RAD: Families Part Three - The... Shy's? · 3:29am Dec 22nd, 2019
Howdy, folks! First and foremost, as always, Adorable Applejack:
Presented without comment
Now then...
This is going to be a shorter one because well... we barely saw Fluttershy's family. Her parents—Posey Shy and Gentle Breeze, apparently—only showed up for one episode, and they disappeared for most of it. This reflects in how little art of them there is. Gentle Breeze only has 240 pics on Derpibooru. Posey Shy has 881... but 488 of those are porn. This fandom sure does love its MILFs.
I have to say, I'm not really a fan of them. They're basically just Fluttershy. You know, I do my best to not let my own personal headcanon interfere with my judgement of actual canon, but in this instance, I just can't help but prefer what I came up with. I always liked the idea that Fluttershy's dad was, maybe not an actual Drill Sergeant, but like a Drill Sergeant. Loud, bombastic, energetic, and very stern. Not like abusive or anything, but just the type where like, "This is how the world works, and this is how it's gonna be." Sort of a mix of Fred Mertz from I Love Lucy and the Dad from A Christmas Story, with maybe a bit of Archie Bunker mixed in. Minus the racism, of course. It would explain why Shy is so, well... shy. She lived with someone who was larger than life, and since she could never compete, she sort of turned inward. Her mom is... well, the same exact thing. Not much to report. And then there's...
Him.
Look, I ain't trying to turn this into a therapy session, but it is very hard for me to watch Flutter Brutter. Reason being Zephyr Breeze is very much an almost exact copy of my own brother. Take from that what you will. However, even with my disliek of the character, I still think they did him kinda dirty in the end. I mean, the entire point of Flutter Brutter was that he was turning over a new leaf. He wasn't fixed in total, but he had started down the right path, and we were hopefully—if not for his sake, then Fluttershy's—that he was going to end up all right. And then the next time we see him? He gets a brand new job for which he is totally unqualified for, sucks at it, and gets fired five minutes later. Right back to square one. Just seems like they reset him for a joke, which is kinda dirty.
Also, Rainbow Dash being forced against her will to flirt with someone she has zero romantic interest in, in an effort to distract him from something they're guarding so somepony else can sneak in undetected? Fucking called it! Big Jim Miller? I'll be waiting for my check.
Anywho, let's get on with it! Enjoy a dump of what little art there is featuring Fluttershy's family!
That Discord pic killed me.
But yeah, I was actually a fan of Zephyr Breeze believe it or not. I'm sorta reminded of myself, and my own... shortcomings. I sympathize with him. Seeing him be reset for the sake of a cheap joke was not amusing.
Nice
Pic 4:
"You will die. And it will not be quick."
~Skeeter The Lurker
That whole episode was based on ideas from Mane voice actresses. So I think Ashleigh Ball legitimately beat you to it.
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I wrote that scene in Under A Luminous Sky in 2012.
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Oh yeah. I forgot about that.
Honestly? That human one is kind of adorable.
I never actually cared if Zephyr became a better person or died in the woods. His episode ruined any chance for Fluttershy's family to actually be interesting. Like, obviously the shy one has a deadbeat brother who runs roughshod over her wishes so she can... learn not to be shy.
Again. Hooray.
And like every other one-note character, he was just never seen again anyway, except as part of a gag. When your character's only major decisions are "become a better person" or "don't" you need more to convince me they needed to randomly be inserted into the family of a main character.
Tbh, Rarity's parents have the worst scenario. Fluttershy's parents at least had some role in their debut episode, while Rarity's just popped in flipping Season 2 (That or Season 1) near the beginning of Sisterhooves Social and had little to nothing to do with the plot. And they were never to be seen again except as background ponies.
Wait...Fluttershy's canon parents have names? Huh, you learn something new every day. Such a shame they don't have much character or screentime.
My own thoughts on Zephyr are sorta mixed. Whenever he "flirts" with Rainbow Dash, I cringe and wish it would stop. At the same time though, when he's on-screen, I know things will be interesting. It is a bit upsetting that he only came back as a gag and was reset.
I love that second picture so much. The creative choice to anthropomorphize the ponies, yet Discord retains all his animal proportions and giant height. The story told in two panels. Fluttershy's beautiful hairstyle and THAT DRESS!
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Even when people finish college, they still might enlist to pay the bills. So I didn't that episode as undoing his accomplishment. Even if he ended up sucking as a Guard, his graduation still has him on track towards his dream, and goal of a functional adult.
Even before "Flutter Brutter," the Flutterparents existed on a dichotomy, either as shy and fearful as their daughter or bombastic to the point where she was pressed into the background by their sheer presence. It is a bit disappointing that the show went with the former, but the lack of detail does still give us a lot to work with. How does her mother garden effectively in a cloud city? After decades of work at the weather factory, what kind of connections does her father have? How did they meet? Does she have any overbearing aunts and uncles?
And they've done Zephyr less dirty in the comics, so there's that.
I do like the emphasis on baby Zeph in the pics. Even he was young and adorable once.
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In the credits of the episode they're just listed as Mr. and Mrs. Shy. I may have been responsible for proposing those options in the Derpibooru "let's give these people some actual names" poll.
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Yes, I suppose that is true. It does sorta reflect a sad reality, that finding jobs in this day and age is... difficult. So looking at it from that point of view does make sense.
Family of suck.