With another Saturday ahead of us, it’s time for Bellosh here to post another article on... anything, haha. This time, I’ll offer up some commentary on another one of my RP characters. So unless you haven’t had the chance to watch the new MLP episode yet, here’s your weekly reading material!

Development Process: Initially after my Ingrid Marie app was accepted, I didn’t really have plans to apply for another member of the Apple family. That plan swiftly changed however when Old Man Mojo informed us Apple RPers about a background pegasus going by the fanon name “Sugar Apple”. Upon further research done after I wrote her app, I discovered that the name for this factory worker came from a Generation 1 pony bearing a similar appearance.

Ignorant of her true origins at the time, the Apple folks and I debated whether this Sugar Apple could be an Apple pony. We didn’t have much to go on though, other than a pink smudge on her flank. After some chatter, we just assumed it was a pink-coloured apple and called it a day. As for the Old Man, well he really wanted the Apple family to have an air force as it were, but he already had a boatload of Tier 3s to his name. As for my situation, while I technically already had Ingrid Marie for an Apple pony, she wasn’t really a “traditional” one by any stretch.

Tempted by the prospect of crafting both a pony who could fly AND one who spoke with a good ole’ country accent, I took it upon myself to adopt Sugar Apple as my third RP character. When it came time to develop her personality, much of it ended up influenced by my mother; back when she still worked, my mum was a free-spirited supervisor at the factory she worked at. Additional influences come from my grandparents and I; namely, our love to travel places on vacations and take lots of photos. To explain the cutie mark, I decided to make Sugar skilled in the art of coating apples with pink frosting; of course, this was all before I discovered that sugar apples are an actual tropical fruit.

However, the big reason I made Sugar Apple loved vacationing and amateur competitions so much was a deliberate attempt to make her travel-friendly; that is, so that it’d take little to no effort to conjure up reasons to insert her in RPs anywhere in Equestria. It’s ironic then that despite my efforts, I’ve gotten relatively little mileage out of her compared to her predecessors. That isn’t to say that I don’t like my pegasus character; in fact, her app was the first one where I managed to actually write a well-crafted personality for beforehand. Needless to say fellow RPers; be warned that just giving your characters reasons to travel all over the land won’t quite guarantee their frequency of use in WoE.

Before I forget; Sugar Apple was the first time ever where I set out to write dialogue with a country accent. Due to that, I oftentimes run her dialogue through an automatic accent converter I found lying around on the web. The more and more I’ve written dialogue for Sugar however, the less I’ve had to rely on that tool on reflex.

The Apple Family Reunion: Since I reserved Ingrid Marie for “Apple Bloom’s Big Day”, I opted to introduce Sugar Apple by dumping her straight in with all the other Apples. Unfortunately, my pegasus didn’t get too much of a chance to stand out in this RP; thanks to the actual family reunion episode that aired this season, the powers that be decided to end the thread before the episode aired. So other than establish Apple Strudel as her grandfather, Sugar basically did nothing of consequence.

A minor note; her introductory routine is lifted straight from SOP for WWII-era dive bombing runs, complete with a wailing Stuka-siren (AKA that sound every plane makes in movies before crashing in a fiery explosion).

Running of the Leaves 2012:

Stage 1 - Ponyville Start Line Stage 2 - Sweet Apple Acres Stage 3 - The Bubbling Brook Stage 4 - The Galloping Glade Stage 5 - The Rearing Ravine Stage 6 - The Whitetail Woods Stage 7 - Ponyville Home Stretch Finish Line

An unofficial event, I’m proud of how Sugar Apple performed both RP and point wise. To date, I’d say that this is by far her most definitive RP of all. Since I had unofficially designated Sugar as my competitive pony, I deemed that she was the most natural fit for this thread. It was certainly a challenge having to post high-quality posts on a daily basis just for this one event, but it was all worth it in the end having her win third place.

Something I really liked about this thread was all the adventure aspects incorporated in it. I absolutely enjoyed how Sugar Apple’s bridge sequence with Phil’s Gilda played out in Stage 3 (beware of Hunchback of Notre Dame vibes), even if that was the only real place where they interacted in the RP. And of course, there’s the avalanche set-piece from Stage 5 where the pegasus survives a rockslide and forges a close bond with Rackenhammer’s Earth Writer, a fellow Running participant who also has a passion for going places. To me, having Sugar and Earth develop their friendship was the real emotional highlight of this RP event.

Fun fact: the drawing below depicts all the Apple ponies that appeared in ROTL 2012. From left to right: Sugar Apple, Applejack, and Greenshot Apple. Coincidently enough, each one is of a different pony species.

Writing, Rest, and Recuperation: A direct continuation of the events from “Running of the Leaves”, we find Sugar Apple recovering from injuries sustained over the course of the previous competition. While there, her new buddy Earth Writer pays her a visit to show off some of his journalistic work. This thread has been on-hold for sometime, but hopefully it will reactivate again once Rackenhammer finishes his study-abroad program. Come to think of it, it’s quite fitting that someone with an OC traveler would participate in such a program. XD

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So there you have it. As you can see, this personal commentary has been shorter than the rest so far. I’ve been meaning to set up a large-scale RP taking place in the weather factory for some time now, but I’ve been too distracted by other things to get around to constructing an OOC thread for it.

With that taken care of, I bid my fellow readers adieu. Tune in next week when I return to my Canterlot RP Spotlight articles!