Inkwell

The conversation flowed freely now between six different ponies gathered at two carts. It was all Inkwell could do to try and keep up with everyone and get a word in edgewise. He started to think of a reply when he remembered something he didn't quite catch the first time around. "Oh! You want to help me unload? Of course!" he told Strawberry. "But do be careful with them. It wouldn't do for them to get damaged before they officially hit the market." Oh, and she'd also complimented him on one of his paintings, one of the ones of Everfree forest. He'd delicately captured each vine hanging from the trees, and especially the bright blue flowers covering the forest floor. "I found these beautiful plants on my first expedition into the forest, and I just had to get them on canvas. Unfortunately I'd gotten too close to them in the process, because I woke up the next morning with my eyelids sealed shut." He rolled his eyes. "I was thinking of perhaps twenty bits for that one." He'd finished eating the first orange and was wiping his damp hoof on the ground when Sugar Orange suggested that he try them peeled. The habit of eating oranges with their peels was something he picked up from his father, and a few ponies here and there found it weird. But maybe he could try it after all. He concentrated on the orange for a few seconds, his horn shining brightly, until the orange "blossomed", peels separating from the juicy segments like petals on a flower. He ate the segments one by one, and he had to admit, it did taste a lot sweeter this way. "So you work at Sugarcube Corner?" he asked Pinkie Pie. "I didn't see you there; we must have just missed each other. The lemon praline cake was absolutely wonderful! Though I'm a little curious about that jalapeño frosting now..." And now this blue pegasus was showing interest in another painting of his! It was one of a field of flowers he saw somepony cultivating in Ponyville. "You were an artist, too? What made you decide to quit?"

In the meantime, Inkwell gently dropped the book on the table and opened it. The pages were quite thin, so the book turned out to have more content than he thought it would. He decided to take a look at the page he opened it on, and almost immediately regretted doing so. He couldn't make heads or tails of the text on the page; half of it was written in magical jargon that he'd never seen before in his life. He couldn't even tell what sort of spell it was referring to. "Oh dear, I'm in over my head," he admitted. "I don't suppose you could help clear some things up for me, Angel?"

Inkwell had fixed his cart with wheel wedges and was just in the middle of unfastening the cart's harness from around his chest when the orange vendor responded to his question. The oranges were quite cheap, and he even got one free! "Well, thank you for your hospitality, Sugar! I'll just get that bit for you..." His horn glowed, opening a pocket on his saddlebags, and a small coin floated out and over to Sugar's cart, exchanged for another orange. He balanced that orange and the one Sugar gave him on each hoof, and was about to start eating them when he noticed that piny pony staring right at his face. Before he could say anything to her, she started running her mouth, talking in a strangely appealing, high-pitched voice. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance. I'm Inkwell, and no, I haven't officially toured the town yet, though I've rented a room here and been to the library and the bakery." He took a large bite out of his orange, rind and all, making his hoof slick with spilled juice in the process. "Whoops. Anyway, yes, I am an artist," he told Sugar Orange. "I was born in Trottingham, but I've been wandering around Equestria for the last few years." He munched on his orange for the next few seconds, idly wondering what kind of a secret application for orange jelly Pinkie Pie could possibly be thinking of using, when he heard a third pony he didn't notice before say she never liked lemon cake. "Whuh?" he asked with a mouthful of chewed orange before remembering his manners and swallowing. "But lemon praline cake is simply the best dessert I've ever had!"

Oh Jegus. This is so wrong and yet so funny at the same time.

Alright, fixed that, and added a bit of her personality at the end.

Changed the cutie mark a bit. I put a sentence explaining the meaning of it in the character summary originally. Should it stay there, or be moved to the actual cutie mark section, just to make it clear?

Edit: Changed the name of Inky's mom from Shiitake to Meadowsweet after thinking it over in his sister's profile.

It just popped into my head, really. Since the mother's an herbalist, I wanted something related to herbs, and this is what I came up with. I mentioned her name on Inkwell's profile, too, since she's his mother, too. Edit: Her name is now Meadowsweet. It's a real herb that I just looked up, and sounds much more in tune with pony nomenclature, if I do say so myself.

