When the Ponyville adults are hit by a curse that makes them all perpetually drunk, there's only one group of ponies that can save them -- Dinky and her friends! But to succeed they'll have to get through a town gone completely crazy and somehow dispell the curse, all without help from any of their parents and sibings. Can they put their rivalries aside for long enough to work together? Are they up to the task? And can they do it without breaking more stuff than the partying adults? Lunaverse story.
Cover provided by Emeral Bookwise.
Chapters (7)
Ah, the calm before the utter chaos.
Gee, Dinky wants the foals from the different groups to do something together. Will she get her wish in an ironic manner? Tune in to the rest of the story to see!
I think my favorite of the other foals to write so far are Snails and Scootaloo. One's slow, one's fast, and both are hysterical. Diamond Tiara's fun too. And Bee Bop is... well, she's loud, and loud is good.
So, tags -- there are five tag slots, and five main foals in this story that have tag slots. Poor Bee is going to have to go tagless, I'm afraid.
For a moment, I almost complained about not getting to see things from Trixie's or Zecora's side, but actually, I kind of like the idea of most of this just being from the view of foals, just seeing the aftermath and effects of stuff that adults do.
1091531: That was my thinking too. I'd rather this be from the foal's point of view.
(There was originally a scene where Trixie discovered that one of her thirty-odd bottles was missing, and Pokey snarked at her about how she kept such a close eye on her liquor supply and a lax eye on everything else. Pokey also was opposite Trixie in the 'wait, you have tracking spells on your bourbon?' 'No, all my important stuff.' 'Okay, what besides your bourbon?' 'uh, shut up.' scene that ended up going to Dinky. I think it's cuter when Dinky says it. :-)
)
Stoned And Drunk - Black Label Society
1091874: I'm probably not the best person to ask. Might be best to bring it up in the brainstorming thread.
Overall, I see the groups as: Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon are usually apart from the others (their choice), Snips and Snails are apart from the others (not their choice, but the other foals tend to find them gross), and the others are more mingly, though they still have sets of best friends.
Pacing was a little rapid. We got to see and interact with so many foals so quickly it became rather lurching in that way. Also would've liked a bit more of Dinky's personality and internal perspective to come out here. Something a bit more complicated with her value judgement of others and citing of her mothers wisdom more often might've made that work a bit better. Another minor problem is that if Zecora is around wouldn't Trixie have worried about Corona also being involved and at a minimum gathered the other elements together just in case?
Overall a fair start though and it'll be fun to see where it goes.
I'm seriously loving this story. You're setting up a wonderful contrast for the foals all hating how the adults are always making stuff less fun; I can already smell the be careful what you wish for moral. Also, I think this is the first story to really show Dinkie's ability to move seamlessly from one social circle to the next, which is great.
And Ooh, AppleButter! It's been years since I had any apple butter and I can't rightly figure out why. Think maybe I'll have to go fix that. Been a while since I had any english muffins too, maybe I'll fix both deficiencies at once.
Not to try and force anything on you but fanon consensus tends to cast Twist as the quintessential nerd and good at all things education related (especially stuff like math and science). Even on the show itself, she's the foal paying the second most attention to Filthy Rich's speech (Diamond Tiara being the first) in Family Appreciation Day.
I don't think Dinky would be addressing Trixie by her hated second name. That might be the more formal way to address an elder, but I'd wager Trixie has been very insistent that Dinky should call her Miss Trixie instead (which is how you seem to do it further down).
Five bits seems an awfeully lot for foals. Dinky only gets paid 3 bits for helping Flutershy, and Pinkie doesn't seem the type with a lot of spare change. Maybe 5 jangles instead.
This seems backwards to me. In Family Appreciation Day Tiara was absolutely riveted by her father's speech, which was putting most of the other foals, Silver included, to sleep. I'd expect her attitude to be more one of, “Yes, daddy,” said his strangely over enthusiastic daughter. “Brilliant as always.” I guess the fact she wants to be getting dressed for the fair plays into it, but I still think it odd when everything we've seen of her suggests Tiara takes business, especially her father's, very seriously.
Further, the whole scene with Scootaloo seems off compared to what SattC has been establishing. Maybe Silver should take the lead in ridiculing Scootaloo, with Tiara being a little more flummoxed trying to maintain appearances while also genuinely concerned.
Again bits seems too much for most foals to be tossing about that casually, jangles would be better.
Also, I notice you are now using an asterisk to mark scene transitions. I greatly approve, but a triple asterisk and/or centered would be even better
looks promising, can't wait to see further shinanagins.
Fav'ed
1091917: The pacing will be a bit slower in future chapters, no worires.
1091930: Glad you like it!
