As the head of Manehattan's premier fashion company, Rarefaction Fashions, Rarity has it all: style, wealth, influence. She's the talk of the town, darling of the paparazzi, and icon to fillies and colts all over Equestria.
But when Twilight Sparkle drops by to catch up, an ancient magic spell from the Saddle Arabian Book of the Dead, intended to guide kings and queens on their way to the afterlife, goes awry. Once the city's favorite daughter, Rarity wakes up to discover there is no record of her existence. And not only that, but in this strange new crime-ridden Manehattan, police checkpoints cordon off the streets and anypony not possessing the proper ID is punished by indefinite detention.
But she presses on, searching for somepony who remembers her. Because if she can't find anypony, then who will remember her? She spent years leaving her hoofprints on Manehattan with the simple power of generosity, as a way to be loved and admired. But now she's anonymous and alone in a nightmarish, distorted mirage, a twisted and decaying vision of the city as it was never meant to be. And slowly but surely, it's leaving its mark on Rarity and all the other lost souls unlucky enough to live on its mean streets.
Written for the Equestria Daily Writer's Training Grounds #002 (hence the strict 7,000 wordcount). Inspired (rather obviously) by Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said.
I didn't know you wrote stories. What a nice surprise, and nicely done!
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I don't really like those relentless self-advertisers, so I try not to crowbar it into every comment.
Thanks!
Yay, unlike its namesake, this story story didn't end in incest. Huge plus!
But seriously, this was a great read with a surprising amount of emotional depth despite the brevity that was forced upon it. It did feel like a number of scenes should have been explored further, but since you couldn't, you did manage to make the words you had count.
The only nitpick I have is towards the end, the theater scene to be precise. I found the rapid changes in point of view to be very irritating. I think the theater scene could have been told more fluently if it had stuck to Rarity's perspective from start to finish, possibly with input by Twilight through Rarity overhearing her conversations.
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"It did feel like a number of scenes should have been explored further, but since you couldn't, you did manage to make the words you had count."
This is definitely a candidate for a rewrite later down the line. I was particularly sad to abandon the entire chapter four, where Rarity attempts to get a fake ID from the Trotti crime family.
Very well written!
Especially for this length!
As opposed to the other commenter here, I don't think you should add anything to it.
Everything from Rarity's meeting with Twilight, to her awakening in this new world, discovering the changes, getting imprisoned, out of prison again, her meeting with Sweetie Belle, her new found confidence, how she fled from the police, the events in her hideout and how she fixes the world at the fashion show was perfectly executed.
The only thing you could miss at first glance is a little explanation on how the spell exactly worked and how Rarity could fix the world again, with simply raiding a fashion show, presenting a dress she made and gifting a little filly with it.
But looking on the fact that even Twilight doesn't know how it works exactly, it's totally legit that there is no explanation.
And you also described, despite the length of the story, everything so good, that you could really imagine it in your head while reading.
There is really nothing missing, it's perfect as it is.
On the contrary, adding something would just make the story too packed with details and destroy it's simplicity.
3761958 I didn't mind the Twilight POV in the middle of the last chapter, but then I thought it had switched back to Rarity near the end, where there are several imputations of emotions to both of them. So I read the last 2 paragraphs thinking I was in Rarity's POV, and got very confused. I think I would have understood quicker if this:
had a paragraph split after "delight."
However, the POV switch at the end has thematic implications. Unless the chapter is an epilogue, the character with the closing POV is usually the central character thematically, the one that learned something (if it's that kind of story).
But I kinda suspect there isn't a theme here. I'm not convinced there's any consistent theme to Flow, My Tears. It's a social critique of materialism, and of racism, sorta, but also a story about personal identity, and I don't see how any of those parts of it fit together. Dick forgot how he began the story by the time he reached its end, so I wouldn't search for consistency there.
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Those are all actually Twilight's interpretation of Rarity's emotions. But I'll see what I can do to make it clearer.
I haven't read the book in forever (like, almost a decade), but I remember the main theme being about the two leads "brought low" and learning to empathize with the common man. A sort of momento mori for fame and power.
This is a very well-written story. You translated the basics of "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said" into the (or one) world of MLP-FIM very well.