#if you ever watched MLP: FiM you understand what I mean

[elina-sakura]

Master Detective Archives Spoilers

You know what character Yuma/Number One’s personality reminds me of?

Twilight Sparkle.

Both are introverted loners who are rational thinkers and incredibly smart. They are in a high-positioned power while still being young adults (or teenager in Yuma’s case). I believe Number One may even be asocial as it was implied he chose to get amnesia so he could be more approachable and likable towards other people, especially the detectives he would be working with.

[flowersofstarlight]

After watching this video, it really made me get tears in my eyes in a good way. It really means a lot to me. Looking back to my childhood memories and rewatching all G4 episodes and watching Make Your Mark episodes, it reminded me why I love MLP so much. It’s not because I love horses, or the colorful ponies. It’s because it makes me happy and it gives me comfort. I grew up with MLP: FIM ever since it came out in 2010.

I remember crying a bit after watching the final episode in the final season. MLP G4 still holds dear to my heart, no matter what just like Minecraft: Story Mode, Steven Universe and all the old Disney Movies in the 1900s. And I still love and appreciate everything in both G4 and G5.

While I admit that G5 is very flawed and the writings could’ve been better. A lot of people complain about the story, the design of the characters, etc. and I can respect that, I understand the hate, and why they don’t like G5 and prefer G4 more.

But for me, I don’t hate it and I still enjoy it as much as other MLP fans do. I acknowledge its flaws and it may not be as good as the G4, but I still like G5. There is no right answer for which is better. Both G4 and G5 are flawed just like other shows and movies that are not perfect, and that’s okay. Plus, no one should judge or try to change their opinions and bully the fans because they enjoy watching MLP. Because it’s wrong to just take their happiness away from the things that make us happy.

We have different experiences from what we grew up with. We all should respect each other instead of just throwing so much hate and negative things at each other because of our different opinions and what we enjoy.

I’m not saying MLP deserves better to have better writing in the plot of the story, nor do we have to agree on everything. I’m saying that everyone, including new kids, should enjoy watching MLP, no matter what age and gender you are despite all the flaws, the changes and how silly MLP is. Because it makes all of us feel happy.

If you love them, good on you. If you don’t like them, that’s fine. If you don’t like G5 and prefer the old Generations of MLP more, that’s fine too. And I’m here to say that I enjoyed G5 as much as G4. And you should never stop loving something that makes you happy. I may not be a big fan of MLP anymore, but I’ll always cherish it.

[juni-ravenhall]

my opinions on mistfall!

under a cut bc spoilers and/or not everyone wants to read :D 

overall experience: 

its fun that there IS a sso cartoon now even if its not exactly amazing quality, and im happy to see if there will be more series or movies after this. it was fun to watch and see sso things in cartoon form too and i wish that we had more already (of sso animation in general). imagine if there had been a ssl cartoon? i also kept thinking throughout this, that it wouldn’t be hard for me myself to make an animated series with around the same length episodes and in a similar quality to this (aside from voice acting and music production), which made me feel a little inspired.

favourite scene:

skye taking photos of blaze and hanging out

positive points: 

i like the background art a lot, i think the style of it, and the colour schemes, helps give the series a specific vibe that fits for an sso series in my opinion. 

i like the concept art (i assume) illustrations which we saw in the recipes and other posts on sso ig, i think it looks a lot better than the characters in the series, but thats normal for concept art!!

the music is really good quality (whether or not its your taste, the quality is good) which is ofc bc its sso - theres already good music and not something they only did for the cartoon but something they care about in all of the starstable media. 

i think skye is a nice character (despite the series’ overall low quality writing) and i like her design. i also think rania’s cartoon design (visually) is cute.

skye and rania being a teensy bit gay (minus points for sso if they dont end up really gay in later canon)

i like that blaze wasnt actually like... mean or anything to skye, and i like that shes a mare since typical stories like this usually have stallions. but i just like that there wasnt really any “ooh difficult horse” things between skye and blaze in the current time of the story, blaze actually was sweet to her most the time. blaze seemed pretty charming whenever there wasnt “omg fire” drama. 

the animation itself (not meaning the details of the drawings or scene timing, just the actual frame by frame / puppet movements) was fine! not amazing, but absolutely fine.

