Voting was rather tight all round this time. Seems everyone was hankering for a good adventure! Three votes for Dune Goddess, four votes for Whip and Wing...

Five votes for The Sisters Doo.

At a touch over 100k words, this story was asked for special consideration due to the author returning to the site after a two year absence. Readers have fourteen days to finish the story before we open up discussion in the Skype group, which you can join by shooting ToixStory a PM. If you do not have a Skype account, or do not wish to join, this thread will also be opened after fourteen days from today for discussion.

We also encourage commenting on the actual story.

Happy reading, everyone!

edit: Okay, thread is live, guys. What did you all think?

On the technical sense, not a bad story overall. I guess. but Daring... I well and truly HATED her guts by the end. When her wing got ripped off? My reaction was, "GOOD!" And I'm not sure I'm supposed to have that reaction. She overshadowed almost everything else for me. Oh, and this?

“You seem to do that a lot.”

Ditzy blinked and looked up. “Excuse me?”

Rainbow was frowning. “Make dumb choices when it benefits you, even if it hurts other ponies.”

Oh, god...

The whole, "She's got head trauma and she makes dumb decisions!" "Okay, we'll buy that!" made me groan, too. I mean really, really? There was way too much dumping on Ditzy. Way too much.

Ah... I liked Alula, and there being six alicorns who wielded the Elements back in the day. The trap for the magic carpet was clever, too. The CMC and Twilight in the mirror came outta nowhere in the fic. But side-stories so I guess alright.

I'm sorry. I really am, but I didn't like this one.

4024375

Well, that dumping on Derpy was kinda intentional. A story's supposed to provoke, after all, and some good ol' rage is part of that. There would only be a quarter as much story if Daring wasn't an egoistical jerk or if ponies listened to Derpy, after all. And yes, the wing getting ripped off was probably intentional karma.

It's actually been a while since I've read that story, but I remember that it was in my Top 5 of "Completed Epics" for a long time. I think it might even still be there... I should check that.

P.S.: I've come across a lot of stories like that recently... stuff and insults getting dumped on protagonists by dumb jerks. So much that I'm even planning to write a story where EoH just say "screw it" and leave the country for a vacation. Well, if I ever get off my lazy ass for that.

4024375
4027562

Daaaaaaamn, it’s been a long time. Two years ago, I delved head-first into this adventure. Having just finished watching all of season two as a fairly new brony, I was interested in Daring Do stories. I wanted to see more of her, truly. When I accidentally found The Sisters Doo after finishing Sin and Upheaval: Breaking Point, an explosive amount of excitement went off in my head (I can still remember my mother looking at me weirdly after I just yelled out “Yes!” in the living room for no apparent reason… heh).

Now I’m not going to say that Daring was as much a heroic figure to me as she was to Rainbow in Read It And Weep, but I will say that I couldn’t wait to get started with the adventure. Daring was cool, Daring was awesome, Daring was… a conceited, selfish bitch?

Huh. Interesting.

All throughout the story, Daring revealed herself to be an arrogant pony who thrived on waving her success in other ponies’ faces. It’s strange, though. Even the first time I read the story, something didn’t make sense to me, and with the reread, it’s still kinda hazy. Why would Daring bother to write her adventures as an anonymous author, if she’s completely unopposed to revealing who she is with excessive amounts of bravado and gusto? She’s basically Rainbow Dash, but with zero sense of humility (yes, even RD had some in season two, especially after second-worst episode The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well brought her back down to Earth a lot). She’s horrible to Ditzy Doo (her sister, who in fairness is rather hostile in return), she adores attention, she lies about her exploits and puts other ponies down, and makes many promises out of personal vanity. For someone who’s supposed to be a story protagonist, it’s hard not to wish some vicious form of Karma to befall her.

This is where the story really champions Ditzy Doo. Depicted as a former adventurer alongside Daring as her partner (until she took an arrow to the gut in the form of her daughter, Dinky), she settled down into a quiet life of motherhood. While she may not be in the mood for adventuring anymore, she still has the skills and the knowledge of a world-travelled mare. So while she at first vehemently rejects Daring’s er… daring proposal to join her on another adventure, she reluctantly insists upon accompanying her after the Cake Twins are abducted by agents from another nation—a nation that both mares are very familiar with. The difference in motives between Ditzy and Daring jetting off to rescue the twins really throws both of their characters under the spotlight: Ditzy only wants to get the twins back from their abductors because it’s the right thing to do, while Daring only wishes to get them back because she thinks it will make for an awesome new story.

