A depressed rant about FiM · 12:28am Jun 19th, 2021
For anyone who stumbled on this by accident (which I assume is everyone reading this with one exception) and doesn't want to listen to my cynical, semi-coherent ramblings, the tl;dr is that I'm burnt out on FiM, disappointed by the latter two-thirds of the show and unimpressed at best with what remains of the fandom. There. You can move along now.
For those few of you who are still here for some reason, I guess the place to start is to reiterate that I'm burnt out on FiM. The show had such a promising beginning, but as time's gone on, that promise has been squandered, ultimately leaving us with a hollow mockery of its former self.
The main characters have all gone from flawed but interesting characters with room to grow and improve to caricatures of their worst aspects at best, walking contradictions at worst. Applejack is a liar and a hypocrite, condemning the pride of others while clinging to her own, condemning her sister for standing up to her bully of a cousin instead of coming to her despite her, time and again, refusing to help with Diamond Tiara, even when Apple Bloom does come to her, or even when DT comes to Sweet Apple Acres itself to bully Apple Bloom at her own home, and refusing to admit when she's wrong even if it means lying or breaking promises while expecting everyone to see her as always being completely honest. Fluttershy has developed a nasty habit of siding with evil if she's not directly impacted by it, going so far as to betray the world to a character that was initially designed to be (and, as of the episode in question, was) the setting's ultimate evil. Pinkie has become a total nuisance at best, driving other around her to misery in her quest for personal amusement, utterly convinced that as long as she's having fun so is everyone else, while never learning her lesson. Rarity's manipulations have never been condemned and are even portrayed as virtue in some episodes. Dash is either a total fanatic or a self-centered monster completely ignoring lessons of the past, depending on which one the writers think make her look worse in a given scenario, while sapping her of her early-season competence. Twilight's ascended above her supposed friends, both in status and in escaping mortality, and despite trying to insist that they're all still equals she leaves them mortal and beneath her, even though the last few seasons establish that she could actually fix both if she wanted to. And Spike is still just Twilight's lackey, forced to do anything and everything for her while Rarity openly strings him along for free labor with no one so much as raising a single word of opposition to either.
The supporting cast isn't much better, and in fact is worse in many instances. The ruling class aside from Twilight is made up of a manipulator constantly putting countless innocent lives on the line in times of crisis to push her own agenda, a pony that claims the dreams of others as her property, using that as an excuse to spy on and steal memories from others as she sees fit and bully others into courses of action that she desires, and a pony whose duties boil down to magically brainwashing other ponies to enforce her preferred ships. And at the very least, the first two of these hold the key to beating mortality, but only grant it to unicorns (given the method of selection, only unicorns are eligible) able to apply for Celestia's school, impress her enough with raw power to become her student, and then prove absolute slavish devotion under even suicidal conditions and an aptitude for cleaning up Celestia's messes even when woefully underequipped and uninformed, and even then are only given part of the key and are expected to figure out the rest themselves. And beyond that, the two other supporting characters - Starlight and Discord - are former villains who were handed victory while they were still evil, threw that victory away for no reason other than the script demanded it, and then moved on to be fully accepted, with the former becoming arguably the new main character and picking up a number of Mary Sue-like traits along the way, and despite the latter proving time and time again to still be evil and is only trying to be less obvious about it until he has a chance to regain the victory the script forced him to discard.
And the setting's MacGuffins that let the main characters beat the villains? Turns out they're extensions of a nigh-omnipotent, indestructible, autonomous AI that, despite being in a position to stop any threat from Tirek on by itself, demanded appeasement to allow Tirek's defeat, stood by and watched as the Storm King conquered Equestria, and is perfectly willing to murder children for not meeting some arbitrary standard of oneness unless they pass a sadistic test (a test which, by the way, could only be passed if at least one of them proved that they didn't need friends) within an arbitrary time limit. And it can't even be dealt with even if the cast wised up about it, since as the last episodes show, it's the only thing standing between Equestria and the Windigoes. Heck, even if it's only temporarily disabled it will use that as an excuse to abandon Equestria to them until appeased again, as the last episodes also show.
And throughout all of it is an ever-growing hostility from the writers against critics, even as critics became fewer and fewer in number, creating episodes with messages such as "perfection is impossible, so why bother trying?" and "self-improvement is self-denial, just be yourself". And of course, there's the giant, explicit middle finger that was Fame and Misfortune.
Despite all of this, I'd still find it possible to find enjoyment in fanfic in this setting, were the 'fic writers aware enough to realize the flaws and competent enough to avoid or attempt to mitigate them. But as time has passed, such writers have become fewer and farther between, to the point that they're all but nonexistent nowadays. Pretty much all fics out there seem to just be more of the same from canon at best, mixed with occasional drabbles of blind praise for Celestia, far-left/SJW propaganda, and disturbingly large quantities of rape, incest, and pedophilia. And even when the rare attempted fix does come, it's pretty much invariably disappointing. Either it flies past the canonical darkness into grimdark just for the sake of dark, or it just has a couple of words spoken and everyone pretends that it fixes everything, or the problems are acknowledged but left hanging forever.
And at this point, I'm done with it all. I hate where the show's ended up, I hate what's become of the fandom, I'm sick of clinging to the vain hope that anything will improve. At this point, the only reason I'm even still here is a promise to a single author that I'd stick with them to the end of their AU (and, given that I've come to see him as a friend, I'm willing to go beyond that, but that's just what I've explicitly stated before). Fortunately, this author is unique in the fandom, actually willing to take criticism, admit to a mistake, and try to fix said mistake, and his writing is quite good. However (and to the author when he reads this, I'm sorry, but I've got to be honest here), while all the above is true, and the author is vehemently against Karma Houdinis and is willing to acknowledge the problems with the show, I'm still worried about what the future of his AU may hold. Now don't get me wrong, it's a great AU, probably the best FiM AU out there in my estimation. But between some of the implemented fixes and (what appears to me as) an aversion to making non-villains face consequences for actions, I'm worried that a significant number of fixes are just going to be words and tears, with no real attempts to set things right implemented, or only attempts to fix future events while letting past problems lie. For at least a couple of these, I know my fears are unfounded, as I've been made aware of some things planned for the future, but if I'm honest with myself, that's not enough to completely assuage my fears - especially since with a couple, it would require re-treading issues that have already been "fixed" with words and tears and no action.
Anyway, that's all I've got left in me for this rant. Like I said, I'm burnt out, and I'm done hoping for a light at the end of this particular tunnel. And between the massive timeskip between G4 and G5, and interviews with the writers strongly suggesting that G5 is going to be a pile of thinly-veiled SJW propaganda, I have no hope for a fresh start there either. If you're expecting something profound at the end, then I'm going to have to disappoint you. If you somehow have a response, say your piece. Otherwise, there's nothing left to be gained here, so get back to whatever you were doing when you stumbled here.
Yikes. I can't say that I'm surprised by your current viewpoint on the series, and can definitely see where you're coming from on it.
If it's any help, your viewpoints and comments have led to a lot of food for thought on my part, and will likely continue to do so for some time.
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It does help some, thank you. I just wish things overall had gone in a better direction, at least in the fandom.
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That would've been nice. Alas, we have no control over these things, and often, the best we can do is try to find the small bits of good in messes like this.