Dunes

The smell of the coffee wafted up to Sapphire’s nose, stirring her synapses. [colour=#000080]Coffee[/colour]. Her eyes opened to a sliver, reluctantly roused by the heavy scent of it. As any performer knows, there is no replacement for plenty of rest and a good meal to recover from a show. An as any performer on the road knows, there’s no way that’s ever going to happen and caffeine is your friend. Blearily, she grabbed the lip of the cup with her teeth, and tilted it back, a little faster and a little higher than she meant to. [colour=#000080]Too fast, too fast!! [/colour]Her mouth was full of hot coffee, rather than the tiny sip she’d intended. She winced, dropping the cup, which splashed in an impressive arc for such a small container… on to Timbre. Sapphire’s ears flattened against her head, her eyes widened as far as they could go. “[colour=#000080]Oh. My. I am tho thorry![/colour]” She sucked in a stream of cold air, trying to cool off her stinging tongue. It did nothing for her tongue, nor did it do anything for the hot, caffeinated embarrassment that was currently soaking her musical companion.

Sapphire nodded, fighting harder than she ought to have needed to keep her head upright. “[colour=#000080]Energy...[/colour]” she yawned. “[colour=#000080]Energy's important. Without energy, the audience'll...[/colour]” She felt herself squinting against her will, and every time she blinked, the lights around her seemed to flicker. “[colour=#000080]Audience'll just... fall...[/colour]” Her eyes started to close and her head started to sink, as she felt a soft, falling sensation in her chest. Catching herself, she bolted upright. She shook her head. “Fwuh! Um.” She shook her head again. “[colour=#000080]Long day. Think I need some coffee.[/colour]” She yawned again, leaning against the fountain. “[colour=#000080]You wanna...[/colour]” she yawned again, resting her head on the stone wall for just a moment, “[colour=#000080]get some coffee?[/colour]” “[colour=#000080]I like the onesh with mocha[/colour].” And she was asleep, mouth hanging open and snoring like something between an angry bear and a lumberjack with a hacksaw.

Sapphire and as-yet-unnamed diva NPC will be in attendance!

Sapphire sighed with relief when she felt solid ground beneath her hooves. The crowd closed in around them, cheering and clapping their hooves. She beamed. “Thank you kindly, Mr. Timbre,” she said, bowing and tipping her tiny hat at him. “Ahah, well, maybe not when I’ve been up so late, no.” She turned for a moment upon hearing the familiar clamor for autographs. “Just a sec!” She pulled a pen out of an inner jacket pocket, and started feeling around on the other side for the tiny pad she kept in case of autograph emergencies. “Alright, honeys, I can sign…” she pulled out her notebook, which was already missing half of its pages from similar encounters, “this, or anything else you got!” She signed several pages in her little journal, a couple of articles of clothing, and one cutie mark (which was an awkward thing to do when you had to sign autographs with your mouth). She grinned, waving at her fans as they wandered off. “Yeah! Haven’t done it since last tour, though. I might be a little rusty.” She yawned, feeling her legs quiver. “Or just tired. But I think I’m gonna be diplomatic and blame the flag pole for me getting stuck up there,” she laughed, sticking her tongue out at it. She stretched, hoping to prevent some of the soreness she knew would be coming later. “Some ponies accuse me of being more about the show than the music. But the real secret is, all music’s a show. From a fancy orchestra to, well, me. My music’d sound about as right coming from a dressed-down pony in a bow-tie as a symphony would sound coming from an orchestra wearing sombreros and glitter.” She winked. “Which, coincidentally, was my outfit on the second leg of the Southern Strand tour last year.” “I gotta say, though, you’d a pretty good hoof at keeping the crowd entertained. You do this kinda thing much?”

Crystal wasn’t entirely sure what happened. There was a yell, then something grabbed her leg, and she was lifted off the ground. There had been a moment of panic. Then the world started spinning and things got hazy. Had her brain been used to being flung around like a rag doll, it might have occurred to her that she was being used as a bludgeon. As it was, however, all she could process was that the ground looked like a blur and she smelled of burnt fur. When the grip on her leg released, she fell a couple of feet to the ground and staggered. She dropped the burning stick and blinked hard. The ground appeared to be perpetually lifting up from the right, yet somehow staying at the same level. She felt the dried fruit from earlier shift uneasily in her stomach. The world stopped moving quite so much, and she turned to see an unconscious Telki. Frantically, she looked around for coyotes. There were none. She felt safe to panic about the passed-out unicorn in front of her now. “Hey. Hey! Are you okay?” She shook Telki’s shoulders. “Did they get you? Guys, did they get her? Does she have rabies?” She leaned in to listen for breathing, but the pounding in her hears was too loud to hear any. “I don’t know if she’s breathing! Should I give her mouth-to-mouth?! Wait, if I do that will I get rabies? Oh Celestia, but that's selfish. There's shots for that, right? Better than a dead unicorn!" She scrunched up her face, fully no idea of what she was doing, and leaned in.

