• Member Since 25th Feb, 2013
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Titanium Dragon


TD writes and reviews pony fanfiction, and has a serious RariJack addiction. Send help and/or ponies.

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Mar
10th
2017

Read It Later Reviews #69 – Cutie Mark Crusaders Alpha Pack Leader; Sweet Nothings; Rapunzbelle; The Truth Is…, A Long Time Coming · 11:08pm Mar 10th, 2017

I actually got this review set done before I reviewed Eternal, but I hung onto it so my 1000th posted review would be something special (I’ve actually got most of a Read It Now set done, too).

But with that now read and posted, time to post this!

Today’s stories:

Cutie Mark Crusaders Alpha Pack Leader by Estee
Sweet Nothings by Absolute Anonymous
Rapunzbelle by Violet CLM
The Truth Is… by Crystal Moose
A Long Time Coming by DivinePanzer


Cutie Mark Crusaders Alpha Pack Leader
by Estee
Comedy, Slice of Life
11,090 words

Winona just went into heat. Most of Ponyville's dogs are following Apple Bloom around. The Crusaders see no correlation between those two events. None whatsoever.

But as long as there's a fresh chance to earn a mark, who cares about cause and effect? And consequences? Oh, those never happen.

Well, certainly not because of anything the Crusaders do.

Ever.

Why I added it: Estee is a good writer.

Review
Estee’s universe is generally less cartoony than the show is. But sometimes, it goes the other way, and Estee’s verse is more exaggerated – generally in the direction of cynicism and stupidity.

In Estee’s verse, the Cutie Mark Crusaders are a terrible whirlwind of destruction, whose allowances have been docked until the heat death of the universe, and who never, ever take responsibility for their actions, and for whom nothing is ever their fault (and it would all be justified anyway, in pursuit of the mark).

If that sounds funny to you, then Cutie Mark Crusaders Alpha Pack Leader might just be up your alley, wherein the Cutie Mark Crusaders try to get their cutie marks in leading a pack of dogs and create general mayhem in the process.

That being said, I have to say that this is one of those stories that felt like it wore on me after a while – while the Cutie Mark Crusaders being blissfully ignorant of their own destructiveness is an amusing gag in its own way, this story is 11,000 words long. And unfortunately, it is 11,000 words of more or less the same joke – the Cutie Mark Crusaders being blissfully, even willfully ignorant of their own destructiveness. There’s only so much water that gag can carry in a single story, and I think this story passed that point by halfway through and just kept on beating on it. Humor often relies on twisting expectations, and unfortunately, after you’ve seen the same gag several times, and it gets repeated in the same predictable ways, it really stops being so funny.

This story tried to carry that gag too far, and while it had its bright spots, it wasn’t enough to carry a story of its length, and by the end of it, I was just waiting for it to be over.

Recommendation: Not Recommended.


Sweet Nothings
by Absolute Anonymous

Romance
9,419 words

Rainbow Dash just may be Sugarcube Corner's best customer, even though she can't stand sweets. Pinkie Pie is none the wiser.

Why I added it: I read it a long time ago.

Review
Rainbow Dash comes to Sugarcube Corner whenever Pinkie Pie is working. She will buy two of various treats, even though she never even finishes one and Pinkie Pie often ends up eating both in their entirety. After all, Rainbow Dash doesn’t like sweets – but she does like Pinkie Pie.

She just hasn’t told Pinkie yet, that’s all. But I’m sure she’ll get around to it any day now…

This is a cute story, but its two chapters really feel like they are two short stories set in the same continuity rather than one continuous story. The first chapter details Rainbow Dash going to Sugarcube Corner, and Rainbow Dash’s thoughts as she lingers around and enjoys spending her time just being around Pinkie Pie, as well as her hesitance in pushing things any further. It is a sweet little story, a slice of life which shows Rainbow Dash’s feelings towards her friend, who doesn’t seem to know what is going on, but there are hints here and there that there’s some specialness to their time together for Pinkie, too.

The second chapter reintroduces the premise of the story, and spends a good bit going over ground familiar from the first chapter, which is what makes it feel like a separate short story set in the same continuity rather than a second part to the first story. Rainbow Dash has been going to Sugarcube Corner for a while now, and one day Pinkie Pie drags Rainbow Dash upstairs to sample a variety of sweets for Rainbow Dash’s upcoming party (that Rainbow Dash has somehow completely forgotten about). This second chapter is much less subtle, and is very much a getting together story, and by the end of it, we see them come together as a couple.

While this story as a whole has a very strong central premise (and a cute one at that), the story feels like it drags a little bit in both halves due to repetition. The second chapter in particular feels a bit repetitive because it rehashes a lot of ground from the first chapter, while the first chapter feels like it hits on Rainbow Dash waiting around a bit too much.

On the other hand, it is cute – the first chapter ends on a nice note, and the second one gives the audience what it wants (namely, ponies kissing). I can’t say that I loved it, but story has a nicely fluffy quality to it which, like Pinkie Pie’s desserts, aren’t quite what I wanted, but are still emotionally satisfying.

