Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure what she was looking at here. She and her friends... well, all but one of her friends were clustered defensively on the green outside the Golden Oaks library. Applejack’s neighbor Golden Harvest had returned, and she brought with her four other ponies.
There was that clumsy pegasus everypony knew as Derpy, and another pegasus name of Flitter, purple, with a barely wind tossed, light blue mane, and a bright cheer in her soft eyes. Dash didn’t really know much about Flitter aside from her stats: she was lighter, more delicate and less destructive than Derpy. There was that one candymaker down the street from Sugarcube corner, with the cream colored coat and the blue and pink curly hair, and finally a mint green unicorn that Dash actually... had only seen around town before, and didn’t know what she did here.
They stood there like it was a faceoff, the five of them, versus Rainbow Dash and her four friends. Except Rainbow Dash didn’t know what they were facing off about!
“Where’s Twilight?” Golden Harvest said at last, in a very quiet, and a very dangerous tone. The others with her were equally hostile in their stance, and in fact even Derpy, silly, goofy, derp eyed Derpy was matching Rainbow Dash’s hover, like she was going to tackle Rainbow Dash if she even tried to fly away, and get this. Derpy’s eyes were straight.
“She ran in the library,” Applejack replied more in a scared and shaken, less in a hostile manner, but still not very friendly. “Was yelling something about us freein’ Discord.”
“She locked the door, too!” Pinkie Pie whined. “We can’t figure out why she doesn’t want to hang out with us anymore!”
“You really do think we’re going to free him, don’t you?” Rarity said to the other ponies, in a note of shaky disbelief.
“Who are you ponies?” Rainbow demanded, wanting at least some answers to this.
“Well, I’m Flitter,” the smaller pegasus, with the long blue hair said, but she wouldn’t say any more than that. None of the other ponies answered, but watching them warily, Golden Harvest separated from the group. She walked to the front door of the library, lifted the doormat up with a hoof, and snatched a key out from underneath with her tail. Wordlessly, she went and unlocked the library door, and vanished inside.
Rainbow didn’t know Twilight hid a key under there.
“She’s getting Twilight, right?” Applejack asked, looking from the door to the ponies who were sort of maybe kind of herding the main 5 of them all nervously clustered together.
The mint unicorn was the first to break, her expression dropping to shock as she said in a bold alto, “Wait a minute, you ponies are all still friends?”
“Uh... yeah?” Applejack said, fiddling nervously with the brim of her hat. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
“You’re still friends??” came Twilight Sparkle’s very surprised voice from the now opening door to the library.
Ignoring the other five, the main 5 turned at once to their darker purple friend, all shouting, “Twilight!”
A frazzled looking purple unicorn known as Twilight Sparkle emerged swiftly from the library, with a tear streaked face, along with Golden Harvest close to her side. Twilight then rushed up to the main 5, eyes full of worry, looking at Applejack’s face, and holding up Fluttershy’s chin, and babbling, “You’re all still friends? You’re still friends with me? You stayed yourself? Other ponies are still acting strangely around you? You’re still yourself?”
“Why are you asking that, Twilight?” Rainbow Dash said suspiciously. “Because I’m not sure that’s true anymore!”
Rainbow pulled her diary out from her wing pouch and tossed it at Twilight’s hooves, the purple unicorn catching it naturally in her magic before it struck the ground. “Turn to the 23rd of this month,” Rainbow Dash said. “You see my mouthwriting? How it changed?”
Twilight didn’t even look in the book. She just looked up at Dash and... and then at Derpy, and then around at the others. She said, “I... I can’t explain it. This doesn’t make any sense. But... I’m so tired of fighting it. Just, come in the library everypony. I’ll... it can’t hurt things any worse at this point to just tell you.”
About two weeks ago, the great lord Discord, Master of Chaos, powerful poker of pony personalities, was having a smashing time with his newfound freedom. After a thousand years of biding his time, the Elements had at last weakened enough that his favorite breed of Chaos could once again spread over all the land. Up was down, red was blue, and everything was checkerboard colored. It was beautiful!
And it would stay that way, if he could get rid of that goody four-shoes librarian. In his regrettable absence, she along with 5 other mortal ponies had somehow taken control of the Elements of Harmony themselves. Discord giggled unpleasantly to himself as he watched the 6 run around in his giant leafy distraction, losing their very selves in their attempt to navigate the maze he never told them to navigate. How had ponies as incompetent as these managed to take the Elements? Surely they had to have been desperate, to attach themselves to mortal ponies at all. But then again...
The Elements had surprised him once before.
Discord hated using his benevolent gift to ponykind, to do such boring, awful things like ruin somepony, but he couldn’t let himself be a big softy when his continued freedom was on the line. You would think ponies would be grateful for what he gave them, putting life back into a decrepit mare’s old legs, granting a very silly earth pony the power of flight, giving a little filly all the talents in the world. Fun, whimsical things like that were his bread and butter. But for these 6, Discord had to harden his heart, and get serious about messing them up if he wanted to survive.
In doing this, he managed to get one of the ponies to separate from the group, but that librarian... as soon as she had the others in her clutches, his greatest beguilement couldn’t convince her to separate from them, or them from her. They went from loving her to hating her, yet in hating her they still wanted to be a part of her life as much as possible! It would have been hilarious if it wasn’t so dangerous.
He made a show of being nigh invulnerable, when they impotently tried to use the Elements against him, a completely futile act thanks to their missing member. But it was only a matter of time at this point, before they would get her back, and Discord would find his newfound life rudely interrupted, his glorious personage once again imprisoned in stone.
An amazing thing happened, then. The purple one broke! The librarian lost her color, and her psychic defenses but she didn’t know that, and just gave him the world on a silver platter! Discord was overjoyed, because without her meddling, her former friends quickly scattered all across town, doing their own thing and not giving one single thought into usurping his well earned reign. He taunted her gleefully as she slogged along through the muddy soap, not even caring whether it was night or day anymore. She didn’t have any friends anymore, this was great! Just like... just like him.
Well, it might have been a trick, on the librarian’s part, and neither sunbutt nor mooney had made their move yet, so Discord once again got to scheming. Now that he had power over this unicorn, he had to make the most of it, before some other force went and stole her out from under his very handsome schnozz. Hurrying ahead of her, he canvassed the librarian’s library, trying to find if she had any secret weapons set up, or traps that she was heading towards, pretending to give up just so that she could arm them and ruin his fun. And there, Discord found... an opportunity.
“Oh, what’s this?” Discord said, as the little purple lizard tried to scramble behind another bookshelf. Discord’s magic turned it into a podium with twenty-three spotlights on it. “A baby dragon!” he said excitedly, “How did you get in a pony’s library, little guy?”
“Stay back!” the kid responded, almost falling over on his own tail. “Twilight’s gonna stop you!” he declared confidently. Oh. The librarian, again. Of course the dragon would be on her side too. Was this her secret weapon? But how could one young dragon’s crude magic pose any sort of threat to Discord master of Chaos?
Poor little Spike stopped struggling then, and belched out a delightfully odiferous gout of green flame. But what was fascinating about it was a scroll that accompanied the dragon’s fire, a scroll that hadn’t been there before. And Discord hadn’t detected any sort of teleportation going on. Could dragon fire do that? Maybe it was closer to Chaos magic than Discord had ever known! In all his years, he’d never had a baby dragon to play with!
Because dragons are absolutely no fun at all, when you want to experiment on their young offspring.
Discord cracked open the seal on the scroll, ignoring the baby dragon’s protests, and eagerly read its contents. His face fell to a smouldering frown upon reading it though. Of course. This was their secret weapon. Not fire, but Friendship. Sunny bunny hadn’t got any less crafty in her old age, it seemed.
