• Member Since 25th Feb, 2013
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Titanium Dragon


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

More Blog Posts593

Sep
14th
2015

Read It Now Reviews #54 – Red Apples, Sometimes Maps are Dumb, Would It Matter If I Was, The Last Dreams of Pony Island, One Heck of a Case · 6:50pm Sep 14th, 2015

So, it turns out that Sunday was a really good day for new stories. I read five new stories, and I liked them all.

How did this happen?

How is this even possible?

Who knows.

But I’m liking it.

Today’s stories:

Red Apples by Billymorph
Sometimes Maps are Dumb by HoofBitingActionOverload
Would It Matter If I Was by GaPJaxie
The Last Dreams of Pony Island by Horizon
One Heck of a Case by iisaw


Red Apples
by billymorph

Slice of Life
3,891 words

How much can change in a hundred years? How much can change in a thousand? The day of the Nightmare’s defeat Princess Luna finds herself adrift, a thousand years away from the world she knew. With her home in ruins and Equestria changed beyond all recognition, is there anything left for her when even apples are strange.

Why I added it: It won the last Write-off.

Review
Luna has been gone not for a century, but for a thousand years. The world around her is completely alien – the music, even “classical” music, is hundreds of years beyond her time, society is structured completely differently, the nobility is no longer in evidence, and even the apples are strange and new.

Even her own sister is more than half a stranger – Celestia is no longer the warrior-princess she once knew, but far older, wiser, more diplomatic. She simply does not behave as she once did, and is now, effectively, more than ten times older than Luna is.

The world is a strange and bewildering place on even the most basic of levels, and Luna is overwhelmed by the differences.

Many stories play off the idea that Luna might not be familiar with new technology, but few stories present Luna in this light – someone who was gone for a thousand years. Classical music didn’t even exist then – most classical pieces are a couple centuries old at most, while Luna is five times older than that. Even the musical instruments being played in classical music postdate her absence. Everything is strange to her, and she doesn’t know what to make of anything – even many ponies’ cutie marks represent things which simply did not exist in her day.

This is a great examination of what it is like to lose a thousand years, and is very little like the various “Luna struggles with microwaves” stories – this is about Luna struggling with a life, culture, and society which is utterly alien.

The apple was red.

I still stared, struggling to understand what I was seeing. The fruit was as red as freshly spilled blood and so grossly oversized I feared it was a cleverly painted rock as a jest. The tart smell convinced me otherwise, but there were none of the little nicks and tears an apple picked up on the way to the market, nor the little bumps and growths of a wild fruit. It looked to all the world like some unicorn's perfect image of an apple, a hologram. It was not something plucked off a tree and sold in a common village market.

"Well, Princess," the farm-mare, Applejack I believe her name was, said conversationally. "You going to eat it or just stare at it?"

I couldn’t say. Was it a trick, a common jape played by merchants to attempt to sell what amounted to a sign? Was it a carefully husbanded treasure, only on offer to the nobility? I stood paralyzed by indecision, staring at the proffered fruit. Around me I could hear ponies begin to whisper as the awkward pause lengthened.

“Mine,” Celestia cut in, her magic snatching the apple from her hoof. She tittered as she took a bite. “I believe they say these days: ‘you snooze, you lose’, sister.”

I could have kissed her, but instead allowed myself a small sigh of relief. “Thou art a pest,” I pointed out, earning another chuckle from my sister. The crowd, following in the wake of their princess, joined in and within moments the party was back in full swing, my faux pas forgotten.

Applejack chuckled, rubbing the back of her head. “Seriously though, Princess, you want one?” She held up another of those unnatural apples. “Red Delicious straight from the orchard. Sweet Apple Acres’ special and the best in all of Equestria. You can travel all the way from Stalliongrad to Appleloosa and you won’t find an apple like it.”

I had never heard of either of those places. “We... Of course,” I said, my voice still sounding alien to my own ears. The apple wobbled into the air, lofted by my shaky magic. It would be many dozen moons until I was back to my former strength.

“We thank ye–” I petered out struggling to find the right word to address her. I would have guessed a common peasant by her mannerisms, but, despite her lack of fine cloth, her coat had a luster that suggested she was at least a freeholder. Then again, nopony around me seemed to have bothered with clothes so she could have easily been a yomare or even a itinerant lordling for all I knew. That last one seemed likely, who but the nobility would be brave and foolish enough to chase after a mad alicorn? I decided to err on the side of caution. “–fair Applejack.”

“Ah shoot, it ain't nothing.” She gave a curt bow, more appropriate for a burgher, which only further confused our relative rank. “Enjoy yourself now, Princess.” She waved me on my way, and turned to her next customer.

For a moment I stared, unused to the sudden dismissal. Tia made no comment though, so I did not press the issue. “Much has changed,” I observed, under my breath, as we stepped away from the... Applejack’s stall.

“Much for the better in many cases,” Tia replied, with a faint smile on her lips.

I grunted. Around us Ponyville was celebrating, stalls and games had been set up and great tables of food laid out for all to enjoy. Banners proudly proclaimed ‘Happy 1000th Summer Sun Celibra–’ though, every so often, a drunken band would raise a toast to the defeat of Nightmare Moon instead. Those were hastily shushed when they spotted Celestia and myself in the vicinity.

