11839221
Yeah, get it right.

I mean shipping is a thing IRL. And i just decided that Quibble Pants is a RGR version of a yaoi fangirl lol.

Aye.

Yeah, it is kind of a 'WTF Discord' moment.

Well Bon Bon I hope those words will taste good, for you are going to have to eat them.

And the talk between the Twilights and others was great.

Twilight's own realizing that he has to deal with ponyville, is something to look forward to.

Over all just a great update.

11839527
I shell do so.

Hehe, she better hope Flare does not realize for then things might get more hot for Dering the ever

How Twilight fires back at him will be interesting.

11839552
I really like dramatic irony, lol.

I also like my OCs, this rewrite has given me the opportunity to add a number of characters who never made it into the previous version.

Aye.

Thank you.
11839553
Oh, Flare is absolutely aware of the shippers, she find's it hilarious. She also tries to slip through subtle nods to the shipping community, because she finds it funny.

I honestly haven't planned that far ahead,

11839603
Hehe, yeah Lyra is going to be such a pain, when she is proven right.

Aye you have done a great job with your OCs, they seem fun to just watch.

Oh Daring must be so confused

That is fair, and I take it this is probably a long time away, so there is no rush at least.

11839609
Bon Bon felt a headache coming on, "No, Lyra, you weren't right, you weren't even 1% right. I was wrong, but that is not the same as you being right.

Interestingly, all of the OCs (except Midnight) have a pretty long history as far as this fic is concerned. In fact the entire smuggler caravan scene was originally planned for the first rewrite, but I never had the time/energy/space to put it in. The fact that I had decided that all the scenes with side characters would be confined to their own 'interude' chapters also made things more difficult.

Especially when Flare starts referencing extremely esoteric fandom memes.

Aye.

11839644
But getting Lyra to agree will be the hard part. Bon Bon is in for a long day.

Huh, well how about that, that is interesting. I will said that you made the right choice when you chose to keep it.

Hehe, that will probably make Daring wake up in the middle of the night a few times, do to wed dreams

11839649
I'm not sure why you deleted your most recent comment, so I'll reply here instead.

It's funny that you should ask that, because the answer is neither. Celestia's motivation is neither a genuine expression of Generosity, nor is it a Machiavellian attempt to keep the other races down. Instead it's a mix of Pride and 'the soft bigotry of low expectations'. Celestia thinks it's her duty/the duty of ponykind to 'help' the other 'lesser' species.

One thing to note about Celestia is that she almost entirely Super Ego, She has ripped her entire Id out of her Psyche and shoved it in a tiny box. She is incapable of truly understanding how normal individuals think, and therefor is completely incapable of empathizing with them.

11839654
Bon Bon is in for a lot of long days, lol.

Thank you.

Eh, Daring is strictly heterosexual, so no.

Man, this world building is on point! I love it!

I'm also liking house Twilight more and more as we learn more. A political entity that operates on merit, seems to have a policy of changing themselves to fit the world they must live in rather than change to world to suite themselves, not xenophobic, and can go face to face with their worst enemies in the most badass way possible... Yea, I'm digging them. We still have not met Sparkle's mother, so I can't judge her. But the family is awesome so far.

I'm also glad to see Sparkle purging all that pent up grief and angst. I'm suspicious of that spell from the start of the story. If it purged the generations old gender swap and was designed to purge magical contaminants, and appears to have undone the effects of whatever exercise Celestia had Sparkle performing, then this is making Celestia's little "meditation" look really, really bad. Like, performing a lobotomy on a child levels of bad.

If I hadn't jumped around enough yet, I really like team Eta, I'm just hoping they do not turn into an embeded side story. What I mean is that there was another great story that had a team of specialists working in the background. They had an amazing tale with great characters, but they were completely divorced from the main storyline, only having a tiny impact at the end of the last chapter. It would have been a thousand times better if they had a dedicated story for themselves. I really hope that this strike force becomes integrated into the main story.

Anyway, Thank you for this chapter, it was the best so far!

