Props Valroa

I ripped off my two big toenails to avoid ingrown toenails.

@Blitz Boom A human Spectra, drawn by a good friend of mine.

I have been around here long enough to see the forums through various stages and upgrades. I have seen a general downward trend of the forums in general, it feels like there is a lack of any new mechanics and existing problems continue to go unsolved for long periods of time, with no end in sight. This discussion thread is intended to open up discussion from the community itself to suggest suggestions for how to make the forums more lively and better for everyone. I have a few things I would like to say for suggestions and Criticisms: 1 - Resolution of the various bugs on this forum. User Ranks don't update when a user reaches a certain rank, image posting sometimes is impossible for me to do in DMs, along with other such things. Supposedly the staff are said to have been working on it, but it's been months and there has been no resolution to these problems. 2 - A native dark theme for MLPforums. I know @Rikifive has made one, but it would be nice if there was a Dark Mode integrated into the forums settings itself. 3 - Inability to change Poniverse names. You can change the way it is displayed, but you can't change the actual name of the account. I have been wanting to do that for a while, but it's impossible to do. 4 - Bring back the World Cup and Forum Events we had years ago. We used to have events where the Community would get involved with and it was fun, but now that's not here anymore. I enjoyed the World Cup and what it entailed. 5 - General lack of activity. It seems like there has been a genuine downward trend in user traffic on these forums and I don't see any signs of that reversing even with G5 material. I see a lack of retention with new users. New Users join, post a bit, and then never return. This forum would do well with new blood. While there is likely not much one can do to fix this, it is something to note. 6 - General feeling of stagnation. It feels like not much has fundamentally been changed about the forums for years. While the Debate Pit has been brought back under different rules, nothing else about the rest of the forums has really changed. It feels stagnant, with nothing new to really look forward to, beyond what has already been done before. 7 - Layout of the forums. I notice that there are sections of the forums such as the G5 sections that is hard to navigate. For example, there are subsections within the G5 section, and I feel as if due to that there is not that much activity in those sections, and they are not exposed to the viewer who scrolls or looks at the main page a lot. I am not sure how to suggest to resolve this, more visibility for those sections, maybe? 8 - Faster approval of characters. I would suggest some sort of community thread in which characters are submitted, and approved by staff members, which then can be used as profiles. A faster approval process, and vetting of character profiles to ensure quality content is approved at faster times. Just a minor suggestion. 9 - Bring back the post count on public areas. This has always bugged me since it was removed for reasons I didn't think made any sense.

Home life is great. Still reeling from recent losses in friendships, and dealing with the stress of what lie ahead. 8/10. Despite the major losses in friendships this year, I wouldn't undo any of it.

@Blitz Boom Spectra's creation was spurred on by the fact that Magloria isn't my character, and instead someone who belongs to a friend on another site. Magloria, the version I was using in our RP was heavily inspired by the original Magloria from 2017, who I interacted with in another RP around that time. Spectra is basically just my conception of what Magloria's old version was, before her character was rewritten for an RP from 2021-2022, that ended rather recently. Magloria, in the universe that the Frozen North is set in, was little more than a nickname Spectra came up with. Magloria is more of someone that my other friend lets me use, so to speak.

From the way I was reading it, Light is the antagonist here, as the Kitsune and all that was set up not to be what they expected.

@Blitz Boom I am not in the best of headspaces for this at the moment, so I would prefer to just wait until Sekel comes around for this RP. I've changed Magnolia's character massively from how she appeared in the start of the RP, she is no longer a villainous type of character or with any motivation, and the idea of that still being something part of her character here is a bit of a block to write further, so I would prefer to just post once in a while whenever Sekel is around.

@Blitz Boom Do you have any ideas for the future of this RP?

@Illiad Easle It is something I was suggesting for the future anyway, at the moment I am in a major bought of RP burnout so I cannot do any more RPs at the moment.

Are you intending on light to be a villain here?

Was looking at the sun today.

@Blitz Boom I believe you misread my post, Magnolia isn't under the weather, so I won't address that in my post. I would not mind waiting to reply, for Sekel's schedule, as that was the plan here eventually. That would probably help me with RP burnout, which I am experiencing a mild form of currently. I would not mind you taking creative liberties for my character, either. I would actually like to hold off on posting, until we get to the 'meat' of the encounter, as my motivation for this is currently at a low, until we can get that.

@Illiad Easle @Kujamih @Blitz Boom Spiral isn't fond of Light at all, and would likely intend on reporting him when they get back to the ship.

@Illiad Easle I do have a new RP idea, it would be a bit more of an exploration type thing where my character basically has enough of society and ends up going on a self imposed mission to explore things beyond Equestria, being a well known criminal, at that. Obviously just a recolor here, there is a lot to work with her character. I imagine she was once some sort of tax evader, perhaps some sort of tresspasser or thief, and then she ended up escaping from her prison and is on the run from the authorities, and on a mission of self imposed exile from Equestria, but also one of exploration as well. Her personality would be rather shame based, she doesn't find pride in who she is or what she did, and seeks to run from it and find some semblance of enjoyment in the world against the cold truth. A character who looks down on herself and her decisions a lot, longing in truth, for someone to be able to help her.

I love Tree Hugger a lot. I think she has a relationship with Limestone, just a headcannon!

@Blitz Boom @Sekel How close would you say we are to Twilight and Magnolia meeting? If you don't mind, I would like to get to that soon. I wouldn't mind us just time skipping to that, as that would be getting to the more interesting part. What do you think?

