/mlpol/ - My Little Politics

>>370285

>Mistakes cannot be undone, but they can be corrected, and they can be prevented. And I will NOT allow this tragedy to unfold before my eyes. Not again. Never again.
I will once again protest that this particular mistake on Celestia's part could have been easily foreseen and easily prevented.

Anyway, Anon and Celestia have yet another tender moment at the top of the mountain, and then the scene ends. Thus concludes the somewhat anticlimactic Road of Trials arc.

>The Orb shines and hums with energy as you step back upon the soil of Equus Island.
I'm still a little confused on the geography of this place, but I can't tell if it's a failing on the author's part or mine. Best I can figure, the volcano they were just on was an island, located in the center of a lake, which is itself contained within a larger island, which is off the coast of the mainland, which is where they're originally from. However, I'm still not 100% certain I have that down. As with Fallout: Equestria, this story could have benefitted greatly from the inclusion of a map.

Anyway, with their task complete, there is nothing else to do except return to the ship and hope that Big Mac and the gang were able to get it up and running again.

>Walking is about all you can do with the pain in your shoulder and the utter exhaustion from the last day slowing you down, and the alicorn by your side can’t run, fly, or do magic. But even so, you feel like you’ve just won... well, everything. You survived the Trials of Equus not once, but twice! And you’re one of only two who can ever make that claim.
This feels like a good time to comment that I found the "Trials of Equus" to be one of the weaker points of this story so far. What should have been a significant, or at the very least entertaining, series of events was mostly a tedious grind. The sequence wasn't necessarily bad, it was just not especially compelling or interesting.

The only significant happenings in this portion of the story were that

1) Celestia and Anon's relationship finally advanced from the "awkwardly flirty just-friends" stage to the "awkwardly flirty now-we're-together" stage, and

2) We got a significant portion of Celestia's backstory filled in, as well as some details about the setting.

While these are both essential developments and the author handles them decently enough, they occur within a main story arc that could have been made far more interesting.

Any decently written story will have multiple developments taking place on different levels at the same time. Often, the "main" storyline, ie the superficial events that are driving the plot of the story, is far less important than the more subtle developments taking place in the background. In other words, the action of the story is just being used as a catalyst to help drive character arcs along.

For instance, in Spy x Family just tossing out the last anime I watched as a convenient example, the "main" story is a spy thriller about covert agents working in the shadows to prevent and/or cause an international war. However, the real story is about these awkward, dysfunctional people, who are top-notch in their respective professions but utterly clueless about everything else, awkwardly forming bonds with each other and learning to become a family. The top-layer spy story creates the situations that drive the subtler, more nuanced family story along.

In order for this to work, however, both stories need to be compelling and engage the audience; you can't neglect the top-layer story just because it's the cosmetic layer. Even if the main focus of Spy x Family is on building emotional ties between the central characters, the viewer should still care whether or not Operation STRIX is a success. The author's goal is to make his audience care about all facets of his characters lives, which includes both their mundane goals and their higher objectives.

In this case, the Road of Trials is the top-layer story taking place on the main stage, while the real story is what's going on between Anon and Celestia along the way. Not only does their romantic relationship progress, but we also delve a little deeper into Celestia's past, which in turn serves to flesh out her character and give us a better understanding of who she is.

The problem here, though, is twofold:

1) While the Anon x Celestia storyline makes some progress during this arc, it continues to advance at the same slow, meandering pace we've grown accustomed to. Up until now, their whole relationship has been a series of cutesy bonding events and funny moments, and their interactions on the Road of Trials was mostly just more of the same. Sure, they've now acknowledged their feelings for each other and they've swapped spit a couple of times, but beyond that nothing has really changed, and their feelings for each other haven't been put to any kind of serious test.

2) The Road of Trials itself was just...dull. There were no serious challenges to speak of, and most of the difficulties they did encounter were easily dealt with. The whole thing had the vibe of some tedious video game quest, where the object is to go from place to place retrieving tokens until you have some arbitrary number of them.

The end result was a tedious and repetitive top-layer story driving a few developments in a romantic story which is honestly starting to plod. The most interesting bits in this arc were the flashbacks to Celestia's past.

This story has maintained a pretty lazy pace so far, which I haven't complained about because it's mostly worked up until now. For the early portion, the slow pace combined with the silly antics and cute moments gave the story a nice, comfy vibe, and it was fun to read. However, by this point, the action really ought to be picking up a lot more than it has.

>Be Twilight Sparkle.
>Two humans have arrived in Equestria recently: GlimGlam and Sven.
>GG became a chad adventurer and a savior of Equestria multiple times.
>Meanwhile, Sven is a wizard.
>But lately...
>You enter Sven's home and find him there.
"Sven, aah, you gotta help me. GG has been creepin' on me. Ahh, woe with me. I'm not intrested in in musky, hard, throbbing human dick. SAve me!" Twilight says.
>Sven nods sagely and dusted the Cheeto-dust onto his sweater which is fuzzy but underneath is shaved clean off.
"I know you have been friends for ever and you came to Equestira together so... help plz."
>"Yes, you're right. I should definteyly talk to... *Ugh* Fucking cheetos, no. Don't worry milady, I'll use a speel called geas which banishes GG from your sight but only if
you next to me at all times, physically and emotionally."
"Uhm... Yyyy?"
>"Wats wit all these fookin qurstions, now take my dick it's for ur own protection."

>>370293
Nice to see u back review again GG. Will read ur new posts later when I have more time.^^

>>370293

>It’s a great accomplishment, to be sure, but something even better came from this. You found your special somepony, just like Pinkie always wanted. She probably has the party already planned and a cake in the oven, just waiting for your return.
See, this right here is exactly what I was talking about. Right now, we should all be feeling much higher levels of elation, both at Anon's literal accomplishments (ie completing the Road of Trials), as well as his intangible accomplishments (ie finally admitting to himself that he has a normal, healthy appetite for pony poon).

Anyway, just when it was beginning to look like nothing else was going to happen in this story, something else happens. Out of the jungle, or the deciduous forest, or the coniferous forest, or whatever the biome on this island and/or volcano is exactly, steps Fluttershy, a pair of bloodthirsty monster hounds in tow.

Anon uses Threaten, but it isn't very effective:

>“We don’t have time for your games, Fluttershy,” you tell her in a threatening tone. “Go walk your dogs somewhere else.”
>You attempt to take a step forward, but Celestia’s good wing unfurls to stop you.
>“Don’t. Those are murderhounds. They’re extremely dangerous and will attack in response to any perceived act of aggression. I don’t know how she’s tamed them, but we need to be cautious here...”
So far, in making her plans, Celestia has underestimated Twilight's autism, Rainbow Dash's speed, and now Fluttershy's ability to tame animals. Have I mentioned that she kind of sucks at her job in this story?

>Fluttershy rubs one hound’s chin with her hoof. “Awwwww, that’s not true. I know their species has a bad reputation, but it’s not like they murder things all the time.
Despite being only 13% of the dog population...

>The butter yellow pegasus steps away from the hounds and her eyes capture your own, suddenly sending a cold pang of fear through your heart.
I've mentioned that it's considered bad form to use descriptions of characters in place of names once the character's name is known (Lavender Unicorn Syndrome). Well, what's even worse is to constantly recycle the same descriptions. With the help of our old friend Ctrl-F, we see that the exact phrase "butter yellow pegasus" has occurred three times in this story up until now in conjunction with Fluttershy, and occurs a grand total of six times in the text overall. That's five times too many.

>“And… and I know that even a sometimes grumpy human can learn to show love if love is shown to him in return. Anon… you keep running away from poor Twilight, even though she only wants to love you, and that’s not very nice. I know you’re scared... getting married is a big step after all, but it’ll be okay, because I’m here to take you home to her. There’s no need to be afraid…”
On the other hand, I will say that I am still greatly enjoying this author's characterizations of the mane six. Yandere Fluttershy is something I don't see nearly enough of, and I find it hilarious how badly she wants to watch her friend get railed by a human.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL_eA3sPto4

Anyway, the scene ends in a rather humorous anti-climax. Celestia is able to use her plant-growing powers you may or may not remember that Celestia used to be Celosia, an earth-pony with exceptional power over plants, and since she was stripped of her alicorn status her abilities have reverted back to what they were before to subdue the dogs, and once her attack dogs are neutralized, Fluttershy becomes predictably tame.

There is a bit of back and forth, and then Fluttershy hands hoofs, mouths, whatever; reee idioms over a letter that she was instructed to deliver to Anon.

The short version of the story is that the murderhounds were a subterfuge; Fluttershy's real objective was to place this letter into Anon's hands. The "letter" turns out to be a teleportation spell, which activates once Anon opens it. Unfortunately, Celestia does not realize this until it's too late. Anon's last thought before teleporting is that he needs to use his last bit of strength to give the alicorn orb to Celestia; however, the text is ambiguous about whether or not he succeeds.

Anon suddenly finds himself in a conference room, presumably in the Palace at Canterlot. Twilight and Luna are both there.

>The midnight blue alicorn
I almost wish I hadn't discovered that "lavender unicorn syndrome" is considered a faux-pas; now that I've seen it, I can't unsee it. Anyway, if there's one bad writing habit this author needs to seriously keep an eye on, and I shall therefore have to keep drilling him on, it's this one.

Anyway, the crux of the biscuit here is that Anon seems to have been betrayed by Luna:

>“If our assistance is no longer required, we shall take our leave. While we’ve been whiling away our time out here, there have been many matters which require our personal attention.”
>“Oh, of course,” the purple alicorn replies. “Thanks again for your help. I really do appreciate it...” She giggles. “...Sister.”
It's been my suspicion for some time now that Luna has her own objectives, and that she would eventually turn out to be an unreliable ally. This prediction seems to have come true. However, it is yet unclear whether or not she is on Twilight's side, either.

Also:
> the purple alicorn replies
reeeeeeeeee cannot unsee. I may need to start keeping a tally of these; this occurs frequently enough to be considered a major problem.

>And with that, the Princess of the Night vanishes in a flash of magic.
This one, however, I would argue is not a violation of the LUS rule. "Princess of the Night" is technically Luna's title, and can work in lieu of a proper name.

If Queen Elizabeth were a character in your story, you could call her The Queen, Elizabeth, or Queen Elizabeth pretty much interchangeably, without it being a LUS issue. However, if there is more than one Queen in your story, this could potentially get confusing, so you should take care not to overuse it.

>>370447

>“Welcome to the Concordia, Anon!” Twilight chirps.
Oh, it looks like I stand corrected. It appears that Anon was transported back to Twilight's airship, not the Palace itself. That probably bodes a little better for his chances of escape.

>You tune her out and focus on the weight in your right hand. Carefully, so she won’t notice, you shift your thumb aside ever-so-slightly to reveal the Orb of Ascension in your palm. Fuck! You weren’t able to pass it to Celestia before you were taken...!
Well, I guess that answers that. It looks like Anon will have to rely on his own talents if he wants to get himself out of this jam. Incidentally, this is how it ought to be anyway; since the Road of Trials was kind of a non-starter, Anon is going to need to undergo some sort of actual challenge if he wants to earn his happy ending. A few posts ago I was grousing that Anon and Celestia's relationship hasn't undergone any serious stress tests yet; conveniently enough, this satisfies that requirement.

If Exchange were a good-era Disney film, this would be the part of the story where the evil Vizier gets hold of the magic lamp, kidnaps the Princess, and temporarily defeats the hero, casting him out into the wilderness. Stripped of whatever power he's obtained up to that point, the hero must now fight his way back into the castle, defeat the Vizier, get his woman back, and restore balance to the Force.

With this story, the specifics are a little different, but the basic idea remains the same. Anon has somewhat easily completed the rather superficial challenge of the Road of Trials, retrieved the magic orb he needs to defeat the villain, and has seemingly won the day. However, at the zenith of his power, he is unexpectedly knocked back to square one. Though he's obtained the Ascension Orb, it's useless to him: he needs to give it to Celestia. However, Twilight has managed to finally outwit them both. She captures Anon, and with both the Geas and Celestia's alicorn powers out of the picture, he can no longer rely on Celestia to protect him. Now he's going to need to draw on his own strength.

One of the things I like about this story, and to some extent MLP fanfiction in general, is that it will often disrupt conventional gender roles in imaginative ways, while still avoiding all the woke-feminist nonsense you get in a lot of modern media. The conventional format for Anon's current predicament is what I described above: the villain thrashes the hero and kidnaps the princess, and the now-powerless hero has to fight his way back into the castle to rescue her. The villain's designs on the princess are usually rapacious to some degree, and the princess herself is mostly a passive figure who serves no purpose other than to be rescued.

However, here the situation is a bit different. Our villain is a female, whose rapacious designs are focused on the male hero instead of the female love interest. The hero himself is relatively powerless: he's just an ordinary non-magical human, living in a world of magic. His love interest is basically the closest thing this setting has to a living god, yet she exhibits extremely poor judgement and pushes her powers onto her student, who then goes on to misuse those powers and become the villain.

For most of the story, the hero is protected by his love interest's powers, in the form of both the Geas and her alicorn magic. However, the villain destroys both protections, and Celestia is reduced to an ordinary earth pony whose only power is making plants grow. Despite this, between her general knowledge and the airship she provided earlier in the story, Anon is still fairly reliant on her.

During the Road of Trials arc, their relationship becomes less one-sided and more interdependent. Both of them have done these trials before, and both find that they are easier the second time around because they have each other. Trials which were difficult for Anon are made easier by Celestia's ability to fly, trials which were difficult for Celestia are made easier by Anon's opposable thumbs, and so on (in retrospect this was probably the author's point; however, I still contend that the RoT arc was rather dull and could stand to be zazzed up a bit).

However, now that Anon has been kidnapped by Twilight, neither one of them has access to the abilities of the other. Anon can no longer rely on either Celestia or their network of friends, and will need to fend off the advances of a lusty alicorn using only his wits and ingenuity. Meanwhile, Celestia has no chance of beating Twilight until Anon can give her the Ascension Orb, so she is pretty much in the same position, albeit with fewer lusty alicorns to fend off.

One of the feminists I remember from the Gamergate era, Anita Sarkeesian, incidentally, whatever happened to her? you don't hear her name very often these days liked to complain about the "damsel" trope: the powerless female Princess character gets into trouble, and it's up to the male hero to rescue her. The knee-jerk feminist response to this is usually the Kathleen Kennedy approach: sideline or eliminate the male hero, and shift focus to some woke girlboss character's asinine struggle for self-empowerment.

This story, however, eschews both and goes for gender parity rather than any particular form of chauvinism. Celestia and Anon both have their respective strengths and weaknesses, and they both need each other to some extent. Their romantic relationship develops as a direct consequence of their working together to solve a common problem. The same dynamic extends to the rest of the cast: Anon's friends are all people (ponies, whatever) who are affected by the same problem (Twilight's insanity) and are working towards the same goal (restoration of Celestia's rule). This story reinforces MLP's central themes of friendship and cooperation, and does so without needing to force ideological abstractions on the audience.

>>370449

Anyway, back to the story. Anon tries to hide the Orb from Twilight, but she notices what he's doing and takes it away from him. As soon as the orb leaves his grasp, the magic in it fades away and it turns into an ordinary stone. Twilight clarifies that this is due to its becoming "dormant"; presumably it would activate again if Anon were to take it back.

Unfortunately, though, we don't get an opportunity to confirm this, because Twilight immediately smashes the stone into dust.

>You feel something inside yourself... something indescribable, and you turn your gaze to the purple pony princess...
Yeah, this is getting a bit ridiculous. We already know she's purple, we already know she's a pony, and we already know she's a princess. Just call her Twilight ffs.

Anywho, watching the grape-colored purple alicorn four-legged winged and horned autismo ruler of Equestria stomp his hard-earned magical spheroid object into dust sends Anon into a rage. He manages to summon enough strength to break Twilight's magical grip on his body, and stomps forward, intending to choke the living bejeezus out of her.

The miniature equus ferus caballus whose primary coat color is represented in HTML notation as #c79dd7, or 7, 27, 0, 16 in CMYK if you are working in print media, is clearly taken off guard by the behavior of the green-shaded upright-walking hominid whose facial marking bears a striking resemblance to an interrogation point. She panics, casts another spell, and said green faced individual awakens an instant later in an unknown location, with some kind of purple band on his wrist. He can muster no more strength, and a moment later sleep overtakes him.

The chapter ends here, and that is probably a good stopping point for today. I will resume this tomorrow.

>>370449
>However, here the situation is a bit different. Our villain is a female, whose rapacious designs are focused on the male hero instead of the female love interest.
Yh, I thought of saying that but you beat me to it. I happened to remember the beginning of this story lately, where Twi talks about how she saw her relationship with Anon: She envisoned herself as the heroine who saves teh stallion or something like that. It seems bit RGRE, which I didn't relfect on in the begning because I hadn't been reading it lately like I have now.
In my own opinion RGRE https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/841406/rgre-primer is a pretty neat head-canon idea for how Equestria works, but I probably just htink it is humors as well.

