Fic recs, November 2nd! · 8:24pm Nov 2nd, 2014
I had a weird thought this morning: what if everyone was psychovores? We've already got changelings, who feed on love, and windigoes and sirens, who gain power (or something) from disharmony. Even Discord was empowered by a trio of fillies arguing in front of his statue. What if this is how most life in Equestria works? The ponies sure seem to get stronger thanks to friendship; it's magic, after all. What if, say, minotaurs feed on self-confidence? (Which is hard, y'know, 'cuz they're so intimidating.)
I will stop posting Sonata pics with my fic recs when people stop making them.
And I'll start reading all the Button Mash fics next. :V Since, y'know, I'm only halfway through The Celestia Code. To the reviews!
H: 1 R: 2 C: 3 V: 0 N: 0
Motor Boating by Smiles
Reading by Captain Sand
Genre: Trollfic
Derpy blows a raspberry between Rainbow Dash’s buttcheeks. Don’t ask me how I found this. The writing in this story is hilariously deceptive, not terrible at first glance, thus making it somewhat of a surprise when you see misplaced ‘a’s and lines like “Ditzy Doo was a symbol of happiness, cheerful and bubbly just like the mark of bubbles on her flank, her cutie mark.” As for what happens in the story, I literally can’t, though if you’ve seen the comic that inspired the final scene, you probably won’t be too surprised by what happens. I hadn’t somehow, so I found it enjoyable. That said, what happens in this story really cannot be explained. Just, what the hell? It’s fun at least!
Troll Recommended
Final Resting Place by Solitair
Genre: Character Piece
Daring Do visits her tomb. (Isn’t that just the coolest one-line description for a story?) Anyway, this is quiet and introspective without being melancholy; Daring being a classy lady and all, she’s pretty cool with death. This tells a story, a lot of stories actually, through imagery and the interaction of Daring and her OC sidekick, who’s getting up in there years himself. He stands out pretty well, as with just a few lines, the author is able to reveal a lot about both of their characters. They play off each other well and Daring’s reaction to seeing her life’s story etched in the monument is pretty emotional. This has become a majorly different beast from its writeoff-winning incarnation (thanks in part to yours truly, full disclosure), and I have to say it expanded into a really decent look at Daring nearing the end of her life.
Recommended
Candy by Titanium Dragon
Genre: Shipping
Found another writeoff-associated story collection! The first few pieces in it, however, come from some sort of Rarijack prompt that he doesn’t give details on. This is a really brief vignette that does at least present an interesting scenario: Applejack and Rarity, as a couple, discussing Spike’s crush. Rarity thinking about dealing with it while in a secret relationship is compelling, yeah? Then things get a little hot and heavy, and mutual cutielingus because that’s a Thing. Being familiar with TD’s writing from the writeoff, I can say that he’s come a long way as a writer since this piece, as it’s rather perfunctory and lacks the care that I’ve come to associate with his writing. So if you’re into Rarijack, this won’t take up much of your time, but I’ve seen better.
Recommended for Shippers Only
Long Live Sonata Dusk by Horse Voice
Genre: Dark Comedy
Sonata Dusk meets Death. Horse Voice writing about Sonata? Be still, my beating heart! While I was expecting something dark, I sure as heck wasn’t expecting to laugh out loud. This starts off in good form with the one-two punch of Death’s appearance and Sonata’s cause of death, which are equally hilarious. Then things get a little more serious, though no less silly. What’s great about this piece is Sonata as our POV character. She’s presented entirely true to what we saw in the movie: oblivious, bad at introspection, used to having Adagio tell her what to do. She is a fantastic unreliable narrator, and the fact that we really have no idea what it was that happened to her ends the story with a bit of fridge horror, even if it’s somewhat overshadowed by her optimism. This is now one of my favorite Sonata fics.
