--Thunder Bolt--

Sunyatay pulled back out of the wall and watched quizzically as the visiting pony...conjured pieces of wood?  Then he assembled them into a rather convincing simulation...if it was a simulation...of a sleeping Timberwolf, curled up against her door.  Once he disappeared back inside, she approached it cautiously.  It's either a very advanced Conjuration spell, or illusion magic... she thought.  Probably illusion magic.  Conjuration on that scale would knock most ponies out for a week, especially if it's actually magically animated!  Still, even a very probable hypothesis required testing before acceptance, so she gingerly reached out a hoof, which passed right through.  As if that wouldn't happen anyway, she thought, rolling her eyes.  Then she realized: He put that there to keep me away!

Poking her head back through the wall, she saw that he was reading her journal!  Whether he'd make much sense of its contents was anypony's guess.  It was written to aid her own recollection, not communicate to an audience.  Without a supply of bits, she didn't know where her next blank book was coming from, so the writing was densely packed with abbreviations and acronyms, efficiently utilizing the space around complicated geometric diagrams, some of them magically animated.  The one he was currently looking at was captioned, "Ennea. as path in icosa space."  The animated drawing started out with the appearance of an icosahedron¹ in outline.  Then each vertex of the figure was linked to its neighboring vertices by lines crossing through the interior.  The figure rotated, then stopped.  A set of lines changed color, revealing an enneagram.  The other lines faded, and the image rotated to reveal the enneagram shape as a three-dimensional form.  A colored ray reverberated around it, following the lines in sequence.  Magically important ratios and numbers like phi or the square root of 3 appeared briefly as the ray passed their locations in the figure.  Finally, the lines of the first path turned violet.  The figure rotated again, highlighting a second enneagram path as seen from the new direction, and again, illustrating the geometric and mathematical relationships between the paths.

Sunyatay withdrew from the wall again.  Gritting her teeth, she concentrated on becoming more real.  "Please don't read that!  It's private!" she said, her voice soft and hollow on the breeze.  Then she ran around toward the back of the house, so he wouldn't be frightened by her "ghostly" form if he came out the front.  "You're welcome to stay and you can have the f--"  *whump*  *whump*  The trees shook with each rumble, each getting louder than the one before.  Then, a loud, creaking moan.  Wha...?  Hugging the contours of her shelter, Sunyatay peeked around a corner hoping to be able to keep track of the pony if he came out, and spot the...whatever it was...in time to figure out if it was a threat or not.

OOC:

Notes:

1. An icosahedron is a twenty-sided polyhedron with 20 triangular faces, the fifth Platonic polyhedron.  The d20 gaming die is an icosahedron.   

"...and now let's paint in some happy little trees..."

And just because I don't know when I'll actually get a chance to caption Blue's avatar, a bonus caption:

@@Blue:

"While the scientific application of reductionism is a useful epistemic tool, its failure as the metaphysical basis for a philosophy may be demonstrated through a simple thought experiment: consider a sphere.  It can be constructed of any material.  Stone, metal, marshmallow, whatever you choose.  Alone in space, it provides no possible clue to the existence of a mutually-attractive gravitational force that becomes manifest as soon as a second sphere is introduced.  This is the principle of synergy, and it is only made manifest in the interrelationsh--" *sees Applejack coming*  "Nnnnnope!"  *Confused look on the face of the Manehattan professor he was talking to*

"How did I get this phoenix cutie mark, you ask?  Let's just say that it involved fire, and a lot more pain than I care to recount."

I surrender!.....my body

Sunyatay's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of trotting hooves.  She looked and saw a tired-looking pony with worn saddlebags on the verge of falling apart.  A traveler?  Now?  But I'm not even close to being ready!  I haven't even gotten started yet!  Instead of trotting on past her house or avoiding it warily, he approached, peeked through her window, then went inside.  Well...I suppose I don't really mind if he wants to sleep there.  He can even have the fruit if he--

"Well look what do we have here."

Is it the fruit--or my books?! she thought.  Her saddlebags, bulging with a modest collection of books of spells, magic theory, geometry, and math were her only possessions besides a simple cloak that was placed neatly over the saddlebags to insure they wouldn't get wet if her roof leaked.  The books were irreplaceable; her journal of magic research even more so.  Careful not to make a noise and startle him, she slipped up to her house and pushed her head and neck through a wall with only the faintest magical ripple flickering across the surface, so she could watch what he was doing.

