Voiceless In Hillsboro - Season Five and Other Things · 8:52am Apr 15th, 2015
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Voiceless In Hillsboro
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Season Five and Other Things
It's a little strange not having a voice. My whole family and I came down with some terrible virus, that, in me, allowed an opportunistic bacterial infection - long story short, for the past three weeks I have been sick as sick can be. Triplet antibiotics have helped, and I am slowly climbing back to life. But - I cannot make a sound. I am mute. I sure hope my voice comes back one day.
I may be mute in real life, and feel like death warmed over, but I am not mute here, in the realm of text, so I thought to say a few things about the most recent season of My Little Pony.
Season five, so far, as of 'Castle Sweet Castle', is excellent.
After my scathing 'Around The Bend', you might want to know why I think this, and I want to tell you.
The first three episodes of season five are, in my opinion, as good as the work in season one. They do, of course, of necessity, have to run with what has been established in the intervening seasons, I have no issue with that. Indeed, it is mandatory - consistency is not the 'hobgoblin of small minds', rather it is the foundation of all suspension of disbelief. Without consistency, there can be no meaning or value to causality, and causal relationships are the machinery of drama and storytelling.
What makes season five good is that thus far, in these first three episodes, we have consistent characters acting according to what we know about them, they act in a rational and meaningful way, and they are not bent into self-parodies or used for cheap gags.
And one of those characters, the most important character in almost any story, is the world. The world is also being attended properly.
"Know your world, know your characters, and you need not fear even a thousand pages of story."
Yes, I am quoting myself. But that does not make it any less true.
In season five, thus far, Pinkie Pie is funny, but she is also competent. She isn't just a joke. She adds to the group, she helps, she supports, she has useful input. Remember 'Giggle At The Ghostie'? That was intended to be Pinkie's defining moment. In that pilot, that scene tells us exactly what and who Pinkie is to the team - and from the start, the Mane Six are supposed to be a team, an action team, working together as a group to solve problems. Pinkie uses humor to save others, to rescue others. She uses the tools of laughter intelligently. She isn't just a useless clown.
Rarity may be emotional, but she is smart. She is supposed to be capable and able. Initially, Faust described her as the oldest, and she is supposed to have the experience and backbone of an independent entrepreneur. She isn't supposed to be a useless frail. She's back... not perfectly, but back, and she is starting to have moments again, moments of competence.
Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack - sure, they can have personality quirks, but the original picture we were given of them is that they are capable adventurers. This is the heart of what they should be along with Twilight - all capable representatives of Equestria, not just gags or cheap joke characters. They aren't wacky superhero parodies, they aren't Animaniacs or Freakazoids... they are a team driven by friendship, determination, and their trust in each other. In short, they should be played as they were when we first met them - as if they were real, as if they were people, not mere toons.
Season five has returned to this. The Mane Six are not jokes now. They are handling the problems they face together, as useful, functional members of Equestria's elite Friendship Squad. And this is exactly what they should be, because it is how they were intended to be, and how they were first presented to us, back when Lauren had any say at all.
The world has meaning again. The world is the most important character of all.
Geography is consistent again. Ponyville is a flat river valley again. We have a god-damned MAP, front and center, and woe betide any writer for the show who does not sit up and take notice of what that represents. It means 'treat the show as a real world, not as a cheap gag'. It means 'there be places here, places with names and relationships to each other'.
A world is a character. It changes over time, it has history, it has a feeling of its own, and it has places within it that have relationships just as people-characters have relationships... and those change over time too. A world has a character arc. We have seen Equestria grow, we have seen it develop as a place - not without some serious growing pains thanks to terrible writers - but we have seen it grow.
Originally, Lauren Faust, in an interview, described Equestria as being a blend between the Elysian Fields and Oz. It was supposed to literally be the Elysian Fields - that, as many know, is why Tartarus is located below it. That was also why Queen Celestia was supposed to be essentially a Greek goddess... until Hasbro marketing demanded she be a princess, and get rid of the overt Greek pagan stuff and... well. Those who've kept up know the story. And how Faust got pushed out, and how she can't talk straight about any of it now.
Season five has gone back to Faust.
How? Those of you who read - really read, not just fan fiction - probably know the classic Oz books pretty well, but for those that don't, let me give the briefest of infodumps: after all the fuss with Dorothy and getting the basic world nailed down, the many, many books that continued the story went afield. Basically, Oz proper was now understood to the reader, and under Celestia's - ah, Ozma's - dominion, so adventures now took place at the borders and fringes of Oz. It became the great quest, after a fashion, to bring the authority of Queen Ozma to the undeveloped and unexplored parts of Oz, the edges of the map and even off the map.
This is what we see in the two part 'Cutie Map'. The show is utterly Oz-like. Our team is sent off to the frontier to confront a threat to the harmony of Oz - ah, I mean Equestria. Excellent. Faust must be smiling. I am.
