Hello again! Back with another review, this time of a short little one-shot called Constellations.

Ponies have always been fascinated by the stars and the images they create. But where did they come from?

When Celestia finds Twilight studying them, she decides to tell her. And while it may be a story that Twilight finds difficult to credit, it is one which Celesta is very personally familiar with...

Alright! Let's do this!

THE PLOT

Chances are, you've seen plenty of stories with this basic premise before. A filly Twilight poses some deep question to Princess Celestia, and Celly provides a somewhat dumbed-down answer. It's a pretty popular formula, but eh. It works.

In this particular case, Twilight wants to know about constellations, and why they are named after important ponies instead of something a little less mythical. Cue the Cosmos Theme! Celestia tells her that they aren’t named AFTER important ponies, but rather they exist BECAUSE of important ponies.

Her explanation takes her back to her pre-royalty days, when it was her and Luna against the harsh Equestria around them. It’s a pretty interesting and unique tale, and provides a neat theory on the nature of the stars in Equestria’s sky.

It also provides one of the best explanation of the Nightmare Moon “stars will aid in her escape” prophecy. Ever notice how quickly the fandom forgot about that little line? The stars will aid in her escape…what stars? Why? How? Soap Box gives us an answer, and it’s a very cool, very unique one at that.

However, one problem I had with the story is actually one that I share with other ones that follow this formula. It’s the “cryptic Celestia problem.” Titanium Dragon noted it in his review, too, and I see what he means.

Alright, so Twilight asks her question, and Celestia provides an extremely personal response that for some reason or another is also very subdued. It’s not a tale of Celestia and Luna, it’s a tale of the Royal Sisters. Gee. Wonder who those could be. Clearly, Twilight would catch on. And clearly, we the readers know. So it’s pretty irritating and immersion-breaking every time Celestia drops the “elder alicorn sister” line and Twilight somehow assumes it’s some OTHER immortal alicorn goddess. She simply isn’t this dense! I doubt anyone in Equestria is.

I don’t even understand why Celestia does it to begin with, or why authors insist on its necessity. It doesn’t add any emotional merit or mystery, it just breaks the flow. The story would read exactly the same if this was Celestia telling Twilight of her personal past, without the irritating discount-Rafiki-Celestia moments.

“Twilight! Remember the scent of mother!” “Twilight! Beware of spite and jealousy!”

THE CHARACTERS

Well, other than the uncharacteristically oblivious Twilight thing that I just noted, every one is in character here. And by everyone, I mean Celestia and Twilight.

The relationship between them was executed well, but hardly anything groundbreakingly unique. Whatever. It did its job, and functioned solely to frame Celestia’s story anyways.

GRAMMAR AND MECHANICS

Well, first of all, the writing itself was quite descriptive and engaging, but there was some improvement to be done here, mechanically.

The first thing I noticed was the distracting usage of hyphens, where an en dash should have been. For a sentence like this:

"It wasn't much- the last thing Canterlot needed was a solar flare at midnight- but it was enough to see by."

You’re going to want to use one of these [–] instead of one of these [-]. That way, it'll look like this:

"It wasn't much – the last thing Canterlot needed was a solar flare at midnight – but it was enough to see by."

Also, the literal first thing I was presented with when I started reading the story was a brief, unsignposted flashback to Celestia and Luna's past, which is fine, but how was it transitioned into the main narrative? Like this:

"He has gone too far." Her sister's voice. She nodded.

They were in agreement.

That's it. That's how the flashback ends. Then there's a horizontal rule and the narrative begins. It just seems like an odd, random note to suddenly leap forwards on, and it doesn't help that it kicks the story off and is the immediate first thing we see.

Additionally, there were a few problems that needed a bit of editing work. Here's a few that I found:

“squeezing between the near-improbably number of bookcases”

”When she rose to the higher-level, she saw her most faithful student, crouched over the eyepiece of a great telescope. (Read out loud, this sentence feels strange. One of those commas doesn't have to be there.)

he sunk further into dream.

Twilight tilted her head, a hoof tapping as she thought(Your participle is dangling.)

She laughed with a light pride in her student.

Also there was a pretty heavy amount of slip-ups with the use of apostrophes ['s] (new one's, unicorn's, sister's) Take care you don't mistakenly use them for pluralization, they should be used for possession or contraction only.

Also, it's important to remember that every time a new character speaks, you must start a new paragraph. A rare few times, an action performed by Celestia directly preceded a line of dialogue by Twilight in the same paragraph, which was kinda confusing.

In this vein, there was the occasional awkward, inconsistent formatting directly after an action:

Celestia smiled, and spoke softly.
"The two pony sisters told each other stories."

It looks weird to me; I'd press the enter button once more, or keep it as part of the same paragraph.

