"This is a gorefic," I tell myself, sitting at the desk, "not of bodies but of souls."

During the conceptualization of this fanfic, the original title was All About Fleur de Lis. As you'd think, the supposed mane character is our trophy wife. The plot, essentially, remains the same, with Fleur trying to seduce Shining Armor. In this version, Shining Armor is more likeable as he is able to resist the temptress. Fleur then resorts to scandals, rumors, and gossips which practically ruins Cadance's life. The intention here is to tear the reader to two sides: whether Shining Armor would stay faithful to her "goddess", physically hurting her in the process, or whether Shining Armor should commit an act of adultery to spare Cadance the pain of suffering. Given the theme, this idea is meant to only become a one-shot or two chapters at most.

The original fic is eventually discarded when I decided to give the mane role to Rarity, originally to cash-in on Rarity's dream of marrying with prince (S01E03). The fic, again, was meant to be a one-shot and, at that time, was not meant to be a Rarijack story. But during the post-conceptual phase and I was actually starting to write, I decided to further dramatize the theme of obsession, lust, and infidelity by making it a full novel. It is by the end of Chapter 2 that I decided to insert Applejack (and the others friends, consequently) to expand the theme even further. The theme transformed from "the portrayal of obsession, lust, and infidelity" to "the effects of succumbing to obsession, lust, and infidelity, to oneself and others."

Once the theme has been established, I re-wrote the first and second chapter and revised the character list into the following:

Rarity/Lapis Lazuli - The witch of Cupid. The tragic villainess. Pandora, Delilah, and Morgan le Fay combined. Her weapons are not knives, swords or evil curses, but love. She uses the love of others (romantic, sexual, friendly, intimate, etc.) and turns it against them. What does she want? Everything and nothing. To get her fairytale happily-ever-after, of course! What girl wouldn't? Castles, riches, fame, and a grand royal wedding. How many have wished for that? How many succeeded? So what was her chance, she of humble origins? She didn't just have to do something; she has to do everything. She couldn't let her ideal, her dream, her fantasy, her apotheosis, be nothing more than vain hope.

Cadance - The princess par excellence.

Applejack - The romantic at heart. She believes that so long as two ponies love together then all is right in the world; that is the happy ending and there'll be no more (serious) conflict after which. Her fault, if at all, is her overoptimism which, even at the end, she did not betray and was eventually rewarded for.

Shining Armor - The contrary notwithstanding. He thinks that sex is a form of mere hedonistic weakness, depravity, and degradation, to which he will not inflict upon his goddess. He can't tell the difference between fucking and lovemaking, thinking that both are the same, which was the weakness exploited by Rarity. Therefore, he thinks that sleeping with somepony he doesn't value is much more forgivable than sleeping with the pony he values the most. By the time he learns [rape scene, Chapter 5], it is already too late.

Pinkamena Diane Pie - Pagliacci. The world is a theatre. There are no such things as faces, only comedy and tragedy. So it doesn't matter what we're feeling on the inside as long as the surface is untouched and then, only then, should one must react. Accepts everything at mask-value.

There are certain drawback that I did not foresee during the writing process which, admittedly, weakened the fic in my opinion. Instead of rewriting it here, I'll simply paste these visible drawbacks that I wrote in response to afakebrony's criticisms (which I am very grateful for):

First of all, Applejack's lack of characterization is because of her linearity. She has one, and only one, purpose in the fic and that's to serve as Rarity's guilt by her unflinching and unquestioning love for the tragic villainess. If I were to add any more characterization here then it would detract from her original role. If she starts doubting Rarity, and Rarity comes to know, then Rarity's guilt wouldn't be as much as when Applejack does not doubt Rarity. But you are right about one thing, and that's the part where I could've better written the scene where Rarity broke up with her. I should've further given more resistance to Applejack and more monologue for Rarity's part to best express her guilt. For one, I share your evaluation here in saying that Applejack is weak as a novel character, but I wouldn't say that she has a weak moral character (I equate her romanticism to that of Cadance's innocence.)

Secondly, yes. You are absolutely right about Twilight. In fact, this fic was written without Twilight in mind. But I can't remove her completely so I used her to fill in the gaps. She isn't a major character here (I don't think she's even a minor). Rarity can only remove friends through certain ways via threat (Fluttershy), bribe (Pinkie), emotional blackmail (Rainbow Dash). Giving out another speech for her to "get rid" of Twilight would not only be preposterous in its frequency but it will also be redundant. When I re-write this fanfic to an actual novel (yes, that was my plan from the start) I'd most likely be removing Twilight Sparkle from the equation.

