Words don't do justice for my memories of the next bit; pretty much every language there is contains some inherent assumptions, such as that the person doing the speaking maintains a consistent level of sapients. So even trying to fit my memories into words is going to give an entirely false set of impressions. But I can't get away with not offering any description at all, so:
I remember the bright light. My memories around it are somewhat confused and contradictory. But after some point, those memories settle down into a reasonably coherent narrative: I ate. I pooped. I slept. I didn't think. I hung around some other cows. Time passed, without being noticed.
Even that much, I'm already wincing at how little the words reflect what my experience was like. So I'm going to do two things. One, I'll skip ahead to where my thoughtless, endless now changed; and then I'll describe my best reconstruction of the events I was zoned out of.
After some time, a period I was unable to conceive of, let alone measure, some not-quite-cows wandered through the cows I hung out with. I noticed a blanket or something on my shoulders. The not-cows nudged me away from the others, which I didn't like, and to a basket of oats, which I did enjoy eating. There were some strange noises and lights... I experienced some rather strange physical sensations, my entire body changing at least somewhat...
... and with a flash, both of light and of inspiration, I started thinking properly.
My reconstruction comes mainly from things the Mikoyan's crew told me, as well as some other reports, and my own estimations and interpolations.
The "Peace, Love and Harmony" spell wasn't quite the magical equivalent of a nuke - but powered by the Ursa Major bones, and possibly altered by the Lady's Cloak, it was at least a MOAB-level magic. That fleet full of viking warriors intent on raping, pillaging, and general mayhem got turned into... well, hippies, for lack of a better word. The ships I'd encouraged to come fight the invasion arrived to find a bunch of would-be settlers, instead, and after some confusion, eventually got them to spread around all of Thule, to establish homesteads and start farming undeveloped land.
There was no sign of Dirk Steel. Given that he had some sort of anti-magic effect, he might have gone into hiding after his fleet disappeared. Or, if his anti-magic was through the use of black rock of the same sort we'd found in the giant crevice, which has a finite capacity before exploding, there might not have been anything left of him other than a few feathers.
My conclusion about what happened to me... is that some combination of my will directing the spell, the overload of raw magical power, the cloak, and the magical-neurological properties of my species... gave me a super mind-numbing zap, like the ones I got from forming a circle with other Equestrian cows; and by the time that wore off, my body's magic had already run out for long enough for my brain to shrivel up like a raisin.
As for the Mikoyan and its crew... well, maybe it would be best to show what I learned, from the point of the second flash.
I wobbled on all four hooves, as I looked around. There was Red, and Micro, and the other two unicorns of the crew, Tranquil and Berry. I was standing on something like some plywood sheets, on which were carved a magical circle, lined with diamonds. The Lady's Cloak was back on my back. The Mikoyan was floating off in the distance - back to the bare planks, instead of covered in flowers, and now painted a matte black rather than merely varnished.
I started to say something, but my throat was raw, and my lips and tongue were clumsy. Not quite as clumsy as a beak, so after a couple of tries, I said, "I thought... I ordered you... to keep on... the mission."
Red and Micro looked at each other... and, rather to my surprise, both broke out into broad grins; Red even gave Micro a hug, thudding her on the back. Tranquil and Berry high-fived (high-hoofed?).
I raised an eyebrow, and asked, "How... long?"
Red pulled herself back from Micro, and looked up and down at me. "It's been... two months since we lost you. We've tried getting hold of Svalinn, but, well, hit a snag - one we think you might be able to get through. So we started looking for you... do you have any idea how many herds of cows there are here?"
I shook my head, then tried, "How... find?"
"Well, after a few false leads... Blanche remembered the cloak. It's supposed to find its way back to its owner, so after we found it again, we've been trying to give it a chance to find its way back to you. We got a few false positives at first, but... well, here you are, talking to us now."
I nodded, then frowned. "Where... Blanche?"
"Ah," Red said, and looked away. "That's... a bit complicated."
"No it's not," said my lips, without any volition from me. "Just tell her, already."
I blinked a bit at that.
