Read It Now Reviews #93/FlutterDash Contest Reviews #1 – She Changed My World, Night Flight, The Music Box, The Last One, Stagnancy · 4:37am Oct 26th, 2016
As mentioned in my blog, the FlutterDash group ran a contest, challenging folks to write a FlutterDash story for a $60 prize.
We got 19 entries. 19!
Apparently people think they’re adorable together. Or at least make a good pair of friends, as a good number of the stories ultimately ended up being more about their friendship than them nuzzling.
We announced the winner in a group forum post, but as promised, I am posting reviews of all the individual stories in the contest.
This review set will contain the story I put in third place; the next will contain the story I put in second place, and the final will contain the story I put in first place. Note, however, that these were my personal rankings; the overall rankings are, as noted, already announced on the FlutterDash forum.
Today’s stories:
She Changed My World by Beanzoboy
Night Flight by Alphamon_Ouryuken
The Music Box by Harmony Pie
The Last One by 97xxfastbike
Stagnancy by PegasusMesa
She Changed My World
by Beanzoboy
Alternate Universe, Equestria Girls, Sad, Slice of Life
1,921 wordsDays after a tragedy took the life of a friend, Rainbow has to deal with letting go.
Why I added it: FlutterDash contest!
Review
This is a very drawn-within-the-lines graves fic. A character is dead, everyone else is sad, and the story ends with them going to their grave/funeral and finally acknowledging that fact (and exactly who died) to the audience.
Sadly, this story didn’t really do anything different there; there’s very little unique about this story, and as such, it didn’t really move me. It didn’t even really do much that was unique either to Rainbow Dash or to Fluttershy, the two main characters in it – the characters didn’t feel like they had much character here. Consequently, there wasn’t much here to make me feel for Rainbow Dash and her friends – it was just kind of a story that was telling the audience to be sad with fairly obvious cues, but didn’t actually do anything to earn the emotion, and the conclusion lacked any shock value because such stories often end with the reveal of the grave.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Night Flight
by Alphamon_Ouryuken
Comedy, Romance
1,643 wordsWhile stargazing one night, Rainbow Dash spots a suspicious creature sneaking into Sweet Apple Acres. Upon pursuing it however, she comes across a familiar face... who seems to regressed to her little batpony phase...
Why I added it: FlutterDash contest!
Review
Rainbow Dash spots someone sneaking into Sweet Apple Acres during the night. Flying in after them, Rainbow Dash catches…
Fluttershy?
Except she’s actually Flutterbat, and hisses at her.
Thus follows Rainbow Dash trying to figure out how to get Fluttershy to Twilight’s castle and get her cured. Again.
This story felt kind of pointless; not a whole lot really happened, and it didn’t really do anything to develop the characters. Rainbow Dash didn't seem to be particularly changed by the experience, while Fluttershy wasn't herself in the story, and in the end, it more or less seemed to suggest it would just get fixed the next day and nothing really would have changed other than Rainbow Dash having a mildly embarrassing experience. It was just kind of a series of events.
I’m not even sure that it did anything to really earn the romance tag, as there was no real romantic relationship between the characters in the story, and while it was, I suppose, a sort of embarrassing situation for Rainbow Dash, it didn't end up making me laugh, either.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
The Music Box
by Harmony Pie
Romance, Sad, Slice of Life
4,319 wordsFluttershy was ready to enjoy a nice, cozy night by herself on Hearth's Warming Eve. That is, until Rainbow Dash arrived on her snowy doorstep and turned Fluttershy's whole world upside down with three little words.
Why I added it: FlutterDash contest!
Review
Rainbow Dash shows up half-frozen on Fluttrshy’s doorstep after a doozy of a snowstorm. Carrying some saddlebags and frozen to the bone, Rainbow Dash has something she really, really needs to tell Fluttershy, but she’s rambling a bit and having trouble spitting it out for some reason.
Also, she keeps blushing.
I wonder what her secret is?
Yes, this is a confession story, but it doesn’t quite end up following the usual track for such things – about 2/3rds of the way through, we find out that this story isn’t going quite the way it seemed like it would at first, and it is at this point that the story breaks from the stereotypes a bit and goes off in another direction. And this is a good thing, because it ends up surprising the reader a bit by not being yet another samey shipfic.
That being said, the story, up to that point, feels not only paint-within-the-lines, but it also feels very slow-paced. It is not as if we don’t know what’s going on, and Rainbow Dash ends up feeling like a bit of a blushy mess beyond what I’d expect. The conversation feels a bit unnatural at times. We do get some background on them, which is good, but it also feels more than a bit muddled. The Fall Formal particularly stuck out to me – we’re told later on in the story that Rainbow Dash has always had a crush on Fluttershy, but at the formal we see them going on dates with other ponies and Rainbow Dash seeming to be happy about it. Had there been something more to this – Rainbow Dash having not had a date and just pretending so she could be happy for Fluttershy, maybe even setting up Fluttershy’s date herself to make her beloved happy, Rainbow Dash being in denial, or perhaps that being a point of realization – it would have felt more significant. But instead we just see them acting like normal friends, which is fine, but it feels like it doesn’t add as much to the story as it might have with additional subtext, and it undermines the idea of Rainbow Dash having always had a crush on Fluttershy, which is something we’re told later on.
