New York Life Chief Editor’s Note:

Cold weather arrives, and with it the first light dusting of snow as holiday decorations go up in our office.

Despite the damp and chill, the mood is good here as we reach December and hit the holiday season. Despite the lawsuits, despite the harassment, despite the danger we were occasionally in and everything else that happened along the way, the New York Life magazine has had a very good year financially, between issues flying off of newsstands and all the revenue our online issue had gotten, to say nothing of the donations we racked up.

The latter’s purpose remains as it was originally was; a legal defense fund that keeps us afloat no matter how much lawfare our enemies wage, while the former is, of course, for shareholders and the employees who stuck with us even through all the low points we experienced, determined to keep the presses running and the issues coming no matter what. Christmas bonuses will be very healthy this year, and well-earned.

It seems our adversaries aren’t out of tricks yet, however. Though protests have dwindled as the weather turns and interest is lost along with their anything-but-social-justice cause, they’re now trying to ‘dox’ us, publish the names and addresses of our members, homes and families and invite people to ‘let us know how they feel’.

Ignoring the point that they make sure everyone knows how they feel by screaming the loudest and acting obnoxious on a regular basis, I’d be more worried about that if we didn’t have eagle and equine eyes in the sky watching over us, and police on the ground as well. We have escorts, even if you don’t see them, as at least one group of five protesters found out when they tried to corner one of my intern editors on a subway and found themselves facing down not a young woman but a trio of protectors, including an earth pony, unicorn and griffon. Suffice it to say, given the injury and embarrassment they suffered, to say nothing of being escorted off in handcuffs to the applause of other travelers, they won’t be trying that again.

Or maybe they will. They’ve demonstrated amply they’re utter idiots incapable of learning. Our lawsuit, by the way, against the colleges where many of them come from is going forward but won’t be heard until next year. If victorious, we plan to use the money for college and scholarship funds and donate a decent chunk to proper free speech causes as well.

Hard to believe, but this is the second-to-last article. Been a long road since their start in January, but even for all we’ve been through, I wouldn’t have given them up for anything. We made money to be sure, but made a lot of new friendships too, and I know which I value more at this point. I used to scoff at this, but friendship truly is magic, and this whole ordeal drew us together in ways I never imagined possible. In the end, I daresay we’ve done good deeds for a good cause, regardless of what others say, and with the end of these articles now in sight, I’m proud of our decision to run them.

But enough about us. It’s time to turn it back over to the most terrible creature on either world, the mare whose name is now mud with both stallions and feminists for celebrating men and masculinity. Take it away, Five Stars!

—Kalido Tenna, Chief Editor, New York Life Magazine

Manehattan Post Owner’s Note:

Yes, I only get how truly terrible she must be since I visited Manhattan myself, Kalido. I wish you and your staff all the best this coming holiday season, and invite our many friends at the New York Life Magazine across the portal to attend the coming wedding of myself and Chris, aka “Scoop” (no, that really was his call sign! Probably one of the reasons I originally selected him as my Gentleman a year or two back!), tentatively scheduled for next summer in the Crystal Kingdom, where Platinum Corona has somehow retained the services of no less than our very Princess of Love, Mi Amore Cadenza herself to conduct the ceremony!

There’s been no further incidents here, I’m happy to say, though we’re keeping watch for changelings via various methods. Queen Chrysalis, I’m warned, doesn’t take kindly to having her plans thwarted. Well, since I know you’re probably reading this, take it from me, Your Highness… you’re not as high and mighty as you think. You give all Changelings a very bad name, and most want nothing to do with you. I learned that in the course of tracking down Chris. We’re wise to you now, and we’ve got plenty of people and ponies watching over us, so come after me or Chris again at your peril.

But enough idle threats. Chris and I have been making up for lost time, and his G4M contract has been voided by Platinum Corona given what happened to him, meaning he’s now a free man… one who has selected me, and I couldn’t love him more for it.

—Hot Topic, Owner and Founder, Manehattan Post magazine

Once again, my congratulations to you both, Hot Topic! I’m definitely looking forward to the wedding next summer, and I’m truly honored by your request for me to be a bridesmaid along with his handler and other trainers. I also hear he’s already selected his own ‘best man’ and ‘groomsmen’ for the occasion among his Gentleman and stallion friends.

