Conversation Twenty
The good news was that Mag didn’t have to pay for any of her new clothes. The bad news was that she also wouldn’t have to pay for new bras, since a male fashion designer had taken one look at her and announced to a room full of people that hers didn’t fit properly. The other good news was, hey, free bras.
The best news was that, after much hinting at, bargaining with, and whining to various officers, and finally just asking Celestia to arrange it, someone had installed a desktop PC in Mag, Celestia and Luna’s room.
Mag proposed that “everypony” (she wanted to use the word at least once) spend the rest of the day in their shared room for research and relaxation. Now they sat together in front of their new computer and read Youtube comments about Celestia.
“Play the video again,” said Luna. Youtube fascinated her.
“In a little while,” said Celestia, sitting next to Mag and reading along with fascination. Mag had never seen someone derive so much enjoyment from watching teenagers call each other Nazis, except in a spirit of schadenfreude. Her patience for idiots on the internet was astonishing. She chuckled and smiled indulgently at all the nicknames humanity had given her, from “Empress Deerbird” to “Sunbutt.” Tumblr shipped her with every fictional character and she bore it, however much Luna cackled at the racier works of fan art. The citizens of Twitter were engaged in a mass campaign for Celestia to be granted personhood, and, to Mag’s disquiet, most of the world’s politicians had everything and nothing to say on that subject. Celestia suggested patience. Reddit loved the whole concept of aliens but had doubts about certain elements of the situation. Celestia said she’d be happy to explain at the press conference.
She had endless faith in the press conference, now scheduled for tomorrow. Mag hoped her faith would turn out to be well placed.
“You could at least take off this gown,” groused Luna.
“In a little while,” said Mag. Her wardrobe, though hastily arranged by people who didn’t have her measurements and hadn’t even met her, was vast by Mag’s standards. Some of the items were more practical than others. Some of it was useless. Most of the shoes didn’t fit her, much of the jewelry was gawdy, she hated stockings, a couple of the dresses looked like lingerie to her admittedly somewhat prudish sensibilities, several of the earrings didn’t have mates, and, in the back of the delivery truck, an authentic Victorian ball gown stood arrayed on a wooden frame, complete with bustle and matching silk gloves. Mag couldn’t picture herself wearing it in public, so she got Celestia to help her put it on and resolved to wear it for the rest of the day. It came with a parasol.
Celestia found a floppy, wide brimmed sun hat for herself and hung one of the mateless earrings on the tip of her horn. Luna had Mag put on a black pillbox hat with a bow and veil. Mag pointed out that it didn’t match the gown; Luna said she saw no problem there, as it was Mag who was wearing the gown and Luna who was wearing the hat. Her argument was airtight. Mag put on the hat.
It was 4:14 in the afternoon and nothing mattered. It felt good to be silly. It felt good to feel.
Elbows on the computer desk and her head propped up on her hands, Mag dozed off while Celestia googled pictures of kittens.
***
“Whaddaya want?” said Luna, currently in the shape of a human and wearing a waitress uniform, standing next to Mag and the Candleman’s table, pen and notepad at the ready.
“What are the specials?” rumbled the Candleman. He had moose’s antlers and was so big that he shouldn’t have been able to get his legs beneath the table.
Luna counted them off on her fingers. Blue nail polish gleamed like steel. “Well, we got plum leaves in raspberry sauce, and I think there’s a bookcase fulla stuffy old biographies, or you could do the shadows of tall grass in a midmorning autumn breeze, glass tea, or biscuits and gravy. No, what am I saying? Biscuits is Tuesday.”
“I would like a saucer of glass tea, then,” said the Candleman. He laid down his menu and looked down at Mag, steepling his hairy fingers.
“The footsteps of the dead with a side of okra,” said Mag, laying her menu on top of the Candleman’s. Luna took their menus, popped her gum, and bustled away. Mag had never seen anyone bustle while wearing spike heels before. The Candleman folded his enormous hands and settled down to wait for his food.
Luna opened the door to the kitchen and set an order slip next to Mag, white-aproned head cook of the Sleazypretty. “Okay, hon, just like we practiced. Time to see the real power of dreams, eh?”
