Fic recs, February 19th! · 8:42pm Feb 19th, 2020
Dave Bryant needs financial help!
Scribbler's begun a reading of Blueshift's Cake Story, with Lochlan O'Neil, Keyframe, mmichal154, Wish Lotus, IMShadow007 and BasicallyBB!
I'm going to be reading all the Detective jakkid166 stories this year, so here's the first one, fresh for the Month of Lurve: Detective jakkid166's Love Lessons!
As I said last time, this is the remainder of the audiobooks in my list after finishing CreepyPastaSalad's channel, plus a few longer fics from my RIN to round things out. I do fear that, as long as this took to get done, I'm going to end up posting like two or three reviews all in a clump and then have another lengthy hiatus. :B We'll see, I guess.
H: 0 R: 3 C: 2 V: 0 N: 0
Thy Words… by Lady Grey
Reading by Scribbler, Illya Leonov and Animelodie
Genre: Friendshipping
Twilight and Luna both have changes they must adjust to.
I like how this story starts out with Twilight having major difficulties with the whole alicorn thing. Feels like a subgenre of fics I mostly missed all those years ago. I like how there's a parallel built between her and Luna, even if EME is treated here as it was in real life rather than how they used it in the show. (It's explained well, regardless.) And I especially like the nuance in Twilight's breakdown. There are so many emotions underlying her frustration, which makes it really satisfying to see them bond by the end. So there's a lot to like here!
Recommended
Practice Makes Perfect by Monochromatic
Genre: Shipping
Twilight learns the truth about how Rarity asked her out.
Boy, there's not much to this. c.c I guess this really is "fluff". The character work is of course strong, the main joke is an inversion of expectations that works. I will admit to having difficulty figuring out who asked who at the beginning; one too many "she"s. Or maybe it's just me. Anyway, you know what you're getting into here.
Recommended for Shippers
Liquid Courage by JeremyStorm
Read by Fimfiction
Mature: Narcotics, Suicide/Self Harm
Genre: Dark/Emotional
When I woke up, I knew today was the day.
People calling Minuette Colgate in 2019? It's more likely than you think. Not to make light of this story, which does an excellent job of portraying a suicidal mindset. Not ideation per se, no voices from the dark whispering to Berry to take her own life, but a dull, flat affect to everything she does on the day that's supposed to be her last. There's a lingering sense of dread that colors everything she does and says, and it's kind of terrifying. And it's not the act of someone desperate, or wronged in a single inopportune moment; she just matter-of-factly goes about what she feels she needs to do, and then she makes the attempt. Thankfully, this has a happy ending, but one gets the sense that's entirely due to luck. Berry Punch is a lucky pony indeed.
Recommended
Quickie-Mart by anonpencil
Reading by Wuten, et. al.
Mature: Sex, Non-Con, Fetish
Genre: Sexual Comedy
After an accident in a supermarket, you are sent to Equestria… as a supermarket.
You can't ask for better sexual satire. XD You will never look at supermarkets the same way again. Perhaps my favorite part is how, this is happening in Equestria, a supermarket just appears overnight, and everyone's like, oh, this is fine, we shall utilize it. Highly Recommended for Terrible People.
Recommended
Helping… Hands? by RainbowDoubleDash and GrassAndClouds2
Side Story to Family Matters
Read by Fimfiction
Genre: Lunaverse/Transformation
Lyra offers to help Trixie test some zebra magic. The results are less than expected.
Time for the Lunaverse to take on all the Lyra memes! In a lot of ways, this is a very standard kind of "pony turned human" story. This should be taken as only an indication of its age; had I read this closer to its release, I expect it would have offered a lot more surprises. That said, it probably still would have felt too long. I daresay this could have been taken care of in 12, maybe 16 thousand words tops, and all that might have been lost is what I expect to be some heavy world-building for future installments of the 'verse. And long jokes that stop being funny by the end. And lengthy conversations where Trixie does her best to deflect blame. And all the focus on Lyra's boobs. And two entire chapters near the end that we really didn't need. I mean, I take a lot of umbrage at that Comedy tag; there were very few laughs to be had here, again because the jokes were always stretched out. Or consider things like "Bon-Bon is angry to the point of violence", which is funny as a one-off gag, but is taken pretty much at face value and ends in the non-punchline of "you need anger management classes". That said, it's not all bad? I mean, the world-building is long-winded, but it's also interesting and will be moreso if it makes a reappearance later. There's one scene in particular that stood out to me, of Bon-Bon finally catching up to Trixie and Lyra on a train and sharing a moment with her marefriend that shows you exactly what kind of relationship they have. But for the most part, I was just waiting for all the inevitable encounters to wind themselves down so I could be done, already. This has cooled my desire to continue on with the Lunaverse.
Recommended for Fans of Pony-Turned-Human
Part of the problem with Hands might be the old adage about comedy and timing. When I was writing it, “Lyra is obsessed with humans” was THE defining feature of her character in the fandom, so a whole story where she’s a human but miserable was innately funny just for being so against type. Plus it might be that the story was funnier when read in the original format - that is, with a couple days or weeks between each chapter being published, rather than all at once.
That being said you’re not the first to say that the joke goes on for too long, so you’re probably on to something. The next story I wrote for the Lunaverse chronologically, Tales of Ponyville, will hopefully go over better, although as a heads-up it’s really more six stories with one overarching plot device (an unscheduled but mild rain storm cutting through Ponyville). It was inspired by the episode “Tales of Ba Sing Se” from Avatar: the Last Airbender.
Since each story is short they hopefully won’t any of them wear out their welcome.
5206088
Wow. I stand by my assertion that the story hasn't aged well, because I did not even pick up on that. Like, it just never occurred to me because it's no longer relevant. XD Oh dear.
When next I return to the Lunaverse, it'll be using the Season 1 timeline chart from the Fimfiction group, so there'll be some time before I get to that one. :B (Also, it's dismaying how many of those stories are unfinished six years later...)
You have my deepest condolences.
5206182
Authors dropped off in most cases. Although looking it over, everything except episodes 23 and 24 are complete, so I don’t know what you’re talking about...of the side-stories, they’re all complete except Longest Night, Everypony’s Day, but that’s because it’s a group project that anyone can add to at any time so it’ll never really be complete.
I don’t know why Whiteyes never got back to Adventures in Ponysitting, while Eye of the Hurricane is incomplete because InsertAuthorHere, well...died. But I don’t want to remove it from the lineup, it feels wrong to do so.
But in any event, everything else is complete...
5206189
I mean, I've already read them, I'm gonna do readings of them. :B