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Welcome to the weekly meeting of the B/SUCM! That's the "Brotherhood/Sisterhood for the Uniqueness of Cutie Marks!"
We're here to help ponies just like you cope with the identity crisis that comes from realizing that their special mark isn't so special.
Whether you have a lyre, hourglass, compass, or candy wrapper Cutie Mark, come on down and receive encouraging words from ponies that share your pain.
Sincerely,
Lyra Heartstrings, President of B/SUCM
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I'm not even going to attempt to read this... that being said I'm going to upvote it anyways.
Hah!
Not bad! Had a few guffaws, and I giggled three times. Keep it up!
My only complaint is the shortness of it all, although you have a contained story here, so it's no biggie.
So true.
You know, this is a very good point. Why has this never been addressed in show?
I was looking for a midnight snack for my eyes and you gave me a veritable feast. I blame u for my busted gut. Wonderful story.
I thought Lyra was the only one with a lyre cutie mark...
2170135
Changelings.
Very nice fic. Upvote for original idea, and for making me chuckle. No complaints, just a few nitpicks.
Lawl. Unique and funny!
Fluttershy had the same cutie mark as Twilight for an instant, someone should do something with that (animation error...but still canon)
Holy cow, i'm massively ego-tripping right now. So many likes!
Thank you all for your kind words, it was my pleasure to entertain you.
2169979
I promise you, these are 1,700 of the most innocuous words you will ever read. Give it a go.
2170010
Keep it up? I intend to!
I did worry about the shortness, but every time I tried to add something, it came out feeling weak.
Some stories need 10,000+ words, and some don't, I suppose.
2170094
Also, proof that we need a Steve Magnet emoticon. Still need, that is.
2170135
Well, the Official Word is that Cutie Marks for background ponies are chosen at random.
I tend to think of it as "visual shorthand," just there to fill space.
2170152
I know how nice it can be to get a quick, fun literary snack.
I'm glad you were satisfied!
2170205
Keep your eyes on those background ponies, Lyres are an extremely popular instrument in Equestria!
2170336
*Snerk* Maybe so. I personally think that it's because Starswirl's unfinished spell had more try-hards working on it than just Twilight.
2170519
Verily, this topic doth claim the lion's share of mine leisure-time. The Gluteus Statua has boggled historians and biologists alike for centuries!
2170750
Thanks for the kind words. I am curious, though, care to list your nitpicks here or elsewhere? I do like to listen to and consider all criticism.
2170981
The pleasure was mine!
Lawls were given and lawls were had!
2171670
If animations errors are canon, then I know a lot of eighties cartoons (Transformers, GIJoe, My Little Something-or-other) that just got a heck of a lot nuttier! Just for example...
2175473
Bringeth the pain, fanciful villain! In the immortal words of the playwrite himself, "Mine horse hath the trots!"
The beauty of that Cutie Mark Chronicle is that she had always known that she wanted to make dresses, but it wasn't until the geode cracked that she discovered what set her particular talent apart.
That is, she makes very shiny, gem-studded clothes.
She wants to literally "Shine across Equestria!"
Well, i'm sure that you have your Cutie Mark Crazies among the populace. Folks who preach doom and destruction about their lot in life (Like the poor sap with the trashcan, sheesh), and cover their marks with a cloth to "Fight the power."
Of course, the show shows that most ponies just accept it as "The way things are," and are neither better nor worse for it.
As for free will... You can give a man a sword and tell him what it's for, but he will do with it as he pleases.
Dagnabit, i wasn't kidding about how much thought i'd put into this, was i?
A pretty fun reflexion on the reality of Cutie Marks, well done. I like your analysis. With plenty of cute moments to go around and a few good chuckles, this is definitely a good read.
Well done!
2175883
The Gluteus Statua, more often than not, is far more abstract than literal. Fluttershy's, for example, is three butterflies. This does not mean that she is only good at taking care of flutterbies, but has a two-fold interpretation: her immense gentleness and her love for animals.
Abstraction, all in all, allows many complex ideas to be communicated with a single image. The only limit is the imagination, really.
You may be going at it from the wrong direction. Cutie Marks are less about what you do, than what you love.
What got you excited about biology? Why did you pursue it? Do you spend your painting time thinking about biology, or your lab/research time thinking about art?
Those are the questions you should be asking when you question the Cutie Mark. Your line of though is why the Cutie Mark Crusaders are still blank-flanks.
To busy doing to enjoy what they do, even if they are having fun.
As for that last one, Changlings don't have Cutie Marks. Sorry, bud.
2178872
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Happy to entertain!