>>370450

16 - Nightmare

So when Anon comes to, he's in a strange bed in a strange room, wearing strange pajamas. There is a storm outside. All of the minor injuries he incurred during the Road of Trials have mysteriously healed. Rather than elation, Anon feels a sense of loss, as though everything he struggled for over the last several chapters has been erased along with the orb itself. The purple bands on his wrists turn out, unsurprisingly, to be a Geas created by Twilight. I'm sure we'll be given the details of how exactly it works momentarily.

As would be appropriate for someone in his situation, Anon immediately begins sobbing, howling with range, thrashing about; all that good stuff. The commotion causes a guard stationed outside to come in and inquire about the ruckus.

The guard is far more intimidated by Anon than he is intimidating, and when Anon realizes this, he starts laughing, which only serves to further unnerve the guard. He sends the guard out to fetch him a glass of water, and when he returns, orders him to stay so they can talk.

The guard gets him his water and puts the lights on, and Anon gets a closer look at his quarters. By all appearances, he is back at the Palace in Canterlot. The guard, meanwhile, pulls up a chair and introduces himself as Empyrean Blaze, or Pyre for short.

The power dynamic between the two of them is interesting. From the guard's deferential behavior, it's clear he has little knowledge about what is actually going on, or the actual relationship between Twilight and Anon. He addresses Anon as "Prince," and seems to view his own role as servile. He is a guard who has been given the honor of serving a member of the Royal Family; the fact that Anon is basically a prisoner here seems to be lost on him.

Anywho, Anon questions the guard, and learns that he is indeed at Canterlot Castle. The room he is in is some kind of guest suite reserved for visiting royalty; it seems Twilight has decided to hold off on consummating their "relationship" for now. The date is January 4 (apparently Equestria uses the same calendar we do), and Anon has been asleep for the last 36 hours. Most importantly, he learns that he is not yet married to Twilight.

At this point, the guard suddenly remembers that he was supposed to inform Twilight the moment Anon woke up, so he runs off to go do this. A short time later, a portal opens and Twilight teleports into the room.

Curiously, now that she has finally cornered her prey, Twilight's behavior is noticeably less rapey than one might expect:

>The small alicorn flaps her wings once and lands on the far edge of the bed, then takes several hoofsteps toward you. You scoot away until your back touches the headboard and you have nowhere else to go, but to your surprise she stops short and curls up atop the sheets several feet away, her wings folded neatly against her sides.
>“How are you feeling, Anon?”
>She almost whispers it, and you immediately notice there’s something different about her voice. It’s like she’s hesitant, or slightly nervous. She’s having a hard time looking directly at you, her eyes darting away to the floor or the far wall...
Most likely, this change in behavior is rooted in the fact that Anon was able to break free of her spell and overpower her in the last chapter. It's also probable that, now that the hunt is over, she has had some time to reflect on what she's actually done, and now feels a little guilty about it.

When Anon was out of her reach, Twilight could focus all of her energy on pursuing him, and questions like "why is this guy so determined to run away from me in the first place?" could be pushed aside. Now that he's finally "hers", she's probably had some time to reflect on the questionable morality of what she's doing. Wanting something and actually getting it can be two very different things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW1bMQmYT4g

Anyway, the Twilight we see here is quite different from the Twilight we've seen up until now. While she is still clearly determined to force Anon to marry her, she also seems to realize on some level that she can't force him to actually love her.

>She looks genuinely on the verge of crying, and it’s got you completely taken aback. This isn’t Rarity you’re dealing with; despite how powerful she is, you don’t think Twilight is truly capable of faking something like this. What the fuck has her so upset? You’re really curious now, but you can’t be complacent here, so you remain guarded.
This paragraph seems to confirm my hypothesis, but is unfortunately rather badly written. For one thing, the phrase "it's got you taken aback" is...just dreadful. Second, while I understand the comparison the author was trying to make, it was a mistake to bring up Rarity here. This scene isn't about Rarity and she isn't in it; dropping her name just pulls the reader's attention away from Twilight's emotional state, which is the real focus. The overall point the author is trying to make is that Twilight's tears seem to be genuine and not an act; it would be far better to just come right out and say this, instead of going out of the way to draw an unnecessary comparison to someone who is, in this story at least, just a minor ancillary character.

Anyway, the basic gist of all this is that Anon is free, but not really. He can come and go as he pleases within the castle and the city, but there are also restrictions preventing him from going too far abroad, or from missing their wedding. The Geas, as he expected, is also designed to repel Celestia, so he is obviously not allowed to see her. Also, there's the rather annoying fact that his non-consensual waifu has the ability to teleport, and probably knows where he is at all times, so he has essentially no privacy.

All in all, his situation is probably less nightmarish than what he was expecting, but at the same time is far from ideal.

>>370471

>Then, she exhales deeply, and you feel the heat of her breath travel across your nose and mouth. Unlike before, when she would do this to you back in the Treebrary so long ago, you now know what this gesture means. You immediately hold your breath and turn away from her, and a bit of that lost anger returns as your fists begin to clench.
This odd little detail relates to something that came up earlier, but I don't think I mentioned. In an earlier scene, Celestia does this little breath thing with Anon and explains that, among ponies, exhaling and inhaling each other's breath is considered a gesture of intimacy. I don't know enough about it to confirm, but I suspect that this is one of those little "real horse facts" that creeps into MLP fanfics from time to time. In any event, it's an established thing in this particular setting.

Most likely, back when he first came to Equestria prior to the story's beginning, Twilight tried this breathing thing on Anon when they were studying together. He probably inhaled her breath without realizing he was sending her a strong signal of romantic interest. This miscommunication likely contributed to the elaborate fantasy about him that she's built up in her mind.

>“Once...” She sniffles. “Once we’re married, and we have our honeymoon, I know you’ll love me. You won’t even think to look at anypony else. We’ll be perfect together; a Princess and her Prince, and Equestria will enter a golden age...”
>She wipes her face with a hoof before flaring her wings with anger. “Don’t you understand?! This is why you were brought here! You were meant for me! Because of you, I gained this power, and I gained the throne, and all that’s left is for us to stop pretending and be together! I’ve seen it! It’s our destiny, fated by the stars and the very fabric of the world’s magic itself!!”
Once again, I'll say that the characterization in this story is excellent, and more than makes up for any deficiencies it might have in other areas.

Twilight's actions in this story can all be traced to the obsessiveness and social ineptitude that is central to her character concept in the original source material. This story was written (I think) around S3 era, so her canon character would still have been in its pre-Princess-of-Friendship, spergy-unicorn-librarian phase. Her behavior is spot-on for that, and the author does a fantastic job of taking that basic character concept and expanding on it to create this unique, sympathetic portrayal of her.

Considering how introverted and awkward she is, she's probably even worse at romance than she is at making friends. She is extremely intelligent, but most of her knowledge is limited to magic and other academic subjects. Basic social graces are often beyond her; she would likely have a great deal of trouble interpreting the complex thoughts and emotions of others based on subtle clues.

In this case, she's built up an elaborate fantasy about Anon based on some misinterpreted social cues and her own sexual attraction to him. She's convinced herself that this fantasy is a reality, or at least is something she can make into reality: she and Anon are destined for each other, Anon was brought to Equestria by some unseen force like Fate in order to fulfill this destiny, and thus any action she takes towards bringing this destiny about is inherently justified, even things like stripping Celestia of her alicorn powers and using her clout as Princess to hold Anon against his will. It's twisted, but if you spend a few minutes trying to think like Twilight, it's easy to see how she reached this conclusion.

Moreover, she is now so emotionally invested in the fantasy that, from her perspective, it basically must come true. This isn't just a question of her liking someone and hoping that he likes her back; this is a matter of true love and fate. What's happening to her at present is basically a type of cognitive dissonance: she's smart enough to realize that Anon doesn't love her and probably never will. She also suspects, or maybe even knows, that he is now in love with Celestia. However, while she knows this on an intellectual level, emotionally she can't handle it, so she's pushed it as far into the back of her mind as it will go.

At this point she has effectively lost the battle for Anon's affections; even if Celestia were out of the picture, Anon still wouldn't want to marry her. But, instead of accepting it, she has doubled down on her efforts to bring the fantasy to reality through sheer force of will. When Anon was running away and she was chasing him, she could lose herself completely in an elaborate fantasy about what their future relationship would be like. However, now that she's finally caught him, she has to deal with the reality that he does not love her back, and no amount of magic or clever maneuvering on her part will change that.

If Jay Gatsby were an extremely horny cartoon pony princess, he would understand exactly how Twilight feels. For most of the story so far, Twilight has been staring at the flashing green light across the bay, dreaming about what her life will be like when she finally reaches it. However, now that she finally has, she has to face the fact that it's nothing like what she wanted, and it probably never will be. Yet she's so invested in it that, if the fantasy dies, she'll have nothing left, so she has no choice but to press onward in the vain hope that she can somehow will her dream into reality.

Again, this is an absolutely wonderful characterization of Twilight, and moreover she is perfect for the villain role in this story. She does awful things, and you want to see her appropriately thwarted, but at the same time you can see things from her perspective and feel genuinely sorry for her. In a setting like MLP, where invariably every villain gets a redemption except for literal children of course, it's important to have a sympathetic villain who actually deserves to be redeemed.

>>370472
Good takes on Twilight's character thus far. I'm interested to see your reaction as the plot moves forward.

>>370472

Anyway, Twilight informs Anon that the wedding will take place on the morrow; she has it timed so that their kiss will coincide with the raising of the sun which in all fairness probably doesn't require much timing; she now controls the sun and can raise it whenever she wants, and at this point it's safe to assume she would be loony enough to make it rise at an inappropriate time just for dramatic effect. In practical terms, I'm assuming this means he has whatever remains of the current day + the following day + the following night until maybe an hour or two before sunrise to enjoy what remains of his bachelorhood. So basically, the wedding will occur at sunrise on January 6, if I'm following the chronology here.

At this point, Twiggles regains her composure and goes full yandere:

>She turns back, and her tearful eyes have been replaced by an icy stare that sends a chill down your spine.
>“But let me make one thing clear, Anon. She’s not going to save you. I’ve accounted for all the variables and every possibility. You’re mine now... my very special somehuman. I love you, and I want you to be happy, and the sooner you come to accept that, the sooner you will be...”
>Swishing her tail to accentuate her point, she steps through the portal and vanishes.
The same obsessive, autismo behavior that makes Twilight endearing when she's being a cute, spergy librarian, or sympathetic when she's hopelessly obsessed with an unrealistic and unrequited romantic fantasy, can in equal measure turn her into a creepy psychopath. When she sets her mind on something she wants, she's not going to give up until she gets it. She's smart enough to devise a near-perfect plan, and if she's obsessed enough to set values and morality aside, resistance is pretty much futile. The cute librarian, the pitiful awkward romantic, and the obsessive conniving lunatic are all facets of the same personality. Again, the characterization of her in this story is, in my opinion, superb.

At this point, Twilight teleports out of the room and Anon is left with his thoughts.

>You stumble back over to the bed and crawl beneath the sheets. There’s no way in hell you’re gonna go through with this wedding. Something has to be done. Anything! But what...? You’re practically powerless here, and the Geas means that Twilight’s absolutely right: Celestia can’t save you this time.
In other words, pretty much what I said a couple of posts ago: Anon is now disconnected from all systems of support he's previously been able to rely on, and will need to draw on his own strength to obtain the future he wants. I'm not sure if we're actually going to see it or not, but Celestia on her end is likely going through something similar. My prediction is that they will both take action in their own way, and meet in the middle somewhere.

Anyway, despite having slept for the last 36 hours, Anon is nevertheless overcome by weariness, and crawls back into bed.

There is a page break, and we rejoin Anon in what is clearly a dream sequence. He is enjoying an idyllic afternoon with Celestia in the castle courtyard, eating apples and engaging in scandalous amounts of consensual hoof-holding. Then, he is suddenly sucked into a void and hears Twilight's psychotic voice admonishing him for neglecting his wife.

Fortunately, he doesn't have to endure this for very long; the void is ripped apart, and he hears Luna's voice informing him that he is in a nightmare, and she is ending it. A moment later, the Moon Princess herself stands before him.

Anon is predictably angry; Luna appears to have been complicit in Twilight's scheme, and thus betrayed him.

>“‘And’? ‘AND’?! Do you have any fucking clue what you’ve done?!” You rise and stand face-to-face with the dark alicorn, but she doesn’t flinch when confronted by your anger. “You begged me, BEGGED ME to bring your sister back by getting her an Orb! You even helped us reach the island! And then you betrayed us at the very last second! What was the fucking point of all this?!”
Anon's level of anger in this situation is appropriate; however, this sort of casual vulgarity reads badly and is generally considered bad form. Unless profanity is part of a character's ordinary speaking style (Littlepip, for instance), it usually comes across as gratuitous and crude to be fair, just about every author does this from time to time, but nevertheless it's worth pointing out. Also, "the dark alicorn" is yet another Lavender Unicorn Syndrome issue, so I'm afraid that's a paddlin'.

Anyway, Anon and Luna yak back and forth for a bit. Anon is understandably upset about being betrayed, since he was under the impression that Luna was his ally. Luna replies that she is neither his ally nor his enemy; her goal is to give Celestia her power back and restore the status quo. She does not particularly care what happens after that and is not really concerned about the whole "Twilight wants to rape Anon" situation. Anon protests that Twilight destroying the orb ensured that Celestia's power would not be restored, but Luna explains that Celestia actually had her own orb the entire time.

Initially this seems a bit contrived, but it makes sense when you think about it. It's been established that the altar or the Wayshrine or whatever it's called will grant an orb to whoever passes through it, and anyone who passes through all of the Trials will automatically have their orb charged up. So whatever; it checks out I guess. Celestia has an orb of her own, and can still ascend. But, you say, isn't it true that the magic can only be released when the orb is freely given away? The answer to this, of course, is yes; however, this is simple enough to deal with. All Celestia has to do is give her orb to Anon, and have Anon pass it back to her, and the whole autistic plan can proceed on schedule. Again, it feels contrived and unnecessarily complicated but...I can't find any serious flaws here, so what the hay; it checks out.

>>370475

Anyway, the gist of this conversation is that Luna really doesn't give a flying fuck if Twilight wants to rape Anon, or if Celestia wants to have consensual sex with Anon, or about any other teenage shenanigans going on in Equestria. Her concern is maintaining the proper balance of power and assuring that Harmony remains intact. She ominously informs Anon that there is some kind of grave threat to the world looming on the horizon, and that she needs all hands hooves, whatever; reee idioms and so forth on deck.

The present situation, in which Twilight is focusing 110% of her attention on getting laid and Celestia just wants to retire and goof off, is unacceptable. So, Luna has decided to be the adult in the room. She agreed to help Anon restore Celestia's power, because Celestia's power will be needed in order to deal with whatever the threat is. She agreed to help Twilight bag Anon for more or less the same reason: so she will stop focusing her attention on chasing her reluctant man-whore around the world and help out in whatever way she can.

It's probably worth reading it in her own words:

>“Understand that we had no choice. Something has changed within the last several days and a great threat to this world is looming just beyond the horizon. We can sense it on the wind, and had we allowed you to remain with Sister, it would’ve forced a clash between herself and Twilight at a time when Equestria cannot afford it. We implored Twilight to return to Canterlot, but she refused to do so without you. We did what was necessary as a result.”
>“This petty squabble between them became a great problem which could no longer be overlooked when Sister’s power was lost. Now, more than ever, she is needed to help guide this world, until such time as Twilight Sparkle becomes truly worthy of the position she has come to inherit. We know, and she knows, all too well, that the responsibility is more than one pony alone can bear. This foalish fantasy of abandoning her duty to live in the past has resulted in an imbalance that is damaging to the order we’ve strived so long to build and maintain, and it cannot be permitted to continue. We are sorry, but this is the truth.”

In other words, Luna's role in the story turns out to be more or less what I was expecting. She's not on anybody's side here; she has her own goals, and will help or hinder anyone she likes on the basis of whether or not it advances those goals. Pretty standard unreliable ally character; no huge surprises, but always a good choice.

Anywho, Luna calmly explains what's going to happen next. Anon will marry Twilight and become her personal royal dildo, which will hopefully have a calming enough effect on her libido that she can carry out her newfound Princess duties. Celestia will give her magic orb to Anon so Anon can give it back to her, and then she will choke it down, regain her alicorn powers, and go back to being a dildoless Sun Princess. Yada yada yada, Harmony is restored and Anon and Celestia's feelings don't matter. Logical, if not especially satisfying except for Twilight, I guess, since she at least gets a dildo.

The dream ends here, and so does the chapter. Incidentally, the comments section for this chapter is pretty amusing; lots of autists wanting to disembowel Twilight and Luna in various nasty ways.

Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention: before Anon went to sleep, he noticed that there was a thunderstorm going on outside the window, but it was snowing rather than raining, which struck him as odd. I'm not sure whether this is meant to be some sort of magical tomfoolery on Twilight's part, or if it's related to that "evil on the horizon" that Luna mentioned, but it's probably worth noting either way.

