#eftd

Return of the She-Demon

First off, these chapter titles have just been throwing me way off. I was expecting something totally different with each chapter and it subverts my expectations every time. Nope! It wasn’t really Sunset. And apparently also not the only she-demon around!

Also, it’s a mite harder to comment on these pics since discord took everything back. But now at least I got the books, including a colour copy!

Looking at the title card Bevin drew… whew! Very spooky. Love the font there for “Return”, gives it the feeling of those classic horror movies, or Martin Mystery TV show in my case cause I’m too easily spooked by regular horror movies most of the time. Also the use of the black and white is a nice touch. I like to think that, with the way the words flow, “Return” is white, but “of the”, was fried to a blackened crisp by the She-Demon (Shemon?)’s hair. And then of course “She-Demon” engraved on her… grave (is that where engrave came from?). It makes it feel like the conflict between the black and white, the yin and yang, the two sides of Sunset’s self where she is both a devil and an angel, full of possibilities! And yet… “She-demon” is what’s engraved. That’s how she’ll be remembered and judged. Or so we’re teased into believing. And everyone is faceless in the background. Mind-controlled teenage zombies, or simply the crowd that merges into a giant shadow, the true singular enemy of Sunset being the masses that she can’t individually explain herself to, or help en masse. That is of course, unless she gets rid of what’s causing all their problems – herself.

Sunset was able to convince Wallflower she wasn’t a bad person, but everyone at CH? Like what happened in the first chapter? Difficult to do so through a speech. And overwhelming to try with a series of one on ones, like Solstice was doing.

I also like what I see as the implication that, the she-demon was hiding behind the grave the whole time. Like Sunset’s been worried about being remembered as a She-demon. Once it’s finally time to reveal herself, the She-demon climbs up from the back and down the grave. She wasn’t buried there; she was lying in wait. And the demon climbing down from the top references Sunset’s descent into hell. The demon was always there, waiting for the opportunity to strike, to let Sunset’s fears take over. Demon Shimmer wanted power. And yet, is it not an exercise of power, to take the decision-making away the people who are most affected by those decisions? Is the decision to close the portal and abandon her friends without even partaking in even informing them of that intent – not an exercise of power over someone else? Is that not what the demon wanted, when she wanted to control an army of teenagers against their will? Both actions which hurt all parties in the end? A self-fulfilling prophecy. To love is to turn around, Orpheus. To love is to fear losing something. And to act out in such a way to avoid losing it, that you ultimately cause said loss. A tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. Or it would have been if Flash died.

Sunset Shimmer was a shadow of her former self. Her own grieving breathing filled her ears. Reedy. Gasping. She couldn’t see ahead of her, only as far as she could reach. Sunset staggered forward. She grabbed blindly. Reaching. Until she found the handle of the door to run, to stop King Sombra, to leave this dimension through the portal for the last time and to never look back.

Love this. I mean it’s the perfect use of the term “shadow of her former self” considering everything. She literally felt like she was dying (which, to my surprise, she’s actually dying. I thought she was just feeling like it when she endured this strange swap and had a close encounter with this evil demon!). And this shadow, it signals what we find out later – that it’s her soul (or whatever’s been swapped through different bodies).

Her breath is reedy – it’s thin, and fragile. And you can’t get much thinner than a shadow (or maybe even fragile, considering how easy it is for a shadow to break from what it is at any given time). And she cannot see, the shadows are all around her. And being unable to see in front of her is reminiscent of her life as of late. Whereas, before she could see her future decades ahead, with everything planned out. Now it’s culminating in that sense of missing purpose and being so uncertain of what the future holds. The only thing she could try to predict was that she would stop King Sombra and close the portal. Because it’s either that or the death of herself/her friends.

And the grieving in her breathing – she’s mourning the loss of herself. She can sense the impending doom.

And of course she doesn’t want to look back. She’s been having such trouble lately looking back at what her life was supposed to be with Celestia. She doesn’t want to look back at what her life could have been with Twilight and the other Rainbooms. But damn, that part about ‘never looking back’, those specific words cut so much deeper since that’s what pains Timber so much. That when everyone leaves for the summer, no matter how close they got to him, they just never look back.

She opened it. Sunset tried to run to the portal and tumbled off the edge. Plummeting, her mind raced to explain the wind whipping around her. Her vision cleared to see the counselling office door frame suspended in isolation above her dress shoes and shrinking up and away. Screaming in someone else’s voice, Sunset anticipated a crushing splatting pain unlike any she’d ever survived. She twisted and grasped at empty air. The fall lasted so much longer than she could stand and happened so much faster than she could think.

