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Twilight receives an offer to research one of the longest-standing magical mysteries of the world—an abyss defying all magic. It's a huge responsibility, but Twilight is confident that she'll be able to understand the strange anomaly that had everypony before her shamefully concede and return with empty hooves.
How she'd wish to have been wrong.
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I don't like holes. Don't trust them one bit. This reinforces that. Never trust dark spaces.
Lots of questions lingering on the mind, and a lot of neat connections to draw between the beautiful visuals and delusions alike. Great stuff, be proud.
This Hole was made for me!
It was interesting, but too vague to really be intriguing after all is said and done, in my opinion. Usually, stories like this make me yearn for more, but I’m not getting that from this one, sorry. I understood everything, but it’s like the story went out of its way to be more confusing than it should be.
Yeah, I have no idea what I just read.
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Thank you. While I don't expect many of my fics to closely follow this one's storytelling and prose styles, it was my attempt at 'painting' with descriptions and implications like some of the great authors of the past, including the one whose quote I included in the first line. Seeing comments like yours makes it feel worth the effort.
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I knew that this fic would be more contentious than what I usually write (right now, it's my worst-rated story), and I wish that there was something I could've done to make it more accessible without compromising on the idea I had for it. Maybe there was, and I just couldn't see it; I felt pretty strongly about the writing decisions that led to this story.
It's a shame that what I had in mind didn't work for you. I can, at the very least, say that this kind of writing was an exception rather than the norm for me. Still, thanks for reading it and for the feedback.
This was wonderful
This is now one of my favorite examples of Eldritch horror. The answers are there, but you’re still left with more questions than you started with. I especially like the idea of the staircase. A machination set in motion countless eons ago towards a goal unknowable with so much progress but no end in sight. Masterfully written, well done.
The Hole
TomSka.
Hmm... So your memories of what was discovered and a primeval magic artifact (like the Element of Magic) are taken to allow the next person to go deeper into the hole? The reason the hut wasn't in others' notes is because they did what Twilight did and forgot? Something like that?
The allusions near the end were just a little too vague and mysterious, and Twilight just does some plainly idiotic things like eating an unknown substance. Chemistry teaches you to not even directly smell things and you’re gonna quaff it like dipping sauce?
The whole negative reaction to magic just screams red flags, and it just feels off. Maybe an OC would have worked better; lord knows Lovecraft’s characters did some stupendously idiotic things because MUST KNOWWW. It’s well written but the tone just feels awkward as if it’s trying to fit the tale into a framework made for something else.
In a wicker of the candle-flame, in the stirring of still water, in the soft ticking of hours before dawn, there is a voice. Listen, and it will ask of you. Do as it asks, and you will regret it.
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"Trying to fit into the framework" is fair, yeah. I don't think so (else I wouldn't have written it), but that's subjective, so you're definitely not wrong there. Again, it's a shame this one missed for you; maybe next time. Thanks for reading.
But I will defend Twi's actions a little. She went there to prove herself, confident in her skills. After finding absolutely nothing for a long time, she would be extremely eager to find some proof. Doing something rash once is not OOC when this is more of the scholarly and curious Twilight from the early seasons than the responsible alicorn from the later seasons. The easy interpretation would be that The Hole has already been subtly weaving its influence over her since very early in the story, but while that could be true, it's also a lazy excuse.
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As a rule, I'd rather not impose my version of the events upon any readers, not in a story where dreams and visions play a significant part in the plot, but yes, that's how things go. The key 'trick' of The Hole is that the kinds of ponies who get intrigued by the prospect of solving this famous mystery are also ones who have little chance of stopping while there's still time.
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Great to see a fellow Fallen Londoner here! I finished Seeking a few months before writing this story, and it has undoubtedly been a large influence.
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Tips off his Extraordinary Hat. I was wondering, because SEVEN IS THE NUMBER, screaming well, and general eeriness.
And it's always pleasantly surprising when someone understands that relatively obscure reference!
Feels old school lovecraftian, good stuff.
