"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying, And this same flower that smiles today, Tomorrow will be dying."
The Writers' Group56,392 stories ·9,291 members
One-Shots18,906 stories ·2,369 members
Slice of Life8,152 stories ·1,460 members
Colgate Fans 97 stories ·132 members
Background Ponies970 stories ·358 members
Completed Story Compendium21,045 stories ·1,701 members
Twinkleshine had barely started kindergarten when she first met the universe. Like most first meetings, it had been awkward, not under the best of circumstances, and a single instant that ignited a lifelong passion, which would inevitably end with late nights and concerned parents.
Page generated in 0.15 seconds
Total duration
1,011 users online
2,124,105 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Beautifully done, very sweet.
And to think, I just made her a celebrity gossip columnist.
Beautiful stuff, and entirely believable coming from a "friend" of Twilight Sparkle. Thank you for it.
8739375
Thank you. 'Twas a pleasure to write this one, so I'm very happy you enjoyed reading it.
8739389
8739446
Truth be told, I've had this character idea hanging around in my head for years (since 2013, to be precise). If all goes well, this won't be the last time we see Twinkleshine the Astronomer.
Ha, hadn't even thought of it from that angle. What I assumed was that Minuette and the others were meant to represent normal unicorns, especially compared with Twilight and Moondancer. That said, perhaps students at Celestia's School do tend towards the unsociable.
This is by far one of the greatest things I’ve ever read. There is no amount of applause and complements that can even come close to what this masterpiece deserves.
I shall leave it at that, for anything positive I say will be a massive understatement.
Lovely! Although my obsession with canon issues is spoiling it a bit for me by whispering in my ear: "Well, the night sky in Equestria is more of a cover lid that Luna slides into place each night, or possible a solid firmament painted black, and the stars are tiny and not much further than the Moon (which is in turn smaller and closer than our Moon)"
(It's at times like this I tell myself I can believe in any canon I wish, and yes too Twinkleshine can have a solar system and cosmos just as awe-inspiring as ours
)
As a hopeless astronomy nerd, this pushed all my buttons. Including a few I didn't know I had! Very much looking forwards to any new "Twinkleshine the Astronomer" stories!
8739701
High praise indeed! I'm honoured, and very pleased you found it so good. Thanks for giving me such a wonderful comment.
8739763
Yes, I know what you mean. Canonically, I don't think it's clear exactly what kind of universe the MLP:FiM cast are living in, and the idea that it's mostly a tight sphere with tiny stars on it makes a kind of sense, given how the world seems to be largely managed by ponydom.
Ultimately, though, I much prefer the idea that their universe is more like ours, and not only because I can just look up the details in an astronomy book!
8739766
Well, I've got a few ideas for Twinkleshine on my to-do list, though this is sadly quite a long enough list as it is, so my advice is to bring a book to read while you wait. Also, glad to hear it! An author likes to know they're pushing the audience's buttons (hopefully the right ones, of course).
I like it.
I feel like it's an important moral about obsession. How it can create and destroy.
This was a very nice story and I love your idea about Twinkleshine! I wonder if the other ideas you have about Tinkleshine the astronomer tell us something about her magic skills.
8740214
No amount of praise can come close to,what this work of art deserves.
8740214
I’m pretty sure Luna doesn’t actually manage the stars, only the moon, to my knowledge, it’s only the comics that have suggest she controls the stars (and the comics are completely non-canon at this point)
Plus, MLP does have astronauts and rockets, space related stuff, we’ve seen proof on screen... There have been globes, and drawings of rockets... And Rainbow Dash dressed as an astronaut in that one nightmare night episode...
So I’d say canon is actually on your side in this one.
(Comes back. Looks at the featured box).
(Does a double-take).
Oh. My. Gosh...
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first time I've stayed so long in the featured box. This is the first time I've ended up at the top of the featured box. And stayed there. At the top of the featured box.
I am a writer, and I am at a loss for words.
