Just a common PhD student who trawls the Internet each day to find terrible, TERRIBLE things.
This story is a sequel to Griffon The Brush-Off - Extended Cut
Trixie Lulamoon is a traveling stage magician. She peddles safe, friendly, idiotic fun. After so many setbacks Twilight’s friends and colleagues could certainly use a break from their routine. What could possibly be the harm?
The Season 1 episode Boast-Busters rewritten as a serious intrigue adventure.
Co-written with Serketry.
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Incoherent noises of high-pitched excitement
Edit: It's a little early, but my guess is changeling assistant..
Yes, it's finally here!
Ladies and gentlemen, we present, the Grrreat and Powerful Trrrixie!
Woohoo! Here we gooo!
Woo, it's out! I can't wait to see what sorts of shenanigans and troubles happen, especially with whatever the Everfree could possibly throw. That brief cameo by Zecora was pretty neat too!
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I was seriously expecting that nobody would get that, and someone did in minutes. Impressive.
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It's funny how sometimes something like that will just go over your head and other times you'll notice something that no one else has caught.
Ha. Yes. Diss the NFTs please! They deserve all the scorn you can manage.
Hey there. Glad to see you getting the next story in this series started. Very good job on the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up. Definitely liked Spike trying to practice his magic in order to improve his usefulness to Twilight and her friends and I definitely appreciated the guards voicing their very understandable frustrations (especially with that one guard foreshadowing Zecora with the flashback with getting lost in the Everfree for a month and change), with Twilight sympathizing, but understandably over-cautious concerning the group newcomers concerning information that is supposed to top secret. And, yeah, also liked Pinkie being, in a sarcastic sort of way, ironically one of the voices of reasons when Applejack vented her frustrations concerning Trixie's bragging. I could certainly see where Twilight could get the idea to hire Trixie to provide some entertainment for the understandably frustrated troops.
And yeah, the points you made in the author's notes were quite on-point as usual. And, as for dragon magic, we've seen some signs of it (mostly from Spike - stuff like his teleportation breath and, less deliberately, "greed growth" [though the latter could be weaponized with proper training; Spike learning to increase his size and proportionate strength and durability the more motivated he is by protecting those he truly cares about while still retaining his normal intelligence, even if that would realistically take a fair number of years]) and griffons, well, I'm visualizing something like a hybrid of Pegasus and Earth pony magic (though somewhat modified due to species) as griffons, as I aforementioned, can fly like Pegasi and have comparable strength to an Earth pony. But that is just a theory and much more likely to be wrong than right.
Very certainly looking forward to more of this.
Ah, glad to see more of this. Trixie is a fun character; stage magic in a world of actual magic has to be pretty tough!
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You're absolutely right. With that in mind, we repainted Trixie as both a storyteller and a stage magician, weaving tricks and spectacle into a central narrative- in this case, her escape from the ankhaps. Any unicorn with a basic understanding of magic can shine some lights and move stuff around with TK, but it takes a showman to make it all entertaining.
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Yeah, we spent a lot of time (and, by extension, Trixie and other stage magicians in-universe spent a lot of time) figuring out tricks that would actually be impressive and unexplainable in a world where large portions of the population can fly, use telekinesis, or toss boulders around like beach balls; and bookworm physicists can literally teleport from one place to the next. Part of that is recognizing the limits on what magic can and cannot do (and what magic can indeed do but is not widely known to be able to do), and another big part of it is, indeed, color and spectacle.
Now, I don't have a problem inherently with mocking any of the groups in this. However it feels really forced in context and dates your story, something that your other fics didn't.
Then again, it is pretty funny.
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That's fair. It started out as just some ankhegs, and mutated in stages into mocking the NFT crowd.
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Not to mention the buy gold, anti government anarcho-capitalist crowd lmao
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Yep. It's a good cross section of the iterative process the Admiral and I use in writing these. I proposed the fight against the ankhegs, a D&D staple; the Admiral countered with the gold-obsessed ankhaps; and then weeks later I suggested we go all the way with lampooning the NFT crowd. So that part's on me.
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That was actually the main purpose of the segment, or at least the joke part of it. It began with wanting to find another monster for Trixie to talk about before the Ursa Major/Minor was a thing. Serketry suggested ankhegs, a D&D monster, but I thought that didn't quite fit because MLP monsters are never just mythological creatures, they always have some kind of twist or pun or gimmick. Thus, ankhegs became ankhaps. The bit about NFTs was actually added much later on- previously, they just hoarded gold, jewels, and art objects, but the rest of the description was the same.
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That's a good guess, and if it's correct, it wouldn't be the first time I've shown up in EC, either.
Really good job on this latest chapter. Definitely appreciate the work that went into the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up.
Certainly appreciated the bits of world-building in this chapter, from the stuff in Rarity's magazine to the greater detail on Earth pony characters of the past. And yeah also appreciated how secretive Trixie was being not only about the stuff about asking Rarity to fix and improve her cape, but also the dialogue with Aqua at the end of the chapter. The stuff about knots with Applejack, the brief discussion concerning the recent mess with the griffons and the dialogue with the Lunars were also good stuff.
