My Little Pony XLVIII: I say Ol' Chap, how about those Equestrians?

[Tvtyrant]

Yes and even more to the point its he's not a Dr of anything.

He is a doctor of time! He really isn't.

[Thanqol]

Yes and even more to the point its he's not a Dr of anything.

He's a doctor of SCIENCE!

[Maxtronaut]

Gummy

Or possibly Starswirl the Bearded, largely because he's been dead for a thousand years.

^ THIS.

[Thanqol]

^ THIS.

Don't ask questions or make statements you don't want to see the fanfiction of. Seriously.

[Maxtronaut]

Don't ask questions or make statements you don't want to see the fanfiction of. Seriously.

But it's never been done before! Think of all the possibilities!

In all honesty though, I have no idea who I should head-canon ship Spitfire with. :/

Gummy's obviously got swag, possibly more than Truffle Shuffle!

[Tvtyrant]

But it's never been done before! Think of all the possibilities!

In all honesty though, I have no idea who I should head-canon ship Spitfire with. :/

Gummy's obviously got swag, possibly more than Truffle Shuffle!

I like to ship her with Rainbow Dash, which gets Rainbow out of my mane 6 shipping and makes it possible for everyone to stay within the group (except Rarispike).

[Bryn]

If the idea is to create a crackship generator, shipping more than two ponies together needs to be possible, albeit rather less likely. Also, randomised genderbending of one or more parties.

OK! So with the possibility of m-pony shipping (e.g. [1]) the general formula for all-distinct ponies is N·(N-1)·...·(N-m+1)/(m!) so the number of available ships grows as O(N^m). (For later clarity, call the first formula S)

We could also have the generator also tells us how to lay out the relationships within an m pony ship. Figuring out how many ways it can that is much more complicated - TV Tropes illustrates the cases available for a love triangle. Simplify things and make all love requited; then fail badly at working it out yourself () and look it up at Wolfram MathWorld...

The numbers of connected labeled graphs on n-nodes are 1, 1, 4, 38, 728, 26704, ... (Sloane's A001187)

which seems right for m=1,2,3 at least. Multiply the number by S to get the number of possible generator outputs containing m ponies.

If we let the ponies be assigned to any of g genders (probably taking g=3) then we get g^m times as many outputs containing m ponies.

To take a concrete example, suppose the generator deals with only the Mane Six (so n=6) assigned to three gender identity categories (g=3) and there are no clones or other ways to ship a pony with herself. There are...

• 135 two-pony ships
• 2160 three-pony ships
• 46170 four-pony ships
• 1061424 five-pony ships
• 19467216 ships involving the entire Mane Six

Leave out gender, and we get

• 15 two-pony ships (and a fic)
• 80 three-pony ships
• 570 four-pony ships
• 4368 five-pony ships
• 26704 ships involving the entire Mane Six

I'm not actually sure why I computed this, but hopefully someone will find it interesting.

[Tiki Snakes]

... not gonna touch that one on a PG-13 forum.

Oh, hey now. Relationshipping without the emphasis on relations there, thank you.
(Turner and Hooch style films as the template).

He is a doctor of time! He really isn't.

He's a doctor of SCIENCE!

No, no, just the Doctor.

[Kindablue]

music (both compositions and recordings)

Which is further complicated as the rights to the lyrics to popular songs are generally held by publishing houses while the rights to specific recordings of them are generally held by record labels. Sometimes you'll see things like this new version of Stories's cover of "Brother Louie," created for the opening credits of the TV show Louie purely as a way around a lot of the licensing fees they would've had to pay had they used the original version.

Copyright law exists to encourage artists. There's a sense that art is really good for society, but it pays badly. Protecting copyrights gives artists more ways to make money and gives a few people a chance to really hit it big (which in turn encourages a lot of starving artists to at least try). We want more people to be able to support themselves making art instead of having to go flip burgers at a restaurant, and that's why there's copyright law.

