Bramble Rose

Oh... my ... goodness.... So much frustration, and everyone trying *so hard* to ignore their own feelings and 'be strong' for their friends... or what they assume their friend wants... Instead of just stopping for a moment and *listening* to what their friends really want. Spike was adorable. Rarity was adorable. Fluttershy was gorgeous. Pinkie Pie... Oh... my ... goodness, Pinkie Pie, bending the laws of time and space even more than usual today. Brilliant episode.

Sweetie Belle put her leg over Apple Bloom's shoulders, to calm down the excitable earth foal, but also just looking friendly and companionable as she cheerfully chirped, "We're having a special Cutie Mark Crusader picnic for the foals who don't have cutie marks! We're on a quest to try everything we can till we figure out what our special talent is!" With that she stepped away from Apple Bloom to the basket, nuzzled into it, and pulled out her special Cutie Mark Crusader Cape. With a flourish she twirled it around before her and settled it about her shoulders, posing cutely with it for Champ. She smiles happily, and flutters her lashes again. "You must be really good at stuff if you're the Champ! And your cutie mark shows what a star you are! Can you think of anything we can try to get our cutie marks? If you figured out our special talents, you'd be our hero!"

Sweetie Belle was about to react to the rest when the harsh, taunting voice cut across their discussions. She had to act quickly. She was pretty sure Scootaloo or Apple Bloom, the tomboys they could certainly be, would respond harshly to a bully, and she didn't want their picnic ruined. So she put on a bright smile. "Oh, wonderful!" she said cheerfully, "A new friend! How lovely to meet you!" She pranced up towards him, tossed her lovely mane to her best advantage, and said, "I'm Sweetie Belle! What's your name?" Her big, wide eyes fluttered, glistening eagerly in her sincere desire to be friends.

Sweetie Bell let out a *squeak* as the energetic little yellow earth pony, Apple Bloom, tackled her. She laughed and wriggled, and rolled to her feet. "Hi, Apple Bloom!" she cried happily, glad to see her friend. Then she turned to Moose and crossed her forelegs in a polite little curtsey. "And it is a pleasure to meet you, sir!" she said, trying to act all fancy like her big sister! She peered around to see if he had his cutie mark. Nodding with satisfaction, she gave a smile. "We're all working to find our cutie marks, today!" She tromped her hooves on the ground in applause as Scootaloo delivered one of her flashy trademark entrances, but let out a dissapointed *awwww* as she saw the cookie crumbs... then cheered up at the mention. "Oh, great idea!" she said. "Or we could get some ice cream, and pour the crumbs over the ice cream! Cookie crumbs go great on ice cream!" She nodded sagely, as if imparting a great wisdom. Her head lifted, then, and her pure, strong voice carried. "It's rude to hover around the edge of a crowd eavesdropping!" she said, quite clearly, to Grim, trying to match Rarity's voice, but her voice was too sweet to carry quite the same haughty tone. "Do you want cupcakes? We only have three, but we could cut them in half!"

I think you guys are forgetting that she doesn't have to have a 'limited pool' even if this were the case - every living being in existence brings in energy from an outside source. It's called eating, or photosynthesis. In the case of ponies, they might also be manavores. But I doubt very much she needs to 'manually' keep her youth. I would rather suspect that Royals are just naturally long-lived.

(( This is the Cutie Mark Crusader thread, but it's open for anyone who wants to come along! )) It was a gorgeous day. The sun was high and warm, sparse clouds drifting through a magnificently blue sky, and the pegasus ponies said it wasn't going to rain all day. The perfect day for a young foal to get out and about, enjoying the wonderful weather, and running energetically through the fields. One young foal, a white unicorn with an elegantly curled pink and lavender mane, was prancing happily through the streets to the center of town, a little picnic basket held in her teeth and a blanket draped over her back. Through her mouthful of handle she hummed happily to herself, her eyes very nearly closed as she made her way amongst all the ponies in town. When she reached the town square, just in front of the library, she stopped and set down her basket. Her humming swelled to soft song as she reached back and took the blanket between her teeth, her head flicking forward to make it spread out across the grass. o/~ they say that we will find our marks.. when the time is really riiiight... o/~ She circled around the blanket, tugging at the corners with her teeth to make it lay flat, her tail held high with her joyful spirits. Today was the day, she was sure, that she would finally find her cutie mark! Maybe even a picnic cutie mark! She took a moment to check her flank. Awww... no picnic basket. Still just a blank white flank. She laid the basket down on the blanket and started laying out three plates, and three cupcakes. She hoped that Apple Bloom brought some of Applejack's wonderful food for the picnic! Applejack was the *best* baker in town, and her mouth watered at the thought of some of her apple fritters. Her head lifted and peered around. Where were the other two?

