Story Notes: 16 (Snowcatcher Part 3) · 5:30am Nov 25th, 2021
Source: https://www.deviantart.com/glaber/art/Snowcatcher-335436297
First of all, happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans! For everyone else, uh, happy Thursday.
We wrap up Snowcatcher's arc with this chapter. I could keep going, but instead she'll get a couple of chapters come Act II, at least one of which will be setting up the Mareiott. She's here on Earth, and that seems like a good place to leave off for the time being. We still have three more mares to meet, and I'm getting anxious to start working on them. As hard as this is to believe, we're coming up on the two-year anniversary of this fic, and I'd very much like to have all sixteen of our main mane characters introduced by then. The good news is that Starbeam's chapter is already written in it's entirety and is with my pre-readers. That leaves Sunny Rays (I'm about 2,500 words into her chapter) and finally Sweetie Swirl. And at least one bonus chapter that may not meet that January deadline. But at the very least I'm hoping to have our last three cast members introduced by then.
Source: https://www.deviantart.com/phasingirl/art/Dreams-of-Canterlot-295479742
Equestrian magic is how those impromptu song cues happen. It's magic inside of each pony, which is why a pony like Feathermay who can't sing at all can somehow manage to be in harmony with the others. Speaking of which, yes, Snowcatcher noting that her singing voice sounds nothing at all like her speaking voice is poking fun at how many cartoons use different actors/actresses for speaking voices/singing voices.
Source: House & Garden Real Estate Inc.
House & Garden Real Estate was a real real estate agency in northern New Jersey, and they were based in the same county our story takes place in. Sadly, it seems it didn't survive into the internet age, as I can find no trace of the business ever having existed at all on the internet. I found the logo when doing some cleaning and it's too cute not to share. A friend of mine has scanned this in a higher resolution, and as soon as I get the files I'll be editing this blog post with a higher quality image.
A reminder that I think we've just gotten a new Snowcatcher toy for the first time in nearly a decade. Shown above with Minty, they're both available in this year's MLP Advent calendar.
Source: https://www.deviantart.com/werewolfonaleash/art/Sweetie-Swirl-and-Snow-Catcher-819542741
With the revelation that G5 takes place in the far distant future of G4, we have a bit of a conundrum. I don't know if they intend to address what happened to Cozy Glow or not. I still have plans for her in this story, but I don't want them to contradict the official canon.
I sincerely hope I don't come to regret making her innocent in this story (that wasn't my original plan, and changing it may come back to bite me). I don't think it will come as a spoiler at all to know that she'll be free by the end of this story. If you know me, that's a given. So much so, that I don't even consider that a spoiler.
Speaking of naughty ponies, up next we have Starbeam Twinkle. Consider this a warning that she's not particularly popular with the ponies of Equestria, and she's probably the leading candidate for 'least likable character' in this story.
Yeah sure no pressure.
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But you're so good under pressure.
Aye, happy Thanksgiving and/or Thursday. :)
"I still have plans for her in this story, but I don't want them to contradict the official canon."
Er. Aren't you already not aligned with official canon?
Personally, if it helps, I'd say just stick with the universe you've got here as its own thing -- but of course, this is your story, not mine, and I don't know how easy or desirable that course might be for you; sorry.
"I don't think it will come as a spoiler at all to know that she'll be free by the end of this story. If you know me, that's a given."
Oh, huh. Uh, I guess I didn't know you well enough there? Or was insufficiently good at drawing correct conclusions (Not that I had an expectation she wouldn't get free within this story -- I don't recall having a concrete expectation one way or the other, but from what you said it sounds like there should have been one for her freedom here?) from what I did know here, or... something. Sorry. Still, that doesn't seem that unlikely an event, given some things that have happened already, so not like a major twist was spoiled, still, I think.
Anyway, thank you for writing! :)
That House & Garden Real Estate logo is the most pony logo for a business
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That's exactly what I thought when I saw it!
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Thank you, and you as well!
Surprisingly, we're still aligned with official canon. I don't do alt universes (at least not intentionally). Everything I've written has been canon at the time it was written (that's not to say canon hasn't eventually contradicted things I've written, but at the time they were written/published, they were good). If I did alt 'verses Twilight wouldn't have wings, Equestria Girls wouldn't exist, and Cozy wouldn't be a rock. While there's no portal to Earth in official canon, that doesn't mean there can't be eventually (with the exception of some of the flashbacks, this story takes place between The Ending Of The End and The Last Problem). Cloudsdale's politics have never been delved into. I may be overlooking something, but as far as I can tell there's nothing in this story that can't align with the established canon.
