Read It Later Reviews #11 – An Apple A Day, Scraps, Musings, & Octavia Writes Fanfics, Tales of Interest, Brevity, Never the Final Word · 2:05am Mar 21st, 2015
Sometimes a really short story can really hit the spot. So called minifics are very short – often south of a thousand words long – but they can hit on powerful ideas very quickly, or just be funny or otherwise give us a scene which shouldn’t really be a story unto itself. On the downside, sometimes they forget to really say much of anything.
Most of these, however, are good ones. I reviewed three stories each from five collections of minifics; there are more in all of these collections, and I plan on reviewing them someday. All of these stories are very short, and a few of them – in particular, Cumuliform and its sequel, The Next Day – are amongst my favorite stories on the site.
Today’s stories:
An Apple a Day by Esle Ynopemos
- Best Garden
- A Night in the Barn
- A Change of Heart
Scraps, Musings, & Octavia Writes Fanfics by Wanderer D
- It Can’t Be Her!
- A Conveniently Forced Plot
- The Commander vs Harbinger
Tales of Interest by Pascoite
- Sweet Temptation
- In Need of Healing
- At Close of Day
Brevity by Darf
- Helper
- Court Song
- Cumuliform
Never the Final Word by Horizon
- The Next Day (a sequel to Cumuliform)
- An Even Grater Love
- Ruin Value Meal (a sequel to my own story, Ruin Value)
An Apple a Day
by Esle Ynopemos
Short Story CollectionA collection of short stories and vignettes about the rootinest, tootinest farm-filly this side of the Everfree. Each entry was written in thirty minutes, and there will be a chapter uploaded every day until there are thirty chapters. I ain't no fancy arithmeticker, but that adds up to a whole month of good ol' down-home tale-tellin'!
Why I added it: PresentPerfect recommended one of them.
Review
Best Garden: Romance, Comedy
Rarity is upset that Applejack’s garden does not win the best garden competition, because it is the garden they have been working on together.
As is typical for RariJack stories, I didn’t really care for it; it mostly was a Kanye West joke, combined with some minor shipping which, while theoretically interesting to me, didn’t really end up working for me as it just kind of felt like it was there and never really spread its wings.
A Night in the Barn: Sad
Applejack and Granny Smith mourn Applejack’s parents passing.
This story contains the cute idea that Applejack’s great-grandfather was Johnny Appleseed, which is terribly appropriate and almost certainly an intentional sly reference that the show has simply never called out. The actual content is decent enough, but a little bit ephemeral – it is hard to get a lot of emotional impact in a short story, and this story spends a lot of its words on descriptions rather than actual emotions, and as such it all felt a little bit shallow not because the core idea was bad, but because it simply didn’t get very much time to breathe.
A Change of Heart: Slice of Life
Applejack comes home after a long day of chores and finds out that “she” has been tutoring Apple Bloom on math. Applejack is understandably upset with the changeling, but it seems the changeling does know her stuff…
This was a sweet little slice of life story, and Applejack feels in-character even as she threatens the changeling – and the changeling, somehow, managed to earn a sliver of sympathy from me, even in such a short story.
Recommendation:
Best Garden: Not Recommended.
A Night in the Barn: Not Recommended.
A Change of Heart: Worth Reading
Scraps, Musings, & Octavia Writes Fanfics
by Wanderer D
RandomThose little nagging ideas that get in your way when writing other stuff? But you can't help yourself and write a mini story? This is exactly that. Let's call 'em vignettes and feel fancy about it. Moments in the life of ponies in stories that probably will never happen. At least not in a story written by me.
Why I added it: Present Perfect recommended one of these.
Review
It Can’t Be Her!:
Some mysterious villains complain about Twilight foiling all of their plans. But it seems that it goes deeper than that. Twilight is The One, and it is time for them to set her free of the bonds of her reality.
This is quite short, and pretends to be serious while obviously not being serious at all. It made me chuckle a bit by the end, and that made the time spent with it worthwhile, even if it is kind of obvious in its allusions.
"Who is your daughter?"
