Read It Now Reviews #105 – Comma Comma, Princess Cadance’s Official Princess Harem of Imported Humans from Another World, The Road Goes On Forever, Paper Butterflies, Tricks of the Trade Show · 11:58pm Mar 15th, 2017
Yesterday, I said I’d maybe take a break from recent story reviews to work on my own stuff.
Then my feed exploded with stories.
You monsters. It’s almost like you want me to keep reading!
But for all your work, I am grateful – today was a very good day for pony fiction.
Today’s stories:
Comma Comma by Soufriere
Princess Cadance’s Official Princess Harem of Imported Humans from Another World by Skywriter
The Road Goes On Forever by Augie Dog
Paper Butterflies by Petrichord
Tricks of the Trade Show by Estee
Comma Comma
by Soufriere
Comedy, Random, Slice of Life, Meta, Crackfic
1,715 wordsWho knew Princess Celestia had formal control over all aspects of language in Equestria? Who knew she would randomly ban a critical punctuation mark? Twilight Sparkle sure didn't. Now with Equestria as she knew it collapsing around her without the almighty comma she must try to convince the Princess to restore sanity to the written word.
Why I added it: Estee recommended it.
Review
By the authority vested in Myself as Ruler of Equestria
I Princess Celestia hereby effective immediately ban the use of the vile accursed mockeries known as the Comma and the Semicolon.
Violators will be put to Desu!“What in the—? What does that even mean?!” asked Twilight when she saw the official notice posted on Ponyville’s community bulletin board.
“Is there a problem?” Spike asked clearly unaware of the extreme upheaval this would cause within the writing world as they walked the couple hundred yards back to Golden Oaks Library.
“Of course there is!” Twilight near-screamed. “The comma is a vital part of writing – it aids in understanding language – and the semicolon is a way for smart ponies like myself to prove we’re better than the filthy rabble by showcasing its correct use.”
Yeah, how dare she!
Er, I mean…
Thus begins Comma Comma, an experimental metastory which is lacking in a few critical punctuation marks.
According to the author of this story, this was something of a trollfic, which becomes fairly obvious as you read through it – though, as they themselves noted, it started out coherent and then just starts deteriorating, which is a little disappointing, as I think there was a neat idea here.
As it so transpires, Princess Celestia, in a fit of pique, has banned the use of commas and semicolons, leading Twilight and Spike to set off correct this grievous error, while mayhem ensues around them as a result of the missing punctuation marks.
Sadly, I think this story tried way too hard to be wacky and would have been better off as something which was a bit more in the vein of the first few pages (exaggerating the characters of Twilight and Celestia, but still keeping it reasonably coherent). Instead we end up with weird out of frame references and some referential stuff (there is a reference to Amish Paradise of all things in here) towards the middle and end which feel out of place. The story would have likely been funnier without them as characters have wacky problems based on the absence of the most critical of punctuation marks, rather than simply throwing in weird stuff – it didn’t really need the referential humor, as the situation they’d created actually had a fair bit of space to humorously explore.
I do understand why Estee recommended this, though – there were definitely a couple things in here that made me smirk, particularly at the beginning.
You’ll probably have to wait for Present Perfect to read this to find out if people who actually like crackfics enjoy this.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Princess Cadance’s Official Princess Harem of Imported Humans from Another World
by Skywriter
Sex, Comedy, Equestria Girls, Crackfic
3,837 wordsCadance and Shining Armor attempt to nominally fulfill one of Equestria's oldest and most intensely awkward royal traditions.
Why I added it: If there’s one person I trust to write this, it is Skywriter.
Review
There are certain expectations of a princess of Equestria.
Poise.
Dignity.
A harem of kidnapped humans enslaved to serve your every sexual whim.
You know, the usual things.
Cadance really wants to impress Princess Celestia. And Shining Armor… well, he isn’t really on board with this either, but he loves his wife, and wants her to be happy.
While normally I don’t have much love for crackfics, this story made me burst out loud laughing several times while reading it.
You know what someone means when say, “That’s terrible!” while they are shaking their head and smirking?
This story revels in that. This story is terrible. The story contains a number of amusingly impossible things, the harem is even worse than you were expecting (and not in the sexy way), and multiple references to stevedores, each funnier than the last. The descriptions of the various accoutrements of the harem facility, the use of overly sophisticated language in a few places to describe something silly, and Shining Armor’s own fumbling with the whole thing (and the constant humor at the expense of both him and his wife) just makes this fun to read from start to finish.
