Read It Later Reviews #68 – The First Time You See Her, The Hypocrisy of Tolerance, Of Angels, This is a Clopfic, Sometimes Never · 10:52pm Feb 7th, 2017
Sometimes, you just want to read a good story.
This is one of those times.
Today’s stories:
The First Time You See Her by Skywriter
The Hypocrisy of Tolerance by Estee
Of Angels by Paul Asaran
This is a Clopfic by Tumbleweed
Sometimes Never by Blueshift
The First Time You See Her
by Skywriter
Slice of Life, Worldbuilding porn
43,697 wordsIn which Shining Armor receives a promotion, Princess Cadance reunites with an old friend, and cloudfall is finally made.
Why I added it: It’s the sequel to Lady Prisma and the Princess-Goddess, A Princess by Any Other Name, and How to Remove a Unicorn Tooth.
Review
This is really two things. About half of the story is very much a slice of life piece which, frankly, feels like an incomplete story – it is about Princess Cadance going from Canterlot to Cloudsdale, via her old home of Reduit. It really feels like the setup to an adventure – we meet Auric, the immortal griffon who has been watching over her for a thousand years. We see Prisma warn Cadance about danger in Cloudsdale. We get to see Shining Armor meet her for realsies for the first time, and accompany her on her trip. And the story ends when we get to Cloudsdale, with Cadance – a perpetually immature alicorn – finally reaching maturity.
On the other hand, this is a lot of short stories about Cadance’s life spread out over time. We see Auric bringing her to Reduit in the first place. We see some of the ponies who have looked out for Cadance over time. We see Celestia being lonely, and setting her course towards her own mistake-to-be of Sunset Shimmer. And a lot of these stories – including the central one – manage to focus, in one way or another, on the first time someone saw Cadance, and what a huge effect it had on their life.
But what this work really is is worldbuilding porn. The story spends a huge amount of time building up these various pretty ideas about the world that Cadance lives in and her place in it, along with the roles of other alicorns. We see inklings of other things which have happened, grander things, many of which we, the audience, understand as being references to the show –Discord, Chrysalis, and Sombra. And Skywriter spends a lot of time building up his own personal world’s mythology. And it is written in what is often a very grandiloquent manner in order to lend itself more weight.
But alas, it doesn’t really quite feel like it goes anywhere. It really feels like something of an intermediary period – a lead-up to the rest of the Cadance of Cloudsdale cycle that Skywriter has planned. There isn’t some sort of nice, neat conclusion to it, and there is no real sense of rising action – it is a series of events which happen, and while some of the mini-fics have their own unique engagement curves, the piece as a whole does not.
As such, it is hard to really love this unless you are really in love with worldbuilding. If you are, this might be up your alley, but I’d have to recommend reading the other stories in the cycle first.
Alas, its sequel, Spa and Order, is as yet incomplete, so it seems I have caught up with Cadance of Cloudsdale for the moment.
Recommendation: Worth Reading if you are a big fan of worldbuilding.
The Hypocrisy of Tolerance
by Estee
Slice of Life
9,723 wordsThere are ponies who insist on perceiving the Bearers as their Elements, and nothing more. Applejack is seen as having no qualities other than being honest. Rarity simply has to be generous even when doing so would hurt her. And Fluttershy must be kind. To those ponies, if she acted in any other way, no matter what the situation or provocation, it would mean she wasn't truly Kindness at all.
To see kindness as somepony's only possible response to everything is to take the first step in finding ways to abuse it.
To use kindness as the lone option can be worse.
Why I added it: It is the sequel to the excellent Five Hundred Little Murders.
Review
Fluttershy is poor. She at best scrapes by – being an animal caretaker isn’t the best-paying of jobs, she often gets hopeless cases that the ordinary veterinarian in town refuses to touch to avoid spoiling her perfect record, and she has a lot of friends of her own to take care of.
And none of this is helped by a few ponies who take advantage of her kind nature and her shyness to avoid paying up. Caramel is one such pony, and his lies are so regular at this point that Fluttershy can recite them alongside him.
She’s being too much Kindness (or her interpretation of such), and too little Fluttershy. And that is starting to scare those around her.
This is a story about Fluttershy’s inner demons, of her fears of her own powers forcing her animals to be her “friends”, of her refusal to confront those who take advantage of her, and of why it is important not to define yourself by a single trait, be it kindness, generosity, or what have you.
On the one hand, I like this story; it has a fairly simple arc, but it works well enough, and it lends an additional dimension to Fluttershy’s characterization, as well as her relationship with Angel and the general fear of not being kind enough. It also has a good message – that just because you are (positive trait X), doesn’t mean that you are obligated to be (positive trait X) all the time, especially not when others are taking advantage of you or when it costs you too much.
And I have to say, there’s a few moments with some real emotional power here, and the depiction of Fluttershy’s fears – as well as her conversation with Rarity – are real highlights.
On the other hand, this is a pretty simple story that somehow managed to stretch out to very nearly 10,000 words. It is quite verbose and at times a bit repetitive, pounding Estee’s points into the reader’s head. While I appreciate the overall arc, it does feel like it takes longer to get to the point than need be, and while some parts of it (the conversation with Rarity in particular) flow well, it starts off pretty slow and takes a long time to get up a head of steam.
