Read It Now Reviews #60 – Where the Sun Don’t Shine, What If I Told You There Was A Changeling in the Basement of Carousel Boutique?, Mark Misconception, Bird Flu, A Moment’s Hesitation · 7:20pm Oct 20th, 2015
After finishing writing Mistletrapped, I sat down and read a bunch of recent stories I’d missed reading.
Today’s stories:
Where the Sun Don’t Shine by Obselescence
What If I Told You There Was A Changeling in the Basement of Carousel Boutique? by Hoopy McGee
Mark Misconception by scifipony
Bird Flu by mr maximus
A Moment’s Hesitation by FanOfMostEverything
Where the Sun Don’t Shine
by Obselescence
Comedy, Random, Crackfic
3,774 wordsAfter taking her first bath in a thousand years, Luna discovers that her cutie mark has been a horrible lie. It turns out she isn't Princess of the Moon after all. In fact, she's actually Princess of Uranus.
Is Uranus ready for this?
Probably not.
Why I added it: Because I had to know.
Review
Princess Luna hasn’t taken a bath in a thousand years on the basis of some real Moon Logic. Celestia is tired of ponies having to wander around in biohazard suits, so forces Luna to take a (very thorough) bath.
But it turns out Luna’s cutie mark was nothing more than a stain. Her true mark has been hidden all this time. It seems she is actually the princess of… Uranus.
A story almost entirely based on pronouncing Uranus as “your anus”, this story is dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. But your inner 3rd grader will like it, if you have one of those. This story is almost entirely puerile humor, and is very cracky, but if you like that sort of thing, it might be up your alley. Specifically the back one.
Recommendation: Worth Reading if you think jokes about Uranus are funny.
What if I told you there was a changeling in the basement of Carousel Boutique?
by Hoopy McGee
Comedy, Random
1,522 wordsTwilight Sparkle and Rarity meet up at a cafe for tea. Everything seems to be going well, until Rarity asks a rather alarming question.
Why I added it: The prophesy was false.
Review
Rarity wants to know how Twilight would react to having a changeling live in the basement of Carousel Boutique.
Twilight wants to know why on earth Rarity would let a dangerous love-eating monster live in the basement of Carousel Boutqiue.
Twilight doesn’t really like the answer.
It is pretty much just a random little bit of wry musing about why Rarity might keep a changeling around. Ultimately, the story is silly, but pretty weightless, and I didn’t end up laughing, and though I might have smiled slightly at the ending, I sort of saw it coming.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Mark Misconception
by scifipony
Slice of Life
3,372 wordsPrincess Twilight Sparkle lay there in anguished silence for almost a minute until she decided to let Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and me help her. It came out as a whisper: "My special talent isn't magic." Of all the ponies we might help, I had never imagined our first might be Twilight, or that it would essential for Equestria that we got it right.
Why I added it: Interesting premise.
Review
The premise of this story was that Twilight’s cutie mark was not actually for magic, but for something else entirely, and Twilight has always known that but has told no one but the Princesses – and the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
While the premise of this story was a very good one, the execution on it wasn’t quite what I was hoping for; the story felt inconsistent, with Twilight’s behavior at times seeming to indicate she knew what her mark meant, at others that she didn’t, and at others that it wasn’t actually that big of a deal. While I can buy the idea that her mark doesn’t actually mean she’s good at magic, and she just happens to be brilliant at magic while her actual mark means something else, the story felt kind of overwrought at times while at other times presenting it in a more neutral light, which made the pathos at the end hard to swallow. Overall, this was a borderline case; the ideas contained in the story are almost enough to carry it through, but my struggle to place Twilight's emotions throughout the story made it tough to recommend.
Recommendation: If your interest in the idea outweighs your dislike of inconsistency, you might like this.
Bird Flu
by mr maximus
Random, Comedy, Slice of Life
3,909 wordsRainbow has a fever. Unfortunately for her, the cure is not simply 'more cowbell'. It's up to Twilight and Rarity to figure out a cure, and bring their friend back from the brink of birdom.
Why I added it: It was featured.
Review
Rainbow Dash starts acting like a bird for no apparent reason, and it is up to Rarity and Twilight Sparkle to figure out why and fix her before it is too late.
