My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Live Reactions & Discussion)

Not even then, imo.

That's directly contradicting the lore of the show, which is "RD is the fastest pony, if not creature.'' Even if it isn't focused on, the pony would still be a sue.

Her losing a race should be handled differently than she was outsped.

edited 4th Nov '15 7:30:29 AM by EpicBleye

I'm gonna go to sleep soon. G'night everypony.

The real defining trait of Mary Sues is that they warp the plot to fit them rather than fitting in themselves.

Alternatively, for those not actually involved in a story, they have an entire resume of special powers, cool gadgets, titles, and/or relationships with other powerful/important characters, but no personal identity.

Or, put it another way, they're a list of stuff without an actual character backing it up.

^^ Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Lightning Dust slightly faster than her? There is no hard and fast law of the world that RD is the fastest, full stop, do not pass Go. The important thing is that another pony being faster than her is used as a foil to her development; not just made faster than her because the creator thinks that makes them cooler.

On that note, I don't think the character Meta is describing is an OC. To me, an OC is a character who is created to be the main character of their own story, even if that story features or is even nominally about canon ponies. An OC might cameo as a supporting character, but they are not created to be such alone, as a foil to RD in a story about RD coming to grips with there being a pony faster than her would be.

edited 4th Nov '15 7:34:49 AM by Wryte

Yup, pretty much all of this. Mary Sues cannot by defined in a vacuum, it is all about how they interact with the world around them.

Like Serege's example, new alicorns can work, so long as it fits the cosmology of the setting. An Alicorn of Death is actually a pretty natural thing to consider existing in Equestria. It also helps if said character is made of pure, raw awesome like Plutonia is.

(drinks a cup of sauce) Guys, I think this sauce is expired. (continues drinking the sauce)

Are you still a zombie? I heard zombies don't care about expired things.

Wryte: If you don't consider a new supporting character an OC, then what do you call it?

I wonder, if you take a background pony with no characterization and make something out of that character, does that still count as an OC?

@Kurio No...I'm not a zombie! I'm just a guy. Just a guy.

Now, tell me...(gives Kurio a cup of sauce) Has the sauce gone bad? You drink!

@Meta: I think that was the point of HigherFlier, albeit subtly. Granted, that had a lot of OC focus, but the OC in question is pretty well rounded.

Or, for a rather darker take (and somewhat tangential but one that's stuck with me for a while) with very little OC focus, there's one where Rainbow was being narrowly outperformed during Wonderbolt tryouts and apparently, in the desperation of the moment, jostled her rival and accidentally injured her quite badly....Like I said, it stuck with me for whatever reason.

@Wryte: IIRC Rainbow and Lightning were at pretty much the same level physically; Lightning just pushed herself harder. But I dunno.

Kyler: We have a trope for that: O.C. Stand-in. Which basically describes what the fandom has done with almost every background pony.

Marcen: There are ways to test it without potentially poisoning yourself, you know. *Sniffs the sauce a few times then throws it in the garbage.* You don't want that. I think I might have seen a bit of green growing on top too.

(takes out sauce cup out of garbage, drinks) Nothing unusual here.

Is there a game for Xbox One that is popular online?

So, our version of Tealove is an O.C. Stand-in.

Wryte: If you don't consider a new supporting character an OC, then what do you call it?

A supporting character.

So, Wryte...has the sauce gone bad? (gives you a cup of sauce)

Final Fantasy 6: Apparently the cutscene with Gau's father only triggers with both Sabin and Gau in the party. It's a good thing I used Sabin as my main, because I would have never guessed that otherwise.

Anyway, time to go back to the Dragon's Den to fight Omega weapon. Luckily with the seals all unlocked, I should be able to take a shortcut through the temple to bypass most of the puzzles.

I just realized that it's not the central tunnel which always goes to Kaizer, it's whichever tunnel you enter last. So I didn't need to do that complicated party switching last time. Oh well.

Actually, I had another idea. Just for fun, I'm going to see if I can solo Omega Weapon with just Sabin. Bet I can.

Of course that means I have to get everyone back together at the Shrine of Repose

Sabin is now level 94

That's without any grinding, remember

Well that took longer than expected, because I didn't plan the order well and changed my mind about teams halfway through. But it still didn't take too long. Time to fight Omega Weapon. And yes, Sabin stole Celes's Soul of Thamsa for this. I'm not insane. He doesn't have the Celestriad though, so he'll have to rely on Osmose a lot.

