Read It Later Reviews #74 – Twice Shy, The Best of Tensions, Hurricane Watch, Appellation Mountains, A Teatime Visit · 8:42pm May 3rd, 2017
Wow, it has been a while since I posted a review set.
I’ve actually been sitting on most of this review set for almost a month for no good reason. I’ve read a few stories here and there, but I’ve been trying to convince myself that I was going to get my next story done Soon, and thus should be working on that. I’ve also been somewhat avoiding the site because I managed to fall behind on season 7, having not yet watched a single episode from it.
Needless to say, that didn’t happen. So last night, I simply threw myself off the edge and decided to get some more reading done.
Today’s stories:
Twice Shy by Flint Sparks
The Best of Tensions by BlazzingInferno
Hurricane Watch by Fahrenheit
Appellation Mountains by Fan of Most Everything
A Teatime Visit by Else Ynopemos
Twice Shy
by Flint Sparks
Sex, Romance, Slice of Life
3,352 wordsFluttershy's never kissed a pony before. What's a girl to do? Ask a friend for help, of course.
Why I added it: I read it a long time ago and couldn’t remember it.
Review
Fluttershy wants to practice kissing with Twilight. Twilight obliges.
This is a very intimate story. I’d almost call it pornographic in its details – not in the sense of containing explicit sex (the two end up making out, but no more) but rather in its very detailed descriptions of the situation. Fluttershy’s awkwardness is transmitted pretty well through the text, as we see her freaking out while Twilight is sort of futzing around in the lead up – and then the point of view goes over to Twilight mid-scene, where it rests for most of the rest of the story, as we see things from Twilight’s side.
In this, the story actually works pretty well as an intimate scene – the two are clearly a bit awkward about it, Twilight read a book to try and understand kissing better, and then after a few awkward mis-steps (and an awkward first kiss) they start getting more into it. All of the physicality of it – the body language, the looks Fluttershy gives Twilight, the positioning, the actual kisses – are described in intimate detail. If you want to know where tongues are going, this story has you covered.
Where this piece feels a bit lacking, however, is in its greater context. The middle of the story seems to indicate Fluttershy is doing this in case she has to kiss Rainbow Dash – but really, throughout the first half of the piece, Fluttershy’s point of view is suffused with a very physical admiration of Twilight. The story, from this point of view, doesn’t quite feel coherent – why is Fluttershy doing this? Is it because she’s practicing for someone else, or is it because she likes Twilight? If there was a bit more here – if I understood more about her motivations, and Twilight’s own, in this scene – it might hit me a bit more.
Instead, we’re left only with the first layer of this, without any deeper motivation.
I have to say I like this story from a mechanistic point of view – the descriptions are pretty vivid, and the characters are awkward and slowly get into it – but the appeal of this honestly felt like borderline pornography. As such, I think this has a fairly narrow demographic – people who want to read about ponies kissing, in depth, but aren’t too concerned with it beside said surface details.
Recommendation: Worth Reading if you are the kind of person who really wants to read about ponies making out in intimate detail and don’t much care why.
The Best of Tensions
by BlazzingInferno
Comedy, Random, Romance
4,313 wordsA massage is just a massage, isn’t it? Apparently not when Spike is involved. Somehow finding a book on pony massage specifically for handed creatures like himself is fated to end the way that most of his adventures do: with the untimely destruction of Ponyville.
Unless Rarity can help, of course.
Why I added it: BlazzingInferno is a good writer.
Review
After reading a book about special massage techniques, Spike practices it on a few ponies before discovering it apparently makes them completely obsessed with him. Now he’s on the run and hiding out in Rarity’s closet. But Rarity wants to know what’s going on, and there’s only one way to find out…
While tagged romance, this is really primarily a comedy story about what amounts to a spell gone wrong – even though the actual stimulus isn’t directly magical, it more or less follows the same pattern as such stories often do. Really, as this is a fairly standard story in a sense, at least in terms of frame, it is all about the execution – and here, the story actually does pretty well. There’s a number of pretty funny lines (I particularly appreciated one of Twilight’s lines which, while a variation on a fairly standard theme, remained very funny), the ultimate resolution to the problem is simultaneously in character and amusing, and the dialogue is quite solid.
