Fic recs, February 12th! · 5:01pm February 12th

It's not Friday the 13th and it's not Valentine's Day, it's just another blog full of story reviews. :B These are all the one-shot stories that occur between the last blog I put up and the next big multi-part audiobook. To the stories!

H: 0 R: 2 C: 9 V: 2 N: 1

Storm of Terror by DrakeyC
Reading
Genre: Best Sisters Comedy
Luna awakes one morning to find chaos brewing outside.
I hate to say it, but the cover art gives away the main joke. Or, at least, the initial, 'mystery' joke, on which the whole thing is based. Thankfully, what we have besides that are light but compelling world-building, ample opportunity for Celestia to prank her sister, and the two royal princesses having fun together, which is always a good time. I have to say, on the whole and despite the initial disappointment, I quite enjoyed this. If nothing else, it's a topic I've never seen addressed before, which is really saying something!
Recommended

The Time Twilight Pranked Celestia by Skijarama and tom117z
Reading
Genre: Comedy
...And learned a valuable lesson.
It was a really great idea to set this within a month of Twilight beginning her studies under Celestia. Because going into it, my thought was that I couldn't envision a filly Twilight pranking Celestia. But if this was the incident wherein she learned that wasn't a good idea? Then all bets are off. :) The end result is quite funny, if quite predictable, and I did like Cadence's small role in it, as well as something hinted about Prince Blueblood. Good times.
Recommended for Laughs

'The Greatest Calling of History' or 'A Hearthswarming Conspiracy' by Lady Grey
Reading
Genre: Cute
On a cold winter's night, young Twilight Sparkle brings to light a conspiracy.
I kind of wanted this to be "filly Twilight complains about inconsistencies in canon", but that it isn't is just fine. Instead, we get adorable filly, bemused Celestia, and some historical world-building that was quite a lot of fun. Kids really do say the darnedest things!
Recommended

Hearthwarming's Snowfall by Misty Meadows and RC2101_Copey
Reading
Genre: Romance
Trixie and Starlight enjoy Hearth's Warming together.
This one is a really cute, short scene of everyone's favorite (?) pony couple. They flirt a little, they talk about what Hearth's Warming means to them (it isn't much, in Starlight's case), and they make plans for the night. Granted, it's quite short — I definitely had a "that's it?" moment at the end — but for what it is, it's what I like to see in shipping vignettes. :)
Recommended for Shippers

A Hearth's Warming Carol by Not Enough Coffee
Reading
Genre: Holiday Special/Drama
Ponyville's resident musicians argue over how best to celebrate the holidays.
Three stories, three different ways to spell the holiday's name! <_< So maybe it's just that I'm once again in the midst of someone's holiday special audiobooks at a time when the holidays aren't on, but this one didn't hit me quite right. In this story, Octavia is prickly. Why is she so prickly? She claims it's just holiday stress, but given her actions in the story, I kind of feel like that's not the whole story. Unfortunately, it's the only explanation we're ever given, and it feels inadequate considering I started getting really tired of her really quickly. The rest of this, you can probably see coming a mile away. It's not a bad story by any measure, but I think I just wasn't feeling terribly receptive to the intense drama the author used to convey their message.
Vaguely Recommended

Hearth's Warming Surprise by AniMun
Reading
Genre: AU OC Fic
A changeling and her coltfriend explore new experiences on Hearth's Warming Eve.
How strange. This was published about a year after Where and Back Again, yet the author took the trouble to come up with a whole other scenario where changelings and ponies learn to live together without the en-rainbow-ing. I cannot fathom why. That one of the members of this couple is a changeling is significant to the story; that she's the black-carapaced, blue-eyed kind is not. But, for what this is, it's… okay. I didn't get a very good feel for either character, and the overarching plot is that bog-standard "guy looking at small box at beginning of obvious marriage proposal" story you've seen countless times. That said, there is at least something to be said for the unique depiction of changelings here, but that's really the only thing I latched on to.
Recommended for Changeling Fans Only

Rocks in Your Stockings by PropMaster
Reading
Genre: Slice of Life
Pinkie Pie goes home for the holidays, to keep her sisters company.
I had sort of expected this to have been written prior to the episode where we finally met Pinkie's family, but instead, it's a followup to that episode for the next year. A lot of it seems to be trying to explain a lot of the idiosyncrasies of the Pie family, trying to make them make more sense: Marble can actually talk! They weren't really eating rocks, honest! Which is a strange direction to go in, not quite fixfic but taking away some of the show's magic regardless. All that being said, what this actually is is a quiet meditation on Pinkie's ability to understand her very, very strange family. We get to see her sisters through her eyes — Maud included, though she doesn't appear en scene — without the story needing to bring attention to it, and that's pretty good. :)
Recommended for Pie Family Fans

