Flipturn

By An Old Head

• December 29, 2012




Age: 20

Gender: Female

Species: Unicorn

Appearance: Mane Colour: Blue & Light Blue<br /><br />Coat Colour: Gray<br /><br />Eye Colour: Light Blue<br /><br />Cutie Mark Colours: Orange, Yellow and Blue<br /><br />Horn Shape: Curved<br /><br />Height: 60th percentile

Cutie Mark: Flipturn's cutie mark is an orange cylinder patterned with a yellow spiral, encircled by a blue motion arrow. The cylinder is a representation of her prominence in illusory magic; it symbolises the cylinder that cast shadow upon a chessboard to create the famous chessboard illusion. The spiral upon the cylinder embodies those animated optical illusions where a spiral would curve one's perception of reality; and the motion arrow signifies the practical application of illusion into a unicorn's magic.

Personality: Flipturn is an open pony with a bright personality, who specialises in illusory magic. She aspires to be a generally liked pony by others - so she welcomes everypony's criticism. She is never afraid to speak her mind, taking extra care not to potentially offend anypony. However she will sometimes become too obsessed with how she appears to others, so in times of trouble she loses a lot of self-confidence. Her lifetime goal is to defeat The Distorter and determinedly studies magic to try and achieve this.

Backstory: Flipturn was born in a town atop a hovering island called Invertopia, in an ocean to the north of Canterlot. She was born into a family of her mother, father and older sister. At a young age, she was fascinated by her senses, and how she was able to take sights and sounds in. As such, she loved exploring and playing with different objects. She would often create small structures out of household objects to see what shadows they would cast, or clock/rub two items together to see what sounds they would make. (This was often to her parents' annoyance, as sometimes she'd put every object in the house into one room.)<br /><br />When Flipturn was age six, a tragic curse hit the island of Invertopia, cast by the evil spirit known as The Distorter. The curse, over the course of a day, flipped the floating island completely upside-down, submerging the town in the ocean beneath it. Despite being so young, Flipturn was able to use her honed perception skills to be one of the first to make it across the completely inverted town to the other side; helping her family in the process. However, not everyone survived the terrible curse, and those who made it through alive were relocated to a housing allotment in Canterlot, built under the orders of Princess Celestia to aid the then homeless population of Invertopia.<br /><br />Flipturn adjusted to a life in Canterlot, attending magic kindergarten and learning how to harness her magical ability. However, she would often sneak out of lessons in order to read about illusory magic from the library, which she was keenly interested in. It turned out that her already sharpened senses gave her enormous proficiency in creating illusions in front of other ponies, and she greatly enjoyed pulling pranks such as conjuring illusory apples that disappeared upon touch to fool her friends. <br /><br />It was only when she was looking out of her bedroom window one night while everypony else was asleep, at the bare island of Invertopia in the distance, that she saw it flipping over once more; then it occurred to her that that night was the anniversary of the island flipping over, deducing that The Distorter's curse flipped the island once every year. In the dead of night, she went back to the now upright remnants of her home town and found her house covered in a coral reef; returning to her old bedroom and looking out at the bright moonlight, she was mixed with sadness and rage at The Distorter's curse, and in an epiphany decided that her goal in life was to find and defeat The Distorter. At that point, she felt a curious feeling on her flank; and noticed, through the light of the moon, that her cutie mark had appeared; a spiralled cylinder and a motion arrow.<br /><br />From that day forth, Flipturn determinedly studied the many branches of illusory magic and mastered them with an ease that surprised her school teachers. Now aged twenty, Flipturn has moved into her own house and earns a living running a magic show where she performs visual tricks and creates virtual atmospheres. She also began an annual festival where civilians of Canterlot would band together and watch the year's rotation of Invertopia.