Nov
25th
2018
Writing the Young Six · 9:13pm Nov 25th, 2018
A while back I made a blog post about How to Write Characters Competently, which contained an exercise in character exposition. Seeing as I am preparing to post a Young Six story, and would like people to post more of them, I'm running through that exercise with all of them. As stated, knowing these things won't necessarily make your characters awesome, but it will make them competently written enough that their fans can appreciate their presence. This is by no means exhaustive nor as detailed as it could be, but it's a good start if you're unsure how to write these characters effectively.
I've also added a bit about the fears they're shown in "What Lies Beneath"
The Young Six
Gallus
- Diction - Gallus has a very no-nonsense diction. He tends to make sarcastic quips a lot, as well as use slang. He's not elegant or eloquent, but he's also not extraneous or fancy: he gets to the point with the words that he's used to.
- Attitude - Gallus is somewhat aloof compared to the others. Growing up in the fail-state of Griffonstone gives him a unique perspective on concepts like deprivation, distrust, and hopelessness. He has found friendship now, and I get the feeling that he would go to some great lengths to protect that. Then again, the question comes up... how well can someone who grew up homeless in a failstate, who was probably never shown familial love, actually form those kings of bonds?
- Likable Traits - Gallus became one of my favorite characters in the show when I found out he is homeless youth, and that alone can be a powerful vehicle. He's cool, both in design, attitude, and demeanor. He's also snarky and sarcastic in ways that become funny. Beneath the surface though, he's hiding a vulnerable side: he probably has the darkest backstory of all the Young Six. Being rejected by a parent can leave irreperable damage and make forming emotional bonds difficult, and living in a fail-state can harden you to suffering. Gallus grew up with both.
- What Lies Beneath - Gallus' fear isn't just claustrophobia: it's being trapped. He is a creature of the skies who probably hasn't spent much time indoors, and, growing up homeless in a place like Griffonstone, he's probably paranoid about not being able to run away. Perhaps the tree was trying to teach him that, if he remains calm, he can always work his way out of a situation with cleverness.
Smolder
- Diction - Smolder is blunt and crass. She says things that go beyond any other character in insensitivity, and that might even be on purpose. Like Gallus, she also has a sort of street-slang, and uses whatever words come to mind: I get the impression she blurts things out. One might also see her as being somewhat masculine seeming, but if you remember that it's through the lens of Dragon culture, she's actually kind of feminine.
- Attitude - Smolder is moderately sadistic: there are literally scenes where her expression can be described as "Smolder is happy because character X is sad." If any of the young six delighted in being rude and gross, it'd be her. She's also tough, energetic, and generally enthusiastic. Deep down, she has a sensitive side, and not just the one shown in "What Lies Beneath": she's not as emotionally tough or confident as she'd like everyone to believe. The dragon view of reality is brutal, cynical, and gleefully nihilistic, which is the entire reason why they have never managed to build a society that lives outside of caves: they do not understand the value of not being jerks. This might be why Ember (as Dragon Lord) believes they should look into embracing friendship, and why she sent Smolder to the school.
- Likable Traits - Smolder is hilarious, because she is blunt, crass, and sadistic. Her perspective on things is interesting just because it's so different: she gives opinions which wouldn't come from any other character. Smolder also has a feminine side, which only shows beneath the layers of her brutal, dragon nature, though, in public, she exudes more of a femme-fatalle archetype than than anything else. (Funnily enough, I realize that Smolder might be the most like me of all of them, as I am also a sadist who likes to be cute in less-than-public settings)
- What Lies Beneath - Smolder's fear isn't being cute, it's the fear of being open about her less-than-fearsome side. Keep in mind that Dragon society is pretty much based around aggression and domineering, with the Dragon Lord's function to keep it from devolving into a bloody mess. For a dragon to admit they they like being cute and silly sometimes in the Dragon Lands might legitimately put them in danger, and that's why she's afraid to show that part of herself in public.
