The Perilous Romance Of Swans
is the sequel to Kudzuhaiku's The Sun Also Surprises and is part of The Weedverse. Gosling and Celestia have hit it off, much to Princess Cadance's joy and satisfaction, but romancing a princess is never going to be simple.
Has a sequel, The Perilous Gestation Of Swans, although the short A Darkness Softly Creeping is set between them and is recommended reading.
Tropes:
- Accent Relapse: Gosling's natural Manehattan accent peeks through occasionally, especially when he's getting passionate about something, much to his mother's dismay, as she doesn't like him talking like a "hoodlum". But Celestia highly appreciates it. After Cadance's healing surge, it seems to be back to stay.
- All of the Other Reindeer:
- Gosling experienced this when he was younger after Skyfire Flash spread nasty rumors about him being gay in high school because he refused to hook up with her. It caused even Gosling's closest friends to abandon him, and he felt so depressed from the experience that he almost considered suicide.
- Gosling ends up being shunned by his fellow Signal Corps soldiers after he becomes Celestia's consort, jeering about how he'll be treated like a spoiled pet. They're subsequently chewed out by Sergeant Shamrock.
- In a more familial example, Sleet was shunned by the First Tribes for having a child out of wedlock, and her son Gosling was shunned simply for existing. Quiet Knish later calls out his people, including himself, for doing this, saying that in being so quick to judge, they didn't bother helping Sleet and Gosling during their time of need.
- Luna was also shunned by most of the Equestrian public at large especially by the First Tribes, because they still remember her stint as Nightmare Moon and refused to forgive her for it. Quiet Knish, after he calls out his people for shunning Gosling and Sleet, proceeds to call them out for shunning one of their own goddesses over an age-old mistake that she spent so much time redeeming herself for, and never bothering to forgive her.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Invoked by Princess Luna, who is taking the opportunity to torment Celestia mercilessly.
- Aroused by Their Voice: Celestia finds Gosling's real Manehattan accent highly attractive. She imagines herself having a couple of "muggers" with Gosling who all share their father's accent, and even (mentally) bemoans that Gosling's schooling pruned away his supposedly "unsavory" dialect.
- The Atoner: Hotspur was once a married stallion with foals until he found his wife cheating on him with a stranger. He murdered both of them in a blind rage, and when he snapped out of it, he broke down and couldn't remember his own crime. He accepted service into the Night Guard to repent.
- Bait-and-Switch: Gosling gets invited to watch a comedy with Luna. It is a comedy from Luna's perspective, due to how overblown it is. It's also the fictional counterpart of The Cabin In The Woods.
- Battle Couple: Lyra and Bon-Bon who are both S.M.I.L.E. agents.
- Berserk Button: Twilight Sparkle's button is Paparazzi, which is considered legendary. When a few reporters go too far and send an already-stressed Gosling into a breakdown, Twilight locks them all in a room with her, casting spells that prevent anyone from going out or in, and proceeds to lecture them on the conduct of a good reporter.
- Big Damn Kiss: Several between Celestia and Gosling. Their second one lasts for half a chapter.
- Blackmail: Skyfire Flash is paid to say that Gosling raped her, and that her child is his. She's told that this is the intent, but given how phenomenally unlikely to succeed it is, it's likely it was just a journalist that was just trying to stir up trouble. As it turned out, it was a journalist working under Mr. Mariner..
- Brains and Bondage: Blueblood and Raven's relationship consists of two intelligent ponies involved in BDSM.
- Brain Bleach: Celestia, after getting rather more details on Blueblood and Raven's relationship than she wanted. (In Blueblood's defence, she asked).
- Brutal Honesty: How Gosling finally starts to get through to Luna. But it has to be honesty, simple brutality would only drive her away.
- Burping Contest: Gosling and Flurry Heart have one in the Crystal Empire.
- Call-Back: Starlight Glimmer's attempted Retcon of the Mane Six is brought up by Shining Armor when he voices suspicions on the criminal behind the train explosion.
- Camera Fiend: Seville is taking photos in the middle of a battle, while being protected by Gosling and the Night Guard.
- The Casanova: Castor, Luna's mortal pegasus son from a thousand years ago, became a talented military tactitian who also sired many illegitimate foals in his adult life. Luna's rather disappointed to hear that one of her children became a wastrel.
- The Cavalry: When Mr. Mariner attempts his Xanatos Gambit, the nobility of Canterlot turn out in force to help the Princesses deal with it.
- Chekhov's Gun: Luna mentions in the first chapter an old law about how anyone who wanted to marry one of the Princesses had to court and marry both, but that times have changed. It turns out that the laws were never actually repealed, and Gosling ends up wooing both of them. In later stories, all three are joined in marriage.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Mr. Mariner. For one, he owns the "pigeon coop" apartments Sleet and Gosling once lived in, and it would be a shame if they were to be torn down...
- Cruel to Be Kind: After Skyfire Flash tries slandering Gosling, a crime that could literally ruin her life, he offers her a pardon, on the condition that she join the guard for twenty years. Skyfire doesn't want this, but it will teach her discipline, and give her a means of supporting the foal she's going to have and if she sticks it out that long, she'll get a massive benefits package, including having all her foals get to attend college or university for free. It's legitimately the best option she has, but it won't be the easy ride she was hoping for.
