Tear Jerker / Persona EG

• It is shown several times through the story how Flash hates his relationship with his parents due to their forgetfulness and never actually being around for him.
• Flash witnesses the texts in Zodiac for the first time and is immediately freaked out by them, and how he's seeing them at all. It also adds a little more to it as when the chapter first came out Flash was still an unpopular character for most of the fandom.
• When he's attacked by Virgo, Flash resigns himself to his fate, believing there is nothing he can do to make it out alive.
  Flash: My horoscope was right. I'm going to die. I'm going to die, and then Cadance is going to die, and nobody will ever know what killed us.
• Twilight explains to Flash how Sunset Shimmer has been making her life miserable because Twilight is going to beat her for Valedictorian, and she has started targeting Flash because he is friends with Twilight.
• Rainbow gets in trouble at school for attacking two bullies for making fun of Twilight and gets suspended for the rest of the week. She later explains to Flash how her anger keeps getting her in trouble and puts her off her game when playing soccer.
• Unlike in canon where they are Happily Married, Shining Armor and Cadance have serious marriage issues here due to Cadance's history of constantly cheating on him and Shining Armor's overprotective nature.
• Pinkie's relationship with her family is much worse in this story. She still gets along with Maud, but everyone else in the family is distant from her and her parents treat her as the The Un-Favourite for her fun personality and not following the family ways.
• Trixie demands Flash tell her why he is so popular despite being the new kid in school. Flash tells her people like him because he "isn't an asshole." This hurts Trixie more than she lets on at first and when she confronts Flash a week later she explains that she acts high and mighty because it is the only way she knows how to talk to people.
• Rainbow Dash is jumped by two of her jerk teammates, and they brutally break her leg. Rainbow ends up hospitalized and benched for the rest of the soccer season.
• Cadance gets drunk and ends up seducing and sleeping with Flash because she's so mad at Shining Armor. This act ends up hurting them both, Cadance because her relationship problems are now hurting others she cares about and Flash because he just cheated on his new girlfriend with her sister-in-law. Luckily neither Twilight nor Shining Armor holds it against either of them since this behavior is normal for Cadance, but Twilight warns Flash that she needs to be able to trust him.
• On Pinkie's birthday, Flash and Twilight help Pinkie bring her gifts to her room, but once inside her happy demeanor breaks down and she begins crying stating she doesn't deserve friends like them because she's been jealous of their relationship and wishes that she was the one who ended up with Flash and has thought of trying to steal him from Twilight. The two need to calm her down and ensure her that they aren't mad at her.
• Pinkie dresses as her Persona for the Halloween party, but acts too flirty to the boys there and ends up with several embarrassing photos of herself on Canterbook. Flash needs to assure Celestia and Cadance that Pinkie is just frustrated and needs to ensure Pinkie herself that she isn't a slut.
• The relationship between Celestia and Luna has been strained in the past. Luna rebelled against her older sister when they were teens and ended up stabbing her sister multiple times. Luna instantly regretted it, and Celestia had to beg the judge for a lighter sentence. Because of this event Celestia can't have children of her own, and Luna still blames herself.
• Rainbow was afraid that Fluttershy was raped at the Fall Formal and performs an unwanted rape inspection on her. Fluttershy stops being nice to Rainbow after this and claims she'll never forgive her, and doesn't even bother to go to Rainbow's birthday party. This is especially sad since not only are the two of them suppose to be best friends, Rainbow only did that because she was scared someone hurt Fluttershy and wanted to make sure.
• While Flash visits Twilight's home for Thanksgiving, it dawns on both of them that they only have a limited time together before Flash has to go home to Seaddle.
• Flash video chats with his parents and they are as clueless and forgetful about his life as ever, not even knowing he was at Twilight's house even though he told them before. Twilight Velvet overhears the conversation and already seeing Flash as part of the family grabs him in a hug.
  • While Velvet spends the rest of the day complaining about how terrible and forgetful Flash's parents are Flash, Twilight, Cadance, and Shining Armor learn that Rainbow Dash was abandoned by her mother when she was just a baby. Turns out Twilight's parents knew her parents and weren't aware she was attending CHS with them. When Flash talks to Rainbow about this after returning to the dorm, she breaks over how she never knew her mom because of this.
• After Thanksgiving break, Pinkie and Maud reveal that Pinkie's parents have disowned her entirely. They were sent videos of Pinkie during the Halloween party and feel she has gone too far in disgracing their family. Flash found this out from Maud because Pinkie stayed quiet about it, not wanting anyone to worry about her. Pinkie would have had to leave CHS and go with Maud to Vancouver after finals if not for Flash's quick thinking.
