• Member Since 22nd Jan, 2013
  • offline last seen Oct 20th, 2022

Bradel


Ceci n'est pas un cheval.

E

<Set before S3E09, "Spike at Your Service"> Rainbow Dash has a problem. She's done reading the last of the "Daring Do" novels, and the next one isn't set to be published until the summer. She tells her troubles to Tank, and in the process realizes that if other ponies can't write fast enough to keep her reading, then maybe she should try her hoof at writing stories of her own. They say to write what you know, and Rainbow Dash certainly does know adventure. But writing about yourself isn't very cool. Tank, on the other hand, is awesome enough to deserve stories of his own, only nopony knows that. Yet.
— Featured on Equestria Daily.

Chapters (9)
Comments ( 167 )

I'M THE TORTOISE PONYVILLE DESERVES

Read RD's story entirely in her voice (deepening or heightening it given the character), which really adds to an already fun, albeit simple, little tale. :pinkiehappy:

2036437
I'm glad that worked! It's been a few years since I've written any fanfic, and I did / am doing this mostly as a writing exercise while I work on a longer project. Very helpful to know I'm in character enough for at least some readers to get this effect.

2038185
Yup! In trying to put a voice to Rainbow Dash writing her own stories, I figured one of the best ways to invoke a feel for kind of amateur surface 'awesomeness' without the depth to make it actually awesome would be to make use of superhero cliches, and DD has always had one of the best catchphrases around.

Tucking himself into his shell again, he slammed into Grogmarch's diaphragm.

I'm pretty sure this part wasn't supposed to be funny in the first place, but I laughed for a solid ten-twenty seconds from this line.

Tank came out of his shell and used the Royal Canterlot Voice he'd learned from Princess Luna when he'd gone to train in the secret arts of the rulers of Equestria.

This may just be the best line anyone has ever written.

Tank is awesome. Rainbow Dash is awesome for writing about Tank being awesome. You are awesome for writing about Rainbiw Dash writing about Tank being awesome. Just a whole lotta awesome.

Pinkie Pie: secret author of the Daring Do series.

Yup. I'm calling it now, people.

Also, Angel Bunny as a villain makes a scary amount of sense. Just sayin'.

It's evil Dr Angelbunny :raritydespair:

I had a fun day today
First I have a flu jab
Second I have a reaction to said flu jab and nearly pass out
Third spend rest of the school day in nurses office (couldn't contact anyone in my family)
Have my sister finally drive me home
Read ponies on iPad whilst in bed
FUN!! :ajbemused:

Ah, Angel as the villain. Naturally. :pinkiehappy:

I'm sure Spike would love his role in RD's story. I could see him just eating up that dramatic and mysterious persona up.

Awesome story so far! Wait...it's like a new story each time! Sweet!!!:pinkiehappy:

2041821
Thanks! I have to admit that's also one of my favorite lines. Though I think Chapter 4 will have a couple gems to compete with it. As for :pinkiesmile: , I will neither confirm nor deny except to say that the subtext in her demeanor was entirely intentional.

2042241
Sorry to hear about your day, but glad I could do something to brighten it up! :twilightsmile:

2041693
Actually, despite the overt Darkwing Duck allusion, 2036333 really hit it on the head. It's intentionally a bit of a Batman pastiche, but I've always thought DD was the best Batman pastiche. He's the best superhero send-up around.

2042373
She's been practicing and getting feedback! (And I wanted Spike and Angel Bunny to get their introductions in a bit more style) "Chapter 4 - Ninjas on a Train" should be a bit of a return to form, though she's past the phase of serious narrative incoherence.

A good and entertaining chapter :pinkiehappy:
I can't wait to read more.

I'm going to make two guesses, either Pinkie is secretly the author of Daring do :pinkiehappy:
Or she's been using her 4th wall breaking powers to peruse the vast world of pony fanction:heart:

Either way AWESOME! :rainbowlaugh::rainbowlaugh:

The brown-and-white dog gasped, but Tank threw one hand over her mouth to silence her.

i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/176/875/55654%20-%20Lyra%20artist%253Athelivingmachine02%20crying%20hands%20mismatched_anatomy%20poison_joke.jpg?1316640432
HANDS!

I have a feeling you're giving us advice on writing....:trixieshiftleft:

I think Tank might be a bit apprehensive about being written as Dash's wish fulfillment Gary Stu...

This story is awesome, by the way.

Why do I have a feeling that Rainbow Dash is going to have a bestseller on her hooves when all of this is over?... Would be pretty awesome...

I'm still debating on whether or not Pinkie is actually helping or not, because character-based exposition is never a bad thing, and indeed, is entirely unavoidable in writing. Sometimes you just can't squeeze action and characters at the same time.

That said, RD's story is still improving either way, and is getting more and more interesting with each chapter, so she's still doing something right, so maybe Pinkie's advice is helping.

Remember how I had commented before that I was reading the chapters in RD's story in RD's voice? Yeah, that's since stopped, but I see that as a good thing, because now my mind sees it seriously enough to decide that the characters need voices of their own and the such. :pinkiehappy:

2047086
Not my intention! :facehoof: And I was kind of worried about that line. I actually try to do a word search on 'hand', 'foot', and permutations of 'any/some/every-one/body' to make sure I don't do that, but... I wound up kind of confusing myself. :twilightblush: I mean, tortoises do have hands (though they often look more like just big elephant-type blocks), so it would clearly be an error on RD's part to talk about him doing things with his hooves. Do you think that would have worked better with a different word, maybe 'arm'?

Though I suppose I am kind of trying to extra-anthropomorphize him for the RD-written passages, and it might be more appropriate (though probably a LOT harder) to be trying to pony-morphize him instead. Hrm. I may have to think about this a while....

