Yeah about that update · 5:17pm Jan 16th, 2015
I'm still kinda just staring at the word processor document, trying to beat this writer's block with the raw authority of my own hatred.
Sadly, I am not a wizard (despite completely spurious accusations to the contrary) so I could not just do that, and my writer's block certainly is not the result of a back firing ritual, no sir.
Its not a problem of ideas, I know what I want to write, and I have a mountain of ideas dying to spill forth. (Christ, I am actually legitimately worried I won't be able to fit all of them into the time limit I allotted myself in the story. Ah well) Its just writing the damn thing.
So yeah, thats why you haven't had any Bad Mondays for... several Mondays now. Now I just laze around, applying for new jobs, reading news, arguing with people regarding Russia, Ukraine, Europe, Syria and various shenanigans (I know I know, not a healthy thing to do but hey, I can be pretty adversarial) and when I am not doing that I am on skype, occasionally giving the banhammer to sexbots who KEEP FUCKING ADDING ME!
[16:34:07] hannaaas626: Hello! Please add me to your Contact list.
[16:42:39] *** Handyman has shared contact details with Hanna Yazzie. ***
[16:42:49] Handyman: hello?
[17:02:16] Hanna Yazzie: hey u, thanx 4 accepting my contact request. u feel like chatting?
[17:02:32] Handyman: not really
[17:02:56] Hanna Yazzie: i got ure name from the directory here on skype cuz i was bored and lookin for new people to talk to. lol
[17:03:04] Hanna Yazzie: 25/f here u?
[17:03:42] Handyman: I'm off *BANHAMMER*
In the grim darkness of the third millennium, there is only cybering and the laughter of dark gods.
Speaking of dark gods, the new emperor's text to speech device came out and I promptly squee'd. Nothing like a raging god-emperor of mankind to laugh at and relieve stress.
Sadly, not even His Imperial Majesty is able to lift the curse of the Writer's Block from my shoulders.
Truly I am accursed of the dark gods.
So thats what I have been up to, disappointed? I am. How've you been?
"Thats my boy" - The Emperor of mankind.
I have, in fact, still had bad mondays. They were not improved by being unreadable.
How about writing a short interlude about Handy getting accosted by pony prostitutes? It's topical and helps get the block out of your system. Like laxatives.
2726816 Damn straight
2726822 If you only knew how hard this made me laugh.
Well, the city where I live is dealing with a water and electricity crisis... But I got accepted in a good university (architecture), so I got that going for me, which is nice.
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Thanks, I was proud of that one. Doesn't make it less intended as actual practical advice, though - I find I have a million more good ideas on getting started while writing than I ever get while thinking about writing. It's all about that first push.
... Haaannnndddyyyyy? You weren't trying to summon a Literary Succubus, were you? Nah, of course not, ahahaha... ha...
Wow, thank you soo much for introducing me to that 40k comic thing. It was hilarious!
Also, take your time with the chapters, as long as you keep the quality.
Hmmmm not a wizard you say...
WIZARDSAYSWHAT?!?
2726836 Good luck with that, architecture isn't an easy discipline or so I have heard
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Succubus? No I was trying to entrap a muse of a teenage storm godling so I could-MY HOW RIDICULOUS, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!2727186 You're more than welcome, its a great series.
2727206 What? Wait. WAIT. NO WAIT FUCK!
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AHAAAA!!! HE ADMITTED HE WAS A WIZARD!
I knew you Europeans were hiding something from us, I just didn't think it was wizardry...
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... Haaaannnndddyyyy. What did I tell you about divine beings? Honestly, you'll have to go to Wizards Anonymous soon!
2728006 I don't have a problem, you have a problem! And I'll interact as much as I want with storm goddesses, you can't stop me!
2727803 NOPE! TOTALLY DIDN'T! LIAR! LIES AND SCANDAL!
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Well if you didn't admit it before, the fact that you didn't deny going to Wizards Anonymous kind of sealed your fate...