Millie looks VERY awesome, and I am quite impressed with your skills of an artist. However, that backpack looks slightly awkward... That's a human military backpack. Ponies should have smaller versions of those, one to each side, as saddlebags! The various sketches are quite awesome, always love to see half-finished stuff... And then the last one is just so intense, like Pinkie's dramatically declaring, "Are You Ready. To PARRRRRRRRTYYYYYYYYYYYY!!"

As far as Kindles go, I feel that the e-reader's best friend is the Gutenberg Project - public domain books in text format. I've caught up on a lot of classic literature that way!

Uuhhhhh... I see nothing there about them being violently and ridiculously and lethally opposed to the main driving force in their world: Magic.

*high-hoof!* (clop!)

Name: Sweetie Belle Gender: Female Age: Foal Species: Unicorn Pelt Color: White Mane/Tail Color & Style: Cutely curled pink and lavendar mane and tail. Eye Color: Green. Cutie Mark: None. *pout* Physique: Tiny, with a strong voice much bigger than she is Residence: Ponyville Occupation: Grade School Student! And helping out my big sister Rarity in her dress shop! Motivation: I don't knoooooooow! I want my Cutie Mark and I want it NAAAOOOOO! Likes: The Cutie Mark Crusaders! Singing, my big sister Rarity, fashion, making clothes just like my big sister Rarity! Dislikes: Screwing up, trying something new and not getting my cutie mark, Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara Character Summary: My best friends Scootaloo and Apple Bloom make up the CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS with me! Together we go on grand CUTIE MARK CRUSADER CUTIE MARK QUESTS to discover our cutie marks! I just KNOW that my cutie mark is gonna be something that shows that I'll be just like my big sister Rarity, who's totally awesome and so stylish! And then she'll let me help in her shop and we'll be fashion sisters together and go to shows together and it'll be so awesome! Hrm... that gives me an idea for a song about sisters... hold on a sec... hmm... mm...mmmmMMMmmmm... o/~ Hey, sister, oh, sister, what do you know, Sister? Don't you know I wanna be just like you? Yes I do! o/~ Oh! Um... *blushes* Oh, nevermind that. Just something that I came up with ...

Which really brings us back to Tolkien, the Royals being pretty much like the elves, or elf-blooded such as Aragorn. Hrm. Royals taking the grey ships across the sea...

As long as you're not feeling discouraged about writing, then I'm all right with that. And I hope to read other things that you've written before too long! The writing was really rather good!

Except that ... there is some pretty good evidence that they aged. Look at Luna's state - she tried to artificially age herself up with her dark power, but she's reverted to her younger age once her dark power was broken. What I'm doing for my fanfic is I'm building up a whole royal family - one whose responsibility is to raise the mountains, control the flow of magma... four who are responsible for the seasons... that sort of thing. then I'm assigning them positions - one as the Lord General, one as the Ruler of Cloudsdale, etc.

There's supposed to be an episode coming up which reveals how all 6 of the main ponies got their cutie marks... AND there's supposed to be an episode, by Word of God, where we meet the parents of the main ponies... Dunno if this is the same episode or not, but it gives me a LOT to look forward to!