• While also very sweet, Maud spends Christmas break with Pinkie in the Applewood dorm instead of the rest of her family. This is implied to be because she is still mad at her parents for disowning Pinkie and would rather spend her last days before college with her and her friends instead of the rest of her family.
• Sonata Dusk was in a terrible car accident that made her lose her voice and killed her two sisters. She only got out of the hospital recently and her mother and her decided to move out of Seaddle to get away from the bad memories there. Flash hardly believes that this is the same girl he knew back in his old high school. Her Social Link name is even titled Broken Bird.
  • The next day when Sonata takes an interest in Flash playing his guitar she shows him a video of her and her sisters all singing together. Flash realizes that Sonata losing her voice prevents her from doing the one thing she loves most. Flash imagines himself in her place for a moment, if he could never use his hands again and couldn't play guitar.
• Rarity's birthday is a complete disaster. Not only is she Capricorn's target, she sees all the insulting texts against her and her party, the team suffers their first deaths to a shadow before learning they can revive their party, Shining Armor sees Flash and Twilight disappear and loses trust in them breaking Twilight's heart, and it is revealed the next day that an arsonist burned down Haflinger Hall after everyone left and destroyed Rarity's gifts.
• Sonata confesses to Flash that she doesn't know what to do with her life anymore without her sisters or being able to sing or talk.
  Sonata: (written) It's like I'm a ghost, except I'm not dead. Sonata Dusk is gone...I don't know what I am.
• Octavia's mother has Octavia's entire life planned out for her, including cello lessons, tutoring, and who can and cannot be her friends. Octavia is a little surprised when she learns Vinyl has a crush on her but is willing to get to know her as a friend first. Her mother though has such a leash on her that she can hardly see Vinyl at all.
• Vinyl for most of her Social Link is an optimist and accepts that she will go blind soon, but it slowly starts to catch up with her and as realization starts to kick in she is reduced to tears by 1/18.
• 2/1 kicks off the month with Vinyl finally going blind. Not only did it happen while she was at school, she claims that that last thing she saw was a turd in a toilet, not Octavia's beautiful face like she was hoping it would be.
• Sonata tells Flash that she blames herself for the car accident that took her voice and her sisters lives because Adagio was the one driving, but she was drunk. Nobody questioned it because the other car they crashed into ran a red light and died too. Sonata didn't tell anyone the truth because she didn't want the last memory people had of her sister to be killing three people and crippling Sonata.
• We see a quick glimpse of Eris and she is not happy with what she has been forced to do. She even whispers that she hates herself.
• ZIT feels awful when they are led into a trap and discover Cadance was not the target of Aquarius again, it was Snips, and they failed to save him. While it isn't too much of a loss and they are more disappointed they missed their chance to kill Aquarius, they are still upset that anyone died on their watch at all, and still respect Snips enough to go to his memorial service.
• On 2/9 Sunset Shimmer assaults Flash in the hallway and deeply kisses him in front of Twilight. Twilight runs off in tears not bothering to listen to Flash's explanation. Then during Lunch the rest of Flash's friends have seen a picture of the kiss and are mad at him too, by the end of the day the whole school has seen the kiss. It is a little sad how easily Flash's friends and girlfriend are quick to assume the worst with the smallest evidence, especially since he was the one who got kissed, not the other way around.
• Fluttershy refuses to go to the ZIT meeting after Sonata's birthday and laughs at their attempts to scare her. But she's convinced to go when Sonata is confused by her new rude behavior.
  Sonata: (written) I don't understand. I thought you were nice... I thought you were my friend.
• Octavia finally stands up to her mother about her relationship with Vinyl, but their talk doesn't go as well as some people hoped. Octavia's mother can't even answer a simple question: 'does she love her daughter?' Octavia spends two days at Vinyl's home, slaps her own mother calling her a bitch, and the two end up in therapy together.
• Fluttershy finally shares her origins on her birthday. She was homeschooled most of her life and spent most of her free time learning about computers. When she came to CHS and was bullied she fought back against her bullies online. With the exception of the magic and Zodiac it is similar to how normal people can become bullies themselves. She even says she has hated herself for a long time now.
  • The LTE version also has a scene where Cadance calls out Fluttershy for her behavior by telling her she's been acting like Sunset except worse.
• One of Pinkie's tennis matches is in her hometown Salt Lick City. She couldn't concentrate on her match because her family showed up at the match and just kept staring at her and judging her.
