Tempest Shadow was forgiven, and assigned to Twilight Sparkle's personal guard. Another villain reformed, another new friend for Equestria.
Another villain who didn't face justice.
The Noble Court has finally had enough, and has gathered together to form an inquiry into Celestia's reasoning for letting so many villains off the hook. The time has come to have the Princess of the Sun reveal why she's let so many of Equestria's most dangerous threats off of the hook.
They have to be careful, as Celestia has hooks of her own.
Chapters (1)
My biggest question really, concerning THE MOVIE, is where was the guard? Any of the guard?! I choose to believe they were with Discord & Starlight Glimmer doing something that must have been COMPLETELY NECESSARY!!!
Either fending off an elder abomination of evil, or playing shuffleboard against an elder abomination of evil.
This is fantastic.
Ab-so-lute-ly Fantastic!
Wow, great work here! I'm real impressed with the reasons Celestia gave for forgiving so many of the villains - and as someone who's struggled with the idea of Starlight and Tempest/Fizzlepop's redemption, I do have to say that it's a nice lesson to be reminded of.
And you write the best Blueblood. XD He's snobbish but also genuinely loyal to his aunt, and a damn sight smarter than many of his fellow nobles (which is actually a little scary).
There is a method to Celestia's madness, and if you think it's madness in the first place, you may be the one who needs a head examination.
Lovely stuff. Thank you for it.
8660864
Implying that shuffleboard wasn't an essential part of thwarting said entity.
I do have an issue with Celestias attitude in this. While she may have legitimate reasons for it, the nobles concerns are valid. Her walking in with a stuffed kangaroo and the contempt she showed wasn't right. Also the nobles know way too much about certain things they probably shouldn't, while they should be aware of Starlight Glimmers actions in Our Town, her time travel ones shouldn't be public knowledge even to the nobles because of the dangers of knowing such a spell exists. And I seriously doubt they would know anything of what Sunset Shimmer did since Celestia would want Sunset to be able to come home and start fresh without any problems.
Other then that a good story.
Damn good work Celestia. Once again, showing us just why you are somepony who's ruled for a 1000 years. She's put up with tougher shit than you quite frankly, pathetic, nobles.
Maybe, but he knows Celestia personally. He's probably seen her with the metaphorical mask she wears off.
I get it!
I love how Blueblood is just having absolutely NONE of this shit.
That was the poorest possible choice of words to describe Luna.
I love this Blueblood.
I maintain that Tempest Shadow sounds as silly and edgy to ponies as it does to us and Fizzlepop Berrytwist is actually a case of Awesome Mc CoolName.
She does it a lot, but not always.
That's one way of seeing it.
She has a point. Do you REALLY want a mare that powerful running amok and even angrier and more unstable than before?
I believe you. You probably would have been ousted if Celestia thought you planned to stab her in the back.
She COULD have simply exiled them, or imprisoned them, but, they've shown that they regret their actions. Whether they ACTUALLY do in Discord's case as he probably operates on Paid and Polka Dot Morality is another matter, but he's helped. Besides, better than him being still in stone and if he got out again, he could do WORSE.
You don't. BUT, he has friends. He has ponies he likes and trusts. They can serve as a guarantee of that loyalty. And this way, he gets to have his fun.
BreathE.
She has a point.
This is an interesting Blueblood. He doesn't always agree, he can be pompous to a fault, and he doesn't always like the decisions Celestia makes, but he's loyal. Because he knows Equestria runs a real chance of being fucked otherwise.
And sometimes he's just snarky.
And if not, lesson learned.
8661144
Luna who tried to kill Celestia (hers to forgive), conquer Equestria and end daylight (NOT hers to forgive! It affects MORE than just Celestia!)
8661245
Yes. But do YOU want to insult her in front of Celestia? If so, go ahead. Just lemme get a coffin ready for you first. Or just an urn for your ashes.
8661144
It's not an insult if Luna WAS a mare devoured by her own jealousy and bruised ego to the point it became an illness.
8661252
And feelings of rejection and abandonment.
Forgive me for quoting one fictional character in responds to another fictional character,
Wolverine of the 90s X-Men cartoon over his desire to put down Sabertooth.
(To note: In real life I am very much against the death penalty because unlike fiction land, there is always a chance you have the wrong man no matter how the papers spin it. Our legal system ISN'T perfect, and death is permanent.)
8661271
Why are you telling me this?
8661256
True.
