Fic recs, January 12th: Top 10 of 2017 edition! · 1:41pm Jan 12th, 2018
Hey hey, I haven't reported on audiobooks in a while! Winged T. Spears has done readings of Final Draft's The Clop Conundrum and Gateway Drug by bottled_up! Dr. Wolf has started a new reading of shortskirtsandexplosions's The Numbers Don't Lie! Scribbler's newest reading is Headless's The King in Crystal, with OblivionFall and Starryflame!
A full cast recording of BlazzingInferno's excellent Cleave has been completed by relative newcomer AJ Pony, aka ajvasquezbrony. It's rare I get to review a reader with a full cast, and that alone makes this pretty impressive. As for AJ himself, his voice is just on the edge of what I can deal with — I had to turn this all the way up to hear, which could be a problem, since his intro music is pretty loud — but he does have good delivery, vis-a-vis emotion and emphasis. But that's enough to put him on the list!
So, I kinda can't believe I got this done. c.c Three stories in this set account for 100k words, but by golly, I'm doing this in January for once! Once again, this is a list of the ten best stories I read last year, accompanied by reviews of fics from their "Also Liked" sections. A refresher on the format, since it's rarely used:
Title of Top Ten fic
List of other recommendations from Also Liked list, underlining those I’ve reviewed previously
Commentary on the selection
Title and author of fic selected from other recommendations, like usual
Genre like usual
Review like usual
Recommendation like usual
And I'd like to start off by giving an Honorable Mention to to Inexcusable and You Too Will Deteriorate, both of which are at least represented by the first installment of that trilogy back in 2016. It was hard keeping them off the list!
Anyway, after this, I've got some actual reading to do, then more regular audiobooks, then Interwoven Colours, sorry to anyone who is anticipating that. :B To the stories!
H: 2 R: 4 C: 4 V: 0 N: 0
80 Days 'Til the World's Farthest Shore by Cynewulf
Entry #649; When I Consider How My Light Is Spent; Though Much Is Taken; The Masquerade; Slowly Drifting, or the Lost Verses of Perique Blend; ∩∩Θπ ~ Ö ~ ÇHΓΩ/\/\É; Have You Considered My Servant, Twilight?
Cynewulf, it seems, has a very dedicated following and not much appeal beyond them. Aside from RariTwi shipping, of course...
Simple Gifts by Cynewulf
Genre: Slice of Life/Shipping
What to do with an anonymous gift?
Is it obvious I went with the short one? c.c A cheeky but entirely descriptive title for this story would be Celestia Watches Dried Paint. The first scene depicts her contemplating a painting she's gotten from an anonymous individual, trying to figure out not so much who it's from but what it means, and what she's meant to do in reply. Then the scene ends and we're sadly treated to the answer of who sent it and why. I was actually disappointed; for all that this was shaping up to be the kind of story that people less interested in literature would deride for there being nothing actually happening, I was kind of invested in seeing the denouement of Celestia making a decision or not. The identity of the painter was of far less concern to me, and the motive felt perfectly trite by comparison. (I've given it away, to wit.) I don't mean to scare anyone off of it, but I guess know what you're supposed to be getting into here before you do.
Recommended for Princess Fans
Carousel by Thornquill
Transient; A Story of Solstice; Ten Seconds; Grogar: A Hearth's Warming Horror Story; Endless; No More Fun and Games; A Night at Shadow Station
People like their horror! I also might have something to do with this list, since there were literally two stories I hadn't read previously. c.c Not much of a choice, there.
Generosity, My Dear Applejack by Crystal Secret
Genre: Romance
Devastated by the loss of Big Macintosh, Applejack goes to Canterlot to visit a friend and meets a pony who will change her life in a completely different way.
So of course, I pick the romance. <.< I have never been so blindsided by a story before. I came here expecting Rarijack — admittedly, I shouldn't have, that wouldn't fit the definition of "Random Romance" this was written for — and instead got ApplePants. It made the first chapter very irritating, as I just wanted Fancy Pants to quit pestering Applejack so she could go have a heartfelt confession of love with Rarity, already. >.> Rarity, stop setting your future girlfriend up with stallionsAnyway, that's all on me. This is quite a good piece, and I was thoroughly entranced by the effortlessly adept writing. There are things I can say against it — Fancy's behavior in the first chapter is kind of off-putting, expectations aside; it feels like it could have used another chapter or two to breathe in — but my overall impression of it is entirely positive. The worst thing I can say is that it's a thoroughly standard sort of romance, but it's definitely a good standard romance, and that's not a bad thing to be.
