Read It Now Reviews #104 – Under Pressure, Passion and Reason, Fifteen Friendships, Blink and You Miss It, Haunted Hayride · 8:39pm Mar 14th, 2017
It amazes me that I managed to end up over 30 review sets ahead on Read It Now reviews relative to Read It Later reviews. I suppose it is often easier to read a spate of recent stories than to attack the long stories that seem to heavily populate my high priority shelves, definitely not because I procrastinate on reading them…
But, well, this time I decided I’d read a couple of ~10k word recent stories, in addition to some shorter ones. We’ll see how it goes!
And one of these is a Valentine’s Day story. What? I’m less than a month late on reviewing it! It still counts as now!
Today’s stories:
Under Pressure by Minds Eye
Passion and Reason by MrNumbers
Fifteen Friendships by AShadowOfCygnus
Blink and You Miss It by Fervidor
Haunted Hayride by Estee
Under Pressure
by Minds Eye
Comedy
1,005 wordsThere are right and wrong things to do when you set the mare you love on fire.
Why I added it: Minds Eye is a good writer.
Review
This is more or less a one-note jokefic. There’s some screaming and running around, but I have to admit that purely visual humor – at least as presented here – loses something in the translation to the medium of writing. There are ways to write funny things about how things look, but this story seems to rely rather heavily on a cartoonish panic while Rarity is on fire, and ultimately, it didn’t do much for me.
Really, the only part that made me crack a smile at all was the punchline, but I’m not really sure if was is worth it, and it is a bit raunchy (hence the teen rating). Still, it did make me smirk just a little, and this is very short.
Recommendation: Not Recommended unless you don’t mind one-note jokefics.
Passion and Reason
by MrNumbers
Comedy, Romance, Slice of Life
10,937 wordsPinkie Pie preemptively apologizes to Twilight: she's going to ruin their friendship.
Twilight agrees.
Pinkie suits her better as a girlfriend anyway.
Why I added it: It was featured, and I am a shameless shipper. Plus, Mr. Numbers is a good writer.
Review
Pinkie Pie shows up to Twilight’s door with some roses, a box of chocolates, and a statement – namely, that she, like, like-likes Twilight. And she’s nearly in tears about it, because she’s terrified that she has just put Twilight on the spot, and that Twilight doesn’t like, like-like her back.
Twilight doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean that she isn’t willing to go out on a date with Pinkie Pie to see what it is like – something that leaves the pink pony overjoyed, and leaves Twilight to worry the rest of the day about the date, whether or not she’s leading Pinkie Pie on or might actually come to like-like Pinkie Pie, and then… the date.
This is a getting together story about a first date, and while it is labelled comedy, honestly, this isn’t really a comedic piece. Sure, Pinkie Pie is a bit silly, and there are little jokes here and there, but this is not really structured like a comedy or a romantic comedy, but as a romance, with bits of comedy in there because ponies and Pinkie Pie and Twilight.
Really, this story is aiming for sweetness, not laughter; it wants you to think that the two of them are being cute together, and indeed, the story is about them being cute together. It is a pretty lighthearted thing, for all of Pinkie Pie’s fears (and Twilight’s own fretting, though it is much less). The diner they go to is the classic diner where the owner knows one of the date people and so embarrasses them and is nice to them and threatens their date all at the same time. The date is a fairly simple thing where they just talk and smile and share things with each other, with Pinkie getting to show off diner slang and hobo signs.
All in all, this story is nice.
And I think that’s why I ended up never quite feeling as happy for them as I’d like.
I didn’t get a strong sense of tension out of the story. Was it the description? Maybe, but, well, let’s face reality here: how many of these shipfics don’t end with ponies kissing and don’t have the sad tag?
…Quit looking at my library tab skeptically, you know what I mean!
Okay, fine. So maybe stories like this sometimes don’t end with ponies kissing. But I never really had any doubts here, and I never got a real sense of tension – that this would fail, that Twilight was going to have to awkwardly let Pinkie Pie down gently. As such, the story relied very heavily on the moment-to-moment, rather than the tension of pulling me through the story – I never got a sense of relaxation, never had a rubber band in my belly tighten up then loosen as Twilight realizes that maybe she really does like Pinkie Pie .The final scene in the story – where they are on their way home and the Chekov’s Gun of the snowballs lands – feels like the sort of post-climactic catharsis that a story like this would really want to have, and it was a cute scene which worked very well.
