Random Stuff

[Kestrel she/her]

I hear more thunder oh

[Redbird he/him]

And it seems to be heading west, hopefully it will have died down by the time it gets here.

[Kestrel she/her]

The foster dog we have is getting adopted and my dad got attached to him and I'm just sitting here like

[Kobold King he/him]

The foster dog we have is getting adopted and my dad got attached to him and I'm just sitting here like

 

Hate to say it, but I'm kind of siding with your dad on this one. Having to part with an animal you've come to love in a short amount of time has got to suck.

[Kestrel she/her]

Hate to say it, but I'm kind of siding with your dad on this one. Having to part with an animal you've come to love in a short amount of time has got to suck.

Not facepalming because of that, I'm facepalming because I knew this would happen. I knew this was a bad idea. But nah, nobody listens to me. I told him he'd get attached to the first one and he didn't listen.

[Kaymyth she/her]

Direct them to General Zoi's Pony Creator and tell them to turn their Mary Sues OCs into ponies. If they say you're being unfair, tell them "Takes one to know one" and crab-walk out of the room.

 

The other correct answer to these sort of requests is, "Sure!  It'll cost you $X."

 

 

Not facepalming because of that, I'm facepalming because I knew this would happen. I knew this was a bad idea. But nah, nobody listens to me. I told him he'd get attached to the first one and he didn't listen.

 

Nobody listens to poor Xathras.

[mail-mi he/him]

Don't worry! I'll pray to Calamity for your sake, Kobold!

 

HOW DARE YOU WORSHIP TIMEPORT'S GO--

 

erm, I mean, that's probably not a good idea.

[Kobold King he/him]

I dreamed last night that our UPS deliveryman dropped off a cassowary in our yard, reasoning that since we have a guineafowl we must be fans of exotic birds.

 

For reference, this is what a cassowary is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Surprisingly, I've read enough zoology facts in my life to have dreamed a mostly accurate depiction of the cassowary and its habits. Things I was right about:

 

• Cassowaries can grow to be up to five feet tall.
• Cassowaries have clawed feet that can deliver potentially lethal kicks to their enemies.
• In the history of mankind, only one cassowary-related fatality has been recorded: an Australian teenager who attempted to kill one with a club, who was killed by a cassowary-kick to the jugular vein.
• Cassowaries have magnificent helmets and wattles.

 

Things my dream was wrong about:

 

• Cassowaries do not purr, and if they did I doubt they would sound exactly like my cat that likes to sit on people's chests and purr loudly while they sleep.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

<p>

I dreamed last night that our UPS deliveryman dropped off a cassowary in our yard, reasoning that since we have a guineafowl we must be fans of exotic birds.

For reference, this is what a cassowary is.

Surprisingly, I've read enough zoology facts in my life to have dreamed a mostly accurate depiction of the cassowary and its habits. Things I was right about:

• Cassowaries can grow to be up to five feet tall.
• Cassowaries have clawed feet that can deliver potentially lethal kicks to their enemies.
• In the history of mankind, only one cassowary-related fatality has been recorded: an Australian teenager who attempted to kill one with a club, who was killed by a cassowary-kick to the jugular vein.
• Cassowaries have magnificent helmets and wattles.

Things my dream was wrong about:

• Cassowaries do not purr, and if they did I doubt they would sound exactly like my cat that likes to sit on people's chests and purr loudly while they sleep.

Hey, don't judge. Maybe your family just got the one cassowary that purrs.

[Kobold King he/him]

Hey, don't judge. Maybe your family just got the one cassowary that purrs.

 

Oh, so you mean the best cassowary.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Oh, so you mean the best cassowary.

Precisely.

[Quiver he/him]

 

• In the history of mankind, only one cassowary-related fatality has been recorded: an Australian teenager who attempted to kill one with a club, who was killed by a cassowary-kick to the jugular vein.

damnation.

 

And that is why you don't mess with, or torment, animals for your own amusement.

[Delightful]

Precisely.

Not the pony cassowary? . I am disappointed in the both of you.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Not the pony cassowary? . I am disappointed in the both of you.

