Fic recs, September 2nd! · 2:07pm Sep 2nd, 2015
Check out what Griffin made over on City of Doors!
So Project Horizons is on Fimfiction now. I think the reason I’ve been so caught up in the PH hype is that we really haven’t had a fanfic-related fandom event like this since… Fallout: Equestria came to Fimfiction? The events seem to be relegated to seasons one and two, when the fandom was smaller, but seeing that title at the top of the featured box gives me an inexplicable thrill, like spectating a sport you’re only halfway invested in. But seriously, when was the last time you saw a lot of people get excited about something fanfic-related?
On that note, I’ve loaded the first book into my playlist and will probably start listening to it sometime later this year, proving once again that I am a gross, reactionary hypocrite. :V
And on that note, this is me cleaning out the one-shot audiobooks ahead of the next big one. If I stick with it, and I honestly am going to try, it could take up the rest of the month. :B But meanwhile, you can check out reviews of teamidris' Pony Poets Washing Day, Tell Me Lies, Tell Me Sweet Little Lies by JakeTheGinger, Pascoite's Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella, and five other read-to-me fics! :D
H: 0 R: 4 C: 1 V: 2 N: 1
Pony Poets Washing Day by teamidris
Sequel to Pony Poets: The Wheel Story
Genre: Slice of Life
After falling in the pond again, Fish and Sam make up a washing poem.
Okay, this is more what I was looking for with the last story: Fish being cute. Because why have a foal in a slice of life fic if they’re not gonna be cute, I ask ya? Fish’s ‘special talent’, if you will, is falling into the water, and it’s just great to see in action. The punctuation issues are still here (I shouldn’t be too hard on the author, he’s dyslexic), and with them a certain lack of focus, specifically Glyn showing up to talk about a bird for no reason. But this is definitely more worth reading than its predecessor, if you like light stories about cute foals.
Recommended If You Mind the Punctuation
Vinyl Scratch Eats Salsa by RushingAutumnLeaves
Reading by Scribbler
Genre: Pony Does X
As Pony Does X titles go, this one’s pretty bottom-tier. I mean, just look at it: who cares, right? Sadly, context is not a strong suit of this piece, and you have to read the description to understand why the title is important. (Save for one word in the text, you’d also have to read it to understand their relationship.) Once context is established, though, this comes off as one of those “little moments”, a tiny struggle that neither defines nor sidelines a relationship, but that relationships are nevertheless comprised of endlessly. I won’t say that makes this interesting, per se, but it does at least give it purpose. This might have been better if it were funnier, but at least it’s short.
Vaguely Recommended
Tell Me Lies, Tell Me Sweet Little Lies by JakeTheGinger
Reading by Goombasa
Genre: Episode Followup
Lyra struggles with “Bon-Bon”s revelations at the wedding.
For once in my life, I found myself wishing Lyra and Bon-Bon were not together. Coming as this does directly off of Slice of Life, the revelation at the halfway point that they were together (told, I should add; should also add that this would not have been a surprise if readings came with tags) felt like cheap shipping. I don’t know what to feel anymore. D: But honestly, I can’t criticize this too much. Cranky has a very good cameo, and while the second half felt less good than the first, that first half is still quite good, and overall I’m just being a poop. This is the kind of thing I could see happening if “best friends” was Equestrian gay code for “lovers”. (Task: find out how many times each of the mane six calls another their “best friend”.)
Recommended
This Little Piggy by BillyGGruff
Reading by The Lost Narrator, Pinkie Rose and Edward James
Genre: Horror
Pinkie Pie runs afoul of a gang, or vice versa...
There comes a time when you really have to question the “fan” part of fanfiction. Save for the fact that Pinkie sounds in-character, and some vague Mirror Pool-related imagery, this has precisely nothing to do with MLP. The main character’s name is John, for crying out loud. This could have stood perfectly well as original fiction, and I can only wonder why the author wanted it to be linked to the show. As for what it is, well, I do like me some good supernatural redemption, but the narrative skirts so widely around just what it is John did that his comeuppance isn’t satisfying. The narrator does serves as a useful counterpoint, but has no character of their own. I will say that the horror imagery is pretty decent, though the text, on observation, needs serious editing. In all, this is not something I would have read had there not been a reading of it, and I’m not sure who to recommend it to.
