Marianne Evergold is a kind-hearted girl with strange tastes, for she's the only person she knows whose favorite character is... Diamond Tiara. Snotty, bratty, childish, and vain? Perhaps. But she adored her all the same. The confidence with which Tiara carried herself was something she never had. In her eyes, Tiara was truly graceful and picturesque. And while she understood that drama needed a conspirator and Tiara was just the natural calling card for the show's writers, she never liked the idea that she was truly evil. So when the show ended its last season with her being turned to stone for her years of villainy and almost bringing Equestria to ruin... Mary could not accept it.
The only thing she could never understand was... why did they never give her a proper redemption? It always felt like they would. Yet they never did. And if by some miracle they ever did, she would never get to see it.
For she finds she awakes one day in the lands of the colorful Equestria. Far from home. So very far from friends. And so, so very far from family.
And in the horseshoes of Diamond Tiara herself, no less.
But at least she has a goal now. To save Tiara from that fate. Already with a history of bad blood halfway into the show, it would be no easy feat to redeem her as no one would allow her the opportunity after many years of treachery. But Mary vowed to never give up on Diamond Tiara and would keep to her promise come what may.
All while Tiara herself sat back silently in her mind, sealed from being able to take control of her own body again and watching it all unfold.
The cover art was drawn by DamayantiArts for this story. Consider supporting her work if you like it.
Wait, so basically in this alternate universe. The show didn't create Cozy Glow, Diamond Tiara didn't get her redemption arc in season 5, and eventually became a freaking villain?
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That’s correct. Diamond Tiara was essentially never redeemed and was a lot more dangerous to Equestria’s safety.
Not to confuse ya further tho, but Cozy did exist. It essentially played out nearly the same, but with Tiara doing more over the show’s history to sabotage things alongside the villains.
How does Marianne Evergold feel about the other unpopular My Little Pony characters? Does she like them too?
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Much like the person I once knew that inspired the character, for sure. She was always the type to find the good in a person. The type to say “They were led astray. Give them a chance.”
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Personally, it doesn't make sense that a bratty rich kid like Tiara turn into a little villain/criminal against the entire kingdom?
She is already rich, what is her "motivation" for all this? Why the heck does she want to be pure evil, how did she bring Equestria into "ruin"!? And get herself into very deep trouble that she will never escape from. ( Like turning into a stone statue for example. )
How would Silver Spoon think of her? How does even her own father and mother think of her now?
Heck, I bet that due to her criminal actions. She really bankrupt her own parent's money, due to the potential compensation of the damages that she had caused by the princesses law.
Defo gives vibes to this manga.
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For sure. I mentioned it in the author's note. This story is heavily inspired by it. The story will take on its own emotional beats and narrative of course, but the starting premise is the same.
This is based on the best otome I have ever read and I'm really glad you're doing a fanfic based on it. I can't wait to see where this goes. 😆
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Aww yeah! Finally found someone who loves it as much as I do! ^^, Like I mentioned in the author's note, it just felt like it was ripe with potential. I never understood how complex its premise was until I started writing this story. There is just so much raw emotion and intensity in the original that I was hoping I could translate and convey correctly in such a small chapter. A manga with pictures is one thing, but its a whole beast when you have to draw out people's imaginations and feelings with words alone.
With how heavy the inspiration is, I bet you can already tell what's coming haha. Hopefully I can give it a uniquely MLP twist to it so as to not make it just a simple pony-colored rehash.
I'm more of a 'villianess become last boss' kind of otaku, but well...
Hopefully no shitty male leads. I hate when the 'lived peacefully' villianess unintentionally make a harem or meet a super secret gamedev rejected male lead.Edit: I read it....oh.... the villianess is the actual protaganist.....
Is romance tag really not necessity? Tiara seems like she's one step away from yandere, you know?
And working together with Nightmare Moon in original timeline??? How? Did Nightmare Moon arc span across a whole season in this AU?
What this mlp:fim a shounen jump manga adaptation?
Edit2: gloss over the source material a couple of time, there's a random wild male lead shoved in after some time..... come on...
Well, at least the first volume of manga is clean enough.
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Just from this first chapter, I can tell you're gonna do the story justice
Just don't forget to take your time 💕
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First chapters are usually just hooks, and I use them just to set up the premise. In this case, this is an alternate world where Tiara's character was significantly more sinister from the very start and she was headed for a bad end due to it. I do plan to go more in depth later, but that's telling of my plans.
