Daily Equestria Life With Monster Girl: How To Enrage Two Fandoms In One Shot: a hack's boring, pointless ramble on the fine art of downvote collection · 12:09am Jul 31st, 2022
Before we get into the main event: the following blog post contains extensive spoilers for Daily Equestria Life With Monster Girl. If you haven't finished the story, haven't started the story and intend to get into it later, or believe that I'm the worst writer on the site and need to be hauled in front of a Congressional investigation so I can be jailed for Contempt Of Everything, you stop here. Actually, those of you in that last category have the option to keep going, but a good portion of that is going to be 4chan & Reddit and if y'all felt personally attacked by some of the things in the story, then A. I don't care B. that is not my problem and C. you ain't seen nothin' yet.
Second: here are my Patreon and Ko-Fi drop links. Why? Because I have learned that The Purloined Links are a thing. There are readers who can go through a 700k word count, memorizing every last detail of the story while carefully being so kind as to point out all the typos and then ask "...wait, you have a tip jar?" And I don't blame them, because that's just what happens. However, tips and new sponsors are an emotional boost, and it's nice to hear something hit the jar at the end of a long story -- so as always, it's your discretion and decision. But if you're thinking about it, my current goal on the jar is PANTS!
Yes, that's the way to say it. PANTS!
Some Tick viewers just grinned and weren't initially sure why.
Third? The link to the story's TVTropes page. Just because.
And lastly, the standard disclaimer: this blog contains a writer talking about their own work. If you can imagine something more pointless and boring than that, then your imagination clearly far exceeds mine and maybe you should have written this thing. (I like to toss 4chan a bone once in a while. It's the only boning some of them are ever gonna get.) And as various comments like to claim multiple times on any given long story, I never have any idea what I'm doing, had no plan whatsoever, and must be stopped at all costs. Because the main qualification for posting that kind of comment is having someone who can use the keyboard on your behalf.
Maybe we should start with the comments.
Every story idea has a genesis...
I first considered the base concept of this work on September 6th of 2017. And if you look deep into the comments on that blog, you can find a few of my own thoughts on the why. Because I've been following the manga of Monster Musume for some time, and...
...it frustrates me.
A lot.
We're not just talking about the fact that the U.S. release date for Volume #17 has been pushed back by about two years. (I have a revised release date. I look forward to reaching it, because that's the time when the next calendar revision can be sent out into the world.) My main issue with the series is this:
It's primarily a fanservice manga. And to me, the greatest possible fanservice would be more story.
Because as a fanservice manga, Monster Musume has something very rare.
It has characters.
There are times when I can barely look at the volumes.
There's only so many ways to remove clothing and pretend there's any degree of plot involved. To set up situations which could almost lead to sex -- commitment, choice -- and then pull back because this is a harem series and when the protagonist is surrounded by those who desire him, ain't no one gettin' any. And after a while, the situations slip down the slope and land in a region where the only purpose is to just see how many ways the artist can draw half-nude liminal girls across a hundred pages.
When the supposed fanservice is too thick on the ground, when you can't see the ground for exposed skin... it starts to feel like there's no point in continuing. I had to keep reading the series as the story was being written, and there were times when it turned into a chore because there was nothing to read. But hey, if you just wanted to stare at the pictures, feel free.
And I couldn't.
(I... skipped the second farm sequence outright because the discomfort grew too great, and that's all I'm going to say about it. However, I'm going to suggest that the younger readers do not seek that out on their own. It is in no way SFW, much less Free Of Cringe.)
Break out Syndrome again: when everything is fanservice, then... nothing is. It all just blends together. If you can still stand to look.
But sometimes it stops.
There are times when they talk.
If you've read the manga, seen the anime -- can you describe Kimihito's personality? I think most of the audience for the originals could at least make a start on it: he did get about three volumes before Insert Reader's Face Here fully set in. But for the most part, he became Generic Harem Protagonist, and there's something to pity in that.
But I'm guessing that just about everyone could talk about the personalities of the exchange students.
They made themselves distinctive within seconds, didn't they? Miia's clinginess and increasingly-desperate need to block the front door with carefully-layered snake tail. Papi's somewhat questionable innocence, combined with that endless desire to go and see. Mero's desire to write her own tale (and not necessarily get a happy ending), Suu trying to learn about everything, Rachnera's fear of having anyone truly know her, Lala looking for that one person who would gaze past the scythe and find the sundress...
They were people, almost from the start. And to me, the best moments in the series are when we're watching those personalities interact, trying to make sense of their housemates and the world around them. If the series had been a true slice of life, then... imagine some of the things they could have done. Seven innocents abroad, trying to reconcile an environment they'd never known and had barely dared to dream of.
When the girls play off each other... that's when I feel the story is at its best. There's so much there to work with.
And too much of the time, they're treated as manikins.
Something from which a blouse can be removed.
Because that's the genre.
Exchange students who never, ever actually go to school.
(I had to account for that in the story. I wound up having to fill in for a lot of things.)
But when it comes to that genre... as characters, they're more three-dimensional than most. And of the seven... I always felt Cerea was the most complex.
You can see it, here and there.
There can be a lot of bluster. There's also plenty of evidence that it is bluster. Some panels show the insecurity rising underneath, at the speed of a spreading blush. You could argue that in many ways, she's the shyest of the girls -- while trapped in a body which can't exactly be overlooked and, if she turns too quickly without checking her environment, tends to have the lower torso launch obstacles into walls. And people. Cerea has sent Kimihito on short flights through the simple act of rotation. She wants to be a knight, the protector, the hero -- but she also wishes to simply blend in, to be accepted into this new world as part of the crowd. And she can't.
She can combine a distinct sexual aggression with being almost utterly naive. She knows what she wants, but has very little concept of how to go about it and no idea of what she's actually doing.
Control issues, a desire for the most basic of contact to the point where simply having her hand held is almost the most she can dream of for herself, a constant need to push, the ongoing terror of failure and at the instant her mother stepped into a panel, all of it was understood.
(It was actually slightly before that. There's a panel which shows Cerea, Miia, and Papi receiving letters telling them that their parents are coming to visit. Cerea's expression is something less than happy.)
That's what I thought I saw.
But that's also who I told myself she was. Because that's character interpretation.
No two writers treat a character in the same way. A series bible serves as the source of first distortion. For MLP, you can sometimes pick out the writer on an episode by the way they've having a given pony speak. We all change those we borrow at the moment we make contact. It's inevitable. And characters change over the course of a story, because that's the journey.
It's also a surefire way to piss a lot of people off.
You can see it in the blog comments. I had been thinking about it from an angle of -- ultimate outsider. The challenge (and pain) of trying to exist in a place where the myths were against you. All anypony knew of centaurs was Tirek and in this version, the offshoot of the main 'verse where the shadows were a little deeper... Tirek's attack had killed. Pegasi drained in flight was most of that. Others had just been in the wrong place, because giants aren't always all that careful about where they step, and he simply didn't care.
They would see her, and they would see falling bodies.
I thought about it for a long time. I spent more than a year in making the occasional note. Wondering what would happen if you took the character out of the fanservice, and let her be complex. And on February 25th of 2019, I went for it.
I'd like to think the most immediate reaction wasn't readership anger.
I'd like to think a lot of things.
It's become a running joke, of the sort that was never funny. And when I broke it out a few times over the course of this story, people would ask me why I wasn't giving their anger the honor of a personalized reply.
Ask me what I remember about my first longform story. The dominant impression from Triptych. And I'd tell you it was people constantly telling me how much I clearly hated Twilight.
Protagonist: person chosen by fate to be hit repeatedly in the face until situation and morale both improve.
I can take scant comfort in the fact that I'm hardly the only writer to face this. I once read The War Against The Chtorr, and I'm not going to link it because I don't want any of you reading it. It's not the quality of the writing: that's fine. It's the fact that those of you who are waiting out the Game Of Thrones delay? Are the amateurs. Chtorr has been stuck on Volume Four (Of Seven) for twenty-nine years, and I will never ask anyone to go into a series which will never reach what was supposedly a planned conclusion.
But that protagonist had a very rough road to travel. The only man trying to truly understand an alien invasion, when most of the planet had given up and the world had very little time left. Someone dismissed, shoved aside, and ignored because humanity preferred to go down while still enjoying petty power games. And some people in the readership wrote the author, because they wanted to know how he could do that to poor James. Why give him such a tremendous burden to carry? It had to be...
...sadism.
Torture.
No. It's called 'being a protagonist'. We seldom meet the central character of a story on the best day of their life and when that happens, I can almost guarantee that things are going to fall apart in a hurry. A story is about the journey, the struggle, and that means needing something to struggle against. The greater the hero, the stronger the challenge.
So with Triptych... Twilight had a challenge. She was struggling. She faced some of the worst days of her life, and a few readers responded through deciding I hated her. Because they cared about Twilight, and that meant anyone who would put her through all of it clearly didn't.
On that story, I was accused of hating the main character.
With Cerea, someone pulled out the term 'torture porn'.
And maybe part of that was because they cared about her and didn't want to watch her on the worst days of her life.
Or they just didn't understand how the label of 'protagonist' worked.
There's a point in the story where Cerea appears to wind up in the shadowlands. And the greatest effort in writing that section came in what happened after I finished. Because there were a few people whom I blocked over the course of this story. More than a few. Daily Equestria Life With Monster Girl features both the largest number of redthumbs I've collected on a single work to date and the greatest number of those whom I don't feel like ever dealing with again. And I just wanted to visit a few site userpages for those who'd accused me of torture porn, of deviating from Series-Only Actions to the point of sinning (and by the way, that trigger warning is now permanent), and post a single line on each. The same line.
I killed your waifu.
