Fic recs, July 20th! · 5:16pm Jul 20th, 2023
Coyote de la Mancha is trying to find help for a friend in need!
Scribbler has done a reading of Dubs Rewatcher's The Moony Maiden, with a whole crapton of people, wow!
VisualPony's newest reading is misskoifishpony's Die Spider! Die!
Speaking of whom, this is the blog of just Pony & Wolf Productions readings. Did I make any headway on the list? No, I do not think I did. >_<
H: 1 R: 5 C: 2 V: 1 N: 0
Some Traditions Are Holy by Jhoira
Reading by VisualPony
Genre: Holiday Special
Pumpkin Cake reminisces over holidays past.
Okay, first question: Why "Jinglemas"? That's the name of the annual holiday fic-writing event on Fimfiction, not an actual holiday. There exists an actual holiday in the show, and it's called Hearth's Warming? <_< I don't get why the author made that decision. It certainly doesn't add anything, since Hearth's Warming is generally interpreted as Christmas in fanfic anyway. And the reminiscing isn't very, uh, thorough? It's literally two scenes that don't have a whole lot to say. I will say that I appreciated the story making no attempt to justify the Cakes' weird holiday tradition though. Sometimes, families just do things like that, no explanation required. Also, I liked Pinkie's role. In the end, though, this doesn't make a huge impression on me, making very little use of its small word count. Though I can say, at least it wasn't the coffee fic I feared it would be.
Recommended as Light Reading
Thanks for the Memories by Sonicsuns
Reading by Midnight29
Genre: Doctor Who Crossover
How can Pipsqueak join in the festivities when he doesn't feel particularly thankful?
Boy, talk about making no justifications! The Doctor finds Pipsqueak feeling left out of Ponyville's Thanksgiving celebration. He goes on a long, knowing ramble about things said and unsaid, and makes a connection with this poor pathetic little mew-mew. But the story ends up not being about any of that? And can I just say, speaking as an American, it is bizarre to see ponies celebrating a holiday as country-centric as Thanksgiving? (Yes, I know other countries celebrate a holiday called "Thanksgiving", but when they're talking about turkeys…) But again, no attempt is made to justify what's going on: it's not the point. And in the end, all I can really say is… I guess the story completely bamboozled me into liking it? I had all these objections while listening that, ultimately, seem to be the point? All the elements work together??
Recommended
Luna's Desperate Quest for Pie by thegamerator10
Reading by Midnight29
Genre: Comedy
What's a princess gotta do to find a pie around here?
I almost wanted to label this a Pony Does X story, because it really is just a couple of scenes of Luna becoming more frustrated as she fails to find pies. I think the ending is what saves it, but barely. It's not bad, it's just fairly empty. Like… something, something, nutritional value of a pie.
Vaguely Recommended
The Rain, the Poison, and the Job by HapHazred
Reading by Midnight29
Genre: Noir
Does she realize what she's getting into?
As MLP antagonists go, Wind Rider is one of the ones I'd say is completely irredeemable. All he had to do was not let his pride make him be a complete dick, and he'd have been fine. He was the source of his own downfall, and good riddance. So I'm glad this story doesn't try to justify his actions, merely explain them. Along the way, we are treated to some excellent writing (why was I not already following HapHazred, good lord) not to mention a very solid supposition about just who Wind Rider is. If you're looking for something gritty and a little depressing vis-a-vis the Wonderbolts, you'll find it here in Sam spades, and if you aren't? This is one of those fics that's just a joy to read entirely on its own merits.
Highly Recommended
Greedy Gryphon Grasps at Generosity by Deergenerate
Reading by Midnight29
Reading by VisualPony?
Genre: Comedy
Gallus is having a hard time with his Generosity class.
Does it bug anyone else that the final word in the title is not actually alliterative? <_< Regardless, this is the kind of story these characters are tailor-made for. They've all got about two personality traits apiece, one of which is racially derived, and with application of the lore we learned from seven seasons of this cockamamie program, you can weave a quick fic with a solid message and, in this case, a really strong punchline. This works!
Recommended
Who You Are by Coronet the lesser
Reading by Midnight29
Genre: Episode Followup
After the revelation of Sludge's deceit, Spike is feeling unsure of himself once again.
Hey, who's up for some Spike love? While this story maybe contains a bit too much Twilight, it's nevertheless one of those feel-good pieces where she comforts her friend/assistant/little brother when he's down and helps him figure out something about who he is and where he belongs in the world. I'm not sure it comes to any particularly strong or shocking conclusion, but they're both written quite well, and it's got a very cute ending. I don't think you need a whole lot more than that!
