Fic recs, July 26th: Project Get! #18! · 1:23pm July 26th
I just so happened to finish this edition today, so I figure, why not post, and have an extra-long blog next week? :) Project Get! is a series of reviews looking to get more eyes on under-read stories! I sort my RIL by view count and pick ten off the bottom that aren't sequels!
H: 2 R: 4 C: 2 V: 1 N: 1
No Breaks by Avellana
Genre: Slice of Life
Two hitchhikers chat on a train.
Bleh, the T-word right off the bat. D: …Heh, "bat". Get it? I didn't even mean that one. Thankfully, the strong writing helped me get over that poor first impression quickly. This has a feeling to it, like it was originally written as real-world fiction and then had a few minor tweaks to make the characters ponies. Which isn't meant as a criticism, I should say, just a note that the gritty realism won't fit everyone's idea of Equestria. But if you wanted to see two ponies talk about recovering from addiction, I can't think of a better way to get just that.
Recommended
The Long Year by The Red Parade
Genre: Mystery/Dark/Fantasy
Applejack is dead, and Cheerilee will do anything she can to find out why.
This is why I do Project Get! Y'all done slept on this one, and while I'm not sure I can do it justice with a review, I'm gonna try. This drops us into the middle of a Ponyville still reeling from the untimely and unexplained death of Applejack, plus she was dating Cheerilee, plus a whole bunch of other stuff. From the get-go, we've got strong characters, all of them dealing with their grief in different ways, no matter how small a role they play in the overall story. Rarity, for instance, has thrown herself into her work, while Cheerilee seems to have developed something of a… habit. But there's so much more going on, secret rituals and ancient magics, and earth pony myths about where their magics come from all weaving together with the Mirror Pool and a quest to find answers. The supporting cast, interestingly, end up being a trio of pegasi: Daring Do, presented as an old college friend; secret agent Night Glider, who I think is supposed to be from SMILE!; and Strawberry Sunrise, who… well, she's a real surprise, she is, and I kind of wish her origins were gone into more deeply. In fact, part of me wishes this whole story went deeper in places, just because I know from the snippets of legends and months that we get that there is so much more to unpack. But The Red Parade knows the reader can put the pieces together from what information they're given, and trusts them to do so. The writing, of course, is impeccable, albeit with a typo here and there, but this is excellent work from an excellent writer, and once again, y'all slept on a good'n. So fix that!
Highly Recommended
Your Husbands and Your Sons by Acologic
Mature
Genre: Dark
I have to be honest, this story works, it does what the author wanted it to, and it is written, I gather, from a place of ultimate moral disgust at every aspect of a dark and tragic situation that's all too common these days. But no one is going to want to read this. (Just look at the vote bar, it says as much.) It's short, but fully half of the word count is a suicide note from a sex-obsessed incel. The other half gives us several names and a scene, and while it's easy enough to piece together what's going on, none of these are exactly characters. I do appreciate that the author inadvertently (?) captured the inability of law enforcement to actually protect people from or during school shootings, this having been written half a decade before the shooting in Uvalde. He also captured the failings of basically every other system to keep young men from falling into radicalizing cults. But if there's any real mistake made here, it's trying to encapsulate and explore these important, disturbing topics with such a low word count. I mean, I actually had to check the comments to be certain the author wasn't glorifying school shooters. This really needed more room in which to tackle the subject matter.
Vaguely Recommended
Inky's Web by Incandesca
Genre: Anthro AU/Friendshipping
Marble really knew better than to go caving without proper equipment.
I wasn't sure where this was ultimately going to go, considering the tags, but I'm pleased to say it has a happy ending. :) It's all about learning to trust someone, especially when they're super scary looking, and ultimately that trust is rewarded, which is honestly a nice change from what one might otherwise expect. Now, is this a good story? I dunno, but I was certainly entranced by the whole thing. Marble Pie meets Inky Rose (you know, the goth pony from the fashion contest that Applejack ruined?), only the latter is a drider, the word actually being used in-story. And that's kind of it? It is low-key monster-fucker-y, not a criticism, just an observation; but like, why else do you write anthro outside of crossovers unless you want the ponies to have boobs? :P In all, this is unique if nothing else, and again, I'm pleased it had a happy ending.
Recommended If You Enjoy Anthro Ponies
An Apple Never Falls Far from the Family Tree by MagnetBolt
Genre: Holiday Special
They may be snowed in, but the Apple Family knows how to make the best with what they've got.
