A thread to discuss My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and the tie-in media.
All of the usual forum rules
apply. In addition, please remember that the thread is discussing a kids' show, and it's primarily focused on the work itself, not the fanfic — in particular, we don't want to see lewdness creeping in.
Edited by Mrph1 on Aug 26th 2024 at 10:24:26 AM
i'll just come back when this conversation which i've heard a million times has run its course and all of you are done whining.
All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.To be fair, whether or not he's good at his job(based on a single incredibly brief incident) is a fairly new line of conversation.
And this is hardly whining. Just because you aren't interested in discussing something isn't a reason to insult the people who are.
Chosen at random, I think. I'm still waiting on the day one of my epic longposts gets selected.
edited 2nd Apr '14 11:18:02 AM by kegisak
Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.@Kegi: He was in the main hall when Twilight met with Cadance, so he should know who she is, and even if he didn't, Cadance was with her when she bumped into him. Also, he walked away after that, so he clearly wasn't guarding anything.
@crimson: Who's whining? Looks like a discussion to me. I've got opinions about the character, but I'm not overly worked up at the moment.
edited 2nd Apr '14 11:19:01 AM by Crowfall
*Insert Rarity "This is whining!" gif here.*
FE: New Mystery Only Feet 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Umamusume Haru Arima 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshiTrue. But even still, she walked into him, while he was stationary, facing away. Yes, he would have heard her coming, but he likely would have assumed - like a normal person - that a bright orange person in golden armour would be easy to spot and avoid. Especially if he did, in fact, know she was a princess, when one apparently becomes a princess through virtue of competency in Equestria.
Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.And him being a guard rises another issue I have with him, from a meta perspective. He's to obtrusive. he looks so at odds from all the other guards. Stands out like some guy in a military parade wearing a Hawaiian shits and board shorts. While all the guards so far have been roughly the same. They've all fit well together and looked roughly simliar. Not him. it's just... trying to hard to make him stand out.
It's chosen at random with a slight bias towards longer posts.
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's PlayIt's not like he got to choose his coat color.
And yeah, this is hardly whining. If all we were doing was complaining about how horrible he was it would be whining, but this is more trying to examine the reasons why people consider him a weak character and whether or not he fits that description.
Reaction Image Repository@Kegi: I'm not saying it's entirely his fault, but since letting Twilight run into him (twice) is literally the only thing we see pony Flash do, I don't have much else to work with. And maybe its unfair, but that "we've got to stop running into each other" just rubs me the wrong way. It's supposed to be a cute call back to their meeting in the human world, but the difference in their relative position makes it less appropriate. He should have apologized or asked if she was okay. Even if it was her fault, she's a princess and you just knocked her on her ass, now is not the time to hit on her.
Given the limited body types, if they did want to make a character out of him then it's really the only option. The trouble is, well... flat character.
Really, the source of a lot of these complaints. I doubt we'd be thinking such things if he had been an engaging character.
Not that they wouldn't have been valid, mind, just that people would be less likely to go looking for things wrong with him.
Well, she knocked herself on her ass... but fair enough, I suppose. I dunno, I think he was just trying to be friendly. if she had looked ab it more hurt it would have gone differently maybe, I dunno.
It just feels weird to me to assume he's bad at his job based on one small, brief, and let's face it, pretty innocuous incident. It may be all we have to go on, but It's only one incident, so I don't think it's right to extrapolate an entire work ethic/competency on it.
edited 2nd Apr '14 11:41:11 AM by kegisak
Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.It is extremely unfair to extrapolate that much about his competence from that brief instance. But, again, I've got nothing else to work with. Which just brings things back around to him being way too underdeveloped to be a proper love interest for the main character.
I kind of wonder why he's the only character with such a large difference between worlds. Everyone else we meet is still into the same stuff on both sides of the mirror. But Flash is a royal guard on one side and a musician on the other. I suppose it's possible that pony Flash is into music on his down time, but realistically the reason is probably that they made him a guard so he'd have an excuse to be around the palace.
I apologise for my earlier behaviour.
I have now rewatched another episode of the show. It was a mistake to go that long without doing so. It tends to result in me slowly reverting to my real (and as you saw, incredibly unpleasant) personality. I was starting to write emo poetry on the train home about the death of beauty and festering ugliness etc. I hope to completely destroy it someday, but for now, I have ponies.
