Ah yes, nostalgia. There's nothing quite like reminiscence. At some point, each and every one of us was a bright-eyed, cheerful little foal, whose one and only dream was to peel the lint from the air filter in the drier after a large load of laundry. I'm getting misty-eyed just thinking about it.

Delving into the past can be a wonderful thing. It reminds us of who we are, and how we came to be the pony we are today. It can also be a place of pain, as the past is written in stone, and there's no escaping from one's failures there. Hindsight is always 20/20. We learn, but we wish we didn't have to.

Thinking of today's story, let's remember a time a bit closer to our hearts. Do you remember when the author, Cheesey Microwave, wrote some reviews here? Do you remember when she begged and begged and begged for someone to review her story, but that never happened? Do you remember when she quietly slipped away, feeling ignored and unappreciated?

Of course, now that she's gone, we're free to point and laugh at her story behind her back. (Seriously though, I've sent her a PM, as is our standard procedure.)

Well, enough rambling about the author's history. Let's check out this steaming pile of horsewords she left behind.

I cropped the chapter titles to save space, but there are seven, with 22,985 words total. A 19 to 1 rating is pretty impressive, but as we all know, that can be deceiving.

Before I talk about the content, I'm going to step back and complain about how awful that description looks. If I saw this lying on the street, I'd get mad at Applejack for failing to curb her dog. Here's an improvement:

Not ten years.

Not one hundred years.

Not one thousand years.

One million years.

An amount of time so ridiculously long, Celestia knew she would never see her beloved sister again. In fact, would Equestria even exist by that time? Would anything of the world she once knew remain? Why, oh why, did those Elements have such a terrible price?

Moping around in the library became Celestia's way to cope. Never really reading, simply grazing. But one day, she stumbles upon a book that could change Luna's fate. All it requires is sending Luna vivid stories, all comprised of cherished memories from their foalhood.

The catch? Luna must read them and write back, or the spell will not work. How would Celestia be able to convince whoever her sister had become to even open the letters?

Put spaces between the paragraphs! That's much easier to look at than some weirdly shaped blob. Some cover art would be good too.

Here's a nice, sappy image of Celestia and Luna from season one. It's not entirely appropriate, but it does remind us of what this story is working towards. The title would also be better if it said, "Remember When..." with an ellipsis at the end to indicate omitted content.

Now, as for the setup, it's arbitrary and contrived. Where did that million years thing come from? Do the Elements of Harmony suddenly have a users manual? How would Celestia even know? Stating that Luna's banishment was intended to be permanent would have had the same effect, but without the awkwardness.

Aside from that, the potential for shortening Luna's sentence by sending embarrassing childhood stories to Nightmare Moon is a good premise. It provides a long and hard path to redemption for our banished princess, and Celestia will be forced to reconcile the energetic fun-loving little filly she used to know with the wicked monster that she'd banished to the moon. Plus, we'll get to see Ce-Ce and Lu-Lu being adorable. There's much to look forward to, and that makes for a good hook. If only it played out that way.

Chapter One: The Book • 23rd November, 2014 • 1,302 words

This chapter exists to set up the premise outlined in the description, but it fails, and fails hard.

"Your Highness, would you like some tea?"

"No, Rosemary. Knock it off."

"Yes, m'lady."

Celestia spun around, her lips curled into a fierce snarl. "You don't mean that. You've never meant it. You always have to come back and bother me! I don't want any tea, I will never want some tea, and if you bother me one more time-"

"I will be fired," the green mare calmly replied.

"Yes!"

Right off the bat, we begin with a total non-sequitur and talking head syndrome. Forget the whole tea thing; either Celestia really hates Rosemary, or Rosemary really hates Celestia. I get the feeling that the hatred is mutual. Also, who is Rosemary? She can't be important since this story doesn't have an OC tag. As a generic castle servant, she's way out of line. Celestia's also oddly snappy, which doesn't fit her character well. She's one of the nicest ponies on the show!

As it turns out, Rosemary's threatening to resign because Celestia's been acting mopey after banishing her sister. Wow. Way to support your princess and be there for her in her time of need, generic green pony with a raspberry mane. /sarcasm

Apparently, getting sassed was what Celestia needed, because she mellows out and this supposedly unimportant castle servant gives advice about putting on a mask for the sake of appearances.

It had been thirty-two days and fifteen hours exactly since Luna had corrupted herself. The elder sister's mood had only worsened when she discovered how long the plan had been brewing in Luna's mind, and ever since she'd become introverted and harsh. When a visiting duke demanded she come and represent her ponies, she had demanded he lay his neck in the guillotine. Purely in jest, of course, but he had been offended nonetheless.

Yikes, this is so deep into hostile OOC territory that we've stepped on a character assassination landmine. Celestia can't jest about public execution! That's an obvious threat, not funny, and exceptionally poor taste. She loves her ponies. That's one of her most defining character traits. She'd never jest about killing them!

She pulled a brightly colored book off one of the shelves, its vibrant yellow binding old and cracked. It had apparently kept its color well, although the same could not be said for the material itself. Written in crude ink were the words "Please Don't: A Remedy for Parents Against Corporal Punishment".

She opened it, read a few biased paragraphs and tossed it aside. The alicorn pulled a different book, one with a strangely leathery cover, and opened it. To her horror, it was a book on necromancy. The particular page she had opened to was all about the many uses of blood extracted from a living pony. Disgusted, she burnt it until it was simply a pile of ashes.

Her entire afternoon repeated the same process: observe, open, taste and trash. Observe, open, taste and trash. Observe, open, taste and trash.

I think we switched scenes here? Given the tea thing, I assumed the conversation was taking place in her own room, but now we seem to be in a library given all the books that she's randomly destroying.

I can't possibly fathom why anypony would think that Celestia would act like this. Sure, she might be repulsed by necromancy specifically, but what about all the other books? Were they guilty by association? Did she not like the way that they smelled? Does she randomly hate books along with tea?

In canon, Celestia is a teacher. She might not have a passion for books like Twilight does, but she still appreciates their usefulness to the point where she preserves the dangerous tomes in a restricted area rather than destroying them. Besides, most of the books that Twilight has read were assigned directly by Celestia herself.

In this story, we have a mopey, whiny, snappy, impulsive, spoiled brat instead of the calm and collected princess that we know and love. I can understand her acting differently because she's much younger and depressed over the recent loss of her sister, but not to the point where she could be giving Diamond Tiara lessons on bitchiness.

Celestia's rampage is brought short when she happens upon a book about shortening banishment sentences. Um, how convenient? I don't even know why she was in the library in the first place, but she apparently found what she was looking for. Except, the page she needs is missing.

She began a desperate and frantic search to find the missing sheet. Throwing books off of the shelves and onto the ground, shaking every book with slight gaps between pages, even bucking the walls to get any loose papers on the ground. Many fell, but none were the missing page.

She goes on another violent rampage, only to discover that the page she'd been looking for had been stuck in her mane the whole time.

That was supposed to be a joke, but the execution was terrible. Why did the librarians or other ponies she talked to not care about the damage she was causing? How did the missing page even get stuck in her mane in the first place? She didn't react at all when the page was found so there wasn't any point to this scene at all. If you're going to tell a joke, at least follow through with it.

One must send letters containing fond foalhood memories to the banished. He must enchant the paper with any good luck charm he chooses. The banished must write back in the same fashion, omitting the good luck charm. This must be done until the casting of enchantment burns the paper to ashes. At that point, the spell will have taken place and the banishment, counting any time that has already passed, will only last one thousand years. This seems considerably easy compared to the warning, but most villains are banished for a million years and they rarely wish to correspond with somepony who tries to bring them back, as their ultimate intention(reformation) is quite obvious in most cases.

So many ponies have rejected the letters that I must include this warning: do not send another letter until you have received one in return. If you try to ignore that warning, the good luck charms will become bad luck and ultimately do more harm than good. While the pony will arrive within one hundred years instead of one thousand, their heart will be blackened and unsalvageable. If you accidentally send a letter before one is received, you must make every attempt to intercept the delivery before it is too late.

These are the rules presented and they are, uh, something. At first glance they look okay, but I have two major misgivings about them. First of all, once the spell 'works' and the banishment gets reduced, no further correspondence is possible because the letters get burned. That's pretty crappy. If the point is reformation, then wouldn't it make sense to allow the correspondence to continue?

Secondly, the warning at the end forces the author into a corner. Celestia's first letter will have to be perfect or the story will end before it can begin. Given how poorly she's been portrayed thus far, this does not fill me with confidence. It would have been better not to include that part and give her some freedom to fail.

