For Those That Yearn for Adventure: Jade Ring's "Dear Crusaders" trilogy · 6:50am Feb 21st, 2017

We've seen many different interactions between the Cutie Mark Crusaders and their sisters. Apple Bloom has received a lot of helpful advice from Applejack, helping spur her on whenever she felt down about herself. Sweetie Belle has been able to express herself more positively with Rarity's own guidance. Scootaloo has found a mentor in Rainbow Dash, helping her both fly about and strengthen herself without flying. Each of the sisters have acted crazily around their sisters, especially when building go-karts, but the sisterly pairs have built a strong relationship with each other within the show.

What would happen if their relationships were actually deeper? What if there was an intricate, interwoven history between not only the three older sisters, but also the three Crusaders? What if everything went topsy turvy at one point, causing a cavalcade of events to occur? That is what we'll be exploring here. Ladies and gentlemen, fillies and gentlecolts, this is

Dear Sweetie Belle, Dear Applebloom, and Dear Scootaloo
by Jade Ring
Year Published: 2012-2013
Tags: Adventure, Sad, Drama, Tragedy
Word Count: 5,343; 5,818; 7,356 (18,517 total)
After an accident robs them of their parents, Rarity writes Sweetie Belle a letter laying bare a secret kept all the little unicorn's life.

What will the letters contain? How will it change the relationships the ponies have? Read on to find out!

Before I begin, I would like to say that my review is not meant to be belittling, discouraging or insulting. It is simply my observations as I read it. Please take what I say with a grain of salt; I'm not particularly bright, so I may miss or misinterpret something. Please take what I say with a grain of salt, as I'm still trying to figure out how to review with giving the author and story their due while pointing out what I feel could be better with it.

The Short Review

The emotions in all three stories are very powerful. On their own, each one presents a troubling past for all three foals and their big sisters; altogether, it weaves an intricate tale of selflessness against selfishness, responsibility against neglect, kindness against revenge, and clearing things out against bottling them up. The characters are all written well, it's paced greatly, it draws out each problem with enough detail, and works well both by themselves and with each other. The epistolary style is the right one for the effect the stories are going for, but I confess that I don't think the stories do them well. Switching from a first-person epistolary to a third-person flashback was acceptable, but switching to other characters' POV within those flashbacks, was very distracting for me (but then again, I'm more critical of epistolary so it may just be me.

The Long Review

If you're planning on going into these stories, know that they pull no punches. Not only do I mean that it doesn't shirk from details where needed; it also doesn't push too many unnecessary descriptions in between what's happening, letting all of the important bits shine. It pours out a lot of emotions from the three older sisters, and their confessions are all written well, in the characters' own voices. As I was reading, I had felt oddly like Rarity had struggled to write her letter, while Applejack came out with the blunt truth, and Rainbow Dash laid out all of the facts for her adopted sister. I'd say that the accents from Applejack's letter are a nice addition, because I can imagine Applejack cutting off the 'g' at the end of her words to shorten her own writing, for promptness's sake. The letter portions are very nicely done, and convey a great tone that influences both the tone of the story and the characters' interactions, so they get top marks from me.

The foals don't interact with the letters until the end of the letter, and their actions are what one might expect from them. I won't spoil them, because that would spoil the endings (obviously, Not Worthy, you dummy), but they make sense and build up the ends of the stories nicely. They act well at the beginnings as well, with both curiosity and trepidation, with great characterization. If there's one thing the stories get really well, it's the character interactions. I will say that, given that a big part of the stories is how the Crusaders will react to the letters, I wonder if not showing their interactions while reading, instead of merely before and after, was a wasted opportunity. I wonder if showing how the crusaders reacted to the letters at key points would've created better tension within the foals and between the sisters. That's speculation, though.

The letters all contain flashbacks within them. I'll confess outright that I didn't like this choice; going from a very personal style to a near-completely detached third person style confounded me, and made me feel like the stories had less impact than they could've had. It got worse with the later two stories, as it completely detached itself from the letter-writers and entered other characters' points of view, which was something I really disliked. It's still well-written tone-wise, but the stylistic inconsistency was something I didn't like at all.

