“You think it’s bad now? Wait a week or a month, when the bruises are gone and you’ve got no excuse to hide in this pretty little house with your pretty little marefriend. Wait until you’re standing in a crowd of ponies, and they all know, and you can’t hide, and you can’t remember your own name. Get to counseling, Rainbow Dash, or when all that shit really hits the fan you’re going to flap your wings and fly away and your friends might never see you again.”

Sad but true words....

“Shut up, Marshmallow,” I say ignoring the lame attempt. “I'm going to hug you. You're going to like it, and it's going to make us both feel better. Then you're going to make tea, and explain this day to me so I can understand it. When that's over you're going to work for a while and I'm going to make dinner. K?”

Best not to argue with her Rares.

Hey everyone, no chapter update today. Sorry! For more info. check out this blog post

Amazing story. I can't wait for the conclusion.

I am insanely impressed with this story. I tore through every chapter in one sitting, tense and nervous the whole time, and I teared up more than once. You're doing such an incredible job depicting this horrible situation, and I'm honestly humbled at how far it's come from that single violent scene I read way back when. I'm both proud and embarrassed to be listed as an editor, since my only contribution was a harsh review.

This fic is inspirational on more than one level, and I can't wait to read more. And if you still want any editing help, I'd be honored to participate in this project.

Judging from the comments, Chapter 16 was the one involving a discussion of Rarity's power... and I remember that from my proofreading very well, so it looks like the story is about at the point I stopped reading during the rough draft phase. This is good for me, because I'm at the point where I remember enough of what happened prior that I don't want to have to read it again (not to mention deal with the feels...)... and I don't really remember where I left off, so having a landmark is good.

Speaking of Rarity, as funny as that interaction was ("It's the fucking sky!"), it actually irked me a little, if only because it went against my own headcanon of Rarity's abilities. I imagine her as less being about raw power (in contrast to Twilight and Starlight), and more about precision and control. She's not the most powerful, but she can use the power she does have extremely well, so she seems more powerful than she really is even though she's just more efficient. With that assumption, being in a fury like she was when she saved RD should have lessened her ability somewhat from lack of control.

Mind you, Rarity is certainly more powerful than most unicorns we've seen. This may partially be because she and Twilight (and recently, Starlight) are the unicorns we've seen the most of and we therefore see them using magic a lot, but her abilities certainly outshine those of all but the most powerful unicorns we've seen. Aside from Starlight, Twilight, the ponies at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, and a few legendary figures, I'd wager Rarity is one of the most powerful unicorns out there... at least in the field of telekinesis, which is where all her impressive magical feats come from.

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This reply has taken way too long to post. I apologize for that. I am so glad that you like the story thus far. That one review really helped shape into something meaningful. I can't thank you enough for that. I'm just getting back into working on it after an extended break. I hope what's to come stands up to what I've posted so far.

So.
Next chapter almost done?

I want to let you know, I discovered this story at 7:00 PM last night. I started to dig into it over dinner, a paragraph or two in-between bites speared on my fork. On my walk back home, I kept right on reading it on my phone. I didn’t stop when I shut the door to my room and turned the lock; I read, and I read, and I read. When the clock told me I had better get my ass to bed to get a good night’s sleep, I didn’t quit reading. When the clock told me I was in for a world of tiredness at work for the next couple days, I didn’t quit reading. I didn’t stop until 2:30 AM, when I finally scrolled to the bottom of the very last chapter, and my eyes drank in the last sentence, the last word, the last punctuation mark.

When I finally fell asleep, I had uncomfortable dreams about the situations described in this story all night long. I woke up feeling weary, in more ways than one. But not the least bit regretful.

It’s seldom that I read so engrossing, so intense, so moving a story as this one. To be clear, this isn’t the first fanfic I’ve read that deals with sexual assault; but it is the first one I’ve read in the My Little Pony fan community that treats it with the gravity it deserves. Despite your author’s note to the contrary, I didn’t detect one iota of the trashy original premise in any of this. It’s thoroughly true-to-life, non-exploitative, and well-researched. If it were anything less, believe me, I wouldn’t be taking the time to write this novella of a review.

Some time has passed since your last update, and I have to hope that the story isn’t abandoned. I, myself, have been known to take as much as a couple years between updates on my own fan labor, and I know all too well how real life can get in the way of things. I would love to see this continued, because it deserves to be continued. It deserves to be upvoted, publicized, praised. You’re a gifted writer, and I pray you’ll continue to be a gifted writer. I wish I could put into words how much this story affected me, but English just can’t do it justice.

In all honesty, I LOVE this. If this was an actual book, I would take it. I really hope you continue this sad, yet great story. I would really like to see if RD ever gets better, and see what happens during the trial. I know from the looks that your busy most of the time, but it would be amazing to see just another update to this amazing story.

Well, I really did love this story. I don't know how to explain it. It isn't like the kind of stories which I relish in. It's soft, tragic, and slow. In a good way. I'm assuming this is the last chapter since it's been 3 years, so I'll just say, it's good. It's really good. And I imagine they get through it all eventually.

I went into this thinking I’d get bored before reading all 17 chapters and i wouldn’t have to deal with the empty feeling that comes with reading an unfinished fanfiction. I was wrong. It was too good and I got attached. Now i’m just, empty.

i really hope we get an update soon. this story has been a huge coping tool for me and honestly it's a little sad to see it dead