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[ Glow - Unicorn]

Name: Glow

Gender: female

Age: older mare, not quite elderly, but definitely past her prime.

Species: Unicorn

Pelt Color:a medium blue-green

Mane/Tail Color & Style:Glow's mane is a glistening deep blue long and sleek, gently waved with a streak of rainbow colors, usually in the orange-green spectrum that fireflies actually glow. A lot of times when she is working she has it in an updo decorated with glowing fireflies that she's trained to stay there and light her with a flattering light. When she is feeling particularly pleased with herself she will magically imbue the streak her mane and tail with the ability to glow as well. This is, of course, all carefully orchestrated for effect and NOT natural. She was born with a simple white mane and tail that wasn't even particularly glossy, so she dyes it. Sometimes her roots show. The ability to magically manipulate her mane did not come naturally, rather from relentless study and practice.

Eye Color: brilliant lime green

Cutie Mark: A firefly with a star-shaped glow around its posterior, surrounded by additional smaller stars.

Physique: very VERY tiny and petite for a full grown unicorn. She is maybe the same height as the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Petite little firecracker!

Residence: Ponyville, in just a regular house. with LOTS of mirrors (and firefly-powered nightlights)

Occupation: Firefly caretaker and coordinator for Ponyville. She is responsible for coordinating which fireflies go into which streetlamps and on which shifts (so they do not get tired out) all over Ponyville. You can contact her for parties and sports events! Great rates! She also takes care of the larva during the winter, which is, fortunately for her complexion, something she does in an enclosed greenhouse.

Motivation: Completely terrified of the dark as a filly (but so ashamed and ever more afraid of admitting something so embarrassing), she discovered her special talent was communicating with fireflies. They soothed her one summer night when her parents left her home alone for the first time in the relatively dark-at-night Ponyville to see a Broadway-like production in Manehattan. It was then that she discovered that her childhood trick of making the tip of her horn glow could be used to communicate with the small insects.

Likes: dancing, being glamorous, acting, being superly over dramatic, attention, and boy does she EVER love lighting gala events, gossip, feeling superior

Dislikes: the longest day of the year, winter, ponies who are prettier than her, that she is past her prime, that she craves cupcakes pretty much constantly. unicorns who put magic in jewels to make them glow and upstage her, the summer sun festival

Character Summary:

Glow was born in Manehattan; a pampered only-child of Vaudeville theater magicians (known for their light tricks) DazzleBright and LightningFlash. As a young filly growing up in that city that never sleeps she never saw a star, unless it was on stage or in the flash of a camera, never knew the quiet darkness of a country night from her bedroom overlooking the countless flashing lights of the theater marquees.

The pretty young filly was eventually dolled up to join her parents in their stage show. They took to dying her plain, rather dull white mane a more dramatic dark blue to make her look older and more exotic, and to contrast with her brilliant green eyes. Dark blue, except for one streak that they would color with the bright pulp of fruit to match her costume for the day. On stage, she caught the attention of theater scouts who whisked her away to auditions for bit roles, often playing the precocious youngster foil to a more mature star. Her parents couldn't have been more pleased, though, than if she had been the star of the Ziegfeld Fillies. They began sent her to special classes to perfect her canter; singing lessons, spa trips to improve her coat, anything to give her the edge. Being very petite, she appeared much younger than she actually was and could have played fillies for a very long time, well into marehood.

However, her promising acting career was cut short. Her overly indulgent parents were counting on her to become a star, but the look audiences were expecting in their child stars had changed. No longer were they looking for ponies that looked like china dolls in beautifully beaded and tailored dresses, they wanted pink ponies with lots of curls and frilly lace dresses. With the money from the few productions she had been in, not only had her parents overextended themselves trying to jumpstart her career, but her dad had also taken to playing the ponies and was in quite the hole.

Destitute, the family had to start over in the relatively young town of Ponyville, a place founded by the non-magical, earthy, *regular ponies*, to their utter distain. Her parents got jobs using their powers to help the ponies of Ponyville have a few extra hours of light during the ongoing expansion of the town. They were paid modestly for this service, and the good-hearted ponies of the town made sure that despite their slightly condescending attitudes, that the unicorn family had enough to eat. They even tried to make friends with them to no avail. It was here, on that first night in Ponyville, that Glow experienced actual night time. And it scared her. Had her parents not been in the next room, she didn't know what she would have done! At the time, their cottage did not have the mysterious indoor lighting that the other ponies seemed to have. That night, and every night afterwards she concentrated hard to banish the darkness and after many weeks she learned she could make just the tiniest spark at the tip of her horn. Just that little spark helped.

All the while Glow was growing into a beautiful mare (and fully aware of it) with a bit of the ol' "most cultured person in a small town" snobbery. But she still hadn't gotten her cutie mark. She was terrified that her special talent was being afraid of the dark; how embarrassing would THAT be?

Her parents scrimped and saved their bits to attend a theatrical performance now and then to get a little taste of the life they left behind. One warm summer night they decided that Glow was old enough to stay behind by herself; they did not have the bits for 3 tickets. Glow was going to have to steel her courage and get through the whole dark night by herself!

She couldn't sleep. She wrapped herself in her blanket and stared out into the darkness through her open window, trying to focus on the only light she could see: the cold distant stars. She made feeble shaky attempts at making her horn provide some light to her dark room, the light flickering almost in a Morse Code pattern. Her eyes focused on the sky, Glow didn't realize that all around her thousands of fireflies were creeping towards her window, drawn to her flashing horn. Suddenly her room was filled with the flashing insects, swirling around her like they thought she was some kind of idol. She quelled the light. They slowed their swirling and settled on her coat. She blinked it rapidly, they blinked in return, in unison. She didn't know what she was saying to them, but apparently they were listening. She knew then that communicating with these gentle beetles was her special talent, and her firefly-shaped cutie mark appeared on her flank.