- Children Raise You: Invoked deliberately. Gosling hopes that keeping Skyfire and her foal together would induce some Character Development for the mother.
- Circling Birdies: Gosling gets circling alicorns.
- Couldn't Find a Pen: The general of the city that Chesty sacked signed the surrender in his own blood, because Chesty had forgotten the inkwell.
- Covert Group with Mundane Front: The Equestrian Signal Corps contains the spy networks.
- Destination Defenestration: One of the Equalists gets punched out of a train window by Hush.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Luna's attitudes are still medieval in some respects, as shown when watching movies with Gosling. She also finds palace life boring, and wants Blueblood to bring back public executions, among other things.
- Deliberately Cute Child: Flurry Heart is quite adept at manipulating the adults in her life.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The reason why Skyfire Flash spread rumors about Gosling's sexuality in high school? He refused to have sex with her.
- The Dreaded: Raven, by her underlings, and rightly so.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Celestia finds Gosling quite physically attractive, and her drooling rather disgusts Raven.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Played for Laughs, when Princess Celestia gets sedated on the orders of Princess Cadance (for her own good).Celestia: Cadance had her co-conspirators stab me in my bum-bum.
- False Rape Accusation: Gosling is accused of rape by Skyfire Flash, his ex-girlfriend from high school. She was paid by unscrupulous journalists working for Mr. Mariner.
- Fantastic Arousal: As is common in several My Little Pony fanfiction, Pegasus wings are an indicator of arousal.
- Fantastic Racism: Seville was assaulted by a unicorn journalist, who was disgusted that an Earth pony managed to get in the newspapers, and wanted to put him in his place. Gosling walked in on the two of them, and when the unicorn journalist tries intimidating Gosling through reputation, Gosling turns the tables and has him permanently barred from the castle.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The First Tribes draw a lot from Jewish culture.
- Heroic RRoD: Princess Cadance, after using her Healing Hands to make sure Skyfire and her colt survive the childbirth and it goes massively out of control.
- Headbutt of Love: Sleet's response to learning Gosling is dating Princess Celestia is to tell him how proud she is and headbutt him hard enough to send him staggering.
- Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Averted, and fortunately so, Gosling takes several blows to the head that would have been much more severe without the helmet.
- Heroic Bastard: Gosling was born out of wedlock, causing the First Tribes to shun him for the crime of existing. Quiet Knish later shames his people for not looking past that or helping Gosling and his mother during their time of need.
- Hormone-Addled Teenager: He's good at keeping it in check, but Gosling is still a teenager, with the hormones that go with it.
- Hypocritical Humor: Cadance finds discussion of Blueblood and Raven's relationship extremely uncomfortable, despite her own enthusiastic discussion of her own relationship with Shining Armor.
- If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Gosling gets the speech off Chesty McPuller near the end of the story during Celestia and Luna's engagement party.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Luna often feels wanting to take a few swigs, particularly when Gosling starts teasing Celestia. Chapter 63 has a particularly notable example.
- Get a Room!: Frequently, whenever Raven and Blueblood are arguing/flirting (it's much the same thing to them), often by Princess Cadance.
- Jump Scare: Luna is fond of inflicting these on people.
- If I Can't Have You…: Likely the reason why Luna as Nightmare Moon murdered her and Celestia's previous husband, Bronze Blaze. She's torn up after learning the truth and visiting his grave.
- Like an Old Married Couple: Raven and Bluebood bicker constantly. They're still as in love as a masochist and a sadist can be.
- Lured into a Trap: Princess Luna sends Gosling to the Crystal Empire on a train with only two guards and Seville, making him a prime target for the Equalists. Except everyone else on the train is a disguised Guard or a member of S.M.I.L.E.
- Meet the In-Laws: Turns out being a Princess doesn't exempt you from getting nervous with this.
- MegaCorp: Mr. Mariner owns one.
- Mood Whiplash: Celestia and Luna have a deep and involved talk about how Luna feels about Gosling, when the room suddenly gets much colder, freezing everything over. Turns out it was Gosling, who comes skating past with a train of foals clinging on to him, all giggling and laughing.
- Motivational Lie: Princess Celestia told Castor and Pollux, Luna's sons, that she was killed by Nightmare Moon so that they could mourn her and move on.
- Must Have Caffeine: Luna shows up to the press release with a massive mug of coffee. Later on, Fancy Pants recognises its necessity to keep the nobility functioning through a crisis, even in face of his disgust.
- Nice to the Waiter: Gosling, it's part of the values his mother instilled in him.
- Non-Action Guy: Seville is really not a fighter.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Celestia and Twilight discuss how Twilight, Cadence, and Gosling are so much alike - they're both heroes who tackled problems far bigger than their age and experience, and came out as celebrated heroes and popular political figures.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The battle in Manehattan, intended as a trap for Luna. At least four Stiff-Upper-Lip Society members died, and Vinyl and Luna got a building dropped on them by Queen Chrysalis, crippling Vinyl and badly injuring Luna. Kuzuhaiku's word on this is that we'll never know exactly what happened.
