Moon Dancer, Rebel Berserker · 11:04am Jul 5th, 2016
Those of you who have been following Dancing Alone may notice that my Moon Dancer is a Badass Bookworm, and one with something of a hair-trigger temper.
All through this story I characterize Moon Dancer as an incredibly brave mare with a tendency toward outright berserk rage. And I think this is solidly grounded in vanilla canon.
Now, Moon Dancer doesn't get much screen time anywhere but in her single main episode, but she spends a lot of that episde rejecting Twilight Sparkle's attempts to renew their friendship. Which does not speak of either insane courage or berserk rage, except for this ...
... in most of these scenes, Moon Dancer is angry. And in one scene, she starts to menace Twilight Sparkle with a club (the bat that was going to be used to break a pinata).
Full stop.
Moon Dancer -- who we know to be highly intelligent, and who is perfectly aware of what Twilight Sparkle is capable (this is after Twilight has fought Nightmare Moon, Discord, Chrysalis, King Sombra, and Tirek ... let me say that last part again ... and TIREK (!!!)
-- Moon Dancer is about to attack her with a length of wood.
That is a brave mare. Perhaps in insanely brave mare. And with definite violent tendencies, the more so because the Ponies in general are not a violent species compared to Humans.
I have absolutely no difficulty imagining her as killing two unfortunate Changeling Warriors who damaged her books, or encountering genuine cosmic horror and focusing on the "was that my first kiss?" aspect of the situation. Moon Dancer has her own sense of h0nor and propriety, and if something violates it she is quite willing to get all Time of Thrones on the unfortunate violator.
In general I think that capacity for extreme courage and violence is a family trait of the Light Clan, which in my fanon includes notable pacifists such as Sunset Shimmer
and Starlight Glimmer.
In general, just as the Apples are a Badass Family, the Lights are a family of Badass Bookworms.
They also, in my fanon, tend toward intellectual radicalism. Both Moon Dancer and Starlight Glimmer are or were radical revolutionaries, and Twilight might have been if she hadn't been hoof-raised by the Ruling Princess herself.
Dangerous mares, one and all.
I did mention that you go towards ridiculous length to create berserker-insano-girls in your headcanons, and in fact have quite a silly amount of them all around.
Also, in this particular instance I don't thing you understand how ritual violence works.
And this is the same clan as Twilight "Rapidash" Sparkle herself. Remember, folks, you can't spell "courage" without "rage."
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Twilight Sparkle, Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer in pure vanilla canon have unusual courage and an unusual capacity for violence as Ponies go. Twilight Sparkle did defeat Nightmare Moon, Discord, Chrysalis, Sombra and Tirek. Sunset Shimmer is more aggressive than are most of the Humanoids in the strange and goregeously barbarian alien planet on which she adventures. Starlight Glimmer is a flat-on radical revolutionary.
Moon Dancer spends most of her canon episode angry. As for "ritual violence," I wasn't aware that beating other Ponies with sticks was okay in Pony culture, which actually seems to be to be mostly nonviolent. And I certainly wouldn't attempt it against somepony who had been known recently to have been unleashing force beams capable of destroying towns, though of course Twilight wasn't about to do any such thing to Moon Dancer, whom she wanted to befriend.
I didn't mention it, but the fact that Moon Dancer seems to be simpatico with Spike the Dragon is another reason to count her among the Badasses. Spike's friends mostly are badasses -- his two best friends are Twilight the Apocalyptic Warrior-Mage and Rarity Little Miss Kick a Manticore in the Face, not to mention the rest of the Mane Six. Under his civilization and kindliness, Spike really does have Draconic ferocity.
Now, as for Derpy Hooves, about whom you're talking, that is admittedly more of a stretch in pure vanilla canon. But if you extrapolate, and consider that she does postal courier services to places including some in the Everfree, it's pretty obvious that she is no stranger to life-threatening combat. And if you include fanon, well, there's Derpy's personal contribution to the Battle of Canterlot as evidence.
So yes, I do think that Moon Dancer is the sort of mare who would go "Hmm, Cosmic order not to my liking? Well, I'm going to have to change some things." Why not? Starlight Glimmer takes just that attitude, with a side helping of major Reality Denial as regards the nature of her own species. And Sunset Shimmer demands to be made an Alicorn Princess, and decides to go sword-and-planet adventuring and get enough power to return and force Celestia to do this, when Celestia refuses her.
It's not a pacifistic family.
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We see Twilight in full berserker mode when Tirek destroys the Golden Oak Library.
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Well yes, that is precisely what I said and what I meant, just expanded with examples.
There's just no reason to reply to that even, what you wrote is precisely the evidence I would bring to showcase why I find your headcanon so entertaining.