Love this too. It caught me so off guard, but then that description of it all made me visualize it so well. It reminds us that Sunset’s still in Solstice’s body. She didn’t go get changed at Rarity’s yet, and it’s someone else’s voice. But Bevin’s art here makes it so that we get to see Sunset enduring this. We get to see these two sides – the actual body she’s in and her real soul. We don’t see her face – we don’t’ see her identity, because she doesn’t know who she is. This whole story is very much a loss and regaining of identity, and all these title cards never show her without an identity crisis going on, so we never see just her, with her real face. And the way her hair is drawn, like a ball of fire with tongues of flame still reaching up. The Phoenix may yet rise again.

Her body hit the ground and the sound echoed in the high chambers around her. The closest comparison she could make was the sound of someone slamming the dumpster door in the alley outside her apartment.

A great comparison! Recognizable to most people, but in Sunset’s context, it’s relatable. She might be thinking of herself as trash, as negative self-talk often does to us. And since she’s trash, she’s just waiting for the garbage people to take her out. It also makes me realize that her beating the trashcans outside her apartment would also be a metaphor for how she beats herself up all the time. That and the realization that she probably vandalized those cans so bad they had to replace them with a dumpster lmao.

Where was the earth-shattering ka-boom?

This fuckin’ line. Just can’t help but smirk at that XD

Standing, Sunset screamed when she found two large, leathery, batlike wings extending from new holes in her leather jacket. Red, like they’d been badly burned.

Ayyy. The demon aspect of herself is now part of her ‘look’! The security blanket is now an insecurity blanket! And also red and burned, like they’d flown too close to the Sun.

A sense of doom pressed down on her. Equestria… my friends… they’re all in danger now. I put them in danger. I’m dangerous—No, stop it, that isn’t helping. I have to… I have to create a counter-spell to whatever fear magic he cursed on me. How do I do that from inside the curse?

Glad to know she’s catching herself in her catastrophizing and the negative self-talk.

Looking around, she was met with great rocky chambers. The cool, sealed-in air this far under the earth made her lungs feel snug in her chest, as if they’d gotten stuck in a narrow passageway. The most she could hear was the dripping of water from great hanging stalactites to their stalagmite brethren below: drool off the chops of a snaggle-toothed beast immortalized mid-bite Only the occasional far off echo reached her, and by the time it got to her, she couldn’t tell who or what could have made those noises. All else was lost to darkness.

We bring it back to that gaping maw from the last chapter. Previously ready to slam shut, now frozen here… for now.

Very much enjoying this prose here as well. The situation itself makes it feel like the traditional hell, being literally beneath the earth, and is probably among those notions of what Sunset imagines it to be, except there is no heat. Not yet I suppose. Sunset herself being filled with a fire, both figurative and literal in the magical sense. What would be hell for a fire creature? Someplace cold, where there is little oxygen to feed off of, where there’s water, and where she can be snuffed out in an instant when the maw slams shut. And of course, there’s those final bits. That unsettling feeling where the mind plays tricks on you. Who or what else could or would be down here? Is it worse to know you’re alone? Or to know that you’re not alone? And of course, the all-consuming darkness – where no light can penetrate.

She struggled, claustrophobia setting in. Don’t be scared! Stop! You’re letting him win!

Okay Ms. Only-Thing-To-Fear-is-Fear-Itself, ya got claustrophobia. No wonder she’s afraid of all these beasts able to clamp their jaws down shut on her.

The claustrophobia is also a symptom of her fear of being trapped and tied down. She likes the feeling of power, because with that comes freedom. That's the essence of what she wants, but she's afraid of it when it's within reach. Holding any sort of power in Equestria is complicated because it would be tied to your cutie mark and destiny and all that. Not necessarily freedom for Sunset, but perhaps as close to it as you’ll get with all those resources behind you. The freedom that she gets in the human world is different. It’s not attached to fate or power in the same way as in Equestria. The connection between freedom and power shows that she’s afraid of others having power over her, leading to this claustrophobia where she’s not strong or has power enough to free herself. She doesn’t want to give information about herself to Solstice, even for therapy, because it requires giving him the power to destroy her.

“Whisper a dangerous secret to someone you care about. Now they have the power to destroy you, but they won't. This is what love is.” – Welcome to Night Vale

Or at least, love by one person’s perspective.

And someone reminded me she didn’t like hospitals. Something about the power of life and death in the hands of some random person you don’t know? Yeesh.