If I do have issues with storytelling, its probably in the way of my purposeful ambiguity that doesn't agree with eveybody. Intrigue and narrative setups ain't easy
Also as far as the romance tag, I rarely use it if I feel I have the option. There is so many forms of love. Some sexual, some familial, and some platonic. In the case of Tiara, I alluded to what she feels in the final bits. She loves her deeply, in the way of a best friend or a sister.
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So what happened to Cozy Glow, if events were nearly the same as in the show?
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You want all the secrets, don’t’cha? I guess it wouldn’t hurt to mention it since it’s not a significant spoiler. Cozy in the timeline where Tiara was also a major antagonist was dealt with the same. Sent to Tartarus after their defeat.
It’s not a significant spoiler at all because as mentioned in this first chapter, her timeline was altered by Mary’s arrival early on in her youth, before things got to that point. “I wasn’t national news yet”. Anything that happens from here on is up in the air.
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Thanks. It's disconcerting to be thrown into a world where so many characters are different and not see how it all happened to play out.
You start to look for anything that is familiar.
It seems like Diamond Tiara and her whole family are massively crueler then they were in the show.
Cozy Glow is one of my favorite characters (in part for reasons similar to why Mary likes Diamond Tiara) so I'm trying to gage how many familiar characters appear in this story, and how accurate to the show their portrayal will be.
And if Diamond Tiara worked with Cozy Glow in the past, it's safe to assume that she shows up at some point in the story.
Realistically, you should change or remove cozy glow.Having two duplicate villains that are both fillies who relies on wits to win as main antagonists is not something mlp:fim would do
Legion of doom got sent back to tartarus, and for some reason, an earth filly from ponyville is more dangerous than changelings queen, magic zuccer, filly alicorn, king of conquest?
He might go insane and acted weirdly because he was sealed for a long time?
This is a example of how bad it might be, even if that person had perfect memory and capable of constructed a 1:1 mindscape replica of real world.
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With Mary changing Tiara’s life so early on, her becoming an antagonist along with Cozy Glow won’t come to pass anymore. So that’s a small detail that won’t have any bearing on the story going further.
And yes, that’s the implication I wanted to make. Whatever Tiara did, it was considerably more dangerous for Equestria which earned her the worse end.
This s super intriguing. I like the premise and how you've written it so far.
Determination
That's... Deep, good start
What the hell happened?
Saitama?
Did they time travel?
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If you mean the villains/Tiara, then no. They've had visions of the would-be future.
If its about the pacing of the story, it's not outright stated but yes, sorta. Time is fast forwarding pretty quickly per chapter. This is all just the introduction chapters of the story still, which is why I'm rushing them along a bit to get to the real meat of the story.
Every creature: run.
As for the CMCs...
--------------------
Meanwhile, in the Equestria Girls Holiday Special Universe
Apple Bloom (after feeling a terrible chill creep up her spine): "For some reason, Ah feel mighty bad for somepony..."
Scootaloo: "Sunset, right?"
Apple Bloom: "Ah ain't talkin' about her none and Ah don't know why..."
----------
What can I say? This is a moment that is felt across dimensions in my eyes!
YES!!! IT BEGINS!!💅🍿
I can already fell the magnificent story that you have for us!
I am so confused... yet I still wait with bated breath for more.
I’m a little confused. From what I’ve read it sounds like mary died or something and while she tried to redeem her she’s going back to being a villain.
I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say she’s irredeemable.
Imprisonment? When did this happen?
This is possibly my favorite chapter. Not only does it have Mary being so lovable that it makes me want to hug her and wish for a Mary in my life, but that monologue about hate, bullying, and forgiveness was magnificent.
Was there a time skip? Because, a lot of people seem to like her now.
Was this a flashback chapter?
Ok, now it’s understandable why DT/ET wants revenge. These are the type of villains that I like.
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I could probably be a dick saying this, but I never really felt that bad for sunset.
I will be the best villain of all time known and yet to be known! Even if it leads me to challenge the Multiverse itself!
Not gonna lie I'm excited as hell
Really struggling to put my thoughts into words here, but I'll do my best.
tl:dr version: Insanely good writing on a couple of emotional scenes, but the story is largely missing, so no build up to what could have been a fantastic payoff, it's just a scene.
This story is ALL over the place. I honestly have no idea what is going on, and more importantly: why is any of this happening?
I'm guessing that this is an AU, but we are not told the divergence from canon. Okay, I can understand that. It takes a bit of work for the reader to understand what is happening, but that can be a benefit if done well.
Who is Chrys? This name is tossed out by Twilight as if it's a close friend of Tiara, but I'm totally lost. Also, who's Twilight's protégé? This is mentioned in addition to Starlight, so it's not her... These two (or one?) are mentioned once, then never brought up again. So I'm just left confused and frustrated.
