Holy crap I'm so excited for this new chapter that just literally came out an hour ago, I have such good timing, oh my God I'm getting on with reading my favourite story right now!!!
So, Opposition!Celly is out for the count while Harmony!Mane 6 are in the process of duking it out with Chryssie and Shiny. Meanwhile, Discord has pulled his great escape. I'm rubbing my hands and smacking my lips at the thought of how deliciously livid Opposition!Twilight will be when she comes to.
Opp*celestia awesome plan of no consequences -Petrify celestia -Claim she is the other celestia -remove witnesses if necessary (VERY IMPORTANT)
Consequences -Apsolutely NOTHING
Rewards -Infinite snuggles with my cute dead moon sister ( omg omg omg ) Side bonus: new accurate statue of me in the gardens Huggable niece next door who is not a freaky bug monster
Note- check on my universe to see if it still stands sometime in the near future (1000yrs or so)
Oh my god. That was Mcfreaking AMAZING! When Discord got the horn shards and told Fluttercruel off, I literally got chills. And Chrysalis was awesome! And Pinkie was as well! And everything was totally wonderful and worth the wait. Just...Go fuck yourself Fluttercruel.
Well well well... everything went perfectly for this chapter, and once again I'm begging for more. This is so, so clever! Shit is really getting real here, everything is on the edge while still having amazing writing and story built in. I love the Discord and Spike dynamic, they are so badass together and I hope you do that in NTH too. It really, really couldn't have been any better. I also wonder... which Rainbow did the rainboom at the end? I mean, I'm pretty sure it was Harmony RD, but I can't help but think about how Opposition RD doing it would fit the time, but it doesn't make sense why she'd do it on Shining Armour (In Britain we still use the 'o' and 'u'). Maybe a stupid question, but whatever. This chapter as always ended with a bad assume bang! Man, I'm so, so hyped for the next chapter, as if I hadn't made it clear enough. But please Alara, take your time with this and all the other stories, because I literally can't think of anything negative for any of them, literally, thank you for remembering perfection takes time or however you like to say it. Same goes for me. I hope Not the Hero or The Last Draconequus is up next.
8203928 if I'm correct, 'Turnabouts', 'Peices in Motion' and 'The Ghost in The Mirror' where meant to be this chapters titles. But I honestly think the title to this is good too.
8204068 This was intended to be "Turnabouts". "Ghost in the Mirror" is still the next chapter's title, and unless I feel like I have to change it like I did with this one, "Pieces in Position" will probably be the chapter after that.
So Discord has fucked off somewhere with Spike in a highly aggressive world with all of its anger pointing towards him, Cadence needs to be found as she is seemingly dying, Harmony Spike has greed growth in the middle of the bucking capital of Equestria and the Celestia has buggered off to fight with other Luna and Celestia. Oh Yeah Harmony might break because of the betrayal done to Twilight by Fluttercruel and Rainbow Dash which might in turn kill Discord. The title of this chapter just worries me for the future.
8204153 The thing is I don't trust the author, I think shes the type of author who enjoys the villain winning. The fact that one of the friends is probably going to die increases this distrust.
8204220 But which villain? I've got four main villains -- Opposition Twilight, Opposition Fluttershy, Opposition Celestia, and Opposition Chrysalis -- and a lot of the things each wants are mutually contradictory, so it's not possible for all the villains to win. :-)
8204415 Ah, but in this supposed replacement scenario, without her being around in her home dimension to lend her power to the cause, it's not impossible he will be rescued and brought back—where Pretendlestia can welcome him as his indirect saviour!
As for the second thing there... pffft, I bet whatever Chrysalis got out of Celestia was a bum deal, and Queen Cheeselegs Von Cackle has no idea.
Theories: 1. Op Chrysalis has been magnifying Op Celestia's love for her Luna to cripple her, making it much easier for her to run Equestria.
2. Discord's direct, and powerful, use of Op Discord's Chaos magic will set.....something off "knows some things so won't say what exactly 'Spoilers'"
3. Cadance=Fission power for changelings
Another noteworthy piece of exposition is the fact that Discord has killed multiple Trees of Harmony in the past. Whether these were actually more like relays for the main ToH that we know, or servers. This explains a bit actually. How Harmony is mostly located in Equestria and the Tree's desire to "spread" the seeds of friendship to other lands via the Cutie Map and it's bearers.