2185089
Apologies for this sounding like a simple answer to a complex problem, but in either case i'd say the pony hasn't discovered their Cutie Mark yet.
Gluteus Statua (I'm never gonna get tired of that) is heavily tied to the concept of destiny; that a person has been placed on the world for a specific reason. A person's destiny is by default good, productive, and fulfilling. You're not gonna get a Cutie Mark for being a dictator, but for being a leader. The dictation comes from the individual's bad choices.
It's been said that a pony can do three things; what they're good at, what they enjoys, and what pays well. If their job is two of those things, they're blessed. A Cutie Mark will have at least the first two.
A destiny could also be partially separate from the pony's job, too. Pinkie Pie does not get money for bringing ponies laughter, but she finds ways to get paid to do things that bring ponies laughter. She does fun in her spare time, too. It's a good deal she's got going on.
I went from
to 
to 
to 
to 
I'm liking your quick but entertaining reads.
An entire gamut of emotions! Le haleter!
Thank you, i'm glad you're enjoying yourself!
They're crazy fun to write, too.
This was a really hilarious, funny old story and it is simply amazing. I adore this club and what it actually means, this is a very true thing that is quite common in the land of land of ponies.
2630441
Wonderful! I'm glad to see you enjoyed it!
And the issue will only get worse if we fail to address it!
Down with uniformity!
Up with uniqueness! Uniqueness of cutie marks!
I was actually planning on writing a fic like this about Applebloom...
If I had one criticism, it would be that choosing such an intricate and plot relevant Cutie Mark raises a lot of Fridge Logic issues. If there are other ponies with the Element Of Magic on their flanks, why is Twilight the sole wielder? In a time of crisis, could Celestia potentially encourage friendships between Photo Finish and the other Mane Five and have her replace Twilight? Why doesn't she keep others with the Element Of Magic on their flank around her palace as a security measure? Does this mean there are other ponies with Celestia's Cutie Mark who have talents in sunbathing and the making of greenhouses? Could they redirect their talents to raise the sun? Do the other Mane Five have ponies with similarly tangential Cutie Marks floating around out there, and could they form a new set of Elements? If these marks have existed for so long, why did Celestia not gather them in previous times of crisis? Why not build a new set of Elements and try to decorrupt Luna? If other Element Of Magic Cutie Marks exist, why use it as Twilight's Coat Of Arms on her new guards' flags? Why not invent a new set?
I would have made the story all about Lyra, Colgate, or Doctor Whooves, and had Twilight pop up at the end to explain things regarding ancient unicorns and their similar cutie marks and different lifestyles if you wanted to include her in the Aesop. All in all it was a good, if short, read, with that criticism in mind.
2698059
That sounds like a recipe for cute!
2707265
I know your questions are mostly rhetorical, I really do, but I have this nasty habit of wanting to explain things. I also understand that everything i'm about to say is only inferred in the story, if mentioned at all. Up for a discussion?
Well, rewatch the opening again. The Elements that Twilight recovered had a variety of geometric symbols, rather than the cutie marks of the Mane Six. When they came together, the Elements changed to suit the ponies representing them.
We didn't see the Element of Magic prior to Twilight's epiphany, but it can be assumed that it changed similarly to the others.
So, the Elements aren't irrevocably tied to the shape of the cutie marks, if I had to guess.
No, I don't this so. In my little corner of the multiverse, the cutie marks look the same but all mean different things. It's what's in the heart that matters, not the outward appearance. Fluttershy's "kindness to all living things" mark could be a "bug hunter" mark on somepony else.
Yes, if only because that's hilarious.
No, because at the end of the day (ahyuck), their cutie marks mean different things.
It is sorta oddly unpersonalized. I imagine it's like last names in the real world; many people are named Smith, but only Cole Smith the co-founder of Smith and Wesson.
I think there would be fridge logic about double marks no matter who was in the starring role, though maybe not as major as what we see now.
I do know that this story could have been leagues better if I spent more time on it.
As it stands, Twilight was the inspiration, so she got the starring role. I'm not kidding about Photo Finish's cutie mark
I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm always in seventh heaven when someone cares enough about my story to really think about it. Especially if they think it missed something important.
2708053 All that this has done is made me disappointed in the lack of communication between show writers and animators. While I appreciate the cutaway gags and the need to conserve time, they should either address the issue (as you have done here) or be more thorough in animation. Instead they preach a lot of nonsense about the marks being "special" and "individual" when, as you show here, what they mean is that their significance is special and individual. The foals and their teachers do not seem to share this view, instead saying each mark is unique. Sadly, knowing that this issue spreads to the Element Bearers just leaves me with even more questions since it is forgivable in background ponies for saving time, but absurd to spread to main characters simply for a joke's sake in contradiction with a serious and repeating plot element.
