Rainbow Dash has rather a poor reputation when it comes to her workload. Everypony always thinks of her as the pony who takes three naps during daylight hours, and four on weekends, and always seems to be looking for something to do to pass the time. All of this is true, of course. But ponies seem to think this means that she must not ever get very much work done.
Can the weather captain for all of Ponyville really be as lazy as she seems? Is that the only explanation for Rainbow Dash's free time and constant napping?
The weather is a full-time job. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And the worst weather happens at night.
So weather ponies have strange sleeping habits.
Set before the events of the show.
Spanish translation by Spaniard Kiwi on DeviantArt.
Audiobook reading by My name is R on Youtube.
Applejack: "Outside the family, I mean. Otherwise, it's hard to compete."
An enjoyable read. Dialogue was good and the characters felt right. Have a thumbs up from me!
Believable characters. Good pacing. Just the right amount of detail. Good spelling and grammar. You even provided your own artwork for the story cover.
The polar opposite of an Evictus story. Well done! Thumbs up!
It's not everyday you see someone make a power move of providing their own cover. That alone gets you an upvote.
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Thanks a lot! Glad you liked it. In a story like this, characterization means a lot, so I'm glad I seem to have hit the mark. I dabble in drawing and digital artwork, so I like to make covers for my stories.
I spy with my little eye, a story hitting the feature box in the near future.
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Are you a wizard?
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Call it a hunch.
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I feel the same.
Hmm. You got the characters spot on; and well written too. Well done.
Already featured, I knew it.
But well-deserved. I very much liked this slice-of-life fic. Rainbow Dash was Rainbow Dash, Applejack was Applejack and everything felt right about it. Have my like.
Great job! I always love stories where Rainbow Dash is being awesome.
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You're a wizard, JackRipper!
Let the wizard party commence.
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Thanks bunches! Glad you all liked it, and I'm glad I conveyed the characters well here. It's what the story depends on.
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I'm no psychic, I just saw the effort you put into this story and filled in the rest.
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To be honest, it was written on the walls.
And of course Applejack could Never let Rainbow know that she knows. Applejack knows it would completely mortify her friend, and while they have a relationship of gentle teasing and friendly ribbing the fact that Rainbow doesn't realize exactly how good she is means that her performance anxiety would kick in with even the hint of acknowledgement. It isn't really until she re-creates the Sonic Rainboom that she's able to shake that mentality off.
It was a little funny somehow, and to think that it seems that only Applejack know that she works and what she do.
As a bastard who's working two jobs and has developed the means to sleep whenever possible, this speaks to me.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Whoa. 98 likes and no dislikes? That's an achievement in itself, bro! Congrats!
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One of Rainbow Dash's problems is that she feels untested. She has this general idea that she's awesome, but she also has a rather skewed perspective on what is and is not difficult. It's one of the reasons she dislikes her parents' constant praise - it makes her feel like she might be making a big deal about a small thing, like they do. The only thing she's ever done that she is 100% certain is impressive is the Sonic Rainboom. Which she did once. As a filly. And has never been able to do again, despite trying over and over for years. So she knows she was awesome once, and that she hasn't been awesome enough to repeat it ever since. This contributes to both her ego and its fragility.
Applejack has a number of reasons for not talking to Rainbow about her nighttime aerobatics. Like you said, she realizes Rainbow wants it kept a secret, and would be embarrassed if anyone knew. Applejack also has a bit of a rivalry going with Rainbow, and previous experience has shown her that Rainbow is willing to crow over even small victories in their competitions far beyond the point where becomes annoying. She limits complements about Rainbow's physical abilities to a minimum on general principal.
Which, of course, makes Rainbow see any admission from Applejack that she did good as a really big deal. Which makes her even more obnoxious for Applejack to complement. And the cycle continues.
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Applejack is one of the few non-pegasi to wake up early enough to see that Rainbow Dash is actually awake before dawn. Even she doesn't quite get it right - she knows Rainbow works nights, and that she sneaks in early morning practice, but she doesn't really understand that Rainbow (and the other ponies on the weather patrol) has this different sleep cycle than most ponies. She just figures Rainbow takes naps a lot because she wears herself ragged and falls asleep on the spot. She still thinks Rainbow has some point sometime in the day where she gets a real, long sleep like everyone else, which is why she's so willing to interrupt Rainbow's naptime.
Of course, pegasi in general are familiar with the idea of weather patrol sleep cycles, even the ones who sleep normally and are not involved with the weather patrol. They have their own opinion on Rainbow Dash, but it's formed mainly from how little effort it seems to put into anything she does - she doesn't really try when it comes to things she doesn't care about, and when she does try, she often makes it look so effortless that it can be deceptively easy to disregard the work she's put in as her natural talent.
