Celestia rolled over and stretched as she woke up exactly one hour before sunrise. As she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was Twilight’s sleeping form in the other bed. It had become her routine to awake seeing Twilight sleeping safely near her. As silently as she could, Celestia climbed out of bed and headed into the lavish bathroom. A tiring but rewarding day of being Princess always started with a relaxingly hot bubble bath.
The soundproofing spell that she used was so easy to cast she could put it in place without hardly thinking about it. All sounds from the bathroom would be muffled by arcane barriers so that Twilight and Spike would not be disturbed. The gigantic bathtub filled swiftly, gradually filtering in a thick fog of steam into the room. She poured out a small amount of the bubble solution and couldn’t help but smile in childish glee as she watched the bubbles form. Celestia couldn’t resist dumping in another large helping in addition.
The Princess slowly lowered herself into the hot water, and after giving herself a moment to adjust in the miniature swimming pool she called her spa, let out a drawn-out sigh that spoke volumes of the pleasure she was experiencing. She leaned back and closed her eyes, letting the warm water wash over her. Celestia’s mane began floating of its own accord in the still pond of her sanctuary, water suspending the strands rather than magic. Her mind drifted and pulled up one of her fondest memories. The first time she brought the young Twilight Sparkle to join her for a bath. Twilight had just agreed to become her personal student and had spent the night with Celestia.
Twilight loved bubble baths and had been so surprised to learn that the Princess got to take one every single day. Celestia giggled to herself as she stretched, idly thinking about dragging Twilight in for tomorrow’s bath. The look on her face as they relaxed next to each other would be worth the possible embarrassment, she decided.
Celestia’s self-allotted relaxation time came to an end all too soon, and she quickly scrubbed shampoo into her mane, tail, and coat. After several hundred years of having the same morning routine, her magic and hooves worked completely on their own. Her mind drifted once more to Twilight. She was a little worried what Twilight might find in the course of her research. Or more worryingly, what would happen is she didn’t find anything.
With a gentle burst of magic, the bathtub drain opened and the water around Celestia quickly rushed down the pipes. She grabbed a large, fluffy, white towel from a nearby shelf in her aura and quickly rubbed down every inch of her fur coat, getting herself dry in less than a minute. She smirked as she used a bit of magic to dry out her mane and tail and set up the spell that kept them waving through the air. Most ponies assumed that it was natural for alicorns to have such magical manes, but it was just a little secret spell that Celestia kept. As Princess she wanted to look her best, after all.
The soundproofing spell popped with a sound much akin to a bubble as she interrupted the incantation. Celestia slowly walked through the bedroom and out into the hall, making sure that her closing of the front door did not rouse her roommates. The sun was due to rise in a little less than quarter of an hour. She had plenty of time to head out into her personal garden and raise the sun from outside; another part of her centuries old routine.
A pair of unicorn guards fell in step behind her as she walked, her usual escort after Twilight had been cursed. The months directly after the attack, Celestia had been surrounded by guards for almost every minute of the day. It took a lot of reassurance until she had managed to get them down to just a few guards whenever she ventured outside the palace.
The gardens were completely silent and dark as the Princess and her guards walked out of the palace. The moon was too low in the night sky now to provide any useful illumination, and the lunar body hung on the horizon, awaiting its descent. Not that Celestia needed any light; her ancient eyes worked just fine in the dark. On cue, however, the guards cast a simple light spell to allow them to see all around. The lush greens of her garden suddenly became clearer as two soft orbs let loose their light from their perch on the guard’s horns.
“Thank you,” she said softly to her guards. They simply nodded their heads at her; it was all part of the routine. The Princess took her place in the middle of a clearing and waited. She could feel the minutes tick past, one after the other. Her mind soon counted down the seconds, and with ten seconds to go her horn started to glow. The moon slowly drifted down below the horizon behind her, and directly in front of her the sun rose, bringing its light and warmth to the garden.
Celestia allowed herself a few minutes to enjoy her sunrise, a faint but happy smile tugging at her face. With a burst of renewed confidence that everything involving Twilight’s condition would turn out just fine, she headed back inside the palace. Her guards quickly dismissed themselves as she headed to the dining hall for breakfast. Twilight and Spike would be up soon enough now that the sun was up, wanting to get an early start on a busy day of research, she guessed.