“The princess?” Discord drawled casually, glancing from the scroll to the baby dragon, “I’m impressed, that you let her use you like that.”
“What do you mean?” Spike said, alarmed. “I’m not gonna—” oh this was perfect. The dragon had to stop talking, for he belched out another scroll.
“You can’t even stop it, can you?” Discord said, wrapping his lovely tendrils right around this poor dragon’s heart. “You’re just her delivery boy, no... you’re just her mail box. She can use you whenever she wants, without your permission. You must really love being ignored and left behind, since the ponies think you’re only good for delivering the mail.”
“Well, no, they think I’m really important!” Spike said futilely. “I help out lots!”
“But think how much more you could help out,” Discord said, getting right up into Spike’s eyes, “If you could choose who sent you letters. Ponies don’t know any better, do they? Wouldn’t it be better if you could receive all your letters from someone who respected you? Aren’t you tired of just... letting the ponies do whatever they want with you, without asking?”
“Yeah, I’m...” Spike said in a dazed tone. Got him.
“You don’t need to receive letters from any pony, or any princess,” Discord said to the dimming Spike, “You only need to receive letters from me. Unlike them, I would never take advantage of a brave, strong dragon like you.”
Through some fantastic sorcery if he did say so himself, Discord managed to fork Spike’s breath effect, so Spike did not belch out a single letter now that Discord didn’t get to see first, which was absolutely perfect. If Neopolitan and Blueberry didn’t want to come down themselves and deal with him, and he was sure they wouldn’t, then they’d just ignorantly remain up in their mountain castle, thinking all the while that the letters they sent were going straight to their beloved student, the librarian.
Discord absconded the fork out of there when Twilight arrived, the poor, confused mare trudging in and immediately snapping angrily at the dragon, “Pack your things Spike, we’re leaving.” She actually thought Canterlot was going to be there, when she got back! This librarian was inattentive, bitter, and downright stupid, just the opposite of all the qualities that were normally her greatest strengths. He peered eagerly through the window as she outdid his wildest imagination, by taking the lofty, most stuck-up, self important Element: Magic, and just tossing it in the waste bin!
Oh, he would never let it live that one down.
Nevertheless, as pleased as he was with the situation, Discord was still unsatisfied. Yes the bearer was powerless and dim, but that gem was bright as ever, and he swore it gave him a malevolent glitter as it plummeted into the trash. It knew that even his great powers had their limitations. This pony, like every other pony, would eventually shake off his beguilement, and get back to her normal, boring old harmony wielding self. And how would he predict when that happened? Discord didn’t do predictions. That wasn’t his thing!
It was then that Discord got an idea, an awful, terrible, wonderful idea. He thought of a way that wouldn’t rely on his sorcery, to take care of the ponies and the elements, all in one hilarious comedy of errors. Discord’s favorite form of entertainment, second only to infomercials and reality TV.
He had a letter to write.
The library foyer was the most pleasant interrogation chamber that Rainbow Dash had ever gone into. But then again, it was also the most unpleasant interrogation chamber Rainbow Dash had ever gone into. One way or another, they were gonna get some answers from their friend. Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure she wanted answers anymore, though, or that she’d be happy with what she found.
Things were less... tense now that Twilight had outright given up on... whatever she had been doing. Rainbow Dash really wanted to know what was bothering Twilight so much, and why she thought they’d release him of all creatures. Rainbow hated waiting, but Twilight didn’t mince words after they’d gotten inside. She sent Spike off running to the kitchen to prepare some nachos (score!) and settled down to explain to the 5 of them what had happened. Not the 6 of them, not the 11 of them, but only 5 ponies who were kept totally in the dark: Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie Pie.
“Okay, everypony,” Twilight said, “You may have noticed that your life, or your life recently, has felt wrong. I want to assure you that it’s only natural, given what happened to you. What I... yes, I know what happened to you. I’m going to tell you, and I’m not going to hesitate. We can’t gamble the safety of our whole world on a lie, however well intentioned,” she told herself firmly, “So this is what I know...”
The beautiful light of Harmony sang through Twilight’s veins. She couldn’t believe how close that had been! Well, not anymore! Discord was fresh out of luck, because his sinuating, twisting writhing ceased. Soon all that was left was a stone statue, and a glorious rainbow.
It spread over all the land, and swept away his dark sorceries. It swept through Twilight’s heart, and cleared her head of all that terrible foggy beguilement that his evil magic had wrought. Twilight and her friends descended like sylphs, two of the air remaining in the bright blue sky, while the three of the earth landed on beautiful, living, green grass, with not a single checkerboard pattern to be seen for miles around. Twilight smiled in blessed relief, and to her eternal amusement, not only did Discord get turned into stone, he did it in such an awkward position that he just toppled over, his statue slamming to the ground on its side with a terrible sound of finality.
“Well, girls,” Twilight concluded, looking to her left, “It looks like—”
She stopped cold.
There, flying in the air was that rainbow haired stunt pony who was always crashing through her library, and in general making a huge jerk out of herself. The mare was... smiling? Fondly? And that baker, Twilight only knew about her through the Cakes, and from the frustration and yelling she heard, of a mare taking her rage out on the baked goods in the back of Sugarcube Corner. The pink pony made good food, but... the Cakes didn’t let her work the front counter, for a very clear reason. It was amazing that they decided to foster a teenager when they did, but even years later, she had some real issues. Well, Pinkamena’s mane was now completely ridiculous in its puffed up nature, and Twilight couldn’t recall her ever smiling before, but she was smiling now!
There was an orange pony that... Twilight had never seen before in her life, a violet haired, white unicorn... that Twilight had vaguely interacted with, then decided her dresses were too overpriced, and finally... a butter yellow, pink maned, pegasus, that Twilight had never seen before, but she had been warned about before. And they were all wearing the Elements of Harmony! Why were they wearing the Elements of Harmony?!
“Ha, we did it!” the rainbow mare uttered, pumping her hoof as Discord’s statue thudded to the ground.
“He looks so silly, on his side!” the pink one crowed, laying on her own side, giggling bubbly and then rolling to kick her legs in the air, just like... no.
“Ah reckon we finally got him,” the orange one said, crossing her hooves and smiling jauntily just like oh no no no.
Twilight was starting to remember what she had done.
“I’m so glad everything’s back to normal,” the butter yellow pegasus said quietly, descending to the ground, turning into her mane in a very familiar way. “I was really worried, for a minute there.”
“You know what this calls for?!” the pink one said loudly, with an earsplitting grin on her face. Twilight didn’t know that pony, but she knew that grin. “A party!” the pink one concluded to herself. Of course.
“I’ll have to get cake and streamers and all sorts of ribbons and glittery things, and Rarity you love glitter ribbon right? We wanna show everypony that the day is saved!”
“Yes, I am partial to glitter, and ribbon, and sometimes their combination,” the white mare... Rarity? Rarity drawled, in that pseudo-ironic, wry manner that lent so well to the selling of c-c-chocolate bon-bons, “But you are the expert on parties, am I right?”
“You are so right, Rarity!” the pink one said enthusiastically.
Some of the other ponies in town, besides the ones who stood with Twilight, were starting to climb out from behind wherever they were hiding, now approaching the six of them. Twilight and her... and these ponies were found standing there by an awe inspired populace, beside the statue of Discord in the center of town, each of the 5 with an Element around her neck, and for Twilight Sparkle, a tiara. As Twilight observed this, her mind working desperately to make this better somehow, she became vaguely aware of the rainbow haired pony looking at her strangely.
“You okay, Twilight?” the rainbow pegasus said, hovering in front of the quietly panicking unicorn. “Aren’t you stoked? We just beat Discord’s butt!” Okay, that was new.
