DANNYJ REVIEWS: THE JOURNAL OF THE TWO SISTERS

I did a blog review (a serious blog review anyway) on only one previous occasion, and that was when I reviewed the first Fallout game. That blog is no longer on the site, because I marked it as mature and then it was deleted when the mature blogs feature was removed. It didn't even have any particularly explicit content in it. I'm just prone to swearing and so marked my swear-heavy blogs as mature out of courtesy in case people didn't want to see that shit. Since that worked out badly, now I swear with fucking impunity and you bitches gotta deal with it.

But I digress. What I'm trying to say is that my previous review blog is no longer on the site, so that technically makes this the very first edition of DannyJ Reviews! And possibly the last. I don't know. I'm not going to try to make this a series, because I am a busy man, and whenever I try to make something into a series, I fail to update it. I have what we call commitment issues, but I am working through those with my therapist right now. Hopefully, he can help me to resolve this whole problem in a constructive manner. And hopefully this won't end with me being chemically castrated again, because that's not fun.

Anyway, if I remember correctly, I was meant to be reviewing... uh... hmm... Oh yes! Journal of the Two Sisters! Unless you're worried about spoilers, check that out after the break! I can't do the blog jump thing because I am mentally deficient.

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Well, let's get started.

DannyJ, what the fuck is this thing?:

Journal of the Two Sisters, or as I will refer to it from now on for brevity's sake, JOTTS, is a book by Amy Keating Rogers. If you didn't pick up already, it is a tie-in to the MLP TV series. Anyone remember back in Castle Mania when Twilight was reading a diary supposedly written by Celestia and Luna, and the great Josh Haber (hallowed by His name) cruelly teased us with worldbuilding only to instead talk about how much Luna liked to fill their castle with traps and dangerous shit? Yeah, well this is that diary. And this time, we do get worldbuilding! Quite a lot of it, in fact, courtesy of Miss Rogers. If you don't know who she is, I'd be surprised, but in case you don't, she's a veteran writer of the show who's been with us since season one and has a lot of episodes to her name, having wrote or co-wrote ten of them through the Faust era and recently returning to us for season four. Chances are that she was behind at least one of your favourite episodes, unless you're some kind of bizarro-world person who hates the whole show except for season three. So it sounds like we're in safe hands at least.

Of course, JOTTS isn't the first of its kind. There have been several previous books based on MLP:FiM, not the least of which is Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell, which actually told the story of how Cadance ascended to alicornhood and was adopted into the royal family. Near as I can tell, weird little tie-in books doing important worldbuilding like that is far from a common occurrence, but evidently, it does happen. It happened with Crystal Heart Spell, and now it's happened again with JOTTS. But I'm not sure we can really consider them to be the same thing. While I'm pretty sure that both books were written with kids in mind, there is a considerable difference between a show writer like Amy handling the book, and some unknown author handling it. Nothing against Miss G. M. Berrow (I'm sure she's perfectly lovely), but I'm not inspired with confidence for her book when its basic synopsis on the wiki says things such as "Meghan McCarthy was consulted about one part of its story" and "Its cover and interior illustrations reuse artwork of Twilight Sparkle as a Unicorn, despite her being an Alicorn in its story." This is why I haven't actually read Crystal Heart Spell yet. If anybody here has read Crystal Heart Spell, please tell me all about it by emailing me at [e-mail] and explaining your experience in detail, because I care a lot.

But enough background. Let's dig into this.

Telling a motherfucking story:

Our scenario isn't a complex one. As I said above, this is the journal of Celestia and Luna that we saw in Castle Mania. It starts with the coronation of the two sisters as they are crowned princesses of Equestria, and it follows them through the trials and tribulations of their early days on the throne. Said trials range in scale and importance, but invariably are resolved soon after they arise, and each entry usually brings us some new piece of worldbuilding, filling in another piece of the history of Equestria. Most conflicts end a few pages after being brought up, but there are a few persistent threads throughout. The most important running subplot is the fact that the princesses lack cutie marks, and indeed, the book ends with them finally gaining those marks after raising the sun and moon for the first time. In-between, we see them fight monsters, make friends, discover new things, and occasionally just have fun. It's not the kind of diary where big secrets are confessed or detailed accounts of each day are made. It's more like the diary that Twilight and her friends keep in the show, where it's updated every time something interesting happens and they just talk about their fun adventures and what they learned and stuff. Which is fitting, I guess. This journal is, after all, the very one that inspired Twilight and friends.

