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Happy Deathday to You
Twilight wasn’t sure what was more surreal, her new wings or ponies bowing to her as she walked by. However, after the past few days, she’d learned to expect this sort of thing. Even after telling half a dozen ponies that she didn’t expect them to kowtow, she still arrived at Sugarcube Corner’s back door a bit ahead of schedule.
Pinkie opened the door on the first knock, her usual wide smile on her face. “Heya, Twilight!”
“Hi, Pinkie.” Twilight entered as her friend moved aside. There was no other sound but the record player. “I guess I’m the first one…” She trailed off as she took in the room. It was by and large a standard Pinkie party: punch, snacks, streamers, music. However, there were a marked lack of games, the record was a contemplative piano piece, and there was a distinct “night sky” theme in the decorations’ color scheme, culminating in a black banner bearing Twilight’s own cutie mark.
After a few more moments of vacant gawping, Twilight found her voice. “Uh, Pinkie?”
“Yeah?”
Twilight turned to Pinkie, whose smile hadn’t shifted. “We did establish how teleportation doesn’t kill ponies, right?”
Pinkie nodded. “Yup!”
“Okay. Good.” Twilight took a deep breath. “Why are you throwing me a wake?”
“Well…” Pinkie looked away, her ears folded back. ”You know that scorch mark you left on the library floor?”
Twilight snorted. “Intimately. You wouldn’t believe the spells it took to clean that thing.”
“And you know how it was actually on top of the floor?” Pinkie reared up and held her forehooves slightly apart to indicate the vertical thickness. ”Like it had been standing there before a bunch of rainbow beams zapped it?”
“Oh.” It was Twilight’s turn to look away for a moment. “Well, yes. I hadn’t thought anypony would notice.”
“Mom and Dad taught me how to count the layers in a sheet of mica. That was pretty obvious.” Pinkie forced a smile. “It's how I make such great baklava!”
“Makes sense.” Twilight tried to chuckle, but it came out as more of a sigh.
After a brief stretch of awkward silence, Pinkie said, “So, yeah, this is why I told you to come ten minutes earlier than everypony else. I wanted to make sure you were okay with this.”
“I appreciate the thought, Pinkie, but I wish you’d asked me a bit more in advance.”
“Sorry,” said Pinkie, her mane and posture sagging.
“I do understand what you were thinking. I suppose I did kind of, well, die.” Twilight swallowed as her stomach twisted. She tried to smile again. “Besides, how many ponies get attend their own funerals?”
Pinkie nodded so fast that her head blurred a little. “Right?”
“Still, I didn’t want any of you to think you’d killed me. It didn’t even hurt.” Twilight frowned at the big black banner. “But I guess we’re stuck with this.”
“Don’t you worry, Twilight. Give me two shakes of a pony’s tail.”
Twilight turned back to Pinkie. As she did, a blur of motion surrounded her. By the time she finished moving her head, the black had been replaced with more shades of purple, the music was an upbeat dance tune, and a piñata had materialized from somewhere.
Pinkie has barely breathing any more heavily. “Better?”
Twilight giggled. “Better.”
Pinkie opened the door on the first knock, her usual wide smile on her face. “Heya, Twilight!”
“Hi, Pinkie.” Twilight entered as her friend moved aside. There was no other sound but the record player. “I guess I’m the first one…” She trailed off as she took in the room. It was by and large a standard Pinkie party: punch, snacks, streamers, music. However, there were a marked lack of games, the record was a contemplative piano piece, and there was a distinct “night sky” theme in the decorations’ color scheme, culminating in a black banner bearing Twilight’s own cutie mark.
After a few more moments of vacant gawping, Twilight found her voice. “Uh, Pinkie?”
“Yeah?”
Twilight turned to Pinkie, whose smile hadn’t shifted. “We did establish how teleportation doesn’t kill ponies, right?”
Pinkie nodded. “Yup!”
“Okay. Good.” Twilight took a deep breath. “Why are you throwing me a wake?”
“Well…” Pinkie looked away, her ears folded back. ”You know that scorch mark you left on the library floor?”
Twilight snorted. “Intimately. You wouldn’t believe the spells it took to clean that thing.”
“And you know how it was actually on top of the floor?” Pinkie reared up and held her forehooves slightly apart to indicate the vertical thickness. ”Like it had been standing there before a bunch of rainbow beams zapped it?”
