Fic recs, September 10th! · 12:51pm Sep 10th, 2018
It's been a while, but the third chapter of Scribbler's epic radio play, No Place Like Home, is out!
Minifics today. :) I realized that not only should I not lean on them as filler posts, I should also make an effort to do them once a month, as regularly as possible, or I'll never finish them. <.< Also, I read this month's Flash Fiction Online finally and wasn't really impressed with anything, so these are all you get.
H: 1 R: 12 C: 9 V: 1 N: 0
The Apprentice by Cold in Gardez
Genre: Dark Comedy
Man, I don't even know. The scene is a police hostage negotiation, but CiG remembered that ponies use pastries as weapons (or at least, they did back in S1… sigh), so every part of this otherwise pitch-perfect criminal drama is tinged with surrealism. It's kind of perfect. Just a little bit of everything, really a fun read.
Recommended
The Curse of the Windigo by Esle Ynopemos
Genre: Dark
So some kind of hate curse has brought the windigoes back, and those who fall prey to it must be cast before they bring ruin on their neighbors. This is grim, but it's so tense, almost like a horror story. Really great if you enjoy darker fare.
Recommended
Magical Super Gossamer Squad Go! by Esle Ynopemos
Genre: Random Comedy
Well, like the prompt says, this is MLP:FiM as a mahou shoujo anime. XD It's goofy, but fun.
Recommended If You're Likely to Get the Joke
Planning Parenthood by Esle Ynopemos
Genre: Shipping
RariPie, anyone? That's not one you see often. This is a fairly light piece about Rarity and Pinkie planning on having a foal, trying to figure out what to call it, working out the logistics of the necessary spell with Twilight… And then it drops a huge bombshell right at the end and just stops. c.c This could definitely be the start of something much grander.
Recommended for Shippers
Horror Week, part 7: Spike by Nonagon
500th Review of 2018!
Genre: Light Comedy
And so Horror Week comes to a close, uh, probably a year after I started reading it. <.< Which might have something to do with why this bounced off me. I don't know if it's a reference to the other stories or not, and the punchline is pretty thin, all things considered.
Vaguely Recommended
Epic Meal Time/MLP Crossover Twiluna Prompt by FuzzyFurvert
Genre: Random Comedy
This was a mistake.
Recommended If You Like Epic Meal Time?
Old Habits by HoofAndQuill
Genre: Slice of Life
Spike and Twilight pull an all-nighter to get a report to Princess Celestia. This is intensely cute. :D A nice look at Twilight and Spike's life, followed by a little bonding. Just what the doctor ordered.
Recommended
Yo, Jimbo! by FanOfMostEverything
Genre: Comedy
Discord, as usual, has weird ideas about helping. This is amusing and perhaps more clever than it needed to be. I enjoyed it.
Recommended
Air Accident Brief--Midair Collision Northwest of Ponyville by Admiral Biscuit
Reading by ShadowOfCygnus
Genre: Accident Report
Pretty sure this is a first; I feel like I haven't seen accident reports as fanfiction before. Trust Biscuit to try something way outside the usual boxes like that. Trust him to do it well, too! You can tell what's going on and who's involved, despite the dry tone and lack of physical identifiers or names. (Well, though I was thrown by the identity of the pilot.) This is neat.
Recommended
Dweebs by AugieDog
Genre: Poem
I have to admit, I find the combination of Gilda and poetry rather a bad fit. This coming from her necessitates suspension of disbelief from the reader; she's not thinking this way, it's just the way it's presented. Otherwise, it's perfectly fine, and the villanelle is a tough form to master.
Recommended for Poetry Fans
The Morning After by Silvernis
Genre: Emotional
I love the way this slowly coalesces into what it's trying to portray. You start with the title, then tea, then who's having it, then what she's doing, and it suddenly all makes sense. And the best part might be that it's never then dealt with; everything's lingering behind the setting. This was well done.
Recommended
Twilight the Vampire Slayer by Bombastic Bookpony
Genre: Dark
I hate to say it, but, "Buffyisms" aside, Twilight Sparkle: Night Shift did it better.
