Support NeoGAF

[ShinySylvee]

I think you mean Sigma Sense.


Again, haven't rewatched anything EQG, but my views on the movies and specials right now are:

Equestria Girls
Stuff

Rainbow Rocks

More Stuff

Friendship Games
Dumb. So dumb. Songs were good, though, and while I didn't think there were any as good as the best of Rainbow Rocks, the score was overall more solid. Midnight Sparkle and angelic Sunset have neat designs, but everything else about the former is dumb.

And I actually did go into this blind, so there were no previous reactions to bias me.

Legend of Everfree
Eh. I don't actually remember too much about this.


I'm definitely more willing to look at the good parts of Equestria Girls than I did at the start. On the subject of an EQG show, I get the feeling that it will be a bit more continuity focused than the pony show, given the movies and how the specials are described. Most of the episodes would be slice of life, but they'd do more building up of threats and the magical girl battles will move an overall story forward. I expect the non-battle stories to focus a bit more on interactions with characters and situations not present in Equestria, which matches how "Dance Magic" is described.

==

Speaking of which, we have new Equestria Girls Mini shorts (with 3D computer animation). I usually put them in Community, but I'll link them here because they have a certain character introduced in the new specials. Part 1, and part 2. I think it's cute for what it is.

Spoiler

Also, they get to see the movie before us. Jealous.

Curses foiled again!

Followups on the EQG movies:

EQG 1: Twilight's getting used to her body being a parallel to being used to being an alicorn didn't really feel that connected to me. Admittedly I never really paid that much attention to Twilight's development as a character. (In my defense though her character has been all over the place post-princesshood as the show writers are constantly trying to come up with new ideas on what she should be so trying to follow a consistent arc is nigh-impossible) I think we can both agree that the movie's at its best when Twilight is learning about the world and how things work. As a standalone movie the exposition-heavy opening in Equestria and Sunset as a villain drag the movie down considerably for me but I still generally have a pretty good time with it.


Rainbow Rocks: Overall I think the Dazzlings are 3rd in the MLP villain tier list behind Discord and Starlight. I do hope that they end up making another appearance in the TV show as I think their dynamics are still interesting although the EQGverse is already getting extremely crowded with reformed characters so part of me hopes that they still remain relatively antagonistic. (At this point I predict there's going to be more recurring characters that used to be bad guys then there's going to be full-time heroes in the show) For the rest of the movie Sunset's redemption feels very satisfying and the musical climax is in my opinion the best epic story climax the show has had so far. But as Sigma points out this definitely comes at the cost of the rest of the characters. I feel like the most egregious problem is Twilight being completely oblivious to all of her friends arguing and hating each other because she's so caught up in trying to figure out a spell that is revealed to have an extremely easy solution. Twilight is the second most important good guy in this movie, and she does virtually nothing to contribute to the victory in the end and spends most of the movie obsessing over something that is later revealed to not even matter.

Also as an aside I feel like there's a pretty major double standard in play. Starlight is a character that is frequently criticized for having to marginalize other characters in order for the writers to make her look better, and yet I see those same people turn around and talk about how Sunset is amazing despite that their complaints against Starlight are far more justified against Sunset in my opinion. Sunset marginalizes the rest of the mane 6 to a pretty substantial degree in all 3 of the movies that she's a good guy in, and I almost never see this being called out. Honestly I think that the major thing is that people have an extremely strong emotional connection with the pony versions of the characters, and so you care a lot about them being shown respect. The EQG versions I think people have a substantially lower connection with, and so people are substantially more willing to brush off them being made useless which is why most people don't really care all that much when it keeps happening in the movies. Also EQG is its own thing and so I think people are a lot more willing to accept her as a character there. Real talk if Sunset did the exact same things she does in EQG in the mainline show EVERYONE would despise her. She has little personality and her reformation arc makes no sense. Not saying you have to hate Sunset or love Starlight but before you go around saying that Starlight is an overpowered Mary Sue that can only look good by making everyone else look bad and then turn around and say that Sunset is the best character ever I think it's important to step back and realize that you might not be judging both characters an even playing field. (And that statement isn't directed at anyone in particular, so don't take as a personal attack. Frankly I feel like almost everyone that watches EQG is overlooking that. For the record I do like Sunset but at the same time I can understand that I'm overlooking some fairly major problems with her because I'm generally not invested in much else in the EQGverse so far besides her)


Friendship Games: At some point I want to do a full rant on this. There's just so much wrong with this movie. I did really like the scene with Rainbow giving the pep talk and song to hype up the school though.

Legend of Everfree: Not much to add without going into much more detail



Also I can't emphasize enough how much those EQG shorts aren't for me. I have a hard time sitting through them and they're only like 20 seconds long lol.


Also good riddance to that last page. Holy cow that one took so long to load on mobile.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Curses foiled again!

Followups on the EQG movies:

EQG 1: Twilight's getting used to her body being a parallel to being used to being an alicorn didn't really feel that connected to me. Admittedly I never really paid that much attention to Twilight's development as a character. (In my defense though her character has been all over the place post-princesshood as the show writers are constantly trying to come up with new ideas on what she should be so trying to follow a consistent arc is nigh-impossible) I think we can both agree that the movie's at its best when Twilight is learning about the world and how things work. As a standalone movie the exposition-heavy opening in Equestria and Sunset as a villain drag the movie down considerably for me but I still generally have a pretty good time with it.

I bring it up because I recall that's how Meghan McCarthy explained the movie to fans: it would show Twilight getting used to being a princess, and the human transformation was basically a metaphor for it.

Rainbow Rocks: Overall I think the Dazzlings are 3rd in the MLP villain tier list behind Discord and Starlight. I do hope that they end up making another appearance in the TV show as I think their dynamics are still interesting although the EQGverse is already getting extremely crowded with reformed characters so part of me hopes that they still remain relatively antagonistic. (At this point I predict there's going to be more recurring characters that used to be bad guys then there's going to be full-time heroes in the show) For the rest of the movie Sunset's redemption feels very satisfying and the musical climax is in my opinion the best epic story climax the show has had so far. But as Sigma points out this definitely comes at the cost of the rest of the characters. I feel like the most egregious problem is Twilight being completely oblivious to all of her friends arguing and hating each other because she's so caught up in trying to figure out a spell that is revealed to have an extremely easy solution. Twilight is the second most important good guy in this movie, and she does virtually nothing to contribute to the victory in the end and spends most of the movie obsessing over something that is later revealed to not even matter.

Let's see, for recurring characters that were heroes from the start, there's the Humane Five, and I suppose Flash Sentry and the princesses principals. Then for reformed antagonists, there's Sunset, Sci-Twi (albeit unwilling antagonist), the five other Crystal Prep students, Timber and Gloriosa, and apparently now Juniper Montage. Add in the Dazzlings, and yeah, they're way outnumbered, even if the CMC still get episodes in the EQG show.

EDIT: I think the best route would be for Sonata to turn good and for the others to remain antagonists, even if not serious ones anymore. Sonata does actually fill a niche that's not really occupied by any recurring character in either FiM or EQG: someone who can get excited about the same dumb things as Pinkie. Fans already tend to depict her as good, and I've seen videos depict her in that role but with Derpy instead of Pinkie.

Also as an aside I feel like there's a pretty major double standard in play. Starlight is a character that is frequently criticized for having to marginalize other characters in order for the writers to make her look better, and yet I see those same people turn around and talk about how Sunset is amazing despite that their complaints against Starlight are far more justified against Sunset in my opinion.

A huge part of it is really that Sunset came first. Plus, even if they do basically nothing with it, she has the more intriguing backstory with her being Celestia's former student. I imagine that if Sunset didn't exist and Starlight was Celestia's former student, she'd be far better received. Also, I feel that Sunset does have the stronger character design, particularly in the color contrast with Twilight.

Friendship Games: At some point I want to do a full rant on this. There's just so much wrong with this movie. I did really like the scene with Rainbow giving the pep talk and song to hype up the school though.

Legend of Everfree: Not much to add without going into much more detail

Well I did arbitrarily commit myself to rewatching the movies and shorts during the (US) break, so maybe you can write it up then.

Also good riddance to that last page. Holy cow that one took so long to load on mobile.

Well, on this page, there's my third "A Royal Problem" follow up post, which should be smaller than the previous two and closer to a typical follow up; the "Not Asking for Trouble" follow up, which should be smaller than usual from how people have talked; and since that presumably won't have much discussion, also the "Dance Magic" follow up, which should also be smaller than usual due to my own bias against EQG art. So it shouldn't be too bad.

And yes, this is something I think about.

 

[DemWalls]

I just hope that, if the Dazzlings appear again in a future movie/TV series, they make their entrance hype as f*ck. Like, something straight out of the best anime.

About Friendship Games, first time I saw it didn't really convince me. Thought it was by far the worst of the three. However, it ended up growing on me, and I enjoyed subsequent viewings way more. Now, I don't consider it far behind the others, at all.

 

[SigmasonicX]

I just hope that, if the Dazzlings appear again in a future movie/TV series, they make their entrance hype as f*ck. Like, something straight out of the best anime.

Got you covered.

As for Friendship Games, maybe my opinion will change on re-watch.

 

[Conkersbadfurday]

I'm actually watching the Everfree EQG movie right now. It's pretty bad. What little I can remember of the other movies is they got worse as they went, but I haven't seen any of them in so long that I don't even know anymore. This one might be the worst of the bunch or a hair better.

It's not great. I apparently don't value my time very well.

Haven't seen Rarity written this bad since that time she was pretending to be AJ so she could fuck a dude.

Edit: reading previous posts about Friendship Games leads me to believe that this one is much better. There's a reason I don't remember that movie very well Fucking Twilight with her stupid magic gadget.

 

[Trigonometrize.]

Heh, I actually remember liking Friendship Games the most. Not sure why. Motorbikes?

Rainbow Rocks would be so much better if the Sirens weren't over-designed. They looked so cool in the hoodies in the intro. They should've stayed that way.

By the way, I was browsing youtube and happened to notice multiple MLP videos are over 100 million views. Um, holy crap, that seems like a lot. I remember when This Day Aria climbed to 10 million quickly and I thought that was really impressive.

 

[DemWalls]

By the way, I was browsing youtube and happened to notice multiple MLP videos are over 100 million views. Um, holy crap, that seems like a lot. I remember when This Day Aria climbed to 10 million quickly and I thought that was really impressive.

An upload of Welcome to the Show was the first video breaking the 100 million mark, but it happened relatively recently, so it did take quite some time. 2 years or so, I think.

I don't think the Sirens are over designed at all, but it's also true that I consider Sonata the best, and she's arguably the simplest of the three, design-wise.

 

[ShinySylvee]

I feel like one of the biggest problems with Friendship Games is that they want to have SciTwi be the bad guy in the end, but don't want her to do anything actually bad. If you compare her to Twilight in the pilot episode (which I would say would be a fitting comparison since it's essentially the same character before they learn the magic of friendship) I feel like you can easily see how inoffensive they were trying to make her. Pony Twilight would have mainly just been tolerating the HuMane 6's attempts to be friends with her and called it a waste of time distracting her from her field research with her device that she had. She wouldn't have had that much patience for everyone gawking at her and acting weirdly. SciTwi on the other hand just sort of goes with it despite being confused and seems totally cool with people getting in the way of her research. Aside from using the magic during the climax of the movie she never does anything intentionally bad despite causing most of the conflict for the movie. And because they don't want her to do anything outwardly bad which might make people not like her they decide to make her completely ignorant of everything instead. Which is doubly infuriating because she's supposed to be a really smart character and yet has no clue as to what's going on for most of the movie. The movie is a chore for me to watch because their insistence on making SciTwi a good guy and also the villain means that she has to constantly keep making the same mistakes over and over again without learning anything while coming up with contrived reasons as to why the good guys can't just sit her down and explain to her why what she is doing is wrong. (Which is by far and away the most sensible course of action for the HuMane 6 to take)

Also as a character SciTwi was really uninteresting to me in Friendship Games. She was sort of this demure nerdy nice girl that just went around being sad at the Crystal Prep students treating her poorly and being happy when the CHS students were nice to her, which feels pretty bland when you compare it to all of the strong personalities that the show and movies usually have.

I'm not saying it would be definitively better if SciTwi was more similar to her pony counterpart in the pilot. But part of me wishes that she was written as a more active antagonist rather then the unknowing one she was here. I think it would have been cool if we got to see how Twilight might have turned out if she didn't have Celestia looking over her and never really made any friends. Maybe she would have went down a similar path that Sunset or Starlight did. The fan in me would have much rather seen Twilight be a sympathetic but willing antagonist who might not have entirely understood the consequences of her actions and through the course of the movie learned the value of friendship instead of what we ended up getting. Going down that route and having it work would probably require a rework of the whole story for it to make sense though so just plugging that idea into the story we got wouldn't really work.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Heh, I actually remember liking Friendship Games the most. Not sure why. Motorbikes?

