"Monday Blues," et al. · 12:06pm Aug 7th, 2017
Okay, I really liked "Monday Blues." It had a moderately strong musical hook (though the closer was weak due to obligatory credits bit; any chance of an extended version with a proper end-chord or something?) Plus, It is always delightful to hear Rebecca S. perform a duet with herself; I like hearing the vocal placement choices she uses to distinguish (Sci)Twi and Sunset. Sunset's double finger-guns "lookin' good, kiddo" at her ridiculous bed-head was wonderfully in-character, and we finally get to see Sunny's digs (a loft-converted row-house seems just about right, and I love the random fairy-lights accent).
But what I'm missing is a real Sunset/Twilight duet. Of all the Humane 6 whose counterparts appear in Equestria, Sci-Twi is just... weird. Everypony else seems like a slightly stunted and more immature version of their pony self, but just Sci-Twi isn't. Remember pre-Friendship and early-Friendship Twilight? Sure, she was introverted, but she was also snarky, bossy, and incredibly temperamental. When Sci-Twi loses her umbrella in the rain and the school bus drives off without her, she just kinda looks woesome and then pulls out her spare umbrella. Yes, the spare umbrella is Twilight, through and through. But there's no smugness at having a spare umbrella. There's no petulant fury at the bus that rushed past her and immediately departed the station. It is really really difficult to see Sci-Twi (who admittedly literally became a dark angel of magic in canon) getting so worked up over Pinkie Sense that she lights herself on fire.
Science Twilight is the stereotypical mousy bookworm that Twilight Sparkle isn't. And I'm not sure what to feel about that.
Okay, but now you have to write a story about Sci-Twi getting worked up about Pinkie Sense and lighting herself on fire somehow. :V
SciTwi is a Twilight that spent her entire life relying almost entirely upon herself. She didn't have a Celestia to push her, so she had to push herself. Consequently she's not gonna have the same neurotic tendencies, cuz for regular Twi, those rely almost entirely around making sure Celestia is happy with her at all cost.
did you see the comparison between twilights and sunsets places side by side?
Twilight lives in a huge, fancy suburban castle-like house. She also went to a super prestigious high private school, at least at first. Was original flavor twilight coded to have this much of a silver spoon in her mouth?
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I would have said 'validation' of being the imperial princess's star student. SciTwi as we were introduced to her was still pretty damn neurotic, isolated, and was presented with a ferociously demanding authority-figure in the person of Principal Cinch. But, since Cinch is neither the god-empress of ponydom, nor a particularly admirable individual, there isn't that combination of adoration and need-to-please that warped pony Twilight. So SciTwi doesn't have that entitlement that drives pony-Twilights bossiness and arrogance, but she *does* have a good dollop of performance anxiety. And look how giddy she is to be taught directly by Principal Celestia in that new 'Subs Rock' short that aired over the weekend.
But yeah, SciTwi's more of a Science Woobie than Pony Twilight ever was. They even gave her a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds beat.
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Consider she was foalsat by a literal princess.
As has been noted, human Twilight has had a very different life than her pony counterpart. She never seemed to get singled out for greatness and personal tutelage by a positive role model. Instead, she basically went through more than a decade of magic kindergarten, at least in terms of the social environment. She shrank in on herself as a defensive measure. At this point, she's still learning how to drop her defenses.
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Aphrodite babysat her even before the God-Empress of Ponykind personally tutored her. The filly didn't exactly lead a typical life.
Yeah, Sci-Twi is maybe half (or less) the character that unicorn Twilight was. I recall Lauren Faust commenting on how she was proud that they managed to make Twilight a nerd without falling back on the cliches like glasses or a lack of confidence, so chalk up another reason that actually watching Equestria Girls would make her head explode. I don't actively dislike Sci-Twi, she's cute and all, but she's not really Twilight at heart.
I'd probably blame two converging things for that:
Number one, needing the split the lead of the franchise with Sunset Shimmer. I have no idea how necessary it was from a marketing standpoint, but narratively they probably should have stuck with the original ending of "The Friendship Games" where Sci-Twi goes back to Crystal Prep (or really, have never introduced her at all.) She doesn't really bring a dynamic that was missing from the Mane group in E.G. The thing is, even with as much as they've raised Sunset up to be a lead character, they have also carved her out a unique enough role in the group as the empathetic counselor of the friends that I think she could co-exist with full-on Twilight without them stepping on each other's toes.
Number two, however, was the fact that "unicorn" Twilight's full personality has been waning over the years anyway, and it's possible that the people making both shows now default her to a fretting ball of neurosis and adorkablity rather than the more confident, sometimes-full-of-herself, often acerbic, take-charge Pony that she used to be. I almost suspect that Hasbro once sent down a note suggesting that Twilight scowled too often, and now that she was a princess she shouldn't be so angry or frustrated.
As for the in-universe reasons for the differences between Sci-Twi and Pony Twi, we probably shouldn't discount Spike either... considering the amount of their lives that they've spent together, they surely influenced each other a great deal, and I can't imagine that one of them getting a talking #1 assistant and the other getting a normal (if oddly colored) dog wouldn't tip the scales in favor of Pony Twi's development to a major degree.
