Fame and Misfortune Review · 4:53pm Aug 12th, 2017
So, we're finally getting new episodes after over a month on hiatus. And kicking off the second half of the season, we've got M. A. Larson coming back. Larson tends to be a fan favorite, having penned episodes like "Sonic Rainboom", "Secret of My Excess", "Slice of Life", and "Amending Fences", though he's had duds like "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000". With the promise of the friendship journal returning for this episode, it seemed like this was set up for success almost from the get go with the promise of ponies arguing about who wrote the better lessons (the emphasis seeming to be placed on the mane six). But did it actually work out? Well, let's find out.
We begin with two random fillies never seen before, one of them is named Toola Roola who was part of the main cast of characters in the previous generation, they even got the colors right. Twilight settles a friendship dispute between them, and this gives her the idea to look for her old friendship journal. Remember that this journal was only seen for one season, Season 4, because considering what's gonna happen later on I feel like I'm gonna have to bring this up. Anyway, we get the once an episode character introductions in the form of the journal which, while they are kind of funny they don't really make sense in universe. Why would you write so small in a shared journal or write in a style that is hard to decipher? Not to mention putting apples in the pages? I mean, we all know what happened with Scootaloo when she stuffed food into a book.
So, Starlight happens to know a spell that can duplicate the journal into a series of perfect copies for each of the mane six to keep. And then Twilight decides to make more copies to market and sell all over Equestria, in the hopes that other ponies will learn from the lessons written in them. You know, only about twenty three lessons or so, even fewer if you don't count the Spike ones (which the episode doesn't seem to have a use for him, he's surprisingly nowhere to be seen but Starlight is present). Seems like it's a good idea, but it quickly becomes apparent that ponies are interested in the book solely because Twilight wrote it and she's a princess. The fact that this never occurred to Twilight feels a bit questionable since she's been a celebrity since Season 4, and she's been very embarrassed by all the attention she gets.
Things quickly go downhill when two random ponies start gossiping about Rarity and how she seems to have taken credit for organizing and hosting the Ponyville Days celebration, but here's the thing, these ponies live in Ponyville and I'm pretty sure they weren't living under a rock while the Ponyville Days was going on. Rarity was announced as that year's host in public, and she has been known throughout town since before then! If these ponies were from out of town, like say Canterlot, it would make sense, but since the episode never specifies that we have to assume they're from Ponyville, meaning this scene doesn't make sense! Anyway, Rarity has one of her drama queen moments and runs off with tears in her eyes.
Twilight goes to console Rarity, while Starlight goes to set those ponies straight (not a good idea if you ask me considering Starlight's still trigger happy tendencies, send her to console Rarity and let a rational minded individual like Twilight sort it out). We also have a scene earlier that just feels like a brief rehash of the conflict of "Twilight Time" and setting up for a CMC episode later on in the season (I appreciate the set-up but we could've gotten that at any point prior to the episode, like say "Campfire Tales" which is coming up in a couple of weeks). Then we have Pinkie Pie facing her own problems, when ponies start thinking everything she says and does is funny because of the journal, even though she only wrote one solo entry from what we saw (yes she probably did write more considering the journal but there was never anything to convey these other lessons, it stopped being used after Season 4 and never once did they clarify it was still being used). Pinkie even points out that the ponies laughing at her have known her for years, but for some reason they still laugh at her! Larson, helpful tip, just because you point out your plot holes doesn't automatically mean they go away. Lampshading a problem doesn't erase it. I suppose this mistake is forgiveable since you didn't write a solo Pinkie Pie episode, but you were around for Seasons 4 and 5, as well as Seasons 1 and 2, and don't forget you edited Season 5 in its first half. So you should be aware of this problem.
Then we get what feels like a mouth piece moment with Fluttershy, addressing a complaint people had about her learning the same lesson over and over again. It's good to see her character growth, but it didn't need to be done with this preachiness that the show is better than. Rainbow Dash has a problem with foals who only care about her because they think she didn't need to learn anything for some reason. And Applejack has an issue with ponies wanting to be part of the Apple Family because of a moral about how friends are like family. Maybe that was the moral in "Pinkie Apple Pie", but I don't recall any journal entries that specified that, the only time Applejack ever did say that, was when she was writing the letter to Celestia back in "Apple Family Reunion" in Season 3! The letters and the journal are two different things, even if they served the same purpose in terms of moral delivery, but both stopped being used by Season 5.
