Onto the Pony Planet--Chapter 15 notes · 2:53am Jun 12th, 2014
Onto the Pony Planet
Chapter 15 notes
A huge thanks to my pre-readers: Humanist, AnormalUnicornPony, metallusionsismagic, PunIntended Consequences, Woonsocket Wrench, and my parents.
The Truman Show is a movie about a man who doesn't know he's the star of a TV show (and has been ever since he was a child). He's lived out his whole life on a sound stage, with various reasons given for why he can't (or shouldn't) leave.
In the rough draft, I accidentally spelled hors-d'ouvres as horse-d'ouvres. I was tempted to keep it that way, and see who caught the typo first, but wisdom prevailed, and I corrected my spelling.
You can, in fact, see Beaver Island from the Leelenau State Park. This photograph was taken from the shore, and if you look along the horizon line, you'll see a hump, which is Beaver Island (about 22 miles away). [Admittedly, it's kind of hard to see in the picture; but trust me: I took that picture.] North Fox would be roughly in the middle of the picture. Departing from the Leelenau State Park also gives Dale an advantage as he canoes out to the island, since the current of the lake will help push him towards it.
East Grand Rapids is a small community in Grand Rapids proper, which borders Reeds Lake. The roads which Moller follows are all real, and would really take him from the State Police lab to Hodenpyl Rd. The street address is not real; such a street address would be near the middle of Reeds Lake.
I picked the house number semi-randomly—number geeks probably already know this, but Wikipedia has lists of why particular numbers are significant. I'd intended to work either an obscure horse pun or a strange mathematical number in (hey, they did it all the time on Futurama), but none of them I had to work with excited me all that much. However, 649 is apparently the total number of Pokemon as of Black and White.
(is it any surprise that there are probably a zillion Pokemon crossover fics and arts?)
A Bergschrund is “a crevasse that forms where a moving glacier ice separates from the stagnant ice or firn above.” (Wikipedia). In my visual dictionary, the very first section which the ponies would clearly understand is Glacier, going through the book from front to back. Of course, they'd have no way of knowing that Dale doesn't know this word, and really, I don't think it matters for the purpose of a rough translation guide. Heck, the reason I have a visual dictionary is to find the name of things where I know what it looks like but not what it's called.
Also, before I get called out on it, in my opinion an electric stove looks similar enough to a wood stove that the ponies would be able to guess—based on context—what it is. Obviously, they can't identify most of the internal parts.
Before you ask, yes, Dale will see that dictionary again. After all, there are a lot of words which the ponies failed to translate (like drill motor and circular saw), and of course they're curious about that.
Vigilance is the old fan-name for the pony who is a hospital security guard. He has been officially named “Night Watch.” Since he's been mentioned in the story before—using his old name—I'm going to continue to use it.
Also on the subject of Vigilance's testimony . . . if you haven't seen it,
What is a Photocopier is worth a watch. I had that in the back of my mind with "Busted in what way?" "Well, it was broke."
Screwy is the mare who we see chasing after Rainbow Dash in Read it and Weep, and she's also seen again in a later episode with a home of her own.
Since we saw her at the hospital before, and since we have also seen her in the company of one of the nurses, I think that the Ponyville hospital also handles mental cases. Presumably, their goal is to get ponies back into society, as long as they feel it's safe. Given that they let the Cutie Mark Crusaders and Twilight Sparkle to live in open society despite the negative impacts they've had on life in Ponyville, I think that their idea of safe might be a much lower bar than what we have. Certainly, all the ponies seem to look out for each other.
To an extent, there's a historical precedent for them not institutionalizing her. In Western society, we used to just kind of ignore the mentally ill, unless they broke laws. At some point, mental illness was recognized, and those unfortunate souls were tossed into mental institutions, where they were 'treated' using rather questionable means. More recently, the institutions have largely closed down, in favor of group homes, where the afflicted can intermingle with society at large as much as is possible. Treatments have gone from what was essentially torturing the crazy out, to a vast array of psychotropic drugs. While I'm not going to say that our current system is perfect, I think it's a lot better than it was, and we're still making changes. In the seven years I've been working part-time as a direct care staff in group homes, we've changed our treatment protocols several times.
One of the most important things to know when dealing with the mentally ill is knowing them personally, and to know how they generally behave. For example, one of the gentlemen I normally work with has a history of attacking staff, and we all know to use caution when he gets that 'shifty-eyed' look. Generally, he won't actively pursue staff, but if he's in a bad place mentally, I think he feels that staff might be coming to hurt him, and he acts to defend himself. Therefore, we just keep our distance when he's like that, and let him work thorough it on his own. When he's calm, he's one of the coolest people to spend time with.