Yeah, well said. You're a pretty convincing dude, I'll say. You should try to do that, you know, like for a living somehow.

[Anarion]

Which is further complicated as the rights to the lyrics to popular songs are generally held by publishing houses while the rights to specific recordings of them are generally held by record labels. Sometimes you'll see things like this new version of Stories's cover of "Brother Louie," created for the opening credits of the TV show Louie purely as a way around a lot of the licensing fees they would've had to pay had they used the original version.

Actually, it's only a big deal if you want to use a famous person's rendition of a song. Licensing the performance of a song by, I dunno, the Red Hot Chili Peppers would cost you an arm and a leg. Making your own cover of one of their compositions is, iirc, 11 cents.

Yeah, well said. You're a pretty convincing dude, I'll say. You should try to do that, you know, like for a living somehow.

[Kindablue]

Actually, it's only a big deal if you want to use a famous person's rendition of a song. Licensing the performance of a song by, I dunno, the Red Hot Chili Peppers would cost you an arm and a leg. Making your own cover of one of their compositions is, iirc, 11 cents.

Oh, what? You've never heard of the legandary band Stories? :P But yeah, that's exactly what I mean, unless I'm misunderstanding you: the original version would've been too expensive so they hired the Stories singer to screw himself over and exchange a steady stream of royalty checks for whatever hourly session rate he charged them.

[SiuiS]

Yes and even more to the point its he's not a Dr of anything.

Oh horse apples how did I not catch that?

Don't ask questions or make statements you don't want to see the fanfiction of. Seriously.

You're making a hard push for my signature mare. Enjoyable typo. Will keep.

[Balmas]

But it's never been done before! Think of all the possibilities!

Trust me: someone, somewhere, has done it. There was, briefly, a fic in the feature box of FimFiction that shipped Rainbow Dash with a kitchen sink. I can't make up stuff like this...

[Tiki Snakes]

Can I put this in my signature?

My cruelty to the common comma and schmaltzy phrasing will probably haunt me if you do, but then again no-ones ever asked me that before, so if you really want to, go for it.

Trust me: someone, somewhere, has done it. There was, briefly, a fic in the feature box of FimFiction that shipped Rainbow Dash with a kitchen sink. I can't make up stuff like this...

Plus the one where they ship her with the concept of shipping itself, or so I recall.

[Kurgan]

Or possibly Starswirl the Bearded, largely because he's been dead for a thousand years.

A Unicorn never arrives late for a date, he always arrives exactly as planned. Besides, the fic can focus around the use of time magic by Starswirl to get all the booty calls. ALL of them. That or maybe breeding with every one of Spitfire's ancestor's to create either a horribly inbred abomination or the next generation of ponykind...for SCIENCE!

[Tvtyrant]

My cruelty to the common comma and schmaltzy phrasing will probably haunt me if you do, but then again no-ones ever asked me that before, so if you really want to, go for it.



Plus the one where they ship her with the concept of shipping itself, or so I recall.

I don't know, I felt the ring of truth in your statement. Although William James would say that there is no ring of truth, just a recognition that something matches what I feel.

[Zigg'rrauglurr]

Command Line is a cool name!

Ok so that's 2 or 3 votes for the name, I think I like it more every time I read it or say it.

This is a thing that totally needs to happen. For SCIENCE!

If the idea is to create a crackship generator, shipping more than two ponies together needs to be possible, albeit rather less likely. Also, randomised genderbending of one or more parties.

Ok, What I'm thinking is ...

OK! So with the possibility of m-pony shipping (e.g. [1]) the general formula for all-distinct ponies is N·(N-1)·...·(N-m+1)/(m!) so the number of available ships grows as O(N^m). (For later clarity, call the first formula S)

We could also have the generator also tells us how to lay out the relationships within an m pony ship. Figuring out how many ways it can that is much more complicated - TV Tropes illustrates the cases available for a love triangle. Simplify things and make all love requited; then fail badly at working it out yourself () and look it up at Wolfram MathWorld...

which seems right for m=1,2,3 at least. Multiply the number by S to get the number of possible generator outputs containing m ponies.

