New Story: The Eye and the Web

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/10774/26/future-progressive-the-speedfics-and-drabbles-of-present-perfect/the-eye-and-the-web-slice-of-life

I had meant to publish this at the same time I finished Heads in the Cloud, and me being me, I forgot. For a couple days. :|

Anyway, HitC and EatW[1] were both written to answer the same question: how do ponies get names so predictive of their cutie marks? Neither of these is actually my first attempt to ask that question, now that I think of it. I once wrote an aborted attempt at something in which ponies are born with "baby names" and then change them once their cutie marks come in. It didn't make a lot of sense and was somehow more complicated than "Equestria employs creepy old ladies to soothsay the names of newborn foals". (Which is somehow less complicated than "pony intelligence is too vast to fit in their brains so most of it exists in a collective mental construct they have access to when foals are born". Go figure.)

Anyway, this story is old and mostly untouched from its original draft (I went in and added a few dialogue tags at least), so it's not my best writing. But, well, you can witness a writer haunted by a single problem and trying to approach it from many angles I guess? :B

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[1] Please do not hit C or eat W. The former does not deserve it and the latter will make you poo.

Comments

[Silent Strider]

I still have to read those stories, so I'm not sure if you went this way, but my answer to this question actually goes the other way around: it's not that the name predicts the cutie mark, but that the cutie mark often (though not always) references the name.

Basically, I consider that the cutie mark's specific shape is determined unconsciously by the pony: it's a symbol the pony's subconscious (I guess) has created to represent his or her talent, using as parameters the pony's upbringing, culture, values, etc.

This would explain, for example, why Apple family members (nearly) always get something apple-related; they think of an Apple family cutie mark as something that necessarily involves apples, so that is what they get. The same with names and representative cutie marks; if the pony thinks of both the name and the cutie mark as elements that represent him or her, then it's likely that the subconscious will create a cutie mark that represent the talent but somehow incorporates the pony's name. This can also be used to explain family themes, such as the purple starburst in both Twilight's and Shining Armor's cutie marks, or stock cutie marks.