Carousel Boutique had been closed for months, the lights kept on solely thanks to the money brought about by old designs still sold in other locations, far away from where their miserable creator could see them.
As Rarity stepped into her workroom, her sewing machine stashed in the corner and half-finished designs chucked into an overflowing trashcan, she felt her already hollow heart somehow crumble further, still in denial over one simple fact:
Rarity used to be a designer. A good one and a bad one all at once.
But... she wasn’t a designer anymore.
And if she wasn’t a designer, then she had no use to anypony.
And if she had no use to anypony, she was worthless.
And if she was worthless, she was better off dead.
Thank you to Maxima for the cover art, and to Jykinturah and RBDash for seeing the absolute worst parts of me as I went through hell last year yet staying with me as if it was the most natural choice in the world. Thank you as well to my supporters on KoFi and Patreon for having faith in me even when I didn't.
people pleaser variants or less commonly people-pleaser |ˈpē-pəl-ˈplē-zər
a person who has an emotional need to please others often at the expense of his or her own needs or desires
Dear friend.
I would like to tell you a story of a pony named Rarity.
My name is not important, nor is my identity, but as the one telling the story, I can't pretend my influence won't be present. I will make observations here and there, and perhaps wax poetic at times, but my goal here is to present a story for no other reason than to do as much.
As someone once said to me, a painting does not hang on a wall because it has use. It hangs there because it deserves to exist, nothing more and nothing less.
And this painting starts with Carousel Boutique.
Carousel Boutique had been closed for months, the lights kept on solely thanks to the money brought about by old designs still sold in other locations, far away from where their miserable creator could see them.
Once upon a time at a party, somepony asked Rarity who she was.
“A designer,” she’d said with a winning, lively smile. “An artiste!”
The pony smiled politely. “I asked who you are, not what you are.”
Rarity laughed, embarrassed. “Oh, goodness! Do forgive me, I’m just very proud of my talent.” And she was, which is why it came first, and only then did she say, “I’m Rarity. Pleasure to meet you.”
xxx
She loved clothes. She loved how they worked and what they said, the language they conveyed. An outfit, she believed, could say a thousand words in a single glance, which is why she made sure to weave stories into every garment she made.
It helped her be who she wanted to be. And it helped others, too. That’s what she loved the most, and in fact why she loved sharing her designs. For as long as she lived, she would never forget her very first client when she was just starting out, unknown and inexperienced but earnest and heartfelt.
She would never, until her dying day, forget the tears sparkling in the mare’s eyes as she looked at herself in the mirror, in an outfit Rarity had made, and said, “I look beautiful.” Seeing herself for the first time not as the ugly mare she tearfully told Rarity she thought she was, with uneven eyes, and scars from accidents, and a coat the color of dirt, but as the stunning mare she actually was and would always be.
It was in that moment Rarity’s identity became that of a designer. It was then she knew her purpose. Her use. The reason she existed was to use clothes as a way to share herself with others and help them see themselves as they should. Someone worthy of the world entire.
This was her use.
She was a designer.
So as she stepped into her workroom, the fabrics collecting dust and the sewing machine stashed in the corner and half-finished designs chucked into an overflowing trashcan, she felt her already hollow heart somehow crumble further, still in denial over one simple fact:
She wasn’t a designer anymore.
And if she wasn’t a designer, then she had no use to anypony.
And if she had no use to anypony, she was worthless.
And if she was worthless, she was better off dead.
“Rarity,” Twilight asked, her voice stern, and cold, and angry, and upset, and desperate. She stamped her hoof on the floor. “Please! What are you doing?! What are you saying?! Do you want to be miserable?”
Rarity, tears in her eyes, heart bleeding out, stepped back. Angry. Afraid. Upset. Hateful. Towards Twilight, and everypony, and most importantly herself.
She had a choice to make now. It is said a possibility stays nothing but a possibility unless spoken into truth, and this was that moment for Rarity.
Whatever she said next… it would set in stone who she was.
But we should start from the beginning, should we not?
She lived in Ponyville. A little town in the middle of nowhere, inhabited by simple folk who did not wear or care about clothes in the least. To try and sell clothes to them would be akin to trying to sell food to a rock.
