Snapshot

Snapshot is a spy in the Department of Intelligence.

Backstory
Snapshot, according to her own account, was born in the city of Trottingham twenty-four years before the return of Nightmare Moon, on the advent (in Equestria) of the age of the camera. She grew up in the big city, obsessed with the press and particularly their new toy, was one of the first graduates of Trottingham College's photojournalism program at the age of twenty-one, and then moved to Ponyville to cover the fashion scene first as a beat photographer and later as a photo editor.

Which is a valid story, but is only telling half of it. From the perspective of World One, Snapshot first came into existence in roughly late January 2011, when she was simultaneously created and destroyed--killed to provide part of a grisly necklace of unicorn horns as a prop for the Pinkie Pie replacement in the legendary badfic "Cupcakes". When Agents Fritz and Silas tackled the fic, Snapshot was restored to life along with all the other bits and secondary characters involved--but not normality. The temporal fluctuations caused by the Word-World attempting to violently purge the fic left her with memories of the entire incident--including her own torture and death.

Snapshot was remanded to FicPsych for intensive treatment and was released astonishingly quickly--as a trainee spy. Once she had calmed down enough to have the situation explained to her she demanded to be allowed to stop anything like it from happening again. At the recommendation of Fritz and Silas she was attached to the veteran spy Gauri Narain as part of her ongoing recovery, and has been working diligently to protect her home canon ever since.

Appearance
Snapshot stands roughly four feet high from hoof to horntip and slightly less from nose to flank, with a silver-white coat, reddish-brown hair, and light brown eyes. Her weight is not recorded. As with most ponies, she is capable of fairly prolonged physical activity--though less than pegasi or earth ponies--and as with most cartoons, is surprisingly physically resiliant.

Her cutie mark--the design on her hip which shows her special talent in life--is a magnifying glass, symbolizing not only her skill in the fields of journalism and photo analysis, but also her innate desire to learn and discover. How and why things work is a personal fascination of Snapshot's.

Snapshot is a unicorn, which allows her to use active magic such as telekinesis. This is done via her horn, which glows when in use--it is theorized but not tested that damage to her horn would restrict or remove her ability to work magic. Her only distinct scar can be seen as a rough ring around the base of her horn, where the replacement sawed it off for use in her necklace.

Personality
"She's a pony--a My Little Pony. Who the hell thought she could have any place in the PPC?"

"For the record, dude? I've seen Snapshot put a steel spike through three inches of armor plate with her mind. I'd avoid challenging her competence." --Technicians Graumann and Narcolepsy

Snapshot's personality, like that of most ponies, is generally positive and optimistic--though not blindly or blinkeredly optimistic. Despite her grotesque past she maintains a perky, cheerful attitude and a desire to help anyone who asks for it--occasionally to the annoyance of her partner, who is a classic working-class stiff and can't just spring out of bed in the morning.

But by no means is she all rainbows and light. Three years in journalism followed by work in the PPC has given Snapshot a very sarcastic bent when she is pressed or pushed into a corner--which has been often as of late, for a reason which drives her up the wall. Simply by her unthreatening and cute appearance, many people she's run into brush her off as a nonthreat--and one or two have openly questioned her purpose or capability in her job.

The result of this is that Snapshot has begun developing a probably unhealthy competitive streak and a massive chip on her shoulder. If her capability is questioned even slightly, she turns sarcastic. If pressed, she gets aggressive. Her early work has shown little room for anyone to question her skill, but her sheer unassumingness has drawn her some flak--which has in its turn drawn vicious counterfire.

Though her recovery is proceeding at an excellent pace, Snapshot also has--and will probably always have--severe psychological problems with any kind of situation involving torture or gore. Her reactions when forced into situations are wildly different from her normal personality and have been observed to range from curling up into a tight ball of trauma to one instance of teeth-grinding rage so strong she had to be physically restrained. Nevertheless, she is doing much better than she was when she first arrived at the PPC, and hopes are high all around that some day she can fully conquer her "episodes".

Other
Snapshot, as a spy, is not typically involved in combat--but at her insistence she is fully kitted out for any eventuality. Besides a set of steel railway spikes purloined from Fritz Sorgebrunnen which serve as excellent weapons for a telekinetic, she has a thus-far one-of-a-kind device called a Camera Obsuera--a modified Fatal Frame Camera Obscura with the capacity to neuralyze things, stun Sues, forcibly exorcise Sue-Wraiths, and take normal pictures besides.