On a day of celeberation, Twilight reflects on her life, who she is, and who she loves. She decides she is happy with the world.
Written as part of the Pride and Positivity event. Please go support that, and the Transgender Law Center. Every little helps, and please be awesome.
CW for some possibly dysphoria triggering descriptions at the beginning.
Trying to write this story was a struggle but when I listened to Vylet Pony's Antonymph this morning, I figured out the exact direction I wanted to take it in, what I wanted to do. This is fluffy celebration, pure and simple, with notes of my own personal life sprinkled in. I hope people enjoy it!
Cover art credit goes to @nebulanovia over on twitter, specifically for her free pride icon pack. They are wonderfully cute pieces.
Thank you to Silver Mint for proofreading this, and for also making the Spanish translation!
Thank you to dziadek1994 for making a Polish translation and Polish audio reading!
A very heartwarming piece. I enjoyed the way you used the candies apples and I could see where this was going from the beginning, but despite knowing the plot, but whole story just fills you with a warm and fuzzy feeling. Good job on this, and keep up the great work.
That was a sweet little story.
Also, happy pride month.
Really cute dynamic between the two.
I couldn't help but picturing Luna sitting at a table reading a newspaper, putting it down, and looking at a purple button saying "Start Rebellion" at that moment. [half joke]
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[Electroswing Stops]
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That's a very good song, thanks
Looking forward to experiencing this particular moment for myself one day.
Really adorable story! Loved how nice and supportive their relationship is. Also particularly liked this bit.
This is precious!
This line is really good. But not just this line, the whole metaphor is wonderful. This is a really impressive piece of writing.
Love to see Pride fics in the box. Very sweet.
Concerning number of dislikes around. C'mon folks, have some compassion. I really love this story; it's short and sweet, well written, and makes me feel fuzzy and yearning. Maybe I just have some empathy or maybe I'm an egg...
Happy pride everyone 🏳️🌈
So heartwarming and beautiful love the story
. happy pride yall! 🏳️🌈
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FIFY
Love this piece!
Note: For every downvote this gets, I will introduce 27 new genders and then come to your house and teach them to your children. Your move, bigots.
Bit late to start reading.... this morning (up all night again *sigh*). Guess I'll be back... today. Looking forward to it though; desc makes it sound sweethearted
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27 d / 79 l = 0.34
there really isn't an unusual number of dislikes. Any fewer and there'd be a risk of homogeneity; the true enemy of freedom.
Ah yes, Spending several minutes of your life disliking comments on a story about a trans character on a site about My Little Pony fanfiction. The actions of a logical and well adjusted adult.'
Sugary!
A fluffy sweet story
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when I posted the comment there was an about even number of each on the story (and now it's 30/100, dislikes have levelled off to something a bit more reasonable) which I thought was disproportionately high for the quality of the writing, and I was also talking about the dislikes on comments which is definitely higher than usual, so I can only assume they're from bigots/transphobes being malicious
Cute. I don't know why this has so many dislikes. Rarity thinking facepaint is "tacky" feels in character for me because makeup and facepaint, although similar are things that ultimately look different from a measurment of beauty im the eyes of someone like Rarity.
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Yeah that makes sense. Another comment written far too late at night / early in the morning.
Thanks for being chill about it, though; that was not expected.
One catch though: Don't assume the dislikes are malicious.
I am being given the impression Twilight is a trans. Is that right?
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Yes, that's the intent in this story.
Aw,I loved the story. Why is this getting so many dislikes?
This should be longer. Right now, it is all fluff with little substance and that could easily be improved.
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That was the entire intent of this fic, sorry to say :P. I wanted to write something fairly short and celebratory that's basically fluff.
Pretty decent writing. I liked how it showed this Twilight's dysphoria in a grounded, believable manner. It wasn't in my face going on and on, which I appreciate in these sorts of stories. Plus it had some good ol' Raritwi, which is always nice.
Why does this have dislikes? It’s perfect! :D I think I cried a lil...
Happy Pride everyone! Here’s to finding those special people in your life, “special sompony” or not!
Reading this was way harder than I thought. Harder than I wish it was... Just the first paragraph did hit me in ways I'm constantly trying to run away from, the reason I'm too scared to do "that" step... Those little things that seems too big to just "not notice"... And also realizing I don't know how to write, hehe.
Actually, I apologize, I don't think I can finish it, yet. Too much too fast for now, but I wanted to write this comment to let you know that it's powerful what you wrote, and I'm glad to see things like this exists.
(Few hours after, I finished. It's beautiful. I don't know what else to say honestly, hehe. It looks like something I had dreamed before. Thank you for writing this.
Got scared on this part, not gonna lie.)
Considering the author's consistently good scores in past. I'd say the dislikes have nothing to do with the contents of the story but the idea of trans people being in it
I felt Twilight's dysphoria pretty hard there, as I read this. And yet I also felt the way she's come to terms with it, the way she's been accepted, and more than that, loved.
This was a lovely little fluff piece, very cute. Rarilight is a ship I have enjoyed from time to time, and being a trans lady I'm definitely a fan of any interpretation of one (or more) of the Mane Six as a trans lady. That tongue in cheek "I'm not a lady, I'm a princess" was a lot like something I'd say too. Very much identifying with Twilight here.
