Fic recs, January 31st! · 3:57pm January 31st
Happy New Year, ya filthy animals. o_o; Really squeezing it in at the finish line, aren't I?
After listening through several very long stories, I finally have five reviews I can post! 
My audiobook list is down around 450 now! The next one will come out a good bit sooner, as I've hit a set of one-shots on Skijaramaz's channel, and then it will be off to lengthy fic land once again! And of course the next edition post is also going to take some time because I just started a 100k+ monster for it.
And of course everything is terrible and my life has slowly been deteriorating over the past several months, but that's not important right now. :') Colorful talking ponies, look!
H: 0 R: 1 C: 4 V: 0 N: 0
Soaring on Little Wings by tom117z
Reading
Genre: HiE
Emma didn't have the greatest life. So when she was given a second chance at a better one in a strange, mystical world, how could she say no?
Reading this so close to Change, I'm going to be comparing the two a lot, because that was my introduction to tom117z's writing, and this is only the second story of his I've read that didn't have Skijaramaz as a collaborator. Also it has a lot of the same writing issues I pointed out in the vs. post, though with some distinct improvement, so I won't harp on those. So! On to a longish review of a story that was distinctly not written for me.
We need some kind of fanfiction Bechdel test, where you have two characters having a conversation and you fail it if they start discussing canon characters or events in great detail. <_< I don't exactly know how to describe it, but I did notice this happened a lot, in ways that irritated me when I realized just how common it was. Which wasn't good, since I found a great deal of this story dull if not irritating. Not enough to stop early, mind you; I actually feel bad when I do that! It's only when a story is pathologically bad, has nothing to say, or only has pathologically bad things to say that I have no regrets in quitting early, and none of those applied here. Granted, I was constantly waiting for that other shoe to drop, it just never did.
I think the main problem for me was just that I was never really on board with the main premise. This is a story for someone who's experienced a difficult life on earth and wants to live out the idea of getting a second chance at being able to live a good life. (And I absolutely would not judge someone for seeking a story like this for validation and escapism.) Unfortunately, the shape that takes in this case is a very blow-by-blow slice of life as our POV character grows from an infant into a full grown mare, doing all sorts of normal life stuff along the way: school, bullies, love, you name it. Little Wing — not my favorite OC name — tends to have things very easy, as well, and most of the conflicts that show up in her life are resolved pretty quickly and relatively easy, a fact which, I will admit, at least one character calls her out on. But it makes for not a lot to latch on to, and my suspension of disbelief was used up with "pony foals are exceedingly precocious". (It makes sense for her to have fully-formed thoughts at a week old, because she was a teenager when she died, but still.) But mostly what I wanted out of this was more info about our protagonist's human life, about how it affected her life in Equestria; rarely did this ever happen. And when it suddenly became front and center to the plot — the last quarter to a third of the story, which I'll admit I found generally more interesting than everything that came before it — I kind of wished they would stop. It never became important that she had been human; the story would have worked just as well if she'd simply been an abused foal given a second chance at life, albeit making for a grittier Equestria as a result.
So, did anything work? Well, the aforementioned bully was actually a surprisingly good character. When he was introduced and started picking on our heroine, I had the horrible thought of "I bet they're gonna end up together when they're older"; thank heck that did not happen, full credit to the author. And when the climax of the bullying subplot comes to a head, we're finally given a look under the hood, to find out what his motivations were, and the nuance that lurked behind what seemed on the surface a fairly simple case of one shithead kid being a jerk to his classmates. That was a chapter that I really enjoyed.
The other really cool thing: the alicorn of death. Because it isn't just happenstance that turns this poor dead girl into a pony, of course. I thought her design and especially her name — Penumbra! :D Good OC name! — were both really cool, such that I would be happy to see her show up in another story. Granted, the part of the story where she becomes the antagonist was a bit… fraught? Strained? Did not help that what was perhaps the most important conflict in the story was resolved in the same chapter it was introduced. But as a concept at least, I thought Penumbra was a highlight of the story, and used sparingly enough that she never got old.
