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A nighttime gathering brings the promise of smiles and idle chatter, an inescapable web for Princess Celestia. This night, however, brings forth an opportunity for companionship she lacked since the start of her lonely reign.
Love at first sight? Not quite. But love in a place like this? Princess Celestia can't help but think it to be a rarity.
Preread by Timaeus and Snekinabox.
Cover art by silver1kunai.
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This guy...
That was adorable. Nice job!
This was just simply warm and sensual and wonderfully made. Thank you for sharing this story!
boo!! boo sir, boo.
This was bloody adorable.
Eee, very sweet!
Fleur is rubbing off on him, I see.
Always excited for more of your words
Rarlestia is such a rare ship. I love it so! Thank you sir!
Noice!
That was a beautiful and wholeheartedly entertaining read. I honestly hadn't considered Rarity and Celestia together before, but you made me do it really convincingly. Rarity is ever the interesting conversationalist and an absolute doll to behold, so I can certainly see them getting along very well, especially since Rarity, like her, has a lot of real substance hidden behind all the complex exterior she puts up around herself. She's like a nice, soft, white present with a purple bow for Celestia to open and play with! The way it was portrayed in this fic was so good that I feel inspired to go seek out more Rarilestia shipfics in the future.
Thank you so much for sharing this with us humble readers!
who appeared to be signing something about a fish in a pitcher of tea and Octavia shrieking like a banshee.
So is Scratch talking in sign language? Or is either she, Celestia, or both masters of charades. Oddly either would make sense.
Well that was adorable. And addictive. I kinda really want more.
This version of Celestia which you just wrote is one of my favorite ones, mischievous and cunning.
A fantastic little read. Well done, well done indeed.
This story is fluffy like a giant marshmallow.
RoastedMarshmellow. That's my official name for this shipping.
REPLIES FOR ALL!
8409640 Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it! Hope I portrayed objectively best Sunbutt to your liking ^^
8409717 Thank you for the compliment. And you're welcome! I've been wanting to write Tia for a while so this was a new adventure :3
8409721 SUFFERRRRRR
8409864 :D
8409918 SHHHHHHH! >.>;
8409929 You flatter me so. ;3; Thank you for reading, Cyne.
8409964 You're welcome! But I must throw credit to Monochromaticduckling for this ship idea ^^
8410188 :3
8410276 Hehe yes to all of that! And we all know that, deep down, Celestia is one who loves to unwrap her toys and enjoy them to the fullest~ It was actually quite trying to get the right voice for Tia. I wanted the mischief and wisdom I try to put into my Luna narratives but just a bit ... idk how to describe it.
8410336 I sorta borrowed a thing from my TwiLuna fic where Vinyl is a mute and Octavia translates her hoof language for Luna ^^
8410347 Michieflestia is best >:D
8411607 The biggest and fluffiest of mallows!
8412012 You'll have to take it up with Monoduckchromatic
AWWW SO CUTE
8413347
Considering I haven't lynched you yet, I'd say I gave it a thumbs up. :P
I dug this.
8413347
This one wondering why you put ducks of some sort in Mono's name, anyways this fic gave me the warm fuzzies (which I need in the cold office)
8413347
Funny thing, I'm actually already tracking one of her fics.... at least I THINK it's a her.
Really beautiful.
Instant favorite.
Touching story of seduction and romance, where's that d'awww smiley when i need it?
Remember folks, the best advice of this story:
Behave.
Also, not because I want clop or anything (no, really, I dont), c9uld we perhaps have a close sequel or something?
8417441
Excuse. You.
Celestia is older than civilization itself! She will misbehave if she damn well pleases!
AND SHE DOES!
...
Thanks for reading >.>;
8417457
Well, EXCUSE ME for not realizing that of Equestrian Royalty!
LOL, JK! Really liked this!
I'm used to seeing Rarity paired with ponies who have less experience romantically than her. It was neat to see her up against a pony with the upper hand.
I make it a habit of reading whatever Carapace writes. Usually within a few days of his publishing it, assuming I didn't have a hand it the creation of said story. While I didn't work with him on this one (hence my feeling permitted to review it), I have worked with him enough to know him a little better than the average reader. For me, this is a unique bias to address when thinking of how to review the story.
I'm also a fan of Rarity, and shipping her with Celestia. I have my own ideas on how such a thing would work out, of course, but it isn't too hard for me to set aside my shipping preferences to see how others do it.
As usual, spoilers below.
If you're a newcomer to the Carapace experience, you'll notice that several of his strengths are on display in this fic. He has a grasp of character and dialogue, paired with inner monologue, that paint a vivid picture of whoever the focus character is. His version of Celestia here builds well on what little we have about her to go off of from canon. He makes her a lot more human than I feel most authors on the site go for, and that is pleasant and refreshing.
