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TheBadFaerie β MLP: FIM - Without Magic - Part 6
Published: 2012-12-15 20:15:23 +0000 UTC; Views: 50618; Favourites: 339; Downloads: 1981
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Description
This is part 6 of my ongoing Pony comic.Twilight has gone to Sweet Apple Acres, seeking Applejack's help to live as an Earth Pony. But Applejack doesn't react quite as Twilight Expected.
Before you start writing angry comments about how this is out of character for Applejack, I wanted to have each of the ponies react in a different way. I wanted one character to get angry, and Applejack seemed a better fit for this than any of the other characters.
She is angry because Twilight thinks that being an Earth Pony is all about farming.
This is the human equivalent of judging somebody based on their race.
Applejack will be more like the show version in page 7.
Part 1: [link]
Part 2: [link]
Part 3: [link]
Part 4: [link]
Part 5: [link]
Part 7: [link]
Part 8: [link]
This page was created in Inkscape and Photoshop. Most of the foreground characters were scratch drawn for this page, or for previous pages.
I've used gameguy001 's Sweet-Apple-Acres as a background for all frames ([link] ). Though I modified it slightly as I wanted to put a shadow in for the fence.
Applejack's Cutie Mark was created by BlackGryph0n ([link] ).
Twilight's cloak was scratch drawn, but it is based on Trixie's cape. I used Why485's Pony Fashion Study ([link] ) as a guide, but altered the decorations and added a hood to turn the cape into a cloak. It was inspired by Twilight Sparkle's dress from The Best Night Ever.
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Comments: 247
Actually it's not. Just because you are putting it out there for free doesn't mean it isn't allowed to be subjected to criticism nor is said criticism "watered down" as you say.
A lot of the grunt work of making a comic goes into the artwork and arrangement of it. The art and conveyance you have is being done just fine, but the writing is where things are falling apart.
It's critical when working with fiction that already has an established framework (i.e. the "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" TV series) that certain guidelines are followed. If you want a character to depart from their perceived normal behavior, you have to give that character a natural reason to fall into that behavior or else the characters behavior feels out of place and "contrived", as Boreasos put it.
Just from reading the comic thus far, I don't understand Applejack's sudden shift to anger at her friend over what can best be described as an irrational conclusion that Twilight is discriminating her friend's racial/socioeconomic status.
Again, I'm not discounting the work and effort you have put into making something to share with others in your free time. I respect that you actually made something and put it out there for others to see. All I ask is that you understand where I'm coming from when I say that criticism should be embraced so long as it's not trolling under the guise of criticism like, "this comic sux, you should kill yourself... hur hur" ... I've seen some real bad non-constructive criticism, Boreasos's comments are quite tame in comparison.
EDIT: After reading a few more comments and reading the next few pages I see where you went with this, but honestly it could have been better conveyed to keep the negative reactions down. Simply having Applejack have the realization hit her at the end of this page would have done world's of good to keep people from snapping at the abrupt angry end and would have still been enough of a cliffhanger that people would want to jump to the next page to see how she resolves it. Instead, you potentially lose a viewer because they may think the character portrayals were ripped from some bad story on FimFiction. You manage to dodge a bullet if they decide to just click on through to the next page, if they don't, well then you know where that leads.
All I can say is take the reader's confusion into consideration, there are plenty of comments shown here that many were left behind by the writing. That is just an opportunity for later works, to be aware of how to avoid such a recurrence from happening in the future.
Peace.
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The big problem that I'm having is that people are lurching to extremes.
They are seeing anger as blind rage, dislike as hatred, and uncertainly as complete psychological collapse. I've had people comparing quite small events to torture, or extrapolating that Twilight not having her magic for a short period of time could lead to the total destruction of Equestria.
I'm not a professional artist, or a script writer, but I know that I'm not putting most of that stuff into my comic. All I can presume is that people are reading other comics and other fanfiction, and are carrying over over something that they saw somewhere else when they read this comic.
My comic isn't nearly as dark as some people seem to suggest, and the idea that a mentor might tell somebody to put down a favorite tool or technique, and to try something else for self improvement, seems totally lost on so many people.
I've had people describing Twilight without her magic using some pretty horrifying analogies. Really sick stuff. It's like they're reading Cupcakes with the lights out, having nightmares for a week, and are then treating this as a sequel.
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Most of the criticism seems to be based on opinions that people formed from reading the first few pages. Rather than the comic as a whole.
When I started this comic, it was going to be less than 20 pages long. So I compressed the story-line and the dialog to fit. If I was writing it now, I'd have split the events of Page 1 over 3 or four separate pages, with an entire page dedicated to explaining why Twilight Celestia changed Twilight. At the time, half a page seemed about right for a 20 page comic.
I'd also only seen maybe 10 episodes at the time, so I based my early characterizations on what I knew. Primarily Winter Wrapup, Applebuck season and The Last roundup.
Winter Wrapup gave me the idea for the premise of Twilight not having magic, and the other two episodes set the character for Applejack.
During those episodes she was stubborn, and got angry quickly.
Applejack has mellowed since then, but this isn't season 5 Applejack, it's season 1 Applejack. This was in character for her back then.
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Sooooo long, gonna need to break this down into little chunks.
It's a free web based comic is largely a stand-in for "I'm a hobbyist". All of the above would be fair criticism for a professionally written and drawn comic, with a proper script writer, artist, and proof reader. But it rings a little hollow when you're dealing with some kid drawing a pony comic in their bedroom between watching episodes of Adventure Time and Steven Universe.
Please take a look at the dates when the pages were uploaded. I wrote most of this 3 years ago. I'd only seen a handful of episodes when I started, and was only my second attempt at drawing a proper multi part comic.
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woah talk about honesty but this words hurts
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Applejack this isn't you! Geez how rude
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Couldn't read the smaller parts of the comic but it look interesting
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You know you can make the image larger right? Just click on it, or if you want it at its largest, just download it
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Wait, was that really it, or is Applejack reading too much into something that isn't at all related? To me, it was just that Twilight was asking how she managed all of those chores without the use of magic...
Wow, Applejack is a huge jerk in this comic.
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She's only a jerk for about a page.
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Well, she jumped to 'my friend is a racist' conclusion waaaay too fast. Seriously, she lives in a farm, farms have plenty of chores to do, chores she does every day without magic, magic she can't use because Celestia is a jackass, how is asking how she does them all indication Twilight is an insensitive racist prick?
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The whole racist bit came didn't come from me.
Applejack was angry at Celestia, then Twilight said something insensitive and Applejack redirected her anger towards Twilight.
I may re-write the dialog at a later date. You're not reading it the way that I originally intended.
My vision for that Applejack was angry because Twilight didn't see the distinction between being a farm pony and being an Earth Pony.
Applejack had though that Twilight was there because she was her friend (Not because she was a farm pony, or an Earth Pony), and she felt hurt when she found out that Twilight didn't understand the difference.
Imagine how you would feel if a friend asked you for help, and then you found out that the reason that they thought of you first wasn't because you were a friend, but because they thought that you'd know about something because of your race or your background.
Like, if somebody asked you to help them to cook a fancy meal for their family, and you thought that it was because you were good friends, and then they found out that they thought that you would naturally know how to cook spagetti because you were Italian American. Or some similar thing.
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...
If you have a background, you have to expect it. I mean, it happens to doctors all the time - with their families, with their friends, with the guy who is doing his school-mandated service on the school doctor's office *coughcough*.
YES, I get it, Applejack got offended because reasons, but those reasons are STUPID. Yes, I would get offended if a friend expected me to know everything about... say, tacos, just because I'm Mexican... but if it was because I am a chef, why would I get offended? I am someone he/she knows who is on record as knowing about the subject! Of-freakin'-course I'm going to be asked about it! What, would I go to the mechanic to ask for help with a surgery?
Also, I'm pretty sure Twilight understands that there is more to earth ponies than farming - there is the schoolteacher (whom she knows), the mayor (whom she would have to be stupid not to know), Pinkie and the Cakes (seriously) and many other dozens of ponies that - while they might not be her outright friends - she knows what they do. To me? This argument was unnecessary as it was - maybe AJ was unfairly projecting her anger unto Twilight, but I don't see Twilight as being ignorant enough to make the assumption you are making her... make... Double so because she's a scholar, living in a library, and studying under the princess.
I just cannot see that kind of gap in her knowledge, certainly not enough to have her make that kind of guess.
I get that this comic is about Twilight being over-reliant on her magic (even though it seems like this Celestia herself pretty much taught her to be like that), but she shouldn't get saddled with stupidity on top of that.
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Well ... it's just a fan comic. I wanted Applejack to get angry, I didn't want to draw a long scene for it, and I wanted to reuse as many vector as I could to keep the drawing process simple.
It was the best that I could come up with at the time.
The theme of the comic is "Sense of identity", so it seemed logical to have Applejack getting upset because Twilight trod on something to do with her sense of identity.
I couldn't have Twilight accuse Applejack of lying, and I'd already trodden on Apple Blooms sense of identity (Being in her sister's shadow, on the previous pages). So i didn't want to use those aspects of Applejack's sense of identity. He image of herself as a farming pony was the next logical thing.
You may also have gathered from the other pages that Twilight isn't thinking straight. She's blundering in and pretty much upsetting everypony that she talks to.
She's forgetting who she is, and what makes her special, so she's not acting like her normal self.
In the end, the comic isn't really about Twilight's over reliance on magic. The whole "Without Magic" thing is mostly just a plot device. Twilight gets over that pretty early on in the comic. Which is where the rest of it comes in.
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Yeah, I can gather some of that... it was just that that kind of leaps of logic in miscommunication make me really angry, because they keep getting me into trouble. I mean what I say in the way I say it, but then someone makes an assumption - nearly always wrong - about my mood, making my words take another context or making them try to 'placate' me.
You can see where that can lead to, even with something as innocent as declining another serving of dinner.
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"Angry", why use such strong words?
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Because I almost got sent to the psychiatrist by the school because of a miscommunication disaster. As it turns out, however, no-one had thought that - maybe - the girl involved had been in the wrong OR had not told them the whole story; since she had been the one to go into a hysterical fit before trying to slap me (and it was apparently wrong of me to no allow myself to get slapped), maybe she should go to the psychiatrist too!
The matter was dropped.
Seriously, I had been the one in the wrong until they came across that little tidbit - she was trying to hit me after going into hysterics because I would not let her copy my homework five minutes before the teacher got there, and I didn't allow it, so that maybe the girl needed the professional a bit more. She did get warned, though, because it is in the rules that you cannot hit others even if you are a girl.
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Okkkaaaaaaay.
In this case, Twilight read too much into what Celestia was saying.
It's a pretty Twilightish thing to do, so it's in character for the show.
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racist twilight an harsh applejack...
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I have to admit that was kinda racist Twilight.
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"She is angry because Twilight thinks that being an Earth Pony is all about farming.
This is the human equivalent of judging somebody based on their race."
Yeah, but still ... Sun Butt might be overshooting it. But, after what happened here, so is AJ. Couldn't she tell what she told in a polite way, and understand Twi's current condition, rather than shooting her down and use borderline vulgar expressions?
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applejack THIS is way nopony likes you
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Wow that escalated fast. Sorry but I feel like so far, every pony hereΒ is a A**hole
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Apple jack is supposed to be offended that twilight associates earth ponies with agricultural work, but earth pony agricultural powers are what have fed the entire pony species since ancient times. It's like associating Pegasus with flying or unicorns with magic. This all makes Apple Jack's offense seem very overblown.
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It's explained on the next page.
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I can understand this one, most of the old books would depict Earth ponies as farmers since thats their innate power, AJ forgot Pinkie was a rock farmer tho
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I think this is very well-thought out and well-written. It'd make a great episode!
If DHX ever holds a contest for a fan-written MLP episode, I'd submit this if I were you.
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Wow, methinks AJ hath a little too much pride. Offended easily, much?Β
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When I wrote it, my intent was that Twilight made her angry at Celestia, and then when Twilight turned it around Applejack still had all of that anger, which she directed towards Twilight.
If she wasn't angry she would have said something else, it was the anger talking rather than her pride. Which she realized when she calmed down.
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Makes sense. Upon reading further, I was glad to see she realized how mean she was being to Twilight, especially being as vulnerable as she is right now, and apologized.Β
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Aaaaaaaaaaaand there goes all the respect that AJ earned in the last page. Also Talking Head Syndrome
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Basically, Twilight, you need to have a discussion with your dear mentor about how, if she wants to punish you for being incredibly racist, she should be honest about it, rather than making up some reason about a learning experience. Because the situation right now is all kinds of wrong.
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i would put my head in that toiled
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Come back around page 16.
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XD well now am i curiousΒ
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I completely fail to understand AJ's reaction.
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Imagine if a friend of your asked you for help because they associated whatever it was with your race, rather than because you actually did it, or because you were their friend.
Applejack is upset because Twilight stereotyped her.
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So? It's not like she threw out a slur, she appears to have thought that working the land is an integral part of being an Earth Pony. As far as I am aware that is true, Earth Ponies have magic that help them grow food and work the land no?
Essentially, Twilight is upset and confused and Applejack exploded for what is at best a perceived slight and a small one at that. I feel it could easily be corrected with a short explanation or an attempt to clarify what Twilight means at the very least. What friend would be so instantly aggressive over a misunderstanding? Ignorance is not a crime.
Small edit: It appears part of this quandry was solved in the very next panel. Serves me for jumping the gun myself.
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Well... That escalated quickly...
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Hmm, aren't you overreacting just a little bit, AJ? :/
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