It's okay, Jaxie. It's over. · 6:48pm Sep 20th, 2018
From GapJaxie's blog:
There was a point in history where many reputable astronomers opposed the development of larger telescopes. While previous advancements in optics had yielded fascinating discoveries, for decades, larger telescopes had only revealed progressively deeper star fields. The behavior of stars was already well understood -- or perhaps, it was already understood well enough. What then was the point of these expensive and elaborate constructions, if all they were going to do was reveal more stars to catalog?
I think there is a point in the development of any creature, field, or society where novel discoveries wane. New things may perhaps be found, but they seem to be nothing more than permutations of old concepts.
It is possible to break out of this rut, as the astronomers did, by pushing forward until something truly unexpected is found (pulsars, in their case). But I don't think this is the only option for escape.
After all, sometimes a permutation -- or a mutation -- takes on novel properties all its own. Sometimes it lets you see things in a new way, or changes your understanding.
Even if you could shrink down and run through the woods again, you wouldn't be the same pony and they wouldn't be the same woods.
I don't think that it's a shock to anyone who's spent more than a couple of months around me that I have serious mental health issues, one of which happens to be a severe case of depression. It's not what I'm going to be spending the majority of this blog talking about, but it's going to color a lot of the things I write and several of the things that I've already written. I'm not sure that writing helps me manage feeling worthless and hopeless almost all of the time, but it does distract me from those feelings, and at this point a persistent stream of distractions seems to be either the best or most readily accessible way of getting through any given day of the week.
And this partially colors my relationship with MLP, honestly. I get serious cases of cold feet over watching new episodes. This is because even despite everybody, including myself telling me that it's a silly thing to do, I invariably worry that I won't like the episode I'm going to watch. A brief approximation of the bogus logic goes roughly akin to "If I don't like it, it'll diminish my appreciation of the show as a whole. If my appreciation diminishes, it'll make the part of my life that engages in show-related aspects to be less enjoyable. Overall, show-related affairs take up a significant enough part of my life that my life would be significantly worse if I enjoyed the show less. Ergo, watching any episode is a risk that I'll overall become a less happy person."
I still haven't seen anything past halfway through the fifth episode this season, given the above logic. This is despite - even given the aforementioned "everyone telling me this is silly" - the fact that most people seem to claim that this season is good, if not one of the best, in the entire show run. It's been even worse this year than last year, and I liked literally every episode in that season but two (three, if you count a two-parter as two separate episodes.) And some of the episodes in season 7 were ones I gushed about endlessly after I saw them and which I'd still be willing to consider some of the best in the show's history.
I'm not going to be great at self-diagnosis (particularly given that i'm a highly subjective analyst on the subject, which makes me rather worthless as an information source,) but I want to suspect that part of that is fear over what the show is going to be come; ergo, a fear of the future. And I'm not sure if I'm scared of the future in "real life affairs," but it's definitely not something I actively look forward to, with one very hypothetical and unlikely exception.
But the flip side of the coin also applies: an inordinate love of the past. And I know that the first season of MLP was rather sketchy, quality-wise, and that even after the nostalgia filter's applied there are still episodes that I consider quite risible. I'm aware that most of the arguments that I could make in favor of the season are based on large-scale generalizations that likely aren't true, comparisons that can't help but flatter the show and associated memories that have little to do with the show quality itself. And this all applies doubly to the fandom activity at that point in time, from art to music to games and (especially) to fanfiction.
And it's another thing I can't argue my way out of. Or, rather, I can apply the necessary amount of logic to my perceptions and rationalize that my assumptions are objectively untrue and that I need to rid myself of them. And then, ultimately, I'll ignore my valid arguments and listen to the "feelings" that I had established before.
At this point, I think I need to stop outright denying my feelings and just try to explain them, then - explain within an acceptable range of standard deviation at least some of what's going on in my head, and why I'm electing to write this today instead of any other day.
