Sean Skyhawk

Not to divert the topic, but looking at this all, well suffice it that it's not the first time I've heard of stuff like this. We magicians faced a similar issue with the US Playing Card Company a couple of years back. Basically, the Bicycle Back design is also held under similar trademark rights by its parent company, much as the characters and setting of "Fighting is Magic" are to Hasbro. What this essentially meant was a stipulation that the back design and other elements could no longer be modified for commercial purposes. Such as, you can't go to PS and make a rainbow version of the Bicycle Rider Back design for the purposes of a new product. THAT led to a lot of butthurt from the magic community, since many effects relied on the use of gaff designs that did JUST THAT. One example would be Paul Harris' effect, Twilight Angels, seen : You can see how much outrage this caused. One company that should have been hit hard would have been Ellusionist, and seeing that they haven't received C&D's yet from the USPCC for their Red Gaff and Ultragaff Decks (which thrive off of this principle alone), let alone their entire original line of playing cards*, I can only assume they were able to make a deal with their sponsors to legally circumvent the regulations. Big pockets, I assume. As for other companies, this was quite a blow for a couple of months. Not to mention... at around the same time, the company was moving from Cincinnati to Erlanger in Kentucky, just across the river, leading to the hiatus in a LOT of magician-popular lines of decks such as Tally-Hos. And we had changes in box design, the short-lived pip "upgrades", cessation of producing standardised gaffs such as double-backs and the like? Bronies, I feel your pain, I witnessed similar things in my field even before MLP became popular. Though there was some hope. Two months before MLP Season 1 came out, the USPCC, having worked with greats like Richard Turner, Paul Harris, and others, released a new deck design that not only satisfied our niche demographic, but also was free from any future possibility of trademark issues. This was the Bicycle 809 Mandolin Back with Traditional Cut cards. I will confess... I thought the design looked a little... girly for my tastes, though the quality far outstripped the cards in the common market. Then again, who am I to judge? I watch cartoon ponies now and have pony toys. Ironic... See for yourself. I think what we see here might be a bit of a clue as to what would happen in the near future. Though I don't have the schadenfreude to point at the bronydom and go like "HA! At least OUR sponsors never set their army of lawyers against us!" I can sort of be thankful it didn't go this far for us magicians. Nonetheless, the magic community has even less leverage over the USPCC's PR than you do for Hasbro's. That even then such a solution can be found says a lot. And for us bronies, I also think the situation could be resolved relatively cleanly. Because of this popularity and the resulting power that comes with it, I am pretty confident that we as a whole have if we stand together on this issue, I still hold onto the hope that a similar resolution can be made concerning Mane6, FiiM, and this whole legal battle... who knows? Perhaps Hasbro can follow in the USPCC's footsteps and make a fair compromise for once. Because what I've seen in these comments and those in other places hint at one feasible option being the very same one that led to the creation of the licensed Bicycle Mandolin backs. Well, signing off now The Peregrine Skyhawk, about.me/skyhawkillusions P.S. My take on the Twilicorn manufactroversy? Two words: Twilight Angels. PPS: Oh, and having seen Lauren's take on the situation and subsequent offer, that essentially makes her our, well, Paul Harris to use to analogy. It definitely helps that great women and men can reach out to help even the meekest of the disenfranchised *though I did notice they've recently eschewed traditional designs and focused more on their newer original patterns starting from Arcane, then Artifice, Infinity, Sultan Republic, Fathom, and now LTD Blue, as opposed to their classics like the Black Tiger, Ghost, Viper, 1800 and Masters/Shadow Masters line.

December 20 each year, or whatever the day before Winter Solstice is. Hearth's Warming Day is obviously inspired by the Christmas holiday which in turn is based off the Pagan celebration of Yule, which marks the Winter Solstice. It only fits Similarly, Nightmare Night corresponds to Samhain (10/31), and its opposite holiday, The Grand Galloping Gala correspond to Beltane (Beltane 2011, 05/01, was within days of the airing of "The Best Night Ever") I know... I'm a lapsed pagan, so forgive those undertones