Considering what happened to Cadance I would really like to see a part where Discord or part of the Harmony team tells the Opposition team to saver their hypocrisy.
“remember when you said any amount of cruelty to an innocent was justified if it was to help ponykind? I want you to think about that and about what you let happen. because your niece was going through the same thing for the same reason at the hands of changelings. How does that make you feel?”
Oh and also If they rescue Cadance.
“Cadance, whatever you do don’t be alone with Celestia, don’t trust her. She has been looking for a replacement body for Luna, she has already tried to sacrifice an alternate universe Twilight Sparkle. And everyone thinks you are dead…”
when fluttershy said the worst thing you could do to them was fix them and have them live with what they did? making sure everyone knows so they can't hide their actions can only improve the suffering
YES :D You're my favorite author, and I love this story! I love how all the different subplots are intense and awesome and that you take the time to really flesh out the characters and their motives.
"I don't need you to shield me! I have enough power to fight off one young alicorn!"
Yep, the fact that she is very arrogant hasn't changed a bit, which isn't surprising at all.
Opposition!Twilight is going to be really unhappy when she wakes up, and it's entirely unsurprising that Opposition!Celestia's fragile emotional state was her undoing.
My favorite part had to be Discord telling Fluttercruel to go fuck herself.
Touching on a couple more things: given how much time has passed, Cadance's psychological state must be royally fucked up by now. I wouldn't put it past Chrysalis if she's been gloating to her about how much Shining Armor loves her during her torture sessions.
Also, I was wrong about the possibility of Spike sending Opposition!Celestia to Luna.
8206171 Care to be more specific on what you agree on...or just everything I said in general? After giving it more thought, I have come to lean towards the ToHs being relays of Harmonies power rather then servers that generate more power. Harmonies power cannot be diminished, only divided. Discord allowed only a single tree to live because he COULDN'T kill them all since, with less bodies to divide the power between, the ToH we're familiar with holds the full power of Harmony. Or, if he did, a new Avatar would just be chosen to manifest the Aspect. It's an opposite situation to Malatrisse, the Avatar of Order, and works well to reduce Harmonies influence to the world as a whole.
I was so desperately hoping for one more Discord scene before the end. I know he's not out of the woods yet either way, what with the crystals and everything, but if he's actually, finally free... holy shit.
Man I loved this chapter. Lots of awesome action, Chryssie looks like her evil scheme was about to be exposed, and Spike was quite the badass. I was actually pretty sure it was simply jealousy explaining why Celestia went nuts and attacked her double (besides longstanding protocol I'm sure the author is aware of that if you meet your mirror universe duplicate, one of you needs to take out the other). But then 8204030 explained things in a succinct way.
Does Chryssie count as an alicorn for purposes of the necromantic spell? If so that would be awesome. If not, Harmony-verse Luna needs to hit up the mirror pool so they can send Opposition-verse Celestia back with a consolation prize. ( "Night! Night! Night!" )
haha while reading, i just had to think about a diffrent way to get Discord around Twi's orders, all the time haha it stuck in my head so bad that it almost seems way simpler and more logically than the actual solution Fluttercurel thought of haha
my idea: if fluttershy could order Discord to use his magic against Twilight to make her fall asleep would it also be possible for fluttercurel to order him to make twilight say things in her sleep? so twi wouldve just said the orders in her sleep out loud and discord would have to take those orders? or fluttercurel wrote the orders down on paper, but didnt show him, only ordering to make twilight say whats on the paper? or wouldnt it work with twilight being unconciouss
or a totally diffrent idea he could use his magic AGAINST Twilight to make her sleep so he obviously could use his magic on twilight otherwise so couldnt he have just altered her mind to another way of thinking? or making belive things for a temporary time? like making her think he should be free? of course only temporary? similar to that delayed order thingy or am i just missing the obvoious here which would make all my ideas untrue? :D
8206759 Short version, no, Opposition Twilight is not that stupid. She doesn't trust her friends enough to leave that loophole, so any sort of mind control or mind alteration is defined as "harm", and he's not allowed to harm the Bearers. Notice that Fluttercruel strongly emphasizes how good sleep would be for Twilight; she knows he can't harm the Bearers, and mind manipulation qualifies, so she's trying to reinforce the notion that putting Twilight to sleep is not mind manipulation and will be good for her.
