Christmas Ultra Pinkie Presents Casing And Kreating Everypony’s Spirits
It wasn’t because she wanted to see Santa- she wasn’t even sure she believed in Santa Claus-but Twilight was excited to spend a delighting Christmas with her friends. Her need for time to move faster was willing to work against her, the clock’s hands laxly made rounds about its face. The rest of the world was fighting Twilight and her desires, and they were winning.
She stared intently at the clock as each second seemed to take hours to pass; 11:30 pm. Realizing her futile efforts, the alicorn groaned and got out of her bed. She adjusted her wings to slide more comfortably against her side, and she dragged her way out of her room. Having a new castle with many rooms allowed Twilight to be less subtle about her exits in fear of waking a defenseless, sleeping dragon. Her magic encased the double-door entry and opened it, squeaks pervaded the hallway, unheard to the rest of its residents.
A candle wasn’t needed, for the moonlight that shedded through the panes, scattered across the dark blue walls, was enough to light Twilight’s way. Since the beginning of this season, the organized mare had to deter from her typical walking path. Her usual routine was disrupted by the apparent tree standing tall in the center of the circling thrones. Decorations were sprinkled over their Christmas tree: candy canes, ornaments, and streamers of many colors.
Christmas Twilight imagined. This was the first time she will spend it with her friends rather than her family. The alicorn was confused why her mother denied Twilight the permission of going to visit them, or her family coming to visit her. Did she do something wrong? Did she anger her family in some way.
Twilight took long paces around the overly-decorated tree; no presents occupied the cold space beneath the tree. She came up with many reasons as to why her parents didn’t want their daughter over for Christmas this year. It just didn’t make sense. Last year, she was able to visit them, and the year before that. What changed?
It was too late for this mare to be thinking so hard, but the clatter of clashing metal denied her this peace of mind. Startled by the spontaneous eruption of noise from the hall she came from, the alicorn was forced to wonder what was going on. Twilight was never fond of things not going her way. All this princess wanted was to go back to bed, and she can’t do that now because she needed to find out who is making such a ruckus in the middle of the night.
The Princess of Magic slowly stepped through the blackened hallway, daring not to echo her intentions. There was nothing to follow the noises that were made when she was in the throne room, but Twilight quickly noticed the light shining from under the door next to her room: Pinkie Pie’s room. The mare was less frightened now knowing the room it came from, but Twilight did grow irritated by Pinkie’s obnoxious commotion she made earlier. It was almost twelve at night-also Twilight is aware that Pinkie can get overly enthusiastic about holidays like Hearth’s Warming Day-but does she have to wake everypony else up with her impatient squabbles?
“Pinkie!” Twilight whispered loudly, throwing the door open with her magic. “What in the land of Eques-”
Pinkie, with the top half of her body still on the bed, was trying to slip on her last candycane stocking. The pink pony stared at the intruder, and Twilight only stared back. Late on the reaction, Pinkie jumped to her hooves and slipped on her santa hat; she then fell behind her bed with a loud thud.
Twilight winced in pain despite not feeling it herself. She moved forward to check if her party friend wasn’t injured. She peered over the side of the bed expecting to find a laughing mare, but she was pulled over to Pinkie’s side and muzzled with a hoof. Twilight wanted to yelp in shock, but Pinkie was quick to silence her with a pleading hiss.
“Is anypony else awake?” Pinkie interrogated, her face inches from the princess’s. Twilight shrugged her shoulders to replace her inability to speak. “Okay, good. Nopony’s supposed to know.”
Twilight spat the hoof out of her mouth, “Know what?”
“My secret!” Pinkie answered and scrunched her nose against Twilight’s.
Pinkie jumped away and gave her snoopy friend room to breathe. The santa-dressed mare closed the door quietly and turned back towards Twilight, who busied herself with getting off the floor. She ran in a pink blur to the standing mare and slid to her hind knees; Pinkie’s forehooves occupied Twilight’s face and pulled her close enough to make the daunted alicorn uncomfortable.
