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Illuminating Invitation (MLP: FiM AU)

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I'm really glad that Voice isn't some Omni competent manipulator like I was starting to worry she was. It makes for a much better story that she messes up with Flighty instead of setting it up to bring her and Sunset closer together.
 
Wouldn´t it be fun, if Voice was Sunset´s first true friend and allow her to ascend to Alicornhood? That would be a riot, the empath Unicorn/Alicorn and the Nerdy Bookworm Horror from Beyond 4 ever. Really hope Sunset helps Voice with her self-worth issues.

TFC!
 
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Alivaril said:
EDIT: As an aside, Voice's portion of this post wasn't prompted by recent discussion. It was outlined a long time ago, and written before said discussions.
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Earlier you made a comment about us predicting things that were going to happen right before they did...

Uhhh... :V
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Alivaril said:
Voice could imitate them, wear their skin, even use their magic. But she would never be one of them.
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Aww, poor Voice.
 
Not_Interesting said:
Wouldn´t it be fun, if Voice was Sunset´s first true friend and allow her to ascend to Alicornhood? That would be a riot, the empath Unicorn/Alicorn and the Nerdy Bookworm Horror from Beyond 4 ever. Really hope Sunset helps Voice with her self-worth issues.

TFC!
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Alivaril said:
"Oh, calm down, her body is malleable and her soul is fine. Better than when I started, even. I'm sure I could've permanently ascended her if we were friends!"

Celestia had to seriously consider that. Technically, the mirror monster might not even be wrong. Celestia's bonds with Luna, and vice-versa, had been enough to fulfill the necessary Harmonic requirements for their own ascensions. If Sunset had somehow become genuine, healthy, mutual best friends with this monster — well, it might actually have counted, certainly. Weirder things had happened.
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Foreshadowing? If nothing else, I love the "Weirder things had happened." reaction from Celestia.
 
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Ah poor voice. It looks like the magic of friendship will need to reach the eldritch being from beyond the stars as well. Maybe if we're lucky Sunset will ascend and shoot an orbital rainbow laser of good vibes at the Canterlot elite. Do you think the elements of equal retribution for everyone would turn them to stone or banish them to various celestial objects?

gourdcaptain said:
Foreshadowing? If nothing else, I love the "Werider things had happened." reaction from Celestia.
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Celestia has many problems but remaining calm in the face of nonsense is not one of them. Probably a boon gained from facing down Discord but a millennia or so of ruling over a panic prone people all of whom have their own specific magical powers probably didn't hurt.
 
See, now I think Voice is going to downgrade to being an Alicorn- er, sorry, I mean "ascend".

I'm reminded of a quote from the Hogfather, which I will now butcher.

Friendship, as Voice imitates a Pony so well that they feel social emotions and bonds be like:

"You couldn't resist it in the end? A mistake, I fancy. It gets under your skin, Life. Speaking metaphorically, of course. And you see, the more you struggle for every moment, the more alive you stay... which is where I come in, as a matter of fact."
 
Alivaril said:
Although your username does check out, I will explicitly say that's not what this is. :p
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My guess is that voice is kinda anti-social shut-in and the Changelings use Social-fu on her and she is spilling all the spaghetti, since she can´t just threathen them with torment from beyond time and space while she is playing the role of a "maid".
 
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Alivaril said:
Voice could imitate them, wear their skin, even use their magic. But she would never be one of them.
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I think that Voice is STRONGLY underestimating just how potent the powers of Harmony and Friendship are in this setting. Like, in FiM, anybody can find true friendship, because that's basically the divine will of the metaphysics of the setting, and it doesn't really matter if you're a mortal pony or an eldritch being from beyond the veil. It might not always be easy, but FiM is a setting where friendship just wins in the end regardless of the path to get there.
 
Alivaril said:
Subsequently watching Sunset's uncompromising trust become compromised had hurt. Demands were then delivered not because Voice was viewed as a helpful friend, but as an Outsider from whom concessions could be wrung. Voice hadn't even tried to hide her unhappiness and distress at her mistake, and Sunset didn't seem to have cared. Voice had lost her trust, and considering Sunset's reluctance to issue such to anyone, it would take immense effort to regain it.
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I've admittedly been somewhat skimming the last few chapters from lack of time, but what is this referring to? I don't recall any instance where Sunset explicitly didn't trust Voice, although the maid thing certainly caused discomfort and she's a bit concerned now about where Voice might have gone. (EDIT: And there was the Flighty thing, of course, but I still didn't get the feeling that Sunset was distrusting or requesting unreasonable concessions beyond what one would conceptually expect of another pony there)
 
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Ok, add Voice to the potential future element bearers list. I'm thinking Sunset, Flighty, Cadance, a changeling and now Voice. Maybe tiny Twilight if she doesn't keep her canon crew.

