Spike thought... neigh, Spike knew something was strange.
First, Twilight literally blew up over her upcoming test, and now she's acting as if nothing's wrong!
Like hay that's right! It was a minor miracle that the girls talked her into taking a nap during the train ride, and now she's saying she has everything under control?! Spike knew how good naps were - they refresh you in body and spirit, help memory retention, and aid digestion! But something happened to Twilight, and now she acts like she knows everything that's going to happen before it does!
Wait a second, what do you mean 'accidentally broke the fabric of space-time'!?
Mostly Slice-of-life, but contains parts of episodes that could be called 'adventure-y'.
MLP property of Hasbro.
Chapters (6)
Don't forget the story "MLP Loops"
Marvellous! I've added this story to the Timeloop Stories group.
Good lord, how has this story gone on so long without notice?!
*sends fic to all his friends as well as all relevant groups*
Let the chapters run their course, I'd say. If they go to great lengths, then let them fly, but if they end up meandering like a drunken horse... cut it short.
I'm kinda concerned about Cassandra, because she hits a lot of Mary Sue points. And frankly, I'm kinda getting sick of her, since she comes into the story without much setup, and gets a big part of the screen time as well as most of the action. She's also a better mage than Twilight, and thereby makes her kinda redundant. Written properly, that's not a problem, but in this case it really is.
The mentor character has it's place (though Celestia already fills that place), but she just gets too much screentime to herself and takes to much part in the action.
She knows more magic than Twilight and she has a shop with all these awesome things, she can do super special rare magic, see the future, has a boyfriend who is also great at magic and she can take, she can duplicate herself.
Do you see what I'm getting at?
4322813
You do raise some good points.
Outside meeting Starswirl out of local time (which is a reference to another fanfic, though), nothing is really too out of the show.
Shining Armor has cast city-wide spells and maintaining them for several days even with a parasitic queen draining the hell out of his mind and heart, Twilight's outburst back when she was a filly overcame six adult unicorns (parents included), Trixie obtained a talisman (even if it's called an amulet) that allowed her to dispense high-grade magic like it's candy during Nightmare Night on two years tops of working on a rock farm (that is, if you subscribe to the 'One season equals One year field', which I don't), there is a whole book on predictions and prophecies explicitly titled that, Celestia has books on obtaining tons of power and immortality and wings and whatnot in a poorly-guarded section of the archives, a unicorn using dark magic managed to one-up both princesses even if it was out of spite/deception/preparedness or whatever, Clover ended a magical blizzard that no amount of pegasi could tame using only magic and friendships formed literally at the last minute, duplication magic is something that does exist, time travel is a thing, Twilight has been explicitly called the unicorn with most raw ability (emphasis on the 'raw') the princess has ever seen (implying being above Starswirl, Clover, Shining Armor, and Sombra himself), you can lasso the moon even if you DO need some magical aid, a pond can duplicate you by reciting a rhyme, Zap Apple jam is implied to taste better if you are friends with the maker, Twilight levitated a bear larger than any building in Ponyville God knows how many miles, race-switch spells, accidental race-switch spells, species-switch spells, Big Mac dragged a house and didn't even notice (and the rope didn't snap like floss), Cherilee toppled walls with almost-contemptuous ease, Discord, you can suck the color out of rainbows with a vacuum, you can literally taste the rainbow (even if it's a bad idea), age spells (since Twilight is so powerful, it's thus implied she lacks the control to make them stick), Shining got married to Cadence, Cadence herself fended off Sombra, Cadence also powered up Shining so much that the Changelings were thrown clear off the country despite the implications of her being starving and physically weak so as to be unable to fly, Celestia can apparently turn others into alicorns (not even implied that that astral-realm-esque place needs to be involved), come-to-life spells can be 'simple' enough to make a snowplow move by itself and cast with an idle thought, pegasi explicitly can break the sound barrier (something special is required for it to be a rainboom), ponies have a prosperous country in a world populated by the creatures of the Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual (sans humans/humanoids), Twilight discovered how to change destiny by making a less-egotistical rhyme and chanting it in presence of the Elements of Harmony, Starswirl actually got close enough if it were not for his apparently-self-centered way of thinking, gender-bending spells, Sunset Shimmer can just overpower a growth spell to turn a bonsai into a full-fledged tree with a smug smirk on her face and not a drop of sweat, a single foal (not Twilight) can make the entirety of a buffet come to life (albeit in a disturbing Attack-of-the-Killer-Tomatoes fashion complete with killer juice box, though thankfully easily-reversed due to it being a miscast instead of a proper spell), you can just get magical comic books that suck you in from a shop just like that, you can cast a spell that sucks you into a book to live it out (even if you need to act out the role properly to avoid changing the book), Twilight turned half of her class (herself included) into palm trees (leaving her with leaves instead of mane for a month), Twilight put all of Ponyville upside-down (albeit it wore off within hours), Luna's dream-surfing powers, a prototype magic mirror leads to an inverted world where the princesses are the villains, Pinkie Pie...
