“You have to be kidding.” Edward responded, corners of his lips upturned.
“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” Sue motioned to a blank stare.
“Where did you get that from?”
Suzanne rubbed the back of her head. “A friend?” Kat, she heard it on some sort of interview years ago. Sue remembered the first instance of it being used and having a similar reaction. But it’s now an in joke. “But yeah, Equestria has some really advanced thermodynamics, like more advanced than we have.”
Off in the distance, not so far where she couldn’t hear the basics though; Stormy and Kat were talking and she didn’t like where it was going.
“Once they could figure out the symbols and some unique methods…” Sue looked to the group, to Kat’s rapid signing.
“It is not that surprising. There is speculation that there may be a common…”
No way in hell. Suzanne stormed up to her friend. Sorry, Edward. As fun as it is talking to you, this takes priority.
She moved around to the side, making sure to place herself in Kat’s peripheral vision and waved to signal her want to talk.
Kat turned, hands a blur of motion.
Sue may have learned American Sign Language well enough but it was Kat’s mother tongue, being born to deaf parents.
‘Slow down!’ Sue signed. ‘You know I can’t go that fast.’
‘I can’t, it’s happening again.’ Kat’s eyes watered. Many would have assumed she was angry, but only partially. ‘Every time! I am NOT broken. Why?’
What do I say to that? Back home everyone knew, but going someplace different is always hard? She’s like a sister and I can barely imagine what she’s feeling. Every time some idiot has to open their mouths.
Kat walked off, the last time that had happened was freshman year of high school.
Sue heard a pounding in her ears, her throat dried as she fumed. “You said WHAT!? What kind of insensitive…” A hand landed on her back with enough force to sting. She looked back at who would dare…
Edward? His features were completely smooth; Suzanne had forgotten anyone other than her and the idiot pony were there. She could see her rage against his calm. There was a gentle squeeze from the hand. She took a slow breath, letting her ire soothe and simmer. “I’m gonna go talk to her.”
“No. He created this problem and it should be his job to fix it.” He turned from her to the pony. “If he doesn’t though…” Letting the sentence trail off.
Stormy moved off, staggering as he moved.
“If he says anything to hurt her.”
“They both need to learn.” Edward moved off to a metal table, pulling out two chairs. “Life isn’t easy.”
Says Mr. Rich. Sue fumed, sitting gently into her chair, holding up the sides of her shirt as she did. I need to protect her.
Edward started speaking and Sue heard none of it, thoughts racing of her friend.
First Grade
Suzanne saw the new girl brought in with her frilly pink dress. It was the girliest thing she had ever seen, and the only one in the small class wearing such colors.
“Ok, everyone. I would like to introduce you to Katherine. She will be joining us.” Mrs. Clarkson said. “Now she can’t hear like you do so remember to be nice. Now sweetie if you can take a seat over there please.”
This should be fun!
The new student sat near another adult who she rarely looked at as the lessons continued.
Soon enough, it was time for recess. Sue shoved the books into her desk and waited for everyone else to get up before making her move. As the other kids made for the door, Sue ran forward, making sure to run into the back of the new student and then making her way outside.
She continued it for the next week. Sometimes it would be a ball from behind or just some words she learned from adults. Until one day Kat never went outside for recess and stayed inside with books.
Second Grade
“Watch this!” Sue yelled at the swing went straight with the ground. A few more leg pumps and the seat rose. The next time it reached the top, she jumped. The feeling of flying was awesome to the first grader, then she landed and pain shot through her leg. The pain blasted out all other shots as hot tears rolled down her cheeks. The teacher checking her out and the ambulance ride were all a blur.
A week later Suzanne came back to class in a cast and a wheelchair. The teacher made her a special desk to fit over her chair, sitting her far away from the other students and their desks.
Recess eventually came and she wheeled to recess. Getting outside though she saw nothing that could be done sitting in a chair. She could feel more tears form in her eyes.
“Crybaby.” Someone called from behind her, Sue couldn’t turn around to see who it was.
