Bonus Content and Author's Notes
“I Have No Idea What’s Going On And I Love It!”
A Quick Guide to the Plot/Characters/Themes/Deleted Scenes of the Time Loop Trilogy
First of all, thank you all for your favorites, upvotes, comments, and even just your views. It’s been a hell of a ride, and I wouldn’t have made it all the way through without your support and criticism.
So now that we’ve wrapped this all up I think it would be a good idea to take a step back and spell out what, exactly, happened over the course of this trilogy of stories. Of course, you’re welcome to your own headcanons. I’m probably gonna kick myself later when someone suggests something in the comments that’s better than what I actually did, and I won’t be able to claim it as my own. But this is the ‘official’ deal.
So. Harmony; how does it work? There are a lot of closely-related terms that are used by our characters, sometimes incorrectly or interchangeably before they know better. We’ll break it down into two things: the Elements and the Regalia.
First the Elements. These are the bigger and simpler of the two, the six virtues we’re all familiar with. Created the world of Equestria, and several others before it in the search for perfect Harmony. All living things possess it and generate it to a greater or lesser extent. But it turns out harmony is a lot like pornography; you know it when you see it but it’s tough to pin down in words. Plus that whole ‘free will’ thing keeps messing it up, but now I’m getting ahead of myself. Harmony doesn’t interfere ex nihilo in pony lives, but you can call on it for an assist, which brings us to....
The Regalia. Not actually all that powerful. I know that seems odd considering what they accomplish over the course of the show and the story, but they aren’t. They’re intelligent but not alive, and therefore lack that spark of harmony that living things have. They can’t create on their own, though they can push and prod at inanimate things and maybe slip a few gentle suggestions into your head. It’s not really story relevant, but in my mind their inability to create stems from the fact that they themselves were never created. They exist as an ontological paradox. Their job actually kind of sucks, when you think about it. They get dropped into a world full of imperfect and damaged parts and told to make it into a perfect harmony. They haven’t ever pulled it off on any other world, and by the end of chapter five it’s clear this one wouldn’t be any different. They’re sort of like temporal surgeons, excising bad outcomes and calling in their bosses to nuke them from orbit, hoping that whatever’s left afterwards will survive. They also don’t really ‘get’ living things. They see darkness and chaos and think ‘that’s bad and we should purge it’ rather than ‘yeah, that’s life.’ Hence their reforming Discord and weakening Luna. Being a physical embodiment of an abstract concept will do that to you.
So if they aren’t that powerful how do they make such huge changes to the world? Well, by drawing Harmony from their bearers. Blowing up a window or making lightning strike a particular point they can do on their own, but to rewrite something like Nightmare Moon, Discord, a changeling swarm, or Twilight they need a pony/ponies to activate them. They’re quite good at making little changes to bring about exactly that exactly when they want it.
So enter everypony’s favorite adorkable librarian and multi-time savior of all of existence. I absolutely love writing Twi (though I have a funny way of showing it, considering what I put her through over the trilogy). I envisioned her living thoroughly under the Regalia’s influence. Destiny and Fate are pretty important concepts in the show itself, and I didn’t want to depart too much from that (although obviously I did put in a counterpoint at the end of the last chapter). She was indirectly responsible for the existence of the Regalia via the time loop spell and her efforts to fix the subsequent damage. Like Star Swirl, I think she would have figured out the nature of the Elements on her own if she’d had as long to study them. Remember they’re limited in their influence most of the time and could only stymie him through increasingly suspicious accidents, and he eventually caught on. So the Regalia didn’t want to keep her around, and they didn’t want to kill her, so they figured that now that her work with the time loops and the Regalia was complete they would retire her. Everything that happens up through chapter four of Fate is completely in line with the Regalia’s plan, the culmination of which is getting her to sit still and provoke Celestia into blasting her and her friends so the Regalia can do a more thorough rewrite of their futures.
