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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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Hoh wow. That's quite a shocking way to get introduced to your powers.
Okay, the Cootie Yuck Evaders deserve a spin-off.
And poor Gleaming, that's a hard domain to come to grips with.
Hi! Yes? Is this the railroad department? Id like to know the number of the feels train that hit me?
In other news I can't wait for more embodiment!!!!! Hoooraaaay!!
I'm enjoying this story a lot. I liked Embodiment (unfinished as it may be. More would be awesome) and have read DD&tAoG at least three times.
Well thats one epic panic attack, but also, this chapter had such amazing heart melting moments too. Also, well done, and this was a smile for the foals thing.
Still, glad to muse is burning bright here. And life as a whole huh, interesting.
Also, may the changes not be troubling.
So clearly she's the Princess of Nurture. She should probably learn some basic healing magic if she's going to be bugged by other people's health all the time. Come to think of it, that's probably something that would be good to know in any case, especially if you're having kids.
Holy tits of Luna!
Oy, that wasn't funny. Okay, it was a little funny.
Could the alicorn foals be infusing magic into her?
You continue to prove that you're capable of writing very interesting characters, as well as handling pay-off you've built towards. You're an excellent author, and Fecundity remains my absolute number one favorite smutty fic on fimfiction.
Remember how I was worried that the Gleaming identity is overwriting Shining? This does not ease my worries. Good chapter, though.
8405169
It's a delicate balance that's not easy to nail. I'll keep it in mind for next chapter.
Alicorn of medicine?
Also, while I would hope that it wouldn't do anything to harm them, I wonder what effects ascending while pregnant might do to the foals. I mean, Twilight's involved freaking EXPLODING and getting sent to some astral plane, but she wasn't pregnant with six...
8405365
Life.
At this point I'm about 99.9% sure Gleaming's domain is Life.
8405169
How do you figure? As far as I'm concerned the personality changes are completely reasonable. Everyone changes over time, especially based on their circumstances.
Shining Armor changed sexes and got pregnant. Those are definitely circumstances to change aspects of a person's personality. Especially throwing in hormones. Not only does Gleaming have different sex hormones, she's also pregnant.
Honestly I would think it weirder if there were fewer changes in personality. But even considering that... it's not like Shining Armor had a heck of a lot of characterization to begin with. Some of the "difference" you notice may simply be that Gleaming Shield of Fecundity has a hell of a lot MORE and BETTER characterization than Shining Armor of MLP.
Oh man, this was a fantastic chapter. I can't wait to see what happens if Gleaming ends up using her newfound abilities on Cadence, Twi or the other two alicorns. I'm particularly sure that Luna and Celestia have some old wounds that others may not perceive, maybe that's how she comes to terms with what's happening to her? Perhaps the fact that they're more like the average pony than they appear might soothe some of her worries regarding her alicorn-ification.
I am terrified though if she ends up seeing something terminally wrong in someone who she cares about though: her parents, colleagues, or aides? That would break my damn heart.
You've added another wrinkle to a cracking good story, Klamnei. Can't wait for the next part!
Well these are some interesting developments. I look forward to seeing how they turn out. I do like the take on alicorns in this story and their inherit magical senses.
8405573
Maybe this is contradictory to some minutiae of lore that I haven't read, but a general rule of magic is that magic is an extension of the mage's very essence. The mage, through their power and will, causes the magical effect to occur. The only real exception is when you are borrowing power/have stolen another's power, but even then, it's through sheer force of will that you get the magic to work.
Shining Armor is what TV Tropes calls a Barrier Warrior; he is a literal shield from danger. It's why he got his cutie mark, it's why he joined the Royal Guard and has been one of the primary focuses of his entire life. And now it's fading away. Being replaced by something new. The probably truest aspect of his soul is slipping away from him. Add on to the fact that no one has called him Shining in months and you can see why I'm worried about the loss of identity.
