• Published 23rd Dec 2017
  • 1,312 Views, 26 Comments

The Hesperus Gate - Meta Four



When ancient horrors emerge from the Everfree, an unlikely hero must travel far beyond the borders of Equestria. If she can unlock the impassible barrier, she just might find the power to make everything right.

  • ...
1
 26
 1,312

4. Story Canceled—Apology and Explanation

A/N: This just isn’t going to work. I tried—really, really tried—to salvage this fic. But my first outline for this story is scuppered, and none of my backup ideas are coming together at all.

To the critic who made me see the problems with this story: Once again, I’m sincerely sorry for everything I wrote. I’ll be thinking about this incident long and hard to make sure it never happens again. (Also, your “Apology accepted” cake tastes amazing.)

And to my readers out there who really wanted to see where all this was going (both of you!), I’m also sorry for letting you down. It would be in poor taste to share the rest of my original story plan, but as a consolation prize, I can give you the last draft I wrote for chapter 2, before abandoning it:


Morning sunlight pierced through Twilight Sparkle’s haze of unconsciousness, and a pink blur hovered before her.

“Aaaugh!” Twilight struggled, as the dregs of her dream splattered against waking reality. The dark void was just her own bed; the limbs immobilizing her were merely her blankets. And the pink blur was, obviously, Pinkie Pie showing up uninvited and jumping on the bed. Twilight calmed down and stopped thrashing—just in time to lose her balance and slide off the edge, landing with an “Ooomph!” on the crystal floor.

“Happy Breakfast In Bed Day to you too, Twilight!” Pinkie proclaimed, bouncing a few more times on the mattress.

“Morning, Pinkie.” Twilight rolled onto her hooves with a groan. “But I’m pretty sure that’s not a real holiday.”

Pinkie’s grin just grew wider. “You might say so, and the calendar might say so, but these waffles say otherwise!” From seemingly nowhere, she produced a mini-table with two plates of waffles, still steaming and topped with whipped cream and raspberries. “You kinda look like you could use a delicious breakfast anyway, Twilight. When I came in, you were tossing and turning like you weren’t getting any rest at all! Did you have a bad dream?”

“I did, actually,” Twilight said, climbing back onto her bed. “Worst one I’ve had in years.” She grabbed the nearer plate of waffles with her telekinesis. “It was so vivid.”

“But even the worst dreams fade to nothing in the light of the Sun, right?” Pinkie devoured an entire waffle in one bite.

Twilight giggled. “Good friends and good food help, too.” She took a bite of her waffle, and her face lit up as she chewed. “And these waffles are very good.”

“Aw, thanks!”

“The fresh berries make a big difference,” Twilight said, munching on another bite.

“Only the best for my friends! All the better for chasing away bad dreams about icky monsters, right?”

Twilight gulped her mouthful down. “Pinkie,” she said, setting her plate back on the mini-table. “I didn’t say anything about monsters. How did you know there was a monster in my dream?”

“Oh.” Pinkie’s eyes widened, and then her grin stretched so far, it seemed to extend beyond the sides of her face. “Lucky guess?”

With a flash of light, Twilight teleported away.

“Aw, phooey,” Pinkie said, to the now-empty bedroom.


Ditzy was midair, halfway to the office, when Twilight found her—and promptly tackled her to the ground in a hug.

“You’re okay!” Twilight cried, squeezing the pegasus even tighter. “You’re okay you’re okay you’re okay!”

“No I’m not!” Ditzy shot back, squeezing her eyes shut. “You flipping blinded me!”

“Oh.” Twilight leaped off and backed away, blushing. “Sorry about that.”

“Sheesh, warn a pony next time.” Ditzy stood back up, shaking her head. Her golden eyes, alert as always, darted every which way—except towards Twilight. “So, what’s all this about?”

“Nothing, nothing, hehe! Just glad to see that you’re doing well this morning. Anyway, I really gotta get going!” And Twilight dashed away.

Ditzy shrugged and continued towards the office, on hoof this time. “Heh. Ponies in this town …” she muttered—but she smiled as she said it.


“Good morning, Nurse Tenderheart,” Twilight said, trotting up to the hospital’s front desk. “Great to see you alive and well this morning!”

Tenderheart raised one eyebrow in response.

“Hehe,” Twilight continued. “Is Nurse Redheart available? I need to speak to her for just a minute or so.”