And yes, that's ritualistic violence. Or socialized violence if you wish. The same thing that allows, say old ladies to go around chasing away guys twice their size and third their age with a stick - not because they are insane berserker warriors, but because the social context makes any reciprocity in violence entirely impossible to even imagine.
Princess Twilight could no more raise her magic to even defend herself in that context than Canterlot mountain could fly.
Also, FYI, Twilight did not, technically defeat Chrysalis, only indirectly confronted Sombra, and never engaged in any violent confrontation with Discord, other than blasting him with the Elements.
She's still very brave pony, just pointing out that technically you are entirely wrong in three out of five instances.
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My point is that Twilight Sparkle, Sunset Shimmer, Starlight Glimmer engage in epic scale violence in vanilla canon. And no, I don't think that Moon Dancer realized that Twilight wouldn't hurt her. I think she just didn't give a damn, because she's insanely brave.
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I know that that's what you think, I'm just saying that you are wrong.
Also, neither Starlight nor Sunset actually ever engaged in "epic scale violence" in vanilla canon.
Starlight had a single (mostly defensive) duel with Twilight, and Sunset engaged in small-scale bullying, a single case of attempted murder of five defenceless little girls, a song-competition and a rainbow-nuke psychotherapy for a power-tripping nerd.
Some of that is cool, and a lot of it is epic, but none is both epic and violent.
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It's flat-out in the show.
She fought her three times in vanilla canon. The first time was the ambush in which she took down all of the Mane six. The second was when Twilight parried the magic bolt Starlight case against her former friends.
The third was a no-holds-barred Temporal Fugue right out of Creatures of Light and Darkness. They were splitting off new worldlines with each iteration and if they'd kept it up long enough they might have destroyed their world. I think that the cumulative damage to the local continuum at that point may have been one reason for the Wasteland World (the last Bad Future they visited).
Sunset Shimmer took over an entire ELITE school single-handed. Then she went full-on Nightmare and nearly killed Princess Twilight and the Humane Five. Her "song-competition" was a duel of physically-destructive magic with three Sirens powerful enough that they had previously terrorized whole cities and provinces. And the "psychotherapy" included a Beam O'War exchange with Sci-Twi when Sci-Twi was in in full-on Nightmare mode.
You deeply understate what happened in both cases.
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Which was a result of time-travel spell, not their fight.
A result of which Starlight had actually no idea, by the way.
You phrase it as if it was a fight that caused the damage to the timelines, but it wasn't. Their fight was pretty nifty, but not really epic, and in the end result nothing (including the combatants themselves) have suffered any damage at all as a result of their fighting, especially since neither of them actually wanted to risk hurting the bystanding foals.
A school of Whitest Kids You Know and weirdos, not Crystal Prep. And it's not like she beat them into submission or threatened to shank them. It was evil, manipulative and potentially brutal to their little feelings, but not actually actually violent.
I mean, really, who's the ELITE students as you imagine them there? Sandalwood and Bright Idea or Pinkie Pie and Vinyl Scratch?
Who, barring the Magic Of Friendship (of which Sunset knew nothing) were exactly "five defenceless little girls" for all intents and purposes.
Except magic-starved so much they could barely take over a Taco-bell not two weeks prior. Also, singing at each other is not violent. Epic? Quite. Violent? Eh, not so much. Epically violent? No, not in my definition of those words.
And that's why it was scary and took balls, but nothing violent occurred, not as much as a single blow was struck. They talked. That's about as far away from "violent" as you can actually get.
4069509 those sort of people are all already threatening old ladies in the first place, so I sincerely doubt they've been socialized not to hurt them. They're unprepared to be attacked themselves and not sure what else their potential victms might do
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The ability to cast powerful time travel magic is an example of Starlight being badass and dangerous, not an example of her being a prissy harmless little girly.
The fact that Starlight's magic is powerful enough to produce unanticipated and fantastically-destructive effects again implies "badass" rather than "harmless." The fact that Starlight would cast such spells without fully understanding them makes my point regarding the Lights and their tendency to be passionate and dangerous.
The time travel was part of the fight. It was also the object of the fight -- Starlight was trying to prevent the Sonic Rainboom and Twilight Sparkle was trying to stop her. The reason why Starlight and Twilight couldn't hurt each other was that they are well-matched in battle -- which is to say Starlight Glimmer is well-matched with the freaking ALICORN OF MAGIC, in a mgical duel. This does not speak of Starlight's relatively low power. This is again confirmed in The Crystalling, in which Starlight is able to cast spells alongside Alicorns as an equal contributor.
Starlight is not an Alicorn. Yet. The evidence is that if she Ascended, she would be one damn POWERFUL Alicorn.
(1) None of them were White. Our races don't exist in the EQG world. In fact, no races based on skin color can possibly exist in the EQG world, because skin color varies wildly even in families.
