Fic recs, March 13th: Blink edition! · 7:34pm Mar 13th, 2017
ocalhoun's Blink (not to be confused with the coincidentally related-yet-unrelated story of the same title by zaponator) has inspired quite a few imitators and fan sequels, enough so that there is now a group related to the story. Once I found out about this, I became interested in doing an edition. So you can head below for a glimpse into the world of what lies behind teleportation.
But first, the neeeews...
Ambion is offering story reviews! Be sure to read the post for details.
Scribbler's newest reading is BlazzingInferno's Sugar, Cubed, with Chance Taylor, Russell Dickson, GloryOfTheRainWings, Caitbug, Gina M, Neighrator Pony, Illya Leonov, Scooter Smartycat and me! :D
Does anyone know when (or why) Golden Vision DFE'd? D: It says he was here two weeks ago, so I have to assume it was recent, unless I'm just now finding out. He had a lot of good stories, too. :(
H: 1 R: 0 C: 0 V: 1 N: 3
Blinking by lumberjack
Reading by CreepyPastaSalad
Reading by Plagen Shiki
Sequel to Blink
Genre: Dark
This picks up more or less directly where the original left off, minus some time, with a Twilight trapped in the "sphere", waiting the arrival of another. But it gets off to a poor start by more or less summarizing the original in its own language. What follows isn't much better; the idea is that numerous Twilights have been working on formulating a spell that will let them leave the sphere and finally break the teleportation death cycle, but all of this is told to us in the driest way possible. And I couldn't shake the feeling that the original tells us Twilight can't use magic in this place. There's a heaping helping of extra grimdark details for no other reason than to up the gore quotient. Suffice to say, I was not impressed.
Not Recommended
Blinked by Dream Seeker
Reading by Plagen Shiki
Sequel to Blinking
Genre: Dark/Sad
And this picks right up off of Blinking, leaving it the Empire of this trilogy… save that this is no Jedi. It's more an idea than a story, given to us in the barest bones of a scene. I'll admit, I was more interested in seeing what would happen when the 'saved' Twilight returned from the teleport, and not giving us that was actually a good idea. Still, what's here amounts to a fixfic, a happy ending for Blink that, oops, gets a sad ending because reasons, I guess. Again, not impressed.
Not Recommended
Eyes Open by Foals Errand
Reading by Plagen Shiki
Sequel to Blinking
Genre: Dark
Blink sets up a situation where one can explore the consequences of extreme loneliness and a pony being forced to do things no pony ever should in the name of keeping herself alive long enough to save another version of herself. Unfortunately, all authors are doing with it is telling us Twilight's losing her mind, listing off how terrible it is eating other ponies, and moving on. That said, this story is Blinked, but better. It's got a little more thought put into it, and it's actually got a happy ending, but it goes through almost the exact same motions and is still perfunctory with regard to how well it pulls off its central concept. I'm glad there aren't many of these to read.
Vaguely Recommended
Detritus by TheDizzyDan
Sequel to Blinking
Genre: Grimdark
Twilight Sparkle learns some unexpected things while teleporting to Luna's birthday party.
This was what I was looking for from Blinked. It picks up with Twilight coming out of the teleport and telling Princess Luna what she'd discovered. The writing is, again, not great, but with more word count, it comes across as more thoughtful, even if we trade explication of what happens in the outside world for explication of what happened in the teleport sphere. And then the ball drops: the sphere was an intentional trap set by Luna, a way for her to torment her sister and ultimately gain revenge on her. What. And there's all sorts of statements that are meant to be profound or menacing or something that wholly refuse to come off as such. "Hers would be a throne of detritus" indeed? This looked like it was at least going to be better than the previous three stories combined, but instead it wasted that potential on a ridiculous idea with no real payoff. I am horrendously disappointed.
Not Recommended
Blink and You Miss It by Fervidor
Genre: Magic
Twilight's first attempt at teleporting doesn't go exactly as she expected.
I'm cutting this short with the one that's actually on my RIL, and the only one among these stories that isn't actually a sequel. The high word count had me hopeful, and I'm pleased to say I wasn't disappointed. The worst I can say about this story is that, despite only being related to Blink — it's honestly more of a complete reimagining of that story's concept — it's nevertheless wholly dependent on Blink for context. The first scene, for instance, is filled with a tension that would only stem from the reality proposed by Blink being taken as a potential outcome of teleporting by the characters themselves. But the rest of this is wholly original, uplifting, and pleasantly trippy. I usually have to read stories about ponies dying and going to the afterlife to find a message this hopeful. Maybe this is just the standout endcap to a series of rather disappointing stories, but I very much enjoyed it, and if you've read Blink, you'll definitely want to check this out, too.
