using this as her real name..when?

So when are they going to finally change the tags on all those Estatic pics to be “Estatic Dancer”?

@Background Pony #3DA8
 
you think that’s bad? I’m asking logic from people who don’t think homeopathy is a scam!

@redweasel  
You’re asking logic from people wanting to nickname a party drug?

@Ferrotter
 
molecule? but everything’s made out of molecules!

@redweasel  
Per Wikipedia, “molly” refers to an allegedly pure preparation of crystalized molecular (“molly”-cular) MDMA, to distinguish it from normal ecstasy. Real MDMA is expensive, so ecstasy is often adulterated with various cheaper drugs and inactive fillers, sometimes to the exclusion of any MDMA at all. Molly supposedly isn’t, but one could debate the wisdom of relying on the implied quality assurances of someone selling illicit drugs.

@Chopsticks
 
I don’t understand why people started calling the drug molly.

Ecstatic … dancer… is this real?
 
 
@redweasel  

 
Ecstasy (also molly) is a common substance found and used in raves, which has a side effect known as “raging” where you want to excessively chew and grind your teeth. Typically gum is used, but the sugar and expense gets old, so ravers began to wear pacifiers.
 
We don’t know for sure if the animators/character designers did this on purpose as a tease reference or they just thought it’d be cute. But you know, the fandom will take it however they, erhm… prefer.

I don’t even remember why molly’s a drug reference.

@Background Pony #2E0F  

 
Just one addition I found since last night, “Janitor Pony” is only listed as Janitor Pony on the store tile. He’s named Moptop in the game. Hyped-Up Dancer and (presumably) Ecstatic Dancer and Athletic Dancer, don’t have other names. That is, in the screen where his name shows up as Moptop, theirs show up as Hyped-Up Dancer and Ecstatic Dancer. And probably Athletic Dancer but I haven’t seen any images of that screen for her.
 
(It’s a bit of a shame the third one is “Athletic Dancer” but I guess even “Flashy Dancer” would probably have been denied as a trademark for obvious reasons.)

@Background Pony #2E0F  

 
Don’t bother me, and I won’t be amused when things bother you. Imagine the viciousness and audacity, that I bite back when I’m attacked. The horror, the horror! You in particular don’t seem to be attacking me, so nothing personal, I don’t particularly revel in any discomfort you in particular have over her being named Ecstatic Dancer. Certain others though, I’m glad it bothers them. If they also hadn’t been yayhats, I would be sorry it bothered them too.
 

 
Apology accepted. I didn’t even know “Molly” was a drug reference until well into the debate on her name, it just predated “Pacific Glow” as a fanon name for her, is an adorable name, and has been a name connected to MLP far longer (nearly 20 years longer) than it was connected to MDMA. Whereas “Pacific Glow” is a ||yay!||ing stupid name for a pony from the Atlantic coast. And I had no quarrel with “Candy Rave” as a name for her, or any of several others that never caught on. My reason for liking “Ecstatic Dancer” is that it finally gives her a canon name that’s not Pacific Glow. Not because it’s a much clearer reference to E than “Molly” ever was. Though it is, and that’s funny.
 
And yes, just like I no longer call her Molly because her name is canonically Ecstatic Dancer now, should show canon supersede toy canon by giving her another name, I will readily start using her name from the show (or a book for that matter). Including, if the show starts calling her Pacific Glow, or had the Hasbro-sanctioned Gameloft name for her been that in the first place, I would simply vomit a few times and start calling her that.
 
 
@Background Pony #FDF1  

 
I was tempted to just say “go yay! yourself” to this and leave it at that. But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you were only calling me a liar because you misunderstood, and actually thought I was saying something that was truly unbelievable.
 
I originally suggested a different name, it never caught on, and I don’t even remember what it was. It rapidly became apparent that every image of her that was tagged with a name at all (approximately 15 out of 20 total images of her if I remember it right) was tagged with “Molly.” So I tagged the rest with that so that they would be easy to find. A while later, some jackass had untagged a most of them (up to about 30 total at the time), leaving most of them with no name, making them impossible to find except by episode spoiler (in an episode that had a whole lot of screengrabbable moments). Around that time, Background is Best Pony (I think) suggested “Pacific Glow” as a kid-friendly alternate name to tag along with Molly, to stop the tag wars. Which I thought was great. Tag it with two (or three; someone else came up with Candy Rave and that got vaguely popular) names on every image until she got an official name (just like images of Cloudchaser for years were tagged with both Cloudchaser and Stormwalker), and everyone’s happy. But it didn’t work, a bunch more ||yay!!!||bags just started tag warring even worse, erasing molly and putting on pacific glow instead. To the point where one of the mods, DragonWraith, fixed them all back to both tags, and some people were big enough ||yay!!!||bags that they were still erasing the “molly”s that a mod had put there.
 
