"... so, in conclusion, if the deal seems too good to be true, it probably is, even if the raccoon's offering a no-interest loan." Sunset made a show of checking her watch. "We're almost out of time for this episode, so we'll wrap it up with the mailbag. Remember, folks, send your questions about Equestria, magic, or me to magical-underscore-mayhem at gillimail-dot-com. I try to answer everything, but it may be through links to vlogs where I've already discussed it, and if it doesn't have anything to do with those three topics, I'm not going to reply."
"We're quite happy together," added Twilight. "Please stop offering alternatives or additions to our relationship dynamic."
"Right. And today's is an... interesting one. I considered devoting a full episode to it, but this should suffice." In a flash of gold, a printout appeared in Sunset's hands, along with a pair of reading glasses on her face. "Ahem:
"Dear Sunset,
"I've found videos of the Rainbooms performing before the change, and I was amazed to see you sprout feathered wings and horse ears. Is there any way to replicate this today, or possibly producing a more animalistic anthropomorphic form? I'm a unicorn aspect, so I'm thinking about trying spells that could produce similar effects, but I wanted to check with you first.
"Sincerely,
Reshaper in Ravnica"
Sunset dismissed her props and gave the camera a deeply concerned look. "I picked this one out for a number of reasons. To recap for those unfamiliar with the details of pre-change magic use, my friends and I used to develop pony-like traits while harnessing magic." A photo appeared next to her of several of her friends and a Twilight in prom dresses, ears, and incredibly long hair. "The human body just wasn't designed to harness that kind of power, by which I mean both the intensity and the alien nature of Equestrian magic. It had to reshape itself to contain the energy."
Twilight nodded, her eyes faintly glowing. "Human magic was still in hiding at the time. Very few people could deliberately use it, most not realizing what they were doing. They'd never be capable of the things my counterpart or Sunset did."
"Right. Without some kind of stabilizer, even greater concentrations of magic would have resulted in more extreme transformations. Just before the change, we were all stuck in those 'ponied up' forms. Rarity and I even sprouted unicorn horns." Sunset grimaced and rubbed her headgem. "And it wasn't painless like with Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash's wings. In theory, if the magic levels could have risen indefinitely without putting worlds at risk, we might have all completely turned into ponies even while staying in this universe."
"I didn't have any Equestrian magic of my own, so my own empowering by native magic just resulted in a lot of visible radiation." Twilight scowled, the light in her eyes going out. "And, you know, having the will of magic puppet my body in a last-ditch effort to defend the universe. Not fun."
"But we worked it out," said Sunset, her focus still on the camera. "During the change, capital-M Magic and I worked together to design new forms that were both morphically stable in the new normal and as close to human as possible. Believe me, there were a lot of options on the table. We could've ended up with tails, fur coats, hooves instead of feet..."
Twilight cut her off with a nudge to the side. "Sunset, a furry wrote that letter. You're just disappointing them."
"Right. Sorry, Reshaper. The point is that I wanted to adjust reality with as little disruption as possible. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who would have welcomed some more extreme tweaks, but I had to cater to the majority.
"Now, that brings us to the other main reason I picked out this letter." Sunset cleared her throat, then slammed her hands onto the desk both girls sat behind. "HOLY CELESTIA ON A UNICYCLE, DO NOT PERFORM LIVE TRANSMUTATION EXPERIMENTS!"
Twilight didn't acknowledge the outburst beyond adjusting her glasses. "Friendly reminder, Sunset's referring to the mare who moves the sun in Equestria's geocentric cosmology. Please do not worship her or her local counterpart. Also, Sunset, you may want to go into more detail."
Sunset cleared her throat and sat back down. "Right. Transformative magic is exactly as dangerous as it sounds. Your signature says it all. You're reshaping living organs and tissues. The damage you could do to yourself or others is potentially catastrophic. I changed humanity because it was the only way for us to survive. Doing this kind of thing for fun when working from first principles is suicidal at best."
"If I may play disharmony's advocate for a moment," said Twilight, "what about gender swap spells?"
"Oh, believe me, I looked into those the moment I heard about them. Most operate by inferring someone's appearance based on if their fifty-second chromosome came out differently. They just go down the path not traveled, they're not blundering through the woods and off a cliff."
"So what should Reshaper do instead?"
"Equestria does have some established transmutation spells. Some of the relevant texts have already been scanned into Gillion Spellbook. You can work from there, Reshaper, but for the love of all you hold dear, take it slow, take it easy, and test everything on a chicken drumstick first. It won't be a flawless testbed, but you'll see how the spell treats skin, fat, muscle, and bone."
Twilight brought a finger to her chin. "Is that how they do it in Equestria?"
"We use donated cadavers. Cattle consider donating their bodies to science and industry the highest good they can do postmortem. Equestria's entire leather supply is volunteered. " Sunset turned her attention back to the camera. "But I cannot emphasize this enough, do not use live test subjects for tissue-reshaping magic until you're sure it won't do something horrific."
"And on that happy note," said Twilight, "we'd like to thank you all for listening—"
One Ravnica High student paused the EweTube video. His friends traded a nervous glance over his shoulders.
"Should we tell her?" said Telomere.
Yolov gave his fellow unicorn aspect an incredulous look. "Are you crazy? If we've gotten away with it for this long, I'm not bringing the wrath of the Bacon Horse down on our heads."
Telomere bit the inside of his cheek. "But if someone gets hurt—"
"Hey, she's just talking about the pony side of things," said Kelp Bed. The earth aspect held out his hand and let seemingly liquid green and blue energies pool in his upraised palm. "We have a few other tricks at our disposal."
Telomere reluctantly nodded. "I guess. But we should still do the drumstick testing, though."
"Yeah, we'll lose a lot fewer lab rats that way."