After a short but pleasant breakfast, Twilight and a small herd of guards left the main door of the palace and set off down the street towards the city. Spike, perched on her back, had been giving her all sorts of information about the Academy all morning. It was similar to her memories of school, so she mostly focused on remembering names and classes that she should be familiar with should she run into anypony. The guards had been assigned to her at Celestia’s insistence; it would be her first time in the city since she was cursed, after all.
As they left the palace grounds and entered the city proper, it seemed like every single pony wanted to wish her a good morning and a wave. The guards kept anyone from getting too close, but they were all excited to see her. The amiable pestering of almost giddy pedestrians reminded her of the attention she received after using the Elements of Harmony, only she wasn’t surrounded by her friends this time.
“Look, there it is!” Spike called out, bringing her out of her thoughts. Down the road from them was a large building, similar in design to the palace, if not smaller. Spiraling pillars arranged in a neat, orderly column held the awning above the entrance, giving a professional feel in the air just by examining the structure. Five large towers rose above her as they approached, their grasps silently reaching towards the sky as if to touch it. At the top of the tallest one was a daunting telescope far larger than she, trained up at the sky.
The unicorn leading Twilight’s group of guards turned to her. “Lady Sparkle, do you wish to head directly to the library?”
Twilight nodded once. “Yes. This isn’t a social visit,” she replied. Spike’s advice for talking with her guards had been to be polite but talk in direct statements. She was expected to give orders, not make conversation. It was awkward initially, but Twilight was an adaptable pony. Of this, there was no doubt.
Somehow they managed to get through the hallways and to the library without being stopped. Twilight considered that to be extremely fortunate. There was a pony waiting for them inside the library, however. An older mare with glasses was just inside the library perusing a small piece of parchment as they entered. She quickly raised her head with an aged, but comforting smile. “Oh my! Lady Sparkle!”
Twilight, somewhat surprised to be greeted so quickly, jumped slightly. Spike jumped to the ground from her back. “Good morning, Mrs. Scrolls!”
Clearing her throat in an attempt to compose herself once more, Twilight tried to give the mare she assumed was a librarian a friendly wave. “Good morning,” she said softly, her instincts preventing her from speaking in a full voice inside the walls of a library. Mentally she did her best to file away the mare’s name.
Mrs. Scrolls bowed slightly to her. “Good morning, Lady Sparkle. Is there anything at all I can help you find?”
“I know where I’m headed for now. But thank you, Mrs. Scrolls. I’ll send word if I need your assistance.” Twilight felt awkward as she tried to sound confident. In reality, she had no idea where to even start looking for research on alternate worlds. She waited a few moments as the librarian mare slowly walked away. “Let’s find someplace quiet to work,” she said, prompting Spike to lead her.
He did, taking her towards the back of the room. They walked past shelf after shelf of books, and from a quick glance around Twilight could tell the room was rather large. A partially glass ceiling met her glances upward, letting in a bountiful supply of natural light into the amphitheater that was the Academy. She spotted a twisting set of stairs leading up to what she assumed was another floor of books, and potentially another floor from there. The library was something truly grand to behold. If only she wasn’t pursuing such important matters...
Spike approached a wooden door that was propped open by a small door-jam, and quickly opened it all the way. Sliding the wooden wedge into its new home, he motioned with a free claw for Twilight to come over. “This should work just fine. It’s even your usual room from your academy days.”
Twilight walked into the room. It contained a large table and several chairs with a few blackboards attached to the walls. Simple, quaint, and efficient. A perfect room to study without others peaking in on you. “Ah, so it is,” she lied calmly. “Now then, gentlemen. If you’d be so kind as to guard the outside of this room, I’d like to have some peace of mind while I work. I’ll be sending Spike out to gather my materials, so if one of you could keep an eye on him and potentially aid him when he does so, I would greatly appreciate it.”
Her squad of stallions saluted her and quickly moved into a formation outside the door without a word. “Thank you,” she said with a quick smile at them before quietly shutting the door. She turned to Spike, who was laying out some parchment and ink for her to use. “Now Spike, does the library use the Dexter Decimal System?”