While the overall idea behind this piece was potentially amusing – pegasi acting like birds is a silly idea – the story itself kind of struggled to really do much with it. Rainbow Dash acting like a bird is intrinsically funny, but it sort of wore thin after a while, and the various other things which happened – Gilda and Discord’s roles in the piece, and the various research – just didn’t end up doing a whole lot for me. The cover image is pretty funny, but a lot of the humor of the story can be found by searching Derpibooru for behaving like a bird, and it didn’t really feel like it ever went much beyond that, feeling kind of bare bones in other regards.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
A Moment’s Hesitation
by FanOfMostEverything
Comedy, Random, Alternate Universe, MMC Reaction Fic
3,915 wordsCelestia sends Twilight her last, greatest assignment. The lost masterpiece of Star Swirl the Bearded!
The spell that the greatest mage of all time couldn't figure out.
The spell given to her by the mare who thought releasing Discord was a good idea.
The spell that, upon closer inspection, seems about as stable as Rarity's emotional state and as safe as Rainbow Dash's usual workout.
... Maybe Twilight should double check with the princess first.
Why I added it: It was featured.
Review
Twilight Sparkle takes extraordinary precautions when casting Starswirl the Bearded’s final spell, resulting in, after some experimentation, a mildly disastrous occurrence.
While MMC reaction fics can be interesting, this one didn’t really light my fires. We all know what is going to happen when Twilight casts the spell successfully, so all of her delaying doesn’t actually have the same impact that it would otherwise, and ended up coming off as being a bit fixficcy or as a criticism of Celestia. The story is labelled a comedy, but it didn’t actually make me laugh, though I did smile wryly at a few lines, such as Luna addressing Twilight by her full list of titles.
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Summary
Where the Sun Don’t Shine by Obselescence
Worth Reading
What If I Told You There Was A Changeling in the Basement of Carousel Boutique? by Hoopy McGee
Not Recommended
Mark Misconception by scifipony
Not Recommended
Bird Flu by mr maximus
Not Recommended
A Moment’s Hesitation by FanOfMostEverything
Not Recommended
Seems it is time for me to hate everything again. I blame the rainy weather. Though none of these were terrible, most of them didn’t quite light my fires the way I would have liked.
Ah, well. There’s always tomorrow.
I’ve got a set of Read It Later Reviews stockpiled as well, so expect another set in the next couple days.
Until then!
Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 87
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 356
Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 1699
Darn.
What will it be when it will start snowing?
3484518
It seldom snows in Oregon; we only get a small amount, and some years, none at all.
Stories, stories everywhere.
Judging by this review set, you seem to only appreciate Uranus.
I suspect your haterade ratio will be lower when you stop reading things out of the featured box. If there's anything I've learned about fanfics, it's that reading a bunch someone else picks for me leads hatred. :B
(Of course, I say this as someone who constantly adds featured stories to his RIL, so :V)
3484754
Well, it has been suggested that is where my head got stuck, but I told them my neck isn't nearly long enough to reach all the way to the outer Solar System.
3485111
Could be worse, I could read stories out of the new stories box.
Also, I would have read FOME's, Obs's, and Hoopy's stories anyway.
3485130
No lie, when there's nothing in the featured box that is either new or interesting, I'll check out new and popular stories to see if anything there is.
I have added things from the new stories box. c.c
3485144
I have as well, but it usually leads to poor results unless I recognize the author.
I'm not sure how different popular vs featured is, though, quality-wise.
Really, it isn't like I'm just picking random stories, though; most of these looked like they might be interesting, and as noted, I actually follow three of them anyway so... yeah.
3484597
Precisely.
I suppose when it starts snowing, you must be super-duper tetchy!
3485995
I actually like the snow, as long as the power doesn't go out.
3486072
At least, if the power goes out, you can’t review stories!
Ok. I quit those stupid jokes. Have a great night.
If you skipped over it on your run of the feature box, I'd recommend a look at Twilight Accidently Mails Celestia Porn: It looks like clop, but it's actually a pretty competent comedy sketch. Made me snigger a couple of times, at least.
I WAS CURIOUS OKAY