It Is Recommendsday, My Dudes #113 · 8:09pm May 17th, 2023
Unlucky update 113! So let's read about the most cursed thing: children.
Well, children and the horrible things that happen to them.
The more recent of the two stories brings us to Shaslan's Written in Synthetic Blood. (And I'll lead with a warning to read the long description's warnings. They are not joking.)
Silver Spoon is... well, not the Silver Spoon we know. Not quite. She's the Perfect Patient: somepony who can mimic any symptom, any injury. The perfect tool to practice medicine on without involving a real pony. (Theoretically.) And the problems she can mimic are very, very real.
And that's one of the two central questions: Silver's got pain responses, of course. No Perfect Patient would be complete without them. And she's quite capable of displaying anxiety and fear. The question, of course, is how much of it is real? She can be reset at the end of a session - injuries instantly repaired, traumas forgotten - but that doesn't change the problem that she's certainly feeling pain at the time. It's a good question without easy answers, and I quite enjoy the thought exercise of it.
While there's a bit of medical-related gore here, the real horror is the dehumanization. Silver's a thinking, feeling being being used as a lab rat. She may be designed as one, but it's still what's happening to her. And the ponies that interact with her run a wide range of how they regard her (and what they regard her as.) The abuse or even flat disinterest by the ponies working with her has more damning horror than any amount of gore does.
The other question on the table is what happened to the original Silver Spoon. That part's implied in a series of quick, fragmented flashbacks and the dialogue from some ponies of Silver's past. It's never spelled out, but you can fill in the gaps fairly easily by the end.
It's a brutal but quick story that packs a ton of nasty feelings into a tight package, leveraging potently disturbing moments into a powerful whole.
On the other side we've got a rare E-rated horror story: House Guest by Pascoite.
Discord reigns over Equestria. The Bearers are out trying to recover the Elements and their own sanity following Discord's hex on them. And while the land lays unguarded? The Lord of Chaos plays. Spoiled Rich has all her doors locked, which you wouldn't think was good protection for her and her daughter. But it seems to be working: mostly because she keeps hearing his voice in her head. Let me in. Over and over. Let me in.
So this one stands out partially because of the nature of it: E-rated horror is fairly rare. (Approximately only 9% of all horror stories on the site.) And it's got a great vibe to it: ominous and mysterious. I mean, it's Discord. Who the heck knows what he's going to do. Maybe he just wants to play checkers. Maybe he wants to animate your intestines to come out of your nose. Maybe he's just messing with you for thinking a door will stop him. There's no way to tell for the character or the reader, because Discord. And that gives it all a wonderful extra spice.
The other part that makes this one unique is the character choice. Spoiled Rich is not a popular character by any stretch, and she's almost always cast in the role of the antagonist. (Well and as a sex object, seriously there are a stunning number of stories about banging Spoiled Rich.) Here she's a fairly sympathetic protagonist, caught in a terrible situation and wanting nothing more than to survive and keep her daughter safe. Heck, at one point she actively tries to put herself in danger to protect Diamond Tiara. Bad rap as she normally gets, Spoiled gets to actually be kind of a hero in this one. That's a pretty rare thing. It doesn't work out well for her, but it's the thought that counts.
New or catching up? Try Recommendsday: The Index for your story needs!
Right as rain, I've read one of these stories, yet it was long ago enough that I neither remember it nor trust my rating on it. In this case, House Guest with a Decent (granted, from a time where I didn't have a rating tier between that and Really Good). Another quickie to add to the reread list! Pascoite is a reliable author, so even apart from your praise, I'd wager I'll like it more next time.
Between me rarely opting for stories with that level of content and it's being Sci-Fi, a tough sell in Pony for me at the best of times (though I am very much a fan in other contexts), probably gonna pass on Written in Synthetic Blood. I don't doubt that it's very striking, mind.
Oooh, House Guest! :D
Thanks for giving this a read! It was written to a prompt of "we're friends now," and I usually like to try subverting a prompt in some way. I didn't mean this to be Discord himself menacing them, just some other malevolent hanger-on attracted by his chaos while he's over playing in Ponyville.
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Huh. I mean, reading the description it's pretty obvious that's what you meant, but while reading I guess I always just filled it in as Discord proper. Wonder why my brain did that.
Still! Enjoyable.