--Thunder Bolt--

"I am Light Pinkie Pie, Princess of Moderate Amusement.  Would you like me to introduce a slight crack in the 4th Wall, or should I gently fire my Soiree Cannon?"

Ninja!

"My scarf only has one end because it is actually a Calabi-Yau manifold."

Proof that the Big Bang was actually a Big Riff.

"I have a popcorn kernel stuck between my molars."

"Here, let me get it out with my tongue."

Ameeeerrricaaaaaa!  Buck Yeaaaaaah!

I am currently 13, and I will be 14 in September. I have watched all of the episodes and the movie. I have also changed some of my icons to pony related things. The main reason I ask this question is because of my age, in most mlp brony videos I have watched everyone has said that a brony is atleast 14 and up.

*Looks you over skeptically*

Hmmm....let's see...

Pony-related avatar? Check.

Has seen all the episodes? Check.

Enjoyed them? Check.

Posting on a brony forum? Check.

...

...

Welcome to the herd. Heck, I think I almost managed to fill up my Brony Bingo Card.

Death by nuclear fire has never been so adorable before!

"This is very interesting. I don't know that it's possible to phase and unphase over the invisibility and... tangibility like this." Starshine spoke, amazement was clear in his voice. "If it's okay with you, I would love to speak more about this. Well, after that giant is calmed down anyway."

"Yes, of course!" Sunyatay said, delighted that he wanted to talk to her, instead of run away screaming.  Now if they could just achieve the same result with the giant...  The mighty blue pony growled at first when the colt approached, but then he seemed to settle down to observe.  What should I do?  If he spots me before I show myself, he might think the colt is distracting him so I can do a surprise attack or something!  But if I show myself, I might startle him!  I'll probably wreck everything whatever I do...but showing myself is more honest.

Gathering the new-found strength she'd gained from making...if not an actual friend, at least an acquaintance...and lit her horn to illuminate herself.  Her translucent form seemed to shimmer almost like a Crystal Pony.  "Please don't be afraid!" she called out as loud as she could.  "I'm just different, like you!  I could groom you if you want!"

@@Shanashie,

The leftmost head focused on Katarzhyna and started to drag its own protesting body toward her. 

"Hey, uh, ma'am?" Morgan shouted over the crackle of fire and howls of very-pissed-off canine. "I think you're just making it upset! Maybe we can calm it down, or throw it a ball or something?" At the word 'ball' the leftmost head yowled loudly, slobbering across the place wreckage.

"You think it is a pet?" she called back, stopping her pounding.  "I saw it eat a corpse before it came for me!  It thinks we are meals, not masters!  If we keep upsetting it, maybe it goes somewhere less upsetting!"  There were probably something on the order of a couple hundred corpses or parts of corpses strewn across the landscape.  Assuming the creature had canid senses, it could probably find plenty of fresh meat once it decided that the live humans were more annoying than they were worth.  Or so she hoped.  "Keep dividing its attention!"  Katarzhyna ducked down behind the wreckage, peeking over its jagged edge. Cane at the ready, she watched for the moment one or both of the other heads started to win the battle for control of the body.

It's canon.

"I'm the brony your mother warned you about!"

I can only imagine what kind of Rule 34/shipping/porno fanfics must exist for Loony Tunes.  All those times that Bugs Bunny cross-dressed to seduce his adversaries and stick dynamite in their pockets or whatever?  UN-CISGENDERD SEXUAL TERRORISM!  And that's the show canon!

Parenting Forum, Day 1:

"Hey everybody!  I found this obscure Indonesian cartoon about cuttlefish that no one has made any porn from!  Finally, a show we can let our children watch!"

Parenting Forum, Day 2:

"CUTTLEFISH PORN!  EVERYWHEEEEERE!  We need to demand that the Navy exterminate all cuttlefish!  And no decent parent should ever get a cuttlebone for their birdcage!  Because...cuttlebone....AAAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEE!"

Welcome to Rule 34, uptight soccer moms.

