My Little Pony XXII: Surprise!

[Lix Lorn]

Also, Lix, while you're on the moon, could you try to find Luna's missing pair of socks. She thinks she left a pair there.

Doesn't she have enough pairs?

[Pokonic]

Aaaaagh the spelling, it burns! It burns! When you hammer this more formally, I suggest making sure the grammar is correct.

Anyways, overall the concept seems to work. Some thoughts I have would be to add a bit more details in a few areas.

For example: you mention that the griffins were unified under "a Tsar". An event of that magnitude might qualify for a name drop. Something like "The griffin kingdoms were unified under Tsar

Ah, thank you for reading that pile of words! And the spelling will be the first thing that will get revised when I have a few of these written out, I assure you. Also, names and other details that seem vauge or badly thought out right now, such as the names of the creatures( Ryu is a placeholder name, any suggesions?) and individuals( such as the Tsar or the "last" Ryu) are going to be one of the last things put in. As for the for the actual material, it will range for actual write ups for the varying races, to things such as the reason why ponys bother keeping port citys, to what exactly are the Wildlands, anyway, and why do ponys fear it instinctively?

Anyway, as for the plan with these things, I will eventualy put them together into a enciclopedia type format and get it onto Equestria Daily.

[Aotrs Commander]

whut
why
how
...
(banishes self to moon and hides there blushing for 1000 years)

*sigh*

So, apparently the way to make Lix flee is to compliment and flatter her, the one thing I am mentally and racially incapable of doing.

Typical.

I suppose I ought to try, though.

Ahem.

Lix, your... ... ... ...socks are... ... um... ...grey?

...

...

Yeah, I got nuthin'.

You...really can't do it can you?

Nope.

[Lix Lorn]

*sigh*

So, apparently the way to make Lix flee is to compliment and flatter her, the one thing I am mentally and racially incapable of doing.

Typical.

I suppose I ought to try, though.

Ahem.

Lix, your... ... ... ...socks are... ... um... ...grey?

...

...

Yeah, I got nuthin'.

You...really can't do it can you?

Nope.

This wasn't common knowledge?

I'm the most blushable pervert since... since... well, ever.

[Thanqol]

*sigh*

So, apparently the way to make Lix flee is to compliment and flatter her, the one thing I am mentally and racially incapable of doing.

Typical.

I suppose I ought to try, though.

Ahem.

Lix, your... ... ... ...socks are... ... um... ...grey?

...

...

Yeah, I got nuthin'.

You...really can't do it can you?

Nope.

This wasn't common knowledge?

I'm the most blushable pervert since... since... well, ever.

I just absolutely need to say you're the cutest couple ever

[Lix Lorn]

I just absolutely need to say you're the cutest couple ever

...mrow.

[Aotrs Commander]

I just absolutely need to say you're the cutest couple ever

*skullpalm*

[Thanqol]

...mrow.

*skullpalm*

See? That's exactly the kind of stuff I'm talking about!

[Pokonic]

See? That's exactly the kind of stuff I'm talking about!

Its like a sitcom, but weirder!
One is tall, thin, and has connections, while the other one is the shy, sock-loving fan favorite!

[Rebelhero]

This wasn't common knowledge?

I'm the most blushable pervert since... since... well, ever.

WE HAVE DISCOVERED THE GODDESSES WEAKNESS!
FULL EXPLOIT AHEAD.

Ive been told that IRL, i am the master of getting people to blush....
Guess thats why i was able to keep my Ex with me for 4 years! XD
Ok im done boasting.

[Lix Lorn]

WE HAVE DISCOVERED THE GODDESSES WEAKNESS!
FULL EXPLOIT AHEAD.

Ive been told that IRL, i am the master of getting people to blush....
Guess thats why i was able to keep my Ex with me for 4 years! XD
Ok im done boasting.

...I notice that nowhere in this post do you actually try and blush me. ALL TALK. xD

[Kris Strife]

...I notice that nowhere in this post do you actually try and blush me. ALL TALK. xD

I'm considering trying, but I'm scared how you might take it.

I'll totally play Cyrano for the Commander though.

[Lix Lorn]

I'm considering trying, but I'm scared how you might take it.

I'll totally play Cyrano for the Commander though.

Go on. Do it. xD
Either of its. xD

[MCerberus]

My special power is minor levels of Pink-one ability IRL. I have that ability to just show up places people don't expect, and, if you haven't noticed, I am *sooo* random.


I hope this doesn't make me a conduit from the nether pony-realm in which a fracture in space time will let The Pink One arrive on our planet.

I think.

[Lix Lorn]

My special power is minor levels of Pink-one ability IRL. I have that ability to just show up places people don't expect, and, if you haven't noticed, I am *sooo* random.

