How far will one stallion run to escape what pursues him?
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I never thawt I culd hate Celestia...
That..... That poor poor toilet
Sugar filled modern homes, the land of hyperactive fun times for foals. The bane and land of misery for parents xD
House, had no he, double subject.
I don't know if I should laugh at the foals antics, or feels sad for Berry... and you're driving me mad... you tell us Shining has a plan, then skip the whole explanation. I know people do it all the time, but it's still a mean cliffhanger hidden in the depths of the chapter.
Great job on Thistle's perspective as well, it conforms well to her water elemental nature and provides a lot of insight to her views.
This is very unclear to me: Is Shining saying that he does not know what the punishments could be, or is Shining saying that he is not allowed to say what the punishments could be?
4999163 she literally had the weight of the galaxy on her shoulders, she is bound to slip up
Although I have an idea, "all of its implications" seems overly broad to me.
4999197
But people actually talk like that!
4999231 they do, but it's grammatically incorrect. My teacher made sure our entire class was aware of it because it was his largest pet peeve... idk if you want to change it or not, but I doubt Shining would make that kind of error.
Luna should show celestia Buckys memories of the shetland isles, I don't think she realizes just how bad it was there.
4999197
The speaking like that could be passed off as Shining being stressed and tired. The explanation is pretty well there for us. Bucky's going to have to reject his herd. He's going to have to claim that he forced everything to happen, and now that he is done he's done with them. It's the only way to take all of the blame on himself. It's going to hurt all of his foals, his wives, and it will be the hardest thing he has ever done.
kudzuhaiku tell me I'm wrong, but I don't think that you can, not totally anyway.
You mean, in addition to how much punishment he has already had to go through?
I know this is supposed to be the punishment part and serious but I can't help but laugh
4999279 I know it could mean that he is tired, but just wanted to point it out in case it was not intended. And your explanation of what Bucky will do is very possible and fills me with dread. I am not looking forward to Bucky hurting the things he loves.
Bucky, put your hoof down and say no. Go back to the islands if you have to.
4999244
I believe Celestia, and the... fates know that you don't actually have to give the ponies freedom. Nope... Give the ponies the illusion of freedom and they will give you their undying support and admiration.
The way I read that, Shining and Twilight could get in trouble simply by inviting their parents to dinner. Even giving their parents a hug could be seen as providing emotional support.
That's remarkably cruel.
4999358
No, nothing quite like that. They just can't house their parents. Common sense applies.
4999319
If he does then Celestia has to chase him, and he's proven to be dangerous so then she's forced to either kill him, turn him to stone, or send him to tartarus. None of which she really wants. She doesn't want them because her pawn was only doing what she wanted him to do. It's also part of the reason she didn't do this herself.
I'm sure that I'm going to be argued against, but Celestia understood all too well what might be there on the islands, and she knew what it might take to defeat it. If she had went and did this herself then she would have to be held accountable as well.
Faust forbid that she have to face the same punishment as her underlings. After all she has had to deal with her own troubles (Most of which have been self created). So, having a patsy seemed reasonable. This is Celestia being the chess player and manipulator that only a master politician, and ruler, can be.
In this light... I find very little separating her from Lex Luthor. Before anyone says anything... Lex, in his own way, wants to save the Earth from what he considers a true threat. He doesn't see Superman as a hero, but rather a potential and very real threat (read Lex Luthor Man of Steel).
Lex is always setting things into motion to ensure that he's never caught, and his plans come to fruition. It's part of what makes him such an incredible villain.
Perhaps Celestia is, to Quote Zoe Wash from Firefly "Big Damn Hero(es)," but it doesn't stop the fact that the things she's set into motion have been done knowing that the outcome is going to lead to someone who served, and protected, to be held accountable for everything they did in order to serve and protect.
4999374
After all that's gone on in the story so far, and all of the opportunities for misconceptions, I don't think it's valid anymore to refer to a reader's sense of common sense.
So... for unintentionally benefitting from a terrible system, Shining Armor's parents are now fully dependent on others, and completely incapable of even attempting to provide for themselves anymore... as the ones that stepped up immediately to do their best to fix the situation. Because they failed to fix this early on in their life?
