Fanfic / The Lost Element

Welcome back, old friend.

"That is why you are here, James. To restore this world’s view of humans to a positive level so we can slowly reintroduce humanity to this land. I have so many good memories of those days and I want to see Equestria finally be worthy of its name once more."

— Celestia to the human protagonist

The Lost Element is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic written by longtime fanfic writer XD-385, also known as Humanity on Fimfiction.net. Having been in development since July of 2011, it is easily one of the longest running fanfics in the Friendship is Magic fandom as well as being one of the biggest, at over three million words as of January 2023, including the prequel. It is notable for being written entirely in the first person perspective, mostly from the eyes of the human protagonist, while occasionally even swapping to different perspectives such as the Mane Six.

The story follows the escapades of the first human to ever set foot in Equestria, an ordinary man from Earth, as told from his eyes. Upon entering Ponyville, he steadily overcomes the initial shock of being suddenly thrust into an alien and awkward world with the Mane Six giving him a warm welcome and ultimately becoming his lifeline in Equestria. However, things are not as they seem as it is soon discovered that his arrival in the world of Equestria is not a coincidence and is merely the first step of a much larger project even as troubles loom on the horizon from old threats from the world's distant past.

While the story focuses heavily on slice of life and romance along with action for the main plotline of the current story arc, The Lost Element contains many different genres ranging from comedy, tragedy, adventure, and even horror. The story stays true to the original message of the show itself more often than not while most characters stay true to their original depictions. An underlying theme of the story is the examination of the concept of humanity itself with each story arc subtly focusing on different aspects of the topic. The story is also known for occasional shoutouts to various series and other projects in the fandom ranging from popular to obscure.

Along with the main story, The Lost Element has generated a number of side stories, alternate endings, a sequel, and even a prequel.

• The Lost Element: The central story of the series.
• Musings of a Fallen Princess: An emotional retelling of certain events from the eyes of Nightmare Moon following the events of her defeat at the start of Friendship is Magic and her reformation in The Lost Element.
• The Price of Failure: An alternate bad ending of the Mortal Chaos story arc, dealing with the death of the protagonist and the reactions and aftermath told from the eyes of the Mane Six and many others. Heavy stuff, so bring a handkerchief.
• Dreams of the Heart: A spinoff of tragic romance told from the perspective of Nightmare Moon taking place behind the scenes of the entire series. On hiatus since 2014, the story resumed in March of 2023.
• Return of Humanity: Sequel to The Lost Element. Obviously on hiatus until the former's completion.
• Before Time Began to Flow: Very distant prequel to The Lost Element detailing the very beginning of the world from the eyes of its first ruler and his subsequent fall from grace and the origins of Equestria's most infamous villains.
• Taming a Tempest: A very distant spin-off to The Lost Element and its sequel detailing a growing relationship with James and Tempest Shadow, set years after the series has started. Currently only viewable on the author's Fanfiction.net account, readers should proceed with caution due to unavoidable spoilers for any prior entries in the series.

