Read It Now Reviews #23 – The Clock is Ticking, The Perfect Barnstorm, Coming Home, The Old Gray Mare, Remembrance Day · 4:21am Mar 5th, 2015
What day is it?
Why, it is TD hates everything day again!
No, that is not defined as “every day ending in a y”, why do you ask?
Wednesday! Thanks KitsuneRisu, I would have been lost without you. I don't know what I was thinking.
The stories I read today:
The Clock is Ticking by PresentPerfect
The Perfect Barnstorm by FanOfMostEverything
Coming Home by Dash The Stampede
The Old Gray Mare by Thornwing
Remembrance Day by Grand_Moff_Pony
The Clock is Ticking
by PresentPerfect
Sex, Romance, ComedyRainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie's marriage was going great until Pinkie suddenly decided she wanted babies. How was she supposed to know making them takes more than just friendship?
Thankfully, Twilight knows just the spell to help them out! Now Pinkie and Rainbow Dash -- or rather, Rainbow Blitz -- have a whole week to do the deed.
If only things didn't keep getting in their way...
Why I added it: PresentPerfect is a good writer and this is a silly idea for a story.
Review
I really thought I was going to like this.
The story is exactly what it says on the tin – Pinkie Pie’s biological clock goes off, she doesn’t know how to deal with it, and then Rainbow Dash gets turned into a stallion by Twilight so they can make babies. The whole story, naturally, centers around them exactly not doing that. Honestly, I had assumed that Pinkie Pie had just not understood that you needed a stallion to make babies, but it goes beyond that and that Pinkie Pie doesn’t understand… well, much of anything.
Which leads to a lot of weird fridge logic, given that Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie are, apparently, married in this – though frankly, that felt weird too.
Honestly, this whole story felt weird, and kind of bland in a way – there isn’t really that much meat to it, and the silliness of the story didn’t really end up feeling very silly. There are issues, of course, but they don’t really end up that funny - while they SHOULD be funny, somehow it all fell flat to me, like it was just going through the motions of what was supposed to be funny without actually being funny, somehow. Pinkie Pie’s laughter at events which aren’t really very funny doesn’t help very much, either, as it feels forced, like the audience is being told to laugh when Rainbow Dash has some issue with being a guy. The prose itself often feels kind of dead and lackluster, with the story feeling very plainly written and the dialogue feeling too simplistic.
Also, there is some weird sexism in the story, as with Rainbow Dash being apparently assigned harder work because she is a stallion now… despite the fact that Rainbow Dash is, as far as we can tell, the best flier in all of Equestria, and a whiz with the weather.
But maybe it all felt off because after the very beginning of the story, I just didn’t end up finding it all that funny.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
The Perfect Barnstorm
by FanOfMostEverything
Comedy, Slice of LifeA Pinkie Promise is a dangerous thing. There are Tartaran contracts that are less strictly enforced. Making one before your first cup of coffee is just asking for trouble.
Why I added it: FanOfMostEverything has written some good stuff.
Review
This story is built on the twofold premise of Pinkie Pie somehow turning Applejack’s barn upside down, and Pinkie Pie making Applejack make a Pinkie Promise while Applejack is half-asleep and thus, half out of her mind.
Naturally, Pinkie Pie holds Applejack to her promise of letting her use the barn, with some help from Apple Bloom…
Honestly, this story is all about the sheer ridiculousness of the situation at hand. For me, it didn’t really get to be all that funny after the start of it, though. My favorite piece was very near the start:
“Hi, Applejack!” Pinkie said, bouncing up to the counter. “I had a counter-clockwise double-Axel tail twitch that told me you were coming! Did you come all the way from Sweet Apple Acres for one of my delicious new flugleberry-cinammon-raisin gobstoppers that I invented last night in my sleep?”
“No, Pinkie,” Applejack said.
“Well, did you come all the way from Sweet Apple Acres because you had a sudden premonition that it would rain chocolate rain today and you wanted to warn me so I could get in my swimsuit and put out an inflatable swimming pool?”
“No, Pinkie,” Applejack said.
“Hmm.” Pinkie scratched her chin. “Oooh! I know! Did you come all the way from Sweet Apple Acres to find out why your barn is upside-down?”
“Yes, Pinkie,” Applejack said.
“But Applejack, don’t you remember you said I could throw a party in your barn this afternoon?”
“Ah confess Ah did,” Applejack said. “But Ah expected the barn would stay upright at least until the party started.”