8206623 No, Chrysalis doesn't count as an alicorn. Different species. She's also not on alicorn level, normally; like Tirek, her magic levels are highly variable because she starts with not much but can power up. She has more inherent personal magic than Tirek, but normally she's nowhere near an alicorn. Feeding on the love of a creature with magic gives her more power in proportion both to the power levels of that creature and the strength and purity of their emotion; in canon, Shining, an enormously powerful unicorn (specialized, but incredibly powerful within his specialty) who has a powerful and pure love for his fiance, gave her enough magic to take on Celestia.
8205101 You know, it never occurred to me that Chrysalis might be directly manipulating Celestia's emotions to increase her love for Luna and therefore make her incapable of getting over her grief, but that is an interesting theory, and would explain part of why this Celestia is such a basket case. I like to think our Celestia is sane enough that simply losing Luna, even if she had to kill her, wouldn't cause her to abandon her morality, which this Celestia has done. Of course, this Celestia also has Order Twilight, cold and ruthless, as her primary support structure, the only pony she trusts, so I'm sure that didn't help either.
So... I'm guessing OPDiscord was supercharged with Chaos. I'm also nearly sure he isn't actually dead, since the Chaos would move on to another Avatar. I'm guessing that Harmony Discord is going to share his experiences with OPDiscord and make him a good guy.
Chrysalis was siphoning love from Cadence when she zoned out. She's like a neutron star right now compared to Twilicorn. Shining is going to end up killing Chrysalis when he gets it through his thick skull.
OPCelestia is a bit unhinged from guilt over killing her own Luna. It's going to be really interesting to see how Luna reacts to seeing herself killed.
One thing I'm curious about. Can Harmony Discord just pry the shard of Matrisse(Sp?) out of the Element of Magic? Would that instantly deharmonize the others? If he can do it fast enough, he shouldn't have any ill effects because the spells would shatter.
8207284 Makes sense. I wondered if it was just a question of sacrificing a being of sufficient power, but then if that was possible they would have just used Discord long ago.
8207314 Feel free to run with the idea if you like. I just remembered that you said Op Chrysalis already messed with Op Celestia's emotions, at her request, to better combat Discord, so I wondered if she might not sneak in some other emotional manipulation while she had access. From what we know of Chrysalis, her driving force is the accumulation of power. With Celestia being crippled emotionally acting as a benefit to Chrysalis bid for power in Equestria, allowing her to act without more direct oversight from Celestia, it seemed that a direct correlation was likely. Apparently not if that was never even in your thoughts, but I guess that it is within the realm of possibility? :P
8204035 I was going to say she wanted to use Harmony!Celestia as a vessel for Opposition!Luna's resurrection, a duplicate of herself being somewhat easier to sacrifice than a copy of her daughter figure (especially if you count a bit of self-loathing) but then I remembered there being something about the sacrifice having to be cooperative, hence why Harmony!Twilight hasn't be sacrificed already.
I guess just replacing Harmony!Celestia works too. She'll at least have a Luna, and honestly, that other reality is kind of a shit hole, so screw it.
82118898206623 Alternate plan: Offer to perform the spell on Opp!Celestia herself, if she'll teach it. If she's really willing to sacrifice herself for her sister...
8233633 Pretty sure Opp!Celestia would turn that offer down hard. I imagine her character is pragmatic enough to openly admit that her reasons are utterly selfish and she's not looking to trade her life for her sister's. Anyone else's, sure. But she's not just looking for Luna to be alive again, but to be alive again WITH her, and she can't exactly have that if she's dead.
kinda reminds me of one of my fics where Twilight is pining over Rainbow Dash, who is already in a relationship with somepony else. She considers the whole "as long as my beloved is happy" angle, and dismisses it as utter fairy tale nonsense, because love is selfish at its core.
8233682 Actually, I think she would take it if she knew for a fact that Luna would come back with the strength to control the sun. Her major motive for not being willing to sacrifice her own life was that Luna might need time to recuperate before being able to move the sun, and if Luna can't move the sun for a few months and Celestia is dead, the world is screwed.
But, on the other hand, she was willing to let her world be boned without someone to control the sun as soon as she saw the opportunity to replace another world's Celestia, one who had a living Luna... she wasn't planning on tossing her counterpart back through the portal to manage her world's sun. So she's really not thinking things through as well as she should be.