Recommended
Dinkin' Donuts by Pascoite
Coming Home; A Bridge to Somewhere; Bantam Tales; Like a Pegasus in a Pottery Shop; Nihtmer Niht; Peachy Pie and Misty Moon Keep the Realm Safe Until Dinnertime; No Storms in Canterlot
Mostly slice of life with a little bit of comedy. Chris's minific collection is an odd inclusion. But other than Pasco's own work, I don't see much of a theme here.
Reciprocity by Tumbleweed
Read by Fimfiction
Genre: Comedy/Shipping
Applejack agreed to go to the art gallery with Rarity, with a promise of her attending a hootenanny afterward. No way this could go horribly wrong.
Taking the romance again! No way I'm passing up a Rarijack! :V And I have zero regrets, because it opens with Applejack and Rarity discussing a ponified version of my favorite painting (see the cover art). That said, for all that I really did enjoy this, the more I think about it, the more I have to admit it has issues. For instance, it's basically two stories. The first is a rip-roaring send-up of high class society, in which Rarity, trying to defend Applejack against Upper Crust, gets caught in a lie of her own weaving. It's everything I love about stories of its sort, and I'm sorry it doesn't come to any kind of conclusion. It's followed up by a shipping drama about a misunderstanding at a hootenanny. And that's about it, really. There's not much connection between the two. It's not even until that third chapter that we get any real indication they're together. (Not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, if you've been in a relationship with someone long enough, you're not gonna be lovey-dovey all the time.) But it didn't resonate with me quite the way the first two-thirds did. The disjointing is disappointing.
Recommended More for the Comedy Than the Shipping
Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons by Somber
FoE: Homelands; FoE: Murky Number Seven; FoE: Pink Eyes; FoE: Heroes; FoE: Project Horizons — Speak; Fallout: Equestria; FoE: Memories
Yeah, I kinda forgot to include this in the year-end review statistics. <.< Oops. Unsurprising that the Also Liked for PH is nothing but big-name Fallout Equestria fics, including the original.
Origin Story by Kkat
Reading by Forrest McGilvray
Sequel to Fallout: Equestria
Genre: Adventure
A series of documents depicting Daring Do's outline for a prequel to her novel series, written while trying to stop a fiendish plot against Equestria.
I wanted to read Pink Eyes, because I've been saying I need to, but between the extreme length (albeit nowhere near as extreme as PH or Murky Number 7) and the fact that it deserves a vs. post, this seemed like the better choice. Do you realize it's been five years since I first read Fallout: Equestria? I mention this not only because it's actually the first story I reviewed in any kind of detail, not only because damn, but because I specifically remember having a lot of issues with the writing, none of which I found here. What a difference a few years makes! This is somewhere on the prequel/sequel continuum vis-a-vis FoE, but I feel it might actually stand alone pretty darn well. It's presented on three temporal levels: the prologue, which takes place in the Wasteland sometime, when the New Canterlot Republic is a thing; the framing story, which is set during the war between Equestria and the zebras; and the inner story, the novel itself, which occurs even earlier, during Daring's youth, touched only by the internecine conflicts in the zebra lands. Basically, knowing that Equestria is at war with the zebras at some point should be all you need to know to approach the second level of this story; take it as a future AU, and you'll be golden. But the real meat is the third level. What a clever, thrilling and all around excellent Daring Do tale! :D It's the kind of thing I want to see from Daring adventures. And the conceit that it's only excerpts and rough drafts doesn't stop it from being a full story; on the contrary, it was a good idea that helped keep this short and focused on the really interesting stuff. (You'll hopefully be as surprised and impressed as I was at the appearance of an A. K. Yearling in the novel.) By the end, it got me hoping that Kkat would write more Daring Do in the future, nevermind Fallout: Equestria. :V This is the good shit!
Highly Recommended
Firebird Dahlia by The Albinocorn
Ice Iris; A New Sun Rises; Sunset of Time; The Witch of the Everfree; Spectacular Seven; Double Sun Daze; Perspective
If you like Sunset Shimmer, you really like Sunset Shimmer. And probably also The Albinocorn.
Reclaimed by RadiantBeam
Genre: EQG Slice of Life
Sunset returns to see her mentor once again. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Went with the short one again. Doesn't help that most of the list is unfinished. But this is quite a nice piece. Twilight's supportiveness was heartwarming. This was everything I wanted from this scenario, and that's all I need to give a recommendation.
Recommended
Lost Time by bookplayer
Sleepless in St. Maretinique; A Family Holiday; Sun and Hearth; Chocolate Covered Grapes; Seeking Answers; An Article on Unconventional Romance; A Second Chance in Summer
Lots and lots and lots of AppleDash, go figure. Also bookplayer seems to have some dedicated fans, who enjoy who and what she likes.