17 - Preparations

Anon awakens the following morning in the same room, feeling lower than a bow-legged caterpillar. He wants to be optimistic, maybe even reason some way out of his predicament, but no matter how he looks at the situation, it feels hopeless. However, he's never been one to mope around, so he puts on the ridiculous outfit that Rarity designed for him in his own words, even Liberace would be spinning in his grave at the sight of it and heads out to explore the town. Pyre, the guardspony from a couple of scenes ago, is still standing guard outside, so Anon enlists him as a guide. To his credit, Pyre seems like a fairly nice guy.

There is a page break, and we join the two of them a short time later, wandering around town.

>Aside from some snacks, you haven’t bought anything from the various shops you’ve dabbled around in, despite the pegasus’ constant reminders that anything you want would be covered by the Treasury. A nice perk, sure, but you don’t think your average Equestrian taxpayer would take kindly to a freaky alien monkey buying random shit on their dime, ‘prince’ or not.
I'm curious if any American politicians have ever read this story, and if so, how it feels to be told, in so many words, that they have less professional integrity than Twilight Sparkle's royal dildo.

Anywho, Anon quickly grows bored with the city, and wanders back to the castle. He and Pyre sit down in the garden to eat some apples they bought, when Pyre suddenly feels a call of nature. Though he is reluctant to leave his post, Anon assures him that he will be in no serious danger if left alone in the garden for a few minutes. Pyre runs off to take an enormous shit, and Anon is temporarily free.

If he were ever going to attempt an escape, now would be the time to do it; however, Anon quickly realizes that so long as he has the Geas bands on his wrists, he won't get far. He sits down and continues to mope, when suddenly, a nearby statue starts talking to him.

>The creature’s pose is as equally as ridiculous as its general shape.
This sentence is bad and you should feel bad.

Anyway, tl;dr the statue is Discord.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lXdyD2Yzls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up0NnJCxCW8

>>370476

>The voice scoffs. “Puh-lease! Don’t tell me you’ve never laid eyes on my magnificently chaotic visage before! Our mutual acquaintances Cotton Candy Head and Moody Featherduster plastered their throne room with stained glass artwork of all my greatest hits, for crying out loud!”
On the one hand, this is pretty on-model for Discord and I can easily hear this line being read in his voice. On the other hand, these wacky nicknames for every single character are getting to be a bit much, especially in conjunction with all the LUS stuff.

Anyway, yeah, whatever; yada yada yada, the talking statue turns out to be Discord, otherwise known as the ascended form of Clover the Clever. And as it turns out, he has some interesting and rather helpful ideas.

Apparently, though he is imprisoned in stone and unable to take action in the world, he can still astral project himself around and watch things unfold. As it turns out, he's been watching Anon's antics and appreciates his propensity for causing chaos. As such, he decides to give him a little advice:

>A Geas is a difficult spell, not only to cast, but to maintain. You’re like a little flea attached to our dear Twilight Sparkle, constantly sucking out a bit of her magic in order to feed the curse. If too little magic is siphoned, the spell fails and the Geas breaks, and if too much magic is siphoned, well... *POP* goes the weasel, as they say!
>As I was saying, the flow of the magic is constant, and we all know constants are boring. Our studious little OCD alicorn will be sure to strictly regulate it down to the tiniest degree, as is her nature. But what if I were to tell you that you had the ability to... liven things up a bit? And maybe take more of her magic than she’s willing to give?
In short, Discord points out to Anon that the very thing that's keeping him under Twilight's thumb reee idioms could potentially turn out to be his greatest weapon.

>“Yes, yes, of course you will if you allow the extra magic to remain within your body. But, if you were to redirect it somewhere else for a while, it could end up being a particularly perplexing problem for our purple pony princess!”
The exact phrase "purple pony princess" appears a grand total of nine times in this text.

Anyway, Anon now has a possible chance of escape. If he can force Twilight into funneling more magic into the spell than it can hold, and then redirect it elsewhere so it doesn't make his body explode, he might just be able to wriggle his way out of this shotgun wedding.

Appropriately, having delivered his message, Discord now announces that he has used up what little power he has available and can no longer communicate; Anon is on his own from here. He then reverts back to silent stone, leaving Anon to ponder his words. Anon has been given a weapon and a pep talk, but he will still need to extricate himself from this situation using his own strength, without any divine assistance.

Since Pyre is still in the bathroom, Anon decides to ditch his escort and head for the castle library. The scene ends in a page break.

The perspective once again becomes suddenly omniscient, and we see Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy preparing for the wedding. Rarity is making some last-minute alterations to Rainbow's dress, and Rainbow is fidgeting and complaining about how long it's taking.

There are, of course, several more LUS violations in this scene. The "butter-yellow pegasus" once again rears her adorably ugly head; we also have the "unicorn seamstress" and the "blue pegasus" making appearances. At one point, the "unicorn seamstress" morphs into the "frazzled-looking unicorn," which may or may not be her final form. As an aside, I discovered that the author sometimes hyphenates "butter-yellow" and sometimes he doesn't, so my earlier count of six instances was not accurate. Searching for both hyphenated and unhyphenated instances, some variant of the phrase "butter yellow pegasus" appears a whopping eleven times total throughout the entire text. So, uh, you know; something to keep an eye on.

Anywho, not much happens in this scene, but it helps to move events along somewhat. Rarity needs to fit Anon for his suit, and sends Rainbow off to fetch him. In her absence, Rarity and Fluttershy discuss the upcoming wedding, as well as "Mistress Notfluutershai's" latest work of erotic friend fiction, which rumor has it is about to go to the presses. There is also some speculation about whether or not Applejack and Pinkie Pie, currently in the metaphorical doghouse among their friends for having chosen the wrong side in the Anon v. Twilight squabble, will have the stones to show up at the wedding.

Another page break, and we're back with Anon. It looks like Pyre managed to find him again, though he's in kind of a pissy mood about being abandoned. The two of them are in the library; Anon is leafing through books on magic, trying to follow up on the clue Discord gave him. He seems to find something, and then announces that he is ready to leave. He orders Pyre to put all of the books he took back on their shelves, while he goes back to his room.

Unfortunately, he manages to get himself lost in the library on the way. After wandering around for a bit, he accidentally stumbles upon an imposing-looking door that is sealed with some kind of magical barrier. The door leads to the Forbidden Archives.

His curiosity piqued, Anon tries to enter the room, but finds himself repelled by the barrier. He then turns to go, but to his surprise finds that his Geas bands are glowing, and the barrier suddenly opens up to let him pass. This initially puzzles him, but then he remembers something that Twilight said earlier:

>”From a magical standpoint, you and Celestia are the same pony because you now share her magic. And likewise, anypony I cast a Geas on will share my magical hoofprint too...”
Anon realizes that Twilight has inadvertently given him an advantage, and decides to pursue it.

>>370509

Anyway, Anon goes into the Forbidden Archives, and is temporarily discouraged when he finds yet another gigantic room filled with old books, and no clue as to what exactly he's looking for. Then, he notices a book lying on a reading table in the center of the room, picks it up, and to his great fortune discovers that it's exactly what he needs. The text doesn't elaborate on how or why exactly, but we are told that it will be of great help to him. He pockets the book and leaves the archives.

This is another event that feels contrived, but upon closer scrutiny is probably okay. What Anon needs is most likely a book related to Geas magic. Since Twilight would have been researching this very topic just a short time ago, it stands to reason that whatever she was last reading might be useful to him as well. We already know that Twilight has access to the Forbidden Archives, since that is the only reason that Anon was able to enter. Apart from the two current Princesses, I'm assuming very few ponies would have the ability or the inclination to enter this room, with Luna being the only other party actually likely to do so. Since it's been established that Luna is indifferent to the marriage issue, we can assume that Twilight would not see her as a threat to her plans. She also knows that Anon is uninterested in books and magic, so she is probably not that worried about him coming in here either; she may have even forgotten that the Geas would allow him to enter.

Given Twilight's interest in books and magic, it also stands to reason that, upon her ascension to Princesshood, gaining access to these archives is something she would have seen as a major perk. She probably comes in here to read forbidden shit all the time, even books that have nothing to do with banging Anon. Due to the fact that she is comfortable here, and likely considers it a secure enough place that she doesn't need to cover her tracks, it's actually quite plausible that the last thing she read would still be sitting out in plain sight. So, as far as I'm concerned, this latest development checks out. Note: it's also possible that this is another "variable" she took into account, and she left this book out as a trap to ensnare him, and whatever magic he discovers in this book will just end up making his situation even worse. The scenario is worth considering, but my suspicion is this won't be the case.

Anyway, Anon leaves the Archives, and is found by Pyre a short time later. At this point he returns to his room for a nap, and the chapter ends.

18 - A Promise

We jump forward a bit, and it is now time for the wedding. Anon is making some last-minute adjustments to his wardrobe as he heads to an outdoor plaza for the execution ceremony. His "best stallion" is mentioned as walking alongside him, although this pony's identity is not specified. Until I read otherwise, I am going to assume the role will be played by Pyre, because that's the only available choice that makes sense.

>The sun has not yet risen, just like she said it wouldn’t when you spoke the night before last. The horizon is alight with the warm oranges, yellows, and soft blues of the twilight before dawn, and countless stars can still be seen in the vast sky overhead. Though the moon is absent, there’s more than enough light to see courtesy of the many magical lampposts scattered throughout the plaza, which have the additional benefit of keeping the cold night air at bay.
Say what you like about getmeouttahere's overall prose style, but the man knows how to conjure up a comfy visual.

Anyway, the ceremony proceeds. Twilight's bridesmares, "Squiggle Tail," "Butter Squeak" and "Speedy Snooze," make their way to the front, followed by the flower fillies, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo (I guess they're not important enough to get silly nicknames). Apple Bloom is conspicuously absent for obvious reasons.

The scene actually maintains a pretty good balance. Even though this is basically the world's most expensive and elaborate shotgun wedding, as well as the ending of Anon's life as a free man, the mood is not especially sinister, and we get a little bit of everyone's perspective on the event.

The three "bridesmares" are each here to support their friend in their own way: Rarity is fussy and seems to be obsessing over aesthetic details, Rainbow Dash is completely out of her element but is doing her best to grin and bear it for Twilight's sake, and Fluttershy is just happy that her smutty fanfic finally came true. The two fillies, much like Apple Bloom earlier when she snuck onto the airship, are just lost in the joyful obliviousness of childhood. They likely have no idea what's actually going on here, but are thrilled they get to be part of a wedding.

Twilight herself is on cloud nine, and once again the author manages to evoke quite a bit of reader sympathy for her. For all her fucked-up insanity, this is probably the happiest moment of her life, and even Anon feels a little bad that she's given him basically no choice but to ruin it for her. This isn't Queen Chrysalis cackling maniacally as her evil scheme to entrap Shining Armor reaches it's zenith; this is just an autistic, extremely delusional mare enjoying the realization of her dorkiest fantasy. The beauty and innocence of the moment is exactly what makes this whole scene so tragic: everyone (aside from Anon, of course) has their own reason to be happy here, and yet the circumstances are so irreparably fucked up that there is just no possible way for it not to end in disaster.

Anywho, because of all this, Anon has decided to give Twilight one last chance to do the right thing let him go willingly, before he goes ahead and does whatever he is planning to do.

>>370512

So anyway, it's time for the vows. Twilight's are, of course, beyond autistic. The author's characterization is once again spot-on: she walks a razor's edge between endearingly spergy and dangerously delusional. Anon's, however, are a little more to the point:

>You look the beaming alicorn princess in the eyes, a sad smile on your face, and tell her, “Twilight... I can’t give you something I no longer own.”
>You hear hushed murmurs from the crowd as Twilight’s ears fold back and she hiccups.
“N-No, Anon. Don’t do this. Please don’t do this.”
>“I can’t marry you,” you continue. “And I can’t love you the way you want me to. I can’t give you my heart, because I’ve already given it to someone else; someone very special to me...”
To his eternal credit, he let her down as gently as he possibly could.

Unfortunately, Twilight's response is predictable. Her yandere side goes into full-blown overdrive:

>“Not. Another. Word. NOT ANOTHER WORD! I gave you a chance... I gave you a chance to love me, but you still keep throwing it away like I’m nothing! Why?! I’ve already surpassed her! I’ve already defeated her! What does she have that I don’t?! What makes her so bucking special?!”
>“ENOUGH!” her voice booms again. “DON’T YOU GET IT?! SHE’S GONE FROM YOUR LIFE NOW, ANON! I’M THE ONLY THING YOU HAVE LEFT! THERE’S ONLY ME!”
>“I’ve... I’ve changed my mind. I’ll never remove that Geas! She doesn’t deserve you... she never deserved you... but she kept trying to take you from me. Why...? Why would she do that when she knew that you were mine?! Mine! My very special somehuman!!”
>“I tried. I gave you a chance to drop your inhibitions and come to me willingly, but I guess that’s too much for you, isn’t it? But it doesn’t matter, destiny won’t be denied, and don’t worry... you will realize your love for me. You will WANT me. You will NEED me...”

At this point, she finally crosses the last line of decency and attempts to cast a mind-control spell on him. Anon decides that he's had enough of these motherfuckin' snakes on this motherfuckin' plane. It's go time. He reaches into his front pocket and grabs his little surprise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCZx5-b9tlE

Here's the short version:

From his research, Anon learned that magic can be stored in gems. Fortunately for him, Rarity puts copious amounts of gems on just about everything she touches, so the outfit she gave him yesterday to walk around in provided more than enough. He also learned a technique that allows him to sap magic out of the Geas bands and into his own body, which he can then channel directly into the gems in his pocketses. Twilight is now in a bit of a pickle: she can either allow the Geas to keep drawing magic out of her until she is completely drained of power, or she can break it, freeing Anon in the process.

Twilight, however, is undeterred. She refuses help, and for the time being allows the Geas to keep sapping her magic. She orders the guards to restrain Anon, but it seems Anon planned for this as well. He tosses one of the magic-charged gems at the approaching guards, and it explodes, sending the guards and some of the congregation flying.

>That appears to be the last straw for most of the congregation, as screams of panic ring out and most of the attendees start stampeding toward the exits. Some guards begin helping the panicked ponies with their evacuation, while the ones closest to you attempt to regroup but can’t find the courage to approach.
At this point, I'm beginning to wonder how much the background ponies understand about what's actually going on here. Getting invited to a royal wedding, only to have it end with the groom lobbing magical grenades at you...that would certainly be a story to tell the grandfoals one day.

Anyway, chaos ensues, much to the delight of Discord's disembodied spirit I would imagine. Unfortunately, Anon isn't quite out of the woods yet:

>That appears to be the last straw for most of the congregation, as screams of panic ring out and most of the attendees start stampeding toward the exits. Some guards begin helping the panicked ponies with their evacuation, while the ones closest to you attempt to regroup but can’t find the courage to approach.
Just out of curiosity, is the cyan pegasus related to the blue pegasus? What about the sky blue pegasus? I imagine she's distinct from the butter yellow pegasus, but as far as the butter-yellow pegasus is concerned...okay, I'll stop now. I won't, actually.

At this point, Anon decides it's time to play his trump card. He grabs Sweetie Belle, who seems to mostly be enjoying the excitement, and reaches into his pocket for a little surprise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCZx5-b9tlE okay, I'll stop now. I won't, actually.

>“NOBODY FUCKIN’ MOVE!!” you scream at the top of your lungs.
>The various ponies stop in their tracks, all eyes on you.
>“If you make even one move to stop me or get in my way, I swear I’ll read some excerpts from Twilight’s diary to this little filly!!”
Honestly, given the circumstances, I feel like Rarity's diary would have been a funnier choice. Although I think the implication is that Twilight's diary is probably raunchier, and thus unsuitable for a young foal. Though if he wanted to go that route, Fluttershy's fanfiction would have also worked.

For the moment, it seems that Anon has finally gained the upper hand. However, Twilight seems eerily calm about all of this, and it is at this point that she reveals the fatal flaw in Anon's little ol' scheme...

>“Your plan was very cute... and very imaginative. I never thought you’d come up with something like this... I never even thought of it myself!”
>“But Anon... I’m an alicorn. And I’m the Element of Magic. It’s like you’re trying to drain the ocean into a series of buckets. Theoretically, it’s possible... but do you have enough to complete the task?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lXdyD2Yzls okay, I'll stop now. I won't, actually.

>>370514
As some music bass dude said "Repetition legitimizes." Taste and execution of the piece is up to both the author and audience. You've been consistently hitting your stride well.
Thanks for doing these fun reviews.
Clappingbluehorsefastsnoozemulticolorzoomie.gif
You're right that LUS is happening too much though.

>>370514
Shit, I think I actually quoted the wrong bit here:

>That appears to be the last straw for most of the congregation, as screams of panic ring out and most of the attendees start stampeding toward the exits. Some guards begin helping the panicked ponies with their evacuation, while the ones closest to you attempt to regroup but can’t find the courage to approach.
Just out of curiosity, is the cyan pegasus related to the blue pegasus? What about the sky blue pegasus? I imagine she's distinct from the butter yellow pegasus, but as far as the butter-yellow pegasus is concerned...

