Read It Later Reviews #38 – Five Seconds of Everything You’ve Ever Wanted, Movements of Fire and Shadow, Fluttershy Doesn’t Have a Kitchen!, Just Dodge!, My Full-Sized Goddess Horse · 11:13pm Dec 11th, 2015
Some days, I just sit down and go through a bunch of stories from the Royal Guard queue in the hopes of finding something to approve for our next post, often reading many stories I would never have read otherwise, or something I have put off reading for a long time, in hopes of finding a gem. Wednesday was one of those days.
Today’s stories:
Five Seconds of Everything You’ve Ever Wanted by Whirring Gears
Movements of Fire and Shadow by Inquisitor M
Fluttershy Doesn’t Have a Kitchen! by theRedBrony
Just Dodge! by DannyJ
My Full-Sized Goddess Horse by Present Perfect
Five Seconds of Everything You’ve Ever Wanted
by Whirring Gears
2nd Person, Romance
1,584 wordsThanks to the efforts of six ponies, Starlight Glimmer's reign has ended. All the cutie marks have been restored, save for the ones of your new friends. There's not much time before she makes it to the caves where you'll be unable to track her down.
During the final stretch of the chase, you're tasked with lifting Double Diamond up to the top of the hill to drop snow over the entrance to the cave. As you ascend, emotions swirl within as you realize just how fast you're flying and just how warm the stallion you're holding is.
Why I added it: The Royal Guard queue.
Review
So, I don’t really like second person stories very much, but I figured I’d give this one a whirl.
You, here, is Night Glider, the pegasus pony from “Our Town” who carried Double Diamond up to the top of the mountain to try and cut off Starlight Glimmer. Unlike most such stories, this is very deliberately written with the idea in mind that the audience is not the character; rather, the “you” is much more along the lines of what I think of when you assign someone a role in acting – you’re told how the person is thinking, feeling, and even seeing. The purpose of the second person perspective here is not to pretend like “you” have any agency, but to immerse them directly in the character. And it actually works decently well; unlike most such stories, I wasn’t put off by the use of the second-person perspective here, and it didn’t feel particularly unnatural, though I still feel like it is a weird format to use.
The core of the story itself is Night Glider thinking about her interactions with Double Diamond, and contemplating how she feels about him – how she felt about him around town, how she felt about his friendship and closeness with Starlight Glimmer, and how he probably has it even worse in terms of feeling angry about her betrayal. And it all works well enough, especially given its very brief length. It feels longer than its word count suggests, and has enough weight to convince the audience that Night Glider might have a good reason for wanting to try for something more with Double Diamond, while not overstating the connection between them.
It isn’t exactly aiming for the stars, but it aims for the mountainside and does a decent enough job of hitting its target and selling me on Night Glider’s feelings.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Movements of Fire and Shadow
by Inquisitor M
Romance, Slice of Life
5,534 wordsMuch of Luna's life has returned to normal in the short years since she returned. It takes a pony very close to her to spot that something is haunting the princess again and that she's been sneaking off after nightfall for some time. When that pony has all the tact of a battleship, the only thing for certain is that things are about to get heated.
Why I added it: I read it previously, and it was in the Royal Guard queue and I couldn’t remember it.
Review
Artemis is Luna’s bodyguard, and is looking out for her well-being. Luna has been sneaking out at night to parts unknown to do something she refuses to talk about, even to her bodyguard.
Naturally, this means that Artemis snooped on her anyway, and knows full well what is going on – that Luna has fallen for Octavia, a local cellist who has left the orchestra in order to compose an ornate piece of orchestral music, Movements of Fire and Shadow. Luna doesn’t want to talk to Octavia, but the two seem awfully familiar with each other for ponies who haven’t met.
Artemis wants to urge Luna on, to do something, make a friend, actually put the moves on Octavia, but Luna resists.
And… well, that’s more or less the entire story, unfortunately.