We also see, in 'Castle Sweet Castle' real consequences to changing the world. Gone are throw-away stupidly deadly cliffside roads that could never exist in a flat river valley - there for one episode for a cheap gag, gone the next, nothing matters, nothing is real.
No, now, we have a consistent world. I want to scream this point: SEE HOW MUCH DIFFERENCE CONSISTENCY MAKES?
Twilight is broken hearted - as a lot of we viewers are - at the loss of the Golden Oaks Library. It wasn't just a cool home, it was the coolest home. It was the dream home of fantasy, a living tree that loves back, filled with books, covered in nurturing leaves. It was everything great about a Hobbit hole mixed with everything great about elves and magic and wonder. A living tree house. If it isn't every child's dream at some point, that child grew up in a desert.
This was not a cheap gag. The Golden Oaks was obliterated. It was destroyed, and because the world was made consistent again, that fact MATTERED.
And, thanks to the world being a viable character again, we can deal with the tragedy of the loss of the Golden Oaks, and we can understand how Twilight, as a character, felt about this change to the world, and to her life. We can see things played realistically. Twilight isn't bouncing around because she went up a level and gained a cool new super-hero hideout, a crystal castle made of magic - no, she's depressed.
Twilight just got her own Hall Of Justice, and she is depressed. Because her home was destroyed. Because she isn't just some two-dimensional super-hero, she is a person. She isn't a cardboard character. She is mourning the loss of her proper home, and, by extension, her childhood too.
Because now, forced (by Hasbro marketing) into being an alicorn princess prematurely (Faust intended the event to be the culmination of the entire series, something for the ending), Twilight has to grow up fast. No more playing in the treehouse, she has princess duties, and she can't go back. The Golden Oaks is ash... and roots hanging from her ceiling. Her personal life is over. Now she serves the Crown.
That is some real, powerful stuff there. That is damn good writing for any show, not just a cartoon about ponies.
And a word about that - cartoon. Cartoon about ponies. It's just a cartoon. It's only a cartoon. It's just a kid's show. It's for little girls. It doesn't have to make sense.
Do you think that way? Fuck you. Seriously. You are an idiot.
Animation is just one medium for expression. Just like live-action film, just like computer animation, just like text, just like books and audio drama and stage drama and every other form of creativity. Listen up: only idiots dismiss animation as being only for children, and only idiots imagine that things ostensibly written for children cannot also be written for adults too. Indeed, most classic English children's literature was written as much for the adults reading it to their children as it was to the children they read it to. That is what makes classics... classic. They speak to both adult and child together.
My Little Pony should make sense. It should be deep. It should have meaning and worth and value. It should be intelligent and make sense. If not for the benefit of we adults, then for the benefit of children watching it. Don't underestimate children. Yes, there are some droolers out there, but there are also some reading at a college level in second grade, like me, and I suspect, many of you (I'm looking at you, fellow Bureau and Optimalverse authors!). Even the droolers do benefit from logical consistency in their media - things making sense.
The notion that a cartoon doesn't have to make sense is horseshit. Bullshit is lies, horseshit is actually toxic lies... if you didn't know the difference.
So, the big conclusion.
I'm sicker than hell, still, and season five, so far, rocks. It rocks because it is returning to the reason we all fell in love with Friendship Is Magic in the first place - and that is solid characters, valid relationships, intelligent plots, and a consistent, amazing world worth suspending our disbelief for.
If season five can keep this up, if it doesn't bellyflop into a big pit of stupid, then we may well have the best season since the first.
Here's hoping that season five keeps up the rock-solid goodness of writing talent.
It is my demand that the on-screen My Little Pony be at least as good as the writing I favor here. If it can't meet that level, then I have to wonder why the writers are 'professional' and getting paid at all.
So far, this season, the writers are earning their dough.
So far.
- Petal Chatoyance
April 15th, 2015
Glad to see you're back.
Hope your throat gets better.
Great to see you back again!
I agree - definitely, the writing direction is very positive so far. The Golden Oaks debacle was handled pretty much perfectly, and the potential for a series of cutie map episodes (culminating in the Mahou Filly (Kouma?) outfits we saw last finale?) seems to honor that spirit of adventure that Lauren was unfortunately forced to curtail.
I really hope you and your family get better soon. I'm glad that you're able to make the best out of the situation, though.
Oh, I'm sorry about your voice; good luck. I had a really nasty respiratory infection a few years ago and lost my voice a bit as well, but it didn't last nearly so long.
I'm very pleased to hear that you're enjoying the new season! Let's hope that that quality keeps up.
Ooh, I hadn't though of the in-show map as a way for geographic continuity to be enforced, but yeah, good point.
