It Is Recommendsday, My Dudes #74 · 7:33pm Aug 17th, 2022
Some weeks, a theme for this blog really jumps out and demands to be written. Other weeks - like this one - lack such a demand. Fortunately there's no shortage of deserving stories still, and the opportunity just means I can pick whatever two I feel like rather than having to sort through for something more specific.
So this week I got to pick something just for fun: cross-dimensional dating advice fics. And happily, I've got two amazing authors on deck who've done fun shorts with the idea.
The shorter of the two is applezombi's Wait, Me?
The story starts on the Equestrian side of the mirror, with Applejack nervously preparing to go through. Twilight's trying to help, but this is something Applejack has to do alone. The Map called her - and her alone - through the mirror, and so it has to be that way. Once she gets... helped through, on the other side she is met by Rainbow Dash. Who already knows what the mission is: she needs Applejack's help. With a date.
It doesn't get much further past there - you can probably guess the punchline. But that doesn't make it not funny.
Part of the story's appeal is that it's from a Quills & Sofas panic write, so done in half an hour. The whole thing's short, punchy, and to the point. It doesn't need to be more to get the fun across, and there's a wonderful purity in it.
Plus the build-up heightens the joke. Applejack's reluctance at the precipice of the mirror builds the question towards being a challenge for her ahead: facing a Map mission alone in a strange new world and then... splat.
Comedy don't need complexity.
The longer of the two today is From Equestria with Love, from site titan MagnetBolt.
This time, while we open in Equestria again? It's the opposite direction as Sunset Shimmer walks into Rarity's boutique a few weeks before Hearth's Warming. She stumbles through the door in quite a hurry with a question: what does Rarity want as a Hearth's Warming present? After being forced to accept that is no quick question and sitting down, she explains: she needs to give the human Rarity a present for the holiday and... well, Sunset's got a crush so she wants to make it perfect. Thus, asking the other Rarity for the perfect gift without ruining the surprise.
But like all things with Rarity and romance, it isn't quite so simple. And Sunset is forced to dig deep not only on the gift but into why she's smitten in the first place.
Until it all wraps up in an excellent ending/punchline that makes me smile every time.
Now, part of why this grabbed me at first was because Rarity/Sunset is a pretty uncommon pairing. But that's more because in a world of RariJack and RariTwi, it's hard to get breathing space for other ships. That's just what got me in the door, though.
What made this a favorite of mine is the ending - it's simple, it's straight-forward, and it made me facepalm that I hadn't seen it coming. That's the best kind of blindside, where when you look back it's obvious. In this case, it plays perfectly to who both the characters in the story are and how their minds work - the dialogue is on point, but the finale elevates it as so them. And that's what puts it to a different, favorite level for me.
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I have read Wait, Me?, though it was so long ago enough that I rated it on my Crackfic folder (a bit of a misnomer, basically for fics I have trouble rating offhand). I've since retired that folder. In any case, I don't remember a thing about the fic beyond what you relate here, but given your words and that I read it, I'll trust it was suitably Brian-and-groan inducing, as befits a short, speedily-written punchy fic like that.
Oh thank you!