But because I never really got a sense of tension, never got some sort of emotional buildup, the story as a whole ended up feeling emotionally flat to me.
That wasn’t to say it didn’t have good things in it – there was some nice, in-character thoughts and dialogue here, and a worried Pinkie Pie is rather adorable.
But the whole thing just felt so reasonable, there wasn’t really strong variance in the pull of the piece.
It wasn’t bad. And I know that there’s a market for fluffy stories. But… I just didn’t feel this one. It didn’t give me the warm fuzzies perhaps in part because the whole thing felt sort of uniformly cutesy, so when the climax passed, I wasn’t left feeling that something significant had happened. Only at the end, with the snowball fight, did it really feel like there was something approximating the sort of texture I was longing for.
I wanted to like this story, and I actually think that Twinkie can be a very cute ship. But without any sort of strong sense of emotional rise and fall – without feeling like there was a threat of failure, or maybe just of things going wrong before they went right – I was not left as charmed by this story as it seemed to want me to be. It wasn’t bad, but it did not make me as happy to see ponies kissing at the end as I wanted to be.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Fifteen Friendships
by AShadowOfCygnus
Comedy, Drama, Slice of Life
1,500 wordsFifteen hundred-word(ish) shorts that explore the cast and their interactions in various ways, and says something a little different about each. Somewhat experimental, obviously, but YMMV on whether the format works or not.
Why I added it: I thought Hang was interesting and was curious as to what else AShadowOfCygnus had written.
Review
Fifteen little approximately 100-word scenes, these are far too brief to really do much but communicate the most basic ideas about them. These are extremely slice-of-life, in some cases not even scenes so much as thoughts or poems, and there’s not much more to it than that.
I never really was enthralled by this; while none of them are terrible, they’re all just too lightweight to really do much for me. It is hard to say much more about this precisely because most of them don’t have a whole lot to say; the best of the lot was the Doctor Hooves and Derpy, as it felt like it was trying harder to evoke emotion.
Writing hyper-short stories is extremely difficult, and I can’t really fault them for trying, but in the end, it is hard to make one of these have much lasting impact.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Blink and You Miss It
by Fervidor
Drama, Slice of Life
6,139 wordsTeleportation - the best way to travel! Not many unicorns master this ancient spell, and even among those who do, the details of how exactly it works remain a mystery. Some even fear what it may or may not do to the caster, but nopony knows for sure.
After much studying, it is time for Twilight Sparkle to perform the spell for the first time. A simple test: Just move from Point A to Point B. But Twilight is about to find out that there is more to teleportation than she thought.
A lot more.
Why I added it: Present Perfect highly recommended it.
Review
Just before the first Summer Sun Celebration in the show, Twilight learns how to teleport under the tutelage of Princess Celestia, and finds herself flashing through her whole life ahead of her, accompanied first by Princess Celestia, and then other ponies, all while moving between point A and point B.
This story charmed Present Perfect, but I think my racial bonus helped me make my saving throw: it didn’t end up charming me. I think part of it is simply the subject matter – it flashes back over a lot of moments from the show, but ultimately Twilight Sparkle doesn’t learn anything from the experience by the very nature of the spell. As such, nothing really happened; it is purely an experience for the reader, not the characters in the piece, and it is meant to present an idea which I’ve seen before. And while the one-electron universe as it was applied in this can be an interesting idea (though admittedly I’ve never liked it – it always felt kind of vain to me), the idea of it being applied in this manner wasn’t enough to carry the story for me.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Haunted Hayride
by Estee
Slice of Life
9,733 wordsThe Acres set it up every year as Nightmare Night approaches: an old-fashioned haycart taking a Moon-lit tour of the property, with fillies and colts shrieking at the traditional fake horrors. And Rainbow? Thinks that's boring. It's the same stuff every time. None of it would ever scare her. Nothing Applejack could come up with is even capable of getting a reaction.
Applejack decides to treat that as a challenge.
And then cider gets involved.
Why I added it: Estee is a good writer.
Review
This was not quite what I was expecting, which is kind of silly – it is an Estee story, who wouldn’t expect that emotional punch at the end?
