Gotta Shave, Gotta Wear Pants

by Fiddlebottoms

Fish-net-fish-net-fish-net-fish-net-fish!

And Elser-Elsewhere ...

Rarity stood in the center of her boutique, now donned in the garb of the civilized, working womyn: an ass-masking pantsuit, which kept ripping and revealing her ample posterior. A fresh tearing sound almost drew a curse from the fashionista, but these were the slow, meaningless steps toward civilization and she’d be damned if she allowed herself to falter.

Rather instead, Rarity's turned her seamstress' skills toward repairs which took but a few seconds. Once more, her tail and shame were hidden. She was ready, at last and again, to face the world and all its Argosian eyes.

Or, at least, she so thought. Upon opening the door, she squealed in terror and slammed it again.

They were out there! Legions of them! Walking free in their ignorant nakedness. Nausea overwhelmed her and she collapsed freely to the ground. Her legs splayed out across the earth in a feverish embrace. So many of them. So naked.

“Pants,” she gasped in horrible shame, as if she expected the world to hear her, “gotta wear pants.”

But they didn’t. They couldn’t. There simply weren’t enough pants in Equestria to cover all the bared asses. To the best of her knowledge, there were only two pairs of pants, one for her and one for her mother. The fashionista attempted to grit her teeth, but only succeeded in getting a mouthful of the ground.

She heard a sound slamming against her door and cringed in terror. That would be one of them. Out there coming in here, with all their naked shame and shameless naked. Asses! So many horse's asses!

The sound repeated and the door swung open. It would have been dramatic for the hinges to snap or the wood around the handle to shatter, but the door was not locked so these things did not happen. Still, Rarity soiled her newly forged pants in horror.

If the unicorn was pathetic, the creature that had once been Big Apple Macintosh Apple was ... another thing? Certainly. His shame glowed red, almost as red as his fur would be normally, and he delicately cradled the ground in his own hooves. Rarity scurried backward from his approach. They came in pursuit of each other, dragging their bellies across the floor.

After an absurd, absent-minded dance, the stallion remembered his words.

“Gotta shave,” Mr. Apple released in a wretched torrent against the ground, perhaps as a plea for understanding, or perhaps in plea for a quick death.

“Gotta wear pants,” the unicorn replied, recognizing the kindred spirit, but still distrusting it.

“Gotta shave.” He craned his neck, seeing the fabrics entrapping her legs. He nodded in appreciation at the lack of air circulation afforded.

“Gotta wear pants.” She leaned forward, smelling his mane and the blood around his muzzle. The naked skin of his face thrilled her with its prepubescent implications, and her own legs shuddered in anticipation of the razor’s kiss.

“Shave,” he replied, trembling at the anticipation of bunched fabrics awkwardly cradling his crotch and pinning sweat against his body. He could almost already itch the coming rash of civilization's bliss.

“Wear pants.”

“Gotta shave. Gotta wear pants,” they fell into each others forelegs effortlessly. Blood smeared across Rarity’s white coat, and her pants ripped again. An island of already stale civilization in an age of creation.

---

In the Original Elsewhere, But Some Minutes Later, or Perhaps Simultaneously ...

“Eqesruta,” Twilight snarled at Mayor Mare, backing her away from the boiler. The fires were now burning brilliantly, casting ridiculous shadows throughout the room. Twinkling sparks leapt free, and gallons of steam poured out, warping the roof above.

“Please, calm down, Eqesruta,” pleaded the cornered earth pony. In her desperation, she found clarity. A sense of calm as she called upon her years of training in the civil service. There was only one thing to calm the maddened spirit. “Would you like a drink of Eqesruta?”

Twilight looked at the proffered beverage. She was certainly thirsty, the heat of the boiler and the steam caused her body to dehydrate severely. Yes, she could certainly use a glass of water.

“Eqesruta,” she said, accepting the vessel into the grasp of her hooves.

After a few moments contemplation, of how it sat in her hooves and the way that the light played through the window and refracted among the liquid molecules, Twilight upended the entire container upon the floor with a deliberate calmness.

“Eqesruta,” she repeated.

“Eqesruta,” agreed the Mayor, suddenly feeling calm spill across her as well.

“Eqesruta,” they whispered so none of the people who weren’t in the room at the time could hear.

When the boiler exploded, it was impossible to tell if this had been the original intent of the engineering, or if instead it had been an accidental consequence of half-assed construction. Fortunately for the flames, they did not need to entertain such consideration and sundered the accidental, on purpose and accidental on purpose with objective ease.

---

Back at the Elsewherer Elsewhere, Perhaps A Longer, Unspecified Period of Time Later ...

Rarity was rapidly losing touch with her ability to remain out of touch with the passing of events. She could ignore Twilight wandering into her home and babbling like a maniac. She could ignore the Mayor tearfully begging for help in finding fuel for the immense steam boiler now occupying her office. She could even ignore the fires and explosions decimating Ponyville.

She could not ignore the nakedness, nor that damned word. That word she dared not to think, for fear of it claiming her as well.