Well, the nice thing about this is that I split Cozy's chapter into a separate fic by the name of Heart In Pieces. I could drop the innocent Cozy for this story, move all the additional content her chapter got here to that story, then finish that story with my existing plans for this story. I could retcon this back to my original plan of having Cozy get jealous of Flitterheart's ease of making friends, leave Cozy as a statue, and problem solved. But I don't want to leave Cozy Glow a statue, as then Flitterheart could never have a happy ending. So part of me is hoping they don't touch on her in G5, and part of me desperately wants to see her released officially, even at the expense of the canon of this story.
With as many stories as I've written about Cozy Glow, I just figured everyone was expecting it. But, uh, yeah, I really don't like how they ended the series. It was the exact opposite of everything else the show spent nine years building up. It was... disappointing to say the least. It's why I try to be transparent with what I'm doing with the story. I don't want to give away anything in advance, but I also don't want people to get to the end and feel disappointed that they'd read hundreds of thousands of words for a payout that wasn't worth it. This is already a long story, and it's only going to get longer. There's a significant time investment for readers, and I want everyone to be satisfied with the conclusion.
The biggest problem is I had planned on resolving everything with our cast taking care of the problem in Equestria. Now, I can't. What's wrong in Equestria has to stay wrong for however many thousands of years until Sunny Starscout and crew can resolve it. Or maybe our cast resolves something wrong with things in G4, but something comes along later to mess things back up before G5. I've got a lot of time to think about it - nothing needs to be addressed until Act III, and that's a long ways off. By then they'll have at least a season of G5 in and I should know what I'm doing with this story. I'll probably have a discussion in a blog post like this one when the time comes to see what people want to see, and what they don't want to see.
You're welcome as always! Thank you for reading!
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Thanks, though you said it first already. :)
Oh, huh. I think we just have some different perspectives here on what's canon, what's rooted in the canon of its time but not necessarily canon later, what isn't canon, etc. Which is mostly fine, of course, though admittedly I do have concerns about the pressure it'd put you under both in terms of your own satisfaction and in terms of a story potentially being made worse by a felt need to make it fit later canon, rather than just a willingness to pick and choose from later canon as seems appropriate for the existing story, working in only what you think would make the story and its world better and not worrying about fitting in things that would hurt it.
Different philosophies, though, and admittedly your way seems to have been working pretty well for you so far! I hope it continues to.
"I may be overlooking something, but as far as I can tell there's nothing in this story that can't align with the established canon."
I don't have any specific things I can point out that actively prevent this from fitting with show canon, to be clear, at least that I'm remembering at the moment; I just, from the sound of it, a: possibly have significantly more stringent requirements for calling a story "fully fitting with show canon" and b: care much less if it doesn't. So unless something hews very close to show canon, I'd be more likely to just assume that that isn't an important aspect of it.
"Well, the nice thing about this is that I split Cozy's chapter into a separate fic by the name of Heart In Pieces. I could drop the innocent Cozy for this story, move all the additional content her chapter got here to that story, then finish that story with my existing plans for this story."
That sounds like a somewhat circuitous way of working your internal bureaucracy to do what you wanted to anyway, and I say that as someone with extensive personal experience circuitously working their internal bureaucracy to accomplish things that should probably be much, much simpler. :D
So, yeah, I get that sometimes that kind of thing might be the best way to get something done. Ooor at the very least I'm not in a very good position to say "But you'd be better off if you could just do the thing directly!". :D
Anyway, that does sound like it could work to save what you want to do with Cozy now, and if you try it, I hope it works well.
"I could retcon this back to my original plan of having Cozy get jealous of Flitterheart's ease of making friends, leave Cozy as a statue, and problem solved. But I don't want to leave Cozy Glow a statue, as then Flitterheart could never have a happy ending. So part of me is hoping they don't touch on her in G5, and part of me desperately wants to see her released officially, even at the expense of the canon of this story."
Oof. Yeah, that's a rather tight spot; I'm sorry about that. I do hope you can find a good way out of it.
(And of course while there is the simple-seeming-to-me solution of just breaking this from canon, I also have personal experience with the somewhat variable usefulness of "Just do the thing that's really simple for other people!" as advice.)
"With as many stories as I've written about Cozy Glow, I just figured everyone was expecting it."
I mean, yeah, not exactly a big surprise. But just because Cozy Glow is freed in most of your universes doesn't require that you free her in all of them, and even if she was going to be freed in the universe of this story, it's not required to be done in this story itself rather than a sequel or the like, especially since this story is already not the only one you have set in its universe.
"But, uh, yeah, I really don't like how they ended the series. It was the exact opposite of everything else the show spent nine years building up. It was... disappointing to say the least."
