What does her butt stamp mean?

How does her ass-tat represent her inner self, and what is her special talent?

The movies and comics have left this one pretty much entirely up in the air, so there's a lot of valid interpretations.

What's your headcanon? How have you used Sunset's cutie mark in your own stories?

What about that symbol makes Sunset Sunset?

4184205 Actually, that concept eludes me. I'd go as far as to say that she got her Cutie Mark for being able to utilize the sun for other purposes. Not god-like like Celestia, I mean enhancing the sun's powers to benefit the landscape around her, helping plants and trees to grow, and generally making it hotter in places that don't really feel all that hot.

As for Sunset, I've never really mentioned her Cutie Mark having any real significance to the actual plot. I just see it as the symbol she earned in Equestria, similar to that of Twilight and the rest of the Mane 6. As for headcanons, there could be hundreds and hundreds of them, waiting to be unleashed. While I have no definitive answer, my headcanon above is the one that I think fits the best.

4184205
The fact that the center of it resembles a yin-yang so closely makes me think that part of her special talent might be in finding balance... she may have gone off the deep end prior to and during EQG1, but now that she's back on the right track she's demonstrated that she's capable of being a level-headed leader and in 'balancing out' the more extreme traits of her new friends.

Sure, she can swing between extremes herself, such as taking rash action to stop Dash from showing off her magic during the Battle of the Bands and conversely being downright timid in expressing her concerns to others, but it's like the man said: Balance isn't about staying in the middle; it's about knowing when and how far to tip the scales,

EDIT: And WTF, whay are there a billion Sunset Shimmer threads today; I'm I missing the joke or something?

It means she's solar powered.

Being in the sun recharges her mana reserves and her physical energy too.

Sorta like Superman, but nowhere near that level of power now for Sunset.

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I saw a bandwagon happening and I decided to jump on top of it.

Though I'm coming up to a point in my own story where her cutie mark comes up, and I was curious to see how other people were interpreting it.

I always assumed that her special talent was proficiency in pyrokinetic magic.

It means that, like the sun, she's really, really hot.

If we go by what the comics state, her talent is about how she can achieve any goal that she puts her mind to.

4184934 Do the comics actually state this? Which one? I saw a headcanon analysis along the same lines as that, but it was just that, headcanon.

Annual 2013.

Hmm… I've not really thought about Sunset's symbol as a whole. So hold on a second while I pull an explanation out of the usual place.

The basic shape of her CM is the Sun, very similar to Celestia's own CM. This could stand for Sunset's former status as a light in the darkness of Celestia's life, as well as her original destiny of being that very thing to the rest of Equestria. Also, she is extremely bright (pun absolutely intended). It's very likely Sunset herself saw it as her needing to live up to Celestia's example and expectations. Although… we all know how well that worked out.

But, in the middle of the sun is a yin-yang symbol. This of course represents balance between two extremes. In this case, it's a stark reminder of Sunset's own dual nature – the hot-headed arrogant bitch versus the whip-smart awkward girl who only aims to please. Also note the yin-yang itself is broken, appearing to depict two faces, one smiling and one frowning. This could further demonstrate the two sides of her personality.

I've always believed that Sunset had both a superiority complex and an inferiority complex. Each triggers in different situations and both stem from her jealousy of others. Taking that rainbow to the face stripped away any notion that she could be superior to anyone, leaving only her deeply ingrained beliefs of inferiority, that she'd repressed since becoming Celestia's protege.

4184414

"It means that, like the sun, she's really, really hot."

;)

But, on topic, I like the way Jondor described the CM origin during a flashback scene in http://www.fimfiction.net/story/222956/my-beloved-student-sunset-shimmer. It's more a "why it might look like it does" than a "this is what her talent is," but I've always been a fan of the scene setting here and the exchange between her and Celestia.

4184205

It represents magic, just like Twilight's mark.

