“among us.”

Neighsay sus

Definitely unbiased new muhfic chapter

10823206
Get out of my head

Luna stiffened. Ancient rights of conquest, not ancestral homeland. Had they truly not forgotten, after all these years? Of course not. The Night Guard had boasted often of their families’ martial heritage, or of how they’d kept “the old ways” alive through the generations. But to see those “old ways'' turned into a rallying cry for an extremist group… Luna shook her head. It would be for the historians to count the ways Equestria was still paying for Luna’s mistakes. If she tried, she would never be able to stop, and she would never be able to heal those wounds.

Wouldn't they stop if they saw Luna?

“She is. But… she’s also not. You would have to have been around her for a long time. There’s so many sides to her. There’s the pony, the princess, the moon…” Selenite trailed off.

Reference to Lunar Empire tree

Great chapter waiting for more

Too tired to really elaborate on it, but you did a great job making Blueblood and fuckhead unlikeable, if realistic, reactionaries. Anti-democratic inbred assholes.

She trailed off, seeing that Luna wasn’t paying attention. She’d walked into the kitchen and gotten herself a pineapple from the minifridge in their suite. Then she started mozying back towards her room, taking a bite of the pineapple as she went.

Like, with the skin? Luna, my girl, you need some help.

Rarity barged into her room.

Sometimes a healthy amount of familiarity and defiance of decorum is all you need.

“Twilight doesn’t know the first thing about drama!” Rarity exclaimed, “She always tries to make rules, rules, rules, but it’s all about context, dear: context and presentation! At a press conference, shouting will get you nowhere, but at a riot? Darling, a little bit of divine wrath was exactly what was called for. Oh the way you punctuated your excoriations with that thunderclap, it was magnificent. Simply magnificent.”

Also, Twilight is not, and will never be, what you'd call a social butterfly, and even the best-intended advice can backfire.

IES hates the anarchists at least as much as they hate the monarchy.

Ah, anarchists and communities violently hating each other--truely a take as old as the ideologies themselves.

Luna considered. The unicorn was right: coming down hard on everypony involved would muddy the message and overextend Berry’s police. From what little she’d heard of Stalliongrad however, she didn’t want to give their agents free rein over Baltimare.

A nuanced, pragmatic approach. I like it!

“She’s not coming back, Clementine. And if she did… well, we should cherish our princess,” Selenite said, at least as much to herself, “I know she hasn’t done everything we hoped she would, but you have to understand she barely even spoke the language when she returned. A lot has changed in the last thousand years, and she… she has a lot of guilt over what happened back then. She couldn’t help us the way we wanted her to; she needed to help herself. But now she’s back, she’s really back, and she’s ready to lead us again. We have a princess, Clementine. All the other ponies take it for granted, but now we have a princess too. "

She is. But… she’s also not. You would have to have been around her for a long time. There’s so many sides to her. There’s the pony, the princess, the moon…” Selenite trailed off.

“And the Nightmare.

Now that's what I call foreshadowing! In multiple ways, no less.

Unlike in Baltimare, the trade unions in Tall Tale didn’t see batponies as presenting a zero-sum competition but as fellow workers and had actively worked to provide job training, educate thestrals on their labour rights, and to unionize as many as possible. If the other syndicalists across Equestria could be swayed to be more like Tall Tale and less like Baltimare, he explained, they could do immense good.

I mean really, if you don't let someone into your union and are actively hostile, sit down and shut the fuck up when they're willing to work for less and are used as scabs. YOU were the ones who didn't let them join, and didn't help them or give them support, so why the fuck should they care about your strike or how they're undermining it?

“Hmm… show them what true friendship is, perhaps? Fight for thestral friendship? Fight anypony who would dare call this friendship? I don’t know, Lulu, maybe…” Rarity trailed off, “Maybe we should talk about this in the morning?”

I see you!

Selenite was the first to awake. Snuggled against her princess, the warm feathers and Rarity’s legs cradling her, she felt like a foal again cuddled up against her mother and father.

The fact that there isn't fanart of this is an absolute travesty.

“I don’t think you realize how special last night was,” said Selenite, “Or how special you are.”

“I, ahm,” Rarity stammered, “I don’t know what your customs are but I regularly share a bed with my friends, I just…”

I ship it!

“I’m Prince Blueblood, and this is my esteemed compatriot Chancellor Neighsay of the Equestrian Education Association; one of the finest sorcerers in all Equestria and a close advisor to Princess Celestia.”

This will warrant its own, separate, comment

“Not so much persuade you to stop as give you some friendly advice on what you’re getting into,” said Blueblood, “And perhaps… get you to adjust your approach a little.”

Uh-huh. That's what we're calling it now?

