Clockwise

Amid the bustle of so many excited ponies, an older, gawky purple stallion wove his way, stuttering apologies and proceeding at a stumble towards the starting line. Good grief, what is this? Wiry and as thin as a beanpole, all knobbly knees and clumsy hooves and undoubtedly more than out of his element--Clockwise had chosen to participate in the Running of the Leaves, and all of the odds were stacked against him!

Of course, that was hardly the point. Life was like a poem, after all; the beauty lay in experience, surely? Even as a timid anxiety began to crest somewhere in the depths of the unicorn's thumping heart, he was certain that this particular experience would be one that he would recall for years to come. What greater honor was there than to assist in the heralding of autumn, which was (in Clockwise's humble opinion) the finest season of them all? Surely the gentle trees would not mind if he were a little bit slower than the rest.

Well, alright, maybe quite a bit slower than the rest. But he had come all the way to Ponyville just to witness the race, and there was no better way to do so than to see it close up.

Regardless of his modest collection of reasons, there was something quite humbling about standing there in the midst of such powerful athletes, and so many of them, too. Clockwise spared a glance to the few that caught his eye, shuffling nervously at his spot at the starting line. He must have looked quite silly, standing there in his glasses and bow tie, and with his unfortunately prominent front teeth exposed in a bit of nervous lip-biting. There was a fierce griffon (at whom he didn't dare look for long, on the off-chance that she might notice and catch him up in that dangerously steely glare) and a strange unicorn wearing a rain coat. The thin stallion curiously watched her shed the leaves from a tree with a glow of her horn, and then shuddered for reasons he could not quite fathom, himself. How curious; how mysterious!

The call of the announcer startled him. As well as he could, the bumbling fellow arranged himself into what he hoped was something of a race-ready pose. His glasses slid a little down his nose, but Clockwise was too nervous to spare a touch of magic to straighten them again, and only barely heard the announcement about the weather.

Twenty.... twenty one... twenty two...?

The countdown began at twenty five seconds--and then the whistle! Dolefully regarding the delay, of which he was most acutely aware, Clockwise tripped over his own hooves as the rest of the racers thundered past him with the intensity of a hurricane. His breathing suspended for just a moment--

--but then he wrested his balance back from gravity, and he found a sprightly gallop buried somewhere in the energy of his legs. Being a little behind at the start was certainly discouraging, but, in the wake of the runners ahead of him, the leaves had already begun to fly from the trees in a beautiful flurry of colour.

Clockwise lifted his head and gasped. The sight was more than enough to make up for it.

Goodness, that was fast. Thank you both for the speedy responses! I'll definitely take your advice into consideration.

Hullo, folks!

I'm a roleplayer who's done plenty of playing over a pretty hefty number of years, and I've seen a very large sample of the different types of posts people like to write. I've experimented with all sorts, and after lots of trying, changing and fiddling, I've finally achieved a variety that I fully enjoy and feel contributes to a story as best as possible. Here's the trouble: it goes against almost everything that's written on Canterlot's official guide to quality roleplaying posts, which is here.

When I post, I prefer to indicate only what other people in the roleplay would actually see in order to encourage interaction and maintain some mystery about my character so that there are things to learn over the course of even a short encounter. I personally think that fluff and padding both, unless pertinent to the emotion or power of a particular scene, are boring to write and even worse to read. As a result, my posts are often relatively short, though still, I like to think, reasonably detailed. Some might think that this means that my characters are very flat, but nothing could be further from the truth--I simply don't reveal all of the inner workings of their minds any more than I must, and even then I try to do it through words and body language.

My main question, then, is this: by what criteria do you judge the strength of a post? Is it by length, or by fluff? How well a character or scene is conveyed, or something else entirely? Because of my nervousness, I find myself unsure of joining the action of the roleplay forums even after having a character application accepted for an entire year! I finally decided to suck it up and come to the Q&A forum to try to get my footing, and maybe some feedback, so any you have would be absolutely appreciated. Would my style fly in the Mane RP, or would it just confuse everyone and make me feel like a meanie snowflake? :C

Thanks a lot!

I have quite literally waited an entire year for this!

Clockwise would like to participate. (Primarily for educational purposes, of course.)

That was absolutely fantastic!

I found it a little odd that the two central characters were never mentioned before, and I'm still rather interested about this new princess's relation to Celestia and Luna--does she govern some sphere like day or night? Love, perhaps?

But, those wonderings aside, everything was amazing. A lot of the shots contained extra ponies in the background, even if they were just guards, and that made the episodes feel much more involved in a way that, say, Discord's episodes didn't quite pull off.

Also, the changelings are really cool! And who else was strongly reminded of Nightmare Moon by Chrysalis? Her voice and design and everything were rather reminiscent. I do wonder...

I'm not entirely sure how a pony can play an accordion with hooves, but Clockwise seems to be able to do it!

I'm an artist, so a lot of my characters (read: all of my characters) start as pictures. They usually have a lot of expression and a sort of heavy flavor, often influenced by stuff I was doing or thinking about, and those things lend themselves very well to both generating a personality and some of the finer details about the character.

