Twilight's Mistake
Of all the weather patterns Rainstream had ever dealt with, almost none of them had ever involved blue clouds. Or vines, for that matter. After generating the scheduled storm—with the help of the Ponyville Weather Team—the rain master had returned to find her entire house stained bright blue, and completely entangled in thick vines, the leaves of which matched the new color of her home.
She landed on the front ledge and approached cautiously. As she stepped through the front archway, the vines came alive, grabbing at her wings and swiftly wrapping around her hooves. She tried to fly away but the vines pulled on the clouds and closed the main entrance, trapping her inside her own home! She tried for the windows but those too were closed off, and she had run out of time; the vines had her firmly in their grasp.
She struggled to free herself but she was firmly bound, and unable to move. Then her whole body began to twist, further and further until she was sure her neck would snap. As the vines became tighter, and her bones shifted beyond what should have been possible, her skin began to melt off. Before long she slid out of the vines as they wrung her out like a rag.
She had expected to fall onto the floor, but instead went right through it. If her stomach was still solid, it was churning, as a dizzying height met her eyes and she plummeted to earth with the pouring rain. Instinct told her to open her wings, but they were no longer there. The ground came up to meet her with a wet slap.
Rainstream’s vision blurred as raindrops pelted her face, eventually lifting her liquified body and sliding it along the ground, toward the edge of the meadow. There she saw Ink Blot’s discarded saddlebag from earlier. She reached out toward it, managing to grab hold but noticing that her body had become clear like water. Using the flow of the runoff to help push her, Rainstream sifted what was left of her body around the bag and settled into a single puddle, as the rest of the storm flowed into the stream below.
Damn it all. What sort of dark magic is this?
~ ~ ~
“Unng,” Twilight groaned, shaking the papers from on top of her head. “Spike, what time is it?”
“Little Spike is not here. You never returned home, my dear.”
Zecora’s voice made Twilight stand straight up. “What? Zecora? I’ve been here all night?”
“Actually, we’ve all been here all night.”
Twilight turned to see Apple Bloom mixing herbs in a bowl, pausing occasionally to glance at a few scattered papers next to her.
“You were actually pretty helpful, and we were able to isolate and concentrate a mix that should help keep the victims alive until we can cure them of the plant. Unfortunately,”—Apple Bloom grimaced—“we still haven’t found an actual cure. The plant is still lethal, and worse yet is that we still don’t know where it is.”
Twilight felt her cheeks grow hot. The plant had never been lethal, she just didn’t want to admit the real reason she’d been unable to save the herbalist. She didn’t even know his name. Twilight’s eyes began to fill with tears, but she managed to pass it off as anger.
“Ugh, that’s because there is none! I got rid of it all, so stop jumping at shadows!” Twilight snarled, violently throwing her hooves around so that they might not notice her face. Twilight quickly recomposed herself with a final huff, then stood up straight, steadying herself with a hoof on her chest. “I’m going to go finish up some notes on artificial pegasi magic.”
Without waiting for a reply, Twilight vanished from the hut, taking her vast amount of notes and scrolls with her. She neatly stuffed them into her saddlebag with her magic, and headed back toward town. This was stupid, and Apple Bloom was just too paranoid because she’d been so close to the poor pony. Love is blind, as they say.
~ ~ ~
Twilight stormed into the library, dropping her saddlebag at the door (Spike would put it away) and raced up the stairs to her bedroom. She flung herself onto her bed, landing on her back, and telekinetically snatched a random book from her ‘favorites’ shelf. Hugging the book to her chest, Twilight closed her eyes, took a deep breath in, and exhaled slowly. It was quiet in here, with the gentle chirping of birds wafting in through the window. No emotionally distraught Pinkie, no paranoid Apple Bloom, no letters from Celestia. Silence. Twilight opened her eyes, sat up, and glanced down at the book she’d selected.
Daring Do and the Midnight Forest. It had been a while since she’d read this one. It was about an ancient forest filled with magical and wondrous plants, which had incredible power and properties. In the center of the forest lived an old alicorn, who tended to the forest like a garden. She had helped him preserve a rare plant from the likes of Ahuizotl, who had wanted to use the last of the plant to create an elixir of immortality. The book had ended with The old Alicorn dying to create an artifact that could save Daring Do’s life, in return for helping save the life of the precious plant.
Twilight smiled fondly and opened the book, eager to read it again.
The sounds of terror and creatures of the night assaulted Daring Do’s senses as she snaked her way through the brambles and thickets at the edge of the ancient forest...
Twilight sighed and put the book down. It would be great to read a book and forget about everything, but she couldn’t take her mind off of what Apple Bloom had said. Twilight’s eyes flashed to the old and tattered binding, lying atop the highest shelf in her personal collection. The herbalist’s notes. Twilight forced the next few thoughts from her head. No. She wasn’t going to think about that. Twilight let out a huff and pulled up some scrolls, and a book on “Mysterious Magical Botany”. One more check couldn’t hurt, just to dismiss her doubts.
~ ~ ~
About an hour later, Twilight had taken a break from her research, to do more research, but of a different kind. She’d gotten about as far as she could on finding cures for ancient, said to be extinct, plants and developed a minor headache. It could be safely concluded that everything she already knew about the plant was correct. There was no known cure, but the last traces of the plant had been destroyed long ago. There was no point in continuing, so Twilight decided to relax with something a bit more enjoyable, as it held a very special place in her heart, for a particularly exuberant young mare.
