National Batpony Week - Sneak Peeks into Royal Exam too · 1:32am Oct 29th, 2015
Before anything else, I'd like to plug (Facebook link)National Bat Week, an event put on by the Organization for Bat Conservation, Bat Conservation International, and the National Forest Service to raise awareness of our little nocturnal friends and the role they play in the ecosystem. National Georg-graphic (sorry, couldn't help myself) also has some very wonderful pictures and information on their site.
Now, for the question I got on City of Monsters and Child of Nightmares and Everfree from Bad Horse.
What made you decide to write these Dee stories as 2 separate stories?
Several reasons, first of which is the Fimfiction Halloween Competition this year, which would require a completed story, and which there is no way I could have completed 'Child' the way I want to do it in just a week or two. (edit: even with the now extended deadline) 'Child' has been banging around in the back of my brain for a couple of years now, since the female-centric focus of FIM as well as most fics tend to push fatherhood to the back of the stack. The thing is once I started writing about a page into 'City' I found myself backtracking over to the notes for 'Child' to make sure all of the little fiddly bits lined up, and then back over to 'City' and back to 'Child'...
Now normally I've found that keeping a story until it's all done gives me a far better product, but at my normal rate, 'Child' would not be ready until March or April, and the lead chapter is 100% Halloween, so what the heck. Even if I had written 'City' as the first chapter of 'Child,' that still would have confused the readers as there is a year between them. (And it probably still confuses the readers, but I left as many breadcrumbs as I could.)
Breadcrumbs (and spoilers)
For those of you who missed some plot points in the two stories, I'll spoil some of them below. I normally wouldn't, but I actually got this comment in 'Child' that has me wondering.
my guess she lives with Diamond Dogs
Now I'm going to presume that is a witty and sarcastic comment, and that the commenter knows that Dee is living in a colony of giant bats, raised by a wolf giant bat as her adoptive mother much like Edgar Rice Burroughs 'Tarzan' was raised by Kala, the Great Ape. (For those children too young to remember, I would suggest going to read Tarzan of the Apes just so you have the cultural experience.)
Unasked questions: The two stories don't match. Why?
Because there's a year between them. 'City' takes place while Luna is still imprisoned in the moon, while 'Child' takes place about four months after she has been freed. (June 22-October 30) The cover art reflects this, as the moon in 'City' still has Nightmare Moon in it, and 'Child' does not.
Who are all of the 'monsters' in Ponyville disguised as?
For starters, Angel Bunny was blatantly Gandalf:
Dee's stomach growled at the sight of the bunny, but she kept her distance as the rabbit planted himself firmly in front of the bowl with both forepaws on the tiny staff, raised it over its head, and slammed the butt end into the ground with a tiny little 'click' as if to declare that no creature would pass.
Mayor Mare also (she has one costume, I presume):
The last monster to leave, a hideous beast with a huge clump of hair all the colors of the rainbow on its head and a giant red nose, paused as if it had heard something.
And Rainbow Dash has a thing going with that cloud:
The feathery-winged creature crouched under the cloudstuff, peering out with reddish eyes as it sought a small monster below, then descended from behind until almost on top of its victim.
What's with Dee's reaction to unicorn magic? And has she seen Sunshine before?
(From City)
Whenever one of the monsters with an antler made it glow, Dee cringed farther back into the bushes until she could barely see. Strange memories swirled around her as the monsters caused things to float without touching them, or made a bright light that caused her eyes to hurt.
(Also from City)
Dee traced the strange antler that rose from the dark monster's head, then ran her warped foreclaw downwards until it rested on the odd images below. It reminded her of something or someone, back when she had been a very little batling and Mama had first brought her into Home.
(From Child)
"Are you sure, Mama? It… knew my name." Dee held out her deformed hand and placed it against her mother's long webbed fingers. "It looked just like me, except for the eyes and a shell around its face and chest. I r-remember a monster like that when I was very small. Before you brought me to The Folk. I remember the way it shouted. It shouted just like the monster tonight. A-a-and I remember there was another monster then. Warm and smelling like you, Mama."
You'll just have to wait for the rest of 'Child' then, won't you?
