Ohai.

Surprise was the proto-Pinkie, if you will. And in my opinion, one of the better designed proto-Mane 6 (at least in terms of color). However, this doesn't mean that Pinkie and Surprise have to be exactly the same. So let's flesh both of them out a little more! All suggestions are welcome. Let's share some ideas!

We all know what Pinkie is like. The perky pink party pony of Ponyville. Being the Element of Laughter, she focuses on making everypony around her happy, and that's good enough for her. While usually random and joyful, she rarely has moments where she feels sad. In extreme cases, her mane falls flat, and she isolates herself from her friends. She also likes to tinker, having been seen with a number of crazy contraptions.

Surprise, like Pinkie, also likes making ponies smile! However, unlike The Pink, Surprise has less emphasis on parties, on more on outdoor activities. While she does love a good party, she appreciates that quiet moments can be just as fun as loud ones. As a result, she seems more mellow and less loud than Pinkie.

Where Pinkie loves sugary treats, Surprise loves all foods. The more exotic, the better. Therefore, it only makes sense that she's an excellent chef.

Unlike Pinkie, Surprise does not get 'Pinkamena' moments.

Surprise possess less random gadgets than Pinkie does. However, working at the weather factory in Cloudsdale has given her an intimate knowledge with alchemy; she manages the production of that rainbow... liquid... thing. As a result, she sometimes comes up with odd potions that have random effects when consumed.

She also loves to knit. It gets cold up in the clouds, you know!

That's all I got for now. Ladies and Gentlemen, your turn.

2045139
I always thought of her as Pinkie from an alternate dimension.

2045139 Interesting.

2045139

Out of the G1 prototypes, Surprise probably has the most stories featuring her in some capacity, whether she's Pinkie's grandmother (Ponky), Pinkie's descendant (Millennium Wake), Rainbow Dash's Awesomom (Winningverse), the "Pinkie" of Cloudsdale (Skyeheart), a changeling, a mirror pool clone...

I think I've even read a story or two where Surprise moves to Ponyville and tries to "out-Pinkie" Pinkie Pie.

What was her personality like in G1 canon?

2045139
Oh my fucking god, that picture. Itssocute.

If I was to use Surprise in a fic (well, I did. But they've probably died of old age or something by the time my story happens. And exist only as a shape held in homage by a changeling), I'd certainly not try to outdo the Pink One. Because hell, how could you?

Chances are I'd peg her as a character that's a bit less naive. Someone still playful and loving, but also leaning more toward light sarcasm, and actually doing things to make people feel better. Instead of doing what she thinks should make people feel better, like Pinkie. In other words, less parties and random songs, more bringing people some soup when they're sick, and little gifts or attention when they're down.

Chances are I wouldn't have her blithely ignoring the rules of reality, either. But I'd probably give her a fierce love of being a pegasus. I'd have her enjoy who she is to absolutely no end. She'd love flight, and speed, and would like nothing better than to share that with others. I'd be so tempted to have her get a cutie mark after doing something like tying enough balloons to a ground-bound foal to make them float. And have it not be a party cutie mark at all.

Instead, she runs a service flying hot air balloons. To give other ponies a taste. And she tinkers and dreams about flying machines, gliders, and false wings constantly.

The name? She seems utterly oblivious (or pretends to be) to the idea that ponies never really see her coming. She tends to drop out of the sky with little warning. Often at speed, in her enthusiasm to see her friends, family and acquaintances.

And lo, my contribution in pictures.

2045213

What was her personality like in G1 canon?

I could swear it was something lame. Like she literally just said 'Surprise!' a lot, to surprise people (ponies).

2045289

I like this interpretation. Possibly a bit more than my own.

2045213
From what little the wikis told me, Surprise was loud, hyper, and tended to yell "Surprise" when doing something unexpected.

2045313
Pshaw.

And here I was kicking myself for not thinking of the knitting thing.
That's entirely adorable. And all I could think about with the gift-giving.

The gift of snuggly warmth.

Weirdly, it is probably the reason for absolutely every idea there.
Pinkie, but warm!

2045423

Then I know what we must do.

FUSION!!

2045442

FUSION!!

Well, that didn't go quite as expected.

2045474

I guess you could call it...

A Surprise.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

2045442>>2045474

Fu-sion-ha!

2045289

There are rumors of an episode where Pinkie's going to be given a run for her money. Wouldn't it be cool to see Surprise behind it?

2045740
Really? I'm so behind on Season 4 rumors. I need to go to EqD more. I need my spoilers, damn it!

I doubt we'll actually get a Pinkie clone. But it would be kind of neat to have a 'rival' who is actually a good pony him/herself.

