So today my friend proved she wasn’t actually my friend, just a back-breaking-barbarian made of rotten apple vinegar.
I refuse to talk about it though.
Isn’t it the most disassociative feeling when you remember that other people have independent lives and you’re actually a part of it but they don’t know your thoughts and maybe they want to and they wonder about you too?
I spent an hour staring at my ceiling.
OMG MY FRIEND JUST MADE A JONAS BROTHERS REFERENCE AND I CRIED I MISS THEM SO MUCH.
“Yo, Rares, you heard of CarousalCountess?”
Rarity blanched – which isn’t all that much of a change from her normally pale countenance. “Um.”
“I dunno why, but a bunch of her posts have been on my feed lately.” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “And, I dunno, I started following her ‘cause she so frickin’ dramatic it’s hilarious. Reminds me of you.”
Rarity pursed her lips. “Is that so?”
Sorry I haven’t been posting as much lately. Midterms are tacky, stress is overhyped, and I hate myself.
I haven’t slept in two days either fml.
Guys I feel so attacked rn my friend just asked me why I have an accent (the rest of my family doesn’t) and I was too afraid to tell her it was because when I was little I thought only the Queen had an accent and I wanted to be the next Queen so I lied and said it was because of my babysitter.
Rarity flipped through her phone’s music library.
“C’mon, Rarity, just choose a song – Pinkie’s gonna scream over it anyways.”
“Hey!” Pinkie screamed from the back seat. “If it’s a bop, I'mma boppin’.”
Rarity had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but most people didn’t when it came to most things Pinkie said.
Rainbow Dash – who should have been completely and absolutely focused on the road and nothing else – blindly tapped Rarity’s phone. “There, that one. Better not be the Jones Brothers or anything.”
Rarity was about to correct Rainbow Dash for the hundredth time when, instead, she screamed so loud Rainbow jerked the steering wheel in surprise and nearly drove off-road.
“OH EM GEH!” Pinkie screamed as well.
Rainbow Dash winced, but kept her eyes on the road. “Rarity, what the fu – ”
“I forgot I even had this song!” Rarity shrieked, teary-eyed. “Oh, I absolutely adored it growing up, I used to dance in my room to it for hours!”
Rainbow spared her a puzzled look. “Like, it’s throwback and all, but it’s not even that good – “
“SHUT UP!” Pinkie and Rarity shouted, the latter then looking back in tearful-respect.
Pinkie threw her hands out. “C’mon, it doesn’t get boppier than this. Sing with me!”
And Rarity did, at a volume that drove Rainbow Dash to smash the back of her head repeatedly against the headrest behind her.
Let it be known, though, that despite being skewed in nostalgic screaming, Pinkie and Rarity harmonized like doves.
GUYS I JUST HAD THE BEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE.
Ugh. Do you ever just feel gross? Like, not physically, but emotionally. Like – I hate myself. Ew.
“Nah, I don’t really use all that social media stuff much,” Applejack said with a dismissive wave of her hand, her arm resting over the back of her chair. “Too much negativity and pity, y’know?”
Rarity wanted to argue, but she was too busy feeling directly targeted by the entire universe. Story of her life.
“Yeah, I totally agree,” Sunset said, nodding. She sat in her desk, directly behind Applejack. “Like, every once in a while I’ll check in or just waste half an hour scrolling, but – it’s kind of repetitive, huh?”
“Yeah, right?” Applejack motioned to Sunset with her hands. She seemed to be very dependent on them to communicate. “Can’t tell ya how many times I seen a post be like, ‘I wanna kill myself because I’m embarrassed or depressed’ or somethin’.”
Sunset nodded again. “Yeah, yeah. It’s kind of self-fulfilled poison, if you get me. Like – reality television.”
Applejack rolled her hand in a circle. “Yeah, yeah.”
As the conversation continued, Rarity felt like she was less a part of it and more a subject of it.
Effectively cornered, she discreetly pulled out her phone.
So I know how people on the internet – myself included – always complain and exaggerate, but I use it as a form of release.
Like, some people smoke or drink, but I anonymously vent dramatically behind a screen to people who probably feel the same but, just like I, can’t say anything out loud because no one would understand.
idk does anyone else ever feel that way?
“Rarity?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you – I mean, are you okay? These days?”
Rarity smiled, halfway. “Quite. Whyever would you ask?”
“Well…” Fluttershy hesitated, as was her wont. “Never mind.”
Rarity stood up and placed a hand on Fluttershy’s shoulder. It was an affectionate moment against the stark, cold background of after-school detention. “Go on, dear.”
Fluttershy did, with reticence. “It’s just…lately, you seem distant. Just sometimes! But, you get spacey. Like your mind is somewhere else.”
It wasn’t something Rarity had noticed in herself. “Oh. Well, I can assure you there aren’t any immediate issues. It may be stress, or something to that ilk. I apologise if I’ve been ignoring you.”
“Oh, no! Not at all,” Fluttershy said quickly. “I just want to know if everything’s okay. And, if it isn’t – you can tell me.”
Rarity smiled sweetly. “Of course, darling.”
Do you ever realise you love someone? Like, not rom-com-music-plays-suddenly-you’re-in-love-and-in-a-movie, but just. Someone does something. And you realise you always loved them for it because it’s what they always do? Like – I’m so blessed to know you and be friends with you and I want you to know that.