GrimTheMad said:
I think the issue here is that Sunset doesn't think of Voice as a being that requires empathy, or really as a person whose feelings can be hurt at all. And given that she can hardly even remember Voice exists of she doesn't want her to... That's a pretty hard mistake to fix.
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In general, trying to empathize with the eldritch being that purportedly has a completely alien mind would only be an exercise in frustration. Or worse.

Voice's problem is she had that from Sunset. Until now. Now Sunset's view of Voice has slid back towards alien/outsider.
 
BetaKeja said:
Ok, add Voice to the potential future element bearers list. I'm thinking Sunset, Flighty, Cadance, a changeling and now Voice. Maybe tiny Twilight if she doesn't keep her canon crew.


In general, trying to empathize with the eldritch being that purportedly has a completely alien mind would only be an exercise in frustration. Or worse.

Voice's problem is she had that from Sunset. Until now. Now Sunset's view of Voice has slid back towards alien/outsider.
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Voice would sadly ruin the mental image I had with Sunset and Flighty of Equestria ending up with a set of Element bearers that were all varieties of horrible magic nerds. :p Hazard of forming them around Sunset in this manner.

Eh, she might at least be some kind of horrible nerd, that works.
 
I'm... Honestly feeling a bit frustrated with the reveal of The Actual Conflict Of The Story. I was enjoying seeing people mending years of problems and that was lovely. The setbacks felt frustrating but understandable.

Having a bunch of shapeshifters around in the story that can always be justified to be in any place at any point and that probably are entrenched so deeply that nobody is noticing them... Well, it makes me wonder how long they will be The Conflict and how long until anyone notices them at all. And how much this will be drawn out... Most importantly, given the degree of infiltration, how many more sticks will be thrown at literally everyone positive? Though the fact that VOID was affected shows that they aren't so alien... Okay that was a good one, I admit.

Though, ugh. I now feel I am going into the territory of "complaining about how author is writing their own story".

But honestly, even if I'm not a fan of Ooooh Big Conflict, I feel (hope) I can trust that it won't get too bad in terms of "the wizards changelings did it". That little snippet about Cadance getting a letter from SMILE, Celestia getting a hunch there might be some stuff going on with emotional messing, gives me hope both for in-story things and for how it will be handled in writing.

Now just wonder how long until Cadance goes and gives a hug to VOID after the report.

Edit: Oh and I've just realized that does explain the rather disproportional amount of weird emotional abuse from many places that got thrown at Sunset in the past. E.g. tutors, so on. Unless I'm reading too much into it and it's just how ponies are in this story?

Edit edit: And also now I question how much was abuse and neglect, vs straight up mind control mimicking effects of it. And if it was mind control indeed, how many assumptions still hold true and how many break down, compared to thinking it's the non-magical malicious (and potentially unintentional) mind games.

Though I suppose a realistic take would be that mind control would basically look to any new observer similar to trauma and deep problems. Just applied over faster timeline. And only as long as it isn't temporary, and not too at odds with existing ideas to be rejected by the victim outright when thinking about it. Er, wait, that is basically what abuse, harassment and etc is, isn't it? Just one is delivered through words (that you believe because of doubts or existing conditioning or otherwise being vulnerable) and another us straight up magicking necessary toxicity into the victim's mind...

Actually okay, I think this soothes over some of the "the changelings did it" issues I've had. Like, Sunset becoming like this due to classist harassment as opposed to due to targeted purposeful harassment from changelings still would probably result in mostly same situation. And either way the people responsible for this would have been around, and parallels how victims can still get followed for a long time after seemingly getting away. But in case of changelings they can be happily thrown out and stopped from meddling (eventually) with everything. While if it was just because of how nobles are, then while they could still be dealt with, it would require untangling a societal mess.

I really hope VOID gets hugs, though.
 
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Saphire said:
I'm... Honestly feeling a bit frustrated with the reveal of The Actual Conflict Of The Story. I was enjoying seeing people mending years of problems and that was lovely. The setbacks felt frustrating but understandable.

Having a bunch of shapeshifters around in the story that can always be justified to be in any place at any point and that probably are entrenched so deeply that nobody is noticing them... Well, it makes me wonder how long they will be The Conflict and how long until anyone notices them at all. And how much this will be drawn out... Most importantly, given the degree of infiltration, how many more sticks will be thrown at literally everyone positive? Though the fact that VOID was affected shows that they aren't so alien... Okay that was a good one, I admit.

