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Illuminating Invitation (MLP: FiM AU)

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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Ruby Boule said:
Oh, of course! The old "Element of Empathy" fanon.
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That's actually not fanon. It's "official writers left unsupervised on Twitter / interviews." So, intently trying to make eye contact with canon, but not down to fanon. (I will say that Sunset, should she be bound to one or more Elements of Harmony in this, would not be Empathy.) :p
 
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Sunset wanted Candace to learn fire magic because she feels warm because sunset associates Love with Warmth as Celestia always feels Warm.

Sunset specializes in fire magic because she wants to feel warm all the time. Because she wants to feel love all the time.
 
Alivaril said:
That's actually not fanon. It's "official writers left unsupervised on Twitter / interviews." So, intently trying to make eye contact with canon, but not down to fanon. (I will say that Sunset, should she be bound to one or more Elements of Harmony in this, would not be Empathy.) :p
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I mean, Sunset is at least as well suited to the Element of Magic as Twilight is. Hell, her canon self managed to basically use it at the end of the Friendship Games to temporarily become an angel-unicorn thing, even though none of the physical Elements of Harmony themselves were actually there. Pretty sure she'd have become an alicorn then and there too if she wasn't human at the time.
 
einargs said:
I assume Celestia wanted other people to help raise Sunset, and Sunset then refused to respect any of them because (a) they weren't Celestia and (b) and Sunset didn't want anyone to replace any parts of Celestia's relationship with her.
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(c) Treated her like something disgusting to be scraped off their hooves.

Alivaril said:
(I will say that Sunset, should she be bound to one or more Elements of Harmony in this, would not be Empathy.)
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It'd be one of Luna's Elements Loyalty, Honesty, or Laughter.
Right now my money is on Honesty as the most likely with how blunt and direct she is.
 
wildredlifer said:
It'd be one of Luna's Elements Loyalty, Honesty, or Laughter.
Right now my money is on Honesty as the most likely with how blunt and direct she is.
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Honesty, honestly makes a lot of sense. :p
Man Kakashi would have loved to have had a student who understood the importance of looking underneighth the underneighth; Celestia doesn't know how good she has it.
 
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The Mad Ghoul said:
Man Kakashi would have loved to have had a student who understood the importance of looking underneighth the underneighth; Celestia doesn't know how good she has it.
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I dunno. I'm kinda getting the impression that Celestia knows how she good she has it student/sister/niece wise she's just so absurdly, ridiculously bad at showing it that people mistake her for a master manipulator who only cares about ponykind as a whole instead of as individuals.

Most ponies probably think of her like the geom when in reality Celestia is an immortal Ciaphas Cain who's been holding on through her reputation, her luck, and sheer bloody minded overwork towards her job and magic (both of which get consistently mistaken for dedication and skill). Like Cain she is legitimately skilled and powerful. But probably not as skilled or powerful as everyone around her thinks she is.
 
Ruby Boule said:
Oh, of course! The old "Element of Empathy" fanon. Can't believe it took me this long to put two and two together.
And her rationalizations of everything continue to be a delight.
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Alivaril said:
That's actually not fanon. It's "official writers left unsupervised on Twitter / interviews." So, intently trying to make eye contact with canon, but not down to fanon. (I will say that Sunset, should she be bound to one or more Elements of Harmony in this, would not be Empathy.) :p
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Wasn't it because she had the Geode of Empathy that was basically the human world's version of the Elements?
 
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Viewer Omake: Impossible Letter
  • Apocrypha
    • On a scroll, mysteriously appeared overnight on a bed table:

    Good morning, Miss Sunset Shimmer.
    The being you are looking at is a changeling. (a pencil sketch of a changeling)
    An equinoid eusocial emotivore shapeshifters, their main preferred food source is love and their modus operandi consists of replacing ponies.
    (a graph, consisting of squiggly line with shaded area underneath, with dotted line slowly diverging up from squiggly line)
    Statistical analysis of magical background tells us that they are slowly increasing their infiltration of Canterlot metropolitan area.
    Direct observation suggests that in some cases, changelings may generate Love themselves.
    (very shitty graph, consisting of fourteen very uncertain datapoints across four lines. Two lines run roughly parallel to each other, downwards. One runs well below them. One starts parallel to the first two, but then may be bending up).
    If you decide to accept this mission, Sunset, you must prevent changelings from causing harm to common pony and establish friendship between our races.
    If you are captured or killed, Princess Celestia will disavow any knowledge of your actions.
    This scroll will self-destruct in five seconds.
    Good luck, Sunset.
    Impossible Mission Force.
     
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  • Apocrypha
    • NHO said:
    On a scroll, mysteriously appeared overnight on a bed table:

    Good morning, Miss Sunset Shimmer.
    The being you are looking at is a changeling. (a pencil sketch of a changeling)
    An equinoid eusocial emotivore shapeshifters, their main preferred food source is love and their modus operandi consists of replacing ponies.
    (a graph, consisting of squiggly line with shaded area underneath, with dotted line slowly diverging up from squiggly line)
    Statistical analysis of magical background tells us that they are slowly increasing their infiltration of Canterlot metropolitan area.
    Direct observation suggests that in some cases, changelings may generate Love themselves.
    (very shitty graph, consisting of fourteen very uncertain datapoints across four lines. Two lines run roughly parallel to each other, downwards. One runs well below them. One starts parallel to the two, but then may be bending up).
    If you decide to accept this mission, Sunset, you must prevent changelings from causing harm to common pony and establish friendship between our races.
    If you are captured or killed, Princess Celestia will disavow any knowledge of your mission.
    This scroll will self-destruct in five seconds.
    Good luck, Sunset.
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    Sunset gives a quiet salute and flies away after throwing the scroll into the nearest trashcan and shouting "Go Go Sunset wings". The trashcan lets out a sound of explosion and a yelp in a voice suspiciously similar to Cadance. Somewhere nearby, a purple unicorn filly and a small dragon begin their own investigation on the matter.
     
