Earth Pony Starshower

[Sparkdust]

[ Pony Related Character ]

Name: Starshower

Sex: Female

Age: Older filly

Species: Pony

Pelt Color: VERY Pale grey

Mane/Tail Color & Style: Both are light brown with dark brown highlights. Mane is fairly messy with bangs that cover her forehead and are often swept to one side. Tail is relatively short, stopping midway down the back legs. She doesn't seem to care much about her appearance.

Eye Color: Dark Brown.

Cutie mark: A dark grey star with a yellow lightning bolt coming from the bottom, like a thundercloud.

Physique: Average height, but very thin. Very weak. Often wears a greyish-blue striped scarf in colder months. Wears glasses. Has a small dark grey star birthmark near her left eye.

Residence: Her small apartment in Fillydelphia isn't well furnished, showing how little of her time is spent there. She only lives there to make her parents comfortable, and because it is conveniantly a floor or two above the bakery she works at. Her bed is a futon mattress laid out on the ground with a single pillow and a blanket adorned with a foalish starry pattern. A couple of photographs are taped to the wall: a flash of lightning, a comet. Several plastic glow-in-the-dark stars are stuck to the ceiling. Her kitchen is tiny, with a small oven and a cabinet with a little simple food, and oftentimes some bread the owners of the bakery she works at give to her.

She greatly prefers her study in Saddleveil Plains over her apartment, mostly because it is away from the crowd of the town, but also because it contains all of the things she loves. It is large enough to hold all of her books. Instead of shelving her books, she stacks them in seemingly messy piles across the floor according to subject. She thinks the piles make the spacious room less empty, and less lonely. The books are all filled with tabs and notes, some pointing to titles and page numbers of one of the other heavy tomes in her collection which may elaborate on a subject mentioned. The books cover Literature, Philosophy, and Physics, but mostly Astronomy and Meteorology.

There is a desk covered in short, well-sharpened pencils and two bird cages, one which holds an injured star finch (click here for a ref) named Tycho, and one holding a messenger dove named Claudius. (please let me know if I need to fill out applications for these two as well to allow her to interact with them.)

Models of planetary systems hang from the ceiling, which is absolutely covered in glow-in-the-dark stars, which have lines drawn between them to accurately portray various constellations. Plastered to the walls are numerous photographs of storms, tornadoes, comets, stars, and meteorites, along with diagrams of wing anatomy, including those of birds, bats and various insects. Accompanying her obsession with the sky is her interest in the act of naturally flying, without the aide of magic. She feels very strongly about the worth of those without magical abilities. In her sketchbooks are drawings and blueprints of mechanical wings that she can never seem to get motivated enough to build for herself.

The cabin is perched on the side of a hill and has wide, tall windows nearly the ceiling to allow for an adequate view of the sky. She can frequently be seen with a telescope out in front of her cabin, watching for meteorites.

Occupation: Starshower works at a small bread shop near her apartment in Fillydelphia. She chose this job solely for convenience. It pays well, baking bread is easy, she doesn't have to socialize much, and she has no qualms with coming into work at insane hours to bake bread. She is practically nocturnal as it is. This job is not her passion, and she only works there so that she can feed herself and buy new books and telescope equipment.

Motivation: Starshower was among the first in her class to get her cutie mark. It happened late one night when a terrible thunderstorm tore across Fillydelphia. She rose from her bed and stared out the window of her parents' house the entire night, watching in fascination as the flashing, roaring monster ripped branches from trees and flooded the roads with rushing water as the most skilled pegasi tried in vain to keep the storm under control. Ironically, it wasn't until the pegasi backed down, retreating to cover, that the storm suddenly passed and the clouds broke open with startling abruptness to reveal a twinkling night sky, clear and untouched by the raging storm. It was after this night that Starshower's obsession with phenomena of the sky began. At first, she held resentment for unicorn and pegasi for their abilities, but she got over it as she grew older, and learned to use her telescopes and other equipment as deftly as if she had magic to manipulate the objects.

Starshower spends hours reading and rereading books about the cosmos as Equestria knows them. Also fascinated by the weather, she picks through almanacs of years passed from regions across Equestria, studying patterns of wind and storms, particularly those not caused by pegasi. She does all of this entirely for her own interest and pleasure, with no goal in mind besides to simply learn, because she knows that as an earth pony, she could never form a career based on her love for weather and astronomy. Without wings to take her to Cloudsdale or any magical ability to allow her to walk on clouds, she is destined to observe the heavens from the ground. She refuses to ask a unicorn for help with the spell, because not only is she incredibly shy, she has mild pride issues, and asking others for help makes her uncomfortable.

