Another option, of course, is that the story Twilight read took liberties with the actual facts — it read more like a fairy tale than a historical document — and the real reason for Luna's transformation was her feeling unappreciated and undervalued.

It's almost a given that the facts surrounding the matter became Shrouded in Myth over time.

It's been over 300 years since the United States was founded, and a group of rich slave-owners pissy about having to pay taxes have been transformed into selfless champions of freedom, justice, and civil rights in that period.

Luna's been gone for more than three times that long. How much does anyone in this thread right now know about King William the Conqueror, ruler of England in 1066?

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 21st 2020 at 9:39:55 AM

William the Bastard of Normandy?

We interrupt this musing on the ravages of time to give you something completely different — and totally silly:

Transformers: Friendship in Disguise

First issue synopsis:

When Queen Chrysalis casts a spell looking for more changelings, she accidentally interferes with a malfunctioning Spacebridge! What's this mean for our favorite fillies? There are suddenly a bunch of Autobots and Decepticons in Equestria! And as the dust settles, Rarity and Arcee find themselves teaming up against a hostile Decepticon force...

Edited by drac0blade on Feb 21st 2020 at 9:34:18 AM

Will it be as cool as when the Transformers crossed over with Neon Genesis Evangelion?

Selfless champions of freedom, justice, and civil rights? Man, if ever there was a sentence with a huge asterisk...

Post of the Day #2797

Posted by Sydxelia on Tue, 26th Feb '13 7:13:10 AM - Post #343598 in the old thread

Post of the Day #2798

Posted by Japanese Teeth on 27th Jun 2017 10:29:16 AM - Post #175963 in the new thread

A pony-adjacent topic: Students wrote a paper calculating how long it would take for one Tribble to fill the Enterprise. Turns out it is only 4,5 days. No wonder, when they grow a full power of ten every 12 hours.

Of course this show had their own variation on Tribbles, and a surprisingly disgusting one, at that. Sometimes even this show goes for the lowest common denominator.

My reaction to the POTD:

"Huh. I don't remember arguing these points—

Wait.

@Tobias means this was a response to me and not something that I was saying. That makes more sense."

In my defense, I'm bedridden with fever right now so comprehension isn't what it could be.

Hope you get well soon!

"Hermetic Lesbians have a cool aesthetic, but Vancian Lesbians are a lot more efficient."

To be fair, the fact that the POTD removes all formatting makes it hard to see when the POTD is quoting someone else in response. It's common for posts to be quoting others to respond to them, and that all gets flattened into a single wall of text for the POTD, which can make things confusing.

Sereg, saw this and thought of you, specifically.

tl;dr: Lily examines some unhealthy types of ships, and the way that a community's particular choice of shipping reflects on that community and on the shippers in question. The particular elements that we latch onto as media consumers says a lot about the values we hold as people, and this is no less true of shipping.

I should clarify that this isn't really a Pony video. I'm just posting it here because this is a talking point that Sereg's brought up many times in this thread.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 23rd 2020 at 12:16:42 PM

She has a good point, and this has been bothering me as well. The romance we read in fiction is seldom the romance we would want or even find acceptable in real life.

I think a big part of the problem is that fiction is, by nature, conflict driven, while romantic relationships should ideally be conflict free. We also like to believe that love conquers all, and that it should do so. The combination of the two means that we end up with plots where one or both parties are jerks in some shape or form, have constant conflicts, but still end up together as a happy couple through the power of love.

And the thing is, I don't really know how you'd fix that. Can you write a romantic novel without conflict? Would anyone want to read it? A story where everyone gets along just fine and and nothing bad happens and everyone lived happily ever after from the first page? Do such books even exist? It is a hard nut to crack.

And Lily makes an excellent point about people dismissing fiction as not impacting the real world, or being "just for kids", once their views on it are challenged. And not just in the shipping department, either. It is one of those thought ending cliches, where any criticism is immediately written off as "overly negative", and why are you taking a cartoon so seriously. It is indeed laughable.

On Beauty and the Beast, I was thinking about that, and I'm not so sure that story is as straightforward as Lily makes it appear. The Beast is indeed angry and violent, but you also have to consider where that comes from. The Beast is someone who has been turned monstrous by a witch (well, "enchantress", though that's arguable, because what she does is pretty fucked up, all things considered), and given the impossible task of making a girl fall in love with him. It seems obvious that that would lead to anger and frustration, because that is a rather unfair position to be put in in the first place. And sure, he was an antisocial jerk, but he was also "twelve". I don't think anyone would like to be judged by how they behaved as a kid.

