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Armok_GoB comments on Specific Fiction Discusion (April 2011) - Less Wrong Discussion
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Watch here: http://www.youtube.com/user/MenloMarseilles#g/c/F44B36D569D8C463
Description: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic
My brother is one of the actors on this show.
This brings me absolutely no inside knowledge or wisdom, but a great deal of pleasure when somebody brings it up on a rationalist message board.
Who does he play?
Pray forgive me that I dodge this question. My brother prefers to keep his personal & professional lives separate; now that I've outed myself as his sister on a Googlable forum, I feel awkward identifying precisely whose sister I am.
To the best of IMDB's knowledge, there are four male voice actors (not counting John de Lancie), which already narrows things down quite a bit.
Awwww. :(
Wow, that's pretty awesome! ^_^
The "Feeling Pinkie Keen" episode may be fun to analyze from a rationalist/Bayesian perspective. Was Twilight Sparkle being rational to jump based on Pinkie Pie's sense at the end? What would have to be the priors at the beginning of the episode for it to be the correct decision at the end, after all the accumulated evidence? :-)
I just watched that the other day and had the same reaction. I was annoyed that the ending moral was "okay, I can't understand it and it's just mysterious and that's okay," rather than "okay, I don't understand how it works NOW, but clearly there's something to this. I should continue to study it and in the meantime treat it as a valuable source of evidence."
I wasn't that annoyed though, because a few episodes prior Twilight had been totally right about a "curse" not being magic at all, with a "scientific explanation" instead.
Also amused that Twilight has a secret science lab with an MRI machine that she never uses again.
Semi relevant; I posted the following LWish thing in a discussion thread on a forum:
(Please note that this was not written for LW, so therefore I were sloppy and also oversimplifying things due to inferential distance.)
I haven't gotten that far yet, but from what I've heard it would indeed.
I have started drawing ponies. They are fun and easy to draw. If anyone wants a pony version of emself (or of someone or something else), ask me (samples of the ponies I have already drawn will be publicly available soon once they've been scanned and colored).
You should do Clippy! :D
Okay, I'll do Clippy in the next batch. (If Clippy would care to weigh in on how it should be ponied, splendid; otherwise I'll make something up.)
I should be a pony that's good at making paperclips.
Thank you :)
Yeah!
Sample ponies:
Luminosity, a pegacorn pony of me (pegacorn because I'm greedy like that)
Cosmic Ray, a unicorn pony of MBlume (note: tufted tail and goaty beard and ruffly legs nonstandard variants)
Flicker Spice, a pegasus pony of Lindsey
I am amused to note that the pony fandom often refers to unicorn pegasi as "alicorns".
I believe this use of the word has its origin in a book by Piers Anthony and some other person.
More ponies:
Comet, a pegasus pony of Michael Anissimov (request was relayed secondhand; apologies for any errors)
Elfwhinny, an earth pony of Aris_Katsaris (now with added spectacles)
Indigo Dawn, a unicorn pony of Adelene Dawner
Levity, a pegasus pony of my alphabeta*
Resilience, an earth pony of Zack M. Davis
Tuesday, a pegacorn pony of Wednesday's mother
*I refer to beta readers of my fiction as "[greek letter]beta", so alphabeta is the first person to sign on as a beta, betabeta is the second, etc.
Yet more ponies:
Clippony, the long-awaited pegasus version of our mascot.
Silver Spiral, an earth pony of Yvain.
Enlightenment Sky, a pegasus pony of Harvey.
Lightsaber, a unicorn pony of my best friend.
Excelsior, an earth pony of Cyan with a surprisingly non-cyan color scheme.
New batch of ponies up. I had to come up with names for all of these because nobody named their ponies ahead of time; I will change names accordingly if people don't like their assigned pony names.
Calamus, a unicorn pony of Jaime Astorga.
Equilibria, an earth pony of badger.
Pa'li, a My Little Na'vi of Eliza.
Pianissimo, a unicorn pony of Emil.
Pomme, an earth pony of MixedNuts.
Query, a unicorn pony of ata.
Seafoam, a hippocampus pony of my friend Gwen.
Strange Loop, a unicorn pony of Douglas Hofstadter.
Tempus, a unicorn pony of Leonhart.
Love the Hofstadter pony.
