Meet The Mares: Flitterheart · 4:01am Sep 6th, 2021
There’s only so much that can go into a story, especially one with as many characters as 16 has. So I’m opening the floor to asking these characters questions. Post your reply with any questions you have and Flitterheart will be happy to answer them (I’ll be editing this blog to add those questions). I’ll be posting the other characters in the coming weeks (up through Snowcatcher; the rest will come after their chapters are posted).
Interview subject #6: Flitterheart
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/229848
Cutie mark?
Source: https://www.deviantart.com/durpy/art/Cutie-Mark-Flitterheart-309588419
Thanks to Feathermay, I discovered that pony names don’t translate to English quite as well as everyone originally thought. What’s the most direct translation of your name?
She Whose Heart Flitters Across the Sky. It makes far more sense in Equestrian. Especially for pegasi. I don’t know how to properly convey it. Picture flying through the sky and being so happy that your heart flutters like you just found your soulmate.
My late sister had the better name: She Who Keeps Hearts Warm and Cozy. Everypony in my family has ‘heart’ in their name somewhere. Those who marry into the family tend to change their names to fit.
You were on the very first busload of ponies brought to the consulate the day the portal opened. Is that correct?
Yes, I couldn’t wait to get away from Equestria and those awful princesses that rule it.
You’re the first pony I’ve met who’s spoken poorly of their homeland or its rulers. So Equestria isn’t really the paradise everyone thinks it is?
Do you think this many ponies would have immigrated to Earth if it was? ‘Friendship this’ and ‘tolerate that’ unless you’re not useful to the Crown. Powerful unicorn? No problem! We can overlook treason. Reality-warping draconequus? We can use that power for good… or at least less evil… well, okay not so less evil, um, he’s entertaining, so he gets a free pass! Pegasus filly? Equestria’s got lots of them, you can go rot in Tartarus.
I take it that it’s safe to assume you won’t be returning when your time on Earth is up?
Not if I can possibly help it. By then the rest of my family should be here with me, and we won’t look back. When Discord finally snaps his claws and ends all life on Equus, we’ll say ‘told you so’ to a dead world.
Relationship status?
Single. There’s a litmus test a pony needs to pass if they want to date me. Nopony has ever passed it, and I strongly doubt anypony ever will.
My understanding is that only mares of twenty-five years or less are to be crossing the portal. How old are you?
Eighteen.
You’re way too young to be this bitter. Is there anything you’d like to get off your chest?
Not particularly.
Favorite part of living on Earth?
Everything.
What’s your favorite song? Specifically, your favorite song that our audience on Earth might know?
I like love songs. I’m really partial to Air Supply. I guess Lost In Love would be my pick for favorite song.
That seems like an odd pick for a mare who’s determined to stay single.
‘Love’ means something else to me than it means to most others. I’m not using it as a euphemism for something else. Love should be a feeling you feel towards everyone else. There shouldn’t be hatred, everyone should truly care for one another. The world would be a better place.
You came to New Jersey to find that?
No, I came to New Jersey because that’s where the portal is. That the state motto should be ‘I didn’t see a thing’ is a good reason to stay. Skeletons stay hidden in closets because no one else wants their own dirty laundry aired. Works for me.
Favorite TV show?
The Get Along Gang.
Favorite movie?
The Care Bears Movie. It reminds me of my family. Actually, there are a lot of parallels. Half the characters share names with my family members. Even their colors and personalities match. Cozy’s even purple like she used to be, back before she started dying her fur and hair.
What do you miss about Equestria?
My family. They’ll join me one day, and then the only thing I’ll miss about Equestria is memories… and a statue in the Canterlot Garden. Let’s just say it has special meaning to me.
Do you have a car?
I have a one-of-a-kind Cloudmobile. I saw it in the Care Bears and between my pegasus magic, Lulu Luck’s unicorn magic, and some Earth technology, we made a working example. It’s titled as a homemade car called a ‘Good Luck Motors Cloudmobile’. The only downside is that if you’re not a pegasus, you need a cloudwalking spell put on you to ride in it.
Spamotron: It sounds like you slammed into uncaring bureaucracy at some point. Have you ever considered talking to Ploomette about what happened? She seems like a good mare who would help you bypass red tape and even get you a direct line to the Princesses if she deems your problem important enough.