points i have constructive criticism for, which doesn’t mean that i expected more from the series, but that we’re all allowed to discuss the quality and our opinions of media regardless of the target audience, budget, etc:

the writing was childish and rushed - this is not to be rude, but a matter that affects a lot of “media for girls / kids”, and a topic talked a lot about by Lauren Faust (creator of the FiM reboot of MLP) who wanted to show that a show about rainbow ponies “for little girls” didn’t have to be badly written, and could be engaging and interesting. if you watch the older MLP cartoons and compare to the first season of FiM (where Faust was still on the team) you can see a huge difference in quality of the storytelling, characterisation, etc. Mistfall, so far, did not subvert any expectation in the quality of what typical “cartoons for girls” are like, and is reminiscent of stuff like “The Ranch” (french horse cartoon) which imo is so bad that its hard to watch. (and ofc... that goes for a lot of “cartoons for girls / kids”, but doesn’t have to be like that.) in order to improve on this, the writer has to study more on storytelling and study from better writers.

on the topic of being rushed: no, it’s not an excuse that the episodes are short: - you have to ADAPT your storytelling and writing to the length of the episodes, not do a bad job and blame the episode length. being able to adapt to different types of media is a necessary skill if that’s what you work with. this comes down to proper planning and structuring the story and writing in a way that works for the length of the episodes. i don’t think that was overall done well here (at times it was okay), and bc of that, it feels rushed and has exposition thrown in your face instead of being shown through better storytelling. the classic thing with exposition is “show, don’t tell”. this is what the writers/directors should study, or pay more attention to. 

the timing (length of shots, length of scenes, or parts of shots, etc) was rly bad at times and overall unimpressive - this comes down to the skill of directors and editors. to improve this they have to study more on the topic. bad timing and pacing can really ruin a good scene or a good story and make it feel disconnected and hard to immerse in for the audience.

the artstyle of characters and horses is fine at times, but appears very low quality at others (skye’s childhood scene really bothered me bc her kid-self had really badly drawn eyes in my opinion). this, like everything else on this list, is ofc something that appears in almost every single “cartoon for girls” that ever existed. to improve on this, most likely it’s not a problem with the artists but with the budget and the production timeline (allowing the artists more time to produce better quality art and animation), and it can also be a problem with the art direction, if the art directors aren’t very skilled or experienced (i don’t say that they aren’t, im just giving examples of what could cause these problems.)

the character design for all characters that aren’t skye, rania, or blaze was very lacking. none of the not-main-3 characters looked interesting or fun to look at, they looked very dull and like the most boring NPCs you could think of. even though its understandable that the mainest-main characters would have the most interesting designs, that doesn’t mean everyone else has to look that boring. this is an issue with art direction or character design. i think most likely there was just very little time (equals money) put into designing the other characters.

the horse design could be improved for a cartoon that focuses on horses this much. like, horses are a big part of the selling point here, so make sure that their designs and art/animation is good. at times even blaze looked awkward and uninteresting, as did the other horses.

“alonso” looks nothing like sso alonso and i don’t like that they used his character if it’s not going to have anything to do with him. they should have given this character a different name if they wouldn’t make him seem like he had anything to do with the sso character aside from being a male ranger. (also in the game he’s like 22 or something, skye is 15...?)

why did they add a “he’s cute” dumbass fucking stupid hetero comment for literally no reason other than adding a dumbass fucking stupid hetero comment?

considering that they “can’t confirm whether a sequel is happening or not”, it seemed very meh to throw in druid cult magic stuff and not really connect to it and now the series ended? you would have expected to find out more about the cloaked people, the runes, the magic that the ranger guy did, and blaze’s magic in general, and skye herself, why her mom is “a witch”.... thats a lot to throw in while saying that you can’t say if there’s a sequel coming to answer all those questions. (it wouldn’t have been a criticism from me if they said “we’re working on season 2″ or “there will be a comic book that continues the story” or anything that told us that these questions, in this particular iteration of a story in jorvik, will actually be answered. - and i assume they ARE working on the continuation of the story, but i dont agree with that they’re not upfront about it, when they left so many questions unanswered.)

