Just a little, old baby kitty...
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Fed up with the constant complaints against Prince Blueblood, Celestia resorts to drastic measures to help fix the problem.
*Updated for FimFiction posting*
Originally written for the November 2014 Writeoff — "Title Drop". Check out the competition here. Follow the conversation here. Leave your comments below!
Come join us next month!
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Okay, I'll give this a read.
5317065
Step right up. First post award goes to you!
No one can dislike a story where bulb look learns his place
Just curious. What exactly was the prompt for this "Title Drop" WriteOff.
5317248 That was the prompt... Title Drop. It was kind of an inside joke going back to last month's topic "Over the horizon." That prompt got dropped into practically every submission, so as a meta joke, people voted this month's prompt to be just that.
Well, that explains why Blueblood was the way he was. No one bothered to teach him different. He looks to be a product of his upbringing...which was probably servants and other nobles.
5317468
Gives some context to the character. Can't really fault him if he doesn't know any different.
5317068
Hurray, what do I win?
5317458 What do you mean 'the prompt got dropped in every submission'?
5317565
As is customary, you win the internetz. Please do not confuse this with The Internet as that is a completely different thing.
5317584
Quite literally, it means that the prompt itself was written in some actual form in the story body. It was too quirky a line not to reference directly and in came across pretty thick in some cases.
The actual prompt: "Just over the horizon" became anything from dialog to scene description to directional indication. One story was about a character named "Horizon" that his ex was still trying to get over.
When the prompt voting for November came around, someone submitted "Title Drop" as an option. People voted for it because it was a silly meta reference, and it won. Then we got to write stories about it. I was one of the few which took the prompt at face value. A lot of stories wrote about dropping books or obliterated their own title (or the titles of the other stories in one case) within the submission itself. All in good fun of course. Who knows what we'll get next month.
5317176
I agree!
That's going to be a lot veggies. Food is going to have to be ordered at least once a day at this rate.
Anyway, I liked this story. Then again, I like redemption stories involving Blueblood (and Trixie). Have a like and a fav.
5317731 Thank you kindly sir (ma'am)!
I had fun writing this one. Gave me a nice change of pace from the longer epics I've been working on.
5317737 Sir, please.
I get called ma'am by too many telemarketers.
5317745 Better than, "Is your mom or dad home?"
And now I have the Green Acres intro playing my head.
5317837 At least you aren't seeing the vague comparison to Paris Hilton that I got when I started writing this.
Although, a lot of the readers here probably aren't old enough to appreciate Green Acres or Mr. Ed.
I love this already. You've captured his whininess perfectly, and you're remedying it so well. All of the characters are well represented, no OOC here.
Ratings:
Five annoyed Applejacks out of five.
Five moustaches out of five.
Five Celestias-who-know-exactly-what-they're-doing-and-that-is-trolling-Applejack out of five.
Yay development!
The last two chapters went noticeably quicker than the rest, as if you wanted to get them over with. Otherwise, I quite liked it.
5318098 The original version skipped over a few sections to fit within the 8k word limit of the contest. I actually liked and kept the sudden shift in the last part as I felt a full write up of a few days doing the same kind of thing would get tedious—both in reading and writing.
Glad you enjoyed the read.
As much as I like Blueblood redemption stories and this concept in general, this is WAAAAAAAY too fast. I'm never going to believe that ten minutes of being forced to give apples to ponies is going to change a guy that has behaved totally different for his entire life. The kind of profound life lessons that Blueblood needs to learn should take time.
Once again, instant attitude change is so story breaking for me. The road to redemption is long and hard; this is not that. Also, why the hell are people cheering for him. Most ponies would either greatly dislike, or be neutral towards Blueblood. They have no motivation for this. Maybe if they just showed up to watch some ex-prince struggling to pull a plow and really put his all into it, they might cheer, but not like this.
5318147 I see your point.
It might make a little more sense given the positive attitude of the show and the way I hope this turnaround could differ from the typical villain reformation. I don't really see Blueblood as a bad guy - more misunderstood and product of his upbringing than anything. He's not evil, he's just a royal jerk. The point being, he's not trying to be bad. He doesn't know he's been acting poorly until it gets pointed out and he experiences life on the other side.
Thank you for your comments. I appreciate your time in reading the story and giving your input.
Looked
*blueblood bashing*
quick-checked last chapter
*blueblood reformation*
Downvote. On general principle. Both themes are already used ad nauseum, not saying that reformation fics are probably the second worst kind of fics.
So.
Celestia took away all his possessions, crippled his magic, deliberately set him up to be 'humbled' (aka humiliated) by thrusting him in an environment utterly alien to him, and tells him he only gets his life back by following her instructions on a written note.
Which he can't even read.
That's not teaching, that's borderline evil.
Well, despite the tone of my first post, I can see some great potential in this. The main flaw is that it's not fully fleshed out.
There were hints at a strained relationship with Twilight, that would've been interesting to explore more. The entire redemption was way too fast; if you are worried about repetition, you can easily take the story in different directions over each arc. The bonding with Applejack was nice, for example, but a little one-sided. That's not unrealistic, though, since AJ is fairly narrow-minded. Maybe a few more instances of regret, anger, doubt.
