Nope 03: Nope and the Potential High School Drama
"Come on, Nope!" Sunshine said as she galloped ahead. "We need your help! There's no way we'll get all the decorations finished in time without you!"
Nope frowned. On one hoof, her father had warned her about the "wacky hijinks" that resulted from helping in a school festival. Before you knew it, you were pinned under some collapsed piece of theater background together with a schoolmate and you were promptly dumped into romantic drama. But, realistically, she could hardly refuse; everypony else was helping, after all. And her dad had already written too many notes to get her out of stuff like that; the school had stopped accepting them.
She threw a wistful glance at the swirling portal that had spontaneously appeared at the other end of the schoolyard, but forced herself to look away. After all, there was little sense in tumbling headlong into adventure to avoid menial labour. Adventure would probably involve a lot more work and potential injuries than helping with the school festival, anyway. Probably.
"Oh, all right, then," she said, prompting the portal to disappear in a disappointed puff of orange smoke, and followed her friend to the school gym. She knew how these things went; undoubtedly, he'd be there, too. Some colts just didn't get the hint. Her father had considered sending her to an all-fillies school to avoid unnecessary romantic drama, but unfortunately there were none around, and, to be fair, he had doubted it would change much, except that it would force Destiny to ensure she exhibited some measure of attraction to the same gender. He had wisely decided she could really do without that extra bit of complication in her life.
Mind you, she never felt like her father was sabotaging her destiny, per se. "You got cheated, filly," he told her once. "The world thought it could plan out your life for you right away. So, the only proper response is to cheat it right back!"
In other words... she could fall in love and be swept away, sure. She could jump through one of these portals and come back months later as a hardy adventurer. But by the Sun and the Moon, she'd do so on her own terms. And right now she really didn't feel like it.
Right now, she also really didn't feel like working on the preparations of the school festival, but Twilight Sparkle had already proven that sitting quietly with your muzzle in a book was no guarantee Destiny wouldn't come after you. Also, sitting quietly with her muzzle in a book would get those pesky members of the now-closed Library Club whining at her again. You'd think they'd respect quiet reading time, but no; refuse one request to help save their club, and wham, they hold a grudge. It wasn't her fault no one cared about their club. Nope had simply been part of the large group of ponies that didn't care. As far as she was concerned, reading was something you did alone in a quiet corner. Why would you need a club for that? To make absolutely sure nothing like that would ever happen again, she'd joined the Tennis Club. She wasn't all that good at tennis, but it had two dozen members and was certainly not in any state that would need rescuing any time soon.
She followed Sunshine to the stage where they were building the set, once again refused the starring role when the director came to bother her about it, and threw yet another apologetic look at the filly that was playing said role.
"Oh, hi, Pinions!" the Inevitable Colt greeted her. He gave a small uncertain nod to Sunshine, apparently not sure how to greet the second part of the duo.
Nope nodded noncommittally and walked on.
Sunshine snickered. "You should really talk to him, you know," she said.
Nope gave her a dry look. "You know I can't."
"Psssh! Of course you can. You just don't want to. Live a little, filly! High school romance is part of life!"
"Betcha if I give in he'll either get terminally ill, turn out to be some other-dimensional prince, or get replaced by a clone by Humans from Outer Space."
"Oh, come on," Sunshine said, rolling her eyes. "That only happened once. He's just being friendly!"
"And that was already enough to make it happen, last time!" Nope replied. "Starburst still shies away from me. Both of them do, in fact."
Sunshine shrugged. "The princesses got him back. Frankly, I don't see the big deal; he got to make a space trip! And he gained a twin brother!"
Nope snickered. She was glad Sunshine was around. When confronted with weirdness, most ponies understandably freaked out, but not Sunshine; she just took everything in stride. Once, when Nope was sucked into a magical portal and only managed to get back an hour later, Sunshine had just asked if she'd brought a souvenir.
"I'm only fourteen," Nope said. "Dad said I should wait until I'm at least sixteen to get into romance."
"So, you're going to leave the poor guy hanging for two years instead of just going out there and telling him that? Harsh, filly!"
