How far will one stallion run to escape what pursues him?
Page generated in 0.068 seconds
Total duration
622 users online
828,812 hits today, 2,244,100 yesterday
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
5957754
Fucking chavs, right?
Maybe it is a grass is greener thing, but I think I'd pick Britain over the US. At this point, getting out of this country and going almost anywhere would be a rescue.
But England might be nice. Maybe. Or I could be wrong.
Well... Another pony broke down... Ptsd is a bad thing.
As for the punishment Bucky made... Priceless
As I said, discipline. The literal cost of abandoning one's duty has been established. We'll see just how many solar guardsponies cut and run now. (Is it excessive? Yes, almost monstrously so. But Bucky is proving a point, and he isn't exactly known for his restraint.)
Rising Star has hopefully learned that avoidance solves nothing. Not paying attention to the problem only means it can grow unsupervised. With any luck, he'll now have the courage to admit his fears.
Let's be honest, no matter how damaged Rising Star's family is, they are currently the new nobility:
Rising Star is a person of influence, married to the lead of the guard. Rising Star uses forge work as a hobby to escape his pain. A hobby that is crown-funded, mostly because he was Bucky's son and thus Celestia's like "ooh! here's a good idea! we'll fund his son's hobby!" Also he's got a god as a mentor. Because he knew Bucky and thus had a link to Scorch.
What's that? His life is in shambles and his wife went nuts and the guard had be called in? Meh. Slap on the wrist. Even though if it were anyone else they'd have to face some real consequences, even if it were minor ones.
And then, we see them being superlatively unforgiving of the guardsmen. What were their motivations? Did they run because they were ordered to withdraw by their CO? Did they take a bribe? Did they run out because of cowardice?
Doesn't matter what their motivations are: life long punishment. They shall forever be a pariah, constantly telling everyone that they are failures, cowards, or selfish, and have to pay out half of their pay, which if they get a shitty job is probably not actually enough to live on, until the day they die.
I suspect suicide for most, really.
5957803
Something about this is inaccurate. Sparkler works as one of the two heads of the Ponyville PD and Ripple leads the Raptors. No one leads the guard.
Technically, Rising Star met Scorch before Bucky did.
5957822
Sorry about that. Married to one of the heads of the local police department. Not the guard. Also, you had this whole rigamarole about how Flash Sentry was apparently Sparkler's subordinate, with a show of him being cowed by her authority back when he joined. Was that just for show, and now he's her equal?
Honestly, I thought Scorch would've been uninterested in Rising Star's fate if Rising Star didn't have any relationship with Celestia... but I could be wrong and it could just be Scorch being interested because a mortal showed after being tricked and banished there and then subsequently got out, and him taking interest in mortals lives as he does from time to time.
And heck, I don't even think that Ripple's lack of punishment wasn't appropriate. I just compare it, and the magnitude of how bad it had to be to go wrong with Ripple and the magnitude of how much went wrong with the guards, and compare how little investigation happened with the guards anyway, and see that one of them got no punishment, and the others effectively were made unforgivable.
The contrast makes the guards punishment seem somehow even more severe, because the same organization (the royalty) that pat Rising on the head and said "it was okay" turned around and did the exact opposite to the guards.
Fine we'll just kill you and that will be the end of it. Having served with some real time wasters, I like this punishment.
Seems to me like the Stable has somehow allowed old influences in... time for a reshuffle already?
5957766 Eh, my little corner of this island isn't too bad. I mean, how hard can life be when you've got a view like this?
i.imgur.com/p5y6lee.jpg
...but yeah, we still have our assholes of course, but the majority I knew growing up that I am still in contact with changed a lot when they had kids, mostly for the better.
5957843
Flash Sentry impressed Luna...
Anyhoo, Flash Sentry heads the day, Sparkler heads the night.
5957864
5957843
Just because a captain chews out a lieutenant doesn't mean the Captain runs the police.
While I agree that Rising's heard is a group of highly influential Ponies, they are not nobility. they are more akin to political families like the Kennedys, or the Bush's, or famous people like the Kardashians or whom ever is popular this week. Does that mean they are privileged, yes. But they are no more entitled than Joe Shmo.
5957843
Scorch gets bored. And every now and then, that boredom becomes too much and he has to go and futz around in mortal affairs. It's caused him a lot of trouble and it has made him somewhat unpopular. Rising Star shows up one day and BIZZAM! Life is interesting. Here is a rather stupid colt tricked by a pyrodryad. A new toy has appeared. A new plaything. A new student.