at times rania’s blindness was handled stupidly and i think they should have gotten more consultation from actual people with visual impairment, but i think its still good to HAVE a blind character in the main cast and that it’s not a big dramatic story thing but just an everyday thing. at some points it was fine though; and i personally don’t think the scene with rania being able to see blaze was necessarily a problem - because - a lot of blind ppl can see sharp contrasts in light and dark, and this seemed relatively realistic to me when blaze is on fire. (however, the way it was drawn as if she could see the whole shape of blaze and skye could be criticised for sure, and makes it feel more like “i can see because of magic” and not “i can see bc THIS MARE IS ON FIRE”). 

personal opinion which i said before, but i don’t think rania’s voice fits her at all, and it’s not the voice actor’s fault (i’m sure they’re lovely) but the casting and the directors. from the sso character, rania would seem a lot more lively, quick and adventurous, and not as calm and gentle as she appeared here. she seemed a lot too sort of motherly or just adult, instead of an adventurous teen who runs off on her own to do whatever she feels like. compare in-game rania going “MC, thats a jorvik wild!!!” and alonso going “stop talking nonsense” (paraphrased), to Mistfall rania going “jorvik wilds are really rare...” (calm, sort of disinterested, doesnt seem like she cares that much about adventures)

the voice acting overall was meh. i see this as a direction problem, not an individual voice actor problem (and the writing didnt help - it’s hard to provide good quality acting with a poor script unless you can just toss the script aside and improv, if you have good actors). it felt childish and uninteresting at most points and generic low quality for “cartoons for girls”. from a voice acting perspective i think skye had the best result. anyway, the way to improve this is for the director in charge of voice acting to not direct the actors to perform in this childish manner. (again, refer to cartoons with better writing and better voice acting, that have a very similar target audience.)

ok, i think that was everything that i wanted to write about for now, might think of more later lol

[dukeofriven]

Let Boys Love Girl Things

For a deeply depressed, angry, and vitriolic bisexual 20-something who stumbled out of a toxic 2-year intensive college program confused as fuck about his gender and hurting everyone around him, it is with no exaggeration that I say My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic’s low-key stakes, warmth, humour, kindness, and utter lack of cynical irony was my first step on the road not only to recovery but coming even sort of close to having an accord with my identity. So I quite frankly I am exhausted that I have spent nine years being judged on the behaviour of a fandom group from 4chan. Nine years ago there was a gross perpetuation of toxic masculinity where men were ridiculed en-masse for liking a “girl’s show,” a campaign of derision that only intensified as the worst elements of 4chan gave everyone the evidence they seemed to want to justify their snap-judgement that boys liking girls shows was fundamentally weird, gross, and worthy of censure. We like to clap ourselves on the back for how woke we are now. There’s no discourse that says it is “skeevy” that men enjoy She-Ra, and petulant MRAs on Reddit getting upset about the show’s new ‘feminist’ agenda is considered to be representative of nothing other than petulant MRAs on Reddit, not the She-Ra fandom as a whole. Steven Universe is triumphed everywhere as a victory for better masculinity - without anyone ever noting that Steven would love every single moment of My Little Pony: FiM. He’d cry at the wedding, and he’d weep at the destruction of the library, and he’d think the Storm King was an effective villain while Connie rolled her eyes and tried and failed to point-out the weak characterization. Steven would cheer and cry every time a villain was redeemed through the power of love and friendship. Because he’s Steven, and he loves schmaltz, and it’s okay for a boy to like schmaltz. If we truly believe that, as we say we do, it’s time let the habit of shaming boys who liked a cartoon show go. It’s been a decade. Yes: MLP: FiM had a disgusting contingent of its fandom. You know what other franchise has that problem? A little film series you might have heard of called Star Wars. A contingent of Star Wars fandom was so racist it drove actors of colour off of twitter because it piled hate upon them. It was so misogynistic that somebody out there recut the entirety of The Last Jedi so that men save the day and all the women get reduced to bit parts. And yet if I see a Star Wars avatar my first assumption generally isn’t “oh you like Star Wars, so you must therefore be a misogynistic racist.” Because statistically speaking, you aren’t - just like, statistically speaking, the men who liked My Little Pony weren’t 4chan users. Not that most people bothered to find that out, because - shockingly - the worst elements had loud voices and got all the press, and the standard we applied to them was so entrenched in patriarchy that none of us wanted to accept that men could like the girls show without it being some gross violation of the proper order. I’m tired of that. The show’s been on nine years - long enough that kids who grew up watching it are old enough to start entering “The Discourse Space,” and what kind of example do we want to set for them that a show that might have meant so much to them growing up is given a defacto label of deviancy? ”Adult males like this show about the little kiddie ponies - that’s so creepy.” There’s a point I want to make here that I think really needs to be said so I am going to make it large

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is a show for children; it is not a show about children.

