Fanfiction Review: Around the Bend · 5:28am Mar 11th, 2013
Blogger: http://blogofpony.blogspot.com/2013/03/fanfiction-review-around-bend.html
It's time. We're tackling one of the most controversial authors in the history of the fandom. And while it would be tempting to look at one of her Conversion Bureau fics, for the sake of all our sanities (and because I want to talk about it more than...that universe), we'll be looking at her examination of the retcons and differences between Seasons One and Two. This should be some fascinating reading, after all...right?
Let's check our guts and look at Chatoyance's Around the Bend.
SYNOPSIS:
Twilight is sick of being called boring and predictable by her friends, so to prove them wrong, she sets out to take a side street. Only one problem: Ponyville doesn't really have that many side streets to begin with, and she's walked them all. That's when she discovers Shark Street, a strange road that was not there yesterday with a large gap in the middle. After a quick jump over the hole in Shark Street, she finds herself in another Ponyville, one where everything is wrong...
REVIEW:
Around the Bend, in Chatoyance's own words, is an equivalent to the old No-Prizes Marvel Comics used to award to fans who provided the most interesting explanations for continuity errors. Indeed, the story's very conceit is to provide an exploration of what makes the two seasons different and try to come up with a reason. And what's that reason?
That Twilight conjured Shark Street, jumped it, and is now in a broken, screwed up Equestria.
Yes, the entire opening of this story is a Jumping the Shark reference.
...You still have time to get out. Things are going to get rather ugly after this section.
A long while ago, when the story made it onto Equestria Daily (the only Chatoyance fanfiction to ever earn that honor), I was impressed by the first two chapters and even recommended it on those alone. And then I read the rest, and that recommendation turned to shame. (Didn't help that this was my first exposure to Chatoyance, and I futilely got into an argument that ended with most of my posts being deleted.) Now reading it again, after being exposed to more of just what kind of a writer and person Chatoyance is, and keeping in mind what she was building to, it's even more upsetting, and I can't even call those first two enjoyable.
Not that there's not any potential. The general uneasiness Twilight feels in this alternate Ponyville has all the pieces of a good suspense and mystery story. Certainly, her freaking out over that stupid cliff to nowhere from “Mysterious Mare-Do-Well” is funny enough, especially with the number of supposed accidents that happen there on a frequent basis. The prose is also quite purple, but still functional, and the end of the last scene with Celestia and Twilight is touching. Also, despite some of the issues I'll be bringing up later on, the pacing is generally solid and, outside of the fourth chapter, moves at a fairly good pace. But then you get to the festering underbelly of this story and its message:
Chatoyance doesn't like several episodes in Season Two, and is erasing them from her personal continuity. Not because they're bad episodes, but because they break from her headcanon that Equestria is a medieval fantasy society ruled by immortal gods.
...I'm warning you, there will be opinions from this point on. Unless you love seeing me in a blind rage, turn back now.
We've already discussed Mare-Do-Well, but what are the other horrible episodes she didn't like? Well, there's “Read It and Weep.” Because of the doctor with an x-ray Cutie Mark? No, because it made Dash like to read. I repeat, she makes a HUGE deal over how wrong it is for Dash to be reading. Oh, and she's also a total glory hound jerk who chews out Twilight for saving ponies from that cliff before she could, despite the story clearly taking place after “A Canterlot Wedding,” and thus after Dash was supposed to learn not to be like that. It's fine to say that MMDW was a stupid episode, but you can't just ignore the end of the episode and pretend like Dash remained the exact same kind of jerk the rest of the season.
Indeed, each criticism of her character just feels worse and worse as the story progresses. Pinkie is actually listening and speaking intelligently? It's wrong because she's supposed to be random and silly. Rarity is being overly dramatic and summoning couches out of nowhere? It's wrong because she's supposed to be kind and generous. Granny Smith suddenly hates snooty Canterlot ponies like Twilight, despite the face that the only time she expressed anything like that was in “The Last Roundup,” and that was just to cheer Applejack on before she went to the Canterlot Rodeo. And Fluttershy? She's her badflank persona from “Putting Your Hoof Down,” despite the fact that the episode was about how she didn't want to be like that and how she learned to be assertive in her own way.
