Fic recs December 18th · 10:23pm Dec 18th, 2013
I hope people don't mind me throwing extra stuff up here into these journals. c.c I've actually got nothing to talk about today though, so you're off the hook.
H: 1 R: 1 C: 3 V: 1 N: 0
In Bloom by Pascoite
Reading by Scribbler, et. al. (and me!)
Genre: Psychological Horror
This is unequivocally one of the best ponyfics I’ve ever read. Not everyone is going to enjoy it quite as much as I did, but here’s why I love it: For starters, you have an unreliable narrator, a pony who’s been kept a prisoner in his own home all his life by his overbearing (to say the least) mother. He’s got no concept of what’s outside the confines of his yard, save that it’s scary and where the bad ponies go. His worldview is marvellously well crafted, every deviation from normal given its own internal logic that makes his actions perfectly understandable. As so often happens in these sorts of stories, a complication arises from the outside, in this case Roseluck. What happens afterward is nothing short of staggering. Now, maybe I’m making too much out of this; it’s certainly in a subgenre of story that I really love (I get way into unreliable narrators, especially when it’s easy to see why they act and think the way they do). But I can’t emphasize how much of an impact this had on me. I keep bringing it up, but this falls into the same category as Beyond the Wall... and does it better. Now I can stop referring to that story as the ur example.
Highly Recommended: Top Fifteen
Shippin’ Pones by Argembarger
Genre: Shipping Collection
So I got the idea in my head that I need to have read all of Argembarger’s work, including his two unfinished story collections. I don’t usually read collections, so what I’ll do is go story by story and give each a rating, then an overall rating for the whole thing. Also, it’s worth noting that Argembarger always hated shipping (he wrote a story once called Dumb Pinkie What Have a Statue Romance), so I go into this with high hopes of trolling.
Twijack: Surprisingly, this is a pretty honest attempt at shipping. That doesn’t mean there isn’t some light comedy inserted into it (Granny Smith, and a bit where Twilight rattles off a string of quark-related puns), but it’s essentially just a look into the daily life of Twilight living with Applejack. And then the ending happens and I have no idea what it means. Troll Rec
Flutterdash: This is more what I was expecting. The ponies are both male for no reason reasons that will make your brain hurt once they're revealed. Also there is horse kissing. R
Raripie: This is a CYOA. The first part actually links to an entirely separate, unpublished story. There’s not a whole lot to it (his other CYOA was far better), but it still blows my mind. You, as Rarity, will do a lot of overdosing on aspirin and getting caught in infinite loops. And Millard Fillmore. God I wish he’d written more in this collection. Troll Rec
Troll Recommended
Speedfic Delights by Argembarger
Genre: Speedfic Compilation
This is it! I’ll have read all his works now! This one is a bunch of speedfics, like it says on the box, and as such, the longest is 680 words, with most being under 500. This’ll be fun!
Fatherhood: Ohhhh my god, this is the platefic that lost to my story The Zebra Manuscript. This brings back memories! He transcribes it here with all spelling errors and false starts intact. This was really my favorite story from the whole contest, about Mr. Cake waiting frantically outside the hospital room where his wife lays in pain. It absolutely answers the question “Where do fillies come from?” in true Argembarger style, and it was written pre-Baby Cakes! R
the spin a speedfic: Hilarious trollfic based on a song. It’s about spinning. Troll Rec
The Price of Magic: A grimdark piece about Scootaloo teaching Apple Bloom to do magic, at Sweetie Belle’s expense, inspired by a chatroom conversation. You can see where he was coming up against the ten minute deadline, because that’s where it gets really hilarious. Troll Rec
The Day Twilight Sparkle Died: Yeah, I… That’s pretty much what this is. It’s incredibly ridiculous, more funny than anything. Troll Rec
Speedfic Delights: A speedfic about ponies writing speedfics, with hysterical results. He always was good at meta stuff. R
Twilight’s Clackfic: Twilight buys a keyboard from Sugarcube Corner, because that can happen. Features 279 instances of the word “CLACK”. V
had some sake wrote some brithday 21 fic: Pinkie Pie ends up on Earth and gets thrown in prison. This story has a wonderful moral. I need to do a reading of it. Troll Rec
Troll Recommended
Where You Can’t Follow by AbsoluteAnonymous
Genre: Sad Friendshipping
I want to be clear that despite the word “relationship” in the description, any shipping in this is purely speculation on the part of the reader, though it’s definitely open-ended enough to at least be interpretable that way without much of a stretch. I can’t say too much about this. It’s Sad Pinkie being philosophical (in an odd kind of way, since this is omniscient POV) about pegasi in general and Rainbow Dash in particular. As much as I like exploring the differences the three tribes still have to overcome even while living in harmony, it’s one thing to make fun of mudponies for being mudponies and quite another for them to realize their own limitations. I think a lot of the ideas featured here, though not explored fully, are interesting, it just depends on how much you care about show tone in your fanfics.
