Support NeoGAF

[SigmasonicX]

Going back through old posts. Thankfully (for me), there were relatively few comments on both episodes.

I'll respond to newer posts and the new shorts later.

Discordant Harmony 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.

We've had Discord perspective episodes before, with "Make New Friends But Keep Discord" and "Dungeons & Discords", which had scenes of him by himself before, but this episode definitely has the longest stretches of Discord just by himself or interacting with background characters. I was fine with Discord not understanding what to do with the party now that he wants to please Fluttershy instead of upset her, but it was a bit odd that Discord simply didn't understand that he would just find normal stuff in stores.

I did like a lot that Pinkie gave Discord good advice instead of just being there for a gag.

[...]

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.

Yeah, having so many scenes with multiple Discords was an odd move. Maybe if they had obviously different personalities, it could have worked, and they went in that direction with the first one, but it didn't escalate well. I feel like Discord isn't the sort to actually put on this big show if no one was watching; he'd just incidentally have weird stuff happen around him. Without anyone who actually cares about the weird stuff happening in the scenes, it just feels pointless.

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.

I hadn't considered that this is the first episode just about Discord genuinely wanting to do something nice, no Arrested Development lessons attached. I don't think this episode sold the idea that he can still be interesting when he's not being a jerk, unfortunately.

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.

This makes me suddenly worry about kids imitating Fluttershy and making their own homes more chaotic. Anyway, what makes the scene work is precisely the fact that Fluttershy is doing this in a serious attempt to help her friend, but she feels so comfortable around Discord that she's willing to do these things that would embarrass her in front of others. Her first attempt at being chaotic reminds me of "Green Isn't Your Color" when she got angry and violently kicked that vase, which works as a gag and a cute way to show fans how seriously she's taking this.

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.

Yeah, Discord didn't do anything particularly impressive visually this episode. Discord didn't have any particularly interesting lines, but I thought Fluttershy's acting was good during the climax.

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.

When we make the season 7 guide, I doubt this episode is going to be recommended, but I'm temped to leave a note that there's a fantastic Fluttershy scene toward the end.

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.

I don't remember the speech, but I agree that I didn't notice anything wrong with it, like others are claiming.

The Perfect Pear


This episode was lovely, but I'm kind of mixed on it.

I absolutely loved the backstory scenes.

I didn't care much for the episode framing device. It would have made sense for Apple Bloom to ask about her parents, but it came off as really, really odd that Applejack and Big Mac knew nothing about them. They lived with them, and knew them. They never asked?

And what about when they died? Shatner Pony didn't go? Granny didn't tell him?


I think this episode would have worked much better with AB seeking out this story, and not all three of them.

I thought the framing device worked really well, and I don't find it odd that Applejack and Big Mac wouldn't know, since Granny didn't want to talk about it and it was probably a painful subject for Pear Butter. It is odd that Grand Pear didn't come back after she died, but it's possible he went to the funeral and decided not to confront the Apples.

As for my initial thoughts, I agree with Forester in that the flashbacks were by far the highlight of the episode and that the framing device for them just felt weak to me and not very interesting. Also the episode completely dodges the biggest question that people had about AJ's parents and if anything makes things even more confusing so the ending itself feels unsatisfying to me. The episode peaked hard at the song and a lot of the loose ends at the end felt forced and weird to me. For what it's worth this is another Lewis and Songco episode although it is decisively sparse on laughs which is unusual for their stories. There's some things it definitely could have done better but it's a really strong and at times emotional entry in the series and I predict it will likely end up 3rd for me in the episodes we've seen so far behind Rock Solid Friendship and Royal Problem.

Kind of surprised that people didn't like the framing device this much. Also surprised that people here had such tempered feelings about this episode; in my episode review, I was actually going to mention that I liked "Celestial Advice", "All Bottled Up", "Rock Solid Friendship", and "A Royal Problem" more, (taking into account that I've never rewatched any but the last) but I figured that would be starting something.

It was a bit weird that the big episode about Apple Parents didn't even clearly say that they died, let alone how. That said, I'll count it on my bingo card.

Discordant Harmony

This episode started off rather poorly but was saved in the final act with Fluttershy doing her best to embrace chaos and salvage Discord's tea party. Like a lot of episodes this season (Fluttershy Leans In, Forever Filly, Honest Apple, Not Asking for Trouble), this episode concept felt like an ideal 12-minute episode stretched out to a full episode run-time but it was saved by the payoff at the end. I really would like to see an end to these paper-thin conflicts with obvious resolutions and a return to more complex plots driven by rich characterizations... but I'm not sure the Fox brothers are capable of it.

Hmm, yeah, I guess it is true that all of those episodes were pretty stretched out, though I liked "Forever Filly" more than most people here. Well, with "Honest Apple", I'm not sure the issue is so much it lacking story as the story concept itself being flawed. About a "return" to better stories, it's not like these kinds of stories only started appearing recently. There's always been a mix of episodes with paper-thin conflicts and more complex plots.

The Perfect Pear

Now THIS is the change of pace I was hoping for. Lewis and Songco deliver another gem. Bright Mac and Pear Butter (aka Buttercup) were adorable together. Having the Apple siblings retrace their parents' love story was a lore building episode that's been long overdue. William Shatner delivered one hell of a cameo performance. I also got a kick out of Vanhoover being the latest city name pun seeing how much of Friendship is Magic's production is based out of Vancouver.

I could have sworn Vanhoover was mentioned before. Perhaps on one of the world maps.

This episode also introduced the concept of pony "identity changing" seeing how both AJ's mother and Mrs. Cake went by different names at one point. Seems like something that may come into play down the line with somepony else we know.

It was interesting to see an in-universe acknowledgment that ponies change names; the most we got before was how Spoiled Rich was named Spoiled Milk in "Where the Apple Lies". It's weird that Mrs. Cake changed her entire name from Chiffon Swirl to Cup Cake; Spoiled made sense as a family name change, but why her first name too? This does help explain some ponies, but there are still several cutie-mark-free colts and fillies we've seen that have names that hint at the cutie marks they gain.

Are you hinting at Tempest Storm? Though I don't think we had any real reason to believe that wasn't her birth name when you made that post, so I don't know.

As for the "dodging the question" issue, I'm not sure it's one that needs to be answered, IMO. Do we really need to hear that they're dead and how it happened? I think this episode spelled that out quite clearly without having to delve into any of that tragic business.

On the episode framing issue, I can buy that AJ and Big Mac didn't know their mother was a Pear if it was something that was specifically kept from them. Given that her father moved away and she was effectively estranged from the family, I can understand why Pear Butter never brought it up.

I agree that they don't have to explain it, but it's still weird that they specifically made a flashback episode about the Apple Parents but went out of their way to avoid it.

Yup, agreed on all accounts. Quite honestly, I think The Perfect Pear might be my new favorite episode from the show. For whatever reason, watching it keeps getting me crying. lmao They knocked it out of the ballpark for me.

As for the framing issue, like I said above, I'm with UberTag on being able to buy that AJ and Big Mac didn't know about their mother's history. And honestly I really quite liked the subtle touches Lewis and Songco threw in for the different people they went to for narrations (i.e. Golden Delicious mentioning to the Apple siblings that they "had a right to know" before she went into the introductory flashbacks on the feud between the Apples and the Pears, Big Mac asking Burnt Oak after his flashback if it'd be alright to come back another time for more stories).

I definitely feel like that was all there as indicators that both a) AJ's parents are in fact dead and b) that Pear Butter and Grannie Smith had hidden the whole story from the Apple siblings.

Also loved the cameo performances from both William Shatner as Granpear and Felicia Day as Pear Butter.

So yeah, amazing episode.

I liked the touches with the different ways the narrators presented their stories too, and Big Mac talking to Burnt Oak after.

Great episode and all, but THE BABIES WERE TALKING AND IT SENT AN ACTUAL CHILL UP MY SPINE

Glad someone else thought this!

It wasn't so much that they were talking so much as that Bright Mac's voice was way too deep for that scene. They should have brought in a kid to voice him there... and seeing how this studio has been conscious about having kids voice Pipsqueak and the Season 1 CMCs, this felt like a misstep.

Agreed that their voices were way too deep. Oh, now I have context for that CMC VA discussion.

 

[ShinySylvee]

Something that someone on Reddit found. Thought it was pretty funny

 

[SigmasonicX]

The Perfect Pear is probably the strongest episode of this season. It was really touching, and yeah the Romeo x Juliet plotline has been done before, but it did it well. That was one cute couple.

I feel like the only problem with the episode is AJ and Big Mac not knowing any of the information, especially since they know the Cakes pretty well through Pinkie Pie.

Still, great episode. Enjoyed the song too.

As far as Romeo and Juliet stories, this did one very good thing by actually having Bright Mac and Pear Butter be together romantically for a long time before the big confrontation between their families. You can't interpret this as them being idiot teenagers acting impulsively.

The song was good... but I can't remember it at all due to me listening to a remix of "Best Friends Until the End of Time" and now that's crowded everything else out. Well, I guess now I can finally look at that ED list of remixes I linked a while ago.

Discordant Harmony is kind of good as a capstone to Discord and Fluttershy's relationship. The demon who was initially using her as a guarantor of his freedom was now willing to die for her just to keep her friendship. A bit of a melodramatic reading of things, but it seemed appropriate. Some of the gags were good too. I'll agree that the episode could have used a B-plot or something. I wonder if John de Lancie costs them a lot that they had to do an episode that was basically just him and Andrea Libman?

A Perfect Pear was probably the best possible answer to the question of the Apple parents that could have come around.

That makes me think, if this was meant to be a capstone to Discord's character development, it would have been nice to have him confront his actions in "Return of Harmony" and earlier, and have him really apologize for them. Not sure how that could have fit into the tea party set up, though.

I don't think de Lancie particularly costs a lot, such that they'd need to cut down on everyone else. Remember that he also had lines in the season premiere. That said, I don't think he's available enough for them to have him read lines for an episode that added in Discord at the last second.

"The Perfect Pear" didn't answer the question, though.

Mayor Mare has been in office for quite a while, huh?

You know, with the earlier points about name changing... did she actually change her name to Mayor?

[...]

I checked out the short that was shown last night and I actually liked it quite a bit. If there's one thing that these shorts have been getting well it's characterization and in the video here where there's no dialogue that really shines through. Seeing Twilight's preparedness contrasted with Sunset was fun to watch. I'm surprised to say that I seem to like SciTwi a lot more then pony Twilight. I feel like she's a lot more fun when she isn't having to juggle being a princess and the group leader on top of her normal quirks.

Personally, I find SciTwi very uninteresting *shrug*.

