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Contraptionology!
by Jeffrey C. Wells
(with gratitude to the pre-reading powers of Akela Stronghoof and S.R. Foxley)
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appendix a: Author's Note
And that's it! Recommended closing credits music (and, indeed, a good overall "Contraptionology!" theme): "Madness", by Muse, off of The 2nd Law. While we're at it, recommended Moody Jealous A.J. theme: "Red Red Red", by Fiona Apple (naturally) off of Extraordinary Machine (again, naturally).
Thanks for sticking with me for my first Pony novel and, indeed, my first novel of any sort. I have written single, (basically) coherent novel-length narratives before (witness "Tales of the Starbuck Avenger!!!"), but these were all more collections of short serialized fictions than they were actual "books". Each one took me, like, six years to write, and the structure shows it; the head of a new chapter would sometimes have to contain a bunch of recap information because at times an entire year (!) would pass between installments. This one was an attempt to do things differently for once, to complete a single consistent story in a reasonable time frame (within the space of one calendar year), and I'm pleased as lemon-poisoned science-punch that it seems to have worked. The structure of the piece was basically planned out from the beginning, including all the Chekhov's Guns (yes, even the "language of bees" one) but some minor changes did crop up in the writing. Apple Bloom was supposed to stick around for a lot longer, for example, providing the audience's perspective as a sane character amidst the increasing absurdity of the world, but things got so bad so quickly that it was simply inconceivable that stubborn little A.B. would continue to brook it all, and she unexpectedly wrote herself out. This also delights me when it happens, even though it meant a little restructuring. And for all that I tried to wrap everything up properly, two dangling ends remain in this narrative.
First: the Junior Rodeo, mentioned early on, was supposed to be the setting of the last epilogue scene, with Apple Bloom playing the Nightmare role; but midway through the writing of the piece I happened to check out the "Epic Wub Time" fanimation, and I thought Jessi Nowack's portrayal of Vinyl Scratch – a character for which I had previously had no particular affinity – was hilarious enough that I felt I had to give DJ-PON3 a guest spot.
Second, and more profoundly, this story was not originally supposed to have literally happened within the confines of the universe. Twilight Sparkle's early lines about how her cure-all for jealousy is writing fantasy fiction was supposed to be subtle foreshadowing for the eventual reveal that "Contraptionology!" was a work of fiction penned by Applejack to try and stave off the jealousy that had gripped her in the wake of the events of "Infernal Machines". Another hint for particularly attentive readers was to be the fact that Iggy the Salamander's monosyllabic utterance is just slightly different in "Infernal Machines" than it is in "Contraptionology!" Pre-reading reaction to this was a bit dubious, inasmuch as it rendered likeable red-herring antagonist Professor Danger functionally nonexistent (inasmuch as he is mentioned but never shown in "Infernal Machines"). One pre-reader also commented that this really isn't the sort of story that Applejack would write, no matter how strange the inspiration particle was that struck her, a criticism that was – sadly – spot-on. Make of the above information what you will. I still don't know whether this story actually "happened" or not.
Anyway. Many thanks to Akela Stronghoof and S.R. Foxley for helping bring "Contraptionology!" to print. Each provided valuable insights as to how I could make this story better, and each served as an all-important venting-box, allowing me to release fresh new fiction into the world immediately after writing while I was still itchy and excited, while at the same time allowing me to maintain a fairly disciplined and measured public release schedule. The improvements are theirs; the remaining errors are mine. Additional thanks to my homegirl and "Skin Horse" collaborator Shaenon K. Garrity for the brilliant title-card, which replaced the terribly pedestrian screen-capture I had been using for a good chunk of the posting run. It really needed one. Thanks also to my spouse, Feech, for listening to me babble on about cartoon horses far more than the call of duty would require. It is, unfortunately, a practice which will not stop with the completion of this story.
Finally: Apparently the portrayal of Twilight as a disembodied brain-in-a-jar was compelling enough that there is now an Askblog-style Tumblr dedicated to the concept: check out Ask Brainy Twilight for all your distressingly-adorable hunk of unicorn neural tissue needs.
Thus concludes "Contraptionology!" It's been a trip. Thanks to each and every one of you for reading, and for – where applicable – showing your support in the discussion section during the writing of this piece; whether or not I responded to your specific comment individually, please be advised that each one was appreciated (even the ones that took me to task a little). And for those of you who've been burned by too many abandoned stories and were waiting for the "Complete" tag (I'm rapidly becoming one of you), I hope you enjoyed the thing presented in one fell swoop! I'd love to hear how you think the timing and pacing comes off when you read it all at once instead of over the course of several months. In either case, if you have enjoyed this story, please consider recommending it to the ponyfic repository of your choice and/or your friends. Word-of-mouth is best word.
Once again, thank you all.
sdg,
Jeffrey C. Wells
November, 2012
I love you man! Love your stories, and your style. I hope you write a sequel! I doubt it would do this justice though, this is easily one of my favorite pony fics out there!