“Don’t be silly! Then all the water would run out!”
Applejack blinked.
“Pinkie. Is my barn upside-down and full of water?”
“Not yet!” Pinkie said.
But honestly, after that, it just was never as funny, and thus while I was hooked by Pinkie Pie’s “Not yet,” I left the story feeling dissatisfied, as the best part was at the very start of the story, and the rest of it never reached that peak. Stories which are written as inverted pyramids instead of following the universal engagement curve tend to peter out, and that was how I felt here.
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Coming Home
by Dash The Stampede
Romance, Slice of LifeI am alone...
For days and days I have sat and awaited the one who will call me her own, the day my limbs no longer collect dust, but love. The day my book no longer remains empty. The moment when I find my other half, and she finds me.
Today is going to be that day. I can feel it in every fiber and stitch I have.
Why I added it: The author asked me to review it, and it was in the Closing Time writeoff.
Review
This story is told from the point of view of Smarty Pants, Twilight Sparkle’s doll. It starts the story sitting in the toymaker’s shop on a shelf, waiting for someone to buy it, and the story is about Smarty Pants’ longing for love in the hooves of a foal.
This is one of those very literary type stories, a story written from an unusual perspective (in this case, an inanimate object) and how it might feel about the goings-on around it and what happens to it.
The story as a whole is reasonably well-written, but I couldn’t really find myself liking it; I never really grokked the character of the shopkeeper, and thus his decision at the end of the story wasn’t really as powerful as it might have been. Combined with the fact that the ending is sort of inevitable, given that we know that Smarty Pants ends up with Twilight, a lot of the tension in the story ends up feeling a bit diffused because we already know how it has to end.
If you want to read a story written from the perspective of an inanimate object, this isn’t a bad choice; however, I personally wasn’t overly fond of it, and it never really ended up resonating with me.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
The Old Gray Mare
by Thornwing
Slice of LifeEver since Twilight came to town, Mayor Mare's position as leader of Ponyville has been slipping. With her destiny overshadowed by the new princess on the block, it's time for the old gray mare to move on.
Why I added it: It was an entry in the Closing Time Writeoff competition.
Review
Mayor Mare resigns as mayor of Ponyville due to her feeling overshadowed, and she is ready and willing to pass on the burden of leadership to Princess Twilight Sparkle. Twilight, for her part, wants the mayor to stay, and leads her out into Ponyville to point out all the great things she has done for the city, and all the ponies Mayor Mare has helped over the years via her leadership.
A lot of folks really liked this story, but I was not overfond of it. I think my single biggest problem with the story was that I never actually grokked who Mayor Mare was; she basically felt overshadowed, and like she was no longer meaningful, but while I got that, I never really got her as a person, and she didn’t really seem to put forth much of an argument for leaving save “I’m no longer needed”. There was an expressed tone of her having missed out on a lot – never having a family, for instance – but it doesn’t seem like she’s planning on fixing that in any way, as she considers it too late for such things. The whole thing was meant to feel feelsy, but I just never ended up connecting with the central protagonist throughout the piece, as her reasons for leaving felt a bit superficial, and I would have liked to see what it was that she felt that Twilight had done to so overshadow her. Instead, it seemed to be mostly “She’s a princess and has done some good things.”
A lot of folks did like this, and it worked for them a lot more, and while I thought the ending was decent enough, the fact that I never really understood the central character hurt it for me.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Remembrance Day
by Grand_Moff_Pony
Romance, Sad, Slice of Life, SexTen years ago, I, Princess Twilight Sparkle, created a new holiday for all of Equestria. On this day, we stop and remember our past so we can share it with those who will come after us. Today is Remembrance Day.
And it's going to be a good day.
Why I added it: It won the TwiDash Group Challenge contest.
Review
Rainbow Dash is dead, and Twilight Sparkle can’t let go. She must see Rainbow Dash again – she needs to.
And so, Twilight Sparkle invented a holiday which centers around the use of a new magical artifact – memory gems – that she made up, so that ponies could see and experience an old memory, including that of a lost loved one. They took a year to recharge, but they would let you briefly see what happened, at least in your own mind.
Twilight puts on a brave face for the crowds, and at the end of the evening, thinks that it is a good day because she can imagine herself in Rainbow Dash’s hooves once more.