How long does this story cover? We are given three snapshots in what might or might not be quick succession (CMC makeup, Silver Spoon conflict, and Twilight encounter), and then a fourth where Tiara is an adult? But the events of the adult trial appear to follow immediately after the Encounter in the Everfree?
Tons of events and character growth moments are either skipped entirely or glossed over. In fact, all character growth is skipped entirely. The story actually starts after Tiara has completed her growth. We don't get to experience that at all.
This story is lots of VERY well written feels, but no reason for them. I can't empathize with the characters because I never got a chance to know them before I'm at what should be the climax of the story. It's like just watching the last scene of a movie. It might be the best scene ever, but without that buildup and character development, it's just a nice scene.
I cannot emphasize just how good the writing is on those scenes full of feels, but they are hollow without the story to lead up to them.
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Great points! And thank you for laying them out so succinctly. I one-hundred percent agree with you on everything, as I ashamedly recognized the problems with it from the start. My biggest failing for this story is the pacing, and everything else suffers for it. Since the beginning I've had to contend with where this story is going and how. No excuse I give is going to pardon it, but maybe it'll help put things into perspective.
This story began as a heavily inspired story, with the inspiration taken from "The One Within The Villainess" manga. A big part of it banks on the reader knowing that story and understanding the clear parallels. Understandably, it's my job as a writer to make it so readers don't need to have that auxiliary knowledge before reading it, and so I did my best with the first two chapters to set up the premise. So many people gloss over the story's description or the A.U. tag, so short of spelling it out plainly in the story where readers can't avoid it (like a top-formatted author's note), I had to find a way to lay it out so they naturally picked it up as they went along. With how far it went into the "alternate" side of things, I felt like one chapter was not enough. So I made a second one in Mary's PoV which more definitively spelled it out. And even then, I still felt like it wasn't enough since there were still a few confused readers, so I reiterated and reinforced it throughout. I cannot insult the intelligence of my readers, and I have to place my faith in that they will understand it so long as those details are present and clearly understandable with basic deductive skills. But this has been simultaneously the most contentious narrative I've written, because on one hand, I've made it as plainly obvious as I can, but somehow it's still inviting confusion. The culprit is likely the pacing.
There's so many stories on this site and I realize a lot of people are skim-reading through a lot of them. Likely out of habit. And this is the kind of story where, due to the quick pacing, blinking through a single sentence is counter-intuitive. A dangerous way for me to have written this story thus far.
As far as the timeline goes and how much ground the story is supposed to cover, that was my biggest hurdle with the story. With it trying to parallel "The One Within The Villainess", Tiara's early life and Mary's efforts to redeem her throughout it were never meant to be the focus of the story. These first six chapters are just the introduction to the premise, as it was in that manga it took inspiration from. So none of it is intended to have an emotional pay-off. The purpose of these chapters exist to characterize the pony now known as Evergold Tiara, what her motivations are, why they are what they are, and what kind of differences she has to the canonical Diamond Tiara or even the in-story Villainess Tiara (which I purposely fed only bits of information about her throughout, since that's part of the overarching mystery).
So then the quick pacing to try to get over the introduction to get to the real story exacerbates it since that's not a concept that anyone will get other than me. In all honesty, Mary's time as Tiara should have been its own story altogether, and something I regret not doing beforehand.
An author's trust in their readers is a dangerous gambit. I want to believe in people, and I feel that writing towards those who enjoy unlocking my puzzle is the most fun for me. But that creates scenarios were everything I write is shrouded in the idea that "They are meant to pick it up as they go along". It alienates those who can't or won't. This idea bled into the pacing of these chapters. It purposely leaves people to interpret however much time they think has passed. Chapter 2 hints at the time-frame by talking about Gabby Gums, Nightmare Moon, Discord, and Trixie with the Alicorn Amulet. In chapter 3, the only clues we get is the small detail of Silver Spoon having distanced herself for a while and that Mary had gained enough friends to not feel alone in Equestria.
Mary's PoV chapters are supposed to aid and add to the one before it. The second one of her chapters was supposed to put the time frame of Chapter 3 in better light. The Castle of Friendship. Starlight already being in Twilight's tutelage and what Mary recognized to have been the time frame for the changeling's second invasion not coming to pass. And several more details.
From there, nothing was left for me to set up, so we get another skip for Chapter 4. This time, going back to where the story was supposed to begin in the first few sentences of Chapter 1. Tiara's return.
