Fic Recs, June 13th! · 2:50pm Jun 13th, 2015
If you didn't see it in the featured box, Round Two of the OC Slamjam is on until next Friday! Get votin'!
Hey, Hot Shot and Hugh Jelly fans! Blueshift’s written a blogpost about the history of his legendary comic! Go read it!
This is another big one! Mostly because the first big audiobook didn't pan out. :B Actually, quite a few of them didn't. Huh. Anyway, hit below the belt for reviews of zaponator's Blink, The Shadow Over Ponyville by Meridian Prime, Pascoite's Friend of a Not-So-Different Stripe, and nine other stories!
H: 1 R: 3 C: 4 V: 1 N: 3
I Can Keep You Safe, I Can Keep You Happy by Phxntxm
Reading (part 1) by Goombasa
Genre: Shipping
I can’t provide a summary of this story, because I couldn’t tell you what it’s about. The first chapter is nothing but Rainbow Dash whining about things. The second chapter features Twilight pulling herself, Dash and AJ into a “video game”, which is so dull and needlessly world-breaking (it's a NASCAR-style racing game), I gave up right then and there. I couldn’t have even told you what the ship was supposed to be until it’s mentioned that AJ like mares. (This coming after the declaration that “any group of fillies will end up talking about” stallions.) The writing in this is very poor: plain, telly, repetitive, with POV shifts, no apparent reason for anything happening, and numerous OOC moments, some of which are lampshaded, none of which are made better for it. This is just not a good story, and I had no desire to keep reading it whatsoever.
DNF: 2/6
Blink by zaponator
Genre: Hard Fantasy
Twilight’s research into her teleportation spell brings up a startling revelation.
This is one of the oddest ducks I’ll ever recommend. The writing, for starters, is inelegant, simply put. It’s got some telling, and though there’s lots of incidental yet effective comedy, I often found myself agonizing over short passages for just not being the best they possibly could. But none of that really matters. Once Twilight starts picking apart her spell, it becomes easy to see where the story is headed, but this is not a dark story; check the tags, they don’t lie. That it moves from existential horror to pure, innocent joy so simply and effortlessly is why it’s such a stunning read. It gives me chills because it’s not chilling, when it very well could have been. And by the end, my only question is, “Hasn’t somepony else teleported in the show?”
Highly Recommended
The Shadow Over Ponyville by Meridian Prime
Suggested by Protopony350 for being my Patron for the month of May
Genre: Dark Comedy
Who’da thought I’d read two Cthulhu-meets-the-CMCs fics in a row like this? This one is actually more of the “meeting” vein and… Well, not to split hairs, but it’s the funniest story dealing with child sacrifice you’ll ever read. Because yes, they do actually kill Diamond Tiara as part of the summoning ritual. She ded, no take-backsies. (Honestly, I was more offended by the atrocious use of Greek; the atrocious use of French, on the other hand, was hilarious.) But make no mistake, what happens before and after that is hysterical, if fraught with occasional editing errors. I can quibble with the ending, too, which feels very “ran out of ideas”, but I dunno, I thought this was funny as heck.
Recommended
Friend of a Not-So-Different Stripe by Pascoite
Genre: Slice of Life
Zecora tells tales of her homeland, and helps clear up a few misconceptions.
I’ll admit, this story takes a slightly bleaker look at Zecora than one might expect from the show, but it does handle the lingering effects of her initial ostracism in an earnest manner, pulling no punches, and ultimately reconciling on a show-tone note. I’ll admit I still feel like Apple Bloom’s observations break up the poem a bit, but given that this shows Zecora and AB having a deep understanding, a relationship akin to that of Twilight and Spike, seeing more of it isn’t a bad thing. Plus, the story is only interrupted on natural poetic breaks. And yes, you bet your ass this passes the Zecora Test, because I edited it! >:V I was a little thrown by Zecora’s use of alternate rhyme schemes while telling her story, but I can’t argue that the poems work extremely well. But yeah, the fact that this is able to handle a delicate subject delicately is a big draw, along with the Zecora/Apple Bloom stuff. And the poetry. :)
Recommended
Sweetie Belle Discovers Scissoring by GaryOak
Reading by VisualPony
Genre: Innuendo
After overhearing a conversation between Twilight and Rarity, Sweetie sets off on a quest to determine what the big deal about ‘scissoring’ is.
