Welcome to another installment of the Canterlot RP Spotlight. As you may know, we’re still stuck in the thralls of winter over here in the northern hemisphere, so today I’ll be covering a character that quite fits the theme of the ongoing (but almost-ended) winter season.....

So now we have here one of Canterlot’s most storied OCs, RPed by no other than... IceStormx. In case anybody couldn’t tell just by looking at her name, Ice Storm’s specialty is ice magic, and it comes quite in handy for running a ice cream stand in Ponyville. This unicorn had done rather well in her new hometown, making friends with individuals such as Rarity (fabulously portrayed by the fabulous Phil the Time Wizard) and meeting the love of her life in the form of Dunder Blust (played by you guessed it, Dunder).

But things weren’t always so rosy for Miss Storm. As a filly, she didn’t have a good relationship with her parents in Fillydelphia, and so she ran away from home and moved to Canterlot. Ice’s life in Canterlot was not much better, with her attempts at wooing the Canterlot elite with her special talents falling on deaf ears. It took a change of scenery via relocation to the quaint town of Ponyville until the mare’s life finally turned around.

Nowadays, those who display haughtiness and contempt towards the mare will only receive haughtiness and contempt in return. On the other hand, ponies who’ve earned Ice Storm’s trust will find in her a loyal and caring friend. If your OC proves to be a caring individual, Ice will gladly return the favour... and then some!

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[colour=#0000ff]Moving In[/colour][colour=#0000ff], [/colour][colour=#0000ff]Shopping at the Boutique[/colour][colour=#0000ff], + [/colour][colour=#0000ff]Ponyville Party[/colour][colour=#0000ff]:[/colour] In Ice Storm’s debut RPs, we find that she has just arrived from Canterlot having finally gotten sick of the capital city. In her rush to move out, the mare has no place to stay and has hardly any possessions on her. Fortunately the first pony she encounters is Dunder, a kindly pegasus stallion who not only treats her to lunch but provides her with some bits to help her get established in the town. In short order, Ice finds also finds herself invited to a party that night for a wedding anniversary.

Ice Storm is thus now in immediate need of an affordable dress. To prepare, she takes Dunder’s advice and requests the services of the dressmaker Rarity, who graciously sells her a pretty gown for way below its actual value. In euphoria, Ice marks Rarity as another good friend and asks to go out for lunch. Rarity agrees, and thus another friendship is forged that day that has persisted through multiple RP threads.

The night comes, and Ice Storm actually has a blast. The unicorn notes she that has made more friends in Ponyville in a day than in all her years at magic school in Canterlot. Despite not having a suitable residence yet, the mare’s dead set on staying in the town she relishes calling her new home. However, Ice hasn’t seen the last of Canterlot just yet.....

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[colour=#0000ff]A Night Under the Stars[/colour][colour=#0000ff]:[/colour] A few months later, it’s clear that Ice Storm’s gamble in moving to Ponyville has paid off. Her Frozen Delights ice cream stand has taken off, and her friendships have continued to flourish. Yet she hesitates to return to Canterlot until she receives an invitation to participate in the Not-Quite-as-Grand Galloping Gala; a knockoff of the more famous GGG. Encouraged by Dunder and Rarity to give Canterlot a second chance, Ice Storm discovers by meeting the actress Fleur de Lis (played by Pony) that not all the Canterlot elite are stuck up as she had previously assumed.

Yet perhaps the most meaningful moments of Ice Storm’s night don’t occur until after the gala concludes, where the nightlover finally meets the one pony that any self-respecting nightlover would idolize; Princess Luna (I’ve written plenty about her use in Mane RP before). In fact, Ice loves the cool and starry nights so much that she sleeps outdoors whenever given the opportunity. Most importantly of all, the mare reveals to Luna how observing the night sky reminded her of how the princess persevered through her own problems, thus providing Miss Storm with a source of inspiration throughout her darker years (pun very much intended; never believe anyone if they claim otherwise).

(Pic drawn by BrainedBySaucepans)

The other ponies Ice encounters are Fire Heart, a fire elemental mare portrayed by Lux, and Ice Storm’s sole pre-Ponyville friend Moondancer played by, well... me. Taking refuge in a deserted coffee shop, all four ponies use this chance not only to merely badger Luna with questions, but to act as a mutual support group for one another. In particular, the Princess of the Night inspires Ice to make an effort to relocate her estranged parents and reconcile with them.

This RP has not yet concluded, thus it remains to be seen how the band of four nocturnal ponies continue to bond with one another. Plans are in motion though to arrange a nighttime tea party one day night. In the meantime, readers can marvel at the astonishing four-way conversation that this RP brilliantly pulls off.....

