Ask Lyra

1) I… hadn’t heard anything about the Ninja Turtles being aliens. If true I don’t even want to talk about it anymore. I don’t want to acknowledge its existence.

My favorite will always be Ninja Turtles 3. Of course, 4 had a certain charm too.

2) Lyra: Okay, now go ahead.

Liza: Thank you very much, Mr. Coffeeseer.

3) Evidently I have to go. It’s not in Lower Canterlot. It was right outside a storefront on a busy street, out in the open. It’s hard for me to understand how nopony could have seen anything…

But yeah. I guess let me know when and I’ll give you a tour.

1) I have not! But it does sound interesting! I don’t suppose you could provide a link in a submission of a recording you feel they did really well, could you?

2) It’s absolutely acceptable to look at the visuals and say, “What did you do?!” Plus, some of the stuff they’re reconning is just… you’re an idiot, aren’t you? You’re changing things for the sake of changing them and are an idiot for doing so.

I hope parents don’t take their children to see it. Because apart from reviewers, I can’t imagine anypony else that would willingly go.

3) Bon-Bon: And there’s some pretty good pony authors that have wrote some pretty good books. I’m not going to lie, it’s a conscious decision and chosen for a number of reasons. Would the average human read a book wrote by a pony? Would I really be able to relate to characters and/or settings created by an author aiming at a demographic located in an entirely different world? And most importantly, as a local business owner, when I spend my bits I’d rather they go towards local authors. And you can’t get more foreign than living on another plane of existence.

I don’t know that the story was deliberately aiming at anything in particular, so much as the general idea of not sacrificing one’s own convictions to justify a lofty concept. Yes, solving world hunger is a great thing to shoot for, but they knew at the start that this stuff was making the ponies working with it sick. But it wasn’t fatal. It didn’t have any long-term effects in small doses. So even though it was clearly harmful to work with, they just decided to rotate workers. Things snowballed from there.

1) Of course you’d win. There’s more humans that play video games than ponies. In fact, there’s probably more humans than ponies period.

2) Bon-Bon: I’ve never read a book by a human author. Though that does remind me.

Bon-Bon: Actually, no. It turned out to be about elevating an ideology above the sacrifices needed to make it reality. In this case they solved world hunger, but by the end of the story they had made so many sacrifices that they rendered the entire world’s population sickly and spread an incurable disease that cut their average global life-expectancy in half. And they created an evasive species of fern that had strangled a massive portion of the world’s plant life.

3) Sorry for the late reply. Sort of been busy the last few days.

It was just a small celebration here in Ponyville. This year the big show was held in Las Pegasus. I heard it was loud and with lots of fanfare. Floats, fireworks; that sort of thing.

1) Of course you did. Don’t care for the 8-bit fad. And it sounds interesting, in concept. Don’t really want to play a visual novel, though.

2) And I remain firm in my stance. Video game reviewing publications do all that work for you, without your having to spend money and time on lengthy trailers and cinematics that do not contain accurate depictions of the game itself. All you need is in-game footage. That’s all you ever needed.

I’m not saying advertisement is pointless. I’m saying the time and effort spent on acquiring a booth, sending representatives and equipment across the world to an expo, producing the exclusive content for the showcase, giving away stuff to get attention toward you and away from competitors, bringing everything back, and the cost of all this plus wages and living expenses for all those involved do not result in a net increase in revenue for a good game and would be better spent on the product itself (or if it’s effectively done, working on the next one). The only end it serves is to help bad games get initial sales they never deserved.

3) Wrong with me? Really? Somepony doesn’t like the same song as you and there’s something wrong with them? I will never understand why ponies get so defensive about music. It’s not an attack on you or your taste.

Don’t like this either. It at least has a decent trip beat going on, but the ironic lyrics ironically sung poorly are irritating and mask a derivative, but otherwise well-arranged instrumental. It’s the kind of music that, if I was cheesed off about something, would only make me angrier with how obnoxious it is.

And I did play with Legos as a foal. Well, with other pony’s Legos.

Lyra: Exactly! I have no idea if it’s still happening or not! I have no asks! But do I have no asks because no pony has anything to send me or are none of the messages getting through?! It’s maddening and-!

Tootsie: Excuse me! I have an announcement to make.

Lyra: Oh…?

Bon-Bon: Of course, dear. What is it?

Tootsie: From now on I will be going by the name, Liza Doolots. I will not be answering to Toosie Flute. So if you could please refer to me as Liza Doolots I would appreciate it. Thank you.

Lyra: … Wha-?

Bon-Bon: Of course, Liza! I think that sounds splendid!

Lyra: Uh… Yeah, Too-… Liza! That’s, uh, ballin’! Crackerjack. Cool…

Liza: Thank you!

Bon-Bon: … I blame you for this.

Lyra: What?! I didn’t even do anything!

Bon-Bon: Can’t wait to have this conversation with my sister.

Lyra: It’s not my fault this time!

Hey.

