BV 3.2 - The Golden Age of Apocalypse, Book II: Synchronicity

 

Guess I should post a quick recap of BV3.1, before I venture into the infinite horrors of BV3.2

 

Prologue:

 

Chapters 1-6:

 

Chapters 7-13:

 

Chapters 14-23:

 

Chapters 24-31:

 

Edginomicon:

 

 

 

 

This is "The Golden Age of Apocalypse, Book II: Synchronicity", which focuses on the 11M8 and about a dozen other humans, who are all in Equestria for Sunset's upcoming coronation.

 

Now, buckle up, my dudes, 'cause this ride just got a new driver

 

Small brain:

 

Big brain:

 

SHINZAKURA BRAIN:

 

This was on a train to Ponyville. Here's what everyone else is doing:

I assume Human Spike and Pony Spike are around somewhere, but I have no idea where

 

 

 

 

Nothing important happens, but here's some stuff.

 

Principal Celestia is the worst at government coverups. After each of Pony Twilight's visits, she filed reams of paperwork regarding a fictitious exchange student named "Purple Smart". [spoiler]P-Twi: "Purple Smart is a cousin of mine that lives in Las Pegasas. Despite her name, she's kinda flighty and goes more on her looks than her brains, which is a shame, because she's got so much potential."[/spoiler] This is somehow better than "say nothing and hope nobody asks questions".

 

Sunset's also a pretty bad liar. She tells Pony Divine Right that the humans freaked out when they met him because his voice is "sinister and diabolical" by human cultural standards. Instead of, you know, "we've all met your counterpart and he's kind of an asshole". Of course, there's no chance this stupid and pointless lie will come back to bite Sunset, because the author no doubt forgot about this useless scene before he even finished writing it.

 

That night, Night Light visits Night Light at the observatory. Night's there with a priestess of the Church of the Alicorns, who greets Night "in the Name of the Divine Creator". She and Night are looking for the Creche of Creation, from which Faust created the cosmos.

 

The priestess shows Night a drawing from an ancient book, which reminds him of a nebula, so he tells her and Night about galaxies - specifically, the "Galactic Multitiverse Theory", which says that every galaxy is actually a parallel universe. Since the drawing of the Creche (which presumably is drawn from Equus's point of view) looks similar to the nebula Night saw from Earth, that obviously means the nebula IS Equus's reality/galaxy/thingy.

 

This breaks the priestess's brain [spoiler]and mine too[/spoiler], and she passes out. Night helps Night carry her back to Night's house, since she's actually Night's niece Sweet Pea. (H-Sweet Pea has shown up before, I think as an underage prostitute.)

 

 

 

Well, I went back to find the exact text to show you, and it turns out I just read it wrong.

 

Night's actual hypothesis is that, since a 1000+ year old drawing of a flash of light in the sky (which "must be the Creche" according to Sweet Pea) looks vaguely similar to the nebula NGC 6023 [spoiler]which is actually a galaxy, if you look it up[/spoiler], then the two must be connected somehow - like, maybe there's an interdimensional wormhole inside. OR, [insert explanation of the Galactic Multiverse "Theory"], and this random galaxy Night just pulled out of his ass is actually the pony galaxy/reality as viewed from the outside.

 

Keep in mind this character is supposed to be a well-respected physics professor.

 

 

 

Instead of going chapter by chapter, I'm doing one post for each of the new characters and their plot threads.

 

With Sunset's coronation coming up, every foreign country wants to send some representatives to meet with her. First to arrive is Prince Fujitsu of the Empire of Inari. He's a kitsune.

Sunset wants to get this over with, so she invites him to join herself, Octavia, and the tripfriends for dinner.

 

Fujitsu's mainly here to hit on Sunset (in the typical anti-subtle Shinzakura style), but there are four other vaginas in the room (not counting his bodyguard/sex slave Kashingo), and he's not too picky. They're all old enough to bleed, after all.

 

Octavia rolls to intimidate, based on the legends of humans as bloodthirsty savages. Fujitsu makes his save, but Kashingo fails. She pulls one of her many swords 1mm out of its scabbard.

 

Fujitsu calms her down, then gets back to more important business: proposing marriage to each girl in turn. Sunset politely declines. The tripfriends also decline, as they're sworn to defend Princess Sunset. By process of elimination, Fujitsu asks Sunset for Octavia's hand in marriage.

 

 

Later that night, Sunset insists that Octavia spend the night in her room. Even though both Octavia and Sunset are clearly uninterested in Fujitsu, it's common for kitsune to kidnap their bride-to-be and carry them home by force.

