/sp/ - Football

Her first appearance was pretty good.

And that's all there is to say about her. It's a shame some writer faggot fell in love with this character and ruined her by trying to make her likable.

>>3344
Fucking this man.
They abused her character almost as much as they abused the rest of the show.
Also, her old haircut was better.

>>3341
seeing her getting raped? Woah me too!

All shitposting aside I have the same problem with Glimmer that I have with Trixie and Discord and Diamond Tiara and the Changelings and all the other reformed antagonists: I liked her as a villain, but not as an ally, and I think she would have been better off as a one-shot character or maybe at most a minor recurring villain.

The show's biggest flaw I think is its tendency to want to give every antagonist a redemption at some point. I get that the show is supposed to be about friendship and they want to teach children that sometimes enemies can learn to find common ground and become friends. However I think it's just as important, if not more important, to learn that sometimes differences are just irreconcilable and you're going to have enemies and adversaries throughout your life. Learning to make friends is important, but it's also important to learn how to stand up for yourself in the face of adversity.

Anyway, I've been watching the current season and so far the episodes I've liked have all been the ones that Glimmer hasn't been in. I have to conclude that, objectively speaking, she is just not a very good pone.

>>3347
>no magic-suppression ring
That whore is only pretending to be defenseless!

>>3349
She knows that she deserves it. Every violent thrust into her pussy brings her closer to redemption.

>>3353
This. She is resigned to submit in order to gain approval.

>>3349
Not gonna' lie. I totally dig de-horned unicorns.

>>3353
>second pic
What do you call those leg-locking things again?

>>3361
if it's tasteful and you have it, go ahead.

>>3368
I forgot!

>>3363
that's a spreader bar.

>>3370
Ah.. It's been a while since I've seen one of those.

>>3370
>>3353
I want moar Starburst.

>>3372
yeah, I'm going to second this, she's a good hatefuck

>>3345
Is that... Pickle Starlight?

Her fans really are ledditers.

You know what I like about Glimmer? Her first appearance. She was smart, charismatic, and good at suckering ponies into giving up what made them who they were so they could fit her shallow definitions of equal and good. She was a villain, a brilliant, twisted, incredibly despicable villain. She thought she was right, and she outlawed free thought to keep her ideological control on her ponies crushingly tight, and she didn't see what was wrong with that. And you could argue that maybe she is right. After all, if competition and cutie marks were banned, Rainbow Dash would never get nervous about a new race or Wonderbolts show, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders wouldn't have spent their formative years wishing their formative years would end. Those are extremely small positives you'd get with some extremely big downsides, and the time travel episode proved that all Starlight's ideology can ever accomplish is weakening Equestria enough for it to suffer from and potentially get destroyed by more powerful external problems like Sombra's Crystal Empire and Changelings, but the thought was there, and that's what makes a villain really good.

Unfortunately, while that Glimmer episode was being written, someone on the writing team fell in love with this character, and it showed in all the wrong ways.

Glimmer, in her second appearance (Not counting cameos. Which I loved. Bonus props for having her Shinra Tensei out of there and come back to get revenge, it's a neat idea despite the execution)...

Glimmer decides to stop Twilight Sparkle from ever meeting her friends, and she's willing to laser blast a foal to do this. Rather than a moral about how you can't fight fate, Glimmer successfully ruins Equestria again and again, never understanding that this Equestria she created is a worse one than the original. It'd be neat if she saw the damaged Equestrias she created and repeatedly insisted that if they "Just accepted Equality into their hearts, everything would be fine", but I guess it's easier for the writers to stop Glimmer from understanding that hurting Equestria hurts Equestria until it's spelled out for her and comes with a visual aid.

But let's not talk about that. Let's talk about something I've never seen anyone mention, Glimmer fan or Glimmer hater.

Glimmer is suddenly persuasive enough to convince two bullying schoolfoals and their victim and their victim's best friend to stop bullying, make nice, forgive each other, give up on the ideals of competition, and wander off to have fun together, "Outsmarting Twilight and forcing her to defend bullying".

She pulls this off in under ten seconds, offscreen, and it just works because it's her. She does something that should be impossible, and it just works, because it's her. She has an infinity symbol as her charisma stat on her character sheet, now, so she can do things that just shouldn't be possible. And Twilight can't defend against this... because someone behind the scenes lowered Twilight's IQ to make sure she didn't make a short speech about the importance of competition or think to say to Filly Rainbow Dash "I'm you from the future and the world goes to shit if you don't pull a Sonic Rainboom off right now".