Additionally, the fact that it resembles a sun suggests an admiration of Celestia and a wish to become like her. Possibly, that was her problem to begin with - Twilight also idolizes Celestia, but loves magic just for the sake of magic and wants to learn just for the sake of learning. She sees Celestia as the one who set her on the path and started her journey, while Sunset saw Celestia as the goal. In other words, Sunset was simply too ambition-driven, which is why she felt dissatisfied with her progress and ended up rebelling.

...Hell, now I want to write a story about this.

I've seen it described as being a symbol of her passion, and expanded that to also include ambition, both of which are double-edged swords. In my headcanon, she earned it when she decided that she would stand out in such a way as to never be forgotten.

Needless to say, she got what she wished for in more ways than one.

4184205
Honestly I haven't given thought to what her mark represents. I suppose it could represent her passion, her drive... but the ideas about it being representative of harmony are intriguing. Harmony in my world is the balance of Order and Chaos... if Twilight's Mark is Harmony... hmm... that could work. Both mean the same, but are opposites of each other. Twilight is on the order side of things, while Sunset is on the Chaos side, but both have aspects of the other as well. Could Sunset be on her own path of Ascension? So many ideas

The first words of her character song upon obtaining her magic, are literally and i quote "Never gonna bring me down, Never gonna break this part of me.". And we see in the credits a sunset has all the confidence she had as a villain back, as she's meant to be she is supposed to be incredibly sure of herself.

It represents, her fire, her ambition in a way but more importantly.. Her confidence and determination. That would be my best guess.
The yin/yang symbolism might also represent eventually achieving harmony.

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Sunset did have the same destiny as Twilight did, become a princess. But she changed her own destiny after she got her mark and went into the portal. And I don't think cutie marks work on the takesies backsies rules.

Twilight's has the five smaller stars representing her five friends long before she met them. (Remember they all got them at the same moment.)
Cadence's is the crystal heart representing how she would take up that mantle.

Cutie marks are gained with full foreknowledge of one's destiny. You can't have had a destiny, If your cutie mark is tied to destiny you have and will achieve a destiny.

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Additionally, the fact that it resembles a sun suggests an admiration of Celestia and a wish to become like her. Possibly, that was her problem to begin with

Well if that was the case, that's functionally a promise from the world that she would get her wish.

Twilight also idolizes Celestia,

In an incredibly unhealthy way.

but loves magic just for the sake of magic and wants to learn just for the sake of learning.

And also in incredibly unhealthy ways.

The biggest meaning is that it represents magic, just like Twilight's does. More mundane CMs are usually pictorial and directly representative: Your CM is a hammer and nail? You're into construction. Etc.

Arcane CMs are by nature more vague and mysterious, steeped in symbolism and hidden meanings, as it goes with the territory. Only after Twi became the Bearer did her CM's most important meaning become obvious. But stars can also symbolize her quest for unattainable goals (it's mathematically proven that you can't ever know everything in the universe), etc.

Same with Sunset. I think all the interpretations above are correct. But that doesn't mean every possible interpretation can be correct. For example, if we switched Sunset and Twi's CMs, it would never look as right on them given what we know about them, even though the meanings are vague and hidden.

4186761

Yes and it's been shown fucking with cutie marks/destiny is literally the vilest thing imaginable in both that episode and the season 4 end 2 parter. It's textually violating someones soul.

Furthermore remember time is like the real world relative due to how time spells work. (ie only closed timelike curves are possible) So all destiny rewriting would already be accounted for when assigning destinies.

4187023

To Me?
A fancy word people use for Choice and the fact others get to make them and that they have consequences beyond our understanding.
The best description would be the sum of all Choices.

In the shows world?
Well the box thing was a thing, so The Rainbow Friendship God evidently knows it. Likewise time spells cement the future is relative like earth ie already happening.
So to me all i have to do is add precalculated to the above. Not a big change.
Of course the practical answer might just be whatever the script says.

4187023 wrote : " I have a question: What does destiny mean to you? I've seen it mean multiple things to multiple people. "

There's no such thing, go for yourself.

4188755

Ummmmm ok?

