Magic Is Believing/Starfleet Magic: A Character Study · 3:44am Nov 23rd, 2017
Strap in, laddies, this’ll be a long one.
So, you know how characters are supposed to function, right? Especially ones in significant roles in their stories. In a good story, they learn, change and evolve, they have multiple facets and flaws, and they have some manner of sympathetic qualities that make you care about them and what happens to them.
The infamous author of our six-month project has no such ideas about characters. Judging from both public discussions he’s had with detractors and private one-on-ones I’ve had with him, he prefers characters to be flat, have exactly one trait to their name, and nothing else. He uses them as tools to move along the “good” parts (mostly dull action), and treats anything else as an obstacle.
Problem is, that does nothing to invest you in those characters. And shockingly, he DID toss in some sort of kiddie-pool depth to a FEW of his characters (mainly his self-insert and his main lead), but none of it really WORKS because the characters haven’t worked up to that point. It just... sort of happens.
Can characters be flat and one-note? Sure they can; you can’t necessarily be expected to build an entire backstory around bit players that only exist for a single scene (unless you look at the Star Wars EU). Hell, if they do something amusing enough, that bit character can stand out as memorable and STEAL that scene. I can point you to a fair number of the Pokémon anime’s gym leaders as examples, especially early ones like Lt. Surge and Sabrina. Shit, the farmer with the shotgun from the very first scene of Dragon Ball Z didn’t do a damn thing except demonstrate that Raditz wasn’t fazed by bullets, but he ended up being the highlight of that scene anyway, and Abridged ran with that gleefully.
But that doesn’t work for MAIN characters. “Quirky” only carries a character so far, and the moment the quirk wears out its welcome - and that can happen VERY quickly when that’s all there is to a main star - you lose any interest in the characters, and in fact might even start to actively dislike them. In the worst cases, you end up letting out the eight deadly words that kill any work of fiction dead in its tracks: “I don’t care what happens to these people.” To be more colorful about it, here’s a quote from Red Letter Media’s Mike Stoklasa (specifically about Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem):
"You need characters that you care about, and you need emotional investment. And then the action and special effects and the slime and the aliens and the coolness is the icing on the cake. But you need a cake to put icing on it. You can't just eat the frosting, or else, uh, it's too sugary and it's bad for you, and you get the diabetes."
This is the second most annoying thing I notice in “Magic Is Believing” and the Starfleet series, and it also ties directly into the FIRST most annoying thing: this isn’t, at its core, a bad setting or premise at all. I can look at the story and imagine a rich tapestry, a world apart from Equestria with its own separate culture and a colorful cast of general goofballs that end up becoming heroes by a combination of destiny and dumb luck.
But you can’t force that to work when you actually READ this saga. The characters are all icing and no cake; just a pile of catch-phrases, one singular talent that may or may not be told and never shown (his female characters are lucky at this point to even have THAT), and NOTHING to endear themselves to a reader. Put them within a narrative structure that doesn’t even TRY to hide its borderline plagiarism of a whole host of works - from outright copying of song lyrics, to modeling the first chapters identically to the pilot of a show he’d supposedly not seen by that point, to spending most of its runtime on Power Rangers-esque monster-of-the-week plots - and the potential gets buried under a pile of shit.
It bothered me enough that I decided... why not try and flesh out these characters? Why not encourage a response other than pure, empty indifference? I’m probably not going to make a whole story about it - unfinished nature of “Digital Harmony” aside (though I’m starting to nudge towards progress on it), there are a bunch of people who have already done that - but it’s been rattling in my mind for the last month and refuses to go away. So I’m gonna go ahead and do a little... renovation.
What this is gonna be is an examination of the original cast circa MLU/Starfleet 1 and what they presently are, in the context of the Mykanon, and an effort to take the hollow shells and fill them with something wholesome and fulfilling, which might even lead to new names for the reimagined entities. I may fuck up horribly, and you guys may come up with much better ideas than I could, but in the end, I’ll still be putting more thought into these stories than their author does/did.
Before we kick this off, a bit about how I’m treating the world. Unicornicopia and Starfleet aren’t going to be super changed from how they’re shown in the story, since that’s not even remotely the point of this study. The characters are largely being re-imagined as basic unicorns whose magic I may or may not have thought of like superpowers, but other than that, I’m keeping the setting largely untarnished (except a blurb in Celesto’s portion).