8406001
How do you figure? In this chapter, she started literally sensing dangers other people face, and feels the need to help them. Gleaming's personality hasn't changed all that much since the start of this story; not any more than would be expected from character development as events progress. It seems like you're comparing the personality she displays now, not to one that Shining had in the past, but to some headcanon version of Shining's personality that you imagined him to have, but was never presented in either the show or this story at any point. That's not him losing his identity; that's you misapplying your headcanon.
Also, a name isn't exactly a central component of personality, contrary to what some people apparently think.
Edit: It occurs to me that you use the phrase ‘fading away’ to describe what you think is happening to Shining's personality, which closely resembles the language the chapter uses to describe what is happening to Shining's Unicorn magic. Perhaps you misinterpreted that passage to be referring to his talent? It wasn't.
Damn. That's a Alicorn I'd not like to see going Dark. If life is actually her domain her darker incarnation would be death itself. And I doubt any amount of Rainbow magic could bring the dead back after her rampage...
8405573
It's been 36 weeks. Less than nine months, and Shining has walked away from almost every aspect of previous characterization except his marriage, with little discomfort. Even then, that discomfort is over magic not gender identities or as this chapter makes clear, giving up the profession she trained all her life for as Shining to embrace serial pregnancy as a lifestyle.
I understand that this is effectively a pregnancy fetish fic, but it is usually good enough narratively that the fetish isn't intrusive. This chapter jumped the shark in that respect a bit. It hit the uncanny valley a bit for me in much the same way I find bimboification intensely creepy, because it came across much more strongly that all this change is externally imposed rather than Gleaming discovering parts of her personality she didn't previously express much.
"Dear diary.
Today I became a Lenspony!"
(E E "Doc" Smith ref?)
8406001
Exactly. It's especially unwieldy when held up next to Twilight, who flatly hasn't lost a single step as far as her signature magics from her unicorn days (see also incidental teleportation and glowy-eyed Avatar state). All she picked up was some unwanted social responsibilities and a pair of wings that are a pain in her back. She's still a socially awkward snark factory.
Meanwhile Shining is verging on depersonalization. This is exactly why I noted above that this whole change in character for him comes off as something externally imposed far more so than character development.
I'm gonna open this by reminding everyone that this is a shameless fetish clopfic. I'm aware that I've developed a secondary audience of people that are reading it solely because they're interested in the plot, and that's awesome. By all means stay! Read! Enjoy! I just ask that you don't forget what the main point of the story is. I'm glad you're finding the plot engaging, but it's still a shameless fetish clopfic. If I wanna take a few paragraphs to talk about a FANTASY Gleaming has about being perpetually pregnant, then I'm gonna do it. If I wanna write some fetish-y banter between Cadance and Gleaming to get each other riled up, I'm gonna do it.
Pregnancy, genderswapping, and power fantasy are the kinks here. Barring that last one, the sign was LITERALLY on the door as you walked in.
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8406227
Badly Drawn Turtle is right, Digiman. You've brought this concern up before, but now it's starting to sound like you don't like my portrayal of Shining Armor because it isn't lining up with your headcanon. Why are you quoting general definitions of how magic works and definitions from TV Tropes? I don't even...
People behave differently depending on who they're around. The side we see of Shining Armor when he's around random young children isn't going to be the same as the side we see when he's around his troops. Or Luna. Or Twilight. Or Spike. Or Twilight Velvet. Or Night Light. Small epeen flex here, but people both publicly and in PM's have praised my character interactions and narrations in those scenes because "they seem believable" and "the secondary plots are as engaging as the main one". If the "Gleaming personality" really was overriding the Shining one, I doubt I'd be getting compliments like that.
Actually, come to think of it, I think that's a big reason why his personality seems so strange and the changes seem so one-sided. The majority of the scenes in this story are with Gleaming and Cadance, which means you're only ever seeing that side of him come out. Just because he's changed how he acts when he's around her doesn't mean he's changed how he acts around others. Or that he's now suddenly going to throw everything away just because of some dirty talk between them and a few idle fantasies. Shining still holds court and oversees troop inspections. He discusses national security with the other rulers and addresses various problems the Empire is having. None of that has changed.