I... just... I don't blame Celestia for this. She's clearly had a lot on her plate, and cannot do everything, and failed the country with this, rather than some kind of incredible stupidity or maliciousness on her part. But if she isn't going to be punished for this (not take responsibility for this. taking responsibility for fixing and getting punished are two separate things) then... well, I'd say the punishment of someone with even less ability to solve this problem who unintentionally benefiting from it is sorta a mockery of justice too. Not that justice is any different from revenge with rules most of the time anyway
4999406
Be patient. Not everything has happened yet. Too soon to pass judgment so readily.
4999227 I just find it hypocritical of her to do this! She's the one who sent Bucky to the isles to help however he could but she stood by and did nothing while innocent ponies died! She sent someone else to do what she herself should have done!
Bucky might've pushed the limits and done a few bad things but in this case, I see it as "the ends justify the means", and he never actually hurt anyone who was innocent. It's because of Bucky that the isles are free, no longer suffering in silence, and are now improving in various ways.
And Bucky paid for Celestia's negligence! All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing, and that's exactly what Celestia did, allowing for the deranged wraith of Bucky's ancestor to terrorize the isles and destroy so many lives. If anypony should be on trial here it's Celestia. She can hide behind her politics, her excuses, but it cannot be denied that she had the power to make things better for so many, and she didn't use it.
A ruler of a nation isn't just that nation's leader, a ruler is a servant of their people, and must bear the responsibility of helping those in need of it, regardless of the cirumstances.
Besides, hasn't Bucky paid enough? He's been scarred, mutilated, dismembered, tortured, and suffered in so many ways, and had to make a great many hard decisions that he in no way made lightly and even after they weighed on his conscience. And now that he's saved so many lives and improved them for the better he's being persecuted for the means?!
As for Twilight and Shining Armor's parents, why should they pay for anything? To make a person pay for their ancestors' mistakes is unfair, all it is is giving blood for blood. Rather than punish, why not allow them to make amends and punish the actually-guilty parties?
I have enjoyed "The Chase" since the very beginning and regard it as amongst the very best FIMfics on this site... but it's showing a side of Celestia I never imagined.
She's an alicorn princess, not a god.
4999444
So Celestia solves the problem, and Bucky remains under the curse because his destiny was interfered with by another. Sombra never leaves purgatory. And Bucky remains under shadow. Bucky's foals get to be corrupted, and their foals, and their foals, until finally, Celestia stops interfering and allows the old curse to play out, and finally, one of Bucky's grandfoals a thousand years from now finally breaks the curse and ends the shadow looming over them all.
Is that what should be done?
To imagine life as a dessert dweller, where water is more precious then all the gold and Platnium in the world. Then to see our modern plumbing, makes one wonder what else we take for granted.
4999423
No this... this time it wasn't... quite a judgement. More like a: This is my opinion with knowingly limited information. Although with my penchant for snap judgements perhaps that comes off as a little unbelievable.
4999376 I am not so sure she could chase him. After all that has happened can she afford to spend her time that way? She has been largely a figurehead.... a puppet ruler for so long, and now she finally has some real power. It seems like she has no idea what to do with it. I see what she is doing as being done in terror and misguided reaction to her situation. She is not the master manipulater, she has done her experiments and meddling as a hobby.........or worse, as a well meaning but totally disconnected ruler. Let them eat cake.........
4998391 excuse me, I think I meant 4.5 or 4.7, must've glossed over the text
4999475
Well, we can rest assured that she won't share Marie Antoinette's fate. I don't know... I think that the game Celestia has been playing is one that she started long ago... hell, as far as we know it could have been her mother that started this. Personally, I agree that she's given most of her power away, and recently this surge of getting all of the responsibility back has undoubtedly stressed her near to the breaking point.
4999454
And of course there'd be no real story there either. The truth is I don't think that Celestia could have done it. Because she'd want to be that shining example to her ponies. Celestia's problem, her biggest problem, is that she wants her ponies to accept and love her unconditionally. She wants them to think that she is truly there for them.
(I know and understand that she's been doing everything for them. Rising the sun, dealing with the cosmos, and helping in running a country. She's been spread thin.. I get that.)
It doesn't change the fact that Celestia wants to be loved, accepted, and rarely does she do something to change that. (The noble houses and their fall is the first sign of her doing something that really stepped out of her norm for her.)
Had she went to the island she most likely wouldn't have tried to use dark magic. She most likely wouldn't have done most of what Bucky did, and she would have failed. She would have tried to use harmony magic and it would have fueled the lich. Eventually it would have either shelled her out, or perhaps it would have had some fun in torturing her before killing her.
