Diaries Of A Madman / Tropes A to F

Main Page | Tropes A-F | Tropes G-N | Tropes O-Z

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Diaries of a Madman contains examples of the following tropes:

#

• 0% Approval Rating:
  • Calix has such a low reputation that even his bodyguards don't make the slightest effort to protect him when Nav murders him, and the rest of the guards don’t appear to show any disapproval of Nav’s actions.
  • Luna was making progress on recovering from this following her return, but after various scandals finally catch up with her, she finds herself firmly in this territory again.

A

• Abandoned Hospital / Abandoned Hospital Awakening: Nav wakes up in one after being knocked out by ghosts in Chapter 111.
• Abandoned Mine: The mine not far from the Crystal Empire. It's abandoned for good reason.
• Abandoned Playground: One of the areas Nav encounters within the Russian bunker in Chapter 110.
• Abandoned Warehouse: One of the locations Nav visits in Chapter 111.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Nav's Infinity +1 Sword is capable of cutting through other swords, which makes for quite a useful distraction in combat.
• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The sewers in Flankfurt.
• Adaptational Villainy: The author freely admits that Luna fans will not like this story. Considering she's practically a Yandere in this story who seems to hate her sister and everything she does, it's easy to see why.
  • Celestia is much more ruthless, cold, and willing to do underhanded things to get what she wants then her canon counterpart. See Anti-Hero for more information.
  • Discord willingly commits genocide, drives innocent ponies insane, creates lots of pointless deaths and somehow manages to be even more of an Asshole with a serious Lack of Empathy then his canon counterpart.
• Action Girl: While the Mane 6 are already this in canon, it particularly applies to Pinkie. Kumani, Kat, and Taya also qualify.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Celestia is secretly amused when Nav swipes her crown as a prank, but still wastes no time in taking advantage of the situation to have some fun, by tasking Twilight to retrieve it. Nav himself suspects this, given that Celestia could effortlessly retrieve it in an instant if she wanted.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: Many of the various festivals Nav attends or hears about tend to make extensive use of alliteration, including the Marvelous Maris Masquerade, Rambunctiously Radical Rave, and Stupendous Stalliongrad Soiree, to name a few. Nav, of course, mocks this.
  These ponies sure like their alliteration...
• Adjective Animal Alehouse: Several of them, including The Salted Mare, The Gilded Griffin, and the Broken Unicorn Tavern.
• A Dog Named "Dog": When coming up for a name for the spider kid stowaway on his ship, Nav's first choice of name is to call him "Spider".
• Affably Evil: The Dogfather, despite being a powerful crime lord, prefers to be polite to those he deals with, and is willing to shake Nav's hand before attempting to threaten him.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Nav does it from time to time, either as a gesture of friendship and affection, or when he wants to be particularly condescending.
• After the End: One of the ghostly visions Nav experiences in Chapter 110 is of people holed up in the Antarctic bunker, after most of humanity has been nuked.
• Akashic Records: Athena’s library contains as much of the world’s knowledge as she can find.
• Alas Poor Jerkass:
  • Despite Blueblood's many failings, it's hard for anyone to argue that he deserved to be robbed of his looks and almost killed by poison, or that he deserved to die, after this leads to Discord indirectly getting him killed.
  • Calix was a very unpleasant pony to say the least, and while his behavior would have jeopardized their mission, this probably didn't warrant the extreme step of Nav murdering him.
  • Trixie may have done some bad things, but considering she was ultimately an innocent mare caught up in Discords schemes, it's pretty obvious she didn't deserve to spend the rest of her life as a slave in Tartarus.
• Alien Arts Are Appreciated:
  • Averted with Shakespeare's tragedies, which don't go down well with ponies, resulting in Celestia banning Nav from transcribing and selling any more. Other written works are far better received, and after Nav introduces Vinyl to various genres of human music it transforms her career.
  • Generally averted with Nav as well, who tends to view the pony arts as far less interesting than those of human cultures. He does appreciate Lyra's skill with the lyre, however.
  • Human movies are quite well received by Rainbow Dash, particularly Indiana Jones. Rarity, and later, much of the Canterlot nobility, also turns into quite a big fan of anime.
• Alien Blood:
  • Changeling blood is always green, and can be used to identify one regardless of the form they're currently taking.
  • Nav's blood changes somewhat post Emergency Transformation, taking on an amber hue and becoming far more viscous than regular human blood.
• Alien Catnip: A large amount of them. Alcohol appears to have similar effects on most species, but there are also species-specific drugs, such as salt (ponies), catnip (guess), mercury (naga), and chocolate (the dogs).
• All According to Plan: Discord invokes this a lot.
• All Myths Are True: Cain is responsible for the creation of Discord, and a large number of human myths are true. In particular, Merlin was the last human mage.
• All Periods Are PMS: Shortly after being trapped in female form when his gender stones break, Nav ends up suffering some of the effects of this, though his rage in particular is mostly due to his predicament, rather than being the result of hormones.
• All There in the Manual: The author often clarifies things and provides extra information in the comments section on Fimfiction.net.
• Ambiguous Gender: During their trip back in time, Nav suggests this will be an issue for Rainbow during her attempts to score, since while he's used to ponies and can easily tell the difference, others are not.
• An Aesop: Navarone mocks the ridiculous nature of Twilight having to send friendship reports, and is not happy when Celestia makes him give one to her himself. Celestia isn't exactly thrilled by what he comes up with, either.
• Ancient Keeper: Athena, who collects knowledge within her own domain dedicated for the purpose.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Nav's reward for saving Cadance and her daughter's lives. Well, armour. A really garish set of armour. And technically it's a punishment dressed up as a reward.