The revelry was refreshingly familiar, though little else was. Everywhere I looked there were little things that were wrong, yet nopony seemed to care. Why did none of the pegasi have a single scrap of armour? Where were the nobility and their fine clothes? When had such a riot of coat colours become the norm? There were alien foods laid out next to drinks I didn’t recognise and served by ponies who bore strange, unidentifiable cutie-marks on their flanks.

Recommendation: Highly Recommended.


Sometimes Maps Are Dumb
by HoofBitingActionOverload

Comedy
4,632 words

There's another friendship crisis in another far away place, this time the land of the llamas, and Twilight's magical map once again calls on a heroic pony to solve it. But this time the map doesn't call Twilight or any of her friends, this time it calls somepony else entirely.

But Trixie's true reasons for accepting the map's call may not be wholly altruistic, and it turns out she's not nearly as over being upstaged by Twilight during their past encounters as she lets on.

May the gods have mercy on those poor llamas.

Why I added it: It was in the last Write-off.

Review
A strange but familiar looking cutie mark is glowing over the map, and a strange and all too familiar pony’s butt is glowing. It seems that duty has called the Great and Powerful Trixie to solve a friendship problem that even Twilight Sparkle cannot!

Or so Trixie believes, anyway. Twilight and Applejack just kind of go along with it. I mean, the map has never steered them wrong before, right?

Right?

This is a very silly little story with Trixie going back and forth between llamaland (the Lloronda Jungle – an odd place for llamas, but maybe all the mountains were taken by dragons) and Twilight, lamenting the indignities placed upon her while dreaming of the favor that Princess Twilight Sparkle will bestow on Trixie once she returns.

And it is funny. Every scene ends with a laugh, the story hangs together very well, Twilight, Applejack, and Trixie are all a hoot, and Trixie’s obsession with Twilight and perseverance in the face of llama spit is a wonderful thing to behold. I can even hear the whine in Trixie’s voice every time she returns to Ponyville to complain about her mistreatment.

The crystalline map sparkled and glittered in the throne room of Twilight Sparkle’s sparkling, glittering crystal castle in its usual crystaly, sparkly, glittery sort of way. What was unusual was that an unfamiliar cutie mark symbol had appeared over one of the far corners of the map. Much to Twilight consternation, it didn’t match her or any of her friends’ cutie marks.

“And it’s been there since last night?” Applejack asked, examining the errant cutie mark.

“Yeah, I haven’t even had a chance to sleep yet.” Twilight took another gulp of coffee and wiped her frizzy, uncombed mane away from her eyes. “The map is only supposed to call us, the former Elements of Harmony. That’s how it’s supposed to work. I think. Or at least I thought. This could big. Huge! Groundbreaking!”

Applejack yawned. A few minutes earlier she had been lying in bed at Sweet Apple Acres, just about ready to get up. And then her room had disappeared and she had been dropped onto the cold hard floor of Twilight’s castle and assailed by an over-caffeinated Twilight Sparkle.

Applejack would have been annoyed, but it wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last, and Twilight looked kind of cute with her mane all frizzy. “You have any idea what place it’s hangin’ over?” she asked. The cutie mark hovered over a clump of mountains and jungles along the edge of the map.

“Of course!” Twilight grabbed one of a dozen atlases off the floor and opened it for Applejack to see. “It appears to be the Lloronda Jungle, home of the llamas.”

“What’s a llama?”

“A race distantly related to camels,” Twilight said. “I checked my library, but I couldn’t find much information on them or their culture. They’re apparently very reclusive.”

“And you don’t know whose cutie mark that is yet?”

“I know exactly whose cutie mark it is.” Twilight said, frowning. “Whose cutie mark it is is exactly the problem. You really don’t recognize it?”

Applejack looked intently at the hovering cutie mark. It was in the shape of a wand and aurora. Her eyes narrowed and then widened. “Oh no…”

Then the doors to the throne room burst open, a cloud of bluish smoke spread through the room, and an outlandishly dressed unicorn waltzed inside. “Trixie’s posterior is glowing,” she cried. “And Trixie doesn’t like it.”

Recommendation: Recommended.


Would It Matter If I Was?
by GaPJaxie

Slice of Life
2,361 words

In the wake of the Canterlot Wedding, Fluttershy has to ask Twilight a very difficult question.

Why I added it: GaPJaxie is a good writer.

Review
Fluttershy wants to know if it would matter if she was a changeling, even after all that they’ve been through together – even after all the good things she’s done, all their friendship.

Would it matter?

Twilight isn’t so sure. And the more she thinks about it, the less hypothetical the question seems to be…

This is a story about trust between friends, as well as racism, and doing the right thing even after the changelings attacked Canterlot. Like Kits’ Who We Are, it personalizes the question of how to deal with changelings in society, in this case by having Twilight half-convince herself that Fluttershy is a changeling over the course of the story. It forces Twilight to confront the question of what to do about the changelings on a far more personal level than she had previously, and to actually think about the nature and consequences of her actions.

Would it matter if Fluttershy was a changeling?

Twilight isn’t even sure if she knows the answer by the end, though she thinks she knows what’s right.

Or maybe Fluttershy really is a changeling, and brainwashed Twilight into making the right choice when she met her eyes.

But you know. That’s probably not what happened. I mean, that’d be ridiculous, right? :trixieshiftright:

Twilight took several long breaths. She looked at Fluttershy, and Fluttershy looked at her. Twilight’s hoof scraped on the ground. She swallowed. “I notice you surround yourself with creatures that love you.”

