Princess Celestia calls Twilight in to reveal one of Equestria's deepest, darkest secrets. This is definitely, absolutely the first time Twilight's heard of it.
Written for the 11th Quarterly Twilestia Contest. Platonic.
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latte89
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Given the name, I was expecting this to suck.
8061157
I see what you did there.
No, I mostly stuck to libraries. I've found that ancient tombs are mostly just filled with very dead ponies. And the occasional horrifying undead monstrosity. Very few books, scrolls, or tomes.
8061412
Ha, thanks. Fixed.
8061435 same things twice next paragraph.
This was great! Just letting you know!
This was nice~ :3
Seeing that cover picture reminded me of the One Ring from Lord of the Rings. As is I am glad that the fire of friendship burns brighter. Now Cadance just needs to light the fires of shipping.
8063039
Jeez, tomb/tome is becoming my nemesis. Thanks, fixed.
After all the ancient sealed-evils-in-a-can that Celestia knew about but nobody else did until they broke loose, I'm tickled pink to read a story where the tables turn like this. Fantastic. :)
But seriously, though. How? Luna messing up to this degree would have been believable, but not Celestia.
She's a patron of magical science. Not only does she have a prestigious magic school named after her, but it's heavily implied she personally runs it. She was the one who taught Twilight all the magics. If it was something very minor and obscure, I could buy it, but this is something schoolchildren know about. Not to mention, that vortex sounds very important. She would have taken an active interest in any advances in dealing with it, even devising some herself. She couldn't possibly not know about something that huge.
...I dunno, man. You're clearly not a bad writer but this is very farfetched, and also the friendshipping seems kinda secondary so I'm not sure I see the point of it. It's like you just wanted to humiliate Celestia a bit.
8064052
Thanks for taking the time out to give me thoughtful feedback. I appreciate your honesty!
8064107
I usually don't bother. I mean, it's only fanfiction. But you seem talented, so I figure it's worth the effort.
Mostly, try to think about the theme of your story and how to best express it. Stories always have some kind of fundamental message, and it's good to know what it is so you can make the most of it. Otherwise you risk ending up with the wrong moral, and that's usually bad, or at least confusing.
8061297
If you enjoy TwiLestia friendshipping, you might enjoy Bad Horse's Experience as well.
Anyway, thoughts on this story... hm hm.
Honestly, I feel like this story was a bit unfocused. It has two main elements - the first was that Celestia had managed to overlook something extremely important, thereby setting up what appeared to be a comedy fic as it was Celestia's turn to overreact and Twilight's turn to be the logical one. This then gets replaced by the second one, the fact that Celestia is lonely and wants Twilight to spend more time with her. Ultimately, neither really pushed it over the top for me - the first was mildly funny, but didn't feel like it quite pushed itself into the more rarefied air of hilarity. The second was sweet, but didn't feel like it was tied closely enough to the first. Had the story implied that Celestia knew full well there wasn't a crisis, but had simply manufactured one in order to draw Twilight to the capital so that Celestia could spend some time with her, I feel like the story might have tied itself together more strongly - or had the first half been funnier, but also shown more of Celestia's loneliness, that might also have worked better.
As is, this had the shape of a story I wanted to like, but it didn't quite push itself over the top for me. I did think the ending, with Celestia making excuses for Twilight to come to the capital more and Twilight being a bit oblivious to Celestia's empty nest syndrome was cute, though.
That being said, congratulations on being featured! I noticed you only started writing a few weeks ago, so it is cool that you got your second story ever (at least on this site) up in the FB.
Feel free to give me a poke if you have any questions or ever want someone to look at a story for you.
8064184
Thanks for the congrats. You explained in simple terms something that felt off to me but I just couldn't put my finger on. Gave me new perpsective on what I'm working on now. Thank you! Might take you up on your offer.
This was cute and sweet as could be without being cloyingly saccharine that some people try to make it.
Simple fics are the spice of life ♥
That was really great, and I absolutely did not see the twist coming.
Very good work; especially good pacing.
When I was that picture, I immediately thought of these guys:
darksouls3.wiki.fextralife.com/file/Dark-Souls-3/DLC2_RingedKnight.jpg
I think I've been playing too much Dark Souls lately...