• Animals Lack Attributes: The fact that this isn't kept from the original source material is alluded to a few times. Tails apparently serve as a very convenient Scenery Censor for the most part, but it's safe to say that Equestrian standards of modesty and privacy differ from that of most human cultures. Strangely, when a somewhat out of his mind Nav points out that from a certain angle, nothing is left to the imagination, Twilight is extremely embarrassed.
• Animorphism: Nav gets turned into a pegasus by a failed spell from Trixie, which also turns Twilight into a human. After a method of reversing the spell is found, Nav ends up being transformed several more times, though he hates every minute of it.
• Annoying Arrows: Spike accidentally shoots Gilda's wing while out hunting with Nav, but it's mostly an annoyance since Taya is around to quickly heal any damage it caused.
• Anti-Hero:
  • Navarone, big time. He'll usually help those who really need it, but will readily act in underhanded and unethical ways, and generally has an abrasive personality.
  • Celestia shows traits of this on occasion. While generally caring and good, she's also not above acting immorally when the need arises, or she's especially bored.
• Anti-Magic:
  • Navarone's anti-magic ring proves to be extremely useful to him, since most magic users rely too much on their magic, and he has no natural defence against it.
  • Dragons have some degree of inherent magic resistance, though this can be overcome with sufficient power.
  • Athena’s wards block most magic within her Portal Book, and her paper golems are immune to it.
  • The monkeys are able to use their magic to block unicorn teleportation, though this can be overcome with true magic.
  • The Russian bunker blocks magic.
• Anything but That!: Seen several times when various unicorns have their horns threatened with removal.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: No one except Nav takes Twilight's claim about the library being haunted seriously since "ghosts aren’t real", when not only do ghosts actually exist, but the world is filled with far stranger things.
  Navarone: In a world with magic, necromancers, and dozens of species, does it really surprise you that ghosts are out there?
  Gilda: Ehhh… I guess it makes sense. But it’s still pretty stupid.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • Changelings and diamond dogs have an extreme mutual hatred of each other. As do changelings and griffons.
  • Celestia and Luna have one in Discord.
  • Navarone is Discord's most hated nemesis, but Nav is currently unaware of that.
• Arranged Marriage: After Nav and Luna cause a scandal with the griffons, Bloodbeak finds a way of forcing Nav and Gilda to marry in order to take advantage politically, as well as benefiting from Nav's knowledge. Nav eventually finds a way out by helping Bloodbeak, and later Bloodbeak tries to set him up with his daughter, Princess Gilda.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Discord's description of the time he was destroying the alicorn race.
  Yes, I was causing chaos. Yes, there was some misery involved. Yes, I might have been the cause of the duckbill platypuses.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: Discussed and mostly Averted. Nav teaches Spike to be very careful with his crossbow and that it's a tool for killing, rather than a cool toy.
• As Herself: An in-universe example at the dream party in Chapter 86. Several of the most attractive mares in Equestria have given permission for their forms to be used as part of the entertainment, but Sapphire Shores, Cadance, and Spitfire are all secretly playing themselves.
• Aside Glance: Discord manages to give one to the reader through text.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: Courtesy of Shining Armor.
  Shining Armor: Are you plotting treason?
  Navarone: Yes, I definitely am. And the first person I’m going to tell is the captain of the guard who is definitely loyal to the princesses and would never be swayed against them.
• Asleep for Days:
  • Nav ends up asleep for a week after Taya nearly kills with a severe case of Power Incontinence.
  • Nav is out of things for a few days after being captured by the cats at the end of Chapter 15, due to suffering from a bad concussion.
  • Nav ends asleep for several days yet again after Twilight doses him with Polonium following her consumption of hate poison.
  • Nav again, after his encounter with an Ursa Minor in Chapter 42.
• As Long as There Is Evil: Discord's entire existence revolves around this. Unfortunately for him, this makes it very difficult for him to kill himself.
• "Ass" in Ambassador:
  • The Equestrian ambassadors to Egypt are hardly paragons of diplomacy and etiquette, given that they've been Reassigned to Antarctica. Emerald Script isn't too bad, but Calix is so unpleasant and nasty that Nav murders him before he can jeopardize matters.
  • Blueblood was sent to a foreign social function in Paris after Celestia and Luna were unable to make it, where he continues to be his usual self. Up until someone tries to poison him, at any rate.
• As the Good Book Says...: Nav occasionally quotes from the Bible, particularly when it comes to matters of love, though he also uses a corrupted quotation while escaping from the bunker in Chapter 111.
• Atlantis: Nav and crew briefly stop off there during Chapter 108, to recruit some more water elementals.
• The Atoner:
  • Gilda visits Ponyville in Chapter 40 to make amends for her previous actions.
  • Luna eventually shows remorse for what she's done to Nav, publicly confessing to what she's done and apologizing to him in a press conference.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: One of the changeling hives at one point gets attacked by a swarm of giant ants. It's as unpleasant as it sounds.
• Author Avatar: Flo tends to serve this purpose, to express the author's opinion on characters or events, remind readers of information, and occasionally giving an excuse for why things are as they are.
• Authority in Name Only: Nav dismisses Cadance as a powerless figurehead at first, but she later becomes a useful ally of his, after she takes several of Nav's lessons to heart, and grows into an effective and competent leader.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The axe Nav gets when he becomes one of Luna's knights. It's a nice weapon, but utterly pointless to hand someone a weapon they've got no training with and expect them to use it in combat. Nav being Nav, he makes this point somewhat more bluntly.
  • After being sent back in time, Nav wants to take some firearms back with him, but is told not to bother since obtaining more ammunition would be almost impossible without modern infrastructure.
• Ax-Crazy: Luna tried to have Nav murdered in a rage early on in the story, and then lies to him that she was going after Rainbow Dash instead when it fails.
• Axe Before Entering: Nav does this while breaking down a door in Chapter 36. He initially pulls a Jack Nicholson before being distracted by the treasure he finds inside.
  Navarone: Here’s Joh—Oh shit!