Because @$%^ you, that's why. Because if that's what you're going to believe of me, then let's just run with it. After all, there's no way you're ever going to believe it was part of the original plan. The journey. The Hero's Journey, if you will, and Cerea even thinks about herself in those terms before the descent into the underworld -- before rejecting every way it could apply, because she didn't see herself as the hero.
Cerea doesn't feel very good about herself.
No better than second to anyone.
That's part of the struggle.
And there was a long road to walk.
I go deep into the shadows. It's uncomfortable territory for many. Grimdark -- that's the stuff which probably isn't going to happen to anyone, and you can laugh at so much of it. But within my catalog... characters go through feelings of inadequacy, people don't understand them, they're hated for things they never did, for just existing and when it comes to reality --
-- say it with me.
Too close.
The readership didn't want to see her suffer. (If there was anyone who stuck around because they thought it was torture porn -- well, maybe that was the most recent downvote. 'How dare you have an uplifting ending!') And that made me into the villain, because I was so clearly hurting her. This was all my fault.
I've got a response for that, and the ones who felt this was all designed to hurt her -- them -- aren't going to like it.
"Made you care."
She descends into Tartarus. She emerges because she went, of her own free will, to the lowest level.
You go through the worst of it so you can come out stronger on the other side.
That's a protagonist.
And if you're someone who still don't get it... then I'm not expecting you to say so in the comments. Frankly, there's a good chance that I already blocked you.
Themes
Isolation
Trapped in the gap. Alone in a herd. Kept in a cell, or in the barracks. Unable to go outside without having somepony clear the path, because what if the mere sight of you sets off a fear reaction? A stampede...?
Cerea, even in the middle of a crowd, stands alone. She's always going to be visible. For most situations, Japan included, she'll be the only one of her species within a significant radius. She feels alone, and part of that is because she's never really had the chance to be close with anyone -- including her own parents.
There's a few echoes present in the story. Tartarus serves: very few things are more isolated than a prison. The palace plays its part: the Princesses can leave -- but something always follows, and it could be argued that the best parts of them are locked away within the walls. They try to keep the doors open, to invite the population in (until a portion invites itself), but -- those ponies are coming to see alicorns, and that means it's all they see. There's a pair of mares in the palace and for the grand total of those who actually perceive them that way, they might as well be invisible.
Hatred and fear
A phobia isn't necessarily a natural reaction, much less a logical one. But it'll always have a base, and that may be centered in belief.
You could say the same for bigotry.
And fear disguises itself as hatred, because it's easier to say that you loathe the different than to admit that you're frightened of not being the superior.
Yes, there are bigots in Equestria. (Hi! Nice to meet you! Did you watch the show? Really? Then why don't you go and watch it again? I think you missed a few details.) Maybe there always will be. And yes, I'm aware that G5 came out while the story was in progress, I'm guessing a few of you were uncomfortable with some of what that implied and guess what? Too close.
And Cerea is different, more different than anything else in the world, she's associated with thousands of bad memories, with terror and death and it doesn't have to be logical or make sense. It just has to exist. People redirect their fear all the time. It's easier than dealing with it.
Everyone's afraid. The Princesses don't let very many people get all that close, even when they want to -- and part of that is because there's fear in the way. Nightwatch winds up with a pretty good reason to be afraid of how others are judging her. Barding's decided the world outside his kingdom is too strange: it's easier to stay near the forge. The ones outside the gates? They're afraid of being normal, and they'll do anything to feel superior. To never have to admit that just maybe, the world isn't against them and their flaws just might be their fault.
Fear wears a thousand masks, because the one thing fear can't stand is to look at itself in a mirror. That's when it all falls apart.
And fear is so easy to justify. To use. Especially if you happen to be fond of profit.
{sarcasm}Can't imagine any real-world models on that.{/blatant}
Communication
Imagine a UFO touches down in front of you, or a dimensional gate yawns open in a burst of light and something new steps into sight. You're faced with something which has never existed in the world.
Here's some things you're probably not going to say.
"Now, just so you know, we've got a twenty-four hour day. The actual period of day and night is a variable. Axial tilt. Anyway, you'll want to set your watch. And this is summer. We have seasons. Do you know what those are? Well, it's partially influenced by that axial tilt. I should probably explain that eventually. And when it comes to accumulating and dispersing heat, the water table plays a part. How much do you know about water tables? By the way, I assume you're an oxygen-breather?"
There are things you don't think to talk about because you assume everyone knows. That some points of information almost have to remain the same. Why does nopony tell Cerea about the raising of Sun and Moon? Because it's a foal question. You're born, you find out that the alicorns are moving them, you accept it, and that's just how it works. You can't picture it as working any other way. Look at Fancypants when he's talking to Cerea before bringing her back to the party -- a meeting of the two seneschals, not that the younger one was aware of it at the time -- and consider what it means for how Menajeria views science fiction. The universe has to be full of life, because the excuse for that is all they know.
Some topics are never raised because the ones who do have answers can't imagine that you don't.
Cerea's reaction to learning the truth may be a logical one.
(Seriously: how would you take it? 'There are two ponies keeping this planet alive. As soon as we get elevators, we're going to develop a policy about never letting them use the same one.')
Our protagonist is slow to talk about herself: because there's too many secrets, and one of those used to be her entire existence. (This connects to Luna rather directly.) Because she really doesn't feel she's worth talking about most of the time, and barely has anyone she can talk to. There's a few things going on in this story which would become a lot easier if people would just communicate and as in reality, it's hard to open the connection. Cerea needs some time before she even starts truly arguing with herself, forcing the fear in front of the silvered glass.
Monsters
Those who are.
Those who are not.
There are monsters everywhere, if you know how to look. Some of them wear pony skins.
Or human...
Inversion
Some of the conventions of Cerea's genre follow her, and all stop working.
She's nude quite a bit of the time: there's certainly enough bath scenes. (How did I get away with this under the Teen rating? Nothing's described. You can imagine as many blocking bath bubbles as you like.) But I personally don't feel any of it qualifies for fanservice, and while I know I'm not the best judge there... it doesn't seem like there's anything sexy present in someone who's not feeling all that good about herself. And she can be exposed as much as she likes (although it takes some time to confront the locker room), because who's actually going to care? It's only taboo if she thinks it is.
She doesn't quite gather a harem around her. But she's magnetic, in her way, and not all of that is repulsion. It's observed early on: she makes friends with surprising ease -- if anyone lets her get that close, and it's 'anyone' because one of the main parties holding Cerea back resides within her own skin.
And -- I admit this freely -- there was also the concept of... inverting a Displaced story. For the bad versions of those tales, where every protagonist is the author's self-insert with costume and full-scale power trip.
As with a certain other story, I refused to consider the costume route. If I'm going to be sued into the ground, it'll be for the real thing, thankee. (Subject to character interpretation.) But once I had her...
For bad Displaced stories:
The Displaced character's pre-Equestria background serves as something to hang their powerset on, and this assumes anyone bothers to give them a life beyond 'entered convention's merchandise hall'. Cerea's life had to follow her. Powers? Yeah, we're partially going to ignore those. As far as she's concerned, anything she can do is something where another in the herd could best her. The one unique thing she gained in the transfer isn't in her: it's in several pieces of plastic. Those can be removed or taken away, and this isn't the 'and it all teleports back to me after killing whoever touched it, plus it also gives me their magic forever, nyah-nyah' variant. And the bad Displaced character, who has so little pre-story life to look back on, just sets out to merrily explore (or conquer, or kill, or try to have sex with) the world...
...but for Cerea, there had to be an inner refrain.
Something which might be a constant, for those stripped from their lives without consent.
Kidnapped.
I want to go home.
It would just take her some time to realize what that actually meant.
Echoes
As with Anchor Foal, we are all our childhoods, with a varying amount of scar tissue built up over the original wounds. Cerea, not quite an adult yet, is still bleeding.
Everything is a reminder of her own inadequacies. She can't win. She doesn't deserve to win. She never won before, and what does victory even feel like, anyway? She's lost, she can't save herself, a true knight would...
...a true centaur...
Some people asked when Cerea had left her timeline. After the joust against her mother, before Smith had asked her to track down a few liminals on her own. (I suggested that had been brought up, but hadn't worked out.) But it's close enough to the joust that she's still thinking about what she learned there. Over and over. She wants to stop, and she can't.
We often meet a protagonist on the worst day of their life.
In Cerea's case, that may have already happened. And the echoes keep traveling.
Immigration and integration
Dozens of liminal species, trying to find a place in a human society which had convinced itself that it was at the top of the food chain, and now doesn't want to reconcile that, in griffon terms, the best it can do is offer to share the link.
One girl, hoping to carve out a single place to stand within a new herd.
Characters
Oh, this might take a while...
Antagonists
Wordia Spinner
She will tell them a story: something they'll accept as reality because history is supposedly written by the winners, but the important part is that it's read about by those who weren't there.
...so. This bitch.
(She'd take it as a compliment. And then she'd start working on an article about whoever had dared to say it.)
Wordia is one of the oldest characters in the overall 'verse: she initially turns up in Luna's Lottery Lunacy and A Total Eclipse Of The Fun, then fully takes the stage in Naked Lunch -- and she's been playing bad smidgen ever since. She keeps turning up, and prefers to land on edge because that's the best way to work into a hoof crack.
If you have a favorite news source, then you can probably name a Wordia of your own -- and she'll be working for the channel which opposes yours. (No examples in the comments, please.) Her main concern is finding a way to make whatever you did wrong and if you actually agree with her? You hypocrite! She relies on her readership running off emotion, she doesn't have to be consistent in her approach as long as she always travels through a swamp of festering hate, it's her job to turn up the pressure on the boiler and the bottles are what keep her from having to think about what happens to those who are standing next to it when it explodes.