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[colour=#0000ff]Nighttime Tomfoolery[/colour][colour=#0000ff]:[/colour] In the past, an embarrassing issue of Ice Storm’s had kept her from being able to attend the slumber parties hosted by Moondancer back in magic school. However, the ice elemental finally gained the nerve to go upon reuniting with her friend back in the previously-described RP thread. While this story has only just begun, it promises to be a fun night that Ice will never forget, as she further bonds with Moondancer and another of the partylover's friends, Phil's Dazzle Dawn.....

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[colour=#0000ff]A Ponyville Wedding[/colour][colour=#0000ff]:[/colour] In the meantime in Ponyville, Ice Storm became romantically attracted to Dunder and the two begun a relationship. Despite some drama, their connection remained strong and the two eventually decided to marry one another. For their wedding, Ice and Dunder each invite their closest friends to attend; in Ice’s case, they include Rarity, Princess Luna, and Moondancer. This RP is also still-in-progress, but it’ll provide a chance for all of Ice’s various friends to get a chance to know one another.....

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And it’s interview time! This is one of the most comprehensive ones you’ll read yet...

Bellosh101: How did you come up with the concept for Ice Storm's character?

[colour=#0000ff]Ice Storm:[/colour] Well, when I came up with the concept for Ice's character, I had one focal point for the character; Me. Ice was the very first pony that I had come up with for roleplay on a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic roleplaying site of any kind, and the way that I've always developed characters for something has always been to base them off of me.

The decision to make Ice female though stems from a long history though where I've just never been able to grasp onto a male character of any kind. They've always lost interest to me rather quickly because I've just never been able to set myself up with the right mindset of a male character. I've never been able to figure out why, but I also know that I have always been vastly more comfortable playing a female character. This probably stems from my, more feminine personality than most others, which is also where Ice gets a lot of her personality from.

I tend to be very passionate about certain things, and when I fall in love with something I tend to get A, very obsessive and B, very protective. The television show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is an example of this to the point where I admit to have developed and obsession for the show. Her backstory though, while rather cliché, is very similar to events that had occurred in my life in the past, though altered a bit to fit the Ponyverse rather than just be a direct representation.

The journey from Fillydelphia to Canterlot was mainly just a bridge showing her moving on from one life to the other showing how my grandparents came in to help me my taking me away from my mother. And although this particular part isn't mentioned in her backstory, for those whom have gotten to know Ice deep enough, this is around the same point that she had started wetting the bed, as it was right around this point in my live, after my grandparents had taken me in that I had started doing so. Like as Ice, so far no answers have been found as to why, which is why she still does.

Her life in Canterlot represents my life in school. I didn't have very many friends through out my school-life, mainly because I was never in the same city long enough to make lasting friendships, but also because of the fact that I was generally the "odd" one. I was the one that like to go out and learn things that were out of the way. I was the one that used to try to challenge myself by trying to read books that were three-four reading levels higher than my current grade level.

And that's where Ice's intelligence comes in as well. Though she isn't always the quickest to catch on to things, and simply reading it doesn't help her at all. She has to be able to focus and practice on it, which is why that it's taken her entire school of magic career to be able to learn to just barely teleport. As far as the decision to make her an Ice Element Pony, it was just the element that came natural to me, as every single spellcaster-type character I have made for any game. Be it video game RPGs, table top RPGs, or forum RPs, I've always preferred the Ice element because it's the most universal element you can have in my opinion.

The reason for her moving to Ponyville was simply because that was the town where I originally wanted her to live, mainly because it was a nice small town in Equestria that I actually knew a majority of the layout to from watching the show so much. I had her move away from Canterlot because I've always viewed Canterlot, as a big city like a St. Louis, London, or Baltimore, and I can't usually stand larger cities for a prolonged amount of time. So you could say that Ice would just simply be a small-town mare rather than a big-city goer.

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Bellosh101: While it's quite clear that Ice Storm is heavily based off of you, in what ways is her personality and behaviors different from your own, if any?

[colour=#0000ff]Ice Storm:[/colour] She can be a lot more stubborn than I can be at times, and she tends to be a bit more emotionally reactive than I am. As in it doesn't take much to hurt her feelings. A simple joke to most can be devastating to her, especially if it's a joke regarding her bedwetting issue which is why she keeps that hidden from everypony she knows unless she has no choice to explain it like in "Nighttime Tomfoolery" when the diapers that she had packed for the overnight stay had fallen out of her pack in front of everypony else.

She is also a lot more prone to temper flares, especially if she see's somepony else disrespecting or being rude to another, and even more especially to fillies because of the extremely rough filly-hood that she had. As far as anything else being all that much different, other than the general mood swings that come with being a mare because of just how the biological cycles work, I can't really see anything else that's different.