B

• Badass Boast: Nav gives one on behalf of humanity to Celestia.
  Navarone: There is no force in the multiverse stronger than a group of humans plotting revenge. You may think you’re immortal now, but piss some people off where I come from and you’d find out for sure. And if you are, you might end up wishing you weren’t.
• Badass Crew: The crew of Nav's airship, many of whom are veterans of the Night Guard. Those who aren't tend to be straight up badasses instead.
• Bad Date: Rarity ends up on one in Chapter 72, though Nav and Rainbow Dash manage to partly rescue her from it.
• Bad Liar: Ponies are utterly terrible at lying, a fact which is balanced out by their naivety and willingness to believe the other is telling the truth, unless there's extremely strong evidence to suggest otherwise. Navarone often takes advantage of this.
• Bait-and-Switch: Pinkie initially appears like she’s chastising Rarity for forcing Nav to eat in Chapter 40… only to instead admonish Rarity for not inviting her to join them.
  Navarone: Traitor…
• invokedBanned in China: Celestia bans Nav from transcribing any more tragedies after many ponies find Hamlet to be very upsetting.
• Bar Brawl: Nav briefly ends up in one during his trip back in time.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: Nav briefly employs this while infiltrating a slave ship and dressed as one of the crew. About to be caught with some freed slaves, he yells to an approaching Mook that the ship has been compromised and that he'll watch the slaves while the guy warns the crew.
• Bazaar of the Bizarre: Nav ends up in one in Chapter 92. Not that it sticks around.
• Be All My Sins Remembered: Nav already feels guilty over helping the changelings wipe out the diamond dogs, but the praise he receives certainly doesn't help matters.
• The Beastmaster: Nav is something of a variant; after his partial transformation, less intelligent wildlife ignores him since they recognise him as a tree. He also manages to develop a rapport with the timberwolves in the Everfree Forest owing to this, who had previously been thought to be mindless creatures.
  • Fluttershy — who is one in her own right — seems to believe Nav plays this one much straighter, after he helps her with Angel misbehaving. In other words, Nav threatens to eat Angel if he doesn't stop mistreating Fluttershy.
• Becoming the Mask: Bon-Bon has been away from the changeling hive for so long that even after dropping her disguise, her instinctual reaction is to refer to herself a pony, though she quickly catches her mistake.
• Bedmate Reveal:
  • Occurs during Chapter 6. Nav is not happy with what he finds.
  • Nav later on wakes up to find Rainbow Dash in his bed, and is rather disturbed until Flo reassures him that nothing happened, and they'd just been drunkenly wrestling before passing out.
  • In Chapter 67, after being knocked out by Zecora's medicine, Nav wakes up the following morning to find Rarity and AJ on either side of him and briefly wonders what happened.
• Beginner's Luck: Nav wins his fights early on pretty much entirely on this.
• Belated Injury Realization: Following his Super Window Jump to escape Celestia, Nav is completely oblivious to the fact he's bleeding, and only notices some time later after attracting a lot of staring. And Octavia pointing all this out to him.
• Benevolent Precursors: Humanity created the other races, as well as the elementals to try to protect them from Discord, and are revered by the minotaurs for this reason.
• Berserk Button: Despite not really having any standards, assuming he has none whatsoever is a good way of making him livid with anger, as AJ finds out first hand. Viewing him as weak and helpless is another. And start running for your life if you target those who can't fight back.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: One of Eva's personalities, "Mirror", claims to have been forced into sex with animals due to the lack of food available, though she's far more enthusiastic than you'd otherwise expect. Nav and Flo are suitably freaked when they find out, and try their best to forget they ever saw anything.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Pinkie Pie. When she and Navarone meet Kat again, she not only suggests he takes revenge but whispers something that we never get to hear in her ear that utterly terrifies her, and it's apparently really, really hard to scare her.
• Big Brother Is Watching:
  • Celestia and Luna have a spell for this purpose, which deeply angers Nav when he finds out they've been spying on him. Blocking this spell is one of the main uses of his Anti-Magic ring, after he stumbles across it.
  • Discord is usually watching through Nav's eyes, though Nav is unaware of this.
• Big Damn Heroes: Nav swoops in to save Shining Armor and the Mane Six from Sombra in Chapter 94.
• Big Eater:
  • Generally inverted by Nav after his transformation, to the point where he often Forgets to Eat, much to Rarity and Taya's disapproval. He does start eating a lot more after he finally starts to get into shape however.
  • Celestia, given her fondness for cake and her tendency to indulge in it for breakfast.
• Big Fancy House: Nav's custom built fort, which was designed by the changelings and even comes with its own prototype electricity system, rather than being powered by magic like elsewhere.
• Big "WHAT?!":
  • Twilight's reaction upon learning Nav is about to challenge a crazy unicorn who just threatened him...
  (after just being threatened)
  Twilight: What was that about?
  Navarone: Oh, some unicorn just came here and told me he was going to kill me in fifteen minutes. I’ll go get my crossbow. Be back soon.
  Twilight: Have fun, N—WHAT?!
  • Celestia exploding with anger after finding out that Nav and Luna have ignored her plan and inadvertently created a scandal with the griffons.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Nav's sister, Jane, says her last words to him in Finnish.
  • Flo and Aerie first greet the other in Dutch and Hungarian respectively.
• Bizarre Human Biology: Nav starts off as a regular human, but after a combination of events ends up being stuck with the wings of a pegasus in human form (albeit larger than normal, since he has less magic and so requires larger wings for lift, as well as being far slower in the air), and gains several plant-like characteristics as a result of his Emergency Transformation. Ultimately, he gets changed so much that he's no longer biologically human, even if he mostly resembles one externally.
• Black Mage: Taya's special talent.
• Blade Brake: After getting the idea from TV, Nav uses this to stop himself from falling down a mine shaft in Chapter 96, and is promptly surprised when it works.
• Blah, Blah, Blah:
  • Nav's summary of Twilight's lesson to Taya on healing magic.
  • Pinkie at one point talks to Nav entirely in a series of "blah"s, which Nav decides to go along with. Not that he had much choice, given this is Pinkie we're talking about.
  • Nav pulls this literally when explaining what happened to Celestia in Chapter 34. It might well run in the family, considering his (past self's) daughter pulls the same thing in Chapter 74.
  • Pretty much any time Rarity's date in Chapter 72 starts talking. Nav and Rainbow Dash tune Rarity out a little later out in the scene for the same reason.
• Blood from the Mouth:
  • Nav ends up coughing up blood after his first use of his gender stones.
  • Sombra, after Nav scores a few hits during their Good Old Fisticuffs duel.
• Blood Knight:
  • Luna herself shows several of these tendencies, and seems to believe humans as a species are all this.
  • Chrysalis takes far too much pleasure in slaughtering a diamond dog clan.
• Body Backup Drive: Discord is capable of acting as one, though the only two people we know he's backed up are Cain and Navarone. Nav is currently unaware he is not the original.
• Body Horror: Some of the atrocities Discord ended up committing upon the alicorns. From literally splitting them into the three pony races, to corrupting them into changelings. The ones he drove insane would probably count as a Cruel Mercy, considering.
• Boldly Coming: Even if there aren't any Green Skinned Space Babes, Kirk would probably be proud of Nav in this regard, given how many interspecies liasons he manages to rack up.
  ...sexy is sexy, and at this point I’m so perverted that I don’t care...
• Book Safe: Used as a hiding spot for Nav's diaries at one point.
• Boring, but Practical: The items Nav brings back with him after his trip through time are for the most part not very interesting due to their impracticality. As a result, he ends up bringing stuff that falls into this instead, such as a laptop filled with a lot of humanity's scientific and technological knowledge, and seeds for many useful plant species.
• Bottomless Pit: Nav and the guards stumble across what appears to be one while exploring Celestia and Luna’s old castle in Chapter 36, but it’s actually a magical illusion.
• Bow and Sword in Accord: In keeping with his status as a Combat Pragmatist, Nav equips himself with a variety of weapons for different situations, though he is especially proficient with his crossbow and daggers.
• Brains and Bondage: Both princesses are very much into this, but especially so with Celestia.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: While averting some of the characteristics of this trope, Taya starts to become one a little later on in the story, which is implied to be attention-seeking behaviour. Eventually, Nav finally puts his foot down.
• Bread and Circuses: While Celestia has made sure she's irreplaceable, one of her strategies for ensuring the status quo remains is by keeping the population happy enough that no one would want to contest her.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Nav, trying to get Smiles to leave him alone.
  Navarone: Don’t you have anything better to do than bother me?
  Smiles: Such as?
  Navarone: Playing cards with the other guards. Reading. Guarding. Lighting babies on fire. I’m sure you can think of something.
• Break Them by Talking: Nav does this to Pinkie while on a trip with her to Flankfurt, in order to gain revenge for her taking advantage of him when he was first turned into a pony.
• Brick Joke:
  • Nav and Rainbow Dash's Strange Minds Think Alike moment regarding the pitfalls of dealing with mares romantically.
  • The rumours Nav starts regarding himself and Shining Armor, and later on, the joke regarding Celestia secretly being a narwhal, both of which end up getting printed in the papers.
  Braeburn: I’ve read a bunch of things in the paper that say you’re with the captain of the royal guard.
  Navarone: Those are rumors that I started to fuck with him. He’s happily married to a loving princess. They even have a kid.
  Braeburn: See, this is why nopony likes the news anymore. It’s all lies! I bet next you’ll tell me that Princess Celestia isn’t even a narwhal in disguise.
  Navarone: God, someone actually put that in a paper?
• Brief Accent Imitation: Taya does a bad job of imitating Apple Bloom's southern accent when mocking how the CMC constantly try and 'help' her find her cutie mark.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Navarone has an extremely cunning mind, but doesn't use it to its fullest owing to this. He even tells Celestia that he could get her overthrown and install himself as the de facto ruler of Equestria by using Luna as his puppet, but he lacks the ambition and motivation to do so. That and he admits he'd be a terrible leader.
• British Weather: The weather is one of the things that tips Nav off to the fact that he's in Britain, during a Portal Book Flashback.
• Broken Pedestal: Both Celestia and particularly Luna's reputations take a severe hit over the course of the story, though it is suggested that Luna is trying to drag Celestia down with her.
• Broken Tears: Discord, upon realising he messed up his own plan when he's unable to prevent Nav from travelling back in time during Chapter 72.
• Brutal Honesty: One of Navarone's defining character traits, and one which often drives others to tears, violence, or both.
• The Butcher: The butcher in the Antarctic bunker, Ivan, was creepy enough in life. In undeath, this gets taken up to eleven.

