• Member Since 21st Apr, 2015
  • offline last seen Yesterday

JackRipper


A real lady killer.

T
Source

Sweetie Belle has a problem, and her name is Rarity.


Proofread by muwun.
Additional editing assistance by Vengeful Spirit.
A gift for B_25.
Cover art changed to better reflect character ages, giving me the artist's name would be appreciated!

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 72 )

Doing late-night yard work right now, but you better damn believe I'm reading this in a hot minute and shooting you an honest yet probably over-excited review.

JackRipper
Moderator

9619522
Sounds good to me. 👉😎👉

Haven't seen a story from you in a while. Nice.

JackRipper
Moderator

9619527
Felt like getting off my fat ass for once. :trollestia:

9619528
As far as I'm concerned, that's America's ass! :rainbowwild:

Yes. Yes! YES! YES! YES

"Is there something you want me to do?”

“Me.”

You had me, right there.

JackRipper
Moderator

9619556
I still loved the deer line. :scootangel:

9619560

Oh, that was good, too!

And I adore Scoot's portrayal in this but that line just... struck gold, for me. To hear it from Sweetie of all people, especially. :rainbowlaugh:

I really need to break this habit of micro-editing every single paragraph as I go to make sure it's as clinically immaculate as possible (terrible habit of mine).

You too?

JackRipper
Moderator

9619604
All. The. Time.

"(...) Is there something you want me to do?”

“Me.”

She might not know were her priorities lay, but her instincts certainly do.

Great story, man.

D'aww. Very nice, Jack. :twilightsmile:

“I’m going to kill you, Scoots,” Sweetie Belle said as heat reignited in her face. "I have standards.”

Where's the Sniper when you need standards...

I could read a story just about the sass between these 3 for hours.
Nice work Jack'o.

This fic is very sweet. My mood has certainly been spiked.

JackRipper
Moderator

Surprisingly sweet with just enough, eh-hem, alternative humor to keep it fun. I think the explanation of his change in feelings could have been fleshed out just a little more, but you did enough to make it work. Sweeties feelings were portrayed extremely well and made it a good story.

Since when does Spike take tests with them?

JackRipper
Moderator

9620152
Can I be honest with you? I don’t know how to write Spike, like, at all. So you’re criticism is 100% valid.

Just something I need to work on I guess. Thank you. :twilightblush:

I'll be honest: This is a little too foalconey. It'd be better, if the story did more to establish that this was a future version of the CMCs.

To be fair: Maybe I wouldn't feel that way, if it weren't for all the foalcon in the featured box. But Scootaloo's lines would be funny, if it were clearer that she were a teenager. As it is: :pinkiesick:

Apple Bloom does want to have a boyfriend but a certain apple farmer has an electric fence on her at all times and I bet that Scootaloo made up about her doing stuff with Rumble just cause both of them are after the same target as Sweetie Belle.

JackRipper
Moderator

9620288

Like her, he’d developed an enviable figure of his own. He wasn’t a shrimp anymore, and his height wasn’t the only thing that stood out either. He was lean and had a physique that complimented his frame.

Unfortunately finding the right cover art for this story was admittedly tricky for me. I did attempt to mention that they were older without being overly blatant about it but I guess I didn’t do a good enough job.

Bottom line is: Scootaloo is a teenager and her overly perverted personality is strictly satire.

Edit: Cover art changed in an effort to correct some confusion.

9620294
Well, like I said: Could be that I've seen foalcon in the featured box one too many times.

Maybe the problem is this line:

"“Sweetie Belle, no talking during a test or you get a zero,” Cheerilee sternly reminded her. It wasn’t actually stern—she wasn’t a stern pony after all—but it was clear that her patience was already spent after lecturing for the entire week."

Cheerilee's the elementary school teacher. None of the students in her class seem to be teens/young adults. Maybe use a different teacher, or put something in there about Cheerilee moving on to high school with her students.

9620259
Hey, you admit to a fault you are directly facing in this story. That's how you get better. And honestly I think you wrote Spike well enough. Some kind of subtle reference that maybe Spike hadn't been taking about Rarity earlier in the story and it won't seem like he was having such a quick change of heart. But like I said, I think you pulled it off well anyway so feel free to take or leave my advice.

9620294

"Scootaloo is a teenager and her overly perverted personality is strictly satire."

Well, taking Scootaloo's lines seriously for a minute: If I were Scootaloo's father, I might be … concerned, if I knew Scootaloo were saying stuff like that.

But if Rumble's a good young man, who's compatible with Scoots. And if he's man enough to love, cherish, and respect my daughter (and conversely, my daughter's woman enough to do the same back). Well, I'm probably not going to be too worried about their bathroom shenanigans.

