From The Super-Secret Planning Vaults
It's time to meet the ponies!
Featherprop
Pegasus stallion, 20?
Brown coat/cream belly/throat/dark brown mane/brown eyes
CM: Three feathers arranged radially,
Pilot, fun-loving, prankster, likes puns, but lacks self-confidence, does not stand up for self, gives in easily, has tendency to eat too much and drink too much coffee. Lets Espresso boss him around, then gets back at her later, but without malice. Came from a medium-sized family in Cloudsdale, was a disappointment to his father- failed out of Weather Academy due to unsuitability (physically, large wings make him ill-suited to fast or agile flying). Not quite disowned, but more of ignored, this early blow to his self-confidence has led him to seek the approval of others to validate his worth, resulting in making poor decisions at times and facing the consequences.
Espresso Connemara
Earth Pony mare, 25+
Tan coat/brown mane/blue eyes
CM: Teacup w/steam lines above it
Base manager, bossy, outspoken, no-nonsense. Doesn’t like pilots because they’re lazy and drink her coffee. Runs Trotttinger Flight Center with an iron hoof. Featherprop’s boss and antagonist, target of many of his pranks. Has her hooves full keeping him working and from making messes/cleaning up the ones he does make. Treats him as sort of a child, has a soft spot for him after various setbacks, but nags and harries him for his shortcomings- believes that’s the only way to get him to improve, sort of ‘tough love’. Stems from background of being older sibling in large family who was expected to take on a lot of responsibility early on, but this has also given her the managerial skillset that has let her succeed in managing a series of immature pilots and various less-well-motivated employees.
Eisen Pasture
Unicorn stallion, 40+
White coat/Red-magenta mane/grey eyes
CM: Red cross with a torch silhouette in the center
Doctor, scientist, vain, somewhat manipulative but not cruel or greedy. Focused on his work. Does not want to be in Frostmane, hates the cold and the environment. Used to ordering Ponies around, expects to get his way. Cultured, well-spoken, has been involved in research for years in Canterlot and is somewhat out of touch with the lives of less well-connected ponies, especially when dealing with the ill and injured. His career in academia has given him the view that when he’s told ‘no’ it’s because the other pony has an agenda.
Ether Watt
Earth Pony mare, 20+
Pale blue coat/dark blue mane/amber eyes
CM: Mast with three radiating lightning bolts
Radio operator. Somewhat antisocial, has a very pun-oriented humor. Nerd/geek, understands equipment better than Ponies. Does not mingle much with other staff because she doesn’t understand other Ponies- similar to Aspergers, but more of just not understanding emotion or empathy, so keeps them at arm’s length with jargon and muted hostility, though she does want friendship sometimes. Grudgingly accepts friendship with Espresso, who understands more about Ether than Ether does herself.
Placer Nugget
Unicorn stallion, 30+
light green coat/golden mane/golden eyes
CM: Gold nugget
Placer Nugget is rich, good at finding metals as special talent. Overbearing, vain, greedy, impatient, yelled at FP because FP refused to go on unsafe flight, then wrote nasty letter about FP to company owner. Big jerk who is a plot device.
Pinching Bits
Earth Pony stallion, 50+
orange-brown coat/grey mane/blue eyes
CM: Three overlapping bits
Owner of Frostmane Flying Service, somewhat stingy, worried about customers and a bit of a blowhard, has a high opinion of his knowledge of all aspects of running the airline even though he’s been out of day-to-day ops for a long time. Doesn’t really know what goes into running individual stations anymore, or how to lead vs. manage ponies
Long Tom
Earth Pony, (Really Old)
CM: Slanted wooden trough connected to stylized flywheel and belt
Hoofball Fanatic
Featherwind
Pegasus colt, young
Breezeleaf
Featherwind’s younger sister
4577697
I figured there was a good answer behind his decision that I just hadn't quite picked up on. Thanks!
Will be awaiting this week's installment!
4577931
No pressure, eh? I'm working on it, I am!
On the read later list! I had no idea you were working on a fic, Feather!
4582142 Oh yes, I've got a few things up on FimFic, though most of them center around this headcanon-y outland. I've been working on it for, geez, since before we met up at EFNW last year. It's been a long, slow process. I've just been reluctant to spam a lot of friends with it, beyond the ones who showed heavy interest in it while I was writing.