It only gets worse when ponies start boycotting Rarity because I guess they think she's too self centered (you know even though once again you have been living in the same town as her for years and have known her well, not to mention she runs three successful boutiques!). And Rarity ends up stress sewing because she has no customers. Guess she's found a new method of relieving stress.
So, with everything falling apart, Twilight starts to doubt herself even though Starlight tells her that it's not her fault. And then the rest of the mane six show up to seek refugee at Twilight's castle because they're tired of having their reputation tarnished. Rainbow Dash even complains that she can't go to the bathroom without ponies bothering her (why she doesn't just call the police or whatever law enforcement Ponyville has, I don't know). Starlight just up and disappears to find something, and Twilight gets the idea to just talk to the crowd and tell them off for their behavior. But we get even more stuff that feels like fandom complaints, as well as something I can't fanthom, a journalist claiming Twilight's "Character" would be better if she stayed in Canterlot. Yes, that's right, "Character"! So, Twilight unleashes her royal Canterlot voice on the crowd.
We get a fairly good song called "We're A Work in Progress", and if the episode had ended with the ponies learning their lesson from here, things would've been alright. But no, the episode continues with the ponies ignoring the ephipany and Twilight and co retreat back into the castle. Then Starlight ex machina shows up (not making yourself look good here, Starlight) with the two fillies from earlier, and somehow because the journal helped them to work out their friendship problem after Twilight suggested it, Twilight thinks the journal can still work and everyone just decides to ignore all the ponies complaining outside as the moral claims you can't change what others think of you, but you can change how you let it affect you. I'm sorry, but that is a terrible message to send, you should be worried at least a little bit about what others think of you, or else you're never going to get anywhere in life!
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well, it had a good set-up and it had a lot of potential. But I think using the journal was a mistake, since we never saw it again after Season 4, we're left to assume there's only a few lessons in it, as opposed to almost 65 episodes worth of lessons from the friendship reports given to Celestia. Now, if they'd clarified that the journal had been used for Seasons 5 and 6, or that there had been other lessons at some point off-screen, maybe that problem could've been rectified. But as the story progressed, more and more plot holes started appearing, namely in that these ponies have known the mane six for years, so why is it that they only now start thinking differently because of some journal that they're not even very interested in? Heck, the only ones the journal was shown helping, were the two fillies at the beginning of the episode. And one example doesn't automatically cancel out the bad impressions the journal has left. I also don't approve of the mouth piecing being used in what feels like a poorly disguised anti-critic message, especially with the moral at the end! I'm getting sick and tired of this "Ignore the haters" message that's only used as a justification for bad works of animation! Name one time where calling out your critics directly in your works, has EVER been a good thing! Starlight's inclusion was good at first, particularly when she stood up for her friends and told ponies off for being mean to them! But then in the last third she morphed into the mary sue she's often accused of being, and you know how that could've been fixed?! Replace Starlight with Spike and have Spike be the one to find the two fillies. Maybe even have the fillies acknowledge that some of their classmates learned from the lessons written there, and at least have the crowd disperse and think about what they'd done. In the end, I reluctantly give this episode a borderline C+/B-, putting it above the confusing "A Flurry of Emotions", but below "Not Asking for Trouble", which at least showed potential until the moral at the end left me scratching my head. Larson, how could you mess up so badly?! You're better than this!
Well, hopefully next week things will pick back up, I don't want to see this be like Season 4's second half where it took several episodes to get off the ground. But oh boy is Season 7 gonna be teetering on an edge here, because we have "Triple Threat" in which Spike accidentally invites both Ember and Thorax to hang out at the same place and the same time, and needs to keep them from meeting with each other. Please, don't let this be a Spike screws up episode! Let someone who knows Spike and the characters handle the episode! Spike's been doing great so far this season, don't let this be the episode that throws all his good character growth away.
Honestly, this entire episode felt like a punch to the face to the fandom. It's downright insulting.