What do I mean by this? Adventure Time is the story of Finn, a 12-year-old. Steven Universe is a show about Steven Universe, a 12-year-old. Ok K.O. is a show about K.O. a 6-11 year-old. Avatar: The Last Airbender is about a group of kids aged 11-14. She-Ra is a show about Adora who is… 16-ish? 17? And so on.

MLP:FiM is a show about 20-somethings. It’s a show about a grad student, a small business owner, a baker, a farmer, an environmental technician, a… trust fund baby?*... and, later, a former dictator. Yes, there are some kid characters, but the primary cast are all young adults who’ve reached adulthood and found themselves having to learn over and over again all sorts of shit they really ought to have known by now but don’t. It is, in short, a story about Millennials: an entire generation who reached adulthood not knowing what that meant or how to cope. Every time you laugh at the characters and go “how do they not know this [obvious thing that is obvious to adults]” you do so while watching a children’s cartoon rather than paying your taxes because you’re still not sure how to do that properly and are just low-key freaking out about it and hoping the problem goes away on its own. I speak from experience. The list in endless: we might ridicule the ponies ignorance at social graces, but i’ve been on this hellsite long enough that I’m pretty sure most of you are social-anxious neurotics who cock-up just as often and just as spectacularly as any pony on the show.

I’ve grown up in-sync with these characters. I’ve seen them go from floundering at 20 to sorta getting their act together and coming to grips with adult life as they reach 30. I’ve seen them become successful, get new jobs, start new careers. There have been episodes about how to deal with parents who embarrass you, how to get your parents to understand that you’re an adult now and want to be treated that way. There str stories about how to handle deadbeat older brothers who won’t stop mooching off your emotional labour, and how to mourn parents who’ve died. There are also stories about the byzantine nature of school regulation. (If next season is all about Twilight Sparkle reforming the Equestrian tax code it will be entirely in keeping with the adult-life-trend the show has been on for a while.)

My point with all this is that the “liking the kid’s show” narrative is disingenuous in the way it frames fans as creepy. To get tu quoque about it all I could raise my hand and point at all you adults gushing about all these kid protagonists in your favourite cartoon shows and go “Isn’t that CREEPY and GROSS you DEVIANTS” and on and on and on.

But I won’t.

Because it was never really about that, was it? It’s never been about that.

It was, at first, about what it was and wasn’t okay for boys - for men - to like. As a kid who’d been mercilessly bullied for being even the tiniest bit effeminate, openly embracing the fact that I liked this show about the colourful cartoon ponies felt like painting a target on my back. As for the boys younger than me - the boys still in high school in 2010 and 2011 who openly embraced this show? Braver than any US marine. When this all started it was about policing what was ‘appropriate’ for boys - nobody gave the adult Transformers fandom the same kind of shit, I assure you. It was about patriarchy - and how unwilling we all were to let go of it, no matter how progressive we told ourselves we were. Just like any moral panic, it developed a far more disturbing tone of disapprobation because if a handful of fans on 4chan were creepy than surely all the fandom was creepy. I’ve had plenty of fun mail in my inbox as people with cartoon avatars told me my opinion was invalid because I had an avatar from a different cartoon show. If I had an MP avatar that made me a “brony,” which made me a creepy MRA edgelord. Never mind that I don’t even use the term, and haven’t since… well, since the grossest elements of 4chan got it tattooed on their phalluses and trumpeted it to the heavens as the calling card of their misogyny.

There was a moment, I think, back in the halcyon days of 2010 and 2011 where we could have taken this another way. Where, socially, the rise of boys watching ‘the girl’s show’ was treated as a breakthrough, as a paradigm shift, as something to be celebrated and nurtured instead of something to revile like an anti-homosexual PSA from the 1950s. “Can’t let the adult men near that children’s show, who knows what might happen. They might repeat the trends that all fandoms have done for decades upon decades - the horror!”

