And everything, it seemed, would be all right.

Thank you, Applejinx. It's been a wonderful ride, and you've made every step of the way worthwhile and fulfilling - and smutty as hell.

7200555

Complete? It's marked complete!? Perfect! Waiting for the final 60,000 words was a kind of torture, but now I can read it straight through as soon as I wake up!

Commence read.

Well...dang.

Interesting changeling anatomy and things at work.

Adorable moment for Pinkie and Rainbow.

Mac. Not sure what will end up happening there, but an end for now.

Question... How old is Kevin? He cannot talk yet, so I'm assuming he's really young. But has Mayor Mare had him since she moved to town? I thought she abandoned the changeling swarm to move to Ponyville. Did she somehow get pregnant afterward? I assume she has been mayor for a few years now; I might be misreading that though, I'm a little confused in the timeline.

Otherwise, great read

7202144 I think he was literally a little squishgrub larva when she came to town. And that changeling swarm may not have been HER changeling swarm. Closer investigation of her might prove instructive

That said, yeah, clearly changlings can take a long time to grow. Possibly because neither he nor his mom are preying on anything for love. I bet they grow a lot faster when they are the love predators their biology predisposes them to be. So she not only had to keep herself alive on outgoing love only, but also raise a baby on whatever's left over: no wonder it took Kevin so long to grow.

Incoming growth spurt in 3, 2, 1…

7201397 I would love to watch your reactions (or anybody who's reading it all through in one go now that it's complete)

7201500 I got a well-dang out of avid reader!

That is the equivalent of a flower pony EEE and fainting fit for mere ordinary readers

7202184

Hoo boy. So, from Shards to here at the end, right? Okay, okay, I think I have an inkling of what to say.

Jinxie, I kind of love you, but also kind of want to smack you at times.

The way you handled Hina was standout all around.

The culmination of the Snowy Hocks arc was honestly less tense than a lot of the other moments in this series, but I think it worked.

Pinkie... Ah, Pinkie Pie... I feel conflicted.

On one hand I think she's getting closer to a happy ending. The way you've closed it out, she has a long road to follow before she really settles her accounts with herself, but you've shown how it begins and that satisfying enough. It's massive progress after what we've seen.

Conversely, I'm a little disappointed that you leaned so heavily on the nature of mares and monsters, never really exploring the underlying forces that caused her to be how she is in the first place. It felt like you were building up some backstory for WHY she has this deep revulsion for males, and no "devoted lesbian" doesn't cut it. I wouldn't be bothered by this if it didn't feel like you foreshadowed that sort of thing for like... oh stars, it might really be close to a million words! This becomes a bit more of a sore point when we're only just starting to get some proper introspection on that in literally the last scene of the entire series.

Also, I was kind of hoping she would accept and MOVE ON from Fluttershy. That would have probably been more satisfying for me personally. That bit with Dash at the end though? That was cute as all get out.

But cuter still? Wrapping up the Sweetie Drops saga. That was so good, even if it was kind of inconsequential.

From a narrative standpoint, this last book tended to make it second-easiest to forget that in a lot of ways this series is a vehicle for extreme smut. This isn't to diminish the story you told! They're sort of inextricably linked. But it has always been clear that you revel in the sordid scenes. But the final... oh, three chapters or so? I think they were a bit excessive in their rapid-fire delivery of debauchery. Like Braeburn helping the flower ponies? I kind of didn't care. The six younglings? Not even relevant. The MayorBon sex scene? I could have done without. It's fine to want to wrap up loose ends, but a lot of it almost felt obligatory? Like "oh, I need to resolve that thread but... I guess the least I can do is write a bunch of sex to make it bearable."

This reminds me... In a lot of ways, your depiction of pony sexuality is very... foreign? I mean, sure, they're ponies, what did I expect? But I think it's generally disingenuous to try to pretend that they're not colourful proxies for humans. In spite of THAT, then, I acknowledge there are gradations of "horseness" that then become background for a yarn. But you've really taken that concept and run with it! And the result is jarring. I think it's the fixation on cocks, dominance, and swinging that really messes with my head. In this, it's not you, it's me, I think. It's hard to properly formulate the words, too. Like my first impulse was to mention how weird it is to me that all these lesbians are obsessed with dicks, but that doesn't clearly elucidate more than a small fraction of what's on my mind. What a pain.

That's all that comes to mind right now. I'm sure there are things that I meant to say but forgot and things I haven't thought of yet, but I doubt this is going anywhere soon. (Speaking of questions I forgot to ask, what WAS the millionth word?)

Also, congratulations on finishing this series. It's quite an accomplishment.

7203059 Thank you!

All that is quite fair: everything's got to be something, and Trixieverse is always clop. It's also always redemption, and a weird combination of extensive planning and winging it: Pinkie's been a very awkward combination of both. I think she revealed a lot in that scene where she was like 'no Da! The baby mustn't just say Da, Da is bad, don't you see? After that one party, nothing was ever enough…' but that wasn't in this book.