There's no dramatic music as I approach Omega. Where's my champion battle theme?

No speech or introduction or anything this time. Omega Weapon cuts straight to the chase.

Sabin opens with Reraise, Hastega, Ultima, Ultima, and Ultima, all on the first turn. He had to use Hastega becuase he doesn't acutally know normal Haste.

Omega responded with Dischord, halving Sabin's level. Not really sure what that does exactly.

Oh come on! Omega froze Sabin. It's so annoying that that can't be blocked by anything, not even Ribbon.

Omega killed Sabin, unfreezing him.

Unfortunately, Omega killed him again before I could do anything.

Time to try again

Once again, Sabin gets frozen at the beginning of the second turn

This time however, Omega doesn't follow up the Grand Delta with a second kill, isntead futily trying to confuse Sabin, so he gets to go.

I used an Osmose on the third turn, but it only healed 300 or so MP, instead of bringing Sabin back up to full. If it's going to take two osmoses, I might as well just use an Elixer, which is the same amount of actions (vs dualcast osmose). I might as well use them since I've been stocking them the whole game.

Oh great, Sabin's frozen again. You know, I'm wondering if I should stop casting Ultima first. That's probably triggering counterattacks with freezing dust.

Yep, I think I just have to use buffs on the first cast each turn to avoid getting frozen.

Downed third elixer

Omega Weapon down

Well that wasn't too hard. It took me three tries to beat with solo Sabin, but I think I could have done it on the first try once I understood how the counterattacks worked.

Sabin is just satnding there with fists raised in a boxing pose. I guess this is a victory stance? There weren't any other messages or anything upon beating Omega.

Well I guess now I've officially beaten FF 6 Advance for real.

let me try. -drinks sauce- yeah, i think it's turned.

thankfully, i'm a robot now, so i won't get food poisoning.

Well, thankfully, I'm human. (drinks sauce) Yep...it's gone bad. (keeps drinking) Anyone else want to try some sauce?

Oh come on! Omega froze Sabin. It's so annoying that that can't be blocked by anything, not even Ribbon.

OOC: I guess it doesn't matter now, but should you play FF 6 again, flame shields or ice shields should do the trick.

Is this thread dead? Am I dead? Let me check my pulse? (checks pulse) Yep. I'm dead. Yeah...this dead thread killed me. (keels over)

Power levels don't have much to do with Sues, personally. It's all about the focus and characterization.

Like, from a purely powerful point of view, the Mane Six could be said to fall under this distinction. They're accomplished, successful ponies that can do many things better than their peers, particularly Rainbow Dash and Twilight. But it's balanced out by their insecurities, showing how and why they have gotten their abilities and talents, and how they use them.

Out of universe, there's also the fact they need to stand out for the audience attention, particularly in season one where they were nearly the entire cast, as apposed to the tons of side characters we have now.

Twi also can't just flash her horn and instantly fix everything. Most of the problems tends to be more complicated than that and the one time she tried to use a fix all spell, Discord's shenanigans straight up no sold her. Rainbow Rocks also really worked to drive that point home too.

Likewise, the rest of the main six have tried similarly brute force applications of their talents to complex situations and run into run into (even bigger) problems.

Of course, there's such a thing as going too far (such as crossing over into Diabolus Ex Machina) to avoid it, but I don't think any of the main six suffer from that.

I just got an Xbox one! Hooray!

On that note, while "Scare Master" was pretty good overall, I did find it a little contrived that these mares (and drake) who have repeatedly dealt with dire threats to Equestria were terrified out of their minds over getting a little lost and a couple of random encounters. Just a little, since I'll grant that ponies in general are a flighty bunch- but supposing this was an adventure episode and they had genuinely gotten corralled onto a cliff and were being buzzed by a bat monster, would they seriously have stayed that helpless?

It may have also been because it was Fluttershy, and they couldn't bring themselves to hurt her.

It's not the usual grandstanding kind of villainy that they're used to. It's the eerie unsettling kind that comes from seeing your skeletized grandmother, a bizarre fish monster, and your sweetest friend re-vampirized.

A horses natural reaction to danger is to flee; it's why they're such good runners. That's their primary defense mechanism.

I mean 'kick it to death' is a close second, but I mean...

So while they had time to psyche themselves up for other conflicts, the panic instinct may have kicked in due to it being a really unexpected scare.