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I know that they (and/or the fandom) have simply run with it at this point, but with those original flashback scenes of Cadance sitting for Twilight, I've often wondered if they actively intended them to be prior to Twilight becoming Celestia's personal student or if they simply used the filly Twilight model sans cutie mark without giving it much thought or even by mistake.
That tiny difference makes huge changes in how we view the characters. In one, Celestia tasks her niece to watch over her new student, who has moved into the castle... perfectly logical. In the other, the only other known alicorn princess in existence takes babysitting jobs for random families, and Twilight seems to have a palatial bedroom suggesting a great deal of wealth.
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It's almost as though the fandom ascribes great meaning to trivial background details and-or mistakes.
Consider this, perhaps:
With Twilight, the spare umbrella is very much, "Well, well, well, looks like somepony planned for just such an eventuality."
With SciTwi, it's instead, "Lost my umbrella, just like always. Hope I don't lose this one too, even though I probably will."
Different circumstances growing up can greatly influence development, sure, but I think the most critical factor is the presence/absence of Celestia.
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My headcanon for Twilight's family is that she's from an old Canterlot family with long traditions in both civil service and in the military, and that her parents are high-ranking administrators or academics of some sort. So they're not exactly nobles, but they are wealthy and important ponies, in an understated way. Which means they would be the kind of a family that Cadence might babysit for.
And yeah, Twilight's massively privileged, that's been obvious for a long time now. But she never flaunts it or lords over others; while she can be arrogant sometimes, it's more of an intellectual sort of an arrogance. "Obviously, I know better!" and "I'm surrounded by idiots!"
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You just know it would be by accident or something.
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I had the idea that Twilight's parents, with their night-themed Cutie Marks, were both astronomers who relocated to Canterlot when Celestia started recruiting the best in that field for a detailed star charting and tracking project in the decades before a certain prophecy was to come to pass. They met, fell in love, married, and Twilight Velvet took up writing while on maternity leave with Shining Armor.
(I actually have a half-finished picture that I'm still working on, based on that idea.)
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Ooh, that's a good one, and makes a ton of sense!
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Very reasonable. Personally, I needed a Twilight Velvet headcanon that encompassed the one thing we know about her.
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Yeah, that makes sense, although Sci seems pretty happy with her spare umbrella, so I don't know if I would tack on the pessimistic coda. The rest, I'll buy.
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Pff, nonsense. That's silly. You're silly. Meanwhile, Seasons 1-4 take place in a single year, right, because of that one line in the S4 premiere slightly implying that.
And yea, SciTwi to me is the Luckless Twilight who never had a rainboom moment. She's the 'I'm sorry I wasted your time' Twilight slinking home from her exam, who always dwells on that one failure and from that moment on never believes she's truly good enough. She strives, but deep down there's always that doubt, and so when bad things happen it's just further validation of her neuroses.
4626686 Yes, and the stallion Spitfire is the captain of the Wonderbolts (I have this card, by the way)
strawberryreef.com/images/backcards/G4/blindbag_7_soarin.jpg
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"The bus left me behind, and so did my umbrella. Oh well. I sure am lucky to have you, spare umbrella. You won't leave me behind like everyone else , right?"
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Ouch ouch ouch
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Obviously blind bag cards are to be considered hard canon.
Nice seeing the juxtaposition of Sunset and Sci-Twi. Analog vs Digital seems to speak volumes. Also, thanks for the heads up this exists. The song brings me back to the 80's or at least certainly has echoes of 80's films.
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4626538 I see a lot of good analyses of the different Twilights' various upbringings and experiences, and how they shaped both gals into fundamentally different people. But have you considered: Human Moon Dancer switched at birth with Twilight and dyes herself a different color to look like her parents?
4626870 Or Soarin' has had some (ahem) work done.
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The words were there, so I naturally assumed you were challenging me.
Maybe that'll learn you a thing or two.
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And also changes her name to Twilight?
That's some legit Single White Female stuff going on.
4627134 Yeah, it's the kind of mad behavior you might see from a girl who builds a sapient AI to give her dog a girlfriend.
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COME ON LIKE THAT WOULD EVER HAPPEN
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Canon or non-canon. There is no mistake.
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Huh. Have we seen a human Moondancer yet?
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4627242 My guess is that human Moondancer is at Everton, being taught by the most professional Principal in the world.
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Aw, man, Everton must be the best.
4627539 The real shame is that Crystal Prep could have been the best. But hiring negotiations between a particular prospect broke down because the school board refused to change the school sport from archery to riding a scooter through a hoop, so they had to settle for Abacus Cinch.
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We were so close to living in the best of all possible worlds.
Unfortunately, the closest thing we have to canon, the comics, suggest that the HW is a mere teacher at CHS. Blasphemy!
4626602 One easy solution is that Cadence was already dating Shining Armor, and thus while Twi missed it, possibly until well after their wedding, they were dating for a long while so her babysitting her boyfriend's sister as a favor is not silly at all. She then continued because Twi is Twi and clearly they got along great.
4626589 We have seen some normal colored animals, even mostly normal colored, but based on the human skin tone palette purple may in fact be an entirely normal dog color. Or Sci-Twi still doesn't know how she turned Spike purple and green and gave up trying to make him the normal colors he was born with again.