EHow to Farm Rocks (in three easy steps)

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

Cadance journeys out to the Pie family farm to get a lesson in earth pony magic.

• Cadance
• Limestone Pie

mushroompone · 10k words  ·  134  12 · 1.3k views

Description

Cadance journeys out to the Pie family farm to get a lesson in earth pony magic.

Initial Thoughts

This is a weird pairing. I guess that fits the fact the story was written for May’s 2021 Pairing Contest (now over, oop), but still. Princess Cadance and Limestone Pie. And there’s Romance, some Comedy, some Slice of Life. Should be an interesting piece.

Summary

Princess Cadance does indeed journey out to the Pie family farm to get a lesson in earth pony magic, but she ends up learning a lot more than she thought she would… you guessed it! Pink Princess Pone’s got a crush on tsundere Pie!

Plot

It’s actually a really simple plot, but one that seems quite content with its simplicity. The reason, or really, reasons, for why Princess Cadance goes out on this journey are provided to us from the first chapter. We learn several things: First, she’s had a stressful few days thanks to more than a few domestic misfortunes. Second, Twilight is in love. And third, Twilight seems to think she knows more about earth pony magic than Cadance does, on account of who she’s in love with, among other things.

The dynamic presented is an interesting one. I don’t believe, outside of, say, “A Canterlot Wedding,” we’ve seen a more frazzled, snappy relationship between the two. Typically Twilight and Cadance come off as easy-sisters—stresses and teases don’t appear very often between the two of them. It seems, then, that this particular representation serves two functions: to introduce some variety into their tired dynamic, but also to give Cadance a reason to pursue, essentially, “proving Twilight wrong.”

Yet as a premise it’s a bit too strange for me to fully grasp. While I can understand Cadance’s bad days making her have a bad attitude, something about how such a thing leads to her journeying out to the rock farm feels slightly unrendered. Later on it’s clarified that Cadance essentially does want to prove Twilight wrong, but if part of the conflict seems to be Cadance trying to compensate for her ignorance (being, for one, an alicorn, but also being, for two, an alicorn who ascended from originally being a pegasus), then I’d think that the premise needs a bit more space to flesh it out before moving into the rising action itself—which constitutes the majority of the story anyway.

But moving past the premise, if one manages to accept that, the rest of the story is an enjoyable snippet of worldbuilding. I don’t want to get into the specifics since they seem best geared to the reader who doesn’t get spoilered too much in a review, but I will say that mushroompone presented the “academics” of “rock farming” in a robust way, by combining it with the natural dynamic that Princess Cadance and Limestone share. 

It boils down to Limestone teaching Cadance what she knows about rock-farming, while also trying to explain it in a way that makes sense to somepony who has no knowledge of anything of rocks whatsoever. At first it’s a struggle for the both of them, but by weaving in a few metaphors here and there, Limestone is able to direct Cadance through the task. Chapter Two is a more in-depth look at that tutorial process, but it also gives us a glimpse into the beginnings of the second conflict: Cadance’s feelings towards Limestone.

Rather than pass judgement on the “correctness” of such a thing—which is pointless since this is a shipping contest story—it’s more important to assess how realized that conflict is. For the most part, it’s a slow-burn. Cadance doesn’t recognize how she feels until Shining more-or-less points it out to her. Throughout, there were hints that Cadance was indeed feeling this way. There’s several points where she observes some degree of physical appeal in Limestone, as well as the emotional resonance she feels when she’s learning with her. All of this made the eventual real both comedic and also dramatically satisfying. 

But on the other end, there’s Limestone. It’s hard to say if her end of the bargain was just as realized. I recognize that, in such a short story, there really was only room for Princess Cadance’s perspective, but with such a necessity, the part where Limestone nonverbally admits that she also likes her back, while cute, didn’t quite feel as realized as it could have been. If anything, it felt like it was put in out of obligation, not necessity. To put it another way, Limestone didn’t appear to have romantic interest in Princess Cadance until the story needed to remind the reader that, yes, there will be a romantic interest plot. 