Scootaloo’s wings had never fully developed, but her tenacity and determination had earned her at least some lift. Fluttershy was still a far better flier than Scootaloo would ever be on her own, but by leaping from the cliff overlooking town—Rainbow Dash had supervised the whole thing—she had managed to glide all the way to Golden Oaks Library. Rainbow Dash had been so proud, and had promised to take her up to Cloudsdale if she got good enough.
Of course, “good enough” was never enough for ponies like Scootaloo or Rainbow Dash. The two became nigh inseparable, to the point where you would almost think they were related. Scootaloo had even moved into Rainbow Dash’s cloud home with her, since her latent pegasi magic at least allowed her to cloudwalk. Twilight smiled fondly. The two could have been sisters.
They had worked so hard and so long, that when Scootaloo left for flight school, Rainbow Dash had thrown a big party and invited all of her friends. Twilight had come, and gotten caught up in the celebration too. It had been a rough night, and one Twilight had spent a lot of time trying to forget. She could still feel the hangover she’d had the next morning. Never again. Twilight shook the thought away and returned to her notes.
Rainbow Dash had come to Twilight one day, asking if there were a way Scootaloo could fly on her own. Like, really fly, through the use of artificial pegasi magic. It was a cheat, Rainbow Dash admitted, but it would still be Scootaloo doing the work, and she had worked so hard. She’d be graduating flight school soon and Rainbow Dash had wanted her to have a treat. Why carry the filly up to Cloudsdale when she could fly on her own? She’d be ecstatic; it was the perfect gift.
Twilight had promised she’d work on it, and work she had. Rainbow Dash had been more than thrilled to help study pegasi flight magic, and Twilight had come up with a pretty elegant theory so far.
“Twilight!”
Twilight groaned. Not now. She looked up as the sound of hurried footsteps carried their way up the stairs. A few moments later Spike scampered in. He paused near her bed to catch his breath.
“What is it, Spike?” Twilight asked in a calm voice. She continued scratching out notes with her quill, attempting to listen at the same time.
Spike pulled out a scroll and held it out to her. Giving his report between gasps for air.
“Twilight. A letter for you. From Princess Luna.”
Twilight dropped her quill.
“Luna?!”
She turned to face her assistant now, eyebrows pinched together. She snatched the scroll from his hand and unfurled it, hungrily scanning the letter. Her eyes grew wider with each word.
“No.”
The scroll flopped loosely onto the floor, and Twilight slumped down with it. Precious cargo delivered, Spike shuffled back down the stairs to continue cleaning the library.
Twilight Sparkle sat staring into open space. It had to be a mistake. Surely Princess Luna was jumping to conclusions. Twilight heard the front door open downstairs, and heard hoofsteps entering. She jumped at the noise, but quickly regained her senses. She glanced between her notes and the letter. She’d already ruled everything out. How could this be possible?Twilight scratched out a few more notes and turned an ear to hear what was going on downstairs.
“...I was hoping you could tell me a bit about poison joke.”
Twilight stopped writing.
“I fell in some yesterday, and Apple Bloom’s been freaking out since.”
It was Ink Blot’s voice. It wasn’t uncommon for the filly to wander in here, and Twilight already knew about the poison joke. But Apple Bloom hadn’t mentioned Ink Blot had actually gotten some on her. Twilight’s eyes flashed back to the herbalist’s notebook on her shelf, and her chest tightened.
“Apple Bloom’s always been fussy over plants and stuff since I knew her, especially poison joke. I never figured out why though.”
That day. The day she had failed everypony. She’d failed Pinkie, Zecora, Apple Bloom, and…
She still couldn’t remember his name. Twilight shook herself. No. She had set things right. She’d removed the threat. Twilight had found a forbidden spell from Celestia’s restricted archives, that could remove the plant from ever having existed. She had burned all of it to oblivion. It was gone. Never to come back.
But Luna’s letter…
Twilight looked back up at the book, and it seemed to stare back at her, daring her to open it and give life to her fears. Cold sweat ran down her face as it bored into her gaze.
“I chased him out past the old abandoned barn, way back into the woods there.”
The barn. Oh no! Had she seen the paint? No! Twilight had covered that up. Nopony knew!
But you’re not sure, are you?
Twilight bit her lip. She couldn’t dismiss the thought. There was no way to know but to check. She had to make sure nopony knew. She slammed the book on pegasi magic shut, took a few steps toward the door, then paused. One more glance upward, and she knew she had to take the notebook with her. She used her magic to make it follow her down the stairs.
She passed Spike and Ink Blot in the main lobby.
“Spike, I need you to watch the library for a bit. I just need to check on something really quickly.”
She summoned her saddlebag, and all of her notes from around the room, and dashed out the door.
“Wait, Twilight, I need to ask you something!” Ink Blot called after her.
“Sorry, I’ll have to answer it later,” Twilight called back. “This is really important!” The filly couldn’t know. She couldn’t know. It was impossible. Twilight had to be sure she was safe.
