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The other problem with the field trip angle is this would be the second time Cheerilee's taken the class on a fieldtrip and foals got away from her.

Honestly I think that's an issue field trip or not. Either way this is the second time Snails has run off while in Canterlot only to end up hanging out with Greengrass.

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Actually, on the subject of Carrot Top (who G&C might not even be keeping anyway), that reminds me of another issue I brought up. It's not just that she's got the weakest reason to be taking this trip in the first place, but also that CT just doesn't have much to contribute to the actual narrative of the adventure either. However, seeing as this fic also features more ponies from the same mob that once tried to kidnap Dinky, I can't help but feel that if our heroes are going to work alongside them Ditzy really needs to be the one who is here to... well, "forgive" would probably be too strong a word, but it just feels wrong for any of the L6 to help the mobsters in any way unless Ditzy is there to agree to it.

So if we're going to contrive a reason for any pony to go, and if G&C is just going to be reworking the story without CT anyway, I think we should consider if there is any way to use Ditzy instead. This doesn't mean we should force Dinky into the fic though, she and her momma don't have to always be joined at the hips so it's easy enough to conceive that Dinky might stay home because the trip was planned for the same day as her lessons with Trixie or something. Edit: Maybe instead of coming with Raindrops and Cheerilee, Ditzy could be escorting Twilight, maybe as a mother she could be the one trying to assuage concerns that her family still loves her and that the lack of personally informing her about the time-off for good behavior is nothing to worry about. Plus Ditzy herself has spoken with Nitelite before (and we've even seen her chew out the princess for parenting issues), so maybe she'd want to personally remind him to pay better attention to his daughters needs or something.

I'm not going to force the issue or anything, I'm only trying to point out that using Ditzy in the fic would be a great way to bring further narrative closure to the events of Hard Bargain. Otherwise, I think any mobster ponies here should be entirely unconnected, after all the first group was from Manehattan and this second group is from Canterlot, so we don't necessarily need any nation wide crime families in our Equestria.

Incidentally maybe the Farmer's Union could solve their acronym problem by doing 'Ponyville' at the beginning so it becomes PFU?

That's always what I thought the simplest solution would be. No need for any fancy names, just a straightforward description. Could also be the EFU though (for Everfree) if we wanted to allow the union to expand to cover farms neighboring in neighboring towns as well.

3258640 I just think Carrot Top, being viewed as the ordinary member of the Luna6 would be a good parallele to Snails' feelings of inadequacy you know? But since she doesn't impact the narrative that much I don't mind seeing her cut at all. Good idea with Ditzy being there to chew Night Light out :p

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I just think Carrot Top, being viewed as the ordinary member of the Luna6 would be a good parallele to Snails' feelings of inadequacy you know?

Sometimes I think that's an angle which gets overplayed, due to the way we as fans living outside the setting perceive her. If nothing else Ditzy is probably even more ordinary, being nothing more than a mail carrier and a mother. At least CT has her herbological knowledge of exotic Everfree plant life.

I can still see CT as the member that most struggles with feeling inadequate, because even before becoming the Element of Generosity, she struggled with similar doubt in regard to her skills as a farmer. As far as actual public perception goes, I think Ditzy could maybe be the one everyone ignores. Heck, there might even be wild exaggerations of CT's abilities, painting her as having magical dominion over plants (like Batman's Poison Ivy). Though the disparity between that and the "real" her could of course just make CT feel even less adequate. Still, I think that's all something for a different story, maybe when we actually do find a good way to do that whole thing where somepony writes a stage play about the L6 (which should probably wait until S3 when it could also involve Corona's final defeat).

3256381 : So, replying to this and a few other things to summarize my thoughts:

There's a few issues with editing, I've outline a few places in specific chapters where I think rewording for clarity would help (Max's visit to Fetlockson's apartment segue into a flashback in a confusing manner and the library scene needs better description), there's also a few pronouns problem here or there.

Sure, I can fix those things.

I find the pacing uneven. I think that the extended flashbacks to Greengrass' dealing with the Sun Cult should be spun off into their own story and cut down in this one for brevity.

I don't know if I'll actually write that story, but I guess I can cut the songs and flashbacks. I put them in because, originally, Max just basically exposited it all in Chapter 6 (when the others wanted to know why he and Greengrass seemed chummy), but I can have him summarize it really quick or something.

I also think the first exchange between our bullying duo and Snails is unnecessary padding. I don't think the story needs to start with that at all, and that Raindrops should just be taking her brother to see the insectarium because it's new. Maybe she could mention how DT and Spoon have been a bit harsh with Snails recently, but I think their big bullying moment at the Insectarium is enough for your purpose.

I still want Snails to be unhappy about something in Chapter 1, to foreshadow his collapse in Chapter 2 so it doesn't seem like it just comes out of nowhere, and also so Raindrops can have a "I will cheer up my brother by taking him to a fun place' moment. But maybe instead of the bullies I can have him run into a bug that just won't listen to him, which causes him to question his self worth since communicating with bugs is the only thing he's good at (in his own opinion).

Speaking of insectarium I think you should ditch the play. It doesn't add anything meaningful to the story except get Carrot Top talking about her boring status. Furthermore a play about the Elements is too fun a concept to be squandered on a random background detail. The farm expo is good eough reason for Carrot Top to show up.

I'll probably just have her going to the insectarium as well, maybe as the Farmer Union's representative to see what kind of farming bug-related services they offer. If the Riches and Silvers are there to explore business opportunities, no reason Carrot Top can't go for similar reasons.

I don't like the scene of Fisher ordering Shining Armor around like that. It should be made clear that the legislative branch of the government doesn't have power over the military branch like that.

I don't agree with this. Civilian control of the military is a cornerstone of many first-world nations for a variety of reasons. If the Night Court or Luna decides to for instance, station troops in a friendly griffin nation as a warning to a neighboring hostile one, Armor, or his Night Guard equivalent (whom I don't think we ever named), shouldn't be able to say, "Nope, I don't feel like it."

If you mean that Fisher shouldn't be able to micromanage the military ("move ten guys there and knock down that door!"), I agree, but he isn't really doing that. He's giving Armor a broad strategic objective ("devote all resources in the city to finding the Lucas.") That should be within the government's purview. And if you mean that Luna should be able to overrule Fisher, I would also agree, but she's not around at the moment.

Meta-textually, this scene has two purposes. One is to flag that Fisher is genuinely unaware of whom is behind the abductions; I realized that some people might think (from the first few chapters) that Fisher was the culprit behind them and then complain that another Night Court noble is being a criminal mastermind, which would cause another flame war. This scene establishes him as wrong, but not guilty of the abductions or any other crime (at that point). Second was to exonerate Captain Armor. The Guards have to be ineffective in this story, but if I just had the Guards be useless with no explanation then that would hurt Armor's character since he commands them. So instead Fisher is overriding Armor, and nobody cares if his character is hurt because he's not coming back after this story anyway.

I also think that Luna being away from Canterlot should come up sooner. It's not really believeable that the Captain of the Guard doesn't know about her absence.

I'm not sure I agree with that either. Would Luna really tell Armor every time she jaunts off for a day or two? Armor is in charge of the Royal Guards, but he's not her personal bodyguard. They probably don't even see each other every day.

Still, I can just have Fisher think to himself earlier that Luna is out of town, and have Armor say something like, "I'll complain to her as soon as she returns from Califurlong."

I'll repeat it here: SOMEPONY needs to be surprised by Monty's post on the Canterlot Security thing (which should be a commity, not a ministry).

It probably was at one point, but Fisher would have moved heaven and earth to get it upgraded. Zizanie mentioned at the Gala that he's a scorched-earth kind of guy when it comes to this stuff, so he probably would have been able to make it its own ministry.

I still say Vicereine Wallflower showing up at the begining was not a good idea, especially with Fisher ordering her around like that. It feels like you just got her there to spite Emeral's position about keeping Wallflower silent. I don't think this is the fic OR the situation to make a point about that.

Not spite at all. I think that Wallflower needed to be there since she's in charge of Canterlot province (I feel like we decided this somewhere) and so has a vested stake in that ministry. However, since she's not chair of that ministry, as she's not a security/military expert, the chair (Fisher) can order her in that respect. While a noble's rank may generally correspond to how much power they have, it's been emphasized on the boards that it's fairly fluid and very situational (e.g., Blueblood having a much bigger office and more influence than his nominal rank), so I think it's possible for an archduke to chair a ministry that a vicereine sits on but does not chair.

The visit to the boot factory had way too much Fisher propaganda. I don't think Raindrops would care to listen to their prattling on, and having that scene lag on further once they've established a suspect is pointless. We don't need to be told how AWESOME Fisher is. It should really be more subtle.

The purpose of that bit is mostly just to show that Fisher didn't hire this guy because it was the Evil Thing to Do, but that he had an actual reason (screwed up as it was). Again, trying to avoid Obviously Evil Night Court Noble Syndrome. But I can trim it a bit.

The last chapter is a bit too long as well. While I like the stinger with Volk I think it would be better served as a webisode attached to the story, as it's not 100% necessary to the main plot, even if we never find out who is the mysterious third vigilante. You could even expend the exchange to add the 'What do you love?' line if you want to have the changeling thing more heavy handed.

Since RDD gave the okay, I'll just have Volk say 'what do you love?' in that scene and cut the stinger.

arrot Top is too downright peppy about her role and I think you've made her way too simple.

I'll probably change her to, instead of being zen, being worried about her own inexperience. I noted a few days ago that CT is the only adult member of the team who hasn't gotten in trouble with the law at some point--setting aside Twilight and Greengrass, we have Cheerilee's long and checkered criminal history, Max got Castigated for something he does in Talon&Thorn's story, and Raindrops maimed a guy. CT hasn't even gotten so much as a jaywalking ticket. She has no experience in dealing with criminal elements, and that's what they need to do in JULP, so CT likely feels outclassed. She gets stuck on Snails-sitting duty when they investigate Arnaqueur's place, she gets trapped behind rubble in the train fight, and she reminds behind at Greengrass' to mix potions instead of going to fight. She's got an adult form of Snails' issues.

So, instead of Greenie and CT cheering up Snails, I'm thinking that either Twilight and Greengrass cheer up Snails and CT, or Twilight and GG just cheer up CT and Snails, who is paying close attention, is smart and draws the appropriate lessons to apply to his own case.

Raindrops' anger becomes a lot more believeable as the story progress and I stopped being annoyed by it, but I think you start her off too strong. It should be a more graduate thing.

Sure. I can tinker with that. Her scene in Chapter 2 might just be changed to something like being worried that the criminal Duty will be a bad influence on Snails, or even just mentioning how she plans to testify against FlimFlam at an upcoming parole hearing or something. (Maybe CT then says she doesn't want to be vindictive, to which Raindrops says she hasn't really dealt with criminals, which helps CT to have the problem of 'oh, right, these ponies all have experience with this sort of thing that I don't.')

To echoe's IAH general criticism of season 2: "stop explainign things!". I think Cheerilee's past shouldn't be so well defined and you should leave more vagueness, otherwise she loses some of her charm and start looking more and more like a downright criminal.

At the same time, there's something to be said for not being too oblique to be understood. Still, I can try to trim the section about the Cheerilee/Duty relationship.

Greengrass works well here but I agree with RDD that it's time to let go. He's served his narrative purpose and he has come to the end of his arc. He should be allowed to head back to Caneighda and be out of our hair. Sometimes characters are no longer useful and they dissapear. It happens. You don't see me chomping at the bits to get Zizanie out of jail. I'm perfectly content with her being forgotten.

I still think he needs some sort of conclusion to his arc after the Gala, I wanted it to be this, but Emeral keeps saying that he shouldn't have lost his seat, or his title, or Notary, or any of the rest of it...

And so, in the interest of once again compromising, I'm willing to change it so GG hasn't lost his seat/title by this story (and I'll rejigger his backstory a little bit to match that). But he still needs something to ask Luna for (and not get) at the end of the story, or his last scenes with Fisher and Max don't work (and he also wouldn't have any real objective during the story, which would make him a weak character.) What I'll probably do instead is have Luna let him remain with his seat/title, but--to forestall him from doing anything else crazy--allow Greenmeadow, his incorruptible father, to basically be able to override him if he thinks GG is doing something bad. As long as GG behaves, no problem; if GG steps out of line, GM can just have GG's actions not actually count. But, as GM is less ambitious with the whole 'cultivate Equestria into a glorious garden' thing, he wouldn't let GG do any of his more ambitious, high risk-high reward 'gardening' projects--which would frustrate the Duke, who wants to keep growing and tending the nation. So then he has something to ask Luna for ("treat me like any other noble and let me govern without my dad vetoing half my bills"), which Luna could (politely) tell him he isn't going to get yet (because he needs to earn back that trust), and that motivates his scenes with Fisher and Max in Chapter 10. And then we never need to see him again, since presumably he'll be governing properly to earn back Luna's trust, which would be boring to read about.

I still think he needs to lose Notary. He has to lose something thanks to all his misdeeds, or else it makes his arc seem largely pointless.

I'm also not a big fan of the ice cream amulet being used to essentially cheat. In a heavy story about criminal and justice it feels a bit out of place. I do LOVE the hercules beetle though.

Would it help if I added a line indicating that Snails told the Cakes and Pinkie about the amulet and they were okay with it? Maybe they owe the Drops family a favor for some reason and so are letting Snails test his amulet on their unbeatable ice cream sundae.

And I love the beetle too. He needs a name. I vote for Atlas. :-)

Oh and I forgot to mention! While I like the fight at the train station, Volk in that scene is WAY too overpowered. Manipulating multiple trains that are clearly out of his line of sight AND sending bolts at Raindrops? That's just too much multi tasking for a unicorn without 'magic' as a cutie mark. I think it would be more believable if he had only one train under his control but used the track control to making it move around the station effectively. Also you forgot that Changelings have green shimmering magic if you want to keep that angle.
It would also allow you to have a part where Cheerilee tricks Goliath into destroying the track just as the train heads her way, causing it to derail and depriving Volk of his weapon! It'd be pretty awesome!

These are really awesome ideas and I will definitely incorporate them. :-D

Also please try not to do more of those secret projects. Maybe you and Emeral could have worked out a way to use Twilight in a way that satisfy Emeral while still retaining your original intent WITHOUT this option meaning a complete rewrite. I'd feel TERRIBLE having to ask you to rewrite a whole story to accept it into canon.

There were two reasons why this was secret. One was to mimic writing an actual novel, since I wouldn't have a message board to ping for ideas while doing that. Two was because I know Emeral reflexively shoots down everything I say. If I had posted any of my ideas in brainstorming, Emeral would have trashed them, no matter how good they were. And instead of writing the story, I'd have to defend it before Emeral poisoned everybody against it, and there'd be more fighting and recriminations . This way I at least got the thing written.

It's a weakness of mine that I don't tend to write as well when I'm dealing with Internet drama--I get sucked into it and don't get as much done. I'm a bit behind on an anthology submission, for instance, because I spent last weekend being depressed about this stuff rather than writing it. So I figured, if drama is inevitable even if my idea is good, I might as well just get a beta I really trust--Talon in this case--and write it before anyone else had a chance to criticize me for trying.

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If I may briefly be so bold, I have an additional suggestion to add to this. Instead of just randomly running into DT & SS at the insectarium, it might be worth considering just making this all start with a school field trip. That would also give Cheerilee an overall better reason to be visiting Canterlot at the exact same time as Raindrops, who can herself just be along as an additional chaperone.