When you get to it, I hope you enjoy it!
4583641 Thank you very much for the critique! I'm very glad to hear that you're enjoying the basics of the story, especially about the pacing-- I've been worrying about that all along.
I'll get the formatting errors fixed up quickly; I thought I had fixed them as I transferred over from Gdocs.
I hope that some of the choppiness is due to my relative inexperience during the early chapters, and that the flow will improve as we move along.
... oh dear. I have to admit that I've depended on switching back and forth a lot to try and get away from perfect omniscience and provide different viewpoints. I tend to be very literal and linear, so I worry about having to jump forwards and back in the middle of a scene. I can see how it could get tiresome. Please forgive me, and I hope it improves for you. There's a huge gap between the first three-four chapters and when the last three-four were written.
And I promise there's more to come!
4567355
Don't think I haven't wondered about what sort of stories you could tell.
It'd be cool if someone wrote about them...
4577697
Was just reading through the comments and 4577288's comment caught my eye. I happened to know about the unknown drift (more from boating than airplaning), but it's a reasonable guess that others of your readers might not, and you might get into a situation in the future where something well-known to pilots will fall upon the deaf eyes of your readers. Thus, it might behoove you to ask yourself if a non-pilot would know about what you're saying, and if not, put in a bit of explanatory text.
Part of the reason this is fresh in my mind is because in the most recent chapter of one of my stories, I had a pegasus explain malformed clouds as having 'inclusions,' with no further explanation. I know what it means; I've worked in enough factories. One of my pre-readers didn't, and now the character says it, and then explains it. So you could do something as simple as this: I should reverse course, Featherbrain thought. But there's no way to know how far the wind's pushed me off-course, so I'll never get an accurate bearing back to the airport, and if they're clouded over, I'll never find them.
4605272
Yeah, this was an aspect I went back and forth on. My early chapters had all sorts of technical stuff, but then I figured it would be boring for people who don't have a thing for tech. I tried to split the difference, because at it's heart this story is driven by technology, but I don't want it to be focused on it. I'd had something typed up, but it felt too exposition-y right there. I thought that the idea of being lost and having no guidance would stand on it's own.
All is not lost, though! The explanation ends up partway through the next chapter. I ended up splitting a huge one into three, and the text that kind of covers your suggestion ended up on the other side... which will be coming out
tomorrowin a little bit. Well, here's a snippet:4605350
Yeah, I always make a scan for tools and parts before I put the hood down and try to run a checklist on everything I've touched. I've never destroyed anything, but there was one time I had to take a VW transmission back out after finding a new shaft seal on the bench.
There's a lot of truth to that railroad saying. What I've noticed in aviation culture is that there's a bit of a fascination with accidents, and at the same time a sort of standoffish attitude towards them that I think stems from the military orgins of the culture-- the Escadrilles in WWI and the dashing image of the fighter pilot from WWII. It's a defense mechanism- even with black boxes, we don't know WHY people make the mistakes they do, and that's disturbing. If someone you think is a good stick can muck it up, then why can't you?
I tell you, there's few things harder to force yourself to do than pre/postflight in the rain. It's hard to force yourself to check everything all the time, and not just because of laziness- when you fly the same plane day in, day out, you feel like you've seen it all.
Sometimes the really obvious stuff just goes right over your head. I've jumped more than one set of chocks, and blown a fair bit of paperwork off the back of one wing. But one thing I do every time, EVERY time, is walk (run) around the nose to look for stuff in front of the plane-- I know more than one pilot who's been fired after chopping up a cone.
And I'm TOTALLY going to check out the railway story, thanks for the recommendation!
Why include this? Why here?
5940021
I honestly can't remember why, but I'm guessing it was to try and motivate myself to keep going with a follow-on story that was starting to rattle around in my head. As you can see, there are names of several ponies who don't appear in the story at all.
It may also have been in response to a question from a friend or reader.
I've been busy and absent from FimFic for a long while, but thank you very, very much for highlighting my story and for the brief critique. You raise some excellent points, and all I can offer in my defense is that I wrote in a style I enjoy reading. As you can tell, I don't write for a living, though when I started I was conceited enough to think that I could write better than most on this site. Plowing through this story taught me otherwise.
Thank you again. :)