TCompanion

• MLP: FiM
• Romance
• Drama
• Slice of Life

A fashion empire at the top of its field. A social calendar in great demand. And being the companion of Princess Twilight Sparkle, Sovereign of Equestria. It's everything Rarity had ever wanted. So she's happy, right?

• Sex
• Twilight
• Applejack
• Rarity

Bicyclette · 4.8k words  ·  108  17 · 2.8k views

Description

Rarity has always dreamed of three things. Being at the top of the fashion game, having a full social calendar in great demand, and catching the eye of a royal. She now has all of these things, in the best way. She’s the special somepony of the most royal royal of all. Her longtime friend and Sovereign of Equestria, Princess Twilight Sparkle.

So she's happy, right?

It’s so much better than what she would have had with Applejack all those years ago.

Right?

Initial Thoughts

Having read two of Bicyclette’s stories, I find their subject matters to be equal parts fascinating as intimidating. By the story’s premise, I assume we’ll be getting those two facets easily, but I detect a level of darkness to it. Something feels off, as it were, and I am interested to see how Bicyclette is able to sell that off-putting nature. 

Spoilers ahead, of course.

Summary

I’m bad at summaries, so here’s my relatively succinct reaction: That’s a nice helping of toxic-no-no-no’s you’ve got there, story! 

Plot

The romance is over, and we are left wondering about the pieces.

I think that’s a rather apt way of describing what constitutes this story’s plot. Far from the epic romantic chases, this one deals heavily in simply the aftermath of a decision which has engineered the current fates of Rarity, our narrator, and Sovereign Twilight Sparkle. That decision, of course, is the two deciding to enter into a relationship with one another, though this relationship, by virtue of Twilight needing to stay Sovereign, is kept secret until further notice. In theory this should bode to be an interesting examination of two mares (who, yes, I ship, sue me) who have been shown to be, in some ways, interested in a romantic relationship with somepony. Rarity exudes this easily in the show, and Twilight does with that rather infamous scene from Equestria Girls. 

Now that the show’s over, these two remain the only ones of the Mane Six without an explicit or implicit partner. So in terms of selecting who to focus on, I think Bicyclette made a safe decision here—my own biases contributing.

Yet that does not mean we are faced with a typical romantic plot construction. As my summary points out: This is a super toxic relationship that we see between these two characters, to the point that it is downright disturbing to read. As opposed to, say, the happy endings in other RariLight (Twarity? I never kept up with the exact construction), this one deals heavily with the question of happily ever after: specifically, is it happiness when the only choice you make is the only one available to you?

In terms, then, of subverting not just the genre of romance and the story’s premise, but also subverting the sub-genre of RariLight, Bicyclette offers up a uniquely gut-wrenching story—and I think I mean this in both the emotional sense as well as the physical. I must admit that a sense of queasiness entered me when Rarity and Twilight begin to re-enact their first “date,” a sleepover, when they first discovered their feelings for each other. In other circumstances it would be a cute, nostalgic scene, but the implications that this has been happening for a very long time, and that Rarity is continuously losing much of herself after each production, leaves me with a very bitter feeling. Poisonous.

Yet I cannot say that this is somehow a bad decision. I have looked over some of the author’s comments to confirm, but I don’t think that Bicyclette meant to write anything positive. What positivity might be gleaned from this relationship exists only in the narrative’s implicit past; what we have here is its current, dilapidated state, a steady and terrible progression towards self-destruction. 

Juxtaposing this progression, though, are hints to the, well, companion story to “Companion.” We learn that at some point, Rarity and Applejack were in a relationship together, but this has long ended, with the two going their separate ways. Applejack ends up in a relationship with Rainbow Dash, which is the subject of the sister-story, “Partner.” That particular point in time, when things between Rarity and Applejack ended, strikes me as the stepping-off point for this story, but I have to admit that, by having it administered in such a way, it does come across as a bit exposition-heavy.

That’s the sacrifice, though, of having this weird sister-sequel-prequel-interquel dynamic, and I can’t fully fault the author for the decision. Still, since it informs much of the inner turmoil that pervades throughout this story, one cannot help but feel that having the two stories as part of one larger story would have made such details feel more connected. 

Consequently, the story’s construction, while clearly complex in its scope, can’t help but feel a bit simplistic in its own regard. That is to say, once the toxicity has been established, the story doesn’t present too much else with it. I would attribute this to Rarity’s sense of being trapped in this relationship, by her own faults or Twilight’s, which Rarity herself doesn’t appear aware of. But at the same time, one cannot help but feel disappointed in the story’s lack of direction afterwards. The tone has been set, and it has been explored; but what else?

