A Slice of Life
is a comic My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic.
Life is easy for Princess Celestia... too easy, she feels. She wishes something would go wrong just to relieve the tedium of dealing with snooty nobles, boring bureaucrats, and the Equestrian Tax Structure. Unfortunately, she's about to get her wish. Seems her solar majesty has put on a few pounds, so it's time for the Royal Diet... and all of Equestria may not survive.
Not to be confused with the Slice of Life trope.
This My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Fan Fic contains examples of the following tropes:
- Adipose Rex: After Nightmare Moon's banishment one thousand years ago, Celestia admits that she "may have let herself go a little" during that time. One period of time during this was even named "The Great Decade of Cheesecake".Feather Duster: They had to cart her to her throne in a wheel barrow.Princess Celestia: *murderous glare at Feather Duster* Yes...we really did not need to add that, Feather Duster.
- The Ahnold: Celestia's personal trainer, Schwarzwälder.
- All Animals Are Dogs: In Chapter 9, when Celestia kicks an alligator to get it off her tail, and it scurries out of the room, whimpering.
- Blessed with Suck: Soggy Grounds, the Royal Coffee Maker. Apparently, his special talent is specifically making BAD coffee.
- Brick Joke: A bill proposing an anti-ninja-zombie contingency plans in hospitals. Dismissed by Celestia as ridiculous in Chapter 3; after a swarm of them attacks a hospital in Chapter 10, she hastily approves the bill while preparing to invade the castle kitchens.
- The Chessmaster: In Chapter 10, it turns out that Princess Celestia enlisted a band of retired soldiers who are loyal to her but not bound by their oath to help her stick to her diet, wore out (nearly) all the members of the Royal Guard by holding a late-night dance party, and sent both Feather Duster and Luna away, all so she could sneak a snack from the kitchen. To drive the point home, Private Hoplite recalls getting his rump kicked the first and only time he played chess with Celestia.
- Combat Pragmatist: Lethe. She often fakes being injured and playing up the Puppy-Dog Eyes to get opponents to drop their guard, before attacking suddenly. In one case, she faked dislocating her wing to get a mercenary to drop his water baloon, and then slammed two pies into his head after he helped her up.
- Continuity Nod:
- In Chapter 8, we see how Featherweight got that picture of Celestia eating cake from "Ponyville Confidential".
- "She's not giving us cake, she's assaulting us with cake!"
- Also, Pinkie Pie meant to put cake batter in the confetti launcher and confetti in the oven this time, but got mixed up again.
- Death World: The province of Oxtria is as bad as Australia. It was where Chernobull exploded, leading to sea bass that are worse than piranhas with metal dentures, and irradiated hay that attacks you.Celestia decided that if she could get away with it this year, she would try to embezzle funds from the Grand Galloping Gala budget in favour of a construction project. After all, what pony in their right mind would waste bits on diamond encrusted napkins when they could be used to build a nice, thick wall around the province of Oxtria?
- Dead Fic: Has not been updated since 2013, and the author hasn't been on the site since 2018.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Sergeant Hoplite has a crush on Princess Celestia, fantasizing about taking her on a date the Grand Galloping Gala and proposing to her. Since we know Celestia's point of view, we know that she barely gives him a thought apart from "that guardspony."
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Luna, naturally.
- Food Fight: Most "warfare" has been reduced to this, and Equestria and Griffonia have many mock battles in this fashion. Water balloons and pillows become ammunition as well.
- Also, when Celestia and her private army raid the Royal Kitchen, the fight between her soldier and the cooking staff goes this way.
- Hidden Depths: Apparently, when he's not working out like crazy, Schwarzwälder enjoys gardening. Though in his case, he had trouble with last year's harvest because the cauliflower he imported from his homeland ate his chainsaw.
- Private Lethe may be excessively unrefined, unprofessional in her line of work, and joined the Night Guard because "she'd look cooler," but she was able to give a well-planned response plan to the hypothetical resurgence of an obscure ancient evil. Then again, considering her Night Guard duties, this may be expected.
- Hollywood Pudgy: Invoked and Lampshaded when Luna points out Celestia's extra weight doesn't really show, and she expresses concern that they're taking the "Royal Diet" thing too far.
