Read It Later Reviews #10 – Potion Commotion, The Thousand Year Resolution, Vinyl Scratch Hates School, Small Town Rituals, Quantum Mechanics · 5:21am Mar 20th, 2015
I quickly read some old short stories on the basis of some folks’ recommendations, and I thought I would write up a quick batch of reviews for them. The next batch of reviews will come out once I put off reading a 30,000 word story, but until then, I hope this tides everyone over.
The stories I read today:
Potion Commotion by Ladyhart21
The Thousand Year Resolution by outlaw4rc
Vinyl Scratch Hates School by Zanem-Ji
Small Town Rituals by Befallen Tragedy
Quantum Mechanics by Just Horsing Around
Potion Commotion
by Ladyhart21
Romance, Comedy, RandomRainbow Dash is having an excellent day - that is until a desperate thirst drags her from the sky and into a mess that may take more than simple magic to cure. Can real love bloom amidst the kerfuffle, or will shenanigans reign supreme in this tale of epic cliches and awkward matches?
Why I added it: Someone was looking for it on the TwiDash group.
Review
Rainbow Dash steals a potion from Lyra that makes her love every pony she makes eye contact with. She wants to put her hooves all over Twilight, she wants to be the best big sister ever for Scootaloo, and she worships the ground the mayor is standing on. So, you know, an ordinary day in Ponyville, at least by Pinkie Pie’s standards.
Twilight, naturally, needs to solve this problem as quickly as possible, before Rainbow Dash does something she regrets, but naturally this requires the help of her friends to distract Rainbow Dash while Twilight and Zecora figure out that the only way to solve Rainbow Dash’s problem is for her to kiss her one true love… and, well, Applejack seemed a bit upset when Rainbow Dash hit on her brother…
This story has some problems, though. The first and most noticeable is the rough writing. The writer not-infrequently uses mondegreens in the place of other words, or misuses words, or phrases things awkwardly. The text also has a slightly telly quality to it – every once in a while, it simply adds in extra tells for no good reason, or describes things very plainly in a telly sort of way. This paragraph is a fairly good example of the difficulties in prose that the story encounters:
While the two newly arrived ponies bickered (or Twilight staunchly defended her choice of vocabulary as Pinkie beamed back at her wordlessly) Applejack and Rainbow Dash set about making themselves presentable. Meaning Applejack attempted to straighten out Dash’s feathers and brush down several fluffier-than-usual patches of fur that had bristled up in ineffectual defence against her hooves. The results were less than premium, leaving Applejack with a cockeyed cap and Dash looking like she’d come out the worse from a tussle with Winona’s industrial strength hair dryer.
The second problem, however, is probably the larger of them – the story it is all over the place. The climax of the story happens in the fourth chapter, but there’s still over 8,000 words left after the story has, effectively ended – or in other words, a full third of the 26,000 word story. But it isn’t just the climax which feels misplaced – the story in general just feels erratic. While Rainbow Dash going around falling in love with ponies in various ways seems like it would be funny, and it is at least a little funny at first, once she goes off with Mayor Mare things just start getting weird, and the story feels increasingly erratic as events happen but don’t feel like they have much weight or are tightly bound-together. It is pretty obvious from the story itself that the whole thing is going to have a happy ending, and that nothing really bad is going to happen to anyone, but the story seems to try and create tension where none really exists, and where it has already gone out of its way to undermine any real threat.
Its erratic nature also, I think, hurt its ability to be funny. While comedy often relies on the unexpected, instead the unexpected felt like it was a constant distraction, and a lot of visual humor (like Rainbow Dash riding around a police-pony) was lost in translation to text. While some of what happened in the story was funny, and there were some possibly-funny references in there, a lot of it fell flat. For instance, when Pinkie Pie pretends to be “Doctor Horse” (i.e. Doctor House), that’s pretty much the entire joke – it doesn’t really go anywhere with it, it just sort of makes a vague reference to it as if that would be funny on its own, and keeps emphasizing it over and over again without actually going beyond the level of reference.
