• Member Since 19th Jun, 2012
  • offline last seen January 3rd

xjuggernaughtx


Only mostly dead.

T

The Joining.

Adagio had heard the ritual’s name spoken in hushed tones ever since she was a little girl, but what did it mean, exactly? Now that she’s come of age, she’s about to find out.

But knowledge begets more knowledge, and not all truths are comforting. In the swirling coastal fog, pathways aren’t always clear, and sometimes it’s hard to tell friend from foe…

Edited by PresentPerfect

Additional pre-reading help from Dragonas77, Seether00, and djthomp

Cover art created by 2135D

Chapters (4)
Comments ( 111 )

Yes! It has arrived!

Such delightful imagery.

And away.. We... Go...!

~Skeeter The Lurker

6347576 It took a lot of work and tears, but it is finally finished.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

Heyyy this looks familiar. :D

6347657 That's because I just took a copy of Dirty Prancing and put it through Google Translate into Russian and then back again. This is what came out. It's plagiariffic!

Lyi

Very deep and in-depth, with minimal to no grammatical and spelling errors. I commend you, my fellow brony! I love how the storyline played out, especially how it pulled you deeper and deeper into both yourself and the story-without the reader realizing it. Stunning results, and plenty of feels (and not the "brings-you-to-tears" kind; the kind that strikes you deep and pulls you hard).

I like this story; but it really can't be used as my head canon for the Adagio that we know was originally from Equestria and in this story she is described like a human as far as I can tell. Not to mention that in this story Adagio actually has the power to sing without her jewel something that I would think conflicts with the canon. Would anyone be so kind as to explain to me why this doesn't need an AU tag?

As for questions so far why was the struggle described in this chapter radical enough to shatter the place as described when past rituals presumably had not. What was different?

And did all the yelling and hissing her father did actually helped her overcome the challenge? I normally would expect that conventional encouragement and constructive feedback would be the best way to help someone overcome an obstacle; but it's possible that some personality types like Adagio's might be better or at least more readily influenced by that kind of "help". What do you think? Was that the best way to help Adagio or was it even helpful at all? :derpyderp2:

~Leonzilla

6348197 I'm happy to hear that you enjoyed it. I worked for a long time on this story, so it's nice when people respond to it.

6348258

She's human-like, but not a human in this story. She's still a magical creature, but pretty much looks like a human. As for the jewel, I attribute that to shock. If you could put on a pair of augmenting leg braces that could help support you and let you jump super high, and you had them on for half of your life, I don't think it would be too out there to think that you'd have some difficulty walking if you took them off one day. The jewel augments her power. Losing doesn't mean she can't sing anymore. It means that she can't sing right at that moment. She and the other sirens need some recovery time. That's my headcanon, anyway.

why was the struggle described in this chapter radical enough to shatter the place as described when past rituals presumably had not. What was different?

Because Adagio and this hippocampus are significantly more powerful than the usual pairings. Generally either the siren or the hippocampus is stronger, so the battle is over much more quickly. With this one, they were closely matched and at the top end of the power scale.

And did all the yelling and hissing her father did actually helped her overcome the challenge?

I wanted the situation to be somewhat ambiguous. No one here is the hero or the villain. It's a matter of perspective. The father is doing what he can to help Adagio win, but those methods and his motives for them aren't purely good or bad. He has reasons.

6348258 It's certainly AU. It's an interesting take on the sirens, but wouldn't fit into the canon, since the canon Sirens were hippocampi from the start and forced into human form when Starswirl tossed them into the dermally variegated human world.

6348359 What Twilight says in Rainbow Rocks is that the sirens were three beautiful and dangerous creatures. It doesn't say anything about them being hippocampi. Their form as human-like would be very "creature" to ponies. They appear as a duo of human/hippocampi in the finale, so that's what I based this off of.

6348295 I consider them both my enemies... so they're clearly BOTH evil!

*Alondro drops megaspells on the whole area, and leaves the 3 EqG sirens as the only ones left!*

And that's how it REALLY happened!

True story! :trollestia:

What a wonderful thing to see this finally thrust upon the unsuspecting masses. May its glory shine through.

6348405 I read that as "Alondro drops microphone on the whole area." It really changed the effect.

6348408 Thanks for you help on this. I always kind of feel like you ought to be getting tired of the stories by the time you've looked at them for the sixth time, but you always help me out with your opinions.

6348425 TIRED of them?!?! Oh you silly silly pony, I love looking at them. Combing through them to make them the best I can. It's what I love to do.

6348421 If it was a magical microphone and had a huge pulse of feedback...

Interesting...

I know how to destroy sirens now. :trixieshiftright:

The human-ish sirens should just invent guns!

