>7dsj, book 3, chapter 5
The first major story arc seems to be wrapping up.  It's about Fluttershy reconciling with her dad, who walked out when she was nine.  Most of book 3 so far has been decent, and so was the ending of book 2, but then we got to the big reveal about Fluttershy's mom and dad, which is exactly the sort of thing I've come to expect from Shinzakura.

>Posey (mom) and Discord (dad) fell in love, got married, had kids, etc
>human Discord is a rock star known for being wild and crazy, but off-stage he's actually a pretty normal guy
>when Fluttershy was 9, they separated and both moved away to different cities, to keep the paparazzi from harassing Posey and the kids
>actually, they're still in love, meeting up in secret, with discord sending money to support his family
>they kept this a secret from everybody, including the kids, who haven't seen their dad in 8-9 years
>they still revealed nothing even now that Fluttershy is old enough to keep a secret
Okay, that doesn't really make sense to me.  But it's nothing, compared to this:
>when Fluttershy hears about what happened, she doesn't believe it
>she DENIES THAT HER FAMILY EVER MOVED

This is where I fucking lost it.  Her family moved to a different city when she was 9 and SHE DIDN'T NOTICE.  In the story, there's some mention of them moving to a similar-looking house, and of her new schoolteacher being the identical twin of the old one.  THIS DOES NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM.  She somehow didn't notice:
>her neighbors' houses are different
>the other students in school are different
>all the buildings in town are different
>the school itself is a completely different building
>her mother had to pack and unpack everything in the house
>they drove 100+ miles and never drove back
Best of all, this entire mess is COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY.  The story would have worked just as well if she had remembered moving but didn't know why.  But instead, we get this pile of absolute nonsense.



>7djs, book 3, chapter 11
Looks like the "Fluttershy's dad" arc wasn't done like I thought. After a brief interlude involving an elite all-female Canadian special forces team gone rogue, the arc gets wrapped up for real this time with three chapters of pure AAG-grade drama.

>everyone is in San Francisco for some big rock concert thing
>Fluttershy and friends meet up with Discord (her dad) at the hotel
>she punches him in the face and runs away
>she spends the rest of the time being a bitch to everybody and refusing to talk to him
(Mainly, she thinks he's being selfish, valuing his career over his family.)
>friends eventually convince her to talk to him
>being reasonable adults, they sort out their issues by shouting apologies at each other on stage at the concert, in front of a crowd of thousands and being broadcast live on national television
And everyone lived happily ever after.

This is the end of what's published so far, but it looks like book 3 is currently getting weekly updates.

Fortunately, the next arc looks like it might be pretty enjoyable - it's shaping up to be a sort of urban fantasy thing, which I like so far. The bad guy, Divine Right, is some kind of human wizard who's been paying the SIRENs (the aforementioned rogue special forces team) to collect the magical artifacts he needs for some dark ritual. On the other side, Celestia unsealed Sunset's magic at the end of book 2, so she's now operating at full Twilight Sparkle level even in the human world.


500 characters left over, so I just want to point out that there is absolutely no good reason for Raspberry Beryl to appear in this series. Why is Scilight writing runes on the wall with her own blood? "I miscast a spell, tee-hee, let me just fix that for you real quick." I wish the author had dropped the Berylverse connection entirely and just blamed the nightmares on Sombra (Book 1 foreshadows his involvement anyway), and maybe also left some connection to this Divine Right guy and his plans.



>7dsj, chapters 12-14

Aria and friends came to Canterlot High to spy on Twilight and Sunset, and now they've all become super BFFs. Just in case it wasn't blindingly obvious that the SIRENs are just misguided good guys, we finally get the whole sob story behind their crusade against the Canadian CIA: Uncle Poutine tried to rescue all the girls from the horrible, illegal SIREN program, and was killed for it. I guess that's pretty drama-riffic, but nothing special by the standards of AAG/7DSJ.

The thing with Coco and Suri is finally wrapped up. Suri's master plan was to get Blueblood to use his mind control drug on Coco so Suri could interrogate her and then date-rape her. Suri was somehow convinced that Coco befriended Crackle (Suri's sister, because why not) with unspecified ulterior motives of some sort. I really have no idea what the fuck is going on here, except that the good guys swooped in at the last second to save poor mind controlled Coco, just like they saved poor mind-controlled Twilight and poor mind-controlled Octavia.

Octavia is now jealous of Sunset to the point of seriously losing her fucking mind. She does this:
>Am I in love with you, Twily? You’re the closest thing I have to a sister; I can’t imagine you as a lover. And yet…
>Not sure of what she was doing, Octavia bent down, her lips moving towards Twilight’s and—
And then she wakes up in the back yard surrounded by knives, blood, and Sunset's torn-up clothing. Fortunately, this nonsense looks to be the result of mind magic or NMM-style possession, which could be sort of interesting at least.

And finally:
>Suri, currently shopping in an intimates store, understood immediately what Blueblood had just told her via code: “Dutch chocolate” was a general term for any chocolate extremely high in PEA, phenylethylamines, which was one of the known confirmed aphrodisiacs that was effective on humans.
Sure enough, it's those stupid chocolate-flavored mare hormones from AAG. [triggered]

 ** No.22903647
>>22903398
>SIRENs (the aforementioned rogue special forces team)

My, I wonder what members these SIRENs consist of.

