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It has been a year since the Wonderbolts disbanded, and Spitfire now instructs foals on how to improve their flying. Once class ends, the last pony she ever wants to see visits her. It's Rainbow Dash. What does she want?
Thanks to Akashic Brony and Thunderbolt Sentinel for proofreading.
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Yay! It's here!
6251870 Yep!
Thanks for looking at it.
6251873 Anytime friend.
This was pretty good.
6252225 Thanks for reading the story. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
6253049 Thank you for the compliments. I appreciate it!
Thanks for reading the story. I'm glad you found it enjoyable.
I wouldn't be surprised if this took place during the Wonderverse.
6254281 Maybe it could fit. Speaking of which, I should get caught up on that universe's main story, as I still have a few of the posted chapters to read. Anyway, thank you for reading this story. I appreciate it!
6254320 Who knows. Maybe it could overshadow Fallout: Equestria for most words.
Alright, I finally had the time to read your story and... well, it's good, but I didn't like it as much as your other stories. Now, please don't get angry at me. I know my own stories and that I should be the last person to criticize stories of others. But I thought that some things felt... off. I'll try my best to explain it. I still liked the story and think, that it's good. These things just confused me a bit more.
The concept alone was one of the things that puzzled me. The Wonderbolts are an elite flying team and the Equestrian air force. They were founded a thousand years ago and they disband after a month without Spitfire? But hey, I thought, you're a good author and I'm sure you make it sound very plausible in the story itself.
So, Spitfire wants to take a longer vacation, no one wants to be the captain (and they don't have a co-captain, because...?) and then everypony left because nopony was in the mood anymore to be a Wonderbolt. In the series we see, that becoming a Wonderbolt is incredible hard. You have to be skilled, committed to your goals and self-confident. I'm sure that one of the other ten Wonderbolts would be brave enough to take on the position of the captain instead of just letting everyone down.
Also, you said, that Princess Celestia acted as some sort of manager for the Wonderbolts in your story. Why hasn't she done anything to prevent everypony from giving up? She could've appointed a new captain, looked over their shoulders, hired a coach who learned motivation psychology, talked to Spitfire... Well, anything. But instead, she did nothing and just let everything break apart. Princess Celestia has been in a leadership for a thousand years so she should've known how to handle the situation.
It would've been better if the whole "The Wonderbolts disbanded" thing wouldn't be in the story. You could've just focused on Spitfire, who left the Wonderbolts because she had a burnout, which is understandable with all the stress she had to deal with. The Wonderbolts would still exist in the background, but would still struggle without a clear leader and miss her.
This is the second thing, that puzzled me. I know, that you like to write Spitfire-sadfics. But this felt a bit exaggerated. From her opinion one could think, that she has been working as a prison guard or something similar, not the captain of the Wonderbolts. I mean, she worked in the leading position of one of the most recognizable and eminently respectable jobs in Equestria. She even has her own merchandise. I'm very sure there were already foals and parents who looked up to her.
The last thing would be Spitfire's character. I think it's actually very hard to write a sadfic with Spitfire. In the series she showed, that she can be very laid-back. On the other side, she's energetic and determined, but she acknowledges mistakes if she does any. In other words, she knows what she wants. And if the position as leader would've made her uncomfortable, she would've declined before the stress would've started. I don't think that it's impossible to write a Spitfire sadfic. But it needs a really good reason to make her depressed, or else it's "sad because the plot said so".
I really don't want to tread on your toes. You're one of the person on this site I respect the most. The story is still very good. And I know, I don't have a good taste. After all, I'm the only person who read Flying Sky-High and felt sorry for Rapidfire. A lot of people loved this story and I'm sure I'll love your next story as well. But this story just wasn't my cup of tea, I guess.
6256201 Sorry that the story didn't work out for you. Yeah, writing Spitfire has been tough for me, and I think she's one of the hardest characters for me to write. Anyway, I guess I'll need to be more careful in how to approach stories such as this. I'll try to make my next story better for next time. Thanks for the friendly input. I appreciate it.