- Innocent Innuendo: In Chapter 10, it turns out what Celestia's been doing with all the members of the Royal Guard is Not What It Looks Like, but dancing.
- Innocently Insensitive: Luna bragging about the invention of the Moon Pie to a dieting Celestia.
- Mid-Battle Lunch Break
- Mundane Made Awesome: You wouldn't have expected such excitement out of making sure a VIP sticks to their diet. But this is Princess Celestia..."Protect the cheesecake! Protect it with your life!"
- Comes to a head starting with chapter 10, when Celestia prepares to not just raid the royal kitchens, but lay siege to them. In chapter 11, we find Celestia completely rewriting Equestria's laws so she can get away with it, too.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: In addition to Schwarzwälder, there's the Royal Chef Ram Sea, a sheep chef with a thick Scottish accent, a bad temper, and a sharp tongue.
- No Princess To Her Chef: Being the goddess of the sun, princess of Equestria, and his current employer doesn't stop Celestia's head chef from slapping Celestia silly with a fish while screaming at her about disrespecting his cooking.
- Noodle Incident: This isn't the first time Celestia's had to go on a diet, according to head maid Feather Duster."Then there was the year the potato chip was invented..." "...and the Great Decade of Cheesecake!"
- There's also MacApple's war anecdotes. "—and then the lobsters came into the courtroom, where they proceeded to dance—"
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Ram Sea's assistants can tell their boss is upset because he's "peeling onions", something he normally never does.
- Red Shirt Army: In Chapter 9, Lethe tries to get Hoplite to stop taking his job too seriously by pointing out that the guards weren't exactly useful during the return of Nightmare Moon or the revival of Discord.
- Ring-Ring-CRUNCH!: Happens several times, with increasing force as Celestia gets more frustrated with her diet.
- Shamu Fu: Ram Sea uses a swordfish as an improvised weapon.
- Shout-Out:
- One of the bills Celestia hastily rubber-stamps is a proposal from Blueblood to make female guards wear miniskirts.
- During the siege of the Royal Kitchens, one of the "weapons" used by the cooks is a combustible lemon.
- The aforementioned dancing lobsters.
- "My leg!"
- Celestia's maid, Feather Duster, tied a corset around Celestia's waist in Chapter 7. It was played up to resemble a sex scene. Sound familiar?
- Skewed Priorities: In order to gain a private army to raid the Royal Kitchens, Celestia agrees to sign many legislative bills for the ponies' support. She eventually stops skimming the titles and just starts signing the dotted lines, so she could have just signed Equestria over to her secretary for all she noticed.
- There Was a Door: In Chapter 11, Luna leaves the Haunches gym by smashing through the ceiling, though she was courteous enough to leave a bag of bits to pay for the repairs first.
- Those Two Guys: Lethe of the Night Watch and Hoplite of the Day Watch, two guard ponies with a bit of a Vitriolic Best Buds/Will They or Won't They? relationship.
- Training from Hell: Poor Celestia's exercise routine. Her personal trainer, Schwarzwälder, does this intentionally, since Celestia is a Physical God, he seems to think that she can handle literally anything he can throw at her.
- What Did I Do Last Night?: Parodied heavily. Lethe was exhausted from joining a group party with every royal guard (except Sergeant Hoplite) and Celestia, and falls asleep on Hoplite's back when they're paired for their shift. When she wakes up, she launches into a condensed Five Stages of Grief, shouting at Hoplite for impregnating her and ruining her career. This happens two minutes after she fell asleep.
- With Sisters Like These: Luna, upon seeing Schwarzwälder attempt to make Celestia lift an obscenely big weight fifty times...
suggests that he triple the weight and add a thousand push-ups and sit-ups to the warm-up. The floor caves in after Celestia drops the weight, naturally.- Schwarzwälder takes this and runs with it, adding in a run over hot coals and a cool-down swim across a three kilometre river. Which he plans to infest with piranhas.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Lethe is fond of pulling this, often faking being hurt physically or verbally offended, before trouncing the opposition when they let their guard down.
