• Member Since 24th Jun, 2012
  • offline last seen Sunday

scoots2


I'm a writer of fluff, kibitzer, and especially interested in canon AU: Equestria Girls, the comics, etc. They are fun to play with.

More Blog Posts181

  • 239 weeks
    Follow-up on that stalker thing

    He seems to have gone quiet for now. I'm assuming the admins managed to smack down all of those alts. I haven't seen any new material on Tumblr or DeviantArt, either.

    Speaking of DeviantArt, here's the reply I got from them:

    Thanks for getting in touch!

    A member of the DeviantArt staff has reviewed this situation, and we have taken appropriate steps to resolve the problem.

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    5 comments · 444 views
  • 242 weeks
    Just so you know...

    There's a person on here who has been creating alts and harassing me. I keep getting posts like "why have you stopped talking to me? Tell me what I did. I need closure." I'm also getting PMs along the order of "yo, why are you ignoring X? I thought you were friends."

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    13 comments · 506 views
  • 248 weeks
    I lurk

    I know some people have asked why I won’t say anything, etc., but the truth is that I lurk. I sign in to see something, usually to re-read Rage Reviews. There are some things I can’t see unless I’m a bonafide member over a certain age. And then I just don’t ever log out, but I’m not “here” and ignoring anyone on purpose.

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    6 comments · 406 views
  • 327 weeks
    Some people make themselves very, very unhappy

    Haven't been around much, but then, you knew that. Busyness, health issues, and frankly a whole lot of depression. Even ponies weren't interesting me very much anymore. I had a ticket to go to EQLA and a party that same weekend, and I did not go to either.

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    26 comments · 783 views
  • 381 weeks
    Hey guys guys guys

    So, hi, you haven't probably seen much from me, and that is primarily because I have been sucked in again by my primary fandom, Harry Potter. Which isn't surprising, considering that I help run a convention and teach a course on it and am the school's club's faculty advisor and have given talks on it for, oh, over a decade.

    So for me, for the last few months, it has been mostly about:

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    12 comments · 713 views
Aug
10th
2014

Hmm--scheduling issue · 5:07pm Aug 10th, 2014

Some of you may have figured out that I'm a bit obsessed about dates and seasons and weather. I try not to foreground it too much, but I pay very careful attention to it in my stories.

Therefore, I was shocked to realize that I'd kind of screwed the pooch when it comes to Cheese's birthday. I'm not quite sure how this happened, but I think I was looking at the May page of my calendar and thought I was looking at June. For reasons I don't want to go into, it should probably fall on the 14th--a Saturday.

So--opinions, given that I've mentioned Cheese's birthday as June 10th on my blog--

1. Do I shift it to the 14th? --or
2. Do I keep it on the 10th and just gracefully elide over the fact that this would make it fall on a Tuesday?

Either way I will feel dumb, because I've grown rather attached to the 10th as Cheese's birthday. I cannot BELIEVE I made such an elementary error. Augh.

AHA!--maybe it's because of the shift from the Equestrian to the Gregorian calendar, right?--

*sigh* I got nothing. Let me know your opinions below.

Comments ( 20 )

I don't know. I have a similar issue with Pinkie's birthday -- May 1st, or May 3rd? Obviously it's all that weird chaotic party magic of Laughter, or something like that. Yeah, that's my story! :pinkiesmile:

If it bothers you that much, I'd say go with technical accuracy over sentimental value. I'm sure you'll come to like the 14th. The 10th will understand. Hopefully.

2358632
Seems Heisenberg-y to me. There is a set minimum of uncertainty regarding the pasts of party ponies. You can know when they were born or what their childhoods were like, but not both.

2358632 Well, hers is sorta set in stone as May 3rd, because Hasbro said so. In my case, I'd be contradicting my own canon and no one else's. In your case, you have a REALLY GOOD REASON for keeping it as --Walpurgisnacht?--am I wrong?--so I'd keep that one if I were you, too!

Heck, you gave her a really unusual twin sister. I think a two day difference is pretty small potatoes!

2358661 True--but that also means The Journal of The Two Sisters wouldn't have been released on his birthday, either.

Oh, well. I'm pretty sure no one else is noticing the dates as they go by. They're there, but subtly. The last chapter ended on a Friday night, the week after Pinkie's birthday.

