I'm glad you liked (possibly) The Iron Horse! So it was recommended by "Will," eh? Who's Will?

1102510 Absolutely - it's the believability that really got me, rather than the actual horribleness of the event. It just fits too well for comfort with what we know about Fluttershy. However, I don't think it's inevitable. If we assume that a stallion such as Nosey is exceedingly rare in Equestria, then even a filly as vulnerably naive as Fluttershy would have to be pretty unlucky to come across such a character.

As you can see, I'm trying to keep this out of my headcanon because it is a very plausible theory.

1101867 Hello! It's a small world, isn't it?

1102327

Bad Horse's Fluttershy's Night Out hit me hard because of the terrible logic of it all -- Fluttershy acts in the first episode of the series as if she's been badly traumatized by something that made her fear other Ponies, and she is demonstrably very beautiful and very naive. It's almost inevitable that something like that must have happened to her. The reason her seduction and abandonment damages her so badly is that she doesn't during the ensuing four years understand why she was abandoned, so she concludes that it was the fault of some personal inadequacy. This makes sense: Fluttershy demonstrably in the series understands non-sapient animals very well, and civilized sapients very poorly.

She also shows character growth as the series progreses. By Season 3 she's able to tame a mad Chaos God, and by season 4 is happily enjoying a friendship with something even scarier -- a Pony stallion. So things clearly happened between then and now. to heal her.

Thus A Robust Solution. Why did I pick game theory as applied to animal behavior? Because Fluttershy is a naturalist, and she understands animal behavior, and she would logically be interested in any aspect of science and mathematics that related to animal behavior. She doesn't have the almost-instinctive knowledge of how to play the sexual game that everypony else in the Mane Six does, even if it's only at the level of pushing away Ponies who get into her personal space like Rainbow Dash does, or only allowing certain kinds of party games like Pinkie Pie does, to avoid being exploited by others.

So who would she talk to about something like this? Obviously, since she finds the topic extremely embarrassing (and wrongly thinks it's about her own inferiority as a mare), she would only talk about this with a best friend. Fluttershy has two best friends, Rainbow Dash and Rarity, but RD's contribution would be something like "Pshaw. Next time a stallion gets fresh with you, hit him! That's what I'd do!" which wouldn't really help much, since "Nosey" didn't rape her. Rarity obviously understands this sort of thing better than any other member of the Mane Six, so Rarity would be the one she must have talked to.

Fluttershy Is Free is actually the first Fluttershy story I ever wrote, and here I try to explain her sense of alienation from most Ponies and her weird psychic powers by stating that she's half Changeling, and of the Royal caste at that. I doubt this is the show writers' concept of Fluttershy, but it makes a lot of sense -- notice that Fluttershy physically transforms a lot? Notice that the special effects for her Stare are a lot like those of Queen Chrysalis. Oh, and Fluttershy's natural reaction in the face of danger is to run and hide, sometimes disguise herself as something else. "In Secrecy is Survival."

By the way, if you want to read a story of mine with a greater focus on Changelings, check out Collateral Damage. Warning: it's dark, horrific and violent, even though the main Changeling character is a fairly nice ling. I still can't decide if Teen - Sex - Gore is enough of a warning for this tale. Nothing in it -- even the most disgusting scene of all (which I think you'll recognize when you reach it) is there just to be gross or nasty -- but it's pretty rough.

1100502 I found your stories via Loganberry's blog, so wanting to start at the beginning I read Fluttershy's Night Out and then immediately followed on with A Robust Solution, and that much sad Fluttershy within a week is just about as much as I can take! I like Fluttershy. She's my favourite character, so those stories hit me quite hard.

I was very impressed by the use of game theory in the narrative arc to set up the resolution in the third act. I was coincidentally reading about game theory and evolutionary behavioural strategies (in Better Angels of Our Nature), so it was very interesting to see how Fluttershy applied it to her own situation.

A tragic backstory acts like an emotional lever to magnify the effect of the happy resolution. Fluttershy's character growth in the show does have greater impact when one consider's her past, the tragedy of which, of course, is mostly implied by the show, not shown outright, leaving the audience to extrapolate via fanfics... I think I'm going to go into a corner and sob now...