Thirdly, I think you missed a criticism. The chink in Shining Armor's character. The flaw in Shining Armor's character is that his psychology is merely "told" (by Rarity mostly) rather than "shown." SA's prime motivation, i.e. his reverence for Cadance, which is a major thing in this fic, is not dramatized. For the moment, I blame this to the limitation of a first-person present tense. I never allowed a break from Rarity's point-of-view to show the more important part of SA's character.

One thing I forgot to point out is that I recognize that there is a lot of subplot potential to insert Twilight's character in the fic to make her become a constant reflection of Shining Armor (being siblings and all). However, I decided against it as there is too much potential that anything less that what is necessary will fall short and anything more will the detract the fic to the main theme of the fanfic.

Another drawback which I have failed to notice until it was too was the delay in-between chapters. At first, starting fairly well, the fic was released every 2-4 weeks at most. I thought that the pacing would be consistent until Chapter 5. From then, as the chapters started getting longer, and with real life interfering with me and my editor, the delays in-between chapters spanned 7-10 weeks. This is a major factor as it would occasionally displace the reader from the content and would most likely make them miss, or forget, some of the essential Chekhov's gun I planted from the preceding chapters (e.g. clues about Rarity's real age and maturity, as well as clues about Pinkamena). Due to these delays, some of my "big twist" might end up being thought of as a "big reveal"

The following are condensed scenes which were overall removed from the fic, either due to irrelevance or redundancy.

>Chapter 10
>PP vs Rty
> Setting: Castle Suite. Night.
>Pinkamena Diane Pie appears from the shadows
>Pinkie Pie gives Rarity a ticket to the express train away from Ponyville.
>Rarity takes the ticket
"You should've looked out for me Pinkie, just a little bit. Remember that night you came into my room and said 'Princess, this isn't your night. We're putting our love to Cadance.' My night! I could have taken Cadance apart. So what happens? She gets the prince and I get a one-way ticket to the Griffen Continent."
"What are you talking about, you had a taste of that prince."
"You don't understand! I could've had class. I could've been a princess. I could've been somepony. Instead of a bum, which is what I am. Let's face it. It was you, Pinkie. It was you."
(Obviously this fic was conceived just for fun because I simply wanted to copy the famous scene from Marlon Brando.)

>Cdc vs SA
>Chapter 5 (just before the bar-rape scene)
>Setting: House. Night
>Cadance picks up the perfume's scent on Shining Armor's coat
>Cadance begins questioning, innocently at first
>Shining Armor is very evasive and defensive
>Cadance becomes more suspicious, and angry, and a marital argument ensues
>Cadance realizes who it is who she smelled on Shining Armor
>Cadance pretends that nothing happens
>SA can see that something is hurting in Cadance but does not admit there is
>the scene ends with Shining Armor admitting that she loves Cadance
(I removed this due to the previously mentioned conflict in POV)

>AJ vs RD
>Chapter 6
>An "innocent" Pinkie Pie "hints" about seeing Rarity together with another stallion
>with the same nonchalant "innocence" Pinkie Pie says that "Rarity dropped this. Please bring it back to her."
>Pinkie hands RD the bottle of pills
>RD pieces everything together and confronts AJ resulting to their fist fight
(Again, POV conflict and this gives A LOT of clue about Pinkamena.)

>Chapter 6 (or 6.5)
>Clop: Nurse Rarity
>Nurse Redheart advices that under no circumstances should Rarity instigate her "nightly frolics" if she wants AJ to recover faster.
>Rarity finds a loophole in this
>Rarity dresses as a nurse and "inspects" Applejack all night long.
(According to my editor, the scene is too lighthearted and too funny in nature to be included in the fic. I agree. So I won't write this as a part of the fic. As an extended one-shot clop perhaps?

Actually, to say that there is an alternate ending planned for the fic is wrong. Since the beginning, I have only planned one ultimate conclusion to this: a happy ending. For personal and psychological reasons, I have to write it so that there is still a chance–if even a small chance–for redemption despite what wrongs a person has done in the past. The ultimate challenge of the last Chapter is to be able to make it convincing that Applejack (and Cadance as well) and pull Rarity back from the moral event horizon. Personally, I do not know if I have accomplish the odorous task I have set for myself.

