This story is a sequel to Who Needs Enemies -- Part I
Thanks to Discord, Twilight has some new friends. Actually, they're her old friends. Now she wants her old friends back... that is, her new friends. It's complicated. But even Discord doesn't realize how far he's gone this time...
For more of this series, see: The Visiting Team -- Part I.
And also check out the entire series, beginning with Not Exactly Friends.
Woot, part 2. Lets hope it's not a sad story like the last one (which imo needs sad tag).
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Cliffhangers are allowed to be sad, but rest assured, as Princess Luna once said to Starlight, "Things do indeed get better..."
This may just be the single best explanation of party ponies I have ever seen. It's honestly a bit scary, but it's also FUN!
Can we just take a moment to appreciate Sunset's little scene with Starlight? The whole imposter syndrome thing? Because I'm a PhD astrophysics student, doing groundbreaking science, helping to push our existing models of solar physics to their breaking point. And these two unicorns just summed up my ENTIRE. FREAKING. EXISTENCE.
Thanks, Eroraf -- I've kind of assumed from the get-go that Pinkie, and party-ponies in general, are the Roger Rabbits of the pony world. They can pretty much do anything as long as it's funny, or in service of cheering somepony up. Cheese in particular seems to have a much longer-range "party radar" than Pinkie, and can detect that a pony needs cheering up even from a divergent virtual pseudo-space...
Is that a reference I should get? I know Namek has three suns, but this sounds more like a Star Wars or Star Trek thing.
So I guess you're not at the burnt-out researcher stage, like Moondancer, huh? Or the semi-psychotic manager-from-hell that Sunset was turning into?
I was riffing on Discord's more-than-just-passing-similarity with Q here, by referencing all the other kinds of shows John de Lancie has been in. That line was a reference to Stargate SG-1, where de Lancie played Colonel Frank Simmons.
I saw that "Deja Q" reference, don't think I didn't.
Interesting take on an AU Discord, and wonderful characterization as usual. Though, it's strange to think that not even Discord knows everything about how time works.
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Seriously, if Discord could actually travel in time, we'd all be toast. It would be Time War to the Infinite Degree.
My thinking here is that Discord, as a being of pure chaos, isn't natively chronological -- he "fakes" it by playing along with the time-stream, adapting himself as he goes. Which means he can't just travel in time because he doesn't really have a solid, present-time "self" to move back and forth, He'd have to somehow figure out who he would be in the time stream at the time he wants to arrive at. And he normally doesn't have nearly the patience for that... unless it means getting back to a certain butter-colored pegasus he really got to like being with over the eons...
Hmm... Clever, Sunset, very clever... I likes it!
...Ouch. Totally me, right there... I don't likes it...
And that's how the fandom felt when season 9 came to an end. I didn't watch past 3, myself, but I've heard good things.
...I just want to say... I knew it, I knew it was the Storm King! Feels good to be right about something, don't feel like it happens too often...
Oi, lay off a bit, would you, Discord? Those jokes are only accepted in... Certain circles. And only in a positive light, thank you very much!
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There are many Party Ponies throughout Equestria. The have their own super-duper-secret society and regularly get together for (family-friendly) Eyes Wide Shut secret society meetings-that-are-also-big-(SFW)-parties.
Even SMILE doesn't know about them or their strange Party Pony magics. And it's a good thing evil-Starlight never found out about Party Favor. I guess Party Pony magic includes passive geasa so the Party Pony is able to resist mind control and cutie mark theft and prevented from being somehow compelled to divulge it.
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Dude, the Storm King wound up as a lawn ornament:
Discord's not just being cautious in staying out of the way when anypony wearing Sacanas's armor is around -- it's one reason we didn't see him at all in the Movie, except briefly in the credits at the end...
A Kalpa? Alduin, you are not, Discord.
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I am aware. I'm talking about the gathering storm clouds from the end of Tempest's part of Part I. I said Storm King, and sure enough, Storm King. Not much of a factor in the end, but even so... I was still right.
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He's referring to the the original kalpa, the really seriously long time.
If you prefer a genre reference, it's indirectly referenced near the end of the Doctor Who episode Heaven Sent:
The Doctor himself says this, after having escaped from a Time Lord prison where he's been trapped for at least 4.5 billion years...
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Thanks! That literally came to me as I was writing it. I was very happy to let Sunset fire that arrow off.
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...That bird is one BAMF of a bird...
i am...
dissatisfied with this story
for a start, you missed some real potential with having both the Elements and the Harmony Field in play
not to mention that it kinda feels like you're spitting on canon with this
dunno how to word it, exactly
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Definitely, there are some good possibilities ahead for bringing the Mane 6 and the AP gang together, but doing that in this story would have made it really overlong. And one of the purposes for this story (aside from adding Discord to the mix, because well, Discord) was settling the ghost of the "other" timeline by having the AP group discover how their friendship is more than just happenstance, that they really do belong together. It's not a repudiation of canon, more an affirmation of this group of friends as the legitimate narrative center of their own timeline.