Previous stories had hinted at the alcoholism. She's functional -- but she's one of those people who's starting to reach the point where basic function might require a two-drink minimum and without that, she might start to shut down. She is getting worse. And most of how she initially sees Cerea is as something she can use. The palace is now wrong about this. Does it matter if Cerea is innocent? No, because Cerea barely has to exist. She isn't an individual: she's a story, and Wordia rarely comes close to using her name. Something which might bring things to the edge of the personal. Even the repeated requests for an interview may just be looking for something else to use -- or not.
She's not a good person, and I'm not going to pretend she gets much better. But she has more common sense than most who stoke the flames. On some level, she's aware that it can only all work if she's wrong. Absolute dictators would have shut her down by now, and her perfect little world of proving others as idiots can only continue to exist if the whole thing doesn't burn down. Call it the ultimate in enlightened self-interest: Wordia would like the planet to keep existing because otherwise, the next edition is going to be the last one. Declaring final victory over ashes doesn't have much of a point, especially when there's no one left to listen. Or read.
Wordia's future is uncertain. The Tattler is dying. She needs to write: it's what her mark demands of her -- but you could argue that she hasn't truly been listening to her mark for a very long time. Another reason for the bottles.
She has to write. But it's too early to say what she might be writing about.
Mrs. Panderaghast (plus the supremacists and traveling echo bubbles)
And if you don't believe there's a profit margin in hate...
It was said during the story. Get them mad, and keep them that way. Tell them how special they are. Donate to the special cause, and there's always a special cause. Or a Special Cause. You can have them three times in a busy moon. And the money goes to you, some of it will be spent on more mailings for the next Special Cause, and you don't ever actually win because here's the secret about war profiteering: it ends when the war is over.
A child kicking out a tantrum. The monster whose only concern is that she no longer gets to use her comfortable lair, and so she's going to make sure she breaks yours. All she cares about is what affects her and if she makes a move that seems to be protecting someone else, she's likely just shielding herself. She sells out Ms. Manners in a heartbeat (offscreen) because it's somepony else she can hurt and besides, earth pony. Not that she would have cared if her source had been a unicorn, because the only one who matters is her.
She would have done very well for herself on YouTube, don't you think? Imagine some of the podcasts.
Quite a few of the invaders are facing significant prison time. A few will repent: a smaller number will actually mean it. Others will use this as the proof that they were the victims all along, because the ultimate defense of those who hate is "STOP HITTING ME BACK!" But Mrs. Panderaghast? She won't learn. She's not capable of it. Monsters can't care, and they're not all that much better at change.
And nopony knows where Geodene Fracture is...
The arsonist
And I still haven't named her. I may never name her, and that was done on purpose. Her identify is her affiliations. After a while, it becomes her hate. She needs to have others telling her that she's special and when she's left in a position where she can only talk to herself, she becomes more special than ever.
She almost saves the world. Or so she may see it, for the rest of her life.
She exists as a plot element. Set the fire. Get into Ponyville, and then she has to be moved out. Take her into the palace, and... everything breaks. Something was brought into the palace which nearly broke a nation, and it wasn't Cerea. Go figure. But for personality... petulant, petty, in denial, lying to herself and everypony around her...
...insane.
In her way, she's a victim. She didn't have friends, love, anything she felt was special about herself, and... she found those who were willing to substitute for two-thirds while endlessly providing the rest. I think it's possible to feel some pity for her.
But there's very little left there now. And what remains has to be kept away from children.
Tirek
We only want what we can't have.
Tirek is offstage for most of the story. We only know him through his effect on the world, in every echo inflicted upon a girl who has the misfortune to share some part of his shape. He's the reason for all of the hatred, the fear, the death and when we finally get a look at him, it's a moment when Cerea is coming face to face with one of her torturers -- shortly after repeatedly hitting the other one. Or a simulation thereof.
And when he's actually there...
I wanted to make a monster.
Something from the old Universal set. There can be a little sympathy. You can see how there might have been something else there once. He had a family. Maybe he lived and laughed and loved. But... he killed his brother. (I thought I made it fairly clear that this Scorpan never made it home.) He's killed a lot of people. Or... drained a lot of charge sources. It's not as if they're people any more.
He wasn't always a monster. But he's not coming back. And when it comes to everything he did, everything he's going to do again -- there was only one way to end it.
In a way, seeing Cerea awakens the last of what might have been left within him, just in time to see it die. He spends the entire meeting aware that he's being lied to on some level -- but at the same time, this is his dream, one which might be older than the hope for magic.
(Or something he would finally recognize as such. For the record, he did have power -- but it was largely sensory, and he never saw it as true magic because it just didn't do enough. Ask Cerea about what a little extra range on one sense can do.)
He had seen a herd. He was looking at someone who had come from that herd. That meant there was a chance for him to go...
There was a moment when he had not just hope, but company. And then it ended.
The deep place does specialize in torment.
(Just to clear up a few things which didn't get to appear in the story: it's not just thaum draining, it's using magic to keep him 'alive' -- and the more thaums he absorbs, the more alive he truly is: it's why he's capable of bleeding when Diamond's embedded tiara splits the shrinking hoof. FOME called him a surgically-created vampire, and it's as fair a description as any. I also had the benefit of having established platinum's effects in earlier works, and Trixie knew ponies had died trying to use it to boost themselves: it's part of the road she rejected before trying for the Amulet. It gave me a way to grant him power which operated within the previous rules -- although I don't doubt that I was just about the only one who cared.)
Cerea's mother (in absentia)
the shadow follows
it stays with you through all the paths of your life
you walk within it
and if you ever escaped
you might flee from what you felt was the agony of light
(Unless I missed something major (or a translation got overlooked), she never gets a name in the original source material. I've searched.)
She was better once. But then, you could say the same thing about the entire centaur species. They were all better once. And now there's half of a species left, trying to figure out how to survive when extinction is starting to look like the soft option.
But she's spent so much of her life in fear. And fear masquerades as the need for control.
How is she pregnant? It was a human: how can she be pregnant? What is she pregnant with? -- all right, it's a filly, but there's human blood, somehow a filly with human blood, and the dilution (with that word taken directly from the manga) has to have done some damage. The filly looks normal. So it's a matter of finding out where the damage is, before something goes wrong. And the way we do that is to test everything, constantly. To push until a pair of backs feel as if they must break.
Does she love her daughter? I would say she wanted to, at least at the start. But she's been scared for a very long time, and some of that is fear being felt for a child who shouldn't exist -- but there's also more than a little directed towards herself, because there would be consequences for others learning about what had truly happened. Fear takes over, and love fades. Even when she finally admits the truth, there's some cruelty in there. The passing of fear to another. I'm fine, but you're diluted. And you can see it as an abusive relationship, for the emotional aspects. A cross between the stage and bleachers parent: push harder, run faster, do better, and it's never good enough --
-- but that's the fear.
Within the story, we only know her from memory. As the shadow she casts over Cerea's life, the pain never noticed until it finally departs. (I welcomed the chance to finally use Buddy Hackett's classic heartburn joke in a dramatic situation.) And she was better once. But she's been afraid for a long time. And she's not the kind of mare who can stand to hear someone tell her she's wrong. If Cerea ever got home, and truly confronted her... there would be another fight.
She wouldn't be expecting to lose.
Perhaps she's already lost her daughter.
A construct was targeted with a sword. And the girl had longed to hit something for a very long time.
Tartarus
It dreams.
Perhaps you should let it remain asleep.
Central Cast
On the other side of the equation, in some particular order...
The Bearers
I spent a good part of the story in dodging the conventions of the Displaced tale, and one of them was in not having the group meet our protagonist until more than half of it had passed. Also, Cerea still hasn't been Partied. I'm not completely sure Fancypants counts.
(I am fully aware that I angered a lot of people through showing a furious Fluttershy -- but as Celestia says (and the show has demonstrated), she has a history of taking out her anger on the wrong targets, and she'd been in mourning for Discord across several months. I was just as worried about the reveal that this story was actually the original sequel to Anchor Foal. Fleur had to appear in the palace hallways to see her partner off -- and I knew that having her there was just going to confuse the bulk of the readership. Add five more downvotes...)
The Bearers are mostly present to get Cerea into (and out of) Tartarus, along with providing some necessary information. It also gave me a chance to show them through her eyes (and nose), along with getting a few things wrong in the silliest ways possible. 'Elite military unit' just about became its own running joke, and our poor centaur has no idea why it's funny. Also, yes, Trixie was working with them. And she has an operational brain. You already downvoted for that. Open up seven more accounts so you can do it again. Wait until you find out what I'm doing with the other one.
I can't say she's friends with any of them, but there will at least be the chance to deepen a few relationships: Twilight and Trixie are still researching the problem, Rarity will make an outfit in time, and Fluttershy is... thankful. Plus let's face it: Cerea may wind up in Ponyville eventually, at least for a visit.
(Where she still won't be Partied. At least, not as a new resident. After all, she doesn't live there.)
The Household
Traveling. Disaster. Area.
(So at least Cerea won't be surprised by that aspect of the Bearers.)
For the most part, we only know them through Cerea's perceptions -- and for many, many reasons, I usually left Kimihito out of those recollections.
She loves them all, in her way.
Even the spider.
Really.
Lala
I was setting that up for what felt like ages...
Some people kept asking when the rest of the crew was going to appear. For Menajeria, the fair answer was 'never', because one of the themes was isolation and having a bunch of exchange students pop in would sort of break that. Permanently.
But I'd said there was a pact. I wanted the dullahans to have that aspect of the fae about them: that they could go a very long way to keep a promise. And Lala's always been shown to be capable of visiting the afterlife, at least for a little while. A place where she breaks out the sundress, because the cloak becomes somewhat redundant.
As with everyone, there's some character interpretation going on. She has no need for the drama while among the souls: it isn't as if there's any humans watching. It's just her with a sister, and so the somewhat-crude Irish girl comes out to have a talk with the sibling who's just a little bit stubborn and, on more than a few topics, potentially sort of dumb.