VERY certainly looking forward to more of this.
Trixie is surprisingly knowledgeable about things that she perhaps shouldn't be. It makes me curious as to what her goal here is. Is she working for someone, or is she perhaps just honestly interested in history?
I like this Trixie. I'm getting the impression that, in order to keep her role as a sort of antagonist, but leaving out the silly original show conflict, you're kind of skipping to her dalliances with magic she shouldn't be messing with. She appears to be after something. Kind of makes her seem like an Indiana Jones sort of figure; clever and getting into trouble in magical ruins.
I'm also excited by the hints of the episode's Ursa. Calming the Ursa is when Twilight demonstrates she's truly a magical powerhouse, and I hope we get see that moment translated into this more serious version.
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My original motivations for having her do what she does come from a different plot point in Season 1 EC, but, yeah. Everything she does here definitely makes me think, "Yeah, this is totally a mare who, upon seeing a weird, evil-looking amulet sitting in a glass jar in a creepy curio shop, would try to put it on."
Again, very good job on the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up here. Definitely liked the reflection on how good a job Trixie had been doing keeping up morale as well as Fluttershy helping foreshadow just how big the Ursas are/can be, the foreshadowing to areas that will be visited later in the series, Spike trying to talk to Twilight about what little his background check on Trixie was able to uncover as well as the bit about Twilight getting a bit annoyed with Spike and Applejack's paranoia (though, given what sort of story this is, I have a hunch that their paranoia is at least half-justified [if not entirely]) and Applejack partially foreshadowing the first encounter with the Flim-Flam Brothers (the extremely busy apple cider season and how big of drinkers the Guards can be). And, yeah, the half-joke concerning the possible origins of Applejack's name is both funny AND makes sense as well.
At any rate, certainly looking forward to more of this.
It could be that ponies never bothered to produce a domesticated grass, when hay and cereals were so readily available anyways. Wild grass likely evolved to be less and less palatable to the apex browsers.
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I like the term "apex browsers".
What a very curious history Trixie has, or in this case, doesn't have.
>Grass diet
I've always liked the idea of old timey pony "common greens" being a thing and it's just fallen into primarily other purposes instead of emergency grass storage.
Could also just be a cultural bit- flowers are cool and classy, grains are great, but trimming your lawn by mouth suggests extreme poverty.
There's also the question of how much time and nutrition you'd expend trying to forage that way.
Interestingly you can actually survive off of grasses for a fair amount of time, you will eventually succumb to malnutrition but it will extend that period a fair bit
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In fact, I think "trimming your lawn by mouth" makes a great idiom for extreme poverty. Thanks!
Last chapter I thought you might have been hinting princess Golden Dream of love poison fame became the first changeling. Now it seems Chrysalis is a known personality, though maybe legend passed down through history is more accurate. A pony Baba Yaga, which does make her eventual appearance all the more terrifying.
I love how you expand on the original series like this, the added depth of setting really makes it a standout fantasy story.
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Probably, they were a common thing after Hearth's Warming, then gradually deteriorated in quality and availability over the Council period, then were reestablished under Paper Clip. In the modern era, industrial agriculture guarantees massive food surpluses, so there's no need.
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I can neither confirm nor deny either possibility, other than to say that they are not mutually exclusive.
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Thank you. Between the show and the comics, there's already a vast, richly detailed, interconnected world for us to explore and flesh out. And we're doing our part to keep it alive.
Trixie worms her way in further, I think mostly because all it required was asking Twilight to perform bureaucracy for her, which is probably unwittingly buttering her up enough to ignore general shadiness.
Rainbow's laziness about her job always feels a bit awkward. It fits her personality, but it's rarely clear whether she is just doing all her work last minute, or if she's shirking work others end up having to do, which kind of conflicts with her sense of loyalty.
I laughed at Rainbow's sandwich. It's very Rainbow Dash. And now she's been offered an irresistible amount of intrigue to go get into trouble and probably antagonize Trixie.
I like the reputation Twilight got among the Bat Ponies. Rainbow impressed them with a martial performance, but Twilight beat them with subterfuge, painful spells, and some pretty ruthless tactics. I can see how Rainbow ends up being approachable and Twilight becomes scary.
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Remember, this is Season 1 RD. She pulls her own weight- enough to still be the weather captain- but she's not going to give her all for routine work like this. The job'll get done before the end of her shift, but without an audience, or at least Twilight there to light a fire under her, yeah, it'll probably get done at the end of her shift.
In other words, there's not enough job in her job to keep her busy for an 8 hour shift.
