Part 22
“Wait! You can’t-”
“Stop! By order of-”
“You are not allowed to enter!”
The Perfect Date Part 3
Putting on dresses always a felt somewhat like a chore, it was always frustrating, always felt wrong. Snails was a colt after all. A big, strong colt. Not some dainty filly who liked frills and dolls and-
Turning slowly, Escargot blinked. There was something about this, though. It was simple, plain in comparison to Rarity’s other work- just a single piece of fabric, that danced in the light. It was a subtle shade of teal, with a faint silver sheen that wrapped around the neck and flowed down her back. There, at the croup, it split. It was split up the length of the hind leg to reveal the cutie mark, bracketed by an elegant lace.
Moving to face the mirror, Escargot looked at the front of the dress. In contrast to the light blue of the rest of the dress, a red heart flowed from the shoulders and down the chest, with the slender point of the heart accenting Escargot’s long front legs.
On any other pony, this dress would be boring, lackluster. On Escargot, however, the simplicity of the colors made the dress…
“Perfect.” Escargot breathed. It was strange- having one’s breath taken away by something as simple as a dress. Blushing, Escargot looked up at Rarity. “It’s perfect.”
“No darling, the dress itself is plain. Without you wearing it, it wouldn’t be of interest.” Rarity smiled, “As such, the dress won’t be the most beautiful dress there.” Winking at Escargot, she tossed her head. “It is not my fault if Diamond Tiara can not wear her dress as well as you do yours.”
Escargot walked in a circle in front of the mirror, holding his head high, letting the dress move with him to see how it would look. It was surprising- Rarity had created a work of art that flowed with his every motion.
Rarity smiled and sung softly as she watched Escargot, “My favorite moment's when a pony sees it, that special gown that she just adores.”
Escargot perked his ears, smiled, and sat down. “Thank you.”
“Now, let’s get you downstairs. Everypony is waiting.” Rarity said, and held the bathroom door open.
Turning, Escargot walked down the hall and stopped at the top of the stairs. A hush fell over the party as everypony, one by one, beheld 'her'. Soft ooh’s and awws could be heard from several of the adults.
Slowly, step by step, Escargot walked down the stairs, face red with a blush, the dress moving smoothly with each elegant stride. ‘This should be some filly’s lucky moment not mine. Not Escargot’s’.
Diamond Tiara stuck her nose up and snapped at nopony in particular, “Her dress definitely isn’t as nice as mine! What’s every pony looking at?”
Celestia smiled and walked forward, “Well now, this is a pleasant surprise. How you’ve grown in such a short time, from that embarrassed little filly that lacked confidence on stage, to the terrified little one that burst into my room, and now a proud young pony.”
Gulping, Escargot bowed deep to the princess. “Sorry ma’am.”
“Oh, nothing to be sorry about. I still would like to see you at the school.” Celestia started, then paused as Luna cleared her throat. “But I am aware that the school itself may not be the best place for all foals.”
Laughing, Luna put a wing over the little filly. “Do not worry. Today is a party, enjoy yourself.”
“Twilight.” Celestia called out, looking across the room.
Twilight blushed and ran to Celestia as fast as she could. “Yes Princess?”
“How have Escargot’s studies been going? I’m sure you have a wonderful lesson plan set out for her.” Celestia asked, giving Twilight a gentle nuzzle. “I’m sure you are giving her all the support I gave you.”
“Oh I will, I mean I am, I mean I won’t fail you princess!” Twilight stammered and stood proud. “I’ll do my royal duty!”
Escargot couldn’t help but giggle- it was rare to see that even a princess like Twilight could get flustered. Something about that helped. If Twilight could be unsure of herself, then why couldn’t he?
Looking up, Escargot smiled, “Twilight’s a wonderful teacher. I’m learning so much from her.”
“That’s right.” Twilight said, smiling, “And now that we know she’s got a magical cutie mark, we can double her training. Maybe even run full school days!”
‘Me and my big mouth.’ Escargot thought. ‘Now I have to go to school as Snails and Escargot at the same time….’
Drooping a little Escargot sighed.
“Remember Princess, there is such a thing as too much studying for young ones. If she is at school all the time, how will she make friends?” Luna said sagely.
“Wait! You can’t-”
“Stop! By order of-”
The voices of the royal guards started rising over the conversations and party, causing all heads to turn to look at the door.
“You are not allowed to enter!”
A moment later the doors flung open and Kunibert strode into the room, heedless of the guards, standing arrogantly in his royal military uniform. He spread his wings wide, medals gleaming in the light. “I, Kunibert Of the Golden Wing, Lord of the High Peaks, Keeper of the Memory of the Sacred Flame, Ambassador of Griffinstone.” Pausing for dramatic effect, Kunibert looked across the stunned guests. “Have arrived!”