“Only on mass published books,” he muttered in distraction as he stared down at a quill. He tapped a talon against his chin in contemplation, before slightly adjusting its angle. The newfound placement brought a satisfied grin to his features. “Magic journals and research data, however, would be filed-”
She cut him off. “Yes, yes, I know. First though, I want you to go to the Science and Magic shelves, and find the math and physics sections. Should be 510 and 530, if the system is the same as I remember. Look for anything related to Lay Lines or Mana Flows.”
Spike had been about to run off, but her request struck him as odd. “I thought you wanted to know about alternate worlds?”
“I do, Spike. But I also need to look into what could have caused me to move worlds without a detectable spell. You should be able to to find some books on those subjects quickly, and then I’ll have you go digging around the research sections for anything on dimensional boundaries, parallel worlds, and time travel after,” she explained as she climbed into a chair.
Spike’s eyes lit up in understanding. “Ooohhh! That’s actually a good idea! Don’t worry, Twi. I’ll be back in a flash!” He opened the door and rushed out, letting it swing close behind him. She could hear his distorted voice again and smirked in amusement. “Whoever is coming with me; let’s go! We’re headed to the west end of the library!”
As the next several hours slowly started to creep by, Spike brought more and more tomes, scrolls, and other varying descriptions of literature containing the information she requested. Soon enough, Twilight had filled her workspace with pages of notes, some stacks towering over her by a full head. She took a bite of the sandwich Spike had brought her at lunchtime; she was still only half done with it. She hadn’t found anything at all that would help her. In fact, what little she was able to find seemed to reject her ideas and concepts altogether. Any magic that could interact with dimensions outside their own seemed to be impossible to do.
She crunched the numbers for a third time and sighed. The power requirements to even detect another universe would require about thirty Princess Celestias all channeling their power together. Unfortunately, she was about twenty nine Princesses short for that. Not even the Elements of Harmony could produce that output for more than a moment, and it would take several seconds to confirm that they had detected another universe. It would take much more power to send something across the boundary.
With the sun hanging low in the sky, Twilight called it quits. Spike informed Mrs. Scrolls about the mess they had made as the guards escorted them out. Their walk back was silent. Celestia was waiting, just inside the palace, when they returned. “How did it go, Twilight?”
A heavy sigh was more than enough to answer the question. Spike was more vocal as he got off Twilight’s back. “She went through dozens of books, over a couple of hours, but no luck it seems.”
“As I know, time travel spells are unable to alter the past, so I can rule out that.” Celestia and Spike both looked over in confusion, to see Twilight starting one of her infamous rants, though mostly to herself. “Parallel worlds or alternate dimensions are just too hard to reach with magic. All the numbers show that it would take… I don’t know! Five hundred to a thousand alicorns to have enough power to send a pony across them? And then they’d have to devise a way to link their magic and figure out which dimension they were targeting. It would be a logistical nightmare, even for me!” With her tirade seemingly done, Twilight gave another defeated sigh and visibly slumped. “I guess that means I’m from here after all.”
Celestia forced herself not to smile or give a relieved sigh. Instead she stepped over to Twilight and gave her a friendly nuzzle. “Then perhaps we should try to locate your memories. Could you teach me that memory spell you used on me before? I believe you said it would bring forth shared memories.”
“Of course, Celestia. It should work on me, seeing as I must have those memories somewhere in my mind.” It didn’t seem to cheer Twilight up anymore. Her words sounded almost montone as she spoke them. Twilight’s exhaustion became palpable very quickly. “I just… I need some time alone, Celestia.”
Spike gave a worried look to the Princess, unsure of what to do. Twilight’s mood seemed to be even worse than when she first woke up from the coma. “Very well. I’ll have somepony bring you some dinner in your room.” Twilight slowly walked off, her hoofsteps echoing in the empty halls. A soft exhale left Celestia's lips as she glanced down at her friend. “Come on, Spike. You can tell me more about her research over dinner.”
She leaned down to let him climb onto her back, used to the feel of his claws grabbing her coat. Once he was seated, she slowly started to walk towards the dining room. Spike broke the silence, talking in a soft voice so they wouldn’t be easily overheard. “She went through the math over and over again. While it seems that magic might be able to send a pony to another world, it needed more magic than we could ever hope to use.”
Celestia nodded once. “I had guessed that would be the case. If it were so easy, we’d be having visitors from other worlds all the time. I guess the best case would be that I can cast this memory spell she’s invented and it returns some of her previous life to her.”
