History Recap / TriptychContinuumTriptych

** To ''Creator/EdvardMunch'' painting, ''Art/TheScream'': In Chapter 15, a ponified version is described:

* HoistByTheirOwnPetard: In chapter 48, a panic-stricken and desperate Coordinator drinks a ''[[FantasticDrug booster]]''. Unfortunately, this particular variety works by [[CastFromHitPoints converting the drinker's personal strength into thaums]], and Coordinator wasn't very strong to begin with. The result is that he ''burns himself out'', completely consuming his LifeForce for an ultimately useless surge of magical power.

** In Trixie's letter to Twilight about the Alcorn Amulet, she mentions Booster Drugs, and makes it clear that anything above a 15% boost is as high as they can get without a chance of serious harm coming to the drinker. In 'Memento Mori', Coordinator drinks a 50% booster . . .

** Chapter 40 has made this ''[[UpToEleven worse]]'', to the point where some readers are now calling him Pony Hitler. (Which is unfair, as his experiments on the unborn would make him closer to being Pony Mengele.)

-->'''Gentle Arrival:''' "Then why don't you '''act''' like it? Talk to them! Make them ''believe'''! You owe me your '''life''', Fluttershy! ''She'' owes me her life, she owes me a debt for Primatura's '''death''' and she has spent her lifetime trying to pay it! Why can't you give me five minutes, just ''five minutes of reason --''"

** Discord granted Fluttershy the ability to remove ''any'' one thing of her choosing (potentially including a ''pony'') as part of their mission -- or rather, he'll know when she wants it done and make that thing ''go away'' accordingly. This was the only thing the Bearers received for the mission at all. It takes ages to be fired, and that lack of firing is Lampshaded in chapter 46, where Fluttershy patiently explains to Rainbow Dash that A: they have to be certain they're using it for the ''right'' thing to vanish, and B: they need to be certain they understand just ''what'' they're making vanish. Finally, in chapter 52, Fluttershy uses it to remove ''her'' pain, ending her PainfulTransformation and allowing ''her'' to be cleansed of some of the emotional abuse ''she'' grew up with. [[note]]Fluttershy clarifies the usage in Chapter 53: it's the pain of the transformation, not ''all' pain -- but she also had the emotional abuse and ''her'' taking the blame for her mother's death in mind when the bubble was used. Accordingly, she suspects Discord thought removing ''one'' thing was boring, so he might have done one and a half.[[/note]]

* HistoryRepeats: In the tragic sense. The two Diarchs were part of a set of Elements instead of just those two, and they were the only ones to ascend. The Mane 6 had Twilight ascend, and whether the others will is still up in the air. And Cadance had every other one of her ''own'' team, lost to history, [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifice themselves]] to keep her alive. Now the question is whether to let it ''[[MortonsFork keep repeating]]''...

* HistoryRepeats: In the tragic sense. The two Diarchs were part of a set of [[{{Nakama}} Elements]] instead of just those two, and they were the only ones to ascend. The Mane 6 had Twilight ascend, and whether the others will is still up in the air. And Cadance had every other one of her ''own'' team, lost to history, [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifice themselves]] to keep her alive. Now the question is whether to let it ''[[MortonsFork keep repeating]]''...

* BrownNote: Viewing ''her'' mark for the first time nearly has this effect on Twilight and later causes similar-if-lesser reactions for most (but not all) of the Mane Cast. Marks are not supposed to ''move''. [[spoiler: This turns out to be caused by ''chaos magic''... and also becomes a way to determine if anypony Gentle helped deliver is one of the 'hybrids', who don't see anything wrong with it.]]

* HistoryRepeats: In the tragic sense. [[spoiler: The two Diarchs were part of a set of [[{{Nakama}} Elements]] instead of just those two, and they were the only ones to ascend. The Mane 6 had Twilight ascend, and whether the others will is still up in the air. And Cadance had every other one of her ''own'' team, lost to history, [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifice themselves]] to keep her alive.]] Now the question is whether to let it ''[[MortonsFork keep repeating]]''...

** The Exception possibly qualifies, because not only can it be hideously abused (such as ''stopping somepony's heart''), but it almost always requires a strong field and at least a double corona, putting its caster at extreme risk of ''backlash''.

* BigBad: While they initially don't seem the slightest bit evil and in fact come across as [[Affably Evil extremely friendly and good-natured]], Gentle and Quiet are the masterminds behind the Great Work (or rather, the lead researcher and his most devoted helper): a process meant to turn a normal pony into an alicorn. The attempt went horribly wrong, and their attempts to fix it and keep it hidden drive the story's conflict.

