There was only one thing I thought off when I read this chapter's end:
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Discord, your spell is breaking down...

(I really can't gripe at you, Mike, because your explanation looks a lot like mine. Not dead!)

Oh dear is any pony else in the house?

This elections shit storm knows no limit

Wait a minute. Dash was with the animals. Shouldn't this be Fluttershy? But, I must agree with Zontargs. This is serious -they've got an appointment to keep with Tirak.

Ever read Larry Niven's story "All the Myriad Ways"? Every possible outcome will occur an infinite number of times. She will both succeed and fail infinitely. Freewill is an illusion caused by our mind's inability to grasp infinity

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Wait a minute. Dash was with the animals. Shouldn't this be Fluttershy?

Nope! Dash is still Swapped.

And, regrettably, I can't say that I ever read that story of Larry Niven's. Sounds like it might be fun, though!

Lightning Dash

Lightning Dust

I don't think both of these are correct.

That was pretty good. However...
You leave it another seven flamin' months for the next update after a cliff hanger like that. I'll mail you fuckin' cat turd.

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Oops! Good catch! Should be fixed now.

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I promise I won't leaving you hanging THAT long EVER again. Merry Christmas, buddy!

Its alive! Its alive!

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*sorry, I don't have time to make anything better.

Months of waiting to.... UNresolve a bunch of stuff? ...Dammit, man! Also, there's several rather careless editing errors.... The two I remember off the top of my head are 'idioticallyobviously' (ctrl f, you'll see it, and I think perhaps you wanted 'obliviously' there) and Lero swapping (hah!) which of his herd wanted variety versus uniformity in their dresses:

Lyra and Twilight want each of their dresses to be ‘unique,’ while Rarity and Rainbow want them ‘identical.’”

Well… when you get down to it… I’m on Rainbow and Rarity’s side on this. I like the idea of variety.

I don't normally nitpick unless asked, but those two kinda stood out. Anywho....

Ugh, why, Exit Wound? Why are you so overpowered yet so boring? Grimdark does not equal interesting... Your very existence detracts from the story. Couldn't you just go away? Sheesh, Discord's decision to leave her like that looks even poorer now. Guess someone ain't so reformed after all? Still gonna betray everyone to Tirek then, I'll assume? Pathetic. Speaking of pathetic... are we sure this Twilight didn't actually swap with an earth pony and not realize it? Apparently her magic is absolute trash in this fic; literally every unicorn can duplicate it or find a way around it just by looking for a moment. Never mind her inability to fix Starswirl's spell... Couple really frustrating points for me here, because seriously this feels like a filler arc gone mad. ......But I mean... I least we know Exit would make a good parent... what with not sparing the rod.... and those swap jockeys sure had memorable deaths, eh? And with this new, extra psychotic version of synthesis she's toting, she's no longer half the mare she used to be! ...Yes, all three of those were awful and you deserved them... now I think we can move on.

I will say, great to see this back, and while it wasn't quite what I'da asked for from this storyline as a Christmas gift, I'm still happy it's here. With that said, a few positive notes now that I've punned the foul taste of Villain Sue outa my mouth. Lightning Dust... while it would have been nice to see her as a more rounded character, the fact that she's being haunted by visions of truth is really interesting. Ironic that those visions are leading her to screw up her life even worse this time around... ya just can't warn some folks. Discord did say some imperfections would inevitably pop up in his spellwork... only natural that it would happen in the worst possible way. It has the potential to be an interesting development... but given the current cliffhanger it may simply fall flat as the bloodsoaked nutcase continues to hog the spotlight. Still, good use of foreshadowing. I'm also enjoying the increasing close-ness we're getting hints about between those who've directly swapped. Rainbow and Rarity getting along about the Wonderbolts and taste in food was quite a bit earlier, sure, but now AJ knowing exactly what sort of dresses Rarity might look to make, and actually designing them well. That's the kind of touch I like seeing in this work. Heck, maybe Lyra will win a fight for a change and we can get back to actually solving this thing (which, lest we forget, was a simple matter of working together towards a deeper understanding of one another and finishing the spell accordingly) before the wedding happens.

...Because I'm seriously rooting for that. No matter how you look at the Swapped, they are under magical coercion to be as they are. Take that away, and let them decide, of their own free will, how to proceed. It may (probably will) hurt, and some more than others. It's not the only end I'll accept, but it's the one I'm hoping for. Soul synthesis... I'm not even sure how that would effect the world-wide enchantment Discord is maintaining (especially given the flaws we're already seeing), or how it would pertain to the Elements... but what I do know is that if that ends up happening, it'd better be for a much better reason than the arbitrary deadline of a wedding. Because it feels to me like they'd be looking to marry a magically drugged Rarity and RD because they'd rather do that than lose them as lovers. That's a pretty lacking show of Loyalty and Kindness... wouldn't you say?

