Doctor of Physics and sometime Adjunct Professor. Warning: thinking required.
Starlight Glimmer wants to make amends to her friends for accidentally turning them into puppets, and there's only one way she knows to do that: magic. Specifically, she intends to have the same spell cast on her so she can know what it's like. Surely this can't go wrong.
Rated E, so don't expect anything not appropriate for that rating.
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I like it! Perfectly in-character, explores the spell a little more, and works as a great denouement for the episode! The only flaw is that it moves too fast - I would've liked to spend a little more time on each individual scene. But, then, on the other hand, this probably is the best pacing to include all five ponies.
Good job!
Sweet story
I liked this. Just the sort of over the top thing Starlight would do. Her friends also behaved believably too.
Yep, not much else to say other than this was good. Enjoyed the little joke at the end. She's still learning. :P
Keep up the good work.
Was that a Gargoyles reference?
Is there a translation for 'fiducial compellis cogeria persuaderi'
A great one shot!
But, can't Starlight cast it in herself?
Or does that run the risk of it being permanent.
I really liked this story it does seem like something Starlight would do to understand what she put her friends through. The mane 5 were all in character and I liked the part where Pinkie managed to guess the truth the best of all because that is very much how she is.
This was nice, I liked it. I really do love Starlight as a character, she's essentially a reformed supervillian which makes her a Slytherin Twilight
7614477 My assumption was that the caster has to supply the trigger, though I didn't explicitly say so. So casting it on herself would just leave her completely non-responsive if that's correct.
7614426 Three separate spells I believe. My Latin's rusty so I had to use a dictionary (http://latin-dictionary.net/) but "fiducial compellis" would mean something like "You compel trust". Presumably they mean "you are compelled to trust (me)", but they put it in the active rather than the passive voice. Alternately they could have made it first person active (compello instaed of compellis): "I compel trust (implied 'in me').
cogeria and persuaderi... Well the first word in there doesn't make sense so either they said it really wrong, it's not Latin, or I heard it wrong. Persuaderi is from persuadio, "to persuade or convince", naturally enough. I think the first one is supposed to be the participle form of "cogito, cogitare) meaning, among other things, "to think." I think persuaderi is supposed to be passive perfect "pesuaderis", so "You will have been persuaded".
Putting it in sequence, it's a spell invoking trust in the caster with a spell that has something to do with thinking (Not sure what else to make of that), with a pinch of a spell that, in essence, implants a suggestion. Combined, then, we have a spell that alters the subject's thinking so that they take suggestions from the caster. However, if you were to string the words together (and alter the parts of speach to fit) you might get "You will have been persuaded to be compelled to trust me in/for your thinking."... in other words, the subject/victim winds up not thinking for themselves at all.
7614349 Yep. XP Figured someone would catch that. Of note, I've not actually seen that episode, but I read about that twist on TVtropes. Here, there wasn't a magic object to destroy, so the next command just overrides it.
7613632 You know I considered that, but there were a few reasons I decided not to: 1) I started to run out of ideas, 2) it would have made the whole thing much longer and 3) combine 2 with my difficulty with ending stories and who knows how long it would have taken me to get back to my longer projects. So, I went by the old axiom for time-limited stuff of "only show what you need to show." 'Course it winds up where it wouldn't exactly fill an episode length this way, but it could conceptually equate to a short.
Oh and thanks to everyone I didn't respond to explicitly. XP
I've been fascinated for awhile now with the notion of 'over-commitment', in the sense of committing to an idea or task far more than you actually need to, and in doing so making a large emotional impact on others (whether or not that was the intent... and it works better if it's not). This falls under that sort of umbrella. I'm planning on working a similar idea into another story, once I finally get back around to "Bedtime Stories" and thus get to its sequel. Probably gonna be after con season...
7616114 I totally sympathize - I've got similar problems myself - and as it is, you wrote a really good short story!
Oh, and interesting translation for the spell names! I wonder how come these names are different from every other spell that's been named in the show, though? Maybe Starlight's found a totally different school of magic, which would also explain why no other villain - not even Nightmare Moon - ever used this mind magic?
7616589 Haven't Latin names shown up somewhere before? I can't think where right off, but I feel like they were. Latin was used for the Wonderbolts motto but that's a bit different.
The resulting effect wasn't what was intended, but there have been spells mentioned that are mind control, or close to it, that were never cast. I believe Starlight mentioned a friendship spell earlier in the season, further back than that, Twilight mentioned reform spells for Discord, and even earlier than that, Twilight used the "Want it, need it" spell, which apparently is simple enough that most wizards (that is, unicorns with some skill in magic) could cast it. One can only assume it's forbidden to use that. There was also the love poison and Discording, which had effects akin to mind control. Discord's, imo, was the worst, as it had broad effects on the perception and psyche. The reform spell may have been similar, but it wasn't cast. The love poison and 'want it, need it' had proscribed, delineated effects. Seriously though, one assumes there are laws on the books about these things, but enforcement seems lax.