---Evil Cliffhanging Georg
Continued from the last blog post on this, here is a sneak Peek at a section of The Traveling Tutor and the Royal Exam (with batpony)
~ ~ ~ ✶ ~ ~ ~
Twilight Sparkle had hoped having the griffon emperor at her wedding would put another brick in that road of friendship, but it looked like that construction project would have to be put on hold. He would begin his trip to the High Nest in a few minutes, after a short speech, of course, and be far away by tomorrow. As much as she did not want to think about it, a griffon had been responsible for the murderous attack yesterday. Although Twilight would have been willing to put up with the stress of having the emperor in the audience, he had been adamant about her safety in case there was another attack. Emperor Ripping Claw had even ordered little Princess Sunny to accompany him away from Canterlot, despite her strident protests to the contrary. Having her as a flowerfilly would have been such a symbol of griffon-pony friendship, particularly with as close as she had become with the Cutie Mark Crusaders after just one day, even if it did mean rebuilding some of the Royal Baths.
The faintest of twinges from her belly reminded her of another construction project that would continue to grow regardless of her plans and she gave a brief shoulder-bump to Green Grass as they strolled along. Despite the bright attention of hundreds of onlooking ponies, she smiled as she walked, in a pleasant royal decorum which vanished as she heard a strident cry from above that echoed around the stadium.
"Death to the pony-lover!"
The world seemed to slide into slow-motion as if she were walking through thick syrup. She lunged to one side, feeling her shoulder make contact with the warm coat of the griffon emperor's shoulder even as Green Grass crossed behind her to slam into his massive flank. One single pony would not have been able to shift the immense griffon away from the plummeting streak she could see up in the air, but Twilight Sparkle was an alicorn now, with the strength of an earth pony as she dug in her hooves and heaved, matched in almost identical fashion by Green Grass to her side as if he were reading her mind. Some small section of her brain marked the rapid descent of the golden-armored griffon with sword outstretched, compared it with the new velocity the griffon emperor had attained, added in the significant fact that Green Grass had managed to grab onto Spike with one foreleg before slamming his shoulder into the emperor, and came to the conclusion that a protective shield spell was next on her mental checklist.
The four of them hit the grass in a scrambled pile at the same moment the armored griffon guard slammed down against the ground almost within reach. A few feather fragments, both the emperor's faded grey and Twilight's lilac plumage, drifted down in his wake as the griffon slammed his sword into the ground, paused for a heart-stopping moment, and wrenched the short blade back up in a spray of dirt and grass. As the guard started to take a step towards his fallen targets and he lifted the sword for a second blow, Twilight could see sunlight glitter in the silver griffon runes cut into the blade. The shield that she was raising formed far too slowly to be a significant deterrent against those enchantments, but she did not have enough time to craft a more effective defense. The only thing she could do was to charge magic into her horn in a desperate blast that could be possibly fatal to the guard. She could see the headlines even as magic began to pour into her horn and the blade began to descend.
Princess of Friendship Kills Griffon Imperial Guard
And then suddenly… there was nothing.
Where the griffon guard had been was only an empty space with a blur of grey and the sound of something very heavy being struck by something somewhat less heavy but moving at an extremely high rate of speed. The combined blur of the griffon's gold armor and the grey of a fast-moving nocturne tumbled across the grass and collided with the side of the platform where the griffon chariot was waiting. The large griffon guard did not look quite so intimidating with a little distance between him and Twilight, particularly when the slightly-smaller form of Pumpernickel had latched his jaws into the griffon's feathery neck and was pinning him against the platform. The thin trickle of blood that was running down the griffon's neck where sharp nocturne teeth were fastened was a shocking parallel to the bloody glitter of steel sticking out of Pumpernickel's back where he had taken the suicidally aggressive route to disarming his opponent by slamming his membranous wing over the sword's blade during their impact and keeping it pinned against his own body afterwards.
Time continued to slow as everything around her seemed to be suspended in glass. The griffon guard, pinned against the platform by Pumpernickel. The bulk of the griffon emperor as he fought his way upright. The other griffon guards plummeting out of the sky, unsure exactly who they should attack. The sight of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna all the way across the stadium, too far away to help. The way Pumpernickel’s sunglasses had been knocked to one side, and his eyelids were closed to near slits in the bright sunlight.
The way his jaws began to slowly and inexorably close.
Slightly more of the scene, and given who was apparently in the audience it really was more of a question all along just who would intervene, not if someone would be able to.
Bat ponies suck...
fruit.
Vote Griffon
RELEASE THE CHAPTER!!!! GAAAAAAHHHHH!
Somepony call Lumpy's wife...Frankenpony's gonna need more stitches