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Titanium Dragon


TD writes and reviews pony fanfiction, and has a serious RariJack addiction. Send help and/or ponies.

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Mar
23rd
2015

Read It Now Reviews #27 – Beneath Your Feet, What Treasures, The Symposium, Extra Sprinkles, Accidents Happen, The Art of Eclipse Engineering · 10:14am Mar 23rd, 2015

Two things happened today that drove me to write a set of reviews.

The first was that Orbiting Kettle released The Symposium, a story from the last Writeoff that I helped edit. I knew I needed to make a blog post about it, but then…

Then TheJediMasterEd officially published his first pony fanfic, and I knew I had to do a set of reviews so I could talk about both of them.

The stories I read today:

Beneath Your Feet, What Treasures by TheJediMasterEd
The Symposium by Orbiting Kettle
Extra Sprinkles by Minds Eye
Accidents Happen by Majin Syeekoh
The Art of Eclipse Engineering by Pineta


Beneath Your Feet, What Treasures
by TheJediMasterEd

Romance, Sad, Slice of Life
1,444 words

Spike has a hoard nopony knows about, something he uses to do a dragonish thing in a ponyish way.

But now it's the other way 'round.

Why I added it: JediMasterEd is the only horse that survived Order 66.

Review
I was just reading through Understanding Fiction the other night, and the first few sentences of this reminded me of the language I saw in a few of those pieces.

I’ve been aware of JediMasterEd’s existence for a long time – it is hard to be around Bad Horse and not notice him – but equally, I have been painfully aware that he has been here for many years and yet still not produced a published story.

Until now.

On its surface, this is about Spike being a dragon, but much more importantly, it is about Spike being a person, and dealing with his feelings towards Rarity in his own way. His feelings are shown through the prism of his draconic instincts, and the combination of the two gives us great insight into his character.

He has his own little hoard of gems, hidden away where Rarity can’t find them, including the most important gem of all – one which Rarity gave him all the way back in season 1, which he has never consumed or gotten rid of, just as he swore on the day she gave it to him. But it isn’t just about Spike having a crush on Rarity, and prizing her gift above all others. It is also about Spike wanting to be seen as a bit more adult, as well as Spike dealing with the grown-up problem that the person he likes doesn’t like him back, not the way that he would like, and very likely never will.

Or, to put it succinctly: it is a character piece about Spike dealing with Rarity dating Big Mac via the symbolism of a small hoard of precious gems which represent his friends.

All in all, it does a pretty good job disentangling a character’s emotions through an interesting lens in under 1,500 words.

Bad Horse said that a lot of folks might not like this; the reason why is that it is a character piece. Nothing really happens in it, but we, the audience, still go on a bit of a journey and discover things we didn’t know by the end. Spike already knows his own mind, but we find out what is on his mind, as well as what is going on and what drives his emotions by the end of it. And as such, it works.

If you’re looking for a traditional story arc, you won’t find it, but if you like interesting looks at characters from a different perspective, you shouldn’t miss this.

Recommendation: Recommended if you like subtle character pieces.


The Symposium
by Orbiting Kettle

Comedy
1,230 words

Every decade Celestia holds the Symposium, the most important forum on the state of philosophy and culture in Equestria, where the smartest ponies of their generation meet and discuss in a frank, open manner. Shining Armor is on guard duty, and he is starting to doubt that he will live to see another day.

Why I added it: I helped edit it.

Review
This was one of the better stories that missed the cutoff in the last Writeoff, and I offered to help Orbiting Kettle beat it into shape for publication on FIMFiction.

Shining Armor and Celestia are at the 154th Symposium, a meeting of the greatest minds in Equestria so that they can discuss their latest theories and hash out their differences.

This, of course, means intellectual warfare. Fortunately, weapons are banned, but with the greatest minds in Equestria present, people get creative.

This is a very silly story and relies rather heavily on the audience understanding intellectual movements like ‘Pataphysics and Dada for its humor. I think you might be able to pick up on what they are by context to some extent, and appreciate the ridiculousness of their actions, but it is much funnier if you know what they are going in, as it makes their inclusion all the funnier; it had the most widely-distributed scores in the write-off, so I suspect that you will either really like it, or be confused by it.

If humor based on intellectual movements is up your alley, you’ll probably get a chuckle out of this.

Recommendation: Recommended if you enjoy humor based on semi-obscure intellectual movements.


