I actually really liked this chapter, even without the smoke. There was a lot of character in this chapter, which is what makes a story.

6611578

I was hoping that would be the reaction. Thanks. Pirouette is loved by some and hated by others. She was due for a chance to show who she actually is.

This was absolutely perfect. And about god damn time pirouette got some!

I really liked this chapter too but I can not wait for that smoke, the story has been sitting unattended to for so long I really feel starved for it.

6612564

Sorry. Between a seriously crazy work schedule (I only recently stopped working 6 day weeks, and was doing them since... late May?) and the fact that I'm not personally into MLP anymore, it's tough to get chapters out. There will be another chapter this month or early next, so help me, and smoke will be a thing.

Excellent chapter! One of the best to this story. I've always enjoyed the dynamic between Pirouette and Done.

Be interesting to see if jealousy rears its ugly head now...

Holy shit its been a bit.

Loved this chapter, I think I love the deep relationship that Done and Pirouette share the most.

Not that any chapters this far have been anything less than outstanding, but this was just... Hnng. So many wonderful feels between these two, and it honestly turned what might otherwise be rote rutting into something emotionally charged and memorable.

6613133

>Implying rote rutting is a bad thing

Kidding of course. Thanks. :) There was no way I could have Done's oldest (in all senses of the word) and best friend get the same treatment in the bedroom as some new mare he thought looked fun. Pirouette's role in the story is, honestly, to provide some drag, some guidance. She ends up being the one ponies roll their eyes at and say, "Yes, mother." Giving Pirouette a chance to be a character instead of a role was long overdue, and I'm glad people have been enjoying it. I've had people suggest I kill her off. I've had one compare her to a character from Les Miserables! (If the reader who filled out that survey sees this, I'm sorry! Les Mis was an absolute favorite of my ex-wife's, but I've only heard bits and pieces of the musical, and never touched the novel!) If people want her dead, or want to think of her as fantastic, I have no problem with either--but I'd like them to really know her first.

Don't you dare kill her off. She isnamazing and with this chapter she really is fleshed out more. The dynamic between the two is way more organic and I love how Smoke DOESN'T need to be used with her. Seriously she doesn't need all the mund control, she is in love and that is trippy enough.

Plus you need a mare like that to keep Done grounded, it is great for him to not become super evil.

So... Got a little convoluted at the end there.
Is Day pregnant?
Is it hers, or is she being a surrogate for pirouette?
Was that whole part a prank?

Halp.

6613353
Day winds up getting Done off regularly during work. It's implied, but not explicitly stated, and Done tends to pump a lot in. In normal situations, she'd be heavily pregnant by now.

Her doctor is a fertility expert, though, and thus skilled at causing and preventing impregnation. Pirouette and Day aren't going to get pregnant from Done unless they really want to, and so far, neither have the inclination.

Does that clear things up for you?

6613342

Don't you dare kill her off.

I CAN KILL HER OFF IF I WANT
YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME
YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD

...6:35 am. I haven't been to bed. It may be showing. >_> Anyway, while Pirouette will die before Done if they both die of age, her death would come well after the story ends. Pirouette is not a character who will die.

6613356 Yes, thank you.

6613356 You only specifically talk about Pirouette and Day, this brings up even more questions about the rest of the cast!

I was also wondering about it, since the whole pregnancy thing was never talked about and suddenly Done getting upset about it was a bit jarring. What is he expecting to happen?

6613211 In one hundred percent agreement. And while plain ol' rutting can be fun in its own way (hell, my first fic on my alt-clop account was/is nothing but), what you've accomplished with every character here is making us care about them in some way. And as I'm now posting this not directly after a three hour concert, a two hour drive home, and an hour of attempting and failing to fall asleep? I'm a bit more focused and confident in my opinion when I say:

Pirouette really deserved a scene like this--character, conversation, and carnality all--and you delivered.