One interesting side effect of these articles is that for all the anger we’ve received from jilted stallions, we’ve actually had a few stallions start coming to us asking for training in becoming better lovers for their marefriends and herdmates! That is particularly gratifying to me, as I have said that one of my goals was to make stallions not take their mares for granted and realize that there’s more to rutting than, well, rutting. It would seem some have actually taken that to heart, and are actively trying!

It’s funny, actually… I seem to recall that in the last Q&A session, a human question writer asked if such training would be made available, and the answer is now yes—it’s starting to become a bit of a side business for us; we now have a few stallions sitting in on our classes! And do they get training? They have to pay for it, but yes, they may. Which, by the way, is a very interesting reversal—stallions paying for mares to have sex with them? Who would have thought such a thing would ever be?

I did complete my duties at the new branch office. As it’s now attracted its own motley group of protestors, it would appear the secret’s out, so there’s no point in me not saying it’s in Hoofington, an industrial city on the edge of the Everfree. I consider it a mark of our success in that even places that aren’t large cities or entertainment centers can support a G4M branch office, and I visited for what was actually the second time in several months in order to give our Gentleman a few final lessons as well as their final exams… though this time I had to take my bodyguards with me. To this point, they haven’t had to intervene directly to protect me, as just the sight of two large and intimidating griffons tends to keep trouble at bay.

Still, as I was down there, I couldn’t help but reflect that these few men together with a ‘handful’ of secretaries, trainers and security staff were all that we originally started with in Manehattan too. Our beginnings were even more humble there, in fact, given that we didn’t have any existing experience or established procedures to draw upon, and if I said I thought then we’d take off the way we have, I’d be lying. Back then, the struggle was just to get G4M off the ground with nothing more than myself and Platinum’s business plan. We had to learn as we go, and believe me, we made more than a few mistakes along the way…

Return to Manehattan

Manehattan, I decided, really hadn’t changed much in twelve years. Still the same hustle and bustle, still the same sights for the most part, the only real difference was that there were at least a few humans around. To my surprise, I already found myself appraising them as potential Gentleman, though at that point I didn’t know how I could judge them without first bedding them. I daresay Platinum was right and part of me was definitely looking forward to that part of the job…

Still, that had to wait, as the first thing I needed to do was secure us a headquarters. I spent the next week or two inspecting several sites and contacting their owners, asking if they’d be willing to part with their property for the proper amount of bits. Several offered to rent us their buildings at exorbitant rates in place of selling, but I declined. Not for the cost, but because I didn’t want them to hold power over us and kick us out when they found out what we were doing. Yes, I was deliberately coy about that to start, only telling them that we sought to open a new human/pony entertainment agency. And if they asked for details, I said that it was to promote cultural exchanges between our two peoples.

I mean, that was the truth, right?

So, Platinum had agreed with me that it was better to own than rent, and was willing to spread enough bits around to make it happen, though she did ask me not to break her Saddle Arabian bank with an expensive purchase. So my interest was more geared towards older and occasionally run down buildings in the old midtown theater district. I got uncomfortably close to the street the Shemareaton was on a few times, and found myself looking around for Harvest once or twice, but I needn’t have bothered. Even during our herd years she rarely left the hotel.

To my surprise, I did run into somepony I knew, finding my old coworker at the Shemareaton florist, Morning Glow, now running her own open-air flower shop on the street! We hugged and caught up over lunch, and she told me she’d had to leave the hotel too as Harvest got ever-more overbearing and intolerable. She of course asked me what brought me back, and against my better judgment I told her the truth simply because she’d been too good a friend to lie to.

I could see her mind grind to a screeching halt as my words registered, and suddenly I had a new appreciation to how I must have looked when I heard the suggestion for the first time. In the end, all she could do was ask a single word: “Why?”

When I gave my answer, I don’t know which shocked her more—the business I was hoping to start, or the fact that I told her the main reason was that I’d been with a human and loved it, and now wanted to share what I’d experienced with other mares. Her brain spent the better part of a minute processing that, and then she asked with some trepidation how it was, being with ‘a primate predator’?

