Fic recs, July 23rd · 5:03pm Jul 23rd, 2013
The Princess and the Pupil by Alexstrazsa
Reading by WhoLandon
Genre: Romance
Of all the ships that could possibly be shipped, few bother me as much as Twilestia. First of all, there’s the power dynamics at play. And yes, such a thing could also be an issue with Luna ships, but the big difference between them is that Celestia has ruled over all the ponies in the show for all of their lives. Luna, though she theoretically has the same power as her sister, does not hold the same place in their minds as a sovereign. It’s highly likely that, regardless of how Celestia approached a pony, that pony would accede to any romantic demand out of a sense of duty despite what their own feelings might be. Furthermore, I’ve always seen Celestia’s relationship with Twilight as more mother and daughter; this is brought up numerous times in numerous fics, after all. Pursuit of romance between them thus feels incestuous. Plus she’s Twilight’s teacher, and that’s a different sort of power relationship with different and slightly more iffy rules. Plus she’s known Twilight since she was a filly, and that’s just weird. Plus she’s immortal and thousands of years old. So with that in mind, I found this story a remarkably honest look at Twilestia as a relationship. It’s not deep, and it’s basically just a walkthrough of all the reasons I just gave against the ship, but I appreciate that someone was willing to do this. That said, I can’t recommend it too highly for the sake of the writing, which is functional but no more. But I can at least say that I expected not to like this story going into it, and I was pleasantly surprised.
Recommended for People Who Don’t Like TwiLestia
Choose Your Own Adventure: Brony Hero of Equestria by Blueshift
Genre: CYOA
Oh look at that! It’s time to read one of the most-viewed stories on this site! I did a little trip through this when Blueshift posted it, and ended up getting killed by the cops or something, so I’m gonna take a jaunt around and see just how much of this I can uncover. CYOAs, it turns out, are far easier to beat on the internet than in book form: all you do is open every option and see where they lead. So I got all the endings, not to mention discovered quite an imperssive number of loops. Boy are there a lot of bad endings. (Most of them stem from the hilarious running-gag option “Seduce $PONY”, though there are at least two spots where you can do that and not end up with a bad end.) Not all of them end in death, either: some just force you into eternal servitude or other undesirable outcomes. There are other endings too: “decent” and “kinda good”, along with “slightly creepy” (I loved that one) and, of course, “best end”, the nature of which really surprised me. Through it all, we get to watch our character behave like a raving douchebag and single-handedly ruin the lives of everyone in Equestria (except Fluttershy). But you know what’s so great about this story? Blueshift has written what is essentially a collection of wish-fulfillment scenarios couched in fandom tropes, subtly and sometimes not-so-subtly mocking bronies, the show, and fanon, and the fandom has eaten it up. Blueshift, I dare say, has won. But of course, he's written a choose your own adventure story where you can pretend to be Nicolas Cage, so that goes without saying.
Highly Recommended
Family by NTSTS
Genre: Character Bonding
I was just pointed to this and realized I’d read it before, back when it was submitted to the writeoff the precursor to the writeoffs. So here’s a short review based on what I remember of it. It’s quite good, as I’ve come to expect from NTSTS. It’s about Big Mac and Braeburn getting stranded in the desert and having to make their way home together. There’s a lot of tension between them, and it really goes in-depth in exploring their relationship and what it means to an Apple to be “family”. I don’t remember if Braeburn is annoying as he is in the show, but he must not have been if I liked it. This is, as I recall, a pretty powerful piece.
Recommended
When the Man Comes Around by GentlemanJ
Genre: OC Meets the Mane Six, but With Humans
I seem to recall this being pretty popular when it came out, but for the life of me, I can’t explain why. On the surface, this is the sort of humanization that I like: they’re just humans. But it starts to break down in small places, like Rainbow Dash’s mechanical wings. Not to mention Apple Bloom has a lisp and reads like Twist. But the main problem is, well, you have a faceless, nameless stranger wander into town who just so happens to meet the mane cast as they go through the motions of being themselves around newcomers. It’s dull, it’s hackneyed, it’s overdone and I would have DNF’d this after chapter 2 if I weren’t so busy searching for actual plot to comment on. As it is, I just couldn’t stand the pat script and the stranger’s gunmetal eyes anymore. I had to put this down. All I know is they’re throwing a town-wide party to welcome some new “royal marshals” who are coming for some reason, and this stranger obviously is one despite not looking the part. Beyond that, I distinctly do not care. Welcome to my first “Did Not Finish”. (The number up there shows you how many chapters I got through out of the total.)