noreallife

---

List of tropes for each story

The Lost Element

• Adaptation Personality Change: The characters of the source material are meticulously kept virtually identical to how they were early on in the first few seasons of the show. Examples of this trope played straight include...
  • Nightmare Moon, instead of being Luna's Superpowered Evil Side, is a separate identity that came to be during the centuries she spent sealed in the moon where she and Luna’s consciousness eventually split. Rather than being truly evil, she is mostly consumed by both envy and Luna's somber desire for appreciation. It is revealed that the events of the MLP FIM pilot merely purged Nightmare Moon from Luna since the Elements of Harmony did not find her evil enough to be worth erasing. She eventually is redeemed and welcomed cautiously yet happily back into the royal family by both Luna and Celestia and takes up the title of "Princess of Dreams" while eventually becoming a very loved ruler. While easily the darkest and most confrontational member of the royal sisters, Nightmare Moon loves her kingdom and aides her sisters admirably in guiding their people.
  • Smolder. While she does show glimmers of her canon snarky personality here and there, Smolder is shown to be very deeply affected by the ritualistic abandonment by her parents that most dragon children end up going through at the onset of adolescence. Gone is her gleeful Deliberate Values Dissonance, now a despondent vagabond trying to find her place in the world and having become quite disillusioned with her people's way of life.
• Affectionate Parody: Many parodies to classic video games tend to show up whenever Button Mash is around. Equestrian Heroes seems to be based around various arcade Beat-em-ups like Golden Axe and Turtles in Time, while other games like Burble Gurgle, Super Norico Bros, Pac-Mac, Templevania, and Hoover's Adventure are blatant parodies of classic NES games the author grew up with.
• All First-Person Narrators Write Like Novelists: The Lost Element and all of its spin-off stories are ALWAYS written from a first-person narrative from various different characters. True to the trope, it has allowed for very immersive and emotional writing. The author has credited adapting this writing style for the gradual improvement of his skills over time.
• An Aesop: “Birds of Paradise” contains one directed towards parents, especially those who may have anger or egotism issues. Failing to control your temper and/or maintaining a healthy sense of humility will inevitably alienate your children in due time.
• Arc Villain: Almost each volume has a central main conflict usually with a particularly dangerous villain becoming central focus.
  • While debatable if there really is a villain in the first volume, Diamond Tiara's almost daily antagonism towards James after he reprimands her for harassing the Cutie Mark Crusaders to the point of forcing him to hide out in the Everfree Forest can be argued as making her the main villain of that arc.
  • Volume 2 - Nightmare Moon
  • Volume 3 - Discord
  • Volume 4 - Averted. The entire volume consists almost exclusively of slice-of-life style narratives.
  • Volume 5 - The "Forgotten" Emperor
• As the Good Book Says...: During a Pensieve Flashback when James witnesses the cataclysmic moment when humanity was all but purged from the world of Equestria, he poignantly quotes the Book of Genesis to note the biblical implications of the Forgotten Emperor’s folly.
  “It was...poetic, in a twisted way. Equestria had always been a proverbial Garden of Eden. And humanity always had a place among its many other creatures. Until the day a mad serpent tempted humanity with a forbidden fruit. The fruit that was always out of reach and could only be grasped by standing atop literally everyone else to reach it. And so they did. Mankind sought to reach that fruit by any means necessary while not even knowing what that fruit was or if it was even sweet and succulent at all, even placing saddles upon their hoofed brothers and sisters to reach it. And for it...they were cast out of the Garden of Eden forever.”
• Author Appeal: Good fathers. Possibly in retaliation for years of a less than ideal relationship with the author’s own father, many characters who happen to be fathers are often portrayed in a very endearing light late into the story with prime candidates being Sky Beak and King Orbash. The former even going so far as to become a wonderfully supportive surrogate father and the latter being openly supportive of James and Celestia’s relationship.
• Author Avatar: James. Sharing the same first name as the author, he has revealed that The Lost Element was spawned by a role-play he had with his first girlfriend over what would happen if he ended up in Equestria. It quickly took on a life of its own once he put it to paper, giving rise to the story with himself as the protagonist.
• Author Filibuster: An infrequent recurring topic is the many failings or downfalls of Earth's human population over the course of history, often during discussions with the human-researching Lyra Heartstrings. It becomes very clear early on that James does not have a high opinion of Earth's people with his earliest responses to Lyra's questions being particularly heavy-handed and bitter. Over the course of the story, his responses become more mellow and less angry as he becomes noticeably more emotionally tired of the subject. The final discussion he has with Lyra even has him ending it by requesting that Lyra cease approaching him with further questions, even going so far to mention in the journal entry telling the chapter's events that just talking about the topic was an extremely unpleasant and draining experience. Along with short discussions popping up in future chapters, it becomes clear that James, and by extension the author due to the story being a Self-Insert Fic, does not hate humanity, but is disillusioned and deeply disappointed in it constantly squandering its vast potential throughout its very long history.
• Author Tract: The overarching and underlying plot and topics of the story tangentially or directly discuss the author's observations on the human condition.
• Berserk Button:
  • Rarity puts a lot of effort into weaving her various attire, but a good way to especially piss her off is to damage her most expensive and extravagant projects. Especially those that are gifts for her friends.
  • In Sudden Death, Discord shows just how much disdain he has for friendship. When offered it, the already exhausted and weakened spirit of chaos manages to throw the Mane Six off of him and break from his restraints in sheer rage. It's not revealed until a few chapters later that he has some depressingly legitimate reasons to never want anything to do with friendship.
• Beware the Nice Ones: James to a T. He is one of the gentlest and most patient people in the story and is not easily angered. But when his buttons are pushed just the right way, he can be exceptionally vicious in his remarks to the point of outright shocking the likes of Prince Blueblood and Jet Set. And may God have mercy on you if you dare take away the people who matter most to him.
  • Carries over from the author, who is exceptionally laid back and patient, but is known to some for being brutally yet honestly harsh and vindictive against those who push his patience to the breaking point.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Being the bold and brash loyal daredevil she is, Rainbow Dash is prone to these.
    • In "A Forest of Sorrows", when she locates James in the Everfree Forest in Froggy Bottom Bog, Rainbow Dash preoccupies the local hydra so James can escape back into the forest.
    • After James slays one of the three Shadowbolts in "Into the Shadows", Rainbow Dash intercepts one of the two remaining Shadowbolts when they gang up on him and proceeds to take them on together as a tag team.
    • Happens again in the very next chapter where Rainbow catches up to James as he is being pursued by a rage-blinded Nightmare Moon and briefly takes her on solo. It doesn't work out too well for her that time.
  • The entire Mane Six pulls off a spectacular example during "Sudden Death" when the Elements of Harmony project them into James' mind and shield him from a lethal attack from the curse that is plaguing him only to help him find the will to stand against the curse and fight alongside him.
  • Of all people, Fluttershy comes to James' rescue in "Struggle Between the Pages" when Alpha is crushing him under the Devil Gigas ride armor's foot while channeling Saddle Rager's super power, hitting the hulking mech so damn hard that she knocks it right off its feet before jumping on top of it and pounding the shit out of it for a moment. Up until then, all attacks against it had been useless.
  • Inverted in "Return to Maretropolis" when Hum Drum attempts to rescue James from the comic book's Rogues Gallery. He nearly winds up killed, driving James into a silent rage that gives him the ruthless drive necessary to overwhelm his enemies and get Hum Drum to safety.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Played with for Twilight Sparkle's parents. In "Squawks and Crossbones", it is revealed that Twilight's parents invite her up to Canterlot for a family gathering every two months or so that she is obligated to join. While Night Light suffers from a mild form of OCD, Twilight Velvet's behavior is NOT Played for Laughs as Twilight and even James dread having to spend the evening with her. Shining Armor is revealed to go out of his way to make himself too busy to get called along for these events. James even declares that being abducted by Captain Celaeno and her crew was preferable to spending a day with Twilight's parents.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Happens a lot more than you would expect!
  • Pinkie Pie obviously does it more than most, from "riding the author's word processor's scroll bar down a few pages" to checking the story tags on The Lost Element's Fimfiction page to correctly identifying what version of Microsoft Windows the author is using, which font is being used, what page they are on, what kind of laptop he is using, and even the desktop background image! The latter even impressed DEADPOOL.
  • James himself leans into this during Mortal Chaos while consumed with despair-fueled madness. He proceeds to perform his own reenactment of Deadpool's slap skit from the 2015 video game on an unconscious Discord while showing uncanny awareness of the readers. He even called out one unfortunate reader who was looking up porn at one time. Was it you?
  James:"THAT’S to check if the reader is still scrolling down to see what I say next! THAT’S to jack up the chapter’s word count! THAT’S to see if the readers haven’t chickened out and left yet! THAT’S for all that haters who’re getting pissed off reading this! THAT’S for all the hot pegasisters who’re reading this! Hey, be sure to comment! THAT’S for having more fans than me! THAT’S to see how long I can pad out this scene! And finally… THAT’S for making me add almost two whole extra pages to one of the best Human in Equestria stories on the Internet!”
  • Deadpool himself obviously does this during his brief cameo in the Power Pony themed chapter "Project H" (comic books have always been his bread and butter after all) pointing out the contents of one reader's dinner from the previous night and complaining about the infamous fallout from the Superman VS Goku Death Battles.
• Breather Episode: More like Breather Volume. The entirety of Volume 4 consists of slice of life scenarios, which makes for a welcome relief after the far heavier Volume 3. The only action themed chapters are those involving the Project H comic book series, but the nature of the setting results in it having no real impact on the story at large.
  • An example of a Breather Arc is the Capricorn Island arc set just after the start of Volume 5. The entire scenario is basically a vacation for James and Celestia in the homeland of the hippogriffs, which is portrayed as an idyllic slice of paradise even by Equestria’s standards.
• Call-Back: A number of points in the story bring up events that occurred in earlier episodes in the show.
  • A retroactive example occurs in Lifting the Illusion. After a successful comeback performance in Ponyville after having gone to great lengths to turn her image around, Trixie privately invites James to share a drink with her and thanks him for his advice. Along with this, she admits that had she not crossed paths with him, Trixie admits she is fearful that her desperation might have eventually driven her to do something dark. Also played straight as Trixie is shown having suffered from the fallout of her actions during Boast Busters.
  • In the Volume 2 finale, Pinkie Pie brings out her welcoming wagon and gives James a "proper" welcome to Ponyville after having completely forgotten to do so when he showed up a full year earlier on that exact day. (This was due to the first chapter of The Lost Element having been written in July 2011, before Season 2 and the above-mentioned episode even aired.)
  • Donut Joe's "Donutopia" creation seems to have become a big hit with the royal guards, who frequently purchase one from his parlor.
  • A particularly extreme case of this trope occurs in A Stick in the Maud. In a much earlier chapter, Pinkie Pie mentions to herself the name "Zipzee" like a voice in her head. It is revealed that Zipzee herself really is a voice in Pinkie Pie's head. Or rather Zipzee the MLP G3 Breezy, who escapes from Pinkie's head and tries to fly away while also mentioning Wisteria, the main lead of the G3 special "Princess Promenade". When confronted over exactly who Zipzee is by Maud, Pinkie Pie panics by warning her sister that she does not want to know "what came before" and even mentions G3.5 and the infamous Newborn Cuties series and Scootaloo's notoriously dimwitted characterization. (The connection between Pinkie Pie and Zipzee? They are both voiced by Andrea Libman and have similar tone and pitch.)
  Pinkie Pie: "Don't ask! You really don't need to know! You don't want to know! Nopony should know about what came before, especially G3.5! And don't even get me started on the Newborn Cuties! If Scootaloo ever found out about it, she'd hang herself!"
  • Rainbow Dash ends up almost using the exact same love poison on James (thinking it was just a love potion) that the Cutie Mark Crusaders used on Cheerilee and Big Macintosh during Hearts and Hooves Day. She can't bring herself to go through with it and smacks it out of his hand before he can drink it.
  • In "Lifting the Illusion", Celestia, Luna, and Nightmare Moon mess with Mr. and Mrs. Cake as they once again become overly catering with providing tea, ultimately culminating in the two bonking their heads together while trying to fill a teacup simultaneously.
  • In the first Halloween themed chapter Night of the Laughing Dead, Twilight Sparkle and Spike dress up in very peculiar outfits that look a bit too familiar...
  • In "A Day with a Derp", Rainbow Dash puts James through the same cheering practice that she put Fluttershy before the Best Young Flyers Competition. He deliberately underperforms until the last bit where he pulls a megaphone out that Pinkie Pie had slipped him and shrieks into it to send Rainbow flying. But not before pausing a moment to let Rainbow Dash process what is about to happen.
  • During "Disappearance", Rainbow Dash likens James' running away from Ponyville to Applejack's actions during The Last Roundup. Applejack is unsurprisingly not happy to be reminded of her poor decisions from back then, even admitting that James would have likely called her out on being extremely childish had he been present to witness it. (The author has gone on record saying that the episode's ending rubbed him the wrong way in a very bad way, being the first episode he never had interest in revisiting.)
  • More than once, James finds Derpy Hooves in Fluttershy's chicken coop.
  • The private fashion show in "They Came From the Pages" where the Mane Six and Spike show off their Power Pony costumes one after the other strongly brings to mind the climax of Suited for Success.
  • Applebuck Season is sometimes mentioned during chapters that take place during late summer since it is when Sweet Apple Acres is most active.
  • The Ticket Master is referenced early on when Spike suddenly receives a scroll from Celestia during lunch with Twilight and James, which includes an invitation for Twilight, her friends, and James along with a ticket for each of them. Spike is well aware to keep quiet to avoid exciting everyone nearby with the mention of the tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala.
  • The eventual Grand Galloping Gala finally happens in "A Refined Evening" with the Mane Six having learned from their previous attendance and having a better idea of how to enjoy themselves the second time around. Except for Pinkie Pie, that is.
  • Another retroactive example is revealed to have occurred during James' trip to Capricorn Island, where Fluttershy hints that the events of Too Many Pinkie Pies happened while he was away.
  • In a rare acknowledgement of the IDW comic book series, Shining Armor and Cadence reveal to James their earliest days of knowing each other in high school during "Guys Night Out", referencing the comics expanding on their past as the most popular girl in school and a stereotypical dork.
  • "Return to Maretropolis" involves many elements taken from the IDW Annual 2014 issue, having James meet up with the real Power Ponies and eventually squaring off with the series' Rogues Gallery.
• Character Development: At the start of the story, James is very visibly uneasy, lost, and constantly anxious about finding himself suddenly put in an alien world full of cute pastel ponies. (As any adult before the rise of MLP FIM can tell you, being exposed to such cutie kiddie stuff is generally uncomfortable for adults by default) Over the next few days after being given a warm welcome by the Mane Six as a result of Pinkie Pie throwing him a customary welcoming party, he becomes less wary and more curious of the new world he is in. And by the start of the second volume at chapter 14, he is completely at home in this new world and regards everything one could find odd about Equestria in stride. Things just keep going up from there. For the most part.
