My Little Pony XXXV: The Thread Everypony Should Know

[Kyouhen]

My submission to the Artist Training Ground is what I had of the Team Fortress Pony 2 classes that I had.
Here's the newest one:

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With the fandom making Rarity the spy, I thought, "why not make Blueblood the Spy for BLU team?"

And so the eternal battle between Blueblood and Rarity continues! My vote still goes to Rarity. She's better at making disguises, and not so sure she'd be too worried about getting blood on her suit. Certain other substances no doubt remain the bane of them both.

[Capt. Ido Nos]

So the submission page for the Artist's Training Ground is down, am I supposed to email my drawing just to Phoe directly, or is there a less chaotic was to go about it? >_>;;

Incidentally, my drawing turned out pretty nicely tonight, despite the fact that I'm banging out a 100 degree fever with a bad stummy virus. Poor physical health improves my art? o_0

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[SiuiS]

oki doki Loki! Haven't caught up yet but this came up in the car, and it really needs to be addressed before Braz spends all my money

So without further preamble...

ATTENTION EVERYPONY;
OPERATION FAUST
IS NOW IN ITS PLANNING STAGES

Sadly, for those of you not in North America¹ this is irrelevant, and maybe even depressing for some of you. So, spoilers.

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1. The Basics
BroNYCon is in approximately five months. It will be a two-day event. It will most likely be on a weekend.
Lauren Faust herself will be there, which means most of the globe will be there. It's a con for Pony, so most of the people will be cool, and those that aren't can be loved, tolerated, both, or just ignored. And we want as much of ponythread there as is humanly, equinely, gryphynly and playgrounderly possible.

And for anyone watching at home; lurkers count. if you are in this thread long enough to wonder if this applies to you, IT DOES.

2. The Operation
The plan is to spend that time coordinating everypony who can and will go, and get them there. If we can ignore the time crunch, it will be fiscally and emotionally better to drive.

Starting approximately 5 days before the conventions starts, Brazen Shield and Starry Notions will rent a van or two and make the 400+ mile trip along the 353 mile route. On the way, we will pick up as many ponies² as possible, and shuttle them with us. We will then reverse routes, head home, and drop said ponies off. The more ponies we have, the better this trip will be; pick ups will help us foot some of the cost, while also having a cheaper alternative to flight or driving their own way or bussing.

3. Potential Issues
Obviously, this endeavor could fall through big time. If nine out of ten ponies are in southern States, and one is in Canada, we won't be able to swing by for our Canadian friend. If the number of ponies gets to the magical middle ground, we won't be able to fit them in one van, but also won't be able to rent a second van. If a pony backs out at the last second, we may not have enough buffer money to cover the loss (we got lucky, with four jobs providing christmas overtime- not happening until next christmas). If an emergency comes up for me or Braz, we have to drop out and that could mess up EVERYPONY'S plans though one of our goals is redundancy to eliminate this issue.

4. What We Need
Primarily, information. I've been a laypony group organizer for a long time, and the one thing -The. One. Thing! - that is guaranteed to send me into a neurotic fit and tirade, amateur Bleakbane style (possible with more sailor's lingo, to boot) is when EVERYONE responds to "when are you available" with "I dunno, it depends. When is everyone else available?"³

We need to know who wants to come. Who can legally drive in the US. Who handle a bajillion people in their vehicle, all chatting. Who can afford their own trip. Who can afford to be nice and help another pony with their trip, seeing as my previously stated goal was to develop a pool so everypony could go within reason.

This is still conceptual, but the more detail we get the more we can supply. We WILL develop concrete as it happens, so please, feedback! I'll update this regularly, either as a repost or with links to his post as needed (votes on which is preferable are appreciated).

5. REQUIREMENTS
All caps for a reason.

• are you willing AND legal to be a primary or back-up driver?
• money to attend the Con; RSVP with the convention may be a requirement⁴, see footnote.
• money for gas/snacks.
• legal majority OR Guardian Permission - a big one or I'd have forced enticed Vbob to go last time.
• Location: I don't need an address (yet!) and wouldn't have you post it publicly in any case. But I need a rather good general idea so I can start planning routes IMMEDIATELY.
• idea on comfort zones: if being shoved between two burly hairy bronies is a problem, I need to know before I schedule you for Hairy Man Car 2.*
• PJs, blankets, pillows, comfort objects: think camping. No only might we have to rotate-crash in the vehicles, but odds of having mattress rather than floor space at a con are teensy.

Foreign Bronies: if you can afford to fly in, we WILL pick you up, and we WILL put you up. If you can hit an airport en route, I will steer from the roof with a complicated pulley system to fit you in the vehicle. Though I'd prefer another driver take over and just tie me up top (in a Rainbow Dash t-shirt, naturally) so we don't all die in a terrible, rainboom-esque conflagration of awesome.

I know I'm missing something, but I'm kinda blegh. Haven't eaten all day and am about to fix that so I'm surprised I could keep even this much focus! Jade, help me out if you can; I'd like to coordinate across the board, as you will perforce have to help me with the housing branch of planning. Of course if we he enough folks we can also foot the bill for that Stable idea...



¹: Am I supposed to Capitalize North America? I mean, it's technically a proper noun, but...
²: Humans can come too. No saddle comments though, that's just awkward in mixed company.
³: Seriously. The level of rage this instilled in me is only trumped by the group's confusion at why nopony knew what was going on. Luna's Lightning, but did it not occur to you that I need bricks before I can build a masterpiece out of Lego? I can't conjure matter from Jack, people! I'm not a Moros!
⁴: conventions are funny things; all the ponyfolk and merchandise and music and stuff was awesome, but the really cool part? Walking to breakfast, 24 strong, and all eating. Singing random pony snippets. Hanging out. So if push comes to shove, we could rotate badges or something, but I'd prefer we all get together and ignore the con, rather than leave some folks out. So RSVP is nice, but we shall see.

[Gaelbert]

HERE COMES TOM
Episode 1: The Quote Menace

There is no way a casual spectator like me sitting at home can tell you if it's cost effective to do this one way or the other. If Hasbro has a team of goons capable of telling them that this is the most cost effective strategy then, hey. Game over. Question's moot. If this discussion continues, it's going to be in the realm of cold, hard speculation.

But I know that I have spent, what... seven pony shirts, plus shoes, plus toys, plus art... about $150 on pony and pony based merchandise. About $20 went to Hasbro because they simply have not been providing the services I demand; the rest went to the fandom. If MLP was premium only, that figure would be $0. There is a LOT of money in the upsell market.

I’m thrifty to the point of stingy. I rarely purchase things, I cut back on food so I don’t have to pay as much, etc. But when it comes to ponies? I have a shirt, stickers, and a few dozen figurines. Lauren Faust found the secret to my wallet. (Hint: It’s my heartstrings. Lyra I love you!)

Having been on 4chan recently, god help me, I've got renewed perspective on just how much love and tolerance this fandom legitimately has. Like, seriously, there are plenty of isolated people who still suck, that's true. But compared to a world without ponies?

I don't recommend going on 4chan for any reason ever, even if it's just to lower your standards. But lower your standards a bit. This is, like it or not, still The Internet, and should be judged according to the historical patterns of The Internet. It's still bad, sure, but it's better than what it was.

Meh, I browse 4chan fairly often. They have the best literature board on the web. It’s not saying much, but if you can just sift through the blatant trolls, you can find some pretty informative discussion. Sure, people are jerks, but I have a fairly thick skin. I prefer dealing with the jerkery and one-up-man-ship of 4chan than going on a forum that is impeccably polite but has no real substance.

That's really unfortunate. Hope you have a wonderful holiday season and get some time to re-center yourself. When you do come back, always feel free to remind us to be more loving and tolerant if anyone is being stupid. People are often quick to pounce without thinking, so extra reminders never hurt.

Just want to clear it up, I have no problems with people from here. Any problems I’ve had with the brony community are from other communities and real life. In fact, as I wrote in my letter (which y’all should read, ya hear?), our little corner of the fandom has been, for lack of a better word, magical.

Have you seen Something Awful? What's up with them? At least 4chan does't have entire threads dedicated to hating other sites or orchestrating raids. Popular, upvoted threads to boot.

That’s not true. Not true at all. It depends on what 4chan boards you browse (/lit/ doesn’t do much raiding, I’d go so far as to say a solid majority of boards don’t raid), but the boards that raid? They raid hard. Ponies, actually, started out as a semi-raid from /co/ against /b/. The /co/ folks were lamenting that they never had the chance to raid anyone, and decided to raid /b/ with ponies. As it turned out, some folks from /b/ became enamoured with the cartoonish pastel ponies, and it stuck around. That raid could easily be considered the beginning of our fandom.

Oh, forgot to tell a little story of the pony kind:

Walked into Hot Topic today to pick out some gifts. Found out while they did not have what I was looking for, they did have at least a few pony shirts alongside things such as Invader Zim and such. Thought this was awsome. Attempted to find one that was not Pinkie Pie, found a Twenty Percent Cooler one. Found out they where sold out for both of them.

There goes my hope for corrupting a younger generation further!

As exciting as it is to see ponies in a mainstream store, I am a little worried. Hot Topic, from what I’ve seen, has a tendency to cash in on superficial memes. Folks buy the shirts and such for the irony, but don’t really have an appreciation for the content. I’m concerned that ponies might just become another fad, that people lose sight of the things that made ponies so popular in the first place.
Is saying “I was into ponies before they were ironic” a hipster thing to say? Is being concerned about being a hipster a hipster thing to say? Is there an end to self-recursion?

Ah, Something Awful. I think we won that one, as some brony troll kept buying up all their adspace and filling it with NSFW pony links.

I’m not a big fan of that. Some folks aren’t going to like ponies. They may even be parasprites about it. That doesn’t mean we should respond in kind, and that certainly doesn’t mean we should post NSFW pony content on their websites. That’s so far from loving and tolerating that I don’t even know where to start.

ANYWAY

See this picture?

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I'll give you three guesses who did it.

...

Hokey Smokes! How about Queen Meanie? No! Black Snooty, Black Snooty!

It was me. I did it. Holy gods, I did that.

That’s amazing Thanqol. I never ceased to be awed by your creative potential (and the community’s as a whole, I might add).

there is a kitten on my foot. I can't move. I'm in a horrific uncomfortable position but she is cuddlin me and I know she'll shun me for a week if I disturb her. So I'll post instead of receive blissful, necessary sleep.

One summer I took an online math class. It wasn’t terribly difficult, I knew all the content, but dear Celestia it was long. Something along the lines of 12 hours a day, just sitting in front of my laptop, answering math questions online.
My cat, bless her tiny kitten heart, took to jumping up on my shoulders and napping there. She would get up on my shoulders every day, and stay for hours. Up to 7 or 8 hours at a time. She loves people, and, if I may brag, loves me quite a lot. It was adorable.
After the class ended, whenever I would sit down anywhere in front of my laptop, she would jump up on my shoulders and stay there. Because I’m far too weak to disrupt my kitty’s sleep, I would let her stay there. I ended up getting pages and pages of writing done while waiting for her to get off my shoulders.
Moral of the storie? Cats are awesome, and they make you more productive.

The most absolutely hilarious part of this is that I don't drink tea¹, I don't like the Beatles, and I haven't worn jeans since I was a very small child...

¹Yes, yes, close your mouths; I'm English and I don't drink tea. Even in a land famous for it's eccentrics, I still manage to buck the trends...!

You say “Gor lummy” but you don’t drink tea? How is this even possible?

Sloth is at once the easiest and by far the most difficult vice to overcome. Like the rest of the vices, the only way to beat it is to be a better person. If I can drive people to be better then I get amazing friends, and I also get competition.

Sloth is a funny one. It sneaks up on you, it does. First you want to talk a load off your feet, rest a while. You’ve earned it, you had a long day. Then you don’t really want to do anything the next day. That’s reasonable too, everyone needs time to decompress. And then you start napping constantly, cutting short other engagements because you don’t want to do anything. And that’s where the problems start.
Interestingly, I’ve faced off quite well against the sloth. I keep myself fairly caffeinated whenever I start to get drowsy during the day. If the day starts winding down and I realize I’ve accomplished little? I get off my lazy plot and try to accomplish something lasting.
The bigger problem for me is vanity. It’s my vice of choice. Wrath, greed, lust, gluttony, envy, those are all easily dismissed. But vanity (or pride) is much more insidious for me. There’s a fine line between caring about how you look, using creativity in how you dress, taking pride in yourself, “dressing to impress,” and being obsessed with physical appearances. I rationalize it to myself as a creative impulse, and there’s some truth to that. The mixing and matching of cut, colour, size, fit, pattern, levels of formality, style… It takes inspiration, it does. To the potential neighsayers who would bring up the more negative aspects of grooming and appearance, i.e. the use of readymade outfits, wearing exactly what other people (implicitly) tell you to wear, I bring up the example of cooking. Cooking is an art. You buy the ingredients, granted, but cooking is more than just the quality of your ingredients. It’s about what you do with them. A good chef can make excellent food from poor ingredients. A bad “chef” buys TV dinners. I find that a useful metaphor to describe the differences between my conceptions of a stylish person and a fashionable person.

But you see that, right there? That’s part of the problem. That rationalizing an unhealthy and over the top obsession with personal appearance, with myself.
Ultimately, I don’t have any answer to my (self-posed) question. That’s why vice is my favourite, I haven’t been able to fight it off.

If you can look me straight in the snout, right in the somewhat-larger than necessary pony eyes, and tell me with no hesitation that having seven individual OCs who are all played masterfully off of each other and others does not point to you having some writing skill, I'll never bother you again.

Whoa there! Have you seen ponies with smaller eyes? They’re nowhere near as adorable. Those massive eyes are necessary I tell you, necessary!
The eyes are one of the first differences I see when I compare Gen 4 against any other generation. There are a whole host of differences, granted, but it’s the first. And the more distance we can put between Gen 4 and its troubled history, the better.

Oh, and just for the record, Cupcakes is also extremely popular.

As is the Star Wars Holiday Special. I can’t imagine either are representative examples of what the community wants. Not that you were implying that.

And here we have the crux of the issue: Do unpony things belong in a pony story?

My personal thought about what is “pony” and what is “not pony” is somewhat different. I see “pony” as a process, more of a state of mind than a set of easily definable traits. Sure. Works of pony art tend to have similar qualities, but I see those as arising from a deeper similarity, from the wellspring of pony-ness.
What is this pony-ness, you might ask?
Well, I’m happy to oblige!
“You’re talking to yourself again.”
No I’m not, people want to know!
“People? What is a people?”
They’re like ponies except a lot less cool. And- wait, who are you and how did you get in my brain?
“Poni poni poni poni poni poni poni.”
Good answer. Anyways.
With ponies you have two parts, the spirit and the setting. The setting refers to the characters, the world, how it’s set up, how Equestria runs, all of that good stuff. The spirit is a little harder to define. The spirit is the sum of the themes and ideas that are presented by the show. Things like “Love and Tolerance,” the idea that all ponies are good at heart, etc. The show combines the two (by definition) to create the delicious programme we all love. Fan fics and works of pony art can combine the two, but they can also go further. Fanfic authors can combine the pony setting with real world ideas and themes, or can combine the pony spirit with a more real world setting. I’ve never read Fallout Equestria, but it sounds like one of the former. Both are viable ways to explore ideas and themes from a number of perspectives, both teach us more about Equestria and help us to appreciate the show more, and both are equally valid forms of fanworks.
I was a part of a debate by some members of the music community when they were trying to determine “what was and wasn’t pony.” We didn’t get very far. We ended up just saying “I know it when I see it.” And that’s how EqD got music judges!

