068 - Filming Evening
The Twelve Divisions of Merodi Universalis had offices in many different locations. For instance, Evening, Overhead of Relations, lived in Canterlot Castle and worked mostly out of the city in question. However, the main building of the Relations Division was in Celestia City – as it was for all twelve of the government offices. Occasionally, events would require an Overhead to be physically present at the main building of their Division. This was usually nothing more than a mild annoyance given the speed at which the Overheads could get from anywhere within Merodi Universalis to Celestia City.
Currently, Evening herself was at her main building for some reason or other. The man who wanted to meet with her didn’t really care what her actual reason for being on site was; all he cared about was the meeting he had scheduled with her. An interview.
The man certainly looked like an interviewer. A camera, notebook, recording device, and messed up mop of blue hair certainly gave that appearance, though the sheer number of pens in his front pocket really sold it. He had light green skin, indicating his origination from Earth Vitis. He wasted no time charging to the front doors of the Relations Office. The exterior of the building was near the center of Celestia City, made to look like one of the towers of Canterlot, albeit coated with a thin coating of clear crystal. He pushed in, demanding his presence be known. “I am Iris Snap and I have a meeting scheduled with Evening!”
A human – Fire Nation, if Iris had to guess – looked at her computer screen. A small smile came over her bored face. “Oh. You! She’s been expecting you. I’ll teleport you right up.”
Iris was not teleported to a meeting room or an office, like he was expecting, but rather a lounge with dim lighting. Bookshelves lined the marble walls, flanking a raging fireplace. There were a few comfortable chairs strewn about the room, each with their own end table, but only one of these chairs was occupied. Evening must have sensed his arrival through magic, because she turned her chair to face him directly. “Please, have a seat.” Her voice was unusual, sounding with a slight hollowness to it that came with her deafness. Why wasn’t she using a spell to force her voice to balance? This was supposed to be an interview, and therefore it was an official event like her speeches.
Iris sat down anyway. “Thank you for your time, Charter. I am Iris Snap an-”
“To begin with, you’re not Iris Snap. Let’s be honest, shall we?”
‘Iris’ blinked. “You found out already? How in the world did you do that?”
“A ladybug told me,” was the only explanation Evening was willing to give. “Your name is Shutterstock, a young filmmaker making waves in the multiversal film market, something notably difficult to do given our economic structure.”
“…Then you already know what I want to do,” Shutterstock observed.
“You want to make a movie about me.”
“That’s right. And you’ve never let any director interview you before.”
“I’m letting it happen now,” Eve said with a coy smile. “I let you get all the way here, didn’t I?”
“Why?”
“People have already made movies without my involvement or approval before. I can’t stop them, nor should I, but the sheer amount of misrepresentation and false information is just aggravating. I decided I would wait until someone who had the right spirit came along – and that someone ended up being you, Shutterstock.” She smiled warmly. “Only a handful of films under your belt, but most of them already hits. An understanding of how the market works for these things. And a famous devotion to the art of filmmaking. I don’t pretend to understand the process myself, but I hear you are deeply passionate about your creations.”
Shutterstock nodded. “I have to be. I never want to do something the same way as anyone else.”
Eve nodded. “And most importantly of all, you strive for factual accuracy. I was impressed by Avatar Aang.”
“You can certainly expect more of that!”
“Trying to sell the idea to me, are you?” Eve said with a smirk. “Understandable, I suppose. My approval of your film will make everything incredible for you. Quite the success story.”
“I just want people to see my film.”
Eve looked at him closely. “…I believe you. Which is why I believe I’m going to give my support. Of course, I’ll need to know exactly what you plan the movie to be about, and I’ll want to receive a script at some point.”
“It will be sent to you as soon as it is complete. As for the film, I want to chronicle the story of you from when you first discovered the multiverse to when you founded Merodi Universalis. I won’t focus on multiversal history – I will focus on personal history. Which is why I’m here for this interview. I want to know what events meant the most to you.”
An unreadable expression crossed Eve’s face. “Of course.” She levitated a data pad off of a table near her. “This data pad contains my unpublished memoirs. If any of the passages within gets out before I publish under my own means, I will bring the wrath of the legal system down on you and destroy you. Otherwise, this will save you and me a lot of time that would be taken up in an actual interview.”
“Thank you,” Shutterstock said, pocketing the pad. “I won’t publish any of these passages, and I’ll ensure that nobody gets a hold of them. That said…”
“What?”
Shutterstock shuffled. “Your description of your own life is biased. I want to hear it from people who know you as well.”
Eve smirked. “Being thorough. Good.” She lit her horn, casting a spell on Shutterstock’s phone. “You now have my personal number. If you need me to set up a meeting with any of my friends or acquaintances, it will be done. I want you to get everything you need.”
Shutterstock bowed his head. “Thank you, Charter.”
“Just do a good job, Shutterstock. I’m putting a lot of faith in you.”
“You won’t be disappointed.”
~~~
Shutterstock left the Relations Office with a skip in his step – that had gone so much better than expected. Sure, his cover had been blown pretty much immediately, but he essentially had the key to Evening Sparkle’s life with him now. It was the best of all possible results. He had some calls to make…
He had two people in particular he wanted to call. He scrolled down to Lilac Ganymede first.
“This is Ganymede.”
“Hey, Lilac, Shutterstock here. Guess what, we’re making the movie.”
“Evening?”
“You bet your wings we are. I’m still doing research, but I got approval and resources from the Charter herself just now. So you will be playing her, like you’ve always wanted.”
“About damn time!”
“I was thinking the exact same thing! Start putting out some feelers to your actor friends, see if you can find potential candidates for other roles. We’ll need everyone in the primary team, Evening’s friends, major political figures…”
“Will do,” Lilac assured him. “You better have something dazzling soon, Shutterstock.”
“Oh, I will,” he assured her. “Now excuse me, need to make more calls.”
“Well then, congratulations. See you soon.”
Shutterstock hung up and moved to the next name on the list. “Aaaaaaay, Photo, my girl!”
“I am not your girl!” Photo Finish blurted from the other end.
“You are my lead camera pony and costume designer.”
“You know I only come if DA MAGIKS call to me!”
“I’ve just gotten approval from the Charter to go ahead and make Evening.”
“…I COME.” Photo Finish declared, hanging up.
“As always,” Shutterstock said, shaking his head. He figured he might as well make some other calls. He dialed another number.