I also liked that they actually covered Twilight losing her old home; my eyes actually got a bit moist at the climax of the episode, and that is not something that often happens.
It's really great to see you so happy (as I'm interpreting the tone of what you wrote, at least). While sick, no less! :)
What I want to see is what they do with Spike. He is suppose to be the Seventh Main character (per the Director) it's time they used him like a Main.
It's good to see an update from you. I wish you the best with your throat, since there's not much else I can do on that end. Here's hoping the writers continue to maintain some consistency.
Sorry to hear you're not doing so well. Just stay strong, take your medicine and you can get back to writing again.
I can sympathize with your feelings on animation. I spent the better part of my teenage years and early 20s constantly trying to beat that concept into my old man's head. He was of the opinion that ALL cartoons or animation should be like old Loony Tunes shows... My mother wasn't much better. But they've come around now that I'm pursuing it as a career.
I also agree that the best shows are those with consistency. For all it's flaws, Sonic the Hedgehog aka SatAM was always my favourite show as a kid. Simply because of the consistent story.
Same for the books I read, namely the original Dragonlance novels.
...I was a nerdy child...
These days I'm just glad to see a show with even a little consistency that isn't an anime, which is probably why I enjoyed all the seasons of the show.
Here's hoping you and yours get better soon.
Y'know, you just reminded me of something that I hadn't thought about in a long time. When I was first born, we lived near my extended family, and my grandmother loved taking care of me. My dad was in the military, so we literally moved to the other side of the continent before I was two years old, and I didn't see her again until I was seven. I didn't remember what my grandmother's house looked like, but when I imagined it... well, this may be my brain re-writing memories as I get older, but the interior was damned near to Golden Oaks at night, with candles glowing on living wooden walls, and books everywhere. Not so much with the pastels or heart motifs, but it was cozy, safe, full of books (I've always been a voracious reader), and was just about the best place ever.
Yeah, no surprise that I loved the place the first time I saw it.
=====
Any chance you've been following the dust-up over this year's Hugo Awards? I've been following authors, editors, and fans on both sides of the issue from before it kicked off, but I'd be interested in your opinion on the subject. [If you haven't, no worries, and your blood pressure would probably benefit from not looking it up.]
Well I'm glad your enjoying season 5 so far, and sorry to hear your sick Chatty.
Personally I thought season 4 was good so if season 5 is as good as you claim then I look foreword to watching it Sadly I haven't had a chance yet school keeps me busy especially as of late.
Anyway I wish I could add more, but I can't spare the time right now. I've got a paper due tomorrow so I've got to get back to work.
2986385
After a little bit of research into the Hugo Awards incident I have reached these conclusions;
1) The Hugo Awards are supposed to be awarded to good and/or entertaining sci-fi or fantasy works
2) The right to vote in the Hugos must be bought
3) Those with the right to vote have gradually started awarding stories based on if the author is from a minority, female or transgendered or from some perceived victim class, as opposed to the content of the story
4) They have been called out on this
5) They are whining over being called out.
Really the only thing I'd call into issue is the 'not judging stories based on their content, but instead on the gender/race of the author' because that is the very definition of discrimination.
2986754
That was roughly my take on things, too. Things have now progressed to "we'll burn down this year's Hugos before we let any of the Wrong People get an award" and "let's re-write the rules so that only the Right People can win in the future", which pretty much spells the death of the Hugos as a meaningful instution (assuming it hasn't ceased to be one already).
Given that many of my childhood favorites were Hugo winners, and were probably only in the school library because they were winners, that makes me sad.
2986828
The sad part is we see this sort of thing a lot nowadays. The worst part is they think they are doing the right thing...
First off, let me extend my well wishes to you and your family. I don't even want to imagine being that sick. I got hit by a stupid cold a while ago, and was sick for two weeks, in which I had to work or no money, and no money means no food or rent. I could at least still move and talk though...
It makes me shiver even trying to think about it. I do hope you are able to rest and recover. With all that being said though:
You mean episode four? Because that's the next episode. Or do you have no hopes that another "Applebloom trying for her cutie mark" can possibly be good? Honestly that's what a lot of this season hinges on for me. That 'joke' is played out. I really REALLY want this to be the season they get the cutie marks. To have actual progression like that would be amazing, and why not give it to Applebloom and have her help the other two try to find theirs?
Here's hoping the writers don't drop the ball. They already have a strike against them for the 'smooze'
I'm sorry but with everything that could have been done with that, what I've seen is just...ugh. No. At the very least I doubt I personally will enjoy that episode.
2986931
season five. sorry. fixed.
You'll get better.
HEH!
You. Will. Get. Better. ...and your family too!