That being said, I did appreciate that it actually surprised me – it seemed like it was going down one route, and then changed its mind and did something else with it. The ultimate resolution of the story, while it did not fully resolve the piece, wasn’t actually supposed to bring about full emotional closure – rather, it was intended to leave the wound a bit unhealed, leaving us with some sense of closure, but also the sense of something still hurting a bit, which is precisely how the characters were at the end.
That being said, the piece as a whole didn’t quite feel like it came together for me. Its strong points were countered by its weaknesses and niggling bits of fridge logic, and while the ending was decent, the piece as a whole didn’t move me.
Recommendation: This ended up placing third in my own ranking of contest entries, but ultimately was the winner of the contest. Congrats!
The Last One
by 97xxfastbike
Drama, Slice of Life
2,478 wordsRainbow Dash struggles to come to terms with her fealings of jealousy and envy on the day of Fluttershy's special event.
Why I added it: FlutterDash contest!
Review
Rainbow Dash is the last one. Twilight was first, then Applejack, then Rarity, then Pinkie Pie… and then Fluttershy? How can everypony else go before her? She’s awesome! She’s amazing!
She’s in last place.
This story had an interesting core idea to it, but it seems like it is dancing around the central purpose of the story (it makes it out to be about getting married) in a kind of awkward manner, and I think that could have been executed a bit more strongly. Unfortunately, I had the reveal of what it was really about spoiled to me, so I'm not sure what the impact would have been with it; but without it, it did nothing for me.
My largest issue with it, however, was the ending; beyond seeming kind of arbitrary, it just didn’t touch me. The story was meant to convey Rainbow Dash’s feelings of being left behind, but it doesn’t feel like that plot is really fully resolved emotionally, and then the ending of the story renders it all moot anyway (for reasons that still don’t really make sense – why can’t Rainbow Dash remember what was going on?). It just feels like a kind of contrived happy ending, and Rainbow Dash doesn’t come to accept it or even really grow as a person because of it.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Stagnancy
by PegasusMesa
Drama, Romance
3,642 wordsRainbow Dash has a wonderful life. A great job, wonderful friends, and a beautiful mare she loves to come home to. At least, she used to love coming home to her.
What do you do when it feels like the chain has slipped in your relationship? Rainbow Dash doesn't know, and until she finds out, her wonderful life isn't quite as wonderful as it seems.
Why I added it: FlutterDash contest!
Review
Rainbow Dash works late in order to avoid coming home to Fluttershy. Wandering around Ponyville afterwards, she finds herself at Carousel Boutique and ends up having a chat with Rarity. After Rarity realizes something is wrong, she talks about a book she totally read which is not at all meant to be analogous to Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy’s relationship problems.
The biggest problem with this story is that it is kind of generic; the underlying situation is that there’s something wrong between Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, but we never actually know what it is. We just know that Rainbow Dash doesn’t like coming home to Fluttershy the way she used to, and is in fact avoiding it, and that they’re not talking about it.
And while all of that is believable, I don’t feel like I ever really get a good handle on Rainbow Dash’s perspective in all this – the story tells me how she’s feeling, but it never really tells me why. And without that piece of the puzzle, it ultimately feels hard for me to empathize with her in the way that I should be doing. And as this story is, at its crux, about transmitting that emotion, it left me feeling kind of flat at the end.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Summary
She Changed My World by Beanzoboy
Not Recommended
Night Flight by Alphamon_Ouryuken
Not Recommended
The Music Box by Harmony Pie
Third Place (though first overall – Congrats!)
The Last One by 97xxfastbike
Not Recommended
Stagnancy by PegasusMesa
Not Recommended
And there we go!
Set two of these will be coming out tomorrow.
Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 162
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 545
Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 2034
Am I the only one that doesn't really like FlutterDash?
4271644 yes. The only one in the whole world. You stand alone...
We didn't wanna tell you this but... you are the cheese.
4271644 There's always some people who don't like a specific shipping. You're never alone.
4271644
FlutterDash is a secondary ship for me. My big ones are RariJack, Flarity/Rarishy, Twilestia, AppleDash, TwiDash, and I suppose Lyrabon. Ironically I haven't actually posted an AppleDash, TwiDash, RariShy, or LyraBon story, though I have a TwiDash one about 80% done, another done but in need of heavy revision, and an AppleDash one that I need to heavily revise as well.
But I don't not-ship FlutterDash so much as I'm just ambivalent about it. As long as it makes for a good story, I'm in, but I don't go out of my way to read FlutterDash stories.
I think there's a lot of casual FlutterDash fans - it is a pretty popular ship but it isn't a ship where people are deeply enthusiastic about it to the point of getting stuff into the FB all the time.
I'll be honest. None of the entries really blew me away, so I had to do some exhaustive thinking in order to decide on a first place.
