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Plants are easy to understand. Humans, not so much. They're complicated, and they barely seem to show emotions. They can't even move their ears! Add to that all the hustle and bustle of college life, and Butterscotch is having a bad time.
At least he's got Francine, who showed him the River Trail: a trail through the woods that's away from people.
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I kinda think this is how Fluttershy would react to being on Earth. I do wonder what they are looking for when sending over the students as they all have some interesting points of view.
that they
I'm pretty sure it's not his name...
I take it she did not learn the "Put your bra on and off without taking off you shirt" trick.
So is it torture or is it not?
So this was the long coveted sequel to Silver Glow's journal I take it? Or something like that anyway.
Funny, although I was disapointed that Butterscotch did not have a cool mister Salvatore to help him. Nor Silver's letter to give him courage.
Good thing he have Francine though. Neat little story, once more
I'd say them's fightin words but it's true...
8991826
Well, he is good with plants, so that's something in his favor. And he might have thought he'd do better than he actually is doing; that's always a problem with visiting some place that you really don't know about. The reality of the situation vs. the actuality of it.
8991839
All corrections made, thank you!
She does know it, but still would prefer he's (or anyone else) isn't staring at her while she does it.
I fixed that, too.
No, not at all the long-coveted sequel. It's for a contest, and I was working on a bunch of other projects so I picked something close that I could easily research where needed.
I feel like he'd be a skittish enough pony that a letter from Silver Glow (or anypony else, for that matter) wouldn't help him overly much. He probably does have helpers, but that would depend on how much further in the future this story's set.
8991875
It totally is.
Did I just see that WORD in the short description?
Don't ever mention that M word!
Put in my Read Later category. Got a lot to do before I get to it. lol
Heh, well this was fun. So, my random thoughts:
Poor Butterscotch having trouble on an alien world isn't entirely unexpected, but some people handle alien environments better than others. He seems rather prone to panic, which isn't the best survival trait, ever. Except maybe when you really are being chased by monsters.
Maybe this is just meant to be stupid oversight on the part of humans, but in this subject (food) it doesn't seem like they did much to account for what ponies actually like to eat. I guess that's dorm food, for you?
Yeah he's definitely male.
I don't know if you intended where my thoughts immediately (and unfortunately) went with that, but... Sorry!
Before anyone comments on what a wuss Butterscotch is, remember Equestria is full of actual monsters.
Butterscotch reminds me of a anti-silver glow. Good story!
Not everyone can easily adapt as Silver Glow, but he does have friends who are there for him. And while you never said if this was in the same world as her story, I'm going to assume it is until told otherwise.
Butterscotch is very skiddish , I mean train spooked? water wary? herd flight response ? not guard material for sure.
maybe he needs some more ground training ?
https://youtu.be/tdTpx0ABldM
8991953
He is a stallion , he needs to act like one.
Before I read this; how many instances of drunk students walking into traffic, almost getting hit by a car, and then getting upset at the cars for driving in the road are there?
Interesting to see that not all exchange ponies adapt to human culture quite as well as Silver did.
And you got the 'bra as blinkers' thing you'd mentioned before in there.
Hey, what about Capper? He has to be two or three times the mass of a pony and he can talk.
I suspect that Butterscotch comes from a rather wilder part of Equestria, he does seem to be expecting monsters all the time. Ponyville has them occasionally but he seems more paranoid than that.
Silly pony, you're not going to outrun a bunch of humans over long distance without water.
After reading: this was cute.
8992132
Stallions are skittish
8992291
Then take his balls! my RL gelding never acts like this.
Mildly surprised he didn't note the significant difference in smell between a coal train and a diesel one.
8992338
Animals can have different personalities and traits from one another, you know.
Poor sod, lets throw them in the deep end of complex civilisation instead of a rural establishment?
Could be worse, could be next to Santa Fe drag strip or he tried to use the Athletics field? Something about humans accelerate an awful lot faster because they have fewer limbs to synchroniise to get moving?
Now Im thinking of someone seeing the Sweetybelle front crawl, then at a training wheel, then experimenting with a cross between quadrpedal, tricycle and bipedal locomotion to see if they can get the fastest of each?
One local train left the tracks many years ago, but thats because the brakes failed coming down the 1 in 35 grade section just before the station. Fortunately it came off the bridge over the road and houses and didnt hit anyone or rupture.
Im not helping him feel any better about trains am I, and theres me thinking about trains, water and high speed trough scoop refilling.
Anyone tried the joke about bench pressing is how long you can sit there without moving?
8991953
And yet in the USSR we were not wusses despite being hounded by the NKVD (who would shoot and arrest anyone) 24/7
A marathon fun-run triggering a herd flight response? Poor guy. He’s going to feel that in the morning...
I’m just imagining his letter to the next exchange student... If you are having a panic attack, having a female friend put her bra over your eyes really helps. Although the frilly lace ones aren’t quite so good, I don’t know why Francine switched to wearing those. I also don’t know why she tried waving her panties under my nose that one time. I never did work up the courage to ask her. Humans have so many weird rules about clothes, it was probably something nopony would ever understand.
8991895
Move?
When will a pony go to Hell?
Hell Michigan
I know a guy that every time a person says go to hell in a movie he says he has been there and they have good ice cream.
Huh. A story not only acknowledging the Lansing area exists, but actually setting a story in it? Interesting.
I do think the setting and visuals are probably one of the stronger parts of this story. You build a sort of slow overwhelming for Butterscotch, instead of the immediate culture shock a lot of pony-on-Earth stories provide. It provides a feeling of much slower buildup, and thus allows for a lot more relatable story for most people. Very few of us have ever had a situation that was completely different than what we're used to, and so we just start to slowly descend into those problems. And setting it at State does provide some interesting contrasts because of how much of the campus is nature: he feels comfortable with it once he goes on the River Trail, but at the same time seems almost homesick once he's out on the ag campus and just reminded of everything he misses from home. It's also detailed quite well, allowing for a good picture but at the same time not just going completely overboard.
