Read It Now Reviews #50 –Attention to Detail, The Applemancer’s Apprentice, I Don’t Like the Drugs (but the Drugs Like Me), Dear Princess Celestia, Constellations, Second Birthday · 9:38pm Aug 30th, 2015
Ordinarily, I do only five stories at a time in review sets unless I’m reviewing short story collections, but I decided to do six instead of five in this set so as to avoid compelling myself to try and read four more recent stories in lieu of some older ones I’ve been putting off reading.
Today’s stories:
Attention to Detail by Monochromatic
The Applemancer’s Apprentice by shortskirtsandexplosions
I Don’t Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me) by A Hoof-ful of Dust
Dear Princess Celestia by Foals Errand
Constellations by Soap Box
Second Birthday by xjuggernaughtx
Attention to Detail
by Monochromatic
Romance, Slice of Life
5,780 wordsBeing stressed and overworked is nothing new for Rarity. When it impacts her relationship with Twilight, however, she'll have to find a way to make it up to her marefriend, in whatever way she can.
Why I added it: I don’t read much RariLight and I was procrastinating.
Review
Rarity is stressed out over her latest dress order and, when Twilight comes to help, she snaps at her marefriend. Twilight retreats, leaving Rarity to struggle with her dresses – and what she did – alone. Once she’s finished, she suddenly becomes afraid that she has ruined their relationship, and sets off to try and make amends.
This story never really excited me. As I noted above, I don’t really actively ship RariLight, and this story pretty much assumed that I would immediately buy into the idea of them being in a relationship, without really feeling like it actually did all that much to press the idea of them being in a relationship home until the end. Without much of a feeling for the ship, the stakes for the story felt very low, and a lot of the story was basically Rarity running around and worrying, without a whole lot of real emotional development that went beyond that. While the idea of Twilight writing a ranty letter in another language to avoid anyone reading it – and then someone going to the trouble of translating it on the assumption that it was important – was cute, there wasn’t really a whole lot else here for me, and I never got drawn into the emotional drama of the piece.
On a slightly more distracting note, the story also mostly stuck with a close third-person perspective on Rarity, but in the first scene of the story, the piece starts out focused on Twilight and Twilight’s point of view, then switches mid-scene over to Rarity’s point of view and sticks with Rarity for the rest of the piece. This felt a bit jarring, and didn’t really help draw me into Rarity’s emotional mindset of frustration at the beginning.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
The Applemancer’s Apprentice
by shortskirtsandexplosions
Comedy, Random
5,263 wordsIt started out as a normal day. The crusaders had a new idea for getting cutie marks, and then Apple Bloom borrowed Applejack's hat for something without asking.
Suddenly... it was no longer a normal day.
Why I added it: SS&E is a good writer.
Review
Apple Bloom is trying to get a cutie mark in being a gentlecolt at Sweetie Belle’s behest, despite the fact that she’s a not a colt and she’s not sure if she’s met a gentle one anyway. Well, except for maybe Rumble. *cough*
But that’s beside the point! When her attempt at getting a cutie mark fails, Sweetie Belle has to return the dress she “borrowed” from Rarity, and Apple Bloom has to return Applejack’s hat.
Except, as it turns out, Applejack’s hat is actually a magical portal to her secret base, and Applejack is actually the Applemancer, who definitely isn’t a member of the Equestrian equivalent of the Green Lantern Corps, and she needs to defend Equestria from the most horrifying monsters of all – which, apparently, have a suspicious resemblance to pears.
Who knew?
This story goes from a bunch of funny crusader antics:
"Okay, Apple Bloom!" Sweetie Belle's voice calls out from inside the barn. "Don't worry about the cutie mark, though! There's always Plan B!"
"Ya mean where we get hoofballs on our flanks by makin' Winona do arena battles with every other dog in town?"
To a bunch of… very weird, hyperexaggerated crossover antics where Applejack is, apparently, some weird crossover between the Green Lantern Corps, the Men in Black, and possibly several other things, and Apple Bloom is now in her super awesome space mecha and has to fight aliens posing as ponies.