2045139

Unlike Pinkie, Surprise does not get 'Pinkamena' moments.

News flash: neither does Pinkie. It happened once, because she lost faith in her very purpose in life. That's all

Heck, the only other time her hair was down (not counting before she got her cutie mark) was in Magical Mystery Cure, where, notably, none of them had faith in their special talents anymore, since they were switched and didn't suit them, and even there she wasn't going crazy. And in "Too Many Pinkie Pies" she was thoroughly depressed by the end, but her mane stayed poofy.

2045986

Couldn't think of another way to describe it, sorry. I hate the 'psycho Pinkamena' trope as much as you probably do, and I realize that the moments she's had in the show have been for very extreme situations for her.

2045990
There were no moments. There was ONE moment.

2045997

Okay, my bad, sorry.

Don't see why you need to be so frowny about it, though.

2046003
Well, I despise the 'psycho Pinkamena' trope, not for what it is / implies, but simply because it is completely unfounded.

2046003
Since we're fleshing out Surprise as a character, let me throw this out there: what are her biggest flaws?

2046344
Not enough pink.

2046344

Hmm...

Perhaps, unlike Pinkie, she shows an open dislike for anyone who isn't cheerful a lot of the time. Y'know, grumps or people who stay inside all day and tell others to bug off.

2045423 Luminary, I am disappoint that you A) saw this topic before I did and B) didn't mention Walking a Tightrope.

Also, yes, Surprise's canon personality was literally just scaring ponies all the time. That's part of why I totally reinvented her.

2045139 I'd love to contribute, but see I've spent most of the last year building my own version of Surprise. See the story I linked above, which is a rewrite of an older story I published and have long since deleted.

Not to be arrogant, but I kinda don't care for Surprise always being compared to Pinkie. Just because she's the "proto" doesn't mean they have to have much, or anything, in common.

My take started with the core assumption that Surprise should live up to her name. She should be nothing like you expect. Granted, that's hard to do these days but...

First off, my Surprise is NOT from Cloudsdale or anywhere else in Equestria--she's from Dream Valley, which is a different country altogether.

Secondly, she's not exactly the same age as Pinkie--she's roughly twenty years older.

Thirdly... she's a martial artist.

Fourthly, she has a pet human who is, to all appearances, her best friend in the whole wide world.

The way I imagine her, (Spoilers for future Surprise Days stories/chapters coming up! Luminary, you might not want to read this) Surprise used to be kind of like Pinkie when she was young, but with one difference: Surprise was a scrapper. She loved getting into fights, especially against bullies. This meant she was street-smart as well as fun-loving.

But then a dark day recorded as "The End of Flutter Valley" happened. The Witches From the Volcano of Gloom (Hydia and her daughters, Reeka and Draggle), seeking revenge after the Smooze failed (Yeah, the 1980s MLP movie is canon in my 'verse), teamed up with the Bumbles, a race of bee-people who had a grudge against the Flutter Ponies, to steal the magical Sunstone. Long story short... their plan was a success, and the bumbles made the Flutter Ponies their slaves. The Bumbles misused the sunstone and accidentally set their forest on fire, leaving the Flutter Ponies to die. Two of those ponies were dear friends of Surprise. In anger, she found a knife and went to the Volcano of Gloom...

... The next time any pony saw her, she was covered in blood. The Witches were never heard from again.

Surprise was not formally charged, however from the moment her rage subsided she became overwhelmed with guilt at having taken a life--something that is VERY taboo in Pony society--and now felt she was no better than the Witches and the Bumbles. Unable to live with herself, she exiled herself to the other side of the Rift, a chasm that separated Dream Valley from another world, a world of these strange, sometimes adorable creatures called... Humans.

In this world, Surprise wallowed in self-pity while allowing violent types to shower her with pain... until one day, a man rescued her. The man, seeming to be a vagrant at first, turned out to be a well-known and respected martial artist by the name of Terry Bogard (no, you do NOT need to have played Fatal Fury or King of Fighters to enjoy my writing, but it helps catch some references). Surprise thought for sure he would throw her out after learning she was a murderer, but instead he took her on as a "training partner." They battled each other, each growing stronger, and Surprise learned some of Terry's moves.

Over the course of three years, her self-esteem improved. One day, she saw a man abusing children and damn near killed him. Surprise loves children, and can't stand to see them hurt, so abusing children in front of her is a sure way to wind up in the hospital, or the grave. Terry pulled her off just in time, and when she explained her anger, Terry pointed out that for that same reason, she should have no guilt over killing the Witches. Surprise realized he was right, and was forever cured of her self-loathing in that regard.