If I have to make a character up on the spot, though, like for a roleplay, I usually generate them randomly based on the situation at hand and how appropriate I need them to be, and then I throw in some weird quirks to make them interesting. Sometimes they're interesting enough that I develop them into full-fledged characters!

Oh goodness, I recognize those mod-ponies anywhere! Your style is very cute, it's got a very cartooney charm of its own, while still adhering to the show's style enough to make it look as it ought to!

Thanks! C:

Dang, I'm going to have to frequent the chat to get my hooves on one of these awesome sketches!

DO IT

Have a gigantic dump of all the chat ponies I've done for people so far.

These are pretty big, fair warning!

Oldest to newest.

I figured I'd toss a thread up here to keep my ponydoodles all in one place, mostly because I dunno how the gallery operates and don't want to risk spamming it with sketchy derpthings.

(This isn't a request thread, by the way. I do take them sometimes, though--look for me in the chat!)

Let us begin in the best way possible: with Silly Wizard.

Oh, there's sober men, and plenty

And drunkards barely twenty

There are men of over ninety that have never yet kissed a girl

But give me a ramblin' rover

Fae Orkney down to Dover

We will roam the country over

and together we'll face the world!

These are two characters from a family of rough-and-tumble earth pony brewers I'm working on! I don't know if they'll be realized as roleplaying characters, mostly because I'm not sure how drunk-ness is handled here, but I love drawing them. (I've also got plans for three more, named Bailey, Bawdy Ballad and Moonshine. )

Ramblin' Rover:

Whiskey Shine:

THERE WILL BE MOAR WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT

This is the best thing

the best thing

Finalized, hopefully for the last Time. I apologize for the gigantic wall of text that is the character summary, and the overuse of Very Long Sentences™.

Hullo, and welcome to Canterlot! I'm Clockwise, and I also make DA MAGICKS sometimes.

We will be the best of friends.

*leaaaans in* C8

With lots of help from Bramble Rose, I did a pretty massive rewrite of the character summary so that it explains some stuff better, and entirely removed chronomancy. (: We'll see if this goes anywhere.

I consulted the ever-so-helpful ponychat, and got some excellent answers to my questions from members and helpstaff alike! I poked Skye, too, and while I didn't get a clear verdict, perhaps things here are a little less ambiguous and slightly more favorable.

I don't want to repeat the process I just went through, though, so if any helpstaff genuinely think this isn't going to pass, please tell me right off. C:

Thank you very much, all of you!

Haha, I love these so much. Splendid job on all of them!

Alright, I'm stuck. Ignoring the mess that is the hargledebargle character summary, which you can ignore entirely for the moment, I'd like some feedback and/or commentary on a few things in particular:

1) I want to keep Paradox. I need ways to generate it. It's a result of messing with something that's usually very stable, i.e. time, and part of Clockwise's goofy charm and a lot of his more serious plot potential were designed to come from the effects of, and his own reactions to and opinions on, this volatile magical 'curse', so to speak. He has to deserve it, he has to have gotten it from somewhere, and if he can't use time magic, I've got no ideas. I'd like it to tie into his underlying 'theme' somehow rather than pulling something new and disjointed in to explain it.

2) Magic. Even though he's a unicorn, because his talent is not magic, should his magical ability be heavily restricted? Would still being able to call him a wizard be out of the question?

3) Clockwise is supposed to be based around time, but I feel like he's devolving into a very poor imitation of our current Doctor Whooves (being a weird, reclusive clockmaker) when his original flavor was more along the lines of an eccentric, naive person who was very interested in something beyond his realistic capabilities, i.e. chronomancy, and having to deal with the repercussions from practicing it, aka Paradox. He was never intended to be powerful in any way, only knowledgeable and experimental.

What do? Is maintaining the flavor of this character within reasonable limits a moot effort?

OH THE PONANITY!

*dramatic faint*

POKE ALL THE MANS

POKE EVERY SINGLE MANS

ONLY THEN WILL YOU BE WHOLE AGAIN!

But... but-but-but that is not how you Pokemans! That is not how you Pokemans at all!

Oooh, are you going to have a Pokemon fight?

Oh, delight and merriment abound!

Would someone please pass the scones? Preferably the ones without the tiny pink TNT sticks poking surreptitiously out of the corners?

*pokes his head in*

I heard there were crumpets.

IS THIS THREAD NOW A TEA-PARTY?

Yes, it's entirely true that mixing up Gearly and Clockwise would be silly. XD Even so, I don't like seeing the same sort of cutie mark on two ponies that aren't related, and honestly, the gears suit Gearly, for the kind of pony he is and the nature of his talent (AND HIS NAME, DERP), so much more.

I'm glad you like the new one I picked! The gear-clock was actually my original idea, but I wasn't sure about it, mostly because I was having a lot of trouble drawing it for some reason. I do like it much more now that I've started using it, though, and I think it suits much better.

Having the hands move is an awesome idea, but it might be a bit too 'special'--there's no other characters in the show with moving cutie marks, even though there's a relatively good reason for it here. Alas! I opted instead for it to show the exact minute when it appeared on his flanks, which I think is a moment significant enough to be kept on a cutie mark. :B

Thank you very much for your input! It makes me warm and fuzzy inside. Like Parasprites, but with less mayhem.