One more time: There’s a reason they aren’t called the Elements of Niceness
So what happens in chapter five? Well, for whatever reason the Regalia couldn’t finish what they started. Even though they put her in what would have been a very nice lifetime and rejigger her memories (I rewatched Magical Mystery Cure about five times over the course of writing this, although I’ve never liked that being knocked out of alignment with their destinies made the rest of the Mane Six so miserable, so I did some rejiggering of my own) the power of her friendships ultimately prevail. Having achieved a transcendent understanding of the nature of the Elements she politely invites the Regalia to go buck itself. The music metaphor is one that I’m really happy with, and yes, I was kicking this around in my head all the way back when I wrote about Luna and Celestia in Stitch. I sprinkled so much continuity porn through this series, and I hope if anyone does go back and rereads the series from the start they find that they can spot things that they missed the first time through, or hidden double meanings in some of the dialogue. After all, what kind of time loop story would it be if you didn't benefit from starting from the beginning again?
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Okay, that’s story. Let’s talk characters.
Twilight: I outlined how much I love her above, but I have to say it again. Smart, snarky, adorable, she’s the whole package and a blast to write. An author can’t ask for much more than a protagonist who feels equally natural when she’s delivering an epic rant to the local Powers That Be as she does collapsing in a neurotic little breakdown. She’s like a pony Harry Dresden who leans a bit more heavily towards book smarts. Of course the FiM writers deserve the real credit for giving her to us in the first place. Here’s hoping for more of the same in Season Four, princesshood notwithstanding.
Azalea: Alright, let me be upfront here. Writing romance is hard, and OC romance doubly so because you don’t have that collection of character moments that really come to life in the show. I like Azalea. Right from the start my intention was for her to be the normal girl, the mare next door, and a fresh perspective that I could use to point out how insane Twilight’s life really is. That said, I went too far with making her not special, and ended up with ‘bland,’ at least at first. She’s been the catalyst for some great moments, and I enjoy breaking Twi’s heart with those fights and confrontations. Plus I got to turn ‘weather vanes’ into a running gag. I’m happy with the scene on the pond too. Between Stitch and Fate I took a hard look at her. She was over the self-esteem thing, more or less, and I needed somewhere to go with her arc even if she wouldn’t be a huge part of Fate, I didn’t want to admit defeat and just disappear her. So I decided to turn lemons into lemonade. I had this whole ‘transformed changeling’ thing from Hard Reset that didn’t really have any payoff or development during Stitch, so I decided if she was going to be a bland and uninteresting pony who fell in love with Twilight much too quickly, I was going to give her a good reason to be. And oh, look at that, Twilight’s grown close to a mare who can understand and empathize with what it feels like to go through a life-altering physical transformation because of firsthoof experience. Bonus. Could have been better, but I learned a lot through her.
Star Swirl: So much fun. Such a jackass, but not irredeemably so. The pony best suited to giving Twi a run for her money when she goes full-on Twilight Snarkle. Honestly, had I not made Twilight a lesbian those two would have hooked up and Twilight would have ended up her own great^50th grandmother. Somehow. Still, I like him with Luna. Both are legends, and strong, abrasive personalities that lends their relationships a certain bipolar quality. I can’t hate the guy too much though, Shooting Star is the ultimate karmic punishment. If I had to point out a major flaw in how I wrote him, it’s that he’s TOO similar to Twilight.
Queen/Princess Sparkle: Oh man, where to start? If I had to pick one single stand out original character from the entire trilogy... well I’d probably pick Home Run, but Queen Sparkle is a close second. She was originally going to be just a one-shot little ‘what if’ in an alternate ending. I just want to hug her, but if I did she would probably tear my head off and lay eggs in my brain. She’s the most powerful and also the most pathetic character in the story, a haunting reminder of what most of us would end up as if we were stuck in the same situation Twilight was and had our hope extinguished. Driven by the desire to survive, and then after Twilight Prime’s first visit an uncompromising desire for revenge over the one element of her situation she couldn’t repeat and control. She even got her own spinoff fic so I could plumb that particular darkness. She was lying about so much in the loop when we looked in on her as Princess Sparkle, from how many times our Twilight had been there to what her spell would do. Ironically, telling Twilight that she was a good liar was probably the most honest thing she said. Gosh, I wonder how she turned out, all the way in the end. You know... I always have enjoyed it when movies have one more extra scene for the people who waited through the credits...