Please. A purring pony cassowary would just be silly.

[Kaymyth she/her]

Whee!  Happy anniversary to me and my husband!  Four years married, 7 1/2 together, and I haven't scared him off yet!

 

Granted, given that our first date involved me swinging swords at flying jack-o-lanterns whilst corseted, it's a foregone conclusion that the man doesn't scare easily.

 

(Pumpkin Katana Baseball:  a near-annual post-Halloween tradition.)

[Kestrel she/her]

Nice! Congrats!

Section leader auditions went horribly and I have a ton of homework and haven't packed for the band trip yet oh yes I'm fine c:

[Kobold King he/him]

In a previous post I discussed the nature of alicorns within the My Little Pony continuity, specifically giving my thoughts on how caste-specific magic works in Equestria. Today I'd like to bore you, er, regale you with the Grreat and Insightful Kobold's thoughts on one of the program's more enigmatic characters, Zecora the zebra, and the hidden agenda that brought her to Ponyville.

 

(Just to get this out of the way: I am a devoted fan of Zecora's, and I do not believe her intentions are anything short of benign. Theories that imply that she really is "an evil enchantress" risk negating the moral of "Bridle Gossip," which I am not willing to do.)

 

Now, what do we know about Zecora?

 

 

 

 

 

Besides how fabulous she looks on Nightmare Night.

 

We know:

 

• That she is a zebra from an unspecified far-away land, presumably Planet Equestria's version of Africa;
• that she lives in the middle of the Everfree Forest, where the processes of nature operate on their own as opposed to the pony-controlled state of things in the rest of Equestria;
• that she predates Twilight Sparkle's arrival in Ponyville by at least a few years, judging by her reputation among the ponies.
• Also, when she's on the show each time, she only speaks in words that rhyme.

 

It is possible that she is merely a migrant hermit, simply making a living for herself by harvesting the magical plants of the Everfree. I believe she has a greater purpose in mind.

 

Let us consider her cutie mark:

 

 

It is a spiral with triangles pointing outwards from it.

 

 

 

 

 

And thank you, sarcastic picture of Deadpool!

 

At first glance, Zecora's cutie mark is one of the more inexplicable marks on the show. While cutie marks have a tendency to be symbolic, hers is more so than most. It almost blends in with her stripes, and gives no intuitive sense of what special talent might be. Some have shrugged off her cutie mark altogether for its incomprehensibility.

 

However, scouring the Internet for the meaning of the spiral shape, I found this on the dubiously reputable "whats-your-sign.com":

 

 

...In terms of rebirth or growth, the spiral symbol can represent the consciousness of nature beginning from the core or center and thus expanding outwardly.

 

 

Usually I'd be inclined to distrust the testimony of a site that deals in the same numerology as our Vashikaran friends, but in this case I find its implications for Zecora's cutie mark legitimately interesting. So let's just roll with it.

 

As a spiral shape with a ring of outwards-pointing triangles, it appears that Zecora's cutie mark emphasizes the outwards expansion of nature. And it just so happens that she makes her home in the center of the most natural place in Equestria.

 

So here's my hypothesis: Zecora wishes to expand the Everfree Forest.

 

 

 

* le gasp *

 

The Everfree Forest is the only place in all of Equestria that the natural laws we take for granted in our world seem to apply. Clouds move on their own without requiring pegasus overseers. Plants and animals fend for themselves without need for earth pony caretakers, even evolving into unique lifeforms such as poison joke and the cockatrice. It is the one biome in Equestria that is not strictly regulated by the ponies, causing most ponies to view it as nothing short of an eldritch abomination. They are comfortable controlling the natural world, and nature that they do not control terrifies them.