If anyone else had written this story, I would not have trusted it. But Skywriter knew exactly what he was doing, and pulled it off. It cracked things, and then used that crack not to be random, but to generate a great deal of humor from the way in which things were broken. This is everything a crackfic should be.
Recommendation: Highly Recommended.
The Road Goes On Forever
by Augie Dog
Slice of Life
4,151 wordsTwilight's life has changed a bit over the years. She used to worry about it, but more often these days, she finds herself celebrating it.
Why I added it: Augie Dog is a good writer.
Review
Twilight Sparkle goes about her day as the Princess of Friendship, visiting her friends, talking to ponies, bringing Starlight Glimmer and Spike around with her, and just reveling in life.
It isn’t like Twilight has a job.
No, what she does is more than that.
This is a really lovely story, one of those stories which is really reveling in the joy of a day of life. Twilight has a very good day because she wants to have a good one. It is full of her doing things, but these things make her happy. She sees her friends, helps various ponies around town, and we constantly get to see the affection and love she feels for everypony around her.
It is a happy story – a very happy one – about the kind of life a very happy pony who is content with her lot in life leads.
And while perhaps this is not the Twilight Sparkle of the show as it is today, it might be as she is someday.
It is a happy story which revels in life, and it made me smile just reading it. It does a good job of capturing that happiness and sharing it with the reader; you can’t help but be happy with Twilight at all the things she sees.
This is not a story with edges; it is a very rounded one. And oftentimes, things aren’t this consistently wonderful; we aren’t all magical pony princesses, after all.
But every once in a while, reading something like this is just a very warm and fuzzy feeling.
If you’re looking for what you might think of as a traditional story, you won’t find it here – this is very much a pure slice of life piece. Nothing really happens – there is no great conflict here. So if that’s what you’re in the market for, you’d best look elsewhere.
But what this story does well is evoke the joie de vie that Twilight is experiencing very well. If you are in the market for something which evokes a particular emotion, and revels in comraderie and warm feelings, this is exactly what you’re looking for.
Recommendation: Recommended.
Paper Butterflies
by Petrichord
Sad, Slice of Life
3,905 wordsDiscord hasn't been feeling himself lately. Rarity thinks that it might be a good idea to get his mind off of things by having him assist her with upcoming work for the Summer Sun Celebration. Being the good sport that he is, Big Mac helps Discord out.
As it turns out, the project is surprisingly fun.
It's also more than a little painful.
Why I added it: Petrichord is a good writer.
Review
Rarity conscripts Discord into helping make paper butterflies for the upcoming Summer Sun celebration. Discord is less than thrilled by the prospect, but she manages to convince him to stay because Big Mac comes along to help out.
While Discord obviously doesn’t much like the idea of manual labor – he could simply snap his claw and make a million paper butterflies – he and Big Mac eventually set to work, making butterflies which represent their friends, with Discord discovering a bit of joy in all this.
I have to admit I was confused by the presence of the sad tag in this story – it really seemed like a pure slice of life piece, and while there were moments of cleverness, and the characters were well-voiced throughout, I have to admit that I wasn’t overly enamored with the story. I knew there was something going on in the background with Discord, but the story didn’t make it very clear what it was.
But then we get to the end, and realize that there were a lot of hints throughout the rest of the piece over exactly what was going on, and I felt very silly for not recognizing what it was really all about.
I’m not sure if the story was being a bit too subtle, or if I was missing the forest for the trees – but in the end, it actually does have a legitimate emotional payoff, and it casts a new light on the rest of the piece, and the significance of a number of events in the story.
Recommendation: Worth Reading
Tricks of the Trade Show
by Estee
Slice of Life
18,418 wordsRarity's finally managed to start on the path to recognition and as the teenager sees it, that road goes directly into Canterlot. She has goods, a potential sales pitch, and a space reserved at the city's biggest fashion trade show. All she needs to do now is set up her booth and wait for somepony to Discover her.
The discoveries you make aren't necessarily the ones you were looking for.
Why I added it: Estee is a good writer.
Review
Rarity has dropped out of her (very expensive) school in order to go into fashion for herself. She was miserable there. She didn’t want what her mother wanted for her. And her father… as a professional hoofball player, he’s almost never there. She loves him – or at least, the idea of him. Just as she fears he loves the idea of her.
But he’s there for her, helping her haul her cart to her first (and given her funds, only) fashion show in Canterlot. She wants to be Discovered. Meet just the right pony to get noticed, to do great work.
