Silver Glow's Journal · 10:37pm Feb 25th, 2016
This story's a bit of an experiment for me. I want to do a story where I can quickly and briefly touch upon all sorts of cultural differences.
What I'm hoping to do is publish one diary entry per day, covering one little cultural topic. The first few, as Silver Glow gets settled, will probably be broader than that, since she's got a whole lot coming at her all at once, but after that it'll settle down into a nice little routine, I hope. Kind of like a series of snapshots.
And I'd love to have your input! Feel free to comment, here or on the story itself, with idea's you've got. Things you'd like to see. Stick to a 'Teen' rating, though.
Expect most chapters to be fairly short.
Silver Glow is not an OC. Well, not strictly speaking.
She's actually a G3 pegasus pony (and a G2 pegasus pony as well).
The stalker-y-est of my stalkers will note that I have used Silver Glow in one other story.
The college which Silver Glow is now attending, and the cover image for the story, is my alma matter. I could tell you what college it is, but where's the fun in that? See if you can figure it out (and no cheating and Google Image searching, okay?).
Source
Not the most helpful of pictures, but I always thought that the bell tower sticking above the trees looked like Urza's Tower.
The fic is set in present-day; however, it's been a few years since I attended college. Some of the stuff that I remember from back then might be different now. While I could do a road trip back to my old college town, I probably won't, and will instead rely on memory, modernizing where appropriate.
Well, that's about it for the behind-the-scenes. If there's anything that's particularly researchy in a chapter, I'll put up a blog post about it.
Ed Parker, do I win a prize?
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Yes! And wow you got that fast!
Um, your prize is . . . um. . . .
I'll think of something.
I think the most important question here is whether there any mines or power plants near the campus.
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There is a steam plant at the base of campus, and they have steam tunnels. I think that fulfils the qualifications.
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3777352 And once you visit all three, you can get the engineering department to build you a giant robot.
*grumbles incoherently about pre-reading*
Like FF, I figured out the place. I swear, though, I think you've mentioned it at some point in the past, because the name came as surprisingly little of a surprise.
I fully expect the first subject to revolve around her roommate, and I am looking forward to it.
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We didn't have an engineering department, sadly. I was going to go on to a different school and get my engineering degree. Then I discovered I suck at math and chemistry. . . .
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Once this thing gets going, there won't be time for pre-readers. Anyhow, if it works out like I hope, you'll have plenty of mainstream material to pre-read.
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Her roommate (or roommates) will be the subject of many diary entries. Probably starting with the next one.
Cool. I've actually always been meaning to do such a fic, maybe not in the same way that you are, but still something about ponies and humans in ordinary every day life together, and all those juicy cultural differences.
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I've done so many that it constantly runs through my head 'what would a pony think of this?'
I've even thought that at work. (I came to the conclusion that a pony wouldn't like working on a modern car.)
Now's my chance to play with it, and do a whole bunch of fun PoE stuff.
I have only one thing to say:
If I see one word about cuteness heart attacks being a serious medical problem, I am leaving.
One of the biggest issues I imagine in pony-human relations is interpretating each other's body language.
How is Silver Glow supposed to understand the emotional content of human speech when we have such small and immobile ears?
A human is waving their arms. Do they mean, "come here," or "go away." Or do they mean "you are about to step in something disgusting, or fatal, or disgustingly fatal."
"Why do humans want to look at my face when I am speaking? Their small and immobile ears are on the sides of their heads..."
Also, as a herd species, I imagine that her roommate and friends are going to find her somewhat cling-y and needy. Even if she is prepared for the lack of social bathing. I wonder if that would make her more susceptible to advertising? Keep her away from late night info-mertials. ("I need that crock-pot, but what am I going to do with the free set of steak knives?")
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I'm going to do that just for you
Silver Glow will get so many new roommates.
EDIT: would the dark tag or tragedy tag fit better? Or maybe comedy.
3777352 I've heard lots of stories about schools with steam tunnels.
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They're hot and dark. The pipes are insulated but the flanges aren't, so you have to be careful not to touch them.
A smart person would go through them in the summer, when the heat's off.
3778328 It was fun to see where they were in the winter by the melted snow.
I also may have embarked on an urbanex or two.
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They were smart and put the main tunnels under sidewalks.
3777924 I think Scootaloo would.
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Yeah, she probably would.
3788826 There was the internal combustion engine it's implied she fully built/installed on the float...
Cozy Mark IV's Our Girl Scootaloo was most realistic-feeling when it talks about her enjoyment of fucking around with vehicles.
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I wouldn't give the float an ICE, but that's just me.
I'll have to read that.
3788947 Basic premise is My Little Dashie if Dash were Scootaloo and fuck's-his-name had was concerned enough about having a child to actually raise the damn thing. They have a doctor friend that does checkups and basically handle all the shit the government would steal her to do on the down-low and then go super fucking public with it. And then she's able to have a reasonably normal life, human friends, couple boyfriends, getting her pilot's license so she can actually fly, does Scouts and in high school does cheerleading since it's the only sport she can't reasonably have other teams bitch about her. It was a neat read.
And then when the other ponies show up she shows them power lines and shit.
It's weird not seeing blog posts for every chapter you post.
I feel like I'm missing something.
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Dude, if I was writing a near-thousand word chapter every day and a blog post to go along with it . . .
3791475 Yeah, not easy.
I'm not saying you should, I'm just saying that you've got me trained to look for it every time I read your chapters
I have being thinking about reading this one for a little while, but now you have gotten so far into the project that I'm not sure if I should start reading now or wait until you finish it.
Talking about finishing it, do you plan to do that at a specific point or are you going to make this story flow organically and see where it goes, or maybe you got an ending plan but everything else you made it up as you go.
Which one is it?
~Leonzilla
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My plan is to run for a year, Silver Glow's full time on Earth.
I don't know if I'll be able to keep it up.
So I guess you can plan to start reading a year from last month, or plan on reading a chapter a day for the next year.
3832232 If you are that far away from finishing it, then I rather do it now slowly and hopefully I will catch up before the end of the year.
~Leonzilla
Is there by any chance a G4 style picture of Silver Glow?
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Yes; there are a few scattered throught the comments, or if you look at my most recent blog posts, there are two featuring fanart of her in G4 style. I'd just link 'em, but I'm on my phone right now.