Short What-Has-The-Admiral-Been-Up-To Blog Post without pictures* · 4:10am Nov 16th, 2018
*Or maybe there will be pictures. Who knows?
IRL, we’re at the point in play rehearsal where we're at the point of panic and announcing extra rehearsals because nobody knows their lines and the blocking isn't fully realized and we have no set ... typical stuff, and next week will be more of a disaster and the director will rethink his life choices and then everything will fall into line as it always does.
Also IRL, my manager has taken most of today and yesterday off so he can sit in a tree stand and snipe Bambi. Which to my mind is silly; I’ve gotten plenty of deer from the comfort of my van’s driver’s seat. Don’t even need a license for that, and it’s always in season. 
Lazily re-posts image
Incidentally, if you’re wondering why comments are currently kind of falling into a black hole, that’s why. If I get out of work only an hour late and don’t have play rehearsal, my first goal is to shout at clouds for a while until I feel a bit better about life in general.
One thing I wanted to talk to you about, though. It’s just a little thing, really, but it’s kind of amazing.
Y’all remember my ranty blog post a while back where I gave bad writing advice? [And I haven’t mentioned it yet, but SirNotAppearingInThisFic decided to do a similarly themed blog post about the editing process.]
Well, on said story that I was ranting about, somebody said that I “linger on details that don't really need to be said; like the differences between owning a home and renting one.” To which I replied, “Lingering on details that aren’t necessarily narratively important and having slow-burning plots is like half of what I’m known for on this site.”
There are two kinds of fame and glory. One of them is to be a household name, like Kim Kardashian. What’s she famous for? Why, for being Kim Kardashian, that’s what.
The other is to be known for something.
For me, the first is probably out of reach. I mean, maybe one day, but given my glorious beard it’s pretty unlikely.
Which is kinda unfair, but never mind that. Because I’ve got the ‘known for something’ nailed.
To wit, in the last three days:
Give that elevator pitch to Biscuit
He'll probably write it
and
And copy and dm to Admiral Biscuit...
and
It made me think of you as the horse in question is a fairly large pony (probably around Big Mac's size) so my mind went to have actually ponies doing that sort of job, which just sort of lead to you, being that you are one of the best of that sort of story.
In other words, 
Source
I could be known for worse things. 
--admiral biscuit
Thankfully, I am quite incompetent at writing assignments, as many of my teachers would be willing to testify. I do however write very interesting things in the margins. The trick is to have large enough margins that I can publish.
You mean you're literally
i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/044/247/297.png
There are no other writers quite like you on here. Honestly, that little tid bit is awesome. Your worldbuilding skills are unmatched. I can pretty much visualize everything you write in stunning clarity and its mildly unsettling while still keeping my full attention.
afterthought: My buddy also has the uncanny ability to take out deer whilst seated in his car/truck. He bought a 99 chevy k1500 and smoked a deer a week afterwards. He then preceeded to hit another one almost axactly a month after we put it all back together. Now, as of yesterday, hit a deer in his Audi.
You could indeed be known for worse things.
For those of you who might be wondering about the "the horse in question is a fairly large pony (probably around Big Mac's size)" comment, that was in relation to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoyyqFrYASg
I mean you did a blog post when I introduced you to the fact that ponies could have facial hair.
So, yeah. You are kind of known for enjoying the little details and we're more than happy to help you out.
4968954
And there's lots more on that channel that Biscuit could use, like Harecastle tunnel and the boat lifts...
4968975
It a fascinating channel, I started with the Harecastle tunnel video (as a random youtube recommendation) and watched to the end of the playlist before getting to the beginning. It's really made me rethinking my fantasy world building as I've never seen a canal system in one, yet they would need them for the kind of world they are usually set in.
Honestly, if I didn't have a couple of other on going stories I might tackle something with canals in Equstria. Maybe later, or maybe as a team up with someone else.
To be fair, I would say that on fimfiction, you are a household name.
Youre a Galley Slave, Biscuit.
Could be worse.
Could be beef with cows.
If Big Mac, due to being McLarge Huge, then what they hay is Troubleshoes? Seems most writers avoiding remembering him because of being near accurate Earth equine size and form which would fix the rest of the cast size as hard as the given heights in Space Jam?
I think Bugs is WB canon 4 foot 5? I forgot it and the scene in the movie where the announcer states it.
I can see my comment from here!
Biscuit, the Lifeslicer
I've worked with worse card names.
"Give that elevator pitch to Biscuit
He'll probably write it"
I remember saying that I think
4969001
Troubleshoes is pretty much a full sized draft horse and is taller then Celestia. You could make a case that he's a horse from our world that somehow fell into Equstria when he was very young.
Another play? Well, don't be coy, what is it?
As for fame, you are The King of Slice of Life. Heck, it's right up there under your name.
