Remember that book Lyra had in Sugarcoated Rules? Well, these are the highlights of what she would write in it. This was actually meant to be set in place before the previous chapter. But, we forgot about it. Oh well. Here you have it now.
* * *
Today was going swimmingly. Henry's coming along with learning his quadrupedal movement. Not gonna win any prizes, if you could win prizes for walking. But he's coming along. Wait, there are speed walking tournaments. Don't know why I went to watch those while in college. But, still, no, he wouldn't win any prizes.
Bon Bon's little filly, Twist, has taken a shine to him. She treats him as though he were her own little brother. She's even tried organizing walking exercises with her friends in an attempt to help him out. Poor guy, he's lucky Bon Bon found out about it and managed to stop it in time before he suffered too much humiliation.
Twist has apologized profusely since them. It's hard to be upset with her. She's so well-meaning.
Henry was rather disgruntled when I got home. Makes me wish I could be there to help him more. But, there are lots of other humans and ponies I have to help.
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Apparently the kid likes anime. Secretly. After I caught him looking at my VHS collection... yes, I still have those, go scratch disc... he confessed that he enjoyed the stories and action. But, unfortunately, his family has a very downward view of it. Bunch of elitist prudes. Gundum, Fairy Tail, and Code Geass forever.
I'm just going to assume he entered my room by mistake. I am dwelling in the basement after all. Albeit, a very well insulated and decorative basement. He probably was just exploring the house. While I am proud he managed to walk, or crawl, drag himself about the house with his limited mobility, I did give him a scolding for going down stairs in his condition. That could have ended very badly.
I let him stay in my room for a while, turning on the first few episodes of Cowboy Bebop. He say's he's never seen it. With a family like that, of course he's never seen the great works of art. I'll just let him watch a few episodes before carrying him back up the stairs.
* * *
Apparently we both got a little carried away. Bon Bon dragged us both up the stairs and informed us that she had been calling us for nearly an hour. Wow, how did we lose track of time?
* * *
Tuesdays have always been the time I tell Twist human bedtime stories. Ever since I moved in started helping about the house. Henry sat in with us as well. Tonight I was finishing up the Return of the King. Which is apparently a good thing. The kid was bored all the way through.
It would seem he's not fond of the Lord of the Rings books. Which seems silly to me. But, I guess not everyone likes classic fantasy. Though, I will admit. Some parts just seem unnecessarily long and pointless. Perhaps he likes more concise stories that don't have a lot of filler. I'll figure something out for next week.
* * *
Wasn't much happening at the nut house today. Other than the fact the Thrandor apparently wanted to join the Dark Side. Can't say I really blame him. The Jedi are a bunch of creepy old people if you look at the lore. Stealing children, forcing them into a cult, teaching that emotions are evil, attempted assassination of an elected official without a trial. The list goes on. Oops, rambling. This is supposed to be about my experiences with a young human named Henry.
Though, I must mention, my good friends Bonny and Noteworthy have been really helpful keeping me informed of what goes on at home while I'm not around. Well, more Bon bon, as Noteworthy has a day job. Which Bonny does too, only it allows her more time with Twist and Henry. Oh, I suppose Twist is a good source of information as well. Though her adorable lisp can be rather distracting.
Today's story was that Bonny had Henry and Twist help make some candies for market. A good exercise for working with hooves. Either good thinking on her part, or just an unintended bonus. Either way it ought to have helped him figure out how to manipulate things with his hooves. Plus, what boy doesn't want to help make candy?
* * *
Apparently he found it incredibly frustrating, and needed a lot of encouragement. Bonny tells me she had to give him a rather long and extensive bath to wash out the mistakes from his fur. She was a little upset at the fuss he made over the ordeal.
That is, until I explained to her that humans don't usually bathe each other like we ponies do. I am positive he's feeling quite violated. Poor Bonny is probably still apologizing.
I should probably instruct her on what not to do, just for future reference, so as to avoid these things.
* * *
On an added note, it would seem Henry's a little clingy to me at the moment. I am going to try and console him and explain some aspects of pony culture and familial hygiene.
* * *
He took it rather well. I think.
He forgave Bonny anyway. But was rather firm in stating he was capable of bathing himself, even in his newfound body. I silently told Bonny to stay near the door just in case. After all, ninety percent of household accidents happen in the bathroom. Or is seventy?
* * *
Today had an interesting start. I was awakened before my alarm went off, never a good thing. The cause of this unholy inconvenience was Henry. Duh. Why else am I writing it?
Anyway, he was slightly hysterical, but, after I calmed him down a bit, I discovered that he had wet his bed. Which is actually a fairly typical thing sometime within the first week or so of dimensional transference. The whole process wrecks havoc on their poor minds as they adjust, which in turn leads to losing some control of their bodily functions. I explained this Bon Bon already, so she wouldn't have been upset. Not that she would have been upset anyway. She is fairly understanding.