Seems Heisenberg-y to me. There is a set minimum of uncertainty regarding the pasts of party ponies. You can know when they were born or what their childhoods were like, but not both.

AHA! I smell a loophole!

I'm not quite as obsessed with detail as Twilight, but close. And I never think of her as having OCD, by the way. She's a totally normal academic. My real field may be literature, but my sub-sub-subfield is in an area where you cannot afford to fudge things, including dates. If someone tosses out Old Calendar vs. New, and you don't have an answer, your paper may be instantly blown off, face to face, by one of the silverbacks in the field. They will ritually tear you a new one.

Then everyone goes out to dinner.

But that's why I edge towards the careful side.

I don't mind, either way. Personally, I like the idea that his birthday is October 23rd, because that's also Weird Al's birthday. :twilightblush:

2358679 Which is one reason it's never going to be October 23rd in my verse. Cheese Sandwich isn't Weird Al. But in my EG fic, there's a reason why it has to fall when it does.

2358674

I'm not quite as obsessed with detail as Twilight, but close. And I never think of her as having OCD, by the way. She's a totally normal academic.

Eh ... in her attention to detail, sure. And then she's a mage, so screwing up could have worse real-world effects than getting embarrassed when someone points out her mistake. Or even not getting a position because she gets a reputation as sloppy.

But, the recursive checklists? Did you notice the throwaway line in Divine Jealousy and the Voice of Reason where Twilight is fondly remembering some conversations with Luna:

She improved my organizational skills, too. That talk we had about the opportunity costs of excessive organizing and the problem with recursive checklists ... it's easy to see that she handled the logistics back in the Time of Thrones.

Luna, of course, has a military background, in which you have to at some point stop the preparations and start the march. Plus, she wants to wean Twilight into an organizational mode in which she avoids situations in which she logically has to keep on re-organizing forever.

After all, Luna's contemplating immortality with her! :heart:

2358674

AHA! I smell a loophole!

In the words of the Joker, "If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple-choice!"

Okay, not exactly the best role model, but still.

2358734 Basically, what's happening is that I need to artificially bloat May into a longer month than it is to allow for a few sports matches, finals week, and graduation. Among other things, I don't want Pinkie to have to take finals with a head injury (although it might be possible for her to reschedule those for later in the summer, I suppose. Self, you will NOT waste time in looking up high school rules on this.

Too late.)

I'm already bending the sports season. Usually athletic calendars end earlier than mine does. And there is one thing that is getting bent into a pretzel, and for this I feel no shame. But I'm certain I'm more accurate than a lot of EG high school fics are.

2358632 2358663
Except Pinkie's birthday is obviously April 30; 'Party of One' aired on the 29th, so that's Gummy's birthday, and hers is the day after. :trixieshiftright:

2358815 No. The Hub posted "Happy Birthday, Pinkie Pie" on May 3rd. That's what it's been for a couple of years now.

2358815

And that I realize creates another sort of scheduling problem for me. I may have to put "Party Of One" between "Stare Master" and "The Show Stoppers" on my sequence, though I know when it aired.

I never take any 'official' dates for birthdays. Unles it's outright stated in the show by the characters, it's all speculation to me. It may be Pinkie's 'birthday' on May 3rd or whatever from what they posted, but not to me. It's whenever I want to make it. So I never see it as the go-to date for her birthday. If an author made her birthday on the 25th December then I wouldn't care (that'd be weird though).

I mean, Cheese Pie Cake has both Cheese and Pinkie sharing the same birthday. That itself is going pretty far (I can't actually remember how I came up with that idea). Why didn't Cheese's Cheesy Sense go off during Party of One then? Then again, he didn't exist at that point...

It's also implied that their birthday follows after Rainbow Dash's by a few weeks. I don't know Dash's birth-date. I don't know the party ponies' either. I tihnk I placed the tone around April or May time, given the weather and everything, but I don't outright state a date.

So I'd say go for whatever. I know I'm pretty much neutral here; the date doesn't actually matter to me. So I'm coming across as meaningless right now. I've seen you use dates and that before, so I know how... I don't want to say anything like obsessed, but you certainly get creative with them. If it were me, I'd probably keep the date it is already, but in your case, I'm sorry but I got nothing. :applejackunsure:

2358930 I'm not saying anyone has to use the "official date," but I'm guessing that now that you've established that Pinkie and Cheese share a birthday, you're probably not going to write a fic in which they don't. I'm stuck with May 3rd, not because it's Hasbro's date, but because I've used it a number of times in my stories.

