You've got to love the Internet

Okay, so I just noticed a slight spike in the views of my Flight Camp fic, not a big one but apparently one person read through the whole thing the other day. Neato, maybe someone's posted a link somewhere, I thought. And when I checked this, I noticed one very odd thing in the reference tab.

Apparently someone named Akvinikym liked my fic. Or at least thinks it's good, I don't know if he actually read it. See, he (I'm assuming it's a he) linked my story on a blog about translating pony fiction. To Russian. Now that's a big surprise as is, but to make it even more puzzling, this Akvinikym person, from what I could gather, posted this after being done translating another fanfic.

Anthropology.

A little further investigation revealed that the translation to 'On a Cross and Arrow' was also on the same blog. Dowha? I actually have an audience in Russia?

I don't know if Akvinikym is a translator or just someone who follows the blog (guessing the latter), but...huh? Anthropology and On a Cross and Arrow are insanely popular. The idea that someone so much as mentions my Flight Camp fic in the same section as those fics, particularly on a blog involving the arduous work of translating...that's kind of impressive.

Unfortunately, Google translate didn't give me too much accurate information about what the comments were all about. From what I could gather apparently it was being suggested for translation because one reader thought it was a fun fic, but was dropped because, and I'm quoting Google Translate here: "uh. Just generally a volume with such a rating indicates that this is trash. Although exceptions are possible." So, yeah...the fics are judged by their star rating on EqD, and I never submitted this story to EqD, nor do I have any plans to do so, despite rewriting the whole thing to fit their grammar and formatting standards. The content would have to change for that, and I'm not willing to make that compromise. But I digress.

Well, Russian bronies: I don't blame you. The fic is pretty heavy on certain obscure topics, and it's most definitely not for everyone.

I'm flattered that anyone would think the story needs to be spread, but I honestly think Allotho (the actual translator on the site) is right in taking something like Background Pony first.

That said, if anyone wants to try, I found one thing that might help. The word 'Bullhead' in Russian is Bykogolovy. I used the name of the film I based my OC on, so I hope that title wasn't somehow changed to mean 'Rosebud' or something. And the word 'Kludde' is a Ducth name, it is never translated. Also, I use the term 'water devil' because in English it's translated to 'water sprite'. But a sprite is usually something small and annoying, while this definitely needs to carry the weight of a 'devil'. So if anyone does try, please keep those things in mind.

Woohoo! I got Russian publicity!