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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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Dr. Disjunctive Syllogism! The pony who interviewed Exit Wound and Honeydew after their swap.
I was listening the song "Gentle hands" of .Hack as I was reading this, and somehow I think it was perfect for background.
There is only one problem in the theory of swap the elements and that is... Could the Elements recognize them? They did not use the elements, so who knows if that could work.
Also, too bad they can't clone them or something like that, having the swapped version and the normal version.
I love this story, but the whole Exit Wound plot seems a bit out of place.
7305811
Oh god...I think that would actually be WORSE. The spell only swaps PART of their soul/personality, remember...so if the clone was a blank slate, instead of two ponies with mixed up lives...you'd end up with two ponies with HALF lives, at best...
7306093 Not a blank flank, but mainly a clone of the swaped, so that they have the swaped, and the original are more or less turned normal.
Even if maybe that could also work, a blank flank clone without personality, empty and swaped with the Elements. Like that, they could maybe have their lives.
Or have half-life as you put it.
This is getting messier and messier, Lero is now being affected by The Swap. Turning him from a Free Man, to a Married Slave. (Equestria Magic Rules)
Please tell me this story is going to end. Either in return to Canon, or Fallout? Or some other Stable result.
See your Feels, and Raise.
7306119
Not blank flank, blank SLATE, as in the clone has pretty much NOTHING to swap with. And yeah, there'd be not mixing of memories or personality...but you'd end up with two people literally missing half their soul! It'd be like if you had Fluttershy, but all she had was her shyness, while her talent with animals is left out. Or Twilight's love of reading, but none of her magic talents. Also, I would think at least one of them would go nuts almost immediately because the swap would have no past to draw on for altered memories, so they'd quickly realize something was wrong with them. Or worse, the two would BOTH go nuts fighting over which one of them was the 'real' one.
7306152 And now it make me think what could happen with the swap in the middle... We have two halfs in one body, fighting and mixing in this story because of the swap, if the blank slate put half a soul with the swap... What could happen to somepony already swaped if s/he swap with a blank slate?
It needs to end.
If ended as Canon... the Mane 5 remembered their swapped lives.
I mean, they said it was 'like a bad dream', but they remembered what had happened to them.
The spell, properly done, won't 'kill' them. They will retain both sets of memories. (Expecially if Twilight does it correctly.)
Then they will have to decide what to do.
Souls and minds! Rarity's MIND will have to decide if she's still in love with Lero, (and Twilight, and Lyra, and Rainbow Dash), along with that piece of her soul that was not connected to her cutie mark.
And Fluttershy! Part of her soul will have fallen in love with Lero, and she's become such a much closer friend recently. She will also have a lot to think about!
Pinkie will feel closer to Lero as well!
Applejack will have some fancy new sewing skills to go along with her farming...
Rainbow will take those coaching abilities into her new/old life.
Rarity will still know weather magic! (Though won't have as strong an affinity for it probably.)
She'll certainly still be able to teleport!
Fluttershy will almost certainly be more outgoing and confident, especially as she's the Swapped who will be least traumatized by the Swap back...
They need to find the cure. They need to use it.
And with Celestia making such terrible errors of judgement, it really is about time Equestria got a new Alicorn princess.
7305728
Well done!
The Deathless Elements. What a horrible, wonderful, twisted concept! WOW!
7306327
Thank you! I tried to think of one of the most twisted things that could be done with the Swap of Magical Mystery Cure, and I just HAD to include this idea in my story somehow!
7306122
He's not so much being AFFECTED by the Swap, per se, as he fell deeply in love with a Swapped Pony, and does not want to let her go.
7306122
Such a sad comic!!!
That's quite the conundrum Lero.
So, Celestia realizes that finalizing the Swap via Soul Synthesis is the same as killing the original five. Why doesn't she consider undoing the swap to be killing the new five? Or is she just glossing over that to strengthen her case?
