• Member Since 17th Jan, 2012
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Skywriter


loves tiaras.

E

Princess Cadence tries to legally change her name to "Princess Cadance." Footnotes ensue. Part of the "Cadance of Cloudsdale" cycle, and a crossover with Ghost of Heraclitus's Civil Service stories. Familiarity with neither is required.

Chapters (2)
Comments ( 185 )

Featured. I'm calling it right now.

2518498 Is any other outcome really to be expected?

2518518
it might just skip the Featured box. in other news, hell has just frozen over.

Isn't Cadance a nickname, while Cadence is the official name?
It's not like if a single letter don't let you figured out who is it, even if it's in a weeding invitation of somepony you haven't talked about for 2 seassons, specially if it's a dearing childhood friend, who probably wasn't a princess back then, and never dated for as long as you know...
images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130112095232/mlp/images/thumb/c/c0/AJ_doesn%27t_get_it_S3E8.PNG/640px-AJ_doesn%27t_get_it_S3E8.PNG
Bah, scratch the whole thing. :ajbemused:

Yet another thing I need to read (and hope to read shortly).

Also, you are seeming like an increasingly good target for unilateral nemesising, because seriously. Another story, which I'm sure will once again prove distressingly wonderful and make me disappointed in myself for not taking more time to write.

:raritydespair:

2518573
Other way around, I'm afraid. Cadance is official.
Yes, this means her full name is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and her nickname is Cadance.
I believe the culprit is US trademark law, though I am by no means a lawyer.

I thoroughly enjoy Dotted Line's adventures, no matter the writer. :heart:

They really ought to do something about that baby book. At the very least, transcribe the contents to paper, and keep the original locked up, so they don't have to haul out the possessed thing whenever something comes up.

2518896
Well, you said

Isn't Cadance a nickname, while Cadence is the official name?

So while you are right about Cadance being the nickname (which is my bad :twilightblush:), Cadence isn't her official name. Cadence =/= Cadenza.
So let's call it a draw and drop the whole thing. =P

Another story from Skywriter! Aww yeah!

(Usually, I don't judge how good or bad a story is solely based on the author, but after I nearly bust a gut laughing after reading "Shipping Sickness" and "Princess Celestia Hates Tea", and had a nice warm fuzzy feeling reading "Derplicity", I'll have to make an exception here)

The addition of footnotes is annoying, and not at all clever or funny.

2519013
Required, though, for the purposes of the mock-up. I admit to not doing them as well as the source material does.

In government, the reward for a job well done is a more impossible job. This continues until you screw something up so badly that you are relegated to your present position until retirement. Dotted Line, having made the mistake of not making a mistake of sufficient magnitude to arrest his ascent, is doomed to find himself wedged into the the highest office possible.

On the plus side, there is tea.

On the minus side, there is almost never enough time to drink it properly, or enough of it to be drank.

Perhaps the worst thing Celestia could do to Dotted Line would be to force him to take a vacation. Dottie has the most happiness in his life when things get done, and things just will not get done while he is at the beach, and he knows that. Plus they just don't know how to make a proper cup of tea there.

My gosh....:trollestia:

That was my thoughts after reading this -- firstly, to be perfectly honest, reading the synopsis, I was about to question that you already made a story about this....until I realized I had you mixed up with another story :rainbowlaugh:.

I love how this story plays and builds off your previous stories, which I definitely enjoyed -- the vocabulary in this story is just insane and unbelievably technical...."Bureaucratic" is definitely the term I'm looking for, and my eyes almost glossed over a few times reading all of these big words that were clearly thrown in for the sake of it :rainbowlaugh:....it's ridiculous just how technical and punctual this story got :twilightsheepish:.

It had his serious moments sure...happily, I'm glad, with the comedy tag, that you generally made it more obvious that this story was just for laughs. It almost comes off as a direct sequel to the "Unicorn Tooth" story, and Cadance is already (petulantly) quick to make some changes around here. I would argue that Celestia, indeed, was acting as troll-like as Cadance said she was....and yet, when you think about it, the idea of trying to create this new image by legally changing your name with a single word difference....I'm on Cadance's side, but there was definitely some tiny laughter coming out of her expense.

