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.