From an amoral point of view, that new use of the Swap spell is amazing. By using equilibrium instead of synthesis, the mark-soul remains untainted by the new host's body-soul, and can travel from host to host indefinitely. I could easily see someone like Sombra using that on his greatest generals and mages, or even himself if he couldn't achieve functional immortality otherwise. And if Celestia is as "ends justify the means" as she's acting at times, she might just consider it herself, as Twilight fears.
EDIT: Oooh. Equestria needs to invent cloning. Cloned younger bodies, raised in a standardized facility. Swap in the old model's mark-soul. With proper pre-swap training and conditioning, this could be as easy as changing the tires on your car.
Those ponies are risking a lot on the promise that the spell can work. Basically treason at this point.
More fuel for my horrifying abuse of the swap: doesn't Equestria have mind-wiping magic? You could blank the donor body before swapping, leaving the mark-soul with total control over the body. No trauma, no need for equilibrium or synthesis, and easy disposal of the brain-dead old body.
So: clone your body. Traumatize the clone's psyche all you want during physical conditioning (for optimal strength, endurance, etc.) and storage until needed, then blank the donor body before swapping. No muss, no fuss.
7307940
7307343
Whoa. I'm loving the (amoral, calculating, insidiously shrewd) way your mind works, Zontargs! You seriously ought to write another short piece for Steakeos about such a dystopian 'cutie mark transfer' taking place with these clones and the Element Bearers and such, far into Equestria's future. I'd love to post it up for all my fans to read!
Oh, crap. The situation isn't getting any lighter.
Hmm, although the answer's already been given... I find myself preferring to call our mystery mare 'Desperately Stupid' or perhaps simply 'DipShit'. One other version occurred, but it was mean enough to not bear repeating. Anywho... setting aside that this arrogant lackwit thinks she can easily modify a spell of Twilight's, or just find somepony who can (there's some armchair quarterbacking)... let's look at her reasoning.
1: Hurt pony can't follow destiny. Okay, this seems like a good one... until you realize that tearing up souls to match torn up bodies really isn't a solution. Scratched. Hey, here's a notion: leave the souls alone and put that magical talent to work on regenerating wings and such. Just a thought.
2: Old pony's legacy could die with him. ...Frankly, them's the breaks. Suggesting that somepony else should give up theirs to prevent it is just repulsive. Oh, some dishwashing pony, well, she's meaningless, so whatever. ...Yeah, no. Who'd be useless next? Maybe a farmer... or a tailor, or a baker? Hmm... why do those unassuming sounding professions sound familiar? Even if the Swap could be modified to the point of actually transmitting talent alongside desire this is still a terrible justification. And oh yeah... it doesn't. Equilibrium is no promised outcome, just ask some of the other universes (...the ones where the Swapped are still alive, anyway). So you end up with some poor kid who doesn't know she's the best waitress in Equestria, destined to be the next bearer of Kindness after cheering up some patron who was on the verge of suicide by just being her wonderful self. Nope, she's at home, trying to write Game of Thrones without actually knowing how. Something about dragons stabbing each other, right? Meanwhile, the patron, the would-be next bearer of loyalty whose stallion just cheated on her, goes on to jump off a bridge somewhere. Yay, swap...
3: The Elements need the current bearers; Equestria needs the Elements. You'd think this'd be more convincing, but not so much, really. A. We don't know they can't be replaced; Dipshit assumes that because it suits her goals. To say it took 1000 years to find them is a guess on several levels. Celestia knew she had 1000 years before NMM would be back. And really, the Elements haven't been needed that often. Discord and NMM. Sombra? Nope, that was Celestia and Luna in round 1 (no Elements in view, they just zapped him) and the Crystal Heart in round 2. Chrysalis? Defeated by her own food source overflowing... think like the Gluttony victim from Seven, but with being thrown across a continent. What even happened while Luna was in time out that would have needed the Elements? Apparently, not much: a millenium of peace. So assuming we need liches to make sure they're always usable? Yeah, self serving paranoia at best. Speaking of liches, that brings us to... B. I wouldn't trust any Element of 'Harmony' that responded to that sort of nonsense. Big Crown Thingie: "Yeah... look... you guys clearly have Magic down, but there's nothing generous, funny, loyal, kind, or honest about stealing lives like this... so you can just zap your own bad-guys.... try a mirror. We're going back to sleep."