I hope this doesn't make me a conduit from the nether pony-realm in which a fracture in space time will let The Pink One arrive on our planet.

I think.

Good sir, I'm afraid I must hope for the reverse.

[Rebelhero]

...I notice that nowhere in this post do you actually try and blush me. ALL TALK. xD

Please. That would be predictable. You need to be UNpredictable to win at blushing!

Though i already contributed to your blushing exile to the moon. so MEH

[dromer]

Waiting for a review on BMiaRS, so I decided to write a bit on pegasus aerial combat. Hopefully, I didn't venture into too much pseudo-science and conjecture. As with everything I write, comments and review are always welcome.

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Horseplay: Aerial Combat in Equestria

Equestria; the perfect society. In this realm all ponies, pegasus, and unicorns live in peace. But what happens when the peace is threatened? The soldiers mobilize, and the Pegasus Force takes to the sky. What would these aerial battles look like? Through analysis and research, one can peer into the world of pegasus combat.

Section 1: Organization and Equipment

Usually, there is a lead-up to a war. People (and ponies) do not arbitrarily kill each other; therefore an accurate place to start with the analysis of aerial warfare is preparation. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, Equestria has never been shown at war. So, how does one figure out how the pegasi would prepare for war? By looking at the most obvious military demonstration; the Wonderbolts. From the few reels of footage one can find of them in the show, they are always shown in a uniform, and wearing goggles.

The interesting thing about wearing goggles is that Rainbow Dash proves repeatedly that flying with goggles is not required for flight. (For the purposes of this simulation, it is assumed that pegasus magic forms a kind of protective force-field around the pegasus to prevent aerial collisions with slow-moving small objects, similar to the reflection dish in Star Trek.) So, what could these goggles be for, if they're for anything? A likely guess is that they provide through some sort of illusion magic a panel of instruments for the pegasus to read, allowing them to judge airspeed, flight vector, possibly an artificial horizon, and mission time, along with a few other things.

Second is the uniform. What could the uniform provide? Through what one can see through the show, it is likely that the uniform is sleek, to prevent drag. But, aside from drag, could these suits provide anything else for the ponies that reside in them? It's possible that these uniforms actually provide a second, magical, fuel source outside of the pegasus's own stamina. This allows for longer flight time, and long-distance bombing missions.

Now, from proof and extrapolation to conjecture. What kinds of weaponry would these pegasus be packing? The technology level in Equestria is inconsistent, and confusing. Some ponies live in almost medieval European-style houses while Manehattan is bustling with huge skyscrapers. The big question is how a primarily air-faring race would develop technology. The answer is provided in two ways; fireworks, and weather control. Fireworks proves the existence of gunpowder, or a magical substitute that functions the same. This would mean guns, however primitive, in Equestria. Second, pegasus can control weather, and create storm clouds. If pegasus were in a suitably moist climate (or around cloud level or 'in the weeds') they would likely be able to produce thunderbolts on the fly, and control where they go. This manipulation requires physical contact, so once that bolt is let loose, it can't change course. Pegasus would have two choices when flying:
1) Fly with a gun saddled to them and have to worry about load and mechanical errors with the firearm, or
2) Fly 'weather control' and be forced to stay relatively low in the sky, to be able to create and use thunderbolts.

[InkwellPony]

BEHOLD! THE TRAVELER HAS COME!

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My fan-kaiju girl, Stacy Puft, the Marshmallow Girl. Based off of Gozer The Gozerian, The Traveler, and what-not, from Ghostbusters. ^^

[otakuryoga]

BEHOLD! THE TRAVELER HAS COME!

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My fan-kaiju girl, Stacy Puft, the Marshmallow Girl. Based off of Gozer The Gozerian, The Traveler, and what-not, from Ghostbusters. ^^

Ponies are Marshmallow!!! B.C. reference yay

[Kyouhen]

Greetings pony thread! I see you have been busy the last few days. I also see Braz and SiuiS have returned! Huzzah! I'll just hijack one of his super quotes as a way to catch up.

LOW-KEY! you're responsible for this cuteness contamination?!

I don't even know what the symptoms are! Without Bobcat, how will I find out?! You ... You... Scallywag!

I am? I mean, of course I am! Fear my adorable wrath! None shall stand aga-SUDDENADORABLEATTACK!!

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Hm... I dunno, you seem like such a card to me. (BY THE WAY THAT WAS MY LINE I WAS GONNA CALL HIM A CARD! *pout*) yep, in the history of ponythread that I am making up right now, both you and Phoe have been cards.

Pinkie'd. I like Pinkie'd. More than the alternative swordsage, at least. That one causes me a twinge of pain.