So what could I say to that (other than correcting her to say they were omnivores, not griffon-like predators) except to share the whole story of my time together with Shaun? By the end of it, she was enrapt and her mind clearly turning. I daresay she’d had the exact progression of reactions I had—initially thinking it was insane to suddenly realizing it could actually work. We ended up chatting for hours, and she even offered me some business advice based on her experience trying to run her own small flower stand, telling me about the pitfalls she’d encountered just trying to get her various licences in order. I wasn’t sure how relevant it was to me, but I did take note of a couple ponies she said not to run afoul of.

So why am I sharing this anecdote, you ask? Well, much like when I later asked myself why I’d told her about G4M, the answer won’t become apparent until later. But, suffice it to say for now, I ended up very glad I did.

A New Home

During this time, I stayed at a posh hotel—not the Shemareaton, obviously, but I admit I did make it a point to stay at one of its main competitors as perhaps some minor spite against Harvest (and I do apologize to you now for this, Harvest, but back then, my memories of you were not at all pleasant ones!)

Actually, I wouldn’t even have stayed in a luxury hotel at all but for the fact Platinum insisted, telling me to eat and sleep well while I was out there. Which I did, but I still had a job to do. By the end of two weeks, I’d narrowed my search down to three properties. One was an expensive office building that was already mostly ready to go, one was a cheaper but slightly dilapidated old nightclub that had seen better years, and then the last being a complete wreck of an old theater building that hadn’t been occupied in three decades being offered at rock-bottom price.

The last might have tempted me more except I had it inspected and was told that the total cost to bring it up to code and renovated for our needs would result in double the cost of the most expensive choice, so that was out. The first I also crossed off the list simply because we’d still have to renovate for our needs on top of its already high cost, while the second…

The old nightclub already had most of the features we needed, from the large first-floor entertainment area to the back offices and most of the work needed was cosmetic; the combined cost of purchase and upgrades was cheapest. So, after clearing the place with Platinum via dragonfire letters—also my most expensive option for sending correspondence—I got the place inspected to catalog all the issues (there were a few I missed!) and tendered an offer.

A week of back-and-forth, offer-and-counteroffer later, and the papers were signed by Platinum. It was her money, so it became her building, and we started moving in our still-meager company possessions the very next day.

Spare No Expense

I thought I had a pretty good idea of what she wanted to do with the building, but this was one instance where Platinum insisted on directing things herself. She consulted with the architects and interior designers I lined up, and in the end went with what she thought worked best, saying only that she ‘chose based on what would make both Gentleman and client, handler and trainer feel most comfortable’.

There were times I thought she was being a bit too finicky, but I had to admit it all ended up working out quite well. Within a month crews were going to work, transforming the interior and facade to meet her specifications, even if they didn’t quite understand for what. I do recall hearing some snickers on the crew when they learned that some of the adjustments they were making, like higher doors, were for humans. Apparently, teasing the few seen in the city via flagged tails and other means was a favorite pastime with the local mares. I wasn’t sure if that boded well or not.

I wasn’t idle during this time. I was trying to secure our various business licenses and submit our articles of incorporation. Bureaucracy demanded its due and I managed to pick my way through the obstacle course it presented—I do have to say, ‘red tape’ is a pretty good way to describe it as I often found myself trapped in a tangle of it, with each city agency pointing me to another one for some standard I needed to meet or sign-off I needed to get; more than once the references ended up being circular. I shared my frustrations with Platinum a few times, but she just chuckled and reminded me to be patient and that I didn’t have to have it all done right away—that it’d be many weeks before the renovations were complete and longer than that before we could start business operations, suggesting that I instead start focusing on how we were going to recruit both men and mares to our ranks.

We’d discussed that some before, and we both agreed it was best to begin with a small and select group we personally screened. It’s a model that remains in effect now for setting up new branch offices, like I said before; most recently with the Hoofington branch. Start small, grow large, branch off when you get too big for your horseshoes and start the cycle over again.