Don't think about that too hard, else you might start wondering why Equestria would abandon its kidnapped citizens and let the Inari do whatever the fuck they want, and other sorts of uncomfortable questions for the author.

 

 

Suddenly, Kashingo shows up at Sunset's room.

 

Remember how she almost pulled a sword at dinner, to defend her prince against the bloodthirsty humans? Well, it turns out that this IS A DIRE BREACH OF HONOR!!! SHE HAS BROUGHT SHAME UPON HER CLAN, HER MASTER, AND THE ENTIRE EMPIRE OF INARI!!! So Fujitsu fired her, banished her from her clan, and beat the shit out of her just for good measure.

 

Now, given her GRAVE OFFENSE against Octavia and Princess Sunset, she's here in accordance with tradition to pledge her life to Sunset's service. And if Sunset refuses her service, then, in accordance with tradition, she must perform jigai [translator's note: "jigai" is the female form of seppuku [translator's note: "seppuku" is a form of ritual suicide]].

 

Sunset doesn't want to deal with a dead fox in her apartment at 11:00 at night, so she accepts Kashingo's offer of eternal servitude, then tells everybody to go the fuck to sleep and they can handle the rest of this bullshit in the morning.

 

 

In the morning, of course, there's a new problem. Kashingo decided overnight that she no longer has a name.

 

Fortunately, this gets fixed pretty quickly. The Furry Formerly Known As Kashingo spends a while flipping through a perfectly ordinary human dictionary. She then announces that she's chosen a new True Name, to replace the one she lost when Fujitsu banished her from her clan. Her name is now Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

 

Everybody WTFs, but it's too late. Now that she's chosen a new True Name, it can't be changed unless she leaves her current clan (in which case: jigai).

 

 

That's it so far for the tale of Miss Weeaboo T. Furry. She shows up in a few more scenes, but only to shout "MUH HONOR" and generally serve as a living caricature of Japanese culture.

 

Next week: Psycho Jewel!

 

 

 

Shinzakura is trying to drive me to suicide.

 

But first, let me tell you about the nature of Psycho Ponk. Psycho Ponk exists in one of three states:

 

This is what happens when you combine yandere with Shinzakura's patented antisubtlety. Half her lines are about how bad she wants to fuck Sunset at the current moment, and each and every scene she's in makes me want to gouge my fucking eyes out.

 

 

Meet Precious Jewel. Her cutie mark is telling her that she's destined to be the true love of a prince or princess. [spoiler]How does one get a cutie mark in marrying into royalty without, in fact, marrying into royalty? I truly hope the world will never know.[/spoiler] More specifically, her cutie mark is telling her that TODAY IS THE DAY: she's going to meet her true love!

 

At work, Jewel's boss Kibbitz gives her a new assignment: she's to serve as Princess Sunset Shimmer's secretary temporarily while they try to find her a permanent seneschal. So Jewel meets Sunset, Sunset runs off to some meeting, and Jewel runs into the nearest closet to piss herself [spoiler]actual quote: That…oh, my…. She felt a warm feeling wash over her like she never had before[/spoiler] and start planning the wedding.

 

[EYE-GOUGING INTENSIFIES]

 

Next week: Grizelda Greatsword-Martinez!

 

 

 

Our new character this week is Softwing, a griffon who wants to be the little pony almost as bad as PTFG does.

 

Softwing has an elaborate backstory, which she helpfully expo-dumps in the direction of Twilight Velvet:

(In case you are literally blind: "I have larger wings and a thinner tail than most griffonesses, and in our society, that’s seen as very sexually attractive.")

 

So, basically, she's a griffon who was raised by ponies, thinks of herself as more of a pony than a griffon, and has a mentally unhinged parent with no respect for her personal autonomy. And, of course, her entire backstory is delivered as a story told to another character in-universe, years after the fact.

 

 

Now back to the current year.

 

Some bad dudes break into Softwing's place to take her "back t’ whats yer belongin’ to, roight?" She casts an illusion to distract them, then flies out the window.

 

She somehow ends up at the military training grounds where the tripfriends are busy demonstrating their fancy human weapons for Admiral Dumbfuck and the thankfully less-stupid heads of the other military branches. The badguys, of course, follow Softwing right on in.

 

The tripfriends and Captain Arrowswift use their telepathy to determine that the griffons following Softwing are, in fact, real bad people. Arrowswift gives them permission to spice up their demonstration by executing these motherfuckers on the spot. Most die, some flee, and a few are left over for the tripfriends to torture for information (which, of course, happens right out in the middle of the training ground, in front of the biggest and wiggiest of pony military bigwigs.)