All that being said, if you’re not already a fan of PinkieDash, or at least open to it, I’m not sure if this is going to be your cup of tea – it more or less requires you to accept the idea that Rainbow Dash would like Pinkie Pie in a romantic sense. It does a reasonable job of creating that aura, but this isn’t going to be the story that sells you on this ship if you don’t already think they’d be cute together.

Recommendation: Worth Reading.


Rapunzbelle
by Violet CLM

Sex, Comedy, Slice of Life
7,312 words

A plan has been made to tell the CMC traditional fairytales as bedtime stories, in order to improve their cultural sophistication. However, the tellers have been embellishing said fairytales to star themselves in central roles: Rarity as Cinderella, and so on. Now it is Fluttershy's turn... and she doesn't think she's up to the task.

The CMC agree with her there, but they have a plan to help her out, no matter how much unavoidable property damage occurs along the way.

Why I added it: I liked Friendship is Physics, and someone recommended this one in Tumbleweed’s blog post asking for stories to read.

Review
There are stories which are subtle in their humor.

This is not one of those stories.

This was originally written to be part of a series of stories, where each of the Mane Six told a fairy tale to the Cutie Mark Crusaders, but modified it by putting themselves in the lead role.

But Fluttershy isn’t so good at coming up with such things on the fly, so the Cutie Mark Crusaders take things into their own hooves and rewrite the story themselves.

A very terrible play ensues.

This story is silly. It contains some lovely puns, oblivious characters, Fluttershy being mortified, traces of comedic sociopathy, the Cutie Mark Crusaders being unholy terrors, and a brick joke that made me laugh out loud at the end of the piece.

What this story isn’t is particularly coherent – the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ story itself is rather shoddily put together (and deliberately and comically so), but the story as a whole doesn’t really have much of a point apart from making a lot of jokes with a loose frame story existing as an excuse to make said jokes. There is no real central theme to the story as a whole – it isn’t trying to communicate any sort of grander idea, nor is there anything more to the events than a series of things that happened, and no one really learns anything or develops much as a character.

But it is funny, and I smiled and giggled a few times while reading it, even if it didn’t really come together as a piece.

Recommendation: Worth Reading if you want to smile and don’t mind the lack of a greater whole.


The Truth Is…
by Crystal Moose

Comedy, Fakeout
1,039 words

Pinkie Pie has kept a secret from her friends, from everypony, for most of her life. She dares not share it, what would ponies think? Would she end up alone?

Why I added it: I read it a long time ago (probably because someone linked to it from Peak Performance, but forgot what it was about.

Review
This is a fakeout fic – one of those stories that seems to be about one thing but actually is about another. It doesn’t have a lot to it, which is why it comes in so close to the mandated FIMFiction word limit, and it requires a slight amount of (pretty common) outside knowledge to “get”.

Still, I have to admit it amused me, but there isn’t anything here but the fakeout. This might be better as one of those things you add to your Read Later shelves, then actually read later, so you don’t remember what it is, because there isn’t much else to it.

Recommendation: Not Recommended unless you like fakeout fics.


A Long Time Coming
by DivinePanzer

Drama, Sad
2,333 words

Princess Celestia has been keeping a secret from Twilight Sparkle. When confronted with her student's confession, she finds she can no longer keep quiet.

Why I added it: I was asked to review it.

Review
Twilight comes to Celestia to confess her love, only to be turned down by the elder alicorn. But after being rejected, Celestia opens up to Twilight about her own hopes and fears.

This story feels a bit disjointed. While it might make some logical sense for Twilight’s confession to Celestia (and Twilight’s own feelings of inadequacy when rejected) to trigger Celestia talking about how she herself is not perfect, and how Twilight shouldn’t feel unworthy, the problem is that this pulls us in one direction, and then abruptly jerks us in the other as the story shifts topics very dramatically. Twilight confessing to Celestia is a Big Thing, and Twilight is upset by it, but because there isn’t much focus on it, it makes it hard to put ourselves in the proper emotional mindset for Twilight for the rest of the story.

The story then ends up veering off into Crylestia territory, as we end up with Celestia crying over the various mistakes she’s made. The problem here is that you don’t actually want characters like Celestia to cry too soon; Celestia is a strong character, and her crying is something that needs to be built up to. If you’re going to crush Celestia’s spirit, it needs to be built up to in the story, but Celestia is crying quite early here, and only after a fairly marginal amount of speech.

Celestia crying is potentially powerful – showing a crack in a strong character’s demeanor is potentially heady stuff. But we need to get the gut punch before she starts crying, and here, there just isn’t enough of a gut punch to make us feel sad. We just get a bunch of stuff listed off from the show, but it isn’t lent additional powerful subtext, like we see in stories like ChronicLurker’s A Lot to Think About, or a slow burn build up of soul-crushing things, like we see in Estee’s Blessing. Making a character cry too soon cheapens the tears – it is like telling the audience that they should be sad, but if the story hasn’t properly built up to it, it doesn’t really work right, and ends up actually emotionally distancing the audience from the piece.

