Read It Now Reviews #77 – Displacement, Surrogate, Completely Safe in the Reference Section, The Hays Code, When the Moth Loved the Flame · 9:58pm May 11th, 2016
Two days until the start of Everfree Northwest, but I leave for the Emerald City tomorrow. If any of you are going to be there and want to meet up, send me a PM and I’ll give you some contact information; I don’t have a smart phone, so the most reliable way of contacting me while I’m wandering around the convention is likely to be an actual, honest-to-god phone call.
I know, shocking.
In any case, I figured before I went, I’d read up on some recent pony stories. And it has been a pretty good crop!
Today’s stories:
Displacement by Bad Horse
Surrogate by Pascoite
Completely Safe in the Reference Section by Cold in Gardez
The Hays Code by Estee
When the Moth Loved the Flame by Present Perfect
Displacement
by Bad Horse
Comedy, Human
3,337 wordsOnce, I thought I knew it all. All I had was overpriced cable TV, slacker friends, no girlfriend, and a shitty job doing customer support, but I thought I knew it all.
That all changed one day when I dressed up for a costume party as the semiotic psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.
Why I added it: Bad Horse is my Big Other.
Review
Everyone thought that Displaced stories were played out.
At least, until Bad Horse decided to have someone dress up as semiotic psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. For those of you who don’t know what that means, frankly, it really doesn’t matter; suffice it to say that A) he is quite mad, in the “psychiatrist who diagnoses everyone and everything around them as psychotic and symbolic of various things” sort of way, and B) he is thrown into Equestria, where he is, of course, even more delightfully mad. His work has been described as an “incoherent system of pseudo-scientific gibberish,” and Bad Horse here pulls it off to a T. The protagonist is in love with Twilight Sparkle, sees phallic symbols everywhere, and, well, spends the whole story throwing out incoherent, pseudo-scientific gibberish.
It is a glorious ride from beginning to end, if, of course, you enjoy stories making fun of French semiotic psychoanalyists. Also possibly stories making fun of Displaced stories.
More seriously, this made me chuckle. Lacan’s self-serving patent nonsense, combined with everyone else’s lack of comprehension of his patent nonsense (save for Twilight’s all-too-great understanding of it) works well, and the whole thing is well worth a read if you like laughing at pseudo-scientific nonsense.
Recommendation: Recommended.
Surrogate
by Pascoite
Drama, Sad
2,848 wordsI like my job, but of course I look forward to coming home at the end of the day. Especially lately. We have a daughter now. We actually have a daughter. And I can’t wait to see her.
Why I added it: Pascoite is a good writer.
Review
A pony comes home from work, eager to spend some time with his wife and adopted daughter. But the house is too quiet today. Where is everypony? Maybe they’re upstairs, having an imaginary tea party…
I remember this story from the writeoffs, and I like it. It is a powerful piece, told from the point of view of a character who is basically a non-entity in the show itself, but who here is given life and feeling, and what was a minor scene in one episode is given a wealth of new meaning.
The gradual unveiling of the protagonist’s hopes and dreams even as they unwind around him works well, and there’s a good emotional ride in here as we come to both know the character, and feel both hope and loss on his behalf.
Recommendation: Recommended
Completely Safe in the Reference Section
by Cold in Gardez
Comedy, Slice of Life
8,147 wordsAfter a harrowing and dangerous quest, Twilight Sparkle and her friends have recovered Excelsior's Ecstatic Codex from an evil zebra cult intent on ending the world. The Codex, one of the greatest works of dark magic ever forged, carries within its pages a limitless collection of vile, twisted spells, all specially devised for anypony who opens the cover.
What do you do with a book of dark magic? If you're Twilight Sparkle, you put it in your library. Because that's where books go.
After all, books are for everypony.
Why I added it: Cold in Gardez is a good writer.
Review
Twilight Sparkle and her friends have, at great cost (okay, probably at the cost of a few hours of adventuring and getting covered in ectoplasmic residue) managed to retrieve a terrible codex from an evil zebra cult. The spells in it could bring about the end of the world! Her friends suggest what to do with it – burn it, bury it, chop it up into confetti… but Twilight knows exactly where a book like that belongs.