That's what you get with family.
Barding
I first started talking about falling into the mark quite some time ago: among other things, it's my excuse for Davenport and so many of the other ponies who only seem to exist as extensions of their icons. Barding shows that the palace is trying to protect a few who are seen as vital: with Ms. Manners, this was arguably a mistake.
The fallen need someone to guide them out. But they'll resist if they feel they're being led, and with Barding... as was noted in the comments, he switched his perceptions of Cerea in a hurry: monster to girl to blacksmith over about thirty seconds. It gave him a connection he hadn't possessed in years. And for her part, she didn't know she was leading the way.
He's actually a surprisingly relaxing character to write. I don't have to worry about too many complexities when I'm dealing with Barding. He's not so much willfully blind to certain things as wearing vision blockers (of metal!) because it's just easier that way. And one of the story beats which wasn't in the initial notes? His reaction to seeing Cerea's mark. But really, how else was he ever going to take it?
He's happy for her...
Yapper
She's been lurking as a named-but-unseen character for a while, with her hiring mentioned in A Mark Of Appeal. This was a chance to finally show her -- and to demonstrate that social shyness can also mean 'troll'. But at the same time, she's willing to be a friend to Cerea. On her terms, which may or may not mean scritches.
It's been noted that she's unusually good at looking forward in time for a Diamond Dog. Leaving the pack can have its benefits, and she's an unusual canid to start with. And I know at least one person is curious about the life-planning pattern carved into the warren walls...
I designed her to resemble someone I lost.
Miss you, Little Bear.
Emery
Almost immediately after he first appeared, I knew I had to bring him back. I knew Cerea was going to be placed in the Guard, and who else could train a centaur?
Emery represents the chance to use some of the drill sergeant stereotypes -- the positive ones, because the profession exists for a reason. He had to show why some of those methods work, and he also had to stand in judgment of Cerea while doing so without fear. In his own way, he exists as an outsider to the herd -- or the leader of a smaller, very select one. It gives him a certain amount of perspective, along with a great deal of raw volume. And regardless of what Cerea might think, there are ways in which he does serve as a father figure to the Guard. Most of them have given him the chance to hide regrets and sorrows within a taut, perfect posture.
He cares about her. He cares about all of them, or he wouldn't be a sergeant. He just chooses his own ways to show it. And given what he did for her -- well, some demonstrations are definitive.
(Prominent among my notes: NO DEATH OF THE MENTOR. Actual capslock. Emery was going to survive the story. He's a little defiant that way.)
The Sisters
the younger could, with some truth, be regarded as a hyperintelligent force of nature, only one with lingering emotional issues and the public relations skills of an avalanche
One of the problems I came into this story with: I was using the terminology, magic rules, and characterizations from an extant 'verse -- when the bulk of the readership would only be present for Cerea, with no idea that any such 'verse existed.
Characterizations change with every writer. They build up differences over time. And that meant that the readers would be getting my 'warped' versions of Celestia and Luna. The sunny smile and the lashing tail. The only pony survivors of the Discordian Era, and 'survivors' very much applies. Two mares who've chosen to be good, because they know what all the other options look like.
It's... a little jarring when you have to take it all in at once.
This is a Diarchy. The sisters operate as equals -- although Luna's rightfully noted that Celestia has some trouble with the concept after working alone for so long. Each is a power in her own right, and it's a question of how they choose to use it. Luna is the more intelligent, while Celestia is far more socially adept. They balance -- and in some ways, they stand in opposition.
And with Luna, who was still doing battle against a story...
Celestia serves as the more gentle presence of authority to Cerea: always thinking about her nation, but not willing to look past the needs of a solitary girl. (And yet oh dear sweet pony gawds, can she kick some @$$. I have been longing to write her in a real fight scene for years, and this finally gave me the opportunity to bring out Grimcess and General in one blazing package.) Luna sees someone who isn't afraid of her, because Cerea doesn't know anything about her. A tale which crossed a world didn't find a way to reach another and for this, the girl is an innocent. It gives her someone she might be able to connect with.
Luna is really bad at making connections.
She excuses her own dream invasions after they're no longer strictly necessary: it's learning about another world, about Cerea -- and doing so in a way where she never has to take the risk of making herself vulnerable. Luna's been lonely for a long time, and... centuries of losing those she loved makes her reluctant to try again. She knows how it ends -- eventually, and becoming an expert at funerals hasn't made her all that good with moving on.
The sisters can be complex: they've had a lot of time to become so. But they need people around them. Sometimes, they make mistakes, and... need to be forgiven.
They need friends.
Blitzschritt
"Describe your most popular OC."
"Dead."
I... wasn't expecting her to catch on like that.
I liked the idea of having each recruit assigned a lost Guard to study: someone whom their Sergeant felt they could learn from. One unique recruit required another, and that led to Blitzschritt's genesis. Someone who'd found a way to fit in with the Guard, because she hadn't managed the feat anywhere else: her own link to Cerea, and having them meet briefly in the shadowlands ultimately required no words at all.
I'm in a position where I can't do much with her. She's lost in the deep past, buried a long time ago and beyond all hope of recovery. We know how her story ends. But it was a tale of sacrifice, and... it felt like people just liked her. The reaction was stronger than I'd been expecting, especially for someone who'd truly existed for just about one chapter. So I used her a little more than I'd initially planned. My own version of fanservice.
She is remembered. And none are truly gone as long as their name is still spoken.
The plinth remains in the mountain courtyard.
(The ibex are first mentioned in A Duet For Land And Sky -- but it's just a mention, along with stating that Granny has met one and establishing German as their use language. (Incidentally, 'Blitzschritt' translates to 'Lightning Step'.) This was the first actual look at the reclusive species which holds so many of the mountains, and questions about the magic inherent in the metaconcept of stability are still on the rise.)
Nightwatch
Here's a little secret for building a 'verse: remember what you did before, and then decide if you're going to use it again.
Nightwatch has been around for years. She's first named as a Guard traveling with Luna. Then she got a speaking line here and there. Some of the awkwardness started to come out. After a while, she acquired a bag of coins. And all that happened because I had named her and if a situation called for a Lunar Guard, I could bring her back in. Give somepony a name and they start to take on a presence.
A personality...
There's something which is, in some ways, just a little less hard than being one of the Little Rock Nine.
Being the first person to befriend them.
It's easy to imagine, isn't it? Your parents take you aside. Are you sure you want to be seen with them? We know they have to be here, but there's people working on that and eventually, they'll be gone. You don't want the associations. And maybe more than just your parents take you aside, maybe there's teachers and politicians who want to have a word and not all of them are exactly going to be thanking you for caring. Maybe someone pulls you into an alley and decides to teach an object lesson on Sticking With Your Own Kind. It's easy to do that when the words are being spelled out in shed blood.
There can be a price to pay for being the one to take in the outcast. Nightwatch is among the first to see the girl, because it's harder to be afraid of someone after you've read them a story. But after someone else recognizes that a relationship of sorts exists, the bill comes due. The fear surges again and, because it has to disguise itself, picks the wrong target. It takes Luna to make Nightwatch face herself and realistically? That speech could have referred to alicorn or centaur. I did my best to write it that way.
Her fundamental awkwardness (which in no way slows her down in a fight) adds something to writing her: in particular, 'Um' somehow began to approach a catchphrase. And she understands the girl better than any: when Cerea is ashamed, afraid, guilty, or being a little petty. But she's now willing to deal with all of it, because that's her friend and anypony who wants to get at the centaur will have to go through her.
They're friends. They aren't lovers, and they're never going to be. (Some of you were thinking about it.)
But the girl still hasn't managed to talk the pegasus out of the nuzzling.
Cerea
Waking up in the light
Of a shining new day
Giving thanks to the moon
For guiding my way
There is no greater gift to the soul
Than each breath that my body can hold
So great spirit
Hear my voice todayWelcome, magic
Welcome, sweet sun ray
Love is no secret,
Look all around you
Welcome to this day
No bluster. What's the point? We get to see her temper a few times (and she does have one), but she's in a situation where she's already lost all control.
No love. Kimihito is gone. There are no humans at all, and she hardly feels anything towards ponies. There's no one to hold her hand. Nopony who's even willing to touch her.
Her vulnerability rises to the surface, and... she doesn't know how to protect herself. There is no armor which prevents emotional wounds, especially when you've been forced into a place which reeks of fear. The terror produced by seeing a centaur.
No house.
No family.
No way home.
How did you feel, on the worst day of your life...?
She gave herself a name which no one ever called her because she hated the sound of her own that much.
'Centaur Centaur.'
The disc wouldn't even let her be something else.
Even in the manga, Cerea has depressive tendencies. She doesn't do well with losing, and the conventions of the genre have placed her in a situation where she can't win. Anyone besting her at anything tends to place her under a personal storm cloud: having this include physical attributes means she really doesn't deal well with her own version of minotaurs. She's far from home, in a culture she barely understands, relying on stories for her information and yes, she really did decide that the best way to meet someone in Japan was through charging up and down an alley as if she was horribly late for something. She's on the superstitious side, rather old-fashioned in many ways, the sexual aggressiveness (and lack of any true idea as to what she's actually doing) has been noted, the bluster can get annoying fast...
...but then you look underneath it all, and there's a very lonely girl there. One who crossed half a world in search of contact, because I took so much of the relationship with her mother directly from the source material. Cerea left her gap to find a partner. ('Master', used to address Kimihito, was seen as giving him permission to take certain liberties in contact.) To find someone who would love her.
Because she hadn't felt loved for a long time.