The portion I meant to quote was:
>Rainbow and the rest of the bridesmares are noticeably pissed at you for some reason or another. The cyan pegasus crouches and begins what she intended to be a flying charge, but her wing-restraining dress screws up her trajectory. You easily sidestep the failed leap, giving you the valuable time you need to move on to the next phase of your escape.

Hopefully the commentary makes a little more sense now.

>>370474
>>370515
thx, as ever I am glad people are following along and enjoying.

>>370514

So anyway, it seems as if Anon's victory may be short-lived. He only has enough gems to siphon magic for another 20 minutes or so, and since Twilight's powerlevel is over 9000, whatever he siphons off won't make any serious difference. He's basically trying to overload the city power grid by charging his phone. Plus, he still has to physically escape the city.

>“I don’t even have to do anything. You can try to run. You can even try to find more gems. But it’ll only be delaying the inevitable. The moment you stop the transfer, I’ll regain my power and break your will. I’ve had enough, Anon. The time for these games is over. You can’t stop destiny... you can’t deny it. The stars brought us together, the weaving of the world’s magic led us to one another... and it will happen, whether you like it or not...”

It also does not look as though Luna will be much help:

>You turn and accidentally meet Luna’s gaze as she sits alone, curled up upon one of the pews. Shit... you completely forgot about her. She hasn’t even made a move against you, but her expression says it all:
>’Either stop this foolishness, or we will stop it for you.’

So, in short, Anon now finds himself in a regular ol' dilly of a pickle. I have a suspicion about which direction the author is going to take this, but I'm not going to voice it for now; I'm just going to keep reading and see if I'm right.

Incidentally, Anon is still holding Sweetie Belle:

>“Anon...?” The filly in your arms looks up at you with concern. “Why are you so sad? Is it because you’re marrying the Princess even though you really don’t love her?”
Yes, yes, a child's perception; out of of the mouths of babes; all that good stuff. In any event, he might as well just go ahead and read her some of Twilight's autistic and probably revolting diary entries; he has literally no reason not to go for broke at this point.

However, it looks as though he may be too late:

>“It’s okay!” she giggles. “The Princess’ diary can’t be any more boring than the one Rarity hides in her dresser underneath her special back massager. It’s almost all about how much she likes wieners, what she wants to do to wieners, who has the best wiener, the wieners she wants to see the most...”

Anyway, the silly banter here goes back and forth for awhile. It's worth reading, but probably not worth summarizing. Eventually, the comic moment ends and Anon gets serious again. He waxes sentimental for a few paragraphs, watching the early morning stars.

>That the twilight won’t last forever, and the sun will rise again.
This right here, kids, is called a metaphor. It's a legit literary thing, look it up.

Anyway, here's the short version: with timing so implausibly perfect even Michael Bay would call bullshit on this scene, the cavalry suddenly arrives. The airship, presumably fixed by Big Mac, makes a dramatic landing and out step Big Mac and Apple Bloom, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and Celestia. Celestia is all bandaged up from her Road-of-Trials-injuries, but still manages to look regal. She appears to be under strain due to the effects of the Geas; you may or may not remember that it was designed to repel her.

Twilight orders them apprehended, but the guards are understandably hesitant to obey. Even without her powers, Celestia is still Celestia: she was Princess for 1000 years, Twilight has been Princess for like three weeks. Plus, at this point it has to be obvious to just about everypony that she's completely off her nut.

There's a bit of a fight scene here, but the details aren't that important. Twilight's sidekicks attack, and are subdued by Anon's sidekicks. Meanwhile, Luna and Celestia face off, and seem to be having some kind of behind-the-scenes discussion. Anon puts Sweetie Belle down, and she and Scootaloo have a little crusader-reunion with Apple Bloom. Anon's situation with Twilight is about the same: he continues to siphon her power, but time is running out and there is still no clear path to victory. The chapter ends here.

19 - Epiphany

The author makes a weird stylistic choice here, and I'm not entirely certain I approve. I had assumed the fight scene was basically over, and the last item on the agenda would be Anon figuring out a way to finally break the Geas. However, it seems the author wants to draw things out a bit more. Just over half of this chapter is devoted to a detailed breakdown of the confrontation, divided into microscenes based on who is involved. Perspective appears to once again shift to omniscient. I'll go through them one at a time. Section labeling is the same as the author's.

Applejack and Rarity

This microscene mostly just rehashes a dynamic that comes up a lot in the show. AJ and Rarity, friends yet total opposites, misunderstand each other and butt heads. They are both loyal to Twilight in their own way, but they have radically different natures and thus interpret the situation differently. Rarity is upset with Applejack for having no sense of propriety and crashing Twilight's wedding. She is a natural romantic and takes Twilight's side in the conflict because true love and so forth. She considers AJ's siding with Anon to be a betrayal of her friendship to Twilight.

AJ, the pragmatist, sees it differently. She can clearly see that Twilight's autismo obsession with Anon's dick has caused her to completely lose her mind, and as her friend, it's AJ's responsibility to put an end to all this foolishness.

However, they find common ground when AJ explains that Anon and Celestia are now officially an item. At this point, Rarity drops all hostility and demands that AJ fill her in on the gossip.

The Crusaders
Nothing particularly noteworthy here; just the CMC being the CMC. They discuss the situation and decide to try and earn cutie marks as "love reuniters," by getting Anon and Celestia together. This may or may not be plot relevant, since I'm assuming they know nothing about the Geas.

>>370546

Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash

Once again, the author sticks with tried and true dynamics. Rainbow Dash, what with her whole "loyalty" thing, is exasperated that Pinkie would betray her friends and interfere with Twilight's love quest. Pinkie, meanwhile, shows once again that she is far more reasonable and perceptive than she appears. Initially, she was willing to help Twilight bag Anon, but as it became more and more apparent that Anon was genuinely not interested, she realized that helping Twilight would actually be hurting her in the long run. Moreover, when it became clear that Anon and Celestia were falling for each other, she realized that the best possible outcome would be for Twilight to give up on Anon and let him go.

She also apparently has some zany scheme in mind, as she grabs Rainbow at the end of the scene and runs off into the castle with her.

Celestia and Luna

While all of this wackiness is going on, the current Princess and the former Princess talk shop. Luna explains to Celestia that she has sensed some kind of mysterious dark force moving on the horizon, and she needs her to stop goofing off and start being a Princess again already. Celestia explains that, while she did not sense anything due to her diminished power, she did notice the Dark Star was acting a bit funny back when they were doing the Road of Trials, so she figures Luna is probably right about the whole approaching doom thing.

Luna tells Celestia to give her the orb she still has, so that she can give it back to her, so that she can swallow it and become an alicorn again. Since the end result of this would be exactly the same as if she gave it to Anon and he gave it back to her, which is what they were going to do anyway, this makes perfect sense. However, for some ridiculous reason that would only make sense to a woman, Celestia refuses. She wants Anon to give her the orb, not Luna, and she's not going to let something as trivial as the potential annihilation of Equestria interfere with the progression of her lovey-dovey storybook romance. Luna is appropriately disgusted by this display of complete and utter retardation, and vanishes in a huff.

Big Mac and Fluttershy

This scene is cute, but there's not a ton of substance or plot-relevance here, so I'm going to move through it quickly. It's revealed at this point that Fluttershy has had a crush on Big Mac for some time now, and a large batch of her erotic friend-fiction was inspired by him to some degree. She keeps trying to meekly push her way past him, and he keeps telling her no, and she's getting more and more flustered. Eventually, she tries being "assertive," which backfires as you might expect. However, it causes Big Mac whose initials I literally just now realized are "BM," which the schoolboy in me finds hilarious to finally make eye contact with her. Fluttershy uses Stare, and it's super effective. However, before she can get far, Apple Bloom unexpectedly clocks her over the back of the head with a chair.

Anon and Twilight

And now, finally, we have reached the crux of the biscuit. I'm anxious to see if this author is going to do what I suspect he's going to do, or if he will choke and miss the mark, and become a faggot just like all the rest. So far he's got a pretty hetero track record; I'd hate to see him blow it in the final quarter.

>Your mind is blank... you can’t think of anything that would help short of Twilight releasing the Geas willingly. But she’d never do that... the advantage she gains from it is way too massive for anyone in her position to realistically relinquish. But there has to be—
He's nipping at the edges, but can he seal the deal?

Anyway, Anon is just standing there siphoning magic, because that's pretty much all he can do. As he siphons, he watches everything going on around him and ponders his predicament.

>It doesn’t make sense. You know Cel wouldn’t be here if she didn’t have some sort of plan for dealing with Twilight. She has to have one, but the real question is: what’s your role in it? What are you supposed to do? Is there some sort of signal you’ve missed?
This is a crucial moment, not just for Anon, but for the story as a whole, as well as the author's sexual orientation.

Here's the deal: Anon has to solve this problem on his own. Up until now, he's relied heavily on Celestia and his friends, and that's fine because yada yada yada friendship is magic and all that. And as I mentioned earlier, the interdependence between the two of them does make the romance more interesting. During the early part of the story, Anon mostly relied on Celestia to bail him out of minor jams, and that was fine. The Road of Trials was a dual effort that they both contributed to and both benefitted from, and that was also appropriate. However, the Geas, as well as Twilight's obsession with Anon which is what the Geas symbolizes, is specifically Anon's problem, and Anon has to be the one to resolve it.

Earlier, when Anon met Discord in the Garden, there was a moment when I worried that the author was going to fuck this up. If Discord had somehow broken free of his prison, and used his all-powerful chaos magic to help Anon out of his jam, that would have completely ruined the story. However, he didn't; he gave Anon some helpful advice, but did not involve himself any further, so the author passed the test. The gods can give the hero a weapon to use, but the hero has to fight the battle himself.

Moreover, given what we know about the Geas and the particular trick Anon is using to fight it, there is literally only one action he can take here that will bring about a satisfying victory and make sense within the technical rules the author has established. If you can guess what it is, you win a cookie.

If the author does this right, he will earn himself a harem of comely mares. However, if he fucks this up, he shall be cast into the pit of Sodom for all eternity.

>>370549
> However, for some ridiculous reason that would only make sense to a woman, Celestia refuses. She wants Anon to give her the orb, not Luna, and she's not going to let something as trivial as the potential annihilation of Equestria interfere with the progression of her lovey-dovey storybook romance. Luna is appropriately disgusted by this display of complete and utter retardation, and vanishes in a huff.
When I started reading your summary, I thought that Celestia was going to give the orb to Luna, Luba was going to say “ha! I tricked you! You and anon are fucked now!” Go back to her Plan A of forcing Anon to be married, and then either absorb the power herself, give it to twilight, or hold it “for safe keeping” until “things can be restored.”

I know many people in the fandom assume that this season 3 era Luna must be trustworthy because her design is pretty and she was cute in that one episode, and just conveniently forget that canonically, Luna tried to overthrow Celestia twice, but every single thing I have read about the Luna of this text screams that she is a Machiavellian figure who is for all purposes a villain. There is nothing about her that is trustworthy, and Celestia made the right call.

>for sone reason that makes sense only to a woman
That reason is that women have the ability to ignore how hot a woman is, and accurately judge the character of another woman.

Beyond that, I think we can be 90% sure that Celestia giving Anon the orb won’t be a simple hand over and hand back, but has some other effect that Celestia knows about but the reader doesn’t.

>>370549

Anyway, as if Anon didn't have enough on his plate, he now seems to be succumbing to something called "magic fatigue." Basically, even though he's only using his body as a conduit between himself and the gems, it's still putting a lot of strain on him. If he keeps this up much longer, there is a chance his body will give out.

However, it seems he's not quite at that point yet. He tries to reason things out with Twilight, pleading with her to just give up and release him voluntarily. Their conversation is briefly interrupted when the CMC try to clobber Twilight with a chair, but unfortunately the effort is thwarted.

And then...and then......and then.........
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yYQ8CwZ1k8

*sigh*.

Alright, well, here's the deal. The good news is, the author doesn't go full-blown sperm-on-his-chin gay. However............his heterosexuality does not completely survive this battle. He comes out of it sort of bi-curious. At this point, I've come to grudgingly accept that bi-curious is about the best I can expect from FimFiction.

Here is what happens:

Anon and Twilight are facing off. Anon is sucking magic out of Twilight almost as hard as the author no doubt wishes he could suck an eggroll out of some gay pirate's pantaloons, but it's still not enough. He's running out of gems, and he's almost unconscious from magic fatigue. Twilight is now prematurely crowing about her victory, so we know that something is about to happen, but what could that something be?

Well, as it turns out, that something is Celestia. In spite of how horribly injured and magically deficient she still is, she begins approaching Twilight and Anon, Geas be damned. Twilight is all liek "oh noes u cant do that Pirncis Celeosi u will dieey" and Prancs Ceelests is all liek "no Twowilites i am do this thing" and twoiwlight is all liek "noooooooo" and purnses celery is all liek "yeeeeeeeess" and then cerlestria gits 2 clos 2 twoielight an then she dies and twolot is all liek "noooooooooooooooooooooo rPanaces Eleeceststia y u no stop dieing" an pramracesie cemelestiea am liek "twoiloit it is bcuz true luv," the end t. getmeouttahere. Translation for non-autists: Princess Celestia deliberately gets too close to the Geas, knowing that it will probably kill her, and sacrifices herself for Anon. Too late, Twilight Sparkle learns the meaning of true love, and realizes that her own selfish desire for Anon pales in comparison. She releases Anon from the Geas, understanding, finally, that her defeat is absolute, and Anon will never ravage her plot the way he does in Fluttershy's fanfiction.

And just so you don't die wondering, Celestia is fine; turns out Twilight shut the Geas off in time. Anon and Celestia now proceed to make out in front of God and everypony, and everypony cheers (except of course for Twilight, who is sobbing and rending her wedding dress, and Mistress Notfluutershai, who is busy penning her next opus with one hoof).

To the author's credit, this is actually close to what I was expecting, but unfortunately he sort of got it backwards.

Here is what I think should have happened:

Anon and Twilight are facing off. Anon is gobbling magic harder than the author would no doubt like to gobble down on Raoul the Cabana Boy, but it's still not enough. He's running out of gems, and he's almost unconscious from magic fatigue. Twilight is now prematurely crowing about her victory, so we know that something is about to happen, but what could that something be?

Meanwhile, Celestia is struggling back to her hooves. I'm not sure what knocked her down exactly; maybe Apple Bloom hit her with a chair. Point is, she struggles to her hooves and begins to stumble towards them. Anon realizes what she is going to do, and he knows that he can't let her do it.

It is at this point that Anon remembers something Discord told him:

>You can’t always think of things in absolutes, my dear boy. What you believe to be a boon could turn into a burden. And what you believe to be misfortune can open doors you never even imagined!
Think outside the box. Turn a setback into a victory. Anon now knows what he can do to defeat Twilight. He's not looking forward to it, but he knows how to do it.

Anon continues to siphon magic, but stops feeding it into the gems. Twilight is magically gifted enough to immediately sense what he's doing and understand what it means. She is all liek "nooooo annon what r u doing" and Anon is all liek "wat does it look liek im doing u dum pruprle hoers i am defeating u" and towoilight is all liek "nooo u cant do dat u will kerplode" and annon is aall liek "i would rather kerplode than marry u" and toilete sporkel is all liek "but y anon" and anaon is all liek "it is bcuz true luv + also u suk & r crazy."

Twilight realizes that Anon is serious; he would actually rather kerplode himself than marry her. She also realizes that the tables have been quite effectively turned: if she doesn't nix the Geas, Anon is going to kill himself in a very messy and unpleasant way. However, if she does nix it, it means she gives up her control over him. Her flawless victory has now turned into a complete and utter defeat.

Moreover, she realizes that Anon would not only rather kerplode himself than marry her, the deeper point is that he would rather kerplode than be without Celestia. She now understands that she has completely lost the battle for Anons heart and/or no-no-bits. She has the option to either kill him out of spite, or to prove that she loves him enough to set him free. She chooses the latter.

The Geas is gone, Twilight has relinquished her claim, and Anon and Celestia are now free to make out in front of God and everypony. The music swells, and everypony cheers, except for Twilight who is weeping and rending her wedding dress, and Mistress Notfluutershai, who is already writing her newest smutty fanfic. Curtain closes.

>>370594

lmao I'm Canadian now

Now, here's why this version of events is better than what the author did:

1. It's a Xanatos Gambit
A Xanatos Gambit is a plan in which all foreseeable outcomes result in victory for the creator of the plan. It not only hands Anon a flawless victory, but allows him to completely and utterly turn the tables on Twilight, who up until now has always had the upper hand reee idioms. It takes Twilight's "you will be assimilated into my vagina; resistance is futile" advantage and turns it into a completely hopeless position for her. She only has two options: kill Anon or let him go. Either way, she's been denied her prize.

2. It fulfills the "Anon must solve this problem himself" requirement
As I've said before, Twilight's fixation on Anon is Anon's problem, and Anon must be the one to solve it using his own resources. While Celestia and Twilight are technically rivals, the primary conflict here is not between them, it's between Anon and Twilight. Celestia defeating Twilight on Anon's behalf might technically solve Anon's problem, but it doesn't resolve anything and thus is not satisfying.

