Epilogue
“-ister!” Stinging pain laced through Celestia’s head. “Wake up!”
“L-Luna? Wha-” A hacking cough racked her body, the taste and scent of blood flooding her senses. Her head throbbed, her body was numb, and though she tried to open her eyes, all she could see was murky half shapes. “What happened?” she finally croaked out.
“We… We won, somehow. Cadence went down, one wing sliced off and then you were struck from behind when you tried to catch her.” Luna closed her eyes and sighed. “I thought you had died.”
“You defeated them?”
“No, not I, no matter how much I wish to claim that title. There was an explosion from the cave the ponies vanished into and a couple further a field, tall pillars of flame that even you would struggle to produce. It burnt holes in the clouds, clearing them away in a matter of seconds. The Windegoes, they went to investigate, but all I heard were their screams.” Luna slipped under Celestia’s foreleg. “Come sister, it is time to raise the sun.”
Celestia blinked her eyes, trying to get them to focus on Luna, but no matter how hard she tried, all she could see was a blur. Closing her eyes, she turned to where Luna’s voice came from. “They got my eyes, didn’t they?”
“...Yes. I am sorry, sister.”
“No, we all came into this knowing there was no way we’d be able to get out in one piece. This was to be expected, if unwanted.” Slowly, Celestia unfurled her wings, biting back the hiss of pain as she draped it over Luna’s back. “Come, I think it was time we raised the sun.”
“Are… are you certain?”
“Of course.” Celestia took a shaky step forward, almost collapsing under her own weight before Luna caught her. “Do I look like I can do it by myself? I need your help, just like how I’ve always needed you.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Be my eyes, guide my magic with yours. We must do this slowly, gently warm the world so we do not turn the ground to mud and flood the plains.” Celestia reached out with her magic, feeling the familiar warmth of the sun and coaxing it to life. A second later, she felt the hesitant touch of Luna, cooler than the evening breeze and far more gentle. “Come now, a firm grip. This is the sun, a fickle and disobedient thing, unlike your moon.”
“The moon is no less fickle, it mere requires guile instead of brute strength.” Nonetheless, Luna’s grip tightened and together they slowly raised the sun. It felt lethargic, as though it was sunk in quicksand and they were dragging it back out. Even with her natural affinity towards it, Celestia found herself gritting her teeth and dimly she was aware of Luna’s panting. “Nor is the moon so heavy.”
“Merely a matter of magical affinity, nothing more,” said Celestia as she gathered all her magic into a single ball, sending it into the sun as a single burst. “Did that restart the sun?”
“Afraid not.”
Swearing under her breath, Celestia pulled her magic once more. “I’m going to give it the initial shock, as soon as I do that, I want you to slowly fuel it until it becomes self sustaining.”
“Understood.” With Luna’s magic so tightly intermingled with hers, Celestia could feel the crackling raw power that Luna held at her disposal and how focused it was. A single point like a rapier just waiting to thrust in, unlike her crude blunt force method. “I am ready when you are.”
There was no need for words. With how long they had fought together and how fast magic travelled, sound would have been meaningless. It was all action and reaction, one second the sun was dull and near death, the next it burst back to life as it reignited. Taking a couple seconds to catch her breath, Celestia slowly took the reins from Luna, easing the magic into it while Luna stepped back, offering a nudge here or there to keep the sun on course.
“About half the usual intensity, I think. We can increase it slowly over the coming weeks,” said Celestia.
“Too much energy wasted as light currently, dim it a bit and bump up the heat,” said Luna.
“Not yet, I’ll do it over the day. The sun is burning now and I’d rather keep some magical reserves in case I need it.”
“For what? We have won, we should be celebrating!”
“And yet I do not hear the voices of the three ponies who vanished into the cave.” When Luna did not comment, Celestia smiled sadly. “I may be near blind, but I am not deaf. They are dead, aren’t they?”
Only the whistling wind answered her.
“We gave them our marks, we gave them a mission and like all those before them, they died for our sins. If only we had defied mother earlier then-”
“There is no point in thinking in terms of what could have been. We need to focus on what is, and what will be. Learn from your past, sister, but do not be consumed by them for we cannot change them.”
