Join Fluttershy and her friends on a journey of social, psychological, and emotional exploration in a harrowing tale of self discovery and clandestine relationships. You may never feel the same way about illicit love.
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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5563773 I'm sad to see my comments trigger a goodhearted person. How you've interpreted my words is not how I intended. I care for every member of humanity and try not to give any impression otherwise (though I admit I rib others a bit--I have a thing for jimmy rustling). I don't consider a more complete understanding of virtue to make anyone superior to anyone else--only more accountable for living up to the highest standards. Cain knew God personally, but murdered for selfish reasons. Confucius may have been atheist, but he laid the foundations of a lifestyle which, to this day, excels above almost all others in moral virtue. I hope you don't go based on a misunderstanding about my beliefs, but, if you do understand my beliefs and you feel that strongly, I hope you'll go and be able to let go of any hard feelings when you do.
Chapter 11(8b)?
Just give them names, man.
5564127
It should have had "Alternate Universe" tag at least, because, even though from your point of view that is kinda biased because you're a Christian yourself, it might look fitting for the show, for people who aren't religious or have different religion, it wouldn't fit at all.
The show is good as it is, and everything is balanced well in it. The show's universe is an alternative universe, that isn't like ours. It doesn't need to have the same history for God or anything like that, especially shoved into a viewer's/reader's face.
It just looks like you're trying to "advertise" Christianity in your story to try to make nonbelievers change their opinion.
But anyways...
Firstly, a question, who are those God and Christ in the story? Do they look like ponies, or are they the same human-like creatures, like in our human world? Was Jesus a pony when he was sent on Earth? If not, it's just strange. He was in a form of a regular human in our world, so he should have been a pony in your story universe. Are you okay with Jesus Christ being a pony? Asking, just in case you didn't think about it.
Secondly, about relativism and moral relativism...
To make it easier, let's just quote the first line from wikipedia:
"Relativism is the concept that points of view have no absolute truth or validity, having only relative, subjective value according to differences in perception and consideration."
It actually makes perfect sense, from scientific standpoint. It's absolutely expected, that a religious person wouldn't consider it legit, because it would contradict with their beliefs.
Of course there can be a few universal things that have the same meaning/value, no matter what culture or morality is prevalent at some point of time in society. For example, it's not a good thing for one sentient living creature to kill anothing sentient living creature. It's a universal moral. But there aren't that many of such universal moral things. Majority are just subjective and depend on a current state of society for each time period.
But what exists in this universe is logical and should make sense. Even God if he existed (sopme powerful creature, but not all-powerful since that impossible) wouldn't judge people, like let's say, gay people, like some Christian people go against it, and so on. There could be lots of examples of Christianity being wrong and illogical in its follower's judgements.
I'm not saying it's what you personally support, of course. But it was an example of how religion can quickly get out of hand.
And this quote: "As moral relativism, the term is often used in the context of moral principles, where principles and ethics are regarded as applicable in only limited context."
It's also true. Just remember how Christian people in the past were going after nonbelievers and just kill them.
Or nowadays, if there's a war, a person from a church will bless people to go and kill other people! It really happens.
So it's okay to kill other people suddenly? War changed Chritianity moral? And suddenly those soliders who defend their motherland won't go into Hell for that? It's all very obvious adjustments of moral to benifit from it.
Anyways, it's all fine, what you personally believe in.
But when it's shoved into a story about the show, where it doesn't fit at all, at least becuase it never was mentioned in it, just because you felt like that and because you believe in it, it's just very unnecessary thing to do. And it really distracts from the story, especially for people who consider any religion similar to a ficiton story itself.
Good thing, 99% of MLP fanfiction, no matter what is written in them, never mention a specific religion (in your case it's Christianity) in such a direct way, shoving it into faces of peopole who might be not into that kind of religion.
It's really difficult focus on this specific story, considering how much of Christianity is prevalent in it. If only it was in a subtle way, it wouldn't be so problematic at all...
Sorry for the rant... It's all just my opnion of course.
By the way, your writing skills are really good. No doubt about it.
5564127
I think, there was absolutely no need to use our real human world's term "Christianity" and our human world name "Jesus Christ" at all.
You could have all the moral stuff you wanted in the story without connecting MLP universe to our universe.
It should have done in a subtle way and then it would look better for any reader of your story.
I think it wouldn't take anything away from the story, but also it wouldn't be distracting from the story for people who aren't agree with you using Christianity in MLP universe.
