“Breakfast is getting cold, wake up!”
Sunset groaned and rolled until her legs fell off the bed. Once she was laying belly down and had her feet on the floor, she pushed herself upright, then she stumbled out of the room.
“It was supposed to be one night,” she said as she made her way to the kitchen. She kept her left hand on the wall for balance and support. “You let me stay here one night, the guilty are punished the next day, I go home.”
“That was before I saw what you looked like,” Luna said.
Sunset collapsed into the chair across the table from Luna. “Nothing you can see is even bothering me right now.”
Sunset didn't even look at what was on the plate in front of her, she closed her eyes, planted her elbows on the table, and held her head in her hands. The world was suffering.
“Ok, so I probably should have guessed that you had a concussion when you told me thirty people beat you up,” Luna said. “I honestly didn't think of it.”
“When do I start sleeping again?”
Actually Sunset was sleeping a lot. Several times a night and sometimes a time or two during the day. The problem was that she wasn't sleeping well or long.
Sunset heard Luna sigh.
“Brain injuries are extremely hard to predict,” Luna said. “We've had students bounce back in three days--”
“It's been more than three days.”
“--and others took months.”
Sunset gave a flat, “Yay.”
“I haven't done any kind of study of the matter using the student body as test subjects,” Luna said, “but recovery times have definitely gone down, in aggregate, since doctors started recommending 'brain rest'.”
“Brain rest being the thing that means I can't look at anything with screens,” Sunset said. “Have I mentioned that computers and TV rank highly among the things that make the lack of magic in this world bearable?”
“Several times,” Luna said. “This is the seventeenth time you've mentioned TV, alone or in combination, and the twenty-third time you've mentioned computers, under the same conditions.”
Sunset opened her eyes. She was still resting her head in her hands, so her view was straight down at her plate of breakfast. Fake bacon and eggs. The bacon-like thing gave her a distraction and she took it. She might have mentioned computers twenty-three times, but she'd never told Luna about pig farming.
“In Equestria no one would even think of eating pigs. We use them to till the soil; it's why they're usually found on farms.”
“I'm not sure if anyone does that here,” Luna said, “but I do know that people rent out sheep and goats to be organic lawn mowers.”
“Yeah, caprinae are good at that. Not just grass either,” Sunset said. “Take an overgrown field, put a fence around it, drop off some sheep or goats, and pretty soon the brush will be cleared away. Then you bring in the pigs. Once they've done their part, you've got land that's ready to farm.”
“You know a lot about farming?”
“No, I just know a little about a lot.
“Even though I was studying magic, my teacher made sure my general education was very broad,” Sunset said. She smiled looking back on it. She finally took her head out of her hands and looked up at Luna. “I resented her for that. I was only interested in magic, because I only wanted to become more powerful. My physical strength was average at best, so magic was the path to power. Everything else was a distraction.
“Now . . . almost everything I know about my motherland comes from her insisting that I know at least a little bit about everything.”
“Not from living there?”
“Before I met her I knew some of the streets of one city, I knew how people ignored you when you weren't wanted, I knew fear and hunger and loneliness. After she took me in I knew the inside of one castle. She tried to get me to make friends, but I didn't think that was even a real thing.”
“You didn't think friendship was real?”
“My whole life had been defined by the strong doing whatever they wanted to the weak. People who operated in groups were stronger than they had been as individuals. I thought 'friendship' the name people gave to such alliances when the members didn't want to admit that they were so weak they needed a gang to support them.”
“That's terrible.”
Sunset nodded. “I was pretty terrible.”
“I wasn't talking about you,” Luna said. “I was talking about the situation that could lead to a child believing such a thing.”
Sunset shrugged. She didn't see herself as a victim of her circumstances. Others had faced the same and not become monsters. Besides, it was just how things worked.
“It's like that in this world too,” Sunset said.
“It's terrible here too,” Luna said.
There was a silence that Sunset used to finally start eating.
“Do you know why we let new students into the school with no questions asked and no paperwork?”
Sunset shook her head. She hadn't even known they did that until Twilight showed up and was treated as an ordinary student in spite of obviously not belonging. If she'd known the school acted that way at the start, she could have saved herself a lot of trouble by not forging the necessary documents to enroll officially.
“Free lunches,” Luna said.
That threw Sunset a bit and she just looked at Luna, unsure of what to say. Plus she was chewing.
“As long as they aren't harming our students,” Luna said, “anyone who is the right age can walk through our doors, stay where it's warm and dry, and get one absolutely free meal every school day.”