No, she pulled herself away from the window. Away from them. Their madness could not touch her here, in the safety of the Boutique. Here she would avoid all thought of ... of ...

Well, of that word.

“Eqesruta,” Mr. Apple supplied. The stallion appearing beside his companion as if a specter or other vacuous beast.

Rarity, uncertain of whether this action deserved praise or hate, went with the more gracious gratitude for which she should be known. “Gotta shave.”

“Gotta wear pants?” The stallion cocked his head to the side in sudden confusion.

“Gotta shave, gotta wear pants?” Rarity inquired in return. If he hadn’t said the word, then she must have thought it.

“Gotta wear Eqesruta.”

“The word,” Rarity whispered, so none of the people who weren’t in the room at the time could hear. The sudden lapse of propriety horrified the fashionista more than the thought of madness.

“Eqesruta?”

That horrible, horrible word, appearing as summoned, as if summoned. It certainly had been summoned by somepony. The unicorn felt herself uttering it, staring down at the spilled glass of water. As if it were a curse or a swear or some marvelous obscenity on par with the miniature ocean spreading out before her ...

No.

No more contagion.

If she was infected, or if Mr. Apple was infected, there was only one option.

Ms. Rarity Bells and Triangles and Apples picked up the knife and pressed it inside her mouth. She coughed around the cold, sweet taste of steel. For a moment,she waited enjoying the nickel taste, as a child sucking on a coin, and then pressed the blade through the flap of muscle that comprised her tongue. Hot life filled her mouth as she sliced away at the offending organ.

In confusion, the stallion had retreated to the corner crying. He couldn’t recognize this as the way to save them both. They must be saved. Civilization, only newly discovered, must endure.

Eqesruta could be stopped. Anything could be stopped if it arrived at a sufficiently immobile object.

More madness, as she spoke in tongues of blood. The blade caught and tugged with each sawing motion, yanking at the roots of her tonsils, but the madness was purged as the red river flowed. Finally, the unicorn spat and her organ of speech lay useless upon the ground as a slug or some other creeping beast soaked in blood. Eqesruta was a disease, amputate, cauterize, disinfect.

Everything would be back to normal soon.

Well, not normal. Back to pants and shaves and civilization, back to the opposite of normal.

From somewhere down the street, glass was breaking and laughing merrily with the ricochet of hurled stones. Cries of Eqesruta spread through eager brains, liberating cause and effect. Those who hadn’t protected themselves were spreading, destroying everything, but here, in the land of fabrics, here there was safety and purity.

The unicorn, with her fur white as blood and piss-stained snow, smiled at Mr. Apple Big Apple Macintosh Apple, who lay upon the carpet unconscious or perhaps dead, but his soul saved regardless of the context of the flesh it might not still inhabit. They would always be safe from uttering that horrible word.

--Eqesruta.

But she could still think it.

And she could still write it, scrawling idly in her blood. And she could still hear it. And she could still feel it in her hide as the prickling wrongness stole across her like night air moving over her skin like chill water like Eqesruta.

Damn, the unicorn tried to think, but all that came to the surface of her mind was ...

--Eqesruta.

Author's Note:

"Whoever calls for the resurrection of this guilty and shabby culture becomes its accomplice, while whoever denies culture directly promotes the barbarism which culture revealed itself to be. Not even silence gets us out of this circle, since in silence we simply use the state of objective truth to rationalise our subjective inability, thereby once again degrading truth into a lie."
- Theodore Adorno, Negative Dialektik

Comments

[Inferno demon Dash]

What? But they have FUR I laughed so HARD when Rarity died....Gods this is confusing, why would she need to cover her tail? Buck it, I'll give it a like because of Rarity death

[Regidar]

this warms my cockles

[nemryn]

Really?

[Shader]

This touches me in places that weren't meant to be touched.

[Awesomebronypony]

This.....this.....is proper troll fic...I think. Is this a proper troll fic? HELP ME!

[Cola_Bubble_Gum]

I'd say it was Lynchian, and you'd be offended.

I'd say it was Buddhist, and I'd be offended.

I'd say nothing, and end up a liar anyway.

In lieu of Euclidian geometries, I provide the simple, absolute, unyielding

and then fart in your direction, and never speak of it again.

[David Leatherhuff]

It all makes sense now.

Everything I thought I knew was a lie.

[Sunshine Bat]

Cool.

[Awesomebronypony]

2678638 NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[WrathOfGod519]

This has given me so many ideas, most of them irrational, the few that aren't are illogical, all equally pointless.

Have a cookie.

[Regidar]

how marvelous

[Griseus]

I wonder is this an example of normality is death?

[Honeycomb]

I enjoyed this quite a bit, that ah did. I lack the education to say anything more meaningful about it than that though.

[Dead_Page]

2678039
I see your statement and raise you one Rainbow Dash Impales Herself on a Wrought Iron Fence.

Fine, that's an album name, not a song. In that case just take song 20 in that album.

