[Posted: 6/26/18 by George]
A big hello to all my fine friends, along with those who aren’t yet. George Harrison at your service—I think our darling Peach has mentioned me once or twice, so it shouldn’t be too great a shock to see my byline here. Like her, I’m an explorer here on Earth. Full disclosure: Peach is a native Equestrian through and through, but not me—I was born in Carnation Town, Summerset, not far from historic Grayvale; spent several of my formative years in Grundle’s Grotto, then took to my hocks and the vicissitudes of strangers for two years and washed up in Galloping Gulch, for all I know because it also began with a ‘G’. I was a pretty ripe fool by that time, but not too foolish to know a good situation when it bit me, so I got by on odd jobs while currying the companionship of those I personally fancied the brightest lights in a settlement on the savage edge of Equestria. Once I’d gotten to know art and culture a bit, I set out to know the world, and naturally, when the world grew a new frontier, I had to poke my nose through and sniff out what was on the other side. That’s the short version, as I know you don’t visit this website to hear a divvy like me prattle on. Just wanted to provide a splattering of background for my perspective before I started in on the topic before us.
And that topic, friends, is Love. Seeing as how Peach posted the other day about friendship and what it means to folks, and seeing as how Her Highness Princess Cadance is going to be gracing the Capital of the World next month—that’s New York, New York, for those keeping score—I thought it just might be the next logical step. Now love is a slippery word, as poets know better than lovers, and it’s got a hundred definitions, each one of which feels right the moment you hear it. But it’s not just a bundle of ways of saying the same thing over and over—’love’ refers to multiple concepts. Find some bloke who’s just said ‘I promise to love only you’ and ask him whether he doesn’t love his mother and his father, then, and why exactly not? Ask yourself, while you’re at it—can you love a friend while harboring no intentions of anything beyond friendship? Can you love a place? A concept? Is there a different kind of love for each of these things, and if so, what’s the thread that ties them all together? Is to love something just to like it more than the norm, or is it more than a matter of quantity?
Forgive me if I ask a lot of questions—I’ve got a blooming question mark on my heiney. I may have some glimmer of an answer—my own credo on the subject is that love is simply what keeps you going, whatever you may be after. At the lowest level, there’s the love of life we’re all born with, and that keeps us after sustenance and out of most harm’s way. Whatever else we do beyond survive, that’s one stripe of love or another in action. Liking something makes you choose it over something else; loving something is what makes you go out of your way for just a glimpse. But that’s just how I see it, and your perspective’s every inch as valid.
What I wanted to mull over is whether love is a different beast for human beings as it is for us. (Not to exclude Peach’s human readers—be great to hear from you too!) Now, I’m not green enough to claim there’s such a thing as ‘human culture’. The Earth’s too large and global perspectives too recent for any single culture to have permeated worldwide. My point of view is limited to places I’ve been—the American Northeast, Toronto, Vancouver, Denmark, Ile-de-France and Champagne, the United Kingdom, Saint Louis, Reno, San Francisco and Salt Lake City. And even among this meager fraction of the Earth’s lands, there’s more diversity on the subject of love than I bargain you’d find from Dream Valley to Manehattan. The Danes love without walls—they talk plainly about it and aren’t afraid to show tenderness. Salt Lakers seem to have two sides to their love—on the outside it’s a testament to community and Heavenly Father, like a candy shell, but on the inside the juice runs thick. Humans from Paris—that’s the City of Love, so they say—draw a line between emotional love and physical love, and to be frank it lets them run a bit wild. Irish folk, on the other hoof, are cautious about love, and that allows them to glimpse more of its branches but climb fewer, or so it struck me. Frisco once hosted a Summer of Love, and while the love there isn’t free anymore, I got the sense it now flows in every flavor like a whopping rainbow factory. Here in the Big Apple, I don’t even know what to think about love, and believe me, that’s the way I like it.
So is there anything humanfolk have in common when it comes to love, aside from what’s blissfully universal? Well, my gig over here is as an art consultant, which is a step or two below that of actual artist. I’ve been working with museum curators—helping them assemble collections relating to Equestria or advising them on how ponies are likely to take their exhibits, and one such establishment—the Metropolitan—is planning an exhibit on love throughout the ages to coincide with the Princess of Love’s appearance in town. So the Equestrian Curator asks me what the Equestrian attitude toward love is, and she’s really asking what ponyfolk in particular think of it. I’ll tell you what I told her, though it may sound like I’m being unkind to my human friends, and though I haven’t yet found a way to put it adeptly into words.
I feel like humans are given love, or they find it, or create it… whereas with us ponies, it’s simply part of us. We don’t talk much about Love, compared to humans, but as it’s in us from the outset, we don’t need to. Mind, human mothers and their babies seem to have love for each other built in, just as does every other creature under any sun, but that’s not enough to get you through life. That’s just a well-timed push along the way.
Why do I feel this way? Well, when I tried to explain to my friend the curator, it all came out in a big muddle. But if I’m right about love being what keeps us going, and if it’s true every pony has a destiny, and if a destiny is anything like a destination, then we’ve got to have love built right in, or we’ll never get started.
And folks, that’s about the best I can do. If I’ve hurt any feelings, I apologize, and if I’ve opened any doors, I pray they’ll remain that way long enough for someone to slip through.
A little final food for thought: If friendship is magic, what does that leave for love to be?
29 COMMENTS
Oh god. Seriously?
My stomach felt queasy. I should have known better than to read that before breakfast.
