Epilogue, Credits and Acknowledgements
Masquerade
Epilogue
Three ponies popped into existence in Cecil’s room. Twilight Sparkle and Vinyl Scratch appeared to be their normal selves, but Pinkie Pie was completely silent, with her head bowed. It looked like she was awaiting judgment.
“Well, that was, um...interesting,” commented Twilight.
“Aw, horsefeathers!” exclaimed Vinyl Scratch. “I can’t remember any of the jaw-dropping secrets I picked up from the Princess’ memories!”
“Wait, you don’t remember everything that happened?” Pinkie asked hopefully.
“You made your dream too complicated, Pinkie,” Vinyl exclaimed. “I don’t even really...remember what happened after the ‘wham’.”
Pinkie Pie smiled really, really wide. “There was a melted pony, and a pencil with my face for an eraser, and a non sequitur bucket of oatmeal, and then you convinced me to wake up, and that’s all there was!”
“Oatmeal?” asked Vinyl and Twilight in unison. “Are you crazy?!”
Somehow, it felt like about a hundred other ponies said that line at the exact same moment.
Credits and Acknowledgements
Alright, boys and girls, this is going to be a long one:
Thanks once again to my editor, Burraku_Pansa.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is copyright Hasbro, with extra credit given to L. Faust for the specifics of the series. The characters of Vinyl Scratch (aka DJ Pon-3), Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie/Pinkamena Diane Pie, Princess Celestia and Luna, Spike, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy, Sweetie Belle, Octavia, the locations of Equestria, Canterlot, Manehattan and Ponyville, and the concepts of the Nightmare, the Elements of Harmony and Daring Do are taken from that source, with any distortions of interpretation being entirely my fault. Winnychester is a fan creation. The characters of Cecil, Professor Stein, Waking Terror, Dragon Emperors Reznicek and Vasilyevich (and The Supreme Will) and the dragon composer Kravitz are my creations, as is Castle By the Sea and the role-playing game Ponies & Dragons (hmm...well, my version of it, anyway) and The Equestrian Handbook, and also the concept of the Dream Trap Chain (for what it’s worth).
There is a reference in this story to the episode “Feeling Pinkie Keen”, written by Dave Polsky (“The time you investigated the Pinkie Sense, and the universe decided to get back at you.”) The timeless quote “Oatmeal, are you crazy?” is from “The Ticket Masters”, written by Amy Keating Rogers and Lauren Faust.
The waltz in Part One is indeed from Masquerade, composed by Aram Khachaturian (the play was written by Mikhail Lermontov). The actual play’s plot is not that far off from what I’ve described, at least as far as back-stabbing goes, and the doomed main character is indeed named Prince Arbenin. The version that Khachaturian scored was a blatant propaganda piece designed to justify the Russian Revolution by showing all aristocrats as hopelessly corrupt. When I was younger, I liked to imagine scenes to go with my favorite pieces of Classical music, and my scenario for the Waltz was essentially what I put in this story, just with Rasputin instead of Jester Reznicek.
“There can only be one!” — Highlander (link to a slightly over-the-top scene from the 1986 movie).
“Maybe Vinyl Scratch was a puppeteer ... under the New Jonzey Turnpike.” — Being John Malkovich (“It’s my head!”)
“How the Sun works” — I’ll let They Might Be Giants handle this one.
“How Ponyville was founded” — Yeah, I’m linkin’ to the “Family Appreciation Day” episode.
“What happened to Winnychester” — Winnychester is one fan name given to the old capital of the Royal Ponyville Sisters (today known as the Everfree Forest).
“The recipe for the perfect pumpkin bread.” — Not to be biased, but my sister’s recipe rocks.
“Where the Griffon’s Goblet is resting” — Refers to the title of the second Daring Do book.
“In me power!” — There was a time when mustache-twirling villains actually said this—see?
“...wing-dingy! Looney-tooney! And Oofty McGoofty.” — Quote from the 1937 Warner Bros. cartoon “Daffy Duck and Egghead”, directed by Tex Avery (the quote’s 6:47 into the cartoon).
“Adamantine” — A nice fancy word for unbreakable. I’m specifically going with the Dungeons & Dragons definition of the term, where it refers to a rare metal said to come from meteorites that is proof against magic.
“Room 78” — No significance whatsoever. (I knew somebody was going to ask.)
