http://www.fimfiction.net/story/269332/blink
You can usually tell what kind of story it’s going to be just by reading the first two or three paragraphs. I should know, I was there when the Justice League of Authors decided on it. This one, about Twilight laboratory activities, is saliently quaint. It’s been some time now since the Golden Oaks library exploded, and Twilight is reminiscing about the good ol’ days. The lil’ rickety laboratory she used to run in her cellar had a certain charm to it and now, it’s gone. You can taste the nostalgia; this is the pitch the story is set to initially.
You can usually tell what kind of story it’s going to be just by reading the first two or three paragraphs. I should know, I was there when the Justice League of Authors decided on it. This one, about Twilight laboratory activities, is saliently quaint. It’s been some time now since the Golden Oaks library exploded, and Twilight is reminiscing about the good ol’ days. The lil’ rickety laboratory she used to run in her cellar had a certain charm to it and now, it’s gone. You can taste the nostalgia; this is the pitch the story is set to initially.
Meanwhile,
Twi feels like doing a little experiment. A teleportation experiment that’ll
“change everything.” Warm-heartedness galore ensues, involving long back-and-forths
with Spike, sciency-talk and expositions about magic from a narrator who seems
to know everything but will only ever tell us so much, much to my dismay and
the story’s advantage. All is done in such good fun that yep, something bad
happens. Or something unexpected at least, the cheerfulness is a guise for
something fascinating enough, which I won’t spoil here.
There’s something to be said about personal voices in third-person narration, they can spoil and they can elevate. This does the latter, because it knows its function, encroaching and opining selectively. Case in point:
“Her excitement to spend the next few hours
poring over paperwork was palpable. Twilight was an odd mare.”
Twilight
was an odd mare. Well, look, we can
identify. Where the characters can’t, the story will relate these traits to us.
It’s like bridging a gap, where the narrator is the carpenter.
The
language is full of suave and very animated too, a lot is described through
very little. That’s because most of it is handled through dialogue that displays
character above all else. The narrative emotes in a way that gives exposition a
natural flow, and the story jumps between them seamlessly. Case in point,
again:
”Twilight sighed, breaking the oppressive
silence of the large room. It was also bigger than her old lab, but she
certainly wouldn't complain about that.
From point
A to point B, she sighs due to a desolate silence, dormant in the large room
though its superior size would be the least of her concerns. The story wisely
associates back to Twilight every time it describes something, making us forget
that we are told things, thus immersing us instead.
The characters
immediately have all the right traits. Spike’s precociousness is especially
important, because the narrative puts special emphasis on it, and in voice and
action, it’s handled swimmingly. Twilight is the ruthless pedant, but with a
playful edge that suits her nicely. She–along with Rainbow Dash–is probably the
most versatile of the mane six. Both of them have that undercurrent of
flippancy, yet strict moral sense that I feel makes them definable. Though it’s
obvious once you reach the second half of this piece, you’ll see for yourself, if
there’s anybody out there… I’m so lonely.
Either way,
the first half is splendidly charming. The two therein play off of one another
nicely, with Spike’s cheekiness and Twilight’s pedantry being the winning polar
combination once again. What we don’t know is that meanwhile, we’re being
spoon-fed information that’ll become important later. Magic matrices,
beep-whoosh thingamajigs and other miscellaneous information, giving us an
off-handed rundown of what we need to know straightforwardly, though I’m sure
it wasn’t for the author.
Consequently,
when it comes to applying this knowledge, the notion can be described
sparingly, using key terms such as “safety measures”, “sub-spells”,
“components”, and “pieces”. The story never gets caught up in qualifying terms
and their usage to us; it simply exposits and lets us figure it out. Too much
context, I think, actually would’ve confused the story a bit, as with the
talk about “safety measures” with regards to the seemingly volatile
teleportation spell we get to hear more about. Everything doesn’t necessarily
have to make sense in context, what matters is if it’s affecting, and you can
bet it is. I did have some problems with the climax of this story.
While going off on a rather fascinating explanation of a known concept, it’s
also becomes the bad kind of anti-climax. Check for spoilers below the star rating.
Surely,
this a piece that–among garish one-shots–craves our attention. Well crafted in
a lot of ways, with an interesting second-half that goes out on a rather
disappointing note. But what really made this story for me are the character
interactions, I could read an entire separate story about Twi and Spike
bickering like they did here, more than enough to earn my
recommendation. If you’re looking for something quaint yet with an edge, read
it.
Spoilers:
Twilight is struck with a terrifying realization, teleportation means cloning followed by death; we can feel the shock of it wearing down on her as it unveils itself, simultaneously being explained to us as Twilight realizes it bit by bit, the build-up and Twilight’s reaction are strong and tangible. And then it stops, far too soon if you ask me. The concept is explained to us whereupon the story reaches for an easy denouement. What about the logistics of it, do they not matter? There’s no use in asking questions if you’re going to turn around and never look for an answer, which it’s implied is what Twilight does. You would think she’d be stunned for a little while but that she’d pull herself together and proceed. I mean, she must’ve thought about the possibilities, right? Cloning is totally implied as feasible if you remove the “ultimate destruction”-part of the spell, what about the possibilities of it? What about the morals of it? Twilight would never put something like that down over a reactionary gush of moral apprehension.
The story ends on a warm note that ties everything together all too conveniently and leaves the reader with an empty feeling in their stomach. I realize a one-shot written to convey an idea might have to stretch the boundaries a bit, because it needs an ending regardless. But mischaracterization is at least one step too far, Twilight’s behavior just spells wrong to me and I’m not sure if this is something the author took into account when writing the story. The burden to account for this, I feel, isn’t on me but on the author regardless.
The story ends on a warm note that ties everything together all too conveniently and leaves the reader with an empty feeling in their stomach. I realize a one-shot written to convey an idea might have to stretch the boundaries a bit, because it needs an ending regardless. But mischaracterization is at least one step too far, Twilight’s behavior just spells wrong to me and I’m not sure if this is something the author took into account when writing the story. The burden to account for this, I feel, isn’t on me but on the author regardless.