This story did a pretty good job of setting it up, too.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Rainbow Dash – who is clearly Applejack’s super extra best friend forever in the second month of autumn for absolutely no ulterior reason whatsoever – is waiting for cider season. It is just around the corner. So when Applejack mentions that her annual Haunted Hayride is coming up, Rainbow Dash is… less than impressed. The Haunted Hayride is lame. It could never scare her. And Applejack should really replace those crummy old fake skeletons. I mean, sure, AJ’s dad came up with the thing, but couldn’t she do something a bit more original?
So Applejack decides to make a bet with Rainbow Dash – that if she can scare get a reaction out of Rainbow Dash (who is never scared, really!), Rainbow Dash will have to work the first day of cider season selling cider without drinking a single drop. And if Rainbow Dash wins? She gets the first barrel of cider for free, all to herself.
Seems simple enough, right?
But then Rainbow Dash discovers that Applejack’s souped-up hayride is not what it seemed like. Seems like Applejack might want some revenge for some reason…
This story’s center part is made up of the hayride, and it is really the weakest part of the piece. There are several things that happen on it, but in the end, while all the events are different in their own way, and a number of them are funny or cute in their own way, it feels like a few of them don’t really accomplish much story-wise.
However, my larger gripe with this section is that it feels like it has a huge tonal jump – while it starts out funny, it abruptly makes a turn away from the funny and towards the darker end of the spectrum as we realize just what is going on and just how angry Applejack is, and the story as a whole takes an abrupt emotional turn towards the melancholic as we reach what seemed like it would be the climax. Sometimes Estee’s emotional transitions between funny and sadness don’t take very long at all, and this one gave me a bit of whiplash, and not in a good way.
However, where the story really shines is how it all comes together. We get dropped some details at the start to flesh things out a bit towards the beginning, some development of the relationship between Applejack and Rainbow Dash, some nice conversation and back and forths, as well as a sense that Rainbow Dash, even apart from her selfishness, genuinely does enjoy Applejack’s company and does consider her her best friend…
And then at the end that comes back around, and hits us a lot harder and more powerfully. And it is in this – this frame that ties it all together – that makes this story good. Estee certainly loves melodrama, but this story makes good use of it without wallowing in it. And while it feels like it jerks a bit during the hayride from comedy to sadness, when the story brings itself back up for the resolution, it feels like Rainbow Dash grows a bit as a person by the end, and gets Applejack to open up a bit more as well. I’m not sure if I felt like Applejack showed quite as much remorse as I think she might have (which felt like a bit of a missed opportunity), but I did like how this story ended.
While this might not look it at first glance, if you’re interested in a story about Applejack and Rainbow Dash and the bonds they share, this is a story that might be worth your while.
If you’re looking for a funny story about Applejack trying to scare Rainbow Dash on a haunted hayride, though, you’d best look elsewhere.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Summary
Under Pressure by Minds Eye
Not Recommended
Passion and Reason by MrNumbers
Not Recommended
Fifteen Friendships by AShadowOfCygnus
Not Recommended
Blink and You Miss It by Fervidor
Not Recommended
Haunted Hayride by Estee
Worth Reading
Man, and people thought I was losing my edge. 
I think I’m going to take a break from attacking recent stories again for a bit and move back to my read later list. Still, despite being a bit late on reading it, I did enjoy Estee’s story a great deal more than I was expecting to – I had feared it was going to be one of those stories that missed me, and then it wasn’t.
But I really need to get back into the groove of writing. Perhaps, tomorrow, instead of reading some stories, I’m going to attack my own.
And hopefully not get stuck on writing that sonnet again. *grumbles*
*Watches as three people he follows post new stories*
Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 175
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 607
Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 2099
I didn't even have to read the review. :V
I disagree with your recommendation of Blink and You Miss It, but to each their own.
Huh. So, you feel that a character's experience doesn't count if they don't get to keep it at the end? That this devalues the experience somehow?
That's a... strange way to look at it, I have to say. I mean, in my mind that was sorta the whole point of the story, part of the thematic statement so to speak. The whole bit about space-time and infinity, I felt was less important. Anyway, I could understand if you didn't like that particular part, but I'm puzzled that was your only point of evaluation.
Oh well. The story was a success with the readers, so I guess I don't really care. Still, I kinda wonder what it is about my stories that make them perform so poorly in these reviews.
4456146 Hm. Lack of character development in Twilight Sparkle is seen as a detriment, while lack of character development in Trixie is normally just seen as Trixie. Hey, I liked it.