Now, the next point, I've seen some Glimmer haters bring up, but I'm going to bring it up in as much detail as possible.

Glimmer is suddenly so magically powerful that with just simple shields and lasers, some lucky dodges, and the occasional other spell, she can battle a fully-bloodlusted Alicorn Princess Twilight Sparkle to a standstill. Multiple times in one day. While levitating herself using her own magical power miles above the earth without stop because she doesn't know the Cloudwalking spell. And stopping Rainbow Dash from pulling the Sonic Rainboom off, often blasting her, meaning she can even cast multiple spells at once now. This has some interesting effects on the show this scene takes place in.

1. Everything that made Twilight's power special or notable is now moot, because this mare is just as strong as her, maybe even stronger, without being an Alicorn and without needing special rainbow powers.
2. Friendship isn't magic any more. The pony that embodies friendship and is empowered by it is losing to a villain sue only someone that hasn't noticed what I've noticed can love. That's a mean thing to say, sure, but it has yet to be proven false by a single solitary Glimmer fan. Hopefully, if I put that term like that, it'll inspire some honest intellectual open debate on that point.
3. All the "I don't want to be special/Being special is a big responsibility" stuff with Twilight is now not just moot, but openly stupid. Why was she shy about showing her Unicorn power level off when it meant absolutely nothing, and this other random Unicorn could have kicked her ass?
4. A big part Twilight's backstory is that she was trained from birth in Canterlot to have an insane power level. That's part of who she is as a person, even though it doesn't get shown that much any more. Remember when she used to put Ursa Minors to sleep and ZA WARUDO whole groups of ponies? Ah, memories. Anyway, Starlight Glimmer has no reason for having a power level close to Twilight, let alone a power level that surpasses her. And it's not like magic has been stated to be a light-side dark-side thing where embodiments of friendship are powerful because that's magic's light side but embodiments of evil and doom and death use its dark side. You could claim Sombra and Discord, one unicorn king and one chaos god we know nothing about, were implying that all along, just like I could claim Celestia is Twilight's real mother all along.
5. I'm alright with characters corrupted and empowered by an evil amulet overpowering Twilight, I'm alright with mad gods of chaos and demons powered by stolen Equestrian magic overpowering Twilight, and I'm alright with some random asshole getting one lucky shot in on Twilight, reading her jump and hitting her with an instant win attack... but that's what Starlight Glimmer is: Some random asshole. And this random asshole made Twilight look like a rank amateur without even breaking a sweat, multiple times in one day, sh*tting all over Twilight's life and timeline in the process. There's no prophecy here. There's no symbolism here. She's a random asshole and someone's favorite character. And she's just suddenly so OP, it hurts the show and its setting and everything Twilight stands for as a character. She isn't outsmarting Twilight, she isn't outsmarting the readers or any characters in the universe, she's just suddenly so OP it hurts, and there is no justification for that. This is like if Avatar Aang got his ass kicked by some random Fire Nation soldier that could also bend all four elements and time on top of that. It makes the avatar power feel cheap, it COMPLETELY ruins the powerscaling and power creep, and it introduces plot holes like "If he was this strong all along, why did he bother with what he tried to accomplish before this GMPC Poochie was forced to reveal his infinity-symbol stats?".
6. Glimmer is no longer what she was in the opener. She's no longer a smug manipulative asshole goading villagers into killing themselves and their offspring slowly but surely. She's no longer a well-intentioned threat to Equestria's stability and ability to function. She's now just yet another evil asshole throwing lasers around and being an asshole because she's an asshole. She's Frieza. Her power level is so high, she could probably kill filly Twilight, making the time travel aspect pointless. She could easily hit Twilight with a magic anti-Cutie Mark beam while in the shower or in the loo. She could travel back in time, use her uninterrupted 10 seconds before Twilight shows up to obliterate the earth, cast a breathe-in-space spell on herself, and watch Twilight implode/explode. She chooses to destroy the hero's hometown and homeworld to be a dick, because that's all she is now, a dick. A dick with infinite stats. A dick that can do whatever she wants because this is her show.

