So we’ve gone from running to revenge. Both were natural responses, and it was probably inevitable that they’d both be suggested, but Adagio wasn’t sure which was worse. Any form of withdrawal to her was instantly tied to weakness. She supposed that at that moment the three of them were weak, and might never be strong again, but the association in her own head and the disgust that came with it were too strong to overlook.
They had always stood their ground. When Starswirl – that wretched pony – had cast his spell, the howling vortex had ripped the sky open, tearing their claws from the rocks they had clung to and swallowing them up, and even then they had screamed defiance at him with every breath until the wormhole closed. At least vengeance was in keeping with their nature; it was a sentiment she could firmly get behind. And they did have the opportunity to carry it out, one they had never been afforded with that wizard. Scarswirl, that’s what ponies would have called him after we were finished.
Was Sonata right to be excited about the idea? Would it be fun? Or would it be done in seething anger, watching the flames bitterly rather than cackling about it together? She pictured it: pressed up against a wall in the shadows, peeking out from beneath her hood to look back at the red glow down the street she had come from, before steeling off to the next house on her list. And when she’d reached the last one and carried out the final act, she’d stand leaning on the picket fence between the street and the front lawn, watching the roof collapse in as the timbers were consumed, feeling the flames also devouring all her hatred and fury at being defeated. The hoodie would be long gone, with no more need for hiding, and she would stand there staring up at the roaring inferno, slack-jawed, as if hypnotised by the cleansing fire, until they came to take her away. All that would remain were embers; of their enemies, and of their own futures.
Adagio felt the twinge in the muscles behind her eyes as she refocused on things immediately in front of her after so long staring blankly at nothing. She tried to pinpoint how the vision had made her feel. It had been satisfying, almost rapturous; it had even felt right, like they’d come full circle or got closure or whatever overused phrase people described those particular feelings with. It had also felt futile.
“It’s an option,” she said, as the other two turned to her. She paused for a moment to consider the logistics. “Seven houses, three of us – we could do it.”
Surprise flickered across Aria’s features, quickly replaced with a cruel smile. Sonata grinned too and clapped her hands, more a picture of childish exuberance than of malice. I could let them do it. I really could. All Adagio had to do was keep quiet. If she said nothing, they’d go for it. They’d be off the leash, and every fiery fantasy would be fulfilled. She wouldn’t have to push them towards it, perhaps wouldn’t even need to plan and direct. Just not talk them out of it.
She had always been the driving force behind the three of them, had always had the crucial say in all the decisions. She had steered them wherever they had gone, keeping a constant, detached eye out for anything that might trip them up, or could be twisted to their advantage. Did she not deserve a break, when they were at their lowest? Wasn’t it somebody else’s turn to do the right thing, the selfless thing of putting reason over emotion, and just let her sit back and enjoy a little vengeance?
But however much harder their defeat made it to summon the energy to keep fighting (something from which the thirst for vengeance was curiously exempt), she knew that that particular immediate and total form of revenge would come at the expense of her sisters’ lives. Having lost so much in one night already, it made protecting them all the more important, including from their own natures if necessary, as it usually was. And that meant it was up to her. She couldn’t expect others to clean up her mess. She had led her sisters into battle, into their present predicament; and she knew that only she could lead them out again.
“We could pull it off,” she sighed, “but I don’t think we could get away with it.”
She looked down at the floor, but from the corner of her eye saw Aria crossing her arms, defiant but saying nothing. Sonata dropped her hands to her lap and pouted, her enthusiasm ebbing.
“How would they know it was us?” she asked.
The answer sprang to Adagio’s lips immediately, but she caught herself at the last moment, thankfully before she had started to turn towards Sonata to answer the question, at which point stopping would have been too obvious. Let Aria take this one, she has to hear it from her own mouth that it’s doomed to fail. Adagio kept her eyes down and straight ahead, wondering how long Aria would let the pause stretch for before feeling forced to respond.
After a couple of seconds, Aria threw up her arms in frustration. “Because,” she rolled her eyes, “the whole school would label us the chief suspects, with the strongest motives.”
Nodding without glancing aside, Adagio schooled her features into a thin-lipped expression of commiseration, instead of showing the quiet pride she felt in her fellow siren. Accepting that there are some problems she can’t solve with fire? That’s almost maturity! She turned to Sonata, who had that worrying look of trying to figure out a problem. Knowing how much effort such things were to her, and how many other, more solvable issues they still had to talk through that night, Adagio moved to head it off.
“We’d have no alibis, and there’d most likely be supporting evidence against us like CCTV or witnesses, so we’d be caught as soon as we were investigated.”