Hmmm this discussion is very interesting... in any case, I have a somewhat different question: I've been skimming through topics detailing different calendar systems used by humans, especially the intricate Mayan calendar which I use in my diary headers (e.g. the time/date now is 1657hEDT 5/7/2012 12.19.19.9.11 4-Chuen 14-Sek Lord 2), the Julian calendar which is not really that much better than the standard Gregorian system and a recent creation: the Dreamspell calendar by José Argüelles (interesting twist, using 13X28 + 1 as the system as opposed to the standard ~12X30 used in modern times and the 18X20+5 in the Mayan Haab`). All that aside, I've often wondered how ponies would denote the calendar systems. Recall that if Equestria is anything like our world, they'll probably have demarcations for year (one solar cycle), month (one lunar phase cycle), and day (sunrise to sunset). Of course, their year times are most likely to be different - i.e. that they probably don't have 365 days in their year and/or 12 lunations per said year. However, that is not a topic I wish to complicate this discussion with. My main point is that I've seen three variants, excluding the Mesoamerican Long Count which is really more or less a mostly-vigesimal tally independent of any astronomical cycles, or the Maya tzolk'in which is used primarily for astrological purposes. They are: Solar: The dates indicate the position of the earth on its revolution around the sun (or equivalently the apparent position of the sun moving on the celestial sphere, more likely for the MLP verse). Lunar: The dates are purely based on lunar cycles. An example is the Islamic calendar, or the Hijri Qamari calendar. Note: A feature of the Islamic calendar is that a year is always 12 months, so the months are not linked with the seasons and drift each solar year by 11 to 12 days. Lunisolar: Subtly different from a lunar calendar. The date indicates both the moon phase and the time of the solar year. If the solar year is defined as a tropical year, then a lunisolar calendar will give an indication of the season; if it is taken as a sidereal year, then the calendar will predict the constellation near which the full moon may occur. Usually there is an additional requirement that the year have a whole number of months, in which case most years have 12 months but every second or third year has 13. Examples include most "lunar" calendars such as the Chinese calendar (Year of the Dragon anyone?) The last one is quite a mouthful and even I have trouble understanding it, so let me try to explain: Essentially we have a lunar calendar in which each month starts on the new moon, but every two or so years an extra 13th month is used to cover the difference. Otherwise, Winter Wrap up will be way off, for instance. In searching around the forums (just in case anyone has beaten me to the idea), I was trying to find a way to come up with a novel calendrical system that would be of the variety used in the MLPverse. Obviously since we have two princesses rather than one, I figured that the lunar and solar cycles would be given equal respect, unlike what we humans have in the Gregorian system. So I thought of trying to use a lunisolar system, but how to pull it off? One strategy I thought would have been to line up separate solar/lunar calendars such that though both increment simultaneously, they are considered completely separate and neither indicates the position of the others' celestial body (e.g. the solar part tells nothing about the moon's current phase). That's probably a bit cheap, though. Another one I imagined was similar to the Jewish system. Though, obviously, days begin at sunrise not sundown or midnight, I suspected that the years are also incremented through an Anno Mundi system, that is, the number of years since creation. But that's beside the point... In any case, if you were to follow the link, you'll soon see why I thought it extravagantly complex, maybe too much so for the MLPverse (especially when you consider they have festivities for the solstices and equinoxes). I'll still be working on it, but I wanted to ask how you thought it would work, and also how a human could adapt it to his own planetary cycles? Perhaps this could start our own separate "brony calendar system" to determine when the next BroNYcon should be held I dunno

Hey guys, Peregrine Skyhawk here and I'm in a bit of a bind. Ever since I got into the brony community I've been trying to get around to making a life-size pony plushie. Of course, I'd need to select one and only one possibility, so I ended up choosing Rainbow Dash (since my brother likes her too, so we came up with a choice we could both agree on) I'm talking about a soft toy about 4 feet tall from head to hoof. Of course, the overall thing presents itself with logistical problems, which I shall address here: Finding a good pattern; never mind the fact that the final result would have to support itself somehow, it's hard to figure that step out in the first place, despite the disparate sources I've seen. What I wonder is what would be considered a good tried-and-true show-accurate pattern to work from. Cutie marks/eyes. My first assumption was via embroidery but I just don't seem too certain about it... Never mind the various colors I'd need to use. Mane/tail. I can't even wonder what would present itself as a good substitute for rainbow hair that is more than the mohawk used in the Canterlot Twilight Sparkle pillows at Target (I have three of them *squee*). Plus that they are rainbow colored *shudder* which would be a problem in and of itself in my choices. I guess that's about it... I've tried looking in the forums w/o success. All I need is to have someone point me in the right direction as to how to approach a project like this. My mom would be willing (and more than able) to execute said project once we have an overall sense of direction. Thanks for your replies! Sean

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU :facehoof:

okey *phew* at least we now have an alternative

I have not been able to find this anywhere, so let me address this topic: Erypony keeps referring to the writing material used in the MLP franchise as parchment (at least from Canterlot), NOT paper. I don't know what they used for the newspapers in "Ponyville Confidential" (bulk pulp?) but suffice it to say that at least for finer applications such as in books, scrolls, and religious texts, they use parchment as a material. My point? Has anyone ever honestly taken into account the fact that parchment is made out of animal skin? :blink: :blink: ... I suppose that's why they don't have cemeteries in the ponyverse... leave nothing to waste it seems.