Called it.
Awesomeness is an element. Knew it-!!!
You. You are just the absolute best ever. This story is great, you are amazing, and I look forward to anything you may want to write in the future (And I'm not just saying this because you plugged my blog, but that certainly helps)!
A great end to a great story. Not sure what else to say, other than the quality of your work as a writer is highly appreciated.
I have never before wanted to use the word "rollicking" un-ironically, but that is what you have here. Contraptionology was an absolute pleasure to read. All of my thumbs up for you. Please keep writing stories!
Oh, finally. I've been waiting for this story to finish for a long while now. Marvelous work! I'm honestly surprised at how well Mad Applejack works. Just add fancy mathematics in a glass.
For the timing and pacing, the first few chapters (up to the party) seem to drag on a bit. The narrator is already in full snark mode for the silliness to come, but the events are pretty pedestrian, so the jokes seem kinda forced. Then the Science starts, and everything clicks. The final plan also takes awhile, and nearly gets lost for a bit - once the Nightmare subplot concluded I had to remind myself exactly what they were working toward - but the detours are well worth it.
Yup, definitely, definitely enjoyed this fic. I think, over all, the lesson learned at the end was a wise one. I participially liked the story of the plough but it was balanced nicely by Twilight's own warning about stagnation. The question of technological progress is always a tough one and I think you pull it off here. More importantly though, the story is a good one, both at a technical level—everything is properly foreshadowed and you generally pull of Applejack's voice well [1]—and at an entertainment level. "Hard Bucking" had to be my favourite chapter, but this fic frequently had me laughing.
It's interesting that you envisaged this as a novel written in character by Applejack herself. I'm not sure what to make of that. I don't think it would have worked, though it does explain a few early lines from Twilight and Pinkie that seemed very out of character. Such as Pinkie and Twilight calling rodeos "aggressively adequate." I'm willing to put that down to Applejack reporting what she was hearing rather than what was actually said. Sort of like some kind of metaphor.
Overall, I say this fic "happened." For some weird value of that word.
In any case, I think I'm done here; time for bed. I'll just put away my five year old laptop upon which I've been writing these reviews. A laptop which, despite the multiple scuff marks and discolourations picked up from long use, and despite not being as fancy as some of those newer models I've seen, still does the job I require of it as perfectly as the day I got it.[2]
Goodnight.
[1] With a few exceptions. I think AJ used the term "alicorn" a few chapters back. Why would she do that when the word "horn" does the same job for only a third the price (in syllables).
[2] Activate Linux user smug mode. Smug mode activated.
Madness by Muse... you are a glorious devil, Skywriter.
Now, I have finally seen the light.
I'm one of the ones that waited for "complete". And this story was one of the most amazingly demented things I've ever read. Thank you so much
Now that was a wonderful read. I wish I hadn't waited well past the complete tag to get to this, there's a certain amount of enjoyment I get from reading and commenting along with an excellent story such as this one and I wish I had been along for the ride. I will definitely be reading along with any future story you write.
This will be going right up at the top of my user page list of recommended stories.
Wow, I remember reading and commenting on your stories over a decade ago on the TSA list. Small world! Anyway, I just spent 6+ hours last night (this morning) reading this entire thing in one go. I know I'm kinda late to the party here, as this was finished months ago, but after that much time spent, I felt like I was obliged to put in a decent set of critiques/comments.
First off, I do apologize, as this may be a tad long, so if you don't read it alll, just know that I did enjoy the story. That said, let's dive in. I think you did a great job with the voice for AJ's narrative voice. My internal monologue has now been stuck on "cowpony" for the past 10 hours, and I still can't think in my normal voice yet. Good job! Also, I like the depth your headcanon gives to some of the details. It really smooths over some of the background details and fleshes out the feel of things, especially as regards magic and "the Stream." The little unexplained terms here and there make things feel more alive, as it's obviously they are connected and coherent, without it having to be explicitly shown.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD (So if you haven't read it yet, skip the rest)
On the downside, I felt that, when read in one go at least, the story had a lot of pacing problems. A lot of the foreshadowing was very heavy handed (like the lemons in the punch.) Too many details were given for "trivial" things, like who exactly is or is not being allowed to drink the punch, that it's lemon punch specifically, and even "whichever pony had the ladle for this particular glass had actually snagged one of the floating lemon slices for it." Likewise, the transformations/machinations of each of the mane six when they start convolving is shown multiple times, so, for example, there's a lot less tension when we see a butter-bee-bat swarm finally on the attack. Then all the business about how AJ's hat "might have gotten stuck on a sticky-outy-thing" when Rarity stole it means that the second Rainbow disappears from the cloud scooter, we know she's somehow stuck in that same tube AJ was peering into at the boutique earlier. The later "reveal" of that comes as no surprise at all. Likewise, we saw Nightmare infect everyone in the first few chapters, and AJ getting moody the whole time too, so her "pa" revealing as the Nightmare felt like more of a "ah, here we are, finally" than any great surprise. The big one, of course, is the lie AJ keeps talking about hiding from everyone... that she put the wrong time on the invitation... When I read the apology scene, I was confused. I honestly was so sure that was what had happened that the REAL lie was yet to be revealed. When it wasn't, I had to go back and check that the invitation deception wasn't just stated directly in the early chapters like I thought it was.