* BrownNote: Viewing ''her'' mark for the first time nearly has this effect on Twilight and later causes similar-if-lesser reactions for most (but not all) of the Mane Cast. Marks are not supposed to ''move''.

* EldritchLocation: Chaos terrain: just being there triggers an [[PrimalFear instinctual panic response]] in ponies. These turn out to be areas where Discord's power has essentially saturated the land -- and the only place to find chaos pearls.

* HappilyAdopted: It's been confirmed that Pinkie is legally adopted by the Cakes. (It took a while before the readership realized this meant [[Videogame/{{Portal}} the cake was a Pie]].) Also applies to Spike for Twilight's family, and there's a line in Chapter 21 indicating he has full Equestrian citizenship.

* HappilyAdopted: It's been confirmed that Pinkie is legally adopted by the Cakes[[Note]]It took a while before the readership realized this meant [[Videogame/Portal the cake was a Pie.]][[/note]] Also applies to Spike for Twilight's family, and there's a line in Chapter 21 indicating he has full Equestrian citizenship.

* AwfulWeddedLife: Quiet Presence ''hates'' his wife, who is described in quite unflattering terms as, functionally, a tribalist, self-absorbed bitch. When she is revealed as having an affair in chapter 53, no reader is surprised.
* BabyNameTrendStarter: An [[InvertedTrope Inversion]] is {{Invoked}} by being {{Discussed|Trope}} in Chapter 14, that "no pony will ever be named Twilight again", because Twilight Sparkle's now a Princess
* BigBad: While they don't seem the slightest bit evil and are in fact extremely friendly and good-natured, Quiet and Gentle are the masterminds behind the Great Work: a process to turn a normal pony into an alicorn. The attempt went horribly wrong, and their attempts to fix it and keep it hidden drive the story's conflict.
* BenevolentConspiracy: The Great Work at least thinks of itself this way; reading between the lines suggests that they believe transforming all ponies into alicorns is the only way to break down the walls of FantasticRacism that separate the three main pony tribes. Whether they actually count as this is debatable; their referenced and implied efforts at the very least mark them as {{Well Intentioned Extremist}}s.

* BreadEggsMilkSquick: The Snitcher Device, introduced in chapter 27; it allows a pony who doesn't have their cutie mark yet to feel how close they are to actually manifesting their mark, but it ''also'' suppresses their magic and can be used to ''stop'' a mark from manifesting.

* BrutalHonesty: Zephyra Hurricane is described in this way by Princess Celestia in chapter 53.

* TheCavalry: After the Mane 6 brings down Gentle Arrival at the end of chapter 52, Discord arrives to teleport everypony -- Bearers, Spike, ''her'' and Gentle Arrival -- back to the palace.

** Discord granted Fluttershy the ability to remove ''any'' one thing of her choosing (potentially including a ''pony'') as part of their mission -- or rather, he'll know when she wants it done and make that thing ''go away'' accordingly. This was the only thing the Bearers received for the mission at all. It takes ages to be fired, and that lack of firing is Lampshaded in chapter 46, where Fluttershy patiently explains to Rainbow Dash that A: they have to be certain they're using it for the ''right'' thing to vanish, and B: they need to be certain they understand just ''what'' they're making vanish. Finally, in chapter 52, Fluttershy uses it to remove ''her'' pain, ending her PainfulTransformation and allowing ''her'' to be cleansed of some of the emotional abuse ''she'' grew up with.

** After their talk in Chapter 6, Twilight decides to train Rarity in low-power, high-control workings: the first such spell changes a unicorn's signature, altering their field's hue in the process. In chapter 46, Rarity uses this to make it look like Twilight is manifesting a double corona through her PowerLimiter, tricking a guard into removing that limiter, as it was stopping him from hitting her horn and triggering backlash. But, in doing so, he let Twilight use her magic for real, which is instrumental to freeing them.

* CombinedEnergyAttack: In chapter 52, the Mane 6 and Spike are able to defeat the shield that is protecting Gentle Arrival by combining all of their magics into a single assault.
* TheConspiracy: There's actually two in the story, although only one is truly active. The Great Work is trying to find a way to turn ponies into alicorns at will, and that drives things along -- but whatever made the earth ponies drive public awareness of their true magic underground qualifies as ''some'' level of conspiracy: one which extends across an entire species. It's not as if anypony's currently hunting for truth-tellers, but ''something'' created this Secret and the generational means to ''maintain'' it -- and for now, their reasons are unknown.

