Story 5 Followup (+Supplementals): · 6:48am Apr 16th, 2014
So...here we are...at the end of another story and I find myself without much to say about it that I didn't already cover in my chapter notes. However, I'll go ahead and talk about a few things.
At some point, several chapters after I had started writing about it, I realized that I kinda shot myself in the leg with the whole Harvest Festival thing. After all, Equestria already has a Halloween analogue, with Halloween itself being a permutation on traditional harvest festivals...but, then again, so is Thanksgiving (which is technically an American permutation of traditional harvest festivals for those of you who don't live in this semi-great land). And, of course, with harvest and autumn, it also means that the Running of the Leaves is there as well. Combined together, that's a lot of holidays smooshed into a relatively short period of time. Fortunately, I at least have a somewhat real-world analogue with the whole cluster that is the Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas lineup of holidays or, as it is known to those of us in retail, "The Christmas season with those other two holidays." So it's kinda like that situation where several holidays are in succession. However, it's especially pronounced for Ponyvillians as the Harvest Festival is a Ponyville-specific holiday (It being created by Pinkie Pie and all) whilst the Running of the Leaves is an earth pony tradition and limited to rural/agrarian/earth pony-founded towns like Ponyville, much like Winter Wrap-Up. In most towns that aren't Ponyville, the Running of the Leaves also doubles as a typical harvest festival. Nightmare Night then, is the celebration of the official last day of autumn and is traditionally celebrated the day before the first snows are scheduled to fall across Equestria.
So that's how I've set things up in my stories. The Running of the Leaves will be happening in Story 6, which I have decided to make shorter since I've gotten a nice, self-contained adventure arc out of it, but the holiday is going to be a background event and not heavily remarked on. Meanwhile, Nightmare Night will feature pretty heavily in Story 7. In fact, I may very well start Story 7 with Nightmare Night. It's important because this is when Dawn finally gets to meet Luna...it's gonna be kinda weird for both of them.
With that said, here's the rundown for Story 6:
Twilight Sparkle has put her plan into action. All of Equestria now knows about Dawn Lightwing and the trials he has faced as his story makes headlines across the nation. In Ponyville, Dawn and everyone else do their best to prepare for the inevitable fallout and the conflicts that Twilight's plan is sure to bring. However, Dawn's place in Ponyville is threatened in the most unexpected of ways as his life is put under scrutiny from an angle nopony predicted. As Fluttershy fights to keep their little family together, Dawn must venture forth with a most unlikely (and unpleasant) ally to deal with the shadowy machinations threatening to wrench him away from the only true home he's ever had.
So that's the lowdown for Story 6. Story 7 will cover the winter period, including Hearth's Warming, possibly up through spring. Right now, I expect the winter chapters to be shorter series with a bit more vignette structure. In fact, it might go a lot faster than any of my other stories in the series, chronologically speaking because there just isn't that much I have planned for the winter season, though I have something more suitably epic once we hit spring, as that's when the series is going to start reaching the endgame, which will take God knows how many installments. Well, I'll take it as I go.
And now for another supplementals
The Language of Matriarchy:
This is not specifically a Savage Skies supplemental. Rather, this cultural supplement that I've been trying to apply to all my pony-stories (barring my earliest entries).
Given the fact that the sovereign leaders of Equestria and, indeed, the large majority of authority figures we've seen in general, it can be safely inferred that Equestria is a matriarchy, or at least descended from one, in that females were (and possibly still are) the dominant gender, at least to a certain extent. Whilst it's not completely clear in the show itself, such issues being just a little bit over the heads of the intended demographic, I'd think it's safe to say that the canon setting takes place in some kind of post suffrage period (assuming that stallion suffrage was ever necessary in the first place, which is a debate for another time), where relationships between genders have, more or less, equalized. At least, that's my headcanon right now.
The implications of Equestria being a matriarchal society (or a society of matriarchal descent) have been tackled by a variety of authors in a variety of ways. One of the best known examples is Xenophillia, which combines a matriarchal society with a huge gender disparity to create a society where ponies sort themselves into "herds" of several mares to one (sometimes more) stallion. Aegis Shield actually tackled the suffrage issue with Stallions on Strike, which also included the herd-based social model, come to think of it. Other authors have tossed out tidbits in their stories, such as characters hinting in dialogue of periods where stallions were considered to be property, rather than ponies with rights and so on.
However, one of the most-neglected areas regarding the impact of Equestria being a society of matriarchal descent is that of the Equestrian language itself. For those of us who speak English, which is a language born of an originally patriarchal society, we can see that patriarchal lineage reflected in the language itself. We default to the masculine whenever gender is uncertain. There's a predominance of "man" in our vocabulary: craftsmanship, swordsmanship, sportsmanship, manhandling and even woman. A mixed group is referred to as "guys." And those are just the examples I can come up with just off the top of my head. The point is that we English speakers come from a society of patriarchal descent and, while the respective status of our two genders has equalized somewhat (the extent of which is also a topic of debate for another time), said patriarchal lineage is reflected in our language and vocabulary.
In the matriarchal nation of Equestria, I've tried my best to work that matriarchal aspect into the Equestrian language (which is basically English, but now with 20% more pony (1)) I've used. Fortunately, from a phonetic and syllabic perspective, "mare" is a pretty good substitute for "man" in most of the above examples I've provided. Whenever the story requires me to refer to an individual when said individual's gender isn't specified, I default to the female. About the only (and decidedly arbitrary) sticking point I've encountered is that I'm still uncomfortable calling a mixed-gender group girls instead of guys. I'm not entirely sure why. I'll probably just have to stop mucking about and just do it.
