SFyr

18 hours ago, pteraptor said:

I would onlly expect fur and feathers on an unnatural, hypermagical creature like an alicorn.

Why, though?

Body-wise, pegasi seem to be interchangable with unicorns and earth-ponies, but they have feathered wings. So likely, if unicorns and earth ponies are only-fur, pegasi have both fur and feathers. Moreover, structurally speaking manes and tails are essentially long fur. It would be more likely that pegasi have no feathers, rather than no fur.

And going by our real world standards, all races are just about as relatively unnatural/magical--alicorns are just the most "powerful." And, given they can have children with non-alicorns, there has to be a very close genetic linkage, if there's any notable deviation at all. I would almost suggest, unless magic is weirdly at play, each pony carries the genetic code (even alicorns) for all races, and expression/alleles or epigenetics becomes more of a concern then distinct genetic code. Which again, would suggest both fur and feathers are coded for for all of them, even if not all races express it.

In a way fur and feathers are actually pretty similar structures (same material, some structural similarities, etc); and with cartoon genetics I wouldn't be surprised if theirs drifted a good bit away from our normal grouping of what is furred and what is feathered, and how it's kept apart.

I've kinda just operated under the idea that it's regional, like body hair or mammal coat patterns. Certain regions have a slightly different expression of the same code, yielding feathers on some extremities and fur on others, etc. And, at the joints in between you might get some middle ground, or intermediate structure--or in other places too, just due to imperfect expression and the like.

I am not an overly experienced writer, but to me, it seems like there's a few major points to creating an emotional scene:

1. Character empathy or relevence; basically, make sure the characters mean something to the reader. Different characters will hold different attachment to the reader, and in order to be emotionally invested in a scene, I believe you need to be emotionally invested in the characters playing a part in it. This goes beyond being just the main character, or the character that the reader spends the most time with. Said characters simply need that built up, which can occur in minor characters, or be absent in main characters (unsympathetic or uninteresting main characters can be a bane of many stories IMO).
2. Impact or stakes; I feel emotional scenes, in order to be impactful, need to have something on the line. Something important needs to be either at stake, or involved with the exchange. Could be life, livelihood, relationships, or feelings, but it needs to matter.
3. Overall effective conveyance; basically, writing skill. It's pretty unavoidable that there's a lot of little quirks and skills that make the hits of an emotional scene connect, be it smoothness, effective word choice, or overall good conveyance of the scene/actions/thoughts. There's a lot of little mistakes people can make that help kill the drama, or drag readers out of the experience. Just as well, there's a lot of little details that can help pull them in. I think that's a much more complicated manner though.

If you want some practice doing characters, I personally found this to be really fun:

http://etyas-shenanigans.tumblr.com/post/142804660995/pony-randomizer-challenge-here-are-the-rules-you

Basically to take a screenshot, then force yourself to do a new piece/new OC with the qualities/colors/etc you have on screen. Wound up getting one of my favorite personal OCs from it, myself.

More than likely it may hit a issues if it gets enough popularity, even if it's free. Hasbro might (and has) gone after completely-free projects and shut them down with cease and desist orders. I can't remember the exacts of it, but if I recall correctly, it has to do with a strange setup of how copyright and trademark laws operate--part of ensuring you maintain exclusive rights to your intellectual property and the like in particular cases depends on how you've behaved regarding protecting it in the past, as in, you have to actively defend your trademark and crud for it to keep as high of a level of protection. Even if it loses Hasbro some public favor/revenue, it's legally in its best interest to go after really notable fan projects that are infringing on trademarks/copyrights that they own, for the sake of being able to better secure their property in cases where it's damaging, or just in general.

I could be wrong (I am NOT well versed in this stuff), but that's what I recall/can find online regarding the matter. Honestly I think if you want to get to completion, you're better of not advertising it/releasing it when it's already complete, or simply keep it quiet/unimpressive. Plenty of fan stuff isn't touched, it's more when something is particularly notable that it seems to get sniped.

I did find a few things to glance at, though:

https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/BasicFacts.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_infringement

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/investigation-are-fan-games-legal

And, it's noteworthy that fangames have been shut down by companies in the past even when they're free, Hasbro included. I particularly remember them shutting down Fighting is Magic, a really promising fighter using the mane 6 characters, which I think was going to be free and expanded to include other characters from the show. The staff of the fan project stopped/scrapped it after receiving a cease and desist letter from Hasbro, and went on to instead work on successfully fund Them's Fightin' Herds on Indigogo (and if I recall, Lauren Faust even got involved at that point and helped them with world-building the world for TFH). Though, I've still seen some conventions playing modified/unmodified builds of the game at conventions, as they had gotten far enough to make it playable, and people still had digital copies of the leaked build when development died.