5564782 bwahah! I may do that once the story is finished or if I get bored some day. I'll probably just wait and delete the parentheticals after a while.
5564787 Yours is a common misconception about the immorality of "killing." Taking the life of another person may be completely moral depending on the context. I could explain the biblical commandment not to kill, its various translations, interpretations, and the new law replacing it, following Christ's ascension, but I'd be kidding myself if I thought you were interested. I can think of no moral virtue which, at its root, is truly relative. Galatians 5--preached in that new chapter that's caused this stir--lists the fruit of the Spirit. Those make a good list of virtues to scrutinize, perhaps, when considering moral absolutism vs. relativity. In any case, religious affiliation or cultural acceptance, including Christianity, can neither justify nor condemn any action. God alone can do that, whether directly or through prophets. [inb4 "How do we know?" We're cautioned against false prophets and told that we'll know them by their fruits--what they bring about.]
Despite all the delicious rustled jimmies, I'm seriously considering deleting and then republishing this story. The fact that the fic advertises Christianity is 100% intentional, though I never intended--and I'm now facing the very real fear that it appears--to force the beliefs of the protagonist, my own beliefs, onto readers. Every story, video, song, etc. propagandizes what it contains unless it's purely informational. My major concern with this new update isn't what or even how I've delivered my message (though those continue to be something I want to improve). What I'm worried about, rather, is that the story I "sold" to readers back in October of 2013 has changed so significantly with my new revision, that I almost feel obligated to recall it from all of its up/downvotes, favs, etc., and re-present it as it is now, afresh. You'll notice I've made every reasonable effort (with my editor's encouragement) to warn about what the story contains. I've never misrepresented my intentions. My main priority, to help people, still hasn't changed, however, the fact that my intentions have shifted as to how I help people may warrant starting my readership over from zero.
Presenting this story as honestly as I can is essential. I feel certain that "Christ" is a necessary part of helping people because his name points to principles that otherwise risk being left out or misrepresented without clear and specific reference to Him (the source of all virtue). There are some readers or passers-by whom I can't help but offend or annoy by that, no matter what tags I use. However, I might offend fewer of you, maybe, if I claim that the non-Christian story we assumed this was, is no more. Essentially, "I tried subtle/quasi-Christianity, it failed to meet my standards, and now I'm posting a replacement story to a fresh audience that's almost the same except xyz." I would keep the name the same and request the cover artist's permission to continue using their work, but otherwise there'd be no need to affiliate the old story with the revised story
As for the difference you asked about between the form of this story's Christ and the real-world Christ, again, I might leave that out of the story, but, since you asked... Until now I've mostly imagined him as human (he might have lived in the world of Equestria Girls), but I'm not fixed on that idea. Christ's species might be something humble yet symbolic of his belonging to all of the species for which he atoned. I'm leaning toward draconequus, even though that might not fit "humble." He might have been a born an Earth pony but miraculously appeared to any who saw him as their own species. Maybe various species or equine races could represent the tribes of Israel, and Christ would have been born as whichever most closely resembles Judah. I could stick close to real-world animal symbolism and make him a lion-esque individual, like a griffon.
5566583 I hope it's worthwhile to you if you do. Now that I'm past the hardest parts of my revision, I'm actually really enjoying re-reading everything while making corrections to punctuation, flow, and character voice.
5566622
I see. Well, okay. And it's your story after all.
In any case, you're not like a lot of other christian/religious people I've met on the internet. And you aren't against a lot of things which religious people often get furious about, even if it's just art or imaginary stuff. So, you're more open minded, which is good. :)
By the way, just found out that you have that interesting Library of stories... There are quite a lot of them looking promising, and I already spotted there some of my personal favorites. XD
So is there going to be sex in this story?
5566838 So far, only in Chapter 4. It comprises about 1% of the total words of this fic (including unpublished unrevised chapters). You may like my other fics more (except Schmerz).
5567929 So no more Fluttershy x Sweetie Belle love then?
5568062 there are some steamy makeout scenes, and love abounds, but no explicit sex scenes
5568149 Awwwww ok then
5566806 Open-mindedness is part of my religion, you might say.
I hope you enjoy the library. I wish I had more time to add to it. As is, my schedule is mostly full with revision of this story and just life.
im sorry for losing my temper in the last message. this story is damaged past the point that i want to come back to it and i honestly do think that ur perspective on moral relativism is shortsighted, so i cant apologize on those points, but i shouldnt have gotten angry at an insult u didn't intend. i apologize for overreacting to that. ur not a bad guy and u at least have good intentions here, so if im leaving, i want it to be on good terms, not bad, at least. i'll still read and look forward to other stories u write, at least, and i still think ur a very good author and i still believe in flutterbelle ship because of u. friends?
