Mane Melody survived its first few weeks and a visit from Phyllis Cloverleaf, letting Jazz Hooves finally find her place at the newly opened salon. When she is left in charge on a slow day, a strange customer stumbles through her door. As she gets to know the timid mare, Jazz discovers that showing just a little kindness in something as mundane as hoof care can make all the difference in the life of another.
Entry for The Red Parade's May Pairings 2024 hosted by the Original Pairings group.
Edited by: TheAncientPolitzanian
Preread by: Jymbroni, Scriblits Talo, and ItsVelvet
Cover Art: Heartfelt Hooficure by @Marenlicious on Twitter
Commissioned the artwork while at ポニコン11!
Chapters (7)
14k words of a rareship that couldn't have ever occured to me? Between two of my fav characters from G5? And a canon divergence where they meet at the start of the show and is set just when Jazz started working in Mane Melody? Sign me up!! I'm all for this
Man just when I decided to stop checking for new G5 fics because nothing was getting my attention I find this, nice. Just read the first chapter for now, but it's already pretty cute <3 a great start already, I know this is gonna be a great story
I never get tired of the 'Jazz has no ears' jokes skfkg
Wasn't Ponygram a thing that was available for earth ponies after the movie? 🤔 I think before pegasi came along with their advanced techbology there was no social media on Maretime Bay
Poor Jazz will never live the ears down.
Great ideas to explain how Misty was able to join the Filly Four! I think I'm gonna conside these canon, it makes sense she got to join by becoming a trend on ponygram
Also aw Jazz can already see Misty is going through a lot :(
I love how wonderfully petty and silly that is.
Wonderfully beautiful. Great work, as usual.
Misty Brightdawn. Yes.
The thought of what Opaline put Misty through just makes me want to either cry or puke. Cracking her hooves, possibly beating her, the mental and emotional scars...
Opaline was a true blue Narc. She only cared for one pony, herself.
But seriously, great job on this story.
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I'll get to all the lovely comments later but for now...
ACK! I missed one! Fix't!
I want a sequel where Misty introduces Jazz to Alphabittle. And, he and Jazz converse about what they’ll do to Opaline’s face if she ever breaks out of the tree.
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Thanks for checking out the story! A lot of my projects are G4, but I do think G5 has a lot of potential in the fan writing space. I'm looking forward to getting into it more over time. Most will probably be AUs though so I can erase things that the writers trapped themselves into.
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Not gonna lie, I was a little worried that Jazz wouldn't have ears on the cover. We got a happy medium of barely ears thanks to Maren.
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Red flags abound in this chapter, eh?
Go ahead! I had to figure out a way to get Misty back in the salon, and this one jumped out at me as a good excuse. When I'm writing canon-adjacent, I try to do my best to give in-universe reasons for things. This would be challenge if I went beyond Chapter 6 because Deus is Machina-ing everywhere these days in Tell Your Tale due to time constraints.
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Not gonna lie, I came up with the "Opaline follows Jazz" joke in one of the earlier drafts and wrote so much trying to make it work since it was so tonally different. Glad I got that and the petty Internet counter-attacks to be fun, cute, and character-building.
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Thanks! This one was a real challenge. I relied a lot on my friend and co-worker to help write the textured hair material. I now know more about African hair than I do about my own hair. A low bar, yes, but it still amuses me.
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Sometimes the corniness can be endearing. I embraced it and hopefully stuck the landing.
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I actually hadn't considered Opaline being the one to violently break Misty's hooves. I mostly chalked it up to neglect and uncaring. You're free to use that brush though. I left it vague on purpose after all.
Thanks for giving it a lookie-loo!
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I actually wanted to fit Alphabittle in here somewhere, but bringing up good ol' dad would kill the mood.
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I'm glad my little Misty has made such a good friend! Why don't I brew you two a Misty's Mys-tea-ry? It's her favorite!
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Eh based on the fact that every last comment was downvoted 1 time seems equally likely there's a troll or bot around.
As far as the 5-minute episode thing, I wholeheartedly agree. Even ye olde Looney Tunes usually went 6-9 minutes. The best I can think to say is often "cute" even important ones like the most recent with Sunny's mom being revealed. I worry that she was a one-time giggle same with Izzy and the Sea Ponies, and several other things that would make excellent world-building tools. But nah, gags like Izzy using Sunny's toothbrush as an ear massager is much more important than cohesive storytelling.
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Oh, the red flags I meant as part of the fic itself. The downvotes are just the standard assumed "No G5 On My Watch" police. Happened on Jym's fics too.
Maybe if they drop enough dislikes on G5 fics around the site, Hasbro will cancel the show and bring back G4 for a 10th season.
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As much as I have a bookhorse shaped hole in my heart I doubt s10 could do anything for her in the sphere of G4. Although 🤔💭 if they could somehow do a special that could breach the divide between the Gens, that wouldn't be unwelcome. But I don't see that happening.
As far as the G5 hate, I roll my eyes at the vocal screamers.
Aand we go from cute to angsty. Really good chapter, I feel bad for the girls :') really felt all her emotions here
This story was really good, the affection that Jazz and Misty have for each other is super cute, I loved it.
Really cute chapter, it's nice to imagine Jazz there for the celebration of Misty gettingher cutiemark, but I admit what I loved the most here was the part of Jazz finding out Opaline followed her on Ponygram lmao that made me laugh
Brilliant. I really enjoyed it. I like how caring Jazz is and her shy character. I like how their friendship grew into something and that Misty had a safe place and someone who she felt comfortable and happy around after all she was going through with that horrible Opaline.Lastly, good job on the hair scene.
Your ability to show emotion and make me feel it is amazing.
Really enjoyed this.
Not enough g5 in fanfic yet.
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I always want my fics to make readers feel something, and I want to feel safe in feeling it. I'm glad the three of you enjoyed it and the one of you liked the hair research I did.
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I really enjoyed writing this chapter. Glad you liked reading it!
Really sweet story! I never would have thought of this pair, but you really made it work. The ways you tied canon events in was pretty neat, and I liked the bits of humor like Opaline's online activity.
The G5 goodfic well has been running a bit dry of late. Thank goodness you’re here with a story that more than makes up for the dearth. Hooray for Misty!
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The idea was to keep it as close to canon as possible with Jazz Hooves in the mix. And boy do I know this ship is exceedingly rare. That's why I commissioned Maren to draw the cover art. A really good investment because it turned out so good!
Also, I knew I had to work in "Opaline Alone" somehow.
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And I am glad to add to the pile of Good G5 Fics. With the building blocks it has in place if you ignore pretty much how the whole show after the movie shook out is such a wellspring of great ideas. I wish I had more time to write in it. I AUs I want to do.