BONUS CHAPTER: "Erred Earth's Re-had Easter" (Prawo Jazdy)
Death in the changeling hive again comes quickly.
I make a note to watch out for that pit this time around. But I quickly realize that Spike hasn't greeted me with any words this time. I'm conflicted; I know now that I succeeded in making another huge change to history, but once again, I have no memory of the event. Still, at least I know that my plan brought this about.
"Delta-3, T-5, C-5," I say, not presuming to move the counter to Δ-4 just yet. Then I actually look around. I'm back in the library — scratch that; I'm back in Ponyville's own Golden Oaks Library. That might be fortunate, because it suggests I've moved my anchor point even further back.
"I take it," says Princess Luna from somewhere out of sight, "that this is part of how you and my sister were keeping track of time, along with the word 'Clover.'"
"Um. Well, yes." It makes sense that Luna might not have had the system explained to her this early — that is, assuming my hunch is correct and we don't create the notation until several days from now. I'm about to ask the date when I notice something that shouldn't be missing … er, is missing. An evocation circle, to be specific. I put it together swiftly; I'm talking to the Princess of the Night in a place I couldn't actually be right now. "Princess Luna? Not to presume, but why is this a dream?"
"A great many differences exist between the world today, Twilight Sparkle, and your memories thereof." She emerges from the basement, her voice gaining direction as her observed position is made singular. "It is our hope — mine, as well as Celestia's — that I could help to ease your transition."
Her appearance is inexplicably as I remember it from when my friends and I freed her from being Nightmare Moon — great Heavens, is that even close to how I remember it? She's barely taller than I am, her dark blue coat is unadorned but unchanged, and her wavy mane is a single, lighter shade of blue and doesn't actually wave. I've almost concluded this is as it could be, if not should be. But I scream a little that it isn't.
"Princess Luna, your horn!" I race to meet her. "And your wings! What happened?" Wait, that's not what I should be asking. "I mean, why do you … why are you …"
"Why aren't I an alicorn like my sister?" she supplies. But as she says this, she is indeed an alicorn like her sister, exactly what I remember from Nightmare Night and every time I've seen her since. "I sense that your memories are a fair match for mine. It is not I who has drifted most from their original history. I am taking this form," the earth pony continues, "because it best illustrates my message. I am sorry I caused you undue concern, though."
Perhaps I'm noticing this now because I so rarely dream lucidly, and even less so with a partner, but I am struck by how despite looking straight at Luna, I never noticed her change forms. She just looked one way at one point, then another way at another point. But this isn't a paradox that needs untangling now, so I set it aside. "It's okay. Just … before I forget, what day is it?"
"The first of April, eight days before the projected attack."
Good. That might even mean we can prevent the attack. "And … um, have you ever heard of a pony named Cadance?"
"Now that is a vague question," she smirks … cryptically? She really is Celestia's sister. "Had I not been in the Moon for a thousand years, I imagine you would have to choose from a hundred ponies with that name. But you mean the alicorn princess ruling the Crystal Empire with your brother at her side, do you not?"
"Y-yes!" My gambit paid off in spades, and that's a mixed gaming metaphor, but nopony cares! "She's back! We got her back!" I hug earth-Luna's neck and jump around.
"I'm glad this meets your approval," she answers dryly.
Now I'm hanging off her neck for some reason. I register that while the dream-world is probably making excuses for the geometry of our configuration, Luna is still part earth pony in the waking world and absolutely strong enough to hold me up like this.
"Take all the time you need," she adds.
"Oh!" I drop off and scramble to my hooves. "Right … right." I take a few meditative breaths, readying myself for … whatever it is Luna thinks she can't just tell me. "All right, I think I'm ready."
Luna leads me to the front door and knocks. It opens out and she is greeted enthusiastically by an aged pony who must be Princess Celestia. But this is all very confusing; her mane is a single shade of pink, she's barely taller than Luna is now, and as they hug, I see she doesn't have any wings, though she's kept her horn. Oh, and I can't make out anything being said, but that part isn't too strange for a dream.
Celestia leads us through a cluttered room — I'm too busy keeping up to notice any more than that — to a dining table occupied by a unicorn I did not expect. He's not wearing his signature hat and cloak, and his beard's a little short, but Celestia — in the real world — has done a good job of keeping the portraits of him faithful to the real thing over the centuries. "Starswirl the Bearded!"