Anyway, on with the show. We’ll begin with our lead.
Lightning Dawn
- Starfleet: Lightning Dawn is basically the ultimate boring hero. His only real claims to fame are his complete reliance on other people (in stark defiance of the author’s own anti-friendship message), his inability to channel magic on his own, and... apparently a secret alien background that, if you’d told me it was ripped from MCU Star-Lord, I would not be surprised.
- Fix: Outwardly, I imagine Lightning as, at first, an awkward guy who fares poorly in social situations because he just kind of assumes he’s gonna catch shit for his lack of magic, which sometimes he brings on himself with that exact attitude. It’s not hard to see his inability to use magic as a massive sore spot and the source of some deep-rooted self-doubt and insecurities, which could lead to him leaning harder and harder on the support of his friends until he can be pushed to solve the issue on his own (preferably in a way other than his stupid deus ex machina wand). His physical fitness regimen he SUPPOSEDLY already has in canon probably suits him better as another method of self-imposed compensation than as a mandate from the boss man. Speaking of, I can imagine him only making it under the Grand Ruler’s wing AFTER he manages to get (some important part of) Unicornicopia out of trouble. Under his watch, and with a growing stable of friends to lean on and grow with, we can see his confidence boosting little by little as he starts carving out a niche in the crew for skillfully solving problems magic can’t. As for his “Enticorn” origins... Almost paradoxically, the thing that was given to him to spice him up is the most boring thing about him, and I can’t muster the brainpower to retool that without removing it entirely. I think it feels a lot more natural, a lot more grounded, if Lightning’s lack of magic is the result of something simpler. Maybe it’s something psychosomatic that he accidentally, subconsciously put on himself at a young age because his peers all harnessed their own magics before him, leading the late bloomer to feel crushed and think he’d never had it. And it’d be a killer character arc for him, too - the more time he spends in Starfleet, and the more he starts to believe in himself and his own abilities, the closer he gets to breaking that barrier down and finally unleashing his dormant magic, right when the world needs him most (BAM, power of belief done right). That magic, ultimately... well, I’m still high on Thor: Ragnarok, but I’d like it to be based on Lightning’s namesake, harnessing the power of the storm to summon bolts of electricity.
Also it gives the story an excuse to say Lightning strikes. - Rename? Lightning Dawn is a fairly boring hero name for an Equestria-based setting, though it does sort of nudge against the naming convention Twilight Sparkle has come to share with Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer. I dunno, I could take it or leave it.
Krysta
- Starfleet: Apart from a secret royal background, she’s nothing but the quippy sidekick. When Mykan even cares to remember her existence.
- Fix: Trying to explain the presence of a fairy in an MLP-based setting is far beyond the scope of this piece, so we’ll work with Krysta as she is. I envision her as a good-natured, but sometimes ditzy, companion for Lightning as he’s trying to make his way in Unicornicopia, encouraging him to not be so down on himself and start leaning into what he’s good at instead of dwelling on what he can’t do. Someone who’s peppy and positive, like a more subdued Pinkie Pie, and who serves as an optimistic foil for Lightning’s self-doubt. She’d become fast friends with the companions they meet along the way, of course, but the dynamic between Krysta and Lightning would be the emotional cornerstone of a better series, the ups and downs of their friendship underscoring their world-defending. As for her role as “Queen Krystalline,” I don’t feel that at all; it’s just a vehicle for making a character special without actually making her FEEL special to the reader. She works better as just a normal fairy (or hell, maybe even a pony like the rest), special in being Lightning’s chief emotional anchor and his first, truest friend. What more could you ask for?
- Rename? A fairy named Krysta in a lead role has parallels to FernGully that are too obvious to be accidental, so she’d need it. I don’t see her as beholden to pony naming conventions (unless that change does get made), so it should be something with a fantastical, whimsical edge. I, unfortunately, have NO idea how to name fairies; I’d probably end up running it through a Dungeons & Dragons name generator. A commenter linked me a generator, and I got the name "Dandelia" out of it, which I think is perfect.
Grand Ruler Celesto
- Starfleet: The super-special-awesome self-insert king-man. Who also crushes hardcore on Celestia.