Recommended
Memories by VisualPony
Reading by VIsualPony
This is actually the guy reading The Celestia Code, which is how I found him, so while I haven’t listened to this particular reading, I’ll mention it and review him here. The main thing about this guy is that he is, I am pretty sure, German, and has a thick accent and a weird cadence to the way he reads, plus some difficulty with less frequent English words, which is totally understandable. Once you get used to that, however, he’s pretty good: solid quality, decent character voices and, best of all, he leaves a lot of room between scenes. Like, almost too much, but I’d rather that than no time between scenes at all. I’ll be adding him to list in due time!
Genre: Psychological
Chrysalis feels like she has something to remember, but can’t figure out what. The writing is a little rough around the edges, with its/it’s confusion, quirky dialogue punctuation, odd typos and phrases that go on a little too long, but given that I’ve established the author as a non-native speaker, that’s pretty good. Beneath that is a really marvelous look at Chrysalis, with her as unreliable narrator. This paints not so much a picture as a feeling, getting across that sense, that headspace, of being unable to remember a thing tickling in the back of one’s mind. It’s a rather effective technique for revealing this bit of headcanon, and if you’re not a stickler for perfection, you should definitely check it out.
Recommended If You Value Function Over Form
Foreigner by AugieDog
Genre: Adventure
I reviewed the first chapter of this piece for the last Pre-Reader Battle, and now that it's finished, I can give it the full treatment. To refresh your memory, this involves a reformed Gilda working as a guard at a historical Griffin site where Derpy just happens to show up. Things quickly snowball out of control. For all that this starts off as a comedy, and maintains a lot of the humor throughout, at its heart this is a rip-roaring archaeological adventure with a lot of political maneuvering, mixed with a healthy dose of “this is how you redeem a character”. All the legwork for that particular thread has already been done by the time the story begins, but throughout the whole thing, she’s aware of what she’s done and how the only thing standing between the person she is and the person she no longer wants to be is three years of hard work and dedication. And while that’s front and center of the piece, it’s little touches of characterization along the same lines that make the whole story breathe, from Derpy's disappearance contingencies to [REDACTED] complaining about not getting any eggplant.
My one complaint is that the middle of the story feels rushed, or I suppose “cramped” would be the more appropriate word. There’s tons of awesome worldbuilding in this, but quite a lot of it gets dumped into the narrative all at once. And when you add in some really earth-shattering revelations about certain characters happening at the same time, well, it gets overwhelming. I think this could have used maybe another chapter or two to smooth everything out, especially one character who shows up, goes, “Yup, I’m the villain!” and leaves over the course of a single scene, one where his antagonism isn't even the most important thing going on. My other complaint was that, while Augie made sure that having the whole mane cast out at this griffon outpost was important to the story, with each of them getting to do something during the final conflict, Fluttershy’s role felt awfully perfunctory, like he’d realized she had nothing to do and added something in for her at the last minute.
But c’mon, this is AugieDog we’re talking about. He can’t fail, and this story is overall a rousing success. If you like worldbuilding, you’ll find a lot to chew on. If you like comedic adventures, you’ll be satisfied. If you really like Gilda and want to see her getting along with the ponies finally, do not pass this up. And if you just like reading good fanfic, well, here’s one.
Highly Recommended
Why is everyone so into Sonata? I don't get this. Finally watched RR for the first time last night, and if anybody was going to be the fandom's new waifu I'd expect it to be Sunset, who was just all sorts of awesome. But Sonata? I just don't get it.
2570053
She has a nice taco.
2570053
Not sure. She has a distinct personality from the other sirens, at least.
2570053
because she's cute and dumb, just like sweetie belle.
Must be the tacos.
It isn't cunnilingus you pervert. They're uh, tasting each other's cutie marks. And no that isn't a euphemism for anything.
