Fascinating thus far. I love Sunset's mindset here, the desperate use of contempt and fear to justify her horrible acts. She was terrified when she first came to this world, and now she's perpetuating the actions that kept her safe out of habit. Without Celestia to guide her, the original acts have become encoded in a one-mare tradition. And Sunset is so driven that she fails to see even the irony of the situation, much less all of her mistaken assumptions. Protip: If your Cosmic form nods in approval of you making nice with the ape-things, keep making nice with the ape-things.
I do have to wonder about the Morningstar. Not sure where that came from; if I didn't know any better, I'd think the idea's origins among ponykind went all the way back to Dream Valley and Megan. Unless, of course, Satan is actually a thing in this cosmos, which is entirely possible.
The experimentation was fantastic. Studious, scientific Sunset is always nice to see. And if she thought the demons were bad, I can only imagine what she thought if she ever found the Cthulhu Mythos or the local analogue.
I'd assume the Morningstar is a reference to the devil. But Sunset wouldn't recognize that - what does it represent in your version of Equestria?
Since I'm going by a variant of Alex Warlorn's PonyPOV cosmology, the Morningstar is the Alicorn who rebelled against the All-Father and Fauna Luster, and turned to evil. The lore is much the same in both worlds, and Sunset Shimmer can figure out enough by reading about the entity named in the Humanoid world that she knows why she doesn't want to bargain with it or its minions.
Remember, Sunset Shimmer thinks of herself as pragmatic, ruthless and highly-determined to realize her destiny as a force for Good in the Unvierse. She does not consider herself evil. She doesn't have her Heel Realization until she is blasted by the Rainbow of Harmony, cleared of her Nightmare, and realizes that she's just nearly killed Twilight Sparkle (a fellow Canterlot Unicorn mare) and her friends, and used the only real friend she'd ever made in the Humanoid world as a focusing point to form a disposable mind-controlled army.
I didn't grasp this until I'd read the origin comic and seen Rainbow Rocks -- that Sunset Shimmer did not originally intend to do evil or consider what she was doing evil. It was only when I realized that she thought of herself as good, all the way up to that final moment of the fight, that I grasped the way she excused her actions to herself -- namely, "I had to do it to survive and win."
Sunset Shimmer is misguided, but she's not yet far gone enough to think in terms of making a deal with the Devil just to succeed in her plans.
She also doesn't originally intend to kill anyone. Not even Humanoids. She justifies shattering their friendships to herself as "disrupting potentially-dangerous coalitions" which could form against her, but she's not willing to actually murder Humanoids just to get magical energy. On some level, she knows they're people even as she tries to conceive of them as dangerous beasts. If she didn't know this on some level, she wouldn't be cuddling Flash Sentry.
Her orginal plan can be summarized as "Grow in magical power, find something which can amplify my might, and return to Equestria strong enough that Celestia will have to respect me and listen to my demands." This is a foolishly aggressive plan, but Sunset is indeed foolishly-aggressive. The thing she doesn't get is that all Celestia actually wants her to do is realize the error of her ways, and that in fact she can't Ascend without personal emotional and moral growth.
When the Nightmare comes over her, she loses her former inhibitions against killing, or forcing her foes to kill her minions. But that doesn't happen until the actual climax of Equestria Girls. Note that until she actually transforms, she's not willing to kill anyone -- not even Spike. Indeed, she flat-out scornfully says "What do you think I am -- a monster?"
She's still thinking like an Equestrian scholar-mage, right up to the point that she transforms into the She-Demon.
Well, walking in patterns is waving your hooves around - in contact with the ground, which is probably also a magic conductor?
Well, yes. But not in the same way as Humanoid "mystic passes." The idea is to connect with the "Earth current" (thank you, William Hope Hodgson, for that useful term). Goldie Pie does this in my stories (she's also an alchemist, herbalist and healer in addition to being a midwife). It's also how rock farming, in general, works.
Sunset Shimmer only has a general sort of notion of how Earth Pony magic works, because she's a Unicorn mage. She just knows enough that she knows, yes, it's real and there are some adepts. And sort of what they do.
This is more than most Unicorn mages know, as Unicorns like to pretend to themselves that they're the only real mages. Celestia, of course, knows better -- and told Sunset so.