- Fix: Celesto needs actual substance to stand out as his own character and distance himself from the image of Mykan’s influence and Celestia’s love object. I do see him with aspects of Celestia - a certain sternness offset by a somewhat laidback demeanor - but I can also imagine him being characterized in large part by the way Unicornicopia itself runs. Maybe a number of the rules and laws put in place are a series of vast over-corrections to fix problems that probably needed more nuance and finesse to really iron out, and at the start of the story, public opinion of him isn’t exactly rosy. Lightning himself would probably be nervous about meeting him face to face, having little to go off of but word of his lawmaking tendencies and what other subjects thought of him, but as he spends more time within the defense force, that image chips away and gets replaced with a cross-generational kinship deeper than just their boss-employee or master-student relationship. The nature of his magic... perhaps some command over heavenly bodies to imply SOME tie to Celestia. A suggestion I got from our very own Crazy56U would make Celesto a brother to Celestia rather than a lover, a scorned sibling who stormed off after a major argument long enough ago that Luna wouldn’t remember, after which Celestia wouldn’t even mention him. Which I THINK would put them at a very young age indeed, adolescent if not straight-up children (long before the sisters were revered and depicted in murals and portraits), and give some context to why Celesto overcorrects and overcompensates: maybe he insulated himself and never grew out of it.
- Rename? Absolutely, because the derivative nature of the name is more obvious here than it was with Krysta. It should be something that gives an impression of benevolent power, maybe a pseudonym he’s used since parting with Equestria that obfuscates his connection to the royal sisters. “Light Reign” is a... start? And I think that, with the life he’s carved out in Unicornicopia, his real name is rendered irrelevant, if not entirely forgotten.
Buddy Rose
- Starfleet: Buddy’s the plant guy. With a dead family, I guess, which seems to be a running theme.
- Fix: I envision Buddy as a laidback guy, someone who seems to just take everything calmly in stride and not let anything get to him. In that sense, he’d play nicely off a Lightning wracked with self-esteem issues who internalizes a lot of things. His magic might be one of the more impressive strains, using a strange connection to the soul of the world to manipulate and summon flora at will, though he also possesses a thorny whip. Unfortunately, his magic is so potent that he leans on it in most hairy situations and tends to feel lost without it, making him feel helpless in situations where there are no plants to call upon and his whip is the only thing he has to work with. It’s a shame, too, because Buddy’s actually Indiana Jones-level good with that whip; in trying to push him to not clam up when he can’t go with his magic, Lightning starts having a few epiphanies about how he’s somewhat doing the same thing.
- Rename? Maybe not; it’s an “eh” name, but it sounds proper for the setting and fits his character well enough.
Artie
- Starfleet: He’s... well... the artist. And nothing else.
- Fix: Artie would probably be Rhymey’s bestie, a master of physical arts while Rhymey wields the written word. His is a gentle soul, a kind heart who revels in the splendor of his surroundings and dislikes violence in all its forms. He seems the most likely to me to take up a pacifistic stance, resisting the need to rough something up even when all other options have been exhausted. Lightning, who’s been honing his body in the absence of his magic, would be taken aback by Artie’s sheer resistance to any form of combat, especially with his ability to craft temporary constructs with his brush and his proficiency with a bo staff both being useful things to have in a hostile situation. Artie will eventually have to relent at some point, but in the meantime, he’ll have a lot to teach the new cadet about the art of pacifism and diplomacy, ideally leading up to a role reversal where Artie takes a combat stance and Lightning ends up talking the threat down.
- Rename? Probably for the best. I’d like it to be something that covers both his artistry and his pacifism, like “Soft Stroke” (which, unless an author wanted to turn it into a minor running gag, should probably be something less sexual-sounding).
Rhymey
- Starfleet: The one who rhymes all the fucking time. And somehow dates Fluttershy.
