Read It Later Reviews #55 – The Late Twilight Sparkle, Twilight Sparkle Writes a “Dear Seabiscuit” Letter, Private Study Sessions, Keeping Your Hooves on the Ground, Rarity Gets Drunk and Talks to an Apple · 12:03am Aug 29th, 2016
I’ve been spending far too much time playing video games that aren’t actually all that fun, and far too little time reading pony fanfiction. So today, for at least a few hours, I decided to change that.
Today’s stories:
The Late Twilight Sparkle by InsufferableUnicorn
Twilight Sparkle Writes a “Dear Seabiscuit” Letter by InsufferableUnicorn
Private Study Sessions by Steel Resolve
Keeping Your Hooves on the Ground by InsertAuthorHere
Rarity Gets Drunk and Talks to an Apple by Paulicus
The Late Twilight Sparkle
by InsufferableUnicorn
Slice of Life
2,720 wordsYou will be Fluttershy, and you will have difficulty facing what will happen to Twilight.
Why I added it: It was recommended to me.
Review
Fluttershy is feeling guilty for not coming along to… see Twilight off, and has to confront all of her friends about her decision.
This story has a twist in it, but unfortunately, the twist kind of ends up robbing the rest of the story of meaning, as I’m not sure that it actually makes any real kind of sense post-twist. The Ending Changes Everything is a powerful trope, but if it changes everything to something that doesn’t really end up feeling particularly coherent – something that the story itself points out – it just kind of ends up falling flat.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Twilight Writes a “Dear Seabiscut” Letter
by InsufferableUnicorn
Romance, Sad
1,049 wordsTwilight Sparkle is breaking up with Fluttershy, if only she can find the words.
Why I added it: The title.
Review
Twilight writes a letter to break up with Fluttershy, because she can’t bring her to confront her verbally.
Trick Question always says that the way to make me love a story is to make Fluttershy cry.
I deny this vociferously.
And then a story like this comes along and I like it and I feel like I’m playing to type.
This story is good because it points out all the flaws in Fluttershy and Twilight – all the things which would make it very hard to have a relationship with them – and uses them to construct a narrative. We see Twilight and Fluttershy’s relationship falling apart – or having already fallen apart – due to the flaws of the two characters. We see some of Twilight’s problems – coming off as lecturing people, struggling with self-esteem, having trouble concealing her annoyance, ect. And we see Fluttershy’s passive-aggressive nature, as well as her tendency to bottle things up until she is pushed too far and causes problems, and her struggle with confronting issues when they first arise.
If you’re interested in seeing a study of what flaws these two characters might have in a relationship, this is well worth your time.
Just realize that this is not a story with a happy ending.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Private Study Sessions
by Steel Resolve
Comedy, Romance, Slice of Life
2,945 wordsAs the sun gives way to the night, a pegasus knocks on a window. She has a secret. One that, if revealed, would shame her forever. Yet she can't stay away.
Why I added it: It was one of the first TwiDash shipfics I read. Also, Steel Resolve is a good writer.
Review
Rainbow Dash sneaks over to Twilight’s house every week to study with her. Or possibly to study Twilight, given the looks she’s giving her friend. Fortunately, Twilight doesn’t seem to notice them.
Twilight looks forward to her weekly study sessions with Rainbow Dash. Or possibly her weekly study sessions of Rainbow Dash, given the looks she’s giving her friend. Fortunately, Rainbow Dash doesn’t seem to notice them.
This is, perhaps, the most primordial form of the “Twilight and Rainbow Dash read together and end up kissing” story. It probably wasn’t the first, but it has a very archetypal form to it.
This is something I remembered liking when I joined the fandom, to the point where it made it into my favorites folder; alas, time and reading many, many other stories have not been kind to this, and it is obvious now upon re-reading it that this is very much a “they kiss because the audience wants them to” situation; there’s really not much more depth to it than that, and their attraction for each other is not very well developed.
There’s a bit of comedy at the end of this which still makes me chuckle, and Rainbow Dash’s initial section is a bit funny, as Rainbow Dash’s point of view is wont to be at times. That being said, the real attraction of this story is Twilight and Rainbow Dash kissing, and unless you really want to see them kiss, there’s little reason to read this.
Recommendation: If you’re a big-time TwiDash shipper who doesn’t mind a lack of development of the ship and are in the mood for something light-hearted, this might be up your alley. If you don’t ship TwiDash, this isn’t going to be the story that convinces you to do so; go read Twilight’s List.
Keeping Your Hooves On The Ground
by InsertAuthorHere
Comedy, Slice of Life
8,035 wordsThe Cutie Mark Crusaders ask Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy about what happened just after the events of the Cutie Mark Chronicles; specifically, what happened to Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash immediately after the race. Reluctantly, Dash and Fluttershy delve into a tale. A tale of a young Fluttershy's amazement at the world she had landed upon, and a filly Dash's desperate quest to save her from that most evil of places: THE GROUND.
Why I added it: Bookplayer recommended it on her user page.
Review
After Rainbow Dash’s race, she realizes that her friend Fluttershy has fallen from the clouds to the *gulp* ground. There’s only one thing for her to do – go down and save her from the horrible monsters that live there!
Fluttershy is amused.
Told via a frame story of Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash telling the story to the Cutie Mark Crusaders, this is mostly a fluff piece with comedic elements to it – Rainbow Dash is scared of the ground due to stories her parents told her and her own overactive imagination, and is somewhat hapless. But mostly this is more of a slice of life piece about Rainbow Dash befriending Fluttershy and finding out that the ground won’t actually eat you if you touch it.