Author's Note:

If anypony has ideas for a foalhood memory, I'm all ears. Literally. Which made typing this incredibly difficult.

Oh boy... While it's fine and all to take requests, don't beg for ideas. That just makes you sound insecure and desperate for attention.

Now that this chapter's ended, I feel as if I leaned less about this story than I did from reading the description. We never got any explanation for that million years thing. Celestia's, erm, 'activity' in the library was far removed from what I'd expected. Wonton vandalism isn't any sort of coping mechanism that I know of related to 'moping around.' We did get the terms of the reformation spell in more detail, so it wasn't a complete loss, but I was actually happier with the vague version presented in the description.

You know, when the author asked what she was doing wrong, and 'everything' immediately comes to mind, that can't be a good sign. Still, this story does have an overly positive rating, so it can't be that bad, right? Right? I can only cross my tail and hope.

Chapter Two: Remember When You Ran Away? • 23rd November, 2014 • 2,487 words

This chapter starts right off with Celestia's letter. The memory she's selected is one in which Luna ran away. That could be a clever allegory for their current situation, where Luna's 'run away' to the moon, but that would be giving this version of Celestia way too much credit. Honestly, she wears blinders in this story and can't plan past her nose.

Fed up with early bedtimes and constant pastry theft(I'm still sorry!), you packed your bags and bid me a loving farewell that consisted of spitting on my cake and telling me that you'll "sniff me later". I believe the term you were looking for was "smell ya later", but I digress.

I watched you trot out the door, your tail flipping from side to side as it always did when you were deep in thought. Whether you were pondering a new location to settle down in or how you would come across your next cookie since you'd left your bit bag under your pillow, obviously it was quite important. Did you even notice that you left it there? Honestly, my dear, you must've been in such an awful rush to get away from the tyranny that is Ce-Ce! How could you have possibly survived without the three hundred and sixty-two bits you had carefully saved up for over the years?

The narrative here switches to first person, and the story does a good job of including Celestia's voice as the narrator. This is much better than the dry, disinterested narrative voice we get in the frame (outer) story, but it still doesn't save this part from its faults.

Quite frankly, this mini-story is confusing and very hard to follow. I had to read through it several times, but I think I manged to get the gist of it.

Lu-Lu runs away because she's angry at her sister and doesn't want to put up with her anymore. She then stops to play with dolls, and it turns out that she'd hit her sister before fleeing and feels bad about that, so she cries.

Ce-Ce, who'd been trailing her wayward sister like some sort of creepy stalker, can't stand Lu-Lu tears, so she reveals herself. In the confusion, Lu-Lu's hobo bag breaks and the conflict is resolved because Lu-Lu had felt so bad about hitting her sister that she'd already written a lengthy apology note before leaving. They go home after that.

Yeah... no. It might be cute and all, but it makes so little sense that Sweetie Belle's play looks like a masterpiece by comparison. Obviously, the thing to do while angrily running away is to stop and play with dolls. If Lu-Lu was so upset with Ce-Ce that she'd run away, then why was she crying about hurting her? Even her apology note had bitterness to it.

It's one thing to catch a wayward child, reprimand her, and drag her home; it's quite another thing to spill her luggage, snoop in her stuff, and go home as if nothing had ever happened. If anything, Lu-Lu should have been even angrier at Ce-Ce for violating her privacy. Some sort of lesson should have been learned and there should have been a reconciliation, but neither of those things happened. Why pick this story to recall if there wasn't going to be any sort of subtle message to it?

Luna, Nightmare Moon, whoever you are, even if your deepest desire is to claim my throne as well as my life, I beg of you to write back with another memory. Even if your heart is fully blackened by the forces that possess you, I still want to bring you home as soon as possible. Comply, I beg of you!

Your loving sister,

Ce-Ce

Ouch. Celestia bookends her letter with a snooty, desperate plea that's so transparent that it might as well be made of glass. Yes, that's right; Celestia did the exact thing that the book warned against despite having read the warning! Celestia has the memory of a goldfish. A true diplomat would have goaded Nightmare Moon into writing back instead of demanding a reply. She's not the sort of villain who can be bossed around!

I guess as some sort of nod towards that requirement, Celestia goes out of her way to seal the letter with an old, crappy seal that they made as part of a school project that Luna loved. She then sends the letter, but forgot to add a good luck charm.

See what I mean about being unable to plan past her nose? At this point, I don't think that Celestia could see a plan unless it was inserted directly into her eyeball.

Rosemary reappears to chide Celestia for making a mess and getting ink all over herself. She also has a full-grown son, and is apparently suffering from arthritis. Um... what? If Rosemary is old, that should have been mentioned last chapter so that we could have gotten our first impression right. Her stopping by every hour with tea sounds too spry for a pony suffering from inflammatory joint pain, ya know?

Anyway, Celestia takes a bath and dribbles water all over her bedroom when she discovers that a letter has been delivered to her bed, for some reason. It turns out that some snob by the name of Prince Storm, who wrote his letter in bold text for some reason, wants to fob the Gala off onto Celestia because nopony else wants to host the most important, must-attend event of the year. It's too bothersome to clean up afterwards, apparently. Is Celestia the only noble pony with servants? She agrees, then discovers that her bath hadn't worked and her fur's been stained grey.

She dumps the soiled bath water and brings in a grumpy servant called May Flower to fetch more.

"I require you to fetch water and sufficient wood for burning. You are to use the wood to heat the water, which in turn you shall deliver to the royal washtub. You may not delegate this task to any other servant."

May Flower sighed and trotted off, mumbling under her breath. Many of the poor foals near the castle told Celestia that the bright magenta mare forced them to do dreadful tasks in her stead, and Celestia was absolutely tired of it. She wasn't hired to be a supervisor, she was hired to serve her princess' every whim.

Celestia has no appreciation for talent. Delegation is a useful skill. If May Flower has a knack for it, why not promote her? The only reason to care about who does the actual work is to be petty and vindictive. It sounds like she'd rather have slaves than servants.

"You haven't noticed? Half of Equestria seems to feel the same way you do, but it's not because they lost Luna. They feel like they lost you. You never come out of the castle, you don't make visits to schools that you had carefully scheduled weeks before, you're continually forgetting to raise the moon at the right time which messes with the children's bedtimes... need I say more?"

The princess paused. "I suppose not. Keep in mind, however, that I'm considering some new ponies to hire, and I'm already overstaffed."

After being pressured into revealing why she's so grumpy, May Flower has the tact not to bring up the forced labor she just went through and instead offers some not-so-subtle advice about improving morale by setting a good example. This is clearly a pony who knows a thing or two about leading others. In response, she gets a threat.

The chapter ends when a response from Luna/Nightmare Moon arrives. Giant, foam thumbs-up on that cliffhanger. At least this chapter does something right.

My general thoughts so far? This story is off to a terrible start. It generally has poor attention to detail, and we have tyrant Celestia for no good reason. The letter was the best part, but it lacked coherence and with little detail was very hard to follow. It wasted all of its potential. But! This story does have an overly-positive rating, and we haven't yet see the other side of this story. Luna/Nightmare Moon's reply is going to be very critical and things could still turn around.

Chapter Three: Remember Our Encounter With Robbing Hood? • 25th November, 2014 • 2,699 words

Let's dig right in, shall we?

I write to you with astral ink and paper forged from the sky. How this is possible, I do not know. I simply attempt to conjure and this appears.

The forces that once controlled me now patrol the place I am banished within, making sure my every attempt to leave Is foiled. They seem to understand that they are the ones who belong here, not me, but they want company. Or perhaps they hate me. Or they need a pawn.

Why you ask for memories you never clarified, but I shall still oblige with one of my fondest. Before I begin the tale, however, I must say that I didn't remember the running away incident until you brought it to my attention.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

This story just wrote out Nightmare Moon completely! It didn't even try to do anything with her. She basically doesn't exist! On top of that, Luna's not even going to show one hint of jealousy? She's not the least bit bitter that she's been banished to the moon? She's not going to have any sort of personality whatsoever?

Hey, do remember that larger narrative which promised us a long and hard journey towards redemption? Well guess what? It invested in Enron. It voted for Nadir. It filled in all the bubbles on a standardized test. It made yet another Land Before Trot movie. It constructed an orbital space pipeline to harvest the oil reserves on the moon. It licked the North Pole. It played Russian roulette with an automatic.

It. Has. Failed.