Pinkie: Like writer cocaine. Both of her chapters were written in a blurry rush over just a few hours each. I maintain the secret to writing good Pinkie is to make sure that even at her wildest she’s grounded enough to stay relatable. She can’t say just anything. That wouldn’t be funny, just random. What she can do is say something so off the wall that while you would never say it in response to something in real life, you’d wish you had. It’s a tricky balance, but very rewarding when you thread the needle successfully.
Morning Glow/Shooting Star: Ultimately I wish these two had more to do, and a more active role in the story’s resolution. They feel, to me, a bit too much like flat props to let the grown-ups be parents rather than fully realized characters of their own. Still, it was a blast to write ‘bitchy teenager,’ Shooting Star is easily my favorite of the pair. And once I realized that Equestria had a new Prince (in character and standing, if not in title) then teasing RariGlow became the obvious next step.
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Themes! For those few of you still with me by this point.
If I had to pick one theme to sum up all three of these stories, it would be “Second Chances’ with a corollary of “Forgiveness.’ It manifested in a lot of ways. The Regalia used Star Swirl’s ‘Amulet of Second Chances’ to manipulate his behavior and create a false sense of urgency by letting him die and come back, within limitations. Obviously, in a time loop you have an unlimited supply of second chances, but on the other hand as Azalea pointed out at the lake eventually you have to accept an outcome and move on or you’re, well, Queen Sparkle. Both she and the Regalia were characterized as having no capacity for forgiveness at all. The Regalia have an impossible set of standards for ponies to live up to and wipe out entire worlds that don’t meet them and Queen Sparkle can’t even conceive of why Twilight wouldn’t put Azalea through a horrible death for being a changeling. Meanwhile, Twi picks up a greater and greater capacity for it, even trying to reconcile with Star Gazer back in her own timeline in the end.
Also, one that sort of caught me by surprise was how much parent-child stuff cropped up in Fate. I think almost every major character is a parent to or child of one of the others, although in Twi’s case it’s a temporary development. I don’t think there was anything specific I was trying to say about it, but I definitely noticed it popping up a lot. It’s just an inherently rich dynamic to be tapped (or a cheap source of feels if you’re feeling less charitable. Although I tried to keep it a little more organic than that). Feel free to try to armchair-psychologist your way into my psyche in the comments.
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Hmm.... what else is there to say... You go through a lot of ideas in the planning stages of a story like this. One rejected one would have been a one-liner suggesting that Discord was Home Run’s father (left ambiguous because ‘he’s probably joking’). Originally Princess Sparkle was going to join the bad-guy adventuring party, and have some kind of crazy crack ship going with Nightmare Moon. That got reduced to just being that one little anecdote Princess Sparkle has about how she spent a couple of loops of flirtatious back and forth while simultaneously trying to outmaneuver one another on a grand scale. And I did consider hooking up Shooting Star with Morning Glow and having Twilight be descended from them, but ultimately the incest angle turned me off. Sleeping with your eternally young great great great etcetera grandmother is funny, first cousins is a lot more squicky. Plus, Shooting Star is like fifteen and Morning Glow is Mane-6 aged.
Also, there a brief period before I decided that Princess Sparkle was lying where her spell would have brought together an army of identical Twilights from all the slightly-different timelines that now existed from main Twilight passing through the loop a bit differently each time. Then the thousand-plus identical copies of her would have combined forces to completely beat the Regalia down. Felt it was too cheesy, overly timey-wimey for an already intricate time travel plot, and I liked the Magical Mystery Cure redux ascension a lot better. Less epic, but more interesting.
Speaking of rejected timey-wimey bits, I also had an idea for a gag where Twilight’s feeling hopeless and wondering what they should do next when future Twilight appears. Reflecting on the lesson she learned in It’s About Time, she shuts up and asks future-her how she solved the central conflict. Only for Future Twilight to bitterly inform her that, while she knows the solution, all she was told when she was in Present Twilight’s position was that Twilight’s milk went bad two days ago and to get more on the way home. They then snarkily commiserate with each other about how much time travel sucks. And of course a few chapters later Twilight sees it from the other side when she travels back to close the loop.
