Read It Now Reviews #44 – You Have Made Your Bed, Induction of the Innocent, Scientific Progress Goes Crash, Scar Tissue, Fact or Fanfiction · 5:26pm Aug 9th, 2015
I forgot to post this yesterday, but here it is – another set of recent stories I reviewed on Thursday.
Today’s stories:
You Have Made Your Bed by Syntavant
Induction of the Innocent by FanOfMostEverything
Scientific Progress Goes Crash by Drax
Scar Tissue by RadiantBeam
Fact or Fanfiction by Tumbleweed
You Have Made Your Bed
by Syntavant
Romance, Slice of Life
3,826 wordsTwilight asks Rainbow if they can move their reading session from the library over to the cloud house. Snuggling ensues.
Why I added it: I saw it in the popular stories box.
Review
Twilight is totally into Rainbow Dash, but can’t fess up to it. So when Twilight asks to go do some reading at Rainbow Dash’s house “because of the heat wave”, Rainbow Dash knows it is really just an excuse to spend more time around her.
The whole story jumps back and forth in both time and perspective, going from first person (Rainbow Dash in the present) to third person (describing the past). The effect is awkward, and the whole story is utterly lacking in tension; we know that Rainbow Dash doesn’t mind that much from the start, and we know how it is going to end from the beginning, and in the end, there isn’t really a whole lot of development done for the romance through the course of the story.
This is a very fluffy piece, but it didn’t even really engage me on that axis because it was so broken up, and there wasn’t much actual fluffy emotion between the pair.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Induction of the Innocent
by FanOfMostEverything
Comedy
2,937 wordsField Player is a traveling performer who specializes in audiovisual illusion. After a show in one of the friendliest towns he's been to, he decides to sample a little local flavor. One mare was especially dazzled by the show. Wooing her should be easy enough, right?
Why I added it: It was a finalist in the last Writeoff.
Review
Field Player notices Twilight Sparkle paying rapt attention at his performance, but that she seems to have more of a scholar’s eye for it than most.
And she’s hot.
Naturally he does the natural thing and offer to discuss magical things with her, as well as other sciences – biology, for instance.
Twilight is totally taken. But she just has a few quick lot of questions for Field Player first…
"A checklist?" I echoed. "We could just—"
"Oh, it'll be over quick. Then we can..." She giggled again.
I smiled. Humoring her seemed harmless. "Then let's start. The sooner we finish..." I trailed off with a roguish wink, letting her imagination do the rest.
Twilight nodded, and her horn lit up. A cylinder as thick as her barrel burst into existence in front of her.
My jaw dropped. "That is a large scroll." The words slipped out before I could even think to stop them.
She didn't seem to notice, unrolling an all-too-short length of the immense thing. "Now then," she said, "is this your first time?"
I collected myself and gave my best "bad colt" grin. "I wouldn't say that."
She looked away and gave a delicious little squirm. "Well, it's mine. I guess I can follow your lead."
"In that case..." I tried to take the checklist in my own magic.
She completely overwhelmed me with no visible effort on her part. It was like getting my horn slammed in a door. She glared at me, but was smiling. "Hey, if we're going to do this, we're doing it properly. Next question, do you have any venereal diseases?"
I sputtered. "What!? Why would you—"
She narrowed her eyes. "You know, acting defensively about that kind of thing isn't filling me with confidence."
I gritted my teeth. This was beginning to feel like Trixie all over again. "No."
She raised an eyebrow. "Hmm. Hold still, please." Before I could react, a field of magenta light swept over me. Twilight smiled again. "Good! You were right, you don't."
"What was that about?" I swore I could taste plaid.
You know, safety first!
Recommendation: Worth Reading if you want to read about Twilight going through quite the degrading checklist for “spontaneous” sex.
Scientific Progress Goes Crash
by Drax
Romance, Comedy, Slice of Life
2,598 wordsExperiment 247: Day 1
Subject of study: Why does Rainbow Dash keep crashing into my library?
Hypothesis A: She thinks it’s fun. Disproved because Rainbow prefers staying in the air and hates helping me clean up.
Hypothesis B: She’s clumsy Rainbow is extremely graceful in the air
Hypothesis C: None… Further study needed.
Why I added it: It was featured.
Review
Twilight spends all day magically observing Rainbow Dash around town, but the tags and the story summary make the true story a foregone conclusion – Rainbow Dash is crashing into Twilight’s Library on purpose.
And… that’s pretty much all that happens in the story. No further character development. No relationship development. No resolution. Nothing. It is just 2,600 words of “Rainbow Dash crashes into Twilight’s Library because she has a crush on her”. There’s not even any real mention of a crush or much in the way of indications of Rainbow Dash’s emotions.
While the idea is not a bad one – I’ve seen decent stories with this premise before – it needs to go beyond the premise and do something with the idea. This is more of a setup than a story.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Scar Tissue
by RadiantBeam
Slice of Life, Human
1,806 wordsWhile relaxing after a performance, the Rainbooms discover Sunset has scars that she definitely didn't have before the Fall Formal.
Why I added it: It was featured.
Review
Sunset Shimmer has scars from when she transformed into a demon at the Fall Formal.
