Realms of Existence

by GMBlackjack

Credits

REALMS OF EXISTENCE
THE END
Written by
G. M. Blackjack

Starring
Rarity as Your Mind's Eye
Fluttershy as the Trauma Magnet
Pinkie Pie as That Which is Beyond Understanding
Applejack as the Insta-Genius
Starlight Glimmer as the Paradox Package
Rainbow Dash as the One Who Misses her Powers
Twilight Sparkle as the Frantic Leader
Implode as the Freudian Excuse
Spike as the Inflection of Central, if Such a Thing Existed
Discord as OP PLZ NRF
Trixie as The Worst Card Player Ever
Celestia as the Prime Instance of the Greater Good
Luna as ROBOT SMASHER!!!
Ahuizotl as the Demoted Chessmaster
Sperion as the Tragic Villain
Trekker as the Evil Mother!@#$%
Overglobe as the Wise, if Misguided, Leader
Diamond as the Fleshy Robot
Congeal / September as the Thing I Originally Created Just Because I Though a Metal Alicorn Robot was Cool.
Yuku as the Brainwashed Muscle
Clover the Clever as Sham Rock
Starswirl as Driven Mad from the Revelation
Meadowbrook as the Lore Character
The Dreaming as the Mysterious Eldritch Being
The Original Seven as The Faceless

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic belongs to Hasbro
Any other franchises referenced belong to their respective owners.

Special thanks to…
FM-96
Cross Lament
Zeusdemigod131
Ferret
Frustration in Excelsis
Mastermenthe
...for following this story, for commenting, for leaving edit suggestions, and for the support. You guys make these things all the more worthwhile.