It's almost as if the entire story was a character study examining how a healthy relationship forms, later mirrored with a second piece showing a less healthy but ultimately still worthwhile relationship's formation set in the same continuity.
Heaven forbid a series entitled 'read it now' be admired for its positivity. A title like that just screams edge.
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.
*MrNumbers cracks his knuckles*
4456146
Don't worry, he completely missed the point of mine as well, which Scarlet hinted at above.
Hey, Titanium, remember the last time we had a discussion over one of Chuck's fics, and you insisted that you do these for the benefit of the author?
Yet here I wake up with a notification of a comment on my story linking back to your blog -- so using my story to advertise your reviews, rather than using your reviews to advertise my story -- with another horribly underwhelming critique.
In my case, it wasn't a traditional romance story, or a conventional shipping story. It was a character deconstruction, and a point on how traditional romance stories go through, well, plots, rather than looking at the real reasons people get together.
You even got so close to figuring it out, too. There's a reason this never happens! There's a very good reason for it, and it's largely the point of the story.
Instead of telling you straight out, I'll ask you a question: Why was this story told from Twilight's perspective, then, and not from Pinkie's?
4456343
For the record, I started reading your story, but I think something distracted me before I got to the end.
From what I read, though, it seemed pretty good.
4456146
This is exactly why It Was All Just A Dream is such a broadly despised plot twist - it undoes the events of the story.
4456291
Real life doesn't follow the universal engagement curve very often. Being realistic isn't necessarily a good thing. I mean, it can add a lot to a story, but it does not do so intrinsically, and a lot of things that happen in real life are a lot flatter than stories are.
4456343
It was a self-depreciating joke. People seem to always think I hate everything, despite giving WRs or above to about half of what I read, so when I end up not liking a bunch of things in one post, I'll sometimes make a joke about how I am back to hating everything again.
And for the record, I didn't hate your story, as noted by my review. In fact, I was left wanting to like it more than I did. Just because I don't recommend something doesn't mean I hate it, it just means I don't recommend it. I didn't downvote it. It was kind of borderline for me, and my review explained why.
No. In fact, I pointed out that these are not primarily directed at the author. Authors may get something out of them, but that doesn't mean that is their primary or only audience.
The universal engagement curve exists for a reason, and that is that when your story is too flat, it fails to cause the sort of engagement you get when there's more variance.
Flat stories feel weird to read, and the longer they are, the more awkward it can get - a very short flat piece can work, but when you start getting up towards 10,000 words, that's a long time for something to feel flat for.
When I'm talking about flatness here, I don't mean "unnteresting"; a story which is all thunderbolts and explosions can be flat as well, despite the fact that ostensibly exciting events are occurring. I find stories about ponies going on a date interesting, and I was not uninterested in your story.
But I was not strongly more interested in your story at any real point, either; it didn't have a real peak or pull.
Saying "That's the point" doesn't change anything about that. It is possible to intentionally write a flat piece; hell, I've done it before (haven't published it, though; I've been debating whether or not I want to edit it and revise it into something I want to post, in part because I feel like it is already stretching it at 750 words, and we all know real stories are always at least a thousand
).
The issue was that I never got as engaged as I would have liked. The lack of that tension, the lack of any sort of strong deviation from the long-term feeling of the piece, left me feeling a bit more distant from it than I should have. Ponies going on a date is cute. Pinkie pie being nervous about asking out Twilight is cute. The snowball fight was cute. The discussion was cute. Everything was cute.
But there was never anything really that moved me very far away from that, up or down or sideways. I was sitting at more or less the same level for almost the entire piece, and that made it hard for me to find real affection for it.
And that makes it hard for me to say "You should all go read this, it is worth your time."
Alright, one for two, I can live with that. Hopefully it doesn't turn you off of any of the other stuff I've done.
4456404
Ah, right, It came down to me thinking it's a smidge unethical, and ultimately self-serving. Right. Remember more clearly now.
Many a true word is spoken in jest.
Oh, no, no, of course you didn't. You simply said it wasn't worth reading, after entirely missing the point of it and largely misrepresenting it. But you didn't hate it, so that's fine.
4456343
You know, several people have gotten upset over this, but I've never understood it. He could have posted the same review as a comment, there would still be a link to his blog right in his user info, none of the reviewed authors would benefit from cross promotion, and you still wouldn't like the review.
Frankly, I like him linking to his blog. My comments aren't muddied up with bad reviews, and when I get a good one people interested in at least four other stories see it.
