Twilight and her friends weren't going to stay young mares all their lives. As time passes by, they go on with their lives. They get into relationships, get married, have foals, develop their careers, have crises, and yes, they also die. Only Twilight, an Alicorn, will not die of a natural death. What will the mane 6 do with their lives?

This story is... tough to put my finger on.

It's not confusing by any means. The writing is clear and understandable. The only grammar issue I noticed was some misuse of quotation marks when characters' dialogue stretches over multiple paragraphs (for future reference, you always start a new paragraph with opening quotation, and leave off the closing quotation in the previous paragraph).

There just doesn't seem to be much connecting the first two chapters with the rest of the story. The first death comes in the first chapter, and it just kind of... happens. Rainbow dies from a flying accident much like a car crash in real life. I'm not trying to downplay the shock or tragedy of an incident like that, but the story spends more time at the funeral--the actual dialogue of eulogies and speeches--rather than reflecting on the sense of loss or mourning the characters are feeling. Other than a cursory I didn't get to say good-bye in Twilight's thoughts.

Then there's a time skip in Chapter 2 of at least five years. From a reader's perspective, everyone has moved on in the click of a mouse button. I really think this made the first chapter worse. That was the one and only time we had a chance to see the reaction to that character's death--the launching point of this story's theme, coping with your friends' deaths one by one--and it fell flat. And was then buried under years of coping that we didn't get to see.

The one exception to my assessment may be Pinkie Pie, who has become a full blown alcoholic and drug addict. Which... fair enough. If that's the story you want to write, I won't doubt that happy-go-lucky Pinkie Pie can fall into that kind of a rut. But it's incumbent on the author to show why. Did she feel guilty about what happened to Rainbow somehow? Was she in love with Rainbow? What made her cling to the death of one friend for so long that she ignored all her other friends for years? How in the world did the Super Party Pony end up throwing her body at any stallion younger than her, alienating her closest friends and family, and end up overdosing and leaving Twilight to find her rotting corpse?

One thing Pinkie does add to the story is that she screams about how Twilight will live forever, and how she already looks noticeably younger than the other girls at this stage in their lives (side note: I'm not even sure if this is considered the reason for her life style). This kicks off Twilight feeling guilty about her status as an alicorn, compounded by a later scene in which Shining Armor throws her a secret birthday party.

I can't let that last sentence go by without going off on a tangent. I had to stop reading because I was laughing so hard at this scene.

Shining Armor throws her a secret birthday party. You might be wondering why. Well, Princess Celestia outlawed celebrating Twilight's birthday.

You read that correctly. Celestia made it a crime to celebrate Twilight's birthday. She is so serious, in fact, that Shining is afraid of losing his job during this little get together. His job, you may recall, is being Prince of the Crystal Empire.

And Twilight is the only pony in Equestria that does not know this law is a thing.

Again, you may be wondering why. Why does this law exist? Well, Princess Celestia does not allow the celebration of any alicorn's birthday so that the general population would not get jealous of them for being immortal. In all seriousness, this is a good motivation. It is elaborated later on and even plays a role in the rest of the story, which I will get to later.

I just want the author to think about this for a minute. Celestia enacted a law that is a secret to only one pony in the entire country (Celestia is even surprised later on when Twilight asks her about this law, so it was in fact meant to be a secret). Disregarding how that feat might even be possible, consider the goal of this decision. She didn't want mortal ponies to feel resentment to immortal ponies.

Even though the immortal ponies live alongside them every day. An immortal pony has in fact ruled them for over a thousand years. Generations of ponies have lived and died while seeing Celestia live ever on, unchanging and unaging. So what's the point?

Maybe you've seen cartoons where a character is trying to kill a pesky mosquito. Bug spray and fly swatters don't work, so they break out the dynamite. Or a flamethrower. Or a five hundred pound sledgehammer. Something that's pure overkill. This idea of Celestia's strikes me as the same idea in reverse. She's facing a huge and obvious problem--mortal ponies can see immortal ones staying forever young--and her solution is to throw a banana peel at a roaring fire. It's just ludicrous.

In fact, it's more ludicrous than trying to blow up a mosquito. That would actually kill the mosquito. Even without celebrating birthdays, alicorns are still there for the world to see. The problem she's trying to solve is still there, but dammit, she will tear you down even if it causes a huge diplomatic incident if you dare scoff at her law.

Okay... tangent over. I need a reset button.

I think I finally got my finger on this story. It's conflict doesn't start when the story itself starts.

