Read It Later Reviews #62 – Petriculture, Acquiesce, Ditzy Doo’s Dismally Derpy Day, The Cold Light of the Stars, A Royal Morning · 3:34am Dec 24th, 2016
Pardon my dust, it has been a while since I last posted one of these. Been spending far too much time doing things that matter far less and feel very ephemeral in retrospect.
But no matter! Time to get cracking.
Today’s stories:
Petriculture by Kwakerjak
Acquiesce by HoofBitingActionOverload
Ditzy Doo’s Dismally Derpy Day by CLAVDIVS CAESAR
The Cold Light of the Stars by AbsoluteAnonymous
A Royal Morning by Poptard
Petriculture
by Kwakerjak
Slice of Life
6,716 wordsIn an effort to keep her mind occupied, Twilight Sparkle decides to delve once again into the grand mysteries of Pinkie Pie. This time, Twilight's focus is on her claims of growing up on a rock farm: like so many things related to Pinkie Pie, the idea that somepony could grow rocks as an agricultural product makes absolutely no sense. However, the investigation eventually leads Twilight to a rather... surprising discovery.
Why I added it: I read it a long time ago and liked it.
Review
Twilight, while freaking out about the planning for her upcoming birthday, decides to get her mind off things by freaking out over something else – namely, how rock farming works. It is a Pinkie Pie problem, but not specifically about Pinkie Pie – so how hard could it be to figure it out? After all, the rest of her family is normal, right?
This was written pre-season 3, and the central twist of this story relies on that timing. That being said, I think it is still accessible to people; we can all remember season 2, and taking a different direction from that is not a bad thing. And the central twist is fairly interesting.
That being said, this story does suffer a bit from its actual quality of writing; the story feels kind of primitive in its writing in some ways, with the prose always feeling a bit plain, and the story itself feeling kind of repetitive, as Twilight keeps hitting brick walls in her research in a way that just ended up feeling kind of dull. Of course, already knowing the twist means that the various failures have less weight, as I know how she actually figured it out; still, it does feel like it takes a while to get to the point.
Still, if you’re open to a very different interpretation of Pinkie Pie’s backstory, this might be up your alley.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Acquiesce
by HoofBitingActionOverload
Romance
15,053 wordsRainbow Dash has been dating Pinkie Pie for nearly a month and, in spite of Pinkie’s objections, is keeping the affair a secret from the rest of their friends. Deciding she's had enough, Pinkie Pie throws a party announcing their relationship.
Why I added it: I read it a long time ago and didn’t remember it very well.
Review
Acquiesce was the first story that HoofBitingActionOverload uploaded to the site. A PinkieDash shipfic, it centers around their one-month anniversary – Pinkie Pie is throwing a party, and Rainbow Dash freaks out about it because she is terrified that her friends will stop being her friends if they find out she’s a fillyfooler.
Naturally, Pinkie Pie ends up spilling the beans anyway, resulting in Rainbow Dash freaking out and taking off before all of her friends can say they hate her forever.
Naturally, they don’t. But it takes a bit of doing to convince her otherwise.
This story already shows many of the signs of HoofBiting’s characteristic writing style, and there are some sections which are really charming. There’s some dry wit, some puns, and a lot of silliness here, along with some serious emotional drama.
However, this great writing is mixed in with some not-so-great stuff; some parts of this end up coming off as being rather flat and dull, even while others are charming and wonderful. And the story as a whole has a kind of weak arc to it: Rainbow Dash has come to come to accept herself as a fillyfooler, as well as decipher how she really feels about her marefriend, but the central conflict itself feels like it is fundamentally resolved in a single scene with Fluttershy in the third chapter, with the rest of it being consumed by Rainbow Dash flying around trying to find Pinkie Pie and apologize to her… even though Pinkie Pie, being Pinkie Pie, is understanding of Rainbow Dash’s freakout.
The story also shows a deep and sometimes distracting love of saidisms, including some kind of awkward ones that draw attention to themselves.
That said, the characterization of the characters is largely on point; they all feel and sound like themselves, even if the story does have some obvious cracks.
Recommendation: Overall, this is a hit and miss piece; it is definitely charming and amusing in many places, but at other points the writing and story clunk.