These alternate ending scenarios therefore were never put into writing until now. They were just conceived in my idea after hearing too much about how most of my readers would want Rarity dead. I thought to myself that if I were to kill off Rarity, then by what means should I do it? Two answer popped out:

>ALT ED1
>After Rarity delivers her wedding speech and AJ, not wanting any part of the facade, stands up to leave, Rarity shouts her name as in the original
>But here, after much introspection, Rarity does not admit to killing Cadance and proceeds with her wedding speech (thanking both AJ and PDP)
>AJ leaves
>The wedding ends, Rarity greets and shakes hooves with the Canterlot elite
>As the guests starts to leave, Rarity looks at her friends one by one and they say something in turn:
Twi: "C-Congratulations Rarity..."
RD: "I hope you live a long life, Rarity. I mean it... A very long life."
FS: "I hope you're happy... wherever you are."
PDP: "Don't worry about your friends in lil'ol Ponyville. You can always put that tiara where your friends ought to be."
>Instead of going back for their honeymoon, Rarity, feeling tired, decides to go back to her room
>Rarity slumps on the couch, crying hard, hating the mare in the mirror
>Suddenly, AJ comes from behind with a rope and strangles Rarity
>Rarity is shock, resists, until she realizes who it is that's hurting her
>Applejack is crying non-stop as she tightened the rope around Rarity's neck.
>Applejack is continually shouting "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
>Rarity knows that this is the only way Applejack can relieve her of the pain they both know that'll only follow
>Rarity knows AJ doesn't want her to live a life of a lie
>Rarity knows AJ is doing it out of every love she has
>Rarity knows AJ is hurting more than she is
>Rarity is thankful to AJ
>Rarity dies
>AJ hugs Rarity's body and cries non-stop
>The whole fiasco is disclosed and AJ confesses to the murder
>Epilogue: Years later, AJ is finally released from prison
>AJ lives the rest of her life in Sweet Apple Acres alone and in isolation, still in love with the one she put out of her misery

>ALT ED 2
>(Almost similar to the one stated above)
>Rarity returns to her room instead of going to her honeymoon with Shining Armor
> Inside she sees Sweetie Belle
>Sweetie Belle is wearing a crown/tiara made up of cardboard, and a cape made up of torn canopy
>Sweetie Belle is happy to see her sister
>Sweetie Belle discloses that she was invited by Pinkie Pie to the wedding
>Sweetie Belle doesn't stop saying how beautiful, how regal, how elegant, how pure, and how happy her sister is
>Frightened out of her wits, Rarity steps back, away from Sweetie Belle, screaming "it was worth it!"
>Sweetie Belle moves closer
>Rarity is in hysterics and moves back
>Rarity hits the ledge and falls down the balcony
>Rarity screams as she falls
>But then her dress is suddenly caught in a pole–hanging her there for a few painful seconds.
>In those few seconds, flashbacks about her pasts.
>the dress rips,
>Rarity falls, and dies.

My deepest gratitude to my editor SerenityViewer for the time he spent editing, polishing, reeditng, repolishing, critiquing this work. Without him, All About Rarity cannot be what it is right now. Thanks man, couldn't have done this without you.

Also, I express my thanks to Schizoid Nightfall, one jumped to kick start and polish Chapter 1 and 2.

StealthIsPower, for helping SerenityViewer and I with the rough 1st-draft editing as we were struggling with real life.

To crenair, now clasherz, for letting me use the cover wonderful cover pic.

To my consistent commentators and readers who ventured with me in this fic, whose post I always look forward to: Tailsic, TwiPieCheese (formerly TwiPieDash), Raistlin, BrinnyTheBrave, The Great Derpsby, GrayFox2510, Resonanceize, Articun's Bitch, Silver Infinity, Brony2893, A Fistful of Apples (whose insightful comment filled my inbox every chapter), MyCutieMarkIsAGun, The Princess Rarity, ShrinkyFrod, Seether00, and the many, many more others.

And, of course, thank you finally to you! The anonymous reader who decided to give my fic a chance. I may not know you, and/or you may not choose to be known, but regardless of whatever it was you thought of my fic, the amount of attention you gave is my reward.