5. I Need a Montage
Twilight Sparkle Makes a Coltfriend… Literally
I Need a Montage
Once dawn had broken and Nimbus had been removed from one of the Ponyville Bank’s larger safety deposit boxes (which Starlight Glimmer had reluctantly talked Silver Certificate into and paid for), Twilight and her rather odd date took off on an early morning set of practice dates, including breakfast at the cafe, a morning jog, collecting horticultural samples from the edge of the Everfree Forest, and flying practice.
And following right behind in various forms of disguise, were her friends. At least until late in the afternoon, when they all met at Twilight's castle for tea, and a little dutiful peeking through her telescope for any close-up observations.
“He’s doing a really good job with teaching her gliding,” said Rainbow Dash, standing on the balcony and holding a hoof over her eyes to block out the sun. “Nice technique. Good extension. Very little property damage.”
“That’s the problem,” said Starlight with a frustrated huff of air. “Even a Type Six golem shouldn’t have the ability to use a skill they haven’t been taught. You don’t glide like that, and Twilight’s never glided like that. So where did he pick it up?”
Pinkie Pie staggered forward, walking on her hind legs. “Maybe Twilight used her powers to call a pony back from the deaaaaaaad.”
“Naaa,” scoffed Rainbow Dash, “he doesn’t smell like something dead. And you should have seen him squeeze through the bars at the jail. There’s nothing in him but fluff, but he flies like a pro.”
Rarity rolled her eyes and took a sip of tea. “Fluff and enchantments, darling. He acts and reacts perfectly, quite unlike any other golem I’ve seen. Although I’ve never heard of a type six before.”
Starlight eyed the suddenly reluctant unicorn. “I would have thought that was covered in your magical education.”
“I may—” Rarity coughed gently into one hoof “—have been doodling dress designs in the margins of my notebook that day.”
“Hay, even I know what golems are,” said Rainbow with a thrust of her puffed-up chest. “Cloudsdale has a couple of type fours to send into really dangerous cloud formations, but all they can really do is fly around until the storm spits their pieces out, then the eggheads sift through the widgets they had inside to figure out what they hit. The weather bureau had a type five, but it kept running away from the big storms. Something about not wanting to be disassembled. Type sixes…” Rainbow Dash scratched her head. “You know, I’ve never heard of a type six.”
“That’s because its theoretical,” said Starlight.
“No, it’s not,” said Rainbow. “It’s Nimbus.”
“The type of golem is theoretical,” corrected Starlight with a short touch of her forehoof to her horn, much the same as when Twilight Sparkle tried to explain magical theory to Rainbow Dash. “Nopony’s ever been able to make one work before without them breaking down and trying to calculate pi to infinity or something. They’re supposed to be marginally self-aware and learn to the limits of their creation.”
“Beg pardon, darling.” Rarity raised a hoof as if she were being called on in class. “Nimbus is a perfect gentlecolt, and by that I mean he’s a gentlecolt. If I were to make a magical creation to simulate the opposite gender, I would inevitably use my own experiences to shape its reactions. Twilight…” Rarity sighed. “Has a rather distorted awareness of the male of our species.”
After a moment of thought, Starlight hesitantly put forth, “Twilight said she used books on etiquette and flying.”
Rainbow Dash scoffed. “You can’t teach somepony to fly like that from a book.”
“Or act properly,” added Rarity.
“Or cook!” said Pinkie Pie. “He knows all kinds of recipes that aren’t in any of my cookbooks.” She paused with a thoughtful expression that had the rest of her friends all take one step back, just in case. “Wait a minute. Maybe Twilight did manage to snag a ghost. He’s got his own sheet.”
“Please!” said Rarity. “That’s not a sheet. It’s some of my best fabric. Or maybe second-best if you count the coloration,” she admitted.
“It’s not the color that done bothers me about him,” said Applejack. “It’s the consistency. Ah mean he said Twilight used some sort of spell to put together all of his reactions and skills into one personality, like he was some average of all the ponies in the area, but he ain’t average in everything. He’s smart on some stuff and dumb on others, like he was real.” She rubbed her lips with the back of her foreleg and scowled. “Too real. Are you sure there ain’t no dark magic on him?”
