Fic recs, September 15th! · 7:04pm Sep 15th, 2017
There's a new reading of Cloud Wander's The Rummy Business of Old Blooey, by Purple Patch! He's the perfect choice to read the Wodehouse, capturing every note of the affable yet vapid Barney, regal and dramatic Blueblood, and upright, serious Cheese. Audio quality could stand to be improved, but there's room for that, and he's certainly loud enough for my needs! Worth saying, this isn't a good reading to judge someone generally by, since he's totally in-character; I'd have to hear a slower-paced story to know for sure. But this is his only reading, so I get to be his first subscriber! :V
Scribbler's newest reading is Pascoite's The Art and Science of Letter Writing, with DaWillstanator!
Speaking of audiobooks, this one is both late and short because long audiobook. The next will be Lingering Shadows! As for today's crop, nothing but stuff that's worth reading! :D
H: 2 R: 3 C: 0 V: 0 N: 0
Exit Interview by Cynewulf
Reading by Scarlett Blade
Genre: Dark
Luna has a conversation with one of her servants.
The whole time I was listening to this story, I was filled with how well it was written and how little I could discern of its point. What makes it work is the POV character, Hyacinth, one of Luna's maids. As Luna invites her to converse as equals, we find that not only is she nervous about offending Luna because propriety has been breached, but because she's just kind of a nervous pony to begin with. Her reactions to the situation are what fill it with dread, convincing the reader they should be worried. I suppose the purpose of this piece might be exploration of power dynamics and the muddling thereof, alongside a bunch of backstory (wherein the cardinal sin is committed, e.g., 'thestral'); to be certain, along with the near-horror aesthetic, it's got an uncomfortably sexual undertone, romantic in the other sense, and that helps along the horrorish bits as well. Definitely worth a read, if only for the end; happily, the twist isn't just the one you can see coming.
Recommended
Love Song of a Loser by Pascoite
Sequel to My Domestic Equestria
Genre: Meta
I gave Pasco some help with this and encouraged him to publish it, so I wanted to give it a recommendation immediately. :) Like the description says, reading My Domestic Equestria isn't necessary to understand this. (Though it's a fantastic piece of personal writing and you should have read it by now!) Honestly, if you do read that first, one particular line in this piece becomes excruciatingly melancholy. :C As for the story itself, it can be a little hard to follow, the way it plays around with the narrator being both a narrator and a character. But you rarely get to see an author lay himself bare this way; it's a worthwhile experience.
Recommended
Star-Crossed by Rocket Lawn Chair
Genre: Romance/Dark?
Celestia's date with Discord goes surprisingly well.
This is a very unusual sort of shipfic, dealing as it does with the actual mechanics of emotion and attraction. We see Discord as timid and uncharacteristically unsure of himself, Celestia dealing with the realities of being a state leader trying to date, and underneath it all is a potentially sinister undercurrent of the whole situation having been manipulated by Luna. I mean, it doesn't have to be sinister, but the person who pointed me at this praised it for giving non-shippers something to latch onto. Otherwise, there's a lot of dwelling on the significance of stars and what Luna has to go through to maintain the night sky, which is plenty interesting. And, oddly, I'm pretty sure this is the first actual Dislestia fic I've ever read. c.c Huh.
Recommended
The Book of Ended Lives by Loganberry
Genre: Drama
Applejack makes a long-overdue visit to Last Account, to make an entry in the Book of Ended Lives.
Hah! For once, I'm getting to one of Loganberry's stories before he's gotten a chance to do a reading of it! >:B And what a gut-punch it is. D: First, there's the idea of the titular book, quite original, with just enough explanation given for why it exists. But the star of the show is Applejack, who gets to vent her spleen about a few things that bother her. It does feel a tad out of character for her to lambaste a pony who's just doing his job, but it still isn't a bad fit for her. And that's kind of the point, after all: he was just doing his job. You'll see what I mean when you read it.
Highly Recommended
Firebird Dahlia by The Albinocorn
Reading (part 1) by Goombasa
Genre: Drama
Sunset Shimmer has done well making up with the other students at CHS. Now it's time for her to return home to Equestria, and reconnect with the family she left behind.
This is quite the ride. Sunset's going home to apologize to her family and Princess Celestia — accompanied by Twilight, of course — but what she finds is that a lot more has changed than she might have thought. Part of this is because time passes differently: 4 Equestrian years to every 1 in Humania, the first of a number of things I very much appreciated happening in this story. Point being, it's been not quite three years for Sunset, but 10 years for her family. Her parents have split up, she sort of missed the whole "Luna is back and Discord is reformed" thing, and oh yeah, her sister? Hates her guts. Also, she's Spitfire; how's that for a new one?