4184205 In one chapter of a story I'm reading called The Freeport Venture, Sunset does a bit of soul-searching and discovers that (Like MrAskaPirate said before) her cutie mark also has a yin-yang design to it. Not only does the CM itself represent her ability to control fire, (at least in that story) but it represents her two halves of goodness and evil. One side is bright, reflecting her will to defend others (again, in the story. Not necessarily in the first EQG movie. Then again, she did spare Spike when she threatened him) and the other reflecting her selfishness, impatience, and her will to use dark magic. Even after she reforms, the evil part of her still exists, via her self-doubt and hopelessness when the Dazzlings taunt her.

The truth is, she has a shonen cutie mark. Look at it. And that's why the movies are getting progressively more and more shonen. Next movie they're gonna be shooting arrows while riding motorcycles. Once the TV series hits, the Mane 7 are gonna go full-on mahou shoujotai and battle giant tentacle monsters.

Welp.

I started this thread because I reached a point in the story I've been working on where it made sense for someone to ask her about her cutie mark, and I needed a good answer. I thought about it, read the replies , thought about it some more, and finally came up with a unique little cutie mark origin that meshed with some of the lore I'd already established in the story.

Then I realized it would totally work as a standalone too, so I wrote it up, entered it into the April Writeoff and it did pretty well.

So if anyone is interested, here's the story of How Sunset Rose.

I've been using her being a master of fire-related magic in a few stories as an excuse for the main character to be reasonably good with fireballs, having learned from someone that wanted to teach just long enough to prove that they were better at it than most instructors. In most cases, it's a young prince having been in the right place at the right time to learn to burn things for later uses in those stories.

That is; I've more or less read it at face value and guessed it looks like a fireball because she's good with fire. Or something. Made sense with Sunset Satan and all. Although, this 4185338 is a fantastic headcanon...

The theory I went with for my fic was that it symbolized her bond with Celestia, how she was Celestia's heir and daughter and would rule Equestria with her.

Another theory I had separate from that, is that as Twilight hatched Spike for her entrance exam, Sunset Shimmer had to hatch Philomena's egg. Thus, her cutie mark isn't a sun - it's a stylized flaming egg.

4339629
Yeah, it kind of annoys me that ppl peg Sunset as being a pyrokinetic just because she's a redhead and has the sun as her CM. How shallow. She's an adept at multiple magical disciplines just like Twilight, not a 1-trick pony.

5086248 I think that it might have to do with this:

5086257
Ehh, sprouting fiery wings in a music video is about as plot-relevant as suddenly shooting clothes-transforming beams in a music video.

5086948 Didn't say anything about plot relevance, just that that scene combined with her name tends to give people a fiery image of her character and abilities.

5087041
Yeah, and I didn't say anything about your beliefs on what is canon. My point stands that people's faulty impression from that music video doesn't correlate with what she can or cannot do.

If Sunset could really sprout wings on command, she would not be so eager to study the Mane 5 pony-up in the other preview short. She could've just run tests on herself.

5087051

Yeah, and I didn't say anything about your beliefs on what is canon

Stop, just stop with this, you're trying to start an argument where there is none.

All I'm telling you is why most fans might view Sunset as a pyrokinetic, nothing more. This has nothing to do with my views on canon, at all.

5087058
Why so defensive? We're talking about "people", not you.

What I'm trying to start is making a point about why it's fallacious to think that the music video shows what she really does. I've said that nobody thinks human Rarity suddenly gained magic clothing-transformation lasers, even though that is also an accompanying music video. The pre-FG video The Science Of Friendship adds onto this. In that video, Sunset clearly needed the others' help in studying the fickle "pony-up" phenomenon, which means that is the most accessible magic she can study. If she could play with fire the way an AD&D wizard can, she wouldn't have to suffer through all the trouble she did in the video.

5089022

What I'm trying to start is making a point about why it's fallacious to think that the music video shows what she really does.

Here's the thing, you're not everyone, and everyone is not you. There are many things that a lot of people believe that's difficult for others to understand why they do to begin with.