“I’m fine!” Twilight squeaked to... her. “Just a little frazzled, you know. We sure went through a lot of trouble to get him. I’m just a little stressed. I’ll be better before you know it.”
“Anything I can do to help?” the pegasus asked her. Asked her in that way. Twilight turned away in a panic. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t believe what she did! These mares, she... she had thought they were her friends! Discord tricked her, the whole time! Why didn’t this get dispelled, like every other one of his evil tricks? Because... because...
Because this was a magic trick, but not his magic trick. There was only one magic involved here that Twilight Sparkle could fathom, and that magic was her own.
“I have to write a letter,” Twilight said frankly, and maybe a bit too quickly, to the five of them.
The rainbow one nodded her head, saying, “Hey yeah, good idea! I bet the princess will want to hear about this.” Twilight grinned uneasily, then just left. She trotted off to her library hoping against hope that none of them would follow her. Not until she was inside, with the door closed and her back pressed against it, did Twilight feel like she could even breathe.
It was only then that Twilight realized she had forgotten to take the Elements back from... those ponies. Did it even matter at this point? Had those ponies used the elements? But her friends were supposed to... Twilight didn’t even know where her friends were right now. Where had they gone, when she gave up on them? All she knew is that somehow Twilight and these five complete strangers used the Elements of Harmony to defeat Discord, and not Twilight and her friends.
She traveled in a daze to her writing desk, and levitated out an empty scroll, an inkwell, and one pseudophoenix quill. Her eye twitched slightly as she tried to firm her resolve for what she was going to have to write. She put pen to paper.
Dear Princess Celestia—
“Woah, woah, hold on,” Rainbow Dash cut in, interrupting Twilight Sparkle’s exhaustively complete narrative. “Are you saying you did this to us?”
“I... I–I... I didn’t mean to,” Twilight whimpered, lowering to her belly on wobbly, weak knees. “I didn’t have any other choice, I was beguiled I...”
“Seems simple enough,” Applejack said gruffly, pushing up under Rainbow Dash to address the unicorn. “Just uncast your spell or whatever, and we cain be our old selves again.”
Rainbow Dash had a sinking feeling about that, as in she sank right to the ground. She looked at Applejack unbelievingly, saying, “Are you serious, mare? Did you even read what it said in my diary before that?”
Applejack blanched at that, saying, “Okay fine, change all of us, except Rainbow Dash.”
“And Rarity,” Rainbow said flatly.
“And Rarity,” Applejack nodded. She blinked then, and blushed, adding, “And... Fluttershy. But... but we gotta be ourselves! It just ain’t right to be living a lie!”
“It doesn’t matter anyway, because I can’t safely undo it,” Twilight said miserably. “What I did to you, was... it’s not just a simple spell on you. You’re not even enchanted right now. What I did was... I thought I was helping you, but what I did was...
“Unforgiveable...”
“Snap out of it!” a troubled Twilight Sparkle shouted, pushing Applejack down on her back. “This isn’t you! You’re not a liar!”
Applejack acted too surprised to protest. Clearly the confused mare was surprised because Twilight didn’t believe her. She thought that her boasting about taking on Discord solo was a story that was believed by anypony, anywhere, ever. In that moment of confusion, Twilight strained her magic to its limits, her horn glowing with a brilliant purple light as she tried to recall all of the wonderful memories she had made with [Applejack]. Ponyville’s first successful Winter Wrapup, making up for good times in the Running of the Leaves, saving Twilight from certain death by telling her what she needed to do. Let go.
Discord’s magic didn’t stand a chance against the power of Twilight’s friendship. Applejack’s eyes widened as her memories rushed back, and Twilight poured them right into her, pulling Applejack away from that dark path of confusion, and bringing her into the beautiful light of friendship. Twilight pushed the memory far back, of the visions of them feuding and fighting, and gave her friend something else to think about, something called hope.
“Twilight!” Applejack said, as soon as she had come back to herself enough to recognize the purple mare. “Ah had a vision of us feuding and fighting! Couldn’t face the truth, so... I started telling lies . Can you ever forgive me?”
With a triumphant grin, Twilight said, “I already have.”
“Ah remember that, Twilight, and it was the greatest thing you ever did for me,” Applejack said reverently. “Ah was so lost in that web of lies, and all because of that stupid vision, with those talking apples. You saved me from that. What’s that gotta do with mah family not trustin’ me?”
“Well, actually... I sort of... made that up,” Twilight said with an uncomfortable smile. “With the apples and the pond of truth? I didn’t really know what he did to deceive Golden Harvest at the time, so I just assumed it had something to do with her not wanting to tell us, about how badly we’re going to be fighting. I mean, really. Talking piles of apples? What was I thinking!”
Twilight shook her head, saying, “I wasn’t thinking. I was playing into Discord’s twisted claw the whole time. And then you helped me, because you were my friend. The one I’d lost, or so I thought. One by one, we held down our other friends, and forced them to see the truth, that our friendship over the years is stronger than anything Discord could throw at us. A-and you got better! You all were fighting together with me. I was back in the game. We were going to kick Discord’s scaly brown butt!”
Twilight perked up brightly and more excited as she talked, and... then she just wilted.
“He wasn’t even concerned,” she said softly. “He was toying with us. A-applejack did lie to him, even though she didn’t know it. She said he made her a liar, but he didn’t make her anything she wasn’t already. He knew we couldn’t possibly use the Elements of Harmony, because... because you weren’t even my friends.”
“We are your friends, though!” Rainbow Dash protested. “...aren’t we?”
“Yes. You are!” Twilight protested right back. “You’re all my friends now, and it’s all my fault! I am so sorry!”
“Twilight,” Rarity said with a nervous titter, “You can’t expect us to believe that. Nopony could do that with her magic. What you’re suggesting is nothing more than a tale used to scare foals.”
“An old mare’s tale, perhaps?” the cream colored earth pony said smoothly in response, eyeing Rarity judgementally.
“You have a point, miss Drops...” Rarity grumbled, “But still. Twilight wasn’t... oh... carving our souls with her magic.” She turned to Twilight saying hopefully, “You were just undoing Discord’s curse! The hex he put on each and every one of us!”
“Yeah, that was just some kind of dispel magic!” Pinkie Pie declared, hopping in front of Rarity to face Twilight. “Dashie would never fight against us, if she wasn’t really tricked by Discord to think we were all evil Mcevilersons! When we dragged Rainbow Dash out of the sky, and held her down with ropes,” Pinkie said enthusiastically as Twilight cringed more and more, “So that Twilight could touch her really bright horn directly to her forehead, it was clearly just snapping her out of it.”
“Excuse me Pinkie, but I was in the middle of saying something important,” Rarity huffed, jockeying the pink pony back away from Twilight. Rarity didn’t seem to have anything more she could say though, just remained quiet and gave the scared purple horse a sympathetic wince.
Rainbow herself lifted up an uneasy hoof to her chest, looking from Pinkie Pie to Twilight.
“You... tied me up?” Rainbow asked them cautiously. “I don’t remember that part.”
“You wouldn’t, because...” Twilight sighed, “It was somepony else who remembered that part. I restored your memories, but... but recent ones, I didn’t need to give you. I didn’t think you needed them. I was getting better at the s-spell as I went on. It was the hardest spell I ever had to cast, and I was doing it...”
She turned over her shoulder, looking at a very sad, guilty looking pegasus, whose golden eyes didn’t go the same way. “For you...” Twilight said to Derpy, solemnly.
Pinkie Pie stuck her hoof over her head.
“Ooh! Ooh! Question! I have a question!” she squealed, waving her hoof in the air. Rarity facehooved, grumbling something about herself and giving up, and staggered off to sag down to a sitting position apart from the pink pony.