Ahahaha. $130 later and my computer is a beast once more. I'm back!

Posting from my phone. My computer's video card is in its death throes and won't let me get much past boot. I'm aiming to either get it fixed or, more likely, fork out for a newer one in the next day or two, but in the meanwhile the only computer I have access to is my work computer. >.> As busy as work's been I doubt I'll have time for posting, so I'll probably be gone a couple days while I fix things.

((AAa okay, managed to get some internet connectivity, posting this while it lasts!)) Sapphire clung to the banner pole, still breathing rapidly. The warm fuzziness of the cider had been replaced with the tingling burn of adrenaline, but they both seemed to be wearing off. The ground wavered as she looked down, and she blinked hard to put it right. She was starting to ache. Timbre was certainly a showpony, through and through. He knew what to say to get the crowd going, and that wasn't always an easy thing to do. She grinned at the crowd, hoping the layers of powder she was wearing were hiding the bags under her eyes. “Nah, I've done this a thousand times --” she started, but realized her limbs were beginning to shake with the effort of holding on. Man, after a few minutes? I am tired. The foreleg bearing the brunt of her weight slipped a little. She clung on, feeling a fresh sting of adrenaline. She flattened her ears against her head, and tried to keep the worry out of her voice. She smiled. “Uh, actually, sweets, I wouldn't mind some help down...” She felt her back legs starting to slide down the banner. The smile disappeared as she grimaced. “Since you're so kind as to offer,” she added, quickly.

Ooh, so he was getting ponies to dance with him, too. Four of them, no less. How was she going to top that without her crew backing her up? She'd been spoiled by the likes of fireworks on stage and sparklers in her dress. There were times she wished she'd had unicorn magic; it'd make personal pyrotechnics a snap. She had to make a decision; his verse was coming to an end, then she'd have to pick up the chorus without skipping a beat. Then she saw the banner. It was hanging from a metal pole, and was almost short enough to be a flag -- shorter than she was used to, but it was long enough. It would be a risk; she hadn't done this since her last show, she wasn't familiar with the banner itself, and there was no safety net, but... Let it never be said Sapphire Shores shied away from something sensational simply because it was a little risky. As Timbre finished the final strains of his verse, Sapphire leapt up the pole. Wrapping her legs around it, she only needed to push herself up a couple of times to reach the top. She stuck out a hind leg, wrapped the banner around it, and waited. It was only a few moments until her turn came. As she took a deep breath for the first notes of the phrase, she swung herself out, supported only by the strength of her hind legs and the banner wrapped between them. “Tutti frutti, oh rutti, tutti frutti, hey! Oh rutti!” She arched her back so that she was still facing the crowd, crossed her front hooves in front of her chest, and closed her eyes as she sang. She tensed her stomach muscles and back muscles in turn to control the tempo of her swinging. It was a good thing the chorus was easy to remember; concentrating on the movement was almost enough to make her forget the nonsense words. “Tutti frutti, oohoh ruuutti!” She scrunched her nose; how the heck did the next bit go? There was no time to think; she tensed up as she prepared for her finish. “A-wop bop uh-bop bop,” she started a quick spin, doing a crunch to get her upper body back above her legs, “a-what? BAM BOOM" She grabbed the top of the pole to support herself, throwing out her other hoof with a flourish, and winked. Unicorns may have had magic, but Sapphire had 30 hours of dance rehearsals every week. ((I figure, if P!nk can do it and still sound good on a trapeze... XD I wish that video still worked!))

Huh! I guess I forgot for a minute that people have photoshop. >.> Whoops. Either way, I think everybody in the pony fandom pretty much knows any given ship is never happening.