Celestia sighed and her wings slumped. “You are correct, as usual. At least we can give them a pro-”
“I would not enter if I were you. I know not how, but the bodies of the Windegoes have vanished and all that remains is a single crystal heart.” Celestia felt a hoof being placed on her shoulder. “It radiates magic like I’ve never felt before, and it is an exact replicate of Cadence’s cutie mark. I believe it is for her, and her alone to unlock its secrets.”
“Then we shall help her, guide her, as we have always done and shall continue to do. Also, where is she now?”
“Headed out to those pillars of light we saw. She wishes to bring them together, to build a nation of harmony here in the mountains and I agree with her. Strong leadership is needed, a firm guiding hoof to make ensure something like this never happens again. Som-”
Celestia didn’t even bother to wait for Luna to finish her sentence before cutting in with a simple, “No.”
“And yet you must.”
Celestia turned away, limping towards the edge of the cliff. Even with her ruined eyes, she could make out the glowing blur of her sun, feel the warmth on her face and chest as she forced her wings open despite the pain. It helped clear her mind, focus her, remind her of everything she had done to get this far to begin with, and how much more pain lay on the road before her.
“I can’t do it alone,” whispered Celestia.
“Who said you would be alone? You have Cadence, and you have me. We have come this far, we cannot give up now, not when we are so close to creating a land of harmony. This is the moment we have dreamt of for so long, so come! Together we can build it, the three of us.”
“I…” Celestia licked her lips. “Do you really think we can do it? Lead them? Do you think they’ll follow?”
“We were created t-”
“We can make our own destinies, our own path in this new world! If we followed the will of Mother, the Windegos would have gone opposed, another death and rebirth in pursuit of the perfect, orderly world.”
“They need us though, they need something, a symbol, anything to keep them unified, to remind them that they are on the same side.”
“They have come this far without us and if they can do that, they can do anything.” Celestia sighed and shook her head. “They do not need us to survive, it would just make things easier on them.”
“Is that not worth it then?”
“Is freedom not worth it?” She didn’t even need her eyes to know Luna was making a puzzled expression, no doubt with her head tilted slightly to one side. “When you rule, you are at the behest of the citizens. You are chained to a place, to a nation, everything you do is to better that nation and you, yourself, are lost. Of course, he went on to say that in that losing, you find yourself anew, but he was a mere philosopher, not a king. Leadership is not nearly so idealistic or easy.”
“And yet you know it, you understand it, you have lead in the past and you can lead now. Why do you hesitate? We won, we achieved our goal, and now, we are on the cusp of a new dawn, one we just heralded together. You talk about creating a new path? How about creating a path together, for them.” Luna pressed a hoof to Celestia’s lips, silencing any complaints she could have had. “And, we only have to do it until they are back on their hooves and can take care of themselves.”
A sigh escaped. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“What do you think?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Sis-”
“I said, I’ll think about it. For now, can we just mourn those who died and celebrate the future?”
“Very well,” said Luna.
Celestia ignored the guarded tone and sighed. Leadership. She had thought she had left that particular role behind all those centuries ago after it came crashing down around her, but apparently not. Such a simple word it was too, nothing too complex about it, even a foal knew what it was and what it meant to have it. She could still remember the way-
No, now was not the time. Now it was time to relax and to celebrate and to mourn and to forget. To remember those who had heeded her call, who had willingly come to their deaths in the slightest chance of ending the eternal winter. For just one night she’d allow herself to cry and then?
Maybe a kingdom.
Maybe nothing more than the endless sea and the cloak on her back.
Maybe… well…anything was possible.
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4879536 RE: Equestria
5282524
I thought it was RE:Harmony ?
5280550 Will there be a sequel? I enjoyed this story so much, I'd hate to see it end so suddenly.
am i the only one that's unsatisfied with how this ended? i felt that the ending wasn't right. like, it was just put out there in order to wrap up the story. but then again, he/she did kill off the main characters, so maybe it's just me.
5282808 Ugh. I'm basically not planning on writing anything other than one shots/twoshots simply because university kills all writing time
5282862
You should have seen the original version, got completely vetoed by my prereader 'cause it was even more open ended in terms of what happened, who died, who lived. If you can figure out why it felt unsatisfactory, I could probably give you a better understanding my reasoning
5282736 Yeah. This story and that have both been featured... At the same time... Coincidence... ?
5282898 A pity.
5282898 i think the main reason is that the main characters died in such an inglorious way. they froze to death. and we never even got to have their bodies recovered an buried properly. we also don't even know what happened to the group of ponies and spike. we just know that they dug caves to survive, and that cadance is supposed to be going to help them. an epilogue (in my opinion) is supposed to show you what comes after everything is all said and done. but i felt that the epilogue didn't do this. it felt kind of tacked on there. at the least, i would have wanted a burial scene, and sum up of what happened after the battle was over, and then what was the Alicorns plans for the future. he epilogue basically told us 'hey, the main characters are dead, the other group survived, and the battle is over.'