“Nopony’s talking,” Twilight said, waving vaguely at Pinkie Pie. “You can just ask, you know.”
“If we were all big dumb blue meanies,” Pinkie asked, with a look of childlike curiosity on her face, “Then why didn’t Discord’s magic make us act like goody four-shoes?”
“Pinkie’s right!” Rarity exclaimed, shooting up to a standing position in shock. “Discord’s beguilement made everypony act like somepony they were not!” she said hurrying up to Twilight, “But I remember being subject to that! Vaguely. What you describe seems to fit my beguilement to a T. I don’t care how stingy you think I am, I refuse to believe I was the sort of mare who would mistake a rock for a diamond!”
“You weren’t Discorded,” Twilight mumbled, cringing back until a confused Rarity retreated her head out of the librarian’s personal space.
“I’m sorry, what?” Rarity gaped incredulously.
“You weren’t Discorded!” Twilight repeated, leaning towards Rarity earnestly. “Tom wasn’t a diamond. He was a giant chocolate truffle!”
The candy seller too shrank to her belly at that, snout scrunching as she grumbled under her breath, “I thought we weren’t going to mention that again.”
“I—I just made you think you were Discorded,” Twilight said waving a hoof to show off the other 5, while she looked anxiously at the main ones. “I didn’t make you think you were friends with me. I made you think you were my friends, literally!
“Each of my friends, I used a variation of the come-to-life spell to animate—er—re-animate your brains to think like them instead.” Twilight said, walking from friend to friend as she did. “It was like a puppeteer and her five marionettes, five versions of herself all acting like her ideal image of her friends. Every one of my friends were Discorded, and I... projected my memory of that onto you. Like Lyra here for instance...”
“I thought nopony ever took me seriously,” the mint green unicorn said with a nervous grin. “And I ended up getting mad at anyone who laughed at me... and then at anyone who laughed at all.”
“You and me both, sister!” Pinkie said in tacit agreement, while the unicorn gave her an odd look.
“Discord told me I was too much of a pushover to stop him,” Flitter said, in jaded submission.
“Oh, that’s terrible!” Fluttershy said sympathetically. But as Fluttershy came forward, Flitter jumped back, fluttering into the air in a fright. The blue haired pegasus deliberately descended to the ground then, looking at Fluttershy evenly, but it was too late.
Fluttershy cast her head down, saying sadly, “At least he had to trick you. With me, he didn’t have to do anything at all...”
“It’s okay, ...Fluttershy,” Flitter said, with a tormented smile at the pegasus. “You were as much a ...victim as the rest of us.”
“That’s very kind of you to say,” Fluttershy murmured, looking evenly at Flitter again. “Were you Kindness, then?”
“Ostensibly... yes,” Flitter said, casting her head down and sighing.
“It explains why we act so similar,” Fluttershy speculated.
Flitter looked up at Fluttershy thoughtfully. They stared into each other’s eyes. Then Flitter said in surprise, “You are Kindness now?”
“Yes, though I don’t deserve it,” Fluttershy said, blushing and looking aside.
“You,” Flitter said, “Fluttershy. You’re Kindness?”
“Yes?” Fluttershy said, looking up at her questioningly. Flitter didn’t turn away this time, and just stared right back.
“And my friends were going to betray everypony!” Derpy cried, with a tormented look in her mixed up eyes. “I thought I had to choose...”
“Sometimes loyalty—” Twilight started to say to her.
“—means that when your friends are messing up, that’s when they need your help the most,” Derpy finished for her, turning her nose down sadly as she landed beside the unicorn.
“Wait, wait, wait!” Dash said, fluttering up to the two of them and saying with open mouthed astonishment, “You mean to tell me that Derpy’s the Element of Loyalty? You made me Derpy? ”
She landed and stared at the odd pegasus, who stared right back... sort of. They tilted their heads at each other for a moment, scoping each other out. “She’s nothing like me!” Dash exclaimed exasperatedly, turning to Twilight and waving a hoof at Derpy. “Derpy gets into all sorts of crashes, and I—wait.”
“I take these wicked cloud naps that, wait no, lots of pegasi do that...”
“I... fly... fast?” Dash squeaked out desperately.
“I would fly fast too,” Derpy replied pouting, “If my eyes weren’t so screwy.” She added in a more pleased tone, “But I’m not jealous. It’s like seeing me, as a potential Wonderbolt!”
“Oh, you like the Wonderbolts, huh?” Dash said in cautious respect.
“Yeah, I’m like their biggest fan,” Derpy said with a giddy giggle. “I hope I can meet them again, and maybe even get an autograph this time!”
“When did you meet with them?” Rainbow asked curiously.
“Well, it was last year at the Gala,” Derpy said, tapping her chin, “And it was going really good, except they were too busy to talk to me, and then I kind of um...”
“She ran into me, trying to get them to notice her,” the green pony spoke up in an amused tone of voice, “And bumped me right off the stage. That sort of started a thing going, which...”
“...knocked down the entire Gala,” Derpy finished regretfully.
“But... but that’s when I met the Wonderbolts...” Rainbow Dash said miserably.
“I’m sorry Rainbow Dash, but I don’t think you have,” Derpy said sympathetically. “You’re always saying they’ll recognize your greatness and recruit you, but I don’t think you ever tried to talk to them... or apply.”
Dash was just... speechless at that.
“Discord didn’t curse you,” Golden Harvest announced to the main 5, drawing their attention to the orange carrot farmer. “He didn’t curse any of you. Well, he might have, but only to turn your color grey. All he was going after was fooling Twilight, since the rest of us Elements had already given up, and were off doing... crazy things.”
“But if he didn’t curse us, then how did we get so... discordant?” Rarity asked. “We just happened to be that way? That seems unlikely.”
“It’s more likely, if you consider that he picked you out!” Twilight said confidently. “He was trying to ruin the Elements, by finding the scummiest of scum, no offense, and tricking me into thinking they’re my friends. You were all the worst he could find, and when I confronted him he could just laugh as the Elements failed again, and again. B-but instead, I mean... you saw his statue. I don’t think he was expecting that. Instead, what I believe happened is that...”
With a ridiculously lavish and floppy hat on, Discord bent over his writing desk, pondering as he scratched out a lovely letter on parchment. Yes, parchment. Don’t worry, it wasn’t anyone you knew. “Real friends...” he muttered, “Don’t care what your cover is. Ha ha yes, good luck figuring that one out. I’ll throw in another about how wondrous and powerful friendship is. There we go.
He then delicately patted his chest, and gave an enormous belch of some stolen green flames. A letter from the sun princess emerged from his devilish diversion, that sent her messages straight to himself before they reached their intended destination. He opened it, and read through it, taking note of the contents, but certainly not the names of ponies within. “And who shall I write about this time?” he pondered, “Hmm...”
Drifting around town, Discord found some ponies enjoying his gifts, some ponies fearing them, and some ponies just not giving a care in the world no matter what he did to amaze them. And of that latter group, he found the rottenest, most no-good lying cheater in the entire town, currently dead drunk and passed out at the poker table. It was splendid. Discord hadn’t even known ponies were advanced enough to waste their lives away playing that silly little card game he invented, and imagining that they could be actually skilled at it.
This pony was a piece of work. A struggling mare, with a filly to worry about, a filly that was family to the mare, but she could only pretend the filly was her own. Ponies treated her with sympathy because of this, and gave her support. Yet even with the help of everypony in town, this mare still managed to ‘lose’ her cider supply every spring, and sell it for double price to ponies who thought they were sneaking it out from under her nose. A brilliant scheme, really.
