I don't trust her. What's she up to behind those big eyes and bouncy curls?
Smolder doesn't trust Cozy Glow, and thinks there's more to her than meets the eye! However, the other students are thinking the same thing as well! They decide to investigate, but what they may see may not confirm their suspicions! Smolder isn't sure about Starlight's sudden departure, and her accusations may not be as accurate as they thought.
Yeah, Smolder's got trust issues!
This story is a jab at Hasbro for turning Cozy into stone, and not sparing her a chance at reformation. Don't hate me. This is MY opinion!
Chapters (1)
How strange, I like it.
That's racist.
No, seriously--anyone who would more automatically assume any other race/species would do "the bad thing," but never their own, is prejudice against the other race/species in an unflattering light, and thus arguably racist. It's also incredibly naive to assume your own race/species is so perfectly good that it would never do "the bad thing" as NO race/species is that perfect. If the other race/species is capable of doing "the bad thing," then so would your own just as equally.
Not to say, in this case, that a pony is GUARANTEED to be doing "the bad thing" here, because that's no less racist either, but it would be unwise to just automatically rule it out without evidence, of which absolutely none had been presented for this claim.
Wait, wait, wait--Cozy's a student herself (and younger than all of the Young 6 to boot), yet she's asking her to stay up late, so why can she ask Cozy to do this but not literally any other willing student, Young 6 or otherwise? Because by her own logic that she states here, she shouldn't be asking for Cozy's assistance anymore than she would the Young 6's.
Smolder has an excellent point here--it IS weird neither Starlight or Cozy even attempt to explain Starlight's absence before, and they still aren't really giving an adequate explanation for it now, as it feels more just a "because reasons" excuse than an actual explanation, believable or otherwise.
So at the moment, I honestly can't blame Smolder much for having suspicion enough to want to investigate, as I would be too. Even if they aren't intentionally doing so (which given the story summary I'd assume they aren't), they're still coming across as if they're trying to hide something, and that's always going to raise a red flag with people.
Also, neither of them explained why Cozy was working at the catacombs at all--that part of the Young 6's questioning is just completely dismissed without being given an answer, which again doesn't help stop any feelings of something being hidden.
But...I thought all of the other staff members were Twilight and friends--it's literally just Starlight and Cozy and the moment, running it alone. That's why Starlight wanted Cozy's help in the first place, right? So who else could they have even asked besides these two anyway? Who're these "other staff members" you speak of?
Soooo...did they fix the thing they set out to do in the first place? Y'know, stopping the whole "magic is disappearing" problem? It's kinda weird they haven't actually said one way or other other at all yet, since you'd think that'd be the very first thing everyone would want to talk about here.
I am too. Other than a frankly innocent jumping of conclusions which she totally admitted to upon being told the full story with no apparent hard feelings from anyone (Cozy certainly didn't seem to and she was the supposed victim here, thus the one who'd have the most motive to be), she's really not done anything wrong here.
Really? That's all the punishment you'd give? Because let's look at what canon Cozy did:
Entirely of her own volition, she sought in secret the help and assistance of a known supervillain for knowing assistance in an openly admitted nefarious plan that would remove the land all of its magic, effectively disrupt society across that land if not the rest of the world, potentially jeopardize hundreds or more of lives (because let's not forget all those creatures who nearly fell to their deaths when magic first started vanishing), effectively halt all civil operations that depended on magic to function, and put undue strain on national governments trying to hurriedly restore order so to compensate without magic before their societies collapsed into anarchy from the resulting chaos, a plan that was pursued because she openly sought to overthrow the world order and place herself as its sole leader and dictator, and was willing to both imprison and banish without trial or justice anyone who attempted to stand in her way of doing so, and on top of it all resorted to widespread lying, deception, and misinformation so to dissuade everybody else from realizing the truth.
And you suggest a mere paddling or community service would be more that enough punishment for that. Really. Because no matter how you slice it, this is all still supervillain conquer-the-world level stuff here. It'd be like James Bond defeating Goldfinger by giving him a slap on the butt and sternly telling him to never do it again.
I get Cozy's just a kid and that should still be considered in any forthcoming punishments. But that doesn't change the seriousness of her crimes any, nor that they should be treated any less seriously than they would for anyone else. Heck, they might even need to be treated more seriously precisely BECAUSE she's a kid, because what kind of kid would even think, let alone try to do any of that?
Whaaaat? Smolder's not even trying to deny that she's in the wrong here, so how is suspension even justified here? A week of detention, maybe, but even that seems like it'd be pushing it considering that Twilight's the only one who even seems that upset about it. And it's not like Twilight's not made the same mistake before herself--Trixie, Discord, technically Zecora (though admittedly only through peer pressure, but still)--so not only does she not really have a leg to stand on here, she also wasn't really punished for any of those instances herself. So why is Smolder being punished for something she readily admitted to be at fault for without protest or even trying to fight it once she was gently corrected on her error?
Further, Smolder may be older than Cozy, but the argument can be made that she's still technically a kid too, so...if Cozy should be let off easy just for being a kid, then why not Smolder?