Nope sighed. "I hate it when you make sense."
"I'm your voice of reason in a crazy world!" Sunshine teased.
"Right, right." She looked around the gym hall and spotted the place where a bunch of her fellow students were painting stage pieces. Thankfully, none of them looked large enough to topple and trap anypony underneath. "Let's just get this over with, alright?"
Sunshine gave her a level look. "Yes, let's", she said, blocking her way to the stage pieces.
"Oh, come on!" Nope said. "I'll talk to him later. Maybe."
"Nope, you are going to talk to him right now, and unless you actually mean that 'two years' thing, you're going to do it in a way that won't just make him give you hopeful glances for the next two years."
"Whatever happened to 'no way we'll get the decorations finished'?" Nope protested.
Sunshine didn't budge. "The sooner you get this over with, the sooner we can start on that."
Nope grumbled something under her breath, but nodded in defeat. All right. So she'd confront the colt.
She frowned. "I don't even know his name."
"You don't want to know anypony's name, Nope", Sunshine said. "It took me two months to get you to remember mine."
"It's just easier, that way," Nope groused.
"Well, no longer. You are going to talk to Blue Pine and tell him what you really think of him."
"I don't think anything of him!" Nope said, desperately. "What do I even say?"
"Well, I dunno!" Sunshine said. "I don't exactly get suitors popping up around every corner! Hey, remember that prince that showed up here once? He was sooo dreamy!"
"He was also a dragon," Nope pointed out. "And that was a pretty decent reason to send him off. But this guy?"
"Blue Pine," Sunshine helpfully filled in.
"Right. Blue Pine? He's just a pony!" Nope continued in a whisper. "I don't even know him, and undoubtedly he'd like us to get to know each other, and then, agh! I don't even know!"
"Maybe he's nice?"
"You're not seriously suggesting what I think you are suggesting."
"Well, he seems nice!"
"He calls me Pinions!" Nope whisper-shouted at her friend. "Nopony calls me Pinions! Not even my dad!"
"Your dad started that whole 'Nope' silliness," Sunshine pointed out. She pushed her friend in the direction of the blue colt and grinned. "Now get out there and woo him!"
"That was never the plan and you know it!" Nope whispered back loudly, desperately hoping her friend was joking. With that look on her face, you never could tell.
And so, Noble Pinions, for the first time in her young life, was forced to confront a completely normal well-meaning suitor without any kind of noble background or ulterior motives.
"Um. Hi," she said, awkwardly.
"Oh, hey, Pinions!" Blue Pine replied.
"Please don't call me that," Nope mumbled. "Everypony calls me Nope." She frowned. "In fact, the only time my full name was ever mentioned was at the introductions when I entered the school."
"Yeah, I, um... remembered." Blue said. "I just thought the nickname sounded like a close-friends kind of thing, really."
Nope raised an eyebrow. "What ever gave you that idea?"
"Well, you shied away from practically everypony calling you that, except for Sunshine."
"I shy away from everypony," Nope pointed out. "It's not the name thing."
"Oh. I see," Blue said. "I mostly just wanted to be polite. I mean, you always hang out with Sunshine." He blushed. "It's just... she's so spontaneous and open, you know? I don't know if she'd even take me seriously."
Nope's eyes widened as the gears in her head clicked together. "Wait. You're not here for me?"
The colt shrank. "You had a dragon prince asking your hoof in marriage!" he said. "I can't compete with that! Why do you think I was trying to be polite?"
Nope laughed. "Oh, wow," she said. "I honestly never looked at it like that." She glanced at Sunshine, who had noticed the sudden change in atmosphere, and was sporting the most puzzled look Nope had ever seen on her face.
She grinned at the colt. "Hey, tell you what. I'll go get her, okay? Just, stay calm, and don't run away. And then, the two of you will have a very nice chat, while I go help the other ponies paint wooden bush cutouts."
She walked towards Sunshine, unable to suppress a smirk as she got closer. "Well," she said to her friend, "I guess high school romance is part of life, after all." She patted her on the shoulder, glanced over to the colt behind her, moved her mouth closer to Sunshine's ear, and whispered, "So go live a little, filly."