“Hey, Arnold? Can we talk about use of your programmable set? Hey, hey, I know I’ve messed up before, but this is for Evening…”
~~~
Lilac Ganymede was a Twilight, gifted with wings not for being a princess, but for being so stupid rich she was able to afford a state-of-the-art grafting surgery on her homeworld. Since she was an actor, she had no single defining appearance to differentiate herself from other Twilights; she changed her appearance for whatever role she happened to be in. Currently, she was going for early Eve – or Charter-Twilight – with a straight mane and no ornamentation whatsoever.
She was in Shutterstock’s large studio – essentially a warehouse filled with cameras, costumes, set pieces, and other resources for filmmaking. Pretty much everything was here except an actual set to act on, though Lilac knew Shutterstock could make one if he had to. Lilac also knew it wouldn’t take long for the studio to be overrun with a hundred different people scrambling to make everything about the film absolutely perfect. Shutterstock had a rather high bar.
But for the moment, there were maybe a dozen people in the entire studio, and there was no rush. Lilac was passing the time by posing in a variety of positions including proud, tired, seductive, graceful, and a classification only known as ‘Earth Stand’ identified by dramatic contortions that frankly should not have existed in reality. The earth pony mare Photo Finish was taking dozens of pictures. “Glorious! Magnificent! Your control over your form is magnifique!”
“You say that every time,” Lilac said, taking a position on her hind hooves with her wings splayed. She summoned magic sparkles around herself to add to the pose.
“But your talent – it is beyond! Earth Stand types are nigh impossible to hold for non-natives! MAGIC.”
Lilac smirked. “Yare yare daze,” she said, tipping an imaginary hat and standing on one hoof, leaning backward in a highly-unbalanced pose.
“PERFECTION.”
Lilac levitated herself into the air and twisted upside-down, using a complex spell to hide her magical aura and make it look natural without needing to flap her wings. “How long do you think Shutterstock’s going to take?”
“Hour, maximum,” Photo answered. “I went in there a few minutes ago – he’s typing RAPIDO. The words, they flow!”
Lilac took a catlike position, pretending to sleep. “I think it’ll be less than an hour. He probably had part of it written before today.”
“Hrm…” Photo muttered, snapping more photos. “It won’t be long, regardless. We shall have in our hooves the story of our future!”
Lilac chuckled, taking on a playful pose. “A historic film, to be sure. What’s it like in there, right now?”
“Last I saw he was playing recordings of the interviews back, only the important bits. Typing like there was no tomorrow.”
“Artist at work.”
The artist was, in fact, at work. He was in a dark room at a desk, upon which sat a laptop and a speaker, nothing else. The speaker played select lines of dialogue from interviews Shutterstock had performed over the last few days while the laptop served as a glowing typewriter, words appearing on the screen with every tap of the keys.
Shutterstock was barely aware of anything besides his work.
“We were scared at first,” the voice of Mlinx came from the speaker. “The only other alicorn we’d seen was the Mistress, and I’m sure you know what she’s like if you’re asking me these questions… Siron felt the need to defend Veila from her. Of course, I wasn’t actually there…”
It all begins there. That one bowling ball. Shame the Starcross Society event was handled almost without her – it would make an even better bookend. Shutterstock thought, typing away – already far past the scenes that took place in the demon tribe.
“Has she changed?” Spike had said. “Perhaps more than anyone else. She used to be a lot more excitable. More optimistic. …More empathetic. I-I don’t mean she’s distant, she’s not! She’s just suffered a lot. I think it’s a testament to her strength of will that she’s kept any optimism and empathy at all. She could have broken at many moments, but she never did. She’s been strong this entire time.”
Her life is one of adjustment to impossible situations…
“Eve…” Luna’s voice came to his ears. “…is a complicated mare. She’s learned how to stare death in the face without batting an eye, but when she sees a child being harmed she taps into a primal rage. For her job, she needs to distance herself from events, but something within her won’t let her leave everything behind. It makes her life an unbelievably hard one, but it also makes her the best pony to lead us.”
A leader born to do what she did, in many ways. Always seeking a goal of unity despite everything, even that which happened to her.
“That day her other self was destroyed…” Pinkie had paused upon saying this. “It meant a lot to her, and what it meant wasn’t something good. It was essentially a coin flip, in the end. She doesn’t talk about it much. I mean, would you? But it’s the event that gave her a name. She allows herself to be known by the name of a dead mare. It’s a tribute, but it’s also a reminder to her how fleeting life is.”
A mare intimately aware of how short life can be, even for supposed immortals…
Corona had a lot to say, but one thing in particular had stood out. “She’s stronger than any of us, except perhaps Flutterfree. I almost went down a path of no return after the Bloodbath – you don’t want to know how close I was for a while there – but she got back up and used the tragedy to fuel herself. That takes… I don’t even know what that takes. A way to accept tragedy, I suppose. I don’t have that. I have to fight to get through it. Sometimes I wish I had what she does.”
…A mare who has learned to accept the shortness of life as a fact and not a burden.
“Comparing her to Siron reveals forces in opposition,” Renee had observed. “One sought friendship, compromise, reconciliation, and allowed herself to change. The other wanted enemies, dominion, rivalry, and consistency. The one way in which they were the same is that they cared about their people.”
A story of a chief and a princess, living alongside each other.
“Siron…” Flutterfree had said, pondering the name. “He’s a complicated individual. We were friends with him, once. I refuse to believe he felt nothing. He cared about us, we cared about him. He just… couldn’t accept where things were going. So he had to fight back in every way he could. To the end.”
A friendship turned into a bitter rivalry between a man who wanted enemies and a mare who had almost none.
“I worked with Siron a lot back in the old days,” Iroh had revealed. “I thought I was helping his people become their own entity – but in the end, even my world tore them apart. I’m not sure how much of that was Siron’s own meddling. But I often wonder if I could have done anything else.”
A demon with delusions of power in an unfortunate situation, doomed to walk a path of defeat or death. He chose the latter.
The last of the bug-demon mages, Veila, had been the best source for Siron’s real personality. “He stopped telling me his plans the first time I expressed concern, so I can’t tell you all the underhanded dealings he was involved in. But before he was forced to flee… I got to watch him break down, little by little, as things continued to go wrong. In the end, I think his ‘pride’ was just a farce of dignity. He was a broken individual who didn’t really care if Merodi Universalis fell or not – he just wanted to fall to Evening in honorable battle. He got what he wanted.”
A warrior to the bitter end. On her side, a friend to the very end.
“I didn’t have to kill him,” Eve had written. “I wasn’t planning to, at first. I planned to tear his staff from him and curse him, trapping his mind in his body. I would have imprisoned him far away from everyone else – I thought our old friendship deserved that much, despite the betrayal. But I saw that he didn’t want that. He wanted it to end right there. So I did as he wished. I still wonder to this day if this is really why I did what I did, or just a justification I created after the fact. I was not capable of thinking straight at the time. I can no longer know for certain what really happened behind the scenes.”
