One Year Super-Special Blog Post · 8:28pm Nov 2nd, 2013
One Year Celebratory Blog Post
Friends, it’s been one year (and one day) since I became a registered member of our fine community.
I had imagined that I would post something meaningful. Clearly, I was deluded. I should know me better than that.
Still, as I gathered together various bits and pieces for this blog entry, I got to wondering what’s in a date, anyway? Based on my spotty records, the earliest partial story on this computer is 8.21.12, so if I were to base the one year anniversary off when I started writing MLP fanfics, I’d have to have posted this months ago. Yet, Becky—a one-shot in my Not More Human in Equestria collection was originally created 1/16/2009. Ok, not as a fanfic, but still, it kind of counts, yes? Or maybe not. . . .
On the other hoof (which is better than ‘on the other hand,’ since you can make four separate points EDIT: since you can make three additional points before you run out of hooves, versus only one additional point with hands), maybe it would be more meaningful to celebrate the date of first publication. In that case, it would be Relaxing on a Cloud11-26-12.
For readers interested in stats, I can say after hours of careful tabulation, I have 217,931 published words thus far—not counting the mezzanine blog posts. I have about 13,600 views* and 17/23 stories [13 on my account (19 if you count each story in Not More Human in Equestria as a separate story) and 4 in Collab Cage collections].
I’ve amassed 139 followers . . . not enough to conquer the world, yet, but certainly enough to fill the house at my next performance of The Princess Bride—and if every one of you shows up, I’ll buy all the tickets. But it’s all or nothing, folks. Y’all free at 7pm EST tonight?
I could count the total number of faves . . . but that would just be showing off (and I don’t really feel like bothering). However! As a bonus . . . tacked on to the end of this blog post is a never-before seen story. It’s from the ancient time before I was a FimFiction member! It’s kind of like unearthing a lost manuscript from a great writer, except for the ‘great’ part, of course. It’s part of a longer story which I might—at some vague and undefined point in the future [probably never]—decide to get back to and finish. Since I tend to be brimming with literary references, the ‘humans’ in “My Little Human” were the cast of Friends. If you want to run with that, have at it.
Now: Who wants cake?
*counting the views of Collab Cage stories, of course
Pinkie Pie Writes a Fanfic
Hi, everypony, I’m Pinkie Pie. Twilight Sparkle said I should write a fanfic, because she said that it would help focus my thoughts or something I’m not sure but anyways she loaned me her little Spikey-Wikey to help me write it down ‘cause I’m not so good at hoof writing. If I was a unicorn, I could use magic, but I’m not a unicorn.
Wave to everypony, Spike! What do you mean they can’t see you? I can see you, and if I can see you, everypony else can see you. Yes, I wanted you to write that down. Write down EVERYTHING I say, ‘cause Twilight Sparkle says it’s important, and she gets all super-freaky-weird when ponies don’t do what she says to do.
Twilight says I should write about a kid’s show called “My Little Human,” but that show doesn’t make any sense, they walk around on their hind hooves and have claws like Spike or Gilda who is a big meany pants that can’t take a joke at all and if they have claws they aren’t peoples but dragons or griffons. So they were all standing around looking at an empty plate where there was no cake in a room where there was no party, and they were all sad because there was no party and no cake, and not even muffins, which Derpy Hooves or Ditzy Doo—I can never remember what to call her—really likes, so they were all frowny.
Then one of them said “We should make a cake but we don’t have any unicorn magic, so I don’t know how we could ever make a cake.”
“You are so silly,” the other one with the brown mane said, “we can use our hands or claws or whatever these things are,” so they got out a mixing bowl and a couple of cups of flower and water and eggs and sugar and that baking soda stuff that isn’t tasty at all but makes the cake fluffy because it’s magic—silly Spikey-Wikey, Pinkie Pie is telling the story her way, don’t contradict her—and lots of sugar and chocolate for the icing.
While they were waiting for the cake to bake, the one with the blond mane said that she was bored, so they wanted to play pin-the-tail-on-the-human, but Twilight says they don’t have tails, so they were sad. But then they pinned tails on each other and they were happy, and the blue-maned one said that they—what do you mean they don’t have blue manes? Rarity has a blue mane, well, ok, it’s more of a purple, but sometimes in the right light it looks blue, and if Rarity can have a mane that sometimes looks kind of blue when the light is right then why can’t a human have a blue mane?
