Even with magic available, destruction on the level caused by the changeling invasion is not repaired in minutes, or even hours. Because of this, it was necessary to push the wedding of Shining Armor and Princess Mi Amore Cadenza back a week. Twilight Sparkle, of course, made lists for each person, which were all duplicated on a master check list that was sent to Princess Celestia at the end of each day, with the day’s completed tasks marked off, and those in progress marked as such. Twilight resolutely refused to begin new wedding planning until the city was back in top shape.
It was the end of the fourth day of repairs when the usual list appeared on Celestia’s table, but the packet seemed thicker than it had been for the past few days. For that matter, it clearly had not been sent by Spike’s flame, either, which also struck Celestia as unusual. Both Luna and Cadence were with her, as they were finishing their own duties in the city’s repair, and were getting ready to re-commence preparations for Cadence’s wedding.
“Perhaps Twilight has some new ideas,” Cadence said when Celestia commented on the unusual thickness of the scroll. “Shall we find out?” Celestia nodded and opened the scroll, and quickly proved to both of the other princesses that it was, in fact, possible for her to go even whiter.
“Oh dear,” was all she managed to say for a moment or two. “This is bad. How did we let this get this way?”
“What dost thou -” Luna began, and then scowled. “What do you mean, sister?” she asked. Celestia’s answer was to turn the enclosed letter toward Cadence and her.
Dear Princess Celestia,
I apologize for once again being a silly little foal, but I just can’t do this. I can’t go through the process of rebuilding the city and then rebuilding my brother’s wedding as if there is nothing wrong. It hurts too much to stay, so I’m returning to Ponyville.
I need to have some time to myself to think about things, because there is something wrong that needs fixing, and I have to figure out precisely what it is first, before I can even contemplate fixing it.
I give you a Pinkie Pie Promise that I am merely going back to Ponyville, and will not run away to parts unknown to “find myself” or whatever the phrase might be. If I find that such will be necessary, then I swear to you that I will tell you and the girls first. Pinkie Pie Promise.
I will also stay in contact through our letters, although I’ll need Spike around for any that follow this one. This one will be easy to send, since I am in the castle, but over the distance between Ponyville and Canterlot? I can’t power it myself.
Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle
“Well, I can’t say that I’m too surprised,” Cadence said simply. “I would like to go to Ponyville to talk to her, however. I would like her there at my wedding.”
Celestia reared back slightly, as if Cadence had attempted to physically assault her. “You are not surprised by this reaction?” she asked.
“Not really. From what I can hear around the castle - and more precisely, what I haven’t heard - I don’t think that anyone has apologized to her for what was said and done. You all seem to be acting as if ignoring it will make the problem disappear. It doesn’t quite work that way.”
Luna glanced at it again. "She might be sick as well. This letter does not bear the usual mark of her … oh, now I go in the other direction!" She gently stomped her foot. "I am trying to sound less archaic. Her thoughts seem jumbled in this missive. Perhaps she wrote it and ran? I have read the letters she has sent to Celestia, and they are far more … I believe coherent would be the word. She doth be -” She sighed. “She is confused.”
“You’re doing fine, aunt,” Cadence told her. “I’ll help you with it, if you want. But yes, that letter is a bit disjointed. She hurts, some for how ponies reacted, but I suspect more for how they did not react once the trouble was over.”
Celestia looked quite troubled. “My last real comment to her, other than that she had a wedding to prepare, was that she had much to think on, and it was said in some anger. Let her know that we will have a long conversation when she returns, should she choose to. And that I have much to apologize for.” She hung her head. “Despite appearances, Cadence, age does not necessarily bestow wisdom.”
“She is forgiving,” Luna said. “Perhaps too much so, but a truly felt apology will likely do much to ease her mind.”
“It will be given,” Celestia said, “but to her face. I will not trust something so important to a simple missive, no matter how long I might make it.”
She opened her mouth to say more, but was startled by the sound of hooves thundering outside her hall, coming to a stop outside. The door popped open, showing the culprit to be Shining Armor. “Princess! My sister! She’s missing! Everything from her room is gone!”
“We know, Shining Armor,” Cadence told him. “She sent a letter to Princess Celestia. Luna and I are going to Ponyville to see if we can convince her to return to Canterlot.”
He slumped. “She left because of me, didn’t she? I said some cruel things when she accused ‘Cadence’. I was going to apologize to her and saw her stuff gone. I was hoping she might find it in her heart to forgive her idiot big brother, even though he doesn’t deserve it.”