And, yeah ... Sunset's most successful potion succeeded in opening her up enough that she attracted the attention of the Night Shadows. Who can't get through to this world as easily as they can to Equestria, but who are certainly interested in any half-crazy nascent Alicorn, as a potential host.
I wonder, what must Flash think of how Sunset's living by herself? I suppose it mustn't be unheard-of, since she managed to register herself for school without any parents anywhere in sight...
In the Equestria Girls world, children are obviously encouraged to be responsible and self-reliant earlier than in our world. Anyone under the age of 21 is technically a minor and under adult guardianship, but it's not uncommon for minors aged 14-21 to be living separately or semi-separately from their parents, and in many cases holding down part-time jobs. If challenged, they need to have proof of parental consent to their semi-emancipation.
This is exactly how America worked before the vast growth of the social welfare bureaucracy of the New Society in the 1960's -- and even more so before the New Deal in the 1930's. The North Amareican Federation has simply not slipped as far into bureaucratic tyranny regarding domestic matters as has the United States of America in 2016.
Don't the kids sometimes get into trouble? Yes, they do. Just as they do now, in our world, the difference being that in our world there are lots more bureaucrats with lots more paperwork covering their asses when the kids wind up dead, pregnant or in prison for their crimes. Another difference is that the NAF tends to raise their kids better so that they are less likely to wind up in such situations.
I conceptualize the NAF in many ways as a USA that was never successfully infiltrated by the Communists in the 1930's-1940's and never suffered the Counterculture of the 1960's-1970's. Not at all perfect, but with a rather different set of social problems.
That actually sees to be the way it's shown in the Movies. This may be an external artifact of the need to avoid touching on R-rated matters, but that's the implication created by what they show.
I love Sunset's mindset here, the desperate use of contempt and fear to justify her horrible acts. She was terrified when she first came to this world, and now she's perpetuating the actions that kept her safe out of habit. Without Celestia to guide her, the original acts have become encoded in a one-mare tradition.
You've grasped it!
Yes, the irony being that while Sunset prides herself on coming from a more Harmonious culture than is the North American Federation, she's the one who is behaving in a deliberately Disharmonious fashion, largely out of fear that the "ape-things" will unite against her and tear her apart. And she comes right up against the contradiction dealing with Flash Sentry, who treats her with Love and Friendship, using her honorably and kindly by her own moral standards. (That's the point of the scene where he demonstrates sexual self-restraint, which Equestrians consider an attractive virtue in a stallion).
So, of course, she concludes that Flash must be an exception, a "nice barbarian." And he is an unsually good Humanoid. But he's hardly the only one, which is something she is trying not to realize, because if she realized this she might have to rethink her whole "plunder the magic I need from the ape-things and force Celestia to respect me" strategy.
This is the contradiction that utterly shatters her morale when she loses, and realizes that -- among other things -- she was about to use Flash Sentry himself as potential cannon fodder.
When one gives up something very private and special -- sex, or love, or friendship -- for power, one sacrifices a part of one's very self," Celestia explained. "One opens oneself to corruption.
Am I sensing that this is maybe what happened to Cloud Kicker?
Also, I like the refernce to the Earth Maiden and Sky Maiden story...can't remember the name, though...
Sunset still found the idea of sexual rituals repulsive. They offended against the morals she had learned as an Equestrian filly, a scion of the scholar-gentry of Canterlot. Sex was ideally part of Love, or at least one's duty in Marriage. It was not to be used like that as a tool of spellcraft. That was barbaric and vile, foul warlockry.
really? I kinda liked the more widespread idea that ponies are much more casual with sex, seeing how they probably have no STD and almost definitely have no religious taboos*. Probably no problem with pregnancies either, outside of specific times. In short - none of the reasons humans do abstain from sex. I mean with this whole "duty in Marriage" you might as well go full-catholic and add "solely for procreation" or some other stuff like this.
*Both because there is hardly any religion outside some Celestia-related interjections, and because taboos in human religions do arise from biological problems with casual sex (i.e. pregnancy & STDs).