And, of course, the elephant in the room (at least for me):
What was Celestia's intention? Humble him? Teach him compassion? How did any of what she did actually translate into what happened? Why did she send someone who can't read away with written instuctions? Did she do it so he had to get help somehow? Did she want him to admit that he couldn't actually complete her task on his own? Was he supposed to learn to like himself, or humility? Why take away his magic, which is, after all, an extremely intrusive action? I don't understand why she did what she did at all.
5318127
Well to be fair, this reads like an episode of the show, and 180's are hard to pull off (believably) in 22 minutes.
5322303 Some very good comments.
Reflecting on the show itself, consider how many times Celestia has dumped a problem in Twilight's lap with little or no explanation and just walked away from it. It may seem heavy handed, but I think the appeal falls to the side of being comedic. When I was writing this story, I tried to keep it light and funny. It's not meant to be a completely serious reflection on the inner turmoil and reformation of a seriously flawed individual. It's My Little Pony. It's Friendship is Magic.
To me, the quirks of the show address the concerns you lay out. Why did she take his magic away? She was going to give it back—there's no doubt about that. It's just hard for lessons to be learned when you are sitting in your comfort zone. Issue with the length of the story? Granted, I'm not trying to write a novel here—just sticking to the main theme and letting the reader fill in a few parts as well. It seems you have some ideas of your own where the story went in the gaps—that's awesome! So much better than me telling you everything from my view. Why give him instructions he can't read? Perhaps I did a poor job there—no one knew he couldn't read and it wasn't a big deal to begin with (having servants and all, why would he need to be able to read?). It's a pretty common thing in real life that illiterate adults hide the fact they can't read and most people don't expect that not everyone can. It's somewhat unintentional here, but it fits with the character profile of a spoiled, yet misunderstood pony having his whole life turned upside down.
5322435
Agreed. While not 100% intentional, I try to keep my characters as true to the show as possible. Could I see this as an episode? Sure. That's probably the biggest reason it reads like it does. I wanted to keep it short, mainly since the contest it was written for had a word limit in place. Perhaps it's a bit too short, but I have longer stories you could read if you want to get into that. I debated making it longer, but it didn't feel right to me.
5318924
You, sir, are entitled to your own opinion. Thank you for taking the time to explain your downvote. I seriously appreciate it. Not being sarcastic.
1. Ask for help.
2. Do something nice for somepony else.
3. Be honest with yourself.
4. Treat others like you want to be treated.
I wonder if Diamond Tiara could learn these rules.
5322550
Heh. You know, maybe I am overthinking it. It really was that detail that pushed things from 'very, very tough' to 'cruel' for me, since it made it impossible for him to actually complete her task on his own. A bit like ordering a person who can't swim to dive for the keys to their house. I would've liked if anypony acknowledged that at some point. Maybe if Applejack had written that in her note to Celestia, and the latter admitted to Luna that she hadn't suspected Blueblood wouldn't even be able to read her instructions. Just something to show that she actually does care, which I think is currently lacking.
5327469
Fixed it with a small change in chapter two. Thanks for the input.
5319083 There was a great line from Discord from an old story: "Celestia sees a pony on fire as a wonderful opportunity for them to learn stop-drop-and-roll."
5319083 To be fair, Celestia doesn't know that Blueblood can't read.
Does Blueblood even know what a bridle is?
Yet, I bet if somehow Applejack lost her ability to buck apples and was sent away from the farm, she would be just as snappy and quick-tempered as Blueblood.
That was sweet. Didn't buy it for a second, but sweet nonetheless, and more enjoyable than some other Blueblood redemption fics I've read
5439566
Thanks for the comment!
This could have been a lot longer story, but I tried to stick with keeping it a "show appropriate" length. Just a fun little bit to fill a story idea in my head.
Okay. Blueblood is a jackass and NEEDS a lesson in humility to tone down his sense of entitlement, and stripping him of his title and privileges is one thing, but taking away what makes a unicorn a unicorn is cruel and usual punishment just for being a spoiled brat.
5336185 Well, he says she doesn't know, but 5 bits says she does and is taking full advantage of it.
5317842 I remember both of those shows, at least in rerun format.
" Do you have any carrots? "
troll.me/images/mirada-fija/what-did-you-just-say.jpg
Also, WHAT THE FUCK BLUEBLOOD?!?! You are a (sorta) prince/noble (still not sure about that) of Equestria living in the palace of not just one of the wealthiest cities and cultural centers in Equestria but the world as well, and you don't know how to read? First off, your family sucks since they never put you in school or even hired a tutor for you, and second, you're lazy since you never even asked for a tutor or bothered to try and learn yourself.
Looks like you're definitely missing an indefinite article there.
First paragraph of the first chapter, and there's already been an assassination attempt. Potatoes AND tomatoes? They're not fooling around.
Layin' down the Applesmack!
5323947 Some things, not even Celestia can do. dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Emoticons/lolface_Celestia.png
I liked this story. A little too easy on Blueblood I think but a good story. To bad Rarity never noticed him. The fireworks would have been seen from the moon.
5323947 It looks like Diamond Tiara has.
5896381 I think you're being a little harsh on Blueblood. He was probably raise by ponies that never learned to read either and feels that, as royalty, they didn't have to learn. After all, why learn something when you have servants that can do it for you? I know Celestia had nothing to do with his upbringing if this is the case. He's a product of his environment and nopony bothered to show him how to survive in other environments.