Unrelated, but I was thinking about how Sunset carries the weight of the sun on her shoulders. At first I thought of it as a variation of her carrying the weight of the world, purely for that reason that it ponyfies it and makes it clear she's taking on a role to support Celestia (and take her place despite Sunny believing it was to rule next to her).

But calling it that - weight of the sun - led me to reconsider it as truly contextual and not just a saying.

Because ultimately, that's what Sunset is doing to Twilight.

It's her sun now, that she wants Twilight to carry the weight of. Sunset never told Twilight that she wanted her to carry on leadership of the Rainbooms in her stead. With Princess Celestia retiring, the very idea that her pupils were being groomed to actually take over the throne instead of leading beside her would lead SciTwi to undergo some of the same problems.

While for Princess Twilight, Princess Celestia has been there to help her understand her new role, still being available for guidance, Sunset didn't have that. She had an abrupt disruption to her upbringing, suddenly lacking a mentor when all her life she had mentors.

With SciTwi, it might go any direction. Sunset was going to leave when things weren't settled between SciTwi and Timber, and even though she has Principal Celestia and her friends. She has no one to consult on magic. So if Sunset’s belief that the magic would leave when she did was false, there’d be problems. Who is she to confide in when you're supposed to lead a team of magic superheroes? No one else has that expertise.

“There is no escape,” a new voice told her. “No solace or new worlds. No refuge. Nowhere left to run.”

Whoops! Those plans are down the drain. No emotional escape.

Princess Luna emerged in deep blue robes, just as much of a giantess as her sister beside her. Her eyes burned, too: a pale moonbeam glow. Sunset could hear inversions of the younger princess’s laugh bouncing from far-off rock, a nightmarish sound that haunted her dreams as a foal.

I suppose being raised to fear NMM really fucks you up, huh? Must be a part of it to truly believe you’ll need to wage war one with her one day.

My friends are in more danger the longer I’m here. Sunset gripped her hands into fists and assumed a battle-ready stance. “I know you’re not real. You can’t scare me. I’m not weak.

And here’s that bit about her claiming she’s not weak. To be weak is to lack power. And she’s afraid of lacking power enough to save her friends. But she’s afraid of it taking herself over too.

“Your strength has no bearing here. You have no fights left to win or lose, runaway,” Princess Twilight’s voice apologized. She, too, came out of the darkness with eyes lit by harmonic light, but unlike the others, she stood in mourning by a large hourglass engraved with Sunset’s full name. The sand had long since stopped its fall, still. At rest. “Your destiny ran its course. This is your destination. You’ve reached your Time’s End.”

That second sentence – it’s a noun of course. Princess Twi’s calling her a runaway. But having it preceded by the talk of fighting also makes it sound like an accusation. Sunset’s faced a fight she’s struggled to win, a fight against a lack of fate, and against her role in the world for having brought magic here. She’s a runaway for having run from Celestia, and a runaway for wanting to leave the human world again. She didn’t win or lose because she wasn’t going to stay and fight. She’d rather run than risk losing. Risk being seen as weak and powerless. Risk being trapped. Her power is also found in her friends, who aren’t here :c

Shaking her head took more effort than she thought it should. The energy she’d normally have in excess, renewed each night by sleep and each day by the joys of life with her friends, was running low. Rigor mortis stiffened her cold body. “No…”

And here, it describes how she literally found energy, which could become strength and power, in her friends. She found it in Celestia too, in some way or another, but she left and lost that feeling. And of course, it made her feel powerless in the human world.

“N-no, my body’s still up there,” Sunset said, choking, shivering. The heat in her bones drained. “A demon stole my body, he’s using it to⁠—” “Shhh…” Princess Celestia bent a wing down to cup Sunset’s cheek, almost cooing. “What you want to go back to doesn’t belong to you anymore. Your body is an instrument now, just not yours. The ruined coronation? The lost lives? The prison sentence in the castle dungeons? That, too, is destined.”

It really all works too well to have the Fates here ‘stealing’ the Princesses bodies, when earlier everyone was just accidentally swapping. And yet, Princess Fate Celestia here is outright telling her what does and doesn’t belong to her and everyone else. That sentence about ‘what you want to go back to doesn’t belong to you anymore’ is just the cherry on top. Of course she’s not talking about Sunset’s body entirely. She’s talking about everything else. Her role as heir, her choice to leave the human world thus resulting in her not having a say about anything that goes on there anyway.

Straightening, Princess Celestia smiled down at her. “Oh, little sun, no. Bodies are earthly things. Your soul’s time has ended.”

Body and soil are one, rather than body and soul. And that is evident here, as throughout the story.

