• Member Since 19th Apr, 2013
  • offline last seen Feb 4th, 2022

Cherax


Horse musician, occasional dramatic reader, even occasional-er author.

T

Twelve scenes from the many lives of Rainbow Dash, inspired by the songs from Baths' Cerulean. Best enjoyed while listening along to the album.

(Thanks to Fluttersyke, And the Rainfall, and HarryMess for pre-reading, RoughBacon for the cover art, and Baths for the wonderful music.)

Dramatic reading by presentperfect!

Chapters (12)
Comments ( 49 )
Comment posted by Fluttersyke deleted Mar 5th, 2014
Comment posted by Fluttersyke deleted Mar 5th, 2014
Comment posted by Fluttersyke deleted Mar 5th, 2014
Comment posted by Fluttersyke deleted Mar 5th, 2014
Comment posted by Fluttersyke deleted Mar 5th, 2014
Comment posted by Fluttersyke deleted Mar 5th, 2014
Comment posted by Fluttersyke deleted Mar 5th, 2014
Comment posted by Fluttersyke deleted Mar 5th, 2014
Comment posted by Fluttersyke deleted Mar 5th, 2014
Comment posted by Fluttersyke deleted Mar 5th, 2014
Comment posted by Fluttersyke deleted Mar 5th, 2014
Comment posted by Fluttersyke deleted Mar 5th, 2014

RIP Fluttersyke's proof-reading comments. We shall remember them.

I liked the format, and I really enjoyed reading all the mini stories. They were short enough to get through quickly, but not lose impact. Good work!

I particularly like your use of chicken characterization. :moustache:

Good job all around, this really is a fantastic story!
:pinkiehappy:

God damn Kex, how are you so good at everything?

When I read fanfictions, I usually try to dissect them. Peel them apart, and gesture excitedly at their different organs to explain to the world exactly what I enjoyed and what I thought could improve. But there's a rare case: I make a first incision confidently, glimpse something inside and begin rationally explaining its structure and function. I smile to my imagined audience. But then I slice again and see the same body, only from a different angle. It isn't what I thought. I make an excuse, "The lights in here are dim, but I see what it -really- was now." I make a third slice, and - I have no idea what that is. I don't know what any part of this is. I fumble for another excuse, but the crowd has seen through my farce, and I'm forced to beat a hasty retreat, my jars of snake oil broken and forgotten behind me.

It's humbling, but invigorating, to read something that is so much smarter than me.

Sorry, I don't get it.
They broke off? that's it?

What a charming little introduction! I found myself smirking right at the outset because of your omission of who and what was initially going on. While I certainly don't advocate for that sort of thing, I found it really effective in slamming me right into the story! You did a really great job of getting me to ask questions, as well, even if they weren't world-shattering ones. Onto two...

4041740
If I may (I usually don't may, but today is a particularly mayable day) I think that the point of the "story" is more an impression than a tense up and down narrative. The only thing required or attempted is that you feel something or think about the things. At least, that's how I really enjoyed it (and I really did--enjoy it, that is).

Speaking of enjoyment, I spurned my instinct to comment on every single chapter because of our dear, late friend Fluttersyke who seemed to meet his end doing the very same. At least his sacrifice was not in vain. That being said I might sort of have a huge comment here (or hope I might, provided I remember everything that I wanted to say, which is, at any given point in time, impossible for me to do). Maybe.

It's not often I enjoy slice of life, perhaps because I don't seek it out as much as I rightly should, but you did a really fantastic job killing those presuppositions and getting me to enjoy it all anyways. Though all you had were moments, your assortment of those moments was nice and dandy, like you had taken them out of a moments store and put bows on top and lined them up along the street with a sign that said "Look, here are my moments, perhaps you like them and/or their bows on top?" I already said, but I really liked your moments, enough that I wish that there were more moments--if we weren't actually talking about writing, here, I'd think you were a pay-to-order phone "moments" service company that I approached on a whim from an advertisement in the newspaper, and right about now I'd be very disappointed that your store didn't actually have any moments in it, though not altogether despondent because your initial moments were fine and didn't take up much of my time. But I'd still want there to be more moments. Write more, damn you! Not of Rainbow Dash exclusively, but of things in general--I'd read it (whatever "it" was) in a heartbeat!

