Physics Bubble

by LordBucket

13 - Anti-magic human vs Rarity, round two

"Mwahaha" the human twirled his mustache. "Not only am I immune to magic, but so is my clothing because it's from a universe without magic too! And even if it wasn't, my physics bubble extends at least half a foot or so beyond the range of my clothing, so I am totally immune!"

"Oh no! How horrible!" Rarity gasped in terror at the prospect of succumbing to such a tastelessly dressed villain.

"Please don't eat me," she begged. "I've hardly any muscle on me at all, so I'd probably taste...well, to be fair I'd probably taste marvelously, because I'm Rarity and everything about me is marvelous. But please dear, at least think of your figure. All this delicious pony meat would go straight to your thighs, and you wouldn't want that now, hmm?"

"What?" the human recoiled. "I'm not going to eat you. Human don't eat horses. Except the French I think, but nobody cares about them anyway."

Donning her spectacles, Rarity stopped her cowering long enough to examine the human's mouth. Sure enough, his teeth didn't seem particularly well suited to rending flesh from bone, and were desperately in need of a good whitening cleanse. But she'd have to take that up with him later.

"Well in that case, please don't ponynap me and chain me up in an underground slave mine!" she begged. "Because I've already done that, and it simply wouldn't do for a lady of my caliber to have the same tragedy befall her twice. Whatever cruel fate you have in store for me, please let's try to be original, darling."

"Wait, are you actually giving up?" the human pondered the novelty of the situation, still twirling his mustache. "Huh. So, I'm just going to be honest here. This is the first time I've made it this far, and I'm not really sure what to do now."

Her eyes narrowed.

"Surely you don't mean to tell me," Rarity's voice took on an icy tone, "that you came all the way from another universe to be villanous and you couldn't even be bothered to think up a plan?"

"Uhh, no?" the human replied nervously, taking a step back from the very annoyed pony now walking towards him. "I figured magic immunity was overpowered enough that I could wing it."

"I'm sorry," she whispered softly, her eyes half lidded over. "Did you say, 'wing it?'"

"...yes?"

"What kind of blundering, amateurish, second-rate villain are you?" she demanded. "I am Rarity, and I expect to be accosted by only the best villains!"

"But wait! I can-"

Before he could finish his sentence, a roll of bright red ribbon bathed in a magical glow unfurled itself from a roll and wrapped itself around his ankles, his wrists, his neck...his whole body, really. She then lifted him by that same ribbon and hung him upside down from the rafters to think very carefully about the error of his tacky ways.

No need to operate your magic inside the anti-magic bubble when you only need to pull on the ends of a rope to pull a knot tight.

"Hmph!"

Author's Note:

Rarity is such an underrated character.

I have a theory that when Lauren Faust left in the second season, some of the people who were brought in to replace her only bothered watching the final few episodes before she left: the Return of Harmony. That is, the Discord episodes, where everypony was shown acting out of character.

That's why there was such a disconnect between season 1 and later pony personalities. Fluttershy became pushy and overbearing, Twilight became neurotic, etc.

In the case of Rarity, her season 1 persona...she was basically the voice of reason. The older, wiser pony in the group that even Twilight looked up to. Remember Rarity is the pony who was abducted into slavery, and yet she kept her cool and mastered the situation. It was everypony else who panicked over how she'd handle it, and it turned out she didn't even need any rescuing at all.

Or watch the first few minutes of the Gala episode, where Twilight is panicking over finding a ride, and Rarity's eyes scream "Really, Twilight? Really?" and she then proceeds to solve the problem in under 30 seconds.

The comedy of Rarity's character is that she's calm and collected in the face of real danger; utterly self-confident and capable of dealing with hardship and tragedy. But she freaks out over the small things. It's like, imagine a person who can jump in front of a train to save a child without a second thought, a person who'll jump out of an airplane without a parachute to try and rescue somebody, a person who has the courage to walk right up to a kidnapper with a gun and explain that what he's doing is wrong...but who then freaks out over a mouse.

That's Rarity.

Unfortunately, the people who took over the show from Lauren Faust only saw her throwing fits over small things, and never really understood her character.

Comments

[AC97]

Rarity will not abide by these... unfashionably cliché villains.

[Venerable Ro]

"What kind of blundering, amateurish, second-rate villain are you?" she demanded. "I am Rarity, and I expect to be accosted by only the best villains!"

I can assure you madam that Snidely Whiplash is of the very finest pedigree of cartoon villainy.

[Ri2]

So when does she start throwing couches?

[Double Vision]

10336934
Quite so! Unfortunately for Rarity, she's stuck with this guy.

[Cheshirek4t]

ah yes
the "wing it" guy

[Latecomer]

An interesting theory... but the writers for Seasons 2-4 were more or less the same as Season 1's.

[LordBucket]

10387754

the writers for Seasons 2-4 were more or less the same as Season 1's.

Lauren Faust, the show's "Executive producer, Writer, Character designer, Creative director, Story supervisor, Story editor" ...left after she was demoted to "consultant." The reason generally given for her leaving is that her replacements were making so many changes that strayed so far from her creative vision that she just couldn't stand by and watch what she'd created by destroyed.

From Lauren Faust's twitter back in 2012:

Questioner: "Have you been able to see the show much lately?"

Faust: "I just can't do it. It's too sad for me. And I want to remember it the way I had it in my head."

It's very easy to see the point of transition. Simply look at the first episode with with Meghan McCarthy and Jason Theissen running the show: Lesson Zero.

That is, the episode that establishes Twilight as a psychological mess. The episode that shows Fluttershy screaming while doing jumping kicks. The episode that introduces Rarity's fainting couch. And on and on. Major character's personalities very suddenly changed. What's the next episode after that? Luna eclipsed. That is...the episode that totally retconned Luna's backstory, so that rather than being a mysterious forgotten mare from the past that even bookworm Twilgith Sparkle didn't know existed...suddenly she was the central figure in a national holiday that every filly and colt knew about.

And the changes just kept coming. Oh, by the way...instead of being an anti-social recluse who was brought into the limelight by Celestia, now she has a doting brother, and had an alicorn princess as her babysitter. And oh by the way there are three alicorns now. And on and on.

From Nick Ha:

"Based on what I know of Lauren's original vision, I can tell you right now that the series has been so drastically altered that it would be very difficult to simply "set it back on its course". Given the option, I imagine the only feasible course of action would be to reboot the entire series and decanonize everything past the wedding. In respect to the current writers, I won't be revealing any major details about what Lauren was planning to have happen, but the two storylines--Lauren's and Meghan's--can't be reconciled unless a lot of major things are retconned."

This is not "just a theory." It's very well established that the direction of show was massively changed.

[mishun]

"Surely you don't mean to tell me," Rarity's voice took on an icy tone, "that you came all the way from another universe to be villanous and you couldn't even be bothered to think up a plan?"

This is THE. WORST. POSSIBLE. THING! (why-why-why)