But she didn’t care, because she was a designer, and clothes were her medium. She’d had a few successful sales before—small ones, as she was not a very good designer back then—but it wasn’t about the money or the success or any such thing.
She just wanted to create and share.
So she made clothes. She made hats, and coats, and dresses, and all manner of pretty things that would at most get a glance from curious tourists, and some nice earnest comments from dearest Fluttershy.
And still, she felt the same. She’d only had three visitors in a month, and still she bounded into the lobby with a grand smile whenever her doorbell rang, exclaiming loud and proud:
“Welcome to Carousel Boutique, where everything,” she said, and she did mean everything, she believed this with as much certainty as the sun was yellow and the grass was green, “is chic, unique, and magnifique!”
You see, she was a designer, and she loved to make clothes, be it for many ponies or none at all.
xXx
Rarity left her dusty workshop, bitterly slamming the door shut like she did every morning she stepped in there under the delusion that maybe this would be the day she’d create. Relief washed over her soon after. A very sick, perverse sort of relief one has after easily convincing yourself that your problems can’t be fixed, clearly.
Rarity used to be a designer. A great one and an awful one at once. But that didn’t matter anymore—the quality or quantity—because she wasn’t a designer anymore anyway.
And yet, trotting into her dimly lit lobby, a pang tore through her chest at the sight of a sign on a table, waiting to be hung.
“Closed for business at the time,” it said in bright, bold, colorful, desperate letters, “but worry not, we will be opening again soon! Thank you for your patience.”
Rarity loathed that sign.
It was a lie, the most blatant lie she could ever put out into the world, and she hated that it was a lie, and she hated that it wasn’t a lie, and she hated the colors, and the letters, and everything about that bloody sign.
Every morning she looked at it, she told herself she ought to burn it. She ought to tear it into pieces, chuck it in a bucket and set the entire sunforsaken thing aflame, burning to cinders like her own sunforsaken career.
Why keep the charade going? Why trick ponies? Why continue to be an awful pony, stringing along the kind clients who genuinely and lovingly supported her endeavors even despite them being nonexistent for ages? Why cling to hope that one day things would change, that there was a light at the end of the neverending tunnel?
I’m going to burn it, she thought to herself, ruefully taking it in her magic.
But, instead, she opened her front door, smiled brilliantly at a waving neighbor, hung the sign on the doorknob, went back inside her house, closed the front door, and then screamed until her throat felt like it was bleeding.
No one in Ponyville cared about clothes, not really. Sometimes they wore them, sure, especially for Nightmare Nights, but beyond that, she’d always known she was niche. She dreamed of making it in Manehattan or Canterlot one day, where more ponies cared for such things, and she’d be famous and great, but back then, all she wanted was to share.
And she was good at it, too, which is relevant but not to build her up or put anyone down.
It was just a fact, as Twilight would say. A reality, that Rarity put enthusiasm into her work, and said enthusiasm drove her to be better not out of desire to be the best, but because, as mentioned before, she wanted to share the best with others.
And then, she got noticed.
She’d presented her clothing in Canterlot before, at showings here and there, getting clients where she could, but nothing big or special in a sense that mattered to society.
And then one day, she decided to try something new. A niche dress design she’d come up with after a particularly wonderful creative conversation with dearest Twilight. Their time spent together led to Rarity having an interest in magic, and she decided she wanted to honor that.
So she made a dress imbued with a magic spell that would make it so the dress would change color and design based on its wearer's most ardent dream.
The dress itself wasn’t special, and neither was the magic, and it was true as well that she wasn’t the first to combine magic with fabric, but it was unique. It was her—a unicorn artist—and when she wore it to the local fair, she’d mostly expected only her friends to compliment it.
But, she found out, many ponies liked it.
Much more than she expected, and many more asking to buy it.
And she was happy. She was thrilled, and even more so when mares who’d never so much as glanced at a dress were suddenly curiously inspecting it. Trying it.
“Good heavens, Fluttershy!” she’d whispered, her voice harried and excited and out of breath and alive, the two of them holed up in the filly's room to for a moment escape the dozen interested mares. “I already have twenty orders! Twenty!”
