Rarity had had her least favorite nightmare: the one in which she was a maiden aunt to Sweetie Belle’s three beautiful foals. In the dream, everypony called her a crazy cat lady behind her back, and her evenings were mostly spent reading romance novels and eating hayberry fudge swirl ice cream directly from the carton.
Fortunately, before she got to the really terrible parts, including her designs being described as “reliably conservative,” Opal strolled up her torso and flipped her tail over Rarity’s muzzle, forcing her to wake up and give her pre-breakfast. And everypony said cats weren’t loyal.
“Oh, Opal-Wopal,” she cooed. “Who loves her mommy? Yes, you do!”
She slid back into bed and slipped on her eyemask, but she was still too upset to fall asleep. She knew perfectly well what had triggered her nightmare. Trenderhoof had been seen taking the very earliest morning train yesterday, accompanied by two guards. She’d had no idea that he was in Ponyville at all; why was that? She was well over her silly infatuation by now, but the sting to her pride still lingered. Why hadn’t she been fabulous enough to attract his attention in the first place? Why were the good ones always taken or far too old for her or simply uninterested? Why did she keep attracting stallions like Hayseed Turniptruck? Why?
She wanted to know what Trenderhoof had been doing in Ponyville, and especially about the guards, but every time she approached a group talking about it, they instantly stopped, and then quickly began talking about something else. This could only mean one thing: that everyone in Ponyville knew about her stupid crush and were still gossiping about it behind her back. Sometimes Rarity despised small towns.
Finally, there had been the line item in the Evening Standardbred that Trenderhoof’s regular column was on hiatus while he took a leave of absence to research his new book. It reminded her that somewhere, there was a glamorous life of travel, celebrity, and romance, and that she was not living it; that she was nothing but a seamstress who lived in what was practically a village; and that she was passé before she’d truly had her time.
Ridiculous, she told herself. All I need is a bit more beauty sleep, and tomorrow is another day—today, really, but it amounts to the same thing—and who on earth is ringing my doorbell at this insanely early hour? Since her early morning visitor didn’t wait to be let in, but immediately entered the shop and bounced across it with a distinctive springing gait, she had her answer.
An ear shatteringly high soprano voice rang out, “Good morning, Rarity! Are you awake yet? I was gonna wait and come back later, but then I thought, “hey, it IS later,” and I really really really need your help right now, so I thought I’d come and see if you were awake, so are you? I can come upstairs and check if you’re not.”
“No, no,” Rarity said quickly, “that won’t be necessary, Pinkie Pie.”
“Ooo! You knew it was me!”
“Yes, Pinkie, your voice is . . . distinctive. I’ll be down directly.”
She levitated a hand mirror over to her face and surveyed the wreckage. Her eyes were puffy, she had crease marks on one cheek, and she could tell already that it was going to be an extremely bad mane day. She dropped the mirror and glanced down at her hooves. They needed filing, and there were a few small chips in the lacquer. Mercifully, she had no plans to go out in public today, and while she’d didn’t care for anypony to see her at less than her best, perhaps some minor neatening up would be all that was necessary. Pinkie Pie was one of her very best friends, after all.
“What’s that thing?” said what sounded like a complete stranger. In a tenor voice.
Oh, Pinkie Pie, Rarity thought. Bringing over an unknown pony at this hour, and a stallion at that, when I simply am not prepared to receive visitors! How could you? Meanwhile, the intellectual conversation downstairs went on:
“Oh, it’s a clothes horse.”
“Why a clothes horse? Why not a clothes pony?”
“Dunno. Hey, I bet if we lined ‘em up, we could pretend they were talking to each other! Wouldn’t that be cool?”
She positively flew through her morning beauty regimen and performed the most cursory of toilettes. Just as she reached the landing, she heard Pinkie Pie hiss in a stage whisper,
“Psst! Don’t say anything about Trenderhoof!”
“Ugh. Why would I want to?”
She descended the stairs with what she hoped was gracious charm and not a sleep-deprived stagger.
“Good morning,” she said. “My, it certainly is bright and early.”
Pinkie sprang forward and hugged her. “Hiya, Rarity!” she cried. “What took you so long? You remember Cheese Sandwich, don’t you? Cheesie, this is Rarity.”
“Um,” said the party stallion, shifting from leg to leg. “Hi?”