3. It validates Anon and Celestia's love for each other
Around the time of the Road of Trials arc, I mentioned that the love plot was beginning to feel stagnant and lose momentum, the reason being that Anon and Celestia's feelings for each other have not been put to any serious test. Well, this right here serves as exactly the sort of test they need. Anon and Twilight both have choices to make here that will define their respective character arcs. I'll get to Twilight's in just a second, but for Anon, the choice is essentially whether to give up his life or give up his love for Celestia.

The ideal outcome for Anon is a world where Twilight is either vanquished or gives up, and Anon is free to be with Celestia as he desires. However, it's clear at this point in the story that this outcome is impossible. Twilight can't be defeated by any means currently at Anon's disposal, and she is clearly determined to win him, even if it means mind-controlling him into being her love slave. She has backed him into a corner in which he has no choice but to submit and do as she pleases. However, he still has the option to simply end his own life.

If Anon truly loves Celestia, then there is no acceptable outcome other than the one where they end up together. If this outcome is not possible, then the only acceptable outcome is death. If he chooses to surrender to Twilight and marry her against his will, it proves that his love for Celestia was not genuine, and thus he does not deserve either Celestia or his role as the romantic hero. His punishment is to be metaphorically cast into Hades or Purgatory; he survives, but essentially spends the remainder of his days in a state of living death. This is punishment not only for his cowardice, but for failing to live up to the ideals he professed. However, if he chooses death, he has proven his worthiness, and at that point he can't possibly lose. Either he triumphs and wins his love, or he dies a hero's death. The beauty here is that the story doesn't necessarily have to end in tragedy; Anon doesn't need to actually die, he just needs to prove that he's willing to.

The author seems to have kind-of realized this, but again, he got it backwards. He had Celestia perform the act of self-sacrifice instead of Anon. This would have worked fine if Celestia were the main protagonist in this conflict, but she isn't, so her willingness to die doesn't carry the same meaning. This just comes across as Celestia helping Anon out of yet another jam; Anon still hasn't grown, and nothing is ultimately resolved, even though the outcome technically ends the conflict.

4. It proves that Twilight deserves redemption
Let's now look at the situation from Twilight's perspective. Twilight has a choice to make here too; in fact, her situation is actually a mirror of Anon's. She has the power to bend Anon to her will by force, but she can't force him to actually love her. The outcome she desires is one in which she and Anon are together, which can only come about through mutual choice. If she forces Anon to marry her against his will, or worse, makes him her slave using mind control, she technically wins, but she'll never be happy with her victory. She ends up in Hades/Purgatory as well if she makes this choice. However, if she lets him go, she still loses him, so that's not ideal either.

Unlike Anon, there are no potential happy endings for Twilight, at least not in this matter. Twilight is just one of those unfortunates who bears a cursed fate: she is condemned to love someone who will never love her back. However, she still has a choice to make that will test the strength of that love and prove her worthiness.

When Anon chooses to die rather than give up Celestia, he's proven that his love for her is true. At this point, there is nothing Twilight can do to break them apart or to compel Anon; she's already lost this fight. However, she can choose to either set Anon free, or allow him to kill himself. If she lets him die, she gains the petty satisfaction of knowing that even if she can't have Anon, at least Celestia won't be able to have him either. However, this will prove that possessing Anon is more important to her than Anon himself; in other words, her love isn't real love; it's just petty, selfish desire. She gets cast into Hades for this: she doesn't get Anon, and she also has to live with the guilt of his death. But, if she sacrifices her own happiness to let Anon have the life he wants, she's proven that her love was real, and thus she deserves another chance at happiness.

For these reasons, the only satisfying conclusion to this arc is one in which Anon calls Twilight's bluff and threatens to kill himself if she doesn't let him go.

>>370595
I don't really believe in this kinda of love. Care for others (love) is different for me than sex. I can love a man but don't wanna have sex with him. So I have found myself disagreeing with the idea of mixing the two.

This is part why I don't really get a good grasp of Celestia's and Anon's love for each other. Feels more like they declare their love for each other than I feel it confirmed, then again I haven't read the actual story. Generally, I don't know who Anon and Celestia even are in this story so that can be on me though.

>>370596
>So I have found myself disagreeing with the idea of mixing the two.
Actually that's fine. ^^

>>370595

Alrighty, I'm back.

So, it looks like the author basically fucked up the ending to the story's main arc, but since we've still got another 7 chapters + an epilogue, I'm assuming there's still more to it. Let's see how the rest of it goes.

Anyway, when we last left our intrepid heroes, Twilight had just been completely and utterly cucked by her former mentor. As Anon and Celestia tongue-wrestle on the altar, Twilight's friends including AJ attempt to console her. Twilight, for her part, continues to cry and bemoan that her meticulous plan has failed. Eventually, her butthurt reaches critical mass, and she flies off in a huff to some unknown location, leaving everypony behind.

Celestia, for her part, leaves us with this lesson on how to be a smug alicorn cunt:

>“Let her be, my little ponies. I believe what she’s learned here will eventually lead her back to all of us, and back to your friendship. All she needs is time.”
Step one: start a fire
Step two: dump gas on it
Step three: extinguish it somehow
Step four: act like the whole thing was just an elaborate friendship lesson, while still refusing to accept any responsibility for starting the original fire.

Anyway, Anon turns his attention to the recently-restored airship:

>She still looks pretty roughed up, but you can’t help but chuckle at the fact that you’ve never been so happy to see a piece of machinery again in all your life.
This sentence is bad and you should feel bad.

Anyway, since Celestanon is now a legit ship and Twilight's permavirgin status has been confirmed, there is no further need for the schism in the M6 to continue. The friends (minus Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash, who are still off somewhere doing something) all patch things up with each other. While this is going on, Celestia reveals to Anon that she managed to smuggle the ascension-thingie into the palace by hiding it in her tail. There might be a minor logic issue here: the Orb is a magical object, and I'm pretty sure Twilight can detect those. Also, it stands to reason Twilight would have anticipated Celestia would try to bring it with her. However, you could probably argue that Twilight was too preoccupied with the fight scene to be worrying about this, so she didn't notice. Either way, it's not a yuge deal.

ANYWAY, Anon and Celestia perform the perfunctory exchange of the orb that was outlined earlier, Celestia regains her power, and all is right with the world...is what I was expecting to happen. Instead, the author throws us the first legit curveball he's thrown in some time. Celestia gives the orb to Anon as expected, but when Anon attempts to give it back, she refuses. She explains that her power will eventually come back in a few centuries, and she doesn't feel any compelling need to rush things. The orb she just handed over idoms was intended for him alone.

The reasoning behind this is actually somewhat mundane: the author is just using a plot contrivance to solve a sticky little problem that was baked into his premise. Celestia is immortal, while Anon is not. So, a romance between them is problematic, since they will only get to spend a few decades together before Anon joins the choir invisible. If Anon consumes the orb, however, it will grant him immortality, thus allowing him to service Celestia's poon from now until the end of time.

As an aside, this same issue came up in the other Human x Celestia story we read, The Sun and the Rose. While in general I feel like Exchange is the better-executed story, I will note that I actually liked soulpillar's handling of this issue better than getmeouttahere's. In Sun & Rose, Celestia was a serial monogamist, who would periodically fall in love and marry, only to have her husband eventually run out his natural lifespan and die. It's less satisfying for readers who might want a happy storybook ending, but it's a more mature and realistic treatment of the issue. It emphasizes the importance of living in the moment and appreciating the things you have while you have them, and also shows that eternal life comes at a cost.

Anyway, the question of whether or not Anon even accepts the offer is left somewhat ambiguous. When he takes the orb, he feels an immense power flowing into his body. However, it's not clear if this is the result of the orb formally bestowing it's ascension power onto him, or if it's just something that happens whenever you touch one of these things, due to its being a supercharged magical artifact. I guess we will have to wait and see how this whole thing plays out.

In any event, Anon puts the orb in his pocket for safekeeping, and that's basically the end of the chapter.

20 - The Storm

The opening scene of this chapter is basically a coda to the previous scene, where all the friends were making out up. Applejack and Fluttershy apologize to each other, and the CMC apologize to Fluttershy for going all Steve Austin on her with a chair. Rarity and Fluttershy lament their role in fueling Twilight's hopeless fantasy about Anon, and resolve to make it up to her. The scene ends in a page break.

>You watch the three mares and three fillies head toward one of the still intact but abandoned buffet tables as you toss the last of the cauliflower from your plate into your mouth and grab Cel’s empty plate from where she set it aside.
Eew, cauliflower. Also, this long sentence needs to be broken up.

Anyway, Celestia fills Anon in on the details of their escape from the island, which it turns out wasn't all that eventful to begin with. Meanwhile, everyone decides that it would be a shame to waste the catered buffet that Twilight went to all the trouble of ordering, so they all sit down and stuff their boop-snoots with macaroni salad and whatever. Presumably the rest of the wedding guests are still milling around. Anon and Fluttershy make amends, and everything is just hunky-dory. Then, Anon suddenly notices something strange in the distance.

>>370958
This post is good and you should feel good.^^

>>370958

It turns out that the thing in the distance is that ominous storm that's been ominously brewing in the ominous distance for the better part of three ominous chapters now. The perspective has once again jarringly shifted to third person. We join Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie in one of Canterlot Castle's many kitchens, where, for some reason, they are baking a cake. Suddenly, there is a flash of lightning at the window, which Dash notes as abnormally powerful. They take off at a gallop.

Page break. Still in third person, we join Princess Luna in the castle library. She goes into the Forbidden Archives, which it turns out has a hidden chamber underneath it. She opens the secret passage and enters the Even More Forbidden Archives, only to discover that her worst fears have been realized: Twilight appears to have absconded with some kind of super-sekrit magical tome that was being stored down there. She then teleports upstairs to her quarters.

>Two armored bat ponies rush into the room from the nearby door. “Your Highness!”
I'm a little confused by the sudden mention of bat ponies. I'm assuming the implication is that Luna has her own personal guard, and they're bat ponies because she's the night princess and so forth. However, it's odd that we haven't seen any of them or heard anything about them before now.

Anyway, she orders her guards to prepare for an attack on the city.

>She dearly wishes she’s merely overreacting.
This sentence is bad and you should feel bad.

Page break. We are once again back to second-person narration. Anon et al have also noticed the magical storm brewing, and they realize that Twilight is down there and might be in serious danger. So, they all board the airship and fly out to look for her.

The storm forces Anon to fly somewhat low, dangerously close to the city itself. Celestia thinks she knows where Twilight went, and directs him to the center of the vortex, which turns out to be that creepy Sex Thunderdome that Twilight was constructing.

The author's description of this thing will suffice:

>The last time you saw the building it was still under construction, but now it seems to be complete and even more imposing. The most striking feature is the great windowless dome, built from what appear to be precisely cut interlocking dark gray stones. It almost reminds you of some of the larger closed-roof sports stadiums back on Earth, but that’s where the similarities end. Large, oddly angled support structures are joined to the dome on each side, one of which is an extremely long corridor that gives the entire building an almost bird-like profile when viewed from the air. Strange teal lights can be seen shining from the windows of these support pieces, which causes a warning siren to go off in your head. There’s something oddly familiar about the whole thing that you can’t really place your finger on...

They find Twilight easily enough: she is standing on top of the dome at the absolute center, casting some sort of spell. She still seems to be in an agitated state, but when Anon calls out to her she brightens up, and starts babbling about how "the shard" was right. It's not yet clear exactly what's going on, but it seems that this storm is the by-product of Twilight casting some sort of elaborate spell. The Sex Thunderdome seems to be a part of that spell, and I'd wager dollars to ponuts that the malfunctioning magical crystal thingy that Anon and Celestia encountered during the Road of Trials is mixed up in all of this somehow too.

>All eyes move to the white alicorn. Her expression is a mixture of fear, sadness and remorse... and you can even see the hint of tears beginning to pool in the corner of her eyes. She steps away from the rail and lowers her head, her voice little more than a whisper.
>“...I’ve truly failed you in every respect, haven’t I?”
Congratulations on being the last horse to finally cross the finish line, Sunbutt. Finally, an appropriate idiom.

Anyway, while it's not yet clear what Twilight is up to, it's obvious she's activated some sort of high-level magic that has the potential to wreak serious havoc. It's also obvious that recent events have unraveled her already fragile sanity even further.

Twilight promises Anon that, even though he is fond of the airship Celestia built him, she has built him an even better and presumably rapier one. The Sex Thunderdome begins to rumble and levitate into the air. At this point, escape seems the most prudent course of action. Since they probably can't outrun Twilight's new and improved Rape Hovercraft, Anon decides to risk ascending above the clouds.

>“There’s no longer any doubt in my mind. It’s based around Progenitor technology and magic. I’d recognize those runes anywhere, and when she mentioned a ‘shard’ she more or less confirmed it. We don’t stand a chance as we are now, and I fear for the city’s safety...”
Celestia confirms that Twilight is messing with ancient, powerful magic that predates Equestria.

>Without thinking, your hand wanders to touch the pocket of your jacket, the great magic held within warming your fingertips.
>“Cel... what if I...?”
>“NO!”
>Her sudden, adamant refusal takes you by surprise, and you turn to face her to find an odd look of fear in her expression.
>“Anon... that gift is infinitely precious. Don’t forget what was involved in claiming it. Don’t be so hasty to throw it away. There are still options... and there is still hope. Please, you must promise me...”
This seems to imply that Anon hasn't activated the immortality orb yet, however I'm not clear on what exactly he was about to use it for here.

Anyway, the chapter ends here.

>>370963
Huh, I thought the story concluded: Okay. More is usually... more.

But we shall see.

>>370963
<“...I’ve truly failed you in every respect, haven’t I?”
"I have failed you, Anakin. I have failed you."
"I should have known the jedi were plotting to take over!"

>>370963

21 - Harbinger

>After taking care of things on the flight deck, you bound up the stairwell to take your place at the ship’s alternative controls with Celestia not far behind.
I'm not entirely sure I understand why he's using the alternative controls instead of the regular controls.

Anyway, it looks like they've ascended into the clouds. Other than the occasional lightning flash, the storm doesn't seem to be affecting them much. As they ascend, they all speculate about what exactly Twilight built and what exactly she intends to do with it.

As luck would have it, Anon still has Twilight's diary that he got from...actually, I forget the specifics of how he wound up with it. He tells Celestia that he found it in the Forbidden Archives, and that sounds about right, so I guess we'll go with that. In any event, though, it sheds some light on the issue:

>May 22nd, 2132
>Spike caught me practicing my winking in front of my bedroom mirror today. It was so embarrassing I almost teleported away, but I think I managed to give him a decent enough excuse as to what I was doing! Hopefully he’ll believe I was checking for tangles in my tail. I need to be more careful about this type of thing in the future as I continue to practice. It makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, but Rarity says if I really want to attract my stallion I need to—

Oh, wait, sorry, wrong passage. Try this one:

>October 16th, 2132
>I knew I was missing something! By chance, I came across the faint signature of a strange warding spell within the Forbidden Archives while I was searching for more research materials. After a quick thaumotological reverse-engineering I was able to unlock the ward, which revealed a column with a stairwell leading to yet another chamber!
>What I found inside was absolutely amazing! Magical artifacts of all kinds, some seemingly erased from history, but vague mentions of which can still be found in several texts! As you can imagine, I was nearly beside myself! There wasn’t enough time to investigate everything, though I definitely will in the near future, but the thing that most caught my attention was a strange object ensconced in yet another protective ward. It appears to be a fragment of a much larger crystalline structure, but it’s unlike any crystal I’ve ever seen or read about before, both in appearance and with regards to its magical resonance. To put it bluntly, the magic it radiates is both vast and of a type I can’t identify! It’s not the magic of ponies, of the other races, of Discord, or even of the same type of dark magic I’ve encountered several times in the past. It’s completely new, completely unknown, and completely captivating.
>This will undoubtedly be the first object I study. Revelations discovered from a new type of magic could lead to a way to overcome traditional magical barriers such as Celestia’s Geas.

So, to summarize: Twilight stumbled across the extra-forbidden part of the forbidden archives, found a shard of the Dark Star that's what the crystal thingy from the Road of Trials was called, and began to investigate it.

The shard turns out to be something like a magical database, which reveals its knowledge to the user through visions. The short version is that Twilight learns about all sorts of extremely overpowered magic, the sort of magic that someone as autistic as she is should probably not have access to. She also learns that the shard can show her various possible futures, along with the steps she would need to take in order to ensure that a given future will occur.

>Despite how disparate the visions are, they all have a common thread near the end: In order to ultimately consummate our relationship, I build an Arcane Resonance Chamber on a scale never before seen by ponykind. This appears to be a critical step in order to have Anon overcome the last of his inhibitions and fall for me completely after we’re married.
Presumably the Resonance Chamber is the Sex Thunderdome. It's exact purpose is not yet known, but the pieces are coming together.

>There’s no longer any doubt. Regardless of what Celestia does, regardless of how much he tries to deny it... he’ll come to love me, and we’ll be together, me and my very special somehuman. Maybe then this odd emptiness I’ve felt ever since he arrived will finally be filled...
inb4 she decides to just get a cat or something.