By starting with a version of Luna that's already free of corruption, there's no reason for her to change. Thus, she'll be unable to undergo any character development, and that was kinda the whole point of this story. The only pony who needs reforming here is Celestia, but she's scoffed at any attempt to change her. My hope of actually seeing a plot in this story has shriveled up, died, caught fire, burned, and its ashes have been scattered on the wind.

Luna's letter is about the time they met some wandering vagabond named Robbing Hood. It's set at a later time than the previous letter, as Luna has her cutie mark and they're both old enough to be getting courtship requests. They're talking about one such stallion when a gangly colt ambushes them and demands all of their money so he can give it to the poor. They yell and laugh at him, which doesn't sound the least bit safe because they both have swords magically pressed against their throats, one of which is bloody.

Celestia tosses the swords away with her own magic, which she should have done at the start, and we get this speech from Luna:

I rose to my hooves and in the Royal Canterlot Voice, which you have never seemed to perfect, bellowed, "Thy communist doings shall not go unpunished, for the redistribution of wealth harms those who require the money most! Hast thou not any idea of the true percentage of the honest who are unable to find work? Nay, it is quite miniscule! Those poor you richly reward for being lazy shall never support themselves as long as they have fools like you around! I demand that your real name be told and your parents known so that they may see what a shame you've become and punish you accordingly!"

Apparently, giving poor people money is some kind of enabler which encourages them to keep being poor. This is standard free-market, capitalist propaganda which is based upon the assumptions that those who want to work can find work and that said work will always pay the bills. It's too bad the real world doesn't work that way. Great, now I'm talking politics. I need to wash my muzzle out with soap. It's not like Robbing Hood's plan was any better since mugging people is a terrible thing regardless of what he does with the money.

He then told us about the awful flu that had been going around and that [his parents] were the first two victims. He couldn't afford a tombstone and the townsponies were too coldhearted to even pay a chiseler- or offer one for free- so that he could at least have their names carved in stone. Ever since then, he'd been building a cottage for the caskets to reside in. What money didn't go to the old and disabled ponies would be used for materials.

A quick aside: This story has good grammar, which I appreciate, but there's a minor formatting error here. The hyphens should be doubled or replaced with dashes, and they should be spaced evenly on both sides or not at all.

Now, as for Robbing Hood, did he get no inheritance at all? Why is it more reasonable to build a house for dead bodies than it is to just bury them? That sounds a lot more expensive than a tombstone! This pony might be an orphan, but he sounds mentally unstable in dire need of counseling, especially with the whole robbing ponies at sword-point thing.

So of course, Celestia invites him home and offers him Luna's room to sleep in.

Gee, the next chapter's called, Remember When You Got Pregnant? I wonder how that could have happened.

So this gangly, dirty colt is given free reign over Luna's stuff with absolutely no supervision. Luna's not having anything to hide does not mean that she has nothing that can be broken, soiled or stolen. Why does Celestia even trust this kid? He'd threatened them with actual, bloody swords! Why does Luna not have any say in this?

Well, he finds something that Luna was trying to hide, and ruins a birthday present. They go to bed, and at least Luna's sleeping in Celestia's room. Except, Celestia snores so Luna goes back to her own room in search of ear plugs.

Robbing Hood had made a pillow fort, so Luna makes one too. They somehow battle each other with stray cats and owls (wut?), and Luna wins. She has a home turf advantage, I guess, since she knows some of the cats by name. She then 'executes' him for his crimes.

After a very amusing death, he got up and told me his real name: Dusty Roads. Born to be a traveler, he was desperate to see new places and ponies but also needed to honor his parents. His illogical solution was to become a thief.  Though I tried to talk him out of it, he told me about some truly rotten ponies who deserved to have every little bit stolen away that he had successfully robbed. When I applauded him on that, he took it as proof that I approved and called me "a fellow communist".

To this very day, I'm fairly sure he still has that scar. Or maybe he's dead. Hopefully from the scar.

After some time had passed and the moon was high in the sky, he thanked me for my hospitality and jumped out the window.

That middle paragraph doesn't fit. What scar? He didn't have one before. If she'd hit him hard enough to scar him for calling her a 'communist' then he'd be a screaming bloody mess and not thanking her before leaving on the very next line. Hmm, come to think of it, what exactly were they doing together during that time skip before Luna moved the moon to its apex and he left? Somehow, I doubt they were sleeping.

He left a booby-trapped box behind (when did he have time to make that?) which Luna gives to Celestia to play a prank on her. She falls for it, and that wraps up the letter Luna wrote.

After reading the letter, Celestia's distracted by Rosemary dangling outside a window. The elderly pony risked her life to catch a sickly, molting phoenix, whom she gives to Celestia and names Philomena. She's also suddenly Celestia's former nanny and so old that her tail's caught in the grave. Um, what? Way to provide obvious, necessary details two chapters late!

Celestia anxiously galloped to her writing room, which was now clean thanks to the new and energetic housekeeper. Pulling out a piece of paper, she began to write at a furious speed, detailing what she knew of Rosemary's impending doom.

She looked over it when she was done and crumpled it into a little ball. The hoofwriting was childish, the descriptions poor, and it was hardly fifty words in total. She had no real information whatsoever.

Hey! That sounds a lot like this story. The descriptions are poor, and we have no real information whatsoever!

Author's note:

Okay, so the author believes that she's using Trollestia. That's an odd choice considering the supposed sad themes in this story, but it can still work. It's just too bad, though, that what we actually get is more like this:

Chapter Four: Remember When You Got Pregnant? • 27th November, 2014 • 3,338 words

The chapter starts with Celestia sleeping in. May Flower wakes her up, Celestia raises the sun about four hours late, and goes back to bed.

Then there's a scene with Rosemary talking with her son. I guess the point there is to show that somepony still cares about her, because Celestia obviously doesn't? She could also die at any second, despite being active enough for daring acrobatics just one day ago.

"Your Highness, your presence is required in the throne room."

Celestia rolled her eyes and climbed out of bed. "I gave very specific orders for Luna to fill in my place today."

The guard stared at her. "You're kidding."

"Why would you say that? I've done it before." She yawned and stretched out like a cat. "Why hasn't she come in and tried to bother me yet if she's not fulfilling my duties?"

The brown stallion looked at the ground. "Your Highness, would you like to see a physician?"

"Why does everypony keep asking me that?" The irritation in her voice made it clear that she hadn't an inkling of how ridiculous her words were.

"Luna has not bothered you because you banished her to the moon." He winced and curled up into a ball, hooves over his eyes.

Celestia blinked for a few times, then slowly sank to the ground. She cursed under her breath, then gradually became louder and louder until she was screaming curses loud enough for everypony in the castle to hear.

Wow, just wow. I knew Celestia had the memory of a goldfish, but this just takes the cake. Because she'd forgotten that she'd banished her sister to the moon, this somehow justifies her turning into a massive bitch. She punches out a random noble who'd had the audacity to act offended at her self-centered tirade, then evicts everypony else. Randomly attacking the nobility sure sounds like a terrible way of running the kingdom. I'd ask why nopony had bothered to overthrow her, but the pony who did try doing just that got banished to the moon for a million years. Wait, is that why Luna's banishment was so long? Because tyrant Celestia was just being a bitch?

Celestia then demands another bath, because, why not? While May Flower rushes to carry out that order, Celestia ruins the food on the trays that May Flower had been carrying.

The princess delicately picked up the pie and took a bite, then spat on what was left. As for the pudding, she stepped in it, then licked it off her hoof. It had been so long since she had done something so immature.

Um... no. Celestia's been consistently immature throughout this entire story. She's done nothing but make unreasonable demands, act irresponsible, destroy stuff whenever she gets the least bit upset, and still feels completely justified in her actions. I don't know about you, but this sounds like excellent characterization–

–for fucking Gilda!

Well, as it turns out, the food Celestia'd ruined was actually May Flower's job application for a chef's position. That really came flying out of nowhere. What did May Flower think she was doing by baking that stuff during her current job anyway? Was she trying to get fired? Misuse of her employer's resources aside, ponies don't generally change careers that drastically because of the whole cutie mark thing. She was originally presented as a supervisor working in a servant's position, and now she's suddenly a master chef? Those things aren't even close to being related! I guess she finally came to the realization that working as Celestia's servant is a thankless dead-end job and she wants out.