Moonshine by bookplayer and Merc the Jerk
Read by Fimfiction
Genre: Humanized AppleDash/Historical Crossover
Dash comes back to the farm, in just a little trouble with money. It'll be fine, though: she and Applejack can always run hooch to make it up.
Yeah, no fucking way am I passing up humanized anything set during Prohibition. Also, bookplayer once recommended this story to me with a promise of tiddies. :V And that definitely happened; this really rides up on what you can get away with in a T-rated story, but that's hardly what it's about. This is a great look at how the show characters might have turned out had they been living in this time period; this isn't an Equestria Girls fic, and for all that pains are taken to make the characters recognizable (though Rarity's name definitely stretches disbelief), it's a great portrait of what life was like in America at the time. It even explores things like being a woman or, dare I say it, being gay, at the time, without being preachy at all. Granted, it maybe goes a little overboard; in the first page, we hear "tomato", "dame", "kitten", "broad" and "canary". Like, yes, you did your research on 20's slang, we get it. c.c But, dammit, there's just something ineffable about this story that I adore. I'm probably just obsessed with the 1920's. :B Funnily enough, I couldn't shake the idea that if you filed the edges off, which wouldn't be too hard, as original fiction, this wouldn't be anything too special, unless you'd never read 20's period lesbian romance before. It's that the characters are our characters that makes it work, and its historical setting makes it special as fanfiction. Just an observation. Fact is, all this was really missing was a shootout with the gangsters on Dash's tail. I mean, you gotta love a shootout with tommy guns. :D Definitely check this out if you like humanized ponies, AppleDash, or the Prohibition era!
Recommended
Senior Living by Estee
Unstable Sale; The Remainders of the Day; Knotty Logic; Tricks of the Trade Show; Cut, Color, Carat, Clarity; A Special Offer from Shutterfly!; Sick Little Ponies (And One Dragon)
Estee's another with a really loyal fanbase, it would seem. At least I had my pick of stories I hadn't read yet!
A Good Trot, Spoiled by Estee
Genre: Light Comedy
After one of those days, there's no better way to relax than a nice game of golf. Whatever that is.
I just adore that title. :D So, I grew up watching golf with my dad and grandfather, both of whom were aficionados of the sport. I never got it. And if you're the kind of person who thinks golf is boring, you may be forgiven for thinking the same thing about reading about golf. This is, at least, written by a highly competent author, and at the very worst, it takes until about the halfway point to pick up. If there's anything really weird about it, it would be the constant referring to Celestia and Luna as "the elder" and "the younger". Like, not "the elder princess" or "the elder sister", just "the elder". There's a reason it's not tagged comedy, but it's still quite amusing, taking numerous pot-shots at the game and those who enjoy it, while ramping up little by little to the climax. It's a ridiculous bit of absurdity. :)
Recommended for a Relaxing Laugh
Spring Is Dumb by HoofBitingActionOverload
Bitter Harvest; Authored for Adoration; Rolling With the Punches; Taken for Granite; Good Ponies Don't… Do They?; Third Time's a Charm; An Inconvenient Dash
So much shipping. Shipping for days! And no particular pairing, though there is, interestingly, a lot of Dash and Rarity. Just not necessarily together.
Almost Beautiful by Donnys Boy
Genre: Shipping
Rarity is determined Twilight get her happy ending.
It's been a long time since I last read any Donnys Boy. Maybe too long; I think I'm gonna go with "hasn't aged well" on this one. It's set in an interesting time period, to be fair, taking the season two and three finales and the season three premiere to set up a reason for Rarity and Twilight to get close, or Rarity to develop an attraction, at least. Unfortunately, about halfway through, I came to the realization that this is all A.S.S. Rarity struggles with her attraction, not in an "I couldn't be attracted to a mare, could I?" way, but more in an "I am definitely not attracted to Twilight Sparkle's cute butt" way. :/ In the end, it's a very well written bad shipfic.
Recommended for Shippers Only
The New Crop by xjuggernaughtx
How Soon Is Now?; A Diamond and a Tether; Empty; The Challenge of Fleur; Three Solos, One Cadence; Resolution; The Great and Magnificent Seven
Not seeing a whole lot of connective tissue here, though I get the feeling many of these are high-concept fics...
On the Historical Significance of Battle Lederhosen by MrNumbers
Genre: Comedy
Apple Bloom brings her Uncle Apple Strudel in for show and tell.