“You rang?” Redheart trotted by, pushing a cartful of covered platters. Her coat was pristine white, completely free of blood spatters and life-threatening lacerations. “I’m on breakfast detail right now, so we’ll have to walk and talk.”

“Sounds good.” Twilight fell into place at Redheart’s side. “So, how are you this morning?”

“Can’t complain. I barely got any sleep last night, so now my head is killing me. And I need to work even though I feel like death warmed over, because we’re understaffed this week.” She gave Twilight a wry smile. “So you know, the usual. Could be worse.”

Twilight laughed a little too hard at that. Redheart ducked into a room on the right, to deliver a breakfast platter—and when she came back out, Twilight was still chuckling.

“Hahaha … so,” Twilight said. “I don’t suppose you have any strange new patients? No mystery stallions with mystery illnesses from the Everfree Forest?”

“No.” Redheart gave Twilight an askew glance. “Should we?”

“I hope not.”


“Hmmm …” Pinkie stared at Twilight’s plate, leaning closer and closer to the uneaten waffle portions. “Hmmmmmmm …

With a flash of light, Twilight teleported back onto the bed. “Pinkie—Oomph!” A pink hoof rammed a waffle into her mouth, cutting Twilight short.

Twilight it’s an emergency you need to eat your waffles RIGHT NOW or they’ll get cold!” Pinkie shouted, roughly shoving the remainder of the waffles down her friend’s throat.

Mmrph!” Twilight gulped down the rest of her breakfast, then coughed before continuing. “I should be angrier at you, but those waffles are too delicious for that.”

“Great!”

“And now that breakfast is out of the way …” Twilight cleared her throat. “Give me the key that locks your tired eyes …” Sign.

Pinkie’s ears flopped as she answered, “Brighter than painted books that make me wise.” Countersign.

Twilight cast her spell, enveloping her whole bed in a soundproof bubble. “So, once again,” she said, “you and I remember events that distinctly didn’t happen. Disturbing events, but still completely imaginary, as far as anypony else is concerned.”

Pinkie nodded and fidgeted with her forehooves.

Twilight continued, “I … wasn’t in the best condition to see how everything played out. What happened after I, uh, changed?”

Pinkie took a deep breath. “Wellllllll, after I saw what happened to you, and to Ditzy Doo, I got scared. Then I realized that I’d just lost my two best friends in the Service, and I got angry. So angry that I ran away. Far away. Really, really, really far away.”

Twilight furrowed her brows. “I don’t understand.”

Quieter, at nearly a whisper, Pinkie said, “I ran through the Wall.

Twilight gasped.

Pinkie perked up as she continued, “And on the other side, I made a new friend! And we had a very nice conversation, once he stopped screaming and I convinced him he wasn’t going crazy. And … we fixed the story.”

“What story?”

“We fixed us. Ponyville. Equestria.” Pinkie help up her hooves, as if embracing the empty air. “The whole world! I convinced my new friend to make it so none of that horrible stuff ever happened!

“Pinkie …” Twilight grabbed her shoulders. “You mean you used the magic from beyond the Wall?”

“No, not just me. It was a team effort. Didn’t work at all when I tried on my own.”

“This … is …”

Pinkie flinched.

Amazing!” Twilight hugged Pinkie. “This is a huge breakthrough!”

“Oh. That sounds good?”

Twilight pulled back. “You don’t seem very excited that you’ve just single-hoofedly—”

It was a team effort.

“—accomplished possibly the biggest paradigm shift since the unicorns took control of the Sun and Moon.”

“Yeah.” Pinkie waved one hoof aimlessly. “But didn’t Princess Luna say that this magic couldn’t unmake anything? Did I just prove her wrong?”

“Oh. Oh.” Twilight leaned back in to hug Pinkie again. “It sure looks like it.”

Pinkie returned the embrace.

Twilight continued, “So this magic is even more powerful than we thought before, and now we know ponies can control it. Or at least you can.”

Team effort!” Pinkie sighed. “So what can we do now?”

Twilight perked up. “Well, first of all


A/N: That's all of it.

Comments ( 20 )

The Hesperus Gate presumably unlocks the Hesperus Garden.

Unmaking and rerouting are two very different things. Sending the narrative down a different path doesn't wipe away the first one.

"Ahem."