“She has a huge heart,” Celestia said. “Luna is correct in that she will likely forgive. Right now, however, she hurts. Cadence, you and Luna take my chariot and be with her. Please - give her the thanks that I should have. I shall speak to her other friends to see if they have spoken with her.”
i will add it to my read later list for now, good luck with your story
Back
Seen/Read
Overall the dialogue was a little bit to stiff and formal, especially from Shining Armour.
I'm not going to fault you for doing a story on this, but everyone and his dog has done their take on how Twilight is after these events, you're going to have to do something pretty different to get this to stand out.
It's average at the moment, not good, not bad, could use some work.
It looks like you need a prereader - there's a bunch of typos all over this story. Unfortunately I don't have the patience at the moment to comb through and point them all out, otherwise I'd be glad to help.
The story itself looks promising, it just needs some polish.
Hmm, I like the premise. Perhaps, though, you should put some time into Twilight's perspective. That would really add to the depth of her emotions.
-RisingOne
2154015
I hate it when that happens! I go through it with multiple reads, and STILL miss things.
I'll see if I can find someone around me in RL who's willing to pre-read it, who understands the world. I'm kinda a lone Brony around here.
2153969
Hey, I'm hoping for not being booed off the site. I've been around the Harry Potter fandom enough to know that it's VERY hard to come up with an original idea, so I'd be really surprised if this story makes someone gasp and say "Hey, that's a new take on it!"
Not to say that I won't try to come up with something like that, mind you. But I'm really just hoping for not being told that I should just stop writing in the fandom by a majority of readers. (I'll always come across trolls - got a couple in the HP fandom who seem to follow me around to down-mark my stuff. )
2154339 Yeah, let's just say you ALWAYS want a second pair of eyes reading over your work - you, as the author, are too close to your work to notice typos a lot of the time - you see what it should be and what you think you typed/wrote, meanwhile what's actually down is full of typos. So, get a prereader.
Alternately, read it backwards. It breaks that author-story connection enough that you'll see more of the typos.
I like it. Obviously needs a bit of a pre-reader to go through it, but the effort is there and while the premise existed prior I am interested in how you go about it.
There is a group that does proofreading. I forget what it is called, though.
2154361
People who do that are pretty crappy. If someone puts in the effort to write a story, genuine effort, the worst they will get from me is nothing more than a bit of constructive criticism. It takes a fair amount of guts to write something and have other scrutinize it. When I was writing my thesis it was scary defending it and presenting it to my peers.
So keep your chin up. Looking forward to more.
It's true that this has been done and done well before, but I look forward to seeing your personal 'take' on this Kinsfire (yes, I know you from the HP Fandom).
Twilight was treated very badly by ponies who ought to have trusted her enough to at least question why she was reacting so strongly. Additionally, we never see the reconciliation on screen so this is a potentially big subject for fanfic writers to address. I, personally, hope that Twilight does not forgive too easily but at least asks her Princess and friends why they were so quick to reject and denounce her fears. Yes, she was a bit hysterical but at the very least they should have sat her down and tried to reason with her.
This was probably an error in writing in the actual episode - the reactions of Celestia and the Mane Six are slightly out-of-character, probably in an attempt to artificially stack up the odds against Twilight Sparkle but it always rang a bit false to me. Maybe some writer out there can find a coherent reason - either a spell being cast by Chrysalis or even shadows in their own pasts that made them distrust her.
Thought I recognized the screen name, BenRG. And now you know some small reason my output of my other stuff slowed down even more - I became a Brony, and I'm trying to watch every episode. (And my muse has been more than a little recalcitrant as well, so I was pleased when this one jumped out, basically fully formed.)
It might earn a DLP rating of "Kinsfire" , but I think that her reaction is fairly logical in this, as you'll see it in the next chapter I post. She freaks out big time, why couldn't her freak out be in a less hyperactive sense?
2154361 welcome to a better fandom. Unless you really screw it up or hit the big time and get a featured story, nobody's going to send you messages telling you to stop writing.
2156283
I have noted a more polite breed of reviewers and commenters so far in this fandom. (And my spell-check seems to hate both fandom and pluralizing commenter...just as a meaningless aside...)
