• Member Since 22nd Feb, 2012
  • offline last seen January 10th

A Hoof-ful of Dust


You can't see the forest...

E

Her coronation over, Twilight has some doubts about stepping into the horseshoes of a princess. Little does she know a greater challenge is rushing to meet her, building like a storm on the horizon, bringing with it an endless night.

(Featured on EqD.)

Chapters (7)
Comments ( 65 )

Hmm. A slow start, but an intriguing one. The ants clearly have some significance, but what I do not yet know. I look forward to seeing where you go with this.

A decent start, but very slow. The first couple of scenes with Fluttershy feeding the birds and Rarity eating breakfast could be much shorter. I guess you want to show the ants going through town, but the scenes drag on way longer than they should.

I did like the little details of Twilight adjusting to her wings - the minor details like not knowing what position to sleep in were pretty good.

Something like this, I think, should unfold slowly, simply because there's so much going on.

whoa wait? When twilight became an Alicorn did NMM somehow transfer into her? Could this whole thing be an alternate Twilight's doing?

2250496
Oh no, nothing quite that drastic. That's more a metaphorical NMM in Twilight's dream than anything else.

I would like to know just where everybody is and where Celestia is. WHERE THEY GO? FAB STORY:twilightsmile::twilightsmile:

neat.

though question... did I forget something? Why can't they fly?

ooooh o.o is it that pony?

2312631
Flight is magic-based - it takes some extra power to put something horse-shaped (as opposed to something bird-shaped) in the air, or at least I say it does for this story. Whatever cuts off unicorn magic also cuts off pegasus magic... and presumably the earth pony strength or connection to nature, but that didn't really come up (although it did take both Twilight and Luna to break down a door).

Huh, that ended kind of abruptly.

I enjoyed this story beginning to end. But, I agree with nemryn. The ending felt a bit abrupt. Still, great story.

I enjoyed this. Pacing was a pretty consistent issue throughout though. It would have been significantly better if Twilight and Luna's relationship had more time to develop, if you'd had more time to fully explore this rain soaked, overgrown, hive mind controlled Equestria you've created, and more time to explain the magic at play here. As is, it's serviceable, and definitely still enjoyable. This is a very creative idea, and well, and written well. I just wish it would have been about three times as long.

3109313
"Serviceable" is a perfect description of how I feel about this story; I was aiming for something larger, more epic adventure-ish, but I'm afraid I didn't have the stamina for it. It's a thing I know I have to keep in mind for the next big adventure I want to write (and that will probably not have what's essentially a cast of two). I really appreciate your honesty.

Intriguing, the story has a tone that is pretty unique on fimfiction, sort of a dreamy, floaty, action adventure mystery. I think there may be a little bit of an incompatibility between the surreal feel and the adventure tale that doesn't quite mesh together perfectly. That all being said, I liked the story :twilightsmile:

I'm not sure I understand what this story was intended to do. It seemed like you were going to say something about what it means to be a princess, or maybe about fate, but you didn't really do the latter, and you resolved the former quickly and easily with little in the way of sacrifice. Then it seemed like you were going to do something with the fungus and its ironic loneliness, but you just used it as a threat to overcome. Even Twilight and Luna's relationship felt incomplete.

Ya know, at first, it felt like the early scenes really dragged on. But as I continued on, and as the ants continued marching, I realized something. Everything seemed so peaceful, yet it all felt rather ominous. The contrast between the opening about the Everfree and the subsequent scenes with the ponies ended up creating an almost spooky feel to the story. And the drawn out scenes actually helped make that "almost spooky feel" more effective.

Well, that ominous feeling certainly manifested itself as something positively threatening. I've been completely hooked.

a new manestyle was is expression of trust

Oof. Might wanna fix that.

Though, “she said, eyeing one of the larger mushrooms, “perhaps we did not watch close enough.”

Your quotation marks seem to be in the wrong places.

Otherwise, this is fantastic. Next chapter looks to be very good!

Well, just say weren’t a princess any more.

You accidentally a word.

This is quite the story. I love it.

Dat ominous ending.

