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One week after the Friendship Games, a small group of Crystal Prep Academy's Shadowbolts meet at Sugarcube Corner for the first, and possibly, last time.
What they did today, they did with no regrets—and their actions will change the course of the Canterlot High/Crystal Prep rivalry forever.
Editing duties courtesy of nanashi_jones. Cover art graciously provided by uotapo.
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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Have you read Dragonshadow's Shadowbolts Adventures? The first one has Lemon and Vinyl having a dance off, and the later ones have them in a relationship.
If you havn't I'd recommend them, they're quite similar to this.
A cute first chapter, honestly. Outside of Sunny Flare who really got zilch for characterisation (and look, she got no speaking role in this chapter too!), the brief few lines the Shadow Five got set them up perfectly for a group of dysfunctional high school girls. But I guess they can unite over a few things, and checking in on Twilight Sparkle is one of them, even if they never really considered her a friend until it was too late.
Twilight's brief few lines feel a little bit off, I think? Like, she seems to be on a high horse when preaching to the Shadowbolts, when she shouldn't be. Her few lines during the last song before she becomes Midnight Sparkle allude to her wanting to find out what magic is all about, with that over and above the peer pressure being what makes her decide to open her pendant, despite her having seen already that it can be dangerous (and Sunset yelling at her about it, too).
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I read a couple of them, but long after I formulated my Shadowbolt treatments and started planning/writing stories. So, very much a monkeys-typewriters scenario here.
This is an excellent story. The characters are well fleshed out, and the motivation of the Dean and VP seems reasonable. What did Twilight say to Sugarcoat? At first, I thought it was that Twilight's grades were so high that Sugarcoat could never catch up, but after Sugarcoat felt sorry for her, I just didn't know.
Well, at least you gave Sunny Flare some lines here, as well as some background as a literal drama queen. Rarity would be proud, was proud
I'm not quite certain what to take about Sugarcoat's and Twilight's line. Sugarcoat seems devastated for Twilight for some reason, even though Twilight apparently just confirmed she would have been valedictorian at CPS. The way I'm reading that line it doesn't sound like Sugarcoat is sad that she had lower grades than Twilight and would have only been salutatorian.
That was appropriately adorable on so many levels. Each of the Shadowbolts built on the character they had in the movie, even those who had minimal character to begin with, and their reasons for wanting to check up on Twilight were very sweet. I especially liked the little interaction between Sugarcoat and Twilight; I would definitely believe they had a brilliant little nerd-rivalry going on, perhaps not necessarily at each other's throats but a simple show of grudging respect centered around a "can you top this" in their grades. And for two rather intelligent girls in high school (or guys, for that matter), that is a very believable dynamic.
Hats off to ya, Book. You already have your revenge for my fic, because now I'm struggling not to dust off that SugarLight idea I had after I finally gave in and watched the movie. You monster.
This was fantastic! I love what you did with... well, everyone! Indigo Zap got some interesting and unexpected accents to her character, Sour Sweet did quite well, Lemon Zest was a hoot, Sunny Flare was glorious, and the Twicoat. Dear God, the Twicoat. I'm not sure what Twilight said to Sugarcoat at the end there, but if I didn't have a dedicated ship for human Twilight, that would've clinched it for me.
I'm not entirely sure how I helped, but I'm glad I could be of assistance. Thank you for this, Bookish. I look forward to seeing what else you have in store for these girls.
There was a lot I really, really liked about this, and pretty much all of it stems from the characterization you gave/expanded on for the Shadowbolts.
Indigo Zap's leadership, energy, and passion were all spot on. Sour Sweet got to be her psycho-self without it coming off as over-the-top and was actually quite fitting. The tender moment between Sugarcoat and Twilight towards the end there was quite d'aww-ful (and the unanimous support Sugar was given from the rest of the Shadowbolts after ending the hug was very sweet). I even joked that you captured Sunny Flare's character and existence perfectly in the first chapter and was then pleasantly surprised by her poetic lines in the second chapter (the surprised-that-she's-actually-talking bit was funny, too).
And Lemon Zest. I don't even know where to start on Lemon Zest.
I think this pretty much sums it up.
This was a great character piece to follow the events of Friendship Games. And, while ZOMG will be riddled with SugarLight thoughts after reading this, I think I'll be content with scheming over IndigoLight.
Very nice story. Added to my faves.
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Simply hearing people being inspired to think about the Shadowbolts again (or anything about FG in a positive light, for that matter) is the best compliment I can receive.
