Chapter 4 - A Prince and His Lands Are One, so We Are Royally Hosed
Celestia watched the other ponies in the room at her announcement. Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash just looked confused, Obfuscating Legalese held onto his mask of professionalism despite a twitch of surprise, and Bleeding Heart just sighed as it was hardly a surprise to him after all even if he didn’t fully understand the implications. But the real reactions came from Luna and Blueblood. Her sister’s eyes widening before she started choking on her coffee, while Blueblood’s mouth fell open and his pupils immediately shrank down to the size of dots lost in a sea of blue.
“Thy japery needs to stop at some point sister,” Luna turned to face her, wiping away the dripping remnants of her drink as her words dripped with scorn. “We are already well aware of the ruin of the Crown Houses at the hooves of Nightmare Moon, such a thing as a new Crown Prince is an impossibility at this point. Unless our nephew has a mistress he is not telling us about.” Blueblood shaking his head fervently at the accusation as the rest of the room turned to him.
”I assure you this is not a joke, Luna.” Celestia kept her voice as even as she could.
“Then why were We not informed immediately, Sister?” Luna’s eyes narrowed as she attempted to stare holes through Celestia. “We hardly have enough time to sit here sipping tea and playing princesses.”
Celestia’s golden magic rattled at her teacup, as if it were a saber in its sheath, while her own eye narrowed. Before she could respond to her sister’s accusations however she was cut short by Rainbow Dash.
“Are you gonna need us to blast this guy with the Elements, Princess? ‘Cause, uh, I’m awesome, but I don’t think I’m five elements awesome.” The rainbow maned pegasus flinched back as both Celestia and Luna turned their glares on her, Celestia’s expression softening before she spoke again.
“No, Rainbow Dash, we will not need your power as an Element Bearer,” a heated snort from Luna let everypony in the room know exactly what she would’ve done if that had been the case. “However I believe I have a hypothesis as to how this new Prince has joined us, which is why I called you. I just need you to answer a few questions.”
“I’m not sure I can help much, Princess, I’m just a weathermare, ya know” Rainbow Dash looked down at her hooves as everypony in the room turned to look at her.
“Precisely, Rainbow Dash, firstly, what can you tell us about the formation of wild storms?”
“Is this question truly necessary, Sister? I doubt any foul weather would be behind this.” Luna interrupted before Rainbow Dash could speak as she glared at her sister.
“Peace, Luna, I promise there is a point I wish to reach with this question.” Celestia sighed as she glanced at her sister’s thunderous expression before turning back to Rainbow. “Now please, Miss Dash, in your own time.”
“Uh, yeah, sure, so,” the cyan mare stuttered and stumbled as Luna continued to glare down at her, before picking herself up as she noticed that the rest of the room was paying rapt attention. Twilight had even materialised a notebook and quill from somewhere and was focused entirely on her friend. “There are two types of wild storms, the first type are the result of multiple weather patterns interfering with each other, like when several towns all have heavy rain at the same time while leaving a central area of clear skies on hot days, or the air pressure differences on the borders between managed airspace and wild airspace like Neigh Orleans and the Hayseed Swamps. These storms are entirely normal and fairly common even if most towns never see them; they usually just blow themselves out or a weather team spots them and sets it off before it can build up enough head to be dangerous. The second type of wild storms are far more dangerous, they’re caused entirely by Wild Magic build up and erupt without warning. They’re called Sentryial Storms ‘cause they occur every hundred years.”
“Centennial Storms, Rainbow” Twilight corrected her without looking up from her notes.
“That’s what I said, Centennial Storms,” Rainbow continued, smirking to cover up a faint blush of embarrassment from being corrected, even as one of the other ponies choked down a snort of laughter. “Anyway, they occur every hundred years, when all that Wild Magic needs to be let out and normally they happen in the really wild places like the Frozen North, Bugbear territory, or the Forbidden Jungles. The weather patrols at the border have to watch out for them ‘cause the amount of magic in them makes it impossible to break them up and real difficult to push off course. The last one came up from the south towards Dodge City about fifteen years ago, and it took all of Cloudsdale’s and Las Pegasus’ weather-ponies to push it down into the Badlands.”
