Kobold King

Curiosity's not actually affiliated with the RP... though as with everyone else, he's welcome to join at any time. 10 Steelheart 9 Firefight 11 Nightwielder 10 Conflux 1 Fortuity 10 Instabam 10 The Pink Pinkness 12 Mitosis 7 Regalia 10 Obliteration 11 Newton 15 Dawnslight 10 Night's Sorrow 11 Prof

10 Steelheart 9 Firefight 10 Nightwielder 10 Conflux 3 Fortuity 10 Instabam 10 The Pink Pinkness 12 Mitosis 9 Regalia 2 Sourcefield 10 Obliteration 11 Newton 14 Dawnslight 10 Night's Sorrow 10 Prof

And that's not even getting into the fan works!

Message received and understood!

10 Steelheart 9 Firefight 10 Nightwielder 10 Conflux 3 Fortuity 10 Instabam 10 The Pink Pinkness 11 Mitosis 10 Regalia 5 Sourcefield 10 Obliteration 11 Newton 13 Dawnslight 10 Night's Sorrow 10 Prof

10 Steelheart 9 Firefight 10 Nightwielder 10 Conflux 6 Fortuity 10 Instabam 10 The Pink Pinkness 11 Mitosis 10 Regalia 5 Sourcefield 10 Obliteration 11 Newton 13 Dawnslight 10 Night's Sorrow 9 Prof

Nah, Instabam's more popular than half the characters who actually got screen time. 10 Steelheart 10 Firefight 10 Nightwielder 10 Conflux 7 Fortuity 10 Instabam 10 The Pink Pinkness 10 Mitosis 10 Regalia 7 Sourcefield 10 Obliteration 10 Newton 13 Dawnslight 10 Night's Sorrow 10 Prof

And that, TwiLyght dear, is what happened in Portland.

So powerful that we're now officially defined as an invasion.

It's been a while since we had one of these! I'm disappointed not to see "Doctor Funtimes" on the list, but I'll take what I can get. 10 Steelheart 10 Firefight 10 Nightwielder 10 Conflux 10 Fortuity 10 Deathpoint 10 The Pink Pinkness 10 Mitosis 10 Regalia 8 Sourcefield 10 Obliteration 10 Newton 11 Dawnslight 10 Night's Sorrow 10 Prof

Huh... well, I'm specifically tagged in a thread about the invasion of the 17th Shard, so I suppose I'd better weigh in before the lynch mobs start showing up. Be warned: opinions follow. Opinions can be a mortal allergen to a high percentage of the population--or at least, I'm assuming they can be, considering how rabidly some people react to them. So let me meet your opinions with some of my own. As Quiver said, most of the ponies in the upper tier of the rep list belong to the Reckoners RPG, colloquially known as "What Happened in Oregon" or "WHIO." In the eyes of many members, WHIO and My Little Pony have become synonymous. Why? One is a gritty role-playing game about the destruction of an entire state, the other is an optimistic cartoon about the power of friendship. How did the two ever become associated? I don't have the answer, but I do have a hypothesis. You see... at its core, What Happened in Oregon is a very dark game. The characters are almost universally terrible people. The setting is a twisted dystopia. The plot revolves around horrible slaughters, massacres, and battles that lead to thousands becoming dead or homeless. The average Oregon character is a darker and more gruesome villain than the antagonists of most Sanderson novels. I believe that the ponies are a way of coping with that. Most players on the Reckoners RPG board are silly, fun-loving people. We make constant jokes about what's going on in the RP. We relentlessly make fun of any trait that's even remotely laughable about characters, and we write silly non-canon shorts about our characters acting in wildly out-of-character ways. Creating ponified versions of the characters fits in with everything else--it adds some levity to what would otherwise be a depressingly gritty RPG. The fact that several high-profile players, including myself, are also fans of the show only further cements ponies as the preferred way of visually representing the characters, to the point that it's become a sort of initiation ritual for new players to either ponify their characters or allow them to be ponified. It's no secret that the combined grittiness and silliness of the Reckoners RPG creates an upvote-earning environment ripe for the taking, resulting in most of the major players there skyrocketing in reputation. If it weren't for the astronomical reputation levels boasted by many Oregon RPers, it's probable no one would pay much mind to the pony phenomenon on the 17th Shard--at least, I don't remember anyone making a particularly big deal out of it back when the noble Quiver was the only pony in sight. So that explains why so many notable members have pony profile pictures, YoungBard. Now... for the show. You used the phrase "mindless drivel" to describe it, which needless to say as a fan of the show, I think is a bit harsh. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is not a perfect show. It has flaws, and not every writer to have penned an episode has been a literary genius. In terms of quality, I would not presume to argue that even my favorite episode is as brilliant and well-orchestrated as The Way of Kings or Warbreaker. Nonetheless, I feel the show has value, and I adore it. I adore it for two reasons: it makes me smile, and it makes me think. In a world so bombarded with darkness, on both the news and in our entertainment, My Little Pony is a breath of fresh air. The characters may be stereotypes at times, but they're good stereotypes. While the characters of many children's shows these days are bratty, obnoxious, or even cruel, the protagonists of MLP are never presented as such without good reason. If a character does something rotten, you can bet that either she's due for a friendship lesson at the end of the episode, or she's been corrupted by the malevolent spirit of chaos that broke free of its millennium-long imprisonment. Either way, it's an aberration from the status quo. The six main characters are six good friends, and are also inherently good people. In a literary world filled with murderous and otherwise immoral anti-heroes, it's fun to sit down and watch some truly virtuous characters settle their problems through the power of their friendship. Not only the virtue, but the humor of the show appeals to me. Despite dipping its hooves into epic fantasy, the show never seems to forget that it it's heart it is a cartoon about brightly colored, anatomically improbable ponies, and it acts accordingly. It's goofy. It's silly. It makes light of serious situations for the sake of a cheap laugh, and I can't get enough of it. Even the aforementioned malevolent spirit of chaos is one of the most hilarious characters on the show, injecting humor into the narrative even when he's literally driving the characters insane and rewriting the laws of physics into his own twisted image. When I see nothing but pain and hardship all around me, My Little Pony gives me something beautiful to look at. It gives me characters not only to laugh at or enjoy the adventures of, but to emulate. It makes me smile. Now for the second reason I like watching and discussing the show: it makes me think. I like to think of myself as a somewhat creative person, and this show pushes my theorizing buttons like nothing else on the market--including the great Sanderson's works. Why is that? Again, I can't tell you the answer, but I can give you a hypothesis. You see, I feel one of the failings Quiver mentioned is actually one of its strengths: it doesn't always develop the one-off characters or setting details it creates. While the main characters and the central setting are very well-developed, the program is scattered with hints about there being more to the world of Equestria than meets the eye. Take the Everfree Forest for example. In the main setting of the show, all of the world's natural forces are controlled by ponies. Plants and animals don't grow without ponies to take care of them. Weather doesn't happen if the pegasi don't push the clouds into the right positions. Not even the sun and moon will rise without one of the two monarchs telekinetically hauling them over the horizon. In the Everfree Forest, the laws of physics flow like our world. Plants and animals take care of themselves. Clouds move and rain all on their own. It runs autonomously, without the slightest need for pony intervention... and the main characters find it terrifying. No explanation for its behavior is ever given on the show, nor is one ever likely to be given. This puts my brain into high-gear like nothing else. You see, while in a Sanderson novel we'd be guaranteed an in-depth explanation by the end of the series, fans are left to come to their own conclusions about the Everfree Forest. Was the entire pony world once as natural as their own? Was the entire world once autonomous, with the Everfree the result of some strange accident? Is the Everfree Forest a threat to pony society? Will it ever expand, or shrink? The show is riddled with enigmas like the Everfree. If you throw a stone in Equestria, you're likely to hit some sort of ancient evil or unresolved magical mystery (and probably have to learn a friendship lesson about not blindly throwing rocks at ponies.) While many settings would suffer from such a lack of setting resolution, somehow MLP manages to benefit from it. Equestria is a setting of magic and wonder, and sometimes there's nothing more fun than to be mystified by questions you'll never hear a straight answer to. So that, dearest YoungBard, is why this Sanderfan can enjoy The Way of Kings and then flip on a show about cartoon ponies. They make me smile, they make me think, and they can put much-needed cheer into a gloomy situation. You're entitled to your opinion, and no one will ever try to pressure you into liking or even appreciating what we watch... but hopefully by now you've gotten a better idea about why we harbor the opinions we do.