4631571 I agree, the show is better than this! Even "Spice Up Your Life" I at least got the intentions behind (don't let one critic's opinion define your beliefs) even if the execution felt like a slap in the face. This was just trying to call out the fandom for its criticisms, never mind the fact that the show has been good at listening to its critics and fans, even when it doesn't always take what they say to heart. I'm thinking that this is another hold over script from Season 6, much like "A Flurry of Emotions", in the same way "Dance Magic" was supposed to be before "Legend of Everfree" but got held over due to production quirks. It should've taken the time it got when it was delayed to look over the story and work on it.
4631577
Yeah, Stranger than Fanfiction was just light hearted, poking fun at the idiots. This... Well, whatever this was as it's not a MLP episode was too heavy handed and just insulting. And I have to agree with you on my fears for the next episode. You summed them up perfectly. The next episode sounds like a cringe-worthy disaster waiting to happen if not done perfectly. And that's hard to pull off.
4631609 If it's Lewis and Songco, I'm not worried. Anyone else though, they could screw it up. There aren't really any writers left besides Lewis and Songco with any kind of track record for Spike to go on.
Thanks for the warning about this episode. And, alternatively, the next episode, like a relatively recent comics' story, could end up having the EXACT OPPOSITE problem (i.e. everyone EXCEPT Spike behaving like an over-sensitive, hot-headed idiot) and Spike being completely right in how badly Ember and Thorax would end up taking their first meeting, which would be just as bad.
If there was one good thing I can say about this episode, at least Starlight wasn't making a nuisance out of herself.
You know it's as if the show's producers are leaning too much toward conflict.
Honestly, i loved the episode.
I put it between All Bottled Up and Parental Glideance, putting it in the top 4 of the season and my top 6 of the series
You're being way too hard on this episode. First of all, recall that in "Return of Harmony, Part 2" there was a huge pile of letters that Celestia sent to Twilight. There should have been only twenty-six, but there's way more than that. So, we're left to assume that Twilight learned some lessons off-screen. Same thing here. Who's to say that Twilight didn't request that Celestia send her her friendship lessons so that she could copy them down. Who's to say that Twilight didn't keep the friendship lessons that Celestia sent back to her in "The Return of Harmony, Part 2"? (The former works better considering what happened to the library back in season four, thus meaning that all of those friendship letters that Twilight kept would have been destroyed.) I liked that they brought back the journal from season four. That was a pleasant surprise.
Second of all, were we watching the same episode!?
I ask this because your next criticism has me baffled. How in the holy hell did you take away the message "ignore the haters" from this episode!? That is not what Twilight was saying at all! I think you're reading way too much into this episode. What she was saying was that, yes, the journal did cause a lot of controversy, but there were still some ponies who got a positive message out of it and their friendship is stronger than ever thanks to it, and, to Twilight, that made publishing the journal worth it in the end. I honestly felt more sorry for the Mane Six than anypony else in this episode, especially Rarity, considering all of the havoc it wreaked on their lives.
Also, yes, these ponies do know the Mane Six, but they don't know them on a very personal level. They've only heard stories about their heroic exploits. They don't know their inner most secrets and what all they've been through, unlike the Mane Six since they're best friends. Of course the townsfolk are going to start thinking differently about the Mane Six when they read their entries in the journal. For example, one pony thought that Rarity was tooting her own horn and inflating her own ego despite that that wasn't anywhere close to what was written or what she intended for the reader to take away from it. Twilight even said, "That's not what she meant."
Finally, there's Starlight Glimmer, who I didn't have a problem with this in this episode as I felt that it made sense to have her present. If she were to suddenly disappear before the third act, only to have Spike come in and save the day, that would have been seen as a major cop-out on the writers part. Yes, Spike did learn some lessons, but you seem to forget that Spike isn't as popular in Ponyville as he is in the Crystal Empire. I'm sure that if he had gone to the Crystal Empire, he would have gotten mobbed in the streets. But this is Ponyville, where Spike is seen as nothing more than another citizen, and thus no one gives him a second thought. He's merely Twilight's scribe and that's it.
Oh, and for the record, M.A. Larson didn't write this episode. He was merely credited as the writer due to the writer's guild strike. He only came up with the idea. Someone else wrote this episode, but because Larson came up with the idea, he got writing credit. Larson said in an interview that had he had it his way, he wouldn't have let this episode air without polishing the script up a bit because he wasn't happy with how it turned out.
