Story Notes: 16 (Rainbow Flash) · 7:21pm May 29th, 2021
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/816893
You're the fastest runner, but you're not allowed to win -Howard Jones (No One Is To Blame)
I'm sorry, Rainbow Flash.
What else can I say to the poor darling after this chapter? Plumsweet's chapter was supposed to be depressing, and it ended up a slapstick, screwball comedy. Rainbow Flash's chapter wasn't intended to be depressing. It just happened.
Speaking of Plumsweet... I'll address the elephant in the room at the end of this blog.
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/2574438
For those of you who've read Mr. Jones Goes To Equestria, Rainbow Flash probably seemed out of character at the beginning of this chapter. As you can see, her personality changed from what it was as a filly to what we know as an adult. Her name is Flash, and that can be taken different ways. At first, like a pegasus we know well, she was all about speed. When that was taken from her, she decided that flash stood for flashy clothing. At least she didn't decide on flashing everypony by showing off what's under her trench coat. 
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/1884152
Rainbow Flash with Rainbow Harmony - neither of these little ponies gets much love in the fandom.
I'm not sure I fully understood everything I found while researching polio and iron lungs. If anything here is wrong, I'll gladly defer to the experts.
I could handwave it and say 'polio affects ponies differently than humans' which would probably be accurate. Actually, it probably wouldn't affect ponies at all, since real life horses are immune to polio (humans are the only species polio occurs in naturally). Yes, I was aware of that when writing the chapter. I could just as easily have made it a fictional Equestrian disease that's similar to the real world disease (ponio, perhaps).
This is what I based things on:
Her infection was aggravated by physical activity (Factors that increase the risk of polio infection or affect the severity of the disease include immune deficiency, malnutrition, physical activity immediately following the onset of paralysis, skeletal muscle injury due to injection of vaccines or therapeutic agents, and pregnancy -Wikipedia).
Also, this is why there's a spin the bottle scene in this chapter. I don't see Equestria's water supply having this problem, so that means the next likely scenario is... kissing someone (The disease is transmitted primarily via the fecal-oral route, by ingesting contaminated food or water. It is occasionally transmitted via the oral-oral route, a mode especially visible in areas with good sanitation and hygiene. -Wikipedia). They're probably a bit too young to be playing kissing games, but kids often try to grow up too fast.
Lastly, she's incapacitated for an extended period of time (Many cases of poliomyelitis result in only temporary paralysis. Generally in these cases, nerve impulses return to the paralyzed muscle within a month, and recovery is complete in six to eight months. The neurophysiological processes involved in recovery following acute paralytic poliomyelitis are quite effective; muscles are able to retain normal strength even if half the original motor neurons have been lost. Paralysis remaining after one year is likely to be permanent, although some recovery of muscle strength is possible up to 18 months after infection. -Wikipedia).
Between the duration of her temporary paralysis and her rehab period, Rainbow Flash was left behind by her friends.
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/90283
I nestled on her back as Country Roads took me home, back to the place I belonged.
There are times during the writing process when I can actually hear the audience groaning in my head. This is one of those times.
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/623280
Dewdrop Dazzle & Snowcatcher's stories are intertwined like Diamond Rose's and Lily Blossom's. All four of them briefly interacted during the Battle of the Bell in Canterlot, long before the two pairs would again meet up on a bus years later. They're the only pairings we're going to see in the story - I'd like to avoid one-degree-of-separation for the cast.
But there are still connections. Rainbow Flash was a very ill filly. Ploomette's family has a charity for sick and/or disabled children. While their paths never officially crossed, Rainbow's chapter was a chance to show how the charity operates from the other side. It also served as a great way for Rarity to cameo.
So we have a former model (Daisy Dreams), some heroes (Lulu Luck, Snowcatcher, and Dewdrop Dazzle), a duchess (Ploomette), a pony with a very short-lived TV career (Plumsweet), and well, you'll just have to wait for Starbeam Twinkle's chapter and Sunny Rays' chapter. It may seem like we have a lot of celebrities, but their involvement in the hotel is justified:
Daisy Dreams never wanted to be a model and is officially retired. She also didn't make much money, electing instead to take payment in the form of a college education (and she picked a school on Earth specifically so she could be incognito and focus on her studies).
