• Member Since 1st Jun, 2012
  • offline last seen Jan 11th, 2022

Norm De Plume


E

Starlight Glimmer must save her very much alive friend from being hauled away to the Promised Pastures. After all, Sunset Shimmer is not bereft of life, she is not pushing up the daisies, and she is not ringing down the curtain and joining the bleedin' choir invisible.

As a former student of Princess Twilight, Starlight's first instinct is to open a book.

Her second is to reach out for help.

Things get a bit complicated after that.

Entry for A Most Delightful Ponidex contest.

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 13 )

Good luck getting God to do an extradition.

10488826

Perhaps a nice Cultural Exchange! Come and see Horse Heaven.

Gotta love beurocracy and the loopholes they contain.

~Skeeter The Lurker

10489383
As Estee taught us, you find that rule the bureaucracy enforces without question, exploit it, then you get to negotiate.

Excellently written, but I feel like a little potential was missed somehow. Evergreen obviously has blind spots where alicorns and extradimensional beings are concerned. No proof is ever provided about whether Sunset Shimmer really is borrowing life-time from others- we only have Evergreen's word for it. Rather than confront the bureaucracy or attempt to fix it, the can is kicked down the road- and possibly not as far as the characters might think. And the biggest feature of the climax- that Evergreen is confronted mostly by human-world analogues and not ponies, without knowing or recognizing it- seems to fizzle. The plot point doesn't quite pay off, because the resolution would have come down the same way without it.

That said, the interaction and comparison/contrast between multiple ponidoxes is excellent- exactly the sort of thing this contest is about. Well done on characterization and subtle work.

Ri2

Something I'm concerned about is where Sunset goes when it's time for her to die. If her slot in the Pasture's taken by her human self, does that mean she's stuck in human heaven?

“How soon can I try it?”

There's a guest stream no one will ever forget.
:trixieshiftright: "GREETINGS, HU-MONS! CAN YOU ALL HEAR ME?"
"Trixie, you don't have to shout."
:trixieshiftleft: "HOW DO YOU EXPECT THEM TO HEAR TRIXIE THROUGH THEIR SERIES OF TUBES IF TRIXIE DOESN'T SHOUT?"

As far as long-term fates for Namepending Castle go, "convention center" is certainly one of the more viable ones.

Lyra (specialist in string theory)

Obviously. That lyre's not just for music if she kept up with Twilight and Moondancer at CSGU.

The deals get made when the two leaders sneak down to the kitchens late at night and get into the cake room.

The cake vaults would soon be remade into a burger bar, but the principle held.

Evergreen cocked her head to the side, pointing her hoof to count the ponies still in the room. Her horn glowed and a sheaf of index cards appeared in a fan in front of her.

Wait, does that mean she has one prepared for human Twilight?

You did great things for several years as a unicorn, but I see your file is no longer updating. I hope we can remedy that and keep you on a solid path to the Pastures.

Oh. Well. That just proves the system's fallibility, doesn't it?

His books from the Crystal Empire had all migrated to her own library in the castle.

That's how it starts. Next thing you know, he'll have a toothbrush in her bathroom.

Wait. What about my Sunnybun? He just texted me an hour ago!

Ah. That particular bomb hasn't detonated yet.

Uh, okay. She thinks you're all some kind of cute teaching game for kids.

"Also something about making sure your AI doesn't run rampant and try to upload all of humanity? I didn't really follow that part."

Princess Twilight had read her fellow royals' scrolls before sending them on and Starlight could see the fury in her mentor's hornwriting. Twilight had hoped for more, obviously, and wasn't pleased with the status quo.

Oh dear. The Ageless Archives will be lucky if they don't end up reorganized to within an inch of their afterlives when this is all over.

Human Starlight glared at the oversized rotary-dial phone sitting beside the saddlebag that used to be her purse.

At least it didn't turn into a massive tome containing the code of every app and file in the thing.

So... is no one going to say anything about the confirmation of a human afterlife? One that apparently predates that world's magical contamination? Seems like that'd be a big deal.

This was a fantastic study of multiple sets of analogues, along with being a gripping drama. Thank you for it, and best of luck in the judging.

10491623

Thanks, FoME. I probably could have answered more of those questions, but it would have taken another five-ten thousand words to deal with the scope of my overall attempt.

10490128

It may end up being temporary. A sort of 'We need a Sunset Shimmer to stand in the gap long enough for us to fix the system' loophole. Now, if human Shimmer wants to stay a pony, then we've got a whole different story on our hooves.

Taking a bite of her cucumber, avocado and tomato, Sunset glanced aside at both Starlight and Trixie.

I know you're on the word limit, but surely you could find some other word to cut out. :derpytongue2:

This was an interesting concept, though I couldn't help but feel that the ponydox part was the less-critical half of this story. There are also a lot of questions to be asked about the details (you've added an entire afterlife, after all) and, ultimately, the plot (the story ended, but didn't really wrap anything up). I think, if you wanted to address everything while staying at or below 15k words, this might have been better off as two different stories.

Really, I guess that's the main thing I take issue with: I think you might have tried to do more than you could with the space you had. It's good, but kind of incomplete.

Very well paced for a talky fic. I like the idea of their afterlife being "good" and "wayward". Tartarus is just too empty for a world that has flims and flams in it.

I also wish there had been more resolution, but of course there was too much to cover everything. Maybe some missive about Luna continuing her appeal could have kept things exciting towards the end.

(left this open an old computer i just picked up again lol)

This needs a sequel or another chapter, they said that Twilight's file stopped updating and they need to figure out why so I would love for them to find out that Twilight Sparkle has cheated death.

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