I like Dotted Line, I really do....I wasn't crazy for him at first, I'll admit, but as the story went on....you just really really get the impression of an Average Joe kind of guy like, well, most of us really -- yes he used to be a chemist, he's kind of pedantic and fundamentalist, stringent and so on ("Conservative" I think ultimately sums him up)....but as the story went on, I almost started to feel sorry for him: It wasn't that he was trying to pull Cadance through legal hell, so much as "rules are rules", even for young demigods....the overwhelming impression I got, was that he was sort of like us: just an everyman or layperson leading an uninteresting life, and this was without a doubt the most chaotic day he's ever experienced....which isn't necessarily a good thing.

Celestia is, well, what can I say -- she's a joker as ever, but as I said, this time around, as much as she pretty much deliberately put Cadence through some tiny misery for the sake of teaching her another lesson (and to get some laughs at her expense), you almost have to wonder if it's justified in Cadance changing one.single.letter in an attempt to create a new glamorous image. As before though, as much as Cadance may be the petulant child wanting to leave the nest and Celestia is the overbearing Solar Nag who keeps chiding that she's not ready, I still definitely side with the former...even if she may have sort of deserved to be teased :trollestia:.

And of course, she's right...."only a idiot signs something before reading it" is very true, as intimating (and boring) as those long legal "Read here before clicking yes" can be.

Overall, a great comedy and another side-story for your Cadance stories -- one would think you'll eventually get to the next story in the Cloudsdale arc after all these tie-ins, right? :unsuresweetie:

Poor Princess Cadence. Her destiny in life seems to be to suffer Celestia's good intentions.

Technically, her name is Cadence, but since people are too stupid to spell (and many people ARE too stupid to spell correctly, dont deny it, its true :ajbemused:), they spell it as Cadance. Her name is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. If it were an "a" instead of an "e", wouldnt it be spelled "Cadanza"? Also, when her name first came out, it was Cadence.

Look it up :facehoof:

2519310
There is no consensus, unfortunately. It's not so simple as misspelling when Hasbro's marketing department steadfastly insists that they have the right of it with the "a" spelling, and simultaneously the show credits list the character with the "e" spelling. Headcanon resolves this by suggesting she was born with a "normal" name and tried to change it to something flashy in a fit of pique, as you see here.

Cadence gazed at him thoughtfully for a moment.

"Dotted Line," she asked, "what is love?"

I have to wonder how many times Cadance had to hear "baby don't hurt me" before meeting Shining Armor... :applejackunsure:

"A popular misconception,"

:rainbowlaugh:
This whole spiel reminds of something I read once in a discworld novel. "Pyramids" I believe.
This story now has a Pratchett comparison. So your attempt to mimic Ghost's style was reasonably successful. :pinkiehappy:
So. Many. Footnotes. :rainbowkiss:

Dotted, I freaking love you. Best OC poni. (Sorry Quiz!)

Even more obscure, Form CV-452 is the Official Petition for Legal Recognition of Change of Tribe for a Princess Alicorn (Ascendant) of Equestria. In contrast to 451, it's an inexplicably simple form with very few conditions precedent, and a signature line that appears abruptly in the middle of the third page.

Glorious, and a lesson for all of us: Read the fine print. All of it.

Poor Cadænce. The more of this series I read, the more amazed I am that Chrysalis had to kidnap her. You'd think she'd be willing to team up with anyone against her aunt.

Wow, another story out so soon. Sure, I might have skipped out studying for the super big test just to read this, but I was totally worth it.

Boy, the TVTropes page is in for a long day tomorrow afternoon.

You're on some kind of roll here! Two stories in the space of a week! :pinkiegasp: Can we expect this to continue? Anyway, this was an excellent little break from the rampaging darkness of "The Immortal Game". Having read "Whom the Princesses Would Destroy", I have to say you did an impeccable job of capturing the atmosphere of Dotted's life. It really should be tea time constantly. I'm convinced he deserves it.