6613622

You only specifically talk about Pirouette and Day, this brings up even more questions about the rest of the cast!

I was also wondering about it, since the whole pregnancy thing was never talked about and suddenly Done getting upset about it was a bit jarring. What is he expecting to happen?

He's obviously planning to smoke the stork, and tell it the foal belongs to some other ponies.

Pirouette and Day are confirmed to be taking steps. Other ponies are as well. (Deep would not risk losing her figure; she's reliant on her beauty and sensuality to catch Done's eye, for example.) Still other ponies are not. (Peach Pit said flat out that she wouldn't mind being pregnant if he's the father.) The option exists in the setting for mares to determine whether or not they can get pregnant at all. ("I thought unicorns were only supposed to have a little magic, that matches their special talents!" --Spike, Boast Busters. Day's doctor here is basically her OB/GYN--her special talent is fertility, and her magic includes ramping it up or basically squashing it.)

There are some mares in the story not using such a method who aren't pregnant. Obviously not every mare sleeps with Done daily. Aside from that, Done is himself affected by his smoke. His ability to get it back up and come again in no time? That's not natural. His ability to basically paint a room (See "Frosting, Indeed") is certainly not natural. I haven't decided whether or not this is canon, but it's conceivable to me that he's less fertile, or that his sperm production isn't ramped up with his semen production (which has the practical effect of being less fertile, since the swimmers could get flooded out, or have too far to swim, etc.). He is not sterile though, and he has a LOT of sex. You can only roll the dice so many times before you roll snake eyes...

Edit: Oh, right. Done's actual planning? You'll have to wait and see as the story progresses, but it hasn't been forgotten.

People suggested that Pirouette should die? Isn’t that a bit drastic, even if someone doesn't likte the character? Afterall this is a story with a very low mortality rate. I’m not sure if anyone has noticed but I don’t like Primavera (), yet I don’t want to see her death. Especially not since there are other ways to remove a character from a story than just killing him/her.

But enough of that and onward to the story itself. You did a really good job with Pirouette in this chapter. I was one of the people who felt that she did nothing but nagging Done in the recent chapters. While it was probably well-deserved it was nice to see another side of her and show us how deep the friendship between her and Done truely is.

I’ve to admit I somehow liked the idea of a female main character that never had sex with Done. It made her somewhat unique among the other characters. But I guess it was only logical that she would end up in his bed sooner or latter considering that the Smoke subtly makes every mare that comes in touch with it attracted toward Done Deal. It probably took only longer for her because she wasn’t as heavily altered as others.

And since Piourette was the main character of this chapter and none of my comment would be complete without a little bit of nagging, her's one complaint about this chapter: The group photo destroyed a lot of the great atmosphere, built-up in the last chapter. Was it really necessary to end the evening with a saucy plot picture instead of having everypony just go home with the only naughty thing happing between Done and Piourette?

6625449

The group photo destroyed a lot of the great atmosphere, built-up in the last chapter. Was it really necessary to end the evening with a saucy plot picture instead of having everypony just go home with the only naughty thing happing between Done and Piourette?

Actually, yes, it was. It was mentioned in the previous chapter as how they got Jade to settle for helping Done, and while I could've simply referenced it, it set up very important conversation that followed: Specifically, how every one of Done's mares was more or less okay with it, from embarrassed but willing on up to enthusiastic--and then there's Pirouette, being the one who's ready to maul Done when his girls are all happy. Without some situation in which Pirouette was at odds with the rest of the girls, she wouldn't have had to face herself and make the conclusion that led to the self-realization. Could I have done it without putting naughty bits on display? Almost certainly. But that's the nature of this story, it's the nature of Done Deal himself, and to a lesser extent, it's the nature of any mare he alters. This was the fitting route to get from point A to point B without sledgehammering Pirouette's realization into play.

I want to see the next chapter... It's been too long.