“Oh.” It was Twilight’s turn to look away for a moment. “Well, yes. I hadn’t thought anypony would notice.”
“Mom and Dad taught me how to count the layers in a sheet of mica. That was pretty obvious.” Pinkie forced a smile. “It's how I make such great baklava!”
“Makes sense.” Twilight tried to chuckle, but it came out as more of a sigh.
After a brief stretch of awkward silence, Pinkie said, “So, yeah, this is why I told you to come ten minutes earlier than everypony else. I wanted to make sure you were okay with this.”
“I appreciate the thought, Pinkie, but I wish you’d asked me a bit more in advance.”
“Sorry,” said Pinkie, her mane and posture sagging.
“I do understand what you were thinking. I suppose I did kind of, well, die.” Twilight swallowed as her stomach twisted. She tried to smile again. “Besides, how many ponies get attend their own funerals?”
Pinkie nodded so fast that her head blurred a little. “Right?”
“Still, I didn’t want any of you to think you’d killed me. It didn’t even hurt.” Twilight frowned at the big black banner. “But I guess we’re stuck with this.”
“Don’t you worry, Twilight. Give me two shakes of a pony’s tail.”
Twilight turned back to Pinkie. As she did, a blur of motion surrounded her. By the time she finished moving her head, the black had been replaced with more shades of purple, the music was an upbeat dance tune, and a piñata had materialized from somewhere.
Pinkie has barely breathing any more heavily. “Better?”
Twilight giggled. “Better.”
Yeah, that thing with the teleportation death. Actually reminded me of that before it was mentioned, heh.
The writing in this one's fine, but for me, it's all weighed down by the lack of ambition of this being an actual story. It's more like a single scene, and it feels very inconsequential, which is why I can't mark it very highly.
The writing in this one's fine, but for me, it's all weighed down by the lack of ambition of this being an actual story. It's more like a single scene, and it feels very inconsequential, which is why I can't mark it very highly.
This is a very surprising take on Magical Mystery Cure, but I don't think there's enough logic to justify Pinkie's opinion. Twilight clearly still experienced continuity, despite the fact that they killed her before she ascended, so there's really nothing to mourn.
This is confusing. Why should the fact that Twilight told ponies not to cowtow cause her to be delayed...?
Even after telling half a dozen ponies that she didn’t expect them to kowtow, she still arrived at Sugarcube Corner’s back door a bit ahead of schedule.
This is confusing. Why should the fact that Twilight told ponies not to cowtow cause her to be delayed...?
>>wYvern
I think you know already, but I'd like to be clear that this isn't actually about teleportation death. See my review.
I think you know already, but I'd like to be clear that this isn't actually about teleportation death. See my review.
Mane Six count (Don't mind me, I'm just curious as to how many times each of the Mane 6 appears):
Applejack: 3
Pinkie: 2
Rainbow: 1
Twilight: 1
So the good news is both characters are in character and that if things had gone down the way they did, I could easily see a conversation like this. Pinkie being mostly unfazed (since, well, Twilight's -not- dead), and Twilight blowing it off for much the same reason.
That being said, I find the premise a bit too hard to swallow. Rainbow power hasn't done anything deadly yet, and while I don't have perfect recollection of the scene in question, I seriously doubt it ever would.
So it's kind of a mixed bag for me. I know "what ifs" are basically the entire point of fanfiction, but this is just a bit too much for me to buy. But, again, the characterizations here are pretty good.
Verdict: Good if you can buy the premise, but I just can't.
Applejack: 3
Pinkie: 2
Rainbow: 1
Twilight: 1
So the good news is both characters are in character and that if things had gone down the way they did, I could easily see a conversation like this. Pinkie being mostly unfazed (since, well, Twilight's -not- dead), and Twilight blowing it off for much the same reason.
That being said, I find the premise a bit too hard to swallow. Rainbow power hasn't done anything deadly yet, and while I don't have perfect recollection of the scene in question, I seriously doubt it ever would.
So it's kind of a mixed bag for me. I know "what ifs" are basically the entire point of fanfiction, but this is just a bit too much for me to buy. But, again, the characterizations here are pretty good.
Verdict: Good if you can buy the premise, but I just can't.
