Lowered Expectations
Starlight Glimmer groaned, making sure she was loud enough for everyone to hear her epic frustration.
They'd had them. They'd seriously, totally had the Sunlight Army on the run and they would have had first pick of the pizza and Starlight would have eaten all of the Special Pie.
And then, suddenly, this. Of all the hare-brained ways to lose an advantage. Not to mention:
"So, the title of this thing just went out the window," she said to Juniper, while keeping her eyes trained on Twilight.
Juniper didn't seem to care. "Oh my gosh, this is the fluffiest pain I've ever experienced," she said, while slumped against the wall and clutching her shoulder. "Avenge me, Captain Starlight!" She grinned at Starlight with lidded eyes. "Avenge me hard."
"I don't even know if I want to anymore." Starlight rolled her eyes and huffed, keeping her Hyper Splasher trained on Twilight. "Seriously. I told you to hang back until we had the perfect shot, but nooooooo. Someone had go to get her 'perfect shot'!"
"Come on," Juniper said, her voice strained. "You expected me to leave all that perfect melancholy on the table? This is my passion! I collect scenes! I pilfer performances! You mean to tell me that if you didn't come across a cool new magic spell that was right up your alley, you wouldn't go for it? Like if you got to travel through time, or something—"
"Junie, please don't give me a reason to turn this gun on you," Starlight said, pumping water into the chamber. She sighed. "Still, deep down I knew it was going to come down to this." She looked into Twilight's eyes. "To the two of us. It always does in some way or another, doesn't it?"
Twilight glared back with dramatically defiant eyes of her own. "And it'll end the same way it always does. Especially given what you've done! Do you have any idea what General Shimmer meant to me?"
"Okay, time out," Juniper said. "If you two meant that much to each other, then why are a general and a scientist seeing live combat? Like, even I know that's a little out there."
"I..." was all Twilight could say in response.
Sunset opened her eyes. "Come on, we worked with what we had. Do you see any other members of our army in this house?"
"That seems to be the Sunlight Army's problem, not ours," Juniper said, high-fiving Starlight with her non-pillowed arm. "You didn't have to pick those ranks."
"I-I picked the ones that fit our character!" Sunset said, adding in a small voice, "And, uh, which sounded the coolest. Cut me some slack—I'm from a magical horse world that doesn't have war!"
"What, like we're some kind of bloodthirsty savages?" Juniper said, gesturing around. "Our world has more movies about war than it's had actual wars!"
"Our world doesn't have movies!" Sunset countered.
"Yeah?" Juniper grinned again, placing her hands on her hips. "Well, whose fault is that? Jump it up, pony slackers!" She looked to her squad mate. "No offense, Starlight."
Starlight shrugged. "Eh, none taken. Honestly, that was my catchphrase for years. "
Twilight cocked her head. "Wait, Sunset, you seriously don't have war in your world? I thought you were kidding when you first told me that."
"Nope. Well, not for the most part? It's... kind of a fuzzy deal." Sunset sat up, and the others sat down on the floor to meet her. "Equestria is a world where our ancestors were beset by terrible magical creatures who fed off hatred, and doled out cold weather in return."
"Everypony remembers that legend, yeah," Starlight said. "Though to be fair, they never got to the 'large-scale conflict' state? Like, not much in the way of weapons or huge clashing armies. Just a lot of mean stares and petty arguments back and forth. None of the pony races cared what happened to the other, so long as they did their jobs and got their stuff. Which still made for a lot of negativity in the air, meaning a lot of winter all around." Starlight grinned. "I guess you could have called it a cold war."
Sunset groaned, loud and long, burying her head in her hands.
"Come on," Starlight laughed, elbowing her. "You know you love it."
"I know I'm going to need therapy after that one," Sunset said. "Anyway, it did actually get really bad when they tried to find a new land to escape all the blizzards. The arguing just got worse, to the point where everypony almost got completely frozen. If some of the ponies involved hadn't learned to cast aside as many differences as they could, and look for ways to not hate one another, but care about each other instead..."
"At least two of us in this room might not exist," Starlight said, her voice somber.
