Apparently it made less sense than I thought · 5:05pm May 20th, 2012
Wow, I really can't judge how clear the things I write are. I think I'm going to lay down what I was actually thinking when I wrote IFOQ. If you liked the mystery, probably best not to read on because I'm about to puncture the whole thing.
Ready? Definitely want it explained? Even considering that as I type this I thinking of ways to expand the story into something bigger?
Still want to know?
Okay, let's go.
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So, yeah, it's actually pretty mundane. It's a random cosmology I cribbed together from a bunch of other ideas.
Basically, the multiverse is a recursive story (the "great work"). It propogates itself through the act of writing - when lifeforms create through words, a new universe is born.
Quills are actually unknowable god-beings (the caretakers) that ensure the great work keeps running correctly - things are written at the right time and such. The quills ponies write with are extrusions of the caretakers into conventional existence, as they don't "exist" in the same way universes do, so their influence is passive (they exist so ponies can write). It's recursive again - the multiverse runs itself, but it only runs itself because they're there, and they're there because it runs itself. They refer to themselves as "an everything" because they're basically self-contained sentient universes. The "everything within everything within everything" line was it trying to explain the layers of reality - the quill is a universe inside a universe inside the multiverse.
Sofas are equally unknowable god-beings that have turned against the great work and want to stop it being written - hence the scene in the shop. Sofas being evil was a combination of the prompt being about Quills & Sofas and a joke about the "evils of television." Sitting in front of the TV is consumption rather than the creation of writing, so sofas consume and quills create hohoho. Twilight's quill breaking was a result of sofa intervention higher up in the chain of existence.
The two orbs are the "highest truth" that the quill mentioned. They're the "author" of the multiverse, as it were. Celestia and Luna are its manifestations (it's bipartite just because) into the MLP universe - every universe has a pair of similar entities that just kind of bum around and observe, sometimes interfering because it's a creator being and it does whatever the hell it likes. They're still themselves, though. It's less that they're straight-up manifestations and more that there's something of the "author" in every universe, and that essence takes the form, in the MLP universe, of Celestia and Luna.
So, the chain of events is:
- Twilight breaks her quill because of sofa intervention, I guess not helped by Spike being a moron.
- A quill is forced to contact her because it can't perceive what's gone wrong, only that something has. It has to manipulate her into going to Quills & Sofas, where its influence is stronger.
- It has a conversation with Twilight, during which it works out the issue by using her as a kind of perceptual bridge to help interact with conventional reality.
- As thanks, it briefly uplifts her mind to its level, and Twilight sees all of the above.
- Twilight is sent back to the moment where things went wrong and the quill gives itself (I'm not sure if this is a sacrifice or not) so she can write the report.
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I think that's everything? So... yes. That's what I had in mind. I just saw the prompt and had a silly idea about quills and sofas being Elder Gods.
But feel free to interpret it some other way. That's the magic of stories.
I could think of something witty and sarcastic to write here in response to this revelation...
...but I got nothin'.
...Okay, here's one. You've ruined quills and sofas for me forever. I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY!
125348 It makes Owl's Well That Ends Well pretty worrying.
HE'S ALL OUT OF QUILLS.
I wouldn't think of it as a sacrifice, per se. Granted, if it has to go back to where it came from then no problem. But if it has to stay and is somehow denied its duties, then it could very well be.
It doesn't seem like I was that far off the mark.
[Edit] ALSO, knowing what you were thinking as you were writing it doesn't make me want moar any less, lol.
125551 You totally weren't. I was really chuffed because I just wanted to write some silly cosmic-scale thing and everyone was all "MIND-BLOWN" and I felt like I'd gotten it totally wrong =(
Considering where we are, I would say that Fimfiction itself is one giant quill. Also, whose feather do we have to ask about that unposted chapter of Forced that I thought was done a few days ago? I am worried that a couch has done something to it.
125560 ...Oh yeah, Forced. I kind of fell out of love with it after realising that it was... really bad. And I have no idea how to end it, because the awesome (I mean, awesome within the confines of the ridiculous over-drama that Forced is) ending doesn't really click with me anymore. I might just write it anyway and hope no one notices that I totally ignore it =3
It'll definitely get done though.
Celestia is an author of the universe and she is encouraging her student to author her own universes by writing friendship letters.
courseware.codeschool.com/images/blog/mind-blown.gif
Yes this was deep, i mean it is kind of truth that quills A.K.A. pencils are the cerators of things, but yet again this thing was though by a mind so it is in another multi universe. SO CONFUSING
I'm glad I read your explanation. I couldn't shake the feeling that the voice was Mass Effect's Mordin... An intriguing read!
126771 =3
128772 Can't talk now, dealing with outbreak of scale itch in Ponyville. Sexually transmitted disease, only communicable via manticores. Implications... unpleasant.
Oh, God, I love Mordin. That choice in ME3 WRECKED me.
I loved this. This is why I like literature. What began as a simple "just for fun" random cosmic story turns into a deep literary treatise on the power of creation through word.
And don't worry, it makes sense... Intuitively. I find myself reading this fic in the same situation as twilight. Not knowing, but understanding. Like, without thinking about it, I understood the importance of the quill as a tool of creation, that the higher being was not quite a god but some other entity in charge of the process of creation (comparable perhaps to an angel), and the recursive nature of "everything within everything". I've watched videos attempting to explain four-dimensional space and other higher theoretical physics things, and they're recursive and incomprehensible on a massive scale. So I followed this story as much as I feel I was intended to. But thank you for publishing these authors notes, they really do help me to reflect better over what I read. :3
129801 I can't believe I was ever worried that I'd made it too clear what was going on.
I'm glad it made you think, though, even if by accident x) Thanks for commenting.
129887 You're more than welcome. And, don't worry, the fact that it's a little incomprehensible works here, because it really gives us the sensation of being swept up into a world of being much higher than ourselves. Perfect.
Well done all around, you deserve applause. Or at at least a Happy Twilight.
Huh. Yeah I didn't get any of that out of the story--I think I took a wrong turn around the time that "everything" showed up. I enjoyed it though. It was weird. But I enjoyed it.
1138752 Yeah, no one really got that =p I was apparently super-unclear on the subject! Or people are bad at inference. I'm gonna go with the first ¬_¬
No, no, I totally got that. :)
That. Was awesome. Write more like this, it was an enjoyable mindf***.