GaP Jaxie Judges Others VI: Lightning Round · 4:20am Aug 14th, 2018
I had a long plane flight today, which gave me six hours to read a bunch of pony stories. They were good fun, and the flight felt quick and painless. But now I'm in the hotel, and I'm kind of bored.
So I guess I'll be mean to the people who wrote them. But a snappy, succinct sort of mean. We don't have time for full-length reviews, let's cut straight to the catty remarks. It's time for the lightning round! Remember kids, always be quick to judge!
Specifically, this week, I'll be maliciously hurting the feelings of:
- Equestria-Forever with "One Castle, Two Alicorns."
- Admiral Biscuit with "The Circle of Life."
- Webdog177 with "All That Glitters,"
- Goldenwing with "Empty Horizons."
- Comma Typer with "Society as We Know It."
- Fervidor with "Familiarity."
- billymorph with "Friendship is Optimal: Requiem."
- Redric Carrun with "Sleeping Habits."
- Estee with "Protest Too Much."
- deadpansnarker with "Too Many Fluttershys."
- XenoPony with "Rainbow... Why Are You Eating My Flowers?"
(As a reminder, the below mean reviews are exaggerated for the sake of humor. I did actually like these stories!)
Story #1: Familiarity
Score: Recommended for Doctor Who Fans
Review:
In the Equestrian bootleg version of Doctor Who, they've replaced The Doctor with a mare named Fang and the swooning female sidekick with Scootaloo. You know, for copyright reasons! But other than that it's pretty much the same.
Story #2: One Castle, Two Alicorns
Score: Do Not Recommend
Review:
I'm not saying this story is short. I'm saying that sadly, we'll never know what this story could have been, as the author accidentally submitted the story prompt instead of the story itself. When you read this amazing premise, you'll long to read the story that could one day have been written based on it.
Story #3: The Circle of Life
Score: Do Not Recommend
Review:
Dear Princess Celestia, today I learned that ponies make huge poops.
Story #4: All That Glitters
Score: Do Not Recommend
Review:
Twilight develops an eating disorder but deals with it by turning herself into a dragon. I feel like that's not what the story was supposed to be about, but I'm sorry author, that is what it's about.
Story #5: Empty Horizons
Score: Recommended for Fans of Adventure Stories
Review:
Sure. Horribly mutate Spike in the first chapter and have Twilight just get over. That seems totally in character.
Story #6: Society As We Know It
Score: Do Not Recommend
Review:
Foreign Tourists Buying Doughnuts: THE MOVIE. Witness heart-pounding action, daring stunts, and SPRINKLES! With Tom Cruise as Doughnut Joe and Robert Downy Junior as "changeling struggling what flavor to pick."
Story #7: Friendship is Optimal: Requiem
Score: Recommended for Optimalverse Fans
Review:
The astronaut in this story is Chinese, because even in a fantasy world with sapient AI and ponybots, the author couldn't imagine that the US space program would have the guts to go back to the moon.
Story #8: Sleeping Habits
Score: Recommended for Slice of Life Fans
Review:
Oh my god. You're DEEP. We get it. There's layered symbolism. And yes, you have good characterization, we're all very impressed here. Now could you please get to the point and--oh nevermind the story's over.
Story #9: Protest Too Much
Score: Recommended!
Review:
Oh, Estee. Could I ever get tired of your outrageous comedy stylings? Evidently, yes! You've milked this bit for three stories already get a new gimmick.
Story #10: Too Many Fluttershys
Score: Do Not Recommend
Review:
It's okay! Fluttershy doesn't have split personality disorder, she's just a murderer.
Story #11: Rainbow... why are you eating my flowers?
Score: Do Not Recommend
Review:
Despite what clop may have told you, "Rainbow Dash gets pregnant and then Fluttershy sticks something up her butt" is not an acceptable substitute for a real story.
(Your opening image appears to be broken; I'm just getting a blue square with a question mark.)
4919732
I think the issue is your browser. It works with me when reloading on an incognito chrome browser.
4919738
Huh. I've tried it in two different browsers, and it didn't work in either.
If the other thing you tested it in is non-incognito Chrome, maybe Chrome applies non-incognito cache information to incognito windows or something?...Uh. Huh. Except I've just also tried it in incognito Chrome (browser #3 for this testing), and it works there. So... I guess it works in Chrome, but not Firefox or Safari?
4919742
Working fine for me in Firefox.
4919749
...What. Okay, well, if it's working for most people, I guess maybe this can just be filed under "Weird Computer Things"? Thanks for the input.
(Maybe it's NoScript in my Firefox? I had everything on the page enabled, but maybe there was something it didn't know it needed...)
Good news!
You can skip the story and just read the blog post.
4919758
Again, that doesn't do it. I use NoScript too; allowing fimfiction.net but not googlesyndication.com. I also use Adblock Plus.
4919764
...Yeeep, Weird Computer Thing it is, looks like. At least, I'm out of ideas.
4919778
Do animated GIFs play properly on other websites? You might be missing a codec, or there might be something wonky with your particular browser installations. My first suggestion would be to try rebooting the computer, uninstalling and reinstalling the browsers in question, and making sure your system is up to date.
4919781
"Do animated GIFs play properly on other websites?"
Looks like it; I just loaded the Wikipedia page for "GIF" to test, and the ones there run fine in both the browsers that didn't (and still don't) work with the one on this page.
(Thanks for the attempt at helping, though.)
4919778
Now I'm on Firefox for Android and it isn't working.
4919793
...Yeah, I don't know. I've been on a laptop for all of these. There's presumably some pattern in where it does and doesn't work...
I don't see what's not to recommend here. :V
It is now a goal of mine to make it onto a list like this.
Of course, that means I’ll have to actually write something worth judging, so I may be aiming a little high.
I should probably start doing these, as much as I read things.
4919814 The incredible lack of soft hands obviously.
Well, except there's no time travel.
...But otherwise, yeah, fair enough.