Read It Now Reviews #4 – Parental Attachment, The Last Curtain Call, Just an Old Fool, Dear Twilight Sparkle, Darth’s Warming Eve · 11:21pm Jan 2nd, 2015
This was an eclectic set of stories, ranging from crackfic to shipfic to poetry, but I was reasonably well-entertained by several of them. Always nice when a grab-bag of stories yields decent results.
I may also be cheating a bit on Darth’s Warming Eve, as it came out a while ago, but it is still sort of the holiday season, and therefore I will pretend like it reasonable to include in a “Read It Now”.
The stories I read today:
Parental Attachment by Pascoite
The Last Curtain Call by The Princess Rarity
Just an Old Fool by Minds Eye
Dear Twilight Sparkle by Donnys Boy
Darth’s Warming Eve by Follow Focus
Parental Attachment
by Pascoite
Dark, ComedyScootaloo's parents suddenly show up to a school function. And nopony quite knows what to make of them.
Why I added it: This story was entered in the “There’s Magic in Everything” Writeoff.
Review
I dunno if I’d really call this dark or a comedy, to be honest. I suppose you’re meant to laugh at the reveal, but…
At its heart, this is a Scootaorphan crackfic. Why don’t we see Scootaloo’s parents? This story answers that question! In one of the most bizarre manners I’ve yet seen.
There is very little else to be said; we see Scootaloo’s parents, we see them be weird, and then we see the Cutie Mark Crusaders forcing Scootaloo to confess to why they’re weird. Saying more would give away the only reason to read this story.
Recommendation: I’m not sure if I can really recommend this story, but it is a weird little piece. If you want to read a Scootaorphan crackfic, this is probably a decent enough choice.
The Last Curtain Call
by The Princess Rarity
Slice of LifeAll Sweetie Belle wanted was one pony to show up to her audition. Just one. And what with everypony else so busy, she was thrilled to know that Rarity would be there for her...
...but she didn't show. It was an empty theater.
Why I added it: This story made the featured story box.
Review
This story starts out with a weather report, which is never an encouraging sign, and generally keeps up the characteristics of The Princess Rarity’s writing style, which is something which has always kind of bothered me. I’ve read a fair number of her works (she has good taste in shipping, at least), but her prose and her word choice always feels a little bit off.
A good example of the word choice issues lies in this snipped of dialogue by Sweetie Belle, ranting to herself about Rarity:
"It's just not fair! She doesn't care about anypony but herself! I never ask much, only simple things like this, but what does she do?! She can't even seem to give me that much satisfaction! All I wanted was to see her there, but nooo, Rarity is much too busy for anypony except her stupid business clients!"
Bolding is mine.
This sentence is awkward; typically speaking, people don’t really use the word “satisfaction” in quite the manner it is being used here. Moreover, the preceding sentence was a rhetorical question, and this doesn’t really seem like it is answering it. Stuff like this really sticks out to me; I am, if you hadn’t noticed, something of a fanatic about dialogue, and as a result, unnatural lines bother me perhaps more than they do the average reader.
Something more along the lines of “She sits in her boutique all night! She promised!” or something similar would fit a lot better, and sound a lot more natural.
This is then followed up by some awkwardly inserted telling:
One part of Rarity was furious - what did her sister blame her for this time?!
But then again, the other half felt torn - what had she done to make her little sister so upset?
Rarity hesitated, and lifted her hoof, gently knocking on the door. "Sweetie Belle?" she said cautiously. "What's wrong?"
We are being told directly how Rarity is feeling, when this could have been communicated with one line:
Rarity bit her lip, hesitating for a moment before she lifted her hoof to knock on the door. “Sweetie Belle? What’s wrong?”
This is the sort of thing which really bothers me when I’m reading through a story, as it tugs on my attention and makes me feel like I’m being spoonfed. When I need to be fed something, it should be something which needs to be fed to me in that manner, and it should be done smoothly and not stick out to me; when it can be communicated via action and dialogue, it should be.
Recommendation: Not recommended.
Just an Old Fool
by Minds Eye
Slice of LifeIn all the years he worked at Canterlot Castle, Greenhooves never thought the Grand Galloping Gala was anything but a bore. But, after disentangling a guest in his garden, he might have a chance to make this year memorable.
A stallion can dream, can't he?
Why I added it: This story made the featured story box.
Review
A kind of wistful story, this story centers on the old gardener from The Best Night Ever making a different choice – instead of leaving Fluttershy to her own devices, after freeing her from the net he instead called back the birds with a whistle and asked the pegasus for a dance.
A stallion can dream, can’t he?
In the second half, we see the outcome of the gardener’s regret in his choice – we see him pushing his own dreams off on a royal guard, encouraging said guard to bring his own girlfriend to the next gala after he wins tickets in a raffle, encouraging him not to miss out on the chance that the gardener missed out on himself.