To be sure, the story doesn’t resolve because it can’t resolve. The whole point of “Companion,” I think, is to show a kind of narrative loose end. Something, no one knows what, was lost, long ago. Now Rarity and Twilight are trying to live without admitting that that thing ever existed. They have found each other, but in finding each other, something feels lacking. So they have no choice but to become stagnant in their own relationship, afraid to do anything, push anything, because what’s left but the loneliness of a heart that should have loved and been loved in some other time? 

In the end, I am ambivalent about the story’s plot. It did much to subvert my expectations, and in its goals, in terms of what kind of story it wanted to portray, I believe it has succeeded. But at the same time, it feels weirdly incomplete. Or perhaps that’s just the human instinct for order ringing a bell. It needs more, but maybe the point is that it can’t have more. Ambivalence, then; that is the main takeaway.

Score - 8 / 10

Characterization

To be blunt: I didn’t like the characters here. I didn’t like Twilight and the weirdly distant view she’s taken, and I didn’t like how little Rarity seemed to genuinely care for her.

At the same time, that seems to be the point of this kind of characterization. They are old; they are different; they have changed irrevocably. They aren’t true to themselves or to how they’re depicted in the show, but Bicyclette at least has attempted to explain this through implication and political undertones. 

What was it that Shakespeare wrote: uneasy is the head that wears a crown? That certainly explains what’s happened to Twilight. The anecdote at the beginning about the glowfish more-or-less functions as a parable for her own psychosis. We see a ruler who has to make impossible but necessary decisions, and at the same time, realizing she’s losing something she once had with each choice she makes. It’s tragic, and it makes sense, in that it shows how jaded and cynical Twilight has become. 

Rarity has similar implications to justify her somewhat distant demeanor. Everything is an act or a performance after she and Applejack ended things. It seems she’s going through the dull motions of living with a companion in order to feel as though things weren’t for naught, that her heart wasn’t left in the hooves of somepony who didn’t want her. On the surface, she has everything she could want; but also, that clearly isn’t what she really wants. 

This kind of analysis would seem to justify how Bicyclette has portrayed these two characters, but I can’t help but feel as though, again, something’s lacking. Twilight, for example, suffers from a lack of explanation. The anecdote from the beginning does a decent job of setting the stage, but because her character is incredibly twisted and subverted here, it doesn’t feel like that anecdote carries enough force to weigh itself against the cynic. How did Twilight end up this way? We aren’t really told or shown so much as we are expected to trust that she is this way. 

I have read some glimpses of other Bicyclette stories, and they all seem to follow a bit of a loose canon, or at least share similar elements. The cynical Twilight and the weight of the throne seem to be consistent throughout. But without that knowledge, I doubt that the average reader will feel that this story does either Twilight or Rarity justice; indeed, I saw some comments wondering why they had taken, by all accounts, a turn for the worse. 

I’m not of the mindset that what Bicyclette has done with these two is wrong. They seem to be the direct result of the story starting in media res regarding their relationship. It’s a broken thing, so the characters themselves are, too. But I must agree that these characters don’t behave in the way that would make sense for them, and I must admit that the story doesn’t do quite enough to justify this on its own. 

Score - 7 / 10

Syntax

Short section, unfortunately (or fortunately?). I didn’t find any issues of grammar or syntax as I read this. My disgruntlement with the characterizations aside, these characters at least sounded as Bicyclette intended them to sound. And since we’re reading this through Rarity’s perspective, there’s just the right amount of narrative posh to give the text some flavor. 

Score - 10 / 10

Final Score - ( 8 + 7 + 10 ) / 3 = 8.3 / 10

Final Thoughts

This is a controversial story. But I mean that in the most flattering sense.

It is not an easy story to digest. It makes it very clear that this is not a happy story, that it is, in fact, a story about broken ponies (if that isn’t putting it to the extreme). At the very least, it does not traverse the thin line of edgy darkness for its own good, and instead, exists in that peculiar realm of psychologically haunting drama as many short stories do. 

At the same time, it has its own share of shortcomings, which I hope this review has helped illuminate. Heavy though its subject matter is, there are points where it might not have weighed in enough, or did so at great peril.

I believe I enjoyed this story, but not for the reasons I thought I would going in. It’s an uncomfortable read, but I believe that is part of its appeal. It takes something to write this kind of story, and it’s not something, I can imagine, that was easy to do in the first place. 

<For archive purposes: 8.3/10>

Thank you so much for this very in-depth and honest review! I can't say enough about how much I appreciate your thoroughness and thoughtfulness here, not to mention the skill you apply to the prose of the review itself. There is more than just analysis here. In the poetry of your words I feel your own emotional journey in reading and reacting to this story. I should really get around to reading other reviews of yours as well.

I have a lot of thoughts on what I learned from reading this, but I might need some time to get them down. For now I'll say that yes, while painting the picture and then leaving it both unresolved and without any hint of a path forward was a deliberate decision, I do feel a bit of regret in leaving it this way. I am weighing writing something set in this story's future that will at least leave the two in a more honest place.