“If that spell even works. How do we know she hasn’t… you know… lost it completely?” The Princesses faltered midstep, coming to a stop. The shift in the air was instant, and nearly foreboding in nature. She very slowly turned her head to look at the young dragon. A large bead of sweat formed on Spike’s forehead at her expression. “Nevermind,” he said quickly, with a nervous chuckle.
After glaring at him for a moment longer, Celestia started walking again. “I felt the spell she cast, and it did go through my memories. I have no doubt the spell does as she says it can. What I fear is that it won’t find anything.”
“But if she’s our Twilight and not from an alternate world, then it’s gotta find her memories… Right?”
Celestia gave a defeated sigh that mimicked Twilight’s. “The curse that was cast upon her should have killed her, but it failed to take hold properly. I think that perhaps it killed the Twilight we knew but left her body alive. All her memories gone because of that pony. In the coma, she lived an alternate version of her life up to this point. She managed to hold on to the important things to her: You, me, and her family.
“But she lost the fine details that made her our Twilight. Instead, she got all these strange details. Battling ancient evils instead of doing paperwork, making friends with ponies instead of griffons.” Celestia paused to open the door to the dining room. “I know that she is my Twilight, but my heart says that she is broken.”
Spike jumped down off her back, landing with a soft thud. “Maybe we should have her evaluated by a professional. If the memories really are gone, she might need some pony who knows what they are doing to help her cope.”
The Princess huffed and glared at him once more. “Twilight isn’t crazy. I know that much.”
“You called her broken.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. She’s Twilight, but she’s not the Twilight that I…” She trailed off, her cheeks turning a soft pink as she realized just how she was planning on ending that sentence.
Spike leaned over towards her and flashed her a toothy grin. “That you love? Celestia, if I may offer my opinion, this Twilight seems to be a lot more interested in you than the old Twilight. Perhaps you stand a better chance at winning her over. A fresh start.”
“Spike!” Celestia’s whole face turned several shades of red as she admonished the drake. After a moment though, she leaned towards him and whispered in his ear. “You really think I have a chance?” He just laughed at her, making her turn an even darker shade of red.
*squee!!!!!*
Twilestia incoming!!!!
Mhhhh, you kinda stutter-stepped with this chapter.
The first portion of the whole thing is dead-wood. It's not important to the story that Celestia got up, didn't wake Twilight, bathed and raised the sun. She does that every day under the assumption of the reader. So we kind of ground to a screeching halt in the narrative, paragraph-skipping-ly so, up until the point that Twilight leaves for the library.
Remember, your overarching concept is what drives the interest of the story, not the assumed to be true and easily glossed over scenes that happen in every other fan fic out there. Cling to your unique idea and let THAT drive the story. Don't bog it down in things we've read a hundred times before.
Twilestia? Hmmm... not my favorite ship. But the rest of this story intrigues me enough that I am going to keep going.
I'm glad we're starting to get into why Twilight's here, at any rate.
4362935 I don't know, it didn't seem tedious to me. It's a character study in Celestia, basically. Which is important if you want to push the romance angle.
Universe hopping might need a lot of alicorns to work, but how many Discords would it need?
so Celestia has asked Twi out but the old Twi didn't fell the same way?
4362932 Brace yourself. Twilestia is coming.
4362935 4363057 I wanted to give Celestia some time to be a main character, and as terrycloth said, this is part of the romance plot. I'm sorry you felt it was tedious, I'll do my best to minimize that in future scenes.
4363042 To be perfectly honest, it's not even one of my favorite ships. I do enjoy it though.
4363060 Don't know, who is this Discord you speak of. He certainly doesn't exist in this universe.
4363093
4363304 but does she love this Twi is a question she shored be asking ?
4363330 Not giving anything away,
4363359 i know, you said X3
X
Hmm..... for some reason I am starting to agree a little, just a smudge, that this ship is working.
A SMUDGE.
Every time a fimfiction author wastes an interesting and intriguing set-up just to write another shipfic, God kills a kitten.
4364324 To be fair, this had the romance tag from Chapter 1. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
4364338 Nothing wrong with romance... Just old whining man preferred to find more 'Sweet Taste of Cake' class romance, instead of common 'shipy-shipy' stuff.
Anyway, flooding your story comments with my ramblings isn't a good thing to do. I enjoyed your language and ideas, so looking forward to your second story.