Micro piped up, "You have to understand - for all intents and purposes, your mind was gone. So we've had to use... extreme measures to rebuild it. We needed to physically reconstruct your brain, and, well, we've only been able to find one piece of magic that can do that."
I glared at her. "Don't... tell me... forbidden... spell... forty-seven?" I was referring to one of the secret tomes I'd gotten from the Pillar family, specifically a spell which allowed the caster to reshape the target's body in almost any way imaginable - as long as another body was merged into it at the time.
My mouth moved again, "Don't be mad at them - I volunteered for this. We improved on the version of the spell from your notes - I, well, my brain, is attached to your spine, somewhere near your kidneys. Everything you experience, I do - and I can move our body, too, if you're not moving it. We can get me back out of you, by casting the spell again to merge me into another body, like into an ordinary cow's, and reshape it to be a pony and put me in charge of it. In the meantime - you can think of me as your backup... I'm sure you can think of a bunch of clever plans involving me being hidden away inside here, where nopony would expect me to be."
I closed my eyes for a few moments and rubbed between my horns. "I have a headache," I announced. "Maybe more than one. So... what's the problem... you need me for... that this is the easiest solution?"
"Ah," Red said. "That's also complicated. Are you sure you're up for all this?"
I looked behind me, at the herd of cows I'd been part of for... months. I kind of wanted to go back and join them - they were a nice bunch, comparatively speaking. But... "Vacation's over," I said, as much to myself as to the others.
"Right," Red nodded. "Well - we know where Svalinn is. Some of us have even managed to see it. But... it's kind of hard to describe - none of us have been able to get it. And all of us who've tried - none of us describe the same thing. The Round Table's consensus is that it involves some kind of customized vision - heart's desire sorts of things. When Stoke Red and I went in... we saw ourselves in charge of an airship fleet - and then we were back outside."
Tranquil piped up, "I saw myself as a seapony. Firebough saw himself as emperor of all the Northern Wastes. Half of us won't talk about what we saw."
Red said, "To be honest, we're kind of grasping at straws, with you. But since you had that mental duel with Lady Kohl, and were able to think your way through the mind-affecting spells on the Pillars' books... it seemed worth trying to find you again, to see if you could do something like that again."
"Not to mention," Blanche said with my mouth, "even if you can't, I didn't want to give up and head back to Equestria without you."
I tried to think through the implications of that - and my thoughts felt fuzzier than they used to. I decided that I probably wasn't all the way back to snuff, after so long without thinking at all; and that I should take the time to run through my checklists, to compare how well I thought now to when I did similar tests while stuck in the shape of a bird... and see if I could get myself thinking clearly again. In the meantime...
"Need to think," I said. "Sorry - I mean, think better. Feels like I need caffeine. Maybe we should... get back aboard... the Mikoyan? Continue there?"
The ponies looked at each other, gave each other shrugs and nods, and started packing up the gear.
I looked back along my flank, and said, "So, uh... Blanche?"
"Yes?"
"When you say... you experience everything I do..."
"We've figured out that a sleep-wand can zap one brain in a body without zapping the other."
"... Glad you've been thinking ahead. Er... how, exactly, did you figure...?"
"We've been practicing the spell on other cows, to figure out how to get it right, and how to improve it."
"How much... did that cost?"
"Er, not much at all."
I hung my head. "So... you've been using... a black flying ship... with technology beyond the locals' ken... to abduct cattle... and perform experiments on them?"
"Pretty much."
"... Remind me to give all of you a stern talking-to about that... and to wear my black suit when I do."
This must be the most creppy chapter so far.
or am I wrong?
And then Missy's crew were aliens.
1496112
Would you believe that I've had this plot-point in mind... since chapter 35?
hahaha
1496112
I'm 90% certain you meant to say "creepy", and it is, but it's also hilarious, since they don't have the proper context to understand it.
Unfortunately, the uncertainty is if you actually meant "crappy", in which case I'd have to disagree.
Brain reconstruction? That's... worrying, to say the least. If he's anything like me, Missy's going to start getting psychological terror about whether s/he's really him/herself anymore, or that parts of his/her mind have been permanently lost, as soon as s/he's running well enough to actually consider those problems.