Thank you all. orig10.deviantart.net/c26f/f/2015/261/4/8/indigo_zap__wink__plz_by_rainbowyoshi305-d9a35qj.png
(P.S. I know exactly what Twilight whispered. :3 When the time is right.)
6643926 I WAS TRYING NOT TO BRAIN THAT IDEA!!!
Hype intensifies.
Man, this was great. I'd love to read more of these girls.
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Why are we all whispering?
I'm right there with you, Pink.
This is a beautiful story. Lots of stories do a good job fleshing out the Shadowbolts, but they don't bother to explain why they're hanging out with the Mane 6 when they're supposedly an entire bus ride away. You managed to do just that in a way that wasn't only believable, but very touching. I especially loved Sunny Flare's melodrama.
Actually, funny story. I've been brainstorming a sequel to my story Reformation Buddies where the Dazzlings meet the Shadowbolts, but I wasn't sure how to make them meeting believable. If you don't mind, I might just end up using a few of the ideas you presented here for that. And much like with episodes of the show, any story that inspires my writing definitely earns brownie points in my book. So yeah, this tale's kinda great.
Was I the only one shipping Cadance and Luna in this? C'mon!
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Patience, hon.
Let them discover the layers with each reread.
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The distance factor, I think, makes lots of Shadowbolt scenarios all the more fun. Downtown's probably not prohibitively far, but probably not a hopskipjump either. Meaning visits between students of the two schools tend to be special.
Re: ideas n' stuff: Be my guest (Sour's premade for Aria hijinx, far as I'm concerned), and point to me when you've got something going! Thanks, and I'm glad you liked this.
I'm of two minds on this story.
First, I'm gonna say this. I LOVE IT. I LOVE IT TO DEATH AND THEN RESURRECTION. It makes me all happy and gleeful and I enjoy seeing the Shadowbolts get fleshed out because dang it, fleshing out is good for any character.
...but dang it, I had something like this in mind for some of my own stuff. I even planned on including the line "don't know what you've got until it's gone". How are you in my head?
Granted, I had other ideas, more stuff with Crystal Prep Background Characters that thankfully, no one's managed to somehow put out before me, but still...I'm not sure if I should be happy or terrified that I'm thinking similar thoughts to what you're thinking. Especially considering it seems to be happening so much lately.
Either way, I'm gonna go sit in a corner, cry, and stick this story in my "Resources" folder for when I get around to writing my story, so that I can cite yours within it. If only to cover my bases.
You know, I have been in pretty dire need of a pick me up lately.
As usual, you deliver.
6643990
Such scandal!
Was somewhat liking it till the Sugarcoat/Twilight bit, showing them as more than friends.:\
Overall, not a bad story, though as said, the Sugarcoat/Twilight bit REALLY killed it for me.
Admittedly, I do like the concepts of Lemon Zest having a short attention span and Sunny being in drama. Despite that though, I still prefer the characterizations of this fic on them: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/296435/lets-go-shadowbolts than what's here... CURRENTLY. Can't deny that this fic has potential though. I do like most of the direction you're going with this, and I can see great possibilities with it.
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Thanks!
And, uh... I sure hope you don't think she's moving things too fast the next time a girl hugs you.
It might not end too well!
I liked this story, but the fact that we get no clues as to what Twilight said to Sugarcoat made me disappointed. I feel like everything would have been tied up in a neat little bow if we at least had a hint for those in the comments to figure out. But overall, quite a grand tale of discovery. (Sunny's not the only one here with a sense of drama)
6644598 No prob.^_^
And *sigh* I'd appreciate that joke if I ever actually had the luck of that happening. Haven't felt any true love in my life for years, not even from parents. Though, thanks for at least the attempt at humor there, even despite the bad memories it brings up.:\
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(*hug*)
6644642 Thanks. *hugs* I just hope this one thing I've been working on for so long finishes soon. If things go well, my path in life may finally improve for the better, cause as it stands now... without this project's success, let's just say that I see no good future for me in the long term.:\ Not with how things are going.
Ok what did Twilight say to Sugarcoat that both made her real really sorry for Twilight and also prove she would be valedictoian? That whole scene there confused me
6643978 Nope. I saw it a mile away.
Friendship just bustin' out all over. I think what I like is that while they have similarities with each of the CHS Humane Five, they aren't exact parallels, something that drives me quietly mad.
Best line in the fic. In fact, I really like what you've done with Dean Cadance in general.
Can I just say I LOVE the way you write things? You definitely uphold the "Delight" half of your name.
