Read It Later 4: Tuesday Is The New Monday · 6:19am Jul 9th, 2014
It’s totally Monday today and I didn’t at all forget to post this yesterday. Okay? Good.
So another week came and went, and I’m still doing this. I may not be the most frequent person when it comes to reviewing stories, and I may not have the most to say either, but I appreciate all the feedback I’ve heard. Work and general laziness aside, I don’t see
Also, I don’t have any sort of news-ish things to say. But I can guess there’ll be lots next week, since Obselescence’s contest’s preliminary judging seems to be wrapping up, we’re probably due for another write-off sooner or later, and depending on when he gets to it, a friend may be publishing a new story. So you can all skip past the silly picture and break right into the reviews beneath. I’ve only got five this time instead of the usual six because, well, laziness.
This is just an adorable artstyle.
How this ended up on my RIL list: That description is just brilliant. I mean, it’s just about the most well crafted thing I’ve seen; it’s short and whimsically amusing and is able to tell what the story will be about, while not being explicit about it. The vectored cover art and somewhat cliché-sounding title helps advertise the story as being one of those that “could be an actual episode” though I question that idea. But I can tell I’m in for a lighthearted comedic adventure regardless, and I’ve got high hopes.
What I walked away with: The warm fuzzies one gets from feeling deeply satisfied. I’m not sure if this could translate well into an episode like the face of the story suggested, but this was definitely a pleasure to read.
The story begins with Applejack teaching Twilight the ins and outs of playing horseshoes. They end up going to Sugarcube Corner, where Mrs. Cake beckons the two to keep Pinkie Pie occupied so she doesn’t eat all the sweets in the bakery. They oblige, and since Pinkie Pie has suddenly become transfixed with the bakery’s back door, they decide to take it with them. One thing leads to another and suddenly they’re all in the middle of the Everfree forest (plus one Fluttershy).
I think that particular phrase describes this story well enough: One thing leads to another. Granted, that can be applied to just about any story in addition to being a lazy way to summarize it, but it just fits so perfectly here. The author doesn’t try to be outlandish or do anything daring or standout, and instead he just sets the story up and lets it run itself. It’s incredibly simple and straightforward while still being elegant about it. The jokes come naturally and, heck, there’s even an original song in it (minus the music, of course)!
I really do love the characters presented here, and they’re what sell the story the most. Huge props to the author for not forcing Applejack’s accent, and seeing her interact with Twilight was an utter delight. Usually, I tend to see Applejack being written as a voice of reason, or something thereof that sticks her into that “big sister” role. Here, she isn’t. She’s just a pony spending time with her friends, just like Twilight and Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie are: they’re all equal to each other in their relationships and they understand this. There’s no central character for the story to follow because they’re all the main characters, and for an author to accomplish that is commendable.
On that note, I’m starting to reconsider my stance on this story not feeling like an episode, because it clearly tries. It’s very reminiscent of Season 1 at least. It’s an excellent example of excellent characters, anyways.
Afterthoughts: This is just a good story, plain and simple. Hell, it’s a great story and I loved it. It’s definitely worth taking a look at.
How this ended up on my RIL list: I think I first picked this one for a Seattle’s Angels round, but before I could it give it a chance, it surpassed the 1000 view limit which disqualified it. This is a body-swap story, and as far as I know, it’s the only one between Celestia and Luna, and in an apparent argument to decide who has the worse time being a princess. That’s undeniably cliché as far as body-swapping goes, but I’ve always found the concept enjoyable nonetheless.
What I walked away with: I’m not entirely sure. Hunger, I guess? This story doesn’t exactly go the predictable and cliché route, but I don’t think it pulled off what it tried to do instead.
As far as body-swaps go, this one starts standardly: Celestia thinks Luna has it easier than she does, and Luna doesn’t at all like having it easy, so they switch bodies for a day to see whose life is more manageable. Instead of going for the angle where they both dislike what the other has to go through and they learn to respect each other more—which they do do, I suppose—the author throws into the mix the notion that Luna’s been away for a thousand years.
However, this notion looks to be one sided. In Luna’s body, Celestia learns that the ponies don’t really think much of her and is made sad. But when in Celestia’s body, this disconnect between pony and society is absent as Luna carries on just like I’d imagine Celestia would, barring a few hiccups where she needs to be filled in on daily events. What emotion there is in the story is stilted almost entirely on making points towards Luna’s lifestyle while leaving Celestia’s ignored to a degree, despite having so much of the story focusing on Celestia (with Luna in her body). They both walk out having learned a lesson, but they both (Celestia’s in particular) are underwhelming because of this disparity between them.
In addition, there’s two side characters meant to introduce conflict; Blueblood for Luna and some rowdy teenage ponies for Celestia. Blueblood is a total arrogant jerkface to the common ponies around Luna (in Celestia’s body), which strikes me as odd that he seems so comfortable doing around Celestia, as if she’d stand for it. Likewise, the stupid teenage ponies serve to only bully Celesta (in Luna’s body), and I have to ask why Luna would tolerate such a thing. Celestia and Luna seem to be as out of character in their own bodies as they are in each other’s.