This is... This is something. Hard to believe there's only one chapter left, though. Looking forward to the ending!

The ending seemed abrupt, but it ended up working pretty well. The closing scenes matched up very well with the opening scenes and served as an excellent method to close out the story.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this story. While I can certainly see where others were coming from in saying that a number of the story's elements felt incomplete, I'd make the argument that the incomplete feeling is very fitting for the story, given the ending scenes. Just as the rest of the Mane 6 were unaware of all that was going, we, the readers, were also not aware of everything that was going on. We still saw enough to get a solid picture of what was going on, be it what it means to be a princess, the history behind the parasitic fungus, or the development of the friendship between Twilight and Luna. So the incomplete feeling worked for me.

The most important aspect of a telescope is its aperture:

Aperture determines the ability to gather light. The ability to gather light increases by the square of the aperture. The thing about astronomical objects which is most important to consider is that most are very dim. That is why night is dark after all. One must gather sufficient light for seeing them. Once one has sufficient light, then one can worry about magnifying detail. The magnification occurs in the eyepiece. One can change magnification by switching eyepieces.

Many manufacturers of cheap telescopes distract buyers by advertizing high-magnification. Often these 1 cm (aperture-size) telescopes advertize 1000x-magnification which is the magnification of the 1 eyepiece they have. Given that the aperture of the human eye is .5 cm, these telescopes are only 4x better at gathering light than the human eye. These cheap telescopes are only good for observing Luna and the planets. Everything else is to dim to see.

If I had to choose between a telescope with an aperture of 10 cm and a magnification of 100x and a telescope with an aperture of 1 cm and magnification of 1000x, I would choose the former with an aperture of 10 cm and a magnification of 100x. It gathers 100x more light than the telescope with an aperture of 1 cm and magnification of 1000x. Besides, if I want to change the magnification of the telescope with an aperture of 10 cm later, I just buy a different eyepiece for it.

Although Princess Twilight Sparkle does not specifically attempt to observe meteors, it is best to use naked eyes for observing meteors. The probability of a meteor traveling though the field of a telescope, even with low magnification low. The best way to observe a meteor-shower is to dress warmly, lie on a comfortable cushioned lawn-chair, wrap oneself in a blanket, and stare up into the sky with naked eyes.

> “Twilight said out loud, trying to lead her thoughts away from being nauseous, … ”

¿Does Princess Twilight Sparkle make ponies vomit? Ponies cannot vomit. You mean nauseated.

> “Twilight said out loud, trying to lead her thoughts away from being nauseated, … ”

> “The other pony gave no indication they had heard Twilight at all, … ”

¿Did the pony become multiple ponies?:

> “The other pony gave no indication it had heard Twilight at all, … ”

2312631

I figure that it is because magic does not work any more.

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3674077

I've only ever looked through a telescope once in my life and whatever factual information about them that made it into this story came from Wikipedia, Twilight is totally trying not to throw up from a failed teleportation spell in that scene (and pastel ponies can do a ton of stuff their real-world equivalents can't, so why not one more?), and I am willing to viciously defend the use of "they" as a (gender-neutral) singular pronoun in the English language.

SIX SEPARATE PONIES? :pinkiegasp:

I don't think anyone ever considered that possibility before. Congratulations.

I'm not sure what the princesses declined to inform everypony about. What happened to them? To the world? I like the implication that they can somehow find out anyway.

3675453
So far the show has yet to disprove any of my weird-ass headcanon about just where the Royal Sisters come from. I don't really want to see their parents (or whatever), I'd rather think they're a by-product of Discord running things for a while.

That was a strange experience. It bears a lot of resemblance to Apotheosis, with it's dreamlike quality and Twiluna overtones. You do a good job of making weeks of two ponies walking through a jungle seem weirdly compelling.

In the beginning I marveled at the similarities between this calamity and the events of the season four opener. In a way it makes a lot more sense than the vines that made a precision strike on Celestia and Luna all the way out in Canterlot in addition to taking over the borders of the Everfree. I'm not sure what to say about the result of all of this though. It's an interesting idea, that the sisters were so instrumental in reshaping the world, the sheer level of godlike power attributed to alicorns here is also reminiscent of Daetrin's series. Which reminds me that I still haven't done my comment on Tryptich. It's been months, oops.