I think the images at the end of the story summarize it as well as could be done.
Recommendation: This wasn’t really my thing, but if you like silly crossovers, you might enjoy this.
I Don’t Like the Drugs (but the Drugs Like Me)
by A Hoof-ful of Dust
Sad, Slice of Life
3,097 wordsLyra wants—no, needs—to understand what's making Bon Bon depressed.
Why I added it: A Hoof-ful of Dust is a good writer.
Review
Bon Bon is depressed, and Lyra wants to know why and to understand it, and for Bon Bon to get help from the doctor.
So Bon Bon tells her.
This piece is really just an excuse to talk about depression. The depiction of depression here is pretty similar to what I’ve had it described as to me by depressed friends, and the conversation was realistic enough, though frankly in my own experience such conversations tend to be much more frustrating. Still, the piece accomplished what it was trying to accomplish, which is to say, describing depression from an outside point of view.
That being said, I’m not sure if it is likely to be something you’re going to like, as the story really isn’t a story so much as it a way to discuss depression in prose form, and it is very transparent in that regard.
Recommendation: If you want to read a reasonable description of someone trying to understand someone else’s depression, this does exactly that. If you are looking for something else, you’re looking in the wrong place.
Dear Princess Celestia
by Foals Errand
Sad
1,159 wordsI've been wearing a mask. For how long i'm not certain. Someday that mask will come off. Either i'll remove it willingly or it'll fall off at the worst moment. Until then i'll just write the letters which i'll never send.
Why I added it: It was featured.
Review
Twilight struggles with depression and writes a letter she’ll never send to Princess Celestia communicating her thoughts on the matter.
This story felt pretty ephemeral; there wasn’t much depth of emotion here, and the whole thing just kind of felt like it was going through the motions rather than really grabbing the audience by the heartstrings. It was very brief, but didn’t really communicate a whole lot, nor give the audience much of a chance to get into Twilight’s mindset, and with two full transitions in it, it just didn’t really come together emotionally as a piece.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Constellations
by Soap Box
Slice of Life
4,584 wordsPonies have always been fascinated by the stars and the images they create. But where did they come from?
When Celestia finds Twilight studying them, she decides to tell her. And while it may be a story that Twilight finds difficult to credit, it is one which Celesta is very personally familiar with...
Why I added it: I saw it in the popular stories box and its premise interested me after reading a certain story by Estee.
Review
Princess Celestia tells Twilight the story of how she – I mean, THE ELDER PONY SISTER WHO TOTALLY ISN’T CELESTIA – created the constellations, and why she did it.
This is a pretty glurgy piece. I always struggle with “Celestia talks to Twilight about Luna before her return” stories because they always feel like Twilight would cotton on way too fast – especially when Celestia slips up and says things like “I”. This piece is full of such moments, and deliberately so. While the idea of the constellations being an attempt to remind Luna of who she once was was reasonably clever, on the whole, I just wasn’t sold on the piece emotionally – I couldn’t really get into it.
The writer of this piece also struggled a bit mechanically; in particular, they frequently used incorrectly used “’s” to pluralize nouns. For instance:
Hopefully, I'll be able to use this research to establish some more concrete detail's about, not only Starswirl's Beard, but all of the constellations.
“’s” indicate possession (such as Starswirl’s Beard); pluralized words simply use an ordinary “s” on the end of them. These little mechanical errors distracted me throughout the piece, and made it harder for me to really get into the story as I kept spotting the mistake.
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Second Birthday
by xjuggernaughtx
Comedy, Slice of Life
3,117 wordsSpike reveals the secret of Second Birthday to the girls. Twilight is not amused.
Why I added it: It was in the popular stories box.
Review
Twilight has been trying to wrap a gift for Cheerilee for hours, and Spike is tired of it. But when Pinkie Pie comes over and mistakenly thinks that the gift is something Twilight is unwrapping, Pinkie Pie thinks it is Twilight’s birthday. But it can’t be Twilight’s birthday; Pinkie Pie knows when that is. Was she wrong?
