It's a simple request, really. Can't they do just a little more for Ponyville, especially when they consider all the things they've done to Ponyville and how this might help to pay for some of the damages? It's just spending a few hours at the town's street fair, being among the population, making themselves freely accessible --
-- well, not freely. After all, the kisses have to cost something, or how is the money being raised?
Kiss A Bearer For A Bit.
Arrive early. There might be a line.
Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.
Chapters (1)
You get an up vote just for the name of the chapter .
I haven't read this story yet, but the rating and synopsis confuses me. I mean, it's just kissing. Why is this rated teen?
Oh my... going to read this on my lunch break at work. I have no idea how your going to handle Twilight or Fluttershy in this and it intrigues me greatly.
Poor Twilight. So few expectations.
Poor Rarity. So many.
Dannnng Rarity I feel that pain. Why are all the good ones gay
lol 😂
Excellent. I got in trouble because I laughed too loud.
“Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it”
A little surprised that the tabloids haven’t picked it up. Or did Twilight manage to get them to back off.
skins? or just leave out “flayed”
The thought of Twilight running a kissing booth brought this to mind
I'd hate to see what Rarity has in store for Marigold's dresses.
And poor Rarity.
*Sees title.
Oh, no.
*Sees author.
Oh, noooooooo.
*Sees Mayor Mare.
Oh no.
There is a restaurant near where I live that serve deep fried spinach with a peanut-chicken stir-fry. It's delicious.
Kiss a Bear and You’ll Be Bit.
Nice reference there. I remember reading those books when I was little.
----
Whoo! That Jelly Pony!
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And that bit of Roseluck's section! ... Note to self, Spoilers can't enclose Quotes.
How did she come up with that??!?
----
Lastly, that last scene! Great!
As fun as this was, Mayor was frankly genuinely despicable here.
I’d comment on the glorious, glorious comedy, but something I think is underrated is
uniquely illegible?
Soooo, are we all ignoring the fact that Twilight just dove in and gave it her all while Pinkie took the time to get paperwork?
Sadly this was not one I enjoyed all that much. I finished it out, and enjoyed seeing how Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy dissuaded their customers - and I was very proud of myself for guessing Fluttershy would bring her bear, even if I didnt think of the pun. But the premise in general just made me mad, because the Mayor’s stunt that started it all was nothing short of sexual harassment. Cornering anyone into any intimate action against their will is sexual harassment. SHE proposed the idea, she spread the advertising while they weren't there to protest, she provided the guilt to try and coerce them (I dont care what damage your life as a HERO WHO HAS SAVED THE COUNTRY may have caused, it doesnt entitle anyone to kissing you if you dont want to). She made it so that refusal would result in ponies being angry at them en masse, because SHE made it out like they were OKAY with this and so they would have looked like they were reneging on a promise. Not to mention how many ponies clearly knew the Bearers weren't enthusiastic about this idea. Yes I know its a fanfiction about ponies and Im probably taking it too seriously, but it’s a sore spot (plus DANG, the CHARACTERS sure seemed to be taking it seriously! I think my character-empathy went into overdrive thanks to Rarity and Applejack.)
Ah well. I shall continue to look forward to the next Jury Duty or equivalent :)
Meant to send you this when you were thinking of publishing but I never got around to it -until mow
As soon as Fluttershy said some _one_, I thought of three options, none of them good.
Option one: Fluttershy brings Harry along as chaperone. This is more-or-less what happened.
Option two: Fluttershy brings Discord along as chaperone, since you've kept "keep calm and flutter on" as verse-canon and even if he doesn't do anything, the reactions should still amuse him.
Option three: Fluttershy brings Discord along as chaperone, and gives him carte blanche to be _creative_.
If the goal is to reduce or at least offset some of the disaster relief headaches, Mayor Mare doesn't seem to have thought this through.
(My money was actually on an "official Bearer visit" ending, but you made it interesting enough without that.)
Such excellent Estee. And now, after the denouement, I want to see fallout. Marigold's comeuppance, for example. I will say that I first thought the pegasus was Celestia coming to sweep Rarity away.
arrgh! my second hand embarrassment.... that was hard to read. not to say it wasn't funny or well written, this story is great but still...
I was really hoping for the Mayor to receive a comeuppance at the end. Still, it was a great premise and a lot of fun to see how it unfolded with each pony’s strategy.
I'm extremely surprised you didn't write Discord's reaction to Fluttershy's booth. In fact, for a moment, I thought he was Fluttershy's companion that caused some to run off, and not the bear.
I could feel it coming since he first alighted (and that is the verb, of course). Great setup.
