Every action taken is like dropping a pebble in a pond, creating ripples that extend ever outward. Every choice has consequences, good and bad... Putting on a Crown may have changed Sunset Shimmer's life...but it also Changed two worlds...
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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I love how the entire school is prepping for magical war. My favorite part was setting up all the hidden dead drops for supplies in case of a sudden attack.
look out cinch, the nobody school will finally get their win and won't hesitate in countering your bullshit.
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Welcome to the story! I'm glad you're enjoying it so far!
I might be biased, but I think it gets better as it goes. :P Something about becoming more invested, probably.
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*giggle snort* Oh, thats not the payoff. That's the beginning. :P The payoff is....quite some ways out. :}
Still, II'm glad you thought it was adorable and sweet.
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Characters are people too, major and minor. One of the things I'm big on is shaping characters to feel like people, not cardboard cutouts. People have quirks. They have fears. Dreams. Flaws. They have things that make them unique people. Histories. Psychology. And for us here in the Rubicon Writing Room, that kind of stuff is what we speculate about in our free time. We debate. We flesh out anecdotes. Many of the sidestories are born from that. We've even done work on stuff like culture--to the point of designing funeral rites for the various Equestrian Cultures that have historical and magical significance. So I'm glad that readers enjoy the details, even if those details are about minor characters with limited facetime.
Its that same thing that is the reason the psychology of the non-human characters is such a strong point. I've learned from interacting with people from all kinds of places in the world that even among our OWN species, cultures can be almost incomprehensible to outsiders. Even other people who speak the same language can be confusing and alien sometimes. (My co-writer/editor/beta-reader is from New Zealand, while I'm a military brat from the USA, and we've had extensive conversations where we've had to go over some pretty glaring cultural differences between her country and mine.) With the added layer of different anatomy, biology, gender dynamics, and spiritual practices, the characters shouldn't feel like "Humans in a fursuit." Sunset was not born human. She wasn't raised human. She's acclimated, yes, she can survive, and to an extent, blend well enough to not stick out like a sore thumb, but she is not and will never be the same as someone born and raised human. Just like you can move to another country and live there for years, but never be the same as a native member of the culture. Its just...a thing.
As for things like the Sirens...there's reasons why they were so monstrous, beyond just their morality and mentality not being human. Freely spoken, they had an origin that affected them. As for Cinch and their Master....Yeah. The Fair Folk do not ascribe to human moral codes and values. The old legends are full of tales about that. They aren't us. And sometimes, those things are just...not compatible.
Sunset and Twilight are a solid pairing--I'm not usually a shipper, but these girls have chemistry even without my help. Its all over the canon EqG stuff, with this amazing interpersonal dynamic that...almost sits apart from the rest of the group. They have so much 1 on 1 bonding, and all the little subtle cues do well to illustrate that even in a crowd of 7, they have formed a group of two. So letting them have a little bit of that here is probably the easiest part of writing the story--and hands down, my favorite part. Its like a straight serotonin injection, and boy has it done a lot for me over the last few years.
The second favorite part of the story really is just all the interpersonal relationships that have devloped in the writing, and how they really influence the characters. Sunset's relationships with her girlfriend's family in particular, has proven key to so much of her development as a person, helping her step away from being the bitter, broken, angry wretch that was smoking at the bottom of a crater on a chilly october night. The girls are great, and they've shown Sunset friendship and a place in a group, but Twilight and her family? Theyre giving Sunset a family. Showing her how a loving family behaves, how they treat each other. What UNCONDITIONAL LOVE looks like.
And that's important.
Enough rambling from me, though. Enjoy the rest of the story that's up so far! Updates are usually between Thurday evening and Friday afternoon, though I'll be taking a hiatus for the holidays. There's also a mess of sidestories connected to Rubicon, feel free to browse them.
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Why....yes. Lyra did go to CPA for her freshman year, before transferring out to CHS. Twilight knows she transferred, but she isn't great at social communication sometimes, and hasnt kept touch much on social media. It probably hasn't dawned on her that Lyra goes to CHS since there are several public schools in the city.
Believe it or not, the reason for the transfer was much more mundane. Lyra's parents divorced, and she and her mom moved to a smaller, cheaper location outside of the city proper. That meant she was no longer in walking distance of CPA, and also couldn't afford the pricetag of a really exclusive private school (Those things have five digit price tags, FYI, annually.) Public school is saving her mother a buttload of money yearly.