11839935
Thank you.

House Twilight is kind the anti-ponies, or perhaps anti-Equestrians. They functionally beat back the apocalypse with force of arms (well, force of fang and spell)). As such they have a wildly different set of priorities than the ponies of Equestria, and this is on top of the fact that they think more like wolves than ponies.

As to adapting to circumstances, well they try. They have kind of pigeonholed themselves pretty badly due to their psychology and history.

Velvet is ... not a good mare.

Lobotomy is actually a very apt comparison as just like the lobotomy kills a part of the brain, Id abnegation is attempting to kill part of the psyche.

Eta Team is definitely intended to become part of the greater plot. After all, Lepidoptera needs to meet her future husband. That said there are a couple things that they need to do first. Namely arrest Starlight Glimmer and derail S5 nonsense.

Thank you.

I've been wondering, with all I've got about the Twilights, both in this version and the old one, they are very proud of their name, so Shining Armor, even being Sparkle's half brother, he has no Twilight blood right?

How come they still have the same relationship they had in canon (BBBFF)? Filly Twilight Sparkle seens quite different in behavior if not personality. And his foalhood surrounded by wolfponies should be very interesting. Also did Cadance babysit Twilight only after she became Celestia's student?

11839779
And Lyra being close to being right, will be the smaller of the things she has to deal with. She is going to need some stronger coffee

Ah fair enough, but I can see Flare still having given her a few moments of questing herself.

House Twilight seems a lot more benign now, though I'm not sure that's the intent. They're much more professional than one would think of 'lunatic wolf ponies', which makes me wonder if Sparkle was an absolute extreme edge case that the House couldn't handle on its own even if they tried.

The unfortunate part is that sending her away probably didn't work as well as they thought. Celestia's methods were undeniably crude and ultimately ineffective since Sparkle is still unstable. Maybe stable enough to the point where she- well, he- can actually recover, but that remains to be seen. He'll have to go back home eventually, and I have significantly more faith in them being benevolent instead of something sinister.

In other news, Sparkle definitely has to rail Celestia at some point. That unironically might help her help from self-inflicted mental wounds.

Oh, and you should emphasize less. It's tiring to read an emphasis every other word, and emphasis loses its IMPACT when you abuse it too much, you know?

11840033
Yeah, Shining isn't a Twilight. He's the son of Nightlight and Soft Aegis, both of whom are Canterlot born commoners.

Shining was one of the only ponies who wasn't too afraid of Velvet to approach Twilight Sparkle, he was also a bit of a black sheep and ended up in the Royal Guard around the time that Twilight ended up as Celestia's student. And yes, Cadence was Twilight's foalsitter after she became Celestia's apprentice.
11840078
I mean Bon Bon is the sole SMILE agent responsible for Ponyville.

More like annoyance and frustration due to fans constantly pestering 'A K Yearling' about whether Daring is a fillyfooler, lol.
11840106
I mean, with notable exceptions, House Twilight was never intended to be malevolent. Their professionalism is born out of experience and necessity.

Young Sparkle was sent away to Celestia to get her away from Velvet, as she was an extremely bad influence. Yet somehow, Celestia was worse.

Celestia was even worse than you presume, crude is an understatement, Sparkle wasn't unstable until Celestia got her claws into her. He can definitely recover though, I refuse to write one of those miserable stories where the main character is so traumatized he/she 'can't' get better.

Eh, it might happen eventually but, eh, no promises. Twilight need to be distanced from Celestia, to be honest.

I might use italics a bit much. It isn't intended to be tiring, sorry about that.

11840289
Oh she is so going to be using Twilight's name as a curse word

And from what I have seen of other fandoms, that is a fight she will never win, Hehe.

11840296
I feel like Bon Bon is going to get a PoV every time something major happens. She might have to turn to booze and salt.

Yeah, basically. She is certainly fighting a loosing battle there.

11840352
She is in for one hell of a ride.

And she got no idea what to do about it.

11840289
So not only Shining managed to become a quite well-adjusted adult while surrounded by lunatic paranoid wolfponies, he dived into the monster den to play with it's child? No wonder he is the soul mate of the alicorn of erotic love, he literaly has Equestria's biggest pair of balls

11840418
That is entirely fair, my preference to her as a character basically starts with S6. She's damn near irredeemable in S5 and it's only twilight being show twilight that gave her the redemption possibility in the first place.