Does Celestia have the power to stop something like that Lich?
Yes.
Does Celestia have the willingness to do it?
No.
Luna does, but then Luna's always walked a slightly darker path.
This was actually a nice respite from all the building tension. It needed some light hearted moments and soap-eating ponies.
Loch Skimmer's name is spelled a bit more phonetically than usual here.
No one can possibly win in this situation. Everyone involved has to loose something to settle the revolution and the chaos of a nearly imploded country. Celestia's has to suffer through all of this- like she has the last thousand years- and again with these decisions she'll live with forever. She thinks its bigger than herself, or Bucky. She inprisons most of a city and half of the nation is in ruin.
Yes, it was a shitstorm centuries in the making, and, yes, someone has to pay and clean it. No one can possibly comprehend the cost on such a grand scale- except Celestia. She needs to make an example out of Bucky for a foundation to the new world order. I think he's gonna get mind wiped. Or he has to put his head on the chopping block.
It sucks to have Celestia's life...
You know the specifics of the treaty haven't really been mentioned yet. Would Celestia really want to piss off the ponies from the islands as well as every earth pont that thinks of Bucky as a hero by punishing him for doing what should have been her job in a way she doesn't agree with? Also with how things have been going it seems like all three other alicorns are pretty much against her in many things now.
I think that I have a general consensus of what everyone/everypony figures is going to happen. I also feels that it also expresses what everypony believes Celestia and company most likely sound like.
Yeah... I said that Bucky was Rorschach. I'd almost say that Rising is Dan/Night Owl. Adrian would be Celestia, and Dr. Manhattan could be luna, but I'd like to say still Celestia.
4998774
Well, that's scientific teleportation. We don't know how it works with ponies. Could literally be spatio-temporal displacement.
4999454 I just don't know... This matter is just so difficult, and as I said, it seemed to have been a series of situations where desperate times called for desperate measures.
However this plays out, I just hope it doesn't end too badly. Bucky deserves to live with his family, to see his foals grow up, and be able to drink and screw, as he so eloquently stated.
I recall you once said someone very important was going to die...
Nice to see people are still making up things in regards to Celestia instead of reading the story, waiting for the next chapters, or extrapolating based on things that actually happened in the story and coincide with both Celestia's characterization and her position. So many people who don't understand how politics works, or how leading people works. People who ignore parts of the story and author's explanations to just keep blaming Celestia like she's done something bad.
4999406
This is politics. Justice doesn't come into the equation. You cannot run a country of people with different opinions, backgrounds, and radically different ways of thinking based on objective justice. The Sparkles made an example of themselves. They volunteered to be the figureheads of reform, knowing that things could be bad. Instead, they get a good life. They're taken care of and they're surrounded by good ponies. This is the ideal of life. Not being rich, not living in exorbitant homes with titles and authority and servants. That's excess.
Their 'punishment', if you can call it that, looks worse than it is. To people around Equestria the thought of losing all that is horrific, and thus a proper punishment for benefiting from rape and murder and kidnapping directly, unknowingly. But did you think about it from the Sparkles' perspective? They willingly gave it all up and turned themselves in to Celestia so she could use them to show the country the right way. They entrusted themselves to her, and she treated them well for their sacrifice. They are not in chains, they are not doing hard labor, they are not dead. They are alive, and while penniless, they no longer need money. They have a healthy and safe and happy life in the care of people who support and praise them.
Frankly said, this is a better and more wholesome life than any noble in Canterlot has ever gotten to live. This is GOOD. What do they need money for now? They have a roof over their heads. They assuredly have all the food they can eat, living in Ponyville. What else is it good for? Unnecessary creature comforts. Excess. They are finally /free/ from the burdens they had to bear, free from the noble game, free from responsibility. They can just be themselves, happy and together, a loving older couple who finally have a chance to actually BE closer without the wall of corrupt Canterlotian society telling them how to act and think. What I wouldn't give.
For that matter, Celestia's only done the same thing Keg Smasher did. Keg popped up, killed the ringleader of the troublemakers, the ringleader's supporters, and everyone connected to them. He stamped out the taint completely by removing everyone who was infected. Everyone who'd been part of it. No one complained in the chapters where he explained what he did despite the fact no one asked him to do it. He brutally murdered a whole assload of ponies in a surprise attack. And I'll bet you not every one of them was nearly as bad as the main ones he killed - but they had to go anyway. They were part of it, after all.