At this point, George’s sentiments to the contrary, I did not want food for thought. A long tract on what George thought of love was about the last thing I’d needed to read, and now I just wanted a blank mind and a new start. I wanted to forget about Peach. I wished it were football season. I even wished I’d been overscheduled for work so I could throw myself into it angrily and blame my boss for my troubles.
But I was underscheduled. After working Monday, I had Tuesday off again.
I had an impulse to bake another cake, like the one I’d made for Peach all those weeks before. Learn a new recipe, start fresh, and share it with Peach if I felt like it. But a healthier part of my mind told me I needed to talk to someone. Trouble was, I’d never been terribly popular and I’d lost most of the friends I did have when I left college. I was friendly with a few of my coworkers, but there’s a difference between having friends and being ‘friendly with’. I kind of wished I could see Kellydell and Seaswell again—they’d seemed nice enough, even if Kellydell was a little snobby--but I didn’t have any way to contact them.
I did call Laurie to thank her for hosting and to apologize for it getting weird. She brushed it off. “The longer I live with Jack, the more used I get to things like this being weird,” she told me.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “I mean, he doesn’t really let things go. Not easily. But that just keeps things interesting.”
“You think there’s any chance you two might set a date?” I ventured.
“I really don’t know, Ron. I feel like… I’ve just got to give it time.”
“Have you talked about marriage?”
“Yup. It just doesn’t mean that much to him. Jack says the way he sees it, we’re committed now. But commitments can break. I said, ‘But marriage is a commitment for life’, and he said ‘But it can still break! Look at the divorce rate.’ And I mean, I had to admit he had a point.”
“Not very romantic.”
“No, but I can’t complain—I’m not really the romantic type either. So we’ll just keep on until something happens or it doesn’t.”
The conversation didn’t last long and Peach didn’t really come up. I wondered what George would think of Laurie and Jack’s arrangement.
I then drove it from my mind by throwing myself into a search for a better job out there somewhere. I signed up for services and newsletters, I familiarized myself with listings. I spent the morning feeling like I was getting farther afield from who I was—looking into more and more unlikely-looking jobs and considering ever more intimidating measures to become qualified for them.
It felt strange. But then again, I told myself, I know my cutie mark isn’t a god-damned flowerpot.
Enough. I went for a stroll, got pizza for lunch, and tried not to think about ponies. I know it sounds impossible to try not thinking about something, but it can be done—basically, you just distract yourself until your mind finds something else to latch onto. But the thoughts were still there, waiting in the background, when I got back home. I sighed, surrendered, and gave my brother a call.
“Ron?”
“Hi Noam.”
“You never call me. You always wait for me to call you.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s up?”
I’d thought about how I was going to broach things on the walk back, but I hadn’t settled on anything. “I feel pretty terrible,” I confessed.
“What? How come?”
“I’m competing with a Beatle,” I blurted. “And I think I’m losing.”
“…What?”
“Sorry. You remember the pony girl I told you about?”
“You didn’t really tell me much. Just that she was ‘fascinating.’ And what, she keeps magic beetles?”
“No no. She’s dating a guy called George Harrison. A pony guy.”
“Ooh.” My brother paused—I could guess that he was trying to figure out how seriously to take something he personally found very funny. And yes, there was a stifled chuckle. “That’s a funny name for a pony.”
“He talks like George Harrison—kind of, anyway. Accent and everything.”
Another pause. “Well isn’t that something! But so what? Good for her, right? You said you weren’t into her.”
“I was wrong.”
Now Noam sighed. “Obviously,” he said. He wasn’t trying to rub it in—he was trying to sympathize. “Well, Ron, maybe she belongs with a pony guy? I mean, I don’t know how things have been between you, but this might be a losing fight. And you know I’m not putting you down when I say that.”
“Yeah. I know. But I can’t get over her. I wish I could like the guy, too, but I can’t.”
“You want to tell me about it?”
It was my turn to hesitate. “No. I mean, I don’t really feel like rehashing every little thing.”
“No? So why’d you call?”
“I just wanted to talk to someone, Noam. Just wanted to let you know what’s going on, that’s all. I don’t know.”
“Well geez, Ron. Does she know you love her?”
I started to say yes, but caught myself. “I didn’t use the word ‘love’,” I told him. “She knows I ‘like like’ her.”
My brother laughed. “Well, isn’t that the same thing?”
“You thought having an exciting new friendship was the same thing as love.”
“I still think that. So yeah, let’s assume she knows how you feel.”
“George thought it was a good idea to ask her to choose between us. We were all eating at a restaurant down in Red Bank and he just came out with it.”
“You were all eating together?”
“We were on a trip. To meet real ponies. I mean Terran ponies.”
“Sounds complicated. So she picked him?”
“She wanted more time to think. But the other day, we were having dinner with Laurie and her boyfriend, you remember Laurie?”
“Yeah, I remember Laurie.”
“Peach got drunk and called George her ‘special somepony’.”
Noam was silent a moment. “So what does that mean?” he laughed.
“It means she thinks of him as her boyfriend.”
“You sure about that? Maybe it means something other than what you think.”
I thought back to George’s post about a hundred meanings of love. “Maybe. But I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.”
“Well, you know what you need?”
“No. What do I need?”
“You need a girl. I mean a real human girl. Go on a date.”
I was immediately disgusted with his attitude, but at the same time I knew part of my disgust was because I’d been fighting off the same thought. “You think I should give up?”
“Just go on a date and see how you feel. It’s not giving up. It’s… it’s a different viewpoint. Know what I mean?”
Noam was in a long-term relationship that had hit some rocks. There hadn’t been any third party, so far as I knew. But they’d had fights over things I couldn’t understand, and I knew his girlfriend hated our mother.