4456404
Unless it's literally the technical aim of the story.
4456425
My problem is larger; The negative reviews -- not comments, reviews -- wouldn't exist if there weren't a market for them, a market is made by advertising them. If its only function were to notify the author, then a private message would be a more genuine way to notify them.
Instead, I now have a case where my story is being used to advertise its own negative review, where the criticism isn't directed towards me -- see above -- but to Titanium Dragon's audience.
4456430
If you need me to dig up some of my pre-reviews negative TD comments for you, I can. They were the same thing, just with less explanation and in my comments.
They existed anyway, I prefer them here, is all I'm saying.
4456404
Um, no. All Just A Dream is despised because it's often a very lazy and desperate way to resolve a plot. It has nothing to do with character development. In fact, the dreamer often gets to keep their development from the dream.
Besides, even then it's only bad when used as a deus ex machina, not when it's the entire point of the story.
Man, you must have hated Alice in Wonderland.
4456410
Well, I mean, I am following you.
I had not read any of your stories before Hang, though. I've got Starry Night on my medium priority list, so I do plan on getting to it sooner or later.
4456436
I know. That's why I specified reviews, and that my issue is in how they are directed towards a different audience. I have also seen his negative non-review comments, and while I disagree with them in specifics, I disagree remarkably less with the intent.
4456419
I always look at reviews people post about my stories. I also look at reviews that other people post about other stories. I've had people post links to reviews on my own stories, and I'm always happy to see them; after all, it means someone read and spent some time thinking about my story.
The worst thing that can happen is that no one reads your story at all.
I'd rather people posted that they reviewed a story in the comments; it makes it easy to find the review. Otherwise I have to go to the Big Master Review List and look it up, and I have no idea if they exist or not.
Plus most people are excited to get a review at all; less than 10% of stories on the site are reviewed by anyone.
If you don't want me to write reviews of your stories, I won't. It also means I won't read them, either. I find that a little sad, because I consider you to be a good writer, but there's lots of other people who have written lots of good stories and who would like to have someone say something.
If it really upsets you this much to get a NR from me, maybe I shouldn't review your stuff anymore.
No. That's not what I said. I specifically use "not recommended" because I don't recommend something. It got a :| face from me, which is my "no vote" rating. I don't differentiate between no votes and downvotes in my review ratings because... well, I don't want to enable atrocity tourism, and because I don't want people to be like "Ugh, TD read my story and downvoted it". It is always a little mysterious how I voted on a story, and I try to keep it that way to avoid people feeling like me NRing a story is an auto-downvote, because it isn't and I don't want it to be.
The other reason why I do it that way is that it bothers me in video game reviews when I see a response of "eh" because, really, a lot of the time when I play an "eh" game, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't something I really should have gone out of my way to play, either. I'd rather point towards things I actively feel some enthusiasm about.
Moreover, I focused on the thing that put me off the story because that was the thing that bothered me about it. That's how it goes. Look at my review of Haunted Hayride; I spent a fair bit of time talking about what I didn't like about that story as well. But that one, ultimately, got a WR from me because I did like it; I felt like, while the hayride was kind of flat, the end of the story, combined with the beginning of it, really had an effect on me.
The good points of your story didn't ultimately outweigh my feeling of not actually engaging with it fully, which is why it got an NR.
Just because I'm not overly fond of something doesn't mean people won't read it. There are people who, after reading a review where I NR a story, go off and read it. Hell, I'm sure PP can tell you that there have been times when I NRed a story and he was like "Man, that sounds fun" because he has different tastes and appreciates some things a lot more than I do (and vice-versa).
EDIT: Incidentally, I think I was still working on editing up the post you replied to when you replied to it, so I put some more stuff there at the bottom, maybe.
4456429
Something being the technical aim of a story doesn't make the story into something I am enthusiastic about. In fact, there have been stories that I have read where I have recognized that the way the story is makes it hard to fix the problem I had with it.
4456447
Oh, there's the disconnect. I have an entirely different view of what comments are for than you do.
I guess if you think comments aren't in part reviews for potential readers, that would explain it.
4456430
4456437
4456429
Okay, so going through these one by one...
I don't see how marketing reviews towards an audience would be necessarily a bad thing. The critiques in the reviews are aimed at the author, sure, but they are written in a way so as to be reader-friendly. And let's face it, negative reviews are fun to read, but they can also be enlightening—assuming your ego isn't too inflated.