I can’t really say that I liked this story. While the idea behind it is a decent one, Luna and Celestia were right – this is deeply unhealthy, and moreover, apparently they know that this is going on and yet do nothing to stop Twilight from destroying herself once a year and never getting over the loss of her love. This year is, apparently, the same as every other year, and I knew what was going to happen at the end from the very beginning of the story. And yet, I never really felt much of a sense of resolution, nor did I really ever end up getting into it – while I can ship TwiDash, here, it was Twilight lamenting the loss of a loved one in a way that never has really resounded with me. It is the sort of thing that people seem to think others should feel when they lose a loved one, but while I have never lost a spouse, it doesn’t seem to me like most people end up so broken for so long, and I’m not sure that I really buy it for Twilight here – or that everyone else is just letting it happen for as long as it apparently has been.
But I think this is all superficial. I think my real complaint is that I feel like the whole story is trying to tell me that I should feel for Twilight’s pain, but I never really ended up empathizing with her. Maybe people who ship TwiDash harder than I do will get something out of it, but it didn't end up resonating with me.
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Summary
The Clock is Ticking by PresentPerfect
Not Recommended
The Perfect Barnstorm by FanOfMostEverything
Not Recommended
Coming Home by Dash The Stampede
Not Recommended
The Old Gray Mare by Thornwing
Not Recommended
Remembrance Day by Grand_Moff_Pony
Not Recommended
The best thing about following TD is that I never have to read anything.
Anyway, my next Read It Now will likely be the last one for a while; I’m going to try and focus on reading through older stories now and try and actually cut down on my Read It Later list (which, as you'll notice, has been growing steadily). Hopefully I’ll hate everything less that way.
Number of stories still listed as "Read It Later – High Priority": 251
Number of stories listed as “Read It Later”: 1560.
Silly TD, it's only funny if you actively deny being the stereotype that everyone imposes on you!
2850598
True. Fixed.
I'm dying with laughter here over that ending quote.
Thank you, sir. I'm glad I got to see some in-depth analysis on it, you were one of the few I was jumping in my seat waiting for in the writeoff thread, and I can safely say I've been sated.
Indeed, it was a niche of a task, taking on something entirely new to me on almost all fronts: First person, from an unusual perspective, and focused on a character I never felt too connected to. Having not been attached to many toys as a youngster, I can attest to not being as in tune with the voice as I could have been.
I feel a lot of people's confusion over the shopkeep came from their oversight on the condition of the store itself. I wrote it to be a degrading, on the downs kind of business, mere months from the final Closing Time, and I see where the hangups came from; definitely something to put more thought into in the future.
I have much to consider for the next event, and for my continuation in exploring new areas of writing. I'm sorry you couldn't get into it, but I feel that was more a matter of technical taste than anything - it's gotten a great reception so far, from those not focused on the little nags and nitpicks that would otherwise be glossed over. Oh well, this means I'll just have to push myself to meet the standards for you.
Thank you, TD, for tearing off that band-aid spectacularly so. :V I can rest easy now I managed to nab the thoughts of my target reviewers. Here's to next time! :D
I see. Is that because it is defined as "every day where the second-to-last letter is an 'a'"?
2850635
Does it have to be a letter?
It's actually the d that does it.
2850624
Hey! Good luck dude.
I don't know about this story, but I hate this idea. I read a TwiPie one once where Twilight had be mourning Pinkie for 800 years. Have these writers never heard of second marriages? A lot of people manage to have them within one lifetime. Do they think the love in their ship is just so super-special that characters will actually stop growing literally forever if it's ever broken?
...like I said, I haven't read this one. Maybe it's a more reasonable length of time like 5 years? (I can hope.) I could see still being in an unhealthy place for that long (though I agree that other characters would be trying to get her out of it.) But that 800 years fic just makes me ranty to even think about.
2850681
It is more than ten years, and it is implied to be a fair bit longer than that as she came up with a unique magic item after apparently some time and others discouraging her from doing it.
And yes, it bothers me as well.
I'm terrified to wrote another fiction because I don't want to ruin my 50/50 break of recommended to terrible fictions.
2850693
So what you're saying is, I should review this to light a fire under you and write more stuff?
Seriously, you're a good writer. Don't be afraid of me. That's the worst reaction possible, for someone to not write because of me.
2850681
The holiday has been going for ten years, according to the description, and then there's however long it took Twilight to make the gems. So probably 10-15 years total. If I had to guess (without having read the story), 12 years exactly (scenario: Twilight develops the gems within a year of Dash's death, waits for the recharge period to end (after a test run), then has the first holiday on the next anniversary of Dash's death).