Anyway, Celestia mentions an old sorcerer with whom she and Luna fought at some point. The guy's name is Balios, and apparently his behavior and plans from back then are quite similar to Twilight's now. There is a heavy implication that the shard has a will and goals of its own, and manipulates its users into doing its bidding by offering them apparent solutions to their personal problems.

While they are discussing all of this, Anon suddenly checks the ship's instruments and realizes that the storm outside has been steadily draining the magic in the ship's engines. At this point, though, they are basically committed to the course: either they make it out of the clouds, or the engines fail. I'm not entirely sure what happens when they do; logically, one would assume the ship would plummet and crash, but it sounds like they just lose forward momentum and become stuck in the air, like a conventional sailing ship being stuck in the doldrums.

Anyway, tl;dr they make it out of the clouds and head back towards Canterlot Castle.

>Just as the mountain comes into view across the bow, the nearby multichromatic pegasus coughs and flares her wings.
I'm no longer calling much attention to these, but I'm still keeping track of them, and this one is particularly egregious. Unless there is a canon pegasus whose mane, tail, coat and eyes are all the same color, "multichromatic pegasus" could technically describe any pegasus in the entire MLP universe. Even though this is obviously referring to Rainbow Dash, this is not just a LUS issue, this is just bad description in general. Protip: don't do shit like this.

>>370966

Anyway, they decide to send the multichromatic winged-horse creature consisting of four legs, a mane, a tail, wings and presumably genitals who is known to travel at above-average speed aka Rainbow Dash ahead to the castle with a message for Luna. However, before they can do so, Twilight's Rape Hovercraft emerges from the clouds with an ominous boom. Again, the author's description of this thing is probably sufficient:

> It’s easily ten times the size of the Dawn Star, constructed entirely from stone and awash in ancient magic. What was once the ‘dome’ of the structure on the ground is now revealed to be a perfect sphere located at the very center, slowly rotating and shining with arcane runes. The odd, angular buildings married to each side have unfolded as if they were webbed wings, with dark tendrils of storm cloud still clinging to their evenly spread digits. What was once thought to be a long entry hallway or promenade is now a combination bow / bridge, its slanted windows arrayed like menacing fangs. When taken together, the overall profile of the ship resembles that of a great tail-less dragon, and you can’t help but stand in awe at the sight.
tl;dr, Twilight has a big-ass magical airship now.

Twilight appears on the bridge or the deck or whatever this thing has exactly, and calls out to them. She tells Anon that this ship is called the Harbinger, and she's giving it to him as a wedding gift. At this point, Twilight is now so insane that it might actually make more sense for them to just carve a likeness of Anon out of mashed potatoes, give it to her, and tell her that the two of them are happily married now.

Anyway, Celestia informs Twilight that seriously, bitch, it's time to chill the fuck out. Also, she explains that the shard is evil, and that it tricked her into building some kind of unholy abomination that will probably destroy the world or something. Predictably, Twilight is not buying any of it.

>“BECAUSE YOU WERE AFRAID!!” the little alicorn shouts back, her Canterlot Voice rising above the volume of the swirling wind. “You were afraid of it! You were afraid of the secrets it held! But I’m not! With science, we can understand anything! If we’re willing to learn, and study, and experiment, there’s no limit to what we can accomplish! There’s no mystery that will remain unsolved! THAT’S WHAT YOU TAUGHT ME!”
Just trust the science, bro.

Anyway, Twilight and Celestia go back and forth for a bit, and then Anon starts making fun of Twilight's airship. He's clearly stalling or trying to distract her, and presumably has something up his sleeve.

>You hold your hands up. “Yeah, sorry, no deal. You’re a good salesmare, but I think I’ll keep the one I’ve got. Besides, it kind of has sentimental value to me, you know? And that’s something you just can’t compete with, even if your model has like a billion more cup holders than mine.”
>Pinkie and Dash snap out of their respective trances to stifle a giggle, and Twilight looks to each of them for a moment with curiosity.
>“Oh, you’re making a joke!” The purple alicorn rears up and clops her hooves together. “Ha ha, funny! But seriously, Anon, that’s enough. I’m done playing games.”
Protip: if you're going to make a joke, just make a joke. If it's funny, the reader will laugh. Adding extra text to clarify that it's a joke just kills the timing and makes the whole passage awkward and cringey.

Anyway, it turns out that Anon's efforts were wasted. While he was talking, he was slowly revving the engines, intending to throw it in reverse and then attempt a fast getaway. However, as soon as he punches the gas or whatever it has, he discovers that Twilight has their ship trapped in some kind of magical stasis field. Dang, I guess that plan's out.

>“Any time now, Dash!”
>In desperation, you call out to the pegasus in hopes of getting her to fly off and contact Luna like you had originally planned before Autismo showed up with her stupid doomsday ship thing. You can see the light bulb go off over her head before she turns and zooms from the deck, only to immediately smack against an invisible wall like a bird flying headfirst into a sliding glass door. She slides down and flops to the deck with a thump, completely dazed, and Pinkie hops over to tend to her.
Welp, I guess that plan's out now too. So, the question remains: how are Anon & Co. going to dig themselves out of this particular jam?

Well, if you've been following this story up until now, you may have noticed certain recurring patterns, one of which is that the author is not shy about using improbably-timed advantageous coincidences. At just the right moment, Luna suddenly shows up with Equestria's entire battleship armada the same armada that was chasing them earlier. Well, folks, it looks like we have an airship fight on our hands......if by airship fight you mean a tedious chiding lecture from Luna.

Twilight and Luna both project images of themselves onto the deck of Anon's ship. Luna is hopping mad, and she wants answers, goddammit. Answers to questions. Questions that she has.

The tl;dr is that Luna now knows about Twilight's theft of the Dark Star shard, which we actually already know because we saw her in the library earlier. As soon as she discovered it was gone, she took the entire Equestrian air force and/or navy out after Twilight, and just happened to catch up to her at a dramatic moment in the scene. She lectures Twilight about the dangers of using nefarious dark magic as an expedient to getting herself laid, and then orders her to stand down. Twilight of course refuses, Luna tells her she will regret the course she has chosen, and the projections disappear.

Now we get an airship fight.

>>370967
>Now we get an airship fight.
>airship fight
You got to tell me which one you like the most, this one or the one I wrote in my collab with Norway.

>>370967

Twilight has momentarily turned her attention away from Anon to focus on dealing with Luna and the imperial armada. Instead of taking the opportunity to escape, Anon & Co. sit down on the deck of their own ship to watch the battle.

>“You’re absolutely right. I wouldn’t call Twilight’s creation a ship. It’s more like a Progenitor spellbook in the form of a building. The runes which cover it are proof enough... it has no need for engines or stabilizers; they’d simply be redundant. The series of spells inscribed across its surface are more than enough...”
This observation made by Celestia seems like it might be significant later.

Anyway, that's about it for this chapter.

22 - Concordia

We once again shift into third person perspective, and join Luna on the bridge of the Concordia (which is the name of the Equestrian flagship, not sure if I mentioned that detail or not).

>By its outward appearance, it’s easy to mistaken the ship for merely being one of the world’s largest luxury superliners.
I'm assuming this is just a typo, but still: this sentence is bad and you should feel bad.

Anyway, the text spends a bit of time describing the Concordia. Basically, this thing is an enormous airborne luxury yacht that also functions as a battleship. This ship is what the Equestrian government brings out when they want to impress foreign heads of state and/or blow them to bits. Think the Titanic but with frickin' laser beams, and also it can fly.

>A single torpedo hit is a guaranteed kill against a standard airship, and all ten find their mark on the Harbinger, painting the sky with a display of light so grand that for an instant some of the ponies still in Canterlot’s streets mistaken it for the risen sun.
This sentence has the same error in it, "mistaken" instead of "mistake."

Also, is it still pre-dawn? I haven't really brought it up, but the text keeps explicitly mentioning that it's close to sunrise, but the sun has not yet risen. Moreover, it's been that way since the wedding scene. I understand that sunrise works a little differently in this setting, but still, it's an odd detail to keep bringing up. Logically, enough time has passed that it ought to at least be early morning by now, so the only explanation is that Twilight, who as far as I can tell has inherited Celestia's sun-rising duties, is explicitly refusing to raise the sun.

The only thing I can think of is that Twilight wanted her wedding timed so that the kiss would occur at the precise moment the sun came up. Being the eternal autist that she is, and seeing as how she obviously still hasn't given up on marrying Anon, I could plausibly see her refusing to raise the sun until she gets to kiss Anon. However, I'm not sure if that's what's actually happening here or not. As I said, it's a strange detail to keep bringing up, so I can't imagine the author would continuously reinforce it like this if it weren't important.

Anyway, yeah; airship fight. Luna fires an immense volley at the Harbinger, and unsurprisingly it emerges unscathed. Twilight's projection appears on the bridge to gloat, but Luna is unperturbed. It seems that she was expecting this, and merely fired the initial volley to test the enemy ship's defenses.

Twilight's projection disappears, the scene ends in a page break, and the perspective returns to Anon.

>As always, Celestia is by your side, her magenta eyes following the action intently.
The author does quite a bit of this sort of thing as well. It isn't exactly LUS, but it's LUS-adjacent. It's already well-established what color Celestia's eyes are, and it's not an important enough detail to justify how often it's mentioned. In just the last scene we heard about Luna's "cyan" eyes, and Applejack's green ones came up a few times in the previous chapter.

Anyway, Luna's ships group into some kind of battle formation, and Twilight's vessel begins to advance. Anon observes that the vessel is extremely slow-moving, and Celestia explains that this is due to bad design on Twilight's part. Apparently, she didn't consider how much power would be required to move something this large and heavy. However, we soon learn that she built in a workaround: the ship has a short-range teleportation ability.

There is a page break, and we're back to Luna. I'm getting the impression that these perspective changes are going to be frequent in this chapter, and it's probably unnecessary to keep explicitly mentioning when they occur, so from here on out I'm just going to outline the broad strokes of what's going on, and will zero in on details where necessary.

Twilight teleports into the clouds, and utilizes some sort of magical weapon that drains the engines of Luna's fleet. Luna somehow disperses the clouds (the details are a little unclear here), and reveals the Harbinger's location. The Harbinger responds by firing frickin' laser beams and taking out like eight of Luna's ships in one fell swoop.

Luna, however, is still unperturbed, and clearly has something up her...hoof-sleeve reee idioms, etc. Twilight's image once again appears on the bridge of the Concordia; it seems she can't resist gloating and bragging about how bad-ass her ship is. Luna, proving herself adept at 12D chess, seems to have anticipated this. Through a somewhat unsubtle line of questioning, she manages to trick Twilight into explaining exactly how her ship works, and then immediately uses this information to disable it.

As it turns out, the Concordia has some kind of boss-level weapon installed that, when activated by an alicorn, amplifies its magic to some ridiculous degree. After getting Twilight to conveniently tell her exactly where to strike, Luna fires this weapon. It blasts through the Harbinger's defenses, and deals serious damage to the central sphere, where the magic-resonance-whatever-the-fuck thing that Twilight was autistically babbling about is located. She blasts it again, and it now looks like one more hit will finish the battle.

>>370977

Twilight manages to teleport the ship away before Luna can deal the final blow, but things are still not looking good. The ship has been dealt critical levels of damage, and will break apart within the next half hour. Twilight can't manage to teleport it far enough away to escape, and it isn't strong enough to either fight or to withstand another attack, so all she can really do here is keep dodging until the ship breaks apart. It appears she's been bested.

She is understandably upset that her latest seemingly-flawless plan to seduce Anon using a gigantic magical battleship has gone awry, and decides to sulk and mope about it for awhile. Sulk sulk sulk, mope mope mope. She eventually sulks and mopes her way into the Magical Arcana Resonance Whatever the Fuck Hoopajigger, and sees the Dark Star crystal, which apparently powers this behemoth, sitting on the pedestal at the center. She decides to lose herself in her weird fantasies one last time, and asks the crystal to once again show her a future where she ends up with Anon.

The crystal decides to do her one better: it shows her that future, along with yet another zany scheme she can use to try and bring it about. Even though she has had basically zero positive results doing anything this crystal has told her to do, she realizes she has very little to lose. So, like Charlie Brown charging the football or me reviewing Fallout: Equestria, she decides to try her luck just one more time.

Meanwhile, with the threat of the Harbinger more or less neutralized, Luna can shift her focus. She uses magic to break up the clouds, which serves the dual purpose of clearing the storm and decreasing the number of places where Twilight can hide. However, she is caught off guard when Twilight decides to suddenly teleport her ship directly in front of the Concordia.

Twilight fires her lazars at the Concordia, but her attack is easily repelled by Luna's shields. However, this was only a feint. When Luna begins charging her LOIC to finish the Harbinger for good, Twilight suddenly unleashes a new attack. A bunch of ghosts suddenly come flying out of the hole that Luna blasted into the Harbinger's dome, and hurl themselves at the Concordia. Luna is unable to do anything about it as she is concentrating on chargin' her lazorz.

One of the ghosts flies into the bridge and passes through Luna's chest. The diligent reader might recall that this same thing happened to Celestia and Anon during the Dark Star episode of the Road of Trials. A moment of intense pain causes Luna to lose control of her spell, and the super-charged blast of magic she was building backfires into her own ship.

Luna appears to lose consciousness; meanwhile, the Concordia is almost ripped in half by the intense magic blast. The ammunition stores explode, which causes additional damage. The Concordia is now basically toast, and to make matters worse, it's about to crash into the city of Canterlot.

Anon knows he needs to do something, but what? Oh right, he's still got an ascension orb in his pocket. I'm still not 100% clear on what he can do with it other than give it to Celestia, but I guess we'll find out momentarily.

>The alicorn’s gaze meets yours, and what you find within her beautiful magenta eyes nearly causes your heart to quake.
Yes, this sentence is ridiculous for several reasons and we would all be right to chuckle at it. However, that's not why I highlighted it. I just remembered that, per my previous comment [ >>366650 ], Celestia should technically still have an empty milk carton impaled on her horn. So yeah, enjoy that visual.

>The conflict within her expression is so deep it leaves you breathless.
This sentence is pretty awful too.

>At the same time, she pleads with you to both give her the Orb so that she can save her sister, and to never give her the Orb because she fears, from the depths of her heart, all that will come after.
Yes, I think we've all found ourselves in similar orb-related quandaries from time to time. Also, what is she afraid of exactly?

I'm assuming the issue is that if she uses this orb to get her powers back so she can save Luna, Anon won't be able to use it to become immortal, and thus Celestia will outlive him. I can understand why this might give her pause, but at the same time, it's not like this is the last one of these things in the entire world. If they really needed another orb, all they would have to do is go back to the Altar and do the Road of Trials again. It might be a giant pain in the ass, but it's certainly possible; both of them have been through the Trials twice ffs.

>Her indecision travels between you and roots your feet in place; your legs now unable to move even if you wanted them to.
Great googly moogly, this has to be the longest string of absolutely god-awful sentences I've yet encountered in this text. Getmeouttahere, I still basically like you, but if you don't get a handle on this shit pretty damn quick I'm going to have to start hucking peanut shells at you.

Anyway, whatever; Anon takes out the orb and gives it to Celestia, and for some reason this is presented as a momentous, difficult event for both of them. The scene ends on sort of an ambiguous cliffhanger. Meanwhile, Luna regains consciousness and realizes her ship's a' goin' down.

>The pain she feels is very nostalgic, but she ignores it for now, opting instead to reach a hoof out to the nearby intercom, which surprisingly still works.
Sweet sassy molassey, if sentences were icicles being jammed directly into my eyeballs, this one would be...well, pretty much that. Seriously, getmeouttahere, you were warned. *hucks peanut shell*

ANYWAY, whatever. Luna, realizing that her goose is pretty much cooked, orders her crew to evacuate the ship, and begins casting a spell. Whatever she is doing, it seems to be sucking huge quantities of magic out of her. Eventually, she fires it off, and the entire Concordia disappears.

The chapter ends here.

>>370979
I feel like this story makes more sense if some relationships are changed:
Luna: The mother.
Celestia: Her eldest daughter.
Twilight: Her youngest daughter.

>>370986
>The Mother
<Ackqually she's the whipping boi
I'd argue Luna as is fits. She's unappreciated, so takes it upon herself to go fix it herself. Just like when she turned to Nightmare Moon.
Luna is the overworked, underpaid and underappreciated work horse who has to make ends meet.
Celestia dumps everything on moon hores to go fuck around.
Moon hoers is a very unhappy moon hoeres, also has to deal with another jackass superior who just causes more shit to pile up.
Then premonitions of dooooom.
Moonbutt is 10000% done with everyone. She's the only one actively trying to unfuck dooooom and she'll stomp over and on anybody not helping.
Maximize firepower and HOERS power to defeat the big bad.
But everyone is still fucking around, sharting in her Equestrian Walmart. But now she also has a hernia from trying to lift her whole team.