Now, see, Scorch knows how destructive fire can be, and here is a type four fey unicorn that could potentially burn the world down. Now, see, Scorch, he doesn't want the world to burn down because the world amuses him. He's billions of years old and a lot of things stopped being funny or amusing a long time ago, right about the time that dirt was invented. So here is a living flame that could bring a lot of harm to the world or do a lot of good. So Scorch decides... "I'd rather not gamble." Scorch doesn't want his only source of entertainment threatened. He had the same problem when he was Celestia's nanny. (By the way, do not ask about the time Scorch spent as a female so the revived infant Celestia would have some means to suckle. He's sensitive about that.) Celestia, when she was a little fireball, had to be fire trained so she wouldn't burn the whole world to crisp if she decided to throw a temper tantrum because she couldn't have her way. She had to be taught control.
And Scorch is trying to do this with Rising Star, but Rising Star needs to open up first.
5957923
5957905
Well now, that's a good point. They are incredibly benevolent rulers who care about their people and society as a whole. And yet even Lunas was appalled by the idea of wipeing away a whole generation, that right there should tell you why your idea has no merit. It is such an abhorrent thing to do that no sane ruler should allow such a thing to happen. The problem with God's ruling is precisely that their goals are generational, a ruler should be focused on current affairs. No planing who will be doing what two or three generations from now. A ruler must consider all the needs of their people, not just focus on the future. By sacrificing the current generation for future prosperity only because it's easier is not the actions of a good ruler or a benevolent God.
5957822
I've got to agree with Radical here, Kudz. I don't know if you're going to develop this further, but waving Ripple off as 'sick' and 'biology' is really hypocritical of them when they don't ask for or care why the guards moved from their posts. What if any of them were dealing with mental sickness and biology? They're not even checking if that's the case, showing that even if it was, it wouldn't matter. Ripple's Raptors are Bucky's personal Guard, aren't they? Or was that just for the Games? If so, she is also technically a Guard and the others are being treated worse. Things will obviously go however you want them to, but in that situation back in the house, if it had been prolonged, I can easily see that Sparkler would have been in danger. She might have even dropped her stoneform long enough to take a fatal hit if it'd gone too far and kept up, she was saying some dangerously depressed self-hating things later.
This isn't even a slap on the wrist, it's a "Everything you did was okay, it was mostly everyone else's fault and they need to be nicer to you so you don't go crazy and try to kill them." Which, while that can be the case with PTSD - does not mean she gets off scot-free unless there's undue special consideration. Especially seeing in the same chapter how the lives of those guards were absolutely and forever ruined. I'd find it hard to believe all of them are deserving of punishment, since they're refusing to check to see who was doing wrong or not. Surely there are truth-telling spells, or some way to view someone else's memories. What if a guard abandoned his post to go save a family member or random child that was about to be trampled? Something of that nature? Bucky's essentially stated he doesn't care if the reason was vile or heroic. Everyone's getting punished, this is effectively a slow-death sentence. Which is absolutely fine for the ones who ditched due to bigotry or bribes and such. But they possess the means to separate the good from the bad.
Did they do that already and are just using this speech as a means to try and scare them into complying with their punishment, since they know all the ones present are the ones who were corrupt?
5957766
I'd like Australia personally if it wasn't for the god awful Tax on everything making it cheaper to import or downight take a trip to to the states to buy the expensive shit you want.
5957947
Desertion is desertion is desertion. They were called into the floor of the chamber and they were off someplace else, having already left the building. They were gone. As in, not there when the public needed them most.
As a guard, you don't abandon your post for any reason. But this whole thing isn't over yet. You are working from an incomplete data set. So... hold on!
Edit: For those of you who can see the WIP, you already know that fallout is coming.
5957946
A leader should never be focused solely on current affairs. The future is what's actually important. Current affairs are things you -deal- with as they come up. The future is something that must be guided or else you have no business being a leader, since that is what a leader does. Just because Celestia found the idea ghastly doesn't deny that it has merit, either. You don't have to dance around and sing the praises of an idea to know that it can solve your problems. Luna chucks Bucky at problems and he slaughters them. She doesn't like that she has to do that. Celestia does the same thing, and it /hurts/ her terribly to have to do it. But she does it. Because she's a responsible ruler who cares about the well-being of her people and their future.
