In Which The Outside World Notices Us! [Big M]
Hey, check this out. I’m flattered, really, I never expected anyone outside of the fandom to ever notice us much.
On Starting Out [Pinkie & Fluttershy Contribute!]
We’ve gotten pretty big over the past few weeks, and understandably, it’s hard to keep up with just how to start out. Thanks to Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, we now have a series of guidelines for newbies starting out in our RP!
By following this guide, starting out will go much smoother!
Character List [Rainbow Dash]
Bare with me, this is going to be a long one!
We have so many characters now that it’s sometimes hard to keep up! Below is a list of all of the accepted feature (Characters from the show) characters, their account names and whether or not they are currently filled. Feature chars will include fanon chars, too. If the name is not here, it’s not made and/or accepted yet as a part of the RP world (Or I forgot. If you know you’re accepted and your name’s not listed, give me a poke!). If a char name is not here or not made and you’re interested in playing them, feel free to make them. Original characters will be in a list below under the feature char list. This list will be updated regularly.
In no particular order…
Groups/Organizations [Rainbow Dash]
There are a number of different organizations/groups in this RP. Some of them are exactly as they appear in the show. But a lot of them aren’t. If you’re going to be playing a character who is a part of one of these groups or organizations, you need to know the difference. This post’ll be updated over time as we assemble more information from previous scenes.
The Elements of Harmony: These are the six bearers of the spirits of harmony. They are not very well known about in general as the bearers of the spirits are otherwise normal, unassuming fillies. Comprised of Honesty (mlp_Applejack), Laughter (mlp_pinkie), Kindness (mlp_fluttershy), Generosity (mlp_rarity), Loyalty (mlp_rainbow) and Magic (mlp_twilight). All spots in this group are taken.
The Wonderbolts: The royal military’s premiere flight demonstration and stunt team. Akin to the Navy’s Blue Angels on earth. They are highly talented, highly skilled and highly trained fliers who have managed to make it through the rigorous Wonderbolts training. They are only loosely connected to the military and are much more relaxed as their primarily function is entertainment and moral. The current Wonderbolts captain is Spitfire (mlp_spitfire). OC Wonderbolts are permitted.
Junior Speedsters: One of the top training camps for young fliers, located in the mountains east of Cloudsdale. Entry into Junior Speedsters requires the flier to have some form of obvious talent for speed and agility. Classes run every summer, from July to September, and then in the winter from November to Janurary. Current headmaster of the Junior Speedsters is Firefly (mlp_firefly). DM or OOC @mention her if interested in joining or being a teacher.
(Under Construction)
Guidelines [Big M]
Note that we do our best to accommodate new players, but we do have to stay within the world created by Lauren Faust, at least for the most part. If your character is not on Twilight Sparkle’s list, don’t feel discouraged. DM one of us and we will do our utmost to help you make a character that you want to play, but also fits into the world we play in. It’s always a great day for us when a new character comes into our version of Equestria, especially when said character isn’t an alternate character created by one of our current members.
That said, we do have certain expectations of all our members.
- Keep your RP at a rating of G. PG is okay, but on a limited basis.
- Make every effort to use proper spelling and grammar.
- Make every effort to keep your character within the canonical species and technology level of Equestria. See the two posts below for more info on this.
- No heavy violence. The occasional magic spell, thrown object such as pies, apples, cupcakes, muffins, etc., hind-leg kicks, or cartoon violence like dropped objects or pegasus pony crashes are fine. (Even guard ponies us their wings, kicking, or thrown food!) No blood or death, EVER. At worst, a character will faint or be knocked out for a short period of time. Conflicts should be resolved by talking if at all possible. Violence is a last resort.
- No super grimdark situations. This connects to the above, but I’m talking about emotional stuff here. No psychotic killers, character background with abuse, or apocalyptic wars, etc. (I should note that Dr. Whooves does kinda break this one, but his player is VERY good at keeping things realtively light in tone.)
- Keep romance romantic. Snuggling, hugs, the odd kiss, spending the night talking, and so forth is okay. Heavy makeout sessions and blatant sex is NEVER okay, and implying such things is frowned upon very heavily.
- No alcohol or drug use. EVER. The pony equivalent of alcohol is the salt lick, and that should be used very sparingly.
- No swearing. Period. Words like “fudge”, “fiddlesticks”, “hayseeds” and so on are okay. Phrases like “Sweet Celestia above”, “Celestia’s bright mane”, etc., are okay. “Crap” is pushing it - use “manure” instead.
- Keep public posts in character. We have DMs, IM clients, and our forum for OOC chatter such as planning events.
These rules aren’t intended to be arbitrary or powergamey. They’re here to help keep things fun and as similar to the show as possible while still allowing for artistic expression and the like. Do note, though, that someone who breaks these will find that there are consequences.