Well, we're done now. Hope you enjoyed! I have no idea where I’m going from here with this story, if anywhere.

~~~

Pinkie Pie leaned on a lawn mower. "Well... I mean, I know we're supposed to have a stinger in every big story, but come ON! The Story's DONE! Nothing else really needs to go here. Everything resolved, loose ends tied, no need for any kind of sequel bait or any thought provoking thing of any kind."

The other Pinkie Pie shrugged, munching on her taco. "Eh, well, there's more out there you know."

"Well yeah, but that's not our story. Right?"

"Well, if we don't know, that means it's still in the air. Though there must be more - since, you and I both know we are more than the 'Inflection of Distortion."

"Huh. Good point. Wonder what they'll make of this?"

"No idea. I don't know what I make of it." She finished her taco. "Well, back to Earth for me, we got our own problems to deal with. Wonder if We're going to get a 'Six' or something."

"Good luck!"

"We always have that, ya silly!"

The two Pinkie Pies giggled in unison.

Comments

[AvidSeason]

This....was great. Nothing more to say than that. The story had good plot, nice character arcs/developments, and nice action sequences. You, good sir, have earned a watch....again.

[FM-96]

Well... this was a ride.

First of all, thanks for the mention in the credits. It really wasn't much trouble though. ^^
On that note, here are the corrections for the last chapters.

Regarding your comments about the story's pacing: I haven't read Wanderlost (yet; I probably will sometime in the future), so I cannot compare Realms of Existence with it, but I felt like the pacing in this story was a bit fast towards the end. The fight with Congeal seemed to come a bit out of nowhere and was then promptly resolved within the same chapter, and the fight with Sperion was also over a bit too quickly for my tastes. (Both of the fights were written pretty awesomely, though.)

Apart from that, the only thing I can think to criticize is that you have a bit of a problem with word repetition from time to time. Most notably, you tend to overuse "then" a tad, in my opinion. There were some places where it was just "A then did B. Then C happened. D then went to A." and so on. Maybe find some way to phrase that differently. (Plus, I think it's generally implied that things happen sequentially unless otherwise specified, so you probably don't need to keep saying that.)

Those are pretty much the only things I can criticize. (Well, there's also the spelling mistakes, but you already know about that.)

On the flipside, though, your storytelling and your worldbuilding are awesome. I really enjoyed having all the lore come together at the end.

Finally, speaking of the lore: I read your blog post (Might I suggest linking to that somewhere in the last author's note? If you hadn't mentioned it in your last comment, I probably wouldn't have noticed that it exists.) and it did answer some of the lingering questions I had. But there are still three questions remaining:

A)
What's the canonical order of all the levels? My best guess is:
8. Connection
7. Magic
6. Distortion
5. Dreams
4. Life
3. Power
2. Echoes
1. Truth
But I'm not really sure about 2 and 3. I think Spacetime is more "basic" than Matter, but I'd like to have confirmation.

B)
Is there any relevance to the order of the Seven we've been given? Again, my best guess:
First: Rarity
Second: Fluttershy
Third: Pinkie Pie
Fourth: Applejack
Fifth: Starlight Glimmer
Sixth: Rainbow Dash
Seventh: Twilight Sparkle
Since this obviously doesn't match up with the level order, I'm just wondering if there's any method to it.

C)
And finally: Since the Magic of Friendship is a leak from the Eighth Level, why does it also exist in the Sixth Level? Is it just a Distortion-induced (aka "for the benefit of the narrative") coincidence that the leaked Magic from the Seventh Level acts in a similar way to the leaked Connection from the Eighth Level? The only alternative I can think of is that not only Magic but also Connection leaked into the Sixth Level, which sounds like it would be rather... disastrous in the future.

Whew... this comment got a lot longer than I thought it would be. But I think I said everything I wanted to say now.

Oh yeah, one last thing: What's with the edit in the description? It looks a bit out of place. Isn't that what the "Complete" status is for?

[GMBlackjack]

8224286
A) The canonical order of the Levels from 3 and 2 was never solidly defined - I decided it never mattered. I do think you need spacetime for your matter-energy to exist though, so if I had to say I'd say 3 was Power and 2 was Echoes. So yeah, you're right.

B) The order of the Seven is arranged by the 'clockwise' nature of the Realms - the path Sperion naturally travels. The original Seven (or Eight) didn't realize there were even lower Levels when they named themselves, to there's no correlation to the "Seventh/Sixth" and which Realms are on which levels. The 'First' is the First simply because the Inflection of Dreams was originally the leader. So yeah, there is no relation because ponies/humans name things without thinking. (Real reason: I didn't think of this until much, much later and I had already written a lot of stuff, so I just decided to continue going with it.)

C) Oh yeah, it DID link to the Sixth level. Connection exists there in tiny amounts. BUT - there was no ancient Aztrot empire / Original Seven that had already royally screwed something up. Obviously Starswirl did something to let magic into the Sixth Level - but only a small amount. I do wonder, though, what the seven crystals of power in EQG mean - there may be some other power that leaked from Equestria that we don't know about yet. I leave it open on purpose, to see what EQG itself has to say. I hope it doesn't invalidate everything.

D) some people don't read stories if they're complete. And I'm more likely to add stories I know are complete. You can't see the 'complete' tag from the front page. ...I just forgot to remove it after it was kicked off the 'recent updates.' I'll go fix that.

As for the fight with Congeal - the shortness was intentional there. She'd already been beat once - she never really stood much of a chance, as much as I tried to give her one.

Sperion's though... I tried to drag that one out quite a while, but I guess the 'time it takes to write' and the 'actual time elapsed' are different, aren't they? I may go in and edit it - and I may not. I'm really not sure at this point, but thanks for the feedback anyway.

Thanks for reading! I'll... Get to those edits eventually. And link the lore blog post as well. But right now - I got a dinner to clean up and ANOTHER epic adventure to finish drafting. Expect Stranger Magics to premiere this monday - hopefully. If I can get through this monster of a climax... (if not monday, then friday.)

-GM, master of length.

[FM-96]

8224345

I do wonder, though, what the seven crystals of power in EQG mean

Word of God has it that they are the Elements of Harmony of the EQG world, with Sunset being the Element of Empathy. (Empathy... "Connection", anyone? :P) So... yeah. I'm curious where they're planning to go with that, too.

some people don't read stories if they're complete. And I'm more likely to add stories I know are complete.

I'm assuming you mean "incomplete" in the first sentence. But I'm afraid I don't really understand what you mean by "add stories".

Expect Stranger Magics to premiere this monday - hopefully. If I can get through this monster of a climax... (if not monday, then friday.)

Sounds like it could be interesting, but I think I'll leave that for a while. I'm probably gonna read The Cuil Theory in the next few days and then I wanna start Broken Mirror in the near future, though. (But I make no promises, there are quite literally several hundred fanfictions I want to read, and that's just on this site alone.)

[GMBlackjack]

8224453

I mean add to my 'read later' shelves. (And yes I did mean incomplete.)

No big deal, just hope you enjoy when you DO get to them. (I may experiment with how I do Stranger Magics now that I think about it, so all bets on scheduling are off.)

Go forth and enjoy reading!

-GM, master of punt.

[ferret]

Now I feel bad for giving a lukewarm review of the end. I think I'm just in a blah mood, or I'd be more excited about it. I've been exposed to too much Truth lately, I suppose.

[LoyaltoRainbowDash]

8478121

Mlp loop from deviant art?

[GMBlackjack]

8484433
This story actually:

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/98568/mlp-time-loops

-GM, master of past loops.