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Also, Cadance was my favorite character to write in this. She also happened completely by accident.
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Preach, sis. It threw everyone off, myself included. I hit my head against the wall for weeks trying to make it work that way.
Then I stepped back and instead started looking at Crystal Prep as a roundabout way to have the (Not-Quite-)H6 I always wanted but that five years of characterization and marketing refused to give me.
Once that happened I threw out the "parallel" nonsense entirely, and everything else slotted into place. (And then my editor added all the good lines.)
In short, they're they're own people who might have interests that cross with the Mains, but don't have to be them or be mirrors of them or anything like that in the slightest. Keep that in mind and there's all sorts of fun that opens up.
...and then the movie throws in LunaxCadance for free.
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I can relate. I hate it when people steal ideas out of my head.
All you can do at that point is keep doing that bit you were already doing where your own spin on 'em!
Let me know when you've got something!
I'm not exactly sure what's going on with Twilight and Sugarcoat there, but the teary mutual respect thing feels really weird when the entirety of their screen time together involved Sugarcoat ripping into her. The movie didn't exactly give you a lot to work with, but that bit comes sailing straight out of left field, beans the audience on the head, and doesn't look back.
Following on from the above, this bugs me in a more general sense. They didn't know what they had? I don't know what they had. Twilight has no chemistry with these people, and she's completely dismissive of the idea of being around other students when Cadance brings it up in the film. It's obviously meant to parallel where pony Twilight was when the series started, but when Amending Fences came around to address the fallout from that, we got enough of a glimpse behind the curtain to say that, yeah, there was something there that could have been pursued, even if Twilight and her classmates weren't especially close. The Shadowbolts and Twilight don't have that grounding, and the emotions on display here don't hold up without it.
Based on the blog post and your comments, it seems like you're trying to set up a bunch of ideas to play with down the line, but it's not helping develop this story. The crux of the plot is "The Shadowbolts, having discovered the concept of empathy, attempt to make peace with Twilight and accidentally connect with her in the process," and then there's another eight characters hanging around who don't add anything to that, however fun their lines are. Paring the cast down to just the six CPA girls and spending more time on developing the Shadowbolts' characters and Twilight's relationships with them, or just emphasizing the lack thereof more, would do a lot to bring the fic into focus.
I hate to come off so harshly, but this just didn't work for me.
Huh. I kinda left Friendship Games without strong feelings about the Shadowbolts. I mean, sure, I really like Indigo's design (being a palette swap and humanization of one of my favorite character designs in MLP), and I enjoyed the irony of Sugarcoat's name, but within the context of the movie, only Sour Sweet even really stuck out for me. Even then, she was kinda funny for a bit and then I more or less became apathetic towards her too.
Friendship Games kinda did what The Cutie Map did when introducing new characters, dumping a bunch on us while giving brief spotlights and not much more. It's kinda why I feel similarly about the "Town" ponies.
...but we're getting off topic. Why does any of this even matter, though?
Well, I guess it'd be harder to get me to care about, say, a story featuring Sunny Flare, vs a story featuring Rainbow Dash. Seeing as you wrote it though, I gave it a shot. I was not disappointed. It was a feelsy little thing that was a pretty good read overall, though what ticks me off is that I can't even tell if half of them are in character because they got so little screentime in the first place!
Sure, Sugarcoat and Sour Sweet had quite a few lines, but the others? Indigo and Sunny had maybe two to three lines each, and Lemon maybe had one.
...anyway, I'll bite. You got me to care about the Shadowbolt's feelings... a bit.
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Hey, sometimes audiences need some tough love.
Thank you for your honesty. I promise you that you won't be last to have similar sentiments, and I don't entirely disagree with you, either. It was the first thing my editor and I talked about when I submitted the original draft for this, to the point where I did originally to "pare down" this story to give it "focus", and I had a violent, nauseous reaction. No lie or exaggeration.
I decided to take that as a sign. Darlings I can kill; this was on another scale entirely. And thus, if I wasn't going to go to work and pare this down, then I'd go the other way, having fun and going all out, using fanfic's "what if" motto to its fullest.
Which is what this is, really. Shameless character and dialogue porn. An ambitious character proof-of-concept smorgasbord that barely holds together at the seams, but, as you said, is still fun, and which I've long since made my peace with.
That said, there are vagaries in this story that are entirely intentional in order to get people to think about what the Shadowbolts could be given what little the movie gave us. Side effects may include some readers being driven absolutely nuts by not having all the holes filled in. tl;dr: I decided to have some damn fun for once.