Being a dumb-ass (I don't drool - I spit), as for OZ... I see Twilight as an Tip/Ozma/Dorothy type, Celestia as Glinda's older self and Luna as sort-of Oscar Digs (The Wizard). Kinda. Don't read too much into my thoughts. The pony map does remind me of OZ a bit. The first two episode of the show reminds me of the first book's plot. Great, now this whole show reminds me of OZ.
Pinkie Pie would make a great Jellia Jamb. Jellia Jamb would make a great Pinkie Pie.
I wonder how L. Frank Baum or Ruth P. Thompson would write MLP:FIM? What about Jack Snow?NEVER MIND! Can of worms.2987252
No worries, typos happen to the best of us. :P
It's great to hear something from you again! But yet, really awful to lose your voice (after all, it's horrible when anyone loses their voice, whether figuratively or literally in your case.) Hoping you and your folks feel better.
As for the show, maybe I do feel a bit more hopeful for the current season now (still need to watch the 3rd episode of S5 as of this post.) Sure, some of the prior season episodes were alright, but there was just something or somethings...off. Ah well, then again Equestria was The Shire in pony form for me personally, a re-visiting of a time when it was okay to like upbeat colors and have things turn out great rather than dull muted shades and endless grimdark (okay, I do enjoy things like Warhammer and Fallout Equestria, but NOW I can have those AND something upbeat, hopeful, and sweet too once again!) and worst case scenarios. And some of the stuff (like one-time industrial tech that cropped up at random for a quick joke, or just really out of place and nitpicking majorly here, but the Flutterbat episode involving... a radar user interface of sorts for the explanation of how Twilight's magic spell borked?) just cheapened MLP:FiM for me *clutching to an arsenal of headcanons*.
Anyways, here's to hoping things go well!
Welcome back! You have been greatly missed, my friend! Sorry to hear about the illness, I do hope it clears up soon.
I'll be PMing you about a couple important things in an hour or so. It's good stuff that I hope will cheer you a little.
Beyond that... It's WONDERFUL that you're enjoying S5 so much. I was curious what your thoughts were on it. I'm looking forward to episode 9 (the 100th episode, in fact) myself. Background ponies like Big Mac getting legitimate characterization, lines... And it's going to be a musical episode. Oh yeah. This former chior singer is excited!
I am sorry to learn that you are sick but like your review:
Putting aside the Studio-Meddling (nothing we can do about that) if one does not watch episodes from the 2 worst writers, the show is good:
Merriweather Williams is the weakest writer.
Dave Plsky, despite being very compotent, loves to write progenocide and antiscience (although magic is part of the physics of the world, the Mane (deliberate misspelling) character is a graduate-student and a scientist).
¡Get Well soon!
2986828 From what I saw it was 'we're not going to let these people who wrongly think that we're deliberately excluding them from making a mockery of the awards the same way people make a mockery of every other vote with an internet component, even if it means that this year's awards are ruined'.
I don't know why they were taking an internet vote for nominations, but an internet vote for X has always ended up with someone like the somethingawful goons vote-bombing, which is what happened.
2987388
Um, you pays your $40 USD, you gets your vote. It isn't "internet voting", it's "membership for the convention, discounted due to the fact that you won't be able to physically attend, but you still get to send in your vote".
Worldcon and the Hugo Awards explicitly endorse and encourage non-attendees nominating works and voting for the winners. They always have. Everyone's following the rules. It's just that the Wrong Fans are nominating the Wrong People, and (the horror!) they might actually win!
The fact that the True Fans say that "we're not going to let these people who wrongly think that we're deliberately excluding them from making a mockery of the awards" and plan to do so by deliberately excluding them this year through No-Awarding everything, and changing the rules at the first opportunity with the express purpose of excluding them in the future would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad.
2987437 The objection isn't over who they are (except for maybe this one guy that some of them think if a total psycho? He's not even one of the authors though), it's over the fact that they vote-bombed the nomination in the same way that most internet votes for 'what should we name our new product?' end up coming back 'penis'.
2987477
The only reason it looks like they've been "vote-bombed" is that the historical number of nomination votes is ~500. That's a small minority of the Worldcon attendees, let alone the fandom in general. That number has increased significantly over the past few years, as people have started to take issue with what has been winning. There were about 2100 nominating votes this year, only ~300 more than last year. If (as some have insisted) they got #GamerGate to stuff the ballot box, it would have been more like 20,000 votes.
So no, IMO the Hugos weren't "vote-bombed", the True Fan clique simply no longer has a large enough percentage of the voting population to determine who gets nominated, and the Wrong Fans got a say this year. Even the proponents of the movement were shocked by the fact that they nearly swept the ballot; they must have more support among the veteran voters than they expected.
I do hope season 5 continues making such a turn if you are right about this.
Reminds me very strongly of one fanfic and make me wonder on the roads the show might have taken. Makes me want to find some good AU fics.
Chat! I'm so happy to hear from you!
