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Description

The Name’s Lightning Dust…  
After Rainbow Dash ratted me out, I was kicked out of The Wonderbolt Academy…  
…My one and only dream.

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redweasel
Duck - "someone befriended them, saved them, coaxed them out of their shell, and showed them that sex is nothing to be afraid of. I’m kind of envious of that rape victim"

Fuzzbutt
@Cirrus Light  
ooh… yeah… forgot about the thing with trixie…
 
well hopefully lightning dust didn’t commit suicide
 
and yeah I hate starscribe to death they’re so amazing
Cirrus Light
Economist -
Condensed Milk - State-Approved Compensation
Friendship, Art, and Magic (2018) - Celebrated Derpibooru's six year anniversary with friends.
Helpful Owl - Drew someone's OC for the 2018 Community Collab
Birthday Cake - Celebrated MLP's 7th birthday
Best Artist - Providing quality, Derpibooru-exclusive artwork
Magical Inkwell - Wrote MLP fanfiction consisting of at least around 1.5k words, and has a verified link to the platform of their choice
Not a Llama - Happy April Fools Day!
Friendship, Art, and Magic (2017) - Celebrated Derpibooru's five year anniversary with friends.
An Artist Who Rocks - 100+ images under his artist tag

Sciencepone of Science!
@redweasel  
Lol, to quote the Hearth’s Warming play:  
Princess Platinum: “Throw that brute into the dungeon!”  
Clover the Clever: “What dungeon!?”
 
But hey we did have Trixie commit like 50% attempted suicide. That’s a thing. That happened.
 
And yeah, it’d be kinda funny to see the exact same thing that happened to Dash happen to Lighting.
 
Lol, makes me think of this huge epic scifi fanfic I’m reading where Lighting Dust plays a pretty big role.
 
It’s funny how fanfic can effect your perception of canon characters like that.
redweasel
Duck - "someone befriended them, saved them, coaxed them out of their shell, and showed them that sex is nothing to be afraid of. I’m kind of envious of that rape victim"

Fuzzbutt
@Cirrus Light
 
well, “raising an army” doesn’t mean owning it necessarily. tempest was the one who convinced the storm king to invade equestria. and sure raising an army might not be common, but unlike a pony getting executed or committing suicide, at least it actually happened. :p
 
So it’s Rainbow’s turn to play Tank’s role? Except instead of pet, it’s com-pet-itor…
 
kind of, I guess? tank wasn’t helping a competitor in the race though, he was just sucking up to the ref.
 
that’d still be awesome though, because it’d show that tank and rainbow dash actually share something in common, and that she learned from tank’s act of heroism.
 
and… cue the lightning dust / rainbow dash pet play fanart
genervt
Lunar Supporter - Helped forge New Lunar Republic's freedom in the face of the Solar Empire's oppressive tyrannical regime (April Fools 2023).
Non-Fungible Trixie -
Preenhub - We all know what you were up to this evening~
My Little Pony - 1992 Edition
Wallet After Summer Sale -

DUSTY IS BEST CAPTAIN
lightning dust comes back, saying that she learned her lesson and now she’s totally faster than dash and better than her and she didn’t even need friendship. so basically she learned a flying lesson, not a moral lesson. rainbow dash succumbs to her taunts and pridefully races against her, only for lightning dust to push herself too hard and get hurt. rainbow immediately calls off the race and helps her, because she was only really racing in order to give lightning dust some closure. so lightning learns that going fast doesn’t make you a winner, having ponies who care about you makes you a winner, and flies off with a lot on her mind.
so, like magic duel but without a plot macguffin of evil making.
 
I rather would have her become friends with Rainbow again and rejoin the Wonderbolts.  
Maybe in S8E20.
Cirrus Light
Economist -
Condensed Milk - State-Approved Compensation
Friendship, Art, and Magic (2018) - Celebrated Derpibooru's six year anniversary with friends.
Helpful Owl - Drew someone's OC for the 2018 Community Collab
Birthday Cake - Celebrated MLP's 7th birthday
Best Artist - Providing quality, Derpibooru-exclusive artwork
Magical Inkwell - Wrote MLP fanfiction consisting of at least around 1.5k words, and has a verified link to the platform of their choice
Not a Llama - Happy April Fools Day!
Friendship, Art, and Magic (2017) - Celebrated Derpibooru's five year anniversary with friends.
An Artist Who Rocks - 100+ images under his artist tag

Sciencepone of Science!
@redweasel  
Fizzlepop Berrytwist isn’t exactly common. And she didn’t actually raise the army, she just joined Storm King’s.
 
