Everypony knows Prince Blueblood is spoiled, foppish, and most critically, an ass. Nopony would ever take him to be a serious threat - merely a small obstacle to their plans.
That's by design, but that doesn't mean Blueblood is happy about it.
A side story to my Four Princesses, Four Demons series, which began with Cadance the Unbroken. Readers of that series will notice a few connections, but this story is crafted to be enjoyed independently.
Featured from 7-26 to 7-29, peaking at #1. Thanks, everypony!
Chapters (1)
Always love when people put a spin on good ol Blueblood.
And this... this is a nice take.
Kinda wanna know more, honestly, but I don't think it's at all needed.
Bloody good job, my dude!
~Skeeter The Lurker
I do not like this version of blue blood I love this version of blue blood 😻 this is awesome I honestly hope to see more stories about these characters
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Glad you liked it!
To say this story went through a lot of revision is putting it mildly.
As late as yesterday I was debating pulling the Luna section entirely, but it didn't feel complete ending it before that, so I expanded it instead to make it worthwhile.
And yes, while I could do a little more here, I think it's best to leave it up to the imagination. These and several other stories were eventually going to build up to something larger I doubt will ever come out, but in case something changes the hooks will still be there.
Either way, I'm glad to be back to publishing things and not have it feel like pulling teeth - I actually forced myself to take a month break to try and recover from some burnout.
That would have been a messed up way to prepare Blueblood for her offer.
I love reading stories where Blueblood is more than he seems.
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Quite happy that you left it in, really. Taken alone it's a very nice nod to Luna's enigmatic mystique but when you add the context of her princess story it adds so much more.
And its nice to see you enjoying writing and recovering from burnout.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Why does everyone think Blueblood is a prick?
What about Rarity? She was only interested in him because he was a prince.
But no. Blueblood's the one in the wrong.
11312570
let say they both in the wrong in here
Luckily, they make up and stand together in "Sweet and Elites"
derpicdn.net/img/2013/7/8/367410/medium.jpg
I like the premise. It's always nice to see a Blueblood fic that isn't a mean-spirited excercise in beating up the whipping boy.
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Because people generally fall prey to exactly the social expectations that Blueblood was written to point out the absurdity of.
The gala episode in its entirety was about building up everyone's expectations, and then deliberately shattering the illusion. Applejack wanted to make money selling carnival food at a formal event? The episode showed that her expectations were ridiculous, and she didn't get what she wanted. Fluttershy wanted to play with the animals? They rejected her, and she didn't get what she wanted. Pinkie? She wanted the Best Party Ever! But no, this was a formal party, and not the sort of party she wanted. All of the girls went in with expectations, and none of them got what they wanted. The only one to get what they wanted was Spike. His expectations were reasonable. He just wanted to hang out with everypony and have a good time together. And he got that, at the end after the gala was destroyed.
Rarity? She wanted the "commoner meets the prince and they live happily ever after fairy tale." Ever see Beauty and the Beast? Pretty Woman?
Cinderalla?
Rarity even shatters her glass slipper.
Blueblood was a deliberate gender inversion. Everything that he does in the gala episode is a stereotype of female behavior. Expecting Rarity to pay? Women do that. Expecting Rarity to put down her cloak on the puddle? That's an old-timey show of chivalry. Hiding behind her and expecting her to protect him? Again, stereotypical female behavior.
The point of this was to show little girls how obviously ridiculous these expectations and behaviors are, by showing what it's like to be on the receiving end of them rather than presenting them as ideals to seek out. The message here was "Hey girls, it's unreasonable to expect these things from men. You wouldn't want a man to treat you this way, so don't treat them this way."
At the end of the day, Cinderella teaches a bad lesson. It teaches girls that no matter who or what they are, they can expect to be sought after and swept off their feet by the fantasy man of their dreams. No matter what they bring to the table, they can expect and deserve to be treated like a princess. And this lesson has resulted in an awful lot of little girls growing up to become bitterly unhappy women.
Unfortunately, the mostly-male fandom entirely missed the point, saw a male character failling to live up to their "expected role" as a man, and reacted by bashing on him to put him back in his place. This is, ironically, "toxic masculinity" in its original clinical psychological sense. "Boys aren't supposed to cry because that's showing weakness, so I'm going to punch you to teach you to act like a man." --> "You're supposed to treat a lady like so, and since you didn't, I'm going to write 10 years of fanfics about what a bad pony you are."
Blueblood was intended as a lesson for little girls to have reasonable expectations of men. And the male fandom has largely responded by bashing on him to reinforce the very behaviors he was intended to ridicule.
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My own headcanon is that sometime after the gala, Rarity and Blueblood met again under different circumstances, and he laid the facts out to her; she's not the first pony who saw him as an easy mark to get into high society, and she certainly won't be the last to try and exploit him for their own purposes. In the process he made her realize that she was acting like numerous other gold diggers who'd come before her, leaving her mortified at her own behavior. After that they started to get along on better terms, knowing that they could be friends but nothing else would come of it.
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I'd always worked under the belief he was being that way on purpose, because he knew Rarity was just after him for what he was instead of who he was.
I love this version of Blueblood! He's like a more altruistic version of the one in the Blueblood Papers series.
