Stories set in the Oversaturated World, some silly, some less so.
“Yes, I know I’m not your regular newsbeings. For reasons which will shortly become obvious, they can’t come into proximity with today’s special guests without either running in terror or mindlessly attacking. So I volunteered to take over today’s news section. John Q. Discord, at your service.”
The man with the patched jacket, mismatched eyeglasses, and no visible aspect reached out and rapped a couple of times on the side of the television screens. Around him, the newsroom seemed to be pushed sideways out of the field of view, replaced by a wall with various pictures painted on it.
One image showed a pre-Saturated human, dressed in robes of alternating red and yellow and playing a pipe. Behind him there stretched a column of children with wide eyes. A second image was of another pre-Saturated human, dressed in dark clothes and with half his face covered by a bone-white mask.
“Since even before the Saturation, legends have told of the horrors that can be visited upon the world by uncontrolled or misused heartsong. And as with many of the monsters out of the storybooks, the Saturation has brought this threat to life. But luckily for us, there is a solution.”
Discord rapped a couple of times on the other side of the TV screens, and his surroundings shifted back to the newsroom. Only now there were a trio of additional figures standing therein. In the center was a middle-aged unicorn-aspect man with dark blue hair, and a formal business suit (and bowler hat) of the same dark gray shade as his skin. His icon (a black boater hat, upside-down and positioned so its brim was a straight line) was pinned to his breast pocket. On his left there stood a young earth-aspect woman with the pinkish-drab skin of someone who suffered from achromelaninisim and pale blond hair. On the unicorn-aspect’s right there hovered a teenaged pegasus-aspect, with bright lime-green skin and lemon-yellow hair.
Discord gestured and a large glowing arrow appeared above the unicorn-aspect’s head. “Whole Rest here is a visitor from the magical land of Equestria. There, he is one of the Versebreakers, the rare and misunderstood souls whose calling it is to protect everyone else from the dangers of musical numbers.”
“And these…” Discord continued, causing the arrow above Whole Rest to vanish, “are Snapped Strings…” the arrow reappeared above the earth-aspected woman, “and Sour Note…” the arrow moved to indicate the pegasus-aspect, “… his first two apprentices. So if you or those you love have suffered from the abuse of heartsong, fear not, for soon there will be those trained to defend against it.”
“Until then, just remember:” Discord and the three versebreakers spoke in unison. “Aurantia metrum non habet.”
Well, maybe a few things rhyme with "orange" in Latin, but it just doesn't sound as profound when translated.
For those of you unfamiliar with versebreakers, see here.
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YES!!! There can NEVER be enough Versebreakers, ESPECIALLY with Whole Rest himself!
Has >>GhostofHeraclitus seen this?
i've got a feeling that Celestia has revived Starswirl's ill-conceived policy of dumping all of Equestria's irresolvable social problems through a portal to the human world.
versebreakers! yay!
7819389
I have no idea. But why Ghost? Horizon's the one who came up with the concept of versebreakers; Ghost didn't even participate in Verse Averse. (A shame; it'd be fascinating to see how the Civil Service integrates the versebreakers into his Equestria.)
7820150
What makes you say that?
7820390
That's why we would like Ghost to know about them.
Oh, you used my motto, I'm honored
Fun fact: there is at least one word that rhymes with "orange" in the English language. That word is hinge. It can even be made to take the same amount of time to say when combined with door to make door hinge.
7917226
By that argument, singe, cringe, and impinge rhyme with orange. Close, but no cigar.
7918720
Sporange. An actual sciency word.
7820390
I imagine that one would be required in each and every government department, and in parliament, to be permanently on call during the work day. You can't have civil servants breaking into song every few minutes, no one would get anything done, and just imagine how heart songs could influence debates.
Wait, these guys hate the random musical numbers and show up to stop them...?
Or are they relatively goodfolk who stop people who try to use musical numbers for personal gain?
8574354
Mostly the later. Just think about how many times you've seen a con-man hoodwink everyone with a catchy tune, or a villain song push evil to victory. And even good songs aren't always safe to be around.
8574354
It isn't just personal gain. Or malice, or evil. Imagine a shopping mall, say, on Black Friday, when in the crowd of people at the end of their emotional tethers two people make eye contact across the crowd and fall in love at first sight. And, reasonably, sing. And the immediate metaphor their song works with is the entirely apropo "Love is a battlefield and we're so lucky to have found each other in it", as they sing and ignore that the first verse sparked actual violence around them. And the song's last echoes die off because they're the only people still standing and physically capable of singing by the end.
Now, as an exercise, multiply by the number of chances for this specific thing to happen somewhere in our heavily populated world every day, and then multiply by the number of other situations where a heartsong could arise that at least results in comedic background disasters.
Songs explore and distill feelings. They express who we are to a wide audience and get them to pay attention. The world is a better place with song in it. None of that means song, at baseline, is actually a good thing.
Hope Boulder is one of their students.