Cuuute. Also, props for this! It's always lovely to see someone branching into writing, and I personally love works touching on Luna and the nightguard!

Also, I'm still quite flattered to have North Star included.

I hope you continue!

@mirroredsea! First off, I think I've told ya before but your art is just amazingly lovely to see. I'll toss a few questions of my own than I enjoy asking artists I don't know a lot about. Hope you don't mind a few different questions at once?

1. What inspired you originally to take up art, and why did you continue with it to where you are? Like, was there a major source of inspiration starting out, or some major thing you were working towards?
2. Do you have any major projects on the horizon? Personally, I have a bunch of ideas of huge projects I may "eventually" want to get into, and I'd love to hear what other people have planned in a similar vein. Can be completely unrealistic, like, "this would be amazing but impractical" of course, haha.
3. What would you say is your favorite part about the whole process of creating and drawing your works?

@ZethaPondererI think there's a missing piece there, especially since actions (or results) can occur without intent, from what I understand of it. Like, lack of awareness being the result of an accident seems to be devoid of intent on the part of the person, but, it still comes from who/what/how they are. I think this is separate from intent.

Personally, I see it more like this. Actions speak the loudest, sure, but they can also be very telling of the person in general; often, actions arise from people's habits, how they understand/instinctively interact with the world, and judging people on them has some basis because it judges them based on how they've carried themselves and built themselves into being. A person who is terrible at complimenting people is someone who's probably not put a ton into practicing it, and someone who comes off as rude or insensitive is probably someone who either doesn't show a strong value for empathy/pleasantry in interacting with people, or hasn't put enough effort/time into developing it yet. I don't think there's a solid dismissal of actions for being "just how we are," since so much of how we act, think, or behave in general is the product of environment, habit, and our own self-guided development as people. The person who dismisses their own faults/strengths as "just how they are" kinda misses how much control we have over ourselves.

MEANWHILE. Intention seems to be the truest picture of who we are, in my mind. It's also the thing we can never truly see as outsiders, just as we will never 100% understand the person we're considering. I tend to hold people more to their intentions rather than their actions, as quite often, you get bad actions from good/neutral intentions, where actions are only bad because the person acting them out doesn't understand something or another. Additionally, actions tend to be judged from the perspective of what result they have, while they're committed based on a prediction or evaluation. And, this prediction/evaluation, the true core of actions from the actor side, are guided by intent. So, you're a lot closer to judging the person themselves if you go by intent.

So yeah. I think intentions matter a lot more if you're judging people for who they are, but actions can still be telling of who they've been or how they've taken charge of their life. But, I do think it's possible for some actions/results to occur without intent, but that depends on where you're drawing the line. Someone takes a step forward with intent, however small, but someone trips without intent. That lack of awareness is habit if nothing else, but more likely situational--an "action" attributed to them when their intent did not include or effect it in isolation.

To be honest, I've already started referring to the mane 7. I think she will by no means replace the mane 6, but I think she's a lot more than a side character, and has become as central as the others. And at least for finales/opening episodes, it seems she's already become a huge focus, so I think in a way she may become one of the centrally-focused characters for the time being, like Twilight was/is.

Terrace

  @K.Rool Addict, maybe so, haha. I think that's still out of my realm of knowledge a bit. Although, there's still the cost-to-benefit deal; sometimes an extra 30% cost for 40% performance is still worth it, even if you end up using less of it. And, to my knowledge computer cycles can be so rapid nowadays that communication latency becomes one of major limiting aspects of computing, which is very much tied to how close things are/how long it takes to retrieve/use/store data.

I wouldn't be surprised if consoles/gaming PCs are a good bit behind where the edge is though, except maybe top tier systems that pay to have the best on the market. Still, it seems like small components are still being used for numerous things commercially: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_count (Note Apple A10, used for the iPhone 7)

Though, thinking about it, maybe I'm arguing more for the most cutting of edge being near its wall, and less consoles/typical gaming PCs that have to be cheap enough to be commercially viable en mass. There could be a good bit of time where improvements largely comes from this cutting edge becoming cheaper to get a hold of.

@K.Rool Addict, I think it changes the methods of improvement just a little? Supercomputers are made not only by getting the best parts, but also stacking a ton of them together and coordinating them, which means more cooling, more power draw, more expense, more components devoted to coordination--plus the length of communication pathways between parts may increase? (Which may be somewhat negligible, admittedly, but there's still a reason why RAM and cache memory is located so close to the CPU; it really does make a difference.)