“Oh, I’m so happy, Rarity!” Fluttershy replied, and she was, and she meant it. “Can you do them?”
Rarity nodded her head, inspired. Burning with delight. “Yes. Yes! Of course! Absolutely.” She giggled. “Come on, let’s go out. What if more ponies want a dress?”
They hurried outside, and Rarity’s heart grew when there were still mares lingering about, trying the dress on in turns, delighted. Happy.
It was intoxicating to see. To live through. That something she’d made was being so loved by so many.
“Mmmm.”
She turned around to find a stallion, Core Spark, standing a few feet away, staring at the garment with disdain. “It’s a shame it’s a dress,” he said. “The concept is very interesting, but… a dress? Could have been a cloak. It would work better as a cloak. More ponies can use it. It would be better.”
Rarity blinked at him, off-put. “Pardon?”
He ignored her. “I’ll give it a shot, I guess, for my wife.” He looked at her. “I’ll have one, too.”
“Even if it’s a dress?” Rarity asked rather than ignoring him or telling him off for his rude and entitled remark.
“I guess,” he replied.
“Rarity?” Fluttershy would say a day later, a slight edge to her voice. “I don’t understand. The dress doesn’t need a cloak. It was fine as a dress… That pony was awfully rude, why are you listening to him?”
“No, no, darling. It’s perfectly fine,” Rarity replied. “And the cloak is detachable! It’s still a dress.”
“Oh… Do they have to buy both, then?” Fluttershy asked, a little more at ease.
Rarity didn’t wince. She didn’t. “No. You can buy the cloak separately. I’m actually making more of the cloaks than the dresses, I think.”
Fluttershy frowned. “Rarity.”
“Oh, darling,really! it’s still what I want!” Rarity insisted to Fluttershy but most importantly herself. “I have to broaden my horizons if I want to improve!”
Didn’t she?
“And, honestly, he’s right, a cloak would be much more—” The word accepted rested on the tip of her tongue. More marketable. Better for others. “--It would be more appealing to more than just mares. And that’s good. The dresses can be a little extra thing here and there. I’m a designer, darling, I’m here to provide a service.”
“You’re here to create,” Fluttershy corrected. She then softly added, “A lot of mares like the dresses…”
For a brief moment, Rarity stopped her sewing, her eyes traveling to her original dress. The one she’d loved for how it was and what it was.
“Alright,” she relented because Fluttershy was right. She had made that design wanting it to be a dress, and a dress it should… mostly…. stay. “I’ll sell them both or none at all. But I need to do this, dear. That stallion may not have liked it that much, but he took the time to comment.”
She knew this because it was all she could think of. Thirty mares had told her she was wonderful, but she was stuck on that remark, so much so that everything else faded away and only that remained.
And then she added:
“Even if it was rude, he took the time to comment. The least I can do is try and use it to improve.”
Art, in all its forms, was a deeply personal experience, Rarity found.
Twilight and she discussed the matter once as they talked about a book. The idea of whether one can separate the creator from what’s been created. There were some things they agreed one could do such a thing with, such as scientific matters, for example.
If one were to create a mathematical equation or theorem or something of the sort, no matter who they were or what their life experiences were, the result would stay the same.
It exists beyond them.
But art comes from within. There are rules one mostly follows, such as a dress is a dress and a hat is not a dress unless one is exceedingly flexible with the definition of a dress, but what comes from within is… the color! Or the fabric, or the patterns, or the design.
Rainbow Dash could never make a dress the way Rarity could, and neither could Rarity ever make a dress the way Rainbow Dash might.
There is also a thin line between creating to share and creating for others to consume. There are, evidently, also some that create for the sake of creating. The artistes whose only audience is themselves, whom Rarity started as.
She had been, after all, creating outfits for a society that as a vast majority did not wear clothes, so it had clearly been a passion project for her. Or it had started as that.
But living in such a small pond meant that once she got noticed, she felt big.
And, more than that, other designers sought her out just as she sought them out.
And then she opened Canterlot Carousel featuring yet another dress she’d made for Twilight Sparkle.
