Fic recs, September 7th! · 12:40am Sep 8th, 2019
I have been clued into someone wanting to do fan-episode scripts after the show ends. This is something I am incredibly interested in, so go fill out this survey to start guiding the process!
This month's Flash Fiction Online includes colonizing a new planet (with lots of horse references!) and a funeral at space!
Lastly, I wrote a new SCP. New month, new minifics! I even finished two collections!
H: 5 R: 9 C: 8 V: 0 N: 0
Scorpion Days by Cold in Gardez
Genre: Character Piece
A pony goes into a knife shop…
This is quite the striking little piece! First there's the solid imagery, covering pretty much every sense. Then we've got this tense back and forth between two ponies who have history. Then there's talk about razors and knives, and it gets a little intense. We're left with some threads, but nothing concrete. I found it tantalizing.
Highly Recommended
Subtle Hints by Esle Ynopemos
Genre: Shipping
Fluttershy and Rarity have something to say.
Farewell, Thirty Minutes Shy! And this dialogue-only shipfic is quite a nice way to go. :) The comedy tag is overstating things a little; most of the humor is just in the fact that they're doing this in the first place, but there is at least one good joke in the interim. Cute!
Recommended for Shippers
Memorize by Esle Ynopemos
Genre: Sad
Yaknow, usually when there's a memory issue involved in a sad fic, it's losing memory that causes pain. This was a surprising inversion!
Recommended
If Wishes Were Fishes by Nonagon
Genre: Comedy
That was surprisingly funny. This is how you do comedic timing, regardless of whether a joke is the entirety of the story.
Recommended
HiE: A Poem by FuzzyFurvert
Genre: Limerick
Well'p! This is about as anti-HiE as one might expect from the title! Funny, but a shocking finale!
Recommended for Laughs
Facts and Figures by HoofAndQuill
Genre: Rom-Com
Twilight gets worked up over a relationship quiz.
This is a pretty cute story about Cadence teaching Twilight something important about the nature of love, to say nothing of math. Granted, the ending kind of throws that all away for comedy, but I still enjoyed it.
Recommended
Matters of Interest by FanOfMostEverything
Genre: Luna's Return
Luna's reintegration into Equestrian society conjures up some oversights.
One great thing about this story is it explains the entire plot of The Ticket Master in a simple way that I have to wonder why I've never seen before. Also, this passes the Luna Test so well, we get "I shall thou thee for now" and literally no one else would have thought to write that, let alone get it right. On top of all that, this covers everything from bat ponies to changes in Equestrian language over the centuries, and it all fits together remarkably well. It's great to still read stories set shortly after Luna's return, even nine seasons out.
Highly Recommended
Solo by Admiral Biscuit
Reading by ShadowOfCygnus
Sequel to Highway 502
Genre: Working Ponies
Poppy's never done a tow on her own before.
Thanks to that 'contest', I now have a genre tag for Biscuit's brand of story. :) So if you've never towed a car before, as I haven't, this is an interesting laundry list of how to do it; if you have, you might find it a bit pedantic. But there being a pony in the scene makes things a bit more interesting, as do her reactions to the wreck. Beyond that, not much happens, but it wasn't a bad piece.
Recommended as Light Reading
To Soothe a Savage Breast by AugieDog
Genre: Romance/Friendshipping
I don't think I've ever had cause to use both of those tags on a single story before. :O So this is four sonnets, one each from the members of LyraBon and ScratchTavia, as said four ponies meet up for their monthly get-together. It's about what they all mean to each other, be that romantic, cathartic, or Bon-Bon's silent distaste for the two musicians from Canterlot. (A nice touch.) Pretty unique, as these tend to be!
Recommended
Make It So by Silvernis
Genre: Comedy/AU
Negotiations with the griffins have broken down. Captain Twilight Sparkle leads the attack.
I don't think this is a Star Trek crossover, but it's about as close as you can get to one without going full sci-fi. I highly appreciated that. Also, it's pretty funny, so much so that I even laughed at the Murdershy joke.
Recommended
The Type of Pony Every Pony Should Know by Bombastic Bookpony
Genre: Sad
This is a really good attempt at explaining why Rarity is so different from her parents. I kind of wish more had been done with it, but it's good minific, setting up the ideas well.
Recommended
The Transported Pony by Queen Moriarty
Genre: Action
Starlight visits Appleloosa's Grand Arena, to see the pony fights.
The reveal at the end of this is so obvious that in hindsight, I wonder if it was meant to be a mystery at all. Regardless, the writing is solid, and the setting is pretty interesting since, y'know, pony fights in Appleloosa. No idea how that happened. I would read more about this.
Recommended
First Contact by ObabScribbler
Genre: Dark
This would be a really good first chapter of a dark AU where Cadence falls to the Nightmare. Instead, well, it's a neat idea, with a good look at Cadence's life pre-canon. Definitely doesn't count as 'shipping', though it is tantalizing regardless.
Recommended
Resident Elder's Map by SirNotAppearingInThisFic
Genre: Action/World-Building
Twilight and Ember fight a really big tatzlwurm.
I have to say, the beginning and end of this are so fucking epic, I was kind of disappointed by the slow-paced world-building midsection. That said, the world-building is pretty great too, especially the way in which Ember casts gravitas over the things they're dealing with. But the reason to come here is watching the way Twilight finally defeats the wurm; I don't see a lot of authors try to describe spellcasting like this. This was cool!