Rainbow Rocks would be so much better if the Sirens weren't over-designed. They looked so cool in the hoodies in the intro. They should've stayed that way.

By the way, I was browsing youtube and happened to notice multiple MLP videos are over 100 million views. Um, holy crap, that seems like a lot. I remember when This Day Aria climbed to 10 million quickly and I thought that was really impressive.

Checking now, it looks like it's still just "What My Cutie Mark is Telling Me" and "Welcome to the Show". The former has the most views, but the latter has two uploads that are each over 100 million views. After that, it sharply drops, and there's a mix of things, including fan videos like "Children of the Night" and those videos specifically designed to show up in "kids cartoons" playlists, but most of it appears to be Equestria Girls videos. Specifically, the first two movies; on a quick glance, there's nothing involving Friendship Games or Legend of Everfree.

An upload of Welcome to the Show was the first video breaking the 100 million mark, but it happened relatively recently, so it did take quite some time. 2 years or so, I think.

I don't think the Sirens are over designed at all, but it's also true that I consider Sonata the best, and she's arguably the simplest of the three, design-wise.

I agree that design-wise, Sonata is by far the best of the three. I'm not a big fan of Adagio and Aria's designs, outside of amusement at the fact that Aria and Starlight look alike. Heck, according to the description in this comic, Hasbro even labeled an image of Aria as Starlight on their website, in the URL here.

As an aside, that's another reason why I consider Sunset's design to be stronger than Starlight's: they gave the latter the same color scheme as another major character from the release right before her introduction (Rainbow Rocks premiered between the season 4 finale and season 5 premiere). And while others aren't as close as a match, there have been a ton of characters with similar fur colors and purple hair. The closest one to Sunset is Sunburst, and they really don't look much alike. Starlight does look better than Aria, though.

I feel like one of the biggest problems with Friendship Games is that they want to have SciTwi be the bad guy in the end, but don't want her to do anything actually bad. If you compare her to Twilight in the pilot episode (which I would say would be a fitting comparison since it's essentially the same character before they learn the magic of friendship) I feel like you can easily see how inoffensive they were trying to make her. Pony Twilight would have mainly just been tolerating the HuMane 6's attempts to be friends with her and called it a waste of time distracting her from her field research with her device that she had. She wouldn't have had that much patience for everyone gawking at her and acting weirdly. SciTwi on the other hand just sort of goes with it despite being confused and seems totally cool with people getting in the way of her research. Aside from using the magic during the climax of the movie she never does anything intentionally bad despite causing most of the conflict for the movie. And because they don't want her to do anything outwardly bad which might make people not like her they decide to make her completely ignorant of everything instead. Which is doubly infuriating because she's supposed to be a really smart character and yet has no clue as to what's going on for most of the movie. The movie is a chore for me to watch because their insistence on making SciTwi a good guy and also the villain means that she has to constantly keep making the same mistakes over and over again without learning anything while coming up with contrived reasons as to why the good guys can't just sit her down and explain to her why what she is doing is wrong. (Which is by far and away the most sensible course of action for the HuMane 6 to take)

Also as a character SciTwi was really uninteresting to me in Friendship Games. She was sort of this demure nerdy nice girl that just went around being sad at the Crystal Prep students treating her poorly and being happy when the CHS students were nice to her, which feels pretty bland when you compare it to all of the strong personalities that the show and movies usually have.

I'm not saying it would be definitively better if SciTwi was more similar to her pony counterpart in the pilot. But part of me wishes that she was written as a more active antagonist rather then the unknowing one she was here. I think it would have been cool if we got to see how Twilight might have turned out if she didn't have Celestia looking over her and never really made any friends. Maybe she would have went down a similar path that Sunset or Starlight did. The fan in me would have much rather seen Twilight be a sympathetic but willing antagonist who might not have entirely understood the consequences of her actions and through the course of the movie learned the value of friendship instead of what we ended up getting. Going down that route and having it work would probably require a rework of the whole story for it to make sense though so just plugging that idea into the story we got wouldn't really work.

After Rainbow Rocks but before Friendship Games, it was very common for fans to depict SciTwi as a mad scientist, which really would have been a more interesting direction than the demure SciTwi we got.I don't think I've put the main issue with the movie's portrayal of SciTwi in words before, but you described the exact problem: they try to have it both ways with her being the antagonist but still kind and good enough to be sympathetic. It's sort of weird that they didn't have faith in Twilight's episode 1 portrayal to be sympathetic if used again, but I think the direction they were going with was for SciTwi to not have any confidence, in contrast to the confident (in theory) pony princess we know, so maybe that just didn't occur to them. Having her be episode 1 Twilight but without the courtesy plus some mad science would have been the best move. Plus having the magic absorption make any kind of sense.

By the way, big Warriors parade means transit is a nightmare means work from home day, means time to watch Nintendo Treehouse clips. Oh, and now's a better time to rewatch "A Royal Problem" than tomorrow.

A Royal Problem, take 2
Well this didn't have the intended effect. I thought that since my first viewing of the episode was under slightly stressed circumstances, waiting a few days then watching again would be closer to a rewatch after multiple months. Instead, I was still in, "just watched this," mode. So, still no PONIES reaction really, but I still enjoyed it, and I still feel like I'd have a stronger emotional connection if I rewatched it in a few months. I also expected to write a new hot take, but it's more of a deep analysis instead.

Twilight is overall the best part of the episode. I hadn't noticed that Twilight's music box makes a sound every time she moves in its first scene. I already thought that part where Starlight asks if she knows when two people are arguing but they pretend like they aren't arguing and Twilight goes, "Noooo..." was among the most adorable Twilight scenes of the series, and that just improves it. It's a shame this doesn't continue in her other scenes. Something pointed out on another board is that when Twilight brought Starlight's toothbrush, it probably was actually Spike's and Twilight was just digging for an excuse, not that Starlight's toothbrush actually resembles Spike. Since I can't find a better way to word it, that's so Twilight!

Though I don't think many people actually thought this, it should be noted that there's zero indication that Starlight's dream was a likely outcome of all this. From what we're presented in this episode, if things continued on without Starlight's interference, Celestia and Luna would have slowly grown more distant, but I don't think either of them would have erupted in rage. That in itself is bad, but not "destroyed alternate timeline" bad.

Luna is described as having turned into Nightmare Moon before because the other ponies didn't appreciate her night, but this episode hints that possibly the biggest part of this was that she didn't think Celestia appreciated it, and she thought Celestia had the easier job. She of course deeply regrets becoming Nightmare Moon now, but after the initial reuniting period, they fell back into a daily ritual where they didn't interact as much. They had fixed the obvious issues Luna was upset about, but they hadn't addressed the smaller underlying issues with communication and understanding. They probably won't increase their daily interaction much as a result of this episode, but now they know the other knows how much work they do and how they feel about it.

Some have expressed confusion at how the princesses don't know what the others do. I'm sure they intellectually know, and would even acknowledge that they each have difficult and important tasks when not incensed, but each was angry that they took time out of their busy jobs to do something for the other sister and they didn't appreciate it. They viewed the other making these gestures as a sign that they have an easy time with their own job, and it seems like they didn't even care much for them anyway. To connect things to the show's target audience, it's like when your mom makes you lunch everyday, but you just throw it away or trade it for cookies when you get to school. If someone asked you, you'd probably acknowledge your mom had to put effort into making them, even if you didn't really get it. And those moments of lacking empathy still happen when you're an adult unless you're careful.

Luna's focus on fixing that one problem with the school is an interesting bit of insight into the difference between her and Celestia, along with how she prefers the time and solitude to think through her problems. Note how even in her dream, she was focused on that and not the timberwolves. This also ties into her connection with the Cutie Mark Crusaders, showing her interest in protecting children.

With Celestia in Starlight's dream, we see that she is very cautious when presented with a new situation about dealing with it herself, and quickly decided that the best route was to get help from Luna. This serves her well during the day, and allows her to manage multiple things going on at once, but when dealing with nightmares, Luna's focus on a single task and taking decisive action is preferable. This is another way the two balance each other out.

As for Starlight, I suppose I am coming around to the side that it's kind of problematic that she's being encouraged to use aggressive measures to solve friendship problems, but in the context of this story, it's really just a way to get and keep the attention of the princesses, who were otherwise ignoring her. As for the spell itself, we have to consider that (1) it clearly isn't at the level of Twilight's spell in "Magical Mystery Cure", since no memories were altered, and (2) no one seems that bothered by it. In general, the act of mind and cutie mark bending in and of itself hasn't been presented as a big deal in the show, but rather using it to hurt people. There is a point to be made about this being bad, but it certainly isn't inconsistent.

Overall, it's an enjoyable episode and definitely an interesting one, as demonstrated by all the discussions we had.

==

Also

Now you too can finally suck the face of your favorite pony I mean what.
Though seriously, I've never seen a lollipop shaped like the head of a character before. It's pretty weird.

 

[ShinySylvee]

All the talk about pilot Twilight makes me think of her when Sigma talks about not going into work today. I'm just imagining him looking outside at the parade going "I wanted to go into work today. But silly me, all of this ridiculous 'celebrating' is keeping me from it." Then his magical talking dog decked out in Warriors gear walks in and tells him he needs to liven up and....

Yeah I don't know where I was going wih this either

 

[PaulloDEC]

Also

Now you too can finally suck the face of your favorite pony I mean what.
Though seriously, I've never seen a lollipop shaped like the head of a character before. It's pretty weird.

You think it's weird now, wait until you've half-sucked one. What used to be Rainbow Dash is now a disturbing, deformed monster.

Seems uncomfortable, too. Ears, horns and pointy hairstyles all over the place.

 

[ShinySylvee]

Rainbow Rocks would be so much better if the Sirens weren't over-designed. They looked so cool in the hoodies in the intro. They should've stayed that way.

Man this reminded me of this. (Full disclaimer: The guy is extremely vulgar and makes a lot of extremely dirty jokes. His humor is extremly 4channy, which you might really love or really not care for. If you haven't seen DWK before I would recommend it because I think he's the best pony youtuber at the moment even though his humor is extremely niche. Also his video thumbnails are awful)

As an aside, that's another reason why I consider Sunset's design to be stronger than Starlight's: they gave the latter the same color scheme as another major character from the release right before her introduction (Rainbow Rocks premiered between the season 4 finale and season 5 premiere). And while others aren't as close as a match, there have been a ton of characters with similar fur colors and purple hair. The closest one to Sunset is Sunburst, and they really don't look much alike. Starlight does look better than Aria, though.



After Rainbow Rocks but before Friendship Games, it was very common for fans to depict SciTwi as a mad scientist, which really would have been a more interesting direction than the demure SciTwi we got.I don't think I've put the main issue with the movie's portrayal of SciTwi in words before, but you described the exact problem: they try to have it both ways with her being the antagonist but still kind and good enough to be sympathetic. It's sort of weird that they didn't have faith in Twilight's episode 1 portrayal to be sympathetic if used again, but I think the direction they were going with was for SciTwi to not have any confidence, in contrast to the confident (in theory) pony princess we know, so maybe that just didn't occur to them. Having her be episode 1 Twilight but without the courtesy plus some mad science would have been the best move. Plus having the magic absorption make any kind of sense.

A Royal Problem, take 2


Royal problem stuff

One big thing that you have to remember with Starlight's design is that at least initially she was intentionally supposed to appear fairly pedestrian and unremarkable. She was portrayed as being normal based on her appearance to make it more unnerving when she would go around doing all the horrible things she ended up doing. Now that she's this mainstay good guy main character the original design of her has the drawback of making her less visually distinct then the rest of the core cast (although they tried to mediate this somewhat by giving her a new manestyle that made her a lot more distinct compared to the background characters) but there's at least a logical explanation as to why she seems less visually interesting then some other characters. Why she uses the same color scheme as Aria Blaze I don't know, although it's worth mentioning that both characters were created in roughly the same time span so it's possible that two different teams ended up using the same color scheme. After doing like 5 minutes of research it seems that Purple and Teal appear to be a very frequently used color combination so it wouldn't be entirely unheard of for two different groups working independently of each other to both use those colors to design a character. I'm actually kinda curious now to see what colors are usually paired with Purple the most (since I think Starlight being purple kinda makes sense because Twilight is purple as well and to some degree I think she was meant to be a foil for her) and try to figure out why they decided to go for Light Blue, Orange, and Purple as the main colors for the sirens and how those colors compliment each other.