THAT is how you take power away from those who do not deserve it. By getting rid of everyone who had any scrap of that power's authority. This is what Celestia has done. ... Only much nicer and without nearly as much bloodshed. This is the fate of a country at stake. Perhaps millions of ponies. By extension, the world is affected. So some good and relatively good ponies get caught in the net? It happens. If they were warming themselves by the campfire of those who were being targeted, they were likely rubbing elbows, even unknowingly. The nation needs to see that everyone who was working with the ponies who made this happen, the ones who caused this to happen on purpose, are punished - they need to be able to sleep at night seeing that everyone related to these deeds has been removed from their ability to cause harm to it. From what Shining's told us, no doubt Celestia's gone easier on the nobles who didn't know and were generally good anyway, but apparently there's only a few of them from what we know of Canterlotian unicorn society.
She can afford to give them easier sentences, a blessing in disguise, because from the outside to the common person it looks horrible.
Holy fuck... I was not expecting that to happen to Nightlight and Velvet. I can see the ponies of Ponyville doing their best to help them to the letter of their judgement.
I wonder what decision Bucky has made. It can not be a good one which ever way it is looked at.
4999813
Heavy is the crown. i think, or would like to think, that most of us understand that Celestia was playing politician, but it doesn't remove guilt from her shoulders. Point of reference Frankin D Roosevelt.
There's evidence that sugggests that FDR knew about the possible plan of the Japanese to bomb Pearl Harbor. If it's true then it means he let it happen. Then again that was what it took to get us into the war. Was his possible willingness to sacrifice military and civilian lives so that we could bring our selves out of the depression and help stop a tyrant worth it?
A historian would say so, but those directly affected by it would most likely disagree. The same applies here. The decisions made, good or bad, will most likely be looked on by historians as worth it, but I doubt those directly involved would agreem
I'm not saying Celestia is a bad leader, but she has her obvious faults, and those faults helped cause the crisis. Then again Keg has several faults, and it's obvious that his faults caused several problems. Unfortunately for Laird Smasher and Princess Celestia their faults can impact more than them selves.
4999444
Where should I start with this. You ruined everything already by saying you hate Celestia at the top. You've poisoned your view with negative subjective bias. You haven't looked at facts and extrapolated from it. This story is told from the perspective of the ponies who are not Celestia. You are only seeing what they see. That's not even half of what's going on, so we're all working with probably... what? 10% of the knowledge available? A bare fraction somewhere around that?
For one: If Celestia waved her horn and solved every problem, we wouldn't have need of fanfiction. If things happened like you believe they should, every story on this site would look like this:
Twilight Sparkle has a problem! How will she ever solve it this ti- "Spike, speed dial Sun-Momma." /one fancy teleport later and a big flash from her horn, Celestia solves the issue and goes back to Canterlot to continue ruling the nation.
POOF. Done and over with. Thousands of stories have now been altered to your format. Do you want that? I don't. I want to see the ponies in the muck, struggling, fighting, and the consequences of their actions. There are two ways to do this... A: Have Celestia get Worf'd a la Canterlot Wedding (ermagerd not even Celestia can handle it, better let some puny mortals take care of it), or B: Have her BUSY doing her far more important job of protecting everything else.
In this story, we have C: It's not Celestia's destiny to handle this problem. Why is that? Because it's Bucky's. Bucky had to take care of this in order to grasp his godhead and ascend into his divine form. This was his trial. No one else could have done this, as I have said before. It had to have been a scion of the bloodline, because that's just how convoluted family curses work. It's the basis of sympathetic magic in pretty much every single fantasy world, "Like links like."
Um. No. This is wrong on so many levels I don't know where to start fixing you. The ruler is the servant of their NATION, not the people. The way you phrased it and from context meant it is that she is responsible for each and every single pony and all their issues. Which is absolute insanity. She has to look out for all of them, not on an individual basis, but literally ALL of them. She has to do what is right for the masses, not what is right for her, or Luna, or Twilight, or Cadence, or Bucky - you know, the people she considers her family and loved ones. See how Bucky is on that list? Luna took a trip to the moon for a thousand years for nearly destroying the planet. In doing so and forcing Celestia to seal her away, the entire local cosmos ground to a halt and almost fell apart. You speak as though she doesn't know responsibility, when she knows it more than you could ever possibly fathom. What do you know of the sacrifices of leadership? The burden of looking after people who would take any chance to make things worse for everyone around them? The pain of giving up what you love and desire in order to do what is right? Choosing the big picture over the individual? You think that doesn't hurt her? You think she can just go, "There's no precedence for this sort of thing or any reason most people are going to agree with, but I'm just going to do it because it seems right!" THAT is an abuse of power. That's the corruption you seem to be accusing her of, which is apparently how you want her to act on this issue.