Mag opened the Book of Pasithee across the stovetop and began to read out loud. “Right. Here goes. ‘Where the wailing of the—’”
***
Someone knocked on the bedroom door, startling Mag awake.
“Black, sodding damn!”
“Wha’?” said Mag, wiping her mouth.
“Nothing. Attend to the visitor.”
Celestia looked up from a Wikipedia article on magic. “Come in.”
Jeff opened the door without coming in. He saluted sharply. “Your majesties, the President of the United States is waiting topside. He’d like to speak with you both.”
“Ugh, him,” said Mag, stretching. “We’d better change. What did I do with that really catty pants-suit? And a brush. We need a brush. Jeff, get out while I change.”
Jeff closed the door, but said, “Shall I tell them you’ll be up there in 20 minutes?”
“Ten,” called Celestia, magically running a brush through Mag’s hair while Mag looked for the suit she wanted.
She’d left it folded on a chair. It fit, more or less. Luna taught Mag how to tie the ascot.
“How does this look?” said Mag, turning in a slow circle on pointy black ballet flats.
“Professional,” said Celestia, with a thoughtful hoof under her chin. “Maybe a bit too forbidding, though the ascot lightens things up a little. What are you trying to say with this?”
Mag wished they had a mirror, but Celestia had asked for the bedroom mirror to be removed. “I was thinking something like, ‘I voted third party because I think you’re an opportunistic corporate shill, but I won’t bring it up if you don’t.’”
“Ah,” said Celestia dryly. “Then that ought to do the job. And your hair is brushed, so we’re almost ready. Seeing as we’re about to meet with the head of your nation, would you like me to do something more elegant than usual?”
“I’m an Equestrian and Equestrians have pony tails,” said Mag, tying her hair back herself.
“Many of us don’t, but I take your meaning,” said Celestia with a smile. She held up Mag’s makeup kit. “Would you care for a touch-up?”
“Yes. Are you going to need anything? A quick horn sharpening, maybe?” Celestia, of course, looked amazing at all times, but that was no reason not to ask.
“I’m ready,” said Celestia. “Jeff?”
“Yes?” Jeff said through the door.
“The two of us will be teleporting there, so I would appreciate it if you met us up there. One thing, however. What is the proper term of address for the president? Is it proper to bow, or are we to shake hooves—hands, I suppose I should say—or shall I simply keep my distance?”
“It’s ‘Mr. President.’ Knowing Randy Caldwell, he would probably rather shake hoof and hand. Yes, ma’am, we’ll meet you up there. But would you like an umbrella? It’s raining, you see.”
“No need,” said Celestia. “Luna, would you please take off that hat?”
“Fine,” said Luna, and took off the hat.
***
Celestia teleported the two of them 20 feet above the ground, Mag riding sidesaddle on her back. Celestia had prepared a spherical shield to keep the rain off, and Mag watched the water slide down the side of the invisible bubble. The drizzling rain painted the cement a darker gray, and between the clouds and the sun’s afternoon march to the horizon, natural light was becoming scarce.
A crowd of bodyguards in sunglasses clustered around a lone black umbrella. Celestia drifted down and landed 20 feet from the crowd.
A bodyguard held the umbrella over the head of United States President Randolph Caldwell in a long wool coat. He was shorter and handsomer in person than on television. He’d brought his smile today, a smile as carefree and feckless as the day he’d entered politics three decades ago. In terms of political capital, his smile was his fortune, and now it faltered as Celestia smiled back. Mag dismounted and tried to be as inconspicuous as she had been at the meeting.
She wished Celestia had accepted Jeff’s umbrella. Her shield bubble did the trick, but if the president of a country should have someone holding his umbrella, surely the queen of a universe shouldn’t have to use her own power to keep off the rain.
“Greetings, Mr. President,” said Celestia. “I’m honored and delighted to meet a world leader of Earth. I’d like to thank you and your people for hosting me.”
“My, my,” said the president softly. “My oh my.”