Aside from Celestia, you get a sense of her relationship to ponies like Fancy Pants through a natural and efficient set of details. How she refers to him as a colt instead of a stallion. Other details like her non-verbal code to Luna and then to Fancy are nice little touches that speak volumes to the long-term interactions they've shared. Celestia feels like a natural, organic part of this setting, rather than some cold, distant queen on her throne.
Another of Carapace's strengths is a vivid sense of the world he builds. Celestia is older than Canterlot by centuries, and took part in the founding of the city, how it was designed and laid out, and her whim decided which businesses were granted land to begin with. That process changed partway through the history of Canterlot, and with it a change in the relationship she's had with those newer businesses. In the older places, she has a permanent table with her name on it. Buildings from that era were built with the idea that a room just for her to dine in would be included in the floorplan, and we see that when the scene shifts to one of those restaurants.
It speaks of a Canterlot that has grown up around Celestia, and details like that fit compared to the more "professional" and "modern" sorts of places that are built up in a manner more familiar to us in the US.
And Celestia makes use of that privilege without hesitation. She not only has no second thoughts about it, she practically brags about it to Rarity while seducing her. In hindsight, if you envisioned some of this setup from your own point of view instead of hers, this might feel like the sort of thing you might object to some government official doing at the taxpayer's expense. Yet, in the moment, it feels natural and right to do, because in Celestia's view, it is, and always has been.
Moving on to the technical side of things.
As usual, Carapace is a good writer. He's well-familiar with the proofreading/editing process, and if there are any typos at the time of my reading it, I didn't notice them. If anyone does, he's very prompt about fixing them anyway.
Above and beyond that, as described above, his style can be described as "vivid." He doesn't just make few to no technical errors, his writing style conveys his story and paints pictures. It flows naturally and I often find myself forgetting about the words in front of me as my imagination does more of the heavy lifting for the story than most authors are capable of getting out of me.
If all of this sounds like a lot of glowing praise and you like what you're hearing, if you're excited to get into the Carapace experience I've described, then you're better off reading one of his many other stories. Because I didn't really like this one.
Now that you're likely pretty confused, let me explain.
Celestia features prominently in several of his works. While this may be the best depiction of her from him (indeed, from most anyone), I've already spent enough time praising that aspect of this story.
If you're keen on world-building, "restaurant scene" also features in many of his stories. In particular, his romance between Twilight and Rarity came to mind as I was reading this one. Celestia ordering for Rarity was incredibly similar to Twilight doing the same in the other story. Apparently in Carapace's world, Rarity has a thing for slightly rude date behavior as long as the locale is gem-encrusted and lavish. That or perhaps Twilight learned it from the master, Celestia, who did it a bit more elegantly here than Twilight did it there.
At least both Celestia and Twilight are not as boorish as Blueblood. Poor Rarity though, not much luck with royals.
Moving on from the bad to worse.
This particular story is a well-written bad story. It doesn't really do anything but carry you along for a brief, but ultimately pointless, imagination tour. We settle in comfortably, get to enjoy seeing a side of Celestia and her Canterlot that we don't often get to see. We get to see her indulging in a romantic/carnal urge, while remaining elegant and stately. And then it is over. It's kind of like stepping into a massage parlor, noticing the masseuse is really cute, and then she starts to fondle you a bit intimately. But then the half hour is over, and no happy ending. You don't even really have time to ask yourself if you were really wanting a happy ending or not.
And then on to the ugly.
So, as per the description, this is supposed to be an entry into the "Rarity Not Garbage contest with the Barcast." Rarity is barely even a character in this story. You could hold up a picture of Rarity, and such a thing is nice to look at. Celestia agrees.
When I tend to think of exploring a character, a good depiction of the process is to ask a question about how a character would act in a given situation. I suppose Carapace asked, "what would Rarity do if Celestia asked her out?" and his answer is, "become fairly generic blushing schoolgirl, go along with everything the older and wiser Celestia suggests, and generally attempt to be as unobtrusive to the story as possible."
So, by the end of the story, Celestia has escaped a boring social function, dragged a Rarity dakimakura along with her to a restaurant, then a stroll through the private royal gardens. Then taken that body pillow to her bedchambers in order to finally sate that lust she's been building up this entire time. I wonder if Rarity would be flattered or not.
We're left at the end wondering, "OK, so then what?" Is there gossip afterwards about Celestia and Rarity? Are Fancy Pants and Fluer upset that she bailed on their party, and the damage that likely did to his reputation within high society? Was Celestia right that he wouldn't mind and simply invite her over to a private dinner later? Is Luna going to expect any kind of favor in return for enduring the party while Celestia went off to play?