Sonata’s furrowed brows slowly rose again, but the rest of her face fell. Adagio made her tone less weary and more gentle, to try to balance crushing a suicidal plan with crushing Sonata’s confidence.
“That kind of thing only works if you’re not seen to be connected with the victims, and so would never come under suspicion in the first place.”
Feeling like she was giving Sonata tips and tricks for one day becoming her own diabolical mastermind, Adagio reached over and squeezed Sonata’s knee affectionately. That kind of physical contact was a calculated risk; it was very unusual for Adagio to need to do such a thing, which made it difficult to predict how it might be received. She was fairly sure that a reassuring touch would be welcomed when their circumstances were so bleak, but the very act of her doing something so unlike her might only hammer home to Sonata how far things had really sunk. Either way, the gesture didn’t seem nearly as out of place as it would have done if she’d tried it on Aria.
“Could we pay someone else to do it?” Sonata interrupted her musings, sounding shrewd.
On second thoughts, it was sweet when Sonata tried planning, but perhaps for the best that it didn’t happen too often. Adagio gave her a wan smile.
“If we could afford to place bounties on seven peoples’ heads, we’d be living in a bigger house.”
Not that their house was small, and not that it didn’t contain some expensive hardware, things she was now more glad than ever to have had the forethought to set up, back when anything she wanted was only a song away. But the house had been bought to blend in, a lair in which to spend six months researching and plotting their move, so it was far from ostentatious. She had been fine with that when she saw it as a disguise; now that that mediocre mask might become the reality, she was less sure.
“Blackmail?” Aria suggested, as if only mildly invested in the idea, knowing it was unlikely to work. That was good, that meant that most of Adagio’s job was already done, she just had to finish off.
“I think, for most people, spree killing would take more persuasion than just seducing them and then threatening to tell their wife...” On her right, Aria tsked in mock offence at the thought of others not simply doing as she commanded, while on her left Sonata ruefully shook her head.
“...Which is a shame, ‘cause that’d be really easy,” Adagio finished. Her sisters nodded glumly. At least it was good to see Aria calmer than when the subject of arson had first been raised.
“Could we fake an alibi?” Sonata asked.
Perceptive child. Adagio raised an eyebrow almost involuntarily. She puffed out her cheeks a bit and blew air out between her flattened lips, her that’s-a-tall-order expression.
“Not impossible,” she began slowly, “but not without a lot of planning. That tends to be how people do it in fiction.” Sonata leaned in, interested, so she hastily added, “Although, in fiction, they usually get caught.”
Sonata sat back, and after a moment Adagio did the same. She saw Sonata tip her head back onto the top of the sofa cushion, staring up at the ceiling. A cursory glace upwards told Adagio she wasn’t missing much, just dim lights, dull paint, and the odd bit of chewing gum. Aria was looking down at the fingernails on her outstretched right hand atop the sofa arm, picking at them with the thumb on the same hand. They sat that way for a couple of minutes, while Adagio weighed up the best way to restart conversation on a more useful subject. Before she could make any decisions, however, Sonata spoke up, not breaking her gaze at the ceiling.
“What would happen if we were caught?”
“We would go to prison for a very long time, probably the rest of our lives,” Adagio answered immediately, not unkindly but also not in a way that invited much argument. The sentence would surely be life, but with good behaviour they might someday make parole. Not that there would be too much hope of good behaviour if Aria were involved, which would inevitably affect all three of them.
Sonata rolled her head towards Adagio and met her eyes, acquiescence and acceptance passing between them. Adagio felt a tiny bit of the tension in her shoulders relax, knowing that the idea had been put to rest, and that her sisters were safe from their own destructive impulses for the time being. Sonata looked back up to the ceiling, then closed her eyes and smiled fondly to herself.
“It’s a nice thought though, isn’t it?”
Aria finally looked up from her nails and gave the others a wicked smirk. Think you might be preaching to the choir there, Sonata. Thoughts of choirs and their ethereal voices were uncomfortably close to home for Adagio, so she tried to focus instead on how safe it would be for her to agree. For all that she had been trying to talk them out of the idea, her own imaginings had not been without merit, and it was important that she not be seen as too aloof from the others’ feelings, instead sharing some common ground between the three of them. She weighed those considerations against the risk of making pyromania seem like a viable option again and decided to give it a try.
“There is something enchanting about it.” She gave Sonata a sad smile. “So little effort to wreak such devastation.”
On her right, Aria chuckled softly.
“You’ve got it all worked out, I take it?”
It was hardly the most complicated set of moves Adagio had ever had to string together. It felt beneath her in its simplicity, especially when there had been a possibility it would be the last scheme she’d ever get to put into practice.
