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Lopoddity — Complementary
#pandoraverse #mlpmylittlepony #lopoddity #mlpnextgeneration
Published: 2019-11-29 03:50:19 +0000 UTC; Views: 144556; Favourites: 2899; Downloads: 0
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Description
caught the flu again, have a doodle from bed
So a lot of y'all were asking whatever happens to Huckleberry. (If you don't remember him, he's the red asshole on the left: ) Welp, following the incident with Moondancer, Bruce (being the main perpetrator) gets a shiny ticket to juvenile hall, while Huck (who participated in the assault, but wasn't the one to break Moondancer's horn), got off with a lighter punishment. He is placed into Princess Twilight's youth reform program. Huck isn't happy about this (he's pissed his buddy got all the blame while Moondancer and Pandora got off scot-free), but he can't really protest. He's become a total outcast at school (nobody wants to affiliate with a horn-breaker), and his family have dumped every farm chore possible on him as punishment. He has no friends left and no hope for the future, so might as well play nice with this stupid re-education program.
Twilight's program emphasizes education and creativity as a means to tame Ponyville's teenage offenders. Mandatory community service helps break their will, then they are given an outlet to help work through their emotional issues. Still reeling from weeks of begrudgingly cleaning up Ponyville and helping old nursing home ponies brush their dentures, Huck is strongly pressured (read: forced) to join an extracurricular, and he sourly picks debate club, if only to get Princess Twilight off his back, geez.
To everyone's surprise (including Huck's), it turns out he's ridiculously talented at debate. He's excellent at picking holes in arguments and spotting tiny flaws others may have missed. Huck is still a surly buttwipe, but he's maybe starting to have a little fun. Winning his first trophy with his team feels surprisingly nice. Even if his parents don't care much about his victories....even if they disparage his newfound interest. Maybe he doesn't need their approval.....maybe he never needed it.
Adult Huck is a proud, sleazy, silver-tongued lawyer. He's damned good at his job and he knows it. He's still kind of a prickly, antagonistic asshole, and feels no regret about leaving his parents behind to rot on their dirt farm. Huck does charity work and works public defense in his spare time, which I'm sure has nothing to do with his memories of growing up dirt poor himself, and his guilt about leaving his younger siblings behind to endure the same miserable childhood.
At some point he and Bruce meet again (I like to think it happens when Bruce and Stormy are seeking legal counsel regarding some accidental property damage their teeny daughter did), and there's a lot of joyous whooping and bro-hugs and shoulder punches and "where have you been, asshole??" all around. Huck is fascinated by Bruce's personal life (As a public defender, Huck had to represent all sorts of people, this exposure helped chip away at his homophobic and sexist attitudes).....especially Bruce's close friendship with Magnolia May, Huck's old crush. Despite Huck's outrageous flirting, Magnolia is 100% uninterested (and Bruce is not-so-jokingly threatening to kick Huck's ass if he doesn't lay off). Magnolia gets the idea to pawn Huck off on her greatest rival, Belle Velour. The plan is that Belle will be delightfully offended by this hick's romantic attention, or Huck will find Belle repulsive and say something rude or crass. Either way, Magnolia gets to watch a train wreck. It's the perfect plan.
Except....Belle Velour is exactly the right blend of classy and trashy to be like......100% Huck's type. Also, Huck has a job and a face, so he automatically met all of Belle's standards.
Huh.
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idk how canon this all is i'm on some pretty strong cough medicine
i made belle chubby because i cannnnn (belle is an emotional eater and could win an olympic medal in lounging around dramatically draped across sofas. thus belle ain't a thin pony. belle still happily wears crop tops.)
Belle Velour was also born intersex. Adult Belle is nonbinary, and considers themselves to be a board game where the rules are made up and the pronouns don't matter (Seriously, "they", "he", "she", whatever you want to use, Belle doesn't care, and revels in the air of mystery it lends them). I also imagine Belle's voice sounds like Laverne Cox.
Belle probably lives on a diet of chocolate, wine, and microwaved pop tarts, so dear Huck's skill in the kitchen is a godsend. I imagine Belle being the first pony ever to truly appreciate and compliment Huck's huckleberry pie probably led to him having a whole ass breakdown shedding a single manly tear. Belle gets fresh baked pies and neatly organized lunches from Huck on the regular, and Belle is sure to rub that in Magnolia's face ("Look at this perfectly good man you threw away honhonhon jealous much bitch?")
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Comments: 168
Intersex refers to people born with any number of variations in sex characteristics that don't quite align with either of our typical descriptions of male or female bodies. An intersex person is "in-between" the sex binary, so to speak. They may vary in their chromosomes, sex hormones, gonads, and/or genitals. Examples include a person born with ambiguous genitals, a person born with mosaic genetics (such that some cells have XX chromosomes and some of them have XY), and hormonal variation that allows, say, a woman to grow a beard, or a man to grow breasts. Not all intersex people are discovered at birth, some do not learn they're intersex til puberty (I recall reading about one trans man that learned he was intersex when he simply never got his period and finally had tests done).
Intersex individuals may have differing opinions on whether or not intersex is a part of the LGBT community. LGBTI activists fight for the rights of people who fall outside the gender and sex binary.
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Ok, thanks so much, I appreciate it!
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Intersex people are anyone whose sex chromosomes, genitalia, or sex characteristics don't align with one sex. Think of, say, a woman with the XY chromosome, a man with fully developed breasts, a man with Kleinfelter syndrome, a person with partially developed genitalia, etc. They're all intersex. Do not confuse with transgender people or people with small breasts/penises.
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Thanks for clarifying. No I did not in fact confuse them with trans people (like come on now),I just wasn't sure about intersex peeps
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" God I see this all the time. Some dick heel thinks he's the hottest shit, and nearly causes someone else their life. But "OH NO! He must be reeducated. Because he has a skill" No proper punishment first."
Do you really see this all the time? Where? I have to ask, because from my experience, criminals and bullies in children's media are typically depicted as one-dimensional villains, and dealt with either by revenge, prison, or public humiliation. I can't think of a single example of a bully character being placed in a reform program.
Huck was punished, didn't you see? He lost all his friends and got to do back-breaking labor on his parents watch. Also community service. How would you have him punished?
"Bruce caused the damage but Huck was the one that DESERVES punishment."
I'm curious why you believe that to be so? I'm not at all downplaying Huck's role in the assault, but he mostly just assists and goads Bruce, who does the real work (punching Moondancer, shoving his face into the dirt, pinning him down and breaking his horn). Huck did hurt Moondancer, but he didn't participate in the horn-breaking, which was the shocking offense that got Bruce sent to juvie. It's one thing to have a schoolyard scuffle. It's another thing to deliberately maim someone.
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Here's a fact I'm not sure you are aware of:
A system that focuses on retribution produces colder, harsher people. A light offender goes in, more likely to come out worse.
A system that focuses on re-education and rehabilitation produces more active, productive people for the community.
Your suggestion of what to do with Huck would not work. As already pointed out, it would just make him a worse person. Just because it might feel good to you to see him go through suffering doesn't mean it's the best way for him to reform. Re-education and rehabilitation often produce better results. It is unhealthy to want to see every asshole get punished.
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Hmm. Well, I can empathize with your frustration, but I work in education. My field of study and personal experience taught me that punishment is usually one of the worst ways to deal with a person. Brutally punishing a person, especially a young person, tends to breed resentment and hostility in them. This is why scared straight programs so routinely fail. I remember being young and extremely unhappy with my home situation. I developed typical antisocial behavior- vandalism, petty theft, piss poor grades, lying and breaking rules. I'd get caught, yelled at, and beaten severely. Not once did it occur to the adults in my life to ask why I was acting the way I was, or extend even a moment of compassion. All I got was punishment after punishment, and did those punishments ever make me- a teenager- decide to turn my life around? No. It made me sullen, secretive, moody, and very lonely. The only reason my behavior improved was that I changed schools, and I met new, very kind and patient teachers, who told me I wasn't stupid and had something to contribute. The second I wasn't pigeonholed as a problem child, the moment I was given guidance- I dropped my poor behavior almost overnight, and made my way onto honor role, and later into my top pick university.
Later, I noticed similar trends in my "problem" students. They'd act out, their overworked parents could think of no solution besides yelling or hitting them, which, surprise, surprise, resulted in more acting out. Talking to my students calmly and respectfully, ("Why are you acting this way? Are you upset? Do you need a break?") tended to yield much more positive results.
"He's clearly a sociopath and needs to see what its like in a 6' by 2', potentially for the rest of his life."
A sociopath is a specific antisocial personality disorder characterized by lack of conscience. Huck has a conscience. Huck is not a sociopath. Even Moondancer, at his most murderous, is not a sociopath.
"He needs to taste fear, real fear. That's the only way kids like him can understand. Then he can heal."
I disagree strongly, and I find this attitude dismissive and disturbing. Fear and punishment don't work nearly as well as guidance and support. The world of MLP is nothing if not a friendship-based utopia where everyone is offered the chance to be a better pony. Even Bruce's journey isn't so simple as being tossed in a locked cell- he too will be placed in a reformation program, his progress directly guided by Miss Cheerilee. It's this support and guidance that encourages Bruce to be better. Going to juvie just made him an outcast, which would've made him even angrier and more resentful, had Miss Cheerilee not been there to help him. I also notice that no villain in MLP has ever been reformed via fear- Discord reformed because he did not want to lose Fluttershy's friendship, Starlight reformed because she felt hopeless and hurt, and Twilight offered her a hand in friendship.
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...this really does happen... people really believe that harsh punishments help with... with anything? I cannot believe this... this is awful, and I'm really glad you were able to turn things around, Lop... but I am rather horrified that people think that punishing people, hurting people in such a manner, especially younger folks, is anywhere within the realm of okay.
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Eh, well....I do get it, you know. We, the audience, want to see the story play out justly. We want to see the bad guys punished and the good guys rewarded, and sometimes we feel robbed if it doesn't happen to the degree we want it. I can see how having Huck's negative consequences happen "off-screen" (not depicted in this drawing, but rather mentioned in the description), can make it seem like he got off easy. That being sad, I disagree with the user's request that Huck be locked up, potentially permanently. Huck suffers for a good while, but ultimately, with guidance, he's able to grow and become better. I think most people, when given the opportunity, can grow and become better. I hope this user won't be disappointed with Bruce, because even his punishment wasn't being caged in an empty cell. Though the source material is a children's TV show, I'm not really trying to tell a story where there's obvious bad guys and good guys, and karma is always fair and just. There are only characters and consequences.
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And I love that about your writing and storytelling. There's characters, and consequences, and things are never as black and white as it's often depicted on tv or on screen in general.
To be honest... I've always been in the habit, of taking hte bad guys from movies and shows I liked, and would write them redemption stories. Because I never thought they were just, mindlessly evil. I always thought, There must be a reason they're acting this way, something that's driving them to do all these awful things... and so... I tried to write stories that helped fix those problems, that helped the characters to grow and become better.
So... just seeing that blatant attitude you were responding too... it just... I've known things like this happen. Never personally, to me, never really been hit by my parents or guardians, but... neglect? Unfair punishments? I've lived that. And it sucks. Just... locking someone in a box is so extreme, or slapping them around, it just...
Causing fear and pain, inflicting fear and pain on someone who has inflicted the same, just, no. That just feeds into the cycle of abuse. Breaking the cycle with kindness, teaching, that sort of thing is what will get the abuse to stop, ultimately. Instead of culminating it further.
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You're taking this WAY too seriously, and you're projecting your own issues onto this.
And that's not how reformation works. For as much as I hate kids who go around doing horrible things, scaring them straight will not change them. All it would do would make them into worse human beings. People should be punished for their bad behavior, but the punishment should be appropriate with case-by-case situations.(Example-Pedophiles cannot be reformed, so this is pointless)
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I guess I have a very different point of view from yours. I work in a medical field, and I see a lot of people who make bad, harmful decisions - both for themselves and others. Believe me, it's exhausting, especially when you deal with addicts. It's very hard not to hate them for wasting resources and putting others in danger with their behavior.
But, I also see that punishment often doesn't do anything beyond make people resentful and secretive. Kids, especially those who already come from neglectful or abusive homes, don't tend to be "scared straight" - they just learn to be smarter or nastier about their crimes. What seems to work in most cases is giving people the resources and incentives to want to be better - not punishments to try to deter them. I mean...people join gangs despite the high risk of death or prison because they want to belong somewhere and have a family to depend on. The ones who leave do so because they find a different family. Why is it so hard to believe that Huck might have found acceptance in his debate team, stopped being so angry and resentful, and put his life together?
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It's a fictional horse calm down. He was sent to a reform program, given a bunch of chores and became a total outcast in school. That sounds like a punishment to me. Are we reading the same description?
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Yup! They'd be the most obnoxious, trashy couple alive
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I'm not intersex but my pronouns are randomly generated so I appreciate Belle
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Wow! You must've spent a quite a bit of time on this （⌒▽⌒）
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As soon as I saw this my mind said: “ Ah shit, here we go again”. I love this, you and everything you do! I hope you Feel as great as the Wolf and as proud as the moon!
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I like the art, Just not the MLP part.
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First off, sorry you're feeling sick, and I hope you feel better soon!
Second, this is great! I totally support this pairing. I'm a sucker for when antagonistic characters manage to find each other and befriend each other/become a couple. They sound like they'd have a lot of amazing and hilarious dialogues. I'm happy to find that Huck managed to find something he was really good at and make a better life for himself and become a better pony. Also, chubby Belle is adorable, and I'm glad to see more of them and Huck.
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im wheezing huck reminds me of billy flynn from chicago and i love it??
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this looks amazing!!
awesome story!
wonderful picture!!
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200% wholesome
I really like that you write characters in such a believable manner - flawed and imperfect yet capable of improving themselves over time. Reading that Huck does learn to be a better pony, even if he's not perfect, and ends up in a relationship is pretty warming. Of course, it doesn't excuse the bad things he did in his younger years, but characters who realise the nasty and bad things they've done and strive to be better are ones I always like to see written about.
Not to mention the art is of course excellent as always
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I think they go well together. They look like a cute couple :3
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I’m not gonna lie, this is really cute. I’m actually kind of happy that things worked out for Huck in the end
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Is the title also a stealth pun on the fact that the two are kinda complementary in terms of colors? ie, Huck's kinda orange and Belle's kinda blue? I've been trying to learn color theory, and that, along with red and green, are the easiest to remember complementary colors.
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Yup. 
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Clever :3 Especially since isn't Belle a fashion designer, or at least a model?
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I love how much thought you put into all of this
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How'd they end up in this position?
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how do any of us end up anywhere
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'Belle velour was also born intersex. Adult Belle is a board game where the rules are made up and the pronouns don't matter (Seriously, "they", "he", "she", whatever you want to use, Belle doesn't care, and revels in the air of mystery it lends them).'
Wheeze laughing because this is my exact story. I'm also intersex and pronouns are ??? to me. It makes me so giddy to see a character who shares that.
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