Anyways, while I was plotting the perfect party, since I am Ponyville’s premier party planner, I realized that I was short on blue balloons, and you can’t have a party without at least a dozen blue balloons, ‘cause the color goes so well with salmon pink color, which is kind of like my fur color, but not. I checked in the cupboard, but there weren’t any there, so I looked under the rug, but there were only purple balloons, which is kind of like blue but not. So I tied all the pink balloons I had to myself and floated up to Dashie’s house, but she wasn’t there because she was sleeping on a cloud or something, and there weren’t any balloons there at all. So I thought I would have to have a party without blue balloons, but then I was floating by Quills and Sofas, and I said, “Pinkie, you could paint a pink balloon blue with ink,” so I went in and bought some blue ink.
But they didn’t have any ink, so I bought a blue sofa instead, and dragged it down to Rarity to see if she could make some blue balloon covers out of the fabric.
On my way, I saw that Roseluck was looking sadly at her garden, because it had gotten eaten by parasprites, and nopony could make a fence that kept them out, so I said to myself, I bet she would be a lot happier if she had a blue couch, so I gave her the couch because I remembered that I had put blue balloons under the bridge, it was obvious.
I wanted to ask Big Macintosh to lower me on a rope, but the last time he had done that, I got wet, and it made my hair go flat and made me sad, so I had to have a flat hair party, but nopony wanted to come to that, and Gummy wasn’t cheered up, but I was because I had cake and balloons. So I thought I could launch myself out of my party cannon, but when I rolled it out onto the street, everyone ran into their houses, because Zecora was coming, and she’ll put you in trances, but she doesn’t do that anymore, so I launched myself under the bridge and grabbed the blue balloons.
Then I went back to Sugarcube Corner, and inflated the balloons and—I’m getting to that—the humans cake was all cooked, and they had tails and blue balloons and they were very happy. Then they ate the cake and they were more happier.
The end.
Congratulations! Though I think that you made one mistake:
This implies that you started on one hoof, so you only have three other points to make before you run out.
1475541
Well, I had assumed one starting point, and up to three additional counterpoints, making a total of four. As worded, it does imply four additional counterpoints, for a total of five.
Grammatically, it probably should be "on another hoof," too.
Then again, by Pinkie logic, she can use as many hooves as she needs to make a point.
1476607
But doesn't the original point take up the first hoof? Because you say on the other hoof, implying that there was an initial hoof.
1476646
Yes, because I counted the original point as one of the four; I would have said with the expression "on the other hand" you can only make two points before running out of hands. I seem to remember something from my programming classes way back when about inclusive and exclusive counting. It was something like there are ten digits between 1 and 10 if it's inclusive but only 8 if it's exclusive.
So:
"What are you going to do for the foal's birthday?" Mr. Cake asked.
"I could bake a cake," Mrs. Cake answered (option 1)
"On the other hoof, I could make cupcakes." (option 2)
"On the other hoof, I could make a pie." (option 3)
"On the other hoof, I could make cookies." (option 4, and out of hooves)
Mrs. Cake presented four total options; her first plus 3 additional options. However, it's probably perfectly valid to view this as the original suggestion and 3 options, and not count the original suggestion at all--she used the hoof, but it can't be counted because it isn't an option, it's the first suggestion. Confusion like this is why certain sciences require rigid rules which English certainly doesn't provide. I'm reminded of this old gag:
Waiter: "Sir, would you like water or juice?"
Patron: "Yes."
1476765
All right then.
1476774
I clarified in the text. Stupid vague rules in English.
1476849
Jeeze, and I thought I was just making a smart assed joke.
1477562
Well, it was a good point. I've learned that I can't assume that all my readers are American (for example, there was a comment that read "what's the DHS?" I'd assumed, when I typed that line, that everyone would know what the DHS was, especially since they're in the news all the time . . . but of course, a reader from a foreign country (i.e., not America) naturally wouldn't be expected to know. Heck, when my brother was working in Canada, he was explaining to his co-workers how the American election system worked, and when I was in Indiana the first time they actually observed Daylight Savings Time, I had to explain it to all my co-workers.
In all honesty, this is the kind of thing that's likely to make me a better writer (and I secretly have ambitions to be paid to do thins kind of thing, but don't tell anyone). Between comments on the blogs and comments on the stories, I'm learning a lot I never would have if I'd just been sanding stories off to magazines and hoping for the best.
I did assume that you were just being a bit of a smart-ass (especially given your profile picture), but I can't assume that my readers are all native English-speakers (some of the Google results on Celestia Sleeps In are from Google.fr, which I'd imagine is France), and the oddities of American English might confuse them. They confuse me often enough....
1479170
.fr is France.
I guess I should try being a smart ass more often then.
1479223
It keeps us all on our toes
(there's an idiom which probably doesn't translate well....)