Shining Armor had never seen this part of Canterlot Castle before. It had been so long since his experience in Equestrian leadership that this wasn't a terribly unexpected thing. That didn't make it any easier to pass through vast chambers that had not existed, filled with strange machines of metal and flashing lights with threads of plastic running between them.
Shining probably should have followed the changing state of Equestria more over the last few years. But the older he got, the less any of this made sense. His younger sister had reasons behind it all—reasons behind bringing him here. It was enough that Captain Gallus hadn't thought it necessary to escort him through the castle to his destination. For better or worse, Shining's name still meant something.
They'll be telling stories about the old gray stallion soon enough, if they haven't already started. But whatever might be waiting, Shining Armor wasn't old and feeble yet. He found the memorial hall Twilight had indicated, its somber length filled with statues of the dead. He lowered his head respectfully as he passed a few of them. Honored Leo the Bold, and Moire Pattern with one wing broken even in stony monument.
Soon I'll be one of these in the Crystal Empire. In another century, only my family will remember me.
At the end of the hall he stopped to fish around on the side of an empty grave, and found the indicated lever. Morbid, little sis. Stone ground on stone, and the passage opened for him.
At least everything was built for Alicorn sizes—the spiral staircase was high enough that there was no danger of scraping his horn against it. As he descended he reached a section without sides, opening into a vast space of multicolored crystals. Canterlot Caverns. We were bound to get down here eventually.
The room he arrived in was mostly empty though, with a pair of stone ponies holding spears to form a doorway between them. Their eyes glowed with spots of blue crystal, seeming to watch him as he passed underneath. He felt his fur stand on end as he walked through. He had never matched his sister's magical gifts, but he could sense a powerful defensive spell. The next generation of the shield he had invented so long ago.
Once through, Shining had to do a double-take, his mouth hanging open as he stared. Had his sister managed to work in a teleport so subtle he couldn't feel it?
On the other side of the guards was a laboratory as modern as the fancy photos he sometimes saw from new construction in Manehattan or the Empire, where thaumatech was advancing fastest. Princess Twilight had a miniature version of that, with a single piece of almost every kind of lab equipment he could name and many he didn't recognize.
One apparatus spun, another hummed and churned, microscopes displayed their contents, and beakers boiled. A two-dimensional grid of rolling whiteboards took up the far end of the room, covered so completely in spell diagrams that his eyes blurred them together beyond recognition.
There was only a single exit from the room, separated by a heavy steel blast door as secure as the one on Canterlot Tower. It was open currently, its rusty metal teeth gleaming in the electric lights.
"Big brother, you're here!" Twilight called, waving one hoof from beyond the door. "Over here!"
I am never going to get used to that. His little sister towered over him now, with wings as wide and mane as magical as Celestia. She held all the same responsibilities now, and maybe the same Alicorn magic. Shining was a little weak on his understanding of Imperial magic.
He couldn't hurry over without feeling his fetlocks begin to ache. He ignored it, biting his tongue to suppress the pain. Princess Twilight would be happiest if she never noticed.
His little sister was clearly excited about something, that much was obvious. But since when did she feel the need to share her magical innovations with an old guardspony who wouldn't appreciate them?
He clambered through the security door, noting the crystal stubs emerging from the walls. This wasn't some newly built vault to keep thieves out. All these spells pointed inward.
The chamber itself was a ritual casting circle, more advanced than any he'd ever seen. Six perfect obelisks of the six pure metals surrounded a perfectly flat lower platform. Huge conduits passed between them, along with more of those plastic threads.
Shining did not need his sister's mastery of magic to understand just how much power was flowing through this room. His horn began to ache as his own magical reserves charged from the stray power radiating all around him. With nowhere else to go, the magic would gradually build up into a migraine. Or worse, if a pony were trapped in here.
"Well this is... intense," he said, stopping in the doorway. That way he wouldn't have nearly as far to go when he inevitably made a break for it. "Thought my retirement was too boring even for me, Twily?"
The old nickname felt strange on his tongue when looking up at a creature as magical as his little sister. Her eyes seemed to look right through him, with a confidence and might that went beyond a horn and some wings.
But she wasn't the only one. Another pair of figures stood on the far side of the room, mostly concealed in the shadow of the iron obelisk. But hearing him, they both emerged, and Shining froze.
It was his wife and child.