4271732
Only one story in the whole competition got the coveted "Recommended" from me.
4271739
Maybe next time
4271728 Wow and people will downvote any simple statement of opinion. It just never made much sense to me. Given the clues you can pick up from the series, they're not that close and seem to barely even know one another.
Clearly, PinkDash and TwiDash are best.
4271763
Heh, not surprised you got downvoted; this was linked to from the FlutterDash group (for the record, I didn't downvote the comment).
Never really understood comment upvoting/downvoting, seeing as it has... no effect on anything.
4271763
See, but this opinion shows that you are a handsome and intelligent person. :V
4271856 Of course :V
Hey, Titanium Dragon,
I am exceedingly grateful for your unflinching review of "The Last One". At the time I published it, I felt I had a shot. Then when it received a lackluster response... well, I had trouble seeing its flaws.
I don't have anyone near me who could give me educated criticism on "The Last One" before publishing, and part of that was due to my due-date scramble to finish it. The other part was just how scarce truly good critics are. Constructive critics who know what they are talking about, and can manage to inform the author without the author feeling like they are being pilloried. Entering this contest for me was totally worth it, just for the review.
Thanks for going beyond just simple judging and offering honest observations for both the readers and authors.
PS. What is your opinion of stories that (like mine) lead the reader one way, only to reveal something else?
Do you believe it adds anything?
4272255
Like all tropes, it is mostly a matter of execution. I don't think it worked well in this story because the story is ultimately about Rainbow Dash feeling left behind, and hiding what she's feeling left behind about actually made it harder to empathize with her, because knowing that it was about not ascending to alicornhood vs not getting married are kind of different things - not getting married implies loneliness, not having someone, whereas not ascending to alicornhood inspires feelings of being overshadowed. While both contain the idea of inadequecy, there's a lot of differences in the subtext between them, and it made it harder to really grok how Rainbow Dash was feeling.
I'm also not quite sure what it was meant to add by subverting the reader's expectation about what was really going on.
Stories like Bad Horse's Trust use a twist ending to make the audience realize an additional layer of significance/meaning, which makes the audience take the story more seriously, as well as give them a little thrill of discovery. The story's central theme is reinforced by the twist ending.
Horse Voice's The Writing on the Wall... well, I won't spoil it. If you haven't read it, go read it; it is one of the best stories I've ever read, and even non-pony people appreciate it. Avoid the comments, they spoil the twist.
ShortSkirtsAndExplosions' Scoots' Company uses the recontextualization of the end of the piece to recast the story in a much more melancholic light.
I've written stories which subverted the reader's expectations myself (Ruin Value, I Have This Friend, Through Glass), but they are more "The ending changes everything" type stories, where the ending recontextualizes the rest of the piece in order to lend it a different meaning (I Have This Friend plays it for laughs, while Ruin Value recontextualizes the significance of the events in the story and lends it a new meaning and Through Glass changes the primary subject of the piece). In both I Have This Friend and Ruin Value, the primary character being empathized with has their emotions clearly shown by the story, and the reader understands where they're coming from emotionally - in the former story, the point of view character's feelings are meant to be felt by the audience directly, while in the latter, the recontextualization lends a sort of sense of hope to the story as we know things that the character doesn't. In Through Glass, we're told what the mare trying on hats is trying to do and we can guess what it is she's feeling, but when we realize just who the mare is, it adds additional depth to Rarity's words and gives us a better idea of how Rarity is feeling about the situation.
It can be done well. But a lot of the time, it actually serves to obfuscate the meaning of the story, or is just obfuscation for the sake of obfuscation (this was the problem with the first draft of Through Glass, incidentally; the original version of it hinged entirely on the obsfucation and didn't really have any additional depth of meaning). Ideally, a recontextualizing twist should either reinforce the theme of the story, make a reader think more deeply about the story, shock the reader about what they've read, or make the reader laugh. It should add to the depth of emotion, not distance the reader from the piece. If your obfuscation gets in the way of your theme or making the audience care about the character, if you have to be too vague about what is going on, not only can this distance the audience from the story, but it can also give away the fact that there *is* a twist as the vagueness makes it obvious that there is some sort of twist coming, and thus the reader is less surprised when they get there.
Ideally, when you have a recontextualization, you should be able to write the story in just as detailed a fashion before and after the recontextualizing twist. If you have to skimp on detail to hide your recontextualization, you end up with the reader feeling less sucked in.
That doesn't mean you can't hide stuff, but it does mean you can't hide stuff via lack of detail and vagueness.
4272425
I'm guessing my story would fall under the "not recommended" category, right?
4272456
Shhhhhh.
But yes, it ended up getting a :| from me.
4272480
S'Kay. At least I won; that was pretty exciting, especially considering the fact that everyone else was probably twice my age. I hope one day, if possible, I can write something that meets your : ) standard.
4272621
Including a multiple-times published author!
He's probably like... 4x your age though.
4272680
Whoa, really? He's a published author?!
I aspire to be one someday, if I learn enough from people like you