So, if you're a bit confused with the way I've been writing whenever that stuff crops up, that's my basic reasoning behind it.
(1) The author has not actually calculated the exact percentage of extra pony in written and spoken Equestrian.
I'm to lazy to calculate the exact percentage of pony in spoken and written Equestrian; but with your fanbase slowly but surely approaching Cult Solar levels, I'm confident that someone will.
Humm. Ok I'm going to guess at what this means: my guess is it's either the Equestrian version of child services comes calling looking ti take Dawn away from the "Dangerous" town or his birth family comes out of the wood works and looks to well I don't want to say reclaim him (but it's something along those lines) which cause's a court room custody battle for Dawn, between Fluttershy and his old family (I have money on one Merry Weather (the author of Mare-Do-Well in this verse (She was mentioned back in the third story and again in the fifth) as having some sort of relation to Dawn).
I'm calling it.
Fluttershy parents.
2015124 Oh ya forgot about them; we haven't seen them at all in the entire series have we, I wonder why though
? Perhaps they (Fluttershy and her unnamed parents) had a falling out over Flutters dropping out of flight school (which was probably expensive) and they haven't talked since 
.
2015124
I was actually about to say, calling Dawns real parents. Considering the whole eyes thing, I would think they would notice their missing child the moment that picture gets out. Who gets custody in such a situation (though I doubt dawn would ever go)?
2015217
Would they even want him back? For all we know they were scared of Dawn's eyes and just shipped him off to the nearest orphanage, If not just throwing him away somewhere?
2015095
2015217
Since Dawn Lightning is a name given to him by his old master Dark Wing, and since his biological parents gave him the boot... along with legal documents that he, Dawn Lightning (the name his parents did not give him) is the son of Fluttershy now... there's not much of a case here (unless they kidnap him, that would end differently... especially with Ponyville's deadliest filly as his special somepony; Scootaloo)
Something tells me that the nobles are going to take advantage of this, by providing Ponyville with something like protection or something else in exchange for something valuable...
Elderflower might try something very nasty with Ponyville
2015245
True, but it's also just as likely they were separated unwillingly. Considering he didn't die when he was a baby (cake twin age) someone had to take care of him, and I imagine an orphanage would throw him to the wolves if an assassin showed up.
2015247
They're forbidden from interfering with the common pony, remember that? While they could still do that, I would image that couldn't cause the family trouble that moguera is talking about. They're after twilight after all.
Mostly though I think this because drama, and it would provide a good route to making some history/background for dawn beyond what is there.
I'm sensing something to do with Dawn's adoption? Somepony in the cult solar gets leverage to make it look... illegal perhaps. That would be my best guess. When brute force is not an option, our brain becomes our greatest weapon.
If I was into gambling, my money would go on the long shot of Fanmares trying to get him. Seriously, crazy cultists or Fanmares, who would you be more scared of?
The other bet would be if this saga breaks a million words (over 600,000 and still going).
2015095
I can definitely say it's not this one, since, if you check back in Story 3, I give you a pretty definitive hint as to who Merry Weather is (and yes, she happens to be somepony, or rather, someponies, close to Dawn). That was meant to be a bit of a joke.
Seven stories? And it sounds like that isn't the last one. Holy cannoli dude, that is a lot of writing. I would be interested in seeing a total word count and comparing to Fallout Equestria or other works.
Also, the most obvious Equestrian language difference to me was "Mares-at-arms". For some reason that really stood out to me, all of the other gender identifiers were really subtle. I do love reading fan fiction though because of the wordings; "beforehoof", "on the other hoof", etc. Do you use a word substitute program like Ponify, or do you just type it all out?
2015396 Ah so it's the Crusaders then; so what I wrote wasn't wrong per se as Scoots is rather close to Dawn
, I was just wrong on Merry Weather being a separate pony. Evidently I didn't get the joke 
hehe 
.
2015458 I think the reason it stands out so much is due to humanity's military history. Our militaries have always been male and females have always filled support roles.
2015458 As of right this minute, the series as a whole clocks in at over 643,000 words. As for the answer to your other question, I type it all out. I wasn't even aware that there was a program that could ponify your writing.
wait... are you telling me that story #5 has been out for god knows how long?
F***
Be back in a few days
2015254 Your comment that the nobility can't interfere with the common pony let me figure it out. Fluttershy was Knighted just like Twilight, so Fluttershy is part of the nobility as well. This means that Dawn is being adopted by a member of the nobility, and that has a dozen outdated rules attached to it.
While it's fair to headcanon anything, I definitely don't see any reason to claim that Equestria being a matriarchy is an actual canon thing. We see more female characters in authority because we see more female characters period, due to it being a little girls cartoon that features female characters quite often. Forgive me if I sound too accusing, but you do seem to be suggesting that you think that kind of stuff is canon, specifically with the way you say "It's safe to assume...". I think it's creative and useful to use ideas like that for the sake of creating those interesting 'what-ifs' for fanfiction, but I don't think it's 'safe' to assume when referring to the actual show.
Personally though, as far as my headcanon goes, I think it's more logical for it to be egalitarian.