In any case, you did a fine job explaining things, and thank you for your reply. I now need to find some way to reconcile my disappointment with the writing staff emphasizing a load of horseapples about the individuality of the Cutie Mark
2708323
Do as I do (when i'm not writing stories like this one), recognize it as the animation oddity it is, and understand that in the "real" Equestria every mark is indeed unique. It soothes the headache.
Or, accept my story as headcanon and buff Cheerilee's spiel up with a handy dose of subtext.
2715339 I think I will take the first option. I'll say that the detailing is different between each of the "copies".
2716176
Ooh, I like that compromise. Very nice.
when you got to the part about photo finish I had to stop and google it
it was true.
A funny idea and written well.
2764807
Yeah, as I told Knight of Cerebus, that little cutie mark confusion was my inspiration for this story.
I mean, how silly is it for Photo of all ponies to have Twilight's mark?
Thank you kindly.
2175473
Rarity's talent is bringing out a pony's inner beauty, represented by the gems she found hidden in the 'dumb rock'. It doesn't have anything to do with dresses directly, dresses are just the method she uses to express her talent.
3049627
I also like to think of the gems as what makes her dressmaking stand out. She knew what her talent was, she just didn't realize (at the time) that one little thing that would send the talent Above and Beyond the Call of Duty.
Always go A and B the C of D if you can.
Congratulations. This story has good enough grammar to be added to the Good Grammar Directory, a comprehensive directory of grammatically correct stories on FIMFiction.
3094873
Cool! Thanks for the addition!
Pfft! Gotta love when Twilight gets academic on random things. XD And Twilight and Photo Finish have the same cutie mark? O _____ O
I almost wish we could've seen more of the meeting, but it was short and funny, so I'll take it. :D
P.S. I did like the little colt meeting Twi. (Soooooo cute.)
P.S.S. I know it's the Doctor Who fan in me, but when Time Turner shows up, all I could think was 'Doctor, you get out of there. You're a Time Lord. Of course you'll have a similar mark'.
3471759
Voila! Zee documented proof!
cdn.staticneo.com/w/mylittlepony/thumb/0/0b/PhotoFinishCutieMark.jpg/180px-PhotoFinishCutieMark.jpg
Well, it's like i told someone else, the story ends when it ends, and this one just happened to end after seventeen-hundred words.
Funny story, I had never seen an episode of Doctor Who before writing this story. I just felt like dropping a random reference.
(I've since seen most of the recent series and a few of the old ones, so I'd say i'm converted)
I'm glad you enjoyed the story! Hope you're having as much fun as I am!
Intriguing... but carried a very nice moral with it. A pleasant little tale that makes you rethink Cutie Marks, and their importance in society.
I still think they're unique, but it's true that special talents can be shared amongst tons of people. We wouldn't have bands, orchestras or... well, music in the slightest if everybody had an absolutely unique special talent! We wouldn't have all our musicians today, or researchers, or biologists or doctors or party masters or movers or bodybuilders or... anyone, really!
The world wouldn't function unless special talents were shared amongst others. But it comes down to the application of that special talent that makes you unique. Many things make someone unique, not just their talent.
I keep jumbling up what I'm saying.
Ahem! What makes a person unique is the entire conglomeration of their personality. Though your special talent may make you special in one field or another, it is not the lynchpin of uniqueness. It's simply one facet in the complicated machine that is the person.
4129903
Well said, all of it!
I like the old saying, "Anybody can write a story, only you can write your story." It's a good example of how two people doing the same thing can never do it exactly the same.
I'm glad you enjoyed the story!
Psst. Photo Finish got a new cutie mark recently.
i.imgur.com/LexGsYW.jpg
4812456
Yeah, I laughed so hard when I saw that!
I guess this story will go the way of Season-One Luna stories: A fun read, but a little outdated.
That ending got me to laugh out a bit.
EDIT: I guess Apeture Science Corporation's symbol makes more sense than Umbrella Corp. xD
fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2011/122/1/4/portal_2_wallpaper_by_sirpatrick1st-d3ffrjj.jpg
4843810
Excellent!
Dare I say... Ze magicks are a lie?
2185259
Personally I like Quondam Talent Mark as the official name for them.
Yes QT Mark... I have no shame.
4868604
Pun masters have no shame.
I like those initials, but I'm not sure quondam is the word you're looking for. "Former Talent Mark?" "Sometime Talent Mark?"
I've reviewed this story HERE!