Then in the final chapter, she remembers to buy milk on her way home from the post-adventure celebration, only to discover the milk she had already wasn’t actually going to go bad for four more days. The ‘warning’ never meant anything. Cue facehoof. Tossed the gag for being unnecessarily complex and distracting, but salvaged the “warning from another time that your milk went bad,” for Twilight’s rant about hating prophecies.
So in the end, special thanks to all my prereaders. Luminary and his army of proxies through which he haunts me (so far just one guy on the internet), Midnight 'Cyanobacteria' Herald, and Dawn 'My Little Ostrich Needs To Be A Thing' Scroll and anyone else who read and commented my drafts.
And I guess that’s everything! Thanks again guys! We’re all done.
...Oh what the hell. One more chapter.
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More? MOAR!
God I loved this trilogy. Twilight is Best Pony for a reason.
So, the Regalia are basically like the Auditors? Yeah, I can see that
I knew it!
*checks fimfic.*
FIVE NEW CHAPTERS!?
Interesting.
Home Run is best pony
I'm a proxie.
Wow, I would've loved it if we got some of these notes BEFORE the story ended. Also, what do you mean discord could of been home-run's father? I thought home run was a baseball bat.
After reading this, I face-palmed. I hate being right...
If I had to rank the stories in the trilogy, it would go:
A Stitch in Time
Hard Reset
You Can Fight Fate
I'm a huge fan of slice of life shipping, especially when there are dark/adventure aspects added in. That's pretty much Stitch in a nutshell. Twilight x Azalea is, as Jake the Army Guy previously noted, "beyond adorable." Their fights were especially engaging; it was so easy to see and feel how the two felt during the many volatile moments in their relationship. Come to think of it, the romance between Twilight and Azalea has pretty much everything I want to see in a romance story.
(I would love to see a romance story from you, some day.)
For Hard Reset, I apparently didn't leave any comments that I can reference to recall exactly how I felt about the story, but I doubt I had anything negative to say. The concept was brilliant and I wasn't left wanting on the execution. I enjoyed it from beginning to end (granted, I only read the story after the ending was expanded). Not much to say other than it was a strong story.
Fate was good. Great, even. In comparison to Hard Reset, I think there was more emotional impact for me in Fate (especially from the last chapter...), but I think Hard Reset was the more consistent story overall. I'm still not particularly ecstatic about chapters two and three (two is better knowing how Queen Twilight influences the later part of the story, but there are moments in three that I find rather forced).
In any case, I've found this series extremely enjoyable to read. If I had a 16th slot to showcase favorite stories, Fate would find a spot right there. Thanks for writing such a great series Eakin. Even if you snuck some AppleDash in there. (PinkieDash OTP!)
This is the trilogy I should write my literary thesis on.
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Because he's Discord.
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Well, at one point, Discord was a little hard up for some company, and he was in a forest at the time, by chance.
Alternatively, before resorting to the elements, Celestia and Luna had a drawn-out fight with him, sporting equipment is an inherited proficiency skill, and "nine months later" doesn't count statue-time.
Really great story. Well thought out, organically improvised, and masterfully crafted. One of my all-time favorites.
Now isn't that familiar?
tradingcardsguru.com/wp-content/uploads/pokemon%20celebi%20movie.jpg
I am gonna say this, and it may sound kind of cheesy, but I totally mean it.
This is my favourite set of stories about the MLP I have EVER read. Period.
And I must thank you for letting me translate 'em
"Hence their reforming Discord and weakening Luna."
Slow down there. The elements didn't reform Discord, Fluttershy did. The only thing the elements did was get Discord totally stoned. I enjoyed your wibbly wobbly, as well as your timey wimey. I've left two comments already saying I enjoyed your stories, but I'll say it again.
I really bucking enjoyed your stories. Keep on keeping on!
You know what?
I think this may be my new favourite chapter.
You didn't plan that one from the beginning?
When I looked back at some of the dialogue - eg. Azalea's estrangement from her parents - it felt so obvious in retrospect.
Yeah, it makes more sense that Twilight's second visit didn't become a constant fixture of the loop (particularly since multiple versions of her would have left the loop and returned to the main timeline). But this way is also confusing. If Twilight and Star Swirl really only returned that one time, then how did Princess Sparkle know exactly where to find them, what to tell them and what spell to give her? Or how their conversation would go?
