Elderflower

I love any and all tacky, horrendous pop music. It's satisfyingly catchy and hilarious all at once! But that's just for a laugh. When it comes to sitting down and chilling out to music, it's gotta be jazz. Charlie Parker, the Duke, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk - all that good stuff! I'm also into the granolar bar music as well, so artists like Gregory and the Hawk, sigur ros, Neutral Milk Hotel, you name it. And when I want high energy music soooometimes I'll dip into metal (I was a huge metalhead once upon a time) but for the most part I'll listen to the Dropkick Murphys, Dead Kennedies, The Offspring, Operation Ivy, etc etc.

I think my tastes are pretty much all around the board, but mostly I listen to jazz and granola tunes.~

And finally, my youngest, Finn, my ball python. I have NO idea how old he is, but I suspect 7mos.

With that done, who else wants to show their pets!?

That ball python...so adorable! This thread is a lovely idea!

Here's my golden retriever, Abby! She's turning four this summer~

Seems like the only time she can stay still long enough to get a picture is when she's sleeping! Oh my.

I love that this thread exists! I just combed through it all to take in the sheer amounts of cute.

Here is my addition! A gif that makes me wiggle with the cutes every time:

I'd have to go with Magical Mystery Cure. It's jam-packed with catchy music, full of the friendship-fluff that I die for, and has some lovely call backs to previous episodes (like having Pinkie work on Sweet Apple Acres with her straight hair and the musical/visual reference to Art of the Dress when Applejack is sewing). My only complaint about that episode was that it was just the one episode. It felt a bit rushed, and it's a story I'd like to get more of!

I've loved pretty much all of the episodes but runner-up is definitely The Crystal Empire two-parter: it was channeling a strong Sailor Moon vibe that I couldn't help but gobble right up!

Thanks very much for the kind words! And the stamp, as well!

That's exactly it! He's uses lightning from clouds to scorch sand. I should have been more clear about that. The sands that he uses are all chosen specifically for their mineral contents, so he just has more control over what he's going to make (different mineral contents/levels in send will yield different results).

Roleplay Type: World of Equestria

Name: Luminous Charge, Lume to friends, Ominous Charge to his siblings.

Sex: Male

Age: Stallion

Species: Pegasus

Eye colour: Bright green.

Coat: A very glossy, dark brown. Rich chocolate tones come out in direct sunlight, but in average lighting one could easily mistake his coat for black. The feathers of his wings match his coat in colour and glossiness, and of course he keeps them perfectly preened!

Mane/Tail: This strutting peacock is very conscious of his appearance! He has a very voluminous mane and tail, both in a striped pattern with dark chocolate and light grey tones. His tail is very long and healthy, but he keeps his mane cut short to keep it more manageable and to keep it out of his eyes.

Physique: Tall and thickly muscled. Though he is quite the peacock, Lume is an honest worker and has laboured hard in his profession. As a sculptor he is all too familiar with heavy lifting and grinding and polishing minerals, and that is exactly how he has worked up his bulky frame. As a result of his weight, his wings have also become extremely powerful – he enjoys flying as a means of exercise outside of work and with the weight of his muscles those wings had to beef up to be able to keep him in the air!

Residence: Lume has a stunning villa (home to his studio) in Trottingham. It’s close to Cloudsdale, where his family lives, and despite a lack of patience with the noisier tourists he has a huge softspot for the beauty of the Nimbusgait Lakes.

Occupation: A fulgurite sculptor!* Lume first discovered the beauty of fulgurite (or petrified lightning) on the shores of the Nimbusgait Lakes, and it didn’t take long for him to obsess over the bizarre natural forms. Over time, he learned to harness the power within lightning clouds in order to roughly guide the shape of the fulgurite – a long process that got him in trouble more than once! Messing with the weather, after all, made him quite the nuisance! Though he never did anything on a scale big enough to make his work anything more than an annoyance, luckily. He was tempted to push his luck more than once, but refrained from doing so.