It definitely is hot and heavy, and I sort of imagine that kissing someone else on the cutie mark would be uh, quite intimate. But it would be more like kissing someone on the crook of their neck or stomach - it is a level of intimacy which a lot of people would find questionable in a PDA, but it isn't something which can't be shown on film. I also kind of imagined that, seeing as cutie marks kind of represent ponies in a strong way, touching someone's cutie mark would be seen as a sort of sign of intimacy in and of itself (an idea that Mood Wings also played with; I don't remember whether I had read that story when I wrote this one, but it may have served as inspiration for the idea), not to mention the fact that it is on their, you know, hip. Where that sort of thing tends to end up, well...
All that being said, you completely missed that the story is a feghoot. Though to be fair, I think literally no one has ever picked up on this fact without me explaining the joke, because it hinges on a bit of forgotten 90s pop culture that I didn't realize was forgotten (and restricted to the United States, as apparently people in Europe don't even know that the cereal exists) when I wrote the story.
If she's named Applejack, then why doesn't she taste like apples?
These commercials were so common back in the 90s that they actually made commercials which were based on the premise that you already knew the flow and punchline of the commercial and made jokes about them. And now they are lost on a younger generation.
And everyone else who doesn't have excessively fond memories of commercials for misleadingly-named breakfast foods.
Look, it was the first story I ever wrote for the story. How was I supposed to know that lame circuitous puns based on cereal advertisement taglines from the mid-90s weren't "in"?
Of course, I learned my lesson from this story confusing people and never wrote a feghoot again.
2570053
Sunset is like, backup waifu. :B She woulda got it it not for Sonata.
2570077
This man gets it.
2570115
Cutielingus, you silly bastard. :V And no, I got that reference, it just didn't really do anything for me. :B I think "don't write feghoots" is good advice though.
2570128
My father's jokes are all feghoots. Like, every one of them. He considers them to be the highest form of humor. He once managed to tell us one that lasted for an entire 45 minute long car ride.
I sometimes suspect that I inherited his sense of humor.
I think the real rule with feghoots is moderation. If only about one in twenty stories you write is a feghoot, then they won't see it coming. Because we all know, most stories are for the audience. But feghoots? They're for the author, so they can point and laugh. And so that the audience, having been had, can then inflict them upon their friends so that they may do likewise. As my dad said, the best kind of jokes are the ones that make the audience the punchline.
Of course, you can invert it, and all your stories are feghoots, except for the odd one which isn't, which then becomes the joke as your audience realizes that they've been had and they were told an actual story and they completely missed it because they were trying to figure out the punchline. That being said, I'm not sure that anyone would stick around to suffer through that many feghoots if they don't have entries in the monster manual.
2570140 ...looks up what a feghoot is...
I'm going to retroactively claim that two of my last write off entries were in fact poorly written feghoots, and the third was simply poor taste.
The real acid test of a Sonata Dusk story, is whether or not her #1 fan likes it. Mission accomplished!
2570140
For me, the beauty of a feghoot is in the absurd contortions the author has to go through to set up a situation in which the punchline makes sense.
2570432
oh, pshaw :D
>Still hasn't seen RR
>Never been happier
If everyone is psychovores... What about Diamond Dogs?
Also, one of the reasons Sonata is neat is because she cares about proper party punch.
2571498
If you're not a psychovore, you're a lithovore. :B It's an epic struggle for the ages.
2571721
Spike's diet supports your theory.
2571498 2571721
Crystals, if they grow large enough, are capable of sentience and emotions. (See: Crystal ponies.)
Crystals in the ground are not yet alive, and merely pick up on ambient emotions. Their color and purity is based on what emotions they have already absorbed. This is why crystal farming is a thing.
Dragons are also psychovores.
P.S.: PP, why u ruin my story idea D: I had this realization a few weeks ago and was banking the concept for the next writeoff. Time to start brainstorming again!
2572842
wow, if you hadn't just told me, then everyone would have pinned the story on me, including myself! D: you butt
2572925
I am the buttiest. Except for convergent evolution. That's supremely butty.