Stories about: Feelings too complicated to describe, ponies
Twilight's bloody corpse hangs in a shard of broken window. Twilight stalks the train in search of the monster that killed her. Two of the Twilights that are too many, facets of a Twilight that is too much.
“So you remember what dying’s like?” Dash asked with the careless curiosity of a child.
“It was like if falling asleep really hurt. Except some of me stayed dreaming.”
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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This was a fascinatingconcept. I loved the innate horror of the situation Twilight(s) put herself in, how you can tell she is just barely keeping herself together. It creates a lot of tension and makes me feel some amount of the stress that she's under; of keeping a balance between herself and her-selves. This was a really fun piece to read, thank you for sharing this with us!
Okay. My brain hurts from trying to understand any of this. How is there more than one Twilight? I couldn't make it to the end before I gave up. Does look cool though.
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Literal explanation: Twilight got stuck in the middle of teleporting, as an entity of pure information. That information had two parts; Her mind and awareness, and chunks of a teleportation spell. Turns out teleporting is like going ctrl-x, ctrl-v, and the stuck Twilight can hit ctrl-v a bunch of times. But she's making copies of herself 'arrive' out of teleportation. The corrupted teleportation spell is jammed on, trying but unable to send Twilight the rest of the way. It's permanently trying to transport her consciousness to the destination, even though it's already full - all consciousnesses (because they're all the same Twilight) to all destinations (because they're all the product of the same broken spell). Which is also why existing Twilights teleporting get to keep their 'selves' - they're sending their version of their brain to arrive in - while new Twilights are the entire collective up until that point - they're copy-pasted from the half-sent Twilight who experiences everything fully, with no separation.
Conceptual explanation: Do you ever get the feeling your behaviour changes a bit if you're talking to your friends as to what it's like when you talk to your parents? How they're slightly different versions of you, but when you're alone and decompressing again, you remember being both and can internalize that self of both those different experiences? This is like that, except they're all conscious simultaneously.
As stated, equal parts fascinating and horrifying. I can't help but think of the "teleporting kills you" meme, but reinterpreted in a much more engrossing way.
I especially love how the Master Twilight, even in all her ineffable immensity, is still recognizably Twilight. She loves her friends. She loves to learn and to teach. She loves exploring new vistas of magic. The problem is that, as limited and limitless as she is, her options for all of those things are horribly constrained. She really is trying her best with and through all of her physical avatars, but that doesn't make their existence any less... Well, "tormented" is a strong word—at least once their cerebrospinal fluid stops leaking through their respective noses—but "awkward" certainly isn't strong enough. I'll settle for "uniquely difficult."
All told, outstanding work. Thank you for it.
The non-linear framing makes the story somewhat more confusing than the already confusing concept required, but once I worked out the fight between Pinkie and the fire lizard was before all the other scenes it all made sense.
I understand it's a reference to the master record in recording but I'm torn between disbelief that Twilight used the most sinister possible title for her non-physical form, and the knowledge that she would absolutely name it that without considering that saying that she has unprecedented and terrifying (her form of immortality is clearly not pretty, judging by the corpses) powers because of her Master, an incomprehensibly knowledgeable entity outside of reality, might get her, at the very least, some concern.
I am reminded of a post I once saw about how cosmic horror, to an ant, wouldn't be seeing a circuit board, but being made human, capable of understanding the significance of all of the details and what the circuits were communicating, and then being returned to an ant and unable to communicate any of it to any others, or even to truly still understand it, but only being left with the memory of the immense significance of the object it had walked upon. Even when dealing with something benevolent, as is the case here, working with something so far beyond pony (or human, I guess) comprehension is dangerous beyond description. I am wondering if any of the copies could get addicted to teleporting, though I guess the come down makes that unlikely.
I quite liked this, though even with Twilight deciding to drop out of the dating pool and being sick every time she teleports it seems like she's reacting to this less extremely than would be expected. I know she's all-seeing now but with the acknowledgement she is making mistakes it seems like the master would at least take a shot at making as many copies as possible, just to see what happened. I know it's bad form to look at a fictional magic system and immediately seek out edge cases and experiments to see if it's consistent, but it also seems like exactly what Twilight would do. Her immediate response is to start experimenting and reading books to see if it's happened before. I will choose to believe that the Master either worked it out in theory and elected not to put her physical forms through it, or that it happened off screen.
