Captain Rainbow Dash of the Wonderbolts.
Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
Certainly her dream job.
Well, dreams and reality are two very different things.
Especially when our newly minted captain has to deal with an empty roster, budget cuts, the first non-pegasi cadets, and the pressure of finding out your best friend is now your boss, let alone a princess.
If that weren’t enough to make her quit, her three wing commanders might. Cloud Kicker is a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen; Surprise makes no sense; and Lightning Dust is, well, Lightning Dust.
Meanwhile, Scootaloo arrives at the academy, ready and raring to prove she’s got what it takes to be an elite flyer. Pressure mounts as Scootaloo aims to make her hero proud.
Now on Equestria Daily
Editors: ping111
NotMurphy
Georg
Thanks for pre-reading go to:
John Perry
Distaff Pope
SolidFire
nygiants93
Eakin
Cover art used with permission by GSphere
Whoops. Sorry about that.
To the wonderful readers who previewed the story while it was in beta, my thanks and apologies. I kinda deleted the chapters and recreated them while I was fiddling with the story.
I didn’t know the comments would be deleted as well. I thought all comments were tied to the story as a whole. My bad.
Nevertheless, I encourage you to give the story another read as there have been several major revisions based on your feedback.
Primarily, I added a bit more depth to Cloud Kicker. No longer is she just a one mare sex joke machine.
There is a better explanation of why Rainbow Dash became the serious one in the group.
I can relate.When I got promoted to manager, it was no fun being the bad guy. Being forced to discipline or fire people is the worst feeling ever.
I've been looking forward to seeing this published
Please give me moar
Oh, this one. I look forward to re-reading it tomorrow.
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I'm happy to see your masterpiece out, even though you call it a more leisurely story. I consider it to be a far more serious piece that you are doing a marvelous job with. I can't wait to re-read it and see more of it come out.
~SolidFire
Why isn't this amazing story in the feature box already
When you're done with this story, I will eagerly read that one.
Anyway, I'm definitely looking forward to more. This is a hilarious read thus far, and I'm sure it'll only get better from here,
3253886 now it is
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You know it seems like you had a lot to say about things not really relating to this story, which makes it odd that you would say them here rather than say a blog post. Given this comment at the end of your post:
On to reading! You're a damn fine author, so maybe you can suceed where all others failed
It would appear you made this screed without even reading the story at all. Which makes it all rather pointless and wasteful, don't you think?
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It IS related, since the author—who, by the way, is a friend of mine, so don't you dare accuse me of being mean or hating—is using characters and scenarios from a series of stories that I loathe, for the reasons listed, as well as numerous other reasons. And, as I said, that little rant had, yes, little to do with the story at hand. I just felt like venting, and since the mention of the character set me off, and I figured that my buddy Seether wouldn't mind me doing it here, I did. Hell, he may even find it funny.
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Okay, wait! Stop!
I am nipping this thread in the proverbial 'bud light with lime' right now.
Jake, man. Chill. I am cool with your opinion it's fine. I usually am in agreement with you. Cloud Kicker has a use here, so don't worry. No offense taken.
sochoppy, don't worry, dude. It's all chill here. Thanks for rushing to the defense. I appreciate it.
I just don't want to see a flame war here. It's just ponies. Colorful ponies.
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*rocks back and forth
ponies...ponies...ponies...ponies...ponies...ponies...ponies...ponies...ponies
3254189 I apologize if I came across as rude.
3254258>>3254189
Matter of fact, you're right, Schoopy. This is neither the time nor place. Comment deleted.
I am loving this.
This is looking good! Nice setup, well-written characters, and I like how you aged-up/ matured Dash into somepony who could actually lead a military unit. I especially liked how well you handled
PinkieSurprise, as I find her to be one of the characters I have the hardest time writing well. The CMC work pretty well too; you're right when you think you could write a whole story with just the CMC in Manehatten.I did find a couple of flaws, both variations on the same theme: Cloudkicker, thus far, is a pretty shallow troperiffic slut; you have really only show a couple hints of anything else. It's early in the story yet, and you seem aware of the issue, but it is there. The other point is Surprise. I can see why you'd want to have Pinkie Pie in the story as a Wonderbolt, but obviously she's not a good enough flyer. Surprise seems like an easy out, but please don't make her 'Pinkie Pie with wings,' for the love of Celestia make her a unique character who could actually fit into a quasi-military organization. Speaking of which, the other critique: the Wonderbolts come across as severely unprofessional. If discipline broke down that fast, it's a poor reflection on Spitfire. MIght want to address that.
