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Immediately after her ascension, Twilight's feeling stressed. Princesshood? Wings? It's a lot to take in, and the full weight of it is only just now sinking in. No matter how much of an honor it is, Twilight can't stop panicking over it.
So when Celestia gives her a choice between being an alicorn and being a unicorn, Twilight's not sure which path she wants to take.
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Good one shot story! My only problem is Twilight wasn't the Princess of friendship until after season 4, but otherwise, great job!
do you
if you think
Nice little thing.
Very sweet
That doesn't count tomorrow!
Nice, interesting story.
...
Why couldn't we have more fics like this back in Season 3?
Seriously, a nuanced discussion about Twilight's ascension is much more compelling than outright demonizing the concept. And, well, that's what this is. Twilight and Celestia having a meaningful discussion about this new direction in life. Not unlike the Season 7 premier, now that I think about it. Anyway, yeah. This is pretty good.
Props just for Celestia actually offering Twilight a choice.
*how ?
Also, I agree with RainbowSparkle3. I half expected Celestia to respond "The Princess of what now?"
Ragardless, this is a really good story. Seriously, we should have had this kinda stuff back after season 3. Well done!
I'm probably going to get a lot of hate from this comment, but I think she should've stayed a unicorn. If she was to be crowned the princess of friendship (which I am sure Celestia had it planned), she would stay a mortal with her friends. Not with Celestia. Yes, she's Celestia's student, but she should've given her a choice (which is why I'm glad you made this story.) I just think if she would be the princess of friendship, she should be mortal, with her friends. But that's my opinion. I am glad you made this story, it definitely allows people to think about the situation.
8315336 And then one day mortal Twilight's 5 friends all go for a train ride and it suddenly explodes because lazy plotting reasons and she's alone anyway.
But really, denying life because of fear of other people dying is quite paranoid and pathetic. It's also irrational. You have no way of knowing if they'll die before you regardless.
8313764 My problem with it wasn't the ascension itself... more that her final test amounted to her messing up a spell and somehow fixing her own mistake with a really stupid-sounding spell.
It wasn't well-handled.
Frankly, facing Tirek should have been the real test, and her ascension shouldn't have been administered by Celestia (which reinforced Celestia's 'divinity'... only to then obliterate it by Celestia's frequent easy defeats by everything... including a snowstorm.) and instead by some undefined 'force' or 'spirit' which is never seen. Keeping those sorts of things cleverly vague usually works out best.
8315397
I would agree if Tirek has been "reformed" instead of defeated, this way it would be some prove of how much she understand the "magic of harmony/friendship", as it was she has not presented a greater capacity than she already had at the start of the show just more magical power.
8315336
Immortality is pretty hard to turn down. In addition, if it eases you, it's canon that Twilight does not outlive her friends, although it's unknown what exactly that means. Likely the others, being bearers, are immortal (after all, the previous bearers are immortal), or perhaps they all get on the same ill-fated voyage across the ocean.
8315780
Some people simply cannot be reformed, not without them losing either themselves or their free will. I suspect Tirek is one of those people.
8315397
I think Celestia would be the first to point out that while she is powerful, her only claim to divinity is that she is immortal, not omnipotent or infallble. This story agrees with this statement. Even she prefers that her ponies do not worship her as a god (albeit only in hints in the show). So asking Twilight if she wants to return to her former self, without the responsibilities of her new position, also shows how much she cares for Twilight. Celestia has shown Twilight what she is capable of, even if it 'pushed her over the edge' as Twilight was considering. Giving her a choice, the chance to turn around and go back; to give up her new form and status... shows she doesn't want to force Twilight to do something she truly doesn't want to do, just to make her consider everything she could do as a princess, as well as what she might be leaving behind by going back again.
I do agree that, sometimes we need a push to find out that we can be capable of far more than what we think. Celestia's 'pushed' Twilight more than once in the series; the first episode was a 'push', with Celestia making Twilight leave Canterlot and head to Ponyville. We all know how that turned out. Maybe if Twilight thought about all the times Celestia pushed her to advance beyond her comfort zone, then it might help her realise that Celestia has never truly asked her to do more than she was capable of succeeding in doing. That Celestia hadn't put Twilight in any situation she wasn't sure Twilight didn't have the capability of handling. There was always uncertainty that Twilight might not act in time, or do things the correct way, but Celestia always had confidence that Twilight had the capacity to rise to the challenge and come through. The faith Celestia has in Twilight is a big part of this series.
8315780 Nah, I was talking more about the willingness to throw aside all her power to save her friends.
Some people can't be reformed. Some people are just complete assholes. Being one, I know this personally.
I AM RICK.
adagio.com/images2/custom_blends/90599.jpg
8315981 Dude, if we had a dude on this planet who was over 1,000 years old, could fly, and moved the god-damned Sun, pretty much everyone would be worshipping it.
Sheesh, people worship King Jung Un just with a little application of brainwashing and information control. It doesn't take much.