That won't work. I can't think of any way to get rid of the foals that wouldn't also get rid of Snails, and it would look bad if Cheerilee abandoned her class to go hunt down her old friend. Plus, like RDD said, that would be the second consecutive field trip in Canterlot in which Snails got away from Cheerilee.

What I'll likely do is have the insectarium be doing a kind of pre-opening thing which isn't open to the general public but is only supposed to be for educational and business partners. That gets CT in (Farmer U rep), Rich and Silver (business partners), and Cheerilee (educational. Maybe the class in general did poorly on the farming bugs test {Snails excluded}, so Cheerilee wanted to see what options they had for helping to educate her students--field trips, take-home modules, etc). Then Raindrops, seeing how blue Snails is, can prevail on Cheerilee to get them in as a plus 2 or something, which Cheerilee agrees to do because she's nice, and also because--as she's already going into the city--she was planning on meeting an old friend for lunch, and wouldn't it be fun to introduce Duty to the others after the museum trip?

That also provides a reason for everyone to be going to Canterlot on that day.

On top of all my other reasons, it's still an awfully big coincidence that [Twilight would] be lured into a trap on the exact same day Cheerilee and Raindrops are visiting Canterlot for completely unrelated reasons, which is also the exact same day Max accidentally stumbles upon the same conspiracy entirely on his own.

The vigilantes chose that day (both for the jailbreak, and also to catch their highest-profile targets) because Luna would be out. I can give Sneak Attack a line stating this. That's why Twilight was there that day, and also that's why the jailbreak that got Max on the right path happened then as well.

The only real coincidence is that the insectarium opening coincides with Luna being out of town. Everything else follows.

Not to mention that Twilight is no ordinary ex-con. Her parents are viceroys and her brother captain of the royal guard, all of which puts them in a prime position to know if she was really up for such time off for good behavior. While their own ignorance of events is excusable, surely Twilight herself would expect that one of them would have contacted her personally with the good knews, and given how paranoid she can be either get suspicious or depressed if it happened otherwise (you know, much the same way as on the show how she got upset about not finding out about her brother's marriage until an official invitation mere days before hand).

Sneak Attack was screwing around with the mail. The implication was that, in addition to redirecting Twilight's letters, he was forging suitable responses to allay Twilight's fears. I can add a line specifically stating that, if you want. (I'm leery of making SA too expositional in his scene, though).

Fine, if it's a matter of keeping the cast in character, then at the very least Twilight needs to be a more involved and active participant in driving events. She shouldn't just be the hapless damsel who's only here for the L6 to save. She can't be as she is in at least one scene practically cowering in the corner while curled up into a fetal position, rocking back and forth while chanting about how she only wanted to see her family. This is Twilight "No more running, no more hiding" Sparkle, and after all she's been through, now that she's finally getting her life back on track only for vigilantes to come and try making some kind of example out of her, magic or no, there should be more righteous indignation and a desire for some serious payback.

When she's at the train station, she's just learned that the Shadowbolt has abandoned her, her family isn't actually coming to see her, and oh yeah, her magic is turned off. She's so stunned by all those problems that I doubt she'd be good for much of anything in terms of fighting.

Since I'm having CT suffer from a crisis of confidence, she'll likely be more prominent in the garden battle. I was reluctant to do that for fear of her overshadowing CT, who is one of our protagonists, but whatever.

Also to be perfectly honest, the library scene could probably be dialed back a bit. Yes, Twilight is supposed to be in Ponyville to make friends, and I'm happy to see that she's succeeding, but at the same time she really is still supposed to be something of a reclusive bookworm. Even on the show she's never been that peppy about making new friends beyond her core five. I'm not saying the subject can't come up, but should it really be at the forefront of her thoughts while packing for the trip.

I don't agree. I drew that pretty much directly from the sleepover episode with Rarity and AJ whose name I can't remember. She was so giddy she was almost squeeing.

However, seeing as this fic also features more ponies from the same mob that once tried to kidnap Dinky, I can't help but feel that if our heroes are going to work alongside them Ditzy really needs to be the one who is here to... well, "forgive" would probably be too strong a word, but it just feels wrong for any of the L6 to help the mobsters in any way unless Ditzy is there to agree to it.

I don't think Ditzy fits this story, and I don't want to rewrite the story so the heroes work alongside the mafia. The heroes investigate the mafia in Chapter 4, fight the mafia in Chapter 8 and save two mafiosos from being executed by vigilantes in Chapter 9 so that they can resume their prison sentences. That's it.

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On that note, I'm also not sure about [Snails] being able to "hold" five pictures, nor being able to project them. The memory spell already has basically nothing to do with insects, and magic is supposed to be bound to cutie marks in MLP. Plus, Trixie herself can't maintain more than three imprinted memories, so I'm not sure how I feel about Snails managing five.

My impression was that Trixie only being able to hold three pictures and show them through a kiss wasn't due to an inherit limitation in her ability but just because she hadn't bothered to improve those spells yet. She's not Twilight; she doesn't study and refine everything to its finest detail. She picks up what she needs for the effect she wants and moves on. (In fact, IIRC she got the kiss spell out of a book on the spur of the moment. She could probably make a better one if she put more thought into it.)

So if Snails came to her and said, "Miss Trixie! My mom's gonna take me to see a really really cool bug in the studio and I just know Snips would love to see it, if I take a magic photo of it can you please please please show me a way to show him that photo?" Trixie would probably sigh internally, then stand on her hind legs and boast how the Great and Powerful Trixie can easily solve this problem for one of her greatest admirers. And then she'd go beat her head against a book or a (metaphorical) wall for a little bit until she worked it out.

If there was one thing I really didn't like about this chapter in particular, it was Luna, and how she basically told Greengrass to go fuck himself. I went into more detail about that in the Quorum.

As mentioned above, I can temper this.

A few random notes:

I received some feedback (from Talon as well) that Goliath shouldn't be as strong as he is. I think it's okay for there to be a freakishly strong unicorn just as Raindrops and Bulk Biceps are freakishly strong pegasi. However, if people think it's a problem, I could add a line indicating he's a unicorn/earth pony hybrid.

I can have a few lines expressing surprise that Max is on that Canterlot Security Ministry, especially since Max himself doesn't know why he's on it. (Probably Luna put him there because she thought it'd be good for him and the Ministry both, but Fisher--whose job it would likely be to convey this information--didn't tell him because he doesn't want him there.)

I can cut the songs, and flashbacks in general.

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I don't know if I'll actually write that story, but I guess I can cut the songs and flashbacks. I put them in because, originally, Max just basically exposited it all in Chapter 6 (when the others wanted to know why he and Greengrass seemed chummy), but I can have him summarize it really quick or something.

Maybe mix flashback and Max's dialogue, adding a few questions and reactions from the other characters. It would help out. Heck I think it would also help to tease out those flashback earlier when we see Greengrass, like a paragraph or two without the rest of the context.

I still want Snails to be unhappy about something in Chapter 1, to foreshadow his collapse in Chapter 2 so it doesn't seem like it just comes out of nowhere, and also so Raindrops can have a "I will cheer up my brother by taking him to a fun place' moment. But maybe instead of the bullies I can have him run into a bug that just won't listen to him, which causes him to question his self worth since communicating with bugs is the only thing he's good at (in his own opinion).

Hmm he could still have been generally bullied, but I don't think it helps to have what is essentially twice the same scene with DT and SS teaming up on Snails as he tries to defend himself. So you could mention the duo but not have them actually appear. Plus that way you can make the bullying at the Insectarium be mentionned as being much more than what Snail usually gets from the pair. That way that second one has more punch to it.

I'll probably just have her going to the insectarium as well, maybe as the Farmer Union's representative to see what kind of farming bug-related services they offer. If the Riches and Silvers are there to explore business opportunities, no reason Carrot Top can't go for similar reasons.

Good idea! I like that. You should have Cheerilee compliment her on her buisness sense and then she could sheepishly reply it was Green Grapes' idea or something

I don't agree with this. Civilian control of the military is a cornerstone of many first-world nations for a variety of reasons. If the Night Court or Luna decides to for instance, station troops in a friendly griffin nation as a warning to a neighboring hostile one, Armor, or his Night Guard equivalent (whom I don't think we ever named), shouldn't be able to say, "Nope, I don't feel like it."

Good point. Thing is that in this instance it's more like police work, and having the potential for politician to manipulate police work is not a good thing. Admitedly the Royal Guards are a bit of a problem in that they are both military and civilian law enforcement rolled into one. Normally those don't have the same type of relation to the Legislative branch of a government. Maybe Fisher could declare Martial Law in response to the crisis? What's really important is that we don't want readers to think the Nobles of the Night Court can just order the guards to get rid of their political enemies ya know? Otherwise I'm fine with the scene in general.

I'm not sure I agree with that either. Would Luna really tell Armor every time she jaunts off for a day or two? Armor is in charge of the Royal Guards, but he's not her personal bodyguard. They probably don't even see each other every day.

Still, I can just have Fisher think to himself earlier that Luna is out of town, and have Armor say something like, "I'll complain to her as soon as she returns from Califurlong."

I just think Luna being out of town would be known in the Castle. It would probably affect guard duty, and since it's an official visit she probably took the royal chariot and some of her Night Guard, meaning Shining probably had to assign regular guards at their posts to cover for them.

I'll probably change her to, instead of being zen, being worried about her own inexperience. I noted a few days ago that CT is the only adult member of the team who hasn't gotten in trouble with the law at some point--setting aside Twilight and Greengrass, we have Cheerilee's long and checkered criminal history, Max got Castigated for something he does in Talon&Thorn's story, and Raindrops maimed a guy. CT hasn't even gotten so much as a jaywalking ticket. She has no experience in dealing with criminal elements, and that's what they need to do in JULP, so CT likely feels outclassed. She gets stuck on Snails-sitting duty when they investigate Arnaqueur's place, she gets trapped behind rubble in the train fight, and she reminds behind at Greengrass' to mix potions instead of going to fight. She's got an adult form of Snails' issues.

So, instead of Greenie and CT cheering up Snails, I'm thinking that either Twilight and Greengrass cheer up Snails and CT, or Twilight and GG just cheer up CT and Snails, who is paying close attention, is smart and draws the appropriate lessons to apply to his own case.

I like it. Plus it lets Twilight showcase that she's not a panicky damsel in distress, even if shock got to her at the train station.

At the same time, there's something to be said for not being too oblique to be understood. Still, I can try to trim the section about the Cheerilee/Duty relationship.

You could mention what they were doing but maybe avoid details like the name of locations and the merchandise they were carrying.

Or, my prefered idea:

You could also have a flahsback to AFTER their first adventure is over, with Duty and Cheerilee sitting in a field, covered in grime and soot and just having a good laugh about what just happened. We don't really know what they did, aside from cues in their dialogue but we know it was grand and we get to 'meet' Duty a bit earlier, get a feel for her. You have Duty go "You're not bad kid, for an amateur" and they exchange hoof bump. This way you understand the relationship without having too many details and Cheerilee doesn't have to tell her friends she used to smuggled stuff too. A woman's got to have her secret ya know.

eah, but Emeral keeps saying that he shouldn't have lost his seat, or his title, or Notary, or any of the rest of it.

And so, in the interest of once again compromising, I'm willing to change it so GG hasn't lost his seat/title by this story (and I'll rejigger his backstory a little bit to match that). But he still needs something to ask Luna for (and not get) at the end of the story, or his last scenes with Fisher and Max don't work (and he also wouldn't have any real objective during the story, which would make him a weak character.) What I'll probably do instead is have Luna let him remain with his seat/title, but--to forestall him from doing anything else crazy--allow Greenmeadow, his incorruptible father, to basically be able to override him if he thinks GG is doing something bad. As long as GG behaves, no problem; if GG steps out of line, GM can just have GG's actions not actually count. But, as GM is less ambitious with the whole 'cultivate Equestria into a glorious garden' thing, he wouldn't let GG do any of his more ambitious, high risk-high reward 'gardening' projects--which would frustrate the Duke, who wants to keep growing and tending the nation. So then he has something to ask Luna for ("treat me like any other noble and let me govern without my dad vetoing half my bills"), which Luna could (politely) tell him he isn't going to get yet (because he needs to earn back that trust), and that motivates his scenes with Fisher and Max in Chapter 10. And then we never need to see him again, since presumably he'll be governing properly to earn back Luna's trust, which would be boring to read about.

I still think he needs to lose Notary. He has to lose something thanks to all his misdeeds, or else it makes his arc seem largely pointless.

I'm pretty fine with Greengrass having lost his seat, AND Notary during his run-in with the Sun Cult, and that Greenmeadow is now the seated noble representing Caneighda. It ha also been mentionned that nobles don't all have seat in the Night Court so it would make sense that he would keep his title of Duke, or maybe he could be reduced to the title of Baron. Though if you're willing to tackle the rewrite necessary to have Greengrass lose his seat and title in this story, since you won't write the one presented in the flashbacks anytime soon it would certainly help the cohesiveness of the story so I say go for it. Whatever you chose he certainly can't have Notary or any of his other employees in this story.

Would it help if I added a line indicating that Snails told the Cakes and Pinkie about the amulet and they were okay with it? Maybe they owe the Drops family a favor for some reason and so are letting Snails test his amulet on their unbeatable ice cream sundae.

And I love the beetle too. He needs a name. I vote for Atlas. :-)

Yeah. You could have the whole challenge be Pinkie's idea, it seems like the kind of thing she'd want to see. I mean in general I don't mind. I just think it feels out of place with the themes of the story.

What I'll likely do is have the insectarium be doing a kind of pre-opening thing which isn't open to the general public but is only supposed to be for educational and business partners. That gets CT in (Farmer U rep), Rich and Silver (business partners), and Cheerilee (educational. Maybe the class in general did poorly on the farming bugs test {Snails excluded}, so Cheerilee wanted to see what options they had for helping to educate her students--field trips, take-home modules, etc). Then Raindrops, seeing how blue Snails is, can prevail on Cheerilee to get them in as a plus 2 or something, which Cheerilee agrees to do because she's nice, and also because--as she's already going into the city--she was planning on meeting an old friend for lunch, and wouldn't it be fun to introduce Duty to the others after the museum trip?

Well they have titles now so it's probably not that hard to get inventions for that sort of event. I'm sure the uppercrust of Canterlot wouldn't mind Knights of the Realm and Elements of Harmony in attendance. You could even have a throwaway line about socialites trying to appear in press photograph with the Elements. I think this idea would add more flavor to the insectarium scene, give you change at some levity before the hard hitting storyline starts in earnest.

Sneak Attack was screwing around with the mail. The implication was that, in addition to redirecting Twilight's letters, he was forging suitable responses to allay Twilight's fears. I can add a line specifically stating that, if you want. (I'm leery of making SA too expositional in his scene, though

Maybe have Twilight mention the response she got instead of SA. I think she was there when they learned of the redirected mail.

The vigilantes chose that day (both for the jailbreak, and also to catch their highest-profile targets) because Luna would be out. I can give Sneak Attack a line stating this. That's why Twilight was there that day, and also that's why the jailbreak that got Max on the right path happened then as well.

The only real coincidence is that the insectarium opening coincides with Luna being out of town. Everything else follows.

Yeah I think the line about Luna would be a good idea, it helps tie everything together.

There were two reasons why this was secret. One was to mimic writing an actual novel, since I wouldn't have a message board to ping for ideas while doing that. Two was because I know Emeral reflexively shoots down everything I say. If I had posted any of my ideas in brainstorming, Emeral would have trashed them, no matter how good they were. And instead of writing the story, I'd have to defend it before Emeral poisoned everybody against it, and there'd be more fighting and recriminations . This way I at least got the thing written.