You know I'm not sure if I should be happy or sad that a show primarily aimed at little girls is making me care about visual design and how colors work with each other. Like all of the technical stuff that I try to talk about in my analysis posts I've only really started caring about because of this show.


I think a mad scientist angle could have worked. It sounds like it could have been pretty cool. I just feel like it's really misguided by the creators of the movie to be so afraid of making Twilight look bad in fear of people not liking her. Sunset was irredeemably awful in EQG1 and she's by far the most popular character in the EQGverse so far. The Dazzlings were clearly villains and yet you have tons of people clamoring for them to come back and possibly get reformed. (Or at least one of them) It's kinda funny when you think about it because at the same time that this movie was being made they were planning on reforming Starlight and making her a part of the main cast. Over in the mainline show they're taking this massive risk introducing this brand new character that enslaves a village and then almost destroys the world only for them to try to turn her into essentially the main character of the show. (at least in terms of the show's overall story. At this point Starlight's character arc is the major thing that the show appears to be focusing on, and she's definitely getting the strongest push out of all the characters) Meanwhile in the spin-off where you would think it would be safer to take risks they seem to be deathly afraid to show someone similar to an already really liked character do anything wrong.


For what it's worth I was originally going to point out that the climax takes place in a dream and failure to actually defeat Nightmare Moon and Daybreaker wouldn't have any lasting effects besides damaging Starlight's psyche as Luna points out. Usually when I write these posts I'm also playing Xcom 2 at the same time while also doing like 5 other things and often forget to talk about some points I wanted to make (Side note Sunset, Cadence, and Big Mac are killing it in the campaign I'm doing right now) so I kinda forgot about mentioning it. However I do think it's worth pointing out that although failure likely wouldn't have Celestia and Luna immediately going crazy and turning evil I don't think it's entirely out of the question for that to eventually have happened. Historical precedent would indicate that this sort of thing is possible to occur and I would argue that the sisters turning on each other would be the natural conclusion of the growing tension if it was never treated and was allowed to build up over a very long period of time.

I sort of already said it before but I can understand being willing to act boldly and decisively as well as being willing to go against popular opinion to do what you think is right can be definitely portrayed as positive traits. But in the context of this episode I feel like that message is muddied a bit since Starlight just drops it on Celestia and Luna with no warning and the fact that she did that isn't really adequately explored later. I feel like a line or two at the end where Celestia or Luna points out that although she made the right call it would have been nice if she discussed it with them first would have helped things out as it could have also been presented as a learning experience for Starlight. I'm fine with her making mistakes but at the same time it's important to show to the audience that she is indeed learning from them and becoming a better person because of it.

You think it's weird now, wait until you've half-sucked one. What used to be Rainbow Dash is now a disturbing, deformed monster.

Seems uncomfortable, too. Ears, horns and pointy hairstyles all over the place.

I once had a cookie from a store that looked like Pinkie Pie once. Let's just say that I'm pretty sure edibility is not high on their priority list.

 

[UberTag]

Also

Now you too can finally suck the face of your favorite pony I mean what.

Let me know when the White Raspberry-flavored Rarity pops hit stores.

 

[judhudson]

Caught the 3 EQG Specials. Being a fan of the movies, these didn't seem right to me. I can't say I really enjoyed any of them. Feels like the EQG works better as movies than 22 minute episodes.

I did like the return of Sunset and bringing Glimmer into the world. Those gags are great.

 

[SigmasonicX]

All the talk about pilot Twilight makes me think of her when Sigma talks about not going into work today. I'm just imagining him looking outside at the parade going "I wanted to go into work today. But silly me, all of this ridiculous 'celebrating' is keeping me from it." Then his magical talking dog decked out in Warriors gear walks in and tells him he needs to liven up and....

Yeah I don't know where I was going wih this either

It actually took me a while to get that you were referencing Spike the dog. I thought you were making an Adventure Time reference about Jake the Dog, and I just didn't get it.

You think it's weird now, wait until you've half-sucked one. What used to be Rainbow Dash is now a disturbing, deformed monster.

Seems uncomfortable, too. Ears, horns and pointy hairstyles all over the place.

At first I thought it's been a while since you posted. But then I realized that it hasn't actually been that long, just that there have been more posts than usual since your last one.

Man this reminded me of this. (Full disclaimer: The guy is extremely vulgar and makes a lot of extremely dirty jokes. His humor is extremly 4channy, which you might really love or really not care for. If you haven't seen DWK before I would recommend it because I think he's the best pony youtuber at the moment even though his humor is extremely niche. Also his video thumbnails are awful)

Totally Legit Recap has been posted before, so no need for the disclaimer. The full videos are too much for me, but that bit about the Dazzling designs was pretty informative. I consider Aria to have the worst design of the three, and I didn't really realize why until he showed what she looked like with a black vest, and suddenly her design was much better. Adagio is strange in that as a whole, I think her design works well enough, but zooming into each part of it individually reveals a lot of strange elements.

Speaking of fan content with humor that isn't for everyone, Mentally Advanced Series is officially ending, though new episodes have been infrequent anyway. The creator has a 30 minute video explaining why, but I only listened to the first few minutes because screw that. The gist is that he's getting tired of FiM, blaming it on the fact that the characters no longer resemble the ones from season 1. Whenever people say that, it seems like they're almost always talking about how Twilight isn't as sarcastic as she used to be and nothing else.

One big thing that you have to remember with Starlight's design is that at least initially she was intentionally supposed to appear fairly pedestrian and unremarkable. She was portrayed as being normal based on her appearance to make it more unnerving when she would go around doing all the horrible things she ended up doing. Now that she's this mainstay good guy main character the original design of her has the drawback of making her less visually distinct then the rest of the core cast (although they tried to mediate this somewhat by giving her a new manestyle that made her a lot more distinct compared to the background characters) but there's at least a logical explanation as to why she seems less visually interesting then some other characters.

That's the big reason why I can't say it would have been better if Starlight straight up had Sunset's design; it just wouldn't have worked for the Our Town bit. Starlight's new hairstyle went a long way in making her look more main character-ish, but when grouped with the Main Six, she indeed still doesn't stand out much, which is a definite misstep. That said, her design works really well when paired up with Trixie. Almost like that was the plan...

You know I'm not sure if I should be happy or sad that a show primarily aimed at little girls is making me care about visual design and how colors work with each other. Like all of the technical stuff that I try to talk about in my analysis posts I've only really started caring about because of this show.

That's something I find interesting about the show too. Two things involving Twilight are that while I'm fine with her castle, her old library was better for making her stand out from the backgorund; and that Flash Sentry's color scheme was designed to perfectly contrast with Twilight's, which annoys me.

I think a mad scientist angle could have worked. It sounds like it could have been pretty cool. I just feel like it's really misguided by the creators of the movie to be so afraid of making Twilight look bad in fear of people not liking her. Sunset was irredeemably awful in EQG1 and she's by far the most popular character in the EQGverse so far. The Dazzlings were clearly villains and yet you have tons of people clamoring for them to come back and possibly get reformed. (Or at least one of them) It's kinda funny when you think about it because at the same time that this movie was being made they were planning on reforming Starlight and making her a part of the main cast.

I didn't think about it like that. There were two things it felt like they were experimenting with in the first EQG movie that affected the show: Flash Sentry's romance with Twilight, with cameos in season 4 testing the water, and the negative reaction resulted in them not going ahead with it; and the number of background character cameos in the first movie, pushed more in the second, led to them doing it in season 5. Given that, the fact that they went with the much riskier face turn in the show itself is unusual

For what it's worth I was originally going to point out that the climax takes place in a dream and failure to actually defeat Nightmare Moon and Daybreaker wouldn't have any lasting effects besides damaging Starlight's psyche as Luna points out. Usually when I write these posts I'm also playing Xcom 2 at the same time while also doing like 5 other things and often forget to talk about some points I wanted to make (Side note Sunset, Cadence, and Big Mac are killing it in the campaign I'm doing right now) so I kinda forgot about mentioning it.

Jeez, and I find that watching a video while writing these can sometimes get too distracting.

Caught the 3 EQG Specials. Being a fan of the movies, these didn't seem right to me. I can't say I really enjoyed any of them. Feels like the EQG works better as movies than 22 minute episodes.

I did like the return of Sunset and bringing Glimmer into the world. Those gags are great.

In addition to this post, I've seen many people on other boards react negatively to "Dance Magic", which surprised me given the positive consensus it previously had here. I guess I'll see for myself in about a week.

And at long last, the third episode followup for "A Royal Problem", containing art uploaded after the US airing; the previous two only used art uploaded before the US airing.

SCREENSHOT
Pokemon Ultra Sun / Ultra Moon

FAN CONTENT
There's plenty of art from previous episodes I could post, but I'll hold onto them until the "Not Asking for Trouble" followup. Yes, I'm strategically reserving fan art.

MomoMistress
A section just for one fan artist? Indeed, she's made a lot of art for this episode, including starting an Ask Daybreaker blog. Much of the below art is actually from there, but with the text removed for the DeviantArt upload. And she's working on this blog in addition to other fan art. Though I haven't actually analyzed this, I swear she has to be the most productive currently active MLP fan artist, and she consistently puts out quality work. She appears pretty often in my Community art dumps, and that's just scratching the surface.
Daybreaker
Good Morning Equestria
Peasants
Praise the Sun

hioshiru
Well, this artist didn't make a ton of art like MomoMistress, but this is a paired set.
Daybreaker
Nightmare

Celestia and Luna
Wrong Cup
Horsemom
Tried Smug

A Royal Problem by marenlicious
Morning Grump
Luna Eats a Pineapple
The Royal Nap

Pony Sun and Moon

Daybreaker vs. Nightmare Moon
Showdown of the Goddess
Opposites Attract

Doomsday
Your Life Burns Faster

Twilight and Starlight
Twilight by tyuubatu
Regret
Shake That Flank - Source blog is NSFW, so using Derpibooru link.
Ballerina

Daybreaker alone
The Demon's Retreat
Let the Day Break
The Burning

Daybreaker by starblaze25
Daybreaker by nemo2d
All Hail the Queen

Mane Lighter - Source blog is NSFW, so using Derpibooru link.

Comics
Sunburned - Made before the episode came out in Canada.
Hooclid comic for "A Royal Problem"
Everything I ever wanted

Video
A Royal Problem CENSORED - It annoys me more than it should that it's stated that Celestia and Luna (CENSORED), but then it switches to Celestia and Luna not (CENSORED).

==

Pinkie Pie Says Goodnight: Hiatus

 

[SigmasonicX]

At long last, everyone in this thread will be able to talk about season 7 without spoiler tags! We still have to wait on Equestria Girls, though. Plus, if episodes 12 and 13 do indeed air this week in Australia, this will only last a few days, then we'll have spoiler tags for at least another two months. At least that won't be as bad as the Magic thread, where all the rares and mythic rares from the fall set have been leaked, and official reveals don't start for three months.

The timing of Friendship is Magic #55's preview supports my theory that they're trying hard to sync up episodes and their episode tie-in comics. The "Fluttershy Leans In" comic had a preview the week of the US episode airing too, and both hint at something about the episode in the revealed pages. Since #57 ties into "Discordant Harmony" and comes out in August, it's safe to assume that episode will air in the US at some point in August.

That makes me realize: season 7 will almost definitely still be airing new episodes when the movie comes out in theaters. How do we want to handle that? I believe GAF convention is that for movie discussion, outside of designated spoiler topics, details must be behind spoiler bars for two weeks from the release date. Is that how we want to handle it, or is there interest in creating a separate spoiler thread for the movie?

Anyway today's episode is:
In the US
11. Not Asking for Trouble (aired in Canada on May 21)
Pinkie Pie visits Prince Rutherford and the Yaks. While there an avalanche falls on the entire rustic village of Yakyakistan. Pinkie Pie suggests that she go to get the other ponies to help but the proud Prince and Yaks refuse.

Episodes that can be discussed freely
All FiM episodes (including "Not Asking for Trouble" in a bit), no Equestria Girls specials.

 

[Infinite Justice]

I'm not saying it would be definitively better if SciTwi was more similar to her pony counterpart in the pilot. But part of me wishes that she was written as a more active antagonist rather then the unknowing one she was here. I think it would have been cool if we got to see how Twilight might have turned out if she didn't have Celestia looking over her and never really made any friends. Maybe she would have went down a similar path that Sunset or Starlight did. The fan in me would have much rather seen Twilight be a sympathetic but willing antagonist who might not have entirely understood the consequences of her actions and through the course of the movie learned the value of friendship instead of what we ended up getting. Going down that route and having it work would probably require a rework of the whole story for it to make sense though so just plugging that idea into the story we got wouldn't really work.