“Oh, goody.” Escargot sighed, “And here I thought this would be a total disaster.”
“Oh, Escargot, my sweet, it has been too long since I have beheld your magnificent mane. And now that you have your cutie mark, you are eligible to be married. I wish to claim you!” Kunibert said, head high.
Gisa blinked, sitting up from the punch bowl and tilting her head. “Well, better you than me.”
“Oh, do not worry young Gisa- you may be young, but you will soon grow into a beautiful griffiness, then I shall take you to be my mistress- or second bride, if you so desire.” Kunibert spoke as if he were offering her gold and pearls.
“Argh!" Gisa said looking up at the ceiling, then looked at Kunibert sternly, “Wait, since when are griffins allowed to have more then one mate?”
“Laws can change, and be changed, especially with love involved. Is that not right, Cadence? You are the Princess of love afterall.” Kunibert said, offering Cadence a golden sceptre with a heart on the end.
“Yes, I mean no, I mean- Laws don’t-” Cadences started, before Kunibert cut her off. She narrowed her eyes at the griffin.
“See, even the princess of love supports it, so it must be true!” Kunibert said. “Our true love cannot be denied, it runs deeper than the deepest ocean, surges higher than the tallest peaks! It shall endure longer than Equestria itself!”
Gisa made a sound remarkably similar to coughing up a hairball as Kunibert went on.
“Oh! More guests!” Pinkie said exuberantly, and zipped up to the griffin, holding out a cupcake. “Here, we can turn the party into a Mark Engagement Saving Social Extravaganza Diplomatic Unprecedented Party!”
Taking the cupcake, the griffin took a large bite. Almost instantly, his pupils expanded to the size of saucers, his feathers wilting and his tail hitting the ground.
“It’s my Super Sweet Ghost Chili Surprise cupcakes, with peppermint and pimento frosting!” Pinkie said, then leaned in, whispering, “The surprise is the ghost chilis.”
Roaring out in agony, the griffin fanned his mouth from the extreme heat, desperately seeking respite from the pain.
Leaning backwards to avoid the sudden flames, Pinkie smiled and held up marshmallows on a stick. “S’mores, anypony?”
Charging past Gisa, he made a dive for the punch and started guzzling it as fast as he could.
Gisa blinked and looked at Escargot, “And that would be the unsweetened lemon and lime juice. I was wondering why Pinkie had that set out.”
Coughing and sputtering, eyes streaming, the griffin backed away from the super sour juice, only to be met by Pinkie Pie. “Oh, poor thing, you look partied out already! Let’s bring you outside so you can lie down and get some fresh air.”
Luna placed a wing over Escargot protectively and muttered to her. “Honestly, I wouldn’t want to be on her bad side.”
Looking up, Escargot blinked. “Me neither.”
“Come on, everypony! Let's party!” Pinkie said as she ushered the griffin out to the waiting guards.
Awesome update!!
pinkie to the rescue, somepony really need to pluck that turkey.
I was hoping long hall would show up and make more of a ass of him self.
I am wondering what the next life changing moment will be for Escargot / Snails?
Can we get a State Dinner (US) hosted by Pinkie.
Great Job with the update!
“Argh!" (----
7421200 My money's on the next life-changing moment being his dad finding out and disowning him.
7421552
hum I have to say nope.
there may be a different plan for Long Hall.
and at this time I will have to keep my big mouth shut as kitsy is in team speak with me right now and she will defiantly scream at me for even saying this much.
“Argh! Gisa said looking up
Lets party
1. Forgot your closing quotation mark.
2. Let's.
i seriously don't know why you don't have more likes for this story. Always makes me happy to see an update and i've never been let down by any of your chapters. Keep up the good work, hope to see more soon.
7422594 Oh that's easy. While it's featured on FIMFiction every time i do an update, groups like Equestria Daily have said it simply wasn't good enough to warrant being featured. As such it's limited to people finding it during the hour or 2 after i post a part.
7422876 I think being featured with each part is far more impressive then getting listen on Equestria Daily.
7424474 yep, but an EQD feature generally gets you 100's if not thousands of readers... a featured here generally gets me 2-5 per post :)
I don't mind though. I write this for fun, and for you guys... not for the masses.
I like a just Pinkie. No one mucks with the guest of honor.
7424910
That's sweet. I love this story, and you're awesome!
