[Today’s donation was made to Color of Change. Click here to see my Pride & Joy Project 2020 Daily Donations List.]
There was a time when I couldn’t get over My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. How could I? The characters, the colors, the campy joy of it all. There’s (Princess) Twilight Sparkle the bookworm with Impostor Syndrome and her dragon with obvious daddy issues Spike; Pinky Pie, the pony version of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway; the butch pegasus Rainbow Dash (you don’t need to know her name to know she’s gay); cowpony (what is even) Applejack whose whole schtick is honesty; Marilyn-Monroesque Fluttershy, the pegasus who speaks in whisper volume and talks to (other) animals; and the unicorn Rarity, the fairest and campiest of them all.
Rarity is a fashion designer (and so she likes to throw around French words every now and then). She sews, loves gems (her cutie mark is three gems, GEMS I TELLS YOU), has a pet cat named Opalescence, always overpacks, hates mud and dirt (except when it’s at the spa), has a Transatlantic (an acquired, posh-sounding) accent, and says Edina-Monsoon things like “fabulous” and “sweetie” and “darling.” I can go on and on and on to tell you why I was (and still am) absolutely in love with her.
Apart from Applejack, the polar opposite of her when it comes to couture and general cleanliness (Applejack’s a farmer), Rarity is perhaps the hardest working of the bunch. She’s not shy to admit she’s ambitious and has big dreams and she works hard to achieve them. Although she hates getting dirty, she will roll up her sleeves (sometimes literally) to help her friends.
She sacrifices her beautiful tail hair to make a mustache for a sea serpent not only so that she and her friends can cross the lake, but also to help the sea serpent regain his confidence after half of his ‘stache was chopped off by Nightmare Moon (Princess Luna). Each of the main ponies (aka Mane Six) has an element of harmony, an amulet/weapon against forces of evil. For this act of kindness, Rarity is bestowed with the element of Generosity.
I made this shirt to create a holy union between Rarity and Our Lord and Lady Britney Spears, another hard-working icon of camp. The shirt’s base is pink so I can wear it on Wednesdays, and the words “Werk, Bitch” are in glitter silver (“l’argent” means silver/money in French).
I tried to make another shirt with the same design for back-up, but the printing company rejected my order on the grounds of copyright violation. No matter. This is what makes this shirt so special: it’s truly one of a kind.