I mean, OK, it's my headcanon, so feel free to disregard it entirely, but I honestly find this to be a much weirder take on pony sexuality.
children are obviously encouraged to be responsible and self-reliant earlier than in our world
SO the Pegasi and Earth Ponies used to coupling with important members for societal gain....
Well yes, but that was around 2750 and more years ago. On the same timescale, we Humans have had a lot of nastier rituals. The Human cultures ancestral to the modern West, in 750 BCE, all practiced Human sacrifice. And also various sex rituals.
Twelve-year-old Sunset Shimmer finds the notion shocking precisely because modern Equestrians are more civilized than that. Then ?-year-old (she's not sure heself) Sunset Shimmer finds it interesting, because she's actually in love with someone. Though really, that's less about doing magic then her finding an excuse to go all the way with Flash.
Not sure that Pinkie Pie is planning to have sex with Rainbow Dash (she does demonstrably like her a heck of a lot, but then Pinkie likes a lot of Ponies I doubt she has sex with), and even if she was, I don't think she's planning on performing sex magic with her. Pinkie hugging Dashie proves little: Pinkie is probably the most physically-affectionate membe of the Mane Six, even more than Applejack (whom I also don't think is having sex with everypony).
they saw it as but the way of the world if the Morningstar took the hindmost
You really should have used Discord for the purposes of your Equestrian Satan analog, because that's what Discord was before his taming. Using a word clearly associated with Christianity raises distasteful implications, which I often see occur when a fanfic author also happens to be religious.
Oh, and any FiMfic which mentions Lauren Faust by name or by anagram of name, automatically loses all of my respect forever. This is the most banal and incomprehensible tradition which FiMfics indulge in. LOTR fics do not mention Tolkien's name every other chapter. Or ever. I'm glad you haven't done that. Though you seem to have taken some IDW Comics lore to heart, unfortunately.
Remember, Sunset Shimmer thinks of herself as pragmatic, ruthless and highly-determined to realize her destiny as a force for Good in the Unvierse. She does not consider herself evil.
This is a good characterization pearl, and is backed by canon.
6820127 I see you have some idealistic political views. No comment. I will comment that this is Earth. Not "Humania" or whatever.
I kinda liked the more widespread idea that ponies are much more casual with sex, seeing how they probably have no STD and almost definitely have no religious taboos*.
However, she could be a member of the ruling class, in which case the selection of breeding partner is very important. Doesn't that make abstention more important?
You can say that ponies don't get unintended pregnancies. But ponies also bond more deeply (or magically), so maybe casual sex isn't possible for them and they fall for each other much more easily if they're intimate. They don't get unintended pregnancy so much as unintended bonding?
Fascinating thus far. I love Sunset's mindset here, the desperate use of contempt and fear to justify her horrible acts. She was terrified when she first came to this world, and now she's perpetuating the actions that kept her safe out of habit. Without Celestia to guide her, the original acts have become encoded in a one-mare tradition. And Sunset is so driven that she fails to see even the irony of the situation, much less all of her mistaken assumptions. Protip: If your Cosmic form nods in approval of you making nice with the ape-things, keep making nice with the ape-things.
I do have to wonder about the Morningstar. Not sure where that came from; if I didn't know any better, I'd think the idea's origins among ponykind went all the way back to Dream Valley and Megan. Unless, of course, Satan is actually a thing in this cosmos, which is entirely possible.
The experimentation was fantastic. Studious, scientific Sunset is always nice to see. And if she thought the demons were bad, I can only imagine what she thought if she ever found the Cthulhu Mythos or the local analogue.
Eagerly looking forward to more.
This is great so far, I don't really have much to add that others haven't already so lets just wait to see how this resolves!
6818385
Since I'm going by a variant of Alex Warlorn's PonyPOV cosmology, the Morningstar is the Alicorn who rebelled against the All-Father and Fauna Luster, and turned to evil. The lore is much the same in both worlds, and Sunset Shimmer can figure out enough by reading about the entity named in the Humanoid world that she knows why she doesn't want to bargain with it or its minions.
