Fanfic Review: Hard Chicagoat Nights: The Zebra and the Priest · 3:56pm Dec 15th, 2013
This review contains some minor Spoilers, you have been warned!
Now this is a fic with a long title!
I didn't know what to expect going into this fic, on one hand, the subject matters of booze and religion aren't exactly within my comfort zone but on the other hand, fics like Different Strokes has taught me that one can enjoy fics outside of said comfort zone if one is willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
So what is this fic about you might ask?
It's about the meeting about a very unlikely pair of ponies who may or may not end up as a couple (the story isn't done yet).
Yes, yes I know, we've heard of that premise many times before, coal miner marries princess and the like, but I have to say that this combo is rather unusual, I have never seen it before at least.
On one side, we got Zeke, a drug addicted, alcohol loving Zebra DJ with the habit of calling people "brother" and comes complete with dreadlocks.
On the other side we got Father Brasta, a devout priest of the Catholic Church of Roama who just so happens to be gay.
Now, I personally wasn't very fond of the idea of bringing religion into Equestria but for what it's worth, it's not some ad for Christianity disguised as a fanfic and the authors has done a fairly good job at fitting it into the story without trying to shove some religious moral down the readers throat, be it for or against said religion. Honestly, the most impact it has had so far in the story has been Brasta being nervous about letting ponies know about it, fearing that it might alianate other ponies, especially those of a different faith.
Knowing about the church's less than stellar reputation of being gay friendly though, it might play a bigger overall role to the story in the later chapters, only time will tell.
All that said, the religion is clearly an intergal part of Brasta's character with him uttering latin phrases when suprised or annoyed.
Like most good romance stories, the characters are, as you might have guessed, rather different with Zeke taking on the loud, larger than life personality while Brasta is rather reserved and polite. That said, they do have a few things in common as both seem to be rather nervous individuals even if Brasta does win the fiddgety pony award by a landslide.
It does have a comedy tag along with the romance tag and while there is some parts that made me chuckle a bit, I think the focus so far has been on the budding relationship (as friends first) of Zeke and Brasta, showing how they work as people (ponies) before diving head first into the romance, thus rightly earning it's Slice of Life tag. I do however expect the comedy to come sooner rather than later as having a gay priest as a central character just begs for bad and funny things to happen to him.
The writing itself flows rather nicely in general but it does seem like a roleplay turned fanfic at times (albeit be it a good piece of roleplaying) and I can't help but feel like they have been taking turns writing every other paragraph which makes for banter between characters that sometimes feels perfectly natural and at other times does feel a bit forced.
Who do I think would enjoy reading this fic?
Well, if you like M/M ships and want something a bit different from the usual CaraMac/SoarBurn and don't mind the unconventional idea of Christianity in Equestria, I'd say that you should really consider giving this fic a chance.
I think you actually could compare the way Zeke and Brasta play off eachother to how the general Vinyl Scratch and Octavia fic works, with Zeke taking the role of the loud and uncultured Vinyl while Brasta easily fits in with Octavia although he does seem alot warmer than how the stoic mare is often portrayed.
So if you enjoy OctaScratch shipping, you might like this one and should probably give it a try unless you, for some reason I can't even fathom don't enjoy M/M shipping.
It should be noted that this story, just like Different Strokes focus entirely on a new location and OC characters, so if you only like ships about established characters, you might want to sit this one out.
All in all, while I'm not putting this in my favorite list (I'm pretty picky with what I fave) I gladly give it a thumbs up and I do think the story has some real potential to be something different from what we usually see on this site and I'm looking forward to find out what happens next.
