Fic recs, May 8th! · 5:49pm May 8th, 2016
Y'know how I sometimes bundle up a bunch of similar fic reviews and call it an 'edition'? Despite five of these six being tagged Comedy, you couldn't ask for a more random assortment of stuff. No news today, so hope you all enjoy. :V
H: 2 R: 1 C: 3 V: 0 N: 0
Make It Stop! by Captain Unstoppable
Reading by Neighrator Pony
Reading by Dr. Wolf
Genre: Episode Followup
Big Mac just can't stop talking.
Y'know, the scene with Big Macintosh in No Second Prances was honestly kind of horrifying. Why must the writers crap on him so much? :( Anyway, this is a "meanwhile" sort of thing, showing us what was going on as the episode continued elsewhere. And despite the horrificness of what happened in the show, I did find myself laughing at Mac's inability not only to stop talking, but to stop spouting whatever thought is on his mind. The writing is about as haphazard, its frenetic pacing matching the tone of the comedy even if some of the early going is a little shaky. One odd thing I'll point out is that sometimes someone will speak and we won't know who it is until Mac's identified them; strange, but not un-deal-with-it-able. Also, non-shippers will want to note this is a Captain Unstoppable fic, so there is MacDash. But yes, quite the enjoyable romp, this one. :)
Recommended for Laughs
Customer Disservice by Estee
Reading by Scribbler
Genre: Comedy
Twilight attempts to change the mailing address for one of her magazine subscriptions.
It recently came to my attention that I had only read five of Estee's stories, and that is something which cannot stand, so have another one! This one reminds me of Dear Friend,, in that it's written as a series of letters, entirely from the magazine company to Twilight. It's hilarious, and a little infuriating, given how perfectly, corporately oblivious they are, continually referring her to their legal department, attempting to extort money from her, and generally being as unhelpful and assured of their own rightness as possible. Just for the way this was written, it's worth reading, but overall, it's amazing. :D
Highly Recommended
Snogmageddon by Drunk Bradel and drunk horizon
Reading by horizon
It's a drunk reading, go figure. :V And also a cold reading. And maybe not the best way to evaluate someone doing a reading, but do you really expect me to give him anything but a Y? There's a lot of background hiss, his Scottish accent is atrocious (if a good choice), and he didn't read all the struck-through text, which annoys me because it was great, but he did read the descended s's as f's, which is hilarious and what I do, so I'm good with it. V:
Genre: Random Comedy Shipping
Despite all Twilight's doing to keep them apart, Starlight Glimmer and Trixie Lulamoon are falling in love at each other. (This is literally just the description from inside the document because I can't get over "at each other".)
Yes, it's on GDocs, but the last time Bradel and horizon got drunk and wrote a story, I reviewed it, so I figured I ought to do this one as well. Also because, y'know, they wrote it for me. :') Word to the wise: if you want to pass on the possibly drunken pre-writing chatter, ctrl-F "once" to skip a bit, brother. :V But yes. This is not the kind of story you read because you appreciate good writing. You read it because you're a chucklefuck who likes seeing other chucklefucks write wacky shit. There are copious sections that are crossed out. The fourth wall more or less does not exist. There are numerous asides from the authors. Of course, the real reason is you want to see Starlight and Trixie get it on. (With bonus not-EQG-Sunlight.)
"Oh, Trixie, I love you," Starlight whispered.
"I love me too," Trixie crooned back.
I mean is this not the best thing? This is full of manticore butts and arthouse films and a really excellent treatise on drool strands, and I just love it. GOLD STAR
Recommended If You Like Stupid, Funny Shit
Displacement by Bad Horse
Genre: Displaced Comedy
I've never actually read a Displaced fic, but I've seen enough of the damned things in the featured box to get the gist. So when someone like Bad Horse writes one — and it's got a Comedy tag — you can bet your sweet patootie Imma read it. Now, it's been a good six or seven years since I had my one course in semiotics, but I remember enjoying it, and keeping up with the jargon in this piece wasn't too hard. For the non-semiotically inclined, I suspect a certain amount of "it's psychobabble" may be necessary to traverse the dialogue. That said, it's a real hoot; teaching the Cutie Mark Crusaders about the signified and signifier vis-a-vis cutie marks was the perfect way to start this off. Watching this man struggle with being Jacques Lacan and trying to psychoanalyze Equestria is just… not something I ever thought I would experience. And it's marvelous. There is also, if I don't miss my mark, a short deconstruction of the Displaced subgenre, and that's great, too. Altogether a really fun read.
Highly Recommended
Twilight Sparkle Buys a Cursed Starswirl the Bearded Costume on Her Way to a Convention, Which Then Transforms and Transports Her by cleverpun
Genre: Displaced Parody
And then suddenly there was another one. That sadly pales in comparison to the other. It's a decent enough inversion of the Displaced concept, there's just not much here. She gets a costume, she ends up on Earth, she gets back more or less right away. The ending is pretty funny, though, and the overall concept is amusing. Suggested more for people specifically looking for Displaced parodies than general comedy.
Recommended for Laughs
They Live on in These Parts by FanOfMostEverything
Genre: EQG/Mythology
After being the butt of a faux pas, Applejack is invited to Equestria for a very special visit.
I had to read this one, because it's based on a journal I posted a while back. And, well, don't read the journal first if you haven't already. Not knowing what's going to happen, it's probably still pretty easy to figure out what he big secret is, but try not to spoil it for yourself if you can help it. This is a good EQG fic, along the lines of some others I've read, and it even manages to add in some unique world-building along the way. Don't pass it up.
Recommended
This is a comedy Fic Recs? Noice.
Shame that you haven't read my latest comedy fic, Behind the Scenes...
Well, you aptly described how I choose the fics I read, that's for sure.
w00t a good review!
My dream is to show up on one of these.
/hubris.
3930345
You will at the very least when I get to CreepyPastaSalad's Youtube channel. :B
3930812 I suppose.
I hope I can write a
drunkfic withSenpaihorizon some day. Although I suppose what went down at BABSCon half counts.Well, considering that that was my first fanfic reading ever, I'm happy with the results. If this becomes a recurring thing I'll have to invest in an actual microphone, because this was recorded off of a crap headset mic. In one take. While drunk. I'm as surprised as you are. Apparently I have skill points in "drunken {X} readings", because for x= {fanfic, tarot} I work better drunk than sober.
I'm glad that Inconveniently Scottish Trixie was a highlight. I went back and forth on the strikethrough text, because while a lot of it was funny it also, well, wasn't story, and the lines were already blurring between the textual editorializing and my own commentary.
Also that line you quoted was written sober-ish, because it was the first thing in the doc and I backed up to write a first scene up to it. :V
GOLD STAR
I WAS NOT TOLD THERE WAS A GOLD STAR
now i must write more fics
but i know
i will never
have the
gold
star
Customer Disservice is the only one of these I've read, but I found it really entertaining -- and consistently so, which is where most comedy fics fall down. It reminds me a fair bit of the wonderful old Douglas Adams Infocom game, Bureaucracy, in which you have to get your bank to acknowledge a change-of-address letter.
3932404
Spoken like a man who truly wants a pony princess to step on him. :V