The hippocampi won't be able to match the invention cuz gunpowder won't work when it gets wet!

Victory is assured!

Either that, or they could just move far inland and live on the top of a mountain and throw big rocks at any hippocampi who decide to venture that far from the sea (assuming the hipppocampi don't dry out, in which case they can be ground up into special dashi flakes!)... or dump a lot of mercury in the ocean... or nuclear waste... or trigger a huge red tide... or get BP to drill for oil (but not on the moon, otherwise Cthulhu will get out)...

Yeah, lots of ways to win against magical sea demons when you get creative!

This is certainly an interesting take on the origins of Sirens.

6348472 I think my brain just naturally goes in different directions. It's the first thing I thought of when I saw them. Several people have told me that they've never seen it before. I don't know if anyone else has this headcanon, but it seemed like the most logical thing to me.

6348490 Well, the most LOGICAL thing, given the information in Rainbow Rocks is that they were pony fish things that Starswirl banished and, like all things that go through the portal, became human once they got to human land.

This is more like... I dunno... the logic of saying the Giant's Causeway was built by a giant from Scotland who was trying to invade Ireland and only partly finished it because the some guy and the smaller Irish giant tricked him by dressing up like a baby and saying it was the Irish giant's kid. Rather than the rock formation being the result of crystalized basaltic magma.

It's good story logic, but only when you toss out the given facts and substitute your own. Hence, 'alternate' takes on things.

Why is this getting spammed everywhere?

6348515 The only things that we know of that have gone through that portal are ponies and dragons, and the dragon didn't become a human. He became a dog.

I get it, though. The book shows three hippocampi running amok, but the ending doesn't support that. It shows three girls controlling three hippocampi. I think that leads to a different conclusion, but I understand why people would feel differently.

6348610 I'm not sure except that I was really down about the story a few days ago. My friends are probably just being nice because of that. I didn't ask anyone to promote it, but I do appreciate it.

6348624
It is a nice gesture but you know it's going to catch flak because of it

6348632 Probably, but I can't control that. If people want to downvote because they're sick of seeing it everywhere, well, that's disappointing, but it's just something that comes with the territory. I'm not going to tell people not to blog about my story if they want to.

6348632 If there are people who want to give someone flak for having friends who want to do something for another friend then this is a weird fandom to find those kinds of people in. :rainbowderp:

6348842
Well this IS the Internet.
Everything and anything goes.

6348617
I kind of understand Alondro's viewpoint, though. Seeing as the main six couldn't fully turn into ponies in the human world, instead growing ears, hair extensions"tails", and wings for those applicable. So the hippocampi could be similar in the function of ears and wings for the main six. When they reach, I suppose, max harmonic dissance, their avatars of their former selves from Equestria appear. Instead of shooting rainbows like the main six, they have massive hippocampi as a super or something.

That's what I feel they were attempting to convey, but it's all about interpretation. You can make a case as much as I can, and it all simply comes down to what they person believes. And I'm fine with that. This'll make for an interesting story.

I'm admittedly not a fan of most of the siren stories. The whole where they appeared left a note of dischord for me. Yet, this has a different approach. I hope this does well though. As something very different and nice about the where of things as an origin. As this has very much shown a different tune.

6349103 I pushed xjuggernaughtx pretty hard to publish it without the AU tag, so maybe I should weigh in.

Basically, in Rainbow Rocks we get two different looks at the sirens in a more magical form. One is from a book that by definition is documenting something that happened a thousand years back, and the other is what we see straight out in the open in the Battle of the Bands. My rationale for this not needing an AU tag is that the Battle scenes are more reliable of a primary source for the sirens true appearance than the book, given that we don't actually know how and where the book got its information. Was it written by Starswirl himself? Was it written by someone else but contemporary to him, or by someone more recent based on older material? There's a lot of room in a thousand years for the true historical details to get muddled, especially if Starswirl wasn't particularly cooperative in documenting the exact details of every monster he encountered and fought.

We've even seen this in the show. For example, given Twilight's surprise at the end of the second episode, apparently none of the documentation Twilight was going off back in the series opener detailed Nightmare Moon as explicitly Celestia's sister. You'd think that would have been well known at the time, but apparently a thousand years was enough for it to get lost.

MCA

Hey, enjoying manipulating the feature box?

i.4cdn.org/mlp/1440298695424.png

6349773 That's got nothing to do with me. I didn't ask for anyone to promote this.

A really interesting take on the Sirens, definitely interested to see where this goes next :twilightsmile:

6349841 Thanks! The conclusion will be out tomorrow.

6349773 It's almost like Super Trampoline is a completely different user or something. Oh wait, he is.

Well, this certainly lives up to the hype. I'm loving every moment. Looking forward to the thrilling conclusion.

