EGracefully

• MLP: FiM
• Drama
• Slice of Life

Rarity discovers a strand of gray hair in her mane.

• Rarity
• Main 6

Jarvy Jared · 13k words  ·  95  8 · 1k views

Summary: One morning, Rarity discovers a strand of gray hair in her mane. It shouldn't bother her, not really; after all, it was bound to happen at some point or another. But when she begins to see the signs of aging appearing on most of her friends, she is forced to confront a harsh truth about life, and what that means for the future.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.

Initial thoughts: A character piece about Rarity! I wonder what kind of shennigans will ensue, with this being a drama, it could literally be anything from simple life drama, to the more frequent Rarity freak outs we have all come to love. Well I am leaning to define this as the first of the two. It's about Rarity's struggles as she discovers a grey hair in her mane and what that means for her future. It's a thought provoking piece, that at times felt a little out of place with how often Rarity got sidetracked in the beginning, but gets rather strong and powerful by the ending. I enjoyed the piece, but I can't say that there weren't moments of weaknesses, which I will dwelve into further.
7/10

Heart of the Story: This one is easy, the heart is Rarity, and her inner turmoil. Now be warned for if you got this far, go read the story before proceeding!
Rarity's mane has a grey hair in it, and that makes her question the big questions. How much time does she have left? Has she wasted too much of her time consumed in her business that she never truly gave herself a chance for romance, and all those other whismical wishes and desires she has?

What will her friends think when she's gone?

What does it mean to be immortal? How will their friendships live on when they are no more.
These are all questions, that Rarity addresses within head, and as the story progresses she comes to a conclusion at the spa to simply live her life gracefully. There's parts I'm not addressing, I'm not here to tell you the story. Go read it. I'm here to review it, and the heart here while also very heavily related to "Characterization" is very solid. There's a few nitpicks I have with the first chapter, and how it fumbles around to all of the relationships of the mane six, when we all know we're here for Rarity. We don't really care about the others here, and most of it is stuff most fans would know, but I understand why Rarity addresses each of her friends, it's trying to play off the fact that what has she accomplished in terms of her life? in comparison to them, especially when you consider Fluttershy just got married, and Rarity as far as we know, never even had a real stallion/bf.
8/10

Characterization: There's really 1 character here with a little bit of Discord near the end, but I don't wanna repeat myself, so I'll try to be brief with my thoughts on Rarity, delve into Discord, and maybe mention Fluttershy's "ambient" role within.

Rarity-In this story Rarity is more mature, more aware of her faults, and ever so aware that her friends are expecting her to be there for them. Rarity sometimes could feel like a meditator of sorts, the ones the rest of the mane six go to to talk over their problems, and Rarity doesn't want them thinking for even a moment, she has problems of her own. It goes into Rarity's character, and it plays with her strengths, but also her flaws. Sometimes we forget how important it is to know no character is perfect, nor has to be, and I like the way Rarity is portrayed, for it shows her both at her best, and at her lows. And all within a short 13k.

Discord-Discord is hard to talk about and hard to write. He's both chaotic, and intelligent, but lacks common sense. This version of him is obviously more mature, for he's not doing his usual "discord" shenanigan's. Which is good, because this story needs him to be serious, to help Rarity. I did like how he was written. If I had any complaint it might be that for as little as he was in the story, his effect wasn't played to the extent I thought it would be. Ultimately, it's Rarity who realizes what needs to be done thanks to Discord. Though, I would've liked to see Rarity figure it out on her own, but eh. You get what you get. Good job.

Fluttershy- Fluttershy doesn't have much of a speaking role here, she only gets a few lines. She's mostly just there so why talk about her? Because she has a profound effect on Rarity's part of the story. If not for Fluttershy's marriage, would Rarity be so concerned that she has wasted her life doing nothing? Rarity is a successful businessmare, but it was always evident, she's jealous of Fluttershy's natural grace and beauty. And that's why she's important to note. Even though she has few lines, without her the story wouldn't be the same.

8/10

Plot/Concept: The plot is fairly simple, Rarity is getting older, and Reminiscing. about her time on this place known as Equestria. Did she do good with her time? How will her friends cope? It's a very old concept and many authors have written their own ideas for how this would work. How's the concept? Good. I can't really complain much, my only problem was really the beginning. At first I'm like this is great in my initial reading, but when I read it for the review. (I read it the first time for fun.) I realized the first chapter wasn't focusing on Rarity as much as I thought it would, and was disappointed. I do understand what Jarvy was going for here showing how each of her friends has success in relationships, and Rarity doesn't. She never did. And that part is good, but for a Rarity character piece, it feels like it's fumbling around for what it wants to be until it finds it around Chapter 3 for me is when it really hits.

7/10

Originality/Execution: There's not a lot of originality in a concept that has been done to death at this point, so we're just going to skip it.
How's the execution? It's pretty good overall, my biggest complaint is the beginning. Could have been stronger, but other than that, everything works, and that is good enough for me to give Jarvy kudos for writing such a heavy piece and making an impact on the community.
8/10

Overall thoughts and final score: I didn't love this story like I thought I would. Jarvy is a friend of mine, and we both do reviews, so I was very intrigued to read one of his stories, but I didn't love this story. It's a really good story, don't get me wrong, with a lot of great characterization for Rarity, and a bit for Discord and Fluttershy. I just feel like someone gave me apple pie, but forgot the whipped cream. Food pun, I know, but more!

Final score: 7+8+8+7+8=38/50
7.6/10

Headpat worthy:
Boop worthy: Yes
Needs work:

To the author: *clap clap clap* Sorry it took me so long to get to this, been meaning to reread it more seriously for reviewing for awhile now, but stuff kept getting in the way, but I really do like this story, and enjoyed it. I do hope you find my feedback helpful, and if you have any questions just ask! (I don't bite.)