I didn't realize the young mares (CMCs, DT/SS/F) were going to do that until the 'Ponyville jazz funeral' thing was underway, and then I had a clop angle I'd not worked before (in eight books!) and ran merrily away with it. The point became reconciling DT and SS, which I'd not planned, and it amused me greatly to have Silver Spoon the ultimate badass earth pony mare of ultimate destiny and last mare standing. Much like Pinkie Pie, these ponies are driven by desperate urges to please unpleaseable authority figures, and while I wrote DT and Filthy Rich reconciling, I never touched on Silver Spoon at all.

The reason it's (second?) easiest to forget 'Precious' is clopfic is tone: I can't just whang together violence and drama, and clop. The characters are 'alien' and it's more important to me that they're consistent with themselves, than if they 'connect' with the largest possible nonbrony audience of regular people (heaven forbid! ) but there's always a point where they are yanked away from what they consider everyday life, and have to contend with real problems. Once they've settled that, being Trixieverse ponies it pleases them to return to sex and work out their feelings there, much as a musician might turn to performance or a writer turn to… well, clopfiction

Everything's got to be something, and I thank you for your unedited reaction: those are always the most interesting from a writerly standpoint, because that's where I learn. The funny thing is, Pinkie was always meant to move on from Fluttershy, and be shown with Dashie at the end to symbolize that she has deeper connections. But then when Zecora began reacting to 'geriatric Fluttershy' and Pinkie started to register that she, too, wasn't all that into Fluttershy without the fashion-pony looks… it started to become 'Fluttershy/Dursaa' and 'Pinkie/Zecora' and I let it. So in a sense, Pinkie has moved on, because she's been operating on the level of a 'crush' this whole time, and that largely because her rejection issues were too big to even look at much less address. I didn't understand most of it until very late, but then Pinkie has tirelessly refused to admit any of it so she successfully kept not only herself, but her writer, distracted

7203059

It felt like you were building up some backstory for WHY she has this deep revulsion for males, and no "devoted lesbian" doesn't cut it.

It's worth touching on that specifically, since Pinkie's always resisted admitting any of it. She's even confused the other ponies.

With Dash, she freaked out over Dash having a bit, and then Dash assumed she'd been assaulted in some way, and Pinkie hotly denied the idea. She insisted there was no bad experience with a penis scarring her, but something about Dash suddenly turning 'male' messed her up.

Also note she reacted really poorly to Fluttershy constructing a sorta 'bullshit patriarchal' relationship with Dursaa, lampshaded by the zebragasus foal being named after Dursaa: the kid was hers, but this time she wasn't consulted on the name. With Rock, naming was a big deal and Shy refused to allow a pegasus name and they literally went with a Pinkie Pie name. Enter Dursaa, and suddenly it's about honoring Dursaa and still rejecting pegasus names.

Then with Rock and little Dursaa, she really exposed something (in the absence of other adult ponies) when she raged against the kid only being able to say 'Da'. With regard to that foal, 'Da' is most certainly not bad: Dursaa's wrapped around Shy's hoof, but isn't a baddie. However, to Pinkie, Da is bad.

There's also Pinkie trying to impress Zecora (after she's failed to keep Dash sexually wiped out in Dash's time of great distress, and failed to keep Fluttershy for herself) and driving Zecora away by trying way too hard, and that thought 'fun didn't used to be so hard'.

I recognize the pattern as I've got family issues like this, and it's possible there is no pat answer for Pinkie (or me): it looks like Daddy Pie (the only male of the family!) simply wasn't prepared to cope with kids like Pinkie and Marble, not rock farmer material. There was that one time Pinkie got through with her first party, but then what? Why'd she leave, then? I think she never cracked the family dynamic again after that one time, and it left her privately convinced that it was DADDY who kills all the fun forever, because he thinks fun and Pinkie is bad. So she becomes like a pride-parade girl alienated from her family, but instead of gayness (less of an issue in Ponyville) it's literally fun and freedom she sees as a rebellious act.

So, the onslaught of maredick has peculiar horrors for Pinkie, because it seems to symbolize all the fun and gay sex stopping, and more than that it becomes a world in which she has no place. She's already fled such a world once. And the more other ponies react as if dick-having is something Pinkie must be sheltered from, the more she feels excluded, worsening the problem. I could probably write a thing about maybe Dash teaching Pinkie to enjoy dick but without tons of anchoring psychology, it'd come off as 'curing lesbian' and people can watch James Bond movies if they'd like that

tl:dr; It's not dick that horrifies Pinkie Pie. It's being invalidated as a person and a sexual being, and she's never been able to establish a 'self' around males due to daddy issues. No dick ever hurt her, it's that for Pinkie they symbolize authority she's not allowed to question, authority that came down on her and stopped her expressing herself.