C

• Can't Argue with Ponies: Ponies hold themselves to be superior than the other races, though this attitude is especially prevalent amongst the nobles. Nav is quite willing to call others out on this.
• Caretaker Reversal: Taya ends up looking after Nav during his Sick Episode, despite his protests.
• The Casanova:
  • Nav is a very twisted and complicated example. While much of the interest in him is due to his fame, reputation, or novelty, he's surprisingly adept at charming others when needed or desired, though there are those that are immune to his attempts.
  • Blueblood is also very good at charming the ladies, despite his reputation.
• Cassandra Truth:
  • Twilight (and by proxy, Celestia) refuse to accept Nav's tales of human technology and dismiss them as impossible stories or exaggeration.
  • Twilight is completely correct that something is haunting the library, even if it does turn out to be an air elemental playing practical jokes, rather than a ghost.
  • The miner from the Crystal Empire is completely correct about the mine being haunted. Unfortunately, Nav doesn't believe him until it's too late.
  • No pony believes Nav when he claims that Celestia and Luna don't move the sun and moon. However, they do have the power to turn the planet if necessary, which makes them more powerful than Nav initially believes.
• Casting a Shadow: One of Luna's abilities. She's even able to travel through the shadows to her destination.
• Cat Fight: Several moments between Celestia and Luna fall just short of this. In particular, their contest of strength during Chapter 11. The barbs they trade while trying to determine which sister Nav intends to become a knight for also get a little catty.
• Cat Folk: The aptly named cat people.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The story starts of relatively funny and light-hearted, but it it's less than twenty chapters in before things take a turn for the depressing. It's still funny, but the humor is darker and interspersed with Navarone's rapidly declining humanity and mental state.
• The Chains of Commanding: Applies to Celestia particularly. While she deeply cares about her subjects and doing what is best for Equestria, she's also very isolated by her position and comes to value Nav as a friend simply for the fact he refuses to treat her with the reverence everyone else shows. She also ends up being extremely stressed as a result of her crown, and is often placed in impossible situations.
• Chairman of the Brawl: Well, bar stool, specifically. Either way, Nav resorts to using one in Chapter 75 when he's attacked in — you guessed it — a bar.
• The Chessmaster:
  • Discord is a grand master of this.
  • Celestia is also one herself, albeit a lesser one than Discord.
• Chick Magnet:
  • Nav ends up getting quite a lot of positive attention, not all of it wanted.
  • Blueblood is also quite popular with the mares, owing to his looks.
• Childish Pillow Fight: Between Nav, Cadance, and Celestia in Chapter 115.
• Children Are Innocent: The main reason for Chrysalis' hatred of the diamond dogs. She is prepared to tolerate the occasional theft of gems or adult changelings, but stealing eggs incenses her due to the unhatched changelings' innocence.
• The Chosen One:
  • Nav is initially believed to be the chosen one by the clan in Egypt, though they’re later convinced otherwise.
  • Discord at one point ran across one foretold to be capable of defeating him, but inadvertently ended up thwarting him in his efforts.
• Christmas Episode: Chapter "Fourteen and a Half". After mentioning Christmas before Hearth’s Warming Eve, Nav finds himself browbeaten into delivering presents to the children in Ponyville.
• City of Adventure: Ponyville's ability to attract danger and excitement is heavily lampshaded by Nav...
  Freed Slave: I’ve heard nice things about Ponyville…
  Navarone: Someone lied to you, then. That place is not good for those like us. It looks like a nice little village from the outside, but if you spend a month there, you’ll probably wind up with at least two near disasters and all manner of terrifying events.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe:
  • The Dreamlands operate in this way, as you might expect given that it's a dream world, and Nav shows a very high degree of control over this when he visits there.
  • "Real magic" also works in this way, though it requires a lot of effort to master.
  • The collective belief of ponies also has an impact. In particular, Nav can fly despite his general lack of magic because, having wings, ponies believe he should be able to do so. When he and his party get briefly sent back in time, both him and Rainbow lose the ability to fly because of this.