8661272
fixed
8661248
And doth be spun by my fellow nobles as a martyr to the cause. Celly as a leader knows her people are ALWAYS watching her, every action she takes is not her own.
8661363
Blueboold simply has more contact with Celestia than other nobles because of being her "nephew", and so is more
indoctrinatedreformed.8660961
Yeah I was thinking this too. I can't recall Celestia ever being this nakedly vindictive to anyone, villains included. The closest I can come up with is when Tirek broke in on the princesses and found they already transferred their power, and she just gave him this tiny troll smirk.
Celestia is too level-headed to show that kind of outward contempt, much less pick a dude up by the collar because he talked crap about her sister for almost causing a literal apocalypse. She's not without her catty side, but she keeps it pretty subtle. I'd totally expect the kangaroo plushie and an off-hoof comment about it, for what it's worth -- that fits. But if she starts resorting to that kind of physical threat, one hopes it's because she's attempting yak-style diplomacy in Yakyakistan.
8661363
hug the plush kangaroo or moon trip
I strongly believe in giving reformed villains a second chance, but letting Chrysalis walk in To Where and Back Again, especially right after she swore absolute revenge on
a reformed villainthe pony that saved Equestria from her, is another story.Ah, the communist village, as it's affectionately known.
8660938
If Discord was involved, it was probably a mix between basketball, shuffleboard and calvinball. In space.
Funny.
Okay. I went in thinking this was going to be so much worse then what it was...... I'm glad I was wrong. This was good.
Huh. A Blueblood who's actually competent and semi-likeable. Reminds me of his portrayal in The Best of All Possible Worlds. Well done sir, well done.
"The world won't change unless we trust people."
-Larry Folke (Solo Wing Pixy)
Philosophizing ahead, be warned.
Mercy, Justice, and Retribution. A perfect balance of all three, tailored for each individual case, is the ideal I believe any and all justice systems should strive for.
Forgiveness, trust, and rehabilitation is all well and good -in fact it's been proven to drastically reduce recidivism (the tendency of a criminal to reoffend)- but the public and the offender also need to see 'justice' be carried out. Consequences for unacceptable actions taken with deliberate forethought must be seen to be carried out, else you run the risk of losing the moral authority to punish or reward any. As well as the danger of treating your citizens like the spoiled children of the rich and powerful, never making them face real consequences for their actions. We see how that turns out all the time in the real world in the news and tabloids.
If you decide that a person's evil deeds are not their fault because of a troubled history or personal reasons or motives, you could eventually end up as a pure moral relativist. There is no "good" or "evil" only what we think is good or evil, with no actual meaning besides whatever the winner believes. If someone's evil is not their fault because they were driven to it by their circumstances, you remove their agency -the fact that they at some point made the choice to do this- and therefore neither is anyone's good. We all simply become cogs in the machine, following the same chain of cause-and-effect fated since the Big Bang.
As an atheist/agnostic myself I'm not trying to say "Y'all need God, he's the only true moral guide, etc." I'm just saying that choosing to not blame wrong-doers for their actions can lead you down the path of moral relativism. You need to treat the offenders as free agents themselves, possessing free-will and the ability to choose. Take the extenuating circumstances, evidence, and context into account, of course! Temper their punishments with what mercy they deserve.
But, there was still a choice they made. If that choice led to the conscious harm of others through their actions (or inaction), there must be at least some consequences and retribution, even if only to show that there are consequences.
"Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?" - Abraham Lincoln
8661598
Yeah, to be honest, this struck me as an AU Celestia because of the sheer level of contempt and arrogance involved. It seemed like the attitude and throat-lift were basically saying "By the way, I'm more powerful than all of you put together, so I can do whatever I want and there's nothing you can do about it."
The Blueblood in this story was pretty fun and interesting
8662413
Celestia's point is that retribution inherently has no place in justice. The goal of justice is to set things right, and satisfying the victim's schadenfreude -- however provoked -- works against that.
This isn't a question of moral relativism, because whether or not the villain had psychological excuses doesn't actually matter beyond stopping it from happening again; ultimately only healing matters, and obviously the victims first, but the offender should be part of that if willing and able. Reconciliation is optimal, restitution is the next best thing, imprisonment is a last resort. I'd even say Celestia would be willing to kill an opponent if there was no way to take them in safely (she didn't shed any tears when Twilight and Spike killed Sombra). But ultimately retribution is just a flowery way to say petty vengeance, and not only does it just cause more problems down the road, but it can actively blind the vengeful to a better solution, as it did for these nobles who wanted to retroactively punish people who had already reformed and saved the entire country. She even spells out here that execution -- the ultimate retribution -- is an act of such inherent hatred that it attracts windigoes, which is about as plain as nature is ever going to spell things out for them.
