Thanks for the fave of 'Pegasus'! I'm glad you enjoyed the story. :)

If you like, feel free to check out my other work as well.

Cheers!
GMP

Also, thanks for talking to me. I have a hard time making new friends and I'm actually surprised that you're still here. I must have a rolled a 20 on my charisma check. I've never actually played D&D but I've read many stories and have always wanted to, but I don't have very many friends.

Heh, well you haven't scared me off quite yet. Perhaps you're just getting better at making friends eh?

Remnants of the '80's, I suppose.

I would say they're reflective of the 80s, but not remnants. That mindset is very much still the standard with most commercial franchises owned by a big business. They gotta make that green. D:

I like season 5. Like I said, I don't take issue with the little stuff, just key things and details that effect the story as a whole. an event can be ignored, but a new recurring character or the change of a character is a constant reminder. :/

1799656

I don't mind the crowding. In case you haven't noticed, it's not exactly a well traveled place. The word 'cavernous' comes to mind.

Thanks for the invitation to Skype, I may take you up on it some day.

Also, thanks for talking to me. I have a hard time making new friends and I'm actually surprised that you're still here. I must have a rolled a 20 on my charisma check.

I've never actually played D&D but I've read many stories and have always wanted to, but I don't have very many friends.

You have valid points about the show and I think you are right. But that doesn't stop me from loving the show. Honestly, I feel like Hasbro is simply inexperienced when it comes to people caring about stories and worlds that make sense. I don't know who's idea Cadance was but I feel like it wasn't the writers'. I get the feeling that Hasbro said to make something up about her and the writers rolled with it as best they could. I feel like they've done a better job at including her and Shining Armor in future episodes, but it still feels like they're not quite sure how she fits.

Remnants of the '80's, I suppose.

What do you think of season 5 so far? I am certainly enjoying the new faces. The animators are really at the best I've seen them. I really liked the season opener. It was nice to get a less action oriented, less epic, more focused 2-parter for a change.

Have you noticed something that I have? Have you noticed that this season seems... more intense? Watching the episodes over again, I can't help but feel like even though the comedy is fore-front, there is an underlying layer of tension in the recent episodes that seems stronger. Like in Tanks for the Memories, I was seriously getting worked up at the climax when Rainbow Dash accidentally destroyed the weather machine while trying to purposefully sabotage the weather machine. I caught myself on the edge of my seat and thought, "Wow, this is getting kind of intense for a slice-of-life episode". Not to mention the death metaphor.

Even in Apple Bloom's episode I felt a constant rising of action and tension until the third and final dream in which everything comes to a climax. I guess that means the plots (this fandom has ruined this word for me) are becoming more structured to fit the classic model of setting, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouncement. This is a good thing in my mind.

I don't mind tropes in literature as long as they're done well in a way that makes sense and isn't too heavy handed. Perhaps, however, that is only because I am not well-read enough for some tropes to become cliche to me. I remember that some of the earliest stories I read on this site were only good to me because I had never read any stories like them. Mostly HiE stories.

I'm rambling again. Sorry about that.

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Are you stalking me, now? Haha!

Oh nothing so devious I assure you. I simply have too much time on my hands.

As for my distaste with the show and how that effects my writing, it just discourages me a bit is all. I've never cared much about the shows canon or anything, so I don't mind oddities in the world or inconsistencies, though people trying to explain things like why all the guards look the same has always irked me slightly. Here's the reason: it saves on the budget for the show. Heh, bit of a buzzkill but that's how I tend to think about it.

As for the direction of the show I look at the fans and see two schools of thought for the majority. People who like things like Princess Twilight, Cadence, and EQD, and people who don't mind it being there, but don't like it. Well, I get stuck on the fact that because that content was made instead, we missed out on something else, and got shoddy, long toy commercials as a result. But that's the nature of Hasbro and their business so there's no sense going to lengths over any of it. My interest in things just decreases as a result, really, and I'm just one fan.

Anywho. Looking for stories based purely on their own merit, not their popularity is the way to go. There are some goodies out there. If you haven't read a story called 'The Turning of the Screwball - The Strange Case of Button Stitch' I highly recommend that one, too. It's sort of in the middle popularity wise I s'pose.

