Truancy - Chapter Fifteen - Extended Author's Notes · 8:15am September 27th
Two weeks ago, my entire stack of notes for this chapter looked like this:
Ch. 15? 002 Summer. Colt wakes up - in apartment, before train, on train, or after trip? Skip trip?
That was it. Travel is boring. I’ve done it a lot. Being at the destination is exciting. Sitting on a plane, bus, boat -especially without internet or TV? Boring. Boats along the coast is pretty cool. But on the open ocean? There’s nothing out there. But then some good comments made me think about following the budding Pear-Apple family on the mundane travel in order to further some world building. And then, I found some things that were interesting. Now, I have enough for Chapter 15 to have at least 3x parts so far! (I like to try to split things when they get around 5k words. Helps me keep organized and not get lost in too much descriptions.)
The Fiscal Year for my workplace ends on Monday, so a lot of stuff is getting done this week. Therefore, I will have to release the parts separately. Hopefully, this will provide me opportunity to polish things better, but you will have to wait a week for the next part(s).
Of Travelling and Distances: So, I ran into a slight hole in my narrative plot. Around noon on 094 Spring, Pear Butter CC sent a mailmare express -aka: expensive but fast and direct- to Ponyville. The next day, a little after noon, Bright Mac meets Pear Butter at her apartment in Baltimare. In S02E24, MMMystery on the Friendship Express, we see it take a little over a full night to get from Ponyville to Canterlot. Baltimare is about 2-3 times the distance to Canterlot as Ponyville is to Canterlot supposing the maps are to scale -or close to it. This should mean that it ought to take several days to get to Baltimare from Ponyville, and that is also assuming distance in straight lines. Likely, the rails would maximize connections to settlements and civilization and be somewhat roundabout. Therefore, I came up with two solutions.
First, there are different types of trains and different types of commutes. Some are depicted in the show as having engine-type locomotives, and some are pulled by teams of ponies.
(Because of RGRE, it is not going to be teams of stallions… usually… Maybe for special events like bachelorette parties or booze cruises. Is there a ‘train’ version of a ‘booze cruise?’ … I just spent 15 minutes looking for a synonym or colloquialism for that and could not find one. So, I am going to make one. I’ll call it a~ hm~… oh! A, ‘choo-choo chug-chug.’TM Nailed it.)
Longer and heavier trains will take longer to get to speed and longer to slow or stop; shorter will be quicker. Longer trains would likely have a lot more industrial and commercial cargo compared to the shorter ones. It is possible that the S02E24 train was a cargo train. It is also possible that nightly -or ‘redeye’- trip is slower in general.
Second, there might be rail lines specifically separate from civilian and commercial travel for more emergency, express, nobility, or military purposes. Therefore, I am going to assume Bright Macintosh used a very expensive Express Train to Canterlot and another to Baltimare, because he loves Pear Butter that much, missed her greatly, and was beyond excited to get to her for any reason hoping beyond hope that she’ll return to Ponyville with him. Their return trip will be far more economical and, therefore, time consuming.
Of Silly’s Wing Exercises: have you ever seen kids do gymnastics? It looks like they’re playing or dancing. Everything is covered in padding, but it's different from a Sanitarium because it's for fun... Anyways, I imagine Silly looks like a child at a gymnastics class while he’s doing it, but I don’t know enough vernacular for that to even try to describe those types of movements well.
I would like to think some of the tunes Silly was humming were, “Inka Dinka Do,” or “Glory of Love,” by Jimmy Durante; and/or “Pickin’ the Cabbage,” by Cab Calloway.
