Playing Second Fiddle

by HMXTaylorLee

Manipulating The Strings

Harmony's Flowers was one of the most popular plays that ever made it's way to Bridleway, telling the story of forsaken love in a village of bigots that had outlawed romantic relationships between different races of ponies. Of course, it was a romance, but it also had plenty of insight to how unfounded beliefs could cause suffering. But more importantly to Diamond Tiara, it was the vehicle where Sapphire Shores was first discovered before she made the jump from ultra popular theater actress to billboard topping pop superstar.

As Diamond Tiara sat on the stage, watching Sweetie Belle rehearse her lines for the starring role of Ponyville Elementary's version of Harmony's Flowers with her fellow classmates, she bore nothing but contempt about that fact. A stupid blank flank pony would get to play Star Bright, one of the most momentous, star-making roles in all of Bridleway, while Diamond Tiara played Gardenia, the ignorant owner of a flower shop. Sure, the role that Diamond Tiara played was important, but she wasn't the star. However, the name embroidered on the back of the pink folding chair that Diamond Tiara sat in was quick to remind her that she should have been.

"Okay, so I ask you first, right?" A male earth pony asked Sweetie Belle, adjusting the scroll upon his back.

"That's right, you'll ask Star Bright first." Sweetie Belle nodded before she gestured to her fellow crusader, Scootaloo. "Then, Drift Monsoon joins afterwards, explaining how much he - she, I mean - loves Star, and that she doesn't care about the village law keeping them apart."

"Uuuugh!" Diamond Tiara groaned, squirming in her seat. Stupid Sweetie Belle. She was the director - but she wouldn't have got the starring role as well if it weren't for Scootaloo volunteering to play the 'male' lead Drift Monsoon. The whole play was about Star Bright the unicorn and Drift Monsoon the pegasus falling in love with one another, despite their feelings being forbidden by law. They were discovered together, put on trial, and during the sentencing they exchanged their true feelings for the entire village to hear. Afterwards, as was customary for the genre, they shared a kiss.

Diamond Tiara wouldn't have had an issue with kissing one of her lucky male pegasus classmates. Featherweight and Rumble were both pretty cute. However, neither of them wanted to play Drift Monsoon, specifically because of the kiss - even if it was with Diamond Tiara! So instead, Scootaloo offered to play 'him' instead.

"I can't help it if nopony else wanted to play the part!" Scootaloo had defended herself. "I'm just trying to make the play a success!"

Sure, sure. Just like how Scootaloo helped to make the flag-waving routine "a success" by upstaging her and Silver Spoon's routine. Or how she helped sabotage Diamond Tiara's fledgling career as a newspaper editor. Or how she helped make complete fools of Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon in front of Princess Twilight. Stupid Scootaloo.

Could anypony blame Diamond Tiara for her feelings towards the Cutie Mark Crusaders? She certainly couldn't. So, it stood to reason that she would never, ever, ever, ever kiss one of them, even if it was just an act! And those scheming Crusaders, especially Scootaloo, knew it. With that dumb flightless pegasus volunteering to play the male lead, Scootaloo knew that Diamond Tiara wouldn't play the female one, all because of that kiss. It didn't help either that she was a filly... that'd be just weird. Ugh.

"...I thought the same thing as everypony else about other races," Sweetie Belle recited from the script on the stage floor. "That earth ponies were simple, and that pegasi were barbarians. But when I got to know Drift, I found out that we were more alike than I could have ever guessed..."

"...than I could have ever guessed, blah blah blah," Diamond Tiara muttered mockingly, brooding from her chair. "This is so lame."

"Sorry, you say something?" The voice came from her classmate, Rumble, who was just passing by behind Diamond's chair as he came from backstage.

Diamond Tiara scowled at him. Had Rumble listened to her during casting, he would have been the male lead instead of Scootaloo, and Diamond Tiara's place in the spotlight opposite him would have been assured. Stupid Rumble.

"I wasn't talking to you!" Diamond hissed, turning to glower at Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo having just finished their lines.

"...Then, once Scootaloo finishes her bit, you two kiss, and then it's back to the village leaders, yes?" The male earth pony playing a magistrate looked back at the script nervously.

"No kiss," Sweetie Belle said as she took a quill to her script, scribbling. "Other than that-"

"WHAT?"

Diamond Tiara's chair scraped across the floor several inches as the pink pony leaped from it.

"What do you mean 'no kiss?'" she asked threateningly.

Scootaloo stepped in front of Sweetie Belle. "We really didn't want a kiss between two fillies to overshadow anypony else's roles, so we took it out," she explained.

"Took it out?" Diamond Tiara snarled. "The only reason she is the star instead of me," she yelled, pointing a hoof at Sweetie Belle, "is because of that kiss! You... you planned this!"

"No!" Sweetie Belle shook her head. "We didn't, honestly! We literally just thought of it yesterday after class - after we already got the roles!"

"LIAR!" Diamond Tiara shouted. "Is it, like, your mission in life to ruin mine?"

"Believe it or not, not everypony thinks about only you!" Scootaloo's chest puffed out. "We're just trying to make a good play!"

