Lunaverse story. A thousand years ago, Corona cursed Jackelope Valley, and it has never rained there since. Now the barren desert is the site of an annual music festival that celebrates up-and-coming artists--and Lyra's been invited to play! When Raindrops learns that her favorite band, the Daughters of Discord, are playing, she comes along as well... but soon after arriving, the two stumble upon the last living Jackelope. What should have been a week of fun and music turns into a race against time and the pitiless sun as the two ponies, aided by DJ Pon3 and the guitarist pegasus Thunder Axe, struggle to save the Jackelope's life...
"OC" to refers to Thunder Axe and assorted background/minor characters.
Chapters (9)
Ooh, intriguing. I like it so far.
A few continuity things:
1. Snowflake is currently wandering around Equestria with Twilight (in the 'Elements of Insanity' tie-in story), so he couldn't be on the Ponyville weather patrol. (The other canon pony with her right now is Sheriff Silverstar, by the way).
2. As funny as it is, I don't think Raindrops would threaten her friend Lyra like that.
3. Given what happened the last time Berry Punch was at a food competition in Trottingham, she'd probably make a comment about Bonbon's venue choice. :-)
I like the shout-out to Octavia recommending Lyra to take her place; that would seem to go back to the LNEPD story (which mentions that Octavia has tried to help out Lyra and her career ever since she graduated).
Love Vinyl's introduction here. A bit surprised her student didn't tag along to yell goodbye on the platform, but maybe Bebop just likes to sleep in. Then again, I could see that cluttering the scene.
I liked the lead in with the jackelope though I have a hard time with first/semi first person and it seemed a little contradictory at certain points as I had a bit of difficutly telling who was narrating, but that could very well be me.
Loved the start with, poor Raindrops ranting to Berry and then Lyra chiming in,
Feel a bit concerned about/for Dash's portrayal, but only a teensy bit.
Everpony would probably work better but that's a tiny thing. I saw others namely anyone instead of anypony ETC.
Quite liked Raindrops's reaction to the Daughter of Discord, it's nice to see her so excited and it suits Lyra to take a friend like that, loyalty and all that.
loved the "we don't leave for tow days" bit
Though please be careful not to over do it with Raindrops's love of the band once she meets them, that's a suggestion, and please feel free to ignore it, sorry :)
I actually like the idea of Raindrops packing lots not like she doesn't have the strength for it anyway.
The ending felt a little awkward/maybe a little rushed and seemed to lack a bit of detail/scenery anyway it was a solid lead into a flashback/explanation.
Overall this was a quick, but very enjoyable and well written chapter and lead into therest of the fic/next chapter, so I liked it, have a Fluttershy
"I can have hobbies! Who says I can't?"
The only flaw I noticed with this chapter is that Moondance was the alter-ego assumed by Zizanie in "File under 'I' for 'Impossible'", who had apparently died in a train crash some months earlier, and wasn't a musician regardless.
Oh, and on a stylistic note, the intro bit in italics, I would personally cleanly seperate from the rest with some asterisks or a line or something.
Oh, yes, and one more thing:
When in the season do you want this story to take place? Remember that the open slots can place this story just about anywhere before Ep. 25. I recommend setting it before "The Hero of Oaten," so that'd make it Episde 16, and set it during mid-spring. Sound good? (the choice is still yours)
1613569; Octavia already has her royal appointment, so that would place it after Symphony.
I like. Keep this up dood.
1613516
Made your edits. My thinking was that Bebop isn't around because it's midmorning on a school day. Okay, really my thinking was that I forgot Bebop existed, but NOW my thinking is that it's midmorning on a school day. I'm glad you like Vinyl's introduction. I'm a little worried about writing her--I expanded her lines a bit when I revised, and I'm not sure I have a good sense of her voice. I tried watching Epic Wub Time a loop, but everything Vinyl Scratch says sounds like "blah blah I am too young and need to get off Froborr's lawn" to me.
1613527
Keep in mind, this is Raindrop's impression of Dash. I expect it's not quite as bad as Raindrop is making it out to be. I expanded the scenes on the platform and in the train a little bit, but I do want to get them out of the way; the story really starts in Chapter Two. And I plan for Raindrops to have a not-so-great first meeting with her favorite band; they're under a lot of stress and are a little bit jerk-ish to her.
1613569
Changed the names of all three past acts, based on suggestions from a couple of people.
As GrassAndClouds said, the story takes place after Symphony. After that, it can be pretty much any time.