It's a weakness of mine that I don't tend to write as well when I'm dealing with Internet drama--I get sucked into it and don't get as much done. I'm a bit behind on an anthology submission, for instance, because I spent last weekend being depressed about this stuff rather than writing it. So I figured, if drama is inevitable even if my idea is good, I might as well just get a beta I really trust--Talon in this case--and write it before anyone else had a chance to criticize me for trying.

I'm sorry you feel that way. I understand the goal of the exercise. Still, if nothing else maybe you can discuss your premises in PMs with RDD, just to see if he thinks the storyline you're intending to write fits tone-wise with his vision.

I truly admire your ability to write so much in so short a time! It's great. I hope you can get over this whole thing and finish your anthology submission!

My impression was that Trixie only being able to hold three pictures and show them through a kiss wasn't due to an inherit limitation in her ability but just because she hadn't bothered to improve those spells yet. She's not Twilight; she doesn't study and refine everything to its finest detail. She picks up what she needs for the effect she wants and moves on. (In fact, IIRC she got the kiss spell out of a book on the spur of the moment. She could probably make a better one if she put more thought into it.)

Snails is still a young colt, and not one of the best at magic so it might seem a bit much with 5. I think three like Trixie would be sufficient for his to accomplish what he needs to do in the story, and he can boast about being as good as Trixie at it!

I received some feedback (from Talon as well) that Goliath shouldn't be as strong as he is. I think it's okay for there to be a freakishly strong unicorn just as Raindrops is a freakishly strong pegasus. However, if people think it's a problem, I could add a line indicating he's a unicorn/earth pony hybrid.

That's what I assumed he was, I don't know if it's worth expositing on it though.

Maybe Raindrops could accuse Fisher industry of having done experiement on him to make him that strong and then you could fit your tirade about how Fisher protects everypony and how Goliath is just a unicorn/earth pony hybrid and not a science experiment.

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Above everything else I may say here, this is your story, so everything is still your choice to make. Please let me make that much abundantly clear. No matter how blunt I may be in how I express myself, I'm not trying to force your hand, nor do I even have the power to force your hand in the first place. You don't have to do anything I say here, just take it under consideration and really think about my suggestions before dismissing them entirely.

Are we clear on that?

I think that Wallflower needed to be there since she's in charge of Canterlot province (I feel like we decided this somewhere) and so has a vested stake in that ministry. However, since she's not chair of that ministry, as she's not a security/military expert, the chair (Fisher) can order her in that respect.

I think it would be much easier to just have Walflower be out of town as well. T&T already suggested that she might be minister of foreign affairs, so if we say Luna is away on some diplomatic mission to another nation, it's easy to conceive that Wallflower would go wither her. Then we just say that Nitelite and Puissance are both currently handling concerns in there own home provinces, which could maybe then leave Fisher the highest ranking noble in Canterlot with nopony who can contradict him.

This scene establishes him as wrong, but not guilty of the abductions or any other crime (at that point). Second was to exonerate Captain Armor. The Guards have to be ineffective in this story, but if I just had the Guards be useless with no explanation then that would hurt Armor's character since he commands them.

A simpler solution I think would be to just have Shining Armor also be out of town. As Captain of the guard it's again easy to assume that if Luna is out of town on some official errand he might have accompanied her. This would also solve any inadvertent audience perception of him being a bad brother for not being more involved in a story where his sister is the target of vigilantes.

I still think he needs to lose Notary. He has to lose something thanks to all his misdeeds, or else it makes his arc seem largely pointless.

He already had lost something though, he lost his political influence and with it any chance to ever see his dreams of molding Equestria into a perfect garden. More to the point I'd like to raise one more reason why I really think the way your treating both him and Notary is bad canon, and that one simple webisoded -- The Game and the Garden. That canon fic made it abundantly clear that Notary was loyal to Greengrass 100%, that even though he was now disgraced and powerless that she'd never abandon him. It also set the tone for what might be to become of Greengrass after his fall, that even though he'd lost the big game, he could maybe still find new games to play.

By having him lose everything lose everything, seat, title, and his most trusted and loyal friends, you basically made the narrative of that webisode irrelevant. You took someone's else's work and contributions and tossed them all aside just to see your own vision through.

Still, if you're willing to reconsider him losing his seat/title, I'd like to make some further suggestions. Having resigned his seat as a gambit in some ploy still works I think. I'd prefer to see it be something he specifically dose in THIS fic rather than a flashback, but I'm not picky about that. He should keep his his position as Duke of Caneighda though (and with no oversight from his father, who previous fics implied to be so old that he had to be basically forced into retirement, suggesting he's probably no longer healthy enough to be put in such a position again).

Notary should really also stay in Greengrass's employ, since again the webisode already gave her a stronger and more consistent reason to stay by his side regardless of his position in the court. Yes, this would require a revision to Old Friends, but nothing that would really change the basic plot of Notary comes to Ponyville to resolve the issue of her unintentional marriage to Cheerilee and then hijinks ensue. For the purposes of that story it doesn't really matter where she's going afterwards, so there's no reason to have broken her and Greengrass up. Again I feel must reiterate that because the sinned together, any redemption they find should also be a path they walk together They are the ones who can in each other find something to care about beyond selfish ambitions.

That won't work. I can't think of any way to get rid of the foals that wouldn't also get rid of Snails, and it would look bad if Cheerilee abandoned her class to go hunt down her old friend.

I already explained how to do this, but I will reiterate in greater detail. You keep the scene at the insectarium where DT&SS bully Snails into running away. After Raindrops realizes her brother is missing she naturally wants to go off as well to find him and Cheerilee as both a friend and Teacher can take personal responsibility in helping her find him.. At this point in the story she's not aware of any abductions yet, so it's okay for Cheerilee to leave any other chaperones in charge of the remaining students, all of whom can finish up the field trip and leave on a train BEFORE the city goes into lockdown.

This might require reworking Duty's involvement. It's fine for her Cheerilee to still be old friends, but instead of having taken this trip specifically to visit her, Cheerilee can instead visit her to since Duty might still have an ear to the ground such as it were, some contacts or favors he could pull to help them find Snails.

Sneak Attack was screwing around with the mail. The implication was that, in addition to redirecting Twilight's letters, he was forging suitable responses to allay Twilight's fears

I'd figured as much, but forging official documents is not the same as forging letters form close family. Sneak Attack would have to not only copy the penmanship, but also the tone by which Twilight and her family communicate privately amongst themselves. The former isn't to hard, but the latter can be very difficult and any failure to do so perfectly could make Twilight feel like something wasn't right. She might not suspect a trap (or write it off as being crazy nonsense), however, we still know Twilight can be very paranoid, and the issue of her family being ashamed of her is something we knows weighs heavy on her conscience. None of this needs to change what happens once she arrives in Canterlot, but it might be good to reflect such concerns during the scenes where she's packing in the library.

I don't agree. I drew that pretty much directly from the sleepover episode with Rarity and AJ whose name I can't remember. She was so giddy she was almost squeeing.

Yes, she was giddy, but specifically about spending time with the friends she'd already made, not making new ones. Also don't forget that L!Twi is supposed to be more reclusive and socially awkward than her counterpart on the show. Again, the references to having made friends is fine, just maybe have it be expressed with less enthusiasm, especially since that could further reinforce the above paranoid concerns over her family. Maybe Twi could express doubt over whether any of her new friendships are even real, or if ponies are just placating her so she won't drop any more ursas on the town. Then let it be the L6 cast who tell her that's not true and to never think like that.

There were two reasons why this was secret. One was to mimic writing an actual novel, since I wouldn't have a message board to ping for ideas while doing that.

When it comes to testing your skills and pushing your limits, that's really probably something you should do over in the Cadanceverse where you have full executive authority over what get's to be canon, or just something standalone like your Scootaloo is a changeling fic. If you are going to do such thing's within the context of Lunaverse though, then it should only ever be for a story that you don't care makes canon cut or not. Myself aside, other members of the group still deserve a chance to give their own opinions as well before you unilaterally take it upon yourself to make decisions that could affect ALL of us.

Again, as Fizzy points out, you've always been one of the more radical members of the group. Whereas RDD, Fizzy, and myself have always had fairly similar views of what the Lunaverse is, your ideas have been decidedly different going all the way back to the very first contribution you ever tied to make. As different authors we might all be on slightly different pages, but often it seems like what ever page you are on is from a completely different book.

Now, I'm not saying that's a bad thing. If it was only RDD, Fizzy and myself calling the shots the Lunaverse would probably be a more peaceful place, but it might also be a more boring and less dynamic one as well. Your different approach no doubt brings some much needed variety to the setting that helps give us a wider audience appeal --HOWEVER-- because getting your ideas into canon has always been so important to you it's something that you absolutely must temper by vetting those ideas before pressing forward with implementing them. Not just for the sake of the setting's integrity, but for your own piece of mind as well. So that you never become so invested in an idea that might not mesh and thus don't become so disappointed and offended if all your hard work gets rejected over something that could have been fixed before it ever became a problem.

And instead of writing the story, I'd have to defend it before Emeral poisoned everybody against it, and there'd be more fighting and recriminations.

Look I do not, I repeat, I don NOT just reflexively shoot down ideas you propose just because you are the one who proposes them. I shoot them down because they are ideas I disagree with. It's just that you and I seem to be VERY different people and as such tend to have lots of things we disagree on. Besides, regardless of your intentions, it clearly had the opposite affect. The fact that none of these ideas were ever really vetted by the larger group (or even just by the quorum) ended up making me all the more resistant to them. It made me feel like you were trying to circumvent ALL contrary opinions to force your own view onto others. I'm not saying that's what you were really doing, only that it's how you made me feel.

Having said that though, if I can take a moment to be BOLD (pardon the pun), this next part is something I think might be extra important if you and I ever to figure out some way to mutually coexist.

It's a weakness of mine that I don't tend to write as well when I'm dealing with Internet drama--I get sucked into it and don't get as much done. I'm a bit behind on an anthology submission, for instance, because I spent last weekend being depressed about this stuff rather than writing it.

If all of that is true... well, then maybe you and I aren't so different after all, because you know what? I feel much the same way, ALL the time, and all these arguments you and I keep getting into are a major contributing reason for why my own writing has slowed to a crawl.

These constant dramas ALWAYS weigh heavy on me too, though maybe not for the same reason. See, I'm the kind of person who whenever I criticize someone else, I can't help but turn all of that critique backwards upon myself. My doubts in you become doubts in myself, which in turn makes me resent you for causing those doubts, which then makes me resent myself as well in a self-perpetuating depressive cycle that is very, very hard to break out of.

That's actually why these issues with Greengrass and Notary in particular really bug me on very deep fundamental level, because these were two character where you and I used to be in near total agreement. They were the one of the few things that I could always cling to so I could drag myself out of my depressive funks and remember that you aren't such a bad guy (that you've created things I love), and so equally remember that I'm not a bad guy either.

I know it might ring hollow, but I NEVER wanted to hate you in the first place, and the fact that I maybe do really does shame me. I don't know if we can ever truly be friends, but I don't want us to be enemies. That's not something I can do alone though, because this isn't only my problem. I know it might seem like such to you, but I'm not unreasonable. The fact I don't have really have any of these problems with anyone else in the group should attest to that.

... ... ...

I think it's okay for there to be a freakishly strong unicorn just as Raindrops is a freakishly strong pegasus. However, if people think it's a problem, I could add a line indicating he's a unicorn/earth pony hybrid.

Actually, I agree that it's okay for their to just be anomalies, ponies that exhibit qualities which might be seemingly be associated more so with a different tribe without needing to always fall back on the hybrid concept. This can especially work if you make Goliath's cute mark talent be exceptional strength. Then not only would it makes sense that he'd probably be very good at the physical training need to get so strong, but he could in theory further augment his strength through magic. We've seen Twilight lift everything from giant star bears to whole orchards full of apples, so a unicorn that instead channeled their telekinetic abilities into their own body could probably be capable of equally amazing feats of what might other wise seem like raw strength.

I know that just this one thing can't make up for every other argument, but I'd like to say again, I don't just automatically hate all your ideas. Sometimes, like here, they are things that I can really enjoy, and which can inspire me to consider further possibilities.

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My impression was that Trixie only being able to hold three pictures and show them through a kiss wasn't due to an inherit limitation in her ability but just because she hadn't bothered to improve those spells yet. She's not Twilight; she doesn't study and refine everything to its finest detail. She picks up what she needs for the effect she wants and moves on. (In fact, IIRC she got the kiss spell out of a book on the spur of the moment. She could probably make a better one if she put more thought into it.)

Actually, that's the reverse of what I've always held...Twilight is constantly trying to one learn spell after the next. As soon as she's learned the spell, though, she moves on to the next one, so she never really has a chance to refine any of her spells. When confronted with a problem, Twilight would rather find and learn the perfect spell to solve that problem.

Trixie, on the other hand, uses the spells she knows as often as possible. She practices them regularly, if she can, and has a lot of fun adapting them and morphing them around. When confronted with a problem, Trixie would rather use or adapt a spell she already knows to solve it.

Now, of course, she wouldn't have the opportunity to practice the memory-transfer spell very often. But I'll guarantee that she makes as heavy use as possible of the photograph spell, so her limit of three-per-day is probably a fairly hard limit.

My objection to the projection spell, meanwhile, isn't about whether or not the kissing-transfer spell should be adapted like that, but rather, whether or not Snails should even be able to learn it in the first place. Again, magic is tied to cutie marks, so Snails learning anything not related to simple animals should be both hard and imperfect (his relation to Shutterbug, a photographer, might be the only reason he's able to learn the photograph spell at all).

I received some feedback (from Talon as well) that Goliath shouldn't be as strong as he is. I think it's okay for there to be a freakishly strong unicorn just as Raindrops and Bulk Biceps are freakishly strong pegasi. However, if people think it's a problem, I could add a line indicating he's a unicorn/earth pony hybrid.

I thought it was a little unusual at first, but then like Emeral I remembered that there would always be outliers. It doesn't really bother me at all.

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Hmm he could still have been generally bullied, but I don't think it helps to have what is essentially twice the same scene with DT and SS teaming up on Snails as he tries to defend himself. So you could mention the duo but not have them actually appear. Plus that way you can make the bullying at the Insectarium be mentionned as being much more than what Snail usually gets from the pair. That way that second one has more punch to it.

Hmm... I do like the current setup of 'Snails starts the day very happy, he gets depressed a bit, Raindrops offers to take him to the insectarium, which cheers him up, but there he runs into the bullies and runs off in tears.' Maybe something happens to him after he leaves home to go bugwatching which reminds him of what the bullies said? I kind of like the idea I had before where he meets a bug that just blows him off, and that reminds him that DT&SS were calling him useless the other day. And then he can't find any bugs that will play with him and gets sad until Raindrops happens by.

Good idea! I like that. You should have Cheerilee compliment her on her buisness sense and then she could sheepishly reply it was Green Grapes' idea or something

Nice. I like that. :-)

Good point. Thing is that in this instance it's more like police work, and having the potential for politician to manipulate police work is not a good thing. Admitedly the Royal Guards are a bit of a problem in that they are both military and civilian law enforcement rolled into one. Normally those don't have the same type of relation to the Legislative branch of a government. Maybe Fisher could declare Martial Law in response to the crisis? What's really important is that we don't want readers to think the Nobles of the Night Court can just order the guards to get rid of their political enemies ya know? Otherwise I'm fine with the scene in general.