“There isn’t much to work out,” she said, turning to Aria. “A few glass bottles, a trip to the gas station, some burning rags and seven strong throws through downstairs windows.”
Aria narrowed her eyes, but didn’t stop grinning, perhaps just enjoying the fantasising, or perhaps delighting in testing their leader’s cunning. Most likely both.
“You don’t even know where any of them live,” she pointed out, almost playfully.
Adagio glanced over her left shoulder, seizing the opportunity to involve their third member in the game and potential bonding exercise.
“Sonata?”
Unexpectedly called upon to find a solution, Sonata’s eyebrows drew down as she looked hurriedly from one knee to another, biting her lip in concentration.
“Umm,” she began, “ah... there are seven of them, and three of us, so we couldn’t just, like, beat it out of them, or even threaten to. But if we could get one of them on their own...?”
“Not bad,” Adagio smiled encouragingly, but that would rely on being able to separate them and isolate one, and might alert them to our intentions. “There’s an easier way, though. Aria?”
“Ugh. School records room.”
“But,” Sonata protested, “the school will be locked up this time of night.”
“Brick. Window.”
“But we’d get in trouble for that!”
Aria slowly lowered her face into her hand, with her fingers covering her eyes, and shook her head faintly. Preventing Aria from having to offer an irritated explanation, Adagio picked up the pieces, keeping her voice gentle.
“Sonata, dear... We’d be intending to carry out seven counts of arson. Next to that, one broken window doesn’t seem so bad.”
Sonata’s features shifted from concern to consternation, before flashing to cheerful agreement, thankfully not taking the criticism to heart. If anything, now that she was engaged in the discussion and distracted from the problem looming over them all, she looked happier than she had all evening.
“You’d still need a map, though,” Aria pointed out after a few seconds, kicking off the conversation again.
“Print one each in the school office,” Adagio shrugged. Except the computers might need passwords, and nobody is actually stupid enough to choose one we might be able to work out from looking around their desk. “Or mug three people for their smartphones, or break into three cars and steal their sat navs.”
“What about the glass bottles?”
“Recycling bins en route.”
“Rags to burn?”
“Rip the bottom few inches off the back of your skirt and tear the material into strips.”
Aria stopped, taken aback. “My skirt?” she asked, her surprise giving way to suspicion, which then morphed into indignation as she crossed her arms. “I don’t see you volunteering yours.”
Adagio shrugged again. “It was your idea, this whole firestarting thing,” After that she found herself fixed with what she guessed to be a withering look.
“Is that the new rule?” Scepticism was balanced with scorn, with hints of bafflement. “Your idea, your clothes that have to come off?”
This time it was Adagio who paused. “If you like, sure.” She tilted her head and looked at Aria quizzically. “And, speaking as the person who comes up with most of the ideas, I thought you’d never ask.”
Aria tried to do withering again, and managed much better the second time around. Hard to tell if there was a blush hiding in there behind it all. Adagio schooled her features into faintly-amused indifference, idly brushing crumbs off the front of her dress, which was obviously going to need dry cleaning anyway and might still be a write off. She reached down to the bottom of the dress, sitting halfway up her thighs, and held the hemline out in Aria’s direction.
“Sonata and I don’t have many inches of skirt to lose,” she said calmly.
Sonata giggled quietly at that, having wisely stayed silent during Aria’s more heated moments. Heated moments. When discussing burning things. Aria did offer an I-see-your-point sort of nod, after which Adagio continued.
“And I know you’d love to undress us,” – she kept her voice completely even, as if discussing an unquestionable, uncontroversial truth – “but I think that might attract attention while we’re trying to be stealthy and hit seven different targets before being stopped.”
Aria’s face was frozen a picture of mild disbelief before she shook her head and looked away, as if contemplating the things she had to put up with. Adagio savoured the moment briefly, then focused on the rebuilding role she’d decided upon for herself and made her peace offering.
“Or, failing that, you could just use your wrist warmers, they’d do just as well.”
Still not looking in her direction, Aria grunted in a way Adagio took to mean that she recognised that someone had made a valid point, but nonetheless didn’t like it. Sonata raised her hand with her index finger outstretched, as if she had a question in class.
“What about getting lighters or matches?”
Aria made no move to reply in any way, so Adagio stepped up.
“Buy some at the gas station. As long as we buy some cigarettes with them, it won’t look too suspicious.”
She received an impressed look from Sonata, who was making noises of understanding. Aria turned back towards them, radiating cynicism, apathy and boredom, with undercurrents of irritation and bitterness. It was the closest Adagio had seen yet to Aria being back to normal.