Possibly the logic is that she's beyond giving a shit about anyone but Luna, and if Luna were stuck in a world that was freezing or broiling to death because Luna doesn't have the strength to move the sun, Luna would be horrified and guilt-stricken, and Celestia doesn't want to bring her sister back just to inflict such a fate on her... but if there's no Luna in her world because Luna is still dead, then Celestia doesn't really care if the entire world bakes or freezes, as long as she gets to be with Luna, and another world's Luna will do.
I am guessing that Opposition Celestia attacked Harmony Celestia because she was hoping to replace her, and then live in the Harmony world with Harmony Luna. This is superficially brilliant and deeply crazy, which I think pretty much describes Opposition Celestia to a T.
Ahhhhh I literally can't wait until this updates. I just finished reading all the other stories connected to this serious (the complete ones and the last draconequues) and I'm in love. Honestly this whole series is so fucked up but I absolutely love it wow. I do really ship fluttercord, and I think in the future it could maybe work in this timeline? Totally understand if it doesn't though! I just hike fluttercord at least goes back to being super best friends at some point after they rescue Discord. And maybe you could do a fic where like. It's all about Discords recovery and his recovering relationships with all tee ponies ?? Obviously maybe more with Fluttershy maybe not. AGHHH IM JUST SO IN LOVE WOTH THIS SERIOUS I CANT CONTAIN MYSELF YOUR WRITING IS SO BESUTIFUL AND AMAZING AND AHHHHHHHH
Holy crap I'm so excited for this new chapter that just literally came out an hour ago, I have such good timing, oh my God I'm getting on with reading my favourite story right now!!!
i like it. i think this chapter could be called "in which villains fails to quit while they were ahead"
So, Opposition!Celly is out for the count while Harmony!Mane 6 are in the process of duking it out with Chryssie and Shiny.
Meanwhile, Discord has pulled his great escape.
I'm rubbing my hands and smacking my lips at the thought of how deliciously livid Opposition!Twilight will be when she comes to.
Opp*celestia awesome plan of no consequences
-Petrify celestia
-Claim she is the other celestia
-remove witnesses if necessary (VERY IMPORTANT)
Consequences
-Apsolutely NOTHING
Rewards
-Infinite snuggles with my cute
deadmoon sister ( omg omg omg )Side bonus: new accurate statue of me in the gardens
Huggable niece next door who is not a freaky bug monster
Note- check on my universe to see if it still stands sometime in the near future (1000yrs or so)
Opposition Celestia wants to replace Harmony Celestia doesn't she?
Oh my god. That was Mcfreaking AMAZING! When Discord got the horn shards and told Fluttercruel off, I literally got chills. And Chrysalis was awesome! And Pinkie was as well! And everything was totally wonderful and worth the wait. Just...Go fuck yourself Fluttercruel.
Well well well... everything went perfectly for this chapter, and once again I'm begging for more. This is so, so clever! Shit is really getting real here, everything is on the edge while still having amazing writing and story built in. I love the Discord and Spike dynamic, they are so badass together and I hope you do that in NTH too. It really, really couldn't have been any better.
I also wonder... which Rainbow did the rainboom at the end? I mean, I'm pretty sure it was Harmony RD, but I can't help but think about how Opposition RD doing it would fit the time, but it doesn't make sense why she'd do it on Shining Armour (In Britain we still use the 'o' and 'u'). Maybe a stupid question, but whatever. This chapter as always ended with a bad assume bang! Man, I'm so, so hyped for the next chapter, as if I hadn't made it clear enough. But please Alara, take your time with this and all the other stories, because I literally can't think of anything negative for any of them, literally, thank you for remembering perfection takes time or however you like to say it. Same goes for me.
I hope Not the Hero or The Last Draconequus is up next.
8203928 if I'm correct, 'Turnabouts', 'Peices in Motion' and 'The Ghost in The Mirror' where meant to be this chapters titles. But I honestly think the title to this is good too.
8204035 Bingo!
8204068
This was intended to be "Turnabouts". "Ghost in the Mirror" is still the next chapter's title, and unless I feel like I have to change it like I did with this one, "Pieces in Position" will probably be the chapter after that.
8204030
It's a perfect, amazing plan in which absolutely nothing could go wrong! What's not to like, right?