Houses flew past as Twilight’s hooves carried her faster than she’d thought possible. Thoughts of the incident flooded her mind. How Pinkie had woken her up to help with some poor pony stuck to a wall. How she’d asked Zecora for help because she couldn’t think straight. How she’d lied to Pinkie. To Apple Bloom… If only she’d known. She could have prevented this. Somehow. She just knew it.
The old barn came into view, and Twilight’s mind filled with painful memories she’d spent years trying to forget. The bushes had grown a bit since she’d been here last. The flowers were gone, and the building looked on the verge of collapse. Twilight stepped around the barn, dreading what she might find there. Here, more than a decade ago, she’d condemned a pony to a fate worse than death, because she couldn’t find any other solution.
Perhaps Twilight thought she’d be relieved to find the wall blank, just as she’d left it. Perhaps she might have felt better if the paint had begun to peel. But what she found, she was not prepared for. As the barn wall came to view, it became clear that the wall was intact, and no longer blank. She dug in her hooves and froze in place as her eyes locked onto the decidedly not blank wall.
It was clearly only a painting, but Twilight’s heart stopped cold as she stared into the eyes of the mural that had replaced the blank wall. It looked very much like Ink Blot’s hoofwork. And who else would have done this? The filly simply couldn’t have known. It was like staring into the pits of hell.
There he was, blurred, twisted, bloody, and surrounded by a menacing aura, but he was there. His coat was red, as though he were made of blood, his eyes lifeless slits carved into a faceless skull. Blue vines surrounded him, appearing to come alive at his bidding, as an extension of his senses. And his cutie mark, exactly the way she remembered it, down to the last detail: Two blue leaves, crossed to form a heart shape, bound together with blue vines.
“No.” No. It couldn’t be true. Twilight backed away from the wall, refusing to accept what she was looking at. “No, no NO!”
She heard the shuffling of hooves behind her, and turned to see Ink Blot standing there, looking curiously at her. It was her. The filly had ruined everything! Twilight’s entire body tensed, and she reached out with her magic.
““What did you DO?!” She screamed, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. She grabbed the filly with her magic, who whimpered in response, legs kicking uselessly at the air. Now everypony would know. Everypony would ask questions. And it was all this stupid, careless, ruinous little filly’s fault. All her fault. They’d know. She’d tell them. She’d tell everypony, and the secret would be out.
But maybe not. The edges of Twilight’s vision blurred as thoughts she’d never even considered ran through her head. All it would take is a little pressure in the right place, one clean blow between two of the seven vertebrae in her little neck. She’d never even see it coming. She’d never have time to feel the pain. That, or maybe she could pop a couple of the vessels running along her brain. A sharp twinge, and then she’d sleep. Peaceful, quiet. Untraceable.
No.
The thought forced itself through the multitude of other voices in Twilight’s head. It wasn’t her fault. Twilight loosened her magical grip on the filly, shaking as she fought back the urge to crush something, with a little filly the current target of her thoughts. No. Taking out her frustration and anger on an innocent filly would solve nothing. Twilight would have to work fast to fix this, but it wasn’t Ink Blot’s fault. She simply didn’t know. She couldn’t have known. Twilight had never told Pinkie the truth, so Pinkie couldn’t have told her daughter.
Twilight let Ink Blot drop to the ground, and searched for something else to direct her anger at. But there was nothing. The secret was about to be out, and there was nothing Twilight could do to prevent what was coming next.
“Agh! It’s hopeless now!” She screamed. Letting everything escape in that one, anguished cry, Twilight turned and sped off for Zecora’s. She was the only other pony who knew, so she was the only pony who could help.
How could this have happened? The poor filly didn’t even know what was coming for her. Twilight had to find a cure now, or Ink Blot would be lost forever. No, the plant wasn’t lethal—Twilight had lied about that—but with no cure, it may as well have been.
Twilight was so used to traveling to Zecora’s hut she almost didn’t notice where she was until she had arrived. She burst through the door and found Apple Bloom and Zecora, huddled over a few papers. Apple Bloom turned her head quickly toward Twilight, tossing some sweat in her direction.
“Twilight! What is it?”
Twilight didn’t respond at first. How to put this? ‘I’m sorry, you were right’? ‘Ink Blot needs help and we don’t have enough time’?
“Is it the plant I think it is?” she asked, looking directly at Apple Bloom. She held out Luna’s letter to her friend. Please say no.
Apple Bloom looked over the letter, and her expression grew more painful with each word. She passed the letter to Zecora, and stared directly at her hooves. She didn’t look up when she spoke, simply pointed to the table beside her.
“Yeah. It is. We harvested these this morning. Very carefully.”
Twilight followed her hoof, and her eyes soon fell upon a plastic bag filled with blue leaves, connected by blue vines.
“We just need another look at your notes and we might be able to finally make a cure.” Apple Bloom didn’t sound as though she believed herself.
No. Twilight shook her head, eyes still locked on the blue vines. It wasn’t possible.
“But we got rid of those. I—I burned them all!” she stammered. “I… burned them all,” Twilight whispered, barely loud enough to hear. She fell back on her hind legs and held her head in her hooves. This was impossible. She had burned every last one of those vines to nonexistence. She’d even used a forbidden spell to do it. There was absolutely no way...
Zecora trotted over with a very forced smile, and placed a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder.
“Fear not, my friend, of tragedy. She has received your remedy.”
