A Study In Nonsense

by Professor Piggy

Sweet Victory

The prompt: Two ponies are in competition. One loses … but doesn’t realize it.

-----

The kitchen of Sugarcube Corner was filled with music. Not in the sappy, romantic sense like Rarity would’ve liked – like, actual music. Tubas and trumpets and … she was pretty sure that that was a fiddle, or maybe a violin … and a harmonica and lots of other things Dash couldn’t place. Any other pony would’ve been impressed by it all – the timing, the pitch, the singer.

All that fancy stuff was perfect. And the singer’s voice was also pretty good, even if she sounded kinda out of breath. But that wasn’t what would’ve impressed them. Or not all that would’ve, anyway. She smirked as she remembered the first time she had seen Pinkie perform a full blown musical number, even though she didn’t actually have any instruments or anypony to play them. The expression on her face had probably been priceless. This time, however, she wasn’t really even listening – the fastest flier in Equestria had other things to think about.

Rainbow Dash was bored. Restless. She wanted to do something, and Pinkie was more than happy to oblige. The problem was that they’d already done everything. In the last three hours they had pranked everypony in town, gone dancing – which Rainbow had made sure to tell everypony was Pinkie’s idea, even though it’d totally been hers – read the latest Daring Do book cover to cover with Pinkie providing the voice of Ahuitzotl, cuddled for a while as Pinkie assured Dash she wasn’t going to eat her soul, restocked the party cannon, made Gummy and Tank wrestle, made out, pranked everypony in town again, baked four cakes, tried and failed to manufacture cotton candy clouds, choreographed a musical number slash fight scene between Gummy and Tank (Rocky won), played six games of Ponopoly and twenty three of Candy Land – along with half a game of Clue before Dash had insisted it wasn’t cool enough for her. And now they were baking a fifth cake.

It was more than they got done most mornings, though not by much, but it hadn’t helped. Except the make outs. Those had helped a little. But still – what Dash really wanted was to fly. Only, she wanted to stay with Pinkie even more. And Pinkie couldn’t fly – they had tried that, thirty or so times. Hadn’t ended well, even with the tankcopter. And that meant - “Hey Pinkie, let’s have a contest“ - that she wait. Had she said that? She had. She totally had.

The Party Pony spun around and smiled at her, eyes sparkling in excitement. “Oooooh that sounds amazing Dashie! What’re we gonna do? Are we gonna have a flying contest again because I think I figured out what went wrong last time and I recalibrated the antimanticore so this time I think maybe –“

“Tempting, but no. Last time was too close – we’ll try again when ‘Shy or someone who won’t fr – who knows how to deal with hurt ponies and stuff is around, though, ‘cause that sounds awesome. But today…” She rose to her hooves, draped a foreleg over her marefriends shoulder, and whispered in her ear – she wasn’t sure where the idea had come from, but she knew it was genius. “We’re having a makeout contest!”

Pinkie giggled and nuzzled the Pegasus, smile widening to a grin. “That sounds like the super duper bestestest most funnest game ever! But…is that even a thing?” She sounded contemplative, as well as excited. That was typical – Pinkie didn’t take many things seriously but silliness, and especially games, were grave matters to be given their proper respect. Dash snorted at the thought as Pinkie continued. “What are the rules, Dashie? How’re we gonna score?”

“Pinkie, you’re not getting this! No rules. Only makeouts! And then we both score!” Dash grinned in satisfaction as Pinkie went from pink to being bright red – it wasn’t often her making Pinkie blush. Apparently Reddie Pie – Rhubarb Pie? Whatever – couldn’t let it go so easily though.

“That…that sounds really super great, Dashie! But…how will we know who wins!?”

Dash kissed her. She tasted sweet and beautiful and perfect, just as she always had. And she kissed back, softly at first and then more insistently. Intend on teasing her – it was a contest, after all – Dash pulled away and smirked at her. “Getting it yet?”

“So we both win, huh?” Pinkie sounded kinda dazed. “This sounds like a game we should play all the time and never stop, Dashie. Don’t you think?”

“Definitely.” The Pegasus agreed with a wise nod. “And yep, we both win.” She planted a kiss on Pinkie’s snout and then, after a moments thought, added “But I win more.”

Comments

[Akemimi]

This is...
Very...
Interesting.

[Donnys Boy]

“And yep, we both win.” She planted a kiss on Pinkie’s snout and then, after a moments thought, added “But I win more.”

Essence of Rainbow Dash, right there.

[Professor Piggy]

826400 It's always interesting to see how other writers work, 'tis true - I wouldn't go looking at my stuff for ideas though, since most of it is pretty terrible. There are only a few where I think I captured thought patterns decently: Twice Shy, Gummy Do Well, and...maybe Daring Do, since what you got from it is exactly what I was hoping for.

Honestly? I do it because I can't switch back and forth between characters when writing dialogue if I don't. I get confused and they all sound clunky and wrong - narrating from their perspectives keeps their voices in my head. I like the style of it, too, but that's the main reason. (And yes, sarcastic narration is always fun. Always.)