Overall, this is a highly entertaining tale, and you had me laughing out loud many times. I'm really looking forward to more!
this is actually good keep up the good work.
Okay, my impression from chapter one.
I generally like where this is going and am looking forward to more. One mild criticism would be that even though you seem to be going for a light hearted, three stooges slapstick feel, Cloud Kicker does come off as a bit over the top.
In the other winningverse stories she has serious and fun conversations which are sprinkled with innuendo. In this chapter instead of a sprinkling of innuendo we have heaping mounds of it, where it becomes virtually everything she says. This makes her less likable, less complex, and less funny as a character.
I would let her be sort of a fake straight man in the interactions between Her, Dash, Surprise, and Dust. Where she is mostly helping to move the conversation along and calm the others down, only to occasionally break out with a innuendo that derails the meeting again.
My two cents anyway, looking forward to reading chapter 2
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Have to agree on this point. When it comes to Cloud's innuendo and banging obsession, it's better to use it sparingly, but with higher impact when it does show up. One very well-timed innuendo is a lot more effective than just sprinkling them all over the place. It's funnier, has more impact, and leaves more room for the rest of her character.
That issue aside, it's a very solid start and an intriguing premise. Curious to see where it goes from here.
Well...
cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/250x250/24520424.jpg
Ya know what could make this story sound better? Some romance, not like clop, just some dates or something, you don't have to, I'm just suggesting. (I'm obsessed with romance fics, and this looks like a good plot for it)
NO ONE EXPECTS, THE SUPRISE INQUISITION! Our chief weapon is surprise and fear... fear and surprise. Our TWO weapons are fear and surprise... and ruthless efficiency. Our THREE weapons are fear, surprise and ruthless efficiency ...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Party.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again.
I love this fic. The dialogue is great, the story is great, I like how you've done the background ponies' characters, and I like how you've aged everyone up. I can not wait to read more of this, and I can't recommend it strongly enough to everyone I know. (I had to blog about it, so there's more about how much I love it there.)
Amazing job, I'm glad I read this.
Fine. I'll post it.
whoa... leadership
GROOVY
3254376 Um, have you met military people before? once they are off duty it seems like they have to make up for the professionalism. In fact, humor such as was included is actually fairly spot on from what I've seen growing up in a military family.
Keep up the good work, Seether!
P.S. -I'm glad you included CK,but you may want to tone down the innuendos, it gets old fast and can be off-putting
GAAAAHHHH!!! The feels of the friendship between our three grown up CMC, just too much and the letter...its deadly! Oh sweet Celestia I need a moment.
Ok, I'm done. I love these two opening chapters. I like how you have Dash handle becoming a captain and a very calm look at how Twilight handles her princess situation i.e Still close to her friends but has some other responsibilities. I also love the fact that you had Dash make up with Dust later on and now have her as an awesome rival. This story so far has a nice blend of comedy, friendship moments, and caring that I can see this becoming a fun ride.
Well, what's stopping you?
Freakin' glorious. Can't wait to read more!
This is looking to be pretty interesting, you have my interest, good sir. Hopefully you can gain my attention.
Giving this a favorite because I wanna see where this goes.
A favorite for you just for the premise. I was wondering when someone would do one like this, and I'm glad its you doing it, Seether. I'm also glad its an idea I can scratch off my near infinite list of ideas for fictions. I'll comment further once I've read.
Ranks are never hyphenated. While we are on the subject, you have your ranks backwards; in the USAF, Captain is lower than Lt Col is lower than Colonel. So according to your current rankings, Rainbow Dash is the lowest rank Officer in the place and Surprise is the highest. Source 1 and Source 2. You can easily fix this by making Surprise a 1st Lieutenant and Dust and Cloud Kicker 2nd Lieutenants (assuming Surprise is ranked higher because of her seniority).
the hyphen is technically optional
spl
incorrect dash spacing; should have spaces on both sides or none at all. Should be close quote
inconsistent capitalization.
vague motion
Should two words. Also having trouble following who is saying what. This isn't the only place where speaker identification is a bit problematic.
Awkward phrasing
Hammerspace clipboard.
I believe the correct punctuation for this is "dot my I's" (letters should always be capitalized when you are referring to the letter itself).
comma for dependent clause I believe
missing word. Also, the entire second clause is pretty tell-y and slows down things; the reader can easily infer it themselves, given the circumstances and the look.
compound adjectives, need hyphens
Not technically incorrect, but I think in this case making it a single word would make the sentence easier to parse.