"Yeah, w-well, this isn't over, you - you blank flanks!" Diamond Tiara sputtered as her hooves scrabbled across the stage. She galloped backstage to find the one pony that could right this injustice.

---

"Miss Cheerilee!"

Cheerilee looked up from the costume that she was helping put together to see a very upset Diamond Tiara dashing towards her.

"Diamond Tiara? Is everything alright?" Cheerilee put the fabric down to focus all of her attention on the filly.

"Miss Cheerilee, it's awful! Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo - they're ruining the play!" Diamond Tiara gasped as she came to a halt in front of her teacher.

"What do you mean?" Cheerilee asked. "Ruining it how? Is this about Sweetie's casting again?"

"Yes!" Diamond Tiara nodded frantically. "But this time it's different! They changed the script to take out the kiss! They knew that I wasn't going to play as Star Bright if I had to kiss one of them! They waited until after they had the leads to change it! Now, they don't have to embarrass themselves in front of everypony, and they still got to deny me my part - it's not fair!"

Cheerilee sighed and hesitated before replying to Diamond Tiara's accusations of sabotage.

"As the director, it's well within Sweetie Belle's right to change the play, and to cast accordingly," Cheerilee reasoned, to little avail.

"It's so unfair," Diamond Tiara whined sadly. "I just wanted to be the star... like Sapphire Shores was."

Cheerilee paused for a moment, a slight smile crossing her face.

"Do you know who Daniel Neigh-Lewis is?" she asked.

"Of course! He's amazing! Of Apples and Oil is like, my favorite movie!"

"Do you know what his first role was?"

Diamond Tiara bit her lip, but then shook her head.

"His first role was in Harmony's Flowers." Cheerilee explained.

"Oh!" Diamond Tiara exclaimed. "I didn't know that. Was he Drift?"

"Nope," Cheerilee said with a smile. "He was the magistrate, a much smaller role."

"Really?" The filly stared in disbelief.

"Yes. But he made the most of his role, and his performance practically upstaged the rest of the cast. Speaking of, I hear that you are doing very good playing Gardenia..."

Diamond Tiara gasped. "Do... do you think that maybe I could be like, the next Daniel Neigh-Lewis?"

"I don't know. Do you?" Cheerilee replied with a wink.

Diamond Tiara's face broke out into a wide grin. With a pep in her step, she turned around. Practically skipping back to the stage, Diamond Tiara giggled excitedly.

"I have so got this!"

Comments

[Gleaming]

Daniel Neigh-Lewis, I see what you did there. Very clever.

[HMXTaylorLee]

5791457

Yay! Also, "Of Apples and Oil" is a reference to Day-Lewis' "There Will Be Blood", where the main character is a selfish, cruel individual with little concern for the feelings of others.

Wonder why Diamond Tiara likes it so much?

[Gleaming]

5791489 Beats me we may never know, haha! Overall, a good little setup or followup to the story before this and plus Diamond getting angry over not having a crucial role in the play, especially the kiss.

[saintgat99]

She was played like a damn fiddle!

[Mekel02]

This was a fun little side story to the main story. I like DT being given some reason to her actions and bullying, I could see this in her character on the show, ya know, if they tried to give her some depth other than being a spoiled, villainess filly.

[Godzillawolf]

Hehe.

I like this one, and the pun on the names with Daniel Neigh-Lewis.

I also like how once again, Cheerilee is a reasonable authority figure, you're really good at handling her.

And also, I like how we see in Diamond's head and how she sees things. It definitely shows she has a skewed perspective, but then again, she IS a child.

And while she IS doing it just for popularity and future fame, Diamond actually DOES show herself to be a competent actress in the main story.

[xgfhj]

So I just read The Play's The Thing and Playing Second Fiddle, and I've got to say I completely agree with Diamond Tiara about Sweetie Belle ruining the play for the other actors; since Sweetie tricked Diamond out of the lead role she wound up stealing a role that she didn’t want, even though she claimed all of the roles would be chosen based on who wanted them the most, which caused Silver Spoon to suddenly want a role she didn’t previously want, which took away the role Sunny Daze wanted most, and their kiss did steal the spotlight away from any other actor’s performance.

While I did enjoy both of these stories I’d say Diamond Tiara and Sunny Daze, at the least, are both vindicated with their objection to Sweetie’s choices and probably should have been given the roles they wanted, as that was the arrangement prior to Sweetie Belle just overruling it.

...But then again ‘green eyed unicorn = automatically evil’ so I see you’re just keeping her in character.

[HMXTaylorLee]

5972210

I agree with you. I didn't think too much on it while writing it, but there is truth to the saying "if someone wins, someone else loses."

I think that Sunny Daze was the worst off, because Silver Spoon did legitimately earn the role (despite her reason for wanting it being muddled), and Diamond Tiara probably felt good about her performance after Cheerilee’s pep talk.

If you have seen Hairspray (2007), all of the fantastic dances at the competition were in the shadow of the main characters triumphant romantic victory. It must be the nature of the stage?

[Walabio]

This is a nice character-piece. We get to see into the head of a spoiled brat.