Spike, of course, has the perfect answer ready to get some nice jewelcakes… much to Twilight’s chagrin, as all of her friends get sucked into her second birthday party.
This is a very silly piece which is chock full of jokes; it not only runs with the idea of the second birthday, but also with repeated misinterpretations of misinterpretations, as things get increasingly distorted as more and more ponies get drawn in, and poor Twilight is trapped at the middle of it all. A number of other jokes get thrown in along the way, and the whole thing ended up winning me over with its non-stop barrage of humor and a nice little moral for the whole family – or at least, for both Twilight and Spike.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Summary
Attention to Detail by Monochromatic
Not Recommended
The Applemancer’s Apprentice by shortskirtsandexplosions
Not Recommended
I Don’t Like the Drugs (But the Drugs like Me) by A Hoof-ful of Dust
Not Recommended (but see below)
Dear Princess Celestia by Foals Errand
Not Recommended
Constellations by Soap Box
Not Recommended
Second Birthday by xjuggernaughtx
Worth Reading
And there we go!
I Don’t Like the Drugs (but the Drugs Like Me) falls into a class of stories which I’ve seen a few of over time, and some of them are fairly difficult to classify into “not recommended” or “worth reading” because, in the end, they’re not actually stories so much as they are excuses to talk about some issue. They may be well-written, but oftentimes they aren’t the sorts of things I’d try and point other people towards because they aren’t really stories – it is like reviewing a PSA, which isn’t really the same thing. So let me reiterate that if you’re interested in reading about how someone who was depressed might describe depression to another person, you might be interested in that “story”, but if you’re looking for an actual story, it probably isn’t what you’re looking for.
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later – Important: 79
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later – High Priority: 329
Number of stories listed as Read It Later: 1645
I guess at this point, you've proved Sturgeons Law is correct. Am I right?
You are need to start sneaking in the Worth Reading/Recommended story somewhere other than at the end. I have started just scrolling to the bottom to see if I might like the only one with thumbs up on the these lists.
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That's artifactual, but I do apologize and I'll think about mixing it up more in the future. The first and last stories in my review sets are the most likely to end up with positive ratings because of the nature of how I write reviews. The last story in a set being given a positive rating happens when I read a bunch of stories and don't really find one that I like, so I end up having the stories I didn't enjoy spilling over into multiple review posts. Thus, when I finally find stories I do like, they end up getting slotted into earlier review posts so that I get something enjoyable. Moreover, if I'm running towards the end of a review set, I'm more likely to go and look through my lists more carefully to try and find something that I'm more certain that I'll enjoy so as to avoid writing multiple review sets.
The last few sets were a result of this phenomenon.
The opposite happens when I read a story I liked and want to construct a review set, so that story ends up being the first story in the set and I go in search of four additional stories to fill out the set.
My next review set will not follow this pattern.
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Excluding stories that I've already read:
4.4% Highly Recommended
7.5% Recommended
29.5% Worth Reading
57.8% Not Recommended
0.9% Read It Later
Read It Now reviews are below my overall average:
1.5% Highly Recommended
8.5% Recommended
27.0% Worth Reading
62.2% Not Recommended
0.8% Read It Later
Though about 10% of stories that I read do earn "recommended" or "highly recommended" ratings, so maybe Sturgeon's Law isn't so far off.
Am I mistaken, or have you been posting more than one of these a day lately? :O
Also, more than one not-not recommended? :O You are slipping, sir! (At least it kept me from just going to the last one to make sure it was on my RIL.)
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I've been posting them once per calendar day; I posted one on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and today. That said, they probably weren't all spaced 24 hours apart.
I've also been working on Mistletrapped in that time period as well.
What I haven't been working on is my writeoff entry.
BUT I STILL HAVE SEVEN HOURS.
That's plenty of time, right?
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That makes sense. :B
This is why I generally space mine three days apart.
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My secret goal is to produce a piece of content every day, but I don't really manage it.
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You poor sap. :B I have a hard enough time producing something every month.
...I really hope you never review any of my fics.