What do you think her backstory is? How did she meet Suri? How did she get her cutie mark? I want to see what you guys come up with!

2534078 You know what? Screw my CocoSpike oneshot, I'll write a story about this!

2534080 I would read that!

2534078

Coco is a native of the Mareibbean island chain, famous for their tropical fruits including the tough-shelled coconut. One summer, a sweltering heat wave hit the region, causing numerous painful heat strokes and skin injuries to the native ponies.

Coco realised her talent when she developed a unique type of feathered hat to properly shade her friends and neighbors in the village. Her selfless deed for the good of the region earned her many friends, and she was offered passage to mainland Equestria to realise her dream of crafting functional yet fashionable clothing for ponies.

Good start? Hehe

Honestly, I think the biggest question is this - is Suri a *complete* monster, or just a figure transformed into one by Manehattan?

If you subscribe to Suri being a complete monster, then she was probably a designer of some small talent when a hopeful Coco fresh out of school (or fresh from getting her cutie mark by designing her first line) brought her a sketchbook of designs. Suri, recognizing that she had a minor genius on her hooves (instead of a knitting nanny like herself), says the designs are good, but need some touching up, which Suri would be happy to do. The line comes out, with Suri's incredibly minor design changes, and Coco's hitched to her proverbial star.

Alternately, it could be that Suri *is* a good designer in her own rights, but doesn't have the follow through or spark that Coco does (or may even *actually* be better, if she'd do the work herself). Suri is a good front-mare, since she's already got a name for herself, and Coco apprentices under her - but Suri, realizing she's got a money making property on her hooves, keeps Coco firmly downtrodden to keep her from realizing that the apprentice has surpassed the master.

2534080

Dude, you can fold them together! Coco can tell Spike about her history while they're dating!

2534520 I know, I thought of that. I'm not going with the complete monster approach to Suri, instead having something happen that hardens her and turns her into the Diamond Tiara style antagonist we know and despise today.

2534528
Honestly, I'm inclined to think that's more the case (hence my dual-membership in Suri's group....)

Probably had a few designs of her own stolen over the years. Knowing what I do about the crafting community, it could even be something as "minor" as a new stitching technique - much like Rarity's fabric, that's the sort of thing that can make or break a reputation in beading/knitting/crochet circles, but that somepony would be happy to show off to a perceived friend. And Suri was part of the knitting clatch back in Ponyville, after all.

(Heh... of course, if you want some REAL irony, it could be that a very young Rarity unwittingly caused Suri's downfall by becoming a wunderkind designer using a technique/fabric/whatever that Suri had yet to debut professionally!)

2534528

Suri, instead having something happen that hardens her and turns her into the Diamond Tiara style antagonist we know and despise

2534544

a very young Rarity unwittingly caused Suri's downfall by becoming a wunderkind designer using a technique/fabric/whatever that Suri had yet to debut professionally!

(Also: Welcome to the Suri Polomare fans group!*hug*)

Backstory

The power of writing. Think you can do better? Warm up that keyboard, but you have a pretty high bar to meet now thanks to Zaphod.

2534520 Based on Rarity's expression and her not even remembering who she even was, probably never even more than a "oh yeah, that one time", I get the impression that Suri was probably a creative pony who was talented, but not creative. She was probably always overshadowed by Rarity and her natural talent and sense of style.

Disheartened and yet wanting to prove to everypony that she can be better than even Rarity herself, she leaves for Manehattan, Neigh York. There her small town self likely fell into some horrible times, probably had her own design/idea stolen as well. Her dream of making it big shattered, having hardship after hardship befall her. Crestfallen and yet too ashamed to return home, likely due to boasting or just using up everything she had to make in the big city, she gives it another go. One last chance at winning some recognition.

And years later, she finds Coco Pummel. A young unknown talent who probably like her was already being sweet talked into doing something she didn't want to do, only to have Suri call out the con artist. The young mare appears very grateful to Suri, thanking her and though Suri just looks on disinterested, likely out of sheer boredom or loneliness as whatever the case may be, Suri offers Coco for a little sit down.