Oh, what the heck. I'll say it anyway: WOOHOO! Thank you thank you thank you all for making this happen! I am so not worthy, but I'm so gonna enjoy this moment anyway! HahaHA! WOOOO!
8740289
That fits neatly into the framework I was using, but I think of it more as learning how to manage passions; it's not wrong that Twinkleshine loves the night sky so much, just that she has to learn how it relates and how she relates to other ponies like Minuette. I guess we're saying the same thing, though: it can indeed be constructive or destructive.
8740345
I did have a discussion once with Loganberry (on an unrelated thread) about how powerful unicorns are in Equestria. Twinkleshine certainly has to have some talent to end up in Celestia's School, but I generally suspect her power would mostly skew towards astronomy-related spells and be unremarkable in other respects. But yeah, I never really thought about it too deeply until you asked, so it's an open question.
8740607
Wow, I must admit I love this enthusiasm. It's not often I see someone express it - and I'm always welcome to constructive critical feedback, of course, as an aspiring writer - but it's simply delightful when someone like you finds so much joy in my work. Thanks again!
8741107
I was thinking mainly of the bit where "the stars will aid in her escape", though there isn't really any canonical proof that Luna was controlling them (heck, they're never really explained). I wonder - and this is more a devil's advocate sort of thing - if the space-themed material we've seen might be, in the pony world, more speculative than it is in ours? That said, we have seen blackboards with physics concepts, and other evidence of advanced astronomy, so I can't pretend mine is a strong counterargument. Point cheerfully taken!
Floored.
This was truly magnificent.
~Skeeter The Lurker
8741389
What a lovely comment! Thank you, and I'm pleased you enjoyed the fic so much.
This was fantastic and I'm truly happy I got to experience it.
Wonderful. This had a very nice feel to it.
8741311
Honestly, I didn't know that fanfiction could get this good. Infinite applause.
I’m impressed that this conveyed so much without any traditional dialogue. Surely someone will say that you’re breaking the “show, don’t tell” rule and making it work, but I don’t think it’s that simple. I think you’re still showing us Twinkleshine’s mind in a way that a conventional narrative format wouldn’t. This prose style—poetic yet impersonal—is uniquely fitting for a pony of Twinkleshine’s obsessions: deeply in love with the majesty of the universe, yet finding it difficult to connect with others.
Great stuff.
It's almost like you get to understand the hunger of a cutie mark, and what it really implies.
8741311
i enjoy Nfire's take in "Legacy", the story featuring Crusader the Mark 45 Bolo Tank, that Luna controls the night sky, specifically, she 'paints the sky' by magically altering the thaumophysical properties of Equus atmosphere and magnetosphere to filter and frequency shift and magnify and redirect incoming light from desired point sources to block or display stars and nebulae and planets and meteors and plasma ribbons into the visible spectrum and large enough to be seen by the naked eye into an arrangement of her choosing, essentially turning the planet's atmosphere and magnetosphere into a series of Clarke's Law tier telescopes.
story link
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/238582/legacy
8742452
35 you mean?
A friendship developed without a single word of dialogue. Beautiful.
8742333
I did wonder if it was a bit too telly at times, but you make a good point: the theme of impersonal poetry is apt, given Twinkleshine's interests. Although I admit this particular interpretation wasn't at the forefront of my mind when writing the fic, I do acknowledge how different aspects of writing can draw out or subtly illustrate a particular idea or theme. To use an analogy, it's how different lighting techniques or camera angles or ways of speaking can affect how we interpret the same scene in a movie. Sometimes reinforcing a point, sometimes subverting it.
8742410
Fair point in the broader context of Equestria's world (how obsessive does one have to be to get a cutie mark, and are there "stronger" cutie marks than others?), but I generally just regard cutie marks as badges ponies put on themselves. Intriguing in their own way, but secondary to more interesting psychological aspects.
That said, the cutie mark was a factor for this idea in the first place; I looked at Twinkleshine's and wondered what the three stars represented. Of all the ideas I had, the astronomy one came along early and struck a chord with me.
8742452
8742487
This concept of a Luna-controlled telescopic atmosphere is intriguing. I may have to steal it...