Hmm, all-told, it feels like that was just tossed in to rub in what a horrible pony tyrant Celestia is. If that's the case, then it wasn't quite over-the-top enough to be funny. See, in addition to being her chef's trial and made from rare ingredients from the Crystal Empire that are no longer obtainable, they should also be part of a bake sale to raise money for kittens and puppies for cancer-ridden orphans. If they don't raise enough, then the only pets they'll be able to afford are rabid timberwolves.

After her conversation with May Flower, a pregnant mare by the name of Terra Cotta is suddenly now talking with Celestia. There's a line break, but it still feels abrupt. Perhaps if some time were taken to actually describe the setting, we wouldn't feel like were being shuffled around like poker chips on a craps table.

"Oh, when's the baby due, Terra?"

"In a few months." The cheerful mare resembled a vase made of the substance she was named after, and her pregnancy didn't help. "We're not sure what to name it yet."

Celestia lazily lifted her blanket, then lowered it again. "I'm tired, but I don't want to sleep."

"Oh, that happens sometimes. Try some tea. It'll help."

"I hate tea."

"What, exactly, did you call me in for?"

"Does your husband have a job?"

"Not yet."

"When he finds one, you're fired."

Terra Cotta was taken aback by this. "But... can't I just take maternal leave or something? Surely the child will be old enough to stay quiet by then..."

"Maternal leave, fired, whatever."

What the fuck!? It's hard to find material this offensive in actual troll stories! This has to be the single worst portrayal of Celestia that I've ever seen! Not only is she being impulsive, petty, tyrannical and sexist, but she's also implying that she hates babies. To make matters even worse, this story is actually trying to be serious.

The cup of coffee that Celestia never ordered and nopony brought in was apparently drugged, so Terra Cotta snickers and walks off. Despite already feeling tired, and suffering from the effects of a sleeping potion, Celestia somehow stays up to write another letter to Luna. I guess the coffee itself is just that strong? I'm pretty sure that's not how things work.

Okay, so this 'pregnancy' story takes place earlier than the other two childhood tales, as their parents are still alive.

One day, you told me to go in my room and not come out until you were done with whatever you were doing. I don't remember your exact words, and I hate speaking in that archaic tongue we once used, so everything we say shall be modernized in my memories. Is that a word? That's a word, right? It's a word.

Say what? Where'd this modernized vs. archaic language thing come from? Since Celestia's former nanny is still alive, I doubt she's any older than around seventy in this story. Plus, it's only been a month since Luna was banished to the moon. Language does shift over time, but not that fast.

So this whole 'pregnancy' thing is actually just a prank, which shouldn't be a surprise given the age of these ponies. (But you never know for certain; at least one story exists featuring pregnancy at that age.) Placing quotes around 'pregnant' in the chapter title would clarify this.

Lu-Lu, of course, claims that she's pregnant.

"Only married ponies can get pregnant," I reminded you. This, however, did not faze you, you stubborn bundle of energy.

Your reply was, "It's a cheat code, Ce-Ce. Only smart ponies know about it. Mommy and Daddy know, but they don' wanna tell us because we're not supposed to have babies yet."

"That's right, Luna. In fact, having babies hurts a lot."

"Not when you swallow a pumpkin seed. Then you lay an egg in your sleep. When it hatches, you get a pony!"

That got pretty ridiculous pretty quickly. I did find this story amusing, and it's also short, so if you'd like to see it in its entirety just open the chapter text and scroll down to the giant quote block and start reading from there. If not, that's fine too. I put a summary in the spoilered text. After deciding to name her baby 'Butthead,' Luna tricks Ce-Ce into believing that she did lay a pony egg in her sleep, complete with an actual embryo inside of it. The egg is a fake, and the embryo a clay figurine, but Ce-Ce totally fell for it.

I guess this goes to show that even the worst stories can still have some good moments. After sending the letter, Celestia has to be reminded to lower the sun because she's not thinking straight because somepony drugged her. Once again, there was no good luck charm, and I think the story forgot about that, because that requirement is never mentioned again. The chapter ends with another author's note begging for ideas.

I'm not sure what to think at this point. The frame story is an epic disaster, but these letters are starting to play out like a series of prank wars. If the story can keep pumping out cute and silly moments like this one, then it doesn't really matter how awful the rest is because this is the type of stuff that people like to see and will keep coming back for.

Chapter Five: Remember When You Met Discord? • 27th November, 2014 • 4,851 words

This chapter is fairly long, at nearly 5k words, but it feels like it drags on much longer. Despite how irritable and insufferable Celestia was yesterday, she's apparently content to sit through a very boring and lengthy argument between Prince Storm and another noble about whether gold or silver should be the primary color for the Grand Galloping Gala. By the way, Prince Storm is the pony who fobbed the Gala off onto Celestia in the first place.

"I like silver," Celestia interrupted. "It reminds me of Luna. Let's use that."

Storm smiled triumphantly. Metal Rays looked like she wanted to reply, but the memory of the princess' strike was fresh in her mind. She simply lowered her head.

Why did this story have to go and remind us of that awful last chapter? Celestia's still oppressing her ponies even when she's not flipping out.

With that detail out of the way, the story decides to bore us another way by talking about Celestia's dress for the gala instead.

Prince Storm orders tea for them both while they settle down for their private conversation.

The princess sat on the ground and held out the empty cup to the filly [servant]. She smiled and poured in a little too much, the chestnut-colored liquid staining Celestia's coat. Horrified, she searched for a napkin to clean it up with, but the monarch shook her head and motioned towards her nephew's cup.

Annoying perspective shift aside, what happened to Celestia's irrational hatred of tea? She very loudly complained every other time tea was mentioned and threatened to be fire the pony who brought it up. Is this some strange, bizzaro version of what tyrant Celestia would be like if she were actually nice? Was she off her meds, and that's what the drugs in the coffee was all about? Is this all just a dream? Heh, that would be pretty amusing—a dream so boring that it's actually keeping her asleep. You know Celestia's characterization has been screwed up royally when it's actually jarring to see her act in-character.

Celestia ruffled his mane, then smoothed it back into place. "Wouldn't want to make you look bad in front of your marefriend," she teased.

"H-how did you...? Celestia, you're just being awful today!" He rose to his hooves and darted away, his wings carrying him farther than his hooves.

She snickered and trotted off to the kitchen. She was hungry. It was time for cake.

So, Celestia's teasing him about being his marefriend, since there are no other ponies in that scene, and he's also her nephew. Like, ew. Then... cake! Like a vapid nopony, she forgets everything in favor of food. I guess her goldfish mind doesn't allow her to process any thoughts not related to instant self-gratification.

Well, there's apparently a funeral procession in the kitchen, because it's full of somber ponies dressed in black.

Celestia's jaw dropped. "Who died?"

The mare and her friend exchanged glances. The fat stallion said, "M-Minister Pennyworth."

The powerful princess wasn't sure if she should be happy because it was some grumpy old stallion who had been begging at death's door for years, or sad because she'd been there when he was a happy and vibrant colt who wanted to be a soldier. She simply turned and trotted away, her face betraying her confusion.

Here, we have a young princess who hasn't yet come to terms with her immortality. Her inner conflict does seem plausible, except for that part about wanting to be happy about his death. It would be one thing if she was glad his suffering had ended, but the way it's worded makes her sound like an insensitive jerk.

Still thinking about cake, she runs into a pony who tells her about May Flower's failed cooking audition. Celestia comes to the realization that this was her fault, and because she's nice now, decides to take it upon herself to correct her mistake. She teleports around looking for her servant, and eventually finds May Flower outside being threatened by colts with sticks.

May Flower's not in much danger as she snaps and literally throws a colt after he hits her, then screeches about quitting her job and tries to trot away. Celestia restrains her, and we get this speech:

"You believed those idiots' every word! What really happened wasn't that I forced them to do things for me; I just wouldn't let them try any of my dishes! Do you have any idea how long I've wanted to be a chef? I mean, do you really think I got this nasturtium and daisy on my flank because I'm meant to be a servant? But no, they have to trip me, fling stones at the food, take bites when I'm not looking, and then what? They tell lies about me to the ever-gullible princess! And now you're in on the game, making me do petty tasks while crushing my dreams! I thought you wanted me out of here! Why are you hindering my every effort to escape?!"

This would have been a shocking reveal if it weren't so damn silly. So the orphans are all nasty, violent bullies? Do they have no supervision whatsoever? How can they possibly expect to pick on an adult and get away with it? Why would they even attack her when Celestia was standing right there? Why did May Flower keep all of this a secret until now? If she really wanted to be a chef, how did she even become a castle servant in the first place?

