I'm now at the point where discord is clicking his claws together after learning that Sparkles and Cadenza are hanging with one another.

I really do not want to continue. It's literally never happened before with "My Little Pony". Even with the most execrable garbage such as "too Many Pinkie Pies" and "Spike at Your Service", I never had such a utterly intense feeling of trepidation, of actual dread.

I know how this will go: with his false illness (it has to be false because he's near-omnipotent, any illness he gets is of his own volition and control), discord will go and demand Sparkles and Cadenza take care of him, Sparkles will not want to but will do so because discord will pressure her with the idea that "maybe Sparkles isn't his companion after all" and at the end, discord will try to frame it as a "test".

It's ten in the morning now. I'm going to finish it at ten in the night. I have never seen a "My Little Pony" story that has me not want to finish it before.

Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.

I didn't think it was THAT bad.

Also, it has a GREAT Discord song, a fan favorite.

Optimism is a duty.

Wow, that reaction certainly seemed to come out of nowhere. I didn't think it was bad either. At any rate, I can't think of what would single out that episode out of everything.

Of course, I seem to be the only one who didn't like Apple Family Reunion, but then again, I was actually looking forward to it before I watched it. I just didn't like it because it was generic and boring and the conflict failed to actually feel like a conflict.

Edited by storyyeller on Jan 20th 2019 at 11:51:40 AM

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I'm pretty sure you and I aren't the only ones who dislike Apple Family Reunion, Story. Last I checked the general consensus is that it's​ mediocre at best and utterly boring at worst. In fact I think that was when Season 3 started to suck {I find S3's bad reputation to a bit exaggerated because I think all of it's episodes before AFR range from okay to great}.

I haven't actually finished it so I am not cognizant of whether it is garbage. But, at the point I stopped, I began being filled with so much dread of what may come that I did not want to continue. I'll finish it at 10 in the night but only then.

It's because there may be three main problems that seem probable and do nothing but leave me unwilling to go on for now.

1. Premise. It's premise seems to be about Sparkles and Cadenza hanging with one another. I want to see that. Cadenza gets so little to herself that she comes off as rather flat or close to. Hanging with Sparkles could not only help develop her character but also provide a cute story. It doesn't need discord to actively try to sabotage this. I don't want discord's antics, I want to see Cadenza and Sparkles simply being with one another. It's a premise that has no actual need for discord so him being here peeves me so much.

2. Illness. Is discord actually ill? No, he isn't. Not only is he near omnipotent so any illness he has, it's probably under his control or he'd merely magic it away with a snap of his claws, but isn't it odd that he gets this illness after Fluttershy leaves even though if Fluttershy is in contact with discord, she would probably know about it and ask one of her companions to help discord before she left? His little clicking of his claws and his sneaky curve of his lips when he learns about Sparkles and Cadenza also add to the idea that he's not actually ill but bored.

3. Motivation. If discord isn't actually ill, why is he pretending to be so? It's obvious that he's bored with no Fluttershy but that's not the reason he's going to give. When Sparkles tries to get away from discord, he'll try to manipulate Cadenza with her ignorance of discord and Sparkles with spiel about how if Sparkles doesn't help him, it means that Sparkles isn't actually his companion. And, though this is only a guess, discord, when it's found that he's not actually ill, will try to put it under a guise of it being a "test" for Sparkles. It's this part that I most dread and wish to not see because it undermines discord's reformation and is utter bull.

All of these combined leave me with a palpable trepidation to see more. It's a waterfall and it's got spikes at the bottom. I am in no rush to finish what seems to be probable to leave me with a desire to see this story be tossed into a dumpster.

Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.

You are pretty much right about Discord just doing it to troll Twilight, but Discord not only fails at his trolling attempts, he does get a comeuppance at the end.

Anyway, I feel like if you go into it expecting it to be bad, you're going to think it's bad no matter what happens. Maybe you should just skip it.

Edited by storyyeller on Jan 20th 2019 at 2:23:33 PM

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The lesson is: don't fake being sick to get attention.

The rest is just entertainment, with one of Discord's funniest songs, and the fun of watching Discord and Twilight bounce off each other.

Which is also why Flutters needs to be away. Flutters would never allow Twilight to take the brunt of taking care of Discord.

I don't mind so much that the Discord silliness distracts from Cadenza. Cadenza is just here so Twi has something to be distracted from and annoyed about by Discord.

I can't say I find Cadenza all that interesting to begin with, anyway. She is a bit of a bland walking stereotype of The Power of Love. The spare princess before Twi became the spare princess. She'd fit right into one of the older series.

Optimism is a duty.

Eh, having less moments to develop a character won't help with being less intriguing which, yes, I won't contend you on that. It's why I want to see more of her so that she could try to develop a character.

As for discord and Sparkles, does it really have to be here, in this story? Sparkles and discord is not a premise that needs to intrude on the premise of Sparkles and Cadenza.

And then there's discord's trickery but I'll actually see it before I utter anything.

On both a Watsonian and doylist level, he's a bit unwanted, at least for me.

Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.

It's probably a result of the writers coming up with the Discord shenanigans and song first, and only then wrote Cadenza into the episode as an extra.