I think the the problem with this was that Sunset was already made to fill that role and it would be immediately threading the same ground from the last movie. Maybe if they never went with Sunset they could have attempted it?.

Also as smart as Pony Twlight she's been prone to doing some really dumb stuff so i could see why they would use a slightly different take of that aspect (where her extreme curiosity is overriding her common sense). Its why that scene of Sunset chewing her out is a good one in that it shows that Sunset is right but also places her in a bad light due to some of her "villain" quirks reappearing while clashing with her "heroic" ones.


As for the Sunset/Starlight stuff i'm a big fan of Sunset (which could be due to her appearing first like Sigma mentioned lol) but i see Starlight as better written due to having the actual time to show her reformation (though i feel Sunset's redemption is much stronger right now). I might be the only fan that's 99% cool with Sunset's as i believe in that "cold turkey" turn wherein something hits you so fucking hard you start to take notice and make adjustments accordingly (which might just stem from the strong christian values i grew up with) but showing that change and placing some time on it would have helped showing others.

Still rooting for both of them

 

[Conkersbadfurday]

Sucks that the Mentally Advanced series is ending. Was my favorite abridge of the bunch, and Greg's character work is really great. At this point, his stuff doesn't resemble the original to such a high degree that I'm surprised he's stopping over main-show character changes. I feel like he could write around them pretty easily. Edit: he explains in the vid why he wont' do that His video is quite solid, too, and is sort of how I feel about the show sometimes. Dunno if it's the writing or world or what, but the spark is gone. I'll probably stick to the end of season seven and then be done.

Anyhow. Finished the Everfree movie. Man when you need a song to convince you that magic powers are actually cool, you done fucked up. What a messy ending.

The new "Not Asking for Trouble" episode also didn't jive right with me, but mostly because the entire Yak culture is just paints-on-head stupid to a point where I kind of lose interest. I didn't like them the first time they were introduced, either.

I'll hve to check out the EQG shorts at some point. Maybe with the aid of rum or beer.

 

[draetenth]

I don't have too much to say about the episode other than I liked it. Pinkie Pie had the right amount of attitude without going way overboard like they sometimes seem to do with her.

 

[DrForester]

I liked Pinkie a lot in this episode, even if the episode as a whole was just ok.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Not Asking for Trouble
This was a pretty alright episode brought down by how yaks are apparently so unaccustomed for their own environment that they don't know how to handle an easily foreseen problem. At least from the other yaks' reactions, this is mainly because Rutherford himself is a weak leader, not that yaks are intrinsically dumb, though one still wonders how they got him as a leader in the first place.

I did actually like the details of the festival and yak culture we saw before the avalanche, particularly with Rutherford making jokes and not being angry. I was disappointed by how small the village was, though, since it apparently represents all of Yakyakistan. At least with Griffonstone, that was just the griffon capital; Yakyakistan was always referred to as a country. There is a continuity error with how Pinkie makes a point out of how she's been to Yakyakistan before, in relation to how the buildings look, which is acknowledged by Rutherford. This can only be referring to "Party Pooped", but Pinkie only ever reached the outer gates and never went inside.

Pinkie herself was pretty good here, with fun visual gags and she was reasonable the entire time. I enjoyed the goat story, and she knew how to handle the yaks well.

Some of the dialogue the other Main Six had was a bit odd, though. The parts that sticks out to me are Fluttershy saying that helping others is what ponies do; and Twilight saying they need to help the yaks, then Pinkie saying they need to help the yaks, then Twilight getting surprised Pinkie would ignore what she said, followed by Applejack telling her that this is Pinkie being Pinkie and addressing her as hon.

During the clean up scene, what was Applejack even doing there? All the snow she knocked down had to be picked up by Rarity anyway. Speaking of which, another example of Rarity showing more magic power than the average unicorn. Also, with the part where Twilight makes plants grow, I'll consider that to be her using earth pony magic as an alicorn.

Overall, this could have been a good episode if it didn't make the yaks look so pathetic. As it is, it's just decent.

 

[Trigonometrize.]

Not Asking for Trouble
There is a continuity error with how Pinkie makes a point out of how she's been to Yakyakistan before, in relation to how the buildings look, which is acknowledged by Rutherford. This can only be referring to "Party Pooped", but Pinkie only ever reached the outer gates and never went inside.

I could've sworn there was an offhanded reference to her visiting Yakyakistan in an episode outside of Party Pooped.

 

[SigmasonicX]

I could've sworn there was an offhanded reference to her visiting Yakyakistan in an episode outside of Party Pooped.

Wait, really? Though now that you say that, I vaguely remember a scene where Pinkie offhandedly says she went to Yakyakistan to get some snacks, but it could be my imagination. Do you remember what episode? Looking through the season 6 list, the most likely place this could have come up is in "The Gift of the Maud Pie".

In any case, I'm surprised that the episode would make a big deal out of acknowledging a minor scene like that. I forget if it was Shiny or Paullo who brought this up, but it's fairly common for new writers to the show to reference previous episodes like that, possibly as a way to prove they've been paying attention.

 

[ShinySylvee]

I could've sworn there was an offhanded reference to her visiting Yakyakistan in an episode outside of Party Pooped.

Indeed there was. The Mane 6 all visited Yakyakistan during the events of Dungeons and Discords.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Let's see how many uploads Derpibooru has for this episode... 157. And that includes screencaps and such. For comparison, "Honest Apple" has 436 and "A Royal Problem" has 1057. It looks like fan art is coming in at a good pace now, though, so there should be a decent amount by tomorrow. In fact, by an informal count, there's already more art uploaded after the US airing than before, despite the four week head start.

Responding to old reactions.

Not Asking For Trouble was okay-ish, I think? Definitely a noticeable step down from A Royal Problem though. Gonna need to watch it another time or two to really get a fix on my thoughts as a whole, but first impressions are pretty 'meh.'

I definitely feel like early reactions to this episode suffered from being paired up with "A Royal Problem". It certainly isn't a great episode, but it still got less credit (and art) than it deserved.

Not Asking For Trouble

Remember what I said last week about a lot of episodes from this season?

It was a refreshing change of pace from many of this season's Friendship is Magic episodes which have hung their hat on a single character acting dense until the inevitable outcome where they realize they're in the wrong.

Yeah, this was another one of those episodes. And I'm not sure Pinkie Pie - who frankly struggles in leading roles that don't feature Weird Al - is enough to carry an episode. Especially when they're insistent on not establishing characterizations for anyone in Yakyakistan outside of Prince Rutherford. Gummy was practically this episode's co-star... and his gimmick is to stare aimlessly at nothing.

I agree that they should have had other yaks play a role in the story. The most we got were those young yaks complaining, which made Pinkie realize that this wasn't normal. I thought Pinkie carried the episode fine, but it would have been much better if there was another yak she could talk to.

That was pretty much the most "meh" episode ever. Wasn't bad. Wasn't great, just kind of existed...

I did like Pinkie in it though. She wasn't as annoying as she sometimes gets in her focus episodes. She was still silly, but also was able to work things out.

Yeah, I did like how Pinkie was able to figure things out on her own, including the best way to deal with Rutherford's stubbornness.

Not Asking For Trouble
I like this idea for Pinkie: a pony who loves to party gets to be an ambassador and participate in a local holiday. I know yaks are stubborn and all, but I was expecting more of an uprising by the other yaks upset by their condition.

I did think Pinkie as an ambassador was an interesting development for her, and she handled it well. I was expecting more pushback from the other yaks too.

Twilight just casually making Pinkie the ambassador makes wish we saw more of an effort from Twilight to become personal friends with these leaders, though. That makes me think of an episode: Twilight leads a delegation of farmer ponies to Yakyakistan to set up fruit trade, including Applejack, Cherry Jubilee, and Strawberry Sunrise. Various things happen to mess up Applejack's negotiations, including samples disappearing, so there's a mystery of what's going on. Applejack is immediately suspicious of Strawberry, but it isn't her, and Twilight resolves the situation.

I think the the problem with this was that Sunset was already made to fill that role and it would be immediately threading the same ground from the last movie. Maybe if they never went with Sunset they could have attempted it?.

Also as smart as Pony Twlight she's been prone to doing some really dumb stuff so i could see why they would use a slightly different take of that aspect (where her extreme curiosity is overriding her common sense). Its why that scene of Sunset chewing her out is a good one in that it shows that Sunset is right but also places her in a bad light due to some of her "villain" quirks reappearing while clashing with her "heroic" ones.

Sunset really isn't much like Twilight in the first movie, though, so most attempts at parallels fall flat. Despite all the evil Twilights, we haven't had a "Twilight if Celestia never helped her" as an antagonist--Moon Dancer is a stretch as an antagonist, and Starlight has some parallels but she isn't a perfect match. SciTwi could have been a good way to do this, but apparently without Celestia, Twilight is actually much nicer than her episode 1 self.

The problem with presenting SciTwi's actions as her curiosity overriding common sense is that, from what I recall, many of her negative actions were done by accident often without her even noticing she's doing it. It could have been a good direction, but they still didn't handle it well.

Sucks that the Mentally Advanced series is ending. Was my favorite abridge of the bunch, and Greg's character work is really great. At this point, his stuff doesn't resemble the original to such a high degree that I'm surprised he's stopping over main-show character changes. I feel like he could write around them pretty easily. Edit: he explains in the vid why he wont' do that His video is quite solid, too, and is sort of how I feel about the show sometimes. Dunno if it's the writing or world or what, but the spark is gone. I'll probably stick to the end of season seven and then be done.

I really think it's more getting burned out on the series after seven years in the fandom than any particular grievance with the show. It's completely understandable. It'll be sad to see you go, but you're always welcome back!

Anyhow. Finished the Everfree movie. Man when you need a song to convince you that magic powers are actually cool, you done fucked up. What a messy ending.

The new "Not Asking for Trouble" episode also didn't jive right with me, but mostly because the entire Yak culture is just paints-on-head stupid to a point where I kind of lose interest. I didn't like them the first time they were introduced, either.

I'll hve to check out the EQG shorts at some point. Maybe with the aid of rum or beer.

Legend of Everfree made the big mistake of having SciTwi's fear of Midnight Sparkle be legitimate instead of just a mental block. I can't remember too much else about the movie, which is why I'm rewatching them in a few weeks I guess.

I liked the yaks in "Party Pooped" for what they were, and this episode was doing alright for a while expanding on their culture, but things went haywire after the avalanche, unfortunately.

The EQG shorts are alright, nothing is particularly offensive. Even the one focusing on Brad isn't bad, though I barely remember it.

I don't have too much to say about the episode other than I liked it. Pinkie Pie had the right amount of attitude without going way overboard like they sometimes seem to do with her.

I liked Pinkie a lot in this episode, even if the episode as a whole was just ok.

Agreed (again, in the case of DrForester).

Indeed there was. The Mane 6 all visited Yakyakistan during the events of Dungeons and Discords.

Huh, I completely forgot about that. But I suppose that's understandable since I haven't gotten around to rewatching any season 6 episodes yet.

By the way, Shiny, the image you linked in this post is gone. If it's the same image in your avatar, that might explain why I don't recall seeing it when making my followup posts for "A Royal Problem".

And reposting this question. Season 7 will almost definitely still be airing new episodes when the movie comes out in theaters. How do we want to handle that? I believe GAF convention is that for movie discussion, outside of designated spoiler topics, details must be behind spoiler bars for two weeks from the release date. Is that how we want to handle it, or is there interest in creating a separate spoiler thread for the movie?

EDIT: New discussion in the Community thread: what's driving you away from the show?

 

[Ogodei]

My only clever contribution is that this episode introduced us to Pony Plenipotentiary Pinkie Pie.

 

[Conkersbadfurday]

really think it's more getting burned out on the series after seven years in the fandom than any particular grievance with the show. It's completely understandable. It'll be sad to see you go, but you're always welcome back!

When I first joined the fandom, so to speak, my initial worry was that this show would go the way of almost all long-running TV shows: Overstay its welcome and then stop being good.

As of the seventh season, I feel like that's really happening. I was down on seasons five and six to an extent, but both had a few amazing episodes to make it all worthwhile. I can't think of a real standout one this season. Maybe the one where Starlight and Maud become friends. That one was solid, but the rest have peaked at okay for me.