8316032
That's dudette, dude.
And we don't need a physical being to do that, just someone who came up with the concept of a divine being ages ago, and convinced others they had control of their immortal destinies beyond this world. As i heard someone say once "Religion was born when the first con-man met the first fool". Note: 'belief' and 'religion' are two different things to me. You can believe in a Divine Being without being in Organised Religion.
Don't forget fear. Fear goes a long way in keeping people 'believing' that mortal beings are some kind-of divine figure. Hellfire and brimstone, anyone?
You had my upvote at "what the friggety."
8316055 Nah, religion didn't come from that. That's just a saying from atheists who just hate religion a little more than they hate themselves. Religion came from the first moment someone decided to ask 'why' about the reason they could ask questions.
Oh, that and the weird white space aliens with the black goo.
8316069
"Atheists hate religion". I've seen that expressed by lots of religious nutjobs, but not many atheists. And implying they hate themselves? What? Do you know ANYTHING about atheists besides the bullshit spewed by the likes of Jack Chick?
8316032
Nah, I don't see it.
It's all well and good to have a super powerful absent being to worship, but as soon as this actual being exists it does inconvenient things, like mention that it doesn't want or need worship, or that the men in silly hats asking for money don't speak for it, or really know anything more about it than the average person does.
8316069
hah! The funny thing is it was a Baptist Pastor who told it to me.
I have no idea who Jack Chick is. Most atheists I know don't hate themselves, what they hate is the way truly fundamental (Heavy on the 'mental' part) think they have the right to 'convert' you to their own religion, and that you're crazy if you don't.
To get back on topic, in my stories I had Celestia come up with a faith-based religion of her own after taking over the Rule of Equestria, to give those ponies who wanted to deify her something else to focus on. She used Faust as the basis of an 'All-Mother' type of deity, and had the tenets about loving and serving everypony else, reducing conflicts and promoting friendship. It's fairly simple, but it serves Harmony very well. The princesses are sponsors of the religion, not it's heads, either.
I think that was suppose to be 'how'
You do compress some of Twilight's alicorn concerns (aliconcerns?) into a single ultra-stressful package here; no one's said anything about a Princess of Friendship quite yet. Still, this does do a good job of setting up later seasons gradually giving Twilight more and more royal responsibilities.
There's really only one other issue I have here: The idea that Celestia could take back the wings. Honestly, I'm not even sure if that's what she meant. Take back the title, sure, that's obviously within her power. But Celestia never actually did anything during Twilight's ascension. The magic came from within Twilight herself; Celestia just sang a song and summoned a bunch of flashback windows.
Eh, that's largely a matter of clashing headcanons. Putting those aside, this was some lovely Celesta-Twilight interaction, including a few clean shots from the latter on the former. A rare sight, but nice to see when it's merited. In all, thank you for this story.
Oh, and to any and all reading this, ignore Alondro. You'll find you'll lead a much happier life that way.
8313083
This. This is the biggest problem with the story.
There are other problems, but Twilight made her decision here based in part on her title despite that title not existing yet.
8315894
Oh, that's interesting. Where'd you hear that?
8315390
1, Lol.
2, I mean I guess it depends on how one thinks of it. But I see what you mean.
While going back to unicorn isn't possible (that's her species now, and changing species is out of Celestia's capabilities as far as we know), it's entirely likely that if Twilight had decided in the episode "no, I don't want to be a princess" that Celestia would have been sad, but would have not made her one.
In a way, becoming a princess is what Twilight had been hoping for, without even knowing it. Ever since she saw Celestia as a filly, her life's goal was to basically be as much like Celestia as possible. Since, in her eyes, becoming a princess or alicorn was either impossible or nearly impossible (depending on whether she knows Cadance used to be a pegasus), her studying magic was the best way to imitate her idol. Personally, I don't think Twilight would have ever seriously considered declining a way to get closer to her mentor in both their relationship and their status.
8315894
Yeah, there's lots of different ways to interpret that statement and still have it be true:
1: Twilight isn't immortal.
2: Twilight is immortal, but finds a way later to remove her immortality.
3: Twilight is immortal, but her friends are or will be too.
4: Twilight is immortal (lifespan wise), but she kicks the bucket from injury or disease before her friends do.
5: Twilight is immortal, but as some of her friends are immortal too (Celestia, Luna, Cadance, maybe Spike), she won't "outlive her friends" because some will always be with her.
6: Twilight is immortal, but she goes crazy and turns her friends into undying liches/locks them in stasis/abuses time travel/etc so that they never die.
7: Twilight is immortal, but she won't outlive her friends because of the meta reason that the show will end long before any of them get close to their maximum lifespans, so none of them ever actually "die" in terms of the franchise.
Personally, I find it kind of suspicious that McCarthy was specifically asked "Is Twilight immortal?", but she dodged answering the question directly and gave a tangentially related answer, so I think it's likely that either Twilight is immortal, or the writers haven't decided one way or the other.
