Paul's Thursday Reviews XX · 7:04pm Dec 17th, 2015
Twenty weeks of Thursday reviews without a hitch. I am quite pleased with myself. (Pay no attention to that one set of late reviews behind the curtain!)
Before I get to the stuff you're all here for, a note. To everyone who read my blog last week and came to the conclusion that I was sad or lonely or anything else negative possibly devised, please don't. I was just reflecting on a few thoughts that had passed through my head due to a close encounter of the toddling kind. I'm perfectly happy with my current situation and see no reason for anyone to fret over me. My thanks for the advice and concerns, but really, I'm fine.
*waits for the onslaught of comments telling him he's in denial*
On to the reviews. I'm sorry to say that this set was quite... painful.
Stories for This Week:
Friendly Correspondence by Pascoite
Twilight Sparkle Makes a Cup of Tea by GhostofHeraclitus
A Sparkle In The Guard's Eye by vangard1994 (Requested by Twilight is the BEST)
Silent Ponyville 3 by SamRose (Re-read)
Suitors by Jay-The-Brony (Completed Story)
Total Word Count: 483,162
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 0
Pretty Good: 1
Worth It: 1
Not Bad: 2
None: 1
In Friendly Correspondence, Pascoite tackles the image of Celestia by showing her reaction to Twilight’s very first friendship report. There really isn’t much to it other than that; she receives the letter about the Gala tickets, interprets Twilight’s words, then writes a response.
Then she writes another.
Some things about this story seemed odd to me, but in hindsight they aren’t all that off. For example, Celestia spends some time interpreting Twilight’s very brief letter and completely misinterprets what is right in front of her, only to realize her mistake. Essentially, she over analyzes the entire thing. At first I thought this dumb and off for Celestia, until I realized that she is probably accustomed to having to over analyze everything she reads due to her role in Equestria’s diplomacy and governance.
So it made sense.
Then Celestia sat down and wrote a long, rambling letter that went far beyond anything necessary for Twilight’s situation, going on and on about Twilight’s past, how great she is and how proud Celestia is of her. And this turned me off at first, because it didn’t feel at all appropriate.
Then Celestia realizes the exact same thing and abandons the whole message in favor of the letter we know from the show. So yeah, nevermind.
There are also indications that Celestia was planning Twilight’s ascension from the very beginning – which I find dubious, but not outside the lines of plausibility.
So at once, Celestia is both a master chess player and prone to regular mistakes. It’s a very weird dynamic, and I’m not sure if I approve. But the story is well-written, the flow is decent and there’s nothing exceptionally off. I think, when it all comes down to it, that I’m not the right audience for this story. Others may get a lot more out of it than I did – judging by its high rating, probably a great many others.
One other thing: why does Celestia go to bed at the end of the story when it’s made abundantly clear that she’s in the middle of her work day?
Bookshelf: Not Bad
This was interesting. Twilight Sparkle Makes a Cup of Tea is something of a character study and a relationship study all rolled into one. Similarly, it is exactly what it says in the title, but then something so very different. As we watch Twilight make the cup of tea, we also get to see her memories of the ritual as she witnessed Celestia perform it day after day during her tutelage.
The end result is a clear showing of the differences between teacher and student. Their interpretations of the purpose, their very different methods, their unique perspectives regarding the value of the task, these things and more are brought up in ways both subtle and direct. There are no direct commands from the author, no exposition to explain the intent of the story. We just watch and come up with our own ideas.
I liked it. I tend to favor those tales that don’t bother to shove the intent in the readers’ face. This story, by comparison, leaves its purpose right there for everyone to see, but never draws attention to it. It’s up to us to figure things out. I like stories like that, because I like stories that obligate the reader to think about what they are seeing. Reading is a skill just like writing is, and I believe it is part of the writer’s job to improve the readers’ skills.
This story threatens to do that, and as so I very much approve.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
A Sparkle in the Guard's Eye
vangard1994 provided no cover art. Point and laugh.
Requested by Twilight is the BEST
Ah, where to begin with this story? I have so much to say, no time to say it and, honestly, would rather just summarize. I can safely declare that this has been one of the hardest stories I’ve ever had to read.
