Read It Now Reviews #42 – Diamond Ring, Five Virgins and a Sex Fiend, Aftershocks, I Swear, Make a Plan, Take a Chance, Multi-Factor Authentication · 9:42pm Aug 6th, 2015
I’ve been remiss in clearing out my “Read It Now” queue, and thought I’d go through and review a bunch of recent stories for your reading pleasure – or displeasure, as the case may be.
Today’s stories:
Diamond Ring by DemonBrightSpirit
Five Virgins and a Sex Fiend by Present Perfect Shivered Timbers
Aftershocks, I Swear by Jonesly
Make a Plan, Take a Chance by Mooncalf
Multi-Factor Authentication by Estee
Diamond Ring
by DemonBrightSpirit
Slice of Life
3,092 wordsWhile out on the playground, Scootaloo comes across an opulent diamond ring. Will she keep it, or will she return it to its rightful owner? What if that owner was the pony she hated most?
Why I added it: DemonBrightSpirit is a good writer.
Review
Scootaloo finds a heavy gold, diamond-encrusted ring lying out on the ground behind the school. Her first impulse is to sell it, but she soon realizes that it must belong to someone. But when she finds out it belongs to Diamond Tiara, she changes her mind. But Diamond Tiara really seems to want to get that wedding ring…
This story seemed to promise much more emotional resolution than it actually did. While we can see Diamond Tiara is upset – and we’re even told why she’s upset, that the ring belonged to her mother – the story fails to really build up a good enough emotional connection. Scootaloo felt guilty about it, but what I wanted was to see some characterization here, of Scootaloo and Diamond Tiara, and that just never really came beyond the most basic level. Instead, the story felt superficial, and too focused on the first layer rather than digging deeper.
There was a good idea here, but it just didn’t go the distance.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Five Virgins and a Sex Fiend
by Present Perfect Shivered Timbers
Sex, Comedy, Slice of Life
2,232 wordsIt was just supposed to be a little game, part of the very first slumber party held in Twilight's new castle. Neither Twilight nor her friends expected to learn life-changing things about each other. And none of them could have anticipated who among them had the most experience when it came to sex...
Why I added it: Present Perfect Shivered Timbers is a good writer.
Review
Twilight plays a game where every pony in the group writes down how many ponies they’ve had sex with on a card, and then shuffles up the cards and reads off the numbers.
The title of the story pretty much gives away the results, but not the who.
Not that it is any real surprise, given that seems to be a common porny interpretation of that particular character.
This story wasn’t as funny as I was hoping, to be honest, and it just went with a very common joke without adding any real twist on it. It had a couple of decent lines in it, but frankly, on the whole, it was far too straightforward.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Aftershocks, I swear!
by Jonesly
Comedy, Slice of Life
1,055 wordsIn which Shining Armor shares a story about his wife.
Why I added it: It was featured.
Review
Shining Armor shares an embarrassing story about something that happened to Princess Cadance up in the Crystal Empire.
This is one of those stories that people tell to their friends, which makes them a lot funnier because they are friends. While the idea behind this story is funny… it is told to us by Shining Armor as one would tell a friend, and in the end, that greatly lessens the impact, all the more so because I actually guessed what the story was going to be about from the title.
Sigh.
If I was friends with Shining Armor and Cadance, I would probably be laughing at her, but… well, I’m not.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Make a Plan, Take a Chance
by Mooncalf
Slice of Life
5,278 wordsTwilight Sparkle is concerned about herself, her destiny, and how much her mentor Princess Celestia has influenced both with her manipulations and schemes.
However, Celestia has a different point of view...
Why I added it: It was featured.
Review
Twilight confronts Celestia over manipulating her into becoming who she is. Celestia reveals that she has been doing far less manipulation – and has had far less control over the situation – than Twilight realizes.
I wasn’t terribly impressed by this story, mostly because it is pretty obvious on the whole in many respects – the story doesn’t really reveal anything we didn’t already know, and doesn’t even really put a twist on anything. It is decently and straightforwardly written, but in the end it is 5,000 words of stuff which is fairly obvious. Without ever going beyond that, it just ended up feeling like a recap of the series rather than something new and fresh, or a new way of looking at things.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Multi-Factor Authentication
by Estee
Fluff
5,632 wordsCelestia wants to get into her throne room.
A kindergartner wants her to prove she’s actually Celestia first.
Why I added it: Estee is a good writer.
Review
Princess Celestia has to convince a cute little kindergartener that she is actually herself so she can get into her throne room and hide the (extremely boring) book that she’s been reading before the cleaners find out she’s been reading it.
The book in question is definitely not Fifty Shades of Neigh, judging by the descriptions of the extremely boring early chapters (which is doubly funny given I’ve never read the book and I can still tell what it is, just because of popcultural osmosis).
Naturally, the kindergartener – Nexima – tries to ask Princess Celestia things only she would know. Like what the name of her mother was (it was supposed to be a trick question). And put her through a changeling test.
This is a very fluffy Estee piece, full of the usual world-building (such as how changeling magic works), though it is a much happier one than a lot of the others I’ve read. If you like the idea of reading 5,000 words of Celestia trying to get around a six year old filly who is playing at being a royal guard, this is the story for you, but if you are hoping for anything beyond that, you’re better off looking elsewhere.
Recommendation: Worth Reading if you like fluff.
Summary
Diamond Ring by DemonBrightSpirit
Not Recommended
Five Virgins and a Sex Fiend by Present Perfect Shivered Timbers
Not Recommended
Aftershocks, I Swear by Jonesly
Not Recommended
Make a Plan, Take a Chance by Mooncalf
Not Recommended
Multi-Factor Authentication by Estee
Worth Reading
And there we go! I have another set of these ready for tomorrow as well, as apparently I decided I needed to read a whole bunch of stories today.
Work on chapters 5 and 6 of Mistletrapped continues as well, with another thousand words contributed towards that piece so far today.
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later – Important: 75
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later – High Priority: 309
Number of stories listed as Read It Later: 1634
I just read Multi-Factor, and loved it. These darned kids, playing around with their daddy's armor in the castle. It characterized Celestia so well as unwilling to simply ride over opposition no matter how silly it was. And then bookended with Luna later for double the cuteness. Such sisterly togetherness.
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That story is aiming very squarely at exactly that appeal, and it does a pretty good job of it overall. I've got another fluff piece in my set of stories tomorrow which also earned a WR.
Only one today? Shame.
Haha, no wonder it got into the featured box. :D
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That's pretty much what Read It Now reviews are for!