Though the years had been harsh enough on him to turn his mane grayish and his limbs shriveled, his only child had aged like... every natural Alicorn. Of which she was the only one ever born, but that was beside the point. She looked to him like his little sister had, on the day she was coronated. Shorter than he was, with oversized wings.
His wife was somewhere between her old self and Twilight's current state. But without the magic of sun and moon within her, she'd grown more slowly. They suspected it would take at least a thousand years for her to look like Twilight. Not that it would matter much to Shining either way.
Is this the moment that she tells me it's too weird to be together? Not coming on that last cruise had seemed like a warning sign. But why would she show up with his little sister in a secret lab? Flurry had even less interest in magic than Cadance, and spent almost all of her time in the growing crystal pegasus cloud-city of Prism.
There was only one thing that could bring them all together like this, and it didn't have anything to do with his doomed marriage. "Equestria's in danger," he said, taking a few steps closer to the ring of obelisks. Down on the floor between them was a spell diagram, but not chalked onto the floor in the usual way.
This one was melted into shape, and looked to be made entirely of gold. If he had to guess, it was the same spell he'd seen prototyped on the whiteboard behind him.
"Not exactly," Twilight answered. His wife and daughter both started towards him, but the walkway outside the spell was narrow and neither wanted to go anywhere near it. They didn't move fast. "Though there's something to say for the mental health of its ruling class... and their nepotism. But we've saved Equestria so many times now. Just this once, I get to do something for my family."
That doesn't explain anything. He might've said so to his little sister—but Twilight was an Alicorn now, and the ruler of his whole world. It didn't feel right to make friendly quips with this goddess of endless youth and magic.
Flurry reached him first, gliding over to embrace him too tightly with her massive wings. "Daddy!" she called, her delight louder than the drone of Twilight's thaumic generators.
Thank Celestia you didn't stay a teenager forever. Fading before his children was a natural thing—all ponies went through it before the end. So long as Flurry continued to tolerate him, he could live with that. She had already grown into far more than he ever could've imagined.
"Hello sweetheart." He squirmed free, groaning slightly with the pain. Even when she tried her best, Flurry Heart's strength could be incredible.
"Honey." Cadance was stiffer, and only waved a polite hoof. "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you about this. But it didn't feel right to... get your hopes up, if we couldn't do it."
"That's the reality of research on the cutting edge of magical knowledge," Twilight said, before the silence could get any more awkward. "Today is a gamble too, but now we've gathered together enough data that I'm confident we'll succeed."
"Succeed at what?" He glanced nervously between the three of them, resting one hoof against his aching horn. "I don't have the magical endurance of an Alicorn, so I'd... rather not have much of this conversation in here. Could you tell me about your amazing new discoveries in the lab instead?"
Twilight shook her head, but it was Flurry who spoke first. "This is for you, Dad. You need to go down into the spell, not away from it."
Both the other two turned to glare at her. Flurry winced, ears flattening. But Shining had heard, and his expression grew more cautious. What did she mean?
"This is for me?" He glanced around the room, trying to make sense of any of it. This much magic bordered on the levels an Alicorn needed to raise the sun. It could lift a city up into the sky, or shield it from an invasion for months at a time. "Can't be. Whatever this is—I hate to say it twice, but I'm not an Alicorn. Even when I was young, all this would've been past me. Maybe my spells were stronger than most, but I couldn't reach much further than the rotes in my spellbook. I don't know what this is."
"That's exactly the reason we did this." Princess Cadance stepped towards him, reaching out with a single hoof. Even after all these years, he was still transfixed by her beauty. But while he had once been something of an equal to her, the years had withered him, while she only bloomed brighter than ever.
He twitched reflexively away from her, but managed to hide his shame. He thought.
"If we don't do anything, you're going to keep going like this. We'll lose you... we can't let that happen."
What? He turned away from her, towards where Twilight had taken up position beside a single control panel. It used one of those strange new hoof-twisting devices, clicking with each change she made. "Everypony who ever lived probably wishes that," he said ruefully. "But there aren't very many stories where the ones looking for immortality find it."
"True." Twilight didn't stop what she was doing. As she moved her hooves, the floor in the center of the room pivoted and rotated slowly, moving the glowing obelisks with it. "But that doesn't mean aging is a secured, immovable point. Every pony it takes is something precious lost forever.
"One day, as our understanding of magic grows more advanced, I imagine a future where no pony dies who does not wish to."
