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Come on, things were just starting to look up for them. Oh well, an ending's an ending.

Is this story complete now? Because it's still listed as incomplete.

So many feels.

You said you might elaborate on the in-between years, will you?

How'd Chryalsis die?

Ah! The feels....!

1110530 Old age. She'd have lived longer if she hadn't been starved forever (hence the bodily atrophy) (Read the Author's notes you bums)

1110503 Maybe at some point, but not now.

1110494 Everything was looking up for them, doesn't change that Chrys only had about six years to live. As you can tell from what Celestia and Twi talked about, they spent that time as happily as they could.

1110530, she died of old age

You didn't change story to complete ;D

1110620 I did.

1110624
Not when i read it ;D

oh peppy, you and your attempted heartthrob stories, not saying it won't affect anybody, but meh I think I became kind of jaded to anything you write. It's either that or I'm some uber level of cynical.

Either way, congratulations on another good story you amazing bastard!

Why are you such an awsome author?!?

1110667 Eh, maybe I'm just uber sensitive when it comes to my poor ponies. I dunno. Almost made me tear up while writing it. Almost.

1110680 Because.

Well, no real feels here, but it was a good ending and it certainly warranted the sad tag.
1110667 I often get that feeling of being über cynical, especially when almost everyone else goes on and on about how heart-wrenching something was.

Well done Peppy. One more story for the books. Now not to be a Cranky doodle Donkey, but now back to ATFN perhaps?

1110977 Necro Domina needs updating first, but after that, yes, another chapter of ATFN is in order. And maybe something else.

1110984
You damn Tease. Hinting to us that there's gonna be something else as well... Well played sir

1110988 It's in my nature. I actually have a shitton of stories planned out, it's just a matter of figuring out which ones I wanna do at which time. Obviously, ATFN and ND are gonna take precedence over any new story (and I'll never work on more than three at a time [hopefully]), but I like writing, so it must go on!

Manly tears... Manly tea..., oh buck it.

That's quite possibly one of the sweetest thing's I've read and I should know considering my last name is Sweet.
It's interesting the way Chrysalis was portrayed in this story. I quite liked it, honestly.

1111262 Aye, I wanted to show Chrys not so much as a villain (although she does have villainous qualities), but more as a mother trying to care for her children (which is what she was doing in the show, albeit in the worst way possible). She isn't truly a villain, but is villainized by those she wronged.

May I request an alternate ending? :v

NO! We need a SEQUEL! IT CAN'T END! NOT HERE, NOT NOW! Besides the fact that I don't want it it end, it would be awesome to see how a changeling could grow up in Ponyville. Well, multiple changelings.

Absolutely brilliant! I need to go cry now.

So now that you have finished this story will you be back to writing ATFN or another story?

1111532 Nope. That is the ending that will remain. Alternate endings null the sad tag, unless I were to make it even more tragic (like I had thought to at some point), which makes the point of the ending moot. It's there to show that she had an effect on the ponies around her despite her trouble before (mostly Twi).

1111684 Perhaps sometime in the future. It will be most interesting to see a changeling queen raised as close to being a pony as she can be in a pony town and allowing her children to branch out as such.

1111809 Have a complimentary e-hug.

1111857

>> Drazen_Flames Necro Domina needs updating first, but after that, yes, another chapter of ATFN is in order. And maybe something else.

Came dangerously close to shedding a few tears in this, and I feel bad for not doing so.

What a great story you've written, like always.

lol i forgot to thumb up untill now

1112086 Aha! It must be your fault that I didn't get featured! You fiend!

play as you read

1112366 Surprisingly fitting.

Well, I have to say that your version of ponies living a mere 40 years leaves me scratching my head. I'm guessing many things in the show didn't happen in your Equestria, Granny Smith founding Ponyville not the least of these events.

1112634 Who said she didn't? I leave much equinity in my ponies (Aka not humans [hence the age system]), but most of it stays true to canon. Aside from Nightmare Night. As stated previously, many, many times, it can gtfo and stfo.

Otherwise, how does it leave you scratching your head? I'm technically giving them longer lives than they would have irl. (plus, if they're formidable like GS, they can live longer than the typical 40 [not by much, though])

1112653 Well, even domestic horses have lived into their 50's and early 60's. The record was a horse named Old Billy who lived to 62. Horses, interestingly, already live quite long lives compared to other hoofed animals of similar size. And this must be taken into account when considering that our domestic horse is far less evolved than the Equestrian ponies... and last time I checked, our horses can't perform magic. Magic kinda throws a monkey wrench into everything.

But lets make our assumptions based on our world's biology, as it's all we have to go on.

I would have expected that the ponies' life-span would increase as they evolved (assuming evolution even happens in a world with magic, immortal princesses, and demons that can alter reality on a whim). Larger brains require more time for gestational development and then a greater period of learning and development of the young. In nature, there is a fairly strong correlation between brain complexity and life span among mammals, with body size also figured in. Complex social interaction, longer child-rearing, advanced societal structures and long-term relationships favor longer life spans evolutionarily. Longer child-rearing especially gives a selective edge to those members whose genes allow them to live longer. So it is quite reasonable to expect that the ponies will live far longer than our primitive horses. On an evolutionary time-scale, they would be akin to at minimum 10-20 million years more advanced than our horses.

