Twilight almost missed out on the chance to have friends. So when she finds a spell in an an ancient tome that promises to tell her when she will meet her true love, she decides to get a head start on things and prepare for the fated hour.
Too bad her true love seems to be taking their sweet time showing up.
There is now a Spanish translation of this story, courtesy of Spaniard Kiwi
Plot Twist: she gets to the fated hour, only for a future version of herself to teleport in
7427302
This is Twilight, not Narcissus.
Though I guess there is a mirror pool.
7427308 And Sci-Twi.
Both sweet and utterly hilarious. And at least at the end, Twilight came out of the closet and went stepping out with two mares.
An enjoyable read, thanks for this!
7427354
Clearly it all worked out!
Sweet and funny was exactly what I was going for, so I'm glad it hit those buttons. Thank you for taking the time to read it!
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I'm glad you had fun with it!
Poor Twilight. So caught up in her thoughts and expectations, she's not even aware that the spell may have worked in a way. Maybe not a romantic partner, true, but a pony that is very close to her and that she cares about deeply, who will probably be there for her the rest of her life. Although it could become romantic...
7427404
It's easy to miss the forest for the trees.
I really enjoyed this in the Writeoff, and I'm glad to see it on Fimfic too.
I must say, Fimfiction gives a far superior reading experience in comparison to Google Docs.
Fun story. I'm glad I was able to help a bit.
SHIP HAS SAILED.
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Thanks! I'm not sure why I spent months and months not editing and posting this.
I'm planning on launching myself at trying to finish up another story this evening after my tabletop pony session.
I mean, it'd be terrible if I let my writeoff stories just languish on my hard drive without sharing them.
unisci24.com/data_images/wlls/39/305880-pier.jpg
Just kidding, you know I love you
I'm glad you liked this, though (and added it to your interesting things bookshelf, which I probably need to browse sometime).
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Yeah, FIMFiction is a much nicer place to read stories on than GDocs.
I'm glad you liked it, though. Thank you for your help editing!
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thepoetsgarret.com/2012Uploads/sunsets.jpg
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Seriously, guilt me some more about that in about a week — because right now I'm going crazy trying to get my Hugos reading done before the voting deadline, and the spare time I've got is going into editing for the current Writeoff entry, which needs some work. But yeah my giant backlog is not getting smaller, and it needs to be.
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I understand backlogs. I think I still have more unpublished but started stories than I do stories I've posted to FIMFiction. *cough*
I MEAN I WOULD NEVER PROCRASTINATE ON POSTING STUFF.
How are the Hugo stories, anyway? Good stuff this year? I know that there was a lot of Rabid Puppies stuff.
Obviously MLP must be the best dramatic presentation or whatever category it is in.
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So far I've been chewing through the novels, which is a lot of reading and hopefully (hopefully) things will speed up as I hit the shorter categories. Yeah, a lot of Rabid Puppy stuff, but a number of categories with reasonable choices — and the Rabids also did some "hostage taking" this year, voting a bunch of decent-quality work on the ballot, presumably in hopes that they could score internet points by having Hugo voters score No Award over quality works on ideological grounds. All five of the novels look like they belong there. There's only one or two categories where I feel comfortable totally skipping my reading and saying "This is a screw-you ballot, have a No Award in return."
So far for novels, my voting is Aeronaut's Windlass > Uprooted >> Seveneves > Ancillary Mercy > No Award — because they've all been good stories, but Mercy has a bad case of sequelitis and I haven't read the originals; and Seveneves is super fascinating intellectually but the writing keeps making my eyes glaze over; and Windlass edges out Uprooted on the strength of a far more vibrant and wide-ranging world (it just feels like a bigger story). Gotta read Fifth Season tonight, which Bradel really loved so I've been saving for last.
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Seems legit. Admittedly I didn't sign up for the Hugo voting stuff; maybe I'll do that next year. I'm not sure how eager I am to pay $50 to be judgmental though when I can do it on FIMFiction for free.
Are Aeronaut's Windlass and Uprooted worth going out and picking up to read (or checking out of the library)?
At first, I figured she was twelve hours off.
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Heh. Some folks in the writeoff thread were wondering if she'd forgotten Daylight's Savings Time.
Course, nowadays we have Internet time. So clearly we can never be confused, right?
That was fun, and another excellent reason for why Twilight is one of my favorite characters-incredibly intelligent, but prone to descents into craziness and overthinking.
Oh, by the way, I caught the more serious implications of what happened. Twilight Sparkle cast the spell twice, and in each case a soulmate was supposed to show up at a certain time. They apparently didn't. Instead, first Applejack and then Rainbow Dash showed up, a few minutes late each time.
But the clock which Twilight was using to time their arrival was a few minutes fast. So Applejack and Rainbow Dash showed up at exactly the right times.
Applejack and Rainbow Dash are Twilight's soulmates. As indeed they are (though not romantically) in vanilla-canon. They are among her two best friends in all the world.
7428342
Uh, that was...
...something.
I have no idea what that was.
7428584 Clearly Twilight's soulmate is Ashleigh Ball.
I see this has been added to the Twilestia is Bestia group in both the 'platonic' and 'shipping' categories. So... um, which is it? It can't really be both.
7428811
Clearly!
Though the AppleDash group and Narcissus might disagree.
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You'll just have to read and find out, won't you?
