Stories I'll (Probably) Never Write, #7! · 12:02am Jun 17th, 2016
Hi, all! One year ago today, I made my first SI(P)NW post, the realization of which (I went back to examine my reason for not having written a Twilight Sparkle (either one!)xAdagio Dazzle ship by now and remembered it'd probably just be somewhere between your standard DiscoLight ship or a slightly dorkier re-hash of SFaCF) is what now spurs me to finally put a story idea out to pasture. Here's what I would have called 'Trixie Settles the Score!'
The premise is Trixie (over in the EQG world, like nearly all of my stories this past year) sees Sunset with new transfer student Sci-Twi, gets annoyed at their former bad guy buddy-buddy moments, turns her head, and sees the sirens walking toward the school. They're approached by a small crowd of students, but they're clearly different than before. For one, they make it clear that they don't care about their voices anymore, that they only ever used them to control people anyway. (This may be a lie, because I can't shake the feeling that the "Mean an awful lot to us" line hinted at something more than their magic), maybe having heard about Sci-Twi, explain that they thought getting a little of that Friendship soup for themselves was at least worth a try, and that if they were refused or even just glared at too much, they'd turn right around and never come back.
Possible they already tried once under Sunset's supervision, it didn't work out for reasons no one involved wants to talk about, but now they're back for one last try.
Sunset probably doesn't get the chance to do more than open her mouth before Trixie swoops in and declares that she'll handle reforming the sirens, something no one wants to help her with. Rainbooms have their doubts, but Trixie says something they can't argue with about giving chances and that it's good that Trixie is so eager to spread friendship, deliberately wording it to sound like the Rainbooms are being kind of hypocrites by turning on their own teachings when they express concerns about what happened last time. Odd looks from other students (who seem kind of apathetic to returning bad guys by this point, hence putting up with their weirdness. Maybe it's because they won sympathy last time and didn't realize it) make them back down, most of all Sunset as they agree to at least let Trixie try it, if only after making sure the sirens are okay with it too. They shrug.
From there, I was thinking it'd be a lot of shenanigans of Trixie trying to teach the magic of friendship (what was the point of all that singing if nobody else in the school 'gets it' well enough to try themselves, right?) her way, with the sirens actually following her lead for lack of better ideas.
Sonata would probably be the same as ever, but may occasionally say slightly sad things in terms of not understanding love or affection, or hinting that their time spent wandering since the Battle was (hopefully) comically depressing. An example would be having tear races, where the three of them competed to see which one could cry themselves dry the fastest. (All of them may do something in that flavor, actually...)
Aria is grumpier than ever and may randomly get into fights with things (and I mean inanimate objects) following her one actual fight with Trixie (Trixie wins because Aria isn't actually as tough as she wishes she was, though Trixie still relies on her handcuffs), which might get Trixie in trouble a few times, as she's supposed to be making sure they behave. I like to picture Aria regularly sparring with wimpier characters, like Wiz Kid, Sci-Twi, the CMC, Angel Bunny, Tom (Maud's pet rock), and anyone else that might be fun for those situations.
And if those two aren't funny enough, part of me likes the idea that Adagio would be compulsively evil, possibly to the point that she can't stop to save her life. She may earnestly apologize each and every time, but still laughs maniacally when things go well and thinks in villainous terms no matter the situation. Example: "Don't worry about those ants creeping in and eating your crackers again, Trixie, I followed the trail and drowned the hill in bleach. The grass made it hard to find, however, so I burned it all and salted the very earth, brutally crushing two adversaries in one fell swoop, THAT NOTHING MAY EVER AGAIN STAND BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR SNACK-TIME! MUA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"
Ever see that episode "The Beach" in Avatar: The Last Airbender? Azula's attempts at socializing were a strange blend of sad and adorable.