Starlight Glimmer shook her head again. “No, nothing like that on him that I could tell. There’s a lot of spells in there, though. Maybe they combine to hide something.”
Spike finished refilling all of their teacups before raising one clawed finger. “She wrote down all the spells she used on all of the forms we had to file, in triplicate. We have copies in the library. You could go through them and find out what she did.”
“That’s a great idea, Spike.” Starlight nudged Trixie. “Come on, let’s go by the kitchen to grab a snack, then go take a look at those forms.”
“What?” Trixie stumbled while being hustled along, only to have Rarity move smoothly up on her other side to assist in the propulsion of the reluctant researcher.
“It’s what a friend would do,” said Rarity. “Besides, maybe we’ll find a spell for you to practice.”
“Other than the teacup spell,” offered Spike. “We’ve got more teacups than I know what to do with.”
“You can never have too many teacups, darling. You never know when somepony drops by for tea, like today.” Rarity refilled the tea kettle, then opened up the kitchen cabinet and was promptly buried in teacups.
- - Ω - -
It was late in the evening by the time the research session bore fruit, which was not quite the revelation they had hoped for. Paper was scattered across the library table, connected by pieces of string, colorful sticky notes, and at least one streamer where Pinkie Pie had attempted to assist.
“I think we’ve got it,” said Starlight Glimmer, scratching away on a last page of notes. “The spell takes Twilight’s memories, and the books she used, and fills in the holes with ephemeral phased skill motes.”
“What?” Trixie looked up from where she had been closely examining a section of the notes with her cheek. “Run that by me again, Starlight?”
“This part, I think, borrows skills the golem needs from anypony nearby. I think.” Starlight squinted at several paragraphs of magical notation. “She mixed it in with so many other spells, I can’t be sure.”
Spike checked his own notes. “So, if the golem needs to bake a cake, it can steal the cake baking skill from Pinkie Pie—”
“Borrow, and only for a brief time, and only if the subject is not using the skill.” Starlight looked at her notes again, then turned them upside down. “I think.”
“You think?” Trixie stood up with a flourish of one hoof. “That creation of Sparkle’s is currently who knows where, lurking in the darkness until it can destroy all of Equestria, and all you can say is you think?”
“They’re up on the castle balcony, waiting for Luna to raise the moon so they can watch stars,” said Spike. “Drinking cocoa. Well, she’s drinking cocoa. He’s sitting there with an empty mug and a clipboard. Like I used to do,” added the dragon in a much quieter voice.
Starlight started to reply to Spike, then took a deep breath. “Let’s deal with the issue. The combination of this many spells could lead to dangerous interactions. Theory can be so much different than practice when mixing spells.”
Rarity cleared her throat. “Whatever you want, Starlight Glimmer,” she said in a flat monotone.
“Um… Yeah.” Starlight rubbed the back of her neck. “Exactly.”
“So we’re right back where we started, and that’s progress?” Applejack dropped her chin down on the table, disturbing a small flurry of colored sticky notes. “You got a funny way of describing stuck.”
“We know the spell is acting odd, and we’ve eliminated a great number of possibilities why.” Starlight Glimmer floated the checklist out of Spike’s grip. “It’s not the library books she used, or the memory imaging, or any one of a dozen other things. It’s this… ‘knot’ here where all the high-order spells interact to bring in his skills and reactions.”
“An evil knot?” asked Trixie, who perked up at the sound of her specialty. “We could just untie it.”
“Not without breaking Nimbus.” Starlight scowled at the several pages of cramped hornwriting. “And if he’s not evil, there’s no way we could ever get this put back together in exactly the same way once it unwound. Anyway, all we have left is to look over the high-order interactions of all of the spells in his creation to see if there’s anything… evil that could result. I wish I had a top-level magical theorist to work this out with, other than Twilight. She already thinks we’re over-reacting.”
“Magical theory egghead, got it!” said Rainbow Dash. “I’ll be right back with Sunburst!” There was a gust of wind that stirred all of their notes around, and Rainbow Dash was out the door and headed north.