Shutterstock looked at the line he had written.
Evening: Together we will always shine.
He turned off the speaker in the middle of Applejack telling him about Eve’s earlier life.
Then he typed two magic words onto the end of the script.
THE END.
He hit print. His high-end printer whirred and printed the entire thing in about ten seconds, stapling it together for him. He grabbed it and burst out the door, interrupting Lilac and Photo’s posing session. “CALL EVERYONE, IT’S DONE!”
“That’s your job!” Lilac shouted back at him.
“DO I SOUND LIKE I CAN MAKE CALM COLLECTED PHONE CALLS RIGHT NOW!?”
“…Admittedly, no.”
“I shall do the calling!” Photo declared. “THE MAGICS WILL COME!”
“I’m sending out copies of this to everyone!” Shutterstock laughed. “The script is reaaaady~! …Drafted at least. Who cares, I still get to be excited.” He ran back to his laptop and started firing off emails left and right like they were candy on Halloween.
He made sure to send one to Eve herself. Hope you enjoy the first form of the script.
He sat back in his chair, a stupid smile on his face – he felt like he was on top of the world. Everything was perfect.
~~~
A few days later, Shutterstock walked into his studio’s primary meeting room, which looked more like a lounge than a place where actual business was constructed. He sat down on a recliner and dropped the script on a nearby coffee table. “The script monkeys are currently tearing this apart, creating a ‘finalized’ version.”
“Think they’ll demand any more major changes?” Lilac asked, tossing her mane back. “I do hope they don’t cut any characters – I’ve run almost a full roster through casting.”
“How many of your suggestions were accepted?” Shutterstock asked.
“A little over half, so far. That casting agent of yours is so picky.”
“That’s why I keep her around,” Shutterstock chuckled. “Her judgment on acting is better than my own, if I’m being honest with myself. Hope you’re not too upset.”
“It’s not me that you have to worry about. She turned down a DiCaprio.”
Photo Finish gawked. “Whaaaaat!? Who does that!?”
“Someone who knows none of the important human male roles particularly fit his appearance,” Shutterstock answered. “Think. It’s just Jotaro, O’Neill, Daniel, and Iroh that have any bearing on this film. He’d want a major role to be certain.”
“I think he could do a good Daniel,” Lilac huffed.
The technical and special effects supervisor spoke up, a green Gem known as Jade. “You’re good at acting, which means you have difficulty making non-emotional decisions. You have bias.”
“Thank you for that…”
Jade shrugged, feeling no need to comment further.
“Are there any main roles that are left to be filled?” Shutterstock asked.
“One,” Lilac said. “That would be Siron.”
Shutterstock sat back in his chair. “That’s right… That’s going to be a nearly impossible casting choice!”
“Race-change spell?” Jade suggested.
“Wouldn’t be authentic. Anyone who’d seen an actual demon walking around would know it was a fake. We need an actor of the correct race.”
“But does such an actor even exist!?” Photo asked. “It is unknown!”
“I seem to recall that there is one…” Lilac said, furrowing her brow. “…Tandas, that’s his name. He’s… well I don’t know much about him, he’s new.”
“At least you know his name. Let’s call him in.”
“He’ll be inexperienced, Shutterstock. We need someone able to portray a complex historic figure.”
Shutterstock nodded. “I understand. But we have time. If he’s acting at all, he must have something going for him.”
Lilac nodded. “Maybe… Good news is we’ve landed a solid role for the Mistress. Fi.”
“Fi?” Shutterstock’s eyes widened. “I knew she was your old friend, but I thought she was exceedingly busy?”
“She had to drop out of The Omnivore because of absurd and outrageous conditions. She’s willing to play Luna as well, so that saves up a spot.”
“Normally I’d be hesitant against letting one actor do two individuals, even alternates, but Fi? She can have it.”
Jade shrugged. “I hear she’d throw quite the fit if you didn’t let her have that.”
Lilac glared. “Fi is a lady and you will not talk about her like some spoiled supermodel.”
“She is a spoiled supermodel, basically.”
“Jade…”
“You’re not much better.”
Lilac turned to Shutterstock. “Do you have to keep her around?”
Shutterstock nodded. “Her Stand is exceptionally useful, she’s good at her job, and sometimes we need a good slap across the face.”
“You could say I’m just blowing off internal emotional steam,” Jade said.
“We don’t need to hear the story aga-”
“You know, cause I was once a high Gem Vein agent. High enough to be part of the Stand program. Then everything came crashing down, I was exiled, and now I sit in a studio and make movies with a power that should be out there conquering or something.”
“God, why do you have to repeat that every time?”
“Because it bothers you.”
“Can we act like professionals, please?” Shutterstock asked.
“WE MUST BE AS ONE!” Photo declared.
“Not really helping, but I like your spirit,” Shutterstock said with a smile.
Jade and Lilac sighed and nodded, silently agreeing to behave.
“Regardless, the moment we find a Siron we should be relatively okay on actors. Photo, I take it you plan on using your regular crew for the film and costumes?”
“Of course, nothing else will suffice!”
“Anything special you have planned?”
“I have a spectacular dress for Lilac that she simply MUST wear in the film at some point!”
“Evening isn’t one to wear clothing,” Lilac pointed out.
“Bah! There will be an opportunity.” She turned back to Shutterstock. “The talk of Siron has given me an idea. I believe I can construct an exo-exoskeleton with Siron’s markings to make it even more authentic!”
“Will it be functional?” Jade asked. “Because if our new-inexperienced actor has to walk around in a wax suit it’ll be horrible for everyone involved.”
Photo blinked. “I had not considered this. I SHALL STRIVE FOR COMFORT! Also, the cameras. We will be using spotters!”
“…Spotters will interfere with Bad Apple,” Jade pointed out. “They will try to see the Stand rather than the actual action it’s causing.”
“We shall filter!”
“Filtering out something you can’t really see is problematic on so many levels,” Jade pointed out. “Let’s say Bad Apple is, oh, creating a bunch of false explosions in front of an actor. The point of the explosions is to highlight the actor, not to be the highlight. But the spotters will try to focus on that.”
“Never underestimate my power!”
Shutterstock chuckled. “I trust you two can work something out?”
Jade nodded slowly. “From a technical standpoint… Yes.”
“DA MAGICS WILL FLOW!”
“Oh please stop…”
Lilac leaned in. “At least she doesn’t keep repeating her backstory over and over again.”