I could see consoles and gaming PCs just going the route of getting bigger, which is fair, but regardless of whatever they do, I think it comes down to a cost/benefit matter. I guess I don't have any strong data on this point to back it up, but it seems like there would be less and less performance-to-cost as you cross this point, unless manufacturing parts gets dramatically cheaper? Which in turn would still mean less benefits from hardware sources, which has been one of the major sources of improvement.

But as I said, this area I'm a little less familiar on (yay markets and manufacturing costs), so don't take my word for it; you might be right that it's less of an issue, but, Moore's law and the steadily/predictably increasing transistor density has been one of the core driving forces behind better computing for decades, and, it's hitting its limit to my knowledge, or at least hitting the point where the limit is on the horizon save for improvements in other areas.

There's a notable principle called Moore's Law that I think has been a notable factor since around 1965; basically, transistors (one of the backbone components in all circuitry and modern electronics) are predicted to double in density per square inch every two years, give or take. Supposedly, this has had a large hand in increasing memory size, computation speed, and overall capability of computer components that deal with processing/logic. Heck, designing new components tends to play off of predicted hardware in other areas following this observation, even if they don't exist yet.

However, partially going off the word of a teacher or two of mine, we are either hitting a wall, or can see it on the horizon, where shrinking the components actually harms their functionality; at a certain point, they're just so small that they don't work right, face interference/instability, or are simply impossible to create. If I'm doing my research right, researchers and manufacturers have created transistors as small as 7-5nm, but at that point, noise/interference and quantum tunneling actually becomes a huge factor, and heck, at that point you're practically working with molecules of width anyways. You can't really decrease size much further at that point.

Anyways, so far, Moore's Law has been a core part of rapidly increasing specs/supercomputers/etc, as transistors and similar components being made smaller and smaller yields better performance and specs. And since graphics depends on specs, I think it's reasonable to foresee some kind of diminishing returns occur before too long, or at least generations where you can't really rely on better components to make much of a difference, and instead simply need more.

On the flip side, supposedly the plateau of miniaturization and transistor density leads into trying to increase efficiency in other ways, like better programming methods or redesigning basic computer architecture. Regardless, we likely can't rely on things to improve at the same speed they have been for much longer. Certain areas still have a good bit of improvement left, and may relatedly keep going as fast as it has been, but there is a wall there that we'll either see very slow progress afterwards, or some kind of massive change in computing in a different way to get comparable results. If I recall, this is actually a part of why quantum computing has garnered a lot of interest, because it would theoretically be a massive improvement over binary architecture. And with games, you are likely to see a lot of improvements from non-hardware sources, like simply redesigning rendering/etc methodology to be more efficient.

@CinnamonPop I command yee to return!

Am I doing this right?

Ew.

Gross.

Why would worst pone do this?

Obviously this is only a temporary distraction from the eventual Luna takeover, as she is the most fabulous of all internet horses

29 minutes ago, AppleDashPoni said:

I've just looked into it - you can only see your own donations. It does appear on your profile, but only to yourself. Even *I* can't see your donation amount, and in theory I have an all-access pass

I've been looking around more, and, by the looks of it if a user has donated, you can see a tab for how much they've donated whether you're signed in or logged out. If the user hasn't donated, there isn't a tab for it in their profile.

Some cases (anonymous donations?) the amount isn't listed, but, the tab still shows up? Not sure.

Quick screenshot of interest, taken while not signed in:

I think it shows up if you've donated; I'm seeing it on my own profile, so, not donating = not showing up = it's visible to everyone?

Regardless, if it really is something that's now made publically available... it seems inadvisable for that to continue being the case.

Hard to name something odd that's normal where you live, but I know some random US things that are a bit odd to some:

Every year towards the middle/end of winter, we consult an ageless groundhog named Phil for a weather prediction for the following six weeks, who's taken care of by a group of well-dressed men called "the inner circle," who communicate with said groundhog.

We host competitions and have restaurants specializing in roadkill, or dead animals picked off the roads after being struck down by vehicles.

Canned processed cheese. Additionally, cheese is considered a flavor to some; wheels are hard to come by; and yellow/orange cheese is the default mental image most people here get of how cheese is supposed to look.

@@Buck Testa, if you enjoy writing it, it shouldn't be a big issue. Do your best to make it an awesome story, let your interest shine through your work, and do you best to sell it to people~ All you can really do, and well, focusing too hard on numbers of views/comments/followers is probably just going to discourage you and distract you from writing. In time you might even build up a following, but it can take time for many.

(Also, I think the sex tag has a similar issue, and enough people know that gore = descriptions of wounds/death are possible; gorefest stories will be obvious from the introduction, as are those that are just on the realistic side.)

@@Buck Testa, major moments like first upload do seem big, but I think I've seen quite a few fics only really catch on when they make the front page, or get posted somewhere/get picked up by something with a lot of followers. Just keep going writing it the best you can, and doing what you can to promote it; pretty much half of any creative job is learning how to market your work.