Apparently if you get an angry drive and then stop caring about perfectionism then you can overcome writers block.
Cast your whiskey and berserk spells archmage Handyman. We all know you can.
2728460 The last time I combined drinking whiskey and writing ponies things got... weird.
Needless to say in the vast nether realms that is the labyrinthine depths of my computer, lies a certain ponyfic which shall never see the light of day.
Nor should it.
Ever.
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That's what I said, but does anyone ever listen to me? Pff.
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Found the video I was looking for. It might work. You could also try giving yourself rules such as 'I must finish 1 chapter before I can visit Fimfic again' or 'every 10 times I visit I must have written a chapter.' I'm still curious what country Handy has warped into since the last chapter.
You have an aptitude to creatively writing life into weird and wonderful settings. Are you still planning on having an aquatic arc somewhere down the line? In Handy's typical fashion of being a wrench in whatever situation he stumbles into I could imagine him somehow managing to shock or offend something strange like a majestic mermare or something. I blundered into an interesting story (here) which featured the almost unused aquatic creatures (and protagonist) in the mlp generations. Whole lot of physical language differences with aquatic characters.
On another note for this stage in the story, how terrifying do you think Handy would now sound to the average Jo who caught wind of the grapevine? I think you'd be hard pressed to find a human in our world with any wit who would actually want fight this guy one on one.
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Three words: Incendiary shotgun shells. Bye bye Mr. Dracula.
2735278 True. Though I doubt there'd be enough money you could offer me to get in a fatal fistfight with the guy. His fire weakness hasn't stopped him from slaying dragons, and he has the authority of a king.
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I wouldn't want to get into a fistfight with anyone. In this case, mostly this is because everyone in ponyland is kind of a moron, though. They all play to his strengths, which is to win in a fight when by all rights he really shouldn't. The obvious solution is to just kill him without ever giving him a chance to fight - the ".50 BMG antimateriel round from 2 miles away while his pants are on fire" approach.
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There isn't a single character so far in BM who can't be killed with rigorous application of advanced modern firearms (exceptions possibly being Discord or Lady Ashaia) and Handy, even on his most powerful vampiric high, is no exception. But taking an AK-47 into a renaissance era setting would be like fighting a group of cavemen as a knight in plate armour with an arming sword or a futuristic Space Marine drop-podding into a modern day warzone: it isn't even a contest. Well it isn't, at least until the AK runs out of bullets, then you're pretty fucked but the point remains.
There is a reason in the setting Handy so far has not even contemplated trying to get his hands on contemporary firearms (gunpowder weapons), they are dangerous, prone to failure, inaccurate as all hell and likely to explode in your hands, he's genre savvy enough about history that he prefers reliability in a fight to an incredibly unreliable 'I win' button, one which, for the era, is not even garaunteed to pierce someone's armour unless the conditions are right. And you don't want to be caught reloading that shit in the middle of a closeup fight. That and gunpowder weapons tend to exude vast amounts of flame, moreso than modern firearms do, Handy doesn't want to be anywhere near a reporting firearm of the setting, even if its pointed away from him and in the hands of a friendly character.
Even with all this, Handy is an aggressive man by nature and has become moreso throughout his experiences in the story (I intend to do a reflection at some point where Handy realizes just how much he has changed as a person, not including his change to his nature as a human but eh, it'll come to me when it does), in earlier chapters this emerged as a kind of 'red mist' where he lost all rationality and gave way to violent aggression. Which does actually happen to some people (and something I have personally witnessed in another person, it is fucking terrifying to behold and the person who undergoes it often does not have recollection of what they did while under a blood rage. Never get into bar fights in Belfast kids), he's still capable of losing his control to a berserkergangr but he's more disciplined in how he handles his anger problems, two straight months of Shortbeak kicking his ass repeatedly in training certainly helped with that. Which is something I intend to show when I eventually revisit those timeskipped months and place new chapters there, I certainly have some interesting and important stories to share about that time period. (also I hate timeskips)
It often amuses me in HiEs where the human in question is presented as a meek, average ordinary okay guy but who somehow go out of their way to leap into a fight when their personalities up to that point had been so opposed to aggression. This is not too unrealistic as ordinarily peaceful people have been known to fight like devils, especially in situations of life or death, but often not without some kind of personal sacrifice or interior contemplation of what they've done since it is otherwise inimical to their personality. Oftentimes however, these HiEs emphasis how they almost never get into a fight before that point.
