It Is Recommendsday, My Dudes #67 · 7:00pm Jun 29th, 2022
Those paying attention to American news the last few days probably don't need context as to why I chose today's two pieces. I'll leave my statements at that, and that a bit of catharsis does a person good.
Today's lead (and the more serious) story is Diplomacy Has Failed by single-story author Cythonna.
Starlight returns to the Castle with good news and bad news for her teacher Twilight. On the good side, she had been tempted to use mind control and didn't! On the bad side, she punched the dude in the face instead. Because he's an earth pony supremacist standing in the middle of Ponyville, ranting about sending unicorns and pegasi back where they came from.
Look, I ain't gonna call this one subtle. It's not. But it's a nice bit of release in modern times. What really sets it up, though, is the ending exchange between Twilight and Starlight. It's a good reminder that Starlight wasn't all that far off in her own past. People change, people learn. But you also can't just dismiss dangers out of hand. And while everybody living in harmony's a great goal, some folks can't be talked to. Sometimes, you've got to have a time-altering multidimensional magic battle - or punch somebody in the face.
On the lighter side: we have the return appearance of Scampy (and Gay For Gadot) with Wallflower Blush Bashes The Fash.
Wallflower and Sunset Shimmer go to the beach. They're having a nice day.
And then the Nazis show up.
Fortunately, Wallflower has a baseball bat with nails in it.
The expected happens from there.
Oh. Sorry, I made a mistake in the last story's comments. This one is not subtle. It extremely isn't, it's not meant to be, and that's perfectly fine. It's a comedic moment of catharsis - something most of us would be much more reluctant to do in reality, but that fiction serves wonderfully to let us smile when caricatured (but only just barely) dumbasses suffer. It's fun schadenfreude.
And then everyone clapped.
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(anecdotal applause)
And there was much rejoicing. (Yay!)
I like the part where she beats up the nazis
This was exactly the right level of subtle: not.
Also, good reviews of good-sounding stories!