• Coitus Uninterruptus:
  • Nav does this a few times, though he usually tells the person doing the interrupting that he's busy.
  • Pinkie at one point attempts to invoke this by persuading Mr. Cake to leave them alone. Given that this is during working hours above his shop, he's not too amenable to the idea and kicks her lovers out.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: One of Kat's favourite pastimes. Nav ends up on the receiving end of some of her skills while in Egypt, which doesn't exactly do wonders for his mental health.
• Color-Coded Wizardry: Unicorn magic does this, but humans are the only species known to be capable of seeing it thus far. Twilight is extremely reluctant to accept this, but is eventually forced to... after running a bunch of tests, of course.
• Colour-Coded Emotions:
  • Water elementals' colours shift according to their current mood.
  • In the dream realm, the dreams of others are coloured according to the type of dream, and the emotions the dreamer is experiencing.
• Combat Pragmatist: Navarone doesn't just fight dirty, but actively shows his contempt for honourable fighting on multiple occasions. Given the number of times it would have gotten him killed, it's hard to argue.
  Navarone: Why the hell would anyone fight with honor? If I’m in a fight, I’m in it to win, not to make my opponent feel okay about losing.
• Combat Tentacles: The tentacle beast that escapes from its containment in the Mage Tower within Chapter 72.
• Comes Great Responsibility: When Taya almost kills Nav though Power Incontinence, Nav refuses to allow her to give up on her magic, simply telling her that it's a gift, but that she needs to learn responsibility and control in order to do great things with it.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • When several residents of Ponyville turn up to yell at Nav for helping the CMC get their marks, Pinkie of course misses the point completely and spends 10 minutes yelling to him about her day, to which Nav obviously pays a huge amount of attention to.
  • While everyone else is scared by Nav’s Nightmare Night costume, Luna’s reaction is to instead focus on how the skull adorning it belongs to a species she had considered to be extinct.
  Luna: Hm. I didn’t know any of those were still alive. I suppose I have to send the royal hunters into the Everfree to recreate my menagerie.
• Common Tongue: The Equestrian language is widely used throughout the world.
• Completely Unnecessary Translator: While a little out of it from his injuries in Chapter 67, Nav asks AJ to translate Zecora's rhyming speech for him. After she does, he then asks her to translate his response, despite Zecora having no difficulty understanding him.
• Compressed Abstinence: Nav being forced to temporarily give up on sex. Somewhat Justified due to his current health issues, and he does improve slightly on this after he recovers from his injuries.
• Confusing Multiple Negatives: Nav occasionally does it and then claims it's due to his Southern heritage.
• Consummate Liar:
  • Discord.
  • Nav is also fairly skilled at lying, but not quite as good as he thinks he is. Nor is he as good at detecting lies as he thinks, either, particularly when going against Celestia and Luna.
• Cool Airship: The airship Nav uses for his adventures later on in the book.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: How does Celestia get Nav back for working with the griffons and ruining one her of long-running plans? Award him a ridiculous set of armor during an extravagant award ceremony, which everyone else treats as a huge honour.
  • There are more than a few of these throughout. When Smiles refuses to stop calling Navarone 'sir', he's threatened with an embarassing nickname on the roster; when Bloodbeak attempts to stick Nav in an arranged marriage, Cadance threatens to follow him back to his land and lecture him on love until he relents. And, of course, there was Celestia's punishment of putting Nav in a French maid costume as a female pegasus.
• Cool, but Inefficient: A mild example with unicorn spells, which are needlessly flashy when compared to changeling magic.
• Cooldown Hug: Nav ends up on the receiving end of quite a few of these, but it's more a case of others thinking he needs one, rather than him actually needing one. A few others also receive one.
• Cool Horse: Nav briefly takes Celestia as his mount on one occasion after she annoys him. She's surprisingly into it, seemingly because it's the exact opposite of what a princess would do.
• Cool Old Guy: Fancy Pants.
• Cool Sword: Nav's Infinity +1 Sword, which turns out to be Excalibur.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Ms. Crabapple of Miners Without Borders show several elements of this, particularly when she's prepared to pay well for Giant Spider slaves that can be harvested for silk.
• The Corrupter:
  • Discord's entire plan involves Nav being one of these, and he also does it to several other characters to suit his own ends.
  • In something of an irony given the above, Nav's corrupting influence gets a serious kickstart due to the antics of ponies as a whole, and in particular, the princesses.
• Covered with Scars: Nav ends up covered in them while fighting with the cats in Egypt and under Kat’s ministrations. Also doubles as Physical Scars, Psychological Scars, due to the trauma all this inflicts on his psyche.
• Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears:
  • Twilight does this to Spike to start with, but it's revealed that not only do dragons age differently to ponies, but he's generally far more mature than she realises... though there are some exceptions to this.
  • Nav covers Taya's ears during a Q&A session where several changelings ask him questions of an adult nature, which he is not particularly happy about.
• Cranium Ride:
  • Nav rides around on the head of a giant ant in Chapter 52. By pulling on the antennae, he's able to use it as a Power-Up Mount.
  • Doppel also likes doing this to Nav.
• Crazy-Prepared:
  • Nav makes several copies of his journals and fills them with false information, just on the off chance that anyone trying to read them will bring up something and tip him off.
  • While bedridden in chapters 79 and 80, Nav creates a bunch of signs for visitors, and freaks Shining Armor out by correctly predicting his reaction and producing an appropriate response.
• Creepy Child: Given Taya's lack of social development and a complete lack of awareness over certain social conventions, there are times where she comes across as extremely creepy.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Heavily implied to be the case with the remains of Artyom that Nav encounters while trapped in the bunker in Antarctica, where Nav notes that the skeleton was "locked forever in an expression of pain".
• Cuddle Bug: Celestia is something of one. For someone who Hates Being Touched, Nav is generally quite tolerant when she does it, even if he finds it mystifying.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • The mock battle between the Night Guard and Day Guard turns into this when Nav teaches the former guerrilla warfare, to devastating effect.
  • Nav’s run-in with a dingonek ends badly for our protagonist.
  • Nav’s encounter with an Ursa Minor ends with him being extremely badly injured. In fact, calling it this is probably being generous to Nav, given that he doesn’t manage to get a hit in before being knocked out.
  • Nav's fight with some Canterlot thugs in Chapter 51 ends with him easily defeating them.
  • In Chapter 57, Nav and Pinkie kill the bandits after them without taking a single hit.
• Cursed with Awesome: All over the place. Navarone's wings and magically gained abilities. Celestia and Luna's agelessness. Especially so with Discord...
• Culture Clash: Several cultures end up clashing with pony culture. In particular, naga, griffin, and human culture.
• Cultured Warrior: Despite Rarity tending to berate him for his lack of manners and sophistication, Nav is familiar enough with many classical works to be able to transcribe their main outline from memory. And then selling those for profit.
• Cut Himself Shaving: Nav trolls Twilight by trying to pass his self-inflicted hand injury off as this in Chapter 34.
  Navarone: It’s been a while since I last shaved; I was really out of practice.
• Cutting the Knot: When Nav captures the Dogfather, by simply meeting him in person, grasping his paw, and getting Celestia to teleport them both to her.
  Shining Armor: Princess... this feels wrong. It’s like... it’s like we were supposed to go through a process first, but bypassed all the steps!