You've got quite a knack for building atmosphere and ominous foreshadowing. I was pretty happy with how everything fit together in the end. I do have a plot consistency question though. Why did Twilight retain her ability to use magic after crashing back into the forest? Wouldn't the suppression abilities of the fungus return once they were back in it's domain?

3737081
It really threw me when Discord was the root (ha!) cause of the plants going nuts in Princess Twilight Sparkle. I mean, to have the Everfree Forest grow beyond its boundaries is one thing, but to also have it be Discord's fault and the whole thing leading to Twilight stepping up her game as a Princess? There's even a big important tree-thing that's not really a tree at the end of both versions! I thought the writing staff weren't allowed the read fanfiction...

I both like and dislike the idea that alicorns are godlike world-reshaping beings. I dig the weird mythology and world-building that can come out of it, and I love magic systems based on will and intent rather than incantations and formula, but as characters I'd rather Luna and Celestia be fallible and more on the level of everypony else; it's their long life (that just comes from something really simple like an age spell or something) and experience that makes them seem more grand and ethereal. Luna's very distant in this story; she's actually a bit more personable in the show (or, she was, I guess, before she picked up this weird habit of glaring at Twilight), so I'm not really sure I like trying to write the royal sisters as gods.

Twilight blasts a section of the forest open before she crash-lands, burning away the airborne spores.

The canopy was approaching from beneath, faster than it should have been. It was going to be a rough landing. Twilight dropped the shield and unleashed a spell with such intensity and ferocity upon the trees that tiny bursts of light flashed in Twilight’s eyes. She made a monumental effort to pull up out of the dive she was in with carrying Luna’s limp weight, buoyed by magic, and then they crashed to the ground amid scorched trees and burning leaves. Propping herself up with her front legs, Twilight turned in an arc as another great gout of glowing purple fire erupted from her horn, burning back the forest.

I liked the image of her setting everything to the torch with a busted leg better than launching a fireball in midair, so I kinda buried the lead in what's going on in that paragraph.

3825709
Had to look that one up. I was thinking more Yggdrasil, but it's not like Really Big Tree is a concept unique to one mythology.

3674077 Colloquial English is accustomed to using "they" as a third-person singular pronoun of indeterminate gender, not merely for its original use of a third-person plural pronoun. So the correction is probably the opposite of needed. :twistnerd:

3832549

The most important comment I left on the story is my comment about telescopes in Chapter #1. The A Hoof-ful of Dust still has not fixed it. Given how large the eyes of ponies are in relation to their bodies, a telescope with an aperture of less than 10 CM probably would make the image dimmer than with their naked eyes.

Speaking about A Hoof-ful of Dust, before vowels, semivowels, and the letter H, the indefinite article and possessive pronouns should end in the letter N:

“An Hoof-ful of Dust”

One does not need the hyphen either:

“An Hoofful of Dust”

If it would be a compound adjective like “Mine Average-Sized Human”, then it would make sense.

As it is, I am not certain that a "tendency to hoof of dust" makes sense.

¡Pedantically over-analyzing makes mine inner Princess Twilight Sparkle happy! :twilightblush:

3833976
a) The size of the telescope is never stated. Twilight could be lugging something the size of the Hubble around with her, if that's what you need for the science to be correct for observing constellations.

b) Twilight owns a telescope. She might even own more than one, if you think there's different telescopes in Look Before You Sleep and It's About Time. So it's one of those. And if you can tell they have incorrect apertures, then that's the fault of the animators, not me for expanding on the use of their scientifically-inaccurate telescope.

c) It's a piece of fiction based off a cartoon where neither are required to have complete accuracy in describing a telescope in order for the plot to progress. It's dramatic license - do you take similar offense to novels that make up locations for a real-world setting that don't exist in the real world, or when you see a fictional operating system on a computer in a television show? (Don't answer that.) If I was writing about the specifics of star observation or Friendship is Magic was more about teaching science to little girls rather than moral lessons, maybe you'd have a point, but the telescope is just a visual aid to demonstrate that Luna is a little out of touch with the current timeline yet has an initial connection to Twilight Sparkle on multiple levels.