They could of met during a fashion show where Suri barely beat out Coco, or as the above and they just got to know each other before Suri began putting scares into her to make her stick with Suri to make her dresses, doing whatever it takes now to get on top now that she has a real talent to help improve her poor designs. But who knows what drove a Ponyville seamstress to move away at a young age, much less how she came across having such a faithful subordinate as Coco by her side for all that time.

tl;dr: You make a good point, she has /potential/ for being a good character. Not a nice character, but at least not end up completely lost. Though having suffered the "Everypony for themselves" attitude for so many years probably beaten into her psyche, it could still go a long way to really helping her come to terms with why she left Ponyville and see her own limitations, hopefully even being able to get back in the right path again.

I think Coco is the first character I've ever been smitten with, I hope to see more stories with Coco Pummel and possibly one that delves deep into Suri and their relations before Rarity Takes Manehattan.

2534528 Eh, Diamond is just easily bored and lives a life most wouldn't understand unless they live a privileged life. Suri is just plain vile. Least Diamond Tiara never lies. It's like she's so sure of how the world works in her mind and how she and Silver view the Chaos Crusaders as, it's no wonder many take offense.

Then again, the CMC are at a point where they can ruin lives and be viewed as champions.

On a purely unbiased analysis, I think Suri is likely just hardened by the years of crushing disappointment and possible lies she's fallen for that hammered that "Everypony For Themselves" mentality.

A world of black and white can be pretty boring. I like my greys, 50 or more. Considering that episode had a MASSIVELY HEAVY "MAD MEN's" universe vibe slammed into our face almost every frame we got into Manhattan with literally the ENTIRE CAST ponified onto the show.... go wiki Mad Mens, seriously. Then watch the episode again. How they can make such adult references in a kids show astounds me. Good thing the brats have no idea what the show's ponies are going through.

Suri... she /can/ be an interesting character. But even I question if she's redeemable at this point. Short of discovering herself and maybe feeling like she lost the only friend she had in this messed up city. Maybe. We just don't get enough of her to really know unlike Diamond whose had 3 seasons of growing up in the background and CMC focused episodes. S4 seems to be taking her down the Suri path. Far away from the path she was before. Sabotaging stuff instead of taking charge to earn it yourself? That seems too low. Love the rivalry though.

2534520 ,
2541520
I actually tend to lean a slightly different direction as to the whole Rarity/Suri history. I'd classify Suri closer to the "complete monster" side of things as a result.

See, I think Rarity was just being polite, but didn't actually remember Suri at all. Not because of bad memory, but because Suri was never in Ponyville at all.

Suri, unlike most of the ponies in the universe, recognizes the Element of Generosity, and was simply playing off the loose social acquantences that high-society ponies often make and forget about. She wasn't terribly detailed about her time in Ponyville, and I imagine that under more direct questioning her story would have quickly fallen to pieces.

But it would have been rude to ask those kinds of questions.

It was Suri's plan to try to get some kind of advantage or sabotage Rarity from the moment the first word spilled from her forked tongue.

And knowing that kind of pony is whom Coco worked for, one can imagine all sorts of manipulations and such. Poor Coco was probably kept in the dark about her own talents, her ideas thrown in the trash only to be take out later than night and put on the rack for sale.

Moving back a bit further, how did Coco meet up with Suri? Telaros' idea sounds pretty good. I'd imagine Suri may have hired some street urchin or derelict to do the con even. Perhaps Suri saw some of Coco's unsuccessful work or something and wanted to get her claws in.

Back before that, where does Coco come from? While I like Zaphod's story well enough, I'd be tempted to just simply have her be a Manehatten native. Having her come from elsewhere and be more innocent of the pony-eat-pony society of Manehatten has some merits, but I think that is possible while keeping her a native. It also helps keep the focus on the fairly awesome setting of that city, without needing to build up even more of the world.

Screw that, Zaphod is brilliant.

It would be especially interesting to have some kind of friendship with the Oranges and/or Babs Seed. Maybe neighbors? Suri seems like the kind of pony that would attend the dinner parties we saw in Cutie Chronicles. Maybe that's where she met Coco, or at least had her first chance to observe her.

2541589 We have so little canon of Suri, I don't want to throw away her Ponyville heritage, even if you go the complete monster route as I originally saw her on my first watch. She even lied to the Mane 6 to get them from talking to Prim Rose... Treated Coco like a chinese kid at a Nike factory.