In the case of delusional behavior, I've found that it often works best to approach the client from the same delusion, rather than to harshly tell them that they're crazy. One of our former clients, who passed away a few years ago, often said that he wanted to go back to Mexico. Rather than say “Too bad, you're in a group home and you'll never go back,” I'd play along with him, asking him where he wanted to go, who he wanted to see, and so on. I'd even occasionally turn the TV to a Spanish-language channel, since he was bilingual. When he tried to run away (which he did somewhat frequently), I'd chase him down and suggest that he might want to eat dinner before he left, or offer to help him pack for his trip. Generally, he'd forget whatever had precipitated his elopement attempt by the time we'd packed a bag or fed him dinner.
I think that the ponies who deal with the mentally ill most likely take this route. It seems more in their nature. At the same time, I can too easily see well-meaning but ignorant Guards, unaware of Screwy's nature, attempting to physically prevent her from whatever she's doing, rather than trying to talk her down.
(a shipfic between Screwy and Pigpen would be the cutest thing ever.)
Sprechen sie Deutsch?
As soon as I saw that word, I had suspicions it was German. Taking German classes is finally paying off.
Nein.
(One of my one-shots had some German in it, and I got a round of well-deserved corrections from my readers.)
That's actually the term for a particular glacier formation. It probably is German; it looks German to me. I assume we just adopted the word into English.
It's very much possible that ponies have electric, or even gas stoves. Both technologies are over 100 years old for us. Things might look a bit different now though.
Also, that what is a photocopier thing was...
imageshack.com/a/img254/6037/twifacehoof.gif
All of the facehoof. The way that reenactment made it look was that the dude was a complete fucking moron. Which wouldn't surprise me in the least. But part of me wonders if he really was just giving the other guy a hard time. Was a legal case, after all.
2200382
I actually read through the entire transcript of his deposition (due diligence and all that), and he wasn't quite as much of a twat as the video made him out to be. But--especially out of context--it certainly is a ridiculous bit of video.
2200376
A large quantity of terms used for glaciers are German, mostly because of Switzerland, where much of the first research was done.
--Spade
2200868
You might want to add a "6" to the end of the comment link.
nice chapter as always
2201495
Thanks!
Random Delete Strikes Again
--Spade
Nice stove, all it needs is an extra lower right door and alighning and it would look almost identical to me Mums solid fuel Rayburn. Solid fuel meaning anything small enough to fit through a roughly 8 inch space. Mixed fuels work far better for cleaning the chimney than monofuels. Coals give tarry deposits, wood and paper give fluffy deposits, so alternative give tar clumped fluffies which fall down to where they can be dug out.
The local doctor refused to even consider me for evaluation because he thought I was deliberate. My Uncle had to find a specialist directly, get one of the best in teh country to diagnose Him with Aspergers, then a local one to take me on, and I almost broke her because out of the 150 she had worked through so far, I was the first to give her all her list answers in alphabetical order. Its the same with diability application forms. They are written for normal people to write by normal people, and so cause extreme confusion when being looked at by a mentally disordered person wishing to comply with the law that you must fill this form in in order to claim the income the law says you are supposed to be valid for.
The last time they sent me yet another identical form, I managed to take a month to work out a replky that essentialy went. Please see previous form. If that isnt available, pelase see previous form. If that isnt available then a photocopy will be available on request. Failing all further options, please consider the use of Watson.
Sorry.
2200409
Having been required to give a lengthy deposition in a highly technical patent law case, I have some context and some sympathy for the witness. A few notes from my experience (which might or might not apply in the NYTimes example):
* I wasn't there willingly, and it wasn't my job to make the enemy lawyer's life easier.
* I was not required to, and was instructed by my counsel not to, volunteer information that wasn't asked for. This produced one of the few humorous (to me) parts of the experience, where the lawyer kept asking if a particular sequence of events that he thought was well-documented had happened; I kept telling him "No"; and it took about a dozen go-arounds before he finally asked the right questions to establish that he had inaccurate dates and an impossible timeline related to the actual events.
* It was my responsibility to answer questions accurately, and to answer technical questions accurately when posed by someone who was *not* an expert in the field, I often had to ask for numerous clarifications and expansions of terminology that was used inaccurately by the lawyers, or had a different meaning in their field than in mine.
* I felt a great deal of sympathy for the poor court reporter who was trying to keep up with all the rapid-fire back and forth interladen with acronyms and field-specific terminology.
2201668
Thanks!
2202027
Aside from Cutie Pox, we've seen no evidence of chimney sweeps in Equestria, although it seems that they would be in demand. I ought to do some more research; a nice chimney fire would provide an interesting learning opportunity for Dale.
That's something I deal with on occasion--fortunately, most of that is handled by people with a higher pay grade.
So many of our residents have a different way of communicating, and it's important that we staff know each one. One of the guys knows some sign language, for example, but it's not proper ASL. There's another guy that will always pick the second option you give him, no matter what it is (he's easy to manipulate).
