Read It Now Reviews #94 – FlutterDash Contest #2 – You Look So Sexy This Way, First Pony Plural, The Storm, A Choice to Make, The Session · 10:50pm Oct 26th, 2016
As promised yesterday, set two of stories from the FlutterDash contest!
Today’s stories:
You Look So Sexy This Way by Eddy13
First Pony Plural by Augie_Dog
The Storm by BaaeroRemedy
A Choice to Make by RuinQueenOfOblivion
The Session by Solstice Shimmer
You Look So Sexy This Way
by Eddy13
Alternate Universe, Comedy, Random, Romance
4,784 wordsA retelling of the ending of "Bats!". Twilight's spell was able to help Fluttershy get her mind back...but unfortunately, she's stuck as a batpony for the rest of her life! Naturally, Fluttershy is distraught, but luckily, her lifelong friend Rainbow Dash is there to help her get use to the change...while also unable to get over how hot she thinks Fluttershy looks now!
Why I added it: FlutterDash contest!
Review
This is an AU story which posits that Twilight could only fix Fluttershy’s mind after the Flutterbat episode, leaving her as a bat pony.
Fluttershy isn’t very happy with being a monster, and retreats to her cottage afterwards. But Rainbow Dash comes along to show her how it maybe isn’t as bad as she thought.
This story’s greatest failing is the central conflict. Fluttershy is upset about being a batpony, and while that is, perhaps, entirely legitimate, I didn’t feel it. I didn’t really get a visceral grasp of why this was such a bad thing to her out of the story, so, as such, when Rainbow Dash comes along to teach her why it isn’t so bad, we’re not given strong ground to launch ourselves from – without the emotional investment in Fluttershy being attached to her original form, her coming to accept her new form doesn’t really give us a high emotional stake in the story.
And without those, the payoff just doesn’t end up feeling that satisfying.
This is also something of an issue with the relationship, which sort of comes out of nowhere and ends up with them joining the mile-high club. While I can see an impulsive reaction, I didn’t feel like it ended up being all that emotionally justified either – possibly in part because the rest of the story was missing the endorphin rush from the payoff of Fluttershy realizing that it wasn’t so bad after all.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
First Pony Plural
by AugieDog
Adventure
19,464 wordsRainbow Dash comes to Fluttershy for help with her next big prank. Fluttershy agrees reluctantly, but as their masquerade begins, she finds herself actually enjoying it. Then the Cutie Map calls the two of them to Cloudsdale, and things take a turn for the peculiar.
Why I added it: FlutterDash contest!
Review
In the aftermath of 28 pranks later, Rainbow Dash takes the lesson of that episode to heart (that she needs to step up her pranks and be more original with them – that was totally the lesson of that episode, right?) and decides to disguise herself as Fluttershy. Fluttershy, after hearing the idea, decides to do the same, just so she can accompany Rainbow Dash in case something goes wrong.
Then the Cutie Map goes off and they’re magically stuck as each other, unable to be themselves or explain the situation to anyone.
The only way to fix themselves is to solve a friendship problem in Cloudsdale. If only they can figure out which one…
This is a story with a cute premise, and is designed to function something like an episode – a self-contained little story which teaches a lesson about friendship, or in this case, about themselves and how they appear to their friends. And it does a decent job at that.
I have to admit, the premise of this story sometimes made it a bit difficult to read – Rainbow Dash acting as Fluttershy, and Fluttershy acting as Rainbow Dash, made it easy to get lost at times. This was especially true in the first two chapters, though by the third chapter it became easier to follow.
My biggest problem with the story, however, is that a few events felt kind of arbitrary. The map trapping them in each other’s body was necessary for the premise, but Fluttershy deciding to disguise herself as Rainbow Dash in the first place felt a little contrived. And ultimately, the first friendship problem they encounter felt like it resolved itself without much intervention at all – it didn’t feel terribly satisfying to watch it play out, as it was basically characters we didn’t really know well overcome a problem while the viewpoint character more or less watched.
That being said, the story was cute in places, and Twilight’s comment about the bath in chapter one was ambiguous enough to make me smirk. Despite being almost 20,000 words long, it doesn’t *feel* long.
It didn’t thrill me beyond all human reckoning, but it was okay.
Recommendation: If the premise interests you, this might be up your alley, but if the plot being more or less arbitrarily set up at the beginning is apt to bother you, you might find your enjoyment of this piece impaired. This story got second overall in both my personal ranking and in the contest in general.