“Clown hammer” — Sometimes a clown hammer is just a clown hammer.
“That’s logic!” — Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.
“Cork” — The name is mine, but the magic-blocking substance is the invention of Sagebrush, in his fanfic “In Her Majesty’s Royal Service”.
The Cat in the Hat — 1957 book by Dr. Seuss.
“Them-3, but those are giant ants” — Them! was a 1954 movie directed by Gordon Douglas.
“Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Story” — joke ripped off from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975, directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones).
“Change places!” — Alice in Wonderland (1865, Lewis Carroll) (yeah, and Futurama...)
“The red, candy-like button” — “Space Madness” episode of The Ren & Stimpy Show (1991, directed by John Kricfalusi)—I hear it erases history.
“Stupid! So stupid!” — Not sure if I was the only one thinking “Wheel of Fish” here...
“Doomed I tell you!” — This series has all of the best lines.
“I Melt with You” (1982 song by Modern English; note that it’s a male group in our world, so here’s a version by Nouvelle Vague)
Dr Pepper — They sort of make themselves, so no copyright notice is necessary.
“Head Over Heels” (1984 song by The Go-Go’s, a female group; here’s a cover by Robert Chestnut). I always loved this song growing up. Reading the lyrics now, they just perfectly fit my characterizations of Pinkie/Pinkamena, plus the scenario Vinyl’s in.
“I’m totally not making this up.” — I’m pretty sure Dave Barry has exclusive ownership of this phrase.
“The PH’s been doing nothing but playing NPC’s all day!” — “PH” is “Pony Handler” (aka “Dungeon Master”) and “NPC” is a term for non-player character, i.e. everybody the PH controls in the game.
Blue Angels — The U.S. Navy’s flight demonstration squadron.
Call of Cthulhu — Role-playing game published by Chaosium (1981), based on the stories of Howard Philip Lovecraft (especially “The Call of Cthulhu”, 1926). The quote “That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die” is from that story. “Howie” is the female version of “Howard”.
Pop-Tarts: Product of the Kellogg Company.
Toon: The Cartoon Roleplaying Game — Role-playing game published by Steve Jackson Games, 1984.
“President Davis and First Man Ronald” — That would be Nancy Davis (president of some other United States, 1980 - 1987) and her husband Ronald, bachelor name Reagan.
Ponies & Dragons — Dungeons & Dragons, the archetypical role-playing game, published by TSR in 1974 in its original form, with a 2nd edition in 1981. The significance of 1984 is that it is the year when the original My Little Pony series came out.
Mary Jo Powell, the “M.J.P.” who’s been writing Equestrian Handbook entries for five stories now — Wife of Gary Powell, bachelor name Gygax. On top of all of the Satanic nonsense that has been said about this game, there were also rumors that Gygax and Arneson concocted Dungeons & Dragons under the influence of some extremely-strong mind-altering drugs, powerful enough for them to pick up thoughts of a parallel world. There are whispered stories of why Dungeon Masters must never, never make the dragon goddess Tiamat into an NPC in your sessions, that she’d possess your body and wreak unspeakable damage to your new stereo system. 
(That right there is the best, most brilliant Friendship Is Magic emoticon ever created. Yup, I pity the poor foals that have to grow up in a world where the link to that image ever gets broken...)
“The Second Great War” — My name for the conflict started in my fanfic “[Redacted]”.
“TI-30 Scientific Calculator” — A popular product of Texas Instruments from 1976 to 1983.
Billboard — A magazine put out by Prometheus Global Media.
“Melting Ponies” — “Persistence of Memory”, a painting by Salvador Dali (1931).
“Pencil with your head for an eraser” — Disturbing image from Eraserhead by David Lynch (1977).
And that’s all she wrote.
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OK, now that that cat's out of the bag, I have added the dreaded "Human" tag to the story.
You don't suppose I should add a "Celestia" tag, should I?
Hmm. Whenever I hear of "The Great/Immortal Will", for some reason I think of The Keys to the Kingdom series, the House, Dame Primus, and the Architect.
caffeinatedthoughts.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Mind-Blown-300x200.jpg
I wasn't prepared for this... mindfuck.
And sometimes, a clown hammer is a cigar.
1505400
What's she implying? Well go back and read Part One again--she was kinda implying that, although that's not really historically possible, so we're back at the theory that this is just a Pinkie Pie dream, and we should really just relax.