Though, ugh. I now feel I am going into the territory of "complaining about how author is writing their own story".

But honestly, even if I'm not a fan of Ooooh Big Conflict, I feel (hope) I can trust that it won't get too bad in terms of "the wizards changelings did it". That little snippet about Cadance getting a letter from SMILE, Celestia getting a hunch there might be some stuff going on with emotional messing, gives me hope both for in-story things and for how it will be handled in writing.

Now just wonder how long until Cadance goes and gives a hug to VOID after the report.

Edit: Oh and I've just realized that does explain the rather disproportional amount of weird emotional abuse from many places that got thrown at Sunset in the past. E.g. tutors, so on. Unless I'm reading too much into it and it's just how ponies are in this story?

Edit edit: And also now I question how much was abuse and neglect, vs straight up mind control mimicking effects of it. And if it was mind control indeed, how many assumptions still hold true and how many break down, compared to thinking it's the non-magical malicious (and potentially unintentional) mind games.

Though I suppose a realistic take would be that mind control would basically look to any new observer similar to trauma and deep problems. Just applied over faster timeline. And only as long as it isn't temporary, and not too at odds with existing ideas to be rejected by the victim outright when thinking about it. Er, wait, that is basically what abuse, harassment and etc is, isn't it? Just one is delivered through words (that you believe because of doubts or existing conditioning or otherwise being vulnerable) and another us straight up magicking necessary toxicity into the victim's mind...

I really hope VOID gets hugs.
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Most of it wasn't changelings. Based on the perspective of Perplex in chapter 30, the only thing the changelings have actually done so far aside from infiltration is
1. Hiding that Sunset took a book from the forbidden section
2. Got normal pony maids to try and bully Voice, which they thought hadn't worked.
3. Draining Sunset of positive emotions just before the adoption ceremony, leaving behind her negative emotions, with the goal of making Sunset have an explosive meltdown and cause chaos they could exploit.

Everything else isn't the changelings fault.
 
Saphire said:
I'm... Honestly feeling a bit frustrated with the reveal of The Actual Conflict Of The Story. I was enjoying seeing people mending years of problems and that was lovely. The setbacks felt frustrating but understandable.

Having a bunch of shapeshifters around in the story that can always be justified to be in any place at any point and that probably are entrenched so deeply that nobody is noticing them... Well, it makes me wonder how long they will be The Conflict and how long until anyone notices them at all. And how much this will be drawn out... Most importantly, given the degree of infiltration, how many more sticks will be thrown at literally everyone positive? Though the fact that VOID was affected shows that they aren't so alien... Okay that was a good one, I admit.

Though, ugh. I now feel I am going into the territory of "complaining about how author is writing their own story".

But honestly, even if I'm not a fan of Ooooh Big Conflict, I feel (hope) I can trust that it won't get too bad in terms of "the wizards changelings did it". That little snippet about Cadance getting a letter from SMILE, Celestia getting a hunch there might be some stuff going on with emotional messing, gives me hope both for in-story things and for how it will be handled in writing.

Now just wonder how long until Cadance goes and gives a hug to VOID after the report.

Edit: Oh and I've just realized that does explain the rather disproportional amount of weird emotional abuse from many places that got thrown at Sunset in the past. E.g. tutors, so on. Unless I'm reading too much into it and it's just how ponies are in this story?

Edit edit: And also now I question how much was abuse and neglect, vs straight up mind control mimicking effects of it. And if it was mine control indeed, how many assumptions still hold true and how many break down, compared to thinking it's abuse.

Though I suppose a realistic take would be that mind control would basically look to any new observer similar to trauma and deep problems. Just applied over faster timeline. And only as long as it isn't temporary, and not too at odds with existing ideas to be rejected by the victim outright when thinking about it. Er, wait, that is basically what abuse is, isn't it? Just one is delivered through words (that you believe because of doubts or existing conditioning or otherwise being vulnerable) and another us straight up magicking necessary toxicity into the victim's mind...

I really hope VOID gets hugs.
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I'm pretty sure that the emotional problems are still the Big Conflict of the story, it's just that the changelings are providing a catalyst for those emotions to come to a head and get resolved. After all, our main character is still immortal and incredibly powerful magically, so physical threats aren't actually all that threatening. The last segment even includes the one character we thought would be facilitating the emotional conflict in the whole mess of hangups and neuroses.