"And my and Twilight's life would be way worse," Juniper said. She wrapped her arm around Starlight, pulling herself close. Twilight did the same with Sunset.
Sunset nodded. "Exactly. Every single one of us in this room right now is here because someone took a chance on understanding us. On having a conversation with us. On forgiving us. Just like Equestria's forebears took a chance on forgiving and having conversations with each other.
"And as Starlight said, that story's been passed down and taught to fillies and foals ever since. So not a lot of us are in touch with our inner aggressive selves. Like, the last 'war' I've ever heard of happening in Equestria was fought with, uh, pies."
Starlight blinked. "Pies?"
Sunset blushed. "Pinkie was involved."
Twilight blinked. "Wait, Pinkie Pies? So, the whole war was fought with Pinkie Pie clones?"
Sunset shook her head. "No, no, real pies. Pinkie herself just started the war. Though now that you bring it up, Twilight told me that Pinkie clones really did happen at one point."
"Wait," Starlight said. "So, a war was fought with pies by Pinkie Pie clones doing all the fighting by proxy between both factions?"
Juniper scratched her head. "This is starting to sound like a certain other movie."
On a hunch, Starlight looked over to Sunset, and saw her looking completely gobsmacked. "I, uh, think we should shift to a new topic track," she said, taking hold of one of Sunset's hands.
Sunset exhaled. "Thank you."
"Okay so," Juniper said, "no war, no warriors... so, what, you're all peace-loving zen-masters over there or something? World of Woosah?"
"Not quite," Sunset said. "By my memory and what Twilight's told me, the Wonderbolts are still a thing. They're stunt flyers, but they're a pretty rigid and disciplined outfit. And then there's the Royal Guard, which includes Twilight's brother, but... well, they're guard ponies. They mainly handle skittish crowds around the Princesses, and random events of interest around the country.
"They get the closest to military training that Equestria has, but..." Sunset's face scrunched. "They're also recruited in proportion to how much danger normally exists in Equestria. Meaning, if you put every guard pony from every kingdom that we had onto a single battlefield... let's just say it wouldn't look very imposing."
"Hey, look on the bright side," Starlight said, "whoever we were fighting would probably be too busy laughing to beat us anyway."
All four giggled.
"She's not wrong, though," Starlight continued leaning back on her palms. "Equestria's pretty chill, down to its rulers. Peacekeeping's the name of the game—nopony wants to take a chance on history, or even myth, repeating itself. It's not as if ponies have any fewer conflicts or disagreements between each other than any other sapient species. But rarely do those conflicts get to escalate past a certain point, because we're all taught to resolve those conflicts instead of letting them fester, and then blow up.
"So, if it looks like we don't know what we're doing when it comes to fighting organized battles, it's because we kind of don't." She rolled her eyes. "So, yeah, every once in a while, we get a Storm King. It happens."
"You still need to tell me about that one," Sunset said.
"No, I don't," Starlight scoffed. "Though Tempest was kind of hot. Anyway, we're set up to handle mythical beasties and the occasional supervillain who doesn't get the drop on us, because that's all we're used to getting. You could send an army of, I dunno, a few hundred mind-washed teenagers, through the portal and probably still stand half a chance of taking over." Starlight winked at Sunset.
"Or a few dozen cult-indoctrinated ponies?" Sunset said, with a sly grin back towards Starlight.
"Hey, we'd totally have grabbed a few territories before we got stopped!" Starlight said, laughing.
"What about a dimension-breaker?" Twilight said, blushing.
"Oh, you would have taken both our worlds down super-easily," Sunset said. "And I knew it, too. Why else do you think I asked you to become my girlfriend with two student bodies watching?"
"H-hey!" Twilight said, her cheeks tinting deep red.
All four were laughing now. Juniper raised her hand. "Oooh, ooh! What about a super-tall movie diva? Huh? What could I do?"
"You could team up with me," Starlight said. "I could totally use you in the cities, especially."
"Score!" Juniper said, embracing Starlight for the third time that night and squeezing as hard as she could.