A Sparkle in the Guard’s Eye is as blatant a Flashlight shipfic as you can imagine. Written after Magical Mystery Cure but before Twilight’s Kingdom, the story has Twilight getting a new home in Pony Ville.
Yes, the author spells it Pony Ville. Here’s your first sign.
Anyway, Celestia – now married to Discord with a pair of kids of around the age of six – and Luna decide that it’s just not safe for the young princess to live alone in some mansion (Spike’s taken over the library), and so they conclude she needs a bodyguard. Cadance overhears this and pulls a few strings to make that guard the one and only Flash Sentry. Now throw in Queen Chrysalis bringing back to life King Sombra with the goal of seducing him and growing powerful via his love. The rest of the story is utterly predictable.
This story did so many things wrong, I really don’t know where to start.
Let’s begin with the obvious: Flashlight. Now unlike most people, I have absolutely nothing against this pairing. I can see it being done well, and it has been, but not this time. The romance is agonizingly slow to the point of stupidity; Flash likes Twilight, Twilight likes Flash, it’s as obvious as the moon on a cloudless night, and they spend thirty five chapters whining to themselves about how they don’t know how they feel about one another and it’s never going to happen and blah blah blah. Nevermind that the entire time they are acting like this they are going to plays together, having dates, dancing (canonbreaker: Twilight can actually dance in this one!), staring dreamily into one another’s eyes, and even kissing via a game of Spin the Bottle.
Oh, and by the way, this thing is totally harlequin when handling Flash. Every mare stares at him, remarks on his dreamy appearance, and the few times he’s seen out of his armor we get a series of thoughts along the lines of “Oh, those muscles!” with some faux swooning. Make him an excellent cook, a supreme swordspony, an ace flier and you’ve got the makings of every mare’s piece-of-meat wet dream. We even have a few scene of damsel-in-distress Twilight cowering behind his hunky form. If he didn’t have so much trouble fighting Sombra and Chrysalis, he’d be 100% Gary Stu.
But anyway, they’re basically reduced to brainless, blundering idiots for over 150,000 words, proving that the author has absolutely no idea what they’re doing. Oh, and when they finally do admit their mutual attraction to one another, Twilight tells Flash they’re going to be going slow, because clearly this is all going fast, right?
And this leads to another big issue: a few chapters later they’re doing the thing. This isn’t the first sex scene – there’s four of them in total – and don’t let that ‘light clop’ bull fool you. There’s nothing ‘light’ about what these ponies are doing, and the author spares no details. I strongly disapproved of the sex scenes in their entirety; they did absolutely nothing to further the story and acted as little more than lures to get new readers in with the promise of a little poon. It would be different if the author had treaded lightly, been less graphic, or simply swerved around the entire topic with simple hints and innuendos as to what happened. Instead, we get the works, complete with ‘Twilight the Virgin’ showcasing the skills of a red light district veteran employee.
Now let’s move on to Sombra and Chrysalis. These two were frustratingly one dimensional, their goals obvious and their methods plain. Insert ‘Corrupting the Elements of Harmony’ trope here. And yes, they actually did have a few scenes of “Look how evil I am! *very evil cackling and posing*” Worse, there’s this subplot of them constantly going at it, and the author seems to blatantly confuse love for lust as this seems the only thing keeping the two from ripping one another’s throats out – but somehow, after Chrysalis acknowledges that lust provides practically no power, she gets enough from it to not only defeat Celestia in a one-on-one duel, but graphically rip the princess’s leg off.
Only to be half as powerful in later chapters and easily taken down by lesser characters like Shining Armor and Flash Sentry. Can you say “Anime-style storytelling?” Oh, and apparently she and Sombra really fall for one another, even though the only thing we get from him is that he thinks she’s fun in bed.
Then there’s Discord. Marriage has not been kind to this guy; he’s gone from being a supremely powerful caster of chaos magics capable of defeating Celestia and Luna together to a guy who can’t do hardly anything. Seriously, the Discord from the show could have stopped Chrysalis and Sombra with a snap of his fingers, but instead this one dons armor, feels legitimately threatened by physical attacks and has difficulty in a one-on-one fight with Chrysalis. And when changelings attack Canterlot Castle, instead of immediately going to find Celestia and their kids he plays games with Luna – leading to the aforementioned removal of Celestia’s leg and the murder of his son (Look at me, I’m evil! *very evil cackling and posing*).