"But we couldn't wait that long," Flurry added, popping up beside him again. At least someone wasn't treating him like an unsteady crystal goblet about to fall over. "That's why Twilight has been figuring out a way to make you into an Alicorn princess!"
Shining chuckled in response, patting his daughter lightly on the shoulders. "I don't want to sound like I don't appreciate the sentiment, sweetheart. But that isn't—"
The others weren't laughing too. Cadance and Twilight both looked deadly serious. He went on, "I've been around long enough to know that Alicorns don't work like that. They're chosen by harmony as much as made. It's fate and destiny and stuff. If it were easy, ponies like Sunset Shimmer wouldn't have rebelled."
"Nopony said it was easy," Twilight said, a little of her more familiar sarcasm returning. "Does this room look easy? I had Starswirl's magnum opus as a starting point, and it still took the spare time of the last decade to work all this out. Then there was sourcing the raw materials, and the digital models..."
"It's real, Shiny." Cadance met his eyes, expression deadly serious. "Your sister figured out a way to keep our family together."
He glanced between them, taking in the scope of the spell for the first time. It was for him. A decade of work, for me? As the ruler of Equestria, Twilight could not have much spare time. But instead of seducing suitors or traveling the world or just reading all the fiction written in Equestria, she'd built all this.
"Flurry's right?" he asked. "I walk down into that thing, and walk out an Alicorn? Is that... fair? I have to assume we can't cast this spell very often. If we're going to make somepony immortal, why not someone who matters more? What about that apprentice of yours, Twilight? Give her my spot."
"Starlight? She made herself into a lich years ago, this spell wouldn't work on her."
Before Twilight could say more, or even explain what a lich was, Cadance advanced on him, backing him up against the cavern wall. "We didn't make this for just anypony. You heard your sister—one day, we'll be able to help everyone. But being an Alicorn is more than that.
"It's the selflessness to serve something more. To care about your subjects, to give them hope when there's none left. Shiny, you've been that for me for almost half a century now. This spell is ours to give to you, nobody else."
Shining opened his mouth to argue—then fell silent. He knew that face, his wife wasn't interested in an argument. Besides, as terrifying as the spell was, it was an opportunity. The kind of thing most ponies could only dream of.
I didn't ask for this, I don't have to feel guilty for accepting it. "So ponies were wrong about Alicorns and destiny? All I have to do is walk into the spell and... I walk out immortal? Hopefully... not looking like this for all eternity." He held out one shriveled limb, wincing. "It's harder and harder to look noble for the royal portraits with so many wrinkles."
Twilight winced. "Well, there's... good and bad news for you there, Shining. It's... the reason we're having this conversation, and we didn't just cast the spell. Being able to age isn't something I would consider important to your identity. But becoming an Alicorn princess is more than just agelessness."
"More than just..." He froze, glancing between Twilight and Flurry. That was the second time someone had used that particular description. In Twilight's modern, friendlier Equestria, she even took the time to use inclusive language towards stallions. "What exactly are you asking me to do?"
Now it was the mighty Alicorn struggling to meet his eyes, instead of the other way around. "The magical realities of Alicorns are... complex. It's possible that with more research, I'll understand them better. But we don't have time for that. This spell requires immense strength from the recipient as well as the casters. If we waited much longer..." She didn't finish, but she didn't have to. Shining could read the implication in that silence.
"Alicorns are always female," Twilight said. "When I was researching the history of everyone Equestria has any rumors of... I learned that has always been the case, even for the natural ones. That never meant that the pool of candidates was half as large as it should've been—it meant that those who chose this path sometimes left more of themselves behind than others."
His mouth nearly hit the floor. For a few seconds Shining was momentarily distracted with speculation, imagining which of the ancient Alicorns of myth and story had once been stallions. He couldn't quite figure out if the story were empowering or insulting, but if it was true then it didn’t matter either way.
"How is..." It was his turn to reach over to Cadance, wrapping one arm around her shoulder. She held him there, without flinching at the touch of his old, feeble body. "Is that much better than me being dead? I wouldn't be the same pony anymore. How could you... still love me?"
Even asking that much was a struggle, with both his daughter and his sister here to watch. But if his whole life were about to be rewritten, he couldn't afford to shy away from the most important question.
Cadance was crying now, though he couldn't tell if they were tears of sadness or joy. "Oh, Shiny... do you think it would make a difference to me? I'm the princess of love, and I love you. I don't know if the same will be true for you—but if it is, then I'm prepared to honor the oath I made half a century ago. I'll love the new you just as much as the old."
