Read It Now Reviews #86 – First Take; You’re a Lesbian, Rainbow Dash; Flutterperial; Suffer in Silence; One of the Living · 1:23am Jul 5th, 2016
The Fourth of July, the day wherein Americans celebrate their country by blowing up a small part of it.
What could be more American than that?
Reading pony fanfiction, clearly!
Today’s stories:
First Take by GAPJaxie
You’re a Lesbian, Rainbow Dash by Socks
Flutterperial by shortskirtsandexplosions
Suffer in Silence by Pascoite
One of the Living by Horse Voice
First Take
by GAPJaxie
Alternate Universe, Slice of Life
5,154 wordsFirst Take isn't Rarity -- but she does play her on TV.
Why I added it: GAPJaxie is a good writer! Also, this is the second-to-last installment of the Actingverse and I’m curious about Rarity’s actress.
Review
Set the day after Pan Flash, this story starts with Barnstormer threatening First Take off-screen, as promised in the last story.
Things don’t quite go as Pan Flash (Pinkie Pie’s actress) imagined them. Or Barnstormer, for that matter.
A heavily psychological story, we learn about First Take’s own twisted world view, as well as why she is the way she is. There isn’t the same sort of wham moment we got in some of the other stories, particularly Butter Up, but this story still manages to give us at least some degree of closure.
Butter Up’s description of First Take as a “pill-popping basket case” was right on the nose. First Take is kind of psycho; she’s a jerk, seems to take some pleasure in hurting people, and desperately clings to the idea that what happened to her is normal, even though it clearly isn’t. She sees the world in a twisted way, and while she sometimes is very observant, at other times she’s incapable of acknowledging the prison she has trapped herself in.
First Take has surrendered a lot of agency, but interestingly, even as she strikes out on her own, she still seems to cling to her prison. She’s ditched her (awful) parents, but continues to live in a cage of their creation, and believes in her view that what happens on camera is all that matters – and thus she, like her parents, can be as awful as she wants to be off of it. Her trailer is a mess, she is a mess, and worst of all, her philosophy about life is a mess, preventing her from getting help.
First Take’s stated view of the world – that you can be nice and dumb, or be a useful bitch, but no one cares about you if you’re a dumb bitch – is deconstructed over the course of the piece by implication. And really, the entire series is showing the truth of something that Star Power said at the end of the very first story:
“Life can be stressful. Sometimes, whether you’re at work or at school, it will seem like there’s nopony who understands you and that you don’t know where you’re going in life. But if you stop and look around, you’ll find that there are ponies who make it all better. Ponies who are ready to help, to give advice, or just to appreciate your skills. Those ponies are your friends, and as long as they support you, there’s nothing you can’t do! No matter how bleak things seem the magic of friendship will always prevail.”
First Take got no help from her fellow actresses because she’s so nasty to them and always hides herself away practicing, resulting in her getting no protection from her parents. This also ties into Deep Cover’s view of how if you have only one set of connections (your family), they can hurt you a lot worse and have a lot more control over you than if you have multiple connections. But as we can see from the series, even if two ponies don’t really like each other, they can still care – if they choose to do so.
And we see the penalties for failure – First Take and Pan Flash’s animosity, as well as Butter Up’s animosity towards Star Power, are due to lack of communication. First Take is nasty to Pan Flash, but won’t tell her why until pressed, while Barnstormer doesn’t take the time to extend the same courtesy of explanation to First Take as she did to Pan Flash because First Take isn’t as visibly messed up. Butter Up is quite bitter towards Star Power, but Star Power is thoughtless ad socially inept and doesn’t really recognize that her supposedly friendly jibes are deeply upsetting her co-star.
Ironically, the only pony who seems to care enough to try and understand the others is the “psychopathic pathological liar” Deep Cover – which is a doubly interesting description, as while Deep Cover is obviously deeply manipulative, I’m not sure if I can recall her actually lying about anything, which makes me wonder if Butter Up heard about Deep Cover’s own supposed parental abuse and thought Deep Cover was lying, or if Deep Cover was lying about that to First Take.
As the pentultimate piece of the series, this was reasonably satisfying. A lot of the Actingverse stories are pretty psychological, and First Take does a decent job of finally bringing us around to the sixth and final actress, and showing both her off, showing more about Pan Flash, and bringing in a bit more detail about some of the other ponies and how they are seen by each other. The implication that Pinkie Pie’s inconsistent portrayal in the show is ultimately due to Pan Flash’s poor acting is an amusing take on things. And First Take’s final, bitterly twisted view of things is interesting to follow, and in the end, we see that friendship is indeed magic.