“That reminds me, I was once an Agent up pretty high in the Gem Vein. There was a Stand program and everything, it’s where I got Ba-”
“Shutter…” Lilac pleaded.
Shutterstock shrugged. “You asked for that one. My hands are tied.”
Lilac playfully whined. “But Shutter…”
“Hey, I’m not upsetting the Gem with the power to make us think we’re dying. You’re welcome to try.”
Jade stared at Lilac. “Bring it.”
Lilac decided the wisest course of action was not to antagonize the Gem.
~~~
A few days later, the complete finalized script was sent to Evening through email. She saw it the moment it came in. She marked it as important and downloaded it to her computer – but she didn’t read it. She was a bit busy at the time keeping the USM and University from blowing each other up. She had high confidence everything would turn out fine – already hostilities were dying down – but she needed to focus on it a bit longer.
She completely forgot the script existed by the next day. It sat there, on her computer, unread.
~~~
Fi was a Fluttershy renowned for her ability to act out anything. So long as her body allowed it, she could do it. She was well known for using body transformation spells to fit any particular role, and was so far the only known pony actor to also act as humans occasionally. At least, among the big names in filmmaking. Since she was playing the Mistress, she had dyed her coat, increased her stature, given herself a temporary horn, and placed magic levitation gems in her mane to get it to flow.
She took a pained, emotional gasp and thrust her head to the ground, almost slamming it into the dirt of the set. “I lay myself at your feet, asking not for forgiveness, but a chance to serve!”
Tandas was a small demon who, at the moment, looked like a miniature Siron – down to the carapace details and all. His speech was not filled with as much deep emotion as Fi’s, but it wasn’t completely monotone either. His line came with a sinister undertone. “Ah, yes… Mistress, you will certainly be welcomed in my tribe as a new warrior. Mhm…”
“See? I told you it would be fine,” Lilac declared, smiling warmly at Fi. “I hope you find your place in this world.”
Fi lifted her head, leaning in to Lilac in such a way that the nearby camera would be able to catch the details in both their faces. “I shall strive to make the most of this new chance you have given me, Evening Sparkle.”
“CUUUUUT!” Shutterstock shouted, facepalming.
“BUT THEY HAD DE MAGIKS!” Photo Finish retorted.
“She wasn’t Evening back then! She was Twilight!”
“Oh, apologies,” Fi said, bowing her head. “I shall burn that into my mind before the next run.”
“BUT IT WAS PERFECT!” Photo wailed. “So much wasted…”
“We can always cut,” Jade commented, connecting two wires together for some unknown purpose.
“It wasn’t the only problem,” Shutterstock said, walking up to Tandas. “You’re doing good for the most part, Tandas.”
He sighed. “I’m screwing it up, aren’t I?”
Shutterstock furrowed his brow. “In a way, you are. When I see you act I believe you are a horrendously evil manipulative bastard who wants to control everything and is driven by selfish means. Since you can do that, it means you have skill, but that’s not who Siron was.” Shutterstock snapped his fingers a few times to jog his thought process. “Siron was… a leader. He cared deeply for his tribe. When you’re trying to be him, don’t play up the evil so much. Be a more… complex character.”
“You’re asking a bit much,” Lilac pointed out.
“It’s what the movie needs,” Shutterstock said.
“R-right,” Tandas said, clearing his throat. “Ahem. Ah, yes! Mistress, you will certainly be welcomed in my tribe as a new warrior!”
“Much better,” Shutterstock said with a smile.
Lilac narrowed her eyes. “…Tandas, you’re just adjusting the tone of that one line, aren’t you?”
“Er…”
“You are,” Lilac sighed.
Shutterstock smiled at Tandas. “Just keep practicing, okay?” He walked to the side, motioning for Lilac to follow him. He turned and glared at her the moment they were backstage.
“Lilac, you can’t be doing that.”
“He’s not going to be able to portray Siron the way you want, Shutter,” Lilac asserted. “He’s new. He’s got talent, I’ll give him that, and he can really sell the character types he knows how to do. But he doesn’t understand Siron. I’m not sure he can. We can’t have you micromanaging every last one of his lines just to get a proper result. It will take forever.”
“We have time.”
“If you take too long into the production cycle things tend to fall apart,” Lilac reminded him. “Charter approval or no, that sort of thing happens. I don’t want to see this end in flames because we’re putting our trust in an inexperienced actor and not someone like myself!”
Shutterstock leaned against a wall, pursing his lips. “What do you suggest?”
“Fi can play a demon.”
“She’s only done humans professionally.”
“And demons have significantly less facial cues than humans or ponies.”
“Four arms, Lilac.”
“Tandas isn’t even sure what to do with all four of those arms!”
Shutterstock sighed. “Look, Lilac, I’ll keep it under advisement. But I’d much rather use Tandas than some fake demon. If it turns out we just can’t keep filming with him after about a week, we’ll change him out.”
“That’s an entire week of the production cycle, Shutter! We’ll have to shoot all those scenes again! Fi and I can keep our interest that long, sure, but others? We have backup actors you know!”
Shutterstock paused for a moment. “…Every production has problems.”
“Yep.”
“We just have to work through them.”
“Shutterstock, are you going to ignore me?”
“I said I’d take your advice into consi-”
“I am Lilac Ganymede. I’ve been acting for years, before the multiverse was even opened! As good as you are, you’re still new at this!”
“Lilac, I’m the Director of this movie. I make the decisions.”
“…Fine, play that card,” Lilac huffed. “When it all comes crashing down around you don’t blame me.”
“I won’t.”
“Liar.”
Shutterstock wanted to object, but realized she had a point. He sighed. “Let’s just go back and try again.”
“…Sure.”
The two returned to the set. Fi let out an ear-piercingly high note from her vocal cords. “I haaaaaaaave it~! The perfect inspiration for this scene! Some that will most certainly result in ‘da magiks’.”
“YES!” Photo declared.
Shutterstock smiled. “Everyone back to one. Let’s take the scene from the top.” He sat down in his Director’s chair and folded his arms. “Take seven!”
Fi began with yet another dramatic inflection, doing it just as well as before.
It brought a smile to Shutterstock’s face. There were still things going well for him.
~~~
Evening Sparkle decided to drop by the programmable set. Normally she would have spent time marveling at the amazing technology at display here – a black disc that could be programmed to create just about any scenery or building so long as one only cared about visual appearance and didn’t need an entire mountain to be visible at once. The programmable set was housed in a large warehouse that could be rented for studio filming. Needless to say, it was currently out for the next couple of months to be used for Evening.
