• Member Since 19th Jan, 2012
  • offline last seen Mar 12th, 2021

Arcainum


I write stories about pony superheroes and cruel and unusual tragedies and pony superheroes who suffer cruel and unusual tragedies. I'm currently looking both fine and OK.

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Source

Twilight breaks her quill. She goes to Quills & Sofas to buy a new one.

Hyper-intelligent pandimensional beings beyond the feeble ken of conventional sentience may or may not also feature.

- Written for the SALT contest, with the prompt, "Twilight breaks her quill. She goes to Quills & Sofas to buy a new one."

Featured on EqD, rated Star-4.

Winner of the Storybook Vision Looks OK Award
[img]http://i.imgur.com/YYFTket.png[/img]

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 74 )
Ezn

become high

That was an experience.

Is the title....A 2001 REFERENCE?!?!? :D

605441 A... good one?

605627 I nearly had Davenport say "I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Twilight," when she tried to get in.

This is the most baffling, inexplicable, and confounding fic that I've ever hit the "Like" button for...:raritywink:...

Eh... I guess I liked it. "Trippy" comes to mind.

This reminds me of a few stories I read from an author who loved messing with his readers' head. I never did completely understand them, but I got the impression that something profound was going on.

So, nice experiment!

Mmm, I love me some meta.

605991 Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

606339 I was high on Douglas Adams.

Also which author was that? I love stories that play with the reader, though I always feel stupid for having been played with at the end.

606440 Do you know, I didn't even consider this as meta? But now I look at it, that's a whole new layer I could pretend I intended! Thanks!

Now that I have read it, I can say this is more confusing than the ending of the 2001: A Space Odyssey movie's ending. :rainbowlaugh:

Because the book makes a ton of sense. :P

607615

Michael Crichton's "Sphere" comes to mind, but the author I was thinking of was Durandall and one of his stories, "I am Become" is just full of WTF. In fact, Durandall has a lot of stories that just makes your head spin. Many times in a good way.

608003 THERE'S A STAAAR CHIIILD WAITING IN THE SKY, HE'D LIKE TO COME AND MEET US BUT HE THINKS HE'LL BLOW OUR MINDS

Also I really didn't think people would be so confused by it. I think there's some crucial sentence somewhere I thought I'd put in that I haven't. I was sure I'd made it all connect together.

608065 Ooh, Sphere was fun. Are they hallucinations? Are they crazy magic science? BOTH *dramatic chord*

I think I have a good name for Everything. Muse sounds about right. This story also seems similar to how I spend my days having conversations with my brain. Not exactly the same but similar.

605639 You should have :D prepare for inundation, btw. thoroughly enjoyed it.

614792 Should have... what? Thought people would be confused by it? Sorry, I'm tired and can't follow the comment train =p

EDIT: Oh, and thanks for letting it through. I was a little worried it would get sent to the moon for various reasons.

615158 Sneaking in that "I can't let you do that, Twilight" would have been funny... and it's getting posted. sshh, don't tell anyone yet :heart:

615189 Oh I seeeeee. You should maybe have a read of the Davenport conversation again. ¬_¬

Also yeah, I was sitting there going "inundated what on earth is he talking abou-OH IT'S MIDNIGHT SHADOW"

I'm the one who gave Davenport his name.

Every time someone uses the name, they're dong it because of me.

My character name is fanon.

Do you any concept on how cool that is?

Congrats on EQD!

dafuq did i just read

I'm going to have to give this another look when I'm not busy; I pretty much rushed through this and that was a big mistake. You lost me within the VOID.

And so the invasion begins!

:derpyderp2: What did I just read?

Now that I've expressed my confusion, it's time for some real commentary. I...liked it. I like confusing stories--Evangelion being one of them. Problem is, it was TOO confusing. It's one thing to read a story that's not entirely clear, but it's another thing to finish reading something and wonder what the point of it was.

I suppose Twilight Sparkle saw the author, and the entire creative force of artists (all of which are human, presumably--I think that was the revelation that TS almost reached). But what was the point? Why was the author contacting Twilight? To make her into a writer? Because a writer could just MAKE her do that, couldn't they? And what was with the shadowy doom-thing consuming worlds (gave me A Wrinkle In Time vibes, actually). Was it something real, like a cosmic horror? Or metaphorical? Or...some combination of them?

You probably want this to be a standalone, but I still wish there was more to it.

AAAAAHHH higher planes of existence!?! Completely, understandably incomprehensible. Yet it makes an odd sort of sense. Thanks for blowing my mind. :derpyderp2:

Wait... Was this Luna trying to give Twilight a quill? :pinkiegasp:

608123
OH MY GOD
YES

I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS THIS

Also, I got the feeling that "A new everything" was G5.

606020
Pretty much this...

God damnit. I had to write an application for section leader of my local youth symphony. Part of it was about the role of section leaders.
Instead of writing something real, I wrote... this. And it's all because of your story.

"As long as orchestras have had sections, there have been principals. A principal's job is singular, yet multi-faceted, being split up into so many parts that it's almost impossible to wrap one's mind around the job as a whole."