The thing that academia in this branch of the Equestrian multiverse reminds me of most is the SCP foundation. It seems that the primary use of esteemed professors is battling eldritch horrors, or at the very least, cataloguing them. It's a wonder the tone of the civil service series isn't darker than it is. I do wonder how long it will be before someone awakes a real terror of shadow and flame in the depths of the mountain. :coolphoto:

It also occurs to me, and probably should have occurred to me in the last story, that at some point you're going to have to write Shining Armor's answer to "what is love". baby don't hurt me Do you really have the perfect answer? One that will satisfy the Princess of Love? If you just have it happen in another whisper that isn't overheard by the audience, I'mma have to find you and slap you. :duck:

Now, I have to say I appreciated having the footnotes in a separate document in "Whom". It gave them a reason to be linkified and let me look them up without having to find my place again. (Yeah, I suppose I could just duplicate the tab, but I don't know how to do that in android chrome. :trixieshiftleft:)

Gosh though, Celestia really is such a troll in these stories. It's beautiful. :trollestia: She always manages to go about it with such good humor that I can't be mad about it. I'm also impressed by the way this works into Ghost's universe, complete with back story for Dotted, the most memorable OC I've seen in this place.

So, is she going to meet Big M(a)cIntosh? :trollestia:

Seriously, great story!

2519600
The Question was going to be "What is the nature of love" just to avoid people bringing up that song (which has happened twice already), and it still is probably going back to that in future stories, but I couldn't make Cady say a clunker of a line like that in the middle of the short tea-time passage (which has to be informal for it to work; note that it's the only time that Cady is referred to by her name only, without title or tribe, an intentional style choice.)

The Question does have an answer. God willing that I reach the final story, you'll see it.

2519442
One could almost say that the pacing of that particular form is a bit rushed.

Ah - bureaucracy. An endless wellspring of amusing anecdates. Unless you have the grave misfortune to actually _experience_ it, in which case it rapidly transforms into a hellish nightmare.

An entertaining story here - if I were to find any criticism, it would be that your footnotes could have been better placed. Putting them at the bottom of the page works well enough in a book, where you can see the bottom of the page despite still reading the very top of it; in web format, it isn't quite so convenient.
Still, very nice story. I look forward to seeing more from you.

Laughed a lot. Very close to the Ghost of Heraclitus writing style. Good work.:pinkiehappy:

Oh my god. Celestia is the worst pony. Ever. "500 pages! by two days ago!"

2518527

how so?

"The interconnectedness of all things failed to provide him with a decent oolong" Dirk Gently FTW! That said, the magic -- and footnotes [1] -- are positively Prachettian and many of the great puns are wonderfully Adamsian. One can only assume that is exactly what you were trying for, and I must say you've hit it nicely. Civil Service at it's finest! My only complaint is technical... that with the whole thing on one digital page, the footnotes are a long scroll down and back.


[1] Or magical footnotes, as they're sometimes called

Oh, very well done! You've captured Ghost's tone, and Dotted's character, really well; this goes past pastiche right into the glorious lands of homage.

And the thing about Celestia and Cadence is that while the former has good reasons for doing the things she does, and the best of intentions, you end up feeling for the latter. It's not easy being a nine-hundred year old teenager having to live with an "aunt" who's actually lived through a thousand years of adult life!

2519029
The internet has killed sarcasm, apparently. Again.

"an extended fact-finding mission to "determine how many miles there were". The apparent interminability of this mission suggested that the answer was "quite a lot of them".

THIS. This one segment shows a mastery of Adamsian Bristish humor I did laugh out loud. Absolute brilliance.

I believe that I was grinning the entire way through. Another very entertaining story, and excellent use of Dotted Line.

Brilliant! So good to see more Dotted Line! I'm destroying my image with exclamation marks and vapid praise!

"The troll," whispered Cadence. "The horrible, horrible troll."

That pretty sums my feeling about Celestia now
And yet, I must still say: well played :rainbowlaugh:

2520058
Oh, dear, did I miss a sockpuppet? I'm sorry!

Delicious. Absolutely delicious.

Not much more I can say, I'm afraid. It's just amazing.

2520149
It's my second-favorite joke in this piece. My first-favorite joke is not actually in the text, but is conjured by Footnote 6; I love the implied image of Little Woona schemingly trying to enact revenge on her big sister using official paperwork. "This will show that big mean sister of mine!" says Little Woona, rubbing her hooves together. "I'll follow proper bureaucratic channels at her!" And now I have to stop, at risk of diabetes.