One of the questions I wound up facing early on was 'What kind of personality voluntarily puts herself in a harem genre situation?' Not a healthy one. Lala's the one who says it: they're all damaged goods. In Cerea's case, she's so desperate for love -- for acceptance as to go into war in a battle which she's convinced she can't win, because victory is something of a foreign concept and currency alike. But at the very least, while the conflict goes on... there might be a chance for someone to hold her hand. And even when she loses (because she knows she'll lose), she'll still be away from the herd. From her mother, which is part of what turns the visit into such an initial shock -- and leads to her going into a new battle against her own parent, because staying in the house is something to fight for.
And there's other girls. They're rivals, yes. But someone has to watch over them, because see Traveling Disaster Area. If anyone's going to be in charge, it should clearly be her...
...when Cerea becomes upset, it shows in her speech. She goes formal again. It's a way of trying to find control.
But when she truly doesn't know what she's supposed to do... when she has nothing to draw on, and control must be asserted...
...she turns into her mother.
It's not a good thing.
Cerea became an exchange student to get out of the gap. (Something which took more than a little courage, after being present at the first riot.) To escape herd and parent. But also because she wanted to find love. To have a family. And she was willing to cross half a world to get it.
She winds up crossing two, plus some fragments of a few others along the way.
I wanted people to take her seriously. Those who share some degree of her build will recognize that with certain segments of the audience, that can become a challenge. The genre origin didn't help either.
She's always struck me as being a complex character -- and there's that interpretation again. (Wait! I'm going to sin some more!) But she was trapped within the conventions of her genre, and that meant there was only so far she could ever go. A limited number of chances to both express and define herself. And bringing her into Equestria...
...was going to make things worse for her. Giving her the sword didn't change that, because it was a source of power which could be taken away -- and even that power was a source of fear. She couldn't do anything: she could only prevent others from acting. A trotting, very localized expression of NO.
(It took a while before I could explain why the sword and hairpins had that effect. If Equestria (or another nation) does advance to plastic manufacture, the material will be normal. And all I could do was watch the comments stream by and wait.)
I was putting her into a situation where the world itself would be terrified of her. All of the fragile-seeming bonds from Japan torn away, with nothing to replace them. Living within that reek of fear, while constantly being perceived as... a monster.
It was going to make things worse.
But that's not torture porn. That's called 'plot'. The story arc. The journey. And you send a protagonist through it all so they'll come out stronger on the other side.
So they'll be... accepted.
It was always the plan to have her gain a mark in the end. And if you can think of a stronger sign which shows that the world itself took her in...
"How is she?"
Sometimes writers get asked questions about their characters. (Or the ones they've borrowed.) Queries which imply an existence after the story. Something independent of every author.
How is she...?
There were a few who were upset that I never brought her home -- but there was a reason for that. Throughout the story, it's the same thought: 'I want to go home.' The last sentence says that for now, she is home.
Maybe she'll get back to Japan some day. But for now? She's making her own way. And she still has some issues. She has a temper, you know, and sometimes it comes out. There's ways in which she's slightly petty. Did you notice that she's a little bigoted, here and there? She doesn't exactly think much of humans as a species, not that she has much of a reason to.
But integration takes work. Every day, to make them see you. So does self-acceptance. Every day, to face the mirror and not see distortions staring back.
How is she? I think she feels better about herself now. That there are days when she's happier, and there's more of them. That she has a chance.
That's what emigration is about, you know. Leaving everything you knew (while carrying a portion in your heart, because it's hard to fully escape) in search of a chance. The hope that things will change. Be better than they once were.
She went through Tartarus and came back out. In several definitions and aspects.
I think you could say she won.
Random Thoughts
* There were a surprising number of people who came into this story without knowing it was a crossover -- and I don't mean not being familiar with the other side of the meeting: not knowing that there was something to cross over with at all. I've sort of been wondering what their reaction was when they found all that fan art and professional animation of what they'd presumed to be my OC.
* Sorry, kids: the centaur breeding technique was one of the parts I didn't make up. I had to explain how the recruits were gathered, but the actual process from there? Straight from the source material. A few readers were openly horrified about that, and I so rarely get to pass the blame.
* Where's Tish during all of this? Fancypants told you, and everyone missed it.
I am traveling with extremely capable, multi-talented and versatile company
* I really do have an extensive notes file for the story. It's dated. The computer keeps track of when I make changes. Which means I can prove that I always planned for the factions to enter the palace and when a certain date happened -- well, once most of the shock had worn off and I could consider the mundane again, I double-facepalmed and realized I couldn't change the trail. Fortunately, most people believed me on timing and intent. Or downvoted. Twice.
* Why is everypony always picking on Squall? Because he earned it. Next question.
* Having Luna invoke the I Need A Freaking Drink trope was utterly unplanned. But for the other side of the Sun & Moon reveal, how else was she supposed to deal with it?
* An average of at least one body type reference per chapter or your money back! But if you're going to be a girl... then there's nothing wrong with being a big one. Or a small one. Or strictly average. Just have pride, and don't let anyone else tell you what to be.
* One question which never arose at the end: just how old is Cerea? If centaur mares can live for an average of a hundred and forty years, and she's still in puberty...
For now, let's just say that she wouldn't be recognized by her herd as an adult.
* Having Discord turn into the one who took down Tirek didn't emerge until the middle of my notes. I never liked the way he was written during the original fight: he's a little too intelligent to realize that betrayal wouldn't be coming, and Plot-Induced Stupidity seldom sits well. The question then became what he would have actually done in place of that, and... after a while, I had my answer.
I have it on good authority that for a few people who generally dislike my writing, that's the only section of the story they might approve of. Maybe the first version didn't go over well with an audience of more than one.
* Speaking of pettiness, did you spot Celestia working on Puff Weevil's plaque?
* Why 'Menajeria' for the name of the planet? Because dear gawds, it ain't 'Equus'.
* It took me more than a week after the story's conclusion to realize that in battling the root angler, Cerea's first fight in Equestria had been against a tentacle monster. The genre really does follow her everywhere.
* Centaur biology was mostly my invention. The manga has Cerea as possessing a stronger sense of taste than normal -- something which directly hits her cooking skills, because she feels three grains of salt are just fine, thank you. Scent is the natural partner there. Adding double-jointing, extra lungs, the Second Breath... those were the things needed to help make the story work, as well as posting a reminder: that Cerea isn't human, any more than the ponies are. But perhaps there are ways in which all souls are the same.
* The theme for the chapter titles arose early. They all had to be negative or signify something that wasn't normal -- until the very last. And the way Menajeria defines someone who can enter society is with the word 'sapient'...
Okay. I can stop rambling for a while, because I've been doing so for hours in the company of the keyboard and it's time to rest. There's a chance that some of you have questions. Or in other words...
...okay, assholes: you take it from here.
Again: Patreon link, Ko-Fi link. Shameless self-promoter I not be me, but this is the time to try a little of it.
And the last bit, before I pass it over to all of you?
Will we ever go back to them?
The fair answer is 'I don't know'. Glimmer continues. I started a second ongoing story, but that just means Fleur has the stage again. And I don't want to juggle too much at once, plus I'd... need an idea. And I have one, but -- it would be another kind of inversion.
So for now, as with Fleur before her... let Cerea rest for a while. Something she's earned, needs, and -- deserves.
We know she deserves rest, and we grant her what we can.
It's a way to show that she's loved.
Also, just saying that I fucking called it!
Going to have to come back and read the whole thing later, but personally, I think you did the character justice.
As someone who has been following the Manga as well, I can agree that the girls in the story started off so interesting, but just became pin-ups for the artist.
Hope you do a follow up story someday, because this was an amazingly well written story.
And now, I'm adding Triptych to my reading list too, now that I know it's yours as well.
This covers so many subjects, it's impossible to cover them all, so I'll just hit a few
Wordia Spinner
"When legend becomes fact, print the legend. "
A newspaperman in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Jimmy Stewart & John Wayne). Good song too.
Wordia's mistake is making it personal. IMO, the equivalent of Rita Skeeter (Harry Potter, for those living under a rock on the dark side of the moon.)
Sgt. Emery
Recommend rereading Starship Trooper. (The book NOT the movies. As a rule, Hollywood tends to make Sci-fi into action/adventure & does NOT do well with any underlying ideas.
I'm thinking of the character of Sergeant Zim. I can't post a link from my phone but at least Google Heinlein quotes on violence. A lot of the writers that this Baby Boomer grew up with were Greatest Generation & WW2 vets. Rear Admiral Heinlein was one of the most pro military & (during his lifetime) was considered The Best Sci-fi Writer Ever. This novel was written during the height of his powers & was one of his best.
Here's a question. Who was Adamant and how did he die? (And why was he chosen as Nightwatch's guard?)
Wow THIS! Deserves a reread before commenting.
Thank you and I’m sure I’ll have questions when I wake up.
Tell those people to never, ever read Carolyn Chute.
This write-up tracks very well with the interpretation I had while reading (or, at least the interpretation I remember). Always nice to have a peek under the hood and feel vindicated.
If my 'deserved denouement' comment on the story was unclear, I apologize for being curt... I thought the story accomplished what it set out to do, and I then and continue to deeply respect the journey. It was a pleasure to read the work you put so much into. (one of these days I'll have disposable income again... maybe)
"Kill your darlings" is a classic bit of writing advice. I almost feel bad for the level of ignorance those people were suffering from.
Estee, I just want to apologize if I made your experience writing this troublesome by being so loudly and obnoxiously wrong about your stories, in Daily Life and elsewhere. Not that I've ever accused them of being anything but great, I think, but I tend to get overly sure of my presuppositions about what you're planning. I'm trying to get better. Or maybe you were just sniggering behind your authorial prerogative, which is fair enough.