More seriously, it was removed from the Shipping folder and put into the Platonic folder, though there might be some ship teasing. Shhh.
7428811
Hey, that's a good point!
I was kind of expecting Pinkie to pop up inside the closet, asking Twilight what she was doing there, and scaring the heck out of her. Followed by Twilight trying the spell again and again, with Rarity and Fluttershy also showing up to question her judgment, with the implication that maybe she should just pay more attention to her friends... but I guess that would have stretched the story out too much.
Anyhow, a really nice story, with a good balance of friendship and slice-of-life with Twilight being a neurotic genius.
Clearly, the spell has some kind of Cassandra Effect. It can never be believed by the caster or anyone else, because then the romance in question wouldn't happen because it would seem artificially generated to everyone involved. In five years, Twilight will wake up on her honeymoon bed between Rainbow and AJ and realize it worked perfectly.
And proceed to use Starlight/Sunset/Trixie as unknowing test subject(s), assuming she can ignore the Cassandra Effect as long as she plans to never tell them what they're doing or why.
Alternately, it doesn't detect a soulmate so much as the next time you're going to come into the proximity of a pony who's very compatible, one way or the other.
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Yeah, violating the rule of three here would have made the story drag on. It is fun to bring in everyone, but it can lead to something feeling very repetitive. My editors were concerned even with just what was here.
I'm glad you enjoyed! Twilight as a neurotic genius is fun to write.
7429137
What the spell actually does is deliberately ambiguous (though also deliberately ship-teasy, but also potentially innocent), though I had a clear idea of how the spell worked when I wrote the story, and actually wrote out a gigantic exospeak gag about how it worked. Remember that bit where Applejack's eyes glazed over?
This was the original, full explanation, which was universally agreed to be far too long by my editors, and not nearly funny enough (which I agreed with them on):
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I was just randomly speculating under the 'Death of the Author' clause about potential sequels I would find amusing. Nice technobabble though.
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Clearly, there must be a sequel to set the record straight!
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Hehe, thinking up potential sequels is allowed!
I actually had a sequel thing outlined, but it didn't really light my fires. So if someone else has an idea, they're free to go out on a limb.
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Tch, now you're just encouraging me. For shame.
7429394 Who, moi?
7429137
Except that Princess Celestia used it multiple times, during a time in her life when (as far as we know) she was the only individual around with her lifespan. Luna was banished, Discord was stone. She has, presumably, already outlived everyone who was around at the time. If it was simply a Cassandra effect, she would have already realized it.
The most interesting hint, to me, is the description of the "agapic" field. Agape is a Greek word for love which is usually translated as something like pure or transcendent love. There's a whole lot of mostly irrelevant context, but the upshot is that it is considered distinct from friendship (philia), familial love (storge), and romantic love (eros).
Now, when they first used the Elements of Harmony, I don't think it's fair to say the ponies were really friends yet in the mundane sense. Despite the show's title. They'd known Twilight Sparkle for... less than 24 hours? They'd been through some heavy things together, yes, but they still hardly knew each other. And yet they were able to wield a power that so totally overwhelmed the Shepherd of the Moon that they were able to not merely defeat her, but purify her. That's not the Magic of Getting Along With Each Other. It's not the Magic of Sharing a Few Hobbies, or of Having a Good Working Relationship. It is something deeper and purer, something metaphorically and literally transcendent.
...or maybe the author chose agape because the adjective from eros is erotic, which would give entirely the wrong impression. Overanalysis is magic!
Well, that's certainly one way to get out of the closet
7429313
Seconding Scygnus, that's some grade-A thaumobabble. I agree it's too long for the story, and better cut, but seeing it in the comments was still fun.
-face hoof- Silly Twilight, casts the spell runs into AJ then RD them AJ -and- RD then Celestia. The universe is talking to you trying to shed the light on the situation it as it were.
I do like the idea of a few spin off sequels with some other ponies
7429312 I was actually expecting her to run into everyone after Dash was the second meeting rather than a second meeting with AJ and was looking forward to it.
7429452
What, are you implying I'd use a semi-obscure word to hide a clue as to how the spell works?
Though I'm sure Twilight going on about erotic fields in public might be slightly awkward. Ponies might get the wrong idea.
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I'm glad you appreciated it. It was fun to write. Probably more fun than it should have been.
Thaumababble is fun to invent.
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When I was brainstorming the story, the moment I came up with it I knew it had to be in the story as the conclusion.
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7429868
Ah yes, nothing like the sense of existential dread you get realizing that a spell which is supposed to point towards your soulmate is pointing at Pinkie Pie.
The fandom not having a greater love for Twinkie has always kind of surprised me. Pinkie Pie's interactions with Twilight are often a lot of fun, and there was a lot of fodder for it back in Season 1 and Season 2, but it doesn't seem like it ever took off, with PinkieDash being the big Pinkie ship.
Plus who doesn't love cream-filled cakes that survive the apocalypse?
*laughs* You're an evil sod, you know that?
You know...it would be reasonable to cast it right before meeting a POTENTIAL person...and seeing if it says something like "FIve minutes".
IE, arrange a blind date, see if it goes off.
7430148 I had initially thought Pinkie was going to be the third meeting with her just appearing in the closet with no explanation
I kinda feel sorry for Twilight but she should ask her friends to be her wing ponies so she can go bar hopping.
Twilight, completely oblivious to the fact that friendship is just another form of love. And they're all friends for life, aren't they?