Not to plug shit, but at the end of season five I did a short essay-ish thing on why I left a hair sour. Never bothered to do the same with season six, but I'm really considering it with season seven. There's a lot to talk about

http://wethenerdy.com/my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic-season-5-too-much-friendship-isnt-magic/

 

[ShinySylvee]

Speaking of fan content with humor that isn't for everyone, Mentally Advanced Series is officially ending, though new episodes have been infrequent anyway. The creator has a 30 minute video explaining why, but I only listened to the first few minutes because screw that. The gist is that he's getting tired of FiM, blaming it on the fact that the characters no longer resemble the ones from season 1. Whenever people say that, it seems like they're almost always talking about how Twilight isn't as sarcastic as she used to be and nothing else.

Jeez, and I find that watching a video while writing these can sometimes get too distracting.


In addition to this post, I've seen many people on other boards react negatively to "Dance Magic", which surprised me given the positive consensus it previously had here. I guess I'll see for myself in about a week.

I watched through the whole MAS video and although I respect his decision to move on and do new things, I have to strongly disagree with a lot of the stuff he says. The big problem he has with the show is essentially that he had a vision as to what he expected the show to be and has become disinterested as it has moved away from it. To put it bluntly he wants a show where none of the characters ever achieve their personal goals and their personalities never change. He insists that Rainbow becoming a Wonderbolt is by principle a terrible idea that can never work and that it was an absolute mistake that it happened. He doesn't go into detail as much about it but he also states that Rarity becoming a successful businesspony was also a mistake. He also just doesn't talk about stuff that answers his complaints about the show. He talks about how Rainbow is uninteresting now that she's a Wonderbolt but doesn't talk about the episode that she has with her parents about being one. He talks about how all the mane 6 are completing their arcs but doesn't talk about the show's concentrated effort to introduce new characters to fill that void. He spends like 30 seconds talking about Starlight and doesn't even explain how he actually feels about her despite her being essentially the main character of the show now. He also brings up a bunch of problems with the show (such as its lack of consistency among writers) that have frankly been in the show since its conception. Like I can understand not liking the show because it moved away from the direction he would have personally liked, and also I think that a large part of it might just be burnout, but most his points feel inconsistent and don't hold up to scrutiny to me.


I have ADD so actively focusing on one thing is kinda hard for me. Funnily enough I think those fidget spinners that are making the rounds would probably be helpful for me.


As for Dance Magic I think there's two things that are causing that divide between this board's (And I think it's mainly been me being so vocally positive of the episode, I only remember a couple others commenting on it although they were praising it as well) opinion and others: First is that everyone else has terrible taste. (Kappa) And second is something that I kinda don't want to go in super deep due to potential spoilers but I will say that it features something that I (And a lot of other people on this board) REALLY like, and it's something that others might not care as much for.

I think the the problem with this was that Sunset was already made to fill that role and it would be immediately threading the same ground from the last movie. Maybe if they never went with Sunset they could have attempted it?.

Also as smart as Pony Twlight she's been prone to doing some really dumb stuff so i could see why they would use a slightly different take of that aspect (where her extreme curiosity is overriding her common sense). Its why that scene of Sunset chewing her out is a good one in that it shows that Sunset is right but also places her in a bad light due to some of her "villain" quirks reappearing while clashing with her "heroic" ones.


As for the Sunset/Starlight stuff i'm a big fan of Sunset (which could be due to her appearing first like Sigma mentioned lol) but i see Starlight as better written due to having the actual time to show her reformation (though i feel Sunset's redemption is much stronger right now). I might be the only fan that's 99% cool with Sunset's as i believe in that "cold turkey" turn wherein something hits you so fucking hard you start to take notice and make adjustments accordingly (which might just stem from the strong christian values i grew up with) but showing that change and placing some time on it would have helped showing others.

Still rooting for both of them

I'm not sure that's the case that they were afraid of making SciTwi too similar to Sunset given that in Legend of Everfree they added in another love interest and in the 3 specials they add in a villain who is extremely similar to Starlight in terms of her character arc. I feel like it wouldn't have been too difficult to make SciTwi more of an active antagonist while still being different enough from Sunset.

And although I'm usually very critical of Sunset here I think it's worth mentioning that I'm largely trying to voice some criticisms of her that I feel generally don't get mentioned a whole lot looking around other places. I have a lot of fun with her but at the same time she definitely has many shortcomings as well that I think are worth talking about.




@ Discussion surrounding "Not Asking for Trouble"

I still haven't gotten around to finishing watching the episode. Although I get that they're supposed to be silly the Yaks are really obnoxious to me, especially in this episode. Pinkie is certainly handled better here then how she has been as of late but the whole affair seemed like it was just going to be a bunch of Pinkie saying the Yaks needing help and the Yaks refusing until something finally happened and they got help. Similar to something like Applebuck Season but worse. I generally despise those kinds of plots so I just lost interest and as of now don't really have any desire to finish watching it. I usually watch the episodes multiple times because I watch them later with other groups of people so I'll end up seeing it eventually but I'm probably not going to see it until then which is probably going to be several months from now.

When I first joined the fandom, so to speak, my initial worry was that this show would go the way of almost all long-running TV shows: Overstay its welcome and then stop being good.

As of the seventh season, I feel like that's really happening. I was down on seasons five and six to an extent, but both had a few amazing episodes to make it all worthwhile. I can't think of a real standout one this season. Maybe the one where Starlight and Maud become friends. That one was solid, but the rest have peaked at okay for me.

Not to plug shit, but at the end of season five I did a short essay-ish thing on why I left a hair sour. Never bothered to do the same with season six, but I'm really considering it with season seven. There's a lot to talk about

http://wethenerdy.com/my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic-season-5-too-much-friendship-isnt-magic/

Reading through your article you wrote it feels like you've sort of grown tired with a lot of the themes of the show and have lost interest because of it. You do make a good argument that the show has shifted to Friendship being the end goal of the show rather then a biproduct of it, but I don't see how you can spin that as a definitively bad thing, just something that is different. I personally have liked a lot of the tonal changes that Season 5 brought on, and seeing stuff like EQD's favorite season poll and Reddit's episode survey a lot of other people liked it too as Season 5 is considered by many people to be the best season of the show. But it definitely had some changes in the overall tone of the show and like all changes that is going to cause problems for some people because everyone has their own reasons as to why they like something, and that change might end up removing that thing they liked.

As a personal example I despise The Force Awakens, even though I don't think it's necessarily a terrible movie. It essentially took out a lot of the stuff that made me really like the franchise as a whole and to me felt like it was a parasite that was leeching off of the previous successes of the franchise to the point where it offered little that I feel like it could call its own. As a whole I don't have much interest in where the Star Wars franchise goes under Disney's leadership but at the same time I don't think that what they're releasing now is any worse quality-wise as episodes 1 and 2 from Lucas.

Overall I don't think that the show has had a definitive drop in quality compared to previous seasons. There's always been good and bad episodes, even in the best and worst overall seasons. You could argue that there's a higher concentration of weaker episodes this season but I think a lot of that is due to there being so many new writers on the show now who aren't experienced. I still feel like there's been several standout great episodes this season. I feel like a lot of shows that end up declining in quality do so because either the people that made the show good in the first place no longer work on the show and the new recruits can't measure up, or the people producing the show just lose interest in it and let things fall apart knowing that there'll still be a faithful group of people that will still watch it. I don't think either of those are happening with MLP because there's still great writers for the show in my opinion (Confalone, Lewis & Songco, Vogel who will be writing in season 8, Josh Hamilton the writer of Parental Glideance, and Berrow if she actually writes interesting stories like she's perfectly capable of but for some reason hasn't been doing much of in the actual show) and given that there's a movie and potentially a full spin-off series on the show coming out I think it's clear that the producers are definitely pushing as hard as ever for the show. I can understand not caring for the show anymore due to many of the changes that they've made in recent years but I just don't think that there has been any significant drop in quality in the show so far that merits saying that it's glory days are long past and that it should be put out of its misery

 

[Conkersbadfurday]

I watched through the whole MAS video and although I respect his decision to move on and do new things, I have to strongly disagree with a lot of the stuff he says. The big problem he has with the show is essentially that he had a vision as to what he expected the show to be and has become disinterested as it has moved away from it. To put it bluntly he wants a show where none of the characters ever achieve their personal goals and their personalities never change.

There's a high subjectivity to this discussion, but:

When characters achieve their goals they're either done or need new goals. That he says Twi's RBD's, and Rarity's arcs are over isn't really wrong. I like Rarity a lot, but I don't think she's been well written this season because there's nothing left to do with her other than harp on her FASHION character trait. She's become one-note. The show had some opportunity with her Sweetie Bell episode to do something new, but I don't really think it worked.

RBD has achieved her main goal. I mean, from a story perspective, she's done. She's complete. It's either that or give her a new goal.

But the last two seasons I think the main six could benefit from new hobbies/traits. They've been set-in-stone for a long time, and they no longer feel like people because of it.

Reading through your article you wrote it feels like you've sort of grown tired with a lot of the themes of the show and have lost interest because of it.

You wrote a lot, but this is the crux, and it's probably the truth. There's a personal post on whether I need this show in my life or not (it came about when I was going through a rough breakup and trying to find a job in a bad market), and now that my life has turned around, the show just doesn't fill the void it needs to.

But then again, at a certain point I've just had my fill. Seven seasons is a lot. I read the comics too. Hell, I get review copies. I haven't reviewed an MLP comic in a few months because I've run out of things to say. Even the good ones, I could copy/paste old reviews and hit submit. There's a new one out next week that ties in with some stuff, but my focus is on a torrent of Image books instead, because they're still new.

It's possible I just need a new show.

It sucks though, because I like this show enough to not want to drift away from it. It's been a part of my life for seven years now. That's fucking significant.

 

[SigmasonicX]

I watched through the whole MAS video and although I respect his decision to move on and do new things, I have to strongly disagree with a lot of the stuff he says. The big problem he has with the show is essentially that he had a vision as to what he expected the show to be and has become disinterested as it has moved away from it. To put it bluntly he wants a show where none of the characters ever achieve their personal goals and their personalities never change. He insists that Rainbow becoming a Wonderbolt is by principle a terrible idea that can never work and that it was an absolute mistake that it happened. He doesn't go into detail as much about it but he also states that Rarity becoming a successful businesspony was also a mistake. He also just doesn't talk about stuff that answers his complaints about the show. He talks about how Rainbow is uninteresting now that she's a Wonderbolt but doesn't talk about the episode that she has with her parents about being one. He talks about how all the mane 6 are completing their arcs but doesn't talk about the show's concentrated effort to introduce new characters to fill that void. He spends like 30 seconds talking about Starlight and doesn't even explain how he actually feels about her despite her being essentially the main character of the show now. He also brings up a bunch of problems with the show (such as its lack of consistency among writers) that have frankly been in the show since its conception. Like I can understand not liking the show because it moved away from the direction he would have personally liked, and also I think that a large part of it might just be burnout, but most his points feel inconsistent and don't hold up to scrutiny to me.

Just going off of what you wrote, I do agree with the general idea that Dash becoming a Wonderbolt was mishandled, but I disagree with him in that I think Dash is much better off being a Wonderbolt than being in that strange limbo where she was good enough to be a Wonderbolt and all the Wonderbolts acknowledged that but she wasn't. For Rarity, "Honest Apple" actually did present an interesting direction for her, but the actual episode didn't do much with it. I hope to see more of her using her status to help others in the fashion industry. Anyway, it sounds like what I suspected: just a general waning interest in the show that he's trying to justify.

I have ADD so actively focusing on one thing is kinda hard for me. Funnily enough I think those fidget spinners that are making the rounds would probably be helpful for me.

Nothing funny about it, because that's actually what they're meant to be used for!

And although I'm usually very critical of Sunset here I think it's worth mentioning that I'm largely trying to voice some criticisms of her that I feel generally don't get mentioned a whole lot looking around other places. I have a lot of fun with her but at the same time she definitely has many shortcomings as well that I think are worth talking about.

I'll clarify that this is my view on Sunset too.

@ Discussion surrounding "Not Asking for Trouble"

I still haven't gotten around to finishing watching the episode. Although I get that they're supposed to be silly the Yaks are really obnoxious to me, especially in this episode. Pinkie is certainly handled better here then how she has been as of late but the whole affair seemed like it was just going to be a bunch of Pinkie saying the Yaks needing help and the Yaks refusing until something finally happened and they got help. Similar to something like Applebuck Season but worse. I generally despise those kinds of plots so I just lost interest and as of now don't really have any desire to finish watching it. I usually watch the episodes multiple times because I watch them later with other groups of people so I'll end up seeing it eventually but I'm probably not going to see it until then which is probably going to be several months from now.