Sunset had food in her mouth again, but she also had something to say, so she swallowed in a hurry. That proved a mistake as it hurt a bit, but at least she could speak.
“That sounds monumentally unwise,” Sunset said.
“The school-board would have our heads if they knew,” Luna said, “but I think the secret's safe with you.”
Sunset was pretty sure Luna wasn't doing it on purpose, and that somehow made the fact Luna just admitted to trusting Sunset with a secret without hesitation feel even better. There was a twinge of sadness about others who had been quick to think no secret was safe with her, but mostly there was satisfaction that at least someone trusted her.
Of course none of that had to do with the topic of the administration of a school choosing to allow random kids who weren't actually students to come in and roam free. On that topic Sunset said:
“Even so, how can you be sure it won't explode in your face?”
“We don't know it won't,” Luna said. “So far, though, the problems we've faced with the student body have been from students who are actually legally enrolled.”
Sunset nodded, “The Dazzlings and I forged the paperwork needed to make our enrollments legit.”
“True,” Luna said, “but I wasn't thinking about magic.”
“For the first three years and change I didn't use magic,” Sunset said.
“I'm not going to lie and pretend you weren't that bad,” Luna said, “and a lot of people would disagree with how Celestia and I feel now, but I think you were worth it.
“I wish we'd been able to do something about you, but you were too good at keeping anything from pointing at you directly. You only acted in person around people who would never give us your name, and what you did electronically always pointed to someone else.”
“Thank so much for that trip down memory lane.”
“Your deadpan snarking needs work, maybe we can get you in a remedial class,” Luna said.
It made Sunset smile even though she didn't want to reward such a corny line.
“There was, however, going to be a 'but',” Luna said.
“You're a butt!”
Luna laughed. “I'm sorry we can't watch that movie together right now.” Luna glanced at something, “And for that matter I can't be here for much longer right now.”
“That why you woke me up today?” Sunset asked.
“I wanted to make sure you ate,” Luna said, “but before I go let me finish that thought.
“We might not have been able to act against you –because for any given thing we usually had about a dozen suspects and we knew that they weren't all guilty– but that didn't mean we couldn't do anything. We worked to help your victims. Yes, that includes the ones who could have told us who you were but flat out refused.
“I think you did a lot less lasting harm than you believe.”
“That's mildly comforting,” Sunset said.
“I have to go now, the school-board called an emergency meeting.”
“You're still refusing to deal with the parents?” Sunset asked.
“Celestia and I have office hours. If someone wants to yell at us about how babysitting duty is too harsh of a punishment for attempted murder, they can wait until we're in the office.”
“Aren't you technically on call--” over winter break, Sunset had been planning on saying.
“If they care so much then they should be willing to show up on a school day,” Luna said. Then she switched to serious mode and said, “Now I really have to go.”
Sunset's boredom was interrupted by her magical journal glowing and vibrating. That meant inter-dimensional text messaging. Inter-dimensional text messaging that included no screens.
Sunset took a look.
I'm going to make the amulets, the message from Twilight said.
That was very good news. The sirens might have tried to take over the world, they might be unrepentant, and they might be parasites that could only survive on the suffering of others, but they didn't deserve to die a slow painful death via magical starvation.
Sunset hadn't actually promised to get them the magical amulets they'd need to sustain themselves, she'd only said she'd talk to Twilight, but she had never planned on leaving it at merely trying. It was a huge weight off of her to know she wouldn't have to think up a way to convince Twilight to help.
Thus, this was very good news.
It took Sunset a while to actually respond –damned concussion– but she finally wrote, That's good, back at Twilight.
You didn't write me anything while I was thinking it over, Twilight wrote. Are you ok?
I have a concussion, Sunset wrote, it's hard to think sometimes.
Cue freakout in three, two, one . . .
A concussion‽ You said you were just scratched up!
Of course Twilight would write out an interobang. If Sunset wanted to keep up she'd have to break out the asterism. That was for later, though.
At the time the symptoms hadn't set in, Sunset wrote. They operate on a delay for some reason.
That's because Never mind. You should have told me when you found out, Twilight wrote.
Why? Sunset asked. It's not like I got injured again, and I'm healing now.
Because That's not I strongly disagree with your decision not to tell me, Twilight wrote, but right now just get some rest.
I will, Sunset wrote.
Goodbye for now, Twilight wrote.
Sunset marked the end of the conversation with an asterism.
⁂
Sunset didn't open her eyes when she heard the door open, or when she heard it close again. In fact she pushed herself deeper into the couch.
