Fic recs, November 6th! · 8:17pm Nov 6th, 2017
I absolutely destroyed the angel food cake meant for my mom's birthday this morning. D: It was entirely unlike these story reviews, which will fill your day with smiles!
H: 2 R: 1 C: 4 V: 1 N: 1
Filly Twilight Sparkle and the Mystery of the Groaning Ghosts by kudzuhaiku
Reading by Winged T. Spears
Genre: Comedy
At night, when her parents are out, Twilight hears the muddy ghosts moaning through the air ducts.
Look at that title and tell me you can't figure out the mystery immediately. Predictable story, right? Well, for once, I was impressed by a piece whose punchline I knew from the outset: this was the story I wanted to read. On top of being genuinely funny — and a good example of how to write sex narratively close to children without me getting righteously indignant — this has some excellent characterization not just for filly Twilight, but for her homelife as well. And the aforementioned punchline has a wrinkle I did not see coming. In short, this story was a joy to read, and I'm glad someone wrote it. :D
Recommended
Shell Game by BlazzingInferno
Paid Review for BlazzingInferno
Genre: Romance
Sometimes rising to a challenge gains more than expected reward.
If you want horse kissing, sex or even cuddling, look elsewhere; this ain't that kinda romance. <.< But if you want the most adorable fucking story ever, my god. This piece reminded me why I latched onto Fluttershy all those years ago when I first saw her. I mean, think of Hurricane Fluttershy: she's the kind of pony who, when she tries to do something, fails, then tries again harder, achieves the barest hint of improvement, and feels terrible afterward. How is she not always cutest pony? Seriously. But yes, her portrayal here is pitch-perfect season 1. And then there's Noteworthy, a pony who's never had any official personality, here given a wealth of anxieties to rival Fluttershy's own (and the way in which they manifest is inspired), a perfect mirror for her. We get to watch them both grow and overcome their problems, until, y'know, they fuck everything up. :V This is a treatise on how not to ruin a friendship with romance, but it's still romantic and cute as fuck. A real treat, even if you tend to avoid the tag.
Highly Recommended
Lest We Remember by KingMoriarty
Reading by Astro-Brony
Reading by Plagen Shiki
Genre: Character Piece/Military
Shell Shock has nothing left to do but remember.
Am I wrong for thinking that if you name your kid "Shell Shock", he's gonna have a bad life? <.< So this is kind of two stories. The first half involves our main character dealing with PTSD and the memories of the war he's left behind. It was nice: quiet, contemplative, sad, a good character piece. Then Princess Celestia shows up. (Not a spoiler, she's in the tags.) Things take a turn from there, getting into some of the how and why about the war. And, well, I suppose that's not even a spoiler, because it's all the description talks about. Maybe I'd have had a different reaction to this had I come into it from Fimfiction instead of Youtube. But what I'm left with is a good character piece followed by one of those stories where Celestia's done terrible things in the past, and worse things to cover them up. I hate those, and I'm not sure what the point is beyond "war is bad". That Shell Shock's memories don't seem to fit in show canon seems to be intentional, at least. You're going to want to know what you're getting into with this one.
Recommended If You Like War Fics
Princess Celestia Is Still in Your Bed by ocalhoun
Reading (part 1) by Winged T. Spears
Reading by MelancholyIguana
Sequel to Princess Celestia Is in Your Bed
Genre: PoE
And your roommate's not too happy about it.
I originally had said I wasn't looking forward to ever reading these sequels, but happily, this turns out to be a much better comedy than its predecessor. It opens with a series of news broadcasts about a certain something going wrong, and having the roommate there to snark about the situation and make fun of the narrator adds a whole new level to the story the original lacked. Plus, I can't really deride how Celestia is presented: she's the same Jerklestia I wrote in My Full-Sized Goddess Horse, after all. :V So this won't appeal to everyone, but if you like stories about humans and ponies interacting, this is fun. (If nothing else, a joke in the epilogue is hysterical.)
Recommended for Laughs
The Lazy Dragon of Dragonvale by Georg
Reading by Jake the Army Guy
Jake the Army Guy should need no introduction, being a well-known member of this site and all. He's also a professional radio DJ, which should tell you all you need to know about this reading. He's the kind of guy you want to have reading audiobooks! The one thing that surprised me? He's also an excellent voice actor. Which, well, shouldn't have been a surprise. In short, go follow him, he's excellent at this, and maybe more followers will convince him to do more readings. :V
Genre: Fable
Why go to all the trouble of finding a village to pillage when you can make one instead?