Accusations of 'torture porn' are blatantly absurd but... I think there is some merit to examining the level of catharsis found in the story. You yourself make direct difference to the Inferno, but the Inferno is not in and of itself a completed work, it is part and parcel to Purgatorio and more importantly, Paradiso. Even Odysseus got the 'triumphant' return home in the routing of the suitors, which I think mirrors what you were doing at the end with the trouncing of the supremacists. The issue arises when a lot of the 'reward' given at the end were, frankly, Equestria's systemic problems and not really related much to Cerea beyond the fact that she was the most recent excuse. don't get me wrong, it's important they got what was coming to them in the black and white, a lot of stories gloss over stuff like that to their own detriment.
To me at least though the story was being driven on a more personal level where the pages are turned because of the wish to see Cerea overcome her downright debilitating lack of self esteem and a wish to she her develop 'normalish' personal relationships with ponies. [which we did get some of, the bathhouse scene with the rest of the guard was great]. Seeing her navigating stressful situations that would have shut her down in the past, that sort of thing.
Now on the other hand I also fully understand not wanting to drag endings out, part of the payoff in developing a character over a story is that ideally a lot of the problems met along the road shouldn't be problems anymore, so having 5 extra chapters of 'ending' that amounts to each one being some variant of 'Cerea meets X, there's a minor misunderstanding but now that she's a fully actualized character it was immediately solved' could rob an ending of its punch. You can't really wrap things up by creating drama so If it was just a case of trimming things down to stick the ending better, I'd get it. I don't know, I'm weird, payoff to me would have been a short about Cerea successfully getting her home loan so maybe things shouldn't care all that much for my tastes.
anyway, I guess my question is does any of thing make sense to anyone, I'm not having the easiest time expressing my thoughts here. For what its worth I loved following the story and I wish I had found it earlier on so I could have followed it longer. If in 3 years you had a one-shot story that was just 'Cerea guards at a hoofball game' I'd read that. Hell I'll probably read whatever you're writing in 3 years either way; I still use your short 'Naked Lunch' as an example of all time great pony fanfics.
If Tish is still around, how does Anchor Foal match up? Fleur went to Ponyville cause Celesta needed to give Discord someone to look after. Did Tish reject Discord as a mentor? Also, Cerea and Tirek both appeared in the shadowlands, and in roughly the same area. Minor plot holes, the story is still an excellent read.
Lol, I'm reading this story right now. So I have to, respectfully give this Blog a pass for now. But I'll come back to it soon enough.
when I first started reading I wasn't sure what I was getting into because my exposure to Cerea was limited to one or two episodes of the Anime adaptation a few years back. and I found myself interested because I knew there would be a huge genre clash and thus the story could only feasibly be about the characters.
Daily Life was the first of your stories I've ever read and you had my full attention after one chapter. After five I felt myself hurting along with Cerea and knew you understood what good writing was. because you're absolutely correct about what a protagonist is. protagonists are on a journey to grow and you can't truly grow without adversity. And the greatest adversity is never a antagonist, it is ourselves.
And don't worry about all the haters complaining about being made uncomfortable reading your work of fanfiction. It proves both that you're great at this writing thing because you made them think and that they need to be made to think more often.
It was a very good story, as always you did a magnificent job with your characterization, which is indeed a matter of fundamental importance.
I think, if I had to name a complaint, it would be that the story ends a little, early? There's the slow-building climax, and the trial in a very dark valley indeed, but the long and rather bleak hero's journey seems to entirely outweigh the hero's reward trailing on the end. A surprisingly brisk denouement considering the length of the story's main body.
A little bit of emotional payoff, I suppose, Cerea means to gallop, I would have very much liked to have seen her run.
No sex no drugs
No wine no women
No sin no fun
No you no wonder
It's dark
Well put and well said. This remains one of my favorite pieces you've done (not in the least because Cerea is one of my top two favorite girls in the series (the other is Rachnera)), and your amazing ability to characterize and develop continues to impress.
Keep up the good work, Estee. You're one of the best on the site.
Well, maybe I wasn't before, but I know I will now.
I had to double-back to remind myself of her intent to make it, but yes. After the worst home invasion in the history of Equestria, I'd say Celestia's earned some pettiness.
In any case, a great sendoff in both scale and quality. Thank you for it. May Cerea enjoy her new home in relative peace for a while. (Because of course characters can live independently of the author. If they couldn't, how could we ever write fan fiction?)
At the beginning there were a lot of references to Cerea trying to draw Kimihito but there was always something wrong with the face and she kept erasing and redrawing. Even Celestia commented on it. Was that just a reference to his lack of characterization or something else?
Oh, I do have one question. You alluded to Equestrian produce being not quite everything it could be a couple of times, but I didn't notice that it was ever explained. Was it something to do with the earth pony Effect putting the growing rate on steroids?
I have to admit, I first thought that the sword and hairpins were anti-magic because they're essentially solid objects created by liquid death, whereas magic comes from life. Just assumed it was a natural feature of anything made from oil, though now that I think about it, they'd have plenty of machines that would use oil for lubrication, and those items aren't anti-magic.
The arsonist, I have to ask; she made herself immune to backlash, didn't she? I remember how you described the field around her horn looking more solid, and I've always thought it meant she somehow made her magic stable enough to resist or even completely ignore backlash. May I also ask, what was with her singing? Is that some kind of pony thing when they go insane?
"torture porn" - wow, that's a wonderful name for a horrible thing.
I have read a few of those stories in my life --and given up on them-- because I felt that's what I was reading. We readers like to have a feeling that we're not wasting our time; that all the time we're investing is going to have a good payoff with some ending that we're going to like. I can only guess they felt they weren't going to get that payoff. (There was even one time that I wrote the author of that type of story as asked, "does this ever get better for the characters?" I forget the answer but it wasn't enough to keep me reading.)
I don't know why those readers --those who felt that this was "torture porn"-- felt that way, but I have to assume it was because they couldn't see the story getting better for the main character and they were invested. Personally, I thought this was a damn good story with some damn good story telling. (Okay, I admit I thought it got slow a few times and could have used a good push to get it over the occasional hill; but find me a long form story that DOESN'T have the moments!), but overall, the story kept me interested; I kept seeing all the clues being dropped that SOMETHING was going on, and that SOMETHING was going to happen, and that SOMETHING was just beyond the horizon. (and I was right: shit went down, things go serious, and characters didn't come out the other side looking the same as they went in - in other words: serious character development took place; please watch your step.) I can only guess that those readers just didn't see the trail of breadcrumbs that was being dropped in front of them.
And with that, I don't have much else to say. I liked it, I felt the story was well told and gave me enough bits and bobs that told me "there's more going on here, but you're going to have to wait to find out what" that I felt that there was going to be a damn good payoff.
And I feel I got one.
Thank you.
So, I'm going to ask about your prep on this and similar stories: can you describe some of your process of going from, "hrm. that could be an interesting story/bit of a story/scene/plot point/character interaction" and having it evolve into a finished story?
You said you had notes gathered over a long time. I do that.
You implied that your notes changed over time, thus I'm interpreting that to mean you looked at your notes, thought about those notes and asked questions; came up with answers which in turn triggered new ideas, and thus more notes. I do that, too (my google drive runneth over).
But what I can't seem to do is generate a "story". I just end up with an original kernel of an idea (which I always right down so I can refer back to so I remember what I was aiming for in the first place) and a shit-load of notes about that idea, but I never find "a beginning, a middle, and an end" in it all. i can never figure out "where is it all going" or "where do I want it to go so I can figure out how I going to get there." (To put it another way, I feel I know how to mix up all sorts of paints and colors, but damned if I can't paint a picture to save my life.)
So, any other general comments or thoughts on what you (usually? sometimes? in general?) go through to evolve from that initial idea to the final story?
thx.
I can always count on you, Estee, to explore interesting phenomenon within the human condition through the narrative vehicle of ponies.
...sometimes you take a while to get there.
I stopped reading about halfway through the story, in chapter 'Outcast'. I have a healthy respect for the fact that protagonists can go through the wringer, but even for me 300k words is big meal. I had my fill. The story felt like it was in a rut for the all 300k words and not moving anywhere, just making a tight circle in a deep, dark hole.
That, and Wordia Spinner is very uncomfortable antagonist to read about. Someone driven by hate that uses rhetoric like a poisoned blade while in self-induced psychosis to believe themselves moral... and the fact that that someone would have a willing, paying, believing audience... hits close to home in a very uncomfortable way.
Because there's a lot of Wordia Spinners in our world. Right now.
:::
What I loved about your story, and all your stories, is how wonderfully lived in it feels. The surface-level tv show only puts a new coat of paint on ordinary human society. What you do with worldbuilding is so much more, and one of the best examples of worldbuilding I have ever seen on this site. A society under a goddess would of course have verbal ticks like 'under sun', to name just one example of many. Reading through your catalogue has been a pleasure.
Also, thank you for introducing me to Monster Musume. It certainly was... a unique take on the harem genre. I'm shocked (in a good way) at just how much backstory you added to Cerea, doing worldbuilding double-duty and writing for two worlds at once. (I watched the anime, not read the manga)
I'm glad to hear Cerea found her happy ending. I'll move Anchor Foal up on my reading to-do, because reading through this blog post got me interested in the 'Verse again.
It was good, and Cerea more than earned her (mostly) happy ending.
As much as I like reading about Cerea, I'm glad she's not heading off to her next story yet. It's certainly better to wait until she has another story needing to be told.
Tirek spent 1000 years honing his hacking skills to get out of Tartarus, and did it with subtlety. It does make me wonder what we will be seeing in the future.
Also, I can understand why someone would want to make Sun and Moon (and Earth?) but making Tartarus, like it is, certainly raises some questions.
