Main Reviews #6: Que Sera, Sera (spoiler warning) · 2:31pm Jun 25th, 2014
Whoa man, this feels good. It's nice to tick a story off my read-later list that isn't 100k+ words. Seriously, the shortest story I've read off it since starting this endeavour has been Secrets Shine Brighter, with 32k words. Inversely, Asylum tops the lengthy read list with 168k words. Now, I'm all for adventure tales and long, emotional journeys, but it's not too often that a short story (<20k words) pulls me in its direction. Of course, there are exceptions.
This one... this is quite the exception. I suppose we will see if whatever will be, will be indeed.
Fillies and gentlecolts, Que Sera, Sera.
Author: Ponydora Prancypants
Synopsis:
Princess Celestia always knew that Twilight Sparkle was destined for great things, but she never revealed the source of that knowledge, not even to those closest to her. When the day of Twilight's true destiny finally arrives, can Celestia fulfill an ancient promise to save Equestia's past, present, and future, even it means saying goodbye to Twilight forever? How can Celestia refuse her mother's last wish?
Current length: 15,437 words (one-shot)
Status: Complete
Review: I had honestly never heard of this tale until a few months ago, when I noticed that one of my other favs (that I've been waiting on updates for months now 
) had this story referenced in the comments by quite a few people. That story was My Two Most Faithful Students, which unfortunately seems to have stalled. But never mind that; I'm already about to get emotional over QS,S without reliving the pain of that unfinished masterpiece.
So... For a while I wondered what the title actually meant, before I glanced at the chapter name and figured it out. Took me far longer than I care to admit, but whatever. Obviously the ratings are what made me think Hey, this might be worth my time someday, but also that truly gorgeous cover art. Little Tia's face is just to die for.
*Clutches heart*
It's okay, guys. I'm not actually dying. You can relax now.
Anyway, to business: Que Sera, Sera kicks off with a bang, that being the revelation that Twilight Sparkle is the mother of a young foal called Celestia, and presumably Luna as well. That said, it may not have been so immediately obvious if the story synopsis didn't spoil it, or that damnably cute cover art (brb, clutching chest again... okay, I'm good). Now I know what you're thinking: "How in the hay could this be possible? Twilight is clearly only a young mare, while Celestia has never appeared older or younger than depicted in any episode, even dating back thousands of years!" Right?
Right. Now, to answer that question, let me point you to this guy:
Know that face? If you don't, that's okay. It's probably been a long time since you watched The Terminator. That's cool. This is Kyle Reese, a freedom fighter who returns from the year 2029 to protect the mother of his leader from assassination back in 1984, so she can still give birth to him.
There's also this dude:
Everyone knows the Dragon Ball series. But, to humour you, that is Trunks, son of the saiyan Vegeta and the human Bulma, who would never have been born if he had never come to save the day in the first place. Yeah.
Now what do these two and the Twilight Sparkle of Que Sera, Sera have in common? They are part of a paradoxical time loop in their own universes that, nevertheless, remains stable and constant. You see... well, it's actually pretty hard to explain exactly how this happens in any of the cases, though it is pretty easy to summarise. Basically, the time loop in all three of them have no real defined beginning, yet neither will they ever end. Kind of like the Ouroburos effect, actually.
First point of conflict: Celestia sits atop Canterlot castle tower and watches (without offering any resistance) a worm larger than the city itself approach. She knows that it is going to try and destroy the city. She also knows that Twilight (freshly alicornised) and the other Element Bearers will come and zap it. But she also knows something else that the Bearers and her precious student do not: that doing so will unwittingly send them into the distant past—just shy of 2000 years, actually. Oh, and Twilight loses her wings and her elemental crown, while the other five also lose their gems. We don't know why... yet.
It is the last time that Celestia will ever see them. And as we read about Celestia's pain, it marks the first inkling that this tale will soon be putting us in a similar state.
In between flashbacks that make it clear that Celestia was planning for such an attack on Canterlot for a very long time, we follow the Mane Six as they (mostly Twilight) try to find a way back to their own time, all the while doing their level best to not interact with anything or anypony, lest they change the future for better or worse. After a time, they happen across a small settlement and decide to hang out there, keeping out of the townsponies' way as much as possible while still doing their fair share of work to earn their living. Days pass, then weeks, as Twilight searches desperately for a way to modify Star Swirl's original time spell.
