#either way i am fluttershy's biggest fan!!!! <3

[smile-files]

a fluttershy photoshoot!! a fluttershoot, if you will

[glapplebloom]

If I’m going to count the Clip Shows as part of these Revisits this should count as well.

Now if you see the release of this video, it came out around a year after the series ended. So you would think it would take into consideration stuff that happens throughout the series. But when I was watching it, it only seemed to get up to a certain point. So it turns out this is an Animated Adaption of his Fanfic, which was released in 2015, before Season 5. So a lot of the events that happened after that date are not included in this adaptation. 

It begins with Twilight seemingly in the Castle of the Two Sisters, only properly repaired. There, she meets a cloaked figure that calls herself Vesper. She stole Celestia’s Crown and Twilight so Twilight can give it to someone more deserving than Celestia. I originally was going to ignore the Fanfic but for situations I have questions to I am going to skim through it. Like how Twilight first thought Vesper wanted to give Twilight the Crown since Vesper said “she is not Twilight’s enemy”.

I thought it was weird that Twilight assumed Vesper wanted her to rule but the fanfic makes it clearer.

“I am not your enemy, Twilight Sparkle. I’m freely offering you Celestia’s crown. And if you want to leave, all you have to do is take it.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “You want me to rule Equestria?”

“No, it doesn’t have to be you,” the figure said dismissively. “You wouldn’t like that, would you?

I feel this exchange is better than the one in the Adaption. But anyway, Twilight hears Celestia’s Name being Slandered and convinces Vesper in a debate: Is Celestia a Terrible Ruler?

Round 1 - Nightmare Moon

Vesper argues that with a Thousand Years Celestia could have made a better plan to defeat Nightmare Moon besides “send Twilight to make friends”. Like making an army for her return or better prepare Twilight by informing her of what she needs to do. Twilight first informs Vesper that 4 Alicorns were strong enough to match all the Magic of the Ponies of Equestria as well as Discord. And Nightmare Moon defeated Celestia. No army could be formed that could defeat Nightmare Moon, so why bother?

As for the “why not tell her”, Twilight was at a stage of not wanting to make friends. So if she was told of what she needed to do, she would have seen the other five as tools, not friends. Vesper concedes that we wouldn’t know what plans you could make if you had a Thousand Years to Prepare. Now I ain’t the biggest fan of Celestia either, but I feel Vesper’s arguments are very poor to try to convince you Celestia is incompetent.

Vesper’s argument was Celestia could come up with a plan to defeat Nightmare Moon, but that wasn’t the goal. Celestia wanted to save Princess Luna, and that is something you couldn’t brute force your way to do. And since this was an adaptation of the Earlier Seasons, you miss some later evidence that can help in this story. Celestia knew Twilight had to make friends to wield the Elements of Harmony. The fact she sent her on the day instead of sooner was Celestia’s own fault. But this would have actually helped Twilight’s case thanks to the twist.

Round 2 - The Sleeping Dragon

Vesper’s argument is why send Twilight and friends to move a dragon and not her. To Vesper, dragons are dangerous and Celestia could have done it on her own. She also blames her for the Avalanche Zone. Twilight counters that the Dragon was not dangerous since all it did was blow smoke and Celestia forcing it out would prove she’s a tyrant like Vesper thinks. But her other arguments were Celestia could have been busy and didn’t know about the Avalanche Zone.

While in theory Celestia could have been doing something else (there has to be a reason Luna’s Design Change Happened), the Avalanche Incident would have been perfectly safe if it wasn’t for Fluttershy. If Vesper’s argument for this is proving Celestia is terrible, that same logic would apply to Fluttershy. Either way, neither side is still convince of the other.

Round 3 - Discord

Vesper argues why didn’t Celestia help against Discord. Twilight counters, besides the fact she really couldn’t do anything even if she was there, did help by reminding her of the lessons she learned. Vesper’s arguments are becoming less and less good as she really has no counter to Twilight’s arguments other than name calling Celestia. Honestly a big flaw with this is that the Arguments against Celestia are getting weaker and weaker. Speaking of which...