Shaking her head, Sunset trembled in her refrigerated body. “... take me back. I want to go back.”

Throughout the text up to this point, Sunset’s inner fire has died out. The coldness of the cave slowly creeping in, her motivation, strength, and power slowly faded like the fireworks, and now she’s feeling refrigerated. Good shit.

“There is no turning back, it’s over now,” the Fate Luna said. “No return.” “No restart,” Fate Twilight said.

No rogue-like dungeon to traverse and keep trying. No extra lives. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200. Your body goes directly to jail. Your soul goes to Tartarus. How do manage to achieve double jail? Somehow, Sunset did it.

“I want my life back. I’m not done yet,” Sunset said, voice pinching her throat. The air was harder to draw.

What’s there to be done? Close the portal? You gave up that life anyway. Fluttershy’ll look after the pets it’ll be fine.

But then, Sunset Shimmer would never graduate with her friends. She’d never shake the principals’ and the counsellor’s hands at the podium, and dammit, what if she never got that second tattoo? What if she never made love to her girlfriend, or watched her win awards and go to college, and what if they would’ve gotten married?

She’d never get to meet who her friends would become. She’d never see the world or find her purpose in it. Or make a family. Or go back home, and call it that, and tell Princess Celestia everything that went without saying between them because what if it didn’t go without saying? What if she could’ve had a mom? What if she had a family?

Oh right, all that. All her dreams died too.

Being presented with something that takes away all this choice and opportunity, making you realize that you will no longer have that option, is sometimes the wake-up call you need to realize what you want, and that there’s other things holding you back from actually wanting it to be reality. I’m guilty of this. Nothing like the decision being made for you to make you feel like you lose agency and actually want it.

…

Goddamnit.

I just had a horrifying revelation.

I’m a fuckin’ cat.

Do you want to go out? YES!

Actually no I want to come back in.

NO WAIT I WANT TO GO OUTSIDE!

Oh right, we were talking about Sunset.

YEAH SO Sunset wanting to shake the principals’ and Solstice’s hand (you need to give that back first, silly!) solidifies her positive opinion of him! But also, how all her hopes and dreams grow from the near term to the far future. Those things that she actually wants to achieve and make happen – she wants to make Luna, Celestia, and Solstice proud. She wants to get a little something for herself that she can also be proud of in that tattoo, and make love to Twi. She has some immediate goals and goals she can reach with a little hard work and effort. And it snowballs from the former to the latter. How so much of it is rooted in those relationships she was just about to abandon.

And it admits all the things she never admitted she wanted. Because it went without saying, didn’t it? It was assumed. But if she couldn’t admit it to herself, could it have really gone without saying? Because it wasn’t clear until now, especially since she was willing to give it all up.

They saw everything. At first, slow and in order, then at a terrible speed, the noises blaring all at once in the caverns around her.

The sound of it reminded her of every voice she’d heard when Flash projected her feelings onto the school, and in return, she heard everyone’s thoughts. Loud, complex, and incomprehensible.

Funny that this particular memory is included here. I wonder what it means specifically to have it in this chapter and not anywhere else ;)

Also funny that she encountered this and was presented with such, even though it was incomprehensible. It’s an indication of what the Fates know. And she’s afraid of their judgement. Just as it was when this occurred at the beginning of the story. She was afraid of everyone’s judgement.

The only noise she could pick out beneath it all was a steady booming thud. A heartbeat.

She’s still alive. Her body’s still alive.

Then, a final memory: collapsing onto the floor of the counselling office in the body of Solstice Shiver, the snow and cold avalanching onto her until she shut her eyes and⁠— Darkness. Quiet.

Aaaand not anymore…

I can see this being part of her foalhood  fears that led her to Celestia – the loneliness and fear of being alone with her thoughts.

Luna’s nightmare laugh echoed around her and Sunset trembled out in the open.

And then bringing it all back with her Luna as Nightmare Moon, that which she feared as a child and growing up in order to actually win that war. The one who would not have been gentle in her judgement.

“Interesting...” the Fate Princess Celestia hummed, like a counsellor writing notes. “This was not the End designed for you.”

Just like her last living experience. It presents Celestia – the goodness projected onto her, and how she feels about Solstice being a good guy. Her attitude towards counselling has definitely changed. And also how delving deep into someone’s mind might feel. She did have the idea that going to counselling would mean being so judged by said counsellor that she’d be thrown in jail. And here it is manifesting, only worse.

The Fate masked as Princess Luna angled her head strangely. “Disturbing,” she agreed. “Unseen. Unknown.”

