Hello everypony. I am the Critique.

Siblings. Whether you love them or not, they are always there in your life. Again, whether you want them to be or not. I myself have two brothers… Which I keep my distance from… But that’s a story for another time.

The main six are not short of family members and siblings. Twilight Sparkle has her brother, Shining Armor and her sister-in-law, Cadence. Applejack has Big MacIntosh and Apple Bloom and so on and so forth.

The thing I probably love the most about the show is how it teaches younger siblings and older siblings to get along, but teaching them that sometimes siblings will disagree. I felt that was one of the strongest aspects of the stories themselves and I feel like the story today is not any different in this approach.

It’s a highly popular story and not usually one I do. But after the utter crap I had to sit through last week, it was nice to dig into something positive for a change. So let’s review Big Brother, Best Friend… Forever? by Karrakaz

As you can probably tell, there are spoilers for this story, if you haven’t read it yet and you would like to, turn back now. As for the rest of you…

We start the story in first person, something rare among these types of stories, as a narrator describes to us how difficult his life is.

Some ponies say work is the hardest thing you’ll do in life. I would like to say that they’re completely wrong. Tuesdays on their own are grueling enough. They’re not quite like Monday where you’re still rested from the weekend;

I’m afraid Garfield has differing opinions on that.

The narrator mentions having to come home to a wife and two children after a grueling day of work. And if any of you are working parents out there, you know that this is the toughest position to ever be in. You come home from an 8 hour shift at work, only to be put back into work, trying to take care of your family and I admire anyone who does this.

Then why do you not have a wife or children of your own?

Shut up!

He comes home from work and notices his daughter, Twilight, is upset about something.

For a brief moment I thought of letting it go. If it was important, she would talk to me, wouldn’t she?

Not necessarily the best thought process when raising a child. If something is bothering them, you need to ask them questions. Perhaps they don’t feel comfortable discussing it and maybe they need a gentle hand (or hoof in this case) to say, “You can talk to me about anything.” That way, it’s up to the child to make that decision, but at least you made an effort to allow them to talk about it.

Fortunately the mother seems to be on the level as he recalls a conversation with her.

“Night,” she’d said, “Twilight isn’t an extrovert like Shining. She’ll keep everything inside if you don’t talk to her.”

He goes to Twilight’s side and asks her is if anything was wrong.

“Miss Goodall doesn’t want me to raise my hoof when she asks a question of the class anymore.”

That bitch! They are trying to put her down! Well, I’ll show them not to mess with filly Twilight!

The father senses that wasn’t what was really bothering her and so he digs deeper and finally Twilight opens up.

And what Twilight asks is a bit of a surprise to him.

“Daddy?” She asked timidly. “Does Shiny hate me?”

… Damn, I was not expecting that. And frankly, neither was the father.

After comforting little Twilight, the father asks why she could think such a thing. Twilight responses…

“T-this afternoon, a-at school. I wanted to give him a hug when he came to get me, b-but he... he...” She didn’t finish her sentence, instead choosing to stifle a cry against my chest.

“What did he do, Twilight?”

“H-he pushed me away and said that I was embarrassing him,” she said, crying even harder.

That insensitive asshole! I know he’s in his rebellious teenage angst driven years, but seriously?! That is a rotten thing to do to your little sister! Your teenage rebellious years do not excuse you from loving your family, even if it’s “Not good for your image.” My god, Shining Armor, at least for now, you’re an idiot!

And yes, I probably shouldn’t be so hard on him. After all, maybe he doesn’t realize how much it hurt Twilight. Maybe he doesn’t realize that he is acting this way and that his actions are hurting those he cares for. But, after the relationship they have together, it still pisses me off that he would do that!

Okay, moving on.

The father tries to comfort her, by explaining that Shining will think that she is embarrassing her. Yeah, way to make her even more upset. He then explains that ponies around his age don’t like to show affection to their families and that in order to fit in, Shining would have to do the same.

Twilight tells her father that she doesn’t care about what the other ponies would think of her and that she will hug anypony she wants to.

Awww, she is so cute. I just want to hug her and…  I mean… um… Monster Trucks and… guns… and other manly…stuff…

Her father says that he couldn’t be more proud of her.

Shining then walks into the room and starts to apologize to Twilight, but Twilight says it’s okay. They reconnect and the story ends with the father feeling better about his day seeing his two children love each other.

This story…

Is adorable. It captures everything I love about the show and captures how to treat your siblings by giving us things that siblings go through. And while I did rant about Shining was pretty much an asshole, I understand that he’s just a young teenager and doesn’t know any better. Hell, about 85% of us were probably like that with our siblings at one point, especially if you have much younger siblings. So, while I did disagree with Shining Armor at the time, it still didn’t seem too out of character for me.

The father was a realistic father. He wasn’t some great “I know all” stallion. He was real and felt that he actually screwed up most of the time. That made him relatable as he wasn’t always able to Twilight the answers she wanted. He always felt like there could be something more he could do to help Twilight through this and I bet every single parent that ever cared about their child had thought this. But regardless, he not incompetent nor stupid. You does makes some good decisions and you can tell he’s trying his best. He still loves his children and would do anything for them.

And filly Twilight. She is absolutely adorable. Every line of dialogue, every movement she made just made want to pick her up and hug her. That is the power of a great story teller, when you feel the character leap off the page and come to life. That is what this author did with only a thousand words. The author created a believable child character, who is full of life, but has questions about the world and has a wide eyed curiosity.

There is a reason why this story is so highly praised. And that is because it’s pretty damn good. The story is written very well, the first person view is a nice change of pace, the characters are relatable to downright loveable and overall, it just gives you that sense of satisfaction that I get from the sibling episodes. If you haven’t checked it out yet, go and click on the link above and read it. You won’t regret it.

As for the rest of you, here’s some more adorable Twilight. Have a great day guys.