That's why the first chapter feels so off to me. Twilight isn't contemplating her immortality, Celestia doesn't give her a cryptic warning along the lines of "Get used to this" or anything. Rainbow's death isn't used to set the stage or plant a seed for what's to come, almost like the story shifted focus after it had begun. Rainbow, and Pinkie to some extent, are instead used to yank on the heartstrings as if to say, "This is sad! Aren't you sad at them dying?"

The final three chapters though, they bring it all together. There are still some time skips, but the surviving Mane Six have some good characterization as they go through their middle ages. Fluttershy has a growing and loving family, Rarity is desperate for true love of her own in turn, and Applejack is still the straightforward Applejack we know and love in spite of personal loss on her end. And Twilight still very much loves them, loves spending time with them even though they're starting to leave her behind.

There's also growing tension between her and Celestia. I mentioned above that Celestia's motivation for her birthday rule was good, and here's where it comes into play. She has a much colder attitude towards death than Twilight expected, and much darker undertones to her relationship with past alicorns. Much later in the story, Celestia even forces Cadance to give up custody of Flurry Heart.

I'm not personally a fan of dark, controlling characterizations of Celestia like that, but the idea is effective in this story. Twilight is put in a very tough spot, watching her friends die while knowing she can't save them from the inevitable. And she doesn't know if she can fully trust the one pony she always did, the one pony that had been a fixture in her life for years and is guaranteed to be there for eons to come. It was compelling enough to make me finish reading the entirety of the story. It was good to see how she came to peace with her friends and their legacy.

If there's one thing I want to author to take away from this review, it would be the importance of cohesion in a story. Plot points need to have a tangible effect on what comes next. Rainbow's death inspired Fluttershy to open a hospital in her name, but thanks to time skips, it closes down before the reader gets to see any impact it had. Was that really more productive to the story than giving a reason why Pinkie was so devastated by her loss?

World building needs to make sense with the world around it. Celestia is the controlling and unquestioned leader of some of the most powerful beings that ever existed in Equestria. But she still makes stupidly ineffective decisions like the birthday law. There's even a bit where Discord talks to Twilight in spite of the fact he's encased in stone. Like, he's powerful enough to stop time and sit face-to-face with her. Celestia even knows he can do it. I mean, could he always do that? Even before he broke free the first time in Season Two? Really? Where's the consistency in that? What did he even need to break out for?

Ultimately... I'm standing at a crossroad. I try to figure out what rating to give a story before I write the review, but I couldn't do that here. I still don't know what to label this story. There was some really good potential here, and not all of it was realized. But when it got all its ducks in a row I was hooked enough to be genuinely curious to see how it all ended.

Yeah, I think that's a fair summary. Too clumsy to be really good, but nowhere near bad enough for me to call it bad. It was decent despite its flaws.

6089648
I stopped reading halfway and just stared at that Rarity picture in awe. Sorry, gonna have to check the artist's gallery. Bye!

Writing a story is like performing in a DCI show; if you leave the judges feeling unsure of what they feel about your work, then you'll never place very high. You also won't place very low, because you can execute on all the technical aspects but miss the effect, but you likely won't do better than average...

Regardless, based on the reaction in this review, I might have to check this one out for myself. Who knows? Maybe it just needs another set of eyes...

Hi,

First of all, I want to thank you for reading and reviewing my story. I know you invested a lot of your time in it and I really appreciate it.

I won't say much about it because I had a sad experience today and I'm full of emotions and I don't want my emotions to affect my answer, nor become defensive.

I agree that the first chapter is the weakest of all. I wrote it shortly after a loved one of one of my family members passed away and it was just a way for me to release some emotion. I had no plans to write a full story, just that one event, although I did toy with the idea of making it a long series. In fact, it was the only chapter that suffered a major re-write because it was even worse than what it is now. It's much better now, although still not up to par with the last ones, precisely because there was no overall arc to it.

It wasn't until I wrote chapter 2 later on that I decided that I needed to create a framework for the whole story. I created an excel worksheet with ages and events that I used in the next chapters. I also wrote plots and subplots, and I asked around for some input since I haven't watched the series in ages and I just watched it until season 4. For example, I learned that there was a character named Starlight Glimmer that somehow became a student of Twilight. I had her married and pregnant to explain her quick departure, which apparently worked. I also don't know anything about Flurry Heart other than some images I saw. She did sound important enough and relevant to the story to be given a bit more screen time, things like that.

You can tell that the work paid off because the last three chapters are much more coherent. I'm not saying it's great literature, but the story allowed me to learn a lot about writing.