Round 4 - Sombra

Vesper argued that Celestia knew Sombra returned and only sent her friends there without the Elements. Twilight counters that she never mentioned Sombra’s return. Twilight is correct. While Celestia mentioned Sombra, the task was to restore the Crystal Empire. When Vesper wondered why didn’t she see the danger, Twilight counters that no one was in any real danger. The Princesses defeated him once and could have likely done it again. Vesper gives up and considers Sombra a nuisance than a threat. So how did the Fanfic deal with this?

Twilight said. “How strong is Sombra?”

“Well, we don’t know, do we?” the figure replied.

“We do! Luna and Celestia were enough to defeat Sombra the first time. If things went sour, we could have easily sent a message to them and they could easily put Sombra down for another thousand years if they so chose and I…” Twilight’s eyes widened, “I would have failed my test.”

The figure looked like it was about to protest, but stopped.

Twilight hummed. “You know, the more I think about it, Sombra was more of a nuisance than an actual threat.”

“He was not! He was going to–”

“To do what?” Twilight interrupted, feeling she was on a roll. “To turn everyone into slaves? To create more of those crystals that the Crystal Heart blasted into smoke? If he had the power to defeat Celestia and Luna or destroy the Crystal Heart, he would have done it one thousand years ago. His victory would have been unpleasant, but we all would have come out of it unharmed.”

You know what’s funny? Season 9 showed us how much of a threat Sombra was. He no sold the Elements of Harmony, negating Vesper’s first argument, Though you could argue this is because Grogar gave him a boost, thus how he could have gotten into the Crystal Heart Barrier without being turned into smoke like before. 

Continuing this, Vesper did say she could have come to help, which Twilight pointed out the only reason is Twilight misunderstood the lesson. If Twilight handled things better, the whole Sombra incident would have gone smoother. In fact, a lot of the dangers could have been solved if Twilight just asked for Celestia. 

Round 5 - The Wedding

Vesper thinks Celestia should have listened to Twilight because she thought Cadance was a poopy head and not good enough for her brother. I’m making fun of this because that’s Vesper’s argument in a nutshell despite what she tells Twilight. Twilight came barging in with slander and basically no strong evidence and even Twilight herself points this out. Again, if you’re going to blame Celestia for such a thing you have five other ponies who should be considered incompetent for the same logical reason. 

Round 6 - Tirek

Why did Celestia put her trust into Discord is Vesper’s argument. Twilight blames herself because Celestia put her trust in Discord because she trusted Twilight to have been a friend. But she wasn’t and that’s why Discord did what he did. Finally, a weak argument for Twilight. While he did have a thing for Twilight, Fluttershy is the pony he gravitates to. Discord’s betrayal would have likely happened if Twilight was a friend or not.

Which leads me to removing all blame on anyone other than Discord. As we have seen in Season 9, Discord has the tendencies to do gambits that people think Celestia does on everything. And considering how little he actually helped Tirek when it came to Twilight, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was Discord’s plan to be that final Key Giver.

The Debate breaks down when Vesper asked how you could trust Discord without any proof. When Twilight replies you don’t need proof if you’re friends, Vesper breaks the argument and goes on the attack. She’s tired because Twilight’s arguments did not convince her (considering her responses were “lalala I'm not listening” pretty bad on her part). Twilight also said that she didn’t convince her either about Celestia being evil.

After Vesper begs Twilight to take matters into her own hands and not let Celestia influence her, Twilight destroys the crown. She chooses Celestia over Vesper just as the Princesses arrive. So how did the Princesses find her? Luna said its a long story. So how did the Fanfic explained this?

“But how did you find me?” Twilight asked. “And Sunset? Why are you here?”

“Nice to see you too,” Sunset joked. “Kind of funny, really. A couple days ago I got a weird letter asking me to return to Equestria. Something about helping you usher in a new era, free from the ‘tyranny of Celestia.’ It seemed fishy, so I came back. Unfortunately for your friend here, she was so confident you'd be on her side that she didn't bother to cover her tracks. We ran a dimensional trace on her letter and it led us right to here.”