If we let the ponies be assigned to any of g genders (probably taking g=3) then we get g^m times as many outputs containing m ponies.

To take a concrete example, suppose the generator deals with only the Mane Six (so n=6) assigned to three gender identity categories (g=3) and there are no clones or other ways to ship a pony with herself. There are...

• 135 two-pony ships
• 2160 three-pony ships
• 46170 four-pony ships
• 1061424 five-pony ships
• 19467216 ships involving the entire Mane Six

Leave out gender, and we get

• 15 two-pony ships (and a fic)
• 80 three-pony ships
• 570 four-pony ships
• 4368 five-pony ships
• 26704 ships involving the entire Mane Six

I'm not actually sure why I computed this, but hopefully someone will find it interesting.

Oh, god. I dug myself an early grave, right?

Don't you use your fancy mathematics to muddle the issue!

mmm... As I was saying, this is what I envisioned.

The application will take a raw text file that will contain all the names in a list, and will look for pictures in folder with the same name than the character, png/bmp/jpg extension, if it does not find it, no picture, just the name.

The file would be formatted as this:

Twilight Sparkle
Rainbow Dash
Pinkie Pie
Fluttershy
Rarity

etc...

The GUI itself will allow to specify:
- Number of participants. Dropdown
- Checkmark "or more" (Will add more participants with a... 50% chance for each level, so if you select 2 participants and check this you get: 50% of three, 25% of four, 12,5% of five, and so on... perhaps configurable chance?
- Checkmark "Genderbend"
- Number of genderbended.
- Checkmark "or more" works as above.

If the result says it's genderbended it will notify it near the name...
like:

GENDERBENDED Rainbow Dash
with
Twilight Sparkle

Sounds good?

Can I get some help organizing the source data?
How about a "Include non-pony" Checkmark, or that will be a default. Also that would require to source files with names.

So do I get the grant for this science project?

Edit: I will most probably program this in .Net because I'm a lazy bastard sometimes, so no Linux version for you...

[SlyGuyMcFly]

All this talk of shipping has put a rather silly idea in my head: Iron Will goes to Rarity for dating advice. Hilarity and vast amounts of ham ensue. Is this by any chance a thing that exists?

Please note that the following is NOT legal advice, it's a theoretical discussion on the law and may not be 100% accurate. If you ever rely on this for anything other than correcting ignorant people on the Internet, you are being really really stupid (mods, please don't ban me, he totally asked first).

[snip]

That was a very informative read, Anarion. Thanks for taking the time to type it out. Legal pony is best pony!

And don't worry, I promise to use this only for good pedantically correcting people who are wrong on the internet.

Oh, god. I dug myself an early grave, right?

Isn't that how it always goes in programming?

[Deadly]

Edit: I will most probably program this in .Net because I'm a lazy bastard sometimes, so no Linux version for you...

What?! Outrageous!

You know, this sort of application practically screams "web app" to me. A bit of basic HTML and Javascript would do it easy as pie (add a server script if you want to get fancy and have an actual database of characters), works on just about any platform and can be accessed anywhere there's a connection.

[fizmat]

Edit: I will most probably program this in .Net because I'm a lazy bastard sometimes, so no Linux version for you...

I'm not saying I would do it, because I prefer to leave my grave undug yet. But if I was to do it, I'd use Python (it's addicting and easy, and I'm lazy too), make the whole thing a webservice (who would want to install a ship-generator these days?) and get the pony list by parsing the wiki (because I'm to lazy to organize my own data too).

[Beacon of Chaos]

That was a very informative read, Anarion. Thanks for taking the time to type it out. Legal pony is best pony!

And don't worry, I promise to use this only for good pedantically correcting people who are wrong on the internet.

Same here. Speaking of which...

"Twilight Sparkle," and to the character design: a purple unicorn with a black mane and tail that have a red stripe and a tattoo on the flank with overlaid pink and white stars surrounded by 5 other white stars.