Assuming Missy ever does recover, instead of finding that she's lost her one real advantage- her ability to actually think at an above-average level. Excellent character development (if horrifying), but devastating.
1496429
<whistles innocently>
1496444
...Actually, considering that the diction of the story hasn't dropped significantly and it's still in first-person narration, it can't be /that/ permanent. So in that case, I'll look forward to the delicious psychological horror to augment this delicious body horror!
>1496444
Also, can we have a pronoun check? What gender should I be referring to Missy as? S/he makes my inner English geek cry, the various gender-neutral pronouns are baby-punchingly worse, you can't use "They" for everything, and "it" is clearly wrong.
>1496444
Oh, and congratulations on writing a fanfic that's held my interest for way, way longer than Methods of Rationality did. I mean, Yudkowsky is many things, but a great writer of long fiction he is not. Contrary to popular belief, making a villain a Mary Sue doesn't actually counterbalance making the hero one.
1496466
At this point in Missy's life, Missy tends to use the masculine pronoun to refer to herself as of before she got turned into a cow, and the feminine pronoun for herself after that point. Either way, she's somewhat less attached to her gender-identity than average.
1496474
Thank you for the compliment - I try my best, but it's always nice to hear that someone else thinks my efforts are worthwhile.
As for Mary Sue ism... "Myou've" has always been a bit odd about that, since part of its initial inspiration was to try for a story that reversed some of the most common Mary Sue tropes... and the main villain Missy's been working on gearing up to fight hasn't even appeared 'on screen' as such, yet; it's been a bit odd trying to power-up Missy (with Science!) without falling prey to M-Sing her.
Author's Note: I've just caught up on Quantum Castaways by DustTraveller, and was surprised and delighted to notice that "Myou've" got a name-check in the latest chapter.
How can I keep... from squeeing?
1496307
Just creepy...
1496112>>1496307
I am going to assume NBH meant to say 'crepe-y'; in which case, I would have to strongly disagree, as this chapter contains no visible pancakes of any kind.
1496474 At this point, Mary Sue has basically become "Character I Don't Like Because They Are Too Successful". Quirrelmort being a failure as a human being in many fundamental aspects, despite his extreme competence, prevents him from being a Sue. Harry is also constantly on the verge of moral bankruptcy, and tries so hard to be clever he often trips over himself.
The rule you defy is not "popular belief", but something Yudkowsky stated, and it makes some level of sense, in that Mary Sues present two problems; killing conflict by having everything go their way without seeming to pay a sufficient price (in sweat, blood, toil and tears), and killing immersion by being unrelatable and unbelievable.
Either way, I think we should Taboo Our Words (in narration, this is known as Show Don't Tell). Instead of saying "X character is a Mary Sue", we should say "I have a problem with character X because of traits Y, Z, T about them that I feel are detrimental to my enjoyment of the story".
I'd ask you to taboo the words "great writer" . "Writer who is enjoyed by his public"? "Writer who sells a lot"? "Writer whose work is flawless on the technical side?" "Writer who is praised by critics?" Or is it simply "Writer that I enjoy?" Because he's got a fairly large fanbase who's read the entire thing, I think all that can objectively be said is that some of the things that worked for them did not work for you.
1496524 It's good to hear what works, I'll give you that. Missy is fairly easy to idenitfy with; she's got clear goals, indisputable, urgent and sympathetic motivations, always does things for a reason rather than merely following compulsions, and is very ethical in her treatment of other people. She's basically a Rationalist!Tintin. And I have a bit of a problem with that.
We seldom see evidence of her overcome or threatened with irrationality. She doesn't angst (instead, she worries and plans and calculates, but she doesn't despair). She isn't gripped by a terror that overcomes her will. She doesn't allow herself to visibly lust after anyone, not even a bit of Eating The Eye Candy. She doesn't explode with joy, she seldom cracks jokes.
She's not encumbered with shyness or insecurity (how much of what she said to Rarity about feeling intimidated by the Princess was true? why didn't we hear about it in the scene proper?). She doesn't break down crying, she doesn't get sadistic or maniacal or berserk, and the worst symptoms of PTSD she suffers are bad dreams!