You say they shouldn't be planning ahead (planning ahead means you have a plan for when the future becomes current affairs). In that case, you're just reducing them to mortals. Flawed, short-sighted, can't plan past the end of their own nose and it'll never hold up. Nation would run itself into the ground, supported only by those who profit off of it existing. I don't want a leader who only worries that I've stubbed my toe. I want a leader who's going to make sure that my children and grandchildren and so on and so forth grow up and have a better life than I did, because I'm not selfish.
Yes, yes it is. A god who steps in and does what you can't do to protect your legacy is a just and noble god. It's not that it's easier on them... it's easier on the PEOPLE. The citizens. How else do you plan for all the hatred and bigotry and corruption to go away? Complain at it? Throw rocks at it? Punish everyone you suspect of it but never be able to be 100% correct in judgment or catch them all? Yell a lot? That just leaves the same minds and mindsets of House Avarice and the other Nobles floating around in Equestria, gathering followers and clout in the deep place, poisoning minds with propaganda and lies and favors and money. Preying on people's fears to turn them against their fellows.
No, a benevolent and kind god would step in and put a stop to it, because it's not something people can do on their own - since they'd run into opposition from those who are already corrupt, and the numbers are not so disparate that it wouldn't be a second civil war. But if someone with overwhelming power swept in and removed all the bad eggs in one go, then isn't that so much better for the citizens?
5957910
The incident in question wasn't Sparkler chewing out Flash for a mistake he made. It was right when Flash joined, and right at the end of the reasonable conversation where Flash explains why he would be a good choice for lieutenant, and Sparkler makes sure he understands that this is a peacekeeping job not a warmaking job, she then yells at him and the scene is recast that Flash is cowing in front of her natural authority. Not that he understood chain of command and did it, but that she was so loud and authoritative that he naturally followed orders because he was meek/a follower by nature.
It was explained that it was just chain of command, completely natural, and totally fair of Sparkler to act that way in comments to me, even though... I really wasn't convinced and was still frustrated by the scene.
Especially since she tries to rake him over the coals for things that could apply to her, like trying to get a job over nepotism, or that he was trained as a warbringing soldier not a peace keeper, when the extent of her experience before she got her job there was: "turned to stone, beat up wolves, saved a filly once, too." They are both arguments that at least could apply to Sparkler, so her being extra paranoid about it comes off as a little hypocritical. Although I suppose it could be "I tried to not be these things, let's make sure you aren't expecting those things either" it seems more like she simply is holding them to a standard and not considering that she herself could be accused of the same things.
And then... Ripple does the same thing to Scootaloo, accusing her of using her position as daughter of a princess to curry favor, when Ripple was put in charge of the raptors because of her position as princess under Bucky. Nothing about being a skilled martial artist and capable of incredible violence implies she is suited for command, but she was promoted because Bucky wanted that for her.
This is what I mean when I say "like nobility." Their families want the best for them, naturally. So they promote and make sure they have their full potential (usually the potential for command or ruling) attained. And the reason for this boils all the way down to: Bucky is nobility. If Bucky wasn't nobility, if he wasn't given royal authority outright because he was born destined to be an alicorn, then Rising Star would not have gotten his forge. Ripple wouldn't have gotten her raptors. Sentinel wouldn't have become an officer for Luna. Sparkler might've become a guardsmare, actually, because it's one of the few ones where she used methods other than royalty to get her position, the wheels were just greased because she already had an in to the council.
The Kennedys are a pretty bad example of privileged and not entitled, because they were, in their heyday, referred to as American Royalty.
5957995
No there is a difference between privileged and entitled. The Privileged have advantages that put them in favorable position over others. Entitled are granted things regardless of merit. Sparkler built Ponyville PD from inception. It may have come about because of who she was but it wasn't done for her. She worked and filed and petitioned to get it going. She wasn't just handed charge over an existing police force, she built it. Her problem with the guard as law enforcement was that the soldiers are not there to protect the Ponies, they get the bad guys and that's it. She wanted to emphasize a working relationship between police and the public rather than an occupied relationship the guard emphasizes.
