Read It Now Reviews #96 – FlutterDash Contest Reviews #4 – Unexpected Reunion, Learning How to Date, Changed Mares

The final set of reviews for the FlutterDash contest. Sorry I missed posting this yesterday – I ended up feeling kind of terrible and slept for like 12 hours, and thus totally forgot to post this. Feeling a lot better today, though.

Today’s stories:

Unexpected Reunion by NintendoGal55
Learning How to Date by Fircoal
Changed Mares by Typoglyphic

---

Unexpected Reunion
by NintendoGal55

Human, Romance, Slice of Life
8,684 words

Rainbow Dash is away at college and living the life. However, for some time now, she's been seeking out an individual known as "Mister Enigma", but feeling unable to approach him. There's something about this guy she can't put her finger on.

However, life truly is full of surprises as she connects the dots between the past and the present.

Why I added it: FlutterDash contest!

Review
Rainbow Dash has noticed this cute guy at college, but whenever she wants to talk to him, for some reason chickens out. But he reminds her of somebody that she used to know…

Pinkie Pie helps her finally ask him out. Or makes him – before he asks out her Twi-Twi.

This is a story about human versions of the characters, and is very AU – the mane 6 don’t really know each other very well in this reality, and it isn’t the Equestria Girls verse, either, though it does bear some superficial resemblance. This ends up being a bit pointless, though, because most of them barely feature in this story, and they all seem friendly enough towards Rainbow Dash anyway.

Honestly, I wasn’t a huge fan of this piece. This is one of those “all the mane six are in lesbians with one of their friends” stories, where there are three couples (PinkieTwi, RariJack, and FlutterDash), which always seem like they lead to a bit of convolution and a barrier to entry as we have to accept a whole lot of ships without a whole lot of up-front to them. And given that this story barely even focuses on them, it ended up feeling like a bit of a distraction.

But the real issue with this is that it all feels a bit muddled. Rainbow Dash being shy feels strange, and she always feels kind of weird throughout the piece. There’s the whole “what is this feeling” thing (it’s a crush! Seriously!), there’s her avoidance, she just doesn’t feel very brash and Rainbow Dashy… and I just never really put myself in her shoes. She likes the mysterious boy because he likes Fluttershy, but I never really felt like I got a good grasp of why she liked Fluttershy, so I could never really end up rooting for her or even really empathizing with her throughout the piece. The other characters’ presence is kind of ephemeral and feels kind of like “Oh, we need to include the whole cast”, but they don’t really contribute much to the story apart from Pinkie Pie.

I figured out who the mystery guy was very early on in the piece as well, which meant that the reveal of their true identity didn’t really have much surprise value for me.

In the end, I wasn’t really left feeling enamored with this story, and it never really pulled me in.

Recommendation: Not Recommended.

---

Learning How to Date
by Fircoal

Sex, Comedy, Romance, Slice of Life
10,116 words

Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash finally confess that they love each other. Neither of them have been in a relationship before and have no idea what to do. How will things go when they try to figure out what this dating thing is?

Why I added it: FlutterDash contest!

Review
Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy ask each other out at the same time. Awkwardness ensues.

This story is about Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy having no idea wat dating is like, what it means, or really, much of anything about it. They seem to want to hide their relationship at first, then have no idea what is going on.

This story is rather muddled. The whole “not admitting it” sideplot lasts one chapter and doesn’t really feel like it adds anything to the main theme of the story, and the very first chapter also feels kind of like it is just sort of there. The main plot really only takes up the last 3 chapters (~6,000 words) of the piece, making the rest feel kind of extraneous. Rainbow Dash feels kind of off throughout the piece, and while I appreciated her asking Rarity for advice “for a friend”, in the end I never really got into the relationship at all. The characters felt unnaturally awkward – it was an awkward situation, to be sure, but they didn’t even really feel like people, and their sheer clumsiness ended up coming off as a bit weird.

The descriptions, too, felt kind of awkward throughout the piece, as did the dialogue; it all had a faintly unnatural sheen to it.

I liked the core idea – two characters being clueless about how to actually date – but it didn’t ultimately feel all that authentic. The story told me that they wanted to be together, but it never made me believe it. Thus, in the end, I never really ended up rooting for them throughout the piece.

Recommendation: Not Recommended.

---

Changed Mares
by Typoglypic

Drama, Romance
16,925 words

Fluttershy admired Rainbow since their early days together in flight school. As their friendship deepened over the years, her affection grew in kind. Fluttershy was far too nervous to bring it up, and Rainbow seemed to know anyway. So the issue lay dormant—an unspoken acknowledgement between the two.

But Fluttershy isn't the same nervous filly anymore, and some questions never stop demanding answers. What's the worst that could possibly happen?

Why I added it: FlutterDash contest.

Review
This is an interesting story. In fact, while reading it, it was shaping up to be my favorite story in the contest.