I would be very disappointed if she got changed back somehow.  One of the things I've always hated about sitcoms is the way that, no matter what happens in the episode, everything always returns to the status quo ante.  The characters never grow or change, and they spend their lives trapped in that living room set with a laugh track.  If one of them wins the lottery or gets the dream job they've always hoped for or whatever, you already know that it's going to be reversed before the hour is over, and they'll end up right back where they started.

I think it's very cool that MLP incorporates growth and change instead of hitting the Groundhog Day reset button at the end of every episode.  The characters actually learn things, and apply their lessons to their lives.  Things that happened in the past have effects in the present and future.  They have lives instead of ephemeral events that disappear into endless repetition of the same "situation."  I think it would be much better, story-wise, if Twilight and her friends have to live with her Alicorn transformation and its effects.

Pinkie does touch the portal, just before Luna pulls her back.  Perhaps that was enough for her to enter a coherent quantum superposition state with her counterpart, so that each would have the other's knowledge...

To expand on this a bit more...

If I understand the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics (multiverse theory) correctly, multiple universes branch off from each other at every quantum mechanical event because each possibility becomes manifest, in a different universe.  So, if an electron is fired at a pair of slits, it goes through both slits, in different universes.  There is no "wave function" that "collapses" when a result (a detector sensing the electron after it's passed through one slit or the other) is detected.  Both results happen, to alternate versions of the electron in two separate universes.

In other words, the Pinkie Pie in Equestria and the one on Not Quite Earth are the same Pinkie Pie; one is just manifest in a universe where she ended up being human-shaped, and the other is manifest in a universe where she ended up being pony-shaped.  When pony-Pinkie stuck her hoof into the portal, she created a unique situation where two versions of herself could in some sense re-merge.  Since there is in reality only one Pinkie in many probabilistic manifestations, such a semi-merger of Pinkies into a single quantum state (i.e., pony-Pinkie was partially piercing the boundary between universes and thus coexisting within the same universe as her human counterpart) would arguably require that they share the same knowledge base.  Or at least, a new set of paired-universes are spawned, manifesting all of the possible states resulting from Pinkie touching the portal, and we just happened to see one where the possibility of such a mental merger ended up being actualized.

We might expect that something similar would happen with the Twilights, since human Pinkie mentions a human Twilight living "in the city" with a dog named Spike.  However, the physical distance between the Twilights could mean that they were not in the same inertial reference frame.  For example, if the original human Twilight was living at a significantly higher or lower altitude, the difference in the relative strength of Not Quite Earth's gravitational field would cause a very tiny, but detectable difference in the flow of time for each Twilight relative to the other (Einstein's "Twin Paradox").  This difference in the flow rate of time can be measured by extremely precise atomic clocks.  If you synchronize two atomic clocks, then place one at a high altitude while leaving the other at sea level, the one at sea level will measure time as flowing very slightly slower than the one at high altitude due to the effect of stronger gravity on the flow of time ("relativistic time dilation"). 

We currently don't have a theory that successfully integrates relativity with quantum mechanics, so we don't have a way to know how the physics of the Many Worlds Interpretation would interact with relativity in a situation like this.  However, I think it is arguable that pony Pinkie's contact with the portal would place them (more or less) within the same inertial reference frame because human Pinkie was close to the portal on the human side.  The other Twilight was not close to it, and even a small difference in relativistic time flow (being in different inertial reference frames) would mean that they were not coexisting "at the same time" on Not Quite Earth, from the quantum perspective.

Or you can just say "It's Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie."

OC: Sunyatay Sutra  Owner: InvisiblePinkUnicorn

 

I'll start this review off with the design. Well, an invisible OC is certainly one of the more unique OCs I've seen. However, I do have a few issues with her design. First off: the coat type. That kind of coat always looked weird to me, and I don't think it looks too good with your OC. I think just a normal coat type would look much nicer. Next up: the colors of the mane. Now, I am going to assume you picked a white color to further emphasize the "ghost-like" state of your OC, but I suggest either replacing the white with a different darker color, or just keep the whole mane the same color; preferably the pink color already present. The white clashes badly with the rest of the mane, and the coat. Also, the transparency effect you used is nice, but I have a method for doing it that I think would be much more effective. Instead of using that effect, try lowering the opacity of the whole picture in a photo editing program until you have the desired effect. This would look very nice, especially if you decide to take my advice for the color scheme.