Remember, Sunset Shimmer thinks of herself as pragmatic, ruthless and highly-determined to realize her destiny as a force for Good in the Unvierse. She does not consider herself evil. She doesn't have her Heel Realization until she is blasted by the Rainbow of Harmony, cleared of her Nightmare, and realizes that she's just nearly killed Twilight Sparkle (a fellow Canterlot Unicorn mare) and her friends, and used the only real friend she'd ever made in the Humanoid world as a focusing point to form a disposable mind-controlled army.
I didn't grasp this until I'd read the origin comic and seen Rainbow Rocks -- that Sunset Shimmer did not originally intend to do evil or consider what she was doing evil. It was only when I realized that she thought of herself as good, all the way up to that final moment of the fight, that I grasped the way she excused her actions to herself -- namely, "I had to do it to survive and win."
Sunset Shimmer is misguided, but she's not yet far gone enough to think in terms of making a deal with the Devil just to succeed in her plans.
She also doesn't originally intend to kill anyone. Not even Humanoids. She justifies shattering their friendships to herself as "disrupting potentially-dangerous coalitions" which could form against her, but she's not willing to actually murder Humanoids just to get magical energy. On some level, she knows they're people even as she tries to conceive of them as dangerous beasts. If she didn't know this on some level, she wouldn't be cuddling Flash Sentry.
Her orginal plan can be summarized as "Grow in magical power, find something which can amplify my might, and return to Equestria strong enough that Celestia will have to respect me and listen to my demands." This is a foolishly aggressive plan, but Sunset is indeed foolishly-aggressive. The thing she doesn't get is that all Celestia actually wants her to do is realize the error of her ways, and that in fact she can't Ascend without personal emotional and moral growth.
When the Nightmare comes over her, she loses her former inhibitions against killing, or forcing her foes to kill her minions. But that doesn't happen until the actual climax of Equestria Girls. Note that until she actually transforms, she's not willing to kill anyone -- not even Spike. Indeed, she flat-out scornfully says "What do you think I am -- a monster?"
She's still thinking like an Equestrian scholar-mage, right up to the point that she transforms into the She-Demon.
6818385
Well, yes. But not in the same way as Humanoid "mystic passes." The idea is to connect with the "Earth current" (thank you, William Hope Hodgson, for that useful term). Goldie Pie does this in my stories (she's also an alchemist, herbalist and healer in addition to being a midwife). It's also how rock farming, in general, works.
Sunset Shimmer only has a general sort of notion of how Earth Pony magic works, because she's a Unicorn mage. She just knows enough that she knows, yes, it's real and there are some adepts. And sort of what they do.
This is more than most Unicorn mages know, as Unicorns like to pretend to themselves that they're the only real mages. Celestia, of course, knows better -- and told Sunset so.
And, yeah ... Sunset's most successful potion succeeded in opening her up enough that she attracted the attention of the Night Shadows. Who can't get through to this world as easily as they can to Equestria, but who are certainly interested in any half-crazy nascent Alicorn, as a potential host.
6818400
In the Equestria Girls world, children are obviously encouraged to be responsible and self-reliant earlier than in our world. Anyone under the age of 21 is technically a minor and under adult guardianship, but it's not uncommon for minors aged 14-21 to be living separately or semi-separately from their parents, and in many cases holding down part-time jobs. If challenged, they need to have proof of parental consent to their semi-emancipation.
This is exactly how America worked before the vast growth of the social welfare bureaucracy of the New Society in the 1960's -- and even more so before the New Deal in the 1930's. The North Amareican Federation has simply not slipped as far into bureaucratic tyranny regarding domestic matters as has the United States of America in 2016.
Don't the kids sometimes get into trouble? Yes, they do. Just as they do now, in our world, the difference being that in our world there are lots more bureaucrats with lots more paperwork covering their asses when the kids wind up dead, pregnant or in prison for their crimes. Another difference is that the NAF tends to raise their kids better so that they are less likely to wind up in such situations.
I conceptualize the NAF in many ways as a USA that was never successfully infiltrated by the Communists in the 1930's-1940's and never suffered the Counterculture of the 1960's-1970's. Not at all perfect, but with a rather different set of social problems.
That actually sees to be the way it's shown in the Movies. This may be an external artifact of the need to avoid touching on R-rated matters, but that's the implication created by what they show.
6819171
You've grasped it!