! A very LOUD 
!
Although, it's sad that you're not feeling well, it's so nice to see you letting some of your inner sunshine out – even if it is quiet!
I agree totally with you in regards to season five so far. Not only do we have the original mane six back, they've even grown into their expanded roles as the Elements of Harmony, which they are taking seriously. Even Spike is being taken much more seriously, and finally being given some respect as an intelligent being capable of taking on important tasks.
I just hope it will continue, just as I hope this post is a sign that your insightful voice will again be gracing this site on a regular basis.
Your friend,
Daf
2987953 #GamerGate has started a major change in things and it has lots of people being very worried. My own religious group fears a GG style revolt and are trying to keep that from happening.
That really sucks about the infection; hope you can catch a break. It just seems like you and your family are being hit by one thing after another. Here's to your luck turning around soon.
Season 5 isn't really popping for me yet, but I definitely see what you're getting at. ...The show itself has been so shaken up by executive meddling that at this point they almost have to step back a bit and consolidate the setting again. As a comedian I still appreciated and enjoyed the more gag-focused seasons, but yeah, that's not the biggest part of what originally charmed me about the show. The first two episodes of 5 haven't quite grabbed me on their own, but I got a good feeling about where they're pointing.
2988912
GG-style revolts have happened happened in religions before. Protestentism (or however it's spelt) is an example of a successful version of such a revolt.
Anti-corruption revolts aren't a new thing, it's just that GG is the first on the internet to actually gain real staying power.
I think I just got over whatever you have. =(
2990980
It's pretty awful, isn't it? I don't know what it was, but man was it bad. I still don't have a voice.
Hope you feel better soon. Often, I wish I could do the sort of things roleplaying characters could... This Thursday, when our Pathfinder group (GM'd by my wonderful husband) arrived at a village where one of the road guards had a bit of a cold, and my druid took fifteen minutes to prepare a casting of Remove Disease in one of his empty slots... it wasn't just playing out the role of a Neutral Good character. It was catharsis, however small, for all the times I couldn't cast Remove Disease in real life.
(Would be difficult to make the trip to cast it on you, since it's touch range only, but worth it. Realistically, though, I'd probably spend all spell slots capable of casting it at nearby hospitals, for those in the most dire need of it, and the remainder of my time writing online spellbooks so everybody else who could cast 3rd-level divine spells (or arcane for the alchemist and witch classes) could do the same.)
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/remove-disease
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/n/neutralize-poison
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/h/heal
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/restoration
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/regenerate
and, of course http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/raise-dead and similar.
Sigh.
2992411
Thauma-Trauma-Triage. The sickest must be treated first.
Never fear, I think I am covered by the Affordable Cleric Act:
s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pvponlinenew/img/marquee/affordable-tee.jpg
2992502 Hooray! No more having to pay for my own resses because I'm "not Lawful enough" for that paladin... who is a fine upstanding divine spellcaster and the moral compass of our party please don't smite me.
[Caveat: our actual party contains no paladin or paladin-derivative products. Unless the Geos Knight piloting our airship counts.]
Wow that's awful what happened to you as your voice. I hope you will regain it soon. Wish you the best of health.
I'm saddened that you're facing more difficulty, but glad you're still around and enjoying the new season so much.
Learning Limited Wish means being able to raise the cleric.
3001984
My primary Dungeons And Dragons character in 1978 - 1981, when I did most of my playing and DMing was a unicorn mare named Zarathustra.
Zarathustra had a ring of telekinesis on her horn which permitted full and easy object manipulation. Unicorns in D&D, then at least, were superintelligent and capable of speaking and learning many languages. Zarathustra was a spellcaster, she specialized in healing and party support spells. Later on, she traveled with four Pinixiads - a genetic mix of Pixies, Nixies and Dryads that Zarathustra saved in an adventure - which made her almost a party unto herself. She carried saddlebags and wore a specially adapted cape.
I had a lot of adventures, in a lot of worlds with Zarathustra. Being chaotic good, she was concerned with an almost utilitarian outlook - the most good done whatever arbitrary local laws said. Because of being a unicorn, she was no slouch in physical combat, if required, but she mostly avoided it. She was a great party support member, though. With Zarathustra, I could fulfill both cleric and wizard functions, and with the pinixiads, most thief functions as well. But only in the cause of good.
I was considered to be pretty weird, even then. But the good thing was that one could get away with a unicorn player character in that time. The attitude was always... "Whatever, if she isn't busting any rules, what the hell."
It was a wild time, there at the beginning of D&D.
2987953
It's not a matter of WHO is voting, or WHAT they're voting for.
It's a matter of WHY they're voting.
When people vote based on some aspect of the author and not based on the content of the material, then the entire concept of an "award" becomes meaningless. What makes it vote-bombing isn't the number of people getting involved. It's that there's a large faction of people who are willingly spending money to vote for candidates based on a social/political stance and not based on the merits that the award is supposed to stand for.
