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>>42570216
I spent a lot more time reading this fic in the past weeks, and have been having fun with it.
Like earlier, the Ponyville chapters were my favorite. I think that, just due to the way the story is structured, the way they're forced to have everything happen at once just makes them significantly more fun. Obviously, it's pretty coincidental that Dash suddenly decides to investigate FS's cottage at the same time Twilight goes to confront Celestia, etc.
>My first friend,” Dash corrected her,
Absolutely ruthless. Love it.

I still enjoyed the AJ and FS chapters, but I think it's becoming more obvious that this story should not be compared so much to DB-Austraeoh-OtEM. The point of all three of those fics is worldbuilding, while the point of this fic is relationships: romance and friendship. I never read DB twice, but I'm sure it does not have the kind of intimate character-building discussions that Lost and Found has, and absolutely none of them have mutual grooming scenes. Those are all action fics, although OTEM certainly also has its nice, slow scenes, they are about exploring the world and not FS and Dash.
I also appreciate the focus in keeping things pony. Part of this was emphasized in the conversation with Tadar about how they were implicitly trusting him, but I also liked how the the civilization of the Bazaar still revolves around pony influence even when they've forgotten most of the reasons why. Those are just highlights, it permeates the story. Applejack's kicking power is not trying to be anime, it's just part of her.

Going back to the dialogue strength, the debate with the prince very strongly reminded me of a Deus Ex "conversation battle" once again. Mostly, it was with the way his conviction was broken by saying just the right thing through insights gained through subterfuge, but also the way the tone the conversants use changes drastically multiple times and for some reason also the way they move around the "stage" during the scene. https://youtu.be/RWlUxnrmFP0

Anyway, contrary to those other 2012 adventure fics, the focus on those character scenes does negatively impact the worldbuilding. They're much more fantastical, and the locations are more fully realized. I intend to complain much more about how sketchy the locales are next week.

Lastly, while the Twilestia is obviously not a very strong ship here, I do like the idea of having its spark ignited specifically from Celestia's fall to Chrysalis. I wrote a long time ago that the sort of realization that breaks their roles of student and teacher are a sort of unfortunate boilerplate that all Twilestia fics have to make their way through, this is a particularly interesting way of doing it.