Yeeeah, this sort of thing is part of why I don't feel like one should be too bound to one particular set of official canon for one's works. There are, of course, a great many ways to explain or correct that without directly contradicting show canon -- you've written a number of them, after all! :D -- but just as it's fuel and inspiration for some stories, it's something others would have to awkwardly work around, or worse, if they aren't allowed to just ignore it.
"It's why I try to be transparent with what I'm doing with the story. I don't want to give away anything in advance, but I also don't want people to get to the end and feel disappointed that they'd read hundreds of thousands of words for a payout that wasn't worth it. This is already a long story, and it's only going to get longer. There's a significant time investment for readers, and I want everyone to be satisfied with the conclusion."
Well, thank you -- and I do have confidence in your writing abilities. :)
(Part of the reason why I worry about those writing abilities being constrained not just by new show canon but by the possibility of show canon, of course; while it's possible that you could use those limits as thrust blocks to improve the story even further, that's only one set of possibilities for how they could change the story, depending on how they're handled. But, again, general confidence in your writing abilities, so I'm not extremely worried or the like. :))
"The biggest problem is I had planned on resolving everything with our cast taking care of the problem in Equestria. Now, I can't. What's wrong in Equestria has to stay wrong for however many thousands of years until Sunny Starscout and crew can resolve it. Or maybe our cast resolves something wrong with things in G4, but something comes along later to mess things back up before G5."
I mean, yeah, at the very least, based on what we know now, whatever caused the apocalypse to which G5 is post could very easily have been something completely different; it's not, after all, as if G4 Equestria doesn't have something of a history of dealing with one world-threatening danger and later having a new one appear or an old one come back.
"I've got a lot of time to think about it - nothing needs to be addressed until Act III, and that's a long ways off. By then they'll have at least a season of G5 in and I should know what I'm doing with this story."
Ah, good! Glad to hear that events are expected to proceed such that you'll have a lot more information, at least, by the time you need to make a decision.
"I'll probably have a discussion in a blog post like this one when the time comes to see what people want to see, and what they don't want to see."
Righto, and thanks. :)
"You're welcome as always! Thank you for reading!"
:)
(Oh, and thanks for the watch, by the way. :))
(Oh, and while I'm saying a by-the-way about something not in your comment, by the way:
"Free Cozy Glow! ...With any purchase over 99 bits."
:D)
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People saying something must have “gone wrong,” with Twilight’s reign to cause G5 is kind of holding her to a ridiculous standard. Say for example Twilight had a thousand year rule of peace, prosperity and friendship and when she steps down whatever replaces her extends that golden age for another thousand years. It’s only after two millennia of things being pretty great that the decline that leads to G5 begins. The way some commentators talk they would still call that scenario a “total failure,” on Twilight’s part.
As for why the Ponies of G5 only have 21st century tech thousands of years after they appeared to master 20th century tech. Lauren Faust has gone on record that while pony tech may look like human tech it is heavily magic based. Magic disappearing could easily mean they were knocked a bunch of branches down the tech tree. In your universe while the ponies will take a great deal of inspiration from humanity you’ve already written that they want to figure out how to combine it with magic. Meaning they’d still be vulnerable.
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Fixing plotholes is what got me into writing fanfiction in the first place.
There's no pressure, that's just how my mind works. 'This doesn't make sense but there must be a reason for it' so I create that reason to make everything flow together as a cohewsive narrative. It's what I do best. Call it worldbuilding, call it fixfics, or maybe even some combination of the two, but I look at it as a challenge.
I'm also not willing to stress myself out over it. There are multiple paths this story could take, and while I know my preferred route, it isn't set in stone. The story is fluid, and evolves as it needs to.
Heh, my requirement is simple: 'doesn't contradict established canon.'
I also don't take the comics as official canon, since there are things there that contradict events of the show (Twilight Velvet being the author of the Daring Do series, for example). I certainly draw on them as inspiration as well, but I ignore them when needed.
If nothing else, it lets me write two of the different scenarios I have planned for this story's resolution.
Heart In Pieces may not have placed in the contest (nor did I expect it to - the judges like dark, and that's not my genre of preference), but it does give me options.
I know I'm not required to free her in all my different stories, but it just kinda happens. So much wasted potential with the character. I'm not in the 'Cozy Glow did nothing wrong' camp, as I think her actions have proven that she definitely needs help. I'm just appalled by the fact that she never got it. That the spirit of disharmony and chaos can get reformed, but a child can't? No, just no.
Thank you! Constraints tend to help my creativity. Whether it be to resolve things in a way that makes sense, or just narrowing down the possible paths down to one. I have a lot of unfinished stories that I've never published. Many of them suffer from having too many different paths that could be taken, and my being unable to decide on one. It's why I rarely post unfinished stories. On the flip side, I realized this was going to be a long-runner, and I wasn't going to drop several hundred thousand words on readers in one go.