“I think I do, yeah. I really do need some perspective. I was thinking earlier how I wished I was working today so I could get distracted by all the little things that make me angry. But my hours are being cut.”
“Uh oh. Cut for good?”
May as well tell him. “Until winter. In theory. It could easily keep going.”
“You don’t exactly have much of a buffer in your budget, do you?”
“No.”
“Wow, Ron. Sorry to hear it.”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe you should come move back to Trenton. It’s a lot cheaper here and I know a place I bet would put you up for a while.”
I felt anger swelling. “You mean that crack house? With that guy you used to do car stuff with?”
“It’s not a crack house just because a few drugs get passed around!” Noam objected. “Crack houses are filthy. I don’t think anyone even does crack there.”
“I’m not ready to come back, Noam.” Funny how certain I was of that when I said it.
“Well, what are you going to do? Find a roommate?”
I was quiet. I didn’t want a roommate. “I’m looking for extra work, or new work. I’m gonna keep looking, and Peach said she can help me out for a while.” A correction occurred to me: I didn’t want a roommate unless it was her. But if that wasn’t going to happen, maybe I would just have to get over her. Then the idea of a roommate might not seem so bad.
“Peach? That’s your pony friend?”
“Yeah.”
“I dunno, Ron. It sounds slippery. Don’t get yourself in a hole, okay?”
“Thanks for the concern. I’ll be all right.” A thought occurred to me. “In fact, I think you’re right about the date thing. I’ve got a girl’s number, I may as well call her.”
“Well hell! If you’ve got a girl’s number, then yeah! Call her!”
“Nice talking with you, Noam.”
“Anytime, Ron.”
It had been a frustrating conversation, as they often were with my brother, but it really had made me feel better. It’s funny how that works. Even so, it was a good few hours before I checked Turtlewood Coffee’s online calendar and settled my nerves enough to call the number Meg had given me.
What did I even know about her? Well, she liked ponies, clearly. She was quiet but seemed to have plenty of spirit, enough to be excited about riding Peach. She’d been dressed in light fabric—I remembered reds and browns. Something seemed off about her too, but that wasn’t necessarily a negative. If I’d had to name one thing that had driven me and Cindy apart, it was that she was so… well, I didn’t want to say ordinary, but she’d always toed the line and didn’t have a lot of tolerance for the little things that made me different. Cindy was confident and solid, and thinking about her made me hang up the phone and wonder how I’d ever thought we could have a life together.
It made no sense. I needed a girl with flaws, but with peaks too, and Cindy had just been… what the world expected of her. She’d liked me for being sweet and honest and kind of clever, but that was only ever just a starting point, wasn’t it? Why did it really fall apart? I asked myself. How am I a little bit off? What is my cutie mark?
I stood there five minutes before calling the number.
“Meg Dougherty,”said the little voice I remembered, not quite shy but very unassuming.
“Hello—this is Ronald Pfeffer, from the trip to Murkowski Ranch. Remember me?”
I heard a choked sound—a gasp? A snort? “I’d thought you weren’t calling. It’s been over two weeks!”
Oh. Yeah, I’d said I would call, hadn’t I? I’d been thinking I might, but I’d done the dumb guy thing and said I would. “I’m sorry. I’ve had stuff on my mind and let it slip.”
“Oh.”
There was a lot of weight in that one word. “It was nice meeting you, though, and if you’d like to get together somewhere…”
“I thought you were going to call me so your friend Peach Spark could introduce me to more ponies.”
“Right, of course. Well, there’s this place in Lower Manhattan called Turtlewood Coffee… they have a lot of pony customers, and there’s a lunchtime meet-up most Thursdays. Peach can’t make it there without taking the day off work, but I’d be glad to go—I don’t work every Thursday, it changes around. That way it wouldn’t just be you and a bunch of strangers.”
“Hm,” she said quietly, and then nothing. I waited. “Well, I’d have to get someone to cover for me. But I could do that. Would you want to pick me up, or meet me there?”
Embarrassing. “We’d have to meet there. I don’t have a car, I take the subway.”
“That’s fine,” said the small voice. “I haven’t had a car in over a year. I mean I have one, but it’s broken down. I never liked driving in the city.”
“Do you… do you live nearby?”
“Springfield.”
That was near, yeah. “I’m in Elizabeth. I couldn’t do this Thursday, but next Thursday’s good.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’d feel more comfortable if Peach could come.”
Back when I’d gone out of my way to get Meg’s number, I’d been imagining that if things didn’t work out with Peach, here was a girl who might like me, who might go on a quiet little date with me and see how things grow from there. Now I wondered how I’d ever imagined pulling that off. “I can check with her,” I said, with a rising sense of wrongness and no intention of actually doing so.
“That would be good, thanks. You can call me back when you find out.”
I tried to disguise my sigh as an ordinary breath. “Yeah. Will do.”
“All right. Thanks for calling.”
I hesitated. “You’re welcome. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
That had felt pitiful. I’d reached out to try and get myself in order, and now I needed someone to talk to more than ever.
I could have gone online to see if Barrett was on. I could have done something productive—that new recipe I’d been considering, more job searching, even something like laundry. Instead, I ran a deep, hot bath for myself and settled in for way too long. I wouldn’t have minded falling asleep in the tub, if it had come to that.
But then—knock knock.
I hardly ever get visitors unannounced, but I recognized that knock as Peach’s anyway, just as I had the first time she visited. A surge of panic went through me. She was the one person I wanted most to avoid, but even as I had the thought, I softened and realized I couldn’t leave her standing out there. I got out of the tub—I was long since clean anyway—cracked the bathroom door and called, “Just a moment!”