Fluttershy hesitated, her ears tilting back as her tail lowered. “I suppose that I do.”

“And that you have a nasty side.” Twilight pressed on, her voice slowly raising. “A really nasty side, in fact. Cruel, even. You don’t let it out much. And…” Twilight’s eyes opened wide. “Oh my gosh. The stare! You can control creature’s minds!”

“I suppose that I can,” Fluttershy agreed, shying away and turning her head.

“Fluttershy…” Twilight took a half step forward. “Are you a changeling?”

Recommendation: Recommended.


The Last Dreams of Pony Island
by Horizon

Sex, Tragedy, Dark, Slice of Life
3,781 words

The colony of Myinnkyun had enough problems without Peridot vanishing — trade ships were disappearing, and the island's native minotaurs had launched an attack on the city walls.

But now there's talk that she was murdered, and the city is about to tear itself apart before its enemies have the chance.

Why I added it: It was in the last Write-off.

Review
This is a weird story.

Most of it is basically free verse poetry, but some of it is actual prose. Really, though, you don’t need to be a connoisseur of poetry to appreciate this – the form of the poetry didn’t matter so much as the mystique it lent the piece, as well as its laconic brevity.

This piece is a mystery. As Horizon says:

One part Spoon River Anthology and one part Rashomon, this story invites you to piece together the story of Myinnkyun's last days — and Peridot's final night — from the dreams of its inhabitants. "Dreams cannot lie," the Nightmares say, but everybody has a different understanding of the truth...

Each of the story’s 16 chapters is told from a different point of view. A pony named Peridot has been murdered on the colony of Myinnkyun, and the ponies in town are paranoid. The ships aren’t coming in, there’s no word from the mainland, the day/night cycle was weird (cluing us into the fact that this in fact took place when Luna was banished the first time)…

The story is full of racism, distrust, and misunderstandings. Many of the characters are lying to the other characters, and no one has the whole picture of what is going on.

It is a fun thing to unravel, and there is actually a contest to write a “final” chapter to the story explaining what is really going on, with an actual cash prize being offered.

So if you like mysteries and don’t mind free-verse poetry, this might be up your alley.

Recommendation: Recommended if you like open-ended mysteries, but if you don’t like stories that are very difficult to figure out and don’t tell you the answer, know that the story will probably frustrate you until the contest is over and all becomes clear.


One Heck of a Case
by iisaw

Comedy
2,380 words

Twilight settles an unusual court case.

Why I added it: It was featured.

Review
Twilight has to settle the court case of Lyra v Hades.

Yes, as in the lord of the underworld.

Turns out that Lyra feels that the terms of a verbal contract have been violated.

She wants her Bon Bon back.

"Lyra, if this is a joke, I'll..."

"It's not, and I don't care what you threaten me with! If I went all the way to Tartarus to get her back, do you think I'll..."

"Whoa there! Back up. Tartarus? You actually went to Tartarus?"

"Well, yeah. Not through the lower gates, but..."

Twilight had a hard time believing it. "Cave in the Badlands?"

"Yep."

"Purifying spell to get by the Vapors?"

"Oxygen mask."

"River Styx?"

"Inflatable life raft."

"Guardian of the..."

"Doggy treats. Y'know the crunchy kind with the soft center? He loves 'em."

For those of you familiar with Greek mythology, Lyra is playing the role of Orpheus here, and I can only think that the ancient Greek gods must have been glad that they didn’t have civil courts back then, or that Orpheus didn’t hire legal representation.

Then again, Hades probably already had all the lawyers. :trollestia:

And yes, I know that in Greek mythology, the underworld didn’t actually work like that. Shh.

Recommendation: Worth reading if you like jokes about Greek mythology.


Summary
Red Apples by Billymorph
Highly Recommended

Sometimes Maps are Dumb by HoofBitingActionOverload
Recommended

Would It Matter If I Was by GaPJaxie
Recommended

The Last Dreams of Pony Island by Horizon
Recommended

One Heck of a Case by iisaw
Worth Reading

This is a truly beautiful day. Even if at the time I am writing this extro, it is actually 2:14 in the morning.

And to think, just last week Horizon was asking me if ponyfic was just really weak lately.

Clearly, the problem was just that the writeoff folks weren’t releasing their stories.

Chop, chop, people!

*shuffles his own unpublished writeoff stories under the rug*

Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 82

Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 338

Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 1667

Comments ( 35 )

Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!

So, it turns out that Sunday was a really good day for new stories. I read five new stories, and I liked them all.

How did this happen?

How is this even possible?

TD confirmed as alien impostor.
cdn3.whatculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ancient-aliens.png

Bradel #3 · Sep 14th, 2015 · · 1 ·

Kind of surprised to see you highly recommend "Would It Matter If I Was". I read it this morning, and I'm one of the downvotes on it. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of the horribly overrated "Forever Young" by Hyperexponential. In short:

- Although the motivation is sensible, Fluttershy felt much too cold for me to buy her as being in character, even excusing the fact that she spends the whole fic being assertive.
- Twilight's role as an argumentation straw-man leaves her feeling out of character as well, since she spends the whole story too out-of-step to bring any of her characteristic reasoning to the issue.
- The background scene of the pair cleaning up Twilight's old residence (aside from explicitly conflicting with canon as of "Mending Fences") doesn't seem to serve any tonal purpose in the story; it's just an unrelated backdrop to try to ease the feeling of talking heads.
- Similarly, most of the action descriptions throughout the conversation feel artificially tacked on to keep the story from becoming talking heads, with a lot of hooves lifting and heads being tilted at various angles.