Thank you for your review.  When I get time, I'll tinker with some of the changes you suggest.  I did try doing the translucency thing in Photoshop.  The problem I had was that I wanted, for purposes of illustration, to have part of her fully visible to reveal her color scheme, with the rest of her fading through translucence to invisibility.  Try as I might though, I couldn't figure out how to get Photoshop to let me make her translucency/transparency increase on a gradient.  Within the limits of my skillz, it's either all or nothing, so I went with the fade-to-white as the closest thing I could get to the effect I was aiming for.  Your recommendations on color scheme sound like they might make the translucent-against-a-background effect work better though, so I guess I have some more tinkering in Sunyatay's future.  

@,

@@Shanashie,

"When I give you the signal," Katarzhyna whispered, raising a hand.  "RUN!  GET TO SAFETY!" she shouted to the others at the top of her lungs.  The tube of fuselage amplified her voice like a megaphone.  Now to try and buy them some time.  She lowered her hand to signal for the throw, gripping her cane two-handed again, lunging for a thrust at its right eye.  Except, her target wasn't there when her arms reached full extension.  Instead, the head was suddenly yanked backwards until it snagged on some of the anchored seats.  To Katarzhyna's horror, the whole piece of fuselage lifted and swung, coming apart under the stresses.

"Waaa-aaa-aaaaaaaa!" she cried, flipping end over end as she was flung away, just one more piece of scattering debris.  A glimpse of the ground showed jagged rocks coming at her.  The moment before impact stretched like taffy, as if she was falling through a viscous fluid.  In the last half-second, it seemed almost as if she hovered, before everything returned to normal and she landed painfully on the rocks.  Katarzhyna scrambled to her feet, a few dings and minor cuts poking her with pain...and yet, somewhere in the back of her mind she felt that she'd had a much softer landing than the cold equations of physics entitled her to. 

There was no time to fully notice, much less think about such things.  She scrambled to her feet and retrieved the cane, staggering back out onto open ground.  A quick glance around revealed several other survivors, none of them with weapons or defensible positions.  Her inner chess player recognized a hopeless position for what it was, but something deep inside refused to resign.  Terror warred with a kind of manic excitement; the feeling you get when you break the sound barrier for the first time, or pull your aircraft into an Immelmann turn so tight you have to fight unconsciousness as G-forces drain the blood from your brain.  The people who got to fly supersonic jets tended to have certain attributes such as fast reflexes and quick thinking.  A rather exaggerated assessment of one's own skill and efficacy wasn't strictly necessary, but it helped; especially when accompanied by the pure dumb luck it took to get away with it.  So while a part of her brain was sounding the alarm that death was imminent, another part scoffed at the very idea.  Katarzhyna Nikolaeva was too young, too pretty, and just plain not ready to die.

"Throw things at it!  Divide its attention!" she shouted to the others.  A creature that apparently had three brains, three sets of eyes and ears, attached to the same body...  If her hunch was right, maybe a pack of humans scattered around the creature, making noise and throwing things, could act like chaff against a targeting radar.  Deny the beast's minds the ability to cohere, scattering its awareness and ability to act.  With luck, it might be a highly unpleasant sensation, and the beast could be motivated to go off in search of corpses or less annoying prey.  "Hey!  Hey!  Hey!" she shouted, running for the nearest sizable piece of wreckage.  "Over here!"  she shouted, then started pounding on the metal with her cane.  *WHAMWHAMWHAMWHAM*  Only when the three heads turned on her, did the possibility occur to Katarzhyna that the others might just run and leave her to her fate...

OOC:

*(That was lucky, wasn’t it?).

I see what you did there.

