A Hairier Problem
is a sequel to A Hairy Problem, a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic by BlueBastard.
It's been months since Applejack was cured and things returned to normal. Sure, there was the whole deal about swapped cutie marks, then Twilight becoming a princess, and then something about a magic mirror and Spike getting his species demoted to "dog" temporarily, but otherwise it's business as usual.
Or at least it had been until Apple Bloom begins to act much more aggressively towards Diamond Tiara than she used to, much like Applejack did towards Sandalwood initially. Except, Apple Bloom can't be turning into a werewolf, they're all gone now. Right?
Then again, King Sombra was supposedly gone, too.
The story continues in Seven Days in Sunny June.
A Hairier Problem: Rise of the Furball provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Beryl's father, Torchwood, pretty much crashes into this from double whammy of A.) Beryl being a filly instead of a colt, and B.) his wife dying from childbirth problems a week after Beryl was born.
- Avenging the Villain: Fair Vista for Sable Loam.
- Back from the Dead: Fair Vista.
- Berserk Button: Attempting to steal or harm Heliodor for Raspberry Beryl, as Blueblood finds out during her trial.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Raspberry Beryl is usually rather meek, shy, and averse to talking with ponies due to her Dark and Troubled Past, but if you threaten to kill (or possess) an innocent pony or threaten her pet phoenix she will try to rip the perpetrator to shreds with her dark magic.
- Big Bad: Fair Vista.
- Bring My Brown Pants: When Raspberry Beryl freezes everyone during her trial, it mentions that Prince Blueblood has a look of someone who has urine backed up. When she blasts him and breaks the paralysis spell, he did indeed, uh, relieve himself.
- Cooldown Hug: Apple Bloom uses this on Raspberry to keep the latter from going through on her attempt to murder Blueblood.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Fair Vista thinks that this is what will happen when she initially chases and sinks her fangs into Raspberry Beryl. Then, much to her surprise the reverse occurs as Beryl shrugs off the lycanthropy due to her own black magic, then rips into Fair Vista with said magic.
- It's later revealed that Fair Vista couldn't have cursed Beryl anyways as she didn't actually have saliva to infect Beryl with in the first place, but Beryl is still able to completely heal having her throat be nearly torn out and then turn around to deliver a world of pain to the spirit.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Raspberry Beryl. Oh boy, Raspberry Beryl.
- Generation Xerox:
- Again, Applejack is one for Fair Vista.
- Raspberry Beryl is a direct descendent of King Sombra, down to using dark magic.
- Heel–Face Turn: Silver Spoon begins showing shades of this as Diamond Tiara's obsession with Apple Bloom and werewolves increases. The turn is permanent when she realizes the true extent of Tiara and Vista's most recent plan.
- Jerkass Victim: Torchwood.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Diamond Tiara was hardly a nice filly before, but her obsession with proving Apple Bloom is a werewolf gets increasing disturbing as time goes on.
- Menstrual Menace: Lightning Dust experienced "the joys of marehood" like Applejack did in the previous work. Problem was, she didn't know why all the dogs were chasing her in Baltimare when it happened.
- No-Sell: King Sombra made it so that he, and any of his descendants, would be completely immune to becoming a werewolf.
- Painful Transformation: Apple Bloom and Lightning Dust experience this just like Applejack did in the first story. Applejack herself has the misfortune to re-live this pain when Beryl's dark magic usage at her trial causes a relapse.
- Running Gag: Nopony can seem to get King Sombra's name right.
- Secret-Keeper: The Cutie Mark Crusaders (and later Babs Seed, Silver Spoon, Lightning Dust, and Raspberry Beryl) for Apple Bloom's lycanthropy; Twilight, Rainbow, Applejack, and Fluttershy for Lightning Dust's (until Rainbow accidentally lets it slip to Rarity during Nightmare Night).
- Self-Made Orphan: Raspberry Beryl.
- Sequel Hook: The last chapter has Octavia and Vinyl Scratch talking about the events in Ponyville, and somepony else in the cafe has an interesting reaction.
- Shout-Out: Chapter 24's title is The Fresh Princess of Nowhere.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Coco Pommel gets one scene with her boss, Suri Polomare. Neither are mentioned again in the story.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Diamond Tiara, suspecting Apple Bloom of being a werewolf, fills the classroom with garlic. The attempt to flush her out fails. If Bloom had been a vampire instead it would have worked.
