I like.

I so called it from the crash landing. Maybe I just watch too much Doctor Who. Whatever, BRING IT ON!

Time Shenanigans. My one weakness.

Just remember, keep the loops stable. Otherwise dead Dashes start piling up. Dead Dashes are the enemy.

YAY APPLEDASH! Wait, so Rainbow would have never confessed if she hadn't have known AJ felt the same way, which she never would have known had she never confessed...got to love time travel.

I am suddenly reminded of both Doctor Who and Homestuck.

Time Travel Shenanigans!

Chapter length is fine. The longer chapter stories also take longer to come out.

It's got more of a "Back to the Future" vibe going for it.. and maybe that Pandorica episode of the Doctor where he went nuts with Jack's wrist timepiece.  Celestia help us if Pinkie ever got her hooves on that...

This is getting to be almost as bad as Primer!

Poor Applejack

....this is why i hate time travel i have no idea what the hell is going on! lol good story

Dash, you have to go back to the future!

So, does Ponyville have its own version of the Untempered Schism? Because, at this point, I think that's the only valid explanation for all these time paradoxes/shenanigans.

I need Twilight's charts.

>>52635263

Maybe after the story is finished.  Wouldn't want to spoil anything.

Oh god.  My body is ready, but I don't think my mind is.

Celestia help us all

and that, children, is why time travel will be outlawed less than a second after the first successful demonstration.

also, I hope we will have some Time Travel Tense Trouble soon ("we will meet five minutes ago" "actually, no. we already have been met in ten minutes").

finaly, I agree with >>54065406 . Sun and Moon help us all indeed.

I just... yeah, I've completely given up any hope of following all the loops. Please do provide charts at some point.

Where's the Doctor when ya need him?

Given the way this is going, I'm pretty sure he'd be the only one able to figure out this temporal causality/casualty loop/paradox/whatever... since we've got at least three of half the mane cast, plus another dozen Dashes, then Scoot's come back as well... this thing is a completely paradoxical quantum mess.

Good god my brain.

How you managed to keep track of all this in order to write boggles the mind.

ow, my brain

SO many Ponies!

I don't understand all the loops and which Dash is going back  half the time but I like it still, it's somehow making a strange amount of sense

Ooh my BRAIN.

I wish there were more like this. I think it'd be good for my brain to stretch it every once in a while. It would SUCK to be out of shape brain-wise.

The Autor is evil and keeps the notes to him/herself and will propably only post them at the end. I love how confusing Time Travel can be.

Wow, suddenly, "Primer" is a lot less confusing...  But that was awesome!  I can't wait to read the rest.

good lord above this is brilliant! you were not fuckin with us when you said convoluted story was ahead! how did you keep track of all this in your head? I can barely keep track of it! Oh man, I just can NOT wait for the next chapter. and the bit where three of each of them were all standing around the chalk board? AJ snuck off with AJ into a corner? all the twi's freak... oh heavens I just can't stop smiling!

I applaud your obvious skill, because this is a truly impressive story to even attempt, let alone actually be pulling off to such an amazing extent. seriously. I wish i had a medal for you.

keep up the great work, as I eagerly await more

Ugh, Timey Wimey.

My brain... what have you done to my brain...

This is far more intriguing than a convoluted mess of a timeline reasonable ought to be... of course there is always that simple solution in the background. Twilight... have you thought about simply not f*ing inventing time travel? Hunh?! (course... where would the fun in that be...)

Wait if Rainbow Dash is over there and that's Rainbow Dash over there who am I? Who's making this post?

Oh, Celestia DAMNIT, Scootaloo.

I am on Chapter 10. I have no idea what is going on or where this is going. I am a damned man if I can concoct an explanation for why Scoots is now time-traveling too. That scene with the three Twi's is giving me a headache. How could all the Rainbow Dashes have timelines that flow continuously? I am afraid that there is no explanation, but I bet the author's notes explain it pretty well if they actually exist.

This comment is coming from somepony who understands the plot of Inception, and can explain it to other people.

Scratch that.

This comment is coming from somepony who understands the plot of Donny Darko and is able to explain it to other people.

No, scratch that too.

This comment is coming from somepony who understands the plot of Neon Genesis Evangelion, and is able to explain it to other people. Not only that, but synchronize it with all the movies and the mangas that I have read of it.

Dear god, what have you done?! I am so confused?!?

I'll admit, I think I know what that thing in the back of Twilight's mind is. She is approaching the revelation that if she doesn't invent time travel, she won't, and then everything will return to normal. Unless, it doesn't. In which case, I'm scared.

