TSanctuary

• MLP: FiM
• Romance
• Adventure
• Sad

When a freak accident causes Rainbow Dash to lose her trademark defining trait, Twilight worries that it might have taken her spirit, soul, and her love away along with it. Can Twilight save her with the help of a friend?

• Fluttershy
• Twilight
• Rainbow Dash

The DJ Rainbow Dash · 7.9k words  ·  68  0 · 2.1k views

Description

When a freak accident causes Rainbow Dash to lose her trademark defining trait, Twilight worries that it might have taken her spirit, soul, and her love away along with it.

With the help of a friend, maybe there is a way she can help her find it again.

Perhaps a trip to a very special place is in order.

Initial Thoughts

A typical romance story between Rainbow Dash and Twilight, but also marked as Adventure? Curious; judging by the length, I’m assuming that the “adventure” portion is a small feat of world-building, nothing too strenuous. 

Onto the story! There will be spoilers.

Summary

After a freak accident results in a horrendous injury to Dash’s wings, Twilight, after coming to terms with the fact that her trademark method of helping, that of research and suggestion, will come to naught, seeks Fluttershy’s advice about how she can support Rainbow. Fluttershy offers a glimpse into a hidden part of Rainbow’s life: a “sanctuary” that she goes to when she needs a place to relax. It becomes Twilight’s goal to bring Rainbow there, if only to give her the peace she desperately needs, and to demonstrate that when the going gets tough, Twilight’s there to get going together.

Plot

Fundamentally this is a simple story with a simple premise. Something bad happened, which causes a strain on the relationship, and one of those in the relationship seeks out an alternate remedy, not a solution necessarily, that will begin the journey towards healing and reconciliation. 

I was surprised, then, that, at the end of the day, very little romance—that is, tropes that the genre is known for—actually occurs. There is no courting, dating, or necessarily a “will-they-won’t-they” moment (though in a previous review, I noted that such tropes are by and large not quite necessary to writing romance as a whole). The lack of a romantic presence in such terms was actually a welcome one, as it allowed the author to explore the conflict using romance not as the angle of entrance, but as the angle of motivation—a side feature to the main event, even if that might sound paradoxical given romance as a whole. 

I enjoyed, too, the fact that the source of such a spurring is given a slow build-up to the reveal, and that little detail to the actual event is provided. While some might argue that that detracts from the reader’s ability to understand the conflict, I argue that the littlest detail provides the most amount of drama. We know, by the beginning, middle, and end of the story, that what happened was that Dash got hurt; and furthermore, she got hurt performing a complicated and dangerous trick for Twilight; a trick that Twilight suggested. The line of responsibility starts with our alicorn friend and ends with her all the same. Is asking for the specifics for that trick, and for that accident—looking for, say, the date, time, who attended, and so forth—relevant to the story at hand? No, I say because this is a story set after a story. 

The conflict can therefore be summarized, though the term sounds demeaning, as “fetch quest” on Twilight’s part, to find a way to “secure” Dash’s “safety.” I mean that, of course, in a metaphysical sense. Dash, already injured, is probably as safe as she can be at home; it is the safety of mind that Twilight worries for, and which she searches for. 

So all of this sounds good on paper, and the execution is, generally speaking, good. However, because of its simplicity, it was hard to get into the story and be surprised by the turnout. This story may not have all of the tropes of romance, but it was still predictable and formulaic. 

All stories are. I acknowledge that, and I don’t believe this is necessarily a bad thing. But if I had to pin my gripe with this feature, it’s that such a simplistic, formulaic approach makes the story feel flat. In terms of scope, stakes, takeaways, and impact, the story is only just. I do not say that it needs to be complex, but I do note that there is a certain plateau with the storytelling that the story hardly jumps or strays from. 

It’s a good, solid fluff, which I enjoy, but it feels almost too fluffy, like it desperately wants to push that fluffiness onto the reader rather than let room to breathe in the fluffiness. There’s a level of inauthenticity with such a push, and this will end up being a theme throughout the writing.

Score - 8 / 10

Characterization

It’s hard to say if characterization throughout this story was on point. Perhaps the best was Fluttershy’s, even though she shows up for a limited time, followed by Rainbow’s, then Twilight’s. 

I understand that this is a T-rated story, and I understand, based on the implications from the dialogue, that the accident was a particularly ferocious one. 

That said, I did not find the frequent cursing applicable to the narrative. 

Rainbow Dash using the word “damn” isn’t bad characterization, but the manner by which it is conveyed feels wrong. It’s like trying to push for the T-rating by using a superficial method, that of cursing, rather than employing thematic motifs and patterns that would warrant such a rating. Similarly, when Twilight curses, there’s no justification for it other than the rating. 