I was initially bullish on my chances of liking the story, given that it seemed like it could have been a really interesting examination of the War on Terror. But the characterization never felt very believable to me, and there never seemed to be a cohesive push toward any tone or themes outside the dialogue. The examination of the topic was okay, but I also felt like it lost its focus as it went on, straying into issues like the morality of following orders and a straight-out-of-DS9 discussion of testing for changelings. And while Fluttershy's arguments were good for a war on terror argument, they don't hold up as well when literally nopony has any experience with changelings outside of the context shown. There's a big difference between treating all Muslims or all DS9 changelings as evil, when counterexamples of the stereotype are well known. While Fluttershy's motivation remains sound, we're never given that kind of counterexample with MLP changelings, and the whole hypothetical argument becomes a lot less compelling without even trying to present a real counterexample. To me, "Hey, what if I were a changeling, except I'm not" hardly counts.

tl;dr: To me, poor characterization and mediocre writing can't salvage the otherwise decent attempt to be a meaningful exploration of a hot-button issue. GaPJaxie is a better writer than this, and it wouldn't have been hard (/ wouldn't be hard) for him to make it a much better story than it currently is.

Thanks for the review!

And... "Read It Eventually: 1667?" Holy carp, man! I thought my to-be-read list was huge! :twilightoops:

Thanks for the review, and for reading and enjoying! :twilightsmile:

3392806
Bradel confirmed for the new identity of the-changeling-who-hates-everything-and-used-to-post-as-TD-before-the-original-TD-escaped-his-pod. :trixieshiftright:

3392806
As an admin of the "X becomes a changeling" group, I may be biased towards stories like that.

You know, a lot.

But I really liked it.

I liked the ambiguity of Fluttershy's identity - I felt like the story made a pretty strong case for Fluttershy actually being a changeling, and not feeling comfortable with telling Twilight. Indeed, there's some textual evidence that Fluttershy actually used her mind control magic on Twilight:

“Would it matter if I was?” Fluttershy repeated.

“Fluttershy, I need you to answer the question,” Twilight said. She took a step towards her friend, but then paused, and took a step back. She kept a distance between them, her horn lowered a few degrees towards her friend’s back.

“Well,” Fluttershy said. Her eyes stayed forward. “I need you to answer my question first.”

Twilight didn’t answer. She stared at her friend’s back, making no sound other than her breath. After several seconds of silence had passed, Fluttershy looked back at Twilight. Her eyes were wide, but not like Twilight’s had been. They weren’t dilated with fear or alarm. She simply seemed to stare at Twilight very intently, and Twilight took a half-step back.

Twilight looked to one side, breaking eye contact.

That being said, I do agree with this:

- The background scene of the pair cleaning up Twilight's old residence (aside from explicitly conflicting with canon as of "Mending Fences") doesn't seem to serve any tonal purpose in the story; it's just an unrelated backdrop to try to ease the feeling of talking heads.
- Similarly, most of the action descriptions throughout the conversation feel artificially tacked on to keep the story from becoming talking heads, with a lot of hooves lifting and heads being tilted at various angles.

I agree on both counts.

On the other hand, I'm not sure if I agree with:

- Although the motivation is sensible, Fluttershy felt much too cold for me to buy her as being in character, even excusing the fact that she spends the whole fic being assertive.
- Twilight's role as an argumentation straw-man leaves her feeling out of character as well, since she spends the whole story too out-of-step to bring any of her characteristic reasoning to the issue.

Fluttershy probably didn't reel it back in enough in the story, but Fluttershy, when she does get into assertive mode - and I mean actually assertive, like she was with the dragon - does act pretty pushy.

I didn't feel like Twilight was textually out of character, but I'm not quite sure if her actions towards Fluttershy - namely, basically vacillating between whether or not she should be "covering" Fluttershy with her horn - were perfectly in character. Would Twilight really do that to Fluttershy, even under these circumstances?

I'm not sure.

I was vacillating between "Recommended" and "Highly Recommended" on it (and Red Apples, for that matter, though I felt more confident in that decision), but I decided that I liked it enough to give it the higher rating. I may go back and change it someday (I have adjusted ratings in the past) but for now, it is what it is. Maybe when I have more psychic distance from my first reading, it will change... or maybe it won't.

Of course, I'm a major fan of Kits's Who We Are as well; I'm not sure if you've read that one, but it is about a similar idea, though there the fact that one of them is a changeling is explicit, whereas in this story, it is more implicit. And that story is also flawed. Indeed...

tl;dr: To me, poor characterization and mediocre writing can't salvage the otherwise decent attempt to be a meaningful exploration of a hot-button issue. GaPJaxie is a better writer than this, and it wouldn't have been hard (/ wouldn't be hard) for him to make it a much better story than it currently is.