In a Friend In Deed, she grew four extra hooves, and in Too Many Pinkie Pies, she was capable of levitation. Plus, using her Pinkie Sense, as in Feeling Pinkie Keen, she can see into the future.

My head-canon on this is that there are two kinds of magic in Equestria: unicorn magic, and "Deep Magic."  Unicorn magic is more flashy and abstract, involving books and spells, and requiring a "wand" (unicorn horn).  "Deep Magic" is more subtle (no glowing light or special effects), and everypony can do it.  It is more direct, intuitive, right-brained.  To use human examples: unicorn magic is akin to Western "Ceremonial Magick," with its grimoires and sigils, geometric, astrological, and alchemical correspondences, etc.  "Deep Magic" is more like Eastern qigong, tai chi, or Michael Jordan getting amazing "hang time" on his way to a basket.  There are no spells or even direct mental effort; it's simply "being in tune" with the EquestriaVerse and bending probability in one's favor.  Applejack does it when she applebucks, knocking apples out of a tree and causing them to neatly fall into her buckets without bruising or bouncing off branches and scattering all over the place.  Pegasi do it when they fly; if subjected to ordinary physics, they'd never get off the ground.  Standing on clouds, etc.

Pinkie Pie, arguably the most right-brain oriented of the bunch, is simply a master of Deep Magic, even if she doesn't really know--much less know how--she's doing it.

Pinkie does touch the portal, just before Luna pulls her back.  Perhaps that was enough for her to enter a coherent quantum superposition state with her counterpart, so that each would have the other's knowledge...

@@Feather Gem,

That comic is awesome!  Spider Pinkie!  Or is it Pink Widow?  Arachnia Girls: Coming Soon to a Theater Near You!  And yes, the dolls will be creepy.

When the giant ripped the tree out of the ground, Sunyatay's eyes went wide, then she instinctively faded to invisibility.  I need to make a shield spell around him, she thought, glancing toward the colt, but how can I make it strong enough to withstand--  Instead of wielding it as a weapon, he...hugged it?  Like a shy foal hiding behind his mother's leg.  Sunyatay shook her head to clear the boggle, returning to translucence.  The colt back-trotted toward her, coming up along side.  Then he spoke to her.  As if she was actually somepony, and not a ghost or monster to run away from.

"Sorry, but I don't know what to do in cases like this. Usually things that big would only try to eat me, or stomp on me, or both." He cleared his throat. The goosebump from seeing the giant uprooting the tree was still there. "At least he didn't seem to be very aggressive."

"Maybe you could tell him not to be afraid?  That we want to be his friends?  Sorry, I...don't have much luck with that myself.  What do you think I should do?  He hasn't noticed me yet, and I don't want to scare him.  Should I disappear?"  Sunyatay felt a sudden realization: she didn't want to.  For once...the first time since her initial disappearance...she was having an actual conversation with somepony.  And he was nice.  But if the giant was scared of an ordinary unicorn, how would he react to a "ghost?"  Well, maybe he's got good reason to be scared of ordinary unicorns.  At least when ponies get scared of me they don't attack, because why attack a ghost?  But if ponies look at him and see a 'Giant Monster' then maybe they would attack, and try to drive him away so he wouldn't step on them or their houses.  He's gonna notice the colt is talking to somepony other than him.  But if I try to put my cloak back on he might see the movement, and that would be scary too, especially if he saw before I got it in place.  Given her own ill fortune with attempts to relate to other ponies, Sunyatay decided to wait for the colt's advice. 

At the very least, this would have really been a great chance to really look at Celestia's mindset and how the mistakes she may have made in the past have forced her to better herself. Or something, I don't know, at least try, DHX! This had so much potential, but it was wasted more than the money spent on The Lone Ranger.

I agree with what you say here, except I think that DHX really did try, given the massive failure-bomb they were handed.

"We want to market some creepy therianthropic dolls to compete with the 'Bratz' franchise, and we want to do it as a My Little Pony tie-in."

"Uh...what."