• Chekhov's Gunman: With the history of humanity's legacy in Equestria being a closely guarded secret, Celestia finally decides to reveal some details regarding the final emperor of the human race's homeland at the start of Volume 3. 48 chapters and six years down the line, the emperor is revealed to still be alive and makes his presence known by declaring war on Equestria.
• Classical Antihero: James definitely starts out as one and maintains shades of this trope throughout the entire story. He is constantly aware of his lack of experience with the enchanted armor and weaponry provided to him by the royal sisters and occasionally meets defeat at the hands of more powerful and experienced fighters, being completely overwhelmed by a rage-blinded Nightmare Moon at the climax of Volume 2's main arc and being forced to heel by Queen Novo in their first sparring session. No matter how much experience he gains, he never goes into a fight recklessly, especially against opponents he has never faced before. Downplayed during his excursions into the Project H comic book world, where he is much more familiar with the abilities of the robotic body he comes to inhabit and has nothing to fear in the long term due to these events being consequence free escapist adventures.
• Comically Missing the Point: During A Stick in the Maud, Rainbow Dash greets Maud Pie by offering her a set of anal beads made of rocks in an attempt to mess with her while the rest of her friends look on in shock and horror. Maud, being as obsessed with rocks as always, takes the gift before claiming afterward that she thinks it is "pet rocks on a leash". Rainbow Dash's response to Maud taking the gift like she knew what it really was seals the deal.
  Maud: *takes rock anal beads* "I've been looking for one of these for a long time. Thanks."
  Rainbow: "No prob... Wait... You... Uh... Buh... Wha... Huh?!"
• Cool Helmet: The helmet of James' enchanted winged armor. Along with being designed to compliment the armor itself as part of the set, it also holds the Element of Humanity much like the golden jewelry that holds the Elements of Harmony. This renders it tougher than the rest of the armor, making it extremely resistant to damage. To top it off, it produces an intangible plume from the backside when worn that is a fusion of the features of Celestia and Luna's manes.
• Cool Sword: The Celestial Sword. Along with the crossguard bearing the appearance of Celestia's cutie mark, the blade is purest white, never dulls, and glows in areas with low or no natural light, getting brighter as its surroundings get darker. While this does make for a poor stealth weapon, its blade is sharp enough to cleave through most materials unhindered and can be amped up by setting the blade on fire. It is also effective against the undead, as any such creature who is in contact with the blade for more than a few seconds will suddenly ignite.
• Creator Thumbprint: Those familiar with the author’s history in writing may notice a few recurring aspects.
  • Bird motifs and angelic archetypes. Even years before he joined the ranks of the Brony fandom, some of the author’s biggest works frequently used these traits especially in regards to the protagonists. These thumbprints are reflected in James adopting a pet dove, his cutie mark and the Element of Humanity bearing the visage of birds, the hippogriffs being prominent in a subplot built around their homeland, and shown in the enchanted armor James periodically wears sporting a pair of large white angelic wings.
  • A consistent lack of Obligatory Swearing, regardless of how mature the content becomes. The author has a policy regarding the use of profanity. If it’s never present in the source material, it is never spoken by the characters in his writings.
• Crossover: Zigzags between cameos and Character Overlap in regards to some of James' Portal Book adventures and the occasional dream fight, where Celestia, Luna, and Nightmare Moon accompany James through a simulated combat situation during his dreams as a training session for the entire lot of them. The dream fights consist of battles against boss characters from various video games James likely played himself during his time on Earth.
  • The first example puts James and the royal sisters through the final stretch of Kirby's Return to Dream Land, facing off against the Lor Starcutter and finally Magolor before facing off against Magolor Soul EX. Instead of being confined to a 2-dimensional plane, they have to contend with just how versatile and dangerous their enemies are when faced in a situation not too far removed from reality.
  • The second example involves the final boss of Mega Man Zero 3, where James ones again assumes the guise of Project H to face off against the massive form of Omega's armored body, fully utilizing 3-dimensional space to show just what the massive mecha is capable of, followed by a frantic faceoff against the true Omega in James' first battle against another humanoid opponent.
  • The third dream fight pits the four of them against Xemnas at the climax of Kingdom Hearts II. While the first phase is carried out without incident, Xemnas begins to speak to James and the royal sisters in ways that he should not during the second phase, and by the third phase directly speaks to the four of them with full self-awareness. True to character, Xemnas reveals that he is aware the world he is in, including himself, are the product of a dream, and seeks to escape the realm of dreams to acquire any magical powers for himself from Equestria. Whether he ever actually could have succeeded, Xemnas proves to be a nightmare of an opponent to face for the team when neither have access to Reaction Commands.
• Dare to Be Badass: When the Forgotten Emperor announces his return with the intention to invade and conquer Equestria, the royal sisters themselves cannot bring themselves to call their people to action due to war simply not being in the nature of the people of Equestria. When James departs first to face the incoming threat, followed closely by Nightmare Moon, his actions inspire the royal guard with Shining Armor declaring that they are willing to face the threat. This sets off a chain reaction that results in the Mane Six also volunteering before the royal sisters finally send out the call to begin preparing for war.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • By the time James first meets Ember, Dragon Lord Torch has been dead for five years after having officially passed the title onto his daughter.
  • In a gamble gone horribly wrong that turns into a protracted battle of emotional attrition, Discord's immortal life is finally brought to an end. But in this case, it's exactly what he had wanted all along.
  • Starlight Glimmer is killed off behind the scenes at the hooves of Nightmare Moon when the royal guard come knocking at her village doors.
• Doomy Dooms of Doom: Played with in Project H. When Dr. Luminous warns James (having taken on the role of Project H) of the Mane-iac's Hairspray Ray of Doom, he rightfully busts out laughing at the absurdity of it and outright mocks it. Does not help that it proves to be completely useless when used on robots. James then proceeds to literally have it blow up in the Mane-iac's face, shooting the giant canister to have it rupture and paralyze her mooks with its contents, turning their own weapon on them.
  James: "Of Doom?! Oh, come on, doc! How unsubtle can you get with naming something like that?! This isn't the Silver Age of comic books, right?! Why not the Hairspray Ray of Calamity?! Or maybe the Hairspray Shower of the Apocalypse?!"
• Doorstopper: As of 2020, The Lost Element alone clocks in at over 2 million words. That is an average of 500 words per page, listing the story of more than four thousand pages long. Come January 2023, The Lost Element has surpassed Diaries of a Madman in total word count to become the longest “Human in Equestria” fanfic in the MLP fandom.
• Dream Weaver: Luna and, by extension, Nightmare Moon are able to enter the dreams of others and are able to freely alter and change the environment, from recreating events and even fictional worlds from the dreamer's memory and bring other dreaming people into the dream for a shared dream experience or even directly communicate with close associates.
• Driving Question: It was implied early on that humanity once had a presence in Equestria, but had vanished without a trace eons ago. Five volumes and 70+ chapters in, the truth comes out when the last emperor of Equestria's human population reveals himself to be alive and declares war on Equestria.
• Even Evil Has Standards: In "Return to Maretropolis", High Heel, Pharaoh Phetlock, Long Face, Shadowmane, and Smudge all refuse to harm Hum Drum, the Power Ponies' child sidekick, when he tries to rescue James from a super-powered beatdown. They attempt to talk the Mane-iac out of hurting him, who in contrast happily blasts Hum Drum clean through durable glass and into a wall with killing intent. After James finishes his resulting frightening rage-fueled rampage, all under the assumption Hum Drum had died either from the Mane-iac's initial blow or the following carnage, he finds out instead that Pharaoh Phetlock had beforehand ordered one of his mummy minions to carry away Hum Drum's unconscious body and protect him from further harm: A move that most likely saved his life.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Mistress Mare-velous and Hum Drum are only known by their superhero titles, even to the rest of the Power Ponies.
  • Eventually averted with Mistress Mare-velous towards the end of "Return to Maretropolis", where she reveals her true name to James/Hunter out of trust and solidarity. Fortuna Duke, which is a play on the alias of D.C. Comics' Wonder Woman, who Mare-velous is partially based on.
• Expy: In the Project H subplot chapters of Volume 4, there are a number of settings and characters in the comic book world that are blatantly based off of characters from the Mega Man X series, the author's self-confessed favorite video game series which inspired him to create said subplot as an homage.
  • The titular Project H (renamed Hunter in issues following the pilot) is clearly modeled after Mega Man X himself along with a few traits from Zero thrown in for good measure. Similar traits and functions include the H-Buster (an X-buster clone complete with rapidfire, charge shot, and concentrated beam settings), a plasma saber weapon, Variable Weapon System capable of copying powers from biological targets, and rocket flight similar to X's Falcon Armor. Not to mention like many of X's forms, he just looks badass.
  • Alpha, an alicorn-type robot, serves as an expy of the main villain of the Mega Man X series, Sigma. Both names are taken from the Greek Alphabet and have similar motives for turning on their creators. In Alpha's case, he feels disdain towards Equestria's people for their lack of focus on technological progress and seeks to erase all organic life to create an empire of machines, even by spreading a virus to corrupt other robots into killing machines. This is taken even further in "The Sentinel and the Showstopper" where Alpha's body abandons its quadruped form and takes on a hulking humanoid form that bears an uncanny resemblance to many of Sigma's bodies and even upon defeat, the gaseous form of the Alpha Virus rises from Alpha's mangled remains.
  • Alpha also shows some traits of recurring villain Vile, such as near the climax of his debut where he pilots a nigh-indestructible suit of ride armor that is greatly inspired by many of those used by Vile himself.
  • Doctor Luminous, clearly a play on the famous Dr. Light. While Light is long dead and reduced to a holographic ghost in the X series, Luminous is alive and well and serves as a close friend and supporting character to Project H from within his lab. His appearance is based on a number of renditions of a younger Dr. Thomas Light.
  • "The Sentinel and the Showstopper" introduces Aries and Corvus, parodies of Fefnir and Phantom respectively from the Mega Man Zero series, who are a Blood Knight equipped with shoulder-mounted incendiary cannons and a silent and speedy Cyber Ninja. The end of their encounter has Alpha mention a "Orion" and "Aquarius", possibly hinting at expies of Harpuia and Leviathan set to appear at a later date. Come "Heroes of Hopes and Dreams", Orion and Aquarius do indeed make their debuts to complete the full set of homages of the Four Guardians from Mega Man Zero.
• Fandom Nod: The Lost Element is peppered with many references and implementations created by the Brony fandom.
  • Very early on, a subplot involving the characters and setting of Story of the Blanks starts up when James hides out in the Everfree Forest. It ultimately culminates in him eventually returning to it in Volume 2 to get Mitta out of Sunny Town so the curse can be removed from her.
  • Button Mash and his mother become recurring characters after "A Day with a Derp", where James and Derpy Hooves first encounter them at the local arcade and enjoy a game together.
  • In "Project H", as Doctor Luminous goes over his history of robotic creations, one of his earliest creation's description bears an uncanny resemblance to Sweetie Bot.
  • A possible reference to the fanfic "Bittersweet" appears in the chapter "From Bud to Bloom" where James becomes concerned over Pinkie Pie's excessive consumption of sweets. She takes his warnings of diabetes very seriously and runs off to have some bloodwork done to test her for it. Thankfully, she was in no danger of developing it.
  • Doctor Whooves makes an appearance near the end of "A Day with a Derp", visiting Derpy's home and even leaving the TARDIS in her living room. Derpy even sings a song about stars and moons and air balloons.
  • In the final chapter of Volume 1, Scootaloo reveals to James that she is an orphan. In Season 9 of the show, it turned out she really did have parents this whole time, but that's something that was revealed a whole 7 years after the chapter's writing, and the assumption otherwise was a commonly held headcanon prior to that.
  • The names of Celestia and Luna's parents are taken from a lesser known comic detailing the banishment of Nightmare Moon.
  • In "Disappearance", a chainsaw falls out of Fluttershy's sofa while Rarity is levitating it and shaking it out to try and find evidence regarding James' disappearance. Sound familiar?
  • The infamous "Cupcakes" fanfic has been referenced at times, usually to the horror of Rainbow Dash who apparently experienced the events of said story in a nightmare.
  • Lyra Heartstrings has made a hobby of studying myths about humans and takes an interest in James as soon as she sees him, striking up a friendship with him while he answers her questions about humans.
  • With his few cameos, it is revealed that Deadpool is good friends with Pinkie Pie.
  • With her very first appearance, Derpy runs off to find some muffins.
  • Rainbow Dash is often portrayed as being more promiscuous than most other characters in the series and it shows in The Lost Element where she is occasionally prone to lewd remarks and perverted quips. Once she develops romantic feelings for James, she is not afraid to tease him every now and them.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Right after Nightmare Moon's defeat and nearly witnessing James bleed to death from an impalement wound he took for her, Rainbow Dash becomes noticeably less willing to let him out of her sight and admits to clashing with some new emotions she does not fully understand the following night. At his birthday party, she gives him a copy of Playcolt that contains a page she added herself that features a photo of Rainbow Dash lying invitingly on her bed in such a way that displays her teats. Come "Between Rainbows and Butterflies", it's revealed that Rainbow Dash has fallen in love with James and is even considering using a love potion to win him over. She doesn't go through with it.
  • Early on, James is implied by just about everyone to be the first human to ever exist in Equestria. Several chapters in, Diamond Tiara finds a fishy looking law in a book in the library that she uses to try and blackmail him into returning her cutie mark. Zecora later reveals upon finding out that James is human (after some Poison Joke shenanigans) that her people have told campfire stories painting humans in a very negative light, including hints of betrayal. Luna finally reveals that James is the first step of a human reintroduction project and Celestia reveals to him much later that humans did indeed exist in the far past to the point of having their own empire and were ultimately banished from the world, though the exact details regarding why are a closely guarded secret. Judging by the folktales of the zebras, it was not expected.
  • During his stay on Capricorn Island early on in Volume 5, James discovers a globe of the world of Equestria and sees a vast empty patch of open wilderness situated east of Canterlot with no named landmarks of any sort. The only text on that section of the globe he finds is simply The Empty Plains. Even by the time he returns home, James is still ruminating on the relevance of The Empty Plains' existence.
• Gorgeous Greek: The hippogriffs qualify as Equestria's version of this trope, at least as far as James is concerned. With the architecture of their homeland being reminiscent of the famous white Greek city of Santorini, the hippogriffs have a strong Mediterranean vibe to their culture while being tall, beautiful, and regal creatures in their own right. Taken to the extreme with Queen Novo, who is described by James as being more beautiful than even Celestia.
• Graceful Loser: After a very drawn out and meticulous struggle to come out on top in the Ultimate Game that James had forced him into, Discord, despite having every right to be as frustrated as possible, accepts his defeat and ultimate fate with astounding grace. He goes so far as to claim that after such a spectacular clash that came down to the wire, he could not possibly find a more climatic way for things to end.