This is where the story becomes an absolute mess. Chatoyance cherry picks episodes – or just specific elements and scenes of episodes – she doesn't want to address and shoves them into this sort of pocket dimension where everypony's a jerk, and yet ignores the fact that said jerkish behavior was ultimately something they overcame to become better ponies. At the same time, she flat-out denies any sort of positive development to ponies like Pinkie, who has to remain a silly pony forever rather than show any sort of real intellect. (Although I do get a small sense of satisfaction when she tried to write out her casually insulting her friends schtick.) All of the ponies are utterly flanderized beyond what even the show had to offer, and yet she presents it as proof of how much Season Two done goofed.
And that's not even getting into what happens at the end. She runs into Shining Armor and Cadance, who are both presented as complete goofballs, and we get a nice little rant about how Twilight couldn't have had a big brother because it would mean she would have broken out of her shell earlier and thus had no reason not to have friends. By this point, I am so unfazed by that argument that it's hardly worth discussing. And did you know that Celestia and Luna were creator gods who are awesome and infallible? Well, in this alternate universe, they are obviously charlatans who are faking moving the sun and moon, since there's no way a god would get defeated by something like Chrysalis. (Never you mind that Chrysalis herself was surprised she won, and only did so because she had a power source to feed off of. Otherwise, she would have ended up like a mosquito against a windshield.)
That isn't to say every Season Two episode gets thrown out. Discord is confirmed to have happened (although that kind of screwed up the whole “Celestia and Luna are Creator-Gods” thing worse than Chrysalis did), and “Hearth's Warming Eve” is presented as more of a myth created by the two than anything actually historical, which is actually in theme with quite a few interpretations of the episode and fits with the idea of a pageant to begin with. She also created a sort of “in-between” dimension to put episodes that could work in either one. But there's just a real sense of pettiness to the whole ordeal. Are there episodes I don't like in the show? Of course. But arbitrarily deciding that this didn't happen because it doesn't match what you personally think the show is reeks of Confirmation Bias.
And how is all this relayed to us? Through one long author tract after another. Yes, welcome to the other unfun part of Chatoyance: the fact that she never shuts up. I don't mean her stuff outside of the stories themselves, but rather that she can't help but keep projecting herself into every story she writes. Twilight here is practically turned into her author surrogate so she can tear down what she didn't like about the second season. After the first chapter, almost every line is Twilight constantly going “This is wrong” over and over and over again. And granted, that would be in Twilight's character, but the way it's written makes it very clear who's actually talking here. It isn't Twilight Sparkle, the adorable little purple unicorn; it's Chatoyance using her as a mouthpiece.
There's also a lovely aside where we hear about how Star Swirl the Bearded warned against industrialization because it'd destroy the world and how awesome he was to say that, and how horrible these ponies must be to be destroying their world for industry. Funny thing about Chatoyance is, she loves to harp on the Green Aesop, even when the story has absolutely no need or even room for it. It just feels woefully out of place and smacks, again, of headcanon being violated over actual canon.
That is ultimately what ruins the story. There are times when one should project a bit of themselves into a story, to help deliver the aesop or advance a plot element, but the entire story should not be this way. If the body of your work comes off as the crazy homeless guy on the street corner who rants about the government putting nanomachines in the water in order to make us buy stuff, then something has gone wrong.
This is what makes reviewing anything from Chatoyance such a nightmare. I generally try to judge stories simply by their own merits and not by the people who write them. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to get through countless novels, short stories, movies and plays because of ideological holdups with the creators and their political and social beliefs. A good story is a good story, and I would love to give Around the Bend a positive review if there was something in here I could actually praise. But the actual story here is utterly meaningless. You simply cannot divorce Chatoyance from the narrative, since she basically is the one talking to us.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
The idea of approaching inconsistencies within the canon is a long-standing tradition within all fandoms. Plenty of fanfics have been written trying to justify the ending to “Mysterious Mare-Do-Well,” make more sense of how Cadance and Shining Armor fit into Twilight's backstory, and explore the more minor players in the series like Celestia and Luna. That's what Chatoyance has done here...but she's bungled the job horribly. What should have been a nice, fun-but-serious examination of the two seasons devolves into a massive tract on all that is wrong with Season Two before shuffling off anything she didn't personally agree with to an alternate universe so that she can safely ignore it. And when she starts shoveling in things that are not actually violations of canon, but instead her headcanon, you start to realize why this story simply doesn't work.