Anyway, thank you Crowfall, for actually doing what I asked. I may disagree with you, but at least I now understand the point.
I tried to keep my posts short as I was writing at work, but I could seriously write essays about this.
I still believe everything I said, but I apologise for being unpleasant about it.
If you want me to be briefer, I'll try.
You want a trait that Flash has that doesn't boil down to Nice Guy. Fine. Justice is important to him. He acts on it, both in becoming a guard and in investigating and reporting Sunset. How's that? (Also, his previous relationship with Sunset makes this more meaningful)
You want a different scene that would be different without him? Meeting him gives Twilight her first connection to this world. Meeting a member of the Mane Six first would cheapen this as she'd be seeing them entirely as reflections of her friends.
Also, Lumen, I meant that I didn't understand your wording. It was highly ambiguous. So I didn't understand what you were arguing.
@Sereg: Okay, the justice thing is a good point. That's similar across both worlds, and is probably his strongest character trait. It does make me wonder why he started dating Sunset in the first place, but maybe she just used to be better about hiding the whole evil thing.
I'm going to disagree about "Twilight's first connection to the world" bit though. The only thing he says to her before she meets her friends is "woah, you okay?" That barely qualifies as meeting someone, and I don't really think the way she see's her alt friends would be any different without that.
@Sereg: That's a step in the right direction, certainly, but unfortunately not much is made of it. We don't know why he became a guard in the first place, and "busting SS" thing could easily be part of his Nice Guy side; he did it not out of a sense of justice, but because he wanted to be nice to Twilight. Then on the flipside, his history with Sunset does give that moment a little extra depth. It definitely does give a bit more congruity to that particular action. I just wish it would've cropped up in more than one scene. They could've had some really strong development with his history with SS getting explored, but they never really touch on it.
I'm going to agree with this, though. The whole "he's her first connection to the new world" thing doesn't really work given they don't really even interact before she goes through the portal. If I remember right, the only thing he does before the rest of the plot kicks in is to announce her entrance to the castle. I don't think they even talk to each other, so as far as Twilight is concerned, he's just "that guard with the unusual coat color". There's no clue that Twilight even recognizes him as the human version of that guard.
edited 2nd Apr '14 12:28:10 PM by JapaneseTeeth
Reaction Image RepositoryYeah there is no reason for her to think the random, out of place looking pegasi is the same persons.
And also, yeah, while it is POSSIBLE the whole justice thing is right, we really aren't given ANY insight into why he did it, all we know is he did. It's just as possible, that he simple saw Twi in trouble, and thought helping her out may help him tap that ass. Not likely, but given how little we actually see about him, it's nearly as valid. We aren't given any insight into why he did it. Like JT said, it could just be part of his Nice Guy schtick. And Pony wise, maybe he just really liked the way he looked in the guards uniform.
And as with the other two, it's hardly a connection to just help someone to their feet and say "Whoa there you okay?" Especially given that Twi never really seems to actually GET any connection to the EQG worlds, beyond that derived from the fake!five reminding her of her friends, or wanting to stop Sunset from harming it. So still based on the real world.
To be fair on the parallels thing, EqG!Flash is still just in high school at that point. He could be an aspiring police officer, which he's obviously be too young for (or maybe he is a cop and is one of those baby-faced guys who can go undercover in the school as a narc! ![]()
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Strictly speaking Shining isn't his employer, but his captain - they both have the same employer, who is pretty nebulously defined at best. It could be Celestia or Cadence, or if the state/country is more generous then they're officially employed by the state.
At either rate, I don't see why flirting with a relative of his employer makes him a bad guard. Unless the rules specifically state, "sister is off limits", I don't see that a bit of friendly chit-chat is a problem. It may very well have been flirting, but it's not like he asked for her number then and there. Admittedly he could have avoided walking into her - assuming he did, and it wasn't her walking into him. You can say he should have moved, sure, but if he was assigned to guard something - and therefore stand still, it wouldn't exactly have been a good move to just stand aside for just anyone.
After all, he's probably been stationed in the Crystal Empire for several months, so it's not like he would have gotten news that Twilight was a new princess. IF she was walking at him straight on he may not have noticed the wings at first, and assumed she was just some visiting unicorn.
edited 2nd Apr '14 11:10:17 AM by kegisak
Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.