Other changes:
I decided that planned future events work better if Vinyl Scratch is not an official participant, but just a techie, so I changed that. I also expanded her lines a bit, as I mentioned.
I'm glad everybody seems to like it so far... onward to Chapter Two..!
1618520
Good point about it being her impression, ah poor Raindrops, she never can catch a break, still I'll be looking forward to it next chapter!
thank you i wanted to see more group interaction that didn't involve trixie
Really very fun. Ending kind of petered out a little but the start was incredibly strong. Very nice start for this story and am anxious to see more.
Ah, they're off to the Burning Mane festival. Have fun! Pack lots of water!
1628593
BURNING MANE! That is the perfect freaking name, why did I not think of that!
...wow. OK that went kinky -> fake out -> kinky fake out. Well played sir, well played.
Also, crystal core? Is that this worlds version of Heavy Metal? Why did it get that name, I'm actually rather curious as a metal fan myself.
1633857
As for why it's called crystalcore... you'll find out in chapter three.
Remaining quite an entertaining story. Perhaps, a bit short on this chapter as I would've liked to see it go a little longer, but overall flowed well. Wow that was truly one of the darkest things we've seen Corona really do whether in the past or present and it was nicely tied into her power set too so very nice on that. Thanks very much for sharing and I look forward to reading the next.
Edit: Oh my and I got first for this chapter. I'm supposed to say something obnoxious aren't I? Umm...YEAH SUMPONYITCHES I'S BEAT VAZAK BY 6 SECONDS YO! ...Yeah there we go.
All right new chapter!
I liked the discussion at the start and closing the shades and discussion of curses, all ways the little detail like that that make a fic.
The Jackelope song is certainly interesting, ooh and I loved Raindrops trying to chime in with science over poetry.
Vynle scratch professional
Overall a short but good chapter that I was happy to read!
Also, since I love you all, have a picture of Awesome Sauce, lead singer and bassist for the Daughters of Discord.
i1303.photobucket.com/albums/ag159/Jed_Blue/awesomesauce.png
1636336
Daughters of Discord, looks like a stallion
Love that cutie mark and the mohawk just works so well.
1636568
Nah, just a taller and buffer than usual mare. I guess it's a little unusual for mares in the show to have hooves like that, too, but I like them.
I'd make the other three members, but one's a crystal pony and I don't know of a pony maker that can do that, I can't find art for the cutie mark of one of the pegasi, and I haven't decided what the other pegasus looks like.
1637790
ah ok then!
I like them too and Zecora has them and there was probably a background pony who had them but I doubt I'd know them.
Just this one is perfectly fine,k ooh looking forward to the crystal pony, hmm ideas
Also sorry but wouldn't Raindrops be a little more weirded out by a place where it never rains? then again she's hardly defined by only that characteristic so don't worry, looking forward to the next chapter.
1637790 You could say the red is actually paint. To make it look like she bludgeoned an enemy to death with her hooves and they're now all bloody!!!
1637813
Raindrops is definitely weirded out by the place, but that's part of why she had to be the one to come with Lyra.
1638191
Hoof polish, I like it.
1638364
I'll be looking forward to seeing more of her reaction then.
Nice use of music here. I like when Lyra gets a chance to show off her musical prowess.
No such thing as curses, eh? I suppose when they say things like that, events such as those in Foalish Misadventures are inevitable. :-)
As to the poem:
It looks like you're going for an 8-6 syllable structure, with the pattern of 'unstressed-stressed-unstressed-stressed' syllables. It mostly works, but there's a few rough spots.
"Still both brought to us hope," is awkward. It's a Yoda-fication of the sentence, and it doesn't fit well with the rest of the verse. It feels forced.
"And beast in the pony" has the right number of syllables but not the right stressing. "Beast" and "Pone" are stressed, so it goes unstressed-stress-unstressed-unstressed-stressed-unstressed. The double unstressed syllable part makes the line feel shorter than usual, too short to fit the rhythm. It's also unclear what it actually means; is the jackelope lord of the 'ponyness' of ponies?
The Lyra/Raindrops discussion about rain is great. Also like the implication that Raindrops might have something of an intellectual bent, or at least paid attention in school. We haven't seen that side of her before.
This also seems a bit Yoda-fied. I think "Tell me the truth, o creature: how/Can Sun absorb the Moon?" Works better.
Nice. Very nice. I love this paragraph.
