A My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic novella by Jordan179
about Piercing Gaze, a friend of Trixie's mentioned in An Extended Performance, and taking place at the same time as that earlier tale. Piercing Gaze is the owner of the Baltimare Hippodrome, and expects to make a lot of money during the Summer Sun Celebration, the biggest party of the whole year. But when the Sun refuses to rise at dawn, Piercing Gaze may be the one pony who can keep the peace in the tension-torn port town.
Begun in 2014, and possibly dead as of August 2016.
Available here.
This story contains examples of the following tropes.
- Morning Routine: Piercing wakes up in the afternoon, not the morning, because he does most of his work evenings and nights. The story starts when he wakes up the afternoon before the Summer Sun Celebration.
- Benevolent Boss: Piercing, from what we can see of his relationships with his employees.
- Blessed with Suck: Piercing is infertile. Which means he doesn't need to worry about getting any of his marefriends pregnant. Which also means (he assumes) that he will never know the joy of a wife and foals. So things are great for Piercing, provided that he never really falls in love.
- Can't Act Perverted Toward a Love Interest: Violating this principle is the reason Piercing blames himself for Trixie's leaving him. The seduction worked, but Trixie felt terrible afterwards.
- Casting Couch: Subverted, because while Piercing is lonely, he's too honest and kindly to take advantage of aspiring actresses that way, and he knows better than to actually make a mistress out of and then favor one performer over his others. Instead, when Scarlet Sheaf attempts to seduce him, he lectures her on why her approach is unlikely to bring her what she desires — and then tells her when he's next running auditions.
- Chivalrous Pervert: Piercing Gaze is definitely lecherous, but he is only interested in mares who are "willing and experienced enough to know what they want." When he broke this rule, once, he wrecked his growing and deep friendship with Trixie. He demonstrates kindness and self-restraint toward Scarlet.
- Cursed with Awesome: Superficially, infertility is an advantage for Piercing, as it means he can be promiscuous without winding up with a pregnant mare showing up on his doorstep. Mildly Subverted, in that deep down Piercing envies those who have wives and foals.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Numerous ones in-story, many of them named as horse-themed puns, as is common in Friendship is Magic.
- The Yehvist Onagers, to the Jews, and the Onagers to Semites in general.
- Germaney, to Germany.
- Lippans, to Austria.
- Baltimare, to Baltimore. There really is a theatre called the Hippodrome in Baltimore, and it was built by two impresarios, Pierce and Scheck, corresponding to Piercing Gaze and Russe Tinter in-story.
- Ladykiller in Love: Piercing Gaze is popular, promiscuous — and obviously obsessed with Trixie.
- My Girl Is Not a Slut: Piercing's opinion of Trixie, who was a virgin before (as he sees it) he seduced her. This did not double his fun, as her post-coital reaction is to glare at him with loathing and run away. He hasn't seen her since.
- The One That Got Away: Trixie, to Piercing. The feeling is mutual.
- The Rashomon: We finally get to see what Piercing thinks of Trixie and his accidental seduction of her. Interestingly, Piercing's opinion of Trixie is almost as high as Trixie's own of herself; and he blames himself for what happened that night far more than Trixie blames him.
- Sassy Secretary: Golden Quill, who is smart, indispensable to Piercing — and she knows it.
- Stupid Sexy Friend: One reason why Piercing, breaking his own rules, wound up seducing Trixie. We know from An Extended Performance that Trixie was completely clueless about how he felt until they wound up falling into bed together. The irony here is that an incredibly arrogant mare, vain about her beauty as about so many things, didn't even consider that Piercing could have been sexually attracted to her before this.
- True Love is Exceptional: Piercing likes mares who are "willing and experienced enough to know what they want". Trixie was moderately willing (she was drunk at the time) but completely virginal. And now he's carrying a torch for her. Go figure.