It's easy to present arguments to a child (though to be fair Spike DID turn her down pretty firmly) but that doesn't mean anything she said is actually compelling.
I really hoped this Swap Jockey thing was going away... it just feels cheap to have what was once a serious, top tier spell that was actually such a big deal that it had to work through the Elements themselves to do anything now in the hooves of... pretty much anyone. Yes, I'm aware that what they have are Twilight's failed cures, not the original, but the effect is basically the same. Is magic such an effortless joke that even soul tearing spells can be tossed around by anyone? Or are pony souls that weak in this fic's setting? Many chapters ago Twilight talked about misuses of magic that included similar examples. From chapter 19:
Why exactly isn't this being treated the same way? Why is it suddenly okay enough to discuss as if it weren't a horrible crime? What's next, a discussion on the merits of child molestation? Why is no one stopping this nonsense? And why was this chapter so short? (by this fic's standards...) Ah well.
Man. This is how you wind up legitimizing Glimmer's views now.
Great chapter MT!
That's a really tough spot to put poor Lero in. You want your engagement to be perfect and free of doubt or worry in the moment, this was anything but! When everything plays out, if the swapped get their memories back this may be a difficult memory to either lose or digest. That is, if they get those memories back at all.
The concept of 'zombifying' the mane 6 to maintain the power of the elements through multiple generations is sickening. Sort of gives me a God Emperor of mankind vibe from the 40K Canon, a necessary totem, a shade of what once was.
How terrifying would those 6 be after the fourth of fifth generation of swaps? They would be either a cacophony of memories in one mind, like a Bene Gesserit from Dune, or an aged single consciousness , aware that they had one again stolen the youth of another body. The guilt would be terrible.
I wonder if Spike could really bear to hug whatever poor pony bore the 6 pointed star mark... and the madness that would accompany it. I doubt Discord would put up with seeing Fluttershy subjected to such a thing.
Strangely enough, I almost could see Celestia being one of the few to follow through. As an ancient leader, she understands the terrible sacrifices that must be made, quietly in the background, forgotten by history, to maintain the peace of the everyday citizen.
BTW I can't thank you enough for the mention of Lex Divisia! I've gotten a whole fresh wave of comments and readers thanks to it!
7308037
I've been noodling around the idea of a (hidden) dystopia with this, and I've accidentally stumbled on a way to make this a near-utopia with show-canon methods. Now I'm slightly (and irrationally) disgusted that the show!characters would never come up with the mechanism to do it.
(Now to attempt to get the story out of my head and into words, preferably faster than last time. )
This is the first time I'm reviewing this story and I have to say, the "mature" tag is well deserved. This is one seriously dark story. Usually, when you see a story that has "mature", "sex", "dark" tags they are there because of the clop. You essentially have a clopfic where the author decided "screw it, this is already a mature story, might as well throw in some darker stuff." Here, the situation is reversed. The sex scenes feel little more than throw-ins.
It is disturbing to see how the Swap has twisted everyone's minds into some surreal parody of themselves. This Equilibrium, this idea of winning against the Swap, bringing harmony to a conflicting personality... it's nothing more than an illusion. Lero and everyone else not affected by the Swap and Discord's little magic, they are losing. Hell, I might as well say that they have pretty much lost already. They are living in denial. It doesn't matter how much you change the pony for the better, it is still not the same pony you had before the Swap. Sure, Applejack (for example), is not the chaotic wreck she used to be, but she is not the Applejack we all know and love. The Swap might have not have the pony it initially crated, but it still got what it wanted - a different pony.
This is why I think that, when Twilight finds a cure, it should be used to fix everyone. No exceptions. Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy need help. They have, essentially, been brainwashed. One might think that being brainwashed only leads to nasty results, like what is happening to all the other ponies using the Swap magic, but there's all sorts of insanity. Insanity doesn't always mean howling at the moon and ripping puppies in half. Insanity can go both ways, it can be comfortable as well. Just because Rarity, for example, is a nice loving mare, does not mean she's okay. If she, and others, were running around, hurting others and causing all sorts of problems, then Twilight and Lero wouldn't think twice about finding and using the cure.
