It Is Recommendsday, My Dudes #110 · 5:50pm Apr 26th, 2023
So I did have other things planned for this week - but life happens. Or in this case, death. A few days ago our little community lost another member in Level Dasher - the last few blogs kinda tell the story on that one.
Like Ninjadeadbeard, I won't insult Dasher's memory by calling us close. We moved in different circles for the most part, but he was a consistent and active member of the Jinglemas team and that's primarily where I knew him from. He was a kind soul - good-natured and helpful - who kept a cheerful face on even while in a bad spot.
I'm honestly terrible at eulogizing, and y'all didn't come here for that anyway. So let's talk about Level Dasher's stories.
The first I gotta lead with is A Daughter and her Dragon.
After many years, Spike has grown to be a full-sized dragon. And I don't mean Buff Spike, I mean thirty feet long, moving around on all fours, built like something out of a story about knights and princesses dragon. For reasons that aren't explored until later, he's decided to try and adopt and build a family (with sufficient nudging from Twilight.) That brings him to being introduced to Cotton Candy, a small pegasus filly - orphaned and badly scarred in the same fire that swept through Canterlot nine years earlier… and that killed Rarity.
What follows is… surprisingly low stakes for the most part. While there's a few moments of higher action, this story's mostly 200k words of comfortable fluff as Spike reconciles being a dad and Cotton slowly grows up. (She starts the story at 12, at the end she's… I think she's 18 or 19? I don't remember precisely.) One brief war aside (and honestly the main narrative core of that has little to do with the conflict itself), it's mostly their learning to be family, lots of second and third generation characters making appearances (with a guest appearance by Best Tantabus Moondog), and Cotton living her life. Going to school, falling in young love, trying to decide where to take her future - that sort of thing. It's very… yeah. Comfy.
(I would be remiss as well if I didn't mention the side story that's best read once you're deeper in - it answers some of the questions about missing members of the G4 main/secondary cast and is an excellent companion piece.)
This story was, I believe, the first longfic I ever read. (At worst, it's third.) So for me, it holds a special little place. Every time I saw Dasher, I'd harass him a little about when the next chapter was coming and try to encourage more stories about Cotton. I hope that always came off as intended - as a reader who enjoyed and wanted more.
Hopefully others will enjoy this one, too.
Now, while not all of Dasher's fics are in that warm, comfy tone? I gotta admit, my next favorite of his fits that same mold: Come See the Cuddlebug.
It's a few years down the line at the School of Friendship, and the number of other creatures attending is one the rise. The one that's relevant to the story is a human (it's never specified if it's a human-human or an Equestria Girls-human though the cover art suggests the first) and she's feeling the stress and strain of being in a strange foreign world (as well as those of school in general.) So she comes to the school's Comfort Counselor - Ocellus, who's more often simply called the Cuddlebug.
Because nothing cures the feelings of isolation and anxiety like cuddling a pony while they listen to your troubles.
'Comfort' is again the central theme here - unsurprisingly. Nor is that this story won the 2021 Cuddlefic Contest. The whole thing's just fluffy as all hell. It's extra-strength slice of life, with the main character simply venting a little bit about her problems and concerns while having Ocellus (in various forms) be there as a friendly ear and a silky coat. (Ocellus does get some fun in there too - I always enjoy bits of expressing changeling emotion senses in novel ways like "I can taste the raisins-not-chocolate disappointment coming from her now.")
And that, I suppose is that. See you on the next leg of the great journey, Dasher.
New or catching up? Try Recommendsday: The Index for your story needs!
Another author gone I'd had almost no contact with (I may have exchanged a comment or two with him around Jinglemas), but everything points towards to him being a great person. You can bet I'll be covering some of his works shortly myself.
The only ones I've read previously have been some recent Jinglemas entries; A Daughter and Her Dragon definitely sounds very long-winded and slow for my tastes. But I can clearly tell it has been very impactful on and meant a lot to many folk, and a story doesn't do that without having something – or a lot of things – without speaking deeply to them. More power to it, even if it is incomplete.
Somewhat good news about A Daughter and Her Dragon on that front, though – Navelcolt was very good friends with Level Dasher and, with the blessing of Level's brother, will be getting access to the almost-finished final chapter of the work, and publishing it with the existing chapters on his website. So the work will finish, though it sound like the kind of slow, low stakes story that can survive not getting its final chapter more than most stories as it is.
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Well that's just a wonderful thing to hear.