“The new one?” Twilight asked, looking up. “With all of the herbs I added and modifications I made? I need to be sure this isn’t going to happen again. I can’t let it happen again.” Twilight got up and backed toward the door. It was happening again. “I thought I’d never get over it the last time, and now it’s come back to haunt me again!”
She threw the contents of her saddlebag at Apple Bloom, snatched up the deposited letter, then turned and fled. Images of the herbalist’s pleading stare bore into her. Pinkie’s reaction when she was told to paint over him. Apple Bloom’s eyes when Twilight had told her he was dead. As she burst out the door, she caught sight of Ink Blot standing in the middle of the trail, like a phantom come to haunt her. Twilight’s heart nearly exploded as she dug her hooves and backpedalled as quickly as she could.
“No, no no! Oh, it’s all so wrong. This can’t be happening!” Twilight closed her eyes, refusing to look at the filly before her. When she opened them, she was safe in the library.
Twilight blinked. It was gone, right? She looked around. Everything was just as it would be on a normal day. The books were organized, Spike was dusting the ones on the top shelf, and a few scrolls were laid out on the desk in the corner. Could she simply have imagined it all.
“Oh, hey, Twilight,” Spike called from the high bookshelf. “What did you need to check on so badly?”
Twilight’s blood froze. If Spike remembered that, then… Twilight pulled out Luna’s letter and looked down at it, the words confirming her worst fears.
Dear Twilight,
I fear an evil we had thought vanquished has returned to Equestria. Your friend Pinkie Pie’s daughter had a frightening dream last night the likes of which I have not seen for more than a decade. I was not able to reach her to comfort her. I fear she is in great danger, Twilight Sparkle. I fear that the plant known as ‘Nightmare’s Kiss’ may once again be growing in the Everfree Forest.
Take caution, Twilight. We must act quickly, and carefully, if we are to save the filly, and everypony else in Ponyville.
Hoping you are safe,
Luna, Princess of the Night
The parchment slipped from Twilight's magical grasp and fluttered quietly to the floor.
“A… a very sick filly,” Twilight finally answered.
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A VERY good story, and I also love how I was reading the story and you updated it while I was reading it lol! I will fav this to read later.
5080565
what a coincidence
5080427
got it this time, thanks.
pinkie.ponychan.net/chan/files/src/141212491677.png
I see what you mean, though. It only got there because it's an update on a popular story. If I can hit one of the top 7 slots, then it will really feel great.
Still, I shouldn't fall into the trap of always wanting more. It's nice to see it up there after two long years of trying. Feels vindicating to know that quality can shine next to bright ideas.
I'm confused about who Rainstream is? That the pony stuck on the wall, was the paint simply an attempt to keep the chapter's intro from happening?
Also poison joke = nightmare's kiss? It's kind of confusing. None of the effects it had in the show were anywhere near as bad as this. The point, in the show, was that it played some serious magical jokes on you, not that is was usually fatal/lethal.
5080625
She's an OC cameo I couldn't resist slipping in. She'll play a small part in the overall plot.
I'm not sure I understand the question. Could you rephrase that?
No and Yes. Poison Joke and Nightmare's Kiss are not the same plant. Don't worry. I'll explain in a later chapter. For now, just keep your eyes and mind wide open, and focus on what's happening to Twilight and Ink Blot.
She sentenced a pony to 10 years of Hell just because she was unable to save him? Or is she also the one responsible for Nightmare's Kiss?
Either way, Twilight should probably spend some time on the wall herself.
Oddly, if they had a cure, that'd make prisoner management simple and easy. Though I'm sure it'd take all of 10 minutes for Tirek's Paint Prison to collect a variety of dicks courtesy of Discord.
You know this story almost feels like poetic justice against Twilight and Pinkie for what they did to the stallion on the wall. I say almost because they are not directly suffering the consequences, only the emotional pain.
5080955
I have said it many times in my life, and it is no less appropriate here: There are far worse things than death. I do not fear death, I fear the alternative.
5081002
"Men of *insert place here*, do you want to live forever!"
5080955
As far as Applebloom and Pinkie know, the plant is lethal, and killed the stallion. Twilight and Zecora are the only ones that know that they basically buried him alive.
Weird. I had a dream recently where people and creatures were turned into water like Rainstream. It was kinda scary.
The puppy flowing out of his leash was the most memorable.
5081813
BleedingRaindrops likes this
5082483
Ah, thanks for those. You know, I run these through editors, but things still seem to get missed somehow. Much obliged.
5083817
And your name is another frightening coincidence I didn't notice until now.
5084053
Oh that? Haha. Everyone says that. I guess I'm just used to it.
Did a double take when I saw "Rainstream".
So close to Rainstorm....
5080689
Sorry. Was Rainstream the pony stuck on the wall (i.e. in 2D)? Was that pony painted over to hide the horror or to keep them from washing away into bits of pigment?
With regards to the plants, I will try. You may want to do some revision later and try to make it clearer that they are different. It really sounded like they were the same with the more sinister name (Nightmare's Kiss) something that had been forgotten over time.
5090613
No. Rainstream is female, and the pony on the wall is male. Rainstream is my personal OC, and I stuck her in there because I needed a background OC and there was no reason I couldn't use my own.