This is true.
I have time, and my brain thrives on challenges like this. The only real problem is if Cozy Glow factors into G5 at all. If she does, I'll figure something out. I always do!
I'm glad you like! I had originally been planning a story with a similar title, but it's stalled out (this is another of those stories I could take in too many different directions).
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I agree. I mostly meant that folks have been surmising something is wrong in Equestria in the events of 16. While I think I've shown that to be mostly Blueblood's fault, I created a different issue that needs to be addressed, and that's the changing cutie marks/changing destinies aspect. That's definitely 'something wrong' and needs to be addressed by the end of the story. Cozy Glow factors into that, and if she's responsible in whole or in part for the setting of G5 being so radically different than G4, that changes my plans. This is what's potentially on the retcon chopping block, shuffled off to Heart In Pieces if needed.
By that same logic, one could hold Celestia responsible as well, since Twilight was her appointed successor. We don't know what happened (or when), and I'm trying not to speculate on that right now.
What can be determined is that considerable time has passed, something has caused major geologic upheaval, or a combination of the two. If Zephyr Heights is built on the remains of Canterlot, if there's no more Everfree Forest, and if Maretime Bay (obviously built on a coast) is within sight of the former Canterlot (which was inland), then there's been major changes to the geography of Equestria. Not to mention that without magic, the planet must now be going around the sun instead of the princess raising the sun & moon.
Geologic processes take time, so we're looking at G5 possibly being millions of years after G4... unless the G5 ponies' technology has advanced to terraforming (or G4 magically advanced to terraforming on that scale at some point during the time skip) or Discord changed things on a whim.
There are so many different ways things could have played out. If it's millions of years later and ponies are still the dominant species on the planet, that's impressive. Especially if they did it without magic. Makes me wonder what happened to the dragons, griffins, etc. There are so many different things that need to be resolved... I wish they'd just made G5 a separate universe, but it is what it is.
This is also true. In this chapter Snowcatcher mentions that one can see a modern hydroelectric dam in the same town as a one-room schoolhouse. That dam is based on human technology, but the ponies built it with magic. Same with Ponyville's state-of-the-art hospital. Inspiration was drawn from Earth, but they had to use their own resources to build it. Hence combining our tech with their magic.
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Ah, glad to hear that it's more a resource than a source of stress, sounds like. :)
(And I, too, will fairly often, when I encounter what may be a plot hole, try to think of something to fill it and have some success, or at least I think so; I just don't tend to write stories based on such thoughts, so I think we can safely say that you appear to be carrying this to a much greater extent than me. :D)
"Heh, my requirement is simple: 'doesn't contradict established canon.'
I also don't take the comics as official canon, since there are things there that contradict events of the show (Twilight Velvet being the author of the Daring Do series, for example). I certainly draw on them as inspiration as well, but I ignore them when needed."
Ah, thanks for the information.
"If nothing else, it lets me write two of the different scenarios I have planned for this story's resolution."
Ah, sounds like that'd be a benefit, aye.
"Heart In Pieces may not have placed in the contest (nor did I expect it to - the judges like dark, and that's not my genre of preference), but it does give me options."
I was a bit puzzled there, as I remembered Heart In Pieces still being at least kind of dark (though, of course, it could have been that the judges liked things more dark than it was), but yeah, from a quick check back at the story just now, looks like I was misremembering the point at which it cut off. I'm guessing I was remembering things heading downhill in the version in 16, or something like that (bit low on time at the moment, sorry).
Anyway, though, glad it's giving you those options. :)
"I know I'm not required to free her in all my different stories, but it just kinda happens. So much wasted potential with the character."
Heh, fair enough, and it's not like you're required to not free her in all your stories featuring her either. :)
"That the spirit of disharmony and chaos can get reformed, but a child can't? No, just no."
Well, Discord did also spend a while in stone before reformation, so the show does seem to leave quite a bit of room for later help and reformation -- as you've made use of yourself, of course. :D
Buuut, yeah, the show also leaves open the possibility that she just stays in stone for however long it takes continental drift to bring the statue to a subduction zone, and then gets melted. And, of course, there's the whole "thrown into Tartarus instead of youth counselling" thing before that, which isn't really adequately explained on screen either.
"Thank you! Constraints tend to help my creativity. Whether it be to resolve things in a way that makes sense, or just narrowing down the possible paths down to one."
Glad that seems to be working for you. :)
"I have a lot of unfinished stories that I've never published. Many of them suffer from having too many different paths that could be taken, and my being unable to decide on one. It's why I rarely post unfinished stories."