* DeadlyEuphemism: "Sending On" is used in two ways. The first is non-euphemistically; unwanted foals, specifically ponies born to parents of a different tribe, are fostered out to ponies of the correct tribe. This is the "normal" use of the term in pony society. Amongst the more vehemently tribalist crowd, it's used as a euphemism for filicide. Whilst it's left ambiguous if that form of "sending on" has actually been ''used'', in chapter 52, Twilight directly calls this trope out, by referring to Quiet's parents killing Quiet's earth pony sister, and then sarcastically "correcting herself" by using the term "sending on".
* DeadPersonConversation: Briefly, in chapter 52, when Fluttershy erases ''her'' pain, ''she'' briefly glimpses into the Shadowlands, where ''she'' is able to receive a brief moment of comfort from the ghost of ''her'' mother, Primatura.

** Chapter 24 reveals that Celestia and Luna themselves were originally ordinary ponies, and modern Equestria's faith in them is just the same phenomena that Twilight Sparkle is receiving, after being given a thousand years to proliferate.

* DuelsDecideEverything: Earth ponies have the tradition of the ''fosse'', an earth-manipulating duel they used in ancient times to resolve dispute. It's extremely old-fashioned in the modern era, but chapter 26 reveals that Applejack fought one when Igneous Pie came to Ponyville and attempted to drag Pinkie home by force; winning (combined with her promise to kill him if he came near Pinkie again -- it would have been a threat, but she clearly wasn't lying) was what made him leave empty-hooved and stay away ever since.
* EldritchLocation: Chaos terrain. Just being there triggers an [[PrimalFear instinctual panic response]] in ponies.
* EmotionBomb: The idea of using ''resonance'', the emotional underlay of unicorn magic, as an offensive weapon is discussed by Twilight fairly early on.

** Likewise, Gentle Arrival and Quiet Presence both despise Clear Coordinator. In chapter 29, seeing Coordinator smile at being asked to help control the Bearers is enough to sicken Gentle Arrival. When he gets excited upon confirming that this also means Twilight, it's enough to make Gentle Arrival feel intensely nauseous.

** Despite his own less-than-stellar parenting, Gentle Arrival exhibits genuine contempt for the abuse that Rock Pie heaped on Pinkie Pie.

* ExplosiveLeash: To deal with Gentle Arrival after taking him into custody in chapter 53, the Princesses put him in a special form of restraining cone which contains multiple layers, the innermost being a layer of platinum, which will deliver a very gruesome death if the wearer manages to touch it with their aura. In fact, they used this same cone to restrain Star Swirl during his imprisonment.

** And ultimately, Gentle Arrival may be the worst of all. Seeing that his daughter, whose mother died birthing her, was an earth pony made him obsessed with finding a way to turn all ponies into alicorns, so no other foal would be born "broken" the way his own was. He also repeatedly refers to cross-tribal breeding as a "sin".
** In chapter 54, Princess Celestia talks about how ''long'' ponies have been hating and distrusting ponies for being born "the wrong tribe", ever since the Discordian Era. It's one of the reasons why she and Luna ultimately worked to redefine "sending on" from a DeadlyEuphemism for "murdering the Chaos Children" (which such cross-tribal births were called) to "fostering them out".

* FusionDance: It's ultimately explained over chapters 53 to 55 that this is how alicornization works; a pony is infused with ''essence'' from ponies of the other tribes, permanently leaving a small "shadow" of the donor-pony's soul meshed into the alicorn's soul. These slivers leave an imprint of that donor-pony's personality as well, so when an alicorn taps into the deeper parts of the magic left by that transformation, their personality actually shifts to resemble the donor they are tapping. When this imprinting is done with the aid of the Elements, it's harmless, but it ''is'' possible for the donors to be killed; Cadance's own ''ascension'' involved the death of her friends. The most important aspect is that the donation ''has'' to be done voluntarily; the mingling of souls only happens if the donor-ponies love the host-pony and are willing to make that sacrifice of some of their ''essence''.

** In chapter 29, it turns out that the terrifying Snitcher device started out as a simple, benign invention created by a dedicated caster who wanted to assure her daughter that her mark was coming soon, and maybe help her find it a little faster. It turned out to have horrific side-effects, in the form of completely suppressing the wearer's magic, and was promptly abused by various lunatics and would-be tyrants, which is why it's now illegal.

