Progress Report (And a Couple Thoughts on "Raiders of the Lost Mark") · 8:56pm Oct 12th, 2015
If you don't want spoilers for last Saturday's pony episode, "Raiders of the Lost Mark", then don't hover over the spoilered out text bars. Also, you may want to avoid the comment section. Also also, why are you still here? Watch that amazing twenty-two minutes of diminutive pastel equine action already!
More below the break.
Ok, here we go.
Last week was a fairly productive one. I managed to get Desert Spice plotted out to the point where I know how many chapters it should have (I'm not telling how many, just in case), and I have a good idea of what major events happen in each chapter. I even have the name for the next chapter: "Culture Shock and Awe." Now I just need to figure out the minor events that happen during each chapter and line up all the subplots. Well, that and fill in the blanks between with words so that I have something readable for y'all. Writing of said chapter begins in earnest this week.
On the art front, I wasn't quite as productive as I would have liked. I only managed to draw three of the planned seven faces. I blame a combination of Wildstar, friendship, and poor time management skills for that. I still had fun with it, even if I did have a lot of trouble figuring out how to draw Spicy with a properly sarcastic face. I'll post said pics here for your amusement.
Unamused
Exasperated
Overjoyed
They're not my best work, but they're not terrible for a night or two apiece.
And now, for pony episode spoilers.
How about them marks, eh? While I am of the opinion that the colors (which seem to be the mane colors of each of the CMC) don't work well with the fillies' coats, I find that their talents are really freakin' cool. Marks in cutie mark interpretation? Heck yes! Also, while they do all share the same tricolored shield background, they each have two unique inner marks inside. We've got Scoots with her lightning wing, Bloom with an apple heart, and best CMC Sweetie Belle with a star and an eighth note. I speculate that those inner marks not only represent things they're naturally good at (e.g. singing and stardom for Sweetie Belle), but that they are good at using these talents to help others understand their own special talents. I've got nothing for Apple Bloom's apple heart mark, sadly (I'd always hoped for AB the Potions Master, myself), but I can roll with it.
With that cutie-mark-getting sequence with all the glowing, floating, and general nervousness involved, was anyone else half-expecting the CMC to straight-up ascend to alicornhood? After the episode, I had this image in my head of them going through that scene and ascending, only to find that they were still blank flanks. Wouldn't that have been something? 
Seriously, though, that was a lot more dramatic than any scene of getting a cutie mark we've yet seen on the show. Judging by that, not to mention the fact that this season's toyetic tagline is "Cutie Mark Magic," I'm guessing that the CMC are going to be a lot more important to Equestria than anypony (or anybrony) had ever expected. I, for one, welcome our newly marked overlords.
I also detected a bit of Buddhist or Hindu philosophy in how they ended up realizing their talents and getting their marks. In order to achieve what they truly desired, they had to let go of their relentless focus on themselves and on said desire and look to helping others. (For an illustration of how this might apply in your life, just think of how easy it is to find anything except for whatever you happen to actually be searching your garage for.) It's one of my favorite lessons from those religions, and I think it's a great lesson to teach to the CMC and to those people like them who are looking for who they are. Thanks, AKR!
Floof pony is delightfully floofy. And I'd say you hit her primary emotions quite well.
Further comments spoilered out of respect for those who still haven't seen the episode yet.
Apple Bloom's apple-heart appears to symbolize strength of will, a combination of the Apple family stubborn streak and her own passion for everything she does. I wanted her to be an engineer as well, whether mechanical or alchemical, but her ability to put things together can be an unsymbolized talent. (Or not. A mark like hers has layers upon layers of possible interpretations.)
As for the Eastern religion vibe, now that the Crusaders have freed themselves from the cycle of cutie mark karma, they seem to have become butt tattoo bodhisattvas, spreading enlightenment to the masses. They are enlightened.
...
THEY'RE THE FATES! Three embodiments of destiny, individual in form but united in purpose! Between that and the glow-floating, they very well may ascend to alicornhood at some point.
3465303
Thanks for the compliment! I blame Laffy for the decision to make her floofy, and I regret nothing. On a related note, I've been known to posit that the real trick to art is to make everything look like it was done on purpose.
Starlight Glimmer, Cutie Marxist, will be having none of this! Such "enlightenment," she purports, is just an opiate for the masses to let them get by without realizing how equal they could be! She calls for the denouncement of these three tools of those tetrarchist, Specialist pigs the Princesses, in the name of equality!
Bad Starlight. This is MY blog, not your personal soapbox. Ahem.
Anyhow, that's a pretty good explanation for Bloom's mark. My hypothesis was that it was an apple to make sure her family didn't kick her off the farm.
Regarding the bodhisattva analogy, that was incredibly apt. I wonder if the Equestrian government will provide for them to meet the ponies that need their guidance, if the map will have some role for them to play, or if they'll find their own way to spread their enlightenment to the ponies of the world. The idea of the CMC being hailed as prophets of the Tree is strangely wonderful and hilarious to me.
Or they might turn out to be avatars of Destiny itself. Now that is a great fic waiting to happen that I nonetheless have no intention of writing myself. If anyone else feels like writing about the CMC as destiny personified, I'll be glad to read it.
Fluffy Amber is best Amber!
3465303
WRT CMC Bodhisattvas:
"If you meet the Buddha on the road..."
3466004
Well, I certainly hope nopony takes that particular bit of advice with respect to these adorable fillies.
Story in approval queue now. No promises as to its quality, but hey, I spent all of an hour on it.
...
I'm so sorry.
3466967
Let me know when it hits the front page.
Glad to have inspired you.
3467057 It's been there for about half an hour – only took ~15 min in the queue.
3467063
Frikkin' lucky. Monster Hunter: Equestria took half a day!
Oh well, time to read...