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Illuminating Invitation (MLP: FiM AU)

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Rick Pickler said:
It seems like a good bit of Sunset's mental state relies upon the assumption that Celestia doesn't love her, probably stemming from the mentality that her tutors forced on her that she needed to earn Celestia's love.

In a weird way, I think it worked as a kind of hope for things getting better, something she could strive towards, that Celestia not ever having time for her or her putting the country first over Sunset could be something she could change. If Celestia has loved her all along, then this is the best she'll ever get.
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That is good point. If she saw how Celestia treats everyone with love and respect, she may never get her to feel more towards her.

And being considered just another pony by Celestia is probably worst fate she can imagine
 
One thing that is implied in this chapter, that's pretty interesting, is that Sunset could apparently always understand animals. She's not acting like it's a new thing. And she doesn't realize that it's unusual.

Which just brings in the idea that she'd end up talking with Fluttershy. And from there, interactions with the rest. Though I'm not really certain the connections for the rest.

Rarity for gemtalk/fashion, with Flighty Flame?

Applejack has the Honesty, but this is before the Element of Harmony connection. I guess Earth Pony magic, via Cadance tutoring? Getting a perspective there. Not Applejack doing the tutoring though.

Rainbow Dash would likely be of some note, just because of the Sonic Rainboom, and the magical effects it had, but it seems like that would have been done earlier, if she was actually interested in pursing that line of thought. Suppose she could end up finding out that no one bothered to look into it, at some point? Or some mention by Twilight, and seeing effects from there.

Pinkie Pie... well, there's probably a whole bunch of ways that first interaction can happen. But probably not as the next pony to be met of those options.
 
ForwardRewind said:
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Do remember - given Twilight's age, the rest of the original Elements are very young right now too.

I think even the Rainboom is at least a few years off right now, if it doesn't get butterflied.
mastigos said:
And I just realized that Voice is explicitly atemporal and so summoning, being empowered by and interacting with Voice could very well have had retroactive effects on Sunset.
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I'd wager that the animal-speak is because of her magical empathy, which I'm quite certain is unrelated to Voice. She got the magical empathy thing in canon too, after all.

My read is that Sunset has always had magical empathy in this fics universe, but her pseudoalicornification amped it up massively.
 
Enthusiast#117 said:
He could be the source, but that feels like a red herring to me. Not quite sure why.
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Discord being Discord, I imagine all Red Herrings currently alive owe their existence to him somehow. :smile2:

In other news, Yeah... Sunset has it rough. Long term emotion sensing in a political setting stuffed to the brim with feigned emotions would be more than enough to make anyone despair. My current best theory is Celestia's alicornhood and/or her "let's not kill mortals in the same room with me by accident" shields are preventing emotion sense from working on her, at least until Sunset also fully ascends.
 
LadyLynn said:
Do remember - given Twilight's age, the rest of the original Elements are very young right now too.

I think even the Rainboom is at least a few years off right now, if it doesn't get butterflied.
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The Rainboom happened during Twilight's entrance exam to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, which is two years in the future

Edit: Source:
Alivaril said:
"...How old is she, exactly?" I felt obligated to ask.

Cadance raised weary eyes to look up at me.

"Six," Cadance deadpanned. "So, yes, she still has another two years to go before admission."
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Rick Pickler said:
It seems like a good bit of Sunset's mental state relies upon the assumption that Celestia doesn't love her, probably stemming from the mentality that her tutors forced on her that she needed to earn Celestia's love.

In a weird way, I think it worked as a kind of hope for things getting better, something she could strive towards, that Celestia not ever having time for her or her putting the country first over Sunset could be something she could change. If Celestia has loved her all along, then this is the best she'll ever get.
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It reminds me of how Survivor's Guilt is explained, the idea that in order for someone to function after a traumatic event, they can gain a pathological NEED to fit it into a STRUCTURE, the world needs to make SENSE.

It has to make sense, because if it doesn't, then there isn't a way to be safe. There isn't a way to be in control.

Bad things happen to bad people. If you do good, you can avoid the bad things. If you just do things right, you'll finally be loved.

But if Celestia loved her all along, then there's nothing she can do to control it. She didn't make it be given, so she can't prevent it being taken away.