As to the plants. I have a distinction between them that I've been consistent with. It's there if you look close enough. There's a reason Zecora and Apple Bloom knew what it was on sight.
Oh ho ho ho. Twilight lied. I get it. "I'm sorry Pinkie he's dead. Nothing to do now but paint over that old mural of him. Coincidentally removing all evidence that anything was ever wrong. But I can assure you that is most certainly not the intention!" "OK Twilight." *twitch*
5090613
No, it's getting more ponies now. Ink Blot is just the tip of the iceberg.
5116555
5116559
heehee
5092653
Any chance you could point where to look for an example of this distinction? I obviously missed it the first time through.
5120471
As you were expected to. I do enjoy the reaction that occurs when something that seemed so hidden before, becomes so obvious, and I'm not going to rob myself of the opportunity to reveal it in canon. (wow, weird saying canon in reference to my story, when canon usually means show canon).
Rest assured all your questions will be answered in due time. For now, I must continue writing the next chapter. It's been a long week, and due to family/friends/life I've only gotten 1.1k into the rough draft.
5120699
I'm sorry if I offend you, but I feel that you are being somewhat obnoxious. FIrst, you effectively tell me that I should have seen it, then you refuse to point out what you are talking about and just because you want to 'reveal it in canon' you decide to be snippy about it.
P.S.
Every story has it's own canon at some level, unless it really heel-toes to the standard one and is fairly limited in scope.
5120908
From the top of my head I remember Nightmare Kiss has vines (squeezing ponies) while I don't believe poison joke does, and it definitely wasn't as animate as Nightmare Kiss
In relation to the story, it is quite intriguing and for the most part well written, however I find it confusing as to whether something is a dream, flashback or actually happening. Was Rainstream dreaming or did that actually happen? For some reason I thought that Twilight's research for how Scoots was a flashback. Just thought those bits needed clarifying
5120908
Oh, don't worry. I'm not offended. I'm used to this. I haven't told you that you should have seen it, actually. In fact, I expected you not to. If I wanted you to know about it straight off, I would have made it obvious. Second, I'm secretive and snippy because I want to keep certain information revealed and/or unconfirmed until a particular point in my story. It's sort of like when someone explains a joke before the punchline. I have a particular way I want this told and I'm not going to spoil it just because you want to know now. Be patient. You'll find out eventually.
5125603
Originally I'd chosen to blur those lines, but a friend of mine said the clarity would help. If you must know dream sequences tend to be in italics, because they are a false reality and occur while nothing else is happening to the character, where actual events and flashbacks tend to not be italicized. Flashbacks occur during a pause in real time and so do not need italics. I like to blur the lines there a little, but only so that you understand the confusion the main character experiences. This is third person limited after all.
However, the Scoots thing was just Twilight remembering. Not a real flashback. Kind of when you're sitting around thinking about something that happened to you ten or so years back. That kind of thing.
5127074
Ah that explains it, I was reading on my phone, there were no italics
5130369
Interesting. I didn't realize this was a thing that happened.
Sounds worth mentioning to Knighty.
5130369
"That's unfortunately an issue with some mobile browsers missing italic fonts and other fun bugs... it's hard for us to fix on our end. They can try setting the font to "Open Sans" in the dropdown, it's the one used by the rest of the site and should support italics on everything..." ~ Xaquseg
5146317
Thanks
Hello, I am your WRITE reviewer. Firstly, I apologize for the delay in getting this written and posted. But fear not, as I am here now.
I started my reading of The Pony On The Wall by actually reading its predecessor, 2-D Pony, first. After reading that story I felt I had a pretty good indication of what to look for in gauging this one, and what level of quality to expect from it.
I was wrong. I was very wrong.
TPOTW is a completely different calibre of story. It is a pleasure to review this.
So, to get stuck in:
There are, at present what amounts to two distinct arcs, these being Ink Blot’s and Twilight’s.
The First Arc -- Ink Blot -- The story begins boldly, and goes from strength to strength. There is a frequent use of imagery that is vivid, immediate and works to really bring out the visual aspects of what’s happening. And yet there’s very little self-indulgent works of prose and exposition about them. This imagery works, in the now, to define the moment. Colour me impressed.
Likewise the narrative moves along briskly, and confidently checks each of the essential boxes. In very good time we meet Ink Blot and really get to know her, again without having to resort to long-winded, wordy exposition or overly-engineered metaphors to forcibly highlight certain aspects of her character.
What really struck a chord with me is the background setting to this first arc. I’ve seen a few stories that try the years-later approach, and it’s worked very well for you here better than most. Pinkie Pie especially wins my heart on this matter. For me, she’s really the highlight of this story, because while the story of her estrangement from her daughter is but a subplot, it’s one that’s so real and tangible, yet also perfectly believable to the point that this relationship should be strained and that a perfectly happy one would be a poor writer’s contrivance. The pre-story developments to her character feel like the most natural in the world.
Pinkie Pie is so...quintessentially Pinkie Pie. Flaws and all. It rings with the truth that good people, because they are different and imperfect all, can still hurt and alienate one another. Even mother’s and daughters. Perhaps especially mothers and daughters. My heart goes out to her.