Well done. And shame on all of you disliking this. I know why you're doing it, and you should be ashamed.
*whispers* G5 foreshadowing
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"I figured out the exact direction I wanted to take it in, what I wanted to do. This is fluffy celebration, pure and simple,"
Or it's exactly what it's meant to be.
I can see how this all started, as in canon. Rarity's initial shock at Twilight's appearance, because she saw how much beauty there was to bring out from underneath the surface.
tailholding also aww
Combining figurative sweetness with literal sweetness, a very nice touch.
A great take on RariTwi, very sweet and fluffy. Supportive Rarity is always nice to see.
I do love sweet fluff like this. RariTwi is one of my fav ships too
My heart melted.
The tailholding
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Because there are unfortunate number of bigots in the fandom (despite it being completely against the message of the show), and trans people in particular are the favored target at the moment, since with the success of same-sex marriage in more and more countries, traditional gay-bashing is increasingly a losing proposition. Hence the blooming of various TERF organizations, and the increased focus on trans people by right-wing political groups, in the recent years.
Teal deer: shitty people are shitty.
Beautifully executed story! I'm a sucker for this kind of characterisation through mundane interactions, and the dialogue was also spot on.
Thank you for sharing this!
It's nice, it's fluffy, and it's just... well, hell, it's just sweet. Well and truly deserves a fave.
🥚
...
🐣
Fluff comes in all stripes. Nice work.
Nice work on this story. Not perfect and a little bit of errors but otherwise this makes a nice and cute romance story between Twilight and Rarity
This was great! The dysphoria hit a bit hard, but I'm glad Twilight is handling it so well. Featured on episode 311 of my podcast, Pony 411.
This is very sweet. Twilight's self-contemplation in the mirror is such a mood, but the depiction of her being happy with things is also a mood, one that gets ignored too often in trans-focused stuff.
As a sidenote of hilarity, when Scootaloo showed up in the story with her face painted, fimfic hit with me a redbubble ad for pride stickers.
I'm utterly dumbfounded about how you managed to compact so much magnificent quality into such a short story without wasting a single word or letting a single letter go without shining polish! Before I get too far ahead of myself, I want to speak to some of the flaws that I and others may have perceived with this story.
That is, some would say that there wasn't enough substance to this piece and that there needs to be more. I would like to remind these readers of the 'slice of life' tag, and the fact that a great many things happened in this story for such a short word count even though it could've had half the substance and still been an incredible piece. I will get to what those things were shortly. Now to the other flaw some might have, and it comes down to having a misunderstanding of what fanfiction is as a whole. To be more precise, rather unsavory people seem to be under the impression that including LGBTQ+ characters is a... Bad thing? They at the same time hold this backward opinion and want others to hold it in their hands as well, not understanding how corrosive a thing it is to grasp. To this, I have two things to say as it relates to this fic: 1. LGBTQ+ people exist, and in much greater numbers than one might expect. 2. The characters belong to everyone, and how they're presented is solely up to the creator. So to claim that, 'Oh you made Twilight trans, blech' is as narrow-minded as it is underinformed about the nature of transformative media as a genre.
Now I don't want to bog this down with negatives, so, as I promised, the thing I loved most about this story was Twilight and her emotions as you wrote them! I've seen many stories write about gender dysphoria in both literal and allegorical ways, but I've seen fewer stories write the feeling of gender euphoria. I've experienced both, and I have to say, I've never seen a more perfect and nuanced description of either!!
The way Twilight examines herself up close in the mirror and noticed her flaws, but then backs away and feels better about her appearance despite still knowing where to look for her physical insecurities is so stunningly real! Beyond that, the way she acknowledges her growth and recognizes how feminine she's become, combined with support from Rarity and her friends, as well as make-up, is a wonderfully balanced and realistic view of the give-and-take relationship being trans can be! To borrow a comparison you used, it's like a map giving a complete image of the land, dangers and landmarks, peaks and valleys, mountains and plains, instead of focusing in on one area in particular. You've given a complete image of dysphoria and euphoria.
I want to shift focus now to the other part of Twilight's emotions that I greatly admired: Growth and contentedness. That tender scene where she's strolling with Rarity through the parade and eating caramel apples, hearing the ponies celebrate and the CMC play, and she ponders to herself that she loves how things are. For me, to go through the whole journey of self-discovery and self-improvement, realizing for the first time that things are actually going great and that it's all going to be ok, is a staggering, colossal revelation. The journey from genuinely hating oneself to being ok, more than that, confident and self-assured is one that many, including myself, are still making. That's why I loved this piece so much. Because it describes that warm feeling of being content and the pride of growing to the point of happiness. It perfectly evaluates how much one has to improve still, while balancing how much one has already improved. In this sense, the emotions presented are flawless.
The story may be short, but as you yourself said, and I wholeheartedly agree, it accomplished everything you wanted. You've done an extraordinary job with this fic, it's something to be extremely proud of!
Wholesome, with a frank depiction of Dysphoria