Read It Now Reviews #6 – But I Don’t Want to Become a Wonderbolt!, Deep Cover, Plus One, Layers, Taking a Walk · 1:06pm Jan 12th, 2015
After seeing recent stories from Sapidus3 and GaPJaxie, I decided to do a weekend wrap-up of recent stories that I (and others) might have missed in recent days; however, I was not terribly thrilled with the stories I found on the whole. With The Last Roundup gone, there is no filtered source for good new stories, and it takes quite a bit of filtering to find them. If any of you ever see good new stories, feel free to let me know about them in the comments for Read It Now reviews; it is always nice to have someone else act as a filter for you. Until then, it seems I must venture into the breach.
The stories I read today:
But I Don’t Want to Become a Wonderbolt! by Deep
Deep Cover by GaPJaxie
Plus One by Sapidus3
Layers by Leoshi
Taking a Walk by Flammenwerfer
But I Don’t Want To Become a Wonderbolt!
by Deep
Slice of LifeDash has never been happier now that Scootaloo has her wings and can finally start training for the Wonderbolts. Only problem is, Scootaloo has no intention of joining and now has to tell her sister the truth and risk disappointing her forever.
Why I added it: It was in the featured story box.
Review
Scootaloo has finally earned her cutie mark and gained the ability to fly. Rainbow Dash spends all day training Scootaloo, drilling her on flying skills so that she can become a Wonderbolt, and Scootaloo keeps trying to tell Rainbow Dash that she doesn’t want to become a Wonderbolt. Eventually, she does so after doing some sort of Sonic Rainboom-esque move. Rainbow Dash wants to know why she didn’t tell her before, Scootaloo says she didn’t want to disappoint her, Rainbow Dash says she’ll never be disappointed in Scootaloo, hugs all around. The end.
This story suffers from a number of problems, but the single largest problem I had with it was that it all fell kind of flat for me. The story is very short, and I knew where the story was going from the very start of it – there weren’t any surprises here, no unusual twists or turns, and I more or less was just waiting for the story to end the whole time I read it. I never really got particularly engaged in the story because I already knew how it was going to end, and it all felt a bit arbitrary to me – I didn’t know why Scootaloo didn’t care, and I didn’t really care about this particular iteration of Scootaloo. Moreover, it just felt weird that Scootaloo didn’t want to spend time with Rainbow Dash; I get that she isn’t interested in being a Wonderbolt, but it felt kind of weird that there wasn’t any real tension with Scootaloo’s simple desire to spend time with her big sister.
The flying scenes also felt a bit weird – Scootaloo’s super flying move (that Scootaloo did, but didn’t care about) just felt odd. I get why the writer did it – they wanted to show that Scootaloo could totally be a Wonderbolt – but, again, I wasn’t really invested in it, and doing something so flashy just so the character could shout about how they didn’t want to do something felt off.
In the end, it just didn’t work for me, and I never engaged with the story. And without engagement, I can’t really care what happens to the characters. I always just felt kind of apart from it.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Deep Cover
by GaPJaxie
Slice of LifeThis story is a sequel to Dressing Room.
Deep Cover isn’t Applejack – but she does play her on TV.
Why I added it: It is a sequel to a good story, and GaPJaxie is a good writer
Review
The basic premise of these stories is that the characters in the story – Star Power and Deep Cover –are the stars of My Little Pony, actresses who play Twilight Sparkle and Applejack respectively. Here, we get to see a lot of characterization out of Deep Cover, and how she differs from Applejack, as well as how she sees the world – in a very cynical light. And all of it is presaged by Star Power reading Machiavelli’s The Prince(ss) at the start of the story.
Here, we get to hear a bit about Deep Cover’s background, about why she is a method actor, about the Switchgrasses, the farmers she lived with for a month to get into character. She talks about the “real-world” racism in their world, with the sheep and cows, and how it bothers her when it shows up in the show. Deep Cover talks about how she thinks Applejack sees the world, and how she herself sees the world, and it rather disturbs Star Power, even as she is forced to acknowledge that it makes at least some sense and that the social forces that Deep Cover perceives do indeed hold power over Star Power’s life and emotions. We get a lot of neat character and world-building, all wrapped up in a lesson about philosophy.
If this story has a flaw, it is that it is preachy. This story is about communicating a message to the audience, primarily, via the medium of Deep Cover, and while it is delivered well, it is still is obvious what it is. Whether or not it is intended to be so, I couldn’t say, but while Deep Cover is basically explaining how she sees the world to Star Power, she is also explaining it to the audience, and if you don’t really want to hear about the philosophy of social action, you may not enjoy this story.