Edit: OH RIGHT. The Elements talked to her, I presume.
....
Also, I just realized that the central character of YCFF could equally be Princess Sparkle rather than Twilight. Sure, Twilight is the hero and the POV character, but the arc centers so much around the development of Sparkle (from changeling queen, to vengeful chess master, to eventual, final redemption) that I almost feel the story is about her rather than the main timeline. Hell, she has more arc time by about a googolplex of years, even if most of it is skipped.
Hold on
2 to the 50, is
one quadrillion, one hundred twenty five trillion, eight hundred ninety nine billion, nine hundred and six million, eight hundred forty two thousand, six hundred twenty four. (1,125,899,906,842,624)
the average lifespan of a (Planet) Earth pony is 25-30 years, multiply the average and you get
3.09622474382E16 years, for those ignorant in the ways of scientific notation, the 16 there means the real value has the decimal point 16 spaces to the right.
so instead of NMM being stuck for a thousand years, we instead have her there for around 31 quadrillion years. For a frame of reference, our universe is estimated to be around 14 billion.
I will now showcase the correct generation gap between starswirl and twi.
1600/27.5=58.18 repeating
Using logarithms you can find that 2^5.857981 approximates 58.18 repeating.
Damnit eakin, you were doing so well with keeping it quasi feasible, then you throw in an absurd exponent and everything falls apart.
God damn I'm a nerd. All values are approximations
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Not sure exactly what the numbers you're referencing here are. 2^50th would be the number of total descendants of Shooting Star, right? Under the assumption that there aren't any who had no kids, and there's no intermarriage between, like, eighth cousins which there probably would be after a certain point.
Clearly not Celestia throwing out a specific number here. So I can handwave it.
But where's the fun in that, right?
What are you hoping to accomplish by multiplying the number of ponies by the lifespan? That only gives you total years experienced, not how long would have passed. Important distinction.
By this point I'm completely lost. Isn't that like saying if you lock me up for one minute, that minute is experienced by seven billion people individually, therefore you've locked me up for seven billion minutes? Or am I parsing what you're trying to say incorrectly?
So, if Harmony was the force that kept resetting the universe, and the Regalia was just its manifestation with a will, why is the Universe/Timeline considered "safe", since only the Regalia has been destroyed? Have I missed something here?
Wow, that was a great trilogy. I enjoyed every story you came out with and man was it just awesome. I still kinda hope that there might be at least one more story involving Twilight, (maybe going to other universes, [Fanfics]), but I am happy if this ends here as well. Well done and looking forward to seeing what you have in store for the future.
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The Elements don't have a will or direction of their own, they're just an abstract power. Only the Regalia has a 'purpose,' so to speak.
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I'd probably rank them the same way, although I've read and reread Hard Reset so many times combing through it for for things to call back to it's actually wrecked it for myself. Oh, I'm still proud of it, but it's clear to me that not all parts were created equal. Chapters 3 and 5 are the one's I'm happiest with, followed by 6 and 2, then 1 and 4. Stitch, though, I'm happy with straight through, with maybe a few wobblier spots around the first date, chapter eight, and the ending being "Twilight casts Deus Ex Machina and fixes the problem." Part of that's just that I was saving some conflict for part three, but dissatisfaction with that was actually why I set up Princess Sparkle's offering her the magical fix everything spell, only to brutally subvert it.
Yeah, there was a lot I crammed into Fate, though, maybe so much that it's bulging at the seams a tad and doesn't have quite enough room to breathe.
Man, I should so write a Pinkie/Dash fic from first person Pinkie POV. I'll add it to the list. An Important Letter will have to tide you over until I get around to it.
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So, Harmony will continue to act on making the Universe perfectly harmonic, it just doesn't have an agent of its own anymore to destroy and recreate timelines. Do I have that correct?
This actually reminded me of that part in Naruto shippuden where Itachi locks kabuto in a time loop made to counteract the sharingans forbidden "second chance Jutsu" and he explains that his jutsu isent ment to be lethal its ment to teach one that avoiding one bad outcome for favor of a more reasonable outcome is wrong and that you must accept what has transpired if you want to move on in life. And until the lesson is learned the time loop cannot be escaped. This was the lesson i got from these last two stories in the triligy
Yup, Very Deep stuff and it was thoroughly enjoyable
Sleep?
