• Member Since 17th Jan, 2012
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Skywriter


loves tiaras.

More Blog Posts220

  • 2 weeks
    Cadance of Cloudsdale (so far) now in Spanish!

    Thanks to the generous SPANIARD KIWI, the text of Cadance of Cloudsdale so far is now in Spanish! Mr. Kiwi has done a tremendous amount of work translating many of my stories into Spanish, but this goes above and beyond. If you're curious, you may visit the project so far here at this

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    5 comments · 127 views
  • 6 weeks
    Happy Cadance Day 2024!

    Things feel a bit subdued today, due to the coincidence of Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday through a quirk of the liturgical calendar. It is somewhat difficult to juxtapose the splash of corporate-encouraged love with the festival that literally exists to remind us of our mortality. The pink of Valentine's washes against the purple of Lent. So I'm in a pensive mood, more so than usual on this

    Read More

    5 comments · 214 views
  • 11 weeks
    Ice Star's fam needs a helping hoof

    The short:
    Read up here.

    The not-very-long-but-long-as-it-gets:

    Read More

    5 comments · 240 views
  • 12 weeks
    "Cadance of Cloudsdale" continues tomorrow!

    Short: Watch this space for "Everyone Knows It's Cady," coming tomorrow midday.

    Read More

    20 comments · 284 views
  • 18 weeks
    Ciderfest is a wrap!

    Just got home from PVCF and it was an amazing con experience! The minific-based ARG that circulated around the con the whole weekend was high-concept, and I was worried about engagement, but everyone seemed to really get into searching out the hard-to-find stories concealed around the convention hall (in places as obscure as "the desktop wallpaper on one of the monitors in the video game room,

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    12 comments · 237 views
Mar
3rd
2015

On the Topic of Magical Realms · 5:44pm Mar 3rd, 2015

(Crossposted from my scrivnarium.)

I realize I'm dating myself here—and also fingering myself as a dyed-in-the-wool total nerd—but one of the more profoundly shaping experiences of my childhood was Richard Garriott's Enlightenment series of games (Ultima IV and forward). Though the series decayed somewhat over time, IV and V at least were transcendent. The use of the second person tense was nothing new to either gamers or veterans of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series, but this was different; beginning with Ultima IV, the character creation process was entirely devoid of stats to assign. Instead, "you" were asked a number of probing questions about semi-complex moral choices and encouraged to respond how you yourself would actually respond, and you were assigned a class based on those choices[1]. For the first time in gaming history, the second person tense wasn't just a quirk of the narrative. Your hero was you, encoded however fuzzily into the game's fantasy world by numeric abstraction.

Let us ignore for a moment the fact that any fantasy realm with me as its savior is probably totally boned. A tangent for another day.

"You" began the game walking up over a slope and looking down into a green valley at an otherworldly Renaissance Faire (Garriott flies his SCA freak flag pretty darn high); the character creation process as described above begins at a fortune-teller's wagon therein, and this is where the technical magic described above begins, but the part that really stuck with me was the moment that came right beforehand. There's nothing new about "child discovers fantasy world" as a narrative trope. The literary canon is full of rabbit holes to Wonderland and tornadoes to Oz and phantom tollbooths to the Lands Beyond. But perhaps as a twin function of the fact that I was already being encouraged to imagine myself there and the utter simplicity of merely walking over a hill, this one gateway to the Magical Kingdom has always stuck with me.

On my farm, there is a point near the lowland where, if you hold your head just right, a great rise of rutted earth fills your entire vision. You are so low, and the land so high next to you, that nothing is visible beyond it. No trees or buildings or silos or whatever. The hill appears to open out into the sky. Once a year, before the lowland gets too swampy to traverse and before there are crops to be messed up with my boots, I go down to that point, look up at that hill, and believe.

Once a year, I let myself believe—just for a moment—that there is something over that hill. I'm not sure in my mind if it's Garriott's Sosaria, or Faust's Equestria, or what. Perhaps it doesn't matter. Standing there, in the grim gray Wisconsin winter surrounded by a waste of stiff, blunted corn stumps, I imagine that just a few steps away is a warm, green valley just like the one in Ultima, a border-town to some magical world beyond.

I climb, and am always disappointed.