Okay, enough of the terrible characters and events (and believe me, I’ve barely scratched the surface). At least the writing’s good, right?
Twilight has learned a lot in the years of her schooling. Most importantly, the magic of friendship that she shares with her friends back in her home of Pony Ville. It was thanks to all the lessons she learned with them that got her to realize her true destiny, and become Equestrias latest Princess. The lessons of magic that she received from Celestia herself proved invaluable, but once she picked up her new title, and further proved herself competent in anything in that field, a perfect note considering she has a magical start as her cutie mark. Celestia thought it time to break out a new set of teachings for her most faithful student. Mentoring the new alicorn and grooming her in to becoming a Princess capable of leading her own kingdom one day.
Yeah, how about no?
The entire story is exposition, and the first quarter of it is all the things that every fan of MLP – i.e. the entire audience – already knows. You’re going to get in-depth descriptions of who every character is, along with their past actions and the ‘where they are now’ speech. For every action that will be done, you can expect to receive a full-and-poorly-worded paragraph about why. For every new concept that comes along, you can expect two or three paragraphs describing it. This story is ~321,000 words long, but it could have been a mere 70,000-80,000 if all the exposition were cut away to leave just the important bits.
And then there’s the excessive romance material that doesn’t do much at all. Instead of furthering the story, we get these long scenes of Twilight and Flash being all romantic and pretending what’s right in front of them is an illusion of some sort. We get seven to ten chapters of them going around meeting other characters from the show – all of whom know what’s going on and even tell them directly that it’s going on, to no avail – and then one chapter of Sombra and Chrysalis furthering their evil plans, which usually involves a lot of bloodshed and bodies left behind (bodies the good guys conveniently fail to notice for more than half the story).
Basically, the story progressed around the villain’s chapters and lulled almost everywhere else. I’m sure many of the scenes could have been skipped entirely and nothing would have been lost for the story.
And when something interesting does happen, the author is ridiculously long-winded about it. Take, for example, the attack on Canterlot, in which the author meticulously (and without any warning) makes sure you see what each character, major or minor, is doing throughout the castle, detailing every kick, jump and parry. This doesn’t make the fight scenes exciting, it makes them tedious and long… as in four to five chapters long. I did a lot of skimming.
Oh, and this reminds me of how nobody takes anything seriously:
Changeling attacks Twilight in her own home? Eh, no big deal, we’ll tell Celestia about it in the morning.
Map revealing the location of the Tree of Harmony goes missing? *shrugs* I probably misplaced it. I’ll send Twilight and her friends to check on it in a couple days’ time.
Chrysalis encountered in a cave in Equestria? Well, that’s annoying. I could send a warning to Celestia, but nah, it can wait until I’m back in Canterlot.
Idiot balls. Idiot balls everywhere.
While we’re at it, let’s throw in the Dues Ex Faust, who conveniently shows up to make sure certain characters don’t die and thus makes sure this has a happy ending after all.
Okay, last thing to go into, and then I’m shutting this down. That quote up above with the poor grammar and misspellings? That was chapter one. Imagine that and so much more for the full 321,000 words. By the way, we’ve had it wrong all this time: it’s “dagonoci,” not “draconequus;” a piledriver is a punch, not a wrestling move (had to see that one about five times to realize my error); and we’ve been misspelling a lot of our words. Who knew it was “to” and not “too?”
I would like to say that the mistakes made suggest a foreign language, but I can’t. I’ve worked with ESL students many times in the past, and I know that articles (a, the, etc.) are the biggest challenge for them. The articles here? Just fine. Which tells me that we aren’t dealing with a foreign writer, but a native English writer who has no concept of grammar and who would benefit greatly from Wiktionary.
It took me eight days to slog through this mess, and frankly?
I’m just glad it’s over.
Bookshelf: None
Silent Ponyville 3
By SamRose
Re-Read
At long last, I have finished re-reading this series. And, like all the others in the primary Silent Ponyville set, I am left with frustration. This version takes things in an entirely different direction; instead of dreams, we’re dealing with an altered reality triggered when Celestia, sensing something very wrong with Ponyville, decides to try and expel whatever evil is there. She is instantly overwhelmed, and the entire town is promptly thrust into a parallel world just like that of the other two stories. We then follow the unawares Twilight, who now must figure out not only what’s going on, but learn the truth about not her own, but Celestia’s past.