Rarity hadn’t seen much of Cheese Sandwich since the birthaversary party, and she’d never really had a conversation with him at all. In this non-party setting, he was much shyer than she’d remembered, and probably younger, too: still part gangling, awkward colt, and very ill at ease in a mare’s couture boutique. Then Pinkie Pie trotted back next to him, and he absolutely lit up. Pinkie Pie flicked her tail against his leg and smiled up at him, and they were surrounded by such a glow that Rarity instantly knew what was going on, possibly better than they did.
For a moment, she considered trotting back upstairs, pulling on her eyemask, and going back to sleep in case this was just a new and more sadistic part of her nightmare. Inside her, a tiny Rarity wailed that it was not fair that her youngest and most eccentric friend, who barely knew what romance was, had found it, while she, the elegant Rarity, had been frustrated again and again. It was her turn first. It simply was not fair.
She told that Rarity to shut up. She would be sincerely glad for her friend, who had woken her up at a dreadful hour, demanding favors and bringing her . . . her, um, with her, when she, Rarity, hadn’t even had time to put her face on.
“Delighted, Mr. Sandwich,” she said.
“Just Cheese is ok,” he replied, still seesawing from hoof to hoof.
“Would anypony care for some tea? I’m afraid I simply must have my morning tea,” she said, trotting towards the kitchen.
“Aw. We did wake you up, didn’t we?” lamented Pinkie, following her. “I’m sorry. We brought some things from Sugarcube Corner for you—some of those fancy breads you like.” She set a basket down on Rarity’s kitchen table, and pulled back a cloth, revealing brioche, fresh from the oven.
Rarity hadn’t even known that the Cakes were branching out this way, and perhaps brioche might constitute an adequate apology. “Would you both care to join me?”
“Oh, we already had breakfast an hour ago,” chirped Pinkie, sitting down at the table, “but we can always eat another one. Anyhoo, the reason we came is ‘cause we’re planning a super duper ginormous party and we need your help with the decorations.”
“I think,” said Rarity, blowing on her tea, “you are confusing our areas of expertise.”
“Oh, no,” said Pinkie, shaking her head in a wild blur of pink mane. “You do all those super-elegant things like the Summer Sun Festival and you’re so much classier than I am and that’s what we need.”
Rarity arched an eyebrow, silently conceding Pinkie’s point.
“So that’s why we need you to make a super-elegant rug!”
Rarity didn’t quite do a spit take, but it was a near thing.
“Runners,” put in Cheese helpfully. Now that they were on the subject of parties, and were eating, he seemed much more at home. “Usually we call ‘em runners. They’re a bit upscale for what I do, but they’re those long skinny things you roll down a hallway.” He made a wide gesture to indicate length, knocked over a pot of marmalade, and caught it just before it shattered on the floor. “Sorry,” he said, turning red. “I have really bad luck in kitchens.”
“May I suggest,” said Rarity, breathing slowly through her nostrils in an attempt to calm down, “that you might wish to try the carpet salesman and not a designer of fine couture?”
“Oh, but it has to be super, super-elegant,” said Pinkie. “Not like a regular rug. Like jewels and everything. And it should unroll itself; you can do that, right? Or at least make it so Twilight can do it?”
“I could, of course,” Rarity said, pondering the idea. A nice brocade runner, possibly with jeweled trim? That might be very elegant indeed. “How long did you want this runner to be?” she said aloud.
“Oh, about half a mile.”
“Ahahah . . . perhaps I did not hear you correctly. You said half a mile, did you not?”
“Yepsidoodle!” said Pinkie, putting four cubes of sugar in her tea. “Half a mile! ‘Cause it’s got to go all the way through the castle.”
“The castle.” Pinkie Pie wants an elegant runner for the castle? “And what sort of event is this?”
“It’s the castle-warming,” her pink friend said, as Cheese nodded in agreement, his mouth filled with brioche. “Twilight’s officially opening the castle for the first time, and everypony in Ponyville is invited. Oh, and I guess anypony else who wants to come.”
“A royal event.” Rarity felt her eye begin to twitch. “You want me to make a half-mile long runner, with fabric I probably don’t have yet and jewels I almost certainly don’t have yet, for the official opening of Twilight’s castle?”
