This story is a sequel to Beauty Will Tear Us Apart
There is another secret agent stationed in Ponyville.
Some elder siblings are not as old as they look.
Ponyville's premiere party planner is pondering her purpose.
The world is not quite what it seems. A pony, in the wrong place at the wrong time, just might stumble behind the stage and see the the nuts and bolts that hold their reality together. Some ponies brush up against the dividing curtain briefly and never understand what it is they saw. Some ponies get a good, long look behind it, and their lives are never the same. And some ponies live their whole lives with a hoof on each side.
These are their stories.
The comment section may contain unmarked spoilers.
Cover art by the multi-talented KuroiTsubasaTenshi.
Big thanks to my pre-readers (in roughly chronological order):
cleverpun
Midnight Rambler
Justanotherbrony
KuroiTsubasaTenshi
war877
JapaneseTeeth
Look at this guy who said something about this, one time.
And also this guy.
What does Den Fjerde Væg mean in English?
I offer only encouragement and a favorite. Love this meta-characterization.
It always provides some whiplash when sight gags and continuity gaffes get played for drama, but you never lose sight of the show's optimistic spirit, so it's all good.
7301836 It's Danish for the fourth wall.
I went with that because it also fits my theme of naming all these stories after songs I like.
... Cannot unmake? Luna is being hopelessly optimistic, there's no end of ways retroactive introduction of objects can alter current and future state of other objects. Including destroying them.
You genius you. Welp, now my top two are taken up by the same author.
I think the only other story I've read that details 'Retconjuration' is the web comic Erfworld, and they just skimmed over it, none of this "bend over I'm going in dry" that I just read.
Gonna go rewrite my next D&D game now. Inspiring.
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Thank you both.
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I swear I've seen this sort of thing explored in-depth before, but now I can't remember where. (DUN DUN DUN!) There was an author's note from The B-Movie Comic:
7302778 I suppose a retcon can contribute to something's destruction, but what Luna's getting at is that you can't just retcon something away the same way you retcon something into the story in the first place. You can add new information to backstories, you can fill in the blank spaces in the audience's knowledge of the world—but you can't contradict what the audience does already know. Hence, you can give Twilight an older brother who she's never mentioned before, but once you establish that brother's existence, you can't erase him and say that Twi's an only child.
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Unless you're ready to posit that he was a changeling infiltrator who took the place before Twilight's birth and enchanted Twilight Velvet and Night Light to think they always had a son. Or pull an "all just a dream" on a sufficiently long stretch of time. It's not a question of theoretical impossibility, it's a question of how far a particular author is willing to go to do it. A complete reversal is difficult, but negating anything good that came from an prior retcon, not really.
Luna appears to speak in the assurance that nobody is willing to do something so drastic, which is optimistic. :) Looking at the current corpus of ponyfic, some authors are willing to go pretty far.
This is so my mindset. In all its twisted glory.
Pinkie and Twi get into things i deal with everyday. They seem to be handling it better then me at the end.
Twilights song, so awesome, someone needs to make that a real thing!
This verse and interpretation of Derpy is one of my favorites.
Love it! A very interesting interpretation of retconning. Your stories are always great reads. I stayed up way too late last night to finish it.
I already mentioned this on the other forums, but I really enjoyed this one. It's the perfect balance of philosophical weirdness and heartfelt emotion, especially at the end.
Reading this is relevant right after Flutter Brutter.
Interesting, and rather funny, and surprisingly poignant at times. Well handled, overall, especially the part with Maud here in the last chapter.
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Thank you both.
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Heh. Thank 7305409 for the ending scene with Pinkie and Maud. I was leaning towards cutting that scene much shorter, but his feedback convinced me to go for this version.
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There are some elements of my own philosophy worked in there. But I hope I didn't turn the characters into my own mouthpieces; that's not fair to them, or to the readers.
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Odd timing, that. I was finishing up editing on this by the time I saw "Flutter Brutter".