Much as I may have wanted to start in on recruiting Gentleman first, Platinum rightly vetoed that suggestion even as she chuckled at my enthusiasm. We needed to get our staff settled first, she reminded me, meaning we needed to find and hire a dozen employees that would range from doctors to trainers to ‘handlers’—an unfamiliar term at first to me; ponies had no real concept of ‘hands’ before humans and thus no words based on it—to say nothing of security guards and barmares from the front lounge area, which was going to more or less remain a nightclub that would serve two purposes—help us pull some money right away while our real business got going, and also, when the time came, become a meeting area for Gentlemen and their clients; a place where humans and ponies could go to mingle generally.

I suggested to Platinum that such an idea could actually end up undermining our business if ponies and people found themselves without our help or having to pay for it, but she just chuckled at that. “If they do, so much the better, Five Stars, but somehow I don’t think that will be an issue. Take it from me—these things will not happen on a large scale without considerable help.” And just what made her so sure? “I am more experienced in these matters than you might guess. Saddle Arabia borders Zebrica as well as the Gryphon Kingdom, and believe me when I say that pairings between them tend to happen out of sight, not in it. Our task will be, in time, to bring such unions out of the shadows and make them acceptable to all.”

I told her that sounded like she was planning to make her own business one day obsolete, but she just chuckled again. “It’s but a means to an end, my dear Five Stars. And by that time, if we are fortunate enough to still be in business, than I will consider its work complete, and we will evolve it into something new.”

I had no idea what that meant, but it was also so far in the future as to not be worth worrying about. I had enough on my hooves as it was!

Recruitment

Platinum set some strict yet sensible rules for our pony recruitment process, and number one was that even for security guards and secretaries—in other words, ponies that wouldn’t be directly involved with training or managing Gentlemen—we would not hide from them what we were doing; they had to be okay with it or they would not be hired. That meant, of course, we had to spill the beans to them as we lined up our first interviews.

First up was a security force for guarding our building and playing bouncer if needs be. To that end, I deliberately looked to non-ponies—griffons, minotaurs, etc—both for added muscle and the fact that they wouldn’t react as badly (I hoped) to what we were proposing, given their societies had equal gender ratios. Still made for some awkward moments when I explained what they would be needed for, and a couple still walked out. I ended up hiring an adolescent dragon, two griffons, and hiring out a buffalo security team from a local firm to start, putting them on retainer for when they’d finally be needed.

Now that that was done, next came the secretaries and administrative types—ponies and others to handle appointments, scheduling and complaints. We screened our initial candidates carefully, and I admit we looked for mares less on the basis of prior experience than those we thought would be more amenable to the idea of G4M—in other words, unherded mares, mares with ‘misborn’ foals, mares who had previously lost their herds. On the one hoof, that cut us off from a potential talent pool, on the other, we didn’t need anypony having a bad reaction and giving us away too soon.

I think they knew something was up when we had them all sign nondisclosure agreements even before the interview took place, and indeed, we did have some horrified reactions to the news of what we were planning at first, just as I or Morning Glow initially had. But Platinum and I had planned for this—we explained ourselves quickly, showing them the salary and benefit sheets to prove that human men were going to be willing and very well-paid escorts and were not going to be impressed into service like the comfort stallions of old. And when they inevitably asked why I would have anything to do with such a thing, I told them about my own experience with a man and how I’d come around to the idea of G4M myself.

We had to go through a dozen candidates to hire four mares—all of whom remain with us to this day, incidentally, though not necessarily in their original positions—though one did try to go to the police with news of what we were doing despite the non-disclosure agreement. Thankfully, she was laughed off and didn’t try again when we pointed out she was in breach of contract and thus financially liable. But finally, we had a front office, who I immediately put to work setting up our accounting and scheduling system.

So we now had a business plan, a building being renovated, a security team and initial administrative staff. It took eight weeks from beginning to end, and yet that was the easy part. Still remaining to be hired was the two hardest employee classes of all:

Trainers and the Gentlemen themselves.

