Cars are still parked outside. If the rapture had happened, why was it unrecognizable? Why was the sky blue? Why did no one tell me? Do these things not announce themselves?
Raven Inkwell has been the royal aid to Celestia for all her life. Now that Twilight has taken the throne, she too will learn to harness the gift that Raven has to offer. But what exactly is Raven? And why has nobody bothered to ask this before?
A commission for Snow Quill, who also did the art!
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Man it is a trip to finally read the full thing beginning to end on fimfic. I remember planning this fic with you and reading the little snippets and seeing the story come together… gosh this was good.
You took such a simple concept (I think my words in dm were literally ‘Raven’s blood is ink that writes letters on pages’ or something vague) and like, you absolutely killed it here. This was a fantastic concept in your super cool and mysterious horror style and I really can’t thank you enough.
You are incredible <3
Wow. I'm not sure I have other words to describe what I've just read. But damn, that was eerie. Kudos for this.
That was a good story.
Aaah Cosmic horrors beyond imagination. I LOVE it! Now excuse me while I call a man about some garden gnomes.
I have questions of the darkness, and I don't think I want them answered.
Give this to Obab Scribbler for a month of the macabre reading this story NEEDS to be heard.
Until my family broke my immersion I was starting to feel my heartbeat in a thudding bass kind of way (if that makes sense).
I'm not exactly what you would call a Horror Aficionado but around this time of the rolling year I do enjoy the occasional spine-tingler. I even set up a bookshelf in my Fim library just for these kinds of stories.
Somebody give me their interpretation of the ending. I’ve not read much lovecraftian stuff so I might be confused.
Celestia: Soon I'll be, Private Citizen Celestia.
Raven: Step one, kill Spike.
I liked this story. Loved it at moments.
But I also feel like I don't fully understand what just happened...
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(Note: Eldritch by its very nature is open to interpretation. So this is my view)
Twilight succeeded...ish.
Raven is free. The curse that bound her and the monster trapped within her is no longer attached to Raven.
Instead... it's in Twilight.
That is why Twilight heard the voice but Raven didn't that last time.
That's why the monologue at the end mirrors Raven's at the start.
But more significantly... that's why Raven's eyes are purple now. They are Twilights eyes in Raven's skull.
That inky blackness Twilight saw...that's harder to explain. Perhaps Twilight wasn't completely successful and when she too goes insane and and evil the darkness will return to Raven.
Or perhaps Twilight did not see the inky blackness in Raven's eye. Perhaps it was a shadow crawling across the corner of her own eye...
After all, they are Raven's eyes originally. The eyes that cried ink for most of the story
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Thank You very much for sharing your opinions on the open to interpretation bits of the story.
Not bad, but at the same time, it's a bit nonsensical. There's no reason for an embodiment of language to be some kind of evil eldritch abomination that apparently created the windigos, the pony of shadows, Nightmare Moon, and everything else. Bizarre and eldritch, maybe, but the "evil" part just doesn't fit.
And when you think about it, eldritch doesn't fit either. Language is communication. Understanding. Raven should be the opposite of an incomprehensible eldritch abomination - she'd be the most easy-to-understand being in all of existence.
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Ish.
Language is a means of understanding true enough. But defining where language ends and where is begins is difficult.
We can teach many different animals to talk to us various different ways. From the chimps that learn sign language to the buttons that cats and dogs press. And how great a grasp of those concepts of language they have varies in turn from animal to animal.
Yet the language those animals verbally speak to each other remains incomprehensible to us. Sure we can read body language. But telling one meow from another is just vague guessing.
And has been pointed out before, Meows are vocalizations only made to humans. They are a noise they learn to get our attention as their natural means of communicating normally (As opposed to threats like hisses and yoweling which we can here) to another cat isn't audible to humans.
BUT BEYOND THAT while we can learn synonyms and meanings of words, a native speaker of their first language can have a single word that is near impossible to translate into another language and certainly not with the same amount of words. So even if you learn a second language it is possible you will never understand the true meaning of certain words because you see them through the eyes of your first language and not the culture of the writers.
It is impossible to truely learn to speak every human language that has ever existed. Even if you could that it is impossible to learn the hidden depths and side meanings and slangs and cultural understandings of every language that has ever existed. And even if you somehow did that, you would still only grasp a tiny fraction of all language. We have evidence that even PLANTS communicate with each other.
Language is how two individuals communicate. But the more distant they are from each other, the more impossible understanding will ever be. Language aids communication but changing language prevents two people from ever truely understanding.
So yes....a concept that represented ALL language.... would be well beyond our understanding in my eyes.
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And yet, it would be the absolute opposite for her. She would understand everyone, therefore she wouldn't speak in "eldritch" gibberish. Yes, a regular mortal can't learn every language that ever existed. But if you're saying that she does, including animals, plants, and everything else? She'd be able to properly explain things to every being in existence, not this "wargh darkness blood madness insanity tentacles" stuff.