Weeks become years... finally, Twilight gives up and resigns herself to the fact that they aren't returning home. Oh my god. Could you just imagine it: never seeing your other friends or family ever again? Knowing that you are doomed to live so far into the past that your very existence will be erased from the annals of history?
Whelp, time to cut your losses and start a new life. And what better way to do so than to shack up with a pegasus and pop out a couple of kids, eh, Twily? A white unicorn filly with a pink mane and a blue pegasus filly with a dark splotch for a birthmark? Ah, yes. Now we see how it is all possible. In between reading about Celestia's planning scenes and the more back-to-earth Mane Six in the quaint little past town of Trefoil, we see Twilight writing letters to Celestia that inform her of what has obviously happened, why she will not return, and... well, that she loves she and her sister very much.
Cue more incoming feels as we begin to realise the scale of what has happened, and what will continue to happen endlessly for all time.
Paragraph after paragraph, pang after pang. My poor heart, Prancy! Why?
It is the finale that really twists the knife, however. How many of you are subscribed to the notion that the Mane Six, as Element Bearers, are not only Bearers, but also the living embodiment of the Elements themselves? Yes, a few of you, maybe? Okay. Prancy takes it that one remaining literal step further. With Discord on the loose and there not being any Elements to stop him in their time (or princesses, for that matter), Twilight finally arrives at a most heart-wrenching decision: she and the other girls are going to become the Elements of Harmony.
Yep. That happened.
So, for clarity:
1) The Mane Six use their Elements to zap a rampaging worm, then get sent back in time, where they lose their Elements and Twilight reverts to being a unicorn.
2) They do their best to not muck up the timeline, but after some years realise the futility of doing so. So, they settle down, have some kids (in some cases, not all) and just generally live.
3) Discord comes to mess things up, and the Elements are nowhere to be found. So Twilight turns her friends and herself into the Elements, and leaves her young daughters Celestia and Luna behind to wield she and her friends as weapons against the "hodgepodge" as he's known.
4) Celestia then plans out the next bloody long time two thousand years waiting for the day when the old worm strikes, to make absolutely sure that history repeats itself perfectly.
5) Oh, and the old worm is Spike, who I forgot to mention also went back in time with the girls. Incidentally, he is the only character who is actually physically present twice at once in the old timeline.
So we can assume that somehow, the Elements (while entombed in stone) somehow managed to reincarnate in the present day, so they would be destined to wield... themselves in gem form. Yep. And the cycle repeats. Forever.
Whew. For only 15k words, the amount of feels present in this tale are off the chart. All of the emotions as the friends make heartfelt goodbyes to their families and each other really tug on the heartstrings. What's worse is that the sealing spell Twilight uses on the letters that she wrote to Celestia fades, and Celestia carries the burden of certain knowledge for over half her life, knowing what must happen. This includes knowing that her little sister will become a nightmare, because you really needed so many more feels.
Could you imagine living for millennia and planning, to the day, the hour, the minute, exactly when would be the moment you see them last, and under what conditions? Or turn it around on the Mane Six and Spike even; try to think the opposite way where their feelings are concerned.
There's also a pretty cool mention in regards to a certain constellation in the sky. Powerful.
Structurally, grammatically, mechanically, this tale hits all the high scores. I saw an instance or two of a repeated word (and and, that sort of thing) but apart from that, no real dramas. Visual imagery is fantastic, dialogue is smooth and flowy and keeps everypony perfectly in character, and there are emotions in all the right places that yet do not overstay their welcome. That said, the final farewell from Twilight to her friends seemed to drag on just long enough to have me thinking okay, just do it already!, while the existence and possibility of the paradoxical-but-fixed time loop rubs me a little the wrong way. It could have been done just a little better, I believe—just a slight variation in the setup of the loop—but I feel perfectly justified in giving this tale a well-deserved 8.5/10.
I did cry. Exactly five tears hit my shirt before I thought to grab a tissue and start wiping. If you want a story that is beautiful, hits home hard but yet feels gentle at the same time, then Que Sera, Sera is the story for you. Highly recommended.
This has been a special mid-week review from your pal, Adren. 
For fun, visit InquisitorM's review of Que Sera Sera. He... Didn't really like it; his biggest complaint was that it's emotionally manipulative in the same way My Little Dashie is.
SO you, uh, took my advice and read it. It's one of the few stories I've read that actually made me quite sad when it finished.
Glad you liked it.