I'll have to think a bit about why SciTwi's geeky moments don't work for me when I love normal Twilight's. I've mentioned before the SciTwi doesn't show her excited side much, but the new Principal Celestia short had that and I didn't really feel anything then either. I guess a big part of it is that what makes Twilight an appealing character to me is the whole package. She isn't just a nerd, she's also a hero of destiny and one of the most powerful figures in her world. Sometimes she panics about all her responsibilities and what others think of her, sometimes she's prideful. I can't imagine SciTwi going through "Lesson Zero", or standing up to Rainbow Dash in episodes like "Testing Testing 1, 2, 3", or angrily declaring that she knows when something's funny like in "What About Discord?". SciTwi mainly comes off as a generic geek girl you'd find in any number of other shows, which is alright, but isn't what I find interesting about the character.

Also this short gives me the suspicion that Sunset's character is supposed to be the "everyman" self-insert character that everyone can relate to, and that doesn't have to inherently be a bad thing. In this short here I think most people would probably relate more to Sunset slowly getting out of bed and rushing through preparing for the day instead of how Twilight handled everything. I think that there can be a benefit to having a character on the show who is there to just say what the audience is thinking as well. (Like how she thought the dirt biking in Friendship Games was a bit excessive or her calling out SciTwi for being careless)

Weird that we're at the point where the former villain and magical unicorn from another world is the everyman, but Dougworld is even weirder than Equestria, after all.

Most of the stuff from the look and find book are things we could already infer. However there's a couple nuggets there that can help piece things together a bit more:

Spoiler

>The airship scene from the trailer appears to be the Mane 6 getting attacked on their way to the Seaponies. I had previously assumed it tied into the climax
>Storm King's tornado is going to get out of hand. I'm guessing that the bad guys are going to get caught in it as well and the Mane 6 are going to save them, which is going to likely be the big thing that causes Shadow and Grubber to switch sides.
>Speaking of which, both of them are in the celebration shot at the end. Shadow getting reformed isn't surprising but as me and Sigma had suspected Grubber is going to as well. Shadow's horn is still going to be broken from the looks of things although we can see her shooting out "fireworks" with it. Sounds like Trixie has got a new assistant Kappa

Also Shadow didn't have the power to turn stuff into stone in the book, she could only make explosions. I'm guessing that might be more Storm King's doing or some other artifact. Also I wish they would have given Shadow a legit name rather then a gag one.

Really, the biggest surprise here is that (MOVIE SPOILERS)

Spoiler

Tempest doesn't regrow her horn. Granted, it's unclear if that's actually the case or if it's just a quirk of the activity book. Twilight is captured by Tempest but apparently doesn't get turned to stone, which points to the idea that Tempest isn't the one doing that to the princesses. It must be a magical device of some kind.

I sincerely doubt they would remove the show from Netflix unless they had another deal lined up with a different streaming service. I believe that a ton of the people that follow the show do it through Netflix so they would be massively shrinking their audience if they did that. My best guess is that they're waiting for all the summertime shorts to release as well and then they could throw all the EQG content from this year up at the same time.

It's possible that while they have a stable deal with FiM, their deal with EQG broke down. I don't think 3 minute shorts are appropriate for a platform like Netflix, so I find it hard to believe they're waiting to collect those. Besides, the TV specials were specifically announced to appear on Netflix before they aired on Discovery Family.

For some reason my DVR didn't count the two episodes today as "new" (I know they leaked early and weren't technically "new", however, that didn't stop the DVR from recording any of the other episodes..) so I didn't get to catch the Discord one (it should be on again tomorrow), but I did manage to get to see the Pear one.

It was okay, but it kind of bugged me that there were 3 other ponies in addition to Granny Smith who knew what happened and all 3 conveniently never could find the right way to bring it up to the kids before...

How did the old pear manage to get all the way to Ponnyville, talk to/about his grandkids and regret things, without even mentioning his daughter once? If she died, it had to have been awhile... so he just showed up all of the sudden with regrets, never mentioned his daughter and no one remarked about it?

How did Granny Smith never know about the trees at the end, but her kids did? Was it really that remote of an area/somewhere she would never go?

I thought foals couldn't get uglier after the Cake twrins, and then they go and make them able to talk...

Maybe your DVR got confused by them airing two episodes in a row.

I didn't find it odd that those three ponies didn't bring it up; Granny didn't want to talk about it, and it was a family matter, so they didn't feel comfortable talking about it out of the blue.

It was odd that Grand Pear never said, "When your mother died..." or any variant. That's one way the entire "can't say die" thing stretched things a bit.

I got the impression that none of the Apples knew about the tree location until they talked to Mayor Mare. Of course, it is odd that there's one part of their apple orchard they apparently never bothered to harvest.

At this point, when we make the season 7 guide, I'm considering adding the note, "WARNING: Creepy talking baby ponies with adult voices."

Discordant Harmony: I think the best part of this episode was Fluttershy getting chaotic herself, as well as seeing Discord's house, which I don't recall seeing before.

The Perfect Pear: Finally, we get to see the Apple parents, and it's a sweet love story, even if we still don't know entirely what happened to them, and I don't know if this show's willing to push hard enough to talk about it. Also appreciate William Shatner.

We saw Discord's house in season 5's "Make New Friends But Keep Discord", and I'm pretty sure at least one other time in season 6.

Something that someone on Reddit found. Thought it was pretty funny

http://i.imgur.com/plMfV2w.png[/img[/QUOTE]

[quote="SigmasonicX, post: 245461866"]Quick follow up on "Monday Blues".

Screenshots
[URL="https://derpibooru.org/1503073"]Sunset uses horse shampoo![/URL] - In fact, the product description says its a "horse to human crossover shampoo".[/QUOTE]

Granted, I didn't embed it or use the variation you posted. EDIT: Oh, didn't notice you changed the image in an edit.

[B][U]Summertime Shorts - Pet Project and Subs Rock[/U][/B]
[B]Pet Project[/B] - Huh, that [I]is[/I] just the normal MLP theme, like Strider_Blaze said. In fact, I don't think that version of it has ever been used in G4. The animation is definitely wonky after yesterday's music video, and Sunset's suddenly back to her old design. Wrong character sheets given to Boulder Media? SO MANY FUNDRAISERS. Oh, so this is just "May the Best Pet Win", but I have no clue what pet would actually be appropriate for Sunset from her personality, as Shiny said. A lizard? ... OK then.
[B]Subs Rock[/B] - And the MLP theme again. This reminds me of how G3 shorts would start. This scenario doesn't make much sense; Celestia is a substitute but doesn't have anyone to handle things as principal? SciTwi and Celestia appearing to have a connection is weird. Obviously we're meant to use the connection between the pony versions as a jumping off point, but nothing we've seen in the movies or specials indicates there's any particular link between these versions of them.

The former wasn't very interesting. With the latter, it isn't interesting on its own, but there is significance to it focusing on Celestia. The idea of Celestia wanting to do something but getting constantly distracted could work in Ponyland, but really only in a short format like this. I wonder if we'd actually see Princess Celestia more if normal FiM had shorts too. I don't think there's much of a chance we'll see Principal Celestia get much attention in a 10-12 minute short, just shorter ones like these.

 

[UberTag]

Hmm, yeah, I guess it is true that all of those episodes were pretty stretched out, though I liked "Forever Filly" more than most people here. Well, with "Honest Apple", I'm not sure the issue is so much it lacking story as the story concept itself being flawed. About a "return" to better stories, it's not like these kinds of stories only started appearing recently. There's always been a mix of episodes with paper-thin conflicts and more complex plots.

Yeah, you're not exactly wrong about that as I can look as far back as Season 1 and see clear examples like The Ticket Master and Look Before You Sleep.

I think the difference here is that I didn't mind it back then because those plots were being trotted out to help establish characterizations and build relationships whereas when they do it in Season 7 it feels like they're just being lazy because many of these relationships are already established and well-defined. I rip into other long-running shows for resting on their laurels so I'm pretty consistent on this point.

If you're not including something like Fluttershy embracing chaos and being adorable while doing it, they're going to be completely forgotten.

 

[DemWalls]

Honestly, before the end of Pet Project I thought it was made by DHX. The previous shorts looked more than a bit off, but I guess those Irishmen are already improving.

 

[ShinySylvee]

Harmony and Pear things

Going to largely be skimming through most of this because especially in the case of Discordant Harmony most my responses would just be me restating things I've already said.

Another thing I didn't mention before about Perfect Pear was that this was the second time that Lewis and Songco have done romance and I feel like they did it fairly well both times. (The other time was Legend of Everfree) Also for what its worth I feel like this episode as a whole is hard to look at objectively. It's a pretty massive episode in terms of the lore of the show so some people are just going to like it on principle just because it featured AJ's parents and it wasn't awful. On the other hand it's such a massively anticipated episode that expectations are sky-high. I won't say I was disappointed but I don't remember being super crazy about it.

Movie spoilers

Spoiler

I actually wasn't too surprised that Shadow didn't get her horn back. I imagined the broken horn could be fairly easily imagined as some sort of disability like a missing leg or blindness or something. I think the idea of her accepting that her broken horn was just a part of who she was and moving on would be a more effective lesson then it magically growing back as a way to make the ending more happy. The book didn't go into explaining whether or not her friends were just trying to console her or if it was actually supposed to grow back. But overall I think there's a stronger story there if she has to come to terms that she is never getting it back and growing as a person.

Another thing I totally spaced on mentioning before but in the novel Shadow tries to steal Queen Novo's pearl after pretending to be friendly and the find the picture book also talks about Twilight considering stealing it. I wonder if the movie itself will draw the parallel that Shadow tried to steal it as well. (It was also the thing that really made her go full evil)

EQG stuff

I feel like the main reasons you seem to like pony Twilight are the reasons why I didn't like her as much. Twilight being so important to the overall story turned me off of her quite a bit initially I feel. Like back in season 1 when they had to crowbar her into literally every episode because she needed to write the moral at the end. Season 2 she was alright but Seasons 3 and 4 were probably the worst ones for me. It was really disconcerting for me because I've always wanted to see the Mane 6 as equals but Season 3 was building her up to fulfill her destiny as princess and both the season 4 two-parters that addressed her princesshood felt like she was massively put on a pedestal above the rest of the cast like the end of Princess Twilight where the rest of the Mane 6 just stand there doing nothing while Twilight alone returns all of the elements herself. Almost all the major things Twilight has accomplished has been due to either the Mane 6 or Celestia helping her but the rest of the Mane 6 only get recognition from other characters for all the stuff they've personally done rather then their role in saving the world several times. Also on top of that there's the issue of power level. Aside from arguably Rainbow Dash with her speed Twilight's overall usefulness drastically dwarfs the rest of the cast as she's more knowledgeable and more powerful then everyone else outside of their personal areas of expertise.