"Me too!" Flurry added, nuzzling up beside him. "I don't wanna be mean about it, but there was so much we couldn't do together! Once you're an Alicorn, I can show you what Prism is really like! No more peeking at it from balloons and creeping around with a cloudwalking spell. We've done amazing things up there!"
"I'm sure you have." He leaned up, kissing Cadance for perhaps the last time. Certainly the last time looking like himself, anyway. There were plenty of unanswered questions, and fears for what his elevation would do to Equestria. But Twilight was much smarter than he was—if she'd gone this far, she would've thought of all that.
"Alright." He turned back towards the spell. "I'm going to stop asking questions before I run away or the magic in here explodes my head. Let's just... do this. Before I change my mind."
And so begins the co-reign of Gleaming Shield.
Hour of Twilight has lent an unsettling air to this more advanced Canterlot...
And that isn't helping.
I am not even remotely surprised. Sunset's probably devised a magically enhanced CelestAI or similar entity in the human world with Sci-Twi at this point.
(Mind you, I am somewhat surprised Shining doesn't know what a lich is. Someone introduced Spike to Ogres & Oubliettes, after all.)
And so begins what's sure to be a strange acclimation process for Shining. And that's saying nothing of the public reaction. I doubt he'll be the only one raising questions of fairness. Heck, Twilight has at least five other candidates of her own who may have opinions on the matter. This one's sure to be interesting. Looking forward to more.
This gives me Friendship is Optimal vibes.
I've noticed that magitech crystals are common in your fanfics. I like the idea of advancements in magic.
Do you want Message in a Bottle? Because this is how you get Message in a Bottle.
Dude, come on that’s just not cool. Turning Shining into female? Never been a fan of these kinds of stories. I understand if you have some sort of fetish for these kinds of things and that’s cool because this is fantasy and all, but still just my imo. I’d rather rot than ever even come close to thinking about changing sex
10440636
i dont get that refrence. can you elaborate?
Interesting.
10440665
It's a reference to another one of Starscribe's stories, Message in a Bottle.
10440680
thx
I'm really looking forward to this. I like non-clop Gleaming Shield stories a lot.
Leo the Bold? Is this in continuity with MLA?
You had my curiosity, now you have my attention.
Great job on this introduction, I'll be following this story.
Thank you.
so now another one to add to my favourites good job
All these new Gleaming stories are making me very happy. I am ready for this ride!
10440887
Eh. I don't value my biological parts very highly. I find immortality a lot more compelling.
To each their own though.
"We're going to make you immortal by turning your ass into an alicorn...an assicorn, if you will."
Surprised that Twilight didn't get Sunset in on it and do it in half the time. It's not like she'd turn down the benefits.
I'm sorry to be one of those... but what is with these fics where someone gets their gender changed just to serve a gimmick for the story's plot line?
Now, I have nothing against Transgenders, but what you're doing here... it feels like blackmail! To have someone make a choice between dying or making such a fundamental change to their being to continue to be with their family? Yes, I would want to be with my family for as long as I could, but having to sacrifice a part of my being and my identity, it isn't fair. It may seem like a no-contest sort of decision from a certain perspective but in the long run, it most certainly is not. Sure, you could learn to live with the choice you've made (or die with it), but changing yourself just to spare yourself or your loved ones the pain of death isn't selfless.
It's like denying a part of who you are and trying your hardest to prove otherwise, like a man who lives to prove himself a man by becoming some epitome of masculinity and raising a family... but in truth he is a woman in a man's body and all the efforts he strives to prove otherwise only causes him pain, misery, confusion, until finally he throws away everything he strove for to be the woman she knows she really is
I also read a fic not too long ago where the writer did something similar where a male child wound up in a female body and completely ignored the confusion and transition of the boy's fundamental change into a girl for the sake of moving the story forward. A lot of other readers commented on this and found the story lacking in this way
I say if a character is going to have their gender changed it should be for a reason that is right for the person themselves, not just to make someone else happy. Yes, this fic is about Shining Armor changing his gender to continue living with his family, but that sort of change isn't the kind you make for family, it's the kind you make for yourself
10441078
Life isn't fair.
10441095
No, it isn't. That's just what makes this concept and the circumstances surrounding it even more distasteful to me
10441078
I dare you to find a single husband, father and brother that truly loves his wife, daughter and sister and would make them watch him wither and die before getting rid of his dick.