[ Pony Related Character ] Name: Rose Madder, aka Black Orchid Gender: Female Age: Mare Species: Unicorn Pelt Color: Rose madder (#E32636) Mane/Tail Color & Style: Dark red. Her mane comes down to just above her jaw on the sides of her head, with an uneven fringe above her eyes. It's cut down to just a few inches on her neck. Eye Color: Neon green. Cutie Mark: A black orchid atop a rolled-up scroll. Physique: Average. Residence: Canterlot. Occupation: Currently a technical writer, but the success of her first novel might give her the chance to move to a full-time writing career. Motivation: Rose's cutie mark represents her writing ability and the beautiful, yet foreboding aesthetic she puts into her work. She loves being able to stir up emotions of other ponies with the power of her imagination. Usually she ends up doing so by scaring them or creeping them out, but she's getting better at pulling heartstrings with other negative emotions, too. Now thanks to her writing, she can do it without even personally meeting the ponies in question! And if some ponies scoff at her, then who needs them? She knows she's talented. Likes: Nightmares, bitter foods, tragedies, praise, hearing new stories, pestering other ponies (especially her brother!), the weird and unusual, wearing black. Dislikes: Saccharine prose, bad writing, criticism, being pestered herself, wearing pink. Character Summary: Rose Madder was born in Trottingham to Sheetrock and Meadowsweet. When she was very young, she had vivid nightmares, which made her wet the bed. She soon learned not to be scared of those nightmares, though, starting to enjoy their surreal gloominess in time. Then her little brother Inkwell was born, and a love-hate relationship began. Rose loved to give little Inky a scare or two from time to time, and she often gave him a bit of a hard time because of his general timidity. However, if any bullies were to give him a hard time, too, she'd step up to his defense and teach him to stand up for himself. As she grew out of foalhood, the ghost stories she told her brother morphed into actual short stories, and after she finished a particularly rewarding one, she got her cutie mark. The story got attention from other ponies, and one of her friends suggested she move to Canterlot to be around other artists. She leaped at the suggestion and moved there, working as a technical writer and spending almost all of her free time working on a novel, written under the pen name of Black Orchid. Now A Single Note has been published, and prospects for it look good. Rose is generally a friendly pony, though she does have a tendency to be blunt and sarcastic at times.

Inkwell gave Angelcake a slight nod, hopefully slight enough that the librarian didn't see anything. Angel was quick to change the subject, though, and suggested looking at that Divination book. He gave her a smile and set it down on the nearest table, tucked away in a corner of the library. Just as soon as he was about to sit down and look at the table of contents, though, he heard a crash, and turned to see Angel sprawled out over an errant book pile. "Oh dear. Um, need a hoof?" he asked her. She probably wouldn't want one now, since it would only humiliate her further to depend on somepony else's help, but he couldn't just leave her there.

My favorite parts of the episode were Rainbow Dash and Rarity, and Twilight's worrying was pretty cute, too. Otherwise I didn't like this episode as much as the others, but I can think of worse ways to spend half an hour.

