TPrincess of Friendship

• MLP: FiM
• Drama
• Tragedy

After Twilight’s stream of successes, she’s confident that nothing can go wrong. Is she due for a lesson?

• Twilight
• Spike
• Main 6

Bad Dragon · 5.4k words  ·  290  46 · 7.9k views

Princess of Friendship by Bad Dragon is a great piece of work. It’s a short story that plays into the concept of Twilight’s overconfidence and pragmatism, inevitably resulting in dire consequences for her closest friends.

Content

Ah, characterisation. The mane six were well into character; the evidence-driven Twilight, the brash Rainbow Dash and the silliness of Pinkie Pie (and also her Pinkie sense!) are well-written, just to name a few. Their dialogue and mannerisms were well-matched, and can be easily distinguished. Kudos to the author on this.

Next, the story itself. Although I chuckled at the thought of a mere boulder defeating Twilight and her friends, the writer seemed to convince me that there was a genuinely good chance that that was probable, but…

She continued trotting as she magically opened her saddlebag and floated out a book titled, Running a Kingdom 101, by Sombra. Opening it in the middle, she was immediately entranced by the content and didn’t pay any attention to the section of the wall which was hit by the pebble, collapsing behind her.

The overconfidence displayed by Twilight was more than noticeable. To be willing to read and walk while there is a potential threat of a landslide sounds risky to me. Even if I were that confident, I would still not distract myself further with a book as I walked through. Also, it was interesting to note that Twilight was digesting a book by Sombra.

And when she executed that spell to bring her with her friends, the bewilderment displayed by her companions were justified and relatable. While Twilight’s words were too on point, as she was more concerned over being close with her friends yet again, I have to say that I felt that it was too forced and obvious. Granted, Twilight can be like so in situations such as this due to stress and so on, but still, it felt as if there was no conscious attempts made by Twilight to hide or conceal what she truly thought of the situation.

The confession that Twilight made to the group was slightly long-winded, I must admit. The in-depth explanation that Twilight gave on her magic was convenient to the plot, to inform the reader of how the spell worked, though I believe it can be condensed further. Perhaps the explanation could do with less technical-sounding nomenclature for the reader to better follow her chain of thought. Yet, Twilight was always fond of using such words…

The ending was pretty decent, forcing Twilight to reflect on her mistakes and her ability to carry her title with dignity.

Overall, while the story plot was great, I felt that I could not connect to emotions of the six. I postulate that the story relied on the dialogue to carry forth the feelings of them with some amount of descriptions pertaining to their body language and facial expressions. On the other hand, I understand that adding these would influence the pace of the story. A balance should be struck, and I felt that it is slightly, just slightly off balance.

Flow

The flow of the story went fairly smoothly, though -

“Positioning—checked. Corporal integrity—confirmed.” Twilight Sparkle smiled and shook from enthusiasm. “I finally did it. Everything is precise.” She took a deep breath. “Let there be time.”

Applejack cringed then looked around. “Everypony all right?

I felt that the jump was abrupt. The addition of a simple connecting phrase would aid in tying the timeframes together.

Language

Language errors were scarce, with a few punctuation and tense errors. Paragraphing was excellent and helped split ideas apart for easy reading. Apt use of font embellishments throughout.

Stance

Conclusively, I opine that this is an enjoyable read that I will recommend. The story was cogent, the flow was generally smooth and the readability was great. To improve, I think the author could infuse more subtle movements or feelings into the dialogue.

Content/Plot: 7.5/10
Flow/Communication: 8.5/10
Language/Readability: 8.8/10
Overall: 8.3/10

7224538 Thank you for the review! It's really well written and precise. You're really good at this.

I've fixed my story on some parts due to your feedback. So, again, thank you.

7224702
No problem. Thank you for the recommendation!