What did it mean to be a worthy man?
This was the question that had haunted Spike ever since he had fallen for Rarity. At first, the answer had seemed so simple. Honesty, laughter, generosity, kindness, loyalty, and magic. These were the qualities Spike aspired to embody.
At least, they were, before he had his heart broken.
Now, he knows the truth.
Sex is discussed and reflected on, but not shown.
Part of the How We Lost It series, inspired by Fluttershy's Night Out
Proofread by Schattendrache
Other Stories in the How We Lost It series:
Twilight: Running Away from Destiny
Applejack: A Simple Pony
Rainbow Dash: Deathbed Thoughts
Pinkie Pie: What is a Smile Worth?
Fluttershy: Coming soon!
Chapters (1)
Spike is a Chad?
You know that is the reason why I instead am working up the idea of having Spike have a legendary lineage with him being hatched from a petrified egg left behind by an Avalon (English) Dragon.
After being slain by the Earth-Pony Monk Leoheart who despite his history with the healing arts sacrificed himself slaying this dragon called Wyrm. A dragon that was spawned from the soil with the blood of the King of the Witches of Avalon the Demon Azazel.
From Leohearts blood lilies grew, and still growing the place of his death.
This happened 1,300 years before the show.
Wyrm's Egg was an old Relic of Avalon kept by Avalon's Royal family and was given to Celestia by them as a gift and a token of Equestrian and Avalon friendship.
So basically my idea that I have been leading up to and will eventually pay-off in my universe is that Spike will embrace the more supernatural aspect as well as the fact that he is a prince and the adopted son of Celestia. He will have his heart broken but instead of letting it fester for years he would instead concentrate more on another and perhaps more important desire, the one about him becoming a hero and he pours everything into it.
He becomes the world's Greatest Paranormal Investigator, and basically embraces the more heroic side of himself, he is written about, not in vanity magazines but respectful publications among adventurers, scientists, and war heroes.
At the end of the world, he dies and his blood brings New Life to the planet.
He manages to fall in love once.
An OC created by me is basically going to be a Merlin to his King Arthur and Spike will stop being Spike and just be Dragul. Full name and title by the end of his life.
Pendragon Dragul Solaris, Hero of the Christal Empire, King of the Dragons of the West, Champion of Sapience, and Friend to the Twilight Princess.
He will never be forgotten.
Basically somewhere in between...
...This is such a bizarre story.
Going into it, I admit that I assumed this would be a trite tale of Chad Spike getting back at the Wicked Femoid Rarity for turning him down ten years ago, playing that premise entirely straight. I'm glad that's not how things went, in the end, but what I did end up reading was still, well... bizarre.
To start with, the characters and narrative both are paper-thin. Spike's traits as a cold-hearted businessman are so hyper-exaggerated that it's comical. He hires models to strut around and look pretty, has a servant to dress him (he zips Spike's fly; does he chew his food and wipe his ass, too?), and was so completely shattered by Rarity turning him down (pretty gently, by all appearances) that his entire personality did a one-eighty, turning him into a devotee of Ayn Rand.
It feels like a parody of common Spike portrayals, but I don't get the sense that this is being played for humor or irony. Rarity's handled a bit better; she's still recognizably herself, but her actions and motives feel inconsistent with how you're characterizing her. More on that in a minute.
The story itself doesn't do much to justify Spike's new outlook on life. We don't actually know anything about him besides that he's fantastically wealthy and misanthropic. We don't even know how he accrued his wealth, or what kind of work he does; he's just Successful enough to invite Rarity over on a whim, and to hire hot chicks to strut around his apartment being Hot and Chicks. The bulk of his characterization is handled in dense, over-written paragraphs of expository introspection, rather than showing us through action and dialogue how he went from Sweet Spikey-Wikey to Spike-drew Wyke-an.
To wit: You spend hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of words talking about how Spike's totally gonna fuck Rarity and wants to fuck his servants but won't because he has to fuck Rarity first and over-emphasizing just how Rich And Douchey Spike is now... and you skim over any opportunity for meaningful interaction he could have had with Rarity. You summarize his day trip with her, and just get straight to the sex.
As a result, you don't effectively justify how Spike became the way that he is. We already have to suspend our disbelief pretty far to accept that this is the same Spike from the show, but you don't do anything to ease that suspension any. You could replace Spike with an OC named Magnum Dong (Maggy, to his friends), and it wouldn't harm the story one bit. It may actually improve it.
The main narrative arc here is centered around getting Spike and Rarity in bed together, and subverting Spike's plan, breaking his spirit. But everything about that arc is nonsense. Like I said before, you do a good job of keeping Rarity in character, and her reaction to Spike's cold, showy facade is one hundred percent how Rarity would respond to being so obviously wined and dined.
But then, after (correctly) calling Spike out for his actions and his behavior, she not only accepts him forcing himself on her, she reciprocates, and hops into bed with him. Despite having done a really good job of illustrating and explaining why she wouldn't want to have anything to do with him, she insists that she's wanted him all along, and wants nothing more than to Ride The Dragon Dong.
Despite, moments earlier, wanting nothing to do with him.