I'm sorry to keep pounding this same point over and over again, but this isn't about Twilight discovering a new universe and dealing with the consequences it presents, but is instead a launchpad for Chatoyance's beliefs about the show and how she sees the characters. If I had to compare it to anything, it's like that Pun Pony comic where said pony drops any semblance of a joke to talk about how horrible the Mane 6 are. Perhaps there's a kernel of truth in there, but not only is it exaggerated and twisted to suit a predisposed point of view, but it's not what you came in there for to begin with.
If you like Chatoyance and find her work fascinating, that's fine. Like whatever you want to like. But when I read this story, it felt like an absolute waste. This isn't rectifying the differences between the two seasons; it's avoiding what she feels are inconsistencies for what feels like petty and arbitrary reasons. Overall, this story did nothing but introduce me to someone I would have been much happier not knowing and turn me off to the idea of Fanon Discontinuity even more than I already was. All in all, I award it zero points, and may God have mercy on her soul.
...Wow.
I try to stay out of drama, but wow. She sounds worse than Reality Check.
Well... That sounds like a lovely story... Cherry-picking canon because you don't like stuff? Blech...
Dang, IAH, tell us what you really think why don't you? There were a few sentences in the middle where I thought you were holding back.
I would read the story (if only to get my own opinion) but I'm still staying the hell away from her.
I remember reading the story a while ago. That review sounds about right -- The fic starts off well, kinda starts wandering off into sketchy territory in the middle, and then suddenly sprints away from making any sort of sense. And the episode list at the end was boring as heck, as well as completely unnecessary to the story. Yeah, the review might be a little harsh, but still...
I LOVE the last line. And I hear anyone who gets into arguments with her in her comments gets deleted and accused of abuse, so no real surprise there. Also this really makes me wish we could upvote blog posts too.
Chatoyance: Why Conversion Bureau fans can't have nice things.
You know, I just now realized I've had this fic ear-marked for future reading for quite some time, probably from when it first showed up on EQD. The concept sounded intriguing, but the execution as you describe it sounds awful. I suppose it's possible, I wouldn't find it nearly so offensive as you did, but my read-it-later list is way too long, so I think I'll take this opportunity to prune the list a little.
Anyway, I guess I also now have a better understanding of why you you seemed to get so upset when I said I spoke about cutting KCaFO out of my own personal head-canon (though I'm hardly opposed to adding it back if some future episode convinces me otherwise). Still, there is a world of difference between cutting an episode, and writing an entire story that is little more than a protracted hate-fic. Proper fanon discontinuity should never demean itself in such away, and the stuff that the fan would rather ignore should be just that, IGNORED.
At most the occasional Discontinuity Nod might be warranted, but to do any more than that is just being pathetic. Even if attempting to write the generally ill-advised genre of Fix-Fic the author needs to make sure their work stand on it's own merit and not just blatantly bash fest on about how much the original source material sucks.
Hm. I like Chat's work, but I kinda just turn off my brain when I start reading it. I know, not a good sign for the author(I fully recognize that she is borderline), but I like her adventures, and view her portrayals of canon characters more as OCs.
I don't really give a crap about the politics and the religion and such(although I do end up agreeing with her on many points), but I do remember Around the Bend being pretty off-putting. It was an interesting premise, and a few parts did make sense, but for the most part, yeah, this one was crap.
It's a pity, he could obviously do good work but he works with the Author Tract for his own personal views.
Really? Chat hated that Rainbow Dash's likes to read?
907889
Actually, I was holding back. I originally had a protracted section about when Chatoyance threw a tantrum over Blaze (the author of the original Conversion Bureau fic) getting into the Pony Fiction Vault (albeit solely because he created a very large subgenre of stories) while she was ignored. She decided to give herself a PFV-style interview...which started with the fake interviewer praising her to high heaven and Chat declaring Season Two more or less unworthy of inclusion in her little universe. And then there were her comments about preserving Faust's vision when she throws out nearly everything Faust had directly worked on in order to create her own twisted setting. It all ties into her attitude with this story and the act of deliberately erasing bits of continuity for the sake of it not matching what you believe.
Ultimately, I threw it out because it was less about the story and more about the author, and as I said in the final review, I want to focus on the fanfic first and the author's personal life second. But with Chatoyance, it's a challenge to separate the two. If I had gone all-out, there would have been a lot more swearing, some rather choice comments, and probably a murder or two.