4364410 Haha, well I'm trying not to let this fall into the boring "Ponies meet, instantly love each other, good times for all" style. All I can say is that I hope you give it a chance because I don't consider it a "shipy-shipy" story at all.
Update?
Update!
Bring out the good Booze!
Don't fool yourself. This has been 7 chapters of the good stuff.
Stories like this keep me dedicated to Pony
4364515 Glad you're enjoying it!
Yay the twilestia ship is arriving. Just hoping it doesn't completely push the world building to the side.
Dude...
I F*CKING CALLED IT!!!!
Here's to Tia gettin' lucky! + =
Story gets better every time. Keep it up, Soft!
4364617 The main focus is still going to be Twi's situation, so I have no intention of pushing it off.
4364748
4364800 Celestia: "I'm up all night to get luck~y!"
Glad you're enjoying the story!
I have to say until you wrote it in chapter six, I never would have guessed that Twilight felt this Celestia was nicer or that she felt closer to her. With the inclusion of the execution of Twilight's attacker I was thinking this might end up with a harsher Celestia or maybe we'd find out Twilight was really trying to usurp her.
4363304
Am I guessing spoilers...
(Don't answer that)
Hmmm, Twilestia. I had a creeping feeling that was the direction this was heading in. I was actually kind of looking forward to when you incorporated it because I thought you were taking the Twilestia plot thread in a very different direction. How it's headed now... I just hope you can make this ship work, I really hope so. At least if I jump ship on this story because it raised the Twilestia flag it'll be because of my own issues, and not necessarily any fault in the story itself.
But let's put aside my problems with x and it's buildup in the story, at least until I can actually judge how it's going to play out besides just my own speculation.
I like this story. I like it more towards the beginning than the rest of it, but it's definitely interesting enough that I'm going to keep reading to see what happens. You've got the mystery plot hook in me, it won't let go until I've got the answers.
I try to make sure any critique I make constructive and at least partially coherent or insightful, but I'm not coming from any position of wisdom besides my own opinion on what seems like good fiction. Though I have written things, your first story is a whopping one more than the zero stories I've ever published. I don't want to come off as the guy who barges into your comments and commands you on how you should be writing your own story, and not just because if I did act that way then there would be no chance in hell of you listening to me. I fully understand if you don't want to read through all this feedback. I know altering the story is unrealistic at this point, when so much has been written and already planned out. I can't expect you to change your own creative child just to appease me. But even if it only assists your writing much further down the line I still think it's worth point out the problems I see.
I could read a hundred bad fics and gloss them over without comment. It's when I see a story with so much promise behind it, but some crucial aspect is missing or wrong with it that I feel the need to share my thoughts. I may think aspect of this fell flat, I may even think they really fell flat. But at the end of the day it's your story. No matter how much I want to correct what I see as wrong I can't dictate what is or isn't the right way to write your story. All I can do is try to make you understand the points I'm making and see the issues I have from my perspective as a reader. I can understand if your shooting for a different direction then what seems natural to me. Hopefully I can do this without coming off as a jackass.
There's lots of things in this fic I think you've handled really well, the world building with the politics and griffons especially. The premise and first chapter really got me intrigued by what was going on. This kind of setup is such a great angle for some really compelling exploration of characters and how they view themselves and their lives. But there's something that hold this story back from the excited fist pump kind of reaction I have to this kind of premise. A lot of the dialogue flows pretty well, but in longer conversations and particularly with Twilight and Celestia it starts to feel jarringly unnatural. It damages this story's ability to explore the characters properly and makes what should be some really interesting drama feel untapped and stilted. I'm not entirely sure how much of the problem is pacing, characterization or just simply failing to communicate conversations effectively.
What I'm getting at is how some of the reactions feel strangely detached from what it seems like those characters would be experiencing at any given time. Like when Twilight nonchalantly brings up the idea of her being a Twilight from a different universe with Celestia and they discuss and dismiss it in a very short awkward exchange. With none of the natural progression or emotion that should accompany that kind of discussion. It felt less like Twi and Celestia having a conversation and more like the author mentioning and then dismissing a plot thread. Whenever there's a conversation about the life Twilight remembers or how she's coping it seems to get like that.
