Awful Lot of Rarity in This Twijack Story · 7:35pm Jul 30th, 2017
Rarity's evolving role over the course of Single Point has certainly been a curious development. When I first wrote Single Point of Failure, part of the idea I conceptualized was that the Mane Six would fracture over Twilight and AJ's conflict, with Rainbow Dash taking AJ's side, Rarity taking Twilight's, and Pinkie and Fluttershy caught in the middle. Rainbow Dash's role was to be AJ's pal and have her back even though she didn't really get what was going on. Rarity, conversely, was to be Twilight's confidante, her friend that she confides these new and strange feelings in and who helps her to understand them.
The events of Damaged Goods weren't originally part of that plan. Indeed, Rarity and AJ's schism was supposed to be entirely about Twilight back in Single Point of Failure, mixed with that early-series dislike the two had for each other way back in the start. However, I overplayed Rarity's dislike of AJ in the course of writing it. She wasn't just mad about the breakup; she came across as downright petty and dismissive of Twilight and AJ's relationship right from the start in a way I hadn't quite intended.
By the time I started writing The Crystal Ball, I knew I wanted to go somewhere with that. The interesting thing about Rarity and Applejack is that the two of them are actually the only members of the Mane Six who are Ponyville natives. Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Twilight all moved there at some point in time. Only AJ and Rarity actually grew up there, which meant that both the pettiness in Single Point of Failure and the bitter resentment displayed in the early episodes - most noticeably Look Before You Sleep - might actually have some history behind it.
So the groundwork was laid in The Crystal Ball, which was meant to lead straight into Damaged Goods. That meant expanding Rarity's role, however. The Crystal Ball was supposed to be, first and foremost, about Twilight and Rainbow Dash. Each one embodies a facet of jealousy; one romantic and one platonic, paralleling each other. Twilight's jealous of Rarity, Rainbow of Twilight. Due to losing her role as Twilight's confidante to her jealousy, Rarity's role in this was meant to be largely passive; she was the object of Twilight's resentments who hasn't actually done anything wrong,
Setting up Damaged Goods, however, meant moving Rarity from a passive role to a more active one. This resulted in a C-plot about Rarity and AJ and wound up distinguishing her as this sort of awkward third wheel to Twilight and AJ's relationship.
Rarity's role in Surprise Party was entirely deliberate. From the beginning, Surprise Party was meant to be a sort of comedy of errors with everyone screwing up everywhere. To this end, an exasperated Rarity is present to parody the role she's been playing for Twilight and AJ. By this point, she'd become typecast as the pony who has her shit together and knows everything there is to know about how to have an effective romance - as long as you ignore her attempts to do so herself, that is.
Pulling away from being Twilight's confidante meant giving Rarity an opportunity to show a different side to the "marriage counselor pony" position that was thrust unwanted upon her. To explore how much she doesn't actually want to be the emotional crutch for everypony's love lives, especially when her own hasn't exactly been spectacular. Based on the comments about Rarity stealing the spotlight, that seems to have been successful.
Which brings us to Damaged Goods. A lot of the details coming out about Rarity and AJ's past are things I decided on way back in The Crystal Ball, when I was thinking about why Rarity would behave as negatively as she did in Single Point of Failure. The betting pool in particular was an idea that seemed callous and even a little bit cruel for what we know of Rarity from the canon, and yet fit perfectly with the vindictive Rarity I'd accidentally written.
So her role grew to the point that Damaged Goods is as much about AJ and Rarity's relationship as it is about AJ and Twilight's. For a long time, I felt self-conscious about that. The second act in particular is a lot of AJ and Rarity with very little Twilight to speak of. She'll come back into focus, but this part is about the complex web of history between two ponies who've known each other longer than anyone else in the group.
I considered moving this series of flashbacks. Writing the story in such a way that it's all revealed through AJ and Twilight talking about it. But ultimately, Rarity won out yet again; it felt important to the narrative to get her side of the story as well as AJ's. At the end of the day, Rarity and AJ's conflicting opinions and heated discussion of what transpired between them is just a more interesting way of framing it to me than Twilight passively listening to AJ's story would have been.
So end result is that this Twijack-based series has had quite a lot of Rarity and I don't really regret that because I feel like she's done a lot of work towards improving the story as a whole. Since the beginning, a major theme of Single Point has been that romantic love is cool and all but it's not a replacement for platonic friendships. It's a different kind of relationship, not an objectively superior one, and a person does still have a life outside their lover.
Rarity embodies that principle here in Damaged Goods in much the same way that Rainbow Dash did back in The Crystal Ball. She's not AJ's lover. In this continuity, she's never going to be. But her relationship with AJ and with Twilight is every bit as important as Twilight and AJ's relationship with each other.
I must give you credit. When you made a mistake, you didn't try to pretend it didn't happen, you tried to build upon it as part of your story.