Fic recs, March 15th! · 1:55pm Mar 15th, 2018
Was Going to Be an Edition But Then I Bitched Out Edition :V
Hey, do you like horses? Do you like reading about horses? Something tells me you might. :V Go check out Chariot by our own Jeffrey C. Wells, a charming story about optimism and horse-drawn sky chariots written about a year ago.
Yeah, so I had planned on doing a contest today, but in preparing an edition -- just read the first review, it'll explain -- I decided not to do that edition, so I grabbed a half-dozen short fics off my RIN to do this! Happy reading!
H: 0 R: 1 C: 4 V: 0 N: 1
Hasbro Units Inc.: User Guides and Manuals by Timpeni
Genre: User Guide
So I was talking with a feller named Dekko over in the Fallout: Equestria Discord recently, and he mentioned this "user guide" thing and how it had been banned years ago. Never having heard of it, I was immediately intrigued; surely, I could make an edition! Anyway, it's easy to see why this was banned: This is not a story. (And if you go to make a new story and check out #5 in the Genre bans, "User guides and manuals" is it. I never knew what they meant by that!) It's possible to write a story in this format, but no effort was made. This first entry includes Fluttershy, Discord and Luna, and suffice to say, after the first, I felt I knew all I needed to. It's just a slew of fandom memes strung together in a hardly convincing user manual format. (Also there are gross, creepy sexbot things happening here. My god. I don't even know if this supposed to be a robot or what.) I had had plans to make an edition, because a few of the handful of user guides left on the site looked like they might be parodies, but fuck it, no, I don't want any more of this. D:
DNF: 1/???
Criffleball by Masterweaver
Sequel to Oversaturation
Genre: Sports Comedy
A new world needs new sports: enter criffleball. Does anyone actually know what criffleball is?
This is basically just a thousand words of made-up words and people not knowing what's going on. If you've ever wondered why people get confused by sports, look no further! I will say I was pleased that this turned out quite differently from Buckball Season; I was anticipating an adaptation. But it's mostly just a one-joke fic that's at least somewhat amusing.
Recommended for Laughs
Language by Taialin
Sequel to Listen
Genre: Shipping Drama
Hearts and Hooves Day is on its way, and Rarity is once again feeling left out.
The first story in this trilogy introduced Rarity to Fluttershy's world of meditation and in-depth listening, bringing them closer together as friends. In this, Rarity's ability to read ponies leads her to realize that Fluttershy has a crush on her, which sends Rarity into a spiral of despair because straight. Sadly, it's just kind of your standard shipfic. Written well, yes, but offering nothing original beyond the setup created in the last story. And the thing that gets me is, at the end, Rarity makes a decision to go for Fluttershy to ease her heart, regardless of what Rarity's own heart says. After a whole spiel about not dating someone out of pity, this felt less than genuine. This story is, overall, okay, but I don't think I'll be checking out the threequel.
Recommended for Shippers Only
The Worst of Mentions by BlazzingInferno
Sequel to The Best of Tensions
Genre: Comedic Shipping
What are Spike and Rarity to do when it seems their relationship is the talk of Ponyville?
Sadly, we seem to have left the realm of parodic deconstruction. <.< I mean, Spike, the most eligible bachelor in Ponyville? Dude, that's creepy. D: The two main jokes here are "Rarity tries not to get her dress dirty" and "Spike's way more into this than she is", along with the Rarity-bashing from all and sundry in the first chapter. That bit I thought was funny; the rest is just so-so. Ugh, but it just ends in a Sparity kiss. D: That's not funny.
Recommend for Sparity Fans Only
Brown Box by TheOnly
Genre: White Box Parody
Oh holy shit, TheOnly wrote a parody of White Box. This is really old (so's White Box), but if you're familiar with the original, it's pretty damned funny. It's something of a sequel, too, with "Vancas" written as horrendously thick as well as a little off. It's not the same kind of story as even White Box's own troll sequel, but it's still a lot of fun.
Recommended If You've Read the Original
What a Twist! by naturalbornderpy
Genre: Meta
You didn't think Twist was named after candy, did you?
This one's kind of a mind-blower, but mostly just for being convoluted. I will give it this, though: it's new. I don't think I've ever seen anything like the base premise before (I likely shortlisted this because I was thinking it would be similar to an idea I've had for a while), nor like the concepts which come out as it progresses. If you want to read something different? This got you covered.
Recommended
Iirc, there was actually a link in the rules regarding user manuals and why they were banned? That's how i learned what they were, after all.
Those, and MST3K-like stories, were already banned before i joined the website, and i distintcly remember not having any fucking clue what any of them were. I suppose in its time they were popular, or simply inspired a lot of copycats, Five Score-like.
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Oh yeah, they did. I was there when they were becoming a thing. Massively popular but, since they weren't really stories, Knightly put the kibosh on it fairly quickly. That and meta stories like "Twilight Earns the Feature Box".
Oh man, TheOnly. There's a guy I miss from the old days.
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I know, right? D:
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I’m forever tilting at windmills seeing just how meta I can get without getting my stories banned.
Is there a way to stop getting notifications from the royal canterlot library?
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As this is not a Royal Canterlot Library post, I don't know why you're asking here. <.<
Go to your feed, click Options, click Social Site Posts off.
But know that you make me very sad. :(