The new direction was a nice touch. It allows the reader to enter unfamiliar territory, even if it looks the same. Twilight’s journey does delve a little into her own past, but it is hardly tragic, so instead it focuses on other things. Yet that doesn’t mean all the changes are in good taste.
Take, for example, the inclusion – or lack thereof – of Spike. Now, unlike many authors, SamRose didn’t actually forget about Spike’s presence. Indeed, Spike was there prominently in the first few chapters. No, SamRose’s mistake is that they blatantly insulted Spike’s character by having Twilight purposefully identify him as unable to help her. Oh, she didn’t say that in so many words, but she did remark (over and over again ad nauseum) that he was a baby and therfor needed to be protected and not allowed to witness the horrors of their new world. And since she needed to search and solve the issue without worrying about him, she promptly dumped him with a pony of questionable integrity at the first opportunity. In fact, Spike being feeble and in need of protection and isolation is made into a major plot point, even coming through at the end of the story. Worst of all, Spike accepted it as truth.
So yeah, if you have any appreciation of Spike whatsoever, you might be offended.
Another change that I had mixed feelings for is that this story is much more puzzle-centric than its predecessors. Indeed, in some chapters Twilight spends ages just wandering around the same building looking for missing puzzle pieces. As I stated in the previous reviews, we’re not playing a video game, we’re reading a story; the puzzles only acted to needlessly lengthen the story. Oh, sure, they led to Twilight learning important things about her task and Celestia and the world, but there are far simpler and less time consuming ways to handle that. If the story had stuck to just one puzzle, or perhaps summarized a few things, then I believe the whole would have been aided.
One change that went without hardly any explanation, but which gave good results, was an author change. About halfway through the story, SamRose gave the reins to another author. It’s unclear if the rest of the story was written by this author or if the two collaborated from that point on, but either way the writing quality took a big jump from that point onwards. Of course, first you have to be able to stomach the first half and get there, but if you can…
I think that SamRose took more control of the story after a certain point, because after a while some of the old mistakes began to show once more. Even so, the improvement in quality was significant and made the rest of the story tolerable… barely.
Another thing that I find questionable is the tangents the author made in Twilight’s activities. On the one hand, it makes good sense that Twilight would seek out her friends, both to help and be helped. On the other, having Twilight see specific horrors relating to each of them left the unpleasant suggestion that the author was determined to show each of the Mane 6 in this story, regardless of whether it served a purpose or not. If Twilight hadn’t learned something important with each of these tangents, I’d be calling shenanigans. I still think a better route could have been offered.
Then there’s Celestia. Honestly, I like the approach taken here; Celestia’s faults and misdeeds felt very appropriate, as well as Twilight’s reactions. We get to watch as, a thousand years ago, events transpired that gradually turned her into a tyrant, and much of it is believable. There’s just one problem: as well delivered as nearly every one of these flashbacks are, the one that started all of this… isn’t. Basically, we are shown that Celestia lost a battle and, to spare her own life, had to make a ‘deal with the devil’ kind of decision.
I’ve nothing against Celestia’s decision. The whole scene is a good start to her steady downward spiral, a proper catalyst. I’m not even opposed to the fact that Celestia lost the battle and came to within a hair’s breadth of dying. No, what offends me is that we don’t get to see Celestia lose. Instead, we see the end of the fight and the moment of her decision. Celestia doesn’t even attempt to defend herself, and the narrative offers no clues. She’s not shown being beaten and bruised, there’s no effort to channel something from her reservoir of magic, no sense of exhaustion from a long, hard battle. Nothing at all. We’re simply left to assume that she’s tried everything.
Bad form. It gives the appearance that Celestia isn’t even bothering to fight. Oh, I’m sure that’s not what SamRose intended, but it’s the image given, and base assumption fails to alleviate the problem.
