"I DON'T GIVE A FLYING FEATHER!!"
Mar. 4th, 2012 10:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spottoPutting The Hoof Down...or whatever it's called!
NEW FLUTTERSHY DEMANDS SPOTTO ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT THE TITLE OF HER EPISODE IS!!!!!
Uh, I mean PUTTING YOUR HOOF DOWN.
Don't hurt me! Eep! SOURCE by ShadyHorseman
What a strange episode. I didn't catch the writer of the episode but when I found out who wrote it afterwards it made a lot of sense. Merriwether Williams has a rather distinct style where you can tell she was the one who wrote it. In MMDW for example there were a lot of brand new settings in Ponyville you've never seen before, rather strange nonsensical ones at that. I highly doubt a small town in a historical-time with no televisions and computers would have a freakin' hydroelectric dam. I mean all the lights you ever see are candles, so what is the electricity for? Not only that but I didn't like the modern-looking equipment being used to build modern-looking buildings when every house besides Town Hall in Ponyville looked like a house from the medieval era. The characters are also a bit different. In both MMDW and HWE the characters acted alot more impulsive and with a lot less depth. For example I'm sure many fans complained of basically if not Rainbow being a flankhole in MMDW, all her friends as well. Not only that but in HWE they were all arguing outside of the play. The play itself was actually perfect for MW to write since she seems to be good with negative interaction and exaggerated personalities which the character roles the ponies played out pretty much were. (That is why I do not count HWE as a necessarily "improvement" on MW's writing in terms of characterization, since she was basically writing about a bunch of historical idiot leaders and their reserved assistants. I like MW's writing for humour and amusement value but I don't put it very highly in terms of character. MMDW wasn't a bad episode but it did have a lot of flaws. On the other hand the episode really was entertaining.)
SCREAMING UNADULTERATED RAGE
So in the latest episode we have...Fluttershy's cottage MYSTERIOUSLY being next to a whole bunch of other houses when time and time again before it was the only solo-house next to the Everfree Forest with neighbours not seen for miles. (Well, Ponyville) I guess ponies found Everfree Forest less dangerous than usual and expanded to where Fluttershy was all of a sudden? I don't know. The fact that she hasa gardener to do her gardening seemed odd too. I always saw Fluttershy as a bit of a reclusive pony from others except animals, thus where she lives. I imagine she'd do all her own gardening and such as well! So that was a very weird setting, breaking away from continuity all of the sudden. So random infrastructure popping about is a clue that she wrote it. The other part is everyone acting exaggerated and like...well, flankholes. This does not only include Fluttershy herself or the citizens but even Rarity and Pinkie Pie! I actually found Iron Will, the supposed "antagonist" of the episode rather sympathetic and not really all that mean at all especially compared to basically everyone else.(And I actually really like Iron Will, so take that as you will)
Rarity and Pinkie Pie show up and their "definition" of being assertive was also offputting. Rarity manipulating the nerd pony with her charm and looks was...well, that didn't sit well with me. You're not supposed to teach children that and I really don't see Rarity being quite as one-dimensional as that. Then Pinkie Pie, albeit amusingly, cons the tomato merchant out of half of her bits just because she raised the price this week. I don't care if it was a Bugs Bunny joke. Pinkie is an actual well-developed character, not a carbon-copy of a Looney Tunes character. Yes she has their traits, but Pinkie is not a pony who would ever steal, as amusing as it was. Anyway this leads to Fluttershy learning how to become assertive the wrong way, and she basically destroys everyone who even bothers to slightly inconvenience her. Highly expected and highly predictable from the underwhelming premise, I say.
I can imagine her calling out some rageful attack here.