I hate having to act as the enforcer, but I want to get these out where anyone can see them, for varied reasons.
- Big McIntosh
On Character Races [Rainbow Dash]
So you saw how fun our Twitter RP can be and you want to join? That’s great!
… So you want to be a winged unicorn that’s related to Celestia and Twilight?
Not so great.
We’re pretty open to different sorts of characters taking part in our RP. Not only do we have the main six, but we also have numerous background ponies, fandom characters, original characters, and even a few oddballs like Doctor Whooves. We’re really not going to restrict people when it comes to characters… Normal characters, that is.
As it is, we prefer normal characters. Normal as in one of currently known races of equestria: Earth ponies, unicorns, pegasi, dragons and griffons. There are other viable races, but these are the main ones and the most likely to be welcomed easily within the RP. Winged unicorns are not acceptable, and are likely to be ignored in general as there are only currently two winged unicorns, and baring special plots, there will only be two. Having a sensible background and stuff is good too, but I’m not going to go into that in this post.
We have accepted oddball characters in the past. @drwhooves, @mlp_Asmodeus and @mlp_denise are examples of characters from cross generas that have worked out. This is primarily because the players of these characters were quite willing to play along with certain restrictions, and maintain the feel of the series by keeping generally to the theme, and not pulling out their stranger abilities often. A lot of characters drawn from other fantasy or sci-fi genras are not going to work out like they have.
Characters from cross generas are much less likely to be accepted in the RP and are more likely to be ignored. Sorry, that’s just the way it goes. We are attempting to keep the atmosphere here as similar to the show as possible with some obvious changes. Having a slew of obviously robotic or highly powerful, weird characters show up just does not help create that atmosphere very much. This RP takes place in a low tech, high magic Equestria, and most characters should represent this.
A list of characters who have been accepted into the RP can be found below. It is updated regularly as new characters are accepted ‘officially’ into the RP. http://twitter.com/#!/mlp_twilight/my-little-pony-rp-2/members
~Rainbow Dash
Technology Level [Rainbow Dash]
Lately there’s been a bit of confusion about the technology level in Equestria. As a whole, we’re not going to put a lot of stops on things. This is mostly because a lot of the more modern things that you’ll find in Equestria that replicate modern conveniences are made with magic. Electricity itself is not a common convenience, and places that DO have electricity, like Twilight’s library, get them straight from the big source - Lightning.
Common conveniences mostly work off of magic. Fridges, ovens, stuff like that, are magic based or more old fashioned and run off of gas, wood, etc. There are no microwaves, no TVs. There’s not even a cinema (Hah! Gotta entertain ourselves!). There’s radio, but CD’s and even cassettes don’t exist yet. Equestria’s music still comes by way of vinyl or from the source. Modern day computers are something that can’t even be comprehended. Equestria computers are room sized, and work off of punch cards for the most part. There are combustion engines, but they’re big, bulky, and for some reason primarily used for chocolate fountains (Don’t ask).
But how do we have things like twitter? Ponies who have ‘signed up’ for twitter have a specially trained bird called a tweet bird. This little thing can be used to carry off little messages to others or receive messages from others. (And sometimes writes down more than what they should be! Pesky things!)
Of course, because things can be run by magic there can be a lot of room for leeway. If you’re unsure, just ask in OOC or contact someone through DMs first.
~Rainbow Dash
About Us [Big McIntosh]
Hey everypony! Big McIntosh here. I’m sure that you’ve come across us on Twitter, or EquestriaDaily, and are wondering what the hay is up with all these ponies.
Well, to put it simply, we’re fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Some of us - well, most of us, actually - don’t fit into the targeted demographic. For whatever reason, be it the slick animation, the lovable characters, a long-time love of the MLP franchise, or something I can’t think of, we love this show, despite the obvious corniness, despite the subject matter, despite everything that makes MLP: FiM what it is.
A lot of fans use art or storytelling to express their love for this show, and I commend them for that. But individually, we TwitterPonies chose a more interactive route to do so. We are the unofficial Twitter accounts of a good majority of the cast of MLP: FiM, alongside some fandom and original characters - Dr. Whooves and Allirea are respective examples. We roleplay as the character through Twitter - interacting with other characters and the occasional non-fandom Twitter user.
Now, I’m sure you’re probably still wondering what in the hay is going on over in Twitter. We’ve been doing this RP since late March/early April of 2010, and it runs nearly 24 hours a day - so, there’s a lot to catch up on. We’ll be using this blog to create a timeline of events, as well as more in-depth summaries of said events.
As a heads up, there’s three people that have access to this account - myself, Twilight Sparkle, and Rainbow Dash. So to prevent confusion, we’ll make sure to sign our names at the bottom of each post and we’ll include our names in the title of the post as well.
We’ll be making more posts in the days to come, possibly multiple posts per day, so check back from time to time.
-Big McIntosh