“Very good, my little pony” Celestia’s praise caused the fading blush on Rainbow’s face to reignite, even as Luna rolled her eyes at the pair. “Now could you please describe the storm that hit Ponyville yesterday?”
“It was really bad. The entire weather team was up there and we could barely shift it, our hooves kept going through the clouds and anything we did just seemed to make the entire thing worse, at least until that lightning bolt hit,” nopony but Celestia and Luna noticed Rainbow’s eyes dart towards Twilight as she spoke, her teeth chewing at her lip. “Once that happened it got much easier to move, even if we still couldn’t bust any of the clouds.”
“I see,” Celestia sighed, her eyes flicking to the manilla folder that Bleeding Heart was still holding under his wing. “Thank you very much for confirming my suspicions, Rainbow Dash.”
The entire room paused, waiting for the Solar Diarch to elaborate on her statement, the silence stretching out until Twilight Sparkle spoke up.
“Princess, are you saying that storm was a Centennial Storm?” Blueblood flinched as Twilight’s voice turned into a shriek. “Oh no, those are supposed to only happen every century, what if something’s wrong? Are the storms going to start coming faster and faster? What if something escaped and we didn’t stop it because of the storm and now it’s loose in Equestria and we can’t find it until it’s too late? What if.” Twilight’s frightened rant was suddenly cut short by a sandwich appearing in her mouth, supported by a silver hoof.
“Princess Twilight, if you’ll permit me my opinion, plenty of impossible and unprecedented things have already happened in the last few years; the wedding invasion, your own ascension, and the return of Discord to name but a few events.” Silver Service retracted his hoof as Twilight attempted to chew through the combined bread, salad, and daisies. “Could this unfortunate event not be simply be caused by one of them rather than hailing some new trouble? We already have enough to deal with.”
“While I may disagree with his methods, our Nephew’s servant raises a good point, Twilight Sparkle.” Luna turned her displeasure to the earth pony as he slipped back out of the circle of chairs. “We had many similar incidents of Wild Magic surges following the first fall of Discord and Equis being freed from the stifling grip of his chaotic magic. It is not surprising that his last escape continues to plague us even as he slumbers in his stone prison.” Luna turned back to her sister. “Although I still do not see where thou art going with this line of inquiry, Sister.”
“In due time, Luna. Twilight Sparkle, while I appreciate it has never been part of your studies, what can you tell me about Wild Magic?” The entire room turned to look at the Alicorn of Magic as she rapidly swallowed what was left of her sandwich.
“Wild Magic is,” was all she got out before a coughing fit took her voice away. Snatching the proffered cup of tea to wash her throat clear, it still took her almost half a minute of painful hacking before she could speak.
“Wild Magic is the chaotic magic found in places that are either unsettled, or long abandoned by ponies. While each wild zone is unique in how they develop due to the chaotic effects of Wild Magic, they will often share at least one of the following conditions. Unpredictable weather, untamable animals, arid lands, and a general unresponsiveness to pony magic. Particularly famous wild zones are the Badlands, the Frozen North, the Dragonlands, and the Everfree forest. All of which share at least one of the previously listed conditions, and should not be braved without considerable preparation and wilderness expertise.” Twilight puffed out her chest as she finished and sat as straight as she could, looking up to her mentor for feedback.
“Excellently said, Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia smiled as she spoke, and Twilight felt herself starting to relax a little under her praise. “I believe that explanation was taken from the foreword to Rare Moor’s ‘Surviving the Wilds’?”
“Yes, Princess, Shiny sent it to me when he heard I was moving to Ponyville.”
“Of course,” Celestia muttered before continuing, “the Royal Guard have been using it for the last few years as one of their main training manuals for wilderness exercises. It’s why I’ve been meaning to have that foreword rewritten.”
“W-what, why?” Twilight stammered as her smile slipped away.