>>370988
Yes, that's what I meant. Her kids starts shit and she wipes their bottoms. Ugh, what's wrong with me?

Didn't say it didn't make sense just that she's probably the most likable of the cast right now.

>>370992
Well, I didn't mean Luna's character didn't make sense. The other two, specifically Celestia is up in the air, imo.

>You look the beaming alicorn princess in the eyes, a sad smile on your face, and tell her, “Twilight... I can’t give you something I no longer own.”
>You hear hushed murmurs from the crowd as Twilight’s ears fold back and she hiccups.
>“I can’t marry you,” you continue. “And I can’t love you the way you want me to. I can’t give you my heart, because I’ve already given it to someone else; someone very special to me...”
I hate this. I hate this so much. Part of that is because it implies that Anon has to be with someone because being single is bad, which is a toxic mindset that causes so many men to be with people they absolutely should not be. But I hate it more so because it completely dodges the real issue, and much worse, is exactly what you should not say to someone as obsessive as Twilight in this moment. Anon doesn't want to be with Twilight because he doesn't love her, and because her actions in pursuing him show that she is batshit insane and not girlfriend material. Anon wouldn't want to be with Twilight regardless of whether Celestia were there or not. The lesson Twilight needs to learn is that 1. when someone doesn't reciprocate your affection, leave them be, and 2. Her behavior has been absolutely far beyond the pale of acceptibility. Instead, Anon is telling her that she might have won - and may still win - but for her former mentor betraying her and taking her man. This gives Twilight - who is dangerously abusive of power, obsessive, and irrational - a villain to focus her obsession over. This is actively putting Celestia in danger and avoiding addressing the actual issues.

>>370594
>Twilight is all liek "oh noes u cant do that Pirncis Celeosi u will dieey" and Prancs Ceelests is all liek "no Twowilites i am do this thing" and twoiwlight is all liek "noooooooo" and purnses celery is all liek "yeeeeeeeess" and then cerlestria gits 2 clos 2 twoielight an then she dies and twolot is all liek "noooooooooooooooooooooo rPanaces Eleeceststia y u no stop dieing" an pramracesie cemelestiea am liek "twoiloit it is bcuz true luv," the end t. getmeouttahere.
This too, is terrible. This gambit, for Anon's victory, 100% relies on the villain of the story suddenly having a heart and wanting to do good towards the mare that Anon has just told her betrayed her relationship with her, and is the sole individual responsible for Twilight not getting everything she ever wanted. If Twilight just let Celestia die, then Twilight would win. Anon would be hers, hers alone, and he would come to love her. Anon has given her no reason to think he wouldn't love her, only that Celestia has outplayed her. There is nothing within the narrative itself that supports that Twilight would - or at least, that she should - chose her perfidious former mentor over the man of her dreams.

>>370963
>I'm a little confused by the sudden mention of bat ponies. I'm assuming the implication is that Luna has her own personal guard, and they're bat ponies because she's the night princess and so forth. However, it's odd that we haven't seen any of them or heard anything about them before now.
This is perhaps the most accurate summation of bat ponies in the show I have ever read

>>370967
>Celestia informs Twilight that seriously, bitch, it's time to chill the fuck out. Also, she explains that the shard is evil, and that it tricked her into building some kind of unholy abomination that will probably destroy the world or something.
Celestia has absolutely no credibility here. She has completely abrogated any of her responsibilities in teaching Twilight by cuckholding her, and even as she stands there and lectures Twilight on why she should give up and let her keep Anon, she's standing with Anon next to her side.

>>370979
>At the same time, she pleads with you to both give her the Orb so that she can save her sister, and to never give her the Orb because she fears, from the depths of her heart, all that will come after.
This is pretty much the moment that it truly struck me how absolutely reprehensible Celestia's actions have been through out this story. Celestia has a duty to her nation to protect its people. She has a duty to, if she is going to step down or take a smaller role, ensure that her successor is up to the task. And she has a duty to her own student, who looks up to her as an almost mother figure. And what has she done? She's neglected the nation by leaving it in the hooves of somepony who is clearly not fit for the role. But far more than that, she's actively carried on a competition against her own student, her own daughter figure, over who gets fucked by a specific man. She's trying to cuck Twilight, and in the process, she's endangered all of Equestria. It's not just that Celestia could do something and has until this moment chosen to eschew the power that would allow her to do something, she's actively created a problem. She's done this in placing Twilight in that position, and more so by gleefully participating in a love triangle with her own damn surrogate daughter.

>>370977
>The Harbinger responds by firing frickin' laser beams and taking out like eight of Luna's ships in one fell swoop.
Luna, however, is still unperturbed
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it looks like the story is saying that Twilight just killed likely a hundred or more Equestrian soldiers - her own soldiers that she is supposed to be leader over - and no one, not Celestia, not Luna, and obviously not Twilight, cares. I know the logical response is to say that the narrative focuses on the main characters, these ponies don't exactly "exist" for narrative purposes, don't think about them... But then why does the story later go on to state that Luna gave the order to evacuate the ship, if we are not supposed to think about these ships as being full of ponies whose lives matter?

>>370995
>But far more than that, she's actively carried on a competition against her own student, her own daughter figure, over who gets fucked by a specific man.
Yh, that's what I think had me lose interest in this story in the past. I just couldn't root for our heroes. I feel like when that happens it's hard for me to muster up motivation to follow it. Can't put a finger on why at the moment but I have experienced this with stories before.

>>370995
>>370966
Twilight's entire turn here at the end is one-winged angel, like she's come into a last, monstrous form that threatens the hero. I can't imagine how she could be redeemed now, except maybe to excuse the effect of the Dark Star shard as being like mind control. This whole turn shows how Celestia's gambit earlier was a false conclusion, because it failed to address the real issue. Something that fake-out resolution got right, however, is that Twilight needs to be the one to stop Twilight. Twilight needs to learn that her obligations towards others are more important than this obsessive pursuit of myopic self interest. She needs to be the one to put an end to her own madness, and I'm not sure how she's going to do it here.

Celestia does seem to be learning that she needs to stop thinking about her pussy for two minutes and start thinking about her ponies. It's a start, but I very seriously doubt that she will take responsibility in proportion to the harm she has caused.

The character who I have the least faith in coming to recognize her responsibility in this right now is Luna. Luna represents the opposite end of the spectrum from Twilight and Celestia. Whereas Celestia and Twilight gleefully harm or allow harm to come to others whom they owe obligations to as their masters, mentors, students, or alleged romantic partners, in pursuit of a self interested pursuit of dick, Luna completely eschews any concept of humanity in service to some "rational" understanding of duty.

Luna wants everyone who isn't her to sacrifice in the name of some greater good. She wants Anon to just agree to be a slave and suffer the injustice of being forced to a marriage he doesn't want. He wants Celestia to give up on her chance of immortality with her love. And she doesn't bat an eye when eight of the ships she came in with are destroyed because they didn't have the sheilds she did. These are all just sacrifices to the greater good. These are all just little injustices to be suffered (by others) as means to an end. Luna damn near recreates that philosophical thought experiment of "if we put a little girl in a box and tortured her, but it made everyone else happy, would that be justified?" which she answers with an emphatic "yes."

The thing is, Anon and Celestia are expected to sacrifice themselves for the greater good precisely because they are considered to be reasonable. They could be persuaded, while Twilight cannot. So Luna throws in her lot with Twilight, and Twilight gets everything she wants while no one else can. And by siding with irrational evil, Luna is actually directly aiding the great evil she says she is trying to stop. Luna fears the Dark Star shard, or at least, what it will create. Yet by aiding Twilight, she's aiding this Dark Star shard, because Twilight is in the thralls of the shard.

Luna's proposal to Anon is so lacking in any concern for justice or humanity that of course Anon would revolt from it. Anyone would. And so he does, and Luna's plans fail. Even if he had done what he asked and married Twilight, Twilight intended to unleash the Harbinger after marriage, and thus Luna's plans would have failed to prevent it anyways. If Luna had any concern for Anon or Celestia's interests, or in stopping the obvious injustices committed by Twilight rather than just condoning or even approving of all of it, she could have actually solved the problem before it went this far.

Luna actually created the problem, or at least
a, trying to force others to make sacrifices and let evil prevail in small instances instead of perhaps showing a little bit of humanity and standing up for what is right, allows a much greater evil into the world. There's also

>>370997
That might be true. I will be honest that I haven't paid much attention to Luna in this story.

>>370997
I didn't want to spoil anything.
Don't click the spoiler until the very very end of the review and story.
Seriously.
Luna is a Warhammer 40k farseer. Backstabs and betrayal and ineptitude at solving what is seen besides being a cunt. By having some moral fiber and priority directed backbone she could have stopped this madness from the start and throughout. Instead she made everything worse. Which means she fulfilled the vision of the ensuring shit hit the fan.
Celestia is cray cray. Sure seems like the most sane of the crazy house, but she's fucking bonkers. Not a tiny amount, but the full circus act. The set up is she is totally ignorant of what others actually want. She gets to fuck around, most of the time finding out is long and far enough away to not matter to her. It's played out fully till the enhanced romantic cucking of Twilight. A full royal reaming.
Twilight Sparkle is a psychotic mess. Her friends feed her delusions. Her mentor fucked around and is now finding out why mental health matters. Authority figures keep feeding the fucked fire. Her love interest ticks off every box for garbage bin romance smut.
Anon trying to wrangle the crazy house to sanity is a losing proposition. The adage of not sticking one's dick in crazy does apply. But psycho yandere kink master baiter will go through as many hoops as needed. The question is should Anon go into a loveless relationship to unfuckup Twilight, Celestia and Luna? Anon has no friends, no support network, no family, nothing but crazies and himself but I repeat myself.
Well no, because deep analysis of trope fueled romance is a nightnare.
As a non-thinky romance schlock it's better than most. Also has ponies so already we are almost topshelf. If how characters were the story would have to change a bit to accommodate that. Which is a lot more effort for this than the intent. Besides needing to use names of characters more.
It has grammar, pony, Anon and the story actually finished.

>>370997
I see my editing notes remained...

>>371002
I will not be spoiled

Oh rad, looks like there was some discussion while I was away. Several points have been made that I'd like to respond to, however I have limited time tonight and I'd like to get through a bit more of the story first. I'll try to respond to some of the discussion points tomorrow sometime.

>>370979

23 - Ascension

So, it looks like Anon didn't end up giving the orb to Celestia after all. In yet another conveniently timed coincidence, Luna seems to have pulled off her teleportation stunt at the last second before Anon handed the orb off.

>There’s a crackle of energy followed by a short burst of light. A rift opens nearby and to everyone’s amazement, out tumbles the Princess of the Night. She crashes into the deck and somersaults forward a few times before coming to a stop near your feet, her limbs splayed in all directions, mane and tail matted and wild as if she just rolled out of bed after getting only an hour of sleep. The rest of the ponies are frozen in place at the sight, save for Celestia who quickly trots over to stand at your side.

The short version of this is that Luna managed to teleport the Concordia out of the path of the city. However, it reappears just above the Dawn Star, so Anon has to quickly pull the ship back to avoid being hit by it. However, in the end it all works out: Anon gets his ship out of the way, and the wreckage of the Concordia crashes harmlessly into a nearby open field. Oh, also, it appears that expending so much magic temporarily drained Luna of her alicorn powers, so she is basically Woona now.

Celestia and Luna take this opportunity to get their feelings out in the open, and come to an understanding. Luna, of course, resents Celestia for blowing off her various responsibilities and dumping everything on her shoulders reee idioms? I'm actually not 100% sure if horses have shoulders or not, and I'm fairly certain I've referred to horse shoulders in my own writing so...idk, like half a 'ree' here. However, she also understands how Celestia feels, since they both had to assume this massive responsibility before either of them really had a chance to live their own lives. Celestia, for her part, acknowledges that it was selfish of her to just fuck off and leave Luna to run the kingdom alone, while also leaving her to deal with Twilight's crazy ass.

As has been pointed out, Celestia's actions didn't just affect Luna; she also treated Twilight quite poorly, and on top of that her actions had a significant macro effect on the entire realm of Equestria. As such, I would say she still has a long road to redemption ahead of her. However, this is at least a start.

Anyway, Celestia is sad that her vacation was cut short, and that she won't be able to spend the rest of eternity slowly revolving on Anon's dick like she was the lamb meat at a kebob restaurant. However, she understands that she has responsibilities, and that she needs to once again become the Sun Princess. She turns to Anon and delivers the following schmaltzy speech:

>“I know I told you this would be your choice, and I know I told you I would respect your decision. But Anon, I truly felt that given enough time to reflect, and given that I could properly express my love for you, you would eventually choose to join me. You likely don’t understand the fear I hold for the day you’ll be taken from me by time. There are many tragedies I’ve borne, but this... I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to recover...”
How will she ever recover?

Anyway, Anon responds with a schmaltzy speech of his own:

>“A wise mare once told me that since the past is the past and the future is unwritten, we should learn to focus on the present. You just said you enjoyed every minute of our time together, and I feel the same way. If that time really is limited, then let’s put fear aside and make the most of it. Remember our promise?”

It goes back and forth in this fashion for a few more lines, but the gist of it is that Anon has decided to give the orb to Celestia, and Celestia is going to accept it and become an alicorn again.

>“You told me to treasure this, and I do. But I treasure you more, and that’s why I offer it to you willingly. A treasure for a treasure... a decent exchange, don’t you think?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8mYLi3PGOc
Seriously though, I want to give the author some mild kudos here. The concept of exchange has factored into this story multiple times in many different ways. "Exchange" is both the title of the work and its most significant recurring theme. Whatever flaws this story might have, it's by a wide margin the most well-constructed thing I've reviewed so far.

Anyway, whatever; Celestia chokes down the orb. However, to everyone's surprise...nothing seems to happen at first.

>Celestia doesn’t answer. Instead, she curls up on the deck, her back presented to you and a pleading look in her eyes. You immediately recognize what she wants, and even though you don’t understand why, her expression compels you to go along with her request.
Seriously? Right now, in front of God and everypony?

>Once again, you walk over and straddle that broad white back and she rises to her hooves. You can feel her muscles move and stretch as she tests them and adjusts herself to your weight before trotting over to the ship’s rail where the Harbinger is looming far in the distance.
Oh, I get it. She wants Anon to ride her bareback, but in a normal G-rated kind of way.

>“Cast your fear aside and lean on me, Anon. I’m here with you, now and forever.”
Uh, as much as I hate to be that guy......for reasons we literally just discussed, only half of this statement is technically true.

ANYWAY, this goes on for a bit longer than it needs to, but the short version is that Anon climbs on Celestia's back, and they take off. As soon as she's airborne, the orb's magic kicks in, and Celestia does a full-blown magical girl transformation sequence.

>>371004

I think I'm beginning to understand why the author dragged out the pre-dawn thing for so long:

>Her magic moves through you and into the distance.
>You can feel it now. The sun pulses with light and life. It mirrors her heartbeat, which in turn mirrors your own.
>She reaches out, and you feel it.
>Your own arm reaches too, imitating her magic, even if you’re not sure if you can grasp it.
>She takes hold of the great star, and through her you can feel its weight in your palm.
>With a grand beat of her wings, she soars into the sky, straight upward, and pulls.
>You feel the weight in your hand shift, and you pull as well.
>You want to help, even if you’re not sure you can.
>With one hand on her mane, and the other thrust downwards toward the horizon, you struggle against the unseen force as she climbs higher and higher.
inb4 they accidentally uproot the Tree of Harmony.

>And then it shifts...
>And the sun begins to rise.
oh wait, never mind.

Anyway, here's what I think the author was going for: Twilight had this whole perfect wedding planned out, where she would kiss Anon and raise the sun at that precise moment, and it would symbolize the dawn of their new love, and Twilight's new reign over Equestria, and the new shipping of Twilanon, and so forth and so on. However, her plans got completely dicked up by Anon & Co's actions. Since she's a complete autismo and can't just let it go, she's been deliberately holding off on raising the sun so that she can capture Anon, "marry" him, and raise the sun during the kiss like she originally planned, even if that means holding off on raising the sun for hours.

However, once Celestia consumes the orb and regains her powers, her first act is to raise the sun, signifying the end of Twilight's reign and the restoration of her own.

The symbolism here is pretty straightforward. Twilight is deliberately fucking with the natural order of things by extending the dawn and refusing to raise the sun until she gets what she wants, signifying that she puts her own selfish desires above her responsibilities as Sun Princess. Though Celestia is guilty of doing the exact same thing, and arguably to a much more serious degree, she has nonetheless repented of her faggotry and chosen to return to her post and set things right. She takes control of the sun back from Twilight and raises it to its proper position, signifying the return of the proper order.

It's basically well executed, though I have a couple of minor gripes. First is that, as I was complaining before, the author doesn't really make it clear whether or not Twilight is explicitly refusing to raise the sun, or if it just isn't quite time for it to rise yet. Second is that the symbolism is not entirely appropriate given these character's actions. Most of the havoc wreaked by Twilight was just a byproduct of Celestia's self-centered and childish behavior; she didn't ask to be the Sun Princess, Celestia just sort of dumped it on her so she could run off with Anon. On the one hand it's nice that Celestia has finally decided to put things right, but on the other hand it doesn't feel like she's entirely learned her lesson yet, so it's a little difficult to cheer her on.

