Drake's Thursday Reviews #1 · 11:28pm Jan 10th, 2019
We open on a story I felt kinda pressured to read and it was as good as any to begin on.
Injuring Eternity - Monochromatic
From the cover art and the fic name, not even bothering to read the summary, I thought to myself "oh it's another 'Twilight outlives her friends and that sucks' fic, now with extra RariTwi." And, yes, it is that, but it's really, really good at being that.
The first part of the first chapter is a little dry, but does good to set up the plot and quickly get to the point of Twilight's time travel. We get hints of what's happened in the 500 years since the timeframe of the series, enough to answer some questions but not much, but its okay because we don't need fine details for what the story is to be. We drop in on the other members of the Mane Six long enough for emotional beats that hit well, and then it's off to see Rarity.
The confrontation with Rarity has a bit of an odd and honestly pointless divergence where Twilight tries to claim she's a reformed changeling, including a brief note that this is a thing in the future, but then Rarity checks her saddlebags and immediately realizes something is wrong from Twilight's future journal Rarity gave to her that is well-worn and filled out, so not sure why the changeling stuff was there. The timeframe of the conversation is also a little off, like at one point it's implied to have been a few minutes and then a couple lines later it's been hours. I'd also nitpick a few odd lines don't quite seem like how Rarity talks, like "what planet did you wake up on" and "Hardy har har". But that's a nitpick, 99% of the time all the character voicing is spot-on.
An oddity that suck out to me was Twilight panicking at mentioning she loves Rarity and then pointedly avoiding using the l-word again. It made for an interesting plot twist, that Twilight had come back to a point in time they hadn't hooked up in yet, or perhaps her love for Rarity had been unconfessed. But then in Chapter 3 Rarity's POV has her think of Twilight as "her special somepony" and narration implies they've been together several years, so I'm not sure what was up with Twilight's self-consciousness towards using the word love. But then that same sequence throws another monkey wrench into things. So I'm content to file this under "their relationship was complicated and not always easy" to explain away some behaviorial inconsistencies, and it turned out this is wise decision. Twilight and Rarity truly love each other and want the other to be happy and can't stand to see the other in pain. But they are flawed, fragile beings, who have their own ideas about how to go about achieving these things, ideas that the other may not agree with.
My only major problem with the story was a hiccup in the fourth chapter. Drama happened and it felt manufactured - we're reminded of a drama bomb waiting to go off, see someone clue us in it went off, and finally go to see the aftermath, all in the span of a couple of pages. Aside from not reminding us of the bomb so soon before it goes off, I don't think the story even needed the bomb, the emotions were doing well all on their own. Also, in my humble opinion, this slice of drama wasn't needed, the story was holding interest just fine well enough and I don't really think the drama helped move the characters or story all that much. But it was brief at least and it didn't drag the story down, it was just a speed bump.
Okay, nitpicks aside, this was a fantastic read. The emotions are genuine, which is of critical importance to me for fics like this. I hate fics that try to emotionally manipulate readers to have a sad, like they try too hard and go too far to try and get an emotional reaction. This fic does not do that, the sads are earned and well done, and so are all the other emotional moments. It's fluffy and fun when it needs to be and then tragic and heartfelt when it needs to be. I've been told people cry at the ending. I did not, but it definitely hit my feels spot. And for others, yes, the last third of the story will definitely make you reach for the tissues, and you will keep reading anyway because the story has earned those sniffels. It's the best kind of way for a fic to make you sad.
Recommendation: If you're a RariTwi shipper and you haven't read this fic, you are missing out on something special.
Even though they both have better ships, it's hard not to ship RariTwi. The Mono is strong. :V
Really really good at being that, to the point it's probably the only fic in that genre I actually like very much XD
And the Raritwi here is powerful. I was especially fond of the ending, and how Twilight had loved other mares but never forgot Rarity. She visited again when she and Rarity were both dying was the definition of bittersweet.