ERaincheck

• MLP: FiM
• Romance
• Comedy
• Slice of Life

Trixie loves spending time with Starlight, but sometimes she has to share her. It gets annoying when the blandest mare in existence is always tagging along.

• Trixie
• Maud Pie
• Starlight Glimmer

Emotion Nexus · 2.3k words  ·  42  2 · 695 views

Raincheck

by Emotion Nexus

Summary

Trixie has always had trouble making friends, so when she met Starlight, she didn't want to mess it up. It's been working out pretty well, and Trixie likes to think that they share a special bond.

Then somepony had to come along and mess all that up.

Initial Thoughts

A’ight, you know what I’m about. It’s a Trixie story featuring not just Starlight, but Maud as well. It’s a romance, a comedy, and a slice of life. And it’s been written by Emotion Nexus, a user I should really read more from, since the previous stuff I’ve seen has been absolutely stellar. My expectations are high, going into this. Let’s see how it goes!

My General Reaction

The story is… short. So short that I feel like it would be an unreasonable spoiler to try and summarize it here. There just isn’t enough stuff going on for me to obfuscate the actual plot while talking about it candidly. All I can really say is that Trixie, Starlight, and Maud are caught up in a bit of a triangle, and the story largely centers on Trixie mulling over her less-than-stellar love life at present.

But plot isn’t what you’re here for. Oh, no! It’s the characters. Trixie, as the narrator, simply oozes character, managing to hit that fine line between overbearing ego and jumbled mess of emotional turmoil that makes her, to me at least, such a compelling, uh, character. The waiter, despite only being in the story for, like, a good five or so lines, also sticks out in your mind as you read him, like the author is beaming screencaps from an episode into your mind.

Maud, not being in the story as much, and not in the same way as Trixie, also has her character shine through despite this. The author uses some nice little details and quirks of Trixie’s Great and Powerful dialogue to let the audience know what’s going on with Maud as she makes her appearance, and it all flows seamlessly.

If you couldn’t tell, I really liked this story. The narration is tight, and impactful. The emotions feel real, and the little details here and there sell the characters. I really do wish it were a more complex story, in some ways, since that would make it easier to talk about without spoiling.

I could say there are flaws. I felt like the story wrapped up far, far too soon. For being only two-thousand or so words long, the story does a remarkable amount with that space, but it feels like it ends right when it’s about to get good. This should be a ten- or twenty-thousand-word story, detailing Trixie and Maud’s misadventures. Instead, it comes across as the opening minute to an episode just before the theme song plays.

I would also say that I would have liked more insight into the characters. Just something to elevate them beyond merely what they were in the show.

Grammar and Word Things

10/10 – No problems, free points
If someone can find an error that I missed, I’ll beat Emotion senseless with it.

Story/Plot/Pacing

8/10 – A great teaser for an episode
This is a short fic, but it’s so dense with goodness and character and fine craft that it hurts to realize it ended so abruptly. Like a party van rolling onto train tracks, really.

Characters

9/10 – Great and Powerful, if not unique
There are three characters, and they are played up to the hilt. Trixie is Great and Powerful. Maud is stoic, yet insightful. And Haut Cuisine is a fabulous little side character to put up with Trixie’s weirdness. If only they'd been pushed a little bit more, this would have been perfect.

Final Word and Rating

9/10
Raincheck is a wonderful little story about love and character, only held back from greatness by its short length. I might just be a huge Trixie fan, but the combination of her narrative voice in a story about such emotional concepts and relations was inspired, to me.

To the Author: Why isn’t there a longer version of this? Why can’t I read an amusing series of stories following Trixie and Maud and Starlight bumbling through awkward relationship stuff and magical/rock hijinks? Huh? Tell me that!

Feel free to comment below.

<For Archive Purposes: 9/10>