"Ah!" Only Luna reacts to my outburst. Broken out of her reverie, she now clears her throat. "Yes, you are correct."
I note Starswirl and Celestia's non-reactions. They seem to be … well, Starswirl's having a restrained argument, while Celestia's having a heated discussion.
Luna explains, "Celestia and I weren't always alicorns. This is a composite memory of mine from just after the unification of the tribes."
"Huh?!" That's quite a big piece of history to drop on a pony. I can't imagine what this is softening me up for. "How is that —?"
"Did you think there was a full tribe of alicorns dating back to the paleopony period?"
"I'm not sure how to respond to that." I'm not sure how to res—right. "I mean, nopony talks about what alicorns were like when they were young, and there are only three around — wow, is that the same? You, Celestia, and Cadance being back?"
She nods. "Yes, well. Celestia was a unicorn born into royalty, and went on to become one of the unicorns in charge of raising and setting the Sun. I was not so lucky. As an earth pony born to the same parents, I was clandestinely relegated to the farmer caste and my heritage kept secret."
I glance back at Starswirl. His naturally red eyes are unnaturally jaundiced, and on top of his aggressive gesticulation, this makes him look positively menacing. It's unnerving; I've only seriously studied Starswirl as an intellectual, a pioneer in magic … not so much as a product of his time. "I … had no idea."
"Not many do."
"How did you even find her?"
Luna chuckles. "Strangely enough, it was through my special talent."
I blink. I look to Celestia's familiar sun cutie mark, then to Luna's familiar moon cutie mark. "I must be missing something. I don't think earth ponies were ever involved in raising the Moon. Except you, obviously," I hastily add, "and Celestia if any alicorn counts." But now I'm afraid I've brought up a painful memory. Well, besides this one, where Celestia is trying and, so far, succeeding in keeping civil.
"As it so happened," Luna thankfully interrupts me, "I did not begin raising the Moon until I became an alicorn, well after I earned my mark. It actually came to me in my sleep, when I realized I could enter other ponies' dreams."
What? "What? I —" I sputter. I struggle through constructing my next sentence. "I … am going to … choose to … believe that … in just a few minutes." I sigh heavily. "I mean, I don't think you have to be lying about that, but it's not something I can just wrap my head around." This is nothing short of insane. I mean, I'd always believed that something complicated like — no, that something like shared dreaming required a control over magic only a unicorn or alicorn could exercise. Actually, I could imagine Pinkie Pie popping in without warning, but —
"Hi Twilight! Hi Luna!"
"Oh, for the love of Flourish Prose!" I just imagined that while I was dreaming. Of course she'd show up! Even Luna seems disturbed by the new addition to the dream's cast. "Hello, Pinkie."
"What's for breakunchinner?" She looks over the dining table. "Ooh, honeybread!" She pronks down right between Celestia and Starswirl and slathers butter onto a slice of what I didn't recognize as "honeybread." This is embarrassing in any case, even in a dream, but especially a shared dream with actual witnesses, and now everypony's staring right … at … oh buck me.
Pinkie stops in mid-chew. "Whaf?"
Starswirl erupts from his chair and yells at Pinkie, then at Celestia. Celestia responds forcefully, throwing a protective foreleg in front of Pinkie. Pinkie is enthralled by the battling magical titans and resumes chewing.
"Twilight?" Luna enunciates. "Who is that?"
"That's Pinkie Pie," I just say. "Wait, don't you know her?"
"I have met Pinkie Pie. That is … not quite she."
This is yet another thing I don't immediately understand. I can't ask about it yet, though, because I am transfixed by Pinkie joining the shouting match with a trumpet and a slightly unnecessary mute.
"We should run," Luna says. I agree by starting.
The cluttered room has become a labyrinth now that I need to get through in a hurry. I struggle to move, but Luna catches up and starts bucking walls out of the way. I try to float or teleport the overgrown detritus out of the way, but my magic is strangely sluggish.
Luna reaches the door and opens it with her mouth. I limp through, tripping as she closes the door behind us. Then the rooms behind it explode.
I gasp. "Is it over?"
"It's a dream. We're safe."