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Bellosh101: As you mentioned how she reacts to rude ponies, what types of characters do you think Ice Storms gets along with the best?

[colour=#0000ff]Ice Storm:[/colour] Well, the ponies that Ice generally gets along with are ponies that are generally open to things. She feels that if a pony is completely honest with her, then she can be trusting of the other pony. She generally doesn't approach others though out of an innate fear of being walked on like she had been in the past by others. She also gets along with ponies that are both kind and firm, as well as ponies that have a good amount of common sense, and more importantly to her, a high spirited personality that can keep up with her one when she gets into one of her good moods.

An example of ponies that she would easily get along with personality wise, are ponies that she already has gotten along with through the RP like Moondancer, Princess Luna, Rarity, and Dunder Blust. One of the things that she absolutely can't stand though is pranks. She won't openly say anything about them unless they hurt somepony, but she hates them because how many times she'd been pranked and made fun of in the Magic School.

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Bellosh101: So then; how has Ice Storm changed as a character during the course of RPing? What long-term character arcs do you have in store for her?

[colour=#0000ff]Ice Storm:[/colour] Well first off, she's starting to become a lot more open and trusting to others, especially in Canterlot. Over the course of the time that I've had to play her, she's been in Canterlot about as often as she has been in Ponyville after her soon-to-be husband Dunder, and her best mare Rarity told her to try giving Canterlot another chance, that she might have just seen a bad part of Canterlot, but that there were many ponies there that were civil.

Sure enough over the course of the "Not-Quite-As-Grand Galloping Gala", the "Canterlot Royal Public Relations Open House", and "A Night Under the Stars", Ice has been slowly developing her fondness to give Canterlot a second chance, and now she's attending a sleepover that she would have never in her life she would have thought of going to because of her overnight issue because she didn't feel scared to do so. The entire reason she had made so many excuses in the past to avoid Moondancer's slumber parties in the past, was because of the fact that she wet the bed, and early on with her friendship with Moondancer, she was too scared to say anything about it because she didn't want to lose the one friend that she had, nor did she want to ruin Moondancer's reputation by having all the other mares finding out at a sleep over that Moon was friends with a "baby" as most other ponies would have described it during school ages.

Now Ice understands that friendships are more important than anything else and that friends that really want to be her friend will be there for her no matter what the situation was or what medical condition that she had. She found this out when she talked to Rarity one day after lunch about what happened with her family in her past. She's let that develop within her, and she has been more proactive in talking to others more openly about things. She still has a bit of nervousness in the back of her mind when addressing certain topics but, she generally feels like the ponies that she's gotten to know and have befriended will remain so regardless. It's just now having her everypony come together.

Two major arcs that I do have planned for Ice Storm though are her reuniting with at least one of her parents, and having her make up with them and re-establish the old love that had once been shared in the family. This can't happen though until someone else places an Application for Mist Weaver or Silver Mane though as I have never been able to play a relative of a character I own. It just wouldn't be fun for anypony else involved in a thread, nor would it be fair.

The second major arc doesn't occur until after Ice's wedding though and that is an arch where Ice becomes pregnant with twins and foals them later. Again though, whenever she is to foal them, they would need users to be able to play them as well. The best part about foals though is they grant the "adopter" much more freedom in what they can do with the character because they can decide literally almost everything about the character except, gender, pony type and colour. Aside from that though, I don't have any other arcs for her lines out other than those two. Mostly I'll be waiting to see where the current ones lead her before I come up with more.

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Bellosh101: On the topic of past and current threads, what thread or two would you pick as Ice Storm's signature threads, and why?

[colour=#0000ff]Ice Storm:[/colour] Hmm, signature threads, I would have to that “A Night Under the Stars” and “A Ponyville Wedding” would be Ice's two signature threads. “A Night Under the Stars because it's the oldest currently active thread that I'm in and because that it's what I consider to be one of the most important threads that I'm in because it has Princess Luna in it. “A Ponyville Wedding” because it's ending one arc of Ice Storm's character development and beginning a new one. While there hasn't been much activity there yet, that thread is a very important thread for Ice.

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Bellosh101: Okie dokie lokie; is there anything else you'd like to comment on about your character before we wrap things up?

[colour=#0000ff]Ice Storm:[/colour] Nothing that I can add right off the top of my head. I think that I've pretty much said everything that I could about her in the concept question, lol.

Bellosh101: Then that should do it then! Thank you for your great answers, hehehe!

[colour=#0000ff]Ice Storm:[/colour] Awesome!

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Next week will probably be one of my “break” weeks again. But after that though, maybe I’ll finally cover a RP thread again. We’ll see though; we’ll see. Until next time ladies and gentlemen... stay frosty.