I should also point out you have a dangling grim in the code blue scene, though.
Eh.
Absolutely wild, this is the sort of high-concept shit I drink down like water in a desert.
Is this some kind of ADHD thing I'm too neurotypical to getSorry, bad joke. Conceptually I love this; it's horrifying and fascinating, and I see what you're going for. It's so viscerally conveyed, I can sense Twilight's (?) struggle seeping through the text. For such an abstract and vaguely specific concept I think you nailed it down as best as is possible.
For better or worse, I think whether the reader grasps it is going to be extremely dependent on their own experiential model.
As such, I'm sad it didn't land better for me. I do wonder if I lack some sort of mental / emotional framework to really feel it, to empathize with what Twilight is going through. I caught glimpses, but only darkly through the glass. Maybe I'm Dash in this scenario: Even after having it explained and "understanding" the high-level, I probably still don't quite understand even though it kinda makes sense and I want to, if only to be a better friend.
Regardless, I can see the genius in this despite my seeming inability to meet it. Well done. 👍👍
wait, are the Twilights trying to add more bodies or compress them?
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The second "understand" is the meaning of "grok".
Really confusing but also really interesting
This is the kind of absolutely awe-inspiring, genius concept that will get copied so many times that people will forget where it first came from, and it's written just as well as your other work to boot. I'm floored by how literally and also Literally galaxy-brain this is.
I look forward to the day that no one will bat an eye when I say "the most inspirational fiction I've ever read was fanfiction" because it really is the truth. Fave. Fave. Fave. Fave. Fave. Utter favorite work.
I got to pre-read this one and I'm so happy it exists.
I'll say here what I already said in chat with you: As someone who knows what it's like to overstimulate, I felt all the bits about the Twilight cohort experiencing sensory overload. Also: thoroughly enjoyed this deep hurting you are inflicting on me.
It's like trying to understand Quantum Mechanics mixed with magic. And I loved it.
Hear me out here. We make a Twilight Array for Master. Prepare a 10 X 10 X 10 matrix of magical life support tanks. Teleport a brain of Twilight into each.
No, I think you mean it would be terribly fascinating.
I like that the fragmentation of this story contributes to the sensation of existing in multiple for the reader, but it would also communicate clearer if it was more time-linear. i.e., putting the "past" scenes at the beginning and evolving the timeline chronologically even as the perspective jumps around. That's art for you, I guess. I enjoyed the concept though, very cosmic horror-esque but with a trademark pony optimism to it.
She is vast, she encompasses multitudes.
What an unusual, creepy, and excellent story!
Ok. I have no idea what I was reading there; went right over my head. Had to give up about 1/3 of the way in; just wasn't getting it. I felt like I was reading a crossover with no idea what the source material was.
Sorry, mate, can't up vote this one, but I'm not down voting it because I'm just not sure I'm right audience here (but I'm not sure who the right audience is).
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Uh... no? I just talk to people.
That was a good story.
Well. That was painful and hard to follow. But good? But good.
This terrifies me on an instinctual level the same way Stephen King's "The Jaunt" did.
Absolutely brilliant.
I still can't believe this is from the same person who wrote Beanis
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Not me, but I was friends with the original creator at the time so I wrote a side story in the 'cinematic universe'. One of those personalities we remember being but can't go back to.
really interesting stuff!
This was wonderful!
I dislike horror, but that's only if one is speaking of the most common type of story that falls under that classification. This is a great concept, nicely thought out and explored, that is horrible in most aspects, but also intriguing and engaging. I thought the non-linear sequence helped set the appropriate tone, too.
Turns out this story is my jam, after all!
This was a really interesting story, both as the literal story of Twilight's mind being trapped and having to spread it across multiple bodies, and as a metaphorical representation of real mental states. The descriptions were enthralling, and the concepts were presented in a fascinating way. I'm glad that things seem to be getting better for Twilight in the end.
Neat.
Takes a little while to gather enough pieces to figure out what's going on. But I really like the concept.
I don't really understand what I just read, but I REALLY liked it.