Ponyfic Roundup 491: Spotlight on Taken for Granite

Read it Later story count: 94 (+1)

Words read this week: 61,172

The second Spotlight in four weeks, and in both cases they're fics with [Romance] genre tags – in the case of this week's story, that's the only tag. Perhaps not something you'd expect from me, and indeed I was quite surprised myself, but I've had this fic on my watchlist for a long time and I've noticed it get consistently positive reactions and reviews over the years. Time to see whether I agree!

Taken for Granite by Cloudy Skies
Applejack and Pinkie Pie
G4; Romance; 61k words; Aug 2013; Teen

Ask Applejack, and she'll tell you Pinkie Pie can be a few apples short of a bushel. They've always been good friends, but what could they possibly have in common? Turns out there is an answer to that question.

This is not a flash-bang, incident-packed shipfic – and it's all the better for that. Set in the FiM we knew at the time of publication, ie early-mid S4 with Twilight an alicorn but Maud not yet around, it concentrates on character. This works well since it's largely (but not entirely) told from Applejack's perspective, and we get a nice look at how her straightforwardness can be compromised. First by a secret Pinkie entrusts to her, but also by matters of the heart. I like Pinkie's depiction here as well: she's very Pinkie, but she has the essential core of wisdom that stops her feeling one-dimensional. ("Wise fool" is I think iisaw's definition of Pinkie, and to some extent at least she's that here.) It's a slow-burn romance, and if you want fireworks you should look elsewhere. But as a largely show-tone (the Teen rating is cautious) look at a slightly unusual pairing in ApplePie, Taken for Granite¹ works very nicely. Shades a four as a result. ★★★★
¹ The A/N mentions that the title was Present Perfect's idea.

As usual with Spotlights, spoilers await beyond this point!

As I said, this isn't a fic to read if you want lots of wild excitement. Indeed, one of the most dramatic things that happens on-screen is right at the beginning, when winter arrives a week early thanks to a mistake. Don't go expecting a "Tanks for the Memories" scenario, though: the cold and snow do facilitate some of the warmer (pun semi-intended) domestic moments and provide Rainbow (and us) with an excuse for sledging and snowballing, but the story would mostly have worked anyway.

Although this is AJ's story, the narration does occasionally head-hop to Pinkie Pie. It's not quite thoroughly omniscient narration, but it happens enough that you come to expect to see a few things though Pinkie's eyes. This is important initially because of the way Applejack promises not to tell anypony about why Pinkie is really concerned about her party but then breaks the promise good and hard. Applejack's feelings about that are, as you might imagine, conflicted.

Mind you, the "wise" part of Pinkie's foolish wisdom comes in more later. There's a one-liner about soap bubbles that narrowed my eyes on sight because it surely wasn't there by chance – and happily, it does get explained in a satisfying way later on. Pinkie's unexpected vehemence late on, when she finally tells Applejack to her face why she's been upset with her, is both startling and welcome. AJ needed to be told that, as she definitely realises.

Spending time with Pinkie Pie's family is interesting: we're in the pre-Maud era, remember, so sisters "Inkie" and "Blinkie" are wildly different from Limestone and Marble's eventual canon selves. If you can cope with that, though, there's some nice world-building involving them and – perhaps especially – rock farming. Indeed, the title of the fic is directly relevant to this aspect, and it's while at the rock farm that AJ's feelings about Pinkie really crystallise (pun semi-intended).

One aspect of the story I wasn't quite so keen on was a very lightly sketched bit of backstory involving Big Mac having had a past relationship with Caramel that broke up badly. We get so little about this that it doesn't have the emotional impact that perhaps was intended. I don't mean I wanted chapters and chapters about the pair, but I feel we get such a small amount that it has less emotional resonance than it might otherwise have done.

Something I appreciate about Taken for Granite is the believably (and rather unusually for this fandom's shipfics) slow-burn nature of its romance. Indeed, the first real hint that something beyond friendship might be stirring – some oblique comments from Rarity – isn't until nearly a third of the way into the story. Mind you, there's only a short wait after that for Applejack to realise that she's fallen for Pinkie, and it's not long after that until they're sharing a bed (in a cute way).

I'm not sure where Cloudy Skies is from, but there are a few instances in Taken for Granite which seem... British. For example, AJ talks about "fancying" Pinkie. As far as I'm aware, that use of "fancy" isn't standard US English in the way it in (ever so slightly dated) UK English, and while I could see Rarity using it, it's a bit of a stretch for Applejack. Certainly no deal-breaker, but it did stand out, as did Pinkie mentioning crisps as part of party food earlier on.

As you'll see, there are only very minor complaints to be had here. Taken as a whole, this is a satisfying, character-centric study of a believable budding relationship. Okay, there aren't the violent arguments and on-off-on-off-on switches you might get with certain other ponies, but that doesn't matter. It's a straightforward and honest piece, even if AJ's dishonesty is a key part of the plot, and that I think is what makes this work so well.

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Well, that was a pleasant experience! Back to five shortfics next time. They will be:

The Root of the Problem by BlazzingInferno
One Storm at a Time by Impossible Numbers
The Afterparty by Honeypelt945
Tracks in the Sand by DwarvishPony
As the Sun Sets, Twilight Covers. by Pickleless