>>Trick_Question
Typically you don't react to people bowing to you, you just continue on. Stopping and telling people "please don't do that", meanwhile, takes more than 0 seconds. Doing this to literally everyone you pass takes considerably more than 0 seconds. Especially since some (if not many) would probably argue and go "but I'm just showing respect, Princess" and she'd have to explain exactly why she doesn't like it. Which takes considerably more than considerably more than 0 seconds.
Why should the fact that Twilight told ponies not to cowtow cause her to be delayed...?
Typically you don't react to people bowing to you, you just continue on. Stopping and telling people "please don't do that", meanwhile, takes more than 0 seconds. Doing this to literally everyone you pass takes considerably more than 0 seconds. Especially since some (if not many) would probably argue and go "but I'm just showing respect, Princess" and she'd have to explain exactly why she doesn't like it. Which takes considerably more than considerably more than 0 seconds.
>>Bugle
It took me forever to get this. It's a tensing problem.
I read it as Twilight told ponies dozens of times in the past, not during her walk. The sentence says "after telling ponies" and then describes her walk. It should say "while" somewhere.
It took me forever to get this. It's a tensing problem.
I read it as Twilight told ponies dozens of times in the past, not during her walk. The sentence says "after telling ponies" and then describes her walk. It should say "while" somewhere.
>>wYvern
>>Bugle
>>Cold in Gardez
Hmm. Actually Bugle's makes more sense. I forgot that in Magical Mystery Cure, Twilight's transformation took place outside of the library. That means this has to be a use of Rainbow Power outside of canon.
Author, I think this needs more elucidation. You can't reference something that didn't happen in the show without filling in more blanks than this.
>>Bugle
>>Cold in Gardez
Hmm. Actually Bugle's makes more sense. I forgot that in Magical Mystery Cure, Twilight's transformation took place outside of the library. That means this has to be a use of Rainbow Power outside of canon.
Author, I think this needs more elucidation. You can't reference something that didn't happen in the show without filling in more blanks than this.
>>Trick_Question
This is all your fault, Trick. You wrote Faster Than Starlight, and then Zaponator wrote Blink, and then I wrote Dying to Get There, and here we are!
More seriously, WRT: this story: I think that the core idea here is actually fine (and amusing given the running gag of lethal teleportation) but I was kind of disappointed that the story didn't really do much of anything with the whole "Twilight died" thing, which seemed to be the central point of the story. It needed meat. Why was it significant? Or was it not significant? DID Twilight actually die, and the new Twilight is just a replica? Or is she the original Twilight, just with a new body?
THESE ARE QUESTIONS I WANT ANSWERS TO DAMN IT.
Instead, the story just kind of shrugs vaguely at it, instead of actually addressing the philisophical issue at all, and it doesn't just play it for straight-up laughs, either, which makes me think it wanted to be serious.
If it was supposed to be a comedy, make it funnier. If it was supposed to be serious, think about why it matters (or doesn't matter) to the characters and put that into the story.
This is all your fault, Trick. You wrote Faster Than Starlight, and then Zaponator wrote Blink, and then I wrote Dying to Get There, and here we are!
More seriously, WRT: this story: I think that the core idea here is actually fine (and amusing given the running gag of lethal teleportation) but I was kind of disappointed that the story didn't really do much of anything with the whole "Twilight died" thing, which seemed to be the central point of the story. It needed meat. Why was it significant? Or was it not significant? DID Twilight actually die, and the new Twilight is just a replica? Or is she the original Twilight, just with a new body?
THESE ARE QUESTIONS I WANT ANSWERS TO DAMN IT.
Instead, the story just kind of shrugs vaguely at it, instead of actually addressing the philisophical issue at all, and it doesn't just play it for straight-up laughs, either, which makes me think it wanted to be serious.
If it was supposed to be a comedy, make it funnier. If it was supposed to be serious, think about why it matters (or doesn't matter) to the characters and put that into the story.
Well, this is a sweet little slice of life, though as TD noted, it does elide over some rather heavy subject matter. I can understand the characters not wanting to explore it in greater depth given the context, but expanding it to give the existential questions their due would be a good idea.
