Read It Now Reviews #38 – An Old Coot, Ye Cannot Get Ye Flask, Twiley Takes Shining Armor to Linecon, Twilight’s Room is Flooded with Seamen, I Think I Died Today · 12:43am Jul 9th, 2015
A writeoff story came out last night and has already hit the featured story box, Present Perfect released a story with a title based on a thirty year old joke, and curiosity drove me to read a story with a terrible pun for a title in the featured story box.
Another day in the life of the front page of FIMFiction.
Today’s stories:
An Old Coot by Bachiavellian
Ye Cannot Get Ye Flask by Present Perfect
Twiley Takes Shining Armor to Linecon by Ocalhoun
Twilight’s Room is Flooded with Seamen by Mr Blue Sky
I Think I Died Today by eLLen
An Old Coot
by Bachiavellian
Sad, Slice of Life
8,959 wordsSpike’s eleven-year nap is interrupted by a little filly in his treehouse.
Why I added it: It got third place in the last writeoff.
Review
Set over a hundred years after the present date in the show, Spike is woken from his sleep by Magnolia, the great-great-granddaughter of Rarity. She is lonely, and he has been asleep for the last eleven years. But even if many of his responsibilities have been passed on, he still has friends – Magnolia’s parents, apparently, as well as Magnolia herself, in addition to Princess Luna.
But Princess Twilight is gone, and Spike isn’t on speaking terms with Princess Celestia any more…
A story about Spike coming to terms with Twilight Sparkle’s absence – and indeed, probable death – as well as Spike coming around to talk to Princess Celestia once more, a surprisingly small amount happens in the 9,000 words of this story, and yet, it never feels like it drags. All the other ponies in the story – Magnolia, Luna, and Celestia – serve as a means for the new Spike to be developed, and for Spike to show his struggles with the new world, as well as his sense of loss.
If I had a complaint about the story, it is that Magnolia, who serves as a major driver of the story, never really quite connected with me as a character; I got some idea of her, but only a limited picture, and the story takes place over the course of a number of years before Spike finally talks to Celestia.
The other potential issue with this story is that it has fairly limited closure; in the end, Spike and Celestia talk, but even their mutual unhappiness is only partially resolved, which may bother folks who were hoping for Twilight’s disappearance and Spike and Celestia’s animosity to be wrapped up more firmly.
Still, it is a good mood piece, and well-written.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Ye Cannot Get Ye Flask
by Present Perfect
Random, Slice of Life
1,179 wordsRemember that time Lemon Hearts got her head stuck in a beaker?
Except... it wasn't a beaker, was it?
Time for Twilight to set the record straight.
Why I added it: I am contractually obligated to review all stories with references to ancient adventure games that no one under the age of 25 is going to get. Also, Present Perfect is a good writer and stuff.
Review
A thousand words of Twilight Sparkle debating internally whether or not she should correct Minuette on the fact that Lemon Hearts somehow got her head caught in an Erlenmeyer flask, not a beaker.
I came into this expecting comedy, and came out of it noting that it was actually Twilight reminding herself not to come off as a condescending asshole.
A lesson all too many of us could stand to learn.
On the other hand, this story was a thousand words of Twilight reminding herself to abide by basic social rules of conduct, which I suspect a lot of people wouldn’t find tremendously interesting, and there isn’t a whole lot of humor in this.
Recommendation: This is a character piece, entirely about Twilight’s internal thought processes about whether or not to correct Minuette. If you think a thousand words of that would be interesting, this is up your alley; if not, avoid it.
Twiley takes Shining Armor to LineCon
by ocalhoun
Comedy, Random, Slice of Life
2,692 wordsA little filly Twilight Sparkle takes her brother to visit one of her favorite conventions. He might not survive.
Why I added it: ocalhoun is a good writer.
Review
A young Twilight Sparkle takes Shining Armor to LineCon, a convention about… waiting in lines. Which, naturally, consists entirely of line enthusiasts waiting in line.
It is awful for Shining Armor.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t really all that fun for me, either, as a reader; the idea is completely ridiculous, but the story mostly relies on a single joke – that waiting in line is totally boring, but Twilight is utterly oblivious to it – repeated over and over again multiple times in every scene, with the only real variation coming in the end.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Twilight’s Room is Flooded with Seamen
by Mr Blue Sky
Comedy, Random, Human
5,707 wordsWaking up, Twilight is shocked to find her once marvelous bedroom is covered in hardy seamen.
They're sticky, have a pungent smell, and sing songs about the fine seaman life. But what are they doing in her room?
And how the hell did they get a boat in there?
Why I added it: The final line of the story summary.
Review
A bunch of fabulous seamen sailors appear out of nowhere and fill up Twilight’s house with their gleaming, oiled bodies, before kicking Twilight out for disrupting their party.
Twilight, understandably, is not very fond of this.
