Trixie's life was ruined by the Ursa Minor incident. In canon, she returned to town upon obtaining the Alicorn Amulet.
Here, however, Trixie heard about the Want-It-Need-It mass spell on Ponyville, about some troublemakers using a love poison, and a group of ponies playing as a dress-up hero to show up their friend. What if Trixie instead decided to get a more subtle form of revenge by a battle of words against Twilight Sparkle's friends?
Takes place during 'It's About Time' in Season 2.
Chapters (1)
I don't think the Mane 6 came off bad at all. They had as much right as anyone to come see the show and as much right to not be impressed. No one else seemed disturbed by their complaining, and Trixie challenged them and then failed to live up to the challenge
It is interesting Trixie using the Mane6's tendency to use too-complex-schemes to solve minor problems and their fallout in order to make they question themselves (although I personally think that the "Lesson Zero" Event was due lingering effects of her fight with Discord...)
6482547
1. She beat everyone who went up on stage.
2. If they didn't like the show they could of moved on instead of insulting her show in the front row.
3. They were complaining about bragging at a magic show.
6485137
1.she most certainly did not beat them at what they challenged her to do
2. maybe they would have eventually, maybe they wanted to see what else she could do
3. it's a magic show, that means magic is compulsory, not bragging
6485301
She beat them by doing a better trick then they did.
From how it's shown in the show they're pretty much ignoring her show and just bad mouthing her.
It's not bragging she was selling herself.What is she s'posed call herself the average and mundane Trixie the somewhat magical unicorn in all of equestria.
6485393 her name is fine, the stuff she was claiming she did had nothing to do with her act
6485404
Yes it does stage magic depends heavily on luring the crowd into a sense of security and to get them interested. From the admitted limited number of shows I've been to and the minimal research I've done an opening monologue or story is often done for this.
It does bother me that, on occasion, characters are forced to act in an unreasonable way in order to set up the lesson for the episode. And, while Twilight's friends were the ones to start the trouble, Trixie did compound the trouble with her "I'm better than you" attitude. Even so, Trixie is well in her rights to be frustrated at having her reputation ruined by the incident when all of Ponyville is so forgiving to almost everyone else.
Of course, the real reason for this is that the writers didn't go about making the boast busters episode in the right way. But, for Trixie, it's just incredibly unfair. When I look at Trixie, I see someone who does have genuine and serious character flaws (as everyone should), and they are agitated to new extremes because of her circumstances. She still has these flaws in this story, so she didn't actually make much progress to reconciling with Twilight's friends, but that is all in character for her at this point in time.
One thing that drives me crazy though is this concept that the Fanon has come up with that Trixie always speaks in third person, and that any time she speaks in the first person, it is extra-meaningful. She only speaks that way when she is using her on-stage persona, including when she is trying to defend her credibility in front of Snips and Snails in the middle of the night. Otherwise, she talks normally.
But I won't let that stop me from liking this story.
6563495 I do agree, the staff writing has some weak episodes where their Aesop is weakened when viewed with a critical eye, such as Boast Busters where Trixie suffers disproportionate circumstances, especially after she stood up against the Ursa Minor. Lightning Dust also suffers from this effect IMO. I did try making it so Trixie really hasn't gotten any much better. She's learned to curtail her bragging a bit and (as the author) I think her apology to Rarity is genuine, but she's also using it to shown to Applejack and Rainbow Dash she CAN apologise, she just won't apologise to those two.
For what it's worth, of my three (non-sexual) Trixie stories this is the only one where she stays mostly in third-person (pony) speech, though she does drop it when she's shaken. In Boast Busters she lets out an 'I' once during her performance. I don't know if that was an accident on the voice actor's part or not, but I like to think it means she doesn't have it fully internalised as part of her act.
Very interesting take on Trixie. I like it.
The more times I read this the more I feel I dislike Applejack and Rainbow for what they did. Rarity too I guess after all, property damage is still property damage. You come up with some of the coolest ideas. I don't get why your stories aren't more well known.
6945472 Mostly it comes down to simply only having registered in the last year, if I had posted these exact same stories a few years ago they would have gotten more exposure (outside of the ones that are relevant to Season 5, anyways), but this site seems to have less traffic nowadays. Eventually I'll build up enough Followers to hit critical mass, I guess, or possibly get a surprise popular fic (I thought The Maudyssey might do that due to sheer insanity but I guess not).
This was a nice slice of life type fic, even though it's not tagged as such.
Great characterization of Trixie here, it expands on what we know of her from the show flawlessly while making her seem like a real person.
You write characters very well.
7183324 I do. Boast Busters wasn't written that well.
If Trixie had heard Twilight's 'Just let her go. Maybe someday she'll learn her lesson.' lines, she would have really been reaming her out in absentia in this story.
7184510 I think this was originally tagged as Slice of Life but when we finally got the Drama tag I changed it to that instead.
in Trixie's defence it was Snips and Snails' fault, not her
sequel please.
7350133 You can see the publication date, October 1st, 2015 (last year). I wrote about the first story in bits and drabs and left it for a few weeks or a month before wrapping it up at the end of September though, so it wasn't all written in one sitting.
7350157 Well then, either this story could be AU or Trixie staying away from Ponyville didn't stick.
I like exploiting the timing of specific episodes for some of my stories (a couple of other ideas that I have would be Gilda returning to Ponyville to make up with Rainbow Dash during Mysterious Mare-Do-Well, or Maud Pie showing up in Ponyville just as Twilight is slaughtering Pinkie clones).
7410339 Not really. Alternative Universe as a tag differs from the strict definition. Anything that contradicts show canon even slightly would be AU, but a lot of things would be splitting hairs (and as I said, this story doesn't necessarily contradict Magic Duel. Trixie could have decided to return and get a more full revenge, and nobody mentioned her show to Twilight and Spike).
This is what the site FAQ says about the AU tag:
An interesting take on it. I didn't realize that a lot of people felt that way about Trixie. I hadn't thought anything of how she'd been treated until you pointed it out. I have something new to think about. Yes, she was boasting and prideful, which does rub people the wrong way, but she was putting on a show. I think I'd agree strongly if it had simply been part of her act, but it seemed that she was that prideful and questionably dishonest all the time.
In any case, I like Trixie, and I actually like her more reading your stories about her. I think the biggest point you made was that she didn't bring the Ursa Minor, Snips and Snails did. Seems like that fact did get a bit overlooked in the end. Anyway, fun in-episode side story. This could have made an episode if they hadn't gone the other way with the Alicorn Amulet.
That was you guys own fault for messing with someone's job.
I wish this were cannon. The reason it hits so hard is cause it's true