One thing that I find interesting is that reviewers tend to hate the story, with you being the only one that kinda, sorta liked it somewhat. However, many people have enjoyed it too. So far, 5 people have cried with the story, that I know of, and one person is writing a sequel. I consider both of these a source of pride.

Another thing that I find curious is that the parts that people hate or love tend to be very different, except for the first chapter which everybody finds the weakest of the story. For example, some people have loved the Shining part, which you disliked. Others have loved the conversation with Discord much more than the one with Celestia, whereas it looks like the opposite to you. I do find odd that you say that the story doesn't say why Pinkie fell into depression, since it does. I didn't really want to write a long fall into addiction, so I just wrote the end.

I would like to say that I don't want to invalidate your points or your opinion. It's what it is and I believe it's not my role to tell readers what to take from my story. So, I really am not questioning anything in your review, just explaining a bit why I wrote what I wrote and my experience with the story.

Finally, I know it's just one more fanfic among thousands here, but I invested a lot of time into it and I'm proud of it. I just wish I had more free time to edit it. A sequel is being written (by someone else) and I want to make it into an audio format, although that will have to wait. Heck if nothing else happens, I'm still glad I wrote it. It's my own little contribution to the brony fandom.

Again, thanks for reading it, and for writing your review. I read it three times before writing an answer. I will certainly consider your advice in the future and write with coherence from the beginning with other writing projects.

PS. For some reason, I loved that you were so torn over what to feel from the story.

I just wish I had more free time to edit it

From one author to another, there is no shame in taking all the time you need to make sure your story is up to your standard. My longest story took me over a year before I was happy with it, and it still clocks in at under 50k.

Regardless of that, there's also no shame in taking pride in the reactions you pull out of your readers. That's an incredible feeling to know you touched someone enough to bring them to tears. Especially with the effort and emotion you poured into writing. As for my reaction, sometimes it's better to feel torn or conflicted about a story than to feel nothing at all about it.

I'm glad you weren't discouraged by the negatives I picked on. By all means, keep making contributions to the fandom. That's the same reason I started writing. Best of luck to you.

6090086
Well, I couldn't wait that long to get the story published. It's not like I was paid to write it or anything, it's just a fan thing.

Frankly, I think a lot of the criticism comes from young bronies who haven't had experience with adult stuff, like a chronic disease or abuse or death. For example, some people say that Pinkie shouldn't die like that, as if alcoholism went "oh, I can't touch this person." Things like that. I do not mean to say that my writing is perfect either. But yeah, I do take pride in the work and love I put in the story and that it moved people to tears.

I'm not discouraged by negatives. At best, they're opportunities, at worst, just words that you can easily dismiss. You can't write a story and not expect some criticism.

6090086
I forgot, I would like your advice on something. I want to get a cover for the story, but honestly, I don't know what to get. A picture of Twilight near five tombstones doesn't work. The events happened over a long period of time, so there isn't a moment that defines the story. Also, not all characters die at the same age, so Twilight with old manes doesn't work either.

6095828
I don't mean to intrude on a question directed at another person, but I'd like to offer advice.

Perhaps, symbolically you could go with a pensive and sad Twilight against an autumnal scenery. Its a melancholic sign of time marching on as well as death.

6096462
Oh, no problem. I aimed the question at Minds eye because he read the story. I would have asked everyone but I don't think people have read it.

That's similar to an idea I had. However, I don't know, I do want to have something with the rest of the mane 6, since I consider them an important part of the story.

On other news, I read a bit of the sequel to my fanfic that someone is writing and I'm all excited, haha.

6095828
I'm afraid I won't be much help there. The best advice I can offer is to just browse derpibooru here. Just search the Twilight and Sad tags and see what strikes your fancy. You might see something that gives you an idea of what you want. Or even what you don't want, to help narrow your search.

Perhaps also Twilight plus the smiling and crying tags at the same time. Maybe a melancholy look of her remembering the good times in spite of the fact her friends are gone. Maybe her looking in a mirror. Studying herself. Wondering "What has immortality done for me?"

It's good to have a broad idea about a cover image. There's not always a perfect one, so just wanting to project a general feeling of "Twilight reflecting on things" could be met several different ways based on what you find.

6096620
Well, the thing is that I don't want a "Twilight reflecting" image, but a "the mane 6 live their lives" kinda thing. But you're right, the problem is that I don't have a broad image of what I want exactly. I will definitely check derpiboruu although I don't know how to use the tags. I guess I'll have to find out.