“Wait!” said Starlight a few moments too late. “Oh, fudge. Well, I hope Sunburst understands. I’ll just have to apologize once he gets here. Until then, can anybody think of another magical theoretician who might be willing to work on this?”
“A pony skilled in magic theory,” mused Spike. “I think I may have a solution.” He darted out of the library, only to return shortly with a thick book tucked under his arm.
“Starlight Glimmer,” he said with a flourish, placing the book down on the table, “I’d like you to meet Sunset Shimmer, one of Princess Celestia’s former students.”
Trixie looked down at the book with a wide-eyed expression of growing fear. “I didn’t do it!”
Starlight ignored her and opened up the book. “Oh, yeah. I’ve heard of these. It’s one of a set of magical journals.”
Spike nodded and added, “Sunset Shimmer has one too. Whatever you write in one, shows up in the other one.”
“Oh,” said Trixie. “Trixie knew that. She was just testing you.”
Starlight shook her head. “Let’s get to work.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.028 seconds
Total duration
831 users online
606,588 hits today, 2,004,447 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
This is actually the shortest chapter. I had considered bringing in part of the last chapter here, but it didn't 'break' right.
Rarity is not one to bury a grudge. She plants it, waters it, and gives it lots of care so it can grow up into a beautiful rosebush. Which she can then push the grudge-ee into.
8597584
God, I LOVE that old movie! I heard they were wanting to reboot it, but the ideas they had for it sounded terrible!
I love this part. Took me a moment to get it.
Just imagine setting up a retirement home next to a vocational school staffed with an army of Twilight's Type 6 golems. Think of the possibilities!
Things are really shaping up pretty badly his they thing they need the help of Starlight Glimmer, Sunset Shimmer and Sunburst to work together for find out what Nimbus is made of, other then fluff and fabric. I wonder if seeing Sunset and Sunburst interacting together might spark some jealousy from Starlight. So nimbus is a theoretical golem that they have no clue were all his random skill knowledge could come from. So when is the sex tag is going to count for something in this story other then the innuendos?
8597627 Just innuendo. I've gotten so used to letting my sense of humor out to play on paper that it's very difficult to write something large that is G rated without the Teen flag. There's The Lazy Dragon of Dragonvale, of course, and Flurry Heart's First Kiss. Both Drifting Down the Lazy River and The One Who Got Away. Really, the objective is NOT to have small children ask their parents about what certain things in my stories mean.
8597598 The recharging would cost a mint, at least. Unless the new golems got a plug, unlike poor Nimbus. (see what I mean?)
8597596 There *was* a Short Circuit 2. It was not bad, per se, but the original was bottled lightning, and the probability of catching that bolt again without crashing and burning is nil. Besides, Hollywood would try to make it a quarter-billion dollar movie with aliens and dolphins, then wail like spoiled children when it only made a hundred mil or so back. Seriously, people. Budget discipline. A director can make a dozen thirty million dollar movies that average a hundred mil in tickets and be ignored, but if one makes a two hundred million dollar movie that grosses slightly over two hundred mil and loses money like crazy, they're a genius who deserves to destroy another film budget and burn cash like firewood. "See! Look at all the money his movies make! Give him whatever he wants! Action figures! Oscars!"
A pity Ben caused a brohaha for being played by a white guy in brownface. I went to tech school with actual Indian techies and they thought he was hilarious.
https://news.avclub.com/read-this-aziz-ansari-talks-to-fisher-stevens-short-c-1798286302
I'm sad they pull in Sunburst and Sunset, but no Moondancer. That poor mare always gets left out.
Ah, emergent properties. Hadn't taken them into account, though I don't envy anypony who has to dig through Twilight's code. Somehow, I doubt that she's written a lot of clear documentation. (Documentation, yes, but is it clear?)
I just hope this is all much ado about nothing. Or better yet, something positive.
I wonder if Sunset will remark on that the other Twilight has recently accidentally set Timber on fire.
Poor Sunburst.