Wouldn't that make your story worse than if it was a it-was-all-a-dream scenario? Since Twilight doesn't retain her experiences, they end up being worth nothing. It's why resurrections/revivals in stories are usually seen as cheap; the death has been made null and void. You have cheapened the experience by making it a zero in the end.
Playing the Realism card is a very dangerous game. You could end up with a consistently compelling story that's interesting because of its devotion to realism, or you could end up with Boyhood in fanfiction form. And nobody really wants the latter. It's, as TD said, a "flat" story, in that there's no rise of conflict or emotions past maybe an ant hill in terms of height.
4456437
You're correct that it is disliked for multiple reasons, and it being a cheap deus ex machina ending is one of them.
That being said, however, undoing the events of a story is often dangerous territory - It Was All Just A Dream is a variation on a reset button, and reset buttons often do annoy people precisely because the events of the story didn't happen. While yes, the dreamer gaining development is a thing (though not in your story, ultimately, as she forgets it all), it still doesn't necessarily make it feel good, and can make the events feel kind of pointless.
Just because something is the point of a story doesn't make it good. And I'm not saying All Just A Dream is inherently bad. But it can leave people feeling disappointed.
I've liked things which were just a dream, and I think it can be interesting when used well, just like reset buttons can be interesting if used well.
But I didn't really like it here as it ultimately did all feel kind of pointless.
I talked about the idea of the one-soul universe in my review because it felt like it was supposed to be important, and it was something which might have some lasting impact (because Twilight forgot everything), but ultimately it didn't do a lot for me; I've seen the idea before and I didn't feel like the story did something tremendously interesting with it.
I enjoy a lot of the uh... trappings of Alice in Wonderland, but I've never actually liked it very much as a story. Though frankly, it all being a dream isn't really a major factor in that.
Man, now I'm thinking about the ending of Lois kills Stewie, where characters have an argument over that pair of episodes being a
dreamsimulation.4456477
You're quite sure we're talking about the same story? Twilight and Pinkie go on a date, the story is built around Twilight slowly gelling with Pinkie, exploration of both characters, tension builds not based on will-they-or-won't-they but on the reader's empathizing with each character as you get to understand more about them?
Also, note that in this case we're talking realism as in "this is an exploration of a healthy relationship concept". Not a boring one. A largely healthy one. This is two people connecting.
I can understand not liking that, but I can't really understand calling it flat.
4456508
Healthy relationships still have conflict. Mundane conflict most of the time, but it's still there. Pairing Pinkie and Twilight would make for some nifty mundane conflict because they're such drastically different personalities. The story's cute, and it clearly wants to be cute, but it misses a huge opportunity to explore how these two would and wouldn't get along with each other.
And considering its 10K word length, it kinda boggles my mind that such an opportunity was missed.
4456508
It was flat because it didn't have a lot of tension or variance to it. I believe I explained what I meant by "flat" in my review.
I think you're thinking of "flat" as in "this story never did anything interesting".
The problem wasn't that the story didn't do anything interesting, it was that there was too little variance in the axis of engagement.
There's a reason stories have a hook, rising action, a climax, and a resolution - because by varying the levels across the story, it gives more of a sense of progress, direction, and accomplishment. There's more of a contrast.
That doesn't mean you should make a story boring just to make it exciting later, but it does mean that if something hits at more or less the same general region for the story, it ends up being "flat" - you were moving along roughly the same level the whole time. It might be flat ground, it might be the Dead Sea, it might be a plateau - but regardless of elevation, you're not seeing that much variation.
The story's hook works reasonably well - we see Pinkie Pie show up nervous about asking out Twilight, and Twilight trying to be a Good Friend and a Rational
HumanPony Being and have to figure out what she wants to do about it. The problem is that there isn't enough variation from that, especially after we get to the date itself, which takes up a substantial portion of the story but feels pretty tonally flat. It hits around the same emotional target throughout the piece, without much variation. It is because of that that I felt it was flat.Without either tension about whether or not it will work out or variation in the emotional texture of the piece, it didn't really feel as emotionally engaging as it should have.
4456477
No, because those are two different issues. I was pointing out that I don't think Titanium's example actually relates very much to his argument. I never said negating character development is necessarily a bad thing.