“Here.” A voice said from behind as a book landed on Sue’s lap. The voice sounded funny, like it was someone who never spoke. The book was from some series called ‘Goosebumps’.
Kat walked around to her side and sat on the ground, making sure her pink dress didn’t get dirty.
Suzanne looked down at this little blonde thing, the one she had picked on. “Why are you being nice to me?”
Kat nodded her head and pointed to her ear before pulling out a pad of paper and passing it to Sue.
‘Why are you being nice to me?’ She scrawled with large uneven letters before passing it to the odd girl.
‘Why not?’ Kat shrugged before passing it back.
I don’t even like reading.
Freshman Year of High School
Sue entered the classroom for Algebra. At the front, just as expected, sat Katherine in her favorite sundress, white with pink borders, a gift.
Sue hung her head. Guess it’s the front of the class this year. She sat at the desk to her friend’s left. She hated her new jeans, but thought they made her look better.
‘Do you always have to sit in the front?’
Kat grinned wider than a Cheshire cat. ‘Only if you can’t be in class on time.’
‘It was five minutes and history. Pretty sure learning things I wasn’t there for is the point of that class.’
“Haha.” A crackling voice, one that had just started to change spoke behind Sue. “I’d rather talk to a can of beans. I mean if you can’t speak English it’s the same thing.”
Sue’s ears perked. I hope Kat didn’t see that.
Kat taped on Sue’s shoulder, pointing to the front of the class as an elderly man walked in. His hair was grey and fell in very loose curls, like he never bothered to fully comb it and wore some strange purple patterned button down.
‘I will catch up with you in a little bit. Need to talk to Mr. May.’ Sue signed when class let out.
‘OK.’ Kat moved off as her friend waited outside the building, heading for her next class.
“Hey.” She waved and the young male who just exited the room. Dark black hair, a plain white shirt and stained jeans. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Of course.” Giving what he thought was a sly grin.
“Please do not insult the deaf in my presence.” Sue suggested. You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
“It’s not my fault she’s as dumb as a brick.”
“Listen here. She is a better person than you could ever hope to be and smarter than you can imagine.” Sue moved until she stood nose to nose with the taller boy, stabbing a finger into his chest. “If I hear you speak against my friend again I will make sure your voice doesn’t finish changing.”
“Make me.” He grinned, an expression that quickly changed into a grimace as her knee came up.
Oh boy. That conversation will be pretty hard it seems. Stormy has the best of intentions and is clueless as to why his words hurt, and she lived a certain way, so I'm not sure she'll understand that he doesn't understand what's wrong. Misunderstandception.
Anywho, meant to say that last chapter, but glad to see an update! Sadly my university didn't seem to have that many things to go through, or maybe I wasn't paying enough attention. So good luck with the rest, and happy new years! (day late, I know. Sshhhh)
5419862 Ah China. It makes some since if you look at a cycle of uprisings, new government, greed and corruption, decay, repeat. Although breaking the cycle seems more interesting.
5421693 5420971 5420949 Doing this all at once because lazy. Ignoring the use of chlorine in natural sources (which is required for people to live). Its first use was to help make musical instruments, music to make the world a better place. Next it was used to clean and it is a remarkable cleaner. Chlorine is a bad thing to make an argument out of. Several of the people who did stuff like that were so evil their own people wanted to kill them.
So I may try to make this a list of the good things people have done. Creating vaccines to save people, and then giving it away. How about St Jude's or other hospitals. There are thousands of examples. Here are some just for 2012 http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/moments-that-restored-our-faith-in-humanity-this-y
And he isn't an emo or a sociopath, just a teenager/freshmen, see them every new academic year.
5429110 Thank you and happy holidays to you too. Don't know when more will be out though.
5453391 Now's as good a time as any. And if those two talk they will work things out, hopefully. And what Stormy said is something that deaf people actually hear, it really was quite surprising and a little disheartening. But that will be covered.
And a university offering that much is not always a good thing, nor the most important.
5432435 Thank you. I will check out the errors when i get a chance (basically have the time). It has been rather hard without an editor or much time.
