It Is Recommendsday, My Dudes #161 · 7:35pm April 17th
Okay, so there's still new people to get through but you gotta remember that this blog series is mostly reliant on my whims. And I'm a little bored on that front, so I'm gonna switch gears and do a different pair of stories. Because I can. Also because I was reminded of one of these stories this last week and they're pretty damn funny.
So for the lead, I'm going to go with one of the rare Human in Equestria stories I like: Trade War by Cold in Gardez.
Paul Zagranski stands beside the Secretary-General of the United Nations. They're bound for the negotiating table for possibly the most important negotiation in all of human history. In a few minutes they're going to sit down opposite representatives of the ponies and make a trade. Humanity's offer? Microprocessors. Medicine. Complete access to the sum total of human history and knowledge. Anything and everything they ask for. And what do the humans want in exchange? Ear scritches. Mane brushing and braiding. And the holy grail - nose boops. The team MUST succeed. For humanity's sake.
So not the most serious. (To us. To them, it's deathly serious.) Really, this is just one of those amazingly adorable fics that's sweet and comfy and funny. Hell, it's one of the ones where I'm not sure what to say other than the pitch blurb - if you don't see the comedy and cute inherent in a dire negotiation over the right to give ponies ear scritches, nothing I say is going to convince you otherwise.
Of course it helps that the author's Cold in Gardez, who could probably make the phone book an interesting read.
That simplicity's kinda what makes this, too. Sure we could have seen a sprawling back and forth here, going deep into the politics and the personalities on both sides of the negotiating table. But that would've ruined the inherent silliness of it all. So it's short, simple, and damn funny.
Boop.
And there's only one story I felt could pair with that: U.N.-decent Exposure by Raleigh.
Princess Celestia has just finished giving a speech before the United Nations, finalizing Equestria's new relationship with Earth and the humans. It was a wonderful speech. Unfortunately, there's one minor problem that came up. You see, when the Princess turned to shake hands/hooves with the other world leaders, she pointed her rear towards the audience and now every newspaper and TV station in the world is running footage of what Princess Celestia's NSFW parts look like. And as is typical, there are a lot of opinions of that.
This one's another great bit of diplomatic comedy. Not as cute as the previous story, but the British diplomat trying to artfully express the problem without talking about Princess Celestia's vulva is hilarious cringe. And it's wonderfully counterpointed by the ponies - appropriately - not understanding what the big deal is. Not wearing clothes was never a problem before. (And again, this is one of those where if the premise doesn't make you laugh to start, I'm not gonna convince you and this isn't a story for you.)
There's plenty of great little touches, too - the exchange about sugar cubes, for example, or the implied adventure of Starlight's missing kite. Luna's bit at the end is just a cherry on top. Raleigh keeps the whole thing peppy and bouncing, not dwelling too long on any of the asides so the main story keeps moving.
Also, if you enjoy cringe you gotta read the comments section. Despite only one vague allusion to the American President, the comments section is full of the saltiest salt about American politics. I originally brushed it off as because the story was published in 2020, but there's still people commenting. It's been four years and there are people this week leaving comments and fighting about American politics. In a story where a horse and a British diplomat discuss genitalia. It's so cringe it loops around to funny and I want to post a gif of pointing and laughing at the commenters.
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Goodness, UNdecent is so brilliant. Good call.