 

Anyway, Softwing doesn't die, and ends up with a job as Sunset's seneschal, thanks to Twilight Velvet and Twilight Velvet. That means she gets to hide out on earth, where there are no griffon raiding parties that can somehow sneak deep into the heart of Equestria to drag her away in the dead of night. Also, she's now Psycho Jewel's boss.

 

 

I've got 600 chars so here's a bonus.

 

Edgelord wants to send 5 teams of 40 SIRENs to earth to guard Sunset, but he'll settle for 3 teams, "only" 120 ponies total, due to the logistical difficulties. They'll all be shapeshifted into humans and enrolled in local high schools.

 

Edgie and the Tripfriends are being very careful to only accept ponies whose human counterparts have no criminal record and no connections within 500mi of Canterlot, because obviously nobody would believe that these guys look alike but aren't the same person. Unlike the case we just saw with the German camwhore who looks exactly like Rarity but is not, in fact, the same person.

 

 

 

Here's a quick rundown on the rest of 3-6

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pony AJ still refuses to let go of that idiot ball, even after getting lectures from everyone she knows.

 

Discord stops by to visit Fluttershy and Fluttershy. He summons Discord too just for funzies. Discord assumes "Starly" (Starlight Glimmer) slipped him some drugs, even though that doesn't even remotely explain what he's seeing.

 

Pony RD mopes to Pony AJ. RD's been avoiding her counterpart out of envy. She's a Wonderbolt, but now that the Wonderbolts are stuck being a real military unit, it kinda sucks.

 

Meet Gracenote. She hates Human Fluttershy for being a more popular musician than her. She says mean things to Little Fluttershy, gets bullied by Big Fluttershy (by way of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1Sx4GJWtUQ), and then gets eaten by a bear. The end.

 

There's a bear monster in the forest, by the way. It's really smart, and it likes eating royal guards and humans. So far it hasn't done anything useful, aside from disposing of Gracenote for us.

 

Rarity just can't imagine how humans could invent PANTONE without magic.

 

Psycho Ponk does psycho things. It's a complete waste of time, except she learns Fujitsu wants to marry Sunset, which gives her a new excuse to mope around and waste even more of everyone's time. Even Pinkie Pie can't handle her bullshit. I hate this character so god damn much.

 

Swibble, Scoots, DT, and SS help some kid get his cutie mark in whitewater rafting. They crash into Ghastly Gorge and almost die. Then they almost get eaten by quarray eels, but Human RD shows up at the last minute and saves them by channeling the Speed Force and shooting lightning from her eyeballs. Pony RD is there too, but isn't allowed to do anything fun because this is the Barbie Show.

 

Sunset, GGM, and Psycho Jewel meet for dinner and coronation planning. Jewel starts with an important question: "Are you single, your highness?" I hate this character less than Ponk but only because she's had 10x less screen time.

 

And that's it for day 3 of 8.

 

 

 

 

It's time. While Fujitsu attends one last diplomatic meeting with Princess Sunset, his griffon agents are secretly tracking Octavia across the city. In the alley behind the music store, the griffons stage an ambush, slaying Octavia's entire guard retinue in an instant. They grab her, drug her, and spirit her away before the Royal Guard can--

 

Oh, wait. Strike that last bit. The author has apparently decided that it's time for Fujitsu to get rekt.

 

The griffons grab Octavia, drug her, and then Blueblood rolls up out of fucking nowhere to save her ass. He singlehandedly kills all but one of the griffons. The survivor is quite talkative, apparently, since by the time Octavia wakes up, Blueblood's already figured out the plot and sent guards to fetch the Inariese ambassador and to seize Fujitsu's ship.

 

The ambassador (who, let me remind you, is Prince Fujitsu's own brother) throws Fujitsu under the bus as fast as kitsunely possible. He strips Fujitsu of his diplomatic immunity. Fujitsu will be arrested, held in jail until after the coronation, and then likely returned to Inari to stand trial there.

 

Later that night, the ambassador sends WTF a pair of weeaboo wonderswords ("made from shibuichi, a mystical metal of Inariese make, a material so rare that it was usually only made available to the most elite of Inari's populace") and promises to get her accepted back into her old clan. I have no idea how he heard about the WTF situation or why he even cares, but Fujitsu is over now, which I guess means all his evil deeds must be undone. (WTF, by the way, decides to stick with Sunset and the SIRENs - we're not getting rid of her, or her stupid name, quite so easily.)