D

• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: "True magic" was banned and stamped out by Celestia and Luna due to the danger it poses, after Grogar once used it to alter the climate of the north pole.
• Darker and Edgier: Compared to the show's version of Equestria, the depiction in Diaries of a Madman is much darker, despite it superficially appearing to keep the Sugar Bowl setting.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: Taya tries to invoke this as a way of getting attention, only for it to backfire spectacularly when Nav doesn't have any problems with her dating or her choice of date, and simply tells her to be careful.
• Daywalking Vampire: Young vampires who've built up a tolerance to sunlight are capable of going out during the daytime, though this weakens them and causes severe headaches. Something which results in Midnight Blossom becoming even more irritable and aloof than normal.
• Decadent Court: Downplayed somewhat. While rarely deadly, upsetting the major players in Canterlot can have very negative repercussions. At one point Nav and Rarity manage to upset Fleur, who manages to get them thrown in jail, and later on he gets attacked by thugs. Luna is somewhat mystified over why her sister puts up with such shenanigans.
• Deadly Euphemism: When deciding that Calix needs to be killed, Nav uses the extremely thinly veiled euphemism of "anything can happen on a dangerous road", which fools no-one.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Nav seems to view being snarky almost as a second job, and slips into The Snark Knight territory at times when musing over humanity's or his own failings.
  • Taya and Celestia both show a lighter version of this, in the form of the occasional dry and snarky response to Nav.
• Deal with the Devil:
  • Celestia's initial deal with Discord in the prologue. She gets some credit in that she rejected it hundreds of times while Discord was trying to find a way to make her agree.
  • Discord also offers or forces other characters into such a deal over the course of the story.
• Death by Irony: Or rather Life by Irony. When Nav gets sent back in time, he inadvertently ruins Discord's plans to kill himself. Discord does at least appreciate the irony of managing to ultimately ruin his own plan.
• Death Glare: Good luck trying to keep count of the number of times this occurs.
• Death Seeker: Discord's main motivation is finding a way of ending his existence.
• Dem Bones: The skeletons that attack Nav while he's trapped in the Antarctic bunker.
• Demoted to Extra: For most of the story, the Mane Six only appear somewhat sporadically, particularly so with AJ, who barely appears at all within the story. They do become more involved later on, around Chapter 100, however.
• Demythification: Generally inverted, given the All Myths Are True nature of the setting. However, the Greek godess of knowledge and wisdom, Athena, states that she was once a mortal human who explored magic very deeply, and in her own words is not a god.
• Department of Redundancy Department: The following exchange between Nav and Reginald.
  Reginald: Do you happen to know the penalty for such crimes in the dragon horde?
  Navarone: I uh… I heard the penalty for rape was… getting raped to death.
  Reginald: You heard correctly. And the penalty for murder?
  Navarone: ...Um. Getting… murdered to death?
  Reginald: Close enough.
• Depraved Dentist: Colgate gives off this vibe in spades. However, Nav mistakes her for that kind of depraved dentist, and when he at one point tries to play into this by propositioning her, it doesn't work at all.
• Description Cut: After Nav agrees to model for Rarity in Chapter 20:
  Rarity: You won’t regret this! I swear it!
  (cut)
  A week later, we were both sitting in a jail cell.
• Destination Defenestration: Nav gets defenestrated by Filly!Twilight in Chapter 14 when she mistakes him for a monster. At least his wings cushion the impact somewhat.
• Determinator:
  • Nav survives the campaign in Egypt pretty much entirely on this, and attributes the willpower due his desire to avoid Spike getting hurt while he's being used as a hostage.
  • Casting "true magic" on another involves overpowering them mentally. For this reason, it's impossible to will someone dead, because their will to live will always overpower the caster. Discord's willpower is such that the only way he can be affected is if he allows it.
  • Spike's efforts to escape from captivity in Chapter 104.
• Didn't Think This Through: Jocasta sends Nav to raid a slave camp, killing most of the people there and freeing all the slaves. She and everyone else is riding high on their success and rejoicing at having released so many slaves to join them. It's left to Nav to point out the flaws in this plan: a) they have nowhere near enough supplies for 300 people; b) the slaves are mostly too old, too young or too brutalized to be able to move fast, turning their entire group into a sitting target; c) they are now much too big a group to pass unremarked; and d) this gigantic, poorly-supplied, slow-moving group just seriously pissed off the local government by raiding the aforementioned camp.
• Did They or Didn't They?: Briefly between Rainbow Dash and Nav after a night of drinking. They didn't, and had just been wrestling instead.
• Dirty Business:
  • Most of the tasks Celestia gives to Nav tend to involve this, but particularly the campaign in Egypt.
  • While he acknowledges the necessity of his actions, his role in the genocide of the diamond dogs haunts Nav afterwards, and results in him isolating himself even more from his friends. The fact that the changelings consider his actions heroic doesn't help matters.
• Dirty Old Monk: One of the priests in the Antarctic bunker, Igor, who kept several women as sex slaves. Also doubles as a Sinister Minister.
• Disintegrator Ray: Taya kills some spiders with a spell that does this in Chapter 106.
• Dismantled Macguffin: The Elements of Harmony after their theft by Discord, and subsequently being hidden around the globe.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Fleur gets Nav (who's in pony form at this point) arrested for treason, simply for turning her down.
  • Nav stabs a dog for giving him incorrect information while on a mission in Flankfurt.
  • Celestia slams Nav into a wall in a rare fit of rage, after following Luna's orders and causing a political scandal with the griffons.
  • Athena cursed Arachne with agelessness and forced her into the body of a spider, in revenge for a particularly nasty insult. Eventually Athena came to realise she was wrong to have done so.
• Distracted by My Own Sexy: While gender-swapped in 104, Nav is briefly distracted when he sees himself in the mirror, and notes that his/her looks would turn heads back home.
• The Dog Bites Back: After a week of torture and abuse at the paws of Kat, Nav finally snaps, and after almost crushing her throat in a rage and threatening to Pay Evil unto Evil, he warns her that he'll kill her if she ever does anything to him again.
• Doing In the Wizard:
  • Flo is revealed to be comprised of nanomachines, a fact she was completely unaware of.
  • Inverted with Pinkie Pie, as her bizarre abilities are revealed to the reader as the product of "real magic", even if Pinkie and the rest of the cast are unaware of this.
• Do I Really Sound Like That?: Twilight isn't pleased to find out what she sounds like when she observes herself through Nav's eyes.
  Twilight: I can hear everything I’m saying. I do not sound like that!
• Don't Call Me "Sir": After being knighted, Nav constantly has to ask those he meets not to call him sir. It's still a problem for him even after he quits as Luna's knight. In a similar vein, he also hates it when others make use of some of the other titles he's collected.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Nav hates this so much that he leaves Equestria completely when the truth about Luna's crimes against him comes out. He was planning to leave anyway, but he moves his timetable forwards to avoid this happening.
• The Door Slams You: Rainbow Dash accidentally kicks Nav's office door into him in Chapter 87.
• Doorstopper: At over 1.6 million words long, the story is currently the largest on Fimfiction.net and no way near being complete. For reference, this is longer than any officially published book, and only a few fanfics have a higher word count.
  As of 11/4/2018, the word count for the fanfic has reached over 2.5 million words.
• Dope Slap: Nav does it to Spike whenever he does something particularly silly. Lacking hands, others sometimes return the favour by cuffing him with their wings, or just flat out kicking him instead.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Utterly averted. It causes extensive psychological damage to Navarone, and is taken very seriously as a crime in-universe.
• Dracolich: The undead dragon the crew runs into in Chapter 112.
• Dramatic Gun Cock: During a Hostage Situation in Chapter 72, Nav finds out that his past self is standing right behind him through the hammer being pulled.
• Dramatic Irony: Regularly crops up as Discord interjects to give readers information that the main characters are lacking. Also applies during the prologue where Discord makes Celestia and Luna forget about their deal.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: Nav has a few nightmares of Discord shortly after arriving in Equestria, who he's never met nor seen at that point. It can be assumed Discord had some influence over this.
• Dream Land: The aptly named Dreamlands.
• Dream Walker: Nav eventually learns how to do this as part of his duties as Luna's knight, and becomes quite talented at it. Due to the fact he's a human, he also has far more control over the man-made dream machine than Luna does.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Used when Nav infiltrates the slave ship in Chapter 26. Though as it's crewed by cats and dogs, his disguise is pretty much limited to him also being bipedal, and wearing enough clothing to obscure the fact that he's a human with wings.
• Driven to Madness: Discord ended doing it to some of the alicorns, which was probably one of the nicer things he did.
• Driven to Suicide: Discord. His main problem is finding a way to pull it off.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Nav does this each year as a way of 'celebrating' his birthday.
• Duck Season, Rabbit Season: Pinkie tries for this in Chapter 31, but unfortunately for her, Nav's one step ahead.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?:
  • A complicated example with Nav. Among other races, he generally has the respect that you would expect given his accomplishments, but this is mostly played straight amongst ponies, even if he does have the respect of some such as the princesses and the royal guards. While he doesn't exactly demand the respect of others, he does point out to Celestia that he doesn't have much reason to stay in Equestria where a large amount of the population fears him, when he could go elsewhere and live like a king. In one case, quite literally.
  • Midnight had a hard time rising up the ranks of the guard due to Celestia failing to recognise her competence. Midnight is particularly angered by Celestia being more than capable of remembering the names of the less important members of her court.
• Duel to the Death:
  • A crazy unicorn, Pelt, challenges Nav to one, but Celestia intervenes before it can begin.
  • Blueblood challenges Nav to a duel in Chapter 39, though it doesn’t have to go all the way to the death. He later challenges Nav to a fight to the death at the Gala in Chapter 78, only to attack him from behind after Nav refuses.
• Dying as Yourself: Nav attempts to invoke this when Celestia threatens to remove the painful memories from his mind to make him happier, since he views it as changing who he is. He gets stopped before he can pull it off.

