Welcome! Today I will be reviewing Âme Câline by The Cloptimist. This story is all about Starlight Glimmer and Trixie, possibly the most canon ship the show didn’t bother to officially endorse at the end of the series like it did several others. Which is a downright shame because wow is it canon as far as I’m concerned.

TÂme Câline

• MLP: FiM
• Romance
• Slice of Life

Starlight cuddles Trixie as the sun comes up. That's it. That's the whole story. (Well, mostly.)

• Trixie
• Starlight Glimmer

The Cloptimist · 6.1k words  ·  74  6 · 1.3k views

Starlight cuddles Trixie as the sun comes up. That's it. That's the whole story.

...Well, mostly.

Ah, some light fluff. Excellent.

Coming into this story, I knew it would be fluff, but it’s more than just that. It’s a culmination of Starlight’s thoughts about her love life, how everything in her life led up to this, the pitfalls and the possibilities, the perils and the promises of what came before. It’s told in first person, with a distinct eye for the emotions, and it does so elegantly. She tells us about a time when she met someone who both had family in her village, and watched her deal with Celestia and Luna’s cutie marks. She reminisces how she never dared let herself consider love while ruling Our Town, and how dense she was all the way up until Trixie kisses her right before the final battle with Chrysalis, Cozy, and Tirek. It’s a celebration of how Trixie is a goofy, ridiculous, utterly infuriating pony that nevertheless fits perfectly for Starlight. The two are in love, truly. The story even made me cry–more on that at the end.

No issues here. This is often a freebie and so is the case with this story, handling first person perspective beautifully. It shifts to third person for the epilogue, which given it’s from Trixie’s perspective not only makes sense, but is a little bit of fridge brilliance all on its own. Kudos for that.

Remember, a 3.0 score is average, and that’s what this idea is: average, run of the mill fluff for a ship, telling an origin tale. That doesn’t make it a bad idea, but it does make it an unoriginal one. Which again, not bad, just not enough to warrant rating higher.

Now here’s where the story shines. As I said the concept is hardly more than a penny a dozen, let alone a dime, but the execution is top notch. It’s full to the brim with the right kinds of emotions, carrying you through so quickly you feel like you stepped onto a raft and were swept away to the end in a heartbeat, yet you thoroughly enjoyed every step of the way. It goes splendidly from Starlight’s early days and her time in Our Town into her meeting with Trixie and every feeling she had right until the declaration: “She’s my Great and Powerful wife, and I love her.” Brilliant way to end the primary story, but then there’s the epilogue, which I’ll touch upon in a bit.

The Cloptimist’s prose is nothing to sneeze at, smoothly flowing from passage to passage without any stuttering hiccups or sudden pratfalls. It avoids the trap of purple prose entirely, lending itself to describing just what Starlight needs to. If it hasn’t become clear yet I’m a big fan of conservation of detail, which this executes well. 

At first as I read the story I was intrigued, having fun, and the longer it went on the more I was enjoying myself. This is always going to be a subjective category, but I love ladies that are in love with ladies, and these two are so in love, and that is just beautiful.

What I found I enjoyed even more though was how well this captured Starlight Glimmer’s voice. A lot of writers attempt first person stories – myself among them – and they often falter in one way or another. But not The Cloptimist. Starlight comes through crystal clear as though Kelly Sheridan herself were narrating it to me. There were lot of little details I haven’t mentioned, things about the way her past is described, or the way the unidentified maid pony whose brother was in her cult is written, or any number of ways in which the story describes the build-up of Starlight and Trixie’s relationship.

Her being completely blind to Trixie’s desires for long not only makes a lot of sense to me, as someone who usually misses social cues like that, it’s also honestly a little funny, because you can just see how mad Trixie is getting because she can’t convince this stupid mare she’s in love with her. And then they finally kiss and all continues to go well in the end.

But then there was the epilogue, and… but I still have one more section to do!

A story like this can, on the outside, seem trite, dull, so common as to be mostly meaningless, and I will admit I didn’t think too much of what I saw at first outside of a fun title and an even funner font, which Cloptimist uses on all of their stories. It’s a lovely touch and I applaud that.

But I got into the story anyway, as it came on a friend’s recommendation, and I do not regret it for a moment. Indeed it makes me eager to read more of The Cloptimist’s works, minus an entry or two I shall not name that even the author agrees is shameful.

I enjoy any kind of happy lesbian story, because far too often, thanks to the Hays Code, these stories end in tragedy. And even in fanfiction that occurs far too often. Which isn’t bad, as I’ve shown through prior reviews, but it’s good to see a happy story nonetheless. And it feels earned as happy, rather than simply being fluff for fluff’s sake. It fits itself, better than many others.

But we finally come to the part that made me cry. The part I wanted to save for the end, because it’s such a perfect capstone, and it’s… it’s something that shocked me with how powerful it was, despite not seemingly being so. Maybe this is just the legacy of my first fanfiction novel speaking within me, but it means a lot to see a character like this get to be happy, and say so. To dispense with the worries, the fears, the anxieties of being in love, of self-worth, of life itself. To find acceptance with her love, and to never have to fear being let go.

To quote the story,

“The Great and Powerful Trixie,” she murmurs to nopony in particular, “is happy.”

And so am I.

Thank you! I'm really glad you enjoyed the story. The epilogue is my favourite part of the whole thing, along with Trixie's written postscript on the letter. A really nice review, thank you again!