The unknown that follows darkness of the night~

“I see... many unknowns,” the Fate Princess Twilight gasped. “No future! No path! A destiny forsaken!”

Not reassuring for someone used to having a destiny. But at least a little bit reassuring to know that even the Fates themselves don’t know what the fuck is up with Sunset, and it’s not her fault if she doesn’t know either.

“No matter,” Princess Celestia told them, a wing raised. “Judgement has been passed. Sunset Shimmer, for your cruelty, pride, wrath, hunger for power and desire to rule the world, and the burdens wrought on those around you by your hand, your true nature is… wicked. You are sentenced to the Pits of Tartarus.”

And here, despite Celestia being the sorrowful good cop, is the one to list out her crimes and sentencing. Sunset’s true fear of letting down the one she looks up to the most.

Princess Luna bent her neck the other way, summoning more of that laughter. “I sense… an empathetic heart. Kindness, humility, understanding. Relinquished power. Burdens lifted. Intentions good and true. Love for others and self-sacrifice. Hero.” She righted her head. “Your true nature is… righteous. Elysium awaits your arrival.”

And then Fate!Luna here, having been the bad cop is saying that Sunset deserves paradise and has been redeemed. Not what you want, but really, its what you need – to hear from someone who’s also been through it all, to validate you and say you’re decent, from Redeemed Luna.

“So… which is it?” Sunset looked above and below her, at clouds and flames, her mind racing. “What am I?” All eyes cast towards Princess Twilight.

Asphodel for ye! Not great, not terrible.

The Fate stalked the ground, pacing. Her hoofsteps clacked and the caverns’ echoic acoustics spoke legends of their importance. Princess Twilight paced in one direction, then the other. “I see fear and... complexity. I sense a fate escaped, a mark forgotten. I see suffering caused, but also reform and healing. I see a world of undiscovered purpose. Young powder kegs, fuses lit by otherworldly magic. And I see… a world never meant for this. No fates written! No Sunset Shimmer! Invented portals! Invented lives!” Princess Twilight buried her head in her hooves. “I sense… no resolution.”

Regarding the ‘mark forgotten’… Sunset did get a tattoo of Celestia’s cutie mark, and not her own. Even though she may have considered getting a second tattoo. Could that be her own cutie mark? She has it on her clothes, but it’s part of her ‘look’. She could set that aside at any time. She can set aside ‘who she is’ at any time.

Funny how Fate!Celestia mentions hunger for power and desire to rule the world. Celestia was the one who led her on that path. And then Luna emphasizes power relinquished. Giving all that (and her later evil high school version) up. Fate!Twilight describes it as fate escaped. It was her fate to rule Equestria, and have all that power. It was her fate to do so because she continued to try to achieve it in the human world, but eventually abandoned that part of herself, and her desire for power and fate with it. It makes sense given that the Fates were essentially supposed to outline everyone’s fate, and that would have been weaved into a pony’s cutie mark. The fact that Sunset went into the human world where that isn’t a thing in the same way means they don’t have the bearing on Sunset’s ultimate fate as they believed they would. It’s just on her jacket. She can choose to put it on, or take it off. To take on that destiny, or not.

“I’m righteous and wicked. I’ve got the potential for both!” Sunset laughed in her chains. She let the sound of it fill the chambers at Time’s End. “I am both. An angel, a demon, a bad girl, a best friend—and I fuck up. A lot. I’m stubborn, I’m scared of the dark inside myself and people knowing it's there, and I don’t know how to deal with my feelings even after helping everyone else with theirs. And I also do a lot of good! I’m a little kinder, more empathetic, and more loving every day.” A smile pushed upon her lips. “But, my friends know all that already.”

*sob* YOU GO GIRL

Sunset smirked. “Yeah, but... that’s the life I chose. I’m not the pony destined to save Equestria and maybe... that’s… maybe that’s okay.” Floating in a chamber at the end of time never felt so wide open. Scarily empty, but also free. One of those maybe things. “I can go my own way. I’m a regular old unicorn not destined for anything anymore. I’m a mess of contradictions and accidents and choices I get to make! That’s what makes me so cool,” she said, letting them in on a secret. Her secret weapon. “I’m human, too.”

YEEAAAAAH

And now, the formerly claustrophobic cave, still a chamber (both a room and a place of judgment!), now feels open and free! And the secret weapon being that’s what it’s like being human, and she’s accepting that she has this human side, along with all that comes with it <3

Rebelling against the Fates, Sunset broke the chains holding her back. She flipped them off while she was at it. A very human thing to do, she decided. The Fates did not appreciate that very human gesture.