4631571 How was it insulting? Because the writers are acknowledging the fandom's questions and writing a humorous story around them? I didn't find this episode insulting at all; I found it hilarious! Easily one of the most quotable episodes ever!
4632555 Well, that's even worse! The fact that they would use Larson as a cover to attack the fandom! The show is far better than this! You somehow think you know more than your fans, call them out yourself don't hide behind someone who wants no part of it! Or better yet, if Larson himself disapproved of the script that he wrote, then maybe that should've been a sign to NOT use it until he had a chance to polish it!
Fame and Misfortune was basically the fandom in a nutshell.
4632748
pretty much. let's face it: we suck.
4632782
I agree.
Oh dear...after an amazing episode earlier this year, we're now back to below average standards. Spike being the focus in the next episode does not sound hopeful either.
Two things:
1. Starlight defending her friends from the mob of ponies kinda feels like an apology from the writers for how she brainwashed them in Every Little Thing She Does last season.
2. Fluttershy justifying why she keeps relearning to be assertive definitely feels like the writers' way of shutting up fans who accuse her of constantly getting hit with the "reset button".
4632596 First and foremost, nobody at DHX was using Larson to cover their asses. Second of all, how the hell were the show staff attacking the fandom!? If anything, they were making fun of the ones who are too critical of the show and analyze the show too much. They made fun of the fans who want their ridiculously high demands from the staff of DHX met. They want stories and characters that would be too complex to do in a show like this. These are the people who think that the show is made for them and expect the show itself to reflect that, the same fans who tend to forget that this show is made for little girls. They're basically making fun of people like SilverStarApple or the people in the We Hate What's Happened to MLP group. You know, those moronic Lauren Faust fanboys and fangirls who hold that everything before season 3 was golden and everything after season two is shit, the same people who will argue with you up and down that seasons one and two were great and season three and subsequent seasons onward were terrible and that the show is going to shit simply because Faust isn't at the show's helm anymore. These are the same people who have nothing better to do with their time than to spread rumors about Jim Miller, making false claims that he doesn't care about the brony fans, doesn't put forth any effort into the show, wants all the credit for the show's success for himself, and yet at the same time make the false claim that he has no idea what he's doing as the show's director. This show has always had little girls as its primary demographic. Always has, always will. Lauren Faust herself even said that she made the show for little girls because she felt bad for them because there weren't any good quality shows aimed at that demographic. I think the people attacking this episode really missed the message of this episode, which Twilight blatantly pointed out: "It feels like everypony in Equestria is missing the "friendship" part of the friendship journals." The message of this episode was, simply put, "Don't become so obsessed over the characters, the story, or the show itself that you miss out on the morals." Sadly, it seems this message flew right over most peoples' heads.
Go ahead. Go read what some people from that group had to say about this episode. It's hilarious! Here are some highlights:
From Decepti-Cobra93:
From LightningSword:
From Baroness Aka:
From Decepti-Cobra93 (again):
From Lore-Lei:
From Alexander-Crossover:
Finally, I don't know why Larson had a problem with this episode. It honestly felt like it was written by him because Larson is so good at satirising the brony community. Much of the dialogue in this episode (seriously, this is easily one of the most quotable episodes ever!) feels like it was written by him. I hope the actual writer of this episode comes forward so I can tip my hat to them for writing such a great, funny, memorable episode!
4632882 How was this episode "below average standards?" This episode was great and hilarious!
4633353 Larson said it himself he was not pleased with this episode's script and he would've wanted to work on it more. Someone else took his unfinished script he wasn't happy with, didn't consult him at all, and gave us this poorly thought out fandom call out, and didn't even have the courage to use their own name and use the controversy surrounding Larson in the fandom as a cover for them! I'm sorry, I still like this show and I won't stop supporting it just because one person thought it was a good idea to lump the entire fandom in with a few extreme cases and give them fuel. But it's clear that their intentions backfired horribly, Jim Miller had to go on social media and ask if the fans were still with him, which of course sounds like he's in full damage control mode.
