A little look into the life of Ratchette, Ponyville's most talented fix-it mare, despite the minor handicap of her being a pegasus in a field usually reserved for unicorns.
Read it here
.
Tropes found in this story include:
- Adaptational Villainy: Flim and Flam are a variant, having gone from the canon's petty con-artists to full-blown criminals, with their latest scheme involving espionage and Blackmail.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: The downplayed variant; Cinarest Cimarron is a pretty bog-standard "Jerkass Upper-Class Twit" portrayal. Subverted with Ratchette herself.
- Asshole Victim: Cinarest Cimarron of House Quarant, the unicorn noble who refuses to listen to Ratchette's warnings that his new Minder is secretly sharing all of his personal details with Flim and Flam. He's outright considered this In-Universe, as Rainbow Dash, Spike (with Twilight Sparkle embarrassedly agreeing) and Mrs. Wonderment all telling Ratchette that he deserves what he's going to get.
- Blackmail: The latest scheme from Flim & Flam, as revealed in this story; they create knock-offs of what are essentially magitek day-planners called "Minders", which contain illegal backup copies that can secretly transmit all of their information back to the twins, so they can then use this as incriminating evidence to blackmail the victims.
- Cool Old Lady: Mrs. Wonderment, who has managed to live to a very, very ripe old age despite being in a potentially very dangerous line of work, has an extremely sharp tongue, and gives Cinarest a epically blunt chewing out over his idiocy.
- Do I Really Sound Like That?: What Cinarest thinks is wrong with his Minder isn't the fact that it's a knockoff, that it's being used for blackmail, or that it was terribly, terribly expensive... but the fact that he doesn't think his voice sounds the way the Minder records it.
- Dramatic Irony: If Ratchette were to simply speak with a unicorn about her feel, that might answer so many questions. But she's worried that ponies might think her crazy, and properly so: most would.
- Fantastic Racism:
- Downplayed, but, a big "drama hook" in the story is how visitors to Ponyville tend to dismiss Ratchette based on her race, as they assume a pegasus mechanic must naturally be inferior to a telekinesis-equipped unicorn.
- Cinarest initially tries to present his arguments as reasonable; each tribe has its own magic, and devices are keyed to unicorn magic, so of course a pegasus is unsuited for working with them. Slips like claiming that pegasi are running a conspiracy to disrupt unicorn efforts at drafting weather-manipulating workings only confirm that he's just a racist, and Mrs. Wonderment openly calls him out as a bigot.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Cinarest may be a racist fool, but he's not actually entirely wrong: Rachette herself notes that her lack of telekinesis and her inability to cast the spells that make devices actually work limit her abilities as a repairpony.
- King Incognito: Ratchette actually comes from the wealthiest and most powerful pegasus noble house in Equestria. She just prefers the simple life of a device mechanic.
- Laser-Guided Karma: In-Universe, those who hear about the aforementioned unicorn noble comfort Ratchette by telling her that he deserves whatever Flim & Flam do.
- Made of Explodium: It's mentioned that devices and conveniences, even after generations of tinkering, are prone to being... unstable. If you're lucky, they simply fail to work right, or fall apart. If you're unlucky... to put it in perspective, selling those items is considered a high-risk profession. With a projected life expectancy inferior to that of an active member of the Wonderbolts — who are Equestria's premier stunt fliers and possibly a military reserve unit!
- Magitek: This story focuses substantially on devices, the magically-powered technological items that keep Equestria roughly in line with 1940s Earth.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Cinarest Cimarron, who gleefully throws his weight around despite the fact that House Quarant is actually a very small, poor and unimportant House.
- Too Dumb to Live: Cinarest, who refuses to listen to the fact he's carrying around a spying device simply because of the race of the mare providing the warning.
- What You Are in the Dark: Despite everyone telling her that Cinarest deserves whatever the Flim-Flam brothers do to him for being such a Jerkass, Ratchette's morals and her pride as a mechanic refuse to let him go away unwarned. As an added bonus, she also manages to capture the backup-reels of his Minder before it can return to the brothers, allowing her to present it to the police.
- Worldbuilding: Explores the aspects of devices and a few hints of the aristocratic social structures.