We could have been better - but we weren’t. We mocked, and clutched our pearls, and looked appalled, and in doing so we fed the trolls all the ammunition they’d ever need to turn themselves into The Poor Oppressed Babies who just wanted to be left alone to watch their ponies and belittle women in peace. So the gender-questioning bi boy trying to feel good about himself got rounded-up with the usual 4chan suspects because we both enjoyed the same television program.

Patriarchy is not an external force with its boot upon our necks: it is a collaborative social effort, reinforced both consciously and sub-consciously every day. The internet of the early 2010s was a very different place, and the decisions we made then still live with us today. If we want to stop the perpetuation of toxic masculinity, we have to ourselves cease to perpetuate it. There’s an entire generation of queer boys and non-binary boys and non-bro cis-boys - the kind who cry and care and give a shit about kindness - who have grown up on Steven Universe and Adventure Time and yes, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. These are boys who deserve to have a better place prepared for them than I had, one that isn’t still littered by the baggage of all the dumb stupid crap from 2010 and 2011.

It’s time to let the ghost of Toxic 4chan Fandoms Past go already, and let this show about cartoon ponies be free to entertain and delight without incurring a moral inquisition. Life is so bad right now, the news is so dire. Curl up with My Little pony: Friendship is Magic and let all its goodness, and kindness, and laughter, and caring carry you away and remind you that we can still tell stories about worlds in which those virtues are treasured. Let the show stand on its actual merits, and not the cultural lodestones of long-gone reprobates. And stop granting the phantoms of 4chan the power to say anything meaningful in 2019.

_________________ *Serious question: what does Fluttershy do for a living? Like, as her job? For most of the series? She’s the only one who doesn’t have a meaningful career, and after meeting her enabling parents you just know she’s been living off pre-existing savings for years (she’s thrifty like that).

[Note: this post was originally posted in this thread. It has since been re-edited and slightly modified.]

[a-wolf-among-men]

do all of the munday league asks

//O god. I stop hanging out with my riend and come back and have to answer 50 questions. Alright. gonna have top put it under a cut

First Champion played?

//Varus. Can’t play adc for shit, but I still play him sometimes.

First Champion you mained?

//Varus. Again.

Champion you main/play currently?

//I fucking love sona. Like shes really fun. Shes easy to play, but its hard to actually be good with her support wise, because you can’t always keep using powercord Q you have to use your other power cords.

Best or Favorite role to play?

//I’m a support main, so I think that speaks for itself.

Favorite Top champion to play/have on your team?

//I can’t play top because I hate playing melee champions and im not any good with any of them. I guess Shen is good, his ult is good.

Favorite Jungle champion to play/have on your team?

//Just a jungler that isn’t totally fucking useless like most of the ones I have. Life of a person who hates to play ranked you get stuck with shit junglers and teamates.

Favorite Mid champion to play/have on your team?

//I like to play Sona and Annie mid. Annie is just stupid and Sona most people underestimate because shes a support so once you get lich bane you can take a quarter of a squishy’s health, plus her heal is nice to have.

Favorite ADC champion to play/have on your team?

//AN ADC WHO UNDERSTANDS THAT I HAVE FUCKING COOLDOWNS. In other words and adc that doesn’t try to 1v2 the draven and blitz. :^)

Favorite Support champion to play/have on your team?

//Sona, Nami, a good Thresh, pretty much any good support. Pretty much whenever I’m stuck adc I get stuck with the supports who seem like they have no idea how to play their champion and its like ???? Sona and Nami are not that hard to fucking play.

Best champion design(no skin)?

//Thresh and  Viktor it’s a tie between them two.

Best champion ability/kit?

//Sona. If people actually take time to read what her power cords do she has a shit ton of shit she can do other than spam q and w. For example if you ult with power cord E it not only stuns, but also slows the enemy. She has a lot of depth to her kit that a lot of people miss out on.

Worse champion design(no skin)?

//Ahri. Fuck Ahri. I have so many problems with ehr design that it’s just like. Why the fuck did Rito make something so fucking generic for a soul stealer??? Like I swear I’ve seen her design 50 times over just on people’s ocs.

