@Flick Mare
 
@Flick Mare  

 
Yes, but she wasn’t flying this time. That sort of technicality gets people in trouble more often than it should. For example, a man drowned at party attended by a hundred life guards in 1985.

@LaserBiskit  
I saw it as Dash being desperate for any OTHER name but Rainbow Crash. That name is a trauma for her and we’ve seen Dash react horribly to some things where her doubt and fears come into place. Sonic Rainboom for example. She was trying to act like her friends cause she misinterpreted it as hey maybe my friends could do better here.

@Background Pony #9684  
same here, it seems like something someone would do to make fun of someone, if that makes sense

@LaserBiskit  
I’m at the part where RD is imitating her friends and I had to pause because it was too painful to watch.

@Jasonrevall  
the whole thing felt forced, bad writing, rainbow dash impersonating her friends was cringy  
oh and i thought we moved past spike abuse for cheap laughs

Like Maverick and Ice Man from Top Gun. Those names are earned. Maverick was a prick and always doing stupid stuff. He’s a bit like dash here just showing off. Then Ice Man is someone who’s so cold and heartless at times it’s like he doesn’t care. It’s a pop culture thing yet also apparent in the military in the real world. IF a nickname fits in the Military especially if your Sargent is getting on your case about something, it will stick because they intend it to stick. The Wonderbolts are a Military organization and them treating each other this bad is basically a way of knocking the new guy/girl into shape and fit in part of the formation.
 
If this was the real world a runway incident like that would KILL someone. In the real world messing up the Military Routine without authorization is enough to put the whole unit AND the people watching in danger.
 
A nail that sticks out gets the hammer. Dash needed to get hammered into place before she caused a serious incident. She’s an expert flier and the wonderbolts all agree on it and deserve to be with them, they just can’t let anyone mess up.

Plus the writers forgot the important line that’s been popular: If I really hating you, we wont just give you bad names and probation, we will fire you on spot.

Really all they had to do was have the wonderbolts make it clear how the nicknames work from the start (like they do in the link Untraceable linked) and not use a childhood nickname. Like come on really? Rainbow Crash is too easy. They should have went with “Trash Bomber” or “SSGP” (Super Sonic Garbage Pail) which would be shortened even further to SS or even Pail.
 
Then when she tries to change her nickname its on her and they don’t seem like jerks.

@untraceablelarry  
Look at the nicknames though. They’re generalized, Dash’s was actively a personal attack. I’m not saying people should whine and cry when they get bad nicknames. In fact the hostile nicknames are a good way to make sure people remember not to screw up again. I’m saying openly trying to cause unneeded beef between comrades is frowned upon and idiotic.

@TJPones  
The episode actually shows fairly realistically how pilots get their nicknames.  
http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2013/08/15/how_do_fighter_pilots_typically_earn_their_call_signs.html\  
They are almost always insults.
 
Also, good lord, you people are whiny and don’t understand hazing…

@AaronMk  
Depending on how okay he is with the nickname he can tell a superior officer. If he’s okay with the nickname thats fine, usually they are because nicknames aren’t that big a deal, and yes being upset just because of a nickname seems lame, but if it is legitimately effecting trust in the soldiers around you or performance it needs to be addressed. Nicknames can change and people can even get multiple nicknames.
 
The difference here is they were legit using a childhood nickname that was causing performance issues. If Dash accepts it and overcomes it great, but if it continues to effect her their insistence on continuing to use it would actually be the thing frowned upon not her desire to be treated with respect. They want effective teams more than they want a tough as nails caricature “as seen on tv” bs because they’re actually adults.
 
And yes they sometimes get immature young recruits but they either don’t last long or they change.

This image is hillarious. I bet whoever made the image dont know that most work environment are like this.
 
Wonderbolt is even a military which basically increase its chance multiple times.

@AaronMk  
I do get a sense of camaraderie and bond from people in the armed forces when I watch a program with armed forces as the main protagonists. Some examples being NCIS and MASH. :3

@thps48
 
Was talking to a friend of mine to see how it actually is, since admittedly I do not have first-hand experience. For reference, he’s in West Point now.
 