I had a number of other complaints, but I think this review has gone on long enough. Thus, a quick summary: Dues Ex Machina in the form of mysterious pony who has no place whatsoever in the Silent Hill mythos and thus feels very off; the shift from horror material to fantasy by having the ultimate battle be decided not by some psychological victory but an oh-so-powerful sword called Excalibur (excuse me while I roll my eyes); two characters showing up at the end, for reasons unexplained, to conveniently give Twilight exactly what she needs; Twilight randomly healing wounds and becoming all better at various opportune times, which effectively makes potential injury and even death not such a serious issue anymore; the continued use of gamey concepts such as inventories and making decisions based on ‘feelings’.
Now, with all of that having been said, there are some good elements to the story. Twilight’s situation does seem far more ominous than what Pinkie or Fluttershy had to go through, which may be due to the new setting and Twilight’s different mindset. The monsters were creative and interesting, Twilight’s struggles felt very real, and the whole thing was genuinely more original. With the improved writing about halfway through the story, I dare to say this may be the best of the bunch. Although it may obligate reading through the first two in order to understand everything, I don't think it's not absolutely necessary.
Silent Ponyville 3 is flawed, but it’s not so bad. While the first two arguably had better stories overall, this one has an improved atmosphere, originality and writing that puts it on roughly even ground.
And with that, I bid this series adieu. Now if you’ll excuse me, the combination of these three with A Sparkle in the Guard’s Eye leaves me with a severe desire to wash my eyeballs out with bleach.
Bookshelf: Not Bad
Suitors
By Jay-The-Brony
Completed Story
“Twilight is a princess, and the law says that means she has to get married now.” If you haven’t seen this idea done by someone already, you haven’t been paying attention. This is one of those ideas so easy, so common that I typically wouldn’t even give it a second glance. At the same time, however, I realized that I’d never actually bothered to read one in the first place, so… why not? Just because a concept is obvious doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
There are obvious flaws in the setup; ancient law requires that princesses marry after two years, and somehow Celestia and Luna can’t change it? I call contrived bull. But, as one reads the story, it becomes apparent that nothing in this story is meant to be taken even remotely seriously, and so one rapidly reaches the ‘look at how many bucks I don’t give’ state. Things rapidly go from amusing to outrageous, and in the end I was decently amused.
This story is pointless and doesn’t approach the concept with any seriousness at all. If that’s your cup of tea, then you’ll probably love it. I think my only legitimate complaint is that the story was full of exposition-y segments, including needlessly massive paragraphs that did it no favors. On a more subjective note, I think a greater variety of suitors could have been used, although I can’t blame Jay-The-Brony for growing tired of the whole thing and wanting to end it while the concept was still ‘fresh.’
While not really my cup of tea, this silly story was strong enough to earn the middle ground for me. It was certainly a huge relief after all the stuff I’ve been reading these past two weeks.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Stories for Next Week:
This Holiday is Going to be Perfect by Obselescence
The Wonderbolt and The Dressmaker by SuperPinkBrony12
Simple Fate, Tough Acceptance, Blessed Conclusion. by Ashardu (Requested by Twilight is the BEST)
Bait Them by Dash The Stampede (Re-Read)
Broken by Arad (Sequel to Stardust)
Liked these reviews? Check out some others:
Paul's Thursday Reviews X
Paul's Thursday Reviews XI
Paul's Thursday Reviews XII
Paul's Thursday Reviews XIII
Paul's Thursday Reviews XIV
Paul's Thursday Reviews XV
Paul's Thursday Reviews XVI
Paul's Thursday Reviews XVII
Paul's Thursday Reviews XVIII
Paul's Thursday Reviews XIX
Want me to review your story? Send me a request! Check my profile page for rules.
You're in denial! (Oh, wait. I should read the reviews first)
...
Ah, it's not denial. It's that sense of hope that the fic that you're slogging through must get better, perhaps in chapter six, or twelve, or thirty-seven, or I'm so close to finishing it I might as well keep going...
My bad, it's denial.
To be honest, I've hit a couple fics that *do* just that. (or maybe I got used to the author's rather chunky style) And again, to be honest, sometimes I'll read a story by an author that turns out to be horrible, but still tweaks my curiosity enough to look at the rest of their library and find something I like a lot better, normally something they've written more recently. Just think, some of these young and aspiring authors may write the next Twilight.
(pause)
I think I'll shut up now.