 

Zecora does not fear the Everfree Forest, and just might hold a more objective view of it. The ponies' control of their environment might be seen as virtuous by some, but there are some major problems with this system. Just as human-run systems are vulnerable to human error, the pony-run system of nature is vulnerable to pony error. We see in "Hearth's Warming Eve" that even in the earliest era of pony society, control of the elements was being abused. The unicorns demanded tribute of food in exchange for raising the sun each morning, and the pegasi demanded the same for ensuring that the weather functioned as it should. (It's also worth noting that the warlike leader of the pegasi at the time was named Commander Hurricane, which should send a chill down the spine of anyone who ponders the implications.)

 

Even in recent times, forces like Tirek threaten not just pony society but the entire natural order, and a single rogue pegasus can sabotage the flow of the seasons on a whim.

 

 

 

 

 

We're looking at you, Rainbow "I like turtles" Dash.

 

Would it really be so bad if the Everfree Forest were allowed to overtake the planet? Not in an aggressive way like Discord's plunderseeds, but in a careful, controlled manner, allowing pony society time to adjust to its ways and learn to live in harmony with it? Our world proves that a sapient race doesn't need to control its environment so rigidly in order to survive, and it's possible that the hardy and adaptable ponies might even thrive without the need to devote so many resources into weather control every year. Institutions such as Cloudsdale could even be maintained in the new world order to help prevent natural disasters. Pony society could have the best of both worlds.

 

Granted, if Zecora really is working to expand the Everfree Forest without anypony's knowledge, she may need to learn a friendship lesson about trying to help friends who don't want to be helped. The decision to allow the Everfree to overtake the planet would almost certainly be a controversial one, and likely not a decision that a single lone zebra has the right to make. But to me at least, the idea that Zecora is secretly working to better Equestria by allowing nature to bloom unrestricted makes me view her character in a new but still positive light.

 

 

As a final note: I haven't actually addressed Zecora's rhyming yet, which is an immediately noticeable aspect of her personality. I subscribe to a Tumblr headcanon I once saw, that Zecora's rhyming is a result of prolonged exposure to poison joke either accidental or deliberate. And if you think about it, this fits perfectly both with my theory and the nature of poison joke.

 

Poison joke, true to its name, likes to play hilariously ironic jokes on those it infects. It makes the strong Applejack tiny and gives the soft-spoken Fluttershy a deep baritone voice. What better joke to play on a zebra who wants to destroy the enforced order of the world than to force her to speak in a rigid, orderly rhyming scheme with every word she says?

 

 

Thus concludes my pony theory

Which, I pray you don't find dreary.

I think by now I've said enough

So please return to Random Stuff!

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

WARNING: The following spoiler contains….well, spoilers. If you are not current with Once Upon a Time, read no further. Just go back and reread Kobold's excellent theories on Zecora.

Seriously. There. Are. Spoilers.

All right. If you've made it this far, I'll assume you've watched Once Upon a Time up to the latest episode, or that you just don't care. Either way, allow me to present...

In Defense of Lily

A Ranty Essay by TwiLyghtSansSparkles

written in response to her family's commentary on the character while watching the latest episode

In the latest season of Once Upon a Time, we are given the truth about Emma's childhood friend, Lily.

Lily's first impression is less than stellar. When teenage Emma meets her, Emma is stealing Pop-Tarts from a store, and Lily gives her tips and a stolen credit card to buy the Pop-Tarts. Throughout Emma's flashbacks, Lily is painted as something of a bad seed, a corrupting influence whose idea of a happy ending is siphoning resources from the wealthy so she and Emma can live in parent-free, guardian-free luxury.

In the latest season, however, we learn the truth: Lily—short for Lillith—is actually Maleficent's daughter, banished to our world when Snow White and Prince Charming begged the Sorcerer's Apprentice to rid their infant daughter of her potential for dark magic. The spell, which could not be undone, took Emma's potential for darkness and gave it to another infant: Lily. To do this, Snow and Charming kidnapped Maleficent's daughter and brought her to the Apprentice, who performed the spell under coercion from the Author.

It is here that I begin my rant. You see, this spell was one the Apprentice didn't wish to perform. Not only did it remove Emma's power of choice in the scenario—and prove that her parents never trusted her to make the right decision—but it cursed Lillith with every ounce of darkness Emma could ever possess. Remember: at this point, Lillith is an infant. She has no say in this, and little to no awareness that her entire path in life is being irreversibly altered. When she comes to our world, she has no memory of what happened and no idea why everything good she tries to do ends badly. To her mind, she simply has bad luck.

