Read It Now Reviews – Ghandivilization, Blessed, Season’s Bleatings, A Good Princess, Dressing Room · 5:51am Dec 16th, 2014
Sometimes, I feel kind of bad – I always want people to read my own stories when they first come out, as that makes them much more likely to get featured, and yet, I often delay on reading the stories of others for no apparent reason, marking them “read it later” while I read something else.
But why read it later when you can read it now? Not only can you experience the best and brightest stories first, but you can also contribute to them getting the attention they deserve by bolstering their placement in the featured story box?
The five stories I read today, all released within the last three days:
Ghandivilization by Rainbow Bob
Blessed by Rated Ponystar
Season’s Bleatings by Estee
A Good Princess by HoofBitingActionOverload
Dressing Room by GAPJaxie
Ghandivilization
by Rainbow Bob
Comedy, CrossoverWhen Princess Celestia and Gandhi have tea, Celestia learns that some of the most important aspects of building a civilization is hard work, dedication, diplomatic relations, and best of all, the threat of mutual assured destruction.
Celestia won't be having tea with Gandhi anytime soon after this.
Why I added it: I stalk RainbowBob’s every move.
Review
This is a crossover with Civilization V, a video game which features Ghandi as one of the leaders of the civilizations (specifically, the leader of the Indian civilization). He was somewhat infamous for his aggressive, warlike ways in those games, leading to endless jokes about him being a bloodthirsty tyrant.
I hope that the new Beyond Earth Civilization game includes a DLC with SPACE EMPEROR GHANDI, a brutal dictator who is little more than a disembodied head attached to a gigantic mecha body… wearing his simple cloth robe. Alas, I am sadly certain that they will never do so due to the inevitable controversy, as funny as it would be.
The story is extremely short and is little more than the two characters sitting down, enjoying tea together, Celestia praising Ghandi’s peaceful ways, and Ghandi explaining to Celestia that the threat of dropping thousands of nuclear warheads on his enemies is the only thing which keeps humanity from tearing itself apart.
Apparently, you can hug your children with nuclear arms. They just get cancer.
Unfortunately the story adds nothing to the general formula of such, and if you’re familiar with the background of Ghandi being hilariously nuke-happy in the Civilization games, you probably already know why this is funny. If you’re not, then I just explained the joke to you.
Recommendation: Not recommended.
Blessed
by Rated Ponystar
Romance, Slice of LifeApplejack loves Hearths Warming Eve not just because of the festivties, the friendships, the family, and the love. But because she is reminded of how much she is blessed with. A home. A wife. And a daughter.
All of which are the best presents she could ever ask for.
Why I added it: I follow Rated Ponystar home at night.
Review
Unfortunately, the author himself notes:
There really is nothing special about this story. I wanted to do something for Christmas and I felt like I wanted to do this kind of story. A story about a family enjoying the holidays.
This is your generic “someone isn’t going to be home for the holidays, cute kid is sad, missing relative shows up, everyone is happy” story which is playing for the next month or so on the Hallmark Channel. The story is too short to really put any twist on the idea, and it doesn’t really try.
Recommendation: Not recommended.
Season’s Bleatings
by Estee
Slice of LifeThere's one week to go until the second Hearth's Warming Eve since Rainbow claimed her Element, and that week finds her in Ponyville. Where everypony is playing the same old holiday standards, over and over: gramophones in every store, carolers on every street, without mercy. Where the sheer pointless din of it all can grind against a pony's nerves after a while, at least if that pony is bright enough to recognize how meaningless all those sounds are. Ponyville just before the holiday, in a gentle snowfall, with music all around.
It's the last place in the world Rainbow wants to be.
Why I added it: Estee has pretty wings. I might try them on sometime.
Review
Rainbow Dash cannot escape that accursed noise known as Christmas Hearth’s Warming music. It is everywhere, and Rainbow Dash cannot escape it, cannot evade it, cannot get away.
And over the course of the story, it gets worse and worse until it all comes crashing down.