He more or less does declare martial law in chapter 6, so I don't want to trigger that too early in chapter 1 (before he shuts the city down). But one of the escapees is a Sun Cultist, so Fisher could probably argue that chasing him (and the others) down should be considered to be part of the war effort against Corona and thus under his jurisdiction. (Maybe even have Wallflower, who runs Canterlot, or Shackles, who among other things seems to be in charge of the jail and so is presumably involved with law-and-order type stuff, say that this is arguable--to which Fisher would say they can certainly argue about it to Luna when she gets back, but until then, legally, as chair of that ministry he has the right to make the judgement that this is a military matter).

You could also have a flahsback to AFTER their first adventure is over, with Duty and Cheerilee sitting in a field, covered in grime and soot and just having a good laugh about what just happened. We don't really know what they did, aside from cues in their dialogue but we know it was grand and we get to 'meet' Duty a bit earlier, get a feel for her. You have Duty go "You're not bad kid, for an amateur" and they exchange hoof bump. This way you understand the relationship without having too many details and Cheerilee doesn't have to tell her friends she used to smuggled stuff too. A woman's got to have her secret ya know.

I do like this idea a lot. Thanks!

Though if you're willing to tackle the rewrite necessary to have Greengrass lose his seat and title in this story, since you won't write the one presented in the flashbacks anytime soon it would certainly help the cohesiveness of the story so I say go for it. Whatever you chose he certainly can't have Notary or any of his other employees in this story.

He certainly won't lose them in this story. The way the story is now, he lost them in the flashbacks to about six months prior; what I'm considering is changing it so that he doesn't lose them at all, as Emeral has argued, and instead has the constraint that his political moves can be hampered by Greenmeadow vetoing them. I do agree that Notary and his other employees can't be involved in the story. No room for them.

I'm sure the uppercrust of Canterlot wouldn't mind Knights of the Realm and Elements of Harmony in attendance. You could even have a throwaway line about socialites trying to appear in press photograph with the Elements. I think this idea would add more flavor to the insectarium scene, give you change at some levity before the hard hitting storyline starts in earnest.

I like the thing with the photographers, but I'll probably stick to Raindrops getting invites for herself and Snails from Cheerilee. (EIther Cheerilee has a +2, or maybe she and CT each have a +1). It's a bit skeevy for the knights to really be able to get into anything they want, and since the insectarium has nothing to do with their knightly duties, it would seem a bit odd to score tickets that way.

Maybe have Twilight mention the response she got instead of SA. I think she was there when they learned of the redirected mail.

Sure, I can throw a line in there.

I truly admire your ability to write so much in so short a time! It's great. I hope you can get over this whole thing and finish your anthology submission!

Thanks. I hope so too!

Maybe Raindrops could accuse Fisher industry of having done experiement on him to make him that strong and then you could fit your tirade about how Fisher protects everypony and how Goliath is just a unicorn/earth pony hybrid and not a science experiment.

Sure, that could be neat. "Gamma rays? Let me tell you, Dame, we might be developing all kinds of tricked out weapons and magitech, but we're not that crazy!"

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I think it would be much easier to just have Walflower be out of town as well. T&T already suggested that she might be minister of foreign affairs, so if we say Luna is away on some diplomatic mission to another nation, it's easy to conceive that Wallflower would go wither her. Then we just say that Nitelite and Puissance are both currently handling concerns in there own home provinces, which could maybe then leave Fisher the highest ranking noble in Canterlot with nopony who can contradict him.

This feels very contrived. I can buy Luna being out of town; she's gotta go other places sometimes. All her viceroys and Captain Armor too? That doesn't seem plausible to me. I think it's much simpler and better just to say that Fisher is in charge of this ministry, so as long as Luna is gone, nobody can contradict in that respect.

He already had lost something though, he lost his political influence and with it any chance to ever see his dreams of molding Equestria into a perfect garden. More to the point I'd like to raise one more reason why I really think the way your treating both him and Notary is bad canon, and that one simple webisoded -- The Game and the Garden. That canon fic made it abundantly clear that Notary was loyal to Greengrass 100%, that even though he was now disgraced and powerless that she'd never abandon him. It also set the tone for what might be to become of Greengrass after his fall, that even though he'd lost the big game, he could maybe still find new games to play.

But it wasn't about loyalty. In the flashbacks, the two split up for two reasons:

1. After the Gala, Greengrass has no hope of rising in power. Notary won't be able to matter as the indispensable assistant to a ruler of the land that is not omnipotent and needs her help--she'll remain a Duke's secretary under a nigh-omnipotent sovereign who could do everything she can, if she wanted to. She won't be able to get what she wants. Greengrass wouldn't want to keep her from her dreams.
2. Greengrass knew that he'd taught her all he could. She didn't need him to learn from anymore--she could pursue her goals better without him, and he didn't want to burden her by keeping her in an environment she'd outgrown. (Would a gardener keep a grown flower in an inadequate pot, simply to have it close by, or let it go into the wild so it could truly flourish?)

That all said, there's a larger problem. If Greengrass still has his helpers and such, how do I get rid of them so he can be isolated in this story? I suppose they could all be stuck in the castle, but it just seems a bit cliche.

(and with no oversight from his father, who previous fics implied to be so old that he had to be basically forced into retirement, suggesting he's probably no longer healthy enough to be put in such a position again).

I don't think he's been in any previous fics, at least not that I can recall I see him as at around what would be conventional retirement age (65 or so; his own father died when he himself was 35 or so). GM is still fit as a fiddle, albeit old. He stepped aside on the basis that he'd done it for thirty years and thought maybe it was time to settle back and let his wonderful son take over while he enjoyed his retirement. (Of course, that didn't work out that well, when GG turned out to be a bit less than wonderful).

In my head, he's voiced by the Full Metal Jacket drill sergeant guy, by the way. Particularly when he's critiquing Max.

I already explained how to do this, but I will reiterate in greater detail. You keep the scene at the insectarium where DT&SS bully Snails into running away. After Raindrops realizes her brother is missing she naturally wants to go off as well to find him and Cheerilee as both a friend and Teacher can take personal responsibility in helping her find him.. At this point in the story she's not aware of any abductions yet, so it's okay for Cheerilee to leave any other chaperones in charge of the remaining students, all of whom can finish up the field trip and leave on a train BEFORE the city goes into lockdown.
This might require reworking Duty's involvement. It's fine for her Cheerilee to still be old friends, but instead of having taken this trip specifically to visit her, Cheerilee can instead visit her to since Duty might still have an ear to the ground such as it were, some contacts or favors he could pull to help them find Snails.

I'd still rather leave them out, honestly. It adds clutter and I still think it looks bad for Cheerilee to abandon the rest of her class, even if there are other chaperones. I like the idea of the insectarium having a pre-opening better.

I'd figured as much, but forging official documents is not the same as forging letters form close family. Sneak Attack would have to not only copy the penmanship, but also the tone by which Twilight and her family communicate privately amongst themselves. The former isn't to hard, but the latter can be very difficult and any failure to do so perfectly could make Twilight feel like something wasn't right. She might not suspect a trap (or write it off as being crazy nonsense), however, we still know Twilight can be very paranoid, and the issue of her family being ashamed of her is something we knows weighs heavy on her conscience. None of this needs to change what happens once she arrives in Canterlot, but it might be good to reflect such concerns during the scenes where she's packing in the library.

I can give her a line to that effect, though it's worth mentioning that, as a professional spy, Sneak Attack would likely be pretty good at this.

Maybe Twi could express doubt over whether any of her new friendships are even real, or if ponies are just placating her so she won't drop any more ursas on the town. Then let it be the L6 cast who tell her that's not true and to never think like that.

Given Twi's bit at the end of Magic Tutor, where she seemed really eager to get started, I think she's ready to be giddy at making friends again. Besides, as a nerd myself, I'm certain that her reaction to the flower fractal thing would be pretty much exactly as I wrote it. :-)

Look I do not, I repeat, I don NOT just reflexively shoot down ideas you propose just because you are the one who proposes them. I shoot them down because they are ideas I disagree with. It's just that you and I seem to be VERY different people and as such tend to have lots of things we disagree on.

But here's the thing: many of my stories have been accepted by the community. Some of my stories, like SfM&S, seem to be very well liked by the group, and RDD did appoint me to the quorum too on the basis of what I wrote. The group consensus seems to be that I did at least alright in S1. It's therefore very unlikely that, when S2 began, I began writing only total garbage. If you disagree with everything I propose, you need to consider that the problem is your assessments. Sure, it's theoretically possible that everything I proposed for S2 was terrible and that your assessments of it were accurate. I would contend it's much more likely that not all of it is terrible, that some of it is good--just like some of my S1 works was quite good, if I can say so myself--and that you're taking a far too critical stance with my works, one that you don't seem to take with any other author in the group.

I know that just this one thing can't make up for every other argument, but I'd like to say again, I don't just automatically hate all your ideas. Sometimes, like here, they are things that I can really enjoy, and which can inspire me to consider further possibilities.

Thank you for that. And I do like the idea about Goliath's cutie mark/special talent being intense strength. :-)

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My objection to the projection spell, meanwhile, isn't about whether or not the kissing-transfer spell should be adapted like that, but rather, whether or not Snails should even be able to learn it in the first place. Again, magic is tied to cutie marks, so Snails learning anything not related to simple animals should be both hard and imperfect (his relation to Shutterbug, a photographer, might be the only reason he's able to learn the photograph spell at all).

Personally, I don't see why showing someone an image is less related than taking one in the first place. They seem to be two halves of the same thing. And if wanting to take photos of his bugs so he can remember them qualifies under his talent, I think showing others pictures of his bugs should count too. After all, bugs are what make him happy. I'd think sharing that joy would be part of his magic.

As for the photograph limit... mostly, I wanted to avoid the question of 'why is Snails taking a photo of Cheerilee and not his awesome sister if he only has a few shots?' With five, I could see him getting three or four of Raindrops and then one of Cheerilee which includes the wrecked track. With three, I'm not sure that works. I dunno, maybe Raindrops can fly by the bombed track at some point so Snails can get them both in the shot?

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Just to reiterate, every suggestion I make in regard to your fic is only that, a SUGESTION. They are not demands and you do not have to acquiesce just to appease me. Now, if you want my canon vote of approval it would certainly help if you at least took such suggestion under consideration, but please always keep in mind that I'm not the only one casting such votes. As long as you make RDD and Fizzy happy then they can just out vote me.

...and please don't take the above as any kind of insult or threat. I'm just trying to point out that I'm not so big a threat as you make me out to be. No matter how much I might dislike any given premise of your fic, if both RDD and Fizzy tell me I'm out of line then I'll go and quietly sulk in the corner. Does that seem fair?

This feels very contrived. I can buy Luna being out of town; she's gotta go other places sometimes. All her viceroys and Captain Armor too? That doesn't seem plausible to me.

If I may be allowed to speak to the contrary, it's actually easy to conceive of such being the case. We just make the reason Luna is away be a diplomatic mission to a foreign nation (to Saddle Arabia or something, like Celestia was when the show needed her indisposed). If we then go with T&T's idea that Wallflower is minster of Foreign affairs then it would make perfect sense for her to also be away on the exact same diplomatic mission. It then follows that Shining Armor as captain of the royal guard might accompany them to oversee security details. So that's the three most important absences all neatly wrapped up in a single believable event.

As for the other Viceroys, is it really so hard to believe that the might also be away. The night court doesn't stay in session a full 365 (or whatever) days per year. If there are no pressing legislation to be voted on many of the members would have cause to be handling smaller affairs in their own home provinces. This would only go double for Puissance who has two non-adjacent province to supervise. Whereas for Nitelite, while he can split duties with his wife, the two of them still need to find time to spend together, so he can't just always be in canter lot either.

Honestly, I think it makes much more sense to have any and all higher ranked nobles out of town than to give a Fisher any kind of executive override he can assert against his own superiors. The Viceroys aren't supposed to be just like any other nobles, instead being second only to Luna and as such empowered to act on the crown's behalf in her absence. I could maybe see Puissance letting Fisher do his whole Marshal law thing (she's not really a nice pony either), but I think Nitelite should definitely be out of Canterlot for the same narrative concerns as Shining Armor so that neither of them are inadvertently seen as making things worse for Twilight through inaction.

1. After the Gala, Greengrass has no hope of rising in power. Notary won't be able to matter as the indispensable assistant to a ruler of the land that is not omnipotent and needs her help--she'll remain a Duke's secretary under a nigh-omnipotent sovereign who could do everything she can, if she wanted to. She won't be able to get what she wants. Greengrass wouldn't want to keep her from her dreams.

Except that's literally a reason that never exist, was never even hinted at, before you pulled it out of nowhere for Old Friends. Prior to that Notary was always presented as much more of genuinely humble servant with no desires beyond facilitating her employers goes to the fullest of her abilities. Also, while I really don't want to sound like I'm harping on that fic, I still think that you really broke notary as a character by introducing this whole angle where she thinks nothing anyone does can matter because Luna is supposedly omnipotent. It makes Notary seem supremely naïve and foolish in a way unbefitting of her character. As some pony who is so versed in political history, Notary should simply know better than that.

That all said, there's a larger problem. If Greengrass still has his helpers and such, how do I get rid of them so he can be isolated in this story? I suppose they could all be stuck in the castle, but it just seems a bit cliche.

Simpler solution. Many of his former employees where ruffians and enforcers. Now that he's lost on his political influence though and can't really run his old scams any more he'd have no use for most of them, and perhaps more importantly most of them would have no use for him thus would all abandon him to see fortune else where (with only Notary as his true and loyal servant that sticks with him through it all). That would really play well into the whole how-the-mighty-have-fallen angle.

As for avoiding involving her in these events. I still think you should consider my earlier idea of consolidating the two narrative you have going into a single story, and so instead of her having been kidnapped in a flashback have it be an event that during this whole crisis by being just one more target the vigilantes are going after. Or you could actually have be around the whole time without needing to change much. She's not really a fighter (you've said so yourself), it's easy enough if she's just left behind to hold down the fort so to speak while everyone else rushes of into action. Besides, then you could turn this fic into something of a setup for Old Friends fore shadowing events by letting Cheerilee and Notary get some earlier interaction here.

Baring any of that though, surely even Notary gets vacation days.

I see him as at around what would be conventional retirement age (65 or so; his own father died when he himself was 35 or so). GM is still fit as a fiddle, albeit old. He stepped aside on the basis that he'd done it for thirty years and thought maybe it was time to settle back and let his wonderful son take over while he enjoyed his retirement.

To be fair he is your character. But by Greengrass's descriptions of the guy I'd always pictured him as something of a workaholic who would never willingly retire unless he was latterly forced into due to simply having grown to old to keep working. The voice I always pictured him with was Francis Griffin from Family Guy.

More to the point, I think it really deflates any threat Greengrass ever had as a villain if after he gets in trouble daddy comes in to take over again. It just makes Greengrass seem like he was never anything more than a naughty child. Still these are your characters. I might not like the way the direction you are taking them in, but it's not entirely my place to say you are wrong either (though I still feel a little like you lied to me back when we were writing profiles together).

I'd still rather leave them out, honestly. It adds clutter and I still think it looks bad for Cheerilee to abandon the rest of her class, even if there are other chaperones.

It doesn't have to be cluttered, if you just mention it as a school fieldtrip but then only focus on Snails, Tiara, and Spoon while everypony else is off doing there own thing. We don't ever need to mention the other foals save incidentally. As for making Cheerilee look bad, that can go both ways, and it's perfectly reasonable for her to prioritize one lost student so long as there are other chaperones to look after the remaining ones.