Now call me Cynical, or it may just be because I am Irish, but did these assholes not have childhoods? Did they not get into fights on the playground? Hell, did they not start shit they didn't intend to finish because they were stupid kids who had yet to learn harsh words have harsh consequences? Maybe I'm wrong and 90% of the everywhere everyone else on this site is from has had different life experiences to my own, but I've been in my fair share of fights at all ages (and lost most of them admittedly) and I am not the most aggressive of men. Handy, evidently, is however and one can tell without me having to show it that even before BM started the guy had issues, issues that cannot be solved easily which is a mistake most HiEs seem to make. Dumping a guy in a land full of curious people who 'just want to help' is not a balm to all sores. Also its fair more interesting to have him act realistically, avoiding conversations about topics he doesn't want to talk about, lying needlessly, dodging questions and, most importantly, adopting different social masks for different scenarios. It is no secret to the readers that Handy is pretending to be things he is not, but that is okay, we all pretend to be something we are not on a daily basis. Hell, the other characters in BM have their own masks, Handy is only special in that he wears layers. The only character who knows him best is Joachim and he doesn't really know him at all when you really scrutinize their relationship. (Chrysalis knows him almost as well, but thats because she was literally seeing things through his eyes for a few months)
That said, I have not been shy with proclaiming that yes indeed, alot of Handy's success is down to luck, as are most things one is successful with in life when one does not know all the variables and does not hold all the cards (which Handy never has) although his first fight with the dragon at the tournament was actually a calculated risk. Handy has a tendency to run his mouth, especially when his pride is attacked, regardless of how utterly stupid it would be in a given situation to talk smack This is a character flaw I don't intend to change, there is no sense in pretending being prideful isn't a problem. As soon as Handy realised his mistake he began rapidly thinking and figured if he was getting out of that tent alive and with his reputation intact (his greatest weapon), he'd have to do the one thing to the dragon he'd know would get his own goat: make him mad enough to make a mistake. It almost didn't work when the dragon threw him from the tent so he had to keep the fight inside the tent by doing the unexpected and stupid thing by charging at the dragon.
Think about it: From Handy's perspective, as terrifying as the young dragon was it was one thing above all and that was winged. Never let a flying opponent dictate the terms of a fight, particularly not one capable of attacking you at range while in flight like a dragon can. Keeping the dragon angry and contained in a tent that was also full of spectators (who admittedly were also warriors who could handle themselves so Handy didn't need to worry about harming innocents) robbed it of a good portion of its fighting capability. Although the intervention of Masquerade the crystal pegasus was unexpected, it did inexorably lead to Handy being able to utilise the audience against the dragon even though he used his fire breath, which was always a danger to begin with.
Throughout the fight Handy was actually losing and taking on far more damage than the dragon was, by the end of it when he was on the dragon's back and trying to choke him out, an ineffectual tactic given the nature of dragon necks did anyone think he'd seriously win that fight prior to the intervention of the guards storming in and drubbing everyone into submission?
Now that was Handy taking the 'stupid' route. Now what would have happened had he taken the 'smart' route and fled the fight? Well for one thing that dragon had it out for him so he wouldn't have backed off even if Handy sacrificed his fearsome reputation and fled like the dickens and chased after him.