But despite Rarity not remembering her, she did seem to spark something of a remembrance even if she can't place Suri's relevance beyond just some pony who went to seam class with her.

I like the bitter jealousy and delusional route myself with Suri thinking she's better than she is, thinking it'd be easy street if she went to the city of dreams as they call it in An American Tale, the cartoon movie with the mouse Fivel.

A pony who sought to get fame quickly through any means to get to the top.

I think just being a native could add to her monster personality, but having roots in Ponyville gives her more character potential. In my opinion at least.

And hey, Suri has lived there for YEARS. So anything is possible.

2541589
Honestly, that's what I *expected* to find out at first - that Suri had never known Rarity and was just abusing her generosity in a way that would be more long term, and angle towards a lesson about being generous, but having to be careful not to be *stupidly* generous with ponies you don't know that well, since they might not be who they seem to be.

A very good lesson for kids, especially when they see the three little words "want 2 meet?" in a chatroom!

But they didn't go that direction, so I'm taking the Ponyville part at face value for the moment. Of course, I'm also perfectly capable of supporting multiple different headcanons within my cranium - my one concession to Orwell is that I can believe in multiple realities, as long as I'm not living in one of them.

2544759
Indeed, that would have been an excellent lesson, and I'm more than willing to see it taught in fanfiction, even if the show failed to pick up that gem.

I too can hold multiple realities in my head. How else would I be able to enjoy and accept the reality of Equestria at all while living in actual reality?

2541631
I'm not entirely sure how I get "too little canon" applies to Suri's heritage. How do we throw away any canon ideacurrency either way? What makes Suri less of an interesting pony by having her real birthplace/home she was raised in be Ponyville versus Manehatten? Just because we spin her tale from the show as a full on lie, she's still got as much valuable story material either way I think.

2544994 Well, it cuts off a few routes indeed. But she is a one-shot antagonist so any story idea with her is as valid as the next, but yes you do lose a lot of potential for backstory and ponies she could of known.

As a trade off you have somepony who is just into fashion and seems to use other pony's skills to make up for her own lack of creativity. Did you see her outfits? Those were a bit cringe worthy. :P

She also appears not to have many connections if she's relying on Coco so heavily and putting things into her mind so she stays within her control.

She essentially becomes just a city dweller no different than all the other jaded and pessimistic ponies in Neigh York.

That's my two cents, but you can spin her any which way because in the end it's how tell the story that matters. But as it goes, imo, it leaves very little room to believe she'd change her ways. As the things she rubbed into Rarity's face about small town girl or whatever could have a double meaning, as in she speaks from experience, and all the things she puts into Coco's head is just all those assumptions that she's lucky someone is even willing to hire Coco and protect her from the ones who would abuse her. Despite that's exactly what she's does to Coco.

Suri doesn't look rich, she doesn't appear to have very much creativity that separates her from the rest of the ponies out there. Aside from her short temper and inability or refusal to allow anypony in, because only dumb small town ponies do that. Suri is a big smart city girl.

2534520 That's good for how they met but for Suri i just think she grew up in a small town and she was probably poor so she took out all her anger on others and didn't have any friends. then one day her house gets burned down with her family in it and she's all alone then a fashion designer from Manehatten adopts her and she tells Suri in order to make it here you have to be aggressive. so Suri thought of all the bad things that happened to her and she turned it in to anger and now she's mean to everyone she meats.

2590908
Given the abruptly dark turn things took there, that typo might even be literal.

Hmm... Suri Polomare....

Oh my Cadance! It's so obvious!

Suri Polomare is an anagram for Is Rule Room Pa! Clearly she was horribly abused at the hands of her father, driven to succeed, forced to hide her true identity! Not until she went to 'make Daddy proud' could she really come out with her love of fashion and craftsmareship! Her deep seted drive to impress Daddy was behind her theft and lies... and now that they've failed, clearly 'Daddy' is going to come to punish her... or maybe to take out the obstacles to her destined success.

Somebody get Argento on the line dammit! I've gotnhis next giallo half finished!

2591082
I may just need an eensy weensie smidgemeter more sleep.

2591082 uumm... i'm not sure how to respond to this

2591235
Probably violently. ^^()

Once in a while the crazy spills over.