Review and Discuss: Ardensfax's Under The Aurora · 9:48am Oct 10th, 2014
Long ago, when I first came to this site, I decided it would be good to try out just about everything. So I went through the various groups, and various folks’ recommendations, and tried to pick out the top stories to read.
It was a long, arduous expedition, made all the more so by the fact that even picking out all the top-rated stories from each shipping pair meant that I still was reading sixty or more stories – and even then, they were not guaranteed to be great.
When I first joined the fandom, I had the idea that the major ships would be Applejack x Rainbow Dash (AppleDash), Applejack x Rarity (RariJack), Rarity x Fluttershy (Flarity/RariShy), Rarity x Spike (Sparity), and Fluttershy x Rainbow Dash (FlutterDash), simply because those were the character pairings which showed up the most on the show. I may or may not have thought Pinkie Pie x Rainbow Dash (PinkieDash) would be a big one as well, I forget, but if I didn’t, I should have.
Alas, as it turns out, RariJack is a secondary ship and no one ships RariShy (there is Green… and Green… oh, and a couple stories I haven’t read yet, but the ship seriously has very few stories at all), but AppleDash and FlutterDash are mainline shipfics. I quickly found a large number of good AppleDash stories, and indeed AppleDash was the first ship I really delved into deeply, followed by PinkieDash thanks to finding Absolute Anonymous.
So when I went into FlutterDash, which was one of the biggest ships I was expecting to find a lot of top tier stories there as well.
I was pretty disappointed. Indeed, overall there is something of a dearth of excellent Fluttershy shipfics in general; there are some classics, like Fluttershy Comes Out of the Closet, but that’s a comedy story, and while it is wonderful, it isn’t really a story that sells you on the ship. There is also the aforementioned Green, which is a very long and complicated RariShy story which also features a number of other romantic pairings, and there are a few others I have been told are good. There are a few others, some which I haven't read yet, which are supposedly good. But no FlutterDash stories.
A few months ago, when I was trying to put together a compendium of top-tier shipfics for an introduction to shipfics primer, I was trying to find a story for every single major pairing which showed it off well, and FlutterDash was a major problem for me because I didn’t really recall liking any of them – most of the ones which were recommended to me actually ate downvotes, and the only ones I really could recall thinking of being really memorable and worthwhile were Hummingbird Heartbeat by bats and The Stolen Date by… well, me. Both of these stories really feature the trouble that the relationship faces, and the difficulty of the two ponies meshing together.
But there was another one which was on my list – another one that I had read, and actually favorited, long ago, but had largely forgotten save in the broadest strokes. And that is the story I will discuss today.
Warning: Significant plot details follow.
Under the Aurora
By Ardensfax
Set immediately after the events of The Crystal Empire, the mane six are riding home on a sleeper train. Only one problem: Rainbow Dash can’t sleep. It is the middle of the night, and yet still, somehow, she is full of energy and life, and needs to breathe in the cold northern air, and feel the wind under her wings. And so, she sneaks out of the train, taking to the air and flying around the train, looking at her reflection in the windows of the train cars as she passes by, until she gets to Fluttershy’s car and finds her face-to-face with her sleepless, red-eyed friend. Rainbow Dash, never being one to leave her friend hanging, goes to join Fluttershy in her car, and find out what is bothering her.
Fluttershy is reluctant to tell Rainbow Dash what is bothering her at first, but soon reveals the reason for her sleeplessness – she hurts, with bruises all over her chest from when Rainbow Dash had jousted with her during the Crystal Fair. Rainbow Dash, unsurprisingly, feels incredibly guilty, and apologizes for her thoughtlessness, and ends up hugging her and comforting her. Caught up in the moment, looking at Fluttershy’s face, she ends up giving Fluttershy a kiss, something which ends up freaking out both ponies momentarily. Rainbow Dash tries to apologize, but Fluttershy relaxes and changes her mind, telling Rainbow Dash not to leave and then giving her a kiss of her own. The two end up cuddling together, and talking about their past together, and wondering why they didn’t do this years ago – apparently, they had sort of acknowledged their feelings for each other back in flight school, but had avoided actually having a relationship, with Rainbow Dash trying to avoid exposing Fluttershy to any more bullying by dating her. Fluttershy is fearful that this is going to be another single night of romance, followed by a return to normalcy, but Rainbow Dash reassures her that it will not, and while the two begin to get a bit heated towards each other, they’re too tired to do anything and just end up falling asleep together.
When Rainbow Dash wakes up the next morning, she at first thinks it was a dream, but then realizes that it was not, and wakes up Fluttershy for more snuggling and sensual intimacy. Naturally, it is at this point that Twilight Sparkle waltzes right into Fluttershy’s room, interrupting the pair before anything can really happen and embarrassing all three of them – but Fluttershy is the least embarrassed of the lot of them, and tells Twilight that it is alright, but that she’d rather tell her other friends herself. Twilight is okay with them being together, if a bit stunned, and walks off to go wake up the other ponies before they get to Ponyville, naturally leading to her waltzing into Rarity’s room next, leading to my favorite part of the story:
“Rarity, I—Oh Celestia!”
There were three perfectly-synchronized gasps from Rarity’s compartment, and the noise of a pony significantly more heavy-hoofed than Rarity scrambling out of the alabaster unicorn’s bed, accompanied by a loud country-accented protestation.
