Fic recs, August 22nd! · 3:59pm Aug 22nd, 2016
You all may have noticed that, with the recent three-day blogs filled with single audiobooks, I'm done with that big, long story but haven't reviewed it yet. c.c Sorry. I'm gonna try and write that up today, but depression is rearing its ugly head as usual.
Or maybe it's just laziness. :V There's a lot of work to be done, after all! Anyway, you can head below for reviews of Bucking Nonsense's The Moon, the Flower and the Door, TURN DOWN FOR DERP. by ROBCakeran53, killerbluetac's The Dragon and the Moon and five others!
H: 0 R: 2 C: 5 V: 0 N: 1
The Moon, the Flower and the Door by Bucking Nonsense
Reading by Goombasa
Genre: Slice of Life
No applicant has yet passed the test to become Luna's student.
This one made the rounds late last year, and I'm glad to get a chance to finally read it. It involves Luna giving a test so simple, it seems anypony could do it, but of course, what she wants escapes everyone but our protagonist. Figuring that part out was pretty easy for me, but I still enjoyed being proven right by the end, to say nothing of having no idea how the test was meant to be passed. My issues with this piece are twofold. First, Morning Glory is pretty high on the special snowflake scale. She's an earth pony who wants to study magic and lives in Cloudsdale, on top of obviously being an orphan. That she's immeasurably precocious is actually the least of her problems; I wouldn't expect a foal who wasn't to pass this test. But if you took out even one of those traits, she would be less of a stretch as a believable character. Meanwhile, her being an orphan leads into my second complaint: lack of focus. From backstory given to a side character to the asides which contain all the story's humor (though it has a comedy tag, I wouldn't call this comedy; if anything, the humor detracts from the actual story), it's obvious that this is meant to set up a larger world for later sequeling. (A shame, since the sequel was cancelled; I'd have been interested to read it.) I could have done without the Lunangst at the end, too. While I wish this was overall a much tighter piece, it's still enjoyable on its own merits.
Recommended for Fans of Thought Puzzles and OC Fics
Rainbow's Bad Fanfic by Jay-The-Brony
Reading by Scarlett Blade
Genre: Ponies Writing Ponies
...needs some work.
Ponies writing fanfiction has been a topic of fanfic for-freaking-ever. So in some ways, I've read this story before, but I was, at the very least, pleased that its punchline wasn't "fanfiction is awful". (Seriously, writers have a terrible self-loathing complex, what's up with that?) Instead, this piece contains some legitimately good writing advice, and while I could take it to task for repeating what's been said in hundreds upon hundreds of journals, this isn't FiMBlog.net. In other words, seeing that advice illustrated by the very characters we're writing about is going to be a very useful way to learn it for some people. For the rest of us, well, this may not offer much beyond the pleasure gleaned from seeing what terribleness Dash has written about, but I've always enjoyed that sort of thing.
Recommended If You Still Haven't Figured Out This Whole "Writing" Thing
TURN DOWN FOR DERP. by ROBCakeran53
Mature: Sex
Genre: Random Comedy/HiE
After borrowing an MP3 player, Derpy starts to feel a little… funky…
I read a draft of this literally last night as I write this, so I have to review it. :V This is, in short, a ponification of the "Turn Down for What" music video, provided helpfully at the start of the story for comparison. That video, I should add, is one of the goddamned craziest things I have ever seen, and I love it. I also love the song and the meme it has become. If you've seen the video, you know how this story's gonna go… but it's still kind of fun if you like wacky, random shit. And don't mind mentions of crotchboobs, which is about as overtly sexual as this gets. <.< But yeah, the ways in which this escalates, and who it ends up involving, are honestly pretty funny.
Recommended If You Like Random Comedy
The Dragon and the Moon by killerbluetac
Reading by ShadowOfCygnus
Genre: Fable
Once, there was a dragon who loved the moon…
This is a very nice fable-style short tale, old enough to have been self-published at under 1k words. It's got some just-so elements that I appreciated, and weaves the story of Nightmare Moon into a love tale to make things pleasantly sad. I did think the ending was a little dumb, or at least predictable (just look at the character tags to have it spoiled), but others will likely appreciate it more.
Recommended
Alicorn's Feather by Kevinltk
Reading by GutiuSerenade, et. al.
Genre: TwiDash
Twilight's freaking out over her next date with her marefriend because she has something very special to give her…
Been a while since I read a story like this. I enjoyed it. Sure, the narrative is moony and tends toward the explainy, and the ending is cheesy as all get-out, but that's why you read stories like this. Plus, there's some good comedy (Spike makes the whole first scene), and Rainbow's reaction, and the explanation for it, were complete surprises. Non-shippers need not apply.