So it’s Rainbow’s turn to play Tank’s role? Except instead of pet, it’s com-pet-itor…
redweasel
Duck - "someone befriended them, saved them, coaxed them out of their shell, and showed them that sex is nothing to be afraid of. I’m kind of envious of that rape victim"

Fuzzbutt
Because those things are more likely than going off and raising an army :q
They already had “plain jerk redemption” with Gilda, but probably don’t want a “turns out this jerk is really just irredeemable” plot.
oh sure, they passed their opportunity to bring back lightning dust years ago. I’m saying perhaps that was an understandable, if regrettable mistake.
 
but uh… gilda and rainbow dash go way back, and they aren’t competing with each other. it’s a totally different situation. I think it’d be more like magic duel, like…
 
lightning dust comes back, saying that she learned her lesson and now she’s totally faster than dash and better than her and she didn’t even need friendship. so basically she learned a flying lesson, not a moral lesson. rainbow dash succumbs to her taunts and pridefully races against her, only for lightning dust to push herself too hard and get hurt. rainbow immediately calls off the race and helps her, because she was only really racing in order to give lightning dust some closure. so lightning learns that going fast doesn’t make you a winner, having ponies who care about you makes you a winner, and flies off with a lot on her mind.
 
so, like magic duel but without a plot macguffin of evil making.
Cirrus Light
Economist -
Condensed Milk - State-Approved Compensation
Friendship, Art, and Magic (2018) - Celebrated Derpibooru's six year anniversary with friends.
Helpful Owl - Drew someone's OC for the 2018 Community Collab
Birthday Cake - Celebrated MLP's 7th birthday
Best Artist - Providing quality, Derpibooru-exclusive artwork
Magical Inkwell - Wrote MLP fanfiction consisting of at least around 1.5k words, and has a verified link to the platform of their choice
Not a Llama - Happy April Fools Day!
Friendship, Art, and Magic (2017) - Celebrated Derpibooru's five year anniversary with friends.
An Artist Who Rocks - 100+ images under his artist tag

Sciencepone of Science!
@redweasel  
She hasn’t appeared since she was led away in custody, you say…  
She was secretly executed at the police station. Equestria is actually secretly a brutal tyranny. Or she committed suicide.
 
I’m sorry, but that’s actually what came to mind when you said “she was led away by Wonderbolt police and disappeared to never be seen again.” Because those things are more likely than going off and raising an army :q
 
Or, most likely of all, they just hadn’t thought to include her again as an adult or what her arc would be like…
 
They already had “plain jerk redemption” with Gilda, but probably don’t want a “turns out this jerk is really just irredeemable” plot. Not without doing a half-redeemable like Trixie in Magic Duel or Discord (calling him half redeemable because he may not be a villain but he’s still often an antagonist that likes messing with the mane 6, sometimes more hurtful than others).
redweasel
Duck - "someone befriended them, saved them, coaxed them out of their shell, and showed them that sex is nothing to be afraid of. I’m kind of envious of that rape victim"

Fuzzbutt
@Cirrus Light
 
a good number of people do like lightning dust… they just don’t run equestria daily :p
 
but no seriously, she should at least have had some sort of background cameo, just because the longer she doesn’t, the more suspicious it looks that she just… disappeared after getting led away by the wonderbolt police. there’s also the fact that people like lightning dust, but the real issue is the oddity that the show writers would be willing to bring lightning dust back as a placeholder filly, but never, not once put her in after the tornado incident. (er… vague, blurry posters excepted)
 
my guess is… that they weren’t going to use her at first, and then after they noticed fans getting suspicious, deliberately avoided using her, thinking it’d be really cool if they did an episode where lightning dust came back from journeying beyond equestria with an army at her hooves and a cruel unyielding temperament. then they couldn’t get everyone to agree to that, so they just made a movie instead.
Cirrus Light
Economist -
Condensed Milk - State-Approved Compensation
Friendship, Art, and Magic (2018) - Celebrated Derpibooru's six year anniversary with friends.
Helpful Owl - Drew someone's OC for the 2018 Community Collab
Birthday Cake - Celebrated MLP's 7th birthday
Best Artist - Providing quality, Derpibooru-exclusive artwork
Magical Inkwell - Wrote MLP fanfiction consisting of at least around 1.5k words, and has a verified link to the platform of their choice
Not a Llama - Happy April Fools Day!
Friendship, Art, and Magic (2017) - Celebrated Derpibooru's five year anniversary with friends.
An Artist Who Rocks - 100+ images under his artist tag

Sciencepone of Science!
@genervt  
@Psyga315  
It’s like, “fictional situation way outside of everyday experience that most people haven’t experienced so it’s easier to forgive them because you haven’t encountered this in real life” vs. “the kind of jerk you’ve actually encountered in real life and hold a grudge against”.
 