  Discord: "Oh yes... Fun times. I haven't had that much fun in far too long. It all came right down to the wire! And in the end...I lost. But what a loss it was! I had so much fun that I simply don't care! Even in defeat, that Ultimate Game certainly lived up to its name! Sooo satisfying! I may have lost, but it was a loss for the history books. I couldn't ask for a more spectacular way to end it all. I will remember this spectacular swan song for eons to come. It was a pleasure. Well, at least at the end, that is."
• Grand Finale: "Finis Omnium" serves as one to the Driving Question behind the entire history of humanity in Equestia and closes the book on the conflict that resulted in their disappearance in the first place.
• Hard Truth Aesop: The Volume 5 finale provides one regarding the adolescent characters in the cast. It is a fallacy to impose the expectations of human psychology and sexuality onto characters who were never human in the first place. When dealing with the rate of mental and sexual maturity regarding nonhuman characters, Suspension of Disbelief is practically required.
• Hidden Depths: Anyone who knows Rainbow Dash well enough knows that she dropped out of flight school as a filly, being able to reach shocking speeds while having no redeeming qualities in anything else. How did she improve all of her weakest links and become the hot shot she is today? She took up pegasus ballet, which requires very precise aerial mobility. While it did improve her flight skills considerably and she even keeps her old tutu in her closet for occasional practice, she tries to pretend it never happened.
• Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: Played for Drama. Understanding the reasons behind the laws of the age of consent, but being thoroughly convinced her heart has made up its mind, Smolder seeks out alternative means to tell James that she loves him in a way that utilizes discretion. Rarity happily provides an answer, teaching Smolder how to say "I love you" in French.
• Homage: The in-universe Project H comic book series is a lovingly crafted homage to the Mega Man X series.
• Humanity's Wake: Equestria has been in this state for very long time. Any and all publically known information about humans is obtained exclusively from legend.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Downplayed. The depiction of James in the series, despite being an Author Avatar, is a more idealized version of the author’s appearance for the sake of a more appealing look in illustrations.
• Innocence Lost: The final chapter of Volume 3 reveals that the royal family of Equestria have long been trying their damnedest to defy this trope for Equestria as a whole, doing everything they can to guide their people responsibly while keeping the risk of outside influences corrupting their peoples' way of life to an absolute minimum.
• Inspiration Nod: The Lost Element incorporates a number of elements developed by the Brony fandom, sometimes even improving upon the source material. Examples include Button Mash and his mother, and the mostly forgotten cult classic Story of the Blanks.
• Instant Armor: 16 chapters in, James is gifted with a suit of enchanted armor that, when not worn, is in a liquid metal state. Coming in contact with it causes the liquid to crawl over the user and solidify into a full suit of plate armor that compliments the wearer perfectly. The armor can be easily melted right off with a specific spell known only to the royal sisters and eventually himself, also repairing any damage it may have incurred next time it is worn. While not quite instant, it sure doesn't take long to put on or take off. Good thing too since putting on or taking off a suit of plate armor is nearly impossible by yourself!
• Interspecies Friendship: Constantly in effect with James. Being the only human in the world means that all friends and companions he ends up getting are anything but human.
• Interspecies Romance: James and Fluttershy develop a relationship. By the end of Volume 3, they are engaged and are expecting their first child. By the end of Volume 4, Rarity has joined them in a de-facto polyamorous relationship.
• Lampshaded the Obscure Reference:
  • During "A Stick in the Maud", James makes a seemingly random comment on Maud's unorthodox interests in games being like roleplaying Gone with the Wind, then claiming that his friends are not supposed to get the joke as they look on in confusion. This is nod to an early 2000s issue of The Boondocks comic strip where Jazmine tells Huey that she wants to roleplay scenes from the movie while Huey is far less enthusiastic about it. Good luck finding it.
  • During "Babies and Buttons", after playing on Button Mash's antique Pong machine while foalsitting him, James passively compares it to the "Brown Box". The Brown Box was created by video gaming pioneer Ralph Baer as a homemade video game console that served as the prototype to the Odyssey, the very first official video game console in history.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In "Return to Maretropolis", the Mane-iac attacks Hum Drum when he shows up to try and help James, very nearly killing him. Moments later, James one-shots her before she can even react, even nonfatally shooting her in the head while she's helpless afterward.
• Long-Runners: With the first chapter being completed in July of 2011 during the hiatus between Seasons 1 and 2, and still ongoing after the show's end 8 years later, The Lost Element is easily one of the longest-running stories in the entire MLP fandom, if not the longest-running.
• Loony Friends Improve Your Personality: Applies heavily to James. A quiet and cautious introvert upon his arrival in Equestria, being surrounded by the more eccentric people of Ponyville and his close corner of friends in the Mane Six gradually causes him to become more open and comfortable around others and really starts to show his true colors.
• Love Epiphany: Rainbow Dash gets hit with this hard right at the end of "Tears of the Moon". With the entire night having doubled as a bonding experience with James, nearly losing him to an attack from Nightmare Moon as he risked his life to defend her leaves Rainbow Dash dealing with feelings of newfound endearment for her friend in ways she cannot understand for a while. With such little experience in the workings of the heart, Rainbow Dash ends up pursuing her feelings on Hearts and Hooves Day to nearly disastrous effect when she attempts to win James over with a love potion.
  • Twilight experiences this as well very early on when James expresses confusion and intrigue over learning of the cloud-walking traits of pegasi, going into an intellectual tirade as he spouts various hypothetical reasons behind them.
  Twilight: “It has nothing to do with your intelligence or your aptitude in a specific field. You think things out and debate things logically… I actually like that in a man.”
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Along with the Celestial Sword, James also wields the Lunar Shield. A hybrid of a tower and kite shield, it is large and indestructible while bearing Luna's cutie mark on the front while also doubling as the Celestial Sword's scabbard. With the use of levitation magic, James has been clever enough to use it as an impromptu battering weapon.
• Magic Knight: In his enchanted winged armor, James wields both a sword and shield while his gauntlets contain the magical energies used by Celestia and Luna, allowing for the use of a very deep spell pool that includes potent elemental magic of fire, ice, lightning, and solar energies.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • James has gotten hit with this hard on several occasions.
    • Twice failing to convince Nightmare Moon to surrender during her initial return in "Tears of the Moon" despite greatly sympathizing with her, James was forced to aid the Mane Six in defeating her not once, but twice in one night. Both times resulted in him being overcome with guilt over seemingly failing to save her. Especially the second time when it seemed she had died right in front of him. She got better.
    • With his memories of "Mortal Chaos" buried, James is left horrified when he learns from Celestia that his means of slaying Discord were exceptionally brutal. Especially after learning that Discord was not always a mad tyrant.
    • After mopping the floor with the Power Pony villains in "Return to Maretropolis" in vengeful rage after seeing the Mane-iac nearly murder Hum Drum, James is left feeling very nearly sick with himself in remorse as he contemplates the fact that at least half of the villains tried to convince the Mane-iac to let the kid go when he showed up and even attempted to surrender. James even goes out of his way to apologize to the broken and terrified Pharaoh Phetlock afterwards when he finds that one of his mummy minions had been keeping the unconscious Hum Drum tied up and secured to keep him safe during the carnage.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Much of "Mortal Chaos" can be considered this due to James' breakneck descent into sadistic madness once he finds just how much of an advantage he has over Discord. Written entirely from his deranged perspective in a present-tense stream of consciousness, the way he describes Discord's terror along with the bloodshed and especially Discord's final moments are exceptionally chilling.
  • Things get very unsettling early on in "Sudden Death" when James encounters 'discorded' versions of the Mane Six while exploring his own subconscious, then goes off the rails as all six give him identical demented grins before merging into a frightful abomination. The kicker? They all have the same eyes.
  James: Those faces... The exact same expressions. And... The eyes... They all have...the same...eyes...
• Not in Front of the Kid: Justified, though more like "Not in front of the ponies". Staying true to the source material, strong language simply does not exist in Equestrain dialects. The closest thing to a subversion is James, who occasionally breaks the mold by tactfully using only the mildest of inoffensive swears.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten:
  • After having been the local schoolyard bully for some time, Diamond Tiara finally ends up becoming something of an outcast among her peers after she goes so far as to blackmail James into hiding out in the infamous Everfree Forest due to her peers viewing her as being dangerous, even after a thorough scolding and punishment by her parents. It is only by the time the next Hearts and Hooves Day comes around that the rest of her classmates see her and her victim truly bury the hatchet in person and cease ostracizing her.
  • Averted with Nightmare Moon. As infamous as the legends about her were, Celestia and Luna clearly put a lot of effort into reintroducing the royal family's black sheep back into Equestria's society, even granting her a title of her own as she finds a role in ensuring sweet dreams find her subjects during slumber. The Princess of Dreams.
• Polyamory: Defied at first, though the story seems to be delving into this as of late in Volume 4 and Volume 5. Late in Volume 2, Fluttershy and Rarity get into a discussion over the topic regarding their romantic feelings for James. In the end, they both agree that it is best that they do not pursue such a relationship. The same conversation is revisited in "A Fractured Gem" after a night of unplanned passionate lovemaking between James and Rarity where Fluttershy is hardly surprised it happened. While James initially turns down the offer for the sake of Rarity's public image and career, he is not against giving such a lifestyle a try. At the end of Volume 4, after seeing Rarity and Fluttershy both doting over Gladesong as though they were both her mother, he realizes he loves Rarity too much to have her as anything less than a full equal to his wife. Going into Volume 5, although their relationship is a secret to all save a few to protect her career, James and Rarity remain passionate lovers. Only time will tell how it continues.
• Portal Book: A number of Spike's comic books harbor the same portal spell that triggered the events of the Power Ponies episode in the show. Normally found on the inside of the back cover, the spell is triggered when anyone happens to fully read the tiny text. Exposure to magical energies can trigger the spell as well and in "They Came From the Pages", Twilight unwittingly causes the spell to activate in reverse, bringing the Power Pony villains High Heel, Pharaoh Phetlock, and Long-Face into the real world.
• Puppy Love: Strongly implied to be happening between Spike and Sweetie Belle as of "A White Hearth's Warming", where Spike got Sweetie Belle a music box and she proceeded to kiss him for it. Further evidence is provided when it is revealed they were cuddling in front of the fireplace later.
  • Rarity even expresses delight at Spike possibly being attracted to her sister, having grown secretly fed up with his long-running one-sided crush on her.
• Put on a Bus: After Mitta's rescue from Sunny Town in the 20th chapter, Sunny Town's cursed inhabitants have not been mentioned or seen while the town itself has been barely mentioned at all.
  • Subverted and Lampshaded with Mitta. After her rescue from Sunny Town and the subsequent removal of its curse, Mitta begins to show up very infrequently in the story despite being very close friends with James. This is later touched upon by the author, who lamented the fact that being removed from the setting that gave Mitta much of her character and depth paradoxically made her less interesting. In "They Came From the Pages", James explains this phenomenon very clearly. Just because she does not pop up often in the story anymore does not mean that Mitta is not around somewhere.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking:
  • The royal rulers of Equestria not only have the wisdom to lead their people. They more often than not have the power to fight for them during times of crisis.
  • Queen Novo is revealed to be a champion swordfighter with centuries of experience while specializing in the use of the rapier. Even James can’t really compete with her and backs down from Novo’s first invitation to a sparring session.
  • Dragon Lord Ember proves herself to be an extremely competant spearfighter who manages to fight James to a standstill at their first encounter and seems to be the first line of defense against invaders of her homeland.
• Romancing the Widow: While not the original intention, Celestia's hopes of James being able to comfort and help heal Novo's aching heart long after the passing of her king seems to be turning into this. While James and Novo hit it off well enough as friends early on, they quickly develop a deepening attraction and mutual understanding towards each other when they find that they have surprisingly similar experience in romantic relationships being cut tragically and violently short.
• Self-Destructive Charge: For as much as he made Discord suffer during Mortal Chaos, James ended up steadily suffering more and more harm over the course of the fight mostly as a result of his own madness-fueled actions. From enduring multiple sprains and muscle tears due to extensive overexertion, all but setting his arm on fire while using unstable magic he barely has any idea how to control and continuing to fight with his entire right forearm coated in second degree burns, and letting Discord get in a free hit that results in near fatal blood loss, James quickly finds himself exhausted to the point of being unable to crawl as he rapidly bleeds out and only barely survives by a thread while being plunged into a 10 day coma.
• Self-Insert Fic: It started out as one. As the years went by with personal life struggles causing the author to become a significantly more jaded person, the writer's Author Avatar remained a much happier person when compared to his real world counterpart due to the world of Equestria being much kinder to him than Earth ever could be.
• Shout-Out:
  • James references Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's Zero Punctuation reviews of Alpha Protocol and Hotline Miami for laughs.
  James: (During "Between Rainbows and Butterflies" when trolling Twilight) “And why is magic called ‘magic’ instead of…oh…for example, ‘Purple Monkey Dishwasher’?”
  During Mortal Chaos while comically slapping an unconscious Discord: "THAT'S for being the ponciest ponce to ever ponce past the poncing parlor!"
  • Early on in Volume 2, James gets pranked at the park when Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie descreetly and repeatedly pelt him with boomerangs.
  • Pinkie Pie does a blatant parody of this little classic during "A Stick in the Maud".
  • An example that goes from being a Shout Out to a sudden cameo occurs during "Guys Night Out" when Sans and Papyrus show up at the wrong party, where Papyrus proceeds to perform his mixtape over karaoke, only for Sans to realize he really dropped the ball when using one of his shortcuts and makes a hasty retreat out of the house by locking himself and Papyrus inside a closet.
  • Pinkie Pie does a Metal Gear Solid reference when tailing James and Estoc as they transport a box of donuts back to the royal palace, hiding under a cardboard box. James is not fooled and pulls it off of her only for a familiar red exclamation point to pop up above her. Pinkie Pie then proceeds to run off, but not before EATING IT.
    • She even provides a description of the flavor a short while later.
    Pinkie Pie: "It was a whole bunch of flavors mixed together. Um… I’d have to say it tasted like a mixture of raw meat…nitro glycerin…really bland food…cardboard…naughty magazines…and lots and lots of drama.”
  • In Volume 2's finale, James gets up onstage after a mug of apple cider moonshine and proceeds to perform Heywood Banks' toast skit. Toaster included.
  • After finding Applejack in the castle garden during the Grand Galloping Gala selling gourmet apple treats, James trolls her by claiming there is a spy sapping her dispenser. Applejack takes this very seriously due to past encounters with the Flim Flam brothers. Her response? Set up an apple-firing turret next to her stall to shoot at anyone who shoplifts. James puts it to the test just to see what will happen and gets an apple to the gut for his trouble.
