What can possibly bring together a great illusionist and an ill-famous weirdo of Ponyville? And not just any time but on the verge of Hearth's Warming Eve. As it turns out, nothing is impossible with some unhealthy curiosity, an overwhelming pressure of holiday deadlines and a bit of street writing magic.
Cover pic borrowed from CodyandGwen @Deviantart.
If you have a better one (or are so awesome as to draw it), leave it in the comments and get a free boop!
This was written for _Moonshot as a part of Jinglemas 2019!
For more information about Jinglemas, check out the group.
It's like an art trade, only in fiction. Can't believe I've said it 
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It always amuses me how some moments in a story are carefully planned while other just sort of happen. Creativity is funny like that. Apparently a deadline and a sense of responsibility (coupled with some therapy and an AD course) is a nice workaround for the writer's block.
The strange thing is, this is probably the closest thing to canon I ever wrote. Also, I never thought of writing about these two, and I would probably never do it without the big event. So thanks for the opportunity, I guess. Hope you like it.
For history's sake: 2019-12-17 — 2019-12-20.
Oh, you
To be honest this is the first time I've realized that my username and that trick share the same name and that is actually perfect.
I relate with Trixie so hard here.
This is hilarious because my Jinglemas involved two ponies being conveniently gone from the Crystal Empire :S
Lyra I admire your go-getter attitude.
"Behold, as the Great and Powerful Trixie unveils a new creation!" *flings blanket off* "The 50 trillion-megaton nuclear weapon!"
You know I've always wondered what the Equestrian equivalent to turning white would be :P
Also, a relevant image:
i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/330/736/96f.png
Ahh. That is clever. I like that.
Shockingly self-aware. (But also feelsbad)
Wishing Lyra best of luck in solving this mystery :)
)
Thanks so much for writing this (and if I've done my research right: Дуже дякую)! I appreciate it! Nice and light, and I always enjoy seeing uncommon character pairings (especially if they involve Trixie
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As much as I like Kkat's work I'm not going to invade FoE grounds.
"Turning white" was one of my last-minute finds. I was going to write "she grew pale" but then imagined it and thought she actually was kinda pale already, so...
You did your research right
I wasn't trying to make Lyra feel bad (at least, not intentionally) - I'm continuously putting together some headcanon about some characters, and when I got this request about Lyra and Trixie I was reading one particular chapter from "Summa Technologiae" where Lem argues that, while counter-intuitive and seemingly contrary to common sense of the majority, science considers emergence of intelligent life (read: humans) to be an ordinary event (science laws and theories describe patterns) while religion argues that intelligent life on Earth is unique.
So if we take common, over-simplified average-man understanding of astronomy and biology, scientific chances of intelligent life appearing "randomly" are negligible. But if we take into consideration the size of the universe, real, hard science (not pop science from tabloids) says chances for intelligent life are pretty high (even if it is spread very thinly, with hundreds, if not thousands of light years between each occurence).
My guess, since Lyra is interested in other life forms, she digs these things hard. And the irony is, while average ponies having "average popular" understanding of science consider her a weirdo at best, in the end (even if we ignore EqG) she is probably right. Humans (or some other intelligent alien species) DO exist.
Writing Trixie was easier and more difficult. She has a defined colourful personality. I wasn't very satisfied with "No Second Prances" because of the obvious magical solution but the episode was more about learning to make friends and trying to be a better person than about, well, stage magic, so it wasn't that important. In this one though I tried to give her some kind of a deeper motivation (in addition to liking being a center of attention).
Glad you liked it.
Okay, this bugs the heck out of me. Using something like "the illusionist" for Trixie, I can... almost get behind, sometimes (Not really, for the most part, but that's much more personal preference--I will say, though, I think it's a lot harder than you think it is to overuse names). But at least that one, aong with "the sorceress" and stuff makes it clear which character you mean to identify with it, but "the unicorn" could easily apply to either character. So it's ambiguous on top of being overall kinda clunky.
Ooo, okay. I was ready to leave a comment complaining about Pinkie being a bit of a twat for ruining Trixie's trick, but that was a nice reveal at the end! Definitely in-character for both Pinkie and Rainbow, and a lovely way to show how Trixie's developed since coming to Ponyville. Pretty decent characterization all-around!
I think there were some rough edges, overall, with things like this paragraph:
Where it's, like, a topic that feels like it ought to be really serious and heartfelt, but it kinda pops out of nowhere and then nothing much comes of it--seriously, I'm looking at that conversation now and I think it works fairly seamlessly if that whole Trixie paragraph were just chopped out entirely. So it dragged the momentum of the scene to a halt and I don't feel like it added anything to compensate.
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Probably kinda true.
I was going for a response for Pinkie's "Homecoming" remark. In my head, "homecoming" said by Pinkie is more personal (coming back to Ponyville) than coming from Trixie in the beginning (coming back to her routine shows after the "Penance Tour"). Even with Pinkie being Pinkie and throwing parties for every plausible occasion.
So Trixie's response was supposed to be... awkward. She tends to be like that in personal matters. That being said, I'm somewhat dissatisfied with how exactly this line was phrased and how it disturbs the flow. Don't know how to improve it (yet?).
On "unicorn", yeah, as an afterthought it wasn't the best pick. I tried to use it exclusively for Lyra to avoid any confusion, but probably using it was not a great idea in the first place when dealing with two unicorns at once.
Thanks for your input!
PS. Pinkie and Rainbow were a last minute addition. I was amazed by how naturally they fit in there.