But to praise the stories, the flashbacks are well-written in their own rights. They show the older sisters in more innocent lights, with great ambitions and big horseshoes to fill. Each story feels like they've dove into an unseen part of canon, because they feel like they're illuminating parts of the show's backstory we've not seen. The power with them all comes from brief, fantastic worldbuilding. The older sisters play their parts with enthusiasm at the start, and then when things begin to unravel (really quickly, I'll tell you what), they act both dramatically and realistically. The characters are all well-acted, both those we're familiar with and the new ones the story creates. Of special note is Feather Duster, a character off of whom most of the sisters' better qualities shine; he's the only character present in all three stories, from what I recall. I think the best part about reading these parts was the transition from the clusterfuck of events that transpire to the three older ponies claiming responsibility for their futures and their sisters' futures; that, for lack of a better word, was badass.

The characterization, character interaction, tension, drama, worldbuilding and writing are all outstanding in all three stories; the only thing I criticize about all of them are its handling of the epistolary form. The letter could speak a thousand unspoken words with possible frantic scratches, omissions, lacking memories, personal opinions and more, and yet it opted for an unwaveringly true flashback, and I feel the story lost a lot of impact from that. Even ignoring that, we could've seen the past through the eyes of the three sisters, and how they became who they are; instead, we go from character to character in both Apple Bloom's and Scootaloo's stories, making it a true third-person omniscient story where it shouldn't have been. We could've seen a bunch of emotions through the crusaders as they read, trying to process the tragic events they read; the emotions are saved until the end, though. All of these things are technically acceptable, because the way Jade Ring writes is outstanding enough to be captivating; for someone like me, though, who's seen many epistolary stories that should've just been third-person stories, it was distracting throughout my readthrough of all three stories.

Finally, the technicals. I don't think there were any consistent errors within any of the stories or across them. I don't even think that there was any patches of bland writing. The writing has the right amount of description, not having too little or too much. The events told are uncompromising, and the parts of it that are written in the characters' first person accounts use the epistolary form well. If you're looking for a story with tight, uncompromising writing, these are the ones to go to.

In conclusion, the Dear Crusaders trilogy are a trio of powerful stories that pack powerful punches throughout. On their own, they're gems of interactions between the sisters. Together, they're an account of three dark events that explain the origins of the sisters and how the older sisters came to be who they are today. All of the important parts of storytelling are hit with grand slam bats out of the park, creating fantastic tales. The only problem I had with it was how the epistolary style was handled, which was a big problem for me; to give the stories their due, what is there compensates for it. These are three stories that I'll recommend highly for all.

If You Yearn For More Adventure
#1: Fluttershy20’s “Last of the Dragonlords
#2: Toixstory’s “Freeze Frame”
November 1st: Words Failed Her by Nonsanity
November 2nd: Great Big Sky by shortskirtsandexplosions
November 3rd: 30,000 Feet by the Grey Pegasus
November 4th: Stop Me by Wing Nut
November 5th: Yearbook January by Regidar
November 6th: The Three Sisters by Wanderer D
November 7th: The Lonesome Drake by Bok
November 8th: Making Friends by arcum42
November 9th: Wheels of Fire, Wings of Fliers by ChaoticHarmony
November 10th: The Lone Crusader by Cute Reality
November 11th: The Frozen West by Cozy Mark IV
November 12th: A Rumble in Time by Lab Matt AND Broken Roads by Not_A_Hat
November 13th: Pip by Invictus
November 14th: Raiders of the Cutie Mark by DJLowrider
November 15th: The Ancient Heart of the Everwood Dragon by Grey Faerie
November 16th: The Motion of the Stars by Carabas
November 17th: Complaints Department by TheDarkStarCzar
November 18th: Height by PoweredByTea
November 19: Blue Steel Railway by writer
November 20th: device heretic's "And the Temptress Came Unto Her" and Glimmerglaze's "It's Also About Time"
#23: Imploding Colon’s “Austraeoh”
#24: cosmicbiscuit's "Fire Opals"
#25: Respite, More Than Angel, and Daring Do and the Weapon of the Ancients
#26: King of Malta's "Fashion on the High Seas"
#27: Applejack's Family Bonding, Arrow 18 Mission Log: Lone Ranger, and Stairway to Equestria
#28: DalTRS's "A Tale of the Sun, Moon and Stars"