Blurb
Rarity tries to come on to Ellie during her suit-fitting, but Ellie is not quite ready to admit to herself that making out with the magical horse ladies is cool and normal. She has a lot of feelings to process first.
Tags
- Sex: Prime time television rules. Cuts away before the action starts.
Sequel-ness
Though technically a sequel to Scenes From a Life in Equestria, I recommend starting here. At one point I will rewrite the parts of the prequel I am currently dissatisfied with, and when I do I will relink it as a direct prequel.
Author's Note
My entire life has been preparing me to write this story lol.
Chapters (2)
Good story. The way you built up the sexual tension, you could practically cut it with a knife.
10601439
Thank you! I do try.
I think you may be underselling the worldbuilding of this Equestria in the prequel a bit. :)
(I again, by the way, intend to try and hold myself back on comments, as I'm again quite low on time and still have over ten thousand words in queue for the day not counting this story and its second part, but... we'll see what happens, I suppose.)
"She had a good look at herself in the standing mirror, whose height was actually tall enough for her to use despite towering over the ponies that it must have been created for. She did not think too hard about that fact, nor about the fact that she had never been in a room meant for ponies with a ceiling that was too short for her. It was just one of those things."
Well, one possible hypothesis is that it's a customary just-in-case-Celestia-shows-up in Equestria architecture. Partly just a way things are done, but, you know, yes, the chances--
[looks at paragraph just above this in the comment]
[facehoofs]
Great, made it all the way to the middle of the story's third paragraph before commenting. Really need to do better there. :D
...Sigh, guess I'd better finish this one, though. I'll try to be brief. Ahem.
Partly and in many cases just it being the way things are done, but I imagine that many ponies still have that notion in the back of their heads (particularly, perhaps, given some of the things in your Equestria(s)) "But what if Princess Celestia visit my house/dive bar/garden shed in Nowheresburg one day? Do I want to have her bump her head?". Probably also some social reinforcement: you might quite reasonably judge the chances of Celestia paying a personal visit to your home as astronomically low within the building's expected lifespan, but what do you neighbors think, and think the other neighbors thing? Low ceilings, just not proper, you know.
Then we have Princess Twilight coming in, who on top of everything else is openly enthusiastic about getting other species in, and a lot of them need extra space too.
Right so there's a somewhat unpolished but hopefully still interesting comment and now I really need to be moving on and trying to hold myself back if I want to hold back how not on time I'm getting to bed to a less unreasonable degree sorry. :D
"Yes, I must admit that I do not get it…"
...Yeah, I've no idea either, sorry.
"I admit, it is fun and"
"I admit, it is a fun and"?
re calculus:
More worldbuilding. :D
"It’s not bestiality if the ovaries don’t touch."
[facehoofs]
Just... what? I do not think it quite works that way, Ellie. :D
(Allowing myself that comment, since it's the last line. :D)
Anyway, I found this a good story. Thank you for writing. :)
(And, ah, good luck with things IRL absent sudden also-IRL magical horse ladies.)
10602113
I appreciate your high opinion of the prequel. I like my worldbuilding as well but my main goal with this series is to build a better Human-Goes-To-Equestria-And-Makes-Out-With-The-Horse-Ladies story, not the worldbuilding (though it is an essential part of it).
This explains the size of the furniture, but not the architecture, which is large enough to accommodate Stephen Magnet a lot of the time. So it makes more sense for the architecture to be explained by the other idea you brought up.
This direct idea was planned to come up like 10 stories from now!
If you saw Ellie the human in real life with her blonde hair, while you may be generous and not assume it's bleached from raven black, it'd be a pretty good guess.
Entirely consequentialist. I need the mathematical ability waterline to be higher than human world (e.g. Pinkie learning Graph Theory in order to plan parties better) so that I can make terrible references. Also it's another fun way to differentiate the two worlds.
That is the second-favorite line I've ever written so far.
Cheerilee never does seem to erase that one equation from the school chalkboard...
It never occurred to me until now that "brassière" and "brachiate" have the same root.
She thought, while considering all the reasons people were mistaken when complimenting her.
Ooh, metaburn. Those are rare.
Calling Celestia a horse is a good way to get an involuntary suntan.