Big Macintosh has a much smaller impact on the story, but this is no slight against him. It feels as if he hasn’t aged a day, or changed at all, and that’s perfectly in line with his quiet, stoic character. That the story never feels the self-conscious need to justify just how they got together in the first place rings to me as a strength. That is, after all, a separate story, and would only come in as extraneous exposition here. He speaks his few words with his conventional wisdom and again, it feels utterly believable. The first arc doesn’t so much suspend disbelief as bench-press it one-handedly with its shirt off. Even Gummi gets in on the narrative, and that acknowledgement alone is very satisfying.
Like all good stories, we’ve access to the full range of emotion, and like all the good dark stories, we’re put on a slow-burner of anxiety. Yes, things are happy, or sad, or funny in this instant, but we’re never quite conscious nor ever quite ignorant of the fact that something, somewhere, is wrong. Very wrong.
These menacing undertones come through cleanly. Apple Bloom’s reaction, the disconcerting fact that Zecora has to consult Twilight’s notes on a cure...these innocent-seeming little warning signs are as spot-on thematically as the trembling glass of water in Jurassic Park.
The encounter with the flat pony seals the deal. The fear is justified, but as mysterious as ever with even worse implications, and all the while Ink Blot isn’t looking for the bigger picture, even at times sabotaging her own chances through ignorance...
I...can’t really bring to bear any real complaints against this arc. It does everything an opening should do in startlingly good fashion, and delivers at a high standard in its genre.
It was my pleasure to read this.
The Second Arc -- Twilight Sparkle --
The first segment to this review was all praise. Yay you.
Here’s where the negativity creeps in.
There is a fundamental change in the nature of the story that occurs in this arc, and it’s not because you’ve changed the subjective lens that is character.
The opening arc introduced our character, her life and her world. It highlighted the mundane, and showcased the not-so mundane, and hinted quietly and darkly at the very-much-not-mundane lurking outside our field of vision. Again, it was a slow-cooker effect of seeing almost-everything as being well and dandy but being neurotically certain that it really, really wasn’t.
And that was bloody brilliant. There was a very strong believability about the characters and an appealing basis in imagery *Which, I note, is used to a lesser extent in this arc.*
It’d be hard to follow on from that, and I distinctly noticed right away that the story drops the ball to some extent when Twilight takes the lead role.
Firstly - the story was already moving at a brisk pace, and with the arc ending as it did on a cliffhanger, it didn’t need to accelerate the narrative. Rather, it should have come down a gear and started the slow, excruciating build up to an even higher peak. But instead it accelerates. The story takes on this almost-Whovian (that’s Dr. Who) frantic-ness of rushing about. Twilight runs here, hears this, runs there, researches that, runs somewhere else, confirms fears she was overly-denying. (That is to say, she was Denying them so hard it more or less guranteed their legitmaciy, and unshakeable facts, even terrible ones, are frequently the antithesis to suspenseful dark stories, which thrive in the not-knowing. Once you know something For Certain, you can funnel it through logic and separate it from emotion *ie, - fear*
And that was a letdown.
Twilight Sparkle herself doesn’t seem to stand up to scrutiny as a character either. Particularily as we progress through her arc. She seems to have spent the last ten years studying the Walter White School of Always-Being-On-The-Verge-Of-A-Neurotic/Psychotic-Breakdown.
It is, frankly, exhausting to keep up with that constant high-tension. And an exhausted reader is an apathetic/numb reader. In short.
Twilight herself shows inconsistency. Not to name spoilers, but they’re there, little statements or sentiments that visibly, for the attentive reader, stand at odds with the other facts given us by the story.
That isn’t a flaw in its own right. In fact, having an unreliable narrator is often a highlight of this genre, as it opens up a new avenue for uncertainty to poke at the reader. Twilight’s inconsistencies in this arc serve much the same function that dark little sentences served in the first - acting to keep that menacing feeling just at the edge of awareness.
But it comes too quickly here, and is played too strongly. By the time Twilight is half-ranting to her own mind about the death of an herbalist and refusing to let it happen again I already felt myself shutting down to her inner turmoil, like nostrils do with powerful scents. Acclimation, if you will. By the time she actually contemplated not one but two ways sequentially to graphically murder the child I was already numb to it all.
And a little disappointed, I must add. Not just because I’m a little bit against the “Twilight Sparkle is never more tha one good push away from being a depraved psychopath, and is thus actually a weak character” cliche (though that played a role for me) but also because the very narrative itself is contriving that she should be pushed to it with its hastiness. While the writing is still quite good, relative to the first arc my suspension of disbelief is in tatters.
Let me put it another way. Her saying “I...try to forget” disturbed me a hell of a lot more than her graphic murder thoughts.
And even at that, the example has sort of neediness in it that Called Attention To This Little Indicative Flag, And That’s Bad:
For a moment, Twilight faltered, nearly tripping over her own hooves, but she managed to maintain her balance.
“I… ” She struggled to push the memory away. “I try to forget,” She finally said, shaking her head.
“For a moment...balance” and “struggled to push the memory away,” Are both what amount to foghorns blaring out through the text. They’re too obvious, too apparent, and this is example is the mildest in this arc.
I can tag it on another angle - saying “she tried to push the memory away” is blatant, yes, AND it gives us a very intimate access to the character, ie, her very thoughts and abstract feelings. And that’s perfectly at odds with the Unreliable Narrator that her words and actions are working to suggest to us. Cross purposes, if you will.