“Uh huh! And I just know it’s gonna be so fantastically gorgeous!”
The brioche basket was now completely empty, leaving utter wreckage on her tidy kitchen table. Rarity began cleaning up, setting a crumb-catcher to work, filling the sink, and sending her fine china plates into the dish tub. “And precisely when is this event to take place?”
“This afternoon!” said Pinkie, with an enormous smile.
Rarity had too much self-control to drop everything she was levitating, but she did stop everything in place. “This afternoon,” she said in an even tone. “You fully expect that I can create this miracle, with no assistance, by this afternoon.”
“Uh huh. Is that a problem?”
“Will you excuse us, Mr. Sandwich?” Rarity swept from the kitchen, and Pinkie followed her.
“Pinkie,” snapped Rarity, stopping at her worktable, “that is impossible. You know I cannot work that fast, and even if I could, I would inevitably sacrifice quality, which as you know I simply refuse to do! Why must the party be this afternoon? Why not next week?”
Pinkie simply stared back, eyes wide. “Because the party is this afternoon.”
“Ah. This is the nub of the matter. Why? Why is the party this afternoon?”
“Because it just is,” said Pinkie. “Cheesie and me both know it is.”
“And so,” said Rarity, sorting through her notebook and idly pulling out some swatches—green goes nicely with purple, she thought. I think unrelieved purple brocade might be a bit much—“you decide that a major royal event must take place this afternoon. I still don’t understand why you cannot simply reschedule.”
“Because Cheesie won’t be there,” said Pinkie, looking at the swatches and pulling out a dark rose one.
Of course, thought Rarity, savagely running a pin through the brocade swatches, we mustn’t inconvenience poor darling Cheesie, so why not impose on one of your oldest and best friends? Friendship clearly means nothing when a stallion enters the picture! But then, looking over at Pinkie, she wasn’t sure that Pinkie thought that way. In fact, she hadn’t even introduced Cheese with a flourish of “this is my coltfriend.” They hadn’t said anything about it, hadn’t been holding hooves at the table; she’d simply seen that Cheese adored Pinkie, and that was all. Still . . .
“And why can’t Cheese be there next week? Why can’t he reschedule?”
“’Cause he just can’t,” said Pinkie. “He’s going away tonight, and I don’t know how I know, I just know and he just knows. I don’t think I can explain. I understand. I’m sorry,” she went on, her ears swiveling down. “I just thought Twilight’s been so sad about the library and she would like it so much, and you would make it look so pretty, and Cheesie and me, we’ve never really thrown a party together before, except for the birthaversary and I guess that doesn’t really count, but we’ll think of something else. We’ll see you at the party later.”
Curses, thought Rarity, rubbing her eyes with her hoof. “Very well. Sit down and explain exactly what you want this carpet to do.”
Pinkie explained at great length what she wanted and why she wanted it and why it would be such a super extra enormously special thing to do for Twilight. Rarity knew it was going to be impossible to do it in time, of course, but on the other hoof, she was Rarity, and she had pulled together entirely new collections in as little time as this. She could call in some favors and, well—it could be done, possibly.
Meanwhile Cheese, who seemed to be trying to avoid the kitchen, had brought Rarity’s copy of the Evening Standardbred into the shop and was reading it, muttering to himself. All at once, he gave a loud snort. “‘Extended leave of absence.’ That’s what they’re calling a total nervous breakdown in Canterlot-speak these days, huh? Pfft.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Sand—Cheese, if you will,” said Rarity, putting down the notebook and colored pencils with which she’d been doodling some ideas, “to which article are you referring? Would that possibly be the article on Mr. Trenderhoof?”
Cheese simply stood there, jaw dropped. “Cheesie!” wailed Pinkie. “I told you not to say anything about Trenderhoof!”
“But—but I didn’t!” he stammered.
“You shouldn’t say anything about Trenderhoof to Rarity, silly! She had this gimondo crush on him and then when he came here he was super rude to her and didn’t crush her back and it makes her feel really, really bad, so nopony talks about it in front of her, ‘cause it makes her feel like she wasn’t good enough or something!”
“I’m not surprised,” said Cheese.
“Pinkie Pie!” snapped Rarity. “I am appalled at your rudeness when I have done nothing but try to assist you, and what precisely do you mean by ‘I’m not surprised,’ Mr. Sandwich?”