I went down with the SS Korrasami, I'll go down with this ship too. >:[

Sapphire raised an eyebrow, smirking. She didn't know much about Fancy, but she knew that probably wasn't it. Nice hat trick, she thought. Literally, even. The ponies around them seemed to be warming to their little duet. Not only that, the sparse nighttime crowd seemed to be thickening, and a few windows had been thrown open. A city guard was bobbing his head and smiling. Sapphire's smirk widened to a grin, seeing the mare Timbre sang to blush as soon as Timbre turned away. She was going to have to step up her game. She dipped her head at Timbre as he passed off the chorus to her. It might be hard to top fancy hat tricks without her pyrotechnics team and backup dancers, but a pony doesn't need to be a unicorn to make magic happen. Making eye contact with the smiling guard, she reached a hoof out to him. When he offered his in return, she grabbed it, and she reared up to her back legs, swinging him to her front. She threw her other hoof over his shoulder, and shimmied side to side on every other downbeat. “That ma-are, it's crazy, she's got me seein' hazy. That ma-a-are, so fi-ine, I'm gonna lose my mind.” She dipped her shoulder in and back out again on the start of each measure. The guard was a bit of a stiff dance partner, but he seemed to be going along with it. She flashed a grin at him, hoping he'd know to brace himself. “I just can't get to sleep at night --” she sung, sweeping forward with him on each syllable. With a hoof wrapped around him, she pulled him in closer, all the while bobbing to and belting out the beat, “-- that girl's gone and shone me the light.” With the last few notes, she spun the guard outwards in a spiral, mirroring the movement herself. She spun gracefully to land again on all fours. The guard landed less gracefully. She smiled at him and tipped her tiny hat. Sapphire flashed an eager look at Timbre. Your turn. ((I know I'm not quiiite following the song structure, but I didn't feel like repeating bits for some reason!))

It's hard to go wrong with Nirvana. This actually isn't one of my favorites of theirs, though. I do like the lyrical structure, but I think it's just a little bit too Nirvana mellow for me to listen to it a lot, unless I'm in the mood. But the thing that's bugging me is probably the compression of the recording; it looks like an old VHS. It's a mellow, subtle kind of song and loss of dynamic range is not doing it any favors. I'm sure it was great live. But it is still Nirvana, so, good times. 4/5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emogqey7DxQ n-no i'm not obsessed, shut up

OOO I love filling out questionsss. What other fandoms are you a part of? Doctor Who, and Avatar (both The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra). And, heck, I'll admit it -- furrydom, to a lesser degree. How long have you been with them? Doctor Who, since high school. I had no patience for sci fi until I had foot surgery my freshman year of high school and had noooothing to do. And my mom thought it would be funny to make me watch the 1996 movie while I was on heavy painkillers. (The movie was not good, but Paul McGann was great.) Then she started me on the Tom Baker episodes and I was hooked. I'm pretty sure people in the next county over could hear the fangirl screech when they announced they were rebooting the series. Avatar, for a shorter time than MLP even! I hadn't even watched it until earlier this year and was instantly hooked. Furries I ended up with kind of as an accident. I drew animal people as a kid (as 10-year-old, not only were people hard to draw, they were boring to draw), and I had friends who also drew animal people, and we sort of collectively ended up finding people who also drew animal people. So, furries. I was way more into it in middle and high school than I am now. I try to fight the feeling on occasion, but a combination of going to art school and furries being the punching bag of the internet shamed me into other pursuits. :< What has your experience been with other fans of this fandom? Pretty awesome. Granted, I mostly bop around Canterlot and EQD on occasion, but for the most part the people I've met have been respectful and well-behaved. I occasionally see fallout of Tumblr-drama on the ask blogs I follow, but when is there not Tumblr drama? In your opinion, how do your other fandom(s) compare to the Brony fandom? I love Avatards like I love my bronies. And I honestly prefer bronies to most Whovian gathering places (though individuals are pretty cool, one-on-one). It seems like there's a lot of negativity in the Doctor Who communities I've found. Despite being the whipping boy of the internet, furries are pretty cool for the most part. Some are into some weird things, and also into oversharing, which is a terrible combination, but I've met my fair share of really chill and awesome ones. Is MLP your primary, or secondary fandom? Primary. Avatar's looking to be a close second. I've loved Doctor Who for longer than both combined, but I'm not nearly as involved with the community. And of course, would you like to see more interaction between the MLP fanbase and your other fandom(s)? Do you think the increased interaction would be helpful to either/both? I've seen Korra!ponies and it pleases me immensely. And, duh, Doctor Whooves! There's so much Doctor Who/MLP interaction. It's fantastic, like bananas. It'd be nice if there were less resentment/"KILL IT WITH FIRE" attitudes towards furries, but that goes for the whole internet basically. I don't necessarily consider myself a furry so much as someone who draws them on occasion, but the furry community is where I did a lot of my artistic growin'. I got a soft, fuzzy place in my heart for it.