And to think, all of this could have been avoided if the actresses had realized that back in season 1.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
You’re A Lesbian, Rainbow Dash
by Socks
Sex, Random
2,603 wordsRainbow Dash has been in an intimate relationship with her best friend Twilight for months. Those brief moments of kissing and long nights spent with her friend's warmth by her side all came together to put a smile on her face every morning. In a small way, all of the good and bad came together to make her feel complete.
Unfortunately, she doesn't know what the word 'lesbian' means.
Why I added it: What are socks without shoes?
Review
Rainbow Dash finds out she’s a lesbian.
Rainbow Dash is in denial about it, because lesbians are bad ponies.
Then Rainbow Dash doesn’t care.
The end.
Okay, I lied; there’s like, 1000+ words before that about how ponies build up routines, and a great deal of cursing in the textual prose of the story.
I was expecting this to be funny, but this is really only probably going to be funny who think that ponies acting completely out of character in fairly ridiculous ways and extremely blunt statements with lots of cursing are going to really enjoy it.
Honestly, this didn’t really do a whole lot for me. I’m not sure what I expected, but this wasn’t it.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Flutterperial
by shortskirtsandexplosions
Comedy, Crossover, Human, Sci-Fi
3,733 wordsFluttershy has a new job!
...and it's commanding the Imperial Super Star Destroyer "Executor" at the Battle of Endor.
No one in particular appreciates this.
Why I added it: Now that Disney owns Star Wars, how could SS&E resist?
Review
Fluttershy is in charge of the Super Star Destoryer Executor at the Battle of Endor for no particular reason. She just is. And doesn’t really know what she’s doing.
This goes about as well as you’d expect.
This story is just nothing but absurdity, but doesn’t really go much of anywhere with it – it is just 3,000 words of Fluttershy stumbling over being the captain of a Super Star Destroyer out of nowhere, with no actual clue of what she’s doing, and scared of the awful goings-on around her (and apparently kind of confused about what her job as a Grand Admiral actually entails).
Sadly, this never really captured my heart or funnybone; the premise is kind of amusing, but all there really is in this story is the premise, and it pretty much just keeps stringing along the joke until it is dead.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Suffer in Silence
by Pascoite
Dark, Drama
4,608 wordsEvery morning, Princess Celestia wakes up in terrible pain, and every morning, she chooses to endure it. Until one blissful day grants her the blessing of feeling normal.
Few things in her life have ever frightened her so much.
Why I added it: Pascoite is a good writer.
Review
After defeating Tirek for the first time, Princess Celestia was cursed by a tiny sliver of the monster’s soul, one final parting shot from the monster. Every day, she would bear an ever-increasing amount of pain, an ever-worse injury.
There was only one way for her to be freed – to tell Princess Luna that she didn’t love her. And she would never, ever be able to explain to Luna why she said it. She could say anything else – even that the last words had been a lie – but she could never explain why.
And so, Celestia refused. Every day, she told her sister that she loved her, to guard against the day where Celestia could no longer bear the pain – but she knew that it might never be enough.
One thousand years later, Twilight Sparkle defeats Tirek. But something is left behind…
This piece is, at its heart, about the character of Celestia and Twilight, and how they refuse to give in and harm another to avoid harm themselves. They refuse to even rationalize it away, and do their best to guard against it. It is, ultimately, a form of a Secret Test of Character, who they are in the dark.
It is a bit contrived, but the overall idea was compelling enough for me to want to see how she resolved the whole thing. I was expecting it to be the trigger for Nightmare Moon, and was pleasantly surprised to see it go somewhere else.
That said, I’m not sure if the ending to this felt entirely satisfactory; it sort of highlighted how contrived the situation was. Celestia’s thoughts felt a bit jumbled and repetitive at the end, and it felt ultimately like it crossed the line from drama to melodrama for me, trying a bit too hard to make the audience care, ironically putting me off after I had bought into her pain.
In the end, I wanted to like this more than I actually ended up liking it.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
One of the Living
by Horse Voice
Alternate Universe, Dark, Equestria Girls
3,030 wordsIn the tenth year of the Siren War, a wanderer meets an old flame in the wasteland. Will they settle their differences reasonably, or bond over a fight with vicious monsters?