And taken to the air. Where Handy could barely avoid him and certainly couldn't fight him without a blood high and had he stopped long enough to throw caution to the wind and assault some poor innocent bystander by taking their blood, the dragon would have already been upon him. That's assuming of course the dragon wasn't the sort who would say fuck the world and start lobbing fire about, harming God only knows how many innocents.
Was luck the ultimate deciding factor in that fight overall? Yes, certainly. But it was luck of Handy's own making. No one can be a master tactician in a scenario where there are more unknowns than knowns. This isn't people playing to his strengths as much as it is Handy making the best of bad situations, which is almost all of them. The only time when his life really was decided purely and wholly by luck was the fight in Lepidopolis where he destroyed the support beams to the monument and somehow survived the fall, shaken but alive, but that was another case where the smart choice would have resulted in him staying alive and unharmed for a while while other people would have likely died. Also he was a better person at that point in the story where he actually felt guilt over his previous actions, it'd be interesting to see how Handy, as is, would have reacted to the scenario.
That said, yes people in ponyland are explicitly depicted as morons, but I am not going to far outside of the norm when I depict this as that is also how it appears on the show as well. If anything I am giving most of them a bit of an intelligence boost. The thing that most people don't seem to realise is that Handy himself also makes rather idiotic mistakes from time to time, and somehow this is interpreted as a mistake on my part, but I suppose that is a given, the story is mostly from his perspective, he's human and the audience sympathises with him so it is likely his views likely colour things for the audience as well. The idiot ball is one of my favourite literary tools in crafting this story, although it is not nearly used as often as Chekov's gun (which I play like a Goddamn fiddle and you can't stop me), nor my favourite tool of Lampshade Hanging, (also at any time I can polymorph a given lampshade into a Chekhov's gun, its pretty fucking fun), which having a human protagonist uniquely allows me to use on the world at large without having the residents of ponyland 'break character' and point out themselves.
For example it doesn't make sense for a pony to point out the fact that the moon doesn't appear to control the tides in this world as unusual/impossible/unnatural/wrong. It wouldn't even make sense for a scientifically minded pony to point this out (such as Twilight), because this has been perfectly natural since time immemorial and in a world where, apparently the very sciences are different, there is no reason why this would seem illogical. Because to this world and its inhabitants, it isn't illogical, but it is illogical to the human and having him point it out allows me to justifiably explore aspects of the world I couldn't with a native protagonist who simply wouldn't find these things questionable. Therein I have thus hung a lampshade on an aspect of the world that seems absurd, thereby letting me continue a given conversation characters are having where the topic was briefly brought up and thus allowing me, at an unspecified date in the future, bring the matter up as a Chekov's gun when the audience least expected it.
I love making my editors paranoid with this, they specifically drill me now on non-sequiters and seemingly throwaway scenes and dialogue as being potential 'guns' in new chapters. Anything in the story can be a potential gun and it is fun keeping people on their toes. Although the biggest ones so far would probably be the Expensive Brick, (introduced early on and fired in the Pawstown arc) and the changeling pendant. Funny how I fire one gun soon after introducing another, isn't it? Hint hint.
Anyway, back to the idiot ball. People make mistakes, all of the Goddamn time and Handy is no exception to this, its just the perspective of the story is skewed and generally more cynical characters tend to avoid the mistakes naive ones would make (but they still make tremendous mistakes nonetheless, just different ones) It is unrealistic to expect people to be on top of their game at all times because nobody is like that in real life and it is considered common wisdom that those who live lives of plenty tend to be content in many aspects of their lives. Whether this is because they have lived in a golden age with security and plentiful food (most ponies in Equestria and to an extent, griffons), that they are simply rich, fat and happy (goes almost without saying), or the population is kept in line with 'bread and circus' tactics (a certain race I'll get to are undisputed masters of this method of population pacification). That and the world is, as I have said elsewhere, inherently wacky but no less serious or dangerous because of it and it is an interesting experiment in how different a world can be if everybody in it just happened to look upon things differently and how it all clashes with Handy's own worldview.