His current work involves a highly controlled environment; in his studio, he controls exactly what types of sands he’s using and what goes in the sand, giving him a better ability to create more polished-looking results. He creates large organic structures in very deep sand pits, and any truly rough spots on the whimsical tubes he creates he sands and polishes to make it glow. Of course, he often works with the rough look of the tubes as well, usually combining the polished and natural appearances.

Lastly, Lume has met with a fair bit of success as an artist, allowing for his impressive home and studio. I feel it is also important to mention that since his pesky interferences with the weather for art as a young colt, he began ordering lightning clouds directly from the Cloudsdale Weather factory on special commission!**

* I would like to point out that I am no expert on petrified lightning. I understand that the natural formations are rather “ugly” and rough looking, and the appearance of a natural, glass-like product is very rare. However, as I would like more diversity in Lume’s work as an artist (and because I feel like more polished artworks are a good reflection of his peacock nature) I was hoping to use selective sands and a bit of Pegasus power to say he is able to get larger scale sculptures that are very glass-like in appearance. Also, selective sands just means he has control over the levels of minerals such as silicates. If this bending of science is unacceptable, I would be more than willing to find alternatives for Lume’s sculpting practices.

**I am not overly familiar with lore regarding the Cloudsdale Weather factory. If large-scale lightning cloud commissions aren’t fitting for the lore please tell me and again I will try to figure out a work-around! I understand that this fulgurite deal seems pretty out there, haha.

Cutie Mark: A tangled mass of what looks like clear glass tentacles (much like Dale Chihuly’s work, which I’ll show an example of below!) with a lightning strike radiating in the centre. Lume’s cutie mark appeared fairly late in his colthood, during a difficult period in his youth. He had absolutely no passion in his life beyond wanting desperately to prove his worth. One day, while struggling with a lighting cloud he was meant to clear away from the Nimbusgait Lakes, he accidentally pounded out a huge charge of electricity and battered the sandy shore beneath him. Rattled, but very pleased that nopony had been around to get injured, Lume was drawn away from his cloud to the scorched sand beneath him. He had no idea where this sudden enchantment had come from, but the solid edges which had formed in the ground seemed to call to him. First, he waited for the sand to cool. It didn’t take long for his patience to all but disappear, however, and he rushed off to finish his job and head home. What an odd thing, for a pony to be so obsessed with a fanciful scorch mark!

He couldn’t resist the call coming from that black mark, however, and raced back there as soon as he woke the next morning. The ground had cooled and he dug into it immediately, discovering a weirdly shaped, rough mineral tube with a dark, glass core. The shape fascinated him! Fondly, he held the object in the sunlight and inspected it from all angles, feeling the strong pull of obsession. Almost immediately after he saw the shine of the glass core his cutie mark appeared and he knew he would spend the rest of his life working with petrified lightning!

History: Luminous Charge is the third child to a Pegasus couple with a great passion for all things weather-related. His father works in the Cloudsdale Weather factory while his mother prefers working out in the skies, keeping the weather in check from day to day. His older brother and sister (who are twins) took after his mother, leaving him the odd one out in the family. From a young age he always wished to stand out from his siblings, knowing that he had no passion for controlling the weather like his parents. At least, he had no passion for controlling the weather in the more conventional pegasus way!

When his cutiemark appeared he finally understood himself and his place in the world. He began dragging lightning clouds to any patch of sand he could find to make more and more fulgurites until eventually he decided to attempt sanding and polishing them or piecing them together. Though he often got in trouble for swiping clouds and disturbing the weather from time to time, his parents were too fascinated by the bizarre talent their son had to attempt restricting him. And besides, this was clearly the destiny his cutie mark had in store for him! They just…didn’t quite understand the situation. They weren’t particularly artistic ponies.

Soon enough, citizens from around Cloudsdale and Trottingham began to notice Lume’s work, and some of the ponies on the pulse of the art world even wanted to buy what he was making! Everything snowballed from there – some of Canterlot’s elite took an interest in him and purchased his art for some of the more glamorous galleries, and then he was applying for grants to fund even larger scale works. Eventually, he had enough money for large studios and massive amounts of supplies for his work! Once he had saved up enough, he settled permanently into his Trottingham villa where he has been working ever since.