907858
Yeah, I...got into shit with Reality Check, too. So, what did he end up doing after the finale?
907923
I'm actually considering reviewing the original. It's a pretty bad story, but it's more simple incompetence and inexperience that makes it bad. Even the misanthropy felt more like a freudian slip-up compared to...whatever the hell's wrong with Chatoyance's little universe.
907936
I apologize for blowing up like that. That episode had everyone riled up.
Still, I do have a rather tight feeling about canon, especially when it comes to writing. Rather than ignore things that happen, you try to dance around them. It's actually a lot more fun that way, and lets you do what Around the Bend wanted to do but without the added baggage. And ignoring an episode can be rather bad if they follow up on it, since now you have two episode to ignore. And if it was an important one, even more than that. And so on and so forth.
To each their own, I guess.
907997
907997
Which is by far my preference, and why it takes an awful lot for me to even consider throwing an episode out entirely.
Which can create it's own kind of dancing that can be just as fun, or at least challenging, that is if ones goal is to try and KEEP as much as possible while still excise the details one finds most egregious.
Still, push comes to shove, I'll throw it back into continuity if later episodes that I want to keep absolutely require it.
907858 Who?
907997 Re RC: Fortunately, I don't know.
This.
Heck, you can even turn plot holes into character development. A lot of people were upset that Discord's line about Fluttershy being "the one friend I've ever had" contradicted the fanon about Celestia and Discord having a doomed romance in the past. But I was like, "Just write a scene where Celestia says to him, 'How could you say that after all we meant to each other?' and they reconcile."
People complained about Discord's rushed conversion, and I just thought, "Remember how he stared at the ice skates laying there on the frozen lake? That probably jogged one specific memory, like on his first date with Celestia he took her ice skating and they forgot the skates on the rink or something."
Seriously, I came up with that in about thirty seconds, in response to some random Reddit comment.
However, I'm not sure what we're going to do if Scootaloo turns out to have a home and family. It'll be trickier to justify the "she's a homeless orphan" headcanon.
907923
Yeah, pretty much.
There are good TCB stories out there, and I like the aspects of some of them in making it all work, but Chatoyance's stuff is what gave it all a bad rap.
908084
My personal headcanon is that it was Luna who was Discord's sweetheart. And when he went bad, and got turned to stone, it really got to poor Luna. And then, she went scary, the little ponies didn't want to go out at night any more, and it became a vicious circle.
But all in all, my only problem with KCaFO was that it was too short. It ended way too soon, and could've been a double episode, instead of the Crystal Empire double, and have the explanation be that Discord scrambled the show set up for the season. Then, we have a joke for the fans, plenty of time to do things right, and we could've had an Indiana Jones-esque first episode of the season, with traps instead of Sombra driving Twilight's need to do it now rather than later, as the Heart won't be there later.
But that's my opinion.
I should probably sleep, before I rant some more.
...
And one more thing... Nah, that joke's prolly old already.
907997
I haven't read any Conversion Bureau stuff. Is there any that's actually good? Because all I actually hear about it is individually terrible author(s) or "meh" stories. I do enjoy Friendship is Optimal which shares a few traits with CB and I've read a couple other stories in the group, and there's even been a little rumbling about making a story where FiO's CelestAI meets CB's Celestia. But I've not read any actual CB stuff, and I've never heard anyone talking specific examples where the subgenre shines.
Having looked over Chatoyance's stuff since first hearing you mention her...
...she's a misanthropic, horrible person.
What's that Pun Pony comic you mentioned, though?
908084
My headcanon for Scootaloo is that she does have a mother and father, and they're just interminably boring. Her dad is Buzz Killington, basically.
I'd really like a CMC episode to open up with some pegasus pony drolling on and on about something dull, and then we cut to the CMCs looking bored out of their skulls. Scootaloo leans over to the other two and says "this is why we never go over to my house."
Well, I too wish the show kept the light fantasy setting more intact than it does, and I think my list of good/bad episodes would probably match up pretty closely with Chat's, but that sounds bad. I don't see how anyone could enjoy fan content without employing a little bit of doublethink; she seems like one of the worst types of fans. Thanks for convincing me not to bother reading her stuff.