Ultimately, I wanted to peg it as something similar to what gets pegged for Twilight Sparkle in This thing I wrote over the span of about 24 hours: Opportunity and Expectations.
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Opportunity-wise, the early days of the show were something of a gold mine, since - given the amount of details established in such a short period of time - there was very little to memorize but plenty to go off of. Characterizing almost any (figurative) element with almost any other (figurative) element or attribute could be entirely valid, regardless of the suitability of the pairing (which may, given the lore established at this point in time, look quite ridiculous,) as long as there was ample enough justification for it.
And I'm going to make a distinction between creative logic and creative practice here, because I could state that there was a lot of creativity from the fandom in the first season and be immediately met with "are you kidding? look at the content there, it's way, way suckier than you're trying to act like it was." Creative practice, in this sense, is the actual process of coming up with creative works: the aforementioned art, music, games and fanfiction. Overall, the amount of quality works has increased. Not necessarily in terms of ratios, but as a flat number, it's gone up - and given that the internet makes it very, very easy to find the stuff that's clearly risen to the top of its grade, that means less time sifting through chaff and more time enjoying the wheat.
But I want to stress again that I'm talking about creative logic. Without many concrete rules about what could work and what couldn't, the ability to play hard and fast with those rules was immense, and holy crap did people ever go at it. And even if the results weren't necessarily good, some of them were memorable enough to have practically become their own rules on how things are done.
Case in point, I'm not going to say Cupcakes was a great fic, or even a good one - but boy howdy did it influence a lot of stuff that came after it.
Including one truly excellent webcomic.
There was history to be made in the early days, and anyone could "strike it rich" in the art department, as it were, by virtue of being memorable enough. I will defend that it was a land of opportunity, that time of toys without rules, and I feel like the wonder of such a crazy world and the hope of becoming part of that are concepts (wonder and hope) that are worth getting nostalgic over, and worth wanting the return of/the increased abundance of it.
After winter's been wrapped up, who knows what the next spring will look like? The joy is in finding out.
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And that brings us to the second part: Expectations. See, the cool thing about defining laws is that it shows us how things work. The process of world-building is a wonderful learning process, and there's nothing quite so engaging as mutually discovering the boundaries of such a beautiful, unexplored world. "Hic Sunt Dracones" mixed with "Tabula Rasa," but with a heavy injection of sugar and rainbows - in other words, the dragons were cute and the writing could afford to be fluffy as h*ck.
Discovery's fun, and hypothesizing is fun. But the public school system in the States, by and large, sucks: it often reinforces the idea that rote memorization trumps understanding, cheap and efficient standardized regimens were a better choice than the monetary investment needed for personalized and engaging material, and that a highly punitive system lacking in social support structures was the best way to ensure productive members of society.
By the way, I'm not going to try and bring up a debate about the merits and flaws of the American educational system, mostly because I'm not looking for an argument in the comments section and am not interested in being informed of all the ways in which I'm a worthless idiot - I know that last bit perfectly well already, thank you very much. Still, I do feel as if the above assumption is at least slightly correct insofar as most of the primary- and secondary- school-aged kids I know don't enjoy school much, if at all.
But where does that fit into Ponies? On the basis that already established lore just comes about to being another point of memorization. How was Equestria made? Now we know. How did alicorns exist? Now we know. How does time travel work in-universe? Now we know. What were the families and backgrounds of most characters like? Now we know. It goes on, and on, and on.
And every time something's added to the puzzle, it becomes another piece we have to memorize the location of. The addition of details doesn't prevent the old ones from existing, and the whole mess piles higher and higher and higher until it seems impossible to climb. The injection of creativity into world-building becomes harder and harder, and pre-established notions require more reference and more pre-established rigor. The only alternatives are "forgetting" details (taboo,) or trying to create an alternate universe (slightly less taboo, but I still feel the stigma associated with "copping out.")