As has been mentioned, this definitely counts as sexual harassment and Fluttershy should ask Discord to flex those ol' pranking muscles for a bit. (It's not as bad as it would be in our world, Ponies either having gender equality or slight female superiority, and rape apparently being almost unknown, but it's still an asshole move).
"Best day ever!" grinned Hughbert Jellius, and went directly for the breath spray.
And best line!
"The clipboard was sitting on the plank. Solid, quiet, utterly placid in the way which only the inanimate could be, and silently insisting on existing. Which was something it hadn't been doing five seconds ago."
Pinkie is a paranoid Pony's nightmare. (And although Triptych does give an explanation for in-universe Pinkie, it falls short I think of explaining some of her weirder moments in canon, of which there were more in earlier seasons: I suspect Hasbro thought stuff like this was frightening the kiddies.
)
You do know Lovecraft didn't actually take his own "Yog-Sothery" seriously, right?
This is more extreme emo Lovecraft fanboy behavior. Like Chancellor Neighsay, the monsters he really feared were the ones moving into the neighborhood and driving the property prices down...
(I'd really like to see Tartarus in the Triptych universe, actually. I am sure it would be something actually cool rather than the playset Hasbro eventually turned it into.)
Actually, if you think about it, most of the bad things that happen to Ponyville aren't the Mane Six's fault. Nightmare Moon invaded simply because it was closest to the Castle of Two Sisters so that's more Celestia's fault, Discord affected all of Equestria, Chrysalis only invaded Canterlot, Sombra stuck to the Crystal Empire, Discord's return only temporarily affected Ponyville until Fluttershy straightened him out, Tirek lashed out everywhere, and Chrysalis's round two mostly took place at her hive. Honestly, most of the damage is caused by the CMC pre-cutie mark and monsters coming out of the Everfree forest that they willingly chose to live by. All things considered, they get off pretty lucky considering how other villains treat the hometowns of heroes (i.e the Joker with Gotham, Luthor with Metropolis, etc.)
This is uniquely and charmingly terrible in the best possible way.
Poor Rarity.
Ow!.. i was reading this on my tablet while in a hammock.. I was laughing so hard by the end of it i managed to tip myself out...nice one mate..
Funny, cringetastic, funny, clever, unexpected and funny.
Some of my favorite things: Fluttershy's rules-lawyering, kissing dragons being an acquired taste, Mr. Lovecraft, and Rarity's soul-searing agony.
Okay, bracing for a disaster...
Okay, Rainbow is a bad kisser is funny, but that’s some remedial classes right there. Poor Femto is going to be scared for life.
I’m guessing that the booth was returned with an oddly large number of tear-stains.
It’s just a fairy tale, they are kids... Don’t overthink this Twilight.
You over-thought it...
Probably not the weirdest thing she has asked Harry to do,
And we now have a winner for the weirdest thing Fluttershy has asked Harry to do...
Considering what she used to discourage a kiss on the lips, she either has an iron stomach, or powerful control of her gag reflex.
Pinkie has taken her inner Twilight, and turned it up to eleven. That’s a disturbing level of knowledge she has about the citizens of Ponyville.
Let’s just take a moment here. The Mayor invoked the Bearers in an official capacity, and no one got arrested. Miranda earned her overtime rates that day...
Oh, really now. You do the man a disservice. The rest of this was amusingly excellent.
This is about 100 times better than I was expecting.
it's okay, has some funny moments
Rainbow kissing wrong doesn't do much for me. We know she's a movie watcher and she's got both parents. She should have seen ponies kiss
9809825
If you browse through the various verse-specific stories you'll find that quite a few things have happened to the town as a direct consequence of one or more of the bearers. I believe I recall that Rarity once flooded Main street and drained the local watertower with her experimental shower thingy.
Oh, Marigold. I understand where she's coming from, but putting pressure on the Bearers inevitably results in everything else breaking. The only question is how.
It really says something when Twilight doesn't grasp the connection between alicorns and attractiveness if the alicorn is her. Poor thing.
Oh. Oh dear. An animal friend, or is she going straight to law vs. chaos?
Pink Lady is the perfect name for an Apple escort. Kudos.
Goodboy, the Diamond Dog seismologist. Another little gem.
Ponyville: The only settlement in the middle of a continent that needs a town-wide "You May Get Wet" sign.
Poor Femto. Anypony would have a 1-in-1015 chance of making it through that conscious.
So many forget that Generosity can include giving a pony a piece of your mind.
This would be funny if it weren't so sad.
I've been wondering how you'd handle the orange-frog hybrid in a setting averse to such extreme transmutations. This certainly works.