Sorry about all of those, though. Still, presumably they can also be looked at as repositories of ideas that still might one day see a use?
"On the flip side, I realized this was going to be a long-runner, and I wasn't going to drop several hundred thousand words on readers in one go."
And thank you for that, yes. I like your writing, but I do have other things to do. :D
"I have time, and my brain thrives on challenges like this."
Oh, good! :)
"The only real problem is if Cozy Glow factors into G5 at all. If she does, I'll figure something out. I always do!"
I expect you'll make it work, aye. :)
But, yes, big unknown there. I'd guess she's more likely to not than to, but I really don't think I've sufficient data for much at all in the way of certainty either way. Lot of mysteries in G5, still!
"I'm glad you like!"
:)
"I had originally been planning a story with a similar title, but it's stalled out (this is another of those stories I could take in too many different directions)."
Ah, sorry. And yeah, while I assume you have more than just that line, it seems like there are a lot of ways that could go.
"I mostly meant that folks have been surmising something is wrong in Equestria in the events of 16."
I'm still kind of puzzled about that, honestly. I still don't recall seeing anything of the sort before the point where you decided to run with it and started doing that actively, if I remember the sequence of events correctly.
"While I think I've shown that to be mostly Blueblood's fault"
...And this line just makes me even more curious, but I don't know what is supposed to be Blueblood's fault.
"What can be determined is that considerable time has passed, something has caused major geologic upheaval, or a combination of the two."
Both, I'd guess, aye. There seems to have been a lot of cultural shift, but without signs of recent trauma.
"Not to mention that without magic, the planet must now be going around the sun instead of the princess raising the sun & moon."
Weell, I don't think we can say that, referring to what we've seen so far of G5. For one, we don't know how the sun actually works, how big it is... any of that. For another, we don't know that the sun and moon lost magic; we don't even know if the entire planet did. And there'd be the question of how the system transitioned from planet-centric to heliocentric.
I mean, it's possible that the planet is now orbiting the sun -- but I think that this, like many things in G5, is something we just don't have enough information to make confident statements of state on yet, unless I've missed something.
"If it's millions of years later and ponies are still the dominant species on the planet, that's impressive."
Er. I mean, I wouldn't exactly call "reduced to just three isolated settlements on the entire planet", which looks pretty likely to be the case, "dominant species". We also don't know how much of Zephyr Heights is empty, or how much settlement in Bridlewood has been abandoned (Maretime Bay at least seems, from what I recall, to have had a fairly stable population for a while, though); maybe none (...Beyond, and I'd actually forgotten this when first writing this bit, the part of Zephyr Heights we actually explicitly saw abandoned...), but maybe a lot. I'd honestly, looking at what we know so far, consider it more likely ponies are an endangered species than the dominant one.
(Oh, and the geologic processing thing, both in terms of what did or didn't happen and how it happened if it did, I don't know, currently, either.)
And yeah, I'm really hoping that Maretime Bay's supplies of food and industrial raw materials are either handled well or completely ignored. And Bridlewood, though I think it has at least a bit more leeway. I think Zephyr Heights, despite looking like it has the most complicated/intensive technology and quite possibly highest population of the three, actually has the most leeway, I think, given the possibilities of mines under the mountain, vertical or underground farms, and extensive (if possibly legacy, can't-build-it-anymore) automated and robotic labor. We'll see how things go!
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The whole chapter went beyond the word limit, so I cut things off earlier in the contest entry. I suspect that had the entire chapter been posted as the contest entry, it might've been a contender instead of an also-ran. But I wasn't really going for the win; I chose to write what I wanted.
Discord, spirit of chaos and disharmony, can change the world with a snap of his claws, and still does extremely questionable things even after 'redemption'. Let's reform him, he's useful!
Starlight Glimmer, enslaved an entire village and rid its inhabitants of their cutie marks (and their talents), and often uses mind control magic even after reformation. But she's an extremely powerful unicorn. Let's reform her, she's useful! Let's put her in charge of a school!
Trixie, who took revenge on an entire town, mutilating Pinkie Pie and tormenting the rest of the residents for her own amusement. She's a unicorn, so let's give her yet another chance.
Same with Sunset Shimmer and Stygian. Yet the pegasi and earth pony antagonists? Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon got a redemption episode, but the rest? Not a chance. Lightning Dust, Svengallop, Gladmane... Nope.
Cozy Glow. She's a pink pegasus filly. We have lots of those in Equestria. Dump her in pony hell and forget about her.
I know it wasn't intentional on the parts of the writers, but it makes it look like the system is biased in favor of unicorns. The only pony who gets punished for her crimes is a child. The adults are allowed to either run off or apologize.
