Read It Later Reviews #44 – Hope; Give A Like – Feed A Changeling; Sweat, Tears, and a Video; Marble’s Horizon; The Sex Shop · 3:39am Mar 24th, 2016
As with yesterday’s Read It Later reviews, four of the five stories in this set came from Scribblefest. As was the case yesterday, please note that my opinion on these stories is not the final word for that contest; we are merely in the preliminary round of judging, and three judges read each of these stories. I am but one of nine judges involved in this, so… yeah.
Anyway! Onto the reviews!
Today’s stories:
Hope by Dark Avenger
Give A Like – Feed A Changeling by Lise Eclair
Sweat, Tears, and a Video by Rubahhitam
Marble’s Horizon by The Hat Man
The Sex Shop by Admiral Biscuit
Hope
by Dark Avenger
Dark, Horror, Mystery
5,447 wordsPrincess Celestia finds herself trapped in the depths of Tartarus itself. Nightmarish visions haunt her through the blackened streets of Canterlot. Something lurks in the shadows, stalking her every step of the way. A frail voice rises from the ashes.
It is said that the only way to escape Hell is to have hope. But how does one find it in there?
Why I added it: Scribblefest!
Review
Princess Celestia awakes in the ruins of Canterlot castle. The world around her is a living nightmare, as marble blocks rise to reform familiar bridges, but with names carved into them like tombstones. There are living nightmares stalking the streets, apparently set loose by Princess Luna’s failure to contain them, and the world has turned to darkness.
This story was a bit too obvious in what it really was about, but honestly, I’m not sure what there is to it in the end. It is meant to be a dark piece about a broken Equestria, but as I figured out what was going on very early on, I basically spent the entire story waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it didn’t until the very end. Its darkness ended up not really touching me, as it wasn’t a very human darkness, and thus, even the story’s use of Twilight didn’t really do much for me, as it didn’t really make much use of her character. All too much of it was Celestia being determined/angry/horrified, without much in the way of rising and falling emotion, and so by the end of it, I was feeling a bit flat and detached.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Give A Like – Feed A Changeling
by Lise Eclair
Equestria Girls, Slice of Life
3,761 wordsIt isn't easy being the only changeling in Canterlot High — fitting in is difficult, starvation is a real issue, and the fear of getting caught is always present. To make matters worse, Bug Bee has more to worry about than just himself.
Why I added it: Scribblefest!
Review
Bug Bee, like most people on Tumblr, feeds on likes.
Unlike most Tumblrites, however, he does so literally, and can describe their taste.
Bug Bee is a changeling – the only one in Equestria High, or the human world in general. Nopony – er, no one there suspects. Well, other than Derpy, who knows everything.
But one morning, he gets a message from Sunset Shimmer. She knows.
And now, he is going to have to do a thing a changeling infiltrator never wants to have to do – explain himself.
This is a pretty clever story. The idea of a changeling literally feeding on likes on Tumblr is deeply amusing to me, and Bug Bee’s plan for getting lots of likes – as well as what he does with all that love – is pretty cute. The idea of him being a bit incontinent when it comes to receiving love directly from another person was another amusing little twist, as was his chimeric personality as he worked to maximize the emotion he got out of everyone around him. His continual juggling act was fun to watch, and while this story didn’t exactly blow me out of the water, it made me smile.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Sweat, Tears, and a Video
by Rubahhitam
Anthro, Romance, Slice of Life
2,939 wordsSweetie Belle feels lonely the day before Hearts and Hooves Day. But a letter from a secret admirer gives her some hope for the holiday weekend.
Why I added it: Scribblefest!
Review
Sweetie Belle gets a letter in her locker from a secret admirer. When she shows up, who should be there but… Scootaloo? But she obviously didn’t send the letter…
This is a fairly simple “romance” fic, as it is really the setup for a first date. The story’s plot works fine as written, but I have to admit that I never really could get into it. I was left wondering throughout the story why the writer chose to set it in a world with anthro characters, rather than the Equestria Girls verse or just stick with the pony-verse – but then, I’m almost invariably left wondering that when reading anthro stories.
I figured out the central plot twist pretty much right away, which probably didn’t help much, but I guess in the end the feeling I was left with was that the story was a bit perfunctory – it wasn’t bad in any way, but it ended up feeling like it was drawn very much between the lines, so to speak, and just followed an obvious course for a story like it to take. It isn’t that obvious courses are necessarily bad, but I was just left feeling at the end like the story had done what it wanted to do, but I wanted it to want to aim a bit higher than it ended up doing. The story is fairly short and standard, and while it does what it wants to do, and achieves its goals, it didn’t really end up feeling like it was going to stick with me in any major way.
As an aside, I did want to note one common error I’ve seen numerous stories make. I’m not picking on this story in particular for it, and it wasn’t really a big deal, but it is a common thing I see, and it always bothers me.
The red schoolhouse was quiet, almost eerily so. On any other given day, the one-room building would have been filled with the sounds of friends talking, joking, and laughing, but not today. It was as if silence had roared to life, swallowing up all the sounds like a ravenous hydra.
If there’s one thing silence isn’t, it is being loud. I often see people using loudness in similes and metaphors involving silence, and this almost never works. Roaring to life – a ravenous hydra – are simply not things which one associates with silence. I do understand wanting to avoid the standard comparisons to silence, but describing silence using loudness almost never works. There are some rare occasions where it does work (generally when the silence is really oppressive, or in situations of sensory deprivation), but oftentimes, it just ends up coming off as silly.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Marble’s Horizon
by The Hat Man
Slice of Life
4,554 wordsMarble Pie has lived on the rock farm her whole life. Every morning, when she goes to fetch water from the well, she looks out at the horizon to watch the sun rise. One day, she begins to wonder what lies beyond that horizon...
