The Painted Composition by Petrichord will be the next story I will be reviewing today. Aristocracy and Prince Blueblood, eh? This will be a refreshing read, so let’s take a look, shall we?

EThe Painted Composition

• MLP: FiM
• Slice of Life

Blueblood deals with an aristocratic challenge in the form of an unexpected guest.

• Prince Blueblood
• OC

Petrichord · 3.8k words  ·  29  0 · 640 views

And yes, there will be spoilers ahead, as with every one of my reviews. Beware!

Summary

Blueblood deals with an aristocratic challenge in the form of an unexpected guest. It's a seemingly impossible task, but when the alternative is publicly losing face, Blueblood might not have a choice at all...

Content/Plot Analysis

To start, I would like to talk about the first act of this story. It showed how Blueblood, being a member of the aristocrats, had been delegated the responsibility to entertain a foreign dignitary with a tea ceremony. Well, it wasn’t necessarily “delegated” to him, but this was pushed to him by another noble named Diamond Dowry, in a move of political chess.

I found this scene to be nicely captured, thanks to a myriad of factors. Most notably, the dialogue between the nobles and their servant in High Equestrian made the conversation genuine. The flowery language, embellished with rhetorical questions, made the dialogue sound formal and royal, even. The subtleness in the body language and the measured acts of decorum described by either party also helped to strengthen the authenticity of the scene.

The rare betrayal of the characters’ true emotions by their body language was also a great touch to convey how nobles would portray themselves in court. The characters were evidently shown to be careful and to even be precise in their conduct throughout the conversation. It was also fitting that the chapter’s title was “With a smile drawn on” since they were always intent on scheming and plotting, to conceal their true thoughts and emotions. In fact, this scene reminds me of the office politics that we have in the real world.

Being unacquainted with the strict procedure of hosting a tea ceremony, Prince Blueblood was surely doomed. However, he was going to do what many do when faced with a problem that they seemingly cannot solve – bluff or “smoke” his way through.

What I had difficulty deciphering in this part of the story, however, was what Prince Blueblood had managed to cook up in his mind when his servant was simply conjecturing. At this point, Prince Blueblood seemed unwell according to his servant, Pocket. Wishing to listen to his servant’s conjecture on why he was feeling this way, Pocket rambled on about dehydration. Somehow, this gave Blueblood an idea for the tea ceremony later.

As it was not explicitly shown in the story, I do not know what Blueblood had managed to deduce from this line of reasoning. Neither am I aware of how this could possibly be translated from the conversation between him and Pocket. I’m uncertain whether this was supposed to link to how Blueblood was going to just bluff his way during the tea ceremony or not.

Debatably, one could say that the author could introduce Blueblood’s thought process, albeit more subtly, similar to the previous lines of development. The logic disjoint in the links was concerning, for I do not remember if the story did address this in the future. It appeared that Blueblood simply drew that inspirational idea seemingly out of his mind as Pocket was conjecturing.

In any case, Blueblood did his best to remain collected as he was “bluffing” his way through. Here, the story describes the procedure Blueblood took to the finest of details. I agree with this stylistic choice honestly, for I believe that Blueblood was trying to convey as much confidence as he could muster to “bluff” his way out. By showing the level of precision and his attention to detail on a microscopic level, the author shows the herculean amount of effort Blueblood had thrown into this to avoid shame.

Indeed, in games of politics, one would best avoid being shamed and bested by your peers, for it would affect one’s stature in court. Respect and power are highly sought after, after all.

The story does admit that Blueblood did not follow the tradition of hosting tea ceremonies, and I have to allude to that fact. However, the foreigner did not take much notice of this, interestingly. In fact, the story shifted to show the dignitary and Blueblood having a far more casual conversation, unbound by the necessary nuances and decorum required in royal courts.

This conversation was more relaxed, I should say, than what the foreigner was expecting. I guess it was in part due to the careless and break of normalcy in the tea ceremony. More interesting to me was a point that the foreigner brought up during the conversation which was of a greater personal link to Blueblood himself.

The foreigner seemed to imply that he hated to conceal his true expressions in court and to adhere to the appropriate, politically-correct behavior. This ceremony seemed to show that he was glad to find another pony outside of his own court who perhaps thought of the same way. In this part, the story does justice to the foreigner’s characterization – to show the true, inner self about him when he opens up to Blueblood. Being young, I would not be surprised that he did not like the so-called “way of their courts.”

To Blueblood, I was sure that he was savoring the rare opportunity to be open for once in court and share his thoughts more readily, instead of censoring them. The foreigner hoped that this experience would change how Blueblood would conduct himself in the courts, as he was more than capable of doing so in their respective conversation. However, we see another perspective of Blueblood at the end of the story, who failed to do so. He remained indifferent to his peer’s suggestion after he was officially crowned as a prince.

Hence, this story does an excellent job in the characterization of Blueblood, to explore his young self, albeit through an experience that he had forgotten to result in the character he was in canon.

Language

Few technical errors of much significance could be picked up. There are only a few formatting errors that can be fixed easily with a screen through.

“Ohayo Gozaimasu,” Blueblood began, bending his forelegs in a bow so deep that his forehead pressed gently against the the straw mat beneath him.

“Ohayo Gozaimasu,” Blueblood began, bending his forelegs in a bow so deep that his forehead pressed gently against the straw mat beneath him.

Stance

This is a refreshing tale, one that I could undeniably recommend. The author has done a great job in developing the story’s characters, which were given ample time to breathe. While there was an aspect which seemed slightly incoherent, I have enjoyed this relatable story.

Content/Plot: 7.8/10
Flow/Communication: 7.3/10
Language/Readability: 7.5/10
Overall: 7.5/10

<For archive purposes: 7.5/10>

I appreciate the review! Figured that you could use a breather on some affairs, so i didn't want to offer up anything too hefty. Hopefully it was to your taste.

re: the confusing bit: I had intended for the trigger word that sparked Blueblood's inspiration to be "coffee:" tea was his duty, and of course the inadvertent reminder wouldn't sit well with him, but Pocket's similarly inadvertent reminder of a different beverage right afterward which could also be prepared with a similar amount of exacting decorum - hopefully enough to be considered honorable and respectful - was intended to be the verbal catalyst that gave Blueblood the idea to try his particular ceremony. I didn't want to make the idea too obvious, since I really did want Pocket's mention of it to seem more accidental than a deliberate attempt to cue Blueblood in: there's been more than enough stories of Blueblood being the incompetent buffoon that he is in the show proper, and I wanted to credit him with at least some degree of cleverness in order to make his ingenuity seem genuine. Apparently, though, it was discreet enough that it seemed a bit random, which is a mistake I'll try to correct for future stories.

As for the "The the" bit - I tried to use the site tools (back when it had them) to import the story from Gdocs instead of directly copy/pasting it, and the importer messed with the formatting something fierce. There were tons of repeated words, merged sentences, unintentional line breaks and spaghetti code around when words were or weren't italicized - none of it intentional on my part, and all of it an absolute nightmare to clear up. Evidently, I wasn't thorough enough. Still, the experience proved quite instructive as to how problematic said import tool was after all. :p