More good feel-good fic. :) Front-loaded though this may be with goofy extra stuff (a monster kidnapping foals? AppleDash jokes?), it's a really strong look at how the Apples work together as a family. All four of them get something to do, though Big Mac is of course the least present, but I don't know. For once in my life, I was really taken with the homeyness of it all, and that's not usually my thing. Highly Recommended for Apple Fans.
Recommended
Silent Song by J3sterking
Genre: EQG Drama
Vinyl just has a little extra trouble, day to day.
Hey. Did you know that our society is set up in such a way that it expects people to be able to speak? That if you have some kind of communicative difficulty and need to seek help, it's very likely you'll be told to call? And that's just for speaking, don't even get me started on hearing. All of this I know only second-hand, but it fucking sucks. You got a friend who can't hear or talk? Learn sign language. Literally anything is better than regularly not being able to communicate with people, your friend will appreciate the effort. Anyway, this absolutely captures everything I could have asked it to, though it's not clear whether Vinyl's been mute for a long time or only recently. I mean, I assumed it was the latter, but the ending makes that unclear. Otherwise, good job, non-expert writer!
Recommended
Rari-noia by Compendium of Steve
Sequel to Rare-ified
Genre: Horror/Random/ViE
Ever since the 'video shoot', Rarity has been seeing… thing, in the shadows.
Wow, I read the original for a Project Get! back in 2016. (I have really not put this series to its best use. c_c) I had to go re-read it, of course, and… wow, what a bizarre mixture of horror and random comedy, with an appearance by Hatsune Miku of all things. And this is kind of the same, though it has the benefit of taking the first story's events completely seriously and giving us a look at how Rarity is dealing with what happened. This elevates the concept, 100%. Though I have to wonder… I mean, the "Vocaloid" label with the Crossover tag just doesn't seem right? Hence the odd tag I used. But I guess she has lore or something. Does that lore include being a licensed mental health counselor? :V
Recommended
Velvet Step's Revenge by Lise
Genre: Comedy
In which Velvet Step buys a parrot.
For once, I decided not to take an author's reading suggestion, as it would have meant reading both The Velveteen Mask AND Crystal's Wishes, and that is just a lot, y'know? So the best I could do was reach back to my vague, almost-nonexistent memories of Memoirs of a Royal Guard. Surely Velvet Step had appeared there and made an impression, right? Well, if she did, I don't remember her. Big oof on my part. But I also didn't want to just skip this, because once I got into it, it was clear Lise did a really good job. So the only thing this is missing, for me, is any sort of motive for why Velvet Step wants to torture her supposed friends (?) with a parrot. Like, it's otherwise funny and well-written, you just need the previous stories for that context is all. :)
Recommended for Quill & Blade Fans
Unburying by Purple Seacow
Genre: Sad
Fluttershy digs a hole.
Sometimes, a story like 500 Little Murders comes along, and does what it sets out to so well that you can't help but be reminded of it now and again as another author gamely tackles the same subject. And yet, the bar it sets is so high, I think there is plenty of room for others to give us their takes, for all that living up to said standard is going to be difficult. So, then, we get a very solid second-place finisher in the "Fluttershy dealing with death" category. A story about the specifics of rabbit burial and the dangers of death mixed with the drudgery of digging and a horribly bittersweet ending, all combined into a fantastic whole. There are a couple spots with simple typos, but not many, and the rest of it is so, so worth it if you need something a little sad in your life.
Highly Recommended
Delivering on Sweetness & Beyond by abrony-mouse
Genre: G3 Crossover/Comedy
Derpy's first interdimensional package delivery goes somewhat awry.
