Read It Now Reviews #61 – From Princess Twilight Sparkle, President of the Twinkle-Nebula-Frie-Neutron Family Reunion; Letters; Beyond the Curtain; To Try for the Sun; The Adventures of Batsy Fluffentuft the Magnificant · 11:37pm Nov 7th, 2015
Been a bit remiss in doing reviews since the last writeoff, so I figured I’d climb back on the wagon today and catch up on some of the stories I’d missed.
For those of you who might have missed it, I published a new story on Thursday, Why Don’t You Tell Them?, a story about Twilight asking Celestia why her mentor doesn’t tell everypony in Equestria how alicorn ascension works. If you like more philosophical works, it is probably up your alley.
And to all my new followers who came from that story: welcome aboard! On top of writing stories, I also write reviews of other folks’ stories on a semi-regular basis, typically in sets of five stories.
Today’s stories:
From Princess Twilight Sparkle, President of the Twinkle-Nebula-Frie-Neutron Family Reunion by Georg
Letters by Coronet the lesser
Beyond the Curtain by Skywriter
To Try for the Sun by Rune Soldier Dan
The Adventures of Batsy Fluffentuft the Magnificant by ocalhoun
From Princess Twilight Sparkle, President of the Twinkle-Nebula-Frie-Neutron Family Reunion
by Georg
Comedy
1,094 wordsTwilight Sparkle's family reunion is finally over.
Now all that is left is the cleanup. And the apologies.
Until next year.
Why I added it: It was great in the writeoff.
Review
This story takes the form of a letter sent out to all of Twilight Sparkle’s relatives in the aftermath of a family reunion held at the Castle of Friendship in Ponyville. It seems this year, the job of organizing the reunion fell to Twilight, who, it seems, managed to attract a record number of guests (possibly by dint of being a princess and having a huge castle).
A record number of incredibly nerdy guests.
Due to lack of information of their ongoing feud, I regret that the Nebula and the Neutron branches of the family were housed in the same wing of the castle, although that was no excuse for the midnight graffiti raids from both sides leaving derogatory mathematical formulas on each other’s doors, as well as the breakfast food fight that still has Spike cleaning scrambled eggs out of the curtains. Incidentally, if anybody will claim room 27B as their work, I believe you may have solved the Neighmann hypothesis, if you can recreate the area under the scrambled egg stains regarding the non-trivial zero. Also, we would like to thank whoever fixed the kitchen toaster, and we would appreciate it if you were to send back instructions on how you did it, or even return to demonstrate your technique. The kitchen is now totally filled with toast, and the pressure is growing. Please expedite your reply.
Yes, this is a story full of jokes. Nerdy jokes, primarily related to mathematics, but also many, many other kinds of jokes, some of them highly accessible, others sufficiently obscure that I’m sure many folks will want to look them up, though you generally don’t need to in order to laugh – but knowing what many of these things are referencing (often with terrible horse puns) does add to the humor.
Even if you don’t get every one of them, though, I suspect you’ll still be laughing, as the thing is chock full of humor from every direction, from family feuds and schadenfreude to complaints from Twilight’s friends about her relatives’ behavior.
The whole thing is quite brief, clocking in at just over a thousand words, but is well worth your time for a good, quick laugh.
Recommendation: Recommended.
Letters
by Coronet the lesser
Romance, Sad
4,901 wordsCelestia receives a letter from Twilight, the first in a long time.
A letter about the Cutie Mark Crusaders and how Twilight has changed since her arrival in Ponyville.
It makes a seemingly solitary Celestia think...
Why I added it: It was featured and it was Twilestia.
Review
Celestia is lonely. After receiving Twilight’s latest letter from Ponyville, about the Cutie Mark Crusaders acquiring their cutie marks, she cannot deny it any longer. She longs for companionship, and yet she isolates herself, and is afraid of spending more time with her protégée, Twilight Sparkle. She has her own life now, she says to herself.
She knows it is a lie.
And so does Luna.
This story is all about Celestia’s pathos, her self-imposed loneliness in her station, and how she could reach out and grab something brighter, if only she’d let herself. It is sort of tragic in a way, as she could have what she wanted, if only she’d try, but she feels that it is wrong.
I’m not sure if the romantic overtones here really fit well with the pathos, though; Celestia’s loneliness worked well enough without her liking Twilight as well, I think, and while I can understand that she might have a romantic loneliness as well, it feels like it cheapens the piece a little. Even still, it didn’t ruin it for me in any way, but I’m not sure if it was emotionally necessary.
My other complaint is that the piece is a bit telly in places, and contains unnecessary sentences here and there which don’t really add anything to the piece and which could have been cut entirely.
Still, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the pathos overall, and it worked well enough for me.
Celestia looked down at her desk. It was an old thing, battered from years of wear. Its scratchings were profound, cracks marked its rugged surface and the four legs that supported it buckled under its own weight. From what she could recall, it was a gift from the seventeenth Sultan of Saddle Arabia, though his name escaped her. The wood was according to legend, made from the bark of a tree struck by lightning. The Sultan had said that this granted it a charm allowing it to endure for all of eternity. How fitting that it would be gifted to the supposedly immortal Sun deity. All in all, it was a shoddy piece of work, worn from the stresses of time, in desperate need of replacement.
She liked it.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Beyond the Curtain
by Skywriter
Human, Slice of Life
4,120 wordsIt started with two words:
“Conditioner, dear.”
Why I added it: Skywriter is a good writer.
Review
John is hearing voices while he takes showers.
Female voices.
From beyond the shower curtain.
But when he looks, no one is there.
Normally, this would be a cause for great concern. But all they really seem to be concerned about is him regularly using conditioner to keep his hair from being all frizzy.
