Somebody told me of
A silly little thing
Called destiny
Go unchecked
I'll go blind
Finding how it got the best of me
A silly little thing
Called destiny
Go unchecked
I'll go blind
Finding how it got the best of me
— Twilight Sparkle, Like You
Destiny: A Tale of Unicorn Wings is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Rock Opera by Elizabeth L.K. Icarus Gray, better known as HeyLasFas!, expanding upon the events that take place during and after the season three finale, Magical Mystery Cure. Twilight Sparkle, after coronated as Equestria's new princess, must leave Ponyville adjust to her new life and duties.
It goes about as well as you'd expect.
It can be found on Bandcamp here.
Not to be confused with Destiny.
Destiny: A Tale of Unicorn Wings contains examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion: The album takes an event only briefly touched upon in the show and runs with it for nearly two hours.
- Arc Words:
- "Home"
- "I can't tell you how much it meant to me."
- "Forgive me"
- "Somebody told me of a silly little thing called destiny..."
- "It's not your fault."
- Author Avatar: Twilight, according to Gray herself.
- Beneath the Mask: After being grounded from visiting her friends, Twilight feigns confidence and being on top of everything in front of everyone, but is deeply remorseful when alone.
- Book Ends: "Starborne" opens up with a mysterious monologue about looking up at the stars to find your way home.
- Break the Cutie: Twilight's arc from being a bookish librarian to a depressed alicorn princess. Not to mention when she transforms into Silent Dusk...
- Breather Episode: "Silence" is a soft mellow track that is paired with some nice reading material, especially compared to the loud aggressive synthesizers and drums of the previous track where Twilight transforms into Silent Dusk.
- BSoD Song: Empty. Twilight returns to her library in Ponyville to discover that it was emptied out and all her old books were missing. When she sees her friends wearing their Elements of Harmony, she feels that they're being worn for their protection. Cue "Dusk."
- Call-Back: "Like You" contains one to a previous song of hers: Gone (Learned to Fly).
- Celebrity Is Overrated: Turns out, joint-ruling over an entire country isn't all that it's cracked up to be.
- Cover Drop: In the final track:
- I'll meet you in the sun.
I'll meet you when I earn my fragile wings.
- Dark Ambient: The intro of "Heartache" has shades of this.
- Dark Reprise:
- "Like You?" as well as a particularly heartbreaking echo of the opening lyrics in "Empty."
- "Dusk" reprises both "Maturity" and "Something Missing."
- Deconstruction Fic: The album is essentially a musical form of this. It takes the (at the time) common fan theory that Twilight was being prepared to become an alicorn princess and runs with it in a decidedly tragic manner. It goes to great lengths to subvert the romantic images associated with royalty by showing what suddenly being thrust into a position of power and importance would do to Twilight mentally, and how her new life wears her down to a shell of her former self. It draws attention to the fact that Twilight pre-Season 2 was very neurotic and worrisome, and didn't seem like someone who would be able to handle such an important, highly public position. The fact that Twilight actually did become a princess in the show itself around the time the album was released is either
Harsher in Hindsight or Reconstruction depending on how you look at it. - Decon-Recon Switch: While most of the story is pure deconstruction, the finale reconstructs the concept into something more closely resembling the source material. See Earn Your Happy Ending below.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Twilight uses the last of her force after breaking free of Silent Dusk to shove the sun away from a collision course with Earth. At the end of Fragile Wings, her remaining friends inadvertently invoke the Elements of Harmony and manage to bring Twilight back to life.
- Epic Instrumental Opener: "Starborne."
- Epic Rocking: The album is an hour and fifty minutes long and has sixteen songs. That averages to about seven minutes each track.
- Foreshadowing:
- Pretty much every lyric is brimming with foreshadowing, but nothing stands more than "Starborne" or the chorus of "Something Missing"
- The stained glass and Twilight's wings on the cover artwork foreshadow the apocalypse Silent Dusk almost causes, as well as Twilight's Heroic Sacrifice.
- Furry Reminder: In the second verse of "Semantics":
- This work in progress moves as planned
Set in motion by your own
(beat)
...hand?
(beat)It's not like I can't make up words around here.
- Genre Roulette: Ambient, to orchestral, to industrial, to pop-punk, to hard rock, to hardcore and heavy metal. The only thing consistent is the Progressive Rock feel.
- Growing Up Sucks: While Twilight is already an adult at the start of the album, the story nonetheless plays out like this, with new responsibilities taking the place of literal aging.