Even putting aside what Glimmer is now and what the writers have been doing with her, all the spotlight time she's gotten, all the shilling she's gotten, all the times characters lost IQ points and previous character development so Glimmy could save the day, and all the fake-screentime bad OCs got so they could create problems for Glimmer to solve... It's clear her character was derailed from "Intelligent, charismatic, manipulative, and evil but narrow-minded communist asshole that genuinely thought what she was doing was right" to "Amazingly perfect hyper-charismatic super-asshole that'll shit on Equestria and kill millions and f*ck everything up just to piss the hero off". She's gone from a great MLP villain to a bad HIE/DBZ villain.

In one episode, she went from someone cooler than Tirek to someone that made me miss Broly.

Did it surprise anyone here when she was eventually handed unearned forgiveness, allowed onto the "Side of good", and allowed to frequently indulge in her only character traits(Evil/formerly-evil wizard, doesn't respect free will or free thought, social skill levels depend on the plot, likes kites) ad nauseum without consequences? Did it surprise anyone when this "Perfect" character was turned into the show's new main character and given shallow connections to other OCs, like becoming Maud's new friend and becoming friends with Thorax because plot and becoming friends with Trixie because every shilled hero needs a shadow, removing what depth and likability Trixie could have potentially had as her own mare?

I've seen many people praise these episodes for what they TRIED to do, like "Wow, an episode where the villain learned she was wrong instead of needing it magicked into her!", and "Wow, an episode where the villain is turned good!". People want to like them more than they actually do. People like the ideas in these episodes and the promise of this character far more than they actually like these episodes and this character.

Glimmer is flawed, in the sense that she's a terrible person. A horrible, terrible, self-righteous asshole that needs to learn "Abusing your magic is bad" multiple times a month because she has no respect for individuality and no interest in changing who she is as a person. But the writers expect us to forgive her for this, even though she hasn't earned forgiveness for the cult town she ran, let alone the times she successfully destroyed Equestria and killed millions, or the time she brainwashed the Mane Six. Twilight has flaws, Rainbow Dash has flaws, Fluttershy has flaws, but when they act like assholes, they notice and work on these flaws. Glimmer just gets handed forgiveness again and again, and "You should forgive people like this" is NOT a moral the show should be teaching to kids. You shouldn't forgive bad people, not if they've hurt you and are going to keep hurting you without a second thought.

Earning... Let's talk about earning. Sunset Shimmer was a crappy villain in a bad movie, but the second movie redeemed her, and the concept of Equestria Girls itself, even if it did shoot itself in the foot with its handling of AU!Twilight later on. She tried hard to earn forgiveness but couldn't find a way to redeem herself, even though she worked for it and tried to earn it. She put up with bullying, she ended up getting a chance to be the hero, and in the end when she smirked down at the defeated Fishllar Women, it felt triumphant. F*ck yeah, the equine version of Gary Motherfucking Oak is back, and she's here to kick fishpony ass. She earned her redemption.

Glimmer... didn't. She had it handed to her. And while they could have retconned it a little so it was always a shaky thing BECAUSE she didn't earn it, the writers seem to think their "Better Sunset" simply deserves redemption for existing. When I see smug Shimmer, I want to fist-bump her, and when I see smug Glimmer, I want my fists to bump her off. Bad attempt at a pun aside... Glimmer sometimes mentions that some ponies haven't forgiven her, but we never see a Fluttershy-style or Sunset-style scene where ponies are a dick to her. The writers don't want to write that. They don't want a Korra Alone-type episode where even the most unbearable of badly written characters can be made sympathetic through the magic of suffering. They want her to write her as this loveable tragically flawed character everyone should love and forgive for being an asshole that doesn't want to change, and they're going to keep shilling her at the show's expense because of this. The writers want you to love this character more than they want to tell a good story or respect the source material they were given, and they think if they shove Glimmer deep enough down your throat, you'll love her as much as the Glimbots. While many ponies have crazy fans, Glimmer's fanbase often seem to have the highest concentration of crazed Glimbots. I personally think it's because they identify with her, being assholes that don't want to change, and they love seeing themselves have fun in a fantasy world where nopony holds their assholery against them. I'm sure that's not why ALL Glimmer fans like her, that's just my theory as to why so many extreme assholes are attracted to her on such a massive level that criticism of this character triggers them and makes them need revenge, even if that revenge is something petty like demanding I get banned from leddit.

