Opti the Legal Deer

@optifum.bsky.social

84 Followers 46 Following

A timid forest pony with sticks growing out of his head. https://www.deviantart.com/pianoflagerag https://m.youtube.com/channel/UC2pnEDFG8KTdBb_JhokMxbA

Fair Use holds up a piece of paper, reading it next to a sign saying "Final Checkpoint." He comments "Huh, says I passed. Not sure I even got the anatomy right. And all those shortcuts..."
Broadside Barb rump-pushing Guiding Light to get her to move, to GL's disturbance. Redraw of the NATG 2022 Day 1 prompt.
Vinyl Scratch (DJ-PON3) is slumped down on her turntable board half-awake, her glasses falling off, and already snoring. Lights and colors surround her chaotically in the background.
Fair Use pipets a brownish liquid into a yellowish solution, which precipitates a green solid. He thinks a null hypothesis that “μF” will be equal to “E” and an alternate hypothesis that “μF” will be greater than “E.” A chart in the background shows a color correspondence for each letter (i.e. the precipitant): blue for A, green for B, yellow for C, and red for E. He is pleasantly surprised at the precipitate turning out to be green and therefore a B.
Twilight Sparkle holding up her Smarty Pants doll from “Lesson Zero,” looking very haggard and crazed, with a heart in the background implying she is casting the “Want It, Need It” spell.
A griffin in a green cap and wings resembling a keyboard tunes a grand piano.
Guiding Light writes on a parchment with a phoenix quill in the foreground while talking resignedly to a skeptical Starswirl the Bearded. Guiding Light is intended to be a “missing intellectual link” between Starswirl the Bearded and Twilight Sparkle, who formulated the first “modern” articulation of the Elements if Harmony and their relations to each other.
Princess Celestia poses cheekily against the moon at night, her flowing hair almost completely obscuring the “Mare in the Moon.”
Guiding Light, normally a unicorn, is depicted as a dragon, sitting down on her belly and holding an open book up. Her ankh necklace is on the ground near her left hand, broken up. Broadside Barb, normally an Earth pony, is depicted as a kirin, popping out behind Guiding Light’s tail and looking up at her. Both have warm looks on their faces.
Fair Use, standing against a faded dark green background on his hind legs with front legs crossed and smiling, looking straight to the camera; antlers short and in velvet
Wegmans shelves, usually full of pasta, now nearly empty
“Cut Out” star-shaped cookies from Wegmans, iced to look like the face of a red fox
Guiding Light, a unicorn MLP OC by Opti
MLP:FiM fanart by Izuchi. Pinkie Pie with her party cannon.
An email from the US Department of Commerce titled “Planning for Potential Lapse in Funding.” It reads: President Trump opposes a government shutdown and strongly supports the enactment of H.R. 5371, which is a clean Continuing Resolution to fund the government through November 21, and already approved by the U.S. House of Representatives. Unfortunately, Democrats are blocking this Continuing Resolution in the U.S. Senate due to unrelated policy demands. If Congressional Democrats maintain their current posture and refuse to pass a clean Continuing Resolution to keep the government funded before midnight on September 30, 2025, federal appropriated funding will lapse. A funding lapse will result in certain government activities ceasing due to a lack of appropriated funding. In addition, designated pre-notified employees of this agency would be temporarily furloughed. P.L. 116-1 would apply. The agency has contingency plans in place for executing an orderly shutdown of activities that would be affected by any lapse to appropriation forced by Congressional Democrats. Further information about those plans will be distributed should a lapse occur.
A Lego model of a whitetail deer (with the stump from the Creator fox set)
A Lego “model postcard” of New York City, featuring, from left to right, theBrooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, One World Trade Center, and the Empire State Building.
A red velvet, double layer white frosted caked with pink rose icing, reading “Happy Birthday Rosli, 100 Years Old!”
The flag of Neighland. On a field split evenly between purple and light blue, a cherry tree with 78 cherries stands in the middle. A deer and a pony, both all white, appear to be walking away from each other, and are looking down at a scroll that features an Erlenmeyer flask, a scale, and a purple six petal flower. The deer is walking over a broken golden tiara with a loose blue gem, while the pony is walking over a loose chain with an opened padlock.
Guiding Light, a unicorn with a very light purple coat, a curly goldenrod mane with gold streaks, cobalt blue eyes, a cutie mark depicting a rainbow refracting from a prism, an ankh necklace, and a blue blazer, writing on a writing desk with a phoenix feather. (Adapted from a 2024 NATG entry.)
Opti’s Wordle Bot rating for his solution of the New York Times Wordle No. 1485, showing a skill score of 99 and a luck score of 99 in exactly two steps.
A fragrance/cosmetics display at a Bath and Body Works at Tysons Mall in Northern Virginia. The central sign reads “celebrate summerween/get a little taste of terror.” It is surrounded by a lot of spooky-themed merchandise and displays, including a chocolate cake with pink icing and skulls.
Alternate version of Day 30 NATG entry, with Fair Use having his antlers and glasses.
Fair Use, with a trail of edited papers behind him, embraces a box of “Big Slice Pizza” “For Big Celebrations,” sighing “Freedom.”
Scootaloo getting ready for her slingshot flight to Rainbow Dash's parents' house, from the first scene of "Parental Glideance."
Fair Use marks a cylinder with a green chemical in it with precisely-spaced markers, making it "graduated."
Two pegasuses flying in the air. An orange one with a gold and pink mane is on the left, looking down towards the other, sweating and her forelegs raised in pleading. The other, a dirty green one with brown hair, is on the right and looking towards the viewer with binoculars in his left hoof and gesturing towards the orange pegasus in the other. In between them is a weather machine on a cloud, featuring a screen with a continuous binary string, a radar screen, a satellite dish, and an analog clock. The orange pegasus is with a blue sky, indicating cold air, although some yellow sky on the right side bleeds over to hers, explaining why she is sweating.
Rarity sews a red suit for Fancypants, while red curtains are being draped over the windows behind them--a messy yellow tail can be seen in the top left, perhaps being helped out by Derpy Hooves.
Octavia Melody lies on her back on top of a suitcase on a pavement, with her double bass lying to its side in the back, looking flustered.
Guiding Light, a unicorn with goldenrod hair and an ankh necklace, is writing on a piece of paper, holding a red quill with her magic. The text in the back, partly obscured, reads in full: dynamics of persuasion, and it is most unchained in a democratic form. No one doubts that there must be at least a few limits, however. As written in the chapters here, the dynamics are best contained not by ordering the persuasive forces itself, but by molding the circumstances in which unharmonious ideas percolate, so that they can cool down such that they can no longer be so persuasive and thus destroy the very idea of democracy. Much of this molding has to be economic in nature. Thus is my third aim in writing the book. FOURTH, I write the book aiming to show persuasion in a democratic society. Many in statecraft have written books on the art of persuasion. But the art of being persuaded gets scant attention, only hinted at in the lowest levels, and not seen as essential at the higher levels. But this perhaps should be expected. It is, in fact, more difficult than the art of persuasion, as it requires one to actually understand what she hears. People not only are persuaded by different reasons and appeals, but it often becomes very difficult to distance oneself from what we believe we will be persuaded by—and yet full understanding needs a degree of distance. Thus, I do not lecture on how to be persuaded—ultimately the reader still is the reader. The dialectical approach I employ here should instead expose the reader to many different perspectives, as would be expected where prejudices do not block off understanding. I of course have a thesis to defend, but I leave that to the reader as she follows the logic of the exploration
Fair Use, a deer with a unicorn's horn and dressed in a suit, but without his cutie mark, is carrying two books with his magic, one having an ionic column (signifying philosophy), and the other depicting a lab experiment (signifying chemistry). He feels distressed over these books, saying as he is looking upwards "Oh no... which to choose?"
Broadside Bard, a green earth pony with curly brown hair and a black cravat, sits with a piece of paper, and inkwell, and a quill in front of her. She looks to the side with an unamused look, saying "Well... you too."
Fluttershy winking towards the viewer in her "Dangerous Mission Outfit" from Magic Duel.
Princess Celestia sits awkwardly in front of a typewriter with her front hooves raised, presumably learning how to type. A chicken stands in front of her, looking up.
Rarity working behind the counter at a Subway franchise as a "sandwich artist." She looks exasperated with the job.
Rainbow Dash reclining on a chaise longue, reading a book with an ionic column on its back cover. (The spine is supposed to say “Haycartes and Fetlocke,” implying it’s a book of philosophy.
A pony sits morose by a lake with moonlight reflecting her figure.
A well-dressed unicorn pony, Guiding Light, playing a three-manual, one-pedalboard organ.
Page 1 of NATG Day 12 comic. Guiding Light, a well-dressed unicorn, is purchasing a single mango with twelve bits. The grocery clerk, an earth pony stallion, looks down, regarding the situation as unusual.
A stallion pony running on a treadmill, collected to a machine that generates drawings. A scissors held by the machine snips the line of paper, with several snipped papers strewn about on the floor.
Twilight Sparkle species swapped into a fox, keeping her mane. She takes a defensive posture.
Twilight Sparkle looks intently out toward something in front of her, her eyes set toward the viewer. A daffodil grows next to her.
A reinterpretation of a scene from "Dragonshy," where Fluttershy faces the dragon Basil after he dispatched her friends.
Trixie Lulamoon, Pinkie Pie, Starlight Glimmer, and Maud Pie in a cheese processing vat. They are all wearing black burglar outfits (except for Pinkie, who appears to have taken hers off some time ago). Overhead, a bunch of broken planks hang, indicating that they feel through the ceiling. In front of the vat on the lower left is a backpack spilling out a crowbar, several bits, and the Alicorn Amulet. Trixie is visibly angry at the other three, and Pinkie is in the vat head first withe her tail sticking out.
Sugar Belle leans behind a very large, and presumably heavy, box labeled "Cooking Supplies" and "To Ponyville." She looks exhausted trying to push it.
Guiding Light, a white unicorn with a golden mane and tail with a blue blazer and an ankh necklace, is posed in a parody of da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, with an added twist that the circle doubles as a clock.
Fair Use, a male deer pony in a black jacket and tie without his usual antlers, makes tracks on a path set up like a musical staff, leaving a trail with a dotted rhythm melody.
Apple Bloom with cutie mark, standing with a grin.
A black snake, uncertain species but likely not venomous, found at Seneca Creek State Park in Maryland, 5/23/2025.
An email from Rob Sorensen, Acting Deputy Chief Administrator of the USPTO, reading in relevant part: “As you may know, the President has directed the termination of most telework and remote work arrangements and is requiring employees to return to work in-person full time. Consistent with that order, the USPTO has engaged in a careful evaluation of telework levels for all NTEU 243 telework eligible positions and all non-Patents POPA telework eligible positions and has determined that these positions are eligible for situational telework only. As a result of this change, employees will generally be required to report for in-person work on a regular basis . . . Upon returning to full-time in-office work, employees may elect to withdraw from telework or sign a situational telework agreement. The agency will be administering situational telework in accordance with the USPTO Situational Telework Policy. Prior to starting fulltime in-person work, each employee will receive a notification of their official office assignment, the date you are required to report to their office, and information about applying for a reasonable accommodation, military spousal exemption, or temporary hardship extension. Employees will receive at least 30 calendar days advance notice prior to your report date to enable them to make any necessary preparations. Notices will be sent on a rolling basis as office space is readied, beginning as soon as next week. No action is required until you receive your individual notice and you may continue teleworking under the terms of your current agreement until your return to office date. However, unexcused failure to report on your designated date may result in adverse action. Employees who live within 50 miles of the USPTO [HQ] will be directed to report to our main campus in Alexandria, [VA]. . . .” The Situational Telework Policy referred to only allows 52 hours a year, and even then must be requested in advance.
Photo from a Wegman’s grocery store, 5/4/2025, of a banana rack accompanied by the following text: “Our bananas are imported from Colombia, Honduras, and Costa Rica, which are impacted by a 10% tariff. We are working with our suppliers to minimize the impact to our customers and are committed to keeping our prices competitive on affected items.” (Despite their apparent efforts, there was still a 4¢ increase per pound, from 49¢ to 53¢.)
Screenshot from the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic episode “Bridle Gossip,” with Zecora in a brown cloak standing in a part of the Everfree Forest with blue poison joke plants scattered about.
Guiding Light, sitting in front of a paper and inkwell, looks around despondently as two versions of herself, one a batpony and one a kirin, tell her “You’re… not original enough!”
Fair Use, a deer unicorn pony with a scales/flasks of justice cutie mark, a magenta necktie, and black jacket, whistles in the sunset on the edge of a forest.
Fair Use, in the left foreground, has just shed his antlers. He looks a bit embarrassed as Applejack and Fluttershy, in their Winter Wrap-Up vests, look down at them wondering what to do with them. A hungry squirrel and Derpy also watch.