Well, Luna may be safe from the dream. But I once got killed by her when — no, no, talk about something else! "So Starswirl the Bearded was, among other things, shamefully racist by today's standards?"
"Most ponies of the time were," she admits. "The discovery of the Fire of Friendship convinced many to change their ways and work for the unification of the tribes, but it was not instantaneous. And Starswirl ... well, he was not only a student to Celestia, but also a teacher to Clover the Clever."
"Ouch. So being literally between the unicorn princess reconnecting with her long-lost earth farmer sister, and one of the co-casters of the original Fire of Friendship …" I can't be witty here. "…adds up to kaboom."
"Yes, quite." Luna is now a full alicorn again. "I carried the treatment I received from Starswirl and others like him past my becoming an alicorn and a princess." She frowns a little. "Which is perhaps a subject I shouldn't tease, but 'tis a story for another time.
"In any case, my previous treatment does not excuse my becoming the Nightmare, but it's a significant part of why I did. I hope we can head off those feelings this time."
Before I can ask what she means, the door slams open and a charred Pinkie Pie stumbles through. "Wow!" she rasps. "I've never seen a pony turn so many colors before! Except maybe Rainbow Dash when you saved her from Discord's brain bamboozling. Let's see, that's one, two …"
I groan. "Princess Luna, I'm sorry Pinkie keeps interrupting."
"It is no problem. She's actually one of the differences I wanted to talk to you about."
"… so nine for Starswirl, and Rainbow dash is six plus cerulean plus magenta … hmm. Do black and white count?"
"Would you have counted them on Starswirl?" I quip.
"I did! But he turned black and white in places he wasn't black and white before, and Dashie only turned black where she was already black and white where she was already white, so that means Starswirl is right between Rainbow Dash and Rainbow Dash with his personal record for turning different colors in a short time!"
"Right … so Luna, what's different about Pinkie Pie in this timeline?"
"The Pinkie Pie I know has wings."
Instantly, the pink pony sprouts pink wings. "Oooh! This is gonna make pranking with Rainbow Dash even better!"
"Oh no."
"It really isn't that bad," Luna admonishes. "Now, what do you remember of the other important ponies in your life?"
I knuckle down to form a list. "Well, to start, you're pretty much the same as I remember. Then there's Princess Celestia, who … um …" I fumble as I am surprised to see Celestia walk up beside Luna. "Who looks like that," I finish, pointing lamely.
"There's my mom, Twilight Velvet, and my dad, Night Light." They also appear, beside me. This is obviously going to continue, so I stop worrying about it. "My brother Shining Armor, former captain of the Royal Guard and current husband of Princess Cadance. Spike, my adoptive little-brother-slash-son, who isn't exactly a pony, but he's certainly important enough.
"And in Ponyville, there's of course Pinkie Pie … um …"
She's doing loop-de-loops, which isn't too surprising. "Wheee!" But if this is going to be a proper shortlist, I'm going to need everyone on the same page, so to speak.
"Pinkie, would you please take off those wings and get down here?"
"Aww. Okay!" She pops the wings off and tucks them under one leg. Then she prances down an invisible staircase … come to think of it, the entire room is invisible. And it's not a white void either, just … featureless. But I'm getting distracted. Pinkie's already taken her place.
"Thanks, Pinkie. Anyway, she and I control two of the Elements of Harmony. She has Laughter, I have Magic. Rarity has Generosity —"
"I'm here!" Rarity trills. What the hay, I'll give it to her.
"Then Rainbow Dash has Loyalty …"
"Present and awesome!"
"… Applejack has Honesty …"
"Howdy, Twilight! Princess."
"… and Fluttershy has Kindness."
"… Um … hello …"
"I could go on and on, but is that enough for now?"
"Yes, Twilight. Thank you." She turns to face Celestia. "Sister?"
Celestia politely bows out.
"Celestia is still looping. She is not much different, besides having lived through a thousand-plus years of history yet again." I cringe, but Luna adds, "I'm told Cadance was very helpful in easing the stress."
"Wait," says Cadance. "How do you mean that?" I cringe again, trying to keep mental images unseen.
Luna hesitates. "I mean that's all I heard about it. It's probably nothing more than being a good friend and confidant." That's fair. I'll take it, and Cadance seems to accept it too.