The final note is I want to give the author credit for writing a solid gay character. I will also give him shit for immediately having her be gay bashed upon revealing her feelings, but ultimately, the direction the story goes in absolves her treatment, and overall I think she and her marefriend make for decent rep, which was a pleasant surprise. :)
But at the end of the day, this is a story for a very specific audience, of which I am not part. If HiE is your jam for wish-fulfillment and escapism, or if you're into the sort of lengthy slice of life story that follows an OC from birth to adulthood, this is the story for you. If you ask for anything else out of it, though, you're unlikely to find it.
Recommended for HiE Fans Only
Spark Visions of Twilight by Tangerine Blast
Reading
Genre: Cutie Re-Mark
Life under Nightmare's rule is hard, not to mention soul-crushing. But when Rainbow Dash meets a strange purple alicorn, she starts to have a glimmer of hope that things could change.
At first, this story had me wishing that the characters were less like their canon counterparts, but almost immediately forced me to reconsider that idea. Sure, it's fun to do a story where everyone, or just about everyone, is fanatically loyal to Nightmare Moon, having known nothing else their whole lives… But really, that would have only happened if she won the first time she fought Celestia. This story, I do believe, sets the Nightmare AU as having started just a few years ago, when she returned from her imprisonment and defeated her sister in Ponyville. And so we get familiar characters who nevertheless bear scars of life under the rule of tyrannical night. That said, they aren't exactly the same, and none is more different than this world's version of Twilight Sparkle. I really liked her, it was a good take on her character. Not to mention the relationship between her and Pinkie, who is also quite different, is pretty fascinating to watch unfold. And so we get to meet the mane six anew as they try to scramble for the Elements of Harmony in the vain hope it might set their world free. This brings us to maybe the story's one downfall: the last third or so is just a standard quest for the Elements. Sure, the trials are all different, but they aren't all made equally. Rarity's in particular rubbed me the wrong way, as it sort of cheapens the idea of the Elements representing virtues. Though I will say in particular that though Applejack's appears unimpressive at first, if you think about it for a moment, it's actually considerably better than what she had to do in canon. There's just a lot more tension, and a lot more obviously at stake in the moment, for all that Twilight in canon was scared for her life and all. Nevertheless, it is pretty much a foregone conclusion as to who's doing what by the end, and that the good guys are going to win, and I'm taking points off for the T-word and some torturous Zecora dialogue. <_< At least this has a good antagonist, if nothing else. If you'd like to see a Cutie Re-Mark AU expanded upon, this might just do the trick!
Recommended for AU Fans
"Shining? Do You Think Mom and Dad Might've Been Kidnapped by Ninjas?" by Naturalbornderpy
Reading
Genre: Cute Comedy
They've been out an awfully long time…
This is another one of those stories that I really like, where a young Shining Armor is at his wit's end trying to care for his insanely precocious and anxiety-riddled little sister. And this is quite a fun example thereof. :) Twilight keeps coming up with outlandish reasons for their parents' late homecoming, while a thunderstorm continues to spike her anxiety, and Shining does the good big brother thing and talks her through it, with comedic results. I particularly liked the part about robots. This leads to a very fun epilogue, and overall, a very cute and fun story!
Recommended
Little Glimpses by Skijarama
Reading
Genre: Cutie Re-Mark
Twilight Sparkle's life is turned upside-down, first by strange visions of another world, and then by her mentor, Princess Celestia, adopting a pegasus filly from Cloudsdale.
