Rarity: The Dark Descent · 3:20pm Dec 2nd, 2015
Immediately prior to the season finale, about the last thing I expected was for a big, dark, multi-part Rarity story to explode into my brain. I still wasn't expecting it at the finale's halfway point; the Sombra-War-'verse was cool, and timeline-aware-Zecora was even cooler IMO. But then Nightmare-'verse Rarity was given a few seconds in which to chew the scenery, and the seeds for To Serve In Hell were sown.
...as opposed to Nightmare Rarity, which is totally not the same thing.
Rarity's my favorite character on the show. I wouldn't go so far as to call her "best pone", because she's so deeply flawed; she's magnificently pretentious at the best of times, and she flips her lid like nopony else when things go bad. Those qualities are a huge part of why I find her so entertaining. But if she has sufficient reason to do it, Rarity also has the capacity to dig deep, set her own pretentiousness aside, and get her hooves dirty. It's not that I see her as any "less" Rarity if she doesn't do that, but in some ways I think she's a bit "more" Rarity when she can do that. And if fanfiction is, in large part, about wish-fulfillment, then perhaps I've been wishing for some kind of inspiration that would help me find a way to write that aspect of her. Something like...
"Eh, mon capitain! He is back!"
The first chapter of To Serve In Hell came to me quickly and I was excited to get it out there. People seem to be digging it, and they're leaving suggestions about places they'd like to see it go, and I've had the chance to talk with someone about where I think it's going in the long run, and I'm pretty stoked about its future. I'm not going to do the stupid thing and commit to a specific length or release timeline, but I will say I don't want it to drag on forever. And I think the chapters will accelerate once I get more of its characters out there; right now my biggest challenge is to keep it tense and compelling during the next chapter or two of groundwork that sets up for later developments.
Because one thing's for sure: It's gonna get dark.
Will Sweetie Belle be in it? It needs Sweetie Belle.
In the Grim Darkness of the GrimDark Nightmare verse...
3586898 At this point I will only say that you're right, Sweetie Belle needs to be in there somehow.
3586938 How much grimdark would a grimdark chuck chuck if a grimdark chuck could chuck grimdark?
3588590
Excellent.
3588590
I'll tell you where she's not................
Safe.
I honestly like Rarity as well. In her own weird way she kind of fills a Donald Duck sort of comedy for me in that, it's usually funny when she gets messed with and loses her cool.
You know Sweetie Belle could always be the pony in the shadows. She could have got struck in the throat by a magic bolt screwing up her vocal chords.