Or, in a less conflicting tone, it's absolutely something you do for your loved ones when you're dying.
Yes, disphoria is real and serious, but it's not a young person establishing their sense of self and identity in a body they can't recognize as theirs, it's an adult - old man really, with all the mentioned wrinkles and retirement - that is much more than his gender, already used to a body that's not what he once was, for he already felt the weight of time, being offered the chance to be young again, to live beside his wife and daughter, for the price of something that he was already losing. When you're 80 (barring exceptional exceptions) your gender doesn't matter for shit, things simply don't work anymore and if what's between your legs is still so important for your identity then you have bigger problems.
To be fair the entire premise seems to be the conflict that will arise from that, how changing genders is not so simple, specially when it makes you young again. If it is ignored then I'd agree with you that it might be gratuitous, although I severely doubt it - it has never been ignored in Starscribe' stories before.
This is the funniest. God. Damn. Line. Like, literally left me giggling like a fool. Thank you.
This is getting a follow.
10441095
ah yes the most airtight argument ever conceived, it stands on its own against any argument
Like the story so far! The comments here are a bit... heated... so word to the wise for anyone who sees this comment but maybe stay away from the comments for a bit and just enjoy the story?
No offense meant to the comments below or possibly above me! It just seems to me like there’s a little too much vitriol here in the comments for a nice story like this...
So this is one of those Universes where male alicorns are impossible because the plot demands it.
Not interested.
Great Faust, if an O&O player needs that explained, old age has taken a terrible toll.
A tricky concept. Zutcha has done a stellar job on the cover art here, as always. The idea of alicorns always being female is an obvious one on the face of it, but it's one I've surprisingly never seen done before. I wonder whether Shining will attempt to modify his new body to the extent he is able to, or if they will find that gender is more fluid for them than they'd always thought.
Hm. I'm not sure the second cutie mark is identical to the first one. Its center is hidden under a wing.
10441422
Given this world has actual magic maybe O&O is legally required to play down or exclude any of the more powerful Dark Magic beings lest they encourage an era of dorky necromancers and warlocks.
10441238
Twilight gets a call of there being an emergency at the School of Friendship. All the illusions powered by Starlight to make herself visually palatable to her student body have failed and now there’s a horde of screaming traumatised students tearing through Ponyville in their desperate attempt to escape Starlights grotesque form.
I can see where Shining Armor and the rest of his family would want to do this. However, I'm sure that Shining Armor will have some degree of dysphoria afterward and be find the new body uncomfortable unless they do some sort of mind magic to alter his sense of self. Still, if they do that, they change him into another person altogether from the one they know.
Also to note, contrary to popular belief, dysphoria levels can vary by person in people who are transgender (which is what they are making him- male mind in a biological female body. For some it is a constant cause of severe anxiety that can interfere with their ability to function or be happy at all. For others it is more a nagging sense of not being right that is regular, but leaves them still functional and able to still be happy many days (although periodic depression may happen)-- although this second one's dysphoria can get worse with time.
My thoughts are the ability to be young again might initially ease any dysphoria Shining Armor has, but interactions with others that see him as female (up to and including his own family) might quickly worsen it. I can imagine a scenario right away where Flurry Heart stops calling him Daddy since he seems to be a mare her age. That's a double emotional blow to his sense of self- to his identity as a male and his identity as Flurry's father.
10441026
Sunset isn't a mare with a lot of patience, I'd argue that while she's more mature and experienced than say... Starlight, she's definitely just as impulsive as Starlight. Chances are she'd jump the gun too early and ruin everything.
Intresting
A new life awaits. Shining might not like it at first but after a few centuries and her first identity will feel very alien to her.
Can't say this will be done with complete selflessness. And even if it will eventually be disseminated to the public, I can't imagine a world running smoothly with a nation full of immortals or its extreme, everyone. This is unknown territory.
This reminds me of the "Last Pony on Earth" stories. Alex's (An immortal) relationship with her mortal partner didn't last in the end and that was a normal decades long relationship. People change over time and when we're talking centuries, the magic isn't likely to last into forever.
Nice.
Thinking about it while reading this chapter, I came to the conclusion that immortal, deity-class body at the cost of a gender swap is a choice I'd make. I've never felt particularly trans, but an eternity of not being dead is a high selling point. And with magic, the gender swap may eventually be reversible with enough time spent on the problem.
