Incomplete Review: Dear Princess Twilight · 6:51pm Sep 11th, 2021
Howdy. Quick preface; for years I've tended to not do reviews of incomplete stories because, given the choice, I tend to prefer reviewing the complete thing. I believe it's perfectly possible to recommend stories that are incomplete or unfinished, but as I decided to pick and choose what I wanted way more, I decided to afford myself this small luxury.
For this reason I want to preface that this review is of an incomplete story that I simply believe has gotten a somewhat unfair treatment and want to shine a spotlight on it. I will contextualise at the end of the review for those interested, but for the rest of you, feel free to read on. Preface over.
This is a story told in an epistolary format, which to be fair does set it apart from other stories for me; even though I like to write all kinds of things, I have only rarely done an epistolary narrative, and it genuinely is interesting. It's told from the perspective of Luster Dawn, the new student of Twilight's, through letters from her to her mentor (in a riff on Twilight's own letters to Celestia). It takes a very slice of life approach and is quick to get into Luster's mental state; the first chapter outlines her background, her thoughts, and her insecurities. It does this fairly well, I think; it presents Luster musing on what she wants. The voice she takes is good too; it's neat and tidy, but with a little familiarity that works well for a letter to a beloved and cared-for mentor.
As set-up, it does its job well, and outlines how Luster is attending the School of Friendship and is looking forwards to it.
The second chapter is, in my opinion, a bit rougher. In this, the friends and other students that (I presume) are going to be central to the narrative are described. I feel that their description is, compared to the first chapter, somewhat more blunt and direct. There was an elegance in how Luster's mental state was conveyed that is absent for a lot of the other characters, especially (in my mind) Midnight. There's a clear pattern to each character's introduction which I feel is a bit predictable; each is described and then the central 'problem' to each is outlined. Some are quite interesting and sound pretty nuanced; others feel like they're a bit too ham-fistedly sympathetic. But then again, Hap be a grumpy man. It's never obnoxious but it is a bit less elegant than the first chapter in my opinion.
The voice Luster takes is consistent throughout which I personally feel is the strongest element of the story so far. The chapter concludes with an actual interaction between the bunch, which is great to see. The best way to get a feel for characters is how they actually behave. The way it's done is telly by nature, since this is epistolary, but that also gives insight to Luster herself, as she is the one telling the story.
Beyond this it's difficult to say how the story will progress; perhaps it will focus on each of the characters, or will instead turn its attention on Luster herself and her own trials and tribulations. I hope it's the latter personally, since through the letter format, her mind is the one we see the clearest and I'm quite interested in seeing it develop.
The story as a whole, by the way, is well edited. I don't look for these kinds of things, but I didn't detect any grammar or spelling issues that made reading uncomfortable, and it feels nicely and comfortably paced too.
Who would enjoy this? For starters, if you're into epistolary stories, well, this is one of them, so that's that. I find them interesting if only because they're rarer, and I like novelty. The tone is a bit of a mix which is also interesting; the content leans towards sad, but the voice is a bit more perky and matter-of-factly which creates a bit of a contrast. If that sort of bittersweetish, slice-of-lifey vibe grabs your fancy, well, then you might want to pick it up; at only 3.5K words it's a quick read to make up your own mind at the time of posting. Certainly I think it's worth a look, even if I have some quibbles with the second chapter.
To contextualise why I made this review; the story got negative attention within two hours of posting on SSPB for unfair reasons in my opinion. Normally I frankly don't bother with this sort of thing (Hap is an apathetic man most days), but given that the story was so young at the time, it's at this stage where even a small number of downvotes can make a tangible difference to how the story progresses over the next 24 hours; it affects how the story looks when it exits the new stories' list, which has an effect on how it deals with the popular stories' list as well, even if it's only small.
In my opinion it is strong enough to warrant a fair look and doesn't deserve to be disadvantaged because of some toxic elements of the fandom. I'm not the sort of guy to just support things without reading and experiencing them first, but I do want to adjust the balance in my own way. Also I don't like toxic behaviour. And so, here we are. I'm not what I'd consider a nice man but I do want to see stories that have effort put into them get given a fair shake, and this is the fairest shake a man of my disposition can muster. I do not intend to recommend a story just because some folks decided to be toxic on the internet, but I will review something as fairly as I can and let you make your own minds up as to whether to support it or not.
That's all from me. Here is a random-ass picture I drew of Rainbow Dash in Griffonstone. It took me like an hour. It is what it is.
Be fair to each other, I guess. Hap out.
