If diplomacy is an art form, then it's surely the most boring one of the lot. After a full day of fruitless trade negotiations with the Crystal Empire, I'm about ready to give up my royal title if it means avoiding more mind-numbing talks tomorrow. In the meantime, though, at least there's a nightclub in town. And from what I've heard, her Highness Princess Flurry Heart is its most frequent, infamous, and insatiable patron.
On second thought, maybe this trip won't be as tedious as I thought.
My entry for FanOfMostEverything's "Imposing Sovereigns" contest, using the prompt "Partier Flurry Heart. Rated Teen for language, drug use, and suggestive (but non-explicit) content.
Cover image cropped from this piece by Plainoasis. (Sorry, Glim-Glam, but you're not in this story so you had to go.)
Thanks to Themaskedferret for editing/cheerleading assistance.
On the off-chance anyone is interested, there's a soundtrack to go with this story too. All of the songs below correspond to the music I imagine is playing in the background during each respective section of the story, excepting the last one, which is just where I got the story's title from.
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Title:
What no editing credit? :P
8033139
I knew I forgot something.
Shit.
(Fixed.)
Flurry Heart, you magnificent alicorn. Princesses > Kings.
*Golf clap* Oh Flurry... He never saw you coming
I think, at the end of it, she helped him too.
And I think she knows it.
I suspected. Then I doubted. Then I knew. A masterfully executed bit of nightclub diplomacy. Thank you for it, and best of luck in the judging.
Ruthless Ponies
This is probably the best entry I've read so far. Your prose is superb, as usual, and when combined with the characters paints an impeccable picture. Like, hot damn.
Ferret pimped this story out hard during a skype call. Called it awesome, great, you need to read this, seriously. Really? Really! Look, I'll copypaste it -- and she did. She showed me just a line or two; the bit where the narrator does a line of what I assume is coke.
So I read that, and then I rested my back on my seat, ran a hand through my hair, and went "Well, fuck. I'm not winning this contest."
Flash forward to today; I'm looking through the list of participants. Some of the heavy-weights ended up not sending a story, so I'm almost cheery. Hey, I might have a chance after all? Shame we got robbed some amazing stories, but then again, I am a hypocrite, so whaddaya got. Then I see this story, click, and read it.
And like.
Fuck.
I am not winning this contest.
This story right here is what I would call the definition of under-appreciated, because the prose in here made me actively angry in that "fuck, this is why I'm insecure about my own prose myself, ain't it." It was good. It was really, really good. It was pretty much amazing -- am I clear yet or is it not obvious enough that I liked it. 'Cause I dug it a lot.
But shit, you've got little comments, so I'm not gonna leave it there. Thing is -- this is an extremely sensual story, or at least that's the feeling it gave me. The prose is sometimes overwhelming, and the noise and the music never stop; it feels claustrophobic and loud and full of the kind of tired energy you get when you're drunk. So it feels like a club, and they're in a club, and it pretty much sets the tone rather nicely.
I have a soft spot for stories of teenagers or young adults losing themselves to debauchery; my favorite story on the site is exactly about that, and I've written in this specific subgenre myself. So maybe I'm a little biased, because this kind of concept takes a character and puts it in their wildest state. Abuse substance and the aforementioned noise do that to you -- so you get savage scenes, like them doing coke in that story. And thing is, that's powerful in fiction.
'Cause when you portray a character doing this king of thing, it's never under a positive light. Alcohol, drugs, and the like are seen as recreative self-destruction; characters are living the moment and forgetting, or trying to forget, about anything else. Scenes like them talking about their life in the middle of a place that's pretty much designed so you don't think about this kind of problem makes them feel vulnerable. These aren't novel concepts per se, but they are good concepts, if you can pull them off.
And yeah, you pulled them off.
So between the spectacular prose --seriously, fuck you-- and the themes of the fic, this was bound to cater to me immensely, and it did. But even without that personal bias; fuck, this story was good. I'd be honestly surprised if this doesn't end up in the top three at least.
That said, I was honestly surprised by how sexual the whole thing got. I've already mentioned it, but this is a rather horny story (in an artsy sense, I mean; it's not that you want to turn on the reader, it's merely that the atmosphere in the club is rather sexually charged at all times) and that surprised me. It was easy to see the final twist coming, so having Flurry Heart actually go and fuck the dude was a surprise. Usually one would expect the entire thing to be revealed and then to have Flurry Heart reveal that she wasn't actually interested, she was just flirting.
But no, they actually have sex. Shit, they actually do it after the reveal, and Flurry Heart is casual as hell about it. So that was a surprise, although I suppose that's more on me than anything. I was expecting a more "clean" heist-like story (everything was an act! I'm not actually drunk! You got pranked!) but no, Flurry got down and dirty there. She was drunk, she did drugs, she was actually interested in the guy. She was in the party first and foremost, and in the meantime she's taking this lil' prince here and giving him a crash course on politics. It was an actual tale of debauchery, and nothing is that clean, because that's what debauchery means. Just because it was all planned doesn't mean it was a lie.
(Or maybe she's a method actor? But nah, I like the other explanation better. It's more artsy. To get the prince to show off his weak points, Flurry Heart actually becomes vulnerable, for real. 'Cause then the backstabbing hurts more, and also she's done a lot of drugs here.)
So yeah, that was surprising. Pretty neat, I suppose. Didn't see it coming, made the story feel more genuine, and all that jazz.
So good one, mate. I'm glad Ferret nagged you till you got this one out, because it was certainly worth it.
Reviews for Imposing Sovereigns: Partiers are up.
Flurry Heart, you magnificent bitch, I read your book!
Seriously didn't see that coming. Bravo!
I was kind of anticipating that ending, but it was still so satisfying to watch. :D Good stuff!
This, and there's an extra [ after "The hookah's hose hits the floor."
This fic is thoroughly amazing. This is the best Flurry Heart. Why have so few people seen it??
I'll give this a comment as well, because it's just so damn good. If you look at my faves list, most of them are at over 500 likes, with a good portion around or over 1000 likes.
This story is so much better than many of those.
Thought you should know.
I can't say I didn't see the ending coming (
), but damn.
That was some masterful writing. I had a lot to say, but Aragon covered it pretty well.
Bravo.
I had to create a new bookshelf for this story.
Skimming my RiL shelf... Dunno how this is still there when I read this forever ago. Fixing that!
This was a great read. Thankyou.
One thing I will say though. "Hook. Line and Sinker"