To top it off, there’s a whole heap of tellingness and happenings that didn’t really need to be there. The story could’ve probably been at least a fourth shorter than it is and it’d have lost nothing valuable. Overall, the story is relatively meh. Maybe if the author had decided to take a more comedic approach instead of a heartfelt one, this could’ve been much stronger. But as it is, I can’t say it’s worth recommending to anyone who isn’t a fan of body-swap stories. Even then, this isn’t a standout example of such a story.
Afterthoughts: I really am hungry all of the sudden. And a bit tired. I should eat myself into a nap.
How this ended up on my RIL list: Honestly, I can’t remember. Looking at the description, title, and cover image, I can at least infer that Twilight is upset at Princess Celestia. My guess would be that she’s tired of Celestia sending her off on dangerous missions. Twilight going off the deep end, perhaps? I do enjoy seeing a character have the world they knew collapse around them.
What I walked away with: A migraine. This story was aggravatingly difficult to read and follow, and not because of any sort of bias against what the author tries to do, rather just the way the story’s written.
The story begins with Twilight, after receiving her mission to go to the Crystal Empire from Princess Celestia, snapping a la Lesson Zero. In a fit of epiphany, she realizes that Celestia has been using her throughout the years, like a manipulative chessmaster doing what she can for the betterment of Equestria. And she goes back to challenge Celestia on this, make a bunch of demands for things she really didn’t need, and then denounce her role as student. She leaves and immediately regrets it, and snapping like this and losing herself to the moment is something I can get behind. Predictably, Celestia feels regret and then later goes to Twilight’s to try and rebuild their relationship.
But the story fails to come across as genuine because it utterly reeks of pretension, and suffers greatly. I felt like I had someone sitting across from me reading the story themselves (instead of letting me read it like I wanted to) and providing their own little anecdotes and comments along the way, which gets in the way of the actual story. Hell, the story even has subscripts like a Wikipedia article, which really turns this piece from a story into a speech.
That’s my biggest issue with this. It read like I was sitting through a lecture and being talked to, which was a baffling experience since I walked in expecting a story. It was grossly informal to boot, marred by is stop-and-go pacing and incredible amount of telling. The story has a profound overabundance of bold and italic text, ellipses, one-liners, and em-dashes (improperly used, I might add), and they all get in the way of telling what little story there was.
And that’s what I find sad about this story. It may have had a rocky start, but it had an interesting idea regardless. I’d have loved to see a story where Celestia does something to upset Twilight and needs to rebuild their relationship, but even that outcome is more or less skirted at the very end, and the idea is left to squander. I don’t even see why the story has a Sad tag because it just isn’t, and the same goes for the Comedy tag. Having those two elements that are just about polar opposites in the same story really threatens to make both of them not appear at all, as they’d sort of cross each other out, and for me at least, that’s what happened here.
I at least found more places where the story tried to be sad than comedic, but the long swaths of exposition and general nothing being done to advance the plot especially dragged those parts down. And what’s most confusing is that these long-winded conversations and expositions pretty much serve one role: to unjustly and outrageously hate on Celestia. I can get using one or two things to make her feel bad for the sake of the story, but the author seems to go out of his own way to make a point of why Celestia is such an awful pony, which in turn is what ultimately makes this feel like a lecture.
When it comes to fanfiction, I want to read a story. But what I got was a demeaning lecture with a story for a mask, and the experience isn’t like anything I’ve had before. Frankly, I don’t ever want to have it again.
Afterthoughts: Don’t read this and save yourself some aspirin.
Keeping Your Hooves On The Ground
by InsertAuthorHere
How this ended up on my RIL list: This story is over two years old. If memory serves, the Read-It-Later doohickey was implemented sometime after then and this story was one of if not the highest rated on the site at the time. And with that description, it’s pretty easy to see why it’d be so adored. It’s got a really cute cover image and an interesting concept: young pegasi are afraid of the ground, except for Fluttershy shortly after she discovers her special talent. Rainbow Dash goes to bring her back, presumably there’d be a conflict of interest, and probably some shenanigans to end proving to Rainbow Dash the ground isn’t such a bad place. I got high hopes for some silliness.
What I walked away with: “Eh” doesn’t really do it enough justice. There’s a cute and silly story here somewhere, but it’s buried beneath awkward phrases, general issues with its diction, structure, and some light LUS.
We start with Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and the Crusaders in Fluttershy’s cottage, helping clean up after a storm. The Crusaders ask about what happened after the big race when the two pegasi were fillies and got their cutie marks, and the actual story consists of these flashbacks being periodically interrupted by the group, typically the Crusaders asking for clarity.
However, these breaks take us away from the flashbacks just as we’re getting invested in them. Likewise, the questions that get answered during these breaks also sort of rob whatever wonder the previous scene had given. I think the story would’ve been much stronger if it forwent the present entirely and focused on the past, because the present is just an annoyance to the actual story we want to hear.