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i believe you missed my point
my point is that you should have both groups in your next story in this series
y'know, try to build on their interactions
Preach it, my mare. You just summed up the biggest problem with modern education.
So this Discord is show canon Discord? Makes sense.
while i did enjoy it i felt a little disappointing, it was a little bit too convenient that they all ended up not being happy with the lives discord gave them, i preferred it if they actually been happy but chose to give that happiness up for their friendship with twilight, showing the bond of friendship was stronger then the offer of a perfect life.
i hope the original mane six will have a bigger part in any future stories it be nice to see twilight friendship not limited to her current friends, from normal little side stories to full on crises.
it was a fun ride and could have been a ep of the show
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Thanks, and yeah, I hear you. There is a fine line to tread here, between relying too much on the original Mane 6, and striking out in completely new directions with the AP gang. I personally want to involve the Ponyville crew more, and I have some ideas about how to do that. But I also want to keep this timeline distinct enough from canon so that it doesn't end up just feeling like a retread with different ponies.
And the entire deal with Discord in this story was that he was focused on Fluttershy first and foremost, so he pretty much couldn't help handing each of the ponies an alternate life that would ultimately go sour. He's not a step-three kind of thinker. I decided that rather than having them give up a "perfect" life for friendship, it made more sense for them to realize that, even apart from their friendship with Twilight, they were each still missing something that they only really had as part of the group.
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I honestly thought it was Temple Run 2 when I read that part.
Mane6 are not the Elements Bearers... Does it mean that Fluttershy will be less self-assured, Rainbow will not be the Wonderbolt and Rarity will stay the country tailor?
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Don't want to give away too much here, but consider that even in the canon timeline, the Elements didn't make the Mane 6 who they were, the Mane 6 simply were the right ponies to wield the original Elements, based on the kind of ponies they are.
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To be fair, you did absolutely nail the "it's good, but it's not the same" angle with Cheese, and to a lesser degree with Sunset and Trixie, and maybe Moondancer. Starlight and Tempest honestly feel like the outliers in this regard, just in terms of how jarring the change is, but I'm not entirely sure what, if anything, to specifically change about them. You do make it work with Discord's explanation of the timeline "snapping back," so kudos for that, though I'm trying to remember if you explained how the timeline knew which other timeline to "snap back to."
Huh, kind of like Mister Mxyzptlk
This is false, Discord can travel through time, he did so in the IDW Comics via his sheer speed.
Hell, he also did in the show. When he took Twilight back in time for not figuring out his riddle in part 2 of his debut.
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In general, I don't count the comics as canon, in part because that would add in far too many narrative curve-balls to keep track of, and also because I don't always agree with where they take the characters. (I'm surprised no one's mentioned Cosmos yet, since at first she seems like a second Chaos entity, though later it's revealed she's the personification of malice.)
And the scene in Return of Harmony I think you're referring to, where Discord "instant replays" his "Twists and turns..." riddle, that could more simply be explained as a present-time illusion, like rolling an instant-replay tape. Because if Discord could travel in time, then pretty much any story he appears in would be over instantly, since he could just go back in time and warn himself what to do or not to do. (Though as we saw with Twilight in It's About Time, that doesn't always work either...)
All hail the Princess of Kites!!
Is more coming after this one? As its a pretty good series
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Thanks! And yes, there's a few more twists and turns ahead...
"Five bits says he don't last the week." xD this was funny
serious question since i've seen it in the series multiple times now: what in the world is legerdesabot
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It's a ponification of leger de main, which literally translated is "light of hand".
Ponifying that gives "light of hoof", hence leger de sabot.
(Ta-daaaa! )
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Slight of Hoof
Best perk in Call of Duty: Modern Neighfare 2.
Typically, the ideal goal of any scientific experiment is to find out how you were wrong. (The okay-but-less-than-ideal goal being to just find out that you were wrong, with having been right from the start that consolation trophy that smells suspiciously like it was lying around when somepony discovered an desperate and urgent need for cheese dip.)
THey real catch with Discord's plan was that the decision was made too soon. I wonder what Fluttershy has to say to him when everything is revealed.
Discord is trying to use his powers to recreate something from the past. That sounds a bit too much like order for Discord and it seems the timeline was to resistant too being altered for that to work.
You have created my favourite AU characters. I don't much care for AUs unless they
A have a fun setting to play in
or
B Have great versions of the characters that are different but feel like they could happen
I really love that you brought in Discord like this the main timeline Discord rather than another version. It's the only character that makes sense to do with.