I’ve thought about it, but there’s nothing that can be done for my sister now. Moving to Earth was my way of moving on. Bringing it all up to her wouldn’t serve any purpose, and she might treat me differently if she knew who I was related to.
Emil: What was the favorite food/drink that you discovered on human-Earth?
French fries are way better than hay fries! Sweet potato fries are even better.
Emil: Are you looking into Earth citizenship?
Absolutely! The only way I’m going back to Equestria is if they recall all citizens before my family’s had a chance to join me here. I already lost my sister, I won’t lose the rest of them too. Once they’re here, they can recall us all they want and we’ll ignore it. If America won’t take us, there are other countries out there, and if no one on Earth wants us either, we’ll make a home for ourselves in the clouds.
BirdsBooksBrownies: Yeah, the Cozy situation was all sorts of whacked up, and for what it's worth from a human you'll likely never meet, I am sorry that it happened. And if you ever wanted an open ear to talk to...
I mean how did a 10? year-old filly get in touch with a centuries-old evil centaur warlock locked in Equestria's supposedly most secure incarceration facility in the first place? I doubt the EBE permits high-security prisons as appropriate for elementary school field trips.
I appreciate the offer. I have some theories as to what may have happened. I want to believe that she learned about Tirek in school and then found some sort of artifact that allowed her to communicate with him. From the available transcripts, Cozy proved quite adept at using magical artifacts.
Maybe she duped Spike, the princess’ personal dragon, into sending. I’m not sure if ‘pet’ or ‘slave’ is the more apt description of Twilight Sparkle’s relationship with him, but I’m fairly certain that ‘friend’ isn’t the right term for it. From what I’ve heard Spike is quite gullible and Cozy was quite clever.
But I’ve become a very cynical pony. The school’s guidance counselor was Starlight Glimmer (and now she’s headmare!), and Starlight’s well-known for messing with cutie marks. My sister’s mark wasn’t what it was supposed to be. Speaking of the EBE, Chancellor Neighsay was meticulous in documenting complaints lodged against the School of Friendship, which is how I know Discord involved himself in the school’s affairs at least once. It would certainly be chaotic to introduce Cozy to Tirek, wouldn’t it? Cozy was a pegasus filly, meaning she had no casting magic of her own.
But all I have is hearsay and speculation. I wasn’t there and the only one who can tell us is gone. The other half of the equation certainly isn’t going to go bragging about it any time soon. I don’t even really care how she did it… I just want my little sister back.
Snowliasion: Favorite colleague, you who does not hate except when it comes to Princesses?
I don’t hate the princesses. They made the decisions they thought they needed to. I disagree with them and think they’re awful ponies because of their poor decisions. I don’t think they’re fit to lead ants to a picnic, let alone an entire country. But I don’t hate them.
But I’m not without hate. I want to be free of hatred, but I can’t lie. I carry hate in my heart for whatever being or entity corrupted my sister. I moved to Earth to move on with my life. I can’t do anything for my sister anymore, and revenge is a petty concept. One party does something to a second, and the second feels obligated to get revenge on the first. Then the first party sees fit to retaliate for the revenge… and it never ends. Neigh, it often escalates. I can forgive, but I can’t forget.
Furthermore, whoever did this to my sister is probably powerful enough to swat me down like an insignificant gnat. Cozy wouldn’t want me to throw my life away. I… I have to remind myself that some days. Being here on Earth helps. I think about her less than I used to. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. Being part of the Mareiott is a blessing in that there’s never any shortage of things to do.
Sorry for getting off topic, but I wanted to clarify that. Hatred goes against everything my family and I stand for. I’m already enough of a hypocrite for carrying the hate that I do. To answer your question, Sunny Rays. She reached out to me on the bus and she’s been there for me ever since. She’s the only pony who knows my secret.
penguincascadia: What do you think about criminal justice reform efforts here on Earth, especially in America?
This is a difficult question, and I’m not sure there’s any good answer. In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be any crime. This is what I would most like to see. But crime happens, and criminals must be punished, lest they keep misbehaving.
But ‘an eye for an eye’ doesn’t work. Obviously, former criminals are considered less trustworthy than others, with good reason. When released after paying their debt to society, it becomes a never-ending cycle because they find it harder to get jobs or be accepted by their neighbors.