He’s of Armenian descent and he’s called “Turk”.  
There’s a guy in his class too who sounds clinically depressed and sounds on the verge of suicide all the time. He’s called Eeyore.
 
It’s a pretty intrinsic part of the culture and he loves it.

@AaronMk  
Case in point, I’m 26, and diarrhea. XD

@Background Pony #B07F
 
You’re right, they don’t. But they do hire 18 year-old recent name-calling Highschool Graduates. And the occasional 22 year-old #1 Community College grad.
 
Ironic and seemingly derogatory nicknames are part of the cut.

A lot of people are acting like this is what happens in the military. It’s not. The military doesn’t recruit 12 year old name calling children.

@zidders  

I would not make a habit of speaking in absolutes my friend. In this case, the episode explained the Wonderbolts’ rationale for being “such dicks to her,” as you put it. This very thread mentioned a term called the Fucking New Guy (“FNG”), whose origin is unknown to me but would appear to be most heavily used in the armed services. I am not familiar with all of the nuances of military jargon and slang, but FNG seems similar to the hazing process that sometimes occurs when joining a fraternity or a social club. The idea is that social bonds are likely to form when individuals have all shared a common experience. This is especially true when the individuals that undergo the process would otherwise be unlikely to associate with each other because of preexisting antagonistic or simply disparate cultural, economic, linguistic, or religious affiliations. Such bonding is critical for organizations in which efficiency and preparation means the difference between life and death, i.e. the military.
 
While it might seem unnecessarily cruel, the Wonderbolts giving Rainbow Dash a hard time has the potential to produce all of the following positive effects: enforcing the idea that she is part of a team, teaching her to submit to the expertise and judgment of her superiors, reminding her that she is among other soldiers that are superior to her not because of their natural ability, but because of hard work and muscle memory, and promoting rapport through the knowledge that all of her peers and even her boss have a badge of shame from when they were inexperienced and reckless.
 

Stating Rainbow Dash’s motivations and initial attitude does not change what she actually ended up doing. She began her membership as a Wonderbolt by breaking an important rule that Spitfire explained to her (in detail) earlier, and then tried to exculpate herself by making up an obvious lie rather than admit that the fault was hers. After the hazing process began, rather than Rainbow Dash talking to Spitfire and explaining how much psychological anguish her new moniker was causing, she chose to act like a crazy mare, disrupt the training period at every turn, and ruin her debut performance with a dangerous and unplanned stunt.
 
Is there anything more to say?

@Flick Mare
 
Pretty much this.
 
People often say that Dash is victim of the writers but in this case it’s true. She was literally MMDW level of idiot for the sake of the plot, again.

@Background Pony #41BF  
Welcome to the Internet :)

@Ping_chan
 
Not you specifically. People just need to chill a little.

I don’t know if I’m missing something (I actually think that this image is a joke…) or if I just had different life experiences. Maybe I don’t cling too much to first impressions… This episode was probably the best depiction of the Wonderbolts in the show. Maybe people are missing the point about what the nicknames represent and why they’re different from what was going on in her memory. Not to mention that Rainbow Dash… 1. Deserved to be treated much worse; 2. Needed to grow up (again); 3. Was trying too hard and; 4. Missed the fact that she deserved to be there to begin with. Ergo, the moral: be yourself, not an idiot that tries to reinvent the wheel or prove your worth.

@Lawful Girly  
Going to point out that someone who claims to have been in the US Airforce in these comments claims that this was a dumb depiction of the culture. Just putting that out there.

@edvd  
I don’t think I have ever taken a image post on this website serious, ponies are supposed to be fun.

@Neon97  

 
I couldn’t give you a citation, but I recall in an interview the VA explained that a big part of it was simply that it had been a really long time between her voicing the character for the Gala episode and her subsequent appearance. She just didn’t remember well enough what the original voice was like when she was called on to do it again.
 
Personally, though, I think it works okay in-universe because the context is completely different. Laid-back, party-going Spitfire simply sounds different than I-am-your-commander-and-you-will-listen-to-me Spitfire.