That would explain the random Sunset cameo we saw earlier in the animation. Also would explain how they did that. So who was Vesper all along?

It was a Twilight from another dimension. One that lost faith in Celestia. That was the only explanation Twilight could see be the cause. Unworthy Twilight wonders why Celestia made Twilight into a Princess without her permission. Before we continue, let’s look at the scene that turned Twilight into a Princess. What did Celestia do to make Twilight a Princess? The answer: nothing. All Celestia did was show up, said you deserve it, and watched as the power that turned her into an Alicorn in the first place came from within. This was going to happen regardless if Celestia was there or not. But this episode hinges on believing this is Celestia’s doing.

Since we have to believe that for this, Celestia asked Twilight if she hates her for this. Twilight says no. When Unworthy Twilight got mad that Twilight didn’t care if Celestia made her into an Alicorn without her permission, she was going agro until Luna shut it down. Celestia asks why and Unworthy Twilight said she saw the truth. After a little talk, Celestia said she loved her and Unworthy Twilight breaks down thinking Celestia doesn’t love her. They leave before Unworthy Celestia arrives. And it ends when she does arrive. So how did the Fanfic ended?

“Enough!” The False Twilight snarled. Through gritted teeth, she got back on her hooves and wobbled forwards. “You all cling to every filthy lie she spews at you! Are you all so blind as to not see how power-hungry she is? How can you defend and rationalize everything this tyrant and troll does and refuse to see things for how they really are?! Look at all the atrocities she’s committed using the shoddy excuse of helping me grow! She has done nothing but try to control me! She’s evil! She’s–”

False Twilight’s leg caught on the discarded cloak. She fell into a crumpled heap and bent her leg backwards. She hissed in pain, clutching and protecting her wounded leg.

Celestia’s heart broke the longer she observed this twisted mockery of her faithful student. Her tears finally fell as False Twilight rocked back and forth on the ground, wailing in anguish.

“She’s evil…” False Twilight moaned. “She doesn’t care about me… She’s a tyrant… She doesn’t love me…”

Sunset growled. “Look here, you stupid–”

“Sunset,” Luna chided. “Enough.”

“What?”

“The apparition is too locked in her paranoia and hatred to admit she was wrong, as is likely whatever created it,” Luna observed. “There’s nothing more we can do for her now.”

“She doesn’t love me…” False Twilight sobbed, unaware of anything going on around her. “She doesn’t love me… She doesn’t love me...”

“You’re right…” Sunset affirmed. “We should go.”

“To leave her wallowing in her bitterness and sadness…” Celestia sighed, blinking her tears away. “It pains me to admit, but this is probably for the best. I wish with all my heart we could do something to help her...”

“You tried, Princess Celestia.” Sunset assured. “Maybe she’ll forgive you someday, but not today.”

Got to admit, I prefer this ending better. As far as we know, everything she said about Celestia applies to hers and we don’t see that resolution. With the original Fanfic ending, we can tell this is all on Twilight. 

As the the episode, it ends with Twilight throwing the Alicorn Amulet at the mirror and us seeing there’s an entire fleet of them. As far as I know, nothing else came from this and it was never mentioned in the fanfic. Overall, as much as I enjoy Josh’s other works and reviews, I am not a big fan of this. He said he doesn’t like stories of Twilight taking over Celestia because she’s incompetent but this story really wants to push Celestia does deserve to rule. 

I’m not a fan of Celestia either but I don’t think she’s an incompetent ruler. I just don’t think people should put her on high a pedestal as they do. Its like Silverquill said, “she’s all powerful one minute, easily taken out another.” Like I wouldn’t be surprised all that DBZ Stuff was actually all Twilight. It comes with a lot of headcanons that aren’t fully explored with the show.

But I think the real problem is it didn’t take advantage of the 5 year difference the original story had over when it was released. He did say it took years to make so I am going to presume that means his animator took a long time from when it was first written to when it was released. But I think it would have been interesting to see the Unworthy Twilight be one who rejected the Alicorn Status early to Twilight whose in the Middle of Season 9. In fact, for December I’ll be making a 5 part Fanfic about my take on this.