Fanfic / A Gem of a Day

A My Little Pony: Equestria Girls fanfic set in the human world dimension.

After feeling relieved that she can use as much magic as possible without becoming Midnight Sparkle anymore, Twilight creates a focusing gem to better allow her to control her magic. Despite the clever idea, Sunset Shimmer is feeling nervous. At the same time, Rarity's attempt to join an exclusive sewing club results in a crazy scheme that she ends up dragging Applejack into. Meanwhile, a fight between Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy soon becomes something surprising between the two. Also, Pinkie can't stop playing her new slide whistle.

Oh, and did we mention that this is all being shown in reverse order? The story can be found here. There is also a follow-up, which is basically a series of letters between Sunset and Princess Twilight discussing the aftermath of the first story.

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"A Gem of a Day" provides examples of:

• Assurance Backfire: Applejack tries to console a distraught Rarity over the loss of her dress design by saying that it must've been a remarkable one if a big-time designer like Suri was willing to steal it. Unfortunately, this only makes Rarity wail louder.
• Back to Front: The story begins with the last scene after the girls have gone through everything and works its way backwards to the first scene. The author also included an optional forward chapter.
• Came from the Sky: The spell Twilight inadvertently launched into the sky ends up coming back down and crashes into the ground, right on top of Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy as well as shaking up the Seamstress Club's room.
• Continuity Nod: Princess Twilight references some of her and her own friends' adventures, specifically "Hearts and Hooves Day" and "Rarity Takes Manehattan", during the sequel when Sunset recaps the events of the first story to get Twilight's advice on everything.
• Contractual Genre Blindness: While breaking into Suri's house, Rarity insisted on acting like a classic burglar, much to Applejack's chagrin. Rarity comments that Applejack just didn't know how heist films went.
• Distant Reaction Shot: After Rarity learns that Suri stole her dress design, it cuts to Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, who hear a loud and profane Skyward Scream.
• Don't Wake the Sleeper: Sunset, Twilight, and Pinkie Pie attempt to sneak up on the chimera when it's sleeping in order to get back Twilight's gem. Unfortunately, the chimera wakes up when Pinkie's slide whistle goes off.
• Dramatic Irony: Considering the reverse chronology format, the story is full of this.
• Dungeon Bypass: While chasing Sunset, Twilight, and Pinkie Pie through a warehouse, the chimera gets fed up with the chase and knocks down all the shelves that made up the labyrinth, eliminating their hiding places. Pinkie protests that it cheated at Hide and Seek.
• Easy Come, Easy Go: Just after their adventure is done, Sunset finds a $100 bill on the ground, excited that she never had that much before. She ends up having to use it to pay Rarity and Applejack's bail.
• Elopement: After enjoying their daylong date together, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy impulsively rush off to a quickie chapel to get hitched so the romantic moments between them would never end.
• File Mix Up: The explosion of magic from the creation of Twilight's gem ends up blowing the notes for her Love Potion and Truth Serum spells out of their folders. Spike then scrambles to put them back in, and ends up placing them in the wrong folders.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Applejack is forced to tackle Rarity to the ground when she has a fit upon learning that Suri stole her dress design.
• Gilligan Cut: The story is filled with them, the most prominent being when Applejack inadvertently suggested to Rarity to steal back her design from Suri, it then cutting to the two of them dressed in burglar outfits outside Suri's house.
• Hand Gag: After Rarity protests the expense of the bail for her and Applejack, the police officer doubles it out of contempt, forcing Applejack to muzzle Rarity so she doesn't make things worse.
• Homosexual Reproduction: Sunset implies that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy intend to use their magic to start a family.
• Insistent Terminology: During their attempt to steal back Rarity's dress design, Rarity insisted that Applejack call her by her code name: Platinum Priss. After they are arrested, Applejack used it to mock her, much to Rarity's chagrin.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: During their argument, Fluttershy calls Rainbow Dash an "insensitive, loudmouthed, unreasonable old slowpoke".
  Rainbow Dash: SLOWPOKE?!
• I Was Just Joking: Applejack makes an offhanded remark to Rarity that her options for recovering her design sketch from Suri were limited, short of breaking into her house and stealing back the sketch. Unfortunately for Applejack, Rarity takes the comment seriously.
• It's a Long Story: When Sunset, Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Applejack see Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy coming out of a chapel as newlyweds, Rainbow Dash realizes they might have a long story to tell.
• Jaw Drop: Sunset, Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Applejack experience this when they discover that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had gotten married.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Much like her pony counterpart, Suri Polomare suffers no repercussions for stealing Rarity's dress design. Unlike her pony counterpart, however, Rarity does not manage to prevail regardless of it.
  • This is averted in the sequel, however: After Princess Twilight informs Sunset of her and her friends' own experiences with Suri, Rarity ends up encountering and befriending the EG version of Coco Pommel, who not only quits Suri and begins working for Rarity, but also obtains evidence to prove that Suri's line was mostly ripped off from other fashion designers, resulting in Suri being thrown out of the Seamstress Club, and facing a day in court.
• Kissing Under the Influence: Throughout the story's reverse chronology, it becomes hinted that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are only together because they were hit by a love spell Twilight had accidentally cast...until The Reveal where it's shown that Twilight's notes were mixed up, and the spell that hit them actually caused them to voice their longtime hidden feelings for each other.
• Literal Metaphor: After Pinkie wins her bet with Trixie, Sunset tells Princess Twilight she's enjoying "the fruits of her victory". By which Sunset means she literally had a sundae covered in fruits.
