noise."Story Notes: Unity 2, part 1 · 12:45am April 12th
Here we goooooo! As I try and remember all the different obscure references I put in this thing. If I miss one, anthro Sparkler is gonna come after me.
There's a bunch of references to previous stories in this franchise which I won't be pointing out one at a time. For the very few who actually read this, you've probably read them all. For everybody else, you aren't missing anything, honest.
Chell, as y'all probably know, is from the Portal franchise. She's not a pony in canon.
Various references to portal gun technology are all from the Wiki; I've never played the game.
While most of us know April Fool's Day as a day to play lighthearted pranks, and some of you probably know that in French it's poisson d'avril which means "April fish," and one of the favorite pranks is to tape a fish to someone. Ideally a paper fish, but if you've got a real one and some strong tape, well. . . .
It also happens to be Edible Book Day (the Edible Book Festival is held near April 1 every year); you're supposed to make an edible book, not eat a book that already exists . . . although you can eat paper, especially if you're a pony (not medical or veterinary advice). It also happens to be Anne McCaffery's birthday; she's probably most famous for her Dragonriders of Pern series, but she wrote lots of other books . . . including two cookbooks. I didn't have access to either, so did the best interneting I could to find recipes in one of the cookbooks.
Not related to April 1, when I was in high school, we lived near a weird discount store that sold a random mix of discount-priced stuff. Tools, tarps, rope . . . and one of my purchases there was sixty-six feet of black nylon rope. Why 66 feet? Because that's how long that rope was. I still have it, and it comes in clutch every now and then.
I've been listening to podcasts on my earbuds at work, and of course they have ads, which is why I got the inspiration to include ads in the story.
In previous stories in the franchise, Amethyst has had access to lots of guns. Lots and lots of guns. SIG Sauer is a German company that currently makes a variety of handguns; while I didn't mention the model, it's probably a SIG Sauer 1811 Super Target .45 ACP.
[Finding specific art with specific ponies with specific guns is a difficult or impossible task, but I did find some pictures of ponies with guns and will add them in as appropriate.]
KitKat's tabarzin is a saddle axe.
Chapter 2
Lara Croft is the protagonist of the Tomb Raider franchise.
Bracers are a part of armor which protect the forearms; on an equine they might be hock guards.
Parts of this plot really were created by BingAI—I'll get to that in a later blog post, if I remember. Pretty much all I used was the names of the missions/items and the order in which they occurred. It was actually a better resource than I anticipated it being . . . I'll get into that later, too. In a nutshell, the name of the mission and then the quick description of what the mission is (by Amethyst) is what Bing suggested.
Kum and Go is a convenience store franchise in the Midwest.
As I recall (I didn't re-watch) in the beginning of Terminator, Arnie showed up nude and held a gun to a biker and said "I require your clothes." He took his motorcycle, too.
Fun Fact, Terminator was referenced in G5, so it's canon.
I wonder if Arnie knows he's been ponified?
Chapter 3
Taurus is not only a former model of Ford car, it's also a brand of Brazilian gun. Not the only gun that shared a name with a car. Anyway, it's notoriously unreliable and there were lawsuits. I don't know much about guns, but I did know that.
A .357 Magnum was probably made most famous in Clint Eastwood movies. "Do you feel lucky, punk?"
Rupees for currency are from the Zelda franchise, and that's a game I have played. Specifically, Ocarina of Time and some of Majora's Mask.
"Cheryl's birthday" is a reference to a logic puzzle that took the internet by storm some years ago (I've never claimed my references were timely).
Albert and Bernard just became friends with Cheryl, and they want to know when her birthday is. Cheryl gives them a list of 10 possible dates:
- May 15, May 16, May 19
- June 17, June 18
- July 14, July 16
- August 14, August 15, August 17
Cheryl then tells Albert and Bernard separately the month and the day of her birthday respectively.
Albert: I don't know when Cheryl's birthday is, but I know that Bernard doesn't know too.
Bernard: At first I don't know when Cheryl's birthday is, but I know now.
Albert: Then I also know when Cheryl's birthday is.So when is Cheryl's birthday?
AND and XOR are logical operators, used in programming. AND is conjunction (A/B is true only if A and B are true), while XOR is an exclusive disjunction, which means its true only if A and B are different (i.e., one is true and one is false). I'm not entirely sure that they're used correctly in this section, 'cause I'm not a programmer. Not unless you count entering hex codes into a Ford, anyway.
I thought that there was a type of hawk that ate honey (and was immune to bee stings), but I was remembering wrong. It's a vulture.
Stay tuned for part 2!
Not in the 1st movie:
After killing 1 punk and stealing the clothes of another, he steals a random car.
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Well, I did say that I didn't re-watch it.
That was the second movie, wasn't it?
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Yes.
It was 44 Magnum that Clint Eastwood made famous. Heck, the Model 29 wad on the edge of fading into obscurity until Dirty Harry breathed new life into sales.
Cheryl's birthday answer: Albert and Bernard both decide they don't want to be Cheryl's friend anymore.
(It's actually July 16th.)
I'm sorry that I'm not actually interacting with this post too much.
No offense, just not my kind of story.
If nothing else, I'm saving that Trixie pic.
And that Chell one.
And you know what?
I've only heard of JoJo's Bizarre adventure from Yes (Roundabout), NOT the other way around.
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I thought that was a .357 in Dirty Harry. Oh well, it's a comedy fic for April Fools, my research doesn't always have to be on point in it.
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lol
There's a second possible answer, based on what Albert and Bernard said and what they mean by it. I don't remember what it is, but there's an entire video on Numberphile that explains it.
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Heh, that's all right. My April Fools fics especially aren't for everyone. I've always said if the blog posts provide nothing else, they give you some great pony pictures. And maybe some facts as well
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Can't argue with pony pics.
images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/d67cb5bb-a8dd-4ac5-a78f-6af74d06eccd/d64on8b-70eb68d0-f8f5-4745-b017-57fab824c919.png/v1/fill/w_862,h_927/filly_derpy_by_vector_brony_d64on8b-pre.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MzY0OCIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcL2Q2N2NiNWJiLWE4ZGQtNGFjNS1hNzhmLTZhZjc0ZDA2ZWNjZFwvZDY0b244Yi03MGViNjhkMC1mOGY1LTQ3NDUtYjAxNy01N2ZhYjgyNGM5MTkucG5nIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTMzOTAifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.2Ifm4tjbNAdcHNawxSAsF5MoOA5vvs9PhjAz-36foI8
(Just about the cutest one ever.)
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Okay, yeah, that's relentlessly adorable