Hay no! There's still the part after the credits!
I too, keep watching movies, then am disappointed when they end and there is nothing there but the black, empty void of no more scene!
There you go!
You write this well, AND read the Dresden Files? Please marry me.
Also, I'm REALLY glad I decided to put off reading YCFF until it was all complete; it would have been excruciating having to wait even a day between chapters (especially 4 and 5).
I've found the Bronyfied song 'No one leaves the hive' fits really well with the darker aspects of this trilogy; if anyone reading this hasn't already listened to that song, please do so now.
3030212
I love the Dresden Files SO MUCH. Really enjoy Chengar Qordath's (man, that's tough to spell) MLP/Desden crossovers too.
Yeah, the chapter four cliffhanger was pretty brutal. I enjoy making y'all squirm.
Are you sure this story is complete, though? Guess that depends on whether or not I finish the other epilogue I started...
[edit: wrong chapter]
I've re-read this epilogue for the third or fourth time now, and still get all teary at the end.
Good stuff, wished more long-spanning fics had something like this from the author (usually you have to plumb the depths of the comments).
I'm glad you gave Az something more to do in this story, but honestly, in the previous two, I never felt like she was dull or flat, considering how much time she gets. She's something incredibly, wonderfully normal, for Twi. Something real, but not earth-shattering, that she could afford to lose, if she ever stopped trying. Unlike everything else she has to deal with, Az is something she wants for herself, something she has to work to hold onto, or its gone. I like that you have Twi something new that she wanted for herself, something good and simple that drives home that she's free of the loop now, and has to continue building her life in an uncertain future.
And yeah, like I said before, Princess Twilight is easily one of my favorite original villains. I can do absolutely see Twilight becoming her, if all hope was lost and no consequences mattered. I especially love her final form, millions of years old, where she is so far beyond good and evil that she's just flat-out terrifying.
3164115
Heh. That wasn't her final form at all... But I guess you haven't read chapter 10 yet.
Maybe it is just me being slow, but a flowchart of the timelines would be good. That and any additional thoughts and explanations you have on your interpretation of time travel.
i loved this trilogy. it had great conflict, execution, and pacing throughout. i will say though that throughout the trilogy i found myself knowing something that was going to happen in the back of my mind. quick list of what i remember:
just about every death of twilight's was beyond predictable, but that was kind of unavoidable, and I liked how some of the time she actually predicts something and avoids it. that was well done. i was expecting a "well that didn't work" though throughout the entire changeling possession scene, but i understand how the way you drew out that scene helps enhance the last few chapters of reset. still, it would have been nice to put it in there then skip to chrysalis getting lazer'd.
i knew it was going to be starswirl the moment i heard how he was related to everyone.
in the second story, i think i knew the alt end would be semi-cannon as soon as you mentioned multiple timelines.
I guessed azalea was a changeling transformed during chapter 2. it was really more of a "it would be cool if x happened" guess, but still.
now, on to making cinemasins style critique:
well, the universe seems to be smart enough to make a window blow up in star swirl's face, but it didn't let his pen run out of ink as he wrote that letter? weak.
also, how did he determine the page of the book to give twilight in the letter? also, if he made an edit to the book, did he edit it on his dying wish? did he literally get blown up by a window, throw a book at a wall or something to get a random page, edit in a vauge poem, send in the book to get published by someone with the book probably as bloodied as the letter, and jump to the first alt timeline, only for a vauge poem that never gets mentioned again?
so... why is twilight in this timeline an alicorn, again?
oh wait, how did the ps don't tell celestia get in the letter, again?
every time the elements(regalia) of harmony blow up in the first story, they create a paradox because they kill twilight, preventing her from grabbing star swirl, preventing him from bringing the alt element, witch prevents the regalia from existing. kinda working your way backwards there, regalia.
remember how starswirl said he would put a modified version of that spell in the hidden cubby? i guess he forgot to because he probably would have used it instead of the inferior necklace. wait, didn't he already have it pretty much figured out before leaving? why can't HE cast the spell at some point?