“He’s got lousy taste,” said Cheese, shrugging.
“Well, really!—what?”
“I keep running into Trenderhoof, and he’s got lousy taste. He wouldn’t know something good if it bit him. Oh, sure, he likes finding little out of the way nice places, but then he ruins them by making them over to suit himself. He gets bored with things. He said cupcakes were over.”
Pinkie Pie gasped. “He never!”
“He did,” said Cheese. “He’s got lousy taste, except I guess Braeburn’s kind of nice-looking. I dunno. I don’t think of Braeburn like that, and I don’t think Braeburn thinks of Braeburn like that, but he introduced himself as an apple rancher and I’m not sure if Trenderhoof was into the pony or just the fruit. He’s crazy. Pssht. Don’t even ask me about our ‘friend’ ‘Trend,’” he finished, making air quotes with his hooves.
“Oh, no,” said Rarity, strolling over to her chaise longue and reclining on it, “I insist. No, Pinkie, I am tired of ponies walking on eggshells around me about Trenderhoof as though somepony had died, for heaven’s sake, and I want to hear what Mr. Sandwich has to say, and I positively refuse to lift a hoof making this carpet until I have the whole story.”
“Story?” said Cheese, blinking. “Did you say you want to hear the whole story?”
“Yes,” she said firmly, wrapping her tail around her hind hooves to make it clear that she was not budging until his story was over.
Evidently, this was all she needed to tell Cheese, for whom “story” seemed synonymous with “performance.” What she saw next was a dizzying quarter of an hour of accordion music, jokes, sound effects, and dialogue, with Cheese’s rubber chicken playing, in turn, Braeburn, a waiter, a tipsy Trenderhoof, Flash Sentry, and a fire crew. The stories were rather confused, and involved quite a lot of heavy drinking and waffle batter, but Cheese made his overall point nicely. He finished, front legs spread wide, and Rarity realized just a second too late that she was supposed to applaud. By the time she made a few polite little opera hoofclaps, the moment had clearly passed, and Cheese stood there, looking awkward again. Then he added--
“And if you ask me, I’m glad he went meshugganah out where everypony could see him, because he’s been going that way for ages, and he needs a nice long break somewhere where nothing ever happens and he can’t get any coffee, and he can leave the rest of the world for us to have some fun in. He prefers Taztelwurm entrails to cupcakes. He thinks I’m loud and tacky, and y’know, I just don’t think his opinion matters all that much.”
Hmm, thought Rarity. I wonder. On one hoof, Pinkie’s awkward party stallion, and on the other hoof, Trenderhoof . . . but that’s ridiculous. Everypony knows Trenderhoof’s taste is the ne plus ultra! But evidently, Cheese wasn’t done.
“And maybe this is way out of line, but you do all this fashion-y stuff, and I thought you would know . . .”
“Yes?”
“Will you tell me why really beautiful mares put so much stuff on their faces when they don’t need it? I just can’t figure that one out.”
“Cheesie!” squeaked Pinkie, who clearly knew this was a bridge too far.
“It is to enhance one’s natural assets,” said the offended fashionista, although perhaps, on second thought, she wasn’t that offended at all. Cheese sighed.
“I think I’ll stick to the things I know, then. And we’ve got a lot to get done before this afternoon, so I’d better go and do some of them.”
“We’ll see you at the party, Rarity?” asked Pinkie.
“Oh, of course. And what time do you want me to bring the runner?”
She was barreled over by an excited and happy little pink hurricane.
“Oh, I knew you would do it, Rarity, I just knew you would! It’s going to be super-duper, you’ll see! Anytime before school lets out is fine, because otherwise Cheerilee’s students will be all over the place and it’ll be impossible to put down. You’re so awesome! Bye! See you there!”
Pinkie gave her friend one last enormous hug, and trotted out the door after Cheese Sandwich. She heard a thwack! sound from just outdoors, as though someone’s hat had just been pulled off and abruptly put back on again with some force.
“Cheesie! I told you not to mention Trenderhoof!”
“I couldn’t help it, Pinkie! I had to cheer her up!”
Yes, thought Rarity. Yes, on the whole, her odd friend’s even odder friend had cheered her up a good deal. After all, if even Pinkie had a Cheese, what might not be in store for a fabulous mare such as herself? She would think of this tomorrow, perhaps, because in the meantime, she had a great deal to do.