Rarity suppressed a scowl. It wouldn't do to offend the chancellor, although they both knew that Neighsay himself was exactly the kind of pony he was describing, judging by his behavior towards Twilight when she’d set up her school.

Everyone has an agenda, it's simply a matter of what it is and what they're willing to do to further it. Mr. Rogers had an agenda his whole career! It was to provide and improve children's television, yes, but still an agenda.

“I don't know if you understand what you're doing, Rarity. It's not about your intentions, it's about what you've unleashed. Mass politics never ends well. Thirty years ago, that kind of politics -where you involve every creature, do radio addresses, marches, politicize everything, rather than letting actual leaders handle it- that kind of politics swept over Griffonia, and they still haven't recovered. Revolutions and wars which left hundreds of thousands dead, kings beheaded... that guillotine that CAN erected was a reference to the revolution in Aquileia where they lopped off their king's head! And now you see it taking root in Wingbardy, with the rise of Beakolini and the fascists with their March on Karthin. Their king should have arrested the lot of them, but he caved to the mob and now the mob is leading them to war. We've even seen it here, with the Severnayan revolution establishing that ridiculous communist breakaway in 'Stalliongrad,' and just last year in New Mareland they broke off from Equestria and become a communist state too!”

Way to take the mask off, fucking reactionary oaf. "Mass Politics never ends well," he said, while ignoring the entirety of the Riverlands and especially the River Republic, along with the southeastern nations and the literal peasant republic.

"Instead of letting actual leaders handle it." Ah, yes, because Grover V, the Crazy Griffin Princess, the SS-EXP leader, as well as the Genocidal Duke, Despot in Aquileia, and *list rolls down to the floor* are such prime leaders that lead their nations to greatness. Why should any of them be in charge? What, because Faust gave their great-great-grandfather the Devine Right to rule and you get it just cus you're the oldest kid? Next you'll be telling me Celestia and Luna are devine brings whose right to rule comes from their own devine right, and is totally unrelated to being unaging, very powerful beings who were a unifying force seen as unbiased third parties by the people they were trying to weld into one.

King probably should've done something about the fascists, but then being in charge is literally the opposite of Mass Politics.

As for those communist states, tell me, are things improving? Can the average pony meaningfully get change done or started? Though New Mareland was unexpected.

But seriously, shut the fuck up, Anti-democratic reactionary.

“Prince Blueblood, mayhaps you're looking at it the wrong way,” Rarity said, “I don't see how a princess-sponsored mobilization in the name of friendship is going to end with republicans beheading the princesses or communists breaking off from Equestria. I don't know about all this griffon business, but I think the March Revolution as they call it happened because governor Jet Set didn't offer any real solutions to the New Mareland Great Depression, and the communists did, even if those solutions were radical. I think we're in an age of mass politics as you call it, and if we don't get with the age and use it to promote friendship -which has been working, by the way, involving everypony in the process has done more good than any royal decree could have- then we'll get swept away by the tide.”

Props.for admitting ignorance, but probably shouldn't have said so. Good point though! Once the revolutionary genie is out the bottle, God himself couldn't put it back in.

“You are clearly misunderstanding the intentions of these thestrals! You are also flippantly disregarding the forces you've unleashed by trampling on the roles of educated ponies who actually know how to govern a kingdom. The story of the collapse of Griffonia, from a highly educated scholar to somepony who just admitted she knows nothing, is simple: radical politics and disrespect of tradition destroy societies and bring chaos and death in their wake.”

And you, my friend, have shown that you also know nothing. Radical politics? Call me crazy, but wanting a hand in choosing who governs your nation and makes decisions that can immediately and immensely change your life doesn't should radical. Nor does wanting to throw off a yoke of an oppressor and be more than a peasant, subsistence farmers seem super radical and crazy. Unless you mean to say you *support* serfdom? In addition, why respect traditions that only kept you down? Make new ones. Also, revolutions don't happen with good leadership. It was poor leadership, mismanagement, hardship, and changing nothing to make things better that brought about this revolution. Folks only try to tear down society if society is terrible AND the powers that be aren't doing anything to change that.

"Well-read" in the subject, yet fundamentally fails to understand causes for revolution and the often negative impacts, and ascribes it to bullshit like "disrespect for tradition". Typical reactionary. "As for "trampling on the roles:" most places keep their bureaucracies even as governments change. So, also stupid. There's not "run a country 101 class" to take, and don't act like there is!

“The end certainly did have some oomph,” said Luna, pouring some tea for each pony, “I was almost worried I had overdone it. I almost wish you’d been there, Rarity, although the EEEEs coming from the thestrals were quite loud.”

Ah, so we went with "right anyone who'd dare call this friendship" for the ending, eh?

On to the next chapter