>>Trick_Question
I’m afraid you’re misremembering it. In "Magical Mystery Cure," Twilight and friends went into the library, she finished Starswirl’s last spell, and the Elements of Harmony fired friendship lasers at her (as seen here; note the shelves) until all that remained was a scorch mark in the shape of her cutie mark.
>>Trick_Question
I’m afraid you’re misremembering it. In "Magical Mystery Cure," Twilight and friends went into the library, she finished Starswirl’s last spell, and the Elements of Harmony fired friendship lasers at her (as seen here; note the shelves) until all that remained was a scorch mark in the shape of her cutie mark.
This was good, mostly sweet, and fairly complete as a story. Author, you write Pinkie well. Others have pointed out the few oddities and issues I would have.
>>FanOfMostEverything
It probably doesn't help that I had no impetus to watch Magical Mystery Cure a second time. I was remembering where she reappeared (I think), but my memory of that one is very sketchy.
It probably doesn't help that I had no impetus to watch Magical Mystery Cure a second time. I was remembering where she reappeared (I think), but my memory of that one is very sketchy.
Well, of course the most-discussed fic so far happens to be first on my ballot. I'd say "What are the chances?" but knowing my luck this was probably guaranteed.
As a story, this piece doesn't tread very much new ground. I'll be honest: I felt like it said nothing I hadn't heard before, which isn't in itself a bad thing but does make it a lot harder for your writing to stick out. What this piece really needed to do is to tell me the same stuff I've heard before in a new way—and that, to me, is where it fell down, because a simple dialogue-based character piece isn't going to cut it.
Which is a real shame, because this is quite an excellent dialogue-based character piece. Pinkie in particular came across fantastically, as >>CoffeeMinion mentioned, but Twilight's own quirks and ways of thinking made their way through in little ways that didn't need to rely on cliché. And, remarkably, it feels like a well-rounded scene—often, pieces like this can come across as directionless, or rushed, but you've played the pacing well and managed to give the piece the right kind of "emotional journey", for lack of a better phrase.
So why wasn't that enough to make this a great piece? Two major problems stand out to me, and I want to cover them both in detail:
Conclusion: there's one spot in this entire piece where the pacing feels off, which sucks because the rest is so well-paced that it seems clear to me this momentary lapse was either an effect of deadlines or word counts. The very ending of the story seems to come almost too early: Pinkie rushes off to clear up the problem before the reader has fully had a chance to acknowledge it. The way you've written it at the moment, it pretty much reads like "Twilight is unhappy that this party might be a bit gloomy, so Pinkie immediately fixes it"—I'm not one to often go around shouting about the importance of conflict in writing, but I will point out than when the conflict of a piece is immediately resolved it makes that conflict feel redundant. Give the reader, and Twilight, time to worry about the problem before it's solved, and your conclusion will probably be an awful lot more satisfying.
That said, I do like your conclusion. It keeps that tone of "understated character exploration" that the rest of the piece has, just putting the characters there and letting them act rather than forcing them into caricatures of themselves; more importantly, it has a sweet and emotionally satisfying final line—equally befitting that tone—that captures a wonderful lightness and a carefree tone, which for me is a perfect example of how slice-of-life stories should feel. Well done, author. That was good!
Technical errors: Okay, there aren't any great offenders beside maybe one or two typos, and technically this piece stands comfortably on its own two legs. But there are moments where your prose seems a little off to me—it feels like it's skirting around what it's really trying to say, flirting with ideas only tangentially related to its message. Of particular note is the first sentence (where, incidentally, I'm not convinced by that comma usage. Somebody better-qualified than myself could clarify this, but I suspect a colon, or something similar, is what you'd want there), which is a very important sentence in any story. If your first sentence gives the readers the impression that a story is going to be about one topic (in this case, directly focusing on Twilight becoming a Princess) and the story moves off on a tangent from there (in this case, a party more directly related to Twilight disappearing before her ascension than her actual alicornhood), it's probably not the best choice.
A lot of other parts of your prose do similar things and, though it's not so much an actual problem with your writing than it is my personal taste, I think the piece would be better off if you occasionally addressed the subject matter a little more directly. The entire opening paragraph's message is, really, "Twilight has gotten used to the whole inconvenience of people bowing to her and how she has to tell them to stop, and she's already started to account for that in her planning." The latter two parts of that are great things to have to infer—it's what makes this such a good character piece, after all—and the first part is addressed in the paragraph, as it should be. I worry, though, that the way you've addressed it takes all the focus of the paragraph off it, as it's used in a sentence that subverts the expectations of the one before it. The meaning of the paragraph is hidden away behind a bunch of false leads, and that just feels off to me.