If we look at the mammals with the highest intelligence, we see that their lifespans are in general far longer than species with lower intelligence. Also, this applies somewhat to body size as well, which makes sense since larger animals take longer to reach maturity given metabolic and respiratory constraints.

Elephant can live 75+ in captivity
Chimpanzee about 40-50 years in captivity
Dolphin about 45 years (uncertain about maximum potential, as captivity is non-ideal, and wild lifespans are far shorter than captive animals in ideal living conditions)
Orangutan up to 60 years in captivity
Lowland Gorilla about 50 in captivity
And us! Lifespan now averages in the upper 70's, with a maximum of slightly over 120.

Compared to other animals of various phyla

White tailed deer 15-20 years
Moose 20-25 years in captivity
Lion about 25 years in captivity (only 10-12 in the wild)
red fox at most 12 in captivity (only 3-4 in the wild)
Opossum at most 5-7 years in captivity
Raccoon 14 years in captivity
domestic cow around 20, depending on breed

That correlation doesn't hold up in birds, simply because birds often live far longer than mammals of similar size and metabolism. Birds somehow stave off the damaging effects of high metabolism . For example, a common mouse, Mus musculus, will live at most 2.5 years for a few strains. A zebra finch, a small bird weighing less than a mouse, can often live for over 10. We owned one that lived for an astounding 14.

With cold-blooded animals, all bets are off. There is a mild correlation of lifespan to body size in some classes of reptiles, but beyond that it's quite random.

Yes, I am a biologist, in case you were wondering.

1112901 The difference is, that average life-spans are 25-30. 'Have lived up to' doesn't apply to the majority of cases. It also depends on the environment they live in as well (but even that can have little effect as things can die at an early age regardless of a good/bad environ.). Most ponies live in decent environments, so you can expect them to live up to their (estimated) maximum life-span of 40 (which is what you'd expect). The ponies in Ponyville obviously have a higher life-expectancy (i.e. Granny Smith and the old-folks home ponies) than ponies in, let's say, Canterlot or Manehattan (due to the closer-knit, peaceful society of the country as compared to the fast-paced, loosely-knit lifestyle of the larger cities). It's like with humans (as you said). We can live up to 120 years, but those are extremely rare cases as most of us (as you've said) live to be about 70-80. I'm just going on typical spans (and, who's to say that they can't live longer?).

They do have magic to add to it (which is why I set the typical age to about 40 instead of 30) and, while that can have both a detrimental and supportive effect on life-expectancy, not all ponies have strong cases of magic. We can expect the EoH to live, at least, a little longer than their typical lifetime (maybe less due to the stress of having to save the world multiple times and the various dangers they've gotten themselves into) and, of course, the alicorns are immortal (mostly).

There's also the fact that horses physically mature faster than humans (as with almost every animal I've known of), so I have that play into effect for their lifespan as well. Faster maturity > Faster death. Not saying that's true as a direct correlation, but it's quite common considering that's what typically happens.

I, of course, am not a biologist, I just do research so I don't feel like an idiot I understand what you're getting at and I'm still up for further debate, though. It's entertaining to have someone piece apart my ideal pony systems. Most people say something along the lines of: They aren't real horses, so they should be like people. Which is stupid, because they aren't people.

1113068 But they aren't horses anymore than we are chimpanzees. That is the primary point I was making. They have dramatically evolved beyond our horses, and evolution towards a higher state of intelligence is also correlated strongly to a longer life span.

Animals develop faster than humans due almost completely to smaller brains. Large mammalian brains develop slowly, and consume enormous amounts of metabolic energy. The longer-lived animals I mentioned ALSO have longer gestational periods and longer childhoods than their less cerebral relatives and ancient ancestors (which can be determined in fossil physiologic evidence)

If we were to take merely a rough ratio of intelligence to life span and apply it to horses/ponies and (equivalent evolutionary primate)/humans, we might expect ponies to live far longer even than we do!

1113331 This is difficult to argue against, but if the gestational period truly played into this, then horses, by that factor, should live longer than us (see 11 months as compared to our 9), but I doubt that's entirely what you were pointing to as I've kept that the same as well (I assume you were meaning to say that pony gestation should be longer as well, but that would just be hell on poor Twi.)

I guess, my biggest thing, is that they are more horses, than we are chimps. The only difference being their ability for rational (or irrational [*cough*lessonzero*cough*]) thought. If we were to base life expectancy on intelligence, then shouldn't we be exponentially longer lived than our fore-fathers? Our brains have certainly continued evolving over the centuries. I can see how they'd live longer than our horses, but I wouldn't say that it'd be that big of a difference.

Plus, I just love the equine biology playing into factor here as it fits them more than human biology.

Anger and sadness rule her
Her love taken soon
look forward Young one, live!

