Chapter 3
Twilight didn’t have any wings. I expected her to have wings. Why didn’t she have wings!? The shock must have shown on my face because she flinched. I forced my expression to calm, for some reason Twilight had already seemed nervous the moment she’d come through the door. I didn’t understand.
She’d sat down on her haunches some distance from the desk and had almost instantly begun to fidget. It couldn’t be helped, I’d have to see what the issue was before I tackled my own problem, besides, I still wasn’t sure how I was supposed to tell her. Somehow the whole Twilight not being an Alicorn thing had thrown a wrench into my plans, although, I wasn’t a hundred percent certain why I felt that way.
“Um, Twilight? Is there something wrong?”
Her eyes bulged, “Of course there’s something wrong. I’m tardy!”
Holy shit. Was I in that episode? Did I prevent something when Luna sent that letter for me? Or was there a Want it Need it fiasco going on in Ponyville right now? “You didn’t cast any… unusual spells today, did you? I mean, outside of basic levitation.”
She seemed confused and luckily it wasn’t in an, ‘Oh no, I’ve been caught somehow,’ sort of way. She shook her head. “No, I was on a train for most of the day.”
Most of the day? How long did the train take to get here from Ponyville? For some reason I always imagined it just took a couple of hours. I hadn’t even imagined her taking the train though.
I sighed, “Anyways, you aren’t tardy. There was never a rule that your friendship reports had to come in once a week.” I smiled here, I couldn’t help it. “You always let your over thinking get the best of you, Twilight. You should know Celestia would never get angry at you over something like this.”
She stared at me. I stared back.
“Also, I have something really, really important to tell you so please listen… With an open mind.”
She didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure if it was so awkward because she was staring so intently or if it was because I suddenly felt like a crazy person. I decided to just spill it out all at once, if she was confused I could clarify. “I’m not Princess Celestia, I’m a human and I’m trapped in her body. I need your help.”
Twilight stared back.
Then as dramatically as I could. “I’m also a man”
Twilight stared back.
“A gay man,” I added even more dramatically.
Twilight stared back.
“Through unforeseen circumstances I’ve been turned into a straight mare! Isn’t that weird? Don’t you have a comment for that?… Please say something.”
Twilight stared back.
I got up and walked around the desk. “Twilight, did you die?”
She was still staring at the spot I’d been sitting. I waved a hoof in front of her face. Nothing. I knocked on her forehead being careful of her horn. Her head felt weirdly hard. I flicked one of her ears. It was unmovable like stone.
Was that a thing? Did ponies suddenly turn to stone..? I mean, it was a cartoon after all. Maybe she just needed a moment?
This was giving me a weird feeling. Well, of course it was but still. I went over and looked out the window. Sure enough I could see at least three birds floating in midair. Not flapping their wings… Just frozen like some rude dude pressed the pause button. Did I break something?
I whirled around as the study door banged against the wall. Standing in the doorway was the figure of a cloaked pony. Behind them where the hall should have been was only an inky black void where lightning flashed as if to announce their presence.
The cloaked figured staggered into the room and started coughing. It was pretty bad. Not to mention the fact that it went on long enough to start getting awkward. Mr Poe, is that you?
“Yeah, smoke another one,” he said, his voice sounded like gravel. Then a pinprick of red ember bloomed where his mouth should have been. Huh, I guess he’d been speaking literally.
“Um… Excuse me.”
“Yeah?” he demanded, his voice suddenly turning sharp.
I frowned, “Hey, there’s no need to get all snippy with me. Especially after all that.”
He coughed again but it was gentler this time. Then after what must have been a chuckle he spoke again, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
I raised an eyebrow, “I don’t suppose you’re here to explain what’s going on, are you?”
His cigarette bloomed red in the darkness of his hood before he answered. “Yeah, I am.”
Was there an echo in here? I stepped closer to him, “Well?”
“You dead.” Well, that was rather blunt. You dead? What was that? A text message? I gaped at him.
“I’ll have you know, I was perfectly healthy when I went to bed yesterday. There’s no way I could just up and die just like that.”
He just shook his head, it made the smoke trailing up from his cigarette form a zig zag pattern. “You stayed up all night writing pony fanfic.”
I rolled my eyes, “Lot’s of people stay up late,” I reminded him.
“You had like twenty monster energy drinks while you were at it.”
We stared at each other.
“Is… That a bad thing?”
He started hacking again only it became real obvious really fast that he was laughing. My face burned bright red. “That doesn’t exactly explain the whole waking up as Celestia thing, does it?”
I was still pissed but to his credit he seemed to be making an effort to stop laughing. “Yeah, I was getting to that part.”
