Let's Play: Equestria Online!

by Jakinbandw

On Dating Ponies

So a couple people have asked what the interface is for the telepathy that I have with Young Jim Hawkins. I wanted to take a few moments to talk about that, and the magic that foraged the link in the first place. I actually tried writing this out when I was writing that chapter, but kept finding that it broke flow too badly.

One other quick thing I wanted to address; as far as I know what I am describing is not the normal pet interface. It is the result of me not having patience and forcing Young Jim Hawkins to grow up fast than he was supposed to. This means that your own experiences will vary.

So one of the cool things about playing using the touchscreen is that the interface can update itself as I play. I have a little button on the right hand side that I can tap that will bring up a view screen in lower right corner that shows the view from Jim's point of view. If I double tap the telepathy button my view will get put in the corner, and Jim's point of view becomes how I see the screen.

Finally if I press and hold the button anything I say is not spoken aloud, but rather is sent to Jim Hawkins. When he speaks to me the button lights up, and what he says has an odd quality to it that let's me know that it is telepathy, even if I'm not looking at the screen. I think the game adds a reverb quality to it? I don't know enough about sound to actually say, sorry.

This would be good enough, but as far as I can tell the game puts it's ability with predictive modelling to good use and I have noticed at least twice where I forgot to hit the button, but the game handled it anyway. I think it was watching what part of the screen I was looking at, so I suspect that I don't need to hold the button down, I just need to keep eye contact on the view of Jim.

So with all of that being easy, you would think that the spell I did to let Young Jim Hawkins grow up would be simple right?

Nope!

When I said I sent out my power I was doing it in the same way that I do when I am setting up a fold to teleport. As I hit each Roc I was forced to flip through the different views until I found a way to lock onto it's thoughts, and then I had to leave my power locked in place, while I went and found another Roc. All the while I was being forced to deal with watching the lines that I was drawing get thinner and thinner, which meant that my power was getting spread thinner and thinner.

Once I had found the most Rocs that it seemed I could handle I linked back to Jim. Then I had to spend time flipping through attributes till I found his mind, and physical stature and linked them both to me. Finally I had to flip through each of the different links and set the ones to the other rocs to ingoing data, and the one to Young Jim Hawkins to outgoing.

Once that was done my screen was decided into two parts. On one I saw a weird film strip version of the lives of the Rocs that I had linked into, with each one having it's own line across the screen that was moving. On the bottom of the screen I had Jim's health and physical abilities that I was also forced to watch.

As the information flowed I was forced to edit the film strips as they flowed in real time. The interface was simple, all I had to do was touch and drag to select what should flow to Jim. The problem was that there were too many of them to easily keep up with, and at the same time I had to keep my attention on the bottom screen about Jim's physical status. I had to make sure that I kept the physical growth I was controlling with my left hand in line with the information that I was highlighting with my right hand.

It wasn't fast either. I think that over half an hour or so passed real time before I finished. This should also give you an idea as to how fast the film strips were moving, because each one seemed to cover between five and a hundred years. That said I stopped the last few before they were done, so I probably only went for about fifty years in that half hour. That is just over a year per minute. Think about that, and that I was trying to manage multiple screens.

I think it was luck as much as anything that I succeeded. When I was done I just collapsed back onto my bed sweating.

One final thing. I took a look and the spell I did was considered only beginner level, though advanced beginner level. I am afraid to see what intermediate would be like. Maybe It is a good thing I haven't found any information on fuzzy folds yet.

So I logged in and found Forest Trails sitting on my bed with a book. She put it down when she saw me and came over and gave me a hug. “You're finally back,” She said pulling back and giving me a look, “You didn't come back for a visit last night like you usually do.”

“Oh,” I said feeling embarrassed and a little guilty, “Were you waiting for me?”

“Yes,” she said as though it should have been obvious.

I hung my head, “I'm sorry.”

Her stern expression suddenly broke and she snickered, “Don't worry about it, the only reason that I came to see if you were here was because the meeting got out early. I didn't expect to see you but I like it here.” She trailed off and I couldn't hear the end of what she said.

“I beg you pardon?” I promoted, curious.

Forest Trails blushed, “I said it reminds me of you.”

I suspected that wasn't what she had really said, but decided ti wasn't worth causing problems about and pulled her back into a hug instead. “So your farther suggested that we have a talk,” I said, bringing the conversation around to what I had been thinking about over the day.