6256216
You don't have to apologize. You did a good job with this story. It's just me being overly finicky again.
Wow. I actually really like this story. Have a like
and a fav.
6257692 Thank you for the compliments and for looking at my story. I appreciate it.
This is an OK story, but it reads more like the sequel to a story about the Wonderbolts breaking up. I mean, the team is a military unit & about 1000 years old. It's not like a rock ban just breaking up to pursue other interests.
Still, they have basically shown themselves to be lame every time there is a crisis, so maybe Celestia would disband them, but there is still a story there.
Not gonna lie, I got a bit lost in the middle of Spitfire changing her mind. I think you should elaborate just a bit more on what's going on through their heads, slow down the pace a tad, that sort of thing.
Other than that, it was a nice bit of single-scene fluff. I'm a sucker for feel-good stuff.
6327218 You make a good point. Pacing can be a bit tricky at times for me, so I'll definitely focus more on improving in that particular aspect in the future.
Anyway, thanks for reading this story and for providing some feedback. I appreciate it.
This was a very interesting and heartfelt story.
Will it ever get a sequel?
6418236 I might do sequels of stories if inspiration or an idea comes to me, though I sadly don't have plans for one at the moment. Anyway, thanks for reading this story, and I'm glad you found it enjoyable.
6418273 All right.
And you're welcome.
6269684
They're still good stunt performers.
A good story, here. Nice interaction between the two.
6256201
I realize this story is several years old now, and most of the other comments and the like to be found here are similarly old. I decided on a whim to read some of the oldest stories on my Read Later list, and this was among them.
I wanted to point out that this comment is the only one that isn't fucking retarded but was way too timid and apologetic for pointing out the obvious.
Holy shit this "story" is bad.
This isn't a story. This was someone thinking, "hey. What if Spitfire and Rainbow Dash had a nice conversation without the yelling and Drill Sergeant Routine and/or the massive egos?"
That's fine. Now, where does it take place? "Random classroom in Cloudsdale. Oh, and the Wonderbolts disbanded."
OK. That thing right there? That would be a story. Do we get anything even remotely like a satisfying explanation about that here? No.
Let's make a stupid analogy just to help illustrate how retarded this is. Let's imagine you walk into a room. Inside the room are a pencil and a blank piece of paper. They're resting not on a table, but the back of a T-Rex. You calmly and nonchalantly walk into the room, write down the ideas you had for the grocery list you'll be using later this week, then leave the room and go about the rest of your day.
Why is there a T-rex? Why is it alive? Why is it in your house serving as a writing table? Why do you have an entire room dedicated to the task of holding your grocery list and a T-rex?
Stories are about interesting things. They explore that interesting thing. Your story should be the most interesting thing within it. A conversation between the two elite fliers is in and of itself potentially a story, but even then you're looking at a fairly low-stakes, slice of life thing and if we ignore the motherfuckin' T-rex, what we got here was a few moments of introspection from Spitfire, an awkward/unexpected visit at her place of work by Rainbow Dash, then a brief conversation that somehow lasted from the end of class until sundown and can be summed up as "Hey, Spitfire, you're more awesome than you think. Cheer up."
As Chocolate Fan above pointed out, you presented something that flat out does not make sense. The Wonderbolts are an organization that grew from Equestria's military, the EUP. They were formed shortly after Luna's banishment, and have been in operation in some form or another for nearly a thousand years, and their members and leaders are all famous historical figures.
As he said, this isn't like some garage band deciding to split up after failing to make it big and top the charts. This is a lot more like a professional sportsball team just decided to split up because the quarterback decided she didn't feel like throwing a pigskin around anymore. The owner/manager of the team still owns it, even if all the players leave. They can still hire a new coach, recruit new players, and so on. Plus, there are likely contracts involved which prevent the team from simply splitting up.