“Aside from my skirt, remind me why we aren’t doing this, again?” Aria said, in a way that suggested she’d said it more to wind Adagio up than to actually support it.
But if Adagio could deal with the question seriously, she might be able to lay it to rest for the last time. She took a slow, measured breath, deciding on what she judged to be the best place to begin.
“Is it worth it?” she asked softly. “Is it worth throwing away any hope of a life in the future, any remaining chances of world domination, even any dream of freedom or self-determination?” Adagio watched Aria’s expression, noting the bite and bile gradually draining away. “Just for an hour or two of revenge against children, who beat us out of a desire to protect themselves and their friends?”
She paused, and neither of the others seemed eager to answer. Not because it was an answer they didn’t know, but because airing it aloud might feel like something akin to admitting defeat.
“Only if your best alternative does not involve surviving beyond tonight,” she said, answering her own question, as she’d expected to need to, “because that’s the only way the consequences might be worth it.”
Perhaps more was needed to hammer that final point home. Worried she couldn’t spare Sonata a glance to see how she was taking it, Adagio pressed on.
“If we did depend on negative energy for sustenance, and would imminently starve to death anyway, then, sure; it would be fitting for a final move at short notice. Or if there was no hope of us getting by using other means, and we were looking at a future of begging for scraps on the streets, then prison might not be so bad in comparison. The inferno would only be worth sacrificing your future for if you had no future anyway.”
Aria bowed her head forwards and closed her eyes, and Adagio risked glancing left, towards Sonata, who nodded bleakly.
“I just—” Aria began and then stopped herself, a long sigh escaping her. “I just hate knowing that – right now – they’re thinking that they beat us.”
She didn’t look up after finishing, continuing to hang her head. This was going to be tricky for Adagio: she needed Aria to accept the situation and come to terms with it, without shattering her self-esteem, indeed, her very identity, in the process.
“Honey,” she said, picking a term of endearment she thought comforting, knowing she’d never used it before but that it would still sound less ridiculously out-of-character for her than the four words that followed, “they did beat us.”
In a bizarre reversal of their usual roles, Sonata said nothing and sat still, while Aria looked into Adagio’s face with wide, vulnerable eyes.
“You can argue that they got lucky,” she carried on, “or that seven on three is hardly fair, or that we’re down but not out...”
She really did not want to have to say the next part. She knew it would crush Aria. The only saving grace was that she also knew Aria was bound to realise it herself soon enough, and at least having the moment on Adagio’s terms meant that she could guarantee being there to support her sister through it. It was also the only way Adagio could be sure Aria wouldn’t sneak out of the house to enact midnight fire-starting schemes in the hope of getting even.
“...but we’re sirens, and we just lost a singing contest.”
A gasp came from her left, and while Adagio knew that thinking about their situation from that particular angle might never otherwise have occurred to Sonata, she also knew that Sonata would bounce back much more quickly from it, not one for existential hang ups. Aria didn’t move or make a sound. Adagio knew she had to finish, to turn the sentiment into something that could have a positive outcome if it at least kept Aria from self-destruction, but wished it didn’t feel so much like twisting the knife.
“Even if they died, they would die victorious.”
She remembered the purification she’d felt from the flames in her imagination, the memory of her negative feelings burning up along with the last house, and she wondered if that experience might have been enough for Aria to feel like she’d won, or at least not been defeated. She knew no good would come of ever mentioning that aloud.
“If our jewels had survived, it would be different, but without our voices, getting even in a way that actually matters isn’t any more possible here than it was with Starswirl.”
She reached out to Aria and put a consoling hand on her shoulder. Unbelievably, no move was made to throw it off. Such behaviour from her sister unnerved Adagio, as she didn’t quite know how to respond to it. Were it anyone else, Adagio would have read the body language and said without hesitation that they desperately needed a hug. But with Aria, such gestures were always met with hostility, and Adagio really didn’t want Aria withdrawing into herself and raising her emotional defences even higher than usual.
But if I don’t hug her, and right now, then Sonata probably will, and that’d be even less likely to end well. Aria was still leaning forwards in her seat with her face turned towards Adagio, who determined to waste no further time. She closed the distance between them, the hand on Aria’s shoulder dropping down to slip around her waist, while the other arm encircled her at the same height on the opposite side. Adagio gently pulled Aria’s head onto her shoulder and leaned into it, remembering just in time to divert one hand quickly to pull her mass of ginger curls out of the way on that side.