Yes, the irony being that while Sunset prides herself on coming from a more Harmonious culture than is the North American Federation, she's the one who is behaving in a deliberately Disharmonious fashion, largely out of fear that the "ape-things" will unite against her and tear her apart. And she comes right up against the contradiction dealing with Flash Sentry, who treats her with Love and Friendship, using her honorably and kindly by her own moral standards. (That's the point of the scene where he demonstrates sexual self-restraint, which Equestrians consider an attractive virtue in a stallion).
So, of course, she concludes that Flash must be an exception, a "nice barbarian." And he is an unsually good Humanoid. But he's hardly the only one, which is something she is trying not to realize, because if she realized this she might have to rethink her whole "plunder the magic I need from the ape-things and force Celestia to respect me" strategy.
This is the contradiction that utterly shatters her morale when she loses, and realizes that -- among other things -- she was about to use Flash Sentry himself as potential cannon fodder.
Yes, this is beautiful, just like I thought it would be. I feel about people the way she does.
Tee hee. I can't wait for more of this.
Am I sensing that this is maybe what happened to Cloud Kicker?
Also, I like the refernce to the Earth Maiden and Sky Maiden story...can't remember the name, though...
really?
I kinda liked the more widespread idea that ponies are much more casual with sex, seeing how they probably have no STD and almost definitely have no religious taboos*. Probably no problem with pregnancies either, outside of specific times.
In short - none of the reasons humans do abstain from sex.
I mean with this whole "duty in Marriage" you might as well go full-catholic and add "solely for procreation" or some other stuff like this.
*Both because there is hardly any religion outside some Celestia-related interjections, and because taboos in human religions do arise from biological problems with casual sex (i.e. pregnancy & STDs).
I mean, OK, it's my headcanon, so feel free to disregard it entirely, but I honestly find this to be a much weirder take on pony sexuality.
How do you figure that?
SO the Pegasi and Earth Ponies used to coupling with important members for societal gain....
3.bp.blogspot.com/-JIzkDXsC2pw/TvAIUni1bzI/AAAAAAAAAKE/Dw-iO7nEKeY/s1600/PinkieDash+is+canon+now.png
So that would get a whole lot more interesting...
6921363
Well yes, but that was around 2750 and more years ago. On the same timescale, we Humans have had a lot of nastier rituals. The Human cultures ancestral to the modern West, in 750 BCE, all practiced Human sacrifice. And also various sex rituals.
Twelve-year-old Sunset Shimmer finds the notion shocking precisely because modern Equestrians are more civilized than that. Then ?-year-old (she's not sure heself) Sunset Shimmer finds it interesting, because she's actually in love with someone. Though really, that's less about doing magic then her finding an excuse to go all the way with Flash.
Not sure that Pinkie Pie is planning to have sex with Rainbow Dash (she does demonstrably like her a heck of a lot, but then Pinkie likes a lot of Ponies I doubt she has sex with), and even if she was, I don't think she's planning on performing sex magic with her. Pinkie hugging Dashie proves little: Pinkie is probably the most physically-affectionate membe of the Mane Six, even more than Applejack (whom I also don't think is having sex with everypony).
6820067
You really should have used Discord for the purposes of your Equestrian Satan analog, because that's what Discord was before his taming. Using a word clearly associated with Christianity raises distasteful implications, which I often see occur when a fanfic author also happens to be religious.
Oh, and any FiMfic which mentions Lauren Faust by name or by anagram of name, automatically loses all of my respect forever. This is the most banal and incomprehensible tradition which FiMfics indulge in. LOTR fics do not mention Tolkien's name every other chapter. Or ever. I'm glad you haven't done that. Though you seem to have taken some IDW Comics lore to heart, unfortunately.
This is a good characterization pearl, and is backed by canon.
6820127
I see you have some idealistic political views. No comment.
I will comment that this is Earth. Not "Humania" or whatever.
6846748
However, she could be a member of the ruling class, in which case the selection of breeding partner is very important. Doesn't that make abstention more important?
You can say that ponies don't get unintended pregnancies. But ponies also bond more deeply (or magically), so maybe casual sex isn't possible for them and they fall for each other much more easily if they're intimate. They don't get unintended pregnancy so much as unintended bonding?
Good job on this, nice story