Fic recs, May 11th: Stuff What I Read edition · 6:05pm May 11th, 2015

So today I was thinking today about How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bon-Bon, and I realized that, while it was my very first fic reading ever, I never actually reviewed the story. And since it was only ever published on EQD, I’ll never run across it again in trying to review all my favorites. Thus, this post, wherein I’ve gone back through my Youtube channel and grabbed five old readings of stories I haven’t reviewed (I have, for instance, reviewed The Cough) to present them here for your perusal.

I’m skipping two: The Ballad of Prettywings Beautifulmagic because it wasn’t really a fanfic so much as an exercise in how not to write, and also because I don’t know where the text of the story is anymore; and Sonic in Ponville because A) that story was bad and I feel bad, B) I can’t find it anyway, C) I’m afraid I may have ruined someone’s time on the internet, and I feel really bad now. :(

Anyway, enjoy, and feel free to listen to my readings. :V

H: 2 R: 0 C: 5 V: 0 N: 0

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bon-Bon by Presspass
Reading by Me
Genre: Episode-Like
A newspony returns to Ponyville, hoping that this story won’t be as big a disaster as the last one. Or the one before that. Or the one before that.
The reason I was thinking about this story likely has to do with Presspass (the author) being a dear friend of mine. He was, in fact, someone I met in a previous internet community and fell out of touch with until ponies happened. This story is his sole contribution to the fandom; he started writing a sequel but didn’t finish it before season 2 reduced his enjoyment of the show and the fandom and left. But what a contribution it is. A season 1 fic through and through — it’s a mostly-OC cast, the main character has the same name as the author, he meets most of the mane cast, Ponyville is the center of weird goings-on in Equestria, fandom jokes, Celestia letters — it somehow manages to hold up today. Sure, it’s not really canon anymore, but the characters, even the original ones, are voiced strongly, the comedy is perfectly timed, and the lesson is a good one. What’s more, it has a good fourth wall joke and a funny letter to Celestia. That’s not something people were able to do back in season 1. Though this fits well into your standard “OC meets everypony” setup, there’s a good reason given for that happening; it also helps that quite a lot of the humor comes from Presspass (the pony) getting himself into trouble. This is a really singular fic, and I don’t just say that because my friend wrote it and I edited it for him. And wrote the unofficial clop sequel. :V (Don’t forget the blooper reel!)
Highly Recommended

Darkgrim by Cereal Velocity
Reading by Me
Genre: DARKGRIM
One day, Equestria burst into flames.
I almost skipped this because I think the original text is in a Pastebin, of all things, but hey, why not? This is a meta crackfic (starting what will be a noticeable trend in this blog) that was meant as another “how not to write” exercise, if I’m not mistaken. That’s really about all I can say, other than it’s funny as hell if you like this kind of ridiculous stuff. There’s not much to it and it doesn’t even have a proper ending, and some of the meta jokes are based on EQD four years ago and might not work if you weren’t there. Still, if you enjoy a good skewing of bad fanfic tropes, this will probably amuse.
Troll Recommended

Goddammit Pinkie Pie by kits
Genre: Trollfic
This is a three-story collection connected by theme and writing style, rather than three chapters of one story, and I shall review them each. The first installment is a goofy short piece about Pinkie interrupting Twilight’s letter to Celestia with lots of swearing. The whole point was mocking the propensity for authors to make ponies swear, and how off that is in comparison to the actual show. There’s not much else to it (besides background PinkieDash), but the punchline is fun. I think ponies swearing is hilarious, so of course I love it. :V T
A Typical Day in Pwnyville: This is the one I did the reading of. It is glorious, a fantastic sendup of LUS, bad characterization, shipping, Applejack and pretty much everything that goes into poor fanfiction. I will never cease to be amused by the ways kits was able to make this story work, by how much lampooning he was able to pack into just a few hundred words. This is trollfic gold. H
Pinkie Is a Deep Sleeper: The final installment is a sendup of clopfiction, a “not-what-it-seems-like” that is hard to not read as something dirty, even when you know the joke. That said, it’s obvious kits’s heart wasn’t in this one (the first comment confirms as much), and overall this suffers for it. I’ve seen the same thing done better, but it’s still kind of funny, if only for the length to which he was able to push innuendo into a short piece. C, If You Find Innuendo Funny

dumb pinkie what have a statue romance by Argembarger
Reading by Me
Genre: Trollfic
Pinkie Pie wnats to have loving and she needs Discord to do that.
In many ways, this is a very Argembarger story, and longtime fans of his work won’t find anything too surprising about it. (It was written for a pre-reader battle, the result of a devout anti-shipper getting a shipping prompt.) It does feature some good lines like “yo babe let’s kiss wanna kiss my lips”, a really marvelous reference, and a terrifying ending that is not belied by the rest of the story. For those unfamiliar with Argem, and I suspect there are a lot of you these days, this is not a bad place to get an idea of what he was all about.
Troll Recommended

Bloomberg’s Last Hurrah by Blueshift
Reading by Me
Reading by Hazama Itsuru
Mature
Genre: Comedy
Caramel is desperately in love with Applejack, but her heart belongs to another. Who could it be?
Blueshift has taken this story down from both Fimfiction and Deviantart, so maybe I shouldn’t draw attention to it. <.< OH WELL HERE GOES. This is a classic Blueshift fic, with the difference that it’s rather sexually explicit. It’s funny because Caramel’s problems are his of own design, and ends up being the setup for a great punchline (hopefully people will remember the particular reference!) The twist at the end is fantastic and rather painful, but you’ll probably never read another story quite like it.
Recommended for Terrible People