“Rare Moor had many talents, but magic was not one of them.” Celestia paused to quickly take a sip of tea before continuing. “And as such he incorrectly mislabelled Wild Magic as chaotic, when nothing could be further from the truth. Wild Magic is entirely natural.”
A shocked silence fell on the room, even as Luna rolled her eyes as both Rainbow Dash and Twilight sat in their chairs, mouths flopping open
“I must disagree, Aunty,” Blueblood spoke through the stunned silence. “I have been to Ponyville and Trottingham on several occasions and the Everfree Forest is anything, but natural.”
“The Everfree is unique amongst Wild Zones; scraps of Discord’s magic still linger there almost three thousand years since his first fall, the Elements of Harmony lay dormant at its heart for a millenia, Nightmare Moon’s magic twisted the landscape and the ley-lines during her rebellion,” Luna grimaced for a second, her glare twisting into an expression of guilt as everypony in the room looked away from her, before returning to her previous expression. “And that is without counting the rapid diminishment of Harmonic Magic from the area, alongside other factors.”Celestia stopped for second before launching back into speech, cutting Luna off before she could speak again.
“Now, one last question should help me explain my hypothesis. Prince Blueblood, could you please explain how you and Princess Twilight Sparkle are related?”
“Aunty, I appreciate that I do like to talk about my genealogy, too much so sometimes, but this hardly seems like the time or place for such a discussion.”
“Then be brief about it,” the Prince flinched back at Celestia’s soft voice, as if she’d snapped her teeth at him, “please, Blueblood.”
“V-very well.” Blueblood gulped as his eyes started to drift, focusing on a distant scroll that only he could see. “Beyond the obvious ‘Royal Family’ connection between us, our closest common ancestor would be my Great grand uncle, Gilded Corona, who married Twilight Path and formed the lesser House of Evening Light. They had three daughters, Phantom Contrail, Sparkling Nebula, and Twilight Twinkle.”
“Wait, wait, wait, you two are related to ‘the’ Phantom Contrail?” Rainbow’s outburst cut through whatever Blueblood had planned to say. The jittery pegasus having remained silent through both Twilight’s and Celestia’s explanation of Wild Magic, her sudden exclamation left the prince stammering at her interruption, as she turned to look at her friend, eyes wide. “Egghead, why didn’t you tell me you were related to a Wonderbolts Captain? We need to get you up in the air if you’ve got Wonderbolt blood in you.”
“While I have no doubt that you will put my cousin ‘through her paces’ based solely on who her grand aunt was, could you please save that discussion for another time?” Blueblood’s voice was almost jovial as he glowered at Rainbow who glowered right back at him. “I shall endeavour not to take up much more of your time, now where was I? Ah yes. While Phantom Contrail and Sparkling Nebula remained foalless, Twilight Twinkle married Shimmering Sword, their union producing Twilight Velvet who married Night Light, the parents of Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor. Is that accurate enough Aunty?” Blueblood turned to a slightly stunned Celestia.
“Indeed, although I’m not used to such conciseness during your explanations, Blueblood.” Blueblood huffed at Celestia as she smiled mischievously down at him. “And you are the only remaining member of your side of the family tree?”
“Indeed, unless you want to count Luna and yourself, Aunty?”
“No, I do not think we should be included for this particular event,” all mirth dropped away from the solar alicorn. “Now that all of that has been established, does anypony have any questions?”
“Would you spare us your evasion, Sister!?” Luna’s Royal Canterlot Voice powered shout tore through the dining room, shattering cups and sending plates crashing into the walls. “Thou call us here to proclaim that a new Crown Prince has been found, then immediately drop such a topic for inane questions on Wild Magic and more of our nephew’s babbling on his extended and convoluted family tree! Our patience nears its end, and We desire answers!” Her wings flared and her ethereal mane turned dark as the Lunar Princess rose to her feet and loomed over Celestia, mithril horseshoes tearing into the fabric of her cushions as she stomped her hooves down.
Slowly ears rose from skulls as the the ponies sat in almost completely still tableau of shock, the only movement being the rapid rising and falling of Luna’s barrel with her heaving breaths, and Obfuscating Legalese as the unicorn adjusted his glasses with a burgundy hoof and his horn floated a hoofkerchief over the front of his, now, tea stained suit jacket..