“It’s me!” called Peach.
I wrapped a towel around myself and went to the door. “Gimme a minute,” I called. “I’m wearing a towel!”
“I’m not wearing anything,” replied Peach through the door. “Am I underdressed?”
“I’m just going to dry off and put some clothes on,” I told her.
“Okay,” she replied. “Can you let me in first, though?”
Um. She seemed to have missed the point. Still, I unlocked the door and cracked it open, and Peach came in. She looked fine, having had plenty of time to recover from our dinner outing the other day. Since my apartment was a studio, I didn’t have a bedroom to slip into, so I went to collect some clothes that I could change into in the bathroom. But Peach was watching me with interest.
“Huh! So that’s how you look under the clothes.”
I was equal parts mortified and titillated. “I’m just going to put something on…”
She sat in the entrance hall. “You don’t have to. I kind of like this.”
“Really?” I made sure to keep my towel tight with one hand while I pulled out a pair of pants with the other.
“It’s funny. We’ve known each other over a month, and it’s only now I’m getting to see what you really look like.”
Was that really how she felt? I suspected I was blushing. “Well, if I don’t get dressed, I’ll have to keep holding up my towel.”
“You don’t have to!” suggested Peach. “I’m not wearing a towel.”
“But you’re a pony,” I protested. “You don’t have to.”
“I wonder if this is how Celestia felt with that Canadian girl.”
“You mean Aislyn Wakefield?” A diplomat, famous for being the only human being Princess Celestia had ever seen naked.
“Yeah, her! I like seeing how you move. Your back is pretty.”
I held my bundle of clothes in my lap and sat on the edge of the couch. “No one’s ever told me that before.”
“Well, maybe you don’t show it off enough.”
This was awkward. “Look. Here on Earth, you don’t get to just see someone naked. Not unless you’re in a serious relationship with them.”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess I suspected as much. Even so, aren’t we pretty much best friends?”
Time to face the pain head-on. “The other night, at dinner, you got drunk.”
“I’m sorry about that,” said Peach. “It was stronger than I expected.”
“You said that George was your special somepony. Is that true?”
Her ears went up and back, and she looked down. She didn’t say anything.
“Right,” I said, heading into the bathroom. “I’m getting dressed.”
It didn’t take long. I put on some simple clothes and came out, still a little wet. Peach was sitting on the rug in front of the sofa.
“You’re still barefoot,” she said, looking up.
“Well,” I shrugged.
She watched my feet as I walked over and hurdled the arm of the sofa in order to sit down. “Know what I think about human feet?”
I shrugged again. “They’re silly?”
“They make you look kind of like dragons.” She looked up at my face.
“Not what I expected to hear,” I admitted.
I watched one ear swivel about. “The things about hooves is, they’re just as big as they need to be.” She lifted one of her own for a moment. “Minotaurs walk on two legs, but even they have hooves. But you… it’s like, when you walk, you’re claiming territory. This is mine, and this is mine.” She started stepping slowly around the sofa.
I laughed. “That’s not the point of walking.”
“But it feels like it to me, when I watch you! Dragons do the same thing—they clap their feet over the ground like they own it.”
I put my feet flat on the floor. “It’s nice to see you happy about one of these discoveries for once, instead of upset.”
“Why would I be upset? I like dragons. I mean, I’ve never met one, but… I’ve seen them now and then, and I like watching them.”
“So tell me. If you like watching me so much, why am I not your special somebody?”
Peach sighed. “You know, my parents would raise a fuss if they even knew I was dating an earth pony. I don’t want to think what they’d say if I told them I was dating a human.”
I was a little shocked. Bigotry in Equestria? But then I remembered that unicorns were known for being snobbish sometimes, like the ones in Canterlot. “Is that it? You’re making relationship decisions based on what your parents would say?”
Peach backed off a step. “No. No, I’m not. It’s just… that’s something that makes it uncomfortable for me.”
“Is that why you’ve barely mentioned us in your blog?”
She gave a wounded little nod.
“Your parents would be upset that George is an earth pony?”
“I think they’d like him if they got to know him. But where I come from, ‘earth pony’ makes unicorns think of big, dumb farmers, with dirty hooves and glassy eyes, who never do anything but work and sleep and eat…”
“Wow. Racist much?”
She winced, and I regretted saying it. “You really don’t think I have an open mind?”
“No, you definitely do. I guess I was talking about your community. Couldn’t you just explain he’s not like that?”
“Yeah. Sure. Maybe they’d believe me, but then it’s ‘What will the neighbors think?’ and ‘What will the children be?’ Layers on layers.”
“Children? You want children?”
“I don’t know! I’m just saying, that’s where the conversation will go, and that’s just the start of it. I can’t even imagine what they’d say if I told them I had a human boyfriend.”
I thought my heart had already sunk on this account, but I could feel it sinking now. “So where does that leave us?”
“I wish I knew.”
We were both silent for a while, and then she added: “Are you mad at me?”
“I don’t think so.” I leaned back, unfocused. “No,” I decided.
There was another silence before Peach produced another question. “Do you love me?”
Despite Noam bringing it up earlier, I hadn’t been expecting it. My mind went back to George’s blog post that morning, and how love meant a hundred different things and there couldn’t really be any single right answer to that question, or if there were, it would take years of research to find it. So I decided to just give the answer I wanted to give: “Yeah. I love you. I do.”
“Really?” The pony before me climbed to her hooves, her eyes welling with hope.
I leaned forward and stared into her face. “Of course,” I said quietly.
