A pony wakes up in an empty void and discovers that it is infinitely malleable to her whims and desires.
A loving tribute to pretentious, incomprehensible mind screws.
- Many thanks to AquaGalaxy for the cover art! (Click the image to see it larger.)
- Once you've finished this story, I recommend reading "Applied Starlight: Explained".
- The genre tags are not correct. I'm not really sure what genre this story is, but if I could choose anything I wanted I'd probably go with [Ominous], [Puzzle], and [Parody].
- Featured by Equestria Daily and The Royal Guard.
Chapters (20)
well i like it
five hearts because they don't have stars
4546513 I'll happily take some hearts. Thanks!
...Huh. "Five stars". I need to figure out a way to make a pun about that, since this story is all about stars.
4546723 This story is far from complete. Don't cry yet.
This is so... AWESOME!!!!
More please!
This is... Interesting. I've seen something a little bit similar before, and I'm looking forward to see what you will have for us in the future. Until then... !
4547009 Thanks!
More's coming very soon. This'll be updated daily, so it'll be completed pretty quickly.
4547283 Heh. Yes, "interesting" is a very good word for this story. I absolutely agree. I imagine someone saying "This is... interesting..." while they scrunch up their nose as if they got a whiff of a bad smell.
But don't worry. I'm going somewhere with this, and it probably won't be what you expect.
4547344
Even more awesome!
Very confused as to what's actually going on. I'm guessing Starshine locked the book because something about it was dangerous. Spells, information? Heck, for all I know it might somehow be it's own pocket world and the spells protect it from being detected or intruded upon.
Keep it up, this is great. Usually I cannot read while tired, but this is just something else.
Faved, thumbed, followed.
Yay Pinkie is here! Pinkie will help Twi!
4548747 Answers (well, some answers) will come in time.
You're just confused about why things are happening, right? The actual story and the sequence of events is clear, right?
4550364 Glad to hear it!
Thanks!
Whoa, I see something very unigue about this story.
4552055 It's unique indeed. Hope you enjoy it.
and if we had less parties—
*fewer
Though this is Pinkie talking, obviously.
4557136 Ha! You caught that!
I'm a bit ashamed to admit that it took me like five or ten minutes to decide on what word I wanted to use there. "Fewer parties" is obviously the correct wording, but it just didn't sound right in my head when I was imagining Pinkie motor-mouthing that dialogue. I think it's specifically the two disyllabic words right next to each other (few-er par-ties) that makes me not like it; it has an element of formality that sounds wrong for Pinkie in that context.
I wouldn't have gone with "less parties" except that I figured that no one would ever notice the error—everyone's probably skimming Pinkie's dialogue regardless. Now you've noticed it, and I feel self-conscious.
(Please point out any other spelling or grammar mistakes you notice. I'd very much like to know!)
into the shape of of pony made of pure light.
*a
So... she screwed up an advanced teleportation spell, had her soul ripped out of her body by it, refused to die by sheer force of will and ended up becoming the goddess of her own reality.
...
Well played, Twilight Sparkle, well played. Now, to read more!
4565537 Yep, you can tell I'm a Twilight fan.
God, I am just like Twilight.
I particularly enjoyed writing the "NO!!" because I got to use all-caps, italics, bold, and multiple exclamation marks in the same line (and played for drama, not comedy). Every guide to writing I've ever read would call that a travesty and a sure sign that I'd failed as a writer. I like that I proved them wrong and managed to devise a situation where removing any one of those elements would reduce the impact of the line.
...It's kind of pathetic that that's my idea of being a "rebel".
4565683
Heh, I know what you mean. I've used that same sort of thing which might come across as overdramatic, but really the line just wouldn't work any other way.
An abandoned piece of Black & White 2 fanfiction comes to mind. Bold italicised text is really the only way to go when writing a line for a very pissed-off deity I've found.
I've read the rest of the story and I must say that I'm enjoying it immensely. It seems to me that this new reality is Twilight's way of coping with whatever horrible disaster she caused at Sweet Apple Acres.
I mean, usually when people have a psychotic break and make up their own reality... they don't do it literally. I guess it just goes to show that when Twilight finally goes off the dep end she doesn't do it by half-measures!