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8406778
There are so many things wrong with both your comments I could write a whole another 7k words going into detail about them. If you've gotten this far in the story and honestly think that, then no amount of explanation is going to convince you. Quite frankly, I'm insulted.
8407032
With roughly a thousand people following this story, I guess it's inevitable that a few of them are going to have… unique interpretations of the events.
8407032
Again, maybe I'm letting other media color my perception here, but one's magic is generally used as an extension of one's soul. That's why black magic is so dangerous in most media, because you have to corrupt yourself to use it. So when Gleaming looks to her magic to regain calm, we see that it is literally being replaced.
If the new magic was reinforcing the existing magic, or refining it, or just being "Shining Armor+", that would have been a totally different scenario. But you literally wrote that the new alicorn power was overwriting him. When the issue of identity has already been brought up, how can I not see this as a warning sign that Shining Armor is irrevocably transforming into Princess Gleaming Shield?
8407099
The part of your comment that is most correct is the first part of this sentence. Magic works different ways in different stories; you are taking a particular way magic works in one story, assuming it as headcanon for every story that has magic in it, and then applying that headcanon unfairly to a different story that has not presented magic in that manner.
In addition:
Why, exactly, is this notion so horrifying to you? People change. That's how minds work. The only real difference between your own personal situation and Shining Armor/Gleaming Shield's is that you don't have a different name for the person you were a year ago.
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8406001
I'm not saying you guys are wrong... although I'm sorely tempted. I just honestly don't get this point of view.
Give me a single example of something that supposedly "defined Shining Armor" that Gleaming has completely and totally walked away from. Just one thing.
When I think of Shining Armor, I think:
Protective - noticed little colt had Leukemia, almost instantly teleported him to a hospital
Military - still taking duties as General very seriously, even personally training recruits on occasion
Comic books - not as much time for stuff like that as a Princess/General/Mother-to-be but I believe it was implied she spent some time with Spike on Hearth's Warming
Family - ...
Loyalty - kinda falls under the protective/military/family as well, hell Gleaming's probably a better fit for the Element of Loyalty than Rainbow Dash
Those are just what I think of when I think "Shining Armor," though. I seriously am curious what you guys think of, such that Gleaming seems like a completely different person in a female Shining Armor's skin. I just don't see it at all.
Cadance is gonna freak out over where her precious little Gleaming is
8407175
The first part is a fair point. I am probably just bringing in assumptions from other media where they don't apply. As for the second half, did you ever see the Kevin Smith film Dogma? Spoiler for an almost 20-year-old movie, but about 3/4ths the way through the movie, the main character, a Catholic woman named Bethany who was lost her faith, discovers that she is the last remaining descendant of Jesus.Here's the scene in question:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4JeMhY89mM
That scene is how you do an identity crisis right. It said "You are not [new identiy]. That's just an aspect of who you are. The core of your character remains unchanged". What I fear is happening to Shining is something totally different. It seems that the alicorn power is overwhelming his innate magic and therefore his identity. I worry that the new identity as Glaming is totaly replacing Shining until there are only a few stray remnants left.
If the author's responses are any indication, I'm worrying for nothing, but I don't feel I would be offering honest feedback if I didn't include it.
8407323
There it is again. Try replacing ‘magic’ in that sentence with ‘hair color’ or ‘height’. It sounds ridiculous if you do that, right?
And frankly, I disagree with the basic philosophy you get out of that scene. As I said previously, people change. All the time. Nobody is the same person they were a year ago. As things happen to us, we incorporate the new information into who we are and how we behave, and that changes us. Is Gleaming Shield in the most recent chapters different from the Shining Armor at the beginning of the story? Of course. If she hadn't changed and grown with all of these events happening to and around her, that would be an issue.