In the past, if something won a Hugo award, I knew I could go read the winning material and find a good science fiction story.
I can't trust that this will be true if the voting base isn't voting based on whether or not something is a good science fiction story.
Mind you, the Hugos aren't the only award suffering from this problem. I have lost all respect for the Academy Awards over the last couple years for very similar reasons: the judges aren't judging based on the content.
3025795
The catch being, each "side" says it's the Other Guys who are voting for authors rather than works. Last year, there was much... well, I can only describe it as "gloating" that few of the Hugo winners and none of the Nebula winners were men, and even fewer were "cis white men". I'm not talking about gloating from "randoms on Tumblr" either, this was from Big Names in the industry. While it's possible that this was entirely on the merits of the work (as such things are subjective; my opinion on the matter is different), given that current publisher data shows around 20% of SF works are produced by women, it's rather unlikely on the face of it.
In any case, the various groups encouraging people to vote this year each say that they're voting for the works, not the politics (well, most of them, there are some blatant ideologues on both sides), but the Other Guys aren't going to believe it.
EDIT: found the data I was referring to. From here:
i1.wp.com/difficultrun.nathanielgivens.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/918-Percent-of-Hugo-Nominees-Who-are-Male1.png?resize=928%2C508
The dotted line is at 78%, which is Tor's current (as of 2013) percentage of SF submissions written by men. The last few years have been serious outliers from both the historical trend and from current publishing data. This year is simply a return to proportional representation of authors.
Also note that the Hugo winners from recent years do not match with the audience's opinions of which nominated work was best:
i1.wp.com/difficultrun.nathanielgivens.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/916-Goodreads-Scores-for-Hugo-Winners-Nominees-ANNOTATED.png
3026112 ... now I can't tell if we're agreeing or disagreeing.
3028094
I suspect agreeing (at least mostly), and I was expanding on the issue.
Annnnnd then last week's episode happens.
derpicdn.net/img/2015/4/25/881880/medium.gif
(I actually like the silly, nonsensical episodes, but I really do appreciate it when they put something solid in the show.)
(Feel better soon!
)
3035600
Ehhh... yeah. You are right. It was at least neat to see industrial scale weather manufacture as a given once more, if nothing else. But, it was a forgettable episode with an insane and out-of-character Rainbow Dash. Dash may be a bit of a wild child, but portraying her as being criminally responsible for millions of bits in damage to her civilization, combined with psychopathic unconcern for the countless animal lives her insane climate destruction would destroy is the exact opposite of being a representative of Harmony and the essence of Loyalty.
Loyalty only in the moment, to whatever is currently dear, is not a virtue, it is psychopathy. Rightfully, Rainbow Dash should spend the next many decades in whatever system Equestria uses for criminals not deemed severe enough to be banished or turned to stone for the maze garden.
Hmmm... I take that back!
Considering her power connection to the Elements now, and her new power level over all, garden stoning would be the safest and only rational option for a true ruler of the land to take.
An unstable pegasus with access to Harmonic superpower is essentially a living, rogue nuclear weapon. If this episode is cannon, Dash cannot be allowed to exist uncontained. She is willing to kill off the ecosystem - life itself - in order to avoid temporary frustration with regard to her pet. My Celestia would, regretfully, sadly, but with the majesty of a true ruler of the land, turn Dash to stone without a second thought. Because that is what a ruler must do. A ruler must rule, and protect the land and the people.
Thus, 'Tanks For The Memories' is absolutely 'Equestria Beta', alternative universe Equestria for me. It is a very poor episode in terms of character and consistency. Bad writing combined with a lack of care or concern for the character or the world.
So, I would say, our first stinker of the fifth season.
3035747
Heh it was a stinker, though it was a treasure trove of reaction images, and seeing Dash flip out and go evil was just entertaining as all heck. And the worldbuilding had more than just the factory, but also the first episode where winter came, a shoutout to the Running of the Leaves, confirming that Cloudsdale moves, lots of cool stuff about pegasus magic. An easy way to resolve your desire to reconcile the stately and lofty Cutie Mark Warriors thing, with this episode's Dash, is to consider it to be a (very) distant flashback, to the very first winter Rainbow Dash had to deal with having a (ugh...) pet.
What I found worst about the episode was they were trying to make it a metaphor about mortality and letting go, yet tortoises are one of the longest lived pets in existence. People inherit tortoises. Fluttershy losing Angel to "hibernation" would have been a lot less patently ludicrous.
It didn't look like you've made any more blogs so I was getting worried as to whether you were getting better or not. Is your illness going away and how is your voice? I hope you get better soon. *hugs*
3054199
Now, I don't want to specifically offend you. I don't want you to be angry with me, and I am not trying to be a bitch. But I am passionate about art. And you have just hit a major hot button with me. Hear me out.
