TSJ: Horse Warning Zeta Action Squad · 6:43am Jun 11th, 2017
There are certain chapters of TSJ that are... special, for a particular reason. The three most prominent examples are The Dinner, Family, and The Clubhouse. There are a few others, though.
She just looks so happy!
They're special because they are chapters that literally turn upvotes into downvotes. I've actually seen it in real time in all three cases. It's hilarious. 
Some ponies even flounce. It's popcorn time when I post those chapters.
I'm done with Part 2 of the entry I just posted, but I'm not posting it until Tuesday noon EDT. That's because—you guessed it!—it's one of those chapters. So I figured I owed my readers an obligatory Horse Warning Zeta Action Squad Trigger Microaggression Cultural Appropriation Why Would Anypony Write This blog post. You have now been Horsewarned. Now please go about your daily business.
(Oh, and it's also more than 9,000 words long, so there's that too. Get hype.) 
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Hahaha looking forward to it 💋
Hue.
Okay, I honestly don't know if I'm going to be able to keep reading this story. Which is a shame, because it's mostly awesome, but there is one glaring problem that just keeps getting worse and worse that was epitomized in the last chapter. And from this warning, and the general direction this story seems to be going as a whole, I don't think I'll be able to ignore it any longer.
The problem? How you portray Twilight. Now, I know you're trying to show her as naive or even ignorant and being forced to deal with concepts she's never even considered, but that isn't how she comes across to me. She comes across as dumb. Like really, really dumb. Too dumb to live, in fact. The only reason Twilight isn't dead/a vampire slutwhore right now is because her enemies are almost as dumb as she is.
This seems to be Twilight's thought process for the last several chapters: "Hmm, my enemies have taken over the government. In fact, for all intents and purposes, they ARE the government. Where should I go to hide? I know! I'll hide in the castle! They'll never find me there!" which then leads to "Oh noes! Somehow they found me in the first place they looked! Now I am a prisoner. But I will not act like a prisoner and fight every chance I get, I will instead capitulate to everything they do and allow these people I believe to be mentally damaged literal monsters to explain their plans and reasoning to me in a way that somehow makes me sympathetic to them."
Honestly, she should have become a vampire something like 20 chapters ago. Back whenever it was revealed that Zecora was a vampire. But somehow these child-raping, BDSM loving, incestuous LITERAL MONSTERS suddenly gained some tiny shred of a conscience and decided now they want her consent before they mind rape and then literally rape her. Idiots everywhere.
But that isn't even the worse part. The last chapter really made me realize why I'm having trouble continuing this story: Twilight is weak. WEAK. So weak that the only thing keeping her from literally bending over for her brother is her oath to Celestia. Not Twilight's own morals, not her own thoughts and beliefs, no. An oath she made to Celestia is the only thing that is keeping her fighting a bunch of child-raping, brainwashing monsters. And again I must point out: Literally monsters. Feed on blood and everything! As if the child rape and brainwashing wasn't bad enough.
Honestly, her whole imprisonment has been bugging me. She should not be listening to them at all. She should be arguing with them every chance she has. She should be punching every male in the dick. Fighting back in whatever means she can, screaming incoherently to show them that she...will...not...comply. As soon as Rarity confirmed what they did to Spike Twilight should have bucked her in the face and then pounded her head into the floor before being dragged off of her. When introduced to Mayor Mare and told what was going to happen, she should have told her to fight it. Fight it every step of the way. Scream and kick and bite. No matter how futile. Show them you will not go quietly. Show those monsters that their ideas are evil and you WILL have to force it on people because it is a BAD IDEA.
Fuck I'm getting angry just thinking about it again. So there you have it, the big issue I have with this story: Twilight is weak and stupid. Everything else is fine! The story is dark and atmospheric, the villains have clear(if crazy) motives, and the story is actually really interesting and not at all what I thought it was going to be when I first started reading it ages ago. I already know how it's going to end, but I'd love to actually see that ending. Please, PLEASE work on Twilight's characterization, because I really do want to keep reading this story.
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The Journal is Twilight's space to vent while in a horrible situation, so it's assumed to be a little more dramatic than her actual experiences, but here's a bit of perspective. Twilight's plan wasn't to hide from them, but to confront them. Twilight isn't stupid, but she's never dealt with loss before. She's never even lost a friend (other than very temporarily), much less lost one for good, and even worse, her entire family. This leaves her poorly equipped to psychologically handle the change in some of her friends' allegiances. Additionally, some of her more careless-seeming mistakes stem from her subconscious need for everything to be okay getting the better of her rationality.
This is a very polarizing story. Some of my readers think the Order is a good thing and want Twilight to follow, while others want her to kill everypony she sees. The underlying message is only for those readers who are capable of making it through the story, and that's intentional. So it's okay if you don't enjoy what she's going through and feel the story isn't for you. Just keep in mind the story has a Tragedy tag, which doesn't mean the ending will be bad; but it does mean that most of Twilight's actions will come to naught in the end, so things won't end the way she initially wanted them to. This isn't a Dickens novel, in other words.
I'm glad you've been able to enjoy part of the ride, at least!