The future depends on me, and my horde of Evil Overlords.
Written for the April Pre-Reader Secret Santa event.
My prompt: Celestia never had a lot of free time, and now that Luna is back to help run Equestria after her 1000 year exile, Celestia finds herself with more free time than she knows what to do with. Luna discovers that during her exile, Celestia never had a special somepony, so she takes it upon herself to set her sister up on a blind date, in an attempt to expand her sister's horizons.
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I think she did pretty despite not be the "Princess of Love". That being said she could use a nice colt in her life.
I see pretty picture.
I like pretty picture.
Pretty picture make me happy.
Oh, and i didnt read your thing, just saying.
2407939
You might want to take another look at the ending.
2407985
Oh I know they don't hook up, lack of a romance tag kind of is a clue
2408012
2408021
Oh... right...I stand corrected
lol luna is trying to hook her up, with the wrong gender
2408012
Awww.....I read your comment and now it is spoiled
Hmm... To be honest, I'm kinda disappointed by the ending. Not in a latent homophobic way -- I keep that reserved for when I'm marching about with placards on the street -- but more in that it completely contradicted what I'd taken this story as being about up till then.
See, up till that point I'd thought this was a comment on how, being so long lived, Celestia'd be so damn stuck in her ways that any attempt at removing her from them was doomed to failure: that her attempts at dating would naturally turn towards her mentoring the other pony and guiding them to happiness at the expense of her own. And that made me all happy over the tragic payoff I was certain'd be further down the line until 'mare' appeared, I went "oh" and withered like a balloon.
Oh, and whilst you're tech. accurate with consonance, that's usually reserved for sounds after the syllabic nucleus. Using it instead of alliteration here is like using "mammals" when referring to a group of people: you're right, but not correct.
2415144
Thank you for your critique. To some extent, I agree. While I admit that playing with expectations was part of the exercise, such expectations were not the soul of the piece.
Had I been intending this a serious tale, I might have taken that route. Indeed, Celestia in my Workerverse has largely moved beyond relationships (whether to good or ill end), and is functionally asexual.
Perhaps I should have flagged more appropriately, but this was intended as a humorous one-off story for a group event, which I hope explains why I made the choices I did.
As for the "consonance" reference, I also agree. "Alliteration" would have been more accurate, but "consonance" possesses the same "hard c" sound and thus flowed better to my literary ears.
Thanks again!
2415199
I can see where you with going now with using consonance. It occurred to me about an hour afterwards that its use was probably meant to add onto the already existing alliteration, and so I now feel quite silly for having brought it up.
As for flagging it, I'd disagree. It's flagged just fine; if anything, I should have paid more mind to the "Slice of life" tag at the start. I would argue, though, that if a comedic angle was intended, your execution pre-punchline's too good. The characters and style engaged me enough that, when it cut away, I was left more with unanswered questions like "Why is Celestia putting so much effort into hiding her orientation from Luna?" than a 'heh'.
I dunno. I guess it just left me wanting more than what was offered. I suppose this means I'll be tracking down your "Workerverse", then.
2415696
The 'Workerverse' is currently a trilogy and a side story, starting with 'Order from Chaos'.
I do hope you enjoy it.
I got the impression somewhere during reading this that this story utilizes the "gender role" flip-flop idea. I'm referring to the concept that our world is historically patriarchal and stereotypically the women in our society are more likely to seek out toward long-term, family-raising relationships, but with Equestria being seemingly matriarchal then stallions would be the ones looking to raise some foals. Am I on the money?
2418765
That's how I see it. There are more mares than stallions, but there are less pressures on mares to settle down with families. As it is a Platonic society based on what one provides to the culture, having lots of kids is slightly less important than the marks on one's arse.
2419746 I admittedly am of the line of thinking that the stereotypically feminine urge to "settle down and raise a family" comes from biological, evolutionary sources. Just like men stereotypically have the "rut everything that moves" urge that comes from the biological, evolutionary urge to procreate, but not necessarily stop and take care of what you created. Of course, these are just stereotypical, "on average," anti-ideals.
So the idea that mares are "less pressured" to settle down with families because there are less stallions doesn't quite click with me. By my nature (rather than nurture) standpoint on this, mares would probably be MORE likely to claim a stallion as early as possible since there are less colts to grab. Or, polygamy with multiple husbands.
Either way, I enjoyed this story! I like where you went with the prompt from beginning to end. Though, I am slightly curious if there was an "in-world" idea in your head for why Celestia was so firm with her "NO" at that one point? Was it just to cut down that line of thinking before it went too far, or because of something in her past, or something else?
2420298
The societal pressure towards 'Equestria First' has led, in my mind, to the following:
There are mares who want families and lots of kids. Great for them! They can go find a stallion to make that happen, and often-times these mares will have cutie marks about strong families or the like. There are also mares who have no interest in children, beyond doting on their friends' kids. That's great too! These mares tend to have cutie marks that lend themselves to adventures or more solitary pursuits.
Stallions, on the other hand, are brought up to understand that they are, if not precious, then vital to the continuance of the pony line. There is a constant but subtle push towards settling down and fathering a few foals. Most stallions, then, are wed or in an arranged relationship with a mare. Or more than one, if you listen to the rumors from the frontier.
It's funny - this subject actually touches on one of the upcoming stories in my Fine Steps series. You might see a similar discussion there in the next week.
2420320 Genetics vs. Cutie Marks... The endless mystery~
I read this prior to reading the prompt, which gave me the tremendously intriguing experience of going, "Wait, it was a blind date?" I honestly spent the whole story with a tiny wonder of just why Celestia was in a restaurant, talking to this pony.
This is basically a nice piece of advice wrapped up in a pony-shaped box. That's both a strength and a weakness. :)
I liked this fic, Celestia seemed very in character and I very much liked the ending! Good luck to her
This is a sweet (=charming, touching) little story, but I think I'm going to have to agree with 2415696's long-ago comment. You do such a wonderful job selling the idea that Celestia is self-sabotaging her blind dates, that by the time you get to the punchline you're no longer telling the same joke.
It … hmm. Still sort of works as justification for Celestia launching straight into relationship counsellor mode, I guess. But it raises more questions than it answers. If she's smart enough to fix ponies' love lives with a sit-down chat, then her equally long-lived sister and the Goddess of Love damn well should be savvy enough to fling her at a wide variety of potential partners even if for some ludicrous reason they haven't already known her preferences for centuries. It's a little bizarre trying to square that plot hole with the amount of thought which clearly went into crafting things like the pony gender roles you use.
All that having been said, this was a fun little ride, very punchy for its size, and my complaint won't keep it from getting a like and fav.