5282939 I'd rather be able to update on a schedule then leave readers hanging for months on end so yeah. Maybe once I find more time to write I'll go back to long, multichapter fics
5282929
I was simply correcting the incorrect story title. Unless there is also a story called RE: Equestria that has almost the same idea as RE: Harmony... that would be suspicious.
5282971
Yeah, I had a similar reaction. They don't even bother to declare the two/three of them heros, villians, or even go and see them; it's just f*** them, new Equestria time...
I really like this story, but I truly do not believe that this is how the reveal of their death should be done. (I mean come ON, Twilight was literally the founder of the entire harmony group and not a SINGLE pony cares about her body?)
On another note, Twilight was portrayed as an amazing survivalist throughout the entire story, but during the last chapter, she seemed to just not care about herself anymore. I don't understand this part of her death the most.
5282971 , 5283056
That was more or less a deliberate choice on my part because I didn't want to go "Oh hey, I'm the author and I think they did the morally right thing." To say they survived is to say they were harmonious enough to drive off winter and that felt like an iffy statement to me. Perhaps labelling that chapter as an 'Epilogue' was the wrong thing to call it, but I'm personally a fan of open endings. Did they survive or didn't they, were are harmonious enough to deserve to survive? Like above, I didn't feel comfortable giving an answer to that question. It's implied they survived, but that also means assuming they're the only harmonious group out there and as Luna said, there were multiple lights, not just one.
BronyPonyMan devided they survived, but why? Because they were the main characters? Or because you felt they were worthy of surviving? ANearPerfectStudent feels like they Dash and Co should have gotten a burial as heroes, but why? Twilight was tossed out of the group for whatever reason, and until recently, most didn't even know Spitfire (and the Wonderbolts in general) were spies and Dash was... well... she was racist. Did they do anything to help in the end against the Windegoes? Not really. Not trying to be aggressive here, but I write fics to get people to think and contemplate various questions and I'm curious.
5283169
In the past (note I am basing this off of the human history) the most memorable person is the person who could have had a happy life, but chose a bitter life for the betterment of the society. I choose to reference Oskar Schindler as I believe he is an amazing example. (For those who don't know who he is or what he did, look him up.) He could have ignored the suffering and war that was going on in Germany, and he could have lived a relatively normal life. Instead, he choose to use his fortune to pay off to allow many Jewish children to escape from the Nazi war machine and stay in England. Twilight dedicated her life into forming a community in which the three tribes could live safely together, she put her life at risk and, like Schindler, choose to remain anonymous. It shouldn't be right that Schindler later got recognized for his heroics, but Twilight doesn't even get mentioned.
Heroic sacrifices have been recognized throughout history and their valor was noted through memorials and history books. Twilight was forgotten about in a brief moment, and I can already guess what will happen with the history books: Pinkie Pie will be recognized as the hero of the New Equestria, and that is honestly no way to end a story about a heroic sacrifice.
5282736 oh yes, sorry xD
5283290
I agree with you there and in my opinion, Celestia and Luna and Cadence will remember them. Whether or not society at large would be open to such a thing is another question entirely, but a valid one. And well, to me, the story was never about heroic sacrafice to begin with, though what was it about? I dunno. It was about ponies and stuff.
5282524
Other than the name correction stated, I don't think it is strictly true. As I recall, Hearths Warming still happened, only the unstable peace following was broken with an assassination.
5283439
I guess its just the old arguement of interpreting something that was never meant to be interpreted. The author of a story will always view his or her story differently than his or her readers.
Kind of unsatisfying, not necessarily because of the ambiguity but because it felt like neither Twilight nor Rainbow Dash had reached the end of their development.
5283491
I deliberately mixed it up a bit since some lines didn't fit with certain species, moods, etc and there are three species rather than two singers. Plus, it sorta hints at the fact that at some point, all three did at least semi-coexist together for their songs to be so similar.