So as a story, does it work? Well, I wouldn't say I find any special fault in it. Like I said, most conflicts do end after only a few pages, and it does keep a quick pace and breeze through things a lot, but you have to keep it in context. It's a diary. It comes with the format. And it also comes with its target demographic. It's meant to be for kids, so of course we're not getting a novel, but it goes into detail where it can, and for all the quickness of pace, it never really feels like it's going too fast. Each major adventure is given an appropriate amount of pagetime proportional to the book, with greater crises taking more entries to cover. The perspectives of both sisters are frequently brought out, but it still avoids significant repetition by having them be doing different things whenever shenanigans occur, and the details of each major event are usually divided between both authors. Whenever it would be redundant to have them both make an entry, then it'll normally just have one sister write an entry. So I was never bored. Ten out of ten. Best MLP story in the franchise.

While we're on the story, I also have to talk about tone, because that's always important. I meant what I said about it mostly being about the characters having fun adventures and the like. "Fun" is definitely the order of the day here, and the diary keeps a consistently light-hearted tone. If you go in reading hoping for stories of Equestria's war-torn past, you won't find them. While allusions are made to some minor past violence between pegasi and griffons and the sisters do in fact get into a few fights, peace and friendship rule the day here, as they should do. I'm not a Faust purist. I actually rather liked the ultra-violent, DBZ-style showdown of the season four finale. But FiM was founded on being a light-hearted show about ponies and friendship and innocence, and that's on full display here. Everything from a bratty princess to a manticore attack to a brewing griffon war to an angry dragon moving on the Crystal Empire all eventually ends peacefully, usually with apologies made. If season one was your favourite, and you prefer to think of Equestria as a land where all wars are fought with pies, then I think you'll really like what JOTTS is going for.

Using your goddamn format:

Somewhat less praiseworthy is the writing itself. As this is a diary, we naturally take a first person perspective, and what we're reading is presented as being the words of the princesses. Here we come across what I consider to be the story's major weakness, which is its character voicing.

Characters speak in a distinct way. Applejack doesn't use especially erudite language, Rarity talks in a sophisticated manner, Rainbow Dash uses more slang, Pinkie talks at a mile a minute, etc. Now, for the princesses, it's harder to describe how they speak, but I think you'll agree that there are some things it's hard to imagine them saying. Sure, in the fandom, we have many fanon versions of the princesses. You got your Molestias, your Trollestias, your Tyrantlestias, and all that other jazz. But I'm talking about canon here. Watch a few of Celestia's scenes on YouTube. Memorise her voice. Listen to her word choice. If you actually have a grasp on her character, then you'll soon come to the conclusion that however much fun we might have with those fanon versions of her, they're not supported at all by her canon character. The same is true of Luna.

A lot of the princesses' character is still up to interpretation due to their lesser screentime, and for that reason you can argue for ages about their morals, their fears, how they'd act in a given situation, and so on and so forth. But I think we have a pretty definite idea of how they speak, or at least a decent impression of it. I definitely think I've got a firm enough grasp on it that I can never take it seriously in a fic when Celestia calls her sister "Lulu". I'm kind of sour on Luna calling Celestia "Tia" as well, even though I'm pretty sure I used that myself several times in Human.

With that point made, I'm going to present a quote from early in the book:

I'm going to write about the good stuff, the bad stuff, and hopefully some really awesome magic stuff, which will probably fall under good, bad and awesome.

That was Luna. Could you tell? Did it sound much like Luna to you? Because to me, that sounds more like Rainbow Dash than Luna. It especially doesn't sound much like ye olde Luna, which this is meant to be. Explanations are offered as to why Luna doesn't sound like she should, and to be fair to Amy, both sisters are being written as significantly younger than the versions we know. However, I never really could shake my discomfort with this aspect of the story. Capturing a character's voice is very important, and I feel like this is a major failing of the book.

