In the Mind of: Sparkletop Rainbows · 4:19pm Sep 29th, 2017
This analysis is just my personal opinion on the work of Sparkletop Rainbows, not a review. Is not intended to be an exhaustive or definitive analysis of her work. This analysis may contain spoilers from her works.
On May 10th 2015, a student decided to join the MLP fandom in the main site for pony stories. She chose the name Sparkletop Rainbows. After several months of being just an average reader, she wanted to go a step beyond. So she began her journey around January 2016 (around the same time I started in the website. Coincidences of life.) with a story that passed without pain or glory. But just 4 days after she published it, she wrote another one and this time, acceptance was greater.
Scary Stories: Similar to the Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror, where Twilight tells a story to the Cutie Mark Crusaders that's supposed to be scary, has laughs in between only to discover that many of the characters in the story are real, just they don't notice it, not even in the end. A decent story telling that left the road prepared for what was coming.
The next months had a strange balance between comedy, slice of life and even horror. But strangely, many of these stories were left behind due to being short (many readers argued that they should've been longer) and rushed. Perhaps the most interesting ones from this period were these two.
Growing Up: Princess Flurry Heart has a talk with her mother about her role as a princess and how she can fit in. There's nothing more than a simple slice of life. It's open to interpretation such as the role every one of us has and the pressure of growing up. Fantastic reading about a mother-daughter relationship, so weird in media.
Ageless, Not Inmortal: Twilight's friends come out from a heavy blizzard to say good bye to her. This is probably the most controversial because, for the topics it deals with (such as grief, immortality, aging and the passage of time), it does nothing with them. The same problems of being short and rushed dones bad for this story, that has the most mixed reception of all. This concept was doomed to subsist at midnight screenshows.
Things that Crawled in the Dark: Spiritual sequel to Scary Stories, with almost the same elements as the original. It replaces the scary story with a slumber party and an infiltration from both Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, with a classic monster under the bed.
No, not that one. But it would've been great.
But after the storm comes the calm and, during her free time (since she's still busy with her studies and her family dilemmas, such as her little brother), came one of the biggest eras for her: the random humor. Although she occasionally wrote a drama, this phase was defined by a lot of absurd humor, nonsensical plots and characters driven insane. But this was not bad, on the contrary, it showed a face none of us expected from her.
Potato Goddess: This is the perfect example of what I'm talking about. Luna becames the Potato Goddess, Twilight is confused about it and nobody cares t explain, just accept the thing as they are. Written for the "Cult of the Potato Contest", has mind intriguing whose reactions are similar to this.
And between Potato Goddess and the Dazzlings tetralogy, she wrote her most successful saga ever. One that made her recognizable among the fanbase.
Fanfiction written by Discord and Scootaloo series: At certain point, this is a parody of Discord's ocurrences. Things such as Emperor Discord, Starlight the Cupcake, the Three Little Pi...eaches, Lala Land (Wow... How come you haven't been given a copyright strike for this?) and bananas, a lot of bananas are too strange and too bizarre to believe. Heck, even in one of her stories, Scootaloo says to read it at your own risk and that "if you're not one of those pretty random people who think the meaning of life is waffles, I advise you not to look at this." When the author herself tells you to not take her seriously, you can enjoy the randomess and the spirit of her own Wonderland. Some can say it's too absurd and goes to far in some instances, but it's funny when Discord says that the moral of the story is "Never listen to Twilight."
Technically these last ones were written before her random humor series, she published what was, without a doubt, her most mature work.
Dazzlings tetralogy (Reform? and Nightmares): Both The Story of the Sirens and Torn Apart were pretty bland, but the two followings are masterpieces. I'll be honest: I've been never been a fan of the Dazzlings, but these stories gave a different approach for them, dealing with themes such as family issues, depression, poorness, surviving and, to some extend, suicide. Now, using these characters dealing with these topics is nothing really new, but she develops them in such a way that you can empathize with them, especially Sonata, since she's the main focus fo these stories. And considering the recent events involving the siren in a certain way, I'll say that I'll never see this character in the same way ever again.
It's been a year since her last story, and it's comprehensible, considering she's still young (much younger than the average person in the site) and has responsabilities with her studies. Can she come back? Absolutely, but only time and patience will tell.
Some recurring images:
-Random humor
-Parody of characters themselves
-Coming to age tendencies
-No seriousness and warnings in the story descriptions
-Redemption and chances of a second opportunity
-Dazzlings as the main characters, with Sonata often as the main character
In memoriam of Hiromi Hayakawa, Sonata's latin american voice actress. Rest in peace, milady...
Great review and sad too. RIP.