5283526
Agreed! Which is why I like writing dark fics (but not reading them) because dark fics let me pose these questions and also why I love open endings. Writing (to me), isn't about me laying down the law about what is good or bad, it's about inviting people to a conversation to talk about things and express different view points.
5283807
This I can agree with and was part of my fault as a shitty writer. The pacing and planning of this fic was atrocious and it's something I really need to work on more.
5283807
Seconded.
I mean, Rainbow Dash was still a racist jerk. Twilight was still a borderline sociopath. They both died an ignominious death while doing something pretty stupid in the face of an incoming apocalypse. Pretty much everything they've worked for wound up being pointless, which is just as well, because they made lousy Champions of Harmony.
I don't mind dark stories. I don't even mind grimdark stories. But this was depressingly cynical. They were doomed from the start, they never really learned anything, and all their efforts made about as much difference as a mouse trying to hold back a tidal wave. The theme of the story seems to be, "Life sucks, and then you die."
Or at least, that's the note it ends on - a perfect anti-climax.
I must say this story really had me glued on my phone reading it.
It shattered most of my expectations. I kept expecting some tropes to happen, like the mane 6 banding together, heroic sacrifices or all the characters turning "harmonious". This uncommon way of simply not "following the script" made it quite a thrill to read each chapter, since I had no idea what or how events would occur. (In most books, you can accurately predict how everything will unfold after reading half of it).
This is one of the few dark stories where the setting feels right, like the nation has been indeed on war for a thousand years. Most other similar stories I have read tend to feel like the characters simply where transplanted to the new setting instead of growing up in it. I think the character personalities where right on spot considered their upbringing.
While most people don't like this sort of story, specially if they like to read stories to escape reality, I must say I loved it. It's so rare to see a writer who doesn't follow the tried and known way of writing stories, and it makes this story feel real. Kudos to you for having the guts to do it!
While I would love a sequel, I'm not sure what it could be about. Technically the survivors have no real threats right now, and are going to be guided by a trio of Alicorns and there is no menace from either the elements or other ponies. Maybe the gryphons?
Speaking about gryphons, one of the few things I feel where unfinished was the plot involving the gryphons. Why where they so deep in the pegasi territory? And they where seen again in the Everfree?!? I had hoped this to be explored, but probably no character was in the correct position to discover this.
5296272
Thanks for the compliments!
As for the gryphons, they were original part of a substory going on in the background, but I can't found it to be too... contrived. There was no reason for the others to find out about what was going on, I probably could have implied it better with various stuff that was going on, but I didn't think of it at the time.
5283439 I honestly don't think the story is really at an end. All through out the story is Racisum, and Twilight trying to unite all ponies... And at the end, what happens? Very few ponies live.... And that's it. Racisum is still there, it didn't just magically go away. In fact, with them finding out after that the winter was magical and not natural, the Racisum will be massive to Unicorns, and to the 3 Alicorns too, as they have even more magic. All that has changed is that probably 90% of ponies are now dead. And the other 10% will freeze and starve within a month and Racisum is STILL there. Nothing changed... To me, it felt like the end was rushed. The story was slow, going through how life was for different people, having some ponies change.... Then bam, things just started happening one after another after another then just suddenly cuts at the end. Heck, we see windagos once, then bam they all dead instantly, no survivors. Heck, from the sound of it at the end, Blind Celestia has to make an entire new sun, so there was no sun before? Then how are anyponies alive? It would have been 1 big frozen planet, NOTHING will be alive. Heck how DID Celestia go blind? When did she even get free?! I remember Twilight saving Rainbow. Them escaping, Rainbow going on her own to do something, Twilight chasing them... And now they dead, Windagos dead, Everypony is frozen and die in a month from Cold or lack of food and water, Celestia blind, Cadence missing a Wing, Luna perfect with no damage at all in 100% health, and learning that everypony should actually be dead and the planet is a lifely frozen rock... The 'end' is just so... Confusing and rushed, it's like you just wanted to end it here for whatever reason and bam, ended it as quickly as you could.
5364486
Yes, it'd be an interesting scene, but it would end up with Twilight being so insanely OP, which is why I decided to remove it entirely.