So Discord has fucked off somewhere with Spike in a highly aggressive world with all of its anger pointing towards him, Cadence needs to be found as she is seemingly dying, Harmony Spike has greed growth in the middle of the bucking capital of Equestria and the Celestia has buggered off to fight with other Luna and Celestia.
Oh Yeah Harmony might break because of the betrayal done to Twilight by Fluttercruel and Rainbow Dash which might in turn kill Discord.
The title of this chapter just worries me for the future.
8204113 Oh yes, it definitely does.
8204153 The thing is I don't trust the author, I think shes the type of author who enjoys the villain winning.
The fact that one of the friends is probably going to die increases this distrust.
You know that scene from Raiders of the lost Ark where they open the ark, and every one melts?
8204030
Don't forget, it's also the place where Discord isn't an Evilmurderbastard. So, nookies with ex?
8204403
Except that not-evil-murder-bastard ex is the one trapped in her universe. So that wouldn't work very well.
Also, she sold all her positive feelings about Discord to Chrysalis to make it easier to fight him, so I don't think she'd be interested.
It was obvious to me as soon as she said it out loud: she was trying to destroy Celestia to take her place.
This is glorious!
I don't think I ever write you a review before, but I just want to say I really love your story and I look forward to every chapter, thank you
8204220
But which villain? I've got four main villains -- Opposition Twilight, Opposition Fluttershy, Opposition Celestia, and Opposition Chrysalis -- and a lot of the things each wants are mutually contradictory, so it's not possible for all the villains to win. :-)
8204415
Ah, but in this supposed replacement scenario, without her being around in her home dimension to lend her power to the cause, it's not impossible he will be rescued and brought back—where Pretendlestia can welcome him as his indirect saviour!
As for the second thing there... pffft, I bet whatever Chrysalis got out of Celestia was a bum deal, and Queen Cheeselegs Von Cackle has no idea.
Theories:
1. Op Chrysalis has been magnifying Op Celestia's love for her Luna to cripple her, making it much easier for her to run Equestria.
2. Discord's direct, and powerful, use of Op Discord's Chaos magic will set.....something off "knows some things so won't say what exactly 'Spoilers'"
3. Cadance=Fission power for changelings
Another noteworthy piece of exposition is the fact that Discord has killed multiple Trees of Harmony in the past. Whether these were actually more like relays for the main ToH that we know, or servers. This explains a bit actually. How Harmony is mostly located in Equestria and the Tree's desire to "spread" the seeds of friendship to other lands via the Cutie Map and it's bearers.
Considering what happened to Cadance I would really like to see a part where Discord or part of the Harmony team tells the Opposition team to saver their hypocrisy.
“remember when you said any amount of cruelty to an innocent was justified if it was to help ponykind? I want you to think about that and about what you let happen. because your niece was going through the same thing for the same reason at the hands of changelings. How does that make you feel?”
Oh and also If they rescue Cadance.
“Cadance, whatever you do don’t be alone with Celestia, don’t trust her. She has been looking for a replacement body for Luna, she has already tried to sacrifice an alternate universe Twilight Sparkle. And everyone thinks you are dead…”
when fluttershy said the worst thing you could do to them was fix them and have them live with what they did? making sure everyone knows so they can't hide their actions can only improve the suffering
8204657
At this stage, I'm thinking either chrysalis or op twilight.
YES :D You're my favorite author, and I love this story! I love how all the different subplots are intense and awesome and that you take the time to really flesh out the characters and their motives.
Yep, the fact that she is very arrogant hasn't changed a bit, which isn't surprising at all.
Opposition!Twilight is going to be really unhappy when she wakes up, and it's entirely unsurprising that Opposition!Celestia's fragile emotional state was her undoing.
My favorite part had to be Discord telling Fluttercruel to go fuck herself.
8205101 I completely agree.
Touching on a couple more things: given how much time has passed, Cadance's psychological state must be royally fucked up by now. I wouldn't put it past Chrysalis if she's been gloating to her about how much Shining Armor loves her during her torture sessions.
Also, I was wrong about the possibility of Spike sending Opposition!Celestia to Luna.
8206171 Care to be more specific on what you agree on...or just everything I said in general?
After giving it more thought, I have come to lean towards the ToHs being relays of Harmonies power rather then servers that generate more power. Harmonies power cannot be diminished, only divided. Discord allowed only a single tree to live because he COULDN'T kill them all since, with less bodies to divide the power between, the ToH we're familiar with holds the full power of Harmony. Or, if he did, a new Avatar would just be chosen to manifest the Aspect. It's an opposite situation to Malatrisse, the Avatar of Order, and works well to reduce Harmonies influence to the world as a whole.