Don't get me wrong, none of these are show stoppers, just that overall, it felt like we were shown too many exacting details of each character/location/macguffin before it came into play. I know foreshadowing is a very fine and difficult line to walk and balance though, and every reader is different as well. For a story this long, and juggling so many things, I still think you did a great job.
The one "foreshadowing" thing I really felt I was wrong on was apparently the apple/lemon battery thing and Apple Bloom herself. It felt so much like foreshadowing, and as I worked my way through the story, (I thought) I could feel all these awesome resolutions becoming possible, so I felt a tad cheated when the nuclear lizard option was just carried out directly as described many chapters earlier. For example... (here begins my speculations) The word lemon comes up so many times in that first chapter, and there's an actual science project there too, not "contraptionology." Maybe I played too much Portal 2 (I do have a trampoline dodgeball team named the Combustible Lemons after all), but the intersection of mad science, lemons, and fruit-based batteries left me absolutely convinced that something related to those (and AB herself) had to happen. AJ's big rant to start the show was that too many people wanted lemons and an apple wasn't good enough for the job anymore. I really kept waiting for a scene with apple bloom saving the day, perhaps with batteries made from zap apples (to power the still?) and some double-meaning comment about "you just need the RIGHT apple for the job." Failing that, we had at least three more-or-less disembodied souls, in robo-trixie, twilight's brain, and discord. I could've sworn one of them would have ended up in an AI core powered by a lemon (or apple) battery, a la portal 2. Failing THAT, and with the fact that this whole thing started with mad-science-based-fire someone had to invent "combustible lemons" when the Iggy plan somehow failed (again, from portal 2, but holy crap did that game do mad science right!) And there'd be the whole "fight lemons with lemons," or "when life gives you lemons..." puns and wordplay that could be had. Lastly, after discord's rant about how contraptionology isn't really science, and that this whole thing started with real science at a science fair, I would've loved to see AB (or anyone) defeat him using actual science. I mean, if you're building a "real science" device, you wouldn't fall to the temptations of convolution, and AB could've been the one "real scientist" after how hard she worked/studied for the fair. She could walk right in (untempted, due to her plan being actual science), and make lemon batteries out of the whole evil grove, just using them to ring bells (in harmony even) until it drained all the power in the grove.
Anyway, wishful thinking aside, a few other things stood out.
The puns. I like a good pun, and loved moved of them scattered throughout the story. Only exception was the cloud bucking scene. I admit I got a good laugh out of the Tenacious D line, but the setup went on too long and having the characters (Bell) directly comment on the double meanings... twice... really made it feel forced.
The Nightmare. In the opening chapter, it took me forever to realize that the Nightmare had really become that pathetic and ho-hum. When Nightmare Scoot first revealed, I thought it was just a Nightmare Night costume, or a Calvin-and-Hobbes-esque imagination session to avoid admitting her project was a failure. Even showing Nightmare Teach I thought was just one of those "adults playing pretend superheroes to entertain a classroom" things. Once I caught on it was the actual Nightmare though, I liked that idea that defeating the original big bad over and over again had become so dull people were bored with it. The characterization didn't match up with the Nightmare that AJ encounters though. That one seem real, and dark, and relatively competent at infecting one's soul. As much as I liked the humor of hum-drum evil, I'm very glad you wrote it different for AJ, as those scenes really did a good job of showing her internal struggle with honesty, and exactly what lines she would and would not cross. But then to have Nightmare Oontz show up, while funny... just felt it kinda cheapened the internal struggles and emotions AJ had to go through when she was possessed by the same thing.
Anyway, I think (and sure hope) that's enough for now. Just want to say again, great job on finishing such a long piece. I've never yet been able to finish anything novel length, and I've tried at least three times. As such, I really hope you take these criticisms in the helpful spirit they're meant. It's a really fun story, and as I originally mentioned, AJ's narrative voice was amazingly well done (honestly, so is pretty much all the character dialog.) Thanks for the story!
Are you sure that's the comparison you want?
I got a little queasy towards the middle, but it had a decent ending, and it was really well paced. The characters were a little... flat, but they fit their roles well. It's nice to see Applejack as the protagonist, even if her character was really twisted by the lemon punch. Which I guess isn't all Pinkie's fault after all since the lemons themselves were the problem, not anything added to the punch. I loved some of the creative inventions, like the distiller, and Rarity's flower ray. Oh and Iggy. It's a definite glimpse at just why being genre savvy in this world is so dangerous, because once you start exploting the properties of stuff like the party cannon... reality pretty much tears apart like wet tissue paper.