If some fans think of Sunset as a pyrokinetic, then it'll likely be an uphill battle to try to convince them otherwise. Another example of this would be that many fans associate dark magic with Princess Luna, despite there being no depiction of her using it in the show at all.
I'm with both of these groups myself, but I am aware that both characters' magics isn't just pyro and dark magic focused, that would be rather limiting of their abilities as a whole.

5089230
You seem a bit stressed or annoyed, because I decided to follow up on this topic. Did you expect to make a comment about magic in EQG, and I would not add my thoughts to it?

As for your small-font sentence... it seems self-contradictory.

5086248
While I agree that she should be a versatile magician like Twilight, she can still have her favored spell or be stronger at some magics than others.
In this case, I think it would be a good character trait that unlike Twilight she has attitude of applying fire to problem until it stops being problem, and only starts thinking of alternatives when this approach does not work... or at least that she used to when she was still Celestia's pupil.
That would differentiate her from more academic and friendship-y Twilight, follow the Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance and Personality Powers tropes (which are good tropes, I like them), and generally be a good idea.
It was quite well used in Freeport Venture, I believe, which is my headcanon at what would Sunset be like in her final years of apprenticeship.

5089363 I can see how it would be, worded it wrong.

I do believe that Sunset is a pyrokinetic, but it's only one avenue of her abilities as a whole. The same with Luna and dark magic, it just fits her well thematically. Even celestia has some dark magic, so why can't Luna have it too? But that's just my opinion on those two.

5089504
IMO, "Equestrian dark magic" does not have to be synonymous with the night based on what we've seen canonically. What all canon dark magic in MLP/EQG seems to revolve around, are illusion and mind control (Sombra, Chrysalis, Sirens, green-eyed Rarity). While Luna's transformation into NMM can be seen as dark magic, NMM herself seems to exhibit no aspects of it. She's purely a bruiser and a warrior, same as normal Luna. Unless we are to equate mastery of astral projection with dark magic, which I don't.

5090398 I don't associate Luna's transformation with dark magic, in any capacity. Nor do I associate it with the night as well, that would be odd.

She's purely a bruiser and a warrior, same as normal Luna

True, but she likes to put on a show of dominance also, don't forget that.

I'm sure that there are applications for dark magic in combat. Who's to say that we've seen the full extent of dark magic in the show anyhow? Dark magic is still magic, just have to get creative with it.

After thinking about it for a while, I came up with two observations about Sunset's cutie mark. One being the mark, the other being her magic color.

Mark - The 'yin-yang' idea of her CM works, but it's also not a perfect yin-yang; that would be a standalone 'marble' with a white spot in the black field and a black one in white. Sunset's is two whole bodies and it's surrounded in fire. I have an idea for what that symbol actually means for her -- it's a magatama. A magatama looks just like the swirling colors in the center of her mark, with a little stub leading up to a bulbous head. Magatamas popularly signify either a child growing inside its mother (note the little nub in the middle that could be an umbilical cord), or the shape of the soul. Both can signify Sunset's growth. She's growing as a person, but she did it starting out in the shadow of Celestia, who we can think of as her mother figure in this case. I don't think it means she's "growing inside the sun", fantastical as that may be -- it means she's growing into a vast potential, one that, hence the dual colors, could wind up either very good or very bad.

Magic color - Sunset's magic starts off as opal. 'Light brilliant opal' to be technical. Now, this is gonna be trivia, but opal used to be thought of as an evil stone. Thank Sir Walter Scott's Anne of Geuerstein (1829) for that. In that novel, holy water fell on a lady's opal gemstone and destroyed its color, and then she died shortly after. What did people take that to mean? The lady was a demoness. Sunset, opal magic, demoness. Bad luck, evil. But from Friendship Games onward, AFTER Sunset has truly started getting over her fall, her magic changes from opal to amber. And then again to amaranth later. Both of those are colors of her cutie mark, or at least very close. Amber would bring her closer to Celestia, and amaranth to Twilight, I believe.
EDIT: It's worth noting Sunset's eyes are also opal in color.