As a Celestia fan, I still can’t argue with you on that. Trixie’s portrayal in the episode struck me as surprisingly well-layered, but Celestia’s was unusually shallow. She was the worst part of the episode for me.
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I used to be there with all the hype. Then I took a step back and looked at how stupid I was.
No offense to anyone.
I was watching Today’s episode when all of a sudden this face pops up:
and then this one:
The Animators are really outdoing themselves with the faces this season.
Aside from the faces, I found the episode to be kind of “cringey” as Rainbow Dash goes out of her way and tries to hard to earn a new nickname. And the part where she imitates the rest of the mane six, that was equal parts funny and unbearable.
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I’ve sadly not had a chance to watch the new episode yet (updates in probably like an hour once I’ve seen it), but yesterday I had a sudden attack of nostalgia and decided to go back and watch a Season 1 episode. ‘Suited for Success’, to be exact.
…My goodness, it feels so completely different to recent seasons, and I love it! I burst out in unashamed childlike laughter at least three times, and was basically wearing the biggest doofy grin the whole way through. I don’t know how much is nostalgia talking (two years ago, when I first - and last - saw this episode, was a very different and much easier time for me) and how much is genuinely just the episode, but I just had so much… fun!
Don’t get me wrong, I still love the show and the way it’s going right now. Some of the Season 5 episodes were, in my opinion, among the very best - and I’m sure Season 6 has some more great ones in store too! But it was just great to go back and remind myself exactly how unique this show can be compared to other cartoons, and why I fell in love with it in the first place almost two years ago.
also Rarity is so wonderful, serious contender for best pony right there
Alright, just seen the new episode, and
is indeed probably the best way to describe most of it. Dash is one of my favorite characters but I tend to hate episodes where characters just dig themselves into deeper suffering, and that really was almost the entirety of this episode.
Ending pretty much saved it though. Seeing Dash so genuinely content - not pretending to be pleased, not overexcited to the point of messing things up, just plain old happy - was really lovely and made the episode for me.
…
I guess my big in-depth tangentially-related analysis for this episode is on the subject of MLP’s humor, and where the best balance lies for this show. This episode follows a pretty common sit-com formula of a character trying to escape humiliation and only digging themselves deeper - think Seinfeld or most episodes of Frasier - but I think the reason those shows succeed where this one (in my opinion) failed is because even if you like the characters, you don’t empathize with them nearly as much. I like Frasier Crane, George Costanza and all those other classic sit-com characters - but it’s generally so much less painful to see them suffer because:
-
A) They bring that suffering upon themselves in a way that makes the audience feel like the character deserved it, at least a little bit; and/or
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B) They’re never deeply affected by it - mortal embarrassment or even the collapse of their very lives feels temporary, and because the characters never seem to be lastingly affected by anything, the audience doesn’t feel as bad for them when those sort of things do happen.
FiM characters have neither of these going for them much of the time, but particularly that second point is where attempts at this kind of humor backfire (again, in my opinion) in this show. Every single character in the show, to some extent at least, feels like a real, developed person, and their emotions feel powerful and not nearly as understated as a traditional sit-com character’s - and so when they do suffer, we tend to suffer too as an audience. You’re not watching someone make a fool of themselves, you’re watching someone hurt themselves; and that often ends up crossing the line from comedy to tragedy.
…
Anyways I think I’ve written more than enough words for one post. As always if I’ve gotten something blatantly wrong, or even if anyone disagrees, feel free to mention it! I’m always up for discussion, especially about fictional rainbow cartoon horses.
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Here, I’m just gonna post this before her [Starlight’s] character progresses past the point of this becoming mean-spirited:
From the new episode. A Christmas episode, in the summer. Well, it was snowing yesterday and today where I live, so I guess it fits.
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Osnap, is this a Nightmork Flashback?
So is anyone else looking forward to the 2017 movie?
At this point, it still feels like it could go either way - a horrid failure on the level of the Smurfs reboot:
Or an amazing/epic piece that develops the characters and the world in amazing ways and ties everything from the show together in a beyond satisfying way.
It’ll probably land somewhere between the two, but I still hope it’ll be closer to being the latter than the former.
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So this is obviously a post from a long time back, but I guess I only just processed your statement now or something? Regardless, Flutter Brutter is definitely a thing that’s happening this season, and it’s less than a month away apparently.
Just thought I’d put that out there. DISCLAIMER: Link leads to a synopsis, so don’t click if you want to go in entirely blind. (Except, obviously, for knowing the title, because I kinda spoiled that already didn’t I? Whoops…)
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Yeah, I think they made that announcement like a day after my post.
But that still leaves one very important detail…
#WHERE THE CENSORED IS SCOOTALOO’S FAMILY?
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Here…? Possibly…?
Otherwise yeah we need more Scootafambly, even if Dashie does make an absolutely amazing big sister.
So I did a thing. Rated PG-13 for some adult themes? I dunno, there’s like almost-boobs, and like is that okay? Ehh, it’ll be fine.
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Soo, is that Link, or Epona?
So we finally got some family for Fluttershy. I am a happy Brony 
. This was a good episode, I liked seeing a different side of Fluttershy. At first it was weird to see her so assertive towards Zephyr, but then I realized: she’s had to put up with him for most of her life! Obviously the patience and kindness we usually know from Flutters would wear thin after a few years of never seeing Zeph follow through with any of his commitments. I think this was a good episode with a good moral.
My only real problem is that We, the audience, have just now been introduced to Zephyr Breeze as a character, but it seems like practically everypony in the show all ready knew about him and his reputation. It felt strange, seeing Rainbow Dash and AppleJack react to Zephyr without having seen them introduced to him the way we were. But I guess the history is implied, and the show only has a 22 minute runtime.
My favorite quote of the episode:
“I knew you could do it, Zephyr.”
“I didn’t! But I do now.”
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I’ve actually seen quite a few people complaining about Zephyr and saying that the show-staff did too good a job making him annoying, to the point where he’s annoying to the audience too (I hereby dub this phenomenon What About Discord Syndrome, or WADS) - but I didn’t really have that problem myself. Sure, I definitely didn’t like Zephyr, but his presence didn’t ruin the episode for me either.
Yeah, that does seem weird to me too. I guess it was bascially the only way they could have done it though; after all, the only other obvious option is to go the Shining Armor route and have none of the characters even know that Fluttershy had a brother at all - and that honestly would’ve been even more confusing all things considered.
I love that they gave him full-on rupees and a heart container cutie-mark and everything - I might go so far as to say that this is THE absolute most blatant reference in the entire show. (Well, visual reference that is; “Winter is coming” probably tops the list overall now that I think about it.)
I really hope that Epona is like a giant, elegant dragon or something that he can ride around on without it being too ridiculous. Kind of along these lines, but probably smaller:
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Is this fad dead yet
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Not for a long time.
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nooooo
/s
Pretty sure it isn’t a “fad” after, what, five years is it now?
I was hoping it was one of those things that would die off, like FNAF and a portion of Minecraft…oh well
it is popular
sure it’s fandom is cringy
but it seems like the toyline/series is popular enough to continue the show
probably won’t end till it needs to end
which won’t be for another few months or years
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