Snowcatcher & Dewdrop Dazzle's heroics were just two of many during the Battle of the Bell. Most ponies don't even recognize the Mane 6, and they've saved Equestria how many times over?
Lulu Luck's heroics were never broadcast to the population at large. Aside from New Horseleans, she's not really known in the rest of Equestria. She also hates being the center of attention and is embarrassed that ponies make a big deal over something she considers a failure (since she didn't stop the Storm King).
Ploomette is serving in an official capacity. Her idea is to help the hotel get off the ground, then sell her shares in the hotel as new ponies come to Earth. She holds onto that last share.
Plumsweet failed. She's not famous to other ponies, and aside from the ESPN highlight of her getting pelted by dodgeballs (which will probably be played many, many more times in the years to come), she's not famous to humans either.
Starbeam will be joining the cast in a rather unique way (also, please note her timeline, like Lulu's, won't sync up with the others' as she she was the last to go through the portal, behind even Lulu; who was months behind the others).
As for Sunny Rays... I can't talk about why she's famous just yet. 
But she's probably the most famous of the bunch.
Interesting fact: I once worked with a former professional boxer. He was a former IBF Lightweight Champion (I was skeptical until he showed a video of the match – it was on ESPN...and I don't mean The Ocho). Sadly, he was working as a janitor. Celebrities and athletes are people too, and athletes especially have a shelf life.
Working with one former celebrity isn't too out-of-the-ordinary, but having this many in one place may seem a bit odd. Keep in mind that three aren't really celebrities (Snowcatcher, Dewdrop, and Lulu Luck), two (Daisy Dreams & Plumsweet) are trying to keep low profiles (and what could be more mundane than working at a hotel?), and Ploomette's just trying to help as best she can, because that's what she's supposed to do. The other two have their reasons, which we'll see when we get to their chapters. Celebrities and athletes are often risk takers - folks willing to gamble on themselves to make it when thousands of others don't. Sounds like just the kind of folks willing to pick up and move to a new world. 
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/1985763
Dolly Parton is well-known for her charitable work, much of which is focused on children (one of her charities has donated over one hundred million books to children to help encourage literacy). I can easily see her doing something like this (though I doubt she'd have picked that particular song to hum to, since it's not one of her original compositions; but I needed a duet... ).
Gaitlinburg has featured in a previous work [Sometimes (We Are All We Got)], where it serves as the town closest to where the Hoofields and the McColts live. Real-life Gatlinburg, Tennessee is the next town over from Pigeon Forge (Dolly Parton's hometown), and really is a popular wedding destination (the town boasts more than twenty wedding chapels).
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/525714
Sweetie Blue is another toy-only character, having appeared in the very first release of the blind bags. Her brushable was previewed and dropped, unfortunately. Part of the problem is her design is very similar to Mrs. Cake's (she's a blue earth pony with two-toned pink hair and a cupcake cutie mark). Sadly, I really liked the preview and always hoped she'd get a brushable release. Fun fact: had she been made as a brushable, she'd be one of our sixteen characters. Instead she gets a cameo.
Milk Toast is (of course) a play on milquetoast. She's the Silver Spoon to Hardwood's Diamond Tiara.
As was discussed by Catrina in Lulu Luck's chapter, felines don't like ketchup because it's too 'sweet' (they don't have the taste buds for sweet). Rainbow Flash isn't a cat, and hence doesn't know that when she made her comment about lions.
Toy prototype: https://derpibooru.org/100721
In case anyone missed it, there was a short side story to Ploomette's chapters: The Best Advertising Money Can't Buy
Royal Crown is a perfectly suitable drink for a duchess. At least for our duchess.
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/379641
With Rainbow Flash, we're three-quarters of the way done with Act I. Somehow this fic is over 150,000 words long already. Remember when I thought the whole story would be only 150,000-200,000 words? At this point I can assure you that Act I by itself will be over 200,000 words. I'm not sure if I should apologize for that or not. Acts II & III won't be nearly as long. At least I don't think they will be... But I don't have a very good record when it comes to accurately predicting things, do I?
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/2077527
Up next: Snowcatcher. Anybody remember her? I think she was fairly important to the story at one point. I'm about 3,500 words into her (first) chapter, though I won't posting her first chapter until I'm completely done with her chapters (whether it be two or three of them). I do this for the sake of continuity, in case I need to make minor tweaks to make sure everything flows well.