“I do not see what is so difficult to understand about this, my Princess.” His voice was completely level as he spoke, even as everypony, including Celestia, shied away from him.
Luna’s head swivelled to face the lawyer, even as the rest of her body remained stock still. “Then elucidate this matter for us.” she hissed, her teeth twisting into fangs and her eyes flickering the malice of Nightmare Moon. Twilight, Rainbow, and Celestia all subtly readying themselves to hold the Lunar Princess back in case she attempted to harm Obfuscating Legalese who was calmly putting his hoofkerchief back into his breast pocket.
“The entire thing hinges on several clearly stated points, several points which can be further induced from these points, common knowledge, and an awareness of what happened yesterday. The first point; the Centennial Storm that hit Ponyville was a surge of Wild Magic exacerbated by the Day of Madness, if not other strange effects caused by the unique magic of the Everfree. The second point; Wild Magic is not chaotic and follows several patterns, most of which we do not fully understand, as evidenced by the list of conditions pointed out in Rare Moor’s book, even if he cannot point to a cause more defined than ‘it is Wild Magic’. Third point; Wild Magic and Harmonious Magic do not easily interact as evidenced in the amount of wingpower required to redirect, not extinguish, a Centennial Storm. Fourth point; alicorns are living fonts of Harmonious Magic as they combine and exponentiate the magic of all known pony tribes. Fifthly; Princess Twilight Sparkle and Prince Blueblood are related, in several ways. Sixthly; the bolt of lightning that struck the Princess during the storm yesterday was carrying much of the storm’s magic as Miss Rainbow Dash stated that the storm became far easier to manage after the bolt landed. And finally; Princess Celestia asked me to look out the Simulacrum, Doppleganger, and Clone laws of 312 DS in preparation for this meeting.” Obfuscating nodded thankfully to Silver Service as the earth pony placed a fresh cup of tea down, before hovering the cup to his lips and taking a sip to ease his throat.
“What I believe Princes Celestia wishes to hypothesize is that when the bolt of wild lightning struck, the magical energy it was carrying was released into Princess Twilight. As she is an alicorn, the Wild Magic could not coexist with her own, doubtlessly immense, well of Harmonious Magic and so sought another form of release, creating this ‘new Crown Prince’ using her familial connection to Blueblood. Why this happened is another matter entirely.” The quiet clink of teacup being placed against saucer finished his statement as the other ponies in the room looked at him with varying degrees of shock, bewilderment, or pride.
“Excellently reasoned and stated, my little pony.” Celestia spoke through the silence, smiling softly as she floated her own, restored, teacup to hover by her head. “While there were several more small points I wished to make, I believe your argument covers everything I had planned to say.” A small sigh escaped the Solar Princess as she sipped at her tea. “Miss Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, you may leave if you wish, this next part of the discussion will be disturbing.”
“I’m sure I can handle whatever you’ve got,” Rainbow stated, as Twilight nodded alongside her, even if she seemed to lack some of Rainbow's blasé confidence. “And Kicker and Blossom are handling the paperwork for today. I'd just be napping if I wasn't here”
Celestia looked down at the two ponies who sat in their respective seats, staring back at her. “Very well, Director Heart, if you could please recount what you were telling me earlier?”
* * * * *
*Ping* went the machine that went ping.
Blue Beetle’s ear twitched at the noise, tickling the snoot of the medical orderly who was leant over the seemingly comatose pony. The sulphur yellow earth pony choked back a sneezing fit for the third time as he let the steel grey mane drop back into position to cover the horrific crisscrossed scars, patches of fused wood, bone, and flesh, and the strange, faded, almost brand-like marking that he had spotted while scrubbing the fresher scars with disinfectant.
Whatever the healed over numbers meant, it wasn’t something that Gentle Restraints wanted to puzzle out. That was something for the Director to do. Just as well, really, being in the same room as somepony in that state was giving him the willies.
*Ping* went the machine that went ping. Twitch went the ear.
