As if dying of embarrassment in the middle of a Crystal Empire celebratory dinner wasn’t bad enough, now Shining Armor has to entertain the worst guest imaginable. No, not Lemon Hearts. The one with the inexplicable agricultural tool. No, not Crazy Lace Agate. The one with the ominous powers and the unstoppable determination to – No, not Cadence. Look, Death, all right? It’s Death. Death’s the worst guest imaginable.
And when the spectre at the feast wants you dead and can’t die in turn, not even love and friendship are strong enough to stand in the way of grim destiny.
Not that this will stop them. Love and friendship are funny like that.
An entry in Imposing Sovereigns IV, using the prompt "Princess Cadence and Shining Armor/Harmony".
Chapters (1)
And yep, this gets both a Favourite and an updoot
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Lovely Pratchett-esque stuff.
My goodness! This was an entertaining lunchtime read! Thank you for sharing this wonderful piece. :D
I didn't give as good/coherent of a review of Diamond of the Dead as I'd have liked because I wrote my comment right after binging it at like... 4am, so I waited until I'd had the chance to sit on this before deciding to share my thoughts.
I'm kind of surprised Lemon Hearts wasn't tagged, considering she did exist quite presently in the story, although that might be a thing about the contest. I really liked your take on her character! It's nice seeing Cadence have, like, an actual social life. Speaking of Cadence, I felt like that thing about how Death taking two souls if she lost was sort of... dropped? That was a little bit jarring.
I feel like this is a story that could've benefited a lot from not having a max word count- not to say it's poorly paced or nothin', but man, there was a whole lot! And, like, it was a whole lot of fun, but I'm astral projecting into an alternate universe where each challenge was its own chapter, or something, and there's more banter or shenanigans or just time to breathe. One of my favorite parts about your writing is the creative prose descriptions, and while it's still present, I wish there was More. Most of the paragraphs were pretty short, is what I mean to say. (Also, I think if it had been broken up into multiple chapters, I might not have read everything in one sitting, so it would've been less... So Much. But that's on me not liking to not read one-shots in one sitting lol)
But! But, I still really enjoyed this. I mean, I'm also just a big fan of meandering prose (huge Estee fan here), and it's not like I didn't finish it. It's not like "I wish there was more of it" is a scathing criticism. I'm not sure how I feel in general about "Shining Armor is a ridiculous fool" as a fandom concept, but I really liked your portrayal of him here- he's dorky, but it's because he's a Nerd, and not just because haha losers are funny. And he gets to show off being a badass- with his wife! I totally called him picking Cadence as his weapon, but it was still really sweet. Throughout the piece I was sort of raising my eyebrows like, "This is supposed to fit Harmony?" but then at the very end, the two of them working together, and ESPECIALLY the scene when all the Crystal Ponies are like, "A part of my soul! A part of my soul!" I actually gasped out loud when Lemon Hearts started it. Of course, I cried at the ending of Okami when Issun rallies all the people you've helped across the game to pray for you, and I cried at lots of other scenes like it, so that was just tailor made for me.
Admittedly I was a little disappointed when I realized this wasn't going to be a story about Death learning how to be Human through the power of DND. But I still really liked where it actually went. I think you characterized Death very well as this actual Force, or Otherworldly Concept Beyond Mortal Ken (like, I actually checked the tags a few times just to make sure I didn't miss tragedy, her victory seemed so inevitable- and at some point, I actually became convinced that Shining Armor would actually die, but it would just be funny), and still managed to slip some pony-anity in there. A good balance! The flower, and the ultimate reveal... that was very clever. Really creative. I felt for her. I'm kind of miffed we didn't get the name of her first love, but that's a personal problem. Some people might appreciate the ambiguity.
And I liked the subtle(ish?) worldbuilding! The DND stuff being based around legends was cool, but then the Plutonia reveal was another moment that got an actual verbal reaction out of me- "OHHH SHIT!" Masterful use of Chekov's Gun, in my humble opinion.
I'd talk more but I have an event I need to head to right now... tl;dr is I really liked the librarian and Crazy Lace too. It was a little strange they seemed to be so cozy with the royals, but again, as an Estee fan, might just be me still stuck in that "scared of royalty" milleu. Very nice piece!
I was hoping that he'd manage to work in the Wifleman's Creed somewhere in there!
Incredible work, and truly impressive narrative density. The fact that you fit so much story into the word limit is truly impressive, to say nothing of the incredible quality of that story. Your portrayal of the Death of Ponies is enjoyably detestable yet engagingly tragic. Thank you for an outstanding read, and best of luck in the judging.
Written and sung while he was dying of cancer:
This is much more intelligently written than a ponyfic has any right to be. You've done a great job of covering Pratchett, not just because you have a character who is Death and who TALKS LIKE THIS, but because you've managed to emulate Pratchett's story structure: an absurdist romp that turns into a character study that evolves into a meditation on myth.
I see you've incorporated Faust's "Galaxy Girls" pitch into your worldbuilding. Good one. Is this also a "just-so" story of why there are no planets in Equestria's night sky, just the Moon and stars?