I'm calling this new term a moral victory. Now let's see how many other things I can get substituted with Pinkie...

Oh
Oh man
Oh man, yes
I have a reason to not dislike warforged. I will play a warforged Druid, and I will turn into Thomas the tank engine. And other related monstrosities.
Would you say a steam engine would be more like an elephant, or a rhino? Stats-wise.

I was planning on doing stuff like that with a warforged Artificer I had once. He was going to get a wand of Alter Self and change into animated objects. Any animated object. Put the world back into the same fear it was in in 1st and 2nd edition D&D, where you couldn't even sit down for dinner without fearing that everything in the room was going to kill you.

Though to answer your question I'd probably go elephant. Also, random thing, because Adamantine Body is a feat you keep the bonuses for it when you change shape. You can't be a druid with it, but you can always be any other spellcasting class with access to Polymorph. Adamantine elephant anyone?

This was going to be a funny shippy story of Fluttershy and somepony else on a date, where nothing happens. But then I forgot about it

Aw, horsefeathers. Should have been able to guess that myself!
Alternately, the lower order of wrathful spirit could be winged bunnies! Because Angel is scary.

Cherubs? Cherubs.
*Needs to find a way to work that into the picture he's drawing*
*Deeply regrets getting only a small sketchbook*

...Also I just reread the "Cherubs? Cherubs" thing in Scootaloo and Applebloom's voices. Confound these ponies they're seeping into every thought I have.

Angels are obviously 4-winged pegasi. I mean, hello.

Oh look! A reference! Just hold that pose for a few days while I slowly make enough time to finish actually drawing that.

So I got myself some ponies...

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<rant>And I'm sure it's been noticed before, a LOT, over and over, but I feel like Hasbro just pissed me in the face.

Like, why the heck does Pinkie have a mouse?! I want Gummy! I can live with Owlowiscious instead of Spike for Twilight, but... a mouse?!

Also that third pony from the left... package says that's Scootaloo. Right, you can totally see that, can't you? Her hair is all wrong, and notice something? Cutie Mark, WTF! And it's a friggin' butterfly with stars! And she's got friggin' butterflies in her eyes too! And where are her wings?! Scoot without wings *cries* And she comes with a hand bag, or maybe it's a lunch box, which looks like it can be attached to the figure except... there's no place it can fit! Where's her scooter, dammit?

Seriously, I feel cheated. I love Scootaloo, and this is just craptastic! I honestly don't think Hasbro is even trying. Now I kinda feel like I shouldn't have bought this... If only Scoot could see this, she'd kick them all the way to the moon!

Anyway, at least my keychain is now 20% cooler. And it would be 200% if her hair wasn't a uniform blue! But I can kinda understand why they didn't do that... still, it was pretty pricy.</rant>

Anyway, my first ponies! ^^

Customize the hell out of them? That's what I'd do. Really though I think the Pinkie Pie toy's about the only one of the larger ones I'm happy with, even without the poofy mane and tail. She just seems to come closest to the adorableness of the actual show ponies.

By the artist who did the Past Sins poster:

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Yeah, Dreatos is awesome. And Octavia is a silly overdramatic pony.

Not exactly an expert on psychology, but here's my take.

The Cute)
First, the animation studio deliberately tried to make the design of ponies as cute as possible. Given a picture of a pony, ninety-nine percent of the time we'll think it's cute.

There's no risk to their risque. We know that most ponies don't even wear clothes, and have anime anatomy. We know that those ponies aren't trying to get sex appeal, they're trying to imitate a human emotion. Essentially, they're trying to impress us. Note that most of the time, ponies will look rather childlike. Because of the design of the ponies, we often interpret them as younger than they are. So just by looking at the picture, it has the same 'cute' appeal as a toddler (the pony) trying to imitate its parents (human emotions).

The Risk)
So, where does our sense of titillation come from? Our second impressions of the picture. Even if a pony does invoke the impression of a child at first look, we know most of them are adults or older teenagers, enough to understand what they're doing. The artist makes their intent clear. And that's what makes them risque.

TL;DR: The design of ponies allow them to be both cute (first impression) and risque (second impression).

Actually I was having a conversation relevant to this with my D&D group yesterday. We were talking about how one player's character is a 12 year-old girl with 30 charisma and trying to figure out how that works since 18 charisma is already superhuman. Conversation switched to her appearing literally as an anime character, and he (well aware of my love for ponies) attempted to poke fun at me by saying I probably see his character as a pony. I'd probably rank the ponies pretty near a 30 in charisma, so that very quickly backfired on him.