Updated: 3/30/11 Name: Doctor Whooves Gender: Male Age: Stallion Species: Earth Pony Pelt Color: Tan Mane/Tail Color & Style: Short, Dark Brown, slicked back Eye Color: blue/grey eyes Cutie Mark: An hourglass Physique: Lean, handsome Residence: Ponyville Occupation: Clockmaker, Tinkerer, Traveller Motivation: He can't stand to stay in one place too long... he loves traveling, loves adventure. But Ponyville is where he hangs his hat, so to speak, in between adventures. Likes: Adventure, excitement, helping people in the nick of time. Dislikes: Foals Crying. Innocent people hurt. Responsibility. Character Summary: Doctor Whooves was a relatively easy-going scientist pony, though his devices were a little... 'crazy'. Mind-reading helmets. Spring-loaded horseshoes. That sort of thing. Then, one day, in his shop, he was hanging a clock when he fell and hit his head. When he came to, his ideas had started to crystalize, and he had one important realization: He wasn't getting any younger, and there was SO MUCH to see and do. He started making 'big inventions' less and less often, though there's still plenty of half-finished projects in his house, and instead focused his inventing on spur-of-the-moment inventions. He kept his clock shop, and still works there, but only to pay the bills so that he can turn around and go off to another far corner of Equestria to see what's up! Doctor Whooves lives in a little run-down house in the forest, with all sorts of odd gizmos around it. Some sort of big metal barrel with rows of big copper bumps down the sides rests against the side of his house, collecting rainwater. All sorts of antennae are perched atop the house. A bizarre self-propelled carriage is propped up out front, missing one of its wheels. Thick wires run out the front door to small dishes pointed up towards the sky all around the front yard. If one were to peek in through the window, they'd see a scale model of Ponyville made out of carved white blocks, and a clocktower raised above it all - his dream creation for Ponyville. And in the back is a small, bright blue shed, barely big enough to fit one pony, with a light atop it.

noirDes, I think. Been a while since I played, and generally I'd play TF2 or L4D2.

If it wasn't intended to be a reference to Harry Potter, the magic-heavy attitude, and the 'half-blood' vs. 'full-blood' thing just further mudies the water... And the back-and-forth can be fine, but ... you need to give a better idea of what's going on. If you just go back-and-forth without framing it, that just makes for confusion. You need a few extra sentences to *show* the reader what they're supposed to be seeing. But the big thing I'm confused about is ... If this is supposed to be the forum world, which is the world of Friendship is Magic, which is a world where magic is EVERYWHERE ... ... ... ... What in blazes are they doing screaming 'Burn the Witch'?!?!??!!!??

Bramble holds the door for Mudbug on his way out, smiling to her and nodding his head, completely unaware of how many crumbs were still making his face a mess, or how much hay was stuck to his coat from his tumble. He glanced back at her as she passed him, then he pranced out happily into the street. He was gonna like it here.

Bramble smiled and nodded, and took his leave more sedately, this time... carrying his new, warm muffin as he headed out into the street. There were plenty of other places to try to find a job, and the day was just starting!

*squirms uncomfortably* I didn't want to discourage you from writing... *hangs head* You'll do better the more you try to write... just keep working at it and you'll figure out more and more of what works and what doesn't.

Hrmmm... You put a lot more description and character into this than a lot of other fic writers. You take the original characters, and give them a little time to show their personality, which is good. I slightly disagree with how they acted, but that's probably just a matter of perspective. Everyone has a different thought on exactly who they are. First minor thing is that you have a tendancy to use the possessive 'who's' instead of the referential 'whose'. Second - I dunno if I'd say that Twilight is looking for 'legends'. She's looking for a greater insight into the very *real* magics of other ponies, and other species. That's not legend, that's lore. Third - It's a little admittable, since it's kinda cartoon physics and logic... but you made a big deal about how secretive and skittish the deer were, mentioning it over and over again... and then Skye just trots out and says hi. That just seems... odd. Fourth, and this is the big thing, sadly... In traditional legend, Perytons didn't have anything like this sort of ability. Even that, I could somewhat grant, except... The way you wrote it out essentially mary-sued the whole deal. Skye is able to solve everyone's problems, just by flashing his magic at them so that they become better, more self-realized ponies. Character development via Deus Ex Machina. It's very close to being a decent story ... except for the fact that it's an ongoing character sort of deal rather than a one-off event. He's still *there*. If this was a magic mirror you could only use once... or a phantom castle that only appeared once every hundred years.. or a djinn that disappeared to the far corners of the world after being used... Some old wise pony atop a mountain in a little shack that disappears when they turn around ... then it'd be a lot better. But making it, instead, a 'local' character that outshines all of the main characters... and solves their problems in one sentence, or one paragraph's worth of text... much less a self-insert character... that makes it rub a little rough.

