Some information and queries about, as well as a glimpse of, mlaabq chapter 22 · 2:54pm Apr 30th, 2018
Hello, everyone.
The last blog post was a april fool's joke, and I felt it was high time to have something else as the first thing people see when they visit m profile page, like how the next chapter is coming along.
I just started writing it, and it's at around a thousand words, but don't worry, that doesn't mean that it's gonna take eighteen months before I reach my normal chapter length; I often need to let it stew a bit before I feel ready to start writing it, so it usually picks up speed after this.
However, and I've spoken about this in the comment section before, but the upcoming chapter might take some time to write, because it will involve a lot of stuff that I haven't written before, and that is lyrics. Who knows, I might be great at it, but chances are they're going to need a lot of polishing.
What follows is the first part of the story I've written. I haven't shown my editors/proofreaders/... thingies this yet, but it look okay to me. Hope you like it.
Alfred Hitchcock once said ‘what is drama but life with the dull bits cut out?’
Now I know what he meant. In the stories, a seemingly insignificant person can undergo a journey of both geography and of character, rising from humble origins to become an enemy of evil and save the world, that can go on for months or even years and happen within the span of a few hours or less.
There were some likenings to a typical adventure-story from my perspective, but only a few. For starters, there are no montages in real life, and that’s one thing that makes video games the most accurate of all forms of make-believe in that they include a bit more than a token recognition of the actual journey-part of the journey, but even they don’t capture just how much walking a quest in a magical land entails.
Camping too, but that wasn’t so bad. Perhaps it was just me, but snuggling up to your sweetie by a campfire while having a slow and relaxing meal is quite calming.
I also had to be grateful for Trixie’s house-bag, and just how much luggage that meant we could carry with us, including a guitar, which everyone seemed to enjoy me playing around the campfire.
I was propped up against Armor while the rest of our band was looking at me, except Polyus and Polyusa, who alternated between that and keeping an eye on the pan hanging over the fire.
“I shall now be plinking a small tune for thee. It starts of with romance, and happiness free.
It dips in the middle from banality… then wraps up with explosive morality.”
The curiosity of everyone’s expressions slowly gave way to amused smiles as they realized what kind of song this was going to be.
“High in the mountains were two flowers you see. One was a beauty, the other was me.
Two weeks of labor and our house-frame was done… but life without plumbing it just isn’t fun.
“After four week our home was sturdy and stout… and then two weeks later our romance ran out.
Up in our hut, it was me and my beau... when he didn’t rough it five nights in a row.”
Trixie, Poly, Evening, and Armor started sniggering at the words. We didn’t really try and keep it down, despite this technically being a secret mission. We knew we had people who were looking for me and Armor, and trying to thwart the rest of us in general, but we were deep inside a thick forest, in the heartlands of Equestria, ‘off the grid’ so to speak. So we felt pretty safe at the moment.
Polyus and Polyusa were actually pretty good cooks. You normally don’t want bugs near your food, but they were really nice-looking bugs who didn’t tickle my repulse-instincts. They were stir-frying some rise with mushrooms we had found with some tasty herbs, and some open-fire toasted bread to the side. Camping with a luxurious house-bag was actually pretty great.
As Poly stirred the pan, they all had started chuckling from the lyrics about drink, spouses, and explosives, before I started wrapping the song up.
“... The echo from the blast reached far and reached wide. The air it hung heavy with fumes and burnt hide.
Then I shed a tear ‘neath the roof of the stars; mourning our whiskey in casks and in jars.
“The moral of the story is blunt and short-cut. Do not at the mountaintop construct your hut.
Trust not your own judgement when drunk in the night… and do not wave lit lanterns near dynamite.”
Three sets of hooves applauded after the final tone faded away. Poly applauded too, but it apparently doesn’t sound much when changelings do that.
“Some romantic ballad that was, Gabe,” Polyusa pointed out with a smile.
“It sure was,” I said, feigning ignorance.
“I wonder what that says about you and Armor,” she continued, making Armor chuckle behind me.
“Wait,” Evening said, pausing from cleaning the gunk out of where he had tried attaching the stun-wand to his new prosthesis. “They are together then?”
“You didn’t notice?” Polyusa said, smirking at him.
“Not all of us can smell love,” Evening said. “Besides, even that doesn’t prove anything, but yeah, I thought you two seemed close.”
I leaned into Armor. “Jealous? You should be.”
“Of who?” Armor asked. “You or me?”
“Me, according to me. You, according to yourself I hope,” I said.
Armor nodded. “Yeah, sounds right.”
“I didn’t want to say anything at first,” Evening said, “but you do seem very mature for your age, Gabe.”
“Remember how I said I was originally a human?” I said.
“Yeah?”
“In pony years, Gabe is closer to seventy or eighty,” Armor said.
“Really?” Evening said.
“Yeah, that’s what it’s like without magic,” I said.
“Harsh,” Evening said. “Well It wasn’t my place to judge. Especially ponies who passes out limbs when I needed one.”