And Pluto gets demoted in this universe too: used to be a whole planet, now...
Darn, this one took off in my absence, didn't it? What a nice surprise to come back to.
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As a major Discworld fan, I take that as a high compliment. Thanks!
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You're very welcome. Glad to have brought satisfaction.
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Oh, you... 🙄😏😆
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I mean, it should be no surprise that writing my own take on Death was one of my favourite parts of this whole gig. 😈
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Damn...
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Actually, it was more a coincidence than a deliberate homage. Literally just taking "Celestia = Celestial with the last letter taken off", noticing "Luna(r)", and asking "Well, if there were other alicorns, it's obvious what kinds of names they'd have."
I think there are other planets - at the very least, Twilight knows what planets are in "Owl's Well That Ends Well" - but I suppose this would be a good explanation as to why those planets are lifeless.
Funny you say it like that, because I thought of Plutonia's fate as the opposite of ascension: instead of gaining through great deeds, she degenerates into a worse form through deeds too horrible to contemplate. Especially since her murderous tendencies also have a meta-level wrongness about them (no way is the show going to have a mass murderer on it, so there's tension within the setting too).
Can't comment on your first paragraph other than to say I'm mentally gushing over it right now. Thank you so much for the feedback!
And now for the good-sized one.
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That was plenty good/coherent. I wouldn't have thought otherwise, not even now you've said this. Comments like that are a welcome bonus regardless. I appreciate it.
Lately, I've been pushing back against my older tendency to tag anyone who's in the fic, preferring to keep it to the essentials (the Crystal Ponies tag is supposed to be because of the role of the Empire's citizens and their relationships with Cadence and Shining in the story). The original idea was that Lemon was part of the crowd with Mrs Maresbury and Crazy Lace Agate; her slight bias and increasing takeover was kind of an accident-as-I-wrote-along outcome.
Mmmm, I kinda feel off about it too, to be honest. I'm hoping it works as a kind of "Fridge Horror", as TV Tropes would put it, so when ALL the crystal ponies stake their souls at the climax...
I see the case for writing prose that's allowed to breathe - it's more fun to write, for one thing, when you don't feel too pressured and don't mind sticking to the point after a while - but I'm also conscious of a recurring criticism I get about being too indulgent with my style. Maybe it's a matter of personal taste, but in any case I'd like to try to split the difference.
Word limits I have a sort of love-hate relationship with.
On another level, I do like the idea that Shining would be a big history buff. Apart from the obvious military association, I really like the idea that he and Twilight share a love for academic stuff, just biased towards different subjects (in other fics, I extend that sentiment to their parents as well, just in literary and mathematical directions - for Velvet and Night Light respectively).
Heheh, I did wonder if the nonverbal signalling there was too heavy-handed, but I wanted at least some foreshadowing so that it didn't seem entirely out of the blue.
These two points are related. I wasn't just aiming for the final team-up; I wanted to show throughout the fic that Cadence and Shining live and breathe harmony, and the interactions with the regular citizens (Crazy Lace Agate and Mrs Maresbury especially were meant to highlight this) showed them as more like a big, friendly family than as a traditional "distant ruler" pair.
It's partly how I view Cadence versus Celestia, for example. Whereas Celestia's a more distant, reserved, and ancient ruler, I tend to think of Cadence as the modern princess. I mean, post-ascension her first job was apparently mundane babysitting, and especially after that montage at the end of "A Canterlot Wedding" (with her dancing alongside Pinkie), it pretty much cemented the idea in my mind that Cadence is more of a "mare of the ponies" kind of ruler.
As for Shining Armor, I naturally assume he's a family guy to begin with. The comics and later show eps giving us his nerdy side just sealed the deal.
Oh-my-gosh-I-love-that-game-Okami-is-like-the-best-game-ever-we-must-talk-Okami-NOW
Seriously, you have just unleashed Heaven with that mention.
Take this as you will, but it was very much a direction I wanted to avoid. Given my own views, I felt that kind of conversion would be too trite for a character this intense. For all that she borrows the more - for want of a better term - "humanizing" traits from the Discworld Death, I see my Death as ultimately having this unshakeable, unreachably dark core to her character, regardless of the frills around that core, and the inherent mismatch between that and the optimistic, softened tone of Equestria's world was a driving force for the fic. I take it as a keen compliment that you suggested Shining had any chance of dying at all, given how much I suspected this was going to be a foregone conclusion. At least, from where I was sitting.
Excellent!
I have an answer to that, but A) it's tied up with other ideas behind-the-scenes (sadly, as I really like this particular idea), and B) I'm curious as to how people will interpret it, since it's kept a mystery.
(Cocks gun). 😈 I also shoot cans off fences.
Seriously, thanks. I do wonder at times how well I balance plot twists between "saw it coming a mile away" and "OH COME ON! How on Earth could anyone sane have predicted that!?" So it's always good to get that feedback.
Thanks a ton for the excellent comment. Always a pleasure to get the blow-by-blow account. As ever, I'm very grateful for your time.
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You've seen https://www.fimfiction.net/story/62858/1/martial-bliss/martial-bliss , yes?