Nice review, Chatoyance is indeed a unique individual. On top of the problems you pointed out, another one of her worst problems is, she's delusional and can't handle disagreements. She has claimed that her stories celebrate humanity despite the blatant misanthropy when someone pointed it out. I told her to let others be the judge and explain why she should and she went on a rant about her haters. Pointed out how not everyone who dislikes her work is unreasonable and despite being good natured about what I was saying, she decided to block me. We could go on all day about how blatantly wrong she is about a lot of things but I'll stop here.
908346
Pun Pony is a tumblr about, well, a pony who makes lots of puns. Normally, it's actually pretty funny. But this one here has no punchline or humor, not even in the comments below. It's an utterly jarring piece that really doesn't fit with the rest of the tumblr.
Pretty much. Sorry I introduced her to you, though.
908241
There's a few stories out there that are decent to good; Chatoyance's stuff just happens to be the absolute worst of it all. The issue is that there really isn't a set Conversion Bureau universe. It's more like the way Final Fantasy is a series; there's shared themes, setpieces, characters, and concepts, but the actual setting, story, and tone are wildly different in each iteration.
I haven't read anything regarding Friendship is Optimal, but Chatoyance did write a story for that universe at one point. By all accounts, she ended up missing the entire point of said AU and twisted it to her own ends. She did a similar thing to another Conversion Bureau story, Ten Minutes, which earned her an extremely harsh backlash from fans of the original story.
907997
Oh, and for what it's worth, even when I do resort to fanon-discontinuity, I'm still likely to take a somewhat broad strokes approach to events in an attempt to avoid the worst of any subsequent continuity snarls. Meaning that rather than write out the entire event I'll typically more so just gloss over the exact details. So when all is said and done a story similar to KCaFO might still exist in my head-canon, but the specific details might be divergent.
Currently my first instinct would probably be to keep most of the episode (though trying to explain why Celestia thought it good idea in the first place still gives me headaches), but to basically just cut out the half assed reform that got pulled out of nowhere at the end, and so have Discord get re-stoned. Of course that only flies short term, as it will become increasing untenable each time Discord appears in a future episode. For more mid-range plans, I might tap those rumors that Discord was a corrupted Starswirl the Bearded, and just conceptualize a version of the episode where the plot isn't about reforming the monster, but restoring the pony (this also would have the side benefit of seriously down grading his otherwise plot wrecking god-like power). Still, that too would be in constant danger of Jossing. So in the long run I'm likely to explain away Discord's sudden change of turn-about as being the result of eating an entire library worth of "reform" spells. As the pages digested, they reacted with his own chaotic magic and *BAM* suddenly the previously heartless monster has a semblance of empathy.
So even if my language might seem a bit uncompromising at times, I'm still trying to figure out ways to make the established canon and my own mesh as best I can.
908346
Ooh, love that interp for Scoots' parents.
908698
I just figure that, well, of course Discord's personality is going to be wildly different each time he appears.
908730
Yeah, I've heard tons of people try to make that excuse, and I'll even admit that there's a certain amount of sense to it (embodiment of chaos and all that jazz), but it's just not something that will EVER fly for me. A character so wildly unpredictable, with basically ZERO consistency, isn't really much of a character at all -- more so just a random plot device, and I rather feel that Discord deserve better than that.
Not to mention that if he really possesses absolutely no consistency in behavior then it only makes his "reform" even more of a farce, and all the other characters (especially Celestia) only come off as complete idiots for even trying in the first place. God-like powers plus completely unpredictable personality shifts is not something that can ever be trusted under any circumstances.
908769
Fair enough, I suppose.
908084
You want to know the truth? I was never a fan of that particular fanon. It just doesn't make sense to me that a villain would be the former lover of the Big Good. And don't mention the "Always such a bore" line, when you consider that the main reason Celestia hated him was because of his chaos, so it would make sense that Discord would try to call her out on ruining his fun.
908877
To each their own, but that was just one example.
909135
Yeah, even if the hints weren't intentional on the part of the writers, there's quite a bit there to imply there's more going on. But I don't buy the Tyrantlestia theories at all; I just think that, over the course of a multi-millennia lifespan, she's just been humanly (ponily?) fallible on a few occasions.
I'm interested to see what would happen if she saw your reviews detailing her and her work.
