Read It Later Reviews #15 – Those Who Live Forever, A Tea Party, A Long Night, How to Handle a Rope, Twilight Sparkle Plays With Dolls · 11:59pm Mar 28th, 2015
Those Who Live Forever is a very obscure story that was recommended to me by Cerulean Voice.
The other stories in this review set are some of the highest-rated stories with under 1,020 words, read and reviewed because someone claimed that stories with extremely short word counts were a red flag for quality, and I was curious about good they were on the whole. Of course, I knew of at least one story with a very low word count which was quite good…
I also made the interesting discovery that while sorting stories by word count, FIMFiction will sometimes skip over the stories it displays.
The stories I read today:
Those Who Live Forever by Moose Mage
A Tea Party by Maniac92
A Long Night by Idylia
How to Handle a Rope by A Hoof-ful of Dust
Twilight Sparkle Plays With Dolls by Cyanide
Those Who Live Forever
by Moose Mage
Sad, Slice of LifeA mother brings her daughter to Canterlot, for enrollment in Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. Together, they face the future.
Why I added it: Cerulean Voice recommended it.
Review
The story summary didn’t excite me that much, but the opening paragraphs did:
When Delores was a young thing, years and years ago, she asked her father why only Princess Celestia could live forever.
Her father had smiled. “Everyone lives forever, little girl,” he said. “In big ways, in little ways. Everyone lives forever.”
Delores had wondered about that. She would have asked him more, once she built up the courage, but her father died abruptly, before he could grow as old and comfortable as he deserved. So Delores grew without him. Wrinkles came, and gray hairs. But she didn’t wear makeup, and she didn’t dye her mane. Her only armor was a pale blue knitted shawl. It was just enough.
Now that’s a hook.
Delores Cloud is a unicorn who isn’t much of a magician. But her daughter, April Cloud, is a marvelous young little magician. Delores has spent many bits from her diner on hiring an excellent magic tutor for April, and at the age of 10, she is precocious in her talents.
There’s only one problem: Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns only accepts students under the age of 11, and this year has been an unusually good year for the students. There’s only one slot left in this year’s admissions, which were supposed to last through the end of the month – and there’s no way they’re going to even give an exam to someone who only got there at the very last minute.
Or is there?
I liked this story quite a bit. It is a very melancholy piece, both in exactly the way you would expect, and in not quite the way you would expect. The writing in it was very good, and I ended up feeling bad for poor little April, and Delores’ desperation that her daughter not have to take her place in the diner, but follow her own dreams. But life isn’t always fair.
If I had a complaint about this story, it would be that the character names felt a little strange; Delores and April aren’t really pony names, and thus felt kind of weird in the world. They are very mundane names, but that actually made them feel a little weird in a world full of ponies named Twilight Sparkle and Princess Celestia.
Recommendation: Highly Recommended.
A Tea Party
by Maniac92
Comedy, Slice of Life, FluffRarity's tea party has an unexpected visitor, who is surprised that a certain someone is sitting and sipping tea.
Why I added it: It is highly rated and 1,014 words long.
Review
The cover kind of spoils the first joke in the story – that Rainbow Dash is sitting and elegantly drinking tea with Rarity and Sweetie Belle in some sort of weekly tea party, a chance for Rainbow Dash to unwind in a very girly, non-awesome sort of way.
Rarity then quickly covers for Rainbow Dash, and notes that Rainbow Dash is adorable when she blushes.
There isn’t really anything else to this story, and it is entirely reliant on Rainbow Dash doing something out of character and then being embarrassed about it.
Rainbow Dash actually enjoying something that was frou-frou is something I can believe, and her being embarrassed about it is actually canon, but this just didn’t really work for me.
Recommendation: Not Recommended
A Long Night
by Idylia
Sex, Romance, SadLove is most appreciated in the nights it keeps us awake.
Why I added it: It is highly rated and only 1,019 words long.
Review
Spike spends a sleepless night in the library thinking about Rarity, and how life would go with her at his side.
