Six years have passed since a pandemic transformed a quarter of the population of the United States into ponies. Magic has advanced far in that time, but its formerly human users will soon find that they have advanced too quickly and recklessly.
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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Really cool, for getting this up so fast!
With "Who cannot seem to give." The song lyric in the above paragraph is incomplete. Was this intentional?
Tonya should be thankful that they have a base at all- even the permitting for a large underground base, involving all kinds of seismic surveys, etc. would take more than six years, let alone actually building the thing. Keeping it something even resembling a secret would take even longer than that- hauling away that much soil and rock would be a massive and noticeable endeavor, as would finding a place to store it. Not to mention costly- as for the site to be ready, construction would have had to begun before the design was complete- which is always more expensive. Pony magic, if they found a way to use it, might help with some of it- but they'd still be relying on untested and/or inexperienced ponies working on the most dangerous job in construction; they'd have to translate "about yea strong" to "slope factor x, saturation y, will support A below, B above." I wonder if there's any ongoing construction there- they'd have to be adding new facilities, to accompany new breakthroughs.
I'm surprised that human distance has replaced pony physical affection, and not the other way around- humans usually adore touch, it's usually much more prevalent in more primitive societies, and Western civilization is unusual in the distance that it places between people. American touch-phobia, especially. 'Course, there are cultural differences building- and I like that you took the time to mention that they existed, and were very strong. I love the personal-scale lifestyle worldbuilding here!
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Agreed on Jessie's characterization. The idea of a six-year-old knowing more than people who have trained for years at specific roles strains believabilitly, as she'd need to learn enough to get to the point of understanding the question (even if she could solve mathematical problems as efficiently as any computer); showing her making unusual connections between different topics and asking questions about them (which you have done, from the beginning) alleviates this. Showing her solving difficult logic or mathematics puzzles (not based on obscure references, or wordplay) for fun would also help. So would revealing that she'd invented notations of her own, before learning the correct ones, simply to work out problems that she'd thought of, as well as specifying her areas of study (quantum mechanics? brane theory?), and showing limits to her current or past knowledge (i.e. she simply hasn't had time to learn what some specific symbol means, or the value of the variable mu). That, and it would also be interesting to see how she reacts to failure at her favorite subject.
One thing that I'd liked about the original Pandemic was the blend of fantasy and sci-fi elements- magic may be a thing, that may or may not be related to dark energy (which is truthfully just a placeholder name for something that we literally know nothing about), but it's existence has notifiable (GRBs) and testable (GRB spectrum analysis, power/distance measurements) effects that don't rely directly on using it. At some point, I'd love to see more of an in-universe, mechanistic explanation for some of the devices that you're showing, if you can work them in. Jessie may be helpful here, simply because of her curiosity.
Jean "I just really feel like I need to be close to you... like all the time... REAL close...."
Jessie's constant questions do go off on weird tangents at times, but I'm starting to like them. It's just part of her character to constantly be asking questions. We know she is intelligent, but this is really a better sign of it rather than just showing us her doing impossible math all the time. She is constantly taking new information in and growing in her understanding and I think that is a better display of an intelligent character than how really smart characters are typically displayed.
I was going to call BS that Sunset Blessing could come up with a device as powerful as the Chorus, but the more i thought about it that doesn't seem that unreasonable. The Crystal Heart was created over a thousand years ago when the Equestrians had much less understanding of magic. Since this was inspired by the Crystal Heart I can believe she managed to get ponies to go look at the actual thing and learn some things. She does recruit the best minds out there and as Bob has shown us ponies on Earth are capable of coming up with some very impressive original work. So the idea that Sunset's people could come up with something like this doesn't seem that far fetched. It doesn't seem to really do anything for sure yet. Just super charges a pony and then absorbs the magic.
Oh, and Jean is getting really creepy. Title is making more sense now.
This one seems the most interesting part of the vision to me. Sunset Blessing finally gets locked up? She's looking at the insignia with contempt, does that mean she turns on the Shimmerists? I want this one to come true.
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The verse is incomplete to alleviate issues involving song copyrights. I wanted to just include the whole song, but it was safer just to do broken parts of verses.