I have a couple stories on my HR list that I consider to be flawed in fairly serious ways - Kits's Who We Are has PinkieDash thrown into it for no good reason, and it acts as a distraction from the main thrust of the story, while The Terrifying Prospect of Swans in Love presents Celestia in an inconsistent way, and I feel like the actual romance aspect didn't quite work in a few crucial spots. The former is on my HR list because aside from its flaws, it explores the idea in a good way, and the latter is on my HR list primarily because it is so quotable. They aren't necessarily the best possible executions of those stories, but I feel like they're very much things that are worth people's time.

I agree that this story could be better than it is. But that doesn't necessarily know that it means that it shouldn't be HRed, if that makes sense.

3392907

Shush! No one is supposed to know! Do you see me blowing your cover?

3392846
Between my three lists, it is 2000+ stories.

I actually started doing reviews because it was a reason for me to read stories - every time I read five stories, I could make a new blog post!

Here's the count from my first blog post:

Number of stories still listed as "Read It Later - Recommended": 115

Number of stories still listed as “Read It Later”: 1518

So... by doing this, I've added a whole new tier of stories (containing 338 pieces), and added about 150 to my "read it later" list.

Clearly it is working well. :twilightblush:

3392932
I just had to go and count... I'm at only 435 across all my lists. Jeeze, I feel like such an amateur now! :rainbowlaugh:

All of them this time. Lucky bunch.

3392993
Well, I blame a few factors.

My "Read It Eventually" list is basically "Hm, that looks interesting". A lot of stories that go through the featured story box get on that list, and every story released by anyone I follow goes on that list. So... it is huge.

The "Read It Later" list is for stories which are higher in priority - stuff which has been recommended to me by someone else, or stuff by people who tend to be consistently good, or stuff about a subject matter I really want to read about.

The "Read It Sooner" list is my srs business read it later list - stuff which has been recommended by multiple people to me.

More or less, I bump stuff up a notch when I see it a bunch/it gets recommended by someone I respect, and further when that happens a lot or someone makes a very convincing case why I need to read it.

As I hang out with a bunch of people who recommend stuff, this results in my lists getting kind of... bloated.

And then I've got You're Next, which are stories I'm supposed to force myself to read next because they're supposed to be really good; I replace them with new stories when I actually read them.

Someone bronze the pony day calendar!

I have a fair number of these on my get-to-it-soon list, though I'm not sure when soon will be.

I'm especially curious what my reaction to that changeling fic might be, even unread I can mentally come up any number of reasons why yes, Fluttershy, it would matter. That said, I suspect I've already poisoned the well a bit in extensively peeking in at the discussion in the comments, and as such have some opinions (perhaps unfairly) formed ahead of time.

Back up. One Worth Reading, two Recommended, and two Highly Recommended? On a read it now set? I don't...I need to go lie down.

I would also like to point out that you completely neglected to mention the best part of Red Apples, to wit, putting the Red "Delicious" in its place.

3393159
The original was even harsher about it. I think "tastes like ash" was involved. :ajsmug:

3393159
c2.staticflickr.com/4/3390/3211972903_8eaeede4c5.jpg

3392927
But nobody ever believes me! What am I supposed to do, lie? That'll just make them realize the truth quicker! D:

Then again, Hades probably already had all the lawyers.

Man, you've been really pushing it these past couple days.

Keep it up :3

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

ermagerd, stop copyin' me! D:

3393374
ermagerd, stop copyin' me! D:

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

3393431
I'm tellin' >:(

I like "Pony Island", but it's misleading to call it a mystery. It keeps you wondering who did it, then basically tells you, although this seems to be contradicted by one thing someone said early on. It isn't a puzzle to solve by logical deduction.

3394091
Moonstruck's chapter rules Littlemoth out as Peridot's killer. That doesn't mean she didn't murder someone, though.

3392926

You slowly give me insight into what I need to do to get you to like me again.

3394178 I don't think you can say "rules out" in this story. horizon (I think) also said it's like Rashomon, which implies the different stories can be inconsistent. You can't be both a Rashomon and a murder mystery.

3394634
I suspect that he doesn't actually mean it is like Rashomon so much as he is using it to mean that he is presenting multiple points of view which may include characters putting their own point of view heavily on events or lying. In Rashomon, everyone's story was wildly different; here, the stories were much less wildly different, and things were presented much more consistently.

You're right that if the story really is like Rashomon, then it isn't really a mystery. Or at least, not one you can solve.

3392806 Agreed on all points. It's an okay read, but I simply don't see why that story has almost 1,200 upvotes over two days. I've always heard good things about GaPJaxie as an author, so as the first story of his that I've read, I was a little surprised to see that I thought it was just middling. Not that an author always has to pump out grade-A stories all the time. Sometimes it's nice to just let an idea flow and see how people respond to it, but I was expecting a lot more with such a meteoric rise.

I think my biggest problem with that story is that it only really works if Twilight is a dumber version of herself. She doesn't really do any reasoning. She just reacts in whatever way is convenient for Fluttershy to make her next argument. It's a role that would have been better suited for Applejack or Rainbow. Twilight is the second or third most tolerant in the group, depending on where you think Pinkie falls, and she's the most naturally curious. I understand that she is being framed within her relationship to Shining Armor, but it ends up feeling not very Twilight-ish to me.