The previous paragraph is a great example of what I loved about your writing, and hopefully you'll consider that imitation, even flawed, lame imitation, is the sincerest form of flattery. By that I mean that your metaphorical language and voice as a writer and the frantic pacing of your sentence structures (though, I might have just read them like that in my head, wanting desperately to get to the next sentence) were absolutely charming and an absolute joy to read. Slice of life stories like this seem to sink or swim on whether they can take the mundane and the typical thoughts about typical things and turn them into something that feels beautifully alive, or just beautifully something. This story in particular made me feel as if I were having a fantastic day, a day in which I feel so good that I get up early and don't mind the sunlight and take a walk and sit down and do some writing and go to sleep happy with myself. Today is not that day, but during these seven-thousand-some words, it sure felt like it.

I'm glad you chose to have some ups and downs. The romance wouldn't have been as nice if there were not the bittersweet moments in-between filled with sadness or remorse. You did a very good job of making both feel very real and relatable, so I commend you on that, again.

My absolute favorite, of the twelve, had to be Rainbow's Father's story to her about being born from a thundercloud or somesuch. Not only did you seem to employ an entirely separate literary voice for Rainbow's Father, but the story itself had a beautiful theme and was an absolute romp to read. Your characters, even though I had never heard of them, felt very alive in the moments that they existed, even if they were only defined by nothing more than essentially a tip of the hat. On top of that, it was the most curious, and made the whole moment with Twilight where Rainbow struggled to find the right words to compliment her so much more realistic, because here we have this character born of this fantastic, articulate happening and yet she can't even find the right words to call her marefriend's eyes and/or butt and/or things in between as beautiful as they deserve. If I were you, I'dve put that slice-of-life as the first chapter. It's the beginning of her life, and it tells us a whole lot about what sort of thing we're going to be reading about--fantastic, inexplainable moments that show up out of the blue and hopefully won't budge until they've delivered a baby. And by a baby I mean a thought. In my own mind. That I won't forget.

There was a more articulate metaphor there but this is the one that my thundercloud-brain shot out and damnit I'm going to stick with it.

Hopefully you won't be too despondent by my continued, glowing praise without criticizing this or that. I'm sure you'd like to get better as a writer, and I certainly found things to criticize, but they're really semantics and a story like this absolutely does not deserve to be bogged down by the "Hmmm, it was good but your language was a liiiiiiitttle telly at parts. Maybe reconsider some of your adverbs?"

It deserved (hopefully) charming, (definitely) rambling, (absolutely) glowing praise. So that's what I attempted to give.

Cheers, hope to see more of your stuff, whatever it may be.

Just finished reading along with Bath's music and I must admit, your writing lined up quite well with each individual song's feel and style. There were many times where the current song would end just before I finished the corresponding chapter, which was cool.
Took me a little while to work out that these are actually separated stories that aren't bouncing back and forth on one time line; probably should of read the description properly.
Chapter after chapter it seemed that your writing had changed how I felt, one chapter making me feel sappy-happy (is that even a thing?) and the next being sad, worked quite well!
Overall a good read!

A good start indeed!:pinkiesmile:

4038130 Oh dear...were they one of "those" people?:trixieshiftright:

4045960
4041952
I should clarify somewhere, so I don't totally ruin his reputation: Fluttersyke's deleted comments were his pre-reading criticisms, written before the fic went public. They're deleted now so that you can't see all the mistakes I've corrected (and us chatting casually in the margins). He's a wonderful commenter and human being!

