Story Notes: Sunbeam · 4:03am Jul 9th, 2018
As some of y'all know, I'm in the Rare Story Prompts group, and as such have already completed two stories for them. One was a winner, and one was not.
This is neither.
I mean, of course it isn't. I couldn't know when I published unless the whole thing is rigged, and anyway even if it is there isn't a contest going on at the moment.
And I've probably confused some of y'all, but don't worry, it'll all make sense in the end.
Yesterday, I was working on a fic that I want to get done before Bronycon—maybe not published, but at least finished—and while I felt like the section I wrote was pretty good dialogue-wise, I'm not sure that it actually does anything at all for the story.
Not that that's terribly upsetting. I got my writing process validated at EFNW. I could check my notes at what the process is actually called, but it's basically the 'write now, edit later' method, and it tends to leave a lot of stuff to be fixed in the editing process.
I was thinking about that this morning, though, and while I wanted to work on that story there were reasons I couldn't do it right, most importantly that I was working and it's oftentimes hard to get to your happy place when you're working. Plus, sometimes working on something else sets my mind back where it needs to be for a different story.
Of course, I didn't really have any particularly good ideas for a plot hook.
Which brings us back to the intro. While there have only been two official Rare Story Prompts contests to date, there's a whole list of potential prompts, and this story was based on one:
-Not realizing you're dealing with a pony, or a human, until you actually see them. Example: a human who works at the Equestrian embassy on Earth has adopted a pony-like name for convince sake to answer the phone, because callers would be confused by a human answering.
That's been done at least once that I can recall. I think in The Pony Who Lived Upstairs, there was a human who worked with ponies who had taken a name like Strawberry Fields.
I was thinking of what kind of story I could base on that prompt around, and then I was thinking about some of the countergirls at one of our suppliers and how sometimes in our modern world there are people who you talk to all the time but you've never actually met and probably never will.
Tonawanda Auto and DeMars Electric are actually both names of obsolete auto manufacturers. Thematic!
Tonawanda itself felt like a New York name, hence the story taking place in Buffalo, NY . . . and later on, when I was researching particular things, it turns out that there is a city of Tonawanda that's basically part of Buffalo, so my instincts were right on there. 
Imperial Pizza, you probably won't be surprised to know, really is in Buffalo, and the White Pizza really is on their menu. Likewise, there is a Felton Street which crosses the railroad tracks and then ends just before falling into the Niagara River. And, as a little quirk of fate, there's a Brownie's Auto Repair on that street.
Likewise, those part numbers quoted are genuine part numbers. Ironically, some of that was slightly difficult to find since I wasn't at the shop—had I been there, it would have been a simple matter of using our online catalogues to find those numbers. I had to go the google route, and especially the Ford factory part number was slightly difficult to find (aftermarket part numbers weren't, though).
Quickly covering some of the mechanic stuff, a serpentine belt could potentially take out the cam sensor on a 6.0, but it's unlikely. The fuel bowls on a 7.3 do have a pressure fitting that likes to break—I've broken one before despite my care in getting the line off. The 6.8 is the 10 cylinder version of Ford's modular engine and it gives you diesel torque at the expense of jet engine fuel economy. Also it has ten coils to fail instead of the normal eight.
I don't know if it's possible for an air brake chamber to fail in such a way that the brake stays partially applied, but it probably is. I've never worked on air brakes. Blued and cracked drums are good for the scrap pile only—any brake application might be their last, and while I don't have experience driving a vehicle with air brakes, I've driven a number of them with partial or complete brake failure and I do NOT recommend that.
JB Weld—a two-part epoxy—may or may not be fuel resistant, I don't know, but I do know that when you spray fuel onto a turbo you generally get a rather spectacular engine fire. Nine times out of ten, that progresses into a whole truck fire in fairly short order.
JB Weld cannot be used to repair crankshaft bearings or caps, which I learned from a NTSB TSB report. Personally, I never would have tried it, but it seems that some people are less worried about adverse consequences than I am.
We do have suppliers that we use for only one particular group of parts. Things have changed over the time I've been at the shop, but in a nutshell at our peak, we had one guy who rebuilt our transmissions, one guy who did driveshafts and rear ends; we had a supplier for just radiators and gas tanks, another one for just shocks and exhaust, and then our main supplier for everything else and a backup supplier in case the first one didn't have it. We also had accounts with several dealers for parts that aren't available aftermarket or which are but can't be trusted.