I dealt with some of the Catch-22 of forms when AT&T screwed up a payment on my cell phone . . . they process checks totally electronically, yet they wanted me to offer a cancelled check as proof that I'd paid the bill. I couldn't, because there wasn't a cancelled check, and the transaction number and bank statement weren't good enough for them. After dozens of frustrating phone calls, I finally gave up, paid them again, and vowed to never buy any service from AT&T for the rest of my life. (As an aside, I have a similar view on Duke Energy . . . the last time I was "blessed" with living in their service area, I almost told them to turn off the electricity to my house, rather than pay a $200 deposit for the privilege of using $12.00 of electricity. If I hadn't needed a refrigerator, I would have.)
2202547
From reading the whole transcript of that guy's deposition, it wasn't his department when the events in question happened, and both CD copying and photocopying were at issue in the case. I'd guess--based on some of his other testimony--that he was counseled to only answer questions which he knew a specific answer to, and not 'help out' by guessing at answers, even if he was fairly certain what the other lawyer meant to ask.
I actually learned in driver's ed to never volunteer information, and it's saved me from a ticket on one occasion. I also have had the dubious privilege of stonewalling a detective in a theft/contributing to the delinquency of minors case [I was completely innocent of wrongdoing, but since I can be a jackass, I didn't feel any need to make the detective's job easy for him].
In the case of the story, I've kind of simplified the legal process (as I'm sure you noticed), but much of the advice that applies to human courts is equally at home in pony courts. One of the themes I'm trying to get across--and which my readers will surely let me know if I'm doing well--is that in this kind of trial, it's more how well the legal teams handle the witnesses than what the actual evidence is. I'm sure you noticed that Fleur got Vigilance to open up,while Noble Voice could only get monosyllabic answers out of him. Fleur has one of her great moments in the next chapter . . . I don't want to spoil it here, but she essentially leads Noble Voice and his witness into a trap.
EDIT: if you're a fan of courtroom dramas, my personal favorites are The Rainmaker and The Runaway Jury by Grisham, and Presumed Innocent by Turow (that last one actually influenced my characterization of Fancy Pants). Also, Wilkes: His Life and Crimes by Winston Schoonover is an amusing read, especially the part where he quotes The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Hey you're one of the authors I actually read the chapter blogs for.
2202816
Do other authors do them? I've seen occasional story-related blogs, but they're generally apologies for a chapter being late, or an announcement that it's gonna be coming.
2202918 Not often, especially now with Authors notes being helpful... But there are a few die hards that do it, I stopped following most of them because it got annoying when you weren't following the fic in question and the blog titles had spoilers.
2202921
Well, while I can't promise that the text of the blog won't have spoilers, they're always published concurrent with the chapter in question. I do often give sneak peaks of chapters on my Facebook page, but I try and avoid any major spoilers there, as well.
2202930 I'm not sure if I want to check it out or not... Probably not.
2200382
Well, here's the lawyer's perspective on it. The lawyer doing the questioning, that is, not the one with the objections.
2202969 lol nice
2202750
If you look far enough, you can find all sorts of weird and wonderful things. My favourite is still what happened to my uncles closed solid fuel fire one night, when the draw up the chimney caused the temperature of the fires core to exceed the turnover temperature for formation of carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide, which when it reached te top of the chimney, ignited in its own turn, giving a literal bunsen burner effect of a stable conicle blue flame blast. Yet the chimney as far up as the attic was cool. He said he dealt with it by climbing up with a hoseipe and putting water down teh chimney. but I dont remember his front room getting flooded, so against all ofdds he managed to pull it off instead of making a town gas chimney blast.
My gosh, if I wasn't already laying down we're sure I would actually roll all over the floor laughing about the photocopier. The tech dude had a very valid point, especially since "nobody calls it a photocopier" in the same way "nobody calls it facial tissue" (Kleenex).
But seriously, 600 pages of junk?! The courts are ridiculous....
I just watched a Numberphile video from 2012, and thought of
youthis storythe prequel to this story:2225503
Thanks for the video! The counting on the finger segments lines up with my theory of ponies counting on significant hoof parts (inside heel, toe, outside heel).
Also interesting is that I count on my fingers in base 8, a habit I picked up in band.
2200376 You should see how many French words we use.
I had a good giggle at the photocopier joke. And then just for the hell of it, I checked the comments.
I found this gem:
2225503
*claps*
I'm learning things.
Sadly, for electric appliances, there could be one-to-one replacements. This idea does not contribute to creativity or extra thought and effort, so I'm glad you didn't use it. I do, however believe that television screens and video games exist in Equestria meaning that radios would have a way of working somehow too. My case is in the Perfect Stallion song. "This one's too young" is playing an arcade machine.
Not that that should change the story. I just thought it would be fun to mention how weird their electricity rules are.
2225986
Base 8
oh my. Actually, that begs a question. Marching is counted in sets of 8 for 4/4 time. Why? I always wondered why they weren't counted in bars.
2202027 Them neurotypicals just don't get it sometimes.