She walked right onto the set – nobody tried to stop her. She paused – they were clearly setting up to film for a scene. She decided to watch rather than interrupt them.
Shutterstock had a hand in his hair. “Where the hell is Fi?”
“I… have no idea,” Lilac said, checking her phone. Eve thought she looked like a good Twilight Sparkle. “She’s not responding to anything…”
“She knows we’re scheduled today,” Tandas said, nervously tapping his fingers together. “She knows. I told her myself yesterday. We talked about the scene today. She seemed excited.”
“I’m going to go check on her,” Shutterstock said.
“We don’t have time,” Lilac declared. “Unless you want to call off today?”
“If she doesn’t show up, we don’t have a Mistress Luna or a Queen Luna, and we’re already set to record the first multiversal summit scene today. Gaaaaah…”
“I’m not in the scene, I can do Queen Luna,” Lilac offered. “Photo’s a wizard with cosmetics, she can make me look amazing in an hour. Or less.”
“Changing the actor will mess with things…”
“Alternate version.”
“She’ll be upset a-”
Lilac’s phone started ringing. She answered it. “Fi where the hell are you!? I- wh… what?! What do you me- Fi don’t you dare. …Fi you know what this means to me. Fi you can’t jus- Fi! Stop talking over me! …Fi. …Fi… …Fi! Fi get your plot back here right thi- Fi!” Lilac threw her phone onto the ground and exploded it with her magic.
Shutterstock put a hand to his face. “I’m scared to ask.”
“She just walked out!” Lilac blurted. “Why? Not because of bad-actor-bug-mcgee, not because of overwork, not because of bad planning, but because she met some guy last night and is running off to some random universe with him! GAH!”
“Pretty sure she can’t do that with her contract,” Tandas muttered.
“Shut the hell up, bug,” Lilac spat. She levitated a jacket onto herself. “I’m going to go grab her and knock some sense into her.”
“Lila-”
“If she leaves, everything falls apart and you know it!” Lilac shouted. “Rest easy: I’ll be back.”
Jade turned to Shutterstock. “Does that mean we don’t have to film today, or what?”
Shutterstock sighed. “Tandas, let’s do some solo scenes with you, work on your Siron. Do we have our Flagg on set? No? Well we’ll just have to make do with me.”
“You s-sure we should be doing that now?” Tandas asked.
“Yes, we should,” Shutterstock asserted. “Have to do something today.”
“Right. Uh, just let me check the lines…” He lifted up the script and read through it. “…Wait, you can act?”
“If I need to, it’s not my primary skill,” Shutterstock admitted. “But Flagg really is a basic evil-is-as-evil-does type, so I can do him easily. Got it?”
“I think so.”
“Good.” A dark demeanor came over Shutterstock. He smiled a truly horrendous smile. “Ah, Siron. I see you have doubts.”
Tandas steeled his gaze. “They found the USM, Flagg. They’re getting stronger, and getting more allies.” He narrowed his eyes and held out one of his arms, managing to be expressive without any facial expressions.
“I wouldn’t consider USM an ally… Their ideologies will clash.”
“Before we make our move?” Tanadas asked, his voice cracking slightly.
“Likely not, but they also will not interfere. They won’t be invested.”
“Would it not be in their interest to help?”
“Not if they learn of who I am,” Shutterstock laughed. “Now, Siron, is Blackjack behaving?”
“Only as far as I can tell; Dio is the one overseeing her development.”
“And Dio?”
“Here only because he thinks it’ll be fun. He really doesn’t care that we revived him from that bone.”
“He plans on betraying me later, no doubt about it.”
“Obviously.” Tandas’s tone slipped up over the v.
Shutterstock sighed. “Cut. Or… Scene, I guess, since we aren’t rolling. Look, Tandas what’s up?”
Tandas sighed. “Lilac’s right you know. Not about the thing with Fi. But about me. I’m not the guy you want, Shutterstock.”
“You’re the guy we need. There aren’t any other demon actors! You’re it – and you have talent!”
“But I can’t do Siron!”
“You were doing him just fine there!”
“I was stuttering.”
“That was because of the stress of the day and you know it.”
Tandas shook his head. “Shutterstock, has there been a single day of recording where Lilac hasn’t come to you complaining about me? I know you’re trying to keep it hushed, but I know. I know she’s trying to get me replaced. Why don’t you listen to her?”
“Because I have a vision of what this needs to be,” Shutterstock asserted. “A great, glorious, artistic vision. And it includes you. Don’t you walk out on me.”
“I… I won’t. I’m just not sure if that’s a good decision on your part.”
“I’ll think of something. At the very least, you don’t need to be afraid of me.”
Tandas tensed up in fear.
“Tandas I just sai-”
“Behind you.”
Shutterstock turned around, finally noticing Evening standing there. “WAUGH!”
“Hello,” Evening said, her face lacking the smile it usually held. “We need to talk, Shutterstock.”
“You’ve come at a really bad time, Evening – the production’s having more than a couple hiccups right now. I assure you this is just a ‘bad day.’ Come back another time and I’m sure we can show you something better.”
“I understand that this is just a disaster day,” Eve responded. “I’m not judging you for that.” She held up the script. “We need to talk about this.”
“…I sent that to you weeks ago.”
“And I was too busy to read it in depth until yesterday. That’s my fault. But that doesn’t change the fact that we need to talk. I assume you have an office?”
“…Yes. Right this way.” He led her away from the set to a back wall with several doors, one labeled with ‘Shutterstock, Director’ in black lettering. The interior was sparse – just a desk, computer, chairs, and lighting fixture.
Evening laid the script on the desk and fixed Shutterstock with a glare. He began to sweat profusely.
“…This is extremely well written,” Eve commented. “In depth. Rather accurate, for the most part, when things aren’t skewed for drama. You clearly did your homework.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“This isn’t my story,” Eve answered. “I’m listed as the protagonist, and I win in the end, but you’re not writing my story in these pages. You’re writing Siron’s story.”
“…Come again?”
Eve flipped the script over to a particular page. “This scene is Siron plotting with Flagg, the one you were going over with your actor there.” She flipped to another section. “This one is Siron talking with the Mistress and Ganondorf.” She flipped it again. “This is Siron sending magic to Majora. This is Siron talking about the corrupt Merodi. This is Siron having a final emotional discussion with Blackjack. This is Siron lamenting the death of Fef.” She closed the script. “This movie isn’t Evening, it’s Siron.”
“That’s an unfair judgement,” Shutterstock pointed out. “He’s just the antagonist written as I understand he was. He doesn’t even get half the scenes. You get just as many speeches and emotional moments.”