This story is a joy from word one. A pitch-perfect in-universe fable, appropriate for foals, that is in and of itself a really fun read. You've got your "three tribes working together" post-Unification propaganda, your legend featuring Star Swirl the Bearded, and a teaching moment about how it is ponies from different backgrounds and skill sets come together to make a community. Also how ponies and dragons can live in harmony! This is just one of the absolute best fics I've ever read, and I can't wait to see what else Georg puts into this collection. :D
Highly Recommended
Wet Rainbows by Naviskypegasus
Reading by Winged T. Spears
Mature: Sex
Genre: PWP
Reading this was a mistake. I kid you not, I heard "her human lover", paused the reading, and poured myself a shot. (I mean, I was going to anyway, and then I ate some apricots, but the timing was funny.) This is very bad. And I'm willing to give some benefit of the doubt on the writing, as a line like "her perspired body under the outfit made a stretching latex sound" suggests the writer isn't a native speaker. But that's also something of an outlier — the sex scenes are far more competent — so I'm really not sure. If nothing else, the structure is nigh incomprehensible; when this isn't focused on sex, it meanders all over the place, bringing in whatever slapdash world-building it can come up with: humans, telepathic TVs, a rival group to the Wonderbolts led by Lightning Dust, just whatever, man, literally whatever. Needless to say, the reading only covers chapter one and I had zero interest in continuing on.
DNF: 1/3
The Queen and I, Book 1: Ponies and Changelings, The Book 2: People and Problems and Book 3: Friends and Family by SoloBrony
Sequel to Cheersalis
Paid Review for Icy Shake
Genre: Changeling Fic
The cultural exchange between changelings and ponies isn't quite going how anyone expected.
So this is something I've never done before. I'll occasionally revisit reviews and update the rating when time or editing merit, but never have I completely redone a review of a story. The reason, as I perhaps alluded to in my original review of Book 1, is that these three stories really need to be taken as a whole. As Icy Shake was willing to set me on all of them, I figured it would be worth giving them fair shakes, even if Book 1 didn't knock my socks off, and even if there's something to be said for not splitting a story into three incomplete sections. So what do we have, in total?
The short answer is "a big mess", but that's a little disingenuous. Books 1 and 2, as it turns out, form a cohesive and complete story, with Book 3 picking up from the end of Book 2 with a "what's eating Chrysalis?" plot line. What works in the first story works here, as well. This author has definite skill juggling multiple POV characters while differentiating them through voice alone. Book 2, for instance, starts out with Twilight as our narrator, and though she hadn't appeared in Book 1, and I was thus not expecting to see her, I knew immediately who she was. The changeling headcanon also remains interesting, culminating in the final chapter of Book 2, which is just really neat, and sets up the conflict for Book 3.
That said, it's got some problems. The pacing is always fast. Though the narration voices are distinct, the dialogue often doesn't sound like the show characters, generally because this story is really dramatic. It doesn't help that I was never really interested in Cheery (aka "Cheersalis") as a character, the first two books are focused on her, and she ends up turning into... well, not too much more obnoxious a thing than what we got in changeling canon, actually. c.c But most problematic, that interesting headcanon has a tendency to be introduced only as soon as it's needed. For instance, Chrysalis's memory problems are explained by what happens at the end of Book 2, yet never show up in the story before that. It feels like a constant slew of explaining what happened without having ever set anything up, and more than one tense moment is undercut by the author stringing the reader along. I wanted some clues, in other words, and I never got them.
This culminates in Book 3 having a dramatic climax that makes zero sense; that's the real mess here. It's a lucky thing you can stop after Book 2, I guess. (For all that Book 3 also seems to have given me the shipping I wanted from this series. <.<) So Books 1 and 2 are rated Recommended for Changeling Fans — which, I will note, is an improvement from the original review — while Book 3 is Vaguely Recommended.
Lest We Remember, not Let We Remember.
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Let We Ignore Present's Typos :V
I'm open to suggestions, PP! I'm looking to do more, but not sure what stories would be a good fit for me.
Man, I remember once having an angelfood cake basically fall/rip apart out of the pan while it was cooling upside down. So bad. D:
"Shell Game" was pleasant, charming, well-constructed, and despite being very strongly slice of life presented (limited) stakes that I really cared about. Great stuff from a great author.
Glad TQ&I ended up a bit better than you received book 1, sorry about what a clusterfuck that whole process was. :|
I once made a cake that was half angel's food cake, half devils food cake.
I called it "The Moral Dilemma."
4718930
Literally anything. You don't have to worry about multiple characters, just pick something of a size you're comfortable tackling and go4it!
4718951
That is exactly what happened.
4718973
They're a relatively difficult cake to make. Lots of the more egg white based ones are. I've still never actually succeeded in making a Spanische Windtorte I was happy with, and I wasn't even going for particularly decorated.
With Dragonvale, it wasn't long before I was like this is twisted stone soup, and I love it. :D
It took me more than the title to figure out what was going on with "Ghosts." I thought it'd be her parents. :V
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I just looked up Spanische Windtorte.
It looks like the kind of thing you have to be absolutely insane to try and make. c.c
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In principle and if you're going for a basic look, it shouldn't be that hard, but everything has always seemed to break before assembly.
And I love both meringue and flavored whipped cream, so there's that.
Wheee! I got a 'recommended'!