"You are, Twilight," Chrysalis said, stepping closer.
"N-no, I'm not! I have a mom, and a dad and a brother I never mentioned until just before he got married!" Twilight snapped.
This made me laugh, and the whole story was completely ridiculous. It wasn’t good, per se, but it earned a number of chortles from me at its absurdity. This is an example of what is sometimes referred to as “character destruction comedy”, and it works well enough, but don’t expect anything which actually makes sense.
The Commander vs Harbinger: [Comedy] [Random] [Crossover]
Commander Octavia Shepherd solves the reaper threat in the only way she knows how in order to avoid the three lame canonical endings:
Banjo violin duel.
The whole story is a crossover between My Little Pony, Mass Effect, and The Devil Went Down to Georgia. I’m not sure if I can really recommend it; on the one hand, the idea is intrinsically funny, but in practice, the actual story didn’t actually end up being very funny to actually read. The premise of it made me laugh a lot more than the actual execution did.
Recommendation:
It Can’t Be Her!: Worth Reading
A Conveniently Forced Plot: Worth Reading.
The Commander vs Harbinger: Not Recommended.
Tales of Interest
by Pascoite
Short Story CollectionTaking a cue from the thoroughly enjoyable Miyajima, this is a storehouse for short tales that don't warrant being separate.
Why I added it: Pascoite is a good writer and Present Perfect recommended a story from it.
Review
Sweet Temptation [Comedy][Slice of Life][Fluff]: Dinky Doo matches wits with a worthy muffin opponent. Written for a d'aww fic contest with a 1k word limit. This has 999. Yah!
This is a silly little story about Dinky trying to get her special birthday muffin off the top shelf before her mom gets home. It is mostly about trying to make the audience hungry and the terrible struggle between a breakfast-to-be and a foal trying to consume it. It is cute and a bit silly, and contains the phrase “malevolent breakfast”, which is either great or terrible (or possibly both).
In Need of Healing [Sad]: Sometimes Nurse Redheart is the one who could use a little care. prompt = Whispers in the dark. Finished 2nd of 32, won Judges' Pick.
Redheart tries to remain detached from one of her patients. She fails.
The twist at the end was kind of obvious to me, and is something I’ve seen a great deal. This is basically the hospital version of the grave fic, and if you like that particular genre, you’ll probably like this, but like many such stories, it wears its emotional manipulation of the reader on its sleeve.
At Close of Day [Slice of Life]: Luna has a conversation with an old acquaintance. prompt = Whispers in the dark. Tied for 7th of 32, won Judges' Pick Runner-Up.
Luna has a conversation with someone. The story is entirely about the reveal, so revealing who it is would… well, ruin it. Unfortunately, while it is a decent story, there’s a lot of folks who would tend to find it to fall flat as the reveal is all there is, and thus the personal appeal of the reveal is the only reason you’d like it. Personally, I liked it, but this story is specifically up my alley.
Recommendation:
Sweet Temptation: Worth reading if you like cute things.
In Need of Healing: Worth reading if you like grave fics.
At Close of Day: Worth reading if you I can’t even say it in spoilers, seriously, it will ruin the story if you do choose to read it.
Brevity
by Darf
VariousShort stories about ponies and the things that happen to them, or don't.
Why I added it: One of Horizon’s stories from Never the Final Word was based on one of these stories.
Review
Helper: Spike finishes the last of a long series of days helping Rarity with her chores. [Romance] [Slice of Life]
Spike is too tired to really help Rarity, but he wants to keep helping her, while Rarity is too focused on her work to realize just how dead on his feet Spike is after doing so many chores for her.
This is very much a slice of life piece, but it is also about Sparity, and in this, I feel like it ends on a kind of ugly note. The end of the story seems to imply that Rarity might reciprocate Spike’s feelings a little which is, quite frankly, creepy as hell – but the story seems to want the reader to think it is cute.
All in all, it doesn’t really say a whole lot in the end, and while the scene is okay, it doesn’t really go anywhere interesting.