Blinker fluid totally isn't a real thing (although you can buy it); muffler bearings actually are. In some cases because of difficulty in translating, and in other (rare) cases because the exhaust has to be supported and able to move. While I was able to find a nominal muffler bearing from Nissan (translation problems), there are better parts available. And I learned this from a parts girl that got tired of people asking her to look them up, and told me one time that she'd found an actual part that was legitimately called a muffler bearing and could quote off the top of her head both the part number and cost.
Sadly, she doesn't work for our supplier any more, or I would have held off on publishing until tomorrow when I could get her part number.
Since I suck at coming up with pony names and am even worse at cover art, and since I was at work and didn't have anything better to do, I let my fingers do the walking through Derpibooru's search functions, and discovered that in G1, ponies had telephones.
Sweetheart was a decent choice, but I couldn't find any either solo pictures of her on the telephone, or any that were particularly appealing by our current standards. I also couldn't use a gif for coverart, which is too bad; there's a great one of Teddy eating a teddy bear, which I guess means that back in the old days, Hasbro wasn't ashamed to show vore.
Anyway, I cast my net wider and came up with Sunbeam.
Some of you might know that korat is a breed of cat. Those of you who didn't know now.
As a parting thought—and this is kind of spoilerly, so read at your own risk if you haven't read the story—since I'm me, I wanted readers to not be sure through the story who was the pony and who wasn't. Obviously, y'all know that since this story is published on Fimfic, there must be a pony involved somehow. I am curious, though, for those who are reading this after the story, did you think that Kat or Dennis were a pony, or were you expecting yet another character to show up?
What about a left-handed (hoofed) monkey wrench or a knuter valve? Also, via Gavin Free from Rooster Teeth, headlight fluid.
Unfortunately, it never crossed my mind that Dennis might be the pony. The cover art had a female pony and there was only one female character, so it didn't really occur to me that there should be a mystery at all.
However, you might be amused to know that for some reason I was convinced that Kat must be a pegasus pony. No idea how that got into my head, the cover art should have made that obvious, but I was surprised when she showed up and was a unicorn. Best theory I can come up with is that Sunbeam is sky blue, which put me in an aerial frame of mind.
Since the cover art was of a mare I thought Kat was the pony. Also that Dennis is a standard human name while Kat is a least slightly more unusual.
pinsky gear is really hard to find
I made the automatic assumption that Dennis was human and Kat Korat (kitty cat!) was a pony. I assumed this probably because the story was from Dennis' perspective, and he was the one shown to have curiosity about Kat, who was already unusual for being female in a typically male job. Now if you'd flipped that around at the end, it would have been an interesting surprise, but it could have gone either way.
It was pretty obvious that Kat was going to be the pony. What I kept wondering was whether this was the same place that AJ showed up to looking for a tractor. Didn't hit me until later that a repair place is not the same thing as a rental place.
Ah, Teddy. He's grown up and working as a henchpony now.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/12/7/492200__safe_applejack_daring+do_fluttershy_nogan_pinkie+pie_pow+%28character%29_rainbow+dash_rarity_twilight+sparkle_daring+don%27t_alicorn_animated_f.gif
Though according to the trading card game, that pony is named "Nogan."
I thought it was Dennis for a bit, mainly because I saw the story listed in my feed and just passed over the cover art.
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I actually want a left handed wrench. I am left handed
Oooh. What happened there? Got a link?
Hey, I know Tonawanda! Upstate represent!
Its strange at how old telephone technoogy, and so much other stuff in fact, and yet theres a massive disparity in whats xpected adn seen. Its like some stuff is wanted to be seen as new and freshley marketable no matter how old and out of license it is?
Never ask for Elbow Grease in the Biology Department etc, youll end up with a can of Synovial Fluid or a spare Cartelidge?
The best example Ive found of a left handed grip is at the fun fair, where the left handed moulded handle on the gun, when held in the right hand, causes consistant missaim, and most people are at least as bad holding it correctly in the left hand.
Wonder if one of the better advanced in authors assitants, would be Silent Prediction and Correctvive Suggestion. That is, the neural net predicts what you are going to be typing next given dictionary spelling, grammatical rules and such, then compares its predction once you do white space etc, and applies in sequence, spelling etc when you reach end of a sentence so you dont get interupted in mid type? Sort of like the line, command at a time terminal interfaces or electric typewriters?