I took this trope to the extreme with the deer who were, as a race, moronic imbeciles even by the standards of the setting but that didn't make them any less dangerously effective warriors or their rulers and administrators any less up to the task of ruling or their people any less, well, like people.
As to your comment Usurper, yes I am still planning on an aquatic arc, but when it occurs may be a bit up for debate as I have recently changed my story's trajectory for the time being (also I am running out of excuses on how to get Handy across vast amounts of distances without eating up entire months out of my self imposed time limit. I kinda need to hook him up with that airship of his again in order to fix that, I am not done country hopping by a loooooooong shot). And yes there will be Mermares as well as Seaponies (which are NOT the same thing and they'd cut you if you insinuated as much), as well as Hippocampi Sirens (because why not at this point) and a bunch of other races I am going to throw into the sea. Its going to be pretty full of life down there by the time I am through with it. I have at least one joke I REALLY want to write which involves Handy being a complete asshole. Not gonna lie, there is at least one arc in the story so far that simply wouldn't exist if it were not for the fact I had this one joke I really wanted to write.
Average Joe Pony or Average Joe Human? Because average Joe human would probably call bullshit on most of the things they heard about Handy (correct) assuming the natives are just ignorant, backwards savages who the human is manipulating into fearing him (partially correct) and that said human is just some pushover chump too big for his breeches and which they can easily put in his place (horrifyingly wrong), in a straight up one on one Handy has become a much better fighter than he was before he left Earth, albeit one used to fighting non-human sapients, he'd be more than a little challenging to some average asshole who blunders into a fight with him, especially if they make the fatal mistake of underestimating him. Although a professional boxer can kick Handy's ass six ways from Sunday in a hand to hand bout.
Average Joe pony would honestly be more than a littler terrified by what they heard, even if all they heard was the truth, Handy is more than a little disturbing and terrifying in his own right, not only is he a strange creature with strange ways from a strange land (something one can get used to with time) I have also emphasised humans, through Handy, seem at least partially otherworldly and very very unnerving even when totally relaxed, their very body language is incredibly minute and strange compared to that of native races who have much more pronounced body languages although I subverted this for the sake of funniness during the poker game with Jacques and Whirlwind where his body language actually worked to his detriment. Think about it, he is rumoured to be in league with changelings, (not entirely untrue), he is the personal servant of a griffon king who used him to overthrow said kingdom (true) has slain at least one dragon which people know about (although no one actually saw him stab the dragon in question, he was the last one seen fighting it) he looks weird (true) he almost never shows his face in public (true), is rumoured to drink the blood of ponies (true) has strange powers (true, at least sometimes), is capable of bilocation (completely untrue, but considering both Spurbay and Pawstown have eye witness reports of seeing the human within a week of eachother despite being hundreds of miles apart [or a thousand, haven't worked out the map distance yet] one has to deal with conflicting reports of the human and his behaviour of which both are true as far as the reader knows, out of two separate towns an impossible distance apart. one can see why ponies of a more rational bent would be sceptical of this but one can also see why others would believe it) can repel Discord's magic (untrue, but his armour can) and died in the tournament of Firthengart (completely untrue).
