E24k Lush

• MLP: FiM
• Slice of Life

Sweetie Belle believes in magic. She hopes that'll be enough.

• Twilight
• Sweetie Belle
• Trixie
• Sunset Shimmer
• Starlight Glimmer

The Red Parade · 8.7k words  ·  56  7 · 577 views

24k Lush is a coming of age story that confronts loneliness with an interlaced, overarching conflict where Sweetie Belle sets the stage. It’s a wonderfully woven piece of fiction that keeps you wondering what will happen to Sweetie Belle and how she encounters this newfound feeling of loneliness. Lucky for her, she has the spell to create, one that will take a lot of willpower and friendship to create.

With that out of the way, I need to provide my usual spiel. Hopefully this one will be entertaining for you all, as I am very rusty once again.

What is with me and taking month-long breaks?

Coming Of Age - What It Means In 24k Lush

As I briefly touched on in the opening segment, 24k Lush tackles something that Sweetie Belle, and really many of the characters interact with: this cloud of loneliness. It really acts as the stories antagonist, the one that Sweetie constantly battles as she gets reminders throughout the fic of something her friends would do with her: laugh together, problem-solve together, and really tries to make everyone around them happy through their combined efforts. However, with Scootaloo and Apple Bloom completely void from the story until the finale that is, Sweetie Belle is left to her own devices. She struggles to combat it, and she finds out soon enough that through the ‘adults’ around her, Sweetie Belle sees what it truly means to be lonely. That helplessness and complete and utter shock when you feel so alone--so down. It’s painful, and the author is clearly able to accentuate this feeling without having it forced down our throats. It’s smooth and balanced, something that I look forward to in good writing.

Life’s A Rollercoaster - See Starlight and Trixie For Details

Just moments ago, I did not specify this particular branch of loneliness, but even through the conflict we get to see a romantic couple hash out another dose of loneliness--a different type, one where it involves the clash of work and what makes them whole. Work has taken over Starlight’s plate, something that Trixie hints during Sweetie Belle and Trixie’s conversation. This work, unfortunately, has led to Trixie trying to get her marefriend’s attention, and it ends up with them having a spat that catches Sweetie Belle in the crossfire. This is a great example of being an object of someone else’s rage, and how that ultimately causes Sweetie Belle to turn into a puddle of anxiety and hopelessness at the end of the chapter.

This is only one of those scenes. Throughout 24k Lush, the author puts dabbles of what Sweetie Belle feels inside, and how it's always turbulent, like riding a rollercoaster. There’s those highs where you feel like there’s something going on for you, and then there’s those dramatic low points where nothing seems to work. Every day is a new day though, and that’s what Sweetie Belle finds herself working towards—even if she doesn’t know it. 

Style Means Everything - Diction And Sentence Construction in 24k Lush

I touched on this point within the previous section, but here, I will actually show you those parts. Here’s two examples that really struck me as a reader and a writer:

Sweetie’s ears drooped and her smile slipped away. “Oh. Well… I guess we can ask Rainbow then.” With a sigh she turned away, taking a few slow steps back towards the table. “Thanks anyways, Princess Twilight.”

This writing pops off the page. Before this section, Sweetie Belle is calm and collected, and addresses Twilight as… Twilight. However, in this section, this sense of helplessness creeps into the picture, and we get this scene painted with Sweetie Belle’s dejection, including how her voice casts Twilight as a Princess instead of just Twilight.

But not tonight. Tonight, she was gold.

Two sentences, and they’re so damn good. Compared to the paragraph above, these two sentences are a subtle reference to the scene with Sweetie Belle’s sister, one that shows that Sweetie has finally gone somewhere. She has found her purpose. She’s not useless. She’s golden, just like Rarity told her:

“You most definitely are going somewhere,” she whispered. “Even if you move at your own pace. I promise you that much. And you’re not useless. In fact, you’re golden, darling. Golden.

Daring Do Dares To Distract - How This Impacts The Story

Here is where the story unfortunately gets a bit distracting to me. I felt way more invested in Sweetie Belle’s overarching conflict with herself and this 24k Lush spell than the spell itself. This is probably due to how it was shown to us: told by a bunch of excerpts that are not directly influenced by interactions within the fic, but rather shown as a progression of theme for each chapter itself. It’s… cool, to say the least, the idea is a cool thought, but it doesn’t serve any value other than being that cool little _footnote. There’s nothing else that it gives, which made me skip the section entirely when I read it the second time around. The first time, though, I did dive into it. Full of detail… detail that I felt completely and utterly distant from. Thanks, Daring.

Other than this major fumbling of the bag, I think 24k Lush serves itself well. The minor grammar errors didn’t distract me enough to not be invested in the conflict that Sweetie Belle and her friends face, and how the spell itself makes them become whole again. This is a really good fic that needs to be read by people so they could have that reminder too that not everything has to be a race. There’s a lot of time still remaining in our lives. As long as we give that time purpose by spending it with those we care about, then it’s a great time, eh?

Until next time. Thanks for the story, author. Highly recommended.

Final Score

Grammar: 3/3
Creativity: 5/5 
Characterization: 4/5 
Flow: 3/5 
Impact: 6/7 
Overall: 21/25 (Did It Reach You?)

<For archival purposes: 8.4/10>

7449407

Thanks for the review! I do agree that the Yearling parts are probably the weakest of the story, looking back I probably would have cut them if I were writing this story now. But hey, it is what it is and I don't really want to touch it any more. I think the spell did end up not being a very big driving point of the story, but I think I wanted this to be more of a character piece anyways. Thanks for the feedback and I'm glad you liked it!