With that introduction I can understand why Trixie was so horrified. You never quite know if you're about to find out that Twilight defeated the former student of Celestia in combat and imprisoned her as a book.
8597657
Adds 'code commented by Twilight Sparkle' to his list of horrors he'd like to see.
8597751 You'd either get undocumented spaghetti code with notes like "Why won't this WORK?" and "It was so simple after the fifth cup of coffee!"...
... or you'd get comment lines than run to paragraph length.
8597748
Hm... I do believe that might be a writing prompt.
8597766 8597748 "Do you mean..." Twilight Sparkle could not speak any more, and just looked around at Princess Celestia's private library. Her huge private library.
"Every one of them," said Celestia. "Defeated in combat, or through a battle of wills, or one of many other methods. Their stories are their lives, and every one of them you've read have taught you important lessons to pass your own tests. I'm so proud of you, Twilight."
"Proud?" Twilight tore her eyes away from the living books and looked into the deep eyes of her mentor. "Because I found out about them?"
"No, of course not." Princess Celestia shook her head ever so slightly. "I'm proud because every test you've faced, every trial you've endured, you've never failed. Otherwise..." Those ancient pale eyes shifted, and Twilight Sparkle was unable to keep from following her gaze to a gap in the library shelves. A wide gap, colored the same lilac color as her own coat and awaiting the book which someday would reside on the shelves along with so many of its own kind.
"Do keep succeeding, Twilight," said Celestia in a very soothing tone as she nuzzled the ears of her former student. "I so enjoy the way you are now."
I don't get the joke
idea: there are 7 ponies in limbo, if this happens before the season 7 finale. they have a massive collection of skills they cant use while in limbo. does this spell 'borrow' from limbo at all? that golem is most powerful when ponies are sleeping.
now, if he already has a library, can he copy and store borrowed skills? if he can, then the BIG problem here is that you have what looks like an always-on input to the program which is not properly sanitized. a security hole that can add new parameters to his program if your careless...
8597819
If you are being serious (not trying to be rude) I believe Trixie thinks she might get blamed for turning Sunset into a book.
8597836
Yeah, I can see this going wrong in SO many ways
There's probably adult books in that library. "Cutie Mark Crusader Camel Sutra Demonstrators! Yeah!"
There's probably Dark Magic books in that library.
Star Squirrel's journal (from Magical Mystery Cure) is around somewhere
They're not far from that abandoned castle in the Everfree & it's canon that there are dangerous books in there.
8597819
The only thing less funny than a joke that has to be explained is a joke that can't be explained, but I'll try.
In a previous chapter, Trixie has a spell that turns things into teacups & offers to turn Nimbus into a teacup at night, for storage. (Presumably, this is where all the teacups came from). Trixie thought that Starlight meant that the notebook was actually Sunset & feared that she might be blamed for turning Sunset into a book.
I love how Celestia and Luna just cared that the paperwork was done but otherwise were fine with all of this, yet Starlight is determined to find the flaw in Twilight’s spellwork. I’m reminded of “Twilight Sparkle lays an Egg”... sometimes you just have to be like Spike in that story an accept that the rules of magic and reality are, at best, suggestions where Twilight is concerned.
8597641
I know about the sequel (I am 33 years old lol), just didn’t care for it too much as the original.
And yes, budgeting is something studios need to think about. Sometimes you luck out like with 1984’s Ghostbusters (which cost $30mil plus unknown but not big marketing, HUGE for a comedy budget back then, but making over $230mil in its theatrical run)... then other times you end up like 2016’s Ghostbusters ($140mil plus another $100mil marketing, only to make less than $230mil).
8597842
yes I was serious thank you for the explanation
Is that a "Short Circuit" reference?
8597816
This entire concept is amazing, and I think you need to write an entire story based around it now
It'd certainly put Twilight's neurosis about pleasing Celestia in a new light
8597654
I also can't believe that they forgot about Moondancer. Again.
In this chapter, Rarity learns that one can have too many teacups, and Starlight Glimmer is reminded that Rarity's element of Harmony is Generosity, and not Kindness.
