At The Home Stretch

It's been about a month and a half since the last update to Filly Fluttershy. Not only did I post a new chapter, The Three Trials, but I also rewrote Dark Shy along with it. At this point, there's only one chapter left to adapt from KI:U: The War's End. I haven't gotten started on writing it just yet, but it's been rattling around in my brain lately, and I've definitely have a few things in mind for the ending.

As far as how long it's going to be and how long it's going to take, I plan to have The War's End out this year. I don't know how reassuring that is, but it's got to count for something after a 6-year hiatus. The length of the chapter is also up in the air. The final battle between Pit and Hades in the game is basically half cutscene and half boss fight, and while boss fights in my later chapters can be protracted affairs, it really depends on how much I feel like dragging out a battle. The Magnus and Gaol fight in the previous chapter (more on that later) can be wrapped up before the characters finish their dialogue, but I let that go for about 3,000 words in the pony version. So this could be a relatively short chapter, or it could be another marathon. Either way, I've got some ideas for it.

At the same time, part of the potential delay will be because I want to rewrite another early chapter while I'm working on this one. This time, I have my mind set on Nightmare Moon's Final Battle. Yeah... that one. The one with the boss rush that can drag on as long as The Lightning Chariot, and unlike The Lightning Chariot it doesn’t even poke fun at its own length. It's also a pretty important chapter that I've wanted to take another swing at.

But setting all that aside, I wanted to make a recap blog post for the most recent update. This will be for both the new chapter and the rewrite.

Flutterrage Retcon

To start, I wanted to bring up the differences between the original Dark Shy and the rewrite. To be honest, without much reader feedback, I don't know if anyone was curious enough to go back to that chapter, let alone how they felt about it compared to the original. For the most part, the rewrite was intended to bring the old chapter more in line with my current writing style: taking more time to paint a picture of what's going on. Dark Shy is also a very fight-heavy chapter, so I was also hoping I could nail down the fight scenes well enough: give enough detail to convey what's happening, but try not to dwell on anything too long, lest I kill the pace of the action.

That said, there were a few differences in events and narrative between the two versions. For one, I wanted to plant some seeds toward Fluttershy's state of mind further on in the story, culminating in Celestia's Temple. Her calling the Underworld troops "cannon fodder" is now rooted in her inner thoughts in this chapter, where she's slain enough of these monsters to become desensitized to it. And in this version, Rainbow has pissed her off enough in the course of their encounters that she seriously considers taking her out, as opposed to the original where she can't even bring herself to aim her weapon for a kill shot. Either way, for as many Underworld creatures that she's killed, she can't bring herself to kill another pony... at least not yet.

Visiting the Blacksmith… Well, Granny Smith

It's a small role in the game, and there are a number of characters I could've chosen for the role of Dyntos, but I like how Granny Smith came out in this chapter. A healthy amount of respect for Celestia and Fluttershy, but no reverence for the former. She has the same mischievous streak you expect from the gods in Kid Icarus, but is very secretive. To be fair, I wasn't exactly subtle about how she has the power she has, but I hope I didn't make it too obvious either.

As far as the boss rush goes, the bosses are more or less the same as in the game, but I wanted them to mean something more in this story. For the “first” trial, the bosses all represent the consequences of failure. The Phoenix serves to remind Fluttershy that everything that happened in the back half of the story—the war with Luna, the Parasprite invasion, Sombra’s resurgence—was all set in motion when she failed to stop Discord’s Wish Seed scheme. Big Macintosh serves as a reminder of what happens when she and Celestia don’t keep the rest of the pantheon in check (harkening back to Rainbow’s ‘rage against the gods’ moment in Scorched Feathers), and that it’s not just the Underworld they need to worry about. In that sense, it also represents a rebuke to Fluttershy’s desire to retire/quit from fighting, but that’s another issue.

And the Kraken? Well… this was the one I would’ve been most likely to substitute out if I wanted to. But you might recall the moment at the beginning of Celestia’s Temple when Fluttershy was picking a weapon and came across the Kraken Arm. She briefly wonders if the constellations stolen by the Space Pirates are still trapped in the hold of their sunken ship. Now granted, I wouldn’t expect a sequel to KI:U to touch upon that little detail. But as far as my headcanon is concerned, yes, the constellations are still inside the shipwreck, the night sky is that much emptier because of it, and Granny Smith is trying to hint at some unfinished business.

Oh well, something for after Discord is defeated, perhaps.

Who We’re Fighting For

Then there’s the “second trial,” which I wanted to serve as a reminder of what Fluttershy is fighting for. You have Applejack and Pinkie Pie, who not only represent the Earth ponies who are imperiled by Discord, but are on the frontlines of the war against the Underworld and have suffered personal losses to him.

Speaking of Applejack and Pinkie Pie, I wanted to change them up a bit from Magnus and Gaol. In the original, Magnus and Gaol are willing to participate in the trials for no other reason than to help Dyntos test Pit. Which is fine, at first, when you’re engrossed in the boss rush. But then I realized, these are mercenaries. And maybe after everything Pit managed in their previous encounters, the two genuinely have faith that he can end this war. But if Applejack were in a position where she was thrust into a mercenary life, she’d be thinking, “... Nah, what’s in it for me?” And as it turns out, what’s in it for her is some powered up weapons courtesy of the Goddess of the Forge. Not to mention the promise that she herself could pilot a divine superweapon against the god that’s given her and her kind so much grief.