The reference section of the library.
After all, you aren’t allowed to check out books from the reference section!
But this isn’t just any book. This is a book full of forbidden knowledge! Literally, in fact. It is incredibly valuable. If, you know, you’re in the market for forbidden knowledge about whatever you want to know.
Rarity is skeptical – the book is dangerous. And she knows about how dark magic can turn on you from her own experiences. But Twilight won’t budge. She’s supposed to be the expert on books, after all. And besides, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy read the book with no ill effects at all!
It isn’t like knowledge can possibly be dangerous, right? It’s all about how you use it.
This is a fun little story which takes its basic premise – a book which is full of nothing but dark, forbidden knowledge, specifically tailored to the reader’s desires – and runs with it in very silly ways. The story is full of funny moments and brick jokes, and there are repeated odd, unexplained references which somehow get funnier and funnier every time they’re referenced. The core tension in the story – Twilight’s adamant refusal to destroy or even control access to the book, contrasted with Rarity’s desire to destroy it, surrounded by people misusing the knowledge they obtained from it while Twilight herself seems to deal with it just fine – is amusing, as is Rarity’s ultimate plan.
All that being said, I couldn’t help but feel like while the story was definitely funny, I felt like Twilight’s point of view was extremely simplistic to the point where it was something of a strawman. She just sort of seemed to believe in it, without really spending much thought on why. There are good reasons for people to support Twilight’s position, but Twilight herself seemed to more believe than think.
And while that is fine in the context of the story, it still felt like something of a letdown in the end, as it all built up to something which ultimately felt like a bit of an anticlimax when Twilight finally got into it with Rarity.
Still, I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy it.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
The Hays Code
by Estee
Sex, Comedy, Slice of Life
3,464 wordsEquestria has just entered the first era of movie-making. Ponies now have a brand-new medium to express themselves in any way they wish, with no limits whatsoever, showing anything and everything they might dare to dream of.
Well, clearly nopony of morals would ever allow that!
Why I added it: Estee is a good writer.
Review
Ms. Hays is the new girlfriend of the boss of a movie studio. She has some ideas about morality in film. And she takes them out on the poor ponies in the cast.
This is a story making fun of the Hays Code, a real-life, premade horse pun. Ms. Hays goes around the studio enforcing all the silly regulations, almost all of which are ripped from or closely related to real Hays Code rules, but is treated much like a modern person would be for proposing such insane rules.
That’s pretty much the entire joke.
Is it funny?
Sure, but after the first scene with Ms. Hays, the story is pretty one-note and predictable until we get to the end, with a number of scenes basically repeating the joke “The Hays Code is insane”. As such, if you have seen such jokes before, you may not get as much mileage out of this as you might like.
Recommendation: If you haven’t seen jokes about the Hays Code before, you might enjoy this, but otherwise, you might find this to be beating a dead horse a bit.
When the Moth Loved the Flame
by Present Perfect
Alternate Universe, Drama, Romance
2.490 wordsWings. A title. Responsibilities. A relationship with Luna.
Twilight Sparkle has gotten used to a lot of things since becoming a princess. But there is still more out there for her to learn. Most especially in regards to her marefriend.
Why I added it: PresentPerfect is a good writer.
Review
This is an AU story which presents Luna and Celestia as being divine, and scaring the heck out of Twilight (Luna’s lover) when they get into a godly tiff. It is totally normal to Luna, but to Twilight, it is terrifying to see them unleash unearthly powers against each other.
And Twilight realizes that the “pony” she had known all along – the pony who she had seen, fallen in love with – was a mask for a creature of much greater power.
And she doesn’t know what to do with it.
This story plays with an interesting idea, though I’m not sure that it being about ponies really adds a whole lot to it, and may actually be a bit distracting; it is very AU at this point, and consequently, sticking the characters in that role felt a bit forced.
That said, if you think that the core idea of a demi-god’s lover coming to terms with the power their lover wields, this is likely a story which will interest you.
Recommendation: Worth Reading if the AUness doesn’t bother you too much.