Vaguely Recommended
Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella by Pascoite
Reading by Chaotic Seven
Reading by Dr. Wolf
Genre: Slice of Life
Derpy’s not the only one who forgot her key and got caught in the rain.
This is a very light, cute story. Its stakes are low, but they’re present, and furthermore, they’re important. It’s a masterpiece of subtlety and showing, giving us two ponies with visible if not-earth-shattering problems finding comfort in each other. It also works because Derpy isn’t just doling out helpful advice to a filly who needs it. Of course, I love it because it’s 2015 and no one writes about Twist anymore, yet I’ve never seen her paired up with Derpy like this before, which just makes so much sense, you have to wonder why no one else has done it. (Twist trying to work past her lisp is great.) In all, a great read.
Recommended
Another aside for the pedants: that “short but long” audiobook I mentioned recently was for Geoverse Part One: To Friend Is Human by GeodesicDragon, read by VisualPony. I can’t say I was too into it after two chapters, and then I checked the story info and found out that not only is it an HiE, it’s human/pony romance. Suffice to say, had I realized that, I would not have put it in my reading list, and I’m not going to include it now just so I can shit all over it because there’s no way I would like it. This is all you get.
Twilight Sparkle Doesn’t Do Anything by Twinkletail
Reading by L1ghtningRunn3r
Another one for the keeper pile! He’s got good volume and, more importantly, mixes his background music well. He does a good job at differentiating characters. He’s another one who reads the tags and description at the start, and keeps his commentary to the end. Nothing but good points here. :)
Reading by Savrin Drake
Genre: Comedy
Pinkie Pie invites her friends to help her with a new recipe.
There’s a lot that could be spoiled about this, so I’ll have to remain circumspect. It’s a fun story. The title is really, really clever. That fairly lackluster (if accurate) description leads into a brief adventure and some delicious jokes. The whole thing is a bit nuts, and it’s great. This just hit the right spot, as far as I’m concerned.
Recommended
Al Niente by Peregrine Caged
Reading by Scribbler
Genre: Romantic Drama
The best night of Vinyl Scratch’s life comes to a screeching halt when she gets home.
There’s a lot to like about this piece, but thing that caught my attention right off the bat was the idea that Octavia’s life is being ruined by her relationship with Vinyl Scratch, let’s be honest. :V In all seriousness, this is a great look at what relationships really mean, not to mention it shows how drinking doesn’t change a person, but rather someone who is very reserved can appear completely different when their inhibitions are removed. Vinyl got some very good characterization as she asks herself hard questions toward the end, and overall, I was quite pleased by this. In fact, the oddest part is the author’s choice for Octavia’s last name. That’s not too bad!
Recommended
Zecora Walks Through Poison Joke by Prince Luna
Reading by Captain Sand
Reading by Agent0Fluffy
Genre: Poem
I opened the reading. I opened the story link. I saw the rhyming description. “Oh no oh no oh no,” cried my internal monologue. And then the first couplet rhymed “forest” with “longest” and I just…
Not Recommended
January 2014. It's a Dangerous Business, Going Out Your Door.
But holy wow.
Still not gonna touch that monster. I'd like that month of my life to do other things with.
Couldn't say if it's the case here, but I am aware of at least one author adapting an original work into ponyfic specifically because he thought he'd get a bigger audience that way.
man, between you and theRedBrony, my read-later list is getting pummeled today!
3364622
Meanwhile, people keep finishing up stories I'm tracking, making this really hard on me too D:
Project Horizons has been posted? Doh, less of an excuse to not get around to it eventually. Maybe after I finish catching up with Austraeoh.
3364637 Good thing you don't have to worry about me doing that! (sobs quietly)
I have intentionally avoided thinking about it because PH is one of the only longform stories original or fanfic that I literally rage quit. I left a good ways into it. I hated every single character except for the lil Scotch Tape filly cause she's a kid and she can't help how every one of her friends is an unrepentent amoral asshole.