Court Song: Lyra, the court musician of Canterlot Castle, is first-hoof witness to an unprecedented event. [Alternate Universe] [Dark]
Lyra is acting as court musician when Luna is assassinated, and witnesses the aftermath, as Celestia becomes increasingly paranoid, lashes out at the nobles and at her advisors, and generally watches everything fall apart. The story is both about the sinister events which are unfolding, and how invisible the court musician is, and thus, how much she can bear witness to.
Cumuliform: Rainbow Dash stumbles into a sudden existential panic. Clouds. [Slice of Life]
Rainbow Dash doesn’t know what day it is, and this bothers her deeply. It isn’t just about the fact that she doesn’t know what day of the week it is, though – it is that she doesn’t really have any sense of time, and that she is scared that her life is drifting by without her doing anything about it. She’s scared that she’s going to miss out on the opportunity to realize her dreams, or to spend time with her friends, or to do other meaningful things with her life.
And that terrifies her, but not as much as the idea that she will keep doing it, and no matter how hard she tries, she’s never going to do anything meaningful. And Applejack has no idea what to tell her friend.
This is a great story, and its sequel, The Next Day by Horizon, is also excellent. The writing of this is a bit rough in places - the story seems to place an odd focus on some of Rainbow Dash's physical actions which feels a bit out of place, and some of the prose is a bit too purple - but the overall idea behind the story carries it through.
Recommendation:
Helper: Not recommended.
Court Song: Worth Reading.
Cumuliform: Highly Recommended, along with its sequel by Horizon.
Never the Final Word
by Horizon
Various, Recursive FanfictionWhen a story touches you deeply, sometimes the only appropriate reaction is to respond in kind.
This is an open anthology of minifics which continue or revisit other authors' fanfics — embracing and extending, and reflecting on questions raised by the work. Due to the nature of the collection, this contains spoilers for other authors' stories, though each chapter contains a link to let you read the source first (and a spoilered summary, if you want to jump right in).
Shoot me a PM if you've written a comments-section continuation that you'd like to see included here!
Why I added it: Horizon is a good writer, and the idea amused me.
Review
These stories are all recursive fanfiction in the form of short addendums (or codas) to other works of fanfiction. Most of them are intended to be humorous, but a few are serious, and almost all of them are great. Every single one of them is a spoiler for the stories it is a sequel to, though – so if you’re interested in reading these, you also need to read the stories they’re based on, in most cases.
Fortunately, pretty much all of the stories they’re sequels to are good, or at the very least interesting, and many are amongst the best stories on the site (and I’m not just saying that because one of them is a sequel to Ruin Value). I have read every story in this collection, but I have yet to review a lot of these stories – I guess I’d better get on that, so that I can review and recommend almost all of these to you folks.
The Next Day – A sequel to Darf’s short story Cumuliform – [Slice of Life]
Right off the bat we’re hit with an extremely strong story. Cumuliform, as noted in my section on Brevity, is a great story, and this is a great follow-up to it, as Rainbow Dash goes to Princess Celestia the next day to see if she has any better insight into the problem than Applejack did.
This is a very good follow-up to Cumuliform, and gives us a third perspective on the issue of having – or losing – one’s time.
An Even Grater Love – Twilight writes Sombra/Chrysalis fanfiction – [Romance][Comedy]
Unlike most of the stories in the collection, this story was more inspired by a single line in the story it originated from; consequetely, you don’t need to read that story at all to understand it.
It is terrible in all the right ways and it made me laugh.
Ruin Value Meal – A sequel to my own short story Ruin Value, which you should definitely read first. – [Slice of Life] [Equestria Girls]
Another very strong story, this takes Ruin Value as backstory and follows up on it with Twilight and Celestia, with Twilight talking about her experiences beyond the mirror, and her enjoyment of the food she found in the world of Equestria Girls, not knowing of Celestia’s own experience with such things.
Recommendation:
The Next Day: Highly Recommended.
An Even Grater Love: Highly Recommended.
Ruin Value Meal: Highly Recommended if you liked Ruin Value, and probably still good even if you didn’t.
