Just your average Brony who happened upon an idea that might actually turn out to be clever enough for guys to love.
This is NOT PART of the Pony POV Series main canon.
This is my response to a single insignificant plot point done as a throw away action by the writers.
If you weren't you when you did something, who were you? If you don't remember doing something, where did those memories go? Love Poison Cheerilee and Big Mac, Flutterbat, and Inspiration Rarity, have found out.
Art by Atnalai. http://atnalai.deviantart.com/art/Inspiration-Manifestation-450694456
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So they decided to become Anti-Nihilists?
img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130428070238/mlpfanart/images/2/22/Sweetie_Belle_%22seems_legit%22_reaction_image.png
That is a VERY interesting philosophical question you've asked in this story, and one akin to many of the issues raised by the possibility of personality backups and editing in a post-Singularity world. I'm not actually sure of the answer as to the degree of independence or survival of the version of a person under mind control of the type one can't remember. One alternate possibility is that it survives in the brain of the former victim, as a disconnected set of memory traces that slowly degrade.
5380776
In the great cosmic dust bin where things forgotten or thrown away are all dumped.
5380796
And for someone like me. Who hate that cliche so purely ("Where am I?") I have it written into the rules of conduct of the pony pov series that that DOES NOT happen in stories written in the pony pov verse.
5380884
I think it's an interesting question, and one which may acquire practical importance in the future. Mr. A perfectly duplicates his mind (and, one would assume, body), so that there is now a Mr. A0 (the original) and a Mr. A1 (the duplicate). Are one, or both, "really" Mr. A? If only one, which one, and why? If both, then in what relation do they stand toward one another, and any claims or obligations Mr. A possessed?
(and it can get much more complicated than that, Greg Egan makes almost a specialty of this sort of story).
If you're interested, I would argue that both are real -- this is just a form of exceptionally close twinning -- and they equally share any claims or obligations.
Mind Forks. They are forks of people.
They are still people.
Yeah, I'm of the opinion that if the personality does split as portrayed here, they would be separate entities.
That being said, there's no guarantee that personalities split. The I.M. seemed kind of like "Rarity Who Is High" to me, not "Completely Different Rarity." Flutterbat... yeeeeah Flutterbat might be a different personality. And the Love Poison is more just flat out mind control, blunt at that, so if we're assuming mind control changes personalities...
This leads to a great image: Flutterbat versus the legions of hell.
I like this one, not least for seeing IM Rarity, Love Poison Cheery and Big Mac, and Flutterbat manage to get themselves out of Hell (well, the Crushing Void or the Qlippothic Realm, anyway) simply be refusal to give in to the essetial despair of the realm and by still caring about each other.
5380986
Oh yes -- I completely agree with that. Person is as person thinks and does.
5381640
I also notice that all of them are transcending the original limits of their creation. Mac and Cheery still love one another, but sanely (and their originals clearly felt repressed love for one another anyway). Flutterbat's not totally feral. And Rarity is essentially sane.
5381640
They're still in limbo, they've chosen to simply make the BEST of it.
5381390
Oh Pony Hell's a completely different realm.
And I just really REALLY HATE the whole 'forget what was doing while under mind control' thing and is treated by writers like it's a law of physics.
5381749
Which was much Rarity's point! :-)
5381969 And I just really REALLY HATE the whole 'forget what was doing while under mind control' thing and is treated by writers like it's a law of physics.
Doesn't this depend a lot on how the fictional mind control works? If it shuts the target's mind down and lets the controller work them like a puppet, it seems to me like it would make sense for the victim to have little memory of what happened.
5380986
Perhaps.
5381979
No it doesn't. Seriously, FOR ME, it's bad. Trust me.
5381969
It's not the forgetting I have an issue with, although that is a concern. Again, I.M. Rarity seemed more "High on some drug" than "Totally different Rarity."
The real question is the Love Poison couple. They were basically BLUNTLY HAMMERED in this direction, dragged specifically down a particular path of behavior and blinded to any other choice. They had to be manipulated into any action by promising it as within the spectrum of the love poison. This is the equivalent personality scope of an RTS computer opponent or an opposing group of mooks in an FPS: Only able to take actions within their specified spectrum, barring cutscenes, but potentially very intelligent within that spectrum. To me, having the LP couple as a potential intelligence is almost the same as that opposing computer in Starcraft being granted citizenship.