And she seldom talks or even thinks about her past life, what made her become the way she is now, her back-story, her formative years, her childhood, all that nurture stuff that makes you who you are.
But we know for a fact that she is able to sing quite well; with pop songs, this requires people to emote. We also know (from second-hand, after the fact testimony), that once her frontal lobes are sufficiently inhibited with alcohol, she's capable of very sophisticated and advanced forms of eroticism, in words if not in deed.
She's also in a very affectionate relationship with Cheerelee, but while we do get to hear about her plans regarding their future, and her plans regarding things that would alter it, and her plans regarding Cheerelee's own feelings and actions, I don't recall a single instance of physiological, direct, personal emotion from her part.
[rant]
Her actions speak volumes, but what about her body's actions? What about blushing? What about "butterflies in the stomach"? What about tingling sensations and feeling like one could fly? What about hearbeats? What about smells and tastes? Enough with the brain, I want to hear about her senses! I want to know that I'm dealing with a sentient being, not a Plot Agent.
[/rant]
So, yeah, there's secondary evidence that Missy is not, in fact, a very ingenious robot whose only emotional modes are "ruthless efficiency in the pursuit of the Greater Good" and "awkward". But, you know, I wanna hear it from her. I want the raw feelings, the warmies and the fuzzies, the creepies and the cookies, the spokies and the haties, the frustration and the rage and the fear and the hunger and the delight and the wonder and so on and so forth. Not a constant flat ಠ_ಠ look with the occasional fascinating eyebrow.
At least Spock had a backstory that justified such... self-inhibition. An entire culture, in fact. But Missy, as a human being, doesn't seem to have such a thing. So what made him like that?
That said, the plotting seems impeccable, the secondary characters' motivations and actions all seem to make sense (although, again, I am deeply dissatisfied with how they are treated emotionally), and while you occasionally slip and make a typo or two, your style is easy to read and not distracting at all. The story is interesting and the adventures are fun and the pacing is excellent. Just like a Tintin comic. And yet, it still feels kind of bland and too clean. Just like a Tintin comic. It's basically the narrative equivalent of the Ligne Claire style.
And, just like with Tintin comics back when I first read them, I just can't wait till I get my hands on the next chapter, nor can I refrain from reading any chapter in one session. Like Hergé, you certainly know how to make a page turner ("A cliffhanger at the bottom of every page" was his rule).
1497934
> Ligne claire
You've hit a lot of nails smack-dab on the head - I don't disagree with your analysis at all. I do have a madness behind my methods, though, and plan on explaining it by the end of the current story-arc.
1497987 I suspected as much. Well, I'm a faithful reader who's not going anywhere anytime soon, so I'll be waiting.
Oh dear, it seems you've made quite a mess. I expect once you're further along in the story, Missy will want to have a little chat with Griffin, who will be in Canterlot castle getting his mind fixed.
Hooray Men, I Mean, Cows in Black and aliens!
Could have been worse, G.I.R. could have been working the controls while the crew was busy working their spells on the cows.
this is most... interesting... I almost forgot about that spell and didn't expect it to be used in such a way that the sacrifice lived through it... obviously there will be repercussions you can't get out of something like that scot free. I am rather curious why Blanche was so eager to do this however... I can't shake this feeling of subterfuge on her part. That magic pool had some big effects so I can't help but wonder if A) the dispel Missy tried didn't work in which case Blanche has found the perfect way to subtly influence Missy or B) it did work in which case Blanche has a right to feel very mad and possibly vengeful and this is a perfect opportunity.
Anyways, excellent as always. I enjoy that this makes me think rather than merely using suspense to keep me drawn in. The fun isn't so much in wondering what will happen but how. Missy almost embodies possibility. It's a different type of reading to enjoy
Oh my god! It all makes sense now! It's not little green aliens that are abducting cows!
It's actually a person that was brought to earth from another world by a supposedly false god that was worshiped about 2000 years ago for a board game that transcends space and time with no clear purpose to anyone but the game masters, but still having a large enough amount of significance to determine the fate of the universe!
Also, that person is now a cow!
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