Also, what's up with that cutie mark? All the bakers we've seen in the show (the Cakes, Sugar Belle, Doughnut Joe) have finished products on their flanks, not raw ingredients. I assumed her name was based off the saying, 'April showers bring May flowers,' so that plus a cutie mark of two flowers should mean that she's a gardener. That's no guarantee though, as cutie marks can also be symbolic. Except... nasturtium are symbolic of patriotism, and daisies symbolize innocence. Neither of those things have anything to do with cooking. There's no cohesion in May Flower's design and nothing makes sense upon closer inspection. It's as if this story just picked a bunch of pony related stuff and haphazardly slapped it together hoping nobody would notice.

Celestia completely ignores the wayward children and arranges for another job tryout at May Flower's diner of choice. And, just to ensure that she's not going to lose any tyranny points even when she's acting nice, she also sits on the judge's panel. As if that's not biased at all. May Flower gets the job, but is hardly appreciative of Celestia's intervention on her behalf. Gee, I wonder why?

Before Celestia can get angry about not being treated like a princess, she gets another letter from Luna. Just so you know, Discord has already been mentioned in the first two letters. Luna was apparently fond of him, and he hadn't done anything bad yet, so it's unlikely that he'll be evil in his first appearance. That's not a bad interpretation of canon, as it would give Celestia reason to believe that he could be reformed. I wouldn't go so far as to make him friendly, though, given his obvious difficulties with that concept.

Luna starts her letter by expressing her preference for the 'old' way of speaking, despite not using that manner of speaking in her previous letter outside of that one passage I quoted. This story sprinkles in 'thee's and 'thou's, mostly in dialogue, but it struggles to use them properly. Here's a guide:

thou - singular informal, subject (Thou art here. = You are here.)

thee - singular informal, object (He gave it to thee.)

ye - plural or formal, subject

you - plural or formal, object

I suppose that was done to help distinguish Luna from a cardboard box, but it still feels as though something is missing.

I can't imagine what. There's more to Luna than just her manner of speaking, ya know?

While play fighting in the woods, they happen upon Discord by accident when Celestia smacks him with her wooden sword. He's annoyed, but not upset and introduces himself after Luna rudely yells in his face.

The creature shook its head. "I am Discord. A creature made to wreak havoc, a child of Echidna and Typhon. My mother hath cast me out, for I do not wish to destroy ponies as much as she does. Yea, she hath even scratched me out of the family records, so that none may know I am of her spawn!"

Ah, mythology. If one wants to give Discord parents, those are pretty good choices. Typhon is a monster with a hundred dragon heads, while Echidna is a half-serpent, half-woman. Having Discord amongst their progeny is a logical conclusion; though, amusingly enough, it would make him Cerberus's brother. No age was given for Discord, but rebelling against his mother? Obvious teenager.

When asked what powers he has, he claims to be able to break the rules. They want him to prove this by bringing their ailing grandmother back to full health. Despite having been treated badly and having nothing to prove, he agrees and follows them home.

First, he wondered if her eyes were the problem. He pulled out his own and offered them to her. She declined. He put them back and tested her reflexes with a small mallet. She slapped him for that, but it wasn't a hard one. She was simply playing around. Grandmother had come to accept him as a third grandchild.

Discord literally just appeared, never introduced himself, offers her body parts, smacks her, and granny automatically accepts him like a third grandchild? What? Meethinks that Luna is getting ahead of herself a wee bit.

Discord turned around and asked rather loudly if we knew what was wrong with her. She said rather loudly that she was an old pony who was going to die.

"Not if I can help it!" Discord stamped his hoof. "I shall make thee younger; mayhaps you shall have more years to live!" He then snapped his talons and turned Drop Spindle into a filly.

It was a sight to behold: she was a filly, yes, but a filly with tiny iron-frame glasses that made her eyes a bajillion times bigger. She opened her mouth to speak and said, "Child, thou would do well to change me back!" in the voice of a tiny foal. It was hilarious!

It sounds like Discord legitimately cares about this random old pony. I'm sorry, but that's way out of character. Empathy is a difficult concept for him, and it's one of the reasons why he struggles with friendship so much. He likes having a friend, but he also wants to be free to do as he wishes. His inability to do anything that would upset Fluttershy and cost him his friendship makes him feel artificially caged, and that's what made him so vulnerable to Tirek's temptations. Under no circumstances would he do everything he possibly could to save the life of some random old pony that he's never met before and has no reason to care about.

The bouquet in your hooves that you had been carrying ever since he gave it to you had been full of bees, and now with Discord's disappearance they came out. They attacked your face, prompting you to scream and run in horror as they stung you everywhere. Interestingly enough, it wasn't venom they injected you with, but blackberry preserves. As I learned later when I got too close and was stung, it didn't really sting. You were just being a bit of a whiner.

When Discord returned with his grassy mattress, you were covered in preserve-oozing welts.

Aside from screwing up his base personality, his random antics are spot-on. If he was there for pretty much any other reason whatsoever, there wouldn't be a problem.

Well, he spends the night with them, becomes Luna's friend, and promises to make their parents supreme leaders of his newly created kingdom. At this point, the story is just forcing him to do things that no sane being would even contemplate. This 'kingdom' thing came out of nowhere, and he hasn't actually met their parents! Discord might be many things, but he's not actually crazy.

In the morning, Drop Spindle has an asthma attack, I think? With sudden shortness of breath and glazed eyes, that's similar to what I'd expect. Regardless, she seems pretty dead-set on dropping dead right there. Discord looks pleased, and good for him! He finally seems to be taking pleasure in the agony of others.

I wanted to kill him, but then he reached out to Drop Spindle. He slowly took her hoof in his paw, squeezed it, and then something wonderful happened.

Her breathing was no longer forced. Her eyes were full of life. Somehow, some way, he had given her back to us. For how long a time, we did not know, but we had her back.

In exchange, he was now rather sickly-looking. What was once sturdy was now limp. He had lost some of his physical strength and charm. This, however, did not stop you from falling in love all over again.

Wow. That really came far out of left field. To put this into perspective, here's another scenario that makes about as much sense:

Rarity: Oh no! Is that some sort of random pony lying in the gutter?

Gutter Pony: Ugh, my head. Um, hello?

Rarity: What is this!? You've been drinking too much! You're liver's about ready to give out!

Gutter Pony: Miss, do I know you?

Rarity: This is the Worst! Possible! Thing!

Gutter Pony: Uurf. D-don't shout. Headache...

Rarity: Now don't you fret, Darling. Allow me to show you my generosity by cutting myself open so that I can magically replace your old, ailing liver with my young and vibrant one!

Gutter Pony: Wait, what are you—AAAAAAAH!

Rarity: SUCCESS! See, that wasn't so bad now, was it? Feeling better? Hmm?

Gutter Pony: I, well, um, I'm definitely sober now, and, uh, scarred for life. I'm going to start screaming once this sinks in, like other things... Er, you're bleeding an awful lot...

Rarity: Oh no, don't you worry about me, darling. After all, everypony knows that livers grow back, right? Right? ...thud.

Random, drive-by organ donation! Yeah, no. Not even Rarity's that generous.

I eagerly await the next letter, especially if it's the one that lets me come home.

Well, the letter's almost done, but it wouldn't be complete without an obvious plot hole. Their only form of communication is these letters, and Celestia never explained what they were for. Thus, Luna should not have this knowledge.

After reading the letter, Celestia muses over how much longer this is going to take, which is kinda pointless, because Luna will remain banished for a thousand years regardless of how quickly the spell takes effect.

Terra Cotta comes in and distracts the princess with her pregnancy, so Celestia decides to put off writing back to Luna in order to make a toy for the unborn baby. I also can't help but notice that Terra Cotta did not request maternity leave until after she stated that her husband had found a job. This suspiciously sounds like it really is unpaid leave, after all. If Celestia's off-hoof remark about it being equivalent to being fired is correct, then Terra Cotta won't even have a job to return to! The more I learn about this version of old Equestria, the less I like it.

The author's still begging for ideas, and a few people have actually started to drop some in the story comments. Well, it was bound to happen eventually.

To summarize, this chapter featured an abrupt one-eighty with Celestia's characterization. She suddenly went from being utterly insufferable and nasty to generally patient and nice. Character development is good, but not when there's no reason for it. Am I supposed to believe that this is how Celestia generally acts and yesterday and the days before were just off days? If that's the case, then she's a walking minefield and any little thing that goes wrong could potentially flip her right back into full-blown tyrant mode.