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Yes, heart songs & frazzled hair are 2 signs that a pony is losing it
In this context, compare Pinkie's hair before & after exposure to the rainboom in The Cutie Mark Chronicles (S1 E23)
Not sure about Reddit, but 4chan seems to be busy with... something, idk.
media.discordapp.net/attachments/960619471435878440/1003234762346987560/Screenshot_20220731-113629-236.png
These bits prompted a memory:
4chan/Reddit have an entire SciFi subgenre dealing with this: Humanity: Fuck Yeah! (HFY for short.) There's a subreddit for ongoing stories, and collections of 4chan screenshots. One thing they have in common: they usually get around to saying and/or demonstrating those differences in very short order, as they're about what makes humans different (better!) than the aliens. And not just what makes us different physically, but deep down in our genes/instincts/souls: we're monsters, each and every one of us, and that's why we exist as what we are.
You did make me care, and that means it hurts when your protagonists hurt. "But y'know, it's a good kind of hurt." Alternatively, "I feel the story overtaking me, it is a GOOD pain!" But seriously, that's a mark of your skill as a writer, and I appreciate it.
As a fun aside, per Google Translate, an alternate translation of 'Blitzschritt' is 'lightning crotch.'
I think I missed the explanation as to why Cerea's plastic goods have antimagic properties - what chapter was that in?
Interesting look inside your writing process. An artist shouldn’t take their critics of their fans too seriously: we’re in your audience because we already like the way you do what you do, don’t let those red thumbs get you down.
I could have used a few more chapters of denouement though. If there’s a way to catch a glimpse of her or Tish from the perspective of Anchor Foal II or Glimmer, would be nice to see how their doing.
My take on this story is that at its core of you’re presenting the importance of family to every person’s sense of identity and potential for happiness. Cerea’s unfortunate early life in the Gap left her deprived of understanding what she lacked. But after having stumbled into it by sheer luck in Japan, she at least knew what she had lost in her displacement to Manageria. Now THAT’s making the protagonist suffer! But the way she responds, not by sinking into nihilism, but rather by being willing to risk climbing back onto the tight-rope walk of relationships and re-engaging with others (with language and cultural barriers to boot!), made her into one of my favorite protagonists in any of your stories!
From a pure world building perspective, I also really enjoyed how you used her ignorance of how life worked in Manageria to examine its cosmology, customs, species, and nations in greater detail. So pat yourself on the back for having chosen Cerea to be front and center in one of your stories, no matter her origin in a harem manga or what the trolls have to say. Travelling with her for a while was a great journey and worthwhile read!
Someday Little Knight likely caught Cerea giving Yapper scritches. Low intensity threats likely ensued, because that spot's just too good to risk missing due to meddling bats.
Good thing Cerea will not become more with her first friend in Equestria. Luna's the only one she should be with
I do miss Cerea, but I also trust you to if the day comes when you give us more of your centaur girl, it'll be well worth the wait.
And if it doesn't, well, she did have an amazing story. Thank you again for it, Estee
Is "kill your darlings" not common knowledge anymore?
Edit:
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Just saw your comment, you get it! :)
Love the story but that perspective is very very hard for me to read in that perspective. Srry to say but I had to stop reading it. I do however read chapter titles and read a little bit to watch the story line. Maybe I will be able to fully read it some day.
One thing I was wondering: why did you decide to put DELWMG as a sequel to Anchor Foal? There doesn't seem to me to be anything about Cerea's story that requires Fluttershy and Fleur to be dating, and I don't see any reason why a Discord who had learnt about connections from Tish would be less likely to sacrifice himself to save Fluttershy than one who had learnt from Harem.
On other notes, I really liked the whole idea of "foal questions" and Cerea not knowing the things that everyone learns as a baby. A really interesting look at the importance of assumptions and how easily communication between two sides can become warped because of the different axioms both sides are working from without ever noticing.
On the thought of inverting Displaced stories, I've noticed that a lot of HiE stories give the human the power to disrupt or negate magic. And you gave that same power to Cerea, then went to some effort to work out the logical limitations and real impact of such a power being discovered to exist. Was that deliberate?
Witness above point. Birch but that was a funny line. I wonder what the producers would say if they heard it.
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You know, eggs, basket, yada yada.
Also Celestia isn't obliged to explain what effectively is a state secret to known blackmailer. She was told exactly what she needed to know, and not a bit more.
e: more latter than former, now that I think of it. After all, it was initially Fluttershy's idea to start dating. Yes, it was sold to Fleur as "saving the future world from DIscord" because that would make sense to her. It also being (not 100%, but nevertheless)true didn't hurt, either. More baskets is better than less baskets.
Second farm sequence? I must be really behind ….
Maybe she can skip genres now? Get into some Slice Of Life, perhaps?
As one of those loud, critical voices, I apologize for making your writing harder than it already is. But I feel I must point out that despite having (many) issues with the Continuum's backstory and how some characters are presented, I always eagerly wait for more … which says great things about your writing and some … questionable things about me.
Please keep up the good work, no matter what the "loud voices" and downvoters say.
This is why I say just write. Every character can be interpreted differently, even those from smut/fan service stories( Suu is still my favorite, and not because she gets grabby but because of the Innocence. Yes, capital I). She’s like a child and sometimes my first instinct is “she should be protected” but she’s not human. she could kill me easily even by accident. Hell, she almost kills or just injures people all the time from what I remember, bodying even the strongest of the Liminals. And that’s part of the fun of actually thinking about characters, about breaking them down and really getting into the nitty-gritty. Finding that dissonance. That break in reality and what you know. And like the questions of The centaur of the story, it always felt like the little slime was not understood. They can’t answer the questions she has because they see an adult, or at least a teen. In reality though, she was a god with the mind of a young child, following Kimi because she hoped to learn. He offered kindness, and that’s something a lost child will cling to.
It was bad at times. Some gave up on anything improving, and I can understand why. We have enough misery in the world as it is. But I felt the story was well written. The reasoning behind things was sound(unnamed characters and the MC’s depression). And the ending was fine. We don’t really need to see her being happy. It’s turning, and that’s all we needed to know. She lasted long enough to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And now she’s moving towards it, with friends.
I liked it.
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Autists gonna aut, or something…
Estee, if Biscuit ever gets me in the same general vicinity of you, I would very much like to hoofbump you. Your off hand, that is. Can't risk your quill-holding hand.
Given the stories you write, I figure you deserve a self-posessed blog or two.
And yes, Blitzschritt is freaking awesome. "The Noodle Hero," as it were. Always mentioned, always ambiently awesome, but only at a distance and never directly. She's a legend made myth; we don't want to disrupt that with boring mundanity!
Cerea? Luna better learn how to hug back, because I can't do it for her. These arms aren't long enough to reach across realities...
Thank you for this wonderful story, Estee!
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I mean, I of course get it, but can you explain to my friend the reason?
Thanks for writing the story.
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I just predicted that was true before it was revealed in the story.
Another question, now that I've had more time to think. Tirek's summoning spell missed, which is why Cerea ended up in a wild zone. If it hadn't, where would she have wound up?
Ponyville?
Canterlot?
Tartarus?
"It gave me a way to grant him power which operated within the previous rules -- although I don't doubt that I was just about the only one who cared."
Well, I thought it was neat (if so mild a word can be used for what Tirek did to himself, but I'm in a bit of a hurry at the moment and want to get back to the reading) too, IIRC, at least.
"Fancypants told you, and everyone missed it."
...Ah. Yep, also missed that, sorry. Thanks for the clarification!
(There's a lot more I could have commented on, but, well, see above about being in a hurry, sorry.)
Thank you for writing, Estee! I continue to enjoy your work. :)
I've had a bad couple of weeks.
A friend is moving.
Boxes ahoy.
...anyway...
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Adamant was one of the original Lunars: the first graduating class to sign on after Equestria had become a little more... codified. He was also the first Guard to give his life for that of a Princess. Beyond that, his story deserves more than a few sentences in a reply.
Nightwatch was assigned him because he's seen as one of the strongest models for the Guard as a whole. If you get Adamant, it likely means your Sergeant is expecting something extra.
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I wanted to end the story on 'It's getting better'. Bringing things to 'and it's all fixed forever' was nowhere near realistic. As the non-joke goes, anyone waiting on universal acceptance had better be prepared to hold out for a very long time. Cerea is never going to be the fully-beloved of the capital. The sisters aren't and they've been working on it for a lot longer than she has. She's going to wind up with those who accept her presence, some who wish to know more (and potentially become closer), and a good number who just spot her coming down the street and not-so-subtly go the other way. The best an immigrant can arguably hope for is to be taken in by the society -- and that will never include every last person in it.
Integration takes work. Every day.
And let's face it: I reached the century mark on chapters and breached 700K on the word count. The story had to end sometime, and I knew the three words which finished it off. "Let's go home." A signifier that, for now, she's willing to try and make a place in this world. We got to what I thought was the moment, and... I wrote the words.
(By the same token, the systemic problems haven't been solved. There's always going to be those who hate, because the excuse is simply too easy. But a number of roaches have been stomped, and the survivors fearfully stare out from the shadows. The light has finally shown it's willing to kick back.)
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I covered Tish's location here.
This story, to whatever degree it could be possible, was meant as a stand-alone -- and quite a few readers were only present for Cerea. There was no realistic way to instantly explain Tish.
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Kimihito's sketch never coming out right was meant to represent:
* Cerea's desperate perfectionism. She wasn't going to finalize the sketch unless she felt it was exact.
* It symbolizes that, even in her heart, she wasn't quite as close to him as she might have dreamed of being. She can render Papi and Lala from memory -- but not the person she claims to have loved?
* Running joke on the manga artist frequently drawing him with blank circles for eyes.
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The absent taste aspect was just meant as an indicator that the plant had been partially living on magic. There's no nutritional changes or deficits for the consumer.
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The arsonist was as vulnerable to backlash as any unicorn. The field doesn't start to solidify until after the projection gets some distance from the horn. Also, because the field is solid, sufficient force can break it. This doesn't cause backlash, but it's not exactly a pleasant sensation: just about every caster will lose the working.