Not Recommended: DNF 4/8
Extremely Terrible and Horrifying Stories by Rather Homely
Genre: Horror Trope Subversion
And here comes DNF #2 hot on the first one’s heels. I am just not going to be able to enjoy a lengthy story today, am I? So what we have here is a bit of trying too hard, coupled with someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing. The first chapter starts out with something of a Cupcakes scenario, with a drought killing AJ’s apples. She takes offense at something Rainbow Dash says, knocks her out, drags her into the barn and starts force-feeding her bad apples. And then Rainbow cries out for her to stop, so AJ does. Framing this is a lot of “Whoa! You can’t imagine the terrors that lie within, wink wink!” from the author, which was amusing at first. But then the narrative breaks with a fucking script-format fourth wall-breaking bit that... I just draw the line there.
Not Recommended: DNF 1/6
Tiaras, Spoons and Feathers by Wanderer D
Genre: Tragedy
Be warned: this story dabbles in some heavy stuff, and features foal shipping (it’s hard to say exactly how old they are by the end of this). It definitely needs a romance tag. So, I like stories that take nasty characters like Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon and shows them in a sympathetic light. Not so much a, “we had it all wrong” as “these are the reasons why they act so terribly”. Of course, I’ve always really liked the terrible two, so seeing their bullying start off with a bit of an unfortunate incident directed at them made me like this story off the bat. I also really liked seeing the dynamics of Diamond Tiara’s broken family slowly unfold through lots of great showing... That kind of starts to peter out in the second chapter. This does need a bit of proofreading, and overall I think the first chapter has stronger writing. But despite the somewhat odd pairing featured, and some of the, as I said, heavier parts toward the end, I enjoyed this and appreciated the various glimpses into characters’ lives.
Recommended If You Don’t Mind Foalshipping
The War and What Came After by Norse Pony
Genre: Worldbuilding
Man, I need to get in on these worldbuilding contests. Not that I think I’d have much to add, but I keep hearing about the resulting stories and it’s always in the context of praise. This one is no different. A tale of native deer besieged by Equestrian refugees in a time before the Princesses, this shows us Equestria from an outsiders’ perspective. Those who dislike war being waged on ponies may want to give this a pass, though the payoff I think is quite worth it. The final scene really gave me a surge of emotion, and I found the whole thing interestingly written, with a well-crafted society as its focus.
Recommended for Those Who Like Worldbuilding
The Chicken Book by scoots2
Genre: Beating a Meme Into the Ground
At first, I was going to compare this to The Trials of Elizabeak the Brave Little Chicken, because despite how you may feel about the “Scootaloo is a chicken” meme, this starts off with some pretty amusing chicken-related absurdity. But that doesn’t last long. By the end, it’s completely lost track of where it was going, with a long scene involving Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Twilight. And then it just ends. Basically, it’s Scootaloo backstory that forgot to be funny after a while, and the writing definitely doesn’t salvage it.
Not Recommended
Yeah, Extremely Terrible and Horrifying Stories is way too blatant for its own good.
It is, however, fantastic catharsis after dealing with people who not only love grimdark and gore, but defend stories like Cupcakes and Secret Life of Rarity as being canon and character reasonable.
It's also poignant commentary on authorial puppetry of pre-established characters.
It's to gore what Library Club is to self insert and clop.
But it's not really a "good story".
Hey, thanks for the recommendation. : ) I'm glad you liked the story.
Sounds like Twilestia bugs you for exactly the same reasons it bugs me, so I think I'll give that first one a look.
Someday I'll read that CYOA, but for the moment my personal OCD issues are stopping me. I'd want to fav it to mark that I'd read it, but if I fav it without reading every chapter it'll be clogging up my unread count.
"7/10 it's shit." - Present Perfect, 2013
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I can accept this.
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ilu bby
Those are all the reasons why Twilestia is interesting! Next you'll say you didn't like Eternal.
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Someone doesn't read my journals closely enough. :V
Hey dude, glad you liked the story!
And thanks for recommending it! 
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my plezh :3
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Amendment:
did u mean: every story by Alex?
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wtf r u doin here do you realize how old this journal is what
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I rediscovered it by using the blog search feature. I mean c'mon, you gotta search yourself at least once!
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FASCINATING