Fic recs, January 9th! · 5:39pm Jan 9th, 2016
Holy shit, guys, Equestria Daily’s switch to Disqus brought back all the old story comments. @_@ (Well, most of them.) If you have stories that were posted there four or five years ago, go check your posts and relive the glory days!
Gee, when I have nothing to do but read fanfic, I can get these out pretty easily. :B I should really do more writing. But for now, you can all enjoy reviews of One Friend by ArgonMatrix, Midnight Dancer's newly RCL-featured story Blankets, A Lot to Think About by chronicLurker, and a whole lot of stuff from EQD.
H: 2 R: 5 C: 0 V: 2 N: 0
One Friend by ArgonMatrix
Reading by Me!
Sequel to One Night
Genre: Slice of Life
Twilight and Spike visit Rarity to discuss Twilight’s dream.
I think it’s worth pointing out that this is a sequel to One Night and not One Morning, as I would have expected. Where that piece broadens the reader’s understanding of what Twilight is going through from a side perspective, this one dives right in to the morning after Twilight wakes from her original dream. Also, it’s told entirely in dialogue. There were maybe one or two spots where I wasn’t sure who was talking, but honestly, it was surprisingly easy to follow. So on technical merits, this shines. As plot goes, it doesn’t move things forward much; its companion story lays out far more of what’s going on here. Worse, it ends on a cliffhanger. At least we don’t have to wait for that last story to published, eh?
Recommended
Blankets by MidnightDancer
Reading by Goombasa
Genre: Inner Monologue
Lately, a canyon has come between Mr. and Mrs. Cake.
If you saw yesterday's RCL post, you already know what this story is about! If not, well, it's about Mr. Cake’s crazed smile during the opening scene of Baby Cakes. It’s about a lot of other things, too, mostly married life and how the tiniest doubt can multiply into a whole slew of them. And while I’ve never really considered the Cakes’ relationship to be anything but truly loving, this is a fully realized look at what it would be like if it weren’t. The best thing about this is that Mr. Cake is making no excuses for himself. He knows what he’s done is wrong, and he understands how Mrs. Cake is seeing him right now. Rather than ask for pity, he’s looking for a way to fix things, and comes to an important realization at the end. This is the kind of thing one can only understand after living with someone else they care about for a long time.
Recommended
A Lot to Think About by chronicLurker
Reading by Scribbler, Gina M and DracKeagan
Reading by Agent0Fluffy
Genre: Dark AU
I don’t actually want to say much about this. The writing is quite good and perfectly skips around important details while doling out others that tell the story of what happened. If you’re not interested in a story where the wedding went terribly, horribly wrong, this likely won’t appeal, but if you are, it’s quite rewarding to go in knowing nothing more than that.
Recommended
Loosening Up by N.K.
Genre: Shipping
Soarin finds a tearful mare after the disastrous Gala and helps her loosen up.
This is a very season 1 shipfic, not content to just rest on its unusual SoarinTavia pairing. There’s background SpitDash and hints of SoarinJack as well, though the latter is of course never followed through on. (I felt bad for AJ.) And it’s S1 in more ways than just what was let on EQD back then: remember when Octavia was Inkie Pie? (And remember when Marble was "Inkie"?) I always loved that bit of fanon, and it’s actually a main point of this piece. Unfortunately, this suffers from lack of focus, trailing off here and there so everyone gets a moment in the spotlight. The shipping is just a leadup to the promise of a date, so it’s not particularly satisfying in that way. And the writing is fairly telly, dialogue especially. It might be worth reading as a curiosity from another age (y’know, five years ago) with an original pairing, but that’s about it.
Vaguely Recommended
My Little Parcel by Cupcakes
Genre: Light Comedy
After misplacing a secret package, Rainbow Dash has to find it before one of her friends does.
Trivia: This is the only story of Cupcakes’ (that’s on EQD, anyway) that isn’t on Fimfiction. It’s also old, but decent. Mostly, it's a fast-paced romp through Ponyville as Rainbow riffles through her friends’ saddlebags looking for her package. There’s a little mystery about just why she doesn’t want anyone to find out about it, with a few hints dropped before the big reveal. I don’t want to spoil said reveal, but suffice to say this has some unique meta commentary I’ve not quite seen before and would have served a very important role in the early fandom. There are a couple POV shifts, but otherwise, it’s not bad.
Recommended
The Severing of Friendship by RagingSemi
Reading by CreepyPastaSalad
Genre: Grimdark AU
Where to start. This story is so old, almost as old as EQD itself, that it was originally posted as a series of images. The site hosting those images has poofed, but you can find a link to the PFA version in the comments, along with a link to the epilogue. Or you can just, y’know, use those. :B As for the story itself, it was originally just called Severing, as evidenced by the EQD page, an ancient grimdark AU that I read shortly after my first trip through Cupcakes, which is probably why I remember liking it. (Everything’s better after Cupcakes. Also, if the author’s note is to be believed, this story not only inspired Sergeant Sprinkles to write Cupcakes, but created the Friendoffs as well.) But yes, as I said in the last journal, this is a story about Twilight betraying and killing her friends. If that does not sound appealing to you, then don’t let me try and convince you otherwise. If this is interesting, it’s simply for having had more thought put into it than similar stories released around the same time. The writing is pretty matter-of-fact, the action scene is honestly kinda bad, and the editing errors make me wonder if it wasn’t directly converted from image to text somehow. But yeah, that bit about betrayal is extremely important to what happens. If you’re not interested in a story where not just Twilight but Celestia are out and out evil and the whole point of Twilight studying friendship wasn’t actually to have friends (this goes way beyond your average ‘tyrant’ moniker for either), don’t bother. But if you are, the ending is pretty satisfying, and the epilogue only makes things better. I just don't see this having a lot of appeal nowadays.
