#fiddly twang

[melody-sketch-draws]

yeehaw horse is surprisingly good at chess

[bestponytournament]

Best Pony Tournament Chapter 1 Part 1 3/8

ROUND ONE

[kp12-art]

I just noticed Fiddly Twang is here lolll 😭 Octavia recolour, she’s also a character I love

✦꒰octavia melody icons, rq꒱┆彡

✦彡𝐑𝐄𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐆/𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐈𝐅 𝐒𝐀𝐕𝐄꒱

ꗃ𝐃𝐍𝐈 𝐢𝐟 𝐍𝐒𝐅𝐖 (𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐭𝐲𝐩𝐞𝐬), 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐤, 𝐛𝐢𝐠𝐨𝐭, 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬! 𝐅𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐲 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞!

[ashleyfableblack]

Cover image for my newest story- "Fiddling Around At The Hootenanny", a submission for Fimfics PRIDE Month.

Coco Pommel is a little different from most other mares and it's made her life one of shy self-exclusion. When she's approached by an amorous free-spirit at the Apple family's latest shindig, she has to decide if she can be as open and accepting of herself as others may be.

Happy PRIDE Month to all y'all out there. Never forget to give love a chance and that the first step in any dance is to get up off your plot and let go of what's holding you down. ❤️💛💚💙💜

[princejrlz]

August 31, 2021

🍡 Growing Up Is Hard To Do Event 🍡

Stage #4: Barrier to Entry

- Defeat 40 Minions (Friendly Fairgoer)

- Future Scootaloo, Fiddly Twang and Junior Deputy help out in this stage.

Stage Boss: Braeburn

Stage Reward: Friendly Fairgoer

[cidenroll]

"It might be empty, but it's our first rehearsal together" - said Octavia to Fiddly. "Let's make it count...for Ponyville!" - cheered Fiddly. Musicians Octavia Melody and Fiddly Twang taking a selfie together on the stage of Ponyville's Grand Theater, preparing a rehearsal for the grand opening ceremony.

Full resolution can be downloaded here.

[thenaaru]

Double Agency

[Set during the Legion’s occupation of Suramar city, before the Nightfallen campaign.]

“This one feels off, can you adjust the weight of the canister?”

Maaike passed the arrow back across the workbench to her partner. Valterri looked at her with a risen brow over her glasses but took the offered arrow anyway, reaching for her tiny toolkit with the other hand.

“It’s made exactly the same as the others, Maaike.” “But it feels off.” “And you’ve been shooting for the past six thousand-” “Humor me, please?”

Valterri sighed and turned her attention down to the engineered arrow. It was sleek and silvery, with dark purple fletching edged with white, but it was not ordinary. Built into the shaft was a very small and very delicate tempered glass canister filled with a viscous, dark oil. Whilst Valterri made adjustments, Maaike went over the rest of her gear. She was already wearing her leathers, had already checked them for tears or weaknesses. Each arrow she counted, balanced upon a finger to check that they met her standards before strapping them carefully into her quiver so they did not rattle around and make noise.

Her bow, of course, was the most important of her tools. This particular one was designed for long distance, precision shooting. It was not her most powerful, nor rapid, but with it she could hit a penny from a league away. The string was checked and rechecked, the limbs inspected for hairline cracks or any sign that it might fail her.

“Here. Is this better?”

Again the arrow was inspected, checked for the right balance, the right weight. Satisfied, Maaike nodded and it too was slotted into its space in the quiver.

“Who is it this time?” “You know I can’t tell you that.”

Valterri huffed, closing the little box that held the small tools needed for their most fiddly of work with a pointed click. Maaike sighed softly and reached out over the workbench with her palms upturned in offering for the other woman to place hers within. The offer was considered for a moment before Valterri relented and accepted.

“It was better, before.” “Before the Legion? Of course it was.”

“No. Before we had to hide.”

“Elisande has gone too far, she is starving our people; we’re withering, my darling.”

Maaike spoke softly, all too aware of the consequences of the Grand Magistrix’s schemes. Valterri flinched at the words but nodded solemnly all the same as Maaike straightened up again and pulled her hood up, hiding her brilliant white hair.

“Can you at least tell me which side you’re playing for tonight?”

Maaike paused and frowned at Valterri, almost as if insulted by the implication that she was loyal to neither side in this war. “I am as firmly a Dusk Lily as you, thank you,” she grumbled, though something about her tone lacked conviction and the other could tell it as clear as the moon was bright.

“But not tonight, are you?”

“Valterri.”

“You’re working for Elisande tonight, I can tell.”

