Read It Later Reviews #83 – Administrative Angel, No Recipe for Perfection, Princess Twilight Sparkle the Bearded, Lootspheres, A Bird in the Dryer · 11:02pm Jan 25th, 2018
Is that... light?
I apologize for my long absence; for the last few months I wandered out into dark caves and buried myself there. I had no reason for doing so; I simply did. It is not that I lost interest, or found something more interesting to do; indeed, there was little to do in the dark.
I just hid. From what?
Myself, perhaps?
Who knows.
But as we all know, if you wander around in the dark for long enough, you either fall down an endless shaft and die horribly or you find that pretty little beam of light shining in from the entrance.
And then you are like “Man, I’m glad the Wifi is back, time to read some pony stories.”
Seriously, what else would I say? That I wanted a hamburger?
Today’s stories:
Administrative Angel by Horizon
No Recipe for Perfection by Cloudy Skies
Princess Twilight Sparkle the Bearded by Tumbleweed
Lootspheres by Estee
A Bird in the Dryer by Estee
Administrative Angel
by Horizon
Drama, Equestria Girls
6,479 wordsPrincipal Celestia always has wings in her dreams.
They got her into trouble, once. She let herself believe that they meant she was an angel. Then she grew up, and learned some hard lessons about what being an angel really required.
Now six magical girls have just fought a demon in front of her school. And her phantom wings are itching.
Her life is turning upside down ... and she hasn't even heard about Equestria yet.
Why I added it: Horizon is a good writer.
Review
This is one of those stories that starts off with a really, really punchy line. “Celestia always has wings in her dreams.” is an excellent opening line, and it immediately made me want to read more of the story and see what the story was up to.
This is an Equestria Girls story which, like Roaming, makes use of the fact that there are two universes here. I’m not generally too fond of Equestria Girls stories, but I find that the stories which make use of the dual universes are often the best of them, and this story does exactly that, by showing the flawed, mortal Principal Celestia trying to come to grips with the fact that she has another, better self in another world, as well as wondering about how her other self dealt with Luna better than she did.
This Principal Celestia isn’t all that much like the Princess Celestia of the show in many ways – she is much more flawed and human – but at the same time, there is a core of caring about others. She is curious, but is also worried about how far short she has fallen from her other self, and the little glimpses she gets via conversations with Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer in the days after the events of the first Equestria Girls leave her trying to find her feet even as she thinks about her other self’s hooves.
I liked the core conceit of the comparison, as well as the idea of the semi-role reversal between herself and Luna in the Equestria Girls verse. The writing is solid and at times, really beautiful, and some of Celestia’s backstory – such as her thinking herself an angel when she was a child – is both adorable and sort of heart-breaking.
All in all, this is a good piece. If you are up for reading a story about a more flawed Principal Celestia, this is an interesting read.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
No Recipe for Perfection
by Cloudy Skies
Romance, Pinkie Pie, Rarity
22,156 wordsIt's one thing to wake up on the wrong side of the bed. It's something quite different to worry that it doesn't have a right side anymore. Stuck in an artistic rut, Rarity has to rely on an unlikely friend to understand who she is, and in doing so, discovers that what we want may not always be obvious, even to oneself.
There may or may not be an excess of hats involved, and fabulosity is guaranteed.
Why I added it: Cloudy Skies is a good writer, and I can’t remember the last RariPie story I read.
Review
Rarity is in a rut; she can’t get her latest dress to “work”, and due to everypony else being otherwise engaged, asks Pinkie Pie to act as a live model for her dress to help her understand what is going wrong. Rarity can’t really figure it out… but a few whimsical suggestions by Pinkie Pie make the dress into one of Rarity’s better-selling items. While Pinkie Pie has no great, deep insights into dresses, she does have some insights into Rarity… as well as why Rarity has been having trouble with her creativity of late.
This is a sweet story in the more saccharine sense of the word. Pinkie Pie is very much Pinkie Pie here, and her cheerful optimism and generosity help Rarity to find that same spark within herself that inspires her to be creative. Rarity isn’t just some pony who makes dresses, and Pinkie Pie reminds Rarity of the true reason why she likes to create such things.