There are some traces of Sparity here (which Rarity herself finds slightly disconcerting), so if that’s likely to overly bother you, this might not be up your alley, but if you aren’t too disconcerted by it, there’s something rather amusing here. This isn’t the sort of thing which is likely to get you rolling on the floor laughing, but it is the sort of thing that might win a few smiles.
Recommendation: Worth Reading if you like light comedy and don’t find Sparity too creepy.
Hurricane Watch
by Fahrenheit
Adventure, Comedy
3,226 wordsSome ponies come into your life and quickly go.
Some show up on your doorstep with a squadron of hungry soldiers and refuse to leave.
Much to Princess Platinum's chagrin, Commander Hurricane belongs to the latter category.
It's a shame she can't tell him off without summoning an eternal blizzard.
Why I added it: I was adding stories to the Founders of Equestria group when this story caught my eye.
Review
This was not at all what I had expected.
I had expected the story to be about Princess Platinum having to put up with a bunch of meathead pegasi.
Instead, I got something… quite different.
It is the year after Hearth’s Warming, and Clover the Clever, Private Pansy, Star Swirl the Bearded, and the others have set off to go exploring.
Commander Hurricane has showed up at Princess Platinum’s castle and wonders why the unicorns and earth ponies haven’t brought in spring yet.
He is alarmed to find out that they cannot – that with their big guns gone, the unicorns can only barely raise the Sun in the morning, and aren’t even bothering with the Moon at night because they are exhausted. Only Princess Platinum has been spared such duties – and then, only because her own talent is so weak she has no real chance of contributing in the first place.
So Commander Hurricane and Princess Platinum end up setting off up the side of the mountain in order to reach the peak, where supposedly the Raising the Sun spell is easier to cast, so that Princess Platinum might be able to help usher in spring – with perhaps a bit of help from Commander Hurricane.
While this is labelled a comedy, this is really primarily an adventure story – a fairly simple story about two ponies climbing a mountain and getting to know each other a bit better in the process. Alas, while this story had the shape of something interesting, I have to admit that I was not totally engrossed. I think my largest issue here was emotional buy-in – the story is quite short, and both of the characters are not exactly terribly fleshed out, having shown up only once in the show. As a result, we have to get engrossed in the characters, learn about their pre-existing relationship, learn about what kind of people they are, and see them develop, all in 3,200 words.
It’s a tall order, in other words, and I don’t quite feel like this story achieved it. The result was that their changing behavior towards each other didn’t feel as significant as it might have, and so it didn’t touch me.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Appellation Mountains
by FanOfMostEverything
Comedy, Slice of Life
5,394 wordsEver since Sombra's defeat, the Crystal Empire has revered "the Great and Honorable Spike the Brave and Glorious" as a hero and a savior. When he (and guests) are invited to the first Crystal Ball in over a millennium, Twilight expects to hear that endearingly overblown title all night.
She's half-right.
Why I added it: FOME is a good writer, and I remembered it from the Writeoffs.
Review
Spike the Brave and Glorious is invited to the Crystal Ball in the Crystal Empire, along with Twilight and all their friends. It seems like another Grand Galloping Gala, if hopefully less awful because the crystal ponies aren’t nearly so snooty…
But when they get there, there’s an entirely different problem awaiting them: Twilight’s own extraordinarily long title, along with the titles of her friends.
Twilight is less than impressed at the long list of titles, and wants to know exactly who put Flash Sentry up to giving the full list…
This story was something I remember liking from the writeoffs, but I have to say, on reading it here, it felt bloated. It doesn’t really get to the point until a third of the way through, and the story as a whole kind of feels longer than it needs to be. Looking back at the writeoff version, which was 1,600 words shorter, I can see that a lot of words were added here, but I didn’t feel like a whole lot of new context was added with them.