I am reminded of what Mark Twain once said as advice: Put damn in place of every adverb, and your editor will remove it each time, and you’ll end up with a better sentence all the same. Now, the “damns” used here are all interjections, but the point is that the word becomes redundant as much as cursing as a whole becomes. 

This might seem like a minor point, but the cursing is done in a way to draw attention to the tension in the characters. I understand the motive and intent, but the execution feels clunky, forced—and inauthentic. 

Let’s take a step back, though, and look at the characterization overall. Fluttershy I already touched upon; she’s kind, supportive, and works as herself. Dash’s angry demeanor and mopiness at the beginning and end of the story all are justified, given the circumstances. If we factor out the cursing, then what we see is an angry, stubborn, and deeply upset Rainbow Dash. By the end of the story we see that part of those negative emotions is Rainbow’s unhappiness with being effectively disabled. There is a level of guilt associated with her, adding a level of complexity.

Twilight also suffers from guilt—it’s her fault that Dash is injured, after all—and so her motivation to find a new way to help her marefriend is also justified. But there are moments in the story where Twilight becomes one-dimensional in her emotions, mostly because the author wants the reader to see that she’s feeling them. Let me point out a brief example, at the end of the first section, before the first horizontal line break:

Twilight didn’t say anything, nor did she even know how to respond. She could feel tears start to roll down her cheeks as she simply stared at the broken pegasus she called her marefriend, desperate to do something, to at least say something to help her from drowning in her anguish.

This oozes sadness. But in oozing it, the feeling becomes diluted. Sadness is being thrust upon the reader, but it’s almost like the story revels in its suffering, and as such the reader cannot empathize fully with it. The connection is made artificially, rather than naturally, because the story bends over backwards to make sure that the reader knows Twilight is really, really, really damn-well upset. 

Again, this makes Twilight’s characterization in particular feel inauthentic. It becomes overly sentimental. It feels fake and forced. I understand that the story wants to show how devastated Twilight feels—but instead of showing, briefly, in glimpses, in effect, in action and in dialogue, it tells it out, spells it out, almost. There’s little nuance there, and the characterization suffers as a result.

Score - 6.5 / 10 

Syntax

It’s a bit strange. The story begins with pretty decent syntax, but gradually a lot of little mistakes start popping up. There are, for instance, issues of comma placement when it comes to dialogue and action tags. I caught a couple of missing punctuation marks near the end of the story. Little things, as I said. 

Of bigger importance are clunky sentences which contribute to an inauthentic, overly sentimental experience. These are sentences that try a bit too hard to come off as either poetic or emotionally resonant. I noted, above, the sentimentality in the Twilight example, but then there are instances throughout the story. To name a few that caught my attention:

Fluttershy could only sigh as she noticed it was Twilight, but felt a huge ping of sadness when she could finally see the body language her friend wore.

Twilight stopped and stared in surprise at the sudden out of character outburst from her friend.

Twilight couldn’t finish the sentence before she felt sobs overtake her yet again.

Fluttershy herself choked up a little bit but held stoic.

Twilight took a sip, and sighed with content…

This is less a note of characterization and more of a note on the impact that poor sentence structure can have on conveying the proper emotions of a scene. The first quote, for example, follows a brief but succinct description of Twilight’s demeanor post-morning. That description perfectly encapsulates how she looks, and how Fluttershy perceives her. This quote simply extends rather than enhances that. It’s unnecessary, and comes off as clunky.

Clunky is perhaps the best word to describe the pattern, here. And it’s really a bit disappointing for me, because even though these ideas are supposed to work, the clunkiness takes the reader out. Once again, I turn to that signal phrase: the inauthenticity of the narrative. 

Now, I have a theory about why these quotes occurred. To convey emotion is hard to do with just words, after all, so sometimes we feel a need to overly describe in order to get to the specifics of an emotion. And since we’re often reminded of the importance of “Show Don’t Tell,” we try to add a poetic element to the emotional moment. We try to demonstrate a painting in action, a transformation of a character into an emotional mess.

But, if we push too hard into the poetic, we become enamored with our supposed ability to emotionalize, rather than realize the emotion. That’s what ends up happening here. And as a result, whatever emotion the author wants me to feel, or to empathize with the characters themselves feeling, comes off as flat, and, well, inauthentic. 