In other words: If Rumble gives my daughter his heart, like a man, I might not care too much what he does with her body (or perhaps more accurately, what she does with his body).

9620311
I honestly never saw Cheerilee as an elementary school teacher, and subsequently I never saw the cmc as young children. I'd say pre to early teens at the start of the series as I see getting a cutie mark as a sign of puberty. If this is late in the series, like after diamonds reform, then they are older teens. Possibly still not legal, but definitely doing those things.

9620392
I doubt having a cutie mark is a sign of puberty. If it were: Half the “foals” in Ponyville would already be teenagers, from the start of the show.

Plus you get your cutie mark when you find their special talent, and real people find their special talents at different ages. Not to mention: There are some talents that you really can't find, if you're still a child.

And real teenagers are (usually) much closer in size to adults, then they are to children. If the “foals” were really teenagers, I'd expect them to be adult-sized. Or maybe slightly smaller then adult-sized, like Sandbar. But not child-sized!

Aww man, I miss Vengeful Spirit... He doesn't talk to me anymoooorrrreee

Why the heck was this so wholesome?

9620465
A valid interpretation as well. I think it relies a little too much on association between human ages and pony ages, not to mention cartoon pony ages, but I can see where your math and assumptions check out. I think both interpretations could work, so the only defense I could come up with from there is that at least as far as I know we don't have an official time line of the series. Depending on how many years might have passed between the first and current season, and where this story might take place, they still might be old enough to be thinking about those sort of things

9620465
Do also remember that spike grew into a huge dragon when he started getting greedy so dragon age could be linked to greed. It's a kids show so trying to nail things down exactly isn't going to work. :D

9621253
Dragon's live so long: Their naps last a hundred years. And Spike's still a "baby" Dragon; despite walking, talking, having a job, and expressing romantic interest in women. I don't think Dragon ages are really comparable to Pony/Human ages.

There was a pregnant pause, then Sweetie Belle giggled madly, swatting his shoulder with the hoof she’d freed. “That’s the cheesiest thing I’ve ever heard! Oh my sweet Celestia, d-did you read that out of some romance novel or something?”

Spike blushed. “M-maybe?”

Of course you did:rainbowlaugh:!!!

This was fantastic. Now I wish we could have gotten that apology from Rarity too Spike. That and a very big backlog paycheck for all the unpayed labour, taking advantage of someone feelings for free labor is one of the worst things to do to a person.

“Tact, Scoots. Ya don’t have any tact,” Apple Bloom deadpanned.

You're not wrong. She really doesn't.

JackRipper
Moderator

While I dislike the portrayal of Scootaloo as the "blonde bimbo" of the group, rather than Sweetie Belle, I do like the pairing of SpikeyBelle. I'd like to see a continuation of this. Another thing I dislike about it is Rumbleloo. Back when he was just a back ground character with barely any characterization, he was fine. when he got into Cutie Mark Camp, or whatever that episode was, I saw a mini Hitler in pony form. Cutie Marks were evil because they took his big brother away, so clearly no pony needs a cutie mark and anyone with a cutie mark is automatically evil and must be shunned and ridiculed. Sure, he got redemption in the same episode, but that "hatred of all things cutie mark" will always stick with him as his characterization.

Plus... there's the Motherly Scootaloo blog on Tumblr. Scoots is a mother because Rumble got her pregnant and took off. Treated her like trash. It's been a while, but I don't think he got a redemption. I don't forgive dead beat dads.

JackRipper
Moderator

9622279
For the record: Scootaloo is the way she is in this story because I thought it would be funny to see just how stupid I could write her (I think I did a decent job).

My absolute favorite depiction of her comes from a story I really liked where she’s actually quite a young academic prodigy with a nasty habit of being lazy with her schoolwork.

9622298
Ah, ok. You definately did a good job of portraying Scoots as the "blonde bimbo" of the group.

9620465
The argument of "cutiemark equals maturity" could EASILY be proven with ONE pony. Tempest Shadow. I've checked EVERYWHERE. Fizzlepop Berrytwist, or Tempest as I prefer, is a blank flank as an adult. She doesn't have a cutie mark, yet she's mature enough to run an ARMY of yeti's, command an airship, and CLEARLY take on, on equal footing, THREE ALICORNS. If that's not maturity, I don't know what is. Also... Fizzy is Best Unicorn with a Broken Horn. Prove me wrong.

9622298
That portrayal of Scootaloo that you mentioned sounds kinda familiar. Do you happen to remember which story it was?

As for this story, I enjoyed reading it. I liked that Spike was aware of the impression Sweetie Belle could get if he tried to get in a relationship with her. That deer analogy had me laughing, too. Didn't see that coming!

JackRipper
Moderator

9622327
It’s rated M so I’ll PM you the link.

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