Sunset has to be good enough to earn Celestia's Love, but more importantly, Celestia has to not love her unless she does, because if that were to happen, then Sunset's in for a world of hurt when the Cognitive Dissonance sets in, and her framework that she relied on for consistency starts to crumble.
 
To be fair to Sunset, Celestia clearly hasn't acted like her mother in terms of spending enough time with her, and otherwise being aware of her life. So it makes perfect sense, as others have pointed out, for her to not want Celestia to love her, because that would mean (to Sunset) that

If Celestia spent enough time with Sunset, or had arranged for a proper second parent figure, then she would have been able to explain things about e.g. acting polite and kind when you dislike someone. It's so very classically neurodivergent to hate that kind of thing, though it being due to empathy enabling you to know how they actually feel -- or Sunset not being able to understand that Celestia can love someone even while they're being an asshole -- is such a great twist. I love Sunset, she's such an amazing ball of neuroses.

The problem might be that Celestia assumed that the systems she has in place for orphans would be enough of a support network and family. Either they aren't enough for all orphans, or the abuse from her tutors compromised it.

Every adult has a responsibility to the children in their life -- their students, their neighbors, their kids -- to make sure that they are safe and cared for. It's so sad that Celestia failed so badly with Sunset.

EDIT: I bet some of the problem was people assuming Celestia was being more of a parent than she was, and not wanting to question her. On top of people just not wanting Celestia to spend time with an orphan.
 
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Rick Pickler said:
It seems like a good bit of Sunset's mental state relies upon the assumption that Celestia doesn't love her, probably stemming from the mentality that her tutors forced on her that she needed to earn Celestia's love.

In a weird way, I think it worked as a kind of hope for things getting better, something she could strive towards, that Celestia not ever having time for her or her putting the country first over Sunset could be something she could change. If Celestia has loved her all along, then this is the best she'll ever get.
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Huh. That sounds like it could be the fit.

Probably a combination of Celestia being a mother figure for her, but being somewhat absent (both in presence and in attention?). And the tutors seeing a random filly they don't think deserves her position and taking it out on her. Like... She probably got told by the damn tutors that she doesn't deserve not just the motherly attention but any attention from Celestia. Which she ended up internalising because Celestia herself was likely unaware of the situation.

It takes... A while to pry out all the lies and bullshit that comes from abuse. Even just recognising them.

The part about "having to be sure on how things works" is... I'm not sure.

But I think Sunset needs to realize that Celestia genuinely fucked up with the whole tutor thing. That this was not a fucking test (where does THAT bit of delusion come from?), etc.

She is probably treating her like another tutor - another authority figure - while also wanting a mother. She probably doesn't KNOW how to trust other people, how to treat any authority figure as anything other than a threat to her that's about to drop a random test and then yell at her for not being perfect enough to deserve her position.
 
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Skippito said:
My current best theory is Celestia's alicornhood and/or her "let's not kill mortals in the same room with me by accident" shields are preventing emotion sense from working on her, at least until Sunset also fully ascends.
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Sunset feels warmth from Celestia, like the comforting and life giving rays from the sun. She feels it all the time and always has. But she has convinced herself that the alicorn of the sun just feels like the sun to everyone as part of her special talent and alicorn nature. This was mentioned specifically a chapter or two ago, you must have skimmed over that bit.

Unless you mean Celestia should also be able to sense and understand Sunset's emotions?
 
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Eman Resu said:
Sunset feels warmth from Celestia, like the comforting and life giving rays from the sun. She feels it all the time and always has. But she has convinced herself that the alicorn of the sun just feels like the sun to everyone as part of her special talent and alicorn nature. This was mentioned specifically a chapter or two ago, you must have skimmed over that bit.
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Doh, forgot that. Yeah, that also makes sense. I didn't interpret that as one of Sunset's "Explanations" and actually bought that one.
 
epiccuttlefish said:
The Rainboom happened during Twilight's entrance exam to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, which is two years in the future

Edit: Source:
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...I completely blanked on that bit, even with me being uncertain (No mention of Spike, after all).

Yeah, that cuts out pretty much any interaction any time soon with the other five. Barring them getting their realizations sooner. But that has its own issues. Sunset interacting with them, this early doesn't quite make sense. Outside of something bringing her attention to something adjacent to them. Like some Day Court issue, that reveals something she wants fixed. (Such as with 'teaching Magic wrong'.)