Extra Sprinkles
by Minds Eye

Slice of Life
2,801 words

Mama never said there would be days like this.

Donut Joe, on his first day running his father's shop by himself, gets hit with a hurricane of tempers and accusations.

A well-connected hurricane of tempers and accusations.

Still, customers are customers, and they deserve the best service he can give.

Why I added it: It was featured, and I’ve enjoyed a number of Minds Eye’s stories.

Review
This is a story about Donut Joe meeting Spike and Twilight for the first time. Spike is trying to slack off, Twilight chases him down, the pair roughhouse in Pony Joe’s shop, and the older pony sits them down and talks sense into them.

While there is some conflict in this piece, the resolution of the conflict felt weird to me; Spike wants a day off, Twilight wants him to help her with her homework, and poor Pony Joe just doesn’t want them to wreck his dad’s shop. The resolution was basically Pony Joe telling Spike to suck it up, which seems awfully unsympathetic to someone who is probably like, all of six years old at the time. It just struck me as kind of weird.

The other oddity of the story is that the start of it seems to make things out as though the story is going to be about Pony Joe coming into his own, but that never really happens in the story; it felt like the setup was mostly just there to justify Pony Joe being worried about the store, and establishing it took place in the past, but it spent quite a bit of focus on it without any real payoff.

On the whole, the story is fairly cute, the niggling details nibbled away at my enjoyment of the piece, and it didn’t end up leaving me feeling like it was as cute as it seemed to think it was.

Recommendation: Not Recommended.


Accidents Happen
by Majin Syeekoh

Random
1,109 words

Rainbow Dash walks in on Twilight pondering her existence.

Like, really pondering her existence.

Why I added it: It was featured and the description intrigued me.

Review
This story reminded me of Obselesence’s story Figments, but it didn’t really feel as coherent. Where in Figments, there’s a purpose to the distortion of reality, here it is used as the setup to a joke which doesn’t really have much payoff and which doesn’t even end the story; on the whole, the story just kind of peters out, and never really seemed to have any destination in mind in the first place.

The introduction was also a bit awkward. In particular:

Rainbow Dash landed on the balcony of Twilight’s Friendship Castle and trotted inside. She had to admit it was a nice castle, but she missed the thrill of bursting through a window to greet Twilight. She walked through the expansive hallways.

This just felt weirdly put together; the third sentence in particular is very dull, and just kind of sits there like a dead fish, and the second sentence didn’t really have any payoff in any way; it just seemed like a random thing which was thrown in there. It could have been made more interesting by having her grumble about the inconvenience or whatever, but instead it just kind of was put out there and didn’t do a whole lot.

Recommendation: Not Recommended


The Art of Eclipse Engineering
by Pineta

Slice of Life
1,841 words

Can you engineer an eclipse to order? You can if you know the right princess and ask nicely.

Why I added it: Pineta is a good writer.

Review
Luna and Celestia engineer a solar eclipse as an impromptu demonstration for Miss Cheerilee’s class – the perks of having a princess live in your town, I suppose. Celestia is a bit sad at how the students are shy around her due to her status as a revered figure, and is a little bit jealous of the attention that Luna is getting, apparently missing the days when Twilight rubbed herself against her legs and jumped on top of her like a giant purple pet cat. But she isn’t upset – she knows that Luna has suffered many years of being unloved, and does not begrudge her the attention, understanding why Luna appears as the more approachable of the pair.

And of course, by the end, Luna has engineered things so that Celestia is the center of attention once more.

While the idea behind the story is cute enough, this story seemed to bank heavily on little foals I don’t know, can’t see, and don’t really care about tugging on my heartstrings. As you might have guessed from the tone of that last sentence, it didn’t really work for me; it was trying to be cute, but it just didn’t hit me the way it was intended to, and consequently I was a little bit bored of it.

I’m sure some folks will enjoy it a lot more than I did for the cute foals, but for me, it fell kind of flat.

I will note, however, that this story really does have the perfect cover art for illustrating what it is about.

Recommendation: Not Recommended


Summary
Beneath Your Feet, What Treasures by TheJediMasterEd
Recommended

The Symposium by Orbiting Kettle
Recommended

Extra Sprinkles by Minds Eye
Not Recommended

Accidents Happen by Majin Syeekoh
Not Recommended

The Art of Eclipse Engineering by Pineta
Not Recommended

If you’re at all interested in The Symposium and Beneath Your Feet, What Treasures, you should read them sooner rather than later; they are both under 1,500 words, and both were released today, meaning that your view might make the difference between them being featured or not.