Important characters:
Flash Sentry, who, while earnestly trying to welcome the sirens, keeps popping up in a you've-got-to-stop-getting-me-involved-like-this kind of way in the middle of their shenanigans. I don't know if I'd have shipped him with anyone, but I'm equally partial to the ideas of Trixie trying to impress him with this reforming gig (may have more to do with her doing it than just to steal the Rainbooms reforming thunder) and him growing to like Aria's spunkiness. Two essentially harmless 'punk'-looking characters becoming sweethearts just tickles me, but so would Trixie's not-so-subtle attempts at courtship.
Maud Pie, who may get worked up by Adagio's racier antics and indiscriminate teasing/touching, but nobody can tell, so she's just hopelessly flustered without anyone but Pinkie noticing when she's around to see it. May be revealed by the perspective flipping to Maud, the joke that no one, not even Adagio (who doesn't see any sort of reaction, guesses Maud is immune to her charms, and therefore open game for letting loose), knows how well Adagio's teasing, seductive techniques are actually working on her, to the point that Maud might eventually pounce on her when she least expects it. Possibly while Trixie is trying to convince someone she's totally gotten the sirens to behave themselves at school. Not sure if ship.
Photo Finish, who Sonata may annoy constantly, starting with asking her to document the process of their acceptance into CHS and getting her to snap a lot of photos (or outright swiping borrowing her camera to do it herself) that maybe Trixie would rather she didn't.
Sci-Twi, who fights valiantly to educate Sonata (who has tons and tons of questions, some of them actually making sense), but ultimately succumbs to her twisted mind. Aria (she and Sci-Twi are on a truce at these times) and Adagio demonstrate a similar willingness to learn by following Sonata around and taking notes, though not necessarily of her questions, at all times.
Sci-Twi may actually prove as important as Trixie herself, if Trixie occasionally needs a breather and hands the sirens off to her. Maybe she finds the trio of three more (formerly) magical beings from another world fascinating, and as she didn't have her own chance to try to befriend them yet (more on that later), Sunset figures it'd be okay to let her try.
Trixie might actually use Twilight's innocence to offset their insanity. Example: Working on some kind of project, Twilight says it has kinks to work out, any or all of the sirens comment that the project is 'kinky,' Twilight confirming, and saying she's used to dealing with kinks all the time, and that if they like, they can work on it with her and get kinky together! "What? What's so funny...? Gasp! Is there a nitrous oxide leak?!"
In lieu of the title, Trixie may secretly offer them revenge at some point, having long meant to make good on her promise that Rainbow would 'pay' in that promotional short. She may help them get their voices back in the process, settling the 'score' in musical terms. Or something. No idea.
Eventually, Trixie herself may get sick of it as she's increasingly blamed for the sirens' behavior, that if anything, they've gotten worse since she started hanging out with them. Sonata's annoyance factor, Aria's senseless aggression, and Adagio's (accidental) evil all pointing back to her, she may tell them off, possibly revealing that she only wanted to be better than the Rainbooms/impress Flash in the process, they shrug, say to each other that they knew this was coming, and leave without a word. Trixie may then realize her mistake and go after them, but that just sounds unbearably cliche and the whole reason things didn't work out with the Rainbooms the first time is supposed to be subversion of the norm.
On that note; the sirens' backstory this time is that maybe they really were/are immortal, or at least old enough to have run the reformation gauntlet before and by this point are pretty set in their ways, even when trying their damnedest to be something else. Thinking that maybe they were once good girls, corrupted (or just always creatures of chaos), reformed previously, things eventually went sour (reformers betrayed them later, everyone they cared about died, any reason at all, really), and they settled on serving only themselves ever more... until losing what was left of their magic in this new world, where they think "...Well, it worked out for a while once, right?" Then their efforts with the Rainbooms went poorly, but months later, they determined that they really didn't have anywhere else to go and came back for another try, starting the story.