Thanks! Please don't anybody spam him telling him about it; MBlume already sent him an e-mail notifying him that he's been ponied.
Awesome! Thanks for Calamus, Alicorn, he's perfect.
Also, I really like Strange Loop and Seafoam.
Awesome, thank you!!
Could I use that as my Facebook profile picture?
At the bottom of the page of collected ponies, note the CC license :)
How are pictures and names created? For example: does one always come before the other, are they usually created simultaneously as rough drafts and updated concurrently until both are finished, or what?
if someone gives me a name as part of the specs, I use that. If I have to name the pony, I wait until it's colored before deciding unless it's really obvious like "Clippony", and sometimes I consult people for ideas. The steps of picture creation are specs, sketching, and coloring.
Clippony is awesome :D
Thank you!
I find it amusing how I instantly rationalize how a pony's appearance reflects the LW member's personality.
I can't tell if Clippony is a colt or a filly. Was that the idea? Since Clippy is a computer, he is neither male nor female, so neither is Clippony?
Yeah. Ponies' visible gender features are nose shape and eyelash prominence. I made Clippony neuter by giving it a filly nose shape and non-prominent eyelashes.
That and the prominent external genitalia. Those are a dead giveaway.
Yay!
(My handle is derived from the name on my birth certificate; the fact that the word "cyan" denotes a color is incidental.)
I find it stimulating to see all those paperclips in Clippony, but how is this pony more capable of making paperclips than other ponies?
The cutie mark indicates that Clippony's special talent is making paperclips.
So, you mean, in ponyspace, markings on a pony indicate the special talent of the pony? If so, then Clippony is AWESOME because of all the paperclip symbology!!! Make that one the mascot representation for this internet website!!!
I hereby grant whosoever desires the privilege permission to print out images of Clippony and use it instead of a plain picture of a paperclip to indicate LW meetups, or serve other valid mascotly functions. If there is demand I may draw Clippony in other poses or something.
My drawing tablet died yesterday. I can sketch (on paper) all the ponies I want, but people whose pony requests are still pending will go on pending until I can replace it and color them.
Ooh, ooh! Do you still have space? If so, I'd like a pony please, with specs left to your discretion.
The batch has space, but I do require you to choose your own specs, even if you can't be maximally specific.
Oki, I've thought about it. Could I please have a unicorn pony with shocking pink skin, deep green hair, short mane, circular glasses, and a quill cutie mark? Thanks in advance!
Can do. Have added your specs to my list :)
Does your friend happen to be aka BionicDance? Because it really reminds me of her.
Also, Clippony Is So Awesome.
Nope, that's not her.
After discovering this today and watching three episodes, I'd love one, if you were so kind!
Possible specs (but feel free to play around): earth pony, burnt orange/red body, dark brown hair, short mane, perhaps zebra-ish, something suggesting a beard
For the cutie mark, how about Selten's horse (bottom of the second page, dropping the labels of course)?
I'm not sure what you mean by a "zebra-ish" mane. Please look at the other ponies I've drawn and see if any of them have something like what you mean. (Check out the beards on Excelsior and Cosmic Ray, too, to see if those are what you want.)
?
[The link died, here's another copy]
Ah, I meant something like straight and short, along the lines of Comet. A beard like the one on Excelsior would be good.
Hey! That was my idea! :p
Speaking of that, I made another one of the virtues:
http://i53.tinypic.com/jtp3rq.png
And here's the previous one: http://i54.tinypic.com/20jnz1g.jpg
2/12, 10 to go... And then I might have actually learnt how to draw them euclidecaly and make proper, vectorized versions.
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/5459/demponies.png I apologise in advance.
The next rationalist fanfiction of Less Wrong contributors should be called "My Little AI: Friendliness isn't Magic!" :-)
Excellent work, Leonhart!
No, no; the fic has to be My Little Pony: Friendship is Science.
Cooperation is Instrumental.
Done.
Friendship is Science has now been revised to contain a bit more plot.
Okay, there's probably no point in nitpicking a parody, but Fluttershy doesn't have a horn, she's a pegasus, not a unicorn.
Edit to add: but seriously there's no point in fussing over perfecting such an omake. Frankly I thought the first version was somewhat better, as "Mary Sue" parodies are a bit cliche.
Seconded on the first version being better.