Adventure and major arc villains get reformation and more mercy than slice of life villains eh, antgonists, I guess.
 
Probably also because people aren’t as sad about an antgonist going away if they’re just some one-off antagonist.
 
Babs Seed is kinda the exception, but she was like completely forgotten when the CMCs all got their joint marks… And now Gabby has a “mark” and she’s a griffon. Meanwhile Babs still has scissors cutie mark with her “Manehatten branch” of the CMC…
 
And Trixie - Trixie got that special status because she was such a huge fan favorite, I’ll bet, so they decided to write Magic Duel, and she stayed a fan favorite, so they brought her in more later again.
genervt
Lunar Supporter - Helped forge New Lunar Republic's freedom in the face of the Solar Empire's oppressive tyrannical regime (April Fools 2023).
Non-Fungible Trixie -
Preenhub - We all know what you were up to this evening~
My Little Pony - 1992 Edition
Wallet After Summer Sale -

DUSTY IS BEST CAPTAIN
And this is why Wonderbolt Academy is a horrible episode.  
Even Queen Chrysalis was offered a second chance.
Cirrus Light
Economist -
Condensed Milk - State-Approved Compensation
Friendship, Art, and Magic (2018) - Celebrated Derpibooru's six year anniversary with friends.
Helpful Owl - Drew someone's OC for the 2018 Community Collab
Birthday Cake - Celebrated MLP's 7th birthday
Best Artist - Providing quality, Derpibooru-exclusive artwork
Magical Inkwell - Wrote MLP fanfiction consisting of at least around 1.5k words, and has a verified link to the platform of their choice
Not a Llama - Happy April Fools Day!
Friendship, Art, and Magic (2017) - Celebrated Derpibooru's five year anniversary with friends.
An Artist Who Rocks - 100+ images under his artist tag

Sciencepone of Science!
@kztxl7  
Okay, I was thinking I might’ve remembered that wrong. Rainbow Dash asked why she wasn’t a lead pony, and Spitfire told her that was because Lightning Dust pushed herself harder, inadvertently extolling her recklessness.
 
As for standing up to her, try going in to your drill instructor and having this conversation about your lifelong dream of the Wonderbolts:  
Spitfire: This better be important. You’re supposed to be up there busting clouds with your partner.
Rainbow Dash: We’re done with that, ma’am.
Spitfire: Already? That’s an academy record! Explain your methods.
Rainbow Dash: That’s why I’m here, ma’am. Lightning Dust decided to use a tornado.
Spitfire: A bit excessive for cloud-busting. But judging from your time, it was obviously an effective tactic.
Rainbow Dash: Yeah, well that “effective tactic” nearly took out my friends! No disrespect, ma’am, but there’s a big difference between pushing yourself as hard as you can and just being reckless. And if being reckless is what gets rewarded around here, if that’s what it means to be a Wonderbolt, then I don’t want any part of it.
Spitfire: What are you saying, newbie?
Rainbow Dash: I quit.
 
It’s standing up to her because Spitfire holds massive and almost complete power over her fate, has been massively intimidating her the whole time (as per drill sergeant manner), and Rainbow Dash was standing up against something she’d extolled - Lightning Dust’s (her leadpony) practices (Rainbow Dash did not know, nor had any way to know, that Spitfire hadn’t meant to extol such recklessness).
 
If your definition of “standing up to” doesn’t include this, then you need to fix that definition, because this is standing up for/against something. It’s standing up to two people with authority over you in a place meant to crush anyone who stands up against it, where she’s spent the last few days being drilled and intensely intimidated by those in charge that she’s standing up to.
Pause

World's Smallest Violin
@Cirrus Light  
To “stand up” to someone generally requires someone being unfair, oppressed, or someone being abused in some shape or form. I read the transcripts. I watched the episode. Spitfire did nothing of the sort. How is she standing up to Spitfire in this case?
 
And like I said, I read the transcripts. There is no point in the episode in which Rainbow Dash tells Spitfire about Lightning Dust’s recklessness.