You just downplayed all the bad things Bucky did in order to make him seem completely innocent. Eugh. So, 'pushed the limits', you mean where he magically mutated two young ponies? Where he pumped dark magic full of hatred into a little girl? Not to mention the dark magic in general, you know - the aversion of all things living and good? So, you want to talk about being hypocritical, eh? You just supported "ends justify the means". Which, hey, is what Celestia is doing. The ends justify the means, which is what a ruler has to adhere to in order to keep the flock together. So, Bucky did some pretty ghastly and horrible things, but for a good reason. Celestia is punishing Bucky, for the right reasons - reasons which we will see even more of shortly. Tell me again how you support one over the other? Because Bucky's not complaining. HE knows that it's only fair and proper he face the music. What are you doing, who understands even less?
See my reply to Radical just above. Maybe you'll understand then. It's funny how you say Celestia allowed evil to happen by doing nothing. Twilight's parents did nothing. They never bothered to see where the money was coming from. They had decades to do so. So, they did nothing - and according to you, that means that they ARE guilty. Difference is, once they found out they were guilty, they did the right thing and made themselves available as an example for the nation, so Celestia could assuage their fears and show them what was being done to punish those responsible. This sort of thing is vital to a nation, and it seems like everyone in Ponyville recognizes that. I don't see the problem. I find it humorous that someone finally mentions bringing the actually guilty parties to justice... but only after someone else was being punished for it, everyone just keeps saying everything is Celestia's fault and they've been ignoring the crimes perpetrated by House Avarice and the noble society in general, saying it's all on Celestia. So, let's see... story says the bad nobles are getting it hard, and the Sparkles are getting it pretty damn good. Which means the ones who are fully responsible are basically taking it up the ass, and the Sparkle family is living it up. Problem?
Ah, apparently we have a fellow student of politics here with us today. Obviously you're well-versed in the intricacies of politics on a societal and sociological level in order to make such fierce claims, yes? Dug right into those books? Yes, so let's see... the one who has been holding the nation together ALONE for a thousand years is Celestia. She has been the sole beacon of hope and order for these ponies, and will continue to be. Let's just throw her into court... oh wait, but it's supposed to be a court of your peers, right? Her only peer is Luna, Luna is out of touch, and is family - by any sort of legal stretch, that means Celestia has no peers that qualify. Who would judge her? Some ancient, ninety-year old stallion full of wisdom in his nine decades, who probably had his diaper changed by someone on Celestia's orders when he was an infant? What jury could understand what one must do to rule a nation like theirs? What judge could pass judgment on the decisions Celestia's made, when everything she does must also be planning for the future? A future they can't see, and likely won't live to see the fruition of? If you could find her guilty, what would you do with her? Lock her up? Take away her magic? This is all abusing her kind nature that she'd even go along with such a thing, since they can't actually do anything about or to her. If they could... do you know whose shoulders the entire galaxy rests upon? Whom, like Atlas, if she set down her burden, it would simply break? Life would cease. Existence would cease. The stars would go out. The worlds would fall into the void. Oblivion. She, by willpower alone, is forcing a system to work that is too damaged to work at all anymore. She, by willpower alone, is keeping everyone alive with the sweat of her brow and the sacrifice that comes with it. Luna can't do it. So, you'd basically be holding all of the world hostage to try and get her to follow along with some sort of imprisonment or removal of her crown. Which is, last I checked, not a good thing to do.