After all that, I still want to say that I don't think the way I went about writing this story was successful or good. In my own opinion toward myself, I feel like I should have expanded more on it. As far as I'm concerned, this introduction to the story has failed and I'll probably get around to re-writing it sometime in the future. I don't have a lot of time on my hands nowadays, so this failure was a result of wanting to put something out within my limited time mixed in with my uncertainty of where to take the story. Despite it being heavily inspired by the manga, this story is still very much its own uniquely MLP tale with Tiara at the forefront of it all. I'm making every effort to make something original so that its not just a direct port of that story.
To that end, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to write your thoughts on it. Not only were they very valid points, it was also intelligently written and showed how carefully you tried to understand the story. Writing for FIM can feel like I'm writing into a vacuum at times, so I hugely appreciate this kind of constructive feedback. And I thank you for trying to ease me with compliments towards my writing style. I've been writing stories since I first joined back in 2011 and have published actual books before, but I still don't think I'm particularly good at writing. So it's always a pleasant surprise to hear someone speak of it favorably, even if it feels like it's meant to be the peanut butter around a hard-to-swallow pill.
P.S. The thing about Chrys!
That's one of the mysteries for now... At least for anyone who hasn't read my stories about her. You can check out my profile to see artwork I've had drawn for her stories. Even above my professionally published stories, the ones I wrote for her are by far my favorite. But, you won't have to read them to understand who Chrys is. I'll make it apparent later on in the story. One of the antagonists is from her stories too, and I know better than to just throw names out there and hope everyone understands it as is. Just bare with me for now though!
I mentioned in the Chapter 4 author's note that Tiara's story has inspired me to create my first extended universe. Some of my future stories will start to feed into Tiara's story. Nothing super major or will distract from the main narrative, but just as added details for my long-time readers. There's already several planned ones in the story outside of Chrys and that antagonist I talked about. Even this story about Tiara is going to be a lead-up to something greater.
But we're looking almost a year into the future since I write slow as molasses. Not helped by my terribly limited time.
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I'm so sorry Noodle. I'm 300% that guy trying to hold all his many limes together in his arms and failing. Good news is, now that we're past the intro I don't have to write in alternating time frames, loops back and forth between perspectives, shifts in poetic prose and normal storytelling, and foreshadowing tomfoolery.
We in it for real now. 😎 Leveled ground.
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Just thinking about what I mentioned to ya back in chapter 1 and wondering if I properly did the manga justice. Ah well. Spilled milk and all that. We got an adventure on our hands now!
<3 I'm super excited to finally be here too. But I think I might have gotten here a little too quickly in my excitement for it
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Like a distant star having gone supernova, I imagine what could be felt would be akin to seeing one star in a clear night sky brighter than the rest. The ferocity in that event reaching out across the cosmos in a small way.
But honestly. Taking on the brunt of the A.Amulet's power and being unfazed by it, with plans to grow that much stronger... A wonder who Tiara plans to fight. Or what her vengeance even entails.
Everything up to this point feels like a prologue told in vignettes to something much, much larger. All of them together do well to establish the love these two had for each other and the depths each were willing to go to for one another. I havent seen too often when someone really can capture "I love you more than words can say" like this. I am 100% here for that let alone the intresting premise.
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With this context, I can understand that these 6 chapters are really just the prologue.
I can't agree with this statement. I think that almost all the elements of a fantastic introduction are here, But it feels like it was written without an outline. The two most important tools for an author are the story outline and the story bible.
If you like, we can talk more by message. I may not have posted many stories under my account, but I've done a lot of work helping more prominent authors.
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Look, you're trying to adapt a manga with human characters into a mlp world that already has its own lore. I think you're doing a great job! And remember, the manga was kinda fast paced too. 😊
Feels like I'm missing something
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You aren't, don't worry. It's still a bit of a mystery. Someone might be able to clue into it if they could see into my mind or have really acute consideration for the show, but I'm not expecting that of people. Hang tight for now, the next chapter will cover it.
The ruins of... wait...
"Remembers old Pony history"
Could she be talking about... those lands?!
The lands Grogar declared his?!
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media.discordapp.net/attachments/349415237612470274/1145110468470521936/image.png
I... did not expect anyone to figure that out at all. What are you GJ? Psychic?
Seriously amazing though! There were only ever such tiny clues. It's the whole reason why I picked the Frozen North lands for the monastery's location. The constant reiteration of "artifacts of old". A place ravaged by time and frost... And the introduction of Yuki as a character moving forward.
Much love, GJ. You're the best.
G1's Dream Valley?
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Good guess! Wish I could say something but that would ruin the mystique a bit. I will say this: I love the guesses and wish I could act upon some of them. Hopefully the choice I made doesn't disappoint! Otherwise it'll be my mistake in hyping this place up. Haha. ^^',