...With the exception of this one. :V That title was irresistible, what can I say? This was an absolute hoot, a perfect one-upping of Family Appreciation Day with Apple Strudel gasbagging about weird historical facts like a champ. I'm not sure his accent was consistent, but whatever, I had a lot of fun reading this, and you will too.
Recommended
Through the Well of Pirene by Ether Echoes
Solitary Pinion; Project Sunflower: Harmony; My Little Apprentice; A Twilight Landing; My Little Marriage: Mary Is a Mare; The Last Crusade; Sunflower: Life in Equestria
So much HiE! I'm pleased by the amount of audience crossover with Project Sunflower, though. Too bad just about everything was unfinished.
Pirene's Well: Three Nights in Manehattan by Ether Echoes
Reading by Luna Farrowe, et. al.
Sequel to Through the Well of Pirene
Genre: HiE Thriller
A search for missing artifacts and a filly danger brings together two Manehattan detectives and a ranger of Hippocrene Order in a race to save Equestria from a madpony.
No better time to read the sequel, though! What a sequel this is. I think the biggest praise I can give it is that, despite being over 60k words, I actually read the whole thing in a day. I couldn't put it down! It might actually be a better story than Through the Well of Pirene, for all that they are quite different. Pirene is a slow-churning, epic world-building adventure, while this is a fast-paced, gritty, action-packed noir thriller. Man, what a story. The action scenes are all really intense, the mystery unfolds as a solid police procedural, the places it goes to are exciting and interesting, and the villains are excellent, one with fantastic motivation, the other with a fantastic backstory. On that note, all the characters are great. Trace Prints, our first narrator, is the standout, a new detective who fancies herself hard-boiled but is just fucking adorable, you guys. But for all that I am just absolutely in love with her, I feel no resentment in saying this is thoroughly Marcus's story. Yes, Marcus Flores from the first story returns, older, battered, and really feeling his Xanderness, to borrow the author's own comparison. This is something of a coming of age for him, and it pays off handily. If you've ever read something like The Conversion Bureau, you absolutely need to read this to prove to yourself that humans living in Equestria can produce a good story. I mean, no bad ideas, right? Of course, you should read Pirene anyway, and then you'll doubtless want to read this, but still.
Highly Recommended
Some fine picks in here. Origin Story was especially fun to read, since Kkat originally posted it as a blog post serial.
4772028
I wanna know what this blog is, and if she has any more waiting in the wings. >.>
4772030
I mean a series of posts on her Fimfic account blog. Of course, at this point, it's buried pretty deep. Can't say whether or not anymore will be forthcoming.
4772031
Ah, okay.
sorry about the audio
, often have a bigger fear i'll blow someone's ear out than be too quite 
. it's a learning experience I hope to apply to future works, but I'm glad I was tolerable enough for you to recommended.
To anyone else reading this who it may concern, even if you don't listen beyond the first chapter, it is worth checking out at least to part two for all the other cast members who brought their A-games for this and i hope get more attention and praise out of the cleave reading than me, names below. some you may already be subbed to but a few names arn't well know and even new:
Lyra & Bon Bon played by Lotus Moon
Candy Heart played by The Dark Horse KC
Applejack and Rarity played by Midnight Readings
Sparrow9642 as the colt and father in chapter two
and with special guest Visual Pony in the Introspection scene
I absolutely love Three Nights in Manehattan, and I totally agree that it's my best work thus far. That's a little disappointing to me, sometimes, because depression has made it hard to write since, but who knows - I think things might be looking up.
Thanks for the plug~ I wished more people read it.
Ah, some of these (esp. the Top 10 themselves) I'll need to get to... particularly Dinkin' Donuts and Senior Living, which seem relatively manageable. 3 Nights sounds great. A Good Trot, Spoiled has a bit of a special place in my heart, since IIRC I was the one who got Estee thinking about golf in the 'Verse.
4772030
Starts here, and has links to the rest at the bottom of the post. Also, based on your reaction to Estee's zebra lands post, you might like the three-parter Kkat did.
Oh, on the subject of reccing PH, did you know that you're a Juggalo now? :V
-- Okay, other blogs works, including blogs by other people, but not on stories, whether they're Mature or not. WTF. :| )
(Apparently we can't do direct replies to comments on other blog posts/stories anymore?
4772132
lol XD
It was very nice to wake up just now and find my girlfriend's old story freshly reviewed. It has extreme sentimental value to both of us since it was the first story we collaborated on before really becoming more than just writer and editor.
Sorry you were blindsided by the ApplePants but that was the fun part.