Also, are you saying my user name is incorrect? I could have pounded my fist into the keyboard when I registered and it would have been just as valid. Walabio doesn't show up in my dictionary. You're also not as clever as you think you are; the "an before h" rule is on the decline in English at best, it's almost archaic to apply that before a consonant sound like in "hoof-ful", there's no manual of style you could find that would tell you the correct way to ponify words, the phrase "a hoof-ful of dust" is a reference to T.S. Eliot, and the errors you make not only give you away as English Second Language but serve as a reminder that people who live in glass houses shouldn't go slinging stones about. Go be a pedant elsewhere. Please. It's not appreciated.

3837329

> “ … Also, are you saying my user name is incorrect? … ”

I am just having fun being Twilight Sparkle. I do not mean to offend. I know that putting N on the indefinite article and possessive adjectives before H is archaic, but I went with it because it is pedantic. I toyed with using the second-person singular pronoun “Thou” but it made me sound too much like Princess Luna. Only Twilight Sparkle could be so pedantic as to use inverted punctuation in English.

Like a jokingly stated, the only real error is with the telescope. As somepony as well educated as Princess Twilight Sparkle is and is also an amateur astronomer and has used telescopes for years, she would know that first one gathers light, then when things are bright enough to to see, one magnifies details. I imagine something like this:

Princess Luna:
“¿What is this?”

Princess Twilight Sparkle:
“It is a telescope. Its large aperture (pointing to the top opening of the telescope) gathers more light than the pony-eye, thus allowing ponies to see objects which would be to dim for us; while, the eye-piece magnifies the objects, thus allowing us to see details to small to otherwise discern.”

Princess Luna, being the Princess of the Night probably would have learned about modern astronomy soon after her return. Perhaps, Princess Luna should just recognize the telescope, thus allowing us to cut straight to her knowing about the meteors seconds before they appear.

I like your story. All of the corrections are pedantic tongue-in-cheek except the telescope.

I was pedantic about not using “An Hoof-ful of Dust” (sorry, but I was just being Twilight Sparkle in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way) so it is only fair that you tease me too. You are right that Walabio is not an English word. It is the transliteration of Ŭalabio. ¿Ĉu vi scipovas paroli la lingvon internacian Esperanto? In Esperanto, Ŭalabio means “Wallaby”.

I hope that you have no bad feelings.

3833976

Speaking about A Hoof-ful of Dust, before vowels, semivowels, and the letter H, the indefinite article and possessive pronouns should end in the letter N:

"A" vs. "an" is less about letters and more about sounds. If it's a vowel sound to start the word, use "an." If it's a consonant sound, use "a."

Ex:
"A eulogy"
"An hour"
"An apple"
"A car"

3900479

I almost did not respond to this because pretending to be Princess Twilight Sparkle (pedantic) upset the author, but setting all else aside, using possessive pronouns ending in the letter “N” and the indefinite article “An” before vowels, semivowels and the letter “H” is never wrong , although it is old-fashioned and pedantic; so, in formal writing, it is better to always do so. In informal writing, a case-by-case usage is okay.

3900977
I have a source here that explains why I'm right. Specifically, this bit:

The choice of article is actually based upon the phonetic (sound) quality of the first letter in a word, not on the orthographic (written) representation of the letter. If the first letter makes a vowel-type sound, you use "an"; if the first letter would make a consonant-type sound, you use "a."

This was an interesting story with an intriguing take on the history of Equestria, particularly Discord and pre-Discord. And I'm definitely not the first person to bring up parallels with the season four opener. But in establishing this sort of worldbuilding, you did seem to ignore the elephant in the room: Discord himself. By the time Twilight ascended, he had already been released from his statue and reformed. Plus, Celestia did say in Keep Calm and Flutter On that she had some use for Discord's powers. I can imagine why you wouldn't include him in this story, considering that he would probably break it, but do you at least have some explanation for his absence?

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