- Fix: Rhymey would be proficient with a sword, and it would show BEYOND some stupid special attack. I can see him tutoring Lightning in swordplay, starting small with fencing before working up to proper blades. In terms of his personality... leaning into his swordsman thing, I imagine similarities to The Princess Bride’s Inigo Montoya, with a cocky attitude in battle and an unstoppable resolve. I’d also picture him as the first one with a retort for just about anything, and the most likely to snark in the face of danger. Rhyming exclusively is absolutely out of the question; while Zecora pulls it off, she’s ALSO not a core character in her show, and you can look to Wheelie in the ‘86 Transformers movie to see why that doesn’t work with a major supporting character. Instead, I think Rhymey would just be a guy with a song in his heart all the time, improvising ditties and limericks to... varying degrees of success. He’d probably also be very forward-thinking, as opposed to Lightning dwelling on the mistakes of his past, and encourage the new guy to instead keep his eye on the next victory. As for his magic, which I don’t even think I mentioned yet... well, I imagine him as a D&D-style bard, channeling his magic into his words and using them to bolster his friends’ skills in combat when he’s not in there himself with his sword.
Also he’ll probably spam Vicious Mockery. - Rename? Probably necessary if his previous defining quirk is being downplayed. Something that screams “I’m as good with the pen as I am with the sword.” “Sharp Wit” seems like a good place to start brainstorming...
Brain
- Starfleet: The smart guy and one of the most egregious catchphrase engines.
- Fix: Brain is, naturally, the brains of the operation, but where his only other trait in the original is his British accent, I can see him as the eldest of the active crew, a wild eccentric like the Doctor, and a mad inventor like Transformers G1 Wheeljack. A tinkerer from a young age, he’s put his skills to good use at Starfleet, his designs setting a template for a lot of their universally used tech even as he keeps cranking out more. However, either because his age is catching up to his mind and magic, there’s not much left to actually make, or he’s always had this track record, most of what he makes now is just as liable to explode as it is to work as intended. Not that it gets him down, though, because he’s also been around long enough to have unique insight into how a lot of things work, providing valuable intel for numerous missions. His specific brand of magic would be technopathy and ferromancy, the manipulation of metals and electronics to craft his wares.
- Rename? Most likely. I admit my first idea was “Brain Blast” a la Jimmy Neutron, so now I don’t trust myself to give him one.
Cookie Dough
- Starfleet: Chef. Full stop.
- Fix: Basically, on the surface, Cookie Dough’s indeed the chef of the group, and an impeccable one at that. He takes pride in his work, and he’s among the most accomplished cooks in the joint, able to make a workable meal out of damn near everything. This would be a fantastic skill to have on missions where things go south and they get screwed on rations, and while there may need to be magic involved to make something out of legitimately inedible material, there’s none involved in making his regular menu. He’s one of a decent number of people Lightning will observe carving a niche with a minimum application of magic, but it continues to bring him down that he’s out there on the field while the others who don’t use it are in support roles. Cookie Dough would be among the chorus of voices telling him “Nah, man, you’ve been doing fine without magic,” and it would eventually stick little by little the more he actually does do right.
- Rename? IIIIIII don’t think he needs it too much. The name’s inoffensive enough, and sounds close enough to a name someone with half a care would give a pony OC.
Abra-Kadabra
- Starfleet: Stage magician a la Trixie. That’s literally it.
- Fix: Abra’s probably more of a support role as opposed to a main cast member, but I imagine he doesn’t have the strongest of magics and compensates by keeping away from the front lines. What he’s masterful in, however, is sleight-of-hand tricks and illusions. Those serve him well in action when the situation calls for subterfuge or deception, but moments like those are few and far between, so it suits him better to pursue stage magic. He’s a fairly eccentric individual and an exceptional showman, knowing exactly what it takes to put on a magic show for a race of magic users and still have it be a jaw-dropping spectacle. He could be part of a greater lesson for Lightning, being someone who does a lot of things with not a lot of magic.
- Rename? Might not be needed. If I did, it’d be a pun on a famous magician’s name, most likely. Maybe “Copper Card” after David Copperfield.
Starla Shine
- Starfleet: Generic love interest who uses her astronomy proficiency exactly once and looks exactly like Rarity. Also dead parents because of fucking course.