Revising your bastard headcanon:

The final major thing that we must of course talk about with this book is the worldbuilding, because as I've mentioned several times, there's a lot of it. As often occurs when we learn new things about the world, headcanons are shattered, and a large part of whether you're able to enjoy the book or not depends on how attatched you are to your precious fan theories.

Now personally, I'm a "roll with the punches" kind of guy. I believe that being a fan of anything means having to accept that canon isn't going to follow my fanfiction, and I believe that most rational people will do the same. If what canon introduces in place of a logical fan theory is dumb, then calling it out is fair game, but I have no respect for people who whine that canon somehow "got it wrong" because it didn't conform to their expectations. So given all that, I really didn't take special issue with most of what JOTTS proposes.

However, the worldbuilding of JOTTS may not be everyone's liking, and I wouldn't consider it irrational or whiny of anyone to prefer whatever other headcanon they had to this. Not because it's bad, but because we all have different tastes. Maybe the story in your head is more interesting to you that the story of JOTTS. And that's fine. That's valid. You're free to dislike the story for that reason, as far as I'm concerned. Or not. You could just keep your headcanon, treat JOTTS as AU since it's not in the show yet, and enjoy it on its own terms. I'd prefer you do that, because there is a lot to like here, but I'm not gonna sit here and tell you how to enjoy your fiction, so whatevs.

If you want a list of all the important worldbuilding stuff, I'll leave it in a comment under this blog post.

In fucking conclusion:

JOTTS is okay. It wasn't amazing, but I didn't find it offensive or anything, and I found a lot to like about it, even if it did have some flaws. I've favourited fanfics worse than this, so I think I can say overall that I liked it well enough. As to whether I'd recommend it, I guess that comes down to what you personally like in a story. But you have the rest of my review here, so I think you have enough to decide for yourself whether to give it a try or not. If you do give it a go, or if you've already read it, then leave a comment and tell me what you thought.

I am also currently selling some human kidneys that I want to get rid of quickly. I've got about seven left, so if anybody's interested in those, this is probably the cheapest you'll ever get them.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading through my ramblings. Hope you didn't get bored and vow to destroy me.

-DJ

Comments

[DannyJ]

The great big fucking list of important shit:

I figured I'd list off all the important revelations that JOTTS brought us for easy reference, so that you don't have to read the book if you don't want to. Fanfiction writers, take note:

-There were alicorns around before Celestia and Luna, and they were raised by these alicorns. While it's never outright said, it's implied that Celestia and Luna were indeed born as alicorns. Alicorns were known to ponies prior to the sisters taking the throne, and Starswirl kept scrolls on alicorn magic.

-Alicorns are stated to age differently than ponies. Celestia and Luna were still blank flanks when they took the throne, but were still considered mature enough for the responsibilities and didn't consider themselves fillies.

-Celestia and Luna were specifically approached by Starswirl, Smart Cookie, Private Pansy and Clover the Clever to be their princesses because they recognised alicorns as the master race alicorns stand for all the principles that Equestria was founded upon and they believed that Celestia and Luna, as alicorns, could best represent ponies interests in an unbiased manner.

-It takes six unicorns to raise or lower the sun, and six more to raise or lower the moon. This is extremely draining work, and a unicorn can only volunteer for this duty for a very short time before they lose their magic permanently, a necessary sacrifice that they must make. Starswirl the Bearded was uniquely powerful and could act as the sixth unicorn for raising both the sun and moon each day, and guided the other five, and he kept up this duty for a long time before he eventually lost his magic as well. Permanent magic loss can change beard colour, as Starswirl's went from brown to grey when he lost his magic, and went brown again when he got it back. Turns out permanent magic loss isn't so permanent. Doy.

-The Tree of Harmony, Alicorn Amulet, and the zebras were all known to exist and were already written about by the time of early Equestria, but it's unclear just how widely-known any of this is.