Lovely stuff. Certainly an unconventional form of therapy, but an undeniably effective one. Lovely to see Ellie heal. And that last line... Girl, if those are touching, you got bigger problems.
10603308
I knew I wasn't misremembering something like this!
As does "brassard" and, uh, "branch", probably?
I intended this to apply to the women in STEM context since that is the context in which I'm familiar with these terms the most. There's also a reason why she has the background she does. She lacks impostor syndrome, like, three times over.
While I would say she has "impostor syndrome" in regards to gender stuff, the part about compliments directly is more of recognizing that she benefits from the structural advantages of masculine presentation and has been able to avoid the negatives by winning the geographical and class lottery. But maybe that's my own "impostor syndrome" in regards to this talking.
I do those a lot in these stories, glad you caught that!
Though ironically She is the only one the term would be accurate for.
In the end, all this time I spent writing has been in making yet another Human Goes To Equestria To Heal By Making Out With The Ponies story. Surprise!
Exactly! Therefore, everything they are about to do is A-OK and Celestia-approved.
10603329
Headcanon? In Equestria, touching ovaries in estrus has a chance of inducing pregnancy similar to that of heterosexual intercourse, enabling mare-mare couples to reproduce biologically.
Ellie and Rarity on the other hoof.....
When i saw the name was Ellie...
I don't know why but it made me think of Ellie from The Last Of Us.
10604803
10633968
Never heard of it, is that an animé or something?
Also I decided to write the morning after as a last chapter in this fic, so that it can continue seamlessly into its romance arc sequel, sorry to those of you who did not track this thinking it was complete! Whoops!
10638029
it's an action/horror game, search TLOU or Joel and Ellie. it's got it's first and second game, possibly a movie featuring Hugh Jackman as Joel, but idk who's gonna play Ellie.
So I've refrained from commenting on this and the other Ellie stories thus far (At least, uh, I think I have...) because I feel like they deserve a better comment than I've had time to give thus far. I enjoy the idea of HiE stories and anything in that particular micro-genre--a clash of two wildly different, but oddly familiar, species and cultures clash, and find ways to work out their differences, and even thrive.
Unfortunately, many of them are utterly, utterly terrible.
So, like, what a breath of fresh air this is? Ellie is an actual person, with opinions and foibles and a personality! How wonderful, how lovely, how sadly uncommon!
But really, it would be a crime not to say something about this masterfully-crafted piece of character writing:
It made me snort aloud, anyway =D
Ponies are people, by the Gardez Principle.
Wearing eyeliner and falsies to bed? At the risk of killing the romance, that just seems like a recipe for ruined pillowcases.
And at Sweet Apple Acres, where Applejack had already been up and working for an hour, she felt an odd pang of blended offense, relief, and heartache.
Ah yes, cultural standards and expectations for xenophilia. I wouldn't be surprised if Ellie were unknowingly echoing a cliche "newly discovered species being introduced to wider romantic possibilities by an experienced lover" character. That sort of literature probably flourished when Equestria restored contact with the hippo(campi|griffs), to say nothing of the kirin.
And that last horrified realization.
Just one more mental barrier for Ellie to work through. I think this really is the beginning of something beautiful. Now it's just a question of whether Ponyville's resident human will get snapped back to her own world like this has been the world's longest bungee jump. I doubt Twilight will have the heart to break up a loving couple.
"and from the task of fitting in this experience into her otherwise very"
"and from the task of fitting this experience into her otherwise very"?
"left on read" "left-on-reads"
Just checking, but were those indeed supposed to be what they are? The phrasing wasn't familiar to me, and though I did work out a likely-seeming meaning, I thought I'd ask.
Heh. :)
10602706
...Huh. Okay, sorry, but FIMFiction seems to have completely failed to notify me of this reply, and I don't know why. I only saw it now because I happened to be looking back at older comments. So, uh, sorry if my reply to your reply isn't as good as it might be, as it's been about a month, my memory of what I was thinking isn't that clear, and I don't currently have the time to do some sort of deep reconstruction attempt.
(Hypothesis: Did you add the comment-link in an edit? I remember someone saying somewhere that that at least sometimes caused them to not send notifications, or something like that. Still, if it was that, I'm not sure what the best solution would have been, so [shrugs].)