All of that being said, I've loved what they've done with her from Season 5 onward. Cutie Map did a great job at making them feel like a team and I can understand why she was singled out by Starlight in Cutie Re-Mark. I've said it before but I feel like Starlight's introduction conceptually does a lot for me to improve a lot of the problems that I had with Twilight. Before Starlight came along Twilight's magical abilities massively dwarfed that of every other character we've seen besides the princesses and her brother, and this was on top of her extreme knowledge on a ton of things. Now there's another character that can rival her power and with Sunburst there's someone that can rival her knowledge about magic as well. And as I've said before I feel like Twilight transitioning into a teacher is a fitting arc for her character and allows her to have a role worthy of her being a princess while at the same time not feeling like it's elevating her drastically over the rest of the cast. (Although again I feel like her role as teacher could be handled WAY better then it is right now)

I think the biggest issue though is just that I've generally always been a fan of the sidekick over the leader. My favorite Scooby Doo character was Shaggy. I liked Tails over Sonic. I liked Luigi over Mario. I really like the concept of Twilight playing a supporting role and helping contribute rather then being the one that takes charge. And I think that's the biggest reason why I've been REALLY liking SciTwi in the most recent stuff despite not being crazy for Twilight in the main show.

Also SciTwi is still learning friendship and stuff now. I hope that as the series goes on she can come out of her shell a bit and be more like OG Twilight.


As for Celestia I think that her location can make her play a more significant role in the show. In the main show she was in an entirely different City and had a massively more important role to fill in the grand scheme of things. Celestia as the principal of their school is a lot more accessible and approachable and as such I feel like she can be written into episodes easier.

Yeah, you're not exactly wrong about that as I can look as far back as Season 1 and see clear examples like The Ticket Master and Look Before You Sleep.

I think the difference here is that I didn't mind it back then because those plots were being trotted out to help establish characterizations and build relationships whereas when they do it in Season 7 it feels like they're just being lazy because many of these relationships are already established and well-defined. I rip into other long-running shows for resting on their laurels so I'm pretty consistent on this point.

If you're not including something like Fluttershy embracing chaos and being adorable while doing it, they're going to be completely forgotten.

The show is written by a large collection of writers of various skill levels. Saying "I wish they wouldn't make simple plots with obvious solutions" is kinda like saying "I wish they wouldn't make bad episodes." Obviously I would prefer every episode was as complex as Sweet and Elite but unless they get rid of all their less skilled writers and hire a bunch of much better ones this kind of stuff is always going to exist since some writers just aren't capable of anything deeper then what they're already doing. I can understand why you don't like those kinds of episodes but I don't think it's realistic to expect them to ever go away. As Sigma said these kinds of stories always have existed and I expect that they always will.

Honestly, before the end of Pet Project I thought it was made by DHX. The previous shorts looked more than a bit off, but I guess those Irishmen are already improving.

That was something I noticed as well. I think that's a large part why I've been digging all of the shorts after the first batch quite a bit more.


Also just want to say damn this thread was way more busy today then it's been in months. I guess that's what happens when there's actual new stuff to talk about rather then info on upcoming things.

 

[draetenth]

Managed to catch the rerun of the Discord + Fluttershy episode today. I typically put Discord episodes with Spike episodes where I like the character, but never really like how the episodes are done, but I actually really enjoyed this one.

I found Discord's reactions and attitude through the episode to be pretty normal for a being that's never really had a friend before. Most people have problems just being themselves as is, but for a being like Discord who does seem to care for Fluttershy, that had to be a hard situation for him.

I really liked Discord's alternate selves (particularly the one with glasses).

I liked Fluttershy trying to cause chaos to keep Discord from fading away...

 

[SigmasonicX]

Confirmed that Sunset using horse shampoo was intentional.

Honestly, before the end of Pet Project I thought it was made by DHX. The previous shorts looked more than a bit off, but I guess those Irishmen are already improving.

I recall the starting scene of Fluttershy washing Angel to be weird looking, but maybe it was just my expectations affecting what I saw. Part of it might also be that the backgrounds were less detailed that what we saw in the "Monday Blues" music video.

[...]

Another thing I didn't mention before about Perfect Pear was that this was the second time that Lewis and Songco have done romance and I feel like they did it fairly well both times. (The other time was Legend of Everfree) Also for what its worth I feel like this episode as a whole is hard to look at objectively. It's a pretty massive episode in terms of the lore of the show so some people are just going to like it on principle just because it featured AJ's parents and it wasn't awful. On the other hand it's such a massively anticipated episode that expectations are sky-high. I won't say I was disappointed but I don't remember being super crazy about it.

I wasn't that impressed by SciBer (not the common couple name, but it's superior), but yeah, I guess MLP hasn't actually been great at (intentional) romance, so it is on the upper end.

I agree that "The Perfect Pear" will be a difficult episode to effectively analyze, at least for a while. Like I said before, from the very positive reactions I've seen elsewhere, I was expecting something more meaningful--not sure what--and thus was a bit disappointed that Bright Mac and Pear Butter had fairly shallow personalities. In that sense, I actually liked the framing device of it all being stories told by others, since it worked well in that format.

Spoiler

I actually wasn't too surprised that Shadow didn't get her horn back. I imagined the broken horn could be fairly easily imagined as some sort of disability like a missing leg or blindness or something. I think the idea of her accepting that her broken horn was just a part of who she was and moving on would be a more effective lesson then it magically growing back as a way to make the ending more happy. The book didn't go into explaining whether or not her friends were just trying to console her or if it was actually supposed to grow back. But overall I think there's a stronger story there if she has to come to terms that she is never getting it back and growing as a person.

Another thing I totally spaced on mentioning before but in the novel Shadow tries to steal Queen Novo's pearl after pretending to be friendly and the find the picture book also talks about Twilight considering stealing it. I wonder if the movie itself will draw the parallel that Shadow tried to steal it as well. (It was also the thing that really made her go full evil)

MOVIE SPOILERS:

Spoiler

I hadn't considered the disability idea with Tempest. Since the impetus for her journey is her being upset that all she can do with her broken horn is destroy, her realizing she can do beautiful things even with just that would be more meaningful that friendship making her regrow her horn.

I noticed the part with Twilight wanting to get Novo's pearl too. I wonder if Twilight will be caught trying to steal it, after being denied permission to borrow it, and this will result in everyone being kicked out, leading into Twilight's capture. Her capture will thematically connect to her feeling that she lost her way and perhaps pushing everyone else away.

I feel like the main reasons you seem to like pony Twilight are the reasons why I didn't like her as much. Twilight being so important to the overall story turned me off of her quite a bit initially I feel. [...]

It isn't really that Twilight plays a central role in major episodes, but I guess more that she's nerdy while being confident and even sometimes vain about it, yet can also lose confidence and panic. Tara Strong's voice acting is pretty entertaining in both modes, and we don't really get either with SciTwi. I also find the entire "imposter syndrome" aspect of Twilight's character interesting, with her having a high position but sometimes feeling like she didn't deserve it.

As for Celestia I think that her location can make her play a more significant role in the show. In the main show she was in an entirely different City and had a massively more important role to fill in the grand scheme of things. Celestia as the principal of their school is a lot more accessible and approachable and as such I feel like she can be written into episodes easier.

If they start counting this as Celestia getting more focus, it would feel like a bit of a cop out. Principal Celestia doesn't actually have the qualities that make Princess Celestia interesting, much more than the difference between SciTwi and Princess Twi.

Also just want to say damn this thread was way more busy today then it's been in months. I guess that's what happens when there's actual new stuff to talk about rather then info on upcoming things.

I'm curious how the posting rate will be effected next week now that everyone's on the same page again. The past several episodes have been discussed twice, for the non-US airing then the US airing, so will there be overall less posts for each?

==

And now for the "Discordant Harmony" follow up. "The Perfect Pear" will come... later. Probably before Saturday. That said, there are fewer images than "A Royal Problem" (787 vs. 811 at the time, 1413 now) and most of the art is just of Apple Parents together. In contrast, Daybreaker had a lot of different dynamic poses and effects. I think it will just have one roundup, as opposed to the two for "A Royal Problem".

Surprisingly, it looks like ED isn't doing a special Drawfriend for the Apple Parents. I guess they just forgot that was a thing they should do.

NOTES
Not much more to add about the episode right now. The tea pony seems to have gotten the fan name of Jasmine Leaf, and the silverware pony is named Raspberry Vinaigrette.

"Discordant Harmony" itself didn't add any bingo spaces, but I'll go ahead and post the updates for it here. I got "Pony history" (a bit of a stretch, but we already know there's a more clear history episode coming up) and "Apple Parents confirmed dead" (also a stretch, but it's as close as it will get).

Also, I took a look at the cable guide summaries released before the Australian airings, and wow, that is detailed. And it doesn't read at all like something officially made, but rather something written by a fan. Weird.

SCREENSHOTS
Again, no Round Stable post with screenshots, so I'll have to do it myself.
Fluttershy and Discord framed picture
Fluttershy's pillow cases (embedded)
The tea shop has an interesting look

GIFS
Discord's mind blown
Abandon thread (embedded)
Discord burying the silverware pony in bits
Fluttershy excited about green tea (embedded)
Shocked Fluttershy dropping her teacup
Fluttershy with her tongue out (embedded)
Fluttershy violently knocking over a teacup
EDIT - Disgusting Fluttershy knocking over a teacup full of chocolate milk
Fluttershy eating sandwiches (embedded)
Fluttershy in front of the mirrors
EDIT - Fluttershy being horrible and knocking over a glass of chocolate milk
Fluttershy tagging a couch
Fluttershy explaining how Discord opened up possibilities - Hard not to read shipping into this.

FAN CONTENT
Not much new art came out the past two days. The total amount of images on Derpibooru is 229, compared to 221 with "Not Asking For Trouble", but it feels like this episode has more actual fan art.

Most of the art is just DiscoShy, but Discord's nature means they don't get too samey.

DiscoShy
Tea Party - Made day one, though it's repurposed art that was already being made.
Catching Butterflies - Made six weeks ago.
Tea time at Discord's - Made six weeks ago.
Practicing - Made six weeks ago.

But We Make Sense to Me - Made four weeks ago.
Just the Way You Are - Made three weeks ago.
Discordant Harmony Review by TheSoleil - Made two weeks ago.

Differences - Made this weekend.
One way ticket to chaos - Made this weekend. Source site is NSFW (lumineko launched his own site that it seems like will host art before it goes to his DeviantArt), so linked to Derpibooru.
I really do like your place. Because it's so you! - Made this weekend.

Store ponies
Jasmine Leaf by bennimarru - Made five weeks ago.
Drinking tea and coffee - Made day two.
Drinking tea together - Made day one.
Humanized Jasmine Leaf - Made day one. Source blog is NSFW, so linked to Derpibooru.

Will edit in older episode art in a few hours.
EDIT:

A Royal Problem
Ballet Twilight by Camyllea
Daybreaker + Nightmare Moon by Celebi-Yoshi
Twilarina by flutterthrash

The Movie
The best sugar seapony ever
Tempest by nightskrill

Equestria Girls
Starlight Glimmer ish a Hooman
SUNSET SHIMMER by Vale-Bandicoot96
Velvet Goldmine

Shimmdigo - Important new ship with Indigo Wreath.