Singing was just an indication that she'd lost it. Pretty much all of it. And wasn't going to go looking for where it had fallen.
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I'm sorry to say it, but... this one's just about impossible to answer. (I've talked a little about my process in blogs, and even that didn't really work.) There are no classes in having ideas, let alone figuring out what to do with one when it lands. All I can really say is that I tend to work out scenes through playlets. Putting the characters in situations, and imagining how they would react. (Many people are aware that I draw on my own life for some stories, putting them into things I'm going through. It's made for exceptionally bleak portions of the catalog. On the Saturday after this post, I'm hoping it produces a comedy.) And I dream best on my feet: the rough majority of the best(?) jokes and lines are worked out during long walks.
For this story, I started with what I initially felt was a simple question: what happens if you put this character in that setting? The answer, in a post-Tirek world, seemed to be terror. And now that I've got that... what is it going to take to get her out of it? How is the terror expressing itself? Is anypony using it? Never waste a stampede, y'know. What does Cerea bring to the table in this environment? Who would try to break the table before she ever reaches it...?
One question leads to the next. You keep asking questions, and then you try to put all of the answers in some kind of order.
Oh, and review your own work a lot. You need to know when to plant the callbacks.
Also, read your dialogue aloud. If it doesn't sound like speech when it comes out of your mouth...
(If I could teach writing, I wouldn't be here. I would be very, very rich. I am not very, very rich. Or comfortable. Or moderately well off. Or -- yep, it's the Daffy speech. Pretend I rattled a cup and moved on.)
(If I knew what my subconscious was doing.)
(I roughly understand how I write. Not how I create.)
(Sometimes I just look at fire extinguishers.)
(sigh)
(...moving on.)
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I'm fully aware that this story got bleak in a few places. (Also that the Wordias have taken over on all sides.) Cerea's issues go deep, and they weren't going to be solved in an instant. It was a slow climb, and there's likely going to be a few days when she struggles not to backslide. The fact that I didn't have her as all-out bluster and ripping her own blouse apart to demonstrate superiority is probably the source for at least eight downvotes. (Three more may be because there ain't no shippin'. Live with it.) But the fact that this one went drama... that's at least some of the backlash, and I can readily understand someone having to duck out because it got too dark.
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The sword's origin is explained in Unrepentant.
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One of my original ideas for Cerea in this setting (as seen in that initial blog) was ultimate outsider. When you know nothing about how the world works, and start to apply your own principles...
This is someone who doesn't know the answers to foal questions. It can take you down a few new paths.
And yes, the household was very much her first chance at having anything like a family. Even in the manga, the girls can very quickly start to feel like sisters to each other.
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This story was an Anchor Foal sequel because it allowed me to continue exploring along the branch of the timeline. I also wanted to have Fleur pull Fluttershy out of the hallway rant -- while knowing just how much confusion I risked in simply having her show up.
(It was at least vaguely amusing (to the writer) for Cerea to immediately spot the passive predatory evaluation. Outsiders can see a little more.)
Giving Cerea antimagic (or universal countering on contact) was meant to increase fear through giving her another link to Tirek. He took your magic? She's going to let you keep it -- but it won't do anything. It allows the phobia an extra place for the jaw grip. Having it all stay in the sword is the classic 'well, my equipment's magic -- but what am I?' Not a good question for a girl whose self-esteem is already in the basement. And there's also that aspect where she feels as if she can't do anything -- except, perhaps, stop someone else.
Trying to work out the limitations on the sword (and pins) was both my chasing worldbuilding where it needed to go and knowing that if I didn't, half of the comments would have been 'you missed a spot'. In particular, just moving the thing became its own issue.
There's a lot of unused hooks near palace doors. Eventually, they might get taken down.
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If not for the forgiving nature of the genre and Kimihito living the Made Of Iron trope, you could swear that every girl would have a body count. Possibly the same count and the same body. Cerea's hip-launched him just by turning too fast...
Suu... would be really, really hard for me to work with. I think I'm done with the household for now.
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As said in the main blog, one of the true shocks for the writer was in seeing how strongly Blitzschritt caught on. I have no current plans for an ibex-focused story -- the biggest problem is that I just did Immigrant's Song and this would be a partial repeat of the chorus -- but they may at least stay in the background. Anchor Foal II indicates that at least one doe is now in Canterlot.
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If the summoning had been on target, Cerea would have arrived in a safely-empty space in close proximity to the casting location. So outside of Ponyville, at the site of the last battle.
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One thing that does come out repeatedly is Cerea's generally-low opinion of humanity. She can like (or love) individuals, but she doesn't think much of the species. If the base groupform of the centaur is the herd, then humanity is the mob. And you could argue that she sees the mob as a monster -- while the mob views her as something already broken.
Imagine what could have happened if she wasn't so nice.
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Ah, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t asking you to use a specific character, just giving letting me mind wander. Besides, it’s not like MLP has a giant slime monster or anything, that nearly wiped out all life. Hmm…maybe…
As someone who’s read Fallout: Equestria: Project Horizons front to back TWICE, it honestly never ceases to amaze me how…low some people’s standards for “torture porn” is. I’ve promised myself to never read PH again as to not subject myself to the emotional torment that reading that story while emotionally invested in its characters is, no matter what related stuff I might start reading (i.e. Speak or Homelands).
I guess some people forget that “Adventure is something that happens to someone else. When it happens to you, it’s only trouble.”
Regardless, even PH was—at least mostly—not torture porn, much less anything you’ve written (and that I’ve read, which certainly has gaps but they’re not that big). Running your characters through the wringer purely for the sake of putting them through the wringer—that’s torture porn. PH, imho, at least mostly avoids this. A Kong-a line of pain and misery? Sure. One for its own sake (or the pain’s, at least?) No. And if PH isn’t torture porn, at least mostly, then accusations of that when it’s simply the Hero(ine)’s journey because it’s not really a journey if it’s a causal stroll through the park on a fine spring day.
Basically, thank you for ignoring the fucking idiots (if you’ve downvoted me already, you just proved my point).
Ironically what drew me in was the highly basic OG cover art: I have a soft spot for Centuars. Like I said in my comment on Sapient, I think DELWMG was what introduced me to your writing, and soon after reading to like chapter 8 or wherever you were when I started, Tryptic and Company followed. So for that, thank you.
You know, I actually tried to watch the anime a time or two. After I realized “they meant “actually good characterization” for a harem anime, I decided to try fan works (TVTropes’s “fanfic recs” is highly useful to this), especially Cera-focused ones and…immediately ran into a closely related problem. When you’re introduced to a character through someone else’s character interpretation, reading other stuff that largely draws on what’s seen in canon instead of going for something deeper and consequently extrapolating that deeper and more complex personality and characterization is…unfun. I didn’t necessarily want your writing, but, while I didn’t know it at the time, I did want your Cera.
I think this is supposed to be a roundabout compliment: I can’t read or watch the actual thing because my standards and expectations are frankly too high, thanks to being introduced via your writing. Don’t feel bad, it’s harem anime/magna, I’m not exactly missing out on much.
While I can understand not being able to persevere through ~680,000 words that while having plenty of other stuff are also chock full of—distressing—stuff for ~18,000 words of pure catharsis, I think that’s part of the reason I rambled on so much trying to say that those people are stupid and ought to be ignored.
They don’t understand catharsis. Even if you’re already emotionally invested, you need lows for a character’s highs to mean something. Just like Sydrome: when everything’s good for the protagonist, nothing is. Season 5 of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is one of my favorite TV seasons of all time because of seasons 1 through 4. The emotional catharsis I got from season 5 was only in the amount that is was (that is, the MASSIVE emotional catharsis) because of the past four seasons of emotional investment and hardship (on the various characters’ parts). A tear-filled, heartfelt confession of love that you’ve been waiting for SINCE EPISODE ONE is just on another level, compared to one with, say, just a few episodes beforehand of setup.
All that to say that everyone talked up Sapient simply wouldn’t have done so to that amount if it came after 10, 15, 25, or even 50 chapters. It’s easy to get burned that way, reading on and on hoping, praying for some catharsis, but I…trust you. I feel it’s very well-placed.
Hmm... So Adamant was one of the first generation of the Old Lunar Guard, and he was assigned to Nightwatch, who would be one of the most prominent members of the first generation of the New Lunar Guard? Might interesting coincidence that, since I'm fairly certain that Nightwatch must have started her training and been assigned Adamant well before Princess Luna returned. Makes you wonder if Emery has more tricks up his metaphorical sleeves than even the standard Earth Pony set. Or is Nightwatch newer to the Guard than I'd thought?
Interestingly, that whole scene was probably my biggest disappointment with DELWMG, because I couldn't even take the threat seriously. I've seen and heard of this trick being pulled a few too many times, and so I knew you were bluffing. It's the classic complaint about long-running stories (especially superhero comics and the like): they "kill off" one of the main characters and expect you to be shocked and horrified, when they've already seen a main character "killed" a dozen times before and they know he'll be back in three issues.
I would have loved it if Cerea died in Tartarus, simply because we've seen authors pull this whole "fooled you! She wasn't actually dead! Ha Ha Ha!" trick so many times that having someone actually say "No, seriously, she actually did have to die to stop Tirek. No going back, no sudden reprieve, she really is dead", would have made for a refreshing change of pace. I would have been fascinated to see a "Ok, Cerea is dead, now we're going to look at the effects of her life and death on those she left behind" plot going forward from that moment.
It's the same sort of problem I had with the resolution of the whole "Emery Board and the Secret" subplot. If you want me to actually believe in a multi-generational, nationwide conspiracy like the Secret, if you want me to take Applejack's willingness to bend the Secret and Pinkie's to break it as serious plot points, I feel like you have to give the conspiracy some teeth, have to at some point show ponies being willing to kill if that's what's needed to keep the Secret.