As for Pinkie Pie, she’s just there to support Applejack. And to be Pinkie Pie. Admittedly, those two goals kind of clash with each other, as she generally doesn’t want to fight and only really attacks when she is attacked. Say what you will about Fluttershy being shy, a caretaker, and the Bearer of the Element of Kindness, but she also embodies the Beware the Nice Ones trope. Now compare that to Pinkie Pie, and forget everything you’ve ever read or heard about Cupcakes. The fact is, even at her angriest and most animate, the Pinkie Pie we see in the show would never hurt anyone, at least not on purpose. Honestly, that’s kind of the whole joke of her appearance in this chapter. Despite wanting to help her friend Applejack, and despite the juxtaposition with her Dark Lord armor, she’s not really trying to fight, because she doesn’t want to. There’s an innocent levity to her that just made me smile while writing her.

Then there’s Celestia… or Daybreaker. Honestly, this was one more casting choice I had to figure out for the story. I’ve said before that many of the character choices were made back when this story was first published, around seasons 2 and 3. But this is the one “character” where I’m glad it took me so long to get to this part of the story. Because if this chapter had been posted in 2013-2014, the Pseudo-Palutena transformation would’ve been represented by tacking the trollface meme on Celestia’s head and calling it “Trollestia.” Back then, Fimfic’s Trollestia emoji was literally all I had to work with.

That inanity aside, Celestia still fits in my interpretation of the boss rush. At the end of the day, Fluttershy is fighting for Celestia as much as she’s fighting for the Earth ponies, regardless of how much her faith and resolve have been challenged over the course of the story. Not to mention that the fake Celestia slowly transforming into Daybreaker as Rainbow Dash lays on the punishment nicely parallels the Pseudo-Palutena transformation when you do enough damage.

Was This Really Necessary?

I’ll admit, I did kind of shoehorn Rainbow Dash into a chapter where Dark Pit never even shows up in the game. But I think I made it work. I enjoyed the interactions she had with Pinkie and especially Applejack. And it gave her an outlet for the bone she has to pick with the Goddess of Light, at least until Daybreaker curbstomps her.

And then there’s the moment when Fluttershy turns on her. This one means a lot for a lot of different reasons. As an aside, it’s a reminder of how much these wars have screwed up Fluttershy, that she’d hold Rainbow at weaponpoint for Granny Smith’s superweapon. But it’s also meant to reinforce Fluttershy’s convictions about defeating Discord and fully put to bed any rivalry between her and Rainbow. It bookends the feud they’ve had since almost the beginning of the story. By coincidence, Fluttershy is wielding the same class of weapon in their first battle (the Insight Staff) as she is here (the Rose Staff), while Rainbow is maining the Silver Bow. Though in a reversal, Fluttershy is pulling an underhanded maneuver against Rainbow, instead of the other way around in their first encounter. Also coincidentally, the rewrite of that first fight was released alongside this chapter. No, that wasn’t intentional; like I said, I’ve been meaning to rewrite Dark Shy for years.

The Finale

So Filly Fluttershy: Uprising will finally come to an end with the next update. It’s been a long time coming, and with what I have in mind, I think you’ll be intrigued. As far as weapons go, it’ll be just like the chapter in KI:U, where you’ll only see the Great Sacred Treasure. It actually made me look back through all the weapons I showcased in all of the previous chapters. Don’t judge, a lot of this project has been me gushing over one of the first great hits of the 3DS, and it’s really such a shame that a game like that is still stuck on its original hardware without a port or remaster.

For better or worse, there’s a lot that I wanted to show off while writing this story, from hidden Palutena/Viridi dialogue (and even just dialogue that you get just for letting the characters run their mouths during the boss fights), hidden goodies like the Zodiac Chambers, little exploits you can pull off (without glitching the game), and stuff I wish you could do by glitching the game.

As far as weapons go, I wanted to show off as many as possible, with Fluttershy trying out a new one with each mission before capping off on the Rose Staff (my main weapon during the story mode). You even see a bunch of weapons that other characters use, or that briefly appear without seeing any actual use. Some weapon classes are wielded much more than others, depending on how unwieldy they’d be for an MLP character to use (though I’d be lying if I said that no personal bias went into my choices), but once you count cameos, it almost evens out surprisingly. All in all, KI:U features nine weapon classes, with a dozen weapons per class, for a total of 108 weapons. Of those, 50 appear in some shape or form, not counting the Bow of Light. Almost half the arsenal, so not bad if I do say so myself. The breakdown is as follows:

• 23 weapons used by Fluttershy, and also Rainbow in Scorched Feathers (not double counting the Aquarius Blade, which is a Zodiac weapon)
• 9 Zodiac weapons (with the remaining three treasures being powers)
• 5 unique weapons used by Rainbow in Dark Shy
• 9 weapons from armories that Fluttershy rummaged at the beginning of each Chaos Kin chapter. I’ll count the Palutena Bow here, despite it not being finished. That’s a nod to the fact that you don’t unlock that weapon until after clearing the story mode.
• 4 one-offs: Applejack wielding the Magnus Club, Pinkie Pie with the Gaol Blade, a soulless Fluttershy with the Darkness Bow and a cameo of the Tiger Claws in The Three Trials

As far as weapon classes go, here’s that breakdown:

• 6 Blade
• 6 Bow
• 5 Palm
• 5 Orbitars
• 5 Cannon
• 6 Staff
• 4 Arm
• 7 Claws
• 6 Club