Other
Honest Apple - Starstreak by SentireAeris
A Flurry of Emotions - Royal Shopping

Rock Solid Friendship - Humanized Art - Two images.

Comics
Not Asking For Trouble - Left Horn Down a Bit
Honest Apple - Trendy
Honest Apple - Rarity shatters Applejack's worldview (while Pinkie learns to play the guitar)
Hard to Say Anything - Cutie Mark Crusader Pick-up artists!

 

[DemWalls]

I'm open to pretty much anything when it comes to fan art (or art in general), but if there's one thing that I'd consider almost a dogma is that Rarity can't possibly be dark skinned. It's not because as a pony her coat is snow white, it's not a racist fantasy; it's all down to her very character and how she behaves. Quite simply, she's like the whitest chick conceivable. Think Elliot from Scrubs, or the protagonists of Sex and the City. Can't imagine her non-white even if I wanted to.

 

[Village]

I'm open to pretty much anything when it comes to fan art (or art in general), but if there's one thing that I'd consider almost a dogma is that Rarity can't possibly be dark skinned. It's not because as a pony her coat is snow white, it's not a racist fantasy; it's all down to her very character and how she behaves. Quite simply, she's like the whitest chick conceivable. Think Elliot from Scrubs, or the protagonists of Sex and the City. Can't imagine her non-white even if I wanted to.

My cousin acts like rarity, and she's black. Designs clothes does art, everything, I went to school with a girl who was rarity-ish, she was also black.

Broaden your horizons.

 

[SigmasonicX]

An example of a Rarity-esque character in fiction that isn't white is Tahani from NBC's The Good Place. And there are all sorts of characters that exhibit her negative and cliche qualities that aren't white, especially in foreign media.

Besides, the closest thing to an official word on what races the characters would be as normal humans is that set of live action Rainbow Rocks commercials, which made everyone white but Rarity, who was Asian. Though I don't think anyone should use that as an official anything.

 

[DemWalls]

An example of a Rarity-esque character in fiction that isn't white is Tahani from NBC's The Good Place. And there are all sorts of characters that exhibit her negative and cliche qualities that aren't white, especially in foreign media.

Obviously, but even as a non-American, we live in a world where pop culture is completely dominated by American products, for better (?) or worse. I can't help but make this kind of associations.

 

[ShinySylvee]

I wasn't that impressed by SciBer (not the common couple name, but it's superior), but yeah, I guess MLP hasn't actually been great at (intentional) romance, so it is on the upper end.

Dude there's actually a name for it? I thought people were too busy trying to ship her with Sunset to give it one.

Maybe it's just that I've never really watched a whole lot of romance stuff but I thought Timber and SciTwi had pretty good chemistry and made sense as a couple. Certainly it was handled way better then all the other stuff on the show so far although that's not much of an achievement. I feel like their relationship made sense and I'm curious as to what kind of role Timber might play in the series going forward. I liked that he had his own agency and had characterization that extended past "love interest for the main character" so I hope that in the future he stays as his own separate character that also likes SciTwi rather then just becoming Brad 2.0 and having his entire character be defined by his relationship.

I agree that "The Perfect Pear" will be a difficult episode to effectively analyze, at least for a while. Like I said before, from the very positive reactions I've seen elsewhere, I was expecting something more meaningful--not sure what--and thus was a bit disappointed that Bright Mac and Pear Butter had fairly shallow personalities. In that sense, I actually liked the framing device of it all being stories told by others, since it worked well in that format.

Honestly a large part of why I didn't end up making an analysis post on the episode is that it's such a hard episode to look at objectively and when I started thinking about it I realized that it would have been by far the most dense analysis I've done because in order to really look at the episode I felt like I would have had to talk about the extreme hype surrounding it and how that influences people's opinions on it. I'm naturally a fairly contrarian person and so it's hard for me to figure out how much of me not liking the episode as much was due to me legit not thinking it was great and how much was me wanting to not like it so I could feel different. Another issue I had was that it didn't feel like it integrated with the overall story of the show and explaining why I felt that way would have taken a lot of analysis to come up with a satisfactory reason for me.

MOVIE SPOILERS:

Spoiler

I hadn't considered the disability idea with Tempest. Since the impetus for her journey is her being upset that all she can do with her broken horn is destroy, her realizing she can do beautiful things even with just that would be more meaningful that friendship making her regrow her horn.

I noticed the part with Twilight wanting to get Novo's pearl too. I wonder if Twilight will be caught trying to steal it, after being denied permission to borrow it, and this will result in everyone being kicked out, leading into Twilight's capture. Her capture will thematically connect to her feeling that she lost her way and perhaps pushing everyone else away.

Spoiler

The way that I would write it is to have her broken horn be a catalyst of her going down a darker path rather then the sole source of her problems. For example Starlight's problem in my mind wasn't that she lost her only friend. The real problem was that she had a crippling fear of failure that prevented her from seeking other friends and had a tendency to react to adverse situations in extremely unhealthy ways, and these were issues that she's still working through now.

For Shadow I feel like a good angle to have with her is that she obsesses over achieving her dream of going to magic school and becoming a princess to the point where she is willing to do anything to achieve it. Giving Shadow her horn back won't change that and she might run into similar problems down the road if she ends up going to school and things aren't going her way. I think it would be a more fitting arc for her to have to accept that she's never getting her horn back and learning to appreciate herself for who she is rather then screwing everyone else over because she refuses to move on. (The page where she's using her explosion magic to make fireworks I think is a good way to show this)

It isn't really that Twilight plays a central role in major episodes, but I guess more that she's nerdy while being confident and even sometimes vain about it, yet can also lose confidence and panic. Tara Strong's voice acting is pretty entertaining in both modes, and we don't really get either with SciTwi. I also find the entire "imposter syndrome" aspect of Twilight's character interesting, with her having a high position but sometimes feeling like she didn't deserve it.



If they start counting this as Celestia getting more focus, it would feel like a bit of a cop out. Principal Celestia doesn't actually have the qualities that make Princess Celestia interesting, much more than the difference between SciTwi and Princess Twi.

I feel like my major issue with Twilight as a leader was that she felt fairly bland to me and most of the fun personality that she had normally seemed missing for the most part. She just felt like a generic good guy protagonist to me rather then an eccentric obsessive bookworm. I just felt like her characterization was massively dialed back when it came time for her to be a leader especially in the season 3-4 era.

Also it definitely feels you put a lot more stock into character backstories then I do since you take issue with how less interesting conceptually Principle Celestia is then Princess Celestia but it's a non-issue for me.



There was more I intended to say but I'm half-asleep right now so I'll leave it at this for now.

 

[SigmasonicX]

^ I'll respond to that later.

Obviously, but even as a non-American, we live in a world where pop culture is completely dominated by American products, for better (?) or worse. I can't help but make this kind of associations.

We all have biases like this. I myself prefer human art of Twilight to give her darker skin. But different people have different views about how the characters could look as humans, and we should be open to that. You're making your view more definitive than it should be, which can rub people the wrong way.

 

[DemWalls]

^ I'll respond to that later.


We all have biases like this. I myself prefer human art of Twilight to give her darker skin. But different people have different views about how the characters could look as humans, and we should be open to that. You're making your view more definitive than it should be, which can rub people the wrong way.

Well, if it came out that way it wasn't my intention. Apologies. As much as 'dogma' is a strong word, and it was indeed purposefully exaggerated, it was purely my belief. I certainly don't want to "convert" others, I'm no missionary

 

[SigmasonicX]

Well, if it came out that way it wasn't my intention. Apologies. As much as 'dogma' is a strong word, and it was indeed purposefully exaggerated, it was purely my belief. I certainly don't want to "convert" others, I'm no missionary

No worries, I figured it was just bad wording.

EDIT:

Dude there's actually a name for it? I thought people were too busy trying to ship her with Sunset to give it one.

Maybe it's just that I've never really watched a whole lot of romance stuff but I thought Timber and SciTwi had pretty good chemistry and made sense as a couple. Certainly it was handled way better then all the other stuff on the show so far although that's not much of an achievement. I feel like their relationship made sense and I'm curious as to what kind of role Timber might play in the series going forward. I liked that he had his own agency and had characterization that extended past "love interest for the main character" so I hope that in the future he stays as his own separate character that also likes SciTwi rather then just becoming Brad 2.0 and having his entire character be defined by his relationship.

It's just TimberTwi, not that interesting of a name.

As for Timber himself, he's just boring. Not as bad as Brad used to be, but still not someone I'm particularly interested in seeing again, and at least Flash now has funny scenes where he's a punching bag. And "Mad Twience" revealed that he has douchy photos.

Honestly a large part of why I didn't end up making an analysis post on the episode is that it's such a hard episode to look at objectively and when I started thinking about it I realized that it would have been by far the most dense analysis I've done because in order to really look at the episode I felt like I would have had to talk about the extreme hype surrounding it and how that influences people's opinions on it. I'm naturally a fairly contrarian person and so it's hard for me to figure out how much of me not liking the episode as much was due to me legit not thinking it was great and how much was me wanting to not like it so I could feel different. Another issue I had was that it didn't feel like it integrated with the overall story of the show and explaining why I felt that way would have taken a lot of analysis to come up with a satisfactory reason for me.

This reminds me of when I was on Toon Zone and, during the break between season 2 and 3, wrote a humongous analysis of "A Canterlot Wedding", going deep into fan expectations and such, hitting the post size limit before I even got to the episode proper. Although that reminds me, unlike other big events and guest star episodes, there was notably very little advertising for this. Just a press release and then nothing. I'm convinced that they did have a ton of things planned, including a clip at SDCC, but the early Australian airing ruined all that. Also note how the comic tie ins have previously all tied in with the episode that aired the Saturday before, and out of the two choices for episodes, they're going with "Discordant Harmony" for Wednesday's comic, as if to deliberately avoid revealing anything about the episode during the August comic solicitations.

Spoiler

The way that I would write it is to have her broken horn be a catalyst of her going down a darker path rather then the sole source of her problems. For example Starlight's problem in my mind wasn't that she lost her only friend. The real problem was that she had a crippling fear of failure that prevented her from seeking other friends and had a tendency to react to adverse situations in extremely unhealthy ways, and these were issues that she's still working through now.

For Shadow I feel like a good angle to have with her is that she obsesses over achieving her dream of going to magic school and becoming a princess to the point where she is willing to do anything to achieve it. Giving Shadow her horn back won't change that and she might run into similar problems down the road if she ends up going to school and things aren't going her way. I think it would be a more fitting arc for her to have to accept that she's never getting her horn back and learning to appreciate herself for who she is rather then screwing everyone else over because she refuses to move on. (The page where she's using her explosion magic to make fireworks I think is a good way to show this)

Nothing more to say about this other than I'm glad you eventually remembered the spoiler tags for everyone else >_>

I feel like my major issue with Twilight as a leader was that she felt fairly bland to me and most of the fun personality that she had normally seemed missing for the most part. She just felt like a generic good guy protagonist to me rather then an eccentric obsessive bookworm. I just felt like her characterization was massively dialed back when it came time for her to be a leader especially in the season 3-4 era.