“Twily,” Pinkie began with her pet name, “you have to promise you’ll keep this a secret. If everypony figures out what I do, Equestria could seize to exist forever! Promise me you won’t tell anypony!”
“Okay, Pinkie, okay,” she pushed the mare away and enacted the Pinkie Promise. “Now can you tell me what you’re up to?”
As satisfied as the earth pony was, she presented to Twilight her stash of presents numbering to as many as fifty. Each present was wrapped the same way but with a different casing. Looking closely, the gifts all had a tag attached to their sparkling red ribbons repeating the same thing:
To: My Favorite Pony
From: Santa
“P-Pinkie,” the princess stuttered. She didn’t have words in her mind that she could express through her mouth; she needed a little more time to figure out what to say. “You go out and give everypony a Christmas gift? As Santa?”
“Uh-huh!”
“Pinkie!” Twilight emphasized. “This is amazing! But why? How? Where did you get the money to afford this!?”
Pinkie pulled her questioning sidekick closer, wrapping her hoove around her neck. She walked forward and guided Twilight along to the window. Looking over the frosted village, no lights could be picked out of the darkness. All its citizens rested in their homes, warmed by the blankets that comforted their minds; even the children of the night wouldn’t be found at this time.
“Oh, Twilight,” Pinkie sighed. “Isn’t it better to know that somepony was willing enough to give you a present than to know how many bits they spent to get that present?”
Twilight went to answer her question but held her tongue. The alicorn didn’t have anything to fight back with; Pinkie gave her a logical standing point. Her mouth fell ajar from the astonishing defense the jokester had put together, and she couldn’t close it.
That made sense. Twilight thought.
Lost in thought, purple mare wasn’t quick to notice Pinkie Pie trying to snap her out of her dreamy gaze.
“Twily, I know you love to think and space out, but if you want to help me, you have to help.”
She gestured to a sled already prepared with all of its presents stored in the back.
“So, what exactly are we doing?” Twilight asked.
“Duh, we are going to go to every house in Ponyville, and we’re going to put these presents under everypony’s trees without waking them. We have to get it done before 12:01, or we will be late.”
Pinkie emphasized that last word to ring the bells in Twilight’s head. There is nothing that bothered Twilight more than being late. The studious pony’s eyes widened by the thought of not making a deadline, but then they narrowed.
“Okay,” Twilight concluded, “let’s do this.”
“So, Celestia made you this sled of magic, so you can fly around and give everypony gifts for Hearth’s Warming Day?” Twilight clarified as she looked over Ponyville from their vantage point.
“Yup,” the santa mare replied gleefully. “I wanted to make sure everypony got at least one super duper, awesome present they want. If not everypony is smiling on a day like Hearth’s Warming Day, then I wouldn’t be able to smile and bare my element true.”
Twilight couldn’t help but smile warmly at Pinkie’s belief. The dedication this party pony had could never bore Twilight. She always had this jubilant air around her that brought joy to Twilight, and the princess liked it.
Twilight and Pinkie sat flank-to-flank on this one-pony sled as they flew to every house dropping presents down every chimney. Twilight was directing which house they were stopping at in a fashionable order in order to hit every house in the fifteen minutes they have left. Pinkie, knowing which pony gets what present, was bungee jumping down every chimney, present in hoof, and taking some cookies along the way. As they travel, they would share the cookies and milk while laughing together at jokes made in their delightful conversation.
Hitting every house within seconds of eachother, Twilight and Pinkie were able to finish their job with five minutes to spare. They made their way back with only a plate of cookies and a pitcher of milk left on the sled; all the presents were gone and the job officially completed. Other times, Twilight would have regretted staying up so late, but tonight, a night spent with Pinkie Pie giving out gifts to everypony and sharing many words, she was glad she didn’t go to bed.
Packing away the sled and stowing away her costume, Pinkie looked back on her room with a satisfying gaze. Now free of gift wrapping and boxes, her room still bared the many feats it once held in Sugar Cube Corner. Her party covered blanket topped with candycane-sheeted pillows spiced her bed with many things sweet and nice. The walls were a dark shade of blue, closer to the color of her eyes.