Recommended Only If You Like Vampire-Slaying Action
The Atlantis Complex by KingMoriarty
Genre: Grim
A pony narrates the end of the world, and what was lost. And, as much as this takes a certain season four cameo and turns it way on its head, the real meat is trying to figure out who's talking. Ten bucks says you don't. There's just no way anyone could predict the narrator's identity, and I'm not entirely sure I know what to take away from it.
Recommended
A Challenge Worth Taking: Part 3 by ObabScribbler
Genre: Sad
Noteworthy finds the drive to succeed in his crush. This is, unfortunately for him, a one-sided kind of shipfic, but Noteworthy's struggle is very real. I love the little details about his home life growing up. They make him all the more relatable. I kind of want to give him shit for how this turns out, but, well, everyone's human.
Recommended
Merry Mutiny by SirNotAppearingInThisFic
Genre: Character Piece
Trixie nurses her grudge while working the rock farm. In many ways, this story is very unsurprising, the kind of thing you'd just expect to be true about Trixie's life in between her first two show appearances. But, well, read the "card" text at the end which inspired this… How'd he get this out of that? Good character work regardless.
Recommended for Trixie Fans
Ascension of the Golden Orbs by GroaningGreyAgony
Sequel to "Just Sit There and Look Calm, I'll Be Back in Fifteen Minutes"
Genre: Comedy
This has one of the best last lines I've ever read. XD My god, it's terrifying. The prequel story is like three paragraphs, you can afford to read both in one go.
Recommended
Only, Only, Only Me by horizon
Sequel to Only, Only, Only You
Genre: Poem
Only horizon could mimic the majesty of Only, Only, Only You and do it well. Fuck me, you people need to get published.
Highly Recommended
Day in the Mind of Raindrops by KwirkyJ
Genre: Character Piece
Raindrops is that yellow and blue background pegasus who was maybe more well known back in season one. What she gets up to during her day is pretty interesting, actually, from her impulse control issues to who she's related to. And I like how this is almost about her dealing with being a background pony. Good stuff.
Recommended
Bad Eggs by Pascoite
Genre: Feghoot
For fuck's sake, Pascoite. 
Goddammit.
Recommended If You Like Puns
The First Party by Abecedarian
Genre: Comedy
Pinkie tells the story of the first comedy. Part of me (my eyes) is just rolling at the meat jokes, but for a quick setup-punchline story, this was pretty darned funny.
Recommended
Pony Slurs by 2Merr
Genre: AiE Comedy
As a story, there's kind of no point to this, just Anon trying to come up with slurs because ponies don't have any. But the path to get there is funny, definitely a good example of the kind of AiE humor I enjoy most.
Recommended for Laughs
Ring Toss of Friendship by FanOfMostEverything
Genre: EQG Shipping Comedy
This is a takeoff of Rollercoaster of Friendship; specifically, the best part thereof. I like the solution it comes up with for the ring toss problem, and I cackled like a madman at the final line.
Recommended
Second Best by Shrink Laureate
Genre: Comedy
Twilight learns the horrible truth Celestia has planned for her. I have to admit, the ending takes all the wind out of this story's sails, but I can't say I was disappointed overall. It's a lot of fun getting there.
Recommended for Laughs
Next up, Sunset shipping! >:V
"More clever than it needs to be" is practically my mission statement.
Of all the Unhinged entries, I figured this was the most "meh"-worthy. I stand corrected, apparently. I look forward to your reactions to the next few, which I like better, myself.
Good news! I don't know if it appeared in your feed or not, but I actually wrote that blog post showing how I turned a card into a story for "Resident Elder's Map".
This is the shortest entry to date, and it seemed to me that I was under-performing so far as story-to-card ratios go. On the other side of things, the one I wrote for Admiral Biscuit accidentally became the test-run for a larger work based on elements drawn from the card. And also from Admiral Biscuit. I might be copying the format of his million-word story…
While I'm here, I dunno if I've brought this up yet but Daring Do and the Ancient Outpost is sorted under Unhinged in my Google Drive because it, too, used a card as one-of-two prompts that the story was based on. Do what you will with that.
4934824
All 66 stories?
BEST. REVIEW. EVER.
4935022
Once someone points me to the group folder where I can find 'em, yeah. :B
4935054
https://www.fimfiction.net/group/212641/sunset-shipping-contest-journeys
Have fun, It's 400k some words this year.
I've been saying that for a while now.
4935098
