Read It Now Reviews #46 – Heirlooms, One Night at Fluttershy’s, Rainbow Dash Visits the Proctologist, If You Can’t Beat ’Em, What Do You Mean, We’re Not Related? · 9:13pm Aug 19th, 2015
Fun fact of the day: everyone knows that the Japanese infamously produce very few children, presently sitting at a rate of about 1.4 births per woman (replacement rate is 2.1 per woman). But did you know that the US would have an even lower reproductive rate if we had a similar proportion of children born out of wedlock? Presently, the birth rate within marriages in the US is 1.13, with all the rest of the births (bringing us up to 1.88 per woman) occurring out of wedlock. Only 2% of Japanese children are born out of wedlock, compared to 40% for the US.
I thought that was an interesting and kind of depressing statistic.
Today’s stories:
Heirlooms by Rocinate
One Night at Fluttershy’s by PaulAsaran
Rainbow Dash Visits the Proctologist by Bad_Seed_72
If You Can’t Beat ’Em by Horizon
What Do You Mean, We’re Not Related? by HapHazred
Heirlooms
by Rocinate
Adventure
2,807 wordsWhile trying to make her family tree, Rainbow Dash finds her mother's family totally missing from public records. Maybe with Twilight's help, she'll learn something about her ancestry.
Why I added it: It was featured, and I thought the twist would be something different from what it was.
Review
Rainbow Dash can’t find any records of her grandmother’s family, and travels to the boonies of Equestria, where her grandmother was from, to find out her true origins.
I’m not sure if I’m impressed by this story or not. It is just so brilliantly obvious, and yet at the same time I didn’t see the ending coming at all, though that might have been because I was so focused on the idea that Celestia was Rainbow Dash’s ancestor that I didn’t take other possibilities into account.
Unfortunately, while the idea behind the end is great, I think this story is a thousand words or more too long. The first half of the story doesn't really accomplish a whole lot and is kind of boring, while the final few scenes of the piece really play on the twist.
Re-reading the story, it becomes increasingly clear that the main attraction to the story is the idea behind the twist ending more than the twist ending itself; I think that the story might have been a lot better had it been more explicit and descriptive, or at least had it given us more clues in the text itself. As-is, pretty much all the good feelings from comes from the recognition of who Rainbow Dash's grandmother really was, which, while good, is mostly separate from the story itself, and the story doesn't actually make that much use of her grandmother's true identity. It just isn't wrapped up that tightly, and while I can say I really liked the idea, in the end, I think this could have been a lot better.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
One Night at Fluttershy’s
by PaulAsaran
Comedy, Slice of Life
7,994 wordsOctavia is looking for a new home in Ponyville and decides to check out Vinyl's available space. Of course, she would happen to come to town right when a major storm's about to hit, and that storm would drop a whole tree on Vinyl's home. Seeing their situation, Fluttershy kindly offers them shelter.
That might not have been the best solution. Can Fluttershy help these two musicians get along, or is a new storm about to form inside her cottage?
Why I added it: It did well in the Switcheroo contest.
Review
Octavia is moving to Ponyville.
A mute Vinyl Scratch needs a roommate, though she’s a bit of a slob – and has very different taste in music from Octavia.
And a storm just put a tree through the roof of Vinyl Scratch’s house, right when Octavia was checking it out.
Fluttershy, ever kind and generous, invites the two mares to her cottage to take shelter for the evening, but the two musicians are not getting along and spend the whole evening bickering, getting into arguments, fights, and generally making a mess of things.
A story written along the same lines as Look Before You Sleep, this story never really lit my fires. While some of the fighting felt reasonable enough, some of the later fighting just felt like it was kind of there for the sake of conflict, and the fight in the kitchen in particular felt like it was a bit arbitrary, possibly because it half took place off-screen. Vinyl’s lack of dialogue made it hard for me to really understand her motives in some of the things she was doing, and all in all the story just never sucked me in, and it just didn’t feel as good as the episode that it was riffing off of.
As a side note, it is always a bit weird to me when a story emphasizes the fact that the characters are element bearers – they don’t really seem to think about it a whole lot on the show, and certainly don’t mention it frequently, let alone wonder what kind of Element bearer they are if they don’t live up to it.
