State of the Lemur - 07/31/2015 · 3:19am Aug 1st, 2015
Hmmm.
Moving right along.
So, last week, I manage to win myself four consecutive days off in a row. It's the first time in months that I've had sort-of-a mini vacation thingy. I mean, I don't necessarily *deserve* it cuz I'm a lazy neckbearded bastard who barely throws his weight around worth caca, but it was still nice. Super super nice.
So what did I do?
I buffered Austraeoh and Appledashery. I started a new fanfic. I watched Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Youtube.
Uhm... Oh yeah.
I went to Disney.
FILMED IN FOG-O-VISION
They removed Hitler's Cosby's bust, the bastards
Epcot's The Land serves the best rubbery breakfast ever
If I had a Patreon Account...
Nailed it?
Totally not the result of heavy breathing
Oh fuck...
Ah yes... aching feet. The best kind of feet.
How much fun can a social shut-in have on his own at a giant tourist trap built for screaming children? Enough to do it constantly and brag about it on pony blarghs. But that's what the Internet's for, I suppose. I mean... one day, even all cats will be extinct.
If ever you want to peek in on my stupid mouse adventures in the future, you could always stalk by my Twitter page. Poison-tipped daggers at the ready.
But Disney wasn't the only reason why I enjoyed last week. Whenever I make a trip to Disney, I always wanna feel like I earn it. Part of that is shoving a fanfic towards the feature box. A few days before my time off, I rather spontaneously came up with an idea that I was certain would cinch it.
Well... I suppose it wasn't quite so "spontaneous." I've been kicking around with a story idea for months that would be a pure slice of life narrative from a mute character's perspective. Why? Because some of us morons pine for the old days.
In truth, I wanted to write a story from Octavia's perspective... cuz Octavia is best cuddlepone. I mean, you look at that and you immediately want to photograph it all curled up and purring on your couch... minus the cello strings. Those are pokey.
This, of course, would have been a spiritual continuation of Couchtavia, which I had actually planned ages ago, much to a particular zebra's obsession. But I found myself wanting less of a story and more of... an experience. In other words, I wanted to be typical, lazy, rambling Skirts.
So I thought of lazily reusing an old TT idea (that sucked at the time) and incorporate it into MLP (so it could suck in this time). This seemed workable, only the utilization of Octavia was now a glaring issue post Episode 100. So then I thought:
"Buck it. Use Vinyl instead."
I thought of naming it "The Things Vinyl Says" to be ironic. But then I realized--oh snap--I could use Vinyl as a means of focusing on cuddlepone. So while it's named after Octavia, it's really all about Vinyl and how she lives life, gleaning meaning and purpose from Octavia.
And, there you have it. A new ongoing epic thingy is born.
Now... where exactly is it going? Erm... I'm not entirely sure yet. It is quite literally a work in progress. I currently have three plot devices in mind, but as of yet the story has mostly been meandering and foreshadowing.
But I do intend to take it somewhere. More than that, I'm pursuing a daily upload thingy. That's right, in addition to Appledashery and Austraeoh, I am striving to write The Things Tavi Says daily. So for those of you tuned in to the Lemur and not his Lemur appendices, here's a full glimpse of what it's like to be subscribed to the daily drivel. I'm... not entirely sure I can keep it up (f'naaa), but for the last few days I've succeeded.
If it can't work, then I'll simmer down and upload less frequently... but still frequently. Is it going to be as long as Appledashery and Austraeoh? Hell fucking no Austraeoh is halfway done and Appledashery is--I dunno--a third of the way done? Hypothetically? Meh.
The Tavi fic will conclude itself in far, far less time, and I suspect it'll do so rather anticlimactically. I mean... that "Slice of Life" tag is there for a reason, yo. Better recognize.
Still, the impact of the new story on my day to day life is already apparent. I strive to finish these blarghs by the end of Friday at Midnight, and so far--lo and behold--I've yet to find a story and review it for the "Clueless Reader." I mean, isn't that terrible? Like, what is a lemur to do? Pick a random, super-short fic by a well-known author and expect to comment concisely on it in less than an hour?
Whelp, if it's any consolation to myself, it would appear as though this "Rocketmare" by Rust was written in less than three hours. So can a speedwritten fic deserve a speedread review? F'naaaaa. Let's do this shiet.
First off, whewwww boy, is that a good story synopsis. I lurve anything that's gorgeously written in the present tense. How very CiG of Mr or Mrs Rust I've really gotta stop complimenting everything as if it has something to do with Cold in Gardez.
But seriously, though. Not only is it present tense, but it's got this... I dunno... streams of consciousness thing going. The fic wields a refreshing (and functioning) utilization of phrases, sentence fragments, and interjectory words --- all of which chain link together (just like that) through the use of mutant em-dashes to form a sensational narrative that depicts the stress and drama of escaping a planet's gravity. A sequence like this probably couldn't go on for much longer than 2k words, so I do believe the story's brevity works in its favor. So long as one is consistent, uniform, and confident about how they go about applying a less-than-orthodox grammatical approach, then it works-works-works. But that's hard to fucking do in longform, so, kudos to the speedfic exercise as a (tiny) whole.
When the story breaks into dialogue, we have what one might call a blatant use of "Talking Ponies Syndrome." While that's true, I feel that it's a use of TPS that works... and that has to work, since most of the participants in the conversation are not physically present and all we have to go by is their actual dialogue. If there's any true negative to this it's that the only thing that makes this entire story easy to read is one's innate familiarity with the concept of space travel and radio communications thanks to contemporary movies and television. But, calling something unoriginal is super cheap.