And, of course, that came with its hiccups and a warning sign of things to come, but in the end, all Rarity cared for was that she was designing.
The fact that what she loved so much was being shared with others, every outfit, every garment lovingly stitched together with a piece of her soul.
Certainly, there was also a profit motivation—she didn’t want to be a starving artist from Ponyville—but to have her own boutique in Canterlot?
It was…
Well, it was, just like her dress back in Ponyville, it was intoxicating. And it was hers, born from her work and passion and desire to create and nothing else.
At the time, at least.
“Hi!” said Silverluck once upon a time, stepping into Rarity’s Canterlot boutique.
A talented earth pony, Silver introduced herself as a fellow seamstress, eager to talk with ‘fresh blood’ as it were.
Though she worked on all manner of things, Silver excelled in making suits, and they were wonderful suits. She’d brought some over for Rarity to look at, hoping to have her opinion, and all Rarity could do was rave about them.
“Goodness!” she exclaimed, admiring it inside and out while poor Silver blushed to the side, pleased as punch. “This is beautiful stitchwork. You can barely see it!”
“Thank you!” Silver replied, tail practically wagging from side to side. “It took forever! But I’m really happy with the results. I’m delivering it to the client tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Rarity asked, and before Silver knew what was happening, Rarity was all over her. “Wait, what time? Afternoon, I hope! You must let me borrow this overnight so I can study it!”
“Study it?” Silver gasped. She laughed. “What? Really?”
Rarity nodded feverishly. She loved the suit. She went on about it, the design choices and the fabric and the stitching, and the more she went on, the more Silverluck spoke about her design, and the more she shared, the more excited Rarity grew.
“Where did you study?” Silverluck asked her, eventually. “Your designs aren’t really anything I see others selling.”
Rarity blinked. “Study?”
Silver nodded. “Mhm. Canterlot Fashion School? Or Canterlot Design? Oooh! Or are you from Manehattan? I know MFS always like going against the trends..”
For a moment, Rarity was gripped with panic.
For a moment, there she was again, as if it were years ago, and she’d been caught trying to mingle between the Canterlot elite and Twilight’s party, and the humiliation at having her station pointed out.
But she’d learned her lesson. She was proud of who she was and where she came from.
“I didn’t study anywhere,” she said, smiling proud as she was and her friends would want her to be. “I’m self-taught!” And she was prouder still when she added, “I’m from Ponyville, in fact. That’s where my inspiration comes from.”
“From Ponyville? That’s amazing! Wow,” Silver said, and then added, and she probably meant well, but years later, Rarity would remember it with nothing but hate, “And you have a shop in Canterlot? That’s impressive for somepony from Ponyville. And that explains the style! That’s so interesting.”
Rarity smiled, gracious. But… But something stuck with her. Something nagged at her.
The implicit understanding that she was apparently only impressive because she wasn’t expected to succeed.
That she wasn’t supposed to be succeeding with what she was doing.
That she was a fluke.
But she smiled, and persevered, because that didn’t matter, what mattered is that she loved to design, and she was good at what she loved.
Years later, bitterly lying in bed, Rarity would reflect on the notion, and how it had warped her, and how she’d allow it to warp her, and how she was nothing without the approval of others.
She was important. Had been important. Wasn’t important, but it felt like she was. It had felt like she was, like she was valued in ways she never dreamt she could be, even more than the fateful day years ago before Twilight’s birthday party.
Again, it was a small pond.
But when you become a big fish in a small pond, you feel like a shark, powerful and strong and good and great.
Of course, there’s always the inevitable realization, isn’t it?
That the second you make it to the top of this little pond, a fish now turned into a shark, you realize there are other sharks in this pond, and you start to care if they might be bigger than you.
When Rarity opened up her boutique in Canterlot, she became part of an unspoken circle of designers who’d, for lack of a better expression, ‘made it’.
There is a street in Canterlot City referred to as Fashion Rue.
Rather than a street filled with designer stores, Fashion Rue was where the fashion and designer publications made their homes, acting not just as the critics of the industry, but also, and most importantly, the showcasers.