Flutterbat, however, gets a pass because she does demonstrate an animal intellect, thus is able to learn, thus could become a separate mind.
5381971
My take on the respective mind control episodes in my fanon is that all of them left subconscious traces -- there's a conscious discontinuity between the normal minds and the controlled ones, so it's hard-to-impossible for any of the former victims to access those memories -- but they're still in there. All four probably have dreams, nightmares and half-memories of the episodes. Referring to my versions of them:
(1) Mac and Cheery - In their case, the consequences are positive, for one big reason -- they really had loved one another, long before coming under the effects of the Love Poison, but each had given up on it long (without even coming close to consummating that love) for different external social reasons. First, Cheery renounced her developing feelings for Mac because he was two years their junior when they were teenagers; then later, when they were both in their twenties and the age difference was irrelevant, Cheery felt ashamed of the way she'd taken Mac for granted and Mac both assumed she'd reject him and was too busy taking care of his sisters and grandmother to have much time to court her anyway. The trace-memories of romantic mutual obsession reminded them that they really loved one another, which is why they began courting again.
(2) Fluttershy - What Twilight actually did was to accidentally give Fluttershy a commmand to Shift into a bat-like form. The only reason this led to a physical transformation is that Fluttershy, as a half-Changeling, actually has the power to Shift already -- she's just never been properly trained in the power's use. (Unlike emotivory, Shifting requires practice for a Changeling to do well). In my fanon, Twilight's command has the beneficial effect of helping to activate Fluttershy's ability to Shift; eventually, she will gain the ability to do it consciously.
(3) Rarity - I'm not entirely sure how the Inspiration Spell worked, but my theory is that it essentially gave the part of her personality which is creative full control over her mind (she wasn't stopping to eat or sleep even though Spike explicitly suggested she should) while giving her super powers. I would imagine that Rarity would subconsciously-remember many of her designs, and that in consequence she may now find artistic creation easier (though she can't just conjure her creations any more).
Oh, and the episode looked to me like a key moment in her realizing how much she loved Spike. Though the writers may reset this all next season.
...Okay, I have to ask. What do you think happens when ponies get drunk or smoke or are drugged?
5382431
Those exist in real life.
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In my opinion, being mind controlled by Chrysalis has to have been the worst experience of Shining's entire life, regardless of how much he remembers.
I have ideas for where this could go. A LOT of ideas. Excellent job Alex
5410642
Ideas?
And thank you!
5410815 oh yeah, this could be just the first chapter of a longer story. Take raritys exclamation for one thing. Just a little tweaking and you have them on a mission to unite the memories, and save them from the shadows trying to make something out of the darkness( or maybe trying to just move on) the draconi could play a role in that. The Shadows could be the big bads, maybe aided by some of the draconi, and the main one angry that their people are even choosing sides, when they are meant to ignore this world. There are a MILLION ways this could be furthered.
And yeah, no problem. This was a really fun read.
This was fun. Though I kinda wish there would be sequence to this, I can accept that it's marked as complete.
Keep going! ;)
5435322
Thanks! -) That means a lot.
At first I was a bit reluctant to give this a whirl since I'd rather read a happy fic then a Sad fic, but, this totally subverted my expectations, as usual Alex, you are one
of a writer. Have a dragon with a mustache. 
5536230
Thanks, this means a lot. The whole 'where am I, post mind magic' thing is a pet peeve of mine with how it's used pretty much like it was a law of physics.
5537679
Fair enough, we all have pet peeves, I don't mind it as much, as long as it's done right, for example, instead of just mind control, your body is posessed by say, Sombra's ghost, and he puts your mind to sleep as it were so that the concious mind can't resist and make things harder for him, or if the mind control spell forcibly removes the memories of the time you were controlled to protect important information but yeah, used like it's physics, I can see how it could get annoying.
5381969
My own headcanon on the whole 'forget-what's-done-under-mind-magic' shebang is that it's partially an aftereffect of the spell being lifted (sort of like how if you start spinning really fast and then stop, the floor seems to start trying out for a new career as a ceiling for a while before you get your bearings back). The pony's brain is attempting to reconcile their actions under the influence with the person they were beforehand, and is compromising by not making the memories consciously accessible (although, like someone commented earlier, the memories would still be there and surface as nightmares and suchlike).