The boutique was soon a blizzard of scissors, ribbons, and cascading fabric, and in the middle of it, Rarity sat, glasses firmly placed on her nose, creating beauty, utterly absorbed in what she loved to do best in the world.
And she had to admit that Trenderhoof looked MUCH better as a rubber chicken.
You've got Rarity perfectly there. The extreme awareness of the social currents surrounding her, the mean and selfish side, and her far greater generosity and kindness of her personality. The fact that she has that nasty thought makes her subsequent good-will all the more real. Well-done.
BLASPHEMY!!!
I loved their interactions, and the way you' tied this all into the earlier stuff you wrote with Trenderhoof and Flash
Very nice!
I love how you brought up that Rarity is attracted to those who don't care for her, and Cheese fixed that for her. He was super sweet about the whole thing, and my favorite part is what he said right outside the door:
Because sometimes, you just have to!
That part when Cheese said that Trendy said that cupcakes were over killed me.
Now see, this is the Rarity I want to be able to write. This portrayal hit all the right marks. And yet, I don't feel like I can do it. I'm understanding the fundamentals and practising, but I'm not there yet. Or at least, I don't think I am. I've got a pretty good idea, but it's not perfected.
And I loved those callbacks. As soon as waffle batter appeared, the flashbacks occured. And now I'm going to have to go re-read 'Flash and Trend Steal All Your Waffles' as well as 'Slice of Life'. The Trenderhoof you create is great as well, although I'm not sure if I'm saying that because it's one of the the only ones I've read. Trenderhoof is a little underused on this site. I think you mentioned somewhere that you like to think of him as bisexual too. I can't remember and I wasn't sure if you were painting that here. But it's a nice thought.
I think that Pinkie requesting something large on such short notice is completely believable. She seems like the type to do that and not realise how much work it requires. There she'd be just staring with a huge smile. I'd like to think this could relate to her hammerspace abilities. Since she pulls stuff out of nowhere in no time, she kind of expects others to do strenuous tasks with no trouble. Cheese has the ability, but Rarity? Not a chance. Unless it's some kind of umbrella. Or if she was Radiance.
I think I have a slight idea of where the final chapter may be heading. Probably won't be, but I'm looking forward to it anyway.
I love that loud and tacky thing in there from weird al's tacky song ;-)
4731479 Yeah--they're kind of innocent, too, especially Pinkie, which makes them really fun to write.
4731531
Yup. And I think she's slowly going that way in canon, too not to mention in the comics.
4731539
4731599
4732613 Aw, thanks!
4732793 Good, because I was worried that they'd just come off as cheesy, if you'll excuse the pun. I really struggled with that bit. Ultimately, I was thinking of Homer (yeah, Homer--"laughing Aphrodite" and the "rosy-fingered Dawn"), and one of my favorite musical sunrises, from Eugene Onegin.
Of course, I was thinking of the "Reflections" arc. I guess alicorns do have a rough time, but if you think about it, it makes sense that they would, especially Celestia. I think the reason she gets so little fandom love is because on the show, she is so belted down. I don't think anyone has quite realized that in order to be what and who she is, she's had to be.
Wow. Thank you. And speaking of . . . are we going to see any Pinkie Pie from you soon, hint, hint?
4733170
Are you thinking of the Cheesy Sense,his vocation, and his wanderer life (which, incidentally, I think he enjoys for the most part)? Yes, I've always scratched my head a bit when he just says, "sure, I'll move to Ponyville!" Depends on the writer, of course, but I'm glad that when I started this ball rolling, I accidentally chose for it not to go that way.
4733213
Thank you! Yup--I don't seem to get tired of them. So far, I have this to finish off, the one AFTER that, one I commissioned art for, Looking Glass World, and a possible sequel to that.
4734215
4734496
4734694
4736330
4739961 Thank you!
4743671 Thank you. I've been in Rarity's horseshoes. It's not nice. The idea that people are pitying you for being a single crazy cat lady makes it all a zillion times worse--and in canon, they DO. It's come up in other ponies' visions about the direction Rarity could go. Notice that it's the gossip that shoves her over the edge, not Trenderhoof himself. And Rarity's dreams are the only one out of the Mane Six that involve a Prince Charming, which is part of why she's so vulnerable.
