Onto the Pony Planet--Chapter 6 notes · 3:00am Dec 16th, 2013
I have to confess, I had this comic in my head when I wrote the part with Kate and the guards:
I am aware that in real life, the guards haven’t been posted outside Buckingham Palace since the fifties, but that image is so ingrained in popular culture it would likely be the first thing that would come to an American’s mind at the thought of a stoic guard.
In his experience, people didn’t flip out while they were in the bathroom.
This is Dale’s experience. This is not my experience; one of my jobs is working with developmentally disabled adults, and some of them will flip out wherever they are. In the middle of a shower and have a sudden urge to throw one of the dining room tables? No problem! Exit shower, throw said table, return to shower. In retrospect, that was actually pretty funny; at the time, less so.
For those of you who didn’t watch the X-Files, this was the poster in Mulder’s office:
What do you mean it wasn’t? Okay, fine. Is this better?
especially since it seemed likely that she’d eventually wind up teaching alongside them.
Of course, we all know this isn’t true, but obviously in this story, Twilight hasn’t ascended yet, and in the episode she seemed rather surprised that it had happened, so it’s not like Princess Celestia had offered her the position beforehoof.
Chakalaka recipe! chakalaka
According to a pre-reader, “A tricky meal to make. Add too much of one ingredient and it could blow up in your face. Boom chakalaka!”
She had an unpleasant vision of the pegasus dragging the carcass of some poor animal out of the Everfree and over to the hospital.
I had this image in my head of Fluttershy attempting to pull her cart along with a dead elephant in the back, completely covering the cart, its trunk dragging on the ground behind her. Fluttershy would have a look of pride and determination on her face . . . but I decided to not go there.
Bonus art!
Deposit for a cup: I vaguely recall that once upon a time, back when crafted items were expensive, drinking establishments would charge patrons a fee if they used one of the tavern’s cups; the fee would be refunded when the cup was returned. I presume this was done to offset the cost of the cups if they were carried off or broken. I haven’t been able to find a credible source for this practice, yet; any medieval historians who care to comment, feel free. I think there was a coffee house in Kalamazoo that did that, too—although in their case, it was probably to encourage patrons to bring their cups back to the front counter so that the tables didn’t have to be bussed.
The nurse gave Kate laudanum, a tincture of opium. It’s what she wanted to use in the first chapter, and the nurses are more likely to prefer tinctures than injections, I would imagine. Trying to dump medicine down an unconscious person’s throat is a good way to kill them, which is why she didn’t do it. Although her weight calculation is still badly off, she’s stopping the dosage when she sees obvious results.
The ‘heartbeat monitor’ is from Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six. I don’t know if such a thing really exists, but it’s probably theoretically possible. I would think it would have a very limited range. Brief internet research tells me that there are some systems that use doppler radar to pick up stowaways at border crossings, but that system would have some limitations, I’d imagine.
In the short bit where Fluttershy gives fish to the ferrets, she holds them in her mouth and tosses them.
She doesn’t seem particularly disgusted by the fact she’s got a mouthful of raw, dead (hopefully) fish. I’d imagine she’s more of an exception than a rule, when it comes to that. I don’t think Lyra would be willing to help her TK the woodchuck to Dale for multiple reasons: she doesn’t like dealing with dead things; she doesn’t want to be a part of feeding Dale carrion; and she doesn’t want him mad at her if he’s as disgusted as she is. I think she’d not mind the grubs as much.
The Janissaries of Emilion is a short story by Basil Copper. In it, the protagonist has the same dream every night of being chased by horsemen, and each night they get closer. He believes that when they catch him they will kill him, and dares not sleep. He’s eventually committed to a mental hospital . . . where he’s found dismembered in his room one night.
(yes, I know those are the ringwraiths. close enough.)
Finally, a question: Lyra and Dale are communicating in a combination of 'Equus' and English. Should I mark the words which are in Equus with a tilde, like Tystarr did in A Voice Among the Strangers, or will that break up the flow? I've generally be italicizing each new word as it's learned, and then treated it normally thereafter (such as when Lyra learns the word friend).
Wait, where is the new chapter?
1612762
Just went live now.
I've got to publish the blog post first, so I have the url for the link in the author's note. Consider it an early-warning system . . . when you see the blog post, you know the chapter's coming very soon.
1612773 Ah, thank you for clarifying. Can't wait to read it
Leading cartoon is now a broken link . . . ten minutes after posting. sigh. If it didn't take so long, I'd kick all the pics up to my deviantArt account first.
Well, here it is again.
e621.net/data/sample/cd/7d/cd7d8cf586ca33d8b83b950374c26944.jpg?1306912598
And to make sure it stays, here it is in Russian.
pix.academ.org/img/2011/06/26/33c9ca79fc06471dee552badd7947e3d.jpg
1612829 Here, this link won't break:
derpicdn.net/img/view/2012/6/25/20564.png
Protip: do not use images from fanpop, funnyjunk, or e621
1612954
Thanks! I put that one in the post.
