Fic recs, October 15th! · 8:13pm Oct 15th, 2017
For those of you who were turned off Snuffy's story Dragon Greed Is Good by my review, he asked me to proofread it for him, and in doing so, removed the major barrier to entry for it. So if you're interested in a fun adventure with an economic twist, go check it out. Dragon Greed Is Good is now Recommended.
VisualPony needs to get some car repairs done, and he's increased the benefits you can get for supporting him on Patreon. Go watch this video to learn how you can help him out! (And see what he has upcoming! :D)
I did a reading of KitsuneRisu's I figgerured out murderpone, an ending of The Last Dreams of Pony Island!
Still working through that long audiobook! (Thank god show-related stuff has calmed down...) Have some reviews of good stuff!
H: 1 R: 3 C: 1 V: 0 N: 0
Cheersalis by Prane
Paid Review for Icy Shake
Genre: Changelings
On the eve of a historical treaty signing with Equestria, Queen Chrysalis casts forbidden magic to clone herself. It doesn't go quite as she'd intended.
This story is not about Queen Chrysalis falling in love with Cheerilee; I mean, can you believe it? :V Other things this story is also not about: a clone of Queen Chrysalis. Seriously, this sets itself up to be a madcap comedy of errors, a "follow that clone!" with Chrysalis getting more and more worked up while trying to keep an outward calm for the Equestrian envoy. Instead, the problem resolves itself in chapter two, then disappears so we can talk about changeling headcanon. And what's there is interesting, don't get me wrong; there's even conflict, it's just not conveyed well. So if you're here looking for shenanigans, you won't find them; this is solely about changelings.
Recommended for Changeling Fans Only
The Last Day on Duty by Snuffy
Proofread by Me
Genre: Character Piece
Old soldiers never die, but they sometimes don't know when to fade away.
This is a pretty unique piece. Our main character is a gruff old veteran of the Guard whose age is catching up with him. We get a quick look at a day in his life before things go south. There's some good thought put into how the guard works, but more exciting is the very end, when his true identity is revealed. :) I rather enjoyed getting to work on this one!
Recommended
Shall I Compare Thee by Cold in Gardez
Mature: Sex
Genre: Sexual Healing
Twilight Sparkle is a nervous wreck when it comes many things. Sex is one of them.
If you're here looking for Rarilight, you might be a tad disappointed, because that's not what this is. I mean, it kind of is, but it's explicitly not, and Rarity's dating someone else. Beyond that, I don't want to give too much away; the plot is a joy to watch unfold. I will say, this is a perfectly in-character look at our ponies' potential sexualities, sex lives, and just sort of anything involving sex and Twilight Sparkle. The topic of sex is approached frankly and seriously, but there's plenty of laughs to be had. If this is about any one thing, it would be the importance of communication in relationships of any sort, a subject I find of utmost importance. But there's also the running thread of "sex isn't sexy", which is equally important. Brilliant, absolutely worth reading if you can handle sexual content and want to see something that's about more than just the act of having sex, especially if you're looking for an actual decently written sex scene. (Or, y'know, just Twilight being a dork about everything, that's good too!)
Recommended
Clink by Visiden Visidane
Mature: Sex
Genre: Dark Comedy
Twilight Sparkle discovers the secret behind telekinesis.
This is a really funny parody of Blink and its followers. The answer to how and why unicorn telekinesis works is hilarious and clever. The sexual content is minor, relegated to a single (off-color) joke, so don't let that bother you too much. This is mostly worth it if you enjoy exploring magical headcanon, but want to see the workings thereof taken to the most ridiculous extreme possible. Also because Spike gets the better of Twilight in the strangest way possible.
Recommended
Paper Butterflies by Petrichord
Genre: Sad
Discord isn't exactly excited to be folding papercraft in the Apple Family barn.
This is an extremely sublime piece. What it's about isn't obvious until the very end, and the leadup to that feels strange; purposefully so. Discord's transition from being a grouchy dick about everything to getting caught up an arts and crafts race with Big Macintosh helps draw the reader into this sense of wonder and whimsy as they capture various ponies' likenesses in origami. Quite a fantastical thing in and of itself, no? And then you hit the last scene, and all the grumpiness and all the wonder wash suddenly away for cold, hard truth. Therein lies the power. Let nothing spoil you: this one's all about the destination.