And then she went and gambled her profits away, with her family none the wiser, and not one bit less hungry for the effort. A pony who would work so hard, cheat and steal from so many other ponies, and then throw it away, just so she could pretend that she needed her family to support her financially was absolutely despicable. It made Discord feel ill, just worming his way through her unrepentant rememberances.
She was perfect.
“My friend...” he later said, with a flourish of his super floppy quill ink pen, “Applejack , is the best friend a pony could ever have...”
Five perfect mares later, and Discord’s freedom was finally secured. That adorable little librarian, she ate up every sappy, syrupy word he rewrote to her. As her color brightened, she threw off the yoke of his depressingly boring beguilement. It didn’t even matter whether his magic had hold of her, at this point! This mare had such beautifully manipulable tunnel vision, that once she became convinced of something, there was simply no reasoning with her anymore!
There on his throne, Discord rolled his eyes and adopted a bored, resentful act when the librarian returned, with her five new friends in tow.
It was such a perfect plan, that nothing could possibly go wrong!
... yikes. That's pretty much all I can say. Discord's plan worked, but it didn't count on how... desperate Twilight would be to try and fix it.
Nice Canon about Derpy's skills though.
Dang, I was so close. I thought the Elements of Harmony had turned the ponies they were placed on into actual bearers, that's why their hoofwriting matched. This fits a bit better, though, and it's very clever.
7291928
As I don't really care about it, probably no.
No problem! Responding to the comments is one of the best ways I can improve as a writer! I shouldn't let it take so much time away from my
computer programmingstory writing, though.7293563
I find it funny how people jump to blaming Discord for everything, but where he truly shines as a villain is when evil things happen despite his intentions.
7293597
Well, no. The Elements did not alter all of them to have the same handwriting. That was all Twilight. I struggled with how to write this in the story, but Twilight basically figured out over the week that her spell magically made 5 semi-autonomous copies of herself, each acting like one of her friends. So, that's why they all have the same handwriting.
To make her feeleven more guilty Because they were all conditioned by the same pony.7293635 I know that now, the Elements was my main working theory going into this chapter. Everyone else thought Discord was responsible.
Wow, that's . . . complicated even for Discord. A nice twist.
Well, this is going to have consequences for Twilight. Not because she at least semi-permanently mind-controlled a bunch of ponies, that's excusable as Discord's influence.
The problem is that she semi-permanently mind-controlled a bunch of ponies and it worked. She took a group of assholes and turned them into valid Element bearers, who now are disgusted by their previous actions and have new friendships that they wouldn't want to lose, meaning that they won't want to be turned back. Equestria's defenses have just gained a bit of redundancy and ponykind has become a bit nicer and more productive, at no real social or financial cost. And there's no apparent reason it wouldn't be repeatable, the spell could probably be used to churn out dozens of sets of bearers, including copies of Twilight as well.
That needs to be stamped out hard. Mindrape can't be allowed to become a good thing.
Ow... My head.... Ow... Ow... Ow... this twists my head around in ways I never thought it could. I think you broke my brain trying to fully understand this new reality.
7293733
Sorry if it's too outlandish. This story is just a silly idea I had when watching the episode, really.
7293772
7293819
So... that's a good thing... right? You're reading a story, whose chapter has flashbacks to the defeat of Discord, the lord of Chaos, while Twilight tries to explain what's going on, to some ponies she's scared of. If that wasn't clear.
Also Rainbow Dash is a Derpy recolor.
7293807
Oh come on, what's so bad about a little mind rape between friends? After all, you can't have a nightmare, if you never dream.
I like the story but the whole number thing just keeps getting more and more distracting. I had to stop reading midway through the chapter and go look up a number chart to find out how many 22 was supposed to be.
7293635
Well, that certainly worked out a lot different than I expected. Makes me think that it really needs more than one additional chapter to be resolved, though. On the plus side, the Dark tag is really deserved on this story. Twilight screwed up and then tried to hide away from it. What a surprise.
This is one of those situations where I wish this site came with an eye-rolling emote. I've been following the debate you've been having with people about this for a while now, and honestly: don't you think this is kind of a petty and childish thing to dig in your heels and go "internet-diva-can-do-no-wrong" about? People find it confusing. It serves no real purpose to the story. You had a clever idea that could have been neat, but it didn't work out and only pulls people out of the story now. Just give it up and change it already.
...or at least put a bloody preface to it explaining what's going on, because honestly, this debate is getting obnoxious, on both sides of it.
I have to admit that I'm a bit lost on this story too. So the Mane 5 we know did NOT help Twilight on Nightmare Night?
I see what you did there.
7293925
You know what would make an interesting spiritual companion piece to this story, provided there aren't anymore huge twists?
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/238566/there-is-no-luna
Interesting in that story, the solution was keep the secret at all costs, but if something happens, somepony has to know she wasn't genuine.
Curious what the solution here will be, especially since Twilight already spoiled the secret.
I love the idea of Rainbow Dash being a recolored, stronger Derpy, and not surprisingly, so does Derpy. Seems a common trend with her.
derpicdn.net/img/2014/2/7/545323/medium.jpg
View on Derpibooru - Original source
This base 4 garbage is unnecessary and detracts from the story.
There is literally no reason for you to do this. This isn't some HiE where some sap is being bamboozled by the alien ponies. And don't you fucking dare say that Discord's chaos magic is behind it in the story, it's not mysterious or "discordian", its just plain irritating to see 6 written as 12.
Knock it off.
7293936
I thought I could get away with that one, because 22 is obviously twice 11.
7293953
It's times like this that I wish this site came with a scrunchy face emote. I did put a thing in the author's note explaining what I'm doing. And I did change it. ...I should put the author's note at the top in the first chapter, I guess.
Just because I don't care what number words I use, doesn't mean I don't care about readers having a hard time with it. All I'm saying is I wouldn't expect me to make a special effort to do so in literally everything I write. If it bothers you, let me know and... i guess I can change it.
Anyway, there's 1 more chapter, and then an epilogue. It seemed to wrap up pretty succinctly to me in that amount of time. As for the Dark tag, I dunno... everything I write has a certain darkness to it. There are sad things in this story, but it's nothing more severe than something you'd face in your normal life. I was more going for the surreally bizarre angle, and didn't really feel a need to go into detail about the dark stuff. Heck, I even switched scenes right before Fluttershy got herself mauled by an adorable kitten.
So, there are some pretty heavy implications, but it's not like in Feeding Problems where I go straight into the no-holds-barred traumatizing horror. Honestly the darkest moment in this story is when Scootaloo shows Dash the stolen bits, and I think that's more dramatic than dark. They solved the problem by hugging! And uh, ditching the evidence.
Compare that to the annihilation of an entire people, with a helpless bystander watching the few survivors fleeing to what they were sure would be certain death, because it was preferable to what was behind them. That's what I call Dark.
7293968
Yes, the "main" 5 were off doing their own thing, while the other 5 befriended her and recovered the Elements of Harmony. I suspect Rainbow Dash spent most of it napping, because, well, eternal night and all.
Rarity and Applejack went on a looting spree?
Fluttershy stole a bunch of iron cages from a pet store?
We may never know what really happened for those 5 ponies on that Summer Sun Celebration, because everything back to when Twilight first came to Ponyville was pretty liberally edited.
7293988
Pinkie Pie does not come with an off switch!
7294030
That's a beautiful story. I totally support Luna 2.0, even though in the show Twilight was surprised to learn that Celestia was her sister after-the-fact. Because apparantly Twilight assumed it was someone else's sister who took over the raising of the sun, moon and stars, and Celestia being the sister in question was a huge surprise.
