Twilight never cared much for romance, but after falling for Rainbow Dash, she's ready to make her move. But what happens if those feelings are unrequited? Should she hold onto hope? Is it even possible to let go and move on?
I've read a bunch of shipfics that are all happy resolutions after the confession so I wanted to try an alternative. So here is a slightly darker TwiDash fic because I am a terrible person who must make ponies suffer. Oh God Why?!
Edit: Now with addition of new cover pic used with permissions from aeroytechyon_x
Reformatted with less walls of texts and less Lavender Unicorn Syndrome as of 03/20/2015
Sequel here.
Chapters (15)
When describing a number in a story, try not to use "3," it's really better if it is spelled out as "three" as it does not disrupt the story.
Other than that, looks good.
"whose PLATONIC shapely flank-"
Sweet Celestia, so MUCH lol.
Good story but end of the chapter seems to be rushed. Whole thing could been split in two chapters. Anyway looking foward for more.
I demand an epilogue.
It is a necessity!
421562 i agree. and the ending was like hitting a brick wall but nice wrok anyway.
Damn. I don't think I've seen this kind of thing happen in any fictions I've read. Good job.
Nice work, better than a lot of the crap I've seen. Happy ending, please?
MY TWO FAVORITES IN A SHIPFIC! NOOOO!!!
this better be good, im going to give it a read, but I will never forgive you!!
I saw it coming. My favorite ship is MoonLight, but, Twidash is like my 4th favorite. Appledash is like my worst favorite ship, mostly because I just don't like Applejack as a character that much. Okay not really at all.
Oh, and lets be thankful Twilight got interupted or the hill thing would of been too akward.
An excellent start! This may be your first fanfic, but it certainly doesn't look to be your first bit of writing. "Not a writer," indeed.
There are a couple of technical recommendations I feel I must make, however.
The first has already been addressed by the first comment, I'm pleased to see, but it bears repeating: Type out your numbers. "Three months," never "3 months."
The second is your use of ALL CAPITALS for emphasis. Consider italicizing instead. It looks neater, and reads less like you're shouting the word. In the case of words already italicized, bold them.
The curse of smooth-sailing shipfics is at least a comfortable one, but I applaud you for realizing a need to roil the waters. You have my eye.
OMG I'm so sorry for Twilight.
AJxRD is my OTP but i wish this will (after many tears I love sadficks) end up with TwiDash
>Writer is not an author.
>Writes a shipfic as first fanfic.
>Everybody loves it.
Of fucking course! that makes sense. But I'm not that bad of a person so I'll give you a like anyways.
"One of the plays she had read, a widely renowned classic by shakespony, involved a first meeting, a marriage, and a pointless double suicide in the span of 4 days." - I see a name that doesn't have a capital letter, and a double space!
"That was until, about 3 months ago." - Your comma is in the wrong spot
"It was essentially, exactly the same thing she had been doing in the past, but now she was aware that she was doing it and why." - There should be a comma between "was" and "essentially"
"Operation procure paramour with polychromatic pyrotechnic performance is a go" -
422200 a.deviantart.net/avatars/o/h/ohaiplz.png
421561
Noted.
421942
Thanks. I've never written before, but I do read a lot. I was hoping something about good storytelling would rub off.
Of course, bolding. I knew there was a better way to place emphasis. I'm going to blame writing at ridiculous hours of the night for that oversight.
421562
Yeah, I was originally going make this two chapters (break right after waking up from the dream). But I thought it left them a bit too short. For some reason it bugs me when a chapter is under 1000 words. I'm gonna have to balance natural break points with my weird sense of appropriate length. Hopefully it doesn't result in padding for padding's sake.
I'm a sad pony now =(.
Must have TwiDash!!
Well, it's much better than first chapter. I can't wait for more.
425158
If you don't mind my asking, what would you say makes it better? More compact? Less time skipping? Smaller paragraphs with slightly more dialogue interspersed? Want to know what to do more and less of in the future.
425218
Less chaotic. Slower. Not rushed. AND it didn't felt like everthing is happening at once. I was pretty lost in first chapter.
425224
Yeah, that was kind of a mass exposition dump. Wanted to lay down all the background info and get things moving since I intended most of the story to focus on after the crushing revelation and not the lead up to it. Now I'm feeling a bit more comfortable with slowing down and taking my time with a scene instead of hurrying through it. Will try to avoid slipping into bad habits of racing to the end.