Ever hear the saying, "I can't be in two places at once"? It's true, I've tried it. Even with the relatively small groups I've had to preside over in my life, from twenty to a hundred at a time, I would have needed two of me for each person to be able to stay fully informed. But there was just one, so sadly people could harm themselves and others when I'm busy dealing with ten or twenty problems over here to the left and had my back turned. Which is exactly how Celestia missed what was going on with House Avarice and the Isles. Millions of ponies to manage, a political system to create and engage, arcane and eldritch threats to put down, a galaxy to make work, a sister to mourn, and more responsibilities than can be counted. So, regardless of how much power she has - if that power is tied up in one place already doing something, it can't be somewhere else handling something else. The political system meant to help her manage Equestria so she could do more to help backfired because the ponies, NOT Celestia, are corrupt and greedy and debauched. She trusted them to aid her, and they did this to her, to Equestria. Gathered power to themselves to prevent her from being able to make sweeping reforms and change things for the better. Kept her busy, kept her from breaking their political treaties. Not to mention with the history of the Isles, and all the bloodshed and dead foals and skirmishing due to herding, they were essentially all war criminals to begin with.
So tell me, do you piss off the people at home who are keeping you from leaving your house lest they kick in the door and take over, for people who refused to stop doing something that led to thousands of dead children? I know which I'd pick, the only choice you COULD make without abandoning your nation to the wolves like Avarice. When Celestia finally DID something about the corrupt nobles, the country broke apart and started revolting and basically went to civil war with itself due to it. This is what she has been trying to PREVENT all this time. Sometimes you have to choose who lives and who dies, and it can't always be black and fucking white. Sometimes you have to choose who gets kicked out and who has to stay and it's not always the choice you -want- to make. Sometimes you have to pick the greater evil over the lesser one, because if you don't then the consequences hurt good people more than if you'd picked better. So, yes. Celestia did the right thing by abolishing the noble caste, just like you're saying she didn't. And many ponies suffered for it who didn't need to suffer, because she did the upfront morally correct thing rather than trying to preserve the status quo and fix it over generations, using the longevity of the nation and her lifespan as weapons against corruption. A slow washing out of the taint, a purge that takes time, moving so slowly that no one notices it's even happening. She rushed things this time, because Berry and Twilight forced her hand.
Do NOT forget that all of this happened because of Bucky, Barley, Derpy, and Berry. But hey, the outcome will be good - so obviously the civil war and revolution and punishments handed down to all the nobles and dark wizards involved is justified, just like you said. Your entire argument contradicts itself and is hypocritical in and of itself.
5000024 ...Why is it everything in life is an anthill exaggerated into a mountain?
I realize it's a bit of an infodump and perspective shock, but try and consider what was said. I tailored it to your argument for you.
5000056 Fair enough. I suppose I did jump the shark with the "hate" comment towards the Princess of the Sun. But what I meant by it in a more... sincere sense is that no one is perfect, and I think, in her own way, Celestia has her share of faults, idiosyncrasies, and has made her share of mistakes.
One of the things I tend to dislike about characters like Celestia is their apparent perfection and the blind devotion and admiration such characters get from those around them. I don't mean to sound hypocritical about this, I'm just trying to paint Celestia in another light that makes her easier to relate with.
I wish my own fic was half the level of good writing as "The Chase", and in mine I did just what I said here by giving Celestia's back story some highlights and moments where she wasn't the princess everyone knows her as today compared to when she was young
5000079
Apparent perfection is what you missed about what you just said. No ruler can hold together a nation on nothing but acts of sublime goodness and unquestionable ethical decisions. Celestia must appear to be as a beacon of what is good and right in the world, and compared to your average citizen, she is. But even she must make hard, dark choices, sacrifice lives for the good of others, for the good of the future. There is no leadership without blood. Yours, the innocents', or the enemy's.
This is an issue you are showing me that many, many people on this site are afflicted with. You only see what you are shown. Celestia looks perfect, you assume she is. You hate the image she is forced to put forth - and I'm sure she hates that image herself, because maintaining it means sacrificing being the pony she actually is, a pony with her own personal feelings and desires. However... Good people, and people who do good things, deserve devotion and admiration. Those people are less likely to betray you. If you put your trust in a rogue, someone known for stabbing everyone in the back, or who has dark and twisted ulterior motives, shifty and vile, then what happens is your fault. Yet unfortunately, people consider the latter to be 'better' somehow and thus they put their faith and trust in people who will carve out their organs and sell them for coin.
What is there to hate about someone who receives devotion for their good acts and good intentions? Why feel upset about it? They worked hard, they did good, people are happy, and they are slaving away for their people. They deserve respect, love, devotion. People who are banal and self-absorbed and petty, psychotic and arrogant, they deserve nothing and they only have themselves to blame for doing harm to those around them with their bad intentions.