Looking forward to what's to come, and happy holidays to one and all!

Seriously, if I have to wait this long for another update again I'm going to flip my shit. I WANT TO SEE THIS END! I WANT CLOSURE GODDAMN IT!

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Well, I fixed those errors you spotted. Thanks for pointing them out! And I really am glad you seem to like the majority of this chapter. As far as Exit Wound goes, though... well, I understand where you're coming from. And, love her or hate her... she's gonna be in the next chapter.

P.S. - Fun puns you came up with. I enjoyed 'em!

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Eh, I'll cope with her for as long as necessary... And yes, it would be quite bizarre if she was absent in the next installment. She just feels even more in the way than the nutjobs obsessing over swaps. Bleh, oh well. It's not the conflict I want... It's just the one I deserve, or some such.

Humor is a coping mechanism. Puns, I'm told, are a form thereof. I'm not entirely convinced of that, but it seems to fit my current environs. And yes, other than my character issues with Exit... And the headscratcher that is DS... good stuff and eager to see the next.

Hope you're enjoying the holidays!

Whatever you do Spike. Don't envelop the intruders with your teleport flame. That might end the fight too quickly.

7824573 I wonder if Starlight Glimmer could fit into any of this given her "unique" method of dealing with cuties marks.

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Just some food for thought

Yay! So good to see an update from you Mike!

My politically neutral advice to you: Don't get too caught up in political victories or losses, at the end of the day it really has little true impact on you and the ones you love. Once you can set it aside your stress levels should go down.

Funnily enough I've had to give that advice to friends who were both upset AND friends that were deliriously happy after November 8th, both this past election and in 2012. And I'm not even in the US! It's two sides of the same coin and thankfully we all get along once we've healed a bit.

Glad to see you ponin' it up again, and it's removed one of my long-standing excuses not to update my own swapped fic... Will need to get to work on that soon!

Cheers!

Thank you for not abandoning this. Pretty much every story in my read later list has been abandoned and most of the authors refuse to reply to comments. Im pretty sure this is the only xeno fic that is still being updated. :(

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Glad to see you ponin' it up again, and it's removed one of my long-standing excuses not to update my own swapped fic... Will need to get to work on that soon!
Cheers!

You too! I really look forward to seeing your next chapter too, Qtip!

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I'm going to keep at Divided Rainbow until it's done. Also, for a bit of good news, Archonix has recently updated his Xeno fic:

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/70619/10/no-room-for-regret/10-to-carry-me-upon-this-path-i-chose-so-long-ago

I wish Lero would take the safety of his herd more seriously. It was bad enough with him unable to protect his mares from the Sicklefins back at the quarry, now he goes and let's someone he knows is bothering Rainbow into their home? Anything that happens now will be almost entirely his fault. Lero needs to get it together and learn to protect himself and his herd.

Also, I think he and Twilight are being very selfish when it comes to the swapped. It's almost feels to me like they don't care about the ponies they originally were. I definitely share Celestia's viewpoint here.

Anyway, I'm enjoying reading this so far; looking forward to more chapters!

I'm reminded of the earlier analysis of the swaps effects, shallow parodies of one another. Although in this mare's case, seems pretty dead on but turned up to 14.
Also, regarding the Jockeys, I've come up with an analogy for the swap. Let's say you have a spell meant to cast fire. One of the elements of this spell is to draw in heat from your surroundings. However, these element was poorly constructed and instead draws in all the heat from the caster's body, freezing them to death. To an outsider, it looks like a broken ice spell, but that misses the point entirely. This is what these nutsoes are trying to work with. That said, I notice this chapter was written before Starlight Glimmer attempted this very feat on Luna and Celestia with no real fanfare. Be interesting if you somehow incorporate her in the story.

Eh, would have been more karmically justified to have LD use the Swap spell on RD "to steal her flight skills". It would have really lit a fire up Twilight's ass to drop the marriage and try to fix this whole mess instead of growing comfy with it.

So is this dead or is there more cause that was a fun read.

This died, didn't it? Damn.

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You left him waiting even longer instead. How many cat turds do you have now?

So is this dead? Please dont be dead........ After 4 years of reading this story it cant end like that.

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I hope not, but after 10 months it doesn't look good. I love the premise, so it would be a shame..

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MT has a way of showing up at the last second to save things :D

If not he'd at the very least be cool enough to drop us a little line on how this would resolve, or maybe even let a ghost writer finish it off for him.

Love this, please update!

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Ey bro,
Noticed you online so I thought I'd drop a comment regarding this story, been wanting to pick it up as a good read see.
You still working on it or nah?
Thanks for your time.
I'd say that given the time that has passed you've probably dropped it, for reasons that would be clear like forgetting exactly where you're taking the story. So I won't hound ya, just wanted to check.

human-pony relationships are wrong

It'll be a shame if it doesn't get finished, but that's life. For what it's worth, I like it.

