Lately, I began to notice that my current review rubric was missing focus on a few rather important topics, and therefore, my review template is getting a bit of an update. The “Impact” category has been subdivided into two new sub-groups: “Accomplishment”, and “Impression”. There is also a new index, named “Writing Style”, and the “Originality” category has had half of its value taken away to give to the new index.

Those changes will be better explained later on in the review. So, without further ado, let’s get to it!

While this category is new, it is not a scoring factor. This is merely to give my first thoughts upon looking at the story’s cover.

Before I went in and started reading, I expected a light hearted, maybe slightly sad story about Trixie finding a way to enjoy the little things in life. Though there was no mention of her in the story description, the cover art and chapter title clued me in that Gilda would probably come in as a fan of Trixie.

Here’s a short synopsis:

Trixie gets run out of a town after residents grow tired of her antics, and she winds up in Manehatten. Her show goes over much better there, and after a particularly profitable show, she decides to treat herself to a nice lunch at a local diner. While she eats her lunch, she is surprised by Gilda, who was impressed by the show. They sit down to talk, the mare and the griffon sharing their story about how they were wronged by Twilight and Rainbow Dash respectively. They form a bond out of their hardships, and Trixie shares her slice of tiramisu as a token of friendship before they go their separate ways.

I really enjoy the idea that these two minor antagonists, who actually appeared back-to-back in their respective first episodes, were able to come together and find some common ground that they share. It really puts an interesting spin on how we viewed the two from their debuts (given that both of them are at least halfway redeemed in current season 5 canon) by showing us the flipside of the story.

Trixie was just trying to make a living, but Twilight stepped in and basically stomped on Trixie’s career because Trixie wasn’t being the most likeable pony around.

Gilda probably felt threatened by Rainbow Dash’s new friends, but reacted poorly and wound up cutting off ties with her best friend.

I see this fic as a great little in-between, probably happening somewhere in season two, that tries to show where Trixie and Gilda might have gone between their second appearances in seasons 3 and 5, respectively. The plotting of the scene flows very naturally through the conversation, and ends in a nice little moment of heartwarming friendshipping between these two characters that were once considered villains.

All in all, the plotting behind this fic is excellent. It doesn’t try to be anything that it isn’t, which is kind of the theme of the piece; getting to know the person under the persona.

There will no longer be a category here for Dialogue/Narration. Those points will be addressed in Character Development and Writing Style, respectively.

Grammar/Formatting— There are no mistakes that I noticed with either of these.

Worldbuilding— This fic doesn’t have a lot of world to build. The real meat and potatoes of the fic take place in a small diner, and the scenery presented there was very nicely constructed and framed the conversation well.

Pacing— It was slightly fast in the beginning, but it worked well for the circumstances. The conversation was paced flawlessly.

Point of View— The story is told from the third person limited point of view, with Trixie used as the viewpoint character. It remains consistent throughout the fic.

Show/Tell— The opening of the story featured a significant amount of telling, but I felt it was necessary in order to set the stage for the rest of the fic to happen. During the latter parts, the scene was shown quite effectively.

At its core, Lunch and Tiramisu is a conversation piece. As such, it relies quite heavily on how strongly the characters are presented.

Both characters are on great display here, primarily through their dialogue. Trixie is her usual self, arrogant and self-praising enough to speak in third person, while Gilda uses her general Rainbow Dash-esque speech pattern, using words like “cool” heavily. I noted that Trixie sometimes broke her usual third-person speech, and I am unsure of whether that was intentional or not. For the purposes of this review, I’ll give the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was intentional.

Because it is intentional, it shows me some depth on Trixie’s part. She was comfortable enough with Gilda to stop projecting her larger than life persona and just talk like a normal pony for once. I liked that, to be honest.

Another thing I noted was that Gilda seemed too nice. She never really became confrontational, despite her natural tendency to be that way. Whether or not she feels bad, the fact that she was so predisposed to act poorly shows her confrontational personality, and I would expect a little of that to shine through into her portrayal here.

Each character was presented well, no doubt, but this fic focuses on their interactions, and good thing too, because that is definitely the most memorable aspect of the fic. The way their conversation progressed fleshed out each of their personalities, and they just seemed to be able to bounce off of each other. After all, I would expect it given their experiences with the mane six. They both have a lot in common.

To sum that up, the characterization was very well-doneand highly enjoyable.

This category will serve to address the overall style of the writing, particularly the narration, as the title would suggest. Shoutout to Bluegrass Brooke for inspiring this portion of the review!