Look, it's either apply multiverse theory or make Twilight quietly have another existential crisis. Besides, you might not have wiped away the old path, but you certainly caused it to disintegrate after Meta revoked its moment of ontological inertia.

"That sounds like a really fancy way to say we unmade it."

You caused what was unwritten to have never been made in the first place. Important distinction. The bits that caused you to flee through the Wall still happened in another timeline, but everything that followed suit dissolved into causal tatters and narrative scraps.

"You're making this up as you go, aren't you?"

Not like this stuff is well-documented. :derpytongue2: Thanks to both you and Meta for a fascinating application of your abilities.

Huh.

I like the idea and the experimentation. Not sure I like how it played out. The combination of meta horror and anticlimax kind of doesn't sit well with me.

Still want to see more dimension hopping Ditzy adventures. Just, you know, not horrifying grimdark ones.

For a second there I was genuinely confused by the notes and the title of chapter 4, but then I remembered you posted the whole story at once and kept reading. Nice job, Meta, you've certainly lived up to your name.

This might have been even better if the chapter postings had been more spaced out, but I suppose there wasn't really time. Neat thought experiment, at any rate.

8626048
As I see it, the original path only exists as Pinkie and Twilight’s memories, now.

8626718
Fair enough.

I’m not normally a fan of grimdark and only sometimes a fan of horror. I’m still not sure why I’ve written so much of it myself. In this particular case, I felt breaking the fourth wall to rewrite your own story is such a huge deal, Pinkie would have to face an especially dire predicament before she considered it.

8627260
Thanks. Glad you liked it.

8627263
I really did want to space out the chapters, exactly like that. If I weren’t doing this for that contest, I’d have released the chapters a week (or maybe even a month) apart; if I could have just written this faster, I’d have released them a day or so apart. And I would have stayed in-character in the comments section until the final chapter, too. I’d have been super excited about this grimdark epic that gratuitously killed off the protagonist of my earlier stories, and I’d try so hard to reassure the confused readers that the future chapters were going to be so awesome.

Brilliant!

IS chapter 2 a cipher or nonsense?
Either way this was wonderfully confusing. I didnt realize how much I missed these characters from this verse.

8628306
Thank you!

8634218
Not a cipher. It’s what happens when a pony tries to type on a keyboard that wasn’t made for hooves. I simulated this by mashing the keyboard with my fist.

(Also, I spoiled that chapter in a comment I left two years ago.)

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

Fucking shit dude, damn.

8638928
Thanks, I guess?

8699252
Oh okay.

Although i am interested in the next Actual chapter. This is kinda moving way to fast. Like it seriously got into the conflict of the story in the first chapter.

8699630
Um... did you read chapter 4? And all the Author’s Notes? Those should explain what’s going on.

8700317
When i read the title of the chapter i spent five minutes yelling “SADNESS!” And “WHAT?!” Over and over.

Don’t kill this man. Have you used the editor for this website? Because i did and the only problem i have ever had was it not saving over 8k words on a chapter. BTW that story is gone since i lost interest and i started on a new one. AAAAAnyway you could actually make the 4th wall shiKcjjeijyiGysiebwiwidhjIijhjdh THE FUCKING HELL?

Once again pinky breaks the fourth wall and ends up in my throne room with a displaced. Connor the Cosmic King. I forced them back to thier dimension and made them forget my encounter but things like that happen from time to time, especially if you live in the void castle outside universe 10/029939380196437-BaGGhG. Oops forget i said that.

8700426
You know how in most monster movies or slasher movies, it will take twenty to thirty minutes before the killer monster first shows up? Because the filmmaker wants the audience to get invested in the characters at the beginning, enough to care when they start dying and worry about the dwindling party’s survival. That sorta thing. Look up “Developing Doomed Characters” on TV Tropes if you want to read more.

In my story, the plot itself is the doomed character.

jesus christ that's horrifying

you planning on expanding the series at all though?

8824564
Depends on which part you’re referring to. I have a bunch more stories planned for Ditzy and Time Turner. But this stuff with Pinkie and Twilight and the fourth wall was always meant to be just a side story, so I don’t have very much planned for it.

8825441
Really enjoyed this doc derpy series Hope you write more, but even if you dont thanks for the stories.

I wonder what they were going to say.
Maybe they decided to move the 'camera' elsewhere, so they could chat privately?

Login or register to comment