Side Note: Just did a quick technical edit. I really need to remember the first rule of editing and wait a day between finishing writing and posting. Or at least sleep before the final read through. I just get so excited to hit that publish button. This new form of attention is like a drug I want to rub all over my body. Sleep now.
Huh. Interesting.
I like where this is going. The first chapter was somewhat...discordant, but besides that, you have talent. The second chapter was much better.
The plot itself is a nice change. While I love stories about...erm, love, there is rarely any "I have to think about it" or "There's another mare involved" stories. This will probably make me sad and need comfort food, but I digress.
Overall, well done so far, I hope you continue as soon as you are able.
Sincerely,
ChrisTheCat
Right now she was here to support Dash during an important moment in her life and she was not going to ruin it with something as trivial as the apocalyptic destruction of all her hopes and dreams.
Best line ever, even if it is terrible for Twilight.
RD:"Hey everypony! I'm dating Applejack!"
*glass break*
RD:"What was that?"
TS:"Nothing it's just....my heart....breaking into a million tiny pieces"
AJ:"Are you alright sugarcube?"
TS:"Yeah I'm ok"
*Later at the library*
TS:*Crying* "I'm not ok"
*Back at the party*
Me:"Dashie you suck at understanding an egghead's heart"
On a serious note: Normally I don't like shipping but great job anyways.
Wow, poor Twilight. Hope this will still have some sort of a happy ending though.
Ooh, more nit picking incoming!
"Okay then. If you ever need anything else Twi, just tell me. You can count on me for anything. I'd never leave a friend hanging." flashing that cocky smile that set Twilight's heart aflutter.
Two problems: Most obvious is the lack of a "she said" before the flashing of the smile, but there's a more important one. You've ended Rainbow Dash's quotation with a period, ending the sentence, but carry on afterwards as if you haven't. If you're going to have a "she said" after a quotation, the character's words do not end with a period. You make this mistake a few times.
Now, if you were going for something like this, the period would not be incorrect: "I'd never leave a friend hanging." Rainbow Dash flashed that cocky smile that set Twilight's heart aflutter.
And, should you not mind my saying, I think this would be better fitting as the end of chapter one. It's lovely, but left on its own it's criminaly short, and doesn't do much.
425935
I've never been quite sure about the rules for periods when ending dialogue. It feels both criminally wrong not to end speech with a period, and I worry if it is bad form to build up to many "____ said"s.
When this is all finished, I may have to go back and slide my chapter breaks around. I mostly ended chapter one where I did because I wanted that brick wall cliffhanger. I also wanted some kind of break or pause after what I wrote here. Maybe some asterisks and returns would do the job.
426804
It's odd, isn't it? Once the rules click in your head, though, nothing else looks right.
You've good intuintion. Too many dialogue tags can bog a story down, mess with the rhythm. But as I tried to exemplify, you don't always need to use them. It all lies in how you frame the dialogue. It's one thing to have the quote and the characters actions two separate sentences, but just skipping over the tag where one would normally go looks sloppy.
That might just be me.
I understand where you're coming from on the cliffhangar. I think that's my own primary area of struggle, where best to break things up.
Your brick wall was quite the tease, it did goad me to read further. This chapter ended well, too; but there's just so little of it. Not enough to sink one's teeth into.
Anyway, that's my opinion. I wish you luck, and look forward to more.
425158
Agreed, I find it better because it gave me a more realistic feel to it, I would really do the same thing if I was in that situation.
Excellent first attempt:) You clearly have some writing skills, a little polish and editing can smooth out grammar and suchlike, not a big deal. What I think you really need to do is work on expanding your ideas, there are a lot of fantastic scenes I can see in the works that are just passed over in a sentence. Not to mention that, especially with that granddaddy of cliffhangers you have there, that with proper build up could be just devastating, you have set yourself up for a very true to life representation of dealing with a first love. So I guess what I'm trying to say, in my roundabout way is that this almost reads like an outline to me, with just a little bit of expanding at a few points of interest. If you should have the inclination and motivation I honestly think you could turn this into the first part of one of the best stories on this site.