Optimism is a duty.

I kind of feel Discord's redemption was a mistake.

Halper's Law: as the length of an online discussion of minority groups increases, the probability of "SJW" or variations being used = 1.

I feel tethering discord to Fluttershy was a mistake. If he has to stick around, then I would rather he interact with other characters such as to where and back again. Trixie and discord or Spike and discord are more entertaining to me than Fluttershy and discord are. Sorry but I found discordant harmony a snooze fest of an episode.

see my completed Tangled (Varian) fanfic collection! https://archiveofourown.org/works/24467056/chapters/59049532

Eh, it's more to me that not sticking to it was the mistake. What has me not wanting to finish the story? It's what not sticking to it is. It's not about discord's reformation and discord doesn't really learn a lesson from it, does he? Not sticking to it has discord be an antagonizer but not really learn anything, doesn't it?

Erm, here's a positive thing about discord: having delancie voice him was a quality idea. It give him this quality of being a paragon of mockery and irony, as though he's so much better then everything around him. It can help with his antics when they feel a bit mean-spirited.

Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.

I'm seeing it now. I'll try to keep an open mind.

But, by god, if that aberration of nature utters the word "test"...

Edited by fredhot16 on Jan 20th 2019 at 8:13:21 AM

Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.

Phahahahahahaha! Where did that Wilhelm Scream come from? Was it from the tentacle hentai monster?

Oh, and...

...

...

yes, it was a nice musical.

Edited by fredhot16 on Jan 20th 2019 at 8:52:13 AM

Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.

Tying Discord to Fluttershy is one of the best things the show has done, and Cadance the best princess of the lot, and I'll fight the world on these two.

But yeah, Cadance does need more focus. She gets great snippets of character in her appearances but there isn't a full picture of who she is.

She has the same trouble as Luna and Celestia, where they don't want to expand on their past a whole lot, but while the first two benefit from their backstories being the basis of most of the show's mythos, Cadance doesn't even get that.

I would love to see her backstroy from the book conceptualized on the show.

I would say the issue with Discord appearances is when they write him as a mean-spirited trickster that wants to pretend they're doing what they do to teach someone an important lesson. But in the end, they still come off as just being a massive jerk.

Also, I feel like this sort of trickster-mentor archetype works a better in a long story with a strong overarching plot, rather than a single-episode appearance. Another character is made to learn a lesson or undergo development that becomes critically important later in the story. We get to temper the aspect of "character A is a jerk" with "character B really needed that lesson". They may still be pretty bad, and we still get to dislike them, but at least this time there was a point.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Which is also why Flutters needs to be away. Flutters would never allow Twilight to take the brunt of taking care of Discord.

I don't think that's it at all. Discord was deliberately trolling Twilight and Cadance, and he knew that Fluttershy wouldn't put up with that if she caught him which is why he waited until she left to torment Twilight.

She is a bit of a bland walking stereotype of The Power of Love.

Now she's the useless princess that is also    Flurry Heart   's thrall.

Edited by storyyeller on Jan 20th 2019 at 12:25:38 PM

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Cadenza does need more focus. We see her mostly in two-parter adventure stories so there isn't enough time for her to get much character. We don't need her to tussle with a tentacle hentai monster.

...I realized about a few seconds ago a vital path this could have taken. Sparkles and Cadenza could have conversed about the Alicorn thing, how Sparkles is coping with it, how Cadenza got hers (even in an oblique way). Sparkles is the newbie so where else to get help with the Alicorn thing then the newbie before her, Cadenza?

Oh my god.

Which is why I'm so pissed when discord tries his spiel: discord is not actually trying to teach anything or test anybody. He's simply bored. But this "test" nonsense is what he uses as his excuse when he gets caught with his trickery. It's such utter bull.

So, yes, I saw it.

Words do not exist, or at least the ability to utter them, to encapsulate my rage.

Let's put a pin (and by pin, I mean "railroad spike") in it and move on.

Actually, here's one question about it.

Where the actual flip did this idea of Sparkles being discord's companion come from? She has never expressed any desire to be discord's companion or even an hint that she is. She tried to zap discord back into stone twice. Fluttershy is discord's companion. She's his only companion. Where does this nonsense about Sparkles being discord's companion come from? And why does she care about it?

Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.

Having said all that, to be fair to Discord, he does have genuinely good moments later on. To Where and Back Again, Discordant Harmony, and The Break Up Break Down. I think they eventually figured out that pure jerkass Discord was not the way to go.

Mostly.

*coughmatterofprincipalscough*

Edited by KylerThatch on Jan 21st 2019 at 1:56:35 AM

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Oh, those are way too far for me.

Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.

I think they eventually figured out that pure jerkass Discord was not the way to go.

I think it's less that and rather that Discord's level of jerkiness fluctuates depending on the needs of the plot.

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Most people are drawn towards trying to unravel what they don't understand, and they most want whatever you tell them they can't have. So at this point in the show's run, Discord was most interested in Fluttershy and Twilight because they were the two ponies he least understood, and who he could control the least.

