Wow. Very Lovecraftian. Creepy, but funny at the end. Well done.

6376210 Thanks! My initial idea was to do a variation on Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan (which Lovecraft was a huge fan of), though I strayed further and further from the source as I developed the plot.

Halfway through, I thought this was going to be an origin story for Discord. I still really enjoyed it though.

6376819 Ha! That's a pretty funny take, Meta

This has a fairly "light" feeling to it. Don't get me wrong, there's some pretty messed up stuff that happens to Old Res, but getting the investigation through the lens of an adorkable!Twi helps stop it from ever getting to be too much. It's a very interesting take on the genre, in any event.

6377186 Heh. That particular red herring wasn't intentional on my part, since Res's part of the story was supposed to take place while Discord was in stone. But now you've got me wondering how Discord would react if he got mixed up with the Lovecraftian monsters.

If it came down to ponykind and the abominations absolutely not being able to coexist, I suspect Discord would side with the ponies. Even Discord from before befriending Fluttershy—after all, ponies are so much more fun to play with.

6382792 Thanks.

6383553 I agree. He would side with the ponies.

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I'll definitely admit that due to some unexpected circumstances, I didn't have as much time to develop this as I would have liked. Perhaps part of the confusion also comes from the ending, since it doesn't really give me a chance to explain things. So maybe I'll lay out what I my plans were here:

I started with wanting to write a Kansas City Shuffle. The Apple family sans Applejack was replaced while Applejack was in Manehattan, which is why they're completely useless in catching the mysterious saboteur. In fact, there is none: they were doing it themselves. The initial stalking and Pennyworth being highly visible and antagonistic was meant to both put Applejack on edge and give her a target to build her anger against. The sabotage was largely meaningless as sabotage and done just to piss her off. This would push her love and protectiveness of her "family" as she rallied them against this perceived threat. Then, with said threat eliminated, the changelings could continue to feed off of Applejack's heightened familial love in safety.

One other detail I tried to imply is that the real Pennyworth was actually in the hotel and that changelings, working as a team, framed him, then let Applejack on a merry chase. The Pennyworth outside the hall was a different changeling, while the seemingly random bystander was the one that Applejack clocked.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback.

6387449
So when AJ had that meeting with Pennyworth, where he offered to give an extension on the taxes, was that the real Pennyworth then?

And when AJ punched Pennyworth, revealing that he was a changeling... was that random receptionist also a changeling? The one who corroborated Pennyworth's story and had a "rather mechanical" nod?

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It was the real deal. There's a reason they picked him for their scheme. As to the receptionist, I was running with her being fully enthralled.

On a side note: Whoa, I just noticed that my reply to the comment on my chapter somehow ended up on your chapter. For a second there, I had to go back and check if I accidentally replied to the wrong thing.

6387688 Yeah. It’s a bug where, if you post a comment on the main page of the story, it'll wind up attached to the most recent chapter. Even if you're replying to another comment on the first chapter.

6412477 Oh, yeah, that one! I've read it twice X3
It's really good but it doesn't have much attention, sadly.....

I've also written many stories similar to this concept...just not horror.

Hah, such a smart subversion at the end there. I also like that the "big journal review" was of something written in the middle, not the end.

I am glad I read this, perfectly atmospheric, but also somehow uplifting.

This was wonderful. Loved the ending.
All this just so Derpy can see her. What a trip.

7304310 And that's why Twilight is my favorite pony.

... That's hilarious how nonchalant Twi is at the end! ... Tropes: BizarreBabyBoom, IncompatibleOrientation... Petrification?

I wonder what happened to Pitch... sad what happened to Old Res. Could he be revived and cured with Ditzy's help??

I thought the same as Twilight, that the horns were part of some magic booster. But nope.

I guess we'll see Ditzy react to the Journal in The Fourth Wall, that one in the language I don't feel like copy pasting.

7796366

Could he be revived and cured with Ditzy's help??

For what it's worth, my intention was: if a pony wanted to die, or otherwise was at peace with their death, then they can't be un-petrified. And Twilight, looking at Resonius's petrified face, thought he was at peace. So that's why he was the only pony who wasn't restored when the cockatrice was vanquished.

But, of course, Death Of The Author. If you'd prefer to think he gets un-petrified and cured, there's nothing in the other stories that would contradict that.

As for getting help: Ditzy's particular powers were passed down on her mom's side of the family. So, if Resonius had crossed paths with one of Ditzy's ancestors, it's entirely possible the ancestor could have helped him. Sadly, that just didn't happen.

7799684

Well that implication was effectively given in the thoughtstream. As it had the "at peace bit" and the different outcome usually means there was something different about the different one to change the outcome.

... How many different kinds of alienness you gonna make? You've got Pinkie Pie stuff, the multidimensional Ditzy stuff, now this RealityWarper thing, which might be something else or connected to the other two...

...got the idea to Sorta wanna make an Eldritzy in this verse and see what happens... If you don't get the reference, which I assume you follow FOME, you might... When Parallel Lines... Cross Over, I think it was... ... Likely more freaking out and more time shenanigans...

spoiler boxes don't appear in emails, by the way

Simple changes—I inverted two runes and tightened the angle of one vertex. And then I understood what I had done.

... I had changed: I had removed the reason she could not reciprocate my affection for her.

Hmm... Do you have an explanation for exactly what he changed? Like, the runes are for what her attraction is to? Like one rune governs the gender she's attracted to... and under that hypothesis, I've no idea what the other rune might be for, but the angle might be the scope of what she'll accept for her attraction or something? Like, she likes things in the range from 20 to 80, and now it's from 40 to 60 or something?

Seems like the kind of thing Twilight might want to study, perhaps.

7809581 I never worked out the exact mechanics of how that magical code works.

7914437 While I have no doubt that Rarity would be up to that task, she's just ever so busy...

As for the phylactery, he was rather bone-headed.

figures made of sticks and twine,

Hi, Blair!

less effective every time I perform it

lessee…about square and divide by ten each time, what are you talking about? (that "ten" doesn't go up, it fluctuates: 4.5, 8, 125, 6.7, 514)
…why is it sayng "3 June. Canterlot. about 300 thaums." when he can do 5k prior?

With every repetition, the discharge increases—exponentially. Cross-reference this with the increasing frequency of these incidents, and a sinister pattern presents itself.

ah

And I shall make those sons of wolves regret showing me how to transmute matter into antimatter.

Nice Los Alamos reference.
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All comments are visible at the story frontispiece, and all frontispiece-submitted comments land on the last chapter extant at time of commenting.
7312631
It's so sweet. I love it.

But really, this could use the Horror tag onw that it exists.

6376721
I imagined that the cut-off horns looked like the tree variant of the Elder Sign.

8189607 Thanks. Though I can't really do anything about the tagging, other than bug peacevic about that.

8189685
8189607
Sufficiently bugged.

8189685 Oh wow, just remembered to get back to this thing.. it's amazing what you find when clearing out the back of your Read Later tab.

This chapter was just... so damn good, creepy, scary, lovecraftian in the best way, implying so much answering so little, just, having so many implications and so many ways it could be horrifying, and kind of is...

And then to end with that twist and Twi's reaction to all of it being essentially 'Huh, neat, glad to know. But not really interested in that kind of power, just wanted to find this other minor thing related to it." That took it from great, to AMAZING and, just made it so so 'pony'. And yeah that is Totally Twilight, getting so focused on the mystery, and on what she'd planned, and ignoring such huge, massive things lie ultimate power and a potential threat to all of reality.

Definitely my favorite of the set, rest were good, but this, just damn!