6350355 I'm glad you are enjoying it. It nearly went into the scrap pile, but I talked with some people and rewatched Rainbow Rocks. It gave me confidence that I was on the right path after all, so I went forward with it.

Okay time to wreck your shit, since I love doing things like that, and stuff.

“But I’m tired!” Adagio dragged her foot up yet another of the seemingly endless stone stairs that had been carved into the towering cliff. Twin fires smoldered in each of her legs, flaring up again with each step.
Cliché in the beginning "I'm tired." Plus you are using a tell show. Dragged is a weak verb, if you wish to bring a connotation of despair, or any other tone. Seemingly endless, is not a use for world building, it makes it appear as though the narrator does not know the world: make your protagonist think this. A metaphor for a sensory action? HahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAAHAHA!!! No.

Forza’s mouth twisted into a hard sneer. “You’re tired. I’m sure that will be a big comfort to your brother.”
Hard sneer, it is not just a regular one, this is important. "You're tired." We are aware. Nice blatant exposition. You're maaaaking me aaasssooo proud.

Reaching out a hand to steady herself on the cliff’s clammy wall, Adagio dropped her eyes to the ground. She hated it, but her mother was always telling her that she’d get farther with her father by not pushing things so much. “I just want to stop for a second. My feet—”
Reaching out to steady oneself is fine in terms of what you have written, but all I know is that she is on some kind of rocky peaks of a sort. Clammy walls huh? What they have a cold or something? Connotation: know it. Dropped eyes to the ground cliché. Mother was always telling him/her cliché. Use of the word by, in "father BY not pushing her." By is not needed and makes the context into passive rather than active. I just want to stop this cliché.

“Well, that’s too bad.” Forza snatched Adagio’s hand from the wall and pulled. “I let your mother coddle you for twelve years—two years too long—but it’s finally time for you to do your part!” His flinty eyes bored into her. “If you’re able.”
Well that's too bad cliché. Snatched, as a generic verb. Pulled as a weak verb. "Flinty eyes" a sharp detail, I presume. I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself. Joke aside, her eyes at this moment do not effect the plot, delete it. If you can cliché.

Adagio’s lower lip trembled.
Trembling body part of a variety to show fear. Once again generic, making the character generic. I nice unique quirk would instead be appreciated. Perhaps an action relating to an event in backstory not yet explained/ or taking of an item: like maybe her necklace.

I'll stop for now. I don't really engage with the fandom anymore, because many young writers never did what I did... Read about writing, a lot. All the mistakes you have can be remedied easily, but you have not done anything because you are naïve and young, or perhaps older and stubborn. This was on the top page of fimfic, and I must say, but don't feel angry, disappointed. Then again, I am disappointed by 9/10's of modern literature at this point in my life. Have a bully day.

6350645 Awwww! Look at you, little buddy! You're trying so hard. :twilightsmile:

I like this in the same way that I like a lot of AugieDog's stories: that sense of accretive worldbuilding, where the story builds up on its own terms over the course of the tale, and if you're willing to reorient your brain to it, the payoff hits. I really appreciate that neither Adagio nor Dazzle have stopped fighting their first battle yet; not assuming that she's won is a large part of what keeps Adagio a sympathetic protagonist to me.

6350645

'Seemingly endless' ... makes it appear as though the narrator does not know the world: make your protagonist think this.

It's called "third person limited narration". Of course, since you've spent so much time studying literary techniques, I'm sure you knew that already.

If you have nothing better to do than throw pointless nitpicks at others' prose, you need a new hobby. I recommend writing -- it's a lot more rewarding than Being Right On The Internet.

(Speaking of which, off to do some editing on one of my own stories.)

Meanwhile, Sonata is elsewhere performing her Joining to the hippocampus Dusk, and the worst she has to endure is a taco-eating contest.

6351650 Funny. I was just talking to Seether00 about that. I figured Sonata and Dusk were just playing a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors for control. However, having a hoof, Dusk can really only do rock. Sonata also keeps doing rock, thinking Dusk is going to try and fake her out. This goes on for a long, long time...

Good job rounding up the crazies, Juggy :)

Now, post the last fucking chapter so I can read the whole thing!

6353785 It'll be out later today. This is my busiest day at work, so I have a bunch of stuff I have to get out the door first. I want to read the last chapter over and make sure all the details are in place. There is still one paragraph that I'm fussing with.

More please!:pinkiehappy: This story is wonderful! I don't entirely trust Dazzle.........:unsuresweetie:

6354167 You are wise. Dazzle should not be trusted. Actually, no one in those societies should be trusted...

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