Bluelight lamenting what she's sacrificed.
My Choices: Twisted Tales Through Time
is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Fan Fic written by koolerkid.
In the process of looking for clues as to the cause of Nightmare Moon's rise, Twilight Sparkle accidentally gets Trapped in the Past. After realizing the opportunity her position presents, she resolves to prevent Luna from becoming Nightmare Moon in the first place.
Meanwhile, in the Future…, Twilight Sparkle discovers a prophecy which talks about the imminent return of a malevolent entity called Darklight Star, who fought the two Princesses a thousand years ago before getting imprisoned in the North Star.
My Choices: Twisted Tales Through Time was first published in July 2012 and updated until December of that year, at which point it went on indefinite hiatus.
This fanfic contains examples of:
- Badass Bookworm: Firefly's initial mental picture of Blue Star as a hardened warmage is crushed when it's revealed that the incident that created this impression was an accidental asswhooping and that she's a complete nerd. It turns into this after a few sentences from Blue Star about why she shouldn't learn to properly fight, since her power is so great that she could easily hurt her opponents by mistake.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Lady Blueblood, who makes her descendant from the original timeline look like a saint in comparison. When Blue Star is first appointed to Celestia's court, Blueblood attempts to take advantage of their similar-sounding names by claiming they're related. Once Blue Star makes clear that the two of them have very different priorities, Blueblood actively attempts to use the Royal Court to put an end to the changes Blue Star is trying to bring about to Equestria.
- Christmas Episode: Chapter 6 covers Trixie's first Hearth's Warming with Twilight's family.
- Court Mage: One of the more influential positions in ancient Equestria's Royal Court is that of Magical Advisor to Princess Celestia, given to the most skilled or accomplished unicorn wizard around and invested with a great deal of power over magical law and education.
- Courtroom Episode: In Chapter 10, Blue Star has to convince Equestria's Royal Court that her reforms are, despite Lady Blueblood's claims, actually beneficial to Equestria.
- Defeat Means Friendship: To show that there's no hard feelings between herself and Starswirl V as a result of their duel, Blue Star offers to sponsor Starswirl to Princess Celestia (partly to ensure the changes Starswirl brought to Equestria still occur), an act that causes Starswirl to come to genuinely respect her and eventually form a genuine friendship with her over the years.
- Dramatic Irony: "Celestia, listen to me. Twilight Sparkle is not Blue Star." In Chapter 11, Luna talks her sister out of a fit of paranoia where, after noticing that Blue Star and Twilight are identical in everything but color, Celestia comes to the conclusion that her student is some sort of reincarnation or magical construct come to continue the corrupted Darklight's work. Luna states that this is ridiculous and mere coincidence. The irony is that Blue Star and Twilight are indeed the same person — or, at least, instances of the same person, as Blue Star was a name used by Twilight after traveling to and becoming stuck in the past.
- Expy: Each of the G1 ponies, in a reversal of how the main characters are ultimately based on the ones from the G1 show, serves as these to Twilight's friends. She does notice some differences though, such as Surprise being slightly more levelheaded than Pinkie Pie, Posey being more likely to stutter than run in fear of another pony, and Firefly being more disciplined than Rainbow Dash. Sparkler, on the other hoof, is almost a perfect match of Rarity, while Applejack is much younger, clumsier and more excitable than her future counterpart.
- Fantastic Racism: In the past, only unicorns are allowed to read. Pegasi and earth ponies were forbidden to even enter a library. Blue Star seeks to rectify this. Ancient ponies were also deeply prejudiced towards other species, such as zebras, griffons, diamond dogs and buffalo, whom they viewed as primitive barbarians.
- Foregone Conclusion: In the prologue, Twilight reads a prophecy much like the one from the show's pilot, where the royal sisters come together to defeat a traitor named Darklight Star and trap her in the North Star. At the end of the prologue, we see a note from another Twilight Sparkle, saying that she did the best she could to improve things, and she hopes the Princesses will forgive her one day. Finally, in Chapter 1, the Twilight from the canon timeline gets Trapped in the Past and adopts the name Blue Star. It's not hard to figure out where things are going from there.
- Gambit Pileup: The story seems to be heading in this direction, with Celestia manipulating events to create the perfect bearers for the Elements of Harmony, herself being unknowingly manipulated by Luna to that very same effect, and the Order of Stars having its own, yet unspecified, agenda.
- Giving Radio to the Romans: Blue Star brought numerous technological advances to Equestria from 1000 years in the future, and went even farther than that, actually doing a lot of further building on them within the past, beyond what had been accomplished in her native time. Ironically, one of the results was a stable time-viewing spell, which would have allowed her to avoid the whole situation if it had been around in the original timeline.
- Heroic Sacrifice: It is heavily implied by her surviving notes that Twilight took the Nightmare into herself to prevent it corrupting Luna.
- In Spite of a Nail: For all the social changes Blue Star brought about (not to mention Luna's continued presence as a leader of Equestria), the world still developed very similarly, with Twilight still becoming Celestia's student, Shining Armor still developing a crush on Cadance, and so forth.