She did ask, “How was the school-board?” though.
“As expected,” Luna said. “A few of them are up in arms about how we're handling the situation, but they're not going to act against Celestia and me because they they really don't want to draw attention to the fact that so many of our students were involved in such a serious crime.”
“But this could be a teachable moment,” Sunset said, further burying herself in they couch. “Never has there been a more perfect reason to make students sit through assemblies about the negative impact of crowd psychology, scapegoating, extrajudicial punishment by an informal groups, escalation of commitment, and the desire for quick action over accurate information.
“You could do a whole series. Every day a new sensitivity slash 'don't commit murder' assembly.”
“Are you finished?” Luna asked.
“Maybe,” Sunset said. “I'm not really sure.”
“Is there some reason you prefer pushing the cushions out of place then lying between them and the rest of the couch to actually lying on top of the couch cushions?” Luna asked.
Sunset wasn't sure, her head seemed to feel better when she actively pressed it against the couch, but that that pushed her into the couch, and pushed the cushions out of place, was a side effect, right? Or was it part of why her head felt better?
This would require some serious thought.
Sunset woke up and it was very dark. She wasn't sleepy. She was weary. She was tired. But she wasn't sleepy. She wanted to growl at the gods of all things neurological . . . and possibly wage a medium sized war on them. She could try to rest but not sleep, but that would leave her painfully bored.
She couldn't watch a movie because she'd had her two hours of screen time for the day and, as much as she hated the whole brain rest thing, she had to admit that it worked. Things did get worse when she used things with screens and better when she stayed away.
She couldn't read a book because the LED lights in the house were too bright and the only other lights were CFLs Luna hadn't gotten around to replacing yet. Florescent lighting was as bad as screens.
She tried to think of something else to do, but found herself with few options. If she wanted to heal quickly --and she desperately wanted that because every waking moment involved suffering, and the best she could hope for was distraction, not relief-- there wasn't much she could do after dusk's twilight faded.
She got out of bed and hoped that Luna was still awake.
She found Luna just outside the back door, in the snow, looking through a telescope.
“Are you the goddess of the night here too?” Sunset asked.
Luna jolted a bit in response to to Sunset's voice so Sunset said:
“Sorry.”
“There is nothing to be sorry for,” Luna said. “I'm just not used to having company.”
“Looking at something interesting?”
“The Andromeda Galaxy,” Luna said. “Despite how far away it is, it would look six times larger than the moon in a world where the sky was actually dark enough to see the whole thing. As is we can only see the core with the naked eye, and that just looks like a fuzzy star.
“Since the moon isn't out right now, the sky's a bit darker. Unfortunately there's nowhere you can go that's free from human light pollution. Not unless you take a boat far enough into the ocean to have the horizon block out light from the continent.”
Sunset thought about that for a bit.
“The light pollution thing doesn't surprise me,” she said; “after all of the time I've spent here, the universe still surprises me.”
Luna was definitely confused when she asked, “What about the universe surprises you?”
“Everything,” Sunset said. “That it exists.”
And Luna's confusion obviously wasn't cleared up based on the way she repeated, “That it exists?”
Sunset was going to explain, and then realized it wouldn't make sense. She thought up another way to explain it and got as far as opening her mouth before stopping, deciding that wasn't going to make sense either, and dismissing it with a, “No.”
She ran through a few more possible approaches in her head before reaching the conclusion, “I'm going to have to explain Equestrian cosmology from scratch for anything from there to make sense to you.”
“Ok,” Luna said in a way that Sunset recognized as inviting her to say more.
“This could take a while.”
“I'm not busy,” Luna said.
“Equestria is . . .” Sunset realized she had to stop right there. “Ok, the planet, if you want to call it that, doesn't have a name. The ponies of Equestria call the whole world Equestria because the ponies of Equestria think everything is about them. They use the term 'everypony' to mean 'everyone' or 'everybody' without ever considering that the language is exclusionary to zebras, donkeys, dragons, griffins, changelings . . . and everyone else who isn't a pony.
“But, I was talking about the universe, not social things.
“The nameless world that Equestria is a part of can be represented quite well as the surface of a sphere and you will find globes there, but for our purposes tonight it's actually easier to think of it as flat.”
“A flat surface in spherically curved space?” Luna asked.
“It's significantly more complicated than that,” Sunset said. “The complications aren't what matter when discussing the goings on in space though. What matters is that if you shine a light on the outside of a sphere the light can only directly hit half of it at time.” Sunset held out her right hand in a fist. “If the sun is shining on this part,” she covered the left half of her fist with her left hand, “it necessarily follows that it can't be shining on this part,” she covered the other half of her fist.