Changed the 'Miss Lulamoon' bit (thought I'd caught all of those, but I guess it slipped by me) and the 'bits' to 'jangles.'
I see Twist as smart, but easily distracted by friends or hobbies. She's not behind in math because she's dumb but because she got emeshed in some new candy problem that she wants to solve and so forgot about or didn't do her homework. Normally she's probably more on top of things.
I interpreted that scene in 'Family Appreciation Day' to not so much be 'Diamond Tiara is a loving and doting daughter' but rather 'Diamond Tiara is happy that her dad is explaining why their family is awesome.' She seems to me to be very selfish, and it's just in that instance what she wanted (for someone to explain why her family is rich and therefore awesome) coincided with what her dad was doing. When the two don't coincide, I'd think she'd be a brat, unless she determined strategically that doing so would make it harder to get other stuff later (and sometimes even then). She didn't have any problem manipulating her dad into spending tons of money on her in 'Family Matters', though it was obvious he didn't want to spend it, for instance.
As for her interaction with Scoots, she's in public now, and SS, SB, and Dinky are watching. Plus, regardless of her schoolyard crushed, she'd still probably be mad that she almost got run over. Sheould we see her separated from the others and just with Scoots, she'll probably act more like in Scootalong.
Darnit, you just had to go and remind me that "Hard Bargain" is L-verse canon.
What is Snails's talent exactly? It has to do with invertebrates in some way, but I don't think it was ever mentioned. I can see Snails riding some giant bug for... (I'm not really sure what, but it looks awesome in my head.)
1092077: I'm going with vaguely defined 'bug control' or 'bug empathy' for now. Which is not as useless as it sounds. When the bees aren't pollinating the flowers for whatever reason, Snails is the one to call When termites have infested yonder home, Snails is the pony for the job!
Ooh, this is gonna be wacky! At least before the drinks kick in.
Nice Trixie, too. I'm also glad to see Dinky with friends her age.
1091874
Doesn't seem a problem to me the camp/field-trip/whatever is more the adults idea. The kids don't necessarily have to like spending the extra time with each other, and the situation could probably play more comedy value if they don't. Also, I don't expect this current story to significantly alter relations between all the foals. Sure they'll get this one grand adventure together, but at the end of it all they should still mostly stick to their already defined cliques. Snips & Snails will still be weird and gross, Tiara & Silver will still be stuck-up snobs, Scoots & Sweetie will still be a reckless odd couple, and Dinky will still be the only one that really plays nice with everyone. They can all gain a bit of appreciation for each other, but still won't necessarily want to hang out regularly given their very diverse hobbies and interests.
1092053
So Twist is basically me then. I long since lost count the number of teachers I drove mad with the whole, why does such an obviously smart kid never do the homework. They knew I was learning, I still aced ever test, but my inability to conform to the standard grading expectations was frustrating.
As for Tiara, I can accept such an interpretation, though the fact we never see her take the opportunity to brag about her father's speech suggests otherwise to me. Her focus clearly seems to be on him, so much so she never seems to notice that everyone else slept through most of it. Yes she's selfish, but she seems to have good understanding about how to meet her needs. Dote on daddy so he buys her stuff. Run juicy stories to increase circulation of the school paper. Also with Scoots I get that she's in public, but she still seems quick to jump down Scoots throat about it. It just strike me that the scene would work better if Tiara and Silver reversed their normal roles of who is lead bully and who just goes along with it all, or have Tiara focus her ire on Sweetie Belle with Scoots as more of a tagged on afterthought.
That said, I often have a somewhat opposite view of SattC, where in private (and even her own internal thoughts) I think Tiara is occasionally being too overt with here weird crush thingy. The problem is finding some happy middle ground between the extremes. She shouldn't 100% sappy in private and 100% nasty in public, rather, some elements of both should always be bleeding through around the edges.
This is really cute! I do love the way Dinky gets on with all of the kids in school, even the ostensibly mean, random or reckless ones. I love the idea of her bringing them all closer together. She is very good at making friends.
So... Zecora cast a sympathetic spell on Monsieur Bourbon to affect all of the alcohol in Ponyville? How dastardly! Good servant.
Yay! New fic! Man you write way too fast for the rest of us to keep up with you!
Monsieur Bourbon NOOOOO! What have they done to you
! I can't wait for the drunken antics 
1092126>>1092184>>1093342>>1091531>>1091874 Hope you guys (and everypony else) is faving and up thumbing and commenting on this fic! We gotta work up that heat to give the Lunaverse some much needed exposure!
Shoot to the top Lunaverse! Let's do this thing!
1094514
Already faved and comented; I'm still a little nervous about how this fic will turn out, but for the sake of exposure I guess I can risk thumbing this right now. Though, I'll be really upset if I have to reverse the direction of said thumb later on. I've already had to do that once before on a G&C2 fic, and it was not a pleasant choice to make.