MOAR
Question: will he start class at some point?
Today is a bad day to have sympathy pains.
5619508
I would assume so.
First contact is potentially horrifying. Our precious metals market would tank, and the De Beers people would have a conniption over their monopoly of the gemstone trade being challenged by people who regularly see examples the size of the Hope Diamond and use them as medium coin.
5616467 He has to at some point. Schedule is crazy, sorry.
5614216 More will come
5619537 Is that not everyday?
5619866 5619508 Or they could just release their stockpile of diamonds and quit artificially inflating the price. Import restrictions could be put in place or agreed upon by both sides to prevent economic collapse. Or maybe there are significant enough chemical differences
5621079
There can't be. Elements are universal.
5621375 I was referring to chemical impurities that are quite commons especially in diamonds and ways to use that to identify the origins of said stone. And assuming physics works the same way and thaumaturgical energy has no effect on the formation of gems...
5621938
Oh. Right. When I made the comment I thought you meant that their gold / etc would be chemically different from our gold / etc. As in their gold isn't electrically conductive, etc.
Now I realize what you meant. We'd probably find them very slightly radioactive. It's a commonly held believe that Equestrian gemstones soak up and hold some sort of latent magical energy (They're used in the core of energy weapons in FoE, as a spell matrix carved into a gemstone, and cyborgs eat them to refuel their metal bits). To borrow from Tribetwelve / EverymanHYBRID, we could probably rig up some way of detecting the sigma radiation. (We'll call it Sigma like they do. (It's radiation emitted by Slendy and things from the Candleverse, and the primary cast. Evan did an experiment with Alex where he tested samples of each of their blood. His blood (he was possessed by Habit by then, and this is after repeatedly attempting to mano-et-mano with Slendy and the primary cast having traveled through the Candleverse) emitted sigma radiation, whereas Alex (no strange encounters save a brush with the Rake) did not.)
5621938
But then maybe it'll end up being okay. Maybe we'll combine our technological know-how and they can supply resources we're wastefully tying up in jewelry.
5622223 No worries.
0.o That is complicated. I will keep it simple. Seems like stuff a geology class might discuss. Like sigma because of its scientific uses.
A lot of the gems used in jewelery though don't have other uses and isn't fashion and aesthetics by itself useful?
And thanks, that helped some with world building.
5635355
Actually, they have some industrial uses. We use synthetic ruby in red lasers, apparently.
But their gemstones would be like a magical battery. And come to think of it, ponies might have a hard time on our side of the portal, because there's no magic.
5619866
.....Why am I never alerted to your replies?
Half baked idea that was screwed up with the rest of this topic. I highly enjoyed the scientific bits though, makes me wonder if I actually come for the comments than the actual story..... nah, I come for the story and stay for the comments. great way to kill the boredom.
5636452
That depends on how ponies use magic and whether or not they're producing, naturally gathering, or channeling the surrounding mana. It could also depend on if there is a bleeding effect going through the portals. Though there is the possibility that (and I may be wrong on this, I can't remember if Earth being manaless was confirmed before) humans merely have no catalyst for using magic and earth does have some mana. I will say though that some religions support Earth having some sort of magic. Feel free to correct me on any of this if I'm wrong and/or being dumb.
5636909
Well the author states that certain bits of our tech brought over there from here don't work right in the magic-laden atmosphere. I'll have to watch Twilight's Kingdom again and really think about what it says about pony magic.
Stories that I comment on often find users like yourself. They'd come and read the story, and may or may not leave again, but I always draw people into discussions. It helps that I only comment on stories that I enjoy and start such discussions, as comments = heat. Plus sometimes I'll say/come up with something the author didn't think of, and it'll get implemented.
5636925
Perhaps the ponies world simply has a higher concentration of mana, so it is forcing some of the electronics to always be on or off? Something like a cell phone or a computer probably wouldn't function properly if every circlet was being activated or blocked all at once. I guess we would have to know what exactly the excess mana is doing to the electricity. I think I read something similar in the Aborsen book series.