Keep up the good work
Amazing, I cant wait for more!
i don't care, short or long, just keep 'em coming
Nice concept, not one you'd see usually. The one small annoyance I have is how you italicise normal speach. Most tend to accociate italics with thought or dreams. Its just a personal preference though, so it doesn't really detract from the quality.
In response to your author's notes, I prefer longer chapters, about 3-5 thousand words, updated as quickly as possible. Unfortunately for me, I can't keep to those standards with my own stories.
Keep it up, mate! I'll be waiting for more.
Funniest chapter so far! Don't you dare stop writing
"nation of sheetland" comedic gold right there
What just happened?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esfjoTdIKmg
You've spelled "piece" where you meant "peace."
Quite the tonal shift. Funny stuff, but it seems quite out of place given what's lead up to it. And what's still happening.
Were you aiming for irony, in the lighter narrative tone contrasting with Twilight's emotional turmoil? It seems to me that you've struck flippancy, instead.
This is coming out sounding harsher than I'd meant. Sorry. If you'd like my trap shut, say the word.
If you've thoughts of a comedy in the works, I look forward to it.
You've done a nice job with the dialogue this time. Nice and clean.
This is beauty:
"It dropped right back down again when she glanced over at the garbage can where she had deposited the soaked fireworks. The fireworks she spent nearly two weeks researching and developing as a labor of love. That she had praised as her most inspired and brilliant of ideas. That now lay in the bottom of a trash can among coffee grounds and Spike's claw clippings. After summoning a spade and checking outside, she levitated the remains of her work out of the trash and carried them with her out the door and around behind the library.
She knew nopony was going to look through her garbage. Even if they did, they probably wouldn't recognize the purpose behind the soaked and misshapen packages of black powder. She still felt the need to hide the evidence. Evidence that she had ever been so foalish as to think this was a good idea."
OMFG TWILIGHT, you make me MAD!!!!1!!!1!!!111!!one
429935
Yeah, I've kind of left myself with a bit of a problem. I had planned to use italics for thoughts and inner monologue in the near future, but something made me think dialogue was supposed to be italicized. I got away with bolding thoughts here, but I don't think that will work for a page of internal debate. Most of all, I want some consistency with whatever I end up with.
431607
That's one of the more embarrassing typos.
I think I was kinda aiming for some bitter flippancy. I tend to get a bit snarky when depressed or overly stressed, so I though it might fit. Certainly don't have plans for a comedy tag just yet, though I might weave in a bit more dark humor whenever I need to pull back a bit for a breath before pounding on the suffocating despair again. This makes it sound far more thought out when I'm really just trying to figure out my natural writing style.
.
Twilight that was your chance to confess
Speaking of sandwiches, I'll make myself one now
MOAR
If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go cry in the corner. Good day.
Gentlemen...BEHOLD! I have made a decently sized chapter! Of course now I've raised everybody's expectations and can't go back to 1100 word segments.
Also, Magic.mov made me self-conscious about the whole anypony/somepony replacement thing. I always figured it was kinda offensive to all the dragons, gryphons, donkeys, and other non-pony races out there. It's like the "Mighty white of you" of Equestria.
Yay
I can't help but feel something is going to go very wrong 
Secondly, HA! I probably made you learn some science!
You'd like that wouldn't you? But no, you didn't. My mind has the extrodinary abillity to almost completely zone out when reading educational text. What I read is forgotten within a few minutes. Take that education!
454912
Fool! That educational text was merely a distraction! Are you sure you didn't accidentally learn how hydrogen is split from water? Or that distilled water doesn't conduct electricity? Or that the pH scale is logarithmic? If not, hopefully you just did now.
454930
Arrgh!
Curse you and your summarising of the educational contents of your story!
454930
Argh! Curse you for teaching us a couple bits of trivia from grade 11 chem! PHYSICS IS SUPERIOR!
454996
As a physics major and soon to be teacher, I heartily concur. I was almost tempted to see if i could work in some special relativity and time dialation in there but that would have been a bit forced.
455033
Are you sure time is relative there? From what they act like, the solar system is geocentric and the stars really are just a pretty background Luna makes. Not to mention, from what we've seen Twilight do, there's either a hell of a lot going on with magic they've never hinted at or, like most magic, energy isn't conserved. And let's not even start with how the Pegasi fly or the Sonic Rainboom.
And I've gone on a crazed rant again. Need to stop doing that.