With that potential distraction set aside, Luna continues. "Anyway, your family is also as I remember it." They, too, bow out and fade away. "Your friends are mostly the same, except for Pinkie Pie and this … Fluttershy."
"Eep!" The butter-yellow pegasus reacts to being singled out by curling up as small as possible and covering herself with her wings.
"I recognize her as the bearer of Kindness, but in this version of events, her name is Gold Dust."
She peeks out between her feathers when she hears her new name. "That … doesn't sound so bad."
"Also, her colors are a little deeper than this."
Fluttershy, now Gold Dust, gasps and looks herself over curiously. "Oh my."
"But most strikingly, she's not a pegasus, but a unicorn."
Gold Dust's eyes go wide as her golden wings disappear and a matching golden horn grows from her forehead. "eeeeeeeep!!" She can't cover herself up, but she curls up even tighter than before and hides her face just as well.
"Hey come on," Rainbow Dash interrupts. "Leave her alone!"
"None of this is my doing, Rainbow Dash, I promise."
"What's that?" Applejack chimes in. "Ain't you controllin' the dream?"
"I was," Luna confesses, "but it somehow escaped me."
Several pairs of eyes turn to face me. I go beet-red. "S-sorry!"
"It's okay, Flutterdust. You can borrow my wings." Pinkie lays her detached wings over Gold Dust like two pink blankets and hugs her. "Better?"
"Mm-hmm."
"All right," I finally say. "Princess Luna, I have a guess about why this happened, but can you just tell me? Do you know?"
"Yes, well. According to Celestia, when she woke up just after banishing me, she approached the time-looping spell with a certain malaise. She remained the sole ruler of Equestria, but she had to take a more hooves-off approach for her own sanity. She did re-anchor herself in certain extraordinary cases, but she did not micro-manage her subjects' lives, and as a result, different ponies wed and each new generation diverged from her memories.
"There were some similarities in major events she dismissed as coincidence, but as she approached the present day, more and more of the smaller events started lining up. And when Rainbow Dash performed her first Sonic Rainboom, that convinced her history was trying to repeat itself.
"She didn't tell me she knows why this is. All I can say for certain is that you and your friends' parents are slightly different, your grandparents are slightly more different, and the divergences are most apparent five hundred years ago, in the middle."
"That makes sense," I nod. "Well, maybe more sense than the second timeline hugely matching the first timeline. I can accept a lot of confusion about this third timeline matching a little less than that." I survey my friends' assembled images. "So I have basically the same friends, only now there's one earth pony and three unicorns."
"Twilight, dear," Rarity speaks up. "Whatever do you mean?"
Of course I have to answer her. "Well, Luna said most of us were the same as I remember, and between Pinkie and Gold Dust, we have one more unicorn and one less earth pony."
Rarity says nothing, but her eyes tick up to focus on a spot just over mine. Why is that? It couldn't mean …
I touch my forehead. Round. I look to Luna. She nods curtly.
Maybe I should be angry. But Luna just shared something very personal with me to ease this blow, and I can't really fault her for that. Besides, I just finished freaking out about other ponies turning different races, and it's not shocking anymore. Instead, my mind leaps to amazement.
"I can't believe how much sense this makes! We're still an evenly-distributed group, for one thing, but this is something big enough to ask for all that theater you put in front of it! And it even explains why I couldn't use my magic in Starswirl's house; the neural pathways don't lead to anything anymore!"
"Well …" Luna considers for a second. "That last is close enough, I suppose."
"Huh?"
The Princess approaches me. "Twilight Sparkle, you were born into this world as an earth pony. I am heartened to see you taking to it so well; the sooner you accept it, the sooner you can assist again in halting the impending changeling invasion. But as I know it will irritate you if I say nothing, I will say this: you lost control earlier because the dream frightened you, and you had your horn in the dream until you realized you don't have it in the waking world." She leans close. "It's not a profound thing, but if your 'neural pathways' story helps you keep the facts in order, then use it."
I chuckle unsteadily. "If you say so, but I guess it does sound a little silly. So, any other big differences I should know about? Am I still the Element of Magic? Have I been studying under Celestia?"
"Yes to both, and not just because she knew you as a unicorn. She tells me you were keeping a diary; this should answer any further questions you have once you find it."