“And yet, you don’t dwell on them as much. I’ve read through them.”
“The audience is accustomed to your political and idealistic side – the parts where you need to be fleshed out to the people are the moments where you deal with suffering and loss on a personal level. Siron, on the other hand, was largely out of the public eye, even at the end of it all. We saw what he did in his rash moments, not so much what he thought under the scenes.”
“I think you’re obsessed with him.”
“He’s an absolutely fascinating character. If I ever find our Prophet I’ll have to ask what drove Siron’s creation.”
Eve scrunched her muzzle. “You really don’t see what you’re doing, do you?”
“Hrm?”
She held up the script and gestured at it. “You’re painting Siron as a hero. Not the protagonist, but you’re going a step beyond just making him relatable. You make it possible that he was right.”
Shutterstock blinked. “Was he?”
Eve sputtered. “O-of course no…” She stopped. “He was definitely wrong in what he did. But his reasonings may have had merit.”
“Then it’s a good thing the film will portray him that way – accurate and thought provoking.”
“Don’t you see why that’s a problem?”
“How so?”
Eve put a hoof to her chin. “Think about Hitler. Or Hitter, I think he was in your world. An objectively horrendous man who is used as the shorthand for evil on many Earths. I’m sure there were ways to portray what he did in a sympathetic light – it would require a lot of glossing over, to be sure, but it would be possible. Currently, Flagg is not the universal standard for evil in Merodi Universalis. No, they point to Siron. His relation in the attack was much more personal.”
“So I’ll be changing people’s minds.”
“Shutterstock, I can’t approve a movie that goes against that much of public opinion. It would destroy me and destabilize the government. Not to mention that by calling my motives and ideals into question, it would upset the sentiments upon which Merodi Universalis was founded!”
“…Oh.”
“Yes. Oh.” Eve narrowed her eyes. “Since you’re having such difficulty filming, it looks as if you may be better off just starting over. If you need the funds to do so, I can provide them. But I will do so if and only if you rewrite this script to focus less on Siron. I appreciate that you’ve made him a villain one can identify with, but it seems as if the message behind your movie is ‘think more about what Siron said’, which I don’t approve.”
“I think you’re just biased,” Shutterstock said, folding his arms. “You can’t view anything he says in any record objectively.”
“So? Nobody else is going to be able to either!”
“I’m not changing it, Charter. This is what my soul wrote onto the page. This is the movie I’m making.”
Evening twitched. “I can’t endorse it.”
“You can’t shut it down.”
“I can try.”
“You won’t. I know you at this point, Evening. You aren’t that petty. You’re upset, and you want to do something, but I’m just a filmmaker. You hesitate to harm even the darkest of people. I’m not evil.”
Eve sighed. “…I just wanted it to be a movie I could be excited for, something I could point to and say ‘that’s me, everyone go watch that, it’s good’. I wanted that to happen. I chose you because I thought you’d do it right.”
“I am doing it right. That mare you will see on the screen will be you, Evening.”
Eve chuckled. “You are good… But you aren’t that good. There are a few key things about me missing as well.”
“Such as…?”
“You really think I’m going to tell you now?” Eve said, shaking her head. “I strongly recommend you stop production, or rewrite and restart. But I can see that you’re going to keep going anyway. So I’m going to wish you luck.”
“…Luck?”
“Luck. You’re going to need it.” She gave him a warm smile. “Determination and stubbornness can be decidedly annoying, but it’s also indicative of a strong spirit. You’re a good person, Shutterstock. Just on the wrong side at the moment.” She teleported away.
Shutterstock folded his fingers together. After he had realized what had upset her, he hadn’t really been surprised by the conversation. Her anger quickly switching to encouragement was just one of her quirks. Once she realized there was no point in playing hardball, she would always try to smooth things over. Always.
She really was the best choice for the job.
He looked down at the script in deep thought.
She was right about a lot of what she’d said. He was obsessed with Siron’s character. His motives. His relation to the history of Merodi Universalis… But he also knew this movie wasn’t about Siron. It was about Evening, right? It had to be, she was what the whole script was built around.
…But Siron had branched out. He had demanded that his story be told alongside Eve’s. Shutterstock couldn’t shut that demon chief down. The character spoke too loudly in his mind.
It was then that Shutterstock realized something.
It wasn’t Evening’s story.
It wasn’t Siron’s story.
It was both their stories.
He grabbed a red pen and scrawled a new word on the title page, turning Evening into Crimson Evening. He ran out of his office and back to the set, where Tandas was waiting patiently. Photo and Jade were still there, and Lilac had just returned – notably without Fi.
“W-what happened?” Tandas asked.
“Evening Sparkle just rescinded her approval of the film!” Shutterstock blurted with a stupid grin on his face. “But screw her.”
Lilac gasped. “W-what!?”
“You heard me. Screw her. She can’t separate her experiences from the story we’re telling. She thinks we’re telling a story about Siron, making him the hero.”
“…Aren't we, kinda?” Lilac asked.
“Kinda,” Shutterstock admitted, showing them the new title page. “But we’re going to turn that to our advantage.”
“…Crimson Evening…” Photo said, mulling the title over in her mouth. “IT WORKS!”
“It does. This isn’t going to be a movie about Evening. This isn’t going to be a movie about Siron. It’s going to be freaking both. A dichotomy!”
“A… dichotomy,” Lilac said, pondering this. “…You’re going to rewrite it and we’re going to have to shoot everything again aren’t you?”
“Yes to the first. No to the second. The beginning doesn’t change at all. But I’m going to alter the ending, and the marketing. This is a story for both of them. A dual adventure. It will be glorious and magical and meaningful and different.”
“I feel da magiks!” Photo declared, submitting her approval.
“You always feel them, like a broken record,” Jade muttered. “Isn’t it risky to go against Eve though?”
“She’s not like most,” Shutterstock said. “She’s not going to try to stop us. She just can’t be associated with it anymore for political reasons. And personal ones, but we’ll pretend the political are the only ones that matter, mmkay?”
“There’s other problems though!” Lilac blurted. “Fi’s gone!”
“I know a Luna. Cressa. She can take the role of the Mistress.”
“And what about Tandas!?”
Shutterstock looked at Lilac – and smirked. “He’s your responsibility.”
“…What.” Lilac deadpanned.
“You’re an amazing actor, and a teacher from what I hear. Stop being so prideful for one damn moment and help him out. He has the talent, it just hasn’t been shaped.”
“But I-”
“Yes you can. You know you can. You just don’t want to.”