Summary
An Apple a Day by Esle Ynopemos
- Best Garden: Not Recommended
- A Night in the Barn: Not Recommended
- A Change of Heart: Worth Reading
Scraps, Musings, & Octavia Writes Fanfics by Wanderer D
- It Can’t Be Her!: Worth Reading
- A Conveniently Forced Plot: Worth Reading
- The Commander vs Harbinger: Not Recommended
Tales of Interest by Pascoite
- Sweet Temptation: Worth Reading
- In Need of Healing: Worth Reading
- At Close of Day: Worth Reading
Brevity by Darf
- Helper: Not Recommended
- Court Song: Worth Reading
- Cumuliform: Highly Recommended
Never the Final Word by Horizon
- The Next Day: Highly Recommended
- An Even Grater Love: Highly Recommended
- Ruin Value Meal: Highly Recommended
I hope that this was not too much for folks; very short stories tend to lead to fairly short reviews. But on the upside, at least a lot of these are good ones.
And yes, I have not forgotten about my note that I would review a bunch of longer stories as well; that post is nearly done, but this ended up getting finished first. The next set of Read It Later Reviews, coming out sometime in the next few days, will feature some heavy hitters that I had long-negleted to read, so stay tuned.
Number of stories still listed as "Read It Later – High Priority": 267
Number of stories listed as “Read It Later”: 1543.
Hey, thanks for the reviews! I honestly never expected that little collection of nonsense to be reviewed at all, and then you and Present Perfect go and do it. I have no words! Even though they're just ideas I throw out of my head to clear it, it is sometimes frustrating how underwhelming they can be at times... although I guess it's a good thing I didn't turn them into 50K+ words instead of the basic idea...
2895623
Well, according to the bottom of your story, you actually have at least 8,287 of them.
But yes, I was certainly amused by several of them, and that probably means I'm going to have to go and read the rest of them at some point.
I'm surprised I haven't read more stuff by you. I somehow have a gigantic blind spot in my reading that is labelled "Wanderer D lives here; he's a good writer according to most folks, but I never read his stuff." I should fix that at some point. I do remember enjoying The Three Sisters (that one changeling story I just went through and added to my upvoted stories shelf; I read it ages ago and marked its sequels as Read Later and then promptly never did).
Which is really unforgivable; latias is totally dragon type. Isn't it? (Disclaimer: I don't play Pokemon).
2895649 Latias is indeed a Dragon-Type Pokemon! Which does make it unforgivable, but I forgive you.
Honestly, I'm just glad you've enjoyed most of what you've read so far!
Now if I could simply kick this latest bout of writer's block out of the way, I'd be adding more stuff into this place. 
2895663
Good luck with that; writer's block sucks.
I unfortunately have no such excuses; I don't have writer's block, I'm just horribly lazy.
2895688 Lazy people don't do reviews!
I know, for I seldom—if ever—do any myself!
Having said that, we need more Mistletrapped.
2895707
Yeah. I need to get crackalackin' on that. Perhaps that is what I shall spend the balance of my evening on, see if I can't get chapter 4 presentable for this weekend.
I'm in the same boat as D here. I don't know why these things are really worth getting reviews. I guess it makes sense from a reader side, but from the author side, any of these I think are worth expanding have already been made into full one-shots, incorporated into other stories, or are on the to-do list for such. There are only two stories in the whole set that are anything but rough drafts or concept explorations.
2896012
My reviews are mostly intended for consumption by the unwashed masses, or so I like to believe. Or the washed masses; there's a reason I put that waterfall at the entrance.
2896099
So that waterfall's not actually Thief's Downfall? Great, that makes a few plans of mine so much simpler.
(I am simultaneously very sorry for that comment and not sorry at all. If you are wondering how that's possible, it's midnight-thirty for me and I got roughly two hours of sleep last night.)
And yet again I have nothing of substance to say about any of the stories. A few of them are on my read-later list but haven't been gotten to yet.
2896285
Well, I sure wouldn't tell you if it was, now would I?
2896316
That's... actually a surprisingly good point. I think I'm going to need to sleep before trying to come up with any more plans.