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Eureka
Dear diary,
I learned more yesterday than perhaps any other day in my life, and that's saying something. I mean, we're including numerous all-night study sessions and even the ordeal with Nightmare Moon when I learned all about friendship, and found out I was the Element of Magic!
Maybe I should start at the top...
I woke up early, grabbed something simple for breakfast, and made my way down to the basement laboratory. Spike would know to come find me there when he got up, since we'd been working down there every day this week.
"Here we go! New data from the Tetrominor Receiver," I said out loud as I lifted a sizable stack of paper, still connected to the machine, and floated it to a table to review. Four ink lines zigged and zagged down the paper, page after page, indicating changes in temporal stability, chromatic consistency, arcane resonance, and one other thing. I wasn't sure what that last line represented, but it consistently showed different patterns than the others, so I left it enabled just in case.
Why was I gathering data all night? Well, to calibrate to a baseline of course! The magical aura that permeates Equestria fluctuates all the time, so I needed a good idea of the average magnitude to work from before I started my experiments.
I approached the center of the whole operation and hopped up into the chair. Wires and tubes trailed from the chair to the machines that lined room. Plugging them all in sure had been tedious, but Spike helped a lot! All those wires and machines were for reading the fluctuations caused by my magic, and for comparing it to the aura further away, to learn whether magic bleeds out and affects the environment around it. There was growing concern among the Canterlot intellectuals that magic might radiate out and inadvertently harm the surroundings. They were calling it 'radiation', a term which I wasn't fully pleased with, since it could be interpreted to have a relationship with angles and radians, but I digress.
The setup was ready for its first test run, and I was too excited to wait for Spike. I pulled a wire-threaded colander over my head (the same one I used on Pinkie Pie that time. Actually a lot of the equipment was the same. It's a pity it wasn't able to explain Pinkie's strange abilities back then). I reached out with my magic and pulled the big red lever to fire it up.
I eagerly watched the ticking needles of the Tetrominor Receiver, but nothing happened. The same background patterns continued without meaningful change. "Huh, maybe something's not connected properly?" I wondered aloud. I used my magic to reach for red lever again, and that was when things got interesting.
Using my magic seemed to trigger a cascade. First, the arcane resonance meter started to swing harder and further, exponentially it seemed, until it finally maxed out with the needle pinned to one side. Then the temporal stability meter stopped moving entirely. Just as I started to worry that I might have accidentally looped a wire back into the machine, causing a feedback loop, the fourth mysterious needle stopped too. So did my heart.
Huh, I guess that was tracking my vitals? I thought as the world went black.
I woke up for the second time that day, but in an unfamiliar place. I was on my back, staring at the ceiling through sore eyes. I could hear a voice, heavy with sorrow and choking back tears. I thought it sounded like Rainbow Dash, but I'd never heard her like that. I wasn't paying attention to her words, though, since my mind was already trying to piece together what happened in the lab.
Supposing that I did cause an arcane feedback loop, it's odd that it caused the temporal readings to freeze, since they should be independent, I thought. Freeze! That's it! With my magic in a maximized state, it blocked out local temporal advancement, causing me to enter total stasis. Of course, that would cause every part of my body to stop moving, and from the outside I'd look dead. But think of the applications!
I jumped up and screamed out, "Eureka!" and I learned the most important lesson of the day: Your own funeral is not the right time to celebrate scientific discoveries.
I learned more yesterday than perhaps any other day in my life, and that's saying something. I mean, we're including numerous all-night study sessions and even the ordeal with Nightmare Moon when I learned all about friendship, and found out I was the Element of Magic!
Maybe I should start at the top...
I woke up early, grabbed something simple for breakfast, and made my way down to the basement laboratory. Spike would know to come find me there when he got up, since we'd been working down there every day this week.
"Here we go! New data from the Tetrominor Receiver," I said out loud as I lifted a sizable stack of paper, still connected to the machine, and floated it to a table to review. Four ink lines zigged and zagged down the paper, page after page, indicating changes in temporal stability, chromatic consistency, arcane resonance, and one other thing. I wasn't sure what that last line represented, but it consistently showed different patterns than the others, so I left it enabled just in case.
Why was I gathering data all night? Well, to calibrate to a baseline of course! The magical aura that permeates Equestria fluctuates all the time, so I needed a good idea of the average magnitude to work from before I started my experiments.
I approached the center of the whole operation and hopped up into the chair. Wires and tubes trailed from the chair to the machines that lined room. Plugging them all in sure had been tedious, but Spike helped a lot! All those wires and machines were for reading the fluctuations caused by my magic, and for comparing it to the aura further away, to learn whether magic bleeds out and affects the environment around it. There was growing concern among the Canterlot intellectuals that magic might radiate out and inadvertently harm the surroundings. They were calling it 'radiation', a term which I wasn't fully pleased with, since it could be interpreted to have a relationship with angles and radians, but I digress.
The setup was ready for its first test run, and I was too excited to wait for Spike. I pulled a wire-threaded colander over my head (the same one I used on Pinkie Pie that time. Actually a lot of the equipment was the same. It's a pity it wasn't able to explain Pinkie's strange abilities back then). I reached out with my magic and pulled the big red lever to fire it up.