We had a few hints of possible conflict, but none of those are part of this story. The only conflict actually addressed in this story is, "Celestia is bored, so she goes and does something(someone) else."
The main, most jarring lack of conflict though is, "OK so, Celestia and Rarity are banging now. Go on. You had me interested, and if you keep going and make any of this matter, you'll have a pretty good story. So what kind of trials and tribulations do the two face? How much of the lead up was foreshadowing?"
No?
Since this is left as basically porn without plot, are we gonna get to actually watch the two rubbing marshmallows?
Nah. No story and imagine your own marshmallowbation, you perv.
Honestly, we should take a cue from Celestia. Go read something else. Preferably something else by Carapace.
8419864 as said during our chat, plenty of valid critique here and a lot of things I can do better. Thank you for reading and presenting such a well thought out review on the things done well as well as all those that were sub par. I will keep all of that in mind in the future.
8419879
Meh. Celestia sees a girl she likes, she takes her around the city showing off the incredible favors she got from ponies by being a princess, and she gets the girl, ending with a suggestion of sex to follow. Rarity is just a prize for Celestia to obtain. Creepy undertones and absolutely does not sell on Rarilestia as a ship.
8423926 I mean, Celestia is so old and used to this treatment that it would become the norm, and I see little reason why she would ditch that for an evening when she knows Rarity enjoys that sort of treatment. I'd ask where the creepiness factor played in, but the only thing I could guess there would be a creep factor would be in terms of the age gap, which ... yeah, I can't fix that. Nor can I exactly ignore it. Oh well. YMMV and all. Later.
Personally, I was just confused how a lot of the phrasing early on seems to imply Celestia's never felt this amazing about anypony before, but later parts of the prose pay lip service to the idea that she would have had multiple lovers. Leave it to Cryosite to find the criticisms that most of us are barely even conscious of needing.
Still, a decent bit of fluff.
8419864
While you bring quite wonderful points to the table, I think it's pretty neglectful to consider the environment that this story is written in. This piece was wonderfully written. Comparing it in contrast with 90 percent of Fimfiction, I'd say this is one of the better stories out there. The key here is, while you mention that nothing "ultimately happens", and I'm not going to argue that. I was engaged every step of the way. For reasons beyond my comprehension, 'engagement' seems to still be a huge struggle for writers, and I admire Carapace for bringing a wonderful piece to the table.
Maybe this isn't Carapices' best story. But to call it poor does not do it justice. I feel this story is more constrained by a word count. There was a lot more that could have been done here, but rather, it was limited to the Barcast's wordcount.
Sequel. Please.
--- Note: This comment is not a reflection of placement or judging in the 'Make Rarity Not Garbage' Contest or it's other judges, but rather the views of Flutterpriest.
A simply beautiful CelestiaXRarity piece.
I'm pleased to see you decided to continue this story!
why are you so good at shipping
Yeeesssssss
Surprise melonfudger indeed, So happy to see more of this.
About halfway ish I noticed an issue. It appears that you have a paragraph or two in italics due to a broken bracket.
I remember reading the first part a while back. I hope to see more of this Celestial Rare-ity shipping ;)
*Splendorous in the chapter title by the way.
This has just changed from merely enjoyable, to truly epic!!! To my Extraordinary folder it goes!
This story makes me very happy :)
I marked this for reading when it was only a one-shot. Bonus!
There's probably plenty of Rarilestia out there, but I hadn't looked in a while, so having a good one pop up was a WAFFy treat. Looking forward to Twilight finding out....
8490224 This is an incredibly late comment, but I do appreciate both yours and Cryo's inputs on this chapter. I will say that Cryo was actually the one who initially argued in favor of a sequel in order to expand upon this relationship and how it might shake things up for Rarity, and make some of my initial portrayal of Celestia and her lack of reservation in showing off to spoil someone she liked more ... idk, real? Something. I'm having a rough week, so my words are off.
I am glad you liked the initial one shot (and subsequent chapter, now that I see your second comment :P) and hope I can keep you engaged when I get back to this!
That is all. Because this story robs me of words and silences me with it's amazing display of wordsmithing!
yay finnaly new update. thanks!
Really glad to see story update, and more coming into it. Four dresses... Can't help but think Luna wants Rarity to make herself a dress, so they can attend the Gala as a set. :) I know the story seems to be mostly focusing on Celestia and Rarity... and now Luna, but I would like to see the others reactions, including Luna's own, slightly neurotic, pretty purple princess. =o And what her reaction is to her friend dating her mentor.
Wow, I’d forgotten what this even was when it popped up in my feed, so it was a sweet surprise! The Twiluna doubly so.
Good peek into Rarity’s creative process.
Bit of an issue here where the italics broke.