8317103
Was confirmed in these tweets:
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RmYt62Kb2NI/UWsPEjxnomI/AAAAAAABYS8/vA-Ozmk7LTU/s1600/Capture.JPG
8317217
Good ideas, canonically I could see 2, 3, 4, and 7 being the most likely, although 6 would be... interesting, 5 would be a complete cop-out resolution. I definitely believe as an alicorn she is currently immortal, and her and her friends dying to a disease or accident seems too dark for what the writers would reasonably produce, so I think it would probably be between 2 & 3 (she revokes her immortality, or her friends are also immortal).
8317217
She isn't immortal unless/until it's stated otherwise in the show. Pretty much how it's always worked, show cannon automatically overwrites anything stated in other materials. FIM is still a "living fiction", bits can be added and changed but still be in official cannon. Though lets not forget it's never been outright stated any of the Princesses are immortals, just that Celestia and Luna are at least 1000 and change years old, we're not even sure what the base lifetime of a pony is. Hundreds of years might be normal for ponies, in lots of settings magical creatures live very long lives and all ponies have magic, maybe ponies live to be 100 or 500 years old. Maybe the Equestrian year is significantly shorter and in earth years the Royal Sisters are only a few hundred years old.
8317391
Her status with regards to immortality is unknown until stated in the show; she's not mortal by default when we have reason to believe she might be immortal.
Also, >1000 year lifespans with no sign of aging past prime is close enough to immortality that it can be spoken as thus in most contexts.
Surprise!
8317217
7 is the real reason, regardless of cannon. The show might deal with death tangentially, but this simply isn't the sort of show where a main character dies.
Head-cannon-wise I'm partial to 1 or 3. I don't really like 2 since while it isn't necessarily a good thing to seek immorality, I've always felt that intentionally throwing it away was a form of delayed suicide. Understandable if you're ancient and tired, but incredibly short-sighted if you haven't even gone through a longer than normal lifespan yet to see for yourself if it's really so terrible as you're imagining.
8317245
Awesome, thanks!
8316202 You haven't seen that from many atheists?
You obviously don't watch any network television, or attend college campuses, or frequent social media... or generally associate with the human race in general.
There is OUTRIGHT, BLATANT, VERY VOCIFEROUS hostility against religion from the atheist groups. Only someone in utter denial or just plain lying could deny it.
8319723
I might believe you were seeing something I wasn't had you not paired that with the blatantly obviously dumb "atheists hate themselves" thing. The only hate I saw at Penn State was a man who hung outside a building every day telling everyone who passed they were going to hell.
If you want to tell me all about how atheism is about hating god then do it in pm so this story has comments about the actual story in it.
Thoroughly enjoyed this, especially the part where Celestia removed her crown and necklace. It was almost a way of saying that for a moment, she was just a regular pony. I really loved the interaction between her and Twilight, it felt true to their characters and had a really heartwarming softness to it.
I do agree, that Celestia would never take back the wings, just the title. Cause taking away the wings feels like a bit too much. Like an amputation rather than her giving Twilight a choice to be a unicorn or an alicorn. Bu
But I'm really happy I read this, it was an interesting little insight to a conversation that could've happened and I think you do a great job. Keep it up.
It's always interesting to me to compare how different people interpret Twilight's ascension. For me, I've always seen it as something that Celestia was a guide to rather than the cause of... It fits with hints from Amy Keating Rogers' Journal of the Two Sisters that Starswirl may have left Celestia with information about Twilight's future existence. So she may have known that completing Starswirls spell triggers her ascension... which I suppose begs the question about how much culpability she has in giving Twi Starswirl's journal to start the process. But contemplating that gives me a time travel induced headache...
From a straight "Celestia did it" viewpoint, this was a great little addition, giving both of them time to really examine the momentous change. I liked Twilight's viewpoint throughout, and the very human(Pony) discussion between them.
I love the way you ended this story, and the whole thing was immensely well written. Good job!
Heh, this made me smile. Great job!
What a lovely story! I like how, rather than changing the existing canon, you added a plausible scene to it. It's very true to the kind, understanding, humble Celestia we know and love from the show, and giving Twilight a chance to logically reason things out is nice and makes her decision feel genuine. I also like the point about how those who have been without can have a greater appreciation for something they gain, much like how those who have been through hard times or tragedies are better able to relate to and comfort others who have been through tragedies. (It's not an exact parallel, one just reminded me of the other.) Very nice job, and wonderfully written!
This feels like an after the fact addition to the episode. Nicely done.
8315336
No hate, despite my downvote, it is simply that I consider rejecting immortality to be committing an especially slow form of suicide. If the wings had to come with that... so be it.
And, yes, I know that the show doesn't say she is immortal, but it was a basic tenant of your statement, and a common enough fanon.
Before reading this line, I didn't notice who wrote this. After reading, it I instantly knew.