The story relies heavily on allusion to events which don’t happen on-screen, but which are implied, but the unfortunate result is that I am never brought to care about the characters. Why is Luna so attracted to Octavia? What kind of person is Octavia? These two questions are fairly central to a romance story, seeing as we need to understand the feelings of the chaser for the chased, and need to feel like the people matter to us, but this story fails to accomplish both tasks. Luna’s own reticence – and Octavia’s strange and unexplained resistance to doing something else, moving on – just doesn’t do much for me, and ultimately, I’m left questioning why I should care about any of it. The implication is there that Luna might be deliberately sabotaging Octavia’s project, putting her life on hold, but the whole thing just didn’t do much for me, and even if she was (which the story is far from clear about), I don’t know why I should care.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Fluttershy Doesn’t Have a Kitchen
by theRedBrony
Comedy, Random, Slice of Life
3,908 wordsWHY DOES EVERYPONY THINK I HAVE A KITCHEN?!
I mean, um, hi, my name's Fluttershy. And I don't have a kitchen. But um… everypony seems to think I do… So here's my story about the day when everypony suddenly realized it… I don't know why it happened all on one day, but it did.
Why I added it: The Royal Guard queue.
Review
Written from a first person perspective, Fluttershy relates the day wherein everyone she knows – an ever-escalating cavalcade of ponies – somehow discovers on the same day that Fluttershy doesn’t have a kitchen in her cottage.
This story is something of a prime example of why All First Person Narrators Write Like Novelists – while Fluttershy certainly sounds like herself, hearing Fluttershy actually tell a story just isn’t the best way to deliver prose fiction.
The main issue, however, is that the entire story is warped around the premise of Fluttershy not having a kitchen, but it is basically a constant anticlimax, as everyone is basically like “Huh, that’s kind of weird” and then more-or-less leaves it at that. It lacks the sort of escalating cavalcade of comedy that really makes a story with an offbeat premise like this, and the constant samey reaction just isn’t that funny.
It was in principle a potentially funny idea, but without any sort of real arc, and most of the reactions being just “Huh, that’s kind of weird” without any further escalation of tension, it just doesn’t feel like it goes anywhere.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Just Dodge!
by DannyJ
Comedy, Dark
9,961 wordsLyra thinks Discord is an idiot for not thinking to dodge when the Elements of Harmony were about to strike him. Discord thinks this is the perfect opportunity for a game.
Why I added it: It was the highest rated story on FIMFiction for a while, and it came up in the Royal Guard queue.
Review
In the aftermath of the Plunder Vine Incident (which I’m sure has capital letters on their version of Wikipedia), Lyra has to wait for her number to be called for Discord to fix her damaged house. Lyra is a bit frustrated by this, but when she gets called early, she goes along with it. But unlike a lot of ponies, Lyra isn’t at all afraid of Discord. Sure, he’s powerful, but if he’s dumb enough to just stand there and let the RAINBOW OF DOOM from the Elements of Harmony hit him (twice, no less, given that he had been turned to stone by them in the past as well), obviously he can’t be that much of a threat, right?
So Disocrd offers her a little wager – he’ll send her back in time, in his body, with all of his powers, to try and dodge the Elements of Harmony. If she succeeds, he’ll grant her one wish. If she fails, after however many tries she wants, she has to join his band.
Easy, right?
While this story calls itself a comedy, and bits like this towards the beginning might make you think it was:
"I'm sorry, Mayor Mare, but I don't have time to wait around for my number to come up. I have other places to be, and I don't know how long I'll be waiting! Can't I just be put in a queue or something?"
She gave her aide a sideways glance and then looked back to me, creasing her brow in a way that plainly told me 'no' before she even spoke.
"Officially, town hall is closed right now. Princess Twilight and her friends are managing things for today, including repairs and clean-up. I'm mostly just here to supervise. You can find her and ask for her help if you want to, but plenty of other ponies had the same idea. You'll be waiting either way."
"Couldn't you at least have worked out a better system for who Discord helps next?"
"We tried, but the lottery was the only one he would agree to. Apparently it is Discord's sworn duty to introduce disorder wherever possible, or else the chains of eternal chaos may break, and Agamarath, Lord of the Abyss, will gorge upon time itself and bring the end of all things."
"His words, not ours," said the aide.
I sighed. "Thanks anyway."
I’ve always loved the idea that Discord literally has to create chaos for some reason, though here, I also have to wonder if he simply lied because it amused him. Though it certainly amused me.
