Golden Oaks Book Club mini-review #4: Lulamoon's Castle (spoiler warning) · 12:56am Jan 3rd, 2015
Hey! It’s been a while since I did one of these. And, to be fair, I’ve kinda missed them. I would have done a write up for Ghost of a Rose before this one, but quite a few others already wrote fairly good reviews, and at that time I was really flat out with things. So consider this a resurrection as part of my MWiJ challenge. Let’sa go!
Onward to Lulamoon's Castle, as read by the Golden Oaks Book Club!
Author: Bookish Delight
Synopsis:
Days after Tirek's near-takeover of Equestria, The Great And Powerful Trixie travels to Ponyville, intent on settling her rivalry with Twilight Sparkle once and for all. No trinkets to fudge her abilities, no megalomania to apologize for -- just pure and simple magician's honor!
Upon her arrival, however, she quickly learns that the information she has on Ponyville -- and Twilight -- is more than a little dated.
Current Length: 15,883 words over 4 chapters, averaging 3,971 words per chapter
Status: Complete
Review: Lulamoon’s Castle centres around Trixie, and her ambitious return to Ponyville for a second time to truly prove her dominance over Twilight Sparkle. The kicker is, she knows absolutely nothing about what Twilight has been through since their last confrontation in Magic Duel. Obviously this will be ignoring the book Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell, in which she and Gilda both antagonise Princess Twilight… but that is definitely a good thing here.
Trixie has travelled far and wide after being humbled by Twilight. For over a year she has rebuilt her reputation and gone on to become one of Equestria’s greatest showmares. Bookish cleverly weaves in Trixie’s past at the start of every chapter, in which we see her as having studied at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns before choosing to leave of her own volition (and not being expelled as people like to do), her determination while working on the rock farm, and then a shot of her giving a young filly advice on following her dreams. We can really see the development that Trixie has undergone in her absence and over the course of her defeat, as she has matured from a bratty showoff, to a broken mare bent on revenge, to her present state in which she is happy and successful. It’s nice to see her this way instead of just being constantly revenge and anger-driven.
Of course, it’s laughable when she arrives in Ponyville hoping to show off her new wagon and her success to Twilight Sparkle… only to find that great big shining abomination of a crystal castle, and that Twilight has become a Princess. Instantly she’s struck dumb at having been foiled yet again.
Trixie and Twilight get talking, and we see some real, honestly unexpected maturity from Trixie in chapter two, where she admits that Twilight is a Princess and tried to treat her as such, addressing her as “Your Highness” and even bowing to show her respect until Twilight insists it’s not necessary. It’s here where they begin to catch up with what each other has been doing, and the dynamic between them is really quite fascinating. Twilight is as humble as she can possibly be, but not in a hand-wavey way as if to say she doesn’t really care or anything like that. Trixie cannot believe everything that has happened, yet she too plays a straight game even as the old feelings of jealousy well within her, unwanted.
I have to say, the way that Twilight and Trixie interact with each other, comparing their achievements and the ponies they have become, really warmed my heart. Trixie was well-behaved, Twilight listened and offered advice while trying to downplay her achievements… but something Twilight said while doing so greatly annoyed Trixie, and it resulted in this delicious gem of a retort from Trixie: “Privilege is wasted on the privileged.”
One of the interesting things about the start of the story is how it refers to Tirek’s attack, how much it actually affected Trixie on a personal level. She was extremely upset and pissed off at having her magic (and particularly her cutie mark) stolen from her, after having worked so hard to get herself back on track. Bringing this up with Twilight sets a truly emotional scene that, despite not being a real tearjerker, hits all the right notes. The Tirek discussion is meant to show how much it affected both mares, and it does so splendidly. What’s of particular note is something subtle that readers who have a tendency to skim might overlook: as Trixie talks to Twilight more about everything that has happened, she begins to speak less and less often in the third person, instead opting to speak normally. It’s a curious thing that shows her actually warming up to Twilight as they slowly come to understand each other.
Oddly, it’s not only Trixie who had Twilight on the mind in her past. It turns out that Twilight has been following Trixie’s career, when she pulls out a bunch of posters advertising Trixie’s show. She says that she would have loved to attend sometime if she weren’t so busy, and that really humbles Trixie. It’s then that she realises she doesn’t need to be superior to Twilight; the fact that Twilight admires her for qualities she doesn’t see in herself is enough to make them both smile, and after a small amount of shipping tease, it ends.
Bookish said that she waited almost four years to be able to write a Trixie story that really meant something. With the season four finale, she finally had the platform to begin. It was a long time to wait, but doing so paid off in spades. It deserves its high rating in every way. There were a few niggling grammar errors that annoyed me quite a bit, and her insistent insertion of copyright disclaimers in the middle of every chapter made me pretty mad (especially in chapter four where it was most jarring and not just acting as a scene break), but other than that, it’s a solid story that truly does justice to both Trixie and Twilight’s characters.
8/10
Next review: Sunshine and Fire (horrendously overdue).
Words read so far this January: 58,619
Oooh! This tracker just screams competition!
It's on.