* HappilyAdopted: It's been confirmed that Pinkie is legally adopted by the Cakes. Also applies to Spike for Twilight's family, and there's a line in Chapter 21 indicating he has full Equestrian citizenship.

* HeroicBSOD: Applejack undergoes this after circumstances finally force her to break the veil of secrecy around earth pony magic. Coming out of it has been a slow process, with Rarity believing the Bearers will only see final recovery when Applejack takes up her Daddy's hat again.

* InAnotherMansShoes: Overlapping with EmotionBomb; during chapters 51 and 52, Twilight stumbles into what can only be described as "memory bubbles", allowing her to live out certain key moments from ''her'' childhood through ''her'' own eyes.

** For a darker twist, it's revealed in Chapter 50 that Quiet Presence's fraility isn't the reason why he's never had kids: he's refused to have foals because his wife is of the ''exact'' same mentality as his parents (and he feels there will be those in future generations who continue to feel that way). The same ponies whom he believes may have ''murdered'' his little sister for being born as an earth pony. Quiet himself doesn't care what his children are, but he refuses to have foals so long as he has to be scared of the chance they might turn out to be earth ponies.

* LapPillow: From [[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/101769/30/triptych/bentonite chapter 30]]: It's how Quiet and Twilight are positioned, when he reads to her, as described by Rarity:
--> "So when a friend reads to you," Rarity quietly continued, "your natural listening position is to lie down so that [[LapPillow your head is resting on his forelegs]]?"

* MineralMacGuffin: Deathstone, which Rarity renames to the more appealing "shiftstone" and which is given the alternative name of "chaos pearl" in chapter 24. They are ultimately revealed to be containers of chaos energy and pony essence, essential for the attempt to artificially reproduce the alicorn creation process. And without them, there would be no hybrids.

* MundaneUtility: Being a pegasus/earth pony hybrid cures a pony of the instinctual claustrophobia that all pegasi suffer. Fluttershy brings up that she has a basement in her cottage and she uses it casually.
* MythologyGag: When Rainbow Dash locates the hidden door with her thermal vision, she describes the segment of the wall hiding it as being "20 percent cooler", one of her earliest and most famously memetic lines.

* NightmareFuel: InUniverse, the potential side-effects of wearing a shiftstone are terrifying to Twilight, and the idea that it might, eventually, make Rarity start to transform in the same way as ''her'' is scary enough to make Rarity agree not to wear it to the party. This turns out to have been unnecessary: Rarity's stone, as one of those used in ''her'' initial transformation, had been discharged -- and even if it had been full, the essence within could have only mixed with Rarity's own at birth or during mark manifestation. However, Rarity also wound up finding the ''first'' of Gentle Arrival's chaos pearls...

** There have been an increasing number of hints that this represents an aspect of his ''talent''. In particular, Chapter 38 has the party about two body lengths away from where he's speaking to Doctor Gentle, with ''nopony'' noticing the conversation. Doctor Gentle immediately asks him just how much he's exerting himself and as soon as they reach an enclosed room, conducts basic medical monitoring. Chapter 44 has Rarity and Twilight mutually figure out that it is indeed a talent: Twilight ultimately describes it as Quiet projecting the emotional resonance of ''dismissal'': he's not invisible, you just overlook or forget that he's in the room.

** In Chapter 42, Twilight swears by ''Discord's antler'' that the Elements will not help ''her'' -- making the entire conference spontaneously pull away from her. Gentle actually pauses to note that he's ''never'' heard of someone swearing by Discord before.

** In chapter 55, Celestia becomes so desperate to make Twilight talk to her after unintentionally revealing her origins as Star Swirl's reincarnation to her that she bluntly ''forces'' a literal torrent of message scrolls through Spike, almost choking him with their relentless volume to the point Twilight desperately sends her a message back verbally screaming at Celestia to stop because she's hurting Spike -- and at the same point, is so desperate to stop Spike hurting that she's actually considering just teleporting to Celestia and '''attacking her'''.
** Likewise in chapter 55, during her first dream-time communique with Twilight, Luna stops speaking in her usual flowery methods and bluntly addresses Twilight, even using vulgar language by telling Twilight to pull her head out of her ass.