>Through this great magic, you feel as if every pony in Equestria is watching the sky.
>They were waiting for this. They were yearning for the sun.
Yeah, no shit. I imagine most of the country has been freaking the fuck out because it's probably almost noon by now and the sun still isn't up yet. Plus, you have to assume the average pony in Manehattan or Fillydelphia or wherever would have absolutely zero context for understanding any of what's been going on.

Anyway, yeah; it just sort of goes on like this for awhile. Anon seems to be experiencing a telepathic connection to Celestia that allows him to feel her emotions. I'm not sure if this is a permanent thing, or just an effect of using the orb that will wear off once she's fully transformed. In any case, while Celestia still laments that she can't just abdicate and just ride Anon's cock all day long, she understands and accepts that she has responsibilities and she needs to stop running away from them.

>Your hand reaches out to pet the side of her neck and she laughs.
>“It was a beautiful dream while it lasted. Selfish, immature, unrealistic... but beautiful nonetheless.”
That probably sums it up adequately enough.

Aaaaand...that's the end of the chapter.

24 - Sunlight

Wow, we are just blazing through these chapters at warp speed; this is almost the end of the book. Even with the frequent, long hiatuses I've been taking, it still hasn't taken that much time to get through this.

Anywho, I think we're in third-person perspective again. The scene opens on the deck of the Dawn Star, where all of the main characters except for Anon and Celestia sit watching Celestia's transformation sequence. I'm starting to lose track of just who this group includes, but I'm pretty sure we've at least got AJ, the CMC, Pinkie, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Big Mac, and I think Luna.

>Apple Bloom in particular fights to suppress the feeling of awe that causes her usually talkative mouth to be at a loss for words.
This sentence is bad and you should feel bad.

Anyway, Apple Bloom remarks that she's gotten so used to interacting with Celestia like a normal pony, she's almost forgotten that she used to be a Princess. Luna finds this amusing, and tells her that Princesses are just ordinary ponies like anypony else; they just live for thousands of years and can manipulate heavenly bodies with their mind powers. There's a bit more banter, and then the conversation turns towards the task at hand, which is...uh, actually, I'm starting to lose track of just wtf that is, too. I think it's got something to do with getting Twilight some Midol.

After swearing them all to secrecy, Luna decides to fill them all in on the business with the Dark Star and the Crystal and what have you. The scene fades out and ends in a page break.

>>370995
>Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it looks like the story is saying that Twilight just killed likely a hundred or more Equestrian soldiers - her own soldiers that she is supposed to be leader over - and no one, not Celestia, not Luna, and obviously not Twilight, cares. I know the logical response is to say that the narrative focuses on the main characters, these ponies don't exactly "exist" for narrative purposes, don't think about them... But then why does the story later go on to state that Luna gave the order to evacuate the ship, if we are not supposed to think about these ships as being full of ponies whose lives matter?
This is actually a misunderstanding due to an omission on my part. What specifically happens is that Twilight's ship fires on the Equestrian fleet and irreparably damages eight ships so that they can't stay in the air. Luna's heretofore unmentioned army of batponies is a pretty well-oiled machine, and they are able to safely navigate the damaged ships to a nearby field and set them down before they crash and burn. Nobody dies to my knowledge, the ships are just put out of commission.

>>370986
>>370988
>>370992
>>370993
>>370995
>>370996
>Celestia and Luna

What I find interesting about Celestia and Luna in this story is that they're portrayed as common ponies who more or less had the rule of Equestria thrust on them, rather than immortal gods who just had it to begin with. Celestia in particular, in the early episodes of the show, is portrayed as sort of an all-knowing, all-powerful maternal presence that all the ponies look to for wisdom and guidance. What this author has tried to do here is humanize poninize, whatever her and show her as more of a normal mare, who has her own feelings and desires apart from being a Princess.

Her actions in the story are pretty irresponsible, and while a lot of it is presented in sort of a humorous context, she's still difficult to like for that reason. However, the other side of it is that, again, she had all of this responsibility sort of thrust upon her at a young age, and she never really got the chance to have her own life. You can't entirely blame her for wanting to experience that, even if only for a brief time. It doesn't excuse everything she does, in particular her poor treatment of Twilight, but her motivations are well thought out and make sense, and because of that she's sympathetic to a degree.

Luna in this is also interesting. She actually reminds me a little of a friend I had in high school. His mother had some kind of degenerative disease that meant she could only work part time, while the dad had basically split on them. His brother was in juvie or something, and his sister was like 12 and couldn't really do much to help the family, so my friend wound up having to work a lot and do a lot of things to help out. He was kind of a dour, serious person to begin with, and having all that responsibility thrust on him turned him into a cranky old man in a young man's body. He was an admirable guy in many ways, but the other side of him was that he could also be sort of a killjoy.

Luna seems to be in a similar position. She and her sister well, friend technically since in this story they're not biological sisters both had a ton of responsibility dumped on their backs at an age when you're supposed to be able to just goof off and have fun. Moreover, Celestia is the eldest, and if anything ought to be the more responsible of the two. In Luna's view, for Celestia to just abandon her post to fulfil some completely selfish and childish wish, while also leaving Luna behind to clean up the mess, is just about the worst thing she could possibly do.

At the same time, though, Luna probably wishes she could do something similar. On some level she likely resents anyone who is able to just cast off their cares and enjoy themselves, let alone her older sister, who is supposed to be the responsible one. So to compensate, she's developed this cold, emotionless robot persona that we've seen throughout much of the story. With Luna it's all work and no play. This leads to some of the things that this anon [ >>370997 ] is getting at:

>Luna wants everyone who isn't her to sacrifice in the name of some greater good. She wants Anon to just agree to be a slave and suffer the injustice of being forced to a marriage he doesn't want. He wants Celestia to give up on her chance of immortality with her love.
Basically, Luna's personality is the counterweight to Celestia's. Celestia adapted to her role as Princess by becoming this warmhearted, nurturing mother figure, while Luna became all-business-all-the-time. At its extreme, Celestia's personality causes her to just retire on a whim to go chase her idea of true love, while Luna's personality at its extreme causes her to become this ruthless, emotionless ice queen.

The key here is that they both fucked up in their own way. Celestia's fuckup is fairly obvious, while Luna's is a little more subtle. If Luna had been thinking purely rationally, she would have just teamed up with the others and helped to thwart Twilight's plan, since that would have been the most painless and expedient end to the problem. However, it wasn't enough for her to just fix Equestria; she wanted to fix Equestria and ruin Celestia's fun.

As an aside, this actually puts kind of an interesting spin on the whole Nightmare Moon thing. I'm a little curious about the origins of that conflict in this universe.

At any rate, I actually find this to be a much more mature and thought-out attempt at exploring the resentment/rivalry dynamic between Celestia and Luna than what the canon writers actually attempted in the later seasons of the show. In the show, it was just a couple of moments where the two Princesses got into minor arguments over silly things and then later made up. Here, the author attempts to give them a plausible backstory and extrapolate a serious conflict from that.

>>371027
I think you made good points and your post made me realize who much I relate to Luna.

Tho, I still feel negatively towards this story. I think it stem from certain observations but before that: I agree that Celestia's motivation makes sense but I disagree with her methods, or they make her less likable in my eyes.

Here are these reasons that I have:
1. Celestia can date someone while still being Princess.
2. She can also take a vacation (only lift the sun in the morning or something).
3. She could talk to Twi about her behavior towards Anon.
3b. While she is at it, she can tell her that she's interested in him as well.

I mean this story have had a running gag about how rapey Twi is in her autism but at the same time, I guess this reflects poorly one me but I don't care, I feel she has the right idea. It's stupid that everything is sexual harassment in today's society, especially in a promicious one. I see a phat ass mamacita and if I'm going to court her I need to lie and say, "Oh, I love you for personality, miss cheeks."

Therefore I respect Twi, she got balls, and she's genuine and just gives Anon the straightforward confession. Compare that to Celestia, what does she do, well she pretends that she's some sort of neutral party and move Twi out of the way while ensuring her closeness with Anon. I see her as a schemer, who hides her true motives.

I'm also not a fan of Anon's character. I feel like he is a none-character. Maybe a bit harsh, maybe I haven't followed him enough. The idea that he is the woman in this drama is something that's been growing on me. Stuff just happen to him and he just reacts to it. Both Cel and Twi seem to love him more as an object than from anything else that I can tell. I feel like he has no agency. Like I don't believe he'd get out of bed in the morning even if he had a team of cheerleaders motivating him, he was tied to a rope that was also tied to four workhorses, and his bed was a giant bar of soap.

Does anybody believe that he actually did the trials of w/e in the first place like it was said in the first chapter. I doubt it hard, I also wonder how that scene came to be now in retrospect.
He went to Celestia for help with Twi, I assume because she's the ruler of Equestria or because he knows of their relationship, and instead of solving it, she sends him on a crazy, and deadly errand? Celestia, just fix it.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts. I'll admit that I haven't followed this super hard so I might missed stuff in my assessment.

To be fair I do like the story.
Anon could have made a business of collecting Alicorn orbs with a simple invention. The foal-in-a-sack-inator. The amount of orbs collected per run increases.
Or Celestia could have a conga line of guards going through it, engineering a walking simulator solution. To stockpile enough alicorn orbs to alicornify all of Equestria becoming the world super super power.
It would jar with the story and themes though.

>>371030
>I'm also not a fan of Anon's character. I feel like he is a none-character.
Unfortunately this tends to be a problem with Anon stories in general. The whole point of Anon is that he's meant to be a generic self-insert for the average 4channer, which means that by design he won't have much in the way of character growth or development. The issue is similar to what you get with male protagonists in Japanese dating sims, where the male lead is usually just a generic, average high school student with no distinguishing characteristics other than being "basically a nice guy." This approach helps with immersion as it allows the reader to self-insert, but it also means that the other characters have to be dynamic and interesting enough to carry the entire story on their own.

One of this story's weak points is that Anon and Celestia, who form the center of the romance plot, are not entirely likable or sympathetic characters. Most of the conflict in the story is the direct consequence of Celestia's irresponsible behavior, so the reader can be forgiven for not wanting to root for her. Anon, as I explained, is intended to be a (You) character, so there's not a whole lot for him to do besides be the spindle that the rest of the story revolves around.

>The idea that he is the woman in this drama is something that's been growing on me. Stuff just happen to him and he just reacts to it. Both Cel and Twi seem to love him more as an object than from anything else that I can tell. I feel like he has no agency.
This is a valid point. Part of it relates to what I explained above, that due to the format of the story Anon can't really be much more than a center of gravity for the story to turn on. The other part of it is what I was getting at earlier, about Anon needing to assume more of a hero role in the story and sort some of these problems out on his own. In particular, what I went over here [ >>370594 >>370595 ] is relevant. The conflict between Anon and Twilight is arguably more engaging than the developing relationship between Anon and Celestia, and the fact that it has such an unsatisfying resolution contributes to making the overall story unsatisfying. It was supposed to be Anon's problem to solve, but Celestia solved it for him, so Anon, as the hero, comes across as effeminate and passive.

>>371031
>Anon could have made a business of collecting Alicorn orbs with a simple invention. The foal-in-a-sack-inator. The amount of orbs collected per run increases.
>Or Celestia could have a conga line of guards going through it, engineering a walking simulator solution. To stockpile enough alicorn orbs to alicornify all of Equestria becoming the world super super power.
This is another area where the author made some mistakes, this time more technical. The way the orbs are created and operate creates some logic holes that dampen some of the story's dramatic punch. Essentially, any non-alicorn can undertake these trials any number of times, and anyone who completes them walks away with a fully-charged alicorn orb. The "trials" simply require the aspirant to physically pass through the leylines or gates or whatever while carrying the orb; as long as you do all 13 of them you walk away with an ascension orb.

There seems to be a one-orb limit per person per journey, but if I'm understanding it correctly you can undertake the journey as many times as you want. This creates all sorts of weird little hypothetical scenarios a person could potentially use to game the system, such as what you suggested: bringing some foals along in a sack to carry extra orbs, or just having a bunch of guards go through in a line. You could theoretically have an entire closet full of these things; in fact, in principle, anypony in Equestria (or 'anycreature' in the world for that matter, since if Anon can do the trials it's obviously not just limited to ponies) could become a literal living god just by going through this process.

The obvious solution would be to attach some reasonable conditions, like one orb per person, per lifetime. However, this creates a major continuity error: both Anon and Celestia need to be able to undergo the trials more than once, or else huge chunks of the plot won't work. Unfortunately, it's a rather sticky situation and I don't have a readily available solution to it; it's just something the author should have put a bit more thought into before he started writing.

>>371005

Meanwhile, Anon and Celestia are flying towards the Harbinger, which is also surrounded by those black, stinging ghost things.

>“This happened once before with Balios. He was compelled to build a powerful arcane resonance chamber by the Shard. Once it was activated and charged with sufficient magic, the spirits began to appear. We managed to put a stop to his plans before things got any worse, but based on the sorcerer’s notes we later retrieved, the true purpose of the chamber was to summon the Dark Star itself to Equestria. He was attempting to use the resonance chamber as an anchor for the same type of Progenitor gateway spell that was cast upon the Wayshrines of the Trials. Though the amount of magical energy required to establish such a gateway is immense, the appearance of the spirits here is a sign that it’s near completion and beginning to open...”
Something has been bugging me for awhile now, and this seems like as good a place as any to mention it.

We've been hearing quite a bit about this Balios guy lately, yet we still don't know anything about who he is, where he came from, what the nature of Celestia and Luna's conflict with him was, or anything else really. There is zero mention of him in the text prior to Chapter 21. However, the author is attempting to draw this major parallel between Balios, this mysterious character who just appeared out of nowhere, and Twilight, the principal antagonist we've been dealing with since the beginning.

This is very bad form, and it surprises me because for the most part this author has been pretty good about not veering off into weird tangents or dropping extraneous characters into the story, like we saw in several other stories we've looked at. However, now we've suddenly got this Balios guy. The issue here is similar to what we saw in FoE, when that Autumn Leaf guy suddenly shows up, and the author tries to fast-track him into being a major antagonist.

Most of what we know about Celestia and Luna's past has focused on one specific time period, when they were friends with Clover the Clever and were going through the Road of Trials. The fight with Balios, as far as I can tell, came much later, but it doesn't seem like the time period in which the fight occurred is that important. We already know that Clover's ascension somehow went awry and he was transformed into Discord, and that this was the result of their dicking around with the ascension orbs. From what I can tell, the orbs and the Dark Star are all Progenitor magic, so would it have been that difficult to just merge Balios into Clover/Discord's character? It's odd for the author to gracelessly wedge a new character into the story at the last minute just to fill some perfunctory role in the world's backstory, when he already has a character that could just as easily fill that role.

Anyway, whatever. Celestia had a fight with a guy named Balios a long-ass time ago, and he was using the same kind of dark crystal magic that Twilight is using currently. The crystal apparently tricked Balios into building something that would bring some horrible nightmare entity into the world, and now it seems to be leading Twilight down the same path.

The two of them head towards the Harbinger. The ghosts see them coming and start charging them all at once. However, now that Celestia has her sun powers back, she is able to vaporize them all with a single horn blast.

>You briefly consider cutting back on your teasing of her in the future, but your memory kindly reminds you that avatar of righteous fury or not, she’s still your Cel. No matter how much power she wields, she’s still sometimes silly, she still can’t resist an unguarded cupcake, and she still does in fact have a sense of humor, and a good one at that.
Not only that, but she still has a milk carton on her horn.

Anyway, Celestia fires up that same overpowered beam spell that Luna used earlier (minus the added firepower of the airship), and fires it at the Harbinger. However, the Harbinger has its shields back up, so the beam deflects. It looks like they will need to find a way through the barrier.

Unfortunately for them, the Harbinger suddenly teleports itself in front of the Dawn Star and begins charging its death-cannons. Celestia quickly chain-teleports back to the ship and throws up a shield.

This alarms her:

>“Yes, something is wrong,” Celestia replies as she rests on her haunches and shakes the dizziness from casting so many powerful spells in rapid succession away. “That attack was far, far more vicious than anything I’d expect from Twilight. Even given all that’s happened I can’t imagine she’d try to directly harm her friends in such a way, no matter how far this obsession has taken her. I fear that the Dark Star’s influence is beginning to flow through the gate... she’s in danger, and we must act quickly!”
If I'm understanding this correctly, whatever dark spirit lives in the crystal is beginning to take over Twilight's mind and/or body. Most likely it is feeding off of her already-critical levels of autismo insanity + horniness + intense butthurt over her former sensei stealing her husbando this part is still 100% Celestia's fault btw.

This actually relates to something another anon alluded to:

>>370997
>Twilight's entire turn here at the end is one-winged angel, like she's come into a last, monstrous form that threatens the hero. I can't imagine how she could be redeemed now, except maybe to excuse the effect of the Dark Star shard as being like mind control.
Unfortunately, this seems to be the direction things are going at present.