So, boiled down it’s this - the Narrative in the second arc starts to pick up speed, dramatically so. And the problem with acceleration in a suspense story of this nature is that, once you begin to accelerate, like a train going downhill it becomes very difficult to do anything but continue to accelerate.
And readers simply can’t keep up with that. It exhausts us, and we when we’re exhausted we shut down to the stimulus.
One loud bang in the night is terrifying. Twenty loud bangs in the night are just irritating/infuriating. Better still are the scritchings and scratchings and sighings juuuust at the edge of hearing, the ones you strain, fully awake, to make sense. The ones you half-catch, with your imagination catching the other half.
Even Pinkie Pie’s subplot is subject to this rush of speed. The first arc established this beautiful, bittersweet little story. Painted it in loving, attentive detail, and left the characters with no obvious path to resolving it happily.
In the second arc, Pinkie Pie goes to Twilight, needing a friend to listen to her. That’s good, but more than just listen, Twilight very aptly (almost insincerely, in a way) deconstructs the entire relationship, validates her I-Can-Lecture-You-On-This-Topic position with a self-relating-anecdote (which kind of usurps Pinkie Pie’s first need for a Listener), extracts the essential truths that we, the readers alone had the external perspective to see and flat out then proceeds to tell Pinkie Pie how to insert Green Square into Yellow Hole to make everything alright with her daughter.
Now It’s very important that you understand that I am NOT saying that Twilight Sparkle isn’t intelligent to do this, and that it wouldn’t be in her character to behave this way. That’s not my point. In a real life setting, this sort of 100% accurate and valid advice giving would be pretty damn awesome.
But in the conventions of storytelling and fiction and narrative...it amounts to a prematurely ended arc. Twilight Sparkle essentially stole Pinkie Pie’s very intimate and fundamentally flawed mother/daughter relationship, treating it and casually giving the perfect answer like it’s No Big Deal.
That’s what gets me - that it becomes No Big Deal, because someone else was able to step in and fix it Just Like That.
So yeah. First arc was Very Strong, Second arc is Rather Quite Strong, All Things Considered, But Undeniably Fumbles Some.
Other than that, the writing is to a very pleasing standard. There are a few grammatical errors littered about, but too few for me to really be concerned with them at all. Characterization is powerful (Double Points on Pinkie Pie, who completely charms me) and your mixing-in of an OC with a profound relationship to a main character works at a level that most fics simply don’t reach.
Conversely to that though, the acceleration of the as-of-writing-this incomplete second arc detracts significantly from characterization. Like with above, I really, Really don’t want to miscommunicate here. My qualm isn’t that Twilight Sparkle has a darkness about her, quite the contrary an Unreliable Narrator that turns out to be something of a Nietzschean Abyss-Starer/ Monster-Fighter who’s Not So Different from the Eldritch Horror can be the epitome of suspense/horror/ghosty genre. Where my issue lies is with how Suddenly it’s dumped on us, and how Blatantly it’s done so, and how Transparently we’re shown it.
Far too much, far too soon. The boogeyman you can clearly see is never half so scary as the one you’re still looking for, and desperately hoping you won’t find yet stomach-twistingly certain you will.
ALL THIS HAVING BEEN SAID - Overall I still really like this story. A lot. Like, A lot with the words stressed in italics. A Lot. It’s short and incomplete, but that opening is more or less the ideal ghost story opening for me. And while the second arc ‘Nightmare’s Kiss’ wears a few more flaws, they’re all workable.
If the lowest quality bit of this story was the consistent average story for the ENTIRE STORY, I’d still consider The Pony On The Wall a worthwhile and enjoyable read. And that’s saying something.
As with all my reviews, if you have any questions, need me to clarify something I’ve said, or simply want to expand the review through discussion, I am happy to oblige you.
P.S. -
I totally spotted (and hedonistically loved) the implied SparkleDash. I'm always won over by a good shipping.
BUT THAT SAID, it can also tie back into the Nature of the Review.
The two examples of the hinted at SparkleDash followed a lot of the patterns that I was celebrating in this story, and their very thematic tone fits the story wonderfully. That is, more mature, with a nagging uncertainty. Because Twilight -clearly- shows ambivalence bordering on negativeity about her implied SparkleDash moments. And that's EXACTLY the sort of very minimal, very subtle content that works to Distract the reader from Consciously Thinking of Horror And There Becoming Acclimated while also Never Letting Us Fudamentally Forget that it's there. Because it is more mature, and there is an intrinsic, anxious uncertainty about it. It's thematic! The tone of this uncertain, ambivalent implied Sparkle Dash where her own upcoming choices won't be certain, even to herself, resonate perfectly with the main storyline of Fatal Joke (Last Laugh strain?). I'd have loved to see more of this and less of desperately cold-blooded child murder calculation. The former just fundamentally does so much more in building a tone for the story.
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Blast it, another one! Why?! Why does everyone always think I've written Twilight properly? It drives me mad! I hate being told I can write unicorns; they're so bloody stupid with their little magical horns. Fixing everything all the time. I'm going to enjoy torturing Twilight when I finally get around to fixing and continuing this.
