While I haven’t posted a Recommended Story Review set every month, I have been trying to do so, and this set brings me up to #15. This is starting to have an interesting consequence, though. Because these sets are composed entirely of stories that I enjoyed enough to recommend before I started doing reviews, the number of stories I can include in these sets shrinks every blog post.

And because I’m lazy, this means that the average length of the unreviewed stories from my favorites shelf has continued to get longer.

I say this because this set briefly had no fewer than three stories in it under 1,000 words, and then I realized that would be very silly to spend all of my remaining very short stories from my list, and so went back and picked out some longer (but still shortish) stories.

Still, 12,000 words or 1,300, these are some good stories, and worth your time to read.

Today’s stories:

Wet Feathers by Bookplayer

Martial Bliss by Skywriter

For When It Rains by Vivid Syntax

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart by Tumbleweed

Where You Can’t Follow by AbsoluteAnonymous

Wet Feathers

by bookplayer



Drama, Romance

12,375 words Applejack and Rainbow Dash knew this would be hard, but a long distance relationship was in their future from the start. A Wonderbolt and an apple farmer don't have a lot of time in the same place, so they do their best with letters and the occasional weekends. But when Applejack finds out that Rainbow Dash is on the cover of Flyers Illustrated: Wet Feathers Edition, it plays on a fear she never mentioned to Dash: Everypony knows that famous ponies are different from normal folks... Right?

Why I recommend it: It is an excellent AppleDash story that approaches an established relationship from an interesting direction.

Review

Applejack and Rainbow Dash have been a couple for a while now. But after Rainbow Dash got into the Wonderbolts, Applejack started seeing a lot less of her marefriend – Rainbow Dash is gone for weeks on end travelling with the team all across Equestria, and while they exchange letters once a week, it just isn’t the same as being there with one another.

And then, one day, Applejack sees the magazine – Flyers’ Illustrated, Wet Feathers Edition. Full of pictures of the sexiest new member of the Wonderbolts, Rainbow Dash, in poses that are only barely decent.

It doesn’t help that a teenaged Scootaloo comes along moments later to buy the magazine. You know, for the articles.

And Rainbow Dash’s weekly letter is a combination of talking about how fun the photo shoot was (and how proud Rainbow Dash is to be so hot), as well as Rainbow Dash talking about some of the things she does and missing Applejack.

And Applejack is upset. Applejack is just a plain country pony, nopony famous, and she didn’t sign up to be a famous pony’s girlfriend. Famous ponies go out and do things and don’t act like real ponies! And Applejack is with Rainbow Dash, the real pony, not Rainbow Dash, the famous Wonderbolt.

And she doesn’t know how to get that across to Rainbow Dash in a letter.

This story is about the stresses of a long-distance relationship, as well as the disparity (real or perceived) between what Applejack wants and what Rainbow Dash seems to want. It is about a lack of communication (on both ends, as neither pony fully understands what the other is going through), as well as the insecurities that they both have. Applejack knows that Rainbow Dash is a good pony, but is scared that Rainbow Dash doesn’t think and is going to hurt her even more – while Rainbow Dash is oblivious to just how scared Applejack really is.

At its core, this is a solid dramatic piece, and Applejack’s stress and worries about the situation are on full display here. We don’t get to see Rainbow Dash’s side of it until the end of it, when things have been pushed to their breaking point, and then we see it all come together in the end.

This is a nice story with a strong payoff. The tension between Applejack and Rainbow Dash here works well, and Applejack is upset not only with Rainbow Dash, but with herself, for not being strong enough to deal with it, and for not saying and doing the right things before Rainbow Dash left to go be famous.

If you’re interested in a bit of angst, and can buy Applejack and Rainbow Dash being in a pre-existing relationship, this is an excellent piece.

Recommendation: Highly Recommended.

Martial Bliss

by Skywriter



Comedy, Random

1,514 words Shining Armor learns the most important tactical lesson of his life.

Why I recommend it: It is gloriously stupid.

Review

Shining Armor, as a newfledged Captain of the Royal Guard, is approached by his (thoroughly soused) former drill instructor, who tries to convince Shining Armor that he should train the Royal Guard in the greatest weapon of all – the wife.

What really makes this story is Shining Armor’s reaction to a totally ridiculous situation, combined with his former drill instructor (and his drill instructor’s wife) having wonderfully silly dialogue. Terrible puns and various sundry jokes work to keep making the audience giggle along as the piece follows its silly course to its conclusion.

This story is just plain old funny, and given it is only 1,500 words long, you should read it if you haven’t already and are in the mood for a laugh, because it will give you a few.

Recommendation: Highly Recommended.

For When It Rains

by Vivid Syntax



Sad

4,827 words "When I read their letters... I think about how temporary everything really is." A lonely princess pores over her studies in a frigid castle, desiring nothing more than the warmth of an old friend. Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Equestria, wears a heavy crown wrought of burdens too numerous to bear, but perhaps a special visitor can ease her pain, if only for a moment.

Why I recommend it: A poignant look at Twilight’s relationship with her friends.

Review

Twilight has moved away to Canterlot to be a princess, but her friends still write her letters. One day, Twilight is excited to receive a visit from Rarity. As we see Rarity’s visit play out in the present, interspersed with letters that Twilight’s friends wrote her over the years, we come to realize that Rarity’s visit is not in the near future, but as the unicorn is beginning to get old, even as Twilight remains young.