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By trying to avoid destiny destiny has found her. She is now the alicorn of destiny as she helps others find third destiny.
Well that was quite possibly the least likely outcome possible. Who could have guessed?
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Her destiny is getting her best friend a boyfriend?
Cutie mark crusaders, here we come
Well it looks like she gained a new friend! I wonder how he will take all the craziness that surrounds Pinions or should I say Nope.
My only regret is that I can only upvote this once.
Nope and the changeling invasion
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It was mentioned in chapter 1 that the invasion already happened
Careful there Nope, your getting dangerously close to being the main character of a sports anime.
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It’s worse than you think. I’m pretty sure Prince of Tennis is one of the longest-running and most popular animes of all time in Japan.
Crud, I forgot to already upvote! Have a +1
But the buttons broken!
It only let me upvote once!
Awwww yeah, go Sunshine!
Now I'm worried her best friend and her first non-suitor-decent stallion are going to have a tragic accident to further Nope's "backstory". Dammit meta fiction! XP
But fimfic worlnt let me like it again!
9646126
Nope and the Second Changling Invasion?
Oh God, a changling disguises as Nope and instantly gets hit by Destiny. A lot.
Fun read.
And for her to avoid becoming the protagonist of some sports stuff, simply stay in the club for one year.
And now she’s a friend of a couple. That’s totally on the edge of some plots I think.
9646195
This would be so damn perfect.
Sunshine is the Melissa to Nope's Milo Murphy. She takes all the weirdness in Nope's life in stride and doesn't make much comment on it.
Since there arean't any telephone poles in Equestria, Nope hasn't been leaping to the tops of any trees and gazing out over the town at sunrise or sunset, has she?
Nice twist.
Does Nope semi regulary switch school clubs? 'Cause I have yet to see a club activity, that couldn't be made into a anime. Regular switches would seem like the best defense against that.
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THIS MUST BE DONE.
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She deliberately took something she's mediocre at, though
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Trick I learned from youtubers; reminding people just makes sure they do something they don't mind doing which they might otherwise just not think of
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Somehow, Sunshine just seems to be immune to all that mess
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Hmm.
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They got lantern poles. She used to hop on them, but her dad sternly remarked that having wings wasn't an excuse to act like an idiot
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It'll give Destiny a chance to vent a little I suppose.
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CHANGELING STORY! NOW!
That sounds hilarious!
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I guess it's better then something she's bad at, that would guarantee her becoming the protagonist.
"Sorry, I've not being distant because my feelings are hurt, it's because, if you haven't noticed, I was born a protagonist. I want none of that shit if I can avoid it. It's honestly a pretty big disability."
Based on some of the other bits of what you put so far, this is a perfectly reasonable responce that'd be understood by anyone she'd tell it to.
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Exactly what I was thinking!
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Oh thank heavens. It'd be sad if something happened to poor Sunshine!
Also, nice changeling shenanigans, glad you approve!
Nice subversion.
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No tragic accidents, Sunshine actually crushes hard on Nope, but keeps it casual for she's genre savvy and could spot a main character from a mile away - and also wants none of that. But she also knows that avoiding Nope would be a recipe for Fateful Meetings, so she chose to become the unrequited loving best friend in order to cheat Destiny by throwing it a bone.
A masterful display of how to dodge story hooks, if I have ever seen them. I'm pretty sure Nope is just one of my D&D party members in disguise.
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Oh god...I wanna hug Sunshine so much now. Damn.
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Different one
Good luck! You will need it.
Sorry, can't do that more than once.
Edit: I had just un-liked it and then liked it again. Does that count?
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Just imagine the Changeling transforming into Nope and keep meeting Potential Love Interest that keep falling in love with "her".
And a Changeling feed on love after all...
And the next morning, you see the most fat changelings possible come back to the base, full to the brim from overeating making it quite sick and unable to transform.
I like the practicality of her decision that it would likely be more work to go through a portal and become a hero on an adventure than to help set up the stage for a play.
