Running range extended to 8 miles, next Midnight Rising chapter with prereaders... · 8:43pm Oct 1st, 2023
What does the former have to do with the latter? Nothing except to remind myself that despite being recently diagnosed with high blood pressure (for which I’m on medication and have altered my diet), my heart is strong and stamina is growing. I can do a 10k with ease now, I hit 8.22 miles today without a problem, and I may consider seeing if I can run a half-marathon (13.1 miles) before long.
But I won’t bore you with that. The next Midnight Rising chapter is with prereaders, and I promise that this one is the final entry in the griffon arc, except for a small coda scene at the beginning of the next chapter. I’m currently slating it for a Thursday night release, then it’ll be back to CHS for Midnight’s long-awaited confrontation of the worst Shadowbolt girl of all, the one and only Lemon Zest.
But that’s in the future. I found more new fetishes to use for this latest chapter, and whether or not they’re your thing, I think folks will be satisfied with the denouement of the Queen Molyneux/Dragon Lord Vesuvius battle/mating round and its aftermath. As for the outcome, I’ll simply say it was the only one that could be reached for both fairness and my various purposes of the story going forward.
Around it is a lot more comment thread byplay from the Humane 6, who are getting a bit more teasing and provocative with each other. And at least one Friendship Games relationship will be rekindled, but I’ll keep that secret for now. I will, however, supply a teaser. And for once, I’ll give it from close to the end:
And yet, for all that, it was still Moly who held the attention of not just Midnight, but the High Priestess and Fortrakt as well. “Ancestors…” the young tiercel squirmed where he sat on Juniper Neptune’s lap, his wings splayed and beak agape. “To tame and tuck a dragon lord, Queen Molyneux is the greatest ruler in all of Gryphon history!”
“I agree completely. It’s quite remarkable, really…” Even Midnight sounded impressed. “Your Queen is truly worthy of the title, Fortrakt Gletscher. And your race is even more magically adept than I initially gave you credit for, between these impressively enchanted statues and possessing such spellwork as Queen Molyneux used to challenge and fight Vesuvius,” she mused.
“And that is to say nothing of the Roman bent of your entire society and history, which I find both intriguing and pleasing. If I were inclined to conquer and rule instead of simply exploring and erasing the boundaries of science and sex, I would make the griffons my most favored race. Bonded body and soul with the dragons, the two together would sweep all before them and could indeed take all Tellus…” she trailed off as she magically melded her mind with the naked singularity again.
“Ah. Such delicious possibilities of that potential future. But what is this?” Her face suddenly screwed up slightly. “Interesting. It would appear that I will have a rather potent adversary later on. A surprisingly familiar being wielding a rather remarkable if indiscriminate sexual contagion as a weapon, giving her the means to conquer all the realms...” she said with an odd smile, then frowned, her brow furrowing in surprise and worry. “And then by a far more dark and dangerous plague to follow, against whom sex is no defense.”
Hyperdash: An adversary? Did she mean you as Daydream, Sunset? And what’s this about ‘a dark and dangerous plague’?
Daydream: I’m not sure, but I don’t think she meant me. She didn’t look at me when she said that, and I wasn’t able to read her mind even after I ascended.
Crystal Queen: Not sure? But surely you had access to the same information in the naked singularity as her when you became Daydream, darling?
Daydream: Yeah, but I didn’t look into that thing myself because I knew the danger of doing so. I didn’t want to be tempted to start trying to mold events like she was, and worse, based on a false picture of likely futures that matched my desires instead of reality. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and all that. Being Daydream was very heady, girls, and I do miss it. But it’s also way more power than any one person should possess.
Hyperdash: Yeah, we’ve seen you with that level of power before when you weren’t a good guy. No thanks.
Daydream: Exactly. Though in all honesty, my she-demon self wasn’t anywhere near as strong as Midnight or Daydream. If she was, you would have had no chance, even with the Elements.
Fertile Fields: Now there’s a happy thought! Okay, but then why didn’t Midnight win if she was so danged all-powerful to start?
Daydream: Short answer? Because she wasn’t like the old me—wasn’t interested in conquest or power so much as gaining knowledge and magic. And indulging every suppressed desire she ever had while also punishing the classmates who tormented her. She was certainly a dark goddess who was uninhibited and for the most part, completely amoral, but I wouldn’t say she was evil. Yes, there’s a difference.
Crystal Queen: I don’t know, darling. Regardless of how fun it was, ripping open holes in reality and turning her Principal into stone while also forcing her schoolmates to have sex strikes me as just a tad evil.
Sugar High: Aw, she was just teaching them empathy and showing them how to have a REAL good time! Besides, it’s not like they didn’t enjoy it. I know I did!
Daydream: You know what? Never change, Pinkie Pie.
Sugar High: Don’t worry. Never will!