Overall I just think it's less contrived than Filth Rich going to a random museum opening in Canterlot. Personally I've always viewed him as very much an example of "small-town-rich". That is to say, he might be the wealthiest pony in Ponyville, but he'd still just be a hick nobody so far as the Canterlot elite are concerned.

Really though that's beside the point. I'm not really all that concerned weather it's a field trip or an accident of chance that puts DT & SS in a position to make Snails run away. My bigger concern is that as your originally wrote this fic things just took way to long to get started. It's two whole chapters before Snails meets Greengrass, and even then it still takes even longer before the whole plot with the vigilantes really kicks into full gear. This all goes back into what I said about the fic just being to boring for me to ever really get interested in it. You just take too long setting everything up in needlessly intricate detail. don't feel like you have to hold the audiences hand, trust your readers to be smart enough to figure things out on there own. Worst case scenario you can always go back and explain anything that didn't quite work the first time later, but a bored audience might as well be no audience at all.

So my big piece of advice would be to cut down on the exposition in Ch1&2. See if you can't condense them down to just a single chapter that only concerns it self with what the audience absolutely has to know. For example, we don't really need to know that Snails is depressed before DT & SS tease him at the museum, instead just play the scene cold, and then later if you feel the need to add any additional exposition later it can be as something Snails tells Greengrass to explain why he ran away. The main point being that those two meeting is really where this story starts, where things start getting interesting and the quicker you can get there the better your story will be for it.

To reiterate, always hook your audience with an interesting premise first, with as little pre-establishing exposition as possible getting there. Anything that still needs to be explained after that can always be done so later after your audience has already invested in the story. Raindrops and Snails go to a museum isn't really something that will excite most audiences. Snails encounters Greengrass (the former big bad of S1) is the first real moment of excitement in your fic and so that really needs to be the big cliffhanger of Ch1, not held of until Ch2.

This is again why I think the field trip is the better idea, because it takes the least amount of setup to get everyone to Canterlot in the first place. Yes it requires some extra exposition afterwards to get rid of all the other students in a believable fashion, but done right the audience should already be hooked by then and won't mind a little exposition. Also, an important thing to know about narrative staging is that your audience will always be more willing to ignore contrived excuses AFTER they are already invested in and having fun with your story, where as any such contrivance that are in the setup BEFORE they've invested will stick out all the more glaringly and prevent readers from reaching that crucial stage of engagement to begin with.

Given Twi's bit at the end of Magic Tutor, where she seemed really eager to get started, I think she's ready to be giddy at making friends again. Besides, as a nerd myself, I'm certain that her reaction to the flower fractal thing would be pretty much exactly as I wrote it. :-)

It is worth noting that the end of Magic Tutor was something of an exception circumstance. She'd just gone through a very hectic day of moving into her new home, getting waylaid by Trixie and a bunch of foals, tricked into attending an impromptu party, and on top of that given something to drink that she might have thought was alcoholic. She pretty much had every reason to be off her guard.

Again, I'm not saying to rewrite the scene (well, other than the part were I would still just prefer you cut Twilight out completely, but I digress). What I saying is that you should just dial back on the enthusiasm with which she expresses herself. Play a bit more with her still lingering self confidence issues rather than some how suddenly acting like a pony who has pulled a complete personality 180. No one changes that much so quickly, and it makes her almost unrecognizable as even being the same character.

The fractal thing you can keep though, if nothing else Fizzy really liked it and I guess that's good enough for me.

The group consensus seems to be that I did at least alright in S1.

I don't think that quite as clear cut as you are making it out to be. Yes, you wrote SfM&S as well as M&D, which are among two of the best fics in S1. However, you also created Greengrass as well as the entire corruption in the court arc. Now, let me please reiterate, I loved Greengrass and really enjoyed the way you wrote him in S1, but I seem to have been in the overwhelming minority in that. For a rather vocal faction of our audience though, the whole Night Court arc was just a massive plot tumor choking the life out of the Lunavers and Greengrass was the emblematic core of the problem. To put it in the simplest terms possible, yes you wrote some of the most best fics in S1, but you also wrote some of the most controversial problematic ones as well.

If I've been more critical of you in S2 it's because of what I observed from the fallout of S1 and not wanting to see it inadvertently happen again. Maybe that makes me biased against you, but I don't think it's an entirely unfair bias.

Sure, it's theoretically possible that everything I proposed for S2 was terrible and that your assessments of it were accurate.

To be fair I've never attack your S2 Octavia fic. And while I was opposed to underlying premise of your Ditzy fic during brainstorming, I've never tried to campaign for removing it from canon. I was vehemently opposed to SoS, but so were RDD and Fizzy.

I'm not trying to say it's all only in your imagination, but I don't think I've been nearly as incessantly overly critical of you as you seem to think I have been.

Before I go I'd like to briefly touch back on something I suggested that, you've never really responded to. CT is still the character with the weakest reason to be in this story, both from in the initial setup and in terms of just not really having much of anything to actually do during it. I'd like to once again suggest that you consider using Ditzy instead. To reterate my reasoning fro why I think she should be in this story, it just feels WRONG to me for any of the L6 to willingly work with the same mafia that kidnapped Dinky unless Ditzy herself is there to say it's okay. She doesn't have to forgive those ponies, in fact she can still be just as angry as ever.

More to the point, I think Ditzy might be better choice for some of the rants you gave Raindrops. Yes Raindrops has a temper, but she's never really been shown to hold longstanding grudges (Rainbow Dash doesn't really count, since her boss being lazy is a recurrent problem she has to constantly put up with). In fact quite the opposite, predominantly due to her own temper. That is to say, she understands all to well that ponies can make mistakes, horrible mistakes that can hurt others. Because she's made mistakes of her own mistakes though she just doesn't seem the type to hold others mistakes against them, at least not so aggressively. After all, how can she ever expect others to forgive her if she can't offer that same forgiveness in turn. Again Raindrops anger is very much more of heat of passion kind of thing. She's more prone to getting angry about things that are actually happening around her, not making philosophical rants about social justice.

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Honestly, I think it makes much more sense to have any and all higher ranked nobles out of town than to give a Fisher any kind of executive override he can assert against his own superiors. The Viceroys aren't supposed to be just like any other nobles, instead being second only to Luna and as such empowered to act on the crown's behalf in her absence. I could maybe see Puissance letting Fisher do his whole Marshal law thing (she's not really a nice pony either), but I think Nitelite should definitely be out of Canterlot for the same narrative concerns as Shining Armor so that neither of them are inadvertently seen as making things worse for Twilight through inaction.

I don't have much time now, so I'll respond to the rest later, but this bit in particular doesn't match what we know of the Court. The Court has been structured so that, while a rank is a rough guide to the amount of power a noble has, a higher ranked noble cannot always overrule a lower ranked one if the higher ranked one isn't on the right committees/ministries. For instance, in AtGGG, Cheerilee told Vicereine Puissance that she did not have the power to implement her educational reforms because she wasn't on the right committee. Even though Puissance is a vicereine, she couldn't just decree that the lower-ranked nobles on the committee must do what she wanted; she had to find a stooge (Viscount of Konneticut) who was actually on the committee to advocate for her.

So it seems reasonable to me that, as the chair of the Canterlot Security Ministry, Fisher would be able to overrule nobles who are not that chair. And while he could be overruled by Luna herself, he couldn't be overruled by other nobles who weren't leading that ministry.

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Even though Puissance is a vicereine, she couldn't just decree that the lower-ranked nobles on the committee must do what she wanted;

That's different. That was a matter of a legislative bill. Obviously Puissance can't take it upon herself to just impose sweeping reforms that permanently alter the way law works across all of Equestria. That, however, is all very different than Fisher imposing marshal law and locking down an entire city that isn't even part of his provincial territory. Doubly so since that city is in this instance is the royal capital of Canterlot. Where there an actual military invasion in progress then maybe, but this is just a jailbreak.

This is very much a situation wherein Fisher has clearly overstepped both his rank and authority, and the fact that he is punished so severely for it after words proves as much. If Luna has the right's and privlages to do so upon her return, than the viceroys would have equal authority to do so in her absence, since it is there job to act as Luna's proxy when she is unavailable. Again, the rank of viceroy goes above and beyond all the others, especially while the princess is away, and as such this is exactly the kind of crisis where any viceroy that is in Canterlot has both the duty and responsibility to intercede and put a stop to things before they get out of hand. Doubly so Wallflower if we actually make her the governing noble of the Canterlot province.

Now if Fisher can be persuasive enough to convince what ever Viceroy might temporarily be in charge, than of course he can get away with a lot more. It shouldn't be Wallflower though or Nitelite, since they are supposed to mostly be among the "good" nobles. Doubly not Nitelite since we wouldn't want to portray an inaction on his part as making things more difficult for his daughter (not to mention there's a rather vocal segment of our audience that is still angry at him over AtGGG). It could be Puissance's, since she' not a nice pony and the audience isn't really supposed to like her anyway. However, if Fisher operates under her approval than he can't really be punished as harshly in the aftermath.

Overall though, I think it better serves the narrative if we just sidestep any issues of political rank by just not having the main viceroys there in the first place, and thus regardless of whether or not they actually have authority to override Fisher, it just never comes up. Maybe instead lets have the "highest" ranking noble instead be Wallflowers wife, who is technically a viceroy and possibly empowered to act in Wallflower's sted in regards to the governance of Canterlot, but holds no actual position or direct authority in the Night Court (doubly so if we established that she's of common birth, perhaps having been the previous lord mayor of Canterlot before marring Wallflower). This could allow Fisher to more believably bully her into acquiescence. Maybe she could protest his military lock down, maybe not, but the important factor would be that we present Fisher as a pony with stronger influence in both the court and the military, allowing him to stage what is almost in affect a small scale cue, and thus why he gets in so much trouble for it afterwards.

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That's different. That was a matter of a legislative bill. Obviously Puissance can't take it upon herself to just impose sweeping reforms that permanently alter the way law works across all of Equestria. That, however, is all very different than Fisher imposing marshal law and locking down an entire city that isn't even part of his provincial territory. Doubly so since that city is in this instance is the royal capital of Canterlot. Where there an actual military invasion in progress then maybe, but this is just a jailbreak.

But Wallflower isn't in the scene where he effectively declares martial law. Here's the relevant bits of the scene with Wallflower in Chapter 1:

"So," interrupted Fisher. "I recommend that we mobilize all available Guards and sweep the city. We'll focus on the mafia ponies first, since they're the most likely to have dangerous underlings within the city. Also, I have several members of my private security force here in the city guarding my various properties; with Captain Armor's permission I'd like to attach them to the Guards to help ferret out Soleil--they're equipped to deal with the Sun Cult."

"Sounds good to me, " said Armor. [...]

[Fisher said] "Second, I don't want the criminals hiding in crowds. We should put out bulletins urging everypony to stay inside--"

"No," said Wallflower.

"...no?" asked Fisher.

"No. As the Vicereine of Canterlot province, I cannot help but feel that a premature request of the citizenry to suspend their business and their daily activities and..." [...]

Fisher frowned, but said, "Fine. Unless things take a turn for the worse, we won't ask ponies to remain in their homes. Now, as for specific tasks--I will remain in the Castle and coordinate the search. Vicereine Wallflower, please monitor the civic services in the city and look for anything unusual. Viscount Shackles, you brief the Guards on what the escapees look like and anything else you know about them. Captain Armor, get your Guards ready; Volk, prepare Factory Security to assist them. Viscount Fudge Ripple..."

There's no martial law in chapter 1, and Fisher is still at this point mostly making recommendations and requests rather than orders. Wallflower actually wins the point when she says they won't be demanding ponies stay indoors; Fisher agrees with her then. And--if this was all Fisher had done--he wouldn't have gotten in trouble.

Where Fisher oversteps is when he basically declares martial law in chapter 6. That's when he shuts the city down, including closing all transportation into and out of it. And even then, what probably made Luna madder than anything was when Max told him, "There are abducted ponies whose lives are at stake," and Fisher refused to do anything about it because he thought there were more important problems and was willing to sacrifice a few criminals for the greater good. Luna doesn't want nobles who sacrifice ponies for the greater good. Even then, all she did was strip him of his ministry (as he wasn't exactly being corrupt, he just had completely screwed up priorities that rendered him unfit for that position). It wasn't until Greengrass tricked him into indulging in corruption (when Max was eavesdropping) that Luna ordered Fisher to be arrested.

If you still think someone should have said something after chapter 6, how about this--all the viceroys were in the castle after chapter 6, while Armor and Fisher were both outside it. Even if Night Light or Wallflower had the power to order Armor to back off the martial law thing, they had no way to actually communicate with him because Armor sealed the castle under Fisher's orders. And nobles, even viceroys, should not be able to countermand Armor's orders to his ponies ("yes, I know Captain Armor said to arrest me, but I'm Viceroy so and so and I say not to!"), so the Guards there wouldn't let them out of the shield just because they asked them.

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I think your missing my point. The Viceroys are supposed to be above and beyond the other nobles; it's in their title that confers upon them not just mere nobility but actually ROYALTY, second only to Luna. So yes, in the guard example you made, I very much do believe that they have the full authority to not just ask, but to ORDER a soldier to back down and let them into the castle in the same way that the princess could do exactly the same. Again, it is literally their job to take charge of the government when Luna is unavailable to do so.

I think however, you and I are at an impasse here and both need to take a step back for a minute and let other voices speak as well, so...

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Hey, sorry to bother you two, but I think this issue of the duties and privileges of the viceroys and how to handle their authority, if any, to overrule Fisher is something that needs full Quorum attention, since it could have wider reaching consequence in future stories as well. So if either of you have any opinions of your own on the matter I think now's a good time to voice them. Debate starts, more or less at this LINK, just incase you've not been following the thread.

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Honestly, yeah: the entire point of a viceroy is that they are vice-royalty (that's where the name comes from, after all).

More to the point, if Wallflower really is the Vicereine of Canterlot province, then to me it just makes sense that in the absence of Luna, she's in charge of the country. On paper she's probably even the heiress apparent. This would explain why she's the viceroy of Canterlot itself; viceroyalties are normally reserved for distant appointments where the ruling monarch couldn't be expected to keep up-to-date on what's going on.

Now, of course, Luna isn't exactly absent, just away for the next few days; nevertheless, if Fisher wants to declare martial law he'd only be able to by either getting Wallflower's permission, circumventing her somehow, or deposing her. So basically, what I'm saying is that Wallflower might not under normal circumstances be able to order around Shining Armor, but when Luna's away she certainly should be able to, and she can certainly order around Fisher, too.

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3263647 Hmm you know we could make a case about how the Night Court isn't in session. If you look at real life exemple, like the Canadian Parliament or it's provencial equivalents, the MPs are only in session for like... half the year maybe? So it's possible that a lot of nobles are out of town, back in their home turf. Now I do think one Viceroy/Vicereine should still be in town at all time when Luna is absent, so that there's always someone nominally in charge should anything happen, but really that only affect weather Wallflower is there or not. Wallflower being in charge of Canterlot would make her the only one with any realistic semblance of authority to counter Fisher's Martial Law being put into effect, if she's out of town on a diplomatic mission then Night Light could be around (that way he'll be there for Twilight during her visit) but not have the powers to block Fisher on his own without a good enough reason.

I personally have no problem with Shining Armour being around. He can apologize to Twilight in a webisode.