Is John going crazy?
Will John give into those voices?
What does his psychiatrist think?
At its core, this is somewhere between comedy and slice of life. The whole story is sort of wryly comedic, but it isn’t really a comedy per se, focusing on John’s struggle against the influence of those voices, refusing to condition his hair out of spite no matter how much Rarity that suspiciously mid-Atlantic-sounding unicorn (and her friends) pester him, and his eventual acclimation into their bizarre fascination with his personal hygene.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
To Try for the Sun
by Rune Soldier Dan
Drama
5,018 wordsCelestia: a filly of twelve. A cynical, hungry pauper, with a young sister to protect and feed.
But the food has run out. Winter has gripped the land for too long, and now the pair face starvation.
The cynic in Celestia knows she can't move the sun. But the child in her wonders... and so she tries.
Why I added it: I have a soft spot for stories about Celestia raising the Sun for the first time.
Review
Luna and Celestia are starving orphans under the rule of King Platinum. The King’s Court is holding the Sun hostage, keeping it far away and dim to plunge the land into a too-long winter in order to break the earth ponies’ spirits.
It is foolish, and the people are starving – dying. Luna and Celestia make do – Celestia working as a gravedigger, while eight-year-old Luna is allowed to be a child along with her friend, Star Swirl. But when Luna gives Star Swirl some food to feed to his dying mother, Celesta – still only twelve years old – has no idea how she is going to get any more food on top of the ever-growing cost of firewood.
And so, after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, she devises a plan…
The story of Celestia raising the Sun for the first time and getting her cutie mark, this story casts her act as one of desperation – she wants to raise the Sun because if she doesn’t end winter, the pair will likely starve.
Overall, this piece is written fairly evocatively – it has strong descriptions, and Celestia’s burden is pushed to the forefront throughout the piece as she has to look out for her little sister, though I’m not so sure why Rune Soldier Dan made her take the role of “father” and not “mother”. The whole thing flows reasonably well, and at 5,000 words, it is about as long as it wants to be without overstaying its welcome.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
The Adventures of Batsy Fluffentuft the Magnificant
by ocalhoun
Comedy, Slice of Life
6,097 wordsBatsy Fluffentuft (not the most respected of the lunar guards, and in fact on super-probation from Princess Luna herself) manages to escape into the town of Canterlot and have herself an adventure.
Why I added it: Someone recommended it to me on Skype.
Review
Batsy Fluffentuft the Magnificent is a member of the night guard, and she’s terrible. On probation from an incident wherein she stole Celestia’s crown (she was going to give it back, honest!), she’s not allowed to leave the guard barracks on pain of not getting any more bat treats.
Luna means it this time, really!
But Batsy isn’t going to let a little thing like a sign stop her from going out and enjoying the day. Even if that means she’ll be going out in daylight (hiss!).
Sure, she doesn’t have any money, but she can just steal what she wants, right?
And there’s this cute stallion at the bakery anyway…
This story was intentionally whimsical, with Batsy being eccentric, childlike, scatter-brained, and obsessed with sex. She spends a surprising amount of time thinking about getting laid in the story, and is very disappointed when the basement she is being lead into by the baker-pony is full of dusty boxes she needs to clear out in exchange for the damage she did, rather than a sex dungeon.
The combination of her child-like mentality and her obsession with sex was kind of weird to me, and the whole thing felt like it was trying a bit too hard to me – it wasn’t so much that it wasn’t funny as that at times it felt like it was being too obvious in its attempts to be funny, and thus the jokes ended up falling a bit flat at times as a result. The fact that everyone in the Night Guard is apparently holding the idiot ball is potentially amusing, but it makes me wonder why Luna employs them in the first place – Batsy in particular.
The story is, at present, incomplete, so it doesn’t really have an ending and we don’t know how her escapades are going to pan out.
Recommendation: If you think reading a story about a young, energetic, sex-obsessed bat pony might be fun, you might like this, but I’m not sure if I’ve really made up my mind about this.
Summary
From Princess Twilight Sparkle, President of the Twinkle-Nebula Frie-Neutron Family Reunion by Georg
Recommended
Letters by Coronet the lesser
Worth Reading
Beyond the Curtain by Skywriter
Worth Reading
To Try for the Sun by Rune Soldier Dan
Worth Reading
The Adventures of Batsy Fluffentuft the Magnificant by ocalhoun
Read it Later
Apparently my picking-and-choosing-based-on-arbitrary-criteria method for picking out these stories from the recent ones worked out pretty well. Hopefully it will continue to serve me.
As for myself? There’s another writeoff going on right now, so I’d better get writing.
Until next time, folks!
Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 93
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 370
Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 1719
Figured you'd enjoy To Try For The Sun. Didn't even have to recommend it to you.
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Yeah, I know. Totally shocking, right? :V
Pretty good batch this time, or so it would seem. I had missed that Skywriter fic before this recommendation, so thank you for that.
I've read two of those and have one in my read it later
I favorited "To Try For The Sun" so hard when I read it. The end is a foregone conclusion but the feels still come sneaking out of everywhere.
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A good bunch?
Aha! Finally, someone has something negative to say about Batsy.
That's surprisingly refreshing, and very helpful and informative. ^.^
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Yeah. Though I was picking-and-choosing pretty heavily on what to read.
Always nice to have a good day of reviews though.
Wow! When I started out Letters I hardly ever even contemplated that it would eventually be reviewed because of its popularity!
Thanks for the review! It is really refreshing to get some good critical analysis and I am very glad it was worth reading for you.
Batsy sounds suspiciously like a bunch of people I went to high school with