Ah!  It's working now.  I had refreshed it and it still came up with our regular avatars, but now it's working properly.  Yay internet magic!

It doesn't seem to be working.  Is it too late to do it now that you and Starshine have posted, or am I just doing it wrong somehow?  Do I need to edit so the first post is just the code, and put Sunyatay's post in later?

Yay :3

 

I'll get a reply coming up soon. Anyway, would you like to use the character code feature? It can change our displayed usernames and avatars to that of our OCs, and a custom title too

How does that work?  Does it just work in the RP thread, or does it change our avatars and usernames throughout the Forum?

2NE1:

I saw this video on iO9, cited as an example of "music from the future."   I haven't heard of any of those other groups.  Also, is it just me, or are K-pop girls/women utterly adorable?

The In-Character Thread is up!  I've started out with a post for Sunyatay.  She's approximately halfway between Ponyville and Zecora's house.

OOC Thread

Outcasts of the Everfree Forest

Sunyatay sighed as she reached her "home."  It was more of an improvised shelter really, not much to look at.  She'd studied magic, not architecture, and she'd hoped to be able to move into Ponyville before too long.  Maybe I'd better go ahead and build something more permanent, she thought.  Her last foray into Ponyville had been an even bigger failure than previous attempts, and that was saying something.  Her efforts at trying to meet other ponies or help out only managed to frighten them.  Now they had a whole legend built up, of "the Ghost Mare of the Everfree Forest."  For a moment she again considered trying to go to meet Zecora, but decided against it.  The zebra was always making strange potions, and if Sunyatay startled her at the wrong time she could cause a dangerous accident.  The guilt of actually hurting somepony wasn't something she wanted to live with.

What if...instead of a house, I made a way station?  Then ponies might come to me!  I could build it deeper in the forest along the path and keep it stocked with food for travelers.  Anypony trying to go through the Everfree would be happy to find a safe place to stay the night, right?  And if they needed healing or anything like that that I could do without being noticed, maybe after awhile it could even become known as a good place.  Then maybe I could make myself visible enough to talk to somepony without looking like a ghost.  I might even get stronger just building it!  She started pacing back and forth, envisioning what she would want it to look like, thinking of the things she'd need to create a design and begin construction. 

"I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, you can't prove anything!"

"Greetings!  I come from the Chrome Empire, home of the shiny, shiny Chrome Ponies!"

@@Gabriel Smith,

Link to your blog?

In my earlier post, I wasn't quite clear, as I wasn't really targeting "Cliche OC's" as much as the curious tendency of many in the brony community to condemn our world in comparison to Equestria, but then, as soon as they get a chance to simulate living there in an RP, they go and make it a bombed-out ruin/Gothic nightmare/some other sort of gritty/grimdark/doom-and-gloom setting.  Maybe it's not the same set of bronies doing both, but it seems a bit weird to me that both behavior patterns seem so common.

"Velcome to Pinkamena's Pleasure Palace.  You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave."

Coming soon to a theater near you: Heavy Metal II: Return of the Sharp-Dressed Man

But the two of you do bring up a subject me and bronydom need to sit down and talk about at some point anyway.

*Curiosity Imperative activated*

What, the tendency of bronies to favor grimdark stories and RP's?  I do find that a bit odd myself, given how many bronies will do the whole "I don't wanna live on this planet anymore!  Humans Are Bastards!  I wanna live in Equestria where it's all Magic of Frienship!  But check out my vampire Fallout Equestria raider OC!" thing.

*Whistles innocently* "I'ma just gonna paint over this 'Garbage-Collector' cutie mark and put a crescent moon on instead.  'Cause, 'Control the Moon' sounds a lot more than 20% cooler!"

Dunno how such obviously distracted and/or sleepy characters make such good ninjas...

I Will Go Down With This Ship

Other than Grimdark Corpse-eater Atlas stomping his way through our nightmares, noooo, no harm done at all!