“It doesn't work like that on the other side of the mirror. So it's easier to think of the world as the top of a flat surface, say my palm.” Sunset said while opening her right hand and flipping it to palm up.
"When the sun is above the surface plane,” Sunset used her left hand to illustrate the sun, “it shines on the whole world, or my whole palm as the case may be.” She moved her left hand below her right, “when it's below the plane it shines on none of it –just the back of my hand, which we don't care about at the moment.”
“So your point is that if the sun is up it's up for the whole world and if it's down it's down for the whole world?” Luna asked.
Sunset nodded. “The sun, the moon, the stars, meteors, whatever,” she said. “The entire world sees the same sky.
“And when I talked about the sun being in different places, that wasn't some sort of metaphor. The sun and moon do move around the world there,” Sunset said. “They bring day and night respectively. Unlike here the moon is never up in the daytime.” As soon as she said it Sunset realized it wasn't true. “Well, one time it was. That was after I left Equestria so I didn't see it for myself but apparently about half of the sky was night, about half of the sky was day, and the thin area between the two 'about half's was twilight.”
“So the day runs on magic,” Luna said, “like half of the other things in that world.”
“Right,” Sunset said. “Anyway, it's very much not just the sun and moon that revolve around the world. Everything is centered on the world.
“We have a lot of the same terms, but they don't mean the same things. Stars are not other suns. The galaxy isn't a huge thing that makes the world seem tiny in comparison, the word 'universe' is pretty much interchangeable with 'galaxy', and while planet refers both to the world and to the things in the sky that sometimes have moons orbiting them, the two things aren't even close to alike.
“The sun and the moon go around the world for a value of around that doesn't work if you're thinking of the world as a sphere, farther away is a partial shell that contains the stars and planets. They really are as about as small as they appear in comparison to the sun and moon because they aren't much farther from the world than the sun and the moon themselves.
“The sun and moon there are of equal size and at an equal distance from the world, by the way.”
“That's all very different,” Luna said, “though it doesn't explain why you said the existence of the universe surprises you.”
“There's the world, there's the sun and moon, there's a shell of stars and planets, and that's all there is. The universe just stops. That's the galaxy, one world with a shell of stars around it. That's everything.
“The idea that there could be other suns –other worlds, not tiny ones but ones comparable to the world people live on, around some of them– and not just one or two but an entire galaxy of them, is mind blowing. That there's more than one galaxy here, that space seems to go on forever and be filled with stuff, that there could be other people on worlds beyond this one, it's just so . . . amazing.”
“You should have told me you were interested in astronomy,” Luna said. “I have so much I can show you.”
“Until this fall I wouldn't have cared,” Sunset said. “It was a distraction. I didn't have time for wonder, I wanted power.”
“But you care now,” Luna said, clearly doing her best at being encouraging and even succeeding a bit. “Until you're back on computers we'll want to stick to books, but there are some incredible books out there with photographs that you wouldn't believe.
“Obviously the view through my telescope can't compare to the pictures professionals take, and it's also the case that those photographs are often enhanced by converting infrared or ultraviolet details into colors we can actually see, but I've always felt there was something special about seeing with my own eyes,” Luna said.
There was silence for a few moments.
“Wanna look?” Luna asked.
Sunset was vaguely aware that 'wanna' was the most informal thing she'd ever heard from Luna, but she was more interested in actually seeing a galaxy.
When she looked through the telescope the view was truly amazing.
I hope Sunset becomes friends with sci twi, and helps her thru socailing with others welll...not the CHS theyc an go BUCK themselves.
I also hope to see certain details on the CMC and the students who attack Sunset suffer, I mean all the events prom dances and other activities are canceled now.
Due to what happened, sure they be just as hated as the CMC will be, and really hope the CMC get harsh punishments from thier parents and families i do mean harsh!
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Or the CMC get sent to other cities, separate, to avoid getting attacked outside of school.
I love this story already!
Keep it up!
I really enjoyed that astrology scene too.
I forgot to add this.
i love the fact this is a aftermath story, not many of them really, while i know the mine five and CMC are not the main base of the story do hope theya re mention or a few scenes with them.
Like to see how bad things are for them now, will Apple Jack and Rarity families get sued, or more problems, how the parents for the ones that attacked Susnet reacted, sure happy their kids not going to jail, and greatful for the second chance.