I get what this means, but the phrasing is awkward. If that's a deliberate choice, to emphasize the confusion in the wake of the jackalope's destruction, awesome. If not, consider: "Yet we still sing, we still recall/And mourn the jackelope."
A bit surprised that Vinyl believes that the valley is weird and Lyra doesn't; as Lyra's the bard who loves legends and tales, I'd think that would be flipped.
Lyra's mostly been shown playing classical music before. Which isn't to say that she can't do folk also, but Raindrops or Vinyl might be curious as to why she's doing folk instead of classical -- especially as her two big shows in Canterlot (in 'Helping Hands' and 'Through the Fire and Flame' were both classical, at least as far as I know).
Not really a big fan of using 'bucking' as an epithet. I don't think we've done that before, and while it's funny, it goes against the image of the Lunaverse as being an actual show from an alternate universe.
Intrigued by Vinyl being a skeptic. It strikes me that we don't know what, exactly, she was doing during Longest Night Longest Day. She wasn't in the episode, or in the side-stories Longest Night Everypony's Day (which so far feature Blueblood, Octavia, Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash, the Apples, and the Riches and Silvers). Hey, someone should totally write an LNEPD story about Vinyl; that fic's still open for submissions. :-)
1638897
Thanks for the comments!
Twilight says there's no such thing as curses in "Bridle Gossip," so I'm assuming that's common knowledge among magically trained unicorns. Of course, common knowledge often turns out to be wrong...
I'll fiddle with the song; I was going for traditional English ballad structure (alternating iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter with rhymes on the trimeter lines) and I definitely did force it at times. I haven't written poetry since college, which is WAY longer ago than I like to think about, and it shows.
My thinking on Lyra's skepticism is that she's *trained* in legends and tales. She not only knows the stories, but the histories of the stories--which ones are based on historical events as opposed to made up to flatter an influential noble or entertain a crowd, and the fact that there's no evidence of the Ballad of Jackelope Valley being anywhere near as old as the events it describes, and the lack of any earlier descriptions, makes it very suspect in her eyes. Vinyl Scratch, on the other hand, has BEEN to the valley, so she *knows* it's weird.
I could have sworn I'd seen "bucking" used somewhere around here, but in hindsight it might have been on the forum rather than in a story.
Seriously considering taking a crack at that, because apparently I am a glutton for punishment. (I'm finding Vinyl Scratch the hardest of the three to write; Raindrops and Lyra just flow but VS I have to push.)
My thinking on VS has changed rapidly in the course of writing this chapter. Originally she was just going to be kind of insane in a harmless-but-annoying way, sort of like a toned-down Pinkie Pie. Her Epic Wub Time characterization, basically. Then I was going to make her more actively troll-ish. Originally her comments about Corona not existing were in the middle of the chapter, not the end, and involved Lyra being reluctant to say the name at midday, and VS more-or-less tricking her into doing it. I changed it because it seemed out-of-character for Lyra to be that afraid of Corona, but it had the side effect of making VS seem like less of a jerk, which in hindsight is probably a good thing.
Now I'm considering making VS a bit conspiracy-minded. She's got a bit of an anarchist flair, likes to buck the rules when she can get away with it, occasionally rants about the Mare (pony equivalent to the Man), that sort of thing.
1639026: I like the last characterization. It also fits well with what we came up with on the boards. (If you haven't seen the threads, there was a very popular idea that Vinyl is the daughter of Fancy and his first wife. Vinyl doesn't know that her dad is the head of the Shadowbolts/an elite spy/Batpony-equivalent, but does know that he's a high-up political fellow, and isn't all too keen on that. Hence her 'rebellion' by being a party DJ instead of following her father into politics. Fancy, of course, just wants Vinyl to be happy and so isn't phased by this rebellion at all... to Vinyl's irritation. :-D ).
1639223
Ooh, interesting. I went and tracked down the thread, and yes, that all works well together.
The one thing I think I'd like to add to her character is that she's a couple of years older than the L!6, and she and Octavia were roommates at college.
1639392: The age thing works, although I'd personally shy away from the roommates thing. It's a bit much for all the musicians to know each other, and so far we've been staying away from any of the usual Octy/Vinyl shipping/roommates/rivals/etc. There was a reference in an early draft of Musicians and Dreamers to Vinyl showing up at the Music Academy for an impromptu party, but that was redacted for similar reasons (Emeral raised the issues, and I wound up agreeing with him).