The preaching didn’t turn me off enough to stop reading it, though, and I do agree with the message, as unpalatable as many people might find breaking down human interactions in such a seemingly-cynical manner.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Plus One
by Sapidus3
Romance, ComedyTwilight receives an invitation from Cadance to the Hearts and Hooves Day Gala, but is confused when she realized that Cadance thinks she already has a special somepony in her life.
Celestia receives a similar invitation, but is more confused at Twilight’s confusion. They were already dating weren’t they?
Why I added it: Sapidus3 wrote the enjoyable Misunderstanding.
Review
Sapidus3’s previous story, Misunderstanding was rather rough, but I found myself enjoying it, even recommending it in a review (while other folks were decrying how bad it was). Unfortunately, this story seems to have taken the more problematic points of Misunderstanding and pushed them beyond the breaking point.
The writing was pretty rough at the time I read it, and I posted no fewer than five corrections in the comments – and was, apparently, not the first one to do so. Missing capitalization and improper punctuation is bad because it makes a story harder to read, but it is also bad because it makes it much more obvious that you are, in fact, reading a story – which makes you much more likely to become aware of its flaws. And here, the rough writing only ended up drawing more attention to the story’s major flaws.
The biggest flaw lies in the execution of the premise. The premise of this story is very strong – Princess Celestia thinks she’s in a relationship with Twilight, Twilight doesn’t think she’s in a relationship with Celestia. Cadance assumes that they’re in a relationship, sticks them together at the gala, hilarity ensues.
Except… it doesn’t end up ensuing at all. The story ends up feeling awkward, forced, and contrived, with the first half of the story meandering for a very long time while Twilight denies being in a relationship. Unfortunately, there was far too much time spent on these denials, to the point where it was very obvious that there was no reason why Twilight would think she was in a relationship with Princess Celestia. At this point, then, Celestia’s own assumptions that they are in a relationship become utterly ridiculous, and rather than being funny, it just feels like the second half is forced, and Celestia has to behave in some weird, unrealistic manner to make the joke “work” – which, of course, it does not precisely because it is trying too hard.
The idea behind this story was a fine one, but the execution was all off, and rather than finding it to be funny, I found it to be forced and a bit scattered. This story really needed to be about and center on Twilight and Celestia, rather than having a long conversation with Twilight’s friends at the start which pretty much sabotaged the premise. The idea that Celestia and Twilight could interpret their relationship differently is potentially amusing, and some of the points that Celestia brought up were potentially embarrassing for Twilight, but it just didn’t end up coming together the way that it was constructed and written.
EDIT: The author made the insightful note in the comments that this story fundamentally centered around a joke, but was built as if the premise was a framework for humor rather than a joke in and of itself. This is a very good point, and is a not-uncommon error; jokes are by their nature punchy, whereas a framework for humor is something which can be milked for a great deal of comedy. Confusing the two can very easily lead to stories which aren't as funny as they seem like they should be.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Layers
by Leoshi
Slice of LifeThe winter weather has played havoc on poor Scootaloo. She's suffering from one of the worst colds on record! And Rainbow Dash, being the helpful guardian she is, decides to to whatever she can to make her feel better. It will involve board games. It will involve medicine and making sure Scootaloo gets her rest. But first, it's cheering the little filly up through mischievous means.
Why I added it: I noticed it on the new stories shelf and decided to read it randomly.
Review
This is a pretty standard heartwarming Scooaloo is a cute kid story, though it somewhat confused me – why is Rainbow Dash taking care of Scootaloo? Why is Scootaloo spending the night with Rainbow Dash when she is sick? Is this a Scootadoption story? It just felt kind of weird to me that she didn’t end up going home to her parents, and yet this was never really brought up.
The plot of the story is that Scootaloo has a cold and Rainbow Dash is taking care of her and messing with her. It is a very short story at 1,600 words, and is a fairly standard example of a Scootafeels story. There’s nothing especially wrong with it per se, and it is competently executed, but it doesn’t really go anywhere or say anything that other stories which feature Rainbow Dash taking responsibility for Scootaloo don’t, so there is really no reason why you would need to go out of your way to read it, either. If you’re looking for a feelsy story about taking care of a sick pony, there’s no reason to recommend this over a story like Melt other than the characters involved.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Taking a Walk
by Flammenwerfer
Random, Slice of LifePrincess Luna, purged of the Nightmare the day before, has officially been welcomed back into power and into the alleged loving embrace of the populace. Though in quite a weakened state from the whole ordeal, she cannot seem to sleep anymore come the evening.