If an author made her birthday on the 25th December then I wouldn't care (that'd be weird though).

It would also be kind of meaningless, since ponies don't celebrate Christmas--on purpose. They celebrate Hearth's Warming Eve. Most of their celebrations are seasonal, in fact. This is why I prefer to use light sources, seasons, and rough times of day (e.g. early afternoon, late afternoon, etc.) as opposed to days of the week and clock times. It just feels more "pony-ish" to me. May 3rd's the exception, as the one date Cheese doesn't forget.

Why didn't Cheese's Cheesy Sense go off during Party of One then? Then again, he didn't exist at that point...

Or maybe because there was another important party he was supposed to be throwing at the time? We have no idea how Cheesy Sense ranks parties. Purely for my own storytelling purposes, I've got it that it makes no external sense. Princess Celestia, for example, doesn't outrank anypony on the birthday party meter. It's based on where ponies really need to be cheered up--or maybe a filly's birthday that's really important to her--or who knows what reason. I don't even think Cheese knows.

As for why he didn't go during Party of One--Pinkie's birthday party was covered, wasn't it? She had a nice birthday party being planned by her friends. Wouldn't even show up on the sensor, I think. Now a sharp drop in general happiness levels--THAT would be noticeable--but again, perhaps not traceable.

And why did he wind up throwing Dashie's birthaversary party? Well, since Cheesy Sense is in charge, let's just say it was time for him to cross paths with Pinkie.

Incidentally, it's the tenth anniversary of the day Dash moved to Ponyville. This probably got cut for time, but it's in the episode guide in The Journal of The Two Sisters, and since it's by the same author, I think that's pretty close to canon. It explains why a birthaversary that occurs every year is important this time, and also fuels speculation about how old Dash was when she moved to Ponyville. Still a filly, like Pinkie? Or are they a bit older than we thought they were? I don't know if you remember the obsessive candle-counting people were doing, but I liked Amy Keating Roger's interpretation: it was as many candles as Pinkie and Cheese could stick on the cake!

And I don't think of any of this as a stick to beat other writers with: how dare you show Pinkie's birthday as April 30th, yadda yadda. For me, it's fuel. It's all stuff I can use. And I don't like contradicting myself.

Personally, in a situation like this where making a definite decision and sticking to it is probably more important than scrupulous accuracy to the whims of a toy company :raritywink: I'd just make an impulse decision. For example: my little brother's birthday is the tenth of June, so Cheese's can be too.

Normally I'm a fairly detailed world builder, but calendar dates are a thing I hate with the passion of a limp carrot, so I'm happy to fudge them. :twilightsheepish:

2360828 Well, the problem wasn't with the toy company date so much. The problem is that I selected and already announced a specific date for plot-related reasons, and because I was looking at the wrong calendar month, I screwed it up, which would majorly screw with my plot. Oh, well--I'll figure out what to do when I get to it.

I don't read obsessively enough to remember what you've already nailed down, but could you shift the year to move the day? You might need to stretch a timeskip to 'square ' everything, but that should be doable.

2361242 I don't think so. I've got a series of Saturdays happening and if I change the year, all those dates will now be wrong. Anyway, I think I know how I am going to handle it, and it won't matter at all. I don't think anyone who hasn't read this entry is even going to notice.

2361286 But if you haven't stated the dates, you could just shift everything by inserting a few days somewhere. That's what I meant, but... I don't remember if you've actually been stating dates.

If you've got a solution you're happy with, it's probably a better one. I don't remember time much in stories, so I'd never have noticed. I'm probably not representative, though. As long as the author isn't making up month and day names and expecting me to care, I'll manage. Seriously, some people.

The idea of 'what the readers notice' is an interesting one, though, and something I try to think about as I write. The hardest thing to deal with in my own stories is perspective. Am I emphasizing the important bits enough? Is the effect what I intended? Dunno. I wonder about it. It's why I value pre-readers more than editors.

2361368 Yes, I have. That is the issue. The thing is that I am hoping readers probably won't think to count forward, and they probably won't.

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