• On 4/15, Flash's parents make a surprise visit to Canterlot to take him home early, since their business trip ended sooner than expected. Flash, unable to take their obliviousness anymore tells them he refuses to go back and calls them out for their years of neglect. He at one point asks his mom what Twilight's name is and she can't even answer despite Flash telling her about Twilight countless times. This debate continues the next day, when Flash parents go home without him and begin to question their parenting towards him. Mercifully, this at least leads to Flash's parents realizing their mistakes, getting their shit together, and becoming the World Social Link.
• Applejack and Apple Bloom struggle with how unhealthy their father, Fuji Apple, is doing for most of the story. Applejack pushes herself to learn how to take care of the farm without him once he's gone and Apple Bloom struggles with the thought of both her parents being gone soon. On 5/2 their father finally dies in the care center.
  • Flash and the rest of Applejack's friends attend the funeral for Fuji Apple, and Flash hears from the rest of the family all the amazing things he did in his life. Flash can't picture the old weak man being the amazing man described.
  • Sunset crashes the funeral and pulls ZIT into Zodiac where they have to fight a swarm of shadows and witness terrible texts that mock Applejack and her dead father. Flash sees this as Sunset crossing the Moral Event Horizon even more than when she raped him, because with that only Flash's pride was on the line, but now she has taken away Applejack's one day to mourn her father's death.
• Sweetie Belle's Social Link is this involving Button Mash. She has a crush on Button and wants to get to know him, but his weird tendencies make him a victim of bullying and Sweetie Belle is a victim for liking him. Not even her own sister supports her being with Button. Button is eventually pulled from school and it is eventually revealed that he has taken upskirt photos of Sweetie Belle. Sweetie feels betrayed and when Button is questioned he confesses, not seeing anything wrong. He has mental problems and can't cope in the real world so he makes it into a video game. He is put in a mental hospital to be given help and although he does improve, Sweetie Belle says he's never going to get out, and he's not the same boy she had a crush on anymore.
• The Shadow Trials reveal the dark sides of each Social Link Flash has established. Similar to Persona 4 shadows they reveal the part that they hide from the rest of the world, being a guilt or sin, and multiply it into a hideous monster. Crosses over with Nightmare Fuel.
• During the summer trip to Sweet Apple Acres, Shining Armor has sex with Sunset Shimmer one night. While Twilight and Flash are mad at Shining for this massive betrayal to Cadance, they call out Sunset even more for screwing with Twilight's family. Sunset says she just wanted to feel like she mattered for a moment. She claims she wants to do better and be part of the friendship that ZIT shares and has been trying to be friends with them since she moved in, but nobody trusts her after everything she did. She actually breaks down crying trying to explain herself. Eventually, she surrenders her phone to Fluttershy and has her delete all the blackmail material she has on everyone, but they are still cautious of her.
• Flash and Twilight get into a major argument over Flash going to a pool party without telling her or Pinkie, and the only other guests were girls. It quickly escalates into Twilight accusing Flash of only having girl friends due to his pervert nature and Flash accusing Twilight of trying to control everything about him. During this Flash actually drops the F-bomb on Twilight and crosses a line by telling her "[he's] not Cadance." It is tragic to see such a happy couple at each others throats over a pool party.
• Flash has sex with Trixie to let out his anger and get back at Twilight for not trusting him the day before. But as soon as he is done he feels terrible about it. Sunset and Pinkie both call him out on it as soon as they find out what he did.
  • Not even Flash's mom can give him good advice on how to handle this situation. She mentions he doesn't want to end up like his uncle, and Flash knows his mom never mentions her brother for good reasons.
• 7/14 can pretty much be titled "The Worst Day of Flash's Life". Not only is Flash forced to watch his friends get hurt because he can't access his Personas, he finally admits to Twilight he had sex with Trixie. After he beats his own Shadow nobody says anything as they disappear, and Igor shows up just to tell Flash no visitor to the Velvet Room has ever screwed up as bad as him and turns the Velvet Room into a series of nightmares. In the morning, Twilight breaks up with him, he is ostracized by the rest of ZIT, and he is kicked out of the dorm by Cadance. By the end of the day he is broken and miserable and wondering what is the point of staying in Canterlot with all his friends hating him, including the girl he loves.
• There is a second part to 7/17 where we see Twilight's perspective. She is at the dorm crying over her break up with Flash and wondering why he cheated on her. She sits in his room seeing how empty it is and says how she feels so alone. She still loves Flash but doesn't think he loves her anymore, and she doesn't understand why Flash would do something so bad to hurt her despite not being completely innocent herself.