Ya know Emeral makes a good point about getting to Greengrass as fast as possible. It is the point where things kick off. In fact, if I might be so bold, I would suggest you take the scene with Creepy Vines and make it a flashback when Grengrass mentions the whole 'worse day of my life so far' deal. Possibly also any scene explaining why Snails is depressed, like your suggested 'bug who won't listen' bit, would also be used in a flashback. That way ch.1 could be more punchy right off the bat. You're already doing some important non-linear writing at multiple point in the story so more flashbacks won't really hurt.

Also if Notary was to be still around (and no one else) to work for Greengrass (and yes I know it would mean changing the ending to Old Friends) you could not only have her be kidnapped by the Vigilantes, but also be caught during the train station fight scene! That would certainly ratchet up the tension after that. Cheerilee would be even more worried about trusting the guard with saving one of her old acquaintances!

After all, how can she ever expect others to forgive her if she can't offer that same forgiveness in turn.

Maybe Raindrops doesn't forgive other because deep down she hasn't forgiven herself?

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As an addendum, since I'm not actually trying to force G&C to rewrite the entire plot of his fic in this regard. Would you agree that it might just be easer to contrive reasons for all the Viceroys to be indisposed on this day?

As it's also been suggested by T&T that Walflower heads the ministry of foreign affairs, then she and Luna could conceptually both be away on a singular diplomatic mission. Whereas, Nitelite and Puissance could just both be handling concerns in their home provinces (or Puissance could maybe be in Canterlot and just not concern herself with Fisher's abuse of power), since as Fizzy mentions the Night Court is presumably not in session 365 days a year.

Of course since this fic is already about Fisher getting ousted, we could have Walflower around, but then of course it should probably be made much more clear that Fisher's actions more or less amount to coup. Either way though I think that we should stick to the old stance that Wallflower doesn't get onscreen dialogue. I know G&C doesn't like that gag, but that doesn't give him the right to just unilaterally overrule it without consulting the group. Which is again why I might suggest it would be better to have Wallflower herself out of town so that the issue never actually has to come up. Relevant scenes could instead be Fisher bulling/pulling-rank over Wallflower's wife and/or Canterlot's lord mayor (who may or may not be the same pony).

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Night Light could be around (that way he'll be there for Twilight during her visit) but not have the powers to block Fisher on his own without a good enough reason.

I personally have no problem with Shining Armour being around. He can apologize to Twilight in a webisode.

I'm still concerned about audience perception. There are still some rather vocal member of our audience that hate Nitelite for delaying the emergency relief funding to Ponyville, and some who extend that to Shining Armor for further delaying Trixie with excessive security screening. I think we should be very cautious about putting either in any further situations where their actions (or inactions) allow bad stuff to happen.

More to the point perhaps. It might make sense that the vigilantes would choose a day when both Nitelite and Shining Armor where away to lure Twilight into a trap. After all they wouldn't want to have to worry about a protective viceroy and/or guard captain launching some kind of immediate investigation into the matter.

Maybe Raindrops doesn't forgive other because deep down she hasn't forgiven herself?

I'd argue the opposite. We've seen how much it pains Raindrops to know that others (including her own friends) are afraid of her. I think that she very much needs to be pony who believes that the most important thing isn't that that someone made a mistake, but whether or not they are trying to make up for that mistake.

All I'm gonna say at this point is that this kind of back-and-forth that we're doing here is exactly why we have both a brainstorming thread, and a writer's workshop thread.

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That's a good point, and one Fizzy already raised I think. There really is a lot being discussed here that should have been discussed there before it ever became a problem, but I'm not sure if we can back track it to that stage any more or not. G&C already published this fic and submitted it for Quorum aproval, so I think he's the only one who can choose to move the discussion.

However, while I don't think discussion on the details of the fic itself can be easily moved, some of the related topics with wider impact that have come up might be. Notably, it might be long past time to formalize the rules for how we use Wallflower, both now and moving forward into the future. I think like you suggested elsewhere, I'll write up a profile/outline and then submit it to brainstorming for further development.

First, getting back to some earlier stuff...

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Except that's literally a reason that never exist, was never even hinted at, before you pulled it out of nowhere for Old Friends. Prior to that Notary was always presented as much more of genuinely humble servant with no desires beyond facilitating her employers goes to the fullest of her abilities.

I don't agre. Your version reads to me as a very weak character. "I have no desires but to serve my master" is not only cliche but results in a pathetic, boring character with no mind or will of her own.

I much like the idea that, rather than Notary just liking being GG's servant, that she has her own goals and motivations, and she works with GG as partners, almost equals. They both have their own plans--GG, to make Equestria his own garden, and Notary, to do something of real import and significance--and they allied because they can help each other reach their goals. Along the way, they developed an intense friendship. GG wouldn't want someone whose only goal was to help him personally; he would see such a pony as weak and needy. Unquestioned subservience is fine in a pet; it's a bit odd in another sentient being.
Also, she was 'presented' for about five minutes total of screen time. Old Friends is not inconsistent with the very little we saw of her.
(Same with Greenmeadow, incidentally. He's never been onscreen in the Lunaverse. All we know about him is that he worked hard for a long time and wasn't corrupt. Anything else is something you added from your own headcanon, and it doesn't seem to fit my perception of the character.)

Also, while I really don't want to sound like I'm harping on that fic, I still think that you really broke notary as a character by introducing this whole angle where she thinks nothing anyone does can matter because Luna is supposedly omnipotent. It makes Notary seem supremely naïve and foolish in a way unbefitting of her character. As some pony who is so versed in political history, Notary should simply know better than that.

That's not naive or foolish. She's wrong about Luna's weaknesses, but it's not like Luna advertises her weaknesses. Notary is wrong, but she's not an idiot for believing that Luna is a higher level god instead of a lower level one (to use DnD terminology).

As for avoiding involving her in these events. I still think you should consider my earlier idea of consolidating the two narrative you have going into a single story, and so instead of her having been kidnapped in a flashback have it be an event that during this whole crisis by being just one more target the vigilantes are going after. Or you could actually have be around the whole time without needing to change much. She's not really a fighter (you've said so yourself), it's easy enough if she's just left behind to hold down the fort so to speak while everyone else rushes of into action. Besides, then you could turn this fic into something of a setup for Old Friends fore shadowing events by letting Cheerilee and Notary get some earlier interaction here.

Two problems with this. First, on a plot level, if Notary is kidnapped, no way in Hell is GG staying back at his warehouse while the Elements and Max save the day. The moment they said he couldn't help them, he'd go off on his own to make his own plan. That doesn't work for the story. Second, and more importantly--and the reason why I'm going to be inflexible on this--is that, if Notary is captured, GG has a selfish motive to help the Elements, which undercuts his character growth. He needs to be able to walk away without losing anything he really cares about so that, when he stays and fights, it shows his moral growth.

Before I go I'd like to briefly touch back on something I suggested that, you've never really responded to. CT is still the character with the weakest reason to be in this story, both from in the initial setup and in terms of just not really having much of anything to actually do during it. I'd like to once again suggest that you consider using Ditzy instead. To reterate my reasoning fro why I think she should be in this story, it just feels WRONG to me for any of the L6 to willingly work with the same mafia that kidnapped Dinky unless Ditzy herself is there to say it's okay. She doesn't have to forgive those ponies, in fact she can still be just as angry as ever.

Once again, I am not rewriting the story so that the L6 work with the mafia, and I do not understand why you keep asking me to do so. They save the life of mafiosos and immediately return them to federal custody. There is no alliance with the mob.

And I don't want Ditzy involved. She's basically already done stuff like this in Hard Bargain, and, bluntly, I think it would be unrealistic for her to be able to fight in hoof-to-hoof combat any of the foes in this story. Raindrops and Cheerilee have actual combat training, which is how they can go toe to toe with a Shadowbolt, Goliath, and Volk. Max has his talent of perseverance, so even though he isn't a great fighter, he can at least keep going until the other guy is exhausted. Ditzy doesn't have any of this.

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Hmm you know we could make a case about how the Night Court isn't in session. If you look at real life exemple, like the Canadian Parliament or it's provencial equivalents, the MPs are only in session for like... half the year maybe? So it's possible that a lot of nobles are out of town, back in their home turf. Now I do think one Viceroy/Vicereine should still be in town at all time when Luna is absent, so that there's always someone nominally in charge should anything happen, but really that only affect weather Wallflower is there or not. Wallflower being in charge of Canterlot would make her the only one with any realistic semblance of authority to counter Fisher's Martial Law being put into effect, if she's out of town on a diplomatic mission then Night Light could be around (that way he'll be there for Twilight during her visit) but not have the powers to block Fisher on his own without a good enough reason.

But then that raises the question of why everyone else is there. Fisher, maybe he just likes to stay where the military is based, but why is Max still in town? Greengrass? The minor nobles like Fudge Ripple and Silver Shackles? This story is to take place in early Spring, so the Court should still be in session.

I personally have no problem with Shining Armour being around. He can apologize to Twilight in a webisode.

Agreed.

Ya know Emeral makes a good point about getting to Greengrass as fast as possible. It is the point where things kick off. In fact, if I might be so bold, I would suggest you take the scene with Creepy Vines and make it a flashback when Grengrass mentions the whole 'worse day of my life so far' deal. Possibly also any scene explaining why Snails is depressed, like your suggested 'bug who won't listen' bit, would also be used in a flashback. That way ch.1 could be more punchy right off the bat. You're already doing some important non-linear writing at multiple point in the story so more flashbacks won't really hurt.

I don't see the beginning as too slow, though. I think it can feel that way in retrospect because the actual threat, the abductors, only show up much later. But in chapter 1, we learn that:

The Elements (and Snails) are coming to Canterlot
Very dangerous criminals are on the loose in Canterlot.
Twilight is also going to Canterlot
Greengrass is involved in the story

I feel that sets things up to feel like the Elements are going to have to fight evil criminal escapees. It's a red herring. :-)

I'll cut a bit from the insectarium scene, but I don't think the number or specific locations of the scenes is the problem.

Also if Notary was to be still around (and no one else) to work for Greengrass (and yes I know it would mean changing the ending to Old Friends) you could not only have her be kidnapped by the Vigilantes, but also be caught during the train station fight scene! That would certainly ratchet up the tension after that. Cheerilee would be even more worried about trusting the guard with saving one of her old acquaintances!

For the reasons I mentioned above, I don't think this is viable. Notary being captured undercuts Greengrass' arc and makes the rest of the plot very difficult because GG would basically go to try and save Notary himself (after the Elements and Max refused to let him work with them--and I don't think it's realistic that they would trust him to have their backs in a combat situation, even if Notary were captured). Which means he would either die (most likely), or he'd somehow win and make the Elements largely superfluous. Neither works for the story.

Maybe Raindrops doesn't forgive other because deep down she hasn't forgiven herself?

This is how I see it. Raindrops' monologue in 'Tales of Ponyville' seemed to lean in that direction. Plus, wasn't someone writing a story this season about Raindrops going to Cloudsdale to finally reconcile with that guy? I think she still has some angst about it.

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As an addendum, since I'm not actually trying to force G&C to rewrite the entire plot of his fic in this regard. Would you agree that it might just be easer to contrive reasons for all the Viceroys to be indisposed on this day?

This idea still reads as too contrived to me, especially since you also want to remove Shining Armor and Notary from play. It becomes very implausible that everyone just so happens to be out of town on that one day, and it feels too forced. Especially when every other noble that matters to the story is there.

Also, I think it's important to have someone call out Fisher for his tactics, to better show how the Court as a whole isn't this crazy. Wallflower, as the only non-jerk noble at his rank or higher that we know of (and therefore the only one he really has to listen to), and Shining, as someone in the military, are the best options for that. Max can't do it because Fisher will literally not listen to him.

Of course since this fic is already about Fisher getting ousted, we could have Walflower around, but then of course it should probably be made much more clear that Fisher's actions more or less amount to coup.

Again, trying to get away from having explicit criminals in the Court. Fisher shouldn't be actually launching an illegal coup. He should have the legal power to effectively declare martial law, as long as no one higher overrides him. He should only break the law (as opposed to simply exercising very poor judgement) at the end with GG.

Okay, how's this: sometime between Chapter 1 and Chapter 6, Wallflower is called away on some urgent diplomatic thingie. In Chapter 10, we get a line from Volk indicating he manufactured that (to get rid of the one pony who could have stopped things).

I'm still concerned about audience perception. There are still some rather vocal member of our audience that hate Nitelite for delaying the emergency relief funding to Ponyville, and some who extend that to Shining Armor for further delaying Trixie with excessive security screening. I think we should be very cautious about putting either in any further situations where their actions (or inactions) allow bad stuff to happen.

I've already done a lot in this fic to deal with that, including making Fisher the fall guy in the first place. I won't cut Armor. He serves a useful role (in contrasting Fisher's response with the sane response, and in showing how what Fisher is doing is not sanctioned by others in the military or political heirarchy).

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All I'm gonna say at this point is that this kind of back-and-forth that we're doing here is exactly why we have both a brainstorming thread, and a writer's workshop thread.

I'm sorry, but as I mentioned upwards in the thread, I didn't feel like I could use those resources.

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It's fine for characters to have simple motivations. It's fine also for Notary to have deeper ones... I still think there's too much heavy psychological trauma involved with Old Friend's ending. Feels like you're turning a super competant character into a woobie we should pity and hug delicately to make her feel better. I'd prefer if her deciding to leave Greengrass was just purely logic and detached. To show she's still an emotionally distant person.

For the reasons I mentioned above, I don't think this is viable. Notary being captured undercuts Greengrass' arc and makes the rest of the plot very difficult because GG would basically go to try and save Notary himself (after the Elements and Max refused to let him work with them--and I don't think it's realistic that they would trust him to have their backs in a combat situation, even if Notary were captured). Which means he would either die (most likely), or he'd somehow win and make the Elements largely superfluous. Neither works for the story.

Yeah I see your point. I could see a version of the story working but it's not the one you want to tell so yeah Notary there doesn't work.

But then that raises the question of why everyone else is there. Fisher, maybe he just likes to stay where the military is based, but why is Max still in town? Greengrass? The minor nobles like Fudge Ripple and Silver Shackles? This story is to take place in early Spring, so the Court should still be in session.

This is the Canadian House of Common Calendar. It wouldn't be thatu nlikely to see a week or two of vacation in there. Probably the only reason the commitee is there is because Fisher had meetings scheduled during the break, much to everyone's dismay. Though I can see Max not minding, he probably doesn't go back to Nulpar that often. It's far away and he'd prefer to get ahead in his work.

Or maybe Fisher can't unilaterally declare Martial Law, he needs the support of the rest of the commitee/ministry. Max would be absent, and all the others are practically his puppets. If the majority of them sign off on it, it holds, however that vote must be taken again every 24 hours. And similarly Wallflower can't unilaterally cancel martial law once it's been signed. I think having some decent mechanism for that would be enough for me and would probably be the easiest way to do it. Once Martial Law is established I have no qualm with Fisher ordering what Shining's priority should be.

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I don't agre. Your version reads to me as a very weak character. "I have no desires but to serve my master" is not only cliche but results in a pathetic, boring character with no mind or will of her own.

Owen Burnett (Gargoyles), Alfred Pennyworth (Batman), Riza Hawkeye (Fullmetal Alchemist), Norman Burg (Big O); these are all only a few examples of supporters who have little in the way of personal desire outside of making their respective employers dreams a reality. They all have unique reasons for why they peruse this as there goal, but none of them are boring or cliché, and in fact are some of the more popular and beloved characters by fans of these shows.