So I was thinking what would life be without celebrities? Who would we aspire to be, or hate from a distance, or love from a distance, or just watch every moment of and know intimate detail of from a distance without it being considered stalking?
My cat treats me like the rest of the world: like it doesn’t care and like it owns me when in reality it does.
“Man, Rarity, dude.”
“Yes, Rainbow Dash, darling.”
“You know your cat?”
Rarity said nothing, because there weren’t many ways to answer that question unsarcastically.
Apparently, it was rhetorical anyway, as Rainbow continued. “If you teach her to sew, will she be a tailor, or is that too litteral?”
It seemed to take Rainbow Dash a good amount of self-restraint to get through the joke without completely splitting her sides, but by the time she finished she was already in stitches.
Rarity patiently waited for her to settle down, which took at least a long minute, wherein she realised the bleachers were uncomfortably flat and Rainbow Dash actually looked particularly good in her soccer uniform.
When Rainbow Dash stopped laughing – in a progression similar to a train stopping – she stared down, laughed to herself a bit more, then smiled quietly, expectantly.
She looked at Rarity, who looked back.
She frowned. “C’mon, really? Tailor?”
Rarity half-smiled and shrugged.
Rainbow rubbed the back of her neck and groaned. “Geez, thought you’d go crazy over that – you’ve been screaming about so many other random things lately, like ‘OG Taylor Swift’ and stupid stuff like that.”
Rarity snorted, could not contain herself, and fell apart in a laughing fit.
Okay but why haven’t I heard anyone say Tailor Swift?
I want to apologise for not posting much lately – life happened, as it does. But I love every single one of you and your comments even more than depression loves me, darlings.
Rarity and Rainbow Dash sat in comfortable quiet against the school’s brick wall, eating lunch and scrolling through their phones, breaking the silence only when they scrolled past something worth talking about, or when they wordlessly showed each other memes.
Rarity came across one such meme – a soccer joke, about a goalie being a keeper – and showed Rainbow Dash, who was stuffing more fries in her mouth at the time.
Rainbow smirked and looked back at her phone, while Rarity pouted. “Nothing? I thought you’d really enjoy that one.”
“I did,” Rainbow said, almost coherently around a mouthful of fries. She swallowed, paused to read something on her phone, and chuckled.
“Oh?” Rarity began, with a touch of over-dramatic-but-just-so-you-notice-me. “And what was that that made you laugh where I couldn’t?”
Rainbow showed Rarity her phone. “This – I would’ve showed you, but I remembered you don’t like cat puns.” Rainbow shook her head. “Man, Carousal never disappoints. She’s frickin’ crazy and it’s addictive.”
“Oh,” Rarity said simply, but she could feel herself swell with a secret pride she would probably post about later.
“And it’s so weird, I swear she’s a mind reader. She posts a bunch of things at the same time they happened. Like, remember when you and AJ had that dumb fight over Camp Rock versus High School Musical?”
Rarity remembered how betrayed she felt when Applejack chose the lesser franchise. Honestly, teens singing about mediocre high school drama?
Rainbow continued. “Yeah, she posted something about friends fighting or something the same day. And like,” Rainbow scrolled through her feed, “she does stuff like that a lot. And she screams about the same things you do. See, here? She even sounds like you sometimes, all ‘darling’ this and ‘dear’ that.”
Rarity blinked, and tittered slowly. “Oh, well, it isn’t like you to read so much into these things, Rainbow, dar-dea-dude.”
“Mhmm.” Rainbow seemed too absorbed by her phone – as most people do – but her face slowly scrunched up in thought. She looked at Rarity in scrutiny. “Y’know, dude? I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”
Rarity blanched a remarkably noticeable amount. Had her own humour built out of her self-pity and indulgence done her in? Were her anonymous exploits about to be discovered before her prime?
Rainbow continued to stare. Then, slowly, “Rares? Do you – like, I think – I think you know Carousal. Like, in real life, like you guys are friends.”
There was a pause in which Rarity was too engulfed with watching her life rush before her eyes – passively noticing that it was outstandingly boring – and they just sat and stared.
Squinting still, Rainbow Dash conspiratorially said, “Do you think it’s your sister?”
“No,” Rarity said quickly, because heaven knows Sweetie Belle had the sense of humour of a stick, and the same sense in fashion – which Rarity was allowed to think, given the Sister’s Oath.
Rainbow frowned, looking unsatisfied. “Well, I hope not. That’d make this weird.”
“How so?”
“I dunno. Like, there’s knowing someone online but never really knowing them, and then there’s really knowing a physical person.” Rainbow shrugged. “Kinda ruins the appeal, y’know?”
Rarity nodded, slowly, keeping her eyes tracked on Rainbow Dash. “Yes. I do know.”
Returning to her phone, Rainbow Dash nicked some of Rarity’s sushi and popped it in her mouth. “Meh. The internet is a weird place.”
“Yes. I do know.”
I think it’s worth saying now: I’m thankful for everything I’ve been blessed with, despite how many times I say I wish I was as dead as my love for life.
To know that something I wrote can entertain so many people and that we can all relate despite being countries apart or even sitting right next to each other. It just. I can’t even.
I’m glad to have virtually met every single one of you, even if it was just for a moment you scrolled past. And maybe someday, I’ll get to meet you in person, and you’ll know it’s me.
Here’s to hope.
OMG today was so awkward I wish my heart gave up as figuratively as it has emotionally I hate myself smh.
Author's Note
Not to be taken seriously, because I don't know what drove me to this point.