This isn't just an idea that you failed to think through, this is a demonstration that you are living in some mysterious world where things don't make any kind of sense at all. Like you were raised by wolves or Mormons or something and cut off from everything. This is how Tarzan would think of the Wonderbolts. This is a depiction of an organization as imagined by someone who fundamentally doesn't understand how organizations work.
If you want to write about the Wonderbolts disbanding, you have a fuckload of work cut out for you. You'd have to actually explain, in story form, what monumental string of events took place to dissolve one of the core pillars of Equestrian society.
This isn't a case of someone merely being finicky. This is a fascinating case of someone so utterly unaware of things, but attempting to describe them in story form. Just how bad this is is itself entertaining and mind-boggling.
What's more, is that this somehow has 100 upvotes, meaning 100 different people decided, "yup. This is fine." Nine different people went above and beyond that and said they liked the story, that it was good/great/etc., and/or expressed unconditional enthusiasm for this pile of words.
Lily Lace said it best: "I literally cannot even."
So, as we're already in this far, let's go further down this rabbit hole. Set aside the T-rex. Let's ignore the mind-twistingly attention-drawing what-the-fuckery in the room. We can pretend that we somehow made our sanity checks while staring at a shoggoth in broad daylight. How about we look at the actual conversation that has been described by others as "heartfelt," among other things. Bookish Delight would spontaneously combust, die, fall into your great grandmother's grave, turn in it, then climb out and seek brains in the night while wearing a cape at how atrocious it is to call this "heartfelt."
This was some of the most contrived, shallow, and forced dialogue I've seen in a long time. I realize Spitfire isn't a main character, hasn't had a whole lot of screentime all things considered, and it is valid to interpret her character pretty broadly. But if you're going to just toss what little there is from the show into the bin and toss some generic, wishy-washy nobody into the story, why bother using Spitfire's name?
Thought experiment time. Imagine this same classroom in Cloudsdale. Because Rainbow Dash is still pretty young, how about we imagine she revisits her old high school and finds that one of her teachers is still teaching there and hasn't retired yet. So she pops in after class and has a conversation. Imagine what Rainbow Dash might talk about! How she joined the Wonderbolts Reserve and is achieving the dream she always bragged about as a filly. Rainbow Dash is also sometimes insecure and might seek out some confidence from this fondly-remembered teacher.
The said teacher could be feeling the years and considering retirement. Rainbow Dash might, still on the high of her own progress and success, be opposed to the idea of something she grew up fond of ending. She'd argue against the retirement, and you could explore a theme of youth vs age, of a pony in her prime and reaching her dreams contrasted against someone who, proud of one of their students doing the above, feels he/she has achieved one of his/her own goals too: to guide students towards their dreams.
Something like that could be pretty heartfelt. It doesn't even need Spitfire or any of the trappings of this steaming shitpile. It would have an actual, y'know, point and explore Rainbow Dash's character a little deeper than mere surface traits.
In two paragraphs using an OC that I didn't even put a name or gender to, I've already explained a "story" that takes everything this one tried to do, let it make sense, and built off of reasonable pieces of the setting working in a believable way. Dash went to school as a kid because all kids do, right? She had teachers at her school because that's how schools work, right? A teacher is proud of their students going on to graduate and succeed in life because that's kind of their jobs, right?
Two paragraphs of stuff off the top of my head and it's already ten times the story that was published. That's how shallow and bad this is. This was not "good" or "great" or any other such positive reaction. You should be embarrassed this exists, and use it as a learning experience on how to improve as a writer. I'd suggest one important step is to actually go out into the world and learn how it works. Maybe read up on how things like crosswalks and traffic lights work because those can be confusing to someone raised in the jungle, and not correctly understanding their workings might result in a lot of injuries.
Hell. Want to instead write stories to entertain people? Tell us your biography. Explain to us how you managed to get from the jungle to a working and internet-connected computer in order for us to even be having this conversation. Far more fascinating a topic than the symptom of that we see here.
You can has review!