With the statement in red above, with this attitude, you have, for me, completely invalidated any point you are trying to make. Why?
Remember the very clear point I made in my post?
I don't think you understood what I meant.
What I meant by that is that cartoons are a form of media for telling stories that should be considered equal and just as valid as live action, as literature in books, as paintings in art galleries. And for most of the planet... it is. In other nations than America, animation is art, and it is respected as a tool of communication and storytelling. Not just anime with serious themes, I'm talking Zagreb Studios, or the fantastic works made in France, or... well, the world.
Only in America are cartoons purely and only 'kiddy stuff'. Only in America is there no room for animation to be used to tell a truly serious story with the same attention to plot and character and world as any live action series. And I find that attitude beyond deplorable, because it robs us all of brilliance.
Friendship Is Magic was originally conceived by Lauren Faust as a consistent, serious, real world where a fantastic realm was made plausible through consistency. They (Hasbro) stole that from her, and us, because 'it's a cartoon world'. Just like you said. That horrible, abominable attitude destroys real artistry, degrading it and lowering it down to the American view that if it is animated (and it is not raunchy and vulgar and filled with sex and violence) then there is no need to bother with consistent worldbuilding or... pretty much anything except silly, fluffy emotions for tiny little girls. Who clearly have no minds, and exist only to grow up to demurely breed or serve men as brainless sex toys.
I used to work on the Transformers games for Activision. I tell you true that Hasbro allowed a HELL of a lot more consistent, serious, solid worldbuilding for that show - a show for little boys, who are obviously more intelligent and worthwhile than stupid little girls - than has been shown in My Little Pony since they forced out Lauren Faust.
Lauren Faust was trying to destroy the attitude you expressed above. She was trying to make a cartoon for girls that was self-consistent and meaningful and well written. That is why we fell in love with it in the first place.
When you state 'It is a cartoon world' you denigrate her vision, you denigrate the intelligence of girls (who clearly don't need solid worlds because they are all about emotions and girly stuff and not worldbuilding like intelligent boys are), and you denigrate animation itself as a media. Because you are parroting the American attitude about what animation is... just a cartoon. And cartoons are for kids.
Only they are not.
Cartoons are for everyone, and there is every reason to make cartoons for little girls intelligent and self-consistent... because little girls can and do and should grow up to be scientists and engineers and all the things little boys get encouraged to be.
And that is why, with that one statement 'It's a cartoon world' you have made me feel very, very sad. I just want to cry at that, because that is the attitude that destroys the things I love, and which pushes girls down, and which reinforces that cartoons are not a valid medium of expression. It is the excuse for dumbing everything down. Because it's only a cartoon. A cartoon world... so who cares? It's about soft girly feelings, and not about alien physical laws, right?
Wrong. A billion times wrong. Angry wrong. Fierce, angry, this has got to change, wrong.
No. The world, just as in any great work, should come first, be solid, be real, be consistent. Then, and only then, can the emotions derive naturally as a consequence of the world that inspired them. Values change, based on the world. The emotions that compel a person in one world (time, place, location, era) would mean nothing to a person in a different world. That's fundamental to literature. Good literature. Not crap.
Girls deserve better than crap.
I've tried to explain this as kindly as I can, as gently and intellectually as I can, because I don't want to alienate you. But I am fierce on this subject. I am adamant and acrimonious.
Animation should be made as intelligent as possible, as consistent as possible, especially in shows made for young girls. A cartoon world should exemplify consistency and reward and inspire intellectual curiosity and speculation. It should help encourage girls, specifically, to challenge patriarchal assumptions and to find support for using their minds and intellects, so that they can have options beyond settling for Madonna or Whore roles in life.
And when I hear the same old 'it's a cartoon world' excuse for stupidity and bad writing, it makes me very very sad, or very angry, or both.
3056000
What a magnificent, well considered, and seriously impressive response! I just wanted to get that out there. Wow. Thank you.
I am going to be considering your points, and the main thrust of your argument, far beyond this exchange. I am a bit too much a Venetian Dog, you are correct there. I have a problem with forgetting my privilege - I am privileged to be surrounded by spouses who are, simply put, superintelligent and hyperrational (I am not claiming, in this, that I am their equal). I become too convinced that this is normal, because it is my personal normal, and I forget too easily that the bell curve is no joke. I make, commonly, the mistake of assuming that my circumstances are commonplace, and thus that what I have been convinced to value or demand or consider obvious and settled is somehow universal... and that is a colossal illusion, and often makes the fool of me.
My personal culture, my society, is, at best, tilted ninety degrees from plumb, and I am a plum fool to think otherwise.