You don't love Starlight Glimmer, the way she is now, and you can't. Her fans love the idea of her far more than they actually love her, and while some are aware of this, most aren't. They'll praise her for what she is, saying "Wow, we finally got that seventh mane six member!" and "Wow, another main character besides the mane six I was really getting sick of!" and "Wow, another Unicorn as magical as Twilight! Now she isn't as special any more!", they never mention the execution of these ideas. As for who she is... What is she, besides a second-rate bootleg Sunset Shimmer? Her only character traits are built for a good villain, and they make for an absolutely terrible hero. Oh, and there's kites. She likes kites, I guess. This character trait feels tacked on, like when you see some single word on an OC's Character Sheet. "Likes: Having fun with her friends, good ponies, and kites. Dislikes: Being bored, mean ponies, and death". You get what I mean, right? Just yelling "You have shit opinions for liking/not liking Skub!" isn't going to get us anywhere. Same goes for "You hate Skub so you can't talk about Skub" and "You need to accept Skub exists and stop criticizing it". We need proper, mature, open discussion about this, with no fallacies or damage control or backpedalling or lying or goalpost-moving or any other Glimbot behavior.

Bonus: Let's talk about connections and character interaction, something that's supposed to be the best part about introducing a new OC. After all, while you've seen most types of character before, it's when they interact with others that they truly shine. The bonds of friendship between each member of the Mane Six and the group as a whole feel real and earned and meaningful because they are all fleshed-out characters with their own backstories, motivations, feelings, thoughts, desires, and so on. You can see ponies like Fluttershy and Rarity being friends, sure, but you can see Rarity and Applejack being friends, you can see Rainbow Dash and Twilight being friends. They all have things in common and things that contrast with one another, and they all have believable reasons for being friends beyond "We met each other and the plot wants us to be together".

Glimmer is just given characters to form connections with, as if there's a quota that needs to be filled or a group of "I want Maud and Glimmer to get an episode together!" shouters that need to be satisfied. It's not something natural, like a friendship and mutual respect forming between Rainbow Dash and Twilight because their personalities are similar yet different, with them getting closer after one teaches the other the joy of reading. These Glimmer connections to other random characters, just for the sake of having them, and they're always based on what they are, on the shallowest level possible, rather than who they are as people. It's…

Glimmer bonds with Trixie because both "Used to be evil", even though they were evil on different scales and to compare them is laughable because it's like comparing Kim Jong Un to that dick that cut me off on an intersection.
Glimmer bonds with Discord because both are new characters, and both used to be evil. Even though one's a god of chaos trapped in stone for a thousand years and one is just naturally a jerk.
Glimmer bonds with Maud because (Prepare yourself for some roundabout logic) "Both are unusual. Also, Maud likes rocks not because they're interesting, but because they treat you equally no matter how odd you act, and Glimmer is still hot for equality".
Glimmer bonds with Thorax because [Data not found. Thorax? Wasn't that the name of some plot device last season?].
Trixie and Discord antagonize each other because that Boomerang Scene of a finale needed some conflict, even if the show hates that now, and people loved when Katara kept the group together in the desert episodes so Glimmer gets to keep the bratty loser and chaos god in line through sheer force of protagonist power. Even though "Doesn't want to be a leader" is her character flaw in that finale, a flaw that goes away when forgotten about by the writers.
Glimmer bonds with Spike because both have a connection to Twilight, even though these are very different connections.

You can tell the writers want your love for these characters to rub onto the OCs in the above section, but it doesn't really work on anyone that can tell that's what's going on.

At the end of the day, Glimmer doesn't have the kind of depth necessary to be a protagonist. She's the kind of character that fades into the background and doesn't show up unless the monster of the week is so strong, she won't instantly solve the plot. I'd bring up Kishibe Rohan, but the writer used him well, only having him fight enemies that can get around his reality-overwriting bullshit power in some way.(Fighting ghosts because he can't read anything on ghosts after their death, fighting an evil parasite bound to his back, fighting and losing to an energy-drainer that removed his ability to move and write, having a gambling match with Josuke while being so rich a few thousand lost yen wouldn't matter and wanting to solve the mystery of how Josuke was cheating on his own merits(And knowing Josuke can just ignore writing, making him immune to getting Hebuns Doa'd), and then finally getting blindsided by the world's most bullshit time bomb).