I really felt it when Twilight hears Shining Armor is dead in this world, it seemed more or less like how Twilight would react if she suddenly found out her BBBFF had been dead for years. But then nothing like that ever happens again in relation to Twilight's dreamed life. It feels like the story is bulldozing past how she's dealing with situation rather than exploring how it's affecting her. When Twilight is trying to uncover the truth of her entire life and everything she knows and cares about, it feels more like she's working on a mildly fascinating homework assignment then trying to come to grips with her entire personal reality being ripped to shreds in an instant. There isn't any space in the story devoted to Twilight and how this situation is affecting her personally, when that's the entire base premise of the story.
If I woke up one day to find my entire life displaced, loved ones are dead or never even existed at all... I would quite reasonably have a freak out of the highest magnitude. But Twilight...Twilight is a character who's personality is extremely neurotic, borderline ocd and subsists on being a substantial control freak. Twilight bases her life on setting up lots of rules and very specific ideas about how the world is and her place in it. When Twilight nearly missed a deadline sending her letter she lost her mind and nearly destroyed Ponyville. When Twilight messed up her calendar scheduling she stayed up past four in the morning having a breakdown about it until she finally settled on double reading when the sun rose the next day.
Almost all the major points in Twilight's life that define her as a person happen after Nightmare Moon, her entire life and personality are built up around them. Every magical incident and moment with her friends are the ingredients that molded her entire conception of self. The turning point of her character is when she finally realizes "That these are my friends!" Somepony who's identity and ability to handle reality are so deeply rooted in this life of hers is suddenly torn completely asunder. How could Twilight adjust and just go with the flow so easily and without real struggle or conflict set aside everything she's ever known about the world? Can you imagine what being thrust into a world where nearly everything she can conceive of about herself is false would do to somepony who's so scared of losing control of herself and her relationships? Every rule and schedule and frame of mind she uses to deal with her life are completely shattered. And yet we haven't even seen a proper Twilight Sparkle freak out, aside from the one instance of crying over Shining Amor Twilight displayed more emotional distress in Games Ponies Play. She just strolls on along as if the whole thing were a moderate inconvenience, it's like whenever it's time to even barely contemplate how much she's lost her character is replaced by this strange alien being who doesn't function on normal emotional levels.
Most of the ponies she loves and cares about in her life are suddenly either dead or gone forever and she hardly seems bothered! With the exception of Celestia, Spike and her parents, every single important pony in her just vanishes into thin air. Can you imagine what that would do to somepony? Her entire life, her home, her friends, her family, her job. It's a brutal destruction of Twilight's entire character arc, every life changing moment that built her up over the past four seasons is gone from reality. There were other things that developed the Twilight in this new world, but whether or not she's the same Twilight she doesn't remember them. Everything thing that made her who she thought she was may not have even happened, the psychological effect of that would be staggering! The things she uses to define who she is to herself are unreachable, replaced by a world she doesn't recognize. That's an amazing setup for exploring how Twilight copes, seeing what would happen to Twilight if she woke up in world where she was never really Twilight Sparkle.
The sudden absence of talking to her friends, hanging out with them, having them in her life, that should be haunting. She relied heavily on her Ponyville friends for support and companionship throughout her every day. She should begin a thought out of habit to go talk to or find a solution with one of friends, only to realize mid-thought that in this world she never even met that pony. What's it like for Twilight to have no Fluttershy, no Applejack, no Rainbow Dash? Those character interactions are what the entire FIM show is built on, removing them should be a huge deal. That should be a huge knife to the heartstrings, it's unbelievably tragic just by premise alone. Every pony she's lost should carry at least some of the emotional baggage that losing her brother did. I'm not saying the story should hop the Emo express to angst town and spend the first five chapters wallowing in misery, but this side of things is never even addressed beyond a handful of throwaway lines. It might make sense if Twilight was in denial and thought that she would figure out how to return to her own world any day now, but according to her research, her world being real is nearly Impossible. All evidence suggests the whole life she remembers is an illusion, that should be heartbreaking. She lost everyone, even if it's a product of circumstance even Spike and Celestia aren't quite the same people she knew.
None of it has any emotional gravity or weight, it just segues into "Oh look at Twilight learning how to rule, isn't she so flustered?" without any kind of emotional addressing or development. She's searching for a way home like a robot, calmly and without fuss considering all the various options. They're not just options though, they're the basis of her entire world and how her life is going to continue. That's not the kind of thing that passes without fuss.