Two years later and it still grates on my nerves.
Actually, that happens more than you imagine. The characters in 16 are characters that I had intended on using what would have been a fic in the early days of the fandom. I had a very lucid dream involving Trixie and a 7th Element of Harmony (power; which acts as a force multiplier to the other elements) that all turned out to be a hoax by Discord, tricking Trixie into releasing him from stone.
...Then the show released him from stone and the plot was rendered useless, and hence scrapped. But Dewdrop Dazzle was originally to be a friend of Trixie's, and Snowcatcher was a friend of Minty's (Minty being the student assistant of Daring Do, who's leading the archeological expedition they're on... which would have been another reveal: Daring Do is real and not a fictional character). The show managed to uh, also do that.
Show canon moved on and this story was dropped.
You know what...
cdn-img.fimfiction.net/story/dslo-1638049073-452528-full
The story's way too much of a mess to let you take a look at it, but at least you can see the cover art. You can get an idea of what the story's about, just looking at that.
I haven't completely abandoned this story idea, but I need to focus on completing 16. If/when inspiration hits, I'll tackle that one..
He's the one responsible for the 'mares only' rule.
This is true. What would be almost certain is that the sun and moon are no longer being controlled by unicorns/alicorns.
Do we know that all unicorns live in Bridlewood, that all earth ponies live in Maretime Bay, and all pegasi live in Zephyr Heights? Is it possible that there are other tribe-specific settlements scattered around the former Equestria?
I ask because I may be the only person on the planet who isn't
subscribed tostealing someone else's Netflix subscription. I don't have access to the film, though I very much want to see it!That said, if dragons and griffins, etc. are around, I think ponies would be more scared of them than the other pony tribes. A dragon or griffin could do some major damage, and without magic or flight, ponies don't really have a lot going for them, even with their recent technological leap.
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"But I wasn't really going for the win; I chose to write what I wanted."
Aye, a better approach there, I think. :)
And thanks for the additional information.
"I know it wasn't intentional on the parts of the writers, but it makes it look like the system is biased in favor of unicorns."
At the very least, it leaves a large opening for that, yes.
And I hadn't thought of Lightning Dust etc., either, that I recall, but that, uh. Yeah. Kind of an unfortunate trend!
"The only pony who gets punished for her crimes is a child. The adults are allowed to either run off or apologize."
Yeeeah, I do not know what was going on there.
"Two years later and it still grates on my nerves."
Sorry about that. Fortunately, though, we do have fanfiction, and sometimes flaws in the canon can be recast as inspiration. :D
(But still, aye, sorry.)
"(Minty being the student assistant of Daring Do, who's leading the archeological expedition they're on... which would have been another reveal: Daring Do is real and not a fictional character). The show managed to uh, also do that."
"(Minty being the student assistant of Daring Do, who's leading the archeological expedition they're on... which would have been another reveal: Daring Do is real and not a fictional character. The show managed to uh, also do that.)."?
(I'm pretty sure I'm guessing the correct text and parsing it correctly, but I thought I'd check just in case.)
Well, glad it sounds like you have indeed had some fruitful recycling efforts, then. :)
"
People have things to do other than read my fanfics? This simply won't do! My stories should be the most important thing in everyone's life. 
Or not. I'd think family, friends, work, etc. should all take precedence. 
"
Little silly frivolities like that, yeah, among other things. :D
And thanks. :)
re the cover art:
Heh, nice. :)
...But, uh. I think you may be overestimating my ability to guess the story's general subject from the image, beyond what could already be gotten from the title? Sorry.
And no problem; good luck with the writing and the arrival and management of inspiration. :)
"He's the one responsible for the 'mares only' rule."
...And... people thought that a rule that only mares were to be in the trial wave of civilian ponies on Earth indicated a problem in Equestria? Why? Not a rhetorical question, just to be clear; I'm quite curious to know.
"This is true. What would be almost certain is that the sun and moon are no longer being controlled by unicorns/alicorns."
Yeah, that seems highly unlikely... though it now occurs to me that perhaps some larger and more automated version of the device Princess Twilight had early in her reign might be involved, as another possibility.
"Do we know that all unicorns live in Bridlewood, that all earth ponies live in Maretime Bay, and all pegasi live in Zephyr Heights? Is it possible that there are other tribe-specific settlements scattered around the former Equestria?"
If there are others, I missed all references to anyone onscreen knowing about them and any discussion about them since, that I recall.