In a way, this story is a bit too original. That is to say--when one applies the horse litmus test--it's easy to find what's lacking. If it weren't for one or two name drops, then we'd never have any reason to believe that Princess Twilight Sparkle had any part to play in this fic whatsoever. It predominantly stars a female pony OC doing human things in a human device with countless human archetypes attached. When one tries to mentally attach this to the Equestrian scene, then one has to make a lot of educated guesses as to how things got to such a technological level of advancement. I mean, since the characters emphasize Twilight's title as "Princess," one can assume that this story is taking liberties with the Immortal Alicorn theory and that Twilight has lived long enough to see her culture achieve space travel. If that is true, and this modernization took a presumably long period of time, then maybe we can assume that Twilight has outlived her friends and thus adopted a personality hardened enough to oversee an experiment where a terminally-ill mare gives up her livelihood for science!.
These are the things that make fanfiction awesome. So long as we have a common understanding of the main characters and themes, then a story that would only have three facets to it suddenly has--like--three factorial. If this was an original story with original characters and no attachment at all to a cartoon show for little girls, we'd only take it at face value. But here--with our knowledge deeply rooted in a collective subconscious of canon--it opens up a great deal more possibilities. That's something you can't really achieve anywhere else. It's like... having to think about the content of art with three brain lobes instead of two.
Still, as if the nature of micro-fiction, I'm sorta left without a catharsis. Does this pony go anywhere? Do we find out about the future and her placement in it? Just what is the nature of this space trip and will it kill her?
Dayum expositionary story-writing... f'naaaaa. Now I think I know what it means to be on the receiving end of wanting marsupials. I'm also starting to get a true grasp of just how vastly superior everyone else is in comparison to my drivel. Hell, maybe I should be humping the leg of Rust in Gardez at this point.
I spit out words all the time. Could I have written a story of this length in half the time that Mr. or Mrs. Rust did? Hell yes. Shiet... I could have written something of this length in thirty minutes.
But... would it have been nearly as good? As intense? As sickeningly sweet and emotional? I... ... ... kinda doubt it. I don't quite have what it takes to slow down, think hard, and just... roll out the words in dense sheets of sparkly cinnamon, instead of just shitting out air-thin vanilla wafers. I guess I'm just too impatient, and that's why I'm sitting on a mountain of garbage while others have the tenacity to take their sweet time and pour their hearts into something.
I give Rust's story four 
teeny-tiny leafy eared adoracute bat ponies out of five. He or she's proven he can make a dayum good speedfic. Maybe someday, I'll sit down and work hard on a really concentrated slowfic.
Ehhhh... who am I kidding. Bring on the princesses and Dr. Pepper!-SS&E
So do you get frequent visitor miles to Princessland or something? I would think that after so long there's at least one employee who's all "Wait a minute...". Good thing you survived the duck though, that could have gone horribly wrong.
As to speedwriting, you either hit it, or miss it. And it's far easier to miss. That's why you try it a thousand times and then pretend the leftovers never happened.
I still think you should, eventually, tackle space opera. Going off of your other grand scale worldbuilding, you would probably be quite good at it.
i.imgur.com/bBTxSad.jpg
Flag at half mast? Who died?
*Rubs hands together*
Soon, skirts. Soon.
Check out his blogs, there's a preview of the sequel in one.
Appledashery is a third the way fucking done? Goddamn son, when that shits over it's gonna take me months to quit checking Fimfic at 11 o clock everyday. I mean shit, that's one of the most hardcore things I've ever heard. I still can't bring myself to read Austreoh, I already know I'm gonna have to crush that one in a week as soon as it ends, then stare at a wall for roughly 8 hours while I try to pick up my life where I left it off before I started reading it, pretty much what happened with Background pony.
This also happened to be the day after I decided to enable twitter notifications on my phone.
I regret everything
...Whoa...
Wait, what!?
I thought that one was on its way to the home stretch ! Daaaayum...
Ohhhh, I imagine that, since she's terminally ill, it's likely she'll die eventually out there. But she'll go on one helluva fantastical journey, probably reminiscing about the loved ones she's left behind along the way...
And do cute batpone things.
Well, daaaang.
And here I thought it was already over halfway done. Just what all do you have planned, Skirts!?
Ah well. I'm just here for the ride. I welcome the notion of it lasting
forevermuch longer.Well. I guess I don't have to worry about not catching up with Appledashery before it's over.
3286086
Given the events over the past couple of weeks, it's probably at half-staff (as it is on ground, not a ship) due to the attack that ended the lives of four marines and one sailor.
F'naaaa.
[batpone intensifies]
And with this, I have plateau'd.
3286168
YOU SAUCY MINX
You mean we're not even past Halftime? Wait, you're trolling us right? RIGHT?!
Remember Ponky. Rip in spaghetti never forghetti, I'm happy he said his true goodbyes but I'm gonna miss him
3286081
This.
I look forward to more definitely.
For Rocketmare, read Tommy Lee Jones in Space Cowboys?
Man, you really make me miss Disneyland.
Wait, Things Tavi Says isn't another one-shot? Wut?
3286344
i.ytimg.com/vi/T8U9GyK9TK8/maxresdefault.jpg
3286417
I think I just laughed cereal into my nose.
3286772 I have done my job. Kappa.
Everyone's commenting on the stories and all I can think of is how much better The Land's food used to be...
3286081
Well, considering half of Aust is already much, much longer than Dashery, is that really such a surprise?
You mean... six?
Six facets?
And yes, that's one of my all-time favorite stories.
Stop. Hyperlinking. Your pictures. Please.