(For whatever reason we normally end up seeing charisma as physical attractiveness. Doesn't really work for children though, which means they'd have to be super cute or something. We tend to have conversations like that a lot.)

Right, a friend of mine has created a pony poll, so see witch ponies people associate with the most.

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1. The pony you relate to the most?
2. Your favourite pony?
3. Pony you find the MOST annoying?
4. Pony you RESPECT the most?
5. Your best friend in the pony world?
6. Most useful/useless pony?

Thanks for you help guys!

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1) Twilight. Super studious nerd powers, ACTIVATE!
2) Pinkie Pie. She's so happy! :D
3) Diamond Tiara.
4) Applejack. Can't really relate to her, but I gotta admire such a hard-working pony.
5) Pinkie Pie. Delicious baked goods and lots of fun? Yes please! :D
6) Useful: Twilight. Anything you need she can probably find a spell for. Useless: Silver Spoon. She doesn't do anything but follow, and poorly. Even Snips and Snails come close, but they at least accomplished something. (Setting aside the fact that luring the Ursa to Ponyville was a horrible idea, they still pulled it off)

Also I think I've figured out what I really want to see in season 2. I want to see Twilight have a massive nerdgasm over something. I want her to see something/somepony and go absolutely out of it like Dash did when she won the Young Flyers Competition.

[dromer]

Actually I was having a conversation relevant to this with my D&D group yesterday. We were talking about how one player's character is a 12 year-old girl with 30 charisma and trying to figure out how that works since 18 charisma is already superhuman. Conversation switched to her appearing literally as an anime character, and he (well aware of my love for ponies) attempted to poke fun at me by saying I probably see his character as a pony. I'd probably rank the ponies pretty near a 30 in charisma, so that very quickly backfired on him.

(For whatever reason we normally end up seeing charisma as physical attractiveness. Doesn't really work for children though, which means they'd have to be super cute or something. We tend to have conversations like that a lot.)

Spoilere'd for non-pony-ness.

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My friend was a DM once, and one of the members of the party had recently died. The player shows up a week later, with a character that had ones in every attribute but Charisma, which he had fifty of (due to a houserule). He goes; this is [the DM's name], his only goal in life is to screw up and die horribly. So my friend trolls him for the next few days, making every character just give him stuff because he looks like a god. Eventually, he let the character die, but not after giving Throwaway Character a gigantic chest that had the engraving 'Happy Birthday!' on it.

More pony related: I did a stress test on my computer with Desktop pony. Here's one of my favorite screenshots (warning, fairly large):

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[Strife Warzeal]

I am? I mean, of course I am! Fear my adorable wrath! None shall stand aga-SUDDENADORABLEATTACK!!

I think my heart just exploded from overload. I'm currently running purely on residual cuteness levels. Quick! We need more adorable to sustain life functions in order to see more ponies in order to live longer in order to see ponies! Ponies are now perpetual energy to enhance life length.

[MBI]

I just made a Brony hater ragequit Youtube, and I had fun doing so.
Does that make me a bad person?

[Lix Lorn]

I just made a Brony hater ragequit Youtube, and I had fun doing so.
Does that make me a bad person?

Wait... wait...

You had an argument with a troll and WON?

You sir just won the internet.

[Thanqol]

Wait... wait...

You had an argument with a troll and WON?

You sir just won the internet.

Ponies had an argument with 4chan, the home of trolls, and won. Love and tolerance, yo.

[Lix Lorn]

It is true what they say.
Lauren Faust thrust a dagger of rainbows and friendship into the dark heart of the internet.

[MCerberus]

It is true what they say.
Lauren Faust thrust a dagger of rainbows and friendship into the dark heart of the internet.

From giggle's heart, I HUG AT THEE!

[Lix Lorn]

That's a quote, for the record. (hugs)

[Strife Warzeal]

I just made a Brony hater ragequit Youtube, and I had fun doing so.
Does that make me a bad person?

Ummmmm... Sort of? The tenants of the creed of bronydom is Love and Toleration and that is neither love nor toleration. But on the other hoof (oh god I just realized I'm switching over to pony terms, oh well) trolls are a plague on the internet so I guess that makes them exemption of the rule.

Don't worry, I'll save him before Lix can unleash ZE MAGICKS TERROR

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x

Thou hast been ship'ed!

I didn't think of this till now but if this happens again (and I'm sure it will at one point or another) use the higher resolution/better quality links that can now be found in my sig. Either picture works for me.

[TheAmishPirate]

It is true what they say.
Lauren Faust thrust a dagger of rainbows and friendship into the dark heart of the internet.

...do you mind if I sig this? My fancy has been tickled.

WITH MY NEXT BREATH, I CHORTLE WITH THEE