Depending on what he had, this could be an entire extra layer of evil. Salmon breath plus herbivores doesn't end well. Of course, Hugh could be into that as well.
At least Mr. Lovecraft isn't one of those Equestrian authors who write based on their own experiences. And he doesn't have to live near the ocean... though there is the Ponyville lake squid to consider.
Oh goodness. And it's been aged. Applejack, there's proving a point, and then there's scorching the earth.
I do hope Rose and the others never encounter Mr. Lovecraft. Pretty sure that's how cults form.
I think the most important question here is whether she took off the glasses before polishing them.
Yeah, this doesn't feel like the best way to avoid Bearer-induced destruction. It helps if they feel they should try to avoid collateral damage, after all, as opposed to trying to steer monsters towards Town Hall. It does, however, make for a tremendously entertaining (and occasionally heart-rending) read. Thank you for it.
9809589
Or perhaps merely the slightest bit miffed that the presence of the Bearers did seem to be closely correlated to the constant damage inflicted on the town she was supposed to be responsible for.
She might not be to the point where she's actively trying to get them to leave, and she certainly seems smart enough to know that wouldn't work, but when the option to potentially ever so slightly inconvenience them in a way which also raises funds for damage control rears its head, it may be difficult for her to resist.
I imagine that on the orders of the Crown, she'd provide whatever resources or support they needed. Or if there was a mission only they could undertake, whether that be around Ponyville or elsewhere, she would (as the representative of the town) supply absolute support. Marigold is, after all, part of the system of law and governance, and bound by its necessities and traditions. She also wouldn't - couldn't, almost - use her position or personal status to interfere with or inconvenience the Bearers purely for her own amusement. But on the very rare occasion that it could be considered her duty to do something which also, as a side effect, rubs the Bearers' faces in some of the negative effects they seem to attract to Ponyville...
9809994
True, although it was pointed out repeatedly that Rainbow tends to rewrite reality in her head, and even in canon doesn't really pay a lot of attention to things which aren't speed, aerobatics, or Wonderbolt-related. If there's never been a Daring Do movie which featured fairly realistic kissing (as opposed to Applewood-exaggerated), I can imagine Rainbow's brain never really having filed anything kissing-related under "things worth remembering".
9809602
In that although it was still illegible, at least it was uniquely so, and thus identifiable as a genuine Rainbow Dash signature.
9809387
Lovecraftian imagery?
9809727
I was thinking it was either going to be Discord (possibly wearing a very poor Fluttershy disguise and pretending to be her), or Angel, slapping a tiny spiked bat slowly against one paw.
Now I'm wondering if the amber-winged, green-eyed pegasus in the last scene was somepony from canon. He's got the wrong eye color for Flash Sentry, for instance. Might be an in-joke reference to the color schemes for Applejack, Braeburn, or Carrot Cake?
...it's not Hoops, is it?
9809740
"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."
9810125
local version of Ragamuffin from EQG?
Rarity's "perfect stallion" was gay. Hilarious! And Fluttershy's first kiss...Oh wow. A guy whose dream wasn't to kiss HER, but to make out with one of her animals. And possibly a frog.
If Flutter had been smarter, she could have got away with kissing NO ONE. All she had to do was bring Discord. Even if anyone had been brave enough to still try, the threat of being turned into a teapot by the Lord of Chaos would have sent them running. Jealous Discord is crazy, as Tree Humper found out the hard way (yes, her name is Tree Humper to me).
If you believe in enough conspiracies, you're bound to stumble across one that happens to be true eventually.
9809740
Lovecraft didn't believe in the Lovecraft mythos, but he was very racist (even for the time), paranoid, sickly, and afraid of just about everything.
He also had trouble understanding concepts like euclidean geometry and light outside of the visible spectrum.
9809635
Got to agree. A few minutes in and I wanted to fucking strangle Mayor Mare.
So yeah. Marigold just used her office to effectively prostitute a Princess, not to mention the rest of the Bearers.
Her career needs to end. Now, and likely the very moment someone mentions this to Miranda.
...and pray Luna doesn't find out first.
9810086 Petty revenge is one thing, but as someone pointed out, this is pretty much sexual harassment/coercion (even if the coercion is emotional instead of legal), which by all rights should get the Mayor in serious legal trouble.
Yes, maybe I shouldn't take it seriously, but that's hard to do when the 'verse is always taking itself seriously. It's hard to call it absurd when the concept, consequences, and reactions are portrayed as realistically as possible, including the adamant "I do not want to be sexually touched by strangers but an authority figure has convinced me that it's the right thing to do" attitude of the Mane 6.