-The Everfree Forest was already the Everfree Forest when the sisters started building their castle there. They chose that location specifically because of its proximity to the Tree of Harmony.

-Manticores are actually very intelligent, have their own special manticore language, and are capable of complex emotions. #calleditbitches

-Much like Fluttershy, Luna is some kind of animal empath, and was able to speed along the construction of the Everfree castle by recruiting the efforts of all manner of beasts. She had a manticore companion that she called Melvin. Yes, I'm serious.

-While whether this is still the case or not is unclear, when Equestria was first founded, it was not a nation, but a nation of nations, comprised of many smaller kingdoms and empires that were around since before it existed. Equestria included the Crystal Empire, and each of the three old tribes controlled their own regions. These smaller kingdoms and empires kept their own leaders and royalty. The Crystal Empire was ran by a unicorn called Princess Amore, while the unicorn kingdom was headed by King Bullion, father of Princess Platinum.

-Celestia and Luna are both actually older than Princess Platinum. She initially did not get along with Celestia and Luna, but changed her ways later. The Equestrian flag seen in the Hearth's Warming play was designed by Platinum herself after they became friends.

-Chancellor Puddinghead and Luna played prank wars, while Celestia and Commander Hurricane would fly together and race each other.

-Starswirl's single-use time spell that Twilight used was only the weakest version of it. He eventually invented a spell that allowed for proper time travel, after which he made frequent trips to the future, though he never gave spoilers. Starswirl may or may not have known Twilight Sparkle, as he seemed to be aware of the significance of her cutie mark on the Tree of Harmony after these trips. Starswirl's time spells also had the effect of making his body younger. Dude basically invented the age spell by accident.

-While it's never stated if they originate from that region or not, there did live a tribe of zebras on the other side of the Everfree Forest. These zebras invented the alchemy or whatever you want to call it that Zecora uses, and originally used it to fight off manticore attacks. These zebras were also prone to rhyming. I guess it's not just Zecora after all. All zebras rhyme. Every stereotype is true.

-Moving the stars is either impossible, or extremely difficult. Not even Luna ever achieves it during the course of the story.

-The griffons were led by someone called Gregor, and previously had conflicts with the pegasi over airspace. They eventually negotiated an end to this. After the founding of Equestria, Gregor tried to reopen hostilities, feeling the founding of Equestria to have invalidated the treaties made with the pegasi, but was talked out of it when the princesses placated him with eclairs. Griffons are stated to have a sweet tooth.

-The Crystal Empire was founded by Princess Amore after she discovered the Crystal Heart and projected her positive emotions into it. The Crystal Heart was discovered by crystal pony miners in the Crystalline Mountain. Yes, the crystal ponies predate the Crystal Heart's discovery. No, I don't know how.

-The Crystal Heart was at one point stolen by a dragon who lived in the Crystalline Mountain since before the Crystal Heart's discovery, who considered it part of his hoard. He returned it after being intimidated by Celestia, Dragonshy-style. Afterwards, Luna promptly declared that the Crystal Empire was safe, and nobody would ever menace it again. It's the little moments like these that I enjoyed the most in this book.

-Handling the solar cycles burns through most unicorns so fast, that the unicorn kingdom eventually ran out of unicorns to volunteer for the job. There were literally no adult unicorns with magic left, not even amongst the royalty. It was only at this stage that Celestia and Luna raised the sun and moon for the first time, and gained their cutie marks. According to some old legends, alicorns actually get stronger magic from raising the sun and moon. Somehow. I don't know where these legends came from. But they are true, and after raising the sun and moon, Celestia and Luna were able to restore the magic of all the unicorns, including Starswirl.

-After restoring the unicorns' magic, the journal abruptly ends. Unless they started a new journal that we don't know about, I am forced to assume that some kind of horrible tragedy ocurred shortly after this point.

And that's it.

[DeftFunk]

Wow, glad I stumbled across this blog post. I had no idea this book existed, but now I'm interested. After reading this revelation list, I'm intensely interested!

[DannyJ]

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I don't know why, but for some reason, this is the first blog I've had in forever to have no comments for this long. You're the first.

Congratulations.