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Good! The idea was interesting to me, when I realized that the weather is a thing that never stops needing attention. In fact, I imagine that most ponies would want the bad weather (rain) to happen while they were asleep and didn't care, which means that storms - which, I feel, must be considerably more complicated and difficult to manage than clear days - would most often take place at night. This means that Rainbow, as weather patrol captain, would be needed to work at various times around the clock, but not necessarily for extended periods. This provided an explanation for why she naps so much, and the rest followed naturally.
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Thanks! It certainly is. I am extremely pleased with how my story has done. Up to 102, now.
I loved this, good pacing, fit dialogue. Well done!
This reminds me a lot of working at McDonald's on overnights. A workload oscillating between "nowhere near enough to do" and "this is way too much for two people," and a lot of idle chat the entire time. Got a lot of fun memories doing that even if overall working there was horrible.
The featured box actually showed a fic worth reading. What madness is this?
Loved it. The ending felt a little rough, but every scene is faithful to the characters. Excellent work.
There are other stories with similar premises, but this is by far the most detailed one. Great job.
Though there is another theory as to why RD sleeps so much. Since flying is a high energy consuming activity, pegasi have two choices: either eat a lot, or sleep a lot, and RD takes the latter choice.
Holy cow, 168 likes and no dislikes. NICE! :D
I've come back to beg you to write more Rainbow Dash. She's my favorite character and no one with real writing skills focuses on her anymore. Your writing is so good that instead of following my usual practice of downloading a fic, reading it, then deleting it, I first read it, read it again, and am now going to download it.
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Thanks! Glad you liked it.
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I'm pleased I was able to write something that reflects a realistic workplace environment. Just with more clouds and magical ponies.
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Glad you liked it, and thanks for the critique. I suppose endings are something I can work on improving on in the future.
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Interesting. This would explain Twilight's new appetite, and perhaps Princess Celestia as well. They, of course, have made the opposite choice.
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183 now. How long can it last?
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How flattering!
Rainbow Dash is one of my favorites as well. I'm afraid I don't write very quickly, but perhaps I will find some inspiration somewhere.
Missing quotation mark before
Some awesome characterization, especially with how it's considerate of the pre-Twilight days in Ponyville.
This... this is insanely good. It's also probably the most positive, non-egotistical look at Rainbow Dash's characterization I've ever seen (alternate universe fics don't count).
I feel confident in staking a follow on you, good sir.
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Thanks for catching that. I'll fix it.
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Thanks! Yeah, a lot of the character motivations would be different if I had placed this later on.
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I'm flattered! Thank you.
Man, that was a lot better than I expected. I'm very glad I didn't wait to read this. Good job, author, good job.
Bravo! Loved this story! Totally got to follow you now
I have always found peoples' interpretations of how pegasi weather manipulation works fascinating.
Thank you for this lovely SOL, "Day in the Life of Dash" story!
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Thanks! I'm glad you all liked it.
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More like loved it! Honestly, I'd love to read more like this!
...but I have no idea how one would extend this perfectly compartmentalized one-shot.
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I'd wager one would extend it chronologically. The easiest way would probably be to follow the plot in the episodes, but with this writing style and following Rainbow instead of Twilight.
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Yeah, but I just wonder how impactful it'd be. After a while it'd get monotonous, or eventually they'd just make Rainbow Dash the Princess of Humblebraggary and get it over it. At least that's how I'd see it going if extended too much.
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As long as stuff is happening I don't see it getting boring. But yeah, once her character's completely developed she'd have to be retired as the main character. Either that or be taken to a new place. That's after a lot of story though.
Third shift Dash is a very interesting Dash indeed.
Well done story.
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That's my experience with the night shift. Half of the time, you're falling asleep, Other half, you have to have the energy equivalent to 8 cups of coffee to keep up with it all.( I might exaggerate a good bit on the coffee part.)
One of the best things I've read in a long time. Fantastic cover art too.
Great story. Having worked nights myself for a long time, I can sympathize with not getting enough sleep for this or that or the other.
This is interesting. The input, the characterization and development was great.
Good Characterization? Selfmade artwork? Whats not to love?
This was nice. Have an upvote and fave.
I'm not sure if you've noticed, but your story is currently ranked 90th on the site! That's out of how many stories? Something like 200,000?
That's an incredible achievement, you should be really proud of yourself.
I've still yet to read this, but expect a follow up comment with my thoughts later!
Well done!
AAIQU
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And suddenly rank 344th with one more dislike. Ratings sure are finicky when you're dealing with thousands of fics.
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Great story. ^-^ Love SoL about the Mane Six.
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And there goes my moment in the limelight.
... I say, as if triple-digits is beneath me somehow, and not better than any other story I've written.
Glad you liked it!