Director's cut: Massaging Rarity

If you have seen the “Friends” sitcom, then you may recognize the plot of ‘Massaging Rarity’: Phoebe Buffay went through a similar thing when she massaged Monica Geller in one episode of the show. 

I really didn’t get the idea for this story while watching “Friends." It just came to me, but I think I subconsciously got it from that previously mentioned “Friends” episode. Once I truly saw the similarity, I almost dropped this story because I was debating on if it was too similar, but I felt that the story’s second half was able to branch out just enough. Rarity seems like the type who might react to a massage the way she did in the story--one commenter even called her a “total ham”, which I don’t disagree with !

As for my thoughts about the story, there’s not too much to say or comment about it here. One thing I’ll mention is that Massaging Rarity’ is the first story of my Eric Reed stories that mentioned Eric’s “job” at the School of Friendship. This is the second one that took place in the season 8 timeline--the first one was ‘Would You Rather…?’

This next part wasn’t addressed in the story because Eric himself doesn’t know it and the story was in both first-person and from his point of view. But, Twilight mainly gave him his role at her school because she didn’t want to risk him thinking she didn’t think he could help or feel left out. So, she just made up something that he could do and would be helpful for her school.

But moving on. Another thing I’ll bring up is “Big Bessie”, which Eric calls his left fist when he punches something for real, and he's a lefty. I got the name from Donkey Kong 3 when one of the characters called their cannon “Big Bessie” and liked it when someone named their fists.

Next is the part where I’ll bring up noteworthy edits/cuts in my so-called Director’s Cut blogs. This story only had one big edit, and it was to the story’s ending. Originally, Eric did not offer Trixie any bits in return of her not picking on him any chance she got about “Equestria’s weirdest massage.” He just basically said “I’m screwed” and the story ended. I made the change to show that Trixie wasn’t going to tease him mercilessly, or at all. Eric and Trixie actually like teasing each other and it’s usually not mean-spirited, but Eric wasn’t in the mood to let Trixie have more ammo for their usual banter. 

This part of Eric and Trixie’s friendship (Yes, they are friends!) only shows up in a handful of Eric Reed stories, mostly because Trixie only appears in them sometimes. Chapter 4 of the story ‘When Dating Advice Doesn’t Work…’ has a rare scene when Trixie shows that she can be a good friend to Eric, when she tried to help him ask out his first crush in Equestria, on her own free will. This was before he got together with Sunset Shimmer, so his crush was on an OC pony character, Diane Heart.