I was so desperately hoping for one more Discord scene before the end. I know he's not out of the woods yet either way, what with the crystals and everything, but if he's actually, finally free... holy shit.
Man I loved this chapter. Lots of awesome action, Chryssie looks like her evil scheme was about to be exposed, and Spike was quite the badass. I was actually pretty sure it was simply jealousy explaining why Celestia went nuts and attacked her double (besides longstanding protocol I'm sure the author is aware of that if you meet your mirror universe duplicate, one of you needs to take out the other). But then 8204030 explained things in a succinct way.
Does Chryssie count as an alicorn for purposes of the necromantic spell? If so that would be awesome. If not, Harmony-verse Luna needs to hit up the mirror pool so they can send Opposition-verse Celestia back with a consolation prize. ( "Night! Night! Night!" )
fantastic Chapter just as always!!!
haha while reading, i just had to think about a diffrent way to get Discord around Twi's orders, all the time haha
it stuck in my head so bad that it almost seems way simpler and more logically than the actual solution Fluttercurel thought of haha
my idea:
if fluttershy could order Discord to use his magic against Twilight to make her fall asleep
would it also be possible for fluttercurel to order him to make twilight say things in her sleep? so twi wouldve just said the orders in her sleep out loud and discord would have to take those orders?
or fluttercurel wrote the orders down on paper, but didnt show him, only ordering to make twilight say whats on the paper?
or wouldnt it work with twilight being unconciouss
or a totally diffrent idea
he could use his magic AGAINST Twilight
to make her sleep
so he obviously could use his magic on twilight otherwise
so couldnt he have just altered her mind to another way of thinking? or making belive things for a temporary time?
like making her think he should be free? of course only temporary? similar to that delayed order thingy
or am i just missing the obvoious here which would make all my ideas untrue? :D
8206759
Short version, no, Opposition Twilight is not that stupid. She doesn't trust her friends enough to leave that loophole, so any sort of mind control or mind alteration is defined as "harm", and he's not allowed to harm the Bearers. Notice that Fluttercruel strongly emphasizes how good sleep would be for Twilight; she knows he can't harm the Bearers, and mind manipulation qualifies, so she's trying to reinforce the notion that putting Twilight to sleep is not mind manipulation and will be good for her.
8206623
No, Chrysalis doesn't count as an alicorn. Different species. She's also not on alicorn level, normally; like Tirek, her magic levels are highly variable because she starts with not much but can power up. She has more inherent personal magic than Tirek, but normally she's nowhere near an alicorn. Feeding on the love of a creature with magic gives her more power in proportion both to the power levels of that creature and the strength and purity of their emotion; in canon, Shining, an enormously powerful unicorn (specialized, but incredibly powerful within his specialty) who has a powerful and pure love for his fiance, gave her enough magic to take on Celestia.
8205101
You know, it never occurred to me that Chrysalis might be directly manipulating Celestia's emotions to increase her love for Luna and therefore make her incapable of getting over her grief, but that is an interesting theory, and would explain part of why this Celestia is such a basket case. I like to think our Celestia is sane enough that simply losing Luna, even if she had to kill her, wouldn't cause her to abandon her morality, which this Celestia has done. Of course, this Celestia also has Order Twilight, cold and ruthless, as her primary support structure, the only pony she trusts, so I'm sure that didn't help either.
So... I'm guessing OPDiscord was supercharged with Chaos. I'm also nearly sure he isn't actually dead, since the Chaos would move on to another Avatar. I'm guessing that Harmony Discord is going to share his experiences with OPDiscord and make him a good guy.
Chrysalis was siphoning love from Cadence when she zoned out. She's like a neutron star right now compared to Twilicorn. Shining is going to end up killing Chrysalis when he gets it through his thick skull.
OPCelestia is a bit unhinged from guilt over killing her own Luna. It's going to be really interesting to see how Luna reacts to seeing herself killed.
One thing I'm curious about. Can Harmony Discord just pry the shard of Matrisse(Sp?) out of the Element of Magic? Would that instantly deharmonize the others? If he can do it fast enough, he shouldn't have any ill effects because the spells would shatter.