And through it all, Aria didn’t pull away, or even flinch. Adagio wasn’t quite sure what else to do, other than gently squeeze Aria and rub a hand down her back, but she soon felt Aria’s arms wrap around her own frame, contracting to hold their two bodies together tightly. She felt Aria’s lungs expanding against her own chest, drawing in a deep breath, held for a few seconds before slowly being exhaled over her shoulder, and noticed some of the tension ebbing away from Aria’s body, now softer in her arms.
Unhurriedly, Aria untangled her arms from around Adagio and withdrew back to where she had been sitting before, eyes downcast, with a shy smile.
“Thanks,” she said quietly, and blushed, “I think that helped.”
Adagio offered an encouraging smile of her own and was about to respond, when Sonata jumped forwards and seized her, pulling her backwards away from Aria.
“Watch out!” Sonata exclaimed, “She’s a changeling!”
Before she even managed to regain her balance, Adagio was snorting with laughter at the many plot holes in that suggestion. After a stunned split-second, Aria too burst out laughing.
“Yeah, that was pretty un-me, huh?” Her cheeks flushed darker still, but she sounded more boisterous. Then she paused and her voice dropped again, along with her gaze. “But as you said, Adagio, all we have now is each other.”
“That’s right,” Adagio answered warmly but softly, and while she felt the moment had passed with Aria’s hug and didn’t want to push her luck trying it again, she did reach out to Sonata to offer one to her instead, reinforcing Adagio’s point while also preventing Sonata from feeling left out.
“It might feel like we’ve lost everything,” she told Aria and Sonata, looking from one to the other, “but there’s always more to lose.”
Sonata hugged her tightly, and Aria smiled but said nothing. It felt like they had made a breakthrough, if only a tiny one. Adagio hoped that meant they’d be more likely to pull in the same direction if the grand discussion continued. With that in mind, she steered the conversation back towards what they might do next.
“So in that case, girls, let’s find a way to go forwards that doesn’t write off our own futures.”
To either side of Adagio, a siren nodded.
Thank you for having them demonstrate the sense to not be as short sighted as they are in most stories where they want revenge.
Yes, if you just ignore all those pesky details, it was a clean win on their part. Subject I've rambled on too much as it is... Of course, as Adagio is trying to dissuade them from inevitably suicidal vengeance here, I can see why she'd put it this way.
I just love this line. Really puts a lot of things in perspective and I'm shocked now that more stories don't at least mention that train of thought.
Apart from that, they've got a good dynamic going on here. I like how meticulous Adagio's being even about little things like how she acts and presents herself and the way she phrases things, and I think it's nicely balanced by the other two being more impulsive. She also has a fair number of insightful remarks in her narration, which shows that she knows her audience pretty well. I'm curious as to how the other two are going to act in the future, but I'm really liking your version of Adagio so far.
Out of curiosity, are you planning on keeping the story from Adagio's perspective or are the other two going to get turns in the spotlight?
7766107 Firstly, thanks, I'm really glad you liked it, this is a chapter I was always going to write, and in my eyes it turned out even better than I expected, but I became worried as to how it would be received by readers.
Sorry, I absolutely know what you mean, but I have to disagree with you here.
This view certainly has its place, I think - Technically, it's hard to see what they could have done to improve. Not many of the reasons for the Dazzlings' failure were predictable, but they may attempt a fault analysis in a few chapters' time, so I'd rather not say too much here about where they might have gone wrong, or what they could have done differently. I definitely think this view is a good counter to individual sirens being blamed, as it is with Adagio in I Can Smile, or should have been in all those stories where Sonata's thrown out for somehow dragging the rest of them down. And I think it's telling that in this chapter Adagio is not-unconfident of their chances in a hypothetical rematch if their necklaces hadn't been smashed, which suggests it's more ill fortune than poor planning.
But, however we feel about the odds of the Rainbooms' success in the film, and the methods the writers chose to achieve it, either we can rewrite the end of the film (or turn it off shortly before the end), or come to terms with it and move on from there. And the film ends with the Rainbooms achieving their aims, and the Dazzlings worse off than when they started, which empirically can't be called a win in my book, however great the plan was in theory. And personally I think Adagio would know that lamenting the failure of such a brilliant plan would do nothing to help her regain her power, and so she'd accept it and move on. Hence her line 'You can argue that they got lucky, or that seven on three is hardly fair, or that we’re down but not out, but...' (I think some of that, definitely the outnumbered bit, may have been explicitly inspired by those ramblings you mention ). And in future, she'd either be even more careful that all eventualities are covered, or accept that there are some things she can't plan for, and can only adapt to as well as possible when they happen.
