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Monday, 07-Jul-14 07:51:52 UTC from web
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I think that "unicorn" is still a valid description of Princess Twilight Sparkle, but I need to hear some counterarguments to be sure I'm correct. Anypony care to advocate that Twilight is no longer a "unicorn" in season 4, but instead just an alicorn/pegacorn? I'd appreciate the feedback.
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@pony What, like, genetically? I'm pretty sure her gametes still carry the unicorn gene. There's no changing that, no sir-ee. But she has wings, so from a social standpoint...
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@rainbowsdash wasn't born a alicorn*
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@mrmattimation @rainbowsdash So for the sake of refering to Twilight Sparkle in my fanfic, you'd say I could still call her a unicorn narratively, like "The unicorn called her dragon assistant to help her." ?
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Ross (FlamingPandaOMG) likes this.
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@mrmattimation I need persuasion because I dislike the term alicorn and other descriptive terms like librarian, mare, pony, and princess don't always fit as well as something that denotes her magic status as a magic-wielder.
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@pony "alicorn" literally denotes the most powerful magical being to ever exist on the face of Equestria.
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@mrmattimation True, but it also distances Twilight from her roots. I can't say "fellow alicorn" when talking about Twilight's birth family or Rarity, for example.
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@pony I would use unicorn when talking about her like that, but if like she is talking to someone like luna or celestia, or something formal like talking to gaurds or when she means to point out she is an alicorn,
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@rainbowsdash But she's not a unicorn anymore. She ceased being one when she received wings.
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@thewaifutyphoon You mean when her friends murdered her and Celestia gave her a new body.
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@mrmattimation Sure lets go with that
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@thewaifutyphoon Yes, but if you suddenly grew wings, would you call your self a human-wing-animal-ThingIDontKnowTheNameTo, or would you call your self a human, maybe formally, but not around friends or in third person
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@thewaifutyphoon Executive Order 694210. Look it up, sheeple.
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@mrmattimation LOL XD
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@rainbowsdash No, I wouldn't call myself anything different but there's no official word for that. There /IS/ one for what Twilight became so it's not appropriate to call her a unicorn anymore. It'd be like if you WERE a Boy Scout but you became an Eagle Scout just recently. Nobody would call you a Boy Scout anymore because you aren't one anymore. You became an Eagle Scout. It's not appropriate to call you that anymore.
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@rainbowsdash yeah. I do use the term alicorn occasionally.
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@sc Yeah but unicorn isn't it anymore.
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@thewaifutyphoon Ah, but why do wings mean she's not a unicorn? Before furries coined the term alicorn, there were only winged unicorns.
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Ross (FlamingPandaOMG) likes this.
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@pony Because that's not the term used in this specific universe.
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@thewaifutyphoon @mrmattimation The writers were originally going to use pegacorn I believe, though they did settle on alicorn. Still, the exclusion of certain vocabulary from the show doesn't mean it's invalid necessarily. I suppose as a compromise I could just call her a magical pony rather than a unicorn, thought that can be a bit awkward too.
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@pony You're writing fiction that's taking place in the MLP universe. That means you use the universes terms. You don't really get to be selective about it.
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@mrmattimation They also made rainbow ponies look horrendous in the show.
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@thewaifutyphoon I can see this being something that my readers may hate about my writing. Really, I've only had one complaint so far though. Still, in the MLP universe, is a unicorn in my opinion. She's also an alicorn, of course. She's both to me and I haven't seen evidence in the show that suggests that's not the case. Am I wrong?
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@sc Since there's no official precedent for the use of terms like pegacorn or winged unicorn in the show, I'm not sure that using them instead of alicorn would actually be any less accurate. No character has come out and said, "Twilight isn't a unicorn anymore," or "Pegacorn? Stop talking jibberish."
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@mrmattimation yeah. Just to say that they exist. And, of course, Twilight does have a horn (unicorn) and she does have wings.
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@sc Ah see there's a good point I hadn't put my finger on until you said it. Submersion for the target audience... tricky that. I suppose I could say nuts to the audience, I'll do what i want, but don't I want them to be absorbed, and is my personal opinion on the term alicorn worth sacrificing that? Do you think many would really be so shocked like you say?
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@pony I dunno about shocked, but it'd definitely take me from being immersed fully in it.
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@pony Twilight is the one and truly only one floppy horn http://rainbowdash.net/attachment/767680
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@sc @thewaifutyphoon Hmm... I'm reconsidering my use of unicorn now. The reason I hate "alicorn" so much is because it's not a genuine classical term unless you use it to describe the material from which the horn is made.
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@broniebrown Best poison joke joke.
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@sc True. The sad thing is that I actually really liked the term alicorn originally before I knew that it wasn't actually a "new" word, but an old one that didn't mean what people used it to mean. If it weren't already in-use, I'd like "alicorn" a lot more as a word for winged unicorns.
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@sc the fandom's use of alicorn just felt ignorant to me ever since then. Originally I thought it was perfect because "ali" means wings in italian.
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