Hi, so I think this is one of the first stories of yours I've read. The premise looked very interesting, and I love stories that tackle positive sides of immortality and the wonderful romance Shiny and Cady have. But one chapter in and this story is both nonsensical and horrific to me. Please don't think this means I hate your writing. You clearly are a good writer, but this has to be one of the most horrific concepts I've seen in a pony story played off as positive. I will not downvote your story, but I can't give it an upvote either. Anyone who doesn't want the story spoiled should not read further.
10441078 I really have to agree with this concept here. You establish that alicorns, be they born that way or otherwise, are creatures of harmony and good, and that there is no wrong way to be one aside from the moral element. This establishes an element of diversity for them and that their component is rooted solely in the moral. As such, there is no reason for them to be female alone. They are made in morality, and morality has nothing to do with your gender or whether you had to transition to get there. Having Shining Amor, a male character, be forced to undergo a sex change as part of a transformation into a being of higher morality then becomes a concept that is both logically inconsistent and incredibly sexist. It becomes even more bizarre in-universe when you have it said that the pool of alicorns that could be researched in history was a) small overall and b) scattered throughout different ages. This makes the idea of a male alicorn being (supposedly) impossible come into question and seem like bad story planning outside-of-universe.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with a character wanting to be immortal or for that to require a challenge, but this is the wrong approach to have. As a transgender man, the idea that to stay with my loved ones would require me to be forced (and possibly remain) in a female body would be both traumatic and literal torture. To put a character, who as far as we know is a cisgender stallion, into a female form and force him to 'adjust' that way is abusive. Shining Armor is apparently male, and while Cady being accepting (or bi) is fine, forcing a character to give up a fundamental aspect of who they are in order to torture them this way is frankly a very fucked up and depressing concept. If Shining Armor had to have a female form and struggle to re-transition back to male (thus going from cis guy to trans guy) I could understand this story and be more interested in it. You don't appear to be going that direction, though. Instead, I'm getting the impression that the pinnacle of morality is female (both in sex and gender) for no realistic reason and that our protagonist is going to be forced into a very devastating existence at the cost of who they are. As both a writer and a trans person, this is a situation that is really frightening to imagine. Shining's misery over being taken from his wife and family is being substituted for making him miserable as a mare, since changing his sex would not change his gender... and changing his gender would literally be fucking with his brain, and thus Shining's core self, which is an inherently dark and cruel concept.
Unless, of course, Shining Armor is a transgender mare who hasn't realized it after all these years. But at this point, would it really have hurt to make the situation not horrific and consensual? Because what I'm reading is an absolute nightmare and comes across as coercion with a much more abstract threat.
I rarely ever would quit a story after one chapter, but I think this is going to have to be one of them.
10440651
Though this person didn't go very in depth with their comment, even they were able to show that having Shining Armor change sex is effectively pointless. In a way, this story comes across as a kind of trans-misery fetishistic piece because of the circumstances described above.
10441106 As I read this comment here, I had to cringe. Like, a lot. For someone who acknowledges that dysphoria is real and serious and that spouses can make sacrifices for their family, I don't think you really get it. Aside from it being unhealthy to have to fundamentally sacrifice yourself (a mark of abusive relationships), this sex-change situation is a really horrible one. It's purposely giving the character a mental condition (gender dysphoria) that is treatable but not curable. If only female alicorns can exist, then there are two implications: a) the change is sexual only or b) sex-and-gender, in which case, horrible mind control. The situation is more shades of black than black and white.
As a trans man, if I were in this situation where I was offered immortality via being a female moral beacon or dying as myself eventually, the first would be a life of torture. Why would I want to live forever without being able to take the medical treatment I need (HRT), enduring horrible dissociation, and unable to enjoy my life? This has nothing to do with immortal-mortal angst, literally why would I want to live forever if the only way immortality could be granted to me was to torture me? And just because I had a satisfactory "taste" of true life as a guy? If Shining gets the chance to live forever, he needs to be focused on how he wants to spend that forever. That would be his true life. And having to spend that entombed in the body of a female as a guy is like electing to give someone who is at the verge of suicide an immortal state to force them to live without the treatment to help them want to live. It becomes needlessly, pointlessly, and helplessly cruel.
You still seem to chalk up things to "so what if he doesn't have a dick any more?" as if that's all there is to the situation. Last time I checked, there was far more to being male than having a dick/wanting a dick/whatever. Gender does matter, and I understand if that's not a conflict you have ever had, but to not understand why this is a good plot/situation because of the gender elements is coming across as willingly ignorant.