This haiku its all my feels, a love taken too soon an underdeveloped romance, forced to wither away, like an atrophied limb. Ah, so sad

paleocave.sciencesortof.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/4218072088_3f282ea71a_o.jpg

Another great work peppy Can't wait to see what you cook up next.

i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn105/walkseva/ManlyTearsHaveBeenShed.jpg

Eh, i guess you could call that an ending. your take on the changelings having lower life expectancy makes a little bit of sense compared to our earth insects.
but an ending of a story should make the reader feel satisfied, eased into a fitting end, maybe not a calm one, but one that satisys the reader to feel content. This ending seems way to abrupt.

Where are the chapters about the happy memories of twilight and Chrysalis's life before she perished?

To me, this seems lazy on the authors part to just end a story while it was easy to write. Of course this is only my opinion, if you wanted to just write a sad story with an unfitting ending, then congratulations, you have done so.

Sorry, but i did not enjoy your story, i hope you improve on this in the future; and of course i wish you the best of luck in that.

1118507 If I was lazy, I wouldn't have put the effort into the epilogue and just ended it on chapter 5. You don't need to have the chapters showing how happy they were and the fun that they had. The emotion that they show as they mourn the loss of a loved one lets you draw your own conclusions about what they did in that time. Do you really need to be told that they went to the park on occasion, read books on the balcony, had parties with their friends (all stuff that they did as Lunachrys/Twi) only to lead up to the exact same ending?

Either way, Chrys would have expired before her time and the funeral would have happened exactly as it had (unless, for some reason, I decided that they would be wholly unaffected by it which would make 0 sense ). I understand that it helps to expand on the story, but why take the same route that 90% of typical shipfics take and bludgeon you over the head with similar events over and over to show you that they have fun together? Why fall into the pit of repetition by having them worry about whether they are faithful or something else as mundane as that (which tons of romance stories have) for 10 chapters. It gets dull fast, especially when you read a lot.

I, personally, find endings like this satisfying. You find out what happens in the end, see the important stuff that leads up to the end, and don't have to wade through years of fluff. You find out, through snippets of information, that they were happy and loved each other. They had their daughter, who is growing up healthily, and she was even able to bring her swarm back to some degree during her limited lifetime. You catch a glimpse of a minor argument between Twi and Chrys, and, while they, as a couple, didn't do anything to affect the town in any major way, the fact that they had a rather large amount of ponies show up to honor her life shows that they had touched the lives of others in at a least a small way.

If you find anything wrong with that, please tell me. I am always looking to improve, but I don't see how this can truly be done without using fluff, which is tedious for both reader and author.

1113493 Uhm, actually, we share about 99% of our DNA with chimps.

And really, MLPonies look as much like our ponies as we do like chimps. Their head-body ratios are drastically different. Of course, the canon MLPony body probably wouldn't be able to support their obscenely large heads, and they have eyes so enormous, there'd be little room left for a brain!

1118969 They're also cartoons, hence the comical looks. We can't really base off of looks considering the previous mentioned fact, but yeah, unless those eyes are flat, they'd have 0 room for brains xD

1118844

I guess, I'm not really a fan of really really upsetting endings, and her death seemed so sudden that it felt mildly awkward.
But of course this is your story, i never said it was bad, i enjoyed everything up to the final chapter.
Sorry, i just don't agree with the ending. Though i do agree fluff is unnecessary, it doesn't have to be fluff is it contributes to the story as a whole.
Again, this is mostly my dislike for unhappy endings to one of the few good chrysalis fics.

But without my bias, well done, please continue to write.

1119986 I quite enjoy sad endings (they bring my feels out that I otherwise repress irl. lol counseling).

As far as this story goes, all of that would have been fluff. It doesn't really have the... watchu call it? Atmosphere? Fuck if I remember the term. Especially not towards the end.

I will gladly toot my own horn though. Even I admit that this is a lot better than most Chrys fics I've read. Nobody can seem to portray her right or just make these silly comedies meant to garner attention cause 'lol Chrys makes funny haha'.

As far as continuing to write? Don't worry there. Unless I spontaneously combust or something, I'll be writing for quite some time.

1119632 Can cartoons evolve autonomously? *ponders* This will require experiments

*3 days later, Rainbow Dash groggily awakens in a dark basement, strapped to a table, with a tray of sharp medical instruments beside her. She rolls her eyes and sighs* Oh Celestia, ANOTHER "Cupcakes" parody!

1122324 Little does she know, humanity can be much worse than anything Pinks could imagine up.

1125125 Wait, I lost respect.... Hmmmmm...... Why can't I.... OH OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. MFPD. But ya, I can check it at some point. Probably sometime after I unlock some shit in D4.

You are a master of words and God of the story tellings
If I had the ability to cry manly tear I would I am ashamed that society shuns that kind of emotions from men.
ill say this. I don't know how much work your editor does compared to you how much influence he has over the plot. But I know this for sure you are God of clops and master of pulling peoples heartstrings my respect for you has doubled.