Most math teachers I've had will give you partial credit so long as you actually show some of your work. If you can show that you were on the right track to solving the problem before, say, spontaneously turning a - into a +, then they'll acknowledge that. But if you don't show your work, they have no real clue if your wrong answer was mostly right, or if you got it from a crystal ball.

Again, it sounds like the real problem is that you never made it past the low level classes where everything sucks. It's true that you have to be careful when doing computations, but everything else you said applies to math just as much as other subjects.

If I have to get through six years of suck to get to the "good" stuff it's not worth it. That and after seeing how miserable the programming and engineering majors at my college were I'm doubtful I would have enjoyed it in any case. I'm just not a math guy.

But now back to ponies.

Have the best face.

edited 6th Apr '13 2:38:59 PM by JapaneseTeeth

I squee'd when I saw that. Is that bad?

I think Death Battle had a pretty good take on Superman vs. Goku. The point was buried under 30 minutes of listing the character's abilities and 3D animations of the two fighting, but Wiz and Boomstick concluded that Superman and Goku serve very different narrative purposes. Goku is a mortal who pushes to improve himself to face ever-greater threats, but who still has limits. Superman is a god whose only limits are self-imposed, and who throws them off for the most dire situations. By that narrative logic, Goku can't beat Superman without one or both of them fundamentally breaking character.

So if we apply that sort of logic to Celestia, what do we get? How exactly does "mentor and force of nature who can't actually resolve the plot herself without being a deus ex machina" translate into an in-story powerset? I'm not sure myself, yet.

edited 6th Apr '13 2:44:32 PM by MetaFour

Possibly. You should get that looked at.

I remember that. I found that to be a real compelling reason for how the fight ended the way it did.

edited 6th Apr '13 2:43:18 PM by IrishZombie

So, I got and read the second microseries issue today!

I'd say it's about on the same level as the first overall - the art is a bit better, but I think the writing is a teensy bit worse. It absolutely adores alliteration and seems to like it's references(There's one to A Space Oddity at least, to say nothing of the Frank Frazetta cover). These on their own are fine, but they aren't really handles as well as I feel like they could have been. Coupled with a metric butt-ton of The Power of Friendship (Flight and The Sonic Rainboom appear to be powered by happiness[?], which is coincidentally also toxic to the sky gremlins, who run on negative emotions like hate, depression and frustration), the comic comes across as really, REALLY corny. Not necessarily a bad corny, and it did have me smiling and laughing along, it just felt weird.

There were also some moments that I feel were handled odd. For example, at the end of the comic Dash pulls off a double rainboom(Which is kind of hilarious in the wake of Double Rainboom), destroying the evil cloud home of the sky gremlins by making everypony happy(and irradiating AJ's apple crop), but in the process basically cripples her wings. Cut to two months later, she still hasn't flown since then... and Applejack shows up and starts making jokes about it. Like, borderline making fun of Dash. She then feeds Dash some irradiated apple pie, which apparantly makes Dash happy enough that she can fly again, because I guess her lack of it was psychosomatic. Either that or the radiation gave her enough magic to fly, I dunno. There's also several minor irks with the goings-on, like the fact that only Dash is trying to get rid of this cloud, and the townsponies appear to be getting mad at her for failing to do so.

But like I said, the writing isn't bad - it was entertaining and funny, and there's actually a lot of moments that I really like in it, like when the gremlins describe Dash's hate as "music to [their] bones", the alien sense aspect of which I think makes for a really good image. Dash is kept at least close to her character, sometimes shying into the egotistical side of things, and there's a very nice moment where she gets to show some genuine concern for Tank - their relationship is constant throughout it all, and very nice to see. Dash talks to Tank more often than anypony in the comic, in fact, which is kinda need.

The art, as I said, is a bit better, mostly in that I don't find it annoying anymore. It's still sub-par compared to the main series, but they've got the anatomy right by this point at least. It has a very classic, cartoony sort of style, especially the 'special effects' like the Sonic Rainboom and the gremlins' thunder attacks, and I really liked the design of the sky germlins(Who it should be mentioned are just really good antagonists in general). Overall though, the art is just kinda there when compared to the writing.

So yeah - generally on par with the first, which means that while it's good it's really nothing spectacular. Still, I can see the series going to decent places, as ever, so I look forward to Rarity's issues next month.

this is way funnier than it has any right to be.

In terms of Celestia raising the sun, I think I've speculated this before, but what if the issue is that Equestria is tidally locked with the sun, and what the princesses are actually doing is keeping the planet spinning?

Imagine all the pendulums are ponies, and this will be on topic.

Season 4 production: Sibsy's boarding on "402, 408 and 415 starting Monday."

I;s no what Discord did. (Yes, I know. Discord. But still.)

That's the other thing. Celestia is nowhere near the most powerful being in the setting.

I myself can't see what so important about showing your work. I never learned by paper and pencil and always did everything in my head. As such, notes don't help me in the slightest.