This is why things go badly with the Rainbooms, who might have tried similar things to the entities that reformed them the first time, the sirens saw some bad parallels, and didn't cooperate exactly as intended for fear of going through the exact same thing again, messing up the methods that worked pretty well for Sunset. Maybe there are actually no hard feelings about it all going wrong, the Rainbooms being just a little out of their depth with people that have shifted their morality more than once already, the sirens readily admitting that their own lack of faith in the program hindered them, and no one having a decent answer for what's to come later.
I will not write this because:
-Right out of the gate, the 'comically depressing' thing might work better in one of those sociopathic-humor-driven stories where everyone is a ridiculous caricature of themselves, which are perfectly fine, but I've shown time and again that I just can't do pure silly nonsense properly, for lack of better words.
-No clue how it would end
-It sounds like a mess of wacky comedy with a bit too much underlying drama and sadness, which sour each other if not handled very carefully.
-Possibly the biggest problem; The very premise of this show tells me that Sunset and the rest would damn well figure out something to ease the sirens' worries about going through the same thing again, point out exactly where their precursors went wrong and what they'll do differently this time, maybe, because if there's one thing they can and should be able to do, it's spread lovely friendship to very willing recipients, even if they've had some bad experiences. My having things go badly in the first place is more of a narrative excuse to involve Trixie than anything, because there'd just be no story for this otherwise.
I know the Rainbooms aren't perfect, but this is supposed to be their bread and butter, isn't it? Maybe tensions were high at the time and everyone would have cooled off by the time the sirens came back for Round 2, maybe too many assumptions were made about what worked with Sunset working with these three, maybe their hearts just weren't in it while the wounds were still fresh, maybe the sirens acted just like they do for Trixie and the six girls showed a shorter patience for it than a ham-tastic magician would. I don't know, but that's my biggest doubt for this story; both sides being willing to try and things still not working out.
So, my apologies to the Great and Powerful Trrrrrrixie, but no story centered on her managing wacky shenanigans with a colorful cast, or trying to woo Flash Sentry.
How do you actually see Trixie as a character? As of now, it is a bit difficult to imagine her, being a comic relief micro-villain, trying herself in "solving friendship problems" for the sake of getting on the good side of Rainbooms and Flash (who imo is watered down version of an already watered down in terms of personality Shining Armor).
I will argue that you can actually do 'comically depressing' stuff greatly , first chapter of Super Sirens is a proof of that (everyone dies), though I'm not sure how it will work for a bigger story.
Regarding SI(P)NW aniversary - congrats on that. I'm finding myself in that very odd spot when things like "5 months mid-season hiatus", "mlp movie will be trashed by critics, lukewarm response is maximum what they will be able to get", "show ratings are all times low", "chance for Dazzlings to appear in a future eqg is null", etc, tend to bring next to no worries, because "Hey, Eyeswirl is still writing her/his stories, that's a guaranteed good time". Even you occasional rant in comments or in blogs like this one is a good time.
Cheers for that.
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I usually see Trixie as a complicated young lady. She's not a bad person by any means, but she's definitely no saint, and her series of experiences and life choices have led her to some odd places that she's in no hurry to leave, even if it makes her a bit of a weirdo. Why fit in when you can be great and powerful? That's about all I can say in general, as I still try to characterize her just a little differently every time, same as everyone else.
Super Sirens is probably the only story I've got that runs on pure nonsense (one chapter I had in mind was Adagio revealing a nest of pet bees in her hair, whom she coddles and baby-talks to when no one is looking, making Sonata jealous as she ropes Aria into helping her get rid of them), and the bigger story part is what worries me.
Aww, thanks! I hope to have more with which to entertain you and the rest of my readers soon.
Hah. When you got into Adagio's over-the-top dialog with the ants, my mind immediately went to Azula.
... And then right after, you mention that exact scene.
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No shortage of parallels between the sirens and Ozai's Angels.
...I just hope Adagio takes things better than Azula did if we ever see them again.
4031323 Yeah. Gosh that scene was heartbreaking, even if she did kinda have it coming.
You know what? This right here is practically gold. You should make this a centerpiece of some fic, if not this particular fic.