Can't wait for Chapter 11!

Good gravy.... my brain just craped itself

This is like the time travel of TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, but taken to stratosphere levels of complexity

Well, no. Exosphere level

Nah. Further than that. To the heliopause

Deneb's heliopause

wut.

Shit just got real.

>>59455945

It's too late:  Not inventing time travel would mean she never gets the information that leads her to not invent time travel.

That's the problem with non-causal events and objects.  Once they show up you are committed to performing the actions required for them.

>>62356235 But what if her time traveling caused her to invent time travel in the first place. Depends on what sort of contortions the fabric of space time is willing and able to perform... maybe... I really don't know jack when it comes to this... so, alas, my brain shall remain so full of f***.

Well... didn't see that one coming...

The plot thickens... making it about an extra 5 feet over my head. This is getting confusing, but somehow makes a LOT of sense. I think...

Whatever, want more all the same...

Wait, what? I'm confused on a number of levels now. So, there was a Rainbow Dash, and another Rainbow Dash, and a third one to make sure that... huh? There may or may not have been a fourth one. I think? <-- applejack is confused

I would type a witty comment, but right now my brain is dribbling out of my ears. So Dash, Dash and Dash watched Dash, I got that part figured out. But then one went into the future from the past, and talked of something that hadn't happened yet?

Buh... You know, it would be easier if the first RBD was Rainbow Dash 1, the second was Rainbow Dash 2, so on and so forth.

You sir, must be either a genius or a Time Lord (being a Time Lord pretty much makes you a genius anyway, I suppose).

>>45424542

Same here.

>>45674567

I can't resist them either.

Ch 11. she's closing up the loop by ending everyponys life :D YAAAY

I love stories like this where anything inconsistent can be explained with "paradox.  Prove that it wasn't."  You can never fully make sense of them; you just have to accept them for what they are.  Then you can lean back and enjoy the show; it's always a good one.

>>65886588

I assure you there are - and will be - no inconsistencies to be explained here.  The timeline is being lovingly scrambled in my personal kitchen, and no loose thread shall escape.  Full sense CAN be made once I give you all the scenes.

Try to put all the events in plain linear order (What, you thought I was giving you things in the order they happened?  Where's the fun in that?) and see if that helps!

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Applesad

Twilight's reaction is very Twi', I think.

My brain just imploded on itself.

I'm really just reading it for the hell of it by now.  I've long, long, LONG given up even TRYING to follow what's going on.

That promised diagram at the end is going to be a doozy.

>>71147114 same here

You Sir, have thought long and hard on this story to set my brain on fire. I thank you for your efforts

I don't think I've ever been this confused before. And I've never been so entertained while being this confused before, either! I think... I don't even know anymore. My brain tells me it needs rest.

After reading chapter five my head started hurting

Ow... this really hurts my head. I, like the others, have given up understanding just what exactly is going on, and are just in it for the thrill now.

Hey author? do you actually understand what your writing? because it seems like you make sense. Do you have like a dozen white boards and little string bits and diagrams mapping out the increasingly more complex plot to this wonderful fic? I imagine thats the only way because otherwise your a damn genius, far as I'm concerned.

OH GOD MY HEAD HURTS!!! All the more so because you haven't finished.

Wow, someone needs Doctor Whooves to sort this out. I'd say I'm confused, but we've gone way past 'confusion' at this point.

Sooooo, the two towns are from different time lines?  One in which RD is with AJ, but hasn't done any timetravel?

Oh jeez.

>>79607960 That's what I was thinking a chapter or two back. But something tells me The Doctor would mess things up even more, before pulling a deus ex machina out of his ass (oh wait, cause that's what he does best )

This is me at the beginning of the chapter , and this is me in the middle and this is me at the end . Time travel hurts

Just lovely...

: Uh, hi guys

: Oh boy

Hello comedy!

Really everpony, there's no way this is meant to make sense as anything other than pure time-travel comedy. Let's all just be glad that it's not as insane as the Double Rainbow story that involved cloning.

One day, I'm going to understand this. One day... I'm super impressed that you can follow it while writing! Or are you just chucking in multiple ponies and hoping you'll manage to untangle it?

>>84718471

Oh but it DOES make sense, this I swear.

>>84758475

There IS a coherent sequence of events going on.

Just think it through slowly and carefully.  For now, back up to before Ponyville #2 (and ignore Scootaloo - she's slightly more complicated) and just try placing each scene in plain chronological order.  Forget understanding at first, just put them in order so that there are no direct contradictions.  NOW read through and try to understand.  There are gaps, but you can easily extrapolate what happens during them based on how many of who are busy doing what.  At any point you notice the number of a pony has increased, it means that during the gap another one came back.