Also it definitely feels you put a lot more stock into character backstories then I do since you take issue with how less interesting conceptually Principle Celestia is then Princess Celestia but it's a non-issue for me.

Oh don't get me wrong, I thought Twilight was dull during the first half of season 4 too, though I thought she was fine in season 3. But "Testing Testing 1, 2, 3" and to a lesser extent "Twilight Time" were fantastic for her, and I've largely been good with her portrayal since.

As for Celestia, I feel there is a fundamental difference in their portrayals beyond their backstory. Princess Celestia may get bored and annoyed at times, but she's generally a content and well-respected leader. Principal Celestia by default is much grumpier and is disrespected a lot. Part of the interest behind a Princess Celestia episode is so we can see how she would solve a problem facing the kingdom, what would evoke emotions out of her, how she guides her subjects. None of those seem like they would be as interesting with Principal Celestia.

 

[Trigonometrize.]

Is there any word on why the episodes are still not out on Netflix?

 

[Fat4all]

First batch of Season 7 eps. were suppose to hit yesterday, ya?

Dunno. Maybe they got pushed back a bit.

 

[SigmasonicX]

In case anyone missed it, I edited more into my previous post.

Is there any word on why the episodes are still not out on Netflix?

No clue. I used this thread as my source for that date, so maybe they were wrong?

Friendship is Magic #57
This comic ties into "Discordant Harmony", and features Pinkie getting stuck in Discord's realm.

This was a really fun issue, especially once it got to the final part, which I talk more about below in spoiler tags.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the comic going with an idea I had: Discord and Rarity finding common ground and forming a connection. It isn't a major part of the story, but I liked seeing Rarity appreciate Discord's creativity, and she's even the last one he talks to in the issue.

Maud had a brief but fun appearance in the comic. Discord doesn't remember her, but she remembers him as that terrible comedian.

The visuals were sufficiently wacky, and were particularly interesting toward the end, though they didn't get quite as weird as I would have liked.

Now we get to the part that I would feel bad talking about without spoiler bars. That said, I expect this to be one of those few comic events that get a bunch of fan art.

Spoiler

Pinkie becoming the Princess of Chaos and battling Discord in an imagination-off was great. I've mentioned before that fans have often played up a connection between Pinkie and Discord before "Keep Calm and Flutter On" had Fluttershy largely take up that space, and this is an interesting way to go about it. Though her mind can handle Discord's realm more than other ponies, such that the realm starts to favor her over Discord, she can't handle the power like he can.

Twilight and Starlight were mainly just there to provide a magic-ex-machina way to get into Discord's realm and traverse it, but I didn't mind their presence. As Silver Quill points out in his review, it was nice to see them bouncing ideas off each other, without turning Starlight into the only problem solver like in the Accord arc. Meanwhile, Applejack just had four short lines of dialogue, all of which were just reactions. Though it does make sense to gather everyone to retrieve Pinkie, it was kind of weird to have them there when they didn't really do anything. Still, during the battle, I appreciated the shonen side character commentary from them, particularly Rarity having the best idea of what was going on.

Silver Quill's review, which also goes into the spoiler stuff. I agree with him that this could have easily been a two parter, but as is, it's a very enjoyable issue, and I recommend it.

==

"The Perfect Pear" follow up is still in progress, but I wanted to share this first.

Also...

 

[DemWalls]

It's funny because Button's mom is dead too.

 

[Fat4all]

It's funny because Button's mom is dead too.

we're all dead, if you think about it

 

[SigmasonicX]

we're all dead, if you think about it









http://img08.deviantart.net/f10b/i/2012/334/4/a/my_little_pony__friendship_is_ahh_by_sonicbrony-d5mntqi.jpg[/img[/QUOTE]

Nah man, [URL="http://thelivingmachine02.deviantart.com/art/My-Little-Ponies-217281029"]the early fandom had it right all along[/URL].
[IMG]https://derpicdn.net/img/2012/1/19/814/thumb.jpg

In the news, Josh Haber is apparently back as (co)story editor in season 8. This comes from a discussion with the creator of Skylanders Academy, which Haber left MLP to work on, but according to him, Haber left that show after season one to go right back to MLP. So far, Lewis and Songco seem to be much better as story editors (though I admit I have no clue how much influence they really have on episodes they didn't write), so I hope they stick around in that role too.

And splitting off some other silly discussions from my "The Perfect Pear" follow up.

Though I haven't posted or watched them, Hasbro has continued their companion show for MLP, PonyChat. They've covered "A Canterlot Wedding" and "Magical Mystery Cure", and now they've covered "The Perfect Pear" with the two most southern little girls they could find. Like the show, they dance around the subject of the Apple Parents dying, instead focusing on how Grand Pear made up with everyone in the end. I know it's scripted, but it was really aggravating when the girls were guessing whether a character was an Apple or a Pear and guessed wrong on Buttercup even though they just watched the episode and they had the family tree in front of them showing that Grand Pear was a Pear. Anyway, I'm a bit amazed to see how many views these videos are getting. This having almost 20,000 views was surprising enough, but I glanced over at the recommended videos, and the one for "Magical Mystery Cure" has almost 170,000. I guess it's working out for Hasbro.

And...

... I don't really see it. I mean yeah, similar taste in hair decorations, and Sugar Belle is probably going to die as an anime mom with that hair too, but the front part of Pear Butter's mane resembles Pinkie's if anything, and even the parts that look similar are actually pretty different. Other than that, they look about as much alike as any other mare on this show (that doesn't have a weird model). They could have easily just recolored Sugar Belle's mane for Pear Butter, but they deliberately didn't.

Actually, I think it's pretty nice that they didn't fall into the temptation of making Big Mac's romance with Sugar Belle particularly similar to his parents' courtship. Oedipus complex romances will never not be weird.

But if you want a stretch...

... Now THAT'S a stretch!

 

[DemWalls]

Haber and possibly Vogel as editors for season 8?

One way or the other, it will be glorious.

 

[SigmasonicX]

"Mad Twience" officially uploaded

New EQG music video, "Shake Things Up". I haven't watched this yet.

"Fame and Misfortune" is being listed with MA Larson as the writer, but we know from his interview that there's an episode he has credit for but he didn't really write, and this is likely it. I figured as much from the premise, since it does sound like one of his episodes. The ED comments claim that "Tanks for the Memories" was actually a season 3 script that was delayed until season 5, which comes as a surprise to me. Some are suggesting this was a season 5 episode that was delayed until now, which would explain a lot. Particularly, the sudden return of the Friendship Journal this season was odd, but it coming the season after they were in focus makes a lot more sense.

Alright, "The Perfect Pear" followup. This took a while, so a certain special thing I was making will have to wait until tomorrow.

NOTES
So I mentioned how William Shatner's voice acting threw me off a bit because it, at points, reminded me of his Puss in Boots voice. Here it is. Though actually, they don't sound that similar, now that I listen to it again. It's really just when he makes old man noises as Grand Pear in the present day.

In the past, guest stars all played roles related to what they're famous for. John de Lancie played a Q-like character. Weird Al played a singing party pony. Lena Hall played a singer. Patton Oswalt played a picky nerd. Even Felecia Day sings, which isn't really what she's known for, but it's something she's known to be good at. Meanwhile, Shatner's role doesn't really connect to anything he's done, as far as I can tell, which is kind of weird. But still, now that I've gotten past the Puss in Boots part, it's clear that he played his part well.

An interesting point I've seen is that Apple Parents benefited from being introduced so late in the show, because by this point, the Apple kids have had so many qualities given to them that the Apple Parents were able to parallel them in ways beyond the surface level.

One thing that struck me as odd from the first viewing is the wedding scene where Grand Pear confronts the Apple Parents. Particularly, the assumed fact that Pear Butter was going to join the Apple family. There wasn't even the possibility that Bright Mac wouldn't stay with his farm and instead go with the Pears. This actually ties into my concerns over Big Mac and Sugar Belle's relationship. If it advances (and let's be real, now that they're an established couple, they aren't breaking up), then at least one of them will have to move. From a Doylist (out of universe) perspective, the obvious choice is to have Sugar Belle move to Ponyville, but I'd be really disappointed if they didn't at least have her and Big Mac talk about the possibility of him moving to Our Town instead. I was a bit surprised that they just went with the convention of the wife moving in with the husband's family and changing her name to match. Similarly, there's the newly introduced fact that Chiffon Swirl changed her name to Cup Cake to match her husband.

Also, it's interesting how Grand Pear and Granny Smith were portrayed as almost exactly as stubborn about the family conflict, yet after the wedding, it was Grand Pear who blew up more and Granny Smith who then accepted Buttercup into the family. If Grand Pear took a bit longer to arrive, would Granny Smith have blown up instead, and then Grand Pear would have taken in Bright Mac?

Lewis and Songco responded to the praise of "The Perfect Pear" after the Australian airing. Honestly surprised they were allowed to respond, but I know that writers and actors aren't generally aware of when the episodes are scheduled to air. Maybe they just didn't know it aired early?

More comparisons!
This actually is pretty mind blowing - Reading to apple trees + putting blankets on pear trees = Bloomberg's treatment.

Shared interest in guitar playing

SCREENSHOTS
Granny Smith over the ages
Dinky continues to time travel
Young Goldie Delicious has a cute design
Twilight cameo
EDIT - Lemme Smash
Young Mayor Mare - Before she felt self-conscious about her hair color.

YouTube caption - Real purpose of the race

GIFS
Not really a GIFable episode, I find. Not many funny expressions and such.
Goldie Delicious's entrance
Mrs. Cake peeping
EDIT - Send Nudes
Drinking milkshake

FAN CONTENT
Missing some recent art, will be included in the next episode followup, along with art from other episodes.

Pear Butter and Bright Mac
Yeah, there isn't much art of Bright Mac by himself.

Love Goes On and On by loryska - As far as I can tell, this is the very first fan art of the two (that was worth posting on Derpibooru).
Best Couple by jeffapegas - Made day two.
The Perfect Pear Speedpaint by dari-draws - Made day two.

Pears and Apples by piepon - Made day two.
Bright Mac and Pear Butter by scarlet-specturm - Made day three.

A Catchy Song by pegasusjedi - Made week one.
Shooting Stars - Made week one.
The Perfect Pear by nemo2d - Made week one.

Bright Mac and Pear Butter sticker by twistedsketchproductions - Made week two.
Chibi Pear Butter and Bright Mac by ak4neh - Made week two.