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Rainbow Dash Visits the Proctologist
by Bad_Seed_72
Sex, Comedy
5,196 wordsAfter eating an incredibly spicy burrito, Rainbow Dash discovers some blood on the toilet paper the next morning. Dash panics and rushes to Twilight, who then accompanies her to the doctor.
Unfortunately, her issue is beyond Doctor Stable's expertise. He refers Dash to Doctor A. Scope, a proctologist, for a more thorough examination.
A parody of "X does Y" stories.
Why I added it: It was featured, and the title was too ridiculous for me not to read the story.
Review
After eating an incredibly spicy burrito, Rainbow Dash wakes up the next morning to discover she is bleeding rectally. She goes to Twilight for help, but Twilight, for fairly obvious reasons, is unwilling to do the examination personally, and eventually Rainbow Dash ends up at the most dreaded doctor of all:
The proctologist.
This is a story about butts. And not the sexy kind of story about butts. The uncomfortable kind of story about butts. The whole thing is cringe comedy, but reallythe story didn’t really take off for me until about 3/4ths of the way through, when Rainbow Dash actually gets to the proctologist. A lot of the setup felt wobbly and repetitive, or just kind of pointless – the scene where Rainbow Dash eats the burrito just didn’t do a whole lot for me, nor did Rainbow Dash’s visit to the first doctor. The end is funny, but the story could have lost over half its length and not really lost anything worthwhile.
Recommendation: This is cringe comedy about butts. You already know if you want to read it.
If You Can’t Beat ‘Em
by Horizon
Comedy, Random
1,384 wordsTwilight Sparkle has important friendship problems to solve. However, that's hard to do with a "reformed" villain following you around all day.
Why I added it: I preread this story for Horizon.
Review
Twilight Sparkle notices Starlight Glimmer following her around. Starlight claims that she’s been reformed, but Twilight is skeptical. She knows it must be part of some nefarious plan. After all, it isn’t like Starlight Glimmer has been reformed…
This is a short and silly little jokefic, and if you find such things funny, this will mildly amuse you for as long as it lasts. If you don’t like such things, though, best steer clear, as there really isn’t any substance here.
"I quadruple-checked your alibi after fixing Moon Dancer's friendship problem. Then I realized you had to be lying." Twilight leveled an accusatory hoof. "We never blasted you with rainbows."
Starlight hurriedly set down the newspaper and held her hooves up. "Oh, no. I self-reformed."
Twilight slowly raised one eyebrow.
Starlight floated a stack of photos out from her saddlebags. "It was the obvious choice once I studied your history. I mean, look at what happened to Discord." She held up a photo of a stone statue. "Tirek." An emaciated figure in a dark, stygian jail. "Sombra." An irregular smudge on a snowfield. "Seriously, the more I researched, the more impressed I got. You're, like, some sort of invincible vengeance goddess."
Recommendation: Worth Reading if you like jokefics.
What Do You Mean, We’re Not Related?
by HapHazred
Comedy, Slice of Life
5,927 wordsWhen Sweetie Belle opens a magical book that contains all the secrets everypony ever had, she's shocked to learn she isn't quite as related to Rarity as she thought.
One of them must be adopted. But which?
And just how dangerous is this book?
A short story about family, being an older sibling, and how volatile books can be when they're magic.
Why I added it: It was featured.
Review
The Gospel Morale is a sapient magical book which exists for the purpose of revealing to truth to those who read it – to those who even glance at its pages. It is a powerful book, and a dangerous book, because, well-meaning as it may be, it gives knowledge without context, and it isn’t really very smart, no matter what it thinks about itself.
So when Sweetie Belle enters the library, bursting with ignorance, it is happy to hop off its shelf and tell Sweetie Belle the truth – that Rarity wasn’t her sister.
This story was ostensibly a comedy, but honestly it felt like it was confused about what it wanted to be. It felt like it vacillated between being comedic and being serious, and rather than the two complementing each other, the two actively detracted from each other – the story seemed to want to play straight the idea that Sweetie Belle’s revelation was important, while simultaneously making light of the situation, with Rarity’s means of overpowering the book during her own confrontation with it, and the ridiculous revelation given to Rainbow Dash feeling very at odds with the serious way that Sweetie Belle’s revelation was treated.
