Healing, or How I Spent Several Hours Studying Middle English · 5:14pm Feb 6th, 2020
...which I used for a grand total of two lines in my latest story.
So I can be a bit of a pedantic jerk, and one of my pet peeves is Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe. I get that any representation of a character speaking an older form of English is gonna be inaccurate by necessity simply for the sake of viewer comprehension. But things like basic conjugation errors just feel lazy. Language informs the way that we think and, in a way, Luna is an EFL (Equestrian as a Foreign Language 😉) speaker. Not taking advantage of that fact in some small way seems like kind of a waste of a fun character trait.
Also, apparently some forms of Middle English tack a 'y' onto the beginning of any past-participle tense verb. One revision of story had Luna uttering the phrase "have yeaten".
Needlessly-involved grammatical hijinks aside, this story was mostly a character-finding exercise. For Want of a Horseshoe was able to stand on the strength of Twilight and Nightmare's characters, and they're mostly well-known to canon. However, future stories in this continuity are going to feature characters who will be increasingly divorced from their canon selves, so I needed to spend some time getting to know them. The framing device of the story (a small group of characters spending the evening together) is shamelessly inspired by MrNumbers Flimsy Pretexts which, in addition to being an excellent character piece, is extremely cute. I loved the way he had the three characters bouncing off each other so effortlessly. I didn't quite succeed in my attempt--most of the interactions devolved into sets of one-on-one conversations--but there are moments.
I really struggled figuring out what Moondancer was doing in this story at first. My initial thinking was that Rainbow and Twilight were just hanging out together for an evening, but that seemed out of character. Twilight doesn't much like leaving the house, and Rainbow likes Twilight well enough at this point, but can be a little intense. Spending time with just each other for an hour or two is a bit much for either of them. Throw in a third party though, and you've got a stew.
Figuring out what Moondancer was all about took a few revisions. In my initial draft, she was perfectly friendly and cordial to Luna, and happily explained her cutie mark story.
It was about at this point that I realized I had no idea what that was. Upon further reflection, I realized that it made no sense for Moondancer to be so friendly to Luna. Upon even further reflection, I realized that with a cutie mark like hers, she has every reason to be pretty angry with Luna.
And thus it was that I found the thing that lies at the heart of every story: conflict! From that point on, things flowed pretty well. It also gave me a good excuse to not figure out ol' Moony's cutie mark story.
There's a tiny bit of world building here. We learn what Luna's been up to in the months since the end of Horseshoe. We get briefly introduced to Specialist Straight Forward, who is probably of no significance whatsoever, no sir. We learn a little more about this world's Twilight. We get a small reference to the way Luna feels temporally unmoored. Mostly though, it's a fun character piece, and I feel like I have a good handle on these four now.
The next story in this universe is going to be another long one, and it'll be the next chapter of Luna's story. I might publish a small companion piece I wrote that precedes it, but it needs a fair bit of editing, and ultimately might not be worth the trouble. No estimate on release date for either--I do this as the mood takes me.
All that said, thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear any feedback you've got!
You are a gigantic nerd.
Says the guy who taught himself just enough German to get grammar correct for a story.
Will there be any chance of any further entries in Twilight Prime's adventures in fixing timelines? I know you've expressed in the past that you're not sure if many of the other timelines have the potential to be as interesting (since a lot of them might just devolve down to "Twilight and maybe some others blast the bad guys"), but I think there's still good story potential there, especially if Twilight is still trying to keep her interfering to a minimum.
I don't think a straightforward power approach would work with some of the timelines, anyway. Tirek and Discord are too strong, love-engorged Chrysalis might be too strong (or strong enough to make that approach risky), beating up Flim and Flam isn't going to solve that Equestria's problem, and who knows what happened in the final wasteland timeline (if there's anything left to save there at all). Extremist Starlight might still be around in some of the other timelines, too, doing things less admirable than the one in this one.
I am so very glad I ran into this third installment! I am elated that you're world building in this particular continuity! Truly I appreciate your linguistic efforts into ye old Equish. I was brought up reading a lot. One of the things I read was The King James version of the Bible as well as Shakespeare. Some authors struggle with antiquated "English" and it is actually off putting because it does grate on my inner dialogue when reading 'incorrect' antique grammar. It has the same effect of poorly edited Fanfics. Sometimes I struggle through the stories despite the editing because they are good. Thankfully, yours are not a struggle. I liked this whole concept because yes, I did wonder about the world in which NNM won. I really liked your answer to that particular question and I am glad you're going to continue on with it. I will be looking forward to your next one! So much potential for fun and adventure.