Worse champion ability/kit?

//Blitzcrank. Fucking takes less skill than fucking Soraka with how many times I’ve seen his hook go through minions.

Favorite Female champion?

//Zyra. She cool.

Favorite Male champion?

Thresh. Hes my son how could I not chose him.

Favorite Yordle?

//Lulu. Fucking adorable little shit. Veigar is a close second tho.

Most annoying champion to play against?

//FUCK BLITZCRANK

Favorite champion laugh track?

//Hyena warwick. That shits fucking great.

Favorite champion Taunt track?

//Aurileon sol. Spooce dragon best.

Favorite champion Joke track?

//Volibear. Best puns.

Favorite champion dance track?

//Jhin my boy. He got good skill.

Thoughts on Surrendering?

//Double explosion. B)

Favorite game mode? (including temporary game modes)

//Normal Draft. We still have it on NA. It’s fucking great. It’s like ranked but without the toxicity. Plus if you DON’’T GET FUCKING AUTO FILLED you get one of the two roles you wanted.

Best event for the game?

//Bilge water. Fucking loved black market brawlers and the Aram map.

Demacia or Noxus?

//Noxus hands down.

Piltover or Zaun?

//I like Zaun better than Noxus and Piltover.

Winter Claw, Avarosan, or FrostGaurd?

Never paid attention to the Freiljord, so I guess winter claws. Just because I know thats Sejuani.

Shadow Isles or The Void?

//SHADOW ISLES IS THE BEST AREA

Favorite champion associated with Shurima?

//I like birb. Birb is cute.

Favorite champion associated with Ionia?

//Jhin. Hands down Jhin. I used to write him all the time and I struggled with deciding to make this blog or a Jhin blog. Still ship jhin with bm thresh tho

Favorite champion associated with Bilgewater?

//Cervantes Gangplank. Hes cool and at least takes some skill unlike all of the other Bilgewater champions.

Praise the Solari or Lunari?

//Lunari because I used to watch a lot of mlp fim and Luna is still best princess.

Static Shiv or Phantom Dancer?

//Only build static shiv when I play ad Thresh. I think I only built a phantom dancer on ad Janna. So static shiv????

Favorite item in game?

//Athenes. Gives supports without a heal but a shield a way to actually heal their teamate.

Flash on D or F?

//D. Like I’ve always had it on D so why the hell would I change it???

Current game icon? Do you ever change it?

//The shadow Isles crest. Hardly ever change it.

Have/do you watch(ed) LaLaLa Demacia?

//Nope. Never heard of it.

Best skin in game?

//Bet u all ain’t gonna expect this. Prototype Viktor. I fucking love it. Bloodmoon Thresh is a close second tho

Best splash art(skins included)?

//I really like the pentakill splash. 

What ping do you play on?

//It hovers around 60 to 80, but if my moms watching netflix it goes up to 2k every so often.

Do you keep up with pro play? If so, favorite pro player(s)?

//Nope. Couldn’t care less about the LCS

Favorite ship?

//Do any of the ships I’ve had on this blog with ocs count? If so a certain flame boi and my son were rlly cute. If not Thresh x Ezreal is rlly cute, but I like bloodmoon Thresh and Jhin just as much.

Do you listen to music while playing? What kind?

//Nope. It would kill my ping.

What season did you get into league?

//I dunno. Back when Karma first came out. Dunno what season that was. I was a youngin then. Wanted nunu because he rode a yeti.

Favorite type of Poro from Blitzcrank’s Poro Round Up?

//Was the shadow isles poro in it? I mean I played it, but I can’t remember the poros. The jinx one? That was one right?

Pref playing AD or AP champions?

//Always been better with ap champs than ad.

Favorite Rioter?

//Don’t know any of em. How about the one who made it cannon that Graves vapes.

What do you play more Ranked or Normals?

//Never played a game of Ranked.

Do you prefer Red side or Blue side?

//Red, because I like red better.

If you could remove one champion from the game who would it be?

//PETITION TO REMOVE THE PIECE OF SHIT THAT IS AHRI WHERE THE FUCK TO DO I SIGN THAT SHIT? Can you tell I really hate Ahri? :^)