Ocellus
- Diction - Ocellus speaks in a precise manner, fully pronouncing her words. That isn't to say she's beyond informal speech like contractions, or even slang, but she's a book-bug, and it bleeds through. She's also very sweet, shy, and hesitant, and, while she's not Fluttershy, she'd be the last one of the students to show aggression. As for word choice, she's the most polite and grammatical, and she's used big words that confuse her friends before. There's also a goofy side to her voice, because if you listen closely, beyond the high pitched buzz, there's a mild amount of slurring under her words.
- Attitude - Ocellus is kind, friendly, and bookish. She's also nervous, shy, and unsure of herself.
- Likable Traits - Ocellus is adorable, from her design to her behavior. She also has a HUGE amount of potential from being a changeling, not just because of her shapeshifting abilities, but her implied psychic powers and the fact that she's from a race of bug-ponies with necromantic origins who literally just overthrew their evil queen for a good king. Her knowledge level is very useful for exposition, problem solving, and being relatable to more intellectual readers.
- What Lies Beneath - Ocellus carries the weight of a species of predators, who have ruthlessly destroyed every nation they weren't forcibly expelled from. As a changeling who studied history, she is brutally aware of this. As a representative sent to live among ponies, she is forced to confront it on a daily basis. In this episode, we find that she has doubts herself that the changelings can ever truly overcome their past as love-draining abominations born of dark magic and death, and even if they could, would any of their former victims ever accept them?
Silverstream
- Diction - Silverstream is an incredibly expressive character. She talks fast, with lots of little sounds thrown in. She wears her emotions on her sleeve, and they pour out whenever she opens her mouth. Her voice jumps up in pitch because of her excitable nature, sometimes cracking even.
- Attitude - Silverstream is bubbly and carefree, with the ability to find joy in just about anything. She's energetic, and has a short attention span, but not neccessarily easy to bore. Her emotions are unbridled and intense, meaning she's also easy to fluster or upset because of this. She's also a very kind person: she would never hurt someone on purpose, and when she's "mean", it's because of a misunderstanding caused by her naive, absent-minded nature, not a genuine malice.
- Likable Traits - Silverstream is a fun character because she's energetic and usually happy. When she's not happy, she works well because her emotions are intense and unbridled. She's a a natural flyer: strong yet graceful, which is possibly comparable to Rainbow Dash, and there's a lot of interest you can generate with that.
- What Lies Beneath - Silverstream is still traumatized after the Storm King's invasion. Her home city was attacked, sieged, and halfway sacked by an army of monstrous creatures from a faraway land, simply to fuel the greed of a narcissistic madman, and her people had to flee under water to escape being enslaved. Beneath the bubbly exterior, she's still not over that...
Yona
- Diction - Yak diction has rules to it, and those rules have clever reasons. They do not use pronouns, because pronouns are extraneous. They don't bother with words like "is" or "will" because those are a given: if they "want to smash" they "smash", if they "think Yaks might be the best", then "Yaks best". There's no point in saying "is", "will", or "are" when you don't have alternatives. I like to imagine that they have a culture which avoids concepts like "try" because there is only "DO", and are used to the need to be understood while shouting above the winds of a blizzard, and that their manner of speaking evolved accordingly.
- Attitude - Yona is described as being friendly and happy, yet clumsy and intense. Her caring side is open and loving, and very physical: she's known to give rough hugs after all. She takes a lot of intended insults as compliments, but when she doesn't, she's quick to anger, and she can back it up with her huge, muscular body.
- Likable Traits - Yona is adorable. She's happy, funny, cute, huggable, friendly, enthusiastic, everything really. She's also brutal, and likes to smash things and yell, and is quicker to get into a fight than most characters. I've noticed that she's technically "the fat one" and can literally be described as a "young cow", which is interesting, because the artists have managed to give her a design and attitude that doesn't makes fun of that: she's probably one of the best characters I've seen for body acceptance in a children's cartoon, which gives you leverage if you want to write about that. (note that if she was called "fat", she'd likely respond with pride at her well-fed and strong body)
- What Lies Beneath - I don't think Yona's so much "arachnophobic" as much as afraid of being placed in an unfamiliar situation. Yaks are herd animals, and she's barely more than a child. Suddenly, she's being chased by a swarm of strange creatures, and it's not until she embraces that that she's fine: the lesson she has to learn is to move beyond her literal xenophobia and give the weird a chance.
