What long fic should I liveblog? · 7:11pm Aug 20th, 2015
Soap Box is just starting a liveblog of Past Sins, and the idea of doing something similar myself rather appeals to me. I don't read an awful lot of long fics (defined here as more than 100,000 words), and this might be a good way of getting me to cover another one. The idea would be to read, perhaps, two chapters a week (one if they're long chapters!) and to post my thoughts in these (virtual) pages as I went along. Comments would, of course, be welcome!
Long fics I've already read, and which are therefore ineligible for consideration: Anthropology, Austraeoh, Eljunbyro, Fallout: Equestria, Flash Fog, The Games We Play, Integration, It's a Dangerous Business, Going Out Your Door, The Life and Times of a Winning Pony, Mother of Invention, No, I Am Not A Brony, Get Me Outta Equestria!, Past Sins and Shipping and Handling. I'm currently reading The Luna Cypher, so that too is ineligible.
If anyone has any suggestions for this, please feel free to comment below! Nothing above a Teen rating, please, and nothing I won't understand without additional prior reading.
Edit: also, please don't suggest incomplete stories.
I want to recommend The Albinocorn's Long Road to Friendship, which I consider to be the best Equestria Girls fic, but it's not quiiiiiiiiiite finished yet. (It's nearly there though! It'll probably finish by the end of this month)
Salvation, by Cold in Gardez
The Gentle Nights: Audience of One, by Paul Asaran
Bluebird's Song, by Ardensfax
Some suggestions:
(Criteria 100k+, Rated <=T, Complete)
A Voice Among The Strangers
One of the most underrated stories out there. A HiE with a twist, and quite possibly the first language barrier fic (that I can recall at any rate).
It Takes A Village
An old story, but still one of the better ones. Spike has grown up and faces all sorts of problems some small, others not so much.
Stardust
) is full of grim and gory things, and all the mental trauma you can expect it to have on a purple unicorn.
Probably at least semi-famous by now with the attention its sequel has been getting, and being a crossover with X-COM (the new one rather than the 'proper' one
Without A Hive
Essentially a stranded changeling story. But a good one.
Ghost Lights
The only sequel listed (to the short Seashell), but stands adequately alone. It is also the only story focused entirely on character interaction, there is no 'action' just lots of knots and soul searching.
I was gonna suggest Project Horizons, but you just had to go and ruin that. :(
3334873 I'm very likely to stick to a pony story, but that fic looks interesting enough that it's now one I'm keeping an eye on.
3334926 Salvation is M-rated, and so ineligible, but I'll add the other two to the list of possibles.
3335004 I'm inclined to avoid crossovers, so Stardust is unlikely. I already have Ghost Lights and It Takes a Village on my RiL list, so they're in with a shout. I'll consider the other two as well.
3335496 I probably should have added a maximum word count as well. :P Besides, I have a strong preference for stories already on Fimfiction.
Thanks, guys. I've had suggestions from elsewhere, as well (more than I expected, really) so I'll need to do some thinking! (Though further nominations are still welcome.)
3335629 Oh, sorry. I forgot Salvation was M rated. I still highly recommend it though (outside the liveblog, of course) CiG did exceptionally classy work on that one. :)
3335661 The other problem with it is that it's incomplete: the last chapter was published back in March, and the one before that in May 2014. I believe CiG has said that he doesn't consider the story cancelled and that he is still thinking about it -- but the rate of progress is so slow that I don't want to risk it.
3335789 Ah, ok. Makes sense. :)
3336573 Thanks! It's listed as a sequel to Windfall, though, so it may fail the "nothing I wouldn't understand without prior reading" test. I may read Windfall at some point, but it's too short (four chapters, <20,000 words) for this liveblog.
I'm a touch surprised that no one's nominated Project Sunflower by Hoopy McGee yet. That said, if someone has nominated it, I'll throw my hat in the same ring. It stands above 200K words, does an incredible job building up a believable worldwide threat (and making us care about an original main character), and no prior knowledge is required. There is a sequel, but I haven't read it so I cannot vouch for it.
EDIT: I'm always patrolling for good longer reads, and saw a few unfamiliar titles in your already-read list, so thank you for those!
3339563 Project: Sunflower's interested me for quite a while, since of the two major reviews I've seen (only reading the non-spoilery summaries!) City of Doors really enjoyed it it but Chris hit it with a one-star rating. Quite a difference of opinion! And yes, it's already been suggested to me elsewhere, so it's on the list for consideration.
As for my own list of already-read long fics, bear in mind that I liked some more than others! If you haven't read Integration, though, I'd recommend it.