Generally, this story is heavily invested into Trixie’s character, far more so than in what is happening around her. As such, it should generally use a subjective style of narration, with lots of emotional language to convey the thought process of the subject character.

There isn’t a lot to say here other than well done. The story’s narration took on the perfect tone where it needed to, and truly allowed me to immerse myself into Trixie’s character because it felt like I was seeing the world through her eyes. Top marks for style.

Originality is again pretty well washed into the fic’s favor. I’ve never really seen many stories regarding pairing up Trixie and Gilda, shipping or friendshipping regardless. It’s a seldom seen pairing, and the idea driving it all makes it even juicier. Trixie and Gilda bonding over their bad experience with the mane six, and they never even realize that it was the same group of ponies that wronged them? Genius idea, great execution, and it’s another high score from me!

Achievement— This category serves to evaluate the story’s effectiveness. Did it do what it set out to accomplish?

In a word: Absolutely. Lunch and Tiramisu set out with a goal to have Gilda and Trixie share a heartwarming moment of friendship in wake of their run-ins with the heroes of MLP. It didn’t try to be anything it wasn’t, and was overall a very satisfying read.

Impression— And the final piece of the puzzle. This is what the old Impact section was entirely devoted to. What did the story do to leave a lasting impression on me?

In my personal experience, the more there is to a story, the better the payout will be in the end. Given the story’s shot runtime, it doesn’t quite have the time that a longer novel might have to invest me into the story and make me feel more at the end.

This fic is a lot like a piece of tiramisu. It’s sweet and very non-committal to read. A nice treat to have on a quiet afternoon, but it isn’t the most substantial of meals just because, well, it wasn’t intended to be. It may not be the most nourishing story, but it was enjoyable enough to make me remember it.

All in all, Lunch and Tiramisu is a fantastic little story for what it is. I highly recommend checking it out for yourself, because you’ll definitely walk away from it feeling good.

And to close out, the verdict:

Plot: Beautiful in its simplicity. 19/20
Mechanics: Not a flaw I can see. 20/20
Characterization: Excellent dialogue leads to great characters. 18/20
Writing Style: Worked perfectly for the story’s purposes. 10/10
Originality:Did something fresh with two old hat characters. 10/10
Impact:Did what it was made to do and was very memorable for a one-shot. 19/20

Let me be the first to say congratulations to you, KillerRobotQuote! Awaiting approval from other admins, your story will be approved to join the ranks of other great stories in the Masterpiece bookshelf, the highest honor we can award. Excellent work, and I thank you for submitting your story to the Pleasant Commentator and Review Group! See you all next time!

Wow, one hell of a high rating. And it's got Trixie in it? Sold!

4893840

Will have to read the story later.

And am I gonna have to shamelessly steal this rubric too?

4893840
Three things:
1) Sorry about taking eight weeks to respond to this, but I did actually read this back when it was first posted.

2) I'm honored to have been given such a high score. I was quite afraid of seeing the result, but I couldn't believe how much you liked it. That means a lot to me.
That being said, I'm not sure I quite agree with you on everything. The biggest flaw in my story was, as several people have pointed out, including you, Gilda's niceness. Her style of speaking was just a little too friendly to be considered in-character. That's why I can't for the life of me understand why you mentioned it only in passing. I think it really should have had a much bigger impact on the overall score than it did.
Also, thanks for giving the benefit of the doubt about Trixie switching from third person to first. I can assure you that it was, in fact, intentional. However, I think I messed up at one point. There's one line where Trixie makes the switch, but I realize now that she shouldn't have. It wasn't me missing it either--it was a deliberate decision that I realize now was the wrong one.
Still, you also helped me realize the things I did well and will take all of what you said to heart. Thank you very much for giving this very thoughtful review.

3) Something I have noticed, though, that's kind of alarming to me is that the story is not in PCaRP anymore. Given the high score, I'm fairly sure it's supposed to be in at least one folder, but it's nowhere to be found. Could this be fixed?

5014629 I re-added it to the folder. I don't know why it ever got taken out in the first place.

You know, I feel that I may have been a little too nice to your story. Don't get me wrong, it was definitely of very high quality, but I probably should have considered Gilda's characterization a bit more when giving scores. I will say that the admins did vote to leave the story as a Must-Read, so that sort of puts it where I feel it belongs. It might not have been a total masterpiece, but it was a very good piece of writing that I highly enjoyed reading.

I'm glad to hear back from you, and as always, thanks for submitting!