“Hm?” said Celestia.
“I thought I was prepared,” he said in a voice less cocky and more openly articulate than Mag had ever heard it. “I wasn’t. Hello, your majesty. The honor is all mine.” He bobbed his head and tipped an imaginary hat. “I was planning to stick around for a few hours for lattes and conversation, but now I think I’d better go. First, however, I’m going to do a little thinking out loud.”
He ran a hand over his stubble and put his hands in his pockets. “The other day, an aide brings me a laptop with a Youtube video and tells me a rural news network found a real live alien who wants to talk to me. I watch it because I always like to encourage my younger staff, and I think the CGI looks okay, but I don’t see anything except some Hollywood viral marketing. But wouldn’t you know it? People are taking it seriously. A HAZMAT team has already examined this very real and very cooperative alien, and it looks like some quasi-military organization has organized itself in a matter of hours to house and research her. They came into existence awfully fast. Awfully fast. I’m not sure how legal it is, considering the fact that I’m not hearing anything from immigration services or even animal control—”
“Sir—” began the man holding the umbrella.
“—but I know all the higher-ups of this organization personally and even some of the middle management, so I decide to let it stand and see what happens. I’ve heard of some of the researchers, too. You’ve even got kid-friendly science superstar Bradley Simon from PBS to study the ‘magic,’ and that’s a PR move if I’ve ever heard one.”
Celestia nodded along with interest, never interrupting and never appearing surprised.
The president kept smiling, kept talking. “The organization sends me some interesting paperwork, all about violins and mysterious books. Personally, my favorite part is the stuff about temperature tolerance. Have you ever heard of ‘absolute hot’? I sure hadn’t until this morning. The news says the Vatican is arguing over whether or not this alien princess is actually some kind of angel called a Principality. The internet is discussing what it means to be a person. Vegetarianism is becoming bigger. All very interesting. I also hear something about a political extremist mountain girl who got caught up in things, though she sounds a lot like a couple of people I met at Harvard. Hello, Ms. Wilson. Are you doing well?”
Celestia nudged Mag with a wing. “Sure,” said Mag.
“You sure? I heard something about bloody eyes. Wink if you’re being held against your will.”
Mag didn’t wink. “By your people? Technically not, I guess. By the princesses? No. The bloody eyes were from making eye contact with Cthulhu and that one’s all on me.”
“Sounds like you’ve got this all under control, then.” Randy Caldwell squinted at the mountains, which had turned gray over the past few hours under the light of the cloud-filtered setting sun. “Where was I?”
“Twittering and vegetarianism,” prompted Luna.
He looked at Mag and Luna from under his eyebrows. “Uh… huh.”
“I am Luna, princess of the night,” said Luna.
The president stared at Mag suspiciously for a few seconds. “… Right. Twitter and vegetarianism. But you see it, don’t you? You walked out of a lake yesterday and you’re already making waves. Are you a fad? That’s what it looked like until you landed just now. You know what I see now? I see someone who knows what I know: that you can take over the world by pretending to be harmless.”
“I’m not going to take over the world,” said Celestia, all firmness. Celestia glanced at Mag. “No,” she said again.
“Don’t look at me,” said Luna. “What would I want with this world?”
“Mag was looking disappointed,” said Celestia. “Mr. President, my goals are to see what humans can do about my cursed world, and to help humanity however I can.”
“Oh, I believe you,” said the president. “I can’t not believe you. I can’t imagine anyone disbelieving you about anything, and that spooks me, because humans get worrisome when they lose their skepticism. You don’t want to see what humans do when a whole lot of us are completely sure about something. You should be careful what you say, your majesty, because a lot of people are going to believe you.”
“I know what I’m capable of,” said Celestia. Somehow she made it sound reassuring.
“Whatever you say.” The president hooked a finger at a sunglassed man. “Leo, start the limo. I need to get out of here.” Leo got into the limo and turned the engine on.
President Caldwell didn’t get in right away. He watched the drizzling rain for a minute and then said, “You know what else bothers me? Everyone was too quick. I don’t think it’s really possible for a government or any of its associates to throw all of this together in a matter of hours. Someone knew you were coming. Do you know anything about that, your majesty? Ms. Wilson?”