But bet they really letting thier kids have it, and how bad Rainbow screwed things up for herself with her sin.
Does she quit the sport teams she part of or kicked out, and how the others act around her.
This has been wonderful to read so far. It doesn't feel rushed, it doesn't feel forced, and most of all it doesn't feel like a sequel just for the sake of doing a sequel and getting some easy Likes. There is world-building, there are new developments and there isn't every loose end of the previous story crammed into the first chapter.
I'm looking forward to seeing more of this and I certainly hope you will keep writing on it.
Please go on, I wanna see what happens next.
And maybe Princess Twilight calling out the Mane 5, if not to drag them to Tartarus.
Seems like Sunset missed out on the best strategy in the first movie, throwing an astronomy book at Twilight. She'd get curious and read it which would lead to either her getting too interested in the subject to pursue Sunset or hit her with a massive wave of cosmic horror, making her realize just how insignificant she and Equestria are on a cosmic scale and shut down for awhile.
Very fun start. I'll eagerly await the next.
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One of my preferred punishments has always been let the unwrap their presents before returning them the next day.
One thing I wanna see? Twilight ripping the Rainbooms for what they did.
You know what I don't remember seeing in any Anon-A-Miss story yet?
One where a breakup between them didn't lead to some form of cosmic punishment for Sunset's former friends. One where they might feel bad for a time, but in the end, they had years of hating each other due to Sunset manipulating them all. Sunset can live without them, but so can they live without her.
Life goes on.
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We don't know how long they were broken up because of Sunset, or even how long she's been at the school. All we know is that they were friends freshman year and were broken up by the first movie, which is sophomore or junior year. Also, Sunset broke most of them up with a single message (onky Rarity took longer) and none of them even attempted to talk it out or even talk to their other friends about it and have them figure out what happened. It took Sunset telling them they were being assholes at the end of Rainbow Rocks for them to realize that they were kind of shitty friends that never talk anything out (though they did learn from this in canon, in the comic they completely forgot).
It's actually pretty rare for anything that could be considered cosmic punishment showing up in these fics. Heck, in Dainn's, which this is a sequel to, it ended basically with what you wanted to see. Also, there's a fic called Life Goes On which is basically that as well.
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On the contrary. Most have them berated and humiliated in front of Celestia and Luna, or even the entire school. Moreover, no, the fic this is based on did not end that way. Sunset was shown to move forward. We have no idea about the others.
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Applejack made it pretty clear they were moving on, only Rainbow was left in the air, but she was responsible for Sunset being tortured and nearly killed. Also, they are pretty much almost never humiliated (Celestia and Luna are all over the place if they're even included, and definitely not in front of the whole school). Besides, them feeling bad for completely driving away someone they called family without even giving Sunset a chance to defend herself, sometimes driving her to attempt suicide, and hating her for at least a week, isn't cosmic punishment, it's a normal reaction.
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We seem to have read very different stories, you and I.
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I, personally, am not up for stories that end badly. Real life provides me all the downers I could need. So I haven't read the ones where Sunset goes full demon and there's a reckoning of that sort, since they tend to come with a disclaimer along the lines of, "No happy ending here; move along." In the ones I have read the consequences range from forgiveness to harsh language. I think the absolute worst I've seen befall the human five is expulsion in one ending of a story that had three endings to pick from.
That's not to discount a story I read where Celestia comes to earth and pulls an enraged sun goddess, but it must be remembered that in that one divine wrath was meted out to supernatural forces who were simply taking advantage of the Anon-a-Miss debacle and the humans were merely scared. That's what I tend to see befall them from external forces: intimidation. Or, if their consequences are internal, self loathing.
There is an ongoing (thus incomplete) one where it looks like they might have to face an angry Celestia who may intend to use god-powers to drag them to Equestria (since there are no extradition treaties in place.)
So far, though, I personally haven't read them getting cosmic comeuppance no matter how many cosmic powers they may piss off.
I'm interested in which stories both of you have read, if you'd care to share them.
For this story the focus is going to be very much on Sunset. It's not going to be about the human five (five because human-Twilight isn't part of their group) or the CMC. It's about what happens to and around Sunset moving forward.
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Not quite what I meant with the "cosmic" part. Think more them losing any and all magic abilities for how they treated Sunset, for example, or the Dazzlings parading in out of nowhere just to jeer how much worse they (the Mane Five) are than them. Punishment where it's not clear if it happens for narrative purposes or because the author thinks they should get some.