8207284 Makes sense. I wondered if it was just a question of sacrificing a being of sufficient power, but then if that was possible they would have just used Discord long ago.
8207314 Feel free to run with the idea if you like. I just remembered that you said Op Chrysalis already messed with Op Celestia's emotions, at her request, to better combat Discord, so I wondered if she might not sneak in some other emotional manipulation while she had access. From what we know of Chrysalis, her driving force is the accumulation of power. With Celestia being crippled emotionally acting as a benefit to Chrysalis bid for power in Equestria, allowing her to act without more direct oversight from Celestia, it seemed that a direct correlation was likely. Apparently not if that was never even in your thoughts, but I guess that it is within the realm of possibility? :P
8206502 I agreed with the 3 theories, but I couldn't be sure about the ToH thing.
8204035
I was going to say she wanted to use Harmony!Celestia as a vessel for Opposition!Luna's resurrection, a duplicate of herself being somewhat easier to sacrifice than a copy of her daughter figure (especially if you count a bit of self-loathing) but then I remembered there being something about the sacrifice having to be cooperative, hence why Harmony!Twilight hasn't be sacrificed already.
I guess just replacing Harmony!Celestia works too. She'll at least have a Luna, and honestly, that other reality is kind of a shit hole, so screw it.
8211889 8206623 Alternate plan: Offer to perform the spell on Opp!Celestia herself, if she'll teach it. If she's really willing to sacrifice herself for her sister...
8233633
Pretty sure Opp!Celestia would turn that offer down hard. I imagine her character is pragmatic enough to openly admit that her reasons are utterly selfish and she's not looking to trade her life for her sister's. Anyone else's, sure. But she's not just looking for Luna to be alive again, but to be alive again WITH her, and she can't exactly have that if she's dead.
kinda reminds me of one of my fics where Twilight is pining over Rainbow Dash, who is already in a relationship with somepony else. She considers the whole "as long as my beloved is happy" angle, and dismisses it as utter fairy tale nonsense, because love is selfish at its core.
8233682
Actually, I think she would take it if she knew for a fact that Luna would come back with the strength to control the sun. Her major motive for not being willing to sacrifice her own life was that Luna might need time to recuperate before being able to move the sun, and if Luna can't move the sun for a few months and Celestia is dead, the world is screwed.
But, on the other hand, she was willing to let her world be boned without someone to control the sun as soon as she saw the opportunity to replace another world's Celestia, one who had a living Luna... she wasn't planning on tossing her counterpart back through the portal to manage her world's sun. So she's really not thinking things through as well as she should be.
Possibly the logic is that she's beyond giving a shit about anyone but Luna, and if Luna were stuck in a world that was freezing or broiling to death because Luna doesn't have the strength to move the sun, Luna would be horrified and guilt-stricken, and Celestia doesn't want to bring her sister back just to inflict such a fate on her... but if there's no Luna in her world because Luna is still dead, then Celestia doesn't really care if the entire world bakes or freezes, as long as she gets to be with Luna, and another world's Luna will do.
I am guessing that Opposition Celestia attacked Harmony Celestia because she was hoping to replace her, and then live in the Harmony world with Harmony Luna. This is superficially brilliant and deeply crazy, which I think pretty much describes Opposition Celestia to a T.
i wonder if harmony Celestia will use Opposition Celestia for an hostage exchange
Interesting
Ahhhhh I literally can't wait until this updates. I just finished reading all the other stories connected to this serious (the complete ones and the last draconequues) and I'm in love. Honestly this whole series is so fucked up but I absolutely love it wow. I do really ship fluttercord, and I think in the future it could maybe work in this timeline? Totally understand if it doesn't though! I just hike fluttercord at least goes back to being super best friends at some point after they rescue Discord. And maybe you could do a fic where like. It's all about Discords recovery and his recovering relationships with all tee ponies ?? Obviously maybe more with Fluttershy maybe not. AGHHH IM JUST SO IN LOVE WOTH THIS SERIOUS I CANT CONTAIN MYSELF YOUR WRITING IS SO BESUTIFUL AND AMAZING AND AHHHHHHHH
"From his vantage point on Discord's neck, Spike couldn't see Discord's face, but he could hear the grin in Discord's voice. "Go fuck yourself."
Well that was satisfying. Must of been satisfying for Discord as well.