“Oh?” Forest Trails pulled back and looked curious.

I shrugged and sat down on the bed, “He said that we should talk about what we each expect out of a relationship. I think that he thought that some of the books that you read might have given you a few wrong impressions about visitors and how we view relations.”

Forest looked a little confused, but nodded, “Okay, so how do you view relationships?”

I suddenly felt put on the spot, but couldn't exactly find a way to get out of the conversation. I had been hoping that Trails would speak first so that I could see where she was coming from, but somehow I had outmanoeuvred myself, “Well... For me personally, I believe in marriage. I think that ponies that are dating each other shouldn't go out and date others. I also want children some day, some how.”

Forest Trails surprised, “When you say you don't think ponies in a relationship should date others, do you mean in Equestria or in general?”

I blinked confused, “Well in general of course. I just think it is a bad idea. It leads to jealousy and hurt feelings. Furthermore it causes problems in time spent, and for it to work it would require all three people to get along perfectly something that is so rare as to never happen.”

“Oh...” Forest said, obviously thinking, “I didn't expect that. In all the stories that I read visitors were at least partially in relationships with more than one pony (person).”

“Partially? How can you partially be in a relationship with more than one pony (person)?” I asked feeling confused.

“Well you're a visitor right?” Trails asked, and when I nodded she continued on, “So that means that you aren't actually the pony that I see. You don't feel what he feels, and so on. You are a step removed.” She suddenly looked hopeful, “Unless they were wrong on that?”

I shook my head feeling a bit depressed, “No. They were right.”

Forest Trails sighed and nodded, “So anyway, it means that while you can hug me, I can't hug you. Not really. I can show you how much I want to hug you, but you will never actually feel it. It isn't really the same.” I nodded and Trails continued, “So in the stories that I read Visitors often were in relationships with other visitors as well. Usually the ponies I read about ended up good friends with the visitor their visitor was dating and they could ask them to give their visitor hugs that their visitor could feel.”

I sat and thought about it for a while, “On one hand that makes a sort of sense. On the other hand I can also see jealousy causing problems. Most Visitors would not enjoy a person they were in a relationship with also going out with someone else no matter how removed they were.”

“That is where usually the writer got a lot of the conflict from,” Forest Trails admitted, “But it always ended up working out. I was actually wondering if you felt we weren't close enough for you to tell me about the Visitor you are also dating, but I guess that you don't have one do you?”

“Nope” I have a small laugh, “You're the only girl I'm seeing.”

“So you haven't had a single hug in the entire time we've been going out?” Forest asked looking a bit guilty.

“No” I answered, “but don't worry about it. Besides, I haven't had a marefriend (girlfriend) for over a year before I met you, so it isn't much of a change.”

Forest looked at me in horror, “We have to find you a girlfriend,” she said firmly.

I laughed and shook my head, “You're worrying about this too much.”

“You said you wanted children right?” Trails asked and I reluctantly nodded, “How would you feel only being able to see your foals for an hour each day? You need to find a Mare over there so that you can spend time with them, and have them hug you.”

I looked at Trails and collected my thoughts, “You're serious.”

“Completely,” She confirmed.

I looked out the window, “I'm going to have to think about this. I honestly can't see this working, but if you want to try...” I trailed off, then turned back to her, “Let me think it over for a day.”

Forest Trails nodded, “I can do that.” She pulled me into a hug, “But we really have to do something so that I can tell someone to give you one of these that you can feel.”

We pulled apart and I gave her the flower I had bought for her the day before. She thanked me for it and I gave here a kiss which made her blush. I think it might have even been the first kiss I had ever given her. I admit that not being able to kiss her and only watch Treasure Island kiss her was rather heart wrenching in an odd way.

We spent the rest of the time reading, though I had a hard time focusing being to distracted by our conversation. I agreed to meet up with Forest Trails after I typed this up, however I am don't think I will be able to get any studying done. My mind is racing to much. I might just relax and read some more.

I honestly was thrown for a loop with tonight’s session. I was prepared to argue about polyamory among ponies, and instead the conversation just went sideways on me. I'm honestly still sorting my feelings out. I might even have to check my bible, or talk with the minister at my church. I mean I don't think this was covered in my Sunday school lessons.

I'm also going to do a shout-out to Decoupled who wrote a really awesome article about how to hook up your Oculus Rift to your Pony Pad. You can find the article here.