Glimmer doesn't have the strength of personality to carry an episode or series of episodes by herself, which is why she constantly has to rely on other characters and cliche stock plots that'd work just as well if she wasn't there, and was replaced by Mr and Mrs Cake instead. I swear, if you replaced Glimmer and Trixie with Mr and Mrs Cake in that season finale (You know what I'm talking about), it would improve the episode. I guess you could call relying on others "Leadership" or "Delegation", but she doesn't delegate roles to others, her writers delegate the "Make Glimmer look good" role to other OCs. When your character is too strong for the situations he/she is in, adding other weaker characters to make the strong character seem less absurd is absurd and redundant, and nerfing your god mode sue so some other OC can look cool is lame.

The writers can't do with Glimmer what they did with Rohan, because they want Glimmer as the new protagonist, hoping to sell toys and win over hasdrones and appeal to them and pander to them and Glimbots constantly. It'll probably make her an alicorn, even though she doesn't deserve it and hasn't earned it. They can't do what Araki did when he made Rohan the hero of his own spinoff for a while, because Hasbro know nobody would watch or buy it. Modern MLP is scraping by on brand name recognition alone. That, and all the bronies that still watch it because they hope it'll get good again.

The writers think Glimmer's "Former villain" status makes her a deep and compelling character automatically, but it doesn't work that way. She's still a villain, one that chuckles about her evil days with her villain friend. For this scenario to happen, the world of MLP would have to be so "Forgiveness is better than punishment"-ish it would probably let a serial killer walk free because he said he was sorry after the seventh kill. (And to think, I once thought a Death Note: MLP Edition fanfic was absurd for having the same premise and using it to necessitate Twilight using the Death Note).

The writers can't properly redeem Glimmer because:

1. They think she's already perfect as she is.

2. If she was redeemed properly, and became a nicer pony, she wouldn't have an excuse to screw up and create plots and conflict out of nowhere. Writers would have to try harder when thinking of episode ideas. They wouldn't be able to rely as much on "Glimmer's bad again and needs to learn abusing magic is wrong again while teaching morals to others" when they're out of their daily 'Grab a random plot from the hat of paper fragments' chances.

3. She doesn't have depth. She just objectively doesn't. Her traits are "Hates dissent, likes good things, likes kites, is OP at magic, used to be evil". You can't write much with a character like this when you physically need every episode with her in it to make her look as good as possible. You can't do what Spongebob did and squeeze multiple episodes out of his love for Jellyfishing and how often this has a negative effect on himself and others and how often this was a positive thing or just plain fun thing. They were already pushing her "Likes equality" trait with the "She befriends Maud because… um… Maud likes rocks because… um… rocks are equal and they treat you equally no matter how weird you are! Yeah!" thing. And unless they start making regular episodes about her flying kites with ponies, and this causing her to have run-ins with Flying Zapfish, they can't do a whole lot with this character when their goal is not to tell a compelling and interesting story about a flawed individual, but to get a quick payday and in the process try to please the mad director, mad storyboarder, and mad supervisor who all want as much Glimmer as possible in nu-MLP so they can say "Our characters and our vision made this show what it is" while smirking at the fans Faust and the others gave them.

And before anyone says "Imagine unironically caring and writing this much about my waifu and hating her as much as I love her", this is copypasted from another discussion I was in. The Glimmer fans there, after reading this, admitted defeat.

...Just kidding, they dohoho'd, ran away like pussies, and circlejerked for a whole day to restore their delusions about Glimmer. They returned the next day to throw playground-tier insults and tone arguments at me. Lol, glimfags are dumb.

>>3393
This

>>3406
Is that a niggerpuff girl?

>>3412
Yep. They killed bunny and replaced her with an emotional, tumbler self-insert, Mary Sue.

>>3414
Have you actually seen the girl as she plays out in episodes?

>>3415
I've seen a little bit, although I haven't actually seen very much of the new show at all.. I guess I was a bit prejudiced about her...

>>3402
You'll never learn if you don't read. You'll never understand why opposition if you don't listen to it.

After all, if rational arguments and explanations don't work on you, what other ways are there to make you think?
>>3406
Aye.

>>3385
You're just realizing this now? After weeks of "HEY DID YOU HEAR ABOUT BRITFAG? HE DOESN'T AGREE WITH ME AND HE LIKES LITTLE GIRL'S PONY TOYS!" and "BRITFAG SHOULD HAVE TO WAIT 10 MINUTES BETWEEN POSTS!"?

>>3419
>britfag
No one calls you that tho.
https://youtu.be/BxBG_I1Vssg

>>3419
I've been referring to you as Britchan.

>>3341
Poochie a shit