  • During a lull in the action during "Sudden Death", Pinkie Pie and James get in a conversation regarding Pinkie Pie's high school days. With the mentioning of "Acme Loo" and her involvement in a cartoon series◊ where she was never allowed to be onscreen due to being 'ahead of her time', it's clear that they are referring to the early 90s animated classic "Tiny Toon Adventures".
  • Right after the rock toss game in "A Stick in the Maud", Pinkie Pie is floating in the pond in an oddly designed inner tube when someone uses a snorkel swims up to her and speaks through the snorkel with a noticeable lisp. Pinkie Pie claims it was one of her professors from her school days, insisting that his specialty is spotlight stealing. (This is proven canon in an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures, being Daffy Duck's specialty.)
  • During his last full day of his first visit to Capricorn Island, James ends up being stumbled upon a flock of curious kiwis and wonders aloud where Taz could be during such a moment.
  • Whenever Sans and other members of the Undertale cast show up, a song from ManOnTheInternet's Undertale the Musical will always play at some point, primarily from the Genocide Package. Sometimes other Undertale works are also referenced such as Undertale DDD, Disbelief and even Fresh!Sans.
  • During Deadpool's cameo and background rant, the Merc With A Mouth namedrops Wiz and Boomstick partway through.
• Shown Their Work: When it comes to depicting the functionality and use of medieval weaponry and armor, the author does not joke around. The author goes to great lengths to depict the use of any weapon ranging from swords, spears, and anything between as realistically as possible while also never failing to take into account the strengths and weaknesses of various types of armor. It helps that Skallagrim is his go-to source of information on the subject.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Every villain that has appeared in the central conflict fall squarely into this trope, starting with the vengeful Diamond Tiara, escalating into the revived Nightmare Moon, and followed by a successfully escaped Discord. While Volume 4 averts this, Volume 5 and 6 seem poised to push the stakes ever higher when the author finally gets that far.
• Sugar Bowl: Subverted. The world of Equestria in The Lost Element is very faithfully portrayed much like how it was in the earlier seasons of the show, but goes to some lengths to prove it is not at all a perfect utopia. The world is cute and colorful, the law of the land seems to strongly suggest that most places in the world are friendly and supportive aside from a few obvious exceptions. (IE The Canterlot Elite, the nomadic dragon tribes, Sunny Town etc.) Twilight Sparkle even mentions that, while rare, murder is not unheard of. But even while it does have its share of problems, the world of Equestria is a very pleasant and whimsical world of purity and innocence that is well worth living in.
  • It is revealed in the Volume 3 finale that the royal family of Equestria takes the world's way of life (IE the maintaining of its people's peaceful and innocent cultures) VERY seriously. After James' savage slaying of Discord, which did end up having a few witnesses, Celestia makes it very clear that anyone who would expose their people to horrible and barbaric influences that could taint or even unravel their peaceful way of life would be removed from Equestria at once. While James' is spared from such a fate, it's clear that the royal family will do everything in their power to insure Equestria always remains as it is.
• Surprise Pregnancy: A rather tragic example occurs very shortly after Mortal Chaos where Fluttershy discovers she is with child at the worst possible time. With no way to even speak to James or show herself to his face as a result of very painful side effects from Discord's curse, she was not even able to directly confess this discovery to him with the possibility he would not live to see the birth of their child.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: An alarming example occurs during "Homo Pinkius" where Pinkie Pie tries to ice skate while stuck in a human form and falls through thin ice during a pirouette. James even lampshades Pinkie's shtick by expecting her to pop back up while partially encased in a block of ice, but this is not the case as she surfaces while flailing and shrieking in pain from the intense cold, forcing James to act quickly to save her from suffering an icy fate.
• Take That!:
  • The author holds a deep loathing for the infamous Cupcakes badfic and everything that it has had a role in spawning in the MLP FIM fandom. So too does Pinkie Pie, apparently. In "Alone and Blind", James visits Pinkie Pie's dream with the aid of Luna and Nightmare Moon. At one point, Pinkie Pie rescues James from a creepy copy of herself who was clearly about to reenact scenes from Cupcakes only to tearfully call out Sergeant Sprinkles, the story's original writer, by name out of disgust while revealing the events of "Cupcakes" was a horrible nightmare.
  Pinkie Pie: "That wasn't me... I'd never do that to Rainbow Dash... Stupid donuts and sprinkles before bed... Stupid sergeant with sprinkles... Stupid, stupid, stupid..."
  Author's response to a reader pointing it out: "Bastard had it coming."
  • In "Babies and Buttons", the author even takes a shot at Mister Davey, the creator of the infamous Smile HD animation among other excessively violent MLP fan animations. It even got to the point where Hasbro itself understandably took issue with his creations and wiped his entire Youtube account clean. Pinkie Pie reveals in a conversation with James that during a recent dream, she encountered an individual named simply as Dave and felt immense hatred towards him for forcing her to do terrible things to her friends. Rightfully furious at him for making her murder her friends in his animations, she proceeded to beat him to death with a giant rubber chicken. For additional irony, she claims that not a single drop of blood was spilled during his demise.
  Pinkie Pie: "I'm serious! I hated this guy! And I wanted to make him pay for what happened to my friends! And so, I pulled out a giant rubber chicken and... Well, I started beating him with it."
  • When Rainbow Dash and James visit Cloudsdale's weather factory in "Follow the Rainbow", she is unable to bring herself to say 'Rainbow Factory' without gagging.
  • When Discord suddenly reveals himself in person by possessing a statue of himself in "Bedlam's Requiem", he straps James to a chair and messes with him by threatening to force him to watch something "that starts with 'draw' and ends in 'ther'" Clockwork Orange style. Upon connecting the dots, James struggles in horror at the prospect. This is heavily implied to be a middle finger to the Drawn Together cartoon series, a highly controversial adult cartoon that Tara Strong voice acted in while using the tone of voice she would use while voicing Twilight Sparkle years later, which allowed tactless animators to splice Tara's voice clips into parodic animations involving Twilight Sparkle. This discovery deeply disturbed and horrified the author, resulting in a deep loathing of the series and resentment towards Strong in general.
  Discord: "Oh, come now. Don't look at me like that! Of course I wasn't going to make you watch that show! Nothing but garbage anyway."
  • A Stick in the Maud, which is basically the Season 4 episode "Maud Pie" written with a few new elements thrown in and from a different perspective, satirizes the infamous flanderization Pinkie Pie underwent during Season 4. Throughout the entire chapter, she is just as abnormally overexcited and zany as she was in the episode with the Mane Six, James, and even Maud being all too aware of it. By the end of the chapter, she finally gets called out on it. The reason for it? Her "personality meter" was currently set to the flanderized setting. While literally rooting around in her own head to fix the problem, she passively calls out both Hasbro and the writers on the show's more obvious problems and Hasbro's executive meddling.
  Pinkie Pie: *reaching around in her skull with the top flipped open* "Yep! I think I've already found it! Those silly writers at the HUB got my personality meter set to the 'flanderized' setting again. I swear it happens way too often when shows get super popular early on and the writers think they don't have to put in as much effort anymore! It's a real shame." *a bit later* "Well, somepony's gotta know what's really going on when everything we've worked for starts to fall apart! Hasbro's always been more interested in the big bits than anything with heart and quality."
  • In “Toxic Love” during a dream visit to the world of Skyrim, James takes a jab at Bethesda for their chronic abuse of Improbable Infant Survival in most of their games.
  • A very unsubtle jab at the entire concept behind Flurry Heart takes place in "The Big Day". Nightmare Moon witnesses Cadence having a nightmare where she gives birth to the disturbingly over-designed and monstrously powerful Flurry Heart. She is so disturbed by it that the dream abruptly ends when Cadence obviously wakes up out of sheer fright. It's touched upon again later when Shining Armor discusses Cadence suddenly not wanting to have kids for a while, which he deems as very unlike her.
  • A more humorous minor example occurs in "A Quick One While He is Away" in which Rarity discusses with Smolder Spike's history with the phoenix hatchling he adopted in Season 2, specifically with how Smolder points out how Spike failing to properly integrate the newborn Peewee into his life sounds more than just a bit contrived. With Peewee only appearing once in passing later the next season in photos on the wall of the library and not being seen again until years later in Season 8 where he only made a very brief cameo in Molt Down, it seems likely that the writers back then just did not have the foresight to have a longterm plan for Peewee in the show.
  • "The Land of Silence" contains a section that seems dedicated to lashing out at the notorious deer from the IDW comic series, where their raw unfettered arrogance eventually brought near complete genocide upon them and reduced them to a shell of their former selves that never recovered over the course of millennia.
  • Nightmare Moon provides an example when she delivers an epically scathing one towards Starlight Glimmer upon discovering her infamous Freudian Excuse for adopting her deranged anti-cutie mark dogma while simultaneously succinctly summing up every single observation her many critics have had about her in Season 5.
  Nightmare Moon: "Are you mad?! How could you have been so weak as to not overcome an ordeal literally every person on the face of the planet has had to face at least once in their lives?! How could you have just given up when everyone else has faced it, conquered it, and moved on?! I could have been like you. I could have... And yet, I never faltered. Even in my darkest moments, even when I was immortalized at the dreaded Mare in the Moon, I NEVER gave up on trying to win the love of my people! Decades turning into centuries as I struggled to be admired! To find somepony to adore me as the Princess of the Night! And lo and behold, my perseverance was handsomely rewarded! I have everything I have ever wanted. The love of my people. A place on the throne beside my sisters. And most of all, the adoration and acceptance of the one person who made it all possible! The first person to ever see me not as a demon, but as a mare! He is my guiding light and I never would have found him had I just given up at the first hurdle! My struggles were torture compared to your petty childhood grievances that you have refused to let go of. And now, look at what you've become! On the verge of death and not a single friend in the world to mourn you. You chose live without friends and now you will die without friends. All because you were too cowardly to try again where literally everyone else in the world has already triumphed over an inevitable trial we all face at some point in our lives! Even I, the vile Mare in the Moon, succeeded where you voluntarily failed! For as misguided as my methods were for so long, I was still BETTER THAN YOU!!! YOU ARE PATHETIC!!!
  • After Sunset Shimmer unwittingly drops some hints regarding the underlying nature of being Celestia’s private student, a brief subplot develops revolving around James developing a lack of trust for Celestia’s dubious intentions of having Twilight Sparkle succeed her on the throne. When they finally have a talk and Celestia attempts to sway James with the flimsy and infamous excuse of destiny for Twilight’s role, James responds by throwing the question back in her face.
  Celestia: Do you believe in…..destiny?
  James: Do you?
• Take That, Audience!: In late 2022, several users on Fimfiction engaged in harassing the author over the Age-Gap Romance developing between James and Smolder, even going so far as to accuse the author of advocating for pedophilia and attempting to get The Lost Element flagged for deletion despite the author taking great lengths to handle the delicate topic with as much tact and caution as possible. In the final chapter of Volume 5, the author drops a Hard Truth Aesop reminding the readers that it’s absurd to impose the expectations of human psychology and sexuality onto nonhuman characters.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Several involving James as the polyamorous aspect of his relationships expand throughout the story.
  • James and Smolder's first real kiss was a hotly anticipated event due to the delicate nature of their growing relationship. It was such a big deal when it finally happened in "Burying the Veil of Lies" that the author went so far as to have the scene illustrated.
  • Everything about Ember's relationship with James came to a simmer in "Rebuilding Faith" were she revealed she would not refuse a kiss from him. Come "In Good Company", she finally asks James to have the honor of being her first kiss. Whereupon she is genuinely terrified in the seconds leading up to it due to having to make herself vulnerable to do so. The scene following that is a sight to behold.
• The Glasses Gotta Go: Invoked during James' first birthday since settling in Ponyville. As a gift, Luna and Nightmare Moon use a spell that fixes his eyes, rendering the use of his glasses permanently unnecessary.
• The Jailbait Wait: After a heartfelt reunion following a tense departure, James finds himself developing budding feelings of attraction towards Smolder on account of her maturity more becoming of a young woman than a child. This is not helped by Smolder developing a deep-seated and sincere romantic interest in him earlier after he went out of his way to be kind to her while she was still a wandering vagrant. With the age of consent in Equestria being sixteen, James and Smolder wisely resolve to try and be patient until Smolder comes of age to see what becomes of their feelings towards each other in the meantime. Unfortunately, it's not exactly easy for them.
• The Plot Reaper: If one reads between the lines, Discord's death could be partially viewed as a result of this trope. Had he survived in the long run and willfully returned as the wacky fun friend of the royal family he had been in the days of yore, any and all future conflicts in the story would be all too easily dealt with due to Discord’s reality-twisting power. Even if a genuinely nice guy under his despair and madness, Discord needed to die for the sake of the story’s worldbuilding.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Played for laughs in Squawks and Crossbones when it comes to Captain Celaeno and her crew. While they do carry out a brazen daylight abduction by snatching James off a train and even talk a tough game at first once he is in their clutches, it becomes clear very quickly that they are all pleasant folk who really have no idea what they're actually doing. James even lampshades this by referring to them as the "most incompetent pirates" he has ever head of. At the end of the day, they are just a bunch of treasure hunters with an obsessive fascination with old pirate fairy tales.
• The Promise: Horrifically averted in Volume 3. Knowing all too well what happened the last time Discord got loose, the Mane Six make a vow to not repeat their mistakes for the sake of James due to Twilight knowing how much the experience of them turning on him would devastate him. This is proven to be all for naught the following chapter, where Discord resorts to corrupting four of them by force much like he did with Fluttershy once before with each victim providing a chilling awareness of seeing and feeling their very psyche being twisted into their prior discorded states.
• The Spook: Played straight with Starlight Glimmer. Discovered entirely by chance after cross-examining missing person reports in the same unmarked town from the Season 5 premier, the royal guard have absolutely no records on her at all, what she is capable of, why she has risen to power in some unnamed tiny village, or why she has systematically abducted ponies who have wandered anywhere near it. All they know is that she is controlling, manipulative, and as Nightmare Moon discovered after delving into her dreams, utterly power mad and dangerous enough to prompt them to carefully plot a midnight raid to free her captives instead of just charging in to liberate the place.
• The World Is Not Ready: The entire reason why Celestia and Luna have kept how and why James is in Equestria in the first place. The entire point is to have him serve as an unofficial ambassador of humankind while keeping the near unversal betrayal of Equestria's original human population buried.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Downplayed in "Return to Maretropolis" since she ends up surviving due to Saddle Rager's healing factor, but High Heel ends up getting the worst of the punishment James dishes out to the supervillains. This includes getting almost completely bisected by the H-Saber, getting shot between the eyes by Project H's plasma cannon, taking a supersonic dropkick to the face, being bombarded by FIFTY HOMING MISSILES rapidfire, and finally being impaled on a BFS.