Fair enough. I consider the first third to be the strongest part, and if you got past that, then there's really not much else to look forward to besides Pinkie's goat story.

There's a high subjectivity to this discussion, but:

When characters achieve their goals they're either done or need new goals. That he says Twi's RBD's, and Rarity's arcs are over isn't really wrong. I like Rarity a lot, but I don't think she's been well written this season because there's nothing left to do with her other than harp on her FASHION character trait. She's become one-note. The show had some opportunity with her Sweetie Bell episode to do something new, but I don't really think it worked.

RBD has achieved her main goal. I mean, from a story perspective, she's done. She's complete. It's either that or give her a new goal.

But the last two seasons I think the main six could benefit from new hobbies/traits. They've been set-in-stone for a long time, and they no longer feel like people because of it.

I do agree that they should be doing more to give the Main Six new goals, especially since it doesn't look like the show will end anytime soon. Like I mentioned, they did start to give Rarity a new goal in "Honest Apple", with her helping up-and-comers in the fashion world, and it could be interesting to see more of that. One area to explore would be to have pairs of ponies share interest in something not yet explored much in the show: for example, maybe Rarity and Twilight have a shared interest in morning jogs. I wouldn't say they no longer feel like people, but it's true we don't see them strive for anything anymore.

You wrote a lot, but this is the crux, and it's probably the truth. There's a personal post on whether I need this show in my life or not (it came about when I was going through a rough breakup and trying to find a job in a bad market), and now that my life has turned around, the show just doesn't fill the void it needs to.

But then again, at a certain point I've just had my fill. Seven seasons is a lot. I read the comics too. Hell, I get review copies. I haven't reviewed an MLP comic in a few months because I've run out of things to say. Even the good ones, I could copy/paste old reviews and hit submit. There's a new one out next week that ties in with some stuff, but my focus is on a torrent of Image books instead, because they're still new.

It's possible I just need a new show.

It sucks though, because I like this show enough to not want to drift away from it. It's been a part of my life for seven years now. That's fucking significant.

Maybe the best route would be to continue coming to this thread and interacting with the fan community, but only watch episodes that sound interesting.

 

[ShinySylvee]

There's a high subjectivity to this discussion, but:

When characters achieve their goals they're either done or need new goals. That he says Twi's RBD's, and Rarity's arcs are over isn't really wrong. I like Rarity a lot, but I don't think she's been well written this season because there's nothing left to do with her other than harp on her FASHION character trait. She's become one-note. The show had some opportunity with her Sweetie Bell episode to do something new, but I don't really think it worked.

RBD has achieved her main goal. I mean, from a story perspective, she's done. She's complete. It's either that or give her a new goal.

But the last two seasons I think the main six could benefit from new hobbies/traits. They've been set-in-stone for a long time, and they no longer feel like people because of it.


You wrote a lot, but this is the crux, and it's probably the truth. There's a personal post on whether I need this show in my life or not (it came about when I was going through a rough breakup and trying to find a job in a bad market), and now that my life has turned around, the show just doesn't fill the void it needs to.

But then again, at a certain point I've just had my fill. Seven seasons is a lot. I read the comics too. Hell, I get review copies. I haven't reviewed an MLP comic in a few months because I've run out of things to say. Even the good ones, I could copy/paste old reviews and hit submit. There's a new one out next week that ties in with some stuff, but my focus is on a torrent of Image books instead, because they're still new.

It's possible I just need a new show.

It sucks though, because I like this show enough to not want to drift away from it. It's been a part of my life for seven years now. That's fucking significant.

One of the big things about the characters and goals regarding this show I feel is that they were never portrayed as something of a joke, like Tom catching Jerry or Mr Crocker proving that Fairies exist. These were goals that the characters themselves were actively working to achieve and as an audience we are expected to get behind their endeavors, so in context of Greg's points (I believe that's his name) the idea that they should never actually reach their "endgame" in their careers is just flat out wrong for me. And ultimately if you were to forever prevent them from reaching it then either the show would have had to show the characters making no progress towards achieving their goals or completely ignored them attempting to achieve their dreams altogether. And from a story creation standpoint I don't see how either of those options are better then having them work towards and accomplish their goals, and then figuring out what to do with them from there.

And the idea that the character ceases to be interesting once they achieve their main goal in life isn't true for me in a show like this where there are episodes where the character's primary thing they do doesn't even come up. Rarity Investigates is an episode that could have happened in any point of the show's history provided you change the crime that Rainbow was framed for to something that makes sense in terms of the narrative. On the other side of the coin Parental Glideance was a generally really well-received episode and it was enabled by the fact that Rainbow was a Wonderbolt.

Now you can argue that they haven't been doing a good job at keeping these characters relevant in the face of them achieving their goals, and to a degree I would agree with you, but that's not because it's impossible, just that they haven't really tried all that much. Honestly I think one of the bigger problems is that last season and especially this season the top writers for the show have been largely making episodes that are based around secondary and recurring characters rather then the Mane 6. Many of the few that they have done for the Mane 6 have been great (Stranger Than Fan Fiction, Top Bolt, and Saddle Row Review are ones that fall into this category) but they just aren't getting that many episodes from the show's top staff.


Also yeah I write a lot but that was basically the gist of what I was getting at. I was initially going to write that maybe something changed in your life that might have caused the show's themes to be less palatable to you, but I totally spaced and forgot to write it lol. You can look at the number of viewers for each episode of the show that watched it live and see that the viewers are a 3rd of what it used to be. (Although there's a lot of other factors that effect this too) For whatever reason MLP just seems like a show that a lot of people move on from at some point. I did for a couple years too and I'm as into the show now as I've ever been. If it feels like keeping up with the show is work rather then something that you do for fun maybe you should try taking a break from the show for a bit and then come back and see if you like it better.

Just going off of what you wrote, I do agree with the general idea that Dash becoming a Wonderbolt was mishandled, but I disagree with him in that I think Dash is much better off being a Wonderbolt than being in that strange limbo where she was good enough to be a Wonderbolt and all the Wonderbolts acknowledged that but she wasn't. For Rarity, "Honest Apple" actually did present an interesting direction for her, but the actual episode didn't do much with it. I hope to see more of her using her status to help others in the fashion industry. Anyway, it sounds like what I suspected: just a general waning interest in the show that he's trying to justify.


Nothing funny about it, because that's actually what they're meant to be used for!


I do agree that they should be doing more to give the Main Six new goals, especially since it doesn't look like the show will end anytime soon. Like I mentioned, they did start to give Rarity a new goal in "Honest Apple", with her helping up-and-comers in the fashion world, and it could be interesting to see more of that. One area to explore would be to have pairs of ponies share interest in something not yet explored much in the show: for example, maybe Rarity and Twilight have a shared interest in morning jogs. I wouldn't say they no longer feel like people, but it's true we don't see them strive for anything anymore.

Yeah what you said was pretty much what I got from it. He makes a couple valid points but the whole thing just feels like a bunch of excuses to justify him not liking the show anymore and a lot of his major points don't really hold up to scrutiny IMO.


I mainly found it funny because I imagine the overwhelming majority of the people that play with those spinners aren't people with Autism or ADD and are just messing with them because they think they're cool. It's so common for people that probably don't benefit from them to use them that someone that would likely actually benefit from using them using them seems almost like a foreign concept. That being said reading how they're suppsoed to help with being anxious or having nervous energy which I generally don't have problems with so if anything I think it would just be distracting.


I don't think that the characters need long-term goals to be interesting. Pinkie, Fluttershy, and AJ all have never really had any aspirations beyond what they've been doing (with some exception for Fluttershy) and they've been interesting characters over the years. Although I would like to see more from Twilight since despite being a princess now I still think she has a lot of room to grow. I believe that Lauren Faust's original end game for her was to be the successor to Celestia, and in context of that I think she still has a ton of development to be had

 

[Conkersbadfurday]

One of the big things about the characters and goals regarding this show I feel is that they were never portrayed as something of a joke, like Tom catching Jerry or Mr Crocker proving that Fairies exist. These were goals that the characters themselves were actively working to achieve and as an audience we are expected to get behind their endeavors, so in context of Greg's points (I believe that's his name) the idea that they should never actually reach their "endgame" in their careers is just flat out wrong for me. And ultimately if you were to forever prevent them from reaching it then either the show would have had to show the characters making no progress towards achieving their goals or completely ignored them attempting to achieve their dreams altogether. And from a story creation standpoint I don't see how either of those options are better then having them work towards and accomplish their goals, and then figuring out what to do with them from there.

See, I disagree with you then, because their goals never felt achievable for them. I'm still not entirely sure what The Wonderbolts do, but Rainbowdash never felt like she had the smarts or maturity to actually become one. Now she's there, and I still don't think she has the smarts or maturity to be one.

But I still don't exactly know what she does in them.

If I'm honest, I quite enjoyed the episode where she became a Wonderbolt. It was fun, and I was happy for her. But since then her Wonderbolt episodes boil down to, "shenanigans" and she hasn't looked to do something new. If the show is going to continue, she needs to move her goalposts. Right now she's just...Rainbow Dash. And I've had six and a half seasons of that.

And the idea that the character ceases to be interesting once they achieve their main goal in life isn't true for me in a show like this where there are episodes where the character's primary thing they do doesn't even come up. Rarity Investigates is an episode that could have happened in any point of the show's history provided you change the crime that Rainbow was framed for to something that makes sense in terms of the narrative. On the other side of the coin Parental Glideance was a generally really well-received episode and it was enabled by the fact that Rainbow was a Wonderbolt.

Conflict drives stories. Rainbow Dash trying to become a Wonderbolt was a nice conflict, because as you said, it wasn't a joke goal. It was something she seriously wanted, so you were invested. But the conflicts after the fact have been pretty weak, like the show's just spinning its wheels.

To be honest, of all the main characters, Rarity is the one who is the one that has the most to work with here, since she's got the sociopolitical drama of Canterlot to deal with. I'm not sure how suited some of that is to a kid's show though.

I'd also just rather her grab a new hobby for a bit, even if it's something silly. Starlight flying a kite was super cute and really added to her character, even if the scene was small and more of a joke than actual development.

Honestly I think one of the bigger problems is that last season and especially this season the top writers for the show have been largely making episodes that are based around secondary and recurring characters rather then the Mane 6. Many of the few that they have done for the Mane 6 have been great (Stranger Than Fan Fiction, Top Bolt, and Saddle Row Review are ones that fall into this category) but they just aren't getting that many episodes from the show's top staff.

I agree with you here.

I don't think that the characters need long-term goals to be interesting. Pinkie, Fluttershy, and AJ all have never really had any aspirations beyond what they've been doing (with some exception for Fluttershy) and they've been interesting characters over the years. Although I would like to see more from Twilight since despite being a princess now I still think she has a lot of room to grow. I believe that Lauren Faust's original end game for her was to be the successor to Celestia, and in context of that I think she still has a ton of development to be had

I actually disagree here. AJ's a great voice of reason when working with a cast, but the episodes where she's just by herself all boil down to apples and family. Like Rarity, there's just not enough there anymore. She needs something new.

I'd say the same goes for Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy as well, though to a much lesser extent with Fluttershy. Pinkie's a great gag character, and the show has managed to do some great things with her--both jokingly and emotionally--but she's so fucking hard to write and it shows. She jumps between "great" and "exhausting" between episodes.

 

[Trigonometrize.]

I don't really see much having changed with the characters and their stories just because they have attained goal X and hold career Y. Parental Glidance, for example, feels just as nuanced, entertaining, and endears you to the characters just as much as Wonderbolt Academy.

I think the show could benefit from reaching into the past a bit. Expand the premise of Forever Filly to all of the Mane 6 and their interactions. Maybe have Pinkie Pie want to catch up with Rainbow Dash through pranking to relive the good ol' days of Griffon the Brush Off but realize that she's matured past that point and doesn't really want to hang out in that kind of way. Maybe have Rainbow Dash try and give advice to Starlight on what kind of pet she should get. And I might be a little crazy here, but maybe show that Ponyville has grown a bit apart and isn't its old, jubilant self, so RD creates a fake winter and tries to force a winter wrap up to band everyone together. Twilight is nostalgic but still has to clean up Dash's terrible idea.

 

[Ogodei]

The only problem with character advancement is when the writers want to write an episode that would have fit with the Season 1 or Season 2 characterizations of the Mane Six. "Cart Before the Ponies" or the episode with Rarity and Sweetie Belle this season relied on folks forgetting past character development.

