EPlay Date Continued

• MLP: FiM
• Drama
• Random
• Slice of Life

Shining Armor and Flurry Heart have a new Play Date Adventure

• Cadance
• Shining Armor
• Crystal Ponies
• Flurry Heart
• Royal Guard

Caladis · 1.3k words  ·  37  0 · 467 views

Play Date Continued is a short, Slice of Life story starring our favorite Crystal Empire trio, with Flurry Heart growing into her childhood years. As expected, it's a continuation of the story "Play Date". I'm still hard pressed to consider this story a Drama, though, but the comedy is definitely toned down a smidge.

As with the previous story, it's a very entertaining look into the off-time life between the newly minted Royals with their newly minted child, now age 10. This time, after Cadence's interrupts the latest playdate with a catapult, both Flurry Heart and Shining Armor decide to show off something both exceptionally dangerous, and also kind of heartwarming. This story also shows that, despite Cadence's chagrin, Shining Armor might not be as clueless or irresponsible as he seems, despite the visual evidence.

Once again, it's very well written, and the pacing, even with such a short story length (roughly 300 words less than the previous one), seems to have been properly adjusted. Things move fast, yes, but it feels much more like a singular scene/moment in time rather than a cluster of scenes in one sitting like the previous one. Further, the dialogue feels properly set now (or, any nit-picks I could have are so small I don't notice them), moving with a more natural ebb and flow than the prior story.

Also, this story is very good at showing what's not being said or narrated, which tends to be more prominent in longer stories or with characters that have a sufficiently built history. Not only do we get the (very unorthodox) father-daughter bonding from the prior one, we also get a surprising amount of implications on just how close they are as the parent and child. It's actually quite impressive.

I suppose my only real nit-pick is that it could have been a little longer, giving the readers more Shining/Flurry time, or perhaps a bit more fleshing out on Cadence's end of things (since she's mostly an observer), but it's not enough to mar the story. In all honesty, I'd just want it to be a little longer because I just want a little more of this particular story. Oh well, I guess there's the sequel.

8.5/10