Partially, it's because of how the brain works. The human brain contains a record of everything it has ever experienced, but there's a reason you can't recall every second of your life. The brain retrieves memories by making connections between them and other things. Dark magic screws with the mechanism the brain uses for such things, meaning that while the memories are there, the pony just doesn't know how to access them.
And partially, it's because of mental corruption caused by the magic. There's this book series I like called The Dresden Files, and in it, mind magic (which is illegal in that 'verse) inevitably causes psychic damage. In the Dresdenverse, this manifested as stuff like extreme paranoia, total insanity, and becoming a drooling vegetable (no wonder that stuff's illegal). However, this is Equestria, and the mental corruption is milder once the spell is no longer directly acting upon the pony in question, and it manifests as problems with memory.
However, that said, I really enjoyed this story and I think that the premise is fascinating. I want to read more about the adventures of Inspiration Manifestation Rarity, Love Poison Cheerilee and Big Mac, and Flutterbat.
5613403
What's TRULY annoying is that Trixie, since she's not a protagonist and they don't have as a priority worrying about alienating her to their buying audience, is ALLOWED to remember what she'd done while the Alicorn Amulet had its grip on her, where from a meta stand point, if she had been a PROTAGONIST, she wouldn't have remembered and the heroes would have just explained to her how evil she acted like they do every other time it's happened. The laws of magic themselves are bound by protagonist centered morality. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ProtagonistCenteredMorality
5613455
You really do have a good point and I agree with you (although I myself never really gave the matter much thought), but playing Devil's Advocate:
Trixie's case does seem different than the others, as she both does remember what she does under the influence and seems to suffer a sort of dark magic inertia, as she continues acting like she's got the Amulet on for a bit after she takes it off and puts on Twilight's Doorstop of (Fake) Power. Perhaps that was the Alicorn Amulet's version of 'Mind-magic Dizziness'.
Also, Trixie seemed to have lost a lot of time to the Alicorn Amulet, unlike Big Mac and Cheerilee who lost an hour and Rarity who lost a day. That might have had an effect on her memory.
Of course, if Trixie didn't remember what she did under the Amulet's influence, she probably wouldn't have been redeemed.
5614588
It just feels dumb that Rarity doesn't remember while Trixie did when they were the same brand of magic. (Corrupting the user the more they're used.)
5615069 what Cheerily, Big Mac, Fluttershy and Rarity experienced was a mind takeover. rarity's was only gradual.
Trixie, possibly Sombra, and Sunset Shimer (she demon) where "sufering" of power madness like someone on a drugs that augment your performence AND give you a feelling of power that outstretch what you can really do. and that going on a high goes like this
5889643
And where did that consciousness that was in control GO? If one believes in an afterlife.
5890029
When Dark World Dash/Nightmare Manacles was invited into Fauna Luster domain, she discovered the "lights of existence " were actually made of friendship. If Shadows and Memories are able to rediscover what that friendship truly means, doesn't that may turn them into " real"?
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INTERESTING THEORY! http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WMG/PonyPOVSeries
For a moment, I thought Rarity was gonna live in despair forever...........Now I know she's in good hands and will have wonderful company.
7236447
Ironic isn't it?
5613455 Expect that didn't worked for the want it need spell, that Twilight caused, everyone remembered that.
Besides the difference is Trixie actually looked for the amulet, Rarity was given it, so she wasn't really aware what the spell was fully capable of. Trixie did, she was warned beforehand it was dangerous but toke it anyway.
7476121
I doubt it.
7476180 I wish I could see a sequel to this where those four have escaped and encountered the Main 6. They might all have to change there names though.
8010644
Sadly, I'm kinda DONE with sequels. If someone else wants to write it, they're free to.
Fascinating. And of all the stories to read after one involving Wallflower Blush...
One could argue that wanting to want counts. And they all certainly want those tasty, tasty memories...
In any case, leave it to a mind fragment empowered to make her dreams into reality to defy the place where dreams go to die. A wonderfully triumphant piece in the face of oblivion. Would you say the mis-marked members of the Mane Six circa "Magical Mystery Cure" are somewhere in this realm?
8862888
So you think they have no memory of what they did while their cutie marks were scrambled? I'll confess, the 'where am I?' cliche while under mind control is a berserk button for me, in particular that ISN'T how mind control actually works, unless you were explicitly given instructions not to remember, you would remember everything.
Thank you so much for the comment!