At least personally, I think it'd be best if the only interaction so far between the two was when Octy and Lyra did a jam session in Vinyl's studio in Ponyville.
1639429
Fair enough. It doesn't change anything I'm working on, so I'll leave it in personal headcanon and out of any stories.
Ya know this story is great but maybe you should hit the submission button so it gets public?
1644711
My fiancee wishes to give you a brohoof. We both agree, best euphemism ever.
I think I'm probably going to have to write an LDLN for Vinyl at this point, but it'll be REALLY HARD. She's definitely the hardest-to-write character in this story.
1640966
Is that how that works? I'm not really clear on the difference between published and submitted...
1647150: When a chapter is published, then people can see it if you give them a link to the chapter or the story. It won't show up on searches.
When you click 'submit', then the mods look at it. If they approve it, then people can see all your published chapters through searches or browsing the site. People who didn't see your link in the brainstorming thread will be able to find it.
1647150 Publish button lets other reads chapter, it also lets you update, but to make a story public (so it comes up on searches or on your profile page) you first need to get it submitted. On the story may page there should be a 'submit' button near the add chapter button. Press that and it'll go through the approval process. After it's gone through it and waited in the queue it'll be public and you'll be able to add it to the Lunaverse and the Raindrops Needs More Love group!
Updated the chapter based on the comments I got, and also Published the story.
Very nice so far. I'm intrigued by what you're setting up.
Also, the lead singer has the symbol of team Dai-Gurren as her cutie mark?
1655999
Thanks!
And yes, yes she does. I'm pretty sure if she ever meets Pokey Pierce it'll trigger Spiral Nemesis and destroy the universe.
1656762 Probably. What kind of talent would that represent anyway?
Being awesome?
Going beyond the impossible?
Pilotting giant robots?
1656795
Spiral energy!
So, all of the above.
1659867
It's really tempting, but... drug use. I don't think it really fits the canon. Also I don't think I could write it well.
That's why I think you should write the non-canon version where she's high as a kite.
1660566
Cool. I'm probably going to do mine tonight, but it might take me longer than one night.
I'm really enjoying this so far! The legend of the Jackelopes has just the right folk legend feel, while fitting in with well-known fact about how and when Corona did stuff. Gotta feel bad for the poor critters.
Crystalcore, I love it.
Good beginning, here.
Ooh, poor jackalopes. :( I can see Corona doing that, too. A legend and a song... but they all come from somewhere, right?
1630874 Ah yes, Burning Mane. A wonderful name. Wait, doesn't somepony have a burning mane? Oh, right. Corona. Might not want to have that particular connotation...
So... guess who has two thumbs and just accidentally, irretrievably deleted everything he had written of Chapter Three so far?
1696467
If Burning Mane existed, it would be much more hardcore and countercultural than Jackelope Valley. Probably held outside Equestria proper, in one of the Hegemony states.
Nicely done. Still a bit short but I'm really enjoying the story being told. Nice work.
Well, after the disappointment with the Gala story, this was a breath of fresh air.
I really enjoyed the scene between Lyra and Carda. It actually makes me interested to see how the Lunaverse implements the Crystal Ponies more. And since this inevitably ends with a diatribe that RDD yells at me for, I'll leave it at that. I also love your interpretation of Raindrops, from her snoring to her fangirling over the Daughters of Discord.
Keep up the good work.
A little short but a good build and a well done cliffhanger, not so sure how I feel about RD snoring, (there's some really complicated literary reasons for it)
but I found the entire scene description dragon lumber mill hilarious!
I think you did a good job with the "lyra snob" thing without it going overboard.
Poor Raindrops, this sin't gonna end well I can taste it, still be careful not to go to overboard, with the fangasm, or ignore me either fine, plus it's you know your sotry, I'll enjoy it either way :)
anyway good chapter overall good set up for the next chapter.
1703617
Thanks!
Since a lot of people have commented on this: I'm doing short chapters on purpose. I could have made all three of these be one chapter, but then the story wouldn't have existed until today. I'd rather put up three or four 1500-word chapters a month than one 5000-word chapter covering the same scenes.
1703812 1703958
Thanks!
I'm planning for the next chapter to be much more from Raindrops' point of view.
Unfortunately, this is Carda's one really big scene, at least in this story. I found myself actually liking her quite a bit, so maybe I'll bring her back in a side-story or non-canon fic or something. Which isn't to say she's going to vanish, just that she's not going to be a major character in the story.