Shyad Arbor · 4:17pm Sep 9th, 2016
Firstly, my apologies for ruining the nice "divisible by fifty" thing I had going with my story, blog, and follower counts. Still, it was either now or Sunday.
In any case, my next story is in the works, and I'm doing something different for me. This one's going to be a multi-chapter work, but I'll be writing out the whole thing first. It should still come in under ten thousand words, but I'm finding myself tempted to release it now and fly by the seat of my pants, trying to keep up with the planned daily updates. Still, I know it'll come out higher quality if I give myself time to polish it without a constantly refreshing deadline. I already tried that with Story Shuffle, and that took a big chunk of the fun out of it.
But yeah, new story in development. An Oversaturated World one at that. The blog title may give you some sense of what this one is about. If you're curious, there's a short preview after the break.
"Your family does know about this, right? I don't want to have to answer someone's panicked prayers in a few days."
"Father is still in Stirrope on business, but he seemed positive when we Skexted* last night. Zephyr Breeze was actually enthusiastic about the idea. And Mother..."
"Yes?"
"Well, she's still adapting to how the world's changed. She's afraid to fly because she thinks her wings emit the same dangerous radiation as cell phones."
"... You're not related to any members of the Gardening Club, are you?"
*If anyone can come up with a Bland Name Product name for Skype that doesn't sound like a Cardassian drug, I'm all ears.
Unless the communication type is actually important, leaving it a generic 'call' or 'talk' should be fine. People do still use those. Making up words is actually detrimental, as I have to sit there and mentally translate it. While context clued me into it being some kind of communication, I never did jump to it being a reworking of Skype.
Regardless, Skexted needs to change, as it's far to close to sexted, and that starts down paths you're probably trying to avoid.
That's the first time I've seen someone else do a pony Europe pun that kind of works and also sounds good. Congratulations.
Pype
I think "Skope" would be a pretty good bland-name product. Looking forward to the incoming tree shenanigans.
Skype, huh?
Cloud? Welkin? Azure?
Did...did you make that fake brand name by literally adding an extra letter to the word "sexted"?
4200819
Agreed. The simplest route may be the best one here.
4200824
Pretty sure I've seen alarajrogers use it before, though I could be wrong.
4200836 4200850 4200866
Also viable considerations. Thanks.
4200901
Skype = sky + type. Replace type with text, rebuild the portmanteau... and end up with something deeply unfortunate. At least I caught it before releasing the story. Another reason to compose the whole thing ahead of time.
4200912
Yeah, but I kinda didn't like the sound of "Neighropa" (I think that's what she used). "Stirrope," on the other hand, is something that I would totally steal if I didn't already have my own name for pony Europe.
Why not just use 'Skype'? There's no shorthand for 'video-conferencing' that anyone's come up with, (hence the nonsense brand name 'Skype'), and any play on words that's meant to sound like Skype is more likely to sound like something else. None of the ideas in the comments looked like they would work to me. If you just say 'Skype', people will know exactly what you mean. It's not as cool as an alternate name but sometimes that just won't work out well.
Terrible idea! Use 'Sky-Pie', which might just be stupid enough to work!
And good luck with your tree-fic.
4200850 "Skope" sounds good. Even sounds like its name could be derived from its inventor's pony-esque name.
Or, you could always say "when we talked on Skope last night" if you want to make it extra-clear.
4200819
Is... is this gonna be a genuine, non-crackfic slice-of-life about Fluttershy (well the EQG one) as a tree?
Oh, dis gonna be gud.
I actually had a similar story-idea once;
it involved Rarity inventing tree-fashion, Pinkie throwing a tree-party (complete with garlands and hearth's warming decorations), Applejack applying her knowledge of tree-care, and Rainbow Dash protecting Fluttertree from a storm / finding a new best sleeping spot.
The idea never really sprouted roots - potential for a multi-panel speech-less comic if I ever get around to it, maybe - so I was gonna post it on the idea exchange / mlpwriting prompts actually.
"Neighropa" vs "Stirrope"
4200824
...I live in Europe. I don't get it.
Didn't even realize Stirrope was supposed to be a continent's name, I just thought it was a town or something.
Then again, that's probably just me not being a native English speaker.
IF he wasn't already a character, I'd suggest calling the Pedestria version of Skype "Spike". Because it sends messages, you see... (With a snazzy purple color scheme instead of the sky blue of Skype, too!)
I applaud your discipline. My one multi-chapter fic has turned into an almost year-long thing, and it shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.
Does the bland-name product need to be a pun of some sort, or just easily recognizable? If the latter, my first thought would be to just work off a similar-sounding word that could be applied to communications if you squint at it: Scoop, Scope, Scry, Skip, etc. (Hmm... would Scrype run into the same unfortunate-implications issue? If not, that might work for a freshly made magic-based competitor.)
4201103
Ok, that one's brilliant. Maybe going with Spyke would make it clear enough to use?
While I generally prefer to invent alternate place names for EG Earth, I'm ok with just using the real names of continents. That said, "Stirrope" is probably the best alternate name for Europe. As for Skype, I like Bugsydor's suggestion of "Skope."