E

• Earth All Along: Readers find this out at the beginning of the story, but it takes Nav some time and several hints before he figures it out himself.
• Eaten Alive: Nav pretends to eat Quisling alive during the war games, as part of his ploy to distract and demoralise the day guard scouting force.
• Eating the Eye Candy:
  • At the Grand Galloping Gala in Chapter 10, Nav's pegasus form gets eaten up, both by Luna, and also many of the noblemares attending.
  • Averted in Chapter 39. Rarity's staring at Nav is because of her concern over how thin he is, rather than out of attraction. Cadance also stares at Nav for the same reason in Chapter 63.
• Emergency Transformation: An unintentional example. After almost being killed in a magical accident, Celestia and Luna have to infuse Nav with life force taken from elsewhere in order to save him, in this case from a tree. As a consequence, he's no longer fully human and ends up gaining several plant-like characteristics and a vastly increased life expectancy.
• Emotion Eater: Changelings are capable of feeding off all emotions in this version of Equestria, though most prefer love. They can also feed off memories, though they are less satisfying than the real thing, with the exception of human memories which are as nutritious due to humans attaching emotions to memories more so than other species.
• Empathy Pet: Freki, Nav's briefly-adopted timberwolf, who can magically pick up on Nav's emotions towards a target and behaves accordingly.
• Enemies with Chaos: Nav with Discord.
• Entitled to Have You: Part of Luna's issues on this front stem from outdated protocols. The other half of this is because she's not exactly sane.
• Erotic Dream:
  • Luna ends up using the dream machine to give all ponies erotic dreams of Navarone as a form of revenge. This includes the stallions... and the children including his daughter. Very understandably, he is extremely upset about this, and it causes a lot of awkwardness and damage to his reputation.
  • There's an entire subset of dreams within the dream world about erotic dreams.
• Establishing Character Moment: Behold one of the causes of Luna's problems...
  Luna: Why should we be forced to change to their desires? We are royalty!
• Eternal Prohibition: Alcohol was allowed in Equestria until the princesses banned it after a Noodle Incident in which half of Ponyfornia was knocked into the ocean, though Celestia turns a blind eye to Nav sharing the information on how to make it. Other states are far less less restrictive, and salt is allowed in Equestria.
• Ethical Slut: Navarone doesn't have many rules, but he will refuse to get involved with married couples, and won't have anything to do with any mare in heat who hasn't previously expressed any interest in him while in a more sound frame of mind.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Nav's response to Taya joining in on the hugging action in Chapter 113.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Discord has never killed (or at least, so he claims), though seeing as he readily admits to getting others indirectly killed, it's not exactly much of a standard for him to be proud of.
  • Chrysalis is sickened by what Taya has had to live through, as well as some of the acts other races are capable of. This being someone who delights in genociding her hated enemies.
  • One of the thieves who killed Taya's parents couldn't bring himself to kill Taya as well, though Discord is partly responsible on both counts.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Nav, quite literally. His human form is nothing special, but his pony form is an exceptionally handsome pegasus, and gets a lot of positive attention from both mares and stallions who are of that orientation.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: With the Antarctic bunker, pretty much everything tries to kill Nav, with even the architecture getting in on the act. The only exceptions to this being Popsy the clown and the ghostly kids after Nav frees them.
• Evil Gloating: Sombra to Nav in Chapter 94.
  Sombra: Thou hast the honor of beholding King Sombra, mortal. And thou approacheth our empire, built with our sweat and protected by our blood. And it will be ours again soon, along with the traitorous slaves within.
• Evil Is Deathly Cold: While the bunker in Antarctica is certainly cold, and definitely full of evil, the freezing temperatures are mostly a result of the location, rather than the supernatural. The key word being mostly.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Sombra is mentioned to have originally been a kind and brilliant leader, but ended up being forced into dark measures to protect his kingdom, which eventually resulted in his corruption.
• Evil Laugh: Nav claims this is a talent he used to extensively practice, and makes use of it after gaining his set of Scary Impractical Armor.
• Evil Stole My Faith: Nav was initially a Christian when he first came to Equestria, but loses his faith after all the stuff he goes through. Celestia is a little hurt when she finds out that she played a part in this.
• Evil Weapon: The cursed dagger Miguel attacks Nav with.
• Exact Words:
  • Discord uses this when making a deal with Celestia in the prologue, and mocks her for failing to spot a very obvious problem after she agrees.
  • Navarone often uses this and then proceeds to abuse the loopholes he's just created. Or when he wants to lie by omission.
  • Celestia tasks Nav with 'assassinating' her during the Gala between 6PM and midnight. He completes his task at 6:00:01, much to her surprise.
• The Exile: Nav effectively becomes one temporarily when he's sent to Egypt to take care of a situation for Celestia after committing a crime. Several others also end up being sent with him, but it's more being Reassigned to Antarctica in their cases.
• Exotic Equipment: The fact that this is generally averted is lampshaded by Nav, but it is played straight with changelings. Or, more specifically, Chrysalis.
• Eye Scream:
  • Nav nails a Mook right in the eye with a throwing knife at one point.
  • Nav ends up being blinded by one of Sombra's cursed books, until the spell can be reversed.
  • The miner later on in the story loses both his eyes to the unseen force haunting the mines. Thankfully this happens off-page, since the description of this is already bad enough.