The Perfect Pear humanized by fj-c - Made week three.
Butt-er of the Joke - Made week three.
BrightMac and PearButter by racoonkun - Made week three.

Bright Mac and Pear Butter by feekteev - Made week three.
The Perfect Pear by spiritofthwwolf - Made week five (three weeks ago).
The Perfect Pear review - Made three weeks ago.

The Apple Party by dragonfoxgirl - Made three weeks ago.
The Perfect Gift by jonfawkes - Made after the US airing. Yeah, it seems like art really died down for a while until this point.

Heart Entwine by assasinmonkey - Made after the US airing.
Lover by renokim - Made after the US airing.

My Little Pony Trigger by zouyugi - Made after US airing.

MrPoniator GIF! - Made day one. If you don't recall, he stopped making GIFs in the middle of season 6. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like he's back back, and this is just a one-off.

Other ponies
Yes, other characters were in this episode. Not that the fan artists seemed to really notice.

Granny Smith by klondike - Made day three.
Pear Butter and Grand Pear by jhayarr23 - Made week three.

Pear Butter
Pear Butter by reiduran - Made day one. NSFW source blog.
Buttercup by eepiart - Made day one.
Pear Butter by varshacoro - Made day one.

My Buttercupt by ihasjessie-kat - Made day two.
Pear Butter by celebi-yoshi - Made day three.
Life's a happy song by ardail - Made day five.

My Summer Love by higgly-chan - Made day five.
Pear Butter by chaosangeldesu - Made week two.
Pear Butter Humanized by ponut_joe - Made week two. NSFW blog source.

Pear Butter by rariedash - Made week four.
Pear Butter by asktinalove - Made... one month ago? The date's in Russian and Tumblr is being vague.
I Cried by pastelhorses - Made... one month ago? Tumblr is being vague.

Pear Butter by pony-ellie-stuart - Made week five (three weeks ago).
Pear Butter by lulubell - Made three weeks ago.

Pony Cafe by kumikoponylk - Made two days before the US airing. Again, it looks like interest greatly dropped about three weeks ago until the US airing came up. Incidentally, I did see this before the episode aired, but I thought this was some OC. I still don't know why she's paired up with Lyra.
Pear Butter by meowjacky - Made after US airing.
S7E13 by tyuubatu - Made after US airing.

Apple Family
Always here for you by hikariviny - Made day one.
The Apple Family by opticspectrum - Made day two.

Humanized art by jonfawkes - Made day two. NSFW blog source.
Apple by wintah33 - Made day four.
Little Fruit by emositecc - Made day five.

Pear of Apples by pimpartist101 - Made day six.
Apple Family by tcn1205 - Made week two.

Apple Pear by phyllismi - Made week four.
I waited six years for this episode by finalskies - Made one month ago ish.

Plushies
Brightpear by legadema - Made day three.
Pear Butter / Buttercup Beanie Plushie - Made week two.

Plushies Pear Butter and Bright Mac - Made week three.
Plushie Pear Butter by burgunzik - Made week three.

Comics
The Life I Never Had by edowaado - Made day four. Comic from the perspective of Grand Pear as the years went by, and it's sad. RECOMMENDED READ.
Sing Along with Mom by ginkadia - Made day five. Pear Butter and Baby Big Mac.
The Perfect Pear by underpable - Made week two. Has funny expressions and a funny last panel.

Songs and Videos
This mostly had plain old covers, with remixes only really starting to come out after the US release.
"You're in My Head Like a Catchy Song" Cover (AshleyH) - Made day two.
[Mlp Cover] You're In My Head Like A Catchy Song Cover! by ~Silver Swirls~ - Made day three.
[MLP FiM x Yoshi's Story] You're In My Head Like a Catchy Song Tall Tower Remix by KingSpartaX37 - Made after the US release.
You're In My Head Like a Catchy Song (Perfect Pear) [Aurelleah Remix] - Made after the US release.
Daniel Ingram - You're In My Head Like a Catchy Song (174UDSI Remix) - Made after the US release.

Discordant Harmony & The Perfect Pear CENSORED! - Disappointed by this. Seriously, not even a gag about Fluttershy going, "This doing anything for you?"

 

[SigmasonicX]

Alright, so after seeing all the Pear Butter comparison images I posted, I decided to make my own. I'm amazed no one saw the connection before me.

Just like images demonstrated why Big Mac likes Sugar Belle, and why Applejack likes Coloratura, this demonstrates why Granny Smith likes Tirek.
Vectors: Tirek, Golden Oaks Library, Love Tree, Pear Butter

Pinkie Pie Says Goodnight: Would You Like to Fly - Pretty funny one this time.

Anyway, since more EQG shorts are coming tonight, I might as well save my reaction to yesterday's until then. Now... how did these go when there weren't early episodes? Ah, yes, today's episode is:

14. Fame and Misfortune
Twilight Sparkle's publishing of the friendship journal has unintended consequences when ponies start to argue over who wrote the best lessons.

There, plain and simple!

 

[DemWalls]

"Twilight was better before she got wings"

LOL


EDIT: Anyway, great episode, but I don't think the script was exactly what Larson had written, there must have been some changes made (see Starlight's role, too prominent if this really was a season 5 episode that got delayed). If that's the case, it's weird that the second writer wasn't mentioned. Who knows.

Anyway, is that filly (don't remember the name) the first pony we see where mane and tail colors aren't matched? Cute designs, in any case.

 

[DrForester]

Episode went a bit too far into mean spirited insults at the fans. Didn't really care for it.

 

[ShinySylvee]

Well there was a theory going around that this episode was an old script from season 5 lying around that only got made this season for some reason. Think it's kinda busted given how frequently Starlight plays a role in the episode.

There's a lot of fandom references here and there. The meta commentary was probably the best part of the episode.

Larson's interpretation of Starlight is fairly different from what we've seen from the other writers. It made sense with her character though so I found it fairly interesting. Overall she wasn't spectacular but I appreciate her having a supporting role here. It would be nice if she had more on-screen interactions with the other members of the Mane 6 but I think she filled her role decently and I feel like we need to see more stuff like this for her in the future.

Song was pretty good but holy shit there's so much recycled animation on display that it kinda ruins it a bit for me.

Can kinda see why Larson was downplaying this episode since I feel like Amending Fences was a perfect note to end on and this episode definitely has its moments but it certainly doesn't reach the level of Amending Fences. Still trying to figure out how I fully feel about the episode as there was a lot a liked and didn't like. (Holy crap those child VAs were horrible. I hope that they're part of some make-a-wish deal since those kids were awful) But overall I thought it was... I don't know really. Think I need a rewatch to really figure out how I feel about it. It's definitely not bad but I'm not sure if I would put it as average or slightly below amazing.

Anyway you can definitely expect a much more thorough post later on. There's definitely a lot to talk about with this one.

 

[DrForester]

Well there was a theory going around that this episode was an old script from season 5 lying around that only got made this season for some reason. Think it's kinda busted given how frequently Starlight plays a role in the episode.

There's a lot of fandom references here and there. The meta commentary was probably the best part of the episode.

Larson's interpretation of Starlight is fairly different from what we've seen from the other writers. It made sense with her character though so I found it fairly interesting. Overall she wasn't spectacular but I appreciate her having a supporting role here. It would be nice if she had more on-screen interactions with the other members of the Mane 6 but I think she filled her role decently and I feel like we need to see more stuff like this for her in the future.

Song was pretty good but holy shit there's so much recycled animation on display that it kinda ruins it a bit for me.

Can kinda see why Larson was downplaying this episode since I feel like Amending Fences was a perfect note to end on and this episode definitely has its moments but it certainly doesn't reach the level of Amending Fences. Still trying to figure out how I fully feel about the episode as there was a lot a liked and didn't like. (Holy crap those child VAs were horrible. I hope that they're part of some make-a-wish deal since those kids were awful) But overall I thought it was... I don't know really. Think I need a rewatch to really figure out how I feel about it. It's definitely not bad but I'm not sure if I would put it as average or slightly below amazing.

Anyway you can definitely expect a much more thorough post later on. There's definitely a lot to talk about with this one.

It's pretty much impossible to know which parts of this episode was Larson and which were edits. I would love to see the original script.

 

[Ogodei]

I loved it, very meta, but it addressed most of the concerns it brought up (like explaining why Fluttershy's character growth took so long to take root).

The concerns about Pinkie are a bit misplaced, since that was addressed honestly as far back as "Too Many Pinkie Pies" which was the show's admission that Pinkie had become too one-note and that they had to reclaim her.

Could've done more talking about Applejack. She's the one who basically learned no lessons before Season 4 and it really wasn't until these last two seasons where she started to learn that she isn't right all the time (since her big season 4 lesson was "stick to your guns" regarding how honest she should've been with Granny Smith.)

 

[DrForester]

 

[Rhomega Beta]

I agree on the mean-spiritedness. At least they're pointing out that Fluttershy learns about being assertive over and over. I still don't really understand why they're boycotting Rarity. However, the biggest thing that bugs me is the apparent age of the Friendship Journal. This was a Season 4 thing. How many years has it really been?

 

[Trigonometrize.]

The worst thing about this was not the writers attacking the fans (they deserve some catharsis), it was Ponyville attacking the main six. I thought Ponyville was like the nice, comfy town wedged between the elitism of Canterlot and the assholishness of the big city. Apparently books just make people just go so crazy in Equestria that they end up backing Fluttershy into a corner wanting her to explain herself?

I did kind of enjoy the episode though. I went into it thinking for some reason it was going to be about how Starlight published the book without their consent and it was going to be another Starlight-fucks-up episode which I wasn't really in the mood for. However, it was really only half her idea and everybody agreed.

The scenarios were sometimes funny, like everyone wanting to be a part of Applejack's family. The Pinkie Apple Pride moment where the dude is like "but are they actually related or not?" was the best piece of meta-commentary I thought.

The song is the most out-of-nowhere song ever. It completely caught me off guard. It was okay. I think Season 7 has a problem with the songs where they're not really about a unique situation, like Rainbow Dash trying to choose a pet or Applejack and Fluttershy battling over who has the better bat solution; this one and Best Friends Until the End of Time were both kind of just singing about themselves. And Best Friends Until the End of Time was actually catchy, so...

 

[UberTag]

Fame and Misfortune is a bit of a difficult episode to wrap my head around... and I don't seem alone in that sentiment. I enjoyed the fandom meta-commentary but it all came off a bit unfocused and all over the place; sort of like Toola Roola's pony design.

I suppose you could make that argument about pony fandom as a whole. Reading far too much into a simple show about friendship and then obsessing over factionalized elements of it... none of that is healthy but they kind of hyper-focused on that element of it to the exclusion of everything else. And it's somewhat of a stretch to think that a friendship lesson book could drive ponies into that degree of frenzy... although perhaps I'm downplaying the impact of the medium due to the fact that I never got wrapped up in Harry Potter during its heyday.