And with my Shadowbolt line, I will continue to do so. You'll get your Amending Fences analogues, and I'll continue to play character Tetris with everything else. I promise.
I will, however, also say that I disagree with you that the emotions presented here (including Sugarcoat's) don't line up with the movie, for two reasons, neither of which have to do with me.
1) As a famous line puts it: "the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence." Or, more to the point, proof of absence. The fact that Twilight was never shown outright chemistry in the movie (or rather, it was usually one-way; see below) does not mean that it never could have existed. It was also in the cards at one point.
2) While Twilight is dismissive of studying with other students post high school (and enjoys studying alone), she has no problem attempting to reach out to others on the bus, nor does she show aversion to the other Crystal Prep students via dialogue or mannerisms--it's them that do so to her, and it's why coming to CHS, where people are nice to her for once, is such a revelation to her. She allows herself to be peer-pressured (by people who really don't deserve her thoughts given how they treated her!) into unleashing the magic in the movie's final act, meaning that she cared what other people thought and could be influenced by outside forces to far greater degrees of magnitude than her S1 unicorn counterpart. Pilot Unicorn Twilight wanted to be left alone--Friendship Games Twilight wasn't really given a choice, and just sort of rolled with it. Dismissive to the idea of being around other students, she absolutely wasn't. She was boxed in.
Anyway, thanks again! I can't make everyone happy all the time, sadly. Wish I could. I hope we both have better luck with each other in the next story or three.
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You're shipping SciTwi with someone? I'm genuinely surprised. The only shipping I can remember you doing was hints of Twixie in that Phyrexian invasion story and it's been so long since I read it that I don't know if it was ever actually there or if I just imagined it. Mostly I remember Trixie's last name being Hobbitses because that was hilarious.
Lemon Zest was great, Sugarcoat was fun, and Sour Sweet still needs to consider psychiatric help but she was still entertaining to read. Good characterization on all of them, I just like those three in particular. I did find that there was maybe a bit too much of everyone just kind of sitting around complimenting each other, but then again I'm the type of person that uses insults to indicate friendship (actual quote about me--"I knew you considered him a friend when you started calling him a fuckup [during a game of Magic]"). So some of that might just be that my idea of friendship is more hostile than yours. Despite that, I'm still looking forward to seeing where you go from here and what kind of shenanigans these girls get up to.
Well, as long as we're in agreement. None of the ideas are bad, but as you seem to have plans to visit all of them individually anyway, it's odd that they're all sharing space here and now.
I wondered if this might come up. See, I can't stand that cut ending either. It doesn't make any sense in context, and while you can certainly imagine whatever you want to fill in the gap such that it's a plausible resolution, it's still not supported by the story as presented. It was a bad idea and I'm glad they went in a different direction. God knows the film catches enough flak already.
Yeah, I shouldn't have worded it like that, since they do come at the situation from the opposite angle this time. But the result's the same; she actually sings about how isolated she is. The girl who says "Hi" on the bus and nearly gets her head taken off for it is not going to be the one to suddenly turn around and miss the poor dears when she gets the chance to leave them behind. Willing to give them another chance? Sure, she's a bighearted girl. More than that? Reaaaaally gonna need some support for that.
Suffice it to say that yes, the hole does drive me nuts. Fanfiction exists pretty much exclusively to tug at loose threads and fill holes, and seeing a story stare straight at one and not do anything about it is throwing me for a loop.
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You're probably thinking of the part where Twilight goes back to CPA and they form a sort of "Shadow M6". I don't agree with that either, as much as I don't agree with the fandom that 98% of the deleted scenes "were so cool and should have been left in."
However, this would be a problem if the above were referenced in my story, which is not. The only element of that ending referenced in my story (and the only part I feel was a misstep to leave out of the movie) is the part where the CPA students and the CHS students begin to make up before leaving, with Indigo voicing as much. This bit is completely supported by the movie's final cut:
- The Bolts all stand together alongside the Colts and against Cinch after the final battle.
- All the students celebrate together as Celestia declares both schools winners.
- You have the dance party in the gym, where all the students effortlessly party together regardless of what school they're from. Watch that scene again--the second Cinch shows up, everyone separates in lockstep. It's a scary moment.
- During the final scenes of the movie, the CPA and CHS students mingle. Admittedly, there's more of this to go around in the alt-ending, but we still get to see Lemon and Vinyl hit it off in the background in the final cut.