This is a fun story. And I quite enjoyed it. It just feels a little off in a few places. Snails seems like much much less of a character then Escargot is. And while I understand that the two are the same person, and you have done some links between them ultimately it just feels like 'she' has a lot more going for her then he does. The conflict you've generated with his father is good, but we see next to nothing of Snails friendships and interactions then we do Escargots. And that is an issue as it seems increasingly clearer exactly what 'side' he will ultimately choose. There's no balance between the two. There's just increasing acceptance from one side of the coin and ultimately that makes this story a bit less interesting then it would be otherwise.
Overall though I'm interested in seeing where this goes. And have favorited it. I just wish it had a bit more sophistication and planning for both of Snail's sides having a purpose and their own friends and connections. Instead one side dominates a lot more. That doesn't make it a bad story or reflect poorly on your storytelling skills as I like the character you've created for Snail's here. But it also makes me feel rather indifferent on the male Snail's character as he's just a 'host' in a fashion for who she seems to ultimately be becoming. Which should is simply unfortunate.
7424910
I'm shocked I would have thought a story inspired by Ranma 1/2 would have more readers. One could swear Ranma spawned the fan-fiction craze in the first place. I think the first fanfic I ever read was a Ranma/Lina Inverse crossover... Don't know what show Lina Inverse comes from, but it was a good story all the same.
7440905 That would be WHY she hates males. one night stand and he left her with opel
7438624
My USD$0.02:
1.) Ranma 1/2 is ooooold. I say this as an old person. (I got hooked on R.5 in the early '90's after I'd already gotten old enough to worry more about my annual taxes than video game releases...don't laugh, you'll get there, too, someday!) It first started as a series in 1987, that's older than most of the people who visit this site regularly. While the books are enjoying a reprint, you can't even get the anime outside of DVDs. (Although I recall they were working on a Blueray boxed set, kinda lost track of it after that) Consequently, exposure is low.
2.) MLP intersects only poorly with R.5, which of course only serves to highlight how well this particular fic does the job. After all, the "schtick" about R.5 is gender issues and the relative rarity of magic to the lay-person. When every single being on the PLANET has access to magic on some level AND gender issues just Don't Seem To Be A Thing (see the "Big Mac as The Coolest Southern Belle Aunt You Could Ask For" episode), it takes extra work on the part of the writer to sell the idea, convincingly, that some Ranma stand-in would see having a gender-swapping curse as a problem. Further complicating this is the relatively liberal view of the rolls of males vs. females in the canon/fanon of the MLP universes. In R.5, it's clearly a Japanese patriarchy (in spite of the Tendo/Saotome/Happosai "patriarchs" making a mockery of the concept) wherein Ranma's masculinity is being called into question. Meanwhile in Equestria, it's absolutely a matriarchy and stallions aren't held to any sort of rigid status.
3.) Please don't take this next point as criticism of this fic, because I love it A LOT and it's the current "gold standard" of MLP:FiM/Ranma fics, but it's honestly not as well written as other fics that have earned and deserve to be featured on EQD. The author's skills are clearly improving TONS since they started writing this, and if they were to do a rewrite once their current story arc is finished then this fic would come close to being good enough for a feature on EQD.
3a.) As a tangent to point 3, the competition for this fic to achieve anything resembling "recognition" status is ungodly intense. Even if it didn't have the likes of Fallout: Equestria, Past Sins, Hard Reset, The Moonstone Cup, The Thesalonica Legacy, Project: Sunflower, and Anthropology, since it fuses with Ranma 1/2 it also has to compete with Hearts of Ice, Girl Days, the Sailor Sun saga, and The Accidental Goddess. It's like taking a band geek in high school and putting them in the ring at an MMA championship fight.
4.) The author of this fic commits the uniquely Ranmafic sin of using the masculine while the main character is in their female form. This was something that was the start of many a flame war on FFML waaaaay back in the day, and through a war of attrition the side in favor of using gender appropriate pronouns to the form Ranma was wearing at the time eventually won out. (Note: I don't think the author intended to restart this particular battle, as I'm not even sure if they're aware of the FFML, but I can see it happening all over again...*shudders in horror*)
EDIT: Forgot to mention Rendezvous with Fate for the list of Epic Ranmafics! Plugged only because I just found out it's FINALLY finished and, if you haven't read it, you're missing out of one of the best altiverse Ranmafics I've ever read!
7441790 BUUUTTT would she trade opel for not having that night?
7444160
I haven't read three of the ranma fic's mentioned. Pretty sure I haven't read the one you linked too, the accidental goddess (as far as I know), or the sailor sun saga (although I will admit I've read more than a few schizophrenic Ranma is usagi if not the spore stories wherein he's slowly driven insane becasue Luna). I think Paragon was my favorite sailor moon parody crossover although I'm not entirely sure why.