Of course, the problem with some long-running shows is that they create drama when a major conflict is resolved. I followed Desperate Housewives back in the day, and a lot of what they did felt so contrived: folks would get through an issue like Gabriel cheating on Carlos, then Carlos went to jail and came back, then Carlos went blind, etc. Of course that show was deliberately playing on soap opera tropes, but that's an example of the sort of thing to avoid, so it's hard to replace old problems and conflicts with new problems and conflicts in a way that doesn't feel contrived.

 

[SigmasonicX]

I don't really see much having changed with the characters and their stories just because they have attained goal X and hold career Y. Parental Glidance, for example, feels just as nuanced, entertaining, and endears you to the characters just as much as Wonderbolt Academy.

I think the show could benefit from reaching into the past a bit. Expand the premise of Forever Filly to all of the Mane 6 and their interactions. Maybe have Pinkie Pie want to catch up with Rainbow Dash through pranking to relive the good ol' days of Griffon the Brush Off but realize that she's matured past that point and doesn't really want to hang out in that kind of way.

A bit unbelievable when "28 Pranks Later" last season revealed she's even worse about pranking now that she's a Wonderbolt =P

The only problem with character advancement is when the writers want to write an episode that would have fit with the Season 1 or Season 2 characterizations of the Mane Six. "Cart Before the Ponies" or the episode with Rarity and Sweetie Belle this season relied on folks forgetting past character development.

The exact problem with "28 Pranks Later". Like I mentioned when it aired, that episode probably would have been amazing back in season 1, but Dash's sudden loss of maturity really brought it down. As for "Forever Filly", while I understand people finding Rarity insufferable in it, I don't see how it forgets past character development.

On the subject of how to reinvigorate interactions between the Main Six, a reference to Sugar Belle in ED's "Not Asking for Trouble" follow up made me realize a great way to do it: have side characters shake things up and create conflicts between the Main Six! Though I suppose Trigonometrize's post also referenced this idea.

For example, maybe Sugar Belle decides to move to Ponyville (though there probably should be an episode exploring her deciding to move to be closer to her boyfriend instead of having that be off screen), and she opens a new sweets shop that becomes popular. This really upsets the Cakes, who haven't had much competition in town before. Applejack is on Sugar Belle's side in the conflict, and Pinkie is torn about what to do.

Maybe they can explore how Rarity is friends with Strawberry Sunrise, who Applejack dislikes. Maybe Discord starts becoming close with Rarity of all ponies and Fluttershy becomes jealous. That sort of thing.

Oh, and maybe have Starlight interact with Main Six other than Twilight. Just maybe.

NOTES
Something I didn't quite get (and I'm thankfully not alone) that I've seen pointed out on other boards is that yak culture expects people to help others in need without them asking for help. That's why Rutherford was so opposed to outright asking for help, but was grateful when he got it. They really should have done more to hint at this, like we casually see scenes of yaks helping others throughout the episode, and we overhear yaks grumbling about when will the pink pony get a clue already--that could even work as something we interpret differently before and after the reveal.

And minor thing from "A Royal Problem" I somehow missed.

Daybreaker's color scheme is basically just Nightmare Moon's inverted.

SCREENSHOTS
Round Stable screenshots
Yak mailbag
Impressive statues
Pinkie eating cake face (embedded)

GIFS
Rarin' to go (embedded)
Pinkie's magical entrance to the map room
Pinkie waving her arms
Pinkie getting her ambassador badge
Hair and ambassador badge (embedded)
Stompin' on the ground
Yaks eating cakes
Pinkie eating cake

Pinkie spinning out of snow
Drill hair
Gummy eating snow
Gummy licking Pinkie's face
Pinkie eating snow cake (embedded)
Goat sandstorm
Sneaky ponies
Alicorns too OP, plz nerf
Horn bump

FAN CONTENT
Yeah, still not much. And it's mostly just Pinkie. I'll actually include this episode's art first so the other episode art doesn't show it up.

Also, in the past, I've followed the rule that art for older episodes goes to Community instead of here, but I realized I was being pretty arbitrary about the cutoff, so screw it, all season 7 art will be in this thread now.

Not Asking for Trouble
Pink Yak by Assassinmonkey
I'm a Honorary Yak Y'all!
Pink Pony by RavenSunArt

Dinkie Pinkie Yak Pie
I noticed that this helmet looks a lot like it belongs in Skyrim
Stomp

Pink Pony by crazydoodleman144 - Made three weeks ago.
Pink Pony by wacky-skiff - Made four weeks ago.
Maybe a headband works better, Pinkie - Made four weeks ago. I was wondering why I hadn't seen this artist before, but apparently they only started a month ago. They're running a Pinkie Pie Daily blog, and like usual, they stopped actually making them daily, but the last update was pretty recent.
My Little Bovine - Made four weeks ago.

Movie
Might as well include movie art here too.
Captain Celaeno

All Bottled Up
Trixie Magic Animated - Animated version of this Racoonkun art. Not embedding due to the GIF size, even when shrunk down.

Rock Solid Friendship
Starlight Glimmer by pimander1446
Kite t-shirt design

Forever Filly
Cosplay

Parental Glideance
Some Father's Day art came out for this episode, which I'll also post in Community. Plus some more.
Spending some quality time together
Happy Father's Day - Dash's dad is saying "Strongest Daughter Ever".
Happy Father's Day 2017 by JohnJoseco

Windy Plane
Dashie's family

Honest Apple
Inky Vampire
Inky Rose by tyuubatu

The below are all from zanefir-dran.
Starstreak
Lily Lace
Inky Rose

A Delicious Decision
Eat It
Apple Duty

Guitar Lesson

A Royal Problem
I did a big follow up on Friday, and already there's a bunch of new art!
Celestia Bakes Pancakes
Pointy Ponies - A Royal Problem

Welcome to My World
Nightmare Star V Daybreaker - Text is just them being catty.
Daybreaker Chibi Pony

Comforting Music - Glad that Inconvenient Trixie is still a thing.
Doll on a music box - On one hand, ugh Flash. On the other, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Twilararirina - Took long enough.
Envy - I intentionally didn't include this last round up, since it's pretty similar to other art I've posted, but I've reconsidered. It's paired up with this art, which I did post.

Comics
Not Asking for Trouble - Important Simulation
Honest Apple - Rolling
Honest Apple - Honesty
A Royal Problem - Un-ception

==

New European comic about Rarity. No translation yet, the story appears to involve everyone making their own dresses to throw a party to cheer her up, and as it usually goes, they end up making the gala dresses. As soon as they showed Twilight in her old library, I started looking for a continuity error, and sure enough, there's Starlight and Sunburst! Oh, and the CMC have their cutie marks. Surprisingly, they gave Starlight a custom gala dress. Sunburst has a lazy suit design. EDIT: Oh, and apparently the dialogue even refers to Twilight's old library as the Friendship Castle!

ED visits the MLP lounge at BookCon 2017, and there's some interesting stuff there, including the previously unseen cover for the adult-aimed coloring book that was announced a while ago.

We also have more art from the upcoming Golden Books, and they look incredibly adorable.

EDIT: Augmented Reality Coloring Books. What the hell is that? It actually looks pretty neat. You color in the page, then an app will color a 3D model using that color information.

 

[Conkersbadfurday]

So on a completely unrelated note, I just watched Dance Magic and actually really liked it. I'd say it's the first EQG thing that I enjoyed. The conflict was fairly tropey as far as highschool stuff is concerned (dance competition thing), but the music video added a bit of a twist, and the characters were all written pretty well. Rarity was done right.

And hell, the song was catchy and the video was fun to see. I mean, it would be impossible to put that all together in less than 24 hours. I edit video stuff for work sometimes, and that shit takes awhile. You can't just get it all in one cut.



I hope i like the other two as well. I'll get to them later in the week.

New pony comic out this week. Embargo isn't until Tuesday so I dunno what I can and can't say. Crazy that they hit 55 of of them though.

 

[SigmasonicX]

So on a completely unrelated note, I just watched Dance Magic and actually really liked it. I'd say it's the first EQG thing that I enjoyed. The conflict was fairly tropey as far as highschool stuff is concerned (dance competition thing), but the music video added a bit of a twist, and the characters were all written pretty well. Rarity was done right.

And hell, the song was catchy and the video was fun to see. I mean, it would be impossible to put that all together in less than 24 hours. I edit video stuff for work sometimes, and that shit takes awhile. You can't just get it all in one cut.



I hope i like the other two as well. I'll get to them later in the week.

New pony comic out this week. Embargo isn't until Tuesday so I dunno what I can and can't say. Crazy that they hit 55 of of them though.

Glad to see you liked it, though you should know that around here, it's by far considered the best of the specials, so the others might not be to your liking. None of the specials have aired in the US yet ("Dance Magic" will be on Saturday), so remember to use spoiler tags. I think this post is fine, so you don't have to add any.

Oh, and I forgot to bring this up before. As a reminder, episode 12 is airing in Australia on June 20 at 3:40 PM Sydney time, which is equivalent to June 19 10:40 PM Pacific Daylight Time, and episode 13 the following day. The US airings of those episodes aren't expected to be until August, so remember to use spoiler tags.

 

[ShinySylvee]

So on a completely unrelated note, I just watched Dance Magic and actually really liked it. I'd say it's the first EQG thing that I enjoyed. The conflict was fairly tropey as far as highschool stuff is concerned (dance competition thing), but the music video added a bit of a twist, and the characters were all written pretty well. Rarity was done right.

And hell, the song was catchy and the video was fun to see. I mean, it would be impossible to put that all together in less than 24 hours. I edit video stuff for work sometimes, and that shit takes awhile. You can't just get it all in one cut.



I hope i like the other two as well. I'll get to them later in the week.

Glad you liked the episode. It was written by Gillian Berrow, who's the main author of the official MLP books that are released (which I've plugged several times but they're great I would highly recommend checking them out) and although she's struggled with coming up with interesting premises for episodes so far (her 2 previous ones being The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows and Fluttershy Leans In) she really knows her shit when it comes to the characters, and it really shows in this episode. EQG has always been an extremely tropey series so it doesn't really bother me here. (Every single movie and special besides Mirror Magic is all based on some popular high school show trope. You got the school dance, battle of the bands, school rivalry, and summer camp covered so far) And I found the music video to be a very satisfying payoff for all the events leading up to it. It also looked really cool despite some recycled animations during it.


There are some scenes of Mirror Magic in the first half that I really liked, (Basically all of them that didn't involve the villain) and a lot of the visuals of Movie Magic are pretty cool too. Aside from that I feel like the other two episodes for the most part range from aggressively boring to offensively bad. You might like Mirror Magic a bit more then I did because Dave Polsky co-wrote that episode and you might be a bigger fan of his work then I am but I would not go into these episodes expecting much.

Oh, and I forgot to bring this up before. As a reminder, episode 12 is airing in Australia on June 20 at 3:40 PM Sydney time, which is equivalent to June 19 10:40 PM Pacific Daylight Time, and episode 13 the following day. The US airings of those episodes aren't expected to be until August, so remember to use spoiler tags.

Those really snuck up on me. It's kinda depressing to me that I'll still be working when those episodes air. Curious to see who ends up writing those episodes. Pretty sure both of them have to be newcomers since Lewis and Songco wrote episode 10. Best case scenario Josh Hamilton wrote Perfect Pear since he did a great job with Parental Glideance, although it would be weird if his first two episodes both had to deal with creating parents for characters that previously didn't have any.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Uh, so, this is kind of a shock. Joe Ballarini, the Ice Age 4 guy, did an AMA recently, and apparently he's still a writer for the movie. His Twitter profile even says as much. Didn't they explicitly stop labeling him as the writer in press releases? Anyway, despite the first movie press release, Joe apparently played such a minor role in Ice Age 4 that he isn't even credited for it, so maybe it won't be so bad. EDIT 3: Went to the article used in the movie announcement thread, and they edited out the mentions of him being an Ice Age 4 writer. Compare what's in the thread to what's now in the article.

Joe Ballarini, who wrote Fox's ”Ice Age: Continental Drift" is penning the script for the ”Pony" pic, while Megan McCarthy, who produces and has written for the series ”My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic," and straight-to-homevideo ”My Little Pony: Equestria Girls" films, will serve as co-executive producer on the theatrical movie.

vs.

