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"Hey, it's Starlight. Meet me at your portal in an hour. I'm coming over."
Sunset Shimmer was enjoying a completely ordinary day when those words appeared in her journal.
Whether or not it will stay ordinary... well, they'll have to play that one by ear.
Part of the Montage Cinematic Universe.
Cover art by Mit. Used with permission.
Spoilers in the comments.
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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upvotes
Lonely Starlight is lonely? Not sure wat happen.
Uh, question, are rating disabled? Because I can't seem to upvote this.
Alright, let's see where this goes.
9695417
Votes/heat are disabled for this one, yeah.
This is off to an interesting start, Bookish! Eager to read the next chapter!
Well I'm certainly intrigued. Hope Glimmer is okay.
9695431
I admit I'm curious as to why.
Some of those hundred thousand words surface! And starring the duo I crave, no less.
And then I immediately get a solid dose of sad Starlight I don't know what I expected
It's nice that the magically mirrored journal pairing spell has an "X is writing a message..." function.
is this like a drawing tablet where the book senses the quill's proximity to the page or is there a really big ink blot at the start of that N these are my questions
"Ratings disabled."
...Seriously?
I'm sorry, but... no. Just... just don't. Please don't.
I don't mean to be harsh (and I know I am terribly failing at it, sorry), but I can't condone this. Imagine every other story was like this. I'd be a nightmare. Don't let this spread. Why did fimfiction introduce this "feature"?
EDIT: See how 5 people downvoted this comment and one person upvoted in the last half hour? You can instantly tell how people feel about this comment - and this is how a voting system works. Ironically, the downvotes just prove my point.
This isn't meant as "hating" on the author (as I said earlier, I know I've terribly failed at "not being harsh" in my phrasing. Sorry!
), this is my general stance on fimfiction's "Ratings disabled"-setting. That should not be an option, it defeats the point of having ratings. 
And again - imagine every other story was like this. It'd be a complete mess, and I wouldn't want that to happen.
EDIT 2: Ah, and it only occurs to me now after 40 minutes how I could've phrased this better:
"Please don't disable your ratings, this encourages other people to also disable their ratings, which is something we don't want, because then where would we be, if everybody did that?"
Or something like that. Errr.
Yeah, that would've sounded a lot less confrontational and still gotten my point across.
Obviously I can't comment in full until the story proper is finished but I'm already really intrigued by where this is going. Partially just on the level of format; you've experimented in this direction before (you did the chapter-by-chapter thing with "Lulamoon's Castle" and likewise the shorter-but-sweeter chapter structure feels like it owes at least a little bit to the EqG Summer Jobs series you did last year), but this marks the first time I can really think of where you've committed to an old-school short-but-sweet gradually-updated fanfic, of the sort I used to gobble up so eagerly as a teenager, which not only makes me nostalgic but also quite curious: was this always the plan or did you decide to break the story down in this fashion once you'd finished? But obviously the more important matter is the narrative, and even as we really only have the slightest of gestures in that direction thus far (oh but what gestures they are; I love your take on Book Hound Sunset, and as ever you play Starlight's anxieties so perfectly), I'm already eager to see how you develop them: the pairing of Sunset and Starlight is one you've never really engaged with thus far (even as you've featured them in stories together before) and I know they're like two of your ABSOLUTE favorites, and given that the potential for their dynamic is already so self-evident I'm very excited to see what a Master like you can do with it!
Gosh...a Bookish Summer Reading Project? What a splendid turn of events! 8D
So intrigued! I wanna see where this goes. Thumbs up from me! <3
Rattings disabled?! Owo
9695676
The voting system can also be abused (and frequently is), but that isn’t why Booky disables ratings.
For plenty of people, ratings are a huge source of anxiety not when they get more downvotes than upvotes, but when they don’t get any votes, because it makes them feel that their story is lifeless and uninspired, no matter what it actually is.
If there was one feature this site could do without, it would be ratings, because ratings are social media, and social media is cancer.
But do you know what isn’t cancer? This story! Glim Glam Bam!
First off, I'm greatly amused by Captain Celaeno and her pirate birbs being the stars of an adventure novel in the human world.
Secondly, I'm really intrigued by what's going on with Starlight. Hope you're not having a breakdown, Glim-glam!
Virtual up vote.
A reminder of my headcanon that Sunset may be the Princess of Friendship of the human world. She has to pick up all the Friendship Problems for which Twilight no longer has room on her schedule!
Ooh, Shimmy Glimmy Power Hour. This should be...