Thanks! I concede that in some situations I think it would make a bit more sense, depending on the selected headcanon (what is a human life-sentence, or even several, to an immortal, after all?), or if they're so dependent on their reputations that word getting out about beating them going unpunished would be more damaging than the consequences of dealing out punishment for it, but at least in my headcanon they'd lose far more than they'd gain, and it wouldn't bring them any closer to their goals.
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Sorry for any confusion, maybe I could have worded it clearer, but by "it was a clean win on their part," I meant the Rainbooms, and by "all those pesky details," I meant Spike conveniently not having been in sight when they were dropped down the stage, Sunset pulling her crystal-godzilla-level power out of nowhere, and Vinyl in her entirety. There might have been a bit more, but those were the big ones. Or is that the part you disagree on?
It's perfectly clear that the sirens were beaten, I've never contested that, but it's the usual response and recollection to their loss that confuses me; people in-universe and out behaving as thought it was a straight fight from start to finish and the Rainbooms won fair and square. To me, it looked more like two people in a foot-race, one dragging their feet and falling on their face for most of it, and then getting a rocket surfboard from nowhere to ride straight to the end, slicing their opponent's legs off on the way, with everyone acting as though they'd won entirely under their own power.
But now I'm rambling again.
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Thanks!
I was thinking about how they might return in a new film, and how circumstances would either have to be carefully engineered by the writers to set up another musical battle, or the Dazzlings might have to try a different tactic (I honestly think that Rainbow Rocks was so much better than the other EG films that I'd happily embrace a repeat premise that's essentially RR2, providing it's at least as good as RR1, but somehow I can't see the writers going for that). And then I thought what else sirens were suited to do (guessing 'seduce them' won't be high on Hasbro's list), and realised that they'd already fought on their home turf using their greatest weapon against the Rainbooms, and lost, so they'd stand even less of a chance using other methods.
I'm glad it had the impact it was meant to - I was reasonably confident it would, but thought it might also just be obvious - that's the whole reason the sirens were chosen as the antagonists for that film, after all. Maybe in EG5 the humane seven will win a staring contest against gorgons?
I don't want to say too much, but, at least looking at the next few chapters, I wasn't going to break from Adagio. Then someone did me a favour and pointed out something I really shouldn't have missed - that several more similar chapters of planning might get old Also I realised that as the next discussion chapters would be smaller segments of a whole, each wouldn't have so much of an arc of its own, certainly not to the extent that this one does, and so I started writing the next one from a different perspective. At the moment I'm still undecided as to whether that will work, but if it does I think it'll be a good way to add more variety to chapters with the same ongoing conversation and location, and might just possibly allow me to use each siren's journey through the night as the character arc for their chapter, if I manage to get it just right.
Thanks! It's hard to know from looking at characters on-screen without hearing their thoughts quite how much of their skill at manipulation is instinct, and how much is calculation (everything like that which I overlook in this story, but should have mentioned, that's instinct, and definitely not me forgetting to mention Adagio thinking about things), but given that they're biologically far from human (and didn't grow up around humans either, ruling out both nature and nurture), and (especially being aquatic) probably naturally have very different body language, I'm thinking calculation is more likely. We know there was a six-month gap between the rainbow blasting Sunset and the Dazzlings turning up at CHS, and yet they didn't appear to know about the musical showcase, so either they were lying, or in six months they didn't bother Googling the school, or CHS has a terrible website (I think probably the last one is the case). So six months of research before their target can hardly have been exhaustive, unless it wasn't the school, the students and the magic they were researching, but more human interaction. I originally thought that'd be so they could try to fit in, but watching the film highlights how bad they are at that, so perhaps it was more aimed at manipulating people into doing as the Dazzlings want.
So there's an analysis engine at work in Adagio's head, although I'm not sure how much is natural sirenness and how much is consciously trained, and that engine gets turned on her companions sometimes, to try to fully understand them, particularly with no fixed chain of command or external force keeping her in charge of the three of them.
7767443 ...That makes a lot more sense. Sorry, my mistake, I had misunderstood the clean win to refer to the Dazzlings.
Yeah, there are some handwavy excuses here and there for those things, but they're problematic to say the least. And it bugs me that the Rainbooms got as good as they did at music for a one-off thing, and it's only mentioned once since, like doing so didn't take pretty serious time and effort - and yet they beat the professionals.
Although I do find some respite in knowing that deus ex machina was the only way they could win, that's quite a compliment for their opponents, even if that compliment doesn't really help them stitch their lives back together.
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Indeedy. The only times we've seen the sirens stopped are when their adversaries (Rainbooms and Starswirl, if one considers their comic remotely canon) are outright impervious to their power from the get-go, whatever the yet-ungiven reason, then said enemies pull out something that instantly stops them with not so much as a possibility of retaliation.
