I was talking to a friend recently about best ponies and Rarity came up. My friend found her drama-queen personnality annoying (which is fair), but it got me thinking. Rarity isn't my best pony, but it's my most important one because she's the one that actually changed me and I'd like to share that.
I'm a man, I've have always been so. I've never tried to be sexist but society doesn't help so of course I'm prejudiced. I've grown alongside girls that didn't mind putting in the work and have always thought that a girl can do whatever boys can. That's always been an evidence to me. Yet, the image of a strong girl was always a "masculine" one. To me being a strong girl meant doing things the way a boy would be expected to, confronting issues directly shovel in hand in an Applejack fashion (love you AJ btw).
Rarity confronted me on that. For the first time I got to understand that there are other ways to be strong. That being interested or even obsessed by trends, fashion or your appearance wasn't what made you weak. That issues didn't have to be confronted in strength.
That show... it has lots of good, but I already agreed with most of it. I've never needed anyone to tell me that being honnest with my friends is better for example. Rarity on the other hand was a conflict and an opportunity to change. And I changed. I oppened up to more people that I previously thought uninteresting (which incidentally didn't hurt my love life), I took the time to learn lots of things I had completely ignored like makeup and I think it makes me a better, more accepting person than I was.
MLP brought me many things, but how often are you presented with a real opportunity to change something you've believed your whole life so strongly that you never questionned it? Among all things Rarity gave me the choice, the possibility to change.
So thank you Rarity. Yes, you know how to be an exceedingly annoying drama queen sometimes but you gave me something nobody else had.