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Glad you like her characterization. I try hard to show her curiosity about everything. Children are naturally curious of coutlrse, but I try to dialog up a notch with her and have her trying to reason through things far more than a typical child would since children tend to just take what is told them at face value. Jessie takes what she learns and immediately starts trying to apply it and combine it with what she already knows and that's a key difference between her and her friends.
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So I just didn't recognize the song; makes sense. Sorry for writing a book; hopefully some of it ends up sparking conversation, or otherwise helping your writing.
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Lots of big stuff in this chapter, getting some big red flags with Jean
a totally amazing chapter.
it has sad times and happy times but the hole chapter is centered around changes, the pony's are changing , growing and finding there true lives.
I am enjoying the fact, far more then I should, that Sunset Blessing completely misread how her research was going to be received. Now that everything is beginning to go pear shaped I wonder if she knows how badly she has screwed up or will it take getting somepony close to her seriously hurt or worse for her to see her mistake?
Ooh, please share pictures. I can't attend this year.
Mama became an addict. She's not going to be happy when they have to end the spell.
Several observations, possibly three or four of them.
1. Agreed on vehicles. In real life and most tales emulating it, your average human spends a very significant amount of their time in an airplane, a train, but especially an automobile. And for many if not most they love cars beyond utilization. It’s not merely something that gets them from one place to the next, it’s literally an extension of themselves, their identity. It’s not just the US of A. It’s most nations.
I stand by these ponies insofar as I don’t get it. I always saw vehicles as a means to cover ground, and even thought some models prettier than others, but never as anything other than utilization. Spending hours in a confined near airtight lump of metal makes it difficult to breathe if one does not use the AC or remove the top. I know what they feel like being stuck in moving metal masses. Even in real life, if I can get there on bicycle or walk without worrying about time, I’ll do it.
This is to say nothing about the pollution which is apparently still a problem with cars in 2020- 29. Pollution bothers all of us to some extent now. Imagine having you vision, hearing and sense of smell amplified quadruply. It’d be unbearable, and force changes to be made, which is all the easier when most of your family and neighbors and coworkers have been given such stamina they are living barges and have no need of vehicles. That’s surely one thing good about it: Less vehicle addiction and the countless problems they imply.
2. The paranoid worriers of rehumanisers haven’t gotten any better, but rather worse. They were repeatedly told before it cannot be done without consent, that if you try to force it, it will either not work or the patient will revert anywhere from minutes to hours if it does have an effect at first. That was the permanent version. Likewise, this temporary version cannot be done without the patient wanting it sincerely, or nothing will happen (I stretch the truth here). The irrational worry of being rehumanised makes even less sense because they know damn well it can be undone at any time, and wears itself out if left alone. Blessing put her own gut on the line as a practical demonstration on how it needs to be maintained or it fails.
We thought humans had irrational fears. Earth born ponies are even worse with their paranoia, many by design, as they worry about stuff they know damn well cannot happen.
3. Geniuses fascinate me. It’s evidence that there’s definitely some genetics and biochemistry, size of brain structure involved in intelligence.
Those who put their entire lives on the line and sacrifice vacations to try raising their IQ points still come up short in the face of people who are naturally smart. And these juveniles are more brilliant than all the adults they know, elderly included from simply being inherently more receptive to everything and having reliable memories. Reading countless forms of literature, seeing patterns, and being all around more observant than normal people can ever hope to be.
If they have such intrinsic knowledge, there has to be some kind of biological and genetic advantage, something a brain scan would show up.
This is to say nothing of those who could see a play once, just once, and know every line of it. It just doesn’t seem natural nor possible, yet there it is. Normal person memories fail even when trying not to forget. At our best we need tricks which don’t even work usually. They don’t even need that. It’s a wonder no one calls them machines. And that they don’t own nor control the world. With such powers, it shouldn’t be possible to fail at anything multiple times when trying to learn a new skill, much less if magic is involved. It shouldn’t be possible to make the same mistake twice, let alone more than that, thus perfection and success is the only logical conclusion, an inescapable eventuality.
Age does not equal wisdom like many have said, as everyone who has lived to a ripe old age is no less prone to forgetfulness and blending things together than anyp- anybody else.
I actually wonder is this insane prisoner has this condition. It wouldn’t surprise me. It would actually make perfect sense and explain his madness, as that is a possible outcome of having this. In which case, I can’t be angry as others are and have the same eagerness to execute him.
