Competition. It drives us all one way or another. Whether it’s to be the fastest flier, the best team, the greatest magician, to steal a land in jealous fury, or simply to beat that other pony to the stall for the last carrot; competition is in all of us.
Some claim that a competitive nature is healthy, and keeps a pony sharp and fit. Others claim it drives ponies apart and should be avoided as much as possible.
Rainbow Dash and Applejack don’t care about any of that. They just don’t want the other to win. Theirs is an unending game of friendly one-upmanship, a constant striving to prove their superiority to one another for no other reason than they can.
Neither of them thought it would ever bring about romance in their lives.
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Written for (and winner of) the 3rd AppleDash competition. Prompt by bookplayer.
Thanks to my friend, Radoh from the Escapist, for making some small, but very good, points.
Cover art by nekokevin.
This was cute and then serious but overall cute
I liked it, it was very nice
I was really hoping to see someone try that prompt. It was a really enjoyable read, well done!
5113445 Glad you enjoyed.
5114371 Yeah, at first I was all "Gotta write my other fic, so can't take part, but I do like that notepad prompt." But tcherny was all "Do eet, raggot", so I relented. This is the result. Alas, I never heard back from my editor, so this is pretty much the raw version. The only corrections it's had are ones I've made as I've written.
I should probably proof it today, before the contest ends.
I need to throw more ideas out there, if they're going to be as well done as this one. Great job!
I loved a lot of the details: Dash being surprised that AJ doesn't write with an accent, the bet over "taste" (and its conclusion,) AJ being gay and never having felt the need to mention it. Dash fretting over being bi was a really nice treatment of that issue. All in all, this was a pleasure to read. Good luck with the contest!
5114510 Oh wow, thanks! Squee! Praise from bookplayer!
Ahem. With that momentary bout of excitement out of the way: Many thanks, indeed! A lot of the story just came to me as I wrote, so I wasn't quite sure how it would turn out, especially with the lack of an editor. The only things that were concrete in my mind were that the notepad must be responsible for the two of them getting together, and that joke at the very end, which was way harder to work in than ought to have been necessary.
AJ's lack of accent in writing was partly a result of me wanting to do something different with her voice, but also partly down to my headcanon being that she's actually a lot smarter than she lets on. After all, she's a farmer and a businessmare. She can't afford to be dumb.
By the time I wrote out the bet, the story was practically flying off my fingers in GDocs. I hit this really weird stride over the weekend, where the story just wrote itself and the "dialogue" just ended up leading down another path of competition. I'm actually rather pleased with it, as it shows that, even when already competing, the two of them are still trying to out-do each other.
AJ's orientation is mostly a throw-back to my other story I'm working on at the moment, where she's basically the same way, but Dash's problem wasn't even planned. As I was writing it, I didn't really have an idea of how I was going to ship the two, but then the idea of Dash being confused about herself just kind of dropped itself in there and stuck. Again, I actually like that idea, though I don't know if it's particularly different or unusual in this fandom's shipping. I do prefer something slightly more believable than "everypony's lesbians", however.
Anyway, I've rambled on long enough. Thanks again for the praise and the good wishes, and glad you enjoyed. I'd actually forgotten you were the one that made this prompt, so the fact that I've ended up with something that you actually liked is pretty damn awesome.
You know, weirdly enough, I've apparently been following you for a while, but only read one of your stories. Reading this though gives me a very good reason to leave that follow in place. This is a great little story - the characterisation in particular is spot on.
That was really really good! Instanty one of my favourites.
5114830 5115097 Why, thank you very much! Good to know I'm doing something right.
This oneshot was very entertaining! I certainly enjoyed it. Not to mention well written (which is something to always appreciate)! Keep up the awesomeness, dude!
Bravo, bravo.
5133896 *Bows*
Thankee kindly.
5140576
My pleasure
Congratulations!
Beautifully done.
5156969 5157470 Many thanks!
Heh. Mood Wings, anyone?
5161881 I was beginning to wonder if anyone would comment on that reference.
Commence read.
A pleasant read.
5169105 Thankee.
Nice story! Interesting way to reveal feelings.
5311135 Cheers! It was an interesting idea and needed to be written, though it did take some slight prodding from tchernobog to get me to write it.
This was fun. and I really enjoyed the back and forth notes. They made Rainbow Dash and Applejack able to have an unusually thoughtful and deliberate discussion about their feelings, which isn't how AppleDash usually plays out, and that was a nice change pace. The story seemed to lose a lot of focus towards the end, but overall this was very good.
5332470 Praise from HoofBitingActionOverload? Praise from HoofBitingActionOverload. Me say hell yes! Many thanks, kind sir.
Endings are my weakness, I have to admit. I often fail to have any idea how to adequately wrap things up. My very first story is a prime example of this, the entire third chapter is just a horrible mess of rushed ideas crammed together in order to meet a deadline. In this case, I think some of the focus loss was me trying to work in that last joke, which took far more work to put in than ought to have been necessary.
Shall I have Applebloom prepare the guest bed for Mr. Cockup, Rainbow Dash? ;)
5605855 Please do, lieutenant.
Who knew Applejack was actually Tom Sawyer?
Delightful little Appledash! Thank you for writing.
Honestly I don't necessarily brain rainbow dash it is kind of food that she assumed so fun can't spell but it's also always been weird to me that we have different dialects of speaking but English is only really written a couple ways and that's only really American spelling and UK spelling we don't have different dialects when people in the South talk very differently than up here in Illinois but yet we all write the same
Great story. Take Twilight out of it.