However it's the same sort of interest as "I'm interested to see what would happen if I pushed this huge red button in a nuclear launch silo during a time of international tension between America, Russia and China".
It would be intriguing to watch from an outsider's perspective, but I'd rather not have to deal with/feel responsible for the subsequent nuclear fallout :P
909135>>909248
That's the kind of thing he does, though: throw out a few half-truths, ask some misleading questions, and then BZAM now you think Celestia is a ruthless tyrant. Don't trust him.
908877
Before I begin, A hem...Hi I am thorn, I fell in love with Alan scott in the 50s and we have two children but then I was still evil. and explain chesire, but its still your opinion.
Now, onto the review and Chatoyance, Y'know...when I was 13, I believed that my headcannon and my stories were perfect. I thought that they were great(Later, I discovered that they are, in fact, slime and painful to sit through, but great to riff.), but you know what...that arrogance is SMALL compared to the arrogance, self-gratifcating, superority complex that I see coming from this girl! Every line, every paragraph, every piece of dialouge that I read from that, that, THING; just turned me off. Every thing I came across just felt like she was slapping me in the face with, "My stuff is better, my stuff is better."
Look, you have problems with the season, I get that. I have my own problems with shows I like too (Homecoming for Jake Long, aka the episode that gave me a chance to create my own fanfic from it. The thing is, I never tried to do what she did and just do cannon disconinuty, it was an alternate universe) However, to just throw everything out and try to say that yours is the only vision even better than faust, wich is what you have basicalyl said because you ditch stuff that even she did, makes you look like...I dont know, but it aint good. I perfer Bookwise, where the writer will write around it or show some creativity and make something else out of the deal. That shows you actually try, what you do Chatonace is the equilivant of putting your ears to your head and whine that you arent listening and will dismiss those who are different. This fic, is just plain horrible and what makes it worse...is that its well written. That what hurts more, it was well written. Now I am not going to comment on certain things in the plot because you have said it for me.
Man, this fic ticked me off...thanks for tearing it
909407
1) that was the 50s. and did Chesire stay with Roy and Lian?
2) Maybe I'm seeing some sort of bad implications here: 'What, females can't have male villians without them being former lovers?' the same could be said for the reverse.
3)
909461
1) technically 90s and you are right.
2) ok, see your point on that one. But then again with Dissy it will always be differing opinions.
3) You should know, I trained you to be one. LBBFF
909253
Please don't. I already went through enough crap when someone gave CR copies of my venting; I'd hate to see what would happen if someone who's known for her ego and anger issues gets hold of this.
1. Well, i don't really know. All it is is her going after episodes that she didn't like. and i don't find that very fun to read.
Granted, i am among the people who didn't like KCAFO because I don't find him redeemable. Some people did him as a playful trickster, but others wrote him to be much more sinister. Personally, one example of the things that he does that I wrote was that He had Unicorns, unaccustomed to hard labor, plow him a bed the size of a continent, Chickens plucked the feathers out of pegasi for a pillow, and then he had sheeps shear earth ponies for their fur, so he could quite litterally make a "Dirt nap". At the same time, While MMC wasn't a bad episode, it does piss me off to no end and makes me want to never include it in cannon because now we practically see that Celestia can just grant a mortal ascension into godhood.
Personally, i see alicorns (Not Cadence, who i explain is just a pony with wings and a horn, like a natural mutation) as god version of the Green Lanterns. THey originate from a planet at the center of the universe, called Eden, and they are chosen at birth to defend and protect a planet from their enemeies, Discord's species. Mortals can't simply comprehend their ways, and they intrepret what they do differently, like instead of baing punished, beign banished to a heavenly body is like going into a repair mode, where an alicorn heals from fatal wounds.
1000 years ago, Luna betrayed their purpose and threatened to harm their planet, and Celestia was ready to destroy her, except Celestia was born with somthing foreign to alicorns, Passion, so instead of killing her sister and replacing her with another, she wounded her and hoped that a millenium in solitude would cure Luna's mentality, but as we see, it didn't work.
So you can see may displeasure that he can turn head and become civilized at the drop of a hat, especially from FLuttershy, who i don't see having any experience in making friends. hell, she's SHY! she can be the knidest, nicest person, but if she's too timid to meet people, we would never know. How exactly does she know how to make firends?
