Newbie Dash · 8:29pm May 7th, 2016
...
God. Dammit.
This episode is pulling me in so many different directions. There is seriously no reason I should dislike any part of this episode (Aside from maybe the cringe comedy where Dash is imitating her friends in the middle. Just...whyyyy?) And you know something, this time its a weird situation where it is seriously not the episode's, the writer's, or anyone else's fault other than mine. And it's all because of some seriously bad experiences I have regarding nicknames and my own personal emotions on the matter.
Basically back when I was in middle school I had this terrible nickname (I won't be disclosing what it is here because I have the irrational fear of it resurfacing.) and was called it every day until the day I graduated. And I fucking hated it. I never really mentioned it until now, but middle school was the worst for me. It was pretty much those experiences in middle school that made me have great hesitance in socializing because I didn't want to be made fun of like that ever again. It's also made me just have a great dislike for nicknames in general and not being able to tell the difference between playful teasing and spitefulness. (I might be able to chalk that up to my asperger's as well, I'm not sure.)
And thus, the reason I both love and hate this episode at the same time. On one hand, it's my own shitty emotions that won't let me see the Wonderbolt's behavior towards Dash as anything but spiteful and that's not good because from my perspective that'd mean yet again we get another episode where the Wonderbolts are dickheads. (See I've never been on any sort of team sport or anything close to what the Wonderbolts are so I feel I can't relate to playful teasing from teammates at all) Now on the other hand I know that isn't true and it keeps just making me question several things about the way I think, and I don't think that's something any episode of any TV show has done in a while. On that front I really praise the episode. Because it actually really made me think.
There's a lot of depth to the episode in those aspects.
If ponies make you think, they've done a lot more than most TV these days.