I liked the core idea of the ending here, and the joke about them all having titles was amusing, and of course Cadance’s final line is funny, but a lot of the story feels like bloat that doesn’t have much relevance to the actual plot.
I still am deeply amused by the punny title, though.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
A Teatime Visit
by Else Ynopemos
Comedy
10,814 wordsWhen Rarity has Twilight over for tea, she learns her friend has a big confession to make. But what is really going on here?
Why I added it: It has been on my read sooner list almost since its inception. Someone may have recommended it to me, sometime back in the dawny mists of time.
Review
On the surface, this is a 10,000 word story, but in reality it is actually five 2000 word shorts, each describing a prank. While there is a loose continuity between them – the prank war starts in the first chapter, and each chapter involves a new prank which is partially a result of the earlier ones, as Twilight seems to constantly get the better of various ponies – there isn’t really any sort of overarching plot to tie them together from end to end, just the connection of a series of events.
And unfortunately, without that, this is more or less five short stories, each of which describes a prank… which is a hard sell in a story.
Pranks are hard to write about and make as amusing as they are to the people involved. As the saying goes, “it was funnier if you were there.” And while the pranks in this story are indeed in principle amusing, and I’m sure it would have been funny to be there… but reading them in text is a somewhat different matter for me. Part of the problem is likely the fact that, given the format, I know every story is going to have a prank in it, which means that the prank is less unexpected. The first chapter, I expected the prank. The second and third chapters, there was a twist in the prank, as it turned around a bit (the second chapter involving something of a double twist, though the first was pretty obvious from Big Mac’s actions) – but in the end, it never quite managed to break away from the fact that I knew a prank was coming, and the fourth and fifth chapters, while not straightforward per se, didn’t really do a whole lot to surprise me. After all, when you know a prank is coming, any weird thing that seems to happen in a chapter is immediately going to be chalked up to the prank, meaning that Twilight waking up as an alicorn isn’t really very shocking when you know it isn’t real. (Though admittedly, “Twilight becomes an alicorn” stuff in general has lost a lot of its shock value given she, you know, did.)
The thing is, a comedy story is supposed to make me laugh, and while the idea of Big Mac having to chase off after Twilight to apologize after having a prank played on him is theoretically funny, it isn’t as funny in a text medium as it would be on screen. Comedy in text plays out a bit differently, and while having people react to stuff can be funny, a lot of comedy in text relies on dialogue, wordplay, and subversion of expectation in a way that these stories didn’t quite feel like they landed. Consequently, without any sort of overarching plot that they were all building up to, without the ability to surprise me, and without really landing the sort of comedy that made me laugh out loud, I was left walking away from this feeling like I hadn’t really gotten a lot out of it.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Summary
Twice Shy by Flint Sparks
Worth Reading
The Best of Tensions by BlazzingInferno
Worth Reading
Hurricane Watch by Fahrenheit
Not Recommended
Appellation Mountains by Fan of Most Everything
Not Recommended
A Teatime Visit by Else Ynopemos
Not Recommended
And there we go!
Time to go do some more productive pony things! And catch up on season 7…
Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 195
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 609
Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 2104
And the reviews return.
I am that person! >:V
I realize my story Jugemu is just Appellation Mountains, but stupider. :B
Yay, TD is back!
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Aw, thanks! I've actually been reading some stuff (I've got most of a Recommended Stories Review set done, I'll try and get that up later this week) and I've actually been writing some stuff, I just haven't gotten anything DONE. I need to work on that. :(
I also need to catch up on MLP.
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THEN IT IS RIGHT UP YOUR ALLEY THEN ISN'T IT?
I don't think I've read that.
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Well maybe you should. >:V You'll 100% guaranteed hate it, though.