Liquid Diplomacy and Other Stories notes · 4:22am Mar 3rd, 2015
Liquid Diplomacy notes
Cherry Strudel's New Glasses
Insipred by a co-worker's comments. I wear glasses. Since I wear them in a shop environment, the lenses are scratched and stained, and I haven't gotten a new pair in a long time. He said something to me about how dirty they were, and I replied how weird it would be to get a new pair—the whole world would look different. The following conversation pretty much laid out the entire plot for this story, and I may un-ponify it and give him a copy.
Cherry Strudel is a background pony.
Black Stone is a background pony.
Both of them, to the best of my knowledge, have only been seen in Appleoosa. Both are also fan-given placeholder names.
For those of you who don't wear glasses, they really do ask "which looks better?" They also still give the eyedrops, I think, but it's been over 10 years since I went to the optomitrist.
Liquid Diplomacy
A few days ago, Estee wrote a blog post about how llama stories would be the next big thing. In reading through the comments, I got the basic plot from Scarheart, and the title from Estee (in response to Scarheart's post).
When llamas (or alpacas, they're pretty much the same) spit on you, it's not always saliva or the contents of their mouth, but half-digested, partially fermented stomach contents.* My consulting vet spent a summer working with llamas and alpacas, and told me all about being spit upon. The good news is that they normally give you a visual cue—they'll put their nose up and pin their ears back.
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*apparently, they pick what they spit with based on how much they don't like you.
The name of the King llama and his title (google-translated into Spanish) are a reference to a well-known online llama.
Their clothes are traditional Peruvian clothes.
A chullo is a Peruvian hat, like the one the boy in the picture is wearing.
A montera is a different type of Peruvian hat.
There may be different names for those things--if any of my alert readers know of a more appropriate name for any of these clothes, let me know in the comments and I'll make the appropriate changes.
All of those clothing items would most likely be made from alpaca wool.
There will be more updates in the future; I always have ideas that aren't worth a thousand words, and sometimes writing a silly little snippet is a good break from the serious stuff.
O-okay then?....
That llama fic, so much yes.
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I can't really take all that much credit for it--I didn't come up with the title or the concept.
On the other hand, nobody else had the stones to write it....
So what's your new technique for keeping this from posting until the story goes live? Or is it just "watch the story really closely"?
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The blog post was the third, unpublished chapter of the story. I changed it to an actual blog post only after the story passed moderation.
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Always too tempting to read the blog post. denying me the choice is a fine act.
"it's been over 10 years since I went to the optomitrist."
Bad idea - Glaucoma may be sneaking up on you - go get checked.
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Of course, it took 74 stories before I figured that out, so I don't know about clever.
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I assure you, it's on my to-do list. Even if my eyesight hadn't changed, and there weren't any nasty diseases potentially lurking on the horizon, the simple fact of the matter is that my glasses are at the very end of their useful life, anyway. One screw has been replaced with wire after the hole stripped out, an earpiece has a broken spring, and the lenses are pretty well shot.
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I just did (finally!).
No glaucoma, and according to the eyeball picture machine, all the little thingies in my eyes are still good. The optometrist showed me the picture on her computer screen of the veins and stuff. Says I don't have glaucoma or diabetes, and that my prescription didn't change all that much. Also, my eyeballs aren't about to fall out of my head, which is a relief.
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Glad to hear it. My Glaucoma is responding well to a cheap drug! Hurrah!