Recommended
The Great Alicorn Bludgeon by totallynotabrony
Reading by Midnight29
Genre: Comedy
Since she became an alicorn, has Twilight seemed… different to you?
This story proves that there are ways to do anything right, even poking holes in the show, something I normally hate. I don't know if I was just in the mood for it, if it's the good character voicing, if it's just funny to watch Twilight's friends skewer her behind her back, or some combination thereof, but this was really funny from start to finish. :)
Recommended
The Garden of Rose by UniqueSKD
Reading by VisualPony
Genre: Slice of Life
As poem fics go? This one's not bad. The meter's maybe a bit all over the place, but the rhymes are solid, and if nothing else, it sounds good the way VisualPony reads it. As for content, it's nothing amazing, but a nice slice of life piece that takes a while to set up but then brings us to the titular garden, how much it means to Roseluck, and, interestingly, how much Roseluck means to it. The garden, specifically the flowers within, almost have their own character, which is pretty nice. I think this maybe has more merit when analyzed as a poem than as a story, but however you slice it, it's not bad.
Recommended for Roseluck Fans
You know, often I don't comment much on reviews done on my stories, because now and then (at least these days) I prefer letting other folks sort of come to their own conclusions and ideas (which at times is more interesting than what I myself might have thought of) and I don't want to colour them with my own opinions too much, but to be honest, I'm kind of fascinated that tRtPatJ not only got a review but also that someone would actually highly recommend it, because there was a very specific mindset I had when I wrote it, since it was largely an experiment, and it's a fairly interesting story in my opinion.
If you cast your mind back to 2015, the fandom and the site was very much outrageously active, all the time, and there were a lot of writers complaining about 'the meta' of writing, most of which I arrogantly disregarded. One such complaint was that as soon as an episode aired, there'd be a bunch of stories written about the episode that would sort of automatically 'get popular' with little to no effort. The narrative was often that writers who did this were hackish, yada-yada.
At the time I had been playing around with a few experimental sorts of stories in-between my regular AppleDash fics (and some of which were AppleDash fics), which included stories with no dialogue, stories where I cut out the dialogue, among other little quirks, so I was curious to see how it would work if I watched an episode and on the same day released a story featuring that episode. If you check the publish dates, tRtPatJ was published on the day 'Rarity Investigates' aired; I watched the ep, keyboard ready to go, then banged out the fic pretty much as quickly as possible. At the time I think the word count must have calculated it differently because I remember only being a few words above 1K as I had to fight to get to that point, which is partly why the story has a bit of a meandering tone and approach (which I think I used to better effect in later experiments).
Somewhat amusingly, it went almost utterly unnoticed, which I found very funny and ironic considering the experiment was basically following a 'hit featurebox EZ' trope at the time. This also means that the authors notes I lied about not knowing why I felt the need to write it. And for years that's pretty much what the story remained; an experiment that was kinda fun but that ultimately went nowhere.
So let me tell you seeing it get reviewed by one of FimFic's foremost reviewers and getting highly recommended is one of the most unexpected redemption arcs I've seen from one of my stories, and you know, it was in hindsight early practice for what I'd do more frequently these days, which is write something out real fast (I dabble in speedwriting every now and then these days), and the older, more depressed me kinda empathises with the Wind Rider of this story more than younger me did. So it's genuinely pretty cool to me how some things age over time, and I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Cheers for the review and recommendation. Always appreciate a review of any of my work!
Of the times I've had a story in one of these blogs, this seems like the overall highest-rated batch. Sounds like you had a good week.
Hm, a story < 1000 words from 2015? I though the limit had been enforced by then. Though there was also the loophole of making it 1000 words, publishing it, and editing it down after, I guess.
Also, I definitely know the name, but I was surprised after looking down the list of HapHazred's stories that I've only read one of them. I guess I shall give this one a try.
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thank you for the awesome reply :D that's honestly kind of neat, the reason you did that, and makes me even more impressed!
5738727 I think the formula used to calculate word counts was revised years later ( I defo recall it being pretty dodgy, especially when compared to Google docs counter) since I recall struggling a little to get over 1k for that one.
Okay, you've sold me on that HapHazred fic. I'm not usually a big reader of slightly gloomy Wonderbolts fics, but with that review, and at that length? I'll put it on the list! (Also, an author who takes the time to reply to a review in the interesting way this one did tends to get me to consider their stuff a bit more...)
5738757
You're right, I think it was sometime in '16 or '17 they changed the word counter. It used to count newlines and bbcode as words.
Well, to see a story of mine reviewed by PresentPerfect (and recommended some) was about the last thing I expected today.