4041952
Lordy loo, how does one even respond to such a thorough and beautiful comment? (With great difficulty!) I'll try not to match your wall of text with my own, but really, thank you for all that rambling, and I'm glad to hear you liked it, and I reserve the right to lift highlights from your comment and put them in fancy quotations on cereal boxes, and Rainbow's dad was absolutely the most fun to write, and I hope to deliver more thought-babies to you in the future, and hopefully ones with fewer adverbs (you should've seen some of these first drafts! I need to check into Adverbs Anonymous) but just as many run-on sentences, if not more! <3

4042129
Sappy-happy is absolutely a thing, and it is what we aim for. Thank you for reading, buddy! :rainbowkiss:

4041740 Well, yes and no. There's no overall narrative or continuity between each chapter, if you were looking for it (although you can link one or two together if you squint). The break-up here is an isolated scene from another larger, unwritten story that started before the chapter began and continues after the chapter ends.

4040754 I'm not reimbursing you for that snake oil. :heart:

4046937 Thanks for the clarification. very good story.

4046912
I like how that sentence itself was a run on sentence.

you did it the sad thing and now i feels

I just got around to reading these. I almost hate to say this, because if I had thought about it I should have known to expect this, but these are good. Very good. Not just, "oh hey my favorite musician wrote something, how neat" good, like I had though they would be, but legitimately good literature. I was gullible enough to believe your little sad sap act and think that these would just be you surrendering to a whim to write about horses and not creating something thoughtful and amazing, but it's pretty clear your creative talent extends beyond music. These may be short stories but they read like poetry, and impart far more feeling than a conventional story of this length ever would. And the pairings with the songs from Bath's album- it goes without saying that the stories feel exactly right for each song (this album being yet another one I can't stop listening to thanks to you, dammit). You should be proud of this, should do readings of it, and should write more. On your own time, of course.

4132200
Respectively: I think I am, I totally won't, and I will try my darnedest to! Thank you for your kindness, friend; and you're welcome for the Baths.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

That was really awesome. I'm gonna have to find this album now.

4174094 I'm glad you liked! Hope you find + like the album too. (I'd lend you my copy, but alas, this is the internet.)

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

4181761
Don't worry, the internet can lend it to me. :V

4046937

I've rarely seen:

"Slice of Life" done so well and so literally. The life is there even though all we get are the slices. :twilightsmile:

Mike

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

4181761
For the record? Very bizarre, gets better as it goes.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

I finished it!

Oh, I love this one. A little slice of personal mythology. Character is in the stories we tell ourselves, and this just feels right about Dash.

Another great one, in a uniquely Equestrian way. Dash's relationship with the weather is a complex one and this leaves quite an impression.

Ha! And today, I'm curling up in my room and reading this story. :rainbowwild:

So I finally got around to reading this one and it definitely is nothing like what I expected (a story.)
I'm not really sure what Cerulean is but I'd describe it as a collection of windows into several loosely related stories.
A unique and interesting something :)

5679711 Took ya long enough! ;) Definitely not a cohesive story - I am alarmingly rubbish at writing those.

Wow. That was a hell of a trip. Almost Tarantino-esque at times, and then decidedly not at others. Just as I thought I had a semblance of what was what, she grew in an unexpected yet believable manner. Maximalist was the only chapter that the song finished way before I read to the end, otherwise the pacing was spot on or better in that I'd finish reading (Rafting Starlit Everglades for example) and still have time to enjoy listening to just the song before moving on. The shift between You're My Excuse To Travel and Rain Smell floored me. Between your words and what is going to be a frequently listened to album, I'm left with a bittersweet taste in my mouth. I'm smiling as I cry. This experience has been simply magnifique!

5724676 Dang, I'm still baffled as to how anyone finds this thing so long after it was published... But I'm glad you did, and I'm glad you liked it, and I'm super glad you also listened to the album and liked it! This whole fic was just a roundabout way of promoting one of my favourite albums, heh. Thanks for the kind words <3

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