I think you need to check your screen settings Anarion, Twilight's mane and tail are dark blue with pink and purple stripes.


ANYWAY. I haven't image dumped for a while. This needs to change.

A beautiful Luna:

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And armoured Luna (large):

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Explains everything:

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QWOPfiction:

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Knowing Pinkie, this might actually work:

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Showtime Pinkie:

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Feeling peckish?

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Wise words from Tara Strong:


And then there's Trolla Strong (wide image):

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Megas XLR + Pony

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And I think I'll finish on this wonderful painted Cloudsdale (large):

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[Anarion]

Same here. Speaking of which...


I think you need to check your screen settings Anarion, Twilight's mane and tail are dark blue with pink and purple stripes.

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about and I'm sure that that post always said dark blue with pink and purple stripe.


Nice pictures by the way, though I don't really get the point of Luna having a separate set of armor when she can magic up her nightmare moon set if she needs it.

[DigoDragon]

Somewhere deep down, I continue to hope that I'm right... that this person doesn't sincerely believe all that and just said it to drum up controversy.

That would make for an interesting conspiracy. Having made up that article specifically to drum up attention on the boards and thus propel MLP: FiM into the spotlight where it becomes popular. XD

Together they fight crime.

This needs an '80s theme.

[BlasTech]

Together they fight crime.

Hah! White text ninjaing!

You know should I write up a report for every alien ship I take down?

UFO 6

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Dear Princess Celestia,

We are now officially into our second month in this war. We were reviewed by the governments of the world and not only are they pleased with how things are going but have all decided to increase funding of our bases! The Humans faith in us truly is astounding. I hope we won't let them down.

Another UFO was shot down today, this time over Europe. Due to some bad timing we showed up at night. Since it was identified as a small UFO it was decided that the opportunity would be taken to test our night fighting skills. Luna was of course amazing. She quickly found the alien and broadcast it's location to the rest of the squad. Applejack gunned the alien down and the mission was over.

One of our quicker missions, that's for sure. May they all be that easy in the future!

Your Faithful Student,
Twilight Sparkle

Something I want advice on is what I should have my scientists research and what is a waste of time. Any tips?

This seems relevant to the whole X-pony story.

Apologies if it has been posted already, I may have missed it on account of youtube links being blocked at the office :3

[Aotrs Commander]

And then there's Trolla Strong (wide image):

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Pfftahahahahahaha!

Now that, that, is trolling!

[Gamerlord]

The game based on that 8-bit commercial has now been released, use the code " HUBMLP8BIT" to gain access.
For an official game, it's.... surprisingly good. Fluttershy is pretty overpowered, though on the other hand/hoof you need to unlock her first..

[DigoDragon]

So, in order to speed up ponythread, I decided to put a smile on your face.

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I have procured a smile, but how does this make for expeditious velocity?

練習すれば、早くペラペラになるわけですよ。特に、人々と話す時に、怖くならないでください。

"Try speaking American, its the only language I know." (/Bandit Keith)
This reminds me that my brother speaks fluent Japanese. Self taught too. I bet if he were here he could converse with you freely.

Copyright and Trademark don't come with the same set of rights.

This is true. An excellent example is that we have a company called Mickey Mouse Lawn Care. Same name as the mouse of the theme park, but different font and unrelated product. Thereby they can legally do this.

And then there's Trolla Strong (wide image):

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...and I officially spittake'd my screen in laughter.
Excuse me, gotta go find some windex.

[Tvtyrant]

You can't sleep in a shirt naked, the two are mutually exclusive...

[BlasTech]

The game based on that 8-bit commercial has now been released, use the code " HUBMLP8BIT" to gain access.
For an official game, it's.... surprisingly good. Fluttershy is pretty overpowered, though on the other hand/hoof you need to unlock her first..

I think i need a strategy guide for Discord.

[Tvtyrant]

I think i need a strategy guide for Discord.

It lets a unicorn stand on clouds.