5568884 Absolutely friends. I'm really happy to be on good terms, whether or not you continue to read this story or we share most of the same perspectives.
For what it's worth, I mean to be very cautious about the use of religion in this story. I measure the current focus of the story on Christianity specifically to be under 4%. That number may increase to 6 or 8% over time, but with warnings before sections that do so heavily--like the note at the beginning of Chapter 8, including some mention about what you might miss if you skip it, as I did in that note.
Hey I love this story and your writing when I first read this. I read your revisions up to Chapter 6 (Now chapter 7) and was so hooked I managed to find your google doc with the rest of the story and read on! I spent literally two days straight reading it!
And now for the inevitable "but" you've been guessing was coming.
I do find this revision to include Christianity into the story does dilute the story as a whole. If I had read the description now as it now reads to talk about Fluttershy dealing with Christianity I seriously doubt I would have read this which would have been a huge shame.
I feel that when you were using Harmony as a religion (Or as I felt it was, more if an internal moral guide), that it was ok due to the fact it was only a small part of the reasoning and talks within the story, only mentioned briefly and in a manner that didn't conflict with anything in the show and felt like the religion itself was not an important part of Equestria as a whole.
By that I mean that while Celestia was a voice for that religion, the majority of Equestria didn't bother about it. Like I had the idea that it was only a small following and if all its followers were gathered together, they would only fill a small town.
But now by placing Christianity into the story, you create many problems. Now its a large religion with many churches, followed by many yet never seen. And while we had subtle nods back to historical eras, this tries to place a full story created by humans, that for the religion to stay true, must not be edited for it is the word of god and editing it would be against his will. But then we get inconsistenties, like turning water into wine in a world of flying magic ponies who can raise the Sun and moon would just merely be a parlour trick.
Also you said in your comments about making Christ himself a human from the Equestria Girls realm, which would mean that the mirror is in fact of huge religious importance and the realm beyond it too? Would ponies consider that realm to be heaven due to their savior coming from there? And speaking of heaven, would the idea of heaven being a place one can walk on clouds be appealing to pegasi when they have Cloudsdale?
I know that this story comes from your own experience and makes me commend you more for writing this, but I feel that Christianity doesn't flow with the show, nor the story. It leaves too many things unexplained and while you know of Christian life and reading about it makes sense to you, there are many who have no idea what Christianity is or who Jesus is. Like you would need to detail who he was, how he died for the sins of all ponies and then so so much more that you might as well just copy and paste the whole bible into the story.
I do need to ask one question though that I seriously need an answer to though. Do you intend to edit the future chapters to make Christianity heavily referenced and become a large crux for the basis of Twilight's study compared to the minor one Harmony had? If so then sadly I wouldn't be able to recommend the story anymore to my friends and others I wished to share it with.
Also I'm guessing you knew you adding this would cause many to react as they have (And I hope you didn't want that like in a "I love to drink your salty tears" way, which would make a huuuge impact on how much I respect you). So did you not think to perhaps make a new posting of the story for the Christian edit and link that in this version and keep this one as an original version (Non Christian) and link this in the Christian one? I would of course give the Christian edit a like for being a good fic too.
Also if you intend to keep the Christianity then you would need to add an Alternate Universe tag due to Christianity not popping up in the show.
Anyway let me end this on a good note, so while I have a problem of your religion being pushed into this fic, I really respect you for your story and the fact you wish to redo sections to improve its reading. It really makes you think fully over what would be an acceptable answer to the question of a love like Flutters and Sweetie, both in the pony and real world.
5569994 I'm glad to have the opinion of someone who has recently read the old and the new. Thanks for the thoughtful comment!