Well if you'd like to talk at greater length, you should contact me on skype. That way we won't crowd up half your account page. I'm Merlos on there, too, but with spaces. ^^

1799219
Are you stalking me, now? Haha!

Super Favorites wasn't around when I first read Project Sunflower. Since I was going through all my old favorites I stopped to really think about how much of my imagination that story actually captured way back when I read it some years ago. I felt it belonged there.

I have read Keepers of Discord and while it was quite moving, and certainly a worthy Favorite, it wasn't quite up to par. It may seem odd to you to discover just how many very popular stories I've read that don't make the cut. I am not biased by popularity. Good things tend to be popular, but not always. Sometimes, an author's preexisting fame can lead to a skewed amount of exposure. Take for instance the fact that both stories such as this one:
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/136108/sound-talks
and this one:
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/243260/princess-celestia-do-you-have-a-belly-button
exist on the same level for me. I guess what I'm trying to say is that my list is entirely arbitrary and subjective to my personal feelings on the matter. Sometimes a story that's not so well written will get a favorite simply because it made me feel in a particular way. Other times I will walk away from a superbly written story simply because the author took it in a direction that made me feel in a manner I did not like nor want. Not that I always avoid uncomfortable fiction; there is a time and a place.

The Madverse stories are not the most superbly well-written masterpieces of our generation (who can truly say what is?), but they resonate with me in a way that keeps me thinking about them. More so than I think about other stories.

If I were to sum up what each bookshelf represents to me it would be thus:

Like (no fav): This story left a good taste in my mouth and I enjoyed the experience.

Favorites: This story stuck a specific emotional chord with me; I will remember it.

Super Favorites: I could not stop thinking about this story while I was reading it. I was constantly awaiting updates.

Super Special Awesomazing Favorites: This story was an immersive world into which I lost myself. I could read nothing else while a single chapter of this story remained unread. I was constantly imagining myself in this world interacting with the characters (always as a villain; not sure why (perhaps I should see a therapist about that?)).

Back to you.

You mentioned that you didn't like the direction MLP has taken. May I ask what specifically has displeased you?

I myself have recently learned not to take the show canon too seriously. We're not dealing with a Lord of the Rings level of world building. To make this decision I had to take myself all the way back to when I first started watching the show at the end of Season 2. Why did I start liking the show in the first place? Was it because it was such an amazing and well crafted work of art? Not really, no. It wasn't because of what the show was, it was because of what the show wasn't. It wasn't a pile of crap. It wasn't mushy nonsense written for some imaginary brain-dead audience. That is what truly took me off guard.

I grew up with the MLP of the 80's being the only MLP I knew. When I first heard of the Brony thing I assumed it was something sexual and moved on (not entirely off the mark, but off for most). It wasn't until later when someone was making genuinely positive comments about how the show was actually pretty decently written that I decided to investigate.

And that is what I have recently rediscovered the show to be about for me. It's decent. It's not trash, it's not gold, but it's a worthy effort.

That and the faces.

Seriously, as someone on the Autism spectrum, having such large, expressive, and most importantly, easily readable faces keeps me coming back for more and more. I don't like watching live action TV shows or even movies very much simply because I have to rely so heavily on contextual and musical clues to understand what the characters are thinking and feeling. Human faces are just too difficult for me to read (no, I will not play you in poker for real money).

In cartoons and anime, and especially in FiM, however, the expressions are front and center. They are relatively simple in comparison to an actual human face so it is much simpler and easier for me to connect to the characters on an emotional level.

Sorry, I'm rambling. I tend to do that when I start talking about MLP. Go figure.

My point is that I try not to take things that happen in the show too seriously. So when there's a timeline conflict or an obvious retcon, I tend to shrug and tell myself that it's okay. It's just a cartoon.

However, thinking about it from a writer's perspective, I can imagine how frustrating it would be for issues like these to occur. But, you didn't say you had issues with technical aspects of world building such as these. You said you didn't like the direction the show was heading. This seems to hint at an altogether different issue?