Times are hard for Doctor Caballeron, forcing him to search for artifacts without a team. Just as he stumbles across something which might be his big break, a pony calling himself "Doctor Whooves" turns up. Just who is this pony? And why does he suddenly feel like this isn't going to be as simple as he originally thought?
Fourth place in the 2023 M/M shipping contest! (I highly recommend checking out the other stories there as well!)
I love this story. Thank you for writing it. And I hope you do good in that contest. I also see a possible sequel in the future for this story to explore the romance between Caballeron and Turner and maybe even more.
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Thank you so much! I'm glad you liked it :)
Very solid story. You also made Dr. Caballeron actually sympathetic and I didn't know that was possible.
Looking forward to any potential sequels.
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Thank you! :) I haven't got a sequel planned just yet but I did love writing their dynamic so its definitely something I'll consider.
This was such a fun and exciting story! The action scenes felt right out of the sort of adventure flick Caballeron's character was derived from. And, relatedly, this was a great touch:
Pairing Doctor Whooves and Doctor Caballeron was a fantastic concept. As was the framing of them going after the same artifact being what led to their meeting and classic tomb escape! I really enjoyed how you humanized (for lack of a more pony-based word) Doctor Caballeron without disregarding his role as an antagonistic force in Equestria. Doctor Whooves is certainly an intriguing yet grounding presence for Caballeron to make sense of, yet not one that's necessarily going to propel him toward being on the moral up-and-up. It was a great dynamic overall and I had a great time reading every moment of it. Especially the smooch at the end!
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Thank you so much for your review! I'm glad it felt like an adventure flick, that was exactly the vibe I was going for :)
oof, that really must suck when you think about it
dang, how dare she!
i love how over the years he must have encountered so many archaeologist adventure clichés that he can now make these judgments by sight
love that last bit as an option. ah, the world of ponies…
ahaha i love this! always love it when the Equestrian government or civil service is fleshed out, and this idea is very fitting with the spirit of the canon
Dr. Hooves is about to find out that he is in the wrong story genre isn’t he
you’d think Caballeron would have figured out that is what tends to happen in these situations by now!
augh i love this! exactly the kind of speech i’d expect a pony to give a human if that makes sense
tsundere!
ehehe
ahaha love this. looking at a cutie mark being the same thing as looking at a butt leads to very fun unaligned intentions when attraction is thrown into the mix
nice
i gotta say, that is a pretty badass cutie mark
oof, love this depth to the backstory here! and how it connects with Dr. Whooves’ background in science, augh that works os well
ahaha
hehe, “Who”
always love it when stories figure out explanations for the many background ponies with multiple names
oh hey we saw this one!
hehe nice
always love how these archaeological ruins have traps that happen to line up with the character arcs of whoever is trying to escape them
hoowee
ooh i love this twist! retroactively gives a different tint to Whooves’s openness, makes the two characters Not So Different After All, staunches the building flame of the ship so that it could be relit later, augh it is good
love the moment when the villain realizes the emptiness of his goals
ahaha yeah, love that Caballeron is genre-aware about this
ahaha perfect
yay character growth!
that noise would indeed be understandable
auaugh
augh adorbs
noooooo their genres are too different :(
ahaha what a perfect way to ask Caballeron out on a date
just a lovely story all-around! you did such great work fleshing out Dr. Caballeron here, and i love how the entire story is self-aware of the clichés of the genre while also using them straightforwardly to build Caballeron’s arc. i really love the dynamic and chemistry of these two, and while i’m sure more stories with them would be great, this story by itself is also very satisfying as a complete tale. thank you for writing!
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Thank you very much for your review! I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to know that people look over (and hopefully enjoy!) my writing in this much detail :)
Hello! Your story was referred to me through this group!
As a fan of background characters I think you really knocked it out of the park with this one. Caballeron's interpretations and motivations were wonderfully dissected here and really made him a compelling character. He's presented as someone we can sympathize with, which is always a bit of a challenge with characters like him. It was a fascinating read to see him actually propped up with a backstory, motivation, and reasoning which is so much more than we see of him in the show!
Time Turner was really well done too! He's not a character that I usually like, but you sold him pretty well here. I always appreciate stories that can prop him up on his own rather than having him just be the "Dr. Who reference" guy, and it was lovely to see him given so much more life beyond the little we saw of him in the show.
The story's pacing and timing were impeccable as well. This felt like it could have been an SOL style episode filled with actions, twists and turns. A fantastic read, great work!
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Thank you! I'm glad you liked it, I love stories around background characters too and I really wanted to do these two justice, so I'm so happy it worked out! :)