WHAT?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA LOOOLLL!!!1!!!!!1!1 I got as far as No. 13 and then I saw where this was going; at the end I totally lost it right there . So you've watched The Matrix and loved it? Speak of Discord, I was just rewatching it a couple hours ago, only this time I was fastforwarding to the lobby scene... classic. I reckon the minigun scene is something we've all been tempted to try upon changelings Ah well back to the topic, I must admit I respectfully disagree with a few of your points. Your logic is sound, but it is based upon two assumptions, both of which might prove erroneous: 1. That you're not only the sole human present in Equestria at that time, but that you're are the absolute first to ever show up there (Plausible but unprovable) 2. That ponies only eat flowers/hay/sweets (demonstrably false) For the former point, I did not account for this assumption in the original argument. I'd somewhat imagined when I formed this scenario that humans may have set foot on Equestrian soil before, though perhaps years apart and never in a group. It's kind of like a premise found in older MLP generations (forgive me), which treat humans as either known entities from the past or myth. All the same, there's no way to prove that the locals haven't had human contact before... perhaps the present generation does not have the overall cultural memory of such things, happens all the time (I mean, look at the true old mare's tale of NMM). Then again, you might be right. But in any case my main point is that I don't believe that they would necessarily be super-afraid of humans even if you were the first* (then again, they freaked out at the equine Zecora so I might be wrong). Why do I believe this? Because it has been demonstrated that in nature if an isolated environment has been shown to be pristine to humans, upon first contact the local animals do not exhibit the instinctive impulse to run away. Examples: the dodos of Mauritius island and penguins in Antarctica. Of course, in the former case we were assholes to them, but in the latter, penguins have been known to get within closer range to researchers than is the norm of most animals (just barely far enough that straight-up hugging is not possible). If that is known for mere animals, then more sentient beings capable of approaching the situation rationally would give you a better chance at acceptance. I cannot stress how important being nice is... otherwise you'll pretty much be Everfree-bound forever. And IMHO, being a paleo-barbarian counts as "not nice." As for the second point, I am afraid I must respectfully prove you wrong. It has been demonstrated in the show that ponies consume other varieties of food and drink. Please see this page: http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Food_and_beverage/By_episode The show has demonstrated varieties of fruits, vegetables, bread products, milk and presumably dairy products (Boast Busters, anyone?), and eggs at the very least. You make a good point surrounding forms of meat from the forest, but there is no doubt considering this information that humans can easily eat in Equestria without needing any physical modifications (lifestyle modifications, on the other hand, maybe). Eggy in a basket (a breakfast choice found in V for Vendetta)? No probs Whoo, this has been a very interesting discussion! As for the last parts, I say no more (though I agree), as that falls outside our scope... And that is why I said a week at most, with one person. So I'll hear you out if you have any more to say, but beyond that you've answered with your opinions on the question, so after this, perhaps someone else might also provide such thought-stimulating ideas. * Something irrelevant I wanted to share: I once imagined that ponykind was initially created by humans (designer pets?) and then eventually rebelled against and destroyed their creators, a la "The Second Renaissance". And that's how Equestria was made Another point that I've given a bit of thought to as well... I don't think the idea of going w/o clothes would serve you well in the long run. Sure that approach is more convenient, but do realize: It's been made clear in a few episodes that ponies see any form of clothing as a mark of civility, like we do. Every time I saw your original reply it painted quite a disturbing image in my head, and not because of imagining someone naked. No, I imagined that ponies would see the human visitor as naught more than a wild scary animal w/o clothes, like the savage wildman in our own legends. However, the way I imagined it, once a pony saw that the visitor, though foreign, wore at least some form of clothing, at least there was a better chance at reasoning with him in their mind. Otherwise, that chance drops dramatically. As for washing? throw in paracord, powder detergent you know what? If you gain their trust you'll probably end up being able to get some at Carousel Boutique and binder clips and you have it made. Head to the nearest river and voila