"I ask because I may be the only person on the planet who isn't
subscribed tostealing someone else's Netflix subscription. I don't have access to the film, though I very much want to see it!"Ah, sorry about that. Yeah, I thought I might have to get, ah, creative, at least a bit, too, but after I made some enquiries with my dad about the status of his account, for, you know, reasons, he realized that he, for once, had a ready solution to the oft-tricky problem of finding a birthday gift for me (as I'm not particularly easy to get gifts for). So, now I have a Netflix subscription! Which I've so far only used for watching the film, because everything else I thought I might like to see and checked Netflix for wasn't available, at least in my country at that time, but, hey, I got to see the film, at least! (And because of course I'd worried about that ahead of time, Dad had already reassured me that it was fine if I did just use it for G5. Well, the film. I'm not actually sure how long I've got the account for, particularly when I've not found anything else to use it for, but we can deal with that later as needed.)
...Aaanyway, it's not the experience of watching the film (And I do hope you get to see it at some point, and before too much longer!), but I happened to see on EQD the other day that apparently there is a full transcript now. So if you want information and don't too much mind spoilers, that might be useful? Let's see...
Here you go!
(Oh! And actually looking at the transcript now, which I hadn't done before, looks like it includes various descriptions and such too, not just raw dialogue. Nice. :))
"That said, if dragons and griffins, etc. are around, I think ponies would be more scared of them than the other pony tribes."
That sounds potentially plausible, at least, but I've no idea what the case with them might be, sorry.
"A dragon or griffin could do some major damage, and without magic or flight, ponies don't really have a lot going for them"
Well, that also depends on what the griffins or dragons might or might not still be able to do.
"even with their recent technological leap"
I also don't know how recent the leap actually is, or indeed how much of a leap, vs. a slow development, it was when it happened. That, as far as I know, is also something we don't know at this time.
5612261
Indeed, and it drives me.
Cozy Glow mirror pool duplicates can be had very cheaply in a world that's never heard of her exploits. Sounds like a recipe for some trouble.
I'd love to know the answer to that myself. This was never intended to be anything more than a slice-of-life. I knew from the start that Lulu's chapter was going to be an action-packed adventure, and that there'd be other minor adventures along the way, but I never planned for 'something wrong' I just rolled with it.
I have a pretty good idea how the movie goes because even though I do my best to avoid spoilers, being on this site is more or less a spoiler once an episode or film drops. I appreciate the link - if I don't see the film, sooner or later I'm going to break down and read the transcript.
Which will make that a much better reading experience!
I certainly can't argue that, but I'd think that nature gives both dragons and griffins some major advantages over equines. Claws, sharp teeth, size...
Recent as in 'post-G4'.
5612417
:)
Oh. Oh, dear. :D
Yeeeah. :D
"I'd love to know the answer to that myself."
Huh. Well, I'm disappointed, but I can hardly blame you for not knowing either. [shrugs] Still, what a mystery...
"but I never planned for 'something wrong' I just rolled with it."
Well, seems to have been going well so far? Though now I'm also wondering what the mostly-just-slice-of-life version would have been like. Eh. [shrugs] Well, many alternate versions out there that could have been had things been different, and, as said, I've been enjoying how it has been going. :)
"I have a pretty good idea how the movie goes because even though I do my best to avoid spoilers, being on this site is more or less a spoiler once an episode or film drops."
Yeah, there's a fair bit that just comes through via osmosis, I imagine.
"I appreciate the link - if I don't see the film, sooner or later I'm going to break down and read the transcript."
Glad I was able to provide it -- though of course, most of the credit for that goes elsewhere, with the maker(s?) of the transcript most and then with EQD for informing me of it.
"Which will make that a much better reading experience!"
Aye, I expect so. :)
"I certainly can't argue that, but I'd think that nature gives both dragons and griffins some major advantages over equines. Claws, sharp teeth, size..."
Well, maybe. But there's the question first of all of whether dragon biology even works without magic. Griffins might just end of lacking flight, but that still significantly reduces their threat (still dangerous, though, yes).
I don't recall anyone mentioning of hinting at griffins in the movie, though (which is hopefully not a problematic spoiler for you), so while in theory the earth ponies might be more concerned about griffins than pegasi... apparently griffins aren't even on their radar, for one reason or another.
(Unless I missed something, of course.)
Ah, thanks for the clarification. :)
And recent out-of-universe, yes. :D
5612580
The only things that would've changed so far are:
1. Cozy Glow wasn't innocent. She was jealous of Flitterheart's ease of making friends and when she couldn't steal them from her, she went to the School of Friendship to make her own, 'better' friends. And more of them!
2. Blueblood wouldn't be an arrogant jerk. Okay, he would still be an arrogant jerk, but he wouldn't be malicious about it. He'd just be an out-of-touch snob.
