This is an entry to (and just crowned first place winner of!) Nitro Indigo's 2022 November Species Swap contest.
This fic was written in less than a week, because I wanna have fun too!
In this story, Twilight Sparkle is a mer-pony that has recently earned her ascension to become a Queen, but is struggling with her place in the Canterlot Reverie. Meanwhile, a tantalizing voice is calling to her from the surface, giving her rare moments where she can focus on something besides her changing body and life.
Chapters (7)
I swear to Twilight that if you don't explain any of this, and a bit more of what was said, this story is a bust. I'm assuming Celestia isn't Twilight's mom. Twilight's change says, Queen Novo. But who knows...
Okay I'm confused. If Twilight is queen, then where does Celestia into this? Twilight's mom and Celestia are not the same. Physically and by blood. Details. I'm going crazy here 🤪🤪🤪.
11435784
Twilight is becoming a queen. Sunset can tell that on sight, but Twilight is still in the process of ascension. I'll try to edit for clarity
11435784
I edited the chapter for clarity, let me know if it's better!
Man, i've always been a sucker for stories to do with the sea and the lil bits of world building thrown in here are pretty nice, if i understood it correctly, twilight's family kind of comes from Celestia in this world? As in, descending from her many children (which considering how the ocean is brutal at times, makes sense she'd be laying those in bulk), hell i'll even go so far as to say she's probably one of her daughters. Interesting stuff either way, keep up the good work!
11436727
So far the lineage has been left vague on purpose, but Celestia is not Twilight's mother (chapter 1 I had Rarity refer to them separately) so at minimum Celestia would be her grandmother. The actual lineage details will have to wait for a later chapter muahahaha!
11436838
Overdramatic gasp you evil creature! How dare thee make me even more invested in this story?! I guess there's nothing i can do except wait patiently! The evil! cof cof okay, overdramatic reaction aside! Can't wait to see it! ô/
Man, this was quite the ride to go through. Really liked the origin you gave Celestia too! I wish you all the luck on the contest (hell, i'll admit you inspired me to try and whip something up for it for fun)! ô/
And for anyone that may see this comment, try reading this with some ambient sounds/music, the immersion goes really hard.
Nice to see Sunset actually being more of a hero even in her worst days, and Celestia being the actual villain who lies through her teeth. Because no matter what she says, she is no hero. Not by a long shot. No matter what she did.
Either that is a misspelled Maretime Bay from G5. Or someplace new. I can't tell.
11437811
If I ever continue this, you will be proven right so hard. Celestia in this is meant to be a barely hidden eldritch horror.
I usually don't like to give my opinions on contest entries until after I've finished judging, but these lines are so amazing that I have to comment on them. This punch comes directly after a description of how wonderful Twilight's pony form looks.
11439934
Thank you so much! It was a meaningful scene for me.
I WROTE ALL WRONG AAA, english is not my first language 😭😭😭. I was saying that it would be great if you extended the story.
11447120
Thank you!
Did you mean Sunset?
11495012
Correct, thank you haha
I really like what you've done with Sunset here. I see this as a distorted reflection of how she was before her reformation in canon.
11615300
Thanks! You definitely helped me refine my headcanon of the character, that's for sure!
Everything leading up to this was pretty good, but this felt just a little too happy-sappy with the way Sunset and Twilight react to the situation. Sunset raised some big questions that remain unanswered (most notably...does Celestia actually go after dissenters? She only banished Sunset, but Sunset was her own student and never made anything public...) and Twilight now is basically just going "well you would've screwed everything up anyways I guess, now let's cuddle and cry, my love".
11742797
I did rush the conclusion a little, instead of showing it on the page I referenced their budding romance and time together in other chapters. But you're right about Celestia. She's a can of worms in this setting that noone wants to open, a barely restrained horror that has just as many dark and concerning aspects as she has "standard" Celestia style behaviors.
11742941
I think rushing their romance is fine, it's really the conflict that felt to me overly rushed, in that Celestia is over her anger immediately and then Twilight never even gets angry at Sunset or shows she's got certain very important answers. Twilight just skips right on ahead to being super chill.
If you got lured with deception into a romance with a traitor, no matter how much they may be justified, you need to check for evidence that they have genuine intentions (how does Twilight know Sunset isn't just playing the long game against Celestia?), and it's probably a pretty good idea to at least indicate you don't like being lied to, unless you plan on being lied to a lot more in the future... Yes, Sunset's a goody-goody here, but we know that from omniscient perspective, Twilight should at least have doubts, and maybe talk to someone like Spike or Rarity for a second opinion (both of whom notably are rather absent from the later parts of the fic).
On the flipside, if you've just gotten intel verified that your mentor figure is, or at least in the past was, a secretive tyrant, it is also necessary to get some evidence that they aren't one who, if finding you doubting them as you do, would simply slice your head clean off in the middle of conversation (sure, Celestia cares about Twilight, but that may just mean she'd cry and say sorry while Twilight's head is briefly still conscious).
11743316
Well, you're giving me a lot of reasons to rewrite this fic hahahaha
Originally it was very rushed, very condensed for the sake of being able to enter into a contest but I'll absolutely agree that there's a lot left to explore.
Maybe I'll make a full redo like I did with Redemption in Moonlight (after some feedback, I started a new fic with the same premise but a much deeper approach, now called Primrose's Redemption) since that prevents me from just rehashing and editing existing chapters too many times.
11743815
My 2 cents on a rewrite is that a full redo would probably lose some of what made this fic really hook me and others in; while Spike and Rarity are rather transparent to me as simply tools to hook in the audience with the former saying "same relationships, different asthetic setting" and the latter dumping exposition with just enough left unanswered to make us interested, that part of the story is pretty good and it's really a shame for that part that later parts lack exploration of the two and how they relate to Twilight with things being different. As well, Twi and Sunset's first meeting is amazing and really what cements a want to see things through.
It's definitely hard to just rehash and edit chapters, but I think if you chunked things up, identifying chapters and parts of chapters to entirely redo, it wouldn't be so bad.
11744472
I'll admit my biggest struggle is with motivation.
I don't get very many views in comparison to authors that put out high quantities of work, so these contests give me a chance to get views and comments.
To edit an already published fic doesn't send out notifications to any of the readers, and might confuse them if a new chapter is published that doesn't line up with the version they read.
I agree though, scrapping it entirely doesn't make sense.
11745061
Yeah, it's probably best to make a new fic entry (notably also, the fic in basically its current form is what won, it'd be weird to display a fixed version and make people think it was so outstanding to begin with), and that runs into issues with Rule 7 if most chapters are wholly preserved; I think the needle could be threaded by pinning down certain ideas and bits of dialog as necessary to stay, and then rewrite around those, kind of like growing new flesh around a skeletal form.
11745615
I think it's doable, especially if I use those set scenes and ideas a few chapters in, rather than throwing them right at the start.