Sour
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.:Sour:.
"Stupid Applejack…"
Celestia's sun shone bright over the little town of Ponyville. The busy clatter of hooves and the faint murmur of city life could be heard on that energetic afternoon. Mares and stallions greeted each other, giving polite nods and welcoming friends into their shops and businesses. All was well and harmonic, as ponies enjoyed the first rain free day of the week.
However, they could all have been screaming bloody murder while riding giant marshmallow bunnies, for all one little filly cared. For as Apple Bloom made her way down the streets to Rarity's fashion boutique, she didn't pay any attention to anything but her grumblings.
"Folks think they know everythang, jus' cause they're bigger an' older than me. Shows what SHE knows. Ah bet she ain't as smart as she think she is. Stupid sis with her stupid hat an' her stupid rules….Stupid…"
"Uh-oh, I know THAT frowny mc-no-smiles ANYwhere! That's the grump of a no fun variety!"
"Huh?"
Apple Bloom stopped dead in her tracks, as she looked up from the cobble to see where the familiar voice had come from. When the child saw nopony in front of her, she began to spin in circles all around herself.
"W-who…who said that?"
"ME, silly! Look uppidity in a skyward-y direction."
Far too curious to see who or what could have been addressing her, little Apple Bloom did as the mysterious voice told her to do. Her eyes widened as one answered question quickly led to a new curiosity.
"Pinkie Pie…? Why are ya hoverin' like that?"
The pink mare giggled as if it was the silliest question in the entire world.
"Because I'm tied to a balloon, silly! Duuuuh! "
"No, I mean…Why are ya tied to a balloon?"
"It's what I do eeeevery Tuesday! Tuesdays are 'float like a pegasus, sting like a late night party after too much punch' days. Never ever eeeever break that tradition! I Pinkie Promised it to myself years and years and yeeeears ago!"
"But Pinkie, "Apple Bloom argued, "It ain't Tuesday. It's Saturday."
Silence hung in the air between them, as the retort took a moment to sink into the floating baker. And when recognition dawned on her, the air from her beautiful blue balloon began to squeak out as it deflated. In no time at all Pinkie found herself back on her own four hooves, following normal rules of gravity.
"Oh. Well, that's okay. Saturdays mean I have the day off, which is TWICE as great as a Tuesday! It means I get to go and surprise all my bestest best friends with lots of Pinkie surprises and hugs!
"Speaking of which, that reminds me…" The pink mare became serious as she leaned into Apple Bloom's personal space, close enough that all the little filly could see was nothing but big blue eyes. "Why are you going around grumping my sweet n' smiley town? I worked hard to get rid of all the gloomy gusses, after days of nothing but downpour, and here you go messing it all up with the biggest of frowns! That just isn't kosher! Now no more frowns, and tell ol' Auntie Pie what's got ya in the dumps."
Apple Bloom stepped back awkwardly, not sure whether she liked the grave contrast in the older pony's personality. Deciding that answering the question would possibly make the element of laughter return to her usual chipper self, the filly answered slowly.
"Oh, er, me and my sis jus' got in a fight, is all."
"Is THAT all?"
"Well, yeah."
Pinkie Pie giggled as the atmosphere around her lightened.
"See, you had me worried something BAD happened. Not that an angry Apple family isn't a baaaad thing, I just thought maybe the whole farm exploded or something! PHEW! Load off MY mind! I would have had NO IDEA how to fit 'sorry for exploding and being all sad, but Pinkie is here for you to snuggle' on a cake! Hehe!"
Pinkie ceased her chortling as she focused herself on the problem.
"So you're having sister troubles, huh? While it may have been a long long time since the last time I had to deal with those myself, maybe I can help. I got TWO older ones."
"Oh, that's right. From yer rock farming days. Those relations, right? Back when you got yer cutie mark! An' you were the youngest and everythang like me?!"
"Yup yup yup!"
"Well, alright." Apple Bloom's glare returned as something dawned on her. " But no automatically siding with her jus' cause yer her special somepony, got that?"
"Okey dokey lokey!"
Satisfied with the response, the blank flanked filly began with her troubles. Sweetie Belle and her sister were planning on going on the train for a weekend in Canterlot, to do some shopping for Rarity's boutique (as well as a nice break from the mundania of Ponyville); and they had invited both Scootaloo and herself to come along. Applejack had down right refused to let her go with them. And it just wasn't fair! If both her friends were going, and they were also going to be with her older sister's best friend, then why couldn't SHE go?
"She's jus' doin it cause she likes t' show jus' how much control she has on me! Jus' like she controls jus' about everythang on the farm. Ah'm practically all grown-like. Ah think ah can decide whether or not ah should go an' have some fun with my friends!"