 ** No.22903956
>>22903618
>“They’re officially called the Strategic Intervention, Reconnaissance and Execution Network, or, more colorfully, the SIRENs. The group is composed entirely of females, and if the RCMP’s info is correct, they’re very much like the historical Spartans – or the mythical Amazons, for a better analogy – meaning that these women have been quite literally trained since childhood to be nothing but weapons of war.”

Apparently the Canadian navy has been rounding up orphan girls and training them to be assassins. There's about 150 of them, and they've all gone rogue to get revenge against "Les Scars" (Service Canadien du Renseignement de Sécurité, the Canadian CIA) for something that happened to their "uncle" (who I assume is actually the guy that runs the SIREN program). They've been stealing artifacts for Divine Right to gather funds for whatever they intend to do to Les Scars.

>>22903647
>My, I wonder what members these SIRENs consist of.
They're all named after musical terms (one of "Uncle Poutine"'s quirks, it appears). Adagio, Aria, and Sonata are the newest recruits, named for the three members of a 60s band called "The Dazzlings". 



 ** No.22911653
>>22903398
>7djs, book 3
so after 3 books, are we still in that week timespan, or is tis the third week of june?

if theres a fifth book does it reboot itself into seven days in sunny july? 

 ** No.22912392
>>22911653
I think the actual "seven days" are the June 1 - June 7 that Sunset spends in Equestria. (As opposed to the (subjectively distinct) June 1 - June 7 that she simultaneously spends on Earth, due to the most unnecessary use of time travel I've ever seen.)

>Book 1: October 19 - May 31, Earth.
>Book 2: June 1 - June 7, Equestria.
>Book 3: June 1 - July 4 (so far), Earth.

Seems kind of unfortunate that Book 2 is sort of the focus of the series, given that its arc (the one with Raspberry Beryl) is easily the weakest out of all three books. 

 ** No.22913340
>>22912392
>June 1 - June 7 that Sunset spends in Equestria. (As opposed to the (subjectively distinct) June 1 - June 7 that she simultaneously spends on Earth, due to the most unnecessary use of time travel

Not even coming up with something along the lines of 'the calendar runs differently on two different worlds', just pointless time travel for the sake of time travel? 

 ** No.22913437
>>22913340
>Not even coming up with something along the lines of 'the calendar runs differently on two different worlds',
Come to think of it, I don't believe anyone mentioned the date in Equestria at all during Book 2. But she did leave Earth on the morning of June 1 and spend 7 days in Equestria.

>just pointless time travel for the sake of time travel?
Very much so. She goes through Sombra's mirror on June 1, spends 7 days in Equestria (5 days making a fool of herself so we can all see that Sunset Is Wrong And Beryl Is Right, plus 2 days reconciling with Celestia and fixing the whole nightmare thing), and then comes back. But when she gets back, it's still June 1, and in fact only 5 minutes have passed.

It's especially pointless because she doesn't really benefit from having those 7 extra days on Earth. She had already planned to spend the whole week in Equestria. Her entire family is out of town for the week (on vacation in Italy), and all her friends are in on the whole "magical talking horse" thing and know what she was actually up to. She is supposed to be in summer school, but C&L are in on the secret too and are willing to cover for her. Sunset doesn't even do anything interesting in that extra week - I just skimmed back over those chapters to check, and it's all just setting up various subplots (Fluttershy's dad, Divine Right, Coco/Suri/Blueblood, and the Celestia/Edgelord McWerewolf shipping). 



>7dsj, book 3, chapter 15

Book III is done!

The final chapter gets off to a good start, with a scene about Dr. Posey losing a patient:
>“Posey, we all have to go sometime,” he reminded her.  “Nothing’s eternal, or else the world would be a huge mess.  Look at it this way: at least you merely hate to lose them.  I have to be reminded of my wife every time this happens.”
Why is it important that we know this random doctor's wife is dead?  Answer: DRAMA!  This detail literally never comes up again for the rest of the chapter.

Apparently the reason Octavia woke up in the back yard covered in blood at the end of last chapter is because she murdered one of Twilight's pet owls with a kitchen knife.  She has no memory of what she did, so this is definitely some kind of mind magic thing.  I just hope this time around we get a better resolution than "ask Beryl to fix it".

Sonata etc. plan to quit the SIRENs so they can have normal lives, but at the last minute, they hear that all active SIRENs are being summoned to Canterlot for something big, and decide to stick around for just one last mission.  This means we're on track for some really spectacular drama when they inevitably receive orders to kill members of the "Eight-mazing Eight" (M5 + Sunset + Twilight + Octavia), who they are all friends with now.

We learn that Divine Right is not trying to take over the world just for fun, he's doing it because he's still butthurt about some girl dumping him 30 years ago.  He calls her "Solaire" and she lives in Canterlot, so I assume he's talking about Principal Celestia.  Recall that Celestia is currently dating the human version of Edgelord McWerewolf from "A Hairy Problem", which should make things interesting.

Finally, [spoiler]human-world Sunset Shimmer is alive, and returning to Canterlot![/spoiler]
> H Y P E
Apparently she's somehow related to Coco, whose grandma had just died in that first scene.

No word yet on when Book IV will be.