Uh…

I seem to be losing messages lately. Like, I’m never receiving them. I don’t know how long this has been going on, but I know it’s been happening today. So if you sent me something and I never replied, I didn’t get it.

Sorry.

Edit: You can send it again, though! You can send it a few times if you want!

1) I haven’t seen it yet either, and now I’m not sure if I want to. That was not awesome. Even ironically, that was terrible. My hope remains for Unikitty.

What CNet shows are you talking about? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen them.

2) I completely disagree. If a game is good enough to stand on it’s own merits, ponies will be interested in it for those merits. Look at generations prior to the 3D era. How much publicity did they get?

Video games do not need the same kind of ad revenue as movies or television shows. Video games are not the same kind of entertainment as movies or television shows.

1) Code Name: STEAM sounds interesting. Having played Sanctum 2 I can tell you that placing yourself down on the field of a strategy game can really mix things up.

I’d say the biggest problem with the network was the move away from computerized technology. It didn’t need to be a network just about games.

2) Lyra: All of Bon-Bon’s food is awesome!

Bon-Bon: Thank you, Lyra. And I suppose everypony has a few stories to tell. But I’m not a very good writer.

3) Woo! Let’s go! But after I finish answering these.

4) I don’t get the appeal of Reggie Fils-Aime. All he works in is marketing and company image. Hidetaka Suehiro works heavily on the development of games. Now you know me- I love me some content. But theatrics…? Really, the question answers itself. At least in my book.

5) I don’t fully understand what’s happening. I tried looking it up, but it doesn’t make sense. Can you help me out?

1) I broke it. And no thank you.

2) Yes. YES! I will control chaos! I will control discord! I will be a dark and terrible queen! And I might punch Lucario IN THE MOUTH!

3) I think the last time I cared about E3 was back when G4 was ZDTV. You know, when it was good. For the most part I just wait until they’re on the market.

Wow, there’s been eight of those? I was pretty good with the 64 version. And the original’s Rainbow Road was super hard.

4) Sure, I’m alright. How are you?

B: I’m fine.

1) Wow. So I’m a little behind here, huh? What was that, a week ago?

2) I missed it. Bon-Bon got some, but she ate them at work.

3) That was with milk! You effectively created a milk-activated cereal cement! You also effectively destroyed my spoon.

4) … Uh… I mean, there is so much I don’t understand about this message that I don’t even know where to start.

5) Bon-Bon: As a businessmare I’ve long-since learned to cut my loses. The one I’ve started now is about a politician lobbying to legalize some newly discovered substance that, if produced in mass, could solve world hunger. But, considering the tagline on the back is, “The end to hunger, but at what cost?” I’m assuming things are not as they seem.

1) B: The road to ruin is paved with good intentions. You would be a liability. Any information given to you could be used against us. Also not sure where you got the idea that we’re not doing anything. It is a slow, meticulous process. Not every day can yield results. But the tide can turn in our favor in an instant. What we cannot afford is undue risk.

2) I’ve looked around enough to know that’s not true. There are tons of text tumblrs! They- Well, we just sort of get buried in the overwhelming number of drawblogs.

Incidentally, this message is completely unrelated to the recent drawings I did. It just sort of happened that way.

3) B: I was born in Ponyville; I grew up here. My family moved after I joined CUE and they were told I had died… I can appreciate the recommendations, but I don’t need them. I’ve been around enough.

He was Kwame from Captain Planet?! Oh my Cels, he was wasn’t he?! I can hear it in my head! I never noticed!

4) It does sound interesting, but I’m more invested in real human world sociology.

Bon-Bon had left the TV on a few days ago while she was cooking something and I caught a few portions of this show called America’s Secret Slang. That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about. Why specific aspects of human society, of any culture, became how they are.

1) Depending on the grade it can be hard to tell sometimes what subject the concept is being dragged into. Kindergartner social studies is a mess. And yeah, considering my cutie mark I’ve spent most of my life watching others excel when I couldn’t. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.

2) Well heck, I still hate reading books. I wanted to do it, and once I got there it really wasn’t all that. But that doesn’t mean I don’t read. I read all day! But most of what I read concerns my personal interests. Dialogs, interactions- sociology. It’s not so much the books that are important, just the action of reading and any road that leads to it.

3) Lyra: I am not Bubble Mare.

Bon-Bon: Quiet down, Sickly Sue. The adults are talking.

Lyra: I’m barely even sick anymore!

Bon-Bon: I haven’t read Harry Potter, but I understand the concept. As for the book I was reading, they tried to pull this “Oh! It was all right there from the start!” kind of thing. Only none of it was ever mentioned! It was all there in the world, I guess, but there’s no way the reader would know about it! So while the characters were like “How could we have not seen this coming?!” I’m sitting there going “How could I have possibly seen this coming?! This is all out of left field!”

Lyra: So five-out-of-five?

Bon-Bon: Morbid curiosity wasn’t enough to get me to finish reading that wreckage.