The cotton candy mare was lost in thought of the night; she couldn’t think of anything besides their time together. She only wished it could last forever, just the same with the dreams in her head, but company waited for her presence. Pinkie shook her head of remaining thoughts and took off the throne room to accompany the mare of her dreams.
Twilight patiently waited for Pinkie’s arrive to carry on their conversation and the last bit of cookies left to feast on. On her throne, she glanced up to the star upon their tree. It was pretty. It was only made of glass, but the love their friends put in to get it, mixed with Luna’s moon shining through the panes of the castle, it was more beautiful than any star that occupied the sky.
Twilight’s ears twitched to doors sliding in place behind her. She turned her head to be greeted by Pinkie’s azure eyes staring into her own. Twilight didn’t break their gaze; she couldn’t. When she looked deeply, the star’s reflection danced and settled the alicorn’s mind. It warmed her heart; she didn’t know why, but she liked it.
Pinkie wasn’t sure what her friend was thinking about, but she smiled and waved a cup of hot milk between them. Her chair was too far from Twilight’s, so she made herself comfortable on Spike’s. She placed the plate of cookies between the two of them and leaned close to Twilight from her position.
“We should switch chairs,” Pinkie joked.
Twilight laughed and asked, “Why is that?”
“Well, duh! You are taller than me, and it would only make sense if you were in the shorter chair.”
“Pinkie, I’m not that much taller than you,” she pointed out, raised her hoof above her head and imitated measuring their height difference.
“Okay, fine. Good job by the way, and thanks for the help.”
“I’m still surprised you’ve been doing this for several years now.” Twilight took a sip from her cup and bit off a piece of her cookie. “I should be thanking you, anyways. It was you who gave me a good time.”
“Well, it makes me happy to know that you were happy!” Pinkie exclaimed, but shrank soon after. “I sure do hope you like the present I got you though.”
“Why? What did you get me?” Twilight questioned.
“I can’t tell you, silly. It’s supposed to be a surprise, but I wasn’t going to get you a book. Obviously, that would have been easy, but I wanted to get you something special.”
Twilight cocked her head to the earth pony’s explanation. She scooted closer to Pinkie.
“Um, I don’t really know what to say to that, Pinkie, but… I’m sure I will be happy with any gift you give me.”
The princess smiled at the sight of her party pony’s smile; it was a genuine smile.
“We should be heading off to bed,” Twilight concluded as she got up and stretched her stiff muscles.
Pinkie followed suite seconds after watching her walk around her throne. They slowly trotted their ways back to their rooms while enjoying the peaceful silence. Upon passing the first room, Twilight broke off and passed a voiceless ‘good night’ to Pinkie, which was returned with either a flirting or friendly wink, but the eye-drooping alicorn wasn’t up to figuring it out.
Opening and closing the door, Twilight dragged her way to her attractive bed. She landed with a thump similar to that of a heart beat, and she drifted away. To be under her covers, avoiding the wind-biting weather, didn’t matter to Twilight; the feelings in her heart was enough to comfortably warm her for the many winters to come.
What is this feeling? Twilight dreamt. Is this love?
The Elements of Harmony gathered in the center of the castle, where their presents rested and the sun shined brightest. Reassuring everypony was around, Twilight made a double count, and she realized that somepony was missing.
“Where’s Pinkie?” Twilight asked the other girls, and Rainbow was quick to resolve her conflict.
“She said to open presents without her,” the cyan pegasus waved her hoof with a piece of wrapping from the present she already started breaking open. Twilight wasn’t sure it was the right action to take, worrying if their friend was alright, but Rainbow wasn’t finished. “She was wrapping a present when I peeked inside.”