True. Looking it up to clarify, I see that I was wrong. Though the word cliche is oddly enough, cliched.

I was referring to his writings just being modern takes on old stories though. Unlikely hero swept up and on his honor, proves his worth against the dragon, which has been going on since before English was a language. One could possibly call The Hobbit cliched, as it was (from memory) very rogue-in-cheek while trying to play itself straight.

But... I think you'll win this engagement if you press. So...

Tolkien was… interesting, to say the least. Contradictory in a number of ways, but certainly incredibly intelligent.
He was hoping to create some sort of Western Christian mythology, akin to the myths of the Greeks and Romans, but for Western Europe. In fact, one of his early ideas was to assign a real world location to each of the locations in Middle Earth. After all, Middle Earth was supposed to be the real world hundreds of thousands of years before the present day. I’m glad he changed his mind all the same.
So he was intentionally pulling from archetypes, pulling from legends. That was his purpose. However, many elements of his writing were not as commonly used at the time of his writing, and only after were they popularized and copied because of his work.

Tolkien was writing at the same time that Joyce and Elliot were trying their hardest to hang a mirror in the Louvre. He thought that the fantasy elements of Beowulf were worth critical study on their own, and he, like Campbell, thought that the story of a chosen Everyman sent by the gods to kill a giant poison snorting snake could be more valuable to people, possibly even more relatable to them, than the story of fisherman who's having trouble bagging a marlin, or the story of a neurotic former schoolteacher who's trying to get by after being wrongfully accused of molesting a student and losing his job.

I'm not sure whether I agree with the stance that I just ascribed to him (and that he probably held), but it's an interesting one.

I’d like to see an in depth study of Tolkien in the context of his time. Most people just consider him a holdover from the 19th century, and in many ways that may be true, but that’s also overlooking a completely different side of him. When it comes to the notion of stories as stories, self-reference, and other post-modernist staples, he was far ahead of his time. When it came to characterization (specifically with women), he was centuries out of date. One of those contradictions I mentioned above.

Look everypony Phoe came out for Hearth's Warming Eve let's wave!

Pinkie'd

I really need to start doing this emoticon thing. That is one adorable Pinkie.

I believe you can cave in a man's skull with Dostoyevsky at five feet, so don't go moping around thinking all you got was reading material.

Dostoyevsky is far more dangerous if you read it than if you throw it. Sure, he can crack a skull open from a few feet away, but if you read it? He’ll scramble your brain from the inside out. “The Grand Inquisitor” was the most powerful passage I’ve ever read in anything, and that was the ideology Dostoyevsky was arguing against. And The Brothers Karamazov was supposed to be a trilogy. Can you imagine?

Ponythread TF2 match? I don't play much these days, but if something actually gets organised, count me in ^^

Ponythread TF2? Aww yeah. My Steam name’s Gaelbert. I’ve been playing medic recently (not well, just playing it). I have a name change item that I’ve been meaning to use. I want to change the name of my medigun to something about Fluttershy. Anypony have any ideas?

Chocolate Hammer has some from GitP that (used to) play regularly at their server (68.232.183.52:27015)
I'm sure that they wouldn't mind a certain PINKIE INQUISITION!!! to breathe some life back in.

As to Christmas gifts, I got;
Munchkin Axe Cop
Reindeer Games Expansion for Munchkin
Axe Cop Comicbook (Bad Guy Earth)
1 Shirt
And an Official Batman XBox 360 USB Controller. Now I can play Super Meat Boy properly!

Whenever I drop into Chocolate Hammer, there’s never anything going on. It’s quite depressing actually.

For Christmas I asked for a vacuum and a pair of socks. I don’t need a whole lot, I have everything I need already.
For Christmas I got:
A vacuum
3 pairs of socks
And…

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Have I mentioned that I love my family?

And now, a fun tidbit about such things as Christmas Eve and All Hallow's Eve!

Some cultures have different time stamps for their benchmarks. Old Norse I believe, had a very strong tradition of starting the day at dusk rather than dawn, and I believe Judaism still does. The day begins in darkness, and can only get brighter, rather than saying all things fade. It's an interesting point o view.

Well, this is relevant because Hearth's Warming Eve, the night before... Is celebrated because on December 24, when the sun goes down, BAM! new day! It's now Christmas, though it's the evening! Hence celebrating, and the tradition of Christmas Eve's Gift.
I always loved that, and it's the kind of detail some of you guys find interesting, so I thought I'd share!

That kid is so petulant I would love a Lyra for Christmas! (so long as I got a Bon-Bon on my immediate birthday) ;(

Hee. Aye, wrigglers will do that~
Happy Hearthswarming, mate.

The ancient Celts had the same practice. The next day began at dusk. They applied this to larger time spans as well. The year would begin at Samhain, held at the end of October. Whether or not this actually happened is up to some debate, but it’s an interesting way to look at things.

I would love a pony…

Attention Ponythread!

I am about to hop into one of the Pony Fortress TF2 servers. In 15-20 minutes, I am planning to make it rain with the Secret Saxton's I've got stored up. I definitely like the PF2 community, but I REALLY like you guys, so I would love it if some of these ended up in you guy's hands, even if they end up being something lame, haha. See you all there! (Here is my steam profile if anyone still needs to friend me.)

Man, I always miss the best stuff. How’d that go?

Biggest meat is maybe is that AJ's parents are undefined rather then dead or alive, so they are Schrodinger Ponies. Though more seriously its about what we expect, she would have made them dead but that has minimal chances of being allowed on a kids show so downplayed it and never made an official explanation.

As terrible as it sounds, I would like Applejack’s parents to be dead. That’s always been my personal canon.

This thread needs more pony.

Press Space to Sweetie-Scoot.

Hey. Fun game.
I like the part where you can press shift to scoot fast.

This is legitimately the only time I've ever derived enjoyment from either of the memes involved, thank you.

I haven’t been a huge fan of the arrow or the Candle Jack memes either. Only twice have the arrows provoked a reaction from me. The first, this. The second, the first time I heard the arrow meme coupled with the opening lines of the MLP theme song. And then I saw it everywhere and it wasn’t amusing anymore.

In stark contrast to AotRS, I name any piece of technology that's capable of holding my thoughts. To me, that makes it alive, intimate, capable of showing me things I didn't know about myself. My computer is Inspired, my laptop is Continuity, my ex-computer, rest her, was Thief of Breath.

I named my laptop Applejack. It’s never let me down, no matter how much I’ve subjected it to. It’s not flashy, doesn’t really shine on its own. But its beauty is its reliability and consistency.

But everything dies? Everything that exists has a certain set of attributes; and as soon as these attributes vanish, it is death. The single components may continue, but the whole is dead. Even concepts like love or hate die, since everyone had their own version of this concept, and when the person dies, the respective variants of the concepts die, too.
It's as my people say: everything has an end; except sausages, they have two.

Say you have two identical cars parked next to each other. One of the cars is yours, the other is your neighbours. Say every night a gang of hoodlums and delinquents takes a part from your car, and switches it a part with your neighbour’s car. They do this every night, until eventually all parts are changed. Which car is yours? Did it ever change? What was the margin?
I don’t have an answer to that, really. It depends on whether you define items as the sum of their characteristics, or if there is “something else,” something that, by nature, you can’t quantify. This “something else” is what people use to define things. It’s the difference between the word “tree,” a picture of a tree, the smell of a tree, and an actual tree. Some things are eternal, they exist outside the realm of space and time.

They don't die. They just change. The signal changes, raising and lowering in volume, but it doesn't stop. You can define a person as a set of chemicals arranged in a certain structure, a mind placed in a certain way, conversations had and not had. But each one of those things influences the world around them, and will continue to do so forever, and ever, down through time.

Do we exist as independent fonts of potential - are our lives simply a matter of everything we might do? Or is the true measure of our lives what we actually do? If it's the former, then death is the end; the end of possibility. If it's the latter, death is but another note in a never-ending symphony.

Exactly.

You know what I said above, that I don’t have an answer? I lied.
Have any of you ever seen Vertigo, the Hitchcock film? I’m going to use that as an example to explain my thoughts. (Yes, I owe much to Zizek.) I’d give a spoiler warning, but I think there’s a half century expiration date on that so…
A quick summary: John is hired to tail Madeleine, John falls in love with Madeleine, Madeleine dies. John meets Judy, John falls in love with Judy, John realizes Judy was Madeleine. Or at least that’s what happens on the surface. John was in love with Madeleine. He cared deeply for her, wanted to be with her, everything. He broke down after she died. Then he met Judy. John was in love with Judy, but was obsessed with turning her into everything Madeleine was. Even after he realized “Madeleine” was nothing more than a creation, and that Judy was the actor who played “Madeleine,” John still insisted on turning Judy into Madeleine, through hair, clothes, mannerisms, etc. John was trying to recreate all of the characteristics of Madeleine in Judy. And he succeeded. Judy was exactly identical to Madeleine.
So why was the entire thing so disturbing? None of you sympathized with John in his obsession. It was sickening, not laudable. Through his quest to find Madeleine, he no longer loved Madeleine. When he crossed the line and tried to replicate Madeleine’s characteristics, he erased his past love for Madeleine. Before he did that, he really did love Madeleine. After, he didn’t.
Confusing? Yes. Counter-intuitive? Definitely. Make sense? It shouldn’t. But I think there’s something behind it.
When you love someone, you love them for who they are. Sure. Characteristics might have a little to do with it, but that’s not the essence of love. A clone of your wife with all the same traits will never be the same as your wife, and you will not love her. This distinction is what the conception of love is based off of.
So why am I agreeing with Thanqol if I’m saying that actions can be erased? Because they can be erased, they can be changed, but that doesn’t mean they never were, and, importantly, that doesn’t mean they don’t continue to be.
John’s love for Madeleine will live on forever, even though it was erased. Barry Bonds’ early accomplishments on the diamond will remain, even though his later actions tarnished all credibility. Actions are, are erased, change, but still remain. They are replaced, but forever they will remain in their point in history. Actions transcend history. Actions transcend time, and actions transcend space. When all humans have died, when the Earth is destroyed by the Sun, when our Solar System collides with another, when the Universe has died of head death, my actions will live on. My actions are eternal.
I have certain “causes” I fight for, spend most of my (non-pony) time on. They are my life, my passion. Nearly every action I take has something to do with these causes. And I fully expect to fail. I will fail, my causes will fail. But as the Rev. Lasher said (in Vonnegut’s book Player Piano) “It doesn’t matter if we win or lose, Doctor. The important thing is that we tried. For the record, we tried.” Actions, successful or unsuccessful, have a timeless quality. They live forever.
So what’s my answer to the question about the cars? Well, the first of them is yours. The second of them is yours. Both of them are yours. And neither of them are yours.
I can’t wait until they let me rewrite all the property laws.

Wow, that was pretentious. How ‘bout dem ponies?

No one asked for my opinion but, here it is anyhow! Now, what are we discussing... it would appear to be death, and what it means. And how it affects life? Well, that depends! Depends on what you think and believe. I... won't attempt to sum up my thoughts on the matter, but 'tis an interesting discussion, and one most would not expect to find in Ponythread!

Intriguing. Care to explain more?
And at this point, I have long since ceased being surprised by any subject that pops up in this thread. Life is a microcosm of My Little Pony.

I cannot help but hear religious tones when you say conductor. Intriguing, that.
On life and death, stasis and change; is it not the pause between notes which separates music from noise? Waves go up and down for a reason. Even friendships wax and wane, and in this way remain strong and constant. While any note may wish to shine, the whole is better when in harmony

Is it better to work for the good of the song, or to live yourself as you please and damn the rest? Quite an ideological dilemma based on scale. Surely the note must sublimate to the song, but must the man work for history, or himself?

I suspect jazz has some of the answers.

Jazz has all the answers. And ponies have all the questions.

The most cliched philosophical question you can ask is "if a tree falls in the woods and no-one's around to hear it, does it make a sound?" If we say the answer's no, that a "sound" is something that's more than just the vibration of air particles, that the vibrations actually need to be interpreted by something to be a "sound," then we can say that "music" and "noise" are two different kinds of sound because we imagine them in different contexts. On that thought, John Cage wrote a fairly infamous piece of music called 4'33" which has the performer(s) sitting or standing in front of their instrument(s) motionless for four minutes and thirty three seconds; the point being that the audience is told "here comes the music" and then given something they would normally call noise.

John Cage is a pretty chill brony. I have major respect for 4’33”

Hrm, although it's probably way outside the point, the science pony in me won't shut up until I point out that the spectral signature of what we would usually call noise (especially white noise) is quite different from what we would usually call music...

Anyway, that's beside the point and everyone may be well aware of it without me pointing it out, but since I had to learn how to do Fourier integrals at one point in my education, I might as well get something out of the experience, consarn it...

You might be surprised. There’s a movement of electronic music producers trying to push the boundaries of what can be considered “music.” I’m working on an album of that sort, actually. It both excites and frightens me. This could be the final frontier of music. I’m still not sure though. When everything is music, can anything be?

So! As my Winter Solstice gift from my mother (from last year ) I recieved one of my dream guitars: A Gibson SG. None of that Epiphone Scheiße. The real deal, baby! I had a few ideas bouncing around in my head for names, but it wasn't until I played that first, amazing, distorted chord that I knew.

His name is Flashpoint.

So jelly!

Ginger ponies don't have souls

Awww…

you know you're a brony when: you have dreams where you interact with the mane 6 in equestria, also, in said dream you ask fluttershy's hoof in marraige

i have weird dreams...

What’d she say? Don’t leave us hanging, brony!

Fun Fact: There has been actually an movement who wanted to replace music with noises. (I think futurism). I remember a quote from music education about how people in the future (now) would enjoy the sound of a train like they would enjoy an opera today (around 1900).

Yep, the Futurists. They weren’t who I mentioned earlier, but the Futurists were trying to create music with machines not typically known for their musical abilities.

The only antagonist character I really REALLY want them to bring back would be Trixie. NMM is obviously out since she's as dead as you can get in the MLP verse and now that Luna is a character re-corrupting her would be awfully dark for the target audience. Gilda was just a jerk, although if there were ever a flashback episode to Dashie's days in flight school I'd like to see a pre-jerkass version.

Discord could be fun too, but not a lot of character arc there left to tell.

So yeah, the show needs more Trixie. But I wouldn't really call her evil

I love Trixie. She’s an amazing character. But there’s no way that the show could live up to her portrayal in fanon. No matter what they did, it would be a disappointment. The thing I love about her fanon is that Trixie is simultaneously strong, yet weak. I can accept multiple fan theories and give them the same legitimacy in my head, but if a show did that it just couldn’t work.

Nice to know I'm not the only pony that gets Berry Punchy around here.

I got a little Berry Punchy during a couple of the holidays. I think I dropped into the IRC and spewed vulgarities on New Year’s Eve and Christmas. Is this true, IRC ponies?

Yeah, I don't even do shipping for series where it kind of seems sensible, but honestly Pony shipping kinda creeps me out. Especially Twilight with Trixie, which makes about as much sense as the Zuko/Katara fandom among Avatar fans.

Zevox

Shipping the show Trixie with Twilight wouldn’t make any sense. But by and large, that’s not how the ship is shipping. Most Twixie ships I’ve seen have been Trixie, crushed and alone, trying to build herself up again to beat Twilight Sparkle but slowly realizing she is maybe a little too obsessed with Twilight. That dynamism, by the way, is why I like Trixie the fan character.
And besides. Brusque dismissals and rude behavior are par for the course with arrogant or troubled people trying to deal with their inner feelings.

Only because you asked so nicely! (And totally not because I’m a ham who loves to blabber about random things...)

In Which DD Attempts to Explain Topics from Quantum Mechanics Using Extended Metaphors Involving Ponies

Spoiler

Show

Ok, so the structure of this will be that I give the jargon-heavy version first, then clarify my meaning via ponies. So, without further ado -

My Research

Jargony: The goal of my research is to develop new methodologies for the exact (or nearly-exact) calculation of quantum mechanical observables of interest in large or otherwise complex systems.

Ponies: Ok, so I’m starting this off with Twilight. Let’s say that Twilight, after much study and thought, has come up with a new spell. However, this isn’t just any spell; it’s a doozy of a spell! In fact, this spell is so complicated that not even Celestia, the combined Elements, or even super-mode OP!Sparkle could hope to cast it. Of course, this fact bugs Twilight, because - well - she’s Twilight, and magic is her thing. It’s right there on her flank, even!

So, Twi thinks some more, and turns her library upside-down, trying to figure out a way to cast this mega-spell of hers. Unfortunately, it’s just too hard. Eventually, Twi is getting frazzled, and starting to look a little Lesson Zero-y, and her friends, having learned that psycho-Twi is not something to be trifled with, decide to get involved and eventually are able to convince her to accept a compromise.

Instead of trying to cast the super spell directly, our favorite unicorn mage decides that she’ll make use of several other spells, all quite powerful in their own right, and cobble them together to achieve an effect very similar to the original one she was aiming for. In fact, on further reflection, only a pony trained in magic that was looking fairly close would even be able to tell that it wasn’t the mega-spell doing the work! Thus Twilight’s sanity is saved, and cool magic is available for everypony!

In this example, my role would be Spike, helping Twilight to assemble the necessary materials and cobble together the new jury-rigged spell. Although I am slightly better paid than Spike would be...

System-Bath Dynamics

Jargony: In our research, we want to extend the current treatment of condensed phase systems by treating important bath modes exactly, according to the same method as the subsystem of interest, while handling the bulk system using conventional influence functional techniques

Ponies: For the purpose of this illustration, let’s suppose that all the ponies in Ponyville have decided to start a cuddlepile. There is now (almost literally) a mountain of snuggling ponies in the middle of downtown, which ordinarily wouldn’t be a problem, but this is supposed to be a character-focus episode! In fact, this was supposed to be AJ’s turn to shine! Thus, our problem is that we stand the very real chance of losing track of our heroine amongst the cuddly shenanigans.

Luckily, the writers remember where their narrative focus is supposed to stay and along with the animators, they resolve to center things around the plucky orange cowpony. Of course, they will need to deal with the other ponies somehow; after all, it’s not much of a cuddlepile if there’s only AJ by herself... On top of that, corporate has realized that bronies - those mysterious folks with actual disposable income - like the background ponies, and it would be nice if the team working on the current episode could give some of them a visual flair and presence, without just mindlessly duplicating or recoloring them.

After quite a bit of stress and some late night meetings over double espressos, the team comes up with a solution. As planned, they’ll focus on AJ, but to remind folks that the cuddlepile is still a thing, they’ll be sure to draw in the ponies she’s cuddling and the ones that are cuddling her right back. Additionally, to keep Hasbro happy and wealthy, they’ll make sure that there aren’t many duplicate ponies right around AJ, and that the ones present have neat colors or original cutie marks, or something else for the fandom to sink its teeth into and ship like mad. The rest of the pile will only appear in long shots and in the initial pan to set things up, so they can feel free to make all those ponies a bunch of Lyra recolors with the occasional Berry Punch and Derpy cameo to round out the bulk of things.

In this analogy, I’d be a mid-level producer, cajoling the artistic team to put just a little more effort into things so we could all keep our jobs!

Oooh! That was actually a lot of fun to read! You should write a fanfic on that.
So this isn’t my field at all (as if I had a field), but some of the beginning sounded roughly comparable to the practice of successive approximations, am I rightish? A Riemann sum with ever smaller subdivisions? Or am I completely off base here?
(It’s been a while since I’ve had to do math. Or the harder sciences, really.)

A great resolution. As I said in Ido's thread just now, the momentum of 'One Thing Every Day' is important. Even if you just manage a 15 minute scribble on a napkin after an otherwise exhausting day, it's like a promise to yourself that you'll do better tomorrow and that the world can't make you give up. Don't break the flow; it gets easier the longer you maintain it.

Excellent, excellent idea.

Ah and un is a saying in Japanese culture, about old married couples. The man starts with "Ah," and the woman finishes with "Un"; they have communicated perfectly with two breaths, not needing to exchange the words between. One being in two breaths.

I would hate to be a relationship like that. I don’t want to be the same as another person, I want to learn from them, care about them, interact with them, see them as a whole and distinct person.

Yeah, it does. There's something about this that's bothering me now that Hasbro has confirmed their position, but I'm finding it hard to pin down exactly why it's so upsetting (beyond the obvious "omg no can watch pony!!1!").

I think my issue is that Hasbro is acting correctly for its own interests and its leading to a bad result, possibly for all parties and future products. That usually means there's something wrong with the whole system. Hasbro is a corporation, it has not only incentives to make money but also a legal duty to serve the interests of its shareholders above the interests of anyone else. It knows it can make money by charging for My Little Pony and controlling distribution. But, I'm not sure that it would be in the position to profit from this control without the free spread of the show via Youtube over the last year.

So, the incentive structure of existing copyright seems to be the following: release something new and make it free because otherwise nobody will notice it. Then, when it gets big enough that you can make money, quash all free sources of the IP and charge for it. That's a really crummy system, especially since existing profitable distribution channels tend to be region-locked. Moreover, a system that leads to enjoyable properties be released then removed may eventually lead to lower overall sales in the future because fans will become hesitant to invest themselves into new releases for fear that the thing they enjoy will be taken away.

What the system should have is some way to price discriminate between existing customers who are willing to pay in order to support the media and new/potential customers who will/can only watch the media in the first place over free distribution channels. I'm not sure what this would look like though. Maybe something similar to the bandcamp distribution model, where a certain number of people paying to download the episodes would open up free downloads, or at least free streaming of the episodes via the Hub website? I'm not sure what the best way to do it would be to both maximize Hasbro's profit and give a way for people who would never have paid for the episodes a chance to be introduced to the series.

I would be interested to hear what other people think on the issue, beyond the initial suckiness (plus, if this develops into a paper, I'll be sure to credit the giantitp ponythread).

I don’t have the technical knowhow to hold forth about copyright laws, so I’ll just talk about my personal thoughts.
I’ve produced music in the past, legit music. In a band and everything. But everytime I produce anything, I always release it for free and give people the right to do pretty much anything they want with it. I subscribe to the notion that “the author is dead.” I don’t hold much stock in the word of an author, and I see the consumption of any form of art as a dialectic, a back and forth between the viewer and the work of art. There are stories more ancient than words, melodies that predate instruments. When I “make” some sort of artistic creation, I don’t claim any right of it. I didn’t make it, I merely modified and worked with what was already there. The entire history of human technological and cultural progress has been through collaborative efforts, and I’m not egotistical enough to want to change that.
Anyways, that doesn’t help you at all. I’d be interested in seeing an eventual paper though, if that happens.

Every single video on that playlist has the a palette-spapped Wet Mane pic in it.

Not complaining, mind.

As much as I love the Wet Mane meme, I prefer the non-palette swapped versions. Fluttershy looks pretty strange in those.

On the topic of the Zodiac picture:
Whatcha know about Nightmare Night son?
Okay, well I’m not really Nightmare Night. I think I’m a Rainbow Dash, can’t quite remember. But the qualities of Nightmare Night fit me perfectly. Emotional? Passionate? Yeah, pretty much me.

What? Am I missing something, because I see no such implications in that song. Sure, he's using some harsh language, but MicTheMicrophone's One Trick Pony made #12 and that's arguably worse. He's also making some feminist comments which I can't quite decipher, but that's not what they hit on (and besides, I think it's a jab at some feminist who argues that the show has too many girls; yeah, that's a major problem -.-').

The feminist jab was against those who call themselves feminists but believe that men can’t watch My Little Pony. I haven’t met any of those people, and I’m not sure they exist.
I don’t know if you can tell, but I’m not a huge fan of Swagberg or Pony Swag. Sure, he’s talented, but it seems like he’s just rapping about ponies to get fans, not because he actually cares. Some of the lyrics just sound forced, they don’t really fit.

...Whoops. I meant to respond to it, but... Hurp. Just ignore me!

Also. IRC has given me a band name if I ever actually start one like I want. "Waterfall of Whiskey".

Speaking of which, what ever happened to The Electric Cowbelles?

SUPERPOWER DIABEETUS. WE ALLLLLL HAVE SUPERPOWER DIABEETUS.

No idea.

And some of us have real diabetes as well.

What you are missing is the Youtube version of the song differs from the official download version of the song. In particular, the lines:

I can understand why Everfree Radio choose not to endorse those particular messages.

Lines like those have their place in some music. Some genres are about the rage, the anger, and a line like that would be perfectly in place. But pony music? No. Not at all.

Being a Magnificent *******.

Is that some reference to Erwin Rommel? I’m confused.

I still haven't watched Sweet and Elite. It simply hasn't interested me all that much...

I heard there was an airship in it. That's not true, right?

It is the best episode.

Guys.

I am on an E-Mail chain with the likes of JackleApp, Foozogz, Chain Algorithm, Tarby, and Alex S.

...I've never before felt so included.

*Squee*

You know what’s crazy? A lot of those musicians are real people. Like, with faces and everything. And they’re nice! I was part of a pony music forum and got the chance to talk to a lot of the more internet famous pony musicians.

Dear Bronies who are also Black Metal fans,

So, uh... I briefly mentioned once or twice that I was working on a Black Metal cover of the FiM opening theme. It's not quite done yet, but here's the instrumental version. Low-quality distant guitars as standard. Drowned out screaming and hollowing version coming soon.
Look, I even drew a pretty picture of Fluttershy for everyone.

I don’t listen to much metal anymore, but I did like what I heard (although I am holding out for the vocals).

Hey that's what multiple tabs are for. One for here, one for EqD, one for PMVs, etc.... so many tabs full of ponies.

As I type, I have 4 pony IRC channels, the Ponythread, pony music, and 3 pony related documents up in tabs.

Hey! Sellyme here, registered to answer a few things I've seen here.

It is possible you have the "Radio Edit". This radio edit is, to put it bluntly, bad. They didn't re-write the lyrics like they should have, they just looped some of the lyrics so it repeats them twice, and this sounded horrific.

I’m glad I’m not the only one to feel that way. It was terrible.

We were going to put Pony Swag Megamix in the list, and cut out the verse we had issues with, however the list ended up being 7 hours without it, and we decided that 20 minute songs would not help this. This is also the same reason Something Broke by Tarby is not in the list.

I’m glad you didn’t end up putting it in. As talented as some of the rappers are, certain moments were downright painful. Let’s just say that there are segments of the song that I’ve skipped every time I’ve listened after the first playthrough.

EDIT: hey Gael! I'll see if we can make it. I'm probably working, but meh.

Character limit is 50,000 including tags and punctuation. Copy/pasta tends to add extraneous asterisks, as a relic of the different code for text. From memory, you're better off separating questions from the discussion you'll have about the points you wan to discuss. Generally, questions at the end, not before the preamble or you'll taint the sample group, as it were.

Thank you. We’ll see if I have this right.

[Forum Explorer]

oki doki Loki! Haven't caught up yet but this came up in the car, and it really needs to be addressed before Braz spends all my money

So without further preamble...

ATTENTION EVERYPONY;
OPERATION FAUST
IS NOW IN ITS PLANNING STAGES

Sadly, for those of you not in North America¹ this is irrelevant, and maybe even depressing for some of you. So, spoilers.

Spoiler

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1. The Basics
BroNYCon is in approximately five months. It will be a two-day event. It will most likely be on a weekend.
Lauren Faust herself will be there, which means most of the globe will be there. It's a con for Pony, so most of the people will be cool, and those that aren't can be loved, tolerated, both, or just ignored. And we want as much of ponythread there as is humanly, equinely, gryphynly and playgrounderly possible.

And for anyone watching at home; lurkers count. if you are in this thread long enough to wonder if this applies to you, IT DOES.

2. The Operation
The plan is to spend that time coordinating everypony who can and will go, and get them there. If we can ignore the time crunch, it will be fiscally and emotionally better to drive.

Starting approximately 5 days before the conventions starts, Brazen Shield and Starry Notions will rent a van or two and make the 400+ mile trip along the 353 mile route. On the way, we will pick up as many ponies² as possible, and shuttle them with us. We will then reverse routes, head home, and drop said ponies off. The more ponies we have, the better this trip will be; pick ups will help us foot some of the cost, while also having a cheaper alternative to flight or driving their own way or bussing.

3. Potential Issues
Obviously, this endeavor could fall through big time. If nine out of ten ponies are in southern States, and one is in Canada, we won't be able to swing by for our Canadian friend. If the number of ponies gets to the magical middle ground, we won't be able to fit them in one van, but also won't be able to rent a second van. If a pony backs out at the last second, we may not have enough buffer money to cover the loss (we got lucky, with four jobs providing christmas overtime- not happening until next christmas). If an emergency comes up for me or Braz, we have to drop out and that could mess up EVERYPONY'S plans though one of our goals is redundancy to eliminate this issue.

4. What We Need
Primarily, information. I've been a laypony group organizer for a long time, and the one thing -The. One. Thing! - that is guaranteed to send me into a neurotic fit and tirade, amateur Bleakbane style (possible with more sailor's lingo, to boot) is when EVERYONE responds to "when are you available" with "I dunno, it depends. When is everyone else available?"³

We need to know who wants to come. Who can legally drive in the US. Who handle a bajillion people in their vehicle, all chatting. Who can afford their own trip. Who can afford to be nice and help another pony with their trip, seeing as my previously stated goal was to develop a pool so everypony could go within reason.

This is still conceptual, but the more detail we get the more we can supply. We WILL develop concrete as it happens, so please, feedback! I'll update this regularly, either as a repost or with links to his post as needed (votes on which is preferable are appreciated).

5. REQUIREMENTS
All caps for a reason.

• are you willing AND legal to be a primary or back-up driver?
• money to attend the Con; RSVP with the convention may be a requirement⁴, see footnote.
• money for gas/snacks.
• legal majority OR Guardian Permission - a big one or I'd have forced enticed Vbob to go last time.
• Location: I don't need an address (yet!) and wouldn't have you post it publicly in any case. But I need a rather good general idea so I can start planning routes IMMEDIATELY.
• idea on comfort zones: if being shoved between two burly hairy bronies is a problem, I need to know before I schedule you for Hairy Man Car 2.*
• PJs, blankets, pillows, comfort objects: think camping. No only might we have to rotate-crash in the vehicles, but odds of having mattress rather than floor space at a con are teensy.

Foreign Bronies: if you can afford to fly in, we WILL pick you up, and we WILL put you up. If you can hit an airport en route, I will steer from the roof with a complicated pulley system to fit you in the vehicle. Though I'd prefer another driver take over and just tie me up top (in a Rainbow Dash t-shirt, naturally) so we don't all die in a terrible, rainboom-esque conflagration of awesome.

I know I'm missing something, but I'm kinda blegh. Haven't eaten all day and am about to fix that so I'm surprised I could keep even this much focus! Jade, help me out if you can; I'd like to coordinate across the board, as you will perforce have to help me with the housing branch of planning. Of course if we he enough folks we can also foot the bill for that Stable idea...



¹: Am I supposed to Capitalize North America? I mean, it's technically a proper noun, but...
²: Humans can come too. No saddle comments though, that's just awkward in mixed company.
³: Seriously. The level of rage this instilled in me is only trumped by the group's confusion at why nopony knew what was going on. Luna's Lightning, but did it not occur to you that I need bricks before I can build a masterpiece out of Lego? I can't conjure matter from Jack, people! I'm not a Moros!
⁴: conventions are funny things; all the ponyfolk and merchandise and music and stuff was awesome, but the really cool part? Walking to breakfast, 24 strong, and all eating. Singing random pony snippets. Hanging out. So if push comes to shove, we could rotate badges or something, but I'd prefer we all get together and ignore the con, rather than leave some folks out. So RSVP is nice, but we shall see.

I'll need to do some budgeting but I'll at least make an effort. By the way where is the starting point?

[Kyouhen]

So the submission page for the Artist's Training Ground is down, am I supposed to email my drawing just to Phoe directly, or is there a less chaotic was to go about it? >_>;;

Incidentally, my drawing turned out pretty nicely tonight, despite the fact that I'm banging out a 100 degree fever with a bad stummy virus. Poor physical health improves my art? o_0

Spoiler

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Wow, nice work!

And so far it looks like everypony's just emailing their submissions to Phoe. I'm going to wait another hour to see if the submission page comes back online before I do the same in hopes of saving her needing to go without sleep again.

-Stuff-

Pony road trip? Suddenly I want to fly over to California and hit the road on the way to BroNYCon rather than take the shorter route straight there.

Regardless! Barring any unfortunate incidents you can count me in. I'll have to pass on the road trip part, but I'll be at the convention.

[Capt. Ido Nos]

Wow, nice work!

And so far it looks like everypony's just emailing their submissions to Phoe. I'm going to wait another hour to see if the submission page comes back online before I do the same in hopes of saving her needing to go without sleep again.

Thanks and thanks!

Wooo, now I can go to bed and get some sleep

[Soras Teva Gee]

@Sius: That is one awesome idea and color me interested if not able to make any firm commitments at the moment. I literally am not even 100% on where I might be on the Eastern Seaboard come this summer. I was already planning on attending though.

(I'm 25 with a perfect driving record though and made many trips around the NYC area so if availible I would gladly help drive)

@Gaelbert: Awesome quote post.

But ponymotes... ponymotes are rubbish.

[Gaelbert]

Quotepost Part II: Act I: Princess Celestia Also Rises

While I was gone, wrasslin’ my demons and real life issues, I realized a few things. One of those was that I miss you guys. I care about you guys. A lot. It’s silly, perhaps, but I do. And a lot of those feelings were channeled into that note I wrote to y’all on Christmas day. This one.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Gaelbert just popped into the IRC channel for a minute, and he gave us this to read.
He feels it's think it's something which everyone should read, and he asked someone to link to it here.

Anyway, sorry for not posting in ages. I'm not even lurking. It's just that the IRC channel is so addictive.

Thank you monkeyboyinc. Now, I see that no one responded to it (except for a couple of people. Thank you SiuS and Leo, I really appreciate it.) It’s a little ironic, actually, that a note praising the community for its inclusive feel was ignored.

Really, I’m not. But I would appreciate it if you folks could give it a read through. It’s important to me, it comes from the heart. I’ll post it here, again, if you don’t mind. (I suppose I’ll post it here even if people do mind, but I hope they don’t. If people mind, I suppose I could edit it out. But I can’t imagine that happening.)

Hello all. This is Gaelbert.
I’m not yet at a stage where I feel entirely comfortable coming back. I still have certain things I need to deal with, but you all have been on my mind, and I thought it was important to let you know.
Just over a year ago, I first watched MLP. I actually started watching the show a few days before the first thread showed up on GitP if my memory serves. I wasn’t sure what to make of it at first. I could tell there was something special, but I didn’t know if the few episodes that I watched were a fluke, if it would be able to keep up the magic. Then I sat down and watched the rest of the episodes out at the time (maybe 7 or so), and realized that I had found something special. It was sincerely loving and kind, but yet at the same time realistic. The only other show that ever struck a chord with me on that level was Mr. Rodger’s Neighborhood. The people who watched MLP were genuinely changed by its message. The fandom was almost completely full of people who loved the show for its sincerity, people who took the messages of friendship, love, and tolerance to heart. I know it’s changed me personally. It’s given me the patience to deal with the troubles and troublemakers in my life. It’s given me the inspiration to write again, to pick up my guitar and instruments and create music. It’s given me good cheer, something I desperately needed. And it’s given me the courage to face myself when I hit the bottom, and to turn myself around. I know it’s been the same for many of us.
As the season continued, of course, its popularity increased exponentially. With that increased popularity came the memes, the Youtube videos, and so on and so forth. The productive capacity of this fandom is something truly inspiring. But as the fandom increased in size, it started to change a little. Phrases like “Love and Tolerance” were thrown around like a meme, whereas previously it had almost been a mindset or a way of life. Some of the sincerity of the fandom started to fade. I can understand that, and I’m not necessarily blaming anyone. The show had an almost overwhelming sincerity to it, and not everyone is able to accept it for what it is. Some folks have to defend themselves by abstracting themselves from the essence of the show, setting up layers of irony between themselves and the core values of the show. The fandom started to change. It still had a magic to it, but it started to move into different territories, territories less based on the morals of the show. Which, as I said, is fine. I can understand that.
But what I’m really trying to get at here is the GitP pony community. It never changed. It still has the warmth and camaraderie I remember from the beginning. New people have joined, old ones have left, but the essence of the thread, what makes it so appealing? It’s stayed here. I’ve been on a few different pony communities, and so I feel justified in saying that this is unusual. We are unusual in that we’ve managed to keep the heart of the show, the sincerity of the show, alive and well in the content of our posts, in our interactions with each other, and the friendships that we’ve made. It’s all still there.
By every right we should have failed. Places like this community don’t appear on the internet. We should have descended into cliques, we should have started sniping at each other and passive-aggressively attacking one another from behind the veneer of “Love and Tolerance.” We certainly have folks with the amazing charisma and talent to bend the community around themselves, if they so chose. But we’ve stayed true to the founding credo of the community throughout the year, and I don’t see any signs of that changing in the future.
I honestly don’t know where I would be without the ponythread and its community. I had some rough times earlier this year, and certain people (who know who they are) were there for me when I needed it. Thank you. I don’t know what I would have done without you.
Normally this would be the part where I start listing prominent members of the thread, thanking them for their kindness, praising them for their creativity, or congratulating them on their achievements. I’m not going to do that, though, because a list is defined by who it excludes as much as what it includes. The thread is what it is because of all of us, not just certain posters. Every single person in the community has acted with grace and dignity, has had an attitude of love and respect towards each other. Every single person. The saying often goes that a group is only so strong as its weakest link. We have no weakest link. In the year I’ve been reading and posting, I can’t think of a single fight I’ve been in, or even any sort of fight or serious argument that I’ve witnessed. It seems like the people in our community continue to act out of the spirit of love and tolerance, even when others may overlook it.
So that’s why I want to get to know you better. I want to talk to you. All of you, each of you, any single one of you. You are all amazing. I know sometimes when people read something like that, they think “He’s never talked to me, he doesn’t mean me.” Well I’m talking to you now, and saying that I mean you.
So I’m going to give you my email address. gale*daze*at*gmail (remove the asterisks). I want to hear what you have to say about the most recent episode. I want to hear about your fanon. I want to hear about your new drawings. I want to hear about your possible projects, I want to hear about your fanfiction, I want to hear about anything and everything that goes through your mind, I want to hear about you. I want to hear the things you think are too insignificant to post, and I want to hear the things (if you’ll let me) that you feel are too important to post. I want to hear about you as a person, and I want you to know that if you ever need anything, I have your back. The entire ponythread has your back. I don’t care who you are, how long you’ve been here, if you’ve ever participated in some small part, posted once, I want to hear about you. I can’t promise that if you come to me with a problem I’ll be able to solve it. I can’t promise that I will be a particularly good proofreader, or editor, or judge. What I can promise is that I will do everything within my power to help you with whatever you need.
I’m going to finish this off by saying I love you. And when I say that, I don’t mean it in a joking, not serious manner. I mean it sincerely. I care about every single one of you. Each and every one of you is an amazing person, a beautiful person, and you’ve managed to make this community feel like home for me. A home on the internet? It doesn’t really make sense, but you all managed to do it.
Thank you, folks. It’s been a pleasure getting to know you, and I’m thankful for the opportunity to get to know more of you in the future.

I’ve noticed a few ponies mention that they feel they contribute nothing to the ponythread. First, I’d like them to read the above, the note I wrote. It’s directed at you.

On a different level though, I had some of those same feelings. I was feeling like a One Trick Pony, but without a trick. So a no trick pony. It was sad. So what did I do? I threw my brain into a blender, and did whatever came out! Make sense? No. I didn’t think so. What I did was get off my fat lazy plot and start doing things. I’m of the belief that actions are what we have. Perhaps all that we have. So I started actionalizing my creative impulses. Below are the results.

One of the things I did over during my pony hiatus was learn how to draw ponies.

"You drew ponies during a pony hiatus? How does that make any sense?"
"It appears we have some neighsayers in the audience! Hush, or be silenced by the Short and Unfortunate Mudworthy!"
(I made an OC. He’s Trixie’s little brother. Growing up with the Great and Powerful Trixie was not good for his self-esteem.)

Anyways, as I was wandering through the wilderness looking for reference pictures of the G&P T, I was linked back one of our early threads. Specifically, Thread IV. The page I was linked to happened to be a somewhat important time for me, so I looked around to see what I had posted. Long story short, I found some gold. First, a quote I recently attributed to darthbobcat actually was something I’d said. Let me tell you, that worked wonders on my self-esteem. (darthbobcat, I miss you.)

Secondly, I found this:

Twilight gets jealous the four are spending time away from her (she clearly has some jealousy/space issues, judging from Green Isn't Your Colour). Twilight writes a letter to Celestia about the power of love, and Celestia comes down to investigate. Pinkie Pie plans Celestia's party/reception and finds she asks Applejack baking questions she already knew, just to get attention from her. Hmm... let's see... Bon Bon and Lyra, Dr. Whoof, and of course, DJ Pon-3 are still left. Dr. Whoof loses his TARDIS and finds he must fit in with the residents of Ponyville. His stunning looks and attractive personality wins him the affection of Lyra. Naturally, Bon Bon tries to win Lyra back, only to realize she too loves the Doctor. And, um, Pon-3... bonds with Blues over their mutual interest in music. Pinkie Pie hires Pon-3 and Blues to do the music for the reception. This makes Fluttershy jealous (she's the unofficial conductor.) Meanwhile, the Doctor realizes something is amiss with the Princess' reception and must get to the bottom of the mystery. As it turns out, the "mystery" is love, which is far more magical than friendship even. It warps the fabric of the timey-whimey ball. Derpy Hooves is affected by this crack in space and time (resulting in her general "derpyness") and is examined by the Doctor.

@ This horrible fic I agreed to write for some reason:

Okay, I've got a roughly coherent (read: Utterly absurd) storyline sketched out, I just need to figure out a writing style that can appropriately communicate the crazy camp mood I'm going for. I know it'd work dramatically better as a comic, but unless there are any spectacularly bored artists swanning around... hmm, perhaps writing it and then doing a dramatic reading would be the best way to communicate the craziness...

Thanqol, did anything ever happen from that? Or did more important stories come up?

And third, I found the fanfic that I started last year and never touched again. Bracing myself, I opened the spoiler, and was shocked. It was not nearly as bad as I remember. It still pains me to read, but I had some ideas in there that I want to flesh out. So I’m going to.
But first, let me tell you a little about myself and my writing. I write a lot. The thing is, I write nonfiction. I’ve worked as a regular columnist for a newspaper before (before they found out my age and “let me go”, anyways), and if I may allow myself the boasting, I’m quite good. Damn good, actually. When it comes to fiction (and poetry too, for that matter), I have some other issues. Either the stories I write are so incredibly banal and trivial that I hate them and consider them pointless, or they’re so deeply intimate that they scar me and I can’t ever let anyone read them. The last full story I wrote was one of the latter. It gave me nightmares for months (I don’t scare easily, and my sleep has always been perfect) and I still haven’t fully recovered. I can’t walk the line between the two categories. They either pain me through their insignificance, or pain me through their significance. Here’s an example of the former:

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Spin, spin, drop, roll, rise, stretch, and… hold.
Fleur de Lis held her pose for the few remaining moments as the final harp notes faded away.
“I have to say, that was exce-“
“I know. And I’m done for the day.”
Fleur cut off her instructor, a wiry colt named En Pointe, and walked out of the studio. She was good. She knew she was good. Her lean form and astoundingly flexible body were perfect for the modernist style that emphasized supple curves and gently flowing lines. Even outside of her natural blessings, she was quite fit and able to perform even the most complex techniques with great ease.
She trotted down the street back towards her flat, subconsciously stepping into pirouettes and gracefully leaping over puddles. She was so immersed by her narcissistic reflections that she failed to notice the particularly dapper stallion trailing her, off to one side.
Realizing she wouldn’t notice him without additional prompting, the male unicorn stepped in front of her and spoke.
“Well, that’s certainly one way to end a practice session.”
Fleur de Lis raised her head, annoyed at being addressed so by a newcomer. Her brow furrowed as she saw the cut of his suit. A pony with class, she though. But no matter.
“Who exactly are you, and why should I give you the time of day?”
“Just as biting as you are skilled! Well, I suppose I have the honour of introductions. I am Fancy Pants, a resident here in Canterlot, and you, my dear, are Fleur de Lis, are you not? Formerly of Manehattan?”
She nodded slightly in acknowledgement.
“You still haven’t answered my second question, Mr. Pants, and how is it you know so much about me?”
“Please, call me Fancy Pants, if you will.

Technically, it’s poor. Stories can be good in spite of technical difficulties, but this one can’t and will never be. I, as the author, was so bored that I was unable to complete more than a few hundred words. I stopped in the middle of a scene. Flat characters, etc. Now, granted, it’s the first few paragraphs. But still. I could feel it going nowhere fast. Part of the problem was it started out of a desire to make an elaborate pun out of a certain figure in 20th century dance history. You get out what you put in, and all I’d get out of that was a bad pun.

Where am I going with this? Well, when I was reading through the old fanfic, I realized that it had the potential to walk the line. There was depth in it, but it wasn’t so intimate that it would hurt. I made a few modifications, and I’m posting it here.

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"You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star."

A small filly struggled through Canterlot's sodden fields. Rain poured relentlessly out of the dark sky. While the rain would eventually give way for Canterlot's fabled gardens and many-coloured flowers, this was scarce comfort for a filly caught out in the storm.
She finally made her way into Canterlot, drenched to the core and shivering. The streets were deserted, nopony in their right mind would be outside in weather like this if they had a choice. Her mind slowly faded out and made its way back in time, back to half-remembered fires on the hearth and snug blankets. It felt like so long ago, before... She dozed off, oblivious to the wind and the rain.
"Dear, you must come inside! You'll catch a cold like that, sweetheart!"
The filly opened her eyes and stared at the mare before her. She was a deep majestic purple, as beautiful and dark as the night above. The filly opened her mouth to reply, but only a cough came out.
"Here, follow me inside. I'll get you warmed up, you poor thing."
The mare led the little pony inside a nearby home. The windows were shut tight against the cold, and the house was lit by candles. The mare pulled a bowl of soup out from over the remnants of a small fire gestured towards the young filly.
"Here, drink up," she said as she dried the young pony off. "What happened to your parents? Do they know where you are?"
"No," the filly managed to squeak out through the bowl of soup.
"Well they need to know where you are dear. Where can I find them?"
"I wish I knew."
She let out a small sigh and fell asleep on the table. The mare took the rest of soup, dumped it on the fire's embers, and tossed the bowl to the side.
"She will do much better than I thought," said the mare before fading out of sight.

The filly woke up the next morning in a back alleyway. The sky above was light blue and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. She stretched, blinking herself out of sleep.
“Where am I? Last night… what happened?” she thought aloud. She wandered out of the alley and into the street, just in time to nearly get ran over by a horse-drawn carriage. She scrambled out of the way in time to see the passenger, a purple unicorn, stare out the window, oblivious to the near-accident.
She backed out of the street, only to feel a hoof on her shoulder.
“Name and residence, please,” said the policepony behind her. “Are you aware of the trouble you could have caused? That carriage right there goes to Princess Celestia’s palace. If I were you, I wouldn’t be wantin’ to make trouble with her Highness now.”
She stammered. “Trixie, sir, and I’m new here. I don’t have a residence. I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t mean to make trouble with anypony.”
“New here? What brings you to Canterlot?”
Trixie sat quietly for a second, trying to put her mind in order. She didn’t rightly know why she had come. She had lost her home, her family, she had no place to go, and then she had a feeling. A feeling that if she went to Canterlot, things would work out. Life would be good. She hesitated, trying to think of a reply the policepony would accept.
“I heard there were jobs here, I was hoping to live here.”
The policepony grimaced, “Ya know, I’m under orders to kick out any immigrants. We don’t have housing nor jobs for nopony, and anypony coming here just adds to our trouble. I’m terribly sorry Miss Trixie, but you’ll have to leave here by nightfall.”
Trixie started to protest, then reconsidered. She didn’t know why, but she did feel better. She hadn’t expected to come all this way to turn back upon entry, but something made her feel as if things would be okay.
“I’ll be gone by then, sir. I’m sorry I took up so much of your time.”
“Okay then. Get a move on,” he said.
Trixie turned and began to walk away. She was just a little filly, so far away from anypony she knew, but she knew she would be fine. Her guardian angel would protect her.
Her reminiscing was cut short by the sound of shouting and wailing coming from behind her.
“But where will I go? This is my only home, I’ve lived here forever! Please, you can’t do this to me. Have you no kindness, sir, have you no kindness?”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but if you don’t have a home you’re going to have to leave the city. We can’t afford to have beggars and street urchins laying about anymore. I don’t care where you used to live, you just have to go,” the policepony said.
The voice toyed with Trixie’s memory. It sounded familiar, but from a distant past. Who was it? She turned around.
“Moondancer!” Trixie exclaimed. “I haven’t seen you in forever, how are you doing?”
Ignoring the policepony, Moondancer looked at Trixie with a face full of scorn. “How does it look like I’m doing, Trixie? I lost my family, my home, and now I’m losing my city.”
“Forgive me cousin, I didn’t know. Come with me. We may be able to get something sorted out for the both of us.”
Moondancer looked dubious, but she followed Trixie anyways.
“I need to leave the city as well. I don’t have any idea where I’m going, but we’ll do better together, won’t we?”
“I suppose so,” said Moondancer. She turned her head for one last look at her former home and neighbourhood, then set off.

The two spent the afternoon sharing their stories of woe. Moondancer had been a pony from a wealthy family. Her father had been a high ranking official in Celestia’s court, and the family had grown wealthy off Celestia’s benevolence. One day, however, disaster struck. Moondancer’s father was tending one of Celestia’s orchards when a bough fell, breaking his back and paralyzing him. He was unable to move, and his calls for help went unanswered. He slowly bled until he passed into unconscious and then to death. When Moondancer’s mother found out, she was devastated. Over the course of the next year she slowly wasted away, then she too passed on. Moondancer was left alone in the family estate. She tried to maintain it, but it was too much for one small pony to handle. Moondancer was kicked out of her own home and forced to live on the streets.
As the two ponies slowly walked to the edge of the city and discussed the past, the sun began to fall. Trixie and Moondancer crossed the city gate as the day melted into the twilight.
“Twilight was always my favourite part of the day. It ends the fires of the day, and brings in the cool, gentle caress of the night. The night makes all equal in her velvet cloak.”
Moondancer turned towards Trixie, her eyes sparkling. “Really? I think I have something to show you then. Follow me.”
Moondancer tugged on Trixie’s leg, leading her down the slopes of the rolling hills. They traveled from the boundary of the city in silence. Moondancer stopped at the crest of the last hill before the great and powerful River Danter.
The ponies gazed at the land before them. “I used to come out here often, at night. I’d stare out at the sky and the stars. They shine so bright, I felt like I could hear them. They were whispering something I couldn’t understand. Trixie…” Moondancer nudged Trixie. “Look. Up in the sky. Look Trixie. I know can see it. Look.”
Trixie raised her head towards the heavens. There were so many lights, shining, sparkling, twinkling. Trixie’s eyes blurred. “They’re certainly beautiful, but I don’t see it.”
“I know you can. Focus Trixie. I need you to focus.”
Trixie wiped her blurry eyes and looked up at the sky again. Her vision blurred, but she held her gaze. The stars… the stars! They were moving! The stars in the night sky shifted and moved until they spelled out a message.
“What is that? What’s going on?” Trixie shouted.
Moondancer smiled. “I can’t see anything. Nopony can. You’re the only pony who can read the sky. Tell me Trixie. What does it say?”
The stars spoke to Trixie, “I am the Ruler of all the Nations of the World. Long have I dwelt in the heavens, but now I shall return to the Earth to right the wrongs of the World. I will restore Equestria to its fabled past. Trixie, prepare the way for me. I will fill you with my power and you will trod your enemies underhoof.”
A beam of moonlight shone down on Trixie. She could feel herself lifted into the air, rising higher and higher. The moonlight moved with Trixie, and she could feel her body opening to the light. Power and strength rushed in, in a strange electrifying sensation. She flew over the land, accelerating faster and faster. Her eyes shut and she remembered no more.

Blues sat on a stool outside his house. He had played a gig that night, but it didn’t go so well for him. He was out of touch, true, but that shouldn’t have been enough for the audience to throw him out of the bar. Oh well, he thought. At least I got a few bits out of it…
Blues’ eyes were caught by a shooting star. It looked much closer than most shooting stars, and it was moving rapidly. In fact… it was heading for Fillydelphia. Blues watched as the star flew closer and closer, until it finally crashed into a park a block away from Blues’ house. He trotted over to the wreckage of the crash. To his astonishment, he saw a pale blue unicorn with a cutie mark of a starred wand and moon. Light shone from the unicorn, and she appeared to be unharmed despite the fall.
“Who are you?” he said in wonder.
“Who am I?” she repeated groggily. The world was blurry, and she was on the verge of collapse. Suddenly, her eyes slid into focus and she stood up straight.
“I am the Great and Powerful Trixie.”

You might be asking yourself, what’s so impressive about that?
Well, nothing. Yet. There are some places I want to see it go. I’m having trouble getting there, but I’m going to try. I’m not posting it here because I expect people to read it. It’s not a finished project. My plan is to keep writing, get to the end, then scrap it all and rewrite because I was a moron and completely misunderstood my characters. But it has a seed of potential in it, and that’s something I want to see flourish.

It’s based on a true story by the way. Steinbeck wrote “A thing isn’t necessarily a lie even if it didn’t necessarily happen.” (There’s a reason that’s in my sig. I’m of the opinion that Steinbeck went drastically downhill after he published East of Eden. His writing started to go downhill before that, actually, but East of Eden was a bright spot. It was his last. His last novels and articles were terrible. The Winter of Our Discontent was sickening, it was so bad. But. He always kept his ability to turn a phrase. The quote’s from Sweet Thursday, published two years after East of Eden. They’re words that I live by) By that logic, you could argue that all stories are true. I might even go so far as to agree with that. But this story is a little more personal. A little more true than most, if you will.

Oh hey, rap battles.

Go vote on who won.

I can’t tell you how much this hurts. Over the last 6 months, I’ve been working on the libretto for a MLP themed rap opera. I’d dropped some hints about it in here and in the IRC. I had the rapper lined up, I completed the libretto, and I’d begun working on the beats when I saw this. This rap battle is exactly what I had planned for the climax of the album. You might tell me, you can still work on it. Sure. I can. But the magic’s gone. I have no desire to anymore. Petty? You betcha. It’d be petty to take out my frustration on the track. It’s a pretty good song, albeit the mixing was imperfect at best, some of Twilight’s lines were downright painful, the rappers could have had better flow. See? I’m doing it. I’m being petty. It’s a good song, I’ve heard much worse.
But damn if it doesn’t hurt. So. To let off some steam, I recorded a remix. It’s… Well, you’ll see. It’s a work in progress, as I had a cold at the time, so I didn’t bother to use a noise gate, or good recording equipment, or anything like that. It’s more of a proof of concept. So please be gentle. Here it is.
Yaplap is a pretty big influence on me.


As I mentioned above, I started drawing ponies. I’ve never drawn seriously before. In fact, the last time I drew anything at all (excluding the 15 minute MS Paint pony I made last year) was at least 4 years ago, perhaps much longer. So I’m weak, but I was bitten. I was bitten by the bug that makes you want to get better. I sat down every day and drew something, anything. I was astounded, to be frank, by my improvement. The last time I felt this good about anything creative was when I just started picking up classical guitar so many years ago. Drawing ponies was relaxing, it made me feel good about myself, and it helped with the struggles I was going through (and still am, to an extent). In the spoilers are some of my efforts. I’ll be cross-posting this in the Ponythread Learns to Draw thread, and hopefully I’ll stay there.

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This is some concept art for the rap opera album I was writing, with a few of the lines.

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Raz? This one’s for you.

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So what else is there? I’ve thrown out music, pictures, philosophical pondering, pony modification, and a fanfic. I have no way to record my interpretive dancing to MLP songs and remixes. My love-letter and poetry to Rarity is unsuitable for a PG-13 forum. You would think I’ve hit a wall, the extent of my meager abilities. But you’d be wrong.

Guy Dapple? Drop that bass.
(Guy Dapple is another OC I created it. Stuffy, intellectual, philosophical type. Does a lot of culture and pop-culture analysis, hint hint. If you get the reference, I love you. Even if you don’t get the reference, I love you, but still.)


Thread vs. IRC: Part II: Revenge of the Subtitle

Background:

Since the creation of the IRC a few months back (October 25, 2011), its existence has been controversial. It’s become something of a meme to blame the IRC for the slowdown of the thread and a whole host of other issues. I attempted to investigate the legitimacy of these claims by comparing the speed of the thread pre- and post- IRC creation (link here).
The results were inconclusive for a number of reasons. First, I didn’t have enough measurements. There was no consistency in pre-IRC measurements and speeds, and there weren’t nearly enough post-IRC threads to come to any reasonable conclusion. Based on the pre-IRC data set we were able to determine that the ponythread moves in cycles. These cycles are likely seasonally related. I wasn’t able to observe a full year, and even the early observations I did have were likely tainted from a number of confounding factors. The first few threads moved incredibly slow by our current standards, likely due to the small community of the time and the relatively low exposure ponies had received by that point. (On a side note, I’ve been a member of the thread since 2 days into the original. One of the reasons I was attracted to it in the first place was because of how fast it moved. By today’s standards, those first threads were dead. Oh, for the naivety of youth!)
Anyways, the only correlation I was able to tease from the data set was that the speed cycles. Any other conclusions were simply untenable (in fact, the next strongest relationship was an inverse relationship between ponythread speed and the show. The thread appeared to move faster when there were no episodes. Obviously, this relationship cannot be seen as sound. The lack of episodes didn’t cause people to post more, the summer caused people to post more and the summer caused no episodes to show. I also found a positive relationship between thread speed and shark attacks. No one would claim that this is a causal relationship.) And the end of my first “study,” I stated that I hoped to use a different angle in the future. That’s what I hope to do now. I also mentioned I hoped to continue measurements of the thread speed, and add my later observations into that first study. I still intend to do that. However, taking the speed of the ponythread right now would be incredibly misleading. As I mentioned earlier, the ponythread speed accelerates in cycles. Right now, the holiday season is causing massive deceleration. I’ll return to this tact at the beginning of the summer. By that time, we’ll have a full year of roughly comparable measurements.

Hypothesis:

The hypothesis I’ll be testing is “The IRC negatively affects the ponythread speed.” The null would then be “The IRC has no negative effect on the ponythread speed.” Independent variable is IRC, dependent variable is ponythread speed. (Actually, the variable I measured was IRC speed, for reasons I discuss below. While there is a theoretical difference in the two, in real life it shouldn’t produce a massive difference. And it would be impossible to measure otherwise.) I’ll lay my cards on the table. I’m in the middle right now, leaning towards the latter. My bias shouldn’t affect my measurements, but I want full disclosure.

Methods:

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to create (or observe) an alternate universe where the IRC was never created. If I could, I would merely need to compare the speed of the alternate IRC-less universe and the actual IRC universe. I had plans and a conceptual design for a time machine, but my funds were far too thin to make it a reality. So, I had to turn to another solution. What I landed upon was the idea to compare the speed of the IRC against the speed of the ponythread. If the speed of the IRC affected the speed of the ponythread, it would appear to support my hypothesis. If the speed of the IRC was positively correlated with the speed of the ponythread, then my null would be disproved. If I was unable to make a connection between IRC speed and ponythread speed, or if I was to find an inverse correlation between the two variables, I would be unable to discount the null (basically, I wouldn’t be able to say the IRC slows down the ponythread). To try this, I would need logs of the IRC and the speed of the ponythread. Because the ponythread is based on a forum, it would be easy to swoop in and measure posts per hour. The IRC logs would be more difficult, not in the least because I was on a self-imposed pony hiatus.
Fortunately, my good friend and cousin Lurk[Animal] recently was infected with the brony virus. He likes to lurk, meaning it would be easy for him to gather IRC logs for me. Starting December 27, he began recording the logs. Since I understand there can be concerns about the privacy of the logs, I did not look at the actual content of the logs. Instead, I directed my cousin to copy and paste the logs into a Word Document. He pasted them in 12 hour chunks (or whatever he was able to), then I counted the lines (by multiplying [number of pages-1] * [lines per page] + [lines on the last page]), and finally computed an hourly average. I then took the hourly average of the IRC, attached it to the hourly average of the ponythread speed for the same period, and BLAM! Data points.
At the culmination of the observation process, I was left with three weeks of observations, with roughly 2 observations a day. Sure, a few hours were missing here and there, but hopefully the amount of points would make that irrelevant.
I was then able to move into the next portion, the investigation of the data. I also did something else, noting the times the IRC and ponythread appeared to be most active. That information will be at the bottom.

Concerns:

There are many, many possible confounding variables. That’s part of what sank my last project. However, there are a few counters to that. First, I’m not actually trying to determine that the IRC causes a decrease in ponythread speed. I’m merely trying to find out if an increase in IRC speed can be linked to a decrease in ponythread speed. That should take care of a few issues. It is possible that winter holidays caused the relationship between IRC and Thread speed to change, but that’s a problem I’m willing to accept. I find it unlikely that winter break could actually flip the relationship to its opposite. Still, if someone was willing to record the speed of the IRC over the next few months and present me with the results, I’d see what I could do with it. I’ll be doing some of that on my own, albeit not too seriously.
Another possible concern is the amount of content in each post or line. This type of measurement is biased against a forum, because it calls all posts or lines equal. There’s no differentiation between a one word line or a SiuS megapost. In some cases, dedicated spammers on the IRC have filled up dozens of lines in a matter of seconds, posting no more than one word per line. This biases the measurement towards my hypothesis, by overmeasuring the IRC and undermeasuring the forum. Normally, this would be a big no. But in this case, I’m actually trying to support the null (I could go back and switch the null hypothesis with the hypothesis, but that would require a change in methodology and frankly, I’m too lazy for that.) In this case, it’ll be okay. It just means that any data supporting the hypothesis should be considered ever so slightly more dubious, and any data supporting the null should be considered strongly than it actually appears.

Data:

Here’s where the magic begins. Let it be known that I hate statistics. All the statistics courses I’ve taken start out well, then I peter out towards the end. Since I’ve removed every trace of the statistical analysis software package from my computer, and since I’m not quite nerdy enough to feel comfortable performing a bivariate regression analysis for fun, I’ll just be making a scatterplot. Simple, easy, fun. And frankly, this doesn’t call for any more than that. It’s not like lives are on the line here. If no easily observable relationship appears on the plot, then that’s enough for me to accept the null. Even with the fancy statistical tools that political and social scientists have these days, waaaaay too many of their experiments are tainted by bias anyways. Seriously. People go in wanting to find a relationship, then tease the numbers until it appears. Don’t get me started on the supposed “no two democratic states have ever gone to war with each other.” It’s hideous. So I’m not going to try to muddle the issue with my fancy mathematics. I’m going to throw the numbers at Excel and see what happens. If I can’t see it, then it’s probably not important enough to get hot and bothered about.
Now to the good stuff.
Scatterplot in the spoiler:

Spoiler

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Dataset in this spoiler:

Spoiler

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A brief glance at the graph will show a roughly football shaped distribution, pointing upward and to the left. It’s a fat football. There’s a term for how fat the football is, the term probably equals around .3 in this case. But I’m not going to tell you what the term is or what it means because it doesn’t matter.
A few more notes on the distribution: There appears to be something of an empty spot in the middle, an oval running perpendicular to the line of best fit. This is abnormal, but has no major bearing on this experiment. However, I do hope to take a closer look at that in the future. See the questions below for more details.
Additionally, you’ll notice that the line of best fit isn’t a very good fit. Many of the points are a fair distance away from the average. There’s a term for that. It doesn’t matter, so I’m not going to talk about it anymore. This is normal (har har)for the softer sciences. We don’t expect nice, one to one correspondences. That’s not how the real world works. We get far more messy. It’s fun.

Conclusions:

Since the line of best fit suggests a positive relationship between the IRC speed and the thread speed, we are unable to reject the null. This means that we have found no evidence to suggest people posting in the IRC slows down the speed of the thread. In fact, the evidence suggests a slight positive correlation, meaning that the faster the IRC, the faster the thread moves. Why is this? I’d put forth the idea that when people have time, they post in both the thread and the IRC. When people don’t have time, they post in neither. It makes sense.
So what can we say? First, this doesn’t prove that the existence of the IRC doesn’t slow down the ponythread, merely that the speed of the IRC doesn’t. It is likely that some small amount of traffic was diverted from the thread to the IRC. I say small because much of the content of the IRC is qualitatively different from the content of the thread. The content of the IRC can thus be described as a small amount of overflow from the thread, and a large amount of “original content,” i.e. content of a nature that was never discussed or posted in the thread. My personal belief is that the IRC takes a flat percent of content from the ponythread, say something like 5%, although using numbers for nebulous concepts such as “content” doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. If that’s the case, then the IRC did cause an initial slowdown when it was created, but it hasn’t changed much since.
However, it is important to stress that hypothesis is only my own personal idea. It is not backed up by data. The only empirical data we have suggests there is no negative relationship between the ponythread and the IRC, and that there may very well be a positive relationship.

Questions (in RP form)

Gale Daze enters a typical Victorian style room. Overstuffed armchairs abound, the walls are lined with bookcases filled with many leather bound books. The smell of musty books permeates throughout the air. The color scheme is muted earthy tones, quite subdued. The room is cluttered with various knickknacks from all across the globe. None are particularly interesting in their own right, but it’s likely each has a story behind it. In the center of the room is a rich mahogany coffee table surrounded by two armchairs. It is exactly how one would expect an interview of an intellectual to look. Prof. Guy Dapple is seated at one chair, and the other is clearly intended for Gale Daze.
Prof. Dapple speaks first.
“Gale Daze! So good of you to come! I’m always so glad when I get the chance to see you again. I have a little something here for you before we begin the interview.”
“Guy, you shouldn’t ha-“
Gale Daze is cut off as Prof. Dapple launches a pie at her face, hitting her cleanly between the eyes.
“I should have known. The room looked an awful lot like a spectacle. You need to be careful though, pretty soon that detournement is going to become a spectacle in its own right.”
“Hush, you! I live authentically. Now sit down, make yourself comfortable.”
Gale Daze produces a handkerchief, wipes her face off, and sits down in the empty armchair.

“So. Let’s begin with a basic question. Can you tell me about your new project?”
“Didn’t you read the report I sent you? All basic information about my experiment and intentions can be found in the ‘Background’ section at the beginning. I don’t have time for questions like this, you know I’m a busy pony, Guy.”

“My apologies. Well then, let’s get this started in earnest. Is it true that you had an affair with Prince Blueblood?”
“My lawyers have advised me to respond ‘No Comment.’ But just between you and me… He has some, uh… performance issues.”
“Do tell!”
“Every time we went to see a ballet, or concert, or any type of performing art, he would just freak out! He hates performances, absolutely loathes them. He’s not himself at all when there’s a musician in the room. Quite strange, really. I’d love to get to the bottom of that hang-up, but that would require spending more time with him, and I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“That’s not nearly so interesting as I was expecting. Moving on. Is it true that you still have the IRC logs that you used for your observations? What are you planning on doing with those?”
“I realize there are concerns with the privacy of the IRC logs. As I said above, I did not read any of the logs, nor do any more than skim over them to make sure there were no massive problems. However, I do have the logs on my computer. If someone would like to see them, PM me and we can discuss this. If you just want to see one specific part of the logs, then I’ll be likely to send it to you. If you want all of the logs, that might cause more problems. If that becomes the case, then I’ll post in the thread and the IRC, asking if anypony has a problem with me sharing the logs for the indicated dates and times. If nopony has a problem with that within the next few days, then I’ll send you the logs. There is one exception. If somepony doesn’t trust my measurements or wishes to replicate my steps, I will send the data set immediately. Experiments are worthless without replicability, and I would have no aspersions cast on my methodology.”

“Where do you hope to take this from here?”
“Well, it would seem that my topics for investigation are slowly being exhausted. Really, ponies don’t care a whole lot about the topics I found already, and the quality of topic is only going to decrease from here. But this recent dataset gave me a few ideas. I’m hoping to examine a relationship between times (and timezones) and posting speeds. A quick series of observations to see whether we have one timezone that’s more prolific than others. That’d have some real world application too, if you stretch it. It’d be nice to see when the busiest times to drop into the IRC are, it’d be nice to find out the quiet times. The same goes for the thread. Sometimes people want to post fanfics when it’s quiet, to hope that their efforts won’t be overlooked. And hopefully my efforts will make it easier for them.
Originally my plan was to use this dataset for those observations. I have the data already, it would make sense, you know? But then I realized that this was vacation for a lot of ponies. Vacation causes ponies to post at weird hours of the day. As things go back to normal, I’ll start gathering information.
Beyond that? Who knows. I like the idea of empirical analysis of ponies and pony communities. It’s something I can do, it’s something creative, and it’s fun. If any ponies out there listening to this interview have an idea, I’d love to hear it.”

“Quite. Now Gale Daze, tell me honestly. Do you consider yourself a nerd?”
“Guy, if making an empirical analysis of the influence one online pony community has on another pony medium makes me a nerd, then I just don’t know what to tell you.”

“A follow up to the previous question. Are you pretentious?”
“Indubitably. But! Lest you get the wrong impression about me, let me show you the other project I’m working on.”
Gale Daze pulls out a 400 page MLP Colouring and Activity Book. She flips through the pages, showing Prof. Dapple the sloppily coloured pictures of ponies.

Spoiler

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“I picked this up at Target the other day. It was only 2 bits! I like to think of myself as a Renaissance pony, one as comfortable in the kindergarten art room as in the 3rd grade classroom.”

((TL;DR))
“Lovely. One last question. Sum up your research for us. Does the IRC slow the ponythread?”
“No.”

“Well, thank you very much for taking time out of your schedule to come in and speak with me. Before you leave though, I have something for yo-“
Gale Daze stands up, cutting Prof. Dapple off. She reaches under the table and grabs the banana cream pie that Prof. Dapple had been discreetly trying to through at her.

“Didn’t I already tell you? This sort of detournement is getting stale and played out, old friend. You need to get something new, something fresh. Something authentic.”
Gale Daze starts to put the pie down, thinks the better of it, and walks out as Prof. Dapple’s tirade fades away in her ears.
“Those are fighting words, miss! Get back here so I can teach you a lesson! I might be old, but I can still…”
Gale Daze walks out the door, only to be rocked by a large explosion. She looks over to where her now charred and smoking car was parked.
She turns her head back towards the house with a look of amusement before beginning her long walk home.
“Touche, my friend. Touche.”


Lest you think that I take myself too seriously, here’s the other project I’ve been working on:

Spoiler

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It’s magical.

[Bayonet Priest]

snip SiuiS being awesome again

Now that sounds awesome. There are about a million reasons why I can't join in even though this sounds so awesome that I actually want to now. I wish you luck in your grand endeavor though.

[Roninhirox]

RoninHiroX: that cutie mark is cooler in person.

Yes yes it is. As for the next con I will let you know when things are loser I should have a job or two between then but I also have PAXEast and am planning to do some traveling over the summer so I have a lot of saving to do but I really do want to do another BroNYCon as this last one was the best time I have had in awhile.

[Eakin]

I love Trixie. She’s an amazing character. But there’s no way that the show could live up to her portrayal in fanon. No matter what they did, it would be a disappointment. The thing I love about her fanon is that Trixie is simultaneously strong, yet weak. I can accept multiple fan theories and give them the same legitimacy in my head, but if a show did that it just couldn’t work.

I disagree. Wind the clock back to September and you could make exactly the same argument about Luna, but today "Luna Eclipsed" is the second favorite episode among bronies that answered the recent EQD poll for the Valentine's marathon

And as somebody who lives near NYC trust me, trains and other mass transit are your friend. Nobody drives into New York, there's too much traffic. Park at Secaucus and ride in, round trip on the train is still cheaper than paying for a garage.

[Soras Teva Gee]

And as somebody who lives near NYC trust me, trains and other mass transit are your friend. Nobody drives into New York, there's too much traffic. Park at Secaucus and ride in, round trip on the train is still cheaper than paying for a garage.

Having grown up a couple hours by train up from NYC its the vastly preferable option. Depending on the 'cons hours and other specifics it might be a good idea to stay outside the city entirely. Like in NJ, CT, or upstate NY.

Day tripping is MORE then possible.

[Orzel]

MLPFIM Card game design.

Spoiler

Show

Set up
In the beginning of each battle, each player draws 6 cards from their deck of 40 cards. Then each player put pony cards with total levels no greater than 6.

Game Play:
On a player’s turn, starting with the player with the lowest starting level total, the player draws a card and may put a card into play. Also on their turn, a player may choose Characters card in play and attempt to defeat another player’s Obstacle card. During an attempt, the player plays any number of Support cards from their hand to increase one or more of the Character’s Strength values. Characters can be used as Support cards at a weaker effect. The owner of the obstacle may play Counter cards to increase an Obstacle’s Strength. If the resulting Strength Value is greater than that of the obstacle, the player wins an Element. Used Support Cards and Discards are discarded.
The game ends after one player wins 6 Elements, each other player has no Characters, or after the final remaining player’s 10th turn, the winner being the player who won the most Elements.

Types of Cards:
Character: Character Cards are used to defeat Obstacle Cards or as level 1 Support cards in a pinch. Each Character has a level between 0 and 6 and three Strength values: Mind, Body, and Heart.

Obstacles: Obstacle Cards are used to draw more cards or remove Characters from play. Obstacle cards have levels between 1 and 6 and three Strength values: Mind, Body, and Heart.

Support: Support Cards are used to power up Character Cards.

Counter: Counter Cards are used to power up Obstacle Cards.

Design ideas:
There are 6 types of factions, one for each Pony.
Twilight Sparkle: Twilight decks will have powerful Support and Counter Cards but her Characters are weak for their level.
Rarity: Rarity decks powerful Counters that make their Obstacles hard to defeat.
Fluttershy: Fluttershy decks will swarm the enemy with many Characters, allowing them to always have a strong Character of each Strength type in play.
Rainbow Dash: Dash decks will have Character cards with Strengths higher than that expected at their level with the drawback of weak Counters.
Pinkie Pie: Pinkie decks have set themselves up for surprise victory of rounds.
Applejack: Applejack decks will have many ways to draw cards and reuse discarded cards.

[Eakin]

MLPFIM Card game design.

Spoiler

Show

Set up
In the beginning of each battle, each player draws 6 cards from their deck of 40 cards. Then each player put pony cards with total levels no greater than 6.

Game Play:
On a player’s turn, starting with the player with the lowest starting level total, the player draws a card and may put a card into play. Also on their turn, a player may choose Characters card in play and attempt to defeat another player’s Obstacle card. During an attempt, the player plays any number of Support cards from their hand to increase one or more of the Character’s Strength values. Characters can be used as Support cards at a weaker effect. The owner of the obstacle may play Counter cards to increase an Obstacle’s Strength. If the resulting Strength Value is greater than that of the obstacle, the player wins an Element. Used Support Cards and Discards are discarded.
The game ends after one player wins 6 Elements, each other player has no Characters, or after the final remaining player’s 10th turn, the winner being the player who won the most Elements.

Types of Cards:
Character: Character Cards are used to defeat Obstacle Cards or as level 1 Support cards in a pinch. Each Character has a level between 0 and 6 and three Strength values: Mind, Body, and Heart.

Obstacles: Obstacle Cards are used to draw more cards or remove Characters from play. Obstacle cards have levels between 1 and 6 and three Strength values: Mind, Body, and Heart.

Support: Support Cards are used to power up Character Cards.

Counter: Counter Cards are used to power up Obstacle Cards.

Design ideas:
There are 6 types of factions, one for each Pony.
Twilight Sparkle: Twilight decks will have powerful Support and Counter Cards but her Characters are weak for their level.
Rarity: Rarity decks powerful Counters that make their Obstacles hard to defeat.
Fluttershy: Fluttershy decks will swarm the enemy with many Characters, allowing them to always have a strong Character of each Strength type in play.
Rainbow Dash: Dash decks will have Character cards with Strengths higher than that expected at their level with the drawback of weak Counters.
Pinkie Pie: Pinkie decks have set themselves up for surprise victory of rounds.
Applejack: Applejack decks will have many ways to draw cards and reuse discarded cards.

Well, I like the idea, but I have a couple questions. Is there some sort of resource players draw from to play cards? So that you can balance powerful cards around mana costs, to steal the MTG terminology.

Are the obstacles known before the character card is played? Because otherwise any decent deck is going to have a sampling of characters and obstacles with two high values and one low one become a huge liability.

Seems like players are using several cards in every attack action. Do players draw a fixed number of cards a turn? Up to a certain hand size?

Is there a "global enchantment" type of card that makes changes to the whole field of play? If there isn't you could simply fold this effect into character cards, where just by being in play they have an impact even if they don't attack. As a follow up consideration is there a cap on characters per player? I can see decks designed around having four "booster" characters supporting a single juggernaut style attacker, versus having several attackers in order to be able to surmount obstacles with different strengths.

I'm intrigued, at the very least. Actually, this reminds me of a Shadowrun card game (I think it was shadow run, may have been some other cyberpunk setting. This was waaaaaaaay back) where one player was a hacker trying to steal projects from the 'corps, and would attack projects the same way you describe obstacles working.

EDIT: Oh yeah! and why even put obstacles out in the first place? What's the reward for successfully defending? Unless obstacles gave your characters terrain-type modifiers, or served as the aforementioned global enchantments...

[legomaster00156]

MLPFIM Card game design.

Spoiler

Show

Set up
In the beginning of each battle, each player draws 6 cards from their deck of 40 cards. Then each player put pony cards with total levels no greater than 6.

Game Play:
On a player’s turn, starting with the player with the lowest starting level total, the player draws a card and may put a card into play. Also on their turn, a player may choose Characters card in play and attempt to defeat another player’s Obstacle card. During an attempt, the player plays any number of Support cards from their hand to increase one or more of the Character’s Strength values. Characters can be used as Support cards at a weaker effect. The owner of the obstacle may play Counter cards to increase an Obstacle’s Strength. If the resulting Strength Value is greater than that of the obstacle, the player wins an Element. Used Support Cards and Discards are discarded.
The game ends after one player wins 6 Elements, each other player has no Characters, or after the final remaining player’s 10th turn, the winner being the player who won the most Elements.

Types of Cards:
Character: Character Cards are used to defeat Obstacle Cards or as level 1 Support cards in a pinch. Each Character has a level between 0 and 6 and three Strength values: Mind, Body, and Heart.

Obstacles: Obstacle Cards are used to draw more cards or remove Characters from play. Obstacle cards have levels between 1 and 6 and three Strength values: Mind, Body, and Heart.

Support: Support Cards are used to power up Character Cards.

Counter: Counter Cards are used to power up Obstacle Cards.

Design ideas:
There are 6 types of factions, one for each Pony.
Twilight Sparkle: Twilight decks will have powerful Support and Counter Cards but her Characters are weak for their level.
Rarity: Rarity decks powerful Counters that make their Obstacles hard to defeat.
Fluttershy: Fluttershy decks will swarm the enemy with many Characters, allowing them to always have a strong Character of each Strength type in play.
Rainbow Dash: Dash decks will have Character cards with Strengths higher than that expected at their level with the drawback of weak Counters.
Pinkie Pie: Pinkie decks have set themselves up for surprise victory of rounds.
Applejack: Applejack decks will have many ways to draw cards and reuse discarded cards.

No Derpy Hooves decks. I am disappoint.

[Eakin]

No Derpy Hooves decks. I am disappoint.

Centers around losing battles, then plays event cards revealing that due to a mix up the element was delivered to the wrong address and the defending player gets it instead? Or maybe characters that gain massive combat bonuses when there are muffins in play?

[Dexam]

*Hugs Gaelbert*

It's nice to have you back among us.

Quotepost Part II: Act I: Princess Celestia Also Rises

While I was gone, wrasslin’ my demons and real life issues, I realized a few things. One of those was that I miss you guys. I care about you guys. A lot. It’s silly, perhaps, but I do. And a lot of those feelings were channeled into that note I wrote to y’all on Christmas day. This one.

<snip for brevity>

Thank you monkeyboyinc. Now, I see that no one responded to it (except for a couple of people. Thank you SiuS and Leo, I really appreciate it.) It’s a little ironic, actually, that a note praising the community for its inclusive feel was ignored.

Really, I’m not. But I would appreciate it if you folks could give it a read through. It’s important to me, it comes from the heart. I’ll post it here, again, if you don’t mind. (I suppose I’ll post it here even if people do mind, but I hope they don’t. If people mind, I suppose I could edit it out. But I can’t imagine that happening.)

I read it the first time you posted, and I read it again then. I *was* planning to respond, but... the honest truth is that it really did read like a "farewell forever" message - one that you didn't even post yourself. So, the unfortunate result of that train of thought was "why bother replying to something you will never see?", so it never got posted. Yes, I realise now that I should have sent an email, but I'm an idiot like that sometimes; and I got distracted by other concerns.

Anyway, I re-iterate that it's good to have you back in Ponythread.

I’ve noticed a few ponies mention that they feel they contribute nothing to the ponythread. First, I’d like them to read the above, the note I wrote. It’s directed at you.

On a different level though, I had some of those same feelings. I was feeling like a One Trick Pony, but without a trick. So a no trick pony. It was sad. So what did I do? I threw my brain into a blender, and did whatever came out! Make sense? No. I didn’t think so. What I did was get off my fat lazy plot and start doing things. I’m of the belief that actions are what we have. Perhaps all that we have. So I started actionalizing my creative impulses. Below are the results.

Unfortunately those images are blocked at work, but I'll try to check them out when I get home (time permitting). All I can say for now from reading through those massive posts is that your creative impluses are certainly inspirational.

MLPFIM Card game design.

<snippy hooves>

Speaking of inspiration, suddenly I have the desire to work on a My Little Pony: Friendship is Munchkinism card game. The ideas are roiling in my head so much, I really wish I wasn't at work so I could write some of it down before I lose it.

[SiuiS]

Swarm would still scan better. :P

I dunno. Swarm would need to be elongated or forced into two syllables. "swore-orm" just sounds tacky, where the typical American will slur tyranid into tran-id/t'ranid. So tyranid, shortened, sounds like it is supposed to have multiple syllables where swarm itself does not.

You follow? I feel like I'm explaining poorly.

Who do you think was the black guy literally pulling out money to buy the Rarity plushie?

Unfortunately I had to leave right after the auction to avert a crisis at home.

Ah, that would be why I couldn't follow up to see if that guy was Orzel.

And let's be fair, mate. I would feel like the BIGGEST tool of the only reason I went up to someone and asked if they were Orzel is because they were black. though not noticing the humongous bid was specifically on Rarity? That was dumb of me.

I did try calling your name though; nopony told me until after the con that my voice was raspy and too low to be heard more than two feet away.

...

Yes Bleakbane, yes. I was a little horse. See?

Spoiler

Show

See? Totally awesome statuette courtesy of Kyouhen, who is a pretty cool pony.

I'll need to do some budgeting but I'll at least make an effort. By the way where is the starting point?

Wow, nice work!
Pony road trip? Suddenly I want to fly over to California and hit the road on the way to BroNYCon rather than take the shorter route straight there.

Regardless! Barring any unfortunate incidents you can count me in. I'll have to pass on the road trip part, but I'll be at the convention.

Starting point for my van will be California bay area. Depending on distribution, I may wire money and have somepony else pick up another one if there are a bunch of folks in that area, rather than drive the empty miles. And if multiple vehicles are needed, then odds are they will take different routes, so if a Canadian pony wants in, then we could probably grab you (though it would be so very much easier of you were to cross the border yourself, and go to a meeting spot).

Soras, your quote dropped, but it's good to know we may have more folks!

-

wow, Gaelbert XD
Good to see you again! And in force, too!

As exciting as it is to see ponies in a mainstream store, I am a little worried. Hot Topic, from what I’ve seen, has a tendency to cash in on superficial memes. Folks buy the shirts and such for the irony, but don’t really have an appreciation for the content. I’m concerned that ponies might just become another fad, that people lose sight of the things that made ponies so popular in the first place.

I totally understand, but what you're missing is that "Ponies becoming a fad" already came and went.

That surge of folks who say "love and tolerance" an mean beat you to the point of flatulence? That is the ironic pony crowd; the ones who say "light problems on fire!" but wear fluttershy instead of Gir on their shirts.

Just like with clop, shipping, or grimdark. There are those for whom pony is just a medium, or characters they like drawing, despite the content. And yet we are all still here Wong awesome. For every ironic pony, there is one person who legitimately stops and wonders "am I dong the right thing? I could be nicer, couldn't I?" I am far more worried about folks being nice to the point of sterility. Aggression happens. As Areta would say, fighting is natural. Only premeditation is immoral.

Is saying “I was into ponies before they were ironic” a hipster thing to say? Is being concerned about being a hipster a hipster thing to say? Is there an end to self-recursion?

The end comes when you say; "Enough!"
As soon as you stop caring about irony, it becomes water off a duck's back.

To use a strong example; censorship of saucy material. The guy who combs through everything looking for porn has porn on the mind more, and is a slave to porn much more, than the guy who casually flips through a booklet, who has it on the mind more than the guy who knows about it but doesn't care.

Being a hipster is a label. As soon as your actions no longer qualify you're free. And to be fair, there is a difference Between hipster and contrarian; it's one thing to dislike the people brought in by going mane stream, it's another to have liked MLP:FiM solely because no one else did.

Search your heart, mate. Are you here because you like the show or the fandom? Or are you here because no one else was at the time?

I’m not a big fan of that. Some folks aren’t going to like ponies. They may even be parasprites about it. That doesn’t mean we should respond in kind, and that certainly doesn’t mean we should post NSFW pony content on their websites. That’s so far from loving and tolerating that I don’t even know where to start.

I myself have a mixed view on violence. I hate it. Enough that I need to be good at it. See, there's this thing I call the monkey dance, where each person does some sort of escalatory action towards the other, resulting in one guy physically assaulting the other and both sides saying, "he started it!". It is my stance that, if escalation is happening, I will evaluate, and either walk away, or if need be dial it to 11. That is, violence is occasionally necessary; malice never is.

So if there is a problem that could best be solved by guerrilla warfare, guerrilla warfare it is! But as soon as the other side capitulates, you need to stop.

Or as my Da put it, "don't start no $%!¥, don't take no*$%!¥".

But you see that, right there? That’s part of the problem. That rationalizing an unhealthy and over the top obsession with personal appearance, with myself.
Ultimately, I don’t have any answer to my (self-posed) question. That’s why vice is my favourite, I haven’t been able to fight it off.

See, I've seen that described as Sloth. One of the most slothful traits is Perfectionism. "I'll turn it. In later when it's perfect! It's not done now, and I can't do anything else until this is done" is a complex rationale for not really doing anything. That is the full body of why I am against specialization; if you put in another hundred hours or so to tweak your form, you gain a 0.001% increase in the end product. You also are a full 20 days or so behind Thanqol on art progress. That time investment reaps so much more on brand new endeavors than on perfecting an already top-end craft. Plus, of you spend that extra dressing time learning to draw, eventually they will overlap; fashion will help your composition, and your compositional skills will begin to inform how well you dress. You don't get synergy from a single skill.

So he was intentionally pulling from archetypes, pulling from legends. That was his purpose. However, many elements of his writing were not as commonly used at the time of his writing, and only after were they popularized and copied because of his work.

This sounds like we disagree on degrees for 'derivative'.

Let's say you write a unique story; we'll call it Wonderland.
If Thanqol, Phoe, DBC, Raz, and Esper all write stories, relatively simultaneously, and then I wrote a story that pulled from all of them, it would be derivative.

But to my understanding, the work each of them wrote would also be derivative, even though it was just exploring ground in Wonderland you yourself touched but never tapped.

Tolkien drew from a collective mythos. That is derivative, whether or not he more fully defined the mythos thereby. Tolkien's work is phenomenal. It is good without being groundbreaking; in fact, that very lack of being edgy is part of his style. It reads like history; nothing new, plenty grand. That doing wonderfully with pre-existing components, without having to add new bits is actually what I found so entrancing about darthbobcat's work. He didn't so much write MLP stuff as he seemed to present old stuff in such a wonderful new light. Everything he wrote, I could see being utterly canonical (which feels weird, considering this includes; LARPing conventions, humans, demon overlords, mane6 strike force) and that's a different sort of masterful, a different sort of skill that I cannot help but compliment.

So too, does Tolkien live up to the greats such as DarthBobcat :smallbiggrin;

The ancient Celts had the same practice. The next day began at dusk. They applied this to larger time spans as well. The year would begin at Samhain, held at the end of October. Whether or not this actually happened is up to some debate, but it’s an interesting way to look at things.

Yes, but for them it was purportedly specifically religious. Which falls apart as a reason to not include hem because I mentioned Judaism.

Quick, everypony look over there! *flees* Truth be told, I'm uncomfortable addressing pagan beliefs in depth until I know I wont alienate anypony.

Say you have two identical cars parked next to each other. One of the cars is yours, the other is your neighbours. Say every night a gang of hoodlums and delinquents takes a part from your car, and switches it a part with your neighbour’s car. They do this every night, until eventually all parts are changed. Which car is yours? Did it ever change? What was the margin?
I don’t have an answer to that, really. It depends on whether you define items as the sum of their characteristics, or if there is “something else,” something that, by nature, you can’t quantify. This “something else” is what people use to define things. It’s the difference between the word “tree,” a picture of a tree, the smell of a tree, and an actual tree. Some things are eternal, they exist outside the realm of space and time.

ooh! Ooh! I have an answer to this!
I am a sovereign being. The answer as to which is the correct rubric is whichever I need at the time.

This becomes more interesting when you add other sovereign beings to a group, but the universe exists at my leisure, so I'm good.

Thanks, Mostin!

Wow, that was pretentious. How ‘bout dem ponies?

Pfffffft. Get over yourself, mate! we've had worse in these threads. You remember that time the doofus in the green hat said...

Actually, wait, if you don't remember I don't wanna be the one to remind you

And besides. Brusque dismissals and rude behavior are par for the course with arrogant or troubled people trying to deal with their inner feelings.

Psh. Utter poppycock!



... <<;

I would hate to be a relationship like that. I don’t want to be the same as another person, I want to learn from them, care about them, interact with them, see them as a whole and distinct person.

You misunderstand; that's like saying the left leg doesn't want to be a leg, because then its just like the right leg. Even though the important thing is that the stork can walk.

I you define a relationship as being a greater being, and each person is a constituent part, then you would begin to understand Thanqol's point. I swing a bat at a ball; at the point of contact the bat goes "crack" and the ball goes "zip!" and an entire world of physics is transferred between ten in only those two sounds. Perfect unison makes the bat an ball a unit, but does not make a bat a ball or a ball a bat.

Related; frost and I stand on a field. We just cut down the enemy healer and are being charged by a shieldsman on his side an a florentiner on mine. We look at each other.

He squints a bit, lifts his chin. I smarm my right brow, nod once.

We both stab out towards our targets in a feint; pull up sharp on the lead foot, retract, poise in cat stance (I hear his was actually a T stance, he's much less a ballerina than I). We both rotate clockwise bringing the boffers up in salute, while jumping as a unit spinning counterclockwise, land, and bring the swords down to rip into enemy guard from an unexpected direction.

And that whole thing was coordinated in the heat of a fight with a chin and a nod.
The shieldsman was blocking an archer who took my armor with a torso blow, and the florentiner was berserk and had a 10 count between dying and having to leave the field, so awesome as that was we should have just got out of dodge... Heh.

The feminist jab was against those who call themselves feminists but believe that men can’t watch My Little Pony. I haven’t met any of those people, and I’m not sure they exist.
I don’t know if you can tell, but I’m not a huge fan of Swagberg or Pony Swag. Sure, he’s talented, but it seems like he’s just rapping about ponies to get fans, not because he actually cares. Some of the lyrics just sound forced, they don’t really fit.

Those feminists do exist. They are feminist in 'technically this is how we make labels from Latin' though. The prevailing thought seems to be "when someone is down, someone else is up. So that up person should be me, not you." and revolves around establishing a global matriarchy in place of a global patriarchy.

This is utterly antithetical to me, personally. If me and you are in a system, it doesn't matter whether I'm ascendant or descendant. I'm always the other person, so I can act from a centered, caring perspective. So boosting someone else up at your expense is fine, but keeping someone else down so you are bigger in relation like that? It makes me nauseous.

Is that some reference to Erwin Rommel? I’m confused.

Tvtropes, mate. Tvtropes.

Which is apparently a word, but you'll fight me over 'flavour'? You're not an antagonist, phone; you're a ****.

It’s a little ironic, actually, that a note praising the community for its inclusive feel was ignored.

From having been that guy who spent 20 hours on a post only to get a single comment; don't fret yerself none, sugarcube. Generally, lack of a comment on ponythread means "I can't say anything more than what you or your current responders have said" rather than being a sign of ignorance.

Thanqol, did anything ever happen from that? Or did more important stories come up?

As RocketToInsanity said;
"Take my love, my anger, and ALL Of MY MONEY!"

I made a few modifications, and I’m posting it here.

That sinking feeling where I realize no matter how torn up I am about it, I'm not going to get around to reading something important to somepony anytime soon.

Luckily, there is a secret weapon; my device has both bookmarks and a "reading list". I may be able to bring this up there, and have a bunch of fics for when I can't do anything else. Heck, Mare in the Mirror is there, I think.

I can do this!

This rap battle is exactly what I had planned for the climax of the album. You might tell me, you can still work on it. Sure. I can. But the magic’s gone. I have no desire to anymore. Petty? You betcha.

Oh god I'm so sorry are you ok?
That is one of the worst feelings ever and it pains me that you have had to go through it

Fortunately, my good friend and cousin Lurk[Animal] recently was infected with the brony virus.

I FINALLY HAVE AN ANSWER AS TO WHO THAT WAS! HHHHuuuuZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAH!

... *ahem*. Carry on.

*In some cases, dedicated spammers on the IRC have filled up dozens of lines in a matter of seconds, posting no more than one word per line.

Or shut folks out by pasting and sending a full ten page document of ellipses at once

Since the line of best fit suggests a positive relationship between the IRC speed and the thread speed, we are unable to reject the null. This means that we have found no evidence to suggest people posting in the IRC slows down the speed of the thread. In fact, the evidence suggests a slight positive correlation, meaning that the faster the IRC, the faster the thread moves. Why is this? I’d put forth the idea that when people have time, they post in both the thread and the IRC. When people don’t have time, they post in neither. It makes sense.

See, this is too abstract. I can use it to put forth a different theory that seems supported however, and one that is more of a cause/effective relationship. I want to call it causative, but you just did a study so I feel outscienced XD

What you're failing to take into account is who posts what. We have had folks drop out from ponythread. EsperDerek's last post that I can recall was him saying "IRC ate me, but I'll try to stick around." I haven't actually seen a post from Kris Strife in months; since before I even began planning to go to BroNYCon. BillyBobJoe seems to be the reverse, only poking his head in since we were so neat on the IRC (apologies for maybe putting words in your mouth though, BBJ).

We have split. We have predominantly thread ponies, predominantly chat ponies, and a body of mixed ponies. there are just those of us who, having less individual stuff to slog through, have wedged in tighter to fill the gap (to use a visual metaphor). I post more often. Some other folks do too.

So we have kind of "lost" ponies to IRC which is what we feared. What we are really finding is that it's not so bad, and we actually benefit from folks having a place to vent their faster-paced insanity. I myself tend to jump on IRC for about ten minutes¹ when I need to talk to somepony, rather than unsung the GitP PM service.

So what we feared (a split) did occur, it just didn't have the result we thought it would.

If that makes any sense. I'm suddenly loopy... *stares at a Trophy* Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!

“I picked this up at Target the other day. It was only 2 bits! I like to think of myself as a Renaissance pony, one as comfortable in the kindergarten art room as in the 3rd grade classroom.”

Ooh, really? Man, I had to slap down like, $7 for mine! Totally worth it though.*

-coloring book pages-

You are now second best pony, behind Santa Clause!Kpenguin. u.u


¹: though let's be honest. We can count the number of times I actually left IRC that fast on a single hoof... >///<;

[Orzel]

Well, I like the idea, but I have a couple questions. Is there some sort of resource players draw from to play cards? So that you can balance powerful cards around mana costs, to steal the MTG terminology.

It's based on my Sunken Fang card game. In that game levels went to 10 and you "mill" your deck when a card enters the discard pile equal to its level.

I took it out for MLP

Are the obstacles known before the character card is played? Because otherwise any decent deck is going to have a sampling of characters and obstacles with two high values and one low one become a huge liability.

Obstacle are your draw engine. Weak obstacle draw more cards.

Seems like players are using several cards in every attack action. Do players draw a fixed number of cards a turn? Up to a certain hand size?

Maximum hand size is 6 at the start of your turn.

Is there a "global enchantment" type of card that makes changes to the whole field of play? If there isn't you could simply fold this effect into character cards, where just by being in play they have an impact even if they don't attack. As a follow up consideration is there a cap on characters per player? I can see decks designed around having four "booster" characters supporting a single juggernaut style attacker, versus having several attackers in order to be able to surmount obstacles with different strengths.

Some characters and Obstacles would have global effects.

Obstacles are also your main removal.

Blank Flank
Obstacle
Foal gain -3 Heart
Defeat 2 nonFoal characters

Mind- 2
Body- 2
Heart- 6

I'm intrigued, at the very least. Actually, this reminds me of a Shadowrun card game (I think it was shadow run, may have been some other cyberpunk setting. This was waaaaaaaay back) where one player was a hacker trying to steal projects from the 'corps, and would attack projects the same way you describe obstacles working.

EDIT: Oh yeah! and why even put obstacles out in the first place? What's the reward for successfully defending? Unless obstacles gave your characters terrain-type modifiers, or served as the aforementioned global enchantments...

Obstacles are your draw engine. Support cards don't stay in play so you need to constantly draw them.

[the_druid_droid]

Oh goodness, so much I need to post but I'm stuck at a conference with only a phone. So short version: SiuiS and Gaelbert please poke me if I don't post responses at you soon.

[Anarion]

Holy epic quoteposts Batman!

I've been vaguely following the thread for the last couple of weeks while being too busy to get into the conversation, but this is too much. I think I noticed a Hemingway reference, a few variations of existential philosophy, and something about making rhymes for Tyranids. Bravo ponythread, bravo. *slow claps*


Anywho, just thought I should post and mention I'm still alive. I was pretty interested in the fact that Hasbro has contracted themselves into not distributing their own show internationally. Always interesting to realize that we're missing a huge piece of the puzzle and I'd bet those contracts were very lucrative if Hasbro agreed to limit its own distribution rights.


@SiuS: I notice your advance planning and applaud the effort. I will, unfortunately have to pass. I'll be working full time during June. In addition, I tend to be really uncomfortable in crowded conditions and really like having my own bed and room (probably comes from being almost an only child, as my only sibling is 11 years older than me and I always had my own room).

@Gaelbert: glad to have you back. I read through your letter and found it very touching. As someone with neither the time nor inclination to do art and none of the time (but a little inclination) to write creatively, I particularly appreciate it. My hope being here is that I can say some interesting things, spark some discussion about the episodes, and maybe inspire some good ideas from other people, or at least have a good conversation. I keep coming back because everyone here is incredibly interesting.

@Gaelbert again: Much respect for a mathematical study of the IRC. That takes a lot of time and thought to do right, but I really respect you for actually trying to answer the question with evidence as opposed to opinion, intuition, or gut reaction.

@Orzel: that card game design reminds me a bit of Legend of the Five Rings (which is a good thing, that game was crazy fun, although I haven't played it in years). A few questions I have.
1. Does having extra characters potentially allow you to tackle multiple obstacles in a single turn?
2. Can multiple characters work together, either directly summing or providing some kind of in-play support bonus?
3. What kind of additional card draw will there be and how important will card advantage be for the game? (i.e. if you did manage to draw 2-3 extra cards, would that be a minor bonus or a complete deterrent to anyone tackling your obstacles?)

[TheAmishPirate]

It is three in the morning here, so I'ma just say this:

1) Gaelbert! Welcome back! *hugs*

2) I did read your letter, and you're on my list of "People I really ought to talk to". Except I'm horrible at remember to chat at people.

3) Thank you so much for doing your analysis. It's good to see the hard facts about this.

I'd say more, but that's about all the mental fortitude I have at this hour. Night!

[Rebelhero]

Rarity fans rejoice!

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[Grif]

Well hell, that's a pretty long quote post. What am I saying, it's an epic level quote post. I have to go through this slowly.

Anyway, welcome back.


@SiuiS
That sounds like a good plan in the making. I wish you guys the best.

I'll have to sit this one (and any future CONs) out though, until I graduate and have at least a steady job to tide me over. (It costs upwards of RM2000-3000 to book a ticket, one way to LA/NY over here, which is a full month salary of an average worker.)

[Aotrs Commander]

You say “Gor lummy” but you don’t drink tea? How is this even possible?

Because I am That. Awesome...

*facepalm*

Oh, hush, you're just as bad.

Only because I picked up from you.

Clearly I am an excellent teacher.

Hello all. This is Gaelbert. *snip*

I did read that, actually, though with it being on the IRC, and you being self-exiled from Ponythread, I didn't make a response here as it didn't seem like you'd get it... And, then, of course, despite making mental note of it for future reference, succumbed to my usual incompetance and allowed it to be driven out by other things... One thing drives out another, as Barliman Butterbur always said.

(And which I frequently echo, it must be said, as unless directly prompted by email and/or PM, and I am pretty terrible about contacting people for non-wargames-related updates... I got an email just after Christmas from the guy who left on Monday group after about ten years, and realised I'd completely forgotten to email him about what happened, as well as to check up, like all year... I am just dreadful at this sort of thing... Even when stuff is sitting in my inbox and marked as unread to remind me about it, it takes ages for me to get around to doing it...)

Though by the looks of it, I'm in good company...!

I think the lesson to be learned here, if any, is when making such a grand gesture, do it in a place where people are more likely to notice and/or remember, (such as ponythread itself!) because we all have memories like sieves!

*statical analysis*

Well done, that pony! Take a soggy biscuit and go to the top of the class!

Yes Bleakbane, yes. I was a little horse. See?

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See?

Ahahahahaha!

Awesome.

Totally awesome statuette courtesy of Kyouhen, who is a pretty cool pony.

Clearly...

It would appear at the current rate, the soggy biscuit supply will be running low and the top of the class will become crowded...

[Orzel]

@Orzel: that card game design reminds me a bit of Legend of the Five Rings (which is a good thing, that game was crazy fun, although I haven't played it in years). A few questions I have.
1. Does having extra characters potentially allow you to tackle multiple obstacles in a single turn?
2. Can multiple characters work together, either directly summing or providing some kind of in-play support bonus?
3. What kind of additional card draw will there be and how important will card advantage be for the game? (i.e. if you did manage to draw 2-3 extra cards, would that be a minor bonus or a complete deterrent to anyone tackling your obstacles?)

1) Yes.

2) In the original game, Sunken Fang, the Wizard and Paladin factions could work together to summon more characters and get over the 1 character/obstacle card per turn level. Werewolves and Undead could do the same by winning Street (obstacles).

3) Card draw is VERY important. If your opponent has more Support cards in hand than you have Counters, he will beat you 90% of the time if his Character has equal Strength as your Obstacle

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Sample of the curve

Fluttershy (Any Deck) Level 4
Character- Pony, Pegasus, Mare
Shy (Cannot defeat obstacles unsupported)
Animal friend (Counts as +Level Support when supporting animals)
Mind-4
Body-2
Heart-6

The typical curves is Level 1 for a 1/1/1, 2 for a 2/2/2 etc. Vanillas get +1. Rainbow creature curve up a level while Twilights curve down.


Cockatrice (Any Deck) Level 4
Obstacle- Monster
Draw 2 cards
Mind-NA
Body-NA
Heart-6

Obstacles go for level 1 for 4 strength and a 4 cards drawn. Each level gets you +1 Strength for 1 less card drawn. Level 6's force you to discard or have requirements.

Stare Master (Fluttershy) Level 4
Support
Target Mare
Support +4 heart

Turn to Stone (Any) Level 4
Counter
Target Monster
Counter +4 heart

Supports and counters are 1 to 1. Lower level Support and Counters have fewer requirements.

[Kindablue]

John Cage is a pretty chill brony. I have major respect for 4’33”

I've seen it performed live. Of course they forgot to start the stopwatch and it went on for six minutes, but I still liked it.

You might be surprised. There’s a movement of electronic music producers trying to push the boundaries of what can be considered “music.” I’m working on an album of that sort, actually. It both excites and frightens me. This could be the final frontier of music. I’m still not sure though. When everything is music, can anything be?

I wouldn't have bet money on hip-hop being the logical conclusion of the musique concrète movement, but it really was.

Speaking of which, what ever happened to The Electric Cowbelles?

ATTENTION EVERYPONY;
OPERATION FAUST
IS NOW IN ITS PLANNING STAGES

[Draconi Redfir]

Road trip thing sounds like fun, and sounds like a great way to scocialize, but count me out. i'm beginning to realize i'm not really that into ponies, and only called myself one after watching all the episodes, and only did that because i was bored. Now i only watch the next episode cuz i kinda feel like i need to.


BTW, is my little tyranid on that website yet?

[Thanqol]

I finished today's ATG! Even though it took all evening, and the submissions box is broken, it's done!

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I'm also pretty happy with thinking up a Lyra joke that I'm pretty sure hasn't been done yet.

In unrelated, I hate Bon-Bon's mane. It's stupid.