God damnit. :pinkiecrazy:

I'm so meta, even this acronym?

strange but makes sense

I wonder if Pinkie Pie experiences this all the time :pinkiehappy:

Seriously though, awesome fic.

I think my brain just left crying due to it's on stupidity. I am so full of joy and mindfuck at this.. what have you done to me!

Although. Still an awesome story.

Ah...a short glimpse of the entire multi-verse. :pinkiesmile:

I think Pinkie Pie can partially see it as well.

BRAIN.EXE has stopped responding. [Resume] [End Task] [Restart] [Transcend to Higher Plane of Consciousness] :twilightoops:

616450 ...wait so...that would mean....that maybe that voice...was laren faust....and she gave twilight in a werid way the inspiration t iwrute the next gen or "tale" of mlp....ummm....my brain hurts...kthax:derpyderp2:

There's something wrong at the end, there. The chapter ran out of words.
2.bp.blogspot.com/-VDR90B6hf7o/TzVeanuvxoI/AAAAAAAAAKY/PtIZwPy6YS0/s1600/please-sir.jpg

605639
i.imgur.com/hc2XR.jpg

607615
I'm So Meta, Even This Acronym

615922 It's a good name! It's so classy. ALSO TETSUJIN 28 OMG HAMMAAA PAAANCHI

615980 *mysterious 50s sci-fi whooshing noises*

616325 I could PM you an explanation of what I had in mind if you were interested? I'd say it here but I'm kind of enjoying seeing the different interpretations are coming up with x) And, actually, I wanted to expand it, but thought I'd made everything too clear to do so. Guess I was wrong there ¬_¬

616614 I'm... sorry? =p I like that little bit, though. Did you get the role?

617675 Pinkie Pie sees this but in felt.

618375 [Transcend to Higher Plane of Consciousness] uses too much runtime, you have to shut down after a few minutes or your processor overheats.

619758 This is easily the best moar comment I have ever seen.

Thanks for the comments, everyone!

Reading the other comments, a lot of people seem to think the story was being meta, having the author contact Twilight or some such. That isn't the the feeling I got from this at all. It seemed obvious to me that the light and dark things radiating motherlyness over the entire metaphysical structure of 'tales telling tales telling tales' was either A: Celestia and Luna, or B: Harmony and Chaos. I can't see Chaos giving a motherly feeling though, and I'm pretty sure the greedy thing trying to infect/destroy/consume/whatever the metaphysical structure was Chaos, so it was probably Celestia and Luna, and the motherlyness itself being Harmony. The only part I didn't really get, not well enough to develop any sort of theory for, was what the entity speaking to Twilight was. It claimed it was Everything, but why did it need things to happen a certain way? What was so wrong with Twilight not writing that report? It asked Twilight to become Higher before the next time it encountered her, which presumably might not have happened otherwise, and still might not, and it seems okay with that potential deviation it's encounter with her might cause... meaning there's a limit to what it needs to happen certain ways. And we never get any kind of an explanation for that. It just leaves me intensely curious and wanting more.

620213 I just did a blog post explaining what I had in mind, so that's probably worth a read. I am thinking of expanding it now, though, so... it's your call!

Also I think you're the first person to hit on a literal interpretation?

625895 I got really really confused because SeventhAgent up there has the same avatar as you. I reread both comments I don't know how many times trying to work out why you were saying what you said in the second when you'd already said what you said in the first.

Also, good old Death Of The Author. I just wish I didn't detest Barthes SO MUCH, because I could get behind that essay more.

Interesting story, i think all resumes to the quill itself as the powerfull thing that tells the tale how to tells itself.
And the quill from the end was it Luna's present or something , because everything related to night nowadays is Luna's.

:trollestia:

Not a concept I haven't seen before. I used to read about 4000 pages of Science Fiction a week for several years. Quite nostalgic. Good job. I love the concept of concepts themselves conceptualizing conception of concepts. Reality expanding and contracting with the breath of imagination. I'm guessing the caretakers are manifest from their own tales. Or manifestations of their tales' authors.

620111 Dunno yet. I sent in the application, but I still have to do an audition. :ajbemused:
The point was, though, that the application was a little bit... philosophical. I'm pretty sure they expect me to explain things in more concrete terms. :trixieshiftleft:

642237 Oh, I understood the issue, it's why I was so intrigued as to whether you succeeded!

And I don't know, sometimes a little florid can go a long way. If you hit the right balance, it shows you care enough to put that much thought into the wording.

Good luck!

642388 Well, it mostly comes down to how well I play at the audition -- but thanks!

639586 Concept-ception! :trollestia:

642388 " The tendrils of a malice beyond imagining grasped at the great work, hungrily reaching for the lexicon of worlds and probing the defenses of its caretakers with tireless patience."

Ah yes, trolls and Grammar Nazis. :trollestia:

I've heard that the quill is mightier than the sword, but we're talking of something entirely different here... :pinkiehappy:

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