You know how the CMC's marks were so generic? Maybe Diamond put stickers on them so that they'd feel better after all she'd done to them, but when their real marks come, the stickers will fall off. Diamond saw that the rushing was making the marks take longer to come, and deep inside she wanted to help.

4769783 ....CONSPIRACY THEORIES!!!

4769783
Ether that or it was all a dream in ether the cmc or Diamond

Sorry, no, the sticker theory doesn't hold up.
The episode made WAY to much fuzz about it when they finally got them,
if those were "stickers" it would've been played off more like when Applebloom got Cutiepox.

Plus, how do you explain the appearing itself, with the magic and all, including all three of them hovering
and getting engulfed in white light?

Also, they DID in fact find their talent / purpose - To help other blanks find THEIR talents, and to help others over-all with anything they need.

Furthermore, even though Diamond DID redeem herself at the end, and started a new path in life,
she's not yet fully redeemed and she still has a long way to go. This was just the beginning for her, and her new life.

4770187 I agree with you. The actual appearance of the marks was surrounded by too much fan fare. The magic was reminiscent of a small scale version of what happened to the Mane Six (if they had all known each other as fillies).

Also had too much resolution of frayed story lines. Rainbow Dash telling Scootaloo how she was helped by the young pony (being on of them).

And you're right about DT. One act of kindness doesn't completly redeem this brat. Example is Discord, that guy still doesn't know/respect the right path of the good guys and constantly needs help.
Now we've got 2 redemptive creatures to add spice to the show. Really this idea of bad guys trying to redeem themselves is becoming a theme.

4771728 since this season is almost over, and we DO have a confirmed next season comming,
I think DT's redemtion might be a CMC subplot for that season, at least for SOME of the CMC episodes.

Basically, the CMC-centered episodes will probably be a mixture of DTs redemption and the CMC helping new blanks.
Maybe, they'll actually include DT in the process, having HER help others too.

Plus, DT has to repair her "friedship" with SS, or rather - completely reboot it, and this time, make it an ACTUAL friendship,
and not the "master and follower" relation they've had up until now, when SS finally realised that and stopped blindly folloing DTs orders.

So, in a way, it wasn't just DT's beginning of redemption, it was SS's beginning of the same path as well.
In fact... SS saw what CMC meantto each other, and realized THAT is a REAL friendship.
So, SS snapped at DS, and voted against her.
That lead DT to see "the other path" as well, when she lost the only one she even considered remotely to be some sort of friend.

Also, it seems DT and SS has a lot in common with Babs Seed.

Babs was bullied in manehattan, and thus joined the bullies side when she visited Ponyville.
Perhaps DT (and SS?) was ALSO bullied when they were younger, leading to a similar effect when they
started in Ponyvilles school, becomming the bullies to avoid being victims of bullying.

And now with this episode, both DT and SS have basically become the CMC's equivalent of what Discord is to the Mane6.
Former villain(s) in the process of turning into a friend.

And, Even if it does NOT happen in the actual show, I'm sure this will be used as Fanfic fuel during the hiatus,
so either way we WILL get stories about this, one way or the other.