My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Live Reactions & Discussion)

That one meta show was somewhat in bad faith, though, mainly aimed at performing Take That! 's at fan complaints, legitimate or otherwise.

By the way, you can do italics on your phone by using single quotes around a word. Two is for italics, three for bold, and five for both.

Edited by Redmess on Aug 18th 2019 at 7:11:10 PM

I guess. That's a shame. Then again, I don't think this show completely avoids portraying things in realistic manners (the Reality Ensues trope for the show has a large subpage).

In "A Trivial Pursuit", I liked that the questions were about things from past episodes, because then I could play along and have a good chance of knowing the answers. I'm guessing that's why they had the questions be things that long-time fans would know, so that the audience could play along with the characters and have a chance of answering the questions. If it was about things that never came up in the show before, then the answers might have still been interesting trivia for worldbuilding, but there wouldn't be that aspect of audience "participation".

And I'm not usually bothered if the characters have to re-learn or be reminded of things they already know, because people in real life sometimes slide back into old bad habits and forget things. For a personal example that is similar to Fluttershy, one of my Pomeranian dogs, Lily, has gotten a lot braver and more relaxed from when I first adopted her, but she's still a Shrinking Violet who gets scared of unfamiliar objects and places.

Edit: On the other hand, I can understand how that can be annoying to some viewers, just like how needing to repeatedly remind a real person about something would get annoying. Just because it doesn't bother me as much, it doesn't mean that other people are wrong for being annoyed by it.

Edited by Rainbow on Aug 18th 2019 at 1:35:25 PM

Is “the characters should have already learned by now” a complaint they’ve addressed in such an episode? Because that’s what relevant here.

And I tried with my phone. Nope.

Edited by fredhot16 on Aug 18th 2019 at 10:20:08 AM

Ignore.

Edited by fredhot16 on Aug 18th 2019 at 10:20:59 AM

@fredhot: Yes, in "Fame and Misfortune", there were ponies in-universe who read the Friendship Journal (Twilight published it and it got popular), and then they complained that Fluttershy kept having to re-learn assertiveness/to overcome her shyness.

Fluttershy in Fame and Misfortune says:

"Listen up! I am more assertive! And yes, it took me a while to get there. But can you honestly say that you could learn something one time and completely change who you are? I didn't think so."

Edited by GNinja on Aug 18th 2019 at 5:23:57 PM

Wasn’t there a song in there called “Flawless” that was about that?

Appoarently, even the creators didn't like that episode, and it has become Fanon Discontinuity.

Another part of why it was so disliked was that it used fan favorite background ponies for their depiction of Loonie Fans, over the objections of the creators thanks to executive meddling.

Edited by Redmess on Aug 18th 2019 at 7:35:17 PM

Citation needed. Also, so what? What makes these two points relevant?

Edited by fredhot16 on Aug 18th 2019 at 10:42:56 AM

See the YMMV page for the epiosde.

Aren’t YMMV pages notorious for...not being reliable?

I honestly like the message this way. Characters don't magically change overnight. Development takes time. Many don't learn a lesson the first time. That's normal. It's a slow process.

It doesn't remotely matter if the authors disliked the episode or not. It's canon, and makes a ton of sense. It's extremely logical in how actual people are.

I pretty much ignore the episode, because storywise, it doesn't make much sense in continuity (the fact that the Mane 6's private lives suddenly became popular knowledge is completely ignored in every subsequent episode) and because even the episode in isolation is lacking in verisimilitude.

The episode doesn't feel like a logical progression of a defined world. It feels like the writers just took common fandom complaints and put them in the mouths of characters in order to make fun of them regardless of how little sense it made in-universe. The fans in the episode don't act the way people would around real life celebrities. They act like expies of the out-of-universe fandom.

That being said, Fluttershy definitely became a lot more assertive over time. It's true that it did take a number of lessons about the issue for it to really sink in, but anyone who thinks she didn't have character development simply isn't paying attention.

Edited by storyyeller on Aug 18th 2019 at 1:55:27 PM

Yeah, I’ve said before that “Fame and Misfortune” felt more like an Estee fic than a regular episode.

Given that MA Larson didn't want to write Fame And Misfortune, and wanted to make the episode more optimistic instead of cynical, and was written during season 5 before he left, executive meddling is definitely at play.

Makes me wonder what, exactly, the motives were of these execs, if it didn't really come from the writers. What were they hoping to gain out of heckling the brony fanbase?

I'm pretty sure that, while using complaints from Bronies, the episode was meant to be more of a general satire on fandom culture and how it can go too far at times. YMMV on if it worked, but that's the idea.

It does seem to have at least one reference to a specific critic, namely Lily Orchard, who made the criticism about Flutters' inconsistent character development. One of the ponies harassing Fluttershy has a glass of water as a cutie mark, an apparent reference to a regular section on Lily's show. So at least a few of these jabs seems to be rather more... personal.

Here's her review of the episode, which also points this out.

And here is the Glass of Water on the same episode.

Oh, and it also has a reference to Dr Wolff's pony therapy sessions, with Pinkie in both roles.

Edited by Redmess on Aug 18th 2019 at 11:16:49 AM

On a totally different note, I finally noticed the final EQG movie (or "movie") has been out for a while. It took this long because no one seems to be talking about it.

So... should I do a review here, or over on the other thread? Because that thread is pretty much dead anyway (as are all the other pony threads, apparently), so I might as well post it here.

I remember seeing posts about a new EQG thing a couple weeks back, but I haven't gotten around to watching it yet.

So, would anyone want to take a stab at what stage the fandom is at now?

I think it's safe to say it was at stage 5, but is now fast entering stage 6. There is definitely a cooldown, both in con attendance and forum activity here. I doubt it will get to oblivion anytime soon, but it's not impossible, especially if the next series fails to connect with fans.

This is the show entry from that trope page:

Edited by Redmess on Aug 18th 2019 at 2:28:49 PM

I thought it was just a glass half full, a visual pun indicating said pony has a negative outlook.

I just wish people would stop going on about whatever state the fandom is in. I don't see what purpose it serves to just remind people that there's less activity all the time.

Something I forgot to mention is that the last episode reminded me of The ship of Theseus. Twilight's team managed to keep its score despite not having any of its original members by the end. First Pinkie got replaced by Sunburst, then Twilight was replaced by Cranky, but it was still considered the same team!