On the whole, I liked it, but if you don’t like slow-paced stories, this is likely to be frustrating to you.
Recommendation: Worth Reading if you don’t mind slow pacing and a bit of repetition.
Of Angels
by PaulAsaran
Slice of Life
4,023 wordsAll his life, Angel Bunny has been plagued by a single question. At long last, he has an answer, and he longs to reveal it. Doing so may be the single most important thing he's ever done, but Angel doesn't know how to deliver the message. After all, rabbits have no need of writing.
Angel needs to learn. Knowing this task is far too important to let his pride get the better of him, Angel does something he never thought he'd do: ask for help. There's only one pony for the job.
Why I added it: The Royal Canterlot Library
Review
Angel wants Twilight to teach him how to read, so that he can write something – in true pony speech – to Fluttershy, to tell her something important.
This story is divided into two parts. The first chapter is a series of conversations between Twilight and Angel (and a couple other characters) in writing, as Twilight teaches Angel how to write. As the story goes on, Angel’s writing improves and we get a better grasp of him as a person. The second chapter is Angel’s letter to Fluttershy.
This is an unusually formatted story, as the first half is more or less the equivalent of a chat log, while the second half is a letter; there’s no normal prose in this, and it is basically all dialogue (or in the case of the second chapter, a letter). But the story does a good job of communicating who the characters are in the writing, as well as developing a bit of backstory for Angel, as well as some of his motivations and what Fluttershy means to him.
If you’re up for a story with some actual dialogue for everyone’s favorite cranky rabbit, and seeing a bit of sweetness to him, this is likely up your alley.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
This is a Clopfic
by Tumbleweed
Sex, Comedy, Random
1,909 wordsIt's not pornography, it's erotica.
Why I added it: Tumbleweed is a good writer.
Review
The title lied; this is not, in fact, a clopfic. Rather, it is a comedy – a very silly one at that. The first half is taken up by perhaps The Worst Clopfic Ever (or at least since Twilight Sparkle’s first attempt at writing one in Naked Singularity), while the second half is a (quite amusing and terrible) explanation of the first half.
I have to admit, this story made me laugh. The deliberately terrible, telly-yet-vague prose of the first half is amusing if you are even vaguely familiar with the premise of, oh, about half of the clopfics on FIMFiction, while the second half contains a lot of slightly more subtle jokes that are quite amusing.
There isn’t really much point to this story beyond making you chuckle, but I have to admit, it made me vocalize my amusement. It will likely achieve the same for you.
Note: this story is M-rated, but I suspect that is to contribute to the joke of the title; it isn’t any worse than stuff like Naked Singularity and Regarding the Need for Sex Education.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Sometimes Never
by Blueshift
Slice of Life
1,952 wordsLuna and Celestia hold a slumber party to celebrate Luna's return from the moon.
Why I added it: I read it a long time ago but couldn’t remember it.
Review
At first glance, this story is a very slice of life story, a fluff piece someone might write about Luna and Celestia back in season 1, before we came to understand who Luna was.
It isn’t.
This is one of those stories which is heavily contingent on the end adding a lot of context to the piece, and to its credit, it keeps it short, so that you don’t spend too long going through the fluff to reach the crunchy bits.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Summary
The First Time You See Her by Skywriter
Worth Reading
The Hypocrisy of Tolerance by Estee
Worth Reading
Of Angels by Paul Asaran
Worth Reading
This is a Clopfic by Tumbleweed
Worth Reading
Sometimes Never by Blueshift
Worth Reading
Five for five? It’s the end of the world as we know it!
I think I’m going to watch an episode of MLP this afternoon (likely Castle-Maneia), then try and get cracking on some writing of my own.
Until then, may you all find things worth reading.
Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 165
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 593
Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 2093
Five for five? Who are you and what have you done with TD?
(Although I'll admit agreeing with you totally on the four in here I've read. The Cadence of Cloudsdale series one of those "I wish I could write like that and I've taken a couple of stabs at it but I don't want to show anything until I *can* make something that meshes and works with it. What I *really* want is the ability to write the second half of another CoC story, Don't Let The Princess Drive The Celestial Phaeton by Ponydora Prancypants, which most likely will never be completed. *sniff*)
Hah! When I mentioned in my review that Tumbleweed is a good writer, I was actually echoing your reviews of his fics. Swing and a hit! :3
Now if you would only read my latest fic4413351
I actually have. It is in my next Read It Now reviews set, but I need to read three more recent stories to fill out the set.
4413325
The real secret of this review post was reading stories I'd been putting off reading (well, and two things I'd read before).
I've got Ciphers; Random; So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, and Friendship 101 open right now. Not sure which I'm going to read next.
4413523 Fish, of course. It's Bluefish... I mean Blueshift's. You just have to set your Lyra Crazymeter to about 8 and flow with it. A mix of Weekend at Bernies and Swiss Army Man, done with ponies and a goldfish.
4413480
I am all a-Facebook :D
Either I've been confused for years about which princess is which, that's a typo, or the conflict over how to spell pink princess name has gotten even worse than I remember.
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THE WAR OVER THE SPELLING WILL NEVER CEASE.
Er, I mean, I fixed it.