The giggles died down. Both Starlight's and Sunset's expressions sobered. Sunset folded her hands in front of herself, took a deep breath, slowly exhaled... and began the conversation. "How much did Twilight tell you about me?"
Starlight 'hmm'ed. "Not all that much. You were Celestia's old student, you ran away to here, went back to steal her crown, Twilight had to come over here to get it back, which she did. Then when some old-school monsters from Equestria attacked this dimension, you and she teamed up. And you've been amazing ever since."
Silence passed before Sunset rolled her eyes with a rueful chuckle. "I wish I'd been as nice as that story paints me."
"Yeah, I always felt like there were holes in it, too? But I was dealing with my own stuff, so I didn't pry." Starlight tapped her fingers together, her gaze shifting back and forth before she directed it back to Sunset. "Hey. If this stuff hurts to think about, to talk about... believe me, I really get it. You don't have to. Not for me."
Sunset shook her head. "No, it... helps if you know. Plus, I sometimes need to remind myself." She sighed. "I was spoiled from day one. A magic prodigy who knew what I had going for myself, and who thought power and status should have been mine because, well, I'd been gifted with a lot of it already. Princess Celestia didn't agree, though—and neither did Princess Twilight when I tried to use her crown to brainwash the students and faculty of Canterlot High School, so I could use them as my own personal army to take over Equestria."
"Wait. Students and faculty?" Starlight crossed two fingers on one hand with her other's index. "Including a certain couple of principals who totally would have turned into their pony analogues if they'd gone through the—"
A smile crossed Sunset's lips, in a slant she hadn't felt in years. Allowing herself to be nostalgic for a few precious moments, she nodded. "Figured that theory was worth a shot, too, yeah."
Starlight gaped, with a bemused, breathy giggle. "You... whoa, you thought big! Like, don't take this the wrong way, but I'm actually kind of impressed!"
Sunset giggled back. "Don't worry, I take it as a compliment. Anyway: I fought Princess Twilight and the friends she made on this side of things, but they won pretty easily, by hitting me with the Elements of Harmony... more or less. The crown awakened the magic of friendship in the human versions of Twilight's pony friends. Whom you've already met."
"Huh. Guess it thought they were good enough in a pinch." Starlight shrugged. "Still, though. Getting hit with ancient Equestrian magic is no joke—personal experience speaking—but... the Elements?" Starlight leaned in, her eyes wide and twinkling. "What's that like?"
Sunset closed her eyes, allowing herself to think of that lonesome, painful night in the rain for only a few seconds, refusing to fall back into that sadness again, back into that conflict of mind and heart that felt like it would last forever.
"After hearing what's happened to Discord and Luna, and seeing what it's done to some of the people here, the best I can come up with is... it's sort of like jump starting a power source. Only instead of a battery or a mystical conduit, it's your conscience. And by jump start, I mean full power, all at once. It doesn't rewrite your mind or heart anything, but... everything and everyone has the capacity for good inside of them.
"And the Elements give that capacity the biggest loudspeaker you've ever seen." Sunset fingered the orange geode pendant around her neck. "Honestly, the girls and I only use our harmonic powers as a last resort for that reason. It's a lot to take if you're not ready for it—and no one ever is."
Ah yes, the unbridled power of the rainbow morality dopeslap. Never underestimate it.
Imagine Sunset's expression if it turned out they came through as earth ponies...
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That needs to be a comic.
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I second the motion.
"And that was an adjustment, believe me, but in the end I told myself it at least beat being dragged back to Equestria and banished to Tartarus, the eternal punishment of the wicked and unrepentant. Could've been a lot worse... and suddenly you're not looking at me, and I'm left wondering why."
"I think you're overselling it a little, is all. Mostly it's just really boring. Lots of cages and stale air, nothing much to look at."
"..."
"So I'm told."
"How do you know that."
Huh. Never thought of that. Don't know why I didn't... o_O
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Seriously though, did we all just forget about that when we lambasted her I-can't-even-call-it-a-plan? Rolling the dice hoping for alicorns or other powerful species sounds like a legitimate strategy, even without that pair of near-guarantees.
I had never thought of the ‘controlled backup alicorn’ option. I figured the magic just made her crazy.
And yeah, conscience loudspeaker is a good way to run it.
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The original Equestria Girls group on this site got nuked a long time ago, and with it quite a bit of vintage EQG series discussion, but I was one of the people who brought the notion up back when EQG1 was the only installment to the series's name.
Spring Breakdown, if nothing else, adds more credibility to the theory six years later.
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Considering Spike, any pets that happened to be in the area had the potential to be even more terrifying. Also, if it weren't TV-Y she could use "B****, you're a dragon. Burn it all down" as a heck of a line. (It's always fun to use profanity for its literal definition, like noting that several places purport to have Joshua of Nazareth's foreskin, so his bowel movements wouldn't be that much more absurd.)
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I think the big reason no one but Bookish ever brought it up is that we don't ever actually see the princessipals being mind controlled. The student body, certainly, but for all we know, Celestia and Luna whipped out their tinfoil hats the moment Sunset went demonic.
"And you said I was being paranoid."
"Just because you're right doesn't mean you're not paranoid."
"That is exactly what that means!"
(Mind you, it's been years since I saw the first movie, so I could be completely off-base there. )
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We arguably do see them getting un-MC'ed once Sunset gets blasted, so... (shrug)
i.imgur.com/1v5Lqv0.jpg
sure is 2013 in here :D Seriously, that group nuke erased a lot of discourse
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Pets get weird given that the other M6's pets are exactly the same on both sides. Opal's still Opal, Winona's still Winona, etc. Not to say you couldn't at all, but you might need a few sentences of lead-in.
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Ah. Well, that's why I put in the disclaimer.
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Thank goodness for the oral tradition!
But yeah, the not-plan is suddenly much more worrying.
Yeah; suddenly your potential for good is awakened and your conscience cannot be silenced. For a few days there, I bet that Sunset thought that she was going insane with all the guilt flowing through her mind.
FWIW, at the end of Forgotten Friendship, I got the impression that the Elements had left Wallflower in a mental and emotional state of such awareness of her personal failings that, if the girls had killed her, she would have thanked them for doing so.
Yes!