To the reader: Highly recommended for fans of Rarity.
If you don't like Rarity, I can't see why you'd even read this, but I'll recommend it for how it handles it's message to non-Rarity fans.

Notes-Chapter 1: The chapter starts off strong with excellcent characterization of Rarity, and how observant she is to the things around her. And yet I can't help but feel a bit cheated here. For a story that is about Rarity, the first chapter talks about each of the other main six, minus Twilight and how their lives have changed. While, this is interesting to learn more about the characters we love, this is a story about Rarity.

Now, onto the more positive. The one thing I really enjoyed about this chapter was it's use of subtext. For those of you that might know what that is, I borrowed this from google: an underlying and often distinct theme in a piece of writing or conversation.
Rarity's grey hair is mentioned repeatedly throughout the first chapter, and you might think why? What is the importance of this and how does it contribute to the plot? Simple answer really, it's showing that Rarity feels like she is becoming an old maid in a way. Rarity's business obviously takes up a lot of time, and it's never established that she ever got with anyone, and seeing Fluttershy married to Discord is making her regress in a way that she can't help but wonder, is she missing out? This is all conveyed in her grey hair without the author needing to directly say what the issue at hoof is. It's inner turmoil, character growth, and overall a good start. I just felt like some of the lines could have been more effective in making this stand out as a "Rarity" story rather than a "mane six story that Rarity is telling us"

Chapter 2 Notes: Rarity greets with her friends at the meeting, and all is going well, and things seem to shift back to Rarity, but Rarity is constantly getting lost in the details. As a seamstress myself, I can easily relate how easy it is to let one little flaw such as a grey hair bother you to the point it begins to drive you crazy. But as the chapter progresses, there is something Rarity sees within herself that she doesn't see in her friends. The signs are there. She knows what's coming, and yet she wishes that she didn't know, for how could she ever tell them the truth? This chapter wants you to connect with Rarity on a deeper level, to see beyond what the show has given us, and see a deeper character from her. It's a very interesting style of writing, that again, I feel it's strength is within the subtext. And I do appreciate this chapter focuses more on Rarity's awareness to the things around her, reflecting back to herself.

Chapter 3 notes: This chapter continues through Rarity's POV and how she is dealing with knowing and seeing things her friends can't, and it's eating away at her. Unlike the previous chapters, this one doesn't try to hide it's message. It wants you to know that Rarity is grasping at straws for any answer she can find, and when she is unable to justify herself simply seeing things, she does the only thing she can think of. Go ask for advice from some creature that understands chaos. There's also a scene in here with Mayor Mare, that is very touching, a bit heavy handed with it's message and how it conveys it to the reader, but a strong way of connecting the dots.

Chapter 4 notes: This chapter addresses a lot of heavy subjects, in a relatively short amount of time, which mind you is not easy to do. I applaud Jarvy for trying here. Death, immortality, and romance. These are all themes explored in this chapter through Discord and Rarity's dialogue. Rarity is desperate that she's willing to listen to Discord. And Discord is willing to be serious and open up to her about the subject for it indirectly affects Fluttershy's happiness. I feel like as good as this chapter is, I personally felt like it was a bit much to put into one chapter. What Jarvy does with it is creative, empathic, and engaging, it just feels like I got overloaded with the context too quickly for it to truly be meaningful. And the last thing. "Live life Gracefully" The story is titled Graefully, but what does Gracefully mean?

Does it mean you should live your life as best you can despite the fact you know that eventually you will pass on?
Is it that you shouldn't let the fears, or the unknowns plague you, and try to simply live?
or is it something deeper? Something that even I don't understand?
There's a message here, a very complex one, and IF I'm missing it, please tell me, but overall by far Chapter 4 does a LOT, and most of it is well written.

Chapter Five: Rarity and Fluttershy are at the spa and talk. Yes, it's very short, and to the point, and yet I feel like I got a lot of what I wanted, and didn't feel cheated by not actually hearing a full on conservation. Sometimes you don't know what to say or even what to do to help someone, so sometimes the best thing to do, is act gracefully, and no one better than Fluttershy to do that.

Overall these are my notes for each chapter, and I do hope you find them helpful, if you have any questions for me, please let me know, and I'll answer as best I can. I don't claim to be wise and all knowing but do my best to provide feedback to the author's that request me.

"<For archive purposes: 7.6/10>"

7372474
I was about to head to bed when I decided to check FIMFic, and lo and behold, I saw you'd left me a comment to follow to this review. Thank you for that!

Now that I've had a lot of time away from the story, I can definitely see where it was clunky and cumbersome. I agree with your points about the story not really being the story about Rarity until chapter 3, and even then, the story's thematic motif is played to bits by that point.

In a review thread made previously for this story, I noted that part of that reason was a personal fear regarding the story. When I was drafting and re-drafting it, I wasn't sure how long it needed to be, and didn't want to go over, possibly, 15k. I'd intended only a short story, not five chapters, but there we are! So I'd like to assume, in part, that that self-imposed limitation led to the awkward "spacing" between narrative scenes, and I apologize for that. I reflect that, many times, we have to let the story determine its own length, rather than decide on a limit beforehand.

Yet, "Gracefully" did better than I expected. I'm surprised to see it even scored as high as it did here, despite its many flaws. I consider it the first of a new kind of writing for me, less infantile and much more celebratory of itself than my other short stories, and I think it reflects how far I've come in terms of writing quality these past several years. The great experiment of craft continued to build upon itself with every word.

Once again, I thank you for taking the time to give this story an honest read and review, and for providing me with valuable feedback and criticism.

Thanks for writing this Nailah! I was wondering about this story and now I might give it a read.