This story works a lot better than it has any right to; we see Rarity end up spending more time with Pinkie Pie, and it is obvious to everyone but Rarity exactly what is going on. While the story never gives us a really strong idea of why Pinkie Pie is interested in Rarity like that (though there are some hints), the story works pretty well overall, and does a good job of creating a plausible line of interest and attraction between Rarity and Pinkie Pie, which is quite a feat in and of itself.
Rarity’s difficulty in creating pulled me through the first half of the story, and by the time that got resolved, Rarity’s increasing emotional investment in Pinkie Pie that made me want to keep going until the end. And while it wasn’t perfect, the story left me feeling good about it by the end.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Princess Twilight Sparkle the Bearded
by Tumbleweed
Comedy, Random
6,799 wordsTwilight Sparkle will do anything to emulate her hero, Starswirl the Bearded.
Anything.
Why I added it: Tumbleweed is a good writer.
Review
Sometimes, while browsing the Deep Stacks, you find hidden treasures. Long-lost tomes. A copy of the Neighcromonicon. A book of poetry by Star Swirl the Bearded.
Yes, it seems that Star Swirl the Bearded once wrote a book of poems.
They’re about beards.
Obviously, no one as wise as Star Swirl could have possibly just written something like that for no reason. Obviously, there must be some sort of hidden message.
And given that, at least according to him, every proper wizard should have a beard…
This is, of course, exactly as silly as it sounds from start to finish. It isn’t the, shall we say, most sophisticated of plot premises. In fact, it is outright ridiculous. But at the same time, it has a certain ridiculous charm to it. It is one of those stories that is so stupid that it drags you down to its level and then beats you with experience, and the whole time I was thinking about how dumb it was and yet simultaneously couldn’t not giggle. We get a nice little tour of Twilight making a fool of herself, and the constant witty (or not so witty) conversations between the characters, along with knowing what and what not to show, made this thing giggleworthy.
It is dumb, but if you are in the market for dumb, this is quite amusing.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Lootsphere
by Estee
Comedy, Random
2,791 wordsMost ponies believe there's only one route to the Elements: gather a team of six, have each member demonstrate a vital virtue, then find and activate the magic. As it turns out, there's actually two.
You can grind.
Or you can start spending money.
Decisions, decisions.
Why I added it: Estee is a good writer, and I was hoping for something silly about the lootbox controversy.
Review
I got it, too.
Twilight Sparkle has the Elements of Harmony before her. All she has to do is activate them. A touch of magic, maybe a touch of teamwork…
Or possibly just RNG.
This takes the first episode and asks the question: what if some very incompetent game developer who really loved real money purchases made it?
This is a very silly story, and I suspect that anyone who isn’t familiar with loot crates or loot boxes in video games will probably be kind of confused. If, however, you play games like Overwatch or Battlefront 2, you probably are familiar with such things, and are likely to be rather amused.
While the humor in the story is a bit on the nose, that didn’t make me from laughing at the rather incredulous textual description of lootbox mechanics in-universe.
Recommendation: Worth Reading if you’re familiar with loot boxes.
A Bird in the Dryer
by Estee
Comedy, Slice of Life
6,994 wordsRunning a spa isn't easy. Lotus Blossom is expected to lower the stress levels of an entire town on demand, with nopony ever thinking about what those demands might be doing to her. Keeping the La-Ti-Da Spa functional, calming, and more or less in one piece means paying attention to the small details. Birds in the dryer vent counts as a small detail. But at least that's just a minor problem.
Or not.
Why I added it: Estee is a good writer.
Review
Lotus, the older of the two spa twins, spends every day working to keep everypony in Ponyville relaxed. She may not have much of a head for business (or much of a spine for standing up to her customers), but she’s very good at her job. There’s really just one problem – she and her sister can help everypony else relax, but they drive each other up the wall a bit at times, meaning it is very hard for the two of them to relax in the same way that everyone else might do so.
Of course, things aren’t so bad, usually… sure, there’s the usual breakdowns, but they have their hooves under them, more or less, even if one thing comes up after the next. And sure, the dryer is making funny noises now, but that’s easily resolved with the help of Rachettle, the local mech – er, I mean, Fluttershy, the local animal expert, right?