8597654 8597989
Was Moondancer ever identified as a magic expert? She liked to read as much as Twilight, about just about anything, but there wasn’t anything about her being a magic prodigy or devoting herself to it like Sunburst or anything that I can recall.
Forgot to close the quote.
8598058 *That's* where that stupid missing double quote went. I spotted that in an editing pass about three days ago, and it's hidden from me ever since. I knew it was in there somewhere. Thanks.
8598009 If they ever need a specialist in generalism, she's the one.
8597990 She can be pretty generous with things you don't want her to be generous with.
8597983 Must study harder. Don't want to be a book.
8597977 Yep.
8597931 I get so used to all these children running around.
8597891 Hey, a crater is a crater you can pawn off on somepony else, but missed paperwork involves lots of hours wasted.
8597860 I laughed all day when that episode aired. Teacup!
8597850 "You'll be so proud of me, Princess Celestia. I made a book golem out of all the books in the library." Twilight skidded to a halt and stared at her creation. "Including the erotic fiction section, I think. Is that a riding crop?"
"Never mind," said Celestia, sweeping Twilight out of the room and locking the door behind her. "I'll handle this."
8598009
Fair enough. I got so used to considering her a Twilight expy that forgot that it wasn't canon.
8597983
too bad twilight never learned how to preform the Zetta beam, it would come in handy if she ever got turned into a book :p
8597657 8597765
<sarcasm>Documentation? Documentation is for those who don’t need job security. And don’t get me started on wimps that use descriptive variable names and inline comments! Kids today, with their 128-bit double-precision integers and visual programming tools and APIs and precompiled subroutine libraries… In my day, we wrote code in binary, had patch cables to enter it with, and used insulated fly swatters to debug it—and we liked it that way!</sarcasm>
8597931
I wasn't a fan of the GB reboot because it had 'remake with women leads because WOMEN LEADS!' all over it. No amount of money they could blow on the budget could hide the stupidly obvious motivation. There's a time and a place for pulling the whole 'cats rule, dogs drool' behavior, and trying to force it by remaking a classic was not that time, nor the place.
It couldn't be more obvious either. The entire main cast is inverted. The GBs are now ALL women, and their secretary/phone answering girl is now a bumbling, buff nice guy. If they had played it as a mixed group, or 'daughters of the original GBs' or really done ANYTHING to make it feel more like they wanted to tell a story, they could have gotten away with it. But they went all in, with a cast selection that was more 'make it all women because we want to show women in a power role, and toss in a token black women because equal opportunity casting on a main roll with a minority will win us points.'
Were they casting a movie or buffering the EO statistics for college entrance rosters?
I'm all FOR women in power roles, but when you're trying to make a POINT of it in a story, you taint the writing with undertones with 'See?! We can do this too! See? SEe?! SE?EE>E!!!ONE?'. When you do it RIGHT, you shouldn't NOTICE the women are in the power role. You should enjoy the story and realize the point as fridge logic or in conversation a week later.
Honestly, MLP does more for women in power roles than the GBRB ever could. And honestly, I could go into quite an extended rant about the behavior of the industry for a while with the EO casting frenzy. But I won't as that would digress too far from this topic fracture. Short version is, cast what fits the character, not what fits people's social messages, and let the story address it if its relevant.
Coming back around to sequels like Short Circuit 2, its definitely hit and miss when it comes to them. You have to be careful about whether the movie is going to be riding momentum from the previous one, or if your writing is going to stand on its own. Recalling SC and SC2, it seemed like the movie was poised to ride momentum but effectively retold the same story. Once as the Origin Story, and then with the 'diversity-adversity' story. In this case, SC2 was mediocre, which is the worst place to end up in stories.
And having recently rewatched Short Circuit, I never realized just how corny the writing really was. The cast were charicatures rather than characters. You have the struggling tech expert who gets the girl after he proves he's not a heartless monster; the robotics guy from india who's so fixated on getting girls that you can't go a scene without him mentioning it; the abusive ex boyfriend who's so transparent that he introduces MORE light into a pitch black room; the ABSURDLY aggressive paramilitary head of security who should be in prison for public endangerment among a plethora of other charges that real military and law enforcement officials would be facepalming in barely contained rage; and the lead girl who's dialogue and acting is so wooden I could get splinters from it.