Yes.
Why I added it: Horse Voice is a good writer.
Review
Flash Sentry is out on his own on the road, with nothing but his guitar to help fight off techno-zombies and other monsters unleashed by the Sirens.
Good thing when too many for him to handle show up that Sunset Shimmer finds him.
This story sort of bordered on comedy at first, but it quickly settled into what it was. But it was very hard to take seriously because the whole thing was pretty absurd – admittedly, the Sirens are kind of silly, and MLP is kind of silly, and fighting off techno-zombies is silly, and… okay, yeah.
It was apparently inspired by ridiculous album covers and Brutal Legend, and I’m left kind of wondering how to feel about it, because in the end it is really a slice of life piece wrapped up in a adventure piece, or maybe something that feels more like the first chapter of something larger. Details like Niburu are thrown in without any real follow-up or explanation, and the whole thing sort of feels sort of in medias res. We’re filled in on a bunch of setting details, but ultimately the whole thing doesn’t feel like it goes anywhere.
Recommendation: If you think reading something where Flash Sentry using guitar music as a weapon against techno zombies combined with a dark post-apocalyptic wasteland with discussions about mind control and trust is something you could take seriously, this might be up your alley. If that sounds stupid to you, I suspect you won’t like it.
Summary
First Take by GAPJaxie
Worth Reading
You’re a Lesbian, Rainbow Dash by Socks
Not Recommended
Flutterperial by shortskirtsandexplosions
Not Recommended
Suffer in Silence by Pascoite
Not Recommended
One of the Living by Horse Voice
Not Recommended
Hope you all enjoy Independence Day!
Even you non-Americans. We’ll set off some fireworks for you.
Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 136
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 492
Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 1946
Yeah, I admit I was being self-indulgent and purging a lot of weird ideas in one place.
My next one will be a return to form... I think.
4068419 ain't no shame in writing stupid things as long as you admit they're stupid. :B
vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/8/81/Moon_Dancer_in_happy_tears_S5E12.png/revision/latest?cb=20150706150018
You thought it was pretty okay. You really thought it was pretty okay.
That is legitimately way more of a relief than it should be.
More seriously, thank you for the really in-depth review. It'll be awhile before I can get to Girl's Night Out, and it was really nice to see the intended arc of the series go off on a high note. Seeing that the callbacks to the other characters and the first story didn't go unnoticed was very satisfying. And yes, as you surmised, that is the theme of the series. While you may seem alone and your problems overwhelming, friendship can be magic.
4068491
So whose perspective is Girl's Night Out going to be written from?
Man, you're making me want to write something unwholesomely pretentious just to see if you'll be duped by it. Thanks for the free press and happy Independence Day, TD! ^.^
4068599
Well, protip, don't go the Joycean route, it tends not to work for me. Generally more of a sucker for philosophical pieces.
Or, according to Trick Question, things that make Fluttershy cry.
That Horse Voice story sounds amazing @_@
4068627
Yeah, I suspect it is probably up your alley.
4068598
Star Power
4068606 Content over prose, gotcha. I mostly wrote this one as a joke for Rage Reviews, so I figure I'll write another within the week on a more serious bent.
You didn't like this story in its original form, either, even though it finished quite high, whatever information can be gleaned from that. In any case, surprise level: zero. I don't know why I bother reading these things. Morbid curiosity?
4068820
IIRC the original version got most controversial that round.
And, well, I dunno; it felt like it had the same issue as it did in the Writeoff, namely that the ending didn't really do it for me.
4068598 I thought for sure "The riot police" was going to be the answer.
Friendship is Making Bail.
Friends help you. Real friends help you hide bodies.
4068717 I know you're talking about Twilight's actress, but I just couldn't help but think about https://www.fimfiction.net/story/257722/commissar-star-powar.
From the sound of things, Actingverse is dead. Which makes me sad.
4068820
It's literally impossible to please everyone, Pas. Take comfort that you pleased a very high percentage of people, and further in the fact that even those who didn't like an aspect of the story still responded to your writing.
4068878
Your thoughts more or less mirror my own. I genuinely felt for Celestia, and could see her doing this very thing, but the fact that she was put into that Kobayashi Maru to begin with felt so forced, because I don't believe Tirek is capable of this level of cunning.