In reality it is not all that funny, and isn’t really structured much like a comedy. Instead it is actually more of an action/adventure type piece, or even something like a video game, where you can respawn an infinite number of times to try and overcome some challenge. Lyra tries everything she can think of – and even things that Discord didn’t think of – and comes to realize that it was a bit harder than it seemed.
It was an interesting idea for a story, and I was reasonably amused, but I have to admit it never really crossed over the threshold of awesome – it was more of an interesting thought exercise. I’m not sure how broad the audience for such things are, but given it has 11k views and an extraordinarily great upvote:downvote ratio, apparently it is a fairly sizable one.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
My Full-Sized Goddess Horse
by Present Perfect
Human, Random, Sad
4,312 wordsWhen your life is a stack of suckcakes covered in angst syrup and the world turns its back on you after it kicks you into a puddle of hate toast with rejection margarine and the marmalade of loneliness and your parents are completely and totally dead, being a brony can seem meaningless. God, I'm hungry now. Sometimes all we need is a horse -- a great big one -- in a cardboard box to reinforce our own self-imposed martyr complexes.
Why I added it: The Royal Guard queue.
Review
This is a cringey piece, a dark commentary on My Little Dashie, about a very, very messed up loser of a brony who wallows in made-up angst and his own unwillingness to really reach outside of himself and acknowledge reality. He is alone, in a terrible, empty world, his parents dead…
Okay, no, none of that is true. He’s just a loser who wallows in MLP to avoid dealing with reality.
This is a weird piece which largely serves as commentary on a certain sort of person, though there are precious few people who are quite as bad as the narrator of this piece. He is clearly delusional, unwilling to accept reality, and loves to think of himself as a victim of a cruel world, but he takes it pretty far, even for a person like that.
I’m not quite sure if I really can say I liked this; it was more or less a “take that” towards a certain sort of loser, but it is kind of preaching to the choir, as the protagonist is utterly unsympathetic. Most of the comedy of the piece comes from his delusional reactions towards stuff, but in the end, I wouldn’t call this a comedy so much as it is just a tragedy of the character’s own making.
Recommendation: Read it if you like reading “Take that!” stories directed at losers who wallow in their own misery, I guess?
Summary
Five Seconds of Everything You’ve Ever Wanted by Whirring Gears
Worth Reading
Movements of Fire and Shadow by Inquisitor M
Not Recommended
Fluttershy Doesn’t Have a Kitchen! by theRedBrony
Not Recommended
Just Dodge! by DannyJ
Worth Reading
My Full-Sized Goddess Horse by Present Perfect
Not Recommended
And there we go! When I wrote this post, I had read every single story in the Royal Guard queue which is labelled a comedy, and every romance story under 40,000 words, as well as every short human story as well. If you have written an awesome comedy or romance (or, lord forbid, human) story, shoot it our way; we’re always hungry for more.
Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 97
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 388
Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 1743
Just a random question. Is any of my stories in your read it later list? Just saying.
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Those links to my RL lists are clickable, so you can check yourself if you want to!
I don't believe any of your stories are on my list, though.
3611821 Sadly no. Well I guess I better get back to trying?
I personally like the story about flutter shy not having a kitchen, because the weirdness yet appropriateness of the idea was more than enough for me to enjoy the ride.
I've been meaning to read just dodge for a long time.
I don't think any of my comedies or romances are actually good enough for the Royal guard.
>tfw Royal Guard-sempai notices you
Also, TD recommends something another reviewer panned not days ago? :O What is this madness? TIME FOR A TIEBREAKER!
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The second person perspective really bothered Prak, it didn't end up bothering me so much in the end. I suspect that your enjoyment of the story is likely to be contingent on how much the second person perspective bothers you.
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WE SHALL SEE
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Y'know, if you ever want to kick EqD to the curb and PR for someone else, we'd be happy to add you to our roster. Then you can be Royal Guard-sempai too! Well, unless you're secretly a moron or have chronic halitosis.
But if you side with me about that story, it might make me inclined to overlook any stupidity. Not the halitosis, though, cos ew.
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I burp a lot, does that count? :(
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If I counted that, I'd have to resign.
The whole point of the Kitchen fic was to just point those things out; it wasn't meant to have a real arc, as far as I can tell. It's a funny slice of life.