A thread to discuss My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and the tie-in media.
All of the usual forum rules
apply. In addition, please remember that the thread is discussing a kids' show, and it's primarily focused on the work itself, not the fanfic — in particular, we don't want to see lewdness creeping in.
Edited by Mrph1 on Aug 26th 2024 at 10:24:26 AM
In my headcanon it's a combination/tossup between what you choose, and 'oops, I accidentally bound my soul/had my soul bound to this object/place/aspect/concept in a moment of duress'.
Like, based on Cadence's book it seems like a natural combination of her own love and that artefact of hers kinda defaulted her goddess-hood to love, and with Twilight it's kind of vague whether she chose her aspect or whether it was always there and she just discovered it... either way, for the most narrative interestingness, having an even combination of gods who ascended to their aspect through choice and will, and those who ascended trough circumstance or being raised up in reward for something is best.
I think I've seen clips of Gumbball. Seemed pretty weird. combination of animation and real-life stuff.
edited 17th Jun '14 12:34:05 PM by kegisak
Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.Admittedly, that response of mine was overly simplistic.
Someone can't just ascend to alicornhood and decide, "Hmmm ... I think I'll be the Princess of ... let's see ... couches!"
They are automatically assigned a nebulous mix of concepts to draw power from (kind of ... This is a bit difficult to explain in summary) and they basically choose how they wish to represent that ... conglomeration and what they wish to primarily represent. Sort of.
Basically, there are "slots" (seats, as they are known) for them to fill and to which they're automatically assigned. Each seat is associated with a heavenly body and its ... associations.
Ah. So they're given a concept as a whole, and can choose from an aspect of that concept?
Like, the Seat of Mars could be the god of either War, or, say, Sports(Representing the aspect of competition)?
Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.Yeah, like with his latest fic. Cadance is the Alicorn of Venus, and represents romantic love of others. the main villain is morning Star, a former holder of the seat, who represents hedonism and self-love.
To me it's more. Yes the ascend because of becoming living embodiments of a virtue. But what they wish to do with that, it's up to them to decide. it's just, given who they are, and what caused them to ascend, they;ll most likely choose something related to what ascended them.
I'd assume that whatever the case, you wouldn't be able to ascend if you didn't gel with whatever it was you were ascending to.
Reaction Image RepositoryWell, Twilight ascended through the use of a spell. While it was her connection to her friends that allowed her to figure out the missing piece of the puzzle, and while she herself embodies the virtue of friendship, now that it's complete it's possible that anyone with enough magical power to cast the spell itself would be able to do a 'default' ascension.
Depending on how the spell actually works, of course.
Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.It seems the pony needs to embody and believe in a concept completely, and have a sufficiently powerful spell to do it.
Seems rather simple if rare in the extreme.
@Keg. Medium Blending up to eleven, basically. Flash characters are the norm but even they're drawn in different styles, live action backgrounds, and art shifts. And anything can be a character, anything.
One episode has a new student who's a photorealistic picture of a slice of toast with animated noodly hands and feet drawn in flash.
Just as easily one of the cast is a finely detailed cgi t-rex, a goldfish with feet, a stop motion bunny, a stickfigure pig, and a crayon sketch of a pineapple with legs in 8 bit sprites with choppy frames as it walks.
Take that with a cast of mostly kid voice actors in a colorful world looking like a scrapbook with very cynical humour and that's Gumball.
Pretty much.
Yeah. Morning Star is also heavily based on the concept of "abusive relationships". When writing him, I have to be careful not to squick myself out while still allowing him to be incredibly creepy.
@Keg: The spell caused her to be blasted by all the elements, so presumably they need to be present for the spell to work, and they probably need to be friends with the caster. Its possible that the spell can only be cast by whoever is the element of magic.
edited 17th Jun '14 2:52:16 PM by Crowfall
That's...
I mean, definitely an interpretation of it.
Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.Possibly implying that the spell itself is what triggered the ascension?
Or is it just that Celestia is the one who triggered it for Twilight? Since, if it was just her understanding of it, then she should have ascended as soon as she figured out what she'd done wrong or what have you.
A possible Golden Mean is that the spell is what triggered the ascension itself, but it wouldn't have been able to if she hadn't been in tune, and harmonious with her friends. It was her understanding of her friends that allowed the spell to work, because she tied herself to them - the incantation implied that she used her friend's destinies(In context, their cutie marks, ie. natural, personal magic) to create an enormous boost of magic - but the spell itself is still what did the tying and boosting of magic.
It's a new kind of magic - she invented a way of using multiple sources of power to create a single, large source of power - and it proved she was ready to rule because obtaining the aspect required understanding and maturity.
Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.Lets be honest, probably a minor god at best.
Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.@Ky: Well, that would be something of a god I'd look towards.
Anywho, I'm here for the moment. Have a couple Mayor pics.
Welp, I just got through creating a new derpibooru tag.
What are you guys up to?
edited 17th Jun '14 4:17:24 PM by Wryte
@Wryte: experimenting with my new drawing tablet.
All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.

Whoa.
My brother and I watched an episode of The Amazing World of Gumball and described the insane art styles.
And I thought Panty and Stocking was nuts...