The only thing I don't like about that story is Celestia should not have told Twilight. Who are the only ponies who could "restore" Luna if she ever fell to darkness again? And now their powers won't work, because Twilight believes Luna is a fake persona? Should have been an OC or a background pony that Celestia told, some other group to reveal the knowledge should the EoH/Rainbow Power fail. Say for instance a super-secret anti-monster agency in Canterlot.
And I love John Joseco's Derpy.
There's something that's been bugging me about this story, and I think I've nailed it down. It's not really a problem of execution, but of design. Messing with a reader's assumptions is a powerful, dangerous tool, and it kind of feels like you aren't treating it with the respect it deserves.
You're asking the reader to look at the world you're describing and try to predict what's happening with it that's wrong, and that's fine. The problem is that there turns out to be multiple simultaneous things wrong, and they aren't even the same class of wrongness. You have the fact that the protagonists see themselves differently than other people see them, but in a way that's consistent with how the readers expect them to be. At the same time, you have the fact that they aren't actually the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, which is inconsistent with what the readers expect. You're basically asking them to reject the story's characterizations as inaccurate, while still accepting the story's narration as accurate. This is probably a bit much to ask of readers, and leads to the universe feeling more alternate than they would feel comfortable with, especially since they were trying to solve a mystery that they might have thought was a single step away from canon, not two.
The fact that you're already changing the "normal" universe with the math thing doesn't help either. Readers aren't discovering that what they thought was the normal universe is in fact an alternate one, they're discovering that what they thought was an alternate universe was in fact an entirely different alternate universe. Readers are already juggling one thing that's different than they expect, so throwing more things at them to juggle is kind of excessive.
7294252
He's busy cooking up a wicked batch of nachos.
7294178
I think the story would be completely impotent with OCs. How are readers going to feel anything at all when they find that StarBlaze133 is actually BlackeyeBill997? The archetypes that the main 6 embody are important, so that we can understand just how severely someone could have gotten changed.
I agree that "you don't HAVE to be flawless" to wield the Elements. In this story apparantly, you don't even have to be of sound mind! Or less snarkily, in this story some very ordinary seeming ponies ended up being the Bearers (originally), while the bold, outstanding ones were actually huge jerks.
7294219
No, I think I'm gonna stick with base 3+1. It just doesn't make sense to me why they'd use base 9+1. Unless Discord's chaos magic made them use base 9+1? Even he only has 4 fingers on each paw!
7294223
Yeah, definitely putting the author's note at the top of the chapter. Sorry I should have done that in the first place.
7294226
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoy it! And it's nice that you picked up on what I was implying happened. Any suggestions to improve the execution of my writing that don't have anything to do with numbering systems are welcome. There's only so much an author can improve though, when you're already pretty loopy in the head.
7294240
I reserve the alternate universe tag for when there is an actual alternate universe in the story. Like Bloom Filter. In my opinion, every story is an alternate universe, except the ones that do absolutely nothing other than summarize the plot. (Even then, the plot is often open for interpretation.) But it would be silly to tag every single story on fimfiction.net as Alternate Universe, so I save it for when I'm doing multiversal shenanigans.
Oh I get it, you were quoting me quoting Rarity.
I think I liked the twist in an old science fiction novel I can't remember the name of anymore better. Where as an experiment, they placed different memories from other people in the minds of volunteers, and they were all miserably and upset at making so many "wrong decisions" in their lives.
7294264
I agree. This story deserves an alternate universe tag.
Well, these girls are gonna to be on suicide watch for a while. And this entire thing has destroyed their sense of reality. They're going to spend the rest of their days never sure what's themselves, what's wrong, and what is, and NEVER EVER able to fully trust what is and what is not.
7294246
Personally, it doesn't really bother me. The first instance took me kind of by surprise, but after figuring it out I've just been kind of ignoring the whole thing. Well, except for the part where you keep up making new numbers. I don't think "oneun" is a word.
You do seem to really be a bit more stubborn about the whole thing than it really warrants, though.
That's an interesting distinction, because personally, this is the kind of thing I wouldn't call a "dark" story at all. I mean, obviously it's a bleak kind of situation, but in the end, that's just a pretty traditional action scene. A "dark" story is more personal, to my feeling. Betrayal, loss, abuse, exploitation, that's the kind of thing that makes for a dark story to me. Something that crosses lines on a personal and interpersonal level, is invasive. Twilight messed with their minds, stole their whole identity from them, and then tried to hide it to cover her own ass. That's dark.
7294246
For a math person like me, it's obvious. For most readers... I'd still recommend writing 22 as eight-and-two. (Or twice-four-and-two, if you prefer). This keeps the base-four number system, while being easily comprehensible to the reader.
Hmmm... twice- and thrice-... how's this for a number system:
One, two, three, four, four-and-one, four-and-two, four-and-three, twice-four, twice-four-and-one, twice-four-and-two, twice-four-and-three, thrice-four, thrice-four-and-one, thrice-four-and-two, thrice-four-and-three, sixteen, sixteen-and-one...
Still base four, absolutely no confusion with base-ten numbers, and it's very easy for the reader to convert back into base-ten?
--------------
Incidentally, numbers aside, I really like the idea behind his story. And now we know how the reforming spells work...
Neat.
7294308
Isn't that basically just a renamed version of hexadecimal?
7294264
I wish there was like... an "unexpectedness" tag or "bizarriness" or something. My work isn't exactly "not salmon" but it sure does divert from people's expectations. I think you're under a misimpression though, because I actually want people to go into this story with expectations of who the main 6 are, and how they act normally, and the whole point of the story is making the reader question their underlying assumptions. Believe it or not, some people find that sort of questioning to be refreshing.
As for the numbers, I know I'm receiving a lot of flak for them, but someone has to receive that flak, otherwise nobody else will ever be able to use different number bases in their stories, since they don't want to be the first one to cross the firing line. Frankly I think I've done more than enough to make it approachable, and anything further concessions would only cater to people who think it shouldn't be allowed, not anyone who doesn't understand it.
7294283
What, no fond memories?
7294297
Oh please, they aren't even close to having an existential crisis. For most people, Rainbow Dash included, when bad stuff happens, you take it in stride, and don't go denying your very existence just because you're not sure of yourself. Well... okay, I grant that Twilight Sparkle is having an existential crisis. But the rest of them are just trying to figure out what's going on.
7294302
And if I phrased it that way in the story, I would use the Dark tag. But I'm not going to say "Twilight messed with their minds, stole their whole identity from them, and then tried to hide it to cover her own ass," since that's not what the story's really about. Not dark.
7294331
The worst thing is that two of the characters in my story are lavender! How am I supposed to describe that one lavender pony, without completely confusing which lavender pony it is?!
I honestly don't think my writing could use much of a tuneup. Oh sure, my writing is hopelessly riddled with errors and confused scrambling about trying and failing to describe a scene coherently. I just think that I'm beyond help. I don't suffer lavender unicorn syndrome because I don't know that it's bad for my writing. I just can't wrap my head around my own scene. I have to describe the people who are talking somehow. But when I try to step back and give a decent description, I just lose track of the story in my head.
So in short, I don't think there's anything you can teach me that'll fix the problems. It's errors in my attempts to think at all, rather than errors in what I know. Sad thing is, writing stories is my greatest skill by a large margin.
But hey, what do I know? Maybe you can teach me how to write vivid imagery people can really get into, without me pausing to remark on how that one pony there sure is purple.
7294344
You're welcome.
7294377
...I'm pretty sure the story was dark tagged just a little while ago. Are you messing with me or is my memory crap?
That's not what an existential crisis means.
7294377
What's fond for one person isn't fond for another. What makes one person proud would make another person ashamed. Another movie that shall go unnamed had a man given the memories of a serial killer, but he realized his memories were fake when he couldn't go through with killing someone.