“I really couldn’t say,” said Celestia with a baffled wave of her hoof.
“No ideas here,” said Mag.
“I see. Your majesty, it was a pleasure. I hope you’ll take it as a compliment when I say you scare the living hell out of me.” He got into his limo and shut the door. The tinted window hid his face.
“If it makes you feel any better,” said Mag to a now visibly troubled Celestia, “he’s up for reelection in a couple of years. Maybe you can encourage America to vote for someone less… cautious.”
“And more respectful,” added Luna. “You see, this is why democracy is nonsense and the best form of government is a theocratic absolute monarchy.”
***
“Not to mention,” said Mag, “the fact that of course he’s going to worry about you upsetting things. He’s a world leader and member of the establishment. He’s also a hidebound conservative masquerading as a progressive.”
They’d gone back to their room. Celestia had asked Jeff to have their meal delivered there, because she intended to read as much of human history as possible. “You could say the same of me,” said Celestia without looking up from Wikipedia.
“The established order sucks on Earth and nobody good is going to miss it,” said Mag. “Anyway, he’s wrong. The reason it’s the established order is because it’s self-perpetuating, and because humans are going to act like humans no matter what you do. If he’s right, good. If he’s wrong, fine.”
“You offered to help,” said Luna. “How did you intend to help without changing this world? But cleave to your principles, dear sister, apply yourself with all the kindness that is your nature, and surely Earth will only improve.”
“I have already given assurances that I wouldn’t harm the human way of life,” said Celestia, “and at the very least, I don’t have the right to risk changing it without understanding what damage I might cause. I’m confident that, if I can only learn enough and work closely enough with this world’s elected leaders, we can all benefit without global upheaval.”
“Well then good luck finding an unbiased history of the world,” said Mag, trying a different tack.
Celestia gave her an angry look. Mag quailed, but rallied. “Ask two humans what happened in America in 1492 and you’ll get three different answers. Wikipedia isn’t an academically accepted source, either, because absolutely anybody could edit that page. And were you seriously planning on reading 6,000 years of history overnight?”
Celestia’s expression became thunderous. “I am sick to death of knowing nothing. This is the closest thing I have to a solution.”
“Just relax and listen to Luna. Stick to your principles, learn as you go, and never let them see you sweat. Will you please relax?”
Celestia made an aggravated noise and studied the ceiling for a minute.
“I’ll try,” she said, “but we can’t forget the point the president has made. I speak with experience when I say the status quo is far more fragile than people give it credit for, and its true foundations aren’t often obvious to outside observers.”
Mag patted Celestia on the shoulder. “Worst case scenario, you ruin everything forever out of good intentions. Humans do that all the time, so you’ll fit right in.”
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Everything that was said in this chapter I agree with wholeheartedly I think
Especially the things said about humans
God have mercy on the poor saps humanity decides to finally Point ALL their weapons at
great chapter as always
Beautiful. Good to have you and your story back :)
.
Oh my. Glorious Luna.
I had some serious doubts about how you'd manage to write that conversation with Mr. President convincingly. You pulled it off in a very unexpected way, even with some wisdom about human nature included. And...
...a thickening plot.
And it's also really nice to see a thrown off Celestia who finds herself in a very unfamiliar situation: completely out of her depth. Humanity at its terrible best.
Looking very much forward to the continuation.
...Mag has the best sense of humor.
As usual, wonderful chapter.
6197913
Well, she's right. Failing to do the right thing is probably better than succeeding at doing the wrong.
I cannot understand it. This story is far too conversational and not action-y enough for my normal tastes, and yet... And yet, I find myself celebrating a new chapter every time one comes out, feeling like something's missing after I finish it, getting disappointed when I check for updates and there are none... You are accomplishing something wonderful here. Keep it up, and thank you!
6198040
And that is why it's so awesome.