...I homestly don't know whether DT is acting correctly or not, simply because we can't hear her thughts this time.....it's kimda weird seeing it like this, to be honest.
Anyway, love the story, really looking forward to seeing where it goes.
I decided to be nice and give the foals a couple of days to enjoy foal-ruled Ponyville before it all goes completely crazy.
My favorite bits -- Snips swimming in candy, Snails chasing his own hoofprints, Diamond Tiara feeling 'appreciated',and Snails's plans to become a great mage by being the Friend To Bugs.
I love how Rarity is all 'yes, I suppose you wouldn't have seen my foal outfits before, given how most adults in this town don't care about their kids enough to buy them nice clothes. Not to insult your mother, of course. Well, much, anyway.')
Note: if you opened this within about 10 minutes of it going live, you probably saw an early version of the Rarity scene that got in by mistake. It's changed now.
yes Scootaloo, she's intimidated. That's all it is and nothing else.
HAHAHA!
1097387
Well, I'm curious about the early version of the Rarity scene now.
1097692: It was just Rarity saying that she usually doesn't make clothes for foals, but she's making an exception today (presumably because of the liquor). I figured, though, that Rarity would be perfectly happy to make the clothes if she was paid well for them, and it's just that most of the ponies in town won't spend tons of money on a dress or suit for a kindergartner.
I wonder which idiot is responsible for all of this chaos. I have a certain unhealthy suspicion that somepony
has sussed Trixie's weakness and trying to exploit it so that she can prove to Luna that the Element chose wrong.
1097702
Makes sense, since clothes are only for special occasions and the foals will quickly grow out of them.
1097711
I thought it was made pretty clear in the first chapter that Zecora is the one doing this
1097821
Oops. Ah, well. WHEN they finally corral Corona, someone is going to have to run to her country's embassy so she can avoid a lengthy prison sentence.
I'll be honest...I didn't particularly like this chapter. Mainly because Dinky, to me, just felt robotic.
I really did enjoy this chapter...except for Dinky. Every other foal really takes advantage of this and she...gets concerned. This was what she was asking for throughout the first chapter(More or less). Why wasn`t she having more fun? Why did she have almost immediate concern? Maybe I`m misinterpreting her, and she really is just that mature, but...she just doesn`t feel like a child like all the others do.
1098040: Dinky did have fun. She played around in the clubhouse, had far more candy than she should with Twist, hung out with the others, etc. That stuff isn't as interesting, though, so I didn't write it all out.
1098156 Even so...I`m kinda getting a vibe from her that she`s just too mature.
Or maybe I just find every single other foal so much more fun, I end up being overly critical of Dinky.
There is far, FAR too much awesome stuff here for me to comment on all of it. Please don't take any of the bellow as an indication that I'm not immensely enjoying everything else. So then...
Did, you intentionally place BonBon and Lyra cuddling at Twist's home? BonBon is her sister, but she and Lyra live in the loft over BonBon's candy shop, while Twist presumably lives in similar accommodations attached to her father's flower shop. Nothing wrong with them being there, but feels worth noting.
Also, is AB's clubhouse supposed to be the same as the CMC clubhouse in the M-verse? That would seem sensible to me as it was also AJ's former clubhouse from when she was young. Still you're wording about buying it for AB seems to suggest otherwise. Again, nothing wrong with it being added onto differently, but I think the base building should be the same.
I sort of think this would be funnier if it where Sweetie Belle, since she's a terrible cook and because her inexplicably setting stuff on fire is a meme. Granted that's all M-verse, but still, the foals are generally more like their counterparts than the adults.
It strikes me that a statement like that should always be qualified with "even for her".
This is funnier than it should be, and I should be a little ashamed but...
Wow! Just wow. Nothing wrong here, except I think Scoots and Dinky should be picking their jaws off the ground.
These stike me as a little odd. Up until this point Dinky hasn't really shown much indication of understanding much about adult drinks other than it makes them happy and a little wierd, now the term drunk is suddenly getting flung about. The language transition seems a bit jarring to me.
I ...
... that is all ... 
Wait, I just noticed you seem to keep spelling CHEERILEE's name with only three 'E's.
1098239
I think it's the second. G&C2 did a plenty good job of showing Dinky having fun with it all, especially on the first day.
'jangles'? Is this some subdivision of a bit that hasn't shown up before?
1099471 It could also just be conditioning from all the stuff I watch to immediately find any remotely responsible child to be annoying. Really it could be anything.
I find interesting how, even in a state of magically induced perpetual drunkenness, Ditzy is a good mom.
