And thus, Scoots practically has a roommate

Is it just me, or is Scoots and Silver becoming the next generation Vinyl and Octavia

I wonder if Silver Spoon is dyslexic.

Man, I find myself enjoying this more and more. Glad you came back to it. Scoots is by far my favorite filly, so any story where she plays a large part is going to catch my interest. Honestly, I've always found Silver Spoon to be a really interesting character as well, she's so open for development, and I love seeing other people's takes on the reasoning behind her personality. This story is definitely in my top three Spoony stories. Keep it up, it's really getting good.

2556891 man, you are just everywhere. Do we just like the same kinds of stories, or do you simply engulf all of Fimfiction in that web?

2556976

Dyscalculic is numbers (and analogue clocks). But if you try damn hard and go right back to the basics when learning any kind of math, have a sharp mind and keep pushing, you can get there. I got all the Dys's but I can read, write and have a qulification in Civil and Construction engineering.

2557718

Yes, that is my point. You can adapt if it's caught early, but if it's not then you just struggle through life. Maybe Silver has it and no one has caught it. That can lead to a student just accepting themselves as 'dumb' when they really aren't.

I'm loving this story. You've basically taken several characters who weren't very well developed in the show, and worked your own character models into place; it's working. I really like the mom/daughter dynamic going on between Scoots and Octavia, and just Octavia's character in general. Love that mare.

2557740

Early? I was halfway into university when they actually checked if I did have it!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to through this story Silver getting a whole lot more self worth and stepping up to her place instead of being shoved by family and "friends".

I typically don't comment much on fictions, but this one I just had to. I absolutely love how this is coming along and I can't wait to read more.

I thought the idea of Tavi/Vy & Scoots was a little weird but you make it work with everyone playing a nice family role. But the big sell for me is the representation of Silver... she seems out of her element (story line wise) and the idea of her character works well with her apprehensions, her initial clash with Scoot and her typical relationship with Tiara.

I'm definitely checking out No Longer Lost, and I hope it tides me over till the next chapter. Keep up the great work :)

2557296
I'd like to think both, but i kinda live on this site

Mechanics note that you may already be aware of but just messed up this time: When a paragraph is changed in the middle of dialogue without a change in speaker, like in

They're really popular among earth ponies and unicorns because they're pretty easy to make and learn how to use."

"Aerodynes, on the other hoof, are kind of rare because

you omit the endquote on the first paragraph.

Edit: Also,

In aeronatics,

Embarrassing that it's mispelled in Scoots' dialogue just as she's trying to stress the correct term…

2560844

You are one of my favorite commenters, and it scares me every time I see you've replied, cuz I know you've found something for me to fix

I really appreciate you looking out for me

2561772
Pfft, not entirely sure I like the sound of that. No problem, all the same.

2559790 yeah, me too, idn't it grand?

2565494
Jes...

2565784 Does that mean yes? Or am I suddenly, possibly a Jes?

I assure you, my good web, I am not the leather bits that bind a hawk into your servitude. Good day.

2566624
While I am generally fond of leather bits, I assure you that what you have just witnessed at my hand was an odd phenomenon generally referred to as a "Typo". Ghastly things, those.

2569593 Typo's? You mean, things your pony obfuscates? I don't believe they exist.

Ah! Kill it with fire! And a sword!

Oh my, I like this story. Cute family moments mixed with enough obstreperous teenager to maintain the tension, it has my attention. Rather too much of it, I really didn't have the time this morning to read it in one sitting...

But the engineer and the machinist, they are going to conquer the world.

2589374

Hmm...JUST the world, you say? What happens when the world is no longer enough for them?

This is a wonderful fic. Some bits of it hit quite close to home for me, since Mom is a music teacher. You write that very well.

This story is positively wonderful. I can't wait to see what happens next. Do you know when the next update will be perchance?

2695227

It does perfectly. Although I hope that emotional conflict gets resolved in this story.

This is immensely promising in a similar sense to the prior fic, which I also adore. I'm especially in love with the way you've deepened the world the ponies live in, without falling into the apparently all-too-easy trap of adding only grimness and doing so as explicitly as possible.

The presence of the 'romance' tag makes me wonder, though, if this is intended to become a Scootaloo X Silver Spoon romance, and if so, what the reasoning and setup for it will be. Please don't get me wrong, I'm sure you can do it quite well, but I've always been bothered by the way that so many writers will, for instance, pair up two mares (or colts, or men, or women, or par up a man with a fat woman or a woman with a fat man or anyone with a highly 'gifted' man or woman or colt or filly, et cetera ad nauseam) and then proceed to do the same everywhere they possibly can within their story. And I'm not (intentionally, my subconscious does love to get away from me sometimes) accusing you of doing so, because frankly it's not going to make or break the fic for me- I like your writing and characterizations too much for that, and the ideas in the story as well.