“Twilight, this isn’t what it looks like!” spluttered Applejack, her mortified voice easily audible through the partition walls. The sound of Rarity’s carefree, delighted giggle followed almost instantaneously.
“Oh Applejack, darling, don’t be so coy! This is exactly what it looks like, and you know it!”
And that is about where it ends, though there are a few more lines, some giggling from Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, and a kiss.
I have to admit, I pretty much entirely favorited this story for the beginning and the ending of it; I really liked the image that the start of the story gave me, of Rainbow Dash sneaking out of the train, weaving her way past sleeping ponies so she could stretch her wings in the chill northern air as the train travelled south. I also really liked the ending, because it made me laugh out loud, and did again when I re-read it.
But I don’t really particularly like the FlutterDash shipping in it; really, I feel like it is the weakest part of the story, which is really too bad, because FlutterDash could really use a premier shipfic. But what is wrong with it? Why does it bother me?
I think the real problem comes from Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy’s behavior in the middle of the story; when Rainbow Dash goes into Fluttershy’s car and apologizes to her for hurting her and comforts her, that’s something I can totally see Rainbow Dash doing. And Rainbow Dash, not really thinking about it, being caught up in the heat of the moment, of apologizing, of wanting to make Fluttershy better… I can see something slipping out there, and the subsequent shock and apology as she suddenly realizes what she did.
But the bit after that I didn’t buy. It isn’t that I don’t buy the idea of Fluttershy having a crush on Rainbow Dash – indeed, I find that wholly plausible. But I didn’t really like Fluttershy’s dialogue in that section of the story, and Rainbow Dash’s behavior and dialogue in that section bothered me slightly as well. It felt a little bit off, but I suspect that the real problem was not her, but Fluttershy. In particular, this line bothered me:
“Aww,” Fluttershy pouted with a faux-sulkiness, made brave by the night’s strange sense of unreality. “Do we have to talk now?”
This didn’t really sound like Fluttershy to me, and I couldn’t really hear her voice saying this in my head. It just didn’t fit. And shortly thereafter, we are dropped into Fluttershy describing the dance in Flight School that they had attended together, that they had shown each other affection at, and then… dropped completely.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with random backstory; it can be done very well. And indeed, integrating this sort of thing into the story can work excellently. But here, I felt, it fell a bit flat; we have the two snuggling, and we have Fluttershy musing about why this didn’t happen before, and then we have a flashback to tell us about how they had been like this before, and then dropped it.
But I didn’t buy it. Rainbow Dash’s behavior didn’t sell this backstory to me, and neither did Fluttershy’s; their behavior in the story didn’t really hint at a past which included this moment, and seeing as the moment was introduced entirely in the story – after said actions took place, no less – it bothered me because it didn’t really feel justified. The idea that they had liked each other before and bounced off each other, never really pursuing it, is something I could be made to believe, but it needs to be sold in the story, and the way that they fell in together here didn’t suggest such a background to me. Indeed, it suggested the opposite – that Rainbow Dash hadn’t really been aware of such, and certainly was not aware that there were any signs of reciprocity from Fluttershy for emotions that Rainbow Dash herself didn’t know she had (or possibly didn’t have).
From there, we then have them cuddle sensually, sort of trying to sell the ship with physical closeness, though not in the sexual sense (though Rainbow Dash clearly wants her in that respect as well, nothing too saucy happens). And while I can totally see physical affection being important here, and helping to consolidate their bond, it isn’t really something which sells the ship to me – anyone can hug anyone else, and anyone can look into someone’s eyes, look upon their face and see beauty. But I didn’t really end up buying the emotional aspect of it, and as such the physicality didn’t really sell it to me either.
The overall idea of the story, the flow into them realizing, or at least exploring, the idea of romance, and indeed the idea of Rainbow Dash comforting Fluttershy and going too far, thus sparking Fluttershy to react and “be brave”, is a fine one. But I didn’t buy this particular iteration of the idea, and that’s unfortunate, because I really like the idea behind it.
All in all, the story has stayed on my favorites list, but didn’t make my list of stories that I recommend to others, and, alas, while I did enjoy the beginning and the ending, I didn’t actually enjoy the focus of the story – the shipping between Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. And thus, my search for a top-tier FlutterDash shipfic continues. Hopefully this will do it.
FlutterDash is one of those ships that is mainly about fanarts rather than fanfics.
And most of these fanfics are into comedies, serves secondary pairing, or just plain friendshipping rather than serious stories,
Under the Aurora is still one of my favourites FlutterDash short though.
I wouldn't call this a FlutterDash shipping story...
If you struggle to find any good FlutterDash fanfics, I can always help.
I favorited both of those stories! I kind of have to agree with Fernesh though when it comes to your hopefulness. I mean, it hints at it fairly strongly, but it's not the focus at any point. Well, not that I recall anyway.
The thing I most remember about this fic was that, like, eighty percent of it was made up nothing but the two of them making out, and it was awesome. I think you're right that it doesn't do much to justify the ship, but I don't think that was one of the goals of the story. Some ship fics try to justify the attraction, and some are just written for fans of the ship who don't need it justified. This fic was very much one of the latter.
2523576
This is probably true. I guess I'm just really picky about my pony makeouts. May be related to why I'm not impressed by a lot of clop.
I gotta know why the characters are sticking their tongues in each others' mouths (and other places). I gotta believe, man.