In Memoriam Beary Manilow
Rainbow Dash had writer's block.
This was new to her. She had never dealt with not knowing what to write before. Though that had something to do with the fact that she had never written before. Well, outside of letters and journal entries about lessons learned, and maybe some school work. But now, Rainbow hoped she had some inspiration, if it would just come to her now.
She had an idea for a long time now, ever since she had been in the hospital for her broken wing. That was the fateful day when Twilight had introduced her to Daring Do. Before that, Rainbow had just assumed reading was for nerds, and steered clear of it. Thankfully, Twilight showed her the way with the absolutely amazing tales of one talented adventure mare. She became obsessed with the series, and blew through the books multiple times in a week.
And once she had finished with the last book, she was craving more. But A.K. Yearling had a bad tendency to put long amounts of time between the books released, and Rainbow had just finished the newest one, just released. That meant it would be at least a year before a new book was available, and Rainbow was not waiting that long. She didn't know how she could possibly survive that long.
That's when she had an idea, an epiphany. If she wasn't getting official continuity, she'd make her own continuity! It was perfect, she was such a fan of the series, she'd be a natural at making worthy canon! Maybe she could even get A.K. Yearling's attention, and could write the next book with her! It was destiny!
Unfortunately, because her daily life was really busy, she didn't have any time to do any writing. It's not like she had any great ideas coming to her, anyway. She considered just writing stories about her own life, just putting Daring Do in her place, but she decided against that. A.K. Yearling would never be so lazy to just write her own life and pass it off as fiction. After all, she was Rainbow Dash's idol, she had to be flawless.
Well then, maybe Rainbow should have picked her idols a little better. Sick of waiting for the next book after a delay, she and her friends journeyed to A.K. Yearling's house to get that book done. While there, they all discovered that A.K. Yearling was in fact the real-life Daring Do, and wrote about her real-life adventures. Rainbow might have been disappointed, but now she knew the real-life Daring Do! She got to help Daring Do on a real adventure, and even became a character in the next book! This was a dream come true for the lowly weather mare from Ponyville, who happened to have saved Equestria numerous times. She couldn't compare to the Daring Do!
Now that she was on an adventure high, and was absolutely sure that she was Daring Do material, approved by the real deal, she was back on for trying her hoof at writing. If only any ideas would come to her. She had been mulling over possible scenarios for a week now, and still didn't have anything she could flesh out into a full story. She didn't even have an artifact to serve as the main plot device!
Sick of waiting for inspiration, Rainbow was sitting in Sugarcube Corner, doing nothing but writing and thinking. Not her best idea, sitting still for long periods of time was not something she could do. But this story had to at least get started, and soon.
“Heya Dashie, what'cha doin'?” Rainbow turned her head to see Pinkie Pie standing incredibly close. Pinkie blinked innocently a few times in rapid succession.
“Hey Pinkie, I'm just trying to write something here. I felt, now that I'm clearly Daring Do material, I should write my own story. I'm just having trouble coming up with a plot. I don't even have an ancient artifact to base the story on yet.” Rainbow looked back down at her notebook, where the only things written so far were her name and a “the”.
Pinkie lit up. “Well, why didn't you say so? I'm great at writing! Did you think I came up with all those songs on the spot? And you need an artifact? Why not the Sacred Chalice?”
Rainbow looked back at her friend, confused but curious. “What is this 'Sacred Chalice' of which you speak?” She liked what she had just said, and made a note to use it somewhere.
“Well, I just started listening to this really cool and funny band recently, and they've got a four-part series about their journey to find the Sacred Chalice, supposed to give those who find it unlimited awesomeness.”
Rainbow was getting excited. “I love awesomeness! Do they have to fight any challenges along the way?”
“Of course they do, what kind of a voyage would it be without any obstacles? They fight dragons, mountain lions, bridgekeepers, and have to tame the Stallion of Tartarus in order to cross a waterfall!”
Rainbow was liking the sounds of this. This could be the break she needed! “Pinkie, would you do me the honor of co-writing this story with me?”
Pinkie sat down in the chair next to her friend. “Let's get writing!”
Twilight looked up from the notebook to Rainbow Dash, eagerly awaiting her approval. It made Twilight feel kind of guilty to talk, but as a librarian, she had to give her opinion on the story her friend had given her. “Well...you don't have any problems with spelling, grammar, or sentence structure...”
Rainbow nodded, still with an excited look on her face, unwavering. “I don't care about any of that technical stuff, how epic was the actual story?”
Twilight cringed. “How can I put this simply...it's bad. It's far too short, it doesn't describe anything, and you seem to be confused about the spirit of Daring Do. I don't even know how that's possible, considering how much you've read and worshiped those books.”
Rainbow Dash was skeptical. “What do you mean?”
“Alright, first off, 'awesomeness' is not a reason for Daring Do to undertake a dangerous journey. And you should know that she works alone, so putting her in a group seems wrong.”
“Hey, she worked with me!”
“That was because you wouldn't leave her alone, and she got lucky it worked out in the end. She would have never asked other ponies to be her party, much less a ninja, a robot, an elf, and a prostitute!”