"But as all four of us can attest," Starlight said, "any danger that pops up doesn't last long. Equestria's pretty good at making friends, even with folks that didn't start out very fond of us. We just allied ourselves with the dragons and changelings."
Sunset gasped, looking at Starlight with wide eyes. "No way. I'd heard of the trips you made to their lands, but it's actually gotten that far? That's incredible."
"It really is! That one, I'll gladly tell you all about later tonight." Starlight looked at Juniper and Twilight. "But yeah. That's how we avoid most conflicts. The rest, we talk ourselves out of. It probably sounds like a weird system, but friendship really has just... worked for us up until now. Fortunately."
"And for the few times someone pops up that we didn't plan on," Sunset said, "we have Princess Twilight. Good thing she is a princess—we're going to need the millennium-plus of protection."
"Heh. Well, we'll do our best to make her job easier," Juniper said. "Right?"
All four girls helped each other off of the floor, and leaned into a group hug. "I can get behind that," Sunset said.
The other three nodded.
"Cool," Juniper said as they parted. Anyway, this 'war' stuff was fun, but I think the novelty's worn off. Anyone else hungry?"
With a cheer, the four of them opened the pizza boxes, with the top one revealing a pizza slathered in shredded wheat. Sunset and Starlight looked at each other, their mouths shut tight to avoid drooling. They cut the pie down the middle, setting an equal number of slices for themselves, and leaving the other pie boxes for the other two girls.
"I'll admit," Juniper said between bites, "I wasn't really sold on this 'sleepover' thing at first when you all suggested it? But I think this is the most fun I've ever had."
"Glad we could help," Starlight said. "Looks like friendship won tonight, too."
As they feasted on pizza, they looked around themselves, and out to the other rooms of the house, which were utterly covered in feathers.
"Yeah, uh, about that," Juniper said. "You think friendship will help solve the mystery of how to clean this place up before my parents get home?"
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This was fun.
How is this like Saving Private Ryan?
8745653
I... oh, come on, that's Sam and Max
That's like saying, "hey, great driving test, now go race Andretti"
Well, this was certainly enjoyable. It was a nice and fluffy little piece. This site needs more Juniper stories. Well done Darling
brb, headcanoning the Pie family's history of military service in the Pastry Corps. Harder than I already was, anyway.
(this was immensely goofy but also still kind of cute)
War is hell.
Cleaning up the house after a hardcore slumber party is worse.
A question for the ages, Juniper.
This was adorable and hilarious and kind of heartwarming, too. I loved it!
8745768
Or are they getting better
and this is the story of why juniper was banished to the moon by her parents
derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/6/30/360480__safe_apple+bloom_scootaloo_sweetie+belle_one+bad+apple_animated_cinema_cutie+mark+crusaders_hub+logo_movie.gif
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Do you want to be the one to bring up the CMCs to Sunset
do you
8745834
She already has them! And apparently they are no less troublesome!
Ever notice Starswirl or any of the Pillars just dump bad stuff in the EG world as a trash hole?
I can't believe Sunset and Juniper are dead forever. I'll miss them.
Jokes aside, this was a fun little romp -- though the odds of Junie getting a bit of a talking to are probably pretty high because... well, actually; I was going to say that they don't seem like they'd be very good at cleaning things up, but Twilight can just use her geode to make things go a lot faster right? ("But they're not supposed to use them for little things!" It's an EMERGENCY though!) So everything will be fine! You know, probably.
Incredible fun... though the line about feathers and Scootaloo's aunts had me wondering which Twilight I was dealing with for a bit. Still, loved it from start to finish. A wonderful blend of humor, sweetness, melodrama, and the closest thing the human world can offer to hay pizza. Thank you for it.
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Clover didn't send the Memory Stone to the human world. The sorceress fled to that world and Clover followed. Clover just thought it would be a good idea to bury the stone there, probably assuming that that world lacked the ambient magic required to use it or anyone capable of reading the instructions. (Seriously, how was Wallflower able to read Old Ponish?)
Is good. I like.