He brought a hoof up to his mouth and brought out his cigarette. Then he flicked it on the floor. The floor of Princess Celestia’s Study. I scowled. Didn’t he know she was best pony..? That made me feel weirdly arrogant. I might need to stop having a best pony until I got out of this body.
“Heh, no need to get your tale in a knot. It’ll vanish when I do.”
He reached into his cloak and pulled out a yellow pack with a pink butterfly emblazoned on it. “You want one?”
I shook my head, “I can’t, this isn’t my body.”
He let a wistful hmm, “It’s your body now.”
I glared at him, “What’s that suppose to mean? What about Celestia?”
“You’re Celestia now.”
I face hoofed, “What about the old Celestia?”
“There is no old Celestia,” he gestured around the room, “Everything that is or was is only here to give your soul a place to occupy.”
“Am… I in the afterlife?” That actually kinda made sense.
“No.”
I groaned.
He took a long draw off his cigarette, the coal burning so bright that I could almost begin to make out the outline of his face in the darkness of his hood. “That’s the problem with you humans, you got an entirely new dimension made for you from scratch just to make you happy! And what do you do? You complain, you cry, ‘woe is me, that’s unethical.’ Bullshit.”
“Are you saying I wanted to be Celestia?”
He shook his head, “I ain’t sayin’ shit to someone who’s just gonna complain about it,” he let loose another peal of coughing, “Just don’t try and tell anypony you aren’t Celestia anymore,” he turned to the door as if to leave, but then seemed to think of something. “Oh, and learn some god damn magic, you’re an embarrassment.” The door slammed behind him and Twilight yelped in surprise.
“H-how’d you get over there!?”
I stared at her, “Uh, I teleported..?”
“B-but I didn’t see an aura.”
“You… blinked?”
.
.
.
.
You know what? She actually believed that.
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Now this is epic.
ok, so this universe was created just for him, ok, so Equestria is for him to command now, and to fuck up twilight life, and to totally fix everything before happens, or whatever; death is right, he should stop complaining if a universe was created just for him, after he stupidly died, for me that would have been awesome, but in the body of 17.
He/She should still tell Twilight she gained memories of a different life and lose most of her current ones. Especially memories of how to do magic and is hoping Twily could help teach her how to re-learn the basics
Random infodump character is weak. This eliminates all the mystery of why he's here and closes off several avenues that the story might otherwise have taken. And what's the payoff for handling it this way? Letting us know that he's ethically in the clear to do whatever he wants? Ok, but it seems to me the costs outweight the benefits. Rather than telling us a story that we might become emotionally involved in, you've "informed us" that nothing matters because this entire universe is just a playground for him to do whatever.
Also kind of weird that he apparently thinks it's important that Twilight knows he's gay...when he's occupying the body of the pony who sustains life on the planet by keeping the sun in motion and he doesn't know how to do that. Come on dude, there are more important things going on here.
10957959
Um, it's still a real universe with real sentient ponies living in. The point isn't to make it a play ground for the mc to do whatever they want ethics free. They aren't a god they're Celestia.
The idea was that they were just trying to get twilight to say something. She didn't even hear any of it because time was frozen.
That cloaked pony pulled out a yellow cigarette pack with a pink butterfly on it? Discord, is that you?
I have a feeling there’s more to this story than meets the eye...
10957974
I have to agree with Bucket on this one, you blew your load far too early. What suspense and mystery there could have been is wasted, and what was shaping up to be a potentially interesting and fun story took me very far out of the realm of suspension of disbelief. The MC was quite literally told that he was in a world that was specially made for him, and that Celestia doesn't exist anymore, forcing him into it.
At that, the dude who told him this stuff was a complete jackass who essentially toyed with him and barely told him anything at all. This especially came after the MC made a surprisingly realistic and smart choice in getting help from someone who might know something, that being Twilight. Then he gets completely cockblocked by this random stranger who essentially tells him "your body now, deal with it" and "yeah this was made for you so you don't get to complain." I'd be fucking pissed if I was in that situation, regardless of how or why it came to be.
That said, this story is supposed to be self-indulgent wish fulfillment, so I might be being a little harsh with the criticism. Regardless of who or what anyone says, it's your story that you're going to tell at the end of the day. My best advice is to keep learning and keep writing. Though my interest with this story did get killed with this chapter, I'll keep reading, as I do still have high hopes for it.
You know, I like fics with premise like this one, but I'm not sure you have any direction for yours. Do you? It just feels like you winging it. Nothing against the idea that there's no original Celestia, though. At least there won't be 50 chapters of main character trying to figure out what happened to her only to learn that she never was in the first place.