you know twilight, couldn't you have just re-cast the time spell at some point in the loop to quicksave? i mean, i guess that was a good point for break taking, but really, during that perfect run that would have been perfectly reasonable!
so you were able to replicate the normal perfect run, but not the changeling one? why did that only happen once?
and, to be honest, if twilight just went through the changeling run one more time, she would have known exactly what was going to happen, AND starswirl and twilight would have had to clean it up. you didn't have to go all alicorn to get your revenge, you literally just had to do the same thing twice!
yeah, those elements of harmony. apparently every time you use them it's like a flip of a coin. and for whatever reason, if it's heads, you win, and can flip again if you need to.
if its tails, screw you, its going to land on tails every time from now on for a couple of hundred loops, you might as well just turn into a changeling now and save yourself the trouble.
in like the second or third loop twilight notices how one of the guards is not a changeling, yet after that loop twilight assumes all guards are changelings and attacks them on sight. this wouldn't have been much of a problem until a later chapter involving homemade explosives.
the ratio of pinkie pie using recursive correctly to incorrectly is still somewhat larger than 1 to 8.
why does everyone write rarity lines with overdramatization? i liked the subtle change between helping herself and helping others between sentences in season 1 episode 1.
you seem to use rainbow dash about 175% more than non-twilight members of the mane 6. i get the dynamic, but you have her interrupt twilight/azalea conversations within twilight's home like 7 times!
I'm curious how the relationship between Morning Glow and Twilight would have gone about, considering Twilight was Celestia's surrogate daughter and Glow was her actual son.
I was actually a little disappointed that you didn't also explicitly note that Azalea can totally empathize with the experience of having memories of two conflicting lives in your head.
I for one saw RariGlow coming like a freight train from the moment she saw him, and I loved it. Who better to one-up Prince Jerkface than Princess Celestia's very own son? I know he didn't get a ton of development, but I thought it worked all the same. It's not his story, so to speak. And I also thought for a while that he and Shooting Star Prime were going to hook up, until I realized their relationship. I'm more used to any relatives of Celestia and Luna being great-to-the-nth descendants and way too far removed to worry about being cousins.
And, for the record, I also liked Azalea. I'm not one to shy from OCs, I suppose, but my opinion still probably would have been different if she hadn't gone anywhere. I know you just said this, but I loved how the changeling reveal switched her blandness from a drawback to a literary asset.
hmm, im trying to picture the separate OCs you came up with, and I was wondering if I would be allowed to try and draw them on paper?
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Sure! Pixel Prism did one picture with Azalea in it, although it doesn't quite match the description from chapter four of Stitch. The Royal Cousins are only really described in chapter three of Fate. Let me know if you end up drawing them, or post them in the Time Loop Trilogy group.
Wow. Kind if wished I didn't read this chapter. I found the whole thing with Queen Sparkle and her spell more interesting when the after-affects led me to believe she double crossed both Twilight and the Elements. Since Twilight ended up in a situation where she would either triumph or be pretty well obliterated, and Queen Sparkle has reason to hate both (after all, the Regalia manipulating itself into existence is what caused her unending torment), she crafted a "heads I win, tail you lose" spell where either outcome means she's getting revenge one something just made a great deal of sense to me. The fact that it was nothing deeper than a simple double cross just feels so anti-climatic :(
A few things. We never hear the Mane Color for Leafy or Azalea. We know they are both green [one just green, the other light green], but that's all we get. Or at least are memorable. I don't remember seeing eye, or mane colors for them. Also what does Morning Star look like? And Shooting Star has a darker coat than Twilight, but what else about her physically?
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Az is blonde, not sure if I ever specified for Leafy. Let's say a funny shade of purple with a streak in it.
Ok, now that I've actually seen what this is; what the fuck? I'm going to need to see what the ones Twilight was using looked like, 'cause the ones I saw just look painful in obvious ways.
There is just one thing that is still unexplained: How did the Regalia manage to edit Star Swirl's letter to contain warnings against telling Celestia?
6317885 Because Majinks. Magical Hijinks
Well, this was a journey. GG author, GG
Yay for author notes chapter!