For the most part, Ponyville's outdoor market hosts local businesses. Every so often, somepony from Canterlot may try to dump stock in the neighboring settled zone, but it's a rare occurrence. It means newcomers stand out. And when more and more of them crowd in, with every last one selling the same things...
Rarity knows the fashions being sold are counterfeit. Knockoffs. Travesties.
She just doesn't understand why she's supposed to care.
This story contains examples of:
- Bystander Syndrome:
- Invoked: Rarity doesn't perceive any reason why she should initially involve herself in stopping the counterfeiters.
- Subverted: When the counterfeiters' scheme begins killing off the market itself, she has no choice but to partake.
- Continuity Nod: Has connections to Tricks Of The Trade Show, Sonic Rainbigot, and One Tenth-Bit, taking place after all of them.
- Rarity also mentions having a pregnant customer visiting her in pursuit of foalwear, which implies this may take place after Sandalous.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Ms. Colwood, the market director, is aware of the counterfeiters, but turns a blind eye due to how much they are willing to pay for the privilege.
- The Friends Who Never Hang: Invoked when Rarity notes that she and Applejack struggle to find any personal connection outside of their shared circle of friends.
- Good Is Not Nice: Rarity may be the Element of Generosity. She still feels no obligation to prevent the counterfeiters, given the only harm she sees them doing is to the corrupt fashion industry figures she has been butting heads with since she began her business.
- Justice by Other Legal Means: Rarity eventually works out that the kink-tails aren't selling forgeries, the genuine brand-owners are giving the kink-tails their rejects for covert resale. While this scheme isn't actually illegal, if word got out the humiliation would spell ruin for the brands that participated in it. So all Rarity had to do was threaten to tell all her friends in Canterlot what was going on, and the various schemers shut everything down in a hurry to keep from getting caught.
- Mythology Gag: The events of the disastrous slumber party in Look Before You Sleep are referenced.
- Ripped from the Headlines: The author noted in the comments and on their blog that this one-shot was inspired by a real-life market they used to visit, but which was overrun by a similar counterfeiting scam; they crowded out the legitimate businesses due to vastly increased prices on stall space (the market directors' way of covering up their bribes) that made the legitimate stalls leave, and then left, leaving a barren market that no stalls were willing to return to. The Continuum version has a happier ending. The ending scene of the fic, where the kink-tails leave in too big a hurry to collect their wares, and the herd of ponies descends upon the sudden pile of freebies before the Ponyville and Canterlot police show up, is also inspired by events to which the author was a direct witness.