  • It is heavily implied that the only reason James used such excessive fatal force against her and not the other villains was because he suspected she was the only one who could endure it.

• The Outsider Befriends the Best: The story starts with the human protagonist being welcomed into Equestria properly via one of Pinkie Pie’s welcoming parties, which involves the entire Mane Six becoming his first friends and his lifeline in an alien world. This turns out to have been invoked by Celestia and Luna themselves to insure the first steps of their human reintroduction project could get off on as smooth a start as possible.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Once James dons his armor and raises the Celestial Sword and Lunar Shield, he can hold his own against pretty much any opponent and has been more than a match for the likes of Nightmare Moon and Discord. Though even he proved to be no match for Queen Novo in a friendly spar, as she has centuries of swordplay experience under her feathery belt.
    • Even more so whenever he winds up in the Power Pony and Project H comic book world where he takes on the role of the robotic hero himself. Being essentially an expy of his childhood icon, Mega Man X, James always relishes an opportunity to emulate his idol and is very proficient in using his body's combat functions due to being intimately familiar with how it all works.
  • By the time of "Return to Maretropolis", Pharoah Phetlock has taken up swordplay to be less of a bumbling hack of a supervillain and more of a legitimate threat. He wields an Egyptian khopesh composed of exotic materials that can even be a threat to Project H's metallic body.
  • The entire Mane Six becomes this in "Project H" and "Struggle Between the Pages". After a little tutoring from Spike on how their superpowers work, the team becomes a force to be reckoned with once they know how to properly harness their superpowers as they take down an entire robot factory and then some.
• Tranquil Fury: In "Return to Maretropolis", James provides a terrifying example after watching Hum Drum suffer a near fatal attack after the colt wonder snuck into the arena to try and help him after being beating to near destruction by the superpowered Power Pony villains. After tearfully trying to comfort the seemingly dying child, James starts his counterattack by one-shotting the Mane-iac and shooting her in the head while making her allies watch just to make it abundantly clear how royally fucked they are before proceeding to systematically take them all down as they fight for their lives. Throughout the remainder of the fight, he barely speaks at all.
  After shooting the Mane-iac in the head: Who's next?
• Undignified Death: What makes Discord's death this is what he is and how he is put down. Despite his seemingly all-powerful abilities as the Spirit of Chaos, he is outfoxed by a lowly human who takes advantage of his love of games and fun by tricking him into discarding his immortality for a "fair competition" before proceeding to inflict an absurd amount of harm on him including severing both of his wings, one arm, , most of his tail, and his legs at the knees, all while going out of his way to make him feel helpless and terrified with his own gleeful sadistic madness as he runs for his life and is even left pleading for his life before getting his face run through with a sword. At the end, Discord's head is stabbed so many times that words fail to describe the carnage. For as powerful and dreaded as he was, Discord's initial demise was nothing sort of a colossal and even horrifying humiliation.
• Unperson: Invoked with Starlight Glimmer's ultimate fate. Rightfully fearful that Starlight's deranged and self-destructive ideology would be adopted by other like-minded fools and spread until it becomes an entire culture of its own, Nightmare Moon takes it upon herself to erase all traces of Starlight's village by having it demolished after her victims are rescued and even seals the cave that still holds Starlight's corpse, although her motives were partially out of spite.
  Nightmare Moon: May nopony remember your name.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation:
  • Silverstream and her family have no blood ties to Queen Novo and Princess Skystar in this story, instead having Silverstream and Terramar being close friends with Skystar while living near the royal palace.
  • Smolder makes no mention of having any siblings in her life, ruling out any relations with Garble.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Played with when it comes to Celestia and Novo. Having been very good friends for centuries, the two of them play off each other frequently, often getting into playful bickering with each other without ever actually becoming angry or hostile with the other. Sometimes, Hilarity Ensues.
• Vocal Dissonance: Lampshaded by James upon meeting Novo. Staying true to her Sassy Black Woman personality, Novo's voice and rhetoric really does not match her outward appearance or general role as a regal queen. This is not portrayed as a bad thing, with James going so far as to declare that it only makes her more interesting and extremely entertaining.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Downplayed with Smolder. Roaming the wilds of Equestria the past two years forced Smolder to discipline herself and instill herself with discretion for the sake of survival, making her more cynical and world-weary than most teens her age. That said, she is still an impulsive young teen with a lot to learn about life with little to no understanding of the functions of the heart.

