Story vs. Story: The Secret Life of Rarity vs. Blood Curse Boutique *SPOILERS*

This is just a little review and thoughts on two stories with similar themes. We have:
The Secret Life of Rarity by BronyWriter
vs.
Blood Curse Boutique by Rarity Belle.

I spent my free time over the last 2 days reading through these stories and pointing out things in both that I both loved and hated. This is all opinion based and shouldn't be taken to heart unless you want it to.

Best Rarity Story.
This has to go to Blood Curse Boutique. While The Secret Life of Rarity has a great feel to it and keeps heavy interest on all characters involved it does have some areas that fall flat. Rarity is a great and cunning killer in the story, and actually you end up rooting for her in the end to succeed, the main issue here is her indulgence. Her kills are mostly based on pleasure at first, then protection, then back to pleasure which fits the style of a casual killer like herself. She has the mindset that she kills not only because she likes it, but also because she is protecting the ones she loves from what she believes could threaten them. The problem here is pleasure outweighs protection. If she was killing for mainly protection, she would take the killing out of the basement and more to the justice front, killing when only absolutely necessary, but she kills when she gets the urge and is set off when someone wrongs her friends. This works beautifully for her mindset as a killer, because it gives her a clear killing profile and clear motive. The only problem is, she starts off too cunning. She plans everything out meticulously like she would with her sewing, every last detail done. This is a problem when she gets captured later in the story, where her cunning could have come into play to give her an out, instead of being captured right in front of Sweetie Belle.

Blood Curse Boutique doesn't really have a clear motive with Rarity because she isn't clear on what will happen in life, and that makes her more relateable as a character. She isn't as tragic as Rarity in Secret Life, but she carries her own tragic weight when being forced into a vampiric lifestyle she did not want. Instead of her having to hide a dark secret all her life, she slowly has to build her secrecy and slowly shut out her friends. When she does kill in the story, it is more out of necessity than pleasure, with her feeding habits and the protection of her secret a must. She does fall flat and goes a bit out of character sometimes, but I chock that up to her primal nature. I also like it because while neither story has a happy ending, BCB has an overall more satisfying one. A thing that rubbed me wrong with Secret Life was the death penalty laws. They seem too extreme for Equestria, but it acts a deterrent . The law basically says that murder is met with execution no matter the case, age or race. That is less of a highly developed tolerant society and more of a call back to barbaric tactics in our own world. If the execution was by beheading or the chair I could have really seen it as a good set up, but Rarity is executed by lethal injection. There is the other problem, the punishment doesn't match the law. Even though this is rectified in the 3rd installment in the trilogy, it still seems too barbaric for Equestria. Most societies hold traitors to country and kin higher on the heinous crime spectrum than murder. In Equestria, when any evil threatens to take over and is defeated, they are banished from the land for an indeterminate amount of time. The fact that a murderer would see a more brutal punishment than a traitor is off putting. BCB had the threat of death looming in the air, but it wasn't in the same way. That Rarity had to deal with the normal threats a killer would face, the threats a vampire would face, and a steeper threat from her friends. In BCB it felt like the moment someone found out, they could go into a killer rage if they weren't killed first, while in Secret Life they would let the authorities deal with it instead, which although more realistic, left less options for Rarity.

The other main thing that knocked Secret Life down was Celestia. She seemed less of a benevolent ruler and more of a merciless ruler. While she has to follow the law and special cases can't be made, her treatment of everyone around Rarity is just down right despicable. Because Rarity is a killer and her friends tried to help her and in turn hid her secret, both out of fear for themselves and their friend, were arrested and even Twilight kicked from being Celestia's protege. She also showed no mercy for Rarity's situation and acted more like a biased party, treating rarity like the serial killer she was but not caring for the emotional damage in her mind. A serial killer like Rarity should have ended up in a mental institution, so she could be out of society, cared for mentally and physically, and reform herself in a way that could have turned out a whole new ending, even a secondary story line. Overall from the way it was written, the damage done to Sweetie Belle (Story 2) and her child Joyous Blossom (Story 3) was as much Celestia's fault as it was Rarity's. Celestia, even though it is a non-cannon story, for that you still get knocked back to the bottom of my pony list. Congrats Celestia, you are now worse than Snips and Snails on my list. Here's your fucking sign.

Overall I loved both stories, but Blood Curse Boutique had less flat areas, better focus on a life struggle intermingling with supernatural and mental issues, a satisfying ending (leading up to a future sequel) and an overall feel that damaged each party but at the same time saved each party. It is a fun ride that I highly suggest you read. Not saying that Secret Life is bad (it is actually really good and you should read that too), Blood Curse Boutique is just a little bit better.

The winner:

Blood Curse Boutique