The Rarity boycott angle seemed like somewhat of a stretch without much of a basis just to work in a bit where fans will actively boycott things for inane reasons. (And to give her an excuse for one of her patented over-the-top breakdowns.)

I enjoyed the musical number but it did seem wedged in square peg-in-a-round hole style because it really didn't seem like ponies were hounding the Mane Six for the crime of having character flaws... although they did seem to be blind to the flaws of the ponies they elected to stan for. I did at least relate to this argument as someone that celebrates characters more for their flaws and their growth from them (or in spite of them) rather than their ingrained talents.

I enjoyed Starlight Glimmer's usage but would have still liked to have seen her interact more with the Mane Six individually as opposed to seeming like a Twilight Sparkle stand-in so she could be in two places at once. It was Spike who was oddly absent from this series of events without explanation although given how busy this episode was already I'm not sure he would have helped matters.

 

[DemWalls]

/

This really makes it look like he didn't actually write the episode as we watched it. If that's the case, I wonder why they didn't co-credit someone else.

Anyway, I have to ask: which part (or parts) of the episode did you find especially mean spirited? Because personally I didn't find anything particularly offensive, so to say.

However, the biggest thing that bugs me is the apparent age of the Friendship Journal. This was a Season 4 thing. How many years has it really been?

More than that, it's pretty not like Twilight to abandon a book in that state. Especially one as important as the Friendship Journal.

 

[UberTag]

This really makes it look like he didn't actually write the episode as we watched it. If that's the case, I wonder why they didn't co-credit someone else.

It's not uncommon for episodes of shows to have a single lead writer credit but for most of their content to get stripped away due to effectively getting written by committee by the entire room. The reason they didn't co-credit someone else is they probably would have needed to throw another half-dozen names onto the "written by" line to faithfully represent how the finished product turned out.

Some regular writers of The Simpsons have episodes that vary drastically in quality where it's entirely obvious when an episode has their clear voice and when an episode has effectively been thrown to the wolves and is barely recognizable as their work. This is typically endemic of poor showrunning... so if you want to lay the blame anywhere it likely has to go there unless Hasbro themselves interjected on behalf of their property.

More than that, it's pretty not like Twilight to abandon a book in that state. Especially one as important as the Friendship Journal.

Yeah, this seemed to defy explanation. Princess duties notwithstanding.

 

[DemWalls]

It's not uncommon for episodes of shows to have a single lead writer credit but for most of their content to get stripped away due to effectively getting written by committee by the entire room. The reason they didn't co-credit someone else is they probably would have needed to throw another half-dozen names onto the "written by" line to faithfully represent how the finished product turned out.

Some regular writers of The Simpsons have episodes that vary drastically in quality where it's entirely obvious when an episode has their clear voice and when an episode has effectively been thrown to the wolves and is barely recognizable as their work. This is typically endemic of poor showrunning... so if you want to lay the blame anywhere it likely has to go there unless Hasbro themselves interjected on behalf of their property.

Yeah, that's probably the reason. I was perplexed because in the past there have been episodes where a bunch of people were separately credited for story and writing, so I expected them to do something similar if they really changed so much of what Mitch wrote - Story by M.A. Larson, Written by...

Judging by his comments, he mustn't be too happy with the situation.

 

[draetenth]

I enjoyed this episode, although, tbh I didn't really think of the fan meta-commentary (and didn't even realize what it was supposed to be until most of the episode was over...). I suppose some of this is because my only exposure to the fandom is really this just this thread, but I am aware of how nasty the worst elements of any fandom could be (and these nasty ones are the ones I imagined the writers were poking at so I never felt like I was being insulted/targeted/whatever by the writers during the episode.

However, I think the show/writers have a series problem where they go to too much extremes/give the idiot ball too much, in an attempt to create a point. Like, there is no way the residents of Ponyville should have been involved (iirc PP even said something to the effect of a couple of ponies knowing her for years... so why the laughing at every word she was saying?).

 

[SigmasonicX]

Fame and Misfortune
Oh hey, Toola Roola is one of the Core Seven of G3 (Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Starsong, Sweetie Belle, Cheerilee, Toola Roola, and Scootaloo). That just leaves Starsong without a G4 version.

The moral that Twilight remembered... what episode was it from, again?

Interesting that they set up "Marks and Recreations" with the CMC deciding to start a cute mark camp.

When Starlight went off to find a solution, I was worried that she was going to use a spell to reset everything, especially when the song didn't solve anything. I was glad she instead went to get fillies that actually did learn from the book.

The song was fantastic, with really nice animation. I won't lie, when they had that split screen part with Rainbow and Fluttershy, I got unreasonably hyped when I realized that meant a similar scene with Rarity and Twilight was coming, and wasn't disappointed. God, I really have become a shipper, haven't I? Anyway, the other split screen parts were really cute too.

MLP has meta stories in the past, and people got upset with episodes like "Lesson Zero" and "Slice of Life", but I was completely fine with those. Thought I overall liked this episode, I do think this is a case where the meta went too far, mainly due to some logical inconsistencies. For instance, what exactly does the Friendship Journal hold? Since ponies were referencing stories from before season 4. They made a joke about how long it's been since it appeared, but never explained why the girls stopped writing in it. Ponies made a point about Fluttershy relearning the same lesson over and over, but her two season 4 episodes ("Filli Vanilli" and "It Ain't Easy Being Breezies") weren't that similar. While it's cute that Twilight insisted everything in the book was real, why did that reporter treat them as fictional characters anyway? Most of all, it felt like the episode was being pulled in a ton of different directions about what it actually wanted to say. Should people actually read a book before having strong opinions about it? But then after that collector scene, it did appear that most ponies actually read the book. Is the lesson that Twilight overestimated how good ponies really are? Is the main point about how sometimes things done with good intentions go badly, and we just have to deal with it?

It feels like the story is arguing against a straw man of the fandom. Though people argue about best pony, I never got the impression it was done that seriously. And besides, in what world is Applejack one of the most popular characters? Rarity having no fans does admittedly reflect the early fandom, but they've long gotten past that. I think the problem is that while "Lesson Zero" and "Slice of Life" used the meta aspects for comedy and demonstrations of gratitude, this felt much more cynical.

Also, Plinkett pony got a voice, and it didn't sound at all like him.

Still, again, I overall liked the episode. Fluttershy standing up for herself was great, and though it was sad to see Rarity be considered worst pony in-universe, I liked her reaction, along with everyone else. Starlight was used pretty well here, with her holding the fort while Twilight went to help another pony. Many of the meta moments were fun, and I liked the resolution.

 

[Trigonometrize.]

For instance, what exactly does the Friendship Journal hold? Since ponies were referencing stories from before season 4.

My headcanon is that they just pasted the friendship letters into the journal.

 

[DemWalls]

God, I really have become a shipper, haven't I?

You realize that now?

 

[PaulloDEC]

Decent episode, but if it's true that the script was a Mitch Larson original that got retooled for S7, it'd explain why it sometimes feels a bit patchwork. There's lots of clever gags in there, and the premise is good, but it doesn't all come together as well as Larson's work usually does.

Anyway, I have to ask: which part (or parts) of the episode did you find especially mean spirited? Because personally I didn't find anything particularly offensive, so to say.

I found this a bit surprising too. I mean, it comments on fans and fandom for sure, but I don't feel like it said anything that wasn't fair. Fans miss the point, we complain incessantly, we focus on the wrong things, we violently reject things we don't like... I feel like anyone who felt insulted perhaps needs to look more closely at their own behavior.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Decent episode, but if it's true that the script was a Mitch Larson original that got retooled for S7, it'd explain why it sometimes feels a bit patchwork. There's lots of clever gags in there, and the premise is good, but it doesn't all come together as well as Larson's work usually does.



I found this a bit surprising too. I mean, it comments on fans and fandom for sure, but I don't feel like it said anything that wasn't fair. Fans miss the point, we complain incessantly, we focus on the wrong things, we violently reject things we don't like... I feel like anyone who felt insulted perhaps needs to look more closely at their own behavior.

I think the big issue is that you have these ponies voicing common fan complaints, and this causes emotional pain to the characters, particularly Rarity, Fluttershy, and Twilight. It isn't hard to read into this as saying those kinds of complaints are bad and hurtful.

Though Larson's responses on Twitter are understandable if a lot of that was added after his work ended, I don't think he's helping the situation at all. I worry that he's making people think all the good parts in the episode were from him, and all the bad parts complaining about the fans were from Ha$bro *shakes fist*, creating some bad blood.

I imagine what happened is that this was indeed a season 5 script they dusted off, and various people got involved, going, "Wouldn't it be great to see Fluttershy respond to people saying she learns the same thing over and over?", "Fans used to call Rarity the worst pony, it'd be funny to see how she responds to that!", etc. with them only looking at each added part in a vacuum and not seeing how it looked as a whole. I find it really hard to believe this was a deliberate attempt to call out the fans, especially this late in.

==

So that was our fourth song of the season: "Best Friends Until the End of Time", "Battle for Sugar Belle", "You're In My Head Like a Catchy Song", and now "We All Have Flaws". Only one more left in the season.

Daniel Ingram at BronyCon talks about songs, and he confirms what we suspected: the low number of songs in season 7 is due to effort going into the movie.

But then he says something huge: season 8 has more songs than usual! And he still had access to the live orchestra he used for the movie for some of them!

(source)

 

[PaulloDEC]

I think the big issue is that you have these ponies voicing common fan complaints, and this causes emotional pain to the characters, particularly Rarity, Fluttershy, and Twilight. It isn't hard to read into this as saying those kinds of complaints are bad and hurtful.

I mean, this is true though; criticism does hurt. It's the reason why I always try to remember that the things I like were made by real people when I talk about them. Too many fans forget that, I think (which is also true of the behavior on display in this episode). I read it as being far more about how you express yourself than what your opinions are.

 

[ShinySylvee]

Alright, some quick replies. I'll be doing the supermassive RAW EPISODE ANALYSIS later tonight and I want to save most my stuff for that. If I ignored your post or skipped the more consequential parts of it then it's probably because I was intending on talking about it there and I didn't want to double up on it since I plan on throwing it up on Reddit at some point as well and I didn't want to just restate all the things I've already said here for you guys. Or something. It makes sense in my head k?

It's pretty much impossible to know which parts of this episode was Larson and which were edits. I would love to see the original script.

I've done a 180 on my original stance thinking this was mainly Larson. Honestly Starlight playing a fairly significant role indicates to me that there definitely was some rewriting going on since the timeline of Larson writing about a good Starlight doesn't match up with when he left. Which begs the question why they're insisting on calling this purely Larson's episode when other episodes that were based off writers that already left the show's works had them credited as the writer but the final writer being credited with the screenplay. I'm fine with the rewrites as there's honestly no way of knowing whether or not the version he originally created would have definitively been better then the one we got. That being said it would really be nice to know how much Larson actually did for this episode since that interview Sigma linked a while ago had him largely downplaying how much he actually did for the episode.