...as for Lyra's thoughts on Princess Twilight versus Human Twilight, well....You are talking about the girl who believes in ghosts, bigfoot, and alien abductions. Next to that "weird doppelganger" is...pretty prosaic. :P Cryptozoology is a weird field, and Lyra's the kind of girl to have read through the entire 000 section of the library.
It'll certainly make the Friendship Games interesting.
I think this is the perfect song to listen to while reading this chapter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq8j82apnc8
I have the sinking feeling this is going to end up going very, very badly.
On the plus side, Cinch is not going to see this coming.
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Oh, they will be very much indeed. (And yeah, those private school price tags are no joke, I attended both private elementary and high schools, though mine were religiously affiliated)
Sweet Celestia, this interlude was a riot! Students and staff certainly aren't taking it lying down. Bonbon certainly makes a good point on how full Sunset's plate is and that she's not to be underestimated. I mean, how could you go wrong with being trained in magic by an immortal goddess? (Though given the differences between Twilight and Sunset...)
Interesting choice to make Celestia and Luna Christian (specifically Catholic, I believe), though given they come from an old European family, It makes sense. I'm kinda curious to know how devoted they are, as magic is very real in their world even if (to their knowledge) it comes from another world, and witchcraft and sorcery are kinda prohibited. Then again, they're not practicing it and they might not be ones to impress their faith on others.
I can see this going very poorly. False confidence in the face of a foe that exists on a level you do not understand can lead to disaster. I'm just worried about what'll happen when the shadow fae come knocking.
I could do a big long speech thing about this that or the other, but the chapter was pointedly straightforward, so I'll merely leave us all with this:
yep this Game is gonna get even stranger than canon. Nice fun interlude chapter.
GRANNY SMITH WITH A GUN
GRANNY SMITH WITH A GUN
BOTTOMER TEXT
Another glorious Chapter.
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The students are ready for trouble.
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Mmm. Cinch does not have any idea.
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I like how people are already readying battle music.
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Oh, I'm sure it'll be an absolute clusterfuck. But for whom?
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Yeah, they are not an easy thing to do. Thats a lot of money every year for just one student, and some of the more expensive ones apparently get close to $30-$50K a year. Thats as much as some people pay for a car...and certainly more than my spouse makes in a year.
Mmm. The students and staff are not ignorant any more and they aren't going to bury their heads in the sand, most of them. Whether it does any good remains to be seen. Nor should Sunset be underestimated--this world is used to seeing her as a teenager, but under the teenager is a sorceress who mentioned at one point setting records at a prestigious magical academy, and was personal student to a goddess. Yes, she's a bit different than Princess Twilight, but Sunset is good at things that Bookhorse is not--in a way, Sunset (whose mind is like an engineer's and not a theoretical physicist) is uniquely suited to learning a brand new form of magic and figuring out how to make it work.
Honestly, it was a natural extrapolation of their name. Luna and Celestia are both Latin in origin, and the way we've done names is that because you cant tell at a physical glance what "group" someone belongs to, (what with the rainbow skin tones that have a randomness to them), the next likelihood was something that tied a "group" together. In this case, we went with language, because even dialects of the same language can be extremely distinct. In the more modern era, many people use language to remind them of their family's roots, just like how one can usually pick out some of a person's genetic background through surnames. (Cadence, like Luna and Celestia, for example, has heritage from Italy that is still reasonably "generationally" recent.) From that basic point (Latin Names), you get Italian heritage being likely. And most Italians are at least casual Catholics. (My mother was raised Catholic, for example. Even went to a Catholic high school. Though if you ask her these days shes a "recovering Catholic." haha.)
As for Catholics and magic...I always like to laugh and remind people that the largest Magical Library in the world is in Vatican City. On a more serious note, the way we imagine it, Celestia and Luna's parents were more about the spirit of their faith than the doctrine, something they passed to their daughters. Luna hasnt been, as noted, since their funeral, and Celestia goes but is a quiet and unassuming member of the congregation, who keeps her faith private. In this case, they've seen magic used to hurt and to help, learned that "there are more things in heaven and earth than dreamt of in your philosophy," and at the end of the day, teenagers are still children and you don't hurt kids. Besides, neither one is the best at following the doctrine of their religion--Luna's queer, and Celestia has....some interesting points in her history. Just like real people, its complicated.