Yes, because that was the point. She wasn't supposed to get a sudden huge life-changing experience out of it. The moral was the opposite of that.
The theme of the story is that there are no shortcuts. Teleportation seems like an instantaneous jump, but it's actually an incredibly long journey. Likewise, Twilight can't just get an entire lifetime of character development in an instant. She wishes she could, once she has the proper perspective, but that's not how life works. She has to make that journey one day at a time and slowly grow as a person. In the end she accepts this and lets herself forget, so that her life can move on.
It's allegorical. Dammit.
4456581
Almost everyone seemed to latch onto the mechanics, a few people onto the one soul universe thing, and a general tone of hope for the future. But I don't think I saw a single person actually call it out in the comments, and I looked through all three pages.
That's one of the reasons why I don't like writing allegories, TBH. Including symbolism can be fun, but a lot of the time, for your subtext to register, you practically have to make it text, and for an allegory, that often feels like you end up having to beat the reader over the head with it or 90% of the audience seems to have the point sail over their head, which mostly defeats the point of an allegory in the first place.
The visuals were my favorite part of Under Pressure; they're succinct enough to keep the story moving at a semi-rapid pace, but still held true to my own perception of how most characters would handle suddenly being set on fire (ie, poorly) without going completely overboard. How Spike is about to run for the bathtub but turns back because he can't just leave her there, presumably burning to death, and then changes tacks entirely is a good example. And then that punchline… for me what elevated it past a good chuckle was how it shed new light on everything that proceeded it.
Having said all that, can we at least agree that the description was gold?
4456709
Yeah, it definitely made me read it. And I will admit to smirking at the end.
Though it is pure slander! We dragons don't set pretty mares on fire. D:
4456443
I know! And it's as much a surprise to me as anyone else!
And, hey, for the record? I really do appreciate the honesty here. You may not have seen what I see, or what others who did like those tiny little snippets of insight did, but that's . . . kinda what perspective's all about, y'know? And that's just as valuable to me as a writer as a thousand little invisible pats on the head. I will say it's funny you liked the Doctor and Derpy one, though; that's actually the one I'm least happy with.
Out of curiosity, what'd you think of the lack of character identification? I was trying for something very specific with that, and I'm trying to see how well that part of it worked.
4456775
I can understand why, to be honest. But it was one of the more emotionally compelling ones, even if I can simultaneously understand why you didn't like it; it did feel tonally dissonant from the others, among other things.
I may have liked it the most simply because it implied a larger story, and I have a lean against pure slice of life things. Not that I never like them - stuff like Twilight Sparkle Makes a Cup of Tea, Never So Far Away, and The Wrong Fork are things I greatly enjoy - but I am not overfond of such things in general.
They were all readily identifiable. It did lend the whole thing a certain aesthetic, but I'm not sure if it was actively helpful or not. It was slightly confusing in the Rarity and Pinkie Pie chapter, mostly because that was the hardest to ID for me.
4456872
Oh, I didn't say I didn't like it. Just that I wasn't happy with it in the context of the larger work.
It was also the first one of the collection that I drafted out, which probably at least partially explains the difference in tone. To my mind? It was too obvious who was involved in that one, and the final draft played up the romance of it more than the pointlessness of her pursuing it.
I caught the faintest hint of that from your review, and it's certainly valid. I can't deny that I have a certain fondness for small moments of pointless happiness, or that most of my (non-excruciatingly-long-form) writing tends to be isolated moments of time, so that may have been a double-barrel of misfortune to the knee right there.
Interesting; thank you for elaborating on that. I ask because the intent was at least in part for me to determine how well I could write moments like that, referring solely to known character traits as ways of subtly identifying characters without necessarily naming them. The data suggests that's as much a function of the reader as my input, though, so the experiment may be a wash.
I haven't read the story, but the analysis makes a clear and important point about how stories can work and how they can fail.
4456419 It would be more helpful for you to explain what the point of the story was than to repeat that he missed it.
4456430 I don't understand why any of that seems objectionable to you. The story is posted, I think, for the sake of the readers, not for the sake of the author. Why would you expect the comments to be for the sake of the author? You're projecting "oughts" onto fimfiction, your ideas about what purpose things "ought" to have. I think the strength of the Internet as a medium is that the community can overwhelm "oughts" imposed from above.
You can delete his comment. That is a legal move in the game of fimfiction. People who agree that comments are for the author should not be upset by that.