- Political Overcorrectness: Exploited by Prince Blueblood when the press attacks Gosling's age. According to the traditions of his minority group, Gosling is an adult (or enough of one to get married), and Blueblood suggests that the attacks on his age are veiled discrimination against the group, forcing the press to drop it or be labelled bigots.
- Porn Stash: Gosling finds Celestia's, then gets caught by Luna, who planned the whole thing by dispelling the illusion on it.
- Precision F-Strike: Celestia, after she hears that Luna was in Gosling's room, following a major argument between the pair that left Gosling so emotionally vulnerable he made himself seriously ill. Fortunately, her assumptions are wrong, and Luna is instead giving him the mercy only she can, locking him in a waking dream state free of pain.
- Role-Ending Misdemeanor: An in-universe, invoked example; Blueblood informs Gosling that his public wing-preening display had presented an advantage - if the reporters put pictures of a preening pegasus colt on the front pages, they would risk ruining their careers as that is essentially sexual exploitation.
- Secret Relationship: Raven and Blueblood cannot publicly reveal their relationship for several reasons. They make up for it behind closed doors, annoying everyone else nearby.
- Serious Business: No-one interferes with Celestia's morning crossword.
- Shaming the Mob: Shows up thrice.
- The first instance happens after an already-stressed Gosling is sent into an emotional breakdown by a few Paparazzi, causing a furious Twilight to lock in all the reporters with her so she could lecture them on good behavior.
- The second instance has Gosling informing the mob of Canterlot nobles how deeply Celestia felt about being unwanted by the public. It shocks and saddens the mob so much that they rally behind Gosling to help deal with the Mariner situation.
- The third instance happens when Moreh Quiet Knish (the equivalent of a religious leader for the First Tribes) lambastes his people, including himself, for shunning Sleet and Gosling for having a child out of wedlock and existing, respectively, and for shunning Luna over a mistake she made while not learning how to forgive her or see her side of the story.
- Shipper on Deck: During the engagement party, Gosling gives Seville a push towards Twilight, and Twilight towards Seville by saying that as the Princess of Friendship, friendship is under her jurisdiction and she shouldn't turn anyone away.
- Sickening "Crunch!": Do not upset Bon-Bon.
- Sins of Our Fathers:
- Gosling was shunned by the First Tribes simply because he existed as a child born to Sleet out of wedlock. Quiet Knish later calls out his people, including himself, for not helping Sleet and Gosling during their time of need.
- In a defied and averted example, one of the reasons why Gosling refuses to punish Skyfire Flash for slandering him twice is it would also mean that her unborn child would be punished for her crimes.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: How Blueblood and Raven's relationship began.
- Smart People Play Chess: Raven and Shining Armor play chess via correspondence.
- So Proud of You: Sleet is so very, very proud of her son.
- Spit Take: The coffee Luna brought to the press release? She'd just taken a mouthful when Gosling decided to show Twilight Sparkle just what pegasi saw in wings.
- The Spymaster: Raven and Blueblood share the role.
- Strawman News Media: The shallow, sensationalised version is a frequent problem for the Royal Family.
- Take a Third Option: When forced to choose between agreeing with Celestia that cake is the best treat, or Luna that pies are superior, he responds that the best treat is a cookie.
- Taking You with Me: One possible outcome of Mr. Mariner's Xanatos Gambit. If Celestia does nothing to stop him, then Equestria will crash and burn with him.
- Talk to the Fist: When Gosling has an obnoxious and tribalist unicorn journalist arrested and thrown out of
- Teen Pregnancy: Skyfire Flash is pregnant, which is what makes her vulnerable to rich men offering her a lot of money to slander Gosling.
- Training from Hell: Gosling's description of prep camp is brutal.
- Tranquil Fury: Luna, while suggesting to Celestia that she punish lawbreakers with anger and not cold-blooded logic, stays eerily calm, but her eyes are burning with fury.
- Truly Single Parent: [[spoiler:Gosling was born out of wedlock, and Sleet never married because she didn't trust anyone to help her raise her son properly.
- Trying Not to Cry: Celestia, after Sleet accepts her so completely. It doesn't last long.
- Weak-Willed: Prior to the Battle of Manehattan, the Queen of the Bumbles distributed a honey that made affected ponies this.
- Woman Scorned: Gosling's ex, Skyfire Flash, spread mean rumours about him in high school after he refused to sleep with her, and the experience left him with some scars. She later accuses him of rape and plans to claim her foal is his to get hush money, having been paid by a reporter working for Mr. Mariner. It doesn't work, as she was caught and interrogated.
- Xanatos Gambit: Mr. Mariner attempts this when he is forced to face the music for his newspaper's attempted slander of Gosling, evicting all his tenants, and closing all his businesses to crash the Equestrian economy. Given he also controls several power plants, this means that entire cities go dark. And the telegraph, cutting off Canterlot's supply of information. If Celestia moves to block him, then he can claim she's a tyrant and convict her in the court of public opinion. If she doesn't, he gets to take Equestria down with him.