And that bloody machine kept on going ‘ping’, he just couldn’t take it anymore. Quickly scribbling down a couple of notes onto the clipboard, he hung the updated chart on the end rail of the bed, before turning and pulling the door open. Brief snippets of friendly conversation assaulting the room’s stifling silence before the door fell shut behind him. The lock clattering loudly in the quiet room.
*Ping* went the machine that went ping. Twitch went Blue Beetle’s ear. Flutter went his eyelids.
Quietly the mismatched pony groaned as he slowly shifted into wakefulness, each regular *ping* of the machine slowly driving him further and further from the realm of dreams. Until, with a final fluttering seizure, his eyelids opened leaving his burnt umber eyes fully exposed to the sunlight pouring through the oversized window for a split second before he slammed them shut again with a grunt of pain.
Jerkily, his left hoof rose from the hospital mattress before flopping over the bridge of his muzzle, shielding his eyes from the harsh light as they edged open again, trying to adapt to the light. Each movement choppy and stiff as he tried to adapt to muscles he didn’t remember having before.
What had happened to his chassis and why did it feel so much softer and more flexible? Where were his wheels or doors? Why was his hood underneath his headlights?
Groggily he tried to remember, muttering out loud to himself as the images flashed through his brain.
He had been driven up to a house, his owner mentioning something about a stake-out, which usually meant he was going to be idling about for a long while. He didn’t mind those, it meant he got to sip on petrol and listen in to passing people, while his owner waited for something important to happen. The only oddity being that his owner had brought the Young Monster and the Mountain Mouse with him this time. Then the White Monster, the one that always called him junk, had pulled up in a big white jaguar. He’d stopped paying attention at this point, settling down into a comfortable idle, until his owner needed him to go again, but something had happened. Something about a rhythmic thumping, flashing lights, paint had splashed on him at one point. The last thing he remembered was the screaming metal as a something picked up the Jaguar and brought it down, before everything went silent.
Was he dead? Was this heaven? It couldn’t have been hell, The Knight spoke of hell as a place of punishment for those who refused to admit their mistakes and to accept forgiveness, and unless confusion was his torment, this place didn’t feel hellish. It couldn’t have been heaven though, everything felt too real, too strained and stressed, like he had forced down a narrow alleyway, the walls scratching at his paint and buckling his wing-mirrors. Something about the entire experience brought to mind one of the films his owner had taken him to see with the Skull.
“I don’t think I’m in Fillynois anymore, Toto”
CHAPTER EN,
“HOLY SHIT, I CAN TALK?”
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Very nice
8222311
No, just no.
There is so much wrong in that comment that every time I've tried to figure out how to explain where you're wrong I've had to stop, look at the two-page essay I've written down, and delete it for being a rambling incoherant mess.
Your comment is wrong on nearly all its points, and you misspelled one of the main characters names. -25 points to whatever Hogwarts house you belong to Mister Mix-Up.
Out of curiosity, is 'snoot' supposed to be snout? Or did you intend to put snoot there intentionally? I ask because I met a person who called snouts snoots in an attempt to be all cutesy.
In either case, thank you for the chapter.
8222855
The snoot is a specific part of the nose that is especially prominent on wet nosed creatures like horses and dogs. It's real sensitive.
Thanks for the comment.
...Ok, I have to ask. Why are you going AU here? There's really no need to do so when you can just set this sometime in season 2 or the beginning of season 3 to avoid Discord's release through timeline shenanigans. The only difference in the setting will be that Larson hasn't bolted wings onto Twilight yet, and since that didn't have any real impact on anything else at all it's completely irrelevant. It would also eliminate the obvious question of why this happened so much later since I would have expected that residual storm to blow up very shortly after Discord was bottled back up rather than months later, and to be frank there are more than enough beings on the Dresden Files side with the ability to do this kind of thing so you don't need any Alacorn bullshit to power the jump. The Greek gods in particular come to mind for their power and mythological shenanigans, but the high end fae, Archangels, or even God himself are also easy options from what we have directly seen in the series, and you could also bring in other mythological figures like Loki since they definitely exist in that setting even if we haven't seen them directly. You could also have Discord himself have played a part in this because I can definitely see him making a suggestion to Uriel or someone to get them pointed at Twilight before he got bottled up again (probably between the two attempts to banish him with the Elements). This is also made easier by the fact that I wouldn't expect anyone to ever get the real story on exactly how the swap happened since there are tons of candidates out there (I would assume BB is at least vaguely aware of this) and there's presumably no way to ask them, so you could realistically leave this as an unanswered question after pointing this out to people who aren't familiar with the Dresden Files through BB's knowledge of the crazy shit Harry dealt with.