4633423 Larson received a writing credit due to the Animation Writers Guild strike. It isn't hard to believe that Larson would write an episode like this because he's done this before in "Slice of Life." Even in episodes like "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", he makes fun of the show. This episode wasn't attacking the fandom as a whole. They were attacking those assholes who are critical about the show in every aspect, the Douchey McNitpicks of the fandom who can't simply enjoy the show and feel like it's their duty to analyze the show and criticize it. Lily Peet is going to have a field day with this one. I think the only reason Jim Miller went on social media to check in on the bronies was because he knew ahead of time that there were going to be people who would take this episode too seriously and would attack it simply because it was making fun of the vocal minorities in the brony fandom.
4634003 But the rest of the fandom didn't want to or need to be in lumped in with these vocal minorities, especially not with the lesson as it was written and potrayed. There's no excuse for not thinking through your implications.
4634131 They weren't lumping in the whole fandom. They were making fun of the overly critical fans. And what was wrong with the lesson? The lesson was, "Don't become so fixated on the characters and story that you miss out on the moral." Please explain to me the problem with this lesson.
4634610 The lesson they tried to teach was good, but the way it was excecuted and worded, made it seem like an attack on the whole fandom, not an attack on a vocal minority of it.
4634629 No, it wasn't! How was it!? You need to go onto MLP Forums and see what others are saying about this episode. Pretty much everyone is unanimous in that this episode was an attack on those moronic bronies who take this show too seriously and that this episode was well-written and hilarious!
4634764
Not true. There's enough people who think this was aimed at all of us. And a few of them celebrate it. Because "we deserve it" for being ungrateful, horrible people.
You want to know why the message was, at best, poorly handled? Because they put two fillies against entire mobs. Essentially, the 'good ones' are a vanishingly small minority, everybody else is horrible.
4641280 You got that wrong. The people that the writers are attacking here are the vocal minority, the ones who take the show too seriously and think they're entitled to special treatment simply because they're fans of the show. Notice that it's the casual fans of the show, like me, that loved this episode, whereas the people attacking this episode are the ones who take the show too seriously. So, yes, these types of rabid fans do "deserve it" for being ungrateful, horrible people. These are the same types of people who threw a hissy fit over alicorn Twilight, the same type of people who threw a bitch fit over Twilight taking Starlight under her wing as her pupil, the same people who got in a tizzy over the Mane Six being crystalized in "The Crystal Empire." These are the people who do stupid junk like sending death threats to writers like Amy Keating Rogers and G.M. Barrow for episodes like "Filli Vanilli" and "Fluttershy Leans In", respectively, or various members of DHX for something as insignificant as Equestria Girls. But yet they want to sit and wonder why people on the DHX staff left the show to work for other companies like Disney. These are the people who cry, "THIS SERIES IS RUINED FOREVER!" at any kind of change that's implemented within the show, no matter how small or insignificant. (Hell, even before season three premiered, bronies were freaking out over every single image that was leaked onto Equestrian Daily, going into a blind panic and screaming, "THIS SERIES IS RUINED FOREVER!" simply because of the aforementioned crystalized Mane Six or the fact that Twilight had wings or the fact that Fluttershy redeemed Discord. Even The Cartoon Hero made fun of this in his video regarding season three of the show, saying, "And, hell, in the case of the crystal ponies hairstyle change, the change didn't even last a whole episode. So, the thing you were bitching about didn't even matter." And things got even worse when news of Equestria Girls was released onto Equestria Daily) These are the people who denounce seasons 4 and 5 being any good simply because the writers made some changes to the status quo. (Yes, how dare these writers take the liberty of shaking things up a bit by implementing some small changes to the show in order to keep it fresh and prevent it from getting stale!) These are the people who are Faust fanboys/fangirls, the people who worship the ground she walks on and act like everything she creates is gold (let's just ignore the fact that she wrote The Powerpuff Girls episode "Equal Fights" and the Foster's episode "Everyone Knows It's Bendy", shall we?), who will argue with you up and down that seasons one and two were great (they were crap, along with season three!) simply because Faust was in the director's chair, and everything after her departure is crap simply because she's not running the show anymore. These are the same people who will tell you that the show is going through seasonal rot, going to crap simply because they believe Jim Miller sucks balls as a director and doesn't know what the hell he's doing (they go so far as to spread false allegations about him like that he hates bronies or wants all the credit for the show's success all to himself), even though he directed season 5, and that season was freaking amazing! These are the people that make up the group We Hate What's Happened to MLP. The writers are making fun of these people and rightly so, as they should be made fun of. It's funny to me how shows like Animaniacs and The Simpsons can poke fun at their fandoms all they want, but when My Little Pony does it? Oh, hell, no! These writers deserve to be burned at the stake! "Fuck you, bronies. You're not welcome here. We don't care what you think. We don't make the show for you; we make it for all of the little girls who love it. Now shut up and let the kids have their show." If that's the message you took away from this episode, then you either misinterpreted the message or you're reading way too deeply into this eoisode. This episode was nothing more than a harmless "let's poke some fun at the radical fans" episode that was fun and funny. This was easily one of the best episodes of the seventh season. And seeing as you apparently missed what the lesson of this episode was, let me spell it out for you: "Don't become so fixated on the story and characters that you miss out on the moral." This is a lesson that several brony analysts needed to hear because they become so fixated on the story and charcters and any problems that they spot within an episode pertaining to said story and characters that they end up missing out on the moral. Simply put, this was a lesson that needed to be taught, and it's executed wonderfully in this episode.