Ultimately, though, I don't think it really worked out super well in terms of the plot. It doesn't seem to have a ton of direction, and has a lot of different scenes that just try and pack a lot into a single story. I think it definitely was a lot stronger near the start, but after that, what was there didn't seem to be adding a whole lot. It just felt like a lot of repetition of the ideas presented near the start, and I think this story could've been about half this length and still maybe just as impactful. Not bad, but nothing that really went above and beyond for me.
Also, no mention of Beaumont Tower? Blasphemy!
8992536
Should've known the Canadian wouldn't get it.
Did you make that vector yourself?
8991895
Michigan Agricultural College, aka Moo U, aka MSU?
Honestly, for agriculture or animal husbandry or veterinary medicine, it's certainly a better choice than U of M. Otherwise . . . Go Blue!
8991939
When you're a prey animal, a good flight response is important to living into adulthood.
I mean, he could get alfalfa if he really wanted to. I'm sure that especially at MSU, they would give him bales of it if he asked.
Equine communication 101: if other showy behaviors don't get the point across, kicking and biting does.
Maybe I should re-word that a little bit. Obviously, I meant that the trail goes through a wet and swampy area.
8991953
Which of course makes 'run away!' be a very good plan in many cases. We even know from canon that the Ponyvillians run away in panic a lot (and who can blame them, honestly?).
8991966
Thanks, glad you liked it!
Butterscotch kind of is an anti-Silver Glow.
8992009
Exactly! Francine will help him out whenever she can. Heck, she showed up at the finish line once she figured that she'd never catch him any other way.
In the purest sense, it's not; having said that, it uses all the same worldbuilding, and could very much be in the future of that universe.
8992127
In his defense, human trains are huge compared to pony trains, he's not afraid of the water, just knows that he's not a good swimmer and can't get away from monsters that way, and when you live in a place where literal monsters actually attack sometimes, having a good flight response is not a bad thing. But yeah, he's not guard material.
Chapter two, where Francine lunges him in a round pen.
8992275
As you've seen, none.
8992288
Realistically, not all of them would. There are probably humans that find out they can't deal with Equestria, too.
I did! It was one of the things I'd wanted to do for a long time and finally found the right story for it.
Yeah, that's a good point. Butterscotch means large wild cats, like lions and tigers and such.
Yeah, he might, or he might be the stallion equivalent of the Flower Trio, except instead of fainting, he runs.
In truth, he's only got to stay ahead of them until the monster's full. Then it doesn't matter any more.
8992385
Butterscotch might want to be Francine's special somepony, but she's not interested in that relationship.
It probably wasn't really on his mind. Giant, 200 ton locomotives towing a mile long train rushing at him at 30 or more mph, he's not going to pay all that much attention to what the exhaust smells like.
Run away, run away, like a prodigal~
8993588
In your place, I might be very tempted to leave that in, as is. Anyway I hope you know that I was only having fun with you.
8993592
Heck, if _I_ lived right next to the Everfree, I'd want a bolthole in easy bolting range.
8992436
That's got to be a tough adjustment for some ponies. Heck, it's a tough adjustment for some people.
Do they, I wonder? I know in a reasonably short race, a zebra can outrun a human, and IIRC it had him from the start line.
There was a famous accident in Cajun pass that happened that way. 70+ mph didn't go around a 30mph curve.
The scoops were a cool bit of tech. Although the railroads were a lot happier with diesels that they didn't have to keep on watering like it was going out of style.
8992487
Yeah, he really is. But, on the plus side, he got a prize, so there's that.
Lacy bras are right out, and that's a fact.
TBH, I don't see Francine going the panties route. Even if Butterscotch wishes she would.
8992710
I live not terribly far from Hell. Haven't had ice cream there in quite some time, though. Today would have been a good day for it, honestly.
8993008
Some of Silver Glow's Journal took place in Lansing, as well. And parts of CSI/OPP take place all up and down Michigan's west coast. Write what you know.
Thanks!
That is one of the interesting things about MSU's campus. On the north side, it's basically city, and then the further south you go, the more rural it gets until all of a sudden you're surrounded by horse pastures and cow pastures. That end of the river trail does also go through some very rural-seeming areas, really almost all the way from the 127/496 interchange all the way to Credo Park or Hawk Island and Jolly Rd (that's personally my favorite part of the trail).
Part of the pacing problem was that I thought the contest had a 7k word limit. Turns out it's 20k.
There were a couple of places I probably would have expanded upon if I'd realized I had more words to play with.
I also considered breaking it into multiple chapters, but ultimately didn't.
I've been in there! And listened to the carillon playing from in the tower. And as it happened, the person playing it was a U of M alum, so he played one of their songs on it (since it was the summer, we weren't greeted by an angry torch mob when we left the tower).
8993379
For some values of 'made myself.' I MS Painted out the mountain, croissant, bird, and the pony's wings.
I can't find the original, but here's another shot from the game:
i.ytimg.com/vi/5jrxPBFP1wY/maxresdefault.jpg
And the source link on the image takes you to the actual creator's page.
8993480
Good for her! What's she planning to major in?
8993651
What does that even mean?
8993675
The only downside is that it draws attention away from the Wun Hung Lo joke.
8993684
Yeah, me too. I can't blame him for running when everyone else is.
8993748
The pony in your story's cover picture is from an extremely early game in the pony fandom, 2011 in fact, called Runaway Pony featuring the song "Prodigal" by OneRepublic. I thought it extra appropriate, given Butterscotch does a lot of running in the story. Apologies for vague references.