Joe Ballarini, who previously wrote ”Atlantis 7" for Walden Media, 21 Laps and Gotham Group; ”Lockdown at Franklin High" for Sony; and was recently tapped to adapt the graphic novel ”Cardboard" for Fox Animation; will pen the script for the ”Pony" pic, while Megan McCarthy, who produces and has written for the series ”My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic" and straight-to-homevideo ”My Little Pony: Equestria Girls" films, will serve as co-executive producer on the theatrical movie. Ballarini is repped by Paradigm and Apostle.

Since ED started posting them, I suppose I will too. IDW comic sales for March show all three MLP releases in IDW's top 10, all close to 10,000 copies (physical). Granted, all are past the 200th best selling comic that month, but it is what it is.

And the MLP RPG expansion book Curse of the Statuettes is out! No description of the campaign, but the cover art is nice.

And I'll edit/post the episode details for "Discordant Harmony" later. Note that apparently streaming parties will be difficult, because it's airing on a channel only available in very expensive cable packages.

EDIT 1: Pinkie Pie Says Goodnight: Confusing

And apparently, the only guy we know for sure is streaming the episode is doing so with a camera facing the TV. So even if the episode goes online, it's probably going to be potato quality.

EDIT 2: Hey DrForester, what image is supposed to be in this Round Stable post you made? Something to do with the IDW comic artist Fosgitt?

EDIT 4: Today's episode is:
In Australia
12. Discordant Harmony (No US airdate yet)
When Discord invites Fluttershy to his realm for tea, he worries she won't be comfortable there and begins to change it and himself with disastrous results.

Episodes that can be discussed freely
1. Celestial Advice - Twilight Sparkle agonizes over Starlight Glimmer's future and receives some much-needed advice from her very own mentor – Princess Celestia.
2. All Bottled Up - While the Mane 6 are on a friendship retreat, Starlight Glimmer loses Twilight Sparkle's friendship map. Afraid her anger might get out of control, Starlight Glimmer casts a calming spell while the ponies search for the lost map.
3. A Flurry of Emotions - After planning a jam-packed day, Twilight Sparkle also agrees to babysit her niece, Flurry Heart. But with Flurry Heart along for the ride, Twilight Sparkle struggles to maintain her title as 'The Best Aunt Ever' while keeping Flurry Heart out of trouble!
4. Rock Solid Friendship - When Pinkie Pie learns that Maud might move to Ponyville, she does everything she can to make sure her sister sees that it has more to offer than just rocks.
5. Fluttershy Leans In - Fluttershy is determined to make her career dreams come true with the help of some very special ponies. But when her true vision is not being executed properly, she must find a way to stand up and fight for her ideas.
6. Forever Filly - When Rarity surprises Sweetie Belle with a special day together filled with all of her favorite activities, she quickly learns that her little sister is no longer the little foal she used to be.
7. Parental Glideance - When Rainbow Dash's parents discover she's a Wonderbolt, they show up at every event to cheer her on. However, their unabashed enthusiasm proves to be rather embarrassing and pushes Rainbow Dash to the brink.
8. Hard to Say Anything - When the Cutie Mark Crusaders discover that Big Mac has his first crush, they vow to help him win Sugar Belle's heart before Feather Bangs does it first.
9. Honest Apple - When Rarity asks Applejack to be a judge in a fashion show, Applejack learns that an opinion, however honest, can still be hurtful.
10. A Royal Problem - Starlight Glimmer is sent to solve a friendship problem between Princess Celestia and Princess Luna; when it's clear that the problem is that the royal sisters don't appreciate one another, Starlight impulsively switches their cutie marks!
11. Not Asking for Trouble - Pinkie Pie visits Prince Rutherford and the Yaks. While there an avalanche falls on the entire rustic village of Yakyakistan. Pinkie Pie suggests that she go to get the other ponies to help but the proud Prince and Yaks refuse.

EDIT 5: I need deets, how starchy was this potato?

 

[DemWalls]

EDIT 5: I need deets, how starchy was this potato?

It's 380p (???), so... well, at least it's not camera-pointed-to-a-screen quality.

Anyway, I have watched just the beginning out of curiosity, and the episode is written by the Foxes. Let's hope for the best, though my expectations are low as always. At least this means they almost certainly have not written The Perfect Pear.

 

[ShinySylvee]

Just started watching it. If you want to see Discord doing weird stuff with his chaos powers then you might like this. But 3 minutes in and after almost every line of dialogue they have to pause so Discord can do something weird. It's really killing the pacing.

 

[PaulloDEC]

EDIT 2: Hey DrForester, what image is supposed to be in this Round Stable post you made? Something to do with the IDW comic artist Fosgitt?

That'd be this:

Very disappointing to hear. Some people really don't deserve the contact with creators that the internet affords them.

 

[Trigonometrize.]

Discordant Harmony

Spoiler

took a long time to get going, but as soon as Fluttershy and Discord shared the room it was solid enough. I think Fluttershy stole the show in fact. Discord is too (for some reason) socially inept to carry an episode when its just him apparently. Even the short part with Pinkie was one of the highlights of the first half; she had some solid advice for him.

 

[DemWalls]

That'd be this:



Very disappointing to hear. Some people really don't deserve the contact with creators that the internet affords them.

Honestly, he seems to be a bit thin skinned.

I wouldn't care, as long as I'm content and proud of my work (and I guess he is), and there are people who appreciate it (and in his case this is definitely true). Take fair criticism at heart, and ignore the more "extreme" comments. They have little of productive anyway.

But I suppose that, for better or worse, not everyone is like me.

 

[PaulloDEC]

Honestly, he seems to be a bit thin skinned.

Perhaps, but nobody chooses to be thin-skinned any more than they choose to be hounded by weirdly angry, hyper-critical "fans" of the things they work on.

The guy trusted people to be cool, and they weren't. That's a real shame.

 

[DemWalls]

The guy trusted people to be cool, and they weren't. That's a real shame.

Eh, unfortunately, in this day and age, that's optimistic to put it mildly.

 

[PaulloDEC]

Eh, unfortunately, in this day and age, that's optimistic to put it mildly.

You're not wrong. I wonder if it comes as a surprise to people like Jay that there's just as many toxic people in the MLP fandom as there is in any other.

 

[ShinySylvee]

It's hard to talk about this episode without immediately bringing up who wrote it. The Fox Bros have definitely had a rough go of things so far as their best episodes are around average and their worst episode (AJ's Day Off) might just be the rock bottom of the show. They've come up with some pretty creative and fun ideas from time to time (I really liked the Rarity pretending to be Pinkie gag in Gift of the Maud Pie and Rarity's recount of the events of P.P.O.V is hilarious) but for the most part their episodes are generally dragged down hard by their extremely weak morals and all too often they commit the cardinal sin of entertainment media: Being boring. How did they fare in this episode? My feelings are mixed. On one hand, the first 5/8ths of this episode is rather dull with a couple of bright spots, and the moral again doesn't feel well-integrated into the story. On the other hand, there was a scene in this episode that had me grinning from ear to ear and is hands-down my favorite Fluttershy moment in the show so far. It's an absolutely terrific scene that is unfortunately preceded by a huge chunk of time that has maybe 2 or 3 genuinely good gags in it for me despite the whole part essentially being nothing but gags. To make matters worse the episode recycles the same gags frequently so many of the ones that were funny the first time end up overstaying their welcome. As such, it's really hard to really get a complete verdict on this one as I feel some people might like the gags more then I did, and those looking for more development on the Fluttershy + Discord friendship will likely end up walking away greatly satisfied. As a whole I think it's an otherwise below-average episode that is saved by a couple of amazing ideas.

Spoiler

As I stated before, the first massive chunk of this episode is mainly something prompts Discord, and he then does something weird in response. This slows down the pacing of this episode down to a crawl as pretty much every single scene drags on for way too long. And the percentage of gags that hit for me vs the ones that missed is an abysmal number. Even the few good ideas in the episode for the first part feel like they get ran into the ground as a lot of the jokes are reused frequently. The second Discord was pretty funny the first time but then they decided to add like 10 more and it killed it for me. I think one of the biggest issues is something that Trig sort of hinted at with his post, and that is that I really feel like Discord's comedy is at its best when there's someone to play off of it. Him just goofing off by himself with no one to react to it was rarely funny, and unfortunately that's a huge part of the episode. Also Discord's extreme social ineptitude for the first half of the episode was hard to take at points. However one thing that I also think deserves pointing out is that Discord is for once genuinely shown to be a good person. He obviously cares a lot about Fluttershy and it's nice to see the lengths that he's willing to go to make sure that she's happy.

However the other main character, Fluttershy, has a substantially better showing and pretty much single-handedly saves this episode. The part where she was trying to be chaotic was so cute and hilarious. It reminds me of the scene from Scare Master where Fluttershy invites the Mane 6 to a haunted Tea Party and tries to frighten them, and I LOVED that scene as well. She's absolutely adorable in this episode and as I said before this is my favorite appearance so far for her. Just seeing her playing around with Discord's furniture trying to build a staircase put a dumb grin on my face. It reminded me a lot of seeing a little kid playing pretend with their toys. But despite being super adorable she still plays a strong role in the story and comes off very well, noticing the problem and solving it. Her dialogue at the end explaining the moral to Discord felt a bit lackluster but as a whole I loved her in this and she really saved the episode for me.

From a technical aspect this episode is definitely one of the weaker ones. Discord's house is visually fairly unappealing, and a lot of the assets are reused from other episodes. The flying napkins looked pretty cool but aside from that and Discord playing dressup as Fluttershy his shenanigans didn't leave much of a lasting impression to me. Voice acting wise everyone just feels like they're going through the motions although that's largely just not being given much to work with. The Fox Bros have routinely managed to make Rarity sound boring which is a pretty major accomplishment.

As a whole looking back at this episode remember the stellar scene with Fluttershy over almost everything else in this episode. It will definitely get remembered fondly for that, although I fear that a lot of people might grow disinterested by that point and might have tuned out. As a whole I still have mixed feelings but I will say that it's definitely better then AJ's Day Off and P.P.O.V, although the verdict is still out on Gift of the Maud Pie or Forever Filly. Still I see some promise in them, and if they can make some mythical episode that will never happen made up with nothing but their brilliant ideas I think they could make a damn great episode, but as per usual I feel like their faults hold this episode back from being great.

EDIT: Looking back I forgot about the Discord factor. I almost always end up liking Discord episodes way more the second time around so I'll probably warm up to this one more in the future.

 

[Chained Prometheus]

Discordant Harmony

Spoiler

took a long time to get going, but as soon as Fluttershy and Discord shared the room it was solid enough. I think Fluttershy stole the show in fact. Discord is too (for some reason) socially inept to carry an episode when its just him apparently. Even the short part with Pinkie was one of the highlights of the first half; she had some solid advice for him.

Spoiler

I didn't mind Discord's solo stuff in the first half of the episode, but I definitely agree that it really hit the ground running once Fluttershy came back and stole the show in for the second half. I quite enjoyed her speech to him, especially that line "We make sense to me." Felt very Dr. Seuss-ish to me.

 

[SigmasonicX]

It's 380p (???), so... well, at least it's not camera-pointed-to-a-screen quality.

So a different guy did end up recording the episode. Bit disappointed, since it would have been hilarious (in a schadenfreude way, admittedly).

That'd be this:



Very disappointing to hear. Some people really don't deserve the contact with creators that the internet affords them.

Oh, just closing a DeviantArt account he doesn't even use anymore. I was expecting something worse. He's only talking about getting complaints on Twitter and DeviantArt, and I am sympathetic, but at the same time, that is pretty normal for any somewhat high profile artist.

Him being assigned to work on several comics at the same time does explain things, but even besides differences in opinion about his art style, there are very real issues (which I'm more comfortable bringing up now). He talks about the copy-pasted cutie marks, but even if he made them himself, that whisk cutie mark from the Pinkie/Celestia Friends Forever issue still looks like blocky stock art. The backgrounds and scaling are often bad, particularly in the Twilight/Starlight Friends Forever issue that didn't demonstrate the size changing well at all. His depiction of action often lacks energy, yet he keeps getting assigned to stories like the Fluttershy / Daring Do Friends Forever issue. He sometimes copy-pastes big set pieces, such as the ball of animals from the FiM issue that ties into "Fluttershy Leans In". And of course, there's that one time he stole fan art designs for the Main Six in armor for his part of the Guardians of Harmony special. I believe Tony Fleecs stole fan art of the interior of Dash's house (before we really saw it in the show), but at least that could be excused as it looking like a screenshot and him not realizing it was fanmade.

In the end, perhaps the main fault really lies with whoever keeps assigning issues to him, but it still shouldn't be a surprise when fans who may not know the development details solely blame him.

... Also, how are people in that Round Stable thread still acting like they can see that picture?