Could've done more talking about Applejack. She's the one who basically learned no lessons before Season 4 and it really wasn't until these last two seasons where she started to learn that she isn't right all the time (since her big season 4 lesson was "stick to your guns" regarding how honest she should've been with Granny Smith.)

Trouble with AJ is that the episode was largely dealing with the "fandom"s perceptions of the characters. With AJ I feel like for the biggest thing about her is that she's very low-key and doesn't do much of consequence. (Hence all the background pony jokes) I'm guessing that they wanted more of a balance of reactions to the characters (don't want them all positive or negative or they kinda feel samey) and since Fluttershy, Rarity, and to a degree Twilight all had a negative reaction from the readers they decided to go for a positive one for her rather then one that might have been more fitting. AJ's struggles come off as the weakest to me because they aren't really tied into how people actually perceive her character.

The scenarios were sometimes funny, like everyone wanting to be a part of Applejack's family. The Pinkie Apple Pride moment where the dude is like "but are they actually related or not?" was the best piece of meta-commentary I thought.

The best joke was when Rarity was looking like a tornado hit her in her boutique and Rainbow asks her what she's wearing and she replies "My emotions."

I found this a bit surprising too. I mean, it comments on fans and fandom for sure, but I don't feel like it said anything that wasn't fair. Fans miss the point, we complain incessantly, we focus on the wrong things, we violently reject things we don't like... I feel like anyone who felt insulted perhaps needs to look more closely at their own behavior.

There's a lot of truth here I feel. On the other hand though I think the episode was very unclear as to what its actual message was in terms of what wasn't acceptable. Given how the show often goes out of its way to make the more passionate fans happy from time to time I doubt they're outright saying that taking the characters so seriously is flat out wrong but at the same time I don't think that the episode talked about this stuff with the nuance I think it deserved.

God, I really have become a shipper, haven't I?

You know I'd make some joke about how shipping is the worst but I also wanted to like this guy's tumblr because I think it's really cute. Somehow I think my interest in shipping now is your fault, Sigma. Anyway here's a picture but the guy has been uploading a ton recently so check him out here.

 

[PaulloDEC]

There's a lot of truth here I feel. On the other hand though I think the episode was very unclear as to what its actual message was in terms of what wasn't acceptable. Given how the show often goes out of its way to make the more passionate fans happy from time to time I doubt they're outright saying that taking the characters so seriously is flat out wrong but at the same time I don't think that the episode talked about this stuff with the nuance I think it deserved.

I mean, you're absolutely right, as a commentary on fan behavior it's pretty throwaway and doesn't attempt to show a positive way to behave in contrast with the negative way demonstrated throughout the episode. That was perhaps one of the casualties of whatever rewriting process the episode went through, or maybe the comparison just wasn't intended to be thought about in this much detail.

 

[ShinySylvee]

I mean, you're absolutely right, as a commentary on fan behavior it's pretty throwaway and doesn't attempt to show a positive way to behave in contrast with the negative way demonstrated throughout the episode. That was perhaps one of the casualties of whatever rewriting process the episode went through, or maybe the comparison just wasn't intended to be thought about in this much detail.

Again going to be talking about it in more detail hopefully in my post later but for now I'll say that this is fairly similar to my thoughts as well.

Also totally spaced on this earlier but there's a preview for triple threat up already that can be found here

Spoiler

Totally hyped that the Triple Threat is actually a Fatal 4 Way between Thorax, Ember, Iron Will, and Lightning Dust for the EWE interspecies title. My money is on Ember.

 

[DrForester]

I've done a 180 on my original stance thinking this was mainly Larson. Honestly Starlight playing a fairly significant role indicates to me that there definitely was some rewriting going on since the timeline of Larson writing about a good Starlight doesn't match up with when he left. Which begs the question why they're insisting on calling this purely Larson's episode when other episodes that were based off writers that already left the show's works had them credited as the writer but the final writer being credited with the screenplay. I'm fine with the rewrites as there's honestly no way of knowing whether or not the version he originally created would have definitively been better then the one we got. That being said it would really be nice to know how much Larson actually did for this episode since that interview Sigma linked a while ago had him largely downplaying how much he actually did for the episode.

I've had someone suggest to me that Larson's original script probably had Spike in it, and all his lines were given to Starlight. And that really, really fits. Going out to get the two kids at the end is pretty much exactly what you'd expect Spike to do.

 

[SigmasonicX]

EDIT: Shiny, you messed up your spoiler tags!

"Twilight was better before she got wings"

LOL


EDIT: Anyway, great episode, but I don't think the script was exactly what Larson had written, there must have been some changes made (see Starlight's role, too prominent if this really was a season 5 episode that got delayed). If that's the case, it's weird that the second writer wasn't mentioned. Who knows.

Anyway, is that filly (don't remember the name) the first pony we see where mane and tail colors aren't matched? Cute designs, in any case.

Toola Roola's design is actually a pretty close match to her G3.5 design.

Incidentally, when looking for a G3.5 image, I found this GIF.

Fame and Misfortune is a bit of a difficult episode to wrap my head around... and I don't seem alone in that sentiment. I enjoyed the fandom meta-commentary but it all came off a bit unfocused and all over the place; sort of like Toola Roola's pony design.

This feels a lot like "Feeling Pinkie Keen" all over again, with the same, "Wait, what are they trying to say?" thing. And I imagine we'll have the same explanation: they just didn't see it at the time.

The Rarity boycott angle seemed like somewhat of a stretch without much of a basis just to work in a bit where fans will actively boycott things for inane reasons. (And to give her an excuse for one of her patented over-the-top breakdowns.)

I don't think the boycott aspect was meant to say anything about the fans; I don't think that part was meant to demonstrate an organized boycott anyway, just ponies going, "Hmm, this Rarity seems pretty stuck up, maybe I should get my dress elsewhere." I agree that it feels like they stuck Rarity with the big backlash because she'd have the best reaction more than anything.

I enjoyed the musical number but it did seem wedged in square peg-in-a-round hole style because it really didn't seem like ponies were hounding the Mane Six for the crime of having character flaws... although they did seem to be blind to the flaws of the ponies they elected to stan for. I did at least relate to this argument as someone that celebrates characters more for their flaws and their growth from them (or in spite of them) rather than their ingrained talents.

I liked the song a lot, but it definitely was there just to have a song. Even in its role of being an ineffective and useless song, we already saw that gag in "All Bottled Up" earlier this season.

I enjoyed Starlight Glimmer's usage but would have still liked to have seen her interact more with the Mane Six individually as opposed to seeming like a Twilight Sparkle stand-in so she could be in two places at once. It was Spike who was oddly absent from this series of events without explanation although given how busy this episode was already I'm not sure he would have helped matters.

Assuming the episode's story beats resembled the original script in any way, I imagine it was actually Spike who played the role Starlight does now. Staying behind to confront the ponies who bad-mouthed Rarity, comforting Rarity while Twilight goes off, and getting those fillies all seem like things he'd do.

More than that, it's pretty not like Twilight to abandon a book in that state. Especially one as important as the Friendship Journal.

That stuck out as really weird too. At least Applejack putting an apple in it explains its bad state, though.

I enjoyed this episode, although, tbh I didn't really think of the fan meta-commentary (and didn't even realize what it was supposed to be until most of the episode was over...). I suppose some of this is because my only exposure to the fandom is really this just this thread, but I am aware of how nasty the worst elements of any fandom could be (and these nasty ones are the ones I imagined the writers were poking at so I never felt like I was being insulted/targeted/whatever by the writers during the episode.

However, I think the show/writers have a series problem where they go to too much extremes/give the idiot ball too much, in an attempt to create a point. Like, there is no way the residents of Ponyville should have been involved (iirc PP even said something to the effect of a couple of ponies knowing her for years... so why the laughing at every word she was saying?).

From my experience, the MLP fandom hasn't been as bad as the ponies in this episode for a long time, and even back in the day, it only really became ugly during flashpoints like Derpygate. About the residents of Ponyville, in this way, the episode also reminds me a lot of "Putting Your Hoof Down", where everyone in the town is suddenly a jerk. Though note they explicitly say a ton of ponies came from out of town.

My headcanon is that they just pasted the friendship letters into the journal.

This probably is the cleanest explanation, though I would have liked Twilight saying that.

You realize that now?

You know I'd make some joke about how shipping is the worst but I also wanted to like this guy's tumblr because I think it's really cute. Somehow I think my interest in shipping now is your fault, Sigma. Anyway here's a picture but the guy has been uploading a ton recently so check him out here.

Kind of disheartening to realize I'm actually known as a shipper now, haha.

I looked through all of that blog just now, and there's some really cute stuff. The good thing about MLP is that everyone can agree that every pony looks cute together, which is a big reason why there doesn't appear to be much ship-to-ship combat. Though I do appreciate the bit of RariDashLight mixed in there, haha. When I reached the start, I realized it looked familiar: I actually did check out this blog when it started, but it went without updates for a while.

Trouble with AJ is that the episode was largely dealing with the "fandom"s perceptions of the characters. With AJ I feel like for the biggest thing about her is that she's very low-key and doesn't do much of consequence. (Hence all the background pony jokes) I'm guessing that they wanted more of a balance of reactions to the characters (don't want them all positive or negative or they kinda feel samey) and since Fluttershy, Rarity, and to a degree Twilight all had a negative reaction from the readers they decided to go for a positive one for her rather then one that might have been more fitting. AJ's struggles come off as the weakest to me because they aren't really tied into how people actually perceive her character.

Applejack was definitely the biggest disconnect from this episode actually reflecting fandom opinions, and it struck me as odd. The reason you gave makes a lot of sense.

The best joke was when Rarity was looking like a tornado hit her in her boutique and Rainbow asks her what she's wearing and she replies "My emotions."

Yeah, that part was great.

There's a lot of truth here I feel. On the other hand though I think the episode was very unclear as to what its actual message was in terms of what wasn't acceptable. Given how the show often goes out of its way to make the more passionate fans happy from time to time I doubt they're outright saying that taking the characters so seriously is flat out wrong but at the same time I don't think that the episode talked about this stuff with the nuance I think it deserved.

I agree, it was a big misstep to not say what good fandom interaction is like, if saying Fluttershy doesn't develop is an example of bad interaction. Though I don't think they really intended anything with it.

 

[ShinySylvee]

I've had someone suggest to me that Larson's original script probably had Spike in it, and all his lines were given to Starlight. And that really, really fits. Going out to get the two kids at the end is pretty much exactly what you'd expect Spike to do.

I think that they changed a couple things to fit Starlight (like having her cast the spell to make book copies which was probably done by Twilight in the original version) but yeah I think it's extremely likely that Spike was originally in Starlight's role which would also explain his complete absence here.

EDIT: Shiny, you messed up your spoiler tags!

Did I?