As you can see, I’m foreshadowing things in both Nightmare Night and Feathered Hearts—yes, the Cloven exist in this reality, too, and no, they’re not sexualized. Reason being, I think some threats should simply span all my stories and verses. It’s what Midnight does to prepare for them here that’s important, which you’ll get hints of in the paragraphs to follow.
As things stand, I’m going to launch the chapter on Thursday night to give prereaders enough time to hit it and myself to keep adding edits and additional detail (I keep thinking of stuff to add), or sooner if all prereads are in and I’m satisfied. Hopefully readers will be as well.
I’d also like to give a special shout-out and thank-you to readers Redmar and Implausible Deniability for being my two regulars in the comments. Always like seeing your feedback, guys! Always like seeing feedback in general, so don’t be afraid to drop a comment folks. Can’t say this enough: as unpaid authors, we live for them.
Midnight is also taking great care to limit her use of the Singularity as I suspect her scientific intellactual detatchment couldnt actually handle The God Trap, unlike Pinkie, who should know about it even from first principles, and just likes playing around it to try and get it stop being such an old fuddy duddy?
Dragons and Griffons bonded and merged makes me think of the hard science gengineered dragons of PERN, who I beleive, given various research over the years, are partially nuclear powered, especially given statements about geomorphology of the planet and abilities.
Just thinking of Equestrian dragons using certain nuclear conversions for magical capabilities, such as their Lensman class wall shield scales, rapid regeneration leading to extremely long lives due to enviroment, etc etc?
Next idiot that tries to dive their truck over Spike is going to get a very unpleasant suprise?
I caught the foreshadowing for Nightmare Night. Sunset is right to be wary of using of the singularity especially since Midnight has already missed 2 things in the Gryphon Kingdom that the singularity didn't show her.
Midnight might not be evil exactly but a being with godlike powers who's mentally unstable can never be a good thing just ask Discord though he was probably a bit more evil.
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Not even Pinkie and her sisters can normally pass between dimensions. But the naked singularity is the ultimate universal cheat code. It’s the gateway to multiverse and a way to see what's inside them/influence them. That’s why the High Priestess wants it so badly, as she considers ultimately remaking reality to be the destiny of her race. But the point remains that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that’s a point that Sunset herself will make shortly.
Interesting. I haven’t seen or read that before. I’m not sure how I feel about nuclear-powered dragons, to put it mildly.
We will have to see what long term changes/effects/benefits/drawbacks that both the lingering magic of the Friendship Games in Midnight Rising and the sexually transmitted curse of Nightmare Night have on various creatures, whether human, griffon, dragon or pony (or any other race for that matter). I’ll just say for now that I do have a few in mind and you’ll learn at the very end.
They would anyway. Running over his back scales would pop their tires.
Spike will definitely suffer some lingering effects of all this, even more so than the rest. The better question, and one I have yet to answer, is this: how will his form change when he crosses the portal now, given he’s no longer a baby dragon but a large adolescent with some additional enhancements? He won’t be a small dog any more, that much is certain. But then what will be? And what will happen to other dragons who may cross?
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Because in the end, it can only show her what she wants to see and not what she isn’t aware is there.
She has powers she’s neither ready for or able to fully comprehend/control, and got completely overwhelmed by them. It wasn’t entirely her fault, given she was just trying to understand this strange power she detected, and she got bullied into releasing it by her classmates and principal? So how much blame does she really deserve? Certainly some for not taking proper precautions and for making her siphons a bit too indiscriminate in their effects. But still, it was ultimately her choice to release its power without knowing what it would do or how dangerous it would be.
As for Discord? Maybe at the start, but his was a more playful evil. He just liked manipulating others for amusement. He still does to an extent, but at least now there’s usually some kind of valid purpose--a moral or lesson behind it. And at this point over in Nightmare Night, he’s definitely not the badass he was previously, at the mercy of multiple powerful beings.
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There is a heavily trimmed image somewhere on fimfiction which shows Twlight enjoying WereSpikes attention. The full image is elsewhere, I have no idea where it is and I couldnt post alink due to site rules even if I knew where it was.
In Japanese culture there are Guardian Dragon Dogs? Given Hasbro announced Spike as Guardian Of Harmony before th whole Movie etc came out and reset things, simple search terms in the Singularity would give a whole bunch of variations?
What I mean about Pinkie and The God Trap as given by The Singularity, is that, you cant actually change anything with The Singularity, because Everything already Exists. You merely alter your worldline so that everything is as it has always been, which is how everyone else sees it.
This is the worldview Pinkie sees. All the other possibilities, And she can make use of that knowledge. Thats why she could handle being a Chaos Goddess in canon. Even Discord is wary of her. And thats Canon Pinkie, not one of the many Pinkie Unbound stories on site.
If you want insanity, ask a mathematician.