But there is an issue. Despite the fact that universe was created for him and with him as Celestia it doesn't mean there was no Celestia before him in that universe. If universe was created from scratch then someone had to create memories for everyone in it. And to get consistent memories for everyone it has to be simulated over at least a few years with some "Celestia" in it, so she did exist at least in that simulation. Even more likely universe was copied over from another one without a copy of Celestia, but this also means she did exist and in first case she actually "died" considering she wasn't carried over out of the simulation unless someone played her role there.
In any case everyone in that world remember Celestia, so if they ever learn he isn't her nobody likely believe him that universe was created this way and he didn't stole her body somehow.
I wonder are you going to play severe amnesia card in the next chapter to explain her lack of knowledge of the world and how to magic of fly.
Let’s see how it goes.
10957974
Well that depends on your view of Celestia ^^;;;
If this story is about some dude who just mr. magoos himself into being Celestia I am going to be over the moon! (I swear to you when I thought of writing this comment those were the exact words I thought of with no intentional pun meant)
Take a like and a fave!
even though Luna is best pony…
Is that a Lemony Snicket reference I spy? It's been a while since I saw one of those!
And then Celestia destroyed all racist laws and traditions of Equestria , proclaimed an democratic social Republic and retired to the pony Bahamas. The End
This is going to be fun hahaha
10957959
LordBucket makes my life so much easier, because I can just quote it and say "this" instead of writing the same thing out in a less coherent way.
I like how you gave a refreshing spin to the HiE genre with the protagonist actually being Celestia instead of just occupying their body. Also death by fan fiction and energy drink must be the most badass way to go. I look forward to see how the new Celestia handles her responsibilities.
very nice
Welcome to dat club tho
Nice
I need to be absolutely honest:
The most expected out of this story was twenty or so views with a few random up or downvotes from people who didn't comment. I feel ungrateful saying this but I've got such bad stage fright I think I'm gonna throw up.
I'm sitting at the top of the featured box. Thank you but why?
I think I'm gonna wait for it to drop before I release the next chapter. And also I've been thinking about lord bucket's comment. I think chapter three needs a serious rewrite.
Although outside of the obvious pacing issue I'm still not entirely how or what to fix. At least without ruining my plan for the story. Having it be a mystery was never my intention. But I can at least understand why some might have thought that.
It's ok we still love you Purple Smart.
10958582
Don't worry, you aren't alone in feeling this way. I'm still shocked that one of my stories has so many likes and reaches the featured box every once in a while.
10958582
don't take them too serious. I mean it's nice and honest critique, but I and most people think the story is fine and easily could continue in a similar state.
10958582
Don't sell yourself short, just yet. It's a nice little story so far. More on that down below.
10958168
I have to agree, there is some... I don't know, lackluster isn't quite the word, but one can't really see that much of a plot at the moment. Half of it seems random, but we're only at chapter three so far, so who knows where this will actually go.
Another point that seems quite unusual is the lack of... well, any 'real' reaction to the 'Oh, I'm a mare now.', it kinda comes across like 'Guess I'll have to live with it for now'. I know for sure that a gay man wouldn't say 'I'm a straight mare' in a situation like this, that's most definitely a point that had bothered me a little bit about this chapter. I'd also like to know why they were... reincarnated(?) as a female Celestia in the first place, that seems kinda odd considering fanfiction is one medium that's quite literally able to be anything.
I'm very much interested to see where this will go, but I worry a little bit that the potential of this story might not reach the highest it could be to the ability of our dear author. I'd like to be pleasantly surprised, though.
Wait, so every time a sentient creature dies a new dimension gets made, and every time a creature in one of THOSE dies another new dimension gets made....That's a lot of dimensions.
10958582
Lemme tell you friend; this is a perfectly normal reaction. I had a story do the same thing, hit the top of the box while I had no expectations of it doing so, and my only way to cope was horrified, manic laughter until it passed. It took me a while to accept that people just liked it.
Which brings me to my next point; as long as you have an idea where you're going (and enjoying the process) then people will read. Would a mystery subplot have been interesting? Sure it could have, but, by the sounds of it, that wasn’t going to be the story. At the end of the day, you can always come back and touch up the story if it feels incomplete. IMO, it can be a good thing to have something you can point at and say, "This is flawed and I know why, I'll be able to avoid those same pitfalls in the future."
If you're worried about not seeing the issues or things to fix, the only
unsolicitedadvice I can give on that would be to find an editor, or someone to vet ideas through. A second opinion from someone you trust can be pretty eye-opening.Anyway, congrats on hitting the feature box! I'll be keeping an eye on the this; curious to see where it goes.
Congrats on getting featured
10958935
I think that if I woke up in Equestria as a mare, the "mare" part would be pretty far down the list of my problems at the time. You know, not being at home, not having hands, figuring out a way to get back home etc. And since I would be hoping to not stay there for long, it would not really matter, in the short term I would be more inconvenienced by lack of hands than by lack of other body parts.