I'm sure this would spawn some memes about bugmaster Snails. And Raindrops as a
seaponyfish.1099471: My read on the clubhouse is: L-verse AJ has always been more career focused, perhaps driven such by her own parents, and never built her own clubhouse. At the end of CTS, she mentioned that she was buying one for Apple Bloom (perhaps as part of her character development and not wanting AB to be only an Apple Trust employee, but to enjoy her childhood too), and this is that one.
I've seen Cherilee's name spelled both ways. I prefer it with three e's, myself.
I"ll change 'snips' to Sweetie, and a couple of the other things you mentioned.
1100512: In family matters, it was said that ten jangles = one bit.
1102848
You are of course allowed your personal preferences, however, the OFFICIAL spelling (which to my knowledge appears on all merchandise) is with four 'E's, seeing as it is derived from the word "cheery", as in to keep up a happy and carefree spirit or to encourage such in others.
1102848
Oh, and one more thing. This whole notion that AJ never got to have a proper childhood really, really bugs me. I must reiterate my statments form Carrot Top Seaon how strongly I feel you've gone and taken her character in entirely the wrong direction. She started out as simply business minded character with strong ties to family and tradition, but you twisted her into a socially malformed and delusionally paranoid nut case nearly the equal, if not worse, than Twilight Sparkle. Seriously, Twilight was supposed to be the worst of the lot, with the rest of the M6 being only mildly skewed versions of their canon counterparts.
1103112: She had a proper childhood. She was just a little more business-focused, and as such didn't build the clubhouse. She still had fun, though, and wasn't like a machine or anything.
(And... I still don't think I'm portraying her as worse than in Applebuck Season. She did more damage to herself and her farm here, but that's just because she has more power, since the Trust is larger. Her fundamental attitudes, I think, match that episode).
I don't think I can praise this chapter highly enough. On the surface it's really cheerful, with the adults being ridiculous and the children being free-spirited, but there's just this really disturbing undercurrent of wrongness that even Dinky is only barely noticing. I particularly loved Raindrops swimming in the fountain. There's something simply lovely about pegasi swimming, and Raindrops isn't often in this good a mood.
1103463: Raindrops is grumpy so often, I wanted her to be happy. :-)
Looks like the team is coming together, but we're still short two foals. Hopefully Dinky can find some of her other friends next time!
My favorite image here is of Bee Bop happily spinning around on the record with a giant smile on her face. Runners up: Snails excited at the prospect of being turned inside out, Snails's surprising knowledge of botany, and Honeydew's first canonical appearance.
It was tough designing a way for the foals to have a chance to learn what the problem was and how to fix it. Hopefully the poison joke making Zecora easy to capture works out in that regard.
Ha. Lines like these always make me laugh.
Huh. Zecora doesn't know how to teleport...
1103886: Do you mean, she does know and I should have accounted for it? (I guess the way I'd do that is to say, 'after the explosion, Zecora ran off in a panic until she stumbled into the joke. She then was upset, but knew that mixing a magic spell with joke was a really bad idea in case the joke kicked in during the spell, so she resolved to just hide out until it wore off.)
Alternately, 'the explosion shorted Zecora's magic out for a while'
1103891
No, I mean she doesn't know how to teleport, so I'm wondering how she's going to teleport away at the end of all of this as per Lunaverse tradi -
BUCK I forgot to have somepony teleport away at the end of "Hands!"
1103913: Heh. I have my thoughts... :-)
Awwww.....I'd feel sorry for her if she wasn't a remorseless and delusional jackass engaging in petty acts of malice because her religion says that screwing the Moon Tribe over is okay. If and when Corona starts thinking rationally, the thing she'll do after her twenty-year bender is swoop down to Zebrica and kick Zecora's striped plot.
That reminds me - -does anyone have a link to the spot where Zecora's religious motivations are detailed? I'm blanking on the chapter right now.
Probably my favorite chapter so far. Yes, Even Dinky(I thought that bit of blind hero worship was a nice touch). Though...Why was Zecora made tiny?(Besides for plot convenience so the foals can get some much needed exposition)
1103940
I don't think it was ever fully detailed.
The way I see it is that Zebras basically have a sun deity and don't fear the sun because they live on an entirely seperate continent from Equestria and don't have much contact with it anyway, so they never learned to fear it. Zecora, for "prophecy" related reasons, decided that it was her job to release Corona from the sun, because she thinks that the zebra sun deity and Corona are one in the same.
It's worth noting that as far as anypony knows, her beliefs are *not* in line with most zebras', and furthermore, she was not expecting Corona to be as batshit insane as she is, though her faith still outweighs her common sense.
World's tiniest zebra...NICE.
and suddenly knowledgable Snails is hilarious.