A Confession · 4:47pm Mar 26th, 2014
My name is Rokas, and I just don't get Trixie.
Rather, I don't get the wide obsession with Trixie that many in this fandom have. To me Trixie isn't that interesting a character at all. Don't get me wrong, I'm by no means saying she's a bad character, and like many of the antagonists in the show a certain amount of interest is to be garnered; that's understandable. But by Jupiter's many moons, I cannot see why she has gotten so much attention despite being nothing more than a B-list antagonist. That first show, she was nothing more than an arrogant braggart, who ended up being full of hot air and was nothing more than your typical showboating type-A personality. Then because of reasons that still defy understanding, people started thinking of her as Twilight Sparkle's arch-rival, or something, or wanting to come back for revenge (although the latter has merit given the way she was screwed over in that episode). Nothing was ever indicated along those lines in the show, not until "Magic Duel", and even then she wasn't so much a rival to Twilight as she was a foil to show what happens when you shortcut your way to power.
So... I don't get it. What the flip is so endearing about her? It's like if suddenly the teenager dragons from Dragon Quest were the focus of so much attention and adoring for the same reasons, and it confounds me as much as most of you would be confounded if the latter suddenly happened. She's like the Harcourt Fenton Mudd* of MLP, but at least Mudd was interesting because he actually plotted and planned and had a personality—however shallow—to go along with his actions. Trixie is just a stage magician that let her mouth write checks her body couldn't cash, and then got shafted because of two dumb colts who couldn't find their way out of Plato's Cave with a guide rope, a map, and a blazed trail. She is not, that, interesting.
So what the flip, guys?
And since some people will note Rainbow Dash as also an arrogant boaster, she backs up her claims with performance. She talks smack, but she can make the effort to back it up, and even she has some gorram humility.
Writing updates:
I want to write. I'm feeling it more and more now. The problem is, I feel conflicted as Hell right now, because I know what most everyone wants is a Falling Stars update. Hell, that's what I want. But I keep trying to peck away at it, and I just feel nervous as Hell (triple combo) because I just want it to be perfect. And that's putting a lot of pressure on me, especially since I feel out of practice and want to work on some other ideas I want to get out or at least started and shown off to get people's reactions, as well as some practice, but working on them makes me feel guilty I'm not working on Falling Stars. So I'm kinda stuck. I've got four OpenOffice writer files open right now on my desktop that are split between Falling Stars, ASMD, an unpublished story idea, and a fourth story that bears no mention because it's crap I write for self-indulgence. And right now all four of them are just stuck because I'm just unsure of where to devote my attention next.
So I dunno. Those of you waiting for Falling Stars might have to wait until I tinker on something else before I feel comfortable with hacking at it again. Part of that is also because there's a bit of a difficult time in the story ahead for the protagonists, and while I know that's a major part of any story, I always have trouble putting them through the wringer. I guess I empathize too much.
Just thought I should let you know that I am thinking about these stories, and dear God I want to get to the really good parts of Falling Stars because it'll be so awesome you guys, srsly. How awesome? Well, that would be spoiling, but dayum.
...Dammit, now I actually feel like writing in it because I wanna show it. I don't know what I'm gonna do, but I'll try and get something out soon.
For now, enjoy some Lordi:
I really need to get more of their albums; I only have The Arockalypse at the moment.
\m/
*If you don't know who Mudd is, then shame on you. Go watch some classic Trek you philistine.
Hey Rokas, did you see the tank they added in the latest micropatch?
scontent-b-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/t1.0-9/10013679_504072549715417_1482158687_n.jpg
(Yes, I'm being serious
)
I don't get it either. She's always been a pretty shallow and bullying character, as far as I can tell.
I miss you, Rokas!
ELP misses you!
Write what you want to write and let us be damned. We know you're a good writer. The muse takes time. Don't make it perfect for us, make it perfect for you.
Also, Cain best soundbyte.
Look at some article that explains the fascination with Tsundere and I think you'll find a bit of cross over.
1957071
What is this I don't even. XD
1957077
But thanks for the sentiment. 
I doubt ELP misses me.
1957098
...So people like being treated like sh*t?
1957098
Beat me to it.
While Trixy doesn't hold my attention nearly as well as other characters, what intrigues me for characters like her is wondering how she became the way she is just as much as how she is now. Of course, that's just one guy's opinion.
Regarding writing, I can really sympathise with wanting perfection. Was a hard lesson for me to realize I couldn't make everyone happy with Stardust. In the span of two chapters I was accused of human wank (building up the humans) then supercharging the ponies. While it was disheartening at first, I started to look at it as an achievement in itself.