Once again Skywriter, you have excelled yourself! I especially love this sort of humour[1], and you do it very well. You are one of the few authors that I get an immediate "huzzah, Skywriter has written something![2]" as as far as I am concerned, everything you write is pretty much gold.



[1] And as my local ponythread well tell you, I am very fond of using footnotes myself - I use 'em in my posts, story and have been known, occasionally, even to use them for their intended dpurpose when writing game rules! On the forums I can make them superscript, though apparently this site doesn't support that and I struggled a bit doing them in my own story. I am going to remember to use square brackets next time (if there is one, given my rate of faiction writing!) because that's an elegant compromise I simply hadn't thought of. So thanks for that.

[2]Though even fewer authors get "huzzah, Skywriter has written something!" when they aren't actually called Skywriter[3].

[3] No, I couldn't resist another footnote pun[4].

[4] I told you I loved footnotes. I'll stop now.

2520842
Just for the record, my very favorite joke is all but the last line in the story:

The phrase "interesting times" featured prominently on his personal list of top ten things you never want to hear spoken by your head of state, ever.[12]


[12] Nestled snugly in between "Austerity Measures" and "Preemptive National Defense".

:pinkiehappy:

I enjoyed this. Enough so that a fav and upvote weren't enough for me, so you get a comment as well.

So thanks for that.

This was really rather a thing of beauty. Bravo!

"A popular misconception," replied Doctor Abacus, leaping at a familiar screed not unlike a catamount leaping at a rotund, and possibly disabled, hyrax. "'Knowing' implies a sense of absoluteness, and the higher one rises into the echelons of academia, the more one realizes that 'absoluteness' is a convenient and comfortable fiction thrown on by the world so that it can function on a daily basis while remaining ignorant of true truth." She waggled her eyebrows conspiratorially at Dotted. "My thesis adviser," she said, "doesn't know anything at all. Tremendous scholar."

I understand this is meant for comic effect, but that is actually almost the way it works. The more you know, the more you know of that you don't know. Once you know enough, you realise that everything you do know is nearly nothing. Oh, and shouldn't it be "didn't" because Abacus is now a Doctor?

"She may not even know of its existence yet," said Doctor Abacus. "On a quantum level, all events are happening at once, the past and the future are simultaneous, and each and every moment has an effective duration of 'forever'. She may currently own the actual spirit-trap, she may come across it tomorrow, and she may have glimpsed it in a museum fifty years ago. When you start getting quantum, the possibilities are literally endless."

Okay, I see that in the special case of Abacus, that speech was entirely accurate. I don't think Abacus knows anything about QM at all.:pinkiehappy:

Anyway, um, I actually think I prefer Unicorn Tooth and Goddess Princess, just because they're more the style of story, but I certainly ended up laughing out loud (as in actually laughing and thus worrying certain people I co-habit with) reading this, so good job. It was kind of odd seeing your Celestia with Ghost's Dotted, because your Sun-Nag take on Celestia is so very unique. I guess I can imagine this is an AU Dotted.

Two years ago, he had been brought in to the Bureau of Names and Standards on a routine chemistry consultation, to make certain that the platinum-iridium cylinder intended to exemplify the kilogram was as pure as conceivably possible and would not degrade over time, thus throwing off the standard.

I'm not sure if I'm disturbed or amused by the fact I was just reading about this specific item and how they were worrying about the rate that it's been shedding electrons.

Amazing fic, I hope you get a chance to write Dotted again. He is truly my favourite pony of all time. (As Heraclitus well knows.:twilightsheepish:

2522018
I'd love to hyperlink the footnotes! Do you know how, in the UBB code the site runs on?

The answer to your rhetorical question is "the guy whose work I'm parodying". :pinkiehappy:

2522244
Well, half parody, half homage. Links are in the author's notes, at the end, beneath the problematic footnotes. :twilightblush:

That was a gloriously absurd and amusing tale.

Well done. The spirits of the room might have been riled, but you were entirely in harmony with the spirit of the characters.

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