1612976 Bitte
Great Job on the chapter, glad I caught it before I went to bed.
Personally I think that adding a tilde in the middle of a sentence to show when Equus was being used vice English would be distracting. I think it is clear enough that Dale and Lyra are speaking pidgin to each other, and that until Dale can learn to speak Equus better, he will need to rely pretty heavily on Lyra for translation.
Our college's cafeteria wants a 2€ deposit for a cup. Disposable paper cups cost extra, instead.
They probably do it so their cups don't get lost all across the campus.
1613101
So at least I'm not totally crazy in thinking that a cup deposit is a thing.
I do not think you have to worry about tildes. Their esperanto will be a lot better relatively soon.
I always get excited when the update notification for this story shows up in my email box.
As I read, I watch the scroll bar progress further down the page towards the bottom, and it makes me a little sad. As it nears the bottom, I feel like a little league winning home run hitter whose DQ sundae is on the last scraped up spoonful before oblivion.
I'm really so damn curious how this is all going to pan out for everyone. Especially Dale and Lyra of course.
You have written such an fascinating pair of protagonists in those two. Especially Dale. What an excellent 'everyman' character you've crafted him into.
I wonder what the deal is with Lyra though. First she's asking if Dale would like a sleeping partner, next she's going home alone. I hope she hasn't gotten some bad news from Fancy Pants...
1613795 well Dale didn't give her an answer, so she just assumed the negative since he appeared so conflicted/confused about it. Besides, Bon Bon needs support too. Hey wait, will we get a confession scene with them like that? Interesting....
imageshack.us/a/img546/4292/fqi7.png
It's fucking true though! That's the weird thing! She probably did!
1614121
Yes, I suppose that could be. Maybe from Lyra's perspective, Dale's exaggerated reaction felt like a rejection of her being in the sleeping situation entirely. Since it was unresolved due to an interruption, she made an assumption.
But our generous author seems to often fill in those sort of blanks for us, so I'm not sure. I smell a rat here. I'm a bit concerned for them both. I'm not sure why Lyra would leave, as she's Dale's interpreter, so you'd think everyone involved would have an interest in keeping her right at hand/hoof. She's the only one who can communicate with the humans effectively. Lyra would get her own room in that case. I'm sure the Royal line-o-credit would have that covered.
No, I'm thinking something dramatic is afoot. Or I'm misreading everything. The latter is fairly probable when my deductive skills are engaged, alas.
I shall read A Voice Among the Strangers, and get back to you.
iambrony.dget.cc/mlp/gif/15_52_50_362_211502__UNOPT__safe_twilight_sparkle_animated_filly_princess_cadance_shining_armor_coffee.gif.gif?1359482632
If I recall right from following A Voice Among the Strangers, the tilde /really/ helped as use of the language grew more fluid. Especially in being able to work out who /else/ in the room will be able to understand what.
If your swapping a lot in the same sentence, then the breakup would probably be kind of accurate too, as I doubt they would be /speaking/ fluidly in such a situation.
How will they discovery that humans prefer cooked meat? That will be an "aha" moment.
Having read enough of A Voice Among the Strangers to understand what you where going on about, I generally have the same opinion as OmegaJasam. I don't think that using tildes is the best way to do things mind you, but it's better than nothing.
On Equus/English : Why not do something like italicize or bold one language so they stand out? You could do italics for Equine, bolds for new words, and so on.
1626605
Italics and bold are undesirable, since they are usually used to emphasize words. I've used italics for the first time a word is used and then gone to normal text, but that's a more kludgey solution as their language progresses.
I also considered changing fonts or changing text color. The fonts is more subtle, and probably won't distract the reader; colored text might. That also has potential formatting problems, even in gDocs, and I don't know which fonts will show up in FimFiction across all devices and browsers, and I'd hate to do something that made the story unreadable to someone who wasn't using Chrome.
1630013
Text color would work rather well. It's not really disorienting after the first instance or two, and a simple red-blue or something to denote language would do a lot!
Well, I've finally caught up, and it's been an interesting and entertaining read so far.
First contact scenarios have always been my favorite kind of sci-fi story, so I might be a bit biased, but this is a very well written and entertaining story.
About separating English from Equus: Personally, I have to agree with points already made. A way to distinguish between which words are in English and which are in Equus would be useful, but as noted, the use of tildes can be seen as breaking the flow of the text, especially since it isn't something that you've done since the beginning.
I can see two alternatives:
The first is to continue as you have, only noting when they learn new words and incorporating them with no special indicator, with the infrequent notation by other ponies that they use a pidgin of Dale's language and theirs in order to remind readers that they are speaking using both languages rather than only one.