Heh, there are people on the internet that'll cut a bitch for badmouthing their waifu. Can you imagine the sort of fanaticism Celestia would bring?
this chapter is different the president is scared no the hole world is holding it's breath this hole thing code go sideways really quick.
good work Ragnar .
Harts Fire
6198405
Praise the Sun
6197788
I'm calling shenanigans on the Eldest pulling some strings. Hard to tell, though, considering how much of a sociopath he's become.
6197913
Humor? I thought that was an insightful statement of fact. :)
"Discord!" Luna said
"You ran?" Discord said appearing out of nowhere, for some reason Mag was disapointed that there was no pink smoke.
"How long have you been on Earth?" Luna asked, now sounding more calm.
"As long as Celestia has been here. We are two halves of the same coin you know... order and chaos."
Mag interrupted "Are you saying that you are the chaos Celestia rejects about herself?"
"Yes and no. Sovereigns are complex beings, they all end insane or find ways to cope. Honestly, I am a tad offended it took Luna so long to find I was around. An d yes Luna, the Nightmare is your bratty daughter, suck up up, stand proud and be a mother."
"WHAT? No, the nightmare is a parasite that-"
"That you created out of envy and jealously." Discord said interrupting Luna "You are a Sovereign Princess Luna, not as strong as your sister, but you still have a lot of power. And by the way she is hurt that you replaced her with Mag here."
"What no snapping of claws?" Mag asked, wondering were what she just said had come out.
"My entire world just went up and died. And all I could do was save Celestia and myself, sorry that I am not in the mood for silly jokes and warping reality."
Then Mag just went and hugged him, both she and Luna crying.
******
Damn, that was depressing -_-
6197913
Honestly, that statement fits The Eldest as well, considering what he did.
Obviously, the "alien task force" is from SCP. Or maybe Delta Green.
If you're familiar with either of those fictional organizations, both of them would be absolutely terrified at this point. Delta Green would spot Steven Alzis a favor and ask him to have a "polite conversation" with Celestia to discern her capabilities and intentions. Suddenly, the audience learns that Steven Alzis is The Eldest.
...of course, in a Delta Green version of this story, it's more likely that Celestia would get turned over to Majestic-12 in the first place. It would turn out that she was a biological construct of the Mi-Go (not that any human would ever learn this) created as an experimental personality to test whether what they have learned of human psychology allows them to create an AI avatar of sorts, designed to be visually appealing and elicit sympathy, and which likewise behaves in a manner that seems less threatening and "alien" than other Mi-Go attempts at communication with other sophont species, like the Greys. Mi-Go!Sunbutt would pretend to solve her problems and ascend into the heavens in a flash of light, never to be seen again, thereafter to upload the saved data to a Mi-Go computer and be disassembled for spare parts.
"This came together too fast" was an early criticism I had of this story. Not sure how I feel now that it's a plot point, feels a bit like covering one's own butt. The pacing issues that were getting better two chapters ago have returned, and the story is back to feeling like talking heads in vague voids where time is irrelevant. Has it been 1 day or 1 month? Real life isn't a dream, or in dream time, and skipping over the prose to get right to the exposition is just giving the story the feeling that every character is the same character. Everyone is witty, everyone has something deep to say about humanity, everyone, that is, except the background extras who hardly get descriptions.
Kudos on the observational zingers from Mag (road to hell and all that) and el presidente (Celestia Starts The Crusades part 2), but still can't help but feel like you're trying to be Aaron Sorkin.
6210688 These are... actually some really good points. I only wish I'd seen this comment yesterday, because I just woke up and now I'm immediately asking myself complicated questions.
I'd better run this comment by my editor, Arcanist Ascendant. He's mentioned a couple of these problems before. And I'm now wondering if I rushed him into giving this chapter the green light. I think we both felt guilty about taking so long with it, and ended up putting out something that wasn't yet ready for release.
As for when chapter 20 is happening in the context of the story, this is only three or four hours after chapter 19. I guess I assumed readers would assume that, if I don't mention how much time has passed in between one event and another, it's just "an insignificant amount of time later." Maybe it doesn't work like that.
