I Think It's Called Ponytown... Story Notes | Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4: You buy One you get One Free

The chapter title comes, again, from a well-known British advert; this time from Safestyle Windows, who were infamous for their wacky product advisers who screamed the mantra 'You buy One, you get One Free!' multiple times in the advert.

'Still an awesome rainbow Rainbow' - I wanted to see how much rainbow I could pack into the limited number of sentences here. The pun then follows on, because after all the correct Rainbow usages it ends with an incorrect 'Scarcity'; and then 'Point' too.

'What's the point?' - Another terrible play on names. Also I got to use the word grizzled, which is a rarity.

'needlessly hard crystal floor' - Didn't anyone else wonder how they managed to live in a giant castle that's all hard edges? They must get through a lot of plates and glasses in the kitchen, and the floor must be super slippy.

Venn diagrams, because Twilight. Also a mention of that brain scanning machine she had in her basement because why wouldn't you?

'Spike! Take a letter!' - Old habits die hard.

I picked Blueblood because the sheer improbability of the whole situation calls for an improbable leader. Also he has the attitude for it. Everyone was equal of course, since that's what communism believes. It was just that some were more equal than others. Obviously a veiled reference to Orwell's Animal Farm.

'Germane 'Dummkopf' brand' - a popular hair dye in the UK is Schwarzkopf, and Dummkopf is the German word for idiot. I couldn't resist it. Pink and yellow is, of course, Fluttershy's colour combination, but in this case it would be reversed for Blueblood.

'Official Ruling Party Daylight Coordinator' - Chinese job titles, like their companies, seem to be highly descriptive. I did always wonder if Celestia could use her flowing sparkle-hair to irritate people.

As I wrote about the dragon mail arriving it dawned on me that the green flash would look similar to the green flash of a changeling transformation, and thus the joke was born. I added the previous part about changelings too. After all, some ponies were now pink, so it must be changelings... right‽

'magi-science speak' and 'The Possible End of the World as We Know It' is a typical Twilight letter to Celestia, I feel.

'Ponies' Constitutional Democratic Liberal Free Republic of Equestria' - Another long title, this time for the country. I started going a little more obtuse with them. I'm pretty sure these terms contradict.

'Great and Glorious but Still Very Equal Leader' - Just hammering the point home, you know.

'Hall of Depressing Statues' and 'Green with Red Accents Salon' are absolutely inspired by similar usage in the Dotted Line stories. You can find these in Ghost of Heraclitus' Obiter Dicta fanfic, which in my estimation, is one of the best fanfics ever written, anywhere, ever.

'It was always important to show the masses what excellent examples of hard work, discipline and strict obedience to the Party line looked like. These two, from the looks of their bulging muscles, huge wing length and tight barrels were obviously very strictly obedient.' - I can't for the life of me remember where the inspiration for this comes from, but it's definitely not my idea. It's something I read somewhere, has stuck in my memory and I've adapted for this story.

I wanted to show Celestia as being stuck up, so I inserted the bit about her not wanting to get her hooves dirty on the hard-packed roads of 'Ponytown'. Duty overrides personal comfort though.

Oh, and pink Celestia. Because goodness knows which person thought that making a character that was white from the off into a pink toy was a good idea. I guess that's why they had to create Cadance. Also they can't spell Cadence, because trademarks.

PART 3: https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/886816/i-think-its-called-ponytown-story-notes-chapter-3
PART 5: https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/886901/i-think-its-called-ponytown-story-notes-chapter-5