I don’t care what anypony says, Raripunk…definitely gets me going.

to be fair,i prefer a new look to someone sick anyway its not that i dont care buts its more interesting.

@FlutterButterButt  
One can be enthusiastically happy and quietly horrified towards different situations.

@Cirrus Light  
I mean, we have had them depict Fluttershy like this before.
 

 

 

@FlutterButterButt  
This is fiction, though. Basically what @Alexlayer and @cloudkicker108 said. With some extra component of @cheezedoodle said. People can make art of Rarity’s mane and it’s cool and fun. Much less intense and such than Fluttershy almost dying. People aren’t too interested in seeing Fluttershy looking horrible, they want to see Rarity looking great and in a shocking new way.
 
Cool and fun trumps sad and pitiful for the short term. You’ll probably see more and deeper fics about Fluttershy, though.
 
It’s like, if your best friend almost dies, you don’t really feel like going and talking about that everywhere to everyone. But if a pretty pony got a cool punk mane, you feel much more like talking about that with everyone.
 

 
And they really didn’t focus enough on her almost dying to make it really feelsy. It was just her determination and a problem she focused on, rather than “oh, woe is me! Did you love me, Twilight? Will you look after my animals and Angel and my NEET brother when I’m gone? I loved you so, even as a friend. Then fall Fluttershy.”
 
(Just playing around - truth be told, I actually would’ve loved to see more drama to it. Like her not being strong enough to walk there but fighting on, anyways, breaking into a fit of coughing when she tries to get to the tree, and far too weak to climb it. Maybe even collapsing along the way. Maybe crying at how unfair it is that she doesn’t have the strength to undo what she’d done, having to confront that it was just a dumb mistake and not her fault, and Twi or Cattail having to do the dangerous thing she wanted to try.)

Any of the Mane 6 nearly dying is just another Tuesday.
 
Any of them getting a stylish new look, however, is much more novel, specially when it’s so radical.

@cheezedoodle  
Lmao you need to read comments on rari-punk pictures. “OMG I CANT BELIEVE THEY DID THIS”, “This is why Rarity is my favourite character”, “Shes so f***ing cool”, “Best episode this season”

@cheezedoodle  
That’s what I generally observed here on the booru too.

I didn’t hear anybody losing their minds over Rarity’s hair. I just saw a ton of art of it. Maybe because punk mohawks are more fun than incurable diseases.
 
On the other hand I saw loads of surprised comments talking about how horrifying swamp fever was.

True, pretty badly done.

If it’s the fandom you’re talking about, that certainly wasn’t the impression I got. The strong reaction from the fans was mostly towards Rarity’s new manestyle and the apparent magical qualities of manes in general as opposed to the fact that Rarity lost her mane (which was already implied by the episode title and all but confirmed in the build-up to the catastrophe). As for Fluttershy, her catching a fatal (in the MLP sense) disease didn’t elicit the same type of reaction because that development wasn’t the main the focus of the episode; rather, it was just one more layer and complication to an already ongoing conflict.

@Background Pony #B593  
I don’t think you get it.

Twilight saved Fluttershy from dead and I don’t see you talking about it.

BRONY LOGIC!!

@Background Pony #8558  
How dare you!  
Zecora is white… well at lest half that is. :p

It’s because Flutteshy and Zecora aren’t white.

This episode didn’t feel like it took it all that seriously, but if you look at it, it kinda did. It’s just the ponies responded with an amazing amount of discipline and purpose rather than just melting down and crying about it.
 
Looks like all those “saving Equestria” experiences have really paid off as basically training in acting under pressure. Very impressive. Like they’ve had military training almost.
 
But keep in mind Fluttershy did stay up all night. Twi was more logical as to not over-strain herself to the point of inhibiting her ability to help, but she also dropped entire days from her life at the drop of a hat.
 
As for the others, perhaps a thing to protect Zecora’s privacy, and too many cooks might just make it worse? I dunno.
 

 
@cheezedoodle  
I lol’d. Nice.
 

 
@FLUTTERBADASS  
Very sad, very true. But humans and ponies alike only have the mental power and emotional stamina to keep track of a few lives, a few dozen, tops, but not 350 million. Everyone can’t be aware of everything. As a result, you get oddities like this.
 
Never mind the full 7 billion of Earth’s pop. I really wish people would be more caring of hells on Earth, though, and call for more intervention than harsh words.

She almost became a tree

@Prof.NightJack  
Based on the uploaders description I’m guessing fandom.

@FLUTTERBADASS  
Again, we talking in the show or the fandom?

Sad but true people care more about a celebrity’s looks than someone risking their life to save someone else.

@Revenant Wings
 
And no hint the condition is reversible (most likely it isn’t) once it gets to that stage…

FS just wanted to get out of this and pretended to have Pony Pocks, again

@ObliviaTheChangeling  

 
Username checks out.

@ObliviaTheChangeling  
You have a point: it’s not death, just hostile takeover by a menacing magical parasite that changes you into another one of their own. But no big deal. /sarcasm