Still, how this was all executed was rather strange. The fact that she learned how to become assertive properly all of a sudden after immediately realizing she was a monster...all of a sudden...the pacing was weird. Still I did like this part and I can say that MW did indeed improve on her characterization, but as you can tell from this rather long post there's still a lot to improve on. Everyone acting like jerks is certainly not how I want to see MLP at all. So this episode is a mid-tier episode for me, not amazing but not horribad. It does help that my favourite two characters interacted here, since I love Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. I love PinkieShy, and Rarity is highly amusing. (I also wanted to see more Rarity/Pinkie Pie interaction due to how amusing they were previously but I don't think they were quite as insane as those times before, who knows!) Also the lack of Rainbow Dash IS GOOD because Rainbow Dash is ALWAYS there with Fluttershy. Now we actually see that Fluttershy is supposed to be Rarity's best friend, and Pinkie is here too, so Pinkie's not just friends with RD or Twilight or something. I guess that part was my favourite part, the character choice. I've been complaining about it a lot recently too, so this was nice! Besides the Bugs Bunny thing I enjoyed Pinkie quite a bit herself, with her breaking of gravity and stretching like a giraffe and burying her head into the dirt. Rarity...I liked her as well, but I cannot see how some people saw her outshine Fluttershy AT ALL. I didn't see quite as much entertainment from Rarity (also it was rather spontaneous that she was randomly in Sugarcube Corner) but I dunno. She was a little more OOC than Pinkie Pie to me, but eh, can't have absolutely perfect episodes every week!
NEW FLUTTERSHY DEMANDS SPOTTO ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT THE TITLE OF HER EPISODE IS!!!!!
Uh, I mean PUTTING YOUR HOOF DOWN.
Don't hurt me! Eep! SOURCE by ShadyHorseman
What a strange episode. I didn't catch the writer of the episode but when I found out who wrote it afterwards it made a lot of sense. Merriwether Williams has a rather distinct style where you can tell she was the one who wrote it. In MMDW for example there were a lot of brand new settings in Ponyville you've never seen before, rather strange nonsensical ones at that. I highly doubt a small town in a historical-time with no televisions and computers would have a freakin' hydroelectric dam. I mean all the lights you ever see are candles, so what is the electricity for? Not only that but I didn't like the modern-looking equipment being used to build modern-looking buildings when every house besides Town Hall in Ponyville looked like a house from the medieval era. The characters are also a bit different. In both MMDW and HWE the characters acted alot more impulsive and with a lot less depth. For example I'm sure many fans complained of basically if not Rainbow being a flankhole in MMDW, all her friends as well. Not only that but in HWE they were all arguing outside of the play. The play itself was actually perfect for MW to write since she seems to be good with negative interaction and exaggerated personalities which the character roles the ponies played out pretty much were. (That is why I do not count HWE as a necessarily "improvement" on MW's writing in terms of characterization, since she was basically writing about a bunch of historical idiot leaders and their reserved assistants. I like MW's writing for humour and amusement value but I don't put it very highly in terms of character. MMDW wasn't a bad episode but it did have a lot of flaws. On the other hand the episode really was entertaining.)
SCREAMING UNADULTERATED RAGE
So in the latest episode we have...Fluttershy's cottage MYSTERIOUSLY being next to a whole bunch of other houses when time and time again before it was the only solo-house next to the Everfree Forest with neighbours not seen for miles. (Well, Ponyville) I guess ponies found Everfree Forest less dangerous than usual and expanded to where Fluttershy was all of a sudden? I don't know. The fact that she hasa gardener to do her gardening seemed odd too. I always saw Fluttershy as a bit of a reclusive pony from others except animals, thus where she lives. I imagine she'd do all her own gardening and such as well! So that was a very weird setting, breaking away from continuity all of the sudden. So random infrastructure popping about is a clue that she wrote it. The other part is everyone acting exaggerated and like...well, flankholes. This does not only include Fluttershy herself or the citizens but even Rarity and Pinkie Pie! I actually found Iron Will, the supposed "antagonist" of the episode rather sympathetic and not really all that mean at all especially compared to basically everyone else.(And I actually really like Iron Will, so take that as you will)
Anyway we start off with the citizens, but not only them but ANGEL. While I do see Angel as a very harsh and demanding individual I do not see him quite as mean as this. Fluttershy is literally in an abusive relationship with him in this episode, slapping her in the face and throwing her out the house, while also throwing away the food she tried so hard to obtain/make. I really didn't like this. After this we pretty much see every single pony in Ponyville take advantage of poor Fluttershy, painting the world of Equestria closer to our own than ever before. To make it even worse there are teenage ponies and nerd ponies...what? (HOW DOES A HORSE GET ACNE!?) Are there even high schools in Ponyville!? That paints it even closer to our world with absolutely zero context, the two teenage female ponies who literally popped out of nowhere.