Look, you'll get the full review when I can (and at this rate who knows WHEN the shit THAT'LL be but let's not repeat TOO many old bad habits here lD; ), but Capsule Version right now 'cuz I need you to know this: this was fucking delightful. Like...top to bottom, start to finish. It's funny, and it's clever, and it's sweet in all the ways you do best, but focused like a damned laser by virtue of how you utilize those elements to make this particular point. Ugh. SO damned GOOD.
That was fun. A delightful story to read and why have I not been shipping Juniper and Starlight?!
This is the best.
8747559
I welcome all Juniper shippers
to say nothing of people writing her into actual stories, period! It's lonely over here with just me and like 2 other people XD8747044
Careful, I might start thinking I'm actually worthy of the Comedy tag.
8748034
All the more motivation for me to get that Review ready 'n' convince you, then! 8D
Wow, I never realized before that the Windigos basically function as the Doomsday Device in Dr. Strangelove.
This was silly and fun. I regret not having read it sooner.
Still, Equestria so has motion pictures. How else do you explain that film reel from "Hurricane Fluttershy"? I mean, why create the technology for educational material alone when there are other equally viable (and far more lucrative) uses for it?
CLEAR THE RAMP 30 SECONDS, GOD BE WITH YOU!!!
That girl needs therapy.
Poor Princess Twilight going to have to untangle those unrelated unsta-- er, instances.
Well, for one perspective. Princess Twilight would probably be your best source for the rest.
And now I'm thinking of the one with the confetti.
We love you, Bookie. Come to Northern Cali next year for BABSCon, well treat you right.
Its honestly kind of funny to consider you haven’t really done a parody before now. I mean, on the one hand it makes perfect sense; that kind of mean-spirited poking-fun isn’t really your bag most of the time. But on the other hand, parody invites us to play with the tropes and trappings of the stories we love in a manner freer and more playful than “straight” narratives do. Which, naturally, is the kind of parody you bring us here. And the result is just straight-cut, start-to-finishdelightful. It’s got just enough of a purpose behind the fun to keep things coherent and insightful, yes, but oh my glob, the meat and potatoes of this story are fun, fun,fun, and I am 100%herefor it.
Especially because you've created something like The Ideal Bookish Premise here. Like, playing around with the dynamics of one couple has proven itself a reliably enjoyable story style for you (indeed, I don't think it's unfair to place this in the same continuum of the "BFF" series, given that it shares with those stories an almost-but-not-quite plotless structure that's designed more to highlight the mechanics of the couples in play), but playing around with two at once, and putting them into (playful) conflict with each other? That's a new twist, and one that provides the story with theperfectenergy, because it means we just haveso manylayers of Character to play with here, and each one is wonderful and fun and enjoyable in just the way you've proven yourself so talented at. Like, layer #1: we get to delight in the dynamic of the individual couples. Starlight and Juniper, the star-struck storyteller and the pragmatic realist? That's great; it's hilarious to see Juniper's wide-eyed perspective, enjoying as it does all the great Drama of the Story (and analyzing it via her comprehensive knowledge of this exactkindof Story), bounce up against Starlight, who for her part is playing along more so than personally invested, but who nonetheless has an interesting grasp of the What and Why of all this. On the other side of the line, meanwhile, we have Sunset and Twilight, twoverytactical minds (indeed, an unexpected bonus is how this story points out that connecting line between the two that I'd never really considered before but, as always, blows my mind for how keenly you hit on it) who nonetheless approach this scenario in very different fashions: Sunset is much more going at this with instinct and strategy, whereas Twilight is more into Breaking It Down and assessing the full picture before moving forward. Andthen, on top ofallthat, you pit the two of themagainsteach other, and the ways in which that all unfolds is like pure poetry in motion. Each individual member bounces off each other in just the right way (I especially appreciated Starlight's nigh-constant sarcastic barbs toward Twilight), but moreover eachcouplebounces off of each other in just the right way. Again, it's a game of contrasts; Twilight and Sunset are playing this in a slightly more detached manner, not exactly hiding their feelings for each other but not leaning on them too heavily either, which in turn highlights the easy-going sense of bedrock trust between them that flows so naturally. Starlight and Juniper, meanwhile, are a bit more open, a bit more raw; they bounce off of each other more and more noticeably, and that higher energy translates right back into their style, wilder and more openly playful. It is seriously just a layer cake of Character, and I could feast on it for days and days; I could in fact continue to write this section forever if I was so inclined, but thereareother cylinders this story is firing on that also deserve attention.