More to the point though Notary never needed to be a character of great depth to begin with. Yes if we wanted to spin her off into some separate stories of her own, you might have a point, but that's not how she was introduced, and just like Greengrass's character arc must invariably fade and end, so to should Notary as well. Not every character can become n independent breakout, the way Octavia did and trying force Notary into that role just doesn't really suit her.

He needs to be able to walk away without losing anything he really cares about so that, when he stays and fights, it shows his moral growth.

As RDD has pointed out, this story shouldn't really be focused on providing Greengrass growth and development, but rather closure so that the setting can finally move on having out grown him. It's time to let go of the character and simply let him fade away.

and, bluntly, I think it would be unrealistic for her to be able to fight in hoof-to-hoof combat any of the foes in this story. Raindrops and Cheerilee have actual combat training,

That's why I said Ditzy should be CT's replacement, who also lacks any such combat experience. However that said, perhaps I miss construed the extent of the mafia's involvement in this fic. As I've said before, the further I read into the fic the harder it was to remain focused and keep all the details strait, and so all my memories of it blurring are confusing blur. I remembered there being discussion about teaming up, (or at least the mafia ponies trying to force the L6 into an alliance of some sorts), I couldn't however remember exactly how it all worked out from there. Still, even if it isn't really an alliance, even if it is just rescuing one mafia leader only to immediately hand them over to the cops, I think it would be good for Ditzy to be there, if only to give all the hardships she went through back in Hard Bargain a more personal closure.

That said, I'm not going to force the issue. I'm giving you advice on how to potentially enhance the narrative resonance of your fic, to give it a great interwoven relevance with the larger canon Lunaverse (seeing as canon is supposedly one of those thing you seem to think is so very important). It's not advice that you have to take though.

But then that raises the question of why everyone else is there. Fisher, maybe he just likes to stay where the military is based, but why is Max still in town? Greengrass? The minor nobles like Fudge Ripple and Silver Shackles?

Do we really need ALL those other minor nobles? Are they really ALL so crucial that the couldn't be replaced with other members of the castle staff? Even if they are, just because the larger court is out of session doesn't mean that all the smaller comities are also, so there's still plenty of reason for any given random noble you actually need to tell the story to be around.

Besides, if the court was actually in session Fisher probably shouldn't be able to just up and declare martial law in the ROYAL CAPTIAL without first getting at least some measure of approval, by making an emergency motion to be voted on posthaste.

Also, I think it's important to have someone call out Fisher for his tactics, to better show how the Court as a whole isn't this crazy.

You seemed to want something more for Fragrant to do in this fic, why not let her do it. Yes she's lower rank, but if she doesn't just speak alone, but as the leader of a group of multiple other nobles that are all throwing in support with her she could at least expect him to here her out. Fisher could still pull rank though, send them all back to their apartments, even tell Fragrant to file an official complaint when the court is back in session, all while continuing his lock down of the city.

Conversely it' just doesn't work if Wallflower, or any other Viceroy is around, because they could all just order him to back down, and it makes them look complacent and uncaring if they don't. So unless Fisher was willing to stage a full military coup, the story would sort of just end there.

Okay, how's this: sometime between Chapter 1 and Chapter 6, Wallflower is called away on some urgent diplomatic thingie. In Chapter 10, we get a line from Volk indicating he manufactured that (to get rid of the one pony who could have stopped things).

Actually, that could more or less work just fine.

I won't cut Armor. He serves a useful role (in contrasting Fisher's response with the sane response, and in showing how what Fisher is doing is not sanctioned by others in the military or political heirarchy).

Couldn't literally any other high ranking soldier fill the exact same role? Is there really any reason it specifically has to be Shining Armor and nopony else?

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More to the point though Notary never needed to be a character of great depth to begin with. Yes if we wanted to spin her off into some separate stories of her own, you might have a point, but that's not how she was introduced, and just like Greengrass's character arc must invariably fade and end, so to should Notary as well. Not every character can become n independent breakout, the way Octavia did and trying force Notary into that role just doesn't really suit her.

I find the character more interesting that way, though, and I prefer to write more interesting characters. "I have no desire but to please my master" is the staple of reactionary fantasy, "I Dream of Jeannie" style nonsense. "I have my own desires and I have bonded closely with my partner while we pursue our mutual goals" is much better, at least in my opinion.

Here--how about this: After the Sun Cult thing, Greengrass (though he still has seat and title) loses Notary for the reasons discussed in the story, and Old Friends happened. But in JULP, at the very end, when Greengrass is in despair at the end, she comes back. (The vigilantes wanted to nab her too, and they tried to do it the same way they tried for Twilight, but she was on a later train and it didn't get into the city before Fisher shut the train station down. At the end, Notary gets into town, and she meets up with GG just as he's telling Max, "I can't do anything in the Court anymore because I lost my influence, and I've also lost my best friend. Where can I go from here?" Then they reunite and agree to team up again.

I think that can work as a fitting ending to GG's arc. He was a bad guy and he suffered for it for a while--in that he lost Notary, among other things (like when the Sun Cult tried to kill him). But now he's done some genuinely good things in the story, he's got Max to support him, and as a kicker, Notary shows up. They tell each other how much they missed each other and agree it would be best to stick together from then on out. And so we can leave GG on a positive trajectory--he lost his influence, but he's got his best friend back and he's a somewhat better pony, so we can be more assured that he won't return to his evil ways.

I don't think Notary works as an active participant in this story, or a captive of the vigilantes, for the reasons I stated above. But I'm willing to do that. And I think their relationship would be the better for having a short separation. Gives them time to realize what it is they need in each other. :-)

As RDD has pointed out, this story shouldn't really be focused on providing Greengrass growth and development, but rather closure so that the setting can finally move on having out grown him. It's time to let go of the character and simply let him fade away.

I just feel like he should have at least some progress since his beginning. It just feels like a waste of time otherwise. I think him doing a genuinely good thing--helping defend Snails from the mob, without 'weeding' him to make him easier to protect--is what we need there. And then he can leave the Lunaverse having made at least a little progress.

Do we really need ALL those other minor nobles? Are they really ALL so crucial that the couldn't be replaced with other members of the castle staff? Even if they are, just because the larger court is out of session doesn't mean that all the smaller comities are also, so there's still plenty of reason for any given random noble you actually need to tell the story to be around.

Besides, if the court was actually in session Fisher probably shouldn't be able to just up and declare martial law in the ROYAL CAPTIAL without first getting at least some measure of approval, by making an emergency motion to be voted on posthaste.

"General, an enemy army has stormed the city, and Luna's out of town! We need permission to start getting civilians off the streets and to redirect all our troops to fighting them!"
"Wait! First the Night Court has to vote on it."

I don't see that working. Should Fisher probably consult with the Court before declaring martial law in this instance? Yes. Does he need to, legally? I doubt it. I think the Minister of War has the power to declare Martial Law in the event of an emergency, and it's sort of assumed that he has good judgement as to what constitutes an emergency. In his opinion, an attack on the lives of the Elements of Harmony does. He's wrong, but he's not exceeding his nominal authority.

Luna, and apparently Wallflower, can then unilaterally countermand it--but Luna is out of town, and Volk will send Wallflower on a wild goose chase before Fisher gets to this point. Maybe Night Light or Puissance could also do things that would lead to Martial Law being revoked, but it isn't just a unilateraly 'no'--maybe they would have to do something like convince a majority of the Security Ministry to do so, and there just isn't time before the story ends.

You seemed to want something more for Fragrant to do in this fic, why not let her do it. Yes she's lower rank, but if she doesn't just speak alone, but as the leader of a group of multiple other nobles that are all throwing in support with her she could at least expect him to here her out. Fisher could still pull rank though, send them all back to their apartments, even tell Fragrant to file an official complaint when the court is back in session, all while continuing his lock down of the city.

If Fragrant is on that ministry (or involved in some other way), it undercuts Max. Him being on the Ministry should be a chance for him to shine here, and that doesn't work as well with Posey there to support him. He's on his own with a bunch of more powerful nobles. That's why it's more meaningful that he was willing to stand up to Fisher. He had no support, just the courage to do the right thing.

Couldn't literally any other high ranking soldier fill the exact same role? Is there really any reason it specifically has to be Shining Armor and nopony else?

Because Shining Armor is in charge, and he's also the only one we (the audience) knows. Also, if someone is irrational enough to blame SA for this, I doubt they'll accept 'he was out of town' as an excuse--they'll blame him for having a weak subordinate that gives in to Fisher. We can't please that person no matter what we do. So throwing him out of town doesn't help.

Besides, Fizzy mentioned maybe having a webisode where Twilight and Shining do meet up after the events of this story, and we'd lose that if Shining were out of town.

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Are, are we actually making progress? I think we're making progress... do you?

I don't think Notary works as an active participant in this story, or a captive of the vigilantes, for the reasons I stated above. But I'm willing to do that. And I think their relationship would be the better for having a short separation. Gives them time to realize what it is they need in each other. :-)

Well, I can't say I agree 100%... but I don't have to. I still might not like the way the entire scenario is setup or plays out, but this would at least be an ending I think I could be okay with, and that's enough.

And then he can leave the Lunaverse having made at least a little progress.

Fair enough.

"General, an enemy army has stormed the city, and Luna's out of town! We need permission to start getting civilians off the streets and to redirect all our troops to fighting them!"

"Wait! First the Night Court has to vote on it."

I don't see that working

You right, that wouldn't work. but the scenario in JULP is not an invading army. It's a prison break. This is a policy concern, not a military one, and so is a blatant abuse of any emergency authority Fisher might have as Minster of Defense. Besides, Fisher himself is still not commander-and-chief of Equestria's army, that role would likely Luna's, and in her absence the Viceroys. Fisher himself should still need their approval before giving orders (excluding a crisis scenario like LNLD, where Posey temporarily took charge of the whole nation in the absence of any higher noble being available).

Maybe Night Light or Puissance could also do things that would lead to Martial Law being revoked, but it isn't just a unilateraly 'no'

They are still Viceroys (VICE-ROYALTY), and should have the authority to countermand Fisher without needing court approval. However, I cold see either of them deciding as military matters are not their field of expertise that it is a better choice to petition the court first. However, I still think it's better not to use Nitelite, for reasons mentioned previously about portions of our audience still not having forgiven him for the events. I just don't want to give them any more reasons to hate Nitelite or see him as a bad leader that sits back and does nothing while bad things happen.

How about this... place Nitelite out of town from before the fic starts, possibly on some fake errand that the vigilantes through their mail manipulation concocted so he wouldn't be around to interfere or launch an investigation when they went after his daughter. When Fisher declares martial law Puissance can make a point of how he's exceeding his authority, which he can counter with his spiel about her not having experience in military concerns and this supposedly being an emergency that requires swift an decisive action. Puissance could than concede the point, but also inform Fisher that she as wired Nitelite by telegram, that he will be returning to Canterlot soon, and that is going to be a full inquire into the legitimacy of Fisher's actions. This way keeps Nitelite away from an observable political heel dragging, but gets him back into town for a reunion with his daughter after the crisis passes.

That's why it's more meaningful that he was willing to stand up to Fisher. He had no support, just the courage to do the right thing.

See, that's where this fic feels a little inconstant. You want Max to be all alone with no support, and yet you also want there to be a noble some other noble who is not Max to call Fisher out and so supposedly demonstrate that the court isn't all bad. I don't think you can really have it both ways. Max is either alone or he isn't, maybe...

Could the order of events be tweaked so that Max confronts Fisher first, only to be dismissed by Fisher as a clueless noob. Then AFTER Max has runoff to handle matter personally, that's when Fragrant can organize some other nobles to protest Fisher's actions, thus proving that the court aren't all bad ponies and don't approve of Fisher's behavior. I think the message your going for might even work better with multiple courtiers than it does with just a single Vicereine calling him out. That might also better play into your idea where Fragrant "scolds" (I know that word is too strong, but couldn't think of a proper weaker one) Max for being rash and reckless, since Fragrant could point out how their are alternative to putting himself directly in jeopardy.

Because Shining Armor is in charge,

Is he though. He's only a "captain". His duty might place him in command of the Canterlot division of the royal guard, but presumably their are still high ranked officers as well (generals, colonels, majors). Even in the show he was only described as "a" captain not "the" captain so presumably there are at the very least other captains.

Also, if someone is irrational enough to blame SA for this, I doubt they'll accept 'he was out of town' as an excuse--

Agreed, there will never be any pleasing such an extremist, but that's not the kind of person I'm concerned with. I'm talking about playing fair with the reasonable members of our audience, the ones that don't want to hate shining but still see his actions from AtGGG as out of line. Now, I personally don't agree with that group either, but I don't think we should intentionally add more fuel to the fire if we can reasonably avoid it.

Despite my disagreement over past accusations though, even for me it just seems wrong to have Shining in this fic, unless he gets down in the trenches so to speak and is out in the city fighting along side the L6 to help protect his sister. I don't care if circumstances would prevent him from knowing she's actually in trouble. This isn't reality, this is fantasy. If he is in the city while his sister is in danger, the narrative should find a way to put them side by side for the climax.

Besides, Fizzy mentioned maybe having a webisode where Twilight and Shining do meet up after the events of this story, and we'd lose that if Shining were out of town.

I already said he could be out of town on the same errand as Luna. So if she's back in town by the end, Shining would be too.

Besides, Twilight and Shining can always meet up after words regardless. Even if missed getting back into town before she went back to Ponyville, their can still be an epilogue type thing where he comes to apologies for not having been there when she needed him most.

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Are, are we actually making progress? I think we're making progress... do you?

I think so. :-D

You right, that wouldn't work. but the scenario in JULP is not an invading army. It's a prison break. This is a policy concern, not a military one, and so is a blatant abuse of any emergency authority Fisher might have as Minster of Defense. Besides, Fisher himself is still not commander-and-chief of Equestria's army, that role would likely Luna's, and in her absence the Viceroys. Fisher himself should still need their approval before giving orders (excluding a crisis scenario like LNLD, where Posey temporarily took charge of the whole nation in the absence of any higher noble being available).

What I'm saying is not that Fisher was right to do what he did, but rather that Fisher has broad discretion in deciding what defines an 'emergency' in terms of whether he can declare Martial Law or not. I don't think the Law would specify 'it must be an enemy force numbering X number of troops, with Y weapons and Z divisions' and so forth. I think part of Fisher's responsibilities is using his judgement to make that call, and in this case he made the wrong one. He determined that what had happened in the train station was likely enough to be an enemy attack (Sun Cult or mafia) on vital Equestrian resources (the Elements) that it qualified for invoking Martial Law. He was wrong, but I think he has that power.

Suppose, for instance, that it really was a small covert ops team from some foreign power that snuck into Canterlot, ran circles around the Guards, blew up part of the jail, and almost assassinated the Elements. I think Fisher would likely have, on paper, the ability to declare martial law in that case. Based on the evidence Fisher had, while that scenario wasn't certain to be the case (and indeed was not the case in the end), it was at least possible. Fisher made the judgement call that it was likely enough to justify invoking Martial Law.

He was wrong, yes, but he was guilty of nothing more than terrible judgement at that point. That's how I see it, at least.

How about this... place Nitelite out of town from before the fic starts, possibly on some fake errand that the vigilantes through their mail manipulation concocted so he wouldn't be around to interfere or launch an investigation when they went after his daughter.

That's already being done for Wallflower, though, and I feel like it would itself be suspicious for them all to get last-minute errands taking them out of town. (And the errands couldn't be delivered earlier because then the Viceroys might have time to look into them and realize they're nonsense. The conspiracy is three guys, one of whom is mentally disabled and so wouldn't be good at subtle sabotage; they don't have the manpower to make actual crises across the land that require the viceroys' personal attention.)