This is the first one I've been on in a while. I think the last one I did was on the forums for Blackblood Alliance (a webcomic that I'm not sure is even still going), like... six years ago. It was talking dogs basically. >.> The only one I did before that was a friends' forum called TekniKats, probably... ten years ago? Giant, colorful cats with magical powers. I'm sensing a theme here, haha. I like Canterlot! I hadn't RP'ed in the longest time, and then pony mania hit and I just had to do something other than talk about it. So, pony RP! The expansive world just lends itself so well, and I like how nice it all is here. :3 I keep kind of wanting to find somewhere for Avatar (ATLA or Korra, or both) too, but real life keeps getting in the way of here often enough, and I don't know how hard I'd have to look to find somewhere without a bunch of godmode powerplayers anyway. -.-

Crystal struggled to come up with more insults. It was late and she was tired, which was the sort of thing that could either result in insult greatness, or... “YOUR MOM... Uh. IS A POOP HEAD. TOTAL POOP.” She scowled, aware of how lame she sounded. But if Manehattan teaches a pony anything, it's to really mean every insult. “THE POOPIEST.” Every insult, even the really bad ones. Crystal squinted into the darkness. She saw the unicorn get in a pretty good kick at one of the coyotes. Kicking! Maybe I should try that, she thought. It might be marginally more useful than shouting at them. The coyotes were rallying. They did not sound happy. Crystal decided against kicking coyotes for future reference. She backed up as things happened around her; it was a little too dark and a little too fast for her to really be able to tell what was going on. But they ended with Milky brandishing a fiery log. This could only mean good things; Milky knew what she was doing. Milky had a good head on her shoulders in a dangerous situation. Thud. The log lay burning on the ground. Milky was stomping off. “Uh.” The coyotes edged forward, sensing an opening but still cautious of the flames. “Uh. Milky?” The kicked one limped towards her, a little faster and a lot angrier than the others. “Milky?!” Crystal was failing to keep the despnation out of her voice. The coyotes were far too close for comfort. No time to think. Crystal grabbed the burning log with her mouth and swung it in an arc, singing the fur on the right side of her face. “GAH,” she shouted, wincing in pain. She dropped the log, rubbing her face with a front leg. Her face throbbed with the heat. But coyotes probably hurt a lot more. Face full of the scent of burnt fur, she grabbed the log again and ran in a furious, wobbly circle. She was half trying to scare coyotes, and half trying to avoid the flame herself. Maybe if she tried to set one on fire, the rest would get the message She ran straight for the limping coyote. “EERHE COYROH'EES,” she shouted, voice muffled by the log. “EEEERHE PFUPPFY PFUPPFY.”

(Nicely done with the French! That is some dedication. And I'm finally back, after a month of job hunting, moving, and a car accident. Sorry you had to wait so long!) Sapphire tilted her head, pleasantly surprised by the bouncing beat. After a night full of soulful serenades, the quick jazz was a delightful change of pace. She closed her eyes for a moment, listening to Timbre’s voice echo off the buildings and cascade down the lane, nodding her head to the beat. She wondered what he was saying; she only knew a couple words of fancy. ‘Femme’? He must be singing about a mare. The other words were a complete mystery. Isn’t roux a kind of soup thing…? She scrunched up her nose in contemplation. She looked around. The ponies around them had definitely stopped to take notice. Some of them looked confused, others looked drunk, but a few of them had smiles on their faces. Bringing music to the unsuspecting townsponies; this is what it was all about. Timbre’s voice stopped, and she saw him grin at her and motion with a hoof. It took her a moment to remember why the music stopped. Oh, shoot! “The-eh moonlight, shines just right, in-ah her eyes, leaves me blind –” Her hooves had a mind of their own, picking up the beat that Timbre set. She hopped up on the stone fountain, sliding a hoof forward with each syllable. “She got h’self all up inside my miiind, she's sim-ply beau-tee de-fiiined.” Ending with a flourish, she spun around, sticking out a hoof as she slid to a stop. Round 2!

I AM OFFICIALLY ALIVE NOW. Chiropractor managed to get my neck back where it needs to be, more or less, and I'm not on painkillers all the time anymore. HUZZAH. So now I am moved, employed, and not constantly in a painkiller-induced haze. Oh lawd. What a month.

Aaa I know I said I would be back on July 31st, and then I totally wasn't. My roommates and I had a lease lined up, but then that plan fell through, as did the next one, which left us in the position of having to move our entire house to a third-floor apartment in the space of 24 hours on July 31st, when our original lease was up. And then, not three days later, I got rear-ended at a stop light, which left me on some pretty heavy pain meds while my chiropractor and I try to get my pain under control. I apologize profusely; I wish I had been able to get online and at least give everyone an update, but between the heat exhaustion (plus regular exhaustion) from moving in 105-degree weather and then dealing with insurance claims for me and the car, on top of the pain meds, has just been overwhelming. Sorryyyyy ;_;

AAA okay. So, I found a job (yay!) and it's full-time (yay!), but my lease at my current place is up on July 31st, so I am in the process of both leasing a new place to live and then moving there. While working full-time. So, I am gonna say I'm not going to be available for RPs and such until July 31st. Fingers crossed that we get a lease signed and our stuff moved before then and I can come back earlier, but until then, I'm going to be a flurry of packing and paperwork. Adulthood. I AM SO SICK OF MOVING