Pinkie Pie was silent as she mulled over what the filly said. Throughout Apple Bloom's tale, the party pony had given the appropriate gasps and 'no she didn't!' responses. But now that the retelling of the events was over, Pinkie thought hard on what her notions of it all were.
"Weeell, it IS true that while a cutie-wootie, Applejack IS known to be the most stubborn pony of all ponies." Apple Bloom's glower turned into a big beam, as she was glad to have an adult- even if the said adult was Pinkie – agree with her. "But I know your sister. And as stubborn as she can be, she never ever does nothing for no reason. Nu-uh, no-way, no-how!"
Apple Bloom's glare returned.
"See, ah knew you would side with her!"
"Hey," the older pony exclaimed, "That's not fair! Pinkie Pie has no party preferences! I'm just saying that Applejack is the most honest and trustworthy pony I know. And I know lots and lots of ponies! Has she ever did anything to hurt you intentionally before?"
"Well…Not particularly. "
"And I know while she can be known to deny herself of her own smile…When has she ever denied the fun of her bestest and most wonderful sister? Besides this time, and excluding all the stuff that sounded like fun in the beginning, and ended up being really really NOT fun and dangerous."
Apple Bloom rolled her eyes.
"That's cheating, ah'm her only sister."
"Which just makes it EXTRA true!"
The yellow filly thought over the pink mare's words, and her pout began to disappear. Feeling ashamed, she looked at her hooves as she kicked the ground.
"Ah suppose yer right…But why would sis be like this? Why won't she let me go with Sweetie and Scootaloo? "
"No idea!" Pinkie smiled her trademarked Pinkie grin. "But ya know, it might be because she hasn't had many good experiences in the big city herself. Like back when she was your age and she didn't fit in Fillydelphia. Or that one time we got made fun of in front of Rarity's new Canterlot friends. Oh oh oh! Or maybe even when we got attacked by all those changelings. Man, that wedding had the BEST cake! Mmm. "
"Oh, right…Ah forgot all about that."
"Well yeah, silly, you weren't there for any of them! Heh! But ya know, if I had the hunchiest of hunches…I just think Applejack doesn't want you going anywhere she doesn't know is one hundred and a kajillion percent safe. Which is anywhere that she can't have an eye on you."
Pinkie winked.
"But," Apple Bloom began as she plopped down onto the ground, "how do ah get her to change her mind? When sis gets an idea in her head, it's reeeally hard t' change it!"
"Leave that to ol' Pinkie Pie! I was a younger sister once, remember? I think I got some tricks up my metaphorical sleeves that juuuust might work. I'll get her to make some kind of compromise, or my name isn't Pinkamena Diane Pie! And that's a Pinkie Promise!"
"Wait, is that yer name?"
"Yup!"
The baker's smile grew as the younger pony threw their hooves around the older mare in a tight hug. Apple Bloom squealed in delight.
"Oooh, thank ya thank ya thank ya! Ah can't wait to tell the girls! Thanks again, Pinkie, ah don't know what ah would have done without ya!"
And in a flash Apple Bloom galloped the remaining way to the fashion boutique, to tell her fellow Cutie Mark Crusader the news. Pinkie Pie continued to beam brightly, long after the filly was gone. All felt right in Ponyville once more, and the party pony was surrounded by nothing but happy folk. It never dawned on the baker that there was a possibility that her fillyfriend would turn down what she said, too. It wasn't a problem because it wasn't just a promise…It was a one hundred percent guaranteed, no breakage or your bits back, PINKIE Promise.
And she never EVER broke a Pinkie Promise.
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I'm really enjoying the mental image of Pinkie going little sister on Applejack until she relents. Apple Bloom's argument with AJ is entirely in-character with the misunderstandings the two of them have in canon, and I couldn't stop smiling at Pinkie's balloon antics.
((Don't worry- she has two sisters and they never said if she was younger or older than either of them.))
Great little drabble, looking forward to any more that happen.
It's interesting--as an eldest sibling myself, I've always subconsciously assumed Pinkie was older than her sisters. Funny how one can project their own circumstances onto their headcanon.
I'm always a sucker for a good sister-versus-sister conflict. Sisterhooves Social is one of my favorite episodes for this reason. I like the idea that Applejack's protectiveness could lead to conflict with Apple Bloom, and Pinkie defuses the situation nicely. The idea of this scene is quite compelling, and well in-character for Apple Bloom, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack (despite the fact that her actions were only indirectly referenced).
Mechanically, though, this one could use some polish. Parts where Pinkie says something, it moves to a new paragraph, and it's still Pinkie talking make the dialogue hard to follow. Add to that the fact that a lot of the spoken lines aren't tagged (There can be stylistic reasons to do this, but the way it is used here doesn't really add anything to the story), and the prose comes off as more difficult to read than it needs to be.
