A collection of random oneshots set in the Continuum universe, ranging from non-canonical gag stories to genuine stories.
They are:
- Twilight Sparkle And The Totally Obvious Complete Non-Mystery Of The Seventh Element (Pinkie, Twilight)
- The Old Problem (Celestia, Luna)
- Inevitable (Applejack, Twilight)
- This Platinum Cape (Trixie)
- Mr. Rich And The Barnyard Bargains Go Experience (Mr. Rich, Rarity)
- Natural Conducters (Ratchette)
Read it here.
Twilight Sparkle And The Totally Obvious Complete Non-Mystery Of The Seventh Element
Tropes found in this story include:
- Take That!: An In-Universe case, the very first oneshot is Twilight thoroughly rebuking the idea that there could be a "missing 7th Element of Harmony", which is a very old and poorly regarded cliche of the fandom.
The Old Problem
Tropes found in this story include:
- Morton's Fork: Luna's "traditional" remedy for her fungal infection involves casting a spell that literally burns it off of her skin, a process so painful she has to be chained down to go through with it. Fortunately for her, science has advanced to the point there are alternatives... which turn out to be either spending a prolonged period under sunlight (which, as established elsewhere in the Continuum, is psychologically painful for her) or using a selenium-based anti-fungal cream that... well, ponies have yet to figure out a way to stop the smell...
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Downplayed, but despite her deep magical connection to the Moon, Luna is still a pony, and so suffers health problems due to her prolonged withdrawal from sunlight. Most tellingly, a recurring case of a fungal skin infection that drives her absolutely mad with itching.
Inevitable
Tropes found in this story include:
- Feghoot: What Inevitable is, a story about the multiple meanings of the word cloud, and ends with a bit of wordplay about pegasi manipulating clouds of electronic data, instead of percipitation.
- One-Word Title: For Inevitable, as a Feghoot and presumably named for the inevitability of either the pun being made by someone in the world.
This Platinum Cape
Tropes found in this story include:
- Beyond the Impossible: Trixie's Talent, in her chapter, almost lets her devise a method for successfully increasing field strength — as far as every unicorn mage who's studied the attribute since the dawn of Equestria has concluded, that's utterly impossible. Zigzagged in that it ultimately fails to work, which Trixie concludes is because she just doesn't have enough base strength to create the initial power-boosting working in the first place.
- Blessed with Suck: According to Trixie's chapter, she has a similar Mark/Talent to Twilight Sparkle, in that she's constantly bombarded with ideas for new unicorn magics (workings) in her dreams — it might be accurate to say Trixie's talent is for innovation whilst Twilight's is for comprehension. The problem is, she also seems to suffer at least a little from "falling into the mark". Meaning that not only can she not not make the dreams stop, or even control what ideas she dreams up, she's compelled to try and write down her efforts and see about making them into reality. Her wagon's interior is described as looking "like a book exploded", because it's completely covered with filled notepads and scribbling on the wall that Trixie compiles in her sleep. Mention is made of, at one point, actually leaping out of her filled-to-capacity wagon and spending the entire night in the open first sketching in the dirt and then trying to keep the rain from washing her theorems away.
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Cry for the Devil: Trixie's chapter paints her as quite a pitiful figure, tormented by dreams of workings that she just doesn't have the strength to cast, attempting to dull the pain by bragging and showing off the (considerable) heights that she actually is capable of, only to be humiliated when she meets Twilight Sparkle — a pony who does have the strength Trixie lacks but who isn't cursed to be constantly chasing after dreams she can never catch. - Gone Horribly Right: As recounted in Trixie's chapter, other ponies before her have experimented with trying to use platinum as a kind of Amplifier Artifact. None of this worked out well. Specific examples mentioned include an earth pony who buried it around his farm to enhance the Cornucopia Effect (it created homicidal killer plants that took over the area), a pegasus who tried to boost her speed by wrapping it around select feathers (Trixie recovered the last surviving pinion cradle from a vertical crater deep inside a canyon wall), and a unicorn who had tried subcutaneously implanting it into her own body. We only know that Trixie's still having nightmares about the results. The last attempt also serves as inter-story Foreshadowing for what happened to Tirek in Daily Equestria Life with Monster Girl.
- Trixie's own efforts produce a cape that does temporarily serve as an Amplifier Artifact. Then it catches fire, burning her before she gets it off of her — fortunately just before it implodes.
- Hard Work Hardly Works: The core source of Trixie's problems. In the Continuum, field strength is fixed from birth, and no amount of exercise and practice will ever improve it. Trixie therefore cannot and will never be able to cast many of the spells her mark gives her.
- Science-Related Memetic Disorder: The downside of Trixie's Talent amounts to a magical version of this, constantly trying to create and redefine new workings that, all too often, she can't actually cast herself, even when she wants to stop.
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Write What You Know: In 'This Platinum Cape', Trixie is depicted as suffering from chronic cyclical insomnia, a condition Estee suffers from as well.
Mr. Rich And The Barnyard Bargains Go Experience
Tropes found in this story include:
- Didn't Think This Through: The entire concept of the instant-pay Rhodium poles. Word of God says that Mr. Rich saw dozens of problems with this concept and would have explained them all to the inventor, if they hadn't hit him with their next big (unworkable) idea.
- Take That!: The inventors final idea, something very similar to human customer loyalty programs, causes Mr. Rich to snap and just throw them out of the store.
Natural Conductors
Tropes found in this story include:
- All of the Other Reindeer: Ratchette didn't have the easiest time in school. The bullying was never physical, since she was a member of a noble house, but the social bullying has seriously stunted her ability to socialize and relate to other ponies.
- Blood Magic: From Natural Conducters, where the magical device known as a rammer, is activated by the presence of blood.
- The rammer gains a copper glow when Ratchette activates it, indicating that she might have a field.
- The Bus Came Back: The two Earth Pony thieves from Twilight Minus Magic make another appearance.
- Call-Back: The events of Twilight Minus Magic were not kind to one of Ratchette's field prosthetics.
- Character Development: The first signs of Apple Bloom's growing responsibility and regret for her actions as a Crusader after the events of Unstable Sale come out clearly, to the point where Ratchette decides to give her a chance at an apprenticeship.
- Fantastic Racism: Still a problem for Ratchette, since Ponyville has a steady population of newcomers and tourists to gawk at, dismiss, and belittle her abilities.
- Hidden Depths: The younger Earth Pony thief is extremely knowledgable about devices, to the point of recognizing what Ratchette's mark represents on sight. She describes her own fondness for devices and says she would love to have a device mark.
- I'm Having Soul Pains: Attempting to do anything with her pegasus magic besides flying or perching on clouds makes Ratchette feel sick. She also feels revulsion when perching on clouds.
- Skeleton Key: "Natural Conductors" introduces the Tarsus Key, a device that can reset field-secured locks and allow them to be set to a new owner. It's legal, since there are plenty of legitimate reasons why a lock might need to be reset (the death of the previous owner, the purchase of a house, etc and so fort), but it is very heavily regulated.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The Crusaders' theft of the balloon lifter from Ratchette's shop, only briefly mentioned at the beginning of Unstable Sale, caused serious damage to Ratchette's reputation and business. It took Ratchette eight moons to get the balloon's owner to trust her with it, and now she's lost that trust, lost a big customer, and may be looking at a lawsuit. At this point the Crusaders and their families are old hands at Civil Court, but this kind of lawsuit may destroy Ratchette's business.