The Storm
by BaaeroRemedy
Equestria Girls, Slice of Life
3,131 wordsA stormy night, something that's supposed to instill fear and unease into those who see it. The flashes of lightning and cracks of thunder serve as warnings to those who witness it. We are meant to fear it. But what happens when you learn to face the storm head on and overcome it?
Why I added it: FlutterDash contest!
Review
Fluttershy is at home during a storm, hiding away in her house while thunderheads rumble outside.
Then Rainbow Dash sends her a text, saying she’s heading over.
She wants to go running. In the storm.
I wanted to like this story a lot more than I actually liked it. The idea of the story is quite solid, and Rainbow Dash’s relationship to storms – her thoughts on them – is a deep well to draw from. All sorts of interesting things can be done with it.
But I never really ended up getting sucked in here from the very beginning. It tried to capture the scene, but it never quite did. The prose always felt just a little bit off, like it was trying to draw me in, but never actually doing so. It was always just a little bit awkward, a little bit off, a little bit stilted, and this kept me at arm’s length and stopped me from really diving in.
As I noted, I thought the core idea was good; Rainbow Dash seeing the rain as a challenge, and trying to instill her boldness in the face of the storm to Fluttershy. But I feel like it didn’t quite come together emotionally, and I never felt sucked in or like I was invested in the events. Consequently, Fluttershy’s triumph at the end did not touch me.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
A Choice to Make
by RuinQueenofOblivion
Romance, Slice of Life
2,431 wordsClose to a year after their wedding, Fluttershy talks to her wife Rainbow Dash about the idea of adopting a foal. Rainbow Dash is unsure about the idea but starts to think it over, and as she does comes to find there's a pony close to both of them that needs them. What will happen?
Why I added it: FlutterDash contest!
Review
Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash have been married for about a year and Fluttershy is thinking about whether or not they want to adopt kids.
Rainbow Dash isn’t sure, but then finds out that Scootaloo’s foster family is no longer able to take care of her.
They adopt Scootaloo. The end.
There are certain stereotypes about Scootadoption stories, and this story, unfortunately, falls into some of them. The real problem is that the decision is a very important and weighty one, but the decision ends up feeling flimsy rather than weighty. I didn’t end up feeling like there was any real emotional struggle here, nor that there was much weight to Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy’s actions.
Its short length was probably part of this; the story flows quickly from one point to another, but it feels like it is lacking any sort of real emotional gravity. Without that, it just sort of feels like a thing that happened, rather than a hugely momentous occaision. How Scootaloo felt about it was given short shrift, the foster family giving up on taking care of Scootaloo didn’t feel very weighty, and Rainbow Dash’s internal struggle (and Fluttershy’s when “someday” becomes “now”) didn’t really feel like they had much depth to them.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
The Session
by Solstice Shimmer
Romance, Slice of Life
1,901 wordsRainbow is dealing with a few problems regarding her feelings towards Fluttershy. So Twilight suggests that perhaps a bit of therapy may help her come to terms with them.
Why I added it:
Review
After Fluttershy confesses that she has a crush on Rainbow Dash, Rainbow Dash feels weird about it. So Twilight tells Rainbow Dash to go talk to a therapist.
Namely, Princess Cadance.
The story is fundamentally a monologue about Rainbow Dash’s feelings. And unfortunately, this runs straight into the “show, don’t tell” issue – because we’re just told everything, we don’t really experience it, we’re just told something by someone. This results in a certain distance between the audience and the character, and we end up feeling detached from it.
The story itself ultimately feels kind of like it is on rails, and doesn’t really feel like it makes much use of any of the characters involved – the fact that it is Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Cadance honestly is pretty much entirely irrelevant to the actions of the story, and that means that just about any character could be used as stand-ins here. And this lack of specificity really leaves us without much of a connection to the piece as well.
In the end, I was just left with the feeling that this story was kind of generic, and was left without feeling like I really wanted to cheer on Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy dating.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Summary
You Look So Sexy This Way by Eddy13
Not Recommended
First Pony Plural by Augie_Dog
Second Place in Contest
The Storm by BaaeroRemedy
Not Recommended
A Choice to Make by RuinQueenOfOblivion
Not Recommended
The Session by Solstice Shimmer
Not Recommended
In addition to the FlutterDash contest stories, I’ve actually got two more review sets done. So expect this week to have a fair bit of review content from me.
Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 161
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 545
Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 2035