That's really it. I'm still writing the slice-of-life I intended to tell from the start. Most of what's changed involves the final act, setting up an action-packed sequel. I hate when slice-of-lifes turn into action-adventures halfway through, and I wasn't going to let that happen to this story. Instead Act III would set up a follow-up fic. I had already given Dewey a photographic memory before changing things, so it's an ability that gets used more effectively. Same with Feathermay's connection with birds. I had always planned for her to have a way with avians, but now there may be more to it than just that.
5612861
Ah, thanks for the information. :)
(Though I don't recall whether I noticed that Blueblood was being malicious; it has been a while, though, and I suspect that the levels of arrogant jerkiness and out-of-touch snobbery might have still been high enough that I couldn't clearly see the maliciousness through them. :D
But it could also be that I'm just not remembering at the moment, yeah; sorry if that's the case.)
5612968
He's just using the 'mares only' rule as a way of getting pretty young mares to come to Earth without stallions, and look at that, he and his cronies are all single stallions. As Ploomette points out, he's Prince Charmless. Fortunately for all those young mares, they get to see Ploom first. Suffice it to say Blueblood's plan doesn't work. A lot of that is thanks to Fancy Pants, who works at the embassy under Blueblood (the Equestrian Ambassador to the United States), and he coordinates with Ploomette because Blueblood delegates anything that doesn't bring him personal glory. Dealing with the consulates and even the Consulate-General is beneath him. The only time Blueblood bothers talking to Ploomette is when she's representing her other function, as representative to the United Nations.
I don't think anypony's going to notice a difference, lol.
5613084
Ah, yes, I did recall that (though not all of the details you mentioned), though thanks in any case (and for those details... though I don't know how well I'll remember all of them this time). I don't consider that malicious, though; he doesn't actively want to harm them. Possibly callous, not caring about their wellbeing and just about what he wants, but really, I could see him being deluded enough to think that he's Celestia's gift to mares and he's doing them a favor by making sure those lesser stallions can't even momentarily distract them from pursuing him (which would just further ratchet up "arrogant out-of-touch snobbish jerk" rather than adding an additional character flaw, unless I suppose "delusionally high self-esteem" is sufficiently different to count).
"I don't think anypony's going to notice a difference, lol."
Between what, sorry? The versions of Blueblood, based on their observed behavior?
5613258
I'd call it malicious for setting up the rules that way. He may not necessarily be hurting those who come to him willingly, but he's injuring those who might like to go to Earth who don't meet his criteria.
Don't worry about not remembering details. I have to keep going through and refreshing myself too. With over 200,000 words in this story (including the soon-to-be-published chapter for Starbeam Twinkle) and another 25,000 between the prequels, I don't expect anyone to remember everything. I don't even expect myself to remember everything.
Blueblood's portrayal in this story before and after changing this plot point. No discernible difference.
5613380
I think we're defining "malicious" differently; for me, motivation is the key aspect, not whether it ends up hurting people. It's quite possible to hurt people without hurting people being a goal, which I probably wouldn't count as malicious, and also possible to set out to hurt people but fail, which I likely would call malicious, just also not sufficiently competently so.
Good point about those who might like to go to Earth but don't meet his criteria, though; unless I'm missing something, I still wouldn't call that malicious, from my impression of him, but that would be callous even if he falsely believes he's helping the mares he does let over by giving them greater exposure to him.
Ah, hah, righto; thanks. :D
Ah. :D
Thanks.
5681441
Indeed, which is why I worked Dewey's duck, Snowy's cat, and Lily Blossom & Diamond Rose's swans into the story. The swans appear in the newly expanded version of Lily Blossom's chapter.
Those are probably the only pets that will appear in the story though, and only Snowflake is truly a pet. Dewey's ducks helped her get her cutie mark, but they're not her pets. Likewise, the swans are just part of the Diamond family estate.
As for Snowcatcher's cat, the toy was unnamed. I named him Snowflake since her name is Snowcatcher, and she caught him.
Actually, she didn't have to really try all that hard to catch him, considering the condition he was in when she found him. 
How many pups do you have?
5681668
Awww! That's a lot of pups! Of course, Lily Blossom is the name that immediately caught my attention. I'm assuming she's not named for the pony, lol.
Speaking of Ty Beanie babies... they did MLPs too. They've also reused the design for a release of four non-MLP ponies. I found Cinnamon but I'm still chasing the other three (Ruby, Starr, & Topaz). On a side note, all four show up in Flitterheart's expanded chapter.
https://www.bbtoystore.com/store/BOOs_B_2018-horse-set4.html
I really need to take a photo of Cinnamon before I do the blog for Flitterheart's chapter expansion.