8064052
Keep in mind this is the same Celestia who turned Discord into a lawn ornament, and then proceeded to not keep an eye on him even though he was in a very public place. And who told Twilight that she had to help save the Crystal Empire without her friends.
And maybe the big one, but didn't think to check Tartarus to make sure nobody was missing when she learned that Cerebus had wandered astray.
What I'm saying is that missing an entire field of science is a big thing, but it's not impossible, particularly considering how careless Celestia has repeatedly demonstrated herself to be.
8064558 it's physically impossible to play too much dark souls. Human fingers and modern game controllers are incapable of sustaining activity for long enough, because science.
8064244
8064184
I think you're not quite right on both of those themes being unrelated. I think, for Celestia, Twilight is (still) kind of an anchor to the world. Ageless or not, she's still a pony, she makes mistakes and forgets/overlooks things, It has to happen, she had, have and will have plenty of time to make all of the mistakes possible for a pony, over and over again :3 And after a while alone, finally, there comes Twilight, someone who... understands. Who can correct her, help her or maybe fix/prevent/deflect some of those mistakes. Now, she did it again, asking nothing in return. And she finally called her by her chosen name. Yay! ^^
So no. I believe this is exactly as it should be. Platonic (at least for now) Twilestia. I got what I came here for.
Oh and for Luna it's probably much the same, only more pronounced. Celestia has to come up with a band-aid way to cope with her mistakes while being alone, Luna's issues are much more... raw. Or, rather, honest.
8064850
What exactly makes you think she wasn't keeping an eye on him, considering she kept him around on display for a thousand years, presumably for that very reason?
It's not like she had any way of knowing that he could ever break free, under what conditions, or that the effects of the Elements would weaken over time. Given all that, keeping him around for that long actually seems a bit paranoid if anything.
Yeah? Because that was the whole point of the test and it worked out exactly as intended.
We don't know how large Tartarus is, how many prisoners it keeps, how long it takes to check all the cages, whether or not the records have remained intact over the centuries, and who exactly is responsible for overseeing it all.
Celestia can't be expected to do everything herself. That's not the same thing as being blatantly ignorant of what is going on in her kingdom.
No, see, what you're talking about doesn't even begin to compare. All of your examples are at worst oversights, bureaucratic errors, or signs of overconfidence. They are mistakes. And yes, even Celestia makes mistakes.
But being one of your world's premier magicians and then plain having never heard of a field of magic devoted to studying a phenomenon you have reason to be very concerned about, to the point where school kids know more about it than you do, is not just a mistake or an oversight.
Let me give you a real world example: In 1999, the NASA Mars Climate Orbiter accidentally fell into the martian atmosphere and disintegrated. The cause proved to be a navigation data discrepancy due to a piece of ground software, supplied by Lockheed Martin, which was programmed to run on USC units of measurement, whereas NASA's own equipment ran on the metric system.
That was a screw-up. A huge, very embarrassing, totally avoidable screw-up, sure. But, you know, stuff like that happens. It simply didn't occur to the Lockheed Martin engineers to check if the NASA engineers were using the same units of measurement as they did, or vice versa.
What we're talking about here, on the other hand, is more akin to an aerospace engineer literally not knowing what the metric system is.
I reviewed this story as part of Read It Now Reviews #107.
My review can be found here.
This was such a lovely and sweet story. It's so hard for me to find good platonic twilestia these days. Fantastic work.
That was a good, wholesome story. I especially like the last sentence. It gave me the warm fuzzies.
Sweet and heartwarming
They should probably figure out how to siphon off all that concentrated hate it a more gradual and controlled manner. The lack of build up might even make the elements work better ignore near the end of the thousands years the contamination fucks things up.
8065435 dashie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw9611-983903_535533623175806_1058706742_n.png
This better not be spoilers for DLC of a certain game.
EDIT: aight cool I dont' think it ain't.
8066657
Nope, no relation. No worries.
8066520
Maybe they already siphon it off every so often. Three years ago:
"This is amazing, Doctor! You've managed to extend Beloved Smith's NL-calculations of rates [1] to higher dimensions," gushed Twilight as she looked over the calculations scrawled around the room's blackboards, then at the theoretical derivations summarized in the mess of papers on the ESV's chief scientist's desk.