What follows is a surprisingly thorough take on Sunset's home life. A lot of care has been put into crafting a backstory for Sunset that allows her to make that turn into the tragic fall from being Celestia's student, becoming the bully of CHS, and then ultimately reforming after rainbow friendship beams. The main conflict comes from her and Spitfire having enormous egos and having constantly competed for their parents' attention, despite the latter's assurances that competition wasn't necessary. Granted, their dad is somewhat overbearing at this point in time, and their mom comes off as a wet blanket, so that certainly didn't help. Added to this is an inferiority complex due to Sunset's heritage: she's the only unicorn in a nuclear family of pegasi. And, fantastically, while she's busy being jealous of her sister's amazing racing prowess, Spitfire gets a turn at jealousy after her little sister becomes the Princess's special student.
Oh god, I'm probably giving away the whole story, aren't I? D: I can't help it, I really got into this one, and I was never disappointed by it. The writing was quite good, maybe a little flowery in places, but structured for deep crafting, whether of setting, backstory, or character. There's a good dose of comedy, though you'll mostly be finding big, dramatic moments (built up excellently via non-linear flashback sequences — see also the climactic moment that tore the two sisters apart) and lots of ponies crying. :B The only thing I could really complain about is the final story arc, which takes place during the Grand Galloping Gala and turns out to be specifically the Gala we saw in Make Friends but Keep Discord. It was just a weird sequence in which it seems the author wants to know for damn sure that this story which has been floating outside of canon for all of its length is absolutely taking place at this specific point in time. Hardly makes the story worth passing up.
Suffice to say, I adore Sunset Shimmer, and as far as I'm concerned, this is up there with A Moment in the Sun in terms of excellent characterization for her.
Highly Recommended
The usernames on this site never cease to amaze me.
Sold on a couple of these XD
4669349
That one's especially impressive. :)
Firebird Dahlia by The Albinocorn
Seconded. A damned fine tale.
Man, I was happy to let this stay low-profile, but good luck keeping any new story out of the "popular stories" column anymore. At least thanks to Emerald Flight for giving me a downvote (I presume). Since the story makes reference to getting downvotes, he gave me the first step toward making it true.
...Someone made a reading for FD and no one told me?
Thank you for the words of praise, I'm glad you enjoyed the story!
4669472
Reading notifications are just one service I offer. :B
Thanks for the rec of Pascoite's story. I needed to read that.
Goodness, I didn't expect a review of my work, but I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you for your thoughts and kind words!
4669983
Quite welcome! :)
Firebird Dahlia is wonderful.
Oh my goodness, I didn't expect that at all! Thank you very much!
AJ is supposed to feel slightly off, actually, exactly because she's not quite in her normal frame of mind. I'm not sure I quite judged that bit spot-on, so I'm not surprised you picked up on it.
4670525
Okay, what da heck? Did I never review Book of Ended Lives? I thought I did something more than just the comment on the story (speaking of, how did that get two downvotes? Odd).
Well, anyway, crud. There goes PP getting to stuff before me again. Stop it, PP, you’re making me look bad.
4670898
I'm not bothered about a couple of downvotes -- almost any story, from any author, gets some. As for reviewing, apparently not -- but that's not a big deal either. I'll read any review that appears, but I'm not worried if it doesn't.
Exit Interview and Firebird Dahlia to the RiL...
For stuff I got to, though... Yeah, I don't know. "The Book of Ended Lives" really just did nothing for me.
4677993
Someone said to me that it's a bit of an "eggs in one basket" fic, and I'd agree with that -- if the atmosphere doesn't work for you, there's unlikely to be enough else to satisfy you. It was one of those "My brain won't shut up at me until I write this" fics, and those seem to end up that way. Thank you for giving it a read, though!
Okay, gave Firebird Dahlia's first few chapters a listen but just couldn't get past there. If I'd been reading it might have worked better, but with less skimming ability a few sticking points (the frequent crying from someone who's supposed to be all about not crying (informed in narration, never shown, but not really implemented in a way to suggest to me it was an intentional case of unreliable narration) and the multiple obviously bad decisions--decisions that just about anyone applying the least bit of thought would avoid, much less what I'd hope for from these guys--from both Starlight and Twilight) just pulled me out too much to enjoy the story.