The comments that I always found funny were after I finished my first HP fic over ten years ago. Someone read all 25 chapters of it and then proceeded to tear it apart on how awful it was, and blah-bla-blah, as if it was my fault that they spent a couple hours reading it. I've learned over the years that I can't control the readers, nor would I want to. Nothing I write will ever please every reader out there - it's just not possible. So I write so that I enjoy it, and then post it hoping that others might like it as much as I did. (I did write the story, after all, so I must like it at least a little bit...)
The next chapter's going to be posted probably tomorrow at the earliest, since I found that my wife doesn't have a problem reading it for at least the technical side (and I've talked about the show enough that she can give me a decent idea if I really derped something up about canon), so some of my more egregious errors should be gone. (Hopefully all, but somehow, something STILL always sneaks through...)
2156639 true enough. I'm an editor on the site if you're interested.
As to Harry Potter fans ripping apart your stories, that fandom has always been rather....rabid. Being a massive anti fan of the books (mostly because there are about twenty other fantasy series I can name that deserve its fame more) I've come to learn that in some circles I'm Satan. Mwhahahaha!
2156162 I think Celestia's reaction was rather in character. She's very protective of her family, and Twilight had (apparently) crossed a serious line. What seems slightly OOC is her never apologizing to Twilight for her behaviour. If I'd written the episode, I'd have made Celestia walk out in a huff all the same, and then had her apology come across as somewhat insincere and shoved aside by her congratulations. Just enough to highlight her need to appear infallible in front of her subjects.
Dash and Spike walking out on Twilight, on the other hoof, is certainly OOC. I would've imagined after Shining gave Twilight the scolding, AJ would've thrown in her two cents, Fluttershy and Pinkie would've tried to comfort Cadence and Spike and Dash Twilight. Rarity's reaction is hard to say, though I think she'd probably stay with Twilight.
This is good...
So much potential in it... you must include all of the characters that walked out on her and seeing their 'reasons' and methods of redemption (just not a huge party please) and Celestia, her apologizing actually... that's something you never see in the show EVER
2157432
I will admit that I didn't give reactions for some of them - for one thing, I tried with Pinkie, and I just can't quite get her to read right to me, and Fluttershy strikes me as the type to often go with the crowd. She would likely say her apology privately. Also, I couldn't quite get her right either.
As an aside on the episode - in it, as Twilight is checking of preparations being complete, the last one was from Pinkie and Cadence doing that funny as heck dance - what the hay was the listing on Twi's list for that?!?
2157013
The rabid 'shippers in HP are the worst - I know some guys who will not read any story that has Ron and Hermione being in a relationship - EVER. Obsessive much? I have some fun with it, and have something of a name in that community, especially since some of my early stuff was depressingly emo in the beginning - and I have no idea why. I've got a handful of stories over in that fandom I'm trying to finish, and I'm trying to get more stuff published - actually got a couple short stories published in anthologies!
2157846
I think that was for the wedding reception. Wasn't that what Pinkie was in charge of?
Well, firstly this does look to be a good story idea. I've only read 1 or two fics total since joining FiMfiction that deal with this issue. Furthermore, of the two, one grew into something I personally see as a triumph of literary gold that has grown into something more with a great sequel!!
Now, that being said, I have to say in the episode, Spike's reaction was the one that threw me for a loop. I figured, vulnerable or not, he'd have stuck with Twilight, or being used to her freak outs, would have sat her down, gotten her to be coherent enough for her to get her reasons out in the open. Then, there's Rainbow Dash, brash as she can be, I figured she'd have stuck with Twi due to her habit of being suspicious of anypony new, if not outright loyalty.
Then, as far as apologies go. I'd say Fluttershy would be the most broken up about it, right up there with Pinkie Pie. Those two would feel horrible for doubting her, and their apologies would likely be the most overtly emotional and rapid of the main six. Dash would be harder, I think, due to her "Cool" attitude, but in this case, a stilted yet still heartfelt apology should be doable for her. Rarity...meh, he's overly dramatic most of the time, so a quiet, but intense apology complete with her appearing defeated would be a good one for her. Then there's AJ...she could go either way. We know she has stubborn pride, and has a heck of a time admitting she was wrong, so I can see her trying to avoid the issue all together like with the Rodeo incident. But I can also see her, having already been through that, steeling herself and going to Twilight, constantly steeling herself to do so during the approach. Again, it's up to you how this falls. Spike would be the one I'm worried about.
Twilight is Spike's closest friend, the one who hatched him, and likely the one constant in his life. To have doubted her, or hurt her as he did, is gunna be on his mind. And he's still young, so his ability to cope with the fact he did that, let alone try and have the courage to apologies when he likely can't forgive himself, would be a huge event.
