Come one come all, to Trixie's magnum opus. Cannons will fire. Noise will blare. Monsters will be slain. And Twilight Sparkle, our beloved, will earn her name. Pray you don't blink, dear audience.
Warning: Beloved character does bad things to good people. With depth.
Consider it a classic post S3 Trixie sadfic/character study. Obviously inspired by Kraven's Last Hunt, but takes more than a few cues from Vylet Pony's Queen of Misifts and countless more explorations of our favorite magician.
With thanks to Casketbase77, for planting the idea and proofreading.
Chapters (4)
As someone who isn't really that much of a fan of Trixie beyond the surface-level stuff, I think this is a good jaunt.
There's one blemish I'd like to get out of the way: the pacing for the ending of the third chapter (and effectively the end of the story proper, even witih Trixie's sudden disappearance if not death) is a bit too fast, almost jarring. It's made up for by the fact that, well, Trixie does disappear and/or die so suddenly, like a puzzle solved too fast... much to Twilight's dismay, but given how the third chapter's main event does showcase or at least kickstart much change for Trixie's mindset (and Twilight's, at that), it still feels like the reader doesn't get a chance to let these changes simmer in the reader's mind (and in the heads of relevant characters) before things get moving to the next scene.
That aside, I adore the dual-wielding that's going on here with both Twilight and Trixie. You establish Trixie's themes quite obviously, but with Twilight's, it's just in specific wording (like being a monster hunter, solving problems like it's just a TV show) which, when combined with Trixie talking to Twilight in the third chapter, completes the picture. Having Trixie kill Chrysalis in the second chapter as a way to exploit Twilight's monster-hunter mindset, however, helps complete that picture; it's at least clear that this Trixie is far darker than what I imagined even after just the first chapter, and so the question goes... sure, Trixie may have a point for Twilight, but what about what Trixie can learn and how Trixie can grow?
Beyond the themes and the lessons, there's also the words themselves and the framing device at the beginning, with Trixie talking to the reader like a psychic with her all-seeing glass orb. Or... well, the framing device may or may not fall apart as it's not so clear whether it's Trixie talking to the reader from beyond the dead or simply having survived and is simply hidden somewhere else. Either way, keeping the truth about the framing device hidden from the reader is a risky move depending on the theme/message you want to convey... and since that theme is about treating people as people, not as puzzles to be solved or television monsters to be routinely defeated (which fits so well for Twilight... and reminds me of how Rorschach dies, with as little I know about the Watchmen), I think the choice is best to leave that alone for now to let the reader linger longer on said theme.
I don't have much else to say here. It's a nice story. Thanks for it.
Absolutely masterful.
holy shit
11422373
this is always a good reaction to my stories.
That was a beautiful and fitting end for Trixie, exclusively canonized for the real G's