If Raven Inkwell is the darkness, then cast magic missile on her!
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As I said some concepts don't translate well, even if you can somehow perfectly know a language.
Lets say their existed a Mantis shrimp with perfect understanding of all human languages and concepts and could flawlessly communicate with any and all humans, including babies.
The Human eye has 3 Cones in it, and their are 3 Primary colors. This is not a coincidence, but is instead a part of the fact our eyes colour any environment based off how each of the cone cells reacts to the light entering our eyes reflected off the things in said enviroment.
The Mantis Shrimp has 16 cone cells. These do stretch into deep ultraviolet and far infer-red so its not 16 Primary colors in the visible spectrum.... but its 16 primary colors. They also have the ability to visually tell the difference between polarized and unpolarized Light (Which 2 specific Cones cells are dedicated to, so maybe call it 14 Primary colours and something that is akin to shade for us, BUT is completely seperate definition to colour discriptions) AND they can change the frequency of light their ultra-violet cone cells target depending on the environment, so they can see at far deeper depths....and as a result change the perceived colour of something just by looking at it slightly differently.
Their is no way a Mantis shrimp could explain what it sees to us. Even with perfect mastery of our languages. This hypothetical human intelligent Mantis Shrimp with perfect mastery of our language and culture fails to communicate with us about what many would consider one of the most basic concept to comunicate.
To it Colour and Polarization are exactly the same. To us one is colour and the other is science that requires either filters or tools to detect.
A being from beyond our dimension, a universal concept made manifest, who is both eternal, and external to the universe, who sees not in more colours then us but in more literal dimensions then us, and is SIGNIFICANTLY more intelligent then us....
That it knows and understands all languages means it understands us perfectly. NOT that we have any hope of understanding what it is trying desperately to dumb down to our flawed and limited understanding.
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On the other hand, the mantis shrimp apparently can't blend colors in its mind the way we do. Our sight would be just as trippy.
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Very fair. Thats actually a valid point.
The ability to know all human languages and understand their cultural nuances is useless if you are incapable of experiencing said understanding.
If a Mantis Shrimp can't blend colours to see say... Orange, then all of the above will not help it in anyway be able to parse Orange correctly. It has no basis for the colour.
Knowledge in isolation is nothing without understanding and a creature that is language made manifest, doesn't nessisarily have the same senses as us.
I... Dislike stories, that have downer ending. Maybe have Harmony strenghen/evolve once again, and save Twilight from it? Is Discord native to it, or did he came to Equestria from somewhere. Maybe he, as much as I HATE his "redemption"), cando something about the "language taint"? A sequel with a resolution would be nice...
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For my two cents...
Raven is free now because the thing replaced her with Twilight, who is now the one eternally trapped in Raven's body. In fact, it's not even Raven who was just freed. It was Celestia. Compare how at the end, Twilight is now acting very unconcerned about Raven, just like Celestia had been before. It seems to me like there have been a series of these switches over time. Celestia freed some earlier victim, Twilight freed Celestia... except Star Swirl feels like the piece that doesn't fit. He claimed no knowledge of Raven's circumstances and acted equally unconcerned, only for Twilight to see through Raven's memories that he was involved at one point. If he also got drawn into this effect, then that would mean there are two of those things in the world now, which can only partially be explained by Star Swirl being suspended in time. Perhaps the thing can divide, but then why would Star Swirl/Celestia be the only time it chose to? Why be content with only one of them in the world? My best guess is that the very act of someone trying to help the victim can spawn another. Maybe the predecessor to Twilight freeing Celestia is Celestia freeing Star Swirl, but that means just being free lets one... pass on, I guess, with whoever's in their body still getting to finish out its lifespan.
This was an interesting story. The visuals of Raven's writing was inventive, and I liked seeing Twilight's attempts to help her. I admit I'm not entirely clear why a spirit of language would act like this, though.
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Welcome, everypony! I am glad to present, after a year and a half of collaboration with Raven Inkwell and The Spirit of Language, the very first manuel writing correcter!
*Raven steps up, a pen with a red jewel on top. Purposely writing the Equestrian Anthem wrong in several ways, everypony is startled and awed by the ink correcting itself as she wrote. When she was done, everypony was on their hooves, applauding for a minute straight.*
*Afterwards, Raven and Twilight shared a hoofbump as they sat at the bar, milk in Raven's glass and wine in Twilight's.*
Twi: Told you.
Raven: Your Highness... *Sigh, shake of head, smile* You told me.
*Of course, Rainbow and Pinkie were left begging at Twilight's hooves after the spirit itself came out of their pens and berated them for the prank they were attempting; Spoiled was left terrified of writing altogether because of something regarding Diamond Tirara, even though the spirit tried to get her to change; and the spirit had to awkwardly comfort Cheerlie after she was left sobbing and jumping with joy.*