Don't lose hope in your story. I love it, and there are plenty of others who do also. No matter what you do I'm certain we'll enjoy it. Unless you kill Twilight, then all bets are off.
1957118
You just asked why, justifying why some people like being treated by crap while covertly being shown affection is beyond me. I imagine there are some papers waiting to be written on it in a psychology department somewhere
I dont get it either.
As of your story....The thing with perfection is that its in the eye of the beholder. One thing that you think is awesome might irk away some people.
Crap, I should really work on my social skills.
I dont know if it helps but as others would say: START WRITING
I doenst matter what, just do it, be it one of your main stories or some unrelated nonsense.
You should especially if the muse kissed you and you have one amazing idea. Start putting it down on paper (or bytes in our case) and once you feel you have finished it you can continue with the correction. Dont bother with the latter beforehand, it will just throw you back.
Also, have some Macross
I fell down my chair when I saw you share that Lordi song. Holy fuck I love you. Get Heavy is easily their best album (I recommend you getting that first), then comes Monsterican Dream which has that Blood Red Sandman on it, after that is Deadache, then The Arockalypse, and I'm not sure about Babez For Breakfast and To Beast Or Not To Beast (< this is the latest one), both are decent but I didn't enjoy them that much.
It also seems they have released their first album, Bend Over And Prey The Lord... hm... never knew about that. Strange since 1. I am a fan of Lordi and 2. I still take a look at new stuff they might make quite often. Meh, I guess I just missed a part there thanks to electronic music coming into my life xP
I don't have any idea why Trixie is such a big deal but looking at something blue enhances the good feel when you get an orgasm............
Seriously though, I have no idea. I guess some people just like her and thanks to Seth it comes out more than it would otherwise.
1957118
Too much cynicism.
Just do what you feel led by the nose ring to do. Lovers will love, haters will hate, and everyone else will go hmm. Nothing you can do about it.
As for Trixie... Hmm.
Is it a bad sign that my first thought on seeing a blog from you titled "A Confession" my first thought was that I was going to have to encourage you after another one of your emo rants?
As for Trixie, I think it is a combination of three things.
First, she totally got screwed in her initial episode. Yes she was a braggart, but that is her job as an entertainer. She clearly has a knack for misdirection and illusions so she can make a lot of things fly in her show where she has control of the situation, and I actually think she probably could take an Ursa Major with a bit of prep work, planning, and lethal terrain thanks to her illusions. The idiot colts dragged her into a direct slugging match which is obviously her biggest weakness, so when you sit down and think about it, you realize that she is the victim in that episode which makes her very sympathetic because we have all been screwed over by circumstances out of our control at some point in our lives.
Second, she was the only other powerful unicorn we knew of besides Twilight until the introduction of Shining Armor, although even then there was not really a good analog until Sunset Shimmer because Shiny is fairly constrained by his relationships. This means Trixie was more or less the default choice for anything that needed significant magic from anyone other than Twilight or the princesses, so many authors used her for various rolls where they needed someone with substantial magical power that they could do whatever they wanted with. When you combine this with the obvious comparisons to Twilight based on power and throw in the way that episode ended, it is inevitable that Trixie is going to show up as an opponent to Twilight from time to time. Then once authors start working with her, they will build up affection for the character just like you do with your OCs.
Third, we do not see much of her personality in the show which gives authors a lot of leeway in how they present her. The first time we saw her was when she was on stage so anything there must be taken with a grain of salt because she is almost certainly displaying a stage persona along with her stage name. After that she was on the defensive because the town had tried to humiliate her during her performance (which is how she makes money so they were essentially telling her they wanted her to starve), so it is safe to assume that what we saw there was not what you would have gotten in a friendly conversation. The most clear indicator of this is the fact that she was isolating herself in her trailer which is introverted behavior you would expect from someone who is clearly extroverted enough to choose to make a living in stage business. The net result is that the author has a lot of flexibility in how they present her which feeds back into the previous point and encourages using her in all kinds of situations instead of bringing in an OC.
Also, note that while I was explicitly talking about authors, the same arguments apply to artists and anyone else that thinks about potential stories. They then produce material with Trixie in it, and from there it spreads to anyone that consumes their material. When you throw in Seth's influence through EQD, it is really not that hard to see why she is popular.
As for the writing, I am with 1957161. Just start writing whatever you want and you will eventually get through everything. I know I would be very happy with an update of ASMD as well as Falling Stars, and while I obviously cannot say for sure on your third piece because it is not up, I will probably enjoy that as well. Hell, your fourth story would probably also be fun to read even if it is objectively crap.