Rainbow's eyes widened when she realized she had left that last party member in there. “Uh...I just remembered, that wasn't a hooker, it was...another robot!”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Speaking of those other party members, you decided to be mean-spirited with them, didn't you? Three of them died in the first challenge, which was something so easy that failing it is a disgrace to Daring Do's judgment on taking them along. But I guess you were too scared of keeping them dead, because they all get magically resurrected by finding the chalice?”
“Well, I couldn't keep them dead, could I? Foals, the target audience of these stories, wouldn't be able to handle something so dark.”
Twilight felt offended by that. “I think kids can handle a little bit of death, I've been reading stories where characters die since I was 4. And your statement directly contradicts your previous claims, where you claimed to be thinking of the children while writing this! If that's the case, then why does the ending of the story suddenly get so 'adult'?”
“Don't ponies like reading that kind of stuff now?” Rainbow was not very sure in herself anymore.
Twilight blushed when she realized what specific popular book Rainbow was referring to. She quickly used her magic to hide her personal copy, which was sitting in the room. “T-that's one example, and it's beside the point! Kids shouldn't be reading about this stuff, much less when you made it so explicit! And I know what you're going to say next, it can't be forgiven because of the moral you shoved in there! You just suddenly said that 'friendship triumphs over all' at the end, despite no parts of the story building up to that.”
Rainbow stopped making eye contact and scratched the back of her neck, when Twilight floated the notebook in front of her. “And can you explain why this specific passage is in rhyme, with a noticeable rhythm, and in different hoofwriting?”
“Well...Pinkie Pie helped me write it. She's the one who gave me the idea, and told me about the Sacred Chalice in the first place.”
Twilight nodded. “That answers my next question, then. I was going to ask where you got historical documentation of this 'Sacred Chalice', considering Daring Do stories are always about real artifacts. I'll assume it has something to do with this Special Thanks to 'Changeling Sex Party', where Pinkie's name is supposed to be.”
Rainbow didn't know that Pinkie had put that in. She didn't even know that was the source, which made it the band that had started this whole mess to begin with. “Changeling what?”
Twilight sighed. “Changeling Sex Party. It's a comedy band that writes songs about sex, or at least mentions it in every song. Spike listens to them.”
Rainbow nodded. “Oh. But...is there anything salvageable in there?”
“Well, like I said, you've got no technical errors with the story, so it's just a matter of coming up with an original idea and spending a little more time developing it. If you can do that, you might be...decent, I guess. I have one last question.”
“What?”
“Is there a reason you talked a lot about bagels at the beginning?”
“It was breakfast time, I was in Sugarcube Corner, I was hungry.”
Twilight nodded, and started giggling. Rainbow joined in.
Dear Rainbow Dash,
I'm writing this as a response to that notebook you sent me recently. You know, the one with “Daring Do and the Sacred Chalice”. I can't say it wasn't an entertaining read, but you made one crucial mistake; you sent it to me under the pretense that it was an attempt at a serious Daring Do story. At that, it fails miserably. It doesn't follow any of the established conventions beyond quest for an ancient artifact, and deliberately breaks others. I would be disappointed and ashamed to call this a true Daring Do tale.
But as I said, the problem is that it could be misconstrued as official canon. Instead, it's a crossover fanfiction with Changeling Sex Party. In that front, it's glorious. The Daring Do tropes broken are all done to stay true to the original song, and it's a great representation of what I would be like in this journey, with the Changeling Sex Party tone intact.
I'm having trouble keeping my enthusiasm in check. I LOVE CHANGELING SEX PARTY! I'm so happy to find another fan of their music, they're criminally unknown! Ooh, ooh, what's your favorite song they've done? Most ponies would say it's Unicorn Magic Fight, but I firmly think it's Unicorn Wizard! Isn't that one so great? Isn't Danny Trotbang so hot? Did you catch the references I could sneak into the books?
That's it! I'm not waiting any longer! I'm contacting Changeling Sex Party right now about the possibility of doing a music video for The Sacred Chalice, using your story as the inspiration! Is it alright if I keep this, or do I have to make a copy?
Let's get this terrible party started,
A.K. Yearling, Daring Do.
As soon as Rainbow Dash received the reply, she flew as fast as she could to the library and excitedly showed it to Twilight. Reading it over together, they unanimously agreed, they needed to ask Spike and Pinkie to teach them everything there was about Changeling Sex Party, and reread the books to find those references.
A day later, now fully caught up with the band's music, the two fans were sitting together reading. Rainbow shouted out, “I found one! She describes Ahuizotl as 'inventing death, and all things that are bad'!”
Twilight scoffed. “The best we can find is a reference to 'Manticore'? That song was terrible.”
“Are you crazy? That song was rocking, hard! It's better than 'If We Were Coltcuddlers'.”
“Don't say anything bad about 'If We Were Coltcuddlers'!”
Author's Note
"You've got no technical errors with the story, so it's just a matter of coming up with an original idea and spending a little more time developing it." I wrote that more for myself than the story. That's your look into my writing process, because those are totally my writing problems. I'm never fixing them, of course. Too much hard work.
Speaking of specific sentences, can you find the sentence that was written only because I'm playing Ace Attorney?
And yes, I know I've referenced Ninja Sex Party before, in Discord's Guide to Clopfics. I don't care, they deserve all the attention I can give them.
