The support means the world to me, and thanks to your kind contributions I was able to go and visit my boy in Britain. I'll try and mock up a proper recap blog—though I am notoriously terrible at doing those, I don't think I've ever managed a proper recap blog for any of the various conventions I've gone to over the years. I guess there wasMy Little Pony: Starring 3000 lbs of Weed [Spoilers] · 8:24pm May 16th, 2015
Princess Celestia: Can you imagine how BORING it would have been if I hadn't invited Discord?
Twilight: Well, then, what did you do to spice up the party while he was trapped in stone?
*Princess Celestia stares blankly into Twilight's eyes while faint screams of terror and the sound of glass shattering echo around her, the reflections of flames dancing in her pupils*
Princess Celestia: I'd usually just brighten up everypony's night.
Discord episode! I fucking love Discord, and his episodes always make me smile. One of my favorite episode last season was Three's A Crowd, and I had high hopes for this episode, and they were mostly met. I was giggling like a mad fucker the entire time, and there are so many subtle intricacies in this episode that re the hallmark of post-reformation Discord that I just can't help but to love the fuck out it.
Treehugger was pretty neat, but living in the middle of the jungle on Maui, I see hippie stereotypes like her all the time (including my very own mother), so she wasn't exactly the oh so hilarious "can you believe these people actually exist" character others treat her as. I had mixed feelings on her being the one to save the day at the end. I suppose the episode needed her to do that, but it was just so expected that I was let down by it.
Instead of talking about everything that went right, since there's so much of it, I'd like to talk about the two things that really went WRONG with episode, because they really did go wrong.
1. Pinkie shaking the viewpoint and subsequently breaking the fourth wall.
My god, did I cringe. Breaking the fourth wall is lazy and irritating, especially so when Pinkie does it because it happened as a subtle nod once early in the show and from then everyone assumed Pinkie should break it ALL the time, in both canon and fanon works. The first time was annoying, but not show-stoppingly so. The other times she's done it... ugh. Fourth wall breaking is almost entirely inexcusable, almost never called for, neigh impossible to do correctly, is some of the laziest comedy around. The only time it gets even worse than occasionally throwing it out is when you get things that depend entirely on breaking the fourth wall for a "joke". That's one of the reasons why post-season 7 Family Guy is one of the worst TV shows to ever air, and why Deadpool is one of the most cancerous superheroes to ever be written.
Thankfully Pinkie Pie breaking the 4th wall didn't ruin the episode and only irked me for a few moments.
2. Discord's Cringe Comedy set
Barely a step-up from 4th wall breaking, cringe comedy is another bottom of the barrel comedy style. It's literally just watching someone fail so you can feel better about yourself. It pisses me off so much to know that there are just video compilations of people getting hit in the nuts or falling off tire swings and hurting themselves on youtube, and that thriving internet channels profit off of them (Equals Three to name one; I'm actually glad RWJ quit to become a real actor, the guy has some talent that I think is better off not being squandered by being a viral video vulture).
I tried to fool myself into thinking I liked these videos when I was younger due to the massively immature people I hung out with (mostly due to us being in middle school, but some of us were immature ever for 12 and 13 year olds). But I've always felt uncomfortable watching cringe comedy. I rarely find humor in people hurting themselves or each other of being the victim of accidents. I actively avoid these things now because it just isn't funny. And I even tend to avoid cringe thread on /mlp/—why would I want to watch other people make fools of themselves? It's sad. Cringe comedy is what you rely on when you're so massively insecure with yourself, and that's why I think a lot of pony fans enjoy watching those who are secure enough in themselves to enjoy the fandom in the way they see fit that other might make fun of them for. They don't feel comfortable enjoying the show (no matter what they might say to try and convince people otherwise), and they have to make themselves feel better by making fun of those who are legitimately enjoying themselves.
The cringe comedy set that Discord did wasn't nearly on that caliber, but it was set up in a very unimaginative "guy makes himself look like a moron in front of a bunch of people" that made me cringe thinking how de Lancey must of felt voicing those parts. I feel like the show could have taken it in a much different, funnier direction that didn't involve Discord making himself look so BLATANTLY like an ass to the entire party. The way he was gradually doing it, one by one to the mane six and various other guests, was good enough.
That said, there were a ton of great things in this episode, and you just gotta watch it yourself. Discord's chaos dimension is fucking cool as hell, and has a lot of fic opportunity in it. It does contradict some of my headcanon about him, but I can easily adjust that. I wonder if that mail pony ever escaped that horrible bat monster...
And that puppet dimension. That's what nightmares are made out of...
All in all, this episode was fucking phenomenal. Smooze was great too. I haven't (recently) seen any of the G1 movies, so I don't know if the Smooze back then went after shiny, valuable stuff, but this is some more great fic potential. Fucking awesome episode.
The Cutie Map (Pts 1 and 2)
Make New Friends But Keep Discord
Castle, Sweet Castle
Appaloosa's Most Wanted
Tanks For The Memories
Bloom and Gloom
Your opening conversation... that must become a fan fic.
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This was a nice episode.
Loved this episode, only one thing to really gripe about: why did Luna miss the Gala again!?
You're still copying me. :(
Wait, why am I concerned about this? VALIDATION, BEEYOTCH!
3074482 Our rating wouldn't be the same if I hadn't told you to change the rating of Tanks For the Memories
There are different kinds of humor for a reason, mate.
I dare say comedy is about as subjective as music, which is to say it's really fucking hard to criticize a joke or a style of humor without basically saying "I didn't laugh." And even then, there are people who will still find it funny.
Sure, I find Pewdiepie to be annoying, but I wouldn't say he's the cancer of Youtube. His antics just make certain people laugh.
It's a tricky business to write comedy.
3074729 there is something to be said for effort of comedy, which I feel gives it its intrinsic value (which is the same as music). Sure, I LIKE EDM a hell of a lot more than classical music, but classical still has a higher value due to the effort that goes into it vs EDM.
3074538
No, I shoulda changed it anyway. :B
3074838 hah
well, it's true
however, no episode this season was BAD
only bloom and gloom was boring, too, the others were all entertaining
but some are better than others
3074858
Yeah. It definitely was sliding down into not-good-land territory before today, though.
3074862 well, two CMC episodes this early and barely far apart? yeah, that's a bit much
I share that opinion.
At least the forced cringe comedy wasn't as unwatchable as Spike singing in Equestria Games. Seriously fuck that episode. All that buildup starting in S3 and it ends up as a goddam Spike episode wherein the games themselves are a background event at best.
All in all it was a good episode. Waifu-tier hippie sterotype. We get to see Discord's home dimension. Anon- I mean Smooze was humorous. Reaction image goldmine.
It felt like 90% references and gimmicky comedy disguising an average episode. This season so far just feels like an immature, "funny" cartoon. It's definitely different. It seems much less concerned with character development and more fixated with adventure.
3077676 Except literally none of the episodes have been adventure based except for the premier?
3078260 My mistake. Because most of the episodes were less focused on the M6 and their individual struggles, (CSC featured them as a group), i associated them with an adventure plot for some vague, inexcplicable reason. Perhaps I'm slightly blinded by nostalgia.
3078375 They've all been pretty low stakes so far, but this episode saw a lot of Discord characterization, which we desperately need since there has only been 1 SoL episode (that still did adventure) focusing on him.
3079483 I agree. The next episode with Cunt and Ponka seems promising. It's always nice to see chemistry between those two.