Starlight Glimmer has just discovered Maud Pie's first work of prose: a self-insert fix-fic, where the thing being "fixed" by the story is Starlight's own confrontation through time with Twilight Sparkle, and her subsequent reformation.
Inspired by "We Can Do This Forever" by Empirical Deduction, "Twilight Fights Starlight for Eternity" by Diamond Aura, and other stories speculating what might happen if Starlight and Twilight's fight had gone on forever.
Note: The majority of this story is fictional within the world of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. The "Alternate Universe" tag therefore only applies if you imagine Maud's story as being real.
Featured on March 18, 2018.
Chapters (12)
Awww!
The name of chapter 5 should be spelled Fluorite, unless you're doing a baking pun.
Fix fics almost never work... unless I write them. Because I know everything. And if I don't know it, it clearly doesn't exist!
(What movies were nominated for Best Picture this year?) I don't know, they don't exist! (See how this works?)
8804778
You're right--fixed.
Interesting story! Well done for carrying off Maud perspective for so long
So there was no telescope or binoculars?
Fantastic work all around. The entire story is a great character study of Maud by proxy, outting both her thought process and self-image on display. No wonder she didn't want Starlight to see it. And the chapter ttiles work on multiple levels: Not only does the Maud in the story have to face ever harder social challenges as time goes on (and major kudos to her for taking only one loop to actually carry out her mission!) but it gets harder for author Maud as Starlight goes through the story, dreading what she'll think of each successive chapter more and more.
Thank you very much for a gripping read.
(Also, my vote's for Rose Hardness Scale, after Cloudy's grandmother Rose Quartz.)
Psst you forgot to mark your story as completed.
8806109
I believe the point of a cover illustration is to encapsulate the emotions the whole story will leave in the prospective reader, similar to how many comic book covers illustrate scenes that never happen in the story, or how "The Best of All Possible Worlds" does not in fact feature a watch with Celestia as a gear floating in intergalactic space.
In this case, I am smooshing together the scene where Maud sees Rainbow Dash fall out of the sky and the scene when she's in Cloudsdale trying to spy on the race into a single image that can be easily seen in less than 250x250 pixels. Without the telescope, there's no possible way that you'd be able to tell that the pair of blue pixels in the corner is actually Rainbow Dash--try clicking on that image to get to the DeviantArt original to see what I mean. Now if the only reason you wanted to read this story was to get a description of how optical devices work with absurdly-big pony eyes, then I'm sorry I disappointed you.
I'd be interested to know if there's any particular scene in this story that you (or anybody else) feels would make for a better illustration.
I do hope you don't think I'm lashing out at you--I honestly had a really hard time coming up with a cover illustration this time around, especially given my limited artistic skills.
8806745
Oops! I hope changing the status just now informs anybody putting the story on their "Read Later" lists...
It's not that the cover art needs to be changed, the thing is that it just seemed logical for Maud to first try to get a closer look at Cloudsdale to see what was happening, I really was expecting her to get a telescope or binoculars.
But then, this is her story.
Little did Starlight realize that she had been WAYYYY more cray-cray than she remembered, and in that loop had blasted a hole straight through Dashie and bathed in the resulting blood fountain, laughing in ecstatic mania as the Dark Gods of Detrot emerged to slay them all. It was that one loop written by a grimdark fan.
Alondro, under the supervillain guise of 'The Molestinator', has Spanner tied to a viewing table while he slooooooooooowly vivisects a wide-eyed, adorable-looking rabbit alive.
And then Rainbow Dash... which no one cares about because everyone's already done that at least once on this site.
We're not far from this state of affairs... of course, this sort of thing just turns bullying into genocide as a matter of course, if we are to examine other examples of state-controlled children.
150 ponies... for EACH parasol?! Damn... ponies suck at everything! I've seen quadriplegics more capable!
Also... my comment to Maud would be that this feels far too forced and unrealistic... for the simple fact that we are expected to believe it took 150 ponies to make a friggin' parasol... much too exaggerated. Might have been better with a town specialized in clock-making. Many more parts, meaning many more ponies involved. But even then, those skills could be quickly reassigned to many different fields involving precision machinery.
The point is, most specialties have cross-disciplinary applications. Rarity is the prime example of this.
Now, if we want to point to a pony who was NOT made happy by his Cutie Mark (until the CMCs showed up), we have Troubleshoes. But really, Starlight is bitching about 1% who can't manage to find their path and ignoring the overwhelming majority who are making out just fine. Rather than think of ways to help the minority who don't adjust well, her solution is to upend the entire society with a system that will destroy the primary source of self-motivation for most of the citizenry. Socialists these days tend to do that a lot.
And so we see that Maud has 4th Wall-destroying powers equivalent to Freakazoid's.
This was truly a lovely character study of both Maud and Starlight, and a fun adventure on the top. You even captured the Pie's tendency to break brains and reality and keep it charming instead of obnoxious.
I'm starting to suspect that the tradition of restraint the older ones observe is a carefully crafted safeguard against themselves.
I was already enjoying this story and story within the story, but that last excahnge guaranteed a tumbs up, hehe!
Pfft!!! I love how you wrote Maud writing Maud!
8808986
That's pretty freakin weird of a comment.
I absolutely adore the two's commentary!
That line hit me like a freight train, I have to say, I loved your characterizations of the characters, both Maud and Starlight reading and the ones written though Maud's eyes.
8812822 You ain't seen NUTHIN' yet!
Or apparently a good many of my comments since 2011.
8812881
You mentioned the shrine! Now it's even stronger! (See brand-new author's note.)
I enjoyed this. Their conversation is laid back, it's about deeply personal things and hypothetical nothings all at once, and it reminds me of real conversations gone by. Nice work; thank you for the tale.
Awwww.
I'm glad
youMaud made Maud's parents understand.I use " Hay-Mows Scale."
She missed the possibility where both were good.
derpicdn.net/img/2017/4/19/1416087/full.jpeg
These are kinda silly arguments. Even if there are aritfacts, artifacts + special talents and army + special talent are still strictly better then just artifacts and army.
8804841 That's exactly what I've found too!
Though, based on the movie, and for that matter A Canterlot Wedding, a troop of boy scouts with toothpicks could take over Equestria. Evil boy scouts, of course. I can slightly forgive the Royal Guard in a Canterlot Wedding, they did at least make an effort, even if they were utterly ineffectual compared to the main six.
Someone's cast a shrinicide spell (the images seem to be broken).
9471049
The images are hosted on a site called vgy.me. The site's Twitter reported that they were down for maintenance on February 18-19. Everything appears to be working now. The site is harmless (as far as I know), so there should be no reason for anybody's servers to block the site.
Just in case this ever happens again, you can use these links to see the original DeviantArt images I resized to make these illustrations, specifically this one, this one, this one, this one, this one and this one.
...So much for the power of Pinkie shrines.
9472248
It's working now (without any changes on my side).
Actually really liked it, huh.
You captured maud very well. It’s was a goof read
Hm, no that was Starlight, kill that bitch