Fluttershy's obvious. Back in "Return of Harmony", Discord could corrupt most of the mane six with rhetoric before using chaos magic to seal the deal. But Fluttershy was the exception: all Discord's words just bounced right off her, so he had to forcibly discord her with magic alone. And it's not because Flutters was uniquely immune to corruption. Iron Will succeeded in turning Flutters into a jerk with words alone, because his approach appealed to the right motives. Discord failed because he just didn't understand Fluttershy. That lack of understanding led to fascination with her, then a desire to corrupt her properly—then along the way, Discord actually became her friend, in spite of himself.

Twilight is the second most interesting to Discord, because she's the only pony to spontaneously break herself free from his magic. The rest of the mane six needed the intervention of an outsider to break them free; the only stimulus Twilight needed was the friendship letters she herself had written.

So Discord's trolling and half-baked "friendship test" in this episode is him trying to figure out how Twilight ticks, since she's yet another pony he doesn't fully understand. Maybe he has some half-baked idea of using that knowledge to discord her again, permanently. Maybe he genuinely wants to be Twi's friend, but he's just terrible at showing it. I suspect both are true, and Discord himself is neither completely sure what he wants, nor self-aware enough to realize he doesn't know.

But Twilight lacks Fluttershy's patience and motherly manipulativeness, so she never succeeds in turning Discord's desire for friendship into a leash to make him stop being such a dick.

I didn't write any of that.

...It's a very nice and reasonable Watsonian explanation. Kudos.

It's probably not what the writers intended and it also doesn't really explain where the idea of Sparkles being discord's companion comes from in "My Little Pony" but, bugger it, it's probably better then the intended rationale. I'll leave it at that.

So, what's for today?

Pinkie Pride.

Oh, Yankovic, please save me...

Edited by fredhot16 on Jan 21st 2019 at 5:47:16 AM

Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.

I think it's rather a demonstration of Discord's shallow understanding of these ponies. That's not to say that Rares, Dash, Pinkie and Apples are shallow personalities, but they wear their inner selves on their sleeves. They are an open book.

Flutters? Flutters wears her shyness and meekness like a mask, to cover up her social ineptitude and innate snarkiness. Flutters is that person who realizes they are a jerk when they let themselves go, and hates that, so they retreat into a shell of inoffensive meekness so that they can't accidentally hurt people by snarking or lashing out. We see this mask come off occasionally, most memorably in the first Galopping Gala. Another episode that demonstrates the masked nature of her personality is that one where she gets to run Rarity's shop, and turns out to be so adept at adopting a character that she practically BECOMES that character.

This also sheds light on what happened when Iron Will taught her assertiveness. By becoming more assertive, she unconsciously took off that meek mask... and the results were BRUTAL. When she called Rarity and Pinkie shallow, she MEANT that. That is clearly an opinion she has secretly thought to herself many times, enough that it popped out in an unguarded moment of frustration.

I think Discord's failure to corrupt her was another demonstration of this masked personality. Flutters couldn't be corrupted like that because she already WAS a jerk underneath the mask. And her mask was the perfect defence against Discord's methods of drawing that part of her out. After all, Flutters has been actively supressing that part of herself for YEARS in the face of a society that no doubt tests her patience on a regular basis.

It also provides a very neat Watsonian explanation for why she had to learn her friendship lessons over and over again before they stuck. It's not that she regressed or didn't learn anything. She just had to find a way to adjust her mask without it coming off completely. The Iron Will debacle had shown her very clearly what THAT would mean, after all.

This is not to say that Flutters is a bad pony, mind you. But there is certainly a deceptiveness to her meekness, albeit a very well-meaning one. If anything, her resolute desire to hide that part of herself from the world shows how deeply emphatic and caring about others she really is. She just has trouble expressing that without the protective shield of being the shy one.

I think this is why Discord is attracted to Fluttershy, specifically, in a way he clearly isn't at all in the others, even Twilight. There is more to Flutters than meets the eye. There are actual Hidden Depths to Fluttershy, very intriguing no doubt to a god-like being who is so used to reading ponies who are mentally an open book to him. And those depths can get quite dark. It may have been Angel who came up with that Halloween night for her friends, but it was Flutters performing it all the way through... and she LOVED it. She was clearly revelling in letting that side of her out for once. Until she saw how darn good she was at scaring her friends half to death, and she felt like a massive jerk for it. No wonder she disavows that particular lesson in the end. It's not that she doesn't like Halloween; it's that she likes it rather too much for her own comfort.

(And this is why Fluttershy is arguably the most interesting character on this show.)

As for Twilight, I think Discord's interest in her lies more along the lines of an intellectual challenge, both for Twi and for Discord. He seems intrigued by her mental agility in defying him, and loves to test that agility and intellect, to see if she really is as brilliant as she and everyone around her believes she is. This is why he is always testing HER, but not the others. And Discord seems to sense that Twilight is the one slated for ascension and eventual rulership of the kingdom from the first day he saw her. It's like he read Celestia's notes on Twilight (or Faust's, at any rate).

Optimism is a duty.

Post of the Day #2402

Posted by Calnos on Mon, 18th Mar '13 4:37:21 PM - Post #348689 in the old thread

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