Recommended for Shippers
Heat of the Moment by Jade Ring
Reading by Scarlett Blade
Mature: Sex
Genre: EQG Comedic Clopfic
All it takes for Twilight and Sunset to get hot and bothered is some whipped cream and fingers.
Goddammit. This story was going so well, and then one tiny detail at the end ruined the whole thing. It was funny, it was sexy, it was a ship I like in a situation worth writing silly clop about. Twilight and Sunset are adorable because they're constantly analyzing what they're doing. I could have done without the magical heat mirror bullshit explanation, but Maud's cameo is hilarious and the epilogue was hysterical… Right up until Spike's brought into things. That didn't have to happen. It shouldn't have happened. I immediately went from really enjoying the fic to absolutely hating it, and that's never pleasant. Authors, exert more self-control than this.
Not Recommended
Discord's First, Last and Only Friendship Report by alarajrogers
Reading by Scribbler and Thornquill
Genre: Epistolary Comedy
And also why Celestia is orange.
This is entirely hilarious, thanks to a pitch-perfect Discord being as passive-aggressive as inhumanly possible. There's maybe one out-world reference that I could have done without, but that's one joke in a story chock full of them, it's not an issue. The best part is his signature. :D
Recommended
This Old House by naturalbornderpy
Reading by GutiuSerenade, et. al.
Genre: Ghost Story
Four little fillies enter the house to prove their bravery. Only three will leave…
I fear I may be turning into some kind of horror snob, despite never really having been a fan of the genre. <.< To wit, this piece definitely doesn't make it as 'horror', per se, but taken as a ghost story — a tragic tale of a dead pony that echoes back through history — it's not too bad. The only shortcoming in that frame is the writing, which is often imprecise, leading to lines like "I drag my carpet-tongue towards my makeshift mouth, dragging her towards the fireplace's hungry flames." The backstory, the way this house works, is fascinating, and the setup builds tension, but most of it is just told, and the repetition doesn't always benefit what's going on. Still, not a bad little piece, and until the end, I wasn't sure whether or not Diamond Tiara was actually going to die.
Recommended for Fans of Dark Fics
*totally platonic tackle-glomp*
What's going on PP, and how can I help?
My opinion on the sequel was that it suffered from the same problem you felt the original did, only cranked up to 11. Almost every chapter introduced a new and particularly unique character for our intrepid filly to interact with - piling stuff on top of more stuff - and I was left feeling overloaded with "cool extraneous stuff" and very distracted. An entire story could probably be devoted to the fae colt who was waiting for raspberries to drop off a plant so he could eat them, but he's just one of several secondary characters.
4164803
I suffer from depression off and on. :B
Find a way to get me $700-1500 so I can fix my computer D:
4164980
Me too. I'll trade you a hug, but only for that hug you've got there.
4164980
Everyone I like has depression :<
Jesus, Present; it was two lines of throwaway dialogue at the tail end of the story. It's meant to be over the top, gross, and eye rolling. Twilight and Sunset are terrified that the others are going to find out about what happened and then SURPRISE! Turns out the others are even MORE perverted and messed up. That's the joke. The Spike bit just puts it over the top.
But it ruined the entire story for you and I should've "showed more restraint." Okay buddy. Whatever you say.
(Puts 'Heat' with 'Dear Sweetie Belle' on the list of Stories PresentPerfect Hates) Ah well, still going 3/2. Still looking forward to your thoughts on 'Grogar.'
4165074
Artists gotta suffer! :V
4165484
GaPJaxie has observed that he does all the suffering for me as an artist.
Speaking of my art, how goes your progress on Pirene? :3
4165492
*distant, muffled sobbing*
1st Last and Only certainly had its charms, but ended up dragging a bit for me; might have liked it better reading rather than listening for that reason.
The dragon and the moon was great, and I likewise didn't care for the ending. Could still have incorporated the twist without 1) breaking the format at the last minute and 2) being quite so hamfistedly direct about it. I dunno, something...
"And the Sun, sensing Mun'Thul's life had ended, came to the grove to honor and mourn him and, through him, the sister she yet loved dearly. But she had scarcely laid her hoof upon the remains of the great dragon before a gentle wind stirred, and she felt the flesh before her begin to fall to ash; and the wind grew, and with it took the ash, now glowing against the darkness in the color of the gems he had long before scattered in the sky; and the Sun saw that he was gone, but where he had lain, small within the vast space he had left, was an egg, mottled purple just visible against the bare ground in the fading glow.
"The Sun took the egg with her, and kept it, though it never hatched. There are those who say it never will, that it is dead, now no more than a curious stone; its caretaker, however, maintains it merely sleeps, awaiting a time when it may wake to see the love once lost restored, and to again feel the cool breeze of the night catch his wings as he roars their love to the world."
Maybe overwrought, maybe still obvious with the twist, but not breaking the format and at least not outright saying it.