Daddy Pie's not as troubling as Raridad, but it's rotten bad luck that Pinkie got a Dad who was so controlling and stifling. My own folks had issues that left them too troubled to please: child-Jinxy could not fix them or help them, not even close. I think that's why Limestone is so aggressive: that's what it takes to not just submit to the patriarchal authority and eternal frown of judgement. Them and their rock soup, man. Even Limestone hasn't been able to shake 'em from the rock soup. That guy's outrageously stubborn, just a brick wall about how the World Must Be.

Huh. Even Pinkie's thing about pregnancy fits. Her experience as a filly is that when Mom gets pregnant, she produces more fillies: more allies. Maybe that's part of why Daddy Pie got so uncompromising. And Fluttershy with Pinkie seems only to produce colts

Great story! (as usual)

I was really caught off guard by Numeric Essence's death because you said that a character was going to die, and Fern Gully died, so I thought that was it. It was a very gut-wrenching and horrifying scene. I also appreciate how you gave that character a lot of use this time, as they hadn't done much before this point. I like the resolution of previous plot threads such as Big Mac&Rarity, and Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Zecora, and Dursaa. I was also intrigued by the mystery that Bon Bon was at the center of, and the resolution to that was even better than the mystery! You're always able to continue plot threads in new directions, whereas most writers can't come up with anything in the same universe after they wrapped up the story (or at best, make inferior spin-offs); they can only tell 1 story with the ideas they put in in the beginning, and once they use them up, if they wanted to tell another story, they'd have to completely make a new story. Of course, I also like what the plotlines with Celestia&co. and the ones with Hina-rin; your characters always have a lot going on; it's part of what makes your stories so good. And as is to be expected, the humor is great.

I do have a couple minor criticisms, though:

1. Everyone's acting like Numeric Essence is in a better place now, but if Snowy Hocks ate Numeric Essence's soul and then used it up fighting Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, then it shouldn't exist anymore to go onto an afterlife. Which is sad.

2. When Apple Bloom was giving the eulogy, she started taking jabs at and insulting the dead. That scene was trying to be serious and heartfelt. Sometimes, comedy can undermine tone/the story, and that did.

3. I have to wonder why you included the Bon Bon plotline. I like it; it's entertaining, but it's introduced in the beginning and then mostly abandoned and then brought back at the end, and it really has nothing to do with the main story. Not only that, but it's so intriguing that the reader is really...intrigued, so they're wondering what it's all about, and it gets a bit distracting when we're going through more and more chapters, and it's not coming back to it. Again, I have to wonder what the purpose of it is.

These are just a couple minor gripes that I don't think are good enough to be a real criticisms:

1. When Discord said he could bring back Fern Gully and Numeric Essence, but not their souls, isn't Discord supposed to be able to control all reality and that his powers don't have to abide by reality? Maybe this is just me, and maybe this is weird, but I'd be willing to believe that he just couldn't bring them back period before I'd accept that he could bring them back but not their souls.

2. This is just a personal "for me" thing and not me faulting the story, but I was hoping that the Big Mac/Rarity resolution would end with a sex scene.

And some typos:

1. Shards:

"pointed her pretty little horn in exactly, but exactly, the direction the frame pointed."

That's such a weird sentence, and I'm not the only one to point that out. What does "exactly, but exactly" mean? How would that sentence have been any different if was just one "exactly"? It's redundant.

2. A Closer Walk:

"Amd also very weak now."

3. Didn't She Ramble:

"Braeburn. It’s"

Unnecessary double space.

4. All Masks Dropped:

"you, and"

Unnecessary double space.

5. All Masks Dropped:

“It’s true, isn't it,” said Pinkie.

There should be a question mark.

7610763 I don't know a single proofreader anywhere on the planet who can spot things like you, reversalmushroom. I have made corrections 2, 3, and 4

1: "exactly, but exactly" is a distraction. It emphasises the exactness of how they've pointed the unicorn's head in such a way that it sounds fluffy and effeminate, which undermines what might seem more of a sadistic scene. She's not been strapped down to torment her, this is her athletic pursuit and strapping her down is part of the game, so a flouncy 'exactly, but exactly! Exactement!' superfluousness distracts from unwanted implications of strapping unicorn mares down.

5: Rainbow Dash has just been caught admitting to a flat and bouncy-less Pinkie that they had been watching her in fear. Pinkie's affect is so flat that all her sentences are ending in periods, including that one. It's not a question: she knows. She perks up a little (but not in the usual manic way) but at the moment she says that, she's in a dark mood and is just stating the obvious with, again, a very flat unexcited affect. That's why the sentence has a period… except we can't end attributed dialogue with a period before the attribution, so it becomes a comma.

I've gone and fixed all the mistakes I identified as mistakes, and also fixed them in the Kindle version and on applejinx.com you have an extraordinary gift. Thank you

I loved all of it so much it was the best 6 books ever

7670864 Yay!