The story starts out in the present, and keeps going further and further into the future, as Spike plays out his fantasy relationship with Rarity in his mind – just wanting to see her, the first date, the first kiss, making love… then her inevitably dying and him crying over her grave, never being able to love her again as Twilight comforts him.
The story is at its core an immortality blues story, with all that goes along with it, but in this case, it is about Spike imagining a future with Rarity with all of it already in mind, rather than looking back and wailing and gnashing his teeth – a much more believable sentiment for a little kid to have than someone who actually is a hundred plus years old.
That being said, I felt like the story was pretty brazen in its attempt at emotional manipulation; consequently, it didn’t really touch me.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
How to Handle a Rope
by A Hoof-ful of Dust
Romance, Slice of Life, FluffBon Bon's had a hard day at work. Again. Written with a word-count of exactly 1000 words.
Why I added it: It is a highly rated story with just barely the minimum word count.
Review
Lyra helps Bon Bon calm down after a rough day at work, as everypony in town decides that Bon Bon is only capable of making bon-bons instead of a variety of foods – including, in this case, fudge.
It is a cute little piece, but honestly it felt pretty ephemeral to me; it wasn’t bad, but there wasn’t a whole lot of meat to it. If you like fluff, you might like it, but I didn’t end up terribly fond of it – it was a pure slice of life piece that didn’t really have much that interested me.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Twilight Sparkle Plays with Dolls
by Cyanide
Comedy, RandomTwilight Sparkle is a unicorn, and she has a problem…
Why I added it: It is highly rated and clocks in at 1,016 words.
Review
The central joke in this story – someone is playing with dolls, gets caught, denies it, then lamely claims they’re not dolls, they’re miniatures/figurines/high quality resin resin models/ect. – is funny. However, the joke has been done before, and this doesn’t really try to disguise it at all. The serial escalation in the roleplaying with the figurines is somewhat funny, and the final punchline is actually pretty decent (even if that has been done too).
In fact, that’s sort of my feeling about this – if I had never encountered these jokes before, it would have been amusing, but it felt like it was just a remix of a bunch of jokes I’d seen many times before, rather than something fresh.
Recommendation: Not Recommended unless you aren’t a bit tired of the joke.
Summary
Those Who Live Forever by Moose Mage
Highly Recommended
A Tea Party by Maniac92
Not Recommended
A Long Night by Idylia
Not Recommended
How to Handle a Rope by A Hoof-ful of Dust
Not Recommended
Twilight Sparkle Plays With Dolls by Cyanide
Not Recommended
Well, the short stories were a bit of a bust, but Cerulean Voice’s recommendation panned out. I suspect the problem was that at the lower end of word counts, they’re almost all comedies and fluff pieces, and thus they’re pretty hit-or-miss for me; these all happened to miss, but I’ve seen a bunch of good stories which were well under 1,000 words in the write-off.
I might have to repeat the experiment with some higher word counts at some point.
Number of stories still listed as "Read It Later – High Priority": 280
Number of stories listed as “Read It Later”: 1549.
I've seen "Those Who Live Forever" pop up in my feed here and there and was intrigued by the cover (I've got a fondness for minimalist covers) but the description wasn't quite enough to sell me. Plus, as you said, the names don't feel very "pony" and not gelling with the world is a big story turnoff for me.
But those opening paragraphs have convinced me to give it a look. That's a really good hook.
2919758
Yeah, that's why I put them in; they hooked me far more strongly than the description of the story did, and give a much better impression of what the story is like.
Hey there, thanks for reading and reviewing my story! It was exciting to get that notification, as I've seen some of your comments on stories before and remember you for your verbosity and strong opinions.
The story you reviewed is a bit old and was an emotional piece for my own benefit more than an attempt at a full story in and of itself. I'm actually sort of right there with you that the emotional appeal is all that's really there, and 1000 words means that appeal is summarized at best. My favorite things about it remain small mechanical things like the diction and imagery; the premise itself is done to death. I feel like its popularity is simply because it is a "Sparity" story and around that time I had another pretty popular Sparity story as well, so the audience was sort of cross-pollinated in that way.
