It Is Recommendsday, My Dudes #33 · 10:08pm Nov 3rd, 2021
Dreams, this week, are our theme. Not so much directly as roles within the story. They're a remarkably flexible tool in storytelling even before you account for the fact that MLP provides multiple ways (such as Luna) to mess with them. Today, I'm going to hit on two stories that utilize that tool - and I think present rather interesting pitches.
Okay, for starters I'm gonna throw a real curve of a concept at you: Discord with PTSD.
Discord having psych issues is nothing new. This one, though - the Tattletale Princess actually gives good reasons for it.
One-and-gone author Hecallsmehischild jumps off of the events of To Where And Back Again - Discord had Fluttershy snatched out from under his nose and replaced with a changeling, forcing him to forsake his powers while on an adventure before being captured. And, rather logically, it left a mark on him. Now he stops by every day to check in - just to be certain that Fluttershy is still Fluttershy. And then Princess Luna drops by to give a few little hints about things she's seen...
Discord having something wrong in his head has been done a lot. But nearly all of them either focus on the aspects of his immortality or of his being a chaos incarnate. That one looks at a moment like this - a time where he's vulnerable and helpless and loses? That's rather rare. So this story comes at the topic in a rather unique and interesting way. It builds to it well, not really springing the trap of the plot until well into things. A quite enjoyable character piece of a godly immortal trying to deal with feeling impotent.
Our other today is Slumber of the Storm by Deathscar.
This one grabs right from the start as Tempest Shadow leaps in front of the obsidian sphere meant for the Mane Six.
She's locked into stone.
She falls.
She shatters.
She wakes up.
In the wake of the final battle of the Movie, Tempest wrestles with the changes in her life. The looks of the ponies around her who know what she did. Her own self-recriminations. The nightly torture of the heroic act that nearly killed her.
In an effort to help her new friend, Twilight calls on someone to help. No, not Luna - Sunset Shimmer. Another pony with a dark past who's wrestled with her demons and self-doubts... and who has a magical artifact that allows her to see someone else's thoughts.
The character work here is what draws me to it - the interactions between the two reformed antagonists is delightful and the bounce off each other well. Twilight has her moments too, but it's really Sunset and Tempest that do the heavy narrative lifting. It gets rather shippy towards the end, but I actually rather like the finale of that: it shows a lot about who the characters are and how they've grown since we first met them. All in all? A long-time favorite of mine. (And if you've paid attention to my stories in the past, I've snuck little references in from it several times, like the windigo cookies for Hearth's Warming.)
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