Your story your decision after all, not my place to argue in her defense and all that, So I'll leave off being a starlight defender. Not the place for it and all that.

11840380
Aye.
11840383
He's very physically attractive, is far more assertive than the normal stallion, is absurdly magically powerful, and is the only halfway competent stallion in the Royal Guard. He also has rather large testicles, yes (although his 'little' brother has him beat there).

11840432
Honestly, as far as I'm concerned S5 Starlight and S6+ Starlight are completely different characters. And I mean that literally. As in, Twilight accidentally uses Friendship Magic to ego-death the old Starlight and make a new Starlight in her place (it is the only way I could think of actually reconciling the events of the S5 finale).

That said I do want to give her an actual character arc and redemption, although that will have to wait for book two.

Also, thank you for not getting up in arms about her.

11840437
Honestly yeah that's fair. And honestly wouldn't be out of the question in regards to the proper canon. Friendship as a natural force is... WEIRD in the show. I'm looking forward to seeing how you handle the starlight question. (I had to ask because S6+ starlight is... well she's in my top 3 in terms of characters with how her development panned out)

On a note NOT related to the starlight question, loving the story as you've presented it so far and I'm REALLY interested to see where it goes.

11840449
The way 'Friendship Magic' is portrayed in S5+ really squicks me out. I consider using supernatural powers to infringe on an individual's free will to be an explicitly Evil act. Yet in the latter show, it's what the good guys use. As such, that kind of 'Friendship Magic' will not be appearing in this story.

I preferred Friendship Magic back when it was merely the power source for the Orbital Friendship Beam Cannon. Honestly, in retrospect, the Elements of Harmony were kind of underused, which is kind of a shame. I get why they wanted to get rid of them as they trivialized most Big Bads, but I honestly think that the latter seasons' 'Friendship Magic' is even more narratively problematic.

I have plans, lol.

Muito ansioso pelo próximo capitulo <3

11840685
Aye, I am working on it right now, only have about 600 words so far though.

11840473
Being completely honest I've considered this and while it's not AS prevelent, the mane cast not caring about things like free will is a constant. Disturbingly most often with twilight, fluttershy and to an extent Rarity. It got to the point that I view it as pretty safe to say by western earth standards the mane cast are HEROES but not Good guys, in that they are clearly working for the betterment and improvement of equestria but in means and ways that can be viewed as morally grey to black by earth standards.

By the equestrian standard as shown and described their morals and behavior are fully good, but... well the Stare, twilight's extensive use of magic, at times even against the wills of others, and rarity's very notable and shameless manipulation of others... ontop of that the ever growing power of the semi-uncaring force of nature that is harmony (hence the ever more present expression of later season friendship magic) and honestly I can just see it as a natural progression.

For the record I am NOT defending such, by the standards even I believe in many of what the mane cast does is questionable, but there's a reason that one judges both on the actions and the culture combined.

"Well, look at this story, description sounds like a fun and easy reading!"

How wrong I was : ) Still, pretty interesting so far, you've got a lot of world building going on.

He looked down at his enormous penis – even larger than he had feared – as he was overcome with disgust and self-loathing. How could he think of Princess Celestia like that?! How could he taint Equestria's pure, virginal princess with such dirty, twisted fantasies?!

Five'll get you ten that, if she knew about that little dream, she'd think 'Oh, what I'd give to experience such a dirty, twisted rut".

11840890
Eh, mundane manipulation isn't really what I'm talking about. Nor really are things like the Stare, which seems more like a supernatural intimidation/shaming technique. When I say 'infringing on an individual's free will', I don't mean 'anything that changes someone's mind', I mean a supernatural power that directly modifies the motives or conscience of the individual.

I'm talking more like directly altering an individual's will, which seems to be what 'Friendship Magic' is doing. Admittedly, I am reading between the lines a bit, but when you have actively malevolent individuals who suddenly make a heel-face turn and become 'friendly' for no apparent reason, what can I conclude but 'mindslaving'.