Guessing it was alright as long as she wasn’t sad, Twilight encouraged the rest of the girls to open their presents. All the girls were satisfied with what their friends got them. Rainbow Dash was ready to read the next book to her Daring Do series and make her way to Cloudsdale to watch the Wonderbolts perform for New Years. Fluttershy and Rarity both talked about the time they would spend together making dresses with the many fabrics and fragrance they’ve collected. Applejack was overjoyed that Rainbow and Fluttershy put their money together to get their country pony a new plow and seeds for her farm. Twilight, also, expressed pleasant feelings for the many books her friends added to her library, but she didn’t find the present Pinkie said she got Twilight. Twilight made a circle around the tree, making sure she didn’t miss it by accident, but it was nowhere in sight; she only got books.
Twilight nearly cried, but she recollected the news she got from her loyal friend: she was wrapping another present. She left the group circle without attracting the attention of her friends. She trotted up to Pinkie’s room, closed shut and dead silent on the inside.
“Pinkie?” Twilight called out knocking softly on the door. “Are you in there?”
No response was returned, so Twilight decided to let herself in. There was nothing different about the party mare’s room, except for the lack of presents and a sled; on the other hand, there was a single gift, decorated with stars and a pink ribbon bow, standing tall in middle of the room. She walked around the box, inspecting every aspect of it. The stars on the purple wrapping were shaped the same as Twilight’s cutie mark. Like the many presents she passed out yesterday, a tag was attached to the laced ribbon:
To: Twilight Sparkle
From: Santa
Using her magic, she removed the top of the box; she wish the present wasn’t as tall as her so she could peer inside of it. The pony who put the box together, however, was prepared for Twilight’s trouble. The structure of the present fell apart the second Twilight removed the lid.
Patiently waiting, Pinkie sat in the center of the collapsed cage. A blush of cherry red was visible on her cheeks, and there was nothing the pink point could think of to hide those feelings away. Pinkie wasn't sure if she would get the answer she wanted, but after everything they went through last night, she didn't want this opportunity to slip away.
"Twilight," Pinkie started with a smooth, gentle voice, "when I first saw you, I thought 'I'm going to be her bestest friend', and I was super happy when you became my bestest friend. Yet, after so many years and adventures we been through together, especially last night, I felt bad. I felt like I made the wrong choice." Pinkie stepped forward and stood in front of Twilight. "I didn't want to be your bestest friend anymore. I... I wanted to be somepony special to you. I mean... like... you make me so happy when you smile, and it's not the same with the rest of Ponyville. It's because of you that I can say that I... I like- no, not like. I..."
The words became nearly impossible to say for the earth pony. She sat there, her face a valentine red, as she tried to firm her feelings into words. The struggle became unbearable, and Pinkie, eyes shut, was close to giving up and running away.
A small, tingly sensation pressed itself on Pinkie’s cheek. The pink mare’s eyes shot open, and her face rested in Twilight’s mane. After kissing Pinkie, she had her pulled into a compassionate embrace.
“Thank you,” Twilight whispered into Pinkie’s ear. “This is the best present I have ever gotten, and I will cherish it forever.”
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5433302
Thank you for your comment! If I do understand what you are getting at, you are asking that I should add more to the romantic sense. Particularly, you want it at the end, for I simply ended it with just a kiss and didn't follow up with anything extra. If that is what you are getting at, and I was hopefully half right with what you meant. Since I am not good at conveying particular genres, it's pretty hard for me, but practice makes perfect. If I want to tackle the subject that are hard for me, I just got to dive into them and not think about how deep the water is.
Twipie is my favorite ship. Maybe Pinkie being my favorite character influenced the ship being my favorite; I don't know. I like the ship because, unlike my other ships, they are opposites. Why are they opposites as opposed to my other ships? For that, my answer is usually one thing: character. Character has always been my star point when reading, watching, or listening to anything. The ability to relate to the characters and separate them from each other, so they are seen as individually unique. Going along with this, with my basic knowledge of psychology, Twilight is very studious, kind, and short tempered; she can also be forgiving and intraverted. Pinkie is hyperactive, easy going, and carefree; she, herself, can be forgiving but introverted. Their personalities do not match, except for a select few, and that is what I like about it. It has a nice way of balancing each other out and creating a nice relationship stand point: many difference, but these differences is what carry them through many adventures. As Twilight loves to learn new things, Pinkie Pie does as well, for new things mean new people and more fun. If said two were in a relationship, they would balance each other out, but there would be times where they would fight over their differences in opinions. Love, fun, new things, and fighting are the many wonders to a relationship to look forward, and I like all aspects of romance.