Since the 2013 era I've written less and less fanfiction, and finished/polished none. It was interesting to go back and look at this story again, though, so thanks for prompting me to do so!
2919857
Well, nice to be remembered!
Seems reasonable enough.
I'm sorry to hear that you've mostly stopped writing, but it is understandable - people do different things. Have you been writing original fiction? Or just been up to other things?
"Joke's in the cover art" is one thing; "entire story is in the cover art" is considerably worse. D:
2919892
Pretty much.
Though I guess in this case, a picture really was worth a thousand words. :V
2919882
I'm studying Computer Science in college and Game Design in my free time. I've written a couple pieces of short fiction and some poetry, but writing is mostly on the backburner.
2920363
Fair enough!
You're a game designer eh? What kind of games?
Well, if that story had to get its first (long overdue) downvote, I'm glad it was associated with a review and a reason. It is fluff with no meat, and that's for better or worse what a lot of people like.
2920701
Yeah, sorry about that.
I do remember having enjoyed a few of your other stories, but I don't think I have reviewed any of the others (yet, anyway). You find such striking photographs for your cover art, and yet, somehow, it didn't even register with me who you were until just now.
2920716
*shrug* It's fine. I'm surprised it went unnoticed, as it were, for so long. It's not a thing to get very attached to.
And, it's all these other people who take lovely pictures of trees; I just steal 'em.
2920396
I've done a couple games for game jams (all 3d, all but one in Unity) and I've done a lot of (unfulfilled) GDDs. The "studying" part of the sentence applied to game design as well; I'm reading a lot of books on design (some game design specifically, others about the elements that go into making a game). Mostly when I make games they are very small scope projects for game jams, some 24 hours, some weeklong, some month-long. I am planning on creating my first larger-scale project over this upcoming summer. It's going to be a fire emblem-esque strategy rpg in MonoGame (probably) which is a c# engine.
Currently I'm working on some custom content for a LARP that I play and continually designing mods for a Pathfinder session I run and letting the flow of Game Jams and activity of the game design club on my campus dictate the flow of my productivity of video games. Honestly it's hard to find time to pursue all the things I want to as I'm pretty socially active and try to keep decent grades. Productivity and discipline are relatively new endeavors in my life, so there are growing pains, of course.
2922665
Fair enough! Those are great uses of your time and are excellent practice, as well as are nice to have to show off to potential future employers as things you have done.
Have you ever read any of David Sirlin's work or the writings of Mark Rosewater, by any chance?
2922699
No; are they books or articles? I'm currently working through Rules of Play and The Book of Lenses (more the former than the latter) and have read a bit of Designing Virtual Worlds before dropping it in favor of learning more communicable fundamentals before trying to tackle something that seemed more niche.
I'm always looking for new sources of information, though, especially from someone who has gone through the learning process themselves (if you could ever say one has "gotten through" it at all).
2922719
David Sirlin's stuff can be found on his website; he wrote a book as well, Playing to Win, which is about... well, exactly that, but it is an interesting read if you're interested at all in the mentality of competitive players or in the design of competitive multiplayer games. He released it for free on his website, and I thought it was a pretty good read.
Mark Rosewater is the head designer of Magic: The Gathering. A bunch of his columns can be found here; while a lot of it is specific to Magic design, some of it is about more general principles of game design, and understanding how Magic design functions is pretty interesting. There also is a development column as well, which has been through a number of different writers.
2922740
Thanks a lot for sharing! Competitive games, including Magic, have been in my life for a long while, so these are sure to be interesting reads. I'll be sure to get back to you if I find myself wanting to talk about any of the stuff I read or ask for more. In any case, I appreciate it.
2922899
You're welcome! I hope that you find it useful, or at the very least, interesting.