4969001
I'd be a little curious how they would've done up character designs if they had to do Season 1 all over again. There are just so many more pony body types now than there were- wasn't Mac larger than any of the other adult non-Princess ponies, and wasn't there only one body type for foals? These days, he's large but nondescript, and foals seemingly come in all shapes and sizes.
4969200
Troubleshoes is so large that I wonder whether he'd even be able to fit into a lot of pony buildings.
4968937
Is the modern interpretation of large margins large monitors? ‘Cause I’ve got that going for me, and perhaps this Christmas I’ll buy a second one for me so that I have basically a billboard sized screen filled with ponies.
I might have to get a better computer to run that, too.
4968940
Yes. That’s exactly what I mean.
4968942
I’d never hit a single deer until I bought my first minivan. That Chevy Astro got one, but wasn’t too badly damaged by it. Granted, I was slowing down at the time.
My second minivan was a white Dodge Caravan (the one that’s stitched together above), and that got four under my ownership. The first one did the most damage; two and three just bounced off the side, and deer #4 did minor damage to the left side and also took off the rear bumper.
4968953
That’s what I think, too. So what if I don’t write romance or nail-biting action? The common pony needs stories, too.
4968954
And as I recall, he was a Welsh Cob, technically a pony (mini draft horse . . . they also use horses of that size in a YouTube channel I’ve been following). Granted, bigger than our ponies, by most fan calculations, but not an overly large horse by human standards.
From the pony perspective, they’d probably use stallions about Big Mac’s size for that kind of thing, ideally, or a pair of mares if there weren’t enough big stallions who wanted to do it.
4968962
Well, I’m always more than happy to signal boost a “Today I Learned” moment, especially if it’s something that I’m not aware of having come up on the site before.
4968975
Funnily enough, I do know at least a little bit about canal systems, but until I got that link, I’d never really thought of putting a pony spin on it. I think that was probably for a few reasons: we’ve never seen canals in canon that I’m aware of, IRL railroads killed canals, since it was easier to lay track than dig a canal, and I like trains more than I like canal boats.
However, canon suggests that ponies are in the early days of trains, and so it’s very likely that in at least some parts of Equestria, there would be canal systems, and likely some of them would still be in use.
I’ve been slacking on FNFE for a while since I’ve been doing other projects, but that’s a damn good place to do some exploration of pony canal systems. . . .
4968987
Speaking as someone who often has several projects running concurrently, writing a basically headcanon dump story that gets updated every now and then (Field Notes from Equestria) is a great way to do little shorts while theorizing about pony tech, pony sociology, or anything like that without having to worry about fitting canals into a long, ongoing story as a plot element or something like that.
4968999
Huzzah! Horse Fame confirmed!
(I have a badge I wear to cons that says “horse famous” on one side, and “not horse famous” on the other, and I flip it every time someone either recognizes me or doesn’t know who I am.)
4969001
I’m okay with that.
I mean, depending on fanon size, he’s not that huge. Big for a pony, but not enormous. Troubleshoes, I’d have to look, but I think he might only be as tall as Princess Celestia, or maybe a touch taller. Certainly bulkier, of course, but on Earth, I’d expect a big breed of draft horse to give him a run for his money.
I think that it was one where he was in a boxing ring, but I could be mistaken.
4969013
4969015
Making the mundane worth reading.
That’s something I can live with. I don’t think that Studs Terkel was ever upset for being known for doing the story of the common man.
4969096
It could have been you . . . Jaxie linked me the conversation.
4969220
It’s called Harmony Romances. I play a guy named Howard.
That’s all the fame I need.
4969286
Yeah, I seem to recall Faust mentioned that once, that her designs were going to have a lot more body types but in terms of production technicalities, that was just too expensive/took too long. I think if they’d known right from the get-go how popular the show was going to be, they might have done that. I do suspect that Gen 5 is going to be a lot more diverse than G4 was.
A lot of us authors do tend to put that in anyway, even if the show never did. I think that Estee is the first that I know of who did it, but I also tend to think that a pony like Fluttershy is smaller and more slender than Applejack, who’s nothing but muscle, or Pinkie Pie, who’s kind of pudgy.
4969287
They tend to have tall ceilings, so I’d say that he probably would. I don’t think he’s significantly taller than Princess Celestia (although certainly bulkier).
4969556
By all rights there should be canals going in and out of every major city, Canterlot, Manehatten, Baltimare, Vanhoofer, they should all be on canals. Equestria doesn't seem to have anything like the the Mississippi river, on the other hand it seems to be made up of mostly plains with a few mountains ranges for the most part. It will make canals easier to make. The mountain ranges aren't continent spanning, and there does seem to be a few large rivers crossing the country side already.