1957118
Jerkishness and confidence/awesomeness/brashness are easy to confuse for a lot of people if they don't try to think rationally about the situation. Action hero spouts one liner about smoking killing people after blowing up the bad guy: Awesome. Guy rips cigarette away from person smoking in line, stomps it out and says the same thing: jerk. Both are going to be attractive to some people.
The thing with trixie though, is we still don't have quite enough information to really know one way or the other.
The negative trixie argument is pretty easy to make, so here is an argument for Cool and Awesome Trixie.
Trixie is a showmare. Of course she's going to exaggerate and say all sorts of crazy things. This explains the whole of the first episode. Her escape? She's worried the town will lynch her because two colts decided to have a nearly terminal case of the stupids.
The next time we see her, she's under the influence of a mind altering artifact. Why would she use such an artifact? A duel with the most powerful unicorn in the land would make for a huge spectacle, and bring on a whole lot of future publicity. Why doesn't she know about the darker part of its powers? Maybe the book she read about it was missing that part.
The whole point is that she could be just another pony who makes a living by being awesome and larger than life. Sure she might do it through trickery, but so does David Copperfield.
This interpretation is unlikely, given that it is a kid's show, but the idea of Trixie being someone following their dreams and inadvertently getting stomped on by our protagonists is rather appealing, because part of growing up is realizing there are two sides to every story.
The thing that probably gets her the most fans though is the fact that she wears a cute magicians hat and cape, and has nice colors.
Trixie? That's rather easy to understand. I don't like her, but I get why people do.
Absolutely unimportant background characters like Lyra, Bon-Bon, Octavia or DJ Pon3?
Now that blows my mind when people call them their favorites. What is there to like other than the goddamn design?
1957785
No, that just means you have pattern recognition.
I can see that about Trixie... yet I just don't get why she's the big focus when there's plenty of ponies who are like that. Other than Seth has a h— ...an especially strong preference for her.
As for that fourth story, it's uploaded here. That's all I'll say, if you want to read the self-indulgent crap, it's up to you to find it in my story list.
But remember I warned you.
1957161
1957764
Yeah yeah, I get it, write, etc.
1957577 Never too cynical.
1957960 To be fair, Lyra and Bon-Bon have had bit speaking parts and they tend to be doing something interesting/funny in the background.
I agree that Octavia and Dj-Pon3 have interesting designs, but not much in the way of on-screen development. The rest of their popularity comes from fan-works fleshing out their character in interesting ways.
1958042 Well, the only other ponies I can think of that really have something driving and unique like Trixie's magic are the musicians, and they are plenty popular on their own. Like I said, Trixie sits in a fairly broad niche with no competition so she gets dragged into all kinds of stories that need a powerful unicorn which gets her a fair amount of attention, and that kind of attention snowballs hard in this fandom. Just look at Vinyl and Octavia.
As for the crap, I will probably look into that sooner or later, although I have a major backlog at the moment.
1958042
A brief sabbatical can also help with the creative process regarding sequels.
I think the biggest reason we get so much Trixie is because:
1.) Bronies have over-active imaginations
2.) We tend to blow things way out of proportion.
Put those two things together and you get the over-arching fascination with Trixie. This kinda happens a lot in the fandom, and not just with Trixie. But hey, those two things pretty much make the fandom what it is, and it's part of what makes being a brony fun if you ask me.
as for writing, just do what feels right. I learned a while ago if you obsess over making something perfect, you usually end up doing the opposite. So just write whatever comes to mind first, and have some fun with it!
1958123
Background characters are a part of the scenery, no more important than bushes or trees and their only purpose is to populate the screen.
There is nothing in canon that indicates Lyra is obsessed with humans and fucks BonBon onn a regular basis. There is nothing in canon that indicates Time Turner is a timelord. There is nothing in canon that says Cloud Kicker is a slut.
One person came up with those ideas and dozens of unimaginative, talentless ball garglers took that thought and ran with it to the point where it is now indisputable truth.
1979964 When the "scenery" moves, it changes to "extras". When they start to talk and have actions in the script, it's called a "bit part". Since both Lyra and Bon-Bon have spoken and, as I said before, tend to be doing interesting stuff in the background and have had scripted parts, they are a quite a bit more than Random Mare #142 with the three-tone mane and strawberry cutie mark. One of the vagarities of animation is that you have to design each and every character that hits the screen, extra, bit part, supporting role or main character. It is a credit to the animators that the extras and bit parts are so well designed that they receive attention based solely on their design and a few antics on screen.