Vaguely Recommended
Lyrid by Corejo
Reading by Illya Leonov
Genre: Epic
Lyra travels to Tartauros to retrieve the soul of her dead love. This is a very pretty story, worth reading just for the language alone, and was fantastic to hear in Illya Leonov’s voice. I have two complaints about it. First, the language is a tad coy, continually referring to Lyra as “the Muse” and Bon-Bon generally as “her lover”. Second, this is essentially just a ponification of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. I was very excited when I realized that Lyra was going to be blazing into the underworld to get her mare back, but as soon as the condition for Bon-Bon’s release was set, I knew how it was going to end, and so will anyone else familiar with the myth. That said, entirely in its defense, this fic really humanizes that story so that the emotion tangled up within it comes across strikingly well. Plus, it’s really cool watching Lyra be an epic bard. So if you have a high demand for originality in your ponyfic (ignoring the oxymoron inherent in that statement), you might want to pass this up, but if not, it’s totally worth the read.
Recommended
Shame at the Checkout by nygiants93
Reading by Scribbler, SolarPony and Hero541
Genre: Fandom Allegory
Anyone who has experienced embarrassment, whether their own or someone else’s, while purchasing My Little Pony merchandise will connect with this story. Anyone who hasn’t… likely won’t. The draw here is Rainbow Dash as a too-old fan of a children’s franchise, namely Daring Do. (Obviously, this story doesn’t work post-Daring Don’t, so just set your frame of reference back to, y’know, last month.) She has a protracted personal crisis as she angsts over a new collector’s edition Daring Do wallet and then takes a slow walk of shame through the checkout line. While I personally (mostly) got over the embarrassment of buying little girls’ toys after a year or so, I really got this story. It’s hard, what we do sometimes, and it’s nice to see someone holding up a mirror on that and having a little fun with the concept. That’s not to say this isn’t without its problems, however. Chief among them is the final scene, which comes after what would otherwise be a perfect punchline (albeit at the expense of fanfiction writers everywhere; there’s just enough self-hate in this story to be uncomfortable) and not only extends the story beyond where it really needed to go, but tries to hammer home the moral with what feels like self-congratulatory pontificating. There’s also the aforementioned self-hate that somewhat undercuts the message, and then there’s the fact that, outside of a brony or other toy collector being able to sympathize with Rainbow, there’s not much to this. All the comedy comes from her embarrassment and the pitfalls she walks into, but otherwise it’s just one of those stories that makes a big (funny) deal out of something relatively small. I did find it funny, but again, I’ve walked the walk. I just can’t help but feel like the message got mixed up somewhere along the way, and this doesn’t have quite the effect it undoubtedly set out to.
Recommended for Those Still Walking the Walk
Hmn. I'm not really one for horror, but that's a pretty strong recommendation for In Bloom.
Edit: Decided to give it a try and I am glad I did. That was excellent.
Usually I just throw the H/R/C fics into my read later and forget about them, but when you give it some crazy recommendation like "Recommended: Top Fifteen" it really draws attention.
Wow. "Shame at the Checkout." That's a blast from the past. I did a review of that story in TTG almost two years ago.
"In Bloom" is another in a series of story types I decided to try myself, since I'd frequently dispensed advice on them, but never actually had experience with. I went into it with a much more concrete plan than I usually do. The two biggest things I made sure to do here that I think are essential in horror:
Most stories rely on the standby senses of what characters see and hear, but horror is especially effective when you engage all the senses, even if they're not what's relaying the creepiness.
Don't let the story stagnate. What's scary now won't be in ten minutes, once the reader's gotten used to it. Keep introducing new things, keep upping the ante on making it feel like something's not quite right. The outline began as a list of what new unsettling thing Roseluck learns in each scene.
Dark stories tend not to get many views, but this one's doing okay. It was a hoot to write, though, so I'm happy with it.
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Theoretically, this will be my last top fifteen entry unless something else comes in and really wows me. I should sort my faves now. <.< You can see them all on my userpage.