Haha, I was just about to say, "Corpses?  I didn't see 'carrion eater' anywhere in his bio..."  *Imagines a grimdark version of Atlas in which his "garden" is thousands of victims impaled on stakes a la Vlad "the Impaler" Tepes, aka Dracula, from which he nibbles his victims' flesh like shish kabobs*  *shudder*

Also, I see what you did there:
 

 

Atlas was set to work, plowing the fields and attending to other menial, repetitive tasks. Atlas was scolded when he refused to do work, or tried to take time off.

Eventually, Atlas decided he had enough. One day, Atlas finally snapped.

 

Atlas didn't Shrug, he stomped.

Combat experience?  Optimus, manipulators down.  He fights pretty much every. single. day.  Celestia's battles, that we know of, can be counted on one hand: vs. Nightmare Moon, vs. Discord (historical), vs. Chrysalis.  Tactically, she's 2 and 1, but strategically she's quite the Xanatos, if you look at the way she subtly arranges things to go her way.  Optimus' combat wins have to be in the thousands.  But, Patton would never forgive him for repeatedly failing to "make those other bastards die for their country."

For me the main reason to label an RP "Advanced" is to attract more experienced writers.  A character limit per se doesn't really accomplish that.  It's still possible to godmode for 800 characters' worth of TextSpeak.

Yes, I'm going to go with Regular as the format.  I'm in an Advanced RP, and that 800 character minimum is rather annoying when you're just doing a conversation and don't really have cause to include long descriptive passages.

Sunyatay hasn't been in the Everfree long enough to have built a true home.  She has an improvised shelter not too far from the Ponyville boundary of the Forest.  She'll be closer to Starshine's residence (since Zecora seems to be fairly close to Ponyville).

Are we ready to open the IC thread?

@@Blue Blaze,

Sorry, this is a private RP for the three characters already in it.  There are plenty of good RP's out there to join.  Just a bit of advice: you'll have better luck being accepted into RP's when you have a developed OC bio entered into the Character Database, which you can link to so that prospective GM's can decide if your character is a good fit for their game.  Also, you should apply to public games, rather than private ones.

This needs to be a Death Battle, or an Epic Rap Battle of History. XD  In fairness to Optimus, I'm only talking about his G1 version from the '80's.  I haven't seen subsequent generations of Transformers cartoons, so I can't evaluate his leadership qualities there.  He does have a great voice which (well, in addition to the "he's a ginormous super-robot" bit) inspires confidence.  His force has strong unit cohesion, and they demonstrably hold tactical superiority over their enemies.  Still, Optimus' leadership is primarily military in character, and he has the long-standing primary failing of being unwilling to secure victory against a markedly inferior force.  In fairness to Optimus, the Decepticons are markedly inferior because Optimus is by most standards a superior leader to Megatron.  Nonetheless, who would praise a general who, for 30 years, was unable to secure a strategic victory even though his forces could defeat the enemy tactically in every single confrontation, especially without the difficult dynamic of guerrilla warfare involved?  To quote Sun Tzu, "Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."

In Twilight's case, she is not primarily a general leading a force of warriors in battle.  Still, she does have more success when it comes to dealing with Equestria's enemies.  On the other hand, she did fail some crucial tests of leadership, such as in "The Return of Harmony" (IIRC), where she was not able to counter Discord's "turning" of her friends, and even succumbed to it herself, requiring Celestial intervention.  On the other hand, Discord is a cosmic force of chaos, and Twilight is a teenage girl with magic powers.  Unlike Optimus, Twilight consistently faces superior opponents.  The utility of her primary weapon, the Elements of Harmony, relies on the relationships she is able to maintain with her friends, or in other words, unit cohesion and esprit de corps.

It's been a looong time since I've seen any G1 Transformers, so I can't really compare the social dynamics of the Autobots with the social dynamics of the Mane 6.  Perhaps it could be argued that Optimus does a better job with the internal dynamics of his group (would Discord have been able to divide the Autobots against each other?), while Twilight does better on the battlefield.

I think we can all agree that Twilight has the better writers.

Aside: Seeing as Optimus is an immortal, wise being who has ruled for millennia and is the undisputed leader of his group, perhaps he should be measured not against Twilight (who is really just a newly-minted regent in training), but against Celestia?  She is much closer to being his Equestrian equivalent than Twilight is.