It's not a stretch that Coconut Cream and Toola Roola walked away from the Friendship Journal with their friendship being stronger than it ever was before. More oftentimes than not, kids are smarter than adults. Adults tend to act irrationally and let their emotions get the best of them. Children tend to be wiser beyond their years.
4641481
I did not. The way the show presented it, the vocal minority is hundreds and the ones who are doing it 'right' are just two. That's a bad choice if you want to convey that things are actually the opposite of that. I am not contesting that's what they intended, I am saying they did a poor job of it. You may disagree, that's fine.
And by the way, there's folks who loved the episode and also disagree with you. That's the second point I was trying to make. You have more than enough people who do lump everyone in with "the bad". Gleefully. Who think anyone not praising the show 100% of the time is an ungrateful bastard who should be drummed out of the fandom. They use the episode to argue that it's not a minority who is so bad, it's the norm, and DHX should make the ponies even more horrible next time because bronies (excluding themselves) deserve to have the piss taken out of them as much as possible.
That's the message they want it to be. Because in their minds, it's not about them. To them, if you openly dislike anything, especially this episode, you're one of the rabid haters who surely sends death threats to the writing team. They would consider you their ally.
They're a big part of why I've started to dislike the episode. It does a lot to validate them.
I did not miss the moral. I think it got buried under all the meta humour that wasn't all that funny (for the record, I didn't like Slice of Life either) and even made the song sound misplaced, the unfortunate decision to show the vocal minority in the majority, and how hammering in "Don't overthink things" carries the risk of coming across as "Don't ever question anything". I still don't think it's all that bad... but it dropped quite a bit from when I first saw it.
I missed the moral the first time around. That was also when I actually liked the episode. Ironic, no?
4641543 I wasn't even aware that there were fans who think we all deserve to be targeted and picked on because of a few bad examples. And the sad thing is, stuff like this will only embolden the likes of LillyPeet to be even more vocal because they're going to interpret this as an attack on them, on their way of life, like the show is specifically picking on them just because of who they are, even though the show should follow the advice of the majority of the fandom and just leave those vocal few alone. Sometimes the best way to avoid toxic ideology, is not to listen to it and give it an audience.
4641771
I was surprised at the vitriol too. But, they exist, and they're quite vocal.
Heh. Would you believe the first time I saw the episode I thought the message was "don't force your opinions on others"?
4642275 That's hopefully what Larson wanted to do with his script, but never got the chance to because someone else decided to take it, tweak it without his permission, and warp it into an attack on the whole fandom for a few bad apples.
4641543
That's nothing more than your interpretation of the episode. That's not what they intended.
And how would you know that? You don't work on the show, so you have no way of knowing that. You don't work on the show and yet you have the gall to make assumptions about the show staff. Pretentious much?
4641771 And once more, people like Lily Peet deserve to be made fun of.
4642599 Except for the fact that, once again, they weren't attacking the fandom as a whole; they were making fun of the vocal minority who take the show too seriously and are overly critical of it.
4642753 And once again, the way it was potrayed and ultimately showcased made it seem like an attack on the whole fandom. And no, people like LillyPeet don't even deserve to be made fun of, when people realized that those kind of fans were like, they stopped following them and stopped paying attention.