What's funny is that I don't really mind all these retconned siblings in the original show. In fact, if you ask me, Maud Pie's existence is a much bigger plot hole than Shining Armor's or Zephyr's (it's easier to justify Twilight or Fluttershy just not mentioning their brother, than to justify Maud's absence from Pinkie Pie's flashback)—yet Maud is one of my favorite characters.
7307133 Not knowing your own philosophy I couldnt say if you where unintentionally making the characters a mouthpiece.
For me there are reflections of my own skewed perception of the world and my fluctuating philosophical stance on whatever.
As for the characters themselves, to me they seemed to have what feels like the appropriate philosophical view/understanding of the world around them for them and their personality. And it was great to see Twilight's perception of the world get broken and her having to reconcile/take a different philosophical stance on the world and her place in it.
The whole retconning of the world and no one knowing but a couple of ponies being aware of it is an amazing concept.
I love these kinda fics and you did a great job of it. This verse is really good for exploring these kinds of things.
I didn't figure out what was happening until Pinkie finally called Twilight "Twilight Twinkle". But then, hah! What a fantastic idea for a story. And it fits in perfectly with the universe you've created.
Anyway, great story! And thanks for taking the time to properly edit it, etc., before publishing - it makes a world's difference!
I like how Derps and Pinkie have similar, but still very unique abilities. Also really digging the professional connection with Time Turner and the whole agent angle.
7319652 Mainly I'm lucky to have pre-readers who are willing to be as brutal as necessary in critiquing my first drafts.
7330595 In my dream, I am the sentimental dork. It's me.
7320500 Thanks!
Well, that picture did not make it into the epub. Got so confused I had to come back to the site to find out what had gone wrong.
Why the hell did I not read this earlier?
7377632 Because your author thought it would be more interesting if you waited a bit?
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The writer's employed on the cartoon itself are slightly more conservative but... Twilight and we might fret they might not always remain so...
And then there is the comics and chapter-books...
This was pretty great! It would be awesome to see more of Twilight characterized this way, she and Pinkie are really coming into their own right as characters, as their own characters distinct from the show, but based on it, having grown out of it after the events of this and the other stories.
I don't know why I took so long to read this. It's exquisite. Not quite the same sort of multidimensional hijinks I'm used to from you, but still something that nailed one of my favorite topics in or out of pony fiction. The metafictional metaphysics were magnificently executed, from Ditzy and Pinkie comparing extra senses to Twilight's existential crisis to the true identity of the Key of Laughter. And the message at the end is spot on: The meaning of life is whatever you choose. That choice is as real as you are, however much that may be.
Thank you for another magnificent installment of the series and further evidence that we may in fact be clones.
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It's kind of weird to get a comment like this, because the "message" doesn't quite line up with my own thoughts about our world. But shoehorning everything I believe into Equestria's cosmology would make a lot of readers cry foul, and I wouldn't blame them. Incidentally, that's the metatextual reason why Dr. Hooves refuses to discuss the existence of souls—so I wouldn't be forcing my own beliefs into this story. Or at least, so the solution to Pinkie's particular crisis wouldn't depend on her agreeing or disagreeing with me on that issue.
And now I wish that I had worked in a reference to "In a Sweater Poorly Knit":
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What do you believe in?
7592700 https://youtu.be/MZU2aEZe61k
Aww! That ending was sweet!
And the story was just what I needed to keep from existential crisising again.
TimeTravelTenseTrouble... lol!
... I just grab epubs and read on my mobile in a big rush!
AlliterativeNames for Ditzy, and Pinkie, and Time Turner...
Splendiferous…plus nefarious. :pinkieholmeseyebulge:
…oh gods.
Yes, she is; whether she's flying by balloon, toonpower, her personal pedalcopter, or tailicopter…
*squints* greek locus…? You're doing something fancy here to say she's a dimensional guard. What's your etymology?
The other, I can see…Guard of the Fourth Wall.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gaslight#Verb
…oh. Oooooooooooooooooh.
But not tofuroni and durian.