Okay, worldbuilding time, turn's out that mindslaving is not what the Fires of Friendship was intended to be used for. In fact, one could say that it's explicitly opposed to the concept of Friendship. As such, every time that the main cast abuses Friendship Magic in this way, they kill part of the Fires of Friendship, and when that runs out ... Equestria ends.
11841008
Honestly, I do need to update the description. I hope you enjoyed the story though.
11841009
Eh, Celestia has spent the last millennium trying to kill the part of her that feels sexual attraction and arousal, so ...

11841169
Perhaps...but that was before she saw what her student looked like as a stallion.

11841223
Princess Celestia is psychologically incapable of feeling sexual attraction. It does not matter how attractive Twilight is. Also Celestia has already seen a large number of pictures of Twilight.

Great story so far.

The bit about ball bras disturbed me, no clue why.

Question though, what happened to the changelings in the bad future? Did they die or were merely in hiding?

11841911
Thank you.

Ball bras are actually a semi-common RGRE trope.

Well, Gen 5 doesn't have any changelings in it so ... yeah they were xenocided.

This story is so good! I can't wait for more, already reread the available chapters three times and am going crazy trying to guess what happens next.
Really loving the world building. Is Sparkle going to crack the code to use disjunction at some point?

11845977
Honestly, even I am not 100% certain what's going to happen, I have a lot of broad story beats planned out, but the specifics are something that solidify as I write. Already, the story has changed a surprising amount since I first started the rewrite. Hell, the Twilights weren't even fully wolfponies until partway through writing chapter 1.

I have spent way too much time worldbuilding for this fic, lol.

Eh, I doubt Sparkle will ever manage a proper disjunction (at least without the Elements) a controlled disjunction is kind of a fix-it button that undermines a number of the story's stakes, so it will probably remain (outside the obvious exception of the Elements) a suicide self-destruction technique. If it ever appears it's going to be a pony's Special Talent.

11846478
Ah too bad then, we will have to stick to fantastic nukes and temporal retcons instead. I simply love overpowered main characters, specially overpowered Twilight Sparkle main characters, too bad they're so hard to write.

11846695
I am a firm believer in Brandon Sanderson's claim that what makes a magic system interesting is its limitations, and the primary limitation for magic in this story is its permanency/difficulty to undo. Disjunction breaks that. The Elements get to do it because they're special (and they have a lot of limitations of their own) but short of a blankflank foal getting a Mark in Disjunction, it's outright impossible for ponies to use.

That said, Twilight Sparkle doesn't need disjunction in order to be a complete powerhouse. He's already exceptionally powerful for an alicorn in a setting that's significantly higher power than most fics.

11765381
i don't know if you've read any of the current story but 11765389 is no longer correct. The story has diverged significantly from the previous version. Gender politics are now a much smaller part of the story (although they are still present). That said 11765399 still holds.

2 Questions:

1. How much does Twilight (Sparkle) know about the actual history (seeing as he was Celestia's student yet distanced from his family I could easily see him blind...ish when it comes to some of the atrocities of the noble houses)
2. In the original timeline Luna gave up her throne together with Celestia for Twilight to become sole ruler (which always struck me as odd, tbh, considering in Canon she rebelled against her sister to become the sole ruler of Equestria and adored by the masses). How did this happen here? Did Celestia bully her into it or did Celestia's health fall, forcing Luna to take care of her?

11860093

Good questions.

The question isn't what Twilight Sparkle knows so much as what he believes. All Twilights get pretty thorough lessons on history from a very young age and Sparkle is no exception. However, Sparkle does not consider House Twilight to be a reliable narrator, partly due to Velvet, partly due to Celestia.

Yeah, the entire abdicating to make Twilight queen was one of the dumber moments in the show. I kind of get Celestia abdicating as she had been the sole ruler of Equestria for a thousand years straight, but Luna abdicating never made any sense, she'd been a reigning princess for what, 5 to 10 years? A negligible period of time for an immortal.