I went into more detail with this childhood letter than the others, and that's because it just grated me so badly. As I mentioned, it's fine to portray Discord as not evil, but that's no excuse for turning him into a bloody saint! Why is this story so consistent with getting canon characters so wrong? We're now 0/4 with Discord joining the ranks of Celestia, Nightmare Moon, and Luna as unrecognizable characters. Blah.

Chapter Six: Remember When I Got Sick? • 1st December, 2014 • 3,985 words

Hmm, since she's raising the sun on time, I'm guessing we'll get the 'nice' side of tyrant Celestia again. She's still working on that toy with blind devotion when she gets a letter from Prince Storm. He'd only promised one design for her Gala dress, but he actually sent five. Given that he drew each design himself, this boring subplot has turned creepy.

I'm beginning to suspect that his stated reason for giving the Gala to her was a lie. He really wanted to guarantee her attendance so that she'd need a dress so that he could make it for her. Why is he so obsessed with dressing her up? Either he's in love with his aunt, or the story's turning him into Rarity 2.0.

[Celestia] wrote a quick letter back asking him to come to the castle and discuss the dresses with her, then threw the rejected drawings away. Under no circumstances whatsoever would she wear anything like them.

Well, at least Celestia has a harmless outlet for her oppressive, tyrannical urges. She sure showed those drawings who's boss! She's also falling for whatever Prince Storm is planning like a good little pawn.

After dealing with the letter, Celestia decides to take a break and investigate a tower where she'd seen suspicious activity yesterday. The place is a mess, but she finds her mother's old crown and that sets off a short memory.

The tiara, in fact, had been her mother's undoing in one of the battles. Celestia couldn't help but snicker as she thought of it: the proud gray mare returning with a nasty scowl on her face, forced to explain to her children that they didn't have Fort Hoofton captured because her tiara fell off and she bent over to pick it up, resulting in an enemy striking her while her back was turned. She became confused, shouted the wrong order, chaos resulted, and they lost.

The story has a lot of moments like this where some historical event is mentioned briefly, but they're usually confined to the letters. They could be good for world-building, but we never get any context or exposition surrounding them. I don't know where Fort Hoofington is, who they were fighting, what they were fighting for, when this battle took place, or why it was strategically important. It's about as off-putting as acronym abuse or overuse of technobabble/jargon. The only ones who know what any of that mean are the characters themselves, so it feels like they're circlejerking. I'd rather not see the story go off on huge tangents to explain these things, but some info to help place them would be a huge help.

This reminds Celestia of Rosemary, so she finally decides to visit the still-dying mare. Because she'd seen somepony making multiple trips to remove things from the tower yesterday, she assumes that she'd been robbed. But then we get this:

"...I'm so sorry I didn't tell you before, Ce-Ce." The old mare looked at her hooves. "I-I just didn't want you getting worked up over it."

Celestia stared at the rough crown in her towel-wrapped hooves. "So... nothing was stolen?"

"No, no! Cloudy would never do something like that!" Rosemary seemed taken aback by that comment. "He's a good colt!"

"I'm sure he is. I didn't know who it was, so I just assumed..." She set the crown down. "How's that naked bird you caught doing?"

Rosemary stamped her hoof with surprising strength. "I'm telling you, Celestia, it's a phoenix! Go look at it now! I certainly wish you would've kept it in your room so you could watch. My poor son nearly broke his back lugging it over here!"

"Well, that's too bad. Think of him the next time you try to catch a bird." With a teasing smile on her face, Celestia trotted to the small room adjacent to Rosemary's. Inside was a birdcage. inside that birdcage was a pile of ashes. "Rosemary, you're right. This bird isn't naked at all!"

Um, what? The logic here is very confused. So instead of being robbed, Rosemary's son was just rescuing Philomena. How would that take multiple trips? Who put Philomena up there in the first place? Why did Rosemary not want to bother Celestia, then go on to say that she wanted Celestia to watch over him? Trying to make sense of what happened here feels like I'm tackling a Rubik's Cube with tweezers.

I didn't mention this when Philomena was introduced, but Celestia refuses to believe that he's a phoenix because he's not majestic. This is despite the fact that Rosemary said that he is, and even explained what he was going through. Despite the fact that bird's a pile of ash now, which should be a huge fucking clue, Celestia still doesn't believe Rosemary and winds up amazed by his rebirth.

The surprise here is that there is no surprise because anyone could have seen this coming from all the way from the Voyager probe. Waiting for this subplot to conclude was about as exciting and action-packed as folding your ears flat and realizing that you've caught that mosquito that's been bugging you. You kinda dread the thought of smacking yourself upside the head to squish it and having to deal with the inevitable bloody mess, but until you do, you're forced to endure incessant, annoying buzzing.

Rosemary names the bird Philomena again, and Celestia decides that he should be a free bird and remain uncaged. He doesn't seem to like the castle, though.

Somewhat anxious, Celestia trotted back into the castle and up to her writing room. Something was wrong with the castle, she could see that now. Yes, Luna/Nightmare who-cares had practically destroyed it in her crazed state, but it had been fixed by some of the strongest unicorns in all of Equestria. It was sturdy. What had been built over decades couldn't have possibly been destroyed by one little tantrum, especially with all the repairs.

Not again! All this time she's been living in the old, damaged (but repaired) castle of the royal pony sisters? I know it's only been a month since Luna's banishment, but I thought she'd already moved to Canterlot! I can't really call this a plot hole since the setting's never been established, but it's still a massive communication failure. We shouldn't have to wait until chapter six to get a setting! What's next? Are we suddenly going to learn that Rosemary is really a diamond dog and that her pegasus son was adopted? Given this story's excessive lack of detail, that's almost a real possibility! We do know she's a mare, but we've yet to learn her actual race. In fact, we never do!

Thinking about how ill Rosemary is gives Celestia the idea for her next letter to Luna. Young Ce-Ce's been a spoiled brat in every other letter, so having her humbled by the misery of illness should be a refreshing change of pace.

Dear Luna,

How are you, I'm well, blah blah blah. This story is just too good clutter up! I promise I'll get all sappy when it's over, okay?

She starts her letter by literally saying, 'blah blah blah,' then promises not to clutter it up. What irony.

Now, it was just a few decades before Discord declared war on us. I had come down with an awful cold, and you were so scared that somepony might come and poison me- oh, why do I even need to say "somepony"? You were afraid of Discord! I swear, you always overestimated his powers. That draconequus wasn't anything the Elements of Harmony couldn't fix, right?

Every single one of these letters has started by attempting to place it in time against a historical reference point, but without a timeline to go by, that doesn't help the reader any. You know what would actually help here? Giving us Celestia and/or Luna's ages. That would reference every letter against the same point in time and greatly help with untangling this mess that's somehow supposed to be a coherent history.

At first, Luna's overprotectiveness prevents Celestia from getting much-needed rest. She yells at doctors trying to check up on Ce-Ce, she badgers Ce-Ce incessantly herself, and she gets gets annoyed at the doctors who do check on Ce-Ce, but say she needs rest. Cute.

Did you really think that any assassin would be so bold or so stupid as to climb through or come near the window? Well, certainly there were some, but they were all easily disabled. You seemed to have forgotten our training in Disarming, one that we both passed with flying colors.

What? If there are assassins coming in the window, then they're obviously something worth worrying about!

Luna eventually leaves long enough for Ce-Ce to get some shut-eye, but she doesn't sleep well thanks to a nightmare about some war that still doesn't mean anything to me despite having been mentioned a few times. She comes back with a music box, and there's a pointless scene where they name it a 'music box.' The tune it plays is based on a lullaby their mother liked, so they call the tune 'Noxia's Melody.'

That's an odd name to say the least. 'Noxia' means 'noxious,' similar to the way that 'Sombra' means 'shadow.' It sounds like a villain's name. Wait. Is Sombra Celestia's father? That would certainly explain a lot.

The conversation shifts again, and Luna compares silence to the sound of death that's not coming. They then ponder what the sound of death actually coming might sound like, and Luna imparts these words of wisdom:

"If you ever, ever hear death coming, and it scares you, remember who's waiting for you to join them."

Ah yes, the age-old trope that your death is not a thing to be feared, but embraced, because it will reunite you with your family/friends/loved ones/pets/money/missing keys/random bugs you've stepped on/Justin Braybur's music career/that banana you'd forgotten in the back of the fridge until it started to smell/etc. Excuse me. I need to go blow my muzzle. It's clogged with liquid sarcasm.

Discord's brought up again and we actually get a reason for his turn to the dark side.