Ditzy Doo’s Dismally Derpy Day
by CLAVDIVS CAESAR
Romance, Slice of Life
12,013 wordsA day in the life, and a glimpse into the mind, of Ponyville's favorite mail carrier and single mom. But if she had the choice of any one day for everyone to read about, it probably wouldn't be this one...
Why I added it: It is a somewhat fluffy story about Derpy having a bad day I read a long time ago.
Review
Everypony has bad days. But for Ditzy Doo, bad days just seem to make themselves worse. After losing a fight with Rarity’s new mailbox, Ditzy is already primed for a bad day – and when some old schoolyard bullies mock her derpy eyes, she blows up at them and gives them exactly the response they wanted. The rest of the day is spent with her off-kilter, eventually resulting in her cracking her hoof as she fantasizes about getting revenge on her bullies, all to end up with Big Mac helping her out.
This story meanders a fair bit, and is quite long for what it is. Clocking in at 12,000 words, this is a surprisingly simple story which feels a bit padded out. In particular, this story fulfills the typical pattern of many early fandom stories of managing to visit all of the mane six in one capacity or another, and while most of the scenes serve at least some story purpose, I can’t help but feel like the story has an awful lot of non-substantive material in it.
The other oddity of this story is that Ditzy and Big Mac apparently have a thing for each other, but whatever prior thing they had going on before Ditzy cracks her hoof is not really well-explored by the story, even though it seems like Applejack is well aware of Ditzy and Big Mac’s hidden feelings for each other.
That said, I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy this story. There are some sweet bits to it, and some nice character building for Ditzy, as we come to understand her special talent, as well as her sensitivity, her place in the world, her relationship with her daughter, and how she feels about her own derpy eyes.
I really adored this story when I first entered the fandom, but after years in it, it is pretty clear to me that the story really does have a lot of padding in it, and the relationship between Ditzy and Big Mac doesn’t feel fully developed, contrary to the development given to Ditzy’s relationships with other characters. Still, there’s something lovely and warm about reading about her bad day and others trying to help her out.
Recommendation: Worth Reading if padding doesn’t bother you too much.
The Cold Light of the Stars
by AbsoluteAnonymous
Sad, Slice of Life
4,919 wordsAt first, Twilight doesn't understand why Princess Luna wanted them to watch the coming eclipse together - but as it turns out, Luna has something very important to ask of her. For Luna fears always being known as the cold and distant Princess of the Moon, incapable of forming true connections. Can Twilight help her, or will Luna be forced to grow resigned to what appears to be her fate of eternal isolation?
Why I added it: I read it a long time ago, but forgot what it was about.
Review
On the longest night of the year, Luna invites Twilight Sparkle to watch a lunar eclipse with her. As Twilight walks alongside the princess of the night to a secluded place that is special to Luna, she comes to realize just how lonely Luna is, and how much she is in need of a friend.
This story presents Luna as being cold and distant, but as much as a defense mechanism as it is by choice. Luna sees herself as representing the night, and now that the night is understood – that the Moon is known to be a lifeless rock, that the stars are distant suns – that she is simply superfluous. No one really has any reason to be interested in her anymore – with the mystery gone, she’s as cold and lifeless as the Moon.
Where this story shines is in its use of simile – Luna’s loneliness and plight, being mapped onto the march of civilization, the peeling back of the mystery of the night, and the coldness of the moon and the distance of the stars. This works fairly well, and while Luna says she is bound to the night, it is also clear that her prison is in truth one of her own creation. Twilight cracking through that barrier on both levels helps bring the story to a nice, neat little conclusion, and it works very well.
However, while this all is well and good, the story itself feels a bit distant at times, and is rather slow-paced. A lot of time is setting up the walk out into the woods, and we don’t get into the real meat of things until a ways into the story. It is a bit wrapped up in its own cleverness, and at times the story feels like it is trying a bit too hard to sell this comparison to us.
Still, if you don’t mind the slow pace, and appreciate the central simile, this is a fairly solid piece.
Recommendation: Worth Reading if you don’t mind slow-paced stories.