This story has a lot of pretty great funny lines in it, some funny little touches which spruce up the prose and make it much more fun to read.
But at the same time, the conclusion felt discordant. Rainbow Dash had felt trapped and unable to escape, and throughout the story, you’re lead to believe this is because there is just nowhere she can go off to and escape the music – nowhere safe, anyway.
But in reality, she just wants to go home. This is actually alluded to sneakily in several places in the story, in several different ways, but at the same time, I felt like it was a bit out of nowhere emotionally – and in the end, I didn’t feel like it ever got resolved, with Rainbow Dash just being jerked off to Canterlot at the end of the story to do the Hearth’s Warming Eve play, without any real emotional resolution. Lyra suggested some resolution, but it didn’t feel like it ended up taking, and as a result, I didn’t really feel satisfied by the end of the story.
Still, there was a lot here to like, and even in the conclusion there were some nice touches. It wasn’t perfect, but it had some good stuff.
Recommendation: Worth reading.
A Good Princess
by HoofBitingActionOverload
Slice of LifePrior to the events of "A Canterlot Wedding" Princess Celestia asks Cadance what ought to be done with the changelings that have been discovered living hidden in Equestria. Cadance's proposed plan of action is swift, brutal, and ruthless, but absolutely unnecessarily so. Celestia has never heard Cadance speak an ill word of anyone, and she cannot fathom why the young princess seems to so despise the uncovered changelings.
Cadance just can't fathom why the uncovered changelings have chosen to forsake their own kind to live among the ponies.
Why I added it: I watch HoofBitingActionOverload sleep at night.
Review
Set prior to the events of A Canterlot Wedding, Chrysalis is disguised as Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. She goes to a meeting with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna wherein they discuss the fate of the changelings within Equestria. Chrysalis fears that her invasion has been discovered, but finds out that instead they are talking about rogue changelings, lone defectors from the hive – in some cases, her hive – something that Chrysalis simply cannot believe. Chrysalis believes they are traitors and that they should be treated as traitors deserve, and then that they should be imprisoned and questioned, but Celestia and Luna are far more merciful and want to let them be. Under the guise of Cadance, she convinces them to hand over their locations, and goes to observe them and see what they are up to.
The style of this story helps to carry its content. In this story, Chrysalis is never referred to by name; instead, she goes by the name of the pony she is disguised as, even in the prose. There is some sort of hive-mind, but changelings can choose to cut themselves off from it, and a number of them have, apparently, done so – and Chrysalis simply cannot understand why. We get to see her own alien mindset, as well as her ability to sense the emotions of others, and how a paranoid tyrant might use that ability – and be both set at ease and disquieted by reactions she doesn’t expect. Her fear of discovery shines through quite well at the start of the piece, and it really says a lot about her thought processes by showing us what conclusions she leaps to in the piece.
It is an interesting take on Chrysalis, and I thought it was worth my time to see.
Recommendation: Worth reading.
Dressing Room
by GaPJaxie
Slice of Life, Alternative UniverseStar Power isn’t Twilight Sparkle – but she does play her on TV.
Why I added it: This was one of the better entries from the last write-off and has now been brought to FIMFiction for your viewing pleasure.
What, you thought I stalked Jaxie? He’s a wizard! The Great and Powerful thing is right there in his name! What do you think I am, crazy?
Review
The premise of this story is that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is a live-action show in a pony world which features a young cast of stars. Twilight Sparkle is played by Star Power, the 16 year-old foal actress who is the heart and soul of the show.
This story is more of a teen magazine interview, or an interview someone might do for some entertainment channel. In-universe, all of the ponies are played by various actresses and we get some view of their lives behind the scenes of the hit show. There is a lot to like about this interview – Butter Up/Fluttershy most of all – and it is full of very cute ideas. A lot of folks have demanded that more stories be written in this ‘verse, even though this wasn’t really a story at all so much as an interview and a hint of the stories that go on behind the scenes in their universe – and the story of the child actress who is forever going to be Twilight Sparkle to her fans.