I’m not in favor of children being tried as adults. They’re children, and should be treated as such. I’ve never heard of waiving the ‘you must be this old to purchase this product’ because a child was mature. ‘Adult crime, adult time’ is a bunch of horseapples.
From what I’ve seen, you’re making strides, but you’ve still got a long way to go.
penguincascadia: What do you think your sister would think about Earth and humans?
The Cozyheart I knew would be having the time of her life. Being the youngest in the family, there were precious few things she could truly experience ‘first’ as the rest of us had already been there, or done that. Here, we’d all be on equal footing and she could share her stories and the rest of us wouldn’t have preconceived notions of the ending.
Even here on Earth, I still expect to see her come racing up the hallways at the Mareiott.
The Cozy Glow everypony else knows would probably see it as a new world to exploit. I don’t know what happened to her, but I know she was corrupted somehow. I’m positive it ties into her cutie mark, and I’ll never forgive myself for introducing her to chess.
It sounds like you slammed into uncaring bureaucracy at some point. Have you ever considered talking to Ploomette about what happened? She seems like a good mare who would help you bypass red tape and even get you a direct line to the Princesses if she deems your problem important enough.
5578333
If she got the cloud car road legal-certified, I would guess she's no amateur when it comes to dealing with bureaucracy.
https://existentialcomics.com/comic/16
Whose
Food?
Are you looking into Earth citizenship?
Yeah, the Cozy situation was all sorts of whacked up, and for what it's worth from a human you'll likely never meet, I am sorry that it happened. And if you ever wanted an open ear to talk to...
I mean how did a 10? year-old filly get in touch with a centuries-old evil centaur warlock locked in Equestria's supposedly most secure incarceration facility in the first place? I doubt the EBE permits high-security prisons as appropriate for elementary school field trips.
I'm honestly surprised Princess Twilight didn't look into the matter, I can understand (if definitely not like) the rank-and-file bureaucrats doing this (sadly, earth has'em too).
(in regards to her canon representation-not directed at the character) I feel that she was probably a homage to similar characters like Darla Dimple or so I've heard Babyface something or rather from one of the old Batman cartoons. Personally speaking, I think Neigh-say would have been a perfectly good antagonist and would have fit the whole redemption through friendship thing. He could have been introduced to the good things that these "others" had done, and shown that not all ponies are "good".
And as ever, favorite colleague, you who does not hate except when it comes to Princesses?
5578333
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5578440
Thank you for the questions! They've been answered in the blog entry.
5578343
Fixed, thank you.
This leads to the question of what % of the population a) dislike the Princesses, or b) don't actively dislike, but aren't particularly fans of the Princesses. The latter would be sort of a "meh, as long as they keep raising the Sun and the Moon like they're supposed to, I don't care what they get up to in that hoity-toity city. Gotta bring my crops in, y'know."
She should be more worried when Fluttershy and Discord have kids.
5578511
Just as an afterthought, I was telling my mom about your concerns and she was reminded of the fact that we have rank-and-file beauraucrats on earth too, also it's not unusual to hear about people who are different from the quote-unquote "norm" being punished much more seriously than a "normal" person. Suffice to say that you might consider earth to be better than Equestria, but we're FAR from ideal, and there's only one of us as a sapient species, I don't know if I want to imagine how much worse it could be if we had three or more like your world.
As an after-afterthought, from what I know of Princess Sparkle, I am rather surprised that she didn't investigate the issue (perhaps Tartarus could have been a temporary issue until she found something out). From your description, Cozy was a normal filly for both good and ill (no one's perfect) but she suddenly changed. It could be an evil artifact or something that corrupted her or perhaps something akin to Nightmare Moon got to her.
While Discord loves chaos, I don't see him (currently) going out and corrupting fillies as that would certainly make Fluttershy unhappy. Old Discord, not going to entirely rule out the possibility.
And finally, on Earth, we don't have spirits or artifacts or living embodiments of primordial chaos, so some other ideas might be she was born with a mental illness that didn't become apparent until it was too late. Based on what little I know (not going to pretend to be an expert) her sudden shift could be something like a split personality disorder, schizophrenia, or some form of sociopathy. If you want I could probably find some resources that might help you figure out what happened.
