Steel Accord

Okay, I'm only just past the theme song trying to catch up. (If only because I'm sick of Derpibooru drip feeding me a steady stream of spoilers.) I can NOT be the only one who winces at Spike's sores! Like I've been watching Father Brown on Netflix and there's this episode where this poor girl has terrible radiation scars on her back. They didn't look as bad on a live action person than Spike's acne does in animation! And both Rarity and Twilight are treating it like it's no big deal. If I had a kid with acne that bad, I'd get him to a hospital! Sorry for the excessive exclamations, I don't know why this triggered me seeing as my own acne never really bothered me nor ever got that bad. Addendum to the above: Twilight said for Spike to go somewhere less flammable. Me: "Your castle is made of rock!"

I'm kind of busy at the moment, but I can tell you this, if you have THAT little faith in it, you wouldn't even be asking this question. A part of you believes in your work, and you should listen to that part.

@Denim&Venom Thanks first of all, for knowing your stuff. Second of all, it was part of your barrage of motivations. Seeking spiritual enlightenment. He just thinks that he can find them in Equestria's hidden corners where the arts were housed and forgotten by a peaceful world that considers such techniques obsolete. Not seeing their non-violent application.

It could be. The question I’m struggling with is less the conflict he has or doesn’t have with the wider culture as much as which better serves the character’s goals of pursuing lost arcana of an obscure lifestyle.

I know what you mean but I disagree. The character's not meant to be super-competitive or itching for a fight.

I have this fic that's been cloying at the inside of my head for a long time now. I've come back and forth to it, it got me started on writing to begin with. Now, my protagonist is meant to travel across Equestria and look for the small bits of lore that refer to philosophical or ideological fighting systems. Hard to do in a world where magic solves most dangerous problems and violence at all rarely comes up in their history. My question is, would it make more sense for this quest to be undertaken by an earth pony, or pegasus? It seems like a comparatively small change but part of it comes from having already written a lot of scenes with the assumption that the hero is a pegasus and only reconsidered later it might make sense for him to be an earth pony. Here's a little this or that. Pegasus: -Flying adds new and cool dimensions to fighting. -Wings are another set of limbs to use. -Very specifically warrior and athletic cultural traditions. Earth pony: -Strong and athletic. -Folksier traditions lend them to the kind of mastery through repetition frameworks of Kung Fu and really all martial arts. -The Mighty Helm show they too have a distinct warrior culture of their own. One that prominently features weapons. Pegasi have a lot of physical possibility but not much spiritual rooting, while earth ponies have more limited instruments but lend themselves to the ideas a little better. Adding on to this is that there's a subtle soldier vs. warrior angle between the two. Or to put it more accurately, soldier vs. guardian. Pegasi descended from an explicitly Roman-esque society of warriors and conquerors, where the Mighty Helm were more like a chivalric order. It also comes into how they treat conflict. Pegasi are more naturally competitive and looking for a challenge where earth ponies tend to be a little more laid back and only throw down if their homes or families are threatened. Again, that latter viewpoint is very martial arts code of always seeking to avoid a fight rather than go looking for one. So yeah, I'm kind of torn on this. What do you guys think?

You can still make a villain scary even if they appear somewhat often. The key there is making each scene they appear in seem more threatening than it was before they showed up. Make the characters uncomfortable to think about them and on edge when in their presence. Of course, you have to make that fear justified. A villain who shows up to be scary and do nothing else, looses that effect. It's not how much we see them, it's WHAT we see of them.

So I've tried at various times to have a romance RP with Fluttershy. Some of them went all the way, a lot didn't, but both had one thing in common. None of them rang "true." Inasmuch as it felt natural for Flutters to fall for my characters. Maybe it's me, my OCs tend to be very "adventure focused" swashbucklers or martial artists, great for Daring Do (who I had one of my better romance RPs with) not so much for Ms. Shy. At the same time, she's shipped all the time with Big Mac and Rainbow Dash. The former is decidedly old school manly, if not exactly an action hero, while the latter IS an action hero who relishes in death defying feats and flies first, asks questions later. When written well in fanfics, the relationship comes off as natural. With Fluttershy being attractive because of her gentility and purity and she to her partner for their strength and will. So I don't see how at least two characters of my own that exist in between those emotional ends, being both willing to take action but not on a hair trigger with more of a reserved sense, would be incompatible with Fluttershy. On the other hoof, meaning no disrespect to anypony in particular, she hasn't been played well in my experience. Seems like most play a simplistic or season one premier version of her rather than the more developed version of her now. Do any of you guys have good RP experiences with Fluttershy as a romantically involved character? How was she played well? Was she paired with a character that wasn't a treehugger (literally or metaphorically)?