For the abuse, it's shown repeatedly in the show that ponies, while very nice to people that they know, can be incredibly bigoted towards any group that they don't know well enough, including other ponies. That whole herd mentality thing. So while some of the most recent abuse could probably be attributed to the changelings, she wasn't that important when she was younger. And Canterlot specifically is often times shown to be particularly intolerent of "low-class" things. It's more likely that the schools there are, in fact, just that bad to ponies seen as "reaching above their station".
 
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The last section of the update has understandably got the most attention so I thought I'd go over the rest in more detail.

Alivaril said:
For most ponies, that would be the end of it. They would either suffer in uncomfortable silence until the other pony awoke, or risk waking said pony by easing their way out of bed. I, however, was an archwizard, and now Princess Celestia's adopted daughter — a thought that almost had me, quite unhelpfully, humming from happiness now that the poison seemed to have been fought off.
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Given how... practically Sunset has been consciously viewing the whole adoption process (likely to avoid being hurt if it didn't go through), its really nice that she's now just letting herself feel unambiguously happy about it.

Alivaril said:
Gee, I wonder why somepony might have decided to hire a maid that looks almost just like Voice, Cadance wanted to say.

Really, that somepony had approved the hire was inordinately irritating. The timing made it obvious that they thought Voice had been appointed based on appearance, and hoped to replace her with a more 'appropriate' local rather than an unknown (gasp!) foreigner.
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As another small tick in the 'changelings can imitate ponies but don't truly understand them very well' column- they likely recognized at some point that Sunset was attracted to her new hire, and immediately figured that that was the whole of the reason she was hired. They then tried to replace her with someone who looked similar enough, but-

Alivaril said:
The mane color was right and the coat color similar, but that was where the similarities ended; despite allegedly being of the working class, this maid shared the softness of the average Canterlot unicorn and her facial features were different in general. Her eyes were a sharp lime instead of Voice's sea blue, too.
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Missed the things about Voice that Sunset actually found attractive entirely.

Alivaril said:
Captain Bulwark said carefully. "Nothing too unusual; merely questioning of Dreams' qualifications, accusations that she was stealing the position from somepony more suitable, that sort of thing. Little of concern, and certainly not enough to justify her abandoning her post."
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That this is considered 'nothing too unusual', and mild enough enough that the only even implied rebuke is toward Voice for 'letting' it affect her, says a lot of terrible things about Canterlot.

Alivaril said:
Your authority will be undermined in the eyes of many due to Duchess Shimmer having a personal attendant while you do not."
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I'm just gonna say that that's a load of bullshit. This actually tips me into thinking that Bulwark is a Changeling- he's downplaying the bullying that the Changelings orchestrated and then trying to get a minder on Cadance (their primary target) in order to keep better tabs on her now that she's actually making use of her position and doing things.

The idea that an Alicorn's authority could be undermined just for lack of a personal attendant is farcical- and even if the nobility would think less of her for it they aren't Cadance's primary concern anyways.

Alivaril said:
Sheer numbers, new settlements, and prominent cities were wearing away at that influence and would continue to do so as time marched ever onward, but it was an incredibly slow process —
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Celestia, the millennia old immortal: "Slow? At this rate it'll only take a few more centuries!"

As much as Celestia is generally a great and well meaning ruler, Equestria desperately needs some new perspectives at the top who take less of a 'wait and see'/'patience is the name of the game' view. Luckily Sunset and Cadance are here to shake things up.

Actually reminds me of a quote from a wise cow- "Patience is nice, but it can curdle into apathy."

Alivaril said:
Cadance didn't like it one bit, and felt that Auntie might need to do something to curb their spiking influence before it grew much worse.
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She'll get right on starting to fix that in like a century or so. (Good thing Cadance is already planning to fix it herself, with Sunset's help.)

Alivaril said:
Getting distracted again. Shelve it for later. Harmony, Cadance wished she could just go back to sleep.
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Sunset is going to wake up and immediately start complaining that Cadance has just been lazing around not practicing magic and Cadance is going to actually explode. :V

Alivaril said:
comical levels of xenophobia with emphasis on the "phobia,"
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That's a pretty neat observation- ponies have a lot of issues with outsiders but that generally results in fleeing and hiding from more than anything. Still bad, mind. Also makes some sense- ponies are, themselves, prey animals.

Alivaril said:
A world so thoroughly broken that it needed to raise its own Sun and moon, and even fill out the blank night sky like painting on a canvas of stars.
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I wonder if the implication here is that Discord so completely fucked the world during his reign that now it needs ponies to artificially control what used to be natural processes. The sun, the moon, the stars, the weather, even the seasons themselves are all things that don't just happen anymore- they need to be done.
 
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