Turned cruel by years of twisted thinking and chaos surrounding both sides of the battle, he could make you laugh as you were being physically tormented.

I think this means that he turned evil because he was exposed to the horrors of war? He's no mind reader, so I doubt that 'twisted thinking' would effect him in any way, unless that passage wasn't meant to be taken literally. It could use some further elaboration, but it's a vast improvement over the nothing whatsoever that we usually get.

This letter does indeed end on a sappy note with Celestia gushing about how much she loves her sister, but it also highlights the error I noted when Luna was first introduced. Since she started in an already reformed state, there's nothing for this story to actually work towards.

After she sends the letter, there's an abrupt shift back towards Prince Storm and the gala dress. Before he can bore us again, the castle spontaneously self-destructs. No, seriously, it does.

A loud noise similar to a bone being broken resounded across the room, coming from seemingly nowhere.

Prince Storm looked up at the ceiling, then around the room. "What was that?"

The noise came back, louder and longer this time.

In fact, it didn't stop.

The ceiling caved in, prompting Celestia to panic. She began screaming for everypony to get out of the castle, teleported outside, and began using a very sensitive spell to locate and teleport any ponies inside the castle as it once again broke.

I do agree with this story; that did seemingly come from nowhere! Celestia's mass teleport ability is also seemingly massively overpowered. Is that how she wins wars? Thanks to her quick action and a decently sized plot shield, nopony was killed, though several sustained injuries. She orders ponies to search the rubble for their own belongings before abandoning the place for good.

I guess Celestia was the only pony who actually lived in the castle because there's no mention of erecting temporary structures. Rosemary refuses to let Celestia crash at her place on the grounds that she doesn't want Celestia to worry about her. Rosemary suffers from nightmares and feels like she could drop dead at any moment. I don't know about you, but those sound like very good reasons to worry about her regardless of proximity. Instead, Celestia crashes at a hotel near where May Flower works.

That brings this chapter to a close, and overall, it's a slight improvement over the rest. Sure, it still has plenty of rough parts, but they were mostly yarn-worthy and not rage inducing. The part of this chapter that works the best is the sappiness at the end of Celestia's letter. That was the first time that we've seen her get emotional and show us how much she misses her sister's company. Elsewhere, Luna's absence was simply treated as an excuse to act snappy and I got the feeling that what she really missed wasn't her sister, but rather a pony to torment and fob her royal duties on. It's not even all that abrupt of a change since it flows well from the childhood memory that she'd chosen to recall. That's how this story should have been structured all along: the childhood memory should contain a lesson which leads to character development and growth.

Well, there's one chapter left before this story cuts off for good, so let's see if it can manage to not break its face by tripping on its own tail. Spoiler: it can't.

Chapter Seven: Remember When You Burned Our House Down? • 26th December, 2014 • 4,320 words

Like the previous chapter, this was also a reader suggestion. There's nothing wrong with that; it's the constant begging for ideas that irritates me.

The chapter starts off with a classic 'where are we, and what did we do last night?' moment. Celestia awakes to find that she, Prince Storm, and May Flower had all passed out around a pool table. She awakens the prince and gets a brief explanation.

"Uh... you invited me over, I brought some friends, we did some tasting, you didn't want to make Rosemary go bankrupt so we drank from the cider they were about to throw out..."

Does Rosemary know she's paying for this? It sounds like they thew a party. Given the timing, this is woefully inappropriate. Lolzors, my castle collapsed and hurt a lot of ponies. Woot! Let's celebrate! No. Just, no.

A shrill scream from another room soon led to the answer: Belt Buckle, a stallion of high breeding with a knack for developing new fashions, found himself wearing a golden ring on his horn. The mare wearing the matching ring was Turnip Soup, a gluttonous chef with a real knack for beating ponies senseless with kitchen utensils.

"Oh, yeah! The wedding!" May Flower grinned and clapped her hooves. "They seem so happy together!"

May Flower berates Celestia for serving fermented cider despite the fact she also drank it. If she knew how to test for it, then why would she do that, especially if she claimed she didn't want to be included?

Rosemary does know she's paying for this, as the gathering was her idea, I guess? Except, Celestia told them to bill somepony else?

You said you were paying for it, but I think I might've had them put the bill on Silk Hat because I didn't want to buy him a wedding present...

Celestia must have an iron grip on her nation if she can freely reach into other ponies' pockets like that. What a crappy wedding present.

Starswirl the Bearded shows up and he and Rosemary get into a fight because they hate each other, for some reason. Come to think of it, there's an awful lot of hostility in this story. Whenever we see two characters meet for the first time, there's a very high chance for violence, arguing, or general enmity. Have we slipped back to the pre-unification era where ponies go at each others' throats over things as trivial as race? This story's not quite that bad, but there are too many conflicts for my liking. They just feel forced at this point.

Starswirl has Luna's letter, which he found in the ruins of the old castle. He keeps it for analysis on the grounds that it could be dangerous since it came from the moon. Celestia threatens to put his head on a stake if he damages it.

I already complained about the last time she threatened to kill somepony, but here her threat is empty because there aren't any pony heads on stakes and I doubt she'd start with him over something so trivial. At least, I'm pretty sure there aren't. There could be piles of them cluttering up the floor and we'd never know because the scenery is never described. Seriously, this scene is about ninety percent dialog, and the few phrases that aren't mostly consist of body language.

Celestia then talks with a different servant about building a new castle. The only stated requirement is that she wants a place that's able to expand as the population does. She rejects an open field, as it would be too hard to fortify, and instead decides to carve the new castle into the side of a mountain.

Seriously? That's the exact opposite of expandable since it's literally carved in stone! On top of that, the construction project would be excessively expensive. They'd have to build a road to the construction site, erect camps for the workers, blast out the side of the mountain, construct scaffolding, erect a system of lifts and pulleys to help move the heavy stones around, and all kind of other things. Such a project would likely take years to complete.

The snow white princess was now a light shade of green. "Do we even have this much money left in the treasury?"

"Just barely. Of course, that would be for a castle of similar size as the old one. If we were to create a smaller one... well, it's still expensive, but not as bad." The mare pulled the paper from under Celestia's muzzle and circled a smaller number with black ink. She then gave it back to Celestia. "That's including the basics for a city as well as a castle."

"We might as well. When will it be finished?"

"If we start today, the castle will be built in a week... oh, wait, in mare-hours. In terms of a realistic workday... three or four weeks. The castle won't be furnished, of course."

Sure... throw in a city too. Because, why not? Keep in mind that these are the same ponies who couldn't fix the castle that just collapsed, and they're now building all of Canterlot in under a month. Can you go back to that open field idea? That sounds safer.

Starswirl comes back and attacks one of Celestia's guards with his powers of Kung-fu. Well, that's certainly an original take on Starswirl's character. I'll give it that.

He says the letter's safe, but teases Celestia with a game of keep-away. The both of them act very childish. Well, she manages to grab the letter and sends him off so that she can read it in private.

As the chapter title suggests, this story will involve pyromania. Like most sentient beings, ponies have long since conquered their fear of fire, and have tamed it for use in many practical applications. Even foals are fascinated by fire, and will often poke and prod at open flames to see what they can get to burn. That does not make fire safe, however, as it can rapidly get out of control. Anypony who's around when this happens is in for a sobering, formative moment.

Dear Celestia,

I don't particularly feel like being sappy today. I'm sure you understand.

Understand what? That Luna's an emotionless brick? All she contributes to this story is a just a laugh track and commentary on her letters, and that's really not okay. As I mentioned when she was first introduced, she still hasn't displayed any of the hatred and jealousy that led to her corruption, nor does she feel sorry or even miss her sister. She also doesn't care that she's trapped on the moon with the nebulous 'nightmare forces.' She's bored, and you know what? That's an emotion I can empathize with.

This is probably the earliest memory thus far, as it happens before they met Discord and that war that still means nothing to me hasn't started yet. They're living in a wooden cabin with a thatch roof and the door's made from dried wheat stalks. That sounds excessively flammable.

Hey, we do actually get an age, as Luna's six. Huzzah! Their parents are out on a date, so both of them are home alone.

Now, you were quite the little pyromaniac. You had a strange fascination with burning things. You would take two sticks, rub them together at a furious pace and begin lighting things on fire. The ring of dirt around the cottage stood as testimony for your love of flames.

Dragging me along, you decided to leave the house and visit the pristine meadow behind it, with one purpose and one purpose alone in your mind:

Burn everything.