He has begun to grow bored with his situation, however, and is beginning to realize that what he longs for the most is a student. He would love to pass on his art form to an eager young pony, and the extra help would mean less grunt work for himself (which would satisfy his inner peacock as well, something that has been growing since he first started visiting Canterlot for exhibitions and gallery openings).

It is, perhaps, loneliness that drives this desire to take on a student. Though he can share his hard work with others by having his art on display, he cannot share the joy of making with others, something that leaves him feeling increasingly more empty. There is nothing he wishes for more than to see the same joy he feels on the face of another as they create their first piece of fulgurite!

Character Summary: Luminous Charge can be quite the intimidating pegasus. His large, muscular body and dark hues earned him the nickname “Ominous Charge” from his siblings, and his stern, silent composure doesn’t help matters. Getting to know him, however, makes it very clear that he’s not stern at all – he only appears so. He is, in fact, just a quiet individual. He spends a lot of time living and working by himself, which has left him a touch socially inept. Lume is definitely a stallion of few words. But don’t start thinking of him as shy! He definitely has a peacock streak, causing him to fuss over his looks and recognize that he’s got them. He may not mind hard work but he’s grown awfully bothered by how sweaty and dirty he gets – it makes his appearance that much harder to maintain, and it certainly takes away his opportunities to dress up! That said, he still passionately loves his work – he’s just gotten a bit vain over the years.

In the art world, he’s very good at maintaining a suave, professional air. He comes off as a bit cool and distanced, but he is very eager and willing to answer any questions one may have and he is certainly always willing to help anypony out whenever he can. He simply doesn’t know how to come off as a friendly pony!

Aside from his work, his few hobbies are reading, flying, and traveling around Equestria in search of inspiration!

I'm fairly new here myself, but welcome! I hope you have a fun time on here!

Also: Awwwww yeaaaahhh Metal Gear and Half-Life.

El drew a purposeful breath, eyes closed. She could feel the tickle of faint sunbeams warming her shoulders as they poured in through her back window. Somewhere out in the garden she could hear Blue, her little fairy wren, chirping away. Her wake-up call. It was odd for her to be awake before his morning song, but today just seemed like one of those days where she was going to be a little more on the ball than usual, and she was always grateful for those little bursts of energy. Finally she opened her eyes and made her way to the kitchen, where she took dough that she had already made and started to bake her pastries for the day. She then made her way to the garden doors, which began to glow with golden light and slide open.

[colour=#ffa07a]“Morning,”[/colour] she sang out softly as Blue drifted down from her elder tree to land on her back. Her soft, golden eyes took sharp notice of the berries on her tree: many of them were turning plump and black, causing the branches they were hanging on to sag a little. Midsummer was approaching quickly! The young mare could not wait to see the berries ripen. Quickly (but carefully) sweeping her gaze over the garden, El set to work. Like clockwork, a set of tin watering cans painted blue and decorated with white flowers began to lift into the air, bouncing lightly in the unicorn’s golden magic. Very calmly, she spread them out over the garden to water her flowers, and when she was done she began snipping the buds and leaves she would need for the morning. Blue darted from plant to plant as she worked, chirping whenever she missed a bloom.

Once she had her plants trimmed, she went into the little workroom in the far corner of her garden which was hidden (for atmospheric purposes) behind a massive clutch of tea rose plants. Once there, she hung each of her collected samples to dry and bottled some of the finished pieces to take into the teahouse to blend – after she removed her pastries from the oven, of course.

Every morning when her sweets came out unscathed El felt grateful for her magic. She would never be able to work so quickly or efficiently without it, and certainly would never be able to leave her oven unwatched to do any other work – it would take so long to work in her garden that the sweets would burn! Of course, she could always seek out somepony to work for her, but she simply couldn’t conceive of such a thing. El was terribly particular and would never be able to share her work because of it!