Whoo! Sorry about that. I'm flattered you enjoyed it. Thank you for the review (and the ego boost) though it's a shame I hadn't heard of you six months ago. I had a feeling something was wrong with the second arc. I could tell as I was writing it it lacked the same sense of terror created by the original, but couldn't quite put my finger on why. Obviously if the first was believable the second could be as well because they're both governed by the same string of events, but I needed someone who could see beyond the average narration in order to see the problem. As always, I'm blind to my flaws, and that's why groups like WRITE exist. I'd have gone back to /fic/ but the old talent's left.
In short, thank you for the critique, and know that I appreciate the verbosity of it like few else can. That was a treat.
I can imagine what made you think I'd shipped Twilight with Dash—and I may just take your advice on that route if the fancy strikes me—but I actually wasn't alluding to that at all.
Yes, I've always struggled with pacing, but unfortunately, no one was keen enough to spot it before it was posted. I'll have to recall those chapters, and everyone will notice the change when I make the update. However, subtlety. Was that just a symptom of the pacing issue or was it a separate matter entirely. I paid extra careful attention to subtlety in the first arc, though I'll admit my focus slipped a bit on the second. If I have two issues here it's not entirely unfixable, but a shot to the ego at the very least. I pride myself on subtlety, and would be ashamed if I'd let myself stoop to blatancy. Still, bitter honesty is better than sweet lies. Do tell, please?
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To get it out of the way - yes, I suppose I jumped the gun reading about the implied incident with Rainbow Dash. Other interpretations exist, ones that I didn't give credit to, because I really love the ship and mostly just saw what I wanted to see. *shrugs*
(I stand by my position that it would work as an excellent thematic subplot that serves as both distraction from and highlight to the tone of the main storyline.)
But...but...the entire critical nature of the view was entirely based on how Twilight Sparkle wasn't written properly, both directly through characterization and indirectly through narrative contrivance. Not sure how you came to the opposite conclusion about my opinion on her prescence in this story, particularily the second arc, when I had gone to some pains to articulate my points clear as I could in the review.
Do you need me to reiterate what I had tried to communicate before, about her faults as a part of the storytelling?
Likewise, I'm left a little uncertain as to what you're asking for at the end of your comment.
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You made it seem like she was actually characterized well, but just shown poorly.
The rest of it seems to make sense, though.
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Yes.
I will attempt to really clarify this point.
Twilight Sparkle is characterized well, if we take the situation to be one we measure by watching her jump through whatever hoops the story presents to her. Initially, that is.
But her Mary Sue is showing when she resolves Pinkie Pie's personal, intimate, intense, complex, deep-seated mother/daughter disconnect issue after one bout of listening-turned-lecturing.
That's not to say she isn't capable of rationalizing her way to the perfect answer, we know she's a uniquely intelligent person, but the story contrives everything in such a way that absolutely none of Twilight's other characterisitics get in the way. Such as - A) having a recurring canon tendency to ignore the possibility of deeper meanings in things that are not readily indentifiable in favour of literary and technical truth.
- B) Twilight's tendency to overthink, obsess, become tunnel-visioned on one aspect of a broader issue, to the point that she completely cripples her own ability to function. Twilight Sparkle might be the biggest advocate for rational logic, but she's subject to emotions just as anyone else is. Frustration and Anxiety in particular, with credit where its due to Paranoia.
- C) The assumption this story asks us readers to make that she's aged ten years (with tragic, powerful events therein). Pinkie Pie feels like she's aged. Life has happened to her, good and bad. But reading Twilight's scenes...I'd keep forgetting that. Doesn't feel like she's got ten years of wisdom, experience, scars and baggage shaping her characterization.
SO, to reiterate. YES. Twilight Sparkle is characterized well. But only in the sense that a limited number of her qualities have been cherry-picked for the needs of advancing the plot and others that should be present in some capacity for her are simply not there.
When the story says "be intelligent and fix Pinkie's Problem," that one aspect of her character is selected and applied all the way. When the story says "be psychotically nervous," she is nothing but psychotically nervous.
To make a metaphor of it, it's like Twilight Sparkle has been wearing Twilight Sparkle masks for this story. They're all her face, of course, but each one can only have a fixed, singular expression. And she has to keep switching between them to make it work.
Everything you have used to write Twilight Sparkle's character is correctly based on characteristics she has, but each such one has been applied for its chosen scene independently of other considerations, making her character one that is missing a rounded, whole-person feeling about them.
I would go even further to say that it is this "All or Nothing" approach to character traits might explain to us why she goes so over the top (ie- the murderous thoughts) because in that moment select negative, even worst aspects of her are being featured...with nothing else there to balance it out.
I would add that this could be why such graphic, violent images are so...lacklustre to read. Because fundamentally we understand as readers that it's not really been Twilight Sparkle who as a complete person is thinking this, but only one small part of her playing at spokesperson for the whole.
Whereas...when Twilight Sparkle says she tries to forget...that's a moment that feels like her entire being, every aspect of her character is involved. And that makes it much more genuine.
Does...that make more sense of what I've been trying to say?
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PS - Hot damn reviewing and replying on this story is satisfying.
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That makes a lot of sense, yes. Thank you.
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Now you know why I got into the reviewing game in the first place.
Thanks for your help. I may reply again in the next month or so if I have another question, but for now it looks like I've got work to do. Many thanks for the perspective and insight. Both are invaluable.