Rarity is such posh and proper pony, and she won't stop pestering ponies until they're as posh and proper as her, no matter how many times it back fires. "Darlings! Please help me! This isn't right! This isn't right at all! They're watching. They twist things to their designs. I wish to Princess Celestia I was just insane! But they're real! And whenever they arrive, my suffering begins. How many times until I'm ground into dust?"
Nothing to do with the Pony POV Series.
Cover art vector by Kooner-cz. http://kooner-cz.deviantart.com/art/Rarity-sorrow-289562503
Chapters (1)
That was...surprisingly creepy.
A+
Medium Awareness? Or has she started to see visions of fanfiction?
Poor Rarity
No matter what all your stupid Haters say against you, you will always be my favorite Mane 6
I have noticed that Rarity gets abused a lot in fanfiction, in ways ranging from the petty to the horrific -- and mostly because she's somepony who aspires to better herself socially. Frequently, this involves extreme warping of her canon personality, often to make her either a serial killer or a slut. When that doesn't happen, she is very often humiliated in trivial ways, accused of hypocrisy simply for having high standards for herself, ones which she can't always meet, because she isn't perfect or because life isn't always perfect.
I don't think she's the only one of the Mane Six to be treated this way in fanfic. There's all the Twilight as cold remorseless mad scientist stories (there's an interesting analogy there with Wind Whistler being seen as heartless, which Windy explicitly calls her friends out on in one of the canon G1 episodes: the common factor here being that intelligence and rationality can be superficially mistaken for a lack of softer emotions), and of course the incest stories. Pinkie Pie is very often portrayed as stupid or slutty, and of course there's "Cupcakes" and the spinoffs. Applejack's relatively lucky, though she's frequently assumed to be intolerant of harmless differences in others, and there's a subgenre that basically assumes she's being incestuous with her brother, for the same reason as Twilight Sparkle gets accused of incest with Shining Armor (namely, that both of them love their brothers). Rainbow Dash is frequently represented as stupid (I do think she's the least intelligent of the Mane Six, but the Mane Six is in general a highly-intelligent group) and sometimes slutty. Fluttershy, as I've noted before, usually gets her way with the fans as well as with the creatures she meets in-Universe -- she is very rarely portrayed as nasty in any way, shape or form (though she's sometimes portrayed as weaker than she is in canon). As for Spike, I devoted a whole blog post to his fanon underestimations.
I think Rarity gets a lot of flak because in canon we see that she can't always live up to her very high ideals. A mature approach, such as Rarity actually takes in canon with regard to herself, would be to simply laugh at the fact that life and Ponies aren't perfect, while trying to live up to those ideals better the next time. Personally, I very much admire Rarity for both her ideals and the extent that she does succeed in living up to them; I see her as a very strong and very good Pony, who does her best to not only uplift herself but also those around her.
But there are fans who hate the idea of virtue who notice that Rarity isn't as perfect in practice as in her aspirations, and they view the fact that she has and expresses her ideals as "hypocrisy," and despise her for them. They want to see her either do degrading things or suffer humiliating experiences, just so that they can "prove" that Rarity is not virtuous, but simply very good at making other Ponies think highly of her. They respond by writing and up-voting fanfics in which these things happen.
They miss the point that "hypocrisy" consists, not in having high ideals and then failing to completely live up to them, but in having high ideals and not even TRYING to live up to them. They miss the point that Rarity's success comes not from conning other Ponies, but from genuinely being a very good and very hard-working Pony, who usually does manage to live at least most of the way up to her ideals, and who actually learns from her mistakes and does better the next time round.
One of the reasons I love Rarity is that she keeps on dreaming, and keeps on trying to realize her dreams. Maybe she sometimes looks silly when she screws up, but at least she's trying. And if one considers where she started, and where she is now, and where she's very obviously going, it's very obvious that Rarity's approach to life is working.
Rarity rocks.
5252342
Thanks!
5252367
Which is scarier?
5252382
It feels like she's one big target sometimes.
5252484
Very in-depth and brilliant, I love it!
As for Fluttershy, you forgot about Pattycakes.
And thank you for the in-depth comment!
She laid in the tub "Spikey , More hot water please, My dear"
" Here ya go My Lady"
Bubbling Fames erupted around the water causing it to boil.
"What did I say about passing gasFARTINGin the bath water?"
"You like it hot, Don't you?"
" We'll keep this our little secret"
SPIKE!
5252547
Yes.
5252595
The eyes.
5252718 A thousand eyes on a thousand flys
The pressures of vanities perfection.
Poor Rarity, amazing the amount of flak she gets for being herself. It feels oddly like when Nightmare Eclipse trapped Discord in a time loop, the same cycle of enduring things one never should have to. I kinda wish I could do something for Rarity here...