4565882 I'm very glad you're enjoying it! Because I don't know if or how that will change once this story enters its final act and starts getting stupidly convoluted (and I do mean stupidly, as in, it's stupid). There have been a few hints so far about where the story is going:
...But nothing really concrete. Like you said, when Twilight goes off the deep end she doesn't do it by half-measures, and when I set out to write a "loving tribute to pretentious, incomprehensible mind screws", I don't either!
I think I want to explain this, because the "horrible disaster" was never actually meant to be a mystery. See, in the original version of this story, the dialogue-only chapters were actually full-fledged chapters with their own plot. Replacing the chapters with super-simplified dialogue-only ones was sort of a last minute decision. The problem was that, while I was rereading the story to look for issues, I noticed that I was...well, bored while reading the old Ponyville chapters. They were written well enough, but I just wanted to skip ahead and get back to reading about Twilight in the glass and stars.
...That's when I got the sinking feeling in my gut that if even the author doesn't want to read part of the story, then why would the readers? The interesting part of this fic is all the stuff about Twilight's metaphysical adventures; you could read about the Mane 6 bantering with each other anywhere. It totally clashed with the rest of the story.
Anyway, so yeah, right now the event at Sweet Apple Acres is a Noodle Incident, and it won't be explained in the story, but that wasn't how it was supposed to be. Short summary: The original plot had to do with the Cloudsdale weather factory having a rainbow concentrate leak (non-colored stuff that hasn't yet been processed into actual rainbows). It got into rain clouds and was spread across different regions, including Ponyville. Cloudsdale didn't tell anyone about the leak, but ordered massive amounts of rain in all the affected areas to try dilute the concentrate, since it can be toxic. (Of course, using up all their rainwater doing this causes Cloudsdale to run out of it. This is why Applejack and Rainbow Dash refer to there being a drought in Chapters 10 & 11. It's left over from the earlier plot). However, the concentrate had already been soaked up by Applejack's trees.
Enter Twilight. She uses a spell that destroys foreign material. At this point the story explains the properties of rainbow concentrate and how Twilight's magic affects it. Basically, you turn concentrate into a rainbow by heavily diluting it and adding colors. Then you infuse this with magic that activates the "sparks" inside the concentrate that causes the rainbow to explode with color and shine as brightly as it does. Twilight uses aggressive, destructive magic to activate the concentrated sparks (again, not knowing about the concentrate in the first place because Cloudsdale covered it up). Which causes half of the trees in Applejack's orchard to, quite literally, detonate.
...All of this crap and more was cut out of the story, and for good reason. It does cause some problems though, especially with Rainbow Dash's and Fluttershy's chapters in the current version of story. Most of their chapters had to do with stuff that related back to their Ponyville scenes, which means they no longer made sense with all those scenes cut. I removed most of the stuff that didn't make sense anymore, except that that made the chapters tiny, withered husks of what they were supposed to be. Instead of actually fixing this by rewriting or adding something new to their scenes, I just made fun of it instead.
I'm so lazy.
4566347
Aah, I see... that makes a great deal of sense. So Twilight blew up half of Sweet Apple Orchards thanks to Cloudsdale's screwup... wow I can see why she freaked out beyond a Twicon 1 panic attack like the Smartypants Incident. I do hope our Twilight recovers from this... uh... misadventure. But then you're a Twilight fan, you wouldn't permanently destroy her sanity... right?
But anyway, I look forward to the rest of it!
I'd have replied to this sooner, but I was posting my first-ever story on here. Well, the prologue anyway.
Princess... Rarity not Luna....
Houston we have a HUGE problem!
Fixit Twi fixitfixitfixitfixit
After all that's happened ends, I hope she keeps the glass rock as memento.
well this seems to be one of the most weirdly cool things around. gotta keep going
4571664 It was fun thinking about how well Rarity fits the role of a lunar princess. She has the same voice actor as Luna (Tabitha St. Germain), her coat color is off-white like the moon, her mane color is deep blue like the night, and her cutie mark is a trio of diamonds (which fits the lyrics of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"). She's perfect for the role.
4571725 Huh. That's actually a good idea. Sure, the rock kind of becomes unreachable in Chapter 14, but I should've thought a way for Twilight to get it back. Oh well, too late now.
...Maybe Maud will make a replica for her later.