Bloody hell, that list was even longer than I thought and I still haven't gotten everything! All the stuff about changelings and mimickers and... stuff!
Personally, a High Daylight Walker that's actually really old doesn't seem too out of it after all of that. And she's not even hiding it, just no-one believes her because she says it with a straight face (although exaggerating as well) - she says it in the next chapter.
Also, I'm putting a little bit of DnD and Final-Fantasy-esque context on things, as well as various other RPGs and miscellaneous games. Too many monsters to not to. Plus some migrant concepts and objects, like the various Crystal Chronicles references.
(If you have no aversion towards Naruto-fics, you might want to read 'Yet again with a little extra help', by the way.)
4325562 I'm not saying that her magic is too powerfull, I'm saying that she is.
Actually that's not even it. I'm saying Cassandra has too much of the focus of the story. For a story that's ostensibly about a time-loop, it reads more like a story about this cool unique character you made.
That sort of thing can work, it's just not working in this story, for me anyway. That said, I think if you just let other people do stuff and let her go into more of a supporting position it might work better.
As for 'Yet again'. Well, I read the first few chapters, because some people think it's really good, but I just couldn't get into it. Much the same reasons.
There are some (few) stories that pull a blatantly overpoweredn character off. "A sage among wizards" (HP/Naruto crossover), "Retired to Equestria" or "All Is Relative Except the Stubbornness of a Demon". There's probably more, but those are the only ones I can think of the top of my head.
Yup, that's Pinkie all right. (I might steal it, it's so perfectly her.) Which is rather a relief, actually; so far, everypony has felt slightly... off. I'm not sure how to describe it.
You've got an approach I haven't seen before; I'll look to see how it goes.
Oh, I hate not knowing these things. Best Night Ever? You name-dropped it a bunch. Hitchhiker's Guide? Forty-two, after all. Something else I don't have the context to guess?
If you like time loop stories in general, you should sometime check out the hard Reset metacycle.
I am seriously confused here. I have no idea what is going on, and not in a good way. Perhaps if I knew what structure you were going for, I could untangle it myself.
Are these nested flashbacks to 'past' timeloops? Jump cuts from one loop to the next? Something weirder?
Heh. Grab Home Run in time for the wedding.
Certainly an interesting concept. I like it!
While it's usually interesting watching them slowly fall into depression and their character develops, looking for a new way of doing this kind of thing without depression or suicidal thoughts is interesting. Although there should be at least some sadness in this from Twilight, as generally humans, and ponies, aren't meant to go through this kind of thing without their mental state shattering. But after that, they put themselves back together, and with friends who don't know why this is happening but support them anyway, they become better than they were before.
Kintsugi
The art of putting broken things back together with gold, making them more beautiful than before.
Wow, one of my more lengthy comments. Hope this is helpful!
I always felt that incantations - especially the ones like in Bleach (or Doctor Who) that don't really follow a logic, rhyme or reason - exist not to bind by words, but rather to put your physical brain into a pre-determined configuration, by thinking specific things in a specific order. Much like a computer program, I suppose...
I'm betting you just had so much fun dropping all of these hints left and right... :D