Eventually, words and actions become largely pre-determined by what's already out there. The opportunity for creativity is minimal, and largely situationally-based. The only way to make exceptions is by introducing new, engaging characters (a crapshoot, since not everybody will like them,) adding yet more new details onto the pile (compounding the problem over time) or completely starting over (which I assume is part of the reason why G5 is going to exist.)
And then all the excitement that we felt at the show's inception, almost definitionally, can no longer exist. We cease to be innovators, and instead become custodians - which, for most people I know, is a far less thrilling prospect.
"Oh. So that's another world we know everything about. Yay."
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Despite my sweeping statements earlier, I don't want to assert that everyone's attitudes towards nostalgia or expectation are that way. I'm using the matter-of-fact tone less to imply objective truths, and more to explain an inner logic that I want to portray as valid - and that requires definition, explanation, a coherent train of thought. And I'll straight-up assert that explaining why my "feelings" could have happened is more important than simply talking about my "feelings" in general. If there isn't a well-understood link to establish, proper communication becomes very difficult, if not impossible; it's like calling a series of slippery stepping stones a bridge.
In any case, I think that's the best explanation I can give you for why I wrote ReVerse, and why I'm writing this. I think, ultimately, the assertions stated above are the reasons why I can't let the past go. This past is not only impossible, but it didn't exist at all; it's a delusional figment. But that delusional figment was full of all sorts of things that we now know are impossibilities, and they seemed tangible enough to grab and nurture that everything felt like it had the potential for life. I'm not literally hungry for the past, but I'm hungry for what could have been and what seemed like it could have been, and the past is ultimately a reflection of that.
Nostalgia's ultimately a misplaced reflection of hopes and dreams.
But I'm okay with that. I'll take any semi-concrete amount of hopes and dreams that I can get.
"But a poem is never actually finished. It just stops moving."
I definitely agree that greater canon information narrowing our wiggle room can be stifling. I'm just less shy about employing AUs. Given that particular detail, I can definitely understand why you wrote ReVerse.
On the other hand, those new episodes can introduce new storytelling opportunities we never thought of. It's a bit of a trade-off.
Having seen its inception, I'm looking forward to this fic. :)
This is a very articulate, thoughtful exploration of an idea that I've definitely had floating around in my head for a while, but been unable to put into words. I wholeheartedly agree that the presence of more and more canon info has a dampening effect on world-building, one of the great joys of early FiM (and what actually ended up sucking me into the fandom in the first place - no way Friendship Is Magic Parts 1 & 2 would have grabbed me the way I did without the sheer number of unanswered questions about the lore of this world).
But I have to agree with 4941119 here (as I often do) - the way I have found to get around this is simply being a lot faster and looser with AU's. I see it less as ignoring canon, and more as working with canon up to a point and then taking it somewhere different to the show - even if "a point" may simply be two episodes in.
Regardless, I certainly empathise with feeling like increasing amounts of canon lore are simply things to memorise, constraints on ideas and stories.
hugs
I'm just wondering why you never brought this up to me.
I'm your friend, you can talk to me.
This puts in a clearer form a lot of stuff I have pondered on myself, and it reflects how in some ways I feel about the show after eight seasons: it certainly hasn't helped that I find at least 50% of the "canon" worldbuilding lame as heck (oh, another foreign nation turns out to be a tiny village in desperate need of basic advice from Ponies. Yay. I am frankly happy at this point that we will probably never see Zecora's homeland).
A lot of quite good fanfic writers simply ignore a lot of the show or do indeed work in alternate universes, and I don't feel critical of them for it : for instance, Estee's fine (if occasionally a bit too cynical for my tastes) Triptych-universe floated away from canon quite a while ago and rarely refers to stuff past season three. One reason Equestria Girls fanfic has become a growth genre is, I think, that despite it's very formulaic plots over the last few years, it's a more "open", unclear rules world than the regular show.