When her morning routine was complete, she lifted all of the chairs off of the tables to set on the floor (or ground, in regards to her garden area) and opened the doors of her teahouse. It was still a bit early, so she wasn’t really expecting to see many faces, but that was fine. She began to steep a post of jasmine tea for herself nibbled on a croissant dusted with elderflower sugar.

[colour=#ffa07a]“Well, Blue,”[/colour] she said brightly, smiling up at the little bird preening himself on the open door to her teahouse, [colour=#ffa07a]“The sun is shining, the air is fresh, and I woke up early! It looks like today will be a lovely day.”[/colour]

Thanks for the warm welcome!

As for the older series, I admittedly never really watched/followed it at all, mostly just collected the pony toys because they were A: cute and B: horses. I think of all of them Clover was my favourite that I had, and funnily enough I only found out that he was male within the last year. I played with that pony all the time as a kid thinking he was a girl! Haha.

Also, an aviation mechanic? That's pretty neat!

About Myself: I'm an art student from Atlantic Canada with an interest in sculpture (particularly welding), analogue photography, and installation pieces! Also, I love gaming and being a creature of the internet.

How I found Canterlot.com: I googled "My Little Pony roleplay!"

How I became a fan of MLP:FiM: I collected the toys growing up, and one of my friends told me they had a new cartoon after the first few episodes of FiM. I was hooked instantly!

My favourite main cast pony/s: Miss Rarity,Twilight Sparkle
Hey, new friends! Most of what I had to say I filled out up above, but I'd like to add that I'm looking forward to being a part of this community and having some fun!

I'm honoured, thanks a lot! I've edited the post, and I'll get on that introduction right after my class this afternoon, I'm actually just about to leave now.

Thanks again! I'm looking forward to joining the community!

Roleplay Type

World of Equestria

Name

Elderflower; friends call her El.

Sex

Female

Age

Younger Mare

Species

Unicorn

Eye colour

A warm, pale gold.

Coat

Light Cream.

Mane/Tail

Elderflower's mane and tail are both very soft and voluminous. Both are fairly straight, but tend to curl towards the ends. She likes to tie off her mane loosely, in order to keep stray hairs in check, and often she will pin flowers into the ribbons she uses for tying. Her tail, being somewhat long, she likes to keep in a loose, loopy bun in order to keep it from dragging on the floor. She could always get it trimmed, but she has become fond enough of her typical tail-bun that she'd really rather not cut any of the hair off!

Physique

El is a little bit on the tall and slender side, though she hardly towers over others – she’s mere a few inches above the average pony height. Her stature coupled with her serene demeanour and delicate gait, the best way to describe her in terms of her appearance is “wispy.”

Residence

Her home in Canterlot is a small house connected to the side of her teahouse!

Occupation

El runs a small but enchanting teahouse called the Elder Tree Teahouse designed to capture the very essence of serenity. The shop is designed mostly with wood, and many of the beams and counters have relief carvings of tranquil natural scenes: willows hanging over ponds, finches poised for flight on slender branches, and similar scenes are alive on the surfaces of her shop! The shop’s biggest draw is the tea, but El’s got a few sweets infused with her tea flavours on the menu as well!

Cutie Mark

A cluster of pink and white elderflowers in full bloom with curving lines underneath them, dotted to represent the berry-bearing branches of an elder tree.

Like most fillies, El was always eager to find her calling and her cutie mark! Being the daughter of two unicorn baristas in Canterlot, she loved to help them out around their café/bistro for many reasons, one of which was getting to chat with the locals! El was great help waiting tables, and every time she brought a drink or a sandwich or a bowl of soup to somepony, she loved getting them to talk about their cutie marks. As a young filly, having an endless stream of Canterlot locals to talk about how they discovered their callings was fascinating – and educational! Unfortunately, it seemed like a surprising amount of their clientele had gotten their cutie marks purely by accident. But what did that mean for her? The longer time went on without her cutie mark appearing, the more she worried it would never come. After all, if so many ponies found their mark completely by accident, and she wasn’t getting into accidents, what if that meant she’d never ever get hers?