If you pull Number Five from the primary role and distraction slot, the movie's a writing and acting WRECK. And for SC2, the endearment you get from the first movie wears off and mediocreness rears its ugly head. It just... goes nowhere and can't decide if it wanted to be J5: Slice of Life, or a drama.
All things considered, a modern reboot could bring #5 back if its done right. But the producers would have to consider that it's nearly forty years later, and robots and AI aren't the novelty they used to be. Write to account for that, but don't try to reinvent the wheel (a mistake a lot of reboots keep doing). Get better actors, an antagonist that doesn't act like a parody of an 80s cartoon villain... Less cringe worthy jokes from the supporting cast between the 'funny-cute' jokes from #5.
I mean, right now, you could do it. We're right at that point where our tech is ushering in fully autonomous combat drones, battlefield lasers, all kinds of things. Just don't pull a 'Stealth'. Stealth made the mistake of needlessly forcing conflict in an unrealistic manner. And while it was an amazing spectacle of a movie, you HAVE to shut your brain off for the braindead writing on the plot.
8598524
Goddammit, Sig. It even has the right voice.
8597584
8597596
8597641
Fun fact: when I saw that film on tape in the late-mid 90's as a wee sprog, that intro was what sowed the seeds that led to my current job as a technician.
8597816
Meant to riff on this before the next update, but better late than never:
Alicorns operate on a greater scale than other ponies. Their love burns more brightly, their appetites demand more strongly, and their despair cries out more desperately. For two weeks since Twilight Sparkle's untimely librization, Celestia had confined herself to her chambers. Luna had had to move the sun for the first week; seeing it rise without her input had been the first sign of improvement, but there had been none since.
"Any sign from within?" Luna asked the guards arrayed at her sister's door.
One shook his head. "No, Your Highness."
Luna sighed. "Not that we can easily discern them. The royal apartments are expansive. Still, fusion can only sustain her so long before she longs for something more material. In time, she will recover."
"Ahem." Luna's ears flattened. Hooves on marble didn't offer much in the way of distinguishing ponies, but that throat clearing was unmistakable. "In the interim, Your Highness," Kibitz said from behind her, "you have much to do. The ship of state needs a captain."
"Aye," Luna muttered, "one with a mustachioed parrot squawking in her ear." She huffed out a breath and turned to him—
Only to get bowled over by a charging Celestia. Luna had a brief glimpse of a bizarrely mussed mane of plasma, swanlike wings in desperate need of preening, before she took in the even more shocking sight of Kibitz focused on something other than a direly unkempt alicorn. Then she noticed her own shadow before her, surrounded by fuchsia light. A light of an impossible, unmistakable hue...
Luna turned and beheld a tremendous, glowing, equinoid pile of books. A hardcover hoof pawed at the floor uncertainly. "Sorry, Princess," said... something. There was certainly jaw movement, but not sound as anypony recognized it. "I would've said something about the contingency spell if there had been time."
You know, I like this portrayal of Rainbow: Knows she's not as smart as some of her friends, but savvy enough to take initiatives and get things done, if somewhat impulsive.
And yet you needed Nimbus to explain to you that he was a magical construct
You're making RD a tad too dumb here, Georg
Also, that is the daddest of dad jokes
But with such a diverse skill set... maybe he's a collection of ghosts!
Hmmmmmm. Good point.
Yes, I was wondering...
Perfect comedic timing
Um. We already knew that, though... Nimbus knew about that mechanism himself. They could just have asked.
He's going to be an icicle when he returns, isn't he? Blasting through the icy north at Rainbow Dash speeds being carried through the air
Remarks and corrections:
> “That’s because its theoretical,” said Starlight.
Looks like I can still catch its/it's errors in your writings
That reference joke is so bad, it could have been written by me.
8597570
I love this Rarity and grudges idea.
Johnny five, is alive!
Join
8599765
I really want to read this story now...