8227121
Point the first) The main thing to mind here is that Wild Magic is not fast. It's this slow, grinding thing that doesn't happen often, but when it does it hits like a freight train that's jumped the rails and kept on picking up speed. The quickest comparison I can think of is LotR, and Treebeard and the Ents when he brings them all against Eisengard. Three years is quick for Wild Magic, and the Sisters were dealing with this crap for centuries after Discord's first rampage as Wild Magic found multiple points of release being made open to it while Discord's magic faded away.
Point the second) I know I put mind to it, even if none of the character except Celestia or Luna would explicitly know this, Obfuscating made a guess at it, but Harmony and Wild Magic do not get along. There was literally no Alicorn magic to help Blue Beetle make it across after his death, hell Alicorn magic almost killed him on arrival. The process goes like this..
Honestly, it's more like Nightmare Moon, and Discord brought Blue Beetle across with the consequences of their rampages near a strong font of Wild Magic (the Heart of the Everfree), a weakened Font of Harmony Magic (Tree of Harmony).
As for why this happened at this point in time and why Discord's not here. I wanted to write it at this point, I dislike trying to write Discord, and I AM THE AUTHOR, I CREATED THIS WORLD IN WHICH YOU TREAD, THE CHARACTER'S FATES ARE IN MY HANDS, YOU DARE QUESTION ME?
(I made the choice to write this at this point in time because I wanted to, and with the knowledge of how this happened can you honestly see Discord 'not' trying to puppeteer Blue Beetle into causing more Chaos because "My magic brought him here, he's not a real pony, I can play with him as I like")
8227204
Oh god, there are so many logical problems with this reply.
Why? The obvious implication of wild magic is that it behaves more like what we see on Earth. That means the big effects are going to be coming within a few days and while they may very well spiral onward from there, they won't be subtle about it. If you want this to be something else you really need to both rename it and explain this delay in more detail, because as is it just feels like laziness on your part, not real world building.
Why would it pick him? Random action like this is for when you want to excuse a random dude (this is common in HIEs), not a major characters and especially not an oddity like a car. This is the kind of thing that implies a guiding hand specifically taking action based on who the characters in question are and what they have done (or possibly will do depending on the hand in question). Given that the character is BB and the mess this made of his body, my first thought is that this is some combination of a reward/apology to him and a prank on the ponies.
If it was going for her nearest genetic relation, that would either be her brother or parents (depending on how the genetic shuffle went), not Blueblood. You could get around this through physical proximity, but that would require putting him in Ponyville and might also seem contrived (although if this was at the start of season 2, you could play off Rarity and the Gala to do this). Of course, having an intelligent actor directing this completely blows this problem out of the water because I can absolutely see someone thinking it would be funny to make the two BB's related or deciding that having an obvious sibling would be good for them (and Discord could use this as an excuse to do something he thinks is funny too).
Look, I very much understand not wanting Discord involved. He has far too much power and is far too free with it to be good for story integrity. Reforming him was a terrible decision on the part of the writers and I honestly think that makes it nearly futile to make a story with any kind of serious cohesion after that point since practically every problem can be solved by throwing Discord at it.
That said, there is absolutely no reason to give Twilight the wings. It really just causes reader confusion with the timeline, and they really didn't do anything of substance to her character or the way the world interacts with her anyways so it makes far more sense to just set the story earlier and avoid the problems entirely. Just write the story like you would have in season 2/3 and everything will work perfectly.