I'll try to see if I can find the names of those stories again. Truth be told, at some point, I stopped reading Anon-A-Miss stories because they seemed to all come in the mold of the accusation or revenge fic.
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In that case, yup, seen that. Less than an hour ago I looked back at one where Twilight strips them of their connection to the Elements of Harmony, because that's totally a power Twilight has. (Especially outside her native plane of existence while inhabiting a body with no innate magic.)
And I'm definitely there with you on things seeming to be more of the same. Part of why Hell and High Water has my attention is that it's manifestly different. It doesn't start off all that different as it's unashamedly part of the Dainn multiverse, so it seems like it's following the same rails (with a leaning toward Silent Night by cerealkiller78) other than Rainbow siding with Sunset, then it hits chapter five and it's so far from on a rail with the others that you're not even sure you're on a train anymore.
I think a big part of why I decided to actually start writing here is that the whole reason I ended up reading more and more of the Anon-a-Miss stories was because I wanted to a story that answered the question, "And then what?" (Or several stories that gave different answers.) You don't find a lot of that.
Almost, though not quite, everything ends in the same place. Sunset's innocence is established, people who ought to feel bad about what they did do, story stops. Sometimes there's basically no consequences for anyone other than the crusaders (see the original comic for the founding example) sometimes there's disproportionate consequences, but the story runs out regardless.
My interest in the story, however, has only just begun. (This is actually a common problem for me, when I'm fully invested and ready for more tends to be when most story tellers stop telling the story. Half the time I feel like it would have been beneficial to skip much of the actual content to reach that point where I'm engaged sooner.)
For the human five there's a support structure built in. They have each other. Their relationships might not be particularly healthy (one text and they're up in smoke) but they're there. No matter what, you can be pretty sure they'll, at the very least, muddle on together. Probably they'll do better than that. For Sunset, if you don't go with "Instant reconciliation, just add water", that's not there. Things need to change, but apparently very few people are interested in telling the story of that change.
I mean, I get the desire to tread the same territory with a thousand "what if"s. It's fun to change one thing and watch the cascade of alteration. Whether it's suited for storytelling instead of navel gazing is something I won't touch, but I see the appeal. I do it in my own head.
Taking Dainn's version alone, what if Sunset made it to the portal? What if, in a version where at least one friend stuck with her, a friend made it to the portal but she didn't? What if when she woke up in the factory she immediately willed herself to sleep and started screaming for Princess Luna in the resulting dream? What if someone in the angry mob tried to stop the escalation (it's not like any of them set out to commit murder.) What if Twilight were worried about Sunset not getting back in touch with her and crossed the portal to look for Sunset? What if . . .
I've put thought into these things and more, but it's ultimately more of the same and it doesn't answer the question of, "Then what?"
This story, hopefully, will.
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Rocket To Insanity, EqG Showcase #1, Shut Up and Dance, Pony Polka Power, Where are You Christmas?, An Anon-A-Miss Tale, Submissive, The Tale of Team SASA, Sunset After Dark, The Phoenix's Guardian, Let's Rock 'n' Roll, Zodiac Destroyer, Return of the Dazzlings, A Bittersweet Life, Pain on Christmas, Road Towards Redemption, New Family Bond, Circus of Pretending, Crooked, Fate/sunet, HATRED special, and Sunrise are the ones I haven't read (some I used shorter names for). I've read everything else in the group (though I did drop a a few of them, I've read almost all of them fully).
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Thanks for sharing. It looks like you and I have similar tastes in what we don't read. As for what we do read . . . you've definitely read more of these than I have if those are the only ones you haven't.
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Thanks for the compliment. Glad to have your attention. I'm at work right now, so can't read this just yet, but I'll be sure to as soon as I get out.
Kay is the laziness going to be put aside and this thing finally updated?
Is this getting an update any time soon? This is really good!
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I hope it will. The fact that it's something I hope rather than something that I know doesn't exactly inspire confidence, though.
The next chapter should be ridiculously easy to write, since it's simply this universe's version of Dainn's epilogue. That hasn't helped me get it written. Beyond the depression that's been throwing a wrench in everything for years on end, there are a couple other things working against getting the story updated.
One is that my mind tends to want to jump ahead (for example, I've had the start of chapter five written for . . . I'm not even sure at this point. A year and a half? Two years? Longer?), which doesn't get me any closer to releasing the next chapter, the other is that, at the moment, I seem to be afflicted with bronchitis. (I'm finding that, while it's not as obvious about it as some things, a chest cold can definitely screw up cognition enough to impair writing.)