The story where the Mane 6 meet the Ancients: well see, that's the thing--I skipped writing that story. The very first story in this continuity is "Javelin", and that takes place when the Mane 6 come back from that trip. They don't want to talk about it.
Besides, Pinkie Pie is very much like a joke, in that if she was ever completely explained, she'd stop being funny.
Okay, so now that we've got 'the one where we don't know what's going on' and 'the one with Pinkie Pie' out of the way, the rest of the dream-incursion adventures are going to be totally straightforward and comprehensible and not-at-all-weird, right? Right?
1512639
True or False: All of the other ponies are perfectly normal.
And yes, that is my answer to your question.
1550714
I believe it!
1507131
ah, okay.
And while I agree that Pinkie (just as all eldtrich horrors) should never be fully explained, I'm also of the opinion that it should still have some resemblance of perhaps horribly twisted and insane logic, but still logic, behind her actions. (Not criticizing, just semi-agreeing with your last sentence ^^)
1553415
If they met female introvert teenage H.P. Lovecraft then that would probably go a long way to explain wtf is wrong with them ^^
And if Sarah had asked that ... oh god yeah pinkie's response would have been interesting and possibly disturbing xD
1514182
true. But for ponies in your universe it is considered normal to be horribly messed up in the head. ;)
1529342
agreed.
1502808
1978: "Who Are You" – The Who
I got 10 of them!!!
Okay for some reason I read the first chapter of this story but completely forgot to favorite it and ask for email update so it slipped by me completely until you posted the next installement in this mind blowing series.
Anyway this was a great story! A bit short compared to the previous one though, but I guess there isn't quite as much revelations to deal with. I don't know why Vynil wants to remember stuff that was in Celestia head, that was from Pinkie's DREAM! She can't be certain any of it was true.
Anyway it was nice to see Diana again
in a fashion... I don't quite remember her being injured though, wasn't one of her friend the one who got assaulted by the crazy uncle...
Wait...
that wasn't one of your story I'm remembering was it? Huh... for some reason I can't find the story that Ponies & Dragons scene brought to my mind, that's really odd...
1910694
It's another Diana--there are an awful lot of them in the multiverse, after all. The injury is Pinkie's from "Perfect Little Village". It's a reminder of the stakes in these dreams, and to clue-in that this really is Pinkie.
And the tale in question is "The Pinkie Pie Equation". It's a blog-only story, because (despite the title) there's not enough ponies in it to justify posting it as an actual FIMFiction story.
And as for remembering what was in Celestia's head and Pinkie's dream only being a dream...well, nopony ever did get around to answering the question of what a god's dreams are like...
1910819 Oooh! So it WAS your story
I really liked The Pinkie Pie Equation... it's too bad there isn't enough ponies for it to be a proper FIMFic entry, I bet it would be really popular. Maybe if you were to use it as one giant prologue to a longer fic about Pinkie's trips to meet other Pinkies?
I haven't read Perfect Village in too long I guess, must be why I forgot about that injury
Somehow, I missed that you had made a sequel! And a second one too, I see!
Came in with high expectations from the first story. Was not disappointed.
I think you did an excellent job of portraying a bizarre mental landscape of Pinkie's dream, yet still making enough sense to be readable. Definitely leaning toward that whole "brain leaking out of your ears" side, but so much fun. Though I think my brain bluescreened when Pinkie started talking through one of the characters; it refused to properly parse the two characters and the narrator and who was what and who, packed up its bags, and declared, "That's it, I'm out of here!"
I'm kind of disappointed that I caught the "Being John Malkovich" reference, yet missed the much more obvious "Them!" reference. As for the "Stupid!" part, every time I hear someone use that word, I automatically append a "So stupid!" afterward, so you're not the only one who thought that.
And now to check out the next story! Whee!
And from that reference on, I knew this would be straight-up crackfic.
And yes, you do rock.
I'm sitting in my room grounded with nothing better to do than read on this nook I stole.
I need a mindfuck to distract me from my bordome.
SO ONWARDS TO PINKIE'S DREMS!!!
You know, Dr Pepper doesn't actually have a period
2440322
Huh. I did not know that.
Fixed.
2598276
Heh, no i got that bit. This was more of a 'not being able to read in a dream thing. The actor can only know what the dreamer knows. Tia's memories should be unavailable to Pinkie unless Pink can read her mind or Tia or Luna is also trapped in the chain.