In the conversation of one of the images where I was fixing the tags and leaving/putting in both names, I found out for the first time that Molly was another name used for Ecstasy. Prior to that I’d never heard it called anything but Ecstasy or E. And it was insinuated (correctly I’d find out later) that it was for specifically that reason that /mlp/ had started calling her Molly in the first place. Which I didn’t give a flying yay! about, it’s a cute joke that would go way over kids’ heads, Molly’s still an adorable name with a long MLP history, and by that time Molly was by far the most popular (and really only, outside of maybe 5 images on Derpibooru) name for her.
 
Then Cirrus Somethingorother, who favored Pacific Glow, suggested a poll, and I agreed that was fair. The poll was in the comments of a particular image. Molly was far ahead, and then he moved the poll to the forums. Then he changed the rules, added numerous other choices and let people vote for multiple names (assuming they knew they could come back and re-cast their vote for several names), and changed how he was counting up the votes (whether the previous image thread counted or didn’t count as votes, whose vote counted, which vote counted when someone voted more than once, whether to count multi-votes as whole or partial votes, etc.) several times. Then he closed the voting thread and moved it to Survey Monkey or some other outside site, which I thought was a good idea. Then Joey, who had openly voted for Pacific Glow, ignored the week-long poll after only 6 hours, locked the discussion thread, aliased both Molly and Candy Rave to Pacific Glow, and single-handedly decided what the name would be while claiming that “Pacific Glow” had won a poll that never actually took place.
 
So no, I don’t like “Molly” because it’s about drugs, I like Molly despite that it originated as a drug joke on /mlp/ (just like basically the entire fandom). And I had no ||yay!||ing idea that it was a drug joke until a couple days into the tag war. I detest “Pacific Glow” as a name for her because it is ||yay!||ing stupid and offensive to name a New York pony after a California (among other things that also aren’t New York) ocean, and because of the ||yay!||sucking ||yay!!!||baggery that led to the name being selected, contrary to a popular vote that was never allowed to finish, by one entitled ||yay!||wad.
 
And I like (don’t particularly love) Ecstatic Dancer mainly because it’s now canon that her name is not Pacific Glow. That it’s an even more blatant drug reference than “Molly” is icing on the cake. Not because it’s a drug reference, but because it’s a major stinkfinger to the eye of the ||yay!!!||bags who started tag warring over it in the first place, and dishonestly made her name Pacific Glow instead of whatever the fandom actually voted on.
 

 
A fair number, maybe. But beat out, no. It was selected by one Derpibooru mod who was openly in favor of it, choosing to end a week-long naming poll after 6 hours, at a moment deliberately selected for “Pacific Glow” being slightly ahead of “Molly” and before most of the fandom even knew it was taking place. Maybe that counts as a vote in Venezuela or North Korea, but not really anywhere that isn’t an utter cesspit. Would “Pacific Glow” have won ultimately? Maybe. And I would have respected that vote. But it speaks so highly of anyone’s confidence in its popularity that an actual vote on it couldn’t be allowed to take place. And I will not respect that kind of ||yay!!!||baggery.

@Neko Majin C  

Actually they’re not synonyms. The process of changing a word with one grammatical function (e.g. ecstasy, which is a noun) into a word with a similar meaning but a different function (e.g. ecstatic, which is an adjective) is called derivation.
 
Same root word, similar meaning, different use.
 
 
@Ferrotter  

I’ll disagree on it being a great name, but I suppose I can’t fault you if you didn’t know it was a drug reference as well.  

 
 
@Ferrotter  

You know, I spend a lot of time on this site trying very hard to not cause trouble and respect people’s opinions on things, but I’ve always had a problem with the mentality that finds amusement when something bugs another person. And I’ll freely admit, the debate over this particular background pony did irritate me specifically because of the people who just didn’t want to let go of a stupid drug reference for her fandom name. And if I misinterpreted your reason for liking whatever Gameloft calls her because of that, I’m sorry for doing so. But I do not appreciate your amusement over this. I honestly thought Molly was kind of a dumb name, and I honestly thought Pacific Glow was a much better (and cleverer) one. And as for being “in denial”, the fact that Gameloft called her that doesn’t mean it’s a name. It could, as I said before, just as easily be a description of her. Especially given that some of the other characters they’ve released include “Violinist Pony” and “Janitor Pony”, which serve much better as descriptions of what they do than what they are called.  
 