Your points about my critical views ruining a great deal of fun for myself are indisputable. There is much in the world that I become disenchanted with, and which I turn up my nose at, all for numerous reasons which I am overly certain I am right about. I am also unforgiving of broken promises in media (or anything else in life), and I am especially so with things I fall overly in love with.
I fell overly in love with the first season of Friendship Is Magic, and the promise it represented at the time. It seemed to offer the one thing I love best - intelligent, consistent, wonder-crafting. A world to be astonished by that holds up. Oh, how I love that.
Trek can be that, sometimes. I've been watching Voyager with my family, re-watching, really, for the third or fourth run through, and one thing I always enjoy about any Trek series is that I can look at a Federation starship, and I can identify what every component is, what it does, why it is there, how it works, and what it is capable of, and what its limitations are. I know Trek technology better than I know how our car works, or even how my own computer works (and I assembled my computer together with my spouses from parts). What a marvelous creation, the universe of Star Trek, that this is even possible! It hangs together (mostly), as if it were real, somewhere, somehow, perhaps in the universe next door. Oh, how I love that!
I love it so much, that I try to do just that in everything I write... and I love it so much that I demand it of everything in the world. I am often - almost universally - disappointed. I saw the promise of that in My Little Pony... and I have never quite gotten past the feeling of betrayal, I think.
Of what you have to say about the social repercussions of the representation of various downtrodden groups, such as women and trans people... which both cover me... I clearly have a burr under my saddle. There is no denying that, or claiming that my positions are not informed by personal pain in such matters. I am impatient, as a result, and angry, and frustrated, of course. And no, being that way helps nothing. It is the not being that way that somehow escapes me. Not for lack of trying, I assure you. I guess I just have trouble managing my own miseries. I recognize my fragility, and my over-sensitivity. I don't get over things easily. It is a pathetic fault, I have no doubt. My sense of humor about being marginalized and subjugated suffers as a result.
Which is not useful, because nothing I say or do is going to change a bit of any of it. Or likely anything done by anyone, at any time within my remaining lifespan. It would be best, I know, to be a happy little gollywog, because that status isn't going away, and what cannot be changed must be endured. It would be smarter to laugh about it all, than soak in tears, of course.
Pity my brain doesn't respond to direct orders very well. Faulty worksmanship, I suspect. Or perhaps I suffer from a greater level of derpification than I am wont to admit. I just don't know what went wrong!
Yes. You are right, I have let one silly show mean to much to me. It is a crime I have been guilty of before, and likely will again, considering everything. I am so desperate for a world better than the one into which I have been consigned, that I seek what I need from media in the way a drowning woman would seek gulps of air from the narrowing roof gap within her rapidly sinking, ocean dropped automobile. This taints my views and expressions, this desperation. I know it.
But my desperation does not mean that the water the fish about me enjoy is wrong, even if I cannot easily breathe it, and that point is taken, if grudgingly.
Thank you again for a simply marvelous response. It was a joy to read.
You are amazing.
3054199
If Dash was the best character to show this for, then they shouldn't have given her a pet tortoise in the first place.
3056553
For the record, Rainbow Dash would never ruin everypony's hopes and dreams and betray her pet and her best friend, just so she can have what she wants, so her personality isn't as fitting as you suggest. She is however, the sort of pony who would charge headlong into a hairbrained solution that would result in massive property damage. That was the point of the episode really: blowing up the weather factory. That's what everyone will remember because it was awesome. The losing your pet thing felt more like a setup for the big disaster.
I find it amusing that you couldn't suspend your disbelief if Fluttershy gets upset over Angel dying, but a tortoise being someone's dying pet is all metaphoricalish, so that makes it totally easy to believe.
Man, Fluttershy destroying the weather factory... I think I could die happy having seen that happen.
3002398
I need to check in here a little more often. Nostalgia time.
My memory of 1st edition is that the rules were incomplete enough that the
GMDM knew he was going to be making up stuff on the spot for all sorts of things. Even in our encyclopedic knowledge of the rules, we were still learning how to play and trying out whatever strange stuff struck our fancy. Gods were made and slain, classes were mixed indiscriminately, and the name "Mary Sue" was nowhere to be heard.I'm not sure when it changed. Maybe it was when a certain dark elf that shall not be named decided to try being a good guy. Or maybe it was when vampires got their own games. Or maybe it was Japanese anime showing too many guys who could wipe out entire armies with a single wave of their katana. ...Okay, maybe the resultant disdain for special snowflakes isn't as mysterious in origin as I had thought. They crowd everyone else out.
I think the more structured nature of 3.x Edition also has something to do with it. The rules are more consistent, robust, and encompassing. There's less need to make it up as we go along. Less stepping into unknown territory. Less wonder.
I think I've summed up everything I had to say. And figured out why my old group doesn't talk to me anymore.
Goodnight.