Lilac took in a deep breath. “Fine. Tandas, come on, lesson one. Stop panicking.”
“E-easier said than done!”
“I’m going to get you drunk. It’ll be easier,” Lilac decreed. “Can you call off filming for the day? I need to loosen this bug up.”
“By all means. I need to tweak the ending as it is.”
Lilac levitated Tandas up. “Here we go bug boy, time to go experience the art of getting completely blasted out of your mind.”
“…That doesn’t sound like alcohol to me.”
“Second lesson, we’re going to go out and you’re going to be a pirate the entire time. Not a cheesy ‘yarrr’ pirate, but an actual pirate. Be convincing.”
“But I don’t want to be a swashbuckler!”
“…Good start.” She dragged him off.
“I GO!” Photo declared, moonwalking into the shadows. “TO FIND MORE INSPIRATION!”
Soon it was just Jade and Shutterstock left.
Jade shook her head, smiling. “You are absolutely bananas.”
“I can’t stop. I won’t stop.” He flipped to a page in the script. “As Eve once said... I hear the multiverse calling my name.”
Jade shrugged. “At this point I’m just on board to see if you can get this ship to shore or not.”
“Oh, it’s not just getting to shore, it’ll end on top of a mountain.” Shutterstock rubbed his hands together. “Because we have everything we need right here… Just need some stupid determination to do it.”
“Stupid is right.”
“Yeah it is. Now get back to work, you’re the set programmer remember?”
“Righty-o, boss man,” Jade said with a mock salute. “BAD APPLE!”
The resulting fake explosion surrounded Jade in a halo, making her look a lot more intimidating than usual.
“…Fun trick.”
“I know. Now get to work already.”
~~~
It was amazing how something could go from being a complete disaster to smooth as butter in a single day. After the big disaster, every scene they recorded the next day went great, only taking a handful of takes to complete. Tandas had apparently discovered how to do Siron – though he admitted that it was just Siron he could do right now, Lilac had basically brainwashed him with endless lessons. But she hadn’t stopped after he’d gotten Siron down.
Lilac was still proud occasionally, especially when they started deafening her with invisible enchanted earplugs to produce Evening’s deaf accent for scenes when the mare wasn’t addressing the public. The actor hadn’t been happy about that, but she’d gone along with it. Tandas would still flub something major or blank on an emotional inflection, or Photo would go temporarily mad and refuse to allow a seemingly good take to be the last one – but nothing else exploded. It was nice to have Bad Apple on special effects.
Weeks passed. Filming went by no means flawlessly after that day – Lilac got sick, Photo mixed up the lenses a few times, and Tandas broke part of his carapace doing a stunt – but they all banded together. And they got it done.
The entire crew was sitting in a small theater room they had rented to view the film as it was now. It had no background music, no sound effects, and no post-production special effects. It was just the filmed scenes stitched together in what was expected to be the final orientation. It would, of course, not end up like this, but it was a glimpse of things to come.
And it was good.
“Together we will always shine,” Lilac said, drawing the film to a close. No credits rolled – they hadn’t been added yet – but the crew still clapped anyway.
Shutterstock grinned. “This is going to look great.”
“True sorcery. BEAUTY!” Photo decreed.
Lilac nudged Tandas. “I told you everything would look fine.”
“I caught myself scratching the back of my head in the background of Scene 4-2,” Tandas muttered.
“That’s for diehard fans to make memes, not the actual quality of the movie itself,” Lilac decreed. “Now, about my payment…”
“…Payment?”
“I’ve been your personal acting tutor for an accelerated curriculum for over a month now. I’m one of the most important actors in the business. You need to pay me.”
“B-but…”
“Man, you’re gullible.” Lilac chuckled. “You don’t have to pay me. You just have to be dragged to conventions with me now. You have sold your soul to Algernon, Tandas. Welcome to hell. Enjoy your stay.”
“…Lovely.”
Jade chuckled, turning to Shutterstock. “I think you brought about a friendship there.”
“Eve rubbed off on me,” Shutterstock said, sitting back. “Her words… They truly are larger than life. There’s a power to them.”
“Do you think…?”
“She won’t approve of this, officially. She can’t. But I think she’ll like it,” Shutterstock decided. “It’s what I got from her own words, after all. All it took was a little tweaking.” He stood up and clapped his hands. “But enough of that! Everyone, we’ve got a lot more work to do – special effects, better cutting, and above all marketing. Crimson Evening isn’t going to find its way to theaters all on its own!”
“RIGHT!” Everyone called.
Shutterstock looked at his crew with a proud smile. It was going to happen.
~~~
“Together we will always shine.”
The credits started to roll.
Eve sat alone in a small theater – a personal early showing she had arranged herself.
She wiped the tears from her eyes. “Together…” she echoed. She stood up and walked out of the theater. In the lobby, she saw Shutterstock sitting patiently on a bench. He was alone.
She sat next to him.
“…That was a great movie,” Eve said, still struggling to keep her tears under control. “…I noticed you made some changes. It’s better than it was before.”
“You made me realize the dichotomy.”
“It certainly works better if that’s explicit,” Eve admitted. “It’s not a story of one, but both. That… That works really well. I still can’t give it a rousing endorsement.”
“I understand.”
“I want to, though,” Eve said. “That screen? That screen showed a life so close to mine. So close.”
“Did I mess something up?”
“There are a few things you just can’t know,” Eve said. “A few key things. It’s not your fault. As far as anybody is concerned, that story on the screen is mine.”
“I’m going to update it when your classified information comes out, huh?”
“Heheh… You can believe that if you want.”
Shutterstock looked into the distance. “I am sorry for not going the way you wanted.”
“There will have to be another movie about me made by someone else,” Eve admitted. “One that focuses on just me. It needs to happen. What you’ve done… It’s less of a film based on a true story. It’s an idea that’s told through a true story. An idea that there are two sides to everything. That even the villain has reasons.” She looked Shutterstock in the eyes. “Do you know what this film’s going to do?”
“Destroy the authority of the government and your image?”
“No. Well… It might cause some unrest, but I can minimize it by distancing myself. What it’s going to do is let Siron be remembered as something other than the Merodi version of Hitler. He will be remembered as a man with ideals who had the entire multiverse work against him. He’s still a bad man – but he won’t be the symbol of evil. He deserves that much.”
“Glad you think so.”
“I’m sorry, Shutterstock, for how I acted that day,” Eve said. “It wasn’t right.”
“You were angry. And you still wished me luck at the end.”