As for who or what is on the other end of the phone, especially given Watson.
On the Internet, noone knows you are a dog.
Since the opening paragraph or two mentioned unicorns, I figured the whole thing was in Equestria, and they were all ponies. So the twist then took some reevaluating of the rest of the story. But that’s ok, it was still very enjoyable
Paragraph two kinda gave it away for me...
Explicitly calling Kat a unicorn was kind of a giveaway.
I remember that one pony choose to change his name for George, and he jokingly nicknamed the main character Sergent Pepper, but I don't recall any strawberry field.
To answer your question, the cover art gave the answer away for me.
Plus I would've had expected that if the narrator was a pony, there would've been some clues in the story.
Admiral, it is good to read your slice of mechanic life again. As a former third gen mechanic I do miss the shop on occasion and when I wander into a friend of my dad's shop it brings back a certain sense of nostalgia and longing. I do not miss the never ending cuts on my hands and arms, nor the 24hr on call for the wreckers,(when the garage closed it took me 2 years for the siren not to start the adrenaline flowing) but there are times when I wish I could go back in time and spend some time at the garage and drink coffee and talk to my dad. I only open with that, because I too had a parts guy that was a savior on many an occasion that I talked to for years and never saw.
When I did finally see him he looked absolutely nothing like I had pictured him...so this hit home quite solidly. I read many of your stories and like them a great deal but I'd like to request more Highway 502 stories if I could. It brings back memories and everything seems better with pony mechanics and parts ponies and even though my specialty had been electronic engine control and management systems (Dad said since he knew the computer controlled carburetors I had to be the one to do the fuel injection crap) I like the old cars with running boards and straight eight Lycoming engines with no belts and everything gear driven. My Dad worked on cars like that after the garage closed and a friend of his always wanted him to go to Europe with him as his rally mechanic, but Dad was failing by then and never got to go. It would be interesting to go to Equestria of your 502 stories and work on cars there. Maybe run a wrecker and meet Pony EMTs and Policeponies at accidents and swap stories.
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mbj.50webs.com/mj/pics/mw_steel_l_m.jpg
We had left-handed smoke shifters when I was in Boy Scouts. Pilots have prop wash, and so it goes with practically any job. I can't think of anything particularly pranky we did on in the theatre, except pranks on the audience that they normally didn't know about (for example, I left one of our Fresnels with its original asbestos wires and always hung that one over the audience).
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There really wasn't meant to be all that much of a mystery--especially since it is on a pony site--but it's worth pointing out that I don't think there's anything in the story that says that Dennis isn't a pony.
It does sound like a pegasus name, and there are a lot of clouds around her (I think that's what that's supposed to be) in the coverart, so it's a natural assumption.
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Yeah, that's fair. I was actually thinking of different cover art, but I couldn't find anything suitable.
Honestly, I think I know more Kats than Dennises.
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I didn't get any results googling that one. It must be hard to find.
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That's an interesting remark about assuming it because it was from Dennis' perspective. I think that says more about the reader than the author, but I'm not sure why. It's also possible that you were inclined to default to that because it's usually mares on Earth and not stallions (at least, if the Rare Story Prompts group is to be believed).
I wasn't really setting out to try and fool anyone, but there weren't any references to Dennis not being a pony, so I was curious how people were reading it.
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Totally different states, too. The AJ fic was in North Dakota, and this one is in New York.
I never even though about having them be at the same place, but I could have.
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It's good that he's made something of himself.
Well, probably if you're a professional henchpony, you don't want to use your real name.
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I do, although I have to admit I had the wrong agency who'd written the report: it was the TSB--Canada's NTSB.
Railway Investigation Report R13D0054
Here's the relevant text (pg 30):
ecology.iww.org/images/lac-megantic10.jpg
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I knew the name sounded familiar, but I've never actually been there. Close, though; I've been across the bridge at Niagara Falls twice.
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Oh, man, having the whole thing in Equestria would have been a weird twist. Or even still on Earth, but having everyone but Kat be a pony.
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Although it's true, chipper young women at parts counters are the unicorns of the automotive world.
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I didn't say she was a unicorn. I said that chipper young women at parts counters were the unicorns of the automotive world. That's not quite the same thing.
Well, okay, in this case, it wasn't, but it could have been.
