if you like fics that could pass for episodes, then you might like Sunny Skies All Day Long.

I did think Babs got off a bit too lightly, and that her own background was only a half-excuse, but she did learn not to be such an arse at the end, so I guess everyone profited by it.

As for OBA, I thought it was a great episode. It treated the topic of bullying with care and actually tried showing a bit of the bully's mindset to kids. Many similar plots would just say bullying is bad and punish the person who started whereas the episode acknowledges that bullies are mean and bitter for a reason and that they should be treated with sympathy if they can open their hearts to those they have mistreated.

I can understand someone being emotional about