Worse still, the revelation to Sweetie Belle didn’t even make sense – Rarity and Sweetie Belle not being sisters is just plain old weird, as they really do look similar and act similarly in many ways (the story even joked about them squeaking in the same way). I was thinking the revelation was going to be that Rarity was Sweetie Belle’s mother, but the actual revelation was that they weren’t related at all – and that ended up feeling like a stretch.
That said, there were some things I liked. The introduction that described the book’s awakening was quite good, and I really liked the idea behind the Gospel Morale. But the story as a whole just didn’t feel like it fit together as a cohesive unit, and didn’t seem to know what it wanted to be.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Summary
Heirlooms by Rocinate
Not Recommended
One Night at Fluttershy’s by PaulAsaran
Not Recommended
Rainbow Dash Visits the Proctologist by Bad_Seed_72
Not Recommended
If You Can’t Beat ’Em by Horizon
Worth Reading
What Do You Mean, We’re Not Related? by HapHazred
Not Recommended
In other news, apparently the Ashley Madison website got hacked, with the hackers releasing a bunch of information about all the users of the website. While this would be embarrassing enough for a dating site, Ashley Madison is a site entirely devoted to having affairs – cheating on your significant other with someone else.
From the Reuters article:
Prominent divorce lawyer Raoul Felder said the release is the best thing to happen to his profession since the 7th Amendment, which guarantees Americans' right to a jury trial, was included in the U.S. Bill of Rights.
"I've never had anything like this before," he said.
Looks like our married birth rate is only going to go down. Though maybe that's for the best, if that's the alternative. 
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later – Important: 76
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later – High Priority: 327
Number of stories listed as Read It Later: 1642
Yeah, I get the cohesive unit thing. I've gotten that comment from at least one other guy, so that means at least fifty have thought it.
Thanks for the review!
I read Heirlooms just before you posted this.
I was significantly less impressed than you. I had the same original thoughts as you, but those died before they even started their journey. I also just wasn't impressed with the 'twist'. It wasn't bad by any stretch, but the way it was presented lacked all impact for anyone who didn't recognize what it was without a google search (an 'if you have to explain the joke' failure). If he had used something more immediately identifiable, it might have worked better for me.
3332580
Re-reading the story, I think you're right.
I liked the idea behind the twist ending more than the twist ending itself, and it would have been better if the story had been significantly more explicit. You're right that the ending would be punchier if it made it clearer what the object was - giving a better description of the plane might have fixed that problem, and having them at least put together part of the mystery would have probably allowed the audience to get clued into the rest of it.
That being said, I think a big part of the problem is that it is nothing more than a twist ending - the story makes very little use of what is going on. In stories like The Writing on the Wall, the twist at the end is really, really awesome, but the story itself is very good as well, and the whole story builds up towards the twist ending, with every point in the story pointing back towards the same conclusion.
Here, while the ending is clever, very little is made of the character's true identity; the fact that she used to fly airplanes isn't really made use of, nor is the fact that she used to be human. While the idea of her popping out of nowhere into Equestria is clever, too little is made of her and Red's true nature, and the story as a whole doesn't really point towards anything in particular.
Hay! my second time in your review column.
Thanks for the comments.
One day, I'm going to have to get you to review something I spent more than a day writing.
3332638
Heirlooms is not bad. But I cannot stand purposeful unresolved fictions.
But it has an ending that is separate from the one the characters get, and the story itself is left unresolved at the climax.
The READER gets the resolution, but only because we are the omnipotent reader.
The character who needs the resolution gets nothing, because they cannot grasp the significance of the readers resolution.
The only literary conclusion is a meta one... not the Inception "was it real or not, you decide" kind.
3332740
Such as?
3332790
Thank you!
Thank you very much. That is exactly what I was going for.
3332860
I think I'll hold that request in reserve for the story I'm just starting. Tears has all the comments I could ever hope for, and I'm painfully aware of my short comings with it. Everything before that is ether yet-another insomnia production (though I think you'd get a laugh out of Heat of the Summer Sun), or is so old, that I don't think it represents my current writing level.
3333204
I actually already reviewed Heat of the Summer Sun, I just haven't posted that review yet (it will be up in the next few days; I typically bump Read It Nows above Read It Laters on the basis of the Read It Nows possibly affecting featured story box placement).
It did in fact amuse me.