5578537
Well... the thing is that apart from the kerfuffle with season 9 ending they have NOT done that much that is bad. On that you need to see which kind of thinking you follow... That the incredibly stupid and cruel behavior is usual and we have not seen it or that the stoning was an outlier...
Sincerely I just take the whole Cozy Glow debacle and put it out of what I consider canon. It's simply COMPLETELY incongruent with the rest.
5578537
I figure their approval ratings are usually somewhere in the low 90s and never dip below 85%. Most of the remaining 10-15% is indifference, with only one or two percent that are truly unhappy. That we're meeting multiple in this story (Flitterheart, Starbeam Twinkle, and to a much lesser extent, Snowcatcher) is because there's a biased sample. Dissatisfied ponies are more likely to move out of Equestria than satisfied ponies.
5578583
Not answering this one as the character, because Flitterheart wouldn't know this. One of the downfalls of first person perspective, the author knows more than the character, lol.
In this story, Cozyheart's innocent and has been possessed/corrupted by another entity that has used her as a pawn.
As far as Flitterheart's concerned, the worst Earth has to offer is still better than the best Equestria can offer. Earth didn't take her sister from her.
I was rather surprised by the lack of caring by Twilight Sparkle also. She dismissed Cozy Glow as irredeemable simply because her school couldn't teach Cozy true friendship.
Because Twilight and her friends obviously know all the answers.
5578622
You bring up some good points. For as much as I might find Twilight's insatiable curiosity and love of learning attractive, she can sometimes be cold, arrogant, and even vindictive. She was a right prick in the past, even to Spike. It could also be that Celestia was taking precautions, and Twilight rather let her flank-kisser show (um, please don't tell Twilight I said that).
So it was definitely something outside the walls of reality that corrupted her, and not a mental illness that was undiagnosed due to the pseudo medieval/19th century knowledge base that is Equestria?
As an aside, I may not be smiling on the outside, but I definitely enjoy these kind of friendly discussions about how Equestria "ticks".
5578602
I agree with this - the last few episodes threw everything the show had spent eight+ seasons preaching into the trash. They redeemed Garble, Caballeron, and Ahuizotl (retconning him in the process), but not Cozy Glow, Chrysalis, or Tirek?
5578627
Correct, in this story, Cozyheart was corrupted by an outside force and has no mental illnesses. Other stories I've written starring her are different canons, however. This is the only story where she was innocent, the rest all address various aspects of her own very flawed character. She's a blank canvas and I enjoy painting her. So much wasted potential with her character.
And I forgot to mention this earlier, but yes, Cozy was designed to fit the Darla Dimple/Babydoll character mold. A lot of people have speculated that Cozy might be an adult trapped in a child's body (like Babydoll), but the show has outright stated she's a filly.
I'm happy to answer questions and also enjoy these kinds of conversations, but I can only explain how Equestria ticks in my stories.
5578636
As far as I am concerned, the canon version may as well have been written just for lulz. Your version is much more satisfying. It's like how Scootaloo had no parents until so late in the show. I don't hate the characters necessarily, but I definitely feel that they could have been better.
5578614
Snowcatcher is unhappy with the princesses? I'm your editor and even I didn't know this.
"I want to believe that she found some artifact that she learned about Tirek in school and then found some sort of artifact that allowed"
"I want to believe that she learned about Tirek in school and then found some sort of artifact that allowed"?
5578720
The answer as to why is waiting in the queue for you.
I'd like to post it on the 29th... I've been doing these 'Meet the Mares' blogs every Sunday and Wednesday, and the 29th will be Snowy's turn. It would be awesome to have her second chapter ready to go. Hint, hint. 
To be fair, Snowy's dissatisfied with one princess in particular. But she's nowhere near as dissatisfied as Flitterheart or Starbeam Twinkle (I'm really looking forward to her chapter, though I suspect she'll be a contender for 'least popular character' once its published).
5578873
Fixed, thank you!
What do you think about criminal justice reform efforts here on Earth, especially in America?
What do you think your sister would think about Earth and humans?
A Model UN group is in town to meet the Duchess.
Do you lead them in a chorus of Here's to You?
Here's to you Nicola and Bart
Rest forever here in our hearts
The last and final moment is yours
That agony is your triumph