It is a cute idea and well-executed, and worth your time.
Recommendation: Recommended.
Summary
Ghandivilization by Rainbow Bob
Not Recommended
Blessed by Rated Ponystar
Not Recommended
Season’s Bleatings by Estee
Worth Reading
A Good Princess by HoofBitingActionOverload
Worth Reading
Dressing Room by GAPJaxie
Recommended
This was a very fruitful endeavor, though the fact that all of these stories were picked from people I was already following due to having written other things I enjoyed probably helped. And perhaps, by pointing all of you at these, they will get the attention that they deserve.
Number of stories still listed as "Read It Later - Recommended": 145.
Number of stories listed as “Read It Later”: 1520
A recommended story? WHAT!?
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Titanium dragons are the pickiest of all metallic dragons. They are rarely hunted, for those dark and twisted enough to do so will often satisfy their greed just by scavenging from the piles of precious scree found outside the dragons' lairs. However, those who approach titanium dragons peacefully may be fortunate enough to witness those treasures the dragons consider worth keeping. The dragons may even share them with the truly blessed.
Not sure where that came from, but I'm glad to see something on this site can meet your standards.
Hey, 3/5 this time!
I was hoping that you recommended Dressing Room, I love the concept of the whole thing and hopes someone may expand on it sometime.
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I actually liked that, thank you.
And to be fair, I have both a recommended to others shelf (which has 99 stories - basically, that shelf would be my "highly recommended" shelf) and a fifteen stories you should read shelf (all of which are on the recommended to others shelf). I even have a favorites shelf (which contains about twice as many stories as the recommended to others shelf - this is both my "recommended" and "highly recommended" stories, more or less) and a Upvoted stories shelf (which would include all of the "worth reading", "recommended", and "highly recommended" stories). I haven't reviewed the vast majority of them (or any of those bookshelves, for that matter), but they're all stories I read and upvoted. I even have a Why TD followed you shelf which contains the stories which lead me to follow people.
I do like some things. I swear!
I also have a "No vote" and a "Downvote" shelf, but those are both private; I use them to keep track of how many stories I upvote/no vote/downvote so I can see how negative I am overall.
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Knowing what GAPJaxie was trying to do with the story, now, it would feel a bit strange, but it could be potentially interesting. The main problem is that the premise does a lot of the selling for it, and you'd need to come up with some sort of hook for other stories in the 'verse.
And yes. Really, how I choose the stories has a pretty big impact on how many of them I'll like; some methods give me much better results than others. One of the things I'm doing is keeping track of why I have stories marked read it later (or read it later - recommended) and I'm seeing if I can detect patterns in it. If certain methods of picking stories to read leads to better results, then it would make sense for me to try and test that out more and see if it works.
Right now, my leading methods are the Royal Canterlot Library (which has given me a Highly Recomended, 2 Worth Readings, and a Not Recommended) and Contest (2 Recommendeds, 5 WRs, and 2 NRs) - Contest basically means "highly placed in a contest". Good Author and Recommended (by someone else) give me about a 50/50 hit rate. Bookshelf tracking and related stories have failed to spit out any successes.
However, all of them are pretty small sample pools at this point; as I expand the number of stories I review and put on the chart I should get better statistical data on them.
2657267
The fact that you're tracking up/down/neutral begs the question of what those numbers actually are.
2658424
421 Upvoted
332 Neutral
226 Downvoted
Note, however, that these numbers are heavily biased because I went through and backfilled them for my favorites (all upvotes, obviously) and for all the authors I remembered reading stories from. I still sometimes will stick another old vote in to futz with the numbers, but obviously any random writer I don't remember is probably more likely not to have earned an upvote from me and, thus, upvotes are probably a slight overestimate as anyone who I've followed/remembered is more likely to have their votes filled in than someone who I haven't.
Neutral is also slightly exaggerated by stories I have followed but haven't voted on yet, but that's only like 20 stories or so; neutral votes probably are my most common "vote", but it is hard for me to say for sure.