“Of course you do,” she repeated.
We stayed there, watching each other. ‘Tender’ is the word for this moment, I thought. Like a wound, or a piece of delicious chicken. Well, that was a dumb thought. I knew the way to trap her—it was to ask her if she loved me. But I couldn’t do that. I knew she wouldn’t want to answer.
“I’m sorry,” said Peach Spark.
I got down on my knees and hugged her. Lightly. My arms in her hair. My chin touched her face and I drew back. “You don’t need to be sorry,” I said. “Don’t be sorry.”
“I can’t choose either of you,” she whispered. “I called George my special somepony because that’s what I wished he could be. And I wish you were my special someperson.”
“Can’t I be? Even if you don’t tell anyone?”
“I don’t think so.” She sat down again. “But you’re the one who knows the rules around here,” she added softly.
“I liked playing magnets with you,” I confided. “It was a really special moment.”
“I had to give that kit back to Second Sight, anyway,” she murmured.
I let her go and sat back on the sofa. “You remember that girl from the ranch? The one who rode on you?”
“Of course I remember her. She rode on me!”
“I called her up. If I can’t date you, I figured maybe I could date her.”
Peach’s expression looked mixed. “You’d probably be better off with another human being,” she conceded.
“And what about you? What if it turns out you really like George—what if you love him? Do you stick with him, or keep looking for a unicorn stallion you like?”
Peach closed her eyes and shook her head.
I sighed. I stood up and walked around behind the couch. “I’ve been a mess all day.”
“Because of me?” she asked.
I shook my head. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t get worked up so easily.”
In a tone that suggested sudden fear, Peach asked: “We’re still friends, right?”
I was nodding before I’d fully processed the question. “Yeah. Of course! Of course.”
“Then we’ll be all right, won’t we?”
The question came from a simple place, and it suggested that Peach had a simple faith. I could respect that. I wished I had that particular faith myself. “I guess if there is such a thing as the power of friendship, we will be.”
Peach smiled as if she’d been crying. “Did Meg say yes?”
I took the unexpected question in stride. “She wants to meet more ponies. I told her about Turtlewood Coffee, and she wants you to come too. You’d have to take next Thursday off work, though. Do you want to come?”
Peach’s laugh was a beautiful one. It was the kind of laugh you could imagine bursting a window made of frost, sailing over a city and echoing everywhere. “Yeah! I’ll definitely come. I went to one of those meet-ups and I keep wanting to go to another.”
“Then it’s a date,” I declared.
“Is it?”
“Might as well be.”
Peach flicked her ears. “For who?”
I shrugged.
She smiled and walked over to join me.
And that was Tuesday.
5469830
This guy knows his stuff.
5349047
Generally Pony on Earth stories have to have obligatory horrified reaction to the "We eat meat and fight a lot and stuff" thing.
Love is when you can trust someone with anything.
Love is when you stick together no matter what.
Love is when you help each other through tough times.
Love is when you help each other grow stronger.
Thus, love can happen to anyone. You can be straight one day, get a crush on someone with the same gender as you the next.
Some of us just ignore it because it doesn't appeal to our sexual preferences, and move on.
And some mistaken love, for lust. Which will most likely end in a breakup one day.
Because when we truly fall in love, we don't fall for the other persons appearance, but for who they are.
Well, that went pretty much as expected. At this point he really only has himself to blame anymore.
I guess it's not really relevant to this chapter, but over the course of reading this story I've really started to wish it was about one of the princesses, instead of some random nobody. Not because of the relationship angle, because I've kind of lost interest in that altogether, but because I'd love to see what it would be like for the oh-so-ancient goddess of the sun to meet her own gods; to see her emotionally cope with the blow that would be to a creature that can't help but be stuck in the deep tracks ten thousand years of pretended divinity would leave in a mind.
Not to say I think less of this story now, though. I probably wouldn't care about the idea if this story wasn't so good in the first place. I don't think I'll ever forget the feeling of reading the line "You made us simple!" That line has a "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" degree of impact, and with much the same filial sentiment of betrayal behind it.
please tel me there will not be any clop...
(otherwise I am out)
5525308
Teen rating, no sex tag. I'd say that's a no.
5525325tag's change,seen it happen
This story makes me sad.
Wish they'd kiss already.
Love is a persistent and pervasive appreciation for something that makes you just want more. Can it be the strength that carries us on? Certainly. Is it the only thing? I don't think so - some people are just stubborn.
Does Ron love Peach? I think so.
Does Peach love Ron? Questionable.
Like I said previously, Peach and George have the benefit of better knowing what to expect of each other when going through this. Ron and Peach don't have that. It's making Peach hesitant and that's leading to Ron suffering while trying to muddle through the difficulties Peach is having.
It's not a matter of her stringing him along in the traditional sense; she has to put in extra effort beyond what her society expects to get past Ron's additional complications, and George is making that particularly difficult.
5525943
I disagree with both. Ron barely has any idea of who Peach really is. He's in love with his idea of her as his fair-weather friend. Remember how earlier in the story, she accuses people interested in relationships with ponies of wanting to be together with a dream? She basically has the right of it. When she reveals to him that Equestria has racism he would have to overcome, he's shocked and dismayed. It's a utopian fantasy to him and she's part of that. He never even realized that her family's opinion is of real importance to her at all.
Similarly, putting "how much do I want to not upset my parents" and "how much do I want to be with him" on the scale, only to have it come out way in favour of the parents in both cases, sets a pretty clear upper limit on how much she can really love them. That limit is rather below "questionable," if you ask me.
