Dreams and Disasters Trivia · 5:40pm May 17th, 2014
Okay, so in the weeks since I finished Dreams and Disasters, I have gotten a few messages regarding some of the ideas and their inspirations I used in the various arcs.
Others have also reminded me that I was going to produce a list of all the potential places Twilight and Dash could have visited, but were ultimately cut from the final list. So I guess I'll start with that.
The Atlas of Equus, as per Quillery Penfeather
The Shirelands
Mostly an amalgamation of Ireland and Scotland, the Shirelands are a prosperous community further north of Great Brayton. The Shireland locals are a stout and hardy people, a bit shorter than average Equestrian natives as well as scruffier and tougher. They have an affinity for vegetable harvests, notably potatoes, carrots, and various hops and barley, making them a proud producer of alcoholic beverages in Equus. They also have a gruff culture, but are hospitable to outsiders, so long as they can deal with their thick accents and boisterous demeanour. They are also practitioners of ancient rune magic, which is a form of magic mostly reserved to earth ponies, but it has been seeing use in modern unicorn and even pegasus magic.
Language: Traditional Equestrian (Heavily Accented with Ancient Shirelic)
Leader: Clan Chief Emerald Clover
Espona
In the southern oceans, just below Prance, would be the cultural capital of Espona. Where prance is the Mecca of gemstones, Espona is the land of gold. Earth ponies are also a predominant species in the warmer climate, and with their innate earth pony magic, have cultivated a prosperous culture of wealth and beauty.
Language: Esponya
Leader: Her Royal Highness Golden Sun
Itaily
South East of Prance and Espona, lies Roam, the capital of Itaily. A land of equality between the three pony races, Itaily was one of the first regulated democracies in Equus before the rise of Celestia and Luna, and, thanks to their grace, have remained a consular democracy to maintain the many different states and provinces that grace the southern oceans.
Language: Itailic
Leader: Consular Democracy between the three pony races.
Fleece
Neighbouring Itaily, Fleece is a land populated mostly by sheep, rams and a variety of goat folk that cover most of the southern portion of the continent. They are a quiet, but social people that have expanded greatly across the world, but their cultural roots are deep within their territory. Masters of cottons, silks and fur, there are no betters in the textiles industry across Equus than Fleece. Fashion empires would crumble if not for the exports from the small nation that supply the world daily with cloth, sheets, and more.
Language: Bahramewe
Leader: Trademaster Silver Shears
Istandbull
The land of the minotaur is filled with a history of strife and aggression. Recent diplomatic efforts with pony kind has helped with tempering the natural ferocity of the minotaur, helping shift them into a more industrious people. Many denizens of the province had seen fit to travel abroad and see new kingdoms to broaden their considerable intelligence and help curb their instinct to fight. Despite their war-like attitude, they have a strong culture of architectural marvels, building some of the most magnificent structures ever seen by pony kind. They are also practitioners of music and art, which has helped solidify their peace with ponies and other races across the globe.
Language: Taurus
Leader: Chieftain Steel Resolve
Nipponi
The last kingdom of the east, Nipponi is a small island empire east of Stalliongrad. They practice older customs of honor, battle and meditation, and have a steeped sense of national pride. They praise the sun as a deity, but not as Celestia specifically, which has caused some political tensions between Equestria and the self proclaimed land of the sun. Despite this, they are a polite and hospitable society, who enjoy trade and stories of personal triumph over tea.
Language: Nipponese
Leader: Emperor Rising Sun
Now, these are the destinations that I intended to either have Twilight and Dash specifically visit, or at least heavily allude to or mention in the narrative. In the end, to make the story actually have a reasonable run time, these were many of the ones that got cut in the process. There are certainly more civilisations I could make, and pony puns to come up with, but these are just a small list of what the entire world beyond Equestria could look like, and will most likely continue as my personal headcanon with stories I write, if possible.
Other random trivia
What will follow is just a random dump of information that came about during the planning stages of the story.
Arc One: The boat ride+Great Brayton
Twilight's bag enchantment is from a popular inventory item in Dungeons and Dragons called Bag of Holding. An almost necessary thing to have when playing an RPG and you need something to carry your loot.
Sea Swirl was based on an ongoing story/tumblr that I follow called Heartstrings, which features a character named Dolphin Dream, which is a rename of Sea Swirl. She has shipping goggles that would put Rarity to shame, so I felt it was a fun addition as one of Cadence's sleeper agents.
Great Brayton's capital: Buckingham was easy. Almost no effort on my part to just keep the name of the actual Buckingham Palace as the name of the city instead. Whoopee!
The Duke and Duchess of Cranberry is an awful pun/modification of the actual Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, that most people got anyway.