This is one of those random comedy stories about which little can be said; the title is very much feature-box bait, and is a parody of another story; I can’t really say whether the story itself is a parody of said story, however, as I have never read it.
There wasn’t anything here that I really ended up caring for, though; the story’s randomness and yet simultaneous obviousness really didn’t end up panning out for me comedy-wise, and I got more of a chuckle out of the title of the story and the story summary than I did out of the body of the tale itself.
Still, it gave me an excuse to link to The Village People’s In the Navy, so it wasn’t a total loss:
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
I Think I Died Today
by eLLen
Slice of Life
1,354 wordsA girl made a mistake.
Now she talks to her sister about it.
Why I added it: It was featured.
Review
A pretty straightforward slice-of-life piece about Sweetie Belle coming home upset after she got in an argument with another pony she barely even knew at school for no good reason, this is a very short piece and I couldn’t say I ever really connected with it. Very little use is made of the characters; while the characters could be from the show, there’s nothing really unique or special identifying them as such, and the piece as a whole is very straightforward and doesn’t really go anywhere or say very much.
It isn’t bad so much as it is insubstantive, without much to get really enthusiastic about. The title of the piece really doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the story itself, just with Sweetie Belle feeling bad about the situation.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Summary
An Old Coot by Bachiavellian
Worth Reading
Ye Cannot Get Ye Flask by Present Perfect
Not Recommended
Twiley Takes Shining Armor to Linecon by Ocalhoun
Not Recommended
Twilight’s Room is Flooded with Seamen by Mr Blue Sky
Not Recommended
I Think I Died Today by eLLen
Not Recommended
An Old Coot won third place in the last write-off, and the editing to it smoothed out a lot of the rough edges the original version had, though it is still substantially the same story.
It has also been a while since I actually got ahead on my daily releases; this was actually written up last night, the evening of July 7th. Next on my list is one of my longer stories from my You’re Next list, probably either The First Time You See Her or Cadance in A Minor. If any of you have a preference for which I review first, drop me a comment down in the comment box, though I plan to review both eventually.
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later – Important: 67
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later – High Priority: 275
Number of stories listed as Read It Later: 1612
Dang it, TD, what part of secret takeover do you not understand?
...you've never actually read Twilight's Bathroom is Flooded with Semen?
Thanks for the review! I think you're pretty much spot on about everything; I couldn't have asked for a more accurate review.
...And as a bonus I get to go take that "Worth Reading" and hang it on my wall. *fistpump*
3221294
Majin is the author who started the entire Twilight's X is Flooded with Semen trend. If you review any of the stories, you should probably read the original.
Also, I think you meant "a thirteen year-old joke", not thirty.
EDIT: Also also, you stuck two stories together in the summary.
3221328
How you achieved that without torturing Fluttershy is beyond my ken.
3221349
I tortured Spike instead, you see.
3221344
Perhaps TD is missing the Homestar Runner reference, but is familiar enough with that sort of game from their original period of popularity to instantly understand it; or perhaps that sbemail is itself a reference to a pre-existing running joke among fans of text-based games.
Gosh, I'm so young that I think that sbemail introduced me to the very concept of interactive fiction. And now it's been so long since I've kept up with the scene that I don't even know what pony-related games are out there -- because I know it's not "none".
3221294
It didn't really seem like my kind of story.
3221511 I mean, it probably isn't. But it's played completely straight.
3221510
I had assumed it was a reference to the old text-based adventure games; I didn't recognize it specifically as a Homestar Runner thing, which is funny, because I've actually seen that video.
Ah, well.
Yeah, I definitely misaimed that story, but I'm pleased you read it for the reason you did. (Actually, I'm pleased you read it at all, I was distinctly wanting to get your opinion on it. :V)
3221557
Because I'm the sort of person who does this sort of thing?
"....Why I added it: I am contractually obligated to review all stories with references to ancient adventure games that no one under the age of 25 is going to get..."
Ok, now I need to write a game about Space Wars played on a PDP-11 (Pony Data Processing)
More recommendations, I'd go look at them, but I haven't finished, what's it called? Lone Ranger or something like that? Oh well, there's a perfectly good read later button, might as well put it to good use.
3221841
Makes sense; I read both quickly and considerably.
I hope that you find them useful, at least.
3221361
And you gave him tail extensions. It's starting to add up...
3221510
You're alive!
And I am, apparently, older than you as well. But that was statistically likely.
3221555
The idea of going on the Internet for entertainment is a Homestar reference, for those of us of the right age.
3222282
THIS SUMMER
PTERROR
NEVER DIES
3223031
I was on the Internet before Homestar Runner was a thing.
Or Google, for that matter.
I remember the Internet of 1995 quite distinctively.
3223151
media.giphy.com/media/14kqI3Y4urS3rG/giphy.gif
It's all gone downhill since then.
3224502
So many gifs.
My god.
Though it was amazing; I had the internet AND a scanner, so I could print out reports for school and insert images taken from the internet or scanned from books into them...
Heady times, man.