"The purple one's the main character right?  Didn't you guys just turn her into a princess?  So just write up something where she gets turned human, goes to high school, and has to become the Prom Queen.  Kinda like Pretty in Pink meets Mean Girls or something like that.  But there's got to be a scene where the girl characters are turned into catgirls with pointy ears and furry tails.  That's the key scene.  Oh, and we don't want to put feet on the dolls, so they all have to wear knee-boots with platform heels like go-go dancers."

"But...go-go dancers..." *shakes head, derpy-rattle SFX*  "...Twilight isn't a solo protagonist in MLP.  The theme of the show is how she and her friends, especially the ones we call the 'Mane 6' relate to each other.  See?" *displays the image of the rest of the M6 gathered with Twilight*

"There's six of them?  Great!  That means that instead of buying just one Barbie, our market will need to buy all six!  And they're different colors, so we can use the same molds for all of them, just put different dyes into the plastic!  What, why are you looking at me like that?  You'll think of something.  Oh, and we want Twilight to have a love interest.  It wouldn't hurt if he looked a bit like the sparkly vampire in the other Twilight.  And see if you can turn all the kids into zombies.  Zombies are big right now." 

"The bronies'll kill us."

"'Bronies?'"   

"Adult fans of the show, most of them male.  Think of the fandom for Star Trek or Star Wars, except that they like ponies."

"Do they buy any product?"

"Yeah, actually.  A lot of them do."

"Then they'll like that the dolls are sexy!  This is great!"

"Uh...look, bronies don't just watch the show and buy toys, they analyze it.  They post on forums and make YouTube videos...  Remember that fan-made Fighting is Magic game awhile back?  Did you see what a quality product that was?  Bronies.  They're that engaged with the show.  They're gonna kill us."

"We're clearing you for about 70 minutes of screen time.  I'm sure you guys will make it all work."

O.O

---

Remember all the hue and cry when the concept dolls came out and the first EG trailer was released?  People had good reason to expect bad things because it really was a recipe for failure.  EG had a lot of potential to be horrible, too.  It's saddening because EG could have been in the top tier of animated films (better than, say, Brave), but instead was relegated to being better than the direct-to-video CGI Tinkerbell movies and others of that ilk.

*fires Revival Tent Cannon*

"Welcome brothers and sisters to Brother Love's Traveling Pinkie Pie Friendship, Fun, and Salvation Show!  Would you like to be REDEEEEEEEMED from a life of loneliness and despair?  Would you like to have meaning and purpose to your life?  Would you like to live in a world of clouds and rainbows and colorful ponies?  I am here today to tell you the Good News that you CAN!  You can leave this tent with a changed life and a happy song on your lips, if you will receive Pinkie Pie into your heart today!  Can I hear a Kumquat?"

"KUMQUAAAAAAAAT!"

"Preach it, brother!  Pickle Barrel!"

"Kumquat, brothers and sisters, kumquat.  Now if you would please turn in your hymnals to #26:"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czOlT05QABk

"Ohhhhh kumquatkumquatpicklebarrelcherrychangachimicherrrykumquatchimicherrychanga!  Pickle Barrel brothers and sisters, the Spirit of Pinkie is upon us tonight!  Can I have a kumquat!"

"KUMQUAAAAT!"

"Would you like to have the Spirit of Pinkie Pie in your life?  Would you like to bring laughter and smiles wherever you go?  Then come on down to this altar, and let your life be CHAAAAANGED by the Magic of Friendship!  Kumquat, Pickle Barrel Chimicherrychanga, it can happen for you right now if you'll just come on down..."

*jawdrop*  I thought that was a poorly-executed Pinkie Pie until I saw the cutie mark!  Looked there to see who it was supposed to be before noticing the horn.  Can you imagine, if Hasbro had acquired the contract for Star Wars toys?  "How come the Millennium Falcon toy is an octagon?  Why does the Han Solo action figure have a ponytail?  And Chewbacca is not pink!"

