A snippet. · 9:05pm Jul 14th, 2012
Just an interesting little aside - how Trixie could have been a different Element.
“Anyone here from Manehattan?” Trixie asked, holding the microphone in one hoof.
Somepony in the audience cheered.
“Well, there goes half my material…” she said, grinning at the roar of laughter. “Please tell me there’s someone from Canterlot?”
Another cheer, this time from near the back.
“Good. Unlike the Manehattan lot, you Canterlot ponies won’t rush the stage if I start telling jokes about you.”
“Want to bet?” a voice shouted over frantic shushing.
“Oh, that’s unusual. What’s your field of study, fisticuffs? Actually, on second thought, don’t tell me. I think I’d rather not find out.” The unicorn looked around nervously. “Uh… why did the chicken cross the road?”
Another gale of laughter. Trixie caught sight of the heckler, Spike, practically falling off his chair.
“No, seriously, though, I do have some actual good stuff. I lived in Cloudsdale once. Lovely place, terrible travel agents. I once booked a trip to Las Pegasus. Pretty neat price, a week there, and the tickets listed the departure as from my house. So, I waited, and three hours after the departure time… nothing.”
Trixie reached the end of the stage and turned back, still talking. “So I went back to the travel agent, and complained. There wasn’t anyone at the desk, so I had to shout to be heard. I said, this is a terrible deal, you’ve not provided the travel – which is sort of your whole point. As a travel agent. And the pony in the back said, you’ve got wings haven’t you?”
Turning to face the crowd, Trixie wore a hang-dog expression. “I said, that’s news to me, bucko, because all these years I thought I was a unicorn!”
At the back of the crowd, five ponies and a dragon looked between themselves.
Spike spoke first. “Told you they’d love her.”
“Well, I suppose she is the Element of Laughter…” Twilight muttered. “I thought my heart would stop when she tried her routine on Nightmare Moon.”
The idea is that, this universe, Pinkamena stayed on the rock farm. Thanks to destiny and stuff, a young Trixie happened to be influenced by the Rainboom towards making comedy her thing - perhaps it had perfect comic timing?
One thing leads to another, and she's passing through Ponyville at the time of the Summer Sun celebration. Gets roped in as the warm up act... and things snowball.
"Anypony here from the moon? Oh, good. I'll be honest, the routine was kind of turning on that... Is it really made of cheese? No, I know that's an urban legend. Though, looking at you... is it sour cream? Got to be something causing that bad attitude..."
That would be interesting...
Irony.
RandomHero made a fic "What is Fame without Friendship" about a red and black OC (wait, I'm not done) who falls in love with Twilight Sparkle (No, wait! Honest!) and eventually gets to be the 7th member of the Mane 6, the Element of Mediocre Comedy, as a Standup Comic. It's a cute fic, although it needs a little editing. Spawned a sequel too.
465132 Sounds pretty funny - the idea presumably being that, as the makers of Christmas Crackers well know, groaning together at a bad joke is a thing people can bond over.
The way I eventually used this was in a spinoff fic (Epilogue Alternate) from the Pony POV series. Trixie, as an (not the) element of magic, is looking at some of the ways things could have gone differently, and reflecting on them. It's something of a tradition in the POV series expanded universe.
Another I highlight is the 'verse of my "Another Kind of Magic" fic, where Trixie is the Element of Magic, and Twilight's her longstanding friend/straight man and the new librarian in Ponyville. This lets me basically make jokes about the series, with Trixie as the snarker-in-chief.
It's quite an eye opener for Twilight in Epilogue when she is shown, too...
465829 I have to confess, the reason I empathize with Laughing Stock so much is that I married a wife who is very Twilight Sparkle-y
Wouldn't have it any other way. There are some people who just need to smile, and sometimes the Element of Mediocre Comedy is just the thing...