The funny thing is, if any story could get away with having a character mourning for 800 years, this would be that story. Those memory gems sound like a great way to prevent people from ever getting over the death of a loved one.
2850681
2850687
I may not have been as explicit in this detail as I perhaps should have been, but the situation is this: Twilight first gets the idea for the memory spell/gems very soon after RD's death, which occurs after a long marriage. (obv. the other elements are gone as well). Her first attempts to use the spell burn out extremely quickly, but within 12 months of the first 'idea' moment, she has a workable prototype. Production of some gems begins, and a year later, Remembrance Day is inaugurated as a holiday. The story picks up 10 years later, or approx. 10 years after RD's death.
And yes, I have heard of second marriages, to be clear. And while plenty of people do move on after a spouse's death (and even re-marry), there are a lot of people who do not move on (I've seen it in my own family over the years). Sure, they can function and live as normal, well-adjusted people, but they never 'get over' the hole in their lives - and that's exactly where Twilight is in this story. Perhaps she'll get over it in time. After all, she'll have endless amounts of it. But for now, she's definitely not over it, and that's what I portrayed here.
I'd invite you to read it yourself and see, but in the end, this is a 'broken widow can't move on' trope, so based on previous comment, I doubt you'll like it.
That excerpt of "The Perfect Barnstorm" was actually written by Bad Horse. In this blog, he asked people to complete a story containing that excerpt. That you highlighted (almost) exactly what he wrote seems relevant.
I'm beginning to think that "Not Recommended, unless you're a fan of horror" is actually very high praise
2850681 This is my biggest problem with the immortal ennui fics all over this site. Seriously; people deal with loss all their life. I moved away from best friends several times, likely never to see them again. I just can't take it seriously, and I've never understood why others do.
@TD: for some reason, my laptop can't deal with your blogs. I've had several crashes trying to view them. It could be the pictures... or perhaps the hate is just too much. :P
2850774
I was using second marriages as an example that it's normal and healthy to resume life. I'm aware some people don't remarry, for various reasons (just like some people don't marry to begin with) but I'm with 2850821 here, loss is a part of life. I don't really find it romantic to watch a character dwell on that when they should be moving on.
Look at it this way: on the show, if you assume the Apples' parents are dead, they died within the past ten years or so (depending on the age you put Apple Bloom at.) And the Apples are all leading happy, healthy lives-- even Granny, who lost her son or daughter and, presumably, husband at some point. Of course they'll remember them sometimes-- you have the shooting stars in Apple Family Reunion-- but it makes sense for the emotional impact to be more wistful and muted, and for it to not be central to their lives.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of "crying on graves" fics.
Thanks for the great feedback. I had many of the same issues with it as I wrote it. I still do.
The main thing I came to an understanding with was that the Mayor thinks she's washed up -- for no reason other than Twilight is in the spotlight. The Mayor feels overshadowed and redundant. Through the story, she tends to make excuses for herself or wonder what things she could have changed to give her life more meaning. By the end, she comes to a small realization that maybe she wasn't looking at the whole picture. It's not enough to sway her course, but she's at least opening up to the idea that she wasn't a complete failure with her political career.
She needs to come to realization of the importance of her work by taking a step back from it. Royal politics aside, the portrayal here is that she's questioning her purpose just like Twilight did. If I were ever to expand on it, that would be the direction I would take -- show how she finds a purpose in life, even if it winds up bringing her right back to where she started.
If the story got a downvote from you, I appreciate it, seeing as I have the reasoning to back up that opinion. Thanks for taking the time to review it.
Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
2850777
Wow, I completely forgot about that.
I LOVE YOU BAD HORSE SENPAI.
2850800
My voting history has been described by admins as "a visual representation of Sturgeon's Law in red".
I NR about 66% of stories that I read and review, and I try to avoid reviewing stories for which the review wouldn't be very interesting when the story isn't very popular (my odd forays into the New Stories box often yield such things).
2850821
I'll bet that three blogs from now, it will get a lot easier. There's a fairly large gif file from 17 blogs ago which gets used as the default icon for that blog, and it may be what is choking up your laptop.
2850910
The other problem is that I really don't buy Twilight doing this.
Well, unless Spike died, in which case she'd probably starve to death because she forgot to eat, but that's more not taking care of herself.
Then again, she does really love hayburgers...