The thing about innuendo fics is they’re typically a joke at the reader’s expense. “All the naughty stuff is in your head!” they cry. So all throughout this piece, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for us to learn some third definition of the verb “scissor” that meant something other than what it couldn’t be and what it had to be. This expectation was set up by the vagueness of that initial conversation, but though, by the end, the definition is left up in the air, we're never really given a third option. So Pinkie really did get Rarity drunk and take advantage of her, and she really did describe a sex act to a child. (Though that’s at least the part that’s up in the air. Thankfully, Sweetie reacts as a child would.) That said, if you’re at all squeamish about sexual innuendo being anywhere near a child, that scene is the greatest offender, and again, isn’t a sure thing; Pinkie could have said anything. The rest is light-hearted, as Sweetie’s innocent questions cause the mane cast no end of embarrassment. The ending joke is kind of weak, but otherwise, this was at least a light, fun read.
Recommended If You Like Innuendo
Appledashed by Lurks-No-More
Reading by Scribbler
Agent0Fluffy
Genre: Shipping
Applejack confesses her feelings to Rainbow Dash, who doesn’t quite reciprocate.
More sad Appledash? Sure, why not! There were a lot of little things in this that irritated me: the characters defining themselves by their Elements (granted, look at the story number, this is mega-old), subtle POV shifts, and a seeming desire to break down numerous fan tropes, like Gildash, that really muddled the conversation. Beyond that, well, it’s probably just from having read it in this day and age, but this doesn’t really offer much that’s new, even if it’s trying to break the fandom’s most popular ship. It’s basically just AJ going “I love you” and Dash responding “I don’t”; nothing deeply emotional, no hard looks at the characters. I appreciate that it wasn’t super-dramatic, at least.
Vaguely Recommended
Feed Them by RainbowBob
Reading by Scribbler and Caitbug
Genre: Horror
How can Twilight expect to get better if she doesn’t eat?
The meat of this is the tragedy of Spike’s loyalty and unflagging optimism in the face of what Twilight has become. I adore it. Then there’s the zombie apocalypse that isn’t quite your usual zombie apocalypse; this isn’t a story about Spike wading through waves of zombies, but a quieter piece about his relationship with Twilight and attempts to keep his own sanity together when everything around him has fallen apart. The dialogue is a definite weak spot, since it’s all basically Spike narrating to himself, but there’s something to be said for it; it’s obvious that the “sickness” is taking its toll on him, and he’s not entirely sane. I’m just not sure how much of that can be used to justify what feels like a lot of bloated monologuing. Still, a great setting, and I think this is the start of a series, so I definitely want to read the others. (Someone link me to them so I don't have to go searching? <:B)
Recommended
Hot Coco With Marshmallows by TheWraithWriter
Reading by Goombasa
Genre: Shipping
Coco Pommel arrives at Carousel Boutique with a bottle of wine and a confession.
Once upon a time, I pondered shifting to a more structured review format: identify the story’s goal, describe if it reached that goal or, if not, why, and mention any distractions along the way, things like poor writing, OOC moments and intrusive headcanon that detract from the main story. I won’t be using that for my main reviews, maaaybe for the writeoff at some point. But taken under that system, this story is nothing but distractions, from an opening gag about Rarity’s dad getting into a gunfight to the contents of her romance novel. Yet never once were said distractions not entertaining, and they go away once the shipping begins in earnest. As for said shipping… it was fine, I guess. I enjoyed it. I was amused that Coco is a terrible kisser, and that the author forewent drama without also resorting to standard shipping tropes. If you like cute ponies kissing each other, hey, read this.