If you were to venture inside the publications, they all have a public area you can wander through and admire the designer outfits these publications had selected. For many designers who came to Canterlot, or frankly who cared about the craft at all, to have your pieces showcased in this way was a goal. A tangible thing you could point at as evidence that not only were you good, but others were telling others that you were good.
But that was nothing, of course, compared to the window displays.
If the showings inside publications were a goal, the window displays were the dream.
A collaboration between all the publications, there were only seven of these windows, and each window would be solely and exclusively dedicated to one particular designer’s piece. At the height of the fashion movement in Canterlot, the displays circulated quickly as talent was endless and all abound, but if your piece made it to one such display, even for just a moment…
It was like a drug.
There really was no other word for it.
Every pony who walked through Fashion Rue would see it. Would know about you. Would more often than not decide to go see your actual store and buy more designs.
It didn’t matter whether you were good or not, why you were there at all, all that mattered is you were there and you were important and the closer you were to the front of the street, the more popular you were.
A year or so into her life in Canterlot, traveling back and forth between there and Ponyville, Rarity was once upon a time minding her own business making some hat for dearest Fancy Pants.
She was, admittedly, a little stressed about a variety of things, but none more so than her most recent design.
You remember the dress she’d done in Ponyville, don’t you? The one she’d added a cloak to?
Well, she’d decided to revamp it the week before. Redo and improve it, add more flourishes here and there, and keep the cape and rework it until it felt like it was something she liked rather than added for the sake of making others happy.
Having finished it the day before, she’d displayed it on her window and then sent a copy to publications so it could be added to the weekly published list of new designs.
Under the covers of her bed, years after the fact, Rarity would think of that day and wish she’d never sent in the dress.
Rarity didn’t expect it to hit big. Yes, she’d found success with it back home in Ponyville, but it was a very Ponyvillian design, so to speak, so she was more than content with her usual ten or so regulars coming in to see it and discuss it with her.
But then, Silverluck rushed into her boutique.
Breathless.
“Rarity!” she said in between hurried breaths. This was important, clearly. “Your design! Your dress! It’s in Fashion Rue!”
Rarity’s heart skipped a beat. “It is?”
This was not something entirely new. She was achieving enough success that several of her works had been displayed in publication’s buildings before.
But then Silverluck shook her head.
“No, no! Not inside the showrooms,” she said, and the following words were spoken as though it was the only thing that mattered in the whole wide world, “it’s featured in the window displays.”
Rarity felt faint. “The window displays?” she asked, for a second sure she must have heard wrong. But just in case she hadn’t, she asked, “Which one?”
Silver’s grin grew. “The first one.”
A dozen minutes later found Rarity at Fashion Rue, staring at not just her own design prominently displayed in a window, but at the crowd surrounding it.
And then they saw her.
And the questions started, comment after comment, asking how much it was, when would she make more, could she make a collection, what fabrics did she use, what fabrics could she add.
It was attention like she’d never had before, and just as noted before, she felt important. She felt great. It wasn’t even that her work was good, or the effects it had, or what it could do for others, it was that she, Rarity the Unicorn, was officially a recognized designer.
And it happened again a few weeks later with another dress, because now her name was out.
And then again. And again. And again. And again, and again, and again, every time bringing about love and admiration and feedback and attention to her designs and what she loved.
And then other ponies started attempting Ponyvillian-based designs, and her heart grew even more.
This was it. This was her use. She was inspiring others, and others were inspired by her.
For a while, it was great. For a while, for a blissful year or so, as she continued to rise and rise, she created like she’d never created before, inspired by the ponies reaching out, and inspired by the art of her fellow peers.
It was happiness, pure and undiluted, and her heart felt full.
She was a designer. She was, and she was so happy that she was.
But, and you’ll forgive me for repeating myself, this is something that bears repeating:
Again, it was a small pond.
And when you become a big fish in a small pond, you feel like a shark, powerful and strong and good and great.
And yet.
And yet, there’s always the inevitable realization, isn’t there?
That the second you make it to the top of this little pond, a fish now turned into a shark, you realize not just that other fish care that you became a shark and they didn't, but that there are other sharks in this pond. Other sharks who, just like the other fish, whether you want to or not, whether you mean to or not, these other sharks start to care as well that you might be bigger than them.