- Fix: I picture Starla as a stargazer with a major feeling of wanderlust, a restless spirit who seldom feels at home in Unicornicopia and wants to just get out and go, exploring the stars she studies so tirelessly. This drive is likely her primary reason for joining up with this program in the first place, since space travel comes with the territory; hell, I can see it being her who discovers and makes first contact with Equestria, in an epilogue/stinger after the main story wraps. If there has to be a romantic interest for Lightning, and if it has to be her, I’d drag the ultimate pairing out for as long as I could, probably not sowing the seeds of romance until the midway point and making it all will-they-won’t-they until the very end. Shit, maybe it doesn’t even come up again after the initial sowing UNTIL a will-they-won’t-they thing AT the end; gives them space to actually be characters and something to still strive for in case a second story manifests of a rewrite. They’d most likely bond over their feelings of discomfort and not belonging, likening Lightning’s magic woes to Starla’s desperate search for SOMETHING more. I see her magic as more straightforward and combative, channeling the energy of the stars and focusing them into beams of searing light - and expelling them from whatever extremity makes more practical sense in the current context, usually her forehooves or her horn, or looks coolest for a scene. Seriously, imagine her kicking lasers at people from behind!
- Rename? Maaaaaaaaaaaybe not? For similar reasons to Lightning, I’m unsure what I should really do about Starla.
Inquirius
- Starfleet: Librarian (I think), who talks only in questions.
- Fix: Well, apparently she doesn’t exist beyond the first story and the in-universe explanation is she retired between stories (the author’s own was that he didn’t know what to do with her), but I think we can use her beyond that. With that in mind, I’d say she’s an aging historian, a bookkeeper who keeps Starfleet’s records and accounts in order, much further in the background than most of the other characters discussed here. She’ll be able to ACTUALLY TALK, and her normal day-to-day interactions are done with regular conversational language, but she also tends to be one of the most common advice givers in the group. And when she dispenses that advice, it’s frequently in the form of rhetorical questions; she’s straightforward when she can be, but she’s been in this business long enough to know when someone needs to come to their own answers. This is going to be a constant source of frustration for Lightning, who for a while thinks of her as cryptic and unhelpful when he needs her most, but the epiphanies she steers him towards end up leaving a much more profound impact on him when they come to him on their own, and it takes him a bit to realize that’s how she works. I’d say her magic manifests as a supernatural intuition, something like Steven Universe’s Garnet and her branching-path future vision, but vaguer in clarity. She can get an impression of someone’s past woes, future struggles, and current inner battles, which gives her a unique insight into how to help people find their path. In conclusion, can we just draw attention to how much I had to say about a character Mykan couldn’t be arsed to find a place for?
- Rename? Apparently the name was ripped right from a race/planet from some Power Rangers series, so we’d need something a bit less literally-stolen. Crazy has suggested “Sergey Page,” a pun on “search page” and an amalgamation of the names of Google’s founders.
Penny Sillion
- Starfleet: The doctor. That’s it.
- Fix: If I had to slap a template on Penny for a character, I’d say Ratchet, the original Autobot field medic. Expert in patching people up, but always haunted by the ones they fail to save. She’ll probably be more of a side character, as she basically is in the original, but still one with a function that makes her indispensable to the crew. I see her as good-natured, almost motherly in her care, but if her patient’s condition starts to decline, her confidence takes a clear hit and her attempts to heal become magnitudes more desperate. Her magic serves her clerical role, cast with care and skill until her patient goes critical and she can’t suss out why. I don’t see a lot of characters needing a background of death and tragedy to make them interesting, but it always seems to work well when the character’s a medic in a dangerous field; it makes sense to me for Penny to have a mostly perfect track record with ONE blemish, but that blemish has left a profound impact on her and made her that much more driven to make the injured and sick well again, a fire-forged resolve that Lightning can take inspiration from.
- Rename? Yes, because this pun HURTS. Crazy suggested “Mal Practice,” which is also a cringey pun but one laced with an irony I can’t help but love.
Dyno and Myte
- Starfleet: Twins. And pyros. And Hispanic stereotypes. Because they’re brown, GET IT?