3395247
It's like you're reading straight out of my own notes.

The experience you describe with Jax here is very reminiscent of my experience with Eakin. I've only read two of his stories. One was a fairly decent (though not exceptional) sci-fi story. The other was a just out-and-out really poor story about two OCs on a train that stands as one of the worst fics I've read by a major author. I'm not soured on him, though; I really would like to get around to reading his big epic someday. Jax, similarly, I've only read a couple of his stories, but this is clearly not as good as the others I've read, I think. I have the impression that he's been on a real speed-writing kick lately, though, based on his recent activity, which probably explains why this feels so slapdash to me. I'm guessing he didn't spend much time really going through how it works. And I've noticed, from the comments on the story, that a lot of readers seem to be reporting the same issues, so I feel pretty confident that this isn't just an issue of "Fimfiction's Elite Writers Decide Story X Doesn't Deserve Its Popularity" (which does happen, sometimes, I think—and which I'm probably prone to myself, as much as I may hate to admit it).

3395278 I hate to say it, but I just haven't really cared for Eakin's stories outside of the guest chapters he wrote for Cheerilee's Thousand. I was really surprised by how much I disliked Hard Reset. I thought the idea of it was really great, and people love the hell out of it. It's a shame because Eakin is a nice guy. I'd love to love his stories, but I just haven't cared for the two that I've read.

As someone who has just published a slapdash story, Would It Matter If I Was does feel in the same vein to me. I can look at my own story and see places that I would/should tighten things up in the future, but the point was to see how people reacted to it. It could be that GaPJaxie is doing the same thing. That kind of information is useful in future projects, I feel. Not that I don't love my story and think it has worth, but I'm certainly aware that it's not my top effort. It's middling, and I'd hope that GaPJaxie knows this story of his is middling, too. There's really nothing wrong with that as long as you understand its quality going in.

3395247
My favorite story by GaPJaxie is Regarding the Need for Sex Education.

Intern is also quite excellent. So are the various actingverse stories, which started with Dressing Room.

Love Letters for a Girl I Hate is also very funny, but I suspect has a somewhat narrow audience, as it is making fun of some video game stuff (though you don't specifically need to have played Skyrim to appreciate it, just RPGs in general).

Anyway, those are probably going to be more up your alley.

Agreed on all points. It's an okay read, but I simply don't see why that story has almost 1,200 upvotes over two days.

Getting 1,000+ votes on your story isn't necessarily a mark of your story being the best thing ever.

I've done that with three stories:

The Stars Ascendant
Dying to Get There
Forever and Again and Again

Would It Matter If I Was is a story very much in the vein of The Stars Ascendant. Both of them had a simple idea, had a highly appealing premise, were based on evidence from the show, talked about something that people really like (The Stars Ascendant was about Twilight's true hidden power, Would It Matter If I Was? was about Fluttershy secretly being a changeling, and whether it would, you know, matter), sparks a lot of discussion...

The list goes on.

These stories don't have to be amazing to be incredibly popular, because the central idea behind them is so appealing to your audience. And the thing is, they'll really impress some people, but leave others feeling less satisfied. But the dissatisfied people will tend to be a minority.

You'll also note that both of those pieces are pretty much entirely dialogue, and are about inter-pony conflict, rather than having something actually "happen".

They're also extremely accessible, and both also had some interesting implications at the end that were pretty punchy, which I think helps keep them in people's mindspace and gets them to talk about it.

If you look at the other two stories of mine that were hypersuccessful, both of them also had obvious and powerful axes of audience appeal, and talked about things that people wanted to read about - in particular, Dying to Get There scratched an itch many people had after reading Faster than Starlight and Blink. Interestingly, all three were heavily dialogue-based.

Forever and Again and Again was inspired by a story that I thought had a really powerful axes of appeal, Forever and Again, but I did something else with the idea - sort of inverted the story - and it made it a super appealing story. It probably helps that I slipped in a ton of subtle details and it is one of the best things I've written (at least in my own personal opinion), and I think it was a fairly fun thing to think about.

And indeed, I think that's the real thing all of these things have in common - they're fun to think about. "What if ponies get reincarnated and come back with the same cutie marks?" "How powerful is Twilight, really?" "How would Twilight react if one of her friends came out as a changeling?" These are questions that have fun answers, but they're also just plain old fun to think about, and something being fun to think about makes you want to read stories about it so you can see what other people think about it.

That's not to say all of these stories are of equal quality - I consider Dying to Get There and Forever and Again and Again to be two of my best stories (and probably my two best highly accessible stories), and while I really like The Stars Ascendant, it may not even be the 10th best thing I've written in terms of quality, but it is probably in the top five in terms of power.

3395278

Fimfiction's Elite Writers Decide Story X Doesn't Deserve Its Popularity

There was a point this week at which all seven of the stories in the non-mature featured story box were, at least, worth reading, which is a rare feat, and vastly better than the overall worth reading of the site in general - or hell, of most talented authors. I think my "good author" hit rate is not that great, though of course it varies immensely by author - Ghost of Heraclitus has never had anything I didn't favorite, I think I upvoted almost everything Absolute Anonymous wrote, and Bad Horse might have the most HRs of any single author, but on the other hand, SS&E writes stuff which is amazing, stuff which is decent, and stuff which I didn't care for at all, and there are some good writers (like Bats) who I have read a ton of their work and I liked almost none of it. Estee is also very hit-and-miss for me, though they've been more consistent of late.