Recommended for Shippers
Children of the Night by VisualPony
Reading by VisualPony
Genre: Action
For having been written by someone whose native language is not English, the writing’s pretty good in this. That said, it also suffers from overexplaining, not a language-specific issue. Still, knowing that this was written in fits and starts, I had hope the writing would improve over time. This is, unsurprisingly, a takeoff from the “Children of the Night” animation (that was pretty good, no lie), and features Luna leading a group of guards with an injured Celestia to her “refuge”, where said Children reside still. But the instant one of them starts railing against Celestia and “day ponies”, I immediately stopped wanting to read it. I guess I’m too skittish about anything even remotely NLR-related. Plus, it’s really jarring to go from “Shining Armor just died in a horrific manner so you could escape” to “let’s stand around and discuss backstory”.
DNF: 2/25
No Glimmer of Hope by UniqueSKD
Reading by Scribbler and Astro-Brony
Genre: Philosophical
Starlight Glimmer encounters a being known as Truth.
I really tire of stories like this, that exist solely to poke holes in the show and don’t even do it in an interesting way. I mean, I could have written this, and it would probably have gone in exactly the same direction, minus the random, intrusive, made-up language and the voice telling Starlight to kill herself at the end. Seriously, those bits of I-don’t-even-know-what were sorely irritating, enough to mar an otherwise wonderful vocal performance by Astro-Brony. That this is just two characters talking was dull. That she dies at the end is stupid. I can’t see anything to recommend here.
Not Recommend
The Cutie Mark Crusaders by Lunafan1k
Reading by The Lost Narrator
Genre: Ghost Story
I love the sense of meta-horror I get when approaching some of these stories. “It’s just called The Cutie Mark Crusaders and it’s tagged Sad/Dark," I say, "this cannot go well. Oh geez, it starts ‘Once upon a time’ this will not end well.” But this turned out to be a really cool piece, recasting the CMCs as the stuff of hauntings and curses. I do wish the word usage was a little tighter, as there were spots where I could feel the fairy tale-style narration tripping over itself, and it does overextend just a bit with the mention of ponies being driven to suicide ("crazy to death" is a hangup I've developed from reading poor SCP articles), but besides that, I really enjoyed seeing how this twists show canon into something creepy.
Recommended If You Like Dark Fics
Misconception by Drizzle Quill
Reading (part 1) by Goombasa
Genre: Comedy
When Rarity’s dad gets the wrong idea about the nature of her relationship with Applejack, AJ is all too happy to play along.
This was really hilarious from the get-go. Rarity’s freakout over her father’s misunderstanding is only compounded by AJ’s desire to needle her over it. And while I knew darn well it wasn’t not going to turn shippy by the end, I was actually surprised by the direction it went. That said, there were some distractions (I think I will start talking about "distractions" from now) that overall marred my appreciation of the story. For starters, that tried-and-true trope of identifying the characters heavily with their Elements. While it makes perfect sense that Rarity would be the one to share her Father’s Day with her friend who doesn’t have a father, it makes no sense for “Element of Honesty” Applejack to be the one playing a joke on Rarity’s dad. The fact that this is lampshaded only makes it worse. I was also baffled by Rarity’s concern over Spike’s opinion of her… until I went looking for the sequel and discovered it’s about Rarity rejecting AJ in favor of Spike. (And that’s the story of how I didn’t read the sequel. :|) Still, this is light-hearted and really good when it comes to the comedy, hitting a lot of beats spot-on. If you’re into rom-coms, give it a read.
Recommended If You’re Forgiving
You can't see it, but I'm doing a happy little dance right now. Also, for whenever you read this Proto - you're the best.
And no I wasn't hanging around waiting for this blog post what are you talking about.
The gru bit huh? Yeah, I wasn't sure about that, but I figure it's best to leave it and move on rather than agonise over the ending.
Awww, I thought the Greek was appropriately silly. Oh well.
Bugger. Thought I'd caught most of them. Is there anything that I seemed to get wrong consistently, or is it just little things I missed? If it's the first, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could point me in their direction.