Speaking of that second sentence, I figured I'd just take a moment here to say that I'm not at all a fan of your use of "However". It's not wrong, but it feels like absolutely the wrong place in the story to use an interjection like that—give your readers at least a little time to settle on an idea before shaking things up with something like that!
All in all, this is a piece with a good deal of promise. I love your treatment of the characters here and even though I gave you some flack for the ideas seeming a little lacking in originality, I have to give you credit for the fact that they were quite enjoyable. Thank you, author. I had fun with this one.
As a story, this piece doesn't tread very much new ground. I'll be honest: I felt like it said nothing I hadn't heard before, which isn't in itself a bad thing but does make it a lot harder for your writing to stick out. What this piece really needed to do is to tell me the same stuff I've heard before in a new way—and that, to me, is where it fell down, because a simple dialogue-based character piece isn't going to cut it.
Which is a real shame, because this is quite an excellent dialogue-based character piece. Pinkie in particular came across fantastically, as >>CoffeeMinion mentioned, but Twilight's own quirks and ways of thinking made their way through in little ways that didn't need to rely on cliché. And, remarkably, it feels like a well-rounded scene—often, pieces like this can come across as directionless, or rushed, but you've played the pacing well and managed to give the piece the right kind of "emotional journey", for lack of a better phrase.
So why wasn't that enough to make this a great piece? Two major problems stand out to me, and I want to cover them both in detail:
Conclusion: there's one spot in this entire piece where the pacing feels off, which sucks because the rest is so well-paced that it seems clear to me this momentary lapse was either an effect of deadlines or word counts. The very ending of the story seems to come almost too early: Pinkie rushes off to clear up the problem before the reader has fully had a chance to acknowledge it. The way you've written it at the moment, it pretty much reads like "Twilight is unhappy that this party might be a bit gloomy, so Pinkie immediately fixes it"—I'm not one to often go around shouting about the importance of conflict in writing, but I will point out than when the conflict of a piece is immediately resolved it makes that conflict feel redundant. Give the reader, and Twilight, time to worry about the problem before it's solved, and your conclusion will probably be an awful lot more satisfying.
That said, I do like your conclusion. It keeps that tone of "understated character exploration" that the rest of the piece has, just putting the characters there and letting them act rather than forcing them into caricatures of themselves; more importantly, it has a sweet and emotionally satisfying final line—equally befitting that tone—that captures a wonderful lightness and a carefree tone, which for me is a perfect example of how slice-of-life stories should feel. Well done, author. That was good!
Technical errors: Okay, there aren't any great offenders beside maybe one or two typos, and technically this piece stands comfortably on its own two legs. But there are moments where your prose seems a little off to me—it feels like it's skirting around what it's really trying to say, flirting with ideas only tangentially related to its message. Of particular note is the first sentence (where, incidentally, I'm not convinced by that comma usage. Somebody better-qualified than myself could clarify this, but I suspect a colon, or something similar, is what you'd want there), which is a very important sentence in any story. If your first sentence gives the readers the impression that a story is going to be about one topic (in this case, directly focusing on Twilight becoming a Princess) and the story moves off on a tangent from there (in this case, a party more directly related to Twilight disappearing before her ascension than her actual alicornhood), it's probably not the best choice.
A lot of other parts of your prose do similar things and, though it's not so much an actual problem with your writing than it is my personal taste, I think the piece would be better off if you occasionally addressed the subject matter a little more directly. The entire opening paragraph's message is, really, "Twilight has gotten used to the whole inconvenience of people bowing to her and how she has to tell them to stop, and she's already started to account for that in her planning." The latter two parts of that are great things to have to infer—it's what makes this such a good character piece, after all—and the first part is addressed in the paragraph, as it should be. I worry, though, that the way you've addressed it takes all the focus of the paragraph off it, as it's used in a sentence that subverts the expectations of the one before it. The meaning of the paragraph is hidden away behind a bunch of false leads, and that just feels off to me.