I think I've got myself a bit lost here.

Going back, I'm curious and hopeful but wary as to what's going to happen to/with/between Scoots and Silver in the course of the fic, and probably actually didn't need to say anything, but wanted to provoke some thought. Specifically, the question for yourself (if you are pairing the two up in a romantic sense) of why you are creating such a pairing, and whether you're shaping the story around it or doing it because it fits the story.

Anyways, this aside, I still quite like your depictions of, well, everyone, and am looking forwards to seeing more things- interaction between Octavia and Silver Spoon, the potential to actually see a scene with Octavia and Vinyl in the same room as Twilight and Trixie, all four interacting (hammer and tongs for the bombasts, muse and music for the calmer ponies), and various and sundry other things.

Irrespective:

Wonderful read. Write on!

2695486

Well, all I can promise is that whatever happens is going to have to fit into the story, because that's just how I write. The romance tag is only intended to refer to the main characters, so there will be that, at least. Any of the pairings I do end up mentioning--and there shouldn't be many--are already part of my headcanon, and they do have their own backstory; that backstory may just not be part of this tale. For example, Twixie and Vinyltavia.

Personally, I tend to assume that ponies are loving, romantic creatures by nature, and generally end up in relationships fairly frequently. Rare is the adult pony who isn't in some kind of relationship, so you can more or less assume that everypony has a 'special somepony,' and that 'somepony' will be the same gender roughly half the time (for other reasons not necessarily easy to explain in a comment field).

That said, should be an update soonish.

2700752

Sounds good to me. Looking forwards to it.

My question was actually in regard to mare/mare pairings, though. You already have two and it looks like you're going to add another- and I've read a lot of fics where the author makes all the characters of the same gender desire the same thing in a partner. Sorry if my previous comment was a bit thick to read, but that was really what I was asking about.

2702975

Ooh, I see.

Well, I generally try to keep the matchups roughly even in terms of sexuality. The problem in this case is that many of the straight relationships--and plenty of gay ones, I imagine--will be implied or behind-the-scenes. For example, DT and SS's parents are heterosexual couples, but it's largely a moot point because you'll likely never see them. Similarly, every foal who isn't adopted--that is to say most of them--must necessarily have straight parents (although with some rare pairings, some level of magical intervention has allowed nontraditional reproduction).

So far as I can tell, the crux of the issue isn't that all my characters are gay, it's that only the gay relationships catch anyone's attention. If I say AJ has a coltfriend, people will wonder who it is, but generally just file the information away and never really think about it again. If I say Twilight has a marefriend, suddenly she becomes a statistic--1 homosexual couple. Then Vinyltavia becomes 2, the eventual implied Scootaspoon becomes 3, and before you know it, there seem to be tons of them, when in fact the ratio might be just 15-40 in favor of straight couples. You just wouldn't know it because you aren't tallying the 'normal' pairs.

In any event, if I write well enough, I should hope that ALL the relationships, regardless of type, are believable and flow easily with the narrative. After all, poorly written straight relationships are no less horrible to read, they're just more common, so they don't stand out.

I rambled, but the TL;DR is just that yes, there will be a few. I don't know what the breakpoint between 'a lot' and 'too many' is, but I hope I don't reach it. I probably will, but that's up to the reader to decide just how much that impacts their enjoyment of the story.

2704857

Well, I don't think I think of it that way, I've just been noticing more often recently when fanfictions pretty much... I dunno. Cater to a particular like of the author's?

I first started really noticing that sort of thing in a fic I ran across for Naruto where it -looked- like a 'what if x was adopted by the Akimichi family' fic and turned out to be an 'every man in town suddenly sprouts a lust for fat women' fic. Since then I've noticed that some writers will write like everyone in their setting wants to have a particular relationship partner or relationship type, and others will, with various degrees of deliberateness, write only or mostly about those in a particular relationship type or with a particular kind of partner as though other types or other partners didn't matter or something.

Personally, taking your example, if you were to bring up that AJ has a coltfriend, I would expect it then to matter somehow and (hopefully) for said character to show up at some point, so that you wouldn't have been mentioning it just to mention it.

I am not saying that you did this yourself previously anywhere, but with Vinyl and Octavia having adopted Scoots pretty much off the streets, then having her turn out to also be (essentially) lesbian (is there a proper alternate word for that for Equestrian use? I don't think there is....) is really kind of a coincidence, and I'm trying to come up with a way to say the rest of what I'm thinking, but this is kinda tough to word.