Yeah, so males can't become alicorns because... reasons? Is the implication that females are just naturally more harmonious or superior in some way? Or that males are somehow... deficient? So now it's not enough to be a paragon of virtue, have incredible magical ability, or to literally create new magic, you also have to happen to have been born with a certain set of genitalia?
Apparent sexism aside, it just feels contrived as hell. I know, I know, when you write the story, you control the rules of the world. But this just feels... lazy? Reaching? I don't know. Either way, gonna be a pass for me. But hey, others seem to really dig it, so congrats and best of luck!
10441913
Huh, I had no idea you were trans, dude.
10441548
This feels like a comedy story that needs to be written.
10442093
Maybe they’re like calicos, in that the genes that make an alicorn an alicorn are somehow tied to the XX configuration
10440651
Truthfully, I find this a little sweet. Yes Shining will sacrifice his gender but he will be able to live with his family, to see his daughter grow to a fine adult and possibly grow old with his wife. Doing this he will also spare his family, his daughter, the pain of seeing him die and living in a world without him. So this is very sweet.
Speaking of, wonder what happened to Sunset in this story. Starlight became a lich apparently so what happened to her?
It's funny because I feel like this would be entirely in character for Starlight. She didn't feel like dying, so why not?
Shining: "Uhm, will princess only be a title or did you mean that literally?"
What about "traveling the world while reading (fan)fiction written by suitors trying to seduce her"?
That would be an interesting story of its own.
(And what had Sunset Shimmer been up to lately?)
And if Twi is able to come up with an spell like this she surely will be able to invent an futa spell for him...
10444228
Starlight: "You can't die when you are already dead. Take that, pale horse!"
It's the Norse word for "one's physical body" that got coopted by fantasy literature into a monster, silly Shiny.
One grotesque human arm jutting from his body. Age does terrible things.
10441300
Oh yes, because the fact that life isn't fair is so irrelevant to the practice of storytelling. Who of us doesn't remember fondly how Obi-Wan narrowly survived his duel with Darth Vader and escaped the Death Star on the Millennium Falcon with the rest of the heroes?
10441099
At least Wolven is replying with a substantive argument about the storytelling, that it is unfair in a way that feels contrived or cruel to him.
Not sure if I am reading him right, but he is either objecting to the idea that there is no such thing as an alicorn stallion (how I first interpreted him) or to Twi and Cadance and Flurry as cruel and OOC for offering him the choice (although calling it "blackmail", as he does in 10441078, seems a little intemperate).
On the other hand, both of these are subjective:
Personally, having seen so many stories accepting the headcanon that all alicorns are female, or playing with the idea in various ways, it feels less contrived to me. Also, it helps that I have been exposed to the grotesquely contrived unfairness of "The Cold Equations". After that, almost no writing decision feels like blackmail.
Likewise, not everyone has a gender identity as firmly fixed or as absolutely central to their identity as Wolven implies (at least he understands that many people have gender identities that do not match their bodies). The idea of turning female in order to become an immortal goddess is nowhere near as conceptually horrifying to me (at least on gender identity grounds; I would have way more pressing concerns, like the fact that the term "immortal" can have some really sadistic monkey's-paw interpretations). So, maybe I am an outlier in this, but I don't think that it is inherently cruel to offer such a choice.
I do recognise that there are people (even just among cisgender people) whose sense of identity is more strongly bound up with their gender identity, And the choice would therefore be a lot more difficult if Shining was such a stallion, though even then I wouldn't go so far as to say it would feel like blackmail (at least in-universe; remember, to him, the alicorn=female rule is an apparently unchangeable fact and he presumably trusts Twilight not to lie about this or turn him into a mare without good reason), just that it would be a difficult and life-changing choice.
On the other hand, if the Bushmaster "man card" ads convinced you that you needed an assault rifle, the choice on offer in this story probably would feel like blackmail. And if we had reason to believe that Shining was this kind of stallion, then it would definitely be cruel to present him with this choice. (Honestly, I cannot imagine being so insecure about the risk of someone I've never met and who has never even heard of me perceiving me as not really a man, or falling for such a blatantly manipulative ad that it might as well have started with the words "not clickbait".)
10441553
Either that or the lichification didn't take at first, so they thought she was dead and mistakenly buried her.
(This happened to Rarity in the Wight arc of My Little Monster Girl)