It Is Recommendsday, My Dudes #163 · 7:10pm May 1st
Okay, so changing gears again-again. This time mostly because I have no time. This is one of those weeks where everything happens at once, and I've been positively hopping with how little free time I've got.
But that's no excuse not to talk about how absolutely cool stories are, and honestly I've made it this long without missing an update so I'm hardly going to start now.
With all that, I feel the need for some comfort food of the literary variety. So let's go to some Trixie, because Trixie. And romance, I suppose.
On the leading edge: the vastly underappreciated Garlands by Petrichord. And I mean that seriously - this is somehow one of Petrichord's worst performing stories and it blows my mind.
See, it's Hearth's Warming and Trixie is stealing blood. It's for a good cause! She needs to help Starlight and Sunburst summon a demon so Starlight can sell her soul. …Okay that sounds worse than it really is. Did I mention this is a romance? And a comedy?
Because it is. It's weirdly one of the most romantic StarTrixBurst stories I've read. Not because they're falling over each other with love and flowers and chocolate, but because they get each other. Starlight plays the hero, Trixie weaponizes her arrogance, and Sunburst quietly helps enable them both by being the glue that holds it all together. Their chemistry is dead on and they just work despite each individually being a complete disaster of a pony.
Kudos also go to 𝕲𝖑𝖆𝖘𝖞𝖆-𝕷𝖆𝖇𝖔𝖑𝖆𝖘 for being a great demon. Sensible, no-nonsense, practical. Gotta love it when a blood demon is the straight man in a scene, but that's what you get when Trixie shows up. (But really he plays the perfect counter in things for the others to bounce off of.)
The whole thing is delightfully cracked and gives all three a chance to shine in their own ways. Their relationship is hardly standard, but would you expect anything else from those three? Petri just nails their whole stupid deal.
For the other, let's take the comedy fail in a slightly different direction and grab Scyphi's Trixie's Beau.
Trixie is dating, and shockingly does not make that everyone else's problem. Her new special somepony is Theodore Startup, who is a perfectly ordinary stallion. Who has deep knowledge of illusion magic. And curious amounts of foreign money. And doesn't want to talk about his personal life. And a backstory that doesn't check out. Unsurprisingly, Starlight ropes in the students to help her snoop and Save Trixie. (Also unsurprisingly, it goes very wrong.)
It shouldn't surprise anyone that with a description like that, this leans much more heavily into comedy. It's very much sitcom slapstick as Starlight and her trio of accomplices bumble their way through an obviously ill-advised plan to first investigate Theodore and then to try convincing Trixie with what they found. It's stupendously silly that peaks in the third act with one of those scenes where you can see it going wrong a mile away and yet keep watching as it explodes.
But that third act also is kinda key to the romance part. It - and the fourth epilogue chapter - bring things back around from silly to more serious. Not totally serious, of course, but it builds up the relationship for Trixie and Theodore as well as creating good character moments for the others. The surprise guest in there also helps things by clarifying what Theodore's thinking, fitting it all together nicely.
In all, it's a ridiculous sitcom plot that eventually bends into a more serious romance. The comedy's fun, the romance is heartfelt, and the characters are bright and idiots. In all? A great selection from Scyphi's usual quality library.
New or catching up? Try Recommendsday: The Index for your story needs!
Wonderful recommendations.
Also, I can tell you were pressed for time since the link to Trixieʼs Beau leads to Scyphiʼs user page.
5778925
Son of a--
Thank you, and fixed.
5778927
No worries. Happens to the best of us, T.
newly back on FimFic, so not come across this yet :) I'm not a romance pony so these particular ones might not be my bag, but I like this recommend series, and will check out these authors!
enjoyed Petrichord so much I gave Corinthians a lil review. It's an NSFW one though (here)
Legitimately thought that Garlands was a failed sort of experiment because of the reception. Glad to know that you liked it!
Wish that sort of praise would compel me to actually write again ughhh motivation is hard
5779056
I have no idea why it's so badly performing - I thought it was great!