It was unexpected, fo' sho'

Well there could be a whole plot point of how good friends help you cope with a condition. Using Tourettes as an example, I saw a case on TV were the guy's condition would only come to the forefront when under extreme stress and worry. Finding a stable and long lasting relationship made it practically disappear. When he was awaiting news of his date (always a tense time), he was loudly swearing, flipping the bird and twitching uncontrollably. After settling down with a nice girl...he only makes a little twitch every now and then.

edited 10th Jan '13 6:16:28 AM by ApplelightLimited

otherwise inane episode

Except that by definition, your genes are identical to your genes.

Well, there was Daring Doo and ninja! Dashie too.

@Yeller: Not if you're a clone of your future self gone back to the past, because you'll be a clone who begets a clone and that's how the degeneration begins, especially factoring that ageing is a major issue for clones.

Cute paperponi art :3

It's my second-favorite RD episode, after Wonderbolts Academy.

So with regards to dog pony, is this a case of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons?

@ Apple: It doesn't sound like it's an easy character to write well. I'd need to see a couple of comics featuring this character before I could really make a judgment.

edited 10th Jan '13 6:24:16 AM by Sydxelia

@Apple: I dunno.

Grouchy human!Luna

@ Syd and Ace

I see. Well, one idea was...in times of calm, when all is well...he's practically normal, and quite calm and controlled actually (but there are little signs)...come times of stress, he reverts to the manic dog state.

And dat Luna...

edited 10th Jan '13 6:28:31 AM by ApplelightLimited

But under the self consistency model, you'll be identical to yourself by definition, so no degeneration can occur.

Also, RI&W was awesome.

@yeller: I don't agree with the Self-Consistency model, preferring instead the Cascade-to-Stability model, where timeline loops will degrade/change into a persistant stable state, or the causality loop sorts itself out.

In the case of being your own clone, it creates a final stable-loop-broken timeline where you died of mysterious clone degeneration-related illnesses inexplicably, after a chain of timeloops where "you" undergo clone degradation with all the illnesses, missing proteins, and IQ dropping that results.

edited 10th Jan '13 6:35:14 AM by AceOfScarabs

I'm on the fence about this, honestly.

Sleep flying.

Nice Human Chrysalis and Shining Armor.

edited 10th Jan '13 6:41:01 AM by Sydxelia

No, I don't think this is going to work.

For every 5 great ideas you'll have to toss out one less-than-good one, I suppose.

@Ace Being your own parent can't cause Clone Degeneration, because the Stable Time Loop fixes the probability of the genetic makeup of youor child/yourself to always be the same and not degrade. Otherwise you'd have even more of a paradox than a (relatively) simply bootstrap paradox.

What Ed said. Every creative process is trial and error.

@Lurker: Like I said, I don't suscribe to stable time loops. There's always a source timeline where the change was originally made, followed by X recursions with gradually accruing differences (like when Homura embarked on her timeline-tampering spree to save Madoka), followed by a final, stable timeline which cannot be reconciled with the original source timeline. So there'll be an original timeline where the original "you" creates a gen-1 clone, after X timelines it results in a 1+x clone with x generations of degradations, which will ultimately result in a final timeline where "you" don't exist because your 1+x clone died of degenerative illness from clone degradation before he could create one more generation. Simple math.

At best, you perceive one/some of the transitionary looplike generations of clones cloning each other.

edited 10th Jan '13 6:51:08 AM by AceOfScarabs

Well, there must be a reason, however out-of-touch with reality, that they act like a dog. (And I think they're a she, but I digress.) Some delusion, perhaps? Or the product of a fractured psyche, brought about by some great psychological trauma? Maybe they once envied the way a dog is often considered "man's best friend" (or however that translates to pony parlance), and after suffering a great deal of loneliness, decided to become one.

More like you'll have to scrap five rubbish ideas for every half-decent one you manage to scrounge up.

At best.

edited 10th Jan '13 6:49:13 AM by KylerThatch

Megasweet: young!human!Rarity sleeping :3 Also Opal

Ah, so you ascribe to the "You can only time travel to parallel universes" style of time travel. With that kind of travel yeah, that would be how it would work, though the initial probability of you having yourself as a child after traveling would be miniscule due to there being no predestination paradox to force it.

@Kyler: Yeah, that's about right for me.

edited 10th Jan '13 6:53:02 AM by edvedd

@Lurker: It's more a model of the Trousers of Time that develops more dimensions than can be reliably rendered on paper :V Also tampering with the past of your timeline can cut you off from the relative future (your "Original present") - you won't be chrono-erased, but you can't go back.

edited 10th Jan '13 6:53:12 AM by AceOfScarabs

Is there a Kathleen Barr interview out there somewhere? I'd love to get her thoughts on voicing Trixie and Chrysalis.