 

Also that night, Blueblood and Human Octavia go on a date. It goes pretty well. [spoiler]B/O/O HAPPENING, GET HYPE[/spoiler]

 

There's some questionable lore in Chapter 12 [spoiler]"""Swordbearers"""[/spoiler], which I plan to ignore in desperate hope that it never becomes relevant.

 

 

 

I was going to wait and do 13-15 together, but there's one little scene in here that deserves special mention.

 

We already met Highfalutin', Divine Right's sister, an obnoxious entitled socialite. Basically Blueblood, except Blueblood is busy playing Depressed James Bond in this fic, so he needed replacing. Hf recently got ebin trolled by Sunbutt and Sunbutt, tricked into giving up her duchy in exchange for the worst barony in Equestria.

 

Today, we get to meet the REAL Highfalutin'. She's evil, obviously. And because this is a Shinzakura fic, she's evil in every possible way, all at the same time.

 

She meets first with her new assistant, Teeline, a cute young earth pony mare. Hf introduces herself, gives Teeline an impromptu lesson on assertiveness, molests her a bit, and sends her off to the landholders' meeting with instructions to tell them who's boss.

 

Next, Hf meets with her two most trusted lieutenants, Bizzlepop Ferrytwist and Trapper. These two exposit on her past a bit, like the time she seduced a stallion into falling in love with her, manipulated him for years, and then had Trapper kill him when he became "inconvenient". (Incidentally, Ferrytwist has already investigated Teeline's current coltfriend, and she's already got a plan for breaking them up.)

 

Now it's time for some felonies. Trapper actually already killed the old captain, so Ferrytwist can step in right away to train the local guards properly. Separately, Mayor Sunmane of one of Hf's villages might become a problem, so Hf has Ferrytwist start planning the assassination. She'll give the order (or better yet, manipulate Teeline into giving it) by the end of the week.

 

Finally, the warcrimes. The barony has long been plagued by griffon pirates and raiders, which Hf intends to stop. She orders a nearby warship to float on over to wherever it is that griffons live, shell a few seaside villages at random, and then set loose Trapper for some indiscriminate slaughter.

 

 

 

Shinzakura is liv and so am I.

 

Sadly, almost nothing of interest happens on Day 5, aside from the business with Highfalutin', Ferrytwist, and Trapper that I posted about 6 weeks ago: >>33991676. It's largely """character development""", by which I mean random characters bitching to other random characters about the usual inane bullshit (Blueblood is foreveralone, Octavia is literally insane, Ponk worries Sunset might not be up for eternal sex slavery, etc).

 

The one fun part is Sunset's "Preparatory Presentation", in which a wannabe noble gives a speech before the other nobles to convince them she's qualified for the job. Sunset makes the questionable choice of beginning her "Major Prep" by claiming that she was, in fact, merely pretending to be an entitled bitch, back in the day before she ran off to Earth, but otherwise gives a pretty reasonable speech about her time there.

 

At the end, some asshat jumps up to call her out on her "LIES! LIES AND DECEIT!" He manages to call her out on basically every part of her story except for the part that's actually a lie. I spent an awful long time trying to figure out just what this guy thinks actually happened. Here's what I've got:

Now, as you can see, this still makes no goddamn sense, especially given Sunset indisputably has the fucking wings and doesn't need some fancy story to go with her crown.

 

Anyway, that's it for Day 5. Two more days to the coronation [spoiler]the date in-universe is actually confirmed now, not just speculation[/spoiler]

 

 

 

WELCOME BACK TO THE PONK AND SUNSET SHOW

 

Cadance talks to Cadance about a psycho stalker who got caught spying on a married couple from their closet. Cadance has divined that it's True Love, and figures the three will probably form a herd some time soon. Cadance doesn't like that - where she's from, that sort of behavior would get him 10 years in federal prison. Cadance calls Cadance out on her hypocracy: this guy deserves prison, but Ponk and Sunset are okay? Turns out Cadance is no fan of that ship, but has somehow deluded herself into believing that it can work out with neither murders nor suicides.

 

Cadance reveals to Shining Armor that she had a vision. Faust told her she's not allowed to have kids, but instead must raise the children of the three SIRENs who got turned into terrifying monsters that never did anything of consequence aside from fucking each other a bunch. Those girls are alive, by the way, but they're even more braindamaged that the average 7DSJ character, and also in jail, I think.