And even worse, and perhaps this is the worst part of it all, the thing that haunts you late into the night…
Your creative heart slowly starting to poison itself inside and out, you start to care if they might be bigger than you, too.
to love is to share is to give is to please is to owe
Often, ponies who didn’t know her better and liked to make assumptions would say her generosity came from a place of manipulation. There must be some underhoofedness to her actions, that she gave to others with the expectation of receiving in return, or wanting something, or simply something malicious or impure.
The reality was much more complicated.
Ultimately, many things do lead to an event in exchange. It is the way of life, not an indictment or a justification, just a fact.
Art, however, was not the same for Rarity.
In the months following her grand taste of being in the window display, Rarity still created for no other reason than to design and share designs with those who wanted it.
Once upon a time, a stallion stepped into her Canterlot store to look around at her designs. Though a designer himself, he acted just as a customer would, looking around, trying things on, things of such sort.
And then when he finished, he began to critique the outfits unprompted, just as the stallion from Ponyville had.
Harshly.
This was out-of-date, this was badly done, this clashed horribly, this was simply tacky. It went on for what felt like for hours, and the more Rarity tried to defend herself, the more he doubled down because he was more experienced, he said.
“Ponies like my designs!” Rarity protested. “I was featured in the Fashion Rue—”
“The windows?” he asked, and his voice took a kinder tone. “Every piece I put out is featured there. I know what I’m talking about, Miss Rarity.” He looked around, eyed all the things she’d done with her heart and soul, and he believed every word he said with full sincerity, “This? This is amateur.”
And he continued, tearing everything inside and out.
“I—I don’t understand,” she said, eventually, near tears but holding them in since she’d sooner die than let anyone see her cry. “If you hate them so much, why did you come here? Why say anything of this to me? Why not just leav—”
“I’m helping you!” he exclaimed, and his voice remained kind. Gentle. “Don’t you see, Miss Rarity, I’m doing this for you. You’re an amateur. But I see potential in you.”
And it went unsaid that she ought to listen to him because he was good. Better. And any artist trying to improve needed to get edited, which was true, and right, but.
But.
But.
But, years later, long into the night, drinking from a bottle of wine, Rarity would think of that meeting. She would think of it with anger, and rage, and poisonous bitterness, eating her alive. Not that it mattered, anymore, anyway, of course. She wasn’t a designer anymore.
But it ate her up, still.
Not his critiques, though, oh no.
Critiques are important to grow. To learn, and to continue, and to improve. It is a reality of anypony who wants to improve at a craft that they must receive feedback in order to grow. It is also a reality that every pony who presents anything out into the world will find somepony who does not like it, and just as many will say as much, unprompted or not, warranted or not.
So Rarity thought of that moment, finishing her third glass of wine, and hated herself not just because she allowed critique to get to her, but because of what happened. The unbearable, humiliating reality that she’d allowed one terrible experience with a terrible pony to rewire her mind.
It had started benevolently.
As ravaged as she was, she decided to take it in good faith. This was so she’d improve, after all. She wasn’t about to think herself so grand she was above critique.
So she worked with him, and as she did…
She’d present an outfit she loved, and he’d tell her it was good, but could be better if he added what he thought she ought to add. What made it better to his tastes, which were right for he was better than her, Miss Ra-ri-ty.
And as mentioned before, it wasn’t his critiques that ate her up years later, but her response.
“Alright,” even if she felt he was wrong.
And so it continued, with him over and over again, reminding her how she was doing so well because of his expertise, and with others too—others who meant well—who’d offer advice which she’d take because it was expected of her as an artist, and she had to improve at all costs, and they were helping her, even if she felt they were wrong.
Her bottle of wine empty, Rarity stood up to fetch another, walking past a locked closet containing dozens of lovely designs she’d hadn’t been able to look at in years. Beautiful designs that felt like toxic waste because she could see in every stitch, every color, every shape all the times she’d changed her heart to please Him. And Others. And Everyone Else.
Because they were liked, her clothes. Because they were helping her. Because the customer and the grand designers are always right and she was nothing more than a little designer from Ponyville who was amateur but was blessed to have people like her, so.