4. Sensationalism typically rubs me the wrong way. This is something normal people are very much prone to, and aspies to a lesser extent. One with perfect memory could not do that at all. They would see everything individually as memories do not fade, and they cannot blend things together like most of us do. If we were all like this, mobs wouldn’t be a thing.
I detest those who would seek to stir up controversies. This is how there came to be an overabundance of lesbian ponies, namely thestral. Most of them weren’t to begin with. The vast majority of them were straight as a beanpole to begin with, as are most people. Unfortunately, practically all of them regardless of original orientation went that way anyway thanks to them being almost entirely female. Many would not have to resort to that were they not all stereotyped as rapists. Nearly all of them have been stripped of that choice and had their identity, or a significant part permanently overwritten due to being pressurised into prematurely accepting tattoos that they were going to eventually get anyway.
This kind of outrageous shade would have been better suited to the guy who raped our main protagonist and got her pregnant. And forced another to use the magical abilities he had which made him cross a line that could not be uncrossed. He’d have refrained from using it altogether given the choice. Two ponies were encroached upon here, both of whom were psychologically harmed, and one physically, yet this gets everypo- everybody on Earth stirred up for something that hasn’t happened yet, and it’s all the fault of the mob mentality and the anchors who feed on it.
And it’s misdirected. You got two ponies having nightmares about being raped repeatedly and given unwanted abilities they don’t want and being forced to use them whether they like it or not, but in spite of that being more worthy of outrage, it doesn't get it. But a harmless experiment get slammed.
5. Jean has experienced transformation spell running its course and reverting. And it terrifies her to have to do that again. Not only because it’s back to delirium, but because the body she spent most of her life in and has never been out of now repulses her so far as being inside of it, not so much as an exterior thing. I imagine the same goes for healthy people who has no problems, as giving them this would suddenly make them envious of who they briefly were and eager to go back.
I still wonder about that guise thing. Shimmer cracked a major code with that one. What is literally a pony with a human body, a horse that has taken possession with a very realistic and functional guise that hides her real nature. Pretty much what’s established as canon in EQG and in Consequences. Many if not most humans you saw were ponies inhabiting human bodies that made them fit in, made by crossing universes as the portals do by themselves, or by intentionally using magic of one’s own to have a human shape and function.
This is what Fred, Sarah, Robert, and Thomas really need or could use so badly. The latter will never want this temporary TF again, ever, that’s for sure. But I don’t doubt if he ever finds out how that disguise thing worked, he would reap it for all it was worth, as would the other Tonya. These two were both pretty much defined by their bitterness at being put out in the open for the world to see even if they made peace with themselves. Neither has a desire to be human again at this point, but they’d love to find out how Shimmer’s disguise worked, and they would never be ungrateful for it.
I worry about the delirious happiness others show, particularly those who show up late. I think this is worse.
Finally, this isn’t a cure, it’s a treatment. A way to delay the ailment’s symptoms long enough to hold the ill over till the right medical breakthrough is made. The same goes for most medical treatments that only relieve symptoms of diseases there are no cures for. Prevent as much pain as possible before the inevitable eventuality of death by sickness or a cure. And specie swapping is the best treatment yet, mind alterations aside.
Seeing all life exposed to magic is but a bonus whatever Blessing says.
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I like your characters in general. I think they are the strongest parts of your story and what keeps me coming back reading. Every character has a distinct personality and set of motivations that are both easy to understand and at times can go pretty deep into character development. There are all these characters that sometimes seem downright overpowered, but you manage to make them seem like regular people that you would meet in real life.
Sunset Blessing is one of the best developed and complex characters in the Pandemic universe since we have seen what all went into making her who she is as a pony and the things that motivate her. Phobia Remedy is an example of a character that seemed at first really dry but has turned into this kind of wise mentor figure for Jessie that even with knowing she is ridiculously op still seems vulnerable and relatable. Speaking of OP characters Wild Growth is extremely OP but her motivations and character are still so well fleshed out that it is hard to notice (and if it weren't for her occasional displays of power we could almost forget how powerful she actually is). Jessie has been a joy to watch from day 1 and I'm hoping this story isn't her final outing.