Thank you very much for your comment, as it helps me look at my story in another way than my own. I hope you like the future stories I have to offer.
From hell, to you, and back again,
Soto Konoha, Fort Impression On Everypony
>cease to exist.
The writing feels a little sloppy and telly at times, but it's such a sweet story and I guess that more than makes up for it. I kind of agree with that point about the hasty relationship (5433302 )
Also, don't you mean Hearth's Warming Eve instead of Christmas?
5454184
Thank you.
Yup, as expected.
Nope.
Greetings, fellow writer! I'm LAE, here on loan from WRITE, to help you by reviewing your story. In your initial contact, you requested that I abstain from mechanical concerns. Well, that really sets my teeth on edge, so I'm still going to mention them—but rest assured, I will be talking about the other aspects of the story as well. With that, let's dig in!
Right off the bat:
I gotta admit, just from looking at the story description page, I've got my big ol' "0/10 EPIC FAIL" stamp inked and raised. Your story title itself is misspelled ("cupcake" only has one "P" in it), your subheading title is... nonsense? Also, it's got misspellings in it, too. And your description forgets to even say who the story is about, simply offering a mysterious "she" instead of a name. First impressions are VERY important, and this one really tells the reader that you're in too big of a hurry or you just didn't care very much—and neither of those messages are very complimentary towards you as a writer.
The Dreaded Mechanics Section:
Let's knock out a few points, shall we?
I give you major props for knowing that a dash is supposed to be used here, but you brought a hyphen to an em-dash fight. Hyphens are only used to (funnily enough) hyphenate words together. The mark you're looking for is the longer em-dash (hold Alt and type 0151 to get "—"), which does not get spaces around it, ever.
The fact that you seem to not only know that dashes and colons exist, but have also actually used them (and properly, no less!) fills me with the kind of warm fuzzies that only a fellow bibliophile can appreciate.
There is a problem with tenses, however. You have a habit of using incorrect tenses when talking about the more reflexive and passive verbs and adjectives.
You're writing third-person past, so keep it consistent. "she couldn't" and "who was making" would be appropriate here.
Some may fight me here (even if they're wrong(U WOT M8)), but this really should be written as "winced in pain, despite not having felt it herself."
Missing a few odd commas here and there is an issue, too, but this is the only truly consistent problem I saw in the mechanics of your writing. Oh, and "each other" is two words—always.
Characters and such:
Here's the meat of what you asked for in your review request, but there's a little bit of a snag: There's really very, very little to go on. Do Pinkie or Twilight ever act out of character? No, not really. Is this sort of story plausible for their characters, given the scenario? I dunno, maybe. The characters involved seem true to their canon counterparts—the problems come in once you start trying to work beyond that. I'll elaborate more in the next section...
Storytelling:
SOTO
WAT R U DOIN
SOTO
STAHP
Please, go read about Said Bookisms. These are awful writing, and only serve to tell the reader what they already know.
Wtf, dude. This sentence alone—I can't even. Why is Christmas in a pony story? There's no context for it, and it's nonsensical. There's no comma for the mental dialogue attribution, and you've committed a major writing faux pas by not only using an obvious Said Bookism but using an incorrect one as well. "Imagined" is a totally wrong word to use in this situation.