Here is the inspirational point where I look out over the farmland from the top of the rise and determine that I Actually Am In A Magical World After All Here On My Farm. A nice feel-good moral. But it never quite happens. I never quite escape that little pang that comes from having hopes dashed that you knew were laughably unrealistic in the first place.

But still, every year, I keep believing, and I keep climbing. And every year I worry about the day when I will no longer bother.

I was disappointed again today. But I guess I'd rather that than the alternative.

[1] Tinker or Mage, depending on which order the questions came, in case you're curious. Seems about right.

EDIT: Found an online version. Apparently, while I am still mostly a mage, my runner-up is paladin. All notions of real-world virtue aside, it's a much better starting class, since you begin without companions and somebody needs to be the guy with the sword. Oh, you poor Humble people starting out as Shepherds. It's a long, hard road starting out in Magincia (a.k.a. the most useless hometown ever).

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Comments ( 41 )

Someone should do a Ultima-MLP:FiM mashup, with Twilight Sparkle as the Avatar, and the rest of Mane Six and Spike as exemplars of virtues. Moongates would fit into Equestria so well, even though it has just one moon... The plot could be a mash-up of Ultima V and the show premiere. Princess Celestia is missing, her regent Sunset Shimmer is acting tyrannical, and then you've got these terrible dark shadow-alicorns terrorizing the land that Twilight & co. defeat one by one, until when you're about to rescue Celestia, they gather into their evil source, the Nightmare Moon (which has corrupted Sunset or something)...

Is this an inappropriate place to bug you about the next Cadance of Cloudsdale story? Probably. Am I a massive hypocrite considering I only published 1.5k words myself this February? Definitely.

Does this tale remind me of Puff the Magic Dragon? Without a doubt. Does that song always make my mom cry? Certainly.

Hey, only a month until I finally get to meet you at BABSCon! :pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy:

2846352
I would pay actual cash money for a game like that, yes.

"We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams..."

Man, I hear what you're saying. But every day you want something better is a better day than it could be, small comfort that that is.

You live on a farm?
cdn.meme.am/instances/56598157.jpg

DO YOU HAVE A HORSE?

WHY NOT?!

My parents' house is one block over, on the same lot number. One of the houses between has a fantastic garden with a wild array of various plants. Every time I walk between the two during Spring or Summer, I am reminded of the short jaunt between Seyda Neen and Pelagiad in Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

The other day a Nix-Hound bolted toward me. Rather, a dog ran up to me in the dark. I held out my hands and called it a happy dog until it realized I wasn't its owner, and ran back to where he was walking him off-leash.

Witchhunter Argonian.

There is a certain kind of magic in this world. A magic of the promise of the horizon, of mystery and discovery and wonder.

Still kind of pales in comparison to moving stuff with your mind, though.

I feel like any response to this post is inadequate, but: that's an old and familiar heartache.

(Also, thank you.)

(Also^2, the fact that you have a personal day for that is really cool of you.)

2846390
I do not in fact own a horse. Many pets, no horse. I live near a bunch, though; I'm across the road from an indoor private horse arena.

Asheron's Call was That Game for me. I can send myself on a nostalgia trip just thinking about the portal sound. It is literally impossible to recapture that sense of a huge, half-explored, dangerous world now. MMOs only hit their true potential in that brief span between their invention and the popularization of wikis.

I'm a bit jealous of folks that are enough older than me to have gotten things like the Ultima series in its heyday. I understand their impact, but it's not the same going back to play them 30 years later.

2846359
ST, my Ponyfic has been massively delayed by a monstrous Kickstarter bonus story that refuses to shape itself into final form no matter how much I bang on it. Everything else is piled up behind this one piece, and I can't just say "sod it" because not only is it paid work, it is work for which money has already been paid, which increases my paranoia, which increases my block, and so on and so on. Eventually something will give. I just have to keep whacking on it.

2846590 Did you do a Kickstarter and not blog about it here?

BTW, I just checked out that hill behind your house. Walked over the hill, and I was in Faerieland! Had all sorts of adventures, which took years in their time, but I was still back in time for supper.

Turns out the portal only opens one hour every hundred years, and today was the day. Sorry about that. It was really cool.

It's...bittersweet, in a way, to see someone else going through that exact pang. For me, it's going out walking late at night, and hoping for a sudden fog; or, reaching out and just willing something to move, daring to believe for those few moments it will. And many others of lesser repeat, but the common theme of that belief.