Case in point, as I said, this feels like your first explicit parody, and I deeply appreciate that this too plays out on a variety of layers. The most obvious one is right there on the surface: everyone and their grandmother on this website has their Ponies At War story (including me X3), done either as a deliberate subversion or a radical expansion of the show's narrative universe. By taking that same concept and turning it into a Sleepover game, however, "Saving Juniper Montage" manages to, if not take the piss (as the story never becomes mean enough in its satire for that to really take), then at least take some of the air out of the tires of the whole premise, highlighting the intrinsic absurdity of combining what is, after all, a bright and cheerful Kid's Show with the grisly gruesomeness of warfare (the choice of "Saving Private Ryan" as the specific locus of that parody helps a lot too; it provides a structure strong enough to hang the story on but loose enough to be played around with as needed). But the other layer is the one that highlights, to me, why this genre is so perfectly up your alley. The best parodies, after all, are those rooted in affection, and, thanks in no small part to having Juniper to speak to that very element, the story manages to weave that aspect of parody into its being as well. As I say, the mean bone typically associated with parody isn't quite present here; again, you play up the absurdity of the situation such that it's impossible to miss the point, but therealhumor instead comes from recognizing exactly why these stories are so popular with the people who make and consume them, and allowing that perspective too to have its due. That this in turn plays so perfectly to Juniper's character just renders the whole story all the more delightful; watching her excitement as she recognizes each new twist and turn in the narrative, or else sees the potential for how to REALLY play into the Drama of things, is fantastically endearing, and reminds us that even as it is in fact all just so ridiculous, that ridiculousness stillmeanssomething to someone. You've always been adept at balancing acts when it comes to that exact kind of tonal play, but here in particular the rope you're walking is a tight one; to tip even slightly to one side or another would risk the joke becoming a bit too crass or else the sentiment a bit too saccharine, but you walk the whole thing just right each step of the way, and as a result the humor is simultaneously warm and fun but also with just enough of a bite to it to get you toreallypay attention.
And then, on top ofallthat, you build all those pieces together into a coherent whole that speaks to the entire nature of the series' world and the characters who inhabit it. Using the War Game as a lens by which to discuss how ponies and humans relate to conflict in different ways is such a brilliant final turn to bring the whole thing together, in a way that plays perfectly not only to your own strengths but indeed the strengths of the story as a whole, because here too that profound sense of balance makes the whole thing sing. It's humorous, in its way; again, you don't shy away from how trulybizarrethis whole concept is, but at the same time, you also approach the underlying point underlying the discussion with the utmost sincerity, and that in turn allows us to laughwiththe funnier side of it while also understanding the more philosophical aspect. Moreover, you ground it so perfectly in Character; the perspective of each of the four people participating in the discussion receives its due, and the particulars, the ways they compare and contrast and in so doing reveal something meaningful about the deeper truth at issue in all of this, feel real and believable.
"Saving Juniper Montage", then, is the best kind of fun: in the moment, it's all sweet and froth and laughs, but the more you think about it, the more you realize there was something of real substance there. The fun, the sweetness, is still present, but you can see how it informs another, equally important concept that makes said fun evenmoreenjoyable by fortifying it without overwhelming it. It is, in other words, something like the platonic ideal of My Kind Of Parody Story, and I love it to pieces for that.
The use of pies as weapons? It's totally using the harmonic magic of laughter! Could you drop a buffalo with a single arrow? Of course not! But a pie on the other hand...
Pies penetrate barriers they shouldn't, cause an unreasonable amount of chaos, and are far more of problem for an allegedly prepared enemy than using real weapons. LITERALLY because it's funnier!
Lots of fun.