I chuckled a bit at that.
“That would explain why your love smells so mature,” Polyus said.
“It does seem a little bit strange to see a filly who’s in some ways more mature than the grown stallion who’s her coltfriend though,” Evening said.
“Well, he’s not just my coltfriend. He’s a bit like my guard dog too,” I said, and took Armor’s foreleg and tail and wrapped them around me, rubbing his hoof and mine together as I hugged his tail. “And like a guard dog he makes a great cuddler. Hoofsie-woofsie toofsie-too.”
“Speaking of mature,” Polyusa said, chuckling.
“That’s the joke,” Armor said, and rested his head on mine.
“How’s the eye coming along?” Trixie asked
“It works,” I said, happily. “It sees. I’m just wearing my eye patch because the enchantment that keeps the eye in my socket doesn’t allow it to move around, so I’m stuck looking straight ahead. I gotta fix that before I start using it.”
... And the scene continues from there.
Now, was there anything about that which struck you as highly degrading and un-funny? Unacceptably so? I checked in on Fimfiction's discord channel to see if one of the paragraphs could be made to flow better, and there were vehement and slightly aggressive comments insisting that it was unacceptable. I couldn't see it, and I received no satisfying answers when I asked for explanation. I'm skeptical of taking that feedback at face value, since when they asked what kind of story I was writing, and I mentioned it was an HiE, at was like I had batted a digital bees' nest. A great storm of buzzing blew up, as the users there loudly, and in great numbers, proclaimed their hatred and disgust for HiE stories, which made me think that the people there might not have been the most appropriate to ask about a story like mlaabq in the first place.
So I decided to ask you guys instead 
What do you think about this as an intro? Also, how is this for a title?: 'A Deck Full Of Jokers'.
Happy Walpurgis.
Sounds like a good start, and good title. Is that a real song? It sounds like one that I might want to listen to.
It does make the April Fools chapter sound plausible, though, since there IS singing...
4850633
I was inspired by a real song, both in cadence and subject matter, but I'm less certain you'd understand the original lyrics. Translated, the song it called The Rose Of The Alpen Peaks, and I can send you a PM with a link to it.
Yeah. You need a competent advice coming from a friendly source. The discord crowd is likely neither, us the readers might not be the former, so you do need your proofreaders.
That said, this seems perfectly fine. Fairly typical mlaabq stuff.
4850641
They seemed very sure of their opinions though, even without the context. Sounded like you liked it though, and that makes me happy
It's nothing that I wouldn't expect considering the story that we're talking about. It's right in line with just about everything else in MLAABQ.
Also, typo:
4850648
Ah, thank you
But does that mean that it wasn't horribly un-funny or degrading though?
4850651
I don't see any particular reason why it would be either. As far as I can remember, you handle everything tastefully unless doing otherwise is the joke, and Gabe continues to be one of my favorite OCs on this site thanks to the hilarious shenanigans she frequently ends up in.
4850656
Yeah, I neglected to mention what part that they were talking about, which was the paragraph where Gabe hugs Armor's tail and goes hoofsie-woofise tufsie-too, to see if anyone else would pick up on it.
But thank you, sincerely
That's very nice to hear. I'm very proud of my OC, so It's very nice to hear that others appreciate her.
Seems fine, but I've been noticing a string of authors as of late mentioning these toxic discords or related community channels. Not the kind of place I'd want to hang around but I guess a good number of people do.
4850702
Yeah, strange. There is some fascinating sociology going on over there, there's just so much data to consider, and I know from experience that communities like that can get very agitated by even the slightest prodding.
I know that there are people that will hate some kind of stories (like HiE) to the point of hating them before even reading, but still, that was harsh.
Honestly I loved it! It went exacyly as I would expect this story, which is some nice narrating, awww bits, and a funny slice of life-ey scene!
That's a nice teaser for the next chapter all in all
4850767
Yeah, I have difficulty understanding that; I jump to conclusions in my head a lot, but I don't act on those conclusions before finding out more about the situation
Glad you like it though, and this just plays into my general philosophy of not listening to the taste of the mob, but trying to do you own thing. You can go your own way; just like that Fleetwood Mac song
Ahhh, the random comedy and music numbers that occure while traveling with good company
Looking forward to seeing what our ragtag band of misfits/heroes get up to on their journey
4850786
As hinted at early in the blog, more singing
Glad you're excited though
I think its nice. It flows well enough and I can't wait for the next chapter.
4850904
Glad to hear it. I'll try not to disappoint
It. Was. Perfect.
4876383
The title? The song? What was written so far? Either way, thank you
4876771
I liked the snippet and the title the most. Though I'm not the best person to judge a song...
4876830
I like the title as well, but perhaps it will be best served for another chapter. Depending on how it turns out, I'm thinking of calling the upcoming chapter 'The Swashbuckler's Symphony'
4876846
If you say so.
4877036
Well, I'm not saying it yet, I'm still thinking about it.