Summary
Displacement by Bad Horse
Recommended
Surrogate by Pascoite
Recommended
Completely Safe in the Reference Section by Cold in Gardez
Worth Reading
The Hays Code by Estee
Not Recommended
When the Moth Loved the Flame by Present Perfect
Worth Reading
Huzzah!
Now, to get to packing.
Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 132
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 449
Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 1920
We can finally retire the displaced genre now, right?
3938377
Yes. This is clearly the best Displaced story possible. Bad Horse won. :V
Comedy Displaced is probably the best kind of displaced.
Huh. I think this may be the first time I've read every story in one of your reviews before you posted said review.
Titanium Dragon and I wrote reviews of the same story that reached the same conclusion. Do I get all the reviewer cred and babes now?
3938495
I skipped your review because I knew I was going to read the story anyway. I should have read your review first.
To be fair, this is a problem with a number of Estee's shorter comedic works; they're often one-note affairs. Here, Ms. Hays's blatant, brazen hypocrisy was really the best joke in the story; the Hays Code stuff is only so funny when you know it is all real and have seen it before (and seen it lampshaded/made fun of before), and it wore thin pretty quickly because the Hays Code was the joke.
Of Estee's stories that I've read that are under 5k words, I think I only upvoted two of them, and both of them were pretty one-note, it was just that they were very short and so the single note didn't bother me too much.
Plus, reading ponified scam/spam emails amused me far more than it should have.
3938430
Clearly, you're stalking the right people.
3938561 I suppose with any short comedic work, it is hard to avoid one-note-ness. The trick should be to make sure the story doesn't overstay its welcome, since there's not necessarily a lot of room for variation in such a short space. Even the FIMfic minimum, however, can run into that problem. I'm guilty of several one-note joke fics myself.
Obviously we're in agreement about this particular one, but I didn't like Customer Disservice either. I felt the corporate ineptitude was not portrayed inconsistently, and that actually made the repetitiveness of the joke more blunt. Corporate ineptitude should be an easy sell for me, so if I find it bland you know something is wrong
Still waiting for confirmation about the street cred/hotties.
I like how you didn't actually put anything after the "Recommendation:" portion for Bad Horse's entry.
3938662
Clearly it's a sign of his underlying psychological issues.
3938662 We're still haggling over the price.
3938621
I sent in all the appropriate documentation in my application for mine last year, and I still haven't heard back.
I'm sure it just got lost in the mail.
3938700
3938662
3938744
It has been settled to the satisfaction of all parties.
It surprises me that you do not have a smart phone because, as a portable powerful computer, although limited by the small screen, which is both window to the computer and sloe means of input, it would be something you would have. I imagine you listening to podcasts about science, mathematics, skepticism, technology, and religion (from a skeptical point of view, it makes no sense to believe without evidence, but for reasons which have always escaped me and leave me baffled, ponies believe without evidence). Maybe, I project.
3939006
I don't listen to podcasts at all, actually (I find reading stuff is a much faster medium for absorbing information).
Moreover, I spend basically 100% of my time either doing things where I shouldn't be messing around with a smartphone, or actually on a computer. The only time I might get mileage out of one is brief, 10 minute or so car trips... which, well, I don't even listen to the radio anymore most of the time, just drive in silence and think.
3939059
I listen to PodCasts when I cannot read because I use mine eyes for other things. I do think quite a bit at work:
When it is slow, I think. Currently, I imagine a crewed Mars-Mission in the in 1980s using Saturn Ⅸs as lauch-vehicles:
I imagine what the Saturn C8 would be like if we would have built it. Given that we added an extra F1-Engine to the Saturn C4, thus giving us the Saturn Ⅴ, I figure that the Saturn C8 would become the Saturn Ⅸ. with that rocked, we could launch 100 tons of cargo to Mars per launch. We could have had crewed Mars-Missions with people walking on Mars in the 1980s. Over the years, I thought about many things at work when it is slow.
I started a group on FiMFiction inspired by a PodCast; It is the Skeptics' Guide to Equestria:
The Skeptics' Guide to Equestria
The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe inspired it. It is devoted to Skepticism.
If these names sound familiar, the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is an homage to the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy.