Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[Guest]

The best/silliest thing about the "It takes two to fight" policy is that it actually encourages kids to fight back, from the sound of it. I mean, if you're getting suspended for fighting anyway, you might as well get a few kicks in. The cynical part of me expects that it's an anti-snitching policy, of course, designed to give fewer headaches to the administration. Having a mum who's a teacher has given me a dim view of the education administration, though, so I'm probably biased.

All that said, I never really had much of a problem with physical violence in school. Sure, there was bullying and whatnot, but I'm pretty sure the stupid amounts of Stephen King I read in middle school probably messed me up worse than being mentally and emotionally toyed with. That's not to say the latter is not serious, just that I didn't experience much of it. I find that keeping calm, being pleasant and quiet, and having friendly acquaintances (or actual friends) helps. Learning the do's and don't's of adversarial conversations is also good; it helps to identify when someone's legitimately trying to be a prick, or when they're hoping for banter (some people, I find, do this inappropriately, but don't mean anything by it).

Mostly, though... it's really just about not being a target. If you can't pull off a serious don't-give-a-damn attitude, don't defy people's expectations or social norms. Head down, don't think about it, etc. etc. etc. You need to figure out how much your integrity - or whatever - is worth to you. When you get to college, you can find like-minded people and do whatever. Sleep with everyone, play DnD constantly, nerd out about LoL and Firefly, extol the virtues of Swedish melodic death metal to anyone who'll listen and have in-depth discussions about the morality of war (this has been my experience, anyway, except for that first bit =P). Also study loads and write infinity papers. That is also a thing. Oh, and never sleep until you need to.

@SilentCarto (miniguns)
The Vulcan sounds like a much more entertaining gun, then. =P

[Ketchup]

As a side note, the predecessor M61 Vulcan lacked that safety feature, so it would fire every round that entered the weapon while it spun down -- or was rotated by hand.

One doesn't simply PLAY with an aircraft cannon that runs out of ammo in a few seconds.

[Sindri]

Wow, three badasses revealed in one day. This thread is now hardcore. I better watch out!

As I type this I am lying on a couch with a cup of orange juice, listening to Enya (pandora is running and I'm too lazy to skip), petting the fluffy kitten napping on my chest. I have not resorted to violence in three years and I have not been directly presented with it in... five months? I'm planning on making cookies later, after the sun goes down so it doesn't make the house too hot.


Fear me.

[Guest]

Wow, three badasses revealed in one day. This thread is now hardcore. I better watch out!

As I type this I am lying on a couch with a cup of orange juice, listening to Enya (pandora is running and I'm too lazy to skip), petting the fluffy kitten napping on my chest. I have not resorted to violence in three years and I have not been directly presented with it in... five months? I'm planning on making cookies later, after the sun goes down so it doesn't make the house too hot.


Fear me.

It's always the quiet, Enya-listening, kitten-petting, orange juice-drinking ones! Ya can't trust 'em, no sir.

[Sindri]

As you guys have told me. And I certainly believe and hope for it.

When I was your age I was a battered little ball of hate who was seriously considering the relative merits of suicide vs homicide. In the end, as cliched as it sounds, the best revenge is to live a good life. In a decade you'll look back on the hopelessness you feel now and (probably) either laugh or talk about it on the internet with the next generation.

[Ketchup]

As you guys have told me. And I certainly believe and hope for it.

When I was your age I was a battered little ball of hate who was seriously considering the relative merits of suicide vs homicide. In the end, as cliched as it sounds, the best revenge is to live a good life. In a decade you'll look back on the hopelessness you feel now and (probably) either laugh or talk about it on the internet with the next generation.

I agree with that, and being the "nerd" that becomes everyone else's boss.

[Sindri]

Mostly, though... it's really just about not being a target. If you can't pull off a serious don't-give-a-damn attitude, don't defy people's expectations or social norms. Head down, don't think about it, etc. etc. etc. You need to figure out how much your integrity - or whatever - is worth to you. When you get to college, you can find like-minded people and do whatever. Sleep with everyone, play DnD constantly, nerd out about LoL and Firefly, extol the virtues of Swedish melodic death metal to anyone who'll listen and have in-depth discussions about the morality of war (this has been my experience, anyway, except for that first bit =P). Also study loads and write infinity papers. That is also a thing. Oh, and never sleep until you need to.

See, not being a target was something I was never good at as a kid, and a lot of people just don't seem to be capable of it. There are a lot of kids who don't seem to see anything but authorities, peers, slaves, and targets. Other kids, like me, hate them too much to become peers and refuse to be slaves, so we're always going to be targets. I chose to be a prickly enough target that most of them would avoid me, and a few might have even changed a bit.


You're right on about college though. Take out the sex, change the death metal to gothic, and switch out LoL for anime and that was me.

[Cptadder]

Eh, it's really not just when you live, but where.

True but then I went to school mostly in the south where we still had a gun club in the late 90s. Gun club as in on campus our high school had a gun range in the back and kids brought their guns to school and left them in the various old GM's, Fords and Chevy's that made up the student parking lot with attached gun racks and guns were left out there during the school day, both shotguns and long rifles locked on the racks or pistols in covered cases in the cabin and right after school at 3:30PM as everyone was taking off the Gun club kids were retrieving firearms to slog them across campus to the gun range every Monday and Thursday.

Not to mention that being nice to everybody would require pretending to be friends with a lot of people who are honestly just assholes.

Welcome to the world.

When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite- Winston Churchill

Wow, three badasses revealed in one day. This thread is now hardcore. I better watch out!

Hey I lost my fight (And several others) the only difference was I was fourteen and fighting two kids my size who did not know how to fight but knew how to ape what TV shows showed them how to do and consequently the two years I spent taking self defense classes on again off again with some Karate, Taekwondo, Hapkido mixed in (I was bad about going for two months then having to quit when my transportation fell apart). One of the benefits that partial instruction did give me is to know how to take a punch which is enough to fight people who stop fighting the first serious hit they get in. I got into fights at least twice times a year pretty much every grade from the fourth grade on. And I lost most of them and only got suspended for two of them. But then I was moving every two years so every new school meant the current crop of bullies had to size me up and when challenged I always escalated to get that shit out of the way and despite the fact I'd mostly lose. By the seven grade I had lost my fear of getting into fights all together.

But that is another story

[O. Hinds]

Wow, three badasses revealed in one day. This thread is now hardcore. I better watch out!

As I type this I am lying on a couch with a cup of orange juice, listening to Enya (pandora is running and I'm too lazy to skip), petting the fluffy kitten napping on my chest. I have not resorted to violence in three years and I have not been directly presented with it in... five months? I'm planning on making cookies later, after the sun goes down so it doesn't make the house too hot.


Fear me.

...That emoticon in conjunction with this discussion has gotten me wondering about some of the holes in Fluttershy's past...

[Sindri]

Wow, three badasses revealed in one day. This thread is now hardcore. I better watch out!

As I type this I am lying on a couch with a cup of orange juice, listening to Enya (pandora is running and I'm too lazy to skip), petting the fluffy kitten napping on my chest. I have not resorted to violence in three years and I have not been directly presented with it in... five months? I'm planning on making cookies later, after the sun goes down so it doesn't make the house too hot.


Fear me.

...That emoticon in conjunction with this discussion has gotten me wondering about some of the holes in Fluttershy's past...

You have seen Friendship is Witchcraft, yes?

[Sindri]

...don't kid yourself. Nerds become engineers and scientists, and the more well-adjusted of the bullies or team/club captains become their bosses.

Yeah, but you know what's better than being in charge of an asshole? Staying in the lab and never talking to them.

[Ketchup]

...don't kid yourself. Nerds become engineers and scientists, and the more well-adjusted of the bullies or team/club captains become their bosses. You can't naturally jump from being a B type personality to an A type. Those that can command authority now will likely be able to command authority in the future.

Well, unless you become an entrepreneur or join a company that was founded by nerd entrepreneurs, I suppose.
...or have an in through networking or something else I'm not thinking of.

I was kidding, and engineering holds my interest now.

[Ketchup]

I was kidding, and engineering holds my interest now.

Engineers often make a bit more than scientists, but they have to deal more... idiocy.
Just read Dilbert. It's depressingly true so very, very often.

I have a bit of experience in that already, so if I do follow through with that plan, I'll try to adapt.

[Guest]

Everything you'll ever need to know about the dynamics of power can be found in this video.

[Rafafidi]

Engineers often make a bit more than scientists, but they have to deal more... idiocy.
Just read Dilbert. It's depressingly true so very, very often.

I agree, doesn't matter how well you do your job, your boss get all the glory/find a way to fuck up everything.
...I'm too bitter, need moar pony.

[Ketchup]

Everything you'll ever need to know about the dynamics of power can be found in this video.

I'm pretty sure you're joking, and since I don't have sound atm, I'll go to school for that stuff.

[Rafafidi]

I noticed we are having bigger breaks between posts, then they arrive in a hot cluster.

...That emoticon in conjunction with this discussion has gotten me wondering about some of the holes in Fluttershy's past...

What holes are you talking about? Care to elaborate?

[Sindri]

I noticed we are having bigger breaks between posts, then they arrive in a hot cluster.

Natural result of having a lot of people watching the thread, but a significant time since the last chapter. When a new topic comes up, a dozen people start to chime in as fast as they can and you'll have three new posts between when you hit the quote button and sending your reply. Then once they reach an agreement, or say what they intended to, or whatever the forum goes to sleep again until somebody comes up with a new topic or somebody who was unavailable in the last spurt revives a question.

[Ketchup]

I noticed we are having bigger breaks between posts, then they arrive in a hot cluster.

Natural result of having a lot of people watching the thread, but a significant time since the last chapter. When a new topic comes up, a dozen people start to chime in as fast as they can and you'll have three new posts between when you hit the quote button and sending your reply. Then once they reach an agreement, or say what they intended to, or whatever the forum goes to sleep again until somebody comes up with a new topic or somebody who was unavailable in the last spurt revives a question.

Glorious forums. I think you just about described a 3-5 day cycle. Sometimes, even faster.

[iLateralGX]

Jeez we got some badasses/violent people here.

Reminds me of the time I punched and knocked out a 1st grader...

Spoiler:

[O. Hinds]

I noticed we are having bigger breaks between posts, then they arrive in a hot cluster.

...That emoticon in conjunction with this discussion has gotten me wondering about some of the holes in Fluttershy's past...

What holes are you talking about? Care to elaborate?

Well, we don't know much about it. Admittedly, that's hardly unique to her, but we do know that she was bullied, we know that she was friends with Rainbow (an athlete and prankster who's demonstrated willingness to enter direct combat) and that her ursine chiropracty was a bit violent, if effective...

[Cptadder]

Well, we don't know much about it. Admittedly, that's hardly unique to her, but we do know that she was bullied, we know that she was friends with Rainbow (an athlete and prankster who's demonstrated willingness to enter direct combat) and that her ursine chiropracty was a bit violent, if effective...

Plus there is the whole where was Fluttershy in the 90's thing. I know she says she was attending Veterinarian school in Japan but I got a buddy of mine swore he saw she was signed on with Executive outcomes in Sierra Leone when she claimed to be in school and we all know the crap that PMC's got up to with the diamond trade these days.


Actually what holes in her background she was in Cloudsdale, she found out she had the power of heart and then I assume her woodland critter friends help set her up in Ponyvillie before she set up her little communist commune of animals payed for by what I assume are either meth labs or rich parents.

[Ketchup]

Actually what holes in her background she was in Cloudsdale, she found out she had the power of heart and then I assume her woodland critter friends help set her up in Ponyvillie before she set up her little communist commune of animals payed for by what I assume are either meth labs or rich parents.

This. Remember, magical meth, in this case.

[iLateralGX]

Plus there is the whole where was Fluttershy in the 90's thing. I know she says she was attending Veterinarian school in Japan but I got a buddy of mine swore he saw she was signed on with Executive outcomes in Sierra Leone when she claimed to be in school and we all know the crap that PMC's got up to with the diamond trade these days.

Jeez, I must be watching a completely different show, and reading a completely different fanfic because none of this stuff seems familiar... I could have swore she worked in the science division of Canterlot University developing technologies that would be later used by the SDIO weapon dubbed "Star Wars"

[Sindri]

Fluttershy lives on the edge of the Everfree, between the forest and the main part of Ponyville. There are many, many creatures in the forest who consider ponies to be nothing more than a food supply. And yet (one Ursa Minor directly provoked by Snips and Snails aside) none of them ever leave the forest. There's an emergency siren in Ponyville, implying attacks in the past, but nothing recently. Meanwhile her own cottage has nothing but a low wooden fence between it and the treeline less than ten meters away... and nothing bigger than a ferret comes without an invitation.

The only reasonable explanation seems to be that the Everfree forest is scared of Fluttershy.

She likely wandered in as a child, fresh out of the clouds (there's no way she'd return to Cloudsdale after she got her cutie mark; even if she wasn't a weak flier there was nothing for her up there). Eventually she'd meet some monster, something she couldn't deal with by normal cuteness and niceness. And then, well, we know what happens. If the monster's lucky, she Stares it down like she did the dragon or cockatrice on-screen. If not, she takes it down hard; we've seen her kick a bear at least 20 times her mass into submission, and when sufficiently angry she's been shown to fly faster towing a balloon than Dash does unencumbered outside of a rainboom. After a few encounters, even the dumbest and hungriest of creatures would learn to stay away from her and that peaceful little cottage.

In fact, it's starting to seem like that exaggeratedly shy, delicate, demure little persona we see most of the time is a construct, a carefully controlled mask she uses to prevent herself from going into a rage state and tearing things to shreds. She refuses to talk to dragons and avoids going into the Everfree not because she's afraid of them, but because she knows they're likely to trigger that change into a version of herself that she's afraid of. She hangs out with a brash, confrontational pony like Dash because she knows that her friend will deal with threat so she isn't forced to, and doesn't risk going too far. She avoids conflict with other ponies whenever possible not because she fears them, but because she fears what she might do to them if they make her lose control.

[/crack theories]

[Rafafidi]

Oh, so Fluttershy is the Hulk now?
I'm ok with that.

[Sindri]

...I'd actually been thinking of Shizuo Heiwajima, but Bruce Banner actually works better. Yeah.

[Ki-Tarn]

Side question, is it just me or is anyone else getting 504 Gateway Time-out's and 502 Bad Gateway's from FimFiction? Was reading the new post of Kippershy's story but now I can't get into the site to continue it.

[Ketchup]

Side question, is it just me or is anyone else getting 504 Gateway Time-out's and 502 Bad Gateway's from FimFiction? Was reading the new post of Kippershy's story but now I can't get into the site to continue it.

Happens occasionally. Not crippling, but annoying.

[RoboRed]

Yep. I'm getting em' too.

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