The benefit was that if I already understood the steps to solving the equation I could finish it as quickly as it takes to bring up the numbers in my head. But when it came to stuff I couldn't understand I was utterly screwed. Which is a problem because I need to be given careful instruction to learn it because writing 10 pages of notes just won't do anything for me.

On a similar note, it seems most visually impaired people like me are primarily mental learners. There seems to be a disconnect with notes because we can't learn through visual aids so we have to rely more on our own intuition. This also translated to tactile graphs because if you don't have a 2-dimensional model to work with in your thoughts, you'll never understand how it works.

Which is why I came within an inch of failing my Geometry class because it was downright impossible to get my graphs and charts transcribed into braille on time to keep up with the teacher's schedule.

There I go again with an unintended rant, oops.

Totally agree with all your points keggy. And you just drew attention to how everything good in this setting is powered by love and happiness. The comic really reinforces that. Also, RD has a move list and some scary weather powers. Definitely second most powerful after Twilight.

In other news, I have been tweaking Batty's design again◊. I got inspired to try a sort of...bowl cut? Would that be the correct term? I don't think this one is right, but what about the actual concept? I like it because it invokes both a sort of medieval style and a 'gothic emo' style (Batty's not emo in personality. Just appearance). I should point out that I'm really not buzzed about his older hair design. Manes and tails really are my weak point...well, in addition to the shadow tool and just generally bad proportions and wobbly lines...I could go on.

EDIT:

Yes! Season 4 is being crafted!

edited 6th Apr '13 3:02:44 PM by ApplelightLimited

The point of showing your work is that it allows teachers to give you partial credit if you get the answer wrong. If you make a really tiny mistake but showed your work, then you clearly know how to figure out the answer, you just screwed up a bit. If you don't show your work, there's no telling how competent you are. It's also easier for you if you have to go back over the problem later for whatever reason.

edited 6th Apr '13 3:02:43 PM by Crowfall

Of course. Celestia is a force of nature, and Discord is a trickster unbound by the laws of nature.

edited 6th Apr '13 3:03:34 PM by MetaFour

It looks kind of interesting, Apple. I like the profile view there, but I'm not quite sure how I feel about the head-on shot...

Also, you actually reminded me of probably my favourite moment from the microseries - the tumblr goth pony!

"I actually kind of heart the cloud. It's totes cutesy."

I hope someone does some fanart of her.

@Meta Four: Point.

Still, arguing things that way gets silly in some cases. By that logic, Medaka should defet all of fiction seeing as though she's all about being (20%) better than everyone. (Yes, it's litterally 20%, amusingly enough). Now, I admit that Medaka is ludicrously broken to the point that it's hard to find characters who have any business fighting her, but she's not even the most powerful character in her verse. I mean, the sole reason that Ajimu can't beat her is that main characters are Ajimu's weakness (yes, I'm being serious. Amusingly this means that Twilight can beat Ajimu). And again, Ajimu isn't the most powerful character either (admittedly, Weaksauce Weakness and Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors makes working out the order of the most powerful Medaka Box characters very difficult).

@Kegisak: I basically agree with what you said about the comic except for the comments about the tail end. The first thing is that I don't think the "irradiated" cake really had any role in allowing Dash to fly again. The way I read it was that Dash had technically recovered by that point, but still believed herself to be too hurt to fly. Note that before she pulls the DR, she says she might never fly again. When she hurts her wings, she thinks she was right and that she injured herself too badly to fly. AJ was just trying to get RD to stop stewing over that fact; as soon as Dash isn't thinking about how she's unable to fly, she's perfectly able to. Aside from that, I figure that if Dash has been like that for months, she and AJ have probably developed a suitable rapport by that time. It's not like AJ just showed up out of the blue and started mocking her; it's implied she's been keeping an eye on Dash for a while and as a result it didn't come across too badly.

Also, the art in this issue was done by a completely different person, so it's kind of a given that they'd handle it differently.

@Dark: It's also to demonstrate that you actually know the proper problem solving method as opposed to using a faulty one and arriving at the right solution by luck. I know for a fact there were times where I'd end up at the correct answer, but the method I used to get there was flawed and I was just lucky that it had ended up in the same place.

@Blissey: What's really funny to me about that is that I'm right in the middle of a chapter in my fanfic that pretty much boils down to that, only with AJ instead of Rainbow Dash.

edited 6th Apr '13 3:24:31 PM by JapaneseTeeth

It also foreshadows the development of proofs.

Ugh, proofs. I hated proofs.

@ keg

I cannot believe I forgot about that wee cutey. Yes, she's definitely a favourite of mine.

And you think the 'bowl cut' is the right way to go? I should say, it also makes him seem kinda young which is exactly what I want (he's only about 18 in pony years).

Man, fuck proofs so hard. Seriously.

I see I'm not the only one to feel this way.

edited 6th Apr '13 3:26:45 PM by Crowfall

Why? Is it because of those stupid intro proofs again?

It's sort of like writing an essay except that what you write has to actually be true and you don't get points off for spelling.

It's been near a decade since I've done a proof, but I remember hating them so so much. And I'm someone who actually enjoyed calculus.