...Oh. Now this is an interesting development!
...I don't know what's going on. :D
"usurping his well earned reign"
"well-earned"?
And apparently the New Rainbow Dash was so ineffectual that Discord didn't even notice him... or Spike didn't do that in this universe.
"of threat to Discord master of Chaos"
"Discord, Master of Chaos"?
"Spike said alarmed"
"said, alarmed"?
"boy, no you’re just her"
"boy, no, you're"?
"Well, no they think I’m"
"Well, no, they"?
"mare trudging in, and immediately snapping"
"in and"?
"self important Element"
"self-important"?
"of the ponies, and the elements all"
"ponies and"?
"the safety our whole world"
"of our"?
"through her library, and making"
"library and"?
"laying on her own side"
"lying"?
"to the ground, and turning"
"ground and"?
So, it looks like my most recent hypothesis (though I don't recall how much of it was original to me) was pretty much correct. :)
"did Twilight felt like she could"
"feel"?
"Pie declared hopping in front of"
"declared, hopping"?
"squealed waving her hoof"
"squealed, waving"?
"and staggering off to sag down"
"staggered"?
"said waving a hoof to show off the other 11, as she looked"
"said, waving a hoof to show off the other 11 as she looked"?
"The blue haired pegasus"
"blue-haired"?
"Dash said fluttering up to the two of"
"said, fluttering"?
"with open astonishment. “You mean"
"astonishment, ""?
"Don’t worry it wasn’t anyone"
"worry, it"?
"emerged, from his devilish diversion, that"
"emerged from his devilish diversion that"?
"enough, to waste their lives away playing that card game he invented, and"
"enough to waste their lives away playing that card game he invented and"?
"rolled his eyes, and adopted"
"eyes and"?
...Okay, now you'd think a god of chaos would know better than to say those words. :D
7293635
Oh, I'm glad I decided to read the comments; ironically, given the subject matter, FIMFiction didn't notify me of this one, and I might have missed it otherwise.
Sorry the comments.
"As I don't really care about it, probably no."
Ah, thanks for the information.
Good luck with the time management. :)
7294219
I see no reason for such rudeness here.
7294264
Hm. I actually rather like the things you list as negatives there, but I am aware that I have some relatively esoteric tastes; perhaps this is one of them.
The base 3+1 thing, just so you know, isn't limited to this story; it's something in ferret's work more broadly.
7294268
re the Alternate Universe tag:
Hm. I get your reasoning there, but I'm not sure how well it fits the situation. I think it comes down to what the tag means, and you seem to have a different view on that than many others. I personally don't consider it that much of a problem, beyond some unease for mislabelling (I agree every story is basically an alternate universe, but I think that the intended and commonly understood meaning of the tag has it marking a particular degree of divergence from show canon. Though, also, I can see where that would be problematic for works close to the line that might be placed by some people on one side and others on the other.), but I can see where stronger objections to it might be coming from.
Well, this is certainly a dark take on canon. So Twilight kind of mind raped the worst ponies in town into versions of her friends? I would call that the craziest thing in this fic except for how apparently the Elements still worked for them, even with a forced personality/memory change.
This takes the "You're the new Rainbow Dash" line from the Discord two-parter to a whole new level though. Just caught up on all the chapters, glad to have an answer, now they have to figure out what to do next. That and for Twilight to deal with the moral implications. They probably don't want to go back to how they were (not that Twilight can remold them back, since it'd require more intrusion and she didn't know them that well), though considering their current brainwashed state, their opinion might not count as much.
7294370
Nope. It's still base four. Hexadecimal would be base sixteen.
(One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, aye, bee, cee, dee, ee, eff, gee, gee-and-one, gee-and-two, gee-and-three...)
7294377
Random?
...oh, and I don't think I said thank you for using oneun in place of eleven yet. Thank you. It really does make your story a lot easier to follow.
7294479
The roll-over point seems to be with sixteen as a discrete numeral, which makes it look like hexadecimal to to my perception, but I suppose it's a matter of how you write it.
7294493
Rollover point's at four. Hence four-and-one, four-and-two, and so on.
Sixteen is the base-four version of 100.
7294512
It's the way it matches up that I mean. Four sets of four, starting again at sixteen. If you treat twice-four-and-one as a distinct numeral instead of a multiple and a sum, you've basically got hex again at the end of that. Eh, nevermind, it's not that important.
7294518
Oh, yeah. That's because sixteen is a power of four. Any base-four number will always map two digits to one to the equivalent base-sixteen number.
7294308
Haha, I can't believe someone downvoted you. I guess they really don't like to consider math.
7293925 Nah, it's perfect especially because I personally didn't see it coming.
7294609
Or they don't like that we now know how reforming spells work, perhaps?
7294246 Well, that's true.
And I caught that reference because I went to see Yellow Submarine (bit of trivia: it was the Beatles' ONLY animated movie, and a ripping good one it is, still to this day!) in our local movie theater when I was a kid back in the 60s.
7294377 Lavender Unicorn Syndrome is actually the reverse of the problem you're describing. It's unnecessarily descriptive. You can just as easily simply say "Twilight". The concern here is one of necessity. Is the fact that they're lavender important to the scene in question? No? Then don't describe it. We already know they're lavender, so hearing it every ten seconds is distracting when her coat color isn't immediately relevant to the scene in question.
Necessity is also the same concern with the Base Four decision. Is it really that important for you to use Base Four? What does it contribute to your story? How does it make it better? I'm sure you have a valid reason for it, but you have to justify the value proposition of whatever you're gaining from this decision against the things you're losing in the process (readability, accessibility, and relatability).
But again, if you're just doing it because it's fun and you feel like it, I can't really stop you.
Your prose and narration is fine. It's functional, clean, and efficient. You move from story beat to story beat with a good clip that keeps readers on edge without making them feel antsy or impatient. Most other authors (like myself) have a tendency to be overly verbose, and the leanness of your work is actually a refreshing change of pace, like a breath of fresh air. You're not as bad as you say you are.
You're only "beyond help" if you tell yourself that you are. That doesn't describe an inability to improve; it merely describes an unwillingness to do so. Every human has the power to be better tomorrow than they were yesterday. Everyone has the ability to improve. It just takes practice, perspective, and a desire to be awesome. If you're having trouble getting better, try breaking out of your comfort zone. Find your favorite stories, your favorite authors, and analyze their work. Figure out what it is you like so much about them, then try to adapt that into your own work. Actively seek criticism. Filter out what criticism is valuable and what isn't, then figure out how to use that to enhance your stories.
And if you recognize that your work is littered with minor errors, maybe it'd be worth it to bring an editor on board. Your work is good enough to merit the attention of more than a few people who might be interested.
7294854
I understand why he might use base four given ponies and their hooves (this is why I assume all ponies cartoons happen in the same verse, and MLPTs was the result of ponies purposely imitating humans and all future generations continued this though they've long forgotten what a human even is).
7295020 No, I get why ponies would use base four. I just don't see the worth for authors to do the same in their stories. It creates an obstacle that your audience has to overcome in order to enjoy your story.
But I guess the value of a decision like that is dependent on the priorities of the author. Are they trying to make the story realistic? Probably. They're doing so at the expense of potential audience engagement, but if engagement levels aren't a priority for the author, then it's probably not a hard sacrifice to make.
Which I can find respectable, in its own way. The author is exercising their creative liberty, and they aren't letting their audience hold them back from doing what they want to do. They're writing for their own sake. I respect that a lot, even if in this particular scenario I don't necessarily agree with it.