6851031

It's in progress. Sorry it's been so long, but the holidays are a very depressing time of year for me. I wasted a lot of time just sitting in a chair being unhappy from mid/late November until recently. I'll put some time in on it this week/weekend. Pray or cross your fingers as your faith/superstitions may require that the east coast gets the storm they're talking about in the news very early Friday morning. A snow day would be spent writing.

6851969

Now I'm mixed between praying for it, and against it. >_>

One of my family are taking a flight to America for a job, and I really don't want this to be the last time I ever see them.

6858396

Which part? If they're not coming in over the eastern seaboard, they should be mostly fine. If they are... er, well, it's more likely the flight will be delayed than that they'll just plow through it.

6859020

Flight was cancelled. Taking a new one away from the storm.

So.....update?

7034085

I know, I know. >_< I apologize for how long I'm taking. I've got around 6,000 words of the next chapter written. There's motion. Just not much.

7034209 It's OK, just making sure you weren't dead. ;-)

Testing, 1 2.

This story always felt like it was leading up to something great, but never quite reached there. Some massive take over of power in the city, building an empire, ect. ect.

7330166

It was building and may yet go farther. I've lost a tremendous amount of my drive and interest, despite attempts to keep it alive, and despite kindness and encouragement from my readers, though, which is making continuing very difficult. MLP went south for me more than four years ago, and has been a total write off since December 2013. I'm trying to get going again, but at this point the only reason for writing is because there are readers who still want it. I'm considering writing something non-pony and less expansive to just get writing again and see if that gives me a boost or leads me away from the project entirely. Sorry for the delays. It would be a lot easier if I still cared about the show at all, or if I'd ever really gotten involved in the community other than here.

I don’t know if you have lost the rest of your motivation or not. In any case I want to thank you for this amazing story. Your story gave me several hourse of good entertainment. Even if there will be no ending, I’ll remember Smoke as a great story.

Thank you again and good luck in your future endeavors.

7463606

Thanks for the praise. Obviously, it's not going well, and hasn't for years. I'm going to make (another) attempt to kickstart myself sometime this week. I'm honestly not sure how many of my readers still care. I... honestly really don't, 99.9% of the time. Then that 0.1% rears its head (usually triggered by hearing a song I've come to identify with a planned scene in part 2, WAY ahead of where we are now), and I regret either starting this in the first place, or my inability to keep it going regularly. If/when this gets going again, I'm going to have to divorce it a bit from pony canon. That doesn't mean I have any current plans that fly in the face of MLP canon, just that I'm going to have to not CARE about it the way I used to. Smoke will have to stand on its own, or fall on its own. MLP itself and I are done with each other.

What a ride. It's a crying shame that this probably is the end of the story, but it's been a really great read, and I'd like to thank you for writing it. ^^

7520185 I don't care if it's MLP canon or not best story I've read on here in a long time

This is personally one of the best stories I have ever read, not to mention probably my absolute favorite.

Please, tell me this story will be continued.

8448099
It's... not looking good. It's been almost two years since the last chapter, and none of my fondness for MLP has returned, not even a whit. I keep meaning to do something, because there are people out there who want it, but then I go to spend that time, and it just doesn't happen. I've been unable to convince myself that I want to spend 5-8 hours (or more) working on another chapter in a setting I just no longer care about at all. All that said, I do keep coming 'round here to check for notifications every so often. I just dunno.

8463138

Well, all I can say is that I hope you decide to return to this story. It's one of my personal favorites, I would hate to see it go to waste.

This is probably the one and only story going in the capsule that is incomplete. The exception not the rule

Is this going to be continued?

As most of you know, Tumblr's banning porn on the 17th of this month. Since Smoke is pretty well dead in the water, I won't be bothering to relocate any of the images or other content from the Smoke Tumblr. If you came upon this story after I quit working on it and weren't aware there were images, here's your chance to see them before they're gone. Otherwise, it's your chance to archive them if you wish to do so. The Tumblr is "Smokefiles."

finish the story, please?