That's where Rarity falls apart. Them having sex isn't the problem. You haven't done a good job of justifying why she'd want to have sex with Spike. There is less than zero reason for her to do this, but because that's what the story is supposed to be about, they hop into bed together. Because plot.
Setting aside how implausible it is that Rarity, canonically the horniest of the Mane Six, would get well into her 30s (at least) without scoring at least once, the fact that she specifically saved her virginity for Spike is... discomfiting. Rarity tells Spike that she turned him down ten years before because he was a minor, but she also tells him that she was saving her virginity for him. The implication here is that Rarity wanted Spike back then, and was just waiting for him to hit the age of consent before Mounting the Great Wyrm.
I really hope I don't have to explain why that is creepy.
On a final note, you list this story's genre as a tragedy, but I don't think that it really qualifies as one. In the literary sense, maybe, because Spike inadvertently arranges his own fall because of a central flaw in his character, but the actual tragedy itself feels comical. The reason Spike turned out the way that he did is because Rarity turned him down, and the reason Rarity turned him down was because he was a minor.
...And that just didn't come up in the conversation ten years prior, I guess.
Yeah, why didn't she? She never actually says why, just that she didn't go after Spike after he spazzed out because he needed his space, or whatever. Given Spike's reaction, I'm left to assume that, had she told him this ten years before, things would have been different. But what we're left with is two characters falling out irrevocably because of a simple, silly, miscommunication.
That's a hell of a tenuous thread to rest this whole plot on.
The last thing I'll point out here is how unusual that this story, which your blog touts as a tale about Rarity's first time, is told entirely from Spike's perspective.
10504809 I like how this review has absolutely nothing to do with the story it's posted to.
10505064
I more refused to review it on the basis that this whole story happens because Spike did not choose to find something better to do with his life or go to someone to talk out his feelings. Or simply chase another dream to fill the emptiness that is left after his heart was shattered.
Basically, Spike building up this massive fortune probably with a good chunk of it built with connections probably owed to the Princesses for nothing more than sleeping with Rarity and then breaking up with her for "revenge" is banal, it is dumb!
He had other desires beside her, he had another lust, the lust for glory! He reads superhero comics, he plays Tabletop RPG's where he gets to be part of a group of heroes, he went without question into a situation that could have gotten him killed if he made the wrong move with King Sombra and gave the final blow at the risk of his own life! Spike may have or more likely now have had a childish crush on Rarity, but his real dream is to be a hero.
It may be my interpretation, but I felt that Spike deserves that, that he deserved something more than the love of a somewhat shallow mare, but instead the glory of helping beyond the scope of what is considered possible and being cemented as a legend for eternity.
You know, THAT!
10505135 y’know what? fair enough.
10505135
This interpretation of Spike's true love being for heroism and glory is actually really interesting.
10505062
Yeah, I definitely could've added more meaningful interaction between Spike and Rarity, and then show Spike's backstory through that instead of an info dump in the beginning. Doing so also would've made his transition from child to adult more believable.
I actually wanted that as a sort of twist, since the other five stories are all told through the respective Mane 6 member's POV.
To be honest, all your criticisms are 100% true haha. Yet another example of me writing a story that I would love to read, but many readers aren't fans of it for justified reasons. Sometimes, I happen to write something for myself that others also like (such as the other story I published today). But other times, there's a giant disconnect between what I write for myself and what the general reader likes.
Fortunately, all six stories in this series are radically different in tone, style and plot. Hope you at least enjoyed the Twilight and AJ ones that are already out. Thanks for the feedback
I think the story started off well, it was certainly a good concept it showed that spike was perhaps immature to understand Rarity’s true meaning, so he felt like he had to become successful and famous to be worthy of Rarity.
However I feel that towards the end where you could have had the impact of spike misunderstanding of Rarity’s words actually mean something, you perhaps slightly dropped the ball.
Having it end that Rarity just leaves and doesn’t help spike to become a better man, just feels empty, it’s almost as if you perhaps wrote the story to leave the reader feeling as empty inside as Spike is now.
If that was the intention then well done, as I do feel a little empty after this story. If it wasn’t then I don’t know how I’m meant to feel, as it feels like they confessed to each other, somewhat reconciled then you’ve left them with nothing but broken hearts and empty dreams of wanting to be with each other.
And this is another example of why fans are not allowed to write episodes. Someone else already pointed out everything wrong with this... Thing. So I won't repeat.
Also, this is why I like how Hasbro basically showed that Spike grew out of his one sided crush in The Last Problem. It might not have been said.
But that's what I got from it.
10505561
Yep, it was meant to leave the readers feeling empty inside in the end.
10505933
You know what.
That’s fair enough then, I respect you for that if that was your intention.
I enjoyed this, but I feel like Rarity is... smarter? than this. If her intention really was that Spike was a minor, or even that he needed to grow up, it's apparent from word one of this fic that he's just as immature as he'd always been.
She would've perceived this lack of maturity for what it was. Empty posturing and flaunting his wealth. He could be as old as he wants, but it doesn't change the fact that he thinks and acts like a child.
"Oh if I have things I'll get the girl!" That's the most childish thinking I've seen in a long time.
I do really like this though. Hopefully, Spike never found happiness after this cause honestly, he doesn't deserve it here.