Number of stories still listed as "Read It Later – High Priority": 269

Number of stories listed as “Read It Later”: 1545

Report Titanium Dragon · 820 views ·
Comments ( 16 )
PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

I've seen three recommendations this morning and I still don't have a good reason to read that JediMaster story.

2901893
It is a character piece about Spike dealing with Rarity dating Big Mac via the symbolism of a small hoard of precious gems which represent his friends.

As Bad Horse noted, a lot of people won't like it, and his prediction was accurate - it has about a 10:1 upvote:downvote ratio. It is very well-written, but it is one of those stories which is pretty much entirely about characterization rather than anything actually happening.

If you don't like that sort of thing, you probably won't like it. I happened to think it was well-executed, so I ended up enjoying it a great deal, as it did a good job of integrating Spike being a dragon with Spike being a person, and how the fact that Spike is the way he is colors his being a dragon.

I’m sure some folks will enjoy it a lot more than I did for the cute foals, but for me, it fell kind of flat.

TD's heart is made of titanium, and does not beat for cute foals.

I'll give that The Symposium fic a look since it's so short, though I suspect I don't have the right background knowledge to fully appreciate it.

2901893 It's interesting and very short, so there's not much of a time investment required.

2901893 Because it's short and sweet, quite well-written? You'd be showing support of a writer on their first published story here? A writer someone who's blogs are often worthy of bookmarking for their excellent, thoughtful artistry? :rainbowhuh:

2901893 It is a short and well thought character piece about Spike that uses mineral metaphors.

2901900

one of those stories which is pretty much entirely about characterization rather than anything actually happening.

Don't you think it would be fair to say that it is about Spike having an epiphany about the nature of his feelings on the situation?

The resolution was basically Pony Joe telling Spike to suck it up, which seems awfully unsympathetic to someone who is probably like, all of six years old at the time. It just struck me as kind of weird

Fair enough. I dropped hints that Spike getting sick of being treated like a glorified servant, and Joe was where he wanted to be, trusted and appreciated. He's a pretty industrious character, and I imagined this was the first time Twilight had seen there was more to him than that. Ah well. Could have made that clearer.

Thanks for your thoughts.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

2901900
There we go. You'll forgive my skittishness at a fic with Sparity tags and cover art.

...the person he likes doesn’t like him back, not the way that he would like, and very likely never will.

Like, wow, dude! :pinkiehappy:

2902418
I have to wonder if including the romance tag might have been a mistake; Spike is dealing with problems of the heart, and Rarity is dating someone, but... the story isn't a romance in any way, and it certainly isn't a Sparity fic.

Or at least, it certainly isn't a Sparity fic where Spike gets the girl.

So sayeth the TV Tropes page. :rainbowwild:

I'm not sure if we have gone too far, or not gone far enough; via a massive promotional campaign, we have managed to get a dense story written by a first-time author into the non-mature featured story box, though...

2902241
He didn't actually have an epiphany over the course of the story, though; he already had his epiphany, and the story was about him going out and grabbing that stone because he figured by keeping Big Mac close to his heart as well (both literally and symbolically, in the form of his hoard), he wasn't really losing Rarity.

Agree with you wholeheartedly on Accidents, but I couldn't bring myself to like BYFWT.:ajsleepy: Certainly well-written, and I'll keep an eye towards what else the author puts out, but this one was too heavy on symbolism for my taste. I will only defend my opinion with the following two words: I ar dum.:derpyderp1:

I don't plan to read the rest of this batch.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

2903174
Well, I just read it, and I can say the hype was well worth it, you all just needed to be a little clearer about the Sparity, ffs.

2903810
I'm glad you enjoyed it! I figured it would be up your alley, at least.

Ironic, really; I've gotten a number of complaints from people who felt like my recommendation (and the recommendation of his other cheering sections) lead them to a story they didn't like, and then there you were, being all I AIN'T GONNA READ THIS when you did like it.

You know what they say:

You can lead a horse to water, but without a detailed non-combat system dictating how many levels it has in “Drink water,” you’re boned.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

2903826
If it's not multi-classed, it can't get "Drink Water" as a class skill and have the stats for the harness to be led. :B

2903877
It is no wonder so many are willing to drink sand instead of water.

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