5252484
(Loud applause and cheering.)
I don't see why Rarity gets so much hate, either. She's my third favorite of the Mane Six. This was still funny, either way.
this makes me feel really bad for Rarity, and yes she is my favorite as well. Whats worse would be the mental damage she would be taking from these events hitting her and hitting her over and over with no real power to change her fate. it would be soul crushing in the end.
5252484 This. Seriously, Rarity haters are more shallow-minded and trivial than their actual caricatures of Rarity.
5252484 This is far and away the best summation of the attitudes towards Rarity in the fandom. I sometimes wonder if part of the dislike for Rarity and AJ is because one is a business owner (as well as the sole employee) and the other is a farmer. Though the fans of the other characters can probably argue just as well that their favorite is routinely depicted as a lowlife, imbecile, or lunatic.
Ok so just I'm hmmm... DaFuq??
5252484
I may be exaggerating a bit, but I personally think that every Rarity-Hater (or any Hater of one of the Mane Cast) doesn't even deserve to call him/herself a Brony/Pegasister
. But only disliking a Member (compared to the others is Okay)
5252547
I know
Maybe it's because she seems to be the least representitive of the Elements... her main Flaw being greed and her being the easiest on to be Discorded (and I'm a Rarity Fan)
5252882
That's the thing.
When Cupcakes got written, a lot of decent and upstanding writers decided to write a better ending to it (or a counter ending in Case of the story Light In the Darkness). Another chose to write an alter ending to Rocket To Insanity where RD came to her senses after stabbing Pinkie Pie once and the entire story was well written (the irony is that while her friends made clear she hated what she had done and couldn't stand to look at her, NONE OF THEM told the royal guards, in other words, deep down, they still believed Rainbow Dash wasn't herself when she did it, and Pinkie Pie forgave her). I've seen a few fics that had Rainbow Factory as a nightmare of Scootaloo's. (I'm still waiting for the fic where Cheerilee's garden turns out to be a fever dream Cheerilee has).
Basically, I'm HOPING someone writes a counter-story to this!
5257164
I see. Well, if I were any good at writing, I'd definitely try my hand at a counter story to this. What I don't get is why so many people delight in turning a relatively harmless character like say, Pinkie Pie, and turn her into the psycho murderer she is in Cupcakes. I get that not everything is always as it seems and that things aren't always nice and fluffy, but, to such an extent? Which is why I love Pony POV so much, despite that fact that it can get pretty dark sometimes, there is always a happy ending even if the heroines have to fight tooth and claw to get it, and it works, because they aren't just given their happy ending, they earn it. Like itit has been said so often, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.
grime
________________
5257164
I can't find Rocket To Insanity (last time I looked for it. I found a sequel where she went after AJ). Do you know any working links?
I have a other fics in the work. But I think it'd be interesting to do the fevor dream fic you said you were waiting for (sounds interesting). And I don't know about a counter-ending. But what about an alternate version / sequel were one of + friends "seeing" the eyes? And helping Rares fight them. And are the "eyes" readers or Readers + Hasbro?
5257197
I actually wouldn't call Pinkie Pie "harmless" -- her power (Reality Warping) is incredibly dangerous. What I would call her is "good," "honorable," "moral" and "benign." She's one of the few Ponies who could have the ability to literally alter reality including retroactively (see "Pinkie Apple Pride" and consider the implication of those smudges) and be counted on to not to try to use it for grandiose purposes. If she was inclined to become a serial killer, the first you'd know of it was when she trapped you in some impossible way, violating the laws of physics to torture you horribly.
5261241
I mean harmless in the sense that she wouldn't hurt you intentionally. Allow me to rephrase, "a harmless character like Fluttershy and turn her into a bad parent to the point where Mother Gothel from Tangled is a paragon of good parenting by comparison."
5257164
In my version of the Rainbow Factory, the Pegasus Device is built by Ill Wind (Fluttershy's mad maternal cousin) for Commander Windvane, the leader of Windvane's Rebellion. And the three Ponies who have the most to do with stopping Windvane's Rebellion are Fluttershy -- Rainbow Dash -- and Scootaloo. Fluttershy defeats Ill Wind, who was about to start taking her apart to find out how her power works, when she masters partial Shifting and Utter-Flutters his laboratory to wreckage. Scootaloo wrecks the Pegasus Device with her enormously-powerful flightfield, which she uses to literally wrench it off its moorings and smash it into the rest of the Factory, freeing all the life force which has been harvested. This happens in YOH 1512, and Scoots is 22 at the time. And Rainbow Dash intercepts Windvane's flagship, which was about to destroy the Crystal Palace with the Rainbow of Darkness, uses her flightfield and momentum to smash right through its armor and shielding, and detonates a Sonic Rainboom inside the air-battleship, bringing it down (and badly wounding herself in the process).