Nah, I kid, I kid. Seriously, though: That's an idea I haven't heard before, and I must admit it sounds creatively wonderful. You kind of get the best of both worlds that way; Luna's still an architect of the night, but you also get the grandeur of real-world cosmology if you want it. Not forgetting how it raises questions about Celestia's management in Luna's absence, if other unicorns are capable of the same distortion feats, and so on.
8741855
8742174
8742284
8742729
Sigh: I know I'll inevitably drift out of the featured box sooner or later. But with comments like these, I can say it was tremendously gratifying while it lasted. Thank you so much.
I put this off expecting a crackfic.
What a fool I was.
8743583
Is that in a good way, or a bad way?
8743658
It was a good fic, I enjoyed it so I'd say good.
That really cheered me up. Thank you.
Be careful, Twinkleshine. Never trust a galaxy younger than three billion years old.
8743944
8743995
You're both very welcome. Glad to hear from you.
8744601
8744835 It's those long galactic arms. They're like an octopus if you give them any encouragement. At least globular clusters keep mostly to themselves with the occasional pulsar strobing through the ether showing that the parties never stop there.
8744839
Eh, I think quite a few older galaxies tend to have spiral arms as well. What's wrong with the younger ones is that they're usually irregulars surrounded by lots of gas, which is just gross. And they haven't joined with a nice galaxy of their own and settled down into a local group yet. You can't trust any galaxy that committed to anarchy.
What a lovely piece.
Glad to have read it, and that you got a well-deserved spell in the Featured Box for it.
8744884
Thank you very much! It's been an absolute thrill to get featured; when I sent this on its merry way, I was barely expecting the story to receive even a tenth of the attention it ended up receiving.
As someone who's loved Astronomy since I was really little, I really like this story.
Astronomer Twinkleshine is good. I approve!
:)
8745181
Thanks!
Like I said before, I'm hoping we get to see more of stargazing Twinkleshine in the future. Not any time soon, sadly, but... well, we'll see.
>Seven Sisters
Woooo Pleiades!
8746993
Eeyup.
It's probably bad of me to hew too closely to real-world astronomy in details, but I couldn't and wouldn't resist.
Wow, this story is constantly popular on the homepage of this site, and I now see why since I read it. Amazing. 🙂
8749151
Glad you liked it, and thanks for the comment. The responses have been wonderful; I was surprised and delighted when the fic received so many. It's been great.
Now to go back into hibernation...
z z z z z z
8749498
Well, you deserve all the love on this story cause we all love it. And of course, seeing young Minuette on the cover picture, Minuette is one of my favorite MLP characters, so that makes me love this story as well. 😊
And haha yeah 😆
...space... and time? A pink and blue pony. Is this a Pokemon reference? Hmm... guess I’ll have to read and find out.
8749834
I don't know if she's my favourite exactly (limitations of being a background pony and whatnot), but after Amending Fences, Minuette certainly became a strong contender for that position. She's just so endearing and cheerful.
That's very sweet of you to say so. Thanks again!
8751527
Eenope, sorry. It's "space" and "time" in the more conventional sense, and the colours are just coincidental. Of course, I hope you enjoy the story either way.
8751830
Well, the main reason I like Minuette, is because she's a very unique character in many ways, and she has become even more unique in the community. But yeah, Minuette's great. 😊
And you're welcome. 😁
And that picture of the Moon was one of the last taken before its face was changed...
8770392
Should be worth something by now, then.
You know this already, but still. Fuller review here, but in brief: a satisfying and sweet tale, full of the wonder of the universe. An easy fave.
8901668
Freaking pogs! XD
This was marvelous. Hopefully this dumb review blog will let me read a few more of your stories before I'm whisked off to other things. :B
9167680
Pogs: gone but not forgotten.
Although I am curious what's going on with your "dumb review blog"? But thanks for the comment either way. 
9172817
Just more random character tags I went and grabbed stories for. :B All the stuff of yours I've read this year has come from doing just that.