So Spark Visions of Twilight presented what I would normally expect from aCutie Re-Mark take-off fic: you pick an AU of your choice, canon or otherwise, that Twilight visited while fighting Starlight Glimmer, and you see where you can take it. Little Glimpses dares to ask, okay, after Twilight successfully stops Starlight and fixes the timeline, what happens to the timeline she visited the past of? And so we get a story about a young Twilight Sparkle growing up seeing visions of a future that was but never will be. But there's so much more going on than that, as the change to the timeline also ends up orphaning Rainbow Dash, who is then adopted by Princess Celestia, because why wouldn't she? And so Twilight also grows up having a friend, for all that it does take her a while to really embrace the idea at first. If anything, this is what makes this story special: both Rainbow and Twilight change in subtle ways as they grow up in each other's company, and by the end, we're left with characters who are quite familiar but who also have absorbed some of the other's better traits to smooth over some of their own flaws. Not to mention Rainbow Dash growing up has to deal with the loss of her parents and the sudden imposition of royal status on her person, neither of which she's exactly happy about. We get to see characters like Cadence and Shining Armor when they're young, and thank goodness they don't meet all the Mane Six while still fillies, that would have been cheesy to say the least, but Fluttershy does of course make a few early appearances due to having been friends with Rainbow. Which leads to an interesting development when we get far enough in the timeline that it's time for Endless Night to occur: Twilight already knows three of her soon-to-be friends by the time she gets to Ponyville. I have a lot of thoughts about this, but honestly they're less important than pointing out this also devolves into a Quest for the Elements, one that hews a lot more closely to canon (the manticore, for instance, is the exact same challenge for Fluttershy, with just some dialogue changed). While there is that, the Everfree sequence also gets to have its own unique sense of tension due to a development I won't spoil. As for the rest of the story, well, it's mostly about fillies growing up and doing stuff in Canterlot, interspersed with them trying desperately to figure out some cause or meaning behind those titular glimpses they keep having, a question which, frustratingly, is completely outside their ability to answer until the very end of the story. I'll also give a nod to the plotline about Rainbow getting closer to Celestia and learning to trust her; I was honestly quite moved when she finally calls her "mom". I will note there is many a chapter that feels rather empty, this being a lengthy slice of life and all, and some odd moments, like the early chapters' preoccupation with Spike learning how to talk. Like, that just gets so much attention, and I could never figure out why it was so gosh-darned important. In the end, this is an altogether decent story, and if it ever felt like a fix-fic, I wasn't ever really bothered by that.
Recommended for Slice of Life Fans
Changelings Aren't Scary by OutOfTheBlue
Reading (chapter 1)
Genre: Changeling Fic
A strange young colt leaves his orphanage in search of his true family.
We are introduced to Walnut Grove, a colt with a weird name and weirder penchants that aren't actually that weird when you get right down to it, though I could imagine ponies finding him offputting, at least. What I find harder to imagine is the idea that Chrysalis is notably soft on children, even pony ones, and the reasoning given as to why wasn't terribly convincing, if you ask me. So begins a story that is unfortunately unlikely to ever be completed. I mean, I hate when readers only do the first few chapters of a story, especially when it's incomplete, but the first chapter does tell a full if light story, and I wanted to be able to post something this month. c_c; I can't say I was ultimately taken in by this, but readers who are more interested in changelings — and don't mind this odd thread of Chrysalis apologia — will doubtless find something to amuse and entertain.
Recommended Only If You Really Like Changeling Fics
Now that you mention it, yeah, Applejack’s moment in the pilot was odd. Of course NMM wasn’t deliberately setting them up as tests, but all of them ended up being that except AJ’s. Twilight learned she was honest, but getting past the obstacle didn’t hinge on her being honest.
I’m not one to pick at typos in a blogpost, but in this case, I’m not certain it was a typo, and if not, I’m curious what you meant by it. When you described Zecora’s dialogue as “tortuous,” did you mean torturous? If you really did mean tortuous, then I’m curious to read it and see what that effect is like.
*Hug*
iirc, in the standard Bechdel Test, a movie fails if there isn't at least ONE conversation between two characters in which they don't discuss the Overrepresented Topic. A movie that passes the test can ADDITIONALLY include at least one conversation that DOES include the Overrepresented Topic.
(People can do a web search on Bechdel Test, if they want to find out what the Overrepresented Topic IS.
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