5636964
Well we don't know because the PoV character doesn't know, and I'm sure Dai hasn't thought about it further than "Magic fucks up electronics".
5636985
Maybe, I will hold out the hope that it is explained in the future but if not: sucks to be me. at the very least this might give inspiration to somebody else for anything they write. Yes?
5637029
I explain everything.
5637029 5636985 Damn you for suggesting more books, supposed to be working.
It will be explained at some point. Might get to part of the electronics thing when Stormy goes home for summer, but might not with the other things going on and will start to lay in the groundwork for magic on Earth. And Pinks, I have because science is fun. But these really do help as it wasn't much thought outside of electrons interactions forcing the current to speed up and shorting out certain devices. And Stormy's flying problems are tied into how magic is working, or how certain things block magic, like claratin.
5637076
Allergy medicine?
5637087 Whoops! May have said too much
Let's look at what happened on the second day, when Stormy faceplanted because his wings wouldn't work. It could have been from overexertion in flying the previous night and his wings locked up. We have seen ponies heal rather quickly and maybe it got better as his body fixed itself during the day.
or it could be the two little pills Edward gave him for that nasty sneezing fit, Histamine helps both the immune system and wakefulness, what if in ponies it also helped facilitate the use of magic. Or it could have been too large of a dose for a pony.
Or it could be something else
5640707 That was a pain and a test for some linguistics stuff I was working on. And am glad someone noticed that there are some of the same people in both stories as the are parallel
5642634 Radiant Historia? Only one I could think of, but used this name for an airplane before that game came out (seemed like a cool name during my first Japanese class). And I never saw the Rarity and now I can't unsee it
5641637 I am very influenced by Japan as thats what I study quite a bit and spam musubi is just plain awesome and is only found in airports unless you are in Hawaii. And who says people aren't taking pictures or being on their best behaviour while they are being closely watched? Because they are, Stormy just hasn't noticed yet... yet.
5619537 As Big Mac would say, "Eeyup!"
5642634
5642689
I imagine HB_DS2013 is speaking of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, sequel to Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. Known for their decent stories, various class choices, and permanent death feature.... or you might have seen Marth, Roy, and Ike (taken from the previously motioned games) within the Smash brother game series.
Am I correct?
5645656 wow... I feel like an idiot. Have played the series too
5645656 Of course Radiant Dawn was a Fire Emblem reference! So far, I've played Shadow Dragon (remake of FE1), it's sequel, Rekka no Ken (FE6) and Awakening (FE13).
5646702
We all have our down moments, so don't feel to bad. The only thing I can't fathom is how you forgot such great games.
5649597
Path of Radience, Radiant Dawn, and Awakening. Plus I got SSB: Melee and Brawl (got Brawl to play as Lucario and Ike).
5666599 In Awakening, if you play one of the spotpass six, you can recruit Priam but he's the hardest of them all. Did I mention that his map even says Radiant Hero!?
5666629
One of my avatars married him. I found that Aversa was the hardest, simply because I had to deal with my own Avatar, Morgan, and Crom, five times each and keep her alive at the same time. My male avatar had Armsthrift, Astra, Pass, Vengeance, and Counter. the only thing that saved me was the blade Sol, and some elixirs.
5666599 Because I can't afford it, nor have the time and only recently got into the genre. Still stuck on day three of devil survivor. But do the the FE history and have beaten awakening =D
Or because scifi is better
5668657
Looked up Devil Survivor, looks like an interesting game. perhaps if i ever have the money i'll actually get it to see how is for myself.
.... slightly butthurt but not really. Result?
th01.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2011/242/b/c/mlp_fim___applejack__s_opinion_by_nova225-d48d51v.png
In truth though i will admit that they both have their moments of greatness and i like them both. i just like midievil style games more.
5670169 Very good possibility that there are some rocks in there. But judging by Maud that may not be a bad thing. JRPs are rather fun.
Figuring this is a sight for magical ponies? Fantasy ain't bad, like Dresden.