I don't like this ending. It seemed like all the main characters were going somewhere in their development, but none of them reached whatever they were heading to before the Princesses just came in and won. It also doesn't really help that all the characters we followed were irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, of all of them Spike had the most direct effect on their victory, and he really didn't have any development anyway. Not to mention this isn't really what you would call an epilogue. This ending just seemed to completely ignore the characters we've been following and rooting for all this time, which leaves me genuinely dissatisfied. This seems like a story that, if you ever have the opportunity, you should rewrite, because it simply didn't come together the way I think you wanted it to.
5364668
It just seemed like what her character was leading to, learning to control her magic and thus finding balance with herself or something. With a story like this, with such an emphasis on development, some things are more important than her being OP. Besides, the only enemy Twilight fights after she lost her magic were the Windigos, who seem to be so powerful that even with total control over her magic, she couldn't have done much. Maybe I would have less of a problem with it if anything was done with her losing her magic character-wise, but it was basically ignored afterwards, which really makes it seem out of place.
5365240
The ending was crap (a reoccuring theme in my stories, I'm starting to find) simply because I lacked the time to write as well as the drive/interest in the story. But really, it all comes down to pacing and characters. Looking back on it, I really should have kept it to just one/two perspectives and just ignore the rest of the Mane 6. Sure, they helped flesh out the world, but actually did nothing for the plot. Just think about it for a second, Fluttershy, Rarity, AJ, Pinkie - none of them actually added anything to the overall plot other than just world building. What I probably should have gone for was a Spitfire, RD/Twi, and maybe Gilda/Shining perspective instead. On top of that, I needed to actually pace the damn story better (something I really need to work on as well). Ideally, RD and Twilight getting the divine mission should have been the halfway point, and if you look at the actual character development, it lines up with that as well. Really, in the end, I just became too busy to write and then lost interest in the fic in general.
5365346
That's really just too bad, because I think there were a lot of great things about this story, but it really just didn't come together. Thank you for giving me an interesting experience though, and I wish you luck with future stories, should you choose to write any.
5365368
Honestly, if you want something that's interesting and well written (and actually well paced and relatively unknown), I'd suggest Conviction. You can try Temple of the Stars and Behind Closed Doors, but those two are more interesting character interpretations and interactions more than anything else.
Well a good story, one that took me three days to read. The open end kind of threw me as I kind of expected the main characters to survive or have a section of just what has happened to everyone. I mean the epilogue is literally done by a whole batch of characters we see once, just once before. And its very jarring. Oh well, good run and interesting idea.
This was really good! I really enjoyed this story, although I wish the mane 6 could have pulled together for the end, and been a little less ...corrupted by the hatred, I guess? I wish they'd survived. But this story was really great. The only thing that drove me crazy were the constant spacing weirdnesses.
Note: Minor spoilers are not spoiler'ed in this comment!
A specific ending seemed so obvious. I mean, we had all the mane 6, slowly reaching acceptance, friendship. And yet, you spun it in a completely different direction than I expected.
This was a great read. Technically, there are some typos, some missing spaces and some missing words, but, all in all, I really enjoyed the story. It was different. Very different, and certain things were hard to call, making the story continuously interesting to keep on reading.
I'll throw in an extra praise for the characters. In such a different climate, they grew up being somewhat what we've seen them as, but still so different.
Twilight: Logical, cold. Has either a very intense relationship (friend or more) with someone, or no relation to them whatsoever.
Rainbow: Hardheaded, taught to rely on pride, and yet ends up doing what she loves doing.
Flutters: Cares for everything which cares for itself. Reading her POV was creepy, with how she looked at the other races, but it was really well made.
Pinkie: Run down by the war and misguided (insane, pretty much) in what's fun. And yet, does her best to keep everyone who's willing, together.
Applejack: Stubborn, but tries her best being true to her morals. Even in a world that constantly threats her like... well, shit.
Rarity: Tries achieving a higher role in society, but still gives to those who need.
All in all, the characters stayed true to their personalities, in such a different world.
It was a great read. Have a like and fav'!
M
5720997
Thanks! I'll be honest, the most fun and the reason I wrote the fic to begin with, was to mess with the characters. Wanted that feeling of looking into a warped mirror and I'm glad it worked. If I have the time in the future, I'd love to come out and redo the ending through, pace it better, let it flow a bit more and so on and so forth.
