Fic recs, January 27th: Project Get! #10 · 3:32pm Jan 27th, 2020
Call this one Newbies edition. As with all Projects Get!, I sorted my RIL by views and picked ten off the bottom of the list. This time, however, I have chosen ten authors who I've never reviewed before, for reasons. (I also made sure the stories were under 10k words, for other reasons.)
I think you'll maybe be surprised by some of what I found. :) Go give these newbies some love!
H: 1 R: 3 C: 3 V: 3 N: 0
Do Goofballs Dream of Clown Sheep? by Sketcha-Holic
Sequel to Brave Nocturne
Genre: AU/Character Piece
Luna walks into a classmate's dream, trying to figure out why he acts up so much.
I realize the power of this AU: you can write stories about Luna who isn't Princess of the Night with all the associated baggage, but who is a precocious filly with the power to enter others' dreams. You can tell a lot of interesting stories with that, like say this one. Party Favor is a troubled young colt, Luna can't relate to other ponies her age, we get a strong scene with the two of them exploring a bad dream. That said, the gravitas is undercut slightly by Luna deciding to change his name in her head, and the ending felt a tad brief. I mean, this is building to understanding between them, which happens, but I could have gone for a little longer denouement. Still, I can't fault this one too much; it's a good read.
Recommended
Greens by bigbear
Sequel to Shoots and Roots
Genre: Disaster Flick
Twilight is more than just a unicorn or pegasus now.
It's slightly odd that she's Ditzy in the original but Derpy here. So I came into this expecting a sweet slice of life about Twilight and Carrot Top bonding over earth pony magic. Then the storm hit. This went for "epic" when it really didn't need to. Worse, I couldn't help noticing how flat the dialogue tends to be, as the character slowly explain to each other what's going on at any given moment. I appreciate that this got me to read Shoots and Roots again, that was its own reward, but this is no Shoots and Roots.
Vaguely Recommended
Twilight Sparkle Goes on a Date With an Armchair by Prime jeremy
Genre: Random Comedy
Twilight really likes chairs.
Oh yeah, season 8 memes. So this story is about what you'd expect: a single joke taken to an extreme. The caveat is the writing; I suspect the writer is young, new or both, and could use someone to look over their writing before it's published. This will not be of interest to anyone who is a stickler for good writing, but I will say it made me laugh.
Vaguely Recommended
All Quiet on the Eastern Front by Thunder-Bolt
Genre: Sad Warfic
Briar Patch visits his friend one last time in the trench field hospital.
I think the author just really wanted to write a WWI story. There's no attempt to explain what's going on, why, or even where they are; this just drops us into some trenches and expects the reader to understand immediately what's going on. And that's fine! I certainly got it. This is all done to tell a story about a pony losing his friend, and the complex emotion that is grief. Granted, it needed one more editing pass because there's a distinct lack of apostrophes, but beyond that, this was pretty good!
Recommended for Fans of World War I Stories
Rainbow Bushido by Salty Alty
Genre: AU Action
Samurai Rainbow Dash dispatches a dishonorable changeling in combat.
You should read this because it's really fucking cool. A little romanticized, probably, with all the "honorable combat" and so forth, and of course it's just a single scene about an idea that doesn't end up going anywhere, but the action is way awesome, and just over the top enough. I mean, you'd expect that from Rainbow Dash, wouldn't you? I'll definitely read more by this author later.
Recommended
True Colors by Knight of Clubs
Genre: Tragedy
A mare and her filly try to escape the changeling invaders.
This is a pretty quick piece, giving us a good ground-level look at the changeling invasion. It's also got a solid twist at the end. Downsides include the writing, which needs a little more editing, and the fact that our main characters aren't even given names. I'd have liked to have more of a reason to care about them.
Recommended for Changeling Fans
Appled Mathematics by Hoofclid
Genre: Shipping
Braeburn is called to Ponyville to help a nervous pony have a good time.
This is based off a Tumblr and involves the author's self-insert getting into a relationship with Braeburn. Like… who does that? Who ships themselves with Braeburn? Personal tastes aside, this was adorable. Hoofclid is an anxious bundle of nerves, and Braeburn is able to bring him out of his shell. Braeburn meanwhile is suggested to be a "love 'em and leave 'em" type, so Hoofclid gives him some foundation. They're both good characters, who are good for each other, is what I'm getting at, which puts this squarely in the rare bin of "good M/M shipping".
Recommended
World's Questions by Harmony Split
Genre: Headcanon Dump
Luna asks the moon where the world came from.
This starts with a near-panicked A/N telling the reader "don't like, don't read" if they're not interested in people's headcanons. I would say the problem isn't that this explores said headcanon — the AU tag is hardly necessary, if you ask me — but that it's just plopped on the page with zero elegance. I could see a story where Luna, Celestia and the moon discuss headcanon, but this is literally just them talking about it. Which is to say, there's no character behind the words, they're just speaking what's on the author's mind. This needed a little more thought put into it.
Vaguely Recommended
Jawn by Scruffy
Genre: Random Comedy
Twilight learns a new word.
A lot of what I said about the previous story can apply to this one, too, except instead of headcanon, this is Twilight Learns Philadelphian English. (An actual dialect, if you were not aware.) The writing is considerably better, don't get me wrong, but I also felt like the leading questions that start the conversation were extremely stilted and unnatural. Ignoring that, though, this is just a primer so Twilight can freak out about the title word. It's amusing, I suppose, but I wasn't overwowed.
Recommended If You Like Linguistic Humor
Sassy Saddles Meets Sasquatch by Mannulus
Genre: Comedy
Sassy Saddles has a strange encounter in the Whitetail Woods.
From the word go, this story is a fast-paced, laugh-a-minute wild ride. There's a joke in the third chapter that maybe goes on too long, but otherwise this is well written, features a ridiculous portrayal of Sassy Saddles, and I just had a tremendous time reading it. :D
Highly Recommended
you should do more of these :) It's good to see folks who don't normally get attention, get some. This is the sort of thing our community needs more of :) <3
A lovely idea for a feature, and some intriguing-sounding stories. Thank you.
Without having checked for myself, are a lot of these new writers new writers? Because that could be a fun instalment too. (It's jarring to think that I'm coming up on my one year anniversary and so no longer qualify!)
5192964
I did not specifically set out to find new authors, but some of them might be? I think they run the gamut.
That said, I kind of hate reviewing new authors, because unless they're magically awesome (and some are!), it's easy to be less than amazed by the writing and end up discouraging them. I don't wanna do that. :C
They'd been on Fimfiction for six and a half years at time of writing, so probably not.
Anyway, always great to see Rs and HRs in a bunch of reviews of people new to me. Doesn't help with cutting down the RiL list, of course!
5192964
Speaking from experience, what often happens there is that you review a "new" writer, gush about how good they are... and later find out they're an unmarked alt of someone who's been around for years and years. It is still fun, but you do have to accept getting caught out sometimes.