Heyyy, one more writer I've recently followed without reading any of their work! And this… might not have been a good introduction thereto. :C While this opens with a set of paragraphs so dense, I'm not sure "purple" is high enough in the spectrum to describe them, it quickly settles into a very simplistic (and odd, since it's in present tense) writing style that began to drag, and hard. Now, I want to say the author's whole reason for doing this is to mimic or even parody the light, kid-friendly, and generally simplistic plots of the G3 cartoon. Because, yeah, anything you can say against this story, you can say against G3, and this isn't even G3.5 we're talking about, which was worse. There's a lot of interesting stuff treating G3 as a separate dimension from G4, going into things like how their magics differ, how easy it is for the G3 ponies to cheer each other up with simplistic rituals… how they don't actually have any males and don't know what they are I fucking knew it, I told you, bro. c_c That stuff? All excellent. But it also wasn't the story's focus. Instead, we get to follow Ocean Mist, an OC(????) who's studying, unspecified, under Kimono, trying to help the Equestrians out when their cart gets stuck in the mud. That's it, that's the entire plot, and if it sounds simple, again I remind you: these are the stakes you regularly deal with in the G3 show. If this is meant to parody, it's insanely clever. Unfortunately, in pointing out just how boring G3 is, I hate to say it, a boring story has been written. Ocean Mist is the kind of underdog you can root for, except that the G3 ponies are just so dumb, and she's no different; she's barely functional, nearly incapable of thinking on her own, and so she spends this entire story running around willy-nilly, trying to come up with ways to help that invariably go wrong. By the halfway point, I was really regretting my decision to read this, for multiple reasons. I stuck it out for the sake of not giving an author's first review a DNF, but I hate to say, it wasn't worth it. Whether parody or not, this story is overly long, and unfortunately dull. :( More focus on the interdimensional interactions would have gone a long way to help; but really, this just needed to trust that the reader would get the point after one or two tries. We didn't need the cavalcade of G3 regulars, they just padded things out. Also, a side note: points off for the AI cover art. I appreciate the author being forward about it (spoiler aside), but just don't, please, really, I'm fucking begging you. I'll have to read something else of abrony-mouse's.
Not Recommended
Oooh, a Red Parade story with such a good rating shouldn't be ignored! I shall add that one to my lists.
Inky's Web also has my attention, if only because I don't think I've ever read an MLP story featuring a spiderpony. Truly, a horrific oversight on my part.
I often forget I wrote that story as I filter out Mature. I didn't expect it to see the light of day.
Yeah, I agree with you. It's cursory, and all the substance lies in the suicide letter; so the letter itself is worth checking out as it puts you behind the eyes of a killer: you taste the anger and the hatred. I had to get myself into the mindset to write it, and it wasn't fun.
Ta, PP, for another review! You've been keeping me connected to the pony world!
Well, this was a pleasant surprise
thanks for reviewing meh fic! I appreciate the candor
Glad you liked the lore — I enjoyed writing that aspect a lot. I'm new to writing, so unsurprising at the no rec — the theme and pacing is way off, unless you're into G3, mebbe (altho even if you are into G3 it's not really like those eps either). Is it a parody? Neigh... well not exactly. It is a little trolly. I love the idea that the only conflict is removing a delivery van from a ditch (my sense of humour, but if the reader is the butt of the joke... well you can't expect them to like it).
My new fic (out soon! this week or the next) is G1, but avoids a lot of these pitfalls, I think, and G1 is, anyway, very different and more exciting in tone. On the other hoof, it is slice of life again, and they're just going camping, so if you prefer excitement, mebbe not that one. Other than some pretty brutal M fics, I have recently written a few silly one shots - I'm kinda random. One did get a few likes, and it is G4, so mebbe you will like it more?
- MLP: FiM
- Comedy
- Slice of Life
Invisiblestia pranks Luna during a lesson with Starswirl.(also took some learning points from this review in meh blog )
I kind of glossed over that, in part because how long she'd suffered from it was unimportant. I've always head-cannoned it as long-term, and that was how I intended it to come across in the story. I'll have to reread it to figure out how it came across as a recent thing.
But anyway, thanks for reading and reviewing! Glad you liked it.
I've read a few things by parade and liked them more often than not, but it's interesting you mention typos in it, since that's been my impression as well, and weirdly so. His early stories I read were very well proofread, but it drops off for the later stuff, and I'm not sure why that'd be the case. Plus when people point out the typos, he doesn't fix them, which is a quick and unambiguously positive change to a story, so I don't understand that, either. The concepts are good, anyway, and the typos are infrequent enough to be little more than a distraction.
5794549
ahh!
I'll admit, the only reason I care about that is because my own experience is with someone whose speech issues developed in the last couple of years, and I think that does make a difference re: how others react to and are able to communicate with someone
:D
Thanks for the shoutout! I was honestly pretty bummed since this story was a gift for the incredible author and my good friend Mushroompone, so this is awesome to see haha. I'm actually doing some edits for a couple stories to maybe put a book together, so if there's any typos that I didn't catch feel free to let me know of them!
Glad you enjoyed and thanks for reading!
5794772
I'm sorry I hadn't kept a list D:
The sentence "horribly bittersweet" properly should not bring me as much glee as it does, but it really really does.
Thank you for the review
5795200
quite welcome! :) and now I understand you more as an author