So, stringing them along. She has already made the decision on both the issue of parents and on who potentially to choose, and long ago, too - at least long enough to filter the human out of her blog right from the beginning. Since it's ultimately rejection for both of the males, she's really just trying to maintain feelings of affection from them that she doesn't plan to return at any point.
5526210
I guess the question is whether she's actively chosen by the point. It could go either way - she's stringing them along because she doesn't want to let go yet, or she's stringing them along because she can't bear to choose yet. Either way, I see nothing but pain for Ron in the near future, similar to what he went through on their previous outing, because he really needs her to make a choice sooner rather than later.
Considering who Ron is, the lingering possibility will keep him around but the lack of any answer will keep digging at him.
5526328
The way she throws a leading question like "do you love me?" at him, right after he has finally started to put her on the spot and gotten no real answer to much of anything at all, just seems so transparently manipulative to me. It pushes him back into trying to appease her, after he only just managed to decide that flirting with him, while still refusing to commit in the slightest, was not being fair to him.
In the end, she gets the meetup with Meg that she wants and he gets exactly nothing he wants, not even so much as a definite statement on whether they have a date. It makes me start to feel like he's actively being used by her.
5526367
Well, they do have to consider Meg now. Though, yes, her unrelenting inability to commit is troublesome at best.
You know, I think what Ron really needs to do is sit her down and just lay out everything rather than continuing to back off. But who am I to talk? I do exactly the same thing...
5526429
He actually didn't have to consider her. Meg asked him not to call back unless he could get Peach on board. By just not asking Peach to attend a meetup, he could've avoided having to deal with that. He's desperate to please right now, though, what with continually having the affection he wants held just out of reach in front of his face.
5526452
What I meant, is that since Meg is coming to their next "get together" they both now have to consider her. He's technically going in order to date Meg, but he would rather it be a date with Peach. She may be noting that as well, which throws a whole new wrench the works between her and Ron.
5526612
I'm pretty certain Meg doesn't consider it a date in any capacity. She pretty much all but shot him down when he implied he wanted to get closer to her personally. I think neither does Ron, now that Peach is coming along. Meg might be considering it a date with Peach, though. She's being a bit weird about it.
This story made me feel a lot like I did after my last breakup.
I'm not going to say thank you. But I am going to say well done.
This... story makes me feel uncomfortable, but in a good way. Well done.
you might get a message saying this story was removed then re-added to my favorites. i'm not getting notices that this story is updating and it's not showing up in my unread list. now that i know it has updates i shall read! vieva la checking on stories!
Looks like the readding fixed it.
I have to say the story well..... Last chapter started getting very depressing. This one even more so.
Does he love peach? He is head over heals in love with her?
Does she love him? I don't know. With how she questions things? She may only be looking at him in a way to study. But I'm not peach so I don't know.
Is love feeds our drive to go on, with how badly he is taking things now, his reduced hours, and peach being wishy washy........ I see a very high chance of him committing suicide.... This character doesn't seem to close with his family. And has 2 or 3 friends other then peach but they are all distant. From experience IRL as well as fics... This raises alarms.
How would peach take that? She chooses George or neither of them and a few days later she finds out he was fired or hasn't shown up for work. Doesn't answer his door.... What if she busts in or talks the super in tenant or owner into letting her in, and finds him dead?
How would George feel if he found out? If peach chose him or neither? Would he break off the relationship? Would he go into depression? Would he take it in strides?
George gives off this feeling that he is always on the move, things don't bother him much. He feels like if peach didn't choose him he would just move on. He seems laid back and happy go lucky.
I know I'm putting in lots of what's and ifs. You could end the story here, but that would leave things open ended and unresolved. And when these happen, well they feel like "I give up" or "I ran out of ideas" or "lazy" endings.
I see potential to make a good story but these last two chapters well.. It raises a red flag I've gotten from other stories were the human just.... Loses every thing. To many times do I see characters fall into deep depression and then instantly recover.
I would really like to see this story continue. I want to see it through to a real ending. Hopefully a happy ending. Hopefully not a "the guy is suddenly fine with everything and moves on" ending.
In truth I'm really rooting for the human mc. I don't know where things will go or what will happen, just hope.
Sorry for ranting and making you and or other readers depressed or further depressed. I felt I needed to get my 2 bits out there. Put out things that you might not have thought of or considered.
I kinda think I should just delete what I have typed out but then I'm just bottling up my thoughts. I considered putting down my predictions for the next chapter, but after what I have said I feel like could sway your decisions. All I'll say is I don't know if 20 chapters is enough or too much depending on how things go.
5526731
5526612
I really should sleep but I had to read your posts.
You both make good points.
The way she's going is going to drag him deeper into depression.
And meg.. Well until you pointed that out I over looked that but I re read the phone call with meg and.... Well I see a large chance that meg wants to meat and woo peach. She may even only want to be with ponies and is just using him to get what she wants.
I know someone mentioned breaking the relationship off. Well that would mean cutting all ties with peach, and moving. He doesn't want to move to his home town. And he could potentially lose his job. But even seeing her in the stairwell would be painful for him it could be a very long time before he could even look at her, he may possibily never be able to, or even look at a pony without feeling the pain.
Love has risks and rewards. And losing love can leave a wound that can never close... A love that was a lie or make believe is even worse.
5535734
Yup.
I know his type and what he needs more affirmation than Peach or Meg seem willing to give. "Yes" or "no" would be fine, but all he's getting is "maybe." Whether that's from self centeredness or indecisiveness is a matter of the reader's perception, but either way he's stuck in a bad place and I feel so sorry for him.