Funny. I wrote Blueblood in a simple punch in the face joke. This is intriguing and I thought about writing Blueblood like this as a protagonist. But... The more I thought about it I thought about how it would have been so much easier for Blueblood to disappear from the public eye entirely, use false names often, use false FACES often. living like Jason Bourne in a cabin in the middle of the goddamn woods getting his orders through magic smoke and in code. (OK not easier but more effective. No mater how good Blueblood might be the faking an idiotic persona thing falls apart more often than not because it is actually pretty hard to play an effective idiot because of how unpredictable they are. So he would get caught eventually and get captured blowing his cover if he even survives.) Male Ninja's hid in nature and within the ceilings and walls, female Ninjas hid in plain sight passing off as normal beautiful women but they always where on the move changing cover identities often if they wanted to survive and stay active. So Blueblood's cover of the "Rich Idiot" isn't effective against anyone with few minutes to spare and a need to figure out why he seems so easy to hate.
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Kudos to you for remembering that scene exists. It seems forgotten by most.
I am intrigued by the idea of Luna and Blueblood teaming up for some some espionage and investigation skulduggery antics as part of Equestria's Bureau of Intelligence
Good story!
My favorite detail was the realization that Luna might be marking off two check marks (recruit and test Blueblood, kill or capture for questioning the Realm’s foremost assassin) with one action.
I've never been the fan of the trope of blueblood just being a spoiled brat, I've always liked this one where he's just covering up his nihilism. Makes him a more complex and compelling character IMO, but I never read about him just being so damn badass!
Great story, one of the best posted on here in a good while
I must admit I am a bit of two minds about this story. It is good,I really like it and it flows well, with interesting characterisation however I also feel like the "It's actually an act." is a bit of an cop-out. What I really liked about the others was their "Yes they are X, but they are also more."
No... if it's true, did she do it to test him but willing to suffer the consequences if Blueblood failed?
Huh...Pony Section 31. Willing to do those distasteful things that keep Utopia pure, and spinning on, against those forces that simply desire to tear it down because its there to do so.
That said, if she did do this as a test of his abilities...you have to wonder how close she was. We know the Alicorns can do mistform(well, Luna and Candance can, Celestia and Twilight never did), so she could have been hanging around nearby as a watchful cloud of sparkles, to stop this if it went too far in either direction, or to see if he'd take justice into his own hooves. Either way, she's still just as bad as ever, but in a different way. The night and the white knight, they deserve each other, in a way.
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Celestia actually has the best "self dematerialization" feat of the four of them. This is from season 1, episode 2:
https://i.imgur.com/nC8IYlp.mp4
Not only is she able to demateralize/rematerialize her body, if distance to the horizon in Equestria is the same as on Earth, that she was able to traverse it in the time shown in that clip and then come to a stop implies a speed of mach 87.
There would be no need. Celestia apparently has the ability to remotely view and monitor a pony's entire lifetime. Remember this scene?
And if you need a remote observation feat for Luna specifically, here's Luna watching/interacting with Scootaloo remotely through the moon, after a dream ended.
The cost of harmony isn't free.... Let's goooo!
Fun read here. :)
Bruv, as a "Blueblood is secretly a hero" author myself, reading this was so damn good. I'm actually kinda sad that this is a one off, but maybe it could be something like a "prologue story" to an actual one? Made me laugh with the genuine smugness when he's standing next to an alicorn.
I'd read a sequel to this, if there was one
This was a good one from the "character that seems average is actually a special agent kind of gal/guy" type of stories.
Maybe it was a bit dialogue heavy, but it flowed really well, your writing is colorful without being flowery.
And it was a nice change of pace from your four princess stories.
Upvoted.
Heck, let's live it up, you are followed now!
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While you are probably right in aspects of the male-fanbase's views on Blueblood, its also a case that if any fanfic writer needs to come up with "evil, corrupt noble", which is a fundamental trope of fantasy settings, going from "rude, arrogant, petulant prince" to "corrupt, egotistical, petulant prince" is a fairly easy jump in terms of writing characterization. The same reason as to why he's typically pitted against Fancy Pants, who is often characterized as the "virtuous noble": Taking premade characters and altering their characterizations slightly to work for your story is a mite easier and quicker than making a character from scratch.
The changing in how writers write Blueblood is just as much because the tropes Blueblood has played into have been done to death, and a reaction out of writers subverting our preconceived expectations of Blueblood. Very much similar to how Don Quixote was written as a subversion of chivalry stories in a time when chivalry stories had been done to death
Dang. She really is getting sloppy if she can't weigh down a body properly anymore. Or she's just not used to that method of disposal.
Knowing that off the top of her head is incredibly incriminating, but by this point it's clear Steel knows that Blueblood knows she did it. She's also mostly convinced that he won't live to tell the tale, and thus the point is moot.
In the words of another wetwork specialist, "Feelings? Look, mate, you know who has a lot of feelings? Blokes that bludgeon their wife to death with a golf trophy. Professionals have standards."
One of the better Blueblood's I've seen. The last scene with Luna was outstanding, especially the unsettling questions she left behind. Thank you for another great entry in this series.
I see what you did here. License to Kill and all. I wouldn't be surprised if Blueblood's code name is 007. I suppose that makes Luna a cross between Nick Fury and "M" (Or would that be Nick Furry?) You capture both elements of the inspiration well. On one side is the sophisticated, highly-cultured and calculating individual who is emotionally detached from others. On the other, the well-disciplined, controlled, but brutal assassin who acts to protect Queen and country, dispensing, in his own fashion, a rough form of justice that can easily be "disavowed" by those in power.
Blue works in the dark, to serve the light. He's an Assassin.