Seems redundant, especially since the sproing is already italicized, indicating it is a sound
Not wrong, but hammerspace newspaper and weird word choice make this a pretty awkward sentence
List of 3+ items, needs commas. Dialogue, so you can bend the rules, natch
mixing em dashes and en dashes. Actions that interrupt sentences are usually punctuated with commas, not dashes, but you can do either
More items appearing from nowhere. Doubly problematic, since she doesn't unwrap the brandy until later; is this a different bottle or the same one from the future?
tense shift
superfluous space. In the future, ctrl F can find these pretty easily.
Lists are not usually punctuated this way unless some of the items contain commas. I think it would be less jarring with commas instead of semicolons
Incorrect paragraph spacing. While I'm on the subject, having both indents and an empty line after each paragraph is redundant; typesetting procedure only needs one or the other. I personally find all that white space ugly, as well.
A common stylistic issue I noticed was your use of over-description when you describe character actions. It feels like you're trying to cram as much information into the story in as short a space of time as possible, and it makes everything feel rushed. Some examples;
These sentences have multiple subjects and a lot of information stuffed into them. This is a very common beginner mistake, and while it can be good in small doses, it makes sentences harder to follow and damages pacing. This is doubly problematic because of your over-use of Lavender Unicorn Syndrome. Picking out individual characters is much more difficult when you describe them in a roundabout way, and it's even harder when your sentences have multiple subjects and thoughts.
Just taking the first sentence listed, it could easily be re-written for clarity and speed without sacrificing any details.
Or something like that.
Your short description has a comma splice in it, and a superfluous comma in a different sentence.
Wall of corrections aside, I laughed out loud several times while reading it. Aside from the aforementioned issues, the dialogue was snappy and engaging and the characterization was solid.
This has been every bit as awesome as I was hoping it would be. Well done, and I hope to see more of this soon.
How to swear like a sailor in 10 easy ways
I have to get that book
I saw the cover art! It's on the rolling banner of the FiMFiction! Good choice!
Aaaand you made it to the top of the feature box!!!
Congratulations!!!
Surprise is lying; there's no way that her family doesn't have an Earth Pony branch that has led to a certain pink Party Menace/Reality Breaker.
This was a great first chapter. You did a great job of presenting the character, their dilemmas and their natures so we are all set up. I particularly liked how you made Dash grow up. She's still recognisable as the same character but this is the Dash that's faced Discord, Nightmare Moon and Sombra and come out the other side a very much wiser pony. It's also interesting that this is political (since when are senior military posts not political, after all?) with Twilight's appointment of RD being up for scrutiny because Rainbow (although one of the most naturally gifted fliers of her or any other generation) is her friend, so it's 'nepotism'. Rainbow has a lot of prove (to herself as well as everypony else) and I'm pretty sure that would weight heavily on her.
I love how you described how experience with Pinkie made Dash and CK more-or-less immune to Surprise's weird nature. Lightning Dust wasn't so lucky.
So, I'm thinking Dash as Red Leader, Dust as Blue Leader, Surprise as Gold Leader and CK, as the training wing commander, as Green Leader.
"You know how to fly this routine, Cadet?
"CK, I tell you that this filly is the second best bush flyer in the South Territories!"
"Second best, Cap?"
"After me, of course."
I loved your portrayal of the adult CMCs; I'm also really looking forward to how Scootaloo adjusts to military life. That training session from Rainbow sounded pretty brutal but, maybe, Rainbow was right that the only way to force through Scoot's self-doubt was to drive her as hard as possible, harder than the younger pegasi could even believe she could endure.
You automatically get a favorite for your chapter one title. And because I know four of the commenters in this story.
You start learning peoples names.
Wow, no new fic I have read recently has immediantly gotten my attention like yours,
I'm putting it on the list of things that can go inside my brain, just tell the bouncer the story is "coach dash", he'll let you in
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also ^^ this guy. amirite?
Loving the story so far, though a couple continuity errors with the Winningverse at large really stick out at me: first and foremost, it's well established in The Incredibly Embarrassing Parents of Rainbow Dash that Surprise is one of Rainbow's parents; is the departure from canon intentional, and if so, what's the reasoning behind it? Secondly, there's no indication (yet - I haven't read the second chapter yet) that Rainbow and Pinkie are in a relationship, even though there's a few places in the conversation Surprise is involved in, where some sort of mention of it, even strictly in the narration, would quite naturally fit. Is this another departure from the Winningverse canon, does it indicate a status change in their relationship (I sure hope not, but even if so, it could still be mentioned somewhere), or is it an accidental or intentional omission?