It wasn't the first time that Inkwell had been to Ponyville's open market. He'd stumbled into it the day he arrived in Ponyville, when that magnificent griffin airship anchored itself over town. It monopolized his attention to the extent that he barely had any left for the more mundane surroundings of the town, but when it was moved to a less inconvenient location for the Ponyvillians, he decided that the market had an enchantment of its own. The aroma of so much fresh food combined with the chatter of ponies advertising their wares and making conversation made him feel oddly welcome in town. So he decided that he would join the hustle and bustle, renting his own cart and spending days working to make the best paintings he could of the surrounding area. He created landscapes of the rising and setting sun, picturesque views of the town, and even a couple of the nearby Everfree Forest, in case a few eccentric ponies found it to their liking. Traveling around in a cart wasn't much to his liking, he admitted. Given the choice, he'd rather set up shop with his fellow artists in a part of town where he knew there'd be demand for his work. But since he'd yet to find anything like that in Ponyville, he might as well take a gamble with the cart. He did his best to slide his paintings into the cart without damaging them, and attached wooden signs to the side, reading "PRICES NEGOTIABLE" and "COMMISSIONS AVAILABLE". It was tricky, maneuvering the cart; he hadn't done anything like it in a while, and every sudden imbalance he felt made him fear that it would tilt over and damage its contents. But he was overreacting; it seemed like he'd picked a reliable one, and that he'd gotten some interested glances while coming it. The cart's harness was so comfortable he barely even noticed it, though it did make it hard to wear his saddlebags at the same time. Then it occurred to Inkwell that he hadn't yet had anything in the way of breakfast. He looked around for the nearest cart of food, only to be nearly bowled over by a pink blur. It was a pony with curly cotton-candy hair and a bit too much spring in her step bounding over to a nearby orange cart. He simply shrugged and started the intricate process of parking his cart next to that one, levitating one of the free sample into his mouth as he worked. "Mmm, juicy!" he commented as he set the cart in place. "How much for a pair of oranges?" Then he noticed that the vendor was a bit busy at the moment, with that one pink pony and one more also talking to her. No matter. He didn't mind waiting.

Oh, let's see. Survival of the Fittest, the other RP board I'm a part of. Deviantart Furaffinity The Spoony Experiment That Guy with the Glasses MS Paint Adventures Youtube Twitter, sometimes. I only recently made an account and I'm not sure what to do with it. Facebook, also sometimes. Don't know what to do with this that much either. That's all from off the top of my head right now.

What is your Steam name? Solitair775, I think What game do you play the most via Steam? The Half-Life series. What is your favorite game? A tie between Portal and Braid. They've got a few things in common. Do you have a group? No, sadly. I'm not much for multiplayer, though I should give it a shot. Do you play on Mac or Windows? Windows 7.

I can imagine Inkwell having an unrequited crush on Rarity.

I found fanart of it on Furaffinity by several of my favorite artists. It looked adorable, so I checked it out on TV Tropes, then I went and looked at the stuff on Youtube. My name's Bradley, I'm 22, and I'm a college slacker with delusions of creativity.

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that sometimes I have a tendency to lurk, mostly because of social anxiety and uncertainty about what exactly to say in forums. Seems kind of silly now, since I can't get interrupted like in real life. Used to be that I would only post in forums when roleplaying in play-by-post boards like this one.

Heheh. Rarity's my favorite, too. I've totally fallen for her charms, and I have a soft spot for artistic types, too. I have a tablet and copy of Photoshop that I rarely use, mostly because I'm afraid to try. But ponies look nice and simple to draw, so I guess they'd make a good start.

I love how nobody joins in when she sings. The other characters feel much the same way about it as we do. I'd like to talk about the one in today's episode, but I'm not sure if that's a spoiler or not.

Evening everypony! Some of you may already know me from my first day on the mibbit chat. For those of you who don't, I'm a 22-year old college guy who discovered the show thanks to some friends passing around fanart. Being a sucker for all things cute, I checked out the show on Youtube, then moved on to collecting reaction images and fanart, and now I'm here, ready to join the fun. This isn't the first play-by-post forum I got involved in, nor is it the only one I'm active in currently, but that one's almost completely alien to this one, so I won't say anything more about it unless I'm asked. I'm surprised by how much I like this show; it's far better than anything based on a girl's toy has the right to be. The animation is gorgeous, the characters are diverse and play off each other well, the music is pleasant, especially the non-Pinkie songs (sorry, girl!), and the comedic timing is spot-on. There are other shows I like that I do think are probably better, but none of them have commanded my attention like this one. Nothing has since Homestuck. I've got a character profile written up and ready to go just as soon as Ashi starts to feel better again. Might have more on the way later, but I don't have any ideas for characters besides Inky just yet. I'm here to have fun and make friends, in short!