The huntress didn’t answer. It couldn’t be helped. For six thousand years she had served the Courts of Suramar faithfully, without question. The best way to help their people was to not get caught, and the best way to do that was to serve both interests to avoid drawing attention to the smuggling operation that the two of them ran from their shop. They could not arm a rebellion from jail.

“I’ll be back before sunrise, try to sleep.”

An answer came in the form of a dismissive hand wave and a pair of eyes that refused to look up from their work. Knowing that it wasn’t worth arguing, Maaike simply left her to sulk. She understood. She knew Valterri didn’t, or rather she couldn’t, understand how Maaike could leave tonight to strike a blow against the freedom of the Nightfallen. It was what it was.

---

The night air was brisk across the rooftops as Maaike waited. Waiting was something she was good at. She’d spent a lot of time waiting on various rooftops or empty rooms over the years. Waiting and watching, ready to take action at any moment. It was exhausting. The constant necessity that she must be alert, must see and hear everything, always be aware that the tiniest shift in wind direction or that a stray light glinting off the surface of her bow could give her away.

She waited for two hours and thirty seven minutes, according to her watch, before her mark finally left hiding. She felt a twinge of guilt in her gut. She knew him - he was a runner for the resistance, instrumental in delivering messages without getting caught. She had only known where he had been because she was a trusted Dusk Lily, because she was perceived as someone who would not betray them. Because she had given him the message he was leaving to deliver right now. She didn’t want to, but refusing Duskwatch orders would surely bring withering to her doorstep. Now was not the time for hesitation.

With unnatural stealth, Maaike hopped to the next rooftop. The moon was hidden behind the sickly green clouds of the Legion, aiding the shadows that were her friends. Noiselessly she stalked closer, waiting until she walked the buildings above him to draw a single arrow from her quiver. As he turned into a dark alley - the only on his route, the one he surely knew was the most dangerous few meters of his path - she knocked it against her bowstring. A silent prayer to Elune for forgiveness as fletching brushed her ear. A soft twang echoed out, a missed step and dull thud as his body crumpled. The moment the arrow had pierced his skin, the canister hidden within the arrow had driven deadly poison along it’s barbed head. He would not have been able to pull it out even as his clumsy hands grasped at the shaft buried into his collar. Within moments the poison had taken action, paralysing each muscle down to his feebly twitching fingers. A moment more and his heart and lungs stopped, and in the next he was dead.

Maaike dropped down into the alleyway next to the body and carefully turned him. Quickly, but with the utmost care that she did not poison herself, she twisted the fletching of the arrow. There was a quiet clicking noise as the barbs that had kept it buried under flesh retracted and she pulled it free. She placed a special cap over its tip to contain what little of the vicious liquid remained and replaced it in her quiver. Next, she searched the body for the correspondence she knew he had been carrying and found it tucked into a hidden pouch of his messenger bag. A swift, thorough look ensured that he was carrying nothing else of value and she was off again, back across the rooftop shadows that concealed her movement so well.

It wasn’t until she had dropped back into the skylight of her bedroom and checked that all was as she had left it that she let go the breath she had been holding. Bow and quiver were replaced upon the hidden rack along her wall, less one arrow that she destroyed downstairs in her workshop along with throwing the documents her mark had carried into the fire. Why no, Grand Magistrix, he was not carrying anything other than tit tat that was of no interest to us. If she had to serve both sides, then she would not help the Duskwatch where she could help it.

Morning came with the smell of fresh brewed moonberry coffee and new orders delivered by Dusk Lily enchantments. There had been a blow struck in the night; a courier attacked and killed. All agents were to report their status and then to lay low until next communication. Maaike sighed, picked up her pen, and scrawled her report.

Agents Oureille and Martineau alive and well. No suspicious activity. Awaiting next green light for delivery.

@thesunguardmg

[renka2802]

DAy3 Fiddly Twang

Next challenge day! I will draw background pony characters in different styles (and color, etc., different each time (well, I'll try))) And so, as the second art, lets welcome Fiddly Twang!!! Inspired by the authors: https://www.deviantart.com/littmosa and 30's cartoon style. I love this style so much it was so nice to try it!!! Hope you like it!