Cranberries being a stable of the culture was just an extension of the family name.
Prance
Queen Victoire is based on Queen Victoria, and her family naming schema is from Harry Potter, where Fleur Delacour's child is named after the battle of Hogwarts
French Vanilla is my favourite ice cream flavour. So Vanille was an obvious choice for Queen Victoire's alias. Deal with it.
The plot of the Prance arc was mostly inspired by the movie Taken, cause Liam Neeson is a boss.
Antlerdam
Antlerdam was a 100% certainty to happen at some point in the story, but coming up with a pony pun for the name was actually kinda hard. Then a friend just suggested Deer as the dominant race instead, since we've seen other non pony before, so it was an easy fix after that. Also, since there was a planned episode back in season one of MLP that would have featured deer, I felt it an even better choice in the long run.
The two Dj's with Vinyl were mostly OC's. "Ash", the black and white DJ was clearly a reference to Ken Ashcorp, writer/singer of 20% cooler, the song I referenced in the dance club scene. "Trouble Clef" was just a spawn of whimsy, and is a completely original OC as far as I can tell. Can't say I'd ever use him again, so if anyone wants him for a DJ name, go for it.
Train to Germane
Edweena Talonmark is sort of a R63 self insert of myself, not really though... She's a way better author than I am. I mean, she's actually published!
Germane
The inclusion of the Equestrian games was an interesting choice for me. The irony that this arc went live around the same time as the Sochi Olympics is not lost on me. The most fun I had was the use of the various characters added in the arc, specifically Chancellor Northwind, Chancellor Gorim Tez, and Mace
The inspiration of these characters came about from a ponified D&D campaign I ran a long time ago with my friends. It was set sometime before Hearths Warming in a fairly primal and still primitive version of proto-equestria, and Tez, Gorim and Mace were a group of gryphons my group kept running into and working with. Northwind was my character, a pegasus rogue, travelling with the pegasus bard Dusty Breeze, and the unicorn wizard Lazy Days, based on Oc's of my friend and brother respectively.
Stalliongrad
Stalliongrad was not the original ending planned, Nipponi was. It took a bit of a turn around to trim the story to fir Stalliongrad as a more natural end, and I think I managed to incorporate it fairly well. Dash being of Stalliongrad descent is a favored headcanon of mine, mostly based on that Soviet Pony March video, as well as the foreign language dub of Russian Rainbow Dash. I felt it necessary to actually give life to the headcanon, which I felt was my favourite part of the story.
Aurora is not based on anyone or thing in particular, at least in which comes to mind. I think the base of her character came about from the generic and stereotypical scariness of some Russian people, then I just melded her to my advantage. I mean, who else by Rainbow Dash would have a badass ballet dancer aunt? Some people showed a bit of negativity towards her and what she did in regards to Dash's soft step approach to admitting her feelings, but I don't think it as much a flaw of character as much as she is merely a character worth hating, which was the intention. Aurora is not a BSer. She was not raised to be weak or spineless, such is the environment she grew up in. She is strong, individualistic and a forceful mare, despite being the younger child to Dash's father. She is benevolent at heart, if a bit cold in her methods. Despite how Stalliongrad ended up, I promise that Dash still loves her very much, although she might be a bit more reserved with her feelings around her in the future.
Twilight's notebook
I'm wondering how many people thought the small aside at the end of chapter 2 was just going to be a throw away moment? The use of Twilight's journal was integral to how I initially planned to resolution and I think it was an appropriate method of dissecting Twilight's feelings in the aftermath of Stalliongrad.
Twilight's Advanced Theories of Friendship Mechanics
I'm also wondering how many people actually noticed that Dash fulfilled all 6 elements of harmony on a personal level in her efforts to admitting her feelings to Twilight. It occurred to me that, in the wake of Cadence's and Shining Armor's spell during the wedding, that the magic of love was a thing, and I was wondering how that would fit into the grand scheme of Equestrian magic. I fell back to the elements of harmony and thought, well, if you were prescribed to the notion of soul mates and true love, then you would agree that you and your partner would have to be generous, honest, fun, kind and loyal to you to maintain the strength of the relationship, right? After all those pieces are in place, the love is kinda... magical, isn't it? Take that as you will.
And that's about it. Once again, I'm glad everyone took the time to enjoy and comment, and I hope you have a little bit of fun with these tidbits of information. I give anyone free game to use some of the head cannons and ideas for their own stories and creations, and I'd love to see anything created, other fanfics, fan art, whatever. Feel free to link me if you do.
Have fun, and Happy reading.
New projects are coming soon, and I'll keep everyone posted.
Quillery Penfeather.
So, Celestia in a fake mustache, then?