4571859 Glad to hear it!
Hope you enjoy!
i don't think that she would have a clue what a time lapse is so I doubt that that comparison can be used but who cares. She's a god. Well, a goddess
4565683 and that's a bad thing? That is the way to be! Like ->
<-
Rainbow Dash stole the moon, huh? Well... that... that happened.
On the one hand, it's an awesome prank, and thus totally what she'd do. On the other, I'd have thought only Pinkie Pie would have that kind of power because...um... Pinkie Pie.
Also Lunar Princess Rarity. I can not envision this ending well. At all. Psuedo-Equestria is now doomed.
Love the new chapter!
and now I've caught up. now to help me with the patience game, I will play some new games while bathing in the tears of my wallet caused by the steam summer sale.
4572610
It is more of a Pinkie Pie thing, you're right, but Equestria-of-the-Stars clearly doesn't follow the same rules of reality as the real one. I figured a prank this awesome could only be pulled off by the most awesome pony around.
4572657 I update this story daily, and it'll be completed within a week. You won't have to wait long.
4572733 ya, something gave me the impression that this was showing up rather quick considering how new the oldest comments were
oh shi-
...Oh fuc...Could it be this isn't Twilight... Or if it is why are they holding her there?
Careful Twi!
4576483
4576604
Allmuchsome will be revealed soon...Tia to the rescue!
She's going to fail miserable. I'm calling it already. Celestia won't be able to help in the least, perhaps sow a small seed that Twilight can use herself, but she'll fail at "fixing" it.
4580098
Well, shucks, don't spoil it for the rest of us.
I want to see a memoryless god twilight wake up because the conversation after would be fun!
4580240
Only bad writers resolve the conflict so easily and so quickly like this, and from what I've seen so far, this guy is far too good to make such a... I wouldn't even call it a rookie mistake because it isn't a mistake.
Eitherway, he's good enough to not write something like that... I hope.
4580258
I actually fully expect Princess Celestia to kill her.
4580262
Really? I highly doubt that
Discord makes an awesome narrator. At least I think it's Discord narrating. I can totally hear his voice in it.
Also... 'Tia what are you doing? You're not going to attempt mind-magic on her to try and wake her up are you?
Hm... at this point 'Waking the Sleeping Giant' may not be the wisest move. Who know how God!Twilight will react to Celestia's intrusion?
I've just discovered that there's something even better than getting comments on your story. It's reading other people talk about your story with each other.
4579910 Thank Celestia! Here to magically fix everything!
Glad you're enjoying the story.
4580257 Hmm... *sequel idea*
!)
I'm kidding. But yes, that would be fun. I'd kind of like to see it myself. I can see it already... Twilight's friends are holding an intervention with her, desperately trying to convince her that's she's not a god and she didn't create all of them.
Oh! And then Twilight would demonstrate her abilities by trying to create something in the real world... and then it works. (What a
4580258 It makes me feel warm and fuzzy to see someone have faith in me.
Hope I measure up.
4580262 I seriously searched everywhere trying to find a video of that part in George of the Jungle where the narrator says "Don't worry. Nobody dies in this story. They just get really big boo-boos". It doesn't look like it's ever been uploaded, though. I'm terribly disappointed in the internet.
But yeah. I wouldn't usually spoil things when people are just theorizing, but even though this story is labelled "Dark", it's not that dark. Good guess, though!
4581258 Glad you're enjoying! I want to respond to this, but I can't think of a way to do it without spoiling. Good thing the story will be complete in only a few days.
4581434
0:31
4581458 ...Argh!
Thanks.
4581434
This is the only thing that survives.
Finally! We've officially reached the end of the rising action. All the setup is over, every piece is in play, and the Chekhov's Guns are locked and loaded. I've been looking forward to tomorrow's chapter ever since I started posting (which, admittedly, was only like a week ago). Then, the day after that will be the finale.
I'm looking forward to it. The end is pretty bizarre, so I hope you guys like it.
just two more chapters. Normally there is an obvious conclusion where the good guys win and things are left in a manageable state, but I am really not sure if twilight will wind up back with her friends and as herself. i still really want her to remember being a god if she does get back with her friends.
... I wow...So is Tia actually Twilight? It, it almost makes sense...I think I need to wait for the last chapter...
O...M...G soo epic!!!
It was exactly like I imagined it would be.
Wow ... just .. uff..... great work. I love stories that Kind of stories. Can't wait for last chapter