Day1 https://www.deviantart.com/tigra0118/art/Where-is-Apple-Bloom-763417255

[vraska-theunseen]

im losing my mind losing my mind i can't even describe it like the way he it's like cowboy twang like fiddly high notes in a way that makes my eyes roll back in my head or it would make me do that if the little victorian man wasn't relentlessly determined to be the jiminy cricket of reminding me to think clean thoughts

[eppaljeck]

ONE DAY LEFT ON THE SALE

ponyville star hunter 180 amethyst star 160 roseluck 120 steven magnets salon 105 allie way? 140

sweet apple acres florina tart 40 fiddly twang 140

canterlot saddle arabia mare 200 trixies wagon 90

crystal empire (least wanted) flags and banners 150 3 yaks (im assuming theyr gonna be over £10 each 😝)

[thesinglesjukebox]

GERRY CINNAMON - CANTER

[4.14]

Here come the drums, here come the drums...

Scott Mildenhall: The expression, codification and concurrent commodification of Scottish identities through Twitter is fertile ground for investigation, and the rise of Gerry Cinnamon from that ground and into public consciousness even beyond Scotland is an interesting touchstone for it. He means something to people, in a way that he never could if he were singing with a transatlantic or Sheeranical twang. All of this is to say that every click on a Buzzfeed "Scottish tweets" compilation makes Gerry Cinnamon stronger, but for an outsider, no less boring. [4]

Katherine St Asaph: The amiable "Solsbury Hill"-ishness of "Canter" is seconds from getting it snapped up, if it hasn't already, for a movie trailer, at which point Gerry Cinnamon will probably spend the next couple of years putting out increasingly Mumfordy singles that aren't as good as this. [6]

Jonathan Bradley: Rhyming "canter" and wanker" is forgivable once; less so as a capper to every verse. A four-four thud that pounds out any space that had been given to a quite deft guitar line that squanders even more of the goodwill accumulated via an accent that reminds me how I quite enjoyed some of those Glasvegas singles. [4]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: I was so down to like this -- the relatively raw acoustic guitar, the shameless and uncompromising use of slang I had to look up, the charisma in Cinnamon's vocal performance -- and then the drumbeat came in and I realized that I had almost fallen for a folk-pop crossover single. You gotta stay vigilant, y'know? [4]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: I never knew a simple drum beat could turn a harmless pub song into something so aggressively mediocre. [3]

Iris Xie: I am sometimes bowled over by art that lacks significant self-awareness. The fact that "Canter" switches from a fiddly guitar tune to a bumping saltine cracker of a synth in order to help Gerry Cinnamon's announcement of "Here comes the rain," oh man. It's so on the nose, I think I might hallucinate at the audacity. The next Farmville reboot should consider this song. [5]

Ian Mathers: Nobody could get him to get to rethink that canter/wanker quote-unquote rhyme? That is wild to me. [3]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[melody-sketch-draws]

Y'all know absinthe cures artist block?

Drew this in 2 days after having artist block for several months

[bestponytournament]

Chapter 1: Part 1 Matchups

Matchups in text below the read more

Lilac Links vs Hoops

Randolph vs Queen Novo

Zipporwhill vs Fluttershy

White Lightning vs Flurry Heart

Ocellus vs Flam

Apple Strudel vs Fiddly Twang

Silver Berry vs Sea Swirl

Crusoe Palm vs Sky Beak

Lavender Fritter vs Hydra

Twilight Velvet vs Mudbriar

Princess Platinum vs Chestnut Magnifico

Aloe vs Sugar Belle

Charged Up vs Cheerilee

Sunshine Petals vs Ocean Flow

Pizzelle vs Apple Flora

Princess Skystar vs Starswirl

[forrestleifwoods]

Jessica Malone with Giorgi Khokhobashvili

Cante Ao Vinho 5250 Front Street, Rocklin, Cal. 95677 Friday, May 18, 2018

With a smile, bangs hanging attractively over her eyes, and guitar in hand, Jessica, and accompanist Giorgi (violin) -- both happily playing acoustic -- ease into the gentle lilt of "Gold Flowers of the West", rock wall appropriate to this quarry town as fitting backdrop, a mystery of the wine bar’s interior configurations balancing the acoustics to fine effect. The song, casually fading in the middle over rhythm guitar, is a brand new one inspired by how much Jessica misses California when she’s away; a line from which, 'My voice was meant for singing', accurately sets the tone for the performance. It is; she was.

Another new one, “Lonesome in Montana”, written for her mom, shows her strong vocal midrange. The evening's drink of choice, ‘Vinho Doce Dessert Wine’, a white port at a reasonable $8, is confidently well-fettled, itself, and so good, I couldn't put it down, even made it seem there was an extra verse to the song. Giorgi whips off a short solo, sharp and melodically mindful, and just at the upper bound of ideally loud. The people at the soundboard have everything dialed.