And, as you say, I am always disappointed. And it always hurts. And I never ever want that pain to go away because I refuse to give up that little shard of magic in me that knows it is cut off from the wider whole out there, and yearns to be apart of it again. The shard needs that emotional toll to survive, and I gladly pay it so that it may continue to live.

2846601
FORGET YOU, BAD HORSE.

FORGET YOU RIGHT IN THE EAR.

...I'm not sure how that works. Anyway, it's a previous Kickstarter, the most recent volume of Skin Horse. I don't blog about my non-Pony Kickstarters to keep the signal-to-noise ratio focused on Pony, and only crossblogged this one because it mentions Equestria. The story is started, but it just won't finish, and now that the book is in final proof my due date is coming soon.

2846607,
2846384,
2846461
Glad to have company on this metaphorical walk, at least.

2846590 what is this kickstarter you speak of? Can I throw money at it? EDIT: read your response to bad horse. I feel kinda bad that I only contribute 1¢ a month to Skinhorse. Which I should catch up on. :twilightblush:

2846497
Gameplay pales now that we're all spoiled by the Elder Scrolls and whatnot, but yes, it was very exciting when the Ultima games were the state of the art. Specificaly with Ultima V, it felt like, for the first time, we had advanced far enough that we could start adding real touches and details outside core gameplay mechanics. Like the fact that (only) when you chose a bard character to take watch while the rest of the party slept, he would play a song before starting his rounds. Or the fact that NPC's had individual daily routines scripted for them; some of them would go down to a nearby lake for an hour midday, others would visit restaurants, and every one of those little dudes had a bed they would go back to at night to fall asleep. It was a cool time to be a gamer.

2846399
There are so many picturesque walks and memorable places in that series! I always have a soft spot for Molag Mar. I love towns that exist strictly to cater the practical needs of pilgrims visiting holy places, and there is always something so appealing about that little fortified bastion of civilization, one little perfectly safe place in the middle of an unforgiving wilderness.

skywriter what the hell

you wrote a few paragraphs about standing in your back yard playing pretend and now i'm feeling emotions

writers have weird magic

2846651
Well, perhaps we'll start a Patreon to give you something more for your continuing patronage and also encourage you to give even more.

2846402
Ideally, we would have both.

2846686
Sure, if you want to make me sound ridiculous and pathetic, GO RIGHT AHEAD.

I like to think you will never stop wishing and hoping. Because the day you do, we will have lost a beautiful voice.

For the writing thing, cliche as it may be and much as you may already know it (Sometimes having others reaffirm can help) Maybe take a break? take a step back, write something else, drink tea, play in the snow etc etc, then try going back to it? Just try and distance the pressure and suchs. If nothing else, you know all of us silly folks are happy to help distract and cheer you.

2846607

See, my Force powers work. I just choose to only use them on automatic doors and certain traffic lights.

I feel you on the fog, though.

2846657

I remember that kind of stuff being selling points for Morrowind and Oblivion. Plus ça change...

What was really magical about the first MMOs was being part of this huge group of people who all had no idea what they were doing. Everything got worked out in chat, or from the half-complete information some enterprising soul put up on a Geocities page. There were no dungeon maps--you either got led through it or got lost until you knew the layout. New things stayed half-known and mysterious for months. New MMOs are 'solved' during the open beta. They release with their systems broken open and recommended builds already circulating--and you have to use them because increased combat difficulty is the only tool devs have left to stretch content.

The unknown is dangerous and thrilling, and taming it is fun. I think that is the big thing that has driven Minecraft--the procedural generation of the world means every new play is back into the unknown.

I got along well enough with Ultima V-VI, (I always wanted to play VII, which is supposed to be VERY good, but when I had it, my computer flat out refused to run it.) but it was the Ultima Underworld series that I really loved. :heart:

Though really, it was Quest for Glory that was my real escape into the fantasy world growing up, and Quest for Glory that still manages to induce something like what you describe for me.

I know that feeling but I don't know if I can point to one game or movie or book and say "This, this is the one that started it for me." There have been so many and it is such an old companion now. I don't really remember not having had the occasional bout of it. I remember Narnia and The Phantom Tollbooth and oddly enough Slayers, even though that one doesn't involve audience surrogates at all, inspiring such emotions. As far as video games go it's harder to say because I didn't actually get into those until I was older and in college. So it's hard to point to one as a pivotal moment growing up.