Actually, I've been so wrapped up with writing, I've only read two fanfics on the site so far. One was the link that got me over here from Equestria Daily in the first place, and the other was -clearly- better than what I think I'm capable of writing at the moment. So I'm about as unqualified to comment on the state of fanfic writing in this fandom as anypony can be.

2047183 It's actually cool. A pitfall many authors make is no character development, not enough action or too much of, etc etc. Pinkie is teaching the reader as well as Dashie.

Hmm, I think either Gummy or Owlowiscious, (or however you spell or pronounce it) might have been the better villain, rather than Angel, plus Fluttershy probably wouldn't like that very much, if Rainbow Dash decides to show the story to her. Also, maybe you could add Peewee and maybe even Philomena if possible. And what's the deal with Spike? Putting him in that position might be kind of cool, but to portray him as Twilight's pet, even if it's unintentional, is kind of sad and demeaning, don't you think?

2047183
Easy, dude, the advice isn't really bad, and even if it's unintentional, I at least, find it helpful, so maybe you could write the story and give advice to other authors at the same time, don't think advice has ever been given within a story itself before, so maybe you stumbled onto something quite revolutionary here.

2050120
Pretty sure you tagged the correct spelling. I think it's Owlowiscious. Wanted to respond to your comments inre the sidekicks, though. I see what you're saying. Yes, Angel Bunny isn't exactly an original villain and thinking of Spike as a pet would be pretty demeaning, but I'm trying to think of the story from RD's perspective and I don't think with only a couple very short bits of writing under her belt she'd have the creativity to play outside the common conventions with the characters she's using. That's mostly with respect to Opal and Tank playing a lot when they're together and Winona being hard-working and obedient. Gummy is always a bit of an odd duck, and I'm not actually sure if RD would have enough experience with Angel Bunny to recognize that he can be a terror. Spike isn't a pet, but he's now an established pet-sitter / pet-wrangler, so I think it would make sense to her to continue to put him in that role - especially since, whenever I think about what she would write, I have a very hard time imagining her actually writing about other ponies.

I'm still debating what to do with Owlowiscious. I don't expect Peewee or Philomena to make appearances, simply because they aren't really part of RD's life. Also, I'm only anticipating writing about four more chapters of this. I know where and how I want to end it, and it's not going to be a long story in the end.

Oh my gosh, this story is amazing! How did I not know about this? Thumbed and faved :)

Just a couple of notes: double exclamation marks are something of an overkill, and Pinkie calling Dash by her full name is a bit weird. Like, she calls her Dashie more in the show, no?

That much being said, you've got a very nice slice-of-lifey feel and tone to this. And there's also some sad irony in that Rainbow Dash's first fanfic story is more coherent and better written than some of the stuff on Fimfic. =\ But yes, keep it up and I'd like to see where this is headed.

2050990
Thanks for the input! I tossed the two double-exclamations I found in the frame story (one in Ch.3 and one in Ch.4). Didn't check the Tank story because it's intentionally imperfect.

I did a quick episode browse, though, and I guess I'd misheard the 'Dashie' in "Feeling Pinkie Keen" as a 'Dash'. But overwhelmingly, Pinkie seemed to be calling her by her full name in every other episode I looked at. So I'm switching to Dashie (and thank you for that), but I'm actually backpedaling a lot of it back to a full "Rainbow Dash" or removing the name from conversation all together.

2047102 Isn't that part of the job description? You know in exchange for food and care and love you give affection, trust, patience, and allow them to use you for wish fulfillment in their fanfics? :rainbowlaugh:

Oh gods this is just so many kinda of hilarious and awesome words cannot express. This really does feel perfectly rainbow dash. Also grats on getting onto EQD!

Comment posted by Bradel deleted Feb 2nd, 2013

Aw man, I was going to do something like this. Ah well, kudos to you on a job well done.

The Totally Tubular underTakings of Tank the Tortoise.

Nice to see you're taking advantage of the Tank/Opal relationship that was explored in "Just for Sidekicks".

"Tank, just the tortoise I wanted to see," Spike the dragon rumbled in his low, authoritative voice.

I'm now imagining Spike being voiced by Morgan Freeman. Thank you.

2076156
And Tank sounds like Farnsworth and Dash is Ruby Rod and she likes him because he's super green oh god make it stop:raritydespair:

I think a lot of people had this idea between Daring Do and Rainbow's off-hand remarks about her novel but I'm really happy with the way you're doing it. The only thing that jumped out to me was that the beginning of the second chapter felt like it was trying to re-establish the whole setup which would be continuous from chapter one, but that saiiiid...

I love how Rainbow is thinking about what she's writing and how she reacts to her friends and where that development might lead. It's what takes it from a cute gimmick to a story I'm really looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

This is so cute! I live tank!:rainbowkiss::rainbowlaugh:

Its official: pinkie is a best selling secret author:pinkiecrazy:

Please tell me there's more to this.

2076785
Eyup. The plan is for eight chapters total, and I know what I want to do with each of the remaining ones. It's just a matter of getting them to the point I'm happy with them. I'm hoping, but not promising, to have Chapter 5 online sometime tomorrow, and the others within the next couple weeks as my writing schedule permits.

2076156
I thought Morgan Freeman was supposed to take over voicing Twilight in Season 4 though... :twilightsmile:

2076252
And now I can't get it out of my head either! Aagh! I'm trying to write more over here, and now Rainbow Dash wants everything to be green!

2076885
Rarity can't work like this! Green is NOT her color!:raritycry:

Wait, Tank has a character tag, but half the popular background characters don't? Come on!

2076885

Good, because I'm liking it.

This story reminds me why I like Rainbow Dash. She is brash and a competitor all the way through, but there's times where she's more adorkable than Twilight.

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