As many problems as I had with her general aggression before she starts getting around to the message, it's a very Celestia message.
Personal headcanon, I like to think Celestia is speaking from more personal experience than she's willing to go into when she gives messages like that. She's old enough that she's probably a) gone Biblical a few times, and b) lived long enough afterward to see it bite her in the arse later on down the line. Sometimes stuff like that takes a solid generation before it has the means to boil back over, and it's not always apparent to leaders of normal lifespan.
8662430
Honestly, I can even see her having that contempt. She's just also, you know, a thousand-plus-year-old diplomat and is probably going to either keep a lid on it or be more creative in expressing it. The plushie did that beautifully. Shouting and choke-lift, not so much.
8660961
8661598
Indeed. Plus, with Discord, her reasoning is just... twisted.
She blamed everyone for his betrayal. She implies it's their fault, the ponies present, that he betrayed Equestria, rather than putting the blame at his feet. That's neither fair nor makes sense.
And after her conduct, I don't believe her when she said she cared for everyone either. Be a villain? Forgiveness! Mention Nightmare Moon? How dare you! Her whole behaviour undermines her points.
I'm just left shaking my head and questioning her senses more than ever.
8662548
8662430
Seems to me this Celestia is more angry at ponies questioning her than villains abusing her subjects.
That's not a flattering picture.
Always nice to see a story where Blueblood isn't a cardboard punching bag. But overall this story doesn't deliver very much. Celestia's portrayal in particular seems a poor fit. You have her being grumpy in a way that doesn't add to the story, and then you inform us that she's great, rather than showing us that she's great. Which would have been much better accomplished by portraying her straight: calm, collected and quietly amused, amidst accusers who imagine her playing directly into then plan, only to have it fall flat because they didn't see where it was going and she did. Instead they just kind of drop it when threatened with legal action based on a statement that somebody just happened to make, in order to give you an excuse to end it.
The story has a mediocre delivery, and it seems to mostly just be a setup for a couple jokes you wanted to make.
8662594
Good points. Celestia wins the discussion by author fiat and threats rather than because she has the better arguments.
8662602
8662594
8662430
8662413
8661598
8660961
I accept any and all constructive criticisms. I am not even close to being perfect, and I do not consider myself a good author. I am always willing to learn. I will take all your comments into account when writing in the future, and I just wanted to offer this general message of thanks for your honesty.
awesome to see something form you. And congrats on the feature.
I wish Glimmer had been executed
8662688
Troo, troo, i'm with you on that. Nothing but pure fucking insane evil in that mare.
8661252
Plus can you call it "Lèse-majesté" when the offended monarch in question has tried coup d'etat on the other part of the Diarchy twice?
8662857
My headcanon about Celestia has her unreasonably protective of Luna due to a millennium of sheer loneliness.
No.
All right I'll be straight from the get-go. This is a fix-fic. You're trying to insert your own thinking as to why or how a certain character would respond to some common fan-claims. It's so blatantly obvious at that too. In all honesty I wouldn't have been bothered by it if you were adequately hiding it. But having read earlier fics of yours, plus Reality Check's "Would it matter if I was?" fix-fic... this makes it hard to ignore.
Let's start first things first... this wasn't a court. This didn't feel anything like a court, and Celestia acted like a downright bully in this ((the grabbing by the neck wouldn't have been allowed in any court)). Of course I'm not forgetting that generally speaking Equestria lives under a benevolent autocracy but this doesn't really matter. There were no laywers, no procedure, no nothing. The nobles acted like rabid brony fanboys that yell "ugh too many reformz... is none gonna get punized? REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE". They displayed no eloquence and lost their temper far too easy.
You know... I get it. Generally speaking I'm all in for reform and understand that the world of humans operates differently than the world of ponies. There's no use to say anything against Celestia's reformation process because 90% of the time it works. There's no point in discussing about vindication or mob justice because those things are shown not to work/be accepted in pony society.
However if we're allowed to say anything about putting human problems and human thinking in fictional societies...
If you're by any kind of stretch implying that this would is the ideal way or that it would fly in the human world you're sorely mistaken. For the latter we simply aren't ready for it and doubtful that this is how one should be forgiven. For the former...