Well, it'll be entertaining for me, at least. Not sure how fun it'll be for the characters given the whole "crippling emotional vulnerability" thing, but we'll see where it goes from here. Also, brilliant canon combination by making Celaeno the protagonist of Lily's book.
Looking forward to more. Have an "I wish I could upvote this story" upvote.
Isn't the chapter title a bit misleading?
I dig the headcanon you've got going with the portal.
Also, I'd love to see Princess Twilight and Sci-Twi have a scientific back and forth. Doesn't matter to me if I don't understand a damn word of it. XD
Also, my imagination:
Sunset: *Stares at both Twilights* "Sweet Celestia, I have never found both science and magic to be so hot..." *shudder of glee*
Makes sense to me.
Sunset may be mostly recovered from her madness, but she still thinks with parentheses. She'd better watch for a relapse :p
Twi² is always gonna be adorkable
Makes as much sense as anything portal-related.
To start with, my apologies to Bookish Delight for the initial phrasing in my earlier comment - I still stand by my argument, but I knew even before I posted it the phrasing was too negative (as I readily admitted in said comment) - yet I couldn't think of anything better at the time, and simply had to say something.
It was only 40 minutes later I realized what I could've said instead to make it seem less confrontational. Ah. Woops.
Looking at your recent stories, I can see this isn't the first story with its ratings disabled, and I suspect it wouldn't be the last.
I implore you not to disable your ratings, this encourages other people to also disable their ratings, which is something we don't want, because then where would we be, if everybody did that?
9696312
@PhycoKrusk:
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you there. Without ratings, all the good stories would just get lost in thousands of bad ones.
Fimfiction.net is actually the most well-organized fanfiction site I know; for contrast, I've tried to branch out into other fandoms, but the way archiveofourown.org and fanfiction.net are structured I've never been able to find anything there. I know good stories exist on those sites only, because I've been linked to them from outside sources.
Granted, fanfiction.net's rating system (and lack of proper ability to sort stories by a unified "rating" rather than separate options to sort by "kudos", "views", "favorites" or "follows") isn't the only problem present on those sites, but it makes it pretty clear just how important a well-functioning rating system actually is to be able to actually find the good stories.
Yes, and that's a serious problem, I agree with you there.
But disabling ratings isn't a viable solution - as I said before, if everybody did that, this site would become a mess.
Weighing up the pros and cons, I am more anxious than anticipatory of the day when Knighty & Co introduce their long-since-hinted-at "general fiction" multi-fandom site - because if they aren't careful in how exactly they set that up, it'll definitely spawn conflict between pony- and non-pony communities, and we'll have haters shooting "pony" out of the featured box the moment it shows up there. Then we'll have people turning off ratings just to protect themselves, because they've already seen enough other people turn ratings off before, and the only stories left in the featured box will be clopfics and whatnot.
What I'm trying to say is this:
Please don't do this, it'll only encourage others to disable their ratings as well, and we'll all be worse of for it in the long run.
Just look at deviantArt: People who left the site just used to let their accounts be, left to discover for any who came across them even a decade later. And just because they stopped caring about their art, doesn't mean others did.
There are so many galleries I only discovered well after their artists had left. Heck, in one case an art piece on an abandoned account inspired a (not yet published) story.
But nowadays, you see people deleting their accounts left and right, with no regard for their fans, both past and potential future ones. It's become "normal" to do that, everybody else is doing it, and the option is right there in the settings. It's easy.
But it shouldn't be. It really, really shouldn't. I shudder to see what happens to all those art galleries when pony ends, and all those pony-artists "lose interest".
So here, now, I feel like I should speak up, and implore people please not to do this thing that'll pave the way for a worse future.
Thank you.
Maybe you think this isn't important enough to warrant such a reaction, maybe this makes me seem petty. But at least this is a problem small enough I can still do something about it.
....Err, as an aside: I wasn't the one who downvoted your comment. I know I'd seem like the most likely culprit, but no, I haven't downvoted anyone's comment here, be it "temporarily" or otherwise.
...You're telling me there's no spell to erase ink? What about deliberately spilling ink on the page? At least then Twilight can't find out what Starlight wrote..... though I suppose then she'd get mad for Starlight's treatment of books.
Also, Twilight getting into a lecture-off with Twilight sounds hilarious and worthy of more detail.
And has anyone ever put thought into what it means that magic can interpret intentions? Do magical spells and items have some form of sapience? Or is it magic as a whole? Can you talk to it? Does it have a personality? Could you befriend persuade it to maybe not allow an evil sorcerer to cast their spell of doom?