As for age when it comes to nicktoons, I think Angry Beavers, Invader Zim, As Told By Ginger, Wild Thornberries, and AAAAAAH! real monsters... somehow Ren & Stimpy and Roko's Modern Life aren't on that list, I somehow think of them in the same category as Duckman and other MTV/USA cartoons (I somehow missed out on Mighty Max, the Maxx, and Savage Dragon, but managed to hit on SATAM and AOSTH). I never saw Rugrats and its spinoff All grown up as memorable, they were more or less watched when nothing else was on and I only know the Sponge Bob Square pants theme song becasue I was a fitness room attendant/playroom director (monitor?) at a recreation center.
I've seen less than five episodes of the Fairly Odd Parents and they all kind of blur togehter. In one he becomes a dog, in another a gray blob, and it seems there is always an it's a wonderful life storyline. . . and for some reason Timmy is both Catman's IRL sidekick 'Kitty Boo Boo' and the Crimson Chin's comic book sidekick as well. Not for nothing, but most people read comics to escape their everyday life. I can't see a cooler costume and a boss who isn't much less of a jerk being much of a fantasy to wish for when every day single day is a living nightmare.
7445553
...wait, you've read Paragon but not Girl Days? Pardon my surprise, but they are by the same author.
Age-wise, a little more reference for you: I was in my Junior year of High School when Animaniacs started. (It was, btw, the funniest damn thing on TV and EVERYONE was talking about it.) Ren & Stimpy was in it's original run, the first Final Fantasy game was only just getting knocked out of the Top 10 in Nintendo Power by Final Fantasy 2 (which, of course, was actually Final Fantasy 4 retitled so as not to confuse us poor dumb American kids as to why the actual FF2 & 3 were never imported), Windows 95 wouldn't be announced until after I'd left high school and was about to enter college. The ONLY way to get most anime you can easily get on DVD or streaming over the Internet today was to hope you found a VHS tape that someone had mangled the dubbing; or if you were REALLY one of the "in" crowd, to find a group that had someone with connections in Japan and access to a specialized computer that would insert fan-made subtitles. (All those memes that circulate about bad fansubs? They came from this era) San Diego Comic Con wouldn't reach the status of World Dominator for at least a decade, and MLP was absolutely worthy of scorn, having fallen from it's mid-80's popularity even among girls. Oh, and the Internet? Yeah, that was opened to the public when I was in my Freshman year in high school.
When I say I'm "old," I'm quickly approaching the "middle" of my expected life span. I'm not speaking in hyperbole. I've seen horseapples! ;)
7446454
I didn't say I didn't read Girl Days, did I? But, now that you mention it wasn't as memorable as Hearts of Ice. Psychopath Ranma for the win unless I have it confused with that sliders world hopping fic. Also, I know the Paragon author's current screen name (I think. I get them all jumbled up anyway. The ones I remember are contrabardus/carrot glance and C.Rose, Weebee was memorable for a while but never ages, and of course there's Ozzallos and Black Dragon 6 (whom I'm sure I know the current screen name of)). Oh well, you'll see what you want to see, who am I to question it. Last I remember Ranma dressed up as Laura Croft for halloween in Girl Days. Sorry, I didn't read the rest of your post becasue I had to check what I said and I saw no indication that I denied reading Girl Days.
7446454
Ironically enough old is usually fifteen years older than your current age. I'm more on the technology poor side of the digital divide as I was using windows 98 software in 2003. I'm computer literate (obviously) but I've used every version of windows from 3.1 through 10. And, I cannot be certain, becasue my father was 'obsessed' with control to a ridiculous extreme, up too and including the actions and thoughts of his immediate family and children. I don't believe animaniacs came out until I was 9-11 year of age... didn't celebrate birthdays, except his, much either. So, I don't really see manufacture date as an indication of quality or eventual breakdown. Apparently my father wanted to be 45 for every single birthday, so you know that was fun. Even now, I'm sure he's still 45 (70?) and telling people he's going to be dead in 15 years.
7477002 Well equestria girls COULD pass for strike witches :) so figured a 3 way snipe there.
I think this could be Snails theme song for him and his father.
0:18
When snails stand up to his father he should sing this song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBn5Bm1Pryw
question?
do you the reader under stand just what todays episode will do for this story?
todays episode is going to pretty much move this story to being candid.
just a little something to think about.
and sorry Kitsy I hade to do it to rube it in Long Halls face.
Aaaand you got that point back. Best pony! Best pony! Best pony!
Putting on dresses always
afelt somewhat like a chore,