And Pinkie is seriously trying her patience. She's underslept, she's upset. If Rarity were human and lived a half century ago, she would be one of those ladies who would not dream of leaving the house without gloves on, even to pick up the paper, so dragging a gentleman stranger into her home at that hour is really unacceptable. And then Pinkie asks for the impossible. But she does get a grip and tells herself that Pinkie's having fallen in love is not Pinkie's fault and that it would be horrible of her to cast cold water over it. She's WAY clearer about what that would look like and what that would do, and it's very possible that she had some sort of puppy love thing in her past. So, yes.
It IS blasphemy, isn't it? Food trend people keep predicting the demise of cupcakes, and mostly they've been wrong.
4743678 Yep. He's DRIVEN to make her happy. And he really didn't tell her all that stuff only to make her happy. It's the truth. Biased, maybe--there's more to Trend than that--but his sincere opinion, as is his backhanded compliment to Rarity's beauty. I think he was thinking of Cherry Jubilee, actually, and then looking at Rarity reminded him, plus he's just seen Pinkie waking up from sleeping rough.
4743756 I know! Shocking, isn't it? One of the few instances when Trend's been wrong about food, incidentally. He's written rave reviews about Donut Joe's donuts.
4743988 Thank you! Actually, I was thinking a bit about The Calling Night, to tell the truth.
Trend is shockingly underused. I've been noticing some Trend art shipping him with Big Mac and Braeburn. I could see his end, for sure. Yeah, my Trend is bisexual, which of course doesn't mean he can't make a commitment. The reason he can't make a commitment NOW is that he is also extremely confused. He keeps ridiculous hours, he drinks too much coffee, he drinks too much, period, he's had the pressure of being The Most Interesting Pony in Equestria. I think Flash not knowing who he was in "Flash and Trend" was a relief.
Like a lot of people in crisis, Trend thinks that falling in love will "fix" him, which of course it wouldn't. I think (and this is pure headcanon, so bear with me), his attraction to the simple life in the country is a healthy one. He does need to slow down, get away, take it easy, and maybe write. Where he boobs up is confusing the life he needs with a pony who represents that.
Rarity, of course, wouldn't be what he wants, because she craves more of the lifestyle Trend is burning out on right now. At best, she would have had the privilege of watching his nervous breakdown up close, and she's so generous that she would probably feel she had to take care of him, even if she wasn't getting anything out of it. But how could she know that? All she knows is that she "failed." She wasn't pretty enough or fabulous enough for Trenderhoof. Cheese's blunt assessment that Trend is meshugganah helped, because he really meant it, as did the fact that both Cheese and Pinkie TALKED about it with her instead of avoiding it, as though poor Rarity had done something awful.
Rarity can pull off some pretty amazing stuff, and Pinkie obviously believes in her, so that helps.
Well, it'll be interesting to see if you're on the right track!
4744674 The funny thing is that I'd had that bit planned for ages. Cheese finds it in Trend's autobiography and is duly annoyed. Glad you liked it!
I think a lot of fans don't grasp how difficult it is to rule a good-sized country (my Equestria has well over 80 million Ponies by YOH 1500, and had a population of at least 5-10 million during the whole period Celestia's been its Ruling Princess) even when one is revered as a demi-goddess. She has to make wise decisions for the long run even when they conflict with short-run temptations, and she has to gain popular support for them even though she is a thaumocrat (because if she doesn't, her Ponies will resent and rebel in many ways both covert and overt, which would force her to either rule as a tyrant or abdicate her throne). Yes, she's super-intelligent and has awesome magical powers, but she can't be everywhere at once.
The only two entities who she grew up with and remember her as anything but the goddess-like ruler of Equestria who are still around are Luna and Discord. For 1000 years Discord was her enemy, then for over 1500 more years he was a garden ornament. For the 1000 years from YOH 500 to 1500 Luna was insane and banished to the Moon. I would wager that Celestia's been very lonely for much of that thousand years -- yes, sometimes she had the company of a true friend utterly unimpressed by her power (such as Star-Swirl the Bearded) but there must have been years, even decades, when she was surrounded only by flatterers or at best by friendly Ponies who didn't understand her and were too awed by her to check her own vices.