9697537
The site’s Heat function is independent from ratings, working instead with an arcane combination of number of comments, views per hour, and Pinkie dust. You could still find “good” stories through a combination of sorting by Heat and applying the tags you’re interested in.
As for the general fan fiction segment, my understanding of the plan was that FiM and general fan fiction would have each have separate web portals.
Lastly, ratings are largely meaningless: I have a story with more downvotes than upvotes, and I know this is because of the content, rather than the story itself, because Soulsborne crossovers are still hot properties here. All the rating tells you is the number of users who bothered to vote who didn’t like the story; it tells you nothing about the quality of the story. (Case in point, every Fall of Equestria story where the antagonists lose handily; they always get large numbers of upvotes, even when the story itself isn’t any good, hiding the actual good stories under a curtain of mediocrity)
In any case, that’s all I’m going to say about this here; I’m distracting the conversation from what it should be about: This story!
GlimGlam bam!
Interesting take on the portal mechanics. Having an on/off switch on the Equestrian side seems like it would cover a lot of this, but I do appreciate the added security... even if it does reduce the odds of accdiental stumbling into Horseland. (Of course, intentional stumbling into Horseland is entirely possible goven this student body. Where is human Trixie?)
And, of course, I appreciate Sunset drooling over her nerdy purple girlfriend(s).
9698678
Yeah, Mirror Magic makes things weird since as of that special there are likely four books in play (at least three) and one of them has to power the mirror portal. It felt like genius at the time but the more one thinks about it the more one realizes that the way the portal got reopened in RR really was a whole bunch of narrative sleight of hand. An on/off switch could handle most accidents, but not all, notably in Mirror Magic itself when no one is shown to be around to caretake after Sunset and Starlight leave. This was the closest I could come to splitting the difference.
(And this isn't even even trying to account for the Spring Breakdown portal.
)
9697195
You have no idea how happy I am that someone got the Celaeno thing.
For Sunset, two Twis is better than one, clearly.
D'aww! Fluffy fuzzy feelings!
9699330
I have been slayed.
Some stopped to watch the free street theater. One shouted "Kiss!" A part of Sunset's mind she didn't like to think about noted his name, routine, and known weaknesses.
She wasn't going to act on that knowledge, but some things don't change no matter how many rainbows you take to the face.
In any case, whatever happened in Equestria, Starlight clearly needs this physical and emotional support. Hopefully the Shimmer therapy pans out well for her.
9697537
I'm personally of the opinion that a comment is required to upvote or downvote a story, and that said comment has to have a minimum wordcount of some sort. I don't mind people giving me downvotes, but I'd rather those downvotes come with an explanation. You can't improve as an author if you don't get (and acknowledge) constructive criticism.
Whether you'd get constructive criticism with such a system is still debatable, but a system like that would at least discourage people from just downvoting you and going off on their merry way.
Looks like Starlight still hasn't mastered the art of chillaxing.
I keep trying to upvote after every chapter...
In any case, yeah, Starlight doesn't really have any low gears. Sunset's going to have to show her the fine art of downtime. Hopefully nothing magical rears its ugly head in the interim. I don't see Sunset showing it any mercy.
"We! Are! Having! A! Moment!"
9701067
I'm so tempted now why would you do this
Ah this is so good! It deserves love!
9701020
She'll get there! maybe
9701159
Starlight really is much like Twilight, in the way she tends to be high-strung, tightly wound, and more than slightly neurotic.
Anyway, this is unfolding nicely, and I appreciate the short but frequent updates.
This needs to be a thing in EG proper. Badly.
Let me upvote, dangit! This keeps getting better, and I NEED to show Best Human and Best Counselor some love.
9702816
What he said! This story DESERVES upvotes.
"Also death machines for the people inside if you're not careful. And they're powered by a series of tiny explosions."
"Question: Why?"
"Because it's easier than walking."
And I do love the concept of technology as applied earth pony magic. It'd explain all those pedal-powered helicopters.
“We make the car move by using careful designs tapping into the fundamental forces of the universe.”
“But... EVERYTHING taps into the fundamental forces of the universe.”
“Shh. Don’t ruin my moment.”
And yeah, well developed earth pony magic looks just like technology. I bet most technological cutie marks are on earth ponies in the future...
I don't know why the whole fandom agrees on Sunset being a biker, but I do very much enjoy it.
9704163
This is a fabulous line
Liking this so far
Ooh, philosophical!
Let the chillaxing commence!
Vrrooooom!
Yes. That is all.
9704183
It's perfect