EDIT: As for the story, I thought it was okay. I'm not really sure what it was, but the story just didn't do much for me. And I normally like stories like that, too. It was an odd feeling.
I respectfully disagree.
Let's look at the context of the two phrases before and after the break, as opposed to the hard-set grammatical rule of 'clauses'. Trixie is coming onto Twilight in more increased ways, and with the ship teasing, this part works wonderfully at tugging the strings of the hearts of the shippers who just want to see Twilight and Trixie fluff.
I direct your attention to this area here:
Here, we have Trixie being her typical self, but slowly coming around to letting the idea exist that maybe, maybe she likes Twilight. The setup is all there. If Trixie rejects Twilight's advances, then we have a cut-and-dry shipwreck. If Twilight's advances are allowed to continue...we get our shipping hook, and keep around all the readers who've waited around since the beginning for the two of them to just kiss already and make sweet sweet babies! Even if that's not the end result. It's a play for the ship, and I think it worked wonderfully, and gives air to our niggling doubts that maybe Trixie's self-journey might come to a bitter, self-induced end, and she'll fall back into her vicious cycle we see in the show.
After?
Please tell me you at least see the potential for Twilight to blurt out "Willyougooutwithme?Eep!" after these sentences!
If not, your shipper's heart may just be broken, and nothing in this world will ever fix its wounds. 
So, no, It's actually timed quite well as a break in the paragraphs, you just might not be feeling the Twixie bug as you read into it, Sir Technical :V Don't let the rules of writing adhere to your reviews so much! Remember, the notable ones are the ones who break the rules, and who break them right.
Bookish is pretty far right on this one, I daresay.
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I'm afraid I don't see it.
And you should know by now that I'm not a shipper, particularly of f/f or m/m.
Seriously, she could have done it in far better ways than simply separating it by a repetitive (and IMO, completely pointless) disclaimer that could have (and should have, if she insists on using it) been put in the story's description and nowhere else. There's even this:
Bookish's own words there.
There's no broken shipper heart at all. There never was a shipper heart to begin with.
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Then I'm afraid this is something you'll forever be upset about and I'll chuckle because I like it.
Ah well.
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Also, it doesn't matter if it isn't a shipping story. Especially since the romance is by far not the focus, but this little snippet is like, how you say, fan service, if you will? There's no romance present, and we're aware, but that doesn't make the 'JUST KISS ALREADY' voices go away when confronted with a situation like this.
It's a miniature cliffhanger, if I can simplify. We don't know if there'll be a romance - especially lacking the tag and having her words - but the feeling is there that they might be sharing something...more. This could be the major turning point, where the suitor asks out the oblivious confessor, and Twilight wins the mare, or we could see our predictions come true and watch Trixie become shunned and fall into her vicious cycle again. I just can't understand how you don't see it!
And getting mad about it? Well, what if someone (forbid it happens) prints up the fic, and pulled a Foal Free Press, and distributed illegal copies? Not only would she be no longer liable for any lawsuit from the production and possible sale of the product, but the overall effect would be equivalent to a snuffed match.
It's a dual-purposed interruption, one with many uses. I mean, we stopped asking why Skeeter signs his comments. Can't we just let Bookish disclaimer her fics in peace?
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Just call the shipping/romance thing my personal issue, and we'll leave it at that. No harm done.
And I honestly don't mind someone using a disclaimer. Yes it's good for protection. That's fine.
But I don't need to be reminded every single chapter, particularly during the middle instead of at the start or end. Seeing it all the time is immersion-breaking, and it reminds me that I'm reading a story, not experiencing one. Hence why this story didn't score higher; I would have loved to give it about an 8.7 or 8.8.
Anyway, I'm done with that. I did enjoy the story as much as I hoped I would.
Oh, huh, better go read that many words before bed tonight. Gotta keep up.
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Dash's entire post (the one I'm replying to) nails it. This isn't a shipping story, but it doesn't say "shippers gtfo" either. Through a sick joke of fate I've been gifted with the ability to toe the line in a way that few people can, and I therefore will because thematic inflexibility is dumb.
The only bad romance is bad romance.
This has actually happened to me multiple times. People have been printing/ripping my stories, on and offline, with and without the disclaimers, for years. With the title cards, and with a home base where my stories are stored, I always have a record, for good or ill. I mean, if I hadn't used them as scene breaks, they just would have gone at the top of each chapter, much like a book says "Chapter #" at the top of every chapter, anyway. (shrugs) Sorry, s'how I work.
Sometimes I do get flexible about it, but otherwise I have quite the predilection for cold openings and introductory scenes, which the show also has, so they come in handy regardless.
Again, it's a thing I get some people don't like, but it's not a thing I can control. I've also actually had people get on my case in the past for doing exactly what Cerulean wishes I would.
In the end, you can't please everyone unless you write for an audience of one.
Thank you very much for the review regardless.
I'll respond more directly to it in the Golden Oaks thread, but I did want to clear things up here.
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I had a feeling it did, but didn't expect it to be that common :V Ah well.
I'm quite surprised I nailed that, considering I read it waaaaaaay back when you launched it :O
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It's not so much that it's "common" as it's more that I've been at this game for far longer than any sane person would or should be.
Like, decades longer.