I'll agree to Wallflower being able to unilaterally overrule him and so needing to be out of town, and Luna of course, but I don't think the other two should be able to do that. They should be able to do something--maybe order an immediate convening of the Security Ministry to vote on rescinding martial law, like Fizzy mentioned above regarding Wallflower--but I don't think they should have the same unilateral powers as her. (If for no other reason than it's uninteresting if all the viceroys have identical authorities and legal powers.) Yes, they're viceroys, but they're not necessarily military experts. There are situations in which they might be wrong about matters of war, in which case the Minister of War would have the legal authority to overrule them.

Wallflower having the authority to unilaterally (and thus needing to leave town by Chapter 6), and Night Light and Puissance being able to summon the Security Ministry to vote to revoke Martial Law (which they presumably begin to do, but either Fisher has the Ministry completely cowed or else it just doesn't happen before the story ends a few hours after martial law is declared) would work for me. I can give Armor a line indicating that he'll tell his dad, who will be sure to start this procedure immediately.

See, that's where this fic feels a little inconstant. You want Max to be all alone with no support, and yet you also want there to be a noble some other noble who is not Max to call Fisher out and so supposedly demonstrate that the court isn't all bad. I don't think you can really have it both ways. Max is either alone or he isn't, maybe...

Posey backs up Max in particular, though, which is why I don't feel she works there. Max might have ponies who agree with him on that Ministry, but he shouldn't have friends there.

Could the order of events be tweaked so that Max confronts Fisher first, only to be dismissed by Fisher as a clueless noob. Then AFTER Max has runoff to handle matter personally, that's when Fragrant can organize some other nobles to protest Fisher's actions, thus proving that the court aren't all bad ponies and don't approve of Fisher's behavior. I think the message your going for might even work better with multiple courtiers than it does with just a single Vicereine calling him out. That might also better play into your idea where Fragrant "scolds" (I know that word is too strong, but couldn't think of a proper weaker one) Max for being rash and reckless, since Fragrant could point out how their are alternative to putting himself directly in jeopardy.

Martial law is not declared until Chapter 6. In Chapter 1, Fisher basically just alerts everyone to the jailbreak and recommends to Armor that he devote his resources to tracking them down. Martial law is only declared after the train station battle, and Fisher leaves immediately after to hunt down the Cultists himself. There's not really room for Posey to say anything to him about that.

Is he though. He's only a "captain". His duty might place him in command of the Canterlot division of the royal guard, but presumably their are still high ranked officers as well (generals, colonels, majors). Even in the show he was only described as "a" captain not "the" captain so presumably there are at the very least other captains.

As Captain of the Royal Guard, he's probably the closest thing we have to an established leader of the Guard.

Despite my disagreement over past accusations though, even for me it just seems wrong to have Shining in this fic, unless he gets down in the trenches so to speak and is out in the city fighting along side the L6 to help protect his sister. I don't care if circumstances would prevent him from knowing she's actually in trouble. This isn't reality, this is fantasy. If he is in the city while his sister is in danger, the narrative should find a way to put them side by side for the climax.

Thematically, I think that would feel like Twi needing her family to bail her out. (Especially since she's hampered by having no magic). I think it's better for her to go it without him thematically, even without getting into issues of how he would know she was in town or where she was, or why he couldn't bring a platoon along to make the fight a complete curbstomp.

Besides, Twilight and Shining can always meet up after words regardless. Even if missed getting back into town before she went back to Ponyville, their can still be an epilogue type thing where he comes to apologies for not having been there when she needed him most.

Personally, I don't think that would work as well as if he'd been in town and experienced Martial Law firsthand.

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I don't think the Law would specify 'it must be an enemy force numbering X number of troops, with Y weapons and Z divisions' and so forth.

Actually, I should think that the law would in fact have some very specific definitions for what constitutes a "military", in part to prevent extremists like Fisher from abusing their authority.

He determined that what had happened in the train station was likely enough to be an enemy attack (Sun Cult or mafia)

cultists and criminal mafia, shouldn't really constitute a military threat, or at least not on the scale needed to enforce martial law across an entire city.

That the Elements of harmony where attacked could conceptually be considered a matter of national security and a reason to take Raindrop, Cheerilee, and whoever else (still holding out for Ditzy over Carrot Top, but lets not argue that here)... or rather it might have back in S1. In S2, however, they are no longer just ordinary citzens that happened to be tied to the most powerful magic (and thus in Fisher's mind "weapon") known to all of ponydom, but are in fact now knights in direct service to the crown and empowered with their own jurisdictional latitude in how they defend Equestria. As such Fisher can offer them military protection, but he can't actually give them any orders.

Still, this fic of course isn't really about what Fishers actual rights, privileges, authority are. Both of us agree that he is abusing what ever authority he actually has, so really our discussion her is more a matter of how to present that he is clearly in the wrong. I think that for something so extreme as the events of this fic, he needs to be guilty of more than just "bad judgment". You already iontend to have him arrested in this fic anyway, so it might as well be for having actually violated the limitations of his authority, rather than some trick Greengrass plays on him latter.

Greengrass could still play a role in ousting Fisher though. Perhaps fisher manages to cover his as with just enough ambiguous technicalities that he initially gets off with just a harsh reprimand, before Greengrass tricks him into exposing further wrongdoings.

I'll agree to Wallflower being able to unilaterally overrule him and so needing to be out of town, and Luna of course, but I don't think the other two should be able to do that

Again, the term viceroy literally means VICE ROYALTY, second only in authority to Luna herself. It is in fact their job to make executive governamt decisions in situations where Luna is unavailable to do so. For something as extreme as ordering martial law in the ROYAL capital fisher should need ROYAL approval, and if any viceroy is present in the city than they would be the ones responsible for giving him that permission.

Yes, they're viceroys, but they're not necessarily military experts. There are situations in which they might be wrong about matters of war, in which case the Minister of War would have the legal authority to overrule them.

The President of the United States isn't a military expert either, yet as Commander-and-Chief has unilateral authority to in regards to the authorization of all military actions.

As minster of war Fisher can advise the viceroys to instate martial law and lock down the city. If they refuse to give him leave in that, however, he can't just supersede their authority (again he is the minster of war, not the actual commander of the Equestrian army). He could attempt to claim that in this particular instance they are unfit to make such decisions, something that would normally require filing a motion in the court, or direct appeal to the princes, all while claiming that the current crisis precludes the ability to wait on such. Still, the more extreme we make his actions, the harder it becomes to believe that the rest of the court would just sit by and let this maniac get away with any of it (which is why I think this fic would overall be easier if the court was out of session thus leaving only a very few nobles around to oppose him, and none of whom are superior in rank).

Posey backs up Max in particular, though, which is why I don't feel she works there. Max might have ponies who agree with him on that Ministry, but he shouldn't have friends there.

I wasn't suggesting Posey rally anyone else on the ministry comity, but rather that she rally an assortment of other miscellaneous nobles. This way it both shows that the larger court doesn't approve of Fisher's actions (that there are "good" ponies in the court), while at the same time giving Fisher himself leeway to just ignore them.

Martial law is only declared after the train station battle, and Fisher leaves immediately after to hunt down the Cultists himself

Should Fisher really take such a direct hand in tracking them down though. Fisher, isn't really a soldier, he's a bureaucrat. It's his job to coordinate from HQ, not go out into the streets. Heck, isn't one point of this fic supposed to be that Max is extremely unorthodox for taking such a direct approach himself in his own independent actions.

As Captain of the Royal Guard, he's probably the closest thing we have to an established leader of the Guard.

Maybe now would be a good time to establish such alternatives?

Thematically, I think that would feel like Twi needing her family to bail her out. (Especially since she's hampered by having no magic). I think it's better for her to go it without him thematically,

Better for her maybe, but we shouldn't sacrifice Shinning just to make Twilight look better. We need to strike some kind of balanced compromise that makes both look good. Or as, I've been trying to suggest, we just write shining out of the story in the first place so that his lack of involvement in helping his sister never becomes a narrative concern.

How about if Shining makes a bigger show of disagreeing with Fisher's decision to institute martial law, and as a result the archduke relieves him of duty and has him confined to quarters until the crisis is resolved. That would both better showcase Fisher's increasingly irrational abuse of power, while also putting Shining in a more clear position where he'd be unavailable to help his sister.

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3267437 I think we can all agree on the point that Fisher declaring Martial Law is not a problem, but that it's really now just down to wording how he does it, what powers he's abusing and to show that someponies aren't happy with it. I'm perfectly fine if an emergency session of the court is being put together by the time the story concludes, since pulling those nobles from parts of the city would probably take a few hours anyway.

I also don't mind changing the reason that Luna is away to be one that would require Wallflower to be out as well, so that the villains could still pick that day as the one to make their moves.

Fisher relieving Armor of duty would just be adding one more thing to reprimand him for, so that's also fine by me.

3268250 : I think we're mostly in agreement, then. (I probably won't have Armor arrested, but I'm fine with the 'emergency session being pulled together' rationale for why Fisher isn't shut down by anyone else. I'll give Armor a line to that effect.)

I'll try to make the changes over the next couple of weeks. I have a deadline I'm working on now for an original story, but I should be able to make the edits in that time period if all goes well. :-)

3268373 Alright, I think we can put this thread on hold until you're done with your edits.

3268373
Minor correction, maybe more of a quibble than anything else, but I want to make sure my words came across clearly.

I probably won't have Armor arrested,

I never said he should be arrested. I said relived of duty (temporarily, only until the crisis passes) and confined to quarters. That's a disciplinary action, but still a good deal less than having him arrested. It's more like the military equivalent of sending a naughty child to their room to think about what they've done. It's not the kind of thing that would necessarily lead to any further punishment, especially since Fisher is going to be getting reprimanded (or worse) himself for declaring martial law in the first place and thus vindicating Shining Armor for any objections made.

I'll try to make the changes over the next couple of weeks. I have a deadline I'm working on now for an original story, but I should be able to make the edits in that time period if all goes well. :-)

No hurry. In fact, trying to rush yourself, while an admirable personal challenge of skill, was probablya major constituting factor to the problems her (that and writing it all as a secret project). So I hope you take your time and really give it your absolute best effort this time around. I know I've been harsh and seemingly unyielding, but like I tried to say at one point, I never intended going into this fic to automatically reject it. I really do think you have some interesting ideas going on here and so this actually is a fic that I'd like to like (or at least tolerate).

Anyway, good luck with your other deadlines for that original story your working on. You're both a talented and dedicated author. For all our differences, I really do hope you manage to make it something you can turn into a career.

PS: oh and please do remember that all you have to do to get me to shut up and stop complaining about this fic is to write Twilight out of it. That deal is still on the table. So it is always your "easy" out for any issues still left unresolved.

...and if it's not obvious by the angel scoots, I was trying to be funny. People often say that the bad times we go through in the present are the things we'll laugh about in the future, and personally I like to move onto that laughing part as quickly as possible. Sorry if my feeble attempt at bad comedy comes off in poor taste.

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The offer really is still on the table though, not that I actually expect you to take me up on it, nor do I think either of us actually need to argue about it any more than we already have.

Just write the best story you can.

So, I made the requested edits. Carrot Top is not zen anymore but instead is concerned about being less useful in fights (and learns to get over this by the end), less exposition regarding Duty/Fisher/other stuff, cut 3 of the 4 songs and most of the Duke Abides flashbacks, Diamond Tiara/Silver Spoon only really start teasing Snails in the insectarium onscreen, Greengrass ends losing nothing but his influence in the Court (he retains seat, title, Notary, etc) Twilight isn't panicking in the garden battle scene (no more running, etc), Snails doesn't cheat with the ice cream amulet, Luna is nicer to Greengrass when explaining why she will not restore his influence, Volk only uses one train in the train station battle, etc.

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3344029
Sigh... not exactly something I was looking forward to having to try and read again. Still, if you really have made all those listed changes any further objection on my part might be nothing more than petty nitpicking (and possibly just plain over-demanding). I'd really like to give you the benefit of the doubt here, but even if only on premise alone, this fic still makes nervous. Again, I never wanted to hate this fic the first time around, and so I'm just not sure I have the courage right now to risk being disappointed a second time around. Plus, given recent arguments elsewhere, I might not be any a properly objective mind-frame at the moment either.

For now, maybe it's best if I differ to RDD and Fizzy. If both of them are happy with all the revisions then I'll trust in there judgment.

3344029

Twilight isn't panicking in the garden battle scene (no more running, etc)

Was that a requested edit? I didn't mind that scene, since after all she's magic-less during it, panic seems quite reasonable on her part...anyway, I'll give it a once-over, but if you really did make these changes, then I'll vote YES.

3344170 : Emeral mentioned that since Twilight has gone 'no more running, no more hiding,' she should be more capable and confident than hiding in the back. So she's more confident and open about building devices that let her fight (e.g., the bamboo-technology catapult) without magic.

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3268431 : Just checking to see if there's a verdict yet. (No rush, obviously).

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Even though I sort of already bowed out of the revote, I still feel kind of left out of the inquiry. I mean, I get why you pinged Fizzy, but RDD already cast his vote.

3361935 : Because you already said you weren't voting, whereas RDD said he was going to give it a once-over before making his final decision.

3361937
Ah yes, so he did, I seemed to recall him being more firmly in the positive.

Still, while I'm not saying anything has actually changed, but in the interim time I could have calmed down enough to read the story again, and I could have even liked it. Wouldn't you want to know if that were the case, or are relations between you and me so broken that even my positive opinion is of no concern to you?

Sorry, maybe I'm sounding a little needlessly whiny, but like I said, I never wanted to hate either this fic -- or you for that matter.

3361937
Right, sorry, I was, but then my teeth started trying to kill me...I'll read it over tomorrow, if I have the time. Though we can assume my vote is "yes" at the moment.

3361798 I don't see any reason not to so far. There's a few parts I want to read before locking in my judgement though, but I'm optimistic about it.

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3362889 : Would it be alright for me to slot it into the 'canon episodes' then?
(Sorry if I'm being a bother.)

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Sure.

3425728 : Great, thanks.

I'll wait for Fizzy, to see if he has any objections, and if not I will move it over.

3425816 Oh shoot! I totally lost my place after that power outtage a while back... let me check out the train station fight and the scene at Fisher's factory and the one with Luna at the end and that should be enough for me!

3425920 : Thanks! Hope you like what you see. :-)

3430890 I give the story my seal of approval! I think the fix makes it a MUCH better story! More nuance portrayal of characters, a lot of clunky dialogue feels much smoother and the train station battle feels more tight and exciting! Luna's speech to Greengrass also makes more sense.

I still think the whole sting on Fisher and return of Notary could be spun off as a side story on its own, only because it feels like it drags the conclusion along a bit much, but I still like that scene a lot. Especially Max holding himself hostage

3433195 : Awesome! I'll move it over to the canon folder. Thanks for giving it another look!

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Sorry to reopen this thread, but I promise this has nothing to do with any kind of canon concerns.

A good way to reduce the sense of Ending Fatigue that seems to be Fizzy's remaining problem would be to separate the final sting against Fisher and other assorted such into a separate chapter marked as an "epilogue". That would allow the main story conclude on the climax of our heroes having saved the day and the immediate aftermath there of. It also might help keep all the chapter lengths more consistent, since currently the last chapter is nearly twice as long as any of the rest.

This is only a suggestion though.