* PainfulTransformation: Experienced by ''her'', '''''[[UpToEleven constantly]]'''''. Whatever went wrong in the ascension attempt resulted in perpetual cyclical shifting between the three main pony races, moving from pegasus to unicorn to earth pony to pegasus again, and so on through the cycle. Rarity believes the wing bones are ''breaking'' rather than simply being reabsorbed. Whether this is true is unknown -- but ''she'' is in endless, unrelenting agony... until Fluttershy uses her gift from Discord to erase that aspect of ''her'' being.

** Invoked and Zigzagged. In chapter 53, Princess Celestia reveals that Gentle Arrival's Cutie Mark is functionally to be the ultimate loving parent... but, somehow, his despair over his wife's death and his racism has allowed him to '''subvert''' his Mark. Strangely, he still seems to genuinely care for the foals that he midwives -- [[TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes he just is able to obliviously abuse his own daughter]].

* PottyFailure: Gentle Arrival implicitly loses control of his bladder after being stared down by an ''incredibly'' angry Discord in chapter 53.

** Additionally, [[WordOfGod Word Of Fanfic Author]] admitted that the clue given in [[Recap/TriptychContinuumAMarkOfAppeal A Mark Of Appeal]] places Luna as Generosity, and [[Recap/TriptychContinuumTheNightBeforeNightmare The Night Before Nightmare]] finally confirmed Celestia as [[IKnewIt Loyalty]].
* ProtagonistTitle: Triptych is the name that Gentle Arrival's daughter picks herself, as said in Chapter 55.

** Princess Celestia used an experimental ''working'' of her own creation to try and ''force'' Star Swirl into reincarnating. She also believes that Twilight is Star Swirl's reincarnation, or at least his latest one.

* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: Invoked in chapter 55, when Discord explain to ''her'' that what he hopes to teach her is, amongst other things, the importance of understanding when ''not'' to follow the rules, instead of being LawfulStupid.

** In chapter 53, Gentle Arrival stands defiant and proud, arrogantly demanding to be allowed to continue his midwifery, despite being a helpless captive in the presence of ''both'' Princesses ''and'' Discord, all of whom are '''furious''' with him.
* SortingAlgorithmOfEvil: In chapter 51, the Mane 6 has to let a pair of Murdochs reporters go on their way after overhearing their plans to slander Twilight by writing fictious accusations of Twilight being pregnant into the tabloids because they have a much more important task to complete in the form of stopping Gentle Arrival.

* ToughLove: In chapter 55, when Luna first contacts Twilight after her and Celestia have their falling out, she tries to shock Twilight out of her funk by first telling her that there are ways that even alicorns can die, explaining the suffering Celestia is undergoing, and then concludes their visit by telling Twilight to "take a breath, try seeing things from Celestia's point of view, and get (her) head out of (her) ass".
* TownWithADarkSecret: Trotter's Falls is revealed to be the center of a conspiracy its adherents call "The Great Work", which turns out to be a tribal supremacist cult that has, having failed in its original directive to find a way to forcibly change ponies from one tribe to the other, settled for trying to transform all ponies into alicorns.
* TransformationHorror: In chapter 53, an enraged Discord drops the MixAndMatchCritters body he normally wears amongst ponies and reverts to what might be his "true form", an ElementalEmbodiment of chaos itself, terrifying everyone in the Hall Of Legends -- Celestia and Luna included.

* TheUnreveal: In chapter 50, Spike reveals that he received Cadance's reply to their question about how she Ascended to alicorn status whilst they were pursuing Gentle Arrival. We don't know what she said, only that it scared Spike so badly that he immediately sent it back to a "safe place" after reading it; as he puts it, Gentle Arrival must '''never''' be allowed to learn how Cadance transformed, as not only would it not help ''her'', it would only make things ''worse''.

** Invoked in chapter 50, when Twilight wishes desperately to herself that Quiet's rationale for helping the Great Work didn't sound like it made ''sense'' to him.

** It's revealed in chapter 55 that doing this is actually not as easy as it sounds, even for Discord; apparently, extreme heat interferes with teleportation to some degree.

** Another in-universe one comes at the climax of chapter 54:

** Ad a third in-universe one is when Cadance's letter is read in chapter 55:

* WifeHusbandry: After reading some of ''her'' memories in chapter 51, Twilight theorizes that Gentle Arrival may have been hoping to use ''her'' Ascension to somehow bring ''her'' mother's soul back from the Shadowlands, potentially displacing ''her'' soul in the process. The implications of that are enough that Rarity wishes she could vomit. (However, given how alicorns seem to work, the more likely hope would have been that ''she'' could feel and perhaps even communicate with Primatura's essence.)