Speaking of that second sentence, I figured I'd just take a moment here to say that I'm not at all a fan of your use of "However". It's not wrong, but it feels like absolutely the wrong place in the story to use an interjection like that—give your readers at least a little time to settle on an idea before shaking things up with something like that!
All in all, this is a piece with a good deal of promise. I love your treatment of the characters here and even though I gave you some flack for the ideas seeming a little lacking in originality, I have to give you credit for the fact that they were quite enjoyable. Thank you, author. I had fun with this one.
Well, the teleportation death joke was funny, but you kind of lost me after that. I mean, I know what the story is supposed to be about, but it was just kind of "eh" to me.
And I still don't understand what Pinkie was saying about the scorch marks being on top of the floor.
And I still don't understand what Pinkie was saying about the scorch marks being on top of the floor.
Happy Deathday to You - B+ with a few technical errors and some stilted dialogue, but at least we could see where it was going and what it was going to do when it got there. The concept behind the story is worthwhile, and I expect this to be expanded into a regular site story, author, or I shall be miffed.
Happy Deathday to You
All right. So. My first idea was rather similar to "Memento Merry," in the sense that it was Pinkie's plans for her own funeral. (Yeah, kind of hypocritical given my criticism of that one.) The problem was that it was only Pinkie's plans for her own funeral, in the form of a letter to her friends. A significant portion was a bulleted list. That didn't seem like it would make the cut.
However, Pinkie did seem to be the right track. Dark isn't usually my thing, so the equine manifestation of levity would do a lot to keep some sweet along with the bitter. So, why not have her extend that "celebrate everything" attitude to one of the possible instances of death on the show, that is, Twilight's carbonization?
Granted, that could've just been a teleport or a plane shift, but the scorch mark (seen here) seemed a bit much, especially since someone managed to clean it off in time for Season 4. Logically, as Pinkie pointed out, that meant it was something burnt onto the wood rather than burnt into it, and that meant that it used to be something else, like a certain lavender unicorn.
I should probably note at this point that I tried and failed to ponify "ship of Theseus." I also considered Washington's axe, but... Shoot! I could've used Hurricane's spear or something. :facehoof: In any case, the talk of interrupted physical continuity brought the teleport death stories to mind, so I threw in the joke as a fond nod to them.
In the end, while this had some interesting ideas, the writing clearly killed it. I cranked it out in a few hours shortly before the deadline and didn't have the time to look at it cold, so there are a number of points where the phrasing only makes sense to me because I know the bits that didn't quite make it to the page. The fact that most people don't rewatch old episodes to make trading cards out of them didn't help either. Still, there's clearly promise here. I just need to think more about where I want to go with it and give the ideas the space they deserve. Thanks to everyone who read it.
All right. So. My first idea was rather similar to "Memento Merry," in the sense that it was Pinkie's plans for her own funeral. (Yeah, kind of hypocritical given my criticism of that one.) The problem was that it was only Pinkie's plans for her own funeral, in the form of a letter to her friends. A significant portion was a bulleted list. That didn't seem like it would make the cut.
However, Pinkie did seem to be the right track. Dark isn't usually my thing, so the equine manifestation of levity would do a lot to keep some sweet along with the bitter. So, why not have her extend that "celebrate everything" attitude to one of the possible instances of death on the show, that is, Twilight's carbonization?
Granted, that could've just been a teleport or a plane shift, but the scorch mark (seen here) seemed a bit much, especially since someone managed to clean it off in time for Season 4. Logically, as Pinkie pointed out, that meant it was something burnt onto the wood rather than burnt into it, and that meant that it used to be something else, like a certain lavender unicorn.
I should probably note at this point that I tried and failed to ponify "ship of Theseus." I also considered Washington's axe, but... Shoot! I could've used Hurricane's spear or something. :facehoof: In any case, the talk of interrupted physical continuity brought the teleport death stories to mind, so I threw in the joke as a fond nod to them.
In the end, while this had some interesting ideas, the writing clearly killed it. I cranked it out in a few hours shortly before the deadline and didn't have the time to look at it cold, so there are a number of points where the phrasing only makes sense to me because I know the bits that didn't quite make it to the page. The fact that most people don't rewatch old episodes to make trading cards out of them didn't help either. Still, there's clearly promise here. I just need to think more about where I want to go with it and give the ideas the space they deserve. Thanks to everyone who read it.