The final problem that the story suffers from is that we really have no idea why Applejack and Rainbow Dash would even want to be together here – I was hoping that whoever Rainbow Dash’s true love was would at least give us some insight into it, but instead Applejack sort of was a little bit upset, and then thinks about liking Rainbow Dash… but there isn’t any clear reason for any of her emotions, or for Rainbow Dash reciprocating her feelings. Thus in the end even the shipping aspect of the story fell kind of flat for me.
All in all, I can’t really recommend this story – it was nearly 27,000 words long but it wasn’t really a hit for me on either the romance or the comedy, and the randomness of it was primarily in its erratic nature, rather than being a positive quality of the story.
Recommendation: Not Recommended
The Thousand Year Resolution
by outlaw4rc
Slice of LifeNew Year resolutions are a bit a dozen. Ponies all around Equestria make them but not all can keep them. After Princess Celestia banishes her sister to the moon, she ultimately decides to keep one until her return.
Why I added it: Outlaw4RC said it was his best short story.
Review
Celestia keeps watch every evening on New Year’s Day every year of Luna’s banishment, as her various guard captains worry over her, then forget about Princess Luna – and Nightmare Moon’s – very existence.
This story never really seemed like it decided what it wanted to do. At first, it seemed like it was going to be about her guard captains keeping watch over Celestia, worrying about her behavior as time went on. Then it became about Luna being forgotten. Then Luna came back and the princesses had a cry – probably the weakest section of the story. But even beyond the weakness of any individual section, the story didn’t really feel like it had a unique angle or theme – every time I thought I knew its angle, it changed its mind, and consequently the whole thing didn’t really feel very coherent.
The prose sometimes had problems as well; in particular, the jump-cuts in the middle of the story between the captains felt a little bit awkward to me, as I wasn’t really sure what the scene was or who was talking to whom. Likewise, when Twilight Sparkle is finally called upon to save Princess Luna, it feels a bit jarring as well, like the paragraph isn’t assembled quite right.
All in all, I think that there were some interesting ideas for stories in here – the idea of Celestia’s guard captains looking after her over time, even as they forgot what it was that Celestia was mourning, was an interesting idea – but that wasn’t what the story actually was, and by the end of it, I wasn’t really sure if the story really had any point beyond “Princess Celestia missed her sister and didn’t want to let her go.”
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Vinyl Scratch Hates School
by Zanem-Ji
Slice of LifeVinyl Scratch hates school with a burning passion. The education system was one of the reasons she left and became a DJ in the first place. Now, there's one tiny little reason that makes her end up back in school, and she's just going to have to put up with it.
Why I added it: PresentPerfect recommended it.
Review
Between PresentPerfect’s review and the story’s description, I figured out exactly how it was going to end before I even started reading it, and consequently it fell pretty flat, as that was literally the only thing the story really had going for it.
The writer has a strange tendency to use chess notation in the part of exclamation mark. Only one exclamation mark is needed at the end of a sentence; you should not use more than one.
Otherwise, the story wasn’t badly written, but was largely unremarkable. It was a very short story full of Vinyl thinking about why she hated school, none of which were particularly novel, and didn’t really have a whole lot of weight outside of the ending. Indeed, the ending feels a little weird because the place that it is taking place in is described as huge, but given how it ends, that doesn’t make any sense at all unless it is set in a different period of time.
Recommendation: Not Recommended unless you really like twist endings and you haven’t already figured out what the twist is from my review and the description.
Small Town Rituals
by Befallen Tragedy
Slice of LifeThe local ice-cream shop, Dari-B is about to open for another year of service to the town of Ponyville. The residents are eagerly awaiting another year of delicious home-made treats.
Why I added it: PresentPerfect recommended it.
