My Little Pony XXVI: Applebloom to Zecora!

[Dexam]

First of all, thanks to everypony for their best wishes, hugs, and concern.

Five weeks to go...

This, this, a thousand times, this. The best character ideas I've had have sprung up as a character is being played. Seeing them in action, something about their personality and the situations they find themselves in just clicks and you suddenly start realizing backstory details that you just thought of, but totally have fit the character this whole time.

This is what I was talking about when I said to feed the character and let it go. Very few characters spring to mind fully-formed. Creation is a positive feedback loop - they need interaction with other characters to know how they act and react.

This is something I struggle with a lot with my characters, and something that is a major risk to including yourself in a character. Yes, every character starts with a speck of their creator, but that's all you want to add; a speck. Too much, and you find that your thoughts and your character's thoughts are similar 90% of the time. Which makes it incredibly easy to ignore that last 10% of vital character difference, and before you know it, you're just RP'ing as yourself. I've fallen into that trap numerous times, and only some last-minute character flaws that popped up as I was playing them kept them separate from me.

I agree with adding a speck of the creator remark. That is what I mean by the "seed". In many of my characters, I've taken an aspect or two of my personality and isolated it in order to explore it. A couple of my characters... they are not nice people, and don't really belong in a ponythread. To be honest, I kind of didn't like them, and they scared me a little.

The seed part is the tricky part here (I think of it in terms of aiming/preparing conditions for momentum). I've got a method for it that works wonders for me, though. I give each character an Ideal - what their perfect world and enlightenment looks like, and then I come up with a flawed version of the Ideal that will lead them down the wrong path. And the characters literally write themselves from there.

Interesting... I shall have to give that a try next time I want to flesh out a character concept.

Ok, you have me there. I suppose I should narrow it down to there being no terrible wasting sicknesses. For example, no bubonic plague, polio, influenza or the like. Sweetie Bell being sick is one thing, Sweetie Bell getting giant puss filled sores of liquid pain is something completely different.

Either that, or Equestria is a lot less of a utopia than we are shown. Perhaps the entire series is a propaganda reel by Princess Celestia to blind people of the great injustices of pony society.

Spike caught a cold at the end of Winter Wrap Up, so clearly viruses exist, and are transmissible from equine to dragon.

Consider this an e-hug to the both of you! Or at least a hearty, cheerful slap on the shoulder, and an invigorating grin.

Note: invigorating grin might instead be creepy. No refunds.

Not so awesome. What can be said but press on, stiff upper lip, and look forwards to the prize that is being run for. Don't falter, don't give up, and never surrender. Just keep running until you can run no more, and then keep running, though it costs you everything.

Preach it, brother.

1. Nothing wrong with creepy grins. *stares, grinning*

2. And that's just the nature of my job. Miss a day or two, and stuff just piles up.

3. I have been. Some of my real life friends who I think would be total bronies if they would just watch the show are proving to be resilient.

Names must:
- Have a nickname/affectionate version
- Be able to be shouted
- Sound reasonable at every level of shortening/lengthening.
- Colour the personality of the character who grew up with that name.
<snip>

Sound matters more than meaning.

Agreed - how a name sounds is vital in reflecting the nature of the character. Essentially, the name is summary of the character - just look at the Mane Six and many of the supporting characters for perfect examples of this.