Holy crap those character designs are amazing.

Wow, Egophiliac, well done as usual.

(According to the description on the picture at DeviantArt, the designs are by one SpyroTheFox, as shown here.)

Is anyone going to design more Space Ponies?

Can someone make me a avatar of Pinkie Pie with all the insterments from Swarm of the Century?

I have one all ready to go. I will send it.

Finally got around to ordering my custom bumper sticker. Hope it comes out well.

Some interesting Hasbro business-related tidbits from their Second Quarter 2011 Earnings Conference Call.

Here's the full transcript.

Apparently The Hub is doing rather well this summer.

edited 18th Jul '11 11:22:37 PM by edvedd

Thanks...seems like Fi M is doing very well. That's good.

But...there's a BATTLESHIP film?? I just don't know about that one.

Because I needed to draw more Twilight Sparkle, have some happy Twilight.

^^ Battleship, as in the game? I can't imagine that being successful at all. Merchandise Driven shows and movies I get. But unless they make a bunch of "you sunk my battleship" bumper stickers and s*** there is only ONE product that movie would make people want to buy. Unless the movie is full of Narm or incredibly well written to make it worth seeing, there is no point to it.

It just occurred to me that Equestria's greatest philosophers were probably Immanuel Kanter and Cutie Marx.

....

AUUUUUUGGGHH

So, there's this fan theory called the CMFIS (Cutie Mark Failure Insanity Syndrome), which is a theory where when somepony fails at being able to use their special talent, they go insane. Fluttershy's freakout was because she couldn't connect with the animals, Pinkie's freakout was because she thought no one liked her parties, Rarity's freakout was because her designs weren't appreciated, etc). So, if we're to assume this is cannon, does this mean that Luna, who felt like her role in the day-to-night thing wasn't being appreciated, was sufferring from it in the first episodes?

Furthermore, it's been shown that whenever a character suffers from CMFIS, their personality is reversed in some way (Twilight becomes panicked and disorganized, Pinkie becomes irritable and rude, Fluttershy becomes crazy and loud). If this is true as well, does this mean that Luna's personality is the opposite of Nightmare Moon's?

I'd call it plausible.

I think Twilight's panic attacks are part of her normal personality. What I've come to notice is, yes, she is good at planning and tends to always have a plan. But that's also the thing: she often has exactly one plan. For whatever reason, she tends to never have any contingencies. This tends to lead to her panicking when things go wrong and, once again, she has no back-up plan.

I would argue that assuming the theory (which I do personally agree with) is true, the instant where she experienced her "personality reversal" would be when she finally went beyond the simple, normal panic to realizing that despite her powerful magic, there is absolutely nothing she could possibly do to fix the situation, at which point she starts thinking completely illogically.

I think the cutie mark failure theory fits really well in Luna's case, as from what we've seen with the main six, it could easily be the starting point of her rage and jealousy. Given how vulnerable they all end up in those moments, I could see that as the perfect time for whatever it is that helped corrupt Luna into Nightmare Moon to strike.

It's at least reasonable.

And not unlike what you'll see in the real world, when somebody's identity is questioned.

And see, this is why we don't really need to turn Princess Celestia into a supervillain. Just invent some other supervillains who are able to steal the sun away from Equestria for good! So at first Celestia's just gung-ho about the quest to get the sun back... But as the quest starts to look hopeless and her subjects start finding ways to get by without sunlight, she gets all shouty and jumpy and starts to completely lose her wisdom, her patience, and finally her sense of humor in the face of this new crisis—but on the bright side, she'll start appearing in the show all the time!

I like the CMFIS theory - but let's keep in mind that Rarity's breakdown wasn't caused by the failure of her cutie mark. Her cutie mark and special talent are about finding gems, which doesn't directly have anything to do with dressmaking.

I thought it was about making or revealing beauty, the gems are just one facet of that.

That's actually the part I was referring to, the "build an exact copy of Ponyville right over there" moment. Though I do notice that I probably had the general panicked part in mind when I was describing her freak out

I'm pretty sure the gem finding is just a part of her general "beauty and fashion" talent. Not all of the ponies talents have to be magical (like Applejack)

edited 19th Jul '11 12:25:19 PM by JackOfAllTrades

Someday they need to try that "Build an exact copy of Ponyville" plan and have it actually work.

Wasn't that joke based on a plan in Blazing Saddles, where that was exactly what they did?

edited 19th Jul '11 12:28:07 PM by JackOfAllTrades

Sure, but this time the joke will be even funnier because of how delayed the punchline is!

I just had the happiest moment of my life. My fan fic got onto the Fan Fic Recs! Now if only I could get the courage to send it to ED.

All we have to do is push Ponyville somewhere else!