2. I say we all sign a petition that if she tries to get her admins to ban IAH, we should go down with the ship. People should not be able to do such a thing because people disagree with them. IF so, then they shoulden't be on the internet in the first place.
3. You know, i always wanted to write a fic, (Before i even know what TCB was about) where a machine is invented that can move people between Equestria and earth, expand on the political, financial, and other side effects of finding a new world, but without one species literally becoming the other, showing how they begin to live in harmony. but its pretty crazy and i though that noone would probably like to read it. So with all the TCB shit, i unfortunately think it would be recieved even worse.
909599
But Crown Royal is so smooth!
That's not the "CR" you were talking about... is it?
909779
Sadly, no. At least Crown Royal might bring me joy these days.
909825
I know what you mean...
909651
Except Celestia does no such thing. It's Twilight by creating NEW magic that transports herself to... well, to wherever that place was. Yes, Celestia meets her there, but again only to explain what happened and reinforce the idea that this is the ultimate culmination of EVERYTHING Twilight has learned about the magic of friendship. Finally it is not by any spell cast by Celestia which transforms Twilight, rather the power is shown to come from within Twilight, from her very heart/soul.
So, no, Celestia can't just willy-nilly transform any mortal pony into an alicorn; all she can do is serve as a guide to those who already had the potential inside them all along.
...
If it helps you're personal head-canon, try thinking of it this way. In Cutie Mark Chronicles Celestia says she's never before met a unicorn as powerful as Twilight, and later in A Canterlot Wedding, Cadance states that Twilight is not just an ordinary unicorn. So, as such a valid interpretation could be that Twilight was ALWAYS an alicorn, she just hadn't yet achieved her full power and true form yet.
908654
The Optimalverse as written by Iceman (and the better stories in the group) is terrifying on an entirely different level from most horror fiction. You understand intellectually where everything is going wrong, and how the Celestia AI is a paperclipper... but then you sit back and say, "yeah, but I'd still upload."
CelestAI will satisfy your values through friendship and ponies.
I checked the FiO story by Chatoyance; the subtitle and cover art imply one thing... comments suggest the opposite.
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I think you just wrote my new headcanon. Thanks!
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This. This this this.
Regarding Chronicles, it's also important to note that Celestia's not saying everything she knows after she sees Twilight's cutie mark. In the pilot, the Element of Magic already had Twilight's cutie mark on it when it appeared. In fact, if you look closely at the book Twilight's reading in the beginning, you'll see that the tiara Celestia is wearing when she defeats Nightmare Moon is also shaped like Twi's mark. In other words, while the other elements shifted to match their owners, Twilight's cutie mark already was the Element of Magic. No wonder Celestia instantly took her as her personal student, and had such faith in her to overcome Nightmare Moon...
Now, why a pre-mark Twilight had a princess for a babysitter, I'll never know. But I really want someone to make a comic about Twi's parents thinking about trying for a third foal just to see what they might accomplish...
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Well, there's two possibilities with Cadance. First, maybe she wasn't an alicorn when she first started babysitting Twilight, and was rather just a normal pegasus. After becoming an alicorn, she still wanted to baby-sit Twilight.
Second, Twilight's family are themselves members of the nobility. This makes sense because Princesses do not marry down the social strata - not very far down, anyway.
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I believe that what you said was directed towards me.
But sifting through most of what you said, I never Liked the idea of Cadence being an alicorn. Not one bit. Canterlot Wedding was alright, but her next showings did not do her well. All I see is making her an alicorn is just making a perfect pink Princess even more perfect. (Insert joke about "My WIngs are so pretty!" here). To be honest, It would be perfectly fine if she was just a mutation of a Unicorn or a pegasi who happens to have both wings and a horn. Because you would be suprised how easily people are fooled over what they see. and seeing a pony with wings and a horn and thinking of them as an alicorn would be incredibly easy to do.
