E24k Lush

• MLP: FiM
• Slice of Life

Sweetie Belle believes in magic. She hopes that'll be enough.

• Twilight
• Sweetie Belle
• Trixie
• Sunset Shimmer
• Starlight Glimmer

The Red Parade · 8.7k words  ·  56  7 · 567 views

24k Lush

by The Red Parade

Summary

Sweetie Belle has an idea for the upcoming Ponyville Friendship Festival, but she can't do it alone. Even if being alone is all she has.

Initial Thoughts

As part of the Mansion’s efforts to clean house and make sure that no pony story goes un-reviewed while in our care, I will be taking a look at this little gem by The Red Parade. A local type. I elected to review this story partly because it says “Trixie” right there in the character tags, and partly because no one else has revi…

Oh. It has been reviewed before.

Well. It deserves a hell of a lot more attention. So let’s do this.

My General Reaction

Now that is how you write a heart-warming show send-off. I still don’t get the name, but I suppose that’s just one quirk amongst many.

Sweetie Belle is preparing to head the Ponyville Friendship Festival, and she’s hit upon a fantastic idea for the Grand Finale of the event: recreate the Rainboom! Naturally, not the Rainboom. But something like it. Princess Twilight, now formally ruling over Equestria, is excited about the idea, but can only point Sweetie in the right direction by way of an old mare’s tale about a similar legendary magical event:

The 24K Lush!

Yeah, I don’t get it either. There’s an explanation given for the name, but I really can’t figure it out myself. But that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. What matters is that Twilight and Sweetie Belle are clearly suffering from the same thing, in that they both dearly miss their friends, who are all very busy these days and are unable to hang out like they once did. A sad fact of life that endears Sweetie to the reader quite well.

As Sweetie enlists the aide of others in her plan for an Equestrian-wide magical show, designed in part to remind everypony of better times and to find some small connection with her old friends Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, whom she misses dearly as had been said, more such troubles become apparent. First with Rarity and the rest of the Mane Six, and then with Trixie and Starlight’s relationship. In the latter’s case things escalate quite badly, leading Sweetie to have a full-blown moment of crisis as she begins to doubt her ability to make the 24K Lush even work.

This part of the story is hard to read, but not from technical errors. It’s quite gripping, in fact. Just… sad. Very sad, as any might feel who’ve been in a similar place in life. The story does a great job of communicating Sweetie’s desperation and depression as things begin to unravel, but it does an equally great job of pacing that struggle so that when the inevitable turnaround happens (hey, it’s a feel-good story, what did you expect?) you really feel her elation as well.

I will say that Sunset Shimmer’s inclusion in events feels a bit forced, but she’s quite well-written, and more or less is the perfect character to show up where and how she does. There’re some questions I have as to what’s going on in this timeline, but I’m willing to let this one slide for now.

The ending… has to be read. It’s just such a nice way to wrap the story, using the excuse of the Festival and the 24k Lush to bring everypony back together in a little scene that almost feels like one of those post-credit sequences we probably all wanted to see when the finale for G4 happened. So… it might be good to thank Red for giving us just that.

Technicals

4/5 – Not many, but a few errors pop up
The odd missed punctuation and clearly misused word crops up several times within the story, usually in jarring-enough ways to throw me out of my reading groove. Thankfully, it’s not an endemic issue.

Story/Plot/Pacing

5/5 – A sometimes uncomfortably timely story
The strain of maintaining friendships over long distances (and sometimes over short ones) drives the emotional core of the story. It doesn’t drag its feet, nor overstay its welcome. The drama and dreadfully effective gut-punches get in, do their thing, and get out in a timely manner. A bit of well-executed pacing, and a bit of a good reminder about how it’s darkest before the dawn.

Characters

5/5 – Excellent take on characters (but what’s this headcanon I don’t even)
The focus of the story is on how a small core of characters are dealing with their relationships post-series, but the whole gang is well-represented in this story. And everypony feels right. More than that, with who the story focuses most on, there’s a great deal of development and analysis that I’m more than happy to sink my eyes into. Because reading is with eyes, not teeth.

Final Word and Rating

24k Lush is an emotionally resonant story that finds itself with a shamefully small number of likes and views for something of this caliber. It is a beautiful, short reminder of why we love ponies. It’s a story about the enduring legacy of friendship, and love.

To the author: I give it a chef-kiss.

Feel free to comment below.

<For Archive Purposes: 9.6/10>

7637521
thank uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!

7637808
No prob, Bob!

Er. Red.

Did you have any questions or comments on the review? Anything you’d like more from me on?