All over the story, we learn more and more about Ditzy and Daring’s history, and the lengths that both mares are willing to go through to outdo each other as they search for the twins beyond Equestria’s borders. And really, this is a major aspect of what makes a great story: internal conflict in parallel to the external conflict. It’s nowhere near as fun to read about a group of friends who never fight/bicker/disagree in any way. Games like Battletoads, Final Fight, and Golden Axe utilise the “friendly fire” mechanic in-game, where you can actually damage/hinder your own allies without being careful. Sure it makes the game more difficult and annoying, but while it can be frustrating to have your ally accidentally beat you up regularly, it definitely adds to the entertainment value of the experience. This is no different in The Sisters Doo: Daring, Ditzy, and sometimes even Rainbow Dash are all at each others throats quite often.

Oh yeah. I know I was forgetting something. Rainbow Dash! While Ditzy and Daring might as well be OCs in this story due to their personalities, Rainbow’s character is definitely on vivid display here. She can be a little reckless, but she serves as the boulder that holds the adventure together. Now, depending on how you interpret Loyalty, you could say that she’s either extremely loyal to the overall adventure, or a flip-flop with it as she seems to switch sides quite often. If anything, I personally feel she’s too loyal to the cause. She’s trying so hard to be loyal to her hero (who is quite quickly revealed to have fallen off of her Broken Pedestal in Rainbow’s eyes, and must take her as her true self, Warts And All). Yet at the same time, while still respecting Daring somewhat, she quite often sides with Ditzy after Daring makes a complete arse of herself. In the end, without Rainbow flitting between where her loyalties lie and trying to hold the party together, the story would have had a much darker ending. So points to Rainbow.

Something else I have to give points to the story for: its use of Alicorn OCs that aren’t ridiculous, OP, or poorly thought-out. The story brings forth the lore that there are six alicorns in total (Celestia, Luna, Alula, Piedra, Beatrix, and Calupan) who all control an aspect of nature. None of them are overdone, although Alula is definitely the most interesting. Sure, he’s depicted as powerful, but as an alicorn of Wind, and being just as old as Celestia and Luna, one would expect him to be. He’s actually quite a charming fellow… at least until you get toward the end of the story. Piedra, too, is kept on a leash in terms of his power and involvement, and the other two are only briefly mentioned.

In terms of readability, prose, grammar, structure, mechanics… The Sisters Doo actually surprised me, considering its age. It reads almost flawlessly, with a grand total of only one or two typos or grammar slips throughout. It does make use of a fair amount of saidisms, and a tiny amount of LUS, however the story itself was just that compelling, that absorbing, that I really didn’t mind. Barring probably five instances in the story, my immersion remained 100% intact, and was quickly recovered even after a little thing jumped up and licked my face as opposed to trying to eat it.

There are things wrong with the story, though. Not many worth mentioning, except for the sudden appearance of the CMC, and Twilight and Pinkie near the end. Now, even though a simultaneously updating side-story does/did exist to explain Twilight and Pinkie, it was only very recently that another side-story about Dinky (that will hopefully explain how the CMC and she arrived in time to save the day from seemingly nowhere) came into existence. The story pretty much implies that you need to read the side-stories to understand what the hell happened. This is the story’s only really major flaw for me. Side-stories exist to expand and shed new light on events related to the main story, not to be the sole method of explaining events in the main story. The main story should offer at least some explanation why Pinkie and Twilight, and the CMC suddenly appeared near the end at just the right time. Without the side-stories, it really feels like a Deus Ex Machina out of nowhere, and that’s not a good thing. One might even argue that Dinky’s ability to control wind magic and match her alicorn father point-for-point in strength in this regard is Deus Ex Machina too, although considering where specifically Dinky is standing (or rather, what she’s standing next to), it becomes a little less of a stretch to believe.

As expected, Karma does take a huge, steaming dump all over Daring toward the end of the story, in the worst possible way. And yes, she deserves it. It’s up to you as the reader to decide whether or not you feel sorry for her, because despite acting like a huge jerk the whole time, Daring does actually undergo a fair amount of character development, just like Ditzy. Rainbow was probably the mare who developed the least, although she did learn those important lessons about Pedestals and Warts at least.

Whether you like Daring Do in this story or not, overall it is incredibly well written, engaging, exciting, amusing, at times shocking, and finally, heartwarming. The Sisters Doo, to me, stands the test of time, and rightfully deserves its place in my most loved adventure fics.

9/10

4027562 Provoke might not necessarily be a good thing, if it provokes me from not reading anything else. As for the story being half-length without Ditzy being dumped on... that might not be a bad thing.