“That stuck with you, huh?” Eve asked with a smile. “I suppose it would… In that case, I’m sorry for something specific. I apologize for refusing to believe you were right. I really couldn’t separate myself from Siron. I… I hate him.” Tears started rolling down her face. “I’ve tried so hard to move past it, to realize who he was, to just… let go. But I can’t. I keep a paradoxical view of him inside my heart. He killed so many out of rage, but we were partially responsible for what he became. He made us our enemy, but he wanted to die. He… He…” She let out a deranged grunt. “I don’t even know anymore. I can’t. I hate him. But I also understand him.”
“It sounds like you have unresolved issues you haven’t even admitted to yourself.”
Eve nodded. “I try never to hate anyone, Shutterstock. Valentine… Scarcity… Ba’al… They were enemies, yes. But they’re people. Even Six… But Siron? The one I took care of personally? …I hate him.”
“…I think he’d like that,” Shutterstock observed.
Eve was silent for a few seconds. Then she broke out into jovial laughter. “He would, wouldn’t he? That’s what he always wanted! Something to fight that would fight him on his terms!” She put a hoof to her head. “Aaaah this is a royally screwed up situation on so many levels…”
“Part of why I made Crimson Evening the way I did. There are so many layers to the relationship between you two. It needed to be told. In many ways, it’s a better story than yours alone could ever be.”
“That’s probably why it happened,” Eve pointed out. “Someone’s reading this, remember? Maybe not now – though I could call Pinkie and ask if the ‘camera’ is on right now – but I know it was on when Siron was around. That was the story.” She chuckled bitterly. “But that doesn’t really matter, does it? Those things happened. There’s no denying them. Wondering about why they happened in a meta sense won’t help.”
Shutterstock didn’t say anything.
“Sorry, I’m pouring my soul out to you. I should probably be doing this to Luna instead.”
“I understand you very well, Evening,” Shutterstock said. “I’ve spent months saturated in your mind. Give me some credit.”
“You do seem to be handling it pretty well.”
Shutterstock smirked. “If I didn’t know you were asexual this would be the point I ask you out.”
Eve blinked, taking a moment to process this. Then she laughed. “You really do know me, don’t you?”
“Probably a lot more than you’d like.”
“Yeah. Probably.” She gave him a quick hug. “Thanks for standing up to me.”
“You’re welcome, Charter.”
Eve nodded. “See you around?”
“Who knows?” Shutterstock said with a shrug. “It’s a big multiverse after all…”
Eve gave him a warm smile and teleported away.
~~~
Crimson Evening went on to have a relatively decent run across the multiverse. It was sold to several different movie-brokering companies, one in each universe, at the same time. This meant Shutterstock and crew actually profited from the movie, avoiding the issue of sudden copy-plagiarism in other universes. They made no money from any of the tickets – their company was not allowed to operate that way. They only profited from sale of the distribution rights. The movie did not become popular enough to suddenly produce more economic opportunity.
But it became a cult classic in time. Four and a half stars. It may not have made Shutterstock fly into the public eye, but in the critical culture he was suddenly a bigger name. He tried something new, and it had turned out great despite a lot of bumps in the road.
Over time, Crimson Evening won a couple of awards in different universes. Enough to ensure that it would always be remembered in the back of the film industry’s collective conciousness, as a testament to both Evening and Siron.
Eventually, Evening’s Worlds came out, written by a different director and with nobody who was on the original project involved with it. It was a solid four-star movie, nothing bad about it, and the population loved seeing their Charter being awesome on the big screen.
But it was never as deep as Crimson Evening.
And that was all Shutterstock cared about, in the end.
He was beyond proud of the result.
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Another great chapter. Also, FIRST!
How does the MU prison on Nautica work exactly? Are there any differences from the other prisons?
Also, is there a Power scale for Prophets? If yes, then where would someone like Alan Wake be?
How is Nanohas and Fates relationship in this story? Does Vivio exists?
Is there a chance that USM could find the Universe 11 from Dragon ball super, or the Marines from One Piece, considering their obsession with JUSTIST?
And I just now realized that none of the Homestuck characters speak with there’s quirks, like Vriska is not using her 8s. Is there a reason to that?
9298913
All questions answered in order!
Not really, it's just got a lot of anti-magic and anti-dimensional stuff in place. Maximum maximum security. It's also significnatly more humane than, say, most Earth prisons.
Yes, there is a prophet power scale, but only for Prophets who know what their power is. Andrew Hussie is among the strongest of those in -Merodi. I have no idea who Alan Wake is.
Nanoha and Fate are portrayed exactly the same way as the show itself. Which is to say "probably something going on there, but i'll never confirm anything." Also yes, Vivio exists, but I ignore her.
They have probably encountered those places. Offscreen though.
When Vriska eventually gets a hold of a phone, she will type with the 8s. That said, I am not writing quirks in a thing that's supposed to be read as a novel, not a webcomic. I'm not Hussie, I don't have his style.
-GM, master of ANSWERS>
Hymn .... met a guy ... took off from the universe suddenly.. i think the collector just collected himself a spy.
9298902
?
what is this, youtube
Also they need to find a xcom world it feels like mind shields would be a god send considering every arc feels like someones getting mind modified. Hymn... id say sick blackjack on him but most her allies would die by the end. It's weird how her cuttie mark works its like a different version of vriskas power it modifies things to her favor to always win even at the expense of her friends..
berry naiseu
Wouldn’t be authentic[1]
1. The random numbers be appearing again! This is but the first(tm)!
Chapter 12... As soon as they started I KNEW where they were!
Made my day! Still making my day! Ahh!
Right now I'm just surprised no one mentioned that this chapter just gave a new meaning for Stand-in Actor.
I'm not sure if this is intentional or not, but I see this as a foreshadowing of the whole conflict at the end of the story. It isn't necessarily clear which side was right, or which side should win; there is only the side that you wrote as winning.
9307610
Boo!! Horrible pun.
9299132
A mind shield from XCOM?
That would solve so many problems. Simply because it would solve so many problems, a prophet couldn't use it to make a good story.
Not gonna lie. Little bit surprised that this chapter didn't result in Twilight X being outed.
10202303
Remember, she did not reveal everything to Shutterstock. Only what was needed to tell the story of Twilight and Siron.
Well first off:
*sharp inhale* Ooooooooooof.
That said, I really expected that this chapter would be when the truth behind Evening would be revealed. Not such the case this time though, it seems.
Probably not for a long, long time.
Still, enjoyable slice of life chapter. Much so because I'm still quite moved by Siron's tragic development though this story. He's gone now, but it still brings a nice bit of closure to something that's pretty much already closed.
For better or worse, Siron was a complex being, a good former ally, and a worthy adversary.