Also, Pinkie is never random in your writings, she is a Cassandra. So when she says "if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that was the real Princess Celestia giving that speech!", ...
That was more of a "Wait, what? Did that mean what I thought it meant? Dum, dum, dah!", then "I don't get that."
Time to read the next chapter.
2598638
Good, very good. Sort of like how Vinyl can suddenly see into the whole of eternity when she's Celestia.
I'm playing a deep game here with Pinkie, and I'm leaving it to the reader to see how far down they are able to follow me.
Don't forget this when you get to the end.
1553378 2796176
Oh, the web site "Pony Tales"? I was aware of Friendship Is Dragons, but not the forum spinoff.
Frankly, the biggest problem with that is that everybody's online instead of meeting in person. It's much harder to convey that the disguised Vinyl Scratch is interacting with humans if she's doing it all via a keyboard and monitor. Oh, and I decided for my own reasons that the scene had to take place in the year 1984, so that would mean Commodore 64s and 1200 baud modems. It would be the slowest game ever!
Oh! First Man! I read that as Vice Pres!
Just for reference, unlike mithril, "adamantine" and its variants are not a modern invention, and really shouldn't be attributed to Dungeons and Dragons (or Marvel, for that matter). E.g., John Milton's description of Satan's fall from Paradise Lost (way back in the 17th century):
3902549
You are absolutely right, so I updated the definition to say that the term goes way back, but my specific use of it as a meteorite-derived magic-proof metal comes from D&D.
Well, that was fun. Although I have to say I found it hard going in some places. Pinkie's narration in particular does rather tend to make one's brain try to escape out one's ears. Still, definitely an enjoyable story. On to the next one!
Well, it should be slightly easier to follow from here on out....
Hmf. That was plenty easy to follow. ed:
double-hmf. T&J shouldn't talk.
broken image
8097153
Oh, yeah, I put up a note about that particular irreplaceable broken link.
)
(
8105455
Well, for one, I'm a poor benchmark for understandability. I'm a published philosopher. :discord:
More pertinently, this particular work is most understandable of the series. (Others, these spoilertags contain heavy spoilers for this series.)
In Little Village, the premise of narration has not been revealed, nor why the story is happening, and this confusion is the plot. The hole of madness…well, it's…a hole of madness.
This work, that they're in a dream-chain-trap is clear, and the narrator Pie is a great storyteller. Going to another dimension, and having the characters in one be characters in someone else's tale is both an explored trope (see The "Harold Shea" Stories, for instance) and an extension of the basic premise of the series… and even both Pink Pies' PoVs have been explored a lot in other works. So even if it's got a lot of elements that might normally throw people, being Inside Pinkie's Head(canon), many of them have been nailed down by other works. Granted, I didn't figure out what gray text meant until later.
Of course, this is going to be very confusing to thewait, they were sucked into that comic book that one time, they've been exposed to metafictional realities…though I suppose they perhaps haven't thought much of it.In Accelerando, there are hidden actors (the
rakshafae), nebulous tacked-on superpowers, and the narrator is a poorer storyteller, much as though the story were being written for a comic serial. Also, RD's voice is less-well explored in the rest of the fandom, I think? Now that the Pink Pies are inducted, they can start doing Pinkie Things, which is harder to understand.In the 3.5th work,██████████████████████████████████.In The Mistress of Dreams, there are many layers of cover identities (even if you, by using original names, almost never required readers to know them past the first few chapters), a new setting to digest (albeit one that is mostly textbook(s) cyberpunk), memory rewriting in play, and the voice of narration is obscured because the narrator knows she is being watched and is, instead of telling a story to herself for enjoyment, telling one for the benefit of her friends, from which she (horror of horrors) has cut a lot of the aesthetically-pleasing bits (There's so little about fashion!) in service of maximizing the utility they'll get.
Fascinating. I wasn't expecting this the delve so deep into the nature of this reality. And it's a bit surreal to hit P&D again after reading the story that so heavily focused on it.
There's just one thing that isn't clear: Why did Vinyl and Twilight assume that Pinkie's dream accurately reflected reality with regards to the invasion of Manehattan et. al.?
In any case, lovely story, even if I'm not entirely certain what Pinkie is. On to the next one!
You can has review!