As for how some of the fan association came to be:
Time Turner has an uncanny resemblance to David Tennant, or the 10th Doctor. That was enough for the association. Enough different people saw the resemblance early on.
Lyra sitting like a human on the park bench gave spawn to the human obsession.
As for the other parts, that was people thinking with the wrong head.
Since Lyra and Bon-Bon were often seen together, assumptive leaps were made.
Of course, your last paragraph can be turned right back around... There's nothing in canon to say any of those things are NOT true. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence after all.
Finally, a touch of advice. I'd recommend losing the casual insults. They don't speak well of you as a person.
1980058
That is not how burden of proof works.
Listed below are all the fucks I give:
1980325 That response was about as mature and insightful as I expected.
I do find it amusing that you complain about fans expanding upon what is presented in the show on a fanfiction website.
1980391
I gave about as much effort as your post warranted.
If you actually paid attention, you'd notice I was actually complaining about people calling background characters their overall favorites, not about fans expanding upon canon.
1980432 And you turned around and called them "talentless ball garglers". Not a ringing endorsement of fan-works.
If you had payed my posts any attention whatsoever, I had patiently explained how, using what occurred in the show, certain of the background ponies could become favorites without any fan expansion.
1980460
No, I called unimaginative people piggybacking someone else's schtick for the umpteenth time out for what they are - a bunch of talentless hacks.
And no, you explained why someone could have taken an interest in a background character to begin with. Noticing a character among a crowd doesn't warrant them becoming your favorite unless you're a shallow, harebrained idiot.
1980500 From a certain point of view, that piggybacking is exactly what all fan-work is. Even if the story is comprised completely of OCs, as long as it is set in the world of MLP it is "piggybacking someone else's schtick" so to speak.
That initial interest in the character design can very easily lead someone to deciding that a minor, background character is their favorite over-all. All it takes is that bit of interest and then seeing just the fan-art, no further development other than that of the artists' brush to make someone love a character. Fan-fics that give these background characters additional personality are icing on the cake.
But, to you anyone who even likes a character that isn't in the main or supporting cast is a "shallow, harebrained idiot." Take the blinkers off and look at the larger picture.
1980620
Liking someone based on their looks (i.e. character design) when you know literally nothing about their character is pretty much the definition of being shallow. Sorry if you're uncomfortable with that fact.
If someone writes a fic that expands upon the canon material and fleshes said character out, it's perfectly natural to grow fond of them, but even then you still can't say "Lyra is my favorite MLP:FIM character". All you can say is something like "I liked SS&E's Lyra in BP", since the Lyra in FIM has nothing in common with the character you like except for appearance. And by nothing I mean nothing at all.
1980691 I chose Lyra and Bon-Bon for my examples for a very good reason. They have done more than just stand around idly in the background, even early in seasons 1 and 2. Simply by going off what you can see them doing one can deduce a portion of their personality. For example, Lyra has been shown to be at least friendly with Bon-Bon and is excitable to the point of bouncing with a slightly creepy grin. We also know now that she judges swimming competitions. There's more, but I don't recall it off the top of my head and since I'm at work I can't bring up youtube or netflix. While no-where near the depth given even to supporting characters, it is still more than the design only status you seem to be very keen to assign to her.
1980773
I understand that you're desperate to justify your point of view, but that's just pitiful. A paragraph of text cobbled together in under a minute will make for an infinitely more complex character than canon Lyra or Bon-Bon.
1980989 You simply don't want to admit that Lyra and Bon-Bon did more than stand in the background and look pretty. Either that or you harbor an irrational hatred of mint green mares that sit awkwardly and somehow garnered as much attention as some of the main cast.
1980990
I don't have any issues with admitting that. I'm just saying what they did had no discernible impact on the depth of their characterization and doesn't warrant the amount of worship they get. And yes, it does irritate me when people latch onto inconsequential shit instead of paying attention to the actual plot and real characters.
1980999
Just because you cannot see the impact does not mean that others cannot as well. Besides, any activity, no matter how minor, adds to the depth of their character. When you start with nothing even single drop is a measurable increase.
I recommend a calming breathing exercise, since you cannot control what other people latch onto. Some people latch onto background ponies because they want to try and be different, others simply because they can project what they want onto the character without worry that it'll be contradicted by canon later on. Others because they feel like they are the background ponies in their own life and identify with the nameless ponies in the background that have their own story, but no one knows it from the show. A lot more, though, fall in love with the character forged in fan-fiction, as you mentioned earlier.
1981070
FTFY. And I'm done, this is going nowhere.
1981730
No, that's you trying to reword part of my point to fit your perceptions. I meant exactly what I said, and you re-wording it doesn't change it.