Meh. I'm rambling. Basically: author, you do you. As long as you're aware of the consequences of what you're doing and are perfectly okay with those consequences, don't let anyone (myself included) tell you you're wrong for doing it.
7294308 Oh, I like that. It's much easier to understand what number is meant. Thrice-four-and-one = 3x4+1 = 13. That's simple and easy.
I understand the logic of ponies using a base four system (four hooves instead of ten fingers), but it's just been distracting and confusing me so far. Using this way of naming the numbers seems like a good method to incorporate the author's idea without losing clarity.
7294379
No, your memory is fine. You convinced me that it didn't deserve the Dark tag. I thought it would be darker when I started the thing.
And I guess it is an existential crisis then? I thought that's what existential crisis meant.
7294387
And nothing that would make one person feel ashamed ever made another person feel proud? That sounds pretty one-sided.
7294405
Yeah I thought about "New Rainbow Dash" but I didn't think it was too much of a stretch to think that he didn't notice Spike there at all. If he had, why didn't he crack any jokes about it?
Thanks for corrections! I'll take note of them.
Well, to my memory, only Alex Warlorn has hypothesized on how the 5 are going to react to the news. I wasn't really trying to make it a big secret what happened to them, though.
The only thing greater than Discord's powers is the size of his ego. He's actually a very naive character. But yes, Discord so screeeeewed
I would adopt their definition of it, if they had one. But the meaning that many others seem to understand without any trouble is actually very poorly defined. A story doesn't get the Alternate Universe tag when it's an alternate universe to the canon show, except when it's ...alternatey enough? And to find out whether it is, you eyeball the comments and count how many readers complain, throw it all in a rock tumbler, and the answer pops out? But it can also be too alternateyish, not resembling the show "enough" to be considered by some unspecified judge to be an AU, in which case you don't give it the tag?
This is just a story. If I crossed it over with the show, or some other story, or timeline, or universe, then it'd get an alternate universe tag. But since it's self contained, I don't think it matters whether there's another story somewhere that doesn't exactly conform with this one, even if that other story is a television cartoon.
7294450
Oh my god, you won't believe me but I swear it's true I never made that connection until just now.
There's a little bit about why the Elements worked in the epilogue. There is actually a method to my madness, I'm fairly sure.
7294483
Glad to hear it! And unexpected does not mean random. I'd be insulted to think that I just randomly decided to do all these strange things, without any reason behind it.
7294308
That's fine as a numbering system, I guess. I find it confusing, but you're free to use it however you want. My favorite numbering systems are just sequences of numerals, not having to remember where to put -and- in there and having numbers be semi-complicated equations. Roman Numerals are pretty, but not very useful for accounting purposes.
7294642
'k thanks
7294702
I suppose "ripping good" and "high as a kite" aren't mutually exclusive states...
7294854
Well, none of the words in this story are necessary. It's completely optional to read, after all. But I know what you're getting at. I just don't think that you have to sacrifice vivid and full descriptions, to keep people from getting turned away by your "lavender unicorns." The trick is not to avoid describing things that don't need describing, but to make up reasons for describing them. Twilight's shock at seeing five complete strangers was a great excuse to describe ponies we already know, because it shows how her mind works, and how it picks up the details of unfamiliar ponies. My problem is that I'm just not good at coming up with reasons, and if I don't constantly struggle to think correctly while writing, my story just lapses into a scene of nothing but floating heads talking at each other.
Yeah, I am admittedly pretty poetic. I just pack so much meaning into every phrase, it's kind of silly sometimes. I'm glad you enjoy my er... relatively concise work, though considering I'm working on chapter 42 of Bloom Filter I'm not sure I can claim to be a writer of lean prose.
Didn't mean to imply that I was a bad writer at all. I'm a pretty good one actually, just that I've hit some hard limits that I can't seem to get past.
I envy your conviction, but it's not as simple as you portray. Every human also has the power to be worse tomorrow, and to disimprove. When I say I'm beyond help, it's because my very real and undeniable improvement is only a tenuous thing, that fades in and out rather than sticking with me on a permanent basis. You can claim everyone has the ability to improve, but even the fastest track and field runner can break the record one day, and then run slower the next, because personal improvement just isn't as set in stone as you might like it to be, and when you're pushing yourself to the limit, you have to accept that there are just some things you aren't going to be able to do.
I guess what I'm saying is I can still improve... somewhat, and I might get past this plateau I'm on, but I'm not perfect, and there are always going to be a lot of silly errors in what I do. In particular, I have this pathological problem with commas.
I'm certainly open to an editor, though nobody's ever asked. I am hesitant however, because what if other people besides them want to help with editing? It would be nice if you could mark chapters here as finished, not just published, so that people would know yours are still in the editing process. (And is the editing process really ever finished?) People can go to my website and see the chapters I'm working on, but telling me what they think of them is not as easy to manage, since I don't wanna get spammed. (They could always message me here, though.)
7295020
Actually, it's my head-canon that Friendship is Magic is a prequel to G1. It makes much more sense that way.
7295177
Where you and I differ I think, is that I don't see it as much of an obstacle. Just a bump in the road, a silly little quirk. I'm not making readers go through advanced calculus after all. So even if my reasons are shaky and not very strong, it's such a minor inconvenience that I think people can deal with it, especially if I'm consistent about it.
7295381
I'm sorry, I just can't see a numbering system where you have to do multiplication in your head in order to find out which number it is as less confusing than just saying the digits, and sticking with 4 numerals.
Do you really think it's simpler to say "Twilight Sparkle faced three-times-three-plus-one ponies?"
7295573
Alright, point taken, but it's the closest tag we've got.
...huh. It's just bog-standard base four, written slightly differently. -and- goes between digits. (So 22, for example, would be twice-four-and-two, with twice-four being the first digit and two being the second digit).
7295573 Indeed.
7295648
I understand that you like your idea, but it seems a bit arrogant to say that the idea you came up with just now is the standard.
7295573
Fair enough, then.
7295780
He basically borrowed that from French, anyway. Quatre-vingt-et-un is four-twenty-and-one, which is to say eighty-one. It's a legit way of counting, just an unnecessarily complicated one.
7294246
If it's not safe for me to assume that 12 = 3x4 why is it safe for me to assume that 22 = 2x11?
7295573
I suspect part of the problem here is that different people process information differently. The system you're using makes sense to you, so I think you may have trouble understanding why something that seems perfectly logical is throwing people.
Actually yes, your example does work for me. I'm good at doing arithmetic in my head, so when I see three-times-three-plus-one I automatically solve it for ten. But I've never even heard of the quaternary number system prior to reading this story. When you say the digits you're using meanings that I'm completely unfamiliar with.
I love Agatha Christie's mystery stories. She was an English author, and she wrote her stories in English. But because she was writing for an upper-class audience she assumed her readers would have been educated in French. She occasionally used French phrases and dialogue without giving any translation. It made sense for her and the readers of her time, but since I don't know French those bits always throw me off and can be confusing. It's a similar thing here. You're using snippets of a language that you are fluent in but which I don't know.
Saying "twice-four-and-two" to explain what I would call 10 and you would call 22 just seems like giving a way of translating from one language to another. Speaking of which, perhaps it would work to give the numerical equivalent of a translation note? Like if you wrote it as "They stood there like it was a faceoff, the oneun [5] of them, versus Rainbow Dash and her four [4] friends."
7295780
...I apologise for the misunderstanding. I'm not saying that the pronounciation I'm suggesting is standard. I'm saying that the number system underlying that pronounciation is simply base-four. If you want to write ten in base-four using digits, that's 22 - and that's what I mean by standard base-four. Whether you then write that in words as twenty-two, two-two, double-two, or twice-four-and-two, is not standardised and it was not my intention to suggest that it was.