Vaguely Recommended
The Sundering by GaryOak
Genre: Historical AU
After splashing this story’s name all over my last journal while searching for The Severing, I figured I’d go ahead and review it, too, since it was on my RIL and I didn’t want to needlessly get poor Gary’s hopes up. I rather wish I’d gotten to read this years ago, when stories about Luna becoming Nightmare Moon were still new and not superseded by canon, because this one’s honestly no slouch. I really like Celestia’s reaction to Luna’s transformation, and I love the dialogue. It’s not realistic so much as epicly dramatic, and it lends a certain sheen to the entire thing that makes it seem larger than life. I might have had more appreciation for stories like this four years ago, but the way this is told makes it a lot of fun, even if it’s ultimately just the same old Nightmare Moon.
Recommended
Fluttershy’s Secret Kissing Story by Ara
Genre: Character Study
Fluttershy remembers every kiss she’s ever gotten.
Huh, so, after that story about Luna being a pedohpile, I went into this expecting more trollish ridiculousness. Instead, I got a lengthy character study of Fluttershy, told via tactile imagery and Fluttershy's eidetic kiss memories. The way this piece treats kissing is intriguing all by itself. It makes a clear distinction between the silly, chaste kisses of childhood and the awkwardness of moving into adulthood. There’s never anything sexual about it, though I’ll admit the scenes with her kissing animals were a tad weird. But things like Pinkie suggesting Fluttershy practice kissing with her have a certain innocent joy that separates this from your average shipfic. (Though there is some shipping, and you’ll never guess who with.) Fluttershy learns things about people from the way they kiss; she uses kisses to communicate; and the kissing ultimately impacts how others see her and even how she sees herself. Rainbow Dash’s behavior is bizarre, but somehow fitting. It all ends up coming together in the end to encapsulate not only Fluttershy’s character, but a number of major plot elements from the show. Maybe it’s just that my expectations were so thoroughly undermined; I hope I’m not overselling this, but it’s a really remarkable piece, and definitely worth experiencing.
Highly Recommended
On the Equestrian Republic and Equestrian Citizenship by Andrew Joshua Talon
Genre: Comedy
Rare is the story that can get me laughing uproariously with the first line. This is a pitch-perfect, hysterical sendup of official documents, historical writing, and just about everything else one would expect to be utterly boring, since this is ultimately a treatise on how republics work. Aristides is a tremendous idiot, and while his advice is mostly sound, said treatise is peppered with nonsensical asides, self-pity, and general hilarity that would be unbecoming of a published work in our world. That is, of course, what makes it great. If there’s anything at which I might look askance, it’s that the foreword is written by what I can only term a human self-insert character, married to Twilight Sparkle. I’m just going to kind of let that slide on the grounds that this is very old, and people got away with that kind of thing back then. Well, and I guess I could criticize it for not attempting to diverge much from the American model of government, for the most part. It's kind of a wasted opportunity for some solid world-building. And I guess I’ll point out that there’s a handful of typos (and an abacus joke, and a Cupcakes reference), but none of that matters. This should be a real classic by now, and it even holds up well under current canon!
Highly Recommended
You did not just diss severing! Did you ever read the sequel someone else made, Reconnection? It's amazing. If not, I'll try and dig it up.
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Oh wow, I did not expect to see The Sundering up there. Thanks very much for the review! Has it really been almost 4 years since I wrote this story? Yikes. I'm actually surprised you liked it as much as you did, given its age. One thing I found interesting is the canon didn't really break the story, as those scenes were similar. I wrote it with the intention of being something from an oldfangled book of legends. Your reaction tells me I still managed to achieve exactly what I was trying to when I wrote this fic, even if it's been almost four years.
Oh hey I remember loving that story. Very realistic portrayal of characters, an all-too-familiar reminder of what goes on in secret between lovers in more relationships than people care to admit.
Thank you for the review and the RCL feature!
3675151 And thank you, too!
I read On The Equestrian Republic just now. +1 I think I cracked a rib laughing. It's amazing something that old can still hold together. (Oh, wait. That's what my kids were saying about me.)
3675059
The sequel's on Fimfiction, I'm actually planning on reading it soonish.
Hm, I didn't really like The Severing. The writing was just too poor for me to get into. It did remind me a bit of Harmony Theory by Sharaloth. Not for the "Twilight murdering her friends bit", but the reason why she's doing it. If that concept appealed to you give it a read; it's really very good and features one of the best villains I've ever read.
Random, but if you liked Severing, consider finding a copy of one of RagingSemi's other fics, The Equestrian Renaissance. It's been quite a while since I read it, but I remember it being a lot like Severing.
3684974
HMM
Is it maybe The Equestrian Revolution?
3685253
Nope.
3686163
whut in the whurld
3675565
Yeah, I remember when I read Severing and Reconnection, and I gotta say, I wasn't really having it until I got around to the sequel, which made the first fic worthwhile.
Back now.
That version has some transcription errors as compared with the original. I recommend this one instead.
There's also another epilogue, though it was apparently abandoned unfinished.