It wasn't just that they did bad things. A protagonist need not be perfect. In fact, they had best not be usually. Ponies and people make mistakes, sometimes horrific mistakes. They hurt themselves or each other, psychically and mentally. But at some point, a parade of nothing but abject moral failure stops being a narrative and becomes just sort of like torture porn to me. In real life, we know deep down that simple law of averages eventually assures that at some point you're going to have SOME kind of victory, evne if its just getting the last Dr. Pepper out of the ice box. If not, hell, you'll just decide something is a victory. But it felt like every single thing that happened to BlackJack was abject failure, and every good thing she got was utterly ruined within like a chapter. Like... Yay! Morning Glory and BJ finally got together for realz and they're happy and... wow. Somehow I'm not surprsied that Black the Jack immediately turns around and fucks a random stallion whose name she doesn't even know. That was actually the point I bailed, basically. I was just so angry, I felt like Somber had just been fucking with me the whole time. Honestly, I stopped reading because when you read hoping that all of the protagonists fail miserably and finally die for their repeated transgressions you gotta find somethin' else to read.
But... truthfully, Black Jack's problems with fidelity and my own hair trigger about that aside, I know I'll read it now that its done. It's only a matter of time.
So write stories short enough that people aren't annoyed by their mediocrity and will even recommend them because 'hey, it's short'? Got it.
Assuming Project Horizons does indeed get uploaded in full, and assuming nothing else changes in the meantime, the five longest fics on Fimfiction* will all be M-rated stories with the Dark, Romance and Sex tags. The longest fic that doesn't follow this pattern is the only (currently) complete million-worder, Glory Be, which is Teen-rated and doesn't have the Romance or Sex tags. Does this mean anything? Dunno.
* I don't count MLP Time Loops as a single story.
3364737 Hey, don't knock it. It works for me!
3364660
That kinda sounds like most of my reaction to FoE proper. <.< Well, it's not like I haven't been warned again and again and again not to read it, or that I won't like it, so I can't say I didn't know. :B
3364737
Honestly, a big portion of how I recommend a story is "will it waste your time?" and with really short fics, under 2k words, the answer is more often than not "no".
3364779 Good luck regardless! I pray for your success
(I tend to think that FOE avoided a lot of the problems in that regard that its descendants stumbled into mainly by letting Littlepip have legitimate and justified victories. Minor victories over addiction like destroying the recipe for party time mentals, LOOT LOOT LOOT, rescuing ponies, getting laid repeatedly in a relationship where she doesn't cheat that helped to make the VERY SUPER BAD less... monotonous.)
3364660
See, I only read the first volume, and despite seeing some really weird story choices that didn't go together and some that just seemed like cliches and wankery, I really adored the shared arc that Blackjack and P-21 had. I decided to give my heart a break from that story after that, and I haven't come out of it yet. Given what I've heard lately, that there are going to be even harder to endure scenes coming up and that the story may very well betray everything I liked about the first volume, I've been even more hesitant.
Despite that, I'm going to try and finish it soon as well.
3364907 the first like third of it is fantastic and I would NEVER take that way from Somber because he did so much so WELL
Pretty sure I wrote this before Melody was on any official material as her last name, and the fanon name was always Philharmonica. Both which I've never liked, so I simply used my own.
3364974
Man, that's crazy old. @_@
They call you that directly in the theme song. :V
3365346
OT6 confirmed
I guess meter is only optional in poetry nowadays, huh.
3365494
DON'T FUCKING WRITE RHYMED METRIC POETRY IF YOU AREN'T GOING TO FOLLOW THE METER OR RHYME
3365566
I just want to say
that you've made my day --
your outburst: delicious
my intent: suspicious
As I drop this last line that totally respects meter and rhyming scheme.
3366090
You're such a dick :V
3366484
And I make you sick? :B
Project Horizions is quite simply a flawed entertaining mess. The first 33 chapters of the story were rather good with Blackjack's character being almost like a Anti-Littlepip. She, like Littlepip wants to make things better, but by chapter 33 she is broken, dying, half-insane, and haunted by the knowledge that she had become a monster. A perfect natural conclusion to her character arc.
Unfortunately, the story didn't end there due to lingering plot threads and instead of making one the other characters the new lead, Somber keeps Blackjack around. The story then gets progressively ridiculous with each plot twist and character development. It essentially becomes a cyberpunk/mass effect/dragon ball z crossover with constant powering up, over the top villains, Lavos, and other craziness. As fun as it was I had to stop after Blackjack gained telepathic powerz some things were just too much even for me.
Best of luck PP, I'm really looking forward to reading your experiences with it.