- Fix: I like the idea them being brother and sister rather than both brothers; just something to distinguish them from one another on even the basest, most superficial level. They were later additions to the crew, if I recall, and I think a good way to adapt that is the pyromancer duo being stuck doing community service after one “unlicensed demolition” too many and joining up with Starfleet the moment they get off it so they can put their talents to more... “formal” use. The two will still be quite like-minded - brash, loud, cocky, ready to solve any problem by exploding it away - but their differences start manifesting from their approaches to the ‘splodey. Brother Dyno would be the technical one, engineering blasts with more care and finesse so he’s got the perfect bang for Starfleet’s buck; and sister Myte would be the straight-up pyro, making blasts as huge as possible just for the sheer joy of watching them burn. Neither of them deal in subtlety either in craft or in person, always outward with their feelings and blunt with their remarks, and this will lead to minor spats between the two more than once.
- Rename? Maybe, but it’d probably just end up along the same sort of naming convention they already use. Fuckin’... I dunno, “Nitro Charge” and “Pyro Burst?” Those sound like unused Transformer names...
If you’ve made it this far, you’ll realize that this omits original characters that were introduced after “Starfleet Magic,” as well as the villain characters. The former I’m excusing as both not having read most of Starfleet and focusing mainly on characters that made up the cast of “Magic Is Believing,” considering we’re wrapping the riff this week. As for the latter... well, on top of my straight-up not caring about the villains enough to give them the same spotlight as the heroes, I don’t think a hypothetical story structured around this group would HAVE a readily apparent central threat until late into the thing. Also, look at how goddamn long this blog is already.
On that note... that’s my needlessly extensive character study on a story without character. Honestly, I think there’s a lot of potential in this setup, and even if I’m not the one to make it happen, I’d love it if this template took shape into a proper story of its own.
If you wanna read the riff of the story that prompted this meditation on character crafting, here’s all six parts of it. And if you liked what I set up here and wanna see me dig deeper into this re-imagining (or hate all I stand for and would delight in watching my house burn down), make a stink in the comments. You guys might have input I wouldn’t even have considered, and lord knows I can work with that.
*Claps* Bravo, I love these ideas. Even though some of these ideas omit my favorite parts of these characters (i.e Buddy's relationship with his cousin and Starla's desire to be awesome) These work really well. I am impressed that, you've managed to do something good with Rhymey.
4732772
I don't remember those facets of Buddy and Starla from the chunks of "Magic Is Believing" I managed to slog through attentively, and TV Tropes certainly didn't have any mention of the latter one of those. I saw Buddy's cousin in the character subpage, though (because of course there's a fucking character subpage for a Starfleet FUCKING Magic page on TV Tropes).
Besides, I think this Starla already IS awesome and works better striving for something less shallow. But if this ever panned out to a story, Buddy's cousin is probably more than workable.
Encore!
Some great ideas here, and I especially love that you want to put the bond between Lightning and Krysta at the heart of the story...and to me I think that's where you need the Enticorn backstory, or at least the space orphan/planet destroyed backstory that Lightning has. Yes, it has problems, but it also creates a great paralell between Lightning and Krysta that is never made anything of in the stories.
Lightning knew his family, his parents, his home (not that he remembers any details for us, but anyway), and he had it all ripped away from him.
Krysta doesn't remember anything, she has no memories of her past, and everything before she met up with Lightning is a mystery. She searches for answers, but with no idea where to even start looking there's little hope of actually finding any.
So which of them is the more fortunate: the one who remembers a past he can never get back or the one who's searching for something that she can't remember? They're foils to one another in that regard.
http://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/
Fairy Name-Generator
Fairy Name-Generator - Legend-of-Zelda
4733202
Exactly. Just like that. It gave me a first name "Dandelia," which I actually like.
4733127
I refuse to believe that parallel was on purpose. Mykan is not a clever man.
Besides that, while I like the spin you put on it, I think I at least re-framed Lightning well enough that HE wouldn't need that anymore; Krysta I'm still fairly sure wouldn't need it either, but it COULD at least give an excuse for a fairy in a world of ponies. I get the impression that the only reason those backstories exist in the original work is because Mykan got a fraction of a clue and realized his leads needed SOME kind of development, but dramatically overcompensated and gave them something to look special when they never FELT special. And given his reported neglect of Krysta in later Starfleet works, it was SO wasted.
With some thought, I guess I could take or leave Krysta's, but it could be tweaked and made somewhat more down-to-earth to parallel better with the one I concocted for Lightning, which I like a lot better.
Will you do one for the villains?
4733627
I'm not sure, for the reasons I explained at the end.
I kinda like the name "Starla Shine".