that more people should read it.
I'd be interested in seeing a more convincing RariDash fic than the one you described. They still seem like the least compatible couple of the mane six in my eyes.
2331742
I was going to offer lots of examples, because I remember reading them. Then I actually looked at my list of pony stories I've read and found out that I think I imagined all of them. Well, more accurately the few I remembered weren't really what you were talking about. Spring Is Dumb is a good story, but it is built on the assumption that they are already in a relationship and you just have to go with it. Salvation is a great story, but it involves much older and somewhat different versions of Rarity and Dash. Closest to just a basic shipping story with those two that I'd point you at is Third Time but I'm not sure that's a proper ship, since I vaguely remember it's all from Rarity's point of view in a short period of time, and I don't remember if it's ever a two-way thing.
2331597
There was, actually, and I think it was lots of fun too. :)
Also >implying I don't write these after I read each story.
2331732
Is that not on Youtube? :O I likely haven't then.
2331742
Agreed. Even Combinatorics Project barely shipped them.
2333424
Alright, I gotta read this.
2333424 Nah, it's not on YouTube. I couldn't summon the willpower to caption it. Also, it's not one of my better readings. Probably best read it yourself.
WHY DID I NOT RATE IT "RARECOMMENDED"
HOW COULD I FUCK THAT UP
AUGH