I found the narrative implications of the Villain vote here fascinating. If everything we saw saw far was just a mask... then what is the real Velvet? What kind of person would she have to be, for her to lust after Luna's power, for her to ignore Luna's worth as a person, but simultaneously for her to have lived the life she has, making the choices she has, and made her manifest the cutie-mark she has? What sort of motivation would produce these at the same time?
Judging by the current vote, I don't think that vote is going to win, but nevertheless, nevertheless, I want to see it. So I decided to figure something out - and then write it.
And so, an omake - my take on an "origin story" that would explain Velvet's cutie-mark and her reaction to Luna, at least.
(I might write a followup, if there is interest. We'll see.)
Stories
Velvet Covers used to hate stories, back before she knew what they really were.
As a young filly, stories didn't make any sense. Sometimes, they'd say one thing; other times another, with little sense or reason. And then when Velvet repeated what she heard in stories, her parents would laugh and correct her. It was infuriating! How was she supposed to understand anything when it kept changing? When none of it lined up?
One day, she was so frustrated by her bedtime story that it brought her to tears. After a regimen of hugs and quietly whispered reassurances from her mother, Velvet calmed down enough to explain why she was crying - and her mother finally deigned to explain the nature of what she had been reading her filly every night. "Oh, sweetie. You don't need to try to make the stories line up. They aren't meant to be taken that seriously! They are just... stories. Make-believe. Fun to read and think about, and maybe with a lesson to teach, but they don't have to be true. Stories are filled with unbelievable wonders so you can enjoy them, not worry over them!"
Velvet was relieved, because she finally understood what was going on. Velvet was annoyed, because apparently a bunch of what she had been told was "make-believe", and now she needed to sort through her head and make sure she didn't mix it up with the other knowledge. Velvet was angry, because why didn't anypony tell her earlier if they were making things up for fun? And Velvet was scared, because she thought only "bad ponies" could tell lies, but apparently that was also a lie, since nopony seemed to have trouble telling stories.
…And Velvet was intrigued, because she had worked really hard on trying to keep everything straight so she wouldn't tell lies, but if "make-believe" was allowed, didn't that mean she didn't have to worry? After all, it didn't matter if stories were true.
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It didn't mattered if stories were true, but it mattered if ponies thought they were true, Velvet soon learned. Her parents frequently scolded her for lying over the last few days, but only if she tried to pass of a story as real but they didn't believe her.
It was okay to listen to stories, apparently, even when they were clearly made up - but when you told stories, you needed to make sure they were believable.
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It frusturated Velvet, how often her stories got seen through. Apparently telling believable stories was hard. Adults already knew a lot; it was easy to accidentally say something contradicting what they expected, and then the game was up! Worse, fillies weren't expected to know much either, so a lot of times her stories wouldn't be believed because they didn't make sense coming from her. A double bind; the only story that would work would be something that a filly would know, but adults wouldn't.
The best idea that Velvet could think of within these constraints was telling stories about herself - her thoughts, her feelings, that sort of stuff. Nobody could expect to know that better than her, right? So any story she told would be believable!
Conveniently, she was grounded until she "sincerely apologized" for her behavior as of late. She didn't much mind the grounding, but this would be a good way to test out how well these sort of identity stories worked out.
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Identity stories made for good stories. Really good. You could make up whatever you wanted, as long as you didn't say something too unusual and stayed consistent. Even if someone doubted you, as long as you stuck to what you were saying, you could usually make your stories stick too.
Velvet was feeling good. For once in her admittedly-short filly life, Velvet got to exert direct control over the ponies around her, and it was surprisingly gratifying. Of course, the scope of what she could affect with her stories wasn't extensive - but so what? Velvet wasn't greedy. Being able to shape a corner of their minds was enough. And if it wasn't, well, all she'd needed to do was expand that corner. That couldn't be so hard, could it? Even if the only reliable tool she had was stories about who she was, making herself important enough to someone would do the trick.
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Velvet wondered sometimes... would someone who truly knew her consider her a virtuous person? It didn't really matter, since that hypothetical was absurd - but still, she sometimes wondered.
They had been going over the various virtues in school recently, which were supposed to be the marks of being good - honesty, loyalty, generosity, laughter, and kindness. And Velvet understood them, she really did. She even practiced most of them! But, well, the others talked about virtues as if the were something you were, not something you did.
Velvet knew how to act virtuous, and she did; it made life easier and more convenient, usually. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, as the saying goes. But to be virtuous seemed somehow different. What would that be like, really?
Such were the idle daydreams of Velvet, on those occasions when she mused upon virtue.
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Velvet tried writing fiction in class this week. It was the first time in a while that she had done such a thing; she'd long since abandoned telling stories about things she couldn't convincingly fake, and the practice left her feeling nostalgic.
In truth, despite the nostalgia, the task wasn't especially appealing. Velvet knew her own skill - or lack thereof, as the case may be. She wasn't a talented enough writer to truly influence ponies through text; and certainly not through something clearly labeled "fiction".
Whatever the initial spark for her picking up storytelling had been, Velvet decided that her path was set. Maybe in another life, Velvet might have had a passion for writing stories, or reading them. But in this life? She'd be more likely to convince a crowd that she'd written a best-selling book than to actually put ink to paper.
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Velvet got her cutie-mark that evening - a blank book, being attended to by an audience of attentive butterflies.
Everyone seemed to misunderstand the metaphor. But that was okay. Velvet preferred it that way.
