Fic recs, April 13th: New Character Tags, Groups edition! · 1:17pm Apr 13th, 2018
Holy shit, happy Friday the 13th. :B Yesterday was full of crap, so I ain't worried.
Lise Eclaire has a Patreon! It's geared toward the production of original fiction, but one of the two featured stories, Rush to Level 0, I've been editing for a couple months now. :) Go check it all out, especially if you're into MMO-style video games and VR-fueled futurist mysteries! (Or, y'know, if you just wanna give Lise money, which is also good.)
So, going off this post from last year, I've decided to review a story for each new tag, like what I did with the content warning tags previously, choosing high-rated stories from my RIL or, when needed, the site at large. (Some of these have, like, a half-dozen stories to them, total.) As there are a shit ton of new tags, though, I'm breaking things up using the headings in that blog post. We start with groups of ponies, monsters, you name it, and you can expect more NCT editions as the month progresses! :D Milestone's a-comin'!
H: 1 R: 3 C: 2 V: 1 N: 1
Bat Pony:
Interloper by Raugos
Genre: Cutie Re-Mark
A lone scout encounters a strange mare who claims to be the cause of her problems.
Oh boy, we're off to a great start. <.< And yes, this uses the dreaded T-word. But, contemptible word choices aside, this is really cool. CRM is just full of possibility for fanfiction, and in this case, we get a story about forgiveness wrapped up in a hard look at the Sombra future. It's just full of surprises!
Recommended
Dragons:
The Cycle of Flame by Novel-Idea
Genre: Action
No matter what she does, Philomena can't just fly away from the world.
Ironically, this story is more about phoenixes than dragons; you can probably expect a lot more like that in these posts. We're going by tags here, after all, not description. So this is a fast-paced piece about Philomena living in the Dragon Lands prior to meeting Celestia. We mostly see her messing with dragons and trying to avoid her responsibilities back home. And given that she's our first-person narrator, she's a tad insufferable, but she's always been a right little shit, so it fits. It also makes Philomena's sobering at meeting Celestia hit home really well. This is good!
Recommended
Griffons:
One Night in a Storm by Shrink Laureate
Genre: Slice of Life
Ponies and gryphons don't have much in common. Except these two.
Hey, did you know Shrink Laureate is a really great writer? If you didn't, here's proof: a calm, deliberate story of friendship laser-focused on two really strong characters. It's world-building by way of character-building, a tale of common understanding growing where none existed that never even thinks about being preachy.
Highly Recommended
Minotaur:
You Are SO Under Arrest! by Jay David
Reading by Lotus Moon
Genre: Fixfic/Joke's in the Title
Twilight has another option for Iron Will's cruise.
I don't know what to say. It's a fixfic for Once Upon a Zeppelin that ends up taking away all the humor from the episode. The joke's in the title and story description, so there's no point in reading the story itself. And the opening is really telly. I appreciate the desire to see Iron Will get what's coming to him, but he's not exactly a criminal. And his escape was hilarious, come on.
Not Recommended
Pets:
Baby Limestone Rides to War by CoffeeMinion
Reading by Scribbler, Agent0Fluffy and NeighratorPony
Genre: Cute
A certain pygmy alligator's day just got a whole lot weirder.
This is a short, goofy piece about, well, just what the title says. Most of the backstory is built in the description, so make sure you read that. (If I'm being honest, I wish there'd been more of it in the story itself, but at least there's some.) Otherwise, this is fun and different.
Recommended as Light Reading
Royal Guard:
Tis but a Scratch by Dr Atlas
300th Review of 2018!
Genre: Comedy
One guard's night just can't get any worse.
First problem is "private" is sometimes used like the guard's name. Second is that this is only ever mildly amusing. Fans of motherly Celestia will likely get more out of this than not, as that's the whole point, but overall, it's just okay.
Vaguely Recommended
Yaks:
Yaks Not Ponies by Metool Bard
Genre: Episode Followup
Princess Twilight isn't the only one with something to apologize for.
This kind of comes off as fixfic, but definitely more the sort I'd like to read. It's mostly just Celestia chiding Prince Rutherford for being a poor guest, but I will note it anticipated a few things about yaks that we wouldn't learn until the second episode about them. So that's something!
Recommended If Yaks Make You Mad
Zebra:
Trade Negotiations by Admiral Biscuit
Genre: Slice of Life
Zakia's village enters a tizzy as winged ponies approach.
This story very adeptly builds a sense of tension and anticipation. Lions and worse lurk out in the savannah. The ponies have little to nothing in common with the zebras. There are potentially far-reaching diplomatic repercussions from hosting them. And, to top it all off, our narrator is at that stage in life where she's not quite an adult and struggling to grow out of her childhood. The actual story is a fairly tame meeting of cultures, all things considered, but that buildup is what makes it work.
Recommended
Huh. Completely missed that it was Friday the 13th. I was too focused on it being Homestuck Day.
I need to pay more attention to these new tags…
While I understand why Yaks Not Ponies might be labeled as such, I hesitate to call it a "fixfic." Yes, it did address Prince Rutherford's undiplomatic behavior, but my hope was to contextualize that behavior and show why I didn't mind the yaks while others wanted their heads on pikes (at least going by the conversations I saw taking place when the episode Party Pooped first came out). And it seems you did realize that in your review, so I'd say that mission was accomplished.
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Y'know, that rings true in hindsight. I think maybe I'll change the tag...