Yet, from the remarks I heard during the episode, one would think Lillith chose to be a bad seed. While it is certainly true that she chose to lie and steal from the time she was small, remember that everything good she tries to do ends horribly. When faced with that sort of rotten luck, what child wouldn't say "Then let me be evil"? What person wouldn't embrace what they see as their fate and shun the consequences? Lillith is treated by these viewers as a bad influence on Emma—which she is, but not of her own volition—while Snow and Charming are treated like good people who made a poor choice. "Would she really have grown up to be good, with Maleficent as a mother?" they ask.

Lillith is not the villain here. If anything, she's more a victim than anyone else. Snow and Charming took her one chance at goodness. Perhaps she would have been evil anyway, but deprived of that chance, we will never know.

Edited May 3, 2015 by TwiLyghtSansSparkles

[Kaymyth she/her]

WARNING: The following spoiler contains….well, spoilers. If you are not current with Once Upon a Time, read no further. Just go back and reread Kobold's excellent theories on Zecora.

 

 

Moar spoilers!

 

 

I'm still not convinced that Snow and Charming were entirely in control of their actions there.

WE know that the Author forced the Apprentice to cast the spell, but as of right now Snow and Charming don't. They don't know that he was using his power to make the story "better", so they don't know that they might have been manipulated. So naturally, they're trying to justify what they did in the context of believing that the choice was entirely theirs.  To condemn an innocent like that just seems so out of character for them, it just makes much more sense to me that their free will was hijacked.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the questionable decisions that certain folks made back in the Enchanted Forest were spurred by him trying to "make a better story".  (With the exception of Rumplestiltskin; I can easily see a scene where the Author tells him, "Oh, I never had to rewrite you.  You were as villianous a villain as I could have ever hoped.")

 

I know that a recent episode tried to paint him as sympathetic, but I really just want to chuck the little bacon-fed knave down Dragon!Maleficent's throat.

 

Urgh, had to cut the quoted text down quite a bit to get my spoiler tags to go off properly.

Edited May 3, 2015 by Kaymyth

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Moar spoilers!

 

 

I'm still not convinced that Snow and Charming were entirely in control of their actions there.

WE know that the Author forced the Apprentice to cast the spell, but as of right now Snow and Charming don't. They don't know that he was using his power to make the story "better", so they don't know that they might have been manipulated. So naturally, they're trying to justify what they did in the context of believing that the choice was entirely theirs.  To condemn an innocent like that just seems so out of character for them, it just makes much more sense to me that their free will was hijacked.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the questionable decisions that certain folks made back in the Enchanted Forest were spurred by him trying to "make a better story".  (With the exception of Rumplestiltskin; I can easily see a scene where the Author tells him, "Oh, I never had to rewrite you.  You were as villianous a villain as I could have ever hoped.")

 

I know that a recent episode tried to paint him as sympathetic, but I really just want to chuck the little bacon-fed knave down Dragon!Maleficent's throat.

 

Urgh, had to cut the quoted text down quite a bit to get my spoiler tags to go off properly.

 

 

I agree. The Author, for all his kindly mannerisms, has thus far proven he is not above derailing characters' lives and morality for the sake of what he terms "a better story." So far, we have no evidence that he has directly interfered in any events beside Lillith's kidnapping, but like you said, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the more morally questionable (and even reprehensible) choices made by different characters actually happened because the Author was whispering in their ears. 