Is who she is now a ‘replacement’ of who she was before? No. It's a natural progression, an evolution from who she used to be, just like everybody else. Even the scene you presented admits that in a way; he tells the woman that she has to incorporate the new information into who she is… and then he claims that this doesn't change who she is, which is best interpreted as a white lie to calm her down, since incorporating new information would by definition change who she is.
The problem here, is that it seems you don't like the idea of change. Well, I can't really help you with that. Change is the only constant in life, as the saying goes. Change doesn't mean rejecting or going against what you were previously; what you are now, and what Gleaming is now, is built upon what you and she used to be.
Or, to put it another way, Gleaming can't replace Shining, because Gleaming is Shining. Just, with some more experiences to look back at.
8407032
I'm not criticizing your pregnancy fetish fic for being a pregnancy fetish fic, dude. I'm saying this chapter didn't come off the way I think you wanted it to.
8407359
Except for no one but the most vain and self-loathing define themselves by height or hair color. A mage defining themselves by their magic is a reasonable thing to do* Especially in a setting like MLP where everypony gets a mark that signifies their purpose in life. Shining's shield-based cutie mark combined with his impressive magical skill with barriers seems to make clear "shielding others from harm" is his raison d'être. But now that's literally getting replaced.
Sorry to mention TV Tropes, but it's clear that Gleaming Shield is a Meaningful Rename. She took that name to seperate her male and female personas. I'm worried that this may lead to Becoming the Mask to the point of reaching That Man is Dead levels.
Again, I'm probably worrying for nothing, but recent events have made me concerned.
*Ususally; angelic beings rebelling against heaven or those with demonic heritage not being evil is a thing, but neither of them apply to this scenario.
8407599
Her cutie mark isn't being replaced, though; only the flavor of the magic that fuels it. And shielding others from harm appears to be exactly what her new powers are centered around, so I'm unclear on why you would think it's getting replaced.
As for Becoming the Mask; that's only relevant if the persona is fake. In this situation, it isn't. The only real change between her male and female selves is sexual organs; the name change wasn't to signify a different personality, it was, from what I can tell at least, just to make her and those around her less inclined to freak out about gender-based taboos.
What exactly are you so concerned might happen? That she might decide to stay female?
8407741
I'm going to drop this (as I said I'm probably worrying about nothing), but I will say that when you are considering radically altering your name and physiology permanently, a concern about lost identity isn't that uncalled for.
8408113
You humans and your preoccupation with labels and physical appearance.
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8407501
Okay, look. This whole topic has been an issue for people ever since Chapter 14 when I got a little too flowery with my prose and people took it to mean that Shining's male persona was in danger of being overridden or something. That was never my intent. I've been tempted MANY TIMES to go back and rewrite that part of the story, but haven't because I felt like what I was trying imply, which was the confusion Shining felt over everything happening to him, was still worth exploring. Every chapter since then, I've been trying not to go too far in either direction and strike a balance, but apparently I fucking suck at it.
I know it may seem sometimes that I'm just writing this story on the fly and don't have a plan, but I do. I have outlines. I have calculations. I have chapter-by-chapter references for Gleaming's height and belly sizes. I have estimates for weight gain, milk production, and alicorn magic saturation. I have lists for all of Gleaming's abilities as a unicorn and an alicorn. On and on and on. I've been trying to not to reveal my whole hand here and let people speculate, but the truth is that I'm tired of this argument. It seems to me like the only recourse I have here is to just straight-up spoil some things for you guys, so here you go.