Thanks for sharing that. It reminds me of a quote (a few quotes, actually) from Lewis:

“All Joy reminds. It is never a possession, always a desire for something longer ago or further away or still 'about to be'.”

It's an odd feeling to be true, but it has value. God bless.

I know what you mean. I've always felt that way about my grandparents' home in the mountains. It's mystical and unexplainable, but the feeling never quite goes away, even as years go by.

Damn, I know what your saying and all those in the comments.
I achenly long for something to give and there to be a way into or the world twist, and bam magick and high adventure of those old fantasy novels and games.

Ultima Online, that was awesome.
And can you link to online version of the character generator you found, I would like to give that a whirl.

2846727

Oh gosh, this, yes, for MMOs. It's convenient to be able to look up where to go for a quest instantly, yes. But it loses the sense of adventure you got in Everquest trying to find your next contact. The sense of terror of going through Kithicor Forest at night praying you weren't going to get slaughtered.

And the awesome mysteries that floated around for ages, like that of the Kraken in Ocean of Tears. Nowadays? Someone would just crack their way into the game files. It's not quite the same.

The neighborhood I grew up in is nestled between a freeway access road, an actual freeway, and a retirement community. It's quite a wacky place, full of alleyways little back paths leading to and from and around the local park. Plenty of adventure was to be had getting lost in all those nooks and crannies, always hoping to stumble on something fantastic.

The park is a gateway all its own, too. Through it one could enter and explore the drained canal that runs the length of the city, or brave the single bridge that traversed the flooded section into the local hospital's parking area—it, similarly, lead to the community college, which was a whole different sort of trouble to get into.

I never really had nature to explore and fantasize about. I did my best with what I had. Given my very early exposure to IT I decided to forgo the canal adventures, and I stand by that choice to this day.

But yes, keep hoping. Or maybe do something fantastic for whoever walks up the other side of the hill.

2846720
But that's just it, man. "Ridiculous and pathetic" doesn't get me all emotional and contemplative about existence and shit. This blog post did. If this current writing project is bugging you, I hope you can at least take heart that however much work went into this post was enough to close that gap and then some.

And I do know the sense of wonder you're talking about, as much as I want to snark. It's weird that video games, even older ones with less impressive graphics and less interactive worlds, have scratched that itch for so many here. 2846727 is spot on for mentioning Minecraft: it's a goofy world of pixelly blocks, and all the "hidden" features are not only well-documented but hard to use without a wiki or something, yet something about the fact that you can crest a hill and see something truly new makes it powerful -- even if all you see is more blocks. I don't play it very often, but when I go out exploring I still crack a smile when I find a cool lavafall, even though I've seen dozens and made a few. There's more to that immersiveness than just graphics, and I think a little more than can be summed up by "mystery", but the imagery of you standing under a hill and just wishing you'll find something on the other side captures it well.

2847326
Here is an Internet mockup of the creation sequence. Happy generating!

Your post describes well how I feel at the conclusion of stories I've read here, when I'm disoriented and re-adjusting to meatspace.

One of the side effects the show and stories posted here have had on me is, I notice the moon more. Yeah, I saw it before and noted it's coolness, but I notice it now. I get all smiley. There's a new appreciation there. and for illogical reasons. There ain't no pony princess appreciating that I'm appreciating it.

But maybe when my back is turned....

Oh, and
7 out of 7 Valor
6 out of 7 Justice

Climbing a hill to crest the top is one of my most favorite things to do, when I have the chance, for precisely the reasons you specified. You never know what's on the other side, and maybe, just maybe, it could be what you hope.

I don't think you'll ever stop doing it though, because you don't seem like the kind of person who will stop dreaming.

But even so, why not find new hills to crest?

You make me want to play this "Ultima IV". Does one of the items from this search results list appear to be the correct game? It also appears it may be possible to play these things in your web browser. Awesome much?

2848992
Yes, it was indeed released for Sega in 1990. Be warned, the years have not been kind to it. And V is the superior game; IV is sort of like a proof-of-concept.

2848607
Fighter and Druid. Both fairly solid starters, but the Druid has to find companions quicker. :pinkiesmile:

2849247
I shall assume that V is also Sega, and endeavor to play them both. Thank you muchly.

2850392
Not positive they came out with V for the SMS, but I'm not sure. Anyway, happy playing.

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