How the Grinchalis Stole Hearthswarming… Sort Of? by Azure129
Reading
Genre: Comedy/Crossover
Oh boy, poetry. .-. I have to say, I wasn't nearly as bothered by the prose here as I anticipated. I mean, it's a bold choice to play a ponification of How the Grinch Stole Christmas straight, changing words out as necessary. You've got ponies instead of Whos, hunger that she hates instead of noise, and of course that name, Grinchalis. Hope you like it, you're gonna see it a lot. <_<; My point being, they all warp the meter by virtue of having more syllables than the original. But what actually bugged me was the constant stage directions, reminding us when they go in and out of the poem. That was not fun. Regardless, if that sort of thing doesn't bother you, this is quite amusing, and the right amount of silly.
Recommended for Fans of Dr. Seuss Ponifications

Trixie and Luna Go to the Pound by Skijarama and tom117z
Reading
Genre: EQG Random Comedy
A magical mishap sends Trixie and Princess Luna through the mirror portal, but not as humans…
This is a really goofy comedy, the kind with a lot of swearing on both sides of the portal and absolutely no explanation given (or, honestly, needed) for why this particular mishap had the result it did. Granted, they don't spend a lot of time on the "go to the pound" part of the title, that's just sort of a joke on its own. This is unfocused at times, but does make good use of cartoon physics, and I really liked the scene where Starlight tells Twilight what happened.
Recommended for Laughs

The Death Altar in Twilight's Basement by tom117z and Skijarama
Reading
Genre: Dark Comedy
Two foals discover a dark secret in the library's basement.
This is a very weird story, owing to its being a novelization, apparently, of a play session of Legends of Equestria, the horse MMO. This explains why, for instance, one of the main characters is Little Wing, like from Soaring on Little Wings, only she makes a joke about never being able to be sisters with Rainbow Dash. Clearly, that's Tom's character in the game. But it also explains why this feels so unfocused, why it doesn't quite flow like a story should, why there's no buildup to the titular reveal, and why the premise just doesn't make any sense. If that doesn't bother you, I mean, it's certainly unusual! And it's the first fanfiction I've ever seen that has a video playthrough of its inciting incident, linked in the A/N.
Vaguely Recommended

Two Chryssis, One Fluff by tom111z and Skijarama
Reading
Genre: Too Many Crossovers to List
In which Discord messes with Chrysalis, more than once.
The previous story is the one that informed me tom117z actually has a connected universe of stories. And this… is part of it? It's a direct takeoff of both Change and Bug in the Herd, so a crossover of both authors' works. And, of course, Fluffle Puff. I can't remember ever reading a Fluffle Puff story before, so that's something. But this is clearly a joke that's meant to amuse the authors first and foremost, for all that seeing two different Chrysalises interacting is at least amusing, and a bit of a reward for following Skijaramaz's audiobooks. Of course, I've also never seen a story start off adamant that not only should you not read it, you should skip the audiobook, too. Which is all to say, this is incredibly silly, but I was sort of turned off by all the swearing. Like, it's frequently used as a punchline, and anything else worth latching on to is both short-lived and infrequent.
Not Recommended

Luna's Gay Olde Day by I Caboose (formerly DEI Caboose)
Reading
Genre: Random Comedy
Luna just wants to be gay.
So words, right? They change meaning over time. Sometimes, those meanings can change quite a bit. The jokes write themselves, and yet, they are jokes I enjoyed nonetheless. And the funniest one, for my part, was a word whose modern connotation isn't sexual in the slightest! It was quite the surprise! This is absolutely juvenile, but it's the kind of juvenalia I can get behind.
Recommended for Laughs

Cantabile Holocaust by Nico-Stone Rupan
Reading
Genre: EQG Random Comedy
What's the name of that book again?
So if there's a word in the title of this story that you don't recognize — and it's okay, I didn't know it either until I looked it up — the joke here is that, if you don't know the word and don't know how to pronounce it, there's a good chance that when you do try to pronounce it, what comes out will sound like another word. This is… a very, very shaky foundation to build a story off of. Thankfully, there is more than one joke, even if that makes this a bit of a rambling mess. But then, it's hard to write a comedy with seven main characters and not have it turn into a rambling mess, ask me how I know. So, while not amazing, this is certainly unique, and that's not nothin'!
Recommended for Laughs

Queen Chrysalis Snuggles Everything by Skijarama and tom117z
Reading
Genre: Random Comedy
She's not normally a hugger.
I'm not sure why, but swearing in pony fics has kind of been getting on my nerves recently. Maybe Skijaramaz has just been reading a lot of comedies with gratuitous swearing thrown in? Not sure. Anyway, just an observation, and there's much more to this than swearing. The title answers the question, "What would happen if Chrysalis got Discorded?" and then we get to watch that play out. From there, it becomes a pretty standard sort of fic where the joke is in the title. If you've ever wanted to see Queen Chrysalis act like the stereotypical overly-excited shipper, well, now's your chance!
Recommended for Laughs