I feel fairly confident that most of the English speaking world knows who Christ is or has resources to find out. A quick Google search turned up this statistics page: http://joshuaproject.net/global_statistics Yes, there are a lot of things that people, including Christians themselves, don't know about Christ, which is why one of the two main focuses of the most recently inserted chapter was to explain the core values of the protagonist's faith. This way, even if a reader doesn't know Christ's story, at least they know what he stood for and his importance to believers. If a reader is left with questions, my hope is that they'll investigate, however, this isn't a story meant to convert people. It may seem that way because I try to get people ask to questions, but I think the only ones it will help convince must be those who're already leaning heavily one way or another about Christianity. Meanwhile, I aim to entertain and please as often as possible without abandoning the primary purpose of the story. I've made some sacrifices to entertainment value in more ways than one, in more chapters than just the one delivering a sermon. I'm glad you've found it so enjoyable, in any case!
I agree, the current story description may be off-putting to many readers looking for a romance who might mistake this as a religious story, and I've been thinking about how to change it while still giving new folks adequate warning. Maybe the simple content warning near the bottom is enough without calling Fluttershy "Christian" in the first line, as long as I keep warning notes at the beginnings of sections that deal heavily with Christianity. I fear that wouldn't be enough warning still. Like you said, I expected the backlash, but, I assure you, I don't enjoy the tears, and, by mentioning Christianity so overtly, I hope to prevent them down the path. However, like you said, it would be a shame to repel readers uninterested in reading about a Christian protagonist, like yourself, who'd still really enjoy the story. I'd much appreciate your and others' ideas about how to change the description and how to minimize any disappointment with the (non-optional) presence of the illusion-breaking element of Christianity, if you'd be so kind.
Among possible solutions to the jarring break in the common fanon that Equestrian lore excludes real-world God and Christ, despite how much I dislike sidetracking the romance further, I could devote more writing to laying out Christianity's foundation as I've imagined it. I only intended Christianity to be a small (essential) part, and, again, I feel burdened by things that sidetrack the romance. I'm honestly disappointed that readers generally seem so ready to accept foalcon in fanon, yet have given so little thought to or outright fight the notion of Christianity in their personal fanon that it should seem more disquieting to them than the former. I knew I'd probably have to deal with this disappointment before I revised the story, but it still makes me shake my head and wish I could just not care ("drink your salty tears"). I shouldn't be so impatient, I think. Maybe explaining Christianity more is the only way... maybe in a supplemental spin-off one-shot to which I can point all those who genuinely want to know how my brain works.
If I were to lay out the foundation for Christianity, I'd definitely have to pin down who Christ was. The points you've made are exactly why I think I would write Christ as an EqG-world human. I like the idea of also writing a non-human parallel in the pony world who, like Celestia, is either not the same as his human counterpart--meaning he would not be their savior--or else, I might write the non-human counterpart as miraculously combining with Christ in the human world. More likely, though, I think I would write Christ as having no parallel in the pony world, and, therefore, his life's story must come through the visions of Equestrian prophetesses and/or through the mirror. The mirror need not be of religious importance, but it could be one way Christian culture entered their world. It would make a simple solution and enable me to keep holy writ the same between our worlds. Perhaps the 12 apostles each came from another universe connected to Canterlot High's universe through their own portals. I don't see why Christianity would require the Alternate Universe tag to do this. Christian Equestria is equally as plausible as any other fanon--it contradicts nothing that I've noticed. We've even seen Mr. Waddle in the series wearing a clerical collar reading from a book at a funeral. I'm not above putting an AU tag on the fic, but I don't see the reason.
Wow... This looks like it's gone through a rather extensive rewrite... Not sure when I'll find time to while I'm busy, somewhat ironically, doing my own rewrite, but if there's more information to be had in building and struggling to maintain this fledgling relationship these two have I'll take a look.
*groan* I see this place, too, has become infested with long-winded zealots; though I suppose it was only a matter of time, given the subject matter... Granted I tend to agree that the idea of a religion akin to Christianity in Equestria feels somewhat out of place, but I'm willing to suspend my belief in order to enjoy such an outstandingly well-crafted narrative. By contrast, the way people like this chose to handle their opinions, leaving giant, and often poorly-thought-out text-walls and beating your points to death 100 times over, I can't condone that even if I agree with what you were originally trying to say. An intelligent person would have long tuned you out if you were talking to them in the manner that these posts tend to take.
i understand Applejack, and i know that she would be probably right, but because i know Sweeties and Fluttershy´s point of view, i can´t help myself but hate Applejack a bit right now.
I would probably be curious too, but if i would be in Equestria, i would probably try to observe anything, then just take Sweetiebell away from Fluttershy. I don´t say that Applejack is about to take Sweetiebell away from Fluttershy, but i get the feeling she would try something like that.