Back to the kid, he had managed to walk or stagger all the way to my room and was begging me to help him wash his bedding before anyone found out. I found myself slightly flattered that he came directly to me for help.
Okay, I was really flattered. I put aside my grumpiness for being woken up so early and agreed to help him. It's really too bad that I didn't know how to do laundry either. And the Equestrian internet is still limited to the major cities, so looking it up wasn't possible.
Not to mention that the container's instruction labels were all lies. I followed them to the letter and still wound up taking all of Bon Bon's wrath for the mess in the laundry room. Henry, on the other hand, got to prove he could take a bath by himself, good for him, and three big chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream to help him feel better about the whole ordeal.
Bon Bon and I both promised that we would never tell anyone about it. By my oath as a doctor, yes, an Anthropologist is considered a doctor, I even have a doctorate, amongst other diplomas, and Bon Bon's simply being a good maternal mare, we meant it.
THANK you. I noticed that about the Jedi years ago; they're basically a Secret Police, the Stasi, the Shutzstaffel, the Committee for State Security, all wrapped up in Inquisitorial mumbo-jumbo.
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Can you really blame them tho? When just about every Sith is out to rule the universe, and is willing to crush anyone under boot to get there, the Jedi would have to evolve like they did. What we need is a third group that seeks a middle ground.
7627937 That's the thing, they didn't HAVE to evolve like they did. Remember the old saw about fighting monsters, or staring into the abyss.
Frankly, Lucas could have done better with the prequels. Jedi shouldn't have been this entrenched bureaucratic organization in the capitol, but instead reserved and removed from the Republic in monasteries and descending to go on long, meandering quests to sniff out Dark Side influence or just simply to roam and be the kind of roaming badass space samurai that we got from watching Obi-wan in Episode IV. Instead, we got the KGB crossed with the Roman-Catholic Inquisition.
I mean, seriously, think of how much cooler Ep I would have been if Obi-Wan was already a fresh out of the monastery jedi knight tasked on his first walkabout to do good around the galaxy, and one of the first places he goes his ship gets blown out from under him the moment he enters orbit. Surprised he and the other people aboard the tramp steamer (because space isn't an ocean but we all treat it that way) get to the escape pods and then land on the surface of their destination planet and Obi-wan goes looking to find out what happened and he finds out that there's a civil war between the human settlers and the native gungans and after some digging he picks up some Force Vibes™ and determines that there's Sith influence going on behind the scenes to get the war going on and the Trade Federation are the vector through which arms are supplied to both sides and the Sith Lord's influence grows, so he goes through this crap to stop it and in the process finds a young fighter pilot named Anakin Skywalker that he discovers has force sensativity and after the two work together to straighten that war out the movie ends with Anakin being persuaded to go learn Jedi stuffs.
Tell me that wouldn't have been a better movie. But no, we got the Phantom Menace instead. Le sigh.
....Annnnyway, sorry, not trying to harsh on ya. Just that I disagree strongly and feel that as portrayed in the actual prequels, the Jedi were just creepy old men with a penchant for prepubescent boys and bypassing the Rule of Law because something something Dark Side.
7628746 Let's also not forget that they had no qualms with an army of cloned slaves - men who had had their free will removed and their capacity for independent thought genetically removed - who they used as cannon fodder in a war. Not to mention they're growth was accelerated so they would just die after a decade or so anyway.
Also, what kind of "order of light" discovers a planet ruled by crime lords and rife with slavery and doesn't return with an army to purge it? Is it mentally normal for a boy to be rescued from slavery, and then not return to free his own MOTHER after a decade, all because his new masters told him to "purge all worldly connections?"
The fundamental failure of the Jedi order was in assuming that because the Sith were bad, that THEY were to the good guys.
Even in the original trilogy Yoda and Obi-wan were no prizewinners. They dumped Luke on a desert slave planet and left him to live in hardscrabble poverty, lied to him, kept vital information from him, and ramrodded him through combat training in mere weeks (that strangely enough used to take Jedi padawans their entire childhood, while they said Anakin was too old, now that's creepy) all to use him as a weapon to kill the Emperor and Vader.... and then when he slipped the leash, immediately made plans to go try and use his sister, next. "Don't worry, there's another we can use--" conniving little bat-eared frog.
These are what we call psychopaths. Yes, psychopaths. In reality we lock people up in padded rooms with that kind of soulless lack of empathy.
No wonder every Sith for 10,000+ years came out of the ranks of the Jedi. Both the Jedi and the Sith have pathologically unhealthy views of human emotion, but the Sith at least do not deny or repress their emotions.
Apologies, but felt it needed to added.
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I believe KOTOR 2 did a great job illustrating the problems of the whole light side dark side view of the force in its narrative. Pity the gameplay (LS/DS points) couldn't match up.
Thumbs up for letting Henry watch a classic: Mobile Suit Gundam
Because Cowboy Bebop is awesome Lyra--that's why!
It's treason, then.