"All right, that sounds fair."
"I believe that's all for now." With that, she lifts a forehoof and silently strikes it down. The world dissipates.
I think I wake up. The first sense to return is unfamiliar, but unthreatening. I haven't woken up this relaxed in ages, and I'm pretty sure that remains true by the calendar.
Second comes a sense of gravity, in the casual sense of which way is down. It travels along my spine, and I realize I am seated in a lotus position, as I've often seen Zecora occupy.
Further senses return faster than I care to put in order. Cool, earthy air fills my lungs, tinged with miscellaneous plant extracts. Forest breezes and animal sounds filter through thick wooden walls. I conclude that I should have asked where I fell asleep, but it's likely to be Zecora's house. I open my eyes, and sure enough, there she is, on the outside of my evocation circle. Her meditative position mirrors my own.
"Hello, Zecora."
She, too, opens her eyes. "Good afternoon, Twilight," she greets me. "Is everything all right?"
"I think so." Even realizing there were more questions I could have asked earlier, I'm not exactly worried. "If you could humor me a second … what do you know about the spell I just cast?" Wait, I'm an earth pony now; did I cast it? Well, I've seen Zecora do magic, so that's not exactly a reason to think otherwise.
Whether she sees my mild confusion or I hide it sufficiently, she doesn't draw attention to it. "You should be from a future with a differing past," she proposes, "and this change in events may well not be the last."
I'm frankly relieved I don't have to repeat the exercise of trying to re-earn somepony's lost trust. "Yes, that's right." I bring myself to all fours and get my bearings, which includes touching my forehead. Round again. "Heh. I'm going to find it kind of weird living without a horn." Another should-have-asked occurs to me. "So … do I still live in a library in this timeline?"
"Yes, you still live in that lovely tree. A friend will help you out of the Everfree."
I nod. "Makes sense. Even assuming the forest is dangerous in exactly the same ways as I remember it, I won't be able to react the same way. Better to have somepony who still has applicable experience with the area." I make my way to Zecora's front door. "So do I just wait here, or —"
My question is interrupted by both of my ears flopping. That wouldn't be so distracting, nor would the fluttering eyelids shortly after, but then my front legs give out and my face hits the floor.
"Ow," I grunt instead. Strange, that was suspiciously similar to a Pinkie Sense combo: the one for a beautiful rainbow about to grace the sky.
Zecora hurries to my side. "Twilight, if you have a — oh!" She staggers for some reason.
"Sorry Zecora! Hi Twilight! Hi Zecora! Sorry Twilight, Gold Dust couldn't make it, but I could so I did. Are you hungry? I know meditating isn't the same as sleeping, but I don't know if that's one of the differences and you might be hungry anyway even if it is a difference and even if you weren't, I wanted to get an oat burger from the Hay Burger so I figured you'd want me to ask!" The familiar voice matches the familiar logorrhea.
I look up and realize about three things. One, while I had no reason to doubt Luna, I can confirm Pinkie Pie really does have wings. Two, Zecora is massaging her muzzle, so I'm guessing Pinkie hit her with the door. It would appear Zecora says "oh" instead of "ow." Third, I landed just far enough from the front door that if I still had my horn, the door would nearly have taken it off.
But I don't have a horn. I'm an earth pony. And then I realize; that combo was not only suspiciously close to Pinkie's rainbow combo, but suspiciously identical to her "watch out for opening doors" combo. I might have taken Pinkie's Sense.
And that sends my mind racing. Is this Pinkie Sense linked to earth ponies specifically? I'd need a couple more data points to be sure; for example, does Pinkie have Fluttershy's Stare, or did it stick with Gold Dust? And this combo seems to match, but do the others? Speaking of which, they need another name; "combo" suggests "combination," which mathematically suggests order doesn't matter. "Permu"? No, maybe "permute." It ought to stay punchier than "permutation," or even "arrangement." And is this why, at least according to Luna, I'm Celestia's student? I mean to say one of these things out loud, really I do.
"Oh, ponyfeathers."
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Is this canon?
Wait, no, nevermind.
I really want to learn more about evil Cadance. Will she come up soon?
Oh Twilight, you are so random.
