Thanks to Twilight Sparkle's meddling, a critical element of Starlight Glimmer's stolen time-travel spell has failed, casting her across the timelines and stranding her in one where she doesn't belong.
But Nightmare Moon, the new ruler of Equestria, isn't so bad. Ponies still have lives and a few important freedoms, and that has convinced Starlight Glimmer she was right. Twilight and her friends aren't that special! With moral certitude as her guide, Starlight once more finds her place as a preacher of her anti-cutie mark ideology.
Then Nightmare Moon notices.
This story was inspired entirely by a conversation with Penalt, Damaged, and HiddenMaster.
Chapters (2)
I really have nothing to say other than I really did not enjoy reading that.
Someone post that picture of Ron Paul waving his hands while it says "IT'S HAPPENING."
Oh glob, you saved that conversation did you? Well done.
It's a good thing this story is Politically Incorrect, as PC culture has taken away our bakeries' right to free speech.
I enjoyed reading it. I assume that the magic that lets unicorns hold things with their horns and pegasui control the weather was not banned? Nightmare Moon's rule is a bit like Tito's Yugoslavia-relative freedom in some ways and a working economy, but with the death penalty and no political freedom whatsoever.
I for one am enjoying this story.
7845100
Fair enough. Sometimes you just Don't Like Thing.
7845743
Yo, if you want to see M-rated fetishistic gore, I can show you M-rated fetishistic gore.
Also, I don't have auto-approval. Your problem is with the story approvers and moderators.
Report the story and move on.
7845743 Yo, dumbass. Ya, I'm talking to you fellow reader. What the hell do you think Gore and Dark tags are for? Maybe you don't have a clue, seeing you haven't actually written any stories for the site on your account. Perhaps if you did actually write something, or even read such elementary things like FAQ's, you would be aware of the basics of such things as Tags and know that when an author tags their story for certain elements one should expect those elements to be in the story.
Might I suggest that if gore shocks you, then you should stay away from stories with that tag?
7846049
That's about the size of it.
That certainly packed a punch, although I think a bit more time should have been put into both introducing or explaining how Starlight got to this world and her initial time and reactions there-especially we could have used more introspection from Starlight. I'm not sure if Starlight is from cannon after Twilight exposed her or before, for instance. I think a bit more interaction with Moondancer at the beginning would also have been nice-both to introduce us to the characters but also set up Starlight's argument.
I find myself curious about this statement. Do ponies of this world view cutie marks as a curse? NMM only? I ask this because in most settings cutie marks are looked at as exceptional talented in one area, but are by no means limiting-a pony with a baker cutie mark could also be an exceptional engineer, for instance-he just has a natural talent for baking.
Outside of that, I have to admit it's nice to see this more fleshed out. I know some people aren't particularly liking this story, but don't let it bother you. I enjoyed it, dark content or not (although it should probably have a mature tag...)
7845743 That's awfully damn insulting for what may very well have been a simple mistake or wasn't caught by moderators. So, kindly get off yourself. Yes, this is dark, but there is nothing wrong with that, and moreover there's no reason to be rude about it. Your entire message could have just been condensed down to "This should be mature and I would not have read this if it had been properly labeled" or something like that. No reason to get insulting against someone who meant you no harm and, on top of that, you chose to read this.
7846064 While I agree that this guy was an asshole, I also feel he's right. The "Gore" and "Dark" tags really aren't enough to warn of just what this story holds, and while changing the rating to "M" may not be within your best interests or even really matter, personally, I still believe it would make sense to do it. You and others probably feel differently, but these are just my two cents.
As for the story itself, I rather enjoyed it for what it is. It reminded me very much of the third chapter of 1984, albeit much more gruesome.
A single, small paragraph with some blood loss out of the entire story is fine as teen in this case.
7846045 I had to think about that for a moment, but yes, I suppose that's true.
You should have titled this something else, in my opinion. From the title, I was expecting some witless political allegory; what I got instead was a decent AU fic.
Now, the first scene I don't like. It consists mostly of bland exposition. But after that, the story hits its stride, and I really don't think it deserves a rating as bad as it's gotten.
A couple of things.
There are at least two points in the story where the narration refers to Starlight having built Our Town on hypocracy, or that hypocracy had been one of her big failings and why her way of doing things failed. If this was stated by a third person, that would be a fine observation, but since this is presented as an extended inner monologue, its jarring for Starlight to think this herself. More so, since this is NOT the reformed Starlight of season 6, but very much a villainous Starlight of season 5 who has been convinced by Nightmare Moon's rule that she was in the right all along.
For Starlight to admit such a flaw so bluntly feels more like the author shoving words in her mouth than anything she herself would ever think or say under these circumstances.