Ideally, the characters should be tearing up around when the audience is, to reinforce what they’re feeling. This story, alas, doesn’t really earn its emotional bite, and as such, it never really touched me.

Recommendation: Not Recommended.


Summary
Cutie Mark Crusaders Alpha Pack Leader by Estee
Not Recommended

Sweet Nothings by Absolute Anonymous
Worth Reading

Rapunzbelle by Violet CLM
Worth Reading

The Truth Is… by Crystal Moose
Not Recommended

A Long Time Coming by DivinePanzer
Not Recommended

I hope that, by the time this was posted, A Thousand Roses has already hit the shelves. If not, bug me about it, because it is time for Future TD’s problem to be Present TD’s problem.

Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 168

Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 595

Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 2094

Comments ( 11 )

Ah, a PinkieDash story, one of the ships I'm more fond of. Will have to give it a go.

Also, missing a [ on the /center tag in the summary section.

4451002
Whoops, thanks!

And yeah. Absolutely Anonymous loved PinkieDash. She was also a good writer. You should definitely check out her works if you like that ship, because she wrote a number of PinkieDash things.

Wow, thanks for the review! Given your backlog, I really wasn't expecting you to get to it so soon.

Yeah, I knew it wasn't very good. I just don't grok romance, so I didn't want to come up with reasons for Twilight's confession, or just ape other story ideas. As for Celestia...to quote my blog: "Lesson Zero was a terrible situation for a number of reasons, but I realized that I had never seen a story tackle it from Celestia's POV. How badly would it crush her to realize that Twilight didn't know her at all?" It sounds like I failed to convey that it was supposed to be a sudden break, or perhaps it just didn't work.

As for mood whiplash, are you referring to the shift to comedy at the end? I couldn't figure out how Twilight was supposed to react. After a couple days the prank came to me. Was never real happy with it.

Thank so much for the critiques!

4451021
You're welcome!

As for the mood - it wasn't about the ending, really, it was actually about the start. We start out with Twilight confessing to Celestia, and getting rejected... which sets off this whole thing. The thing is, this was already an upsetting thing for Twilight, so we're thrown face-first into an upsetting situation with no real build-up. Lacking that build-up, it is hard to really buy into Twilight's damaged emotional state at the beginning because we're supposed to go from 0 to crushed in... a few paragraphs?

We then end up with Celestia crying very early on as well, again without significant buildup.

Characters crying can help to bring the audience along with them, but characters - especially strong ones like Celestia - crying at the start of a story can leave the audience left behind, because we haven't had the same emotional buildup that the character has had off-screen. The result is that we don't end up being as touched by their emotional state as would be desirable.

It is possible to start a story off with someone in tears, but the problem is that this can distance us from their emotional state before we really get into why they are unhappy, which makes it harder for us to really get our sympathy going.

Something smashing into the audience is not necessarily bad (and can actually be used to great effect), but without any sort of built-up baseline, it won't feel as impactful. This throws one big thing, then another at the audience, and we don't really have the space to get into the characters' emotional shoes before they're tearing off even further away from us.

4451017 Oh, I've read the others AA wrote. Sort of a given with TGWP, as that's pretty much the flagship for that particular pairing. Just missed this one.

Are you sure you like Estee? Every time I see one of their stories put on here it's because "Estee is a good writer" yet you don't seem to recommend any of them.

4451051
Over half of what Estee writes gets a WR or better, and they've gotten a number (8+) of recommendeds/highly recommendeds (Five Hundred Little Murders is even on my Fifteen Stories You Should Read list). Estee writes a lot of stories, and I plan on reading everything of theirs written within the Tryptych verse, so... yeah, that's a lot of stuff, so there's a fair number of NRs just because even if over half of 70 stories are worth reading, that still is going to be... well, dozens of NRs.

Heck, back in Read It Later Reviews #68 (which was the previous set of Read It Later reviews) I gave The Hypocrisy of Tolerance a Worth Reading.

...I haven't posted many review sets in a long time. :fluttercry:

4451051 My impression is that it depends upon where they are placed. The ones with a description that more appeals to TD wind up in Read It Now, and on the whole, wind up favorably reviewed. Read It Later gets the ones where the description doesn't hook TD as much, and there their "Worth Reading" percentage is quite a bit lower. So basically the stories from the big writers get pre-filtered a bit that way.

4451111
Really, with Estee stories, it honestly is mostly subject matter, repetition, and how well the story they're telling works with the style they use. Estee doesn't believe in things like "being succinct" or "style variation"; they have a particular writing style and they stick to it. It works very well with some stories - Blessing, Five Hundred Little Murders, Naked Lunch, Twilight Sparkle vs The Equestrian Constellation Registry, ect. - but with other stories, the style ends up coming off as rambly. Moreover, Estee has certain... tics, they might be called, and some of their stories end up being a bit repetitive because they end up hitting on the same point too many times.

iw ish i had joined the fandom back when absolute anonymous was around! :(

4451053
Wow they are prolific haha. I've already went through and read all your Fifteen Stories. Excellent suggestions!

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