Heather Rose Stories · 2:18am Sep 7th, 2015
Heather Rose Blog Notes
Both of these stories were pre-read by MSPiper, metallusionsismagic, and AShadowOfCygnus
Heather Rose
The OC Slamjam was a contest by Obs, in which every contestant came up with an OC and then wrote a story with their OC and their opponent's OC. Winners advanced, losers didn't. I lost in the second round, so there are only two Heather Rose stories. This is the link to Round One, and from there it's a simple matter to find the rest of the rounds. 
Heather Rose Bio
This is something I don't normally do for OCs, which is why you don't normally get them. However, since it was a requirement for the Slamjam. . .
OC's Name: Heather Rose (in Germane, Heidenröslein)
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Pony Species: Earth Pony
Appearance: Heather Rose has deep green eyes, and freckles on her cheeks. She has a pale magenta coat, and a rosewood mane and tail which is always slightly disheveled. Her cutie mark is a cluster of heather in bloom.
History: Her maternal grandparents emigrated from Germaney to Equestria before her mother was born, looking for a better life. While Heather Rose has never been there, she picked up a taste for some traditional foods from her grandmother. Her father is a Canterlot laborer, while her mother is a traditional brewer.
Her family settled in Canterlot, but she always felt it was too crowded, and when she was old enough, she moved to Ponyville. She made fast friends with many of the farmers around town. She bought a small patch of land to grow heather, and spent several years convincing the town of the advantages of heather honey, heather bread, heather beer, and after years of hard work has been able to expand her farm.
She regularly writes her family back in Canterlot, and is somewhat fluent in Germane, as it was all her maternal grandfather spoke. Although most ponies in Ponyville know her as Heather Rose, she still uses Heidenröslein when writing to her family.
Personality: She's upset by some of the weirdness in town since Twilight's arrival, and she also thinks that Fluttershy shouldn't have tried to reform Discord. Most of her close friends are mares with flower cutie marks, and she enjoys going to the spa—both to look pretty, and to hear the Spa Twins talk about the old country. She's friendly and outgoing, and loves talking to ponies on market day. She's always willing to lend a hoof to a fellow gardener, but is less enthusiastic about any other project. Deep down, she's jealous of close-knit families like the Apples.
H.A.T.
Happy: Friends, family, flowers
Angry: Disorder, sloth, wastefulness
Trouble: Offers her opinion even when it's not wanted, often speaks without thinking, will try to neaten up a friend's house if she's over.
Likes: Sauerkraut, flowers, things being in order, dark beer.
Dislikes: Messy houses, sports, rainy days, the smell of fresh paint.
A Proper Heath
Proper Prim is an OC created by Trombrony98
Hinny of the Hills is not, as most people assume, a reference to The Sound of Music. Instead, it's a reference to a more obscure play: The Maid of the Mountains by Fredrick Lonsdale. It opened on the tenth of February 1916. The song mentioned later in the story—"Paradise for two"—is actually in the show.
The Honorable Gate is a reference to The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan.
The 'rights' for a show aren't automatically given. No licensing company wants to give too many rights to a show, since that will saturate the market for that show. For example, when Phantom is playing in Toronto, nobody near Toronto is going to get rights for the show. Thus, it would be unusual for a playhouse in Canterlot to get rights for Hinny of the Hills so soon after it was playing in Manehattan.
The tea service which Heather Rose brings is a Fresian tea.
Source
Steam, Snow, Salt and Stamps
Luster Lock was developed by Burraku_Pansa.
A loupe is a small magnifying glass worn over a single eye.
RPO stands for Railway Post Office. In the days before long-haul trucks and such, mail was transported by railroad between cities. Oftentimes, it was even picked up and dropped off on the fly: if the train didn't stop at a particular station, outgoing mail would be placed on a special fixture and hooked by a special fitting on the railcar. Inbound mail would simply be tossed onto the station platform as the train went by.
A cylindrical lock is harder to pick than an ordinary lock. Most normal locks are of the pin and tumbler type, where a set of pins has to be lined up across a shear line, and then you're in. A cylindrical (or tubular) lock has them arranged at the end of a cylinder, which makes it harder to pick.
Here is a simple set of lockpicking tools.
Source
And here are the parts of a key.
Source
Love locks were initially associated with the bridge Most Ljubavi in Vrnjačka Banja, Serbia. In 2000, they began appearing in Europe. Coincidentally, much like Maid of the Mountains, the original source dates back about a century. Also coincidentally, railroads used to use a type of cast lock called a 'heart lock' because of its shape.
The vestibule is the area between passenger coaches where the boarding doors are located, and where the doors are located between coaches.
Hm, why are the stories taken down?
So why are they against the site rules?
Since it was part of a contest (and assuming posted in that contest as a chapter of a larger story), it seems like you should be allowed to post it as its own story still. Or ask for permission to do so.
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There is a site rule about posting the same thing twice, and this falls under that category, even though it wasn't posted on my account. I thought that it was okay, since many of the contestants announced just after the contest ended that they were going to publish their stories . . . only to find out today that many of them were unceremoniously yanked back down by the moderators.
If I "substantially" change them, I can publish them . . . but that basically means re-write them in their entirety, or use them as part of a longer story (which I've done with a different story). I could have probably sneaked them into one of my collections and nobody would have been the wiser . . . but why tempt fate?
That rule application is really bugging me. :/
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Yeah, but what can you do? I don't want to bring down the wrath of the mods on my head--we all saw how that worked out for Eakin, way back when. Ultimately, I'll probably add some material and then be able to publish them, but until then, this works well enough, I guess.
3374562
Ahwell, well you can get around it if you write a prologue for just your character, then repost the chapter after the new material
3374562
If you ever join another contest... maybe have instead of the story actually posted there, the contest person does each chapter, but the only thing in the chapter is the link to the story on the authors page.
Still think they need to modify it to allow for stories that are part of a contest gathering.
3374653
I probably need more than a prologue to get away with it. I figure that two thirds of it ought to be new material in order to count.
3374688
That's totally up to the person who runs the contest. In this case, since it was supposed to be anonymous, Obs scrubbed all identifying information from each entry. In the EFNW contest, though, stories were supposed to be published on the author's account.
Yeah, and this one may yet get some changes. There are a few people who participated with some real pull on the site, so maybe they will make the decision to allow authors to re-publish . . . but for right now, it's against the rules.
There are four other stories of mine which are not on my account; all of those were for the Collab Cage.
3374653 Top lel.
3374688
There's no way that'll ever even get to the 1000 word minimum submission length. Not to mention it's a story entry not actually containing a story, which is also against the rules.
Unless you mean if they keep it unpublished and just put it in some contests thing on their blog or user page or some forum.
Admiral Biscuit... why did you password protect the story though?
3374902 Because it's unpublished? And unpublished stories need passwords for users that aren't the author?
3377307
Nope. You can just leave the password off. It'll still be accessible just like any story; not having it published just means it won't show up anywhere in the fimfic listings.
Heck, I've seen people circumvent the publishing system altogether by just having a list of links on their user page to fics they'd never get away with publishing. No passwords involved. It works fine.
3377383 TIL I should really try out the author features before guessing what they do or not do. ;)