"I appreciate your high opinion of the prequel. I like my worldbuilding as well but my main goal with this series is to build a better Human-Goes-To-Equestria-And-Makes-Out-With-The-Horse-Ladies story, not the worldbuilding (though it is an essential part of it)."
Well, I think it's working at that too. :)
(Though, admittedly, I've not seen much at all of the bad ones, because, well, see said adjective.)
"So it makes more sense for the architecture to be explained by the other idea you brought up."
Which idea was that? I'm not seeing another one there. Unless you mean the other-species thing, and are thinking about that happening under Celestia too?
"This direct idea was planned to come up like 10 stories from now!"
Oh, interesting. :)
"If you saw Ellie the human in real life with her blonde hair, while you may be generous and not assume it's bleached from raven black, it'd be a pretty good guess."
Ah, so the joke, to another human, would be that it almost certainly wouldn't shock them? Whereas we the readers don't have the information to get that and they the ponies wouldn't necessarily see anything odd about the coloring and/or patterning?
"Entirely consequentialist. I need the mathematical ability waterline to be higher than human world (e.g. Pinkie learning Graph Theory in order to plan parties better) so that I can make terrible references. Also it's another fun way to differentiate the two worlds."
Ah. :D
"That is the second-favorite line I've ever written so far."
Heh. :)
(Though I'm now curious (and sorry if I'm just forgetting): What's your favorite?)
10649101
I really appreciated this comment and do hope you leave more! Comments like this really keep me going even if they are done in haste, because I don't really expect that large of an audience for this very strange series of stories.
And it's interesting that you comment on Ellie being well-rounded, because she is basically an amalgam of my friends and I: close enough to me in worldview and socio that I can insert anecdotes and bits from my own life for verisimilitude. That is, she is as much a shameless self-insert author avatar as the protagonist of any other HiE fic.
As to the last line, I have been sitting on that for months at this point, so I am glad it finally got out. It is very near and dear to my heart.
10651003
I mean, sure, her status is a self-insert is pretty clear. But she's also like, clearly a person in addition to a being vehicle for naked (hah!) wish fulfillment.
10649224
I actually wanted to depict Rarity without her makeup when going to sleep, but could not be that untrue to the actual canon, where both she and Maud canonically sleep and wake with fully made eyes. I intended for this to be commented on in this story, but it didn't quite fit with the rest of the conversation. It did find a good place in the upcoming 21-chapter arc, though!
I thought I fixed the slightly weird grammar in the quoted line, but I guess I copied in the draft wrong! I'll fix it along with Reese's comment later, but yes. That is, in fact, exactly what Applejack was up to at that moment in time.
The interesting thing is that ponies keep coming across species that not only lack any cultural clashes that cannot be solved in a 22-minute friendship lesson, but often even speak their language! I mean, even for the isolated Kirin, Autumn Blaze was able to sing to Applejack and Fluttershy in idiomatic Ponish with no problems, and her motivations and attitude were instantly recognizable. Sandbar’s interest in Yona was only a problem insofar as Yona’s anxiety about expectations, and not xenophilic relationships being considered inherently wrong, even though yaks seem to be depicted as fairly isolationist.
So everypony is able to pattern-match this to humans, and Ellie is very self-aware as to not give them any reason to think otherwise.
Let’s not jump the gun here!
10649257
It’s a fairly new concept, only possible since the rise of texting as default communication in the dating scene.
10649297
Yep. Considering Stephen Magnet going for a spa day, griffons going to flying camps with pegasi, et cetera, all happened under Celestia’s reign, I imagine efforts to accommodate other species have been around a long time.
One I will not repeat in a T-rated fic.
10655973
Interesting. This is an intersection of subjects I know even less about, I think, than I do the intersecting subjects individually. I also hadn't realized that's where the expression had come from.
To confirm or correct my hypothesis, to leave a message "on read" is to read it but not reply to it?
Hm. Not sure how much extra accommodation griffons would need, since they're not all that different in size and shape than ponies, but good point; even they still serve as an example that other species are there, and no one, that I recall, reacted with surprise just at Gilda having been to the same flight camp as Rainbow dash.