But as she discovers, thanks in part to a nice earth pony mare in the booth next to hers, the real discovery at the show isn’t what she was thinking it would be.
Set a while before the start of the show, we see Rarity just as she is starting out on her own – just as she is growing into being her, mid-Atlantic (in her father’s words, “nowhere”) accent and all. She is young and naïve in a way, but also determined and driven – and for all that she sometimes doubts she is her father’s daughter (metaphorically, of course), she shows throughout the story that she is the sort of pony who can go down and then get back on her hooves, just as much as any hoofball player.
Early on, we’re given two clichéd phrases that Rarity’s father repeats throughout the piece:
He seemed to speak in clichés, and so many of them seemed to contradict each other. She tried not to blame him for that: it was yet another consequence of his life, that the shallow terms he used when speaking to reporters, all true meaning stripped away through the rasp of repetition, would emerge when dealing with his own family. He would tell her that she had to rely on her friends, her team, and that nopony got through without the entire group backing them. Then he would say that ultimately, you were out there on your own. And he seemed to treat both statements as being equally true.
And while Rarity doubts those words at the beginning, the whole of the story is devoted to showing us how true they are.
This story seems to be about Rarity discovering just how cruel the world of fashion can be at times, that the world is not quite as she believed it from her trade magazines, that she really doesn’t understand just what she is getting into. But if it was just that, it would have just been another story about how miserable and unfair the world can be. But it isn’t.
What this story is really about - what makes it shine – is how it shows why Rarity is Rarity. It shows her father, and her relationship with him, and how her own stubbornness mirrors his, albeit in very different ways. It shows her strength and determination, her sharpness and selfishness. It shows how those traits are tempered and forged.
And ultimately, it shows us how the generosity of others helped her become a better pony herself, and hints that perhaps that is how she ultimately came into her own element – figuratively and literally.
By the end of the piece, Rarity has grown from being a petulant but determined young woman into a prototype of her later form, and all the contradictions that go into being Rarity.
If you are in the mood for some Rarity backstory, I think this piece will satisfy.
Recommendation: Recommended.
Summary
Comma Comma by Soufriere
Not Recommended
Princess Cadance’s Official Princess Harem of Imported Humans from Another World by Skywriter
Highly Recommended
The Road Goes On Forever by Augie Dog
Recommended
Paper Butterflies by Petrichord
Worth Reading
Tricks of the Trade Show by Estee
Recommended
I love you guys. 
The really crazy thing is that there’s a story about Clover the Clever by Carabas, a story which is being written by Tumbleweed, a story which Baal Bunny is releasing about Prince Blueblood, a story that Skywriter is writing about some side characters from Starlight Glimmer’s town, a still-being-released Smart Cookie story by Bookplayer, and so many other lovely things I haven’t gotten around to yet, but want to…
It seems to be a good time to be in the world of pony fiction, and I'm very excited for it.
Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 176
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 603
Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 2093
Wow skywriter has returned wit ha vengeance it seems!
When I see you reviewing a story I know I'll be reading eventually, I'll typically skip the review and just check your recommendation.
Which is why I laughed uproariously at that Highly Recommended.
4457777
It is absolutely hilarious.
While I'm not a huge fan of crackfics in general, I think there is one particular kind of them that I sometimes really like - which is a story which, rather than being cracked in all directions, just makes one big crack and then runs with it. Stuff like Two Peas in a Pod and Martial Bliss are beautiful.
4457768
Indeed!
I'm tremendously pleased with many of the stories I've prompted thus far. I'm glad to see others are too.
4457842
Yeah, it's pretty incredible!
It was apparently a great idea for a contest.
4457842 *polishes nails and looks smug*
Is this the first time you've given all four ratings in a single blog?
4458237
It is the first time in an extremely long time; the only other time it happened was April 7th, 2015, or almost two years ago. This was the first time it happened in a Read It Now review set, though.
Yup, there are a lot of very good, and very diverse, fics coming out right now. It's a good time to be a pony fan.
I had to take a break:
From the Blueblood story to remove my bunny ears and write the Twilight story here--glad you enjoyed it, by the way! But I'm hoping to have the next chapter of Noblesse Oblige finished and posted by this weekend.
Mike
Hey, two more I agree on.
Though going by the recommendations, in reverse order. I'd rank The Twi one above the Cadance one. It's just so... so... so HAPPY! So warm, comforting.... but yeah save it for my own review still... great points and yeah, both amazing stories.