5525188
"Because everyone else does it" isn't really a good reason. It doesn't make any sense in those stories, either.
5537461
Well it sort of is. Humans (we the people typing these little tales) are social, pack-minded people. If "the pack" is doing it, then it must be normal. So in order to not appear not abnormal, we don't do things that those around us aren't doing.
5535734
Not really. People need to deal with failed or never-even-happened relationships all the time, and most do it without running away from anywhere they could possibly see a reminder of it. When I say "break it off," I mean "stop pursuing her and hoping for a chance, before the situation gets even worse."
Gotta admit, I really don't like George. Not in a serious way, but enough that I would never be able to consider him any sort of close friend.
He just... He comes across as being so free spirited, which in this case is a bad thing. Enjoying and pursuing the new and the intriguing due to your sense of wonder is one thing, but in George's case he just feels like he doesn't have anything he really holds tightly to. It feels like he'll give up anything and everything in order to pursue his next emotional high with barely a thought to what it will cost the people he leaves in his wake.
Not that I really like Ron all that much better. He's kind of a complete loser.
I mean, I'm not hating on people who don't have high paying jobs or anything, but he has a shitty job and doesn't even do it well. Even once he knew exactly what to do in order to get the results he wanted, he did nothing and then complained about how things didn't go his way with scheduling. And then he did the same thing when it came to Peach. If he really wanted her why didn't he actually make a move?
I just... I like the dynamic between Ron and Peach (though that might just be because Ron is pretty much a blank slate with no real personality), but the only character in this whole story I find myself actually liking is Peach.
5537473
I'm not sure what that has to do with this at all? Yes, it is something that a lot of people do but if you give it a little thought you realize it doesn't actually make sense. I mean, there's plenty of stupid things that large numbers of people do or believe in, but obviously that's not a good reason to believe in them yourself. See: Appeal to Popularity fallacy.
It doesn't make sense in-universe for this story and it doesn't make sense in-universe for the other stories it appears in. "Everyone else does it" is a terrible reason to include anything in a story. A lot of Fimfiction authors write terrible wish-fulfilliment self-insert Mary Sues, a lot of them use horrible grammar and spelling, and a lot of them write... well, a variety of terrible things. The fact that a lot of other stories feature those things is not a good reason to include them in your own work as well.
5540715
Since you appear to be unable to perform simple logic.
By "A good reason" and then stating what I did, I implied causation of the event we're speaking about. Psychologically speaking.
5335364 That's a good perspective, and it may be what motivated me to bring up the possibility of Ron moving back home in the last chapter. I hadn't thought of things that starkly.
5335798 Glad if I've been inspiring you to write! Is the story it's been helping with one that you can link to?
5337868 I like how you and others are commenting about how this relationship progression resembles those you've seen in reality or fiction, or been through yourselves. I appreciate the perspective.
5337996 I'm sure I would have enjoyed the big post, but I definitely appreciate the sentiment.
5346017 I'm impressed by how well you've analyzed the situation.
5349047 Until your comment, I didn't realize that Rarity's father was seen fishing for a couple seconds in an establishing shot in... what was it, "One Bad Apple"? I feel like the storyboarder or animator who included that made a mistake. Even so, if I'd noticed that, I might not have written that bit for Peach. The fact that griffons kill animals for food, presumably, is almost as repulsive to ponies as the fact that humans do so--a little less so because their bodies more clearly call for it. As for the fish we saw in Fluttershy's basket during Winter Wrap-Up and the fact that they keep carnivorous pets--they could be feeding them only on fish and other animals that die naturally, or at worst allowing the animals to hunt naturally when they aren't groggy from waking up from winter.
Regardless, this isn't the last you'll be seeing about the treatment of animals in Equestria!
5369710 This is an interesting point of view! I can certainly understand the idea that sometimes it might be for the best for someone to get their heart broken. I honestly don't know what's going to happen--beyond the next chapter, I only have glimpses of where this tale is going to go. When I started out, I didn't even know it would be a romance!
5525216 Touching! Thank you for this.
5525281 I think I will write a Celestia story before this fandom is over. It may be my next one--I have a document with ideas. Thanks for highlighting a part that had impact for you. Hopefully this story will return to the feeling that hit you so hard before it's done.
5525342 It's true--as I mentioned above, I didn't know this would be a romance when I started writing it and only added that tag later. That said, I can guarantee that if any sex happens, it will not be depicted explicitly.
5525943 Again, a very valuable opinion!
5526452 And now we have an in-depth conversation! I'm delighted that you guys are talking seriously about these characters, even if I'm a little saddened that the consensus is so bleak. There's a conflict in having your characters' flaws pointed out at length. I'm glad they feel so real, but I feel a little protective--after all, I enjoy writing them! Anyway, thanks for your analysis too. :)
5526467 I read Pillow Case in response to someone's response to an author's note, and I contacted the author and got a response, but it seemed they'd run out of ideas for the story. Which was really too bad, since I quite liked it.
5529599 Well, I'll say thank you, then. And I hope you managed to find your way back to normal.
5542228
I'd be happy to read it. Don't worry about that feeling too much, though - it's one of those "perfect storm" kind of things. Getting even one line on in a story that completely right, in terms of combining context, intent and expression, is really rare from anyone. It's it just seems to come together all at once for a moment. I've read a dozen books by some authors that still didn't manage it once in any of them.
Roger Zelazny does it every time, though. Somehow.