What is it that you actually dislike? Can you actually dislike someone who works hard to make the world a better place? Not just in their mind, but in truth, a place where people can get over their petty hatreds and inability to work together, mending and forging a better society, with healthier and smarter people to make it up? I realize we have nothing like that in the real world, as all humans are fundamentally and sharply flawed - and doing what it may take to fix those flaws as best as you can renders you so different from the people around you that they attach labels such as insanity because they can no longer understand you, or feel threatened by your lack of the same foibles and sins that they've based their illusive lives upon.
Celestia is like everyone's mother. She might not be able to be there for everyone, and no doubt there are times she's had to spill blood by hoof or by decree, and condemn many to horrible lives for the sake of every one else - but it's obvious she cares. That she loves her subjects. Who would spend a thousand years, a thousand empty years of slave labor in that cell of a throne with the shackles of golden regalia bearing the quite literal focal weight of the heavens and the earth upon their back? If she didn't care... they would all be dead. How can someone like that be hated? Someone who knows more pain and loss and humility and sacrifice than anyone else could possibly ever truly comprehend and embody? Who could bear the weight of eternity grinding into their spine every second of every day with their only succor being one or two outstanding mortals who are gone in but an EYEBLINK, leaving you with happy memories and yet one more name to add to the list of what you have lost? Who, but Celestia? What could she do to deserve hatred? In truth, she is the most visible, so it is simply just easier to blame her and hate her. She knows that, she accepts that. She'd have to to put on the crown. No doubt it hurts her, and no doubt it is so common that she has grown used to the ache in her soul.
Believe me, it does ache. It aches when the people you trust most, the people you break your back for, the people you have hurt others to protect, the people you have defended using manipulation and violence and theft at the expense of your honor and the ability to love yourself, the people you have provided for at the cost of your health and heart, it aches when they turn on you. Like a burning hot shot through the flesh, each dark glare, each whispered word, each betrayal, each time they ignore your wisdom and pleas and run off into the darkness to be hurt and lost simply because you were just the easiest to blame. I have barely survived those ordeals, to the point I have shortened my lifespan from stress and nearly died in the throes of insurmountable rage and loss. I am not even thirty. Can you imagine what that's like for someone as old as Celestia? We humans, we can deal with things because even if we do not consider it, we know that one day soon, all the pain will end, one way or another. We are aware of the mortality we deny and choose not to dwell on.
But the sun must continue to burn until there is nothing left to shine for. It must bear those bleeding wounds on its heart and never, ever forget the pain. I cannot hate someone like that. They deserve my utmost respect, and my empathy. They deserve someone who can try to understand them, cry for them when they must keep an impassive face to show the world. They deserve all the admiration they will refuse themselves to enjoy. But they don't get that... they become the scapegoat of everyone's fears and negativity. They deserve love and all they receive is hate. Can we not bear their mistakes? Can we not understand their limitations? Can we not care for them when they fall? Can we not protect them when they have no choice but to be vulnerable? Can we not support them when they must be at their strongest?
Why is it always the good ones who are left to be scorned and die, while the villain is thrust up onto a pedestal? Petty, pathetic bias - and those who are most deserving are those found cooling on the floor with a knife in their backs while the bastard who stabbed them is ushered to the throne with applause and adoration.
2 chapters... How do you even...
Oh well. I think discord should give them a little visit, that chaos is bound to help him out a bit. :3
Your writing of the madness in this chapter was spectacular. I can't stop giggling
So, Twilight and Shining Armor's parents, some of the few good Unicorns in Canterlot, have everything ripped away from them, left in poverty, and publically forced to make apologies for shit they didn't even do. They are now forced to fucking beg for food, have no roof over their heads, and will die in abject poverty. Celestia, the original one responsible for this, sits on her throne in Canterlot Palace in the lap of luxury, ready to put on trial one of the ONLY fucking families willing to suffer the consequences of doing what needed to be done and save hundreds if not thousands of lives, when Celestia and the greater portion of Canterlot did JACK SHIT to help the situation. Yeah, Bucky is the bad guy here. He is the one who needs to go to trial for suffering the loss of his functioning body, being forced into the situation BY CELESTIA who is now calling for his trial because SHE forced HIM into the situation! Are you fucking kidding me!? What kind of shit is this!?
Sparkler has a condition