Actually, looking at the map, it seems like Ponyville would be a logical place for a canal junction, being located fairly close to major rivers going east and west as well as the outflow from Canterlot Mountain. In fact that would be a good reason for a lot of the smaller towns we see in the show to exist as they are places were locks are, so there are mooring points. And locks take time to fill so a good time to have the pulling team take a lunch break, then maybe move onto the running the boat while the on board team moves to pulling.
4969557
I have a file called 'pony fluff' that is sitting around 220k words that I put all of that sort of stuff in. Half written snip nits, ideas, random thoughts, character exploration work. A couple have grown into full stories, others have become these huge universes of their own (including what I think is one of the more unique ponies on earth setup) with ongoing plot lines. I just don't really post them as nothing feels 'whole' as such.
4969562
Yeah, it was me then
No license and always in season? Such a valuable asset must be very deer to you.
Rehearsals, are you an actor too?
4969614
I’d argue that Canterlot, at least, would be problematic from a canal perspective, given its location at the top of a mountain. I’d assume that Manehattan and Baltimare probably do have a canal system, and it’s likely that Vanhoofer does, too. Likely it would make some difference in how long ago ponies developed steam trains (I suspect they’re in the early era) and what kind of things they can carry on clouds. Theoretically, it would seem that you could load a cloud and have a team of pegasi tow it where you needed it to go and that that would be simpler than building a canal, but other factors might weigh into that, such as if you have enough pegasi to do that and still manage the weather, and if there’s enough moisture available to keep such cloud structures sturdy. I could see that having been an option for Canterlot, at least.
Ponyville might not have been around long enough for there to have been canals built to it, especially if the railroad was beginning to compete with them. It kind of depends on how old one imagines Ponyville to be--my own headcanon is that Granny Smith isn’t 200 years old, which would imply that Ponyville isn’t, either.
That having been said, I think that there would be a canal system in the older parts of Equestria (going with Earth, that’d be the East Coast), and likely also feeding into any major rivers that they have. The world maps we’ve seen are kind of vague on that, as I recall; you’d assume with all those mountain ranges scattered here and there that they’d have at least a few sizable rivers.
I do also like the idea of there being the canal boat equivalent of whistle stops where there are either locks, or where it’s about as far as a pony could travel in a day from the last town, and where the geography is favorable for building moorings and such.
Well, like I (think) I said, knocking a bunch of them together under a common umbrella, such as a tourist in Equestria, is a way you could frame them; another option is always blog posts for some of the cleverer ideas, or the things that nobody’s thought of. I think outside of our discussion, nobody’s even really considered canals in Equestria (a huge omission on my part, I’ll admit), and I can tell you that there are a few people I’ve followed just for their blog posts. I feel like I can safely say that there’s a pretty good market for ideas blogs, or blogs that cover old tech.
4969655
Yay! Thank you for that, then. Dunno if it’s something I’ll write, but I have been kinda bouncing the idea around in my head a bit.
4969754
4970369
Yes, indeed. Among my several talents.
Currently, we’re gearing up for Harmony Romances . . . that opens the last weekend in November.
4971469
I would think the canals in Canterlot would come to the bottom of the mountain, not trying to climb up to the city. Though I personal picture the city going all the way down the mountain side to the ground, the older parts of the city being more winding and narrow while the newer, higher parts, being the more fancy and expensive area where the nobles live.
Well, if they need spells for a normal pony to walk on clouds, they would need spells for cargo to stay on them as well. And if the amount of power needed for the spell is directly related to the amount of weight it's supporting, it might just not scale enough.
While Ponyville may not be old enough to have a canal built to it, but the river it's on is probably part of the canal system. It's quite possible that the river has a lock or two in Ponyville itself (in fact that's pretty much become my head canon after thinking about all of this).
I think the east coast might not be the best example to compare it to. This is something far more common in the 'old world'. England (and I mean England, not the UK) has something like 2000 miles of canals, some dating back to the 1750s, including some amazing tunnels and aqueducts.
From what I can tell, that's basically the way it is in England as all the canal boats were horse drawn (which leads to thinks like bridges with narrow gaps in the middle so they can move the horses over the canal without unhitching them.
I have considered that, but most of them are not really finished and there isn't quite a through line like your story has. I might write up some thoughts in blog posts (I've done a few of those in the past already). Most of my stuff is moments and scenes, but nothing quite complete (though I do have a long plot line with Scootaloo on the ISS).
I don't think it's so much an omission as something that isn't really present in much of the USA. There are some, but nothing to the extent of many other countries. Part of that is because of the Mississippi river, as it drains most of the midwest and has a massive amount of shipping on it even today (it's going to be a huge disaster when the delta final moves).
Honestly, I had never thought about the canals until only a week ago. I just stumbled open one video, which got me interested (infrastructure is a bit of an obsession of mine) which got me reading, which got me thinking about how it could be applied, both to ponies and it fantasy fiction over all.
4971472
Cool, I'm in two plays myself this year, I know how much work goes into them.
4971470
Iforget what it was for though.