As for the story itself, it’s barely there. Rainbow Dash goes down to save Fluttershy from the ground, Fluttershy at first refuses, and they only leave after Rainbow Dash more or less becomes conditioned to the ground. That’s about it, and it could’ve worked well if we got into that childlike state of mind of Rainbow Dash’s like the story tried, where everything is unknown and scary, but that emotion just isn’t there. Instead, Rainbow Dash “knows” exactly what the ground is like, that it’s awful mean and dangerous place, like all the stories she’s heard have said. The story goes as far as to demonstrate how she’s perceiving these nonexistent dangers, which is great, but it’s almost like a slideshow instead of a movie.
The characterizations themselves are a bit fandom-heavy. Fluttershy’s got her ellipses, Scootaloo’s overly adoring Rainbow Dash, and Apple Bloom’s got her blasted, no good, [REDACTED] “Ah’s”. They’re not the worst I’ve seen, but they aren’t entirely that good either.
As far as its technical quality goes, it’s a bit jumbled. The word choice makes the language flowery but the structure makes it an awkward shade of purple. I’ve never seen underlined text in a story before, but hey, you’ll find it here. There’s also that completely unnecessary copyright forewarning in the beginning and an obligatory “The End” at the end, so take that for whatever it’s worth.
Overall, this story comes across as being rather mediocre. It’s got a great concept, and I can definitely see it in there, but it’s burdened by so much stuff just getting in the way. And what’s there is way too plain for the story’s own sake to work properly.
Afterthoughts: Hey, the story was the most popular on the site at some point. But it’s not there anymore and I just didn’t like it that much. Maybe with some good old fashioned elbow grease, it could work its way back up there.
And the Leaves Shall Tell of Its Passing
by StormDancer
How this ended up on my RIL list: This story was reviewed in a Seattle’s Angels round a few months ago. As with a lot of the stories featured there, I had no idea who this person was, and at the time the story didn’t have so much as a single comment, and maybe just a few dozen views. The comments immediately blew up with praise along with a relatively large increase in view count. Looking at the description alone, it’s quite easy to see why by the sense of wonder and elegance it brings forth. Needless to say, I became very, very interested.
What I walked away with: I feel like turning off my computer, walking out onto the front lawn, opening a Dr Pepper, and watching the sun set while I reflect of a proper response to this. Then maybe have a nap. But I can’t, because I have to write this since I hate myself.
It certainly lived up to the hype. Just about all of it is nothing more than what a friend of mine would probably call scenery porn. Sights, sounds, smells, things to feel and taste; it’s a practically sensory overload of a story, and I loved every bit of it. It’s all about Fluttershy taking a walk, and she’s heading somewhere very specific at a very specific time, though we’re not entirely sure why. Along the way she makes a friend, and he accompanies her to this place, and then suddenly everything clicks together in a beautiful congregation of emotion and energy.
The story’s a bit difficult to talk about because this one of those that has to be experienced, and the story does a wonderful job of turning into one. Its language is about as flowery as the wonderful world built around Fluttershy, and the prose is a delicious purple. Grammatically speaking, the story isn’t perfect, especially when it comes to ellipses. That information might be enough to put off some, but I’d encourage pushing through it. This here is really something extraordinary.
There’s an author’s note at the end that encourages a re-read, and I’m going to encourage it to. There’s a lot of wonderful tidbits to help build the world around Fluttershy, but they’re all interconnected in one way or another, and it’s a joy to figure out.
Afterthoughts: Maybe I’ll catch the next sunrise, but that implies I have to wake up early.
Well, that’s this week installment of me taking a hatchet to the stories I want to read. Tune in next time, where I wonder in befuddlement why that number keeps growing even though I’m trying to trim it.
This exists, and I’m not the least bit surprised.
Reading your review of that Reality Check story, all I could think was "Why not just read Eternal?" :V
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I know nothing about what Eternal is about, but I know it's already in my list to be looked at.
But it's so long...
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I didn't mean that in a "Eternal is so much better" sort of way. :B I found it dull as fuck, but it is about Twilight and Celestia mending a torn relationship.
Oh, hey! It's my story! I'm pleased that you enjoyed it. A Door Jam was my first, and it still means a lot to me. I'll admit that Applejack's accent was a little out of control when I first wrote it. It's been pared down since.
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Difference is, the torn relationship in Parting Words comes from actual show events (and one thing the author put in to justify a rant)., and it voices a lot of somewhat reasonable complaints; i.e., in the real world, Twilight would/should have asked some very pointed question to Celestia (or told her to fuck off) immediately after she'd gotten the Elements, and the impetus for such a thing has only grown bigger with the passage of time and show seasons.
2269371
Also, to RazgrizS57, have you read any other stories from RealityCheck, are you aware of what's been happening or more in general the rest of his production? Because that'd explain why you felt like you were being lectured a lot
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I have not read any other stories by him, and as far as the current happening is concerned, I'm aware about it but I haven't really looked to into it. I don't really care to either, because it's frankly not my business to.