HERE YE BE SPOILERS! DON'T WANT TO KNOW, DON'T MOUSEOVER
==============================================
1.Shining's identity is not going to be overridden by Gleaming's. You can stop worrying. This is me, the author of the story, telling you that it's not going to happen. Yes, I've played with themes of identity crisis and gender roles and the confusion that can come from suddenly being swapped. I will continue to do so in future chapters because I like the duality and struggle that Shining faces. Yes, I used some poor verbiage in Chapter 14 because my muse got away from me. I'm not trying to imply there's some kind of subtle personality takeover resulting in the effective death of Shining's male personality. Not only would it be a massive tonal shift in how the story's gone so far, it's an angle I have absolutely no interest in pursuing.
2. In this story, magic in generated via a physical organ. There's an entire internal system dedicated to producing and storing magic. Twilight and Talia mention it several times. Gleaming was freaking out because she's realizing for the first time how differently that internal system is becoming, and yes, Gleaming personally associates and defines herself somewhat via her magic. It doesn't mean that her personality is going to be overwritten. The source of that magic is changing, and it kinda hit home for her in this chapter, so she panicked a little bit. Remember how I made the allusion to alicorn puberty before? That's a lot what this is like. I wasn't even thinking about any allusions to her male identity or cutie marks. True, I said that Shining's unicorn magic was a crucial part of who he was, but I didn't mean that his magic was inherently tied to his personality, and now his whole personality is going to be deleted just because the magic is coming from a different source. I'm thinking purely physical, you're thinking metaphysical. Lose the meta.
3. Speaking of cutie marks, I'm going to talk about this now. In the show, we're never explicitly told what Shining's cutie mark means. In this story, I've chosen for it to mean the protection and preservation of life. Yes, Shining's domain is Life. The scene in the next chapter I mentioned being excited for in the author's notes is where Gleaming figures what her domain is. She's attacked by a wild animal, she subdues it, lets it go, and does some internal monologuing and soul searching. He thinks about the meaning of his cutie mark, follows the breadcrumbs, puts the pieces together, and then everything clicks. There's a big mystical scene, and to top it all off, her celebration and realization is signified by something being added to her cutie mark: A white snake encircling the shield, which may or may not have always been there, just blended in to his white coat.
Does this mean that Shining's personality is now altered? Not at all. He's had an epiphany, possibly the most important one in his life. He learns and grows as a person because of it, but he's still has the same core personality that I've been building since the beginning of the story.
4. At the very end of the story, Gleaming is going to be faced with a choice. A choice between genders and roles--what she wants to be as the now fully ascended Alicorn of Life. The choice everyone is worrying and fretting about with their own perspectives on, a choice Shining will have struggled with for the entirety of the story. There will be a lot of characters giving their perspectives on it, but inevitably Gleaming will choose...
No. Fuck you. I'm not spoiling that.
==============================================
Invariably, this won't be enough for some people. They'll either insist this raises more questions or that it doesn't answer the questions well enough. Maybe they're the type that just HAS to get in the last word. I don't care. I just spent the evening writing out a near 1k word response defending the nuances of my mlp fetish porn fanfic to a bunch of strangers on the internet. I'm not going any farther. If you're still not satisfied, then whatever. I have a chapter to write.
This is why I don't respond more to comments.
8408203
I'm sorry my argument casued such distress, I was just expressing my worries, which I now know was uncalled for. It's just that some people didn't see the signs that say the story could be heading that direction. I know it's not, but it reasonably could and tha thad me worry.
Great chapter, finally finished reading it. The scene with her and all the kids was adorable! And wonderfully implemented in the story moving the plot forward in a cute and engaging way. I really liked your depiction of Gleaming and her changing magic and the imagery you associated it with. This chapter was so nice!
So excited for the next chapter. :D
I wonder if alicorn orgasms are also more powerful? Gotta have some perks if you have a 1000+ year responsibility on your hooves.
OMG this was a epic read and it left me emotionally drained.
OK, all of the *squee* with Gleamy and the foals.
So, has the CMC legend spread that far north, or do foals all like the same sorts of naming schemes?
I liked the name Rhodi, I figured out the reference to a metal or crystal that you had as a theme for the kids names.
Ok, epic chapter is epic