Adding my voice... I don't see Celestia and Luna as deity figures in any conceivable way. I mean, sure, to *us* they seem to have that power... but we come from a world without magic. This is a world *steeped* in magic, where *every* pony has their own natural connection to controlling the world around them. Rising the sun in the morning, or the moon at night, is a natural extension of cleaning up winter for spring, or making the leaves fall in the autumn, or making the animals wake up from their hibernation, just on a larger scale. But in our technological world, that'd be the equivelent of declaring that Tesla or Einstein was 'a diety' because they advanced science as much as they did, or had devices no one else did. As for Celestia's long life and rulership... In the Lord of the Rings, Aragorn is expected to live and rule for hundreds of years... and we don't consider him a deity figure. And they were obviously young 1000 years ago, since we can see that Luna, when she was bound, was a much smaller and younger pony, no bigger than the average pony, not yet fully grown into her Royal heritage. As for what religions might exist... well, there are certain real-life religions that fit the series, and other religions that do not. Certainly ANY real-life religion would need to have a much 'milder' past to account for the different *feel* of the world that Friendship is Magic embodies. And any religion created to fit the world specifically would be up to the individual creator.

Oops... meant to put this here, not in the other location. The writing is decent, but the subject itself needs some clarification... When you're doing a story that's not set in the actual world of the subject material, you need to really make sure to express that ahead of time. In this case, you have a world that's not set in the Friendship is Magic world *or* in the Harry Potter world, despite being inspired by both. This makes it very difficult to figure out what's going on, especially when you keep throwing more and more stuff at us. You have a city of Griffins, named after the Harry Potter house... but magic is scarce. And at first, you get the impression that magic is treasured and celebrated, but then you suddenly have a an angry mob crying, "Kill the witch!" Right there is such a confusion and bewilderment that it pulls the reader RIGHT out of the story. At first, I was under the impression that this was in the Friendship is Magic world... which makes a reference to 'Griffindor' a bit odd... because the Harry Potter *house* is named after Gryphons. But we have the main cast in "Ponyville" so I can accept it, though I'd name the city Gryphondor, myself. But when we run into the hatred against magic, it makes it very obvious that this is not the Friendship is Magic world, and makes me confused how a Unicorn could ever have been there in the first place. Expecting the Friendship is Magic world... and then getting 'Kill the Witch!" ... is like walking outside this morning, as the cars are driving on past, and suddenly watching an angry mob with torches and pitchforks run past screaming, "Kill the Engineer!" Second, you said that you know it's confusing. All right... what's the point of making it confusing? Why did you want it to be confusing? Confusion makes it difficult for people to 'get into' a story... which means you need a VERY good reason to make it confusing. In reading this, I didn't see a reason. A few extra sentences setting the scene, instead of leaving the reader in limbo, would have clarified a LOT. The important part of writing is to make sure the reader understands the scene. Understands what's going on, right away - has a clear mental image. When you keep swapping back and forth, you know, in your head, what is being 'seen', but you don't tell the reader what's being 'seen'. This reads a lot more like the script to a cartoon ... because it depends strongly on visuals that the reader does not have access to. And finally... hypogriffs are their own race. They're not half-breeds between unicorns and gryphons. So ... that kinda also confused me. I can see where a hypogriff is sorta like taking the 'eagle' part of the Gryphon and combining it with the 'horse' part of the unicorn... but ... it still makes me go, 'Huh?' Is she adopted, or are you really saying she's a crossbreed? It just brings up a whole *stablefull* of questions. There's a few other things I could comment on, but I think this is the most important core of issues.

On the subject of "Pinkie Pie makes you sad"... all I can recommend is what helped my friend to get through that same thing - Pinkie Pie's 'no fear' song from the pilot. Giggle at the Ghastlies. The subject is a difficult one, and not one that people generally think of in terms of ponies. I'm not sure how much I really like the Pony world getting 'realistic', because I like it as an escape from the nasty stuff around me everyday. But that's just my own personal preference. But taking the subject as it is, I feel it was also a little too straightforward. Because this sort of thing happens under the cover of secrecy, being hidden away, I feel that stories about the subject are also best done not as a 'shocking' display of what's happening, but instead as peeling back the layers of secrecy to come at it from the outside. Perhaps it would better be done as Skylight telling stories about her doll being held captive by a monster? Or trying to go back and get her doll, and being stopped. Finally - it really makes very little sense to me, thinking of a horse picking up another horse by the skin of their neck. They're not kittens. ** But other than that, your writing itself is *not* bad. Decent sense of grammar and vocab, easy to read. Keep at it, because the only thing for improvement is lots and lots and lots of quantity.