After many weeks of secret nighttime practice, she was able to communicate simple commands to the fireflies, who seemed eager to obey. She unveiled her secret to the town during a masquerade ball, where she dressed up as the constellation Pegasus; her firefly friends clinging to her in the position of the stars. Her costume was a success and everypony wanted her and her firefly friends to attend all their parties with her firefly troupe!

As time went on, Glow was sheltering the young larva from predators and hand-rearing and feeding the nymphs (it's quite a sacrifice to keep her little friends in slugs and snails, which she considers disgusting). By the time the fireflies reached adulthood they trusted her implicitly. She doesn't really talk to them, but she understands enough of their blinks to communicate what she wants of them, and they are happy to oblige. This way she was able to create dazzling light shows and decorations for special events and holidays. Her favorite things to create, of course, were flashing marquees for the local theaters that are mostly long since gone now. As well as being a star actress to crowds of€¦well, hundreds, maybe, she just loved seeing her name in lights. She was quite popular in town for years, until styles changed and bunting, banners and ribbons became the go-to décor for the most stylish parties, and the ponies moved away from theater as a primary recreation.

As the styles changed and she mainly only had the job of orchestrating lamp and streetlight lighting, she became insecure. Being the town 'electrician' is not the life she had planned out for herself. The spoiled and vain, yet fun-loving and sweet unicorn started trying too hard to be the center of attention, insinuating herself into any kind of event in town. She would schmooze any celebrities who might be able to give her second break in acting, in case they need a "older sister to star in their biopic". Glow would even flirt outrageously with any handsome stallion, even ones young enough to have been her foal! She sought refuge in gossip and cattiness, and eventually was seen by the kind ponyfolk in her town as a bit of a nocturnal crank, and to be avoided.

Despite being a selfish pony, she takes great care of her lightning bug family, making sure they work in shifts filling the lights of Ponyville equally and for reasonable amount of time each shift before they are allowed to go off and live their little firefly lives until their shift the next night. There's a change about every hour throughout the night, she signals with her horn, and the fireflies go to their appointed posts until she signals again. This strict schedule is kept because when she first started communicating with the fireflies, she inquired about the ones in the streetlights, and to her absolute horror discovered that they were rounded up nightly and forced into the globes. Some even died there! Now, she doesn't know whether fireflies get bored, but she she does know that once they start flying and flashing that they don't have much time left to enjoy their wings, so she wants to make sure that they can still live the happiest lives they can while still helping the citizens of Ponyville. This works out well for both the ponies and the fireflies.

About the only other time Glow is seen doing something that is not self-serving in some way is when she finds out that a youngster is afraid of the dark, she will ask her companions to pay a special visit to this scared little pony on summer nights. Of course, if you ask her about it she will deny that she had a part of it and insist that the silly creature simply got lost. But secretly she is heavyhearted that her stage ambitions when she was younger didn't leave room for a family, so she has a soft spot for little ones, especially fuzzy little foals. But beware the filly or colt who tries to capture or imprison one of her little pals against its will! She doesn't know who those two little unicorn colts are, the ones in particular who keep trying to catch the fireflies lately, but if she finds out she's going to bite their ears, and drag them by those ears to their parents for scolding. Even if that yellow one is taller than her.

Since she has found her calling and is never truly in the darkness, she is often out at night, dancing in the moonbeams or pretending that it's a spotlight. She has no great love the longest day of the year because she and her fireflies have less time to do their thing, so naturally she likes the Summer Sun Festival least of all.. If she had been around 1000 years ago, Luna would have found a nighttime friend. Especially now since she is fairly lonely in her semi-isolation, self-imposed by her rude behavior to others.

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A not-quite-final sketch.

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How is this character coming along?

Good. I just made some edits to her appearance (which is now final), and I am working on her character summary, making it more coherent.

Hoping to finish it tomorrow.

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How is this character coming along?

Good. I just made some edits to her appearance (which is now final), and I am working on her character summary, making it more coherent.

Hoping to finish it tomorrow.

Okay, just remember to remove the WIP tag once this character is done so it can be looked over by a Helpstaff member.

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She is FINALLY, finally done. 27 minor edits later (and about half of those were because I left out a damn comma somewhere) :)

Also, I asked Skye about this, and I know Ponyville is crowded, but Ponyville is the only place that has streetlights powered by fireflies that we have seen, presumably a tradition started by the earth ponies.

One additional thing about this character that I am not adding to the profile because it hasn't happened yet. She's coming into roleplay-land in hopes (mine, not hers) that the niceness of the older ponies and making friends will transform her into a less-selfish pony. She will always be vain and a little self-centered, but I think that eventually she will see that her self-worth shouldn't be wrapped up in how pretty she is, or what she'd done in the past, but in WHO she is. And a pony can learn that lesson no matter what age they are.

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I think she looks pretty good. Poor thing, she could use some friends though. I'm not sure I'm particularily keen on her being a dwarf amongst ponies, but I don't see why not. Approved.

Oh, a lot of actresses are really short. Shockingly short. Which is why it's really screwed up that the tabloids like to tell us their weight and size. of course they're 115 pounds, and a size 0. They're 5'1. And it contributed to why she was such a scaredy cat practically into adolescence.

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