I'm sorry to say, but to suggest that there is no way for the CPA students to actually be, well, nice to characters they were previously cool towards, even to Twilight, is to willingly ignore (or simply just miss) the canon we were given. Which is why I gave them a path to be nice to Twilight to be sure of things.
I... really think the Sugarcoat thing just threw you a bit too hard, dude. Which is fair, I guess, it's a sharp curve from the movie (but not a hole since by the time that scene happens I'd already rendered Sugar vulnerable and empathetic and had her thoroughly explain why), but absolutely everything else in my story is canon-supported, or at the very least has nothing exist to contradict it.
Which is why she didn't. In this story Twilight is instantly wary of the CPA students. Then those students apologize, lay themselves bare and turn over a completely new leaf and go out of their way to check on Twilight's well-being. Only then does Twilight come around to them, because to not receive the olive branch after all of that comes off to me as awfully petty.
The "unfocused" thing I'll give you, but now I'm starting to think we were watching completely different movies. That, or, again, the Sugarcoat thing just knocked you off of your otherwise understandable game.
I wonder who summoned the teachers? Probably the Cakes. There may have been previous incidents where Shadowbolts and Wondercolts met outside the restrictions of school discipline and that this led to... breakages.
I love how you emphasised Lemon Zest's similarities to Pinkie Pie here - Wacky, attention-deficit disorder and completely unable to understand the meaning of the word 'covert'.
I strongly suspect that, in the end, it will turn out that all of this had the strangest motivation of all: Concern for Twilight and a definite, lingering guilt that they weren't able to make their school even remotely welcome to a person who was there for a superior education (which is what it's supposed to be about, after all).
Do you agree with me that there is a possibility that the Twilight Sparkle in the Friendship Through the Ages short is Sci-Twi, the human Twilight Sparkle?
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Yes.
It was inevitable that this chapter would be exposition-heavy and that left the author with the dilemma of who would do the talking. On balance, Indigo Zap, Crystal Prep's self-proclaimed 'Ms Motivator' was probably the best choice to both be the spokesperson and co-ordinator, although it might have been more interesting to have her as the 'voice' and one of the other girls as the 'brains'.
Overall, this was a lovely little bit of fluffy bonding and character growth. I particularly liked Sunny's monologue about Crystal Prep being cold and how hard it was to go back there after Canterlot High's warmth. Cadance and Luna's byplay was also nicely written.
What's got me wanting more? Twilight's secret conversation with Sugarcoat. I'm not sure if it was shipping, although a lot of readers will interpret it as such. Personally, I think that it was just a truth that no two Crystal Prep students would ever normally admit to each other - an admiration of intelligence and enjoyment of having a worthy peer against whom you can be challenged.
Overall a good piece of work that I enjoyed reading!
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Holy crap, someone got it. I thought I made it obvious, really.
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So you're an anime character? How's that pay? I've heard not well.
I actually enjoyed this, more than I thought I would.
The over arcing theme behind this really struck a cord with me that I was able to relate to on a personal level. For a small bit of exposition to explain; during the times when I was in school, like many I was bullied relentlessly. A few years later after I quit school due to this, I was working when one of said bullies came in. He then recognized me, thanked me for my assistance, and then proceeded to apologize for the way he acted and treated me in school.
This type of situation is very humbling, and can be very heart warming as well, even if it leaves you a little speechless. Twilight coming across this feeling doubt in the beginning until things are explained felt very natural.
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The movie was shipping Sciset. How could I not?
And yes, I know, Phthisis is Magic has been on hiatus for a while. I need to restructure the whole thing. The plot basically metastasized.
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I second this.
6645039 A whisper between two girls in an MLP fanfic.
Yes, we were totally going to take the intellectual interpretation first.
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Works pretty well once you make it past the stage where they can't tell if you're serious or joking. Admittedly hearing me say what happened makes me seem more dickish than actually seeing it, I was laughing and he had just made a mistake well below his skill level.
Ironically I'm actually nicer online in a lot of ways. I give compliments more openly and I'm more likely to call someone out if they're being a dick. Last week I was struggling to find the right way to boost someone's confidence in his writing because he admitted that he was always super nervous uploading new chapters. The tradeoff is that in person I'll usually bow out of an argument because they're kind of tiring, in a way that only other introverts will really understand. On the internet, that "social exhaustion" doesn't happen so I'll argue until I win or someone gets fed up and leaves. lordofmyth actually deleted two of his blog posts because it hadn't occurred to him to just block me.
6644727 Alas, all I've got right now are rough ideas. Once I have anything beyond that, however, I'll let you know. I've never had an objection to a potential proofreader.