The idea of an hour long trip through a portal into a different reality, and returning, only to have a friend ask "did you bring me a souvenir?" is funny.
Nice subversion with Blue Pine.
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And so it was that they reached the championship game, and their winning or losing all laid on the shoulder of Noble Pinion.
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And then they lost, of course. The moment she noticed balls started curving towards her racket with no clear cause, she just forfeited the match in the spirit of fair play
What makes Nope so sure that Blue Pine is only getting one love interest?
God damn magnificent.
Whoo!
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A changeling had tried to replace Nope, once. Within seconds of donning her disguise, a portal popped into existence below her hooves as she was leaving the dark alley, and she was unceremoniously dumped into an alternate Equestria where wonderful inventions of steam, brass, and clockworks is pervasive in ponies' daily lives. She landed, quite literally, amidst a ragtag group of adventurers who vowed to help her find a way to return to her home dimension.
The next two months was a whirlwind of activities where the group found themselves: being hunted down by a criminal organization, remove the corrupt mayor of a merchant city from power (and in the process, install one that's less corrupt and they could blackmail), restore the rightful heir of a neighboring kingdom, destabilize the local economy of a neighboring kingdom, and cumulated in the destruction of an army of mechanical spiders.
Eventually, the changeling's secret was inadvertently revealed to the group that she grew to think of as her close friends, but a long scene of touching character building and exposition later they decided that it doesn't really matter that she was a shapeshifter, not when half the group already sports various magi-mechanical body parts, one had the ability to summon a lesser daemon from the shadow realm precisely once a day, and the Abyssinian had to continuously make excuses to be away from everyone once every full moon, for reasons that others KNOWS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING OF AND IS TOTALLY CLUELESS ABOUT, NO SIR.
So now the changeling travels with the group in her natural form, and only took on Nope's form when they are bored of downtime and looking for new epic quests to go on. On her freetime she's working on a book detailing her adventures titled Exploiting Destiny for Fun and Profits.
Meanwhile, that two months had been one of the longest period of normality Nope ever experienced in her life, by the end of which had Nope's father on the verge of hysterical paranoia, wondering when the other horseshoe is going to drop.
This is amazing and i love it.
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This is also amazing and i love it.
Sadly, I cannot upvote it a second time. :)
I was, however, able to upvote several comments. :D
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And in addition to the other suggestions, nothing a little time travel couldn't fix, eh? :D
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Haha. Nice, though it wouldn't exactly fit to post such shenanigans in this story
Every good Chosen One needs a couple close friends to act as emotional support, comic relief, and occasional villain hostages in need of rescue.
When fate calls, it will investigate if it discovers the phones battery is dead for lack of charging. Some people want an ordinary life and there are times that is considered a crime as with great power comes great pressure to be punished for having said ability. In theory this comes with perks but not often in my experience. She is very wise, and has a wise father to avoid the big drama.
I find myself reminded of a character created by a great author I admire named Constance Verity. As her awesome name implies, she was a born Protagonist. From her childhood to present, she's been on an almost nonstop series of adventures across time and space, saving reality multiple times a week, and dabbling in pretty much every genre of quest and mission, making it impossible to have an ordinary life. (The closest thing she had to a boyfriend was a ninja thief who always betrays her except when he lets her know in advance he's not actually betraying her, and her best friend/sidekick has been kidnapped so many times she starts feeling weird if she doesn't get abducted and shoved in deathtraps on a regular basis.) By adulthood, she's sick of it and decides to hunt down whoever stuck her with this Destiny and force them to remove it from her.
It works, only for her to learn that it was actually a terrible idea since now someone else was going to use her Destiny to break/fix/take control of the machine running the universe, so she needed to take it back. Afterwards she gained the ability to 'choose' whether or not to pursue plot hooks so she could give herself a break every now and then.
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Let them take over the city and go on vacation. Let THEM deal with all the red tape, whining taxpayers, paperwork, city council meetings, and mafia shakedowns. By the time you get back they'll be begging you to take the job again.
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Right. Imma need you to stop commenting now
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We donk kinkshame... unless kinkshaming is your kink, then, well, i guess you're out of luck