That said, in this fic, Luna is just very bad at telling Celestia no. And the entire 'Luna got jealous and suddenly decided that night would last forever' thing is explicitly revisionist history in this story.

11860233
Makes sense, thank you. Love the comments, btw, it's rare that an author engages in it so much (pity, I rather like it).

A few thoughts after comment diving:
SMILE being a dystopian secret police makes sense (and neatly explains where Twilight got these books about reforming spells she wanted to use on Discord in keep calm and flutter on)
For mythical cats I would recommend the Nemean Lion
Are ponies (and Discord) the only ones who can ascend? Otherwise, you could make some Gryphon ascend, thus replace her parts with mythical bird/feline
what about the Crystal Heart? It is a rather powerful artifact, any plans for it or its connection to Cadence?

11860806
I try to reply to every comment on my fic, I very much enjoy the conversations. In fact, a significant amount of the worldbuilding for the setting is through the comments (both on this fic and its previous version).

The canon about SMILE being monster hunters doesn't fit with their name at all, and the name just sounds like a dystopian secret police. So that's what they are in this setting.

Celestia doesn't exactly have the greatest respect for an individual's self determination, at least when that self determination leads to the """wrong""" answer (Celestia's core flaw in this story is hubris, and that flaw is responsible for much of what's wrong with the setting). This is why SMILE is the way it is, and it has also rubbed off on Twilight Sparkle.

Nemean Lion is possible, but I have no idea when this character is going to actually appear, she might never.

Any living thing can theoretically ascend by Mantling a Mantle (an aspect of reality). I mean, the Tree of Harmony is a tree. That said, there's a reason why the vast majority of Mantled Immortals are/have been alicorns (Cutie Marks can represent a direct tie to a Mantle, making the entire process of ascension significantly easier). It's possible that this character could be an ascended gryphon, although that would require a lot of thought of what Mantle the character would possess.

I mean, Cadence's Cutie Mark unambiguously depicts the Crystal Heart so there's definitely a connection there, likely similar to how the Mane Six were the destined wielders of the Elements. As to the Heart itself, it is much akin to the Elements, just powered by Love rather than the 5 Virtues of Harmony, although its scope seems to be narrower than the Elements (even if its similarly powerful).

Oh i forgot to mention, that one scene was great, kinda wish it had gone on longer tho.~ The contrast between it and him snapping out of it was great too. Really shows the high pedestal he holds her to. Cant wait for that to come crumbling down while she watches. (also maybe while being railed. that would be amsuing.)

Im assuming when twiggles heads back to twilight manor thats where the fate divergence really kicks in, because otherwise she wouldnt head back there?

11840352
Bonus points if lyra keeps being extremely close to the truth and just doesnt know it at the time.

11846478
A proper disjunction would be more like a miracle hail marry i would think, even with research, because it would only work for one pony in one specific situation. As a result you cannot use it unless you know yourself more than reality, but you need your target to also be known at that level of detail.... but at that point you might as well use something less risky right? (and you would stop reaserching well before that point because you would already have a counter solution?)

11877756
The entire point of the fantasy scene was to be short and aborted, causing whiplash in the reader. Specifically to show how he thinks of Celestia. That pedestal is already starting to crumble.

The divergence in Fate has already happened, it was the first moment where Twilight doubted Princess Celestia.

Twilight will go to Twilight Manor, although I can't say when, why or with whom.
11877766
Some of Lyra's theories are close to the truth, but most are complete nonsense. They also have a bad habit of contradicting each other.
11877773
The problem with disjunction is not that it's too specific, but rather that it's too general. A disjunction always rips whatever magic is closest to it to shreds, usually starting with the caster.

Twilight had always found it somewhat ironic that Rainbow was the only one of the six to not end up with a carnivore as a pet.

Something we should know about Angel Bunny?

From the perspective of the Eta Team, House Twilight doesn’t seem as bad as the bits about Velvet…

11895887
I mean, Angel might be one of Fluttershy's pets, but he's not Fluttershy's only pet.

That said, I cannot confirm or deny any claim about Angel's diet.

I mean, House Twilight isn't meant to be bad in this fic, they're just ... different.