Highly Recommended
[url-https://www.fimfiction.net/story/137942/14/pone-shots/in-neighon]In Neighon by GroaningGreyAgony
Genre: Feghoot
This was… definitely a thing. Very cracky, anime-styled, second-person, and ending in a joke the author had to link to to explain. Take that as you will.
Recommended as Light Reading
Bad Balloons by KwirkyJ
Genre: Magical Mystery Cure
If other ponies were happy, Fluttershy was happy; but not today.
Been a while since I saw a fic like this. MMC was finished in 22 minutes, but who knows how long the ponies had to suffer with their cutie marks swapped? So this gives us a short but sad look into Fluttershy fretting over her inability to properly entertain others, the way her cutie mark tells her. It's emotional.
Recommended
Giggle at the Ghosties by Pascoite
Genre: Bittersweet
Uh, wow, damn. This is a really gripping 150 words. Maybe a little cliche, but just the way this is formatted is great. Nothing more needed to be here than the dialogue, and it works out impressively.
Highly Recommended
Every Sense of the Phrase by Abecedarian
Genre: Feghoot?
Ditzy has made a home for all the abandoned letters.
I have to be honest, I don't get this one. There's some good gags, and it's obvious Derpy has done something completely ridiculous, but I was waiting for a punchline that never came. And I don't get what Pinkie's role is, either. Maybe someone can figure it out for me.
Recommended for Laughs?
Just Another Day in Equestria Part 2 by 2Merr
Mature: Sex
Genre: AiE Comedy
Twilight is really tired of all the Anons.
This story is equal parts gross and funny. Twilight's fed up because Ponyville is overrun by unstoppable perverts, who have no reign over them because Celestia wanted to get it on with as many as possible. If that sounds amusing to you, you'll probably want to read this, but be warned: it's considerably crackier than the other fics in this collection have been. And that's saying something.
Recommended for Terrible People
Don't Shoot the Breeze by FanOfMostEverything
Genre: Comedy
It was a good day to be Zephyr Breeze.
You ever wanted to see Zephyr Breeze meet his match? Look no further. This was inspired and I love it.
Highly Recommended
To Speak or Not to Speak by Level Dasher
Genre: Shipping
This was cute, but unless it's a feghoot, it just kind of ends. And well, if it is, it's a pretty weak one. Still, you gotta give this collection credit for writing the Student Six so well.
Recommended for Shippers
Fishy Business by Loganberry
Genre: Poem
It's hard to not be hard on poetry after reading something by AugieDog. The meter in this is impeccable, but you can see again and again places where things are twisted around for the sake of getting words to rhyme. Lots of excess fluff and digressions, I mean. Also, I did not get the joke at the end! But otherwise, this draws together some ridiculously disparate prompt elements into a decent story, and I liked it more than disliked.
Recommended for Poetry Fans
lol
Thanks for the recs.
Also, your SCP is only three numbers below one that I wrote!
I actually pulled up the Wikipedia page on Early Modern English when writing "Matters of Interest" to make sure I got everything right. Not sure where I picked up that thou can be a verb. Might well have been Shakespeare. Glad you enjoyed my stuffs!
5117714
oh shit
5117730
Anything in English can be verbed. :P
Yeah, this is probably a story that's been done lots of times for lots of characters, but the idea that Granny could still laugh stuck me as worth dipping into that well again.
5117730
There's a similar concept in German, and probably several other European languages. There's a polite and a familiar form of "you," and there's a verb for asking someone if they feel it's appropriate to use the familiar form.
Hey, thanks a bunch for linking our survey! I'm 99% sure we have you on our invite list, but I guess we haven't gotten to you yet...
Oh, hey, it's the Unhinged entry that I wrote a blog post about the making-of. I hope you didn't miss that in the author's notes.
Resident Elder's Map also deserves props for being an Ember story that doesn't ship her with either Spike or Anon.
5118106
So far as I'm concerned, shoehorning that in would have made the story harder and more awkward to write. It also wasn't in the card and otherwise never crossed my mind... but, uh, thanks?
5118370
I mean, I know it's mostly a necessity of circumstance, but I'll take what I can get. She's a great character and there's a lot you can do with her, but nooooo, most authors just give her boobs and an [M] rating and call it a day.
I feel it only reasonable here to point out that Fishy Business was written, start to finish, in 45 minutes longhand! That's because it was done under the same conditions, and with the same prompts, as the 2013 BUCK flashfic contest. I'm sure AugieDog could do better in 45 minutes, but he's AugieDog. I could also do better, but only with much more time!
None of this is to complain about the review, which is perfectly fair; thank you.
Just wanted to point out that Fishy Business is far from a normal story!
And now I kinda want to write something along the same lines without those restrictions, to see how much better I can do. But I also kinda don't, in case the answer is "no better at all"!
5119073
That does improve my impression of it. :)
Well no, you could have done some editing while transferring it to the printed word! >:V
5119230
Heh. I suppose if I'd thought about it, I could have included a photo of the longhand version. Still wouldn't have proved it only took me 45 minutes, though. But it did!
I intended it to be one of those "sad trombone" cues that plays after bad jokes. i don't think the person who reviewed it on Tumblr got it, either.
Her asked her to her to send a letter home to her. That's uh...not my best.