Overall, it is a decent little piece that clocks in at about 2,000 words.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Dear Twilight Sparkle
by Donnys Boy
Romance, Slice of LifeApplejack tries to write a love letter. She mostly fails. A TwiJack story, set somewhere in early Season 4.
Why I added it: I follow Donnys Boy.
Review
A TwiJack shipfic, this is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. Applejack spends the whole story struggling over what to say to Twilight in her letter, while interspersed with other scenes – of Applejack watching Twilight fly, of Applejack and her friends hanging out and her friends pestering her about Twilight, of Big Mac talking to Applejack about the elements and being special… and then finally of Applejack sending off that letter and Twilight’s inevitable response. The final letter – and the letter-writing scenes in general – were the strongest part of the story, and they worked quite well.
Overall, the prose was fairly good as well, with only a couple of bits of prose here and there which nagged at me a bit. However, the story wasn’t perfect, and by the end I was not really left feeling entirely satisfied.
I think my biggest problem was that Twilight, while present, didn’t really do a whole lot for me, and it took until the end for Twilight to show that she was receptive – which was okay, and lead into the ending, but it left me feeling just a little bit dissatisfied by the kiss at the end, as good as the final bit of flow was. I think the problem was I never really got a good handle on why Twilight wanted to kiss Applejack, and while the final scene right before the ending helped set that up, I think that its proximity to the very end of the story, while it worked for the letter, diminished the ability for that scene’s meaning to sink into the reader, and thus the ending still twinged a bit. The story wasn’t at all focused on Twilight, to be fair – it was really very much about Applejack, and working through her feelings – but it still ended up making me feel a bit off at the end.
I’m also not entirely sure if I really bought the scene with Big Mac. Not the connection thing – that’s wholly canon – but Applejack thinking that the Element of Honesty was what made her special. I’m not sure if I really buy that out of Applejack; she isn’t perfectly confident, to be certain, but that some little necklace was what made her special? I don’t know if that’s the sort of thing she’d even really think about outside of fighting the big bad – and even then, she has squared off with a chimera, timber wolves, and other baddies without a magical amulet around her throat.
Recommendation: If you like TwiJack, there’s a good chance you’ll be willing to overlook the things that naggled at me here. If you’re not, though, I suspect you’re more likely to feel dissatisfied.
Darth’s Warming Eve
by Follow Focus
Comedy, Random, Crossover, Human‘Twas the midmost of winter and into the town was a place where laughter, and cheer could be found. Ponies roamed through the streets with smiles on their faces, seeing bakeries, toy stores and other neat places.
But this is the part where the story gets weird, for this year's Hearth's Warming turns out worse than they feared. When Ponyville is introduced to its newest invader, a man dressed in black whose name is Darth Vader.
Why I added it: Present Perfect and multiple people in The Writer’s Group recommended it, AND it made the featured story box, AND Horizon seemed to like it.
I can’t believe I’m reading a story about Darth Vader stealing pony Christmas modelled after A Visit from St. Nicholas.
Review
Then he signaled to his troops with lethal intention
and they pointed their guns in the ponies' direction.
They fired into the crowd as Darth lowered his fist,
but not a pony was harmed for their shots had all missed.
I hated this story, its loathsome premise
Then struggled with laughter, tears filling my eyes.
The half-rhymes were bad, the scansion much worse,
Line lengths inconsistent, changing each verse.
I wanted to downvote, but after that bit,
To do aught but upvote would simply not fit.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Summary
Parental Attachment by Pascoite
Worth Reading if you want to read a Scootaorphan crackfic
The Last Curtain Call by The Princess Rarity
Not Recommended
Just an Old Fool by Minds Eye
Worth Reading
Dear Twilight Sparkle by Donnys Boy
Not Recommended for anyone but TwiJack shippers.
Darth’s Warming Eve by Follow Focus
Worth Reading.
Today, I upvoted a poem about Darth Vader stealing pony Christmas.
I’m not sure if that means I have great integrity, to confess to such a thing, or have no integrity, to have done such a thing.
Number of stories still listed as "Read It Later - Recommended": 172.
Number of stories listed as “Read It Later”: 1533.
2696601
Maybe that is supposed to be why it is tagged as dark? I dunno. A few other folks from the writeoff thought it was such, but I'm not sure what Pascoite's intention was.
Thanks for the review! Always nice to get a signal boost, even for something short and simple. Glad you enjoyed it.
2696620
I actually ended up following you because I realized you'd written a few other stories that I had enjoyed (your TwiDash ones, specifically) so I figured I'd better keep an eye on you.
I'm so glad I made you like that story. :D
2696797
You monster.