5811200
Oh yeah, she's an absolute bigot and racist, but it's all part of her character. She just flowed so naturally, so easy to twist her loyalty to the pegasus race to blind devotion and I loved that about it. She may be a bad person, but I still loved writing her.
5283169 I personally think open endings are the worst kinds. I like endings that explain absolutly everything about everything. I hate not knowing, and knowing gives me a tingly feeling deep inside. Your ending left too many 'whys' and 'hows' for me to even consider this story complete. There are just so many gaps and, dare I say it, plotholes in your world building that I don't even know where to begin.
This is a great fic, don't get me wrong, but the finale few chapters fell apart I feel. Everything happens so fast, yet absolutely nothing was explained.
Well that was a predictable and frankly disappointing ending
. Don't get me wrong taken as a whole I liked this fic a lot but it kinda came apart in the end.
You killed them!!! How could you kill them!!!! You evil, creature, Smart Cookie and the others didn't die, so why did that have to happen?
6598606 Um... 'cause I'm evil...?
What a ballsy ending. Wow, just wow.
This story was full of more racism than any i've ever seen before, i'm not joking when i say some parts made my stomach churn
with how thick the racism was between the tribes, that stuff just rubs me the wrong way. That said this story is definitely one of my favorites you managed to perfectly portray what i think the mane 6 and the other canon characters would be like if they were raised in that situations, all while still maintaining their base personalities, attitudes and behaviour while not making all of them friends, that takes a logical unbiased view which is something i've seen others try and fail to give
. and...? you killed harmony
... you,you... you fiend
...nice job i love it 
. Despite not liking the level of racism i would not change anything it's an awesome story i give it a 9.5 out of 10 upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/13/Facebook_like_thumb.png/700px-Facebook_like_thumb.png
(no one ever gets a full 10
)
This is a fantastic story.
I did prefer the Rarity/Applejack side story but the whole thing is great.
This is one of my favorite stories. But it's also one of the most frustrating things I've read on here.
First off the good parts would be that I have never been as engaged and invested in a story on fimfiction as this one. I cared so much and I was so interested in the story and characters. Your portrayal of Rainbow Dash was amazing, your take on Fluttershy was also really great and interesting, same with Twilight, Pinkie, etc. The chemistry and interactions between the cast was probably my favorite part. I liked how the story was serious and dark but not edgy really, it wasn't over the top with anything. I was disappointed though that it became gorier and more sexual later on though.
And then the ending. Obviously I was left very unsatisfied at how sudden it was and just what happened. And not just the ending but so many other plot points were developed in the story but then never brought up or mentioned again. The number one word that comes to mind now when I think about this fic is "unsatisfying". But that's only because of how much I loved it in the first place and how I just wanted to see so much more. I wanted to see Rainbow Dash grow and change even more, I wanted to see what would happen when people figured out how Fluttershy really felt, I wanted more with Applejack and Rarity to see if they ever fixed things.
The world and setting and characters and mystery and adventure were so great. But because of that I'm left disappointed. I absolutely love this story but it'll always be a love/hate relationship.
Holy shit what the fuck happened? Was the author kidnapped and tortured into writing this piece of shit ending?
It’s not just the ending either. Pretty much every subplot gets thrown out the window and characters are built up just to disappear without explanation. Did anyone other than me finish reading this and still remember Trixie was in this story?
Another 5 or so chapters to wrap things up and I’d call this a great story, maybe even excellent. But this? This is just awful.
Gonna have to be blunt here. This fic is honestly trash. If you wanted to do a fic like this it would be far far more palatable to read just about twilight, rainbow dash, and maybe occasionally spitfire but really not reasonably her either.
Every other m6 character has no plot resolution at all, and they take up almost 50% of the story. Think about if any other book or series tried to pull this shit without plot threads. Without their presence, elements, and themes, the ending would not be incongruent with the start. The ending epilogue ends with God on a cliff, his Angel's talking to him about the future. However functionally the story is a badly written tragedy.
Now imagine if these incongruent elements where not so fucking prevelant. Imagine if this tightly focused story, which is not about the m6 coming together as anyone who finished it is aware of, focused on the principle characters and their direct struggles. Twilight sparkle, spike, rainbow dash, and fluttershy.
The two helper characters have problems, especially shy as the most egregious example. (She is built up as a lcp badass medic in her own right and is treated like an afterthought in the climax.) Both her and spike are minor characters but they are directly involved in the principle characters progression. So they get resolutions and interludes. No rarity, no pinkie pie, no applejack. None of these characters are important enough to get but the briefest of scenes. Two of them are so unimportant that they do not even belong in the story.
