My stories, a look back - #1: Read it and Sneak · 9:24pm Aug 13th, 2021
I suddenly felt reflective today, and so I've decided to take a look back at my 11 stories on Fimfiction, from past to present, and talk about them a bit. I don't usually retrospect when it comes to my stories - in fact, after the initial publication, I rarely look back at them at all. I figure it might be interesting to take a look back and see if I can remember what I was thinking when I wrote these, and if I've learned anything since then.
So, let's start with my oldest:
Read it and Sneak
An alternate ending to 'Read it and Weep', where Dash decides to steal Twilight's Daring Do book.
November 2012
Comedy, Slice of Life
My first fic! Not the first pony thing I ever wrote, since I had dabbled in various personal wish-fulfillment pieces ever since finding the show, but this was the first story I wrote specifically for the purpose of publishing it and I joined Fimfiction just to do it. I guess this fic has a lot to answer for, then.
Read it and Sneak was an idea that occurred to me when watching the season 2 episode "Read it and Weep". In that episode, Rainbow Dash briefly recalls that Twilight has a copy of the Daring Do book she's looking for, and could just go and ask to borrow her copy - but doing so means admitting that she likes reading, which she's embarrassed about after making fun of Twilight for it. So, she abandons that idea and tries to steal it from the hospital instead, and you know how that turns out.
I realized, well hang on, what if Rainbow just steals the book from Twilight instead? This seemed like perfect fodder for my first real fic. As an alternate ending, all the setup is taken care of - indeed, the fic uses some of the exact dialogue from the episode before veering off in its own direction - and the scope of the plot is all nice and self contained. I know what needs to happen. The reader knows what needs to happen. They just don't know how it's going to happen.
So, Dashie decides that she's going to steal Twilight's book, and goes home to assemble some sneaking gear. Midway through doing this, she figures that Pinkie is likely to have most of the gear that she needs, for some reason, so she heads off to Sugarcube Corner. I guess that made the scene of Rainbow going home kind of pointless, but I like her house and I wanted to spend a little time talking about it, since the show never really focuses on this marvel of cloud architecture.
When Rainbow gets to Sugarcube Corner, the Cakes are all wearing hazard suits and mention something about radiation in Pinkie's room, the implication being that Pinkie has done something so bizarre in there that it caused a nuclear hazard. The reason for this is that I was trying to explain why, in the episode, Pinkie seems to be just randomly at somepony else's house, and I figured a nuclear disaster was so un-Ponyville that it made sense for Pinkie to be the instigator. There's some logic in there if you look hard enough, I'm sure.
It turns out that Pinkie's staying round Ditzy Doo's house. Back in the day, Ditzy Doo was commonly suggested to be the "real name" of the pony that we identify as Derpy, and I liked this headcanon, so I used it. Notably, Rainbow Dash calls her Derpy, indicating that it's just a nickname. (It's also implied that Dash doesn't realize the name is hurtful, which is like character development or something).
We get a demonstration of Pinkie Sense, which was a thing back in season 2, where Pinkie saves Rainbow from being run over by a wagon. This was meant to be a setup for a joke where, moments later, a piano falls out of the sky where Dash had been standing, implying that Pinkie's sense is accurate but her timing is off. I'm not sure if anyone got the joke and I don't think it was very well executed.
Pinkie's only really here for a gag as she offers Dash a bunch of items that can be used for sneaking, including a railgun in her long list as a joke item. I'm not sure why I decided that Pinkie was the go-to for a stealth caper, but it might have been influenced by her spy antics in "The Crystal Empire". This Pinkie scene is actually way too short, now that I'm re-reading it.
Cut to midnight, and Dashie is waiting outside Twilight's library to start her caper, but first she's trying to convince herself of the morality of stealing the book. She eventually finds some logic that makes sense if you don't think about it too hard. I like scenes like this where characters try to reason something through and come to the wrong conclusion. It's a nice way to do characterization.
Anyway, sufficiently motivated, Dash enters the library, and I quite enjoyed that Dashie keeps imagining hazards and traps which simply aren't there, because her imagination has been fired by the Daring Do books. It's kind of adorable. She eventually finds the book, but makes enough noise to wake up Twilight, who comes down to investigate. Tension!
Spike isn't concerned about the possibility of an intruder, and also mentions that "the front door is always unlocked". This was me attempting to establish that there's not really any crime in Ponyville - ponies leave their doors unlocked and it's not too weird for a pony to enter another pony's house without permission if they've got a good reason for it.
Dash throws a rainbow gas bomb as a distraction and barricades herself in Twilight's bedroom with Spike, who she begs not to give her away. I've always got a soft spot for Spike and tend to make him the one that ponies turn to when they're in need - I like to imply that he has various connections, being Twilight's number one, and can generally sort stuff out for you if you give him enough time.
He pours an "experimental miniaturization potion" over Dash to shrink her so that she can hide, and honestly I have no idea why that's in the story, since Twilight was never really shown to be a potioneer. I think I was just running out of ideas on how to extend the shenanigans at this point.