And if your characters engage us enough to bother talking about them, you have no reason to feel they need protection. They just succeeded at their job in a different way. :-D
5535687 Thanks for the long comment. At the risk of spoiling, I have to say that I don't think suicide is on the radar for Ron. Things just aren't that bad for him. The equivalent to committing suicide would be moving back to his old home in the Trenton area--he doesn't want to do it, but it's a back-up plan available to him, so it would be something like 'pulling the trigger'. And if it happens, Peach could still suddenly show up to find him gone.
Feel free to share your predictions after the next chapter or two, if you don't want to influence me beforehand.
5539156 One of my pre-readers loved it when Ron fantasized about punching George in the face. He says it reflects his own feelings about dolphins and their incessant smugness. So not liking him is definitely reasonable. I don't think I've ever heard 'free-spirited' used to put someone down, though. Sorry that I've failed to make Ron likable for you!
5540782 Aw, Pinkie, be nice. For what it's worth, I didn't include Peach's revulsion of fishing because I felt like it was somehow obligatory or normal. I began this story because I'd never seen a story about an ordinary pony coming to Earth, and I wanted one to exist. So, norms don't really enter into it.
5542394 I'm truthfully still recovering from the depression the last two chapters caused. possibly because I was led on in 2 different online relationships when I was younger. Both just using me to get something they wanted.
Possibly because I feel this characters pain of being in retail.
Possibly other reasons.
I can hope that the story ends in a way that I picture in my head but.... duno.
5542394
For as much as it matters, I think this is a thing you kind of have to include in any story set on Earth, because of how big a part of our culture the implicit acceptance of living by the death of others is. Disgust of it ought to be as natural to them as it is for us to be disgusted by leeches or botflies. What I'd really like to see someone do, as such, would be to include the flipside of that. Vampire myths are basically a combination of the fear of rape, being eaten and being parasitized combined into one conflicted package of sexual tension and (self-)disgust.
A look at how ponies deal with "prey fetishism" as a cultural and literary phenomenon would be interesting - just so long as it isn't clop, God forbid.
5542504
Here's an e-hug 'cause I know that exact feeling. Well, the one where a story just happens to punch you in the feels. I've had a number of stories strike me hard and leave me down for periods of time. The very first night I got into MLP fanfiction took me about 2 months to recover from.
So have another e-hug.
5542149
It's more that any slice of life HiE with quality ordinary character to character interaction really provides a boost for me. Seeing Peach and Ron go back and forth generally leaves me feeling pretty creative while also providing inspiration for the kinds of things I'll need to do in my own story.
5542531
no problem. thanks for the e hugs.
5542325 I wallowed in the tragedy of life for an evening and was fine the next day. Looking forward to seeing how this story ends.
5525325 As long as it stays that way, I'll stay, too.
200!
Love is that desire to give someone everything even though they have the power to take everything from you.
5778022 Sooo much truth. To love is irrational, but we do it because we care. For some reason.
This isn't showing up in my favorites anymore, I wonder what happened.
*Sigh* This was a heavy chapter. Kind of heartbreaking. Hope things'll turn out alright.
I think it is very sad at this point.
I am amazed he was able to say he was still friends. He doesn't seem to have a ton of ties...
I could see it going in one of two ways from here really. He can MOVE to some new city and forget about ponies and try to make a life, OR he can try going to Equestria to find a new pony. His talents might actually be more useful there than here, and I think he could get enough ponies to vouch for him.
Staying there and limping along will eventually kill him.
Six people out of 200 don't know a good story when they see one. Great job! This has been a pleasant read so far.
However. ( Cue dramatic music )
I, the reader, can only take so much teasing before I start to get mad, you diabolical mastermind. You made things so completely complicated for Peach and Pepper that even I'm confused.
WHY CAN'T THINGS BE SIMPLE! I JUST WANT TO SEE THEM HAPPILY IN LOVE DAMNIT!!
Hopefully things will resolve as I read on.
Whoa, this chapter hit home really hard, as did the one before it.
You have a freaky good way with words, Ringcaat. The story reads simple at first glance, almost conversational, but it's eerily realistic in all its concepts, characters, problems… the whole world you created just *works*.
How come gems like this story aren't further up the rating ladder and thus easier to find?
First of Rod definitely loves Peach, and Peach possibly loves him also>>6096596 Same fam
So she's been deceptively keeping him in the dark.
And her excuse is that other ponies wouldn't approve.
Suddenly I find myself not liking her very much. She should have said something. That she didn't is a betrayal of the understanding they came to. For him to simply accept that and then follow with this:
He's being a doormat. She's been simultaneously deceiving him while riding on his attraction to her for her convenience. And his reaction is to say he loves her and agree to continue being a doormat.
All she had to do was tell him the truth. But she couldn't do that because she was getting too much out of having a human "friend" at her convenience. Was so worried about losing his guidance in the new land that she deceived him out of fear that she wouldn't be able to continue using him if she told him. And he's just told her that's totally ok, she can keep secrets and lead him on and he'll go right on putting her up on a pedestal anyway.
I've lost respect for both of them.
I shouldn't be surprised. You given plenty of warnings. Her irresponsibly borrowing money from the guy who makes much less. Her petty back-and-forth of telling him that he should be jealous and then complaining when he is. Now it's revealed that she's been keeping secrets, and she's a mean drunk and blaming her decision to to not date Ron on her parents, while simultaneously saying they wouldn't approve of Geroge either, and yet he's her special somepony anyway. Who's she lying to? Ron, or herself? Both?
There've been plenty of signs that Peach is a bad pony. But I'm disappointed to see it illustrated in this way, and I'm disappointed in Ron for being such a willing doormat now that it's all coming out.
Peach is a bad pony. Walk away now, Ron.