4642753
And I acknowledged that. Read this part again:
"That's a bad choice if you want to convey that things are actually the opposite of that. I am not contesting that's what they intended, I am saying they did a poor job of it."
I don't think they meant to say a majority of fans are bad. But by showing the stand-in for the bad ones as the majority, they made a bad choice because that sends the opposite message from what they intended. Is that more clear?
What are you even..?
I was talking about fans there! People like MegaAnimationFan who delight in using this episode as carte blanche to call every single brony (except him/herself) a miserable pile of human garbage*!
*yes, those words.
4642859 Point taken. I misread you.
4642823
4642859
There wasn't that much meta teasing. Other than "Twilight was better before she had wings" and "Fluttershy learns the same lesson over and over again", all the other shit in this episode had nothing to do with the fandom.
If it did, Applejack wouldn't have been popular. Her role in this episode would have been severely reduced to go with the "Applejack is best background pony" meme. They would have made fun of Rarity for being too flirtatious to get what she wants from others like Spike. They would have rode Pinkie for all the autistic screeching she does. And everyone would have hated Rainbow Dash for her cockiness. If this episode did anything wrong, it's that it did exactly what you expected. If you're going to parody the bronies, you need to go all-out. I wish they had done more. They should have had ponies writing angry letters to the Mane Six. They should have had friendships ending due to differing opinions on the journal. They should have had some ponies getting so bent out of shape over a particular journal entry that they threw the journal away. I just felt that this episode had a lot of potential to be the next "Slice of Life", but that potential wasn't explored. They don't really do anything with this concept except what you expect them to do, and that's a real shame.
There were, at most, two to three direct nods at the brony fandom, and even then they were pretty mild. It makes you and all of the other people bitching and making a big deal out of this episode and chewing out the show staff on Twitter look like a bunch of thin-skinned special snowflakes who can't handle a little bit of light teasing.
4644202 I get what the intention was, but the execution made it seem like they lumped the whole fandom in with a few bad examples. The Twilicorn haters left the show by the end of the fourth season and while some still argue she was better without her wings, they're definitely not on the level the show treated them as. Same goes for those complaining about Fluttershy's seeming lack of character growth. In the first three seasons hardly anyone had a problem with it, but once Seasons 4 and 5 started doing it as a way of resetting her growth, it became a problem. We didn't expect the lesson to stick the first time around and indeed it didn't, but what we DID want was consistency. And after Fluttershy was shown standing up to Discord at least twice, there was no reason in universe why she could have any trouble with stage fright or standing up for herself.
4644202
Er... they had ponies actively boycotting Rarity and protesting before Twilight's castle. They had ponies in their "club colours" yelling at each other in the street. They had somepony throw the journal onto the ground right in front of Twilight and her friends.
Seems to me like they did more than what you say they should have done more of.
And the ones who say they want more insults, more mocking, more taking the piss out of the fandom like petty internet troll driven by schadenfreude.
Since you told me what you think they should have done to improve the episode, I'll tell you what I believe:
Either show a greater balance of good fans versus bad apples, or make the episode about ponies squabbling about who the better pony of the Elements of Harmony is, like the song suggests was the initial intention.
But, you know, that's just my opinion.
Also, would you please stop lumping anyone who didn't like the episode in with the worst of the worst? You're kind of proving my point about how the episode is used to bludgeon others over the head.
Addendum: There's something interesting I want to note about one of your points, the one about what the show should have done differently. This may surprise you, but if they had done what you said, I agree, it would've made the episode better. Because it would've moved things away from the meta humour. It would've felt more serious, more organic, more real. I would say by scaling things back, they would've made the problem more relatable.
4644211
Excpet the show didn't treat them as anything. Literally, all that amounted to was one character saying, "Twilight was better before she got wings." That's it.
We've seen plenty of instances of Fluttershy standing up for herself. Standing up for yourself and stage fright are two totally separate things. We saw at the end of "Filli Vanilli" that she was taking steps to overcoming her stage fright, and earlier this season we saw her standing up for herself.
One thing you have to give this episode credit for is not having any of Twilight's friends once express anger towards her and blame her for the harassment they received. I think if that did happen, they would've lost a few sympathy points.
4642599
Nope!
Skip to 5:13-5:35.