So if you want to call her Ecstatic Dancer, go right ahead. But I’d appreciate at least the same courtesy in thinking that Pacific Glow is an ecstatic dancer. At least until she gets speaking lines on the show and they settle the matter permanently.

@Ferrotter  

Honestly I find that very hard to believe. From what I recall of the debate over her name, the big reason the name Molly was suggested at all was because of the connection MDMA has with raves. I cannot fathom how you could have missed the comments saying as much at the time, if you were legitimately involved in the conversations where her name was being discussed.
 
 
@Ferrotter  

Well there must be a fair number of people who liked “Pacific Glow”, because it beat out the other options at the time. As for her “official” name… assuming they do mean Ecstatic Dancer to be her name, it isn’t a bad one. That doesn’t mean people are suddenly going to use it though. After all, there are a few ponies on the show with official names in merchandise that are still referred to by fan names instead.

@Background Pony #9822  
No, I’m not the one obsessed with drugs. The only reason I would’ve maybe used “weed” or “grass” in Treehugger’s name (if the show hadn’t already given her a name) would be in reference to her disgustingly unkempt fur.

@Ferrotter  
It’s a shame they didn’t come up with a name involving “weed” or “grass” for Treehugger, huh?

@Background Pony #2E0F  
And Molly is first and foremost a female name, and one that like Meghan has been associated with My Little Pony since the 1980s. Whereas the street name of MDMA has been Ecstasy for as long as I can remember it existing.
 
But the point isn’t drugs, you’re the one fixated on that. I didn’t even know Molly was another name for Ecstasy, I thought it was a great name for her because it’s a great name. What I’m happy about is that “Pacific Glow” isn’t her name, because that is a stupid name for her. That the staff are clearly in on the joke some people were trying to make with “Molly” is merely amusing. However, that it bothers you is funny, and that you’re in denial about what her new, official, Hasbro-sanctioned name means is hilarious.

“Ecstatic.”  

@Background Pony #2E0F  
Ecstatic and ecstasy are synonyms. They are basically the same word with ecstasy being the feeling of great happiness and ecstatic being the experience of that feeling.

@Ferrotter  

Well, glad to see you’re not still bitter about it. Still, rather than taking anything, I’d prefer to point out that the word “ecstatic” is first and foremost an adjective defined as “feeling or expressing overwhelming happiness or joyful excitement,” So for the people who aren’t still grasping at straws trying to connect her to drug use, this could easily just be a description of her as a happy dancing pony.
 
And if it is intended to be her name, it’s still better than a slang word for the drug most commonly associated with raves.
 
 
@Ferrotter  

I wouldn’t say it’s official. Honestly I’d be hesitant of any name that could just as easily be a description of the only thing we’ve ever seen her doing. Still, that’s probably for the moderators to decide.
 
And no, I don’t think anyone (friends included) has ever called her ‘E’ or ‘Molly’. Not even as a nickname.

@Wiimeiser  
Which has all of nothing to do with her. Might as well have tried to name her Static Cling for all the staying still in one place she does. “Pacific” was as wrong for her from that angle as it is for a mid-Atlantic pony. Molly and Candy Rave at least fit her.
 
But of course, it doesn’t have to be hashed out again because she’s officially not Pacific Glow now, and that’s what matters. I always figured if she ever got an official name it wouldn’t be any of the fandom names, though I wasn’t expecting this. (Do you think her two best friends sometimes call her ‘E’ for short? Or perhaps they may even have nicknamed her ‘Molly’ after all …)
 
 
@Magma_ERuptiOn  

 
I do too. It shows the game developers and Hasbro have a great sense of humor, unlike the local Fun Police.

I like her official name :)

@Ferrotter  
“Pacific” means “peaceful”, hence “pacifist”

@Ferrotter  
I remember that whole thing…

Bwahahaha! Take that, everyone who was worried a cute name like “Molly” had unfortunate implications!
 
 
@SnakeyThingy  
No, you’re right, “Pacific Glow” was always a stupid name for a Manehattan pony.

If she gets popular enough, she could be like Derpy Ditzy Doo Muffins Hooves von Ponyville the Third and get multiple names?