As for Ripple she too built the raptors, Griffons came to her, pledged their service to her as Lupus's squire and she took it upon her self to train them. Bucky realized their potential and decided to make something of it. It was all because of the hard work Ripple put in. Same with every member of the heard. Nothing was given it was all earned, just because they were in the spotlight to be recognized don't mean they didn't deserve to be where they are. And if someone more deserving came along then they would take over. If they were Nobles as you say then sparkler would have just told flash sentry and Tunderlane to do all the work in making Ponyville police happen and she would Lord over them. But no, she woks hard every day, she walks a beat, these are not the actions oven entitled Noble.
And que happy get together with equal and loving understanding. Better be squishy pegasus hugs or this Arc was a rip off. :/
Hmm, I wonder:
Scenario 1: The guard accept their punishment, earn the trust of the people back, and are eventually forgiven like the Nobles were ooooor. . .
Scenario 2: They end up working for the Mirror Travelers because they're given a new deal that doesn't involve being a pariah and poor.
5957634 Derp
5957989
you kind of glossed over my point so I'll repeat it.
and I didn't say a leader is not concerned with the future, a good leader does not throw away the present for the sake of the future. right now our society is facing crippling debt and our elderly are subsisting off a failing retirement system. We could fix the whole system by stiffening all those that are currently on it by dismantling it and then allocating the funds to fix our debt issues. is similar to this because the elderly don't have much longer to live anyway they are a drain on society what do we need to consider them for. kind of action God would take, a not very benevolent God. but the leader could not just do something like that. all its citizens deserving or not.
sparing your population Hardship sounds like a nice idea, but without hardships there can be no growth. Even if we could just wave a magic wand and make everything better, what do you do when you run into a problem that cannot be solved by magic. hardships prepare people for times like these, compared to the Shetland Islands. the Shetland ponies took to change like a duck to water, not all change will be easy the Shetland ponies are better for it. meanwhile the questions take to change like a baby has to take its medicine. and that is exactly what this topic is about. the ponies of Equestria are like children you can't just get rid of the bad ones.
5957962
Desertion is a bad thing indeed. And if one had twenty years experience in the guard, they certainly should have known better unlike a new recruit. I say just wipe their minds and make them good, servile little drones.
5958121
Your example is... wrong, on many levels. Not least because you're talking about the elderly, and the character of person is at the core of this issue - so it doesn't fit. I also covered the issue about hardships and growth, and I didn't ever imply this would be the whole population. And yes, you -can- get rid of the bad ones. It's that kind of thinking that allows the corruption to spread, and weakens the entire country.
Incidentally, what Rising Star is doing at the end of this chapter of our equine soap opera is a very, very real thing.
"and I don’t even want to sleep anymore because I can still hear them howling and in that time when you’re not quite asleep and not quite awake I can still smell the burning of the undead and I remember every horrible thing that happened"
Traumatic memories can and will stick like a broken record, replaying over and over again at nearly the original "volume" and driving the victim to do anything, no matter how "broken", to stop having to "hear" them as it replays itself. It doesn't have to be war- it can be the loss of someone close to you in a shocking way, or an accident, or a thousand other negative experiences- they just have to scar hard enough that the memory doesn't fade like it should.
You often have no idea what a blessing it is to forget until something comes along and clogs up the process.
I have to add my say in what's happening to ripple. When I was 13 I had what was basically a mental breakdown, the stress of my parents divorcing just broke me. I was not lucky that my break happened when I was in school and to say my break was calm and quite would be lying. I picked up a 25kg chair made of leather and in a rage I threw it across a class room, i actually threw it. At the time I had no control over my actions and it hurt me both physically and mentally. It took over six months of therapy to even bring me back to the correct state of mind I was before my break, yet even now I get spates of anger and rage for no reason even with the most trivial things. Even now it's 16 years later.
I'm not saying that losing control isn't bad of course it is but I think that Ripple really won't fully recover from this, but she can get the help she needs from her herd and the rest of the family. When we break down we feel the world is against us that only bad stuff will happen but the truth is we have the support, we just have to reach out and ask for it.
someone has probably already mentioned this, but Rising needs himself an Earthmare and her magic hooves, otherwise he's going to end up worse then Bucky.
Is Ripple a Yandere?
Twenty-three years served? That elusive number popping up again... 2FNORD3
...Reference noted.
Ahh... young teenagers in love and marriage. They are so broken by everything that happened. Yet they cling to one another and try to be adults because its how they see the adults coping. They don't realize they are still young and let the pain and hurt and damage fester.
At least they have such a wonderful family to help them heal and make things right.