This means that Celestia has had to be very careful of her own behavior. It wouldn't take much of a drift day by day, over a matter of decades, for her to become Tyrantlestia, Molestia or even just Trollestia. What's worse, if she started to slip into arrogance, lust or cruelty, she would have no shortage of Ponies willing to grease the skids for her, on one or another selfish motivation.
If the "Reflections" continuity is canon, then Good-Sombra would have been an enormously positive influence on her life during that millennium. She would have wanted to retain his respect and good opinion, and hence he would have served as a welcome social pressure keeping her from letting herself be corrupted by her own power. And his love would have made her much happier -- even if she could only see him very occasionally, she would have known that somepony whom she could wholly admire and respect loved her in return.
Now she is cut off from him, possibly forever. But at least now her sister has been returned from her, and she also has Cadance and Twilight as near-peers to help keep her sane. Which must be quite a relief.
4745422
Rarity's dreams require that a particular sort of special somepony love her back. While I'm sure that the other members of the Mane Six want to be loved, winning True Love is not as essential to them as it is to Rarity -- they don't feel pressed to achieve love any time soon.
In my fanon, Rarity is especially fragile in this regard because of her backstory, which has been the harshest of any of the members of the Mane Six. Her strong determination allowed her to recover from what happened in her youth, but she secretly fears that she is unloveable -- even though she doesn't let it stop her the way that for a time it stopped Fluttershy.
I'm a Sparity shipper. But that doesn't help her that much now -- he's still too young for her. And while he's getting older, so is Rarity, and she's lonely. And afraid that everypony thinks she's becoming an old maid. And if they took Spike's crush on her seriously, and thought she even slightly returned the emotion, they'd call her perverted, for at least two reasons of which I can think, one of which won't get any better with age -- he's still going to be a Dragon.
Indeed. One of the reasons why I love Rarity so much is that she's not flawless -- she has some very obvious flaws -- but that she surmounts her flaws by the exercise of her own intelligence and will to make herself a better Pony. She could so easily be a shallow, nasty, amoral, bitchy little piece out for the main chance with no concern for who else got hurt. She could even be a success that way -- plenty of people are, both in our world and theirs.
But she's not -- she's a genuinely good and caring and kind Pony who always looks out for her friends. Even when it's very, very difficult -- even when it may remind her of her own failures in life. And that's what makes her magnificent.
4745422
The problem with both Rarity and Trenderhoof in "Simple Ways" is that they are regarding the objects of their love purely as objects of their love without bothering to consider them as people. Rarity comes off a bit better here in that she has at least fallen for somepony who shares her interests and might be expected to at least want to befriend her (actually, Trenderhoof was befriending her, until he became obsessed by Applejack). But as you point out, the precise sort of life which Rarity aspires to live is the kind of life Trenderhoof aspires to leave, which creates a complication.
Trenderhoof, in turn, did not bother to consider what Applejack wanted. In particular he did not consider that she has not been just sitting around her farm waiting for him to show up and sweep her off to a life of wondrous delight. Nor does he bother to actually get to know her. He simply makes some highly-stereotypical assumptions about her based on her kind, class and profession, and never even asks her any of her opinions of anything. (For instance, he totally misses that Applejack is highly-intelligent, has a sarcastic sense of humor, and very little patience for phonies).
In my fanon, his suit was hopeless because Applejack considers her promise to another (Landscape Carrot) to still bind her (even though he's been missing for six years by that time). But he might have been able to befriend her, if he hadn't simply assumed that she was his Dream Farmgirl based on her good looks and the fact that she's a farmer, and then totally-ignored the actual Applejack (whom he was annoying to no end) in favor of his fantasy.
Masterfully done. It was fascinating to see Pinkie and Cheese's interaction from the outside, both in terms of the romance and the perplexing properties of party ponies. I eagerly look forward to the conclusion.
Rarity was spot on! Definitely one of the best portrayals I've seen in a while!
Amazing chapter as always
This smile is still on my face!!!! HELP!
You are TOO GOOD AT THIS, Scoots2! It's like I can SEE IT before my eyes! WAUGH, IF ONLY I COULD GET WUBCAKE TO JUST READ THIS OUT LOUD
I also remember another pony who does a perfectly spot-on cheese sandwich... I yearn for this to be realized...
She puts makeup on him. Oh, please..!