Anyway, best of luck, and I hope things go well for you in the near future. And also sorry about the rant, I'm a stream-of-consciousness type writer, so this is likely actually how I talk too.
I thought the same thing, after seeing that Twilight was right all along, nopony apologied to her and that made me mad, plus, it's why I didn't like Season 2 Finale, I'm glad somepony wrote a fic about it!
2413747 Personally, my beef wasn't that she was right, but that they were too quick to walk out on her when they THOUGHT she was wrong. After all she's done right, and after all she's done for them, including being so forgiving to them when THEY'RE in the wrong, you'd think they'd cut her some slack the one time she messes up
A true friend does not abandon you when they think you're wrong. They might not like what you're doing, and they might be hard on you while trying to get you to realize you screwed up, but they do not abandon you.
2413747
the problem here is... Applejack DID apologize....
4278013 Yeah she's the ONLY one that apologized.
4278013 And that is why Applejack is BEST Pony!
But to be serious, one person apologizing doesn't cover everyone.
4278013
That was barely an appology, and it was so throw away that it was forgetful (compared to the rest of the episode), that even seeing it three times was going to say she didn't until I looked at the transcripts. And it was said in the middle of a battle, not when things had calmed down enough for things to sink in. And with what they did a simple "sorry now that the bug creature's called us out" isn't all that sincere, nor does it cover everypony.
5435820 The worst point is also that his happened Twice now, and many of the fics dealing with this issue mention that, either through twilight calling her friends out on it, or through narrative speech.
There are a couple of Friendship lessons her friends broke that day by obandening and disregarding her concerns that day, but none other is as significant as "Lesson Zero", where they also disregarded, or outright laughed at her worries, to the point where Twilight went crazy.
Because after the lesson they outright promised to never do that again, and never let twilight alone with her concerns. Shortly, to back her up in times of need.
They didn't to BS, here. They ignored her antics and concerns, disregarded her worries. Applejack at least suggested that she ought to check out evil cadence, and while Twilight's attempt to accuse evil cadence without evidence, phoenix wright would face palm here, she still should have given her friends words more head, who was in a similar situation before where applejack and her other friends made the same mistake "calling it 'worry over nothing'".
Yet nobody even thought of siding with Twilight, they pony they went through with all those friendship lessons, with 'Lesson Zero' being the most connected to this case.
They ignored her, and passed her by, leaving her in the throne room, alone.
They didn't even call her out on it, they just went and left in silence, instead following that stranger mare they hardly knew, and that twilight warned them about previously.
They also gave shining more credentials, even though they barely knew him as well.
Some 'friends', aye?
Another lesson, not counting season 4 or 5 (which I havent even completely watched yet), comparable to this in terms of unfairness and 'freindship is derp' was the Mare Do Well episode, and Rainbow Dash's misery connected to it.
I remember there was a great story where Dash got into a fight with Twilight about it, because Rainbow didn't write the promised letter, not accepting her uncalled for guilt. Calling twilight out on it.
Twilight should have had more evidence to back up her claim but her so called friends should have stuck by her instead of somepony they don't even know and she should have gotten a heartfelt apology from everypony who doubted her.
Though I can think of several instances that the mane six didn't act like true friends should and should have apologized for their actions or weren't true to their Elements but then again no one's perfect.
Nnnope.
5928209
Rainbow Dash deserved that punishment 100%
I really like this.
2648798
That enraged me too. Only Spike and Shining Armor managed to be spared from my anger.
6313784
She can’t exactly take a photo of Cadence using a spell on Shining Armor, phones aren’t exactly a thing in Equestria.
Wouldn’t it be a better idea to just give twilight some space?
6313784
Well her proof wasn't much and they dismissed it for some fake tears and certainly they should consider the possibility that something might be wrong considering that the city was under the threat of unknown enemy. It would have taken 5 minutes to reassure twilight that nothing was wrong with her brother or Cadence.
2648798
And considering all the times they been foolish they could have listened to her concerns seriously. Applejack in her pride tried to handle the farm all by herself and almost destroyed the town. Rarity show off when it was supposed to be rainbow spotlight and almost got killed.
10649326
Why Shining? The only time he was actually brainwashed was during the wedding ceremony.
When he lashed out at her, that was 100% Shining Armor. His words probably hurt her as much as all her friends betrayals combined.