Review
This starts out as a bait and switch, but the bait and switch is kind of spoiled by the description of the story, which makes it immediately obvious what is going on, and then the story just goes on to talk about the ice cream shop and ponies eating there, but… it just doesn’t have that delicious edge that I was hoping for. Instead it just felt pretty insubstantial; nothing really happens, and it is a bunch of folks having a fairly boring conversation without any real purpose or point to it.
The writing is also rough; Apple Bloom and (more inexplicably) Sweetie Belle’s names are given as single words for some reason, and the prose is frequently kind of plain and telly, with stuff like this:
The ponies all made up their pallets on the main floor of the boutique, even Rarity and Sweetiebelle. The grown mares were all near each other, gossiping and talking about their lives. While the young ones were all next to each other to discuss tomorrow. Let's listen in on the latter, I'm not one for the rumor mill after all.
Which felt pretty weird to me, given the rest of the prose.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Quantum Mechanics
by Just Horsing Around
Random, ComedyBreakdowns can happen at any time, but you're never far from help with the Universe Association's Breakdown and Recovery Service. For a small monthly fee, we provide reality-side breakdown assistance when you need it most. Our certified Quantum Mechanics fix around eight out of ten universes by the reality-side, saving you time, hassle, and inconvenience. Join today!
With the sun hanging embarrassingly on the horizon and the appointed sunset hour come and gone, Celestia is forced to call for help from those dedicated beings who turn out in all weathers to bring technical aid to deity-level royals and pan-galactic emperors.
Shame about the bloke who has the franchise for Equestria, really.
Why I added it: It was recommended to me.
Review
This is one of those stories where the “Random” tag indicates that the premise is completely out of left field and ridiculous. If you don’t like such things, turn back now.
Still with me? Good. This is a story about the Sun breaking down like an old car when Celestia tries to lower it, and Celestia having to call upon the good people in the Universe Association to come along and fix it.
Naturally, only a godlike being could easily fix the sun. A godlike being with a terrible British accent and the attitudes of a British car mechanic who doesn’t understand that you aren’t supposed to LEER at your customers.
This story is beautiful and terrible, and I laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation.
If you’re looking for something which at all fits with canon, you won’t enjoy this very much.
If you’re looking for something very silly, though, especially if you enjoy terrible British characters who also happen to be monstrosities from beyond the stars, you might find this amusing.
Recommendation: Worth Reading
Summary
Potion Commotion by Ladyhart21
Not Recommended
The Thousand Year Resolution by outlaw4rc
Not Recommended
Vinyl Scratch Hates School by Zanem-Ji
Not Recommended
Small Town Rituals by Befallen Tragedy
Not Recommended
Quantum Mechanics by Just Horsing Around
Worth Reading
Finally cutting into my “read it later” pile of stories, but alas, at all too slow a rate.
Number of stories still listed as "Read It Later – High Priority": 266
Number of stories listed as “Read It Later”: 1543
Oh yes, I remember reading Quantum Mechanics. I seem to recall being entertained, though the premise and/or execution of the story were apparently insufficiently baffling to make it onto my "Baffling but Entertaining" shelf. Either that or I read it before bookshelves, but given that it now seems like forever since they've been introduced, I have no clue anymore. I'll have to reread it, I suppose.
And then eventually reread and write opinion/review blogs about the stuff on my Reread list; thanks a lot, TD.
I don't have anything to say about the other stories - I've never read them and the descriptions more or less fail to intrigue me enough to add to my reading list.
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You're welcome.
I am eventually planning on doing reviews for all 105 stories on my highly recommended shelf. I'm at like, 10 right now.
It is going to be a long time. Or maybe not, if I just get really motivated one month.
Hello there!
First I would like to say thank you for taking the time to read Small Town Rituals. Thanks to Present Perfect, it's actually been getting some visibility and I really appreciate that.
Now as far as the story goes, I know it's rough in a lot of places, and pretty insubstantial in general. Given how me writing it came about though, I can't say that you're wrong. My friends and I were talking about ice Cream, I brought up Dari-B in my home town, they were curious about why I loved it so much and I had to explain it to them. At the time I only had the first line of a random story written: "I remember my first time..." It was supposed to be a go at a funny story, but thinking that a bait and switch would be good, I started writing about ice cream.