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I do fully suspect it will all go to Hell in a handbasket. But who knows. Maybe it wont.
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Well chosen, sirrah. I do so enjoy that people are making up battle soundtracks already.
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*cackles evilly* oh you have noooooooo idea...
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Granny gonna fuck you up, haha.
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>:}
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I wouldn't call it battle music, it's more like prepping for a battle music.
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Iaynot be musically gifted, but I am quite musically jncl8ned. You give me a scene, I can usually give you some music for it.
Just how the old braincase of mine works.
I see I wasn't the only one who felt like there needed to be montage music to the background of this. Cranky being a monster hunter AND found the secret from turning back the clock? That was a surprise. Also, paracord wrap handle in an excellent, fast choice for a grip.
Hope Will took the time to study things and those spikes he found are iron and not aluminum or something. Or he just went with it because of his name.
Steel might, might, work. But Iron is what the old tails say. Well that or Silver, but I'm hoping for Iron as we are dealing with fey.
Granny with rock salt shot is lovely. Seems she remembers the old tails too, if I took what Bloom was doing with those seeds right.
The green hands with chewed nails though, I cannot place that one. Wildflower is screwing with Twi, and Lyra was busting Cranky's balls. She sounds like a teacher but...
Cranky himself is an interesting man. He has had one heck of a life, two really. So I can understand why he is so hesitant. But what scares me is what happens if one of his kids gets hurt in front of him. Man like that? Either locks up in his own head or, and the more likely in this case, shows you why you fear the old man in a profession that most die young in.
100+ year old Cranky getting angry could well make Demon Sunset look cuddly.
I finally caught all the way up and good lord is this quite a wall to hit. I'm absolutely hooked on this and incredibly eager to see where things go from here.
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Either way, I'm strangely comfortable with it, lol
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Whooo! Playlists! :P (to be fair I have an entire writing playlist for Rubicon, haha.)
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I hinted before that Cranky was more than he appeared.
And yes. Paracord makes amazing knife grips. My favorite utility knife is that black-coated steel that the military is fond of for things like knives and utility tools, the whole thing one piece, and to create the handle they wrapped below the crosspiece in paracord. It is, to this day, the most effective and useful knife I've ever owned. Even the sheathe for it is that OD Green heavy canvas that they make the duffles and field packs out of.
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Iron. He chose Iron. Aluminum is too soft anyway. Though steel is technically iron with a bit of carbon (and I believe chromium if its stainless.) Although in this case, the point isn't penetration anyway. Its him adding an extra ten pounds or more to a 20-25lbs sledge hammer. Fae or not, if seven feet of ex-military and linebacker homerun swings 35lbs of spiked metal into you as hard as possible...you WILL notice. There's a couple of characters in the story who could tank that, but skinny, half starved Irish Faery nobles are not on the list.
Granny didn't live this long being anyone's fool. And old families who hold tight to tradition often do pass down old stories and superstitions.
Green hands was no one in particular. Some of them were just background NPCs to fill out the roster--The way we have the combined campus of CHS/CMS is that all totaled, there's between 700-1000 (based around the population numbers of a few schools in my area of similar size and configuration to the CHS building) students over 7 grade levels in any given year. Thats a lot more than the hundred or so we know with names. That also means more teachers we dont know, as we only know in the show...like 4 teachers. Plus the principals.
Let's just say old man Cranky is more of a threat than he appears if he's prepared.
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:} Glad you're enjoying! Updates are usually once a week, between thursday evening and Friday afternoon, depending on my life. I will be going on a brief hiatus for the holiday season, but it will start up again after the first of the year.
Okay so... i was listening to some music while reading this chapter, and the lyrics may not match but i was going absoully giddy as the theme was just perfect for this, the somber tone of the song playing while everyone prepares ahhhhh it was flipping AWESOME!!!
Also sorry if anyone already made a similar comment but i just had to share.... fricken chills at how well it seemed to fit in my mind.
oh my god
of all the characters to be pulled into a magic mess, would not have expected him!
grant me the power to bring the world revolution!
oh my god every magically inclined person in the entire town knows something is going down, they're just not sure what
oh hell yeah
cinch and co won't know what hit them
Finally hearing from cranky again