8228474
Look it's clear we're going to argue back and forth on this 'cause I didn't write it the way you would have, and you have plenty of good idea, compared to mine for taking this story fully seriously, at the same time this is a silly story about a car being turned into a prince pony and the ramifications this has on the nobility, how this impacts my idea of Equestria, and silly hijinxs.
I am you? No. Do I have to write the way you would? No. I am going to go forward with this advice? Yes. Am I going to go backwards and bend the story the way you want me to? No.
Random action is RANDOM. It can just as likely take an implausible car connected to a Main Character Wizard, as any particular random schmuck, it just so happens there are a lot more results for less than 20 on a twenty sided dice, meaning the odds of taking a random schumck are higher, but if you were aiming for a particular random schmuck you're just as shit outta luck.
On the matter of Nearest Genetic relation, physical distance does play into it, as does part of what that Dark Magic was originally for, and I'm keeping some cards close to my chest.
On the matter of Twilight's wings, do they add anything, beyond a specific point in time? No. Does it take anything away from the story? No. If you look at the character tags Twilight ain't there, and I originally intended for her to be gone in chapter 2, before I realised that having Celestia sit down and just explain what she thought happened for about half of the exposition length of what we've got with the conversation set-up would be even more boring. She's gonna be gone beyond where this touches upon canon episodes.
May this be an end to it? Please.
8229531
Ok, I'll drop it, but I do want to say two things first.
First, just because a story is silly doesn't mean it should throw out logic. Readers will be pulled out of a story by things that don't add up, and that hurts any story regardless of the subject matter or genre so you should only take actions that will cause disconnects where they are absolutely needed to support a story. Breaking this rule is how you get tropes like the idiot ball, X as the plot demands, and other cases of authorial fiat, so you should make sure to invest the time and effort needed to avoid it wherever possible regardless of what you are writing. In the case of this story, adding the wings creates this kind of break since it messes with people's assumptions about the timeline.
Second, while I'm definitely not dropping the story over this, it does hurt my investment and interest in the story since it represents a failure on your part to think your decisions through and do everything in your power to write the best story possible. That obviously implies that you are much more likely to make serious mistakes in the future since it's reasonable to assume that you will fail to think things through again. To be blunt and crystal clear, that's not something I can ignore, and the next time I don't have enough time to read everything that updates it will be a consideration when I am trying to decide what to read and what I'll have to delay, and those delays can and do lead to dropping stories I didn't really intend to drop but just sort of lost track of due to endless delays.
When I first started reading this, I thought the main character was the love bug.
8277156
Let's be fair, there is a running gag where people spray paint 53 onto Blue Beetle's hood, and Harry scrubs it off, but I don't think I've ever consciously seen a Love Bug or Superbug film.
8277156
8277212
They've aged quite a bit, but to my recollection they're still decent sports slash family movies with that one twist making them more interesting.
Just, you know, there's not nearly as much impact left in that central premise as there once were.
Snark aside, hey're interesting little time-capsules, though. I'd honestly recommend them on a rainy day, because they simply don't make movies with those sort of stakes and pace anymore.
8375612
Monocles? As in plural?
Why would you wear more than one monocle? At that point you're just making a spectacle of yourself.
8375618
funnypictures.s3.amazonaws.com/590ce743-b92d-42a1-84c1-4472f5d12a6f.jpg
Upon re-reading, I no longer know who the Young Monster was. Molly?
8465686
Molly.
Fuckin Russian badass here!
8647936
Yeah, he's going to be showing up again later, much later, and this was a good spot to nail down a little bit of his personality. EG: that he's completely unflappable.
Was that a Discworld reference?! I think I'm in love!
8819493
Silver Service's ability to 'teleport' like an Igor?
Somebody caught that? Before I said him lisp "Thur" while trying to speak with a quill in his mouth?!
Oh that just warms the cockles of my twisted heart, otherwise I don't think I've put an overt Discworld reference in here yet, I've read Terry's stuff enough that it just sort of happens while I write, but I don't think I've ever put one in.