Why I added it: Scribblefest!
Review
Pinkie and Maud have seen so many places, and done so many interesting things, while Marble has sat at home at the rock farm, too scared to even talk to anypony. She’s never been more than fifty miles away from the farm, never seen the world. And at the rate she’s going, she’s going to die that way.
But can she find the courage to speak up?
This is, fundamentally, a story about Marble deciding to grow as a person, and then having to figure out how to overcome her own inability to speak and the disapproval of her family to gain the freedom to do so. Marble is voiced strongly here, with a very believable internal monologue, and behavior which fits well with what we’ve seen of her.
Overall, I liked this story; Marble’s character came through strongly here, and her internal struggle was fun to read. It was a nice piece of character development. If you’re a Marble Pie fan, I suspect this story will interest you.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
The Sex Shop
by Admiral Biscuit
Sex, Slice of Life
1,158 wordsDown a well-traveled side street off the lower Las Pegasus market, stands a proud building with a dignified brass plaque on the door that simply says "The Sex Shop." Everypony's heard rumors of what's inside.
Trigger warning: Not a clopfic.
Why I added it: It was the shortest story on my “Read It Sooner” list.
Review
This isn’t really a story so much as it is a description of a place – in this case, a sex shop in Las Pegasus. Frankly, it wasn’t terribly interesting to me. It wasn’t that the description was poor, just that there didn’t seem to be much more to it than “people who own and go to sex shops are people too, and not weirdos”. Which, sure, is a fine moral, but there wasn’t any real meat here that I really wanted to sink my teeth into.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Summary
Hope by Dark Avenger
Not Recommended
Give A Like – Feed A Changeling by Lise Éclair
Worth Reading
Sweat, Tears, and a Video by Rubahhitam
Not Recommended
Marble’s Horizon by The Hat Man
Worth Reading
The Sex Shop by Admiral Biscuit
Not Recommended
And there we go! Another five stories reviewed. Three days of reviews in a row, and four in a week? Is TD actually being productive again? What witchcraft is this?
Well, let me assure you that rumors of my productivity are greatly exaggerated.
Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 121
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 438
Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 1874
3823783
*sigh* Given what happened in the last review this story got, I'm beginning to regret having written it.
I do appreciate your honesty, Titanium Dragon, and thank you for pointing out my inaccurate/inadequate/inappropriate metaphor regarding silence.
If I might ask, while I assume your review is to be as professional and unbiased as possible, what was/is your personal opinion on the story?
As to my decision of making the story anthro, if anyone is actually interested in knowing, I will be more than happy to explain why, and hopefully divert any friction caused in the comments.
-Ru
3823838
Eh, there's generally very little strife in the comments here.
As far as my personal opinion, it left me feeling kind of flat. It wasn't terrible - I didn't give it the dreaded Red Thumb - but it didn't really impress me either. It was just kind of there, and, as noted, felt kind of by-the-numbers.
I wouldn't regret writing it; writing stuff is good practice, and even if people don't really end up liking it, you can learn a lot from writing stuff and get better.
Thanks for the review. I'm assuming you wanted to avoid giving spoilers, hence not detailing what the story is really about, though since you don't recommend reading it, I don't see why not give a direct synopsis. Based on the review, some part of me suspects you didn't actually "get it", though to be fair that's still no excuse for it failing to impress.
3823884 You are correct in that respect. It's just... frustrating and somewhat disheartening, to say the least. Admittedly though, it shouldn't be. With how little effort I put into it, the fact that I procrastinated until the contest's deadline, and that I re-read the rules and had to scrap the original idea in favor of one I managed to accomplish in a 16-hour cram session, I am still trying to figure out how my entry won against a story that had been planned out and worked on since the contest's reveal and up to the closing curtain.
Sorry. That was probably more information than you wanted. I'm going to shut up now.
-Ru
3823897
I'm always torn on such things. On the one hand, spoiling central plot twists of a story - especially ones that comes along late in the work - is kind of shitty. On the other hand, it can make it hard to give a very specific review.
Though one of the twists is kind of given away by the cover art, though I didn't notice that until after I read the story.
3823950
lawprofessors.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341bfae553ef01bb07bab200970d-800wi
3824010 Simply put, "I don't have to do well, I just have to do better than the others?"
-Ru
3824015
A competition is against those who show up. If you do better than everyone else who shows up, you not only win, you deserve to win.
True that. "The silence was deafening" was cool the first time I read it.
3824218 You know, I haven't thought of it that way before.
-Ru
I am not a filly's plaything! I am a free stallion!
3825287 Silly horizon. Your name isn't capitalized.
3825342
Title case
3825287
Sure you are, number six.
Sure you are.
I stumbled into "Give a Like" and really liked it. Very sweet, much like honey.
3825682
Or a like from the right pony.
3825287
3825648
Ha! Nice Prisoner reference, TD!
s.sidereel.com/tv_shows/22277/giant_2x/74805-2.jpg
And horizon, I hope you'll enjoy the story if/when you read it, name coincidences notwithstanding.
3824001
I've written a blog, in part to respond to your review. If you're interested, check it out here: (link)
3835476
Sure! I'll go take a peek.