Sandbar
- Diction - Sandbar talks a bit like a surfer, but is mostly a normal teen. I usually think of him as a kid from California. (maybe Rocket Power?) The writers toned down the surfer stuff over time because of his role in the presentation and more and more he just has a "generic teenager" voice.
- Attitude - Laid back and chill about pretty much everything: Sandbar is very non-judgemental for a pony (except with Ocellus), which is actually kind of realistic, seeing as prejudice is a learned trait which builds over time. That's why he's hanging out with the exchange students. I'll note that he is purposefully written to be one of the least interesting characters in the show because that lets the writers ground the exchange students which seem to be his only friends.
- Likable Traits - Straight Man: used almost entirely to be the one character who is NOT out of place. Is one of the least interesting characters in the entire show by design: his blandness makes all the other characters stand out as interesting. He also tends to be the one to resolve minor conflicts, by either diffusing a fight or by knowing the details of a situation. He makes a good audience surrogate (can be subverted?) because he's a typical teenager and a nice guy. I'm also told a lot of people find him cute.
- What Lies Beneath - The tree is pretty much subverting its own values of Generosity and Loyalty here to try and yank Sandbar into a situation where he puts "being a hero" before doing the RIGHT thing, and trying to save his friends. Eventually, he realizes that, even if you look up to someone as a role-model, good people won't expect you do bad things: he shows loyalty to his friends and does the right thing.
Report
Rockstar_Raccoon · 534 views
· Story: What's Your Problem?
·
#Writing
#Advice
#Characters
#Characterization
#Diction
#Young Six
#Smolder
#Gallus
#Sandbar
#Ocellus
#Yona
#Silverstream
#Students
#Personality
*takes notes*
Smolder verse Ember thing I don't get. Typo or comparison?
4972845
Typo. That whole thing is supposed to be about Smolder.
4973595
That's a good point, but Yona just seems so friendly to me. I guess a better way to put it might be that she drives potential friends away with her blatant nationalism. She still has a fear of the unknown shown in that episode though, and I think I can connect her upbringing to that better than I canto her fear of a massive swarm of spiders. Then again, that may just be a result of rushed ideation on the show writers' part.
4973626
Well, it might not simply be xenophobia, but more the fact that her culture doesn't embrace trying new things. Do you think that's a more agreeable concept?
Also, with Gallus, Cozy says that it's impressive that he makes friends at all. Nothing she says can be connected with claustrophobia or being trapped.
This analysis was an awesome read! Great job! I'm gonna go ahead and read that fanfic of yours real soon!
4973672
Yeah, I mean, there's something there, but I think it's more her sewing division by playing up racial tensions / stereotypes, much like an unscrupulous politician. It's only that with Smolder, Silverstream, and Ocellus that the racial stereotypes happen to be closely related to their issues, and that's mainly because Dragons are brutalistic, and both Changelings and Hippogriffs have just gone through major upheavals.
Look at this little back and forth though? So much analysis being generated here: someone could write a story based on Ocellus and Silverstream discussing their shared racial trauma, or Silverstream and Gallus talking about what it's like to be these half-birds who are excellent flyers, or Gallus and Smolder talking about what it's like to grow up in a culture where everyone is a jerk, or about Smolder and Yona talking about their issues with nationalism... Yeah, did you ever notice that every pairing of 2 of them (possibly groupings of 3 too) has some significant common ground a writer can leverage? That's smart character design. So much comes from just thinking about this stuff, and that's how ideation comes about!
4974191
Please do pretty pink pony!
I hope other writers can use this analysis to help them write stories about the Young Six too.
4974236
Oh yeah, I'll definitely keep all of this analysis in mind!