Further, I have this strong headcanon about Celestia that says she is smarter than depicted in show, which directly clashed with Pas's depiction. I will not say he is wrong on either count, but it didn't work for me, so I was just unsatisfied by everything that followed, no matter how well it was written.
4628074
This is something readers do that I will never understand. I already talked about it in a comment on the story page conversing with Axis_of_Rotation, that I wanted the story to be about Celestia's relationships, not her attempts to get out from under the curse. So I was happy to make a broad statement that she was indeed trying whatever she could, but that if I actually wanted to delve into her doings on that matter, it would significantly lengthen it and put undue focus on somewhere I didn't want it. But I don't know how you then jump from "she was unable to figure a way around it" to "she's not very smart." Smart people can't always get out of bad situations, and it's quite possible Tirek is smart, too, or just devious enough to create a trap she couldn't find a way out of, insofar as that skill isn't necessarily tied to intelligence.
But getting back to my point, I don't understand why readers do this:
1. Find a part of the story they wish had more explanation (how Celestia was unable to escape the trap).
2. Despite there being multiple plausible and simple possibilities, latch onto one that doesn't make sense or that angers the reader (that Celestia was too dumb to find her way out of a trap that she should have been able to).
3. Decide that possibility must be the one the author meant.
I don't think at all that Celestia isn't clever. On the contrary, I like to write her as very intelligent and wise. I don't see what in the story says she isn't.
4647556
Well, on that point, the reason why the reader interprets it in their own way is because you, as the author, are dead. It doesn't matter what you meant at all.
The fact that you can respond and give your own accounting for what you were going for is immaterial. Impressions are made at the time of reading and you can't be there to hold the reader's hand and walk them through your thought process.
And that's fine. You are not responsible for my personal headcanon. It doesn't make your story bad, your writing is top notch, you unfortunately cannot give an explanation that will give me my sense of disbelief back. And, lacking that... all I can do is feel frustrated.
4647639
It's not even that, though. I'm fine with leaving things up to reader interpretation, and if I haven't given them the impression I wanted them to get, then maybe that's my fault, maybe it's an obtuse reader, maybe some of both. But that's a lot more reasonable when talking about fine details that form a collective picture. Whether or not Celestia is dumb is a very broad thing, and if it occurs to a reader that she's dumb, then it should be equally obvious that she might not be, when there's really no evidence either way. It's different than piecing together a bunch of little bits of evidence, where the explanation can be fairly complex. This is literally "Celestia is dumb" versus "Celestia isn't dumb," where even thinking one means implying that the other can exist, yet there's no reason given as to why that possibility was discounted. It's not an issue of something actually there being misinterpreted. It's an issue of something that wasn't even addressed being wholly invented and then held out as clearly being the author's intent.
I mean, if I'm reading a story, I'm trying to fill in some gaps, and I come up with with A: makes sense and I like it, B: makes sense and I don't like it. and C: doesn't make sense, I'm picking A. I'm surprised by how often readers in general, not even of my stories, pick B or C over A, or pick one of those without even bothering to figure out if there can be an A.
4647656
Because I have mentioned the Kobayashi Maru, I feel the simplest way I can explain is to say... I wanted Celestia to Kirk her way out. You gave me Picard instead, who is too busy feeling bad about the virtual death to think outside the box. Picard is not dumb, but he will not solve a problem in a Kirk way.
Your Celestia is likewise not an idiot, but she's not smart in the way she needed to be. I wanted her to be clever, and find a way out for herself. But you needed her not to. Your conflict was about her martyrdom, she needed to suffer. It's a fine idea in and of itself, but while you're focused on her relationship with her sister, I can only seethe because Kirk would have found a way, and all I have here is Picard.
4647668
Ah, but even Kirk couldn't always Kirk his way out of it. Here, Twilight is her Spock, after a fashion, taking on the burden to get the engines running, even though no actual death is involved. Everyone has their match, after all.
Anyway, fair enough. It's a little harder to understand when someone's objection is that they wanted the plot to go a different direction than feeling like some plot element doesn't make sense. Like I've gotten critique before that someone would have preferred to see my premise done as an adventure instead of a comedy, and one who felt like he could never find a rich protagonist sympathetic. I mean, yes, I understand when people want different plot decisions, but it's harder to feel like something actually needs to be done about it. I see where you're coming from, though.