This story is something that holds a lot of nostalgia for me personally, and it was something that I wanted to write for myself. It's not perfect, because it was just something fun and simple to pass the time. I like writing, but I don't believe that every story should strive to be your best and brightest story. I believe that you should be free to write something silly and weird that doesn't hold a lot of meaning. I guess that's why I feel weird about people critiquing this story in particular...
If it had been another story of mine, I might be getting really defensive and calling you wrong, but you're not.
I wouldn't recommend this story to anyone either, simply because It's not an accurate representation of my best work, and it's certainly nothing that deserves to have a spotlight cast upon it.
I thank you for your opinions, though.
The thing that catches my attention about that first one is that, from your description of the potion's effects, it seems to make her fall in love with ponies the way she otherwise would, i.e. there's no foalcon with Scootaloo. That's pretty clever. Also,
I'm sold!
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I agree, that's a nice approach.
I appreciate you looking over my story. Your opinion is pretty much in line with my expectations. Most of time time was (and still is) devoted to my main fan fic series. The Thousand Year Resolution was the first time in ages that I wrote something completely different. It was one of those spur of the moment ideas that came up right before the New Year and since I wanted it released by then, I had about two or three days to write it. Furthermore, the elements in this story is quite the opposite of what I usually do. I didn't use page breaks, I tinkered with my prose and I hit the overdrive with my pacing. I can't even cover one day with ten thousand words in my fan fic series and here I am covering a millennium in just over two thousand.
In short, TTYR was almost like an experiment and while some people enjoyed it, I definitely needed more time to make the narrative more cohesive and flesh out certain elements. To be honest, though, I doubt it would've been enough to pull the story out of mediocrity. I like my ideas but always frustrated with the execution. There's nothing in my library right now that I could point to and say "This meets my standards".
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2893836
Yeah, Potion Commotion had a decent premise; I just wasn't overly fond of the execution of it, which is kind of too bad, as it was an interesting twist on the idea of the love potion.
Glad UA seems to have caught some folks' attention though; I was skeptical, but it ended up being quite fun.
2893835
Ah, the joy of incestuous reviews. "Hey, this is supposed to be good, is short, and someone else liked it; I should check it out!"
You're welcome!
2894011
The real problem with it wasn't so much the pacing per se (though I suppose it was an issue) as the inconsistency; it felt like the story never quite decided what it wanted to be, and consequently it felt scattered and all over the place. Covering a thousand years in two thousand words is possible with the right approach, but it is difficult; most of all, however, it has to feel natural. I was never quite sure what the story wanted to be while reading it, and thus ended up kind of lost - not to mention actually getting lost from the unclear scene changes.
2894800 Understood. I ended up throwing all my ideas into a pot, stirred at light speed and served a messy bowl. I also now recall deciding not to use hard transitions because the story's overall length. Geez. I did a lot of things I don't usually do with TTYR.
In retrospect, I might have done a rotating protagonist approach and each character (a pony close to Celestia) would've gotten their own chapter.
Forever and ago, I remember going into Quantum Mechanics expecting some head-trippy, Sapphire & Steel-type sci-fi shenanigans.
I was pretty disappointed when I realized the bulk of the actual story was just going to coast on the joke that Chthulu is a skeevy roadside repair-deity. Still, it was well-written and I seem to recall some good humor.
Heya! Thanks for the review.
I appreciate the critical feedback. I know I tend to get way too wordy with things, and yet I can't seem to get myself to stop adding just one more descriptive adjective. It's a disease, I tell you!
Story flaws can basically be chalked up to this being something I did for fun. I kinda just went with whatever came to me, and found fun to write - rom-com shenanigans without deep looks into underlying motives. Which I suppose is just me admitting to lazy writing.
Anywho, thanks for the review - that you took the time to look the story over is appreciated.