Of course, given the title of the show, I'm just happy as long as the stitching part happens at some point.
7767738 That's a very good point, I haven't read any of the comics - that's FIENDship is Magic, I take it? Would you recommend reading them?
One of the challenges I'm having with this story is that I'm genuinely not sure what ending would 'feel right' for them, in my opinion It might move a bit quicker if I figured that out, but no such luck so far.
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I've only read the siren and Chrysalis volumes myself, and read a summary of Sombra's story. They're... okay, I guess? I have no idea about Tirek, but the sirens' comic doesn't actually feature their origin so much as the origin of their style and how Starswirl stops them, specifically. No questions are answered about their background, but it did give me some insight into what I had previously assumed to be a battle of Gandalf vs. The Balrog proportions, and, as I guess was kind of said already regarding the sirens' enemies, the pattern holds.
Depends on where their thoughts and musing take them, I guess. It'll probably come together eventually.
7767977 That's fair, I'm not much of a fan of comics generally, so I think I'll give it a miss. Perhaps it's nicer to be able to imagine how things went down with Starswirl for yourself, I've seen several different battle takes in stories on this site, some of which have had a pretty good crack at it. I do like the idea that it was a last resort, and Starswirl didn't want to use the spell but he was otherwise fairly defeated, and so banished them when out of other options.
Thanks, I can but hope! And plan, and stuff...
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One point that really interested me and may even vaguely explain why we don't know what became of Starswirl was (spoiler'd for the sake of those who still do want to read it and haven't yet) that at the very end, after banishing the sirens, Starswirl notes that he knows it didn't have to end that way, that they could have used their power for good, but he couldn't get through to them, so now they're trapped in another world where someone else might help them. He considers the whole thing to be his greatest failure.
That last part makes me think he might have gone after them one day, just used the mirror he banished them with to go looking for them (would sorta explain why it opens every so often, as opposed to being sealed/destroyed), got lost/killed/trapped, and perished, alone and friendless as he was said to be in the show, in the human world without his magic. And the sirens probably never even knew anyone had cared enough to come looking for them.
But that's speculation for another day. For now, I look forward to the sirens' next brainstorming session.
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In some ways it is a little obvious, but in some ways not. I think we've talked before about how one of the things that makes the Dazzlings so interesting is that they know that they've lost before and are especially careful the second time around, but for whatever reason it never once crossed my mind that this particular loss would hit them even harder for precisely the reason you outlined, Granted, one could make the counter-argument that the Dazzlings were easily the better singers but that they simply didn't have the brute force that the Rainbooms pulled out of thin air, but at the same time it's a very reasonable train of thought for them to pursue. Given how intelligent Adagio seems to be, it's very possible that, given enough time and planning, she could figure out a way to get her revenge, but the thought that they were beaten at their strongest doing what they do best must be pretty demoralizing.
I tend to think that no Dazzlings story is complete without at least touching on how all three of them handle things, so I personally would be in favor of giving all three of them a turn. Of course, I've already said I love the way you write Adagio, so I can probably stand to see more of that too. Whichever ends up working best.
Quite possibly. As we've discussed elsewhere, they might not have been all that concerned with blending in in the first place, so learning how to get people to do what they want sounds like a better goal.
I'd say it's about half and half, personally. There are certain actions she takes in the movie that seem pretty calculated, such as demoralizing Sunset and spurring Trixie's jealousy. However, it also seems like they basically did a little bit of research beforehand and then went straight to the school expecting to figure things out as they went, which suggests that even if some of her moves are quite calculated, Adagio's still really good at thinking on her feet and taking advantage of an opportunity when she sees one. As you say, she'd probably be somewhat baffled by human body language and facial expressions at first, so she probably had to take some time to consciously learn how to behave in the human world, which suggests a certain level of calculation, but there's also a lot to suggest that she's got a bit of a knack for playing people which suggests more of an instinctual talent.
Whoever this person is, it sounds like they've got the right idea. You should listen to them more often.
Or not. Still your story, no matter what anyone else says.
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Off the top of my head, there are only a couple of ways she could get revenge in a way that would be satisfying enough to her to make up for losing the battle. The first is the rematch idea, and although winning a rematch never quite makes up for losing the first time around, however much you trounce them in the second performance, I think it would be close enough to make do. But she would need to beat the Rainbooms utterly, and at this stage it's hard to say if that would be possible without getting her magic back. The other way I can think of right now is for her to beat the Rainbooms at their own game, just as they did to her. So either with a giant magic battle - but that has the same problems as the previous option - or, more intriguingly, if she found a way to out-friendship them. Like maybe if the elements of harmony were all brought into the EG world, and attached themselves two to each siren, instead of to the Rainbooms? Or if she paid a call to the Rainbooms in twenty years' time, and pointed out that she, Sonata and Aria were still as close as ever, while the Rainbooms had lost touch or fallen out over the years. Both of those strike me as far-fetched, but engineering a scenario where they might happen could be interesting. The first one, at least - the second would probably just be depressing.