- Hell Is That Noise: The first few minutes of "Heartache" are made up of this.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Twilight to save the earth from the falling sun in Fragile Wings.
- I Am the Band: Gray wrote and produced the entire album by herself, albeit with engineering help from Klisk.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Twilight's entire motivation is to obtain a sense of normality in her new life. She fails in the most terrifying way possible.
- Ironic Echo: The breakdown of "Semantics," as well as the entirety of "Like You?"
- Gratuitous Panning: The end lyrics of "Dusk."
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: In "Empty," Twilight goes from being depressed about losing everything she cares for to ATTEMPTING TO OBLITERATE THE PLANET BY CRASHING THE ENTIRE SUN INTO IT.
- Last Note Nightmare:
- The last few minutes of "Empty" are made up of booming, mechanical rhythms and heavy, dissonant synth growls. It's supposed to signify Twilight's transformation into Silent Dusk.
- Inverted in "Heartache," whose first few minutes are made of nightmarish ambiance.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: Looking through Gray's Tumblr before listening to the album is a bad idea.
- Leitmotif: Several melodies and chord structures are reoccurring, as the nature of a Concept Album, but the most apparent are the chords that play during What if I can't? in "Like You."
- Lonely Piano Piece: "Heartache."
- Loss of Identity: Twilight feels that she lost her true identity after throwing herself into her royal work. And then she transforms into Silent Dusk when she feels that there's no chance of returning.
- Meaningful Echo: At the end of the title track, Twilight uses a line from the show's Theme Tune right before her Heroic Sacrifice.
- Twilight: Don't you know you're all my very best friends?
- Mood Whiplash: "Faultless" jumps between clean, electronic-tinged verses and Technical Death Metal style riffing. Proof that Tropes Are Not Bad, as it effectively puts listeners in Twilight's fragmented state of mind.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Celestia, three bucking times. First, she thrusts Twilight into the limelight and responsibilities of princesshood, causing Twilight's Heroic BSoD. Then, she decides the best way to snap Twilight out of it and help her adjust is to cut her off from her friends- the ones who helped her ascend in the first place- causing Twilight to lose her sense of self in her work. Finally, when she senses Twilight is going to the emptied-out library in Ponyville, she sends those same friends to calm Twilight down, complete with the Elements of Harmony. Seeing the Elements arrayed against her as though she is another danger to her friends serves as the shove over the Despair Event Horizon which transforms her into Silent Dusk.
- Non-Appearing Title: "Starborne" and "Faulted."
- Perishing Alt-Rock Voice: Gray sounds like this most of the time.
- Precision F-Strike: Aside from a few 'damn's, there's no cursing in the entire album. Then you get to "Semantics"...
- Rock Opera: The longest one in the fandom, at that.
- Shout-Out:
- Siamese Twin Songs: "Starborne/Like You" and similarly, "Semantics/Like You?."
- Smash Cut: Throughout the album, there's numerous sudden changes in tone and volume, but no song does it consistently like "Faultless."
- Spoken Word in Music: "Faulted" opens with several voices complaining about various aspects of day to day life, royalty, and oranges?
- Textless Album Cover
- The Eleven O'Clock Number: "Destiny." Twilight breaks free from Silent Dusk with the help of her friends and she writes a final letter to Celestia before her Heroic Sacrifice.
- Title Drop: In a few cases of the album, the title of the track is reserved for literally the most heartwrenching point in that track.
- See: "Like You/?," "Empty," "Fragile Wings."
- Album Title Drop: "Somebody told me of a silly little thing called Destiny..."''.
- Uncommon Time: "Faultless" and "Empty" have cases of 15/8 and 7/8. The entire bridge of "Faultless".
- Walking Spoiler: Silent Dusk
- Villain Song:
- While Celestia is not technically a villain, she is the main antagonist, and "Control" has the proper tone.
- Villain Silent Dusk is so named because unlike Twilight, she WON'T sing. This places arguably the narrative track "Dusk" or the instrumental "Silence" as being her theme.
- Vocal Range Exceeded: Happens during the bridge of "Something Missing."
- Wham Line: In "Control":
- I know that she'll forgive me...
I know that she'll forgive me...
I know that she'll forgive me...
I hope that she'll forgive me...
- In the title track:From there, the six friends gathered for what felt like the longest embrace.
Almost as if it was for the very last time.
Because it was.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The poor dog that Twilight turned into an orange prior to the events in "Faulted" is never returned to canine form, despite the protests of its owner....TWILIGHT!!