*** However, Applejack zigzags it, explaining in chapter 26 that she does use her "''requests''" on their adventures; her restriction is just to do so subtly. In effect, she can do anything which would pass for [[TabletopGame/MageTheAscension pure coincidence]] -- with constant worries that if she does too much, somepony's going to catch on.
** In chapter 27, Twilight notes that Pinkie Pie's mark and talent should let her pull off a perfectly acceptable "fancy" party... it's just that [[ManChild she hates anything that isn't a kid's style party]] and so refuses to "branch out". (Pinkie winds up assisting in setting up for Quiet's grand gathering, and does so professionally -- then builds the welcome archways out of balloons and streamers.)

* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: When Twilight brings up Gentle Arrival's ControlFreak status in chapter 52, Rarity ''immediately'' tells Twilight that she is '''nothing''' like him, as she can see the shame and self-doubt rising in the alicorn as she considers it.

** Celestia and Luna are confirmed in this story to have originally been ordinary ponies[[note]]for what may be added irony, a blog post has revealed they were actually ''earth ponies''[[/note]] who were turned into what may have been the very first alicorns by the Elements of Harmony. Cadance also appears to have been initially normal [[note]]and as in canon, she started as a pegasus[[/note]], but all anypony knows about her route to ascension is that it ''didn't'' use the Elements. Twilight eventually winds up sending Cadance a scroll, directly asking what happened, just in case it has any relation to what went wrong with ''her'': Discord's rules forbid the Bearers from contacting Canterlot, but not the North. Spike gets her reply during Chapter 45, but the contents have yet to be revealed. All we currently know is that the answer was fourteen words long, and Spike teleported the scroll to safety rather than risk having Doctor Gentle ever read it.

* LapPillow: From [[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/101769/30/triptych/bentonite chapter 30]]: It's how Gentle and Twilight are positioned, when he reads to her, as described by Rarity:

* InnocentInnuendo: From Chapter 30, after Rarity discovers Gentle reading to Twilight:

* DirtyBusiness: Part of how Quiet may regard the Great Work. Unlike others in the conspiracy, he's not a bigot: he just believes it's impossible to get rid of them. In his view, the only way to keep foals from being sent on (as happened to his baby sister) is to find a way of guaranteeing a newborn's race. As he puts it, it means no birth would ever be dreaded, no foal ever hated for what it is; it would mean an end to ''both'' forms of "sending on". So even if some foals in the current generation wind up being hurt or worse by the experiments, TheEndsJustifyTheMeans -- unless, of course, you propose using his lost sibling.

** Twilight is asked/made to attend and bless the birth of two foals. Both are then named in tribute to her: the pegasus filly Dawn Sky and a unicorn colt named Dusk. A few chapters later, we meet the latter's father -- and find out the last name is [[Fanfic/OnACrossAndArrow Shine]].
** In Chapter 13, Rarity reveals that the Diamond Dogs call her the [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons Tyrant of the Underdark]]. She ''thinks'' it's meant with respect.
** Chapter 3 reports that Fluttershy's income includes a small stipend with associated tax break from the Weather Bureau [[Fanfic/FlashFog which she's never quite explained]]. [[WordOfGod Word Of Fanfic Author]] says that in this continuity, the cottage is serving as a first-alert station, with Fluttershy sounding the alarm if she spots a major uncontrolled weather system emerging from her neighboring wild zone.
** In her desperation to make dresses (plus one tuxedo) for everypony in time for the party, Rarity winds up cannibalizing a set of Quiet's [[Film/GoneWithTheWind curtains]].
** When Gentle Arrival discusses his list of "infusion" experiments, he mentions an earth pony with an incredible instinct for unicorn ''workings'', and an instinctive ability to dispel most magics, which he uses to pursue a career as a wandering tutor for young unicorns -- this is a reference to Green Grass, the male protagonist of the Fanfic/TravelingTutorAndTheLibrarian series.

** After their talk in Chapter 6, Twilight decides to train Rarity in low-power, high-control workings: the first such spell changes a unicorn's signature, altering their field's hue in the process. In chapter 46, Rarity uses this to make it look like Twilight is manifesting a double corona through her PowerLimiter, tricking a guard into removing that limiter and thus letting Twilight use her magic for real, which is instrumental to freeing them.