Return of Humanity

• My Greatest Failure: Celestia has quite a few of these. It is revealed at the very start of the story that the substantial amount of self-loathing she has developed for herself is the driving factor behind her plans to lead Twilight Sparkle into becoming an alicorn princess. Her entire goal is to have Twilight replace her on the throne before Celestia can REALLY screw things up for Equestria. Ultimately subverted when her sisters make it clear that mistakes and failures are inevitable, even for long-lived immortals, and that the fact that Equestria's people still look to her for guidance after so long means she is a competent and beloved ruler in spite of her shortcomings.
  • The unfinished spell that alters destinies was this to Star Swirl himself. Unable to develop a counter spell to it after having undoubtedly seen its effects firsthand, he regretted having ever created such a ruinous spell and pleaded with Celestia on his deathbed to destroy all traces of it so it would never ruin anyone's life ever again. The only reason Celestia dishonored this final wish was out of deep respect for Star Swirl in the hopes that she could make his efforts not go to waste.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Nightmare Moon and Luna confront Celestia directly over her intentions of manipulating and giving false information to Twilight Sparkle upon the Crystal Empire's impending return as a "test", knowing full well that such miscommunication will be placing the empire's people, Twilight, and potentially all of Equestria itself in grave peril with King Sombra likely on the verge of escaping his confinement in the frozen north. Needless to say, they are not pleased with her reckless intentions and less than noble manipulations.
• Let the Past Burn: Celestia is finally convinced to let go of her doubts and fixation on her past mistakes by letting go of her plans to force Twilight Sparkle along a path to royal responsibilities. To do this, she tears the page containing the destiny-altering spell central to the plot of the controversial Magical Mystery Cure out of Star Swirl the Bearded's spellbook and burns it so said spell can never be used again.
  Celestia: "Forgive me, Star Swirl... I should have done this long ago as you requested."
• Take That!: The two chapters released or leaked far ahead of schedule serve as very unsubtle condemnations of the entire concept of the Princess Twilight Sparkle storyline that has been in effect since the start of Season 3, especially towards the infamous final episode when Twilight is shown a vision of what will ultimately become of her should she choose to accept the role of an immortal princess and her realistically portrayed refusal to go on forever without her friends.
  Twilight: "How could I ever choose forever over friendship?"