Dreamily languorous arpeggios alternating with complementary single notes open their third number, an exceptional piece of wistful melancholia that Jessica’s recorded twice, in two effectively differentiable mixes. The song proceeds, as many of hers do, like a laid back summer day out in the country; and later, during the bridge, Giorgi fills the role a drummer handles in some of their live shows: with his right hand he taps his bow on the violin's body, and with his left, gives the upper neck a four-fingered tap, all in a timed-tandem. I'd always heard it was a versatile instrument. She tilts her guitar, calling thus to the muses of the backcountry highways, and follows through with a decisive chord, bringing in Giorgi's violin solo of poetically aerial tones harvested from the Steinhardt strata; and he finishes off “A Fine Line” with a tranquil downbow.

Strong guitar chords begin the uptempo of the next number, as the violin seconds her into a song closely akin to The Beatles' "I've Just Seen A Face"; and if so, it's worth noting that McCartney, the songwriter, felt it rather country-western, making its rendition, here, that much closer to a match; fitting, too the performer's repertoire of well-disposed songs, romantic introspections of life that have all the relevance that bands posturing with dated credos never do.

Imperative chords, building to further solidity, soon adds the violin into another new song. There’s a total assuredness, and certainty, in her playing; and this she accentuates expressively, joyously; while Giorgi, in one of many stringed idioms, slots in an early, short solo. “Summer Weather” is my favorite of the set so far, a minor-keyed folk blaster with a muted violin wah wah solo; and if your eyes wander to the floor, as eyes that are well-wined might, you'll see a bank of at least six pedals in front of said musician -- or more; there were a lot. A weaving violin solo over downplayed guitar ends the number.

Next up is “Angel of Montgomery”, a Prine classic burnished to lustrousness. I can forgive the annoyance of an occasional cover when it’s a track heard so infrequently; and more, that the performer plays it deftly into their performance, as she does, here; and to even better effect, being from the viewpoint, a woman's, for which it was written. Meanwhile, Giorgi takes a polite background to Jessica’s voice, the latter of whom fittingly hits the guttural on key words, as “cowboy”. A fiddly violin solo appears late in as three more people arrive, give attentive ear; and no one leaves.

Picking up a ukulele for the next song, and, striking some crisp strings, Jessica leaves just enough room for the violin to easily glide into “Wake Up With The Sun”, the track that opens her second CD release. Her expressiveness adds to her art, wraps the audient in the song’s presence; the duo now playing to a reasonably full house, all but one table occupied. Facing Giorgi during an extended violin solo, she's on it with her ukelele, matches him; and calls it, another in a succession of songs well-pedigreed from the hinterland of country-folk.

Before their eighth, Jessica relates her earlier life in northern Cal, with her dad as roadie, a good tale. High-treble uke chords, sharp, even staccato, open “Best Love”, a slow and methodic piece, working into a passage of lone ukulele, the violin subtilized into a faraway background until we hit the anthemic chorus, the centerpiece of whose yarn she spins out as, “I'm blazing trails with my baby, Some people might think we're crazy”. When the lyric calls for it, her voice is once again throaty, and she employs it to optimal effect. A violin solo rounds it out, the whole song characterized by well-spaced four-stringed chords, sharp and in full-color contrast, wrapping up their first set. If I had a quibble from the show, and it’d be the only one, it’s that the chorus is a tad repetitive, could perhaps use an added couplet of rhymes to spur the intrigue; but it could also well be said that the song’s very particularity of character compensates.

A break followed; and as I resistantly fixed to make my unwished-for departure, it appeared that, of the audience, at least half were staying for the second part of the performance. To this she warmed up with what, I think I may safely say, is in typical Jessica fashion, galloping confidently into the piece, minor key in hand, opening the door to a winning progression of scales on this second set opener, singing, "...this love's on fire...", as Giorgi returns to take his place on stage for an obliquely darksome tune of a positively rocked Americana.