Left Alone

Platinum had to return home to the Kingdom for a couple months to take care of some personal matters—“my husband misses me, and I miss him,” she told me apologetically, surprising me given I’d no idea she was not only married, but in a matched pair—but said she’d be back in two months when the renovations were complete, and until then, told me to oversee the continuing work on the building and start thinking hard about who we were going to bring in as Gentleman. She wanted to hire three trainers and five Gentleman to start, which I thought was a very tall order. I mean, the portal had only been open for civilian traffic and tourists for about eight months, and I’d barely seen five men in the city since I’d been there!

That might be an exaggeration, but not by much, and either way, when the time came my work could be cut out for me. I asked Platinum if she had any advice for me regarding new Gentleman recruitment before she Ieft, and she said simply, “When you meet a good prospect, you’ll know. And when it comes to approaching them, just be yourself and do what you do best!” I caught the smile beneath her veil as well as the wink of her eye beneath the dark makeup she typically wore.

The vote of confidence was appreciated, even if I had absolutely no idea what she meant by that. Just what did I do best, other than being one of just two ponies in all Equestria who had bedded a human? I had no immediate answer, but thankfully I didn’t need one as I spent the next three weeks overseeing the remainder of the building upgrades and looking for two new trainers.

Why just two when we needed three? Because I’d made up my mind early on that I was going to be a trainer. I initially told myself that it was because I couldn’t ask anypony to do something I wasn’t willing to do myself, but that wasn’t the real reason. When I looked at myself honestly, it was because I wanted to. At long last I remembered a lesson it’d taken far too long to learn; that I was happiest when I was seeing to the needs of a guest and/or someone I liked for mutual fun and enjoyment, not when I was locked down into a herd and force to share a single stallion. Besides, I’d very much enjoyed showing stallions a good time in Las Pegasus and elsewhere, particularly down-on-their-luck ones. And just like then, as a recruiter and trainer I could pick and choose who I wanted to be with; decide who was deserving of recruitment, and then train them until they were ready to attend other mares. As far as I could tell, it would be win/win for me and the men I’d be training…

But I still couldn’t do it alone. Platinum’s design called for each prospective Gentleman to have no less than three trainers—one unicorn, one pegasus, and one earth pony so they’d learn the sensual ins and outs of each race. I had the last one covered, of course, but where was I going to find a willing pegasus and unicorn mare for the job?

The answer came in surprising fashion as I took our staff out for coffee one day after work.

Tea and Trainers

It was warm late summer day as we sat outside a coffee and tea shop, about a block away from the new building. We were in a waiting mode at that point, waiting for Platinum to return and the renovations to get finished before we could even begin to go searching for our first human recruits and start their training. In the meantime, we were just going to run a human-friendly bar and nightclub to give us some income and something to do, but with a likely minimum of a six-month wait before we truly opened for business, I asked our new administrative crew if they had any ideas or thoughts as to where we might find trainers.

I was little surprised when they suddenly fell silent and looked back and forth, seemingly asking each other who wanted to go first. “About that…” our secretary, a unicorn mare named Vanilla Mocha, offered cautiously. “We’ve been talking it over, Five Stars, and well, we’ve decided…” they again fell silent as I was now wondering what was going on. Were they having second thoughts and now planning to quit en masse?

A pegasus named First Flight finished for all of them; we’d hired her as a physical trainer to make sure our men were in shape. “We’ve decided that we’ll be the trainers!” They suddenly all smiled like they’d been playing a big joke on me, and indeed they got me good. “I mean, why not? It’ll be a while before we have any real work taking appointments or doing bookkeeping, so why shouldn’t we? We’re okay with all this, and we’ve all heard your stories…”

“So why shouldn’t we join in on the fun?” Amber Ale, an earth pony who was our future barmare, rejoined. “You got us curious whether humans are really as good as you say, and we’ve all found stallions lacking, either in bed or just from our lives. So why shouldn’t we give a bunch of upright apes a try? And hay, if we’re gonna work for this company, crazy though it is… we may as well commit to it fully!”

I was shocked to say the least. Speechless, even. “You shouldn’t feel you have to…” was all I could immediately offer, but they just shook their heads and grinned.

“But we want to, Five Stars,” the final member of our new clique, a unicorn bookkeeper named Double Entry chuckled, throwing back her drink and leaving me wondering if the fact that she always ordered a double espresso was a pun on her name. “We all do. And besides, speaking for myself, I don’t like the idea of sending mares out to meet men when I haven’t tried them myself and confirmed that the stated net worth of their assets is valid!”

