It Is Recommendsday, My Dudes #24 · 5:59pm Sep 1st, 2021
Today we're going to be talking about pie.
The longer of the two pieces today is Roam-Springa by Pascoite. It's pretty easy to spot that the Pie family has some pretty strong Amish or Mennonite coding, if not being outright explicit in a couple of ways. And this story is a neat intersection between that and pony-living.
See, in many Amish/Mennonite communities there's a tradition referred to as rumspringa: a period in the late teens where a young person starts a sort of exploratory rite of passage. A lot of behavioral mores get loosened and a significant portion actually leave the community and explore the outside world. It's a period of self-discovery, frequently of seeking a spouse, and of experimentation. (There is a lot of real world stuff that goes with this, but I'm gonna lean away from it in favor of horse words. Y'all can do your own research.)
Here, it becomes relevant as a young Cloudy Quartz comes into her time for it. Set against the backdrop of her older self retelling the tale, Cloudy sets out from her family home to see the world and explore. Along the way she comes in contact with a number of characters from the older generation that adds depth to her own character as well as putting more modern events (like those that happen to Pinkie) into context. It's a great story in both ways, and a wonderful exploration of a character that's very rarely touched on by herself.
Following that we have one of Cloudy's daughters in one of the most unusual pairings I've seen: Limestone Pie and Flash Sentry.
Heavy Rock by CoffeeMinion takes that unique setup and leans hard into it.
And it works.
Flash is a young idiot who doesn't know what he wants to do with his life, playing guitar at an open mic night. Limestone is a young idiot who knows exactly what she wants to do with her life who ends up belting out angry metal lyrics over Flash's playing. The two should want to kill each other, but the story manages to strike a chord between them and makes it soar. Add Maud into the mix with her own role to make it a sort-of love triangle and you've got one of my favorite Flash stories and a great read.
Also Flash is in total himbo form, which is hilarious and drives Limestone up the damn wall.
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These are both top tier.
ah, those are both great :D
I remember CoffeeMinion telling me about Heavy Rock after a WriteOff Event a few years back, and I really enjoyed the first two chapters. I should really finish it now.
I'd recently seen two different places cite that you did reviews, which I didn't know before, so I just found this. Thanks for the review! If you did something like Paul Asaran and linked to your review in the story's comments, it might spread the word a bit more and get you some additional blog readers.