Um, what? I don't have a problem with Celestia liking to burn stuff, but that's excessive. If she's already burned all the foliage around the house, shouldn't she already be aware of the fact that fire has a tendency to spread?

Celestia goes to the grassy meadow and lights it on fire. No surprise, the flames spread. They barely outrun the wildfire on their way back home. Thankfully, the fires are stopped by that dirt ring around the house. This should have been the end of this story, but since the chapter's not called 'Remember When You Started a Wildfire?' Celestia has to go and make things worse.

But, as you did this, you were being so... honestly, I can't even describe it. Did your brains fall out as you flew away or something?

You, the intelligent big sister with a knack for magic and lectures, the little filly whose hoofwriting was far superior to her parents', the soon-to-be princess/military leader, ripped the wheat stalks form the top of the door and places [sic] them all in a neat line that stopped just a few centimeters or so from our house.

Thank you for doing my job, Luna. With fire raging on all sides, and the house now on fire too, there's really no escape from that situation and they should both burn to death. However, escape they do, because Celestia climbs a pile of rocks and runs through smoke. Uh, what? I've no idea how that was supposed to make sense.

I have to say, Celestia didn't just hold the idiot ball here; she gave herself a full-body enema with one.

Luckily for us, [our parents] were just getting done with swimming and noticed us from a hundred meters away. You screamed to them a poorly-worded story about what happened, and if I remember correctly, you tried to pin some of the blame on me.

...a task made easy by the fact that her entire body is an ass.

There is something I must tell you before I end this letter: The nightmare forces have lost their will to patrol, or so it seems. I have the distinct feeling that I will be with you sooner than you thought.

Luna ends her letter on that note, so it sounds as if something might be happening soon. I guess the story finally realized that it wasn't possible for Luna to undergo character development, so if it wants to have a plot it will have to do something else.

Starswirl suspects that something's up, so he goes back to the ruined castle and searches the library. After spending hours helping to restore damaged and burned books, he eventually finds the spellbook that Celestia used.

Side effects of any and all of these spells including aging reversal, accidental re-corruption, inability to speak, difficulty in adapting to anything new, memory loss, susceptible to mind control and socially awkward behavior. This is not, I repeat, this is not a complete list. As more and more ponies try to use these spells, the more side effects are being discovered and the more warnings I have had to add to whatever books I can get my hooves on. This book is an incredibly dangerous thing, and you must be very careful. If something or somepony Is [sic] holding the banished one captive, they will start to lose their will to guard. Do not, under any circumstances, advise the banished to escape upon seeing this. I have only heard that this happens, and I don't know of anypony who tried to escape early, but do not do it!

Well, that came out of nowhere. Celestia is once again made to look like an idiot because she didn't read the warnings. Though honestly, it wouldn't have mattered if she had. She had no other option, so she would have gone through with it anyway. Actually, this whole warning could have been included back in chapter one to help build tension. Instead, it's yet another detail that should have been obvious at first glance but we don't get until way late.

The author's note this time is about begging for a review in ALL-CAPS. Well guess what? YOU'RE IN LUCK.

Now that this story's over, I'd like to step back and remind everyone how it was structured. There were two main pieces, with the larger frame story serving as a vessel for delivering a childhood memories each and every chapter. Overall, the frame story failed at its intended goal, and wound up being more bland than anything else. Sure things happened, but they either dragged on and felt like they weren't going anywhere (Prince Storm and the Gala dress, Rosemary's still dying), or they were sudden, abrupt, and forced. Celestia's mean streak ended for no apparent reason. Philomena conveniently appeared so that Celestia could have a pet phoenix. The castle spontaneously self-destructed to force them to move out and build Canterlot. That bit with May Flower and her cooking aspirations could have worked if it was set up and foreshadowed properly, but every step of that subplot felt like it came out of nowhere.

Can this story still work with a bad frame story? Yes, it can. Obviously, it would be better if the frame story was good, but the real meat of this story lies in the childhood memories. Nobody came into this to see what kind of toy Celestia made for Terra Cotta's unborn foal. They wanted to see Ce-Ce and Lu-Lu acting adorable. Thankfully, the letters are this story's strong part, though that's like saying that a less fuzzy slice of bread is the best part of a moldy loaf. Of the six memories presented, only the ones about the 'pregnancy' and the illness were any good. The Discord story suffered from bad characterization. The Robbing Hood one was creepy and disturbing. The running away one was outright confusing, and the burning the house down story was just plain stupid.

How do i feel about this?

Yes, I am most definitely annoyed. I think I've ranted about this long enough. Time for the awards!

The Reader's Bane Award

This meets points 2, 3, 4 and 6.

2. Without any actual redemption to work towards, the plot is basically non-existent.

3. While the original/adapted characters aren't stus, I found them bland and they're odd in nonsensical ways. Roesmary never acts as old or as ill as the story claims she is, May Flower's character design doesn't match her professed talent, Prince Storm has an unhealthy obsession with getting Celestia into a Gala dress, and Starswirl apparently went on vacation to Kung-fu Panda Land.

4. I don't think the Everfree Forest exists in this story. It's hard to tell, but since Celestia was the only pony living in the castle itself, and there's a fully functioning town outside, I have to assume that area is clear. What really breaks this story from canon, though, is the fact that it turned Nightmare Moon into a blob of nebulous nightmare forces. If it wanted to use a villain like that, it could have just picked Sombra. Celestia is also far too self-important, greedy and cruel to even be able to use the Elements of Harmony anyway.

6. While it's true that younger forms of characters should act differently, they still need to behave in a way that's consistent with their base personalities and fits their current age and time period/circumstances. Watching Celestia tear apart a library, punch ponies in the face, and generally act like a spoiled tyrant brat makes about as much sense as turning filly Pinkie Pie into a sailor mouth while filly Applejack derives calculus equations.

Drama Devoid

This is a sad story with no actual sad content. That's something of a feat since it's based on the premise that Celestia's sad about having banished her sister to the moon. However, she only ever acted sad once, and that scene didn't last long enough to make an impression.

Honest Attempt Medal

While most of the story fell flat, it still put in a good effort. It could have worked with better logic, more attention to detail, and a stricter adherence to canon characterization.

Unfortunate Letdown Medal

What I expected to see was a series of cute and meaningful childhood memories slowly and inexorably bringing Nightmare Moon back from the brink of madness and causing Luna to gradually reemerge. What I got was a series of prank wars and Tyrant Celestia being a bitch.

Research Failure Award

No, castles do not spontaneously self-destruct with no warning whatsoever, and Canterlot cannot be built in a month.

Good Sport Ribbon • Attention Whorse Medal

A review was requested so many times, and in so many places, that I think both of these medals are appropriate.

Trophy

This story suffers from such an excessive lack of detail that important information which should have been obvious at first glance doesn't appear until several chapters later, if at all.

Shoddy Script Award

I've already covered this, but here's the award too.

Conspicuous Contrivances Award

"Well that came out of nowhere" is very much a common theme throughout the entire story.

Faith Failure Award

A 19-1 rating is not worth complaining about, but what bothers me is that the author asked her audience if the story had any problems, and the few people who responded didn't see anything wrong with it. How about almost everything?

Train Wreck In Motion Award

I have to admit that after the third chapter, I knew full well that this story wasn't going to go anywhere. Yet I continued anyway, possibly due to some actual decent moments, or possibly to see how bad it could get. I'm not really sure at this point, but I'm glad it's over.

Logical Languish Award

This is mostly for that burning the house down chapter, though logic also fell out the window when that mugger expressed his desire to build a house for dead bodies, and they invited him home to sleep with them. Seriously now, what the fuck was that?

Since the author kept asking for ideas, I might as well give one. How about this?

Delete Nightmare Moon entirely, flat-out replace Celestia with Gilda, and play the whole thing for laughs. It's scary just how little would actually have to be changed. Heck, I'll even write up a new description:

When a prank goes horribly wrong, Sun Princess Gilda accidentally banishes Luna to the moon.

Bereft of her adoptive sister to torment and fob her royal duties on, Gilda turns to moping around in the library as a way to cope. Well, when she's not tearing the place apart, that is. But one day, she stumbles upon a book that could change Luna's fate. All it requires is sending vivid stories, all comprised of cherished childhood memories.

The catch? This spell is based upon reformation magic, and the banishment won't end until both parties have forgiven each other and amended the errors of their ways. Can Luna set aside the hatred and jealousy rooted deep in her heart? Is Gilda willing to reform her tyrannical ways for the sake of her sister? If they can't work things out, Luna could remain banished forever.

Now that's a story I would like to read.