This obviously means that readers will have virtually no idea what words are in what language, unless specifically noted in the narrative, or exactly how much Dale knows of Equus or Lyra of English. This migh be a big deal or might not matter at all, depending on whether you or specific readers care about that. I like to know little details like that, but it doesn't bother me if I don't.
The second alternative is to use an identifier of some kind, preferably with a legend explaining it to the readers in the author's notes.
Different colors or fonts are the least obtrusive way to do it, but as noted they might not be compatible with all platforms/browsers and would present a formatting hassle. There is also the question of whether to color all the dialogue, or to only color it when they speak a mixture of both languages.
Also, whether to color all the words in mixed speech or only the ones that aren't native to the speaker, leaving native words in whatever color is standard.
Using textual signs to indicate what word is in what language would lessen the formatting burden, would be compatible with all platforms and browsers, and, in difference to colors or fonts, would be clearly visible no matter the font size, font color, or background color.
The drawback is, as noted, the obtrusiveness. Tildes, or other long marks, would be fine if entire pieces of dialogue, or at least whole sentences or phrases, were in one language or another, such as it generally is in A Voice Among Stranges. It is less fine when used twenty times in the same piece of dialogue because it is use to denote individual words.
It is very possible to use less obtrusive marks that are still rare in most text, such as encasing words from one language in square or curly brackets.
[To] {avoid} [the] {problem} [of] {having} [the] {text} [look like this] I would suggest that only words non-native to the viewpoint or speaking character be in brackets.
I'd suggest that English be in square brackets when Lyra is speaking/the viewpoint character is a pony and that Equus be in curly brackets when a human speaks it/is the viewpoint character, as I get the impression that it is the more baroque and flowery of the two languages and it will help the readers determine both which character is speaking and which language is being spoken.
Here's an example of what it might look like:
---
Lyra swished her tail back and forth as she looked out over the vast number of ponies assembled in the town square. Her ears flicked backwards and forward a few times before she turned to Dale, who was standing concealed behind the curtains of the stage.
"Dale [yes-no] talk [here]? Many pony [here listen.] Dale talk [later, yes-no]?"
Dale stared off into space for a few moments. His right arm rose up to scratch at his beard before he grimaced at an unexpected stab of pain in his shoulder, causing his to lower it to his side again. His eyes flicked downward to meet Lyra's own golden ones and he held her gaze a while before shutting them and rubbing his forehead, careful to use his left arm this time.
"Dale... Dale {talk pony} here now."
His eyes opened and he stared at the curtain as if he could see the crowd on the other side. Despite their long hours working together, Lyra couldn't decipher the expression on his face. Fear? Apprehension? Excitement? Some mixture or them, perhaps? Maybe even something too alien to comprehend easily?
His eyes lost their unfocused, distant quality as he looked back at Lyra with an expression she could easily understand, a small, kind smile, the kind one gives to friends. Or to family.
"Lyra {help} Dale {talk many pony}, Lyra {help} Dale make {many pony} friend here now."
---
I might be a bit biased towards using brackets as it is how I differenciate between languages in the fic I'm writing, though I only use square brackets, the first chapter of which will probably be published some time between tomorrow and the year 3000. Hopefully. *rolls eyes* Let's hear it for procrastination, woohoo....
1630013 Personally, I
hatestrongly disli-find Chrome to be very clunky, inefficient, and unintuitive and would be thankful for any solution that doesn't require that... thing.Edit: Overly long comment is overly long.
I was wrong about the coffee thing, apparently. I was too young to understand the concept of money back when coffee was free in some establishments, and I grew up knowing of a store where the carts required quarters to be unchained from the corral. I mixed the two assumptions together.
I thought of the fluttershy think like a cat bringing an almost-dead animal as an act of gratitude. Equally disgusting in person, but hilarious when viewed from the outside.
2604305
It's not dissimilar . . . thus far, Fluttershy has every reason to believe Dale eats carrion.
I know this is an older post, so I have to say the holy words *ahem*
ARISE FROM THE SLEEP OF AGES, ARISE THREAD OF OLD!!!
Now that the necro is official, the point of me posting can be made.
Those guards on the gates of Buckingham Palace are still there. They're formed from the Guards Regiments, who are the elite regiments of the "normal" Army. They are tasked with much of the ceremonial work, as well as being full regiments of the Army. They're also fully armed, even when on guard duty, and are actual soldiers who are prepared to defend their sovereign, so try not to poke them. They get in trouble if they have to shoot you. I went to Buck Palace to watch my brother as he performed this task. The little sod wouldn't stand still for a photo. Grrrr.
4628957
That's good to know!
I have seen some videos on YouTube of people messing with them and getting their asses handed to them. Good times.