Plus, it wasn't just Smolder who jumped to conclusions, because all of the Young 6 jumped to conclusions themselves. Smolder wasn't even the first one to do so both in canon and in this fic, Gallus was. So why are the rest of the Young 6 being ignored for having, in essence, committed the same "crime?"
That's what I said, Ocellus!
And she did! By supporting the rest of the Young 6 when they too suspected something seemed amiss about the situation.
Yeesh! We sure this is actually a "fix fic" and not a "hate Smolder fic?" Because now it just feels like you're kicking poor Smolder while she's down. I get it, jumping to conclusions is bad, but you're kinda beating everybody over the head for it.
Well, she didn't know the full story of what was going on leaving a few important details very much blank, nobody had taken the time to fill in her or her friends, and her friends readily agreed that maybe they should ALL just double check to be safe, and upon getting the record straightened, they all completely dropped the matter without further protest, readily admitting to having made a mistake without a fight and didn't even proceed to commit it again, showing the lesson was learned.
And she was suspended for it anyway. Just her, no other participants. For an honest mistake most anyone could've made and for which similar examples could be readily cited for the ones doing accusing have done themselves (Ember included).
So I ask you...does that really seem fair?
Speaking of, she still hasn't been told why Cozy was in the catacombs in the first place. Or, for that matter, if anyone's actually stopped the taking of magic from Equestria or who actually was to blame for that if not Cozy.
Yeah, Twilight! Maybe you shouldn't jump to conclusions by assuming everycreature takes notes the same way you do, AND implying that any one who doesn't is somehow failing at notetaking. Perhaps we should suspend you for a week too for your unjustified assumptions against other creatures.
Have I made my point here yet?
--
In the end, this fic falls prey to the usual entrappings of a fix fic--good intentions, but so laser focused on fixing the one grievance it doesn't stop to think through the logistics and ends up just providing a scenario with even more plot holes than the one it's trying to replace.
Fortunately, this isn't the worst fix fic I've ever read, not by a long shot, and it's not so grievous that it still can't be fixed and still make the message it wants to make. Honestly, addressing most of the problems I've already listed should be enough to do it. For instance, if you made it so that Smolder wasn't so quick to admit to her guilt up until she was suspended, that alone would help.
Further, you really ought to give better explanations for why Cozy was in the catacombs and why Cozy and only Cozy was chosen to work with Starlight, as without either of those things, it does still make both of them seem unintentionally suspicious. It'd also be nice to know if they ever did actually stop the magic from being taken, since the fic never does say one way or another on that.
this is so damn obviously revisionist that the fuckin CCP and DPRK are telling you to take a chill pill
is this your first go at writing? cuz it also feels like that's the case
you can't be doing alt universe stuff right off the rip, you gotta study other, greater works first
god, this is one of those rare times where i'm disliking a story because of how it's written, instead of what it's written about
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so that's what was niggling at me in the back of my head about this...
thank you for pointing it out
if you wanna find a fic that's emblematic of this, i encourage you to go look at My Little Pone: The Nine Elements
i'm curious, which one would get the dubious honor of that title?
This, at the end of the day, still makes far more sense then the actual season 8 finale.
Punishments that make far more sense that what they gave her in the show.Maybe she should have been punished in the exact same way Starlight was. That would make even more sense.
Can't really say I'm a fan of this story. Smolder didn't deserve to be punished nearly so severely for a simple wrong assumption.
Except Starlight was genuinely remorseful for what she'd done. Cozy wasn't.
This is a better ending, something that goes better with the theme of friendship of MLP instead of sending a filly to Tartarus
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Like the part where Smolder is yelled at and punished just for being suspicious of Cozy? Yeah, real friendly...
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She is yelled but she learn the lesson, and tell me, compared to put a little girl in Hell and later in stone instead of trying to reform her when even the God of Chaos and a Sect Leader managed to get reformed, I don't think is that bad. Is not like a Pegasus could do much magic to escape if they left her somewhere else
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Or Discord.
They could assign some poor doormat of a stallion with a big heart take care of her, and he wouldn't have the willpower to say no.
For true authenticity they can relay solely on said caretaker withholding their affection as a method to control her.
No punishments or other corrective measures nessicary!
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Jesus Tapdancing Christ, that was a mouthful.
We get it, you hate fix-fics. You don't have to type out essay-length comments to prove that point.
Come to think of it, are there any fix-fics on this website that you don't hate?
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I have nothing against fix-fics if they make sense and are well written, or even just decently written.
This one is decently written, but it doesn't make sense. I still don't understand why Smolder specifically is the only one signaled out here.
And apologies for the lengthy comment, but it was mostly for the author's benefit and I know from past experience that sometimes a criticism isn't always well understood unless I provide the essay-length explanations for it, so I just sort of preemptively resort to it so to avoid the comment chains that would've ended up doing the same thing.
Going to have to unfortunately side with the person who left the very long and critical comment here.
I for one don't like how the show handled Cozy Glow or her punishment and would normally be all for something like this. But the logic in the story just doesn't add up and Smolder seems to get short end of the stick, despite having fair reason to be suspicious and not doing anything more egregious than her friends.
I do not think this was a bad concept. It just needed a bit of reworking.
HEY! You gonna answer my messages or not!?