I still don't understand the full implications of both sides, and I might change my vote, but for now, with the alternative being her randomly electrocuting people with her mind, I vote for her to be capable of stopping lightning bolts.

The d'awws... they're... they're....

I... I have to choose? I want to hug them and plop them both in my lap.

Yes... I think so...

With any luck I'll be able to see it in the next couple of weeks, but that doesn't stop me from dying a little inside everytime somebody posts on the AoU spoiler thread.

Um... I can't say that I do "kolo," but I appreciate the input anyway. I still picture her more as an anti-personnel Epic than a fortification one, so I'll keep her restricted to people and Epics. You posted a topic called "Random Stuff" on one of the most random and pony-obsessed communities on the Internet. I don't know what you expected.

You know you're a Sanderfan when you're responsible for a whole page worth of people complaining about their eyes burning from your Cosmere swimsuit calendar. D'aww, that's nice of you to say. It definitely refers to the city in Steelheart. I'm sure you and Elsa could design far better swimsuits (provided you prevent Elsa from making them out of ice). I don't understand. Is that a trick question?

That would be interesting, actually... but again, that makes her a bit too similar to MV, which makes me reluctant to allow it. And also because I've seen how much trouble Voidus has with MV's powerset, and I'm hesitant to use my much more feeble knowledge of physics to tackle those kind of problems.

A game of "Red light, green light" The Dalles won't soon forget. In the interest of separating her from MV, I'm going to say no, her powers don't work on objects. So no stopping cars with her mind or freezing bullets in mid air. I agree with Sanderson's First Law wholeheartedly. To do what the Question thread does best and apply it to ponies...

I don't think there's any problem that can't be solved by blinking S.O.S. ...Except, arguably, the inability to blink. Magic definitely needs a few rules, but I don't think there are any hard-and-fast rules about how many rules you need, if that makes sense. This (ironically) might seem blasphemous on this of all forums, but I actually prefer soft magic systems with a few overarching rules to ultra "hard magic" systems. So the LotR magic system is a bit soft for my taste, Allomancy is awesome but a bit too rigid, but the magics of Harry Potter, the Reckoners books, and MLP are just right. There's a place for all three types, but my personal preference is for that golden zone in between rigidness and mysticism.

After this day, all Dalles personnel will be trained to blink S.O.S. To be honest, sometimes I feel all the Cosmere WoBs I've read have stripped away some of the mysticism I felt upon initially reading the books. So I prefer to avoid them nowadays.

Nope, not yet. I saw he'd responded to a question, saw that it didn't pertain to the Reckonerverse, and grumpily stormed away from it. Sounds good to me.

It could result in them having an arm-wrestling contest. The question is, should it?

Hooray for meta! I think that's best. Any preferences on where their conversation should go after her briefing, or should we just pants it?