I see all the talk about Blink and it leaves me with only one thought:
People are weird.
I actually really liked "No Glimmer of Hope," and I liked it about 5x more after Scribbler's production. The substance of the dialogue didn't redeem it at all in your eyes?
Is it wrong that I thought feed them was supposed to be about Gremlins?
Well, this was a pleasant little surprise. I thought for sure you would hate it. ^^;
Misco was my first fic ever on this site (two years ago. What?), and when it blew up in popularity, I kind of panicked. I wasn't used to so many people giving it attention and begging for new installations. The final chapter was written very, very quickly so the fans wouldn't get upset, and when they all seemed dissatisfied with how I left it, I decided to make it into a trilogy, which was a very poor decision - fans of the original seemed to hate the sequel, and I didn't really like it that much myself. I don't blame you for not wanting to read it - it's not that good. As Misco was meant to stand on its own originally, it's comforting you didn't go any further!
However, this was a lovely little boost, and I'm glad you at least enjoyed the original a little bit.
Thank you!
You want links?
How about just One Single Link?
i.imgur.com/mpnTy2m.png
Thanks much for the review! What a coincidence that it comes the day after my birthday.
A most wonderful gift or accidental gift! I'm glad you enjoyed the journey, even though I can easily imagine you looking like your avatar IRL while reading. I also completely agree with you about the ending joke. 
Thanks again!
Yeah, you said the same thing when you reviewed it, that Apple Bloom's interjections between the individual sonnets were a bit obvious in purpose, and thus somewhat unnatural feeling. I know that and went with it anyway, since I think more readers would find the wall of poetry off-putting. The story itself isn't much more than a vehicle to deliver Zecora's two stories, since I think especially the second one would be too subtle to get on its own. Pretty much, the reaction I was hoping for was "good poetry with a serviceable story around it."
3144604
I can't reveal too much, because certain things are in confidence, but I didn't like "Blink" much, either. It was obvious throughout where it was going to go, it's a topic that's been discussed a lot at least ever since Star Trek (and perhaps much longer), and I found it odd that Twilight never thought to ask Celestia about it. For that matter, while I like the direction it took toward a character moment between Twilight and Spike, I thought it was too understated, to the point it didn't seem to be affecting her as much as the story was obviously trying to say it was. Plus her other friends only get the most fleeting of thoughts. And then, as I recall, it ends with her just being upset rather than starting to formulate a plan to do anything about it, other than vowing never to use the spell again.
And yet so many people who tend to be very thoughtful and thorough about how they discuss stories really seem to like it, and many of them for exactly the reasons I didn't. John Perry liked that the Twilight/Spike character stuff was so understated, because over-the-top would have been so much worse (I agree, but feel a middle ground would have worked much better). Titanium Dragon liked it, too, though his description of it didn't delve much into the things that bugged me about it, so I don't know how much to read into that. It's left me wondering what I was missing.
3144604
You and me both, dude...
3144589
I don't remember at this point, but I have a feeling it's more random little things. And the Greek would have been fine had you used the letters IN THE PROPER PHONETIC ORIENTATION I AM SO MAD AAARGHGHRGJHGDLKGHF
3144604
No, you are weird, and everyone else is PERFECTLY FINE %D
3144639
It just felt very done, y'know? Like, we all know that Starlight's ideology is full of holes; pointing them out does nothing, and needs to bring something new to light before it's going to be worth reading.
3144893
Okay, that makes sense about the final chapter, it certainly felt off compared to the first two.
3144941
Works for me! :D
3145399
I think, in hindsight, not going with a wall o' poems was a good idea. And I have a lot more appreciation for the story now, too. :)
3145434
You and Pasco are the only holdouts in a post-apocalyptic wasteland populated by people who like Blink. Rage, rage against the dying of the light! :V
3145490
Actually, I do like it, but the discussion in the comments goes a lot deeper than I think it needs to.
I think you got it right in your review, in that I was more going for something simple and endearing rather than a deep dark existential crisis. Not that it's stopped the commenters from interpreting it as darkly as they possibly can.
