• Member Since 30th Jun, 2013
  • offline last seen Saturday

Pickleless


A man is driving home, thinking about beating his wife. Along the way, he passes a turtle. I am that turtle.

T

Twilight questions who's journal she's reading and ends up having a talk with Sunset Shimmer.

After that, Sunset and 'Twilight', become friends.

Chapters (4)
Comments ( 56 )

Well the colors are still broken for me, but the story is still good.

I am sad and at the same time I resonate with this. :heart:

Excellent use of color here to make the point.

Fuck, it's amazing how a few words can be so powerful. I really felt Celestia's voice with your choice of wording, thermal speech that started so rigid as Celestia tried to imitate a young foal. Spectacular work!

10749579
Twilight. You can tell that the initial green text is Celestia as she desperately reaches out to Sunset, possibly years or months before Twilight, whose text is lavender, picks up the book and writes in it. Sunset tells Twilight to piss off, Twilight then tells Celestia about this, and Celestia decides to impersonate her student as she writes to Sunset, essentially cat fishing the pony turned human as she tries to figure out what went wrong with their relationship.

Great short piece. This was especially well-paced: I went in without reading the descriptions—just the tags—and it really made the topics they addressed proper stand-ins for who they are.

Liking this so far.
Celestia essentially insulting herself after realizing her faults in how she failed Sunset, if it means reconnecting with her is nice.
How long before Celestia lets something slip again is gonna be interesting

This was a good story. I wonder why Sunset and Celestia never actually mentioned they both know what's going on, even though it's pretty clear to them both.

Wow, for a somewhat short piece, that was really emotional.
You can tell that both long for each other, despite Sunset's initial resistances.
It makes their reunion much later all that much sweeter

You can say my name all you want, Princess Celestia, but you're not my mother, and you're not immune to pain.

Is this Sunset realizing Celestia is the one replying to her, or is she making another sarcastic "Yes mooooom"?

This was actually really uplifting. Sunset totally figured things out in the last chapter and began encouraging Celestia to love and forgive herself, never taking no for an answer just as Celestia did so earlier for her. We see forgiveness and growth from both of them, all in such a minimal context that we feel it, rather than just read the words. Eight thumbs up.

Yeah. Celestia can be colossal fuck-up. Good lord she's got hooves of clay.

Fine, I'll try talking to Celestia and Luna about this.

...

Luna?

Celestia's sister, she runs the school with her.

Oof, that's gotta hit.

oh, Sunset. You're at fault for about 90% of all the shit between you and Celestia. :D

An excellent story, Pickleless. Great use of the colors and format. You really got Celestia and Sunset.

Really liked this story. Great job

Ah, I like this a lot! Thinking about the exchange from both characters' perspectives was great. Well done.

You know "Twilight", since we've established that the root of the problems here was trust issues...

Well how about that, despite Celestia's best efforts this did not explode into a disaster of lies and recriminations. Lucky her.

Wait, someone clear this up for me, will you?

Twilight originally found the journal, hence why in the start the writing was in purple. She met Sunset, Sunset was a bit mean to her, and I assume that Twilight gave the book to Celestia.

So Celestia, realizing that Sunset believes the book is in someone else's care now, pretended to be Twilight so she could converse with Celestia, and Sunset could believe she was just talking to Twilight instead?

so simple yet so good. Very well done.

I’ve actually seen the alicorn kirugumi out in the wild when late night grocery shopping. It’s pretty weird to be going to buy chicken at 11 at night and come across 2 people just casually buying groceries dressed as Celestia

10750312
That sounds absolutely hilarious to be honest

10750291
Celestia tries to contact Sunset, but Sunset ignores her. Later on, Twilight finds Celestia's copy of the journal and thinks that it's no longer active. She takes notes in it, which set off communication with Sunset. If you're interested in a story that follows this premise as is, I recommend The Witch of the Everfree, which has the same thing happen starting in Chapter 4. Instead of following that path, in this story Sunset demands that Twilight stop using the journal, which Twilight does after Sunset cuts off communication.

It's not clear whether Twilight gives the journal to Celestia directly, or Twilight follows Sunset's advice and simply puts it back where she found it. Either way, Celestia learns that Sunset responded to Twilight five times, which is five times more than Sunset has responded to her since their estrangement. Celestia pretends to be Twilight and contacts Sunset.

This works, and the resulting correspondence is the story.

It can be inferred that, in the final chapter, Sunset has come to realize to whom she is speaking. Note that Sunset only says "Twilight" once, and it's not in the form of direct address; it's in third person. Every other chapter, she calls the pony she's writing to Twilight, but for this one she only ever says "you". The direct breakdown is two times in chapter one, eight times each in chapters two and three, and none in chapter four.

In other news, this is a very well written story.


On a more selfish note, the reception it's gotten makes me feel a little better about a story idea I have where Celestia reenters Sunset's life under false pretenses.

10750471
Thanks for the breakdown! This was confusing, yet highly enjoyable!

Loved your presentation on this one! The way you set up the not-Twilight aspect was perfectly understated. And I appreciate the nuance of the final chapter, Sunset's realization and her final words to Celestia. Thank you for sharing!

Wow! Just... wow! That was beautiful man! :twilightsmile:
Adding to my favs! :pinkiehappy:

This was wonderful and heartfelt. I just hope they did meet each other again after that, even if it took some years to happen. I'm a sucker for reconciliation fucked l fics with those two :fluttercry:

I will put in the effort to love her as much as I love others.

One single letter tells so much. You take did a wonderful job with this one, well deserving of the favourite. Bittersweet, in the end :pinkiesad2:

Lol are they trying to cry all over the book? I am imagining Celestia slamming her face in the book trying to get rid of the tears lol

Well, this was delightful. :)

The story was quite good, espically at the end, though I think that the premise is let down in the blurb. Instead of having us think that Sunset is talking to Twilight and working out that its Celestia at the end, we know that from the start.

There's no mystery, we know the twist from the very beginning.

Oh my gosh you already own a nightlight!

“I don’t own my dad, he belongs to mom”

10749972
That tiny bit, I think it would feel more natural if Sunset just said "princess",
Nevertheless, a masterful piece. Went directly into my favorites.

I was Celestia's student she picked up from an orphanage because I was powerful. I thought she adopted me, I was wrong. When Mi Amore Cadenza was made an alicorn and got adopted by Celestia, I knew I was being replaced. I demanded she'd make me an alicorn so she would adopt me. Now I'm banished and stealing lunch money from kids for a daily meal. In other words, I'm an exile and a thief, go away. Stop crying, stop crying so much dammit! Wait, can you just turn on the waterworks by will? What the fuck is wrong with you?

Probably my favorite headcanon as to what happened.

10750085
She was an orphan child with no parent its most definitely that Celestia is majority at fault.

Personally my favorite parent child relationship in the series , just so much room for drama and character development

Honestly I don't think with these events sunset would take the crown in this scenario I hope we get to see their reconciliation

10754179
Is that from the comic? If so it means nothing to me. Separate continuity.

10754205
It says she an orphan in the first chapter of this fic :/

Summarised thoughts on this story: Damn

10986848
Thx, I’m actually really proud of this stupid joke lol

Make sure to sleep with a nightlight.

At least twilight didn't mention her dad's name is nightlight.
Telling twilight to sleep with her father...:twilightoops::trollestia:

Login or register to comment