With the chafe cut from the wheat, the lack of the other m6, no expectations will be erroniously built up from all the clashing information the story feeds to the reader right as the story is reaching its climax. So we now know what the story wont be about, but what about the plot resolution? What is the theme of this story? That the principle characters are good leaders? That they hate eachother because of the windigo? The only thing that comes to mind is that some things are worth doing even if they are illogical because they are right.
Twilight does not think like this, spike, fluttershy, spitfire, and rainbow dash, despite all their flaws, do. With that in mind you have two paths here. Keep everything as is, or twist the picture more. If we accept that things stay the same, twilight becomes the most principle character in rainbowdashes place. The story needs to start out with her and establish the lie she believes, and have her undergo the change needed to reach the conclusion. On the other hand if rainbow is to remain on top billing, she already knows the truth. She needs to get a little more moral and the supporting casts flaws need more focus, because the story will then be about the truth dash believes, and other ponies version of that truth or in twilights case, the antithesis of that truth, will test her. The main reason dash needs to be more noble, though not necessarily good, is because having her be too heavily flawed runs the risk of her growth distracting from the theme of the story. A lot of dashes so called growth is not actually growth. What she learns is to be more trusting but the story is not about trusting others, and besides that change all of rainbowdashes journey was iterative instead of transformative. She has a specific truth she believes, the one mentioned previously, and every interaction with others is about testing that truth. Having her put her money where her mouth is. Having to choose between fluttershy and lightning dust both at the start and the end, affirm her choice of believing even her enemies should stick up for their own kind, and going to sacrifice herself for twilights dream are not fundamental changes to her character. So if these are going to be the focus and theme of the story, less time should be spent on twilight and her running through the same boring conflicts. She can still be racist, crass, and an asshole, but trust should not be such a constant problem for her. This flaw may make sense, but it distracts from the point of the story instead of enhances it.
That leaves us with the final, biggest problem with this fic. Harmony is dead really really says it all. This nonsequitor in the story only exists because the author put a gargantuan minority of the text to the growth of the m6 and used it as a bait and switch. It's fine to have a plot twist. But a plot twist needs to resolve into a new dynamic. Fluttershy, rarity, applejack, and pinkie pie all fail harmonies test and it crumbles as rd and twilight enter. The usual turn of events after this is to resolve their character arcs. Instead, nothing happens. Given how the elements of harmony are informed knowledge from outside this fic and are not referenced in any way shape or form, and the general uselessness of the supporting casts resolution or lack there of, I'm standing by my statement to cut them out of the story, but that doesnt mean this story is any good at foreshadowing. Infact the worst offenses at the end are exactly this problem. We fight enemies and armies we arent introduced to before, their elements serve only to shock and awe rather than advance anybody's character arc but rainbowdashes. Only to move on to fighting another enemy that is not even explained either.
The castle of the two sisters contain our introduction to the alicorns, but who they are, what they do, and what the trial even is, is not explained. Most of the ending has no telegraph at all. We dont learn how windigo work. We dont learn how alicorns work, we dont even learn what the princesses plan is. And if the goal of the end is spitting in the wind in spite metaphorically, it would still not excuse this problem. We need to know about these things even if they fail because without them the resolution has no logic. It is literally a deus ex machina, with an ending God figure literally explaining it as such to the reader. Temple information, the clues and breadcrumbs twilight found. None of them get story time. The only resolution is to teach the reader what the goals are, what the stakes are. We dont get to know them, and most of the time dont even get a tragic sense of their failures because we arent afforded any opportunity to know what the ponies are trying to accomplish.
I feel like these changes could almost be done easily. Theres nothing wrong with the prose of this story, but the plot thread, character arcs, and even setting lore are all really broken. It makes me want to take a crack at editing it myself. I feel bad having read this trainwreck of a fic. Like the titanic it looked unsinkable, but if the authors comments are any indication, they seemed too eager to cash in on the insurance for sinking their vessel.
well that was an unsatisfying ending. i hated every part of this story and how it was written. god what a waste of time.
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thank you. THANK YOU. by god this story was so horrid in every aspect that I literally finished it just so I can know if it gets better, and newsflash it only got worse