Well this is certainly an interesting take on things. Is it going to be continued as a full story?
The writing of this chapter flowed like melting butter. I've just been reading a different story where the grammar of just about every other sentence reaches out smacks you (and that's after editing!)
The story is great, the grammar is impeccable. You really should be writing your own stuff.
I loved that Twilight, though now an Earth Pony, has Pinkie-sense. Now she can really study it first hand.
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To be 100% clear: no, this is not HR2 canon, but I love it anyway.
It totally would be canon if I weren't going to be going in a different direction with Twilight's body issues.
…
… was that my outside voice?
Edited to add: Yes, there are plans for Cadence, but she'll remain on the periphery for the immediate future.
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I've got to focus on HR2 itself …
That's up to Prawo Jazdy!
Hmm... With Pinkie having wings, I would say it's Surprise however! I do not recall in the slightest of her changing coat colours (save Flutteers who is now apparently Gold Finger
) As for the diversity in races... genetic evolution. That's all I say. Besides, if you wanted to have the exact same ponies across all timelines I would think you would have had to manipulate the pairings quite a bit in order to achieve the desired race/outcome. Which now that I think would also apply to which day they gone and rolled in the hay, when the married and etc. Selective breeding in that case with a heavy emphasis on micromanaging.
I also now know what to call the Twilight Sense... Tense
This is really good, I think it would be awesome if he kept writing on this track.
Me like.
NO! Sorry, but in my opinion, I absolutely was seething when Twilight became an earth pony, also this chapter has me lost, its a long jump from chapter 14. Care to explain please? Also, I hope Twilight gets to be a unicorn again.... or I will have to change some history....
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This is a bonus chapter with a hypothetical, non-canon future. So no worries, when Chapter 15 posts next week we'll go back to the same unicorn Twilight time, same unicorn Twilight channel, back to where the SCIENCE! left off.
Prawo, if you can hear me, please write more of this. Freaking awesome, man.
can this guy actually make a story with this? and than you link us? and we just all shout out 'YAY!'?
he's awesome. his story is awesome. his Earth Pony Twilight Sparkle having Twilight Sense is awesome.
Twilight with Pinkie Sense? I love it! Well done, author!
If anyone takes this idea and runs with it to make Hard Reset 3: Electric Boogaloo or something, I will be the last person to complain.
On the next installment of Hard Reset 2, Fluttershy teams up with her previously unknown brother Cody Rhodes to win the WWE Tag Team Championship!
37.media.tumblr.com/7c74c9eb6b8a6d0f73f98316a904729c/tumblr_mtzu9lrXMt1rhly2xo1_500.jpg
It's neat that Twi here is so unthinkingly antitribalist that she's cool with being a different sort of pony. More omakes (can I use that word when talking of ponies?) in this vein would be pretty interesting.
Is it bad that I understood the April Fool's joke chapter much more clearly than the past few real chapters?
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This chapter felt more like Hard Reset 2: Electric Boogaloo than Reset Harder. The fate of the world isn't resting on an explanation of the misinterpretation of an earlier misinterpretation. Very fun chapter, but I am disappoint.
Seriously though, much as I enjoy technobabble this kinda weirdness is what I enjoy most out of the time loop stories. I really hope last chapter was the technobabble high point.
I wouldn't really call this an April Fool's style joke chapter. It's more of a short, comedic side-story really. The absurdity's in the premise, the comedy in the execution, and this really could be the start of its own story with only few adjustments. I'm definitely giving the author a follow and hope that he does decide to publish something on Fimfiction eventually.
Ah. Twilight having Pinkie powers would certainly explain both her talent and her tutelage. Few ponies are quite as magical as Pinkie Pie.
I kind of want to see this continued, if only as an excuse to explore earth pony magic (and Pinkie magic, which may or may not be a subcategory thereof) through Twilight.
In any case, a marvelous side story. And, given the nature of time, it happened somewhen. Of course, so did everything else, but this we can read about.
Looking forward to more.
Now, this would be an interesting direction to take the story. I like the idea of a divergent-reconvergent timeline, with the greatest differences at the halfway mark, as the Elements try to force a history that includes the temporal loop that allowed them to take physical form in the first place in the original Hard Reset...