*WARNING: DO NOT ACTUALLY LISTEN TO ANYTHING IN THAT ALBUM.*
I can now safely assure you everything in that album is the utmost in terrible composition.

Note: ONYX INVESTMENTS IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR URGES TO BURN ORPHANAGES OR SAN LOSS INCURRED BY LISTENING TO POORLY RECOMMENDED MATERIALS.

[PresentPerfect]

what

[nothingtoseehere]

7242870
Eqesruta.

[Bad Horse]

Did you write this to the Adorno quote, or choose it later?

The fact that Adorno is widely quoted by post-modernists is not evidence of intelligence.

[Fiddlebottoms]

8568226
Did you write this comment to the story, or choose it later?

Bitching about postmodernism (not supposed to be hyphenated) is not evidence of intelligence. In fact bitching about postmodernism on a (deliberately and consciously, seeking the benefits of being so) rhizomatic network--on a node of said network that can be, by definition, nothing but bricolage, on a particularly bricolage-styled story by a particularly bricolage utilizing author--and to do so under the ward of pseudonymity is evidence of either intelligence's opposite or honesty's opposite.*(**)
This is triply true when you think postmodernism has anything to do with Le Ebin I Hate Jazz Man and when one of your blog posts was literally this:
i.imgur.com/QrnSetq.jpg

*Bonus points for having been a programmer, so there is linguistic deconstruction added to your sins.**
**Bonus bonus points for refusing to acknowledge all of this, making you the worst caricature of a postmodernist, ie the one who just uses buzzwords (like postmodernism) without understanding them and just makes up the meanings of words as you go along.

[Bad Horse]

8570990
I will decline your offer of a dick-measuring contest, but I am interested, as a writer, in whether you wrote this to fit the Adorno quote, or chose the quote later.

I'm sorry I editorialized offensively in my previous comment. I have a low opinion of Adorno, and find it sad that you may be making yourself miserable by taking him seriously. I realize Adorno was not himself a post-modernist, but that is mostly who cites him nowadays, unless you want to split hairs over who is more "Marxist" than "postmodernist". I have no tumblr blog, and rarely listen to podcasts.

[Fiddlebottoms]

8572164
The quote happened in the middle of the writing, as everything else did. There is neither beginning nor end to my writing process.

Your editorial was longer than your comment, and it was on a topic that you rant rather ignorantly about whenever you get the chance. I was not offended, I was responding to the actual content, to which the question was irrelevant.
I do not believe that anyone who has ever placed Bloody Vomit Bukakke and Adorno together did so because they were taking Adorno seriously, let alone seriously enough to be made miserable.
And one of the big bugaboos of many postmodernists is the abandonment of "grand narratives" and "reductive binaries," such as dialectical materialism and class struggle. Saying Marxism and postmodernism are matters of shading is ridiculous. As for basing your connection on citations, if everyone who cited Ezra Pound was a fascist, or Ezra Pound was politically aligned with everyone who quoted, imitated, or responded to him, things would get very simple very quickly, because everything is fascism and fascism is everything. Also Marxism is a constitutional monarchist capitalism, since Marx was a Hegelian and drew substantially from Adam Smith.

[Bad Horse]

8577815

Saying Marxism and postmodernism are matters of shading is ridiculous.

Sure. I didn't say that. They are belief systems which today typically go together in American academia, despite their contradictions, so when asking who cites Adorno the most often today, one could answer either "Marxists" or "post-modernists", because they're often the same people. ("Marxists" probably would have been a better answer, tho.)

... although now that I've written that, I realize I have a hard time thinking of leading thinkers who make heavy use of both belief systems.

As for basing your connection on citations

A valid approach when sample size is large. It shows who someone's current followers are. Who cites Marx the most? Marxists. Who cites St. Augustine the most? Christians.

[Fiddlebottoms]

8578306

A valid approach when sample size is large

...sample size...

You have performed a study? You will not mind providing me with the data set and explaining your methodology? Did you compare the number of "postmodernists" talking about Adorno to the number of Alt-right who cite Adorno and the Frankfurt school as the beginnings of postmodernism? How did you define postmodernist for the purposes of this study was it based upon self-description or some other criteria? Did your study differentiate between favorable, neutral/mixed and unfavorable citations? Were you measuring absolute citations or relative citations? Did you weight the data for contemporaneity?

I have not performed any studies, but from casual discussion, I am confident that Christians quote Moses more than St Augustine and more Presbyterians know about Martin Luther than John Calvin (although they probably couldn't quote either, unlike readers of godless psychoanalyst Norman Brown). And the only people who talk about Adorno these days are channers, bloggers and one college professor who taught a class about the Holocaust and Literature and Adorno is objectively relevant to that topic. Which is relevant because

... although now that I've written that, I realize I have a hard time thinking of leading thinkers who make heavy use of both belief systems.

you seem to be confusing "an author or idea was relevant, or could be regarded as relevant, to the subject material and was therefore cited or required reading" and "the writer or professor was an Xist who wanted to indoctrinate people into X."

[Ice Star]

I probably shouldn’t have read this before breakfast.