This is a very old story, dating all the way back to May of 2012. And unfortunately, it kind of shows its age.
A lot of very early pony fanfiction had a certain telly, rambly slow-paced quality to them which ended up aging poorly. Of course, we’re all guilty of writing mis-paced stories from time to time, but these early stories seem to somehow manage to make stuff take longer than it needs to. They also often are afflicted with LUS, which this story shows traces of.
Ultimately, while this story is silly and fluffy, it doesn’t feel very substantive, and the cover art manages to encapsulate about 80% of what the story does in just a single image. It isn’t bad, but it just sort of feels diffuse, and the emotional climax at the end undercuts itself by being overly telly.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Rarity Gets Drunk and Talks to an Apple
by Paulicus
Comedy, Random
1,649 wordsAfter a stressful week at the boutique, Rarity decides to unwind at a local drinking establishment. Things quickly get out of hand.
"A gripping tale of mystery and intrigue!" - No one ever
"Love, laughter, tears. This story has it all!" - Don't quote me on that
"One of the seminal works of our generation. Truly a masterpiece." - Voice in my head
"You're adopted." - My mother
Why I added it: Rarity, Applejack, and that cover art.
Review
Rarity and Applejack go to the bar to celebrate Rarity finishing one of her orders. After a couple ciders, Applejack heads back home to finish up her work for the day, but Rarity stays, with only one of Applejack’s apples for company.
She then gets drunk enough to spend all evening talking to it.
I don’t know what I expected.
This is one of those jokefics where the joke is pretty much the title of the story. While some of Rarity’s rambling is vaguely amusing, I have to admit that in the end it didn’t end up really making me laugh or even smile. There really isn’t anything more to it than Rarity getting drunk and talking to an apple, and so I was sort of left at the end feeling like the cover art did what the story was trying to do much more succinctly.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Summary
The Late Twilight Sparkle by InsufferableUnicorn
Not Recommended
Twilight Sparkle Writes a “Dear Seabiscuit” Letter by InsufferableUnicorn
Worth Reading
Private Study Sessions by Steel Resolve
Not Recommended
Keeping Your Hooves on the Ground by InsertAuthorHere
Not Recommended
Rarity Gets Drunk and Talks to an Apple by Paulicus
Not Recommended
I had never read anything by InsufferableUnicorn before, and alas, probably never will again, seeing as they only ever wrote three stories for the site, the third is incomplete, and they have been gone for almost exactly three years ago now.
Still, the Twilight Sparkle letter-writing story was a pleasant surprise.
I have to admit my fic backlog is getting a little out of control; I broke out my “Read It Later” from “Read It Eventually” when bookshelves were established to try and prioritize my reading, then I broke out my “Read It Sooner” bookshelf from that to try and prioritize further. Now I’ve got my “You’re Next” shelf which presently has 11 stories on it… and I didn’t read anything off of it for this review set because they’re all longer stories and I was looking for a quick fix.
Clearly, I just need to sit down this week and devote several solid hours to reading stories like Lost Time and The First Time You See Her.
But whenever I do, I end up feeling like I should be writing instead.
Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 154
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 540
Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 1962
Ah, you bought No Man's Sky as well?
You've got an img tag around Paulicus for some reason. As perhaps could be expected, it's not working properly.
4178451
Was off by a line there. Put his name instead of the image tag, and nothing in place of AUTHOR. Fixed it.
And no, wasn't playing No Man's Sky. Was playing Hexcells. And The Beginner's Guide.
The only game I've played in the last week which was actually fun was Expand.
Don't you hate it when people know you well? :V
4178487
It is just such an oddly specific thing!
A conditional recommendation is more than fair. I wasn't trying to write the perfect shipfic with PSS. I wanted light and fun twidash.
A fair and accurate review. KYHotG is an old story I mostly threw together over a few days, and the focus really on more on cuteness than substance. I definitely agree that it hasn't held up well. Thanks for giving it a look, Dragon.
You haven't read Lost Time? Go go go!
You haven't read The First Time You See Her?!?
Remedy that, stat!!!
4178466
The Beginner's Guide was not "fun" in the slightest, but man, that ending validated the time I spent. I think it's one of the few times I was ever blindsided by the story not being on the meta-level I thought it was. (I managed to avoid spoilers, and I bought the game's narrative about Coda right up until the end. It probably helped that I was distracted by the narrator mentioning he lived in Sacramento, and wondering whether we were friends of friends.)
I'll probably avoid Hexcells based on your characterization of it.
I'm trying to spend some time on Nuclear Throne rn — because I played it back in the game-jam days when it was called "Wasteland Kings" and liked it a lot — but the new enemies and especially the bosses are making it a lot harder than it used to be, and I may just not be a good enough twitch gamer to make it past world 3. :( I may have to do some web research and see if there are particular weapon/mutation combos that are OP enough to give me a shot. Crossbow + homing bolts so far has gotten me the furthest, but there are some situations it has trouble handling.
4180031
The twist was okay, but the rest of the experience bored me terribly. I didn't feel like the twist validated the amount of time I spent on the game.
Yeah, that's a pretty tough game.
Welcome to my life
Hey, neat! Thanks for looking at my "story," (
) sorry you didn't like it though. To be honest I'm surprised such an off-the-cuff idea got much attention at all, haha
4239021
It has amusing cover art
4239110 Indeed. That's the only reason it exists in the first place! ;P