I'm tempted to solve this by putting a date, time and location at the beginning of every single scene, but that's just lazy, isn't it? While I'm talking to my editor about this, I think I'll go look for novels where everything happens in the span of a few days and see what tools they use to show that an insignificant amount of time has passed.
Thanks for this critique. I don't know what you mean about the Sorkin guy because I don't know anything about him and I've never seen/read any of his stuff, but I figure that last bit is to sum up the rest of what you've written, so it's clear enough anyway.
6213258
Oh man, huge typo in my comment which I've fixed.
That's the problem, though. You know how this all goes down and in what order because you're the one with the idea. The rest of us know nothing other than what you tell us. A conversation has a set amount of time a reader can sort of gleam, but on the whole, you have to show us in one form or another how long it's taken. Likewise, we don't know what scenery looks like, what people look like, what time of day, year it is, what the weather is like, and so on. That's what prose is for. You describe a mood, a feeling, you convey some intangibilities such that the reader *can* latch on to something and start making inferences.
You bet your ass it is. We're not looking for time stamps here, we're looking for shit like, "later that day," or "it didn't take long for x, y, z." You can achieve a lot by describing mood, or feeling, or just how light it is outside. If you *want* time to be nebulous, you do the opposite. Hey, maybe the characters are having trouble figuring it all out and that's important. Right now it just seems like they do/do not know what's going on around them based on if you want a paragraph to be dramatic or not.
As for Sorkin, he's a television writer. Famous for a show called The West Wing. His calling card, if you will, is the "walk and talk." Characters walk down a hallway speaking quickly to one another about high level concepts. Everyone is always a genius, and everyone always has something poignant to say.
It's good stuff, he just over used it.
e: Oops, I wrote an essay.
6220260 My editor hit a deadline crunch and serious computer issues this week right as I decided to get him more involved with the earlier stages of writing, so I've had a couple of days to think when I would normally write, and in that time I came to pretty much the same conclusions. I also considered the possibility that some things in this story are more obvious than you're giving them credit for (nothing personal, but one of the many things I've learned while writing this is that writers have to be critical of the critiques they get) and realized it doesn't actually matter if something is in the text if it's not obvious enough or is deemphasized too much. Then there's the fact that I can't expect people to be 100 percent vigilant at all times; that's why professors repeat themselves, summarize what's already in the textbook even when students are supposed to have already read that chapter, and spend ages spelling things out when most of the class seems to have worked it out 10 minutes ago. Then there's the fact that I'M not paying as much attention as I think I am, as my editor constantly proves, and, like you're saying, some things aren't implicit like I think they are and some things merit waaay more description than I give them.
Also, this is a fanfic. People come to FiMFic to relax, not perform a close reading on every single thing, and anyway, you people are reading these chapters only occasionally, so I can't possibly expect you all to remember exactly what happened last chapter.
On the other hand, seeing that Sorkin clip actually makes me feel better about this story. I've never seen any of that show, but I like that clip a lot, and what I got out of it is that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with my basic approach to dialogue. It's just that this Sorkin guy is much better at this style than I am.
My first great favorite fanfic I read was Twilight Sky Over Canterlot. I read it again recently and it's not as great as I remembered it, but it blew my mind at the time. At its heart, it's an amateurish sort of tribute to Joyce's Dubliners, and the problem with imitating James Joyce's style is that you can't. The result is a gawky, formless sort of fic with some strange decisions and a characterization of Twilight that doesn't much resemble the one in the show.
On the other hand, it's still a beautiful story. Even the failures are endearing because they happened thanks to the author's ambition and sincerity, and the highs are so, so high. That's why I don't mind looking like a third-rate amateur version of an established artist, that's why I've decided "pretentious" just means "tried and failed to do something awesome." Making the same mistakes as Twilight Sky Over Canterlot sounds good to me. Same goes for Sorkin.
On the other other hand (I have three hands), another thing I learned from that clip is that sometimes the audience needs a freaking breather. That's another important function of fitting more prose into this story, and I've only just realized that. Oh, and watching a bunch of people walk through hallways for three minutes straight is monotonous no matter how good the dialogue is.
e2 because I just grew a fourth hand: another issue is that, after 80k words, my characters are in danger of running together and resembling each other too much if I don't vary the dialogue more. "Witty/deep" gets monotonous too, imo.
Have I said thanks yet? Because thanks.
Well, for all my complaining, it sure took me a while to get around to actually reading this chapter. Sorry about that, by the way, just busy here, not ungrateful. This is definitely one of the chapters I was hoping to see, in terms of political action, because everything about it was interesting and very, very tense.
Also, this is definitely one of the few times I've read someone write a politician in a way that instantly gave me a sense of respect for the character. Because this guy?
Sharp. Much, much sharper than Mag wants to give him credit for. Corporate shill he might be, but that guy knows his business and is probably dangerous as hell - and he instantly recognized that whatever Celestia wants, she is dangerous as hell to be around too, if you want to your judgment to remain your own, and made sure to get the fuck out of range of her influence as quickly as possible.
The Vatican arguing about calling her an angel is not nearly as silly as it may have sounded, because it's altogether far too close to what she is. Not in being almost saintly-nice, although she is, but in the proper, traditional, pants-shittingly scary way: a kind of monster, not some ugly horror in a dark hole, but one that is so bright, it burns anyone who looks at it.
I've said it before, but there is a reason Old Testament angels introduce themselves with "be not afraid." Or, as Milton put it:
I know I've said a a lot of flattering-sounding things about her in these comments, but don't think that doesn't mean I wouldn't find it terrifying as hell to actually have to meet something like that.
Your story description reminds me of the Soul Blazer series, especially Terranigma.
6246628 As a fan of the series I have to ask, how so?
6250158
This is quite interesting story, very nice mix of insanity meshed well with normality of some things.
6294766 Glad you like it! I work hard on this thing. My desktop is covered with notes and fragments of future chapters, character sheets, and other examples of my ongoing fight with this complicated-ass story I'm terrified of fumbling.
6296513 I disagree on the grounds that I have a number of bad writing habits that came up more often back then because I had less of a grasp on what I was doing and because no one was around to watch me. I'd list 'em, but I've been coming to the realization I need to worry less about flaws and mistakes, which are inevitable, and more about capitalizing on the strengths of this story.
And by "I've been coming to the realization" I mean I decided that literally just now.
Strange I still get favorites and new readers even though I haven't updated in nearly a month. I guess those user groups are the reason.
Next chapter coming out probably within the next week, by the way. Since it's gotten so much harder to get these out there at the same speed I used to, I'm experimenting with making the chapters themselves longer.
6298017 You smoke? Good, you can tell me if Mag hasn't had her half a pack a day and I didn't notice.
That sounds a lot like the way I took in The Last Human. After every chapter I'd get up and pace for a few minutes so I could absorb it all.
I've got a Nabokov quote on my user page thing, I talk about literature all the time in the comment section, I once talked about my "influences" like a giant asshole, and I made you feel LESS pretentious?
I'll finish this, don't worry.
The bit in this chapter about Luna's hat is truly a piece of genius. I mean, gosh. Just...that's the only appropriate image, slack-jawed awe at something so small and yet so artistic.
...And then later, Luna flatly utters yet another brilliant line in
I am dying.
I for one welcome our new pony overlord.
In other news, 6206452 Personally I detect the hand of The Laundry.
6529525 *Alondro Conversion Bureaus you in 10 seconds flat*
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR!!
This President interests me for a single reason: he can FEEL Celestia's influence... and resist it to a degree. Impressive. He's much more advanced than most readers seem to realize. He also figured out quite quickly that things proceeded far too quickly and easily, government bureaucracy notwithstanding.
He's also able to grasp that with this universal acclaim could come some rather negative unintended consequences, humans being what they are and the tendency for some to take blind obsessive adoration to deathly excessive extremes... I can think of the example of John Lenon's death as a perfect example.
Yes, quite impressive.
I wonder if President Trump will be that interesting.
Perhaps Celestia had a passive field or something that relaxes people, that basicly says "I'm harmless, and kind"