That being said, I have no complaints if this turns out to be an alternate continuity to the main Winningverse canon; as I said, I'm loving the story and can't wait to see where it goes.
3254916 I have met military people.... but the characters weren't off-duty. They were in the commander's office, relaying command information.
Just my two cents, though.
3256186 Provided you know your commander and they aren't a stick-in-the-rear its not uncommon to be a bit more lax in private. I would assume that once others (especially non-officers/friends) are on the scene they will follow protocol and and not be not so 'at ease'.
The Spitfire change from the gala/tornado day to the academy is a perfect example of this; she knew RD from after the BYF competition, so she knew she could be more open and friendly when outside of a proper military function.
3256129 This is in the 'Other Fics With The Winning Pony' category, its not cannon to the winningverse
3256204 Fair enough. It's a minor critique anyway; I'd be more concerned about getting CK and Surprise down pat anyways. Since I'm not a Winningverse reader already, they're new characters to me.
But I will be eagerly awaiting updates!
3256207 Aah, right, I missed that bit. In that case, ignore my concerns, and carry on!
You know what's keeping me from getting into this story?
This:
i.imgur.com/revEvvO.gif
I'm just getting tired of this cliché that the Winningverse started that makes Cloud Kicker out to be some kind of sex-addicted/sex-obsessed nymphomaniac for the sake of a laugh....hypersexuality isn't funny....it's a mental illness that should be taken seriously. It's become a crutch for writers to just get a quick laugh. I mean, did we even HAVE Cloud Kicker fics before Winningverse? No. But now we're drowning in dozens (if not hundreds) of Winningverse spin-offs and parodies, and poor Cloud Kicker is now comomly thought of as a sex-obsessed pervert whose only life goal is to fuck (I'm sorry, 'bang') everything that moves in Equestria for no other reason then because it's what ONE GUY thought would be funny. Same with Molestia (but that's another rant for another time)
I'll stop myself now since this is quickly becoming an anti-Winningverse rant, which I'm pretty sure no one (including myself) would enjoy me bogging down the comment box so I'll just show myself out.
Sorry I just had to get this off my chest....
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I find myself agreeing with you. I know two people who are nymphomaniacs and I can say right now, it's not a laughing matter. It makes me a little sad that a character's main selling point is 'I'm a sex crazed machine.'
The story though! The dialogue is snappy and flows, the characterisation is solid and... some, of the humour is great. The fact that it caught my attention enough to actually read it is impressive in of itself as I barely read stories on this site, I just find it sad that characters (Cloud Kicker in this case) get these 'stigmas', almost, attached to them.and it's just generally accepted. We don't challenge them for fear of rejection because we certainly don't want to go against the crowd now, do we? I could go into a whole rant about how 'follow-the-leader' trends turn me off so many things but I'll really can not be bothered.
I mean, sure it's all well and good to base your characters personality/story elements around what someone else has crafted, that's fine! You're writing a spinoff so if you didn't it'd be a bit odd, wouldn't it? But when it's the only bloody thing you ever see that character with it just gets (in more opinion at least) plain annoying and in this case (as I pointed out above) a bit sad. It becomes a cliche that people expect and if it's not there, they won't bother with it or they immediately question it.*
It's like Soarin being absolutely obsessed with pies in almost every single story
Or Lyra being absolutely obsessed with humans and hands in most stories.
Or as one author put it "I see Rainbow Dash being a lesbian as an integral part of her character."
...Right.
Well, I'll leave that can of worms alone and get back on some semblance of understandability, (Hopefully)
Besides that gripe, I found the story fantastic. Not one I can follow due to the reasons Avenging Hobbits pointed out much, much more eloquently than I did... but still, a very good story none the less. You've earned a thumbs up but this story isn't a train I'll be leaving the station on.
Apologies if this comment causes you confusion, I've written it at 0240 and I'm tired. If you get some meaning out of this you've probably got more than I got when I wrote it.
*Yes I know this an overstatement and I'm generalising, sue me.
I saw a possible Beano reference here with "Roger Dodger" and a Scanners reference.
Thank the Sky noponies head exploded.
Anyway, good story, I'm liking it so far. Keep it up!
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