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/617046
So Plumsweet's chapter didn't go over quite like I'd hoped it would. I think it's safe to call that an understatement. First, I'll apologize if it jarred anyone out of the story. I hate that as a reader (or a viewer, in the case of a TV series or movie), so I really strive not to have those moments as an author. The short of it is: I'm not planning on revising or rewriting it.
The long of it... get comfortable and grab a beverage and a snack (and please don't break your keyboard over my head - keyboards cost money, and my head is surprisingly thick).
Last chance to turn around. No cute pony pics beyond this point.
These are my thoughts as the author. A lot of good points were raised, and I don't want this to come off as me being defensive. Please don't take it that way. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind, this is just the rationale behind the scenes.
The idiot ball really does get dropped in real life. Things routinely slip through the cracks. Things get delegated to people who don't follow through. People make mistakes. People forget to do things (or are buried under more work than they can handle). Post-It notes get buried under a mountain of paperwork. Outlook reminders get dismissed.
In this case, there was also an extremely quick turnaround time. When people are in a hurry, things get overlooked. Plumsweet and Cherry Spices were fast tracked because the network wanted to be the first to have ponies on the air. They started filming their first show on just their fifth day on Earth.
There wasn't all that much investment in the show, so Food Network isn't out all that much money. Plumsweet and Cherry Spices aren't big stars. They're unknown even in Equestria, let alone Earth. Food Network didn't need to wave big paychecks under their snouts to get them to agree to do the show. The set was preexisting, it just needed redecorating for their show, and some renovations to make it pony-friendly. The portal is free to cross. Yes, permission needed to be granted for early access, but that was a nominal fee for the paperwork. When they sent folks to Equestria, they sent an intern and low-ranking staff. While this program most certainly would've been greenlit by an executive, this isn't the kind of things executives necessarily get involved with personally. This is a case of 'I have an idea, and it's your job to make it happen.' It was also a case of culture clash.
The overall expenditure was less than many other failed pilots. Food Network has been around for decades, and they're long past the era when they can't afford to film something that would never see the light of day on their channel. Were they live on-air? No. Did they have a studio audience? Yes. Was the sponsor in the studio? Yes. Were they peeved? Immensely. Will Food Network find other ponies to star in a cooking show? Probably! They'll change the show's name, spend a few grand redesigning the set accordingly, and get some new ponies to host. It hasn't cost them much money, they can still get a return on that investment with new hosts and a name change, and they already have an extensive list of potential hosts from the contest they held. They'll contact the runners-up and go from there. Food Network isn't writing off the idea, they're just writing off Plumsweet & Cherry Spices.
Variety estimates that only a little over a quarter of all pilots made for American television proceed to the series stage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_pilot
Almost 75% of pilots made never become a series. Some end up as standalone TV movies. Sadly, there are many failed pilots that never get shown at all.
Moving on to the situation itself, not only can things like this happen with sponsors in real-life, they already have. The below isn't the only example of this, but it's the one that immediately springs to my mind, mainly because of who the players were. The network, the show, the host, and the sponsor in question are all household names.
The network: PBS
The show: This Old House
The host: Bob Vila
The sponsor: Home Depot
Bob Vila was the original host of This Old House, the home improvement show that still airs on PBS. From its 1979 inception, Vila was the host for the next decade. Up until the point he signed an endorsement deal with Rickel in 1989. Rickel was a New York metro area home improvement store that went out of business in 1998. The problem with his endorsement was Vila's show was underwritten by Home Depot, one of Rickel's competitors. Vila was subsequently fired from This Old House after Home Depot pulled their sponsorship of the program. Once Vila was removed, Home Depot went back to sponsoring the show.
An early example of the consequences of the rivalry between Rickel and Home Depot can be seen in an incident surrounding PBS' long running home improvement series This Old House. For many years, Home Depot has been one of the largest sources of financial support for the noncommercial program. In 1989, however, this relationship nearly came to an end. This Old House host Bob Vila, who had been with the show since its 1979 debut, signed an endorsement deal with Rickel and did a series of commercials for them. Home Depot was angered by this and, citing Vila's work for a competing business, pulled its backing from This Old House and its lumber supplier, Weyerhaeuser, followed. WGBH, the producer of This Old House, responded by firing Vila from the show and replacing him with Steve Thomas in an attempt to convince Home Depot to return, which they did.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickel
If Bob Vila can get caught up in something like this after a decade of hosting an Emmy Award winning show, it isn't hard to believe that two naive ponies could easily find themselves in the middle of a similar situation on their fifth day on Earth and first day on the job.