Ah. :D
If anything more curious now, but understandable, from the sound of it, you'd not want to mention it here, yes. :)
(And some interesting and/or amusing things elsewhere in the commentary here, too, but I'm afraid I am, as you said, doing this in haste currently. I've only a little bit more to get done to finish what I wanted to have done during my Saturday waking period, and it's not that far after dawn on calendar Monday yet! :D)
More of your unique, intriguing worldbuilding and characterization on display here. Rarity was in top form, as I expected, but I enjoyed how you characterized Ellie as well. There's a lot of glimpses into issues of gender (both identity, presentation, and expression) and sexuality here on top of the differences between (Western) human and pony society. The exposition on Ellie's experiences growing up gay struck a lot of chords for me. I was particularly moved by the sequence with Alex.
Reminds me of this song I discovered recently:
One of the hardest things about internalized lesbophobia is getting over the idea of being a "predator". Both fiction and society have done us no favors in this regard. To be a man is to be a pursuer; to be a woman is to be pursued. Thus, a woman who usurps the "natural order"and pursues the pursued is surely some kind of monster indeed, ain't she? Thank God for therapy.
There's so much beauty and powerful in these admissions.
When we really think about it, it's amazing the things/moments that define us. And how much we try to recreate those moments we lost, the things we regret, what we wish we could go back and change. I can emphasize with Ellie here—while, at the same time, knowing that she's only prolonging the shame and hurt of that moment, rather than healing it. Something that only her adult self, with the wisdom of her years, could realize in hindsight.
Ah, there's the healing.
Ellie acknowledges this, but I gotta chime in: Rawr.
I shouldn't have laughed at this, but I did.
Maybe I'm too much of a label-less lesbian, but I'd have to say that, if Ellie's weirded out by "bottoming first," she hasn't been with the right ladies... or let herself do so. (Being stone is all well and good, but there's something to be said about recriprocal partners outside of that.)
Well, if this wasn't a sweet piece of weaving through past issues, past and present, and giving in to mutual desire... I'll eat my hat. And I only own, like, three, so I'd rather not.
Ahhh, the tension of the morning-after. Always a fun time. (I usually chase away those anxieties by sneaking out of bed and making breakfast. "How do you like your eggs in the morning?" always at least got me a laugh.) Silly Ellie, too wrapped up in the pains of the past to truly enjoy the afterglow... at least, at first.
Maybe that's the way we should do things more often.
I remember you telling me about this line, but it still got me.
You just had to get me with another side-stitcher, didn't ya?
(And you know my answer on this, though it differs from yours... In any case, just embrace it, Ellie. You got a hot magical horse girlfriend outta the deal, so what's a silly label in comparison to that?)
I do like the addition of the second chapter. Gives a nice conclusion, as well as working through a few of those pesky human/pony cultural differences you're fond of expounding on. Now to read the spicy middle that was glossed over...
10660749
I'd say so! (Sorry, had to do it.)
For fear of posting a thousand words about this in the comments section of a site about pony cartoons, I will limit myself to two:
Hard same.
That part was supposed to be funny! So, good.
Thanks for the kind words! And if it's your shipping hat, definitely do not eat that. Way too important.
10660756
I've been thinking about that line ever since your Tempest in a Teacup, and the mental image of ponies cooking each other eggs still makes me laugh, which is why I had a reference to that here!
I certainly hope I'll take my own advice once I'm back out there, post-pandemic.
The fact that I see your point is probably the strongest evidence that you are right in this argument, but I still refuse to concede. Ellie is not a furry! Not a furry!
Thanks! I originally intended for this chapter to be the last part of the "spicy middle" but I figured it made more sense to put it here to let people just read through the romantic arc without having to look at my Sin Words.
I really, really like your writing and characterization. Now to go read the Starlight fics.
I lol'd.
Thank you so much for the wonderful pleasure of reading your creation. I am a Boomer Brony, a straight white male who grew up in Southern California in the 1950s. I came of age and attended UC San Diego in the days of Flower Power and Woodstock. So I've been enjoying the societal changes since then, from Gay Pride to LGBT to LGBTQ and gender equality.
I know nothing of Ellie's traumas, decisions, and confusions, so it's interesting to gradually learn about her world on Earth, and then her ongoing learning and development in a new world that is both similar and different. It's great that she has the intelligent and open-minded Rarity to guide her.
I hope I'll soon discover more of your enlightening stories.