Incidentally, I think Eakin's best story is Hard Reset. Alas, I didn't particularly care for its sequels. He's written a number of decent things - I enjoyed Duel Nature when I first joined the fandom, but I haven't read it in ages so it may not hold up very well now, and No Good Answers was interesting, though I'm not sure if it was good per se. He's written some other stories I've upvoted.

Anyway...

I don't think you're wrong about Would It Matter If I Was? not being as strong as it could be, but I think it is popular for a reason, and it pulled on me very strongly when I read it.

I did eventually bump it down to a recommended (upon reflection, it isn't better than the Actingverse stories), but I think the idea has a very powerful pull to it, and it is easy to underestimate just how strong that can be for those with whom it strikes a chord.

If you think you could write a better story about the subject matter, you should, because people want to read it.

Or I do, anyway.

3395349

Anyway...

I don't think you're wrong about Would It Matter If I Was? not being as strong as it could be, but I think it is popular for a reason, and it pulled on me very strongly when I read it.

I did eventually bump it down to a recommended (upon reflection, it isn't better than the Actingverse stories), but I think the idea has a very powerful pull to it, and it is easy to underestimate just how strong that can be for those with whom it strikes a chord.

If you think you could write a better story about the subject matter, you should, because people want to read it.

Or I do, anyway.

A couple things. First off, I really want to advise you to stick to your guns instead of going back and reevaluating stories after you've reviewed them. I think. I mean, ideally you wouldn't even want to, but I always find it looks weird when reviewers change their reviews. Leonard Maltin did it once for "Unforgiven", and I think it's charitable to say the whole affair made him look like an asshat. He didn't like the movie. That's fine. I think his original review for the movie was dumb and uninsightful, and I'm sure a lot of other people agree—it did win Best Picture at the Oscars, after all, and it was arguably the best movie of its decade. But to my mind (and maybe I'm weird in this) being wrong is better than being wishy-washy.

To be clear, I'm not saying you're being especially wishy-washy here, but I think you're toeing a dangerous road. If you doubt your own opinions of stories that you review, it calls into question why you're even reviewing. That probably sounds much more negative than I mean for it to sound, but I think it deserves saying.

Second, the more I think about the story, the more I start feeling like the idea behind it is just kind of lazy. When I read the story, I immediately started filtering it as an author tract about the war on terror. And I'm not complaining about that; I actually found that really interesting (and got disappointed when it flubbed the metaphor a little later on). But I continue to think that the real weaknesses on the piece, for my money, are character-based—particularly what 3395247 said so well. To me, this feels less like a great philosophical debate than LessWrong!Fluttershy going Socratic on StrawMan!Twilight. It's pulled down a lot of debate, but I think that says more about many of the debaters than the story itself. The war on terror is certainly a fun thing to discuss and export to ponies, but I think approaching it with a position paper rather than real character introspection is only a superior method if your goal is to troll the Fimfiction user base[1].

As for your suggestion, it's not going to happen in the next month, but the idea of doing a philosophy fic does sound kind of fun. I might have to let the idea brew a while and see what percolates.


[1] I'm not saying that the story is a trollfic, or that GaPJaxie is a troll. Both are ad-hominems that don't have any value and that I don't believe have validity either. But I do think that if someone sophisticated did want to troll users with the topic, this is probably how they ought to go about doing it. I actually consider that kind of a useful insight, and I may have to make use of it at some point, because I suspect I'm a lot more interested in trolling users than GaPJaxie is.

3395349

These stories don't have to be amazing to be incredibly popular, because the central idea behind them is so appealing to your audience. And the thing is, they'll really impress some people, but leave others feeling less satisfied. But the dissatisfied people will tend to be a minority.

This is what I struggle with. I mean, I logically understand it and acknowledge it's what's happening, but it's just totally against my philosophy. I really haven't encountered a story that has such a strong idea that I'd upvote it despite significant flaws. I didn't downvote Would It Matter If I Was?. It's not actively bad, but I have a hard time finding a reason to upvote it. A good idea only goes so far in my book.

What really puzzles me, though is the collective embracing of something that just isn't all that interesting to me. I don't feel like the masses are wrong. Rather, it's a case of "What am I missing here?" And I am missing something, or perhaps I'm just wired differently. I rarely like what's popular here and I often can't fathom why many lesser known stories didn't get more attention. To me, it seems like the Fimfiction community often goes out of their way to rally around mediocre stories. And I include my own in that. My most popular story is one of my most mediocre.

This isn't always the case, of course. There are some really excellent highly rated/popular stories, but a lot of garbage, too. It's no different than any other media in that regard, but it still baffles me. You'd think with stories being free that the cream would generally rise to the top over time. However, it's the definition of cream that's the sticking point. My version of cream is definitely off the beaten path.

3395422
Sticking to your guns is only a good thing if you should be sticking to them. I periodically move around stories on my lists; it happens when I re-read them and decide my opinion on them has changed.

Sticking to your guns when you're wrong just means you're too stupid to realize you're wrong or too stubborn to admit it.

If you abandon your guns just because of peer pressure, though, not because your opinion changed, you're being dishonest.

Our discussion changed absolutely nothing; the reason I changed its rating was because I was going through GaPJaxie's stories and decided that it wasn't as good as the Actingverse stories, which I don't feel are HR level stories, but which are really good. The story was always a borderline case; I put it up at HR because I was feeling very enthusiastic about it, but I did it knowing that I might not feel the same way about it in a week. It isn't the first time that's happened, either; I removed another story from my HR list last week after re-reading it (though, thankfully, I hadn't actually reviewed it previously), and IIRC I switched Beneath Your Feet, What Treasures from a HR to a R either before or shortly after I posted my review of that story as well, and I've changed a few WRs into NRs after thinking about them more.