(2) How would being "white" make their school easy to take over?
(3) How would being full of "weirdos" make their school easy to take over?
(4) Not sure why Crystal Prep is the epitome of a school hard to take over.
Not sure why this is in your mind a list of non-elite, non-dangerous Humanoids. Sandalwood and Bright Idea haven't had that much characterization, so I can't really evaluate their threat levels; but Pinkie Pie is a physically-strong, immensely-energetic and highly-agile Reality Warper, and Vinyl Scratch apparently designed and built a car that transforms into a sound set (which implies some serious skills and intelligence). I would not want to get on Pinkie Pie's or Vinyl Scratch's bad sides, though since you've picked two amiable, benevolent characters, it would take a lot to do so.
The point is that this demonstrates that Sunset Shimmer is violent. And remember, this is Pony in Human Form Sunset Shimmer. She was raised in a less violent culture than were the Humanoids.
Oh, and she knew she was fighting an Alicorn. Remember, she'd seen Princess Twilight in Equestria. And fought her there, as well.
No, the Dazzlings had been re-empowered by Equestrian magic at that time. And you saw in the fight that the Dazzlings' magic was powerful enough to affect the Rainbooms through Twilight's shields. Did you actually watch the fight sequence?
What are you talking about? They fought with magic first; Sunset Shimmer won, transported both herself and Sci-Twi to the Cosmic Level, and then (after Sci-Twi was essentially at her mercy) Sunset Shimmer talked her out of the NIghtmare state. Which is in itself an achievement that implies awesome things about Sunset Shimmer's power level.
I think Sunset Shimmer has essentially Ascended -- she's an Alicorn now.
But not of her being brave or violent. That's more of an "ape with a gun" situation.
Or that being an alicorn has nothing to do with raw power. Which would be more in line with the ideas and values of the show.
A very small fraction of what they stole of what remained of the echoes of Element of Magic.
Y'know, as compared to running amok in actual Equestria where magic is everywhere and there are hundreds of magical beings just radiating magic in every direction.
Yeah, they're the guys who couldn't build a birdhouse and nearly cried when it fell apart. Not exactly macho warrior types.
Erm.. it would probably make more sense to assume that she bought it. It's somewhat more reasonable than teenager building a car.
And she's a recluse who spends her time listening to music instead of actually studying or talking to anyone, if her short is any indication.
In case my WKYK reference went unpickedup, CHS is the sort of school that looses every ACADECAthlon for years, and then just gives up, and then instead of cancelling the whole thing (which would take at least some balls), keeps showing up, fully expecting and accepting repeated public humiliation.
ELITE!
She did not fight Twilight in Equestria.
And she knew full well (or reasonably assumed) that Twilight had no magic in EQG-verse.
I stand corrected, a single blow was struck. Violent!
But not of "epic violence".
Also not power level. Magic of Frienship has nothing to do with power. I mean have you seen the Tirek episode at all?
You keep trying to move the goalposts here. I never argued against those ladies being totally awesome, because they all are. They're brave, powerful by any measure, inventive and all-around cool.
As are a lot of other characters of the show as well.
But you said, and I quote:
engaged in "epic scale violence" flat-out in the show.
They do some epic things, true. Sunset did couple of things that can be qualified as "violent" as well.
But the only (or nearly only) case in the vanilla show where there was epic violence was Twilight/Tirek fight. Other things were violent but not epic (as in Sunset's attempted murder, which, by the way, you yourself headcanon was when she was possessed by devil), or epic but not violent (e.g. Starlight reingeneering whole universe out of spite or Sunset talking to Midnight Sparkle).
Which - again - absolutely in line with a show being about Magic of Friendship and non-violent solutions, not Dragonball-Z.
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I'm not sure why you're so much more impressed by "guns" than you are by magic literally powerful enough to start destroying reality. In the SWSV, I straight-out say that what Starlight was doing was essentially a weaker form of the reality negation bolts that are the most powerful weapons of the Cosmic Concepts -- and this follows logically from what we see on the show.
But if you want something more "gun" like, in sheer vanilla-canon, the energy bolts Starlight is firing during the fight are slicing through and cutting in twain cloud-structures that we know to be pseudo-solid. There is no reason to think that their effects on unprotected Pony flesh would be anything but extremely destructive. Just because they're not hurting the magically-shielded and swiftly-dodging Twilight Sparkle doesn't mean they're weak.
Becoming an Alicorn requires that one be powerful, and it grants even greater magical power. What becoming an Alicorn also requires is enlightenment and the embodiment of an Element of Harmony or other Virtue (which is to say in mine and Alex's terms, a Concept). Starlight Glimmer may be able to Asciend: if she does, it will be because she has come to a proper understanding of her Concept (probably something like Fairness). If she does Ascend, she will become even more powerful.
