The holidays are a time for food and fun, a time for joy and merriment, a time to spend together with those you love, and with those who love you. It is a time for strengthening old friendships and for making new ones, either with a hug, a loving word, or a beautifully wrapped present. It is a time for people to put aside their petty differences and appreciate what's really important in life. Pinkie Pie knows this better than anypony.
There is one person, however, one ancient magical centaur, who has much different opinions on what is truly important in life.
CW: Story contains implications of alcohol use, domestic abuse, and descriptions of minor physical injury.
Featured 12/17/22 - 12/18/22
Chapters (3)
A little slow in the beginning, but that's my only complaint.
Surprisingly emotional work here. You write all of these characters perfectly.
It probably helps that I consider both Pinkie Pie and Tirek underated, and your portrayal is spot on for what I could want for both of them, Pinkie Pie especially.
Even knowing what the twist was going to be, your execution of the story still filled me with genuine emotions.
One of the most moving stories I've read on here in a long time. Excellent work.
Bravo! Superb work.
He should've mentioned Sombra, she'd have a hard time coming up with a response to that.
11452231
I agree with you in principle, but there's a couple reasons why I think that wouldn't/shouldn't have happened:
1. Twilight and the M6 didn't really have any choice about what happened to Sombra. In the end, it was the Crystal Heart that decided to just obliterate him instead of depowering him a la the Elements of Harmony. You could argue that they are indirectly responsible for that, but you can't say that it was their intention all along to destroy him, rather than potentially reform him.
2. While it was never really explained in the show, Sombra is heavily implied to not just be a normal pony, at least not by the time we see him in S3. My interpretation has always been that he was some kind of lich i.e. a creature whose continued existence is inherently unnatural and evil. This would explain why the Heart does just destroy him, as he would have technically already been dead in the first place. Yes, this is headcanon, but I don't have much else to go on.
Sombra was a very special case, so I don't think there would have been a point in me bringing him up in this story.
11452268
Fair enough.
That was a good story.
This was a really interesting story, I don't see many Tirek stories out there so this one caught my eye. I love how you portrayed the characters in a seemingly realistic way and gave us a look into Tirek's mind. Any chance for a sequal? Maybe one where Pinkie actually visits him for Hearths warming? It'd be interesting to see if she can slowly chip away at his walls and let him regain some humanity. But that's just wishful thinking. It's all up to you
Great work!
11452682
I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed my work. Like you've said, I did make an effort to portray the featured characters, specifically Tirek, as real people with realistic thoughts and feelings. One of my biggest complaints about FiM is that it tended to portray its villains as mindless obstacles that existed to force the main characters to go through character development, rather than as people who could be understood and reasoned with. There were a few exceptions to this (Starlight, Stygian, Discord the second time), but these cases weren't executed very well, in my opinion. With this story, I wanted to focus on a villain that I do think could have gone a different way, but was never given an opportunity to do so by the show.
We know very little of Tirek's backstory from the show, but based on the way he is portrayed, I think he is the villain that stood the best chance of being reformed. He is not crazy like Chrysalis, he is not a child like Cozy Glow, and he is not some sort of undead abomination like Sombra; he is a rational adult that presumably has some sort of rationale for his actions. It is possible that he could be reasoned with and perhaps shown the error of his ways, but that would be a huge what-if largely dependent on who he is and where he is from.
In this story, I deliberately invented a backstory for Tirek that could conceivably leave him open for reformation, while also leaving the possibility that he might just stay as he is. For this reason, I don't think I would want to write a sequel to this. I left the ending of this story somewhat up to the reader's interpretation as far as how Tirek's experience affected him. As annoying as it is, this story was meant to get readers thinking about a question, rather than provide a straight answer to that question, that question being "could Tirek have changed?"
11453090
Glad to hear, shame there won't be a sequel but after hearing your reasoning for it I do agree leaving it ambiguous was a pretty clever call. Personally, my opinion on the matter is all three characters had the potential to change if they were given the right circumstance. If the writers haven't done a character assassination on Discord with the (IMO) really stupid Grogar disguise instead of Grogar actually being there, there was a really good chance they could have reformed in their own way.
I'm thinking along the lines of Grogar putting in a fail safe for the bell and making sure only he could use it and the bell would drain the magic of anyone who tries to use it. This way Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow would have no choice but to team up the Mane 6 and Princesses to fight him,
But hey, at this point it's just wishful thinking. At least you, me, and many other people on this site can make our own versions of how it should have ended. And this story was still a solid 10/10 to get you thinking about the character.
11453090
It interesting that when ever someone does a backstory for tirek it always his father who responsible for how he turned out, regardless thanks I always hated how in canon no attempt was made to reform the villian three at any point, honestly final villian of mlp is bad writing. enjoyed this and consider it canon
11454675
I'm glad you enjoyed my story. I can't speak for all authors/stories in the fandom, of course, but I would imagine that most stories that do place the blame for Tirek's emotional issues on his father do so because it feels more fitting to an audience. Tirek is physically aggressive, domineering, and is prone to anger, but is also cold, calculating, and emotionally distant. I feel that most people tend to associate these traits more with masculinity than with femininity, which makes it easier to imagine a father-figure imparting these characteristics onto their child than a mother-figure. That is not to say that all men are aggressive and domineering, of course, but that is a cultural association for many people. I leaned into this perception while writing this story, but I could have easily subverted this expectation and had his mother be the "corrupting" influence, and I don't think that doing so would have changed much as far as this story is concerned.
This is the best Tirek I have read. Feels so accurate to his first appreance. I love it.