Secretly, she does hope to discover something new, write some sort of thesis about it, and get it published, but her hopes aren't very high, and she doesn't want to expect too much.

Character Summary:

Starshower is a little agoraphobic and becomes very anxious in crowds and social situations. As a result, she is awkward in small talk and sometimes seems very naive or ditsy in conversation, as her lack of experience leads her to miss many social cues. She is gullible, and oftentimes either underestimates or overestimates the intensity of others' emotions. People tend to regard her as eccentric.

If you get her started on a topic she has researched, however, she suddenly becomes very eloquent and passionate. She has focused her entire being into the study of things beyond her reach, and pretends that she doesn't need social interaction. She spends so much time staring upwards that she often fails to acknowledge things that are right in front of her. She has few friends, and though she pretends that she is content with her life, she is in actuality very lonely.

[Dio]

So does she still resent unicorn and pegasi? That kind of attitude will have a very big impact on her worldview and social outlook; even if she's a hermit that lives in a cabin in the woods, she'd still have to go back into town periodically to get supplies or tools.

Also, I'm seeing her as a dedicated scientist from how you've described her. Does she have a particular research goal? Any current projects she's working on? Does she ever want her work to be published so her accomplishments can be made known? These goals will also contribute to her worldview and affect her general disposition.

[MyLittlePonyTales]

Why does she prefer the Saddleveil Plains over Fillydelphia? Why is she only interested in the study of how wings work, but not how horns and magic work?

Along one wall there is a row of machines and screens she uses to monitor weather patterns and the sky. While this is a nice idea, ponies don't have a whole lot of technology, and the bit that they do have is probably powered by magicâ€â€Âponies do not have electricity.

And also what Diomedes said as well.

[Sparkdust]

Ack... you guys are right. I'll work on refining this.

[Sparkdust]

Updated, fixing the things mentioned. I basically rewrote the whole thing. Anything else I should fix?

[Sparkdust]

Name has been changed from Sparkdust to Starshower.

[MyLittlePonyTales]

You can (and probably should) change her name before she's approved.

I don't quite understand how Sparkdust ended up working in a bakery instead of being an Astronomer or Physicist. Her talent and everything she likes has to do with stars, the sky, space, etc. Working in a bakery just seems out of character. Is there a particular reason you chose this job for her?

The second paragraph of her Motivation says, Sparkdust spends hours reading and rereading books about the cosmos, studying the physics of the stars, trying to memorize maps of systems lightyears from end to end.

I don't think ponies have the technology to know about star systems further than what they can see. The only pony that has even possibly been to space is Princess Luna, and technically she was banished, probably somewhat metaphorically, 'in' the moon, not on it. So the furthest ponies would be able to see into space would only be as far as the most advanced telescope.

[Sparkdust]

Updated age - older filly is more accurate.

She is a baker because, as you stated, there isn't much technology for astronomy, and thus not a job market for her, especially since she is an earth pony. She works at the bakery for convenience, to supply her with money for her HOBBY, stargazing, which she doesn't want to/doesn't really have the ability to make a career out of. Even if there was a career path for her in that field, she's still only about 17 or 18. Educating herself is her main goal, and she is still at a very early point in her life, so the bakery thing may not be permanent, depending on if she finds a job elsewhere later, one which better suits her interests.

I removed the part in the application about her studying stars so far away, replaced with "spends hours reading and rereading books about the cosmos as Equestria knows them".

[Thunder Boomer]

Having a talent for astronomy, it makes sense that she would want to get away from the city. She wouldn't want to stargaze there. Too much light pollution. I take it that she only has the apartment so she can be close to her bakery job?

I don't have a problem with her working in a bakery. Not everypony can immediately get a job that features their special talents. I do find it interesting that she doesn't think she can pursue a career in astronomy simply because she's an earth pony, but perhaps this is a plot device. Canterlot has an observatory. Has she ever considered traveling there?

[Sparkdust]

I wasn't aware of that! If that is the case, I'll make it a point for her to pursue visiting there if this application gets accepted. If she hasn't visited there already, it's most likely because she's a little shy of handling settings or situations she's not familiar with, i.e. visiting a different city, especially by herself.

[Thunder Boomer]

I read over this one more time, and I'm going to approve this, because it looks good to me.

The only thing is that you may want to edit it with a brief explanation as to why she lives in her city apartment rather than her study. Simply because it may not be obvious to everyone.

[Sparkdust]

Added that! Thanks so much for the help.

[Manestream]

I like it, excited to see them in the RP :3