In this way, I wonder if the story actually needed to be a romance. It’s weird to suggest that since this is a shipping story, but given how much of the plot is more devoted to the two of them becoming close, and also to Cadance learning about earth pony magic, this is a case where I think the story could very easily have gone the non-romantic route and suffered no lasting consequences whatsoever. The dynamic between the two ponies is good enough without the added romantic subplot—in fact, if you cut a few things here and there, and think of the story as one showing how two drastically different ponies become friends through the simple uniting tasking of farming (rock-farming, I guess I should specify), then the story is complete. The arcs are all there, the movements, the narrative is solid—but because it’s marked as romance, and because that romance doesn’t appear concrete enough, the same can’t be said about the story as is. 

The dilemma is to figure out what the story needs to be and what it ends up being. As it stands, I think the story hits most of the marks but also misses more than a few. As a romance, it doesn’t feel like a romance—or it doesn’t go the distance it wants to in order to suffice. But disregarding the romance and simply looking at how Cadance learns to farm rocks, the story is all there. The romance isn’t necessarily needed beyond, I think, qualifying for the contest. 

Score - 7.5 / 10

Characterization

Characterization was definitely the strongest thing throughout. Limestone was by far the best rendered. Her standoffish nature played nicely off of Cadance’s slight naivete, and her growth into a mentor figure also felt natural. Cadance herself, though the premise still feels a bit incomplete, does end up sounding like herself, and her frustrations towards Twilight, her confusion about earth pony magic, and her eventual delight about learning and understanding that form of magic, do feel “believed” by the story’s end. 

The other characters fulfill their function as relatively flat but still necessary in some capacity. This is good—I do mean that. Not every character needs to be dynamic, and flat characters themselves serve almost as the “dressings” of the room of a narrative, centering and steadying the reader in the moment. For how limited their time on the page is, Twilight, Shining, and Maud feel as though they inhabit the scene. Shining’s overall support for Cadance, in both the sense of what she’s doing and what she’s feeling, was very sweet. 

The only critique I’d have is basically the same I have with the plot. The dynamic between Cadance and Limestone is a good dynamic. But in terms of it’s a romantic dynamic, well, it doesn’t feel like it goes quite far enough with that. At the same time, they were so enjoyable to read that I could ignore that particular issue. 

Score - 9 / 10

Syntax

I noted a few errors here and there between chapters. These were mostly misspellings or punctuation errors, things that could easily be fixed with a careful second perusal. 

Beyond that, the story didn’t have any other discernible grammatical or syntactical issues. One thing I do want to praise mushroompone for is how they book-ended the story—a lovely use of structuring, that was. As the story begins with Twilight harping on and on about earth pony magic to an exhausted Cadance, the story ends with the roles reversed. It made for a satisfying conclusion, not necessarily because Twilight gets to eat ‘em apples, but because it makes the story feel self-conscious of its own narrative strategy. Reversals and inversions are fun!

Score - 9 / 10

Final Score - ( 7.5 + 9 + 9 ) / 3 = 8.5 / 10

Final Thoughts

Admittedly this is probably one of my shorter reviews, and I hope that the author doesn’t feel like that says something negative about the story. It really is because of the story’s simplicity, though. 

Aside from my issues with the romance angle, this was a delightful and sweet read. It had good character dynamics and an interesting use of worldbuilding which I haven’t seen in many other stories, all without too much hefty academic rigor. I suppose that my main suggestion would simply be to expand more upon the romantic subplot in order to give it more weight, but conversely, you could remove that subplot altogether and let the story breathe as is. 

<For archive purposes: 8.5/10>

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Thanks so much for the review, Jared! I really appreciate the time you put into this review (as you're right-- it's a fairly simple little story), and I am SO happy that you got on exactly the points I was curious about, namely the romantic aspect.

I had conceptualized the idea as a romance, and the other aspects of the story quickly grew to a point where they overshadowed that imo. That, combined with the word count limit and my rapidly approaching deadline, lead me to "just go with it", and I got a lot of mixed responses about the ay the story turned out! I think the way you explained it--an interesting dynamic which could be romantic, but didn't have the space to become such--is the perfect amalgamation of the feedback I've received so far, and is absolutely actionable.

While my work on this piece is closed (beyond an editing pass to tighten up some typos), I'll absolutely be carrying this advice forward. Who knows? Maybe I'll revisit this pairing in the future

On a different note, I'm so happy that the aspects I was most proud of (the structure, the wordbuilding, and the characterization) stood out to you. That's so satisfying to hear! I'm glad that, even though the romantic elements weren't too strong, the other concepts in the story were enough to make it an enjoyable read. Thanks again!!

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I'm glad you found this review to be helpful!