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Sepia Tock: Adventures of the Ponyville Clockmaker
Sepia Tock Cover

The story’s cover art on FIMFiction


Writer(s) CanvasWolfDoll
Date published September 24, 2011
Words 23,644
Status Complete
Type/genre Comedy
Adventure
Slice of Life
Featuring Doctor Whooves
Princess Luna
Trixie
Colgate
Story link(s)
|Equestria Daily logo square| |FIMFiction logo square|

Sepia Tock: Adventures of the Ponyville Clockmaker is a fanfic written by CanvasWolfDoll which can be found on Equestria Daily. It was written with the express purpose of creating a character for the brown background pony with the hourglass cutie mark that has nothing to do with Doctor Who, while commenting on the Doctor Whooves fandom at the same time, which it does in a dry, tongue-in-cheek manner.

Style[]

"Sepia Tock" is written in a third-person perspective with a heavy emphasis on dialogue. The majority of any given chapter consists of a conversations between Sepia and one or more other characters.

Summary[]

The story opens by taking the reader through a typical day for Sepia. He is awakened by the many alarm clocks in his store, which he subsequently turns off in sequence to confirm that they are operating properly. He then receives his morning mail from Derpy Hooves, who refers to him as "Doctor" despite his half-hearted attempts to (once again) make her call him by his name.

As Derpy leaves, Sepia's assistant Colgate arrives and goes to work in the back room while Sepia deals with the curious Cutie Mark Crusaders. He then gets a call from the Mayor to go pick up a clock for repair. On his way to get the clock, he overhears the gossip about Doctor Whoof, sparked by his presence.

Subsequent chapters show Sepia traveling to other towns and encountering ponies such as Princess Luna, Trixie, and Soarin'. After these events, Ponyville finds itself suddenly subjected to strange time bubbles that transport ponies to other points in recent history. After the Mane 6 vanish trying to find the source of the problem, Sepia reluctantly takes up the role Doctor Whooves would take: hero.

Characters[]

Sepia Tock[]

A light brown earth pony with an hourglass cutie mark. The latest in a long line of clock-makers, he loves his job and would like nothing better than to be able to invent the next great style of timepiece: the 24-hour clock. He knows the ins and outs of clockwork like nopony else and can make just about anything that uses cogs and springs. Unfortunately, every pony in Ponyville and beyond seems to think he's secretly a time-traveling hero. He's long since given up trying to fight it, opting to simply ignore it and hope it goes away. This has given him a sarcastic streak and loads of patience, but when the stakes are raised he'll willingly do his part to make things right.

Colgate[]

Colgate is a light-blue unicorn mare with an hourglass cutie mark. She works as Sepia's eager and loyal apprentice, using her magic to handle the detail work even Sepia's ingenuity and labor-saving devices have trouble with. Unlike her boss, or perhaps in spite of him, she is amused by the Doctor Whoof stories and makes a point to stay up with the current ones. She occasionally teases Sepia and drags him to a Doctor Whoof play at one point, but she cares deeply for him and worries when he needs to head out of town. She is named for her mane, which in the show looks like toothpaste.

Ragged Rock/ Master Ragnarock[]

Ragged Rock is a dark grey pegasus who purchases a strange pocket watch from Sepia early in the story and later returns as a power-mad villain with control over the flow of time. Driven by jealousy and a morbid fascination with Doctor Whoof, he fashions himself into an arch-enemy worthy of the famed Time Lord and attacks Ponyville to lure him out.

Princess Luna[]

Having been written prior to Season two, the story contains yet another speculation on Princess Luna's character, and specifically why she was absent from Season 1 after the pilot. CanvasWolfDoll depicts Luna as a timid and slightly eccentric shut-in who likes to hold tea parties in Canterlot's clock tower with sock puppets. Ashamed of her actions as Nightmare Moon, Luna is afraid that ponies would reject her attempts to befriend them. Sepia spends time with her and promises to write her on a regular basis.

Christmas Special[]

The author published a 4,700-word "Christmas Special" on December 20, 2011 (available on the story's page on Equestria Daily).

Vignettes[]

CanvasWolfDoll published a series of vignettes, readable on his fanfiction.net account. They are in the same continuity as Sepia Tock, but focus on other fanon entities and make only references to him, bar a single appearance. Thus far, four stories have been released:

Carrot Top's Fort[]

Follows Carrot Top through her mundane day. Opens with her waking up, eating carrot muffins prepared by Derpy Hooves for breakfast, and promising to take Dinky Hooves off to school as Derpy has to take on another pony's route for the day. Carrot Top later plays in a pillow fort set up by Derpy and Dinky

Lyra's Errands[]

Lyra finds herself going about her normal business during Discord's reign of Chaos. She takes it all in stride, and is generally unaffected by the wanton mischief.

Colgate's Job[]

The first story of the vignettes to actually directly utilize any of the characters from Sepia Tock, Colgate is left in charge of the store when Sepia is out of town to attend a concert. She finds her day dull, and is visited only by Vinyl Scratch (who is working on a new album, using the ticking clocks as a sample) and Soarin' (in desperate need of a metronome). Soarin' breaks the store's front window by accident. After the other two depart, Colgate further propagates the Doctor Whoof myth to a curious earth pony inspecting the broken window. This story ties directly in with...

Octavia's Metronome[]

Octavia is stressed about an upcoming performance, which is hampered when Soarin', as part of a dispute with the cello-player over who's talent is more impressive, accidentally breaks her metronome. Octavia spends the remainder of the story try to fix or replace the metronome, encountering Sepia (who built the broken metronome) as he tries to gain insight about a flip clock, which he believes is the answer to building a 24-hour model. Octavia fails to recognize him, and ignores his offers to help. Later, at the concert, Soarin' appears with the metronome he purchased from Colgate in the previous vignette. Octavia forgives him, then kicks him out so she can prepare for her performance.

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