You know I still don't know why Rarity had to shut her jaw here...didn't make it any less amusing.
You know I still don't know why Rarity had to shut her jaw here...didn't make it any less amusing.
Rarity and Pinkie Pie show up and their "definition" of being assertive was also offputting. Rarity manipulating the nerd pony with her charm and looks was...well, that didn't sit well with me. You're not supposed to teach children that and I really don't see Rarity being quite as one-dimensional as that. Then Pinkie Pie, albeit amusingly, cons the tomato merchant out of half of her bits just because she raised the price this week. I don't care if it was a Bugs Bunny joke. Pinkie is an actual well-developed character, not a carbon-copy of a Looney Tunes character. Yes she has their traits, but Pinkie is not a pony who would ever steal, as amusing as it was. Anyway this leads to Fluttershy learning how to become assertive the wrong way, and she basically destroys everyone who even bothers to slightly inconvenience her. Highly expected and highly predictable from the underwhelming premise, I say.
But then we got to the part I found rather...well, powerful, when Fluttershy annihilated Pinkie and Rarity. It speaks a lot when the kindest pony in the series basically does, imo, the cruelest thing anyone has ever done to anypony in the entire series! (Yes more than Discord/NMM/Gilda/etc.!) She didn't just dish out stock insults, she basically tore down everything both Rarity and Pinkie believed in, and what they basically were! And then the part afterwards was a bit melodramatic (lol) but the fact that despite what she did, Rarity and Pinkie still came back, even after they ran off crying. I loved that. I'm sure most people would pretty much just defriend their friend at that point, but these two ponies (and I love that only these three showed up btw. More unexplored interaction between rarely-seen characters together yay!) stuck by their friend anyway! The message of the show was still there amongst all of these flaws.
The animation here was woaahhh...
Anyway I suppose my favourite part was at this ending part, where Pinkie and Rarity try to distract and get rid of Iron Will. I think this was a bit too subtle to make a point, but I think the writer was trying to portray here that Rarity's and Pinkie's "attempts to be assertive" would not work anyway, and so kids should not do it since it didn't work on Iron Will (also because it's wrong, but I don't see that part of their ideas being shot down), who merely acted normally assertive to get by them. (Although I don't recommend dumping Rarity and Pinkie into a bush and a pool of MUD.) Then Fluttershy comes out and becomes assertive the proper way, doesn't pay and Iron Will actually leaves respectably. +1 from Spotto!
Still, how this was all executed was rather strange. The fact that she learned how to become assertive properly all of a sudden after immediately realizing she was a monster...all of a sudden...the pacing was weird. Still I did like this part and I can say that MW did indeed improve on her characterization, but as you can tell from this rather long post there's still a lot to improve on. Everyone acting like jerks is certainly not how I want to see MLP at all. So this episode is a mid-tier episode for me, not amazing but not horribad. It does help that my favourite two characters interacted here, since I love Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. I love PinkieShy, and Rarity is highly amusing. (I also wanted to see more Rarity/Pinkie Pie interaction due to how amusing they were previously but I don't think they were quite as insane as those times before, who knows!) Also the lack of Rainbow Dash IS GOOD because Rainbow Dash is ALWAYS there with Fluttershy. Now we actually see that Fluttershy is supposed to be Rarity's best friend, and Pinkie is here too, so Pinkie's not just friends with RD or Twilight or something. I guess that part was my favourite part, the character choice. I've been complaining about it a lot recently too, so this was nice! Besides the Bugs Bunny thing I enjoyed Pinkie quite a bit herself, with her breaking of gravity and stretching like a giraffe and burying her head into the dirt. Rarity...I liked her as well, but I cannot see how some people saw her outshine Fluttershy AT ALL. I didn't see quite as much entertainment from Rarity (also it was rather spontaneous that she was randomly in Sugarcube Corner) but I dunno. She was a little more OOC than Pinkie Pie to me, but eh, can't have absolutely perfect episodes every week!
So that's my thoughts on the latest episode. I sure wish we had something spectacular considering it was about a lot of my favourites, but I'll take what I can get. I wonder why Charlotte Fullerton only came up with the story? The double-creds there was a first. That is all from Spotto!
Of course all episodes must end in HUGS! Hugs for all!!
EDIT: Wait what am I doingTHAT'S BETTER!