"Rarity has been affected by the Swap. She is not herself. She needs help. We have to help her."
So why her insanity is wrong in one scenario and okay in another?
You could take the current Swapped Rarity and say the same thing. "Rarity has been affected by the Swap. She is not herself. She needs help. We have to help her."
Not just Rarity, but everyone else THEY NEED HELP!
No matter how comfortable and nice it feels, the Swapped are insane. The only difference is that their insanity feels nicer.
This is why I both love and hate this story. I love the quality of writing and I love the level of detail and character development we get. But it's absolute torture to see everyone accepting the situation. Perhaps that's the real horror of the Swap? It changes a pony and then makes you accept the change as the new norm.
Although I understand their issue with losing Rarity once the cure is found, I would like to point at Rainbow. Lero made her fall in love with him twice. Once when she was normal and again, when she was insane. Who is to say the same thing can't happen when Rarity has been cured? Nothing is preventing Lero or the rest of his family from pursuing her.
7341885
Not at all! Robot spiders are comedic gold mines.
7340202
Thank you! Story comes first!
I'm not going to tell you whether you're "right" or "wrong" to feel the way you do about the Swapped, Red B. What I will say is that I immensely enjoyed every word of your review, especially the level of THOUGHT you put into your arguments. It was a joy to read, and makes me feel good as a writer. Thank you, and I'm glad you've been enjoying my story so far!
7346772
I think it's a good sign if there is no clear right or wrong. It encourages healthy discussion and an exchange of opinions. It provokes thought. In my opinion, that is what all great stories should aspire to.
One thing I forgot to add to my review is that, when the cure is found and used (I strongly believe that this will be the case), Rarity might end up in a scenario similar to several comedies. You know, movies where the character wakes up in a run-down motel in Las Vegas, lying in bed, surrounded by people she would have never imagined sharing a bed with. Not only that, but there is a marriage certificate, and a wedding ring on the nightstand and, for the life of her, she cannot remember anything because recent history is little more than a blur.
Reference to Turnabout Storm?
7306435 well, she is half Original Rainbow Dash and half Original Rarity.
He's won the love of the other half of Rainbow Dash (who can now be said to literally love him with all her soul!) so when the swap is ended, why can't he set out to win the other half of Rarity's love when she is herself again?
...he may not even need to if Rainbow's love has "contaminated" the half of Rarity's soul it's been mixed with thoroughly enough that she keeps it post swap.
There will obviously be some long discussions as everypony adjusts to suddenly realizing they have several months of memories of not being themselves, or of being themselves in two different ways at the same time, or however you wind up resolving it.
AND THIS IS WHY ALL SIX SHOULD EVENTUALLY BECOME ALICORNS.
OK, I'm hooked. I just caught up and now I will patiently wait for the next chapter.
Is it done yet?
UGH! Last chapter... damn... Need more...
Please dont go the way of your spin off...
7709389
Working on it! I promise!
Damn. Gotta admit, even I was a little swayed by the jockey's logic. Sounds like it'd be a pretty interesting spin off.
As for that ending, I'd like to borrow now from South Park after Kenny was tasked with helping defuse Timmy's wheel chair and died gruesomely. To quote Stan "Well who didn't see that coming?"
And every single Swap Jockey involved in that stunt at the asylum needs to die a slow, horrible, agonizing death. But only after they watch all their loved ones die first for their overwhelming stupidity.
My issue with DS's argument in favor of the practice of Swapping the Current Element Bearers' cutie marks is that cutie marks are representative of talent, passion, or a significant event in a pony's life. The Elements, however are more of a virtue. So even if DS's scenario of cutie marks swapping was successful, it would only apply to the cutie mark's talent, passion or that significant event in a pony's life. The current Element Bearers are the Bearers because they are the best representative of their respective virtue. That is not something that transmits through this talent swapping. What would be interesting is if in the swap, the ego, superego, and id are split in half or if 100% of the id and 50% of the ego follows the half of the soul connected with the cutie mark.