People do sometimes go back through my back entries looking for stories, so while I don't make a big deal about changing my ratings in a downwards direction, it does happen.

I only have four categories for stories: Not Recommended, Worth Reading, Recommended, and Highly Recommended. But there's no clear line of demarcation between them; there's less of a difference in quality between the very best Not Recommended story and the very worst Worth Reading story than there is between the worst Worth Reading and the best Worth Reading. The same is true of all the categories. Where the lines are drawn is not exactly arbitrary, but the value of stories falls on a continuous scale while my scale is discretely labelled.

I like my stuff to be internally consistent; if I feel I have a story on the HR list which is worse than a story on the Recommended list, I'd better either move stories up or move that story down.

Second, the more I think about the story, the more I start feeling like the idea behind it is just kind of lazy. When I read the story, I immediately started filtering it as an author tract about the war on terror. And I'm not complaining about that; I actually found that really interesting (and got disappointed when it flubbed the metaphor a little later on).

It isn't really strictly analogous to any real-life situation. You could apply it to any invisible minority that the public has negative preconceptions about; you could say it applies to gays, or Muslims, or whatever else. But it isn't really strictly analogous to any of them, and moreover, I don't feel like it has to be or even should be. Indeed, this is a somewhat dangerous thing to do - Pascoite has complained about (and warned against) being upset because a story didn't go in the way you were expecting it to, and judging it on the basis of what you were expecting instead of what it is. And while that is to some extent inevitable, it is kind of important to keep in mind - just because it isn't a strict analogy for the War on Terror doesn't make it bad, because it wasn't really trying to be one, and quite frankly, doesn't make much sense as one. After all, we all knew there were Muslims in the US before 9/11, and we all knew there were Muslim terrorists. Canadian Bacon even made a joke about it, and our lack of interest:

Rip Torn's retort to that was "With all due respect, nobody cares about a bunch of guys driving around in exploding rental cars, sir."

Or something very close to that, anyway.

It was quite accurate at the time.

To me, this feels less like a great philosophical debate than LessWrong!Fluttershy going Socratic on StrawMan!Twilight.

I don't think that it was meant to be a great philisophical debate; it was meant to be an emotional one. Fluttershy was appealing to Twilight's feelings and empathy throughout the piece. Fluttershy is asking Twilight to think about how it would feel for someone to have one of their friends be forcibly revealed as a changeling, and putting Twilight on the spot, because she knows that Twilight wouldn't question some other random pony being outed who she doesn't care about as much, but Twilight DOES care about Fluttershy, so the hypothetical (or less than hypothetical) situation there is pretty important to shaping Twilight's thought process.

3395422

[1] I'm not saying that the story is a trollfic, or that GaPJaxie is a troll. Both are ad-hominems that don't have any value and that I don't believe have validity either. But I do think that if someone sophisticated did want to troll users with the topic, this is probably how they ought to go about doing it. I actually consider that kind of a useful insight, and I may have to make use of it at some point, because I suspect I'm a lot more interested in trolling users than GaPJaxie is.

Clearly, you just need to write the next Rainbow Dash Gets an Abortion.

3395431
The general rating system isn't designed for "cream" rising to the top - what the rating system is trying to do is find stories you will most likely like, and least likely dislike.

There is a correlation between ratings, views, and story quality (and rating more strongly correlates than views), but the best way to find high quality stories is to look at peoples' recommendation lists, which are going to be much higher quality than judgement by the masses.

I mean, going by general rating is not an awful system (it will do much better than reading random stories out of the new stories box) but it is not as good as reading stories recommended by good writers.

3396010 Well, what I mean is that the 'popular' and 'good' seem like they ought to be roughly equal at a gut level, but logically I know that isn't the case. It's a matter of what I know to be true versus what I wish was true. The wishing side of me is still fighting hard for things to be the way I want them to be. I know in my head that what you say is correct. I just struggle to accept it.

It's one of the reasons that I read a lot of reviews. I like when they point me to things that the mass readership didn't give shrift to.

3396087
I'd argue that one of the biggest reasons for this is accessibility, but one of my most popular stories is a bunch of modernist poetry about rocks, and another is about Twilight being the reincarnation of Celestia's dead wife in a story rife with subtext, so I'm not sure if I can make that argument with a straight face.

I would actually say that the real biggest reason is that some stories are much better advertised than others, and that being good at advertising and being good at writing a story are only tangentially related skills. It doesn't matter how good your story is if you don't tell anyone why they should read it. Some people are really bad at it, other people are really good at it, and it makes a huge difference.

That being said, accessibility IS a thing - if you write faux Native American folklore, it doesn't really matter how good it is, there's kind of a cap on how many people are excited about reading that. On the other hand, write something about Fluttershy secretly being a changeling, or Twilight's real power level, and people will be on that like white on rice.

And to be fair - and I think this is fairly important - the power of a story actually contributes significantly to the quality of a story. Some stories can and do ride on premise alone, while others are simply brought up even higher - The Writing on the Wall is a good example of a story whose power and quality combine to knock it over the fences. Twilight's List is also great for the same reason.

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