Highly Recommended
There's always the one good fic that actually comes out of a story that spawns countless view-grabs.
4454560
Blink inspired a lot of people to write about teleportation and its potential dark implications, but not a lot of thought about the topic. >.>
Now you need to convince me why I shouldn't write a crackfic version, because Blunk is too good a title to pass up...
For those of you who don't know, there are several more stories in that universe. The only ones I would recommend reading are:
Not The First - A prequel to the original. Nearly M rated for dark themes.
Blink - The original.
Eyes Open - What PP said above, but it sets up the next one.
Don't Blink - An in-development one about Twilight's student, time travel, and teleportation.
4454582 Well, I can't exactly cater to your sense of self-respect and quality assurance, so...
It would probably not be worth the time to type it out, and it's kind of a stupid title?
Geeves is going into politics which means he's decided he can't associate with us anymore.
I don't know why Golden Vision bailed, but I can't say I'm all that surprised. He has a history of doing that kind of thing.
4454582
Dang, I was just reading a blog post somewhere on the site about these bandwagon fics and the whole 'teleportation as death' trope. I'll see if I can tract it down, as there was some good commentary there on why the concept as a whole is flawed.
Personally, I've not read any of these, but I always assumed they had the basic plot of the movie, The Prestige. All that aside, I'd say write the trollfic, call it Blunk, giggle at the hate.
EDIT: Found the comment!
Happy you kind of enjoyed my fan sequel. I mainly wrote it as I couldn't stand all the horrible endings. I'm a sucker for happy or at least hopeful endings.
Regarding GV: I spoke with him on Skype ten days ago, after I went to go read one of his fics again. He's trying to remove any possible connection to hoers that he has, and has since deleted his Discord and created new Skype and Reddit accounts. Basically he's trying to focus on work and professionalism and all that jazz.
Visidine Visdane wrote a hilarious send up of the whole Blink bandwagon, called Clink. I recommend you read it if you have the chance.
4454594
The two you mention I skipped because they're incomplete. Also because my expectations died so hard during this review, I didn't want to read anything more than I had to. :| There's one more complete fic in the group I skipped, too.
4454609
4454675
Why are people dumb. ._.
4454811 I mean, at least the ponyficarchive dump will have his stories.
And because some people still can't accept that everything exists on the internet, regardless of how much you scrub.
4454824
Also Archive.org.
The really funny thing is that by trying to hide it, he automatically turns it into ammunition which is usable against himself because it indicates he's ashamed of it.
4454609
One of the Republicans running this last time both played video games AND had Applejack as their favorite pony.
The bad news is it was Ted Cruz.
4454612 A longer history than you're probably aware of, too, which is saying something, since your association with him goes way back.
4454642 My problem with the original (which ocalhoun claims to have been unaware of) is that it brought nothing new to the table in a very old and very well hashed-out philosophical argument that goes back at least decades and likely centuries. And it still somehow got RCLed.
4455132
I imagine the RCL was partially responsible for the bandwagon-ization of the fic. I know I've seen arguments about the why and how teleportation could work and even the moral implications of it going back to post-by-magazine edition in both science and occult type settings. So the debate is certainly NOT a new one, but I don't think it's all that well known. I think it's an interesting twist of the idea, but the whole the person/pony on the other end of the spell is not the original has been tread and retread hundreds of times. Other than putting it in pony terms, I don't really see how these add to that debate.
If you care to dig up history, it's archived on Fimfetch.
4455210 I have a feeling each new generation thinks they've stumbled upon some new philosophical nugget, but two big examples of it are:
About 50 years ago, this is precisely the argument Dr. McCoy made as to why he hates using the transporter on Star Trek.
An ancient (Greek, I think, but I'm too lazy to look it up) philosopher postulated that if he, over time, replaced each part of a broom, then when it had none of the original parts left, was it still the same broom?
4455210
4455320
And let's not forget the postulate that every time you fall asleep you're replaced by a new person upon awakening.
Not a fan of the genre, but "Blink and You Miss It" was actually pretty good. Bit of anxiety at the front end, but by dispelling it with 1) Celestia's role and 2) an answer that takes it through a beautiful journey on its own, but ultimately one without impact on anything, it avoids the pointless edginess that some/many of these stories/related comments etc. hit.
ETA:
Okay, went back and read the commentary for all the NRs and I gotta say:
"WHAT" was my reaction on getting to the end of the first quoted sentence too. And then I saw you'd already written it.
I walked into that reading of Sugar, Cubed slightly worried that I'd be mentally rewriting every word, considering how long it's been since I wrote it. Instead you and your VA buddies had me in tears… that was amazing