Spoken like a true accountant! So what could I say except thank you? “Well, we do have some conditions…” Double Entry suddenly brought out a scroll. “Like some extra pay for extra duties…?”

It wasn’t that hard a bargain to drive, given that we’d still be saving considerable money for not having to hire more ponies. So I gave them all a fifty percent raise on the spot, and reported the news back to Platinum via the Saddle Arabian consulate in the city.

Now that I had trainers, we had to come up with our training curriculum. Platinum already had some general guidelines around that—Equestrian culture and etiquette lessons coupled with physical training not the least of it—but the particulars were left up to us, so I held several brainstorming sessions with my new friends in the completed back conference room. Despite some occasionally vociferous disagreements on the proper order of things, we ended up hashing it all out over the period of a week—seminars, classroom curriculum, even a gym training regimen.

One of the biggest debates we had was whether we would bed new Gentlemen sooner rather than later. It sparked quite a difference of opinion, as First Flight and Amber Ale thought we should introduce them to the bedroom only after their physical training and schooling was complete, while Double Entry and Vanilla Mocha though we should test them immediately to get an idea of their strengths and weaknesses, and perhaps know right away if they were truly Gentleman material…

Whatever that meant. In the end, we compromised; it would be a minimum of two weeks schooling before the first attempt at anything sexual, and each recruit would get a minimum of two weeks with each trainer before being passed on to the next. We came up with a three-month program, followed by a probationary period before a new recruit became a full-fledged Gentleman. We also set a rule that there would be no bedding of Gentleman before they entered our employ or outside our job duties…

I look back on that now and laugh. Needless to say, that was a rule that didn’t last!

Our curriculum and ground rules set, I sent a magically sealed series of scrolls to Platinum via the Saddle Arabian consulate for her to look over, and then we spent another week tackling the flying elephant in the room:

Just how we would recruit Gentlemen? Well. The answer we not so much came up with as eventually discovered would surprise us all and end up throwing most of the rulebook we wrote out the window. To tell it, I have one final article to write: the tale of one of the first Gentlemen we ever hired; the trials and tribulations we—and he—had getting him to that point. We learned a lot from bringing in those first five Gentlemen, him most of all. For he was the very first Gentleman I recruited… and became my very first man since Shaun. Who is he? For now, I will simply identify him by his callsign, which he now permits me to give:

The Attorney.

As I close out this article, I would like to share one final letter with everyone before our final Q&A session. Since I’ve picked on her a bit more these last two articles, I think it’s only fair that I give a progress update on Harvest, who’s been recuperating for several weeks now. She wrote me recently, and this is what she had to say:

Hey, Five Stars,

Harvest here. Can hardly believe how time flies by. Seems like only yesterday you were visiting me in my hospital room. Good news, though; you won’t have to do that anymore. I’ve just been discharged, as my wound has healed to the point where the doctors say I can move about safely, so long as I don’t strain myself.

I’d also like to thank you for your recommendation of a Gentleman who specializes in physical therapy. Ice, despite his callsign, is a very warm and caring man, and I doubt I’d have been discharged as soon as I was without his efforts. The doctors say that they’ve learned a few things from him, and will work to incorporate his techniques in future cases.

I’m still not at one-hundred percent yet, and Goldie has made it clear to me that until I’ve completely recovered, I’m restricted to working the stall. Ice has been helpful in that regard, as he can help me move the stall and set everything up without aggravating my wound. He’s made it clear that he intends to stay with me until I no longer feel like I need him; I certainly can’t complain about being doted on by a stallion, even a human one!

On another note, Ember’s returned to Las Pegasus to reunite with her herd, but she says she’ll make an effort to write and visit regularly. It’s refreshing to know that, despite all the wrongs I’ve imparted on the members of my old herd, all of you are willing to give me another chance.

Oh! Speaking of which, Cayenne managed to send me a gift while I was in the hospital; a magically preserved box of some of his dishes. Let me tell you; it was absolutely heavenly after having to eat hospital food for days on end. I wonder if the hospitals do that on purpose; make their food as bland as possible to make you appreciate home cooking?