Also, "plot" is ponyfan slang for butts.
Edit: Well, someone had to say it.
This is making me increasingly worried that I only like the rest of those omake files due to halo effect from your person and not being as enthusiastic about the originals.
Nice. Although not as great as it could be, am I guessing correctly that you didn't have much previous experience with the show or spent that much time on researching it?
Just the first two episodes so far.
Oh. Well that's more than 40 min so I'd say I were wrong then.
Also; YESSSSSSS I managed to make Eliezer a Brony! (Probably. In the future. ) :D
In case you don't have the time (or the desire) to watch the whole series, two episodes that are particularly relevant to the topics of LessWrong are probably 'Bridle Gossip' and 'Feeling Pinkie Keen'.
I don't get it. Is it mocking somehting?
The indigo one is Eliezer and the yellow one is Robin Hanson.
bwhahahahahahahahahahahaha
I blame you both. I never used to have ponies in my utility function. And now it's 2AM.
It is so amazing. <3
Thank you :)
Those are very cute, especially Bacon. But I have to nitpick: you misspelled precision.
Thanks. And yea I know, lots of people have pointed it out I'm just to lazy to re-upload the image.
Why is this pony named Bacon?
Many reasons, but mainly after Francis Bacon and for the bare phonetic sound of it fitting her personality.
Made another one today: http://i56.tinypic.com/oksn6v.png
I'm getting better at this. And yea the symbol to the side is the cutie mark because it was obscured by the wing.
I like Riddle Heart as a name.
Thanks! :)
I really like the cutie mark.
... you recognized/understood it? Do you study symbols and such a lot then?
No. What I like about the cutie mark is that it's mostly, but not quite entirely, concealed, thereby maximizing my curiosity as to what it is.
Edit: ...and I just now saw your comment explaining where the cutie mark is shown in full.
I would love to be ponified.
I'm not sure if I'll do another batch after the pending one, but if I decide to, I'll let you know and you can give me specs for your pony.
LOL! Sure, I'd be both grateful and delighted to have a pony version of myself. Name the pony Aristotle perhaps (my full first name), to have a thematic connection with philosophy and proto-science. :-)
What do you need, description/photo? (It's getting late over here, so I'll probably respond back tomorrow)
Thanks in advance!
I need to know how to style the mane and tail; the desired "cutie mark" (the little design on the flank); whether you want to be a pegasus, unicorn, or "earth pony" (I made myself a pegasus unicorn because I'm just greedy but that appears to be restricted to the princesses in canon); what colors everything should be; and any other added features you want on your pony (e.g. I gave MBlume's pony a little goaty beard). If you don't have strong opinions about any of these features you can leave it up to my creative discretion within the theme.
Thought for a moment that this was a typo then realized it wasn't. :-)
It seems restricted to god tier characters in the canon, and always accompanied with a more adult look...
Nah, the de-deified Luna lost the adult look (and seemingly the powers) but maintained the wings and horn. I think Lauren faust said we'll see her again in Season 2 -- I wonder if we'll ever get a story about how they achieved their god-tier level.
Hmm. Let's go for a natural look. A brown Earth pony with short blondish mane, male. Wears glasses, somewhat rectangl-y ones (you can see another cartoonish version of them at http://www.livejournal.com/allpics.bml?user=katsaris ). For a cutie mark, a closed book with a symbol of silver pegasus wings on its cover. The idea expressed being he likes to write/read/imagine about the capabilities he doesn't have.
The name "Aristotle" doesn't fit as well now with the other ponies' names, so go with Elfwhinny. (which is a pun on Tolkien's Aelfwine)
If I left anything out, feel free to embellish. :-)
Thanks again!
In case you didn't see the Batch 2 Ponies comment, Elfwhinny is done.
Edit: Dammit, forgot the glasses. Editing them in now.
Edit2: Glasses on.
Thank you!
I'll add this to my next batch. (Unless you have comments on the mane & tail styling beyond "short"?)
LOL, I thought I was being way too specific and demanding. :-)
No, I don't have any preference for the tail styling, nor anything more specific than "short" for the styling of the mane.
That show doesn't need a "Rational" fanfic: it's pretty rational all by itself. In fact, the characters go more intelligently about their problems and drama than most characters in fiction, even adult fiction.
Couldn't agree more.