I read Friendly Correspondence a few months ago for TRG, and I found it to be decently okay. What my biggest problem with it was that the entire story supposedly happens during the fifteen seconds of actual show time (yes, I counted) between Twilight sending the pair of tickets back to Celestia and then receiving the note with the six tickets in return. And of those fifteen seconds, Spike spent eight trying to hold his burp back just so AJ could chide him for being "just like a boy." So in reality, Celestia responded within seven seconds of receiving Twilight's letter. I couldn't buy it at all, but for some reason, everyone else I talked to said that I shouldn't read much into it because what we see in the show can be considered a "condensed" version of actual events, showing the audience only what it actually needs to see to tell the story.
It was still a tough sell for me but in the end, since it didn't seem to bother anyone else, I felt left without cause to reject the story because that was my only niggle with it, and nobody else minded.
That's got to be one of the worst feelings for a reviewer. You're five minutes/5,000 words into a movie/story and you already know this is going to suck. You then look at the run time/word count and find you're not even close to being done.
The humanity.
3624645
Heeh. I was actually thinking the same thing. "This may just be the Twilight of fanfiction."
But that's not a good thing.
I wonder... Jane Eyre with vampires and werewolves. And a less likable, shallow protagonist.
Jane Eyre fanfiction: Twilight.
Discuss.
If I ever start a review series, and somebody requests a fic that turns out to be awful, I'd just state in my review that it was so bad I couldn't finish it. But you, sir, did not do that. I am in both in awe of your dedication to your fans and fearful for your sanity.
3624701
Bad for me, true, but it also makes me feel bad that these people call on me to do a review, almost certainly expecting a glowing report, only to get slammed down hard. I make no apologies – anyone reading my reviews should know I don't play nice to spare feelings – but it's still a damn shame.
3624645
I do tend to check on authors I've not read in a while, The ones who failed to impress me. Some of them never improve, but I've had a few who can learn from their mistakes. Almost makes it worth it. Almost.
3624654
I'll admit, I didn't think of that. Don't discount it, it's a legitimate gripe... although I do believe that many of the things we see in the show don't make sense and can be ignored/re-interpreted. But that's usually just when blatant inconsistencies exist. In this instance, I'd be completely on your side.
3624715
I suddenly feel the urge to read this Jane Eyre book.
3624720
Oh, believe me, I was sorely tempted to end this one early. I thought about it often, but damn it, I was not going to start something without finishing it! I was so happy that it was over. Only one story I've ever read even compares.
3624801
It was summed up for me once as a trope:
Female protagonist falls for the brooding, attractive .... this person:
He knew himself a villain—but he deem'd
The rest no better than the thing he seem'd;
And scorn'd the best as hypocrites who hid
Those deeds the bolder spirit plainly did.
He knew himself detested, but he knew
The hearts that loath'd him, crouch'd and dreaded too.
Lone, wild, and strange, he stood alike exempt
From all affection and from all contempt
3624801
3624654
To the timing issue, I'd say the show is compressed to fit into 22 minutes, so you can't necessarily take it so literally (for an example, see how quickly Luna shows up after Twilight writes her a letter in the Tantabus episode), and fudging it a bit here and there shouldn't make a difference. Let me put it this way: say I explicitly state in the story that it took half an hour for all this to happen. Would you then want an AU tag on it? I certainly don't think so, and if it's that minor a tweak, I think people can get over it just fine.
And I'm not sure where you're getting that it's in the middle of the workday. Celestia's wrapping things up at the end of the day, as it's said she can deal with the ambassador's letter, and she's doing all this stuff on her bed. At that point in the episode, the sun had gone down, and I figure it's not long after that when she goes to bed. Time to hand things off to Luna, get some rest, and prepare for the next sunrise.
3625258
This line is what threw me off. All of these are things one would reasonably expect to happen during regular work hours (well, except maybe mealtimes), and if there's no 'urgent' business awaiting her, that infers that she does have business to tend to right now, just not anything she has to drop everything else for. All of this lends to the image of her being in the middle of her workday.