Actually, that got me to thinking, some guy I follow on Facebook, Jim something, wrote a post about the perfect presidential candidate and how people who were waiting for such a man or woman were waiting for a unicorn . . . and the misunderstanding where an actual unicorn thinks that's an endorsement.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2012/1/11/149__dead+source_source+needed_useless+source+url_safe_artist-colon-madmax_lyra+heartstrings_animated_boot_boots_clapping_clopplauding_crossover_female.gif
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That could be it--I remember that there was a Beatles joke in the story, and thought about Strawberry Fields.
Also wasn't the main character something Peach? Or Peach something? I seem to recall there being peaches involved.
Yeah, the cover art was kind of a give-away.
FWIW, the narrator never once mentioned anything that proved he was human (like, he never mentioned hands or feet or anything like that), at least as far as I can recall.
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There's a lot of stuff about working in the shop that isn't all that fun . . . just today I had to do an oil change on a hot engine (like, hot hot) and I had to catch it in a funnel which wasn't the greatest thing. And always open cuts, bruises, and strains. But at the same time, lots of pleasant memories usually go with the job (and more than a few funny ones, too).
I actually met one of the Ford guys for the first time when I sold him my car. Well, gave it to him would be more accurate, since he was going to do something cool with it and I was going to scrap it if I couldn't get anyone to take it.
One wrecker company I worked for, I never once met my dispatcher. She worked from home, and apparently at least once out on a boat while fishing.
I'll probably do a few more 502 stories here and there, but I don't really have any firm timeline on them. It's a 'verse I like to visit every now and then. I assume you've read Drive, but have you read Solo?
I like the electronics and modern engines--that's what I'm good at. I like the older stuff for me to tinker with, but I hate whenever something like that rolls into the shop . . . it's usually more of a pain than it's worth, mostly because of the owner.
I think so--and a human mechanic or wrecker driver in one of those places would be really cool. Plus there would be a certain sort of familiarity with the stories that the EMTs and the Policeponies tell (and probably some of the same gallows humor), but the stories would also be very different.
From the start I had no doubt Dennis was human and Kat was the pony. It didn't even occur to me that you were going for uncertainty. The whole fic seemed to play off of a little-did-they-know vibe where I thought the reader was supposed to laugh at Dennis' misunderstanding. Furthermore, Dennis came off as a perfect 'straight man'; part of the 'joke', such as it was, was that Dennis was so normal. So it seemed natural for Kat to be something abnormal that trotted into his life.
Loved it, by the way.
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I think it's not only a case of how old a particular part of technology is, but moreso the underlying technology. I mean, take the power adapters on cars. They date to big, bulky cigarette lighters, and yet they persist because that's the universal thing, and nobody would want a car without them. I expect in the future, there's going to be more USB and fewer power points, but we ain't there yet.
Probably never ask for anything in the Biology Department unless you know exactly what you're asking for.
Most of those guns have slightly bent barrels, too, which probably doesn't help. That one probably isn't the carnival trying to scam you; that's most likely the result of lots of kids dropping them.
It would be nice, but then my auto-suggest on my telephone isn't all that great except for things I say a lot. gDocs does tend to get better at recognizing things that you constantly spell, like Equestria or anypony, and for me at least no longer flags them as misspelled, even though I never taught it those words.
i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/234/765/b7e.jpg
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I wasn't really going for it going for it (I've got a few fics where I did go for it in a big way), but it occurred to me while I was editing that I never explicitly said anything about Dennis being a human, nor did any of his actions require it.
I mean, that's a totally legit read. That was kind of the vibe I was going for, honestly. Normal guy, no clue something isn't what it seems about his favorite parts person.
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Well hey, awesome. I picked up on what you were trying to deliver. According to my own model of artistic critique, that means you succeeded; you delivered a message without stating it outright, and did so in a way that people would discover and come to the same feelings/conclusions you did in the same way you did (or intended for them to). That's solid work.
Now the only question is whether you meant for your readers to be legitimately interested in where their friendship goes.
4898189 It does say things about the reader, too. I think you're right that there's more to that, but I also can't think of it. Maybe hetero male bias?
If the answer should come to you, I'd be interested to know.
Anyway, what it does definitely say is that I went straight to reading from my front page and bypassed the front page of your story entirely, which had her picture, and then went right to your blog post. Otherwise it would have been even more obvious: like FaceDeer said, she was the only female in the story.