Twilight quickly sees through Spike's ruse and figures that he's hiding something. I enjoy writing Twilight with some intelligence - she can make deductions quite easily that might elude other ponies, and so it's difficult to conceal something from her when she has all the facts. Twilight realizes that the intruder is still in the room, just very small, and I'm very sure that this was inspired by a bit in Animorphs where the Yeerks think the Animorphs have somehow vanished but Visser Three knows they just morphed into something too small to be seen. Steal from the best!
Eventually Twilight simply surrounds the library in a forcefield, as seen in "Ponyville Confidential", and Rainbow gives up, because you really can't beat Twilight at full power. The rest of the fic plays out like "Read it and Weep" as Rainbow is forced to admit that she actually likes reading. However, the fic ends with Dash sleeping over at Twilight's, because I wrote it and I'm obsessed with sleepovers.
Somehow, this fic did amazingly well back in the day - it got a ton of comments and hit the feature box, and I think it remains my most successful fic to this day. A lot of people said it felt like show-quality writing, which really surprised me because I wasn't really trying to ape the show, aside from maintaining roughly the pacing of the episode. Personally I'd rate it as an average bit of fluff these days.
Trivia
* Ditzy says "I once broke both my wings at the same time". This is most definitely a personal reference to the fact that when I was twelve years old, I broke both my wrists. At the same time. (I fell off a bike).
* Pinkie offers Rainbow a "Veggie salad?", a reference to her nonsense line in "One Bad Apple".
* Rainbow uses "furlong" as a unit of distance, something I tried to establish for a bit of worldbuilding. A furlong is about 1/8 of a mile and it's used in horse racing, so it seemed fittingly Equestrian.
* Rainbow also uses "thunderclouds!" as a curse, which I quite like.
* Rainbow hurls a ball which explodes into "rainbow-coloured gas", and it's mentioned that it has a stinging taste when inhaled. This was a reference to the liquified rainbow seen in "Sonic Rainboom", which is said to taste spicy. Rainbow's cloud home has falls of the stuff, so she just weaponized it.
Bad stuff
* There's a bit where Luna is guiding the moon through the sky and there's some brief mention of the orbital mechanics of the Equestria-Sun-Moon system. This was really just a way to do the scene transition to Rainbow Dash's caper, and I never really liked it.
* "Owlowiscious!" she hissed, before putting her hooves over her mouth. Owls had superb hearing and her narration was likely to get her discovered. I thought this fourth wall break was great at the time, but it's really not all that funny. I did make sure to spell "Owlowiscious" correctly, however, which is more than you can ask of a lot of first-time authors.
* Twilight says that of all the ponies she was expecting, Dash was low on her list, to which Spike adds that Twilight does actually have such a list. This joke doesn't make any sense.
* Rainbow says to Twilight: "You're not a doctor", and Twilight says "Not yet". I'm not really sure what I was going for with that. I believe the implication was meant to be that Twilight expects to get a doctorate at some point, but it doesn't really make sense.
I definitely remember reading and enjoying this fic back in the day and I always really enjoy seeing authors break down things with their stories.
Hope you keep this up n_n
5568358
Thanks! I am always surprised that this one made such an impression on people :) I struggled a bit to find interesting things to talk about on this one since it was such a long time ago, although I was impressed that I managed to remember as many details as I did. For later stories I'll probably have more to say as they're closer to the present and my note-taking and planning got a bit better over time. :)
5568387
I think a lot of us (me included) are often searching for stories that feel like an episode of the show. You just managed to hit that niche really well with this story.
And glad to hear it!
I remember this one. You published it the same week that I did my first story. Good times.
Well, this post was a surprise!
I took the chance to re-read it as a result of this. To be fair, the points you acknowledge that your find faulty are all true ones (that Luna scene was really clunky), and it is, fairly, just average fluff, for the most part. It definitely reads as a first or early fanfiction - the prose has technical hiccups along the way, mostly to do with awkward POV-shifts and how tight the third-person narration is. And sentences repeating info or tripping over themselves occasionally.
I think what elevates it, is that there’s just an energy to it, the kind of enthusiasm that comes from when someone has been into the show not that long, and it’s their primary point of reference, and thus without consciously trying, it feels true to its spirit. That it was an idea that just a truck you, and which you banged out quick, helps here - this fic has no pretensions other then having a little fun and pleasure, to its benefit. Which also explains many of the “I want to incorporate this element/this aspects of this character” things you mention. Some of which work better then others. But they all feel of a piece with the fic.
This carries it through a plot that is, as noted, meandering and fluffy. Because it’s a branching sequence for an episode that still ends broadly the same way, it is almost obliged to feel a part with it.
Having reread it, it is fluff. But enjoyable effective fluff, despite its loose-less outside of going towards the same end goal as the episode (there is certainly room to cut 20% of this out, and not lose anything). Can’t claim it’s great, but easily worth a read, and helped by being super modest and warm and friendly. Not traits one should short-change!