Pinkie has a bad Hairdra day and winds up peeking further beyond the Vale than she’d have liked.
But, more certain than death and praxis, she’ll make sure everypony else has fun again.
Written for the October 2016 Writeoff, where it won first place.
Note: This story is written in the style of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, a classic work of English literature that is notorious for being hard to read. While this story is not as cementically dense as FW, it is still full of wordplay, literary references, portmanteau words and puns and will be a challenge for many readers. If this isn’t your sort of thing, try one of my other stories. If you’re game, dig in! It can help to read the story aloud.
Image background by Chaz1029, foreground by Mahaugher, with edits to both by GGA.
Thanks to Morning Sun, FanOfMostEverything, Quill Scratch, Baal Bunny, and Not_A_Hat for criticism, suggestions and corrections.
Herewith my author’s comment. This is yet another one of my stories that won’t be for everyone; yet for those whom it is for, here it is. The right people will get it, as usual.
I am immensely pleased to have won a Writeoff with this story, and my heartfelt thanks go to all involved who awarded it that distinction and gave it praise and critiques. The Writeoff version (read: first draft) and its commentary may be found here.
The story is complete, but I am preparing an annotated version that I should be able to post by week’s end.
ETA: Annotations are complete.
First I upvoted it.
Then I ran away screaming.
Then I questioned the order of my actions.
Ooh, good, the bit about the ice cream made it in. Yay!
This story is fabulous, and not too hard to parse if you just kind of skim rather than sink into the Abyss of language.
that's the face I'm making as I upvote this.
also, thank you for using the word "bellyboobs" in a story. that was a good narrative decision.
Yeah, you're definitely next on the reading docket. A few bits of wordplay won't make the transition, but it's a small price to pay.
In any case, just as wonderful here as it was in the Writeoff, if not more so. Thank you immensely.
An excellent re-enactment of Joyce's writing style. It was just as unreadable.
7670935
For what it's worth, I disagree. I've tried to read Joyce and faceplanted hard. When darf wrote the Joyce-like Alectrona, it was nearly as impenetrable as its source, though I caught some fraction of the wordplay, enough to recognize its ambition. When Doseux submitted Lunnas Ache to the Writeoffs, the language was so gloriously impenetrable that we literally tried to put together a reader annotation in a google doc just to understand the plot. (He submitted it to FIMFic and the moderators failed it.) This, on the other hand, I made it through in a single pass, understanding both the plot and the vast majority of portmanteaus.
You have to reboot your brain to read this — realizing that the language is written at about 1.5x normal density. But once you start picking apart words like "comfortuitous" = comfort + fortuitous — and once you realize that even if you don't know what "avenindues" are that you can read "updown the avenindues" as how Pinkie is moving, hopping (up and down) the streets (avenues) — it falls into a surprisingly comfortable patter relative to the insane density of Joyce.
Plus, "pronk-a-pie" is just the best pet name ever if you know what pronk means. (Do yourself a favor and look it up if you don't!)
7671443
You're right, it's really not nearly that bad. I just always wanted to do a Joyce diss and couldn't really resist the opportunity. I'm gonna have so much literati street cred!
I still didn't really like it for the same reason I couldn't make it through Finnegan's Wake, but since that's the intended style, it's really equal parts genuine compliment.
I actually used to think that was just a bronyism, until I looked it up and learned it's a real word. And people say you don't learn anything from fanfiction.
Oh yeah, Pinkie pie's internal narration is a James Joyce novel. That head cannon is accepted and makes so much sense.
Ow, my eyeballs hurt...
And my brain...
And my left shoulder for some reason?
I'm morbidly curious... Why would you want to make a story that incredibly difficult to understand?
7673903
Why should anyone ever want to exercise their skills as fully as they can?
7670490
It's good that you didn't try to do both at the same time. Upvotes are sharp and pointy.
7670607
Thank you for the suggestion!
7670821
Thank you for the compliment!
7670916
7670933
Shall I send you a suggested pronunciation guide? (Perhaps I shouldn’t. That might be tantamount to doing my own reading.)
Thank you in equal measure!
7671443
Thank you for your cogent defense. I'm glad my story isn't too dense. Readers may shun obfuscation, even when it makes sense.
7671455
Thank you for your back handed praise! Dissing Joyce is one of the ways that folks retain some face when pain is caused by semantic haze.
7672528
Thank you as well. (Is We Three Kings running through your head for some reason?)
7672824
Annaljeezics and backscrubs are subministered wayhind the museyroom.
(I deleted and reposted some comments to avoid a Fimfiction comments bug.)
7674219
If it hurt your feelings, I'm deeply sorry. See you again for your next story!