Further, it gives away the ultimate conclusion of the story, as Starlight saying and thinking such things so discordantly of herself leads naturally to the idea that other characters in the story are likely to view her just as negatively, if not more so. As such, Nightmare Moons diatribe belittling Starlight and her beliefs at the end of the story loses much of its impact. It's just a bully, bullying another bully, in predictable and unpleasant fashion.
This isn't particularly entertaining, nor really all that dark. As Nightmare Moon puts it, it's criminally stupid, as the concept of this story has a lot of potential, but the execution is rather sloppy.
Maybe a few more drafts and you'll have a very insightful and memorable story on your hands. Sadly it's neither of those things at the moment.
7846399
This level of feedback is awesome. You're awesome.
7846399 Well I kinda thought that was the idea. Starlight traded a group of ponies who would want her to be redeemed to basically a bigger bully on the playground.
7847757 The story description makes it sound like this occurs before Twilight's offer of redemption in the season 5 finale. Her spell messed up and stranded her in another timeline before she was convinced that friendship with other ponies (with cutie marks) was a possibility.
So it wasn't really a choice on her part, unless I'm misinterpreting the set up.
7847780
This is a correct interpretation.
I'd love to see more. I love almost any story that takes place within the Nightmare Moon universe. I much prefer Luna as a ruler than Celestia. Even non-Nightmare Luna would be far more effective. Luna would never have let Sombra come close to waking up...Chrysalis would never have fooled Luna...Luna would have just stone Discord (I love him, but I can't see Luna trying to reform him)...Starlight would have gotten the dungeon treatment with Luna rather than ALSO being reformed. Tia is too...nice. Which is why I make her evil in any story I write that places emphasis on her.
Loved your story, don't worry about those who are complaining about the dark themes, why the hell are such pansies even reading a story tagged as dark?
The first blooper was great btw, keep it up!
7878108
This is also awesome.
Am I correct in understanding that some of your suggestions boil down to "this story is told from too narrow a POV"? Because some of them don't seem to entirely fit in a story with only limited omniscience where the perspective is tied so closely to one character.
7878121
I don't necessarily agree with everything they said, but I feel encouraging most criticism is good (and I really don't have enough in-depth comments on any of my stories) and arguing with critics is, at best, unhelpful.
Dictatorships are fun when you're god.
Huh, that description of killing prey is really similar to both dhabibah and shechita standards.
7846399
Isn't that the point of the story?
Starlight was never ideological for the sake of being ideolgical. What she wanted is power, to rule over a population. The entire hypocrisy thing isn't integral to her ideological rule, only what made Our Town fail the first time, so it makes sense she can admit it. What would be out of character for her to admit is that she actually wanted power and not the ideology. It was never clear why Starlight chose the equalism ideology of all things, but the end goal was for her to rule above ponies within that ideology, not necessarily the application of the ideology itself. She just thought she was smart, but turns out she wasn't smart enough to evade the alpha bully.
11376331
Possibly, but if that is the case then the author isn’t being as clever as they seem to think they are being. Instead of a better villainous ruler pointing out the flaws of a lesser one and delivering something approaching just desserts, it’s just a self identified villain getting stomped by another self identified villain. The point is that it only works if Starlight buys what she is selling, but admiring her methods are hypocritical just underlines it’s a scam that she’s all too aware of - it robs the premise of much needed drama.
Of course that’s just my opinion. Some people like stories where characters are stupid, and know it, and still get punished for it. But to me it feels like picking on the slow kid at recess.
That’s one interpretation of Starlight’s character and it does seem to be the one that this story goes with, but it’s not the only interpretation of her character nor is it the one that I think would best serve this stories premise.
Starlight in the show didn’t want to ‘’rule over a population’, what she wanted was control. That may not sound too different to you, however what Starlight wanted to control was not just other ponies but also more intangible things like how and why we make friends, who was and was not allowed to excel in life, and most importantly when and how people came into and left her life. She felt like she had control over none of these things because of the existence of cutie marks and the special talents they conveyed. She didn’t just remove ponies cutie marks to control them, she saw them as a genuine threat to her having control over not just ponies but control of anything at all that mattered. She didn’t ‘choose’ an ideology at random just so she could have power, but her ideology that removing cutie marks for ponies own good to give them more control over their lives in turn gave her both power and control.
If you don’t see how that works, that’s fine I guess, but saying it was not explained why she chose her anti-cutie mark ideology and that it makes sense for her to admit she was a hypocrite is nonsensical. Either the ideology was a scam and she never believed in it or she believed in it and she would never call herself a hypocrite.