Hasbro!  Look!  At your own packaging!  Twilight Sparkle is right there! 

Another part of it is that it's awfully hard for a child character to have adventures--especially dangerous, exciting adventures--if there are caring parents or other Responsible Adults in the picture.  So we get things like Hogwarts being ridiculously dangerous for a school full of children and teenagers, and no Parents of Twilight saying, "Your Highness, you want our daughter to go into the Everfree Forest and face Nightmare Moon unarmed and unprotected, with a bunch of other unarmed and unprotected ponies she's only just met?  Whatever you're smoking to make your mane and tail like that, with all due respect, it's time to back away from the bucking pipe, Your Highness!" 

"My OC," by Pablo Picasso.

WRT Sunset's Heel-Face Turn, the current Sunset Shimmer-themed Forum banner did make me reconsider my opinion.  The center of Sunset's cutie mark is a yin-yang, symbol of the dynamic balance of opposite polarities.  In a technically correct yin-yang, the greatest extent of one hue always contains a seed of the other.  So maybe her sudden return to the light isn't such a big plot-hole after all?  Of course, as with everything EG, more time to develop this sure would have been nice.

Another thing that just came to mind: When Sunset was Celestia's student, she was not directed to learn the Magic of Friendship (at least not in the practical sense of "go out and make some actual friends") as Twilight was.  The Elements of Harmony were not in play, so there was no apparent need for Celestia to send Sunset to find Bearers for them, or at least not yet.  Sunset left her whole world behind, with nopony there (family, friends) that she would regret losing.  There is no indication that Sunset had any pony friends. 

EG is full of references to S1E1.  In that episode we notice that on the cusp of her new student's growth into power, Celestia's highest priority is for her to make. friends.  Early in our introduction to Twilight, we see her galloping past friendly ponies who say 'hello' to her, but she doesn't even notice.  Could Sunset have had this kind of emotional distance too?  "Other ponies" as a kind of abstraction that don't quite matter as much as the abstractions in her books...  But with Sunset, Celestia does what the Yoda/Guru character usually does: trains her disciple in the use of arcane powers.  She teaches her about the Elements and grants her access to books about them in the Royal Library.  There she learns things about the Element of Magic that Twilight does not yet know, and becomes corrupted by the promise of limitless power. 

If her fillyhood was anything like Twilight's, she might have been harboring seeds of hate.  In "Lesson Zero," we see that Twilight was so traumatized by Magic Kindergarten that she goes completely bonkers at the possibility of a single "Tardy" assignment.  She is terrified of the prospect of being sent back.  So much so that she becomes dangerous, using a spell to take over the minds of other ponies (sound familiar?).

Twilight has friends.  She doesn't want to hurt the CMC's, she wants to "help" them, whether they need it or not.  But what if she'd never befriended the rest of the Mane 6, and learned what it is to be part of a web of close, caring relationships?  What if she saw young fillies like the CMC's as hateful little monsters, more versions of the enemies who made her early childhood so miserable?  Might her course have taken a darker turn?

So perhaps we could see Celestia's directive to Twilight to make friends as an example of subtle development in her character.  She's realized the error she made with Sunset, and wants to make sure that Twilight doesn't follow in her hoof-steps.  Another example of subtle character development in Celestia: in S1E1, we learn that she imprisoned her own sister in the Moon for a thousand years because she didn't know how to properly deal with Luna's anger and jealousy.  She could wield the Elements, but she didn't truly understand the Magic of Friendship herself.  But at the end of S1E2, she's learned, and she starts working to rebuild their relationship.  At the end of "Return of Harmony," Discord is returned to his stony imprisonment.  But Celestia doesn't leave him there for long.  Headcanon: maybe a conversation with Luna let her know just how horrible such an imprisonment can be?  /Headcanon.  Aside: we learn from Discord that he was conscious while turned to stone, able to hear what ponies around him were saying.  Imagine the horror.  Anyway, Celestia brings him to the M6 and risks the fate of Equestria so that she will not repeat the terrible mistakes of her past.

Thoughts?