(Let's just hope I get inspiration for anything other than romance stories)I couldn't help but read what you wrote above, and yeah, I had thought of the same thing with Ocellus and Silverstream, and Smolder and Gallus!!
And to add to the idea of peculiar teamups, Yona and Gallus--Yona being the most nationalistic and loyal to Yakyakistan and Gallus having every single bad memory from Griffonstone, where nationalism isn't practiced at all like where Yona lives. (If Gilda's "Want to make enough money to leave this place" line indicates anything) Maybe THAT'S why Yona seemed more eager to include Gallus in her culture in Hearth's Warming Club--everyone offered to stay with him (Smolder reluctantly so 
), but Yona offered that AND to braid his feathers. Gallus's "never had a place in Griffonstone" line might have shook her up.
4974267
Another excellent point right there. If I were to give them common ground, it would have been something like sports or the fact that they're the two characters whose aggression levels compare to Smolder's. It would be interesting to see a fanfic about Yona trying to get Gallus to come join her family in Yakyakistan...
4974280
Thank you!! And yeeees, Gallus and Yona are actually my favorites, so I'd love to see them bond more!! I'm wondering, who is your favorite from the group? You described them all so well, it's hard to tell who you're most attached to
I'm definitely tempted to write a story like that. Just gotta see if I can come up with the words.
4974281
That gets harder to devide by the moment. I think the only one that isn't in the running is Silverstream, because I haven't found anything about her that really gets to me. (Sandbar isn't even im the equation here, because he's so boring, but that should be obvious) Same with the Mane 6: they're all such great characters, great people, I really don't have a favorite.
If you want to write a story, you should go do some ideation, and write out an outline, then maybe you'll find the words. I should really make blog posts about those two steps, but I haven't gotten around to them...
4974350
I'm thinking that my follow-up to What's Your Problem? should delve into that: I would like for it to be multi-chapter and have a plot that goes somewhere. It will probably open with Twilight reacting to figuring out a bunch of stuff about Gallus. Not entirely sure where it should go from there, but I may have more ideas than I can fit in one story...
4974358
Especially to hear you don't have one from the Mane 6, given that we've known them since the beginning of time. I totally respect that though! Means that you're great at seeing the good in characters. (Even though I'm still one of the only ones who thinks Sandbar is underrated apparently 
)
Wow, I'm actually surprised to hear you don't have a favorite!
Yeah, that's probably what I'm going to try. Let me know if you do ever get to it though, I'd love to read more advice from you!!
4974611
If you're interested in that, you should look at my main story, Displaced into Nothing, because that's basically written to spark other writers' imaginations, and has a bunch of corresponding blog posts with advice. You could also try watching me, which will put my blog posts in your feed.
Anyway, at some point early on, it was Applejack, then it moved on to Rainbow Dash, but then I really identified with Pinkie Pie, and I also realized that I liked Rarity a lot, then reading fanfiction about Discord made me appreciate Fluttershy, and writing Displaced into Nothing made me really appreciate Twilight Sparkle, and eventually the rest of them. I think the point where I realized that I can't pick a favorite because they are all awesome was around the time that I firat wrote the line where Meta says that Twilight and her friends are "all great people". Trying to choose between them is like trying to choose between flavors of ice cream to go with my cake, it really depends on the mood I'm in and the cake I'm eating. The exchange students are like that too, where I think all five of them are so awesome I can't really decide. (It's funny, because I was just using a dessert metaphor the other day to describe what it's like to compare sex partners to each other: aside from when one of them is particularly good or bad, it's not a contest, because all of them are awesome)
4974713
I'll keep that in mind, and I've already given you a follow!
Wow, we actually liked the characters by the same order, except that after I liked Applejack and Rainbow Dash the most, I stuck with Pinkie as a favorite ever since
But I see what you mean! And since they are great people in a show, whoever you love can be influenced on the episode you saw this week and next week. As a writer that must be great for you, because you can write about anyone and enjoy it, in the Mane and Young Six at least.