But this is a two-way street, and it's very possible Plumsweet missed (or misunderstood) something about the show's sponsor. The chapter is biased because we see it from her point of view (if there was something in the contract, she didn't see it or remember it, and therefore we don't see it in the story). There are multiple points throughout Plumsweet's chapter where she demonstrates being completely clueless when it comes to human culture despite her research into it. For example:
She eventually introduced herself as Jada. It was a very pretty name, and so exotic. She only stated her given name, but from what I’d read, human surnames were based on their occupations. If she was a blacksmith, she’d be Jada Smith. If she was a carpenter, she’d be Jada Carpenter. Like ponies, talents ran in human families, so you’d often end up with a bunch of Smiths or Millers or Carpenters in the same family. It’s always important to study these things in advance, so as not to end up culture shocked.
She explained she was an intern, which likely meant her full name was Jada Intern. There was no equivalent Equestrian word for ‘intern’, but it must be a very important position for the company to have sent her all the way here. Considering that the portal wasn’t even ‘officially’ open yet, she must’ve pulled a lot of strings just to get here. From the images I’d seen of humans, I estimated her to be fairly young, so she was no doubt very good at her job to have climbed so high in the company so quickly.
The below shows just how much she paid attention to new hire orientation:
Once we were done at the consulate, we were driven to the network’s headquarters, which conveniently also happened to be in New York City, and went through what they called ‘the orientation process’ which meant hours of filling out paperwork and watching videos on the computer. I’d never been so bored in my life. A lot of it seemed really simple and straightforward and could be boiled down to: respect your coworkers and play nicely with each other. It was the kind of thing most ponies would’ve considered kindergarten-level education. It was nothing like working in Equestria, where you apprenticed with somepony experienced in your chosen field. Most of the time, training was on-the-job and you started working the minute you set hoof in the business.
By the time we were done for the day, I was exhausted and I didn’t feel like I’d accomplished anything at all.
Plumsweet ends up working for the Mareiott. That's predetermined, because this a prequel to an existing story. I wanted to have a pony among the cast who came to Earth with something else lined up and who failed at that task. Originally, her failure was to be of the romantic kind. But then the idea of her comically failing at a few jobs took hold and wouldn't let go. But the important part is: she had to fail. If no one drops the idiot ball, then all of a sudden Plumsweet's working for Food Network instead of the Mareiott.
Like I said, I don't want to start a debate (I prefer to agree to disagree). I apologize if this comes off as too defensive, and I really am sorry if it wasn't everyone's cup of tea. Especially if it broke your immersion in the story. I certainly wasn't aiming for that, but it happens (regardless of intentions), as everyone has a different way of looking at situations.
Now you know my thought process on it. We've got a new chapter out, the story continues, and I'll try not to have any more situations like this pop up.
And guess who will get all of those Snowcatcher chapters dumped into her lap before publishing?
5526787
Would I do that to you? Yes, yes I would...
I'll send the first over to you when I start writing the second to try to speed the process up a little bit.
Thank you for writing, story and blog post both. :)
And thank you for the information!
Also, I don't recall having that much of a problem with Plumsweet's chapter? Maybe I'm misremembering, though of course it could also be that others had a much bigger problem then me. Though:
"Were they live on-air? No."
I remember my understanding being the opposite, I think, so thanks for the clarification there!
"I apologize if this comes off as too defensive"
Well, for me, at least, kind of, but not in the way I think you mean; as above, I don't really think I have a problem here, so it's reading like someone trying very hard to defend a point which doesn't actually seem to need nearly so much defending. Of course, I doubt it was written for me, and it's had interesting and potentially useful-for-the-story information in it too. :)
And good luck with the writing!
5526787
And editing. :) (Thanks for your work, too.)
Reminded me of this interesting video I saw a while back about a guy still in an iron lung after all this time.
Apparently the main trouble anymore is simply with keeping a 50+-year-old antique piece of equipment running pretty much 24/7/365, especially since you can't exactly buy replacement parts for these things, they have to be fabricated (after pretty much reverse-engineering them to some extent first).