Soon afterwards, they separated. Terry was going to confront a crime lord who had killed his father and he didn't want Surprise caught in the crossfire, and Surprise was ready to find her own path in the world (although in her heart, she desires to meet Terry again one day).

Shortly afterward, Surprise flew under a bridge to take a nap, and there found an orphan five-year-old boy with dark hair that covered his eyes. She never learned what happened to the boy's parents, and indeed the boy didn't even seem to have a name. Her heart went out to him, and it became a storybook friendship--she would fly him to places such as arcades or restaurants where they would hang out and have fun. The boy soon found that his favorite video game was something called "Ray Force" and so he wanted that to be his name too. Surprise, however, had gotten in the habit of calling him "Cadence." As a compromise, the boy's name became Raydence.

Then Surprise grew homesick, but she didn't want to abandon the boy. So after having a long, heart-to-heart talk, the two made a fateful agreement: He would come to Dream Valley with her, and be adopted as her "pet human." He remains by her side to this day.

They lived a good life together, even despite an accident during an adventure in a cave that left Surprise without the use of her wings, but as she grew older Surprise started wanting to start a family and have children. And then Surprise discovered something that devastated her: she was unable to get pregnant. The cause, it turned out, was due to a disease she had suffered not long ago which had damaged her womb.

But all was not lost. One of Surprise's childhood friends, Twilight (as in, "not-Sparkle") was now involved with a secret government project which had discovered an astonishing secret: If a pony were to eat a witch's hair, they would regain their youth! It seemed almost to be destiny, for Surprise had also long-ago discovered that she was one of the few ponies who could smell magic... and witch magic smells different from other kinds. Thus, with her faithful human by her side, she took up the search for a witch with long hair. A search which eventually led her to Ponyville...

2050637
I knew you'd be here eventually.

Surprised (ha) it took so long, actually! You were pretty much the first person I thought of when I saw this thread. Figured you'd have been in here, weighing in from the get-go.

Luminary, you might not want to read this

I've been pre-reading that thing for like a million years. It is my longest edity engagement by far. And certainly one rather unique to my other experiences. (Not the weirdest though. That's still Sugarfree. It's hard to compete with Pinkie as a giant eldritch abomination)

....aaaand I still know essentially nothing about the character's past. Bring on the spoilers! So I can redouble constantly riding you to shove their content into your story.

2046339
If it makes you feel better, I know Jake reviles it too.

2050867 Reason I was late was because... well, I don't have the opportunity nor the inclination to be online 24/7, ya know?

Anyway, if you want to know her backstory... well, I outlined the key points in my previous post.

Incorporating all that into a story is difficult... I mean, either A) it has to present an opportunity for Surprise to talk about it (the upcoming chapter of Walking a Tightrope is going to give me an opportunity to mention Terry, at least), or else it has to be relevant to the story somehow (on that note, I actually have a story coming up that involves the End of Flutter Valley).

This thread makes me want to put Pinkie Pie, Surprise, and Blueberry Cake in the same room...

2054712 Wait, who is Blueberry Cake?

2055075

In "Cutie Mark Chronicles," she is a palette swap of filly Pinkie Pie who appears in filly Rarity's fashion show.

I vectored a version of her grown up based on that image.

2055110 How do you guys do this vectoring stuff? I've been meaning to get a good vector of Surprise, looking the way I imagine her (I'm not exactly sure how you'd make her look forty, but my version has green hair as opposed to blonde), but it seems I'm no artist.

2055152

I mostly use Inkscape and existing screenshots.... for example, since Twilight Sparkle and Blossomforth share similar character designs but for one being a unicorn (for the majority of the show) and the other a pegasus, it's relatively easy to use a screen shot of Twilight as a base, subtract the horn, add wings, change her mane, coat, and eye colors, and voilà! You've got Blossomforth.

Thus the "palette swap six" idea that I linked to before... Rainbow Dash and Daring Do, Twilight Sparkle and Sweetcream Scoops (a background pony who pops up everywhere in the comics, but not in the show), Pinkie and Blueberry Cake, et cetera. After you've tried to do it a couple of times, it gets a lot easier. Turning a screen shot of Pinkie Pie into Surprise becomes easy as... cake.

As far as making her "look forty," you'd probably want to do something with her manestyle apart from making it green... she obviously wouldn't look as old as Granny Smith. You'd want to toe the line between something that makes her look older, but at the same time makes it obvious that she's still Surprise. With a green mane. Maybe use Auntie Orange's manestyle... I don't know.