A bit of cleanup on the prose would do this particular drabble a world of good. As ever, it's wonderful to see more Apple Pie from you.
2396445
May I ask what you meant by spoken lines being tagged? I'm asking so I can know what to try and fix. (I'm also up for anyone helping me with editing. I currently don't have full access to computers, so any help would be very appreciated.)
As for how I have Pinkie's dialogue chopped up...I was just always taught to change paragraphs when a character is changing subjects. It helps to prevent large clumps of texts. Buuuut, I'm willing to hear suggestions on how to handle this as well.
Onto the part about Pinkie's family arc...I honestly have no idea where that came from. I'm a middle child, like Applejack. I think I just wanted to find a way for Apple Bloom and Pinkie to connect. And nothing says connection like being the baby of one's family. Lol. Plus I kind of like the idea of them tag teaming and annoying AJ. Makes for comedy gold, I think.
2395427
I had way too much fun imagining Pinkie just floating around town. Balloons should be incorporated into every day occurances. Life is the biggest and longest party, after all!
2398845 I have gotten advice similar to that in terms of paragraphs in dialogue, but I generally only use it in a monologue situation, generally when there are more than five sentences in the moment of speech, and when the subject change is a bit more broad than you have here. Small talk tends to stay in the same paragraph, and a lot of your single sentence paragraphs like
could be condensed.
By no means am I implying that you're doing something wrong here. In a normal situation they would be unusual, but with the FIMfiction formatting (double-line skip, no indents) these tiny paragraphs interrupt wordflow and detract from the story a little bit. Which is a shame, because the story itself is a very nice one.
2396445 I tend to see Pinkie as an eldest sister as well, but my headcanon is entirely adjustable and designed to stretch four ways...
2398845 By 'tagging' spoken lines, I mean putting something like "Pinkie said" or "Apple Bloom remarked" in to make it clear who is saying what. You can get away with leaving out that stuff once in a while when the conversation is flowing well enough to follow without, or leave them out intentionally when you want to use a lack of information to build suspense or something, but it generally makes dialogue easier to follow if it's got a few "he said, she said"s attached.
For the paragraph-spacing, 2398926 has got some sound advice. Basically, if the spoken lines are short enough that the dialogue has got some back-and-forth going on, giving two paragraphs in a row to the same character throws the reader off the rhythm of the conversation. It's worth ignoring a bit of topic-variation in order to keep that flow up.
It can be intimidating trying to find editors, but there are groups here on FimFic dedicated to making it easier. You can try The Proofreader Group if you like, or any one of the other groups on the site designed around helping writers out. There's about five of them on the first page if you just browse all groups. One of the things I love about this community; there's always someone out there ready to help.
2398926
Perhaps it's just because Pinkie got her cutie mark before her sisters did?
2399464 I think it's the whole "Let Auntie Pinkie Pie take care of things" attitude she has that does it for me. She reminds me of some of my older sibling friends in the way she tries to take care of everyone in her own screwy way. And the stuff she did around the Cake twins to make them laugh? Total big-sister thing going on.
2398926
I did some editing to the story, taking in what both you and Else Ynopemos said. Is this satisfactory? Or should I change it some more?
2487781 The flow is infinitely better reading it this time 'round. Nice job on the rewrite. There's a few nitpicky things I noticed, although you can feel free to ignore them if you so choose... here goes:
The correct conjugation of this verb is shone..
and then this:
makes it sound like the noises are a living, breathing thing that has a job and a wife and two and a half kids or something. I'd recommend using a different action than "carrying on its usual routine here. That implues things like brushing teeth or making checklists, not existing.
But this is definitely a huge improvement and I really appreciate the effort you're putting into this. Those two little things don't really affect the piece, but they're there if you want to do anything about them. Cheers!
2488831
And corrected! Took a minute to figure out how to fix the second suggestion, but at least now it should sound less confusing. Again, thank you for taking the time to help me out! Funny thing? I actually DID have "shone" there when I first wrote it. But then I was like: "....that doesn't sound quite right. Is that right? Or is it 'shined'? But...that doesn't seem right..." So not getting a response from the empty room, I just used "eenie meenie" to decide for me. XD
Though, I should probably learn how to be more patient, and should have waited 'till I had access to the internet to look it up. But sometimes I get so excited about writing something, I just want to share it with people. But anyway, now I'm rambling. Point being to all of the efoort I'm trying to put into the corrections...I DO want to be a better writer. Maybe not for career purposes, but I do want to tell the best story that I can. Even in little things like the drabbles I write. And I'm sure the better I get, people will tolerate what i write more and will actually give it a chance. Though, everything I write is really just for me. But it doesn't hurt to hope other people get enjoyment out of it too, I suppose.
Aaaand I rambled again. LOL. My bad.