5261248
Oh, okay. Yes, I would agree that Pinkie Pie is essentially harmless in terms of intent. She just wants to throw parties and help you be happy. The most selfish thing she does with her power is to make herself a retroactive Schrodinger's Cousin in "Pinkie Apple Pie," and that results in her becoming closer friends with the Apples.
5261256
Schrodinger's Cousin? How did she retroactively do that? That sounds like something Discord is capable of, not Pinkie...
5261371
I intend to write an article "Parallel Pasts," about how it's possible to alter the past without creating Paradox. Basically, Pinkie merged a worldline in which the Pies of South Dunnich and the Apples of Sweet Apple Acres were linked by mutual marriages into the Gold family with the one she was born in, and did so relatively seamlessly. The smudges were Paradox-protection; if it turned out that she'd messed up the merge, the worldlines could be re-separated without damage to either.
This is what the Paradise Entity didn't know it had to do, or how to do it, when it originally implemented the Great Wish. With disastrous consequences down the line. Also, the wishes it was trying to grant were far more inherently Paradoxical than Pinkie's rather moderate wish "I'd like to be kin to Applejack."
Incidentally, the Cosmics' ultimate weapon, the nullification bolt, deliberately amplifies local Paradox to the point where the Universe violently rejects its target, thus preventing it from slowly corrupting the continuum with spreading Paradox. This edits the target out from reality, and works mostly retroactively. The Cosmics themselves know that there was something there; lesser beings usually can't remember it.
5261371
Pinkie is capable of much the same sort of things that Discord is. She's just weaker. In part, because she's younger.
5261454
... OK...
5257787
I personally think the "Eyes" are her Haters... wanting to see her suffer for daring to be herself
5261454
In other words, a Concept-Killer weapon.
I always love how you deconstruct writing elements into something truly terrifying.
Poor Rarity. Better get Queen Libra on the case. Those bastards won't know what hit 'em.
5256080
Easiest one to be-? SHE FOUGHT IT OFF. She was the ONLY one to actually resist Discord's Mind Control eyes after they were already affecting her.
5339150
Thanks dude. *hugs*
5257197 The appeal of turning Pinkie psycho in Cupcakes is because it makes for a great horror story. The idea of your best friend turning out to be a monster. This video here actually gives a good explanation of why people enjoy cupcakes:
5339200 Internet hug!
5339216
I don't enjoy it. I hate it.
5339216
For fans of the horror genre, yes. Ah Jerry Peet, his snark never fails to amuse.
5339192
I meant that Discord only needed a fake Gem to discord her. For Applejack he used a manufactured Vision, for Pinkie Pie he make her hear the Balloons laugh, Fluttershy was TURNED into Fluttercruel after Discord failed to discord her and Rainbow Dash still was Loyal... to Cloudsdale
And to Quote Celestia in AJ's Reharmonization Chapter
She did fight it of, but that doesn't Change the Fact, that it only needs a Gem to discord her
5261622
Among other things. Sadly, Out.Of.Character the fanfic pretty much killed my ability to do anymore meta-horror.
5452129
I'm sorry to hear that
I just realized something that I feel stupid for not catching before, but in the parentheses of the title it says "Darings! Help me!" I presume you meant "DarLings! Help me!"
5669372
Edited.
5669840
So it is. Sorry to bother you like that, it just kinda looked, you know, weird. Unless she way referring to Daring as in multiple versions of Daring Do, which would make Rainbow fangasm, is not the point here.
5669845
I can't believe it took this long for someone to point it out!!!!
5669864
I know, I know.
5339216
No.
Because Pinkie Pie doing that to Rainbow Dash is OUT OF CHARACTER!
5884616
That's the point. It's supposed to create this surreal kind of horror and paranoia fuel. How well do you truly know your friends? Can anyone really be trusted?
The problem is not with Pinkie Pie but with Rainbow Dash. Like many horror protagonists, she's such a one-dimensional victim that it's impossible to feel any kind of sympathy for her, and therefore any kind of fear. The concept of Cupcakes is brilliant, but the execution is lackluster.
5884888
Once a character does something that would go against that character in heart, then they cease to BE that character.
5884894
Alternate Universe my friend. Alternate Universe.
And you THINK it's out of character but you can never know for sure. You hope and you trust but the very concept of that trust being betrayed is terrifying.
It's why Cupcakes has such an overwhelming sense of WRONGNESS to it. This SHOULDN'T be happening, but it is. And there's nothing you can do to stop it.