That's the part I find weird.
(Also, thanks for the review! Really glad you liked it.
)
3145399 To be clear, I am not at all surprised by that weirdness.
Some people – those with a less rational response to the idea of life itself – get very easily hung up on the idea or what actually constitutes 'you'. I never really gave it much thought until I had a conversation with someone who finds the very idea of oblivion to be horrific. Literally, it scared them to think about the idea that one day they would no longer exist in the world. To someone like me, this is nothing short of total insanity. So it's really just a case of 'does the idea of a new, teleported you being a completely new physical item scare you?'
If it doesn't, then the story just isn't for you. Frankly, you lack the irrationality to have a strong reaction to it. Good for you. Some people will see it as a deep and meaningful question to ponder.
To those with a more rational mindset, it boils down to something altogether simpler: Does it actually matter if I an destroyed utterly and an identical copy created elsewhere? No. Not in the slightest.
It's not deep. It's not meaningful. And to you and me, it's not particularly well written either (not that I'm saying it's bad, just nothing special). The hype here is for faux-intellectuals, and I expect they will begrudge me saying it.
3145522
wtf, I thought that comment was from Inquisitor @_@
3145571
It's not about the revelation being mind-blowing to the audience. Like I said, I knew exactly where it was going once the first part of the spell was revealed. It was that Twilight's existential crisis was aborted by Spike being a good friend. I've never seen a story go the horror route only to be short-circuited like that, and that's what makes it worthwhile to me.
I need to read Blink, if only because I've become fascinated by teleportation as it's treated in the show. This fic doesn't sound like it'll answer too many (if any) of my questions, but I still need to read it.
3145612 Well, yes, but that requires that I buy Twilight even having an existential crisis to begin with :P
She's too smart for all that.
3145571
I think it'd be more rational to conclude we can't know for sure whether or not being replaced by what we perceive as an identical duplicate would matter; we still have a lot to learn about how the universe works, after all. But that said, I don't think it's a topic that seems to require much philosophizing either: since we can't know it yet, just treat it like any other uncertainty until we learn more.
3146264
I don't think it's particularly plausible, but there's still value in accepting the hypothetical situation to assess the quality of the story. For current lack of a better way to describe it, canonicity is related to the trappings of the story, whereas the "short-circuit" is related to the story's core structure. Problems with the trappings are obviously an issue, especially in fan works intended to hew to canon, but I think the integrity of the core structure is more important.
3145490
Ahh, I see. Well, all I can do about that is apologise for my non-existent knowledge of the language. The only reason I picked Greek was a) I needed a different alphabet b)it looks appropriately summon-y. Basically, I wrote out an English passage and then letter-for-letter transcribed it to Greek.
3149275
It's very important to give the reader some idea of the stakes of your story in the first chapter. I hope you'll keep that in mind as you continue writing.
3149302
The "stakes of your story"? What do you mean by that?
3151060
What can I expect from it? What's it going to be about? What's at stake, in other words? For your story, does Rainbow have to choose between Twilight and Applejack? Is she wrestling with her feelings for one of them? Her identity? I couldn't tell anything about the story from even the second chapter, save that it was apparently going to be about video games. Therefore, I had no interest in continuing it.
3151468
Ah....no. That's totally wrong, you should not just give away your whole story within the first chapter, where's the fun in actually reading the story then? That's what a brief description is for, to describe the story (haha weird, it's like it's in the name or something?) however giving away the story in the first chapter? No, that is not how you write and if that's what you think you should probably stop reviewing because your reviews are going to be pretty bad.
3152215
I'm not saying give it away, I'm saying give us some idea of what's going to happen. Is your story just about playing video games and Rainbow Dash complaining about things? If not, you might want to put some focus on what it will be about. For instance, shipping? Let us know who the love interest is. I couldn't tell until Applejack was mentioned to be into mares, but I don't know if that was followed through on. The stakes are what's important, and I don't know what's important in that story.