While I like the idea behind this, that’s really all there is – the idea. The entire story is summarized in the summary plus story image plus title, and it doesn’t really go anywhere beyond that. Everyone else notices Sunlight Shimmer has scars, she explains what happens, they go get donuts.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Fact or Fanfiction
by Tumbleweed
Comedy, Slice of Life
5,343 wordsWhat starts as a boring afternoon in Twilight's library soon spirals out of control once Twilight introduces Rainbow Dash to the wide world of Daring Do fanfiction.
Inspired by this revelation, Rainbow Dash takes it upon herself to write the BEST FANFICTIONS EVAR. It can't be that hard, right? All she needs is an idea, a typewriter, and a whole lot of coffee!
It should be noted that "an editor" is not on Rainbow Dash's list.
Why I added it: Tumbleweed is a good writer.
Review
Rainbow Dash writes the most awesome fanfiction ever.
Or at least, she thinks so.
Twilight is understandably horrified.
And then the story promptly starts making fun of all of the tropes in MLP Fanfiction, vis-à-vis Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle’s conversation.
“Look, let's...let's get back to your fanfiction.” Twilight forced herself to look back at the manuscript, where Rainbow Dash's languid pose just made her blush a little harder. Twilight turned the page. “While I admit, the photo is somewhat...attention grabbing. But it doesn't have anything to do with the rest of the story.”
“Sure it does! Because technically, that's not a picture of me, that's a picture of-”
The epiphany hit Twilight like a jai lai ball through plate glass. “-Rainbow Flash.”
“Yep!”
“Your OC.”
“My what?”
“Original Character. Someone who's not from the source material- which, in this case, are the Daring Do novels. Sometimes it's necessary to add them, but it's something you should really be careful with- especially with a self insert OC like this one.”
“Why? I'm awesome, therefore my character should be awesome. Duh.”
“Don't you think putting yourself into a story is just a teensy bit...egotistical?'
Before Rainbow Dash could reply, a light green earth pony with brown hair and glasses walked into the library. “Oh,” he said, smiling, “not interrupting anything, am I?”
“Nope! Not interrupting anything at all!” Twilight Sparkle said entirely too fast, and flared her wings out to hide Rainbow Dash's manuscript.
“Oh, okay, good.” The earth pony gave a dazzling smile, “I'm afraid I don't have time to chat- just wanted to drop off these books before I forgot. You'd come after me if I started racking up overdue fees.”
“Oh, I'd never do that.” Twilight Sparkle said, and fidgeted at the floor with her hoof.
“You sure? Because there are worse things to happen than having a cute princess chase after you.” The pony winked roguishly, and headed for the door. “See you next time, Twilight!” he said.
Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle watched him go.
“Man, that Tumbleweed guy is dreamy.” Rainbow Dash said.
“He sure is.” said Twilight.
They sighed in wistful unison.
Rainbow Dash was the first to shake herself out of her justifiably lovestruck fugue. “What were we talking about again?”
“Oh! Right.” Twilight said, “As I was saying, just adding a self-insert OC is going to turn off a lot of readers.”
Oh Tumbleweed. 
While a few sections of this felt like they dragged a bit, being a bit too obvious, a few sections like the one above made me actually break out into laughter in real life, and I’m not sure if I can fairly not recommend something that made me laugh that loud.
Well, on purpose, anyway.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Summary
You Have Made Your Bed by Syntavant
Not Recommended
Induction of the Innocent by FanOfMostEverything
Worth Reading
Scientific Progress Goes Crash by Drax
Not Recommended
Scar Tissue by RadiantBeam
Not Recommended
Fact or Fanfiction by Tumbleweed
Worth Reading
And there we go! Clearly I’m making good progress!
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later – Important: 76
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later – High Priority: 311
Number of stories listed as Read It Later: 1629
Woo! A "Worth Reading" from you is a win in my book.
Thanks, TD.
(Also, it looks like you didn't close the url tags properly in... well, any of your notification comments on the reviewed stories.)
3306835
I have no idea how I even managed to do that.
Thanks for pointing it out. Fixed!
Fair enough. I can see the reasons behind a lot of your points, and I'll try to improve. Cheers for the review.
2 this time.
3307487
Indeed!
I've got another set which is sitting at 4/5, and another at 3/5, so we'll see how that goes. Also a short story set that I need to finish up on.
And of course my own stories need to be worked on...
Thanks for helping me get rid of Scientific Progress! That idea's been done to death in stories where it wasn't the focus!
3307888
Yeah... apparently it was part of some competition run by The Abyss. I'm not sure if the writer just was pressed for time and started writing it then ran out of time or what, but it is marked complete but feels like it isn't.
Aaaah!
"Page Break" somewhere near the top, please.
3312978
Sorry. I had been using HR as a sort of page-break up towards the start of the posts, so it would only display the intro bit unless you clicked on that little expand button, but I hadn't really considered that some folks might, you know, click that expand button without thinking about the fact that it is a big long review post.
I did start doing that with Monday's post as an experiment, so maybe I will add it to the default format.
3313310 I don't think HR makes an "Expand" button? Anyway, there is no "Expand" button on this post in your list of blog posts; take a look.
3314207
HR cuts off a blog post in a user's feed; they have to click a little button at the bottom of the post to expand it out and read the full thing. However, this does not happen in a user's blog post history; it simply displays the full post.
I don't know why it functions differently between the two places, but it does.
I shall be using page break in the future to make sure that my blog page is more navigable.