It couldn’t possibly be that Fluttershy would totally misinterpret why the spa twins called her over and would only make things worse, right?
This is a story about equine suffering, as Lotus has to deal with a pair of nesting chikadees in her dryer hose all winter, something which will definitely, probably, certainly not slowly drive her mad.
And I was amused. This is not the sort of “knock it out of the ballpark” humor, but more the sort of understated humor full of awkward silences and stares as the point goes sailing right over someone else’s head (and I suppose out of the ballpark after all, but with not such a satisfying smack of wood on ball). Lotus’s lack of understanding of her twin – the pony in Equestria most similar to herself – is amusing, as is her gradual, long-term suffering at the chirps of two little birds, and all the many ways in which they drive her to distraction. The long-winded descriptions of her suffering work well to establish her personal perception of herself as the long-suffering type, and the fact that her rather half-hearted attempts at making things better only seem to make things worse just heaps on the schadenfreude for the reader.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Summary
Administrative Angel by Horizon
Worth Reading
No Recipe for Perfection by Cloudy Skies
Worth Reading
Princess Twilight Sparkle the Bearded by Tumbleweed
Worth Reading
Lootspheres by Estee
Worth Reading
A Bird in the Dryer by Estee
Worth Reading
I do apologize for my absence. I’ve missed just about everything while I was off in the shadows. I’d make excuses, but they’d be just that – excuses. In truth, there wasn’t anything there. Just nothing.
It was, in the end, not really a place where you want to be. And yet, I was hanging out there anyway, not doing anything of value, for no actual reason.
We’ll see how long I wander around where the grass grows.
Don’t worry if it all starts dying; I definitely didn’t find anything dangerous down there that I might have brought back up with me.
Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 216
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 656
Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 2190
Welcome back.
4781814
Thanks!
Good to have you back.
Glad to see you found some light to bring you out. Welcome back.
Five WRs? :O That's a WR!
And welcome back :D
A wild Titanium Dragon appeared, and found five fics he liked to boot!
4781931
That's what happens when people go wandering around in the tall grass!
Of course, I do live in Oregon; given how often grass-related wanderings seem to happen, you'd think they'd have found me before now.
4781814
4781817
WELCOME BACK! :D
4781883
I actually bookmarked this page where he had other instances of "Worth Reading/Recommended" lol
Well, you are pretty scary.
4781948
No, no! Don't go into the long grass!
Cheep! Cheep! (Love those birds in the dryer)
4781956
You'd really think you'd have immunity to your own fear aura. But noooo. Undead get immunity to fear, but do dragons?
Welcome back! Hope it’s going alright.
Welcome back!
I totally would've asked for a hamburger with a side of pony stories
Welcome back! Glad to see these again!
Good to have you back, Titanium Dragon.
Good to see you stirring again!
Glad you liked my story, too.
What's next on your writing plate? I should follow up this weekend with pushing us to both sit down and get words out. This is going to be my only good writing time for a week or two.
4782404
Well, probably either Merry Christmas, Twilight Sparkle or The Hereafter. Likely the latter. The former is about Twilight learning the true
meaningorigin of Christmas, and the latter is about Luna helping Applejack say goodbye to a comatose Granny Smith, only to spark an existential crisis in poor Applejack. (Luna is apparently very good and very bad at helping.)Or I guess I could poke at my long-overdue Valentine's Day RariJack story.
What are you thinking about working on?
4782533
Myself? Gotta get that comedy written for Aragon's contest! (Once I get tonight's RCL post live, now that I've finally gotten the server issues at work ironed out...)
I think you ought to finish up the Valentine's Rarijack. Strike while the iron is hot, etc.
As you enjoyed Recipe For Perfection, I also recommend Cloudy Skies' Taken For Granite if you haven't read it already. I feel like it's very much a direct evolution of the same formula, and as such ends up achieving a more realized delivery. More so, I feel that it's a clearer vision of what Cloudy wanted to write, but it took a couple takes to fully capture it.
4786133
I have indeed! It is a story I'd highly recommend to anyone else reading this conversation, and my favorite of their stories that I've read.