Fic recs, September 21st! · 9:48pm Sep 21st, 2018
See? More reviews! :D
Illya Leonov has done a reading of Aragon's Evil Is Easy, Governing Is Harder, with Scribbler, IMShadow007, Cloud 9, Tenkage, EmeraldComet and Gina M!
And my newest reading is AugieDog's poem "Ponyville"!
Because I'm running out of stories to do readings of. :B Anyone got any suggestions? Keep it T-rated at most, and under 4k words. Preferably anything that doesn't already have a reading.
H: 1 R: 2 C: 2 V: 0 N: 0
Live Wire and the Temple of Doom by Ether Echoes
Sequel to Through the Well of Pirene
Genre: Adventure
Wire tells her daughter a bedtime story.
For all that this starts us off well into the future, with Live Wire grown up and having a kid and all, it's actually that most insidious type of companion piece, the bonus chapter. This is the story of what Wire got up to in the Cup Court while the CMCs were under the Cup King's thrall, and if you have no idea what that means, well, go read Pirene and then come back here, and maybe you won't have to spend a few pages trying to figure out just what the hell is going on like I did. @_@ Not a criticism, really, just that this comes right in the middle of Pirene's action, and if it's not fresh in your mind, you may find yourself lost. But that's all on me. This turns out to be a good scene, filling in some blanks that didn't necessarily bother me during the novel, but also giving a good character more development, as she deserves. I only have two actual criticisms. First, it's hard to take this as actual storytelling. It comes off as a cut scene from the original, given a framing story of its own. The writing's very literary, is what I'm saying; it's easy enough to ignore, though. But almost worse is that this ends on a twist, and then, y'know, ends! So this could be the start of something even more, and who knows what will happen next? D: We'll just have to wait.
Recommended
The Whole Is Greater by flipwix
Sequel to Sum of Their Parts
Genre: Feelgood
For one day the world will be hers.
So, okay, the problem with this is that it's literally just an epilogue, as the author says in the description. It should be a second chapter to the original story instead of its own post, because there just isn't enough here to stand on its own. That said, what's here is pleasant enough to justify its existence in the first place. This is mostly just a chance to sidestep all the worst-case scenarios dreamed up in the original story, by way of a large infodump letter from Twilight, followed by a happy end for Nova. So this won't have any effect if you haven't read the first story, but it's not terrible.
Recommended If You Enjoyed the First One
Split Eyes by Meta Four
Companion Piece to Black Magic Mare, Roaming Queen
Genre: Epistolary
Before she arrived in Ponyville, Ditzy Doo wrote letters to her parents as she travelled Equestria.
I would suggest reading this first, and letting Black Magic Mare fill in the parts about Trixie. That seems like a much more natural way to approach these two stories, though I will definitely agree that they can be read in any order. It might also spoil a small plot point from Alarm Clock, so reading it after that is also in order. Also, definitely read the GDocs; I don't know why they're different, but the two versions are different in fairly important ways. As for the story itself, I'll say this: I got to the ending and wanted more. There's almost no point to this, but it's just so fascinating. If you've enjoyed any of Ditzy's antics in the Alarmverse… Well, it all happens off-screen here, but I was with her every step of the way.
Recommended
Something Sweet to Bite by ToXikyogHurt
Genre: Comedy
Rainbow Dash totally knows Fluttershy is a vampony, but she's cool with it.
Not to be confused with the other Something Sweet to Bite. Anyway, there's maybe less comedy in this than the tag might suggest, but it's also not tagged Romance, and it won a FlutterDash contest. Of course, it could just be that Fluttershy used well for comedy means low-key jokes that you might just miss. It's honestly kind of impressive that way. That said, this is mostly about fandom jokes, and I don't really get the punchline, plus there are significant issues with dialogue tagging. Still, the way it follows through on what it sets up makes it a pretty darned fun comedy. Just, y'know, low-key.
Recommended for Low-Key laughs
Better by Unbridled
Genre: Drama
Cadence would have a bachelorette party to remember, if only other ponies weren't so standoffish...
This story is living proof that you do not need an M-rating to be sexy. Holy shit. Better yet, it's an excellent supposition for a canon event... that I don't want to spoil. All I can say is that Cadence is written perfectly, and you absolutely should not read the character tags before you get into this, because the ending will have a much greater impact. This is pretty damned awesome.
Highly Recommended
wow, that last one is a new author too!
You know, I thought about that storyteller issue?
But if you'll recall, Pirene itself had that conceit. It was a first person narrative presented as the story the girls told to their parents (with Leit chiming in with her part), but it is actually a very literary experience rather than a proper "story."
I'll just chalk it up to Live Wire doing some writing in her spare time. Maybe she's got a very active little community of enthusiasts up in Los Pegasus.
4941721
Like I said, it's not a big thing, but it did give me pause.
If only because it's been long enough, I guess. c.c