• Miscarriage of Justice: Rarity is disgusted that she and Applejack are arrested for trying to take back her dress design from Suri while Suri gets away scot-free for stealing it. The arresting officer says unsympathetically it was because Suri didn't pull a breaking and entering. As mentioned above under Karma Houdini however, this is averted in the sequel.
• Newhart Phonecall: After the encounter with the chimera, Sunset has one with Applejack, who uses her One Phone Call to let Sunset know she and Rarity are in jail.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Twilight accidentally opens a portal to Equestria that allows a chimera to cross over. Sunset even groans that it's worse than what happened during the Friendship Games.
• Noodle Incident: Apparently, one time during P.E, Soarin threw a javelin unaware that its rope was tangled around his ankle, causing him to go flying and end up on the school's flagpole.
• Oh, No... Not Again!: The main reason Sunset feels uneasy about Twilight's new focusing gem is because she's worried she might do something reckless with it like when they first met.
• Out-of-Character Moment: When Rainbow Dash was giving her an earful for accidentally losing her watch, Fluttershy decided that for once, she was going to fight back, much to the surprise of her friends.
• Police Brutality: Downplayed. While the police are upholding the law that Rarity and Applejack broke by breaking into Suri's house, they aren't very sympathetic when Rarity claims that Suri stole from her first, with one of them even doubling the bail just because Rarity protested the amount.
• Power Crutch: Twilight creates herself a focusing gem to better allow her to use her magic, which ends up setting off 2/3 of the plot as well as cause the events to be shown in reverse order.
• Romantic Spoonfeeding: Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy partake of this with chocolate covered cherries.
• Running Gag:
  • Pinkie Pie constantly plays her slide whistle throughout the story. She made a bet with Trixie for a month's worth of ice cream that she couldn't blow it 1,000 times by the end of the day. She succeeds.
  • After their arrest, Applejack continually called Rarity by her code name "Platinum Priss" in a mocking manner.
• Serious Business: Pinkie Pie takes her bet with Trixie over a month of free ice cream very seriously.
  Pinkie Pie: "Applejack, one never turns down a challenge when it comes to free ice cream".
• Shipper on Deck: Princess Twilight's request to Sunset at the end of the second story for the notes on her human counterpart's Truth Serum spell that Fluttershy and Rainbow were hit with in order to use on "a certain pair of pegasi" implies that she's this for their pony counterparts.
• Short-Distance Phone Call: While hiding in the bushes outside Suri's house, Applejack gets a call from Rarity on her walkie-talkie. What annoys her is that Rarity is right beside her.
• Side Bet: Apparently, Principal Celestia and Superintendent Discord had a bet going on whether or not Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy would get together. Discord ends up winning.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy start the day off having a fight over Fluttershy losing the watch she borrowed from Rainbow, culminating in them going out into a field where they intend to have it out...right before the spell Twilight had cast came crashing down on top of them. The spell then caused their true feelings for each other to come out, to which they spent the whole day on a date/Falling-in-Love Montage, culminating in them impulsively rushing off for a quickie wedding.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Pinkie Pie does this to Twilight when she was in the middle of creating her focusing gem, causing her to upend an entire vial of potion into her mix, resulting in a massive magical explosion.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: When Sunset tells Pinkie to distract the chimera, she originally suggests shouting "Hey you!" to get its attention, which Sunset shoots down saying the chimera wouldn't fall for that. A few moments later, Twilight calls out "Hey you!" to the chimera, causing it to look at her. Sunset is forced to avoid Pinkie's smug "I told you so" look.
• Tantrum Throwing: Upon learning that Suri stole her dress design, an enraged Rarity started throwing everything in her studio that she could get her hands on.
• Take That, Audience!: Princess Twilight tells Sunset that it would be unethical to leave Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy under the influence of the supposed love spell, claiming that regardless of how they cute they look together, true love doesn't come from two people being artificially brought together by outside forces. This can be considered a shot at shipping in general.
  • If so, then it ends up becoming Hypocritical Humor at the end when after the truth of the spell's nature is revealed, Princess Twilight requests the notes of the spell herself to use on Rainbow and Fluttershy's pony counterparts.
• Tempting Fate: Because of the story's format, there is too much to mention.
• Three Lines, Some Waiting: The girls split into three groups that each go on a separate adventure: Sunset, Twilight, and Pinkie Pie take on a chimera that Twilight accidentally brought over from Equestria, Rarity and Applejack attempt to steal back Rarity's dress design from Suri Polomare, and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy spend the day on a romantic date.
• Troubled Fetal Position: Played for Laughs. When Twilight learns that her spell notes had been mixed up, she reacts in this manner.
• Truth Serum: The spell that Twilight accidentally shot into the sky and ended up landing on Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, causing them to fall in love, turns out to be this instead of an infatuation spell like Twilight thought, because Spike accidentally mixed up her notes.
• We Need a Distraction: Sunset has Pinkie keep the chimera busy while she leaps on its back.
• With Friends Like These...: Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy unknowingly do this to Rarity when they buy copies of her wedding dress from Suri.
• You Do Not Want To Know: When Sunset, Twilight, and Pinkie Pie come to bail Rarity and Applejack out of jail following their harrowing experience with the chimera, Rarity asks what happened to them, with Sunset and Twilight replying ”Don't Ask”.
• You Just Had to Say It: Applejack gives herself this when her offhanded remark to Rarity about breaking into Suri's house to steal her design back resulted in Rarity doing just that.