@Jeric For some reason, user ranks aren't updating to their proper rank. This is probably something to do with the recent upgrade, but it's something I've noticed for quite a while. I should have the Elements of Harmony rank, but it is still on Unicorn.

@Catpone Cerberus I made an error in some of my posts. The city is Chicoltgo, and not Detrot (which I think I said), so if you see Detrot, disregard that. You can also add in any artifact shops or anything of the sort if you would like to describe those parts, or describe anything else of interest.

@Catpone Cerberus Sombra didn't seem to be thinking about the ponies that passed them as much, but then again it was hard to tell. Una would likely take notice that the mares here dressed more opulently, the area of the city they were in was clearly more an upper class area. Some of the stallions would walk with monocles or canes, with great strides indicating their highly confident outlooks on life. Many ponies were in at least some aspect of a suit, indicating business like careers. The buildings were so tall that they could pierce the sky, a testament to the work ethic of Equestrians. Sombra took more than a few glances up at these skyscrapers, wanting to decorate them with black crystals and flags adorning his banner. That would be soon to come. As they went further, Sombra began to think further more on his plans for areas such as these. He would likely appoint some sort of regional authority to govern over the place. Perhaps it may be existing authority, but he would make them strip all loyalties to Celestia and Luna in a pledge of allegiance to him. He could imagine the Crystal Empire's banner hanging from the most important buildings. All of these ponies were needed for a productive society, he wasn't simply going to enslave them. Only the ones who offered resistance to his authority. As he thought more about this, he decided that he would import a large population of Crystal Ponies to oversee the authorities here, to rule as an elite Upper Class. He wouldn't need to merely enslave the Crystal Ponies again, to release the Umbrum. He would enslave able bodied Earth Ponies, Unicorns, and make them use their talents to bore through the arctic rock that kept his brethren trapped beneath. It would take a while to transition, but he envisioned an Equestria ruled by a joint measure between Crystal Ponies and Umbrum, with all others being beneath their authority, with his supreme rule cemented in the Crystal Empire, which would merely Annex Equestria itself under it's authority. They began to head more towards the city center. A pair of foals were playing on the sidewalk, before their ball would bounce off accidentally in Sombra's direction. The two colts would see the ball bounce towards Sombra, who'd quickly take notice of it. For a second he would grab the ball in his magic, looking at it curiously before rolling it back to the two colts. The colts smiled and laughed, Sombra managed a slight smile towards them, as they forged on.

@Blitz Boom Spectra would follow along towards the tower. In a way, she did indeed admire Veil's resolve, if it was true that she had been here for so long and suffered the horrible sights that were about this place than that was a mark of integrity if anything. Veil's magic may prove useful, but she figured that Veil may in fact deserve her freedom for aiding them in this manner. While Spectra was sure that they could have gone in and done this themselves, the fact of the matter was that Veil made it a lot easier with added information behind this whole affair. It would perhaps be best, to keep Veil along with her. Possibly Spectra could raise a powerful army with the followers she liberates from this place, but that would be hard to manage. Spectra knew that the caves and her lair in the Green Mountains were enough to hold and even provide for such a thing. Spectra was able to exist for centuries, after all, and had more than enough time to prepare for something like that. Operata hadn't seen the true extent of the Lair in the Green Mountains. All he saw were a mere taste. The former lair she had up in the Frozen North was just a small outpost, to nab ponies off from unsuspecting rural areas, but she largely had abandoned that in exchange for far more worthwhile prey in more urban areas. That took more time though, and she had prepared for that in full. The Green Mountains would be the providence of any armies being raised, but to date, Operata was the only one who had actually seen it other than her, but she knew that eventually if her aims were to be fulfilled they would have to reach the masses somehow. The power of word is often more than the power of the sword. The main obstacle to that was the more powerful beings who would work against her. Lava Plumage, was one of them. For obvious reasons she would prefer such beings be on her side, and with a sizeable following in the future she could perhaps convince them. The main obstacle was to hide the means of how she would acquire power, by stealing power by using biological sources of it. The way her magic worked, was that she could only drain magic from living sources. No amount of workarounds, research, or tests could ever change that limitation. Was one of her many weaknesses after all. For now, though - there were larger fish to fry. Upon arriving at the tower, Spectra would have already begun charging a large spell. Similar to the other ones of course, but this one was designed to be a one shot - one kill. She didn't know if that would work though, but it required a lot more time to prepare and she signaled that she would have to take her time in order to charge it up. A rainbow esque hue would dance up her horn, her mane shimmering a blue tint. To Veil, this would likely be an unusual sight on a Unicorn. Spectra was capable of something most unicorns were not, as it seemed. The blubbering sound was quite gross to her. This was going to be something she would quite frankly enjoy doing. "Hmph. Definitely something formidable." she commented upon seeing the skeletal hoof crush the stone by the gate. When the creature was revealed to them, Spectra would scowl in disgust at what she was seeing here. Definitely not pleasant to look at - however, the tree like one they met when they first entered into the barrier was worse. Not that this was more pleasant, just that the other one was a lot worse to look at. The part where the snake and pony parts of the creature met, that would be a good place to strike. Spectra motioned for them to move away as her horn shimmered like a small blue sun, before a large flash would arc up into the air over them and form a large icicle like formation, but much larger than a normal icicle. As it went up through the air, they would be able to feel the cold air whoosh by them as it then arced down at a rather intense speed, aiming to spear right through the creature itself. As this happened, small parts of it broke off to form shards for added pain, and if they managed to spear into the creature, they would start to grow in lattice like formations within the creature's flesh.