Okay, I will be the first to admit I am not a romance writer, nor can I review romance well unless you really and I mean really sell me on the couple in question. THAT SAID, I’m not a completely asexual shut-in. Certain stories can actually twist this cold dark heart of mine and actually elicit the feels I believe they call it? I am man enough to admit I had something in my eye by the end of this.

My Dearly Beloved is one such story. I did get in contact with the author beforehand, when he learned I was actually going to be reviewing this story and he did tell me this was one of his older pieces. Granted, most of Vertigo’s work is pure crack and really not up my alleyway so I can’t really compare it to his other pieces in any form of objective fashion.

Now, this was vent writing, though to be brutally honest I couldn’t actually tell till the end when I read the author’s notes. Seriously, the sheer raw emotion of Cadence here is something to behold. Every other sentence is oozing with either grief or love for her late husband. For that, I applaud the author, actually managing to sell me on this story’s ship. 

Just the memories Cadence talks of, such as fainting in the middle of town when she was proposed to and the sheer confidence Shining radiated during King Sombra’s return. Hell, even their wedding night is spoken of. All of this just sells me the ship. 

I sense a few ‘ripped from the headlines’ moments here in this story, as there are talks of radicalized changelings and decoding of secret messages, and of contagions. Maybe it hits a bit too close to home, as to be brutally honest I prefer MLP as an escape from the troubles of the world.

If I had a few minor gripes, it would be some of the stylistic choices. For one, some of the language is a bit too flowery, though to be fair given the ‘speaker’ I suppose it can be forgiven. Plus, I think the phrase ‘my dearly beloved’ is repeated a bit too much throughout. 

All in all? Really great work. Vert, why don’t you drop the crack fics and move onto more serious stuff?

10/10

The best protagonists are the relatable sort. And that right here, is where this story succeeds from the get-go. I mean, surely we’ve all been there. Alone in the night, just wanting someone to talk to and cuddle up to while you watch a favorite TV show? I mean, Smokey here speaks to all of us, a recent graduate who’s been rejected time and again. 

Which to be honest is I think entirely the point. Of course, not all of us would probably go out on a limb, hire a prostitute and give them a night of home-cooked meals and make sure for once, they don’t feel absolutely horrid. Mind you, seeing something like prostitution in something as sweet as MLP is… well, it takes a bit to wrap your head around I suppose. To be fair, ponies don’t normally wear clothes so… Agh, never mind. Once you get past this little bit of weirdness you do get for an entertaining lead.

Smokey isn’t the only character here, and as this is a very character-driven story that’s what I’ll be talking about here. Now, Lily our other lead is a good match for Smokey, having a very good inner voice -sarcastic and somewhat broken- and the two bounce dialogue off each other quite well. That’s a hard thing to do, having two characters who play off the other so well it feels almost natural. Somehow this story manages to succeed at both.

"I bet you want to be called by your first name too, you thirsty hoe," Lily jabbed.

Surprisingly, he sighed. "That'd be nice."

Also this, I howled at this. These kinks man, so scandalous! Oh so scandalous, what will the papers say?

However, there is a question that must be posed as well. It is a cute story, but the interesting thing is it felt like the author jotted down a few words, and just replaced women with mare and the like. I have to ask, why write this as an MLP story when you could just submit it as original fiction? I mean, it’s a cute story and it did make me smile and all but I do have to ask that.

8/10

TMy Dearly Beloved

• MLP: FiM
• Romance
• Sad

Princess Cadance reminisces on the memories she's shared with Shining Armor.

• Cadance
• Shining Armor

Vertigo22 · 1.7k words  ·  31  2 · 1.2k views

TSure, Sex is Nice...

• MLP: FiM
• Comedy
• Sad
• Slice of Life

...but what if we snuggled instead?

• Sex
• OC

BradyBunch · 2.9k words  ·  70  11 · 1.6k views

6967151
Thanks for the great review as always, Brick. At least I'm not heaping another bad self-insert story on you to review and destroy. Heh. You're awesome. Honestly. Thank you so much for this. You warm my heart. I hope I was able to warm yours.

6967151
I'm beyond happy that you liked the story. Thank you so much, bud.