Just as owls are almost as cool as penguins. Almost.

826500 Heh. So did I - and I'd love to hear yours. And yes, it always helps to hear what people make of it. Especially because it wasn't intended as just a random thing - It's my explanation for why the farm Pinkie remembers was such a sad, lifeless place; her mothers depression got worse and worse, and her father spent most of his time trying to look after the place and his family with little time for fun and games. Basically, they did love her but they didn't understand/couldn't handle her.

Anyways - I don't have a tremendous amount of interest in them as people, but I like exploring how they shaped Pinkie.

826546 So now I'm converting people to TwiPie. I'd better stop, and never write it again - the SS RainbowPie can't lose any more crewmen and stay afloat. Not after Donny's Boy (Hi DB! ) left us all behind. I prefer the narration to the lyrics, too - song writing is so far from my strong suite it's not even funny. I'm amazed it's even singable - that alone makes it the best song I've ever written. But yes, it's supposed to feel like each bit of the narration is seperate as well as part of the whole. I don't actually know what the definition of a drabble is - is there a specific meaning?

Glad you like it. :D I do too, sadly enough.

828611 I...can't tell if that's good or bad.

830411 Ha! Yeah, whole story was just buildup to that line really. But o' course, you knew that since you were there for the incredibly in depth and well thought out planning phase.

[Akemimi]

832340
It's a good thing. Whenever I say it, it's a good thing.
Most of the time.

[Professor Piggy]

832785 Glad you enjoyed it then ^^

[TheVulpineHero1]

832340
Drabbles are short stories of exactly 100 words, just like what I was doing with Pink & Blue and Life Gives You Apples. That's the exact definition, but a lot of people just use it to indicate that their story is short, even though that's incorrect. As you might guess from the fact that I wrote a bunch of them, I quite like the form, so anytime I compare something to a drabble, it's usually a compliment.

As for Pinkie!Mom's case study, all I can really say is that it was probably bad. Although everyone has different triggers for depression and the factors that go into creating it vary a lot as well, generally a great way to handle it is to a) keep a stable routine and make sure you're active, b) stay around people and make sure you don't close yourself off, and c) engage in regular exercise, preferably outside. All things which, living on a farm with a fairly large family and a very understanding husband, she will have had or have the opportunity to have; if those weren't enough, it's a pretty bad case. Sadly, the portrayal of it wrecking family life is pretty accurate. Left untreated, clinical depression is a very, very debilitating thing, which I know from experience; in my episodes, I stopped functioning to the point where I'd only eat every one day out of three. Naturally, that tends to have an impact on family life.

As for SS Rainbow Pie, I can safely say that I'm far too lazy to be of any help bailing that sucker out.

[Professor Piggy]

832874 Yeah, I know how that goes - I tended to be much the same with my episodes, by default - it tends to lead to me ending up in hospital, these days, for at least a week or two. Not the wisest behaviour, of course, but..well yeah, nothing I need to explain to you, obviously.

I sincerely hope your own is improving. And yeah, that's pretty much what I had in mind for poor Annabelle. And thanks for explaining - I'd been wondering for a while.

[TheVulpineHero1]

I love the energy in this chapter, which to me is a big part of RainbowPie-- there's just no off switch, at least not when either of them is awake. I also like the idea of them shooting around town as a pink and blue blur, getting stuff done in record time. (Even so, they could never have baked four whole cakes in three hours with all the other stuff going on. Unless...they were cupcakes? *shot*)

Other than that, I fully echo what DB said-- essence of RainbowPie in short story form.

(Also, sorry about the infodump on depression. I didn't realise you were already familiar with the condition yourself. It's just one of those things that I know about and when I talk about it, I just blabber on. Just, in fact, like Pokemon. My episodes are less intense, but last a while. They are getting better as I learn how to cope, though; my first episode took me more than a year to properly get over, and that was with medication and therapy. Nowdays I'm down to about six months if I'm going without either. I hope yours are getting better, too!)

Finally, now that you know what a drabble is, I challenge thee to a drabble-off! I'm kidding, of course. Although I would like to have a drabble versus match with someone one day, I don't know anyone else who actually does them. Oh well. They really are very fun to do, though, and great practice.

[Professor Piggy]

860358 Of course they could have baked the cakes. Because Pinkie Pie. And also because bakery, so multiple cakes at once.

They totally baked every cake separately.

It amuses me that people like this so much, because I just sat down and wrote down every word I though of without changing one or doing any editing or worrying about characterisation. Apparently, it works well for me. Glad you enjoyed it.

I'm glad you're finding it easier, good sir, and you needn't apologise - always best to assume whoever you're explaining it to knows nothing about it, I believe. And I used to know pokemon. When there were only like 200, in those ancient days. Now I am old, and my day is done.

But my Scizor is still awesome.

And yeah, mine have improved a lot also. Mostly, it's a vicious cycle - depressed because I'm sick and sick because I'm depressed. But it's been going pretty well lately, thanks. :)

I accept your challenge. How will we pull it off, though?