So, she decides to take a walk. She may very well find more than a mere cure for her sleeplessness.
Why I added it: I was browsing stories from the last week by rating and it was the first story I hadn’t read that caught my eye.
Review
The idea behind this story is fairly decent – Luna, just a few days returned, wakes up during the middle of the night and notices that there are a huge number of lights on in Canterlot. Curious, she investigates, only to discover at the end that times have greatly changed and ponies stay up at night not only for holidays and special occasions, but simply because they can. It is something we take for granted, but that someone from medieval times would certainly find rather unusual for the common folk, and the idea of Luna making this discovery and feeling encouraged by it is reasonable, if perhaps a bit of a reach for low-hanging fruit.
Unfortunately, the execution of it was off; the writing quality was rough, and I noticed several words were capitalized inappropriately after semicolons. This especially stuck out to me in the very first paragraph of the work, where several such errors appeared, which almost made me stop reading on the spot.
The narration felt off in places as well. For instance, it notes that Luna does not want to be waited on as if she was in an elderly-care home… when Luna is from ancient times when such things simply did not exist. It is therefore a very strange analogy to use with her, because it feels misplaced. Using the term “nosh” for eat also felt very weird, as it is a slang term for eating which only entered English quite recently – again, feeling very misplaced as a word used in relation to Luna. These sorts of errors undermine the premise of the story, which is that Luna is a fish out of temporal water and feels like she is in the wrong time, because they mark Luna as being a resident of our own time rather than of the past.
The story also meandered a bit, focusing on strange details such as what ponies had done for Luna in her room, with a great deal of the story devoted to something which is ultimately irrelevant to the point of the story. Even though it is a short story, it feels like it might have been possible to make tighter and shorter, or at the very least to have used more of its length effectively to deliver the feeling it was trying to achieve.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Summary
But I Don’t Want to Become a Wonderbolt! by Deep
Not Recommended
Deep Cover by GaPJaxie
Worth Reading
Plus One by Sapidus3
Not Recommended
Layers by Leoshi
Not Recommended
Taking a Walk by Flammenwerfer
Not Recommended
It is really hard to go through random stories and pick out the good ones; I thought these sounded potentially interesting, but ultimately the only one I ended up finding worthwhile was the one from the author I had followed - and I look forward to seeing the rest of the stories about the actresses who play the ponies we all know and love.
While I liked the idea behind them, the execution of Taking a Walk and Plus One prevented me from really enjoying them the way I would have liked, while Layers didn’t end up doing anything novel enough to really justify itself to me.
Still, I suppose it is a good thing to sample the air outside of the rarified realm of my followed authors from time to time, if only to take a sniff at new things.
Number of stories still listed as "Read It Later - Recommended": 178.
Number of stories listed as “Read It Later”: 1539.
Fiiiiired.
Titanium Dragons are like an eight-year-old boy's finger in relation to his noes: picky.
(that sounded better in concept than in execution.)
I do like the general sound of that Luna takes a walk fic, her discovering the nightlife of a modern society is something I've always wanted to see get a good fic treatment. Would it be worth looking at if I'm curious about the story and am willing to overlook mild errors in execution?
I grab some stories from the feature box, but the majority of my read later list is populated by stories other people have tried first. I suppose it helps that I'm following so very many reviewers, like yourself for instance, and therefore have a nice deep pool of suggestions to pick from. Plus the occasional suggestion from the authors I follow.
Though I'll probably end up reading a good amount of stories for the more most dangerous game contest coming up. Reading contest entries is often good to find one or two good authors, assuming you can handle the rest of it.
2717878
She just discovers that it exists, rather than actually experiencing the night-life firsthand, unfortunately; I don't think it is the kind of story you're looking for, if you're asking what I think you're asking.
2718196
It is indeed a good way to find interesting folks to follow, though I'm not sure how many of those stories I'll be reading; probably just the highest-placing ones.
re "Taking a Walk": Now I want to write a borderline-crackfic where Luna and Celestia are literal goddesses, and as Goddess of the Night Luna can see literally everything that happens in shadows. She's undergoing a constant borderline freakout in the modern age because with the advent of modern lighting, shadows are now basically unknown indoors, and with streetlights et.al. she can no longer keep watch on the cities at night. (Which were put into place exactly because Celestia, as the Goddess of Light, needed to keep her ponies safe after Luna's banishment.) Cue royal orders to start removing streetlights and ponies flipping the buck out.
2718474
I would read the heck out of that.
2718411 I went ahead and took a look since it was just 2500 words, and yeah it wasn't quite what I was looking for, but it definitely could be the start of what I was imagining.