 

Sunset spends four hours talking Ponk out of killing herself, then spends another four hours just going along with Ponk's deranged advances because she's afraid Ponk will lose her shit if she ever says "no" to the idea that they're eternal soulmates destined to get married and live happily ever after.

 

Half the cast takes turns fighting the monster in the woods, which is called a "Bete Goson".

 

And here's an updated power ranking for characters in this series:

Sunset >>>> Psycho Ponk >> Human AJ > Human RD >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all ponies

 

 

 

It's coronation day! Oh wait, not really - turns out so many ponies came to Canterlot for the coronation that the organizing committee has decided to fuck up everyone's schedules by delaying the coronation by a day. But there's still some kind of ball going on this evening.

 

A 25-year-old Boomer appears from nowhere to join Pony AJ on the train to Canterlot. She's secretly had the hots for him for a while, not that you could tell, since he's been indistinguishable from a background pony until now. The two attend the ball together.

 

A trapeze artist with a grudge appears from nowhere, steals a book from a church, and promptly ceases to exist. Her name is Sommerset, on the off chance she ever becomes relevant again.

 

A psychic butterfly appears from nowhere. It's an "Allucinor Wing", which "feeds off your deepest desires". More on this later.

 

A random prince appears from nowhere. Psycho Jewel, after seeing Sunset kissing Ponk (more on that later), spends a page or two being heartbroken, then promptly hooks up with this new guy. Prince Exhibition is "so far down the line in succession that I don’t even bother using my princely title half the time", but hey, he's got the title, and so Jewel's got herself a new true love.

 

Celestia takes Ponk to see the orphanage where she adopted Sunset. Because Ponk is insane, she treats the place like holy ground. I guess Celestia heard about the ongoing effort to railroad Sunset into a deeply unhealthy relationship with Ponk, because she decides to help the cause by affirming all of Ponk's delusions, and by giving her some new material to work with: Ponk is probably fated to be Sunset's immortal Swordbearer.

 

 

 

Now, about that butterfly...

 

The psychic butterfly latches onto Sunset as she heads into the ball. Ponk's at the ball too, dressed as a (male) character from some anime I've never heard of. They go to dance together. Now, at this point, I'm not sure whose "deepest desires" the butterfly is feeding on, but the upshot is, it mind-controls Sunset into acting like she's as psycho about Ponk as Ponk is about her.

 

They somehow make it through the rest of the ball without causing a scene, then spend an hour making out in the palace garden. Eventually, Sunset teleports them to her bed so they can start tearing each other's clothes off. After one more agonizing page, Sunset's naked, Ponk's stripped down to her panties, and Sunset's in the process of removing those as well.

 

At this point, it suddenly occurs to Ponk that this behavior is a bit out of character, coming from her totally straight friend, who has expressed no romantic interest in her and who just recently said she plans to wait until she has a handle on this whole "Alicorn of Earth" business before pursuing a relationship with anyone. And, sure enough, Ponk looks into Sunset's eyes and immediately realizes that she's been mind-wiped.

 

Now, the right thing to do here I think is pretty obvious. But Ponk's been obsessively fantasizing about this moment for about 400,000 fucking words, so she hesitates. A minute or two later, with Sunset mere inches from going down on her, Ponk finally makes her stop.

 

That breaks the spell, of course, because why the fuck wouldn't it. A minute later, Human Twilight and Adagio show up. Twilight starts beating the shit out of Ponk, which I am very much in favor of, but of course the story paints her as a badguy for this, and Adagio pulls her back. Pony Cadance shows up next, here to absolve Ponk of all possible guilt: "you had no way of knowing", which, of course, is utter bullshit.

 

 

 

So there you have it. Despite having 180,000 words (in GAOA2 alone) to set things up, three new characters and a goddamn butterfly appear from fucking nowhere and get important roles. And we get 90% of a Ponk/Sunset sex scene (I'm sure you can guess how goddamn thrilled I am about that one).

 

The one and only good thing to come out of Day 7 is the fact that, having just gotten magically roofied and woken up naked in bed with Ponk, Sunset is freaked the fuck out and doesn't really want anything to do with Ponk at the moment. Sadly, there's no hope of this having any kind of lasting effect, not when """fate""" is so clearly willing to break any character and contrive any magic in order to force this godawful disgusting ship.

 

Well, at least in the next chapter the coronation will finally--

What the fuck. GAOA2 is over, apparently. Surprise? I guess the coronation will be a GAOA3 thing (coming mid-November to a fimfic near you).