And then it ended, and I was left wondering what happened.

This story is split up into three parts. The first chapter is about the past – we see a bunch of scenes of Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash over the years, starting before the show starts, and ending after the Grand Galloping Gala. Here, we’re shown Fluttershy, the total wallflower who can barely even talk to Rainbow Dash – and who thinks that her friend is very attractive, which makes it hard to talk to her.

And we see Rainbow Dash, the confident, brash pony who can get any mare she wants, and who loves that Fluttershy is crushing on her, even if she’s not her type – though the fact that Fluttershy can barely talk to her is a constant source of frustration.

Then we get to the present. Fluttershy is less crushingly afraid of interacting with other people, and is now just a bit shy. And Rainbow Dash is… well, Rainbow Dash.

The real heart of this story is in chapters 2 and 3, and is a sort of interwoven tale – we see Twilight asking her friends to help her hold court and help ponies with their problems, basically acting as rulers of Ponyville. Her friends are skeptical – Applejack in particular is a very busy pony, but Rainbow Dash manages to convince Applejack that a session a week could work, even if Twilight has to do it by herself, as Ponyville continues to grow.

Rainbow Dash, after all, is totally awesome, and while sitting around is probably boring, telling other ponies what to do is just her style.

All of this draws more confidence out of Fluttershy, who, seeing Rainbow Dash’s confidence, finally works up the courage to ask out her friend.

There’s just one problem – Fluttershy isn’t Rainbow Dash’s type, but Rainbow Dash is worried she’s going to crush Fluttershy and return her to her former state of being by saying no.

So Fluttershy decides to do something quite reckless in order to win Rainbow Dash over, which works – albeit at the cost of Rainbow Dash expecting Fluttershy to be someone that Fluttershy can’t really be without suffering.

This is followed shortly thereafter by Rainbow Dash acting recklessly on the council of friendship as they’re holding court, having an argument with the others that, despite this being totally boring and the obvious conflicts of interest that could potentially exist with them being business owners in town, they can totally do this because they’re honest and awesome and who cares?

And then the story ends.

And here’s what bothers the heck out of me – the story doesn’t feel finished at all. There seems to be a central theme here of caution and recklessness, and interestingly, the characters show it at different times. Fluttershy throws caution to the winds in order to date Rainbow Dash, while Rainbow Dash is cautious about dating Fluttershy because she knows Fluttershy isn’t her type. And we also see the consequences of that recklessness, and Rainbow Dash starts to treat Fluttershy as if Fluttershy is a pony who she isn’t. At the same time, the idea of the sacrifices that the Mane 6 have to make in order to help Twilight is a powerful theme (and something I adored from Bookplayer’s In the Service of the Princess of Friendship, a story you should totally check out if the idea at all appeals to you), and the conflict within the circle of friends, as well as the conflict between them and the rest of the town, is very interesting.

But nothing is resolved. The story feels like it is going to keep going – it has no real conclusion, Fluttershy is in a bad place, the Mane 6 have put themselves in an awkward position with the friendship council thing, and all of the tension built up over the course of the story feels like it needs to go somewhere, and it just doesn’t.

I don’t really know what to say about this story. I liked both Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash’s characterization here – Rainbow Dash felt kind of HoofBitingActionOverloady in some ways, but the various contrasting elements of Rainbow Dash’s character are put on full display here and are fun to watch. Fluttershy, too, with her wanting to be brave, wanting to win Rainbow Dash over, and her sort of quiet strength but also terror all work well, and the tension building up inside Fluttershy that leads to her pushing herself to try and be someone else so she can win over Rainbow Dash, combined with that someone else decidedly not being Fluttershy, is just great to see.

I liked the central conflicts. I liked the echoes of the story in other parts of the story. And I loved how messy all the conflicts felt, how the complexity of the situation combined with ponies doing things they didn’t want to do, but felt they had to do for other reasons, and being who they weren’t, was all very interesting.

And I really wanted to see how it all played out.

And then it didn’t.

Recommendation: I can’t really recommend this in its current state, but if it is actually unfinished, and the author just ended it where they did because of the end of the contest looming, I’d really love to see the rest of this story play out.

---

Summary
Unexpected Reunion by NintendoGal55
Not Recommended

Learning How to Date by Fircoal
Not Recommended

Changed Mares by Typoglyphic
Read It Later

And there we have it; all 18 completed contest entries judged!

I started working again on A Thousand Roses today; I’m getting close to the end. Hopefully I’ll get it done this weekend.

Also, for those of you who might be interested, the Writeoff Association has a original fiction writeoff going on this weekend. You have 16 hours from the time of this post to write a 450-750 word original short story; then the folks involved in the contest (including you, if you want!) judge the stories and give feedback. It is pretty great for improving your writing.

Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 159

Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 548

Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 2039

Comments

[Harmony Pie]

Huh. I've never entered before. Sounds fun