Add in this:
There's been no mention of a bed so far in the story, and specifying that she flattened it on her rug after it landed in her hooves also gives the implication that she's lying on a cushion in the middle of her room, specifically atop a rug. In summation, you never told us she was in bed, nor gave any direct visuals to clarify such a thing. Instead you gave us an image of Celestia rubbing flat a scroll with her hooves on a rug – and last I checked, people/ponies don't keep rugs on their beds. Given that she's thinking about work with a line that suggests she still has a few hours to go, I ended up thinking Celestia was still busy.
Now, I grant that it is night in the show and therefor it would be time for Luna's turn. But considering this is the second episode, I doubt that Luna would be directly ruling the night at this point, and you can't assume that A) everyone remembers that the letter was sent after sundown or B) we understand the setting without some direct cues.
...
In other news, I agree with you that the time compression issue is a small thing. I still think it is an issue, but it wouldn't come even close to breaking the story.
3624701
I can confirm: committing to reading a story with a triple-digit wordcount, only to discover after reading the first couple of chapters that it's not very good, isn't fun. I've been pleasantly surprised by stories upping their quality significantly as they went along, but those occasions are the exception rather than the rule.
3624801
(not a response to anything in this post, but just to mark this as "directed at Paul")
Is "Twilight has to get married because she's a princess" really a thing? How does that make any sense at all? Two-thirds of the shows other princesses are very clearly single; do princesses just have to get married once, and when the groom kicks the bucket a few decades later, it's centuries of single (widowed) bliss?
Sometimes, I just don't understand the things this fandom makes into "things."
3625390
I dunno if it's a 'big' thing, but I've seen at least a dozen stories in my meanderings with this as a theme: Twilight's been crowned but because of reason XYZ she has to get married as a result. In the case of Suitors, you nailed it; there's no clause for re-marrying after the spouse dies, so Luna and Celestia were free to be single afterwards.
I don't get it, either. But I've got a thing against bandwagons, so most 'things' earn my determined disinterest.
The excerpt in the second reveiw gave me an aneurysm. Hopefully the author can learn and improve from the story. If nothing else, they have dedication.
I'll send you the bill.
3625318 I took it that the cushion on the floor was her bed. I don't recall seeing canon show a bed, and I've written this type of cushion as her bed in a couple of other stories, too, with no complaints.
Sorry, but I just don't see the timing as an issue at all. I'm glad it's at least not a big issue for you, but CV was going to hold up its acceptance into The Royal Guard on that sole point. Saying "what if the girls spent an extra ten minutes chatting in the library before the response came?" doesn't change any implications that episode has. Hours would, but minutes? It'd be different if the episode explicitly said that it was thirty seconds to nine o'clock, and something monumental was scheduled to happen at nine. Then the episode is much less flexible about how long things take. If it meant that anything significant changed about the episode, sure, but when the only difference is they talk for five minutes instead of fifteen seconds, I'm completely not getting why it's a hangup for anyone.
Take it this way: what else would I do to have it fit the timeline perfectly? What was actually suggested to me was to have Celestia conjure some time-freezing spell while she wrote her response. That's just a ridiculous MacGuffin and distraction that ends up changing nothing about how either the story or the episode plays out, and it'd take a really contrived motivation for her to do that.
Eh, I'm happy with it as it is. That's not something I see a need to change, even if it had ended up keeping me out of TRG.
3625858
I think you meant the third review. But yeah, it's bad; imagine how I felt going through it for 320,000 words. -.-
3625871
I've already specified how I feel about certain events being outright ignored in fanfiction when the show conflicts with itself or things are done for humor's sake. Like Twilight bursting into flames; it was a joke scene, I don't consider it a canon ability. By extension, adding a few minutes should be fine if there's no indication that anything else happened in the meantime (and in this case there is not) or that the characters aren't on a strict timeline (which they weren't). In short, I agree with your assertion.
Oh, that's easy; have Celestia write and send the first letter, then immediately afterwards have second thoughts and think she misinterpreted, leading to her trying to write the second letter. Of course, that comes with the caveat of her realizing she was right the first time, which is kinda silly, and also makes her appear indecisive.
Checking the date first, I point you to exhibit A:
vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/e/e9/Celestia_%22just_had_the_most_terrible_dream%22_S4E25.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/640?cb=20140512104837
...I can't believe I'm using evidence from the total and complete crap that is Twilight's Kingdom, but there we go.
3626288
Whoops. Yeah, don't read while sleepy.