After a particularly rough day, Twilight Sparkle is weary from all her responsibilities as princess and the unofficial leader of her five friends. She absentmindedly wishes she'd never been born, which activates a spell she read earlier but didn't understand, and she notices something is wrong when she wakes up the next morning in total darkness, the library a complete mess. Her only chance is to find Princess Celestia to return Equestria to how it is supposed to be.
This story was originally posted on Archive of Our Own between October 2014 and March 2015.
Chapters (13)
5918650 Thanks. I'll fix it right away.
Also Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle are mares, not fillies. A filly refers to a child aged female pony. A colt is a child aged male pony. A mare is an adult female pony and a stallion is an male pony. A foal is word for young fillies or colts that does not specify gender
6379085 Which chapter is that in?
6379207
At least the first two
This story doesn't have nearly enough recognition...
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Read through in one go before commenting, but they still say Blossom instead of bloom...
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Thanks! When I finished writing this and sat down to write my overall thoughts on this piece, I was quite proud, in no small part because I'd never completed something of this length before.
I've gone through each chapter now and fixed every instance of "Apple Blossom" I could find. There shouldn't be any more.
wait I thought shiny and cadence died but then you were like 'If you find them they wont know me
5920776 now i know there is a sequel already in the works but you do realise you have perfect material to write the third book you got glimmer, tierec and still got sombre to defeat it would be awsome of her to suddenly remember the other world and have a little panic attack
You really should have published each chapter every few days instead of all at once, it would have given you much more recognition I feel. It's a strategy TV shows have been doing for ages. So, think of fanfiction as episodes of a TV show instead of a novel when publishing next time.
I've never actually finished an entire story and then published it, but if I did I would publish one chapter once a week to keep the story fresh.
6860637 When I uploaded this fic to fimfiction, I'd just joined and wasn't yet familiar with how fimfiction worked, so I uploaded it all at once. I did figure out quickly that periodic updates were much better and have been doing them since.
6860831 Alright.
One problem with Twilight's exposition she stated everything as facts, even things she had no way to know (like Candace's wedding and the crystal empire). It threw me out of the story as I wondered how she knew all this. Twilight is a logical and exact pony, she could guess all she did but would state it as such including her non-existence (which despite having a good foundation is still a guess).
Also Twilight is a little calm, I expected at least one panic attack/depressive episode (like she had in magical mystery cure, she did after all sort of doom an entire timeline to the rule of Nightmare Moon and Discord), it doesn't have to be big, just moment of 'I WHAT!?' Or 'oh, no. This is bad.' After which she can pull herself together.
You are otherwise doing good at keeping Everypony in charater.
New problem with Twilight exposition a few chapters ago. In this chapter she surprised by information she told the others.
7167811 Are you referring to the part just after she realizes she needs to emulate Sombra's magic again? Or a different part?
7167777 I can address both issues. First, the exposition is a lot of assumption and logical progressions. Second, and this goes for this whole fic as well as writing the characters a bit out of character, this was the first time writing creatively in many years. I'd gotten out of the habit and this chapter is one of the ones where I was literally winging it as I tried to keep up with a self-imposed weekly deadline on AO3.
I've considered rewriting it to fix most of the issues, but that's a lower priority at the moment.
Not a great story, but still a decent read. Keep practicing, and keep expanding your horizons!
7708728 How can I improve?
7708796 Your sequel is actually already much better. I think it's a matter of practice. Sometimes you didn't pause to develop enough detail for the reader to get a clear picture of events.
this was an alright story, reminds me of the old movie "what a wonderful life" im glad i read it.
7708808 Oh, I didn't see that your comment was on Never Had. Darn my decision to name them so similarly!
You're right, the original story is very sub-par. I enjoy it more for what it means to me: it was the longest story I'd ever completed, and it was the story that got me out of a seven year period of no motivation to write.
How does she suddenly know for a fact that her cutie mark being different means that she's going to disappear?
Also:
derpicdn.net/img/2012/12/3/171345/large.png
7709018 Twilight's always been one to tend toward jumping to some of the worst possible conclusions. Plus, she figured that if having to many cutie marks causes a point to do all of them like Apple Bloom had, the converse might be true. I'll add that detail when I rewrite it eventually.
I assume the picture is for the five stars surrounding her cutie mark, and not the six I wrote into the story. At the time I was writing it on memory and a logical assumption that it, like nearly every cutie mark, followed some sort of symmetry. That will also be fixed in the rewrite.
Wait, was this entire chapter basically just Twilight and co picking up Rarity and Rainbow Dash?
7730850 And avoiding Nightmare Moon.
Not entirely sure I like what I'm seeing yet, but I don't dislike it. I'm going to give it a go and see what happens.
Calling it now, Nightmare totally saw her. Dammit Pinkie.
Called it. Nightmare totally saw Pinkie. Dammit Pinkie!
Alright. I like that you're not going with "Basically Q, just crazy" Discord. Never been a fan of that.
I think Discord's respect for purplesmart has increased. This is exactly the kind of trickery he'd approve of.
And done. Overall, this was pretty good. Time to check out that sequel.
8168515 That's probably because I know next to nothing about Q, having only seen most of Voyager, some episodes of TOS, and the films.
8168568 Thanks for reading, and I'm glad you enjoyed it! The sequel is much better, and I hope you enjoy that one as well.
8168498 When I originally wrote this, I don't think I had a clear idea on how Nightmare Moon knew, so I decided to leave it up to interpretation. I think my reasoning was that she heard the
expositionconversation from the barn. I like your interpretation too, though.you know, wishing you were never born, and it supposedly coming true? would this not need a dark tag?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrmUipa1kc4
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I considered adding it when I published this, but decided it wasn't dark enough to warrant it, partially because I didn't want to go too dark. If and/or when I rewrite this, I have no qualms about making it darker and will in all likelihood include that tag.
Hmm....a good start....though feel a tad rushed... and i wonder why NMM is hanging out in Ponyville?
Ah well onwards.
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The short version is that this was my first attempt at writing after a years-long creative drought. And I think my idea for NMM was that she often patrolled her castle in the Everfree Forest and the nearby city because I didn't know of the bat ponies at the time of writing.
Have fun!