"Thank you, Princess," replied Del Cross. "But the real heavy lifting was done by the experimental group led by Wind Shear. They used these calculations to come up with a hydrostatic autocleanser that we expect will be able to disperse much of the dark energy, reducing the effects from a Class 6 manifestation to a localized Class 2, or even a Class 1 if we're lucky."
Twilight looked at the equations again. "It looks like there's three dummy variables that you and Wind Shear didn't manage to get rid of. You're sending the resulting Class 2 to what seems like a set of nearly-random spherical coordinates somewhere on Equus? Where's it going to end up?"
Del Cross coughed softly. "Umm, we're not quite sure, Your Highness. The chaos involved has so far prevented us from fully resolving the dummy variables in all- or even most- circumstances. But I wouldn't be too worried about it. It's at most a Class 2. Let's head outside and watch Wind Shear's group start up the autocleanser."
An hour later, the autocleanser finished its work and the ESV headed to the Silverhoof Chaos Tavern to celebrate. At that exact moment in Ponyville, Filthy Rich looked around his conference table and said ""So let's start talking about Hearth's Warming." [2]
[1] https://www.fimfiction.net/story/195740/renowned-mathematician-beloved-smith-departs by Rustpony
[2] https://www.fimfiction.net/story/368739/barnyard-barge-ins by Estee
A perfect story in every regard, down to the last line. I'm glad I could read it and that it didn't slip by me.
This is strong.
I want a sequel where Celedtia tries to figure out what else she might have failed to notice.
This should really have a comedy tag!
Celestia's smile remained on her face well after Twilight teleported out.
"You can come out now, Luna."
"We cannot believe she fell for it. But will she still call you by your name when next you meet?"
Celestia shrugged and nuzzled her sister affectionately, then pulled the most recent report from the Equestrian Society of Vortexologists out from inside her armor and vaporized it.
"Oh, a dark souls fanfi-
Oh, a generic Twilestia fanf-
Oh, a decent Twilsetia fanfiction."
i kinda get the feeling that this should have a sad tag.
just how lonely is celestia in this?
Titanium hit he nail with the story. HOnestly, it feels like the latter half could be taken out, and it would be a good bit more...focused. Which would also make the ridiculousness of it seem more in place.
Also? It does suffer ONE problem. Namely, the "using humor to cover a plot hole." Works in a completely ridiculous story, but when it has something like the latter half, it fails. "How did you miss an entire field of science." "No questions!"
8078756 Thanks for the criticism. Comedy balance is a tough nut to crack for me personally. Glad to get feedback so I can improve.
8079332
His offer of editing is a good one. Again...take out the last half? Great story.
8079332
I disagree slightly with "take out the entire last half" because I think the ending to the story where this serves as a bonding experience for celestia and twilight helps the story, I just think the awkward silence and questions should be drastically shortened. Instead of bringing attention to the glaring plothole of "how does celestia miss an entire field of science" and then fail to provide any good reason for it, simply cut straight to Twilight deciding Celestia is an enigma and them coming closer because of it.
Either way this is too hilarious to not be favorited.
I'm going to disagree with some of the sentiments here about 'delete the last half'. I found that Celestia's glaring, unbelievable oversight here was only palatable because of the denouement we got out of it with the last half of the story. Without that, all the story does is make her look completely stupid for the sake of a joke... that joke being 'herr derr Tia so stoopid'. Taking her off whatever pedestal Twilight has her on is fine, but if it's just to make her look dumb I don't see the humor. Now, if it transitions into a heartwarming moment of understanding between our two players here, as it did... that's worthwhile. The joke seems far less mean-spirited and even becomes a bit funnier in retrospect.
Heck, even when I thought it was just being mean for comedy it was still well executed enough that I kept reading while chuckling at it. The second half brought a smile to my face and made the first half into something... err.. humanizing (insert pony equivalent word) rather than humiliating. Thanks for writing this; have another upvote.
8070512
This sounds like the Celestia that we know and love. The schemer and plotter.
That was fun. Twilight schooling Celestia, and the end of the world avoided.
My grandfather is confused by an ipod.
Celestia is about one hundred times older than him.
Poor mare's going to miss some things.
People seem to be making a stink over something that is perfectly reasonable. With everything she signs, and has signed over the centuries, of course Celestia would not remember ever single thing she signed for.
She obviously thought it important enough to do so or she wouldn't have.