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I think that's one of the most important things about writing, and maybe a secret that they don't teach--what matters is that the reader gets the story, not the technical details of how you tell it.
I mean, how can they not be?
A lot of my one-shots explore one particular topic and I usually don't have a plan to continue them past that moment, but I get invested in my characters, too, and sequels do wind up happening now and again.
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I certainly played with reader expectations in Aphrodite's Dance and in A Sleeping Rose, knowing in both cases full well what the reader would assume. Those were the ones where it was really deliberate.
Then again, the whole concept of reading is based on expectations on the reader's part, so I guess it's kind of a duet going on between the author and the reader.
I was actually thinking of a more generic garage or warehouse for the coverart, or none at all, but didn't, simply because I wasn't actually trying to surprise the reader overly much in the story.
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Not a hetero male here, still had the same impression, explained why below.
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Literature is a conversation of sorts. Reader expectations and biases (especially due to genre) are their familiarity with the language, and sometimes a given phrase means something different in different cultures. I think your story works well because it uses a lot of universal symbols and impulses; Dennis is portrayed as very normal, with a grounded life. There's a sense of boredom to it, a sense of human-world groundedness. Those are pretty universal signals.
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Yes, Admiral, I did read that one, a long time ago before I created an account. So of course I reread it and gave it a thumbs up and a fav. Because I have a soft spot for Poppy.
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And what's funny about that is that I probably did a lot of that unconsciously. Like you or any of my readers or the other writers on the site, I'm a product of my culture and experiences, and of course that comes through in the writing, whether I mean for it to or not. Especially in something that's firmly anchored in what I actually do for a living, and drawing directly from personal experiences.
There was a thing that I found on Facebook about the order of descriptive words:
i.imgur.com/0KHDp42.jpg
That's something that I never even think of, but just do it. And I've pre-read for non-native English speakers who don't know that and screw it up. Or put in descriptive words that aren't needed by normal English convention ('a stick of wood' and 'a lake of water,' for example).
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Yay!
I also have a soft spot for Poppy.
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I picked it based on the cover art. Nothing complicated; Dennis is a guy's name, Kat is a girl's name, the picture showed a mare.
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The coverart is certainly a bit of a giveaway. I did actually write the blog post before I'd picked the coverart, and I was considering something more generic, like a parts warehouse, but I couldn't find anything suitable.
You do bring up a good point, though--human names tend to be gender-specific, with few exceptions. Are pony names? Is Apple Cinnamon a mare or stallion? How about Apple Munchies?
And if pony names aren't typically (or ever) gender-specific, if they were to choose a human name, who's to say that they'd get the gender right?
I had the story pegged right away, and expected that Kat was the pony. In part because she was the most cheery character. Now, if you'd made Dennis the pony, and had Kat comment something like "you're really grumpy for a pony," and then Dennis says something like "Oh, yeah, well you're too happy for a human," and things go from there...
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The pony who live upstair is indeed named Peach (Peach Spark I think), although the narator is the human who live downstair Ronald [Pffefer] (really not sure of the actual spelling and actually too lazy to check it), and since is name kinda sound like pepper... well, you get the joke...
I did not realise that no mention of hand or feet were made, but a lot of thing in the setup would have been different if he had been a pony.
Like him using unicorn as a metaphor for something rare. Nopony would do that. Or would've used it more directly (like no unicorn would be in mechanic).
The boss would've made a comment if Dennys was a pony when he mocked him for maybe falling in love with her.
Stuff like that. Dennys being human was never really put into question for me.
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I'd say Apple Cinnamon is a mare, but I'm not sure where I'm getting that impression. Apple Munchies could go either way.
There are certain words that I think are considered more feminine or masculine in Equestria, which is significantly influenced by how we treat these words in English. I would then guess that Equestrians, being more familiar with how these names go, would not have trouble picking a gender suitable name in English.
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I’ll admit, I was not expecting Lac-Megantic to have been caused in part by JB Weld.
Oh baby~
I'm old enough to get that reference. *sniff*
idk. I was reading the story very late, and I might've been too tired to go into the thought process of 'ooh, he might be trying to trick me up.' You know? But I kinda just thought it must be Kat all along, her name could easily have been a pony name, while Dennis seems not-pony to me. And again, too tired for the thought process.
Good fic though
4898317
That ordering is a holdover from Latin.