7616611 That's a good point - Starlight herself wasn't expecting the three spells mixed together to do anything like they did. Probably they originally were more like the Want-It-Need-It or reform spells, and her blend did something new.
Now there's a story - Starlight dreams of how much better Our Town could've gone if only she'd had better mind-control magic then. It could be a good dream, or could be a nightmare. Either way, Luna shows up, and they somehow get along to speculating what Nightmare Moon could've done with more mind control...
7616639 Interesting idea, though since it's your idea maybe you should write it. XP
It did kinda bug me that all of the Equalists immediately changed their mind on discovering the deception, even those that hadn't been having any doubts before. And that Starlight didn't just point out that if she gave up her mark (and it's not 100% clear she could as that may have kept her from casting), then they couldn't induct new members.
I think the combined force of the triple decker spell made "anything Starlight Glimmer says is right" as the ONLY absolute truth in their heads, what their morals, ethic, believes, standards, all were defined by, rather than put their bodies on remote or some nonsense.
7619072 I'm trying to make it slightly less horrifying here. Work with me on this. XP The only thing I can point to that might distinguish between the two is that they wouldn't do anything at all unless they had an order.
It also ties in to Decartes idea of a 'biological automaton', and we know he has a counter-part in Haycartes, but that's using out-of-episode information.
7619540
Ironically I see my idea as less horrifying.
7619751 Heh, I can see that, I just don't agree. Altering psychology (particularly morals and/or ethics) is for me much more disturbing than what's basically sleep-walking. 'Course, I have sleep-walked before.
However, the observable effects from what was in the episode don't necessarily require the extent you said, as she didn't ask them to do anything that abnormal (except for Pinkie Pie burning cakes, but Pinkie's hard to read). It only requires her words to be the only actionable event in their psychological frame. I still find that more disturbing than my way, but with what we have in the episode, the two are functionally indistinguishable to an outside observer. The ponies involved could have told us, and if, for instance, they had no memory of what happened afterwards (Pinkie remembers the cakes, but she could have been told that by Twilight... it's like the first thing she would have asked) then we'd have more of a basis to say, but we don't. If the writers thought of it, they probably didn't want kids considering the implications.
At any rate, I assumed the 'sleep-walking' model for this particular story. Making the other assumption... hmmm... I'd probably have done something different with the ending and beginning. I might write an alternate take on the ending at least at some point, but right now I wanna move on to other projects. :)
7619787
Let me spell it out. I HATE the 'where am I?' cliche in every bloody shape and form that it appears in and it KILLS ME INSIDE when it seems like the show is finally AVERTING IT with someone who ISN'T an antagonist and the someone comes along and says 'nope! They don't remember a thing! Or just vague impression! Nya nya!'
(Trixie remembered because she was an antagonist, and therefore, remembering the bad things wouldn't alienating those buying her toys. Rarity didn't remember because her remembering her misdeed while mad with power would alienate people buying HER toys. The 'learning a lesson' thing for Trixie and Spike were SECONDARY!)
7619799 Oh I agree with the Rarity example (as you say, Trixie did remember). This, however, is not those cases. In the episode, we don't actually know if they remember or not. Strictly speaking, even if it was akin to sleepwalking, they could remember, but it would be like being trapped in their own bodies... which is admittedly pretty bad.
Regardless, this isn't a case of people doing bad things and not remembering them. If they didn't remember (and we don't know if they did or not), it's a case of them being completely not in control of their actions and not remembering, their bodies moving like puppets. That's not the same thing. They did, I would like to note, remember what they did while Discorded, though perhaps not correctly (Rarity apparently suddenly saw Tom as a rock rather than a diamond, for instance, so presumably she remembered seeing him as a diamond and only later realized it was an illusion).
7619799 And I guess I did do something similar with Starlight here... Had I used a different model of the spell, I wouldn't have. I note you still favourited this. XP
That's more less horrifying for you than the recipient, either way. Trapped in your own body versus altered psychology though... that's a tough call.
7619799 Also... I thought Spike remembered what he did while horde-crazed? ...though now I think of it, I'm really not sure.
Poor Starlight. I get her motivations, but still, she probably went too far with the self-punishment.
7626978 Well to the mane 6, but the hardest person to forgive can be yourself.
The logic is similar to sitcoms where person A hits person B, then decides the only way to make them even if for B to hit A.
7630979 Fair enough.
7619863 it was heavily implied he remembered
7793259 Ah, good, so I wasn't completely mis-remembering. Man, I gotta re-watch seasons 1 and 2 at some point...