Rainbow Dash is the best flier in Equestria. It's not a boast, nowadays the comment is made in ironic humor, due to both: how boastful she used to be and the fact that she was right.
She's powerful. Conventionally speaking, via raw thaums, Rainbow Dash is more powerful than Twilight. Call it a gap, Rainbow won't be breaking any ground on new pegasus spells, but pulling Sonic Rainbooms at will isn't something the average pony simply considers doing.
Rainbow trains, but she doesn't push herself. She fights, but she never really tries to hurt anyone. She goes on adventures with her friends, but they're always so... slow...
She got into the Wonderbolts, dream come true... but then...
She had a lot to learn about formation flying, that was the real challenge, but she'd had to be careful not to outfly them.
Then the Storm King invaded. Their home was genuinely in danger, and over and over and over; Rainbow had to take the backseat. She had to let everypony else fight or run. She had to stick with her friends.
She didn't push herself.
She'd never considered how far she could go.
Never tried to find her actual limit.
This was cool.
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Thankies
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The Element of Loyalty cannot be free. Poetic
I love interesting little character studies like this. Rainbow's rejection of infinity, her choosing not to care about something most people would obsess over because she already cares so much about her loved ones, taking something endlessly complex and deciding to simplify it is just... oogh. Beautiful.
Hmm.
I'm honestly not sure how to feel about the premise of this story.
But it has me thinking, and that's always a sign a story has effected me. So kudos for that.
Oh this was wonderful. I have the pet headcanon that Rainbow Dash's special talent is not flying, but surpassing limits (speed limits of course but also limitations of fate. I firmly do not believe that her cutie mark was given to her by fate) and this was honestly such an expression of that idea that I couldn't have put it better myself. But also that she cannot surpass every limit because she is Loyalty and she cannot be rid of her earthly tethers, aaah babygirl I love her.
also meta-wise this is a really good use of how inconsistent the show is with what Rainbow can do. Yea, if you tallied up everything Rainbow does in the show and don't chalk it up to cartoon logic she makes superman look like a schoolyard kid.
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Rainbow Dash is arguably the 'most powerful' of the mane six. She may not be the smartest, the literal strongest, ostensibly not very clever by comparison, but she's like that because it tends to not matter.
'If I can move faster than you can blink, it doesn't matter how dangerous you are.'
Except... That's not a very conventionally applicable skill within her adventures. She doesn't generally need to make someone eat their own tail faster than they could blink, and Rainbow Dash always exhibits traits of a fighter, she's not outright violent. So...
This is what I thought of her.
She chooses to hang around, to not end the fight immediately, to enjoy the time as it goes by far too slowly for her, with her friends. The episode focused on RD and Rarity is a good example, and exactly as you said, it explains why she's constantly just around while things are happening, but not necessarily doing anything about it. She keeps her friends safe, but tends to not contribute otherwise, because she trusts them to handle it. It's a quiet, internal character struggle that I thought I'd write about, and hey...
I think I did alright!
"Oh, I've seen the Infinite, its nothing special" Death, in Soul Music (By Sir Terry Pratchett). I think it fits here.