Again, this was a well-done chapter with great exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up. Definitely appreciated AJ playing translator between Granny Smith and that one Lunar for a line as well as understanding how AJ can get so suspicious of Trixie that she ended up sneaking when she originally didn't intend to upon hearing her voice. The bit with Trixie and the soldiers was pretty good too, especially with the newspaper argument, the bit of "deer paranoia" and the Crusaders showing up when they did (by the way, also appreciated the soldiers and Trixie at least making an effort to discourage the Crusaders from going too far into the forest). The "check bit" with Trixie and Rarity was really good too, especially with the possible small bit of background that could be uncovered from the address on the check (I say "possible" because, well, I know that you never really know) as well as Rarity understandably curious about how Trixie could produce the checkbook from an area she rather carefully looked over earlier without finding any such thing. The "family" bits are all rather understandable too.
Anyway, quite certainly looking forward to more of this.
Okay, so either Trixie is with the smuggling ring OR a facet of the government. Given how Equestria operates I wouldn't be surprised if there was a group doing their own thing. THAT SAID the lack of a paper trail for Trixie regardless is a bad move on her part, especially if she's supposed to have these licenses. Even a scant paper trail would be helpful, so long as she's on the files. For instance, I got into Shadowrun lately and a key item for any runner is at least a few false identities, one for all the 'legal' stuff.
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Or she's the plan B; Shutterfly had all the fake IDs, and Trixie was never supposed operate in the open.
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Complete operational failures all around. Who the hell is running this outfit? I'm betting on Blueblood given his high position in society coupled with that bottomless Canterlot account would mean that he can cut his 'associates' out easily, but still not supplying your plan B properly just means a higher chance of them failing too!
Besides that though, Trixie getting in front of the foals is a good use of foreshadowing.
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Who indeed.
And yeah, Trixie's a good person, at heart, she's just working for some shady characters.
Well, Trixie's PoV has all but confirmed she's up to something shady. Not a fan of the Lunars either. Strange for someone with the name Lulamoon.
Love the forays into espionage these stories take, Rarity is proving to be pretty savvy in tradecraft. Looks like you may be going with a more 'Agents of the Crown' future for the Mane 6 than just ponies that randomly go on adventures.
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Saving the world once is a fluke. Twice, a coincidence. But 5 times in 4 years? It'd be stupid not to give them government backing.
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Actually it would be SIX times in four years:
Nightmare Moon, Discord, Chrysalis, Sombra, the Plunder Vines AND Tirek. That makes six. In Twilight's case, it might actually be SEVEN times in four years counting Sunset Shimmer (which might count as saving TWO worlds at the same time depending on how you score it).
But, yeah, the point still very much applies. I can quite certainly see it.
That was a good chapter.
Well even if we didn't get pretty explicitly told that Trixie is part of the conspiracy, she put up so many red flags with Rarity it's a wonder Rarity hasn't asked her to be investigated by Twilight.
I wonder what her goal with the cloak and the incident with the kids is? Is she using them as excuses to get close and pilfer trinkets and spy? Her PoV segment indicated she doesn't seem super informed; more like she just knows she's supposed to be spying for someone, and has a vague idea of what to look for.
Well. Professional prison wardens, these ponies are not.
Regarding RD: She's a pretty consistently terrible pony in the show.
Regarding Trixie: Girl you are digging yourself deeper and deeper. I just hope she can climb her way out of the hole she put herself in.
Excellent work on this latest chapter. Again, very good job on the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-ups. Yeah, can appreciate Rainbow TRYING to watch over Trixie's show discreetly but still getting busted before getting roped into that impromptu competition. And now Twilight is taking her friends suspicions about Trixie seriously as she has actual evidence to back it up. Also appreciated Trixie getting annoyed by the search and then getting read her rights. Plus, yeah, I could understand why Twilight might be a bit unnerved by Trixie's silent treatment before the latter got away. And, yeah, also liked the comic relief bits in this chapter (Pinkie acting like an old-timey sports vendor, complete with accent, the banter between Rainbow and Rain Chaser during the stakeout, Spike's "I Take Offense To That Last One" reaction to Trixie's goon comment [as well as Applejack's "correction"]).
At any rate, very certainly looking forward to more of this.
Really Twiggles? You give the magician you're arresting her cloak that you know is heavily enchanted? What have you been smoking?
My theory: When Trixie slammed the door she hid in the wagon and had an illusion wearing the cloak get arrested. That's why she didn't talk or react when walking, until she dropped the spell when they were out of sight.
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That's a very good theory, with one hitch: her good cloak is still in Rarity's shop; she's wearing her plain and serviceable backup cloak.
Well Trixie, your petty crime spree has awoken a beast from outside reality as you know it. Good job
. And did you program those duplicates to especially go out of their way to antagonize anyone who might try to stop you? I can see her being absolutely pony-non-grata in Equestria after this. And of course it's Ponyville's fault for noticing she was conning them. So, a different path to the same canon outcome broadly. I think it definitely works. Can't wait to see the climax, how much of the village gets demolished?
Also: Called it. Trixie was hiding in her wagon and using a magic double. I will be insufferably smug the rest of today.