Word of God is that this is an inherent trait of timeline changes in his version of the universe: the timeline tries to stay as static as possible, and pushes probability around to do so; therefore, any change which can actually have a longterm effect on the timeline has to be big. Luckily, the Order of Stars has been continuing Blue Star's legacy, preventing her improvements from getting canceled out by the timeline. - In Their Own Image: Blue Star pulls off a non-evil example; she advances society by hundreds of years' worth of progress in just five years (with help from the Order of Stars to keep things going after she gets banished), leading to a far more egalitarian and technologically advanced future than the one she came from. In the process, she becomes one of the most famous historical figures in the new timeline.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Starswirl V's nerve-severing spell causes this reaction in Blue Star, scaring her into drawing on her full reserves of power and easily overpowering his complex spellwork through sheer brute force.
- Magitek: The future version of Equestria, as seen starting in Chapter 8, makes common use of "magitechnology", gem-based technology intended to be useable by anyone. Examples include what are essentially magical versions of computers, iPads, holographic picture cameras, and audio recorders.
- Meanwhile, in the Future…: The story alternates each chapter between Blue Star!Twilight in the past and Neo-Twilight and Trixie's friendshipping adventures in the new future.
- Mood Whiplash: Most of Chapter 6 is a giant heartwarming moment covering Trixie's first Hearth's Warming with Twilight's family. Then, at the end of the chapter, she receives Nightmare Moon's helmet from the original timeline.
- Mugging the Monster: After hearing the truth about the magical duel's outcome, Firefly's mental image of Blue Star reforms itself to compare to a helpless filly who, on being accosted by muggers looking for an easy mark, easily wipes the floor with them.Firefly (inner thoughts): She was the young filly that got attacked by foolish muggers in the alleyway, assuming her to be an easy mark, only to leave them broken and aching by the side of the road. No, Blue Star wasn't at all what she expected. She was better.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Twilight's disguise as Blue Star consists of an illusion spell to make herself blue instead of purple, dying her mane, and calling herself Blue Star. Celestia sees through it quickly due to sensing the spell and noticing her slight hesitation when answering to her name, but chooses not to pry. This serves well enough at first due to her being stuck a thousand years before her own birth, but a thousand years on Celestia eventually has a moment of panic when she realizes that her new student is identical to her old, fallen friend except purple instead of blue.
- Precocious Crush: Trixie develops a heavy foalhood crush on Shining Armor, and is horrified to learn that he already has a marefriend.
- Religion of Evil: Subverted with the Order of the Stars. They're presented as a sinister cult, operating in the shadows and preparing for Darklight Star's return, but it turns out that they were founded by Blue Star just before her Face–Heel Turn and have actually been responsible for some of Equestria's post-Darklight Star improvements. Bright Eyes, their leader, confirms to Celestia that the Order has no intention of helping Darklight Star once she is released.
- Retroactive Precognition: Blue Star knows everything that's supposed to have been done by Starswirl V before she accidentally usurped his Court position due to coming from a period long after these events would have occurred, and sets out to make all the same accomplishments, and more. Meanwhile, in the Future… the "more" is clearly evident.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Twilight may not have intended to go back in time, but she's certainly going to use the opportunity and prevent Luna's transformation into Nightmare Moon when the time comes.
- Shrinking Violet: Posey, due both to sharing Fluttershy's timidity and being a servant in a highly stratified society, is extremely timid and insecure, especially around more socially powerful people.
- Stock Unsolved Mysteries: In-Universe, the disappearance of Blue Star has become one by the time of the present period — since the Princesses kept her fall into darkness tightly secret, everyone else just knows that she vanished on day and was never seen again, and no-one ever figured out how or why. Twilight's theory is that she got Trapped in the Past trying to warn the Princesses about Darklight Star.
- Trapped in the Past: Twilight Sparkle/Blue Star ends up pulled to about five years before Luna's fall and transformation into Nightmare Moon by a time-viewing spell gone wrong. At first she wants to leave the timeline unaltered, and takes on a new name so that even if she shows up in the history books it won't be as herself. Although the pseudonym bit works, she still ends up Giving Radio to the Romans and completely changing the timeline.
- Tricked Out Time: Accidentally take somepony's position in history while Trapped in the Past? Use that power to endorse all their accomplishments so they happen anyway and then help make them better with future tech.
- What Year Is This?: Blue Star asks Surprise the year near the end of their first conversation. Surprise being herself, she doesn't find it an odd question at all.
- Wizard Duel: In the past, insults and feuds among wizards were resolved using duels of magic, where the two individuals faced off and went at each other with their full magical power, sometimes resulting in grievous injuries for one or both participants. By the present day they're long since outlawed and viewed as a barbaric custom, leaving Twilight rather flat-footed when, while newly stuck in the past, she accidentally insults Starswirl V and finds herself challenged to such a duel.