Well one of the main reasons the law exists is to satisfy the main concept of "cause and consequence". X character did a bad thing? They must atone, they must make ammend and repair. They must be offered the chance to change. The problem isn't that these characters should get punished or whatnot... it's that they get out scot-free without anyone being bothered by it. It's fine if villains are forgiven, but it's not fine if their sins are forgotten! To forget the sins of Starlight Glimmer ((just like her village did when she was invited back in)) is to forego character progress and development. It would be like us people today not learning why the people in ancient times failed... thus being doomed to repeat the same mistakes.
Another problem is that this fic assumes that the legal equivalent of punishment equates to an amount of time spent in prison, that amount being proportionate to the vindicative attitude of the populus. This of course is mostly... a human-like model. Or perhaps you assume that the punishment system revolves around something like middle-ages and whatnot. This of course is what most fans think, and as I said it's blatantly apparent you're trying to counter that argument.
I'm not going to delve into this issue much more. I'm simply going to say that while prison is commonly thought to be as a "place to hold bad people away from society" it's simply not that. It may function like that, but it doesn't work like that. Prison is "supposed" to be like a reformation institute that in the modern human era has been corrupt and abused. I'm talking from for-profit prisons to prisons abused by corporations for the purpose of low-cost manpower.
Tl;dr
This fic was you speaking out loud and is better suited as a blogpost in a political forum. Dislike
8662688
8662785
What the actual fuck is wrong with you two?
8662932
Your honesty is appreciated. I am sorry that you felt the story was not enjoyable.
I was not trying to apply human thought to any of this. I was trying to put what I felt was Celestia's mindset on the whole thing into words. In your eyes, I failed at this.
8660864
They were all sick with the dangerous disease "Convenentia plotis". It only makes regular characters sick but is lethal to the parents of Disney heroes.
What I'm saying is that the movie was bad.
This is the only part I have an issue with, since all the signs in the episode point to Stygian going behind the Pillars' backs to do what he did and not breathing a word of it to them. The Pillars might have been overzealous, but you can hardly say their suspicions were unfounded.
8663023
As for Starlight if the MLP mobile game it to be believed one of the "Storm Generals" was occupying Ponyville , Starlight was imprisoned and it took Trixie and the CMC the whole length of the movie to free Starlight and Ponyville. I like to think all the Equestrian allies had similar problems, having to route the Storm King's forces from their own lands, and by the time they where ready to backup Canterlot the Elements and Tempest already won. The guard could have been on maneuvers during the festival and like everyone else by the time they fought their way to Canterlot the Storm King was dead.
8662857
8662911
That does lead us to the problem, however, of Celestia threatening one of Equestria's elected representatives with something she herself established as illegal just minutes before.
8662610
Well, I'm not disliking this or anything. It's not bad, and I'm sorry if it seemed like that's all I was saying.
It's.... more like there are two different story concepts smooshed together. One where Celestia was, frankly, bullying the Noble Court, apparently as a result of her feeling their questions were a waste of her time. Then the second one, which seemed more in-character for someone who appeals to her subjects' trust and is supposed to come across as a benevolent chess master who shouldn't have to resort to petty insult and physical violence.
I mean, look at the two quotes above. They're directly contradictory.
Me, I would have loved if the story had more of the Celestia from the latter half. Then it wouldn't be so strange for her to ask them for their trust if she hadn't shown just how much contempt she has for them and their, in my opinion quite valid, concerns. I want to like this Celestia. Especially since you did such a wonderful job with Blueblood, as others pointed out.
This was a really well-written fanfic. Have a like and a favorite!
But for cryin' out loud, why do the Equestrian nobility have to be such jerks?!
8663120
That sounds like a way more interesting plot than anything that the movie gave us. Wow... and I though the fact that they had a crew of SKY PIRATES cower before the most boring piece of pseudo-scary crap in pony shape and Twilight regressing to pre-season 1 mindstates was bad. God forbid we saw something interesting, like a desperate last stand by the guard, Celestia and Luna preparing a resistance, Trixie and Starlight fighting for freedom or AN AIRSHIP BATTLE THAT I WAS SO FRIKKING EAGER TO SEE! They had SKY PIRATES AND WE DIDN'T GET AN AIRSHIP BATTLE BECAUSE THEY HAD TO COWER BEFORE THE DUMB NON-SCARY STUPOR PONY! ARGHH!
How do you mess that up? SKY PIRATES!