I really, really want to see Celestia and Twilight sit down and have a good, long chat about history and how they reember it differently. (Confused by the fact that Twilight would probably remember mainly the big events, like the Griffon Treaty of 512, while Celestia would likely remember the people more, like what the Griffon Ambassador's favourite food was)
4326568 The way I'm looking at it is that "Magical Mystery Cure" had some far-reaching effects in this timeline. Twilight as Pinkie Pie, indeed!
I enjoyed this quite a lot, and I'd love to see it continued, though hopefully with a bit less acceptance on Twilight's behalf — there's got to be SOME part of her that is intensely not okay with losing her horn. That wouldn't be tribalist, that's just natural for anyone who's lost a limb, a part of their body that's always been there, that they used regularly without thinking and will continue to try to instinctively use. But I really think this maybe shouldn't have been posted as a chapter. It's a great way to get it seen, sure, but it's also a fantastic way to confuse a lot of people. Not just now, as the story's still being written and posted, but even further down the line, after the story's complete and a trickle of people are still discovering the story and reading it all in one go. They're going to get to this point and wonder wtf is going on, and then move on to the next chapter which will presumably act like this one never happened, causing further confusion. Not everyone pays attention to author's notes, and that will be forever true.
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It's still an entirely unnecessary potential for confusion. There are other problems, too; anyone reading back-to-back chapters are going to have the flow broken, for example. There's just no good reason for this to be posted as a chapter of the story, when it isn't part of the story. I'm hoping it gets moved to a blog post once the author is satisfied that enough people have seen it. Or at least that he injects new chapters between this and the previous, keeping this at the end.
That's not even mentioning the fact that this is exploiting the story update notifications system to get people to see something they didn't sign up to be notified of. It's about as relevant as it gets to this story, but it's not this story. Fortunately, it's good enough (read: absolutely fantastic) that I can't actually feel sour about that. Did I say before that I hope it's removed from here and put into a blog post? Scratch that, I hope it's removed from here and put into it's own story that I can follow separately.
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Aw, isn't this what the show is all about--tolerance and equality? All three races are equal and magical, so not having a horn might actually help Twilight out in the long run. Now she has the fabled connection to nature that potentially results in Pinkie Powers, but as Twilight! Think of the possibilities.
In short, magic as a skill, not just science. Spell-like abilities which can be expanded upon unlike rigid formulae of the arcane.
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If the fanfic were styled as a whimsical fairy-tale story, perhaps. But if it wants to be a serious story, then it needs to at least attempt believable reactions, and realistically, unexpectedly losing a limb you've had and used your entire life and having to re-learn everything you knew about anything that limb was used for (commonly referred to as rehab) is going to cause some amount of trauma. I'm not saying Twilight would be outright intolerant of the concept of being an earth pony, but she certainly wouldn't be happy to have her race permanently altered without her knowledge and permission. I'd expect her to handle it fairly well actually, but it's just not plausible that she'd be genuinely ambivalent about it.
4326654 Even if it did stay like that, I would still read obviously, I didn't mean to imply that I hated it because of this decision, just that I was a little sad, the story IS yours after all.
However, I read one story where the end was awful, and the comments showed it. It was very well written but the author's gotta think about his fans am I right?
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I definitely was planning to keep the "bonus material" at the end and keep story chapters together; FIMFiction lets you shuffle chapter order, and I 100% agree this should not interrupt the main flow of the story. I will also encourage Prawo to post this on its own, which would let it accumulate its own comments and ratings, and then I could remove from here and replace with a link.
As far as people missing author's notes, if someone's going to click on a non-regular publication date on a link that says "BONUS CHAPTER" and then skip over the explanatory text that's in their face in front of the horsewords, I don't know what more I could do for them, short of not posting the chapter at all. In a perfect world, this would have been written after HR2 was finished, but I'm not gonna make a fan-project author wait for indefinite months after such a nifty gift, and I've gotta come down somewhere on the tradeoffs.
I must join the chorus -- this is awesome, and I hope you have ideas about what happens next because I really want to read more!
Same here, this calls out strongly for a full story treatment.
4333077 Don't do that. When someone comments from the main story page it attaches the comment to the last chapter. This means that the bonus chapter would acquire lots of comments for other chapters, and those comments would be deleted when you eventually delete the bonus chapter.