7674287
I took no offense. No apologies needed. I hope I didn’t seem conceited.
7674316
It was the nicest thing that would fit the rhyme. As poetry goes, I'm figuratively slime.
The annotations did help me get through the story, though there was still a good deal of "I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I'm just going to plow through it anyway." I suppose that makes it a bit like everything I had to try to read back when I was in Spanish classes.
Still, I did enjoy the parts I understood. Particularly the parts about the underworld, because I love Greek mythology so I understood most of that weirdness, and the ending, because I like that other Finnegan's Wake.
Most of all, I admire your ability to put something like this together.
That was amazing, and also amazingly dense. I'm really only left with one major question: where the hell did Pinkie pull the cupcakes from for the ferrymare?
7675648
Thanks for having a go, and thank you for your kind words!
7680081
Thank you!
Pinkie says she’s been down this way before, and implies that she’s done a bit of smoothing (schmoozing) of the way in case she has to come back. It may be the case that she’s established a cache, or that while she may not have full access to her Pie-Space while in spirit form, she can still pull small items through.
This is the best part. :D
Fucking brilliant, I love this. :D
7906434
It’s a good pun. It wordplays well in Peoria.
7906442
Thank you! I’m very pleased that you Got It.
Quite deucedly splendiferoneous.
Somewhat rambly review here, but in brief: I enjoyed this a good deal more than its inspiration!
7933664
Thank you for the compliment!
7954434
Thank you for the review! I’m glad you liked it.
8473171
Hurrah! I will keep my claws crossed that the moderators look more favorably upon a revision. Any dumbing down of it will subtract from what makes it special, but better to have it published diminished than not at all.
I just encountered this story, and it's bloody brilliant. I loved the musicality of the language, and the complex imagery.
If you don't object, I'd like to add this to my group, Pony Modernists.
9618771
I’m very glad you liked it.
No objections. :)
*reading this story again...*
Had to read this out loud. Again. It's not for me. I'm not the target audience.
The first thing I thought when reading this was that it reminds me of the swamp-speak in Pogo. Apparently that's not what this was trying to emulate, but it's still good!
11148976
Walt Kelly is a favored author of mine, thanks for the comparison and praise!
So Pinkie is Irish! 'Tis a wonder I neer kenned it afore.
I'm afraid I like the simple bits I can understand. I think I will read the appendix, but not tonight, which is almost tomorrow.
comfortuitous equanity
the Ponyflow
I am vectorious with infectious glee
distantdone
A tope of the marening to ye.
the shortest possileap parting the momuments that your eyes are too befunneled to see, but I a Pie can. I just try to sillip my way slithely into the justelly presized point between, and place a Pie right there. With so much space where I amn’t, how hard can it be?
a doosiance disburbles my equulubrium
the skirthems of town
A call to alarums, harum skarums and dispersions!
the collossalest Rainbowitzer powered with all the kilophilos my chums and I can muster
not that we are tasty meatmorsels for rumbly monstummies, but that we have pointyshockyflappyhoofy bits that sting!
Twi’s harn, redaglow, seizes serpenecks and winds full windsors
carpe uvula!
smellybelly
the askelerated remainders
my impending ending by blending, my imminent dispinkering
So ghost I,
stummy
Illusian Fields
take me for pomegranted
madventures
tightropely-plotted
ponsonage
splashing of cannolishot
sensing the layout of where I am laid out
every last harse from teenyfoaly to cronepone
all spalling out from S. Cube Coroner into the streets
(I especially like "spalling out" because it isn't Jamespeak, it's a perfect, perfectly ordinary adjective that nobody ever thought to use that way before)
wailping
happme and sadme
withers to cry on
I hope my poor bloody body buddy emerged from the less holesome end
berrychilliyum
my surprising arising
–My love to you all, and did you think I was dead?
This is wonderful, and I would be sorry I didn't find it until now if that didn't also mean I got to find it now!
I agree with 7671443, which is always a good idea. This isn't as difficult to read as FW, and I like it better because of that. Most of your languificating was lost on me, but it never stoppified me.
Mellifluous and moving. Chortling while chewing over the scenery and background slipped-in literary susurrations, I enjoyed your auspicious aural apparitions. A bevy of brilliance betwixt this pony bit--bravissimo!
11333362
11333367
A bellated ripply to such kindsome cometary. I misstive been distruckted, the cake was sadly in the wash. Thanks for your inperception!
11461644
I'm most greatified to ear your whirreds. When one's letterchore seems efameral, the ayes of new raydars bring re-leaf and renu'ed huptimism. Many thanks!
This is how I see Pinkie's mind