 

As a viewer, I question the Author's judgement; as an aspiring writer, I question his skill. From what we've seen of this Author, he is inclined to trust the wrong people, doing the bare minimum to correct his mistakes, as he did with Cruella. He knew she was a psychopath. He saw her relish her mother's murder, and it is strongly implied she murdered her father and stepfathers as well. So what does he do? He renders her harmless and tells no one. I don't want to make judgements just yet, but it seems to me that he "forgot" to tell anyone Cruella was incapable of killing anyone until after Emma had killed her on purpose, for the sake of having the Savior go Dark. With Snow and Charming, I can't say for sure whether the Author kept him from revealing all he knew, but it seems a tad suspicious that the Apprentice, who didn't want to perform the spell in the first place, would leave out the fact that not only is this baby human and not some sort of Eldritch Abomination, but she'll be banished to another world. 

 

For his skill, how much does he have to do with the way magic works on this show? I've been saying since Season 1 that their magic system needs some serious boundaries around shapeshifting. Tells, cool down periods, something that says the person whose likeness is being stolen has to be dead or unconscious or something….it's a pretty wonky system, and I wonder how much of it is just the way magic works in the Enchanted Forest, and how much of it is the Author altering the magic system "because it makes for a better story." 

 

And then there's Regina. Every attempt she makes at becoming good has been difficult for her, and every time she thinks she's found a happy ending, it's ripped away from her. Sometimes in the most ridiculous and convoluted way possible. *coughZelinanotdyinganddisguisingherselfasMariontostealRobinHoodcough* It's almost as if the Author would rather she stay a villain, instead of respecting her choice and giving her a way out. I know fictional characters aren't real (duh) but the best characters feel real. They feel like they make choices of their own accord. And sometimes, this happens because an author loses control of their characters. There's a scene in one of the Twilight books where Jacob, heartbroken after losing Bella to Edward, goes to the park and starts chatting with some random girl there. They hit it off, they have a lot in common, it looks like they're going to start dating….and then SMeyer steps in with the "woah woah woah, remember the imprinting? You can't be with her because of that" thing, and it comes to nothing. That's what I feel like the Author is doing. He's actively keeping Regina from finding her happy ending, and he seems to be doing everything in his power to keep Rumple from really reforming. 

 

On the Rumple front—yes, he's been terrible lately, and he's been terrible since the beginning. But it looked for a while like Belle was helping to reform him. When she banished him, I thought for sure he'd come to his senses….but no, he summoned the Queens of Darkness for what looked like a takeover of Storybrooke. But wait—why is he doing that? Because his heart is almost a lump of coal and he doesn't want to lose his ability to love his wife. He might be a terrible person, but I think he genuinely wants to reform. The way he's been going about it—kidnapping the Author after summoning the Queens—is clearly wrong, but I'm getting the sense that the Author was pushing him toward this all along. That Rumple wants to love Belle more than he loves power, but that the Author is trying to keep him from doing that. The Author wants him to stay a villain, and the Author wants to continually punish Regina for her sins. 

 

I could be wrong on all this, but so far, the Author strikes me as a very malicious character, and the sooner Storybrooke does away with him, the better.

Edited May 3, 2015 by TwiLyghtSansSparkles

[Kaymyth she/her]

 

I agree. The Author, for all his kindly mannerisms, has thus far proven he is not above derailing characters' lives and morality for the sake of what he terms "a better story." So far, we have no evidence that he has directly interfered in any events beside Lillith's kidnapping, but like you said, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the more morally questionable (and even reprehensible) choices made by different characters actually happened because the Author was whispering in their ears. 

 

As a viewer, I question the Author's judgement; as an aspiring writer, I question his skill. From what we've seen of this Author, he is inclined to trust the wrong people, doing the bare minimum to correct his mistakes, as he did with Cruella. He knew she was a psychopath. He saw her relish her mother's murder, and it is strongly implied she murdered her father and stepfathers as well. So what does he do? He renders her harmless and tells no one. I don't want to make judgements just yet, but it seems to me that he "forgot" to tell anyone Cruella was incapable of killing anyone until after Emma had killed her on purpose, for the sake of having the Savior go Dark. With Snow and Charming, I can't say for sure whether the Author kept him from revealing all he knew, but it seems a tad suspicious that the Apprentice, who didn't want to perform the spell in the first place, would leave out the fact that not only is this baby human and not some sort of Eldritch Abomination, but she'll be banished to another world. 