The more I think about it, the more that's how I'd like to go forwards. Further testing is still required, but I'm hoping that it works. I will miss the Adagio POVs I had planned in their place, but I think it'll be for the best.
I think there are definite shades of both. If you take as canon that they weren't playing dumb with Sunset, and were genuinely hearing about the musical showcase for the first time when she mentioned it, then they had about two minutes to prepare the song Battle, which they instead spent arguing. So I think part of their siren magic is that they can make songs like that up on the spot. And Adagio identifies Trixie's ego as something she can use before they even reach the first chorus, while she's preoccupied improvising a song in front of everyone. I think some level of instincts must be in play there; most likely informed by research into human behaviour and body language, but then honed until it becomes instinctive rather than conscious, because the conscious mind that could process assessing everyone in the cafeteria for exploitable weaknesses while composing, singing, dancing and generally putting on a performance (all perfectly) would put Sherlock Holmes to shame.
I listen plenty!
Oooh, who's been talking about me?
Are they teenagers like in the film or are they thousand years old?
7779592 Hi Jaroslav,
To me, the conversation they have at the beginning of the film is not one of people who've been on Earth for a thousand years. Aria's lines in particular suggest to me that at that point they've been there for a couple of months. There's then a six-month gap between that scene and their appearance at CHS (as I think is mentioned on the film commentary, but may have since been overwritten by the timeline of events mentioned in Legend Of Everfree) [minor Legend Of Everfree spoiler, if you haven't seen it].
So they're teenagers here. I didn't want to outright state that in the text, but there's a hint of it in chapter 1 with Adagio's thought on Aria acting 'like the frustrated teenager she often was.' This means Starswirl's spell must have thrown them forwards in time, although they may not realise that, but it might come up in discussion soon.
I struggle to pin down whether the Rainbooms in the film are closer to 16 or to 18; and it may turn out that characters here have to be 18 for legal reasons, so I haven't listed exact ages in the story, but I think having the Dazzlings the same age as the Rainbooms will make their interactions a lot more natural. I think it would lessen immortals to have them battling so tooth and claw against children (and still losing, and then dwelling on it), and there'd be an uncomfortable predatory vibe should any of the characters from the different groups hook up. Not that that's where this story is necessarily going, but it's nice to have the option.
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And now I am pitching for a Dazzlings cover of Time Warp.... :D
7908440 Hiya, thanks for checking out my story after I so not-humbly posted on your page about it
I started a fun conversation with some friends a few months ago about what films that were highly regarded and loved by everyone were they personally not at all keen on, hated, or just didn't get. There were some interesting responses (I remember someone saying Inception, and Borat, someone even said The Matrix, many said The Godfather), but I mostly just remember the ones I thought of myself: Dr. Strangelove, The Exorcist, The Big Lebowski (the one I probably shouldn't mention on a FIM site), and... Rocky Horror.
I don't mind Time Warp as a song, but the appeal of Rocky Horror generally is completely lost on me. I like Tim Curry, I like drag queens, just... not that!
I'd love to see them cover this, but it might not quite suit their style.
This particular plot detail is giving me a headache in the chapter I'm writing at the moment, as the sirens at this point don't know they've been thrown forwards a thousand years, and think returning to Equestria will bring them face to face with Starswirl again.
Still, I much prefer it to the idea of them as immortals; my ChryLestia story was sort of my examination of how immortals must think, so I'm sure you can appreciate how much having all that here would change the story.
I'm glad you blogposted about this. It's a story I had passed over before, since it's not very far along and has few views and likes; but as it happens I was looking for some Siren stories tonight anyway. And now I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment.
8028914 I can completely understand that; I hope one day it will be fairly sizeable, and perhaps even seen by quite a few people, but for now it's the quietest story with my name on it. Thanks for checking it out and giving it a chance (and for the favourite ), I'm really happy that you liked it, and only wish I didn't have to temper that with 'yeah, but the next update won't be coming yet.'
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That's why I've got a Tracking list.
8030487 Sure, and I can't see the update being so far away that you'd need to reread vast swathes of the rest of the story to remind yourself what's happened so far (not that there are exactly vast swathes of it to read). Still, if you found this story through that blog entry, I'm glad something positive came of me posting it