A Royal Morning
by Poptard
Romance, Slice of Life
2,063 wordsThe life of a mother is challenging, but the life of an expectant one is excruciating. Maybe one day, Princess Cadance can reach the challenging part. For now, all she faces is the cold bathroom floor and a solid bout of nausea, and she is losing miserably.
Can she survive this morning?
Why I added it: I had read it and enjoyed it enough to encourage Poptard to write another story. Which he still hasn’t done. Hint hint.
Review
Cadance is suffering from bad morning sickness. Shining Armor comes in to comfort her.
This is an oddly sweet and funny story for something involving vomit. The story has a wry writing style which makes excellent use of contrast, setting off the supposed glamor of Princess Cadance and her surroundings against the less-than-regal act of vomiting into a toilet at two in the morning. Cadance is unhappy about her situation, with her emotions something of a roller coaster than Shining Armor helps to calm and make better. The interplay between the pair is adorable, and Shining Armor is very cute here with his wife in a husbandy sort of way. It is fun to watch them interact, and the story is a very different sort of romance from what you often see in such pieces.
Clocking in at only 2,000 words, this story feels longer than that, and in a good way – the story is effective at communicating a great deal in a pretty limited word count, and the characterization in this piece is quite good.
All in all, this is my favorite story ever about vomiting into a toilet in the middle of the night, and it makes me smile.
Recommendation: Recommended.
Summary
Petriculture by Kwakerjak
Worth Reading
Acquiesce by HoofBitingActionOverload
Not Recommended
Ditzy Doo’s Dismally Derpy Day by CLAVDIVS CAESAR
Worth Reading
The Cold Light of the Stars by AbsoluteAnonymous
Worth Reading
A Royal Morning by Poptard
Recommended
And there we go!
I’d say it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but frankly, I went out downtown today to finish my Christmas shopping, and couldn’t shake the feeling of it being mid-November. Few people decorated their houses this year, and I’m just not feeling the holiday cheer that once seemed to float around the holiday.
Incidentally, the Humble Store is giving away a free game, GRID, for the next.. oh, fourteen and a half hours or so.
I’ve got a Recommended Story Review set done, and hopefully will be posting that tomorrow. As for the rest of my evening… we’ll see if I can get a story done. What would be better than a Christmas story from TD?
Okay, a lot of things. But that’s what you’re getting. 
I hope. 
Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 160
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 567
Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 2079
I read Pertriculture awhile ago. I remeber I enjoyed it, but not the sequel.
4353052
I have never read Inscape, so I'm afraid I can't really comment.
"Fillyfooler" is one of those words that just bugs me, the same way that Present Perfect starts foaming at the mouth at the use of "thestrals" or Chris loathes "adorkable".
(Seriously, how can anyone hate "adorkable"?)
Happy finally-past-the-Solstice holidays, though, and would be cool to see something new!
On the one hand, I'd kinda like my serious story reviewed on of these days. On the other, it's average at best, so...
4353078
That's fair. I don't rememebr much, just that I didnt finish it. It was like the first one in that the plot was ahead of the writer's capabilities. At somepoint along the lines I wasn't enjoying the story enough to keep reading.
4353085
Adorkable is overused to death, IMO. Fillyfooler, on the other hand, was really just never a good idea to begin with
Oh hey.
Haha, you were being much too generous. Aquiesce is awful. It hits on just about every lame coming out romance story that's ever been told. I have very good memories putting it together though. It was a lot of fun trying to write a scene and then thinking, 'How the hell does dialogue work?'
Thanks for the review!
4372579
Well, that's really the problem; it is a bunch of cliches kind of stapled together rather awkwardly, which is why the arc is so weak. Well, one of the reasons.
That being said, some of the charm that your later writing has shows up here and there in Acquiesce, which makes it hard for me to hate it.
I know that feeling as well, of something being bad but having fond memories of making it. I feel the same way about my first story.
It is fun learning this stuff!
Though I have to admit I live in opposite land, where dialogue is my thing and I'm always like "Okay, so now how does prose work?"
Yeah, about that.
Thank you for that. Took a while, but it got me.
4627244
Awesome! I'll try to get on reading it in the next few days.