But supposing the criticism of Belle having to change him is valid (which it might be, though Belle never gives in to him until he starts to improve himself), how would this story have been written better? What would be an acceptable ending, if not the one we have now?

On another note, I'm not sure the much touted point of Beast locking Belle up is entirely valid, either. First of all, he didn't imprison her the moment he saw her. He imprisoned her dad, because he feared what would happen if he let him go back to the village (unspoken, though given the villagers' reactions when they do find out, it seems pretty obvious). He never makes the suggestion of locking her up, either (the scene suggests, though not spelling it out, that he would just throw her out of the castle so he can brood over his initial prisoner). Belle is the one who brings it up, and the Beast is rather shocked that she even considers it. And yes, he is happy to take her up on it, but again, given his desperate situation, that is somewhat understandable. The scene is written quite subtly, and the writers clearly took pains to make sure that Belle's imprisonment was both voluntary and entirely her idea.

Post of the Day #2799

Posted by edvedd on 21st Jan 2015 05:31:14 AM - Post #104841 in the new thread

I've always felt like I'm in kind of an awkward place as a shipper, because I like to ship characters who love and support each other, and are just very pleasant to be around whenever they're in the other's presence.

These relationships are almost never romantic within the source material. And, indeed, a counterargument against them is always, "Why does everything always have to be romantic? Why can't two characters just have a really strong platonic bond?"

And that perspective isn't wrong. We do need more emphasis on platonic relationships in media, especially between opposite-sex pairs. But my question's always been, "Why can't romantic relationships ever be written like that?"

On that note, Princess Cadance and Shining Armor are pretty great.

Yes, but only because they are out of focus most of the time. Even the episodes they appear in tend to be more about Flurry Heart or Twilight than them.

Such a couple could never carry an episode if it were specifically about their relationship. Do you really want to watch 20 minutes of these two being cute together? Maybe you would, but it would probably not make for a very memorable episode.

By the way, they do have their issues, but not with each other. I remember that one episode where they were pretty shamelessly guilt tripping Twilight into looking after Flurry Heart.

The ways I’ve planned Rarijack is that they’re two friends who get together and play at romance. Like it’s a mutually worked out thing between them that they are Not a thing but they’re lonely, have a romantic itch to scratch and enough of a mutual attraction to find each other pleasant company.

It’s like a G-rated Friends With Benefits, with or without the complications that may entail. Outside of that arrangement, they’re just Friends. The greatest conflict to possibly arise is their other friends finding out and misunderstanding the situation.

That sounds like a bit of an unhealthy relationship, honestly. Pretending to love each other when you really don't and know the other doesn't either would sooner or later lead to hurt feelings or a sense of dissatisfaction.

I remember reading something similar about role-playing romance in video games. It tends to end poorly because it is very hard for people to keep pretend and real feelings apart. Basically, the pretend emotions of having a relationship got too real for them, and it intruded on their real friendship, which then soured.

I have seen this dynamic myself on a Harry Potter role-playing site. Young people playing pretend at romance, who just can't seem to keep fantasy and reality apart, and take these role-play romances dead serious. And then they "break up", and the results are basically the same as a real breakup. Needless to say, this has ended many a friendship.

Edited by Redmess on Feb 24th 2020 at 4:26:30 PM

Not something I considered, beyond the fact that regular, non-PG Friends With Benefits can accidentally get deeper emotions involved. I only saw them as having fun dating, but clearly defined borders may get crossed as feelings change and develop.

The two are adults, so that might mitigate that. Especially if honestly (Hey!) and openness is practiced. It may sting if they have to break it off because one of them is beginning to feel more serious than the other is ready for but then they deal with that like life as well.

Friends with benefits suffers from many of the same issues, really. It sounds fun and easy in theory, but in practice, it can lead to many conflicting feelings.

I once knew someone who was a polygamist with several boyfriends and half a dozen friends with benefits, but didn't feel particularly happy with any of these relationships. I suspect that there was a fear of commitment underneath it all because of a previous divorce.

I can't say I recommend that sort of relationships. They're like rose bushes, they sure smell nice, but boy, there's a lot of thorns in there...

Mayhaps that'd be why it'd be so tempting and the lesson learned there is why it doesn't work or how to make it work anyway. Find happiness your way, make mistakes and learn.

I remember, back when I was writing my shippy Verse, that I had a story idea planned for Rarity and Rainbow Dash.

Or something like that.