It's just such a bizarre character inconsistency, it really takes me out of the story. You took on this premise, but the story is ignoring major ramifications of that premise. It's like the story is dodging it's own character drama to pave the way for whatever plot you have in mind while disregarding all the other circumstance and effects of what's happening to the characters.
Sweet Celestia was that a madman's rant. I'm so sorry for taking up such an astounding spire of text in your comments, at least your story inspired me to think about things so intensely... Yeah... I'll just go with that. If a story gets me to rant like this it's either really truly awful or it's managed to make me invested enough in to put down my thought so extensively. This story is definitely not awful, so it must be the latter. I don't want it to seem like I'm bashing your ability to write characters, but it's hard not for me to sound like that when I'm discussing this one issue at such length. I'm only bothering to spend this much effort giving advice because I think you're good enough writer to improve yourself and just keep improving. Whether or not you improve by considering my criticism is not something I can presume to say. But I know that even if you disagree with every point I made, thinking about it and exploring why you did what you did will still hopefully help you improve yourself as an author. Don't let me get you down, especially on your first story on this account. Some of your characterization has great potential to provide really interesting interactions and compelling story arcs. Just not the part I'm highlighting here. I sincerely want to see this story continue and succeed, which judging just by your raw skill in writing seems pretty likely.
If you want I can edit this down to a much clearer and more concise comment, but it's 1:00 AM right now while I'm posting this. So it's not my tidiest or least repetitive. It's definitely more melodramatic than it should have- Pfffthahaha, alright not so much. I'm a melodramatic buffoon no matter when I'm writing. If it bothers you just say so and I'll spend some time tomorrow trimming it down or even just delete it if you'd like!
Also, if I use the word 'especially' again please feel free to track me down and slap me as hard as you can.
4366073 Actually I love this sort of feedback! So I'm not upset with such a comment at all. I know one of my weaknesses is emotional writing.There are some moments coming in the story where I am going to be attempting to really show some more emotion, but there is a good chance they'll come off wrong. And I don't really want to fill this comments with all my excuses as to why I've avoided the obvious direction of "Twilight should be emotionally freaking out at the thought being gone from her world" but I do want to point out that, at least in this part of the story, she was still under the belief that she would be able to find a way back to them. After all, things in her life seem to always work out in the end. But the real truth of the matter is, I just didn't feel like I could deliver that level of emotion straight off the bat in this story. So I didn't, and now that's how the story will be.
I do hope you enjoy it, I am putting in a lot of work into this story. But if you abandon it, that is fine too. I'd be a liar if I said I never stopped reading a fic because it didn't meet my expectations of where the story should go.
Thanks for the detailed comment.
4367578 Well, wonderful then! You seemed like kind of person who handles criticism reasonably, when I'm writing long critical rants I just tend to be extra careful in how I present myself.
Sorry I didn't reply sooner, I was busy watching the season finale over and over again until my mind solidified that I wasn't in some kind of miraculous dream.
The first step to improvement is knowing where your faults lie, even if you can't just fix all your shortcomings right away it's still nice to have that to keep in mind while your writing.
I'm glad your thinking about incorporating that kind of thing into the ongoing story. Whatever you end up writing might not be exactly what I'd want, but I wouldn't rule out that you have the potential to write emotional scenes sincerely. Whatever you make is going to be a step forward for yourself, as long as you put a real effort into it and are happy with the results.
It makes sense that Twilight might not have fully understood the gravity of her situation at the start, when that same obliviousness persists is when you start running into character consistency issues. You already seem to realize this, so I don't feel the need to lecture you about it. At this point the story will be what it will be, you've already invested much into the story so far so all you can do is take note of it for the future.
Maybe experiment with handling that kind of emotional stuff? I don't know, I have no clue how your writing process goes.
I don't think I'm done with this story quite yet, I'm still very interested in how things are going to turn out. Nothing in here has made me dislike the story enough to abandon it. Plus, after I've invested this much thinking about it, I'm not very well going to just leave.
I'll be following this, I'm glad my comment was at least somewhat useful and I wish you the best of luck as you continue to craft this fic.
4368600 It was quite the finale, wasn't it.
Glad your sticking around for more!