I eagerly watched the ticking needles of the Tetrominor Receiver, but nothing happened. The same background patterns continued without meaningful change. "Huh, maybe something's not connected properly?" I wondered aloud. I used my magic to reach for red lever again, and that was when things got interesting.
Using my magic seemed to trigger a cascade. First, the arcane resonance meter started to swing harder and further, exponentially it seemed, until it finally maxed out with the needle pinned to one side. Then the temporal stability meter stopped moving entirely. Just as I started to worry that I might have accidentally looped a wire back into the machine, causing a feedback loop, the fourth mysterious needle stopped too. So did my heart.
Huh, I guess that was tracking my vitals? I thought as the world went black.
I woke up for the second time that day, but in an unfamiliar place. I was on my back, staring at the ceiling through sore eyes. I could hear a voice, heavy with sorrow and choking back tears. I thought it sounded like Rainbow Dash, but I'd never heard her like that. I wasn't paying attention to her words, though, since my mind was already trying to piece together what happened in the lab.
Supposing that I did cause an arcane feedback loop, it's odd that it caused the temporal readings to freeze, since they should be independent, I thought. Freeze! That's it! With my magic in a maximized state, it blocked out local temporal advancement, causing me to enter total stasis. Of course, that would cause every part of my body to stop moving, and from the outside I'd look dead. But think of the applications!
I jumped up and screamed out, "Eureka!" and I learned the most important lesson of the day: Your own funeral is not the right time to celebrate scientific discoveries.
This would be better told as a first-pony present-tense story than through a diary entry. If you need the moral at the end, Twilight can think or say it.
"Said" generally implies "out loud".
"Said" generally implies "out loud".
Magic leaking out and harming things… in a world explicitly permeated with magic. What?
This is way too narrative and expository for an entry in Twilight’s personal diary. She wouldn’t need to include all of the background information if she’s the only one reading it. Having Twilight mutter to herself as she performs the experiment will work a lot better. Also, you should really consider a different issue to explore, or at least explain this one more clearly. And why was the vital signs monitor showing any readings when it wasn’t hooked up to a living creature? Heck, why wouldn’t Twilight look up what it did before the experiment if she didn’t know?
This is way too narrative and expository for an entry in Twilight’s personal diary. She wouldn’t need to include all of the background information if she’s the only one reading it. Having Twilight mutter to herself as she performs the experiment will work a lot better. Also, you should really consider a different issue to explore, or at least explain this one more clearly. And why was the vital signs monitor showing any readings when it wasn’t hooked up to a living creature? Heck, why wouldn’t Twilight look up what it did before the experiment if she didn’t know?
Okay. I’m not sold by this one, but I haven’t been sold by any story I read so far, so don’t feel bad.
Your Twilight sounds really much more like a CMC doing some sort of silly experiment. The twist at the end is only suggested: what does really happen when she shouts Eureka? And then your needles stop, but where do they stop exactly? They zero?
All in all, too jejune for Twilight, and too unrealistic to really strike me.
Your Twilight sounds really much more like a CMC doing some sort of silly experiment. The twist at the end is only suggested: what does really happen when she shouts Eureka? And then your needles stop, but where do they stop exactly? They zero?
All in all, too jejune for Twilight, and too unrealistic to really strike me.
The concept here has strength, and the author's overall writing skills are evident, but the narrative is rough. It's like this doesn't quite manage to straddle the line between being a journal entry or a non-journal story, and consequently I don't know what to make of its presentation. I will give the author props for the humor at work here, though, including the revelation of what the fourth line is for.
Twilight discovers how to put things into temporal stasis, accidentally making everyone think she’s dead.
This story was awkwardly delivered; writing it as a “dear diary” thing didn’t work, the discovery didn’t seem more meaningful than some others that she’s made, and it just felt awkwardly delivered for a diary entry. It would have worked better as just a normal first-person perspective story, and in any case, I’m not sure that the story really seemed to know what it wanted to be. Really, this seems like it wanted to be a comedy, but it didn’t seem very funny until the end, and a lot of it just sort of seemed to be a bit muddled.
This story was awkwardly delivered; writing it as a “dear diary” thing didn’t work, the discovery didn’t seem more meaningful than some others that she’s made, and it just felt awkwardly delivered for a diary entry. It would have worked better as just a normal first-person perspective story, and in any case, I’m not sure that the story really seemed to know what it wanted to be. Really, this seems like it wanted to be a comedy, but it didn’t seem very funny until the end, and a lot of it just sort of seemed to be a bit muddled.
This one suffers from a lot of fridge logic moments for me and I really don't think the punchline is strong enough to absolve the problems it presents. Overall its a fun little idea, but overstays its welcome and just isn't consistently funny enough to maintain my attention while it builds up to the grand reveal.
I agree with a lot of the criticisms here, especially with what Calipony said about this feeling less like Twilight and more like the CMC doing some silly experiment. On the other hand, I liked the idea, plus I absolutely loved the punchline! It honestly made me laugh out loud, and it was my favorite ending of all the stories on my slate.
Needs some work, but there's the potential for greatness in this one.
Needs some work, but there's the potential for greatness in this one.