It was a stressful time for the little filly, but she didn’t let it distract her from helping her parents. Day in and day out, she learned how to brew coffee and tea and how to cook and bake, but day in and day out her flank stayed bare. She loved helping out her parents, but her frustration mounted every day as she walked into school to find fillies and colts with shiny new cutie marks. She was so envious! It quickly reached the point where the thought of getting her cutie mark was consuming every moment of her life! She was always thinking on it, wondering what scheme she could come up with to trick her flank into shining. Nothing could distract her from her one-track conviction. Until, one day, a rather frazzled earth pony made her way into El’s parents’ establishment.

El did her best to cheer the mare up, using all the charm a filly could muster to try and win a smile, but all of her efforts were in vain. It wasn’t until she brought the mare a cup of tea that she calmed down. She even looked…peaceful? After that moment, El’s single-track thoughts were halted, and all she could think about was the immediate peace and serenity that earth pony mare had found in a single cup of tea.

After that, all she could think about was tea. She continued to help her parents, but soon enough she found herself keeping an eye open for every disgruntled pony to walk into the café. As soon as she spotted a target, she’d dash behind the counter and pop open the loose tea canisters, blending the leaves to make flavours she thought would soothe the soul! It worked, sometimes, and every time it did she felt unbridled joy. Her tea blends may have been lacking at first, but she got better with practice, and most ponies appreciated her efforts even when her teas were lacking.

One day, a particularly unhappy pony trotted into the café. Large, wet tears rolled down his face and even though he tried his best to stop, he just couldn’t. He seemed so down! El immediately knew what she had to do, and went back to the tea canisters to make something extra special. She kept it simple – floral, sweet, and lively, something that would remind the stallion of spring and rejuvenation – she wanted it to be soothing and uplifting! What she came up with was very, very simple: two parts green tea and two parts jasmine, steeped to perfection and with just a little splash of elderflower cordial for flavour. She trotted up to the stallion, floating the cup of tea carefully over her head, and plopped it down.

“On the house!”

He took one sip of the tea, and something in it must have charmed him because the stallion immediately seemed to calm down! Whether it was due to the kind gesture, the simple fact that the cup of tea was a distraction for sad thoughts, or the tea itself that he was cheered up has always been unclear. As a filly, El was convinced it was the latter and that her efforts alone had helped him feel at ease, and that was when it happened! Her flank began to shine, and the cluster of elderflower blooms appeared on her flank, symbolizing her love of healing the spirit through bringing peace and serenity to others.

History

As a filly, Elderflower’s life was very routine. She would wake up, go to school, help her parents with the café, do her homework, and go to bed. Things stayed that way for a very long while, until the day El earned her cutiemark in fact! Then her life became dedicated to researching and smelling and drinking teas, so that she could learn to make her own blends as well as perfecting existing blends! While she plunged into this world of tea, she also expanded upon her magical talents. So eager she was to work with teas that her two hooves were not enough. She trained herself to become quite adept with levitation and physical magic in order to improve upon her multitasking skills, and though she was never quite talented enough to make it into Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns, she was very satisfied with her abilities. They perfectly served her efforts, after all!

El did her research in Canterlot until the day she was finished with school, when she was free to take her research wherever she pleased. That “wherever” turned out to be all across Equestria! Though still young, her parents knew that she was capable, and so she set out on her own to explore the Equestrian wilderness in search of the ideal tea-brewing plants. She spent a good few years doing this – hunting down the places where tea plants grew, harvesting them, preparing them, and brewing them. If they inspired her palate, she would harvest the seeds with the intention of bringing them home to Canterlot for her garden, or sometimes with the intention of breeding their qualities into other specimens she had found which impressed her.

During her travels, while she was in the process of finding the perfect jasmine tea plant, Elderflower stumbled upon her closest and dearest friend – or at least his egg! Blue the fairy wren, her beloved companion, was just an egg when she found him. In fact, she almost stepped on him! Luckily, she had been looking down while she was walking, and noticed a little egg poking out of the grass before her hoof had fallen. She looked around, curious as to where the nest was that the egg had fallen from, and when she could not find it she lifted the egg with her golden magic and wove a part of her mane into a little basket to carry it in. During the last half of her travels, Blue was at her side – a loyal and faithful companion who was quite good at spotting the plants she searched for!