2851040 You're probably right.
QUICK! HATE MORE THINGS!
2851040
That made me grin.
And also, yeah, I can see why that might be the case. I tend to measure my own work against my favourite published authors, which is why I'm always searching for ways to improve my writing, even if by the standards of FiMFic it's good.
But when I rate other people's stories, I rate them contextually. For example, I might give a writeoff story a mediocre score, because it's up against some pretty good stuff, but if I compared it to the majority of stories on the site, then it would be deserving of a good score. If I compared it to published authors, it would set a new benchmark for terrible.
I guess if I rated stories compared to the library of stories in my head, every novel I've picked up, every short story I've devoured, then most stories on this site would receive the equivalent of "Not recommended".
I dunno. Is that similar to how you review, or do you go by some other standard, like what effect the story has on you?
2850973
Thank you, I appreciate it!
And yeah, you're welcome for the review.
2851047
More or less. To me, fanfiction is just... well, fiction. I could spend my time reading other stuff, or playing games or whatever, so if I spend my time reading fanfiction, I expect to enjoy it as much as I would enjoy other stuff, and hold it to the same standards of amusement that I derive from other stuff.
And there's nothing that says people online can't come up with very interesting ideas for stories. Some of my favorite stories of all time are on this site - The Writing on the Wall and Trust are both very excellent, as is Five Hundred Little Murders, and... well, really pretty much all of the Fifteen Stories You Should Read I have (though I'm pretty sure Barreled Up and Two Peas in a Pod are pure personal bias, they're both good stories I enjoyed reading. Then again, I'm a complete monster for liking stories like Two Peas in a Pod).
But honestly, I'd put The Writing on the Wall and Trust up against published stories and really, I think they're better than a lot of them. They'd be in the folder on my computer next to stuff like The Last Question.
2851051
Mm, yeah. I didn't mean to say that there aren't stories on this site which are comparable to, if not better than, published stories.
Because there are. Tonnes of them. Virtually all of Skywriter's stuff is brilliant. Cold in Gardez is one talented mo-fo. Skirts pumps out stuff which, while not that good on a technical level, is breath-taking in its scope and creativity. Horizon writes stories which are thrilling, yet it is beyond my comprehension how he even conceives of them.
And really, fanfiction is it's own genre. You don't have to worry about characters so much, because you already have six very strong characters to draw on. This lets you write stories which would otherwise be impossible. Stories which rely on common knowledge of characters and events, much in the same way that stories in ancient greece drew upon commonly known characters and tales in their telling.
Getting back on track, I meant I compare them in terms of technical skill. And most of the stories on this site, even if I love them, are not as technically skilled as those of an author who spends 18 months writing and editing their piece with access to some of the best editors in the business. Which is why I tend not to compare the two.
:shrug:
[Side-note: I'll be checking out those stories very soon. Got any other stand-outs which you could recommend?]
2851055
Makes sense, though, frankly, I don't think most short stories are nearly so heavily edited. Novels, though, are a whole different realm, and writing a fanfiction serial is vastly different from actually writing a novel. The publication method alone is vastly different, plus, when they realize that they should have done something different in chapter 3... they can't.
Well, not unless they constantly revise as they go, which is probably rough on their readers.
It's nice to know that I'm at "has written some good stuff." The thing about TDXP is that you can't really grind for it, so getting to a decent level is always tricky.
Sorry. I just caught up with Harry Potter and the Natural 20.
2850777
Thank you for pointing out what I was going to. I can't say I'm surprised that the best part of the story was the part Bad Horse wrote.
2850910 Yeah, I get it. And for the sake of most humans, I'd hope that the aftermath of a loss does become a wistful (if slightly teary) aspect of their lives. Sadly, that's not the case for everyone, but that is just the way or the world.
Of course, that's the beauty of fiction. We're allowed to explore any topic or thought that we want to. Sure, not many real people spend their lives crying over graves, but that's the idea I wanted to explore, and Twi and Dash were the characters I worked with to do it. I may not have pulled that idea off to everyone's liking (as this thread so obviously demonstrates), but I'm happy with the final product.
Whoo, I got panned by Titanium Dragon! :D
>not liking Old Grey Mare
And I'm in good company! :B
Truer words never spoken.
2851165
Clearly I need to make an icon to give out of me handing over a pan.
Here's one for now:
st.houzz.com/simgs/99b1651801c22c82_4-0107/traditional-frying-pans-and-skillets.jpg