So, I think the main character had a correct reaction, for now.
Pretty fun!
And yeah, I concur with the commentors saying there may be another Celestia. I'll also mention that someone posing as 'death' and doing this would be a good way to get Celestia out of the picture for some kind of nefarious scheme
But this is a comedy, not an adventure story, and it's succeeded at that!
10958582
Don't worry, take your time, I'm sure this story will be much better if you really consider the critique from... veteran reader?
Um... you know what, me personally, it isn't about wanting the story to become a mystery, I personally just surprised (I believe some other did too) because most 'good' HiE turned into a pony I read did not having an info dump in a single chapter under 2k words count.
If they did, it mostly in the first chapter, 'long' first chapter before the story move on into adaptation in Equestria. By not revealing the reason 'why I'm in Equestria as a pony' right away, it gave me a slow burn reveal expectation. I can't say for anyone, but at least that is what I feel.
So yeah, I saw the tag, I know you want to write a comedy, but even if it never your intention, your story opening is good with a lot of potential to become very good and has attract some reader that has been exposed to other 'good' HiE story. I don't want the story's potential to be wasted just to be... um... crack fic? I know, sound harsh, but you get the idea.
And I tell you, you actually consider the critique means you are a good author.
Edit: wordings.
Love the story so far
That little revelation reveals a small philosophical predicament: is the past real? are the memories real? is this reality even real? is the main character even real? is the character who gives him the information even real? are the memories of the shallow OC real? Or is all it is, is it just Celestia's dream which she woke up implying that the human's whole life (memories) is just 12 hours of sleep.
I first suspected Discord was behind all of this. But if this information was true, then this is a whole other level beyond Discord himself. Not only it is too much work just to amuse a human soul, but it is also too much order for his nature.
10959017
That's infinity, actually. And considering there's infinite amount of dimension creating infinity more doesn't change anything. In fact, that's infinitely less than theory of time stream branching on every single possible choice and outcome, so they all exist at the same time. Which also means there's always a version where you die right that very moment for whatever reason.
10957573
It kinda is a fluke, but you couldn't avoid it without compromising the story. You could have used horrible grammar and stiff and awkward style of presentation. That would likely kept it off the featured box. You could've picked less popular premise. Especially something gross like grown up ponies wearing diapers all the time. Seriously, there are fics like this, no idea why nor I want to know. But you didn't. You picked popular theme without any active competitors, used good grammar and decent presentation so far. And published 3 chapters in quick succession, so people will definitely notice it in the new and recently updated lists. So, of course you end up in the featured. It's not an "editors choice" list and generated automatically, so you were bound to end up there with provided inputs.
Pretty nice. Definitely a good start. I feel like the cloaked character was fairly well written, and that it wasn't just an info dump, throw away character like I've seen in so many other stories, but an actual semi-person who's sick of his job and just wants things to go easy for once. Even if he is the info-dump character who isn't going to show up again, at least it's a character we can maybe relate to and not just another wall of text.
I look forward to seeing where you take this.
10959578
I read a story like that once. I'm not sure why I did but I even finished reading it. It was a Twidash story, twilight even used her magic to make Rainbow incontinate and give her a lisp.
Then for some reason Rainbow turned into an actual baby and there was a really forced moral at the end about Rainbow accepting the fact that she couldn't go back to her childhood... Only there'd been zero build up for this and Twilight's characterization felt like it kept flipping back and forth.
It's one of my regret reads lol
Anyways, I know there's no human intervention involved in the featured box it just sort of feels like I got there without trying and a bunch of warning bells started going off in my head.
10959378
So I gave slow burn expectations... That makes way more sense then what I was thinking. I'm glad someone articulated that. Thank you.
I'm still not entirely sure how to make it better but I feel like a little progress was made.
I think the next course of action should be learning how to raise and lower the sun. Then telekinesis after that. I can already picture some very funny dialogue between Not!Celestia and Twilight.
Celestia: "I can't remember how to raise the sun so I'm sending you on a very secret mission to find the book on how to do that. Then we can just sweep this all under the rug and pretend it never happened. Why are you looking at me like that?"
10959810
I'm glad to hear that, no problem and good luck.
10957553
I read up to the point where he fell in love with his 'sister', and couldn't really deal with the weirdness of it so I stopped reading.
10959805
I mean, that's... just an ABDL fetish fic. There's no moral there, and it's not trying to be a literary masterpiece, it's just a fun read for people who are into it.
I personally will make him reincarnate as Celestia, it just took one thousand year or so to regain his past live memory and the reason he didn't have Celestia memory is because his brain still rebooting.
But its your story so do whatever you want, I just wanna get this plot idea that I will never write out of the way.