Score - 6.5 / 10 

Final Score - (8 + 6.5 + 6.5) / 3 = 7 / 10

Final Thoughts

The plot and development of that plot were definitely very good. I enjoyed bringing in Fluttershy, and the fact that while the story tempts a happily ever after, it doesn’t actually happen in the story. As an explanation into one hypothetical moment in a TwiDash relationship, I’m surprised that little romance was involved, but that was actually pleasant. Romance, as I said, paradoxically takes a sidestep to the main conflict, but it’s there as the source of Twilight’s motivation. 

While the plot and premise and, generally, the resolution were all interesting, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. This story is a cute romp through the process, which works—however, it never quite felt like there was much more to it. I leave it up to the reader to decide if that’s necessarily good or bad.

Where the story hiccups is its uncertainty with its own premise. The author wants to push the reader to believe in the credibility of the conflict, but resorts to overt sentimentality and sometimes emotional caricaturization, leading to an inauthentic experience. Adding to this inauthenticity are the issues of syntax—the clunky sentences, intentional or not, created a metaphorical “distance” between the reader and the story. And such clunkiness is prevalent in the characterization, and there was a sense of responses being forced—in both action and dialogue—from each character. The “realness” of the conflict sparred with, and lost against, the choppy portrayals. 

This is a cute, fluffy story, but it’s a cute fluffy story that lacks just a bit of depth that would have made it more memorable. It’s good, but only just. It needs some refinement of its parts to fix the clunkiness of its narrative. 

Thanks so much man! I'm going to respond to this much more in depth tomorrow for sure, but I just wanted to let you know how appreciative I am you went so in depth with this.

7274748

Now that I had some time to read it over more...

Regarding the plot section, you actually described the plot as well as I could have, and I wrote the story! I didn’t think that it was really necessary to describe the actual accident Rainbow had in general, since it didn’t have any bearing on how the rest of the story went. I also didn’t want to really do too many romance tropes, but I did want them as a couple already given the contest this was for, and that it would explain better why Twilight was the one taking so much time to care for Rainbow on her own.

As for simplicity and predictability, I’m not surprised it would have came across that way. I basically setup the entire plot all the way to the end with the summary and description, and I didn’t want to put any twists or turns in it because I didn’t think it was needed. The only scene I did cut out was going to have Fluttershy teaching Twilight the flying strategies she needed, and perhaps if I did that and actually made it seem like she wouldn’t be able to learn them quick enough, it could have setup some doubt in Twilight being able to pull this whole thing off.

Regarding the characterization section: I re-read parts of the story, and I think damn actually doesn’t fit that well, and will agree with you there. I probably could have easily gotten Rainbow’s anger across without using it entirely, same for the moments where Twilight is frustrated.

Twilight didn’t say anything, nor did she even know how to respond. She could feel tears start to roll down her cheeks as she simply stared at the broken pegasus she called her marefriend, desperate to do something, to at least say something to help her from drowning in her anguish.

This one scene I think is me just over describing something to where it becomes overzealous. I probably could have just said a combination of her having nothing to say and her eyes getting teary, while leaving out all the rest. I think this is a problem I used to have in other stories of mine, and one of the reasons I considered maybe seeking out someone to act as a pre-reader/editor type.

Glad to hear you liked how Fluttershy was written, I wanted to make her as authentic as possible here.

Finally, the last section regarding the syntax did leave me with one question. While I understand what you mean with coming across as clunky and overdoing it to try and make scenes in the story sentimental, I’m a bit confused with this part you wrote here

This is less a note of characterization and more of a note on the impact that poor sentence structure can have on conveying the proper emotions of a scene. The first quote, for example, follows a brief but succinct description of Twilight’s demeanor post-morning. That description perfectly encapsulates how she looks, and how Fluttershy perceives her. This quote simply extends rather than enhances that. It’s unnecessary, and comes off as clunky.

So did you mean the first quote where Fluttershy sees Twilight’s demeanor was good, and that the other 4 quotes I suppose try too hard to hammer the point of Twilight being depressed and almost defeated. I think I’ve also had this problem in other stories I’ve written as well, where I get overly sentimental or do too much to try and get a specific reaction I think the reader should be having across. Lot of what you’re written feels like I should take a less is more approach at times, and be more simplistic in getting across the emotions I want to get across.

Again, thanks for going so in depth. I'm tempted to ask you in the future to act as a pre-reader for whatever else I decide to write

7276033
Yes, to the syntax question: there's a lot of overly descriptive emotional moments, and that ends up working against the intended emotional effect. In retrospect I should have quoted the entire paragraph that the first quote was a part of, so I apologize for the confusion there.

You're not alone with the issue of over-emphasizing emotion. I have that same problem, too. What it comes down to is going over the draft and asking, Am I getting the reader to feel what I'm writing, or am I simply telling them that I can make them feel that? Less, usually, ends up being more.