(Though Sunset ending up creating a 'counterpart' Elements of Harmony Bearers would be something. More the same amount of members, than actually specifically tied to the Elements themselves.)

I think I got mixed up in that Twilight was having schoolyard troubles, and was maybe thinking of Sunset's own issues at the school, and the mirroring got some wires crossed.
 
Sunset so deep in denial and has used extreme logic to convince herself that Celestia is incapable of love. So no matter what happens she will refuse to accept reality without literal brainwashing. And with such flaws she cannot become the alicorn. I thought it was a story where she slowly warms up and starts accepting other ponies, but when even Love magic has failed I see no believable way to fix it.
 
Enthusiast#117 said:
Hmm. The scared animals are suspicious.

I thought the bad feeling in the gardens might be Discord's influence, but It's looking like there's an actual problem with the animals.

The nausea from being in the gardens has been like this for years though, so whatever the problem is, it's not a new or recent thing.

That seems to point back to Discord, but I'm uncertain if he even has that kind of influence on his surroundings while petrified.

He could be the source, but that feels like a red herring to me. Not quite sure why.
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It could be the results of a long running Discord plot to weaken his prison by surrounding it with disharmony. He has shown that despite his general demeanor that he is very capable of setting out subtle long term plots.
 
The bet is just gonna make Sunset move the goalposts, as she has in the past. She already gave herself an out with the whole 'Celestia is an Alicorn' thing- clearly that means she can keep it up for much longer than expected, possibly even indefinitely!

An Alicorn with an exclusive focus on love told her that Celestia loved her and it didn't even take a moment for Sunset to come up with an excuse for why she was wrong. (Though, interestingly, she didn't just assume Cadance was lying. Progress, maybe.)

Everyone keeps saying that friendship or love are the most powerful forms of magic- I would, instead, posit that that title goes to Sunset's denial. :V
 
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infinityDivided said:
Nopony in their right mind would leave a petrified chaos god in their back garden, but Celestia did it anyway.
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I remember a fanfic where someone brought that up to Celestia to which she responded that the thing imprisoning Discord was the elements of harmony so the best reinforcement of his prison was keeping him somewhere harmonious. After all if the stone breaks it isn't as if any containment could hold him.
 
powergoat said:
No way to fix it immediately, but Sunset is too inherently logical a being to survive repeated 'proof' forever, it will just take time and work to break apart the walls she built over the years.
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I feel like the real tipping point will be if/when Sunset figures out that Celestia's overwork means she's actually way less competent at a lot of things than Sunset thinks, including personal relationships. She's already started to pick up on some of that when it comes to "why did this even get to this level?" court sessions, how Celly is incredibly out of practice when it comes fighting, and the objective problems with Cadence's magical education, so I think it will just take a while for the rest to sink in.
 
Skippito said:
Doh, forgot that. Yeah, that also makes sense. I didn't interpret that as one of Sunset's "Explanations" and actually bought that one.
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Alivaril said:
Sunset is sane, and she meets those standards. Q.E.D. they are sane standards, especially since Cadance is an alicorn. Other ponies are just lazy.
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I'm here for exactly this. Idk what you call it, unreliable narration or pov character with cognitive dissonance? I always liked op's other stories because their interpretation of QA puppeting taylor was differently sane.

Everything she believed was completely true and she had millions of years of entity data as well as personally spent millenia researching it down to the quantum level to prove it. However, human characters with backwards priorities and meaningless philosophies would be horrified to hear it and mistakenly assume she was wrong somehow despite their entire planet's history and culture being so comparatively young and naive, lacking any serious effort to collect data points, and having no progress at all on anything actually relevant.

So there really is no way at all to convince QA that she is mistaken on her core beliefs, but as far as humanity and emotion she has much less experience. When it comes to flesh creature customs or disgusting mating rituals she is essentially clueless and can be made to believe nearly anything.

There is alot of room for fun misunderstandings where characters talk past each other and draw incredibly erroneous conclusions in a setup like that. This story has that same sorta thing going for it, whatever it's exactly called, and I am loving every bit of it.

I think sunset being less alien, less monstrous, and having less proof behind her conclusions is actually better for my enjoyment and investment in the story. It's easier for me to swallow that she is a damaged and abused child that needs all the love. I always hated QA letting humans treat her like she was just an abused child and forbidding her from making and deploying wmd's.
 
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