I usually avoid nitpicking grammar when reviewing a story, but in this case I must admit it became quite noticeable. Not enough to sink the story, but there's still a bit of improvement to be done here.

WORLDBUILDING

Probably where I'll be giving the most points. Err...if I gave points.

While the main narrative is rooted mainly in the present, indeed, in one single room, Celestia's descriptions of life during Discord's rule are very intriguing. The author has an explanation for many things canon has not touched upon, and some of the imagery Celestia uses to portray it is extremely good. Here's an example:

"Imagine, Twilight," she said, her voice growing soft. "Being alone, and against the world you wanted to save. Imagine having your sister cry herself to sleep. Imagine being so tired of everything that you couldn't cry. Imagine looking into the blackness of the sky, the storms scuttling on the horizon, and asking yourself if it was worth your efforts.

I love, love, love the layer of doubt in Celestia and Luna's goals that the author has implied here. It makes the sister's fight for peace seem so much more convincing and realistic. Because seriously, if any sane person was in this situation, it would take some serious dedication to not wussy out and become subservient to the world around them. They're young and scared, and Celestia is reminiscing on these memories when she is seen by her subjects as the greatest thing since chocolate cake. The thought of young Celestia and Luna considering throwing their hooves in the air and going...

“Well, shit, we tried! Let's just bug out and call it even. What are we even talkin' about this for?”

...and ultimately deciding to stick it through is some cool character building. And yet look how subtly it was expressed. Good on you, writer.

I mentioned the Nightmare Moon prophecy before, but I feel the need to reiterate. Y'know that part of the prophecy where “the stars will aid in her escape?” What's up with that? The explanation here is worth the read alone, trust me.

For a story told solely through Celestia's reminiscing dialogue, it painted a pretty cool picture of Equestria during Discord's rule.

Also, it depicted Discord as a genocidal tyrant who killed an entire race. So if you like Discord...you might be a little bummed by that. Personally I don't care. He'll always be a villain in my books.

(I pick stories with good worldbuilding pretty often, it seems. Huh.)

IMPACT

Were it not for the prophecy explanation, this would be a fairly standard Twilight-poses-Celestia-deep-question story. As it stands though, I think this story has a fair bit of resonance for so brief a one-shot.

CONCLUSION AND FINAL THOUGHTS

Grammar and Writing: While not terrible, there were enough grammer problams 2 be noticeable. A few slip-ups can sink a paragraph. Dialogue felt natural considering it's tell-y nature, and the writing was appropriately descriptive without deviating from the focus at any point.

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Originality and Impact: Hardly a unique premise, but it presents a few neat ideas that shouldn't be overlooked.

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Plot, Characters: Twilight asked Celestia stuff. Celestia told Twilight stuff. Nothing new, but it's a formula that works.

This story is worth the read. Nothing groundbreaking, but considering its brief length and neat interpretation of Moonie's prophecy, I see no problem recommending it.

FINAL SCORE: Recommended

That's all, folks! See ya next time!

4841686
Nice work! Would say more, but what more can I say that you haven't?

4841686

Thanks for the review!

I admit, the technical stuff is... really not my strong suit. I'm generally more interested in characterisation and worldbuilding, though I should really try and learn proper grammatical rules; the best story ever written isn't worth much if no one can understand it after all...
And even though I know there is a difference between a hyphen and a dash, I didn't realize they were separate keyboard commands. On the plus side, it kind of makes me want to write about Rainbow Dashs' suspiciously similar cousin, Rainbow Hyphen...

And... I agree with you (and Titanium) that Twilight seem's a little oblivious to the obvious 'Pony Sisters = Celestia and Luna'. My only defense to that is that the first episode seems to present the ponies as actually being that oblivious. You could maybe explain Twilight warning Celestia of Nightmare Moon's return as Twilight believing that Celestia has never heard this particular prophecy before... but everyone seemed pretty surprised when the Younger Sister/Mare In the Moon/Nightmare Moon turned out to be Celestia's little sister.
It's one of those weird canon things that probably should just be quietly ignored, but... I didn't. And I kind of liked the idea of Celestia telling a story about her past without saying it was her past, so I ran with it.

Of course, all the verbal slip-ups I did didn't exactly help the "What, me? No way Twi, I'm not the elder pony sister" stuff. So... I can absolutely see where you guy's are coming from with regards that. For whatever it's worth, it kinda makes me want to write a sequel to this to explain away that particular plot hole, but...

Yeah, thanks! I'll try and work on my grammar in the future, but in the meantime, thanks for the recommendation, and I hope you enjoyed the story!

4841686 Just read it. It was a pretty touching read. There was even one line in the story that I really liked (but I'm on my phone, so no quote).

Overall, it does need work, but it did do a good job on building enough emotion to engage you with the characters feelings.