Twilight went North seeking something, hmm?? (I've only just become a Person of Some Importance, but even I've been warned not to Seek. Only time will tell if I manage to resist my curiosity!) A well-written horror! Twilight should look into the mirrors next, nothing dreadful will happen!
A reckoning will not be postponed indefinitely...
This was interesting, but I reluctantly agree with the others that it doesn't quite come together.
I think a few elements are missing, here. The biggest one is there's no sense of impact. Yes, she has contributed to continuing to build a bridge to something presumably bad, but we're not given anything to really /fear/ here. The trick to leaving your monster/threat unknown is to show enough of it to induce horror & terror, yet not enough for the audience to be certain and so their mind fills in the blanks with the worst things they can imagine.
In this story, it feels like the knowledge that Clover, that Starswirl, that Celestia have all done this before is meant to do that - but then the ending hits, and Twilight is Twilight and she has lost memories and the Element of Magic, not imprisoned to help build the bridge. And 'Its a stepping stone on a bridge to Outside Reality' just is too esoteric to really induce fear without knowing why that bridge is Bad.
It felt like, for much of this, that the Ritual was some kind of sealing ritual; that she was the next sacrifice to keep whatever was imprisoned there still imprisoned. Or, that it is some kind of Replacement Ritual - sacrifice the original, and a Thing is what returns home in their place.
Something like that, I think, would have completed the circle - that the Twilight who goes home isn't Twilight. Yes, it wears her skin, talks like her, thinks like her - but its real purpose is to seek the next sacrifice. Just as Not!Starswirl readied Celestia, and Not!Celestia has now readied Twilight, so too will Not!Twilight ready somepony or somebody else to make that journey,
But as is, there isn't a sensation of pervasive threat, or of wrongness. "Twilight accidentally sacrifices the Element of Magic to Yog Sothoth" is kind of how I would sum up this story in one sentence right now. Which is Not Great for her to do, but what we'd really want here is that Twilight has /completed/ the bridge, and now it can come through, or that Not!Twilight is now humming to itself as it prepares to go home and suggest they do another expedition, with all the Elements of Harmony, or something like that.
The prose is very Lovecraftian, and A+ for that - but you're also kinda screwed by being in 2024, where readers on here who read this are probably already fluent in Lovecraftian and so you can't rely on the lack of genre awareness the way Lovecraft himself could.
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First of all, thank you a lot for writing such a detailed comment; that's a lot for me to think about. That's great! There are two things I'd like to clarify. Maybe that's a lesson that I should've been more direct in the text of the story, but my previous attempts at leaving hints instead of solutions went way too far in the other direction, which in this sub-genre would be disastrous. Live and learn, maybe.
The big picture thing is that I never really thought Lovecraft's stories (and the sub-genre of horror that they created) were meant to be scary. I don't think they are scary; that's—I'm only speaking for myself, of course—not the main reason to read them. In their case, horror applies more to the themes, general mood, and aesthetics than the sense of fear. That is also what I was going for. You're left with unsettling conclusions and implications, rather than actual terror on the reader's side.
Perhaps more substantial is what I'd like to say about the ending. I hope no one's reading this comment before the story, but the reason why the [Death] tag is here is that I did, in fact, try to imply and show pretty much exactly what you're suggesting. Twilight fell down and she's not coming back, which is what also happened to Starswirl (the hat), Celestia (the alabaster horn and bones), and anypony else who'd get far enough. That moment of realization at the end of the fall? That is also her end. The creature that we see in the last part of the story is not Twilight, not unless you want to get really philosophical. It wears her skin—which was not a good fit at first—and it retains her memories, but the real Twilight was sacrificed in the scene prior. She even saw the thing leave the hole's edge right as she fell. Maybe that thing will one day "suddenly" remember the mystery and unwittingly send her own apprentice to that place—the fic doesn't say, but you can guess. It really sucks if I haven't been clear on that part; you're completely right that it was supposed to be the finale and the resolution of the story.
Again, thank you for your comment. I don't do post-story blog posts, so this is the best way for me to get feedback (and all authors love feedback) and clarify or explain my intentions.