    Rgal said:
    Sunset gives a quiet salute and flies away after throwing the scroll into the nearest trashcan and shouting "Go Go Sunset wings". The trashcan lets out a sound of explosion and a yelp in a voice suspiciously similar to Cadance. Somewhere nearby, a purple unicorn filly and a small dragon begin their own investigation on the matter.
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    That's Inspector Gadget. I wanted to go for stuff Gadget parodied - Mission Impossible show.
     
    I think Sunset would assume its a test, and that Celestia is aware and has multiple contingency plans for changeling infiltration based around all the different groups and government agencies that may be infiltrated. And if Cadence get replaced, she'll assume Celestia already knows about the obvious change and is allowing it.

    The entire thing ends when Queen Chrysalis finally reveals herself, and Sunset counters her entire plan and defeats her, while assuming it was 'another' test by Celestia. Meanwhile Celestia is just sitting there trying to figure out what just happened, completely blindsided by the entire thing.
     
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    Alivaril said:
    "The cost of the original project would be repeated every four or five months," I said, horrified. "You mean this wasn't a test?"
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    Um. That's one way to find out. Also, yay, Sunset is making a difference! :D
    Alivaril said:
    I'll conspire with Cadance later to see if we can figure something out.
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    ...They're getting along!
    Alivaril said:
    If they were going to try to trick her like the last one, I would be ready.
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    The ankles of all evildoers beware!

    (Did anyone else get a funny mental image of a rabid chihuahua guard dog from that line?)
    Alivaril said:
    Celestia twitched and almost tripped on her own hooves. A second later, she'd returned to her graceful gait, but both Cadance and I knew what we'd seen. We kept staring.

    "The foalsitting went well, then?"
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    Internally - "SHE MADE A FRIEND?!"
    Alivaril said:
    "Sunset even promised weekly lessons to Twilight!" came Cadance's cheerful contribution.
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    Cadance: Oh look a distraction --
    Alivaril said:
    Celestia twitched before burying her face in her hooves.

    "I cannot believe I tried to set you up with outgoing students instead of the fanatics," groaned the ruler of Equestria. "How could I have missed something so obvious?"
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    LOOOOOL!
    Alivaril said:
    The two alicorns at the table did not appear particularly reassured by either Voice's original claim, or my own addition.
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    Translation: Your empire gonna be infiltrated and you can't do anything about it.
    *glaring at Sunset intensifies*
    Alivaril said:
    I suddenly had a great many questions about whatever other entities might have immigrated to Equestria in the past. I'd never heard any of this.
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    Me too. Is one of them related to Pinkie?
    Alivaril said:
    "Thank you very much! Don't worry. I promise I'll make reasonable efforts to behave approximately as well as your subjects."
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    "... I said, 'Oh, good.' Why, what did you think I said?"
    Dradel said:
    Wow, that's an exceptionally unreassuring reassurance.
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    Yup!
     
    I feel like this story has gotten kind of slow and comfy over the past several chapters. There are still minor conflicts or the potential for conflict, but now that it's at around 100k words I'm trying to figure out what this story is about and what it's structure will be and I'm just a bit lost. Am I supposed to feel suspense over whether Voice will do something, or is Voice just some kind of joke character? Is the story building toward something I'm completely blind to, or can I expect a further 100k of Canterlot slice of life? I was looking at the User's Choice Awards, and I thought about this fic, but I'm just not certain I should nominate it for anything. I love the character interactions, I especially like the complex characterization of Celestia, but there's not a lot else here.
     
    Compellor said:
    Am I supposed to feel suspense over whether Voice will do something, or is Voice just some kind of joke character?
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    Voice I think you should understand as a representative of the author, doing the things that are required to produce and progress an interesting story about Sunset, but not intervening too much lest the story cease to be meaningfully Sunset's.
     
    At the same time, it feels like Voice really hasn't been a PART of the story in ages. Before this chapter dropped, I was going to ask when she would come back into the story.

    I get that Sunset is the protagonist, but Voice being absent for (iirc) 10 chapters in a row when she is a major character feels off.
     
    Was that babysitting venture the longest period Sunset and Cadence have spent together without Celestia present? Since their first meeting, not just in the fic. Ignoring the hospital time, since Sunset was unconscious and the later visits were brief. It doesn't seem like they have gone on any adventures together.
     
    Roaming_Guardian said:
    At the same time, it feels like Voice really hasn't been a PART of the story in ages. Before this chapter dropped, I was going to ask when she would come back into the story.

    I get that Sunset is the protagonist, but Voice being absent for (iirc) 10 chapters in a row when she is a major character feels off.
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    Maybe I'm just used to reading long fiction, but ten chapters isn't really a whole lot, I think Voice is just there to help Sunset develop as a character; I don't think they need to be constantly present but yeah would like to see more of the character.
     
    LunaMoth said:
    Maybe I'm just used to reading long fiction, but ten chapters isn't really a whole lot, I think Voice is just there to help Sunset develop as a character; I don't think they need to be constantly present but yeah would like to see more of the character.
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    My take is that Voice is kinda an Insert for us and the author to steer the story in a way. Frankly the summoning and wish are basically the author outlining the premise of the fic while her little hints are basically stuff comments say all the time. I think that Voice not being a major character is good, the interpersonal...interpony? stuff between the already established characters is already plenty.
     
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