This story gives us a glimpse of what Twilight’s life is like as she grows into being the Princess of Friendship, as well as some of the loneliness she feels as she realizes just how temporary all of her friendships ultimately will be. While this might sound like the setup to an immortality angst story, in the end this story is actually hopeful, despite the sad tag it bears – rather than showing us how sad Twilight is, it shows us how deep her friendship with her friends run, as well as that Twilight isn’t giving up on making new friends, even if she does feel a bit lonely and isolated by her status and immortality.

The letters are sweet, and the visit from Rarity gives us a look at not only an older Rarity, but how much Rarity cares about Twilight, and vice-versa. The story as a whole has a clever setup, and it lends itself a great deal of emotional weight by the end by the context of the letters as we come to understand their deeper meaning over the course of the piece. The characters are all strongly voiced, and by the end of it I’m left feeling hopeful for Twilight’s future, as well as warmth towards the friendships that she has shared.

Recommendation: Highly Recommended.

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart

by Tumbleweed

Comedy, Romance

11,127 words Rarity's decided to break up with Applejack, but were they even an item in the first place? And, perhaps more importantly, what does Applejack have to say about it?

Why I added it: This is a very funny RariJack shipfic.

Review

While at one of her weekly spa dates with Rarity, Fluttershy wonders out loud how long Rarity and Applejack have been a couple.

This takes Rarity quite by surprise. Sure, they’d gone out on a date in order to prove… something (it made sense at the time!), and… sure, they spent a lot of time around each other, and were particularly close. But that didn’t mean they were dating! Or liked each other. Even if Applejack does have a certain rustic charm. And, you know, ponies might assume from all their arguing…

But Applejack is the sort of pony who might make assumptions. Indeed, clearly, Rarity must have seduced her by accident with her feminine charms!

Happens all the time.

So, naturally, Rarity decides that she needs to break up with Applejack. Even though they hadn’t ever been dating.

This goes about as well as you’d expect.

This is one of my favorite RariJack shipfics. The voicing of the characters is excellent throughout the piece, and the story is full of very funny dialogue and misunderstandings. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash try to help out Rarity and Applejack, with Rainbow Dash being completely unhelpful and poor Fluttershy getting shanghaied into everyone else’s wacky hijinks.

Rarity’s love of the dramatic is on full display throughout the piece, and we can see her self-sabotage in her attempts to break up with Applejack, making it pretty clear that Rarity is less than certain that they shouldn’t be a couple. Meanwhile, Applejack is just left heading straight through and wondering why everyone seems like they don’t have their heads screwed on straight, and her direct approach to everything throws a wrench into everyone’s plans.

This is a comedy of errors and manages to pack a fair bit of story into only 11,000 words. If you’re a fan of RariJack, this is definitely up your alley, and if you’re a fan of wacky hijinks, this is likely to earn more than a few laughs.

Recommendation: Highly Recommended.

Where You Can’t Follow

by AbsoluteAnonymous



Sad

1,317 words When an earth pony befriends a pegasus, there are some places they can't follow.

Why I recommend it: A beautifully poignant story.

Review

Pinkie Pie is scared of Rainbow Dash flying away – both figuratively and literally. She’s afraid that Rainbow Dash is going to move on, move back to Cloudsdale, or join the Wonderbolts, and leave her behind. And Pinkie Pie doesn’t want her to go. The world needs Rainbow Dash, and Rainbow Dash needs the sky – but Pinkie Pie needs Rainbow Dash, too.

Absolute Anonymous certainly has a way with words, and this story, short as it is, carries a lot of punch because of them. It contains brief passages ruminating on the nature of pegasi and their relationship to the sky, interspersed with a scene in the present with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. The combination of the two, and the interplay between them, works so well in conveying not only Pinkie Pie’s thoughts, but evoking her emotional mindset in the reader. It is a sad little story, but it just is such a lovely thing to read, and it manages to do a good job of conveying a lot of emotion in only 1,300 words.

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

Summary

Wet Feathers by Bookplayer

Highly Recommended Martial Bliss by Skywriter

Highly Recommended For When It Rains by Vivid Syntax

Highly Recommended I Am Trying to Break Your Heart by Tumbleweed

Highly Recommended Where You Can’t Follow by AbsoluteAnonymous

Highly Recommended

I have a messed-up sleeping schedule.

I also monitor how much work I have gotten done every day; this is both a means of seeing how much I’ve gotten done as well as a means of seeing how much I haven’t gotten done.

But this collides with my messed-up sleeping schedule in interesting ways. After all, if I’m doing work and end up working until 1 or 2 in the morning, it makes sense that would count with the previous day, rather than the actual calendar day I did it on, right?

Plus this has the advantage of me not having to figure out where I got to with my writing at midnight; I can just count up all I got done when I go to bed.

But this also means if I, say, wake up in the middle of the night, clearly it is a new calendar day… which leads to interesting consequences if I wake up at like, 4, then take a five hour nap in the evening and wake up again before midnight. Which happened two days ago. Or yesterday, by your human calendar.

What I’m saying is that it feels like I did nothing at all “yesterday”, but I posted a review set on January 24th. But that was two days ago when I was fiddling with this set on the 25th.

But right now, it is 3:30 am on January 26th. But according to my tracking calendar, it is still the 25th, and my writing on this post is credited to the 25th, not the 26th.

I’m feeling rather odd about this.

Still! Productivity is productivity, and I got this done. Here’s to tomorrow, which may or may not be today!