Weekly Reading Report VII · 4:01am Feb 26th, 2013
Hi everypony 
I'm in a bit of a rush here, so I'll skip the personal news stuff and jump straight to the stories. I got to a rather normal total of 244.874 words for the week. Here's the highlights!
Twice as Bright by Cloudy Skies with its first 19kw.
I already really like this author. Then he went and blogged that he was planning on puttying my two most bestest favoritest ponies together, and then he publishes like five chapters. Bam! It was the second happiest moment in the week. Hands Hooves down! Oh boy, am I ever going to be objective in this blog? WHATEVER! This is opinionated and that's my opinion! Here's a hard-cold fact: I feel like I'm in heaven. Not only I love these characters, I read it and I find myself identifying with both of them. Yes, I have already been in a high responsibility position and acting the way Celestia did. Yes, I have already had been contemplating someone who's too caught up in their secondary goals to care about themselves and went gung-ho to change that. I'm home, and I'm loving it. Even if it derails into something I don't like, or simply doesn't evolve much from that (which, quite frankly, with Pinkie Pie being involved, that's kinda difficult), it's already been worth it.
Friendship is Optimal by Iceman with 39kw of it's slightly larger total.
That story put me thinking, and thinking a lot, which was clearly the author's goal. It also spoke a rather known language to my line of work. It's basically your over-intelligent A.I. set on world domination, except that it's Princess Celestia, and it's ultimate goal sounds… quite benign actually… except it has pretty terrifying side effects. I found myself quite torn on which side to take in most discussions, and being a spiritual person myself, I felt my core concern with the issue that permeates the second half of the story went completely unaddressed, which brings me to…
Friendship is Optimal: Twilight of the World by Blue Print with all of it's over 7kw.
Which I think, discusses and address the spiritual aspect of AI constructs very well, and quite (but not completely) satisfactorily, particularly because it doesn't give a definite answer (and that's part of what makes it satisfactory). This is also very interesting because Blue Print's belief system is different than mine, and I really really don't know how mine could give an answer either. I may visit this subject sometime in the future, but I think that's quite unlikely, because my belief system also relies heavily on experimentation (mediumship), and I don't have super-intelligent world dominating AI's to experiment with… fortunately. Even though there's no denying I'd be excited if it was Princess Celestia. Maybe I'll drop in the Optimalverse forums later and see if there's anything about that.
The Book of Friendship by BillyColt with its latest 9kw.
That's a story that has a rather interesting mix of cute endearing moments and pointless wartime hate. If ambiguously gay moments is your cup of tea, oh my, it's riddled with it, and I love them! But my favorite part of it is the innocent and cute perseverance that the main duo has. This latest chapter ends the second part, and while many chapters feel like a regular sitcom, that latest one was really changing, and I'm really curious to what happens next. Well, I know a few things because I'm actually an editor for it, but they're quite vague at the moment (plus I signed a billion dollar fine NDA, so I can't tell (not really (or is it?))).
The I love changelings hive doesn't have much to say, but it does have stories to cite. They are:
- Mirror's Image by Evilpresident is the story that got me to realize I love changeling stories. Argument: Twilight has always been a changeling and never knew it until the wedding. She's the next queen. Chrysalis went to claim her heir.
- March to the Scaffold by Foxy Kimchi is finally finished. The last chapter was a little underwhelming but the story is still pretty good. Argument: Chrysalis is captured and condemned to be a pony in Canterlot called Silver Skip. Identity crisis ensues.
- Solitary Locust by the parasprite is yet another Twilight has always been a changeling, but this time it looks like she's a drone. She is really hurt physically as well, and has no idea what to do, but must keep fleeing. Good characterization, a bit lacking in plot.
That's it for this week. Cheers!
Cool, hey I was wondering if there's gonna be prequel to Big Bang of 1494
866432 Let me commit to a deadline here… If there is, the first chapter will be out within the next two months. Which means… May 3rd.