 

For his skill, how much does he have to do with the way magic works on this show? I've been saying since Season 1 that their magic system needs some serious boundaries around shapeshifting. Tells, cool down periods, something that says the person whose likeness is being stolen has to be dead or unconscious or something….it's a pretty wonky system, and I wonder how much of it is just the way magic works in the Enchanted Forest, and how much of it is the Author altering the magic system "because it makes for a better story." 

 

And then there's Regina. Every attempt she makes at becoming good has been difficult for her, and every time she thinks she's found a happy ending, it's ripped away from her. Sometimes in the most ridiculous and convoluted way possible. *coughZelinanotdyinganddisguisingherselfasMariontostealRobinHoodcough* It's almost as if the Author would rather she stay a villain, instead of respecting her choice and giving her a way out. I know fictional characters aren't real (duh) but the best characters feel real. They feel like they make choices of their own accord. And sometimes, this happens because an author loses control of their characters. There's a scene in one of the Twilight books where Jacob, heartbroken after losing Bella to Edward, goes to the park and starts chatting with some random girl there. They hit it off, they have a lot in common, it looks like they're going to start dating….and then SMeyer steps in with the "woah woah woah, remember the imprinting? You can't be with her because of that" thing, and it comes to nothing. That's what I feel like the Author is doing. He's actively keeping Regina from finding her happy ending, and he seems to be doing everything in his power to keep Rumple from really reforming. 

 

On the Rumple front—yes, he's been terrible lately, and he's been terrible since the beginning. But it looked for a while like Belle was helping to reform him. When she banished him, I thought for sure he'd come to his senses….but no, he summoned the Queens of Darkness for what looked like a takeover of Storybrooke. But wait—why is he doing that? Because his heart is almost a lump of coal and he doesn't want to lose his ability to love his wife. He might be a terrible person, but I think he genuinely wants to reform. The way he's been going about it—kidnapping the Author after summoning the Queens—is clearly wrong, but I'm getting the sense that the Author was pushing him toward this all along. That Rumple wants to love Belle more than he loves power, but that the Author is trying to keep him from doing that. The Author wants him to stay a villain, and the Author wants to continually punish Regina for her sins. 

 

I could be wrong on all this, but so far, the Author strikes me as a very malicious character, and the sooner Storybrooke does away with him, the better.

 

Wow, that thing is redonkulous.

 

Well, I will put in the caveat that I don't believe he's been able to mess with things from inside the book; his interference stopped when the Apprentice trapped him.  And he doesn't have any magical ink right now, so he can't have been messing with things in Storybrooke.

 

But did he push Regina away from her first near-meeting with Robin?  Absolutely.  Did he have anything to do with her final decision to kill her own father for the sake of vengeance?  I wouldn't put it past him, but I don't know how the timeline matches up on that one.  Did he feed Zelina's jealousy when Rumple first started teaching her?  Probably.  And a thousand other little things.

 

But I don't think he ever nudged Rumple at all.  I don't think he needed to; I think that Rumple was so laser-focused on finding Bae that he was willing to do anything, give up anything, to find him.  His greatest shot at redemption was while Bae/Neal was around.  Belle is a lovely person, but she trusted him far too much.  Bae loved his father, but never trusted him at all, and thus was able to call him out on his behavior any time Rumple went duplicitous.  Belle couldn't do that until things had mounted up to the point where Rumple shattered everything.

[mail-mi he/him]

Slow dancing at prom with your crush: who knew that walking in circles could be so amazing?

[Redbird he/him]

I am apologizing in advance for this joke:

 

Did you hear about the circus fire? It was in tents.

[Kobold King he/him]

Slow dancing at prom with your crush: who knew that walking in circles could be so amazing?

 

When you have a crush, just her recognizing your existence feels like the most joyous occasion in the world.

 

Source:

 

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

When you have a crush, just her recognizing your existence feels like the most joyous occasion in the world.

 

Source:

 

 

 

Don't worry. 

 

 

You'll find the Yin to your Yang eventually.