You don't have to read this, But there was a scam that started in LA and stretched across the United states. In 1995, a spick went to a catholic church with a list of cars and said his uncle died, and in his estate, he had numerous company cars that he left for him in his will. THe church goers went bonkers and bought theese "Cars" for 1-2 grand. Then, the word of mouth spread, and eventually theese religious people from across the country wanted to buy theese "Miracle cars" that were so cheap. It wasn't until 5 years later, when a couple in Minnasota bought a miracle car and never got it after a month. They sent their evidence to a town sherrif, and within 5 seconds, she knew that the whole miracle car thing was a scam. Theese People were so DUMB they were buying cars that were model year 2000 WHEN THE GUY DIED IN 1995! In the end, there was no uncle, not a single car, and for 5 years, people took their bullshit about how the cars were going through legal red tape, so they believe the two guys who started the scam. Most Ponzi Schemes begin because someone can fool another person. and It's not as hard as you think.
Anyway, back to Cadence. When I watched Canterlot Wedding for the first time, when I heard Cadence call Twilight "Not any old unicorn" like she was choking on the worlds, I made the connection to the fact that she was a teenager, when she heard she would be babysitting, she whined about watching over, "Regular Old Unicorns" and so someone Smacked the shit out of her for saying that.
Hm...
... Wow. I knew Chatoyance had strong opinions and disliked seasons two and three... but to actually ignore them altogether? ... Wow.
... I have no words, or at least, none that have not already been said.
And darn it, I typed a double-negative in a sentence... I think.
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The second is by far my preference. Largely because of how surprised everyone is about Twilight's ascension -- most notably Rarity states that she didn't even know it was even possible for a normal pony to become an allicorn. Furthermore, filly Twilight speaks of Cadance being a prince as something that a "regular old unicorn" like herself could NEVER become, which suggest she's unaware that Cadance might have ever been just a "regular old pegasus". As such, if Cadance wasn't always an alicorn, her ascension would likely predate the M6's life time (if not their parents as well), or at the very least predate Cadance coming to Canterlot so that as a matter of public record there'd be no knowledge that she was ever not an alicorn.
Also, there's the fact that in both the pilot and Cutie Mark Chonicles Twilight is shown to be living in the same house (link). Given the apparent opulence of the home it would seem Twilight's family is at the very least upper-class if not minor nobility themselves.
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You are of course entitled to whatever opinion you choose, but this one strikes me as more than a little petty, not to mention totally irreconcilable with Twilight's adoration of Cadances as the "BEST FOALSITTER EVER!' and there continued good relations on into adulthood.
Anyway... the characters' histories aside, my own original head-canon for Cadance's BIOLOGY was not all that dissimilar to yours. I labeled her a lesser alicorn -- a hybrid of unicorn and pegasus -- more powerful and long lived than any regular pony, but still much less so than Celestia and Luna who I called greater alicorns -- a hybrid of ALL three pony tribes.
However, in the aftermath of Magical Mystery Cure, I'm having to reevaluate my head-canon. Not only did Twilight ascend (presumably to FULL alicorn status and not just unicorn/pegasus hybrid), but Cadance was shown at the coronation standing next to Celestia in a position of seemingly equal importance to Luna.
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I only call out grammar mistakes when they're funny.
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hey, people change, Children can be easily fooled. I had an uncle that was the "Cool uncle" when I was a kid, but for years he just went away. And i shit you not, when I was talking with my mom a few days ago about Motivation to go to college and whatever, she brought him up. Everyone kept it hush hush around the family, but the reason why he went away was because he was caught growing pot in his basement. the coppers raided his house and took him away. So trust me, shit happens.
But on the opposite side of the specturm, some people don't change. Like a cousin on the other side of my family that lives across the country, the last time I saw him he was in highschool and i was stil in elementary school. Life happens, and we don't see each other for years because its just too inconvenient. Then, 10 years later, he has a nurses degree, works at a hospital, and we finally meet again at a family reunion...
Only to find he is covered in tribal tats, has bible verses across his back, is into deathmetal and shit, shaved his head, and has a ginger goatee.
I shit you not, he looked like a white supremicist, but still, but after you look past the outside, he is still the nicest person you will ever meet on the face of this earth. he got married last year, also.
So, we often remember the past for the good parts, Twilight may have not recognized that Cadence rolled her eyes every now and then. then, maybe after growing out of her teenage years, she realized how much of a bitch she was, and decided to be an adult. I just use my intreptation more because in the small part a teenage Cadence plays, she is just the stereotypical bitchy wannabe princess, whereas the Main character hates royalty and wants to straight up clock her across the face.
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Heh, don't worry, fascinating as it might be to observe an apparent egomaniac go spare at someone else, I'm not that much of a dick