I SWEAR I'M NOT CRAZY YOU CAN TOTALLY LOGICALLY ASSEMBLE THE TIMELINE ITS TRUE

Congrats on the feature, oh worst of writers! When I saw that I was all like

MY BRAIN! IT BURNS!

I NEED that graph that explains this.

>>85088508

i don't think even a graph will help us now.

I've been drawing a graph to help as I went along, but I either spilled spaghetti on it or it's lost the plot entirely...

Okay, I finally managed to understand everything. If only my ears would stop bleeding.

My brain is litte more than a puddle. It will evaporate after the next chapter.

What did I say? My brain is now gas.

Okay, I'll read all this story now AND in the future after I've hooked my brain into a supercomputer so I can actually understand it.

Okay I am reading this purely for he shipping now, my logic brain has packed up and left.

Oh thank god I finished. Until you update.

When this is all over you seriously need to make a graph of all this...

But if they send only one RD to the future, then after a while all the others will go there too. So it's actually pretty simple.

Don't understand too many ponies ... what would happen of all the Pinkie's met up? Other than Equestria exploding, I mean. Awesome story, just felt like I needed to comment somewhere before reading more.

Somebody needs to hit the Reality Reset Button.

Wait, now Pinkie Pie is time travelling? You have just doomed reality...

JESUS DFUKYASEGKURGVWEUR CELESTIA! DOCTOR WHOOVES! ANYPONY!

okay.... so.....

plus all of ponyville. times two.

oh shit. pinkie pie, don't touch that, and make sure not to get depressed... we don't need ten thousand tons of turnips in buckets....

This just keeps getting more and more brilliant. Complex? yes. Confusing? hell yeah. but none the less brilliant. I don't have to understand to know that the rapidly appearing twilight gag is ridiculously entertaining. This fic needs waaaay more traffic. As far as I'm concerned, this deserves a spot in an unofficial "Fandom's Top Ten".

i don't know why but somehow i feel like pinkie will be able to fix everything very simply, probably because she already makes standard physics and laws of nature her bitch anyways.

I understand everything but the time travel

>>66926692

what is chronological order?

what is the order in which they happened?

what.

also, after much consideration, i had a revelation

HE'S GIVING IT TO US IN REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER.

the masses of ponies can be explained in two ways. one. parallel uni. not an explanation. two. they go back in time. further FORWARD in time there would be less ponies, BUT, BACK IN TIME, you get more by taking everybody, but seeming to only take yourself, which is what is beginning to happen now.

.... scratch all that. nevermind. it doesn't apply to this.

it was for a different scenario.

sir, you have mindfucked the person who understands-- DOES IT INVOLVE A BLACK HOLE?! THAT WOULD MAKE SO MUCH SENSE.

My brain hurts. And I'm generally good at understanding this sort of thing. I know something that would make this easier: Just name all of the Twilights, Rainbows, and so on with a number or something. But, if you wanted to do that, you would have done so already. Again: My brain hurts. I hate time travel.

My brain I think you broke it

This is just incredibly awesome, I commend you highly for this! I have just read chapters 1 through 16 in one sitting (like I had any choice to do otherwise), and have come to the conclusion that this story takes "epic" to new levels. After reading the first chapter, I figured that this would turn into a jumbled mess that would end in a lackluster whimper; I was only half-right. This is a jumbled mess which continues to gain steam and is achieving pure brilliance! You have thus far proven that you are definitely up to this task - without even once resorting to that tiresome and over-used Dr. Whoof garbage cheat. And now we are maliciously threatened with "Time. Traveling. Pinkie. Pie."? It just makes me giddy.

I have to say that the only unfortunate aspect of this is that it will never get the recognition it deserves: You have presented a plot that is far too complex and twisted for the average reader to appreciate. To do any less, however, would destroy the beauty of it all. Please continue as you were, and do NOT go easy on us!

To my fellow readers of this saga: just go with it! Don't analyze, that's Twilight's job. Just get lost in it and let it carry you through to the end. And keep in mind that there is, always, just one and only one Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo, or Applejack, but that doesn't mean that they are all the same.

I love it!

Time.  Travelling.  Pinkie.  Pie.

...... mighty fuck.

I feel like I need to drop acid to understand this.

>>90829082

Thanks for the character guide.

I plowed through this in one sitting.  My brain hurts.  I think we're in the territory where someone could pop his head out of a blue box while wearing a fez and a bow tie, and his only response would be "You're fucked" followed by him materializing the HELL out of there.