Finally El returned home and began her efforts to start her tea shop. She chose a plot of land wedged in between two fanciful and gilded Canterlot shops, because despite its smaller size (well, smaller size compared to most Canterlot restaurants and cafés) the land had a tall and proud elder tree growing in it! First, she began her garden and built a little shed for preparing teas. It didn’t take her garden terribly long to mature, and once it had Elderflower took a loan from her parents and had her teahouse built: The Elder Tree Teahouse.

She has been running it by herself ever since. Though the work is hard and very tiring, it is rewarding. The wispy mare would not have things any other way, for every day she sees the positive results of her hard work in the peaceful faces of her patrons. Ponies come to the Elder Tree Teahouse in order to unwind and relax, to soothe their souls and bask in the serenity of the place. Truth be told, however, El sometimes finds herself longing for her days of travel and adventure. She discovered so many wonderful new things journeying across Equestria that despite how happy she is with her current situation, sometimes she longs to take a vacation. When you’re running a busy teahouse on your own, however, vacations aren’t an option.

Character Summary

Between her physique, her soft-spoken nature, and her wispy demeanour, El often gives the impression of being a delicate and frail mare. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. She is very passionate and dedicated: a hard worker who is fiercely independent and impossible to rattle. After all, she spent three years traveling Equestria almost as soon as she became a young mare, and opened up her teahouse very soon after that! She may not look like much, but she’s a tough cookie! And clever to boot.

She’s terribly stubborn though, and very particular. Running the teahouse by herself, though it gives her a chance to meet new ponies and get to know her regulars, has something of a negative impact on her social life. She’s a homebody – the shop is only closed once a week but still demands her attention when it comes to cleaning and tending her garden. That’s not something easily remedied, though, considering how particular she is. The mare could, logically, hire on a second set of hooves to help her out around the shop, but she’s so very fussy about every last detail of how she runs things that she is hesitant to hire somepony else. Besides, this dilemma is only a real dilemma to other ponies! Despite how tired she can get, El loves every moment of her life working at the teahouse – especially the many hours in the garden.

Besides, Blue the fairy wren is a much greater help than most would consider upon seeing him. He keeps an eye on who comes and goes into the shop as well as who is ready to order and who is finished with their tea. He has little distinctive chirps that tell her what the situation is, and she need only follow his voice in order to do her job. It’s a great help!

It’s stamped right on her flank that El lives to help others. She has a warm and generous spirit that drives her to heal and soothe others, whether it’s in times of trouble or over trivial every day affairs. Sadness and stress and frustration are all emotions she wants to drive away with her teas and her teahouse. Everything was meticulously planned, down to the very last detail, to best serve the ponies who visit her shop and help them to feel calm and at peace. Elderflower’s business, then, deals as much with atmosphere as it does with tea!

Tea is more than just a means to an end for her, however. After dedicating years of her life to learning every detail of every tea that she could, tea has become one of her greatest passions – it is second only to her desire to heal and help. She herself prefers floral teas, the light and fresh flavours of lavender, elderflowers, chamomile, and jasmine in particular strike her, though she is also partial to hibiscus.

It’s hard to El to find things she doesn’t like. She has the type of personality that tries to see the good in everything, and in turn she struggles to outright say “I don’t like this!” She is open minded to trying new things and seeing the positive side in the most trying times. That said, when she is pushed she can become quite prickly! She is defensive of the things that are precious to her, and while somepony who disagrees with her opinion is somepony she can accept, if they try to simply force their view on her she can become very prickly and curt. It is a rare occurrence, but that doesn’t make it impossible.

Aside from her obvious interests in tea, gardening, atmosphere-setting, and helping other ponies, El has a fondness for poetry, fiction, and botany (which stems from her research into tea plants). She loves to sing, though she isn’t an astounding vocal talent – mostly she likes to sing for Blue and her plants. She also likes to stay in shape, and on her rare days off can be found jogging.