A very small fraction of what they stole of what remained of the echoes of Element of Magic.
Yes, the Dazzlings were weaker in the Humanoid world than they would have been in the Pony one. (Of course, so were Princess Twilight and Sunset Shimmer). However, they really were throwing magical energy bolts at each other during that "song competition." This is made obvious by the fact that Princess Twilight is knocked back by one of them and loses the microphone. And all through that, both sides were protected by their own magic, which is why nobody was getting killed.
Again, I never claimed that Sandalwood and Bright Idea were particularly tough, though I'm not sure why you regard birdhouse-building as some sort of ultimate test of courage. However, if we go with your assumption and imagine them emotionally weak, why would this make Canterlot High School easy to take over? They're not its designated guardians or something.
(Mind you, I'm not sure why they were picked for the contest, and in particular the specific event. For all we know, though, they did better at other events, not pictured in the montage. They're probably creative and smart in general, and Sandalwood looks like he's in good physical shape).
Actually, there is a very long American tradition, dating back to at least the 1940's, of American teenagers building or at least extensively modifying cars. Google the term "jalopy" sometime. The implication of her tooling around in a non-standard car is that she modded it. The implication of her tooling around in a transforming non-standard car is that Humanoid Vinyl Scratch is a technical genius, in addition to her musical talent. Oh, and probably from a wealthy family, to afford the parts.
This is probably also the case for Pony Vinyl Scratch as well. The sound system Pony Vinyl Scratch uses is cutting-edge technology for the Pony world; it probably incorporates direct magic (and Pony Vinyl Scratch, notably, is a Unicorn). It seems quite likely the both of them are either mute, or very verbally shy.
She's still "amiable" and "benevolent." The terms mean "friendly" and "good-willed." She acts friendly in non-verbal ways -- she may be mute. And fighting to protect everyone else is certainly good-willed. And badass, for that matter.
This also reinforces the idea that she's highly intelligent, because if she doesn't actually listen to most f the lectures, yet is able to maintain her position in her classes, she must be smart. I speak from experience here.
I like that concept of Vinyl Scratch far better than the common fan notion that she's a drunk-sodden, drug-addled vulgar slut. In vanilla canon, neither of the Pony nor the Humanoid Vinyl Scratch has never been shown doing anything particular bad or destructive either to herself or others. Indeed, in Rainbow Rocks, Vinyl does something downright heroic -- she probably knew by then that the Dazzlings had dangerous psychic powers and malign intentions (since their powers couldn't affect her for the same reason that they couldn't affect Ulysses' crew).
Yes, she did. It was a running fight to the Mirror Portal, but it was a fight nevertheless.
Standing her ground would have been stupid, because her objective was to take the Crown and escape back to the Humanoid world. Sunset Shimmer is not stupid.
Actually, a protracted magical power contest, more like grappling in a wrestling match. But based on Princess Twilight Sparkle's flashback to Celestia and Luna's fight, we know what would have happened to Sunset if she had badly lost it -- she would have been seriously injured, probably surviving only because of Alicorn Regeneration (if she can access that power yet).
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Because that has no connection to "epic violence". Improving upon the Starswirl's Time-travel spell is a epic, but not violent.
You stated "in-show epic violence". I am more than willing to grant "epic", just not the "violence".
No, we do not know that. In fact we know the opposite, that is that without the pegasi magic or similar safeguards they could not support pony weight (or any weight, really).
No, there is very little basis for that in the show, actually.
To the first - Celestia, Luna and Flurry Heart were born alicorns, and Cadance was not a very powerful Pegasus when she became Princess. To the second - there was no marked increase of Twilight's power when she became an alicorn, and, moreover, it's been consistently shown that she is actually not even peak-unicorn level of power either pre- or post- becoming a Princess (e.g. inability to cast age-spells, equal duel with Sunset Glimmer, etc).
It's an inference born of the fact that Celestia and Luna are both alicorns and very powerful, but it's at best a tenuous one.
Just showing that this school is about as "elite" as any other expensive non-academically-oriented school.
yeah, getting a fixer-upper and making it run, and then maybe souping it up to run faster. Occam's razor kinda suggests that it's easier to imagine her buying a custom car than her being mechanics-and-electronics genius by age sixteen, and still working part-time over the counter, rather than in a workshop. Especially since it's neither the proficiency of her counterpart in Equestria nor her cutie-mark.
As for the "cutting edge" set-up Vinyl has in Equestria...it's not. Its not that different from what, say, Coloratura employs in her show, and there is no indication anywhere (e.g. in the last mlp episode) that this setup is somehow unusual.
You assume she has one. Which is actually not ever described anywhere. She could be flunking all her subjects for all we know.
She's been shown what, three? four? times at best.