It is not unreasonable to see why Handy, being such a unique creature in this world (moreso now due to Vampirism) with an impact far outstretching what one man should be capable of (and doing so unintentionally by and large) could be interpreted as such a bogeyman to ponies and other people in general and God only knows what things they're saying about him that are blithly false, which I will deal with in the next chapter of BM after the bonus ones are done. Even with that reputation, which he deliberately cultivates, one foe cowed by reputation is another battle he doesn't have to fight, reactions can still be wildly varied. Because of his actions in Spurbay, residents there have a hard time believing most of the things they hear about him and still remember him as that strange foreign lad who came there with the foreign griffon and helped rescue a bunch of townsfolk from brigands, they have a bias in favour of Handy and tend to dismiss some of the bad things they hear, even if they're true. Pawstown has an easier time believing some of the things they hear and reactions to him are still mixed, he is still held in high regard for dealing with their problem with Hectoir the minotaur and generous with his wealth but he is also known to have associated with Queen Chrysalis and being merciful to some captured changelings and thus is regarded with both suspicion and welcome, depending on the given townsdog or townspony. The sheriff doesn't like him, Grave Danger practically hero worships him, most of the rest are just happy to take his money. Meanwhile Canterlot ponies view him as something between a ruffian upstart and a common assassin in the employ of one of the more disreputable griffon kings (Johan's retaking of the throne is still misinterpreted outside of Griffonia and pony nobility still suspect foul play on his part with Handy as his tool) he was studied quite carefully while in Canterlot and not only by the guards, most ponies there have little reason to suspect the more fantastical aspects of Handy's reputation, after all he didn't do anything too fantastical where they could see so many ponies there think most of his reputation is hogwash (true) as he went out of his way to be normal most of the time, spending time in bookstores, purchasing coffee and generally minding his own business when not in the castle on duty. Thus they think there is nothing fantastically dangerous about him moreso than any other common sellsword (false) and there is the rumour floating around Canterlot circles about embarrassing indiscretions on his part, thanks largely to the misinterpreting of the conversation in public between him and Crimson Shade, which Handy was only too willing to let float around if it meant he could sneak out of Canterlot with Crimson Shade in toe. Ponies there don't take him that seriously, even if he did end up trouncing Blueblood. And I am sure you are well aware of the reactions in Griffonia he has encountered to superstitious awe (Skymount), superstitious fear (villages surrounding Skymount) to celebrity status (Ifrendare city).
Honestly the average Joe wouldn't know what to make of him, there are so many reports surrounding Handy which are both true and at the same time conflicting and there are also all the half truths, rumours and outright lies and fabrications muddying the whole thing up, no one has the whole picture of who or what Handy is.
He likes to keep it that way.
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Can't say I can relate. I've spent most of my life doing my best to avoid any fair fights, because you can lose them. I figure I can do smarter than that. Closest I've probably gotten was smacking a kid in the head with a rock while he was distracted by trying to look intimidating, and pointing a knife at the throat of a guy who grabbed me outside of a club after I hit on his girlfriend. Sparring with my Judo team probably doesn't count. Here, we just categorically don't treat fighting between minors as the cavalier "kids will be kids" thingy that it seems to be in some places to begin with, though. Kids getting into a serious fight - with any physical harm at all caused - would be something to involve the school administration over, get the parents of everyone involved, call the youth services and possibly bring it to juvenile court, depending on everyone's age. Violence is a pretty big fucking deal here. Most people I know have never even so much as been in a bar fight.
I was talking metaphorical guns, not literal guns, though. That was me poking a bit of fun at the plot structure so far. While I don't doubt that Handy is a thoroughly competent fighty guy by modern standards by now, all the actually important fights, the ones that have consequences, have consisted of Handy getting in a conflict just ever so slightly outside the realm of his abilities, with him only winning through a combination of sheer luck, outside intervention, nonstandard ways to gain the advantage upfront and just plain thinking quickly on his feet. I'm not criticizing that, though. It's a perfectly legitimate (and frankly required) method of keeping up the tension and excitement, and to keep people guessing by putting him in a danger where the outcome is not easily predicted through simply comparing their relative power levels against each other. That would be how you write routine fights with trash mobs. This, on the other hand, is exactly what you ought to be doing for the fight that comes after you gib the trash mobs.
Doesn't change the fact that the smart way to get rid of him would be to send him a tub full of 50:50 cyanide/salamander salve mixture (and poison some of his blood conserves while you're at it) though. "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting" and such. Real fights are won by eliminating failure as a possible outcome, not by hitting harder than the other guy.