4369115 Thank you! I definitely didn't expect any of my rants to be called inspiring, I'm glad my comment was able to help you learn something! But as far as the learning thing goes, I really don't have any basis for handing out advice. My experience with writing is actually pretty limited, but I do read quite a bit. Mostly I think these huge columns of advice come mostly just from me thinking about these things a lot. When something bothers me about a story I can't get it out of my head until I understand why.
Really though I'm no expert on any of this stuff, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
Repetition and length are my main issues when it comes to these comment-review-thingies. I guess I feel sort of like I haven't stated my points clearly, so I try approach the issue from as many different angles as I can. The end result is me stating a moderately altered version of the same thing over and over. If you can stomach it I think it gets the point across, but it is very long and probably unnecessary.
Normally I try to go back and edit out the more superfluous bits. But I wrote that one really late at night, so the whole editing thing never actually happened.
4369011 Good catch, and fixed.
you know if you're looking for ways to work in Twilight's feeling of loss an obvious trick to bring it up, without dropping her into some random melancholy would be giving her a problem that she decides to talk about with one of her friends only to realize she can't
I can't tell you how much I am enjoying this story! It just keeps getting better!
I love the concept, the idea is just impressive.
Also, I had a feeling Celestia's feelings for Twilight weren't just motherly ones, but I didn't think it was really going in that direction. And you did it so well! It feels real, I think you've really captured the characters here,
which is the most important part of any fanfiction.
I cannot take a story seriously if everypony is out of character. Unless it's a comedy MEANT to be that way.
Good job! I'm so excited to see where you take Twilight in this world.
I'm also excited to see if her friends actually exist somewhere in this new Equestria. And what they might be like.
Hmm... I wonder if Twilight remembered to factor the fact that there was no apparent transfer of mass into her math. A body may be dense, bulky, and all around difficult to move trans-dimensionally, but mind and soul are both immaterial and, if one believes in an afterlife, already capable of such travel on their own.
Which brings me to my WMG:
Story-side, it goes almost identical to 4289809; Celestia's #1 Fan casts his curse, but hits "Standby" instead of "Shut Down." Two years and one execution later, the curse ends and Twilight's body tries to boot back up.
ERROR 404; SOUL NOT FOUND
However, instead of biting the bullet proper, Story-Twilight's soul decides she's too smart/young/pretty/Twilicious to die and so latches onto the nearest Twilight-Shaped receptacle she can find: Show-Twilight, just over two years before MMC. Of course, being already occupied, the "new" body doesn't actually respond to her, but the local Twilight is similar enough personality-wise that living vicariously through her is actually pretty easy.
A little too easy, in fact, because after a while the line between the two starts to blur.
Their proximity causes their memories to get shared in their sleep, but while Show-Twi can easily brush the new memories off as simple dreams (or nightmares, in the case of Shining Armor's fate), Story-Twi has a harder time of it. She falls farther in sync with her host, gathering more shared memories both old and new. Soon enough their thoughts start to coincide close enough, often enough, that it's hard to tell which is whose. Dreams of ruling at her mentor's side, of dueling griffins and losing her BBBFF, fade into the subconscious, only surfacing as flights of fancy or half-remembered foalhood nightmares.
By the time two years has passed, the two are practically indistinguishable.
TWI.EXE IS SEARCHING FOR A SOLUTION.
In the other world, the curse ends. Story-Twilight's body reaches out in that peculiar way bodies use to drag their souls out of the Dream-Realms, and fumbles around the multiverse until it finds where its Twilight has been squatting.
"Oh, so that's where that went off to!"
It would probably be impossible to tell if it grabbed the right Twilight or not, but then it probably doesn't matter.
4376498 Thanks! I'm doing my best to keep the feel of the characters intact while I present my new story around them, lol. Glad you're enjoying it!
4377478 I'm sure she considered it, she's pretty smart you know. Interesting idea, though I'm not sure why her body, running an exe file, would call HTML error code 404.
What do you mean good stuff? So your implying that the part before is not good. Please fix that in the authors note because the part before this is good as well
A perfect room to study without others peeking in on you.
(sorry, the moustache emoticon is the only Spike Emoticon that there is.
"What! Does the Twilight of this world, which may or may not be me, not have good ideas that often?!"
Or one Discord, trying to give her a better life...
That is an amazingly well thought-through theory! I SAY WE STICK WITH THAT ONE!
9305930
Aye sir!