F

• Face Death with Dignity: Briefly discussed in Chapter 64, when a convicted naga is told to cease lying, and show some dignity in her final moments.
• Face Palm: Nav does this regularly. The habit is so ingrained that he still tries to do it while in pegasus form, despite the lack of hands.
• Failed a Spot Check: When Rainbow Dash and Nav decide to dip into the first restaurant they see during their trip to Canterlot in Chapter 72, they're completely oblivious to it catering mainly for couples until after they've stepped inside, somehow failing to be tipped off by the place being called called The Loveboat.
• Fake Cutie: Taya is this, even more so than Sonata Dusk. She is not only a Deliberately Cute Child, but when her cuteness fails she resorts to threats and it's shown repeatedly she has no problem killing.
• Fake-Out Make-Out: Used to get past the police in Chapter 76.
• False Flag Operation: Nav's crew accidentally ends up doing this after he leaves on his quest, with his men still sporting Equestrian uniforms and insignia. After Rarity prompts him, he realises this is an issue and takes steps to correct it.
• Familiar: Trixie summons an alphyn for her duel with Twilight in Chapter 5, and mistakes Nav as Twilight’s familiar.
• Fantastic Arousal: Pegasus wings are quite sensitive, in what is now a Fanon staple. It is slightly more justified here however, since wings contain nerve clusters that are pleasurable when correctly manipulated.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Nav accuses ponies as a species of doing this, particularly as they're the only ones to use terms like "anypony", though it's something of an exaggeration on his part. Some of the nobles do look down on the other races and play this one straight, but ponies in general are a very light version of this and casually assume they're better than other cultures without questioning this, rather than it being out of hatred or contempt.
  • This was part of Celestia's plan to unite the pony tribes after her previous attempt backfired.
• Fantasy Contraception:
  • There's a unicorn spell for this purpose, but Nav generally has little need for it for obvious reasons. It's not actually needed when casting the shapeshifting spell either since, it doesn't completely change your original species at the genetic level, but no one seems aware of this.
  • Inverted with timberwolves, who need to eat zap apples in order to breed.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Most of the different cultures encountered usually take some inspiration from non-Western human cultures. Perhaps a slightly more justified example than most, given that many capital cities are built on the ruins of older human cities.
• Fate Worse than Death:
  • The fate of changeling prisoners, kept alive and forced to consume love poison in order to provide nourishment for the hive.
  • Discord's fate of being almost completely immortal while having become bored of existence.
• A Father to His Men:
  • All of the commanders in the Royal Guard treat their men well, but it particularly applies to Fancy Pants when he ends up as the ranking officer in charge during a war games exercise, and is convinced to surrender by Nav, on the grounds that if it were real, it would spare his men's lives.
  • Strangely enough, this actually applies to Nav as well. He shows deep regret whenever anyone under his command comes to harm, and refuses to leave one of his crew behind without at least making an effort to save him.
• Faux Horrific: Taya's reaction to the idea of Rarity dressing her up for the Gala. You'd almost think the girl went through a war zone, given her shell-shocked reaction afterwards.
• Felony Misdemeanor: Twilight seems to view not stacking books properly as an awful crime, and is more focused on that than the fact she's just been sucked into a Portal Book.
• Fetch Quest: Nav's mission to locate, free, and unite the elementals is essentially one. While in the middle of it, he and the Mane 6 also get tasked with retrieving the Elements of Harmony, after Discord steals and hides them.
• Fictional Document: Most of the story is told through Nav's diary, which is a real document in-universe. He also has a bunch of fake copies hidden around to help protect his secrets from other characters, making him an in-universe Unreliable Narrator.
• Fighting Your Friend: Nav and Luna have to fight images of their friends and loved ones in Chapter 36 while trying to reactivate the dream machine. Nav has way too much fun with it.
  (after having just destroyed a copy of Luna without any hesitation)
  Luna: Nav. Did you just kill me?
• Fingore:
  • Nav moves onto this when interrogating an assassin, after The Tooth Hurts doesn't quite yield the results he was after.
  • Nav loses a finger after being attacked by an Ursa Minor in Chapter 42, though it eventually grows back.
  Navarone: That finger was on my top ten list of favorite fingers…
• Finishing Each Other's Sentences: When Gilda and Nav ask Applejack where Rainbow Dash might be, Applejack asks where they came from. Well, Ask a Stupid Question......
  Navarone: Well, when a man and a woman really love each other...
  Gilda: Or get really drunk...
  Navarone: They have sex...
  Gilda: And it's usually pretty fun, unless the guy is terrible at it...
• First Law of Gender Bending: Initially Nav is freely able to switch through his gender stones, until they break and trap him in female form.
• First-Name Basis: Nav is usually on such terms with most of the royalty he encounters, as much as those accompanying him tend to protest over the lack of formality.
• Fisher King: According to Twilight, this trope is the "leading scientific theory" why the area around the Naga caves is so desolate. Nav holds this view in very high regard.
  Navarone: My vote is because this place is the fucking dust bowl.
• Flashback: Nav experiences several due to the influence of ghosts while trapped in the Russian bunker. These range from brief flashbacks of Ava and Artyom's time in the bunker, to flashbacks of Nav's past.
• Flat "What": Plenty of examples. In particular, Nav's reaction to finding out about his Arranged Marriage to Gilda from Celestia. Cadance has a similar reaction when Nav tells her a little later.
• Fling a Light into the Future:
  • Humanity did this twice, once when trying to save itself from Discord by putting some humans into stasis, and again when creating the other races, as well as providing the elementals to protect and guide them.
  • Merlin also did this, as seen within Chapter 99 where he sends Arthur and Nimue into a portal, and orders Excalibur to be thrown into the sea so it can be taken up by another in the future.
• Foil: Shining Armor for Nav. An officer who tries to do right by others, versus someone who might be on the same side most of the time, but generally opposes much of what he stands for.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Chapter 9 foreshadows that Luna isn't exactly all that right in the head.
  • Chapter 10 mentions the repercussions of irritating Fleur, which becomes a minor plot point later on.
• Forgot I Couldn't Fly:
  • Nav goes to visit Rainbow Dash In Chapter 3, only to remember far too late that he can't fly. At that point, anyway.
  • Nav again runs into this problem In Chapter 31, due to the feathers on his wings being burnt off by Taya's Power Incontinence.
• Forced Transformation: Athena trapped Arachne in the form of a spider in revenge for an insult.
• Fountain of Youth: Twilight temporarily turns herself into a filly when — what else — one of her magical experiments goes wrong. Thankfully, it wears off after a few hours, but not before Filly!Twilight ends up throwing Nav through a window out of fear of the "monster".
• "Freaky Friday" Flip:
  • Rarity and Nav do this at one point as part of a competition to see who can act most like the other. Naturally, they don't get to hold this without being sucked into adventures.
  • Celestia and Luna also end up swapped at one point when Twilight tries to get revenge on Celestia for testing love poison on her.
  • Nav, Taya, Spike, and Twilight end up being swapped after one of Twilight's magical experiments goes wrong, which results in Nav discussing the trope.
• Free-Range Children: Taya is allowed to go about with very minimal oversight. Cadance's repeated lectures to Nav over this do not go down well with him.
• French Maid:
  • Chrysalis forces Doppel to dress up as one as a punishment, and Celestia makes Nav go undercover as one, partly as revenge.
  • Pinkie briefly wears one in Chapter 8, and moves up to wearing dominatrix gear shortly thereafter. It Makes Sense in Context. Sort of.
• Freudian Excuse: Kat claims to have tortured Nav due to her abuse as a slave during her backstory, and having never been in control of anything before. Nav calls her on this being a pathetic excuse for what she did.
• A Friend in Need: Given that this is a fanfic based off a show about ponies and friendship, there are several instances of this, but it particularly applies when Rainbow Dash takes it upon herself to comfort Nav after his Tomato in the Mirror moment. He does appreciate the gesture, even if he finds it more annoying than comforting.
• Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: The captain of the Night Guard, Midnight Blossom.
• Friendly Tickle Torture: Nav gets Pinkie to do this to Taya in Chapter 113, in retaliation for hugging him.
• Friend to All Children: Harming children is one of the few things that really angers Nav, and he usually goes out his way to look after them, albeit somewhat unwillingly. This is best exemplified when he discovers Taya, who he adopts as his daughter.
• Friends with Benefits:
  • Nav accrues an increasing number of these throughout the story.
  • Pinkie and Rainbow Dash also seem to have this arrangement, but it’s never made clear in-story. Word of God confirms it, however.
• Frontline General: Nav explicitly mocks and derides this as a terrible strategy in Chapter 46, only for him to pretty much do this himself as a high-ranking officer during a war games exercise
• Frying Pan of Doom: Pinkie's weapon of choice when attacking Mooks in Chapter 57.
• Full-Frontal Assault: After waking up in Chapter 111, Nav is forced into this to defend himself/herself from an undead doctor. After escaping the room however, all his/her equipment and clothing magically returns.
• Full-Name Basis: Chrysalis often addresses others by their full name, and constantly does it to Pinkie, in an attempt to annoy her.
• Furry Reminder:
  • Nav lampshades or explains many of the instances of this in his narration, which usually mirror the examples from the show.
  • Gilda eats a worm at one point, which does not go down well with Cadance and Nav.
  Cadance & Navarone: (disgusted stares)
  Gilda: What? I’m half-bird, remember?
• Fusion Dance: Inverted. One of Discord's many crimes is quite literally splitting the alicorns into three, to form the earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi.
• Future Slang: Implied. When Nav ends up being sent back in time for a week, his word choice is noted to be "retro".

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