Highly Recommended
Clink sounds like the perfect last thing I ever need to read concerning Blink et al.
And Paper Butterflies... very intriguing.
EDIT: BTW, Tempest with long(er) hair.
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Yeah, that's gonna be the cover art for my fic. :B The artist drew it for me after seeing that blog post. (Which has been updated to show off the image but I guess there's no reason for people to look back at old posts if they don't get replied to. :V)
Huh. This particular edition has added a lot to my RiL.
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They all should! :D Well, except for the ones that are mostly Ns. :B
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Huh. Should have read the description, duh.
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Honestly... only about one story for every five of your Fic Rec blogs ever winds up on my RiL (or RiS) shelves. I'm kinda picky. And I don't generally read M-rated fics, so that rules out about a third of what you review.
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Dude ain't nobody got time to read everything you give R+, let alone throwing in some of the C's and V's. :V
You read a lot.
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One in five? Not bad. :)
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I don't even have time to read it!
Jesus, that wasn't the rating i was expecting at all. Not that i'm complaining, but...man.
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It's good stuff, dude, you're growing as a writer! :D
Now this I've gotta see.
So it took me like a month to actually get around to making Dream A Little Dream Of Me publically accessible again, but I did it!
At least until the site moderators ban me for it or some shit. D: is2g i am still so salty about their unpublished stories crackdown
Shall I Compare Thee: When I first clicked through, I thought maybe there was another chapter published since I read the first, which was marked read. I don't know why the second wasn't, but in any case I was very happy to reread this one.
It had a really great mixture of ideas and feelings. The characterization at the heart of it is great and feels like entirely natural extensions from the characters as we know them from the show, for all that it's in the context of sex, something we're never going to see strongly touched on. Twilight's narrative voice carried me along smoothly, in this delightful stream of consciousness that never really breaks even as the course jumps and shifts course.
Twilight herself is adorable in her anxiety crossed with curiosity, and the way she keeps getting sidetracked by (for instance) her own overthinking and technical orientation makes for this nice low-key comedic tone that pops up throughout. And, of course, Rarity makes for a great put-upon straight man here. Dealing with Twilight's apparent allergy to sexy or (in this case) focus does have an element of herding cats to it. Thunderlane came off a bit flatter, especially after his initial contribution during the early "talk" part, basically rolling with the punches with good humor and being game for whatever. But that's not much of a negative, especially as it helped keep things from getting over crowded.
One thing that kind of hit me in the first chapter was a certain downside inherited from the format of the show (and, again, the child-centric audience): because the models are pretty close to identical (modulo wings/horn and mane, eyes, and tail), there's a degree of extra overhead necessitated because there's just not much inherent impression regarding physical appearances, how others see most characters' (Rarity and accidental supermodel Fluttershy excepted), or their own self-images. I thought that was handled well, but if things were different there may have been more potential for streamlining on that front.
Clink: On the whole I enjoyed it quite a bit. Spike's deal was a real high point, for sure. But there was some Princesses character destruction I felt could have been pushed further or explored a bit more. Rarity was weird too, and the ending kind of... wasn't. It basically just stopped, where I could have used a bit more narrative closure.
Paper Butterflies: Bad news--I'm pretty sure you spoiled that Fluttershy died basically from the tags, characters, and most general description--because what else would it be? I went in pretty sure of that, then was thrown off the trail for just a little while when it looked like it might have been the CMC (or also the CMC), before all the other butterflies got made. :V
Just noticed the bookshelf notification. I find your review fair - Cheersalis really is for changeling fans only and the main purpose was to present a few ideas on their society and customs. Was I conveyed well? Only as well as I could do it four years ago, so perfectly meh.
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I guess I have you to thank that the reviewer took interest in my story! That means you either enjoyed it greatly, or saw it, branded as dangerous content and wanted to hear someone else's opinion first. Either way, I'm happy to hear it got your attention.
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I don't know how, but I somehow failed to mark these reviews on my bookshelf.