Thought about this today outa the blue still around and hoping for an ending

8757787 You are on the wrong website my friend.

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I know

thats the problem

"And they all died terrible painful deaths", Discord narrated to Fluttershy, as he rolled up the scroll.

Still, it'd be interesting to see how this all ends, especially with how many balls are still up in the air. Sadly, since this one has been sitting for what appears to be a fair amount of time, I may have to slot this one onto the shelf labelled "Due for release alongside the Final Game of Thrones book".

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Not really. Its simply Ill forgive you if you are willing to make up for your actions.

"From now on, though, I'm really going to buckle down on myself, and work on this story right."

Hmm..... Methinks at this point you should either mark it on hiatus, or cancelled. It seems you've lost interest.

Edit: Also, just to repeat for the third freaking time, the Swap Junkies all need to die slow, painful, horrible deaths, followed by having their spirits tortured for eternity. They all clearly suffer from terminal stupidity and aren't afraid of dragging the rest of the world down with them. Lightning Dust's ego being so large she'd see Rainbow killed simply because she can't stand some competition shows she also needs to die a slow, painful, horrible death.... actually wait, I've got a better idea. Rip her wings out of her sockets, slowly, then heal the wounds left behind improperly so they never stop hurting, and throw her in the dungeon.... and after she dies, torture her spirit for all eternity. Honeydew and Exit Wound also earned such fates long, long ago.

Can anyone give me a rundown why a great fic like this suddenly stopped? Anything happen to the author?

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Who knows. Despite him logging into the site and multiple people asking what happened he has remained completely silent. Like pretty much every fic in the xenophilia universe this is another one that will probably never have an ending.

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Probably this one got way too big and complicated. Tho I still enjoy it alot, I most look forward to the solution and the results of their efforts to protect their friends from themselves. Especially Rarity, I would love to know her thoughts and feelings about what her love life with Lero culminates to.

Thinking about it, it's extra sad that this isn't being finished because it feels like there's only two or three chapters left. The first being them escaping this latest predicament. I can see one or more mares suffering critical injuries, and Twilight is pushed to do or die in order to save lives. The second will be the casting and immediate fallout of her ascension and everyone coming to terms with their scrambled brains. Thirdly, and epilogue. Given that there's no real continuity past the original Xenophilia, maybe Rarity and Fluttershy will try to join the herd that has treated them so kindly. That's just my two cents, though. Feel free to prove me right or wrong.

Is this history dead??

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There's a first time for everything.

For as much as I know this story is pretty much dead now, I decided to give it a re-read for the first time in a long while. I'll be honest, I'm more mixed on it now than I was back then. It feels kind of unfocused/meandering at times in it's pacing. Plus I'm not really a big fan of the whole anti-human bigotry thing overall. But that being said.... Man does this story make me think a lot over the romance plot.

Like... There's an emphasis being made for Rarity's situation here for when/if the elements have their cutie marks restored. But honestly, there's room here to argue for Fluttershy too, almost more so in her case.

In the case of Rarity, it was impossible to not reciprocate her advances without really hurting someone, and I think Rarity would be understanding of that. It would perhaps be considered the generous thing for Rarity to have done, for the sake of not hurting Rainbow Dash, which is probably why Rarity voiced her approval when Lero proposed it as a hypothetical dream scenario. As far as the herd's decision to marry Rarity in this situation though... Rarity probably wouldn't be as forgiving of that, though it's hard to be sure. Either way, I don't think Rarity would be likely to join their herd again.

In the case of Fluttershy, I feel like it could be so much worse. The fact that Fluttershy could effectively be seen as an "alternative" Rainbow Dash for the Lero and the herd would put their motivations on serious trial. Lero was pretty quick to rush to her aid, all things considered, compared to the other elements, and the herd were clearly rather eager to let her back in as soon as the option became available. I suppose this might be an overall rather dreary outlook on it, but if Fluttershy were to look back on it all in the retrospective clarity of having her cutiemark set right, it could easily be seen as Lero and his herd barging into her life so they could get all of Rainbow back.

Then there's the question of just how much of each of them is within their marks? The impression I have gotten is that the majority of the "heart" is contained within the mark, at least, that's what it seems like, with how much the herd sees Rainbow in Swap Rarity, and how much Spike sees Rarity in Swap Applejack. If that's the case, the dreary way of looking at it is that the herd weren't truly caring of Rarity's heart, using her body as a vessel for Rainbow, and that they were also willing to run roughshod through Fluttershy's heart just to get all of Rainbow back.

And buying into it a little more, the perhaps the only way to capture all of Rarity's and all of Fluttershy's hearts would be for the herd to also court swapped Applejack and Swapped Fluttershy. Though they'd might as well just get all of the elements into the herd at that point.

Hope the author is doin alright