Queen Majesty might have something to say about that…
A veritable Dagwood of s'mores.
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We are writers, too. And many will unmake Twilight's wings, and Flurry Heart, and pastel stag beetles.
I admit I had a second, worse thought about what this meant.
Modal verbs are the best, aren't they?
I am running into that problem of "if I keep quoting lines I like, the entire fic will end up in my comment."
…but as someone with a philosophy degree…
Yes I do
and oh gods that was amazing.
i'd go with "whom"
And now I have to go leave another comment on PoC for an entry on Pinkie Sense.
forgot to ask…does this refer to a real work that's named something else?
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Nice to see someone caught it.
Honestly, I just looked up the Greek word for "space" and slapped "guard" on the end. My etymology is pretty fast and loose.
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I hope I didn't mess it up too badly, since I haven't really studied the topic since high school...
"No, really, you don't. Also, I'd be breaking the law if I did ..."
Flashback...
"Twilight Sparkle, in light of your good behavior and many accomplishments, the Court is willing to drop all charges against you—provided you refrain from rapping, toasting, dropping sick rhymes, or beatboxing, until such time as your rhymes and flow stop being such weaksauce. Are these terms acceptable?"
Twilight gulped. "Well... can I still b-girl?"
"Of course. We're not monsters."
Babette's Feast.
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No, it's good. Rhyming gets a little weak at the end, but overall? I love it (and so does the other philosopher I showed it to)
Not a super-great introduction, though. It's a good review…which makes it even more the sort of way Twilight tends to teach things, in the fashion of a genius who cannot remember true unknowing, ungrasping times.
Holy DEPTH!
Then again.....I like that message. "Does being a character in a story make your impact on that story any less important?"
Excellently done. Write more in this series please. I have a personal preference for your work with Ditzy myself, but truthfully the whole series is lovely.
You are a madpony.
This is the daftest explanation for the daftest thing. XD
So bees were actually wrong about somepony, then?
Also, I really understand what Twilight was going through last chapter. I can envision her as a unicorn perfectly well, but I saw that whole scene with her and Pinkie taking place in Friendship Castle. c.c Unsettling!
...She is an alicorn by this time though, isn't she?
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Would you believe if I said I don’t actually think Shining Armor’s introduction to the story is as big a plot hole as the fandom made it out to be? It’s just that, if I’m doing a non-standard take on fourth wall awareness, then it’s a shame not to mention Shining at all...
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Thank you. My next planned story should bring the focus back to Ditzy, but some real life problems are making it hard to focus on writing.
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Yes. The last chapter takes place the day after “Pinkie Pride”.
One aspect of backstory that I had in mind, but never explicitly spelled out in the story, is the reason why Luna reacted so casually to Twilight’s learning of the fourth wall. Basically, Celestia and Luna were already planning on letting Twi in on the secret—since all alicorns know about it, and those two started preparing for Twi’s apotheosis right after the Crystal Empire returned.
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Hah! :D That makes a lot of sense.
You can has review!
And this is why Pony POV Series Shining Armor never told Twilight Sparkle that he was basically retconned into existence, and even when the Interviewers revealed THEIR convoluted back story, they didn't reveal that detail to her. Shining Armor was just lucky he had more important things to worry about when he found out the truth.
Though this leaves the question, what happens if a retconned into existence pony becomes able to see beyond the forth wall?
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They’d probably have fewer problems in the short term than a pony who wasn’t retconned into existence. You gain the memories of your alternate self from the previous draft(s)—so if the draft(s) don’t have an alternate version of you, then you don’t get any extra memories. In the long term, it might take some therapy to adjust after learning that, from a certain point of view, you were magicked into existence rather than born.
In the specific case of Shining Armor, he would get new memories from the very early draft where Cadance was a unicorn, rather than a pegasus-turned-alicorn. But he’d know nothing firsthand about the draft where Twilight was an only child.
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Sorry for being an egotist, but I can't help but think of my own series here. Since old and conflicting continuity is a theme that comes up a lot.