The best option would be to un-publish the bonus chapter and link it in the authors comment. This way people can still find it, and all the comments end up on the correct chapter.
4332208 I don't think that it has quite sunk in to Twilight that she isn't a unicorn anymore. We really haven't seen her in a situation where she would use her magic and finds that she can't. But that situation will come, and you can bet that she will have some kind of freakout about it.
Wouldn't it be funny if something said in this chapter ended up being important? Or at least alluded to?
I must be an reading this story in an alternate dimension, because I can't see any jokes, humor, or things out of the ordinary (for multi-timeline/multi-dimensional stories like Hard Reset anyway). I'm totally serious. Any jokes here have gone completely over my head. Could somepony explain, please?
What the buck did I just read? Where... No. Why... No... Star-swirl... No... How... No...
*Takes a Deep breath*
So... I have a new Entry for TVtropes: Multiple Paradox Pileup.
It's kinda like a Xanatos pileup but more wimey and much less timey. Because time does not work like that.
Well... No. It does. But... It can't.
ARHG. Alright. Analogues, Lies and simplification:
This entire story is one big time fractal loop thingy. Not only that? It is an erased time fractal. Yes an n-dimensional erased time fractal pileup. Which never happened. If you look at time as a dimension. Which it is not. Sand. Ocean. But bigger. More.
And I am now hearing odd noises outside my window and will stop this train of thought because dammit this train of thought and others like it scare the bejesus out of me. One of the reasons I ditched high level math and dropped out of college. LALALALALA brain is flushing. Birds singing. Ponies are cute.
Fuck. So much for sleeping tonight.
You didn't break time you ARGH Can't tell if looper zero is a monster or a,,, what? Dammit Starswirl!
I'd go insane too if I realized I was a mirage, an echo. A mandala about to be erased. No. A mandala that has already BEEN erased. I only exist in themory of someone's dream
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It's … more like an homage than a parody, I think. Prawo Jazdy wrote someone that would be almost indistinguishable from the core story, except that it it's not what actually happens next.
The biggest joke is that Prawo's chapter is based entirely off of a fake "Easter egg" suggested in comments back in Chapter 11, where my crazy mathematical equation was interpreted to foreshadow Twilight becoming an earth pony, using transparently silly "logic". This is that joke writ large.
4344342 You realize, I hope, that this isn't really part of Horizon's story? I dated it to April 1 and everything.
4353604 This was a fun break. I only have one question: what does the title mean?
Alright, that was actually amusing.
Jesus... Fuck... My head hurts. So Unicorn Twilight was just a dream? Ugh. I think religious reading of Science Fiction in my youth is the only thing that let me even follow the general idea. I feel like I just tried to read War and Peace, the Bible, five dictionaries, and a shit ton of encyclopedias all in one sitting.
This has got to be the most ridiculously complicated way of saying "I dreamed I was a time traveling Unicorn" I have ever seen.
Can't deny it was awesome though, migraine not withstanding.
And once again my aversion to reading author's notes bites me in the butt.
Still a very migraine inducing story.
Red and yellow... that's how Discord's eyes look.
Also, shouldn't she be white with a yellow mane and be called Surprise?
So, twilight sparkle the earth pony now eh? Welp, that's the last straw for me. Goodbye.
Pros: Good premise, dececent flow, existential horror, plots within plots all good.
Cons: Confusing, and randomly dropped narritives, progressively overreaching multiple arcs. Removing everthing the core elements of mlp is backed on.
Overall rating. Thumbs down.
Kay. Not following the bonus chapter if It ever splits off to its own thing and this is continued (insert obligatory grumbling about unfinished stories always managing to be entertaining). I'm managing to follow the timestreams in the actual story without a headache, which is just feathering miraculous all by itself. Not gonna jinx it with that Discordian Nightmare Made Text.
Having the computer programming loop metaphor helps (especially with the whole universe killing event when Luna wiped Twilight from time and space, it was perfect) but not when you suddenly change programming languages mid-execution! :p
Moar. Pls.
So they didn't even defeat Chrysalis? All that build up for nothing? I'm giving this a thumbs down. It's a shame. As someone else said, the premise had so much potential. I personally think this tale peaked at "Around Monsters"; everything after that began to decline.