Anyway, I’m rambling right now, and it’s almost time to set up the stall for another day. Take care, Five Stars, and I’ll see you around… maybe sooner than you think!

Your friend,

Harvest Moon

It’s very gratifying to hear that, Harvest. Though he wasn’t one of my recruits or trainees, I do know Ice well, and I have no doubt he’ll take very good care of you. From what I hear, he asked for the callsign himself, saying it was in reference to a human film about their elite flying school. I can speak from direct experience that those hands of his are magic; he gives massages like you wouldn’t believe. Then again, why do I need to tell you that? You already know!

I’m also rather envious you got to try Cayenne’s cooking again! He’s as much a sweetie as he ever was, and I’ve received word his new restaurant—or excuse me, ‘sports bar’—is already doing well; apparently he’s parlayed his own notoriety into a successful launch! And believe me, I know from G4M that’s the most critical part of any new business. Never get a second chance to make a first impression and all that.

I guess it’s rather fitting that this series has reached no less than twenty-five articles, plus the Q&A sessions. It’s a nice number, and the culmination of an entire year of work. I’ll have much more to say at the end of the final article and Q&A, but I would like everyone to know now that this is not goodbye—I do intend to occasionally pen more articles as circumstances warrant or the mood strikes me. This article series has been about me, but G4M is not and never has been about me. It’s about mares and the men who serve them, to say nothing about everyone and everypony who make it happen, the many hundreds we now employ… and many thousands we have now served. In the end, it was Platinum’s invention brought it to life, and I’ve been honored to play my part in it.

And I have been honored to have you, Five Stars, but humility does not become you—after all, Gentleman for Mares would never have come into being without you or the journey that brought you here!

I just took your idea and ran with it, Platinum. You were the one with the vision and determination to see it through, and I was just your agent. What’s funny to me is, for all I’ve done with the company, it’s being a simple trainer of Gentleman which I’ve enjoyed most of all.

Nothing funny about it, darling! For I doubt you’d’ve been as willing to help me originally if you weren’t enticed by the idea of it and getting all the human love you wanted in the bargain!

And you knew it all along, didn’t you? Well, I’m glad. I enjoy my work immensely, and take great pride in it… and yes, I take great pride in the role I played in bringing G4M into being. Happy, Platinum?

What’s important is that you are, Five Stars, as are the mares we serve!

Couldn’t have said it better. Still one article to come, but as humans say, it’s been a blast, folks. I’ll have a longer-winded goodbye and long list of thank-yous next week, then again with the final Q&A session which we are still accepting questions for, but until then… back to work, doing what I love the most about my job; the same thing I found I loved so much when I first started doing it three years ago:

Training new Gentlemen.

Leo’s Notes:

There are two references in this chapter, one to a movie, one to another fanfic. See if you can name them both!

Firesight’s Notes:

I was kind of hoping to end the series on #25, but that didn’t seem quite right. In the end, I wanted to have an entire article devoted to the first Gentleman she ever recruited, which you can bet was an adventure for both sides. I dropped two major hints here as to his identity, and as important as he is to my other works, how could I not use him here? Originally I had no intention of introducing him in this verse, but you know... it just provides another means to explore his character and what shapes/motivates thim through a different lens than my other stories, and lets me finish up with a bang. So that’s how we’re going to end this; with a very special prospective Gentleman that teaches Five Stars exactly what it takes to recruit one! Namely, getting to know them and what makes them tick VERY personally...

Thanks to Leo Archon for writing the Harvest letter, and you are all invited again to check out his side story for the full background of Harvest’s fall from grace and redemption: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/347042/fall-of-the-harvest-moon

Also thanks to my own branch office prereading staff of AJ_Aficionado, SilentWoodFire, and Denim_Blue, without whom my stories wouldn’t be as good as they are. One last regular chapter remains followed by the Q&A, which again, we are still accepting questions for. If you’d to submit, go here and insert your question at a convenient place: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M_NG22xR9Fgv2uGdF0g4zz9zPkwJzrq5Ugb8Xb2BCXU/edit