4772250
She got Pants in my Rarijack! ;_; I'm so confused! They didn't even kiss once!
I wonder if the Also Liked stories are really that volatile. I mean, for a story without many views, they can be, but these ones should be fairly set. I'd expect maybe one or two stories to change in the short term. But when I load up Dinkin' Donuts, I get almost a completely different list than you. Only a single story in common. I can't believe the bit of traffic this blog encouraged would shift it that much. Does it tune them to the person for some reason? Like if I'm logged in, or it remembers my IP, does it look for stories I personally have clicked on? Let me try the former. I'll log out and see what list it gives me. I'll also note my fic has 1.5k views and I have 900 followers, which will become relevant (I'm going to somewhat round these figures).
Nope, logged in or out, I get the same list:
Love Song of a Loser by me
My Domestic Equestria by me
Sweets and Stones by FanOfMostEverything
Pinkie π by FanNotANerd
At the Mountains of Laughter by Tau22
Bantam Tales by Chris
Dune Goddess by Prane
The Unbearable Lightness of Bucking by Loganberry
Let me do the rest.
"80 Days 'Til the World's Farthest Shore" I get only stuff by Cynewulf until the last story, which is The Art of the Blade by Monochromatic. It sounded from your commentary that you also got mostly Cynewulf fics, too, but I didn't get any of the same ones. 3k views, 1.7k followers.
"Carousel" I only get A Night at Shadow Station in common, and it's at the top of my list, whereas it's at the bottom of yours. 2k views, 50 followers.
"Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons" I get your exact list, and almost in the same order. Heroes and Pink Eyes were flipped for me. This story's got 19k views, 1.9k followers. Is that really the size of the audience it takes to stabilize (no pun intended) the list?
"Firebird Dahlia" I get mostly the same list, but mostly in a different order. The one you reviewed is missing from mine, and Anamnesis is in its place. 7k views, 1.8k followers.
"Lost Time" Again, mostly the same list, but the farther down, the more out of order. The one change is I have The One Week Year instead of An Article on Unconventional Romance. 2k views, 1.8k followers.
"Senior Living" I get 6 of the same stories in roughly the same order. Your list was exclusively other Estee stories, and I got that, too. 2,5k views, 1.6k followers.
"Spring is Dumb" I got 6 of the 8 stories, roughly in the same order. The one you reviewed was missing. The two I got that you didn't were by Monochromatic and bookplayer. 10k views, 1k followers.
"The New Crop" I only get one story you did, and it's the only one in my list also by the same author as the main story. I didn't check to see if you had others in your list by him. 1k views, 500 followers.
"Through the Well of Pirene" Mostly the same list, mostly in the same order. I was missing your last story and instead had Hoopy McGee's School of Hard Knocks, but it was pretty far up my list. 20k views, 500 followers.
So it looks like it takes somewhere between 3k and 7k views or a following upwards of 1500, ideally both, before this list becomes pretty set, though extreme brand loyalty can turn that on its head and cause an entirely different list to show up, albeit more stuff by the same author. What I can't tell is how a sudden influx of even a smallish number of views from somewhere like this blog changes it. The occasional view is going to drift in for all of these stories, but coming from a common source or all at once may have a bigger effect than a slow-but-steady one.
On a side note, you've brilliantly demonstrated Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Maybe you should do a follow-up blog where you examine what the Also Liked lists have a couple weeks later and do another review from the ones that have changed a lot.
4772250
sees she hasn't changed her username to what she has on Discord, but presumes from the discussion that this is Crystal Secret
looks up user page
Dude, she apparently hasn't updated her bio since she created the account. At least I hope you're not dating a 15 year old...
4773605
Ye lol she's 19 soon
Also her Discord name is her current fimfic name
4773605
What if he were also a 15 year old girl? :B
I'm sorry because this is quite late, but yeas: origin story IS great and it was originally embedded into a fully developed FoE roleplayin game campaign, with its own functionality in the plot and since we had to use the details in the story to develop our quest to save the zebra lands, it had even MORE levels of storytelling AND functions in it. If you think that Kkat is awesome, well, double it and add a cherry, because she is.
4854364
Oh cool. :D
Fair warning; Imma read Pink Eyes soon. <.< Like, tomorrow soon, even...
4854468
then i must warn you: i was re-reading it the other day because memories and ow, the english (we can safely spell it engrish): I'm not very good at it, but seeing my writing from 5 years ago makes me cringe. A lot. Sooo... Well, I'm sorry bout it, I hope you like the story, though.
4854713
You still have about 2 hours to start editing the shit out of it, but I will consider myself warned. :V