I do get that the focus is Scoots and Spoon. So yeah, the main focus interaction there and all. And I do get it's kind of a tough line to tread, showcasing a sort of relationship and not seeming like you're doing it for the sake of that particular sort of relationship alone.

I dunno. I guess I'm kinda just thinking out loud here, hehe....

Anyway, aside from everything else, I -do- like the fic and want to continue reading it anyway, because I -do- like your writing and characterization.

Ha I knew it! I knew Tavi was going to end up teaching Spoony as soon as I heard she plays cello to

Blegh why can I relate so easily to scooter AND sweetie!

I'm not sure if you did it on accident, but you did point out a big problem with how some teachers teach. Often enough they seem to teach in a way that works for some students but not for others. Silver has that problem with math where it sounds like Cheerilee just threw the equations at them without fully explaining how or why it works. I was always decent at math in that I could go through the book and figure things out myself, and sometimes using a method that the teacher doesn't like. Now though I have issues with some college classes in that the teachers and books both just talk at you and don't explain how to do the work. I've had to start finding other sources to understand some of my assignments.

2556939
No, they are. And Sweetie and Diamond may do so as well, thoug probably in a much more… explosive manner.

This is an interesting angle on Silver Spoon. Almost everyone that bothers with the Sugar Lump duo tends to focus on Diamond Tiara, effectively reducing Silver Spoon to little more than her henchman at best, her gofer at worst. It is also interesting to see how she sees the Cutiemark Crusaders as the bullies and herself as the victim due to her limited inteligence. As Sweetie Belle would say:

I'm loving engineering Scoots. I'm glad to see that Silver Spoon is finally getting math, i always kind of feel bad for people who dont get math. For the record, I don't think Scoots and Silver spoon have a good chance finishing the dash in a semester. Oh, and I'm totally going to use fun-gineering now.

You did a amazing job with Silver Spoon. To be entirely honest, I have the same problem, and only understand complex math if i am show why and how it works. So props to you on doing you work, and also props for going for the silver smithing story. Just from this chapter alone you have gotten an avid follower of this story, that is if i wasn't already following it.

4973467

Well to be fair on Diamond Tiara. She has stage presence, and the uncanny attention whorseing that screams, "Look at me! I'm important!" And at least I've found when reading, or writing the two together. Whenever Diamond enters a chapter or a fic. She tends to love getting the spot light. So it's easy for Silver Spoon, or anypony really to be overshadowed by her, or get pushed out of the limelight. It's almost as if it was Diamond Tiara's true Special Talent.

The unicorn was holding a small scrap of parchment in a translucent aquamarine aura through which she could easily read the neat, measured script of the unicorn her family employed specifically for the purpose of sending messages via magical means.

Just noticed this ... and that Sweets can take messages as well.

How does this work? I mean in the show we that only Tia and Twilight can do this, and only through Spike. So I'm wondering how they'd send messages in this AU? Sounds interesting.

6404573 If I had to come up with a justification off the top of my head, I'd say that short intra-urban messages can be transmitted by magically-propelled paper aeroplanes. Twilight and Celestia use dragonfire mail for everything for two reasons: one, Ponyville and Canterlot Castle are too far apart for memoplanes to work; and two, both Twilight and Celestia tend towards sesquipedalian loquaciousness, and their regular messages are too long for memoplanes to handle.

6600944

Admit it you've been dying to use sesquipedalian loquaciousness in an actual sentence.

But yeah, it doesn't look like (or ever mentioned) that they use paper airplanes. It's just said that they'd be sent. But that would be interesting if that happens in this fic.

Knew something like this was going to happen the moment I saw that she played the cello.
Nice work, well done.

"Wait," Octavia interrupted her, eyes wide. "You don't mean Molto Spavaldo, do you?

Needs end " marks.
________________

Tavi and Vinyl are one of the best parents in the MLP verse. You really do some wonderful characterization.

The filly nodded. "Yeah...I got my cutie mark just playing with some of my father's tools and working some scrap metal into toys and jewelry while I waited for him to get off work when I was younger. It's just a hobby right now, but I've gotten pretty good, I think. Anyway, Scootaloo just asked me if I could make gears and things like that, and honestly, compared to filigree necklaces and chain-linked tail-rings, sprockets are foals' play."

we have been told what DT's cutie mark means but not so with Spoon so for now... ima gonna have that as what it means.

So Octavia wil be Silver Spoon's teacher...I can only imagine how that will go!

"Um...that the First Changeling War lasted seven years and only ended because the Crystal Princess sacrificed herself to seal King Sombra away after he stole the Crystal Heart from the palace."

wait what
2704857