Also, I'm not really knowledgeable in what makes a fic successful, so I can't really comment too hard on that. Personally, and in full honesty, it's not a fic I would read because of the strong emphasis on canon characters in human form; I'm among the demographic that doesn't go for that in a story, which isn't to say the story isn't worth reading, just that I'm an example of someone who your fic isn't for. You might get a division from the dark/gore tag, but human would be much the same. You have a group of people you're after capturing the attention of, and if that group is smaller, you need to keep in mind it might be harder to get the same level of traction as a more general fic appealing to what fans of the show are already known to like (likable/upbeat characters, friendship, ponies, and adventure).

That said, I suggest not really letting yourself get discouraged or hung up on numbers. If you really believe in your story, as something you want to write about, and as something you think people will enjoy reading, then just go for it for its own sake. And if you can, sink your hooks in early; like, find out what makes your story interesting, why people should read it, and see if you can work it into the first chapter if not the first introduction they see.

(And don't forget to publicize when you can)

What's your current method of getting it noticed/out there more?

Also, could easily be divided by whoever likes the themes/tags you're using. For example, some may shy away from crossover, human, sad, or anything of the like; not a lot you can do there but it's good to remember you're not appealing to everyone, but the subsection of people that would be interested in your kind of story--and the more specific or non-general/niche it is, the smaller that division is. Which isn't to say it's not worth pursuing, just that you might have a harder time getting the same number of readers.

"The Alicorns" could really just mean 2 alicorns, though, couldn't it? That line in itself doesn't at all imply there's "quite a few" of them.

But in that sentence, "The Alicorns thought it was an important part of our education" draws a distinct line between the race and Luna/Celestia. A third beyond Luna/Celestia wouldn't qualify as "the alicorns" on its own, and if there were two or three beyond Luna/Celestia, they'd be more likely remarked by their relationships to Luna/Celestia or named in a personal journal (they've remarked themselves as neither of the three races, and were more likely than not born Alicorns, TO Alicorns; I wouldn't call my parents "The Lastnames," unless I was talking about an extended family, nor would I call my parents "the humans" if we were alone). I'm not claiming there's a TON of them, but, by its phrasing it sounded like there would be quite a few, as I said. They qualified for their own people with a level of a separation that a much younger Celestia/Luna picked up on, or that decision on their education came from a group; a group that comes off as though they are a people, not immediately connected through family ties to Luna/Celestia.

If I remember right... there's many series, both cartoons, anime, or key movies, that really do need to pull in merchandise sales to really justify their initial investment. Chances are, if you're watching it for free, they have to make their money from either advertisements, or convincing you to support them via purchasing things related to the show. If they convince you it's worth it, woo, you get stuff you care about, and they are more likely to continue making more MLP. If not, hopefully it'll still be fun regardless of merchandise tie-ins, as someone has said above. 

If memory serves, there's hints cast at the Alicorns—back when the tribes were still divided—being their separate group of sorts. From the Journal of the Two Sisters, there's mentions of the three tribes approaching Celestia and Luna to crown them because "they wanted rulers to help uphold that peace [...] They knew that Alicorns stood for everything Equestria was founded upon: love, harmony, and friendship. And because Alicorns are a combination of Pegasi, Unicorns, and Earth ponies, they believed that we could represent the citizens of Equestria in an unbiased manner." -- Celestia
Could still just be the two of them, right? Well...
"The Alicorns thought it was an important part of our education, but we both thought speaking like that every day sounded silly." -- Luna on the Royal Canterlot Voice
So... The Alicorns were their own entity, with their own traditions and education system (of some kind).

But yeah, if you're sticking to show canon only, it gets a lot harder to justify or explain a lot of details surrounding alicorns. If you pull from sources like this, it sounds like there's actually is (or was) quite a few of them, and their power comes from simply being a people formed upon the combination of all three races, who embodied harmony, friendship, and love (which in the show, are pretty much the sources of magical power, as in the tree of harmony, the power of friendship, and love energy). Personally, I find it would help explain the show's canon quite a lot without conflicting with it much.

> I will also say that, except in rare instances, Alicorns still seem to be better magicians/fliers/powerhouses than common ponies, except a standout few. The Tirek episodes I think are a good example to show just how much magical potential exists in alicorns when compared to normal unicorns, which might shoot down the idea that it's an equal division. They could easily be both symbolic, and physiologically superior, honestly; so long as you account for cases of Twilight, Cadence, and Flurryheart still being young, and the Flurryheart being extremely gifted from birth (and note, of the three she's supposedly the only born alicorn).