Before Time Began to Flow

• Continuity Nod: The revelation and description of the original bearers of the Elements of Harmony match those of G1 versions/equivalents of some of the Mane Six, like Firefly and Applejack, and some of the Mane Six's G4 prototype designs, like Surprise and Posey.
• Deal with the Devil: Anyone who sought out the Lord of Midnight for the power the Miasma could bestow upon were hit hit with this, as Chrysalis and Grogar suffered gradual psychological and moral degradation over time after being exposed to the Miasma and a powerful sense of loyalty towards its master. The results of these deals resulted in the Lord of Midnight becoming even more feared by his people.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Lord of Midnight's true name is only vaguely hinted at early on, being conspicuously unmentioned throughout the story as being "unimportant". The only thing most of his subjects know him by is just his title.
• Home of Monsters: The Lord of Midnight and most of his subordinates eventually end up thoroughly locked away in the depths of a cave system that would come to house Equestria's darkest abominations. The name of this prison? Tartarus.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Lord of Midnight is this to the entire story series, having set everything into motion at the dawn of history while also becoming the first true villain in the world's history.
• Primordial Chaos: The world of Equestria before there ever was an Equestria. Consumed by formless evils that consumed all life and twisted them into fiendish demonic beasts in a world without light, the world was a nightmarish realm that only the being who would be called the Lord of Midnight was left unaffected by. Only once he used his unparalleled magic to corral and contain the world's evils did the world finally truly come to life.
• Rogues Gallery: A retroactive example of this trope, the story details the origins of some of the most infamous biggest names of villainy in the entire My Little Pony franchise. Nearly all of them are sealed away in stasis after the fall of the Lord of Midnight.
  • Lavan was created as a colossal lava titan via exposing a volcano to the Miasma's influence. Originally created to provide warmth to the world due to the lack of a nearby sun, he ultimately doubles as a convenient WMD for the Lord of Midnight when he uses it to terrorize his people once word of a possible uprising caught his attention.
  • Arabus was created from the clouds in a thunderstorm as a means to circulate air currents around the world to regulate planetary temperatures in tandem with Lavan's purpose. He is cunning and intelligent, serving as the Lord of Midnight's eyes and ears. Much like his G1 counterpart, he has a gluttonous appetite for shadows. Being a living thundercloud, he can generate lightning at will.
  • Grogar ultimately becomes the Lord of Midnight's right hand man and a frightful mage specializing in necromancy. Originally an ordinary goat with a desire to use magic in the same way as unicorns, he was exposed to the Miasma after seeking out the world's ruler and gained great power, but at the cost of his free will. The Miasma's influence corrupted both his mind and appearance gradually over time until he became a pompous and capable mage with a vast spellpool that could give Star Swirl the Bearded a run for his money.
  • Chrysalis was a lovelorn queen of the Changeling race who was transformed into the bewitching seductress she is known as today by being exposed to the Miasma. It even granted her the shape-shifting all Changelings are known for, a gift she shared with her entire race. (Ironically, they only became known as Changelings after gaining this ability) Like Grogar, the Miasma's influence would corrupt her mind until her desire for love became a lust for power, causing her to seduce countless men for the love she would absorb from them.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The Miasma, the contained evils that plagued and consumed the world before the Lord of Midnight's rise to power. Imprisoned and bound in a sack hanging around his neck, it constantly pulses as if alive. Anything that is exposed to its unfettered presence is corrupted into the exact same kind of beastly entity that roamed the world during its darkest days, although the Lord of Midnight can use his magic to limit and adjust the outcome of the exposure. Anything that ends up completely corrupted becomes instantly loyal to the Miasma's master. The Miasma is bound to the sack and therefore can never truly escape it, but should the sack ever be destroyed.....
• Seven Deadly Sins: The author created the villains' personalities around the Seven Deadly Sins due to their sheer infamy in the fandom and their primordial origins in the world of Equestria.
  • The Lord of Midnight shows signs of both Pride and Wrath, displayed in his constant belief that he is the world's true ruler for eternity and excessive willingness to resort to deadly force when his reign is threatened.
  • Grogar displays traits of Envy and Pride, envying both humans and unicorns like his G1 counterpart and developing excessive pride after becoming so proficient with magic after his corruption.
  • Arabus shows signs of Gluttony due to his ravenous appetite for shadows.
  • Lavan displays signs of Sloth due to being barely sentient at all and only acting upon his master's orders.
  • Chrysalis is consumed with Greed and Lust, desiring more power by absorbing as much love as she can get her hooves on and being all too willing to use her body to acquire said love.
• The Corruption: The Miasma at one time corrupted all life on the planet into twisted beastly forms without sentience. Any exposure to it can result in anything from being corrupted into such a primordial beastly state to something as minor as minute physical alterations and an encroaching mental brainwashing resulting in the victim becoming a loyal follower of the Miasma's master.
• The Dark Times: The story details the origins of the world, an era before the sun and moon even existed. As the story title makes clear, there is no telling when it began and how long it went on due to having no means to effectively tell the passage of time. It finally ended with the fall of the Lord of Midnight and the creation of the sun and moon.
• The Stinger: The fifth chapter is titled in a way that breaks the mold of the story's single-word titles and seems to take place dangerously close to the modern day in The Lost Element. The Lord of Midnight is seen mulling over a lost art regarding artifical entities labeled "Nonbeings" while stating that the time of his escape from Tartarus is nearing and that he has a special surprise in store to secure his return to the throne complete with an illustration of an unidentified masked armored warrior with piercing demonic red and black eyes...◊
  Lord of Midnight: It will be my finest tool. The cornerstone of my return to power. For what better being to model a nonbeing after…than the man who slew a god?
• Time Abyss: Almost everyone mentioned in this story counts. Especially the Lord of Midnight. While the Era Before Time Began to Flow ended roughly 5000 years before The Lost Element begins, there is no indication or accurate means to determine how much time passed before that era ended. For all the reader knows, the literal Dark Ages of Equestria could have lasted for tens of thousands of years or more.
• Villain Protagonist: The Lord of Midnight ultimately becomes this once he is enthralled by the Miasma's capabilities, going from being a responsible and respected ruler to a despotic tyrant.

Musings of a Fallen Princess

• A Day in the Limelight: The entire story is told entirely from the perspective of Nightmare Moon and partially serves as a retelling of her first encounters and defeat at the hands of James from her perspective as well as providing exposition on everything that happened after her defeat in the series premier up until her debut in The Lost Element.
• Bittersweet Ending: The entire story is filled with Tear Jerker moments, but the final chapter ends on a more sweet ending than bitter. With the man she loved having died centuries ago and having never had the opportunity for them to truly find love together, Nightmare Moon finally loses her will to live and begs her sisters to end her life, to which they tearfully agree to do. Upon crossing over to the other side, he is the first to find her and welcomes his "queen" with open arms.
• Foreshadowing: When Nightmare Moon creates the "Elements of Chaos" she does so with a type of dark magic that she inexplicably knows, but does not understand why she possesses the knowledge or the means to cast it. It is implied that the process of her creation may hold the answers as to why.
• Heel Realization: This story reveals that upon regaining a physical body, Nightmare Moon has started to question the legitimacy of her past methods and even wonders if what she is doing is right. She only brings about another eternal night solely because James personally showed his appreciation for it and she assumes that he will enjoy such a night.
• Together in Death: 400+ years after James' demise of natural causes, Nightmare Moon has lost all her zest for life and wants nothing more than to be reunited with her beloved in death. She succeeds, describing how she ascends from the mortal plain to the next world and finds him waiting for her with open arms.

The Price of Failure

• Death Wail: Experienced by Rainbow at the start of the story as James dies in her arms.
  • Occurs later with Rarity as well. When the Mane Six at least try to save James by getting him to the closest hospital, one of the doctors return with the bad news and whisper it to Rarity. When the rest of the Mane Six try to get an answer out of her while she gives them an emotionally broken stare, she can not even speak. All she can do is collapse to the floor and scream. It is as heartbreaking as it sounds.
• Despair Event Horizon: A number of characters do not cope well with James' demise.
  • Rainbow Dash has turned to alcohol and is often seen drunk or hungover.
  • Pinkie Pie shows signs of ever increasing psychological instability to the point of being unable to accept that James is dead EVEN WHILE TALKING TO HIS CORPSE DURING HIS FUNERAL.
  • Possibly the most tragic example goes to Fluttershy. Along with having to live with the memory that it was her actions under Discord's corruption that drove James to attack Discord in nihilistic madness, she soon discovers days after his death that she is pregnant with his child. By the time of the funeral, Fluttershy has fallen into deathly depression to the point of being mute.
  • Nightmare Moon outright tries to MURDER the Mane Six in blind rage when they reveal James' death to the royal sisters. Afterward, she is confined to one of the castle's towers where she quietly demands to be released when Celestia checks on her so she may "mount their heads on a pike". Celestia eventually does succeed in making her understand that the Mane Six are not at fault and that Discord is to blame for the death of the one most precious to her, but it does nothing to heal the pain. At the funeral, Nightmare Moon snaps and screams angrily to the sky at Discord, demanding he return her beloved to her before wailing and launching magic lightning into the sky. It takes both of her sisters to comfort her before she collapses in a sobbing screaming mess.
  • Scootaloo, who James had adopted some time ago, is unable to accept that her adoptive big brother is dead and has to be hauled away when she tries to stop the lowering of the coffin into its grave. She returns later, trying to dig him up with just her hooves and in the middle of a rainstorm before the truth dawns on her and she whimpers out one of the most soulcrushing lines of the entire story.
  Scootaloo: Daddy...
• The Hero Dies: An alternate ending to the events of Mortal Chaos, the entire story is a heartbreaking look through the eyes of those closest to James as they cope with his tragic demise.

Dreams of the Heart

• Dream Weaver: Taken to a new extreme with Nightmare Moon, who weaves an entire world for her and James to share and experience together. Unlike most dreams that tend to end upon waking, this dream world seems to continue to exist even while the dreamers are awake and they can return to it at any time once both are asleep. She even states shortly after setting the world into motion that it feels strangely too real.
• Love Makes You Evil: Subverted. Nightmare Moon knows full well her actions and intentions are not just as she painstakingly creates an entire dream world for her and James to share together in slumber so they may at last be able to live a life of love together, even though he will not remember said dream experience while awake in the real world. Even so, it is difficult to fault her for her actions.
• Schedule Slip: An example so ridculous that it gets lampshaded in the second chapter. Nightmare Moon monologues over having to have put her plan on hold due to the war in The Lost Element's fifth volume breaking out almost immediately after the events of the first chapter while mentioning how much has changed between her and James in the meantime. Even going so far as taking into account the lingering dream anomoly that is Cynder. It's almost like she's aware that 9 years have passed since the first chapter was completed.

Taming a Tempest

• Adaptational Karma: Unlike in the source material, where Tempest Shadow does not even get a slap on the wrist for her role in full on WAR CRIMES, she is revealed to have been arrested and convicted of terrorism at the start of the story.
• Adaptational Villainy: While not at all an affable villain in the 2017 movie, it is revealed that the lack of an authoriative figure like the Storm King to give her some form of guidance resulted in Tempest Shadow becoming a hardcore nihilistic terrorist. While the details of her crimes are currently unknown, James is revealed to have taken a full two years to become trusting enough towards her to finally open up to her.
• Foregone Conclusion: James begins the first chapter confirming that whatever it was Tempest Shadow did prior to the start of the story, she did NOT escape justice and is currently serving out her sentence in Canterlot.
• Growing Up Sucks: Lampshaded. Once James and Tempest develop the beginnings of a friendship, he begins to find children's coloring books in her apartment. It appears that Tempest Shadow is engaging in childlike hobbies in her spare time as a desperate yet futile means of reclaiming the years of her wasted childhood and adolescense after the loss of her horn.
• Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: James dicovers entirely by chance at the start of the story that Tempest Shadow has become a singer and dancer at a Canterlot jazz club. While she is presented as being damn good at what she does, she is frequently heckled by customers due to her mandatory provocative presentation and reveals afterward that such attention is much harder on her nerves than she lets on. The only reason she got the job in the first place was because the club does not perform background checks on performers.
• Living Emotional Crutch: James is clearly this towards Tempest Shadow despite their connections being strained up until the first chapter of the story. As cool as his demeanor had been towards her, she sees him as the only person who has any degree of care for her as it was he who provided her a potion that restored her horn.
• Meaningful Name: Whether intentional or not when she chose the name, Tempest's new name of Nightshade Holly carries a lot of symbolism to it. The nightshade flower is legendary for its toxicity when ingested while holly berries are not much better, as if symbolising Tempest's fears that she will always be nothing but "poison". However, the holly plant also has a history as a symbol of rebirth. As if to show emphasis on this part of her new name, James almost always refers to her as just Holly.
• Meaningful Rename: Not long after meeting up with her again, James learns from Tempest Shadow that she has offically changed her name. Desperately wanting to leave behind a time of her life she deeply regrets while also being unable to regain the identity that died with her childhood, she settles on the name of Nightshade Holly.
• Walking Spoiler: Tempest Shadow's very presence in this story is such. With not even a mention of her as late as Volume 5 in The Lost Element, one can only wonder what sort of mayhem she will get up to when and where she finally makes her debut.