A gentle hum remained with me for hours afterward: the wafture from that stemmed glass; the rapture of Jessica’s songs. Looking at the numbers on her event page for the night, either everyone showed up, or found replacements to save face, a rarity for most performances where 'interested' somehow equates to 'going'. Call it a higher quality following: All but one person in the venue were wrapt or otherwise attentive during the show. Looking for more, to follow up on my post-concert exposure, from her web repertory she offers at least one tune I’d denote pure country (which I credit with the twang of steel I'd misremembered, as I found when returning to the song several days later), and easily a few that favor the folk idiom; but in the main, the body of her work strikes me as roping in both of these, the live experience then amplifying them into a rock-and-rolled lark, easily defining a genre -- if only a few thousand know it so far. Jessica’s spirited command of her instruments, including – especially – her measured voice, bright, and articulately projected, sees her casually flinging her songs out, so that you receive, with smiles, the joie de vivre her words imply. The old west mule-paced lilt of select phrasing on the ukulele pulls you right into her world of a happy past; and this she passes on to those present. She’s published two studio CDs (see JessicaMaloneMusic.com) all of whose tunes you can spot, in addition to some others on Soundcloud and Youtube. Even the high art-folk of Joni’s strings -- guitar and piano -- were never this emphatically unambiguous; and her recordings not only set the standard, but the bar, for well-defined notation from ‘68-75, over and above the (adjectivally speaking) less accentuate Judy, Judee, Judith, Julie, Jackie, Janis, Joan, and... -- oh wait, Jolene was a song -- these by way of epochal instance. I tend to think that if Jessica's catalog took a trip on the wayback machine, it'd find itself as a reasonably apt companion piece to Cheryl Dilcher's Special Songs  (1970).

Jessica's estimable recorded body of music reflects much of what I’ve cited here; but it's the live experience (I'll say it again) that is, conspicuously, that much more riveting, the contrasts, shadings, and dynamism of every chord paired with and against every individual note; and more remarkably, if possible, the smooth quality and control of her softly resonant voice, mistily opaque, expressing a wider dynamic range, far beyond the scope of what others of her stamp, plying her genre (or any other) are generally capable of; that said with no exaggeration. Timbrally, the twanged accent requisite of country singers is absent, barring a lone syllable or two. Unexpectedly, an occasional bluesy edge to her voice erupts, often melding into a dash of the sultry; then held, just, in check. It’s the way she flings it out. From edged kinetics with swing, to the pastorale, and no pretensions, she lets her hair down and keeps it there; artful songs of the heart seen through a window on the West, old and new, of languid evenings under the empyrean when the heart pines for the wide open spaces and skies; music of the open roads; and dusty, footloose, and freeborn, she alloys the not-inconsonant remembrance of faraway melancholy and secret triumph within her sound, which, at the end of the day is ever-optimistic, the cheer of a pot of gold at the end of each painted number. The heart, solitary and otherwise, always overcomes.

Songs of patient longings, straddling the wistful and the pensive, her voice ranges wide; and, into the warp and weft of her material, there’s even a piece of medieval literary history that fits, satin glovelike, into the theme of her work. Singing, too, of leisure days in the country and hearts fraught, but sanguine, these cancoes, bountifully personalized, lay out a banquet of character, markedly distinct from the lazy, lo-fi, one-chord, atonal folkie strum carried, when at all, by dragging, off-key monotone vocals mouthing naive lyrics; whose old-hat minimalisms are fobbed off by gushing fans, as the new, fashionably underground, thing; the amateur decompositional substance of whose fluff is, to a varying extent, fulfilled by the latter-day likes of Berryhill and Difranco; by early Kahn and Jewel; and into whose puddle, to Jessica’s credit, she seems in no immediate hurry to step. ~ And I’ll be the one to break it: only a mass pharmacopic delusion gives the Fateful Meds any remote semblance, beyond that of a glorified jugband, of actual musicianship, there being a point where lack of sophistication crosses the line from 'homespun charm' to 'unburdened by talent'. In marked, and classy, distinction, what we’ve got here is the blithesome antithesis: Jessica keeps the ‘art’ in artist.

______________ The venue, a partner of the Placer Wine Trail, is pronounced 'Cahntay Ah Veenyo', and translates to 'sing to the wine'; though there's no question but that the wine was singing to me. The helpful service from the lady behind the counter was exceptional; and I cannot more highly recommend the rich nectar of their Vinho Doce Dessert Wine. While hoping for the return of their riesling, and Sweet Dreams Dessert Wine, their red berry sangria, beckons, as does the apple caramel (which, sneakily, looks like a white wine). Cante Ao Vinho is located, picturesquely, across from both an historic chapel (of 1883 vintage), and a small grapevine-enwreathed orchard. adding to the local color, all on a side street just off Rocklin Road, and far enough from the thoroughfare to lend a sufficient sense of a quiet country air within the city, providing you with peaceful potations, ao ar livre, on their front porch. Their tasting hours are Friday-Sunday 11-5; the wine bar's open Wednesday and Thursday 4-8, Friday and Saturday 5-9; with live music on many, if not most, Friday and Saturday evenings, 7-9: Do check their calendar: CanteAoVinho.com/events/, as Jessica Malone is scheduled to make another stopover, soon.

-Forrest Woods

Source: Smaug Thought

[princejrlz]

Bought Doctor Whooves's Lab, Fiddly Twang and Big-Haired Bowler.