To borrow a quote from Jackie Chan in the Karate Kid remake: Your focus needs more focus. You've made it clear that you struggle with the romantic/relational aspects of writing, but it almost looks like you tried to avoid showing it by skipping all of those aspects altogether. You really need to stop and spend more time on the aspects of your story that you're trying to emphasize, and let's face it, this story is supposed to be all about the romance.
badbooksgoodtimes.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/narrative-pacing.jpg?w=594&h=332
I don't know if you've seen this image before, or one like it, but commit it to heart now. This chart shows the relative intensity or engagement of a plot over the course of a story, and every good story, movie, video game, or whatever will follow this curve to some degree (at least 95% of the time). Notice the way the plot should advance in stages. Sometimes these are chapters, sometimes much smaller pieces, sometimes entire books—but always in this form. You have three distinct sections to your story:
- Twilight and Pinkie have an adventure
- The Mane6 have a party
- Pinkie's Confession
So here's how your curve looks now:
- Twilight hears a noise. Tension subtly builds until Twilight discovers it's Pinkie (peak).
- The audience is confused by Pinkie's behavior, which leads them along until Pinkie asks Twilight along to help, and she agrees (peak).
- The two head out and bounce around the world, doing stuff until the job is done (not really a peak).
- A party starts (which... is a new curve, I guess?), and Pinkie is missing. Twilight goes to find her and opens the box to reveal Pinkie (definite peak).
- Twilight's confusion is all answered as Pinkie reveals her feelings and Twilight reciprocates (final climax).
- The rest is denouement, to let the pacing slow back down to a nice, easy stop.
The big, huge, glaring problem is the enormous gap in the middle of the story. There's a huge hole that should be connecting the first part (the Santa-ing) to the second part (the romance), and there's just not anything there. You can't just teleport characters to feelings, those feelings have to come from somewhere. Even the kid who experiences the weird little butterflies of physical attraction to the opposite sex for the first time has to try to figure out what they're feeling and why. Romance does not just appear from nowhere, and if you write it that way (as you did), it's highly unbelievable. Does Pinkie feel this way before the story takes place? How are we as readers supposed to know, or even interpret that? Does the sled ride dredge up feelings in Twilight? We need to see that! And I use the word "see" very intentionally there, because you do have a bad habit of telling in your writing when you should be showing, as has been mentioned by other readers before.
This is blatant telling, and it's all over the place in this story. We should be able to interpret this through actions or dialogue. Maybe Twilight says to Pinkie how much she's enjoying staying up late for a change, but it's gotta be something other that the narrator informing us.
Final Verdict:
djotter.blossers.net/StorageBank/Review%20Badges/6.jpg
The Scores, Explained
Closing Remarks:
Purple Prose and Said Bookisms: fix it. Your dialogue should be followed by "asked" or "said" 90% of the time, if you even use a dialogue tag at all. Anytime you use something else, it needs to be paired with some sort of affirmative, complementary action by the speaker.
Pacing: MOAR. Slow down, write more of the in-betweens. Romance thrives or dies on how well we can relate to the characters, and there's just nothing of the characters here. Everything is told to us by the narrator, or skipped over entirely.
Theming: If romance is your theme, then elements of that should be permeating every part of the story. We should see furtive glances at the pony's crush. We should hear pounding heartbeats, and stuttered, half-thought-out distracted sentences. We should feel a bond between the two ponies being brought together. In real life, a love confession with so little preamble would be laughed at or met with a restraining order, depending on how well the two knew each other.
So, to sum up, what you have here is the bones of a very good romance story, but it just needs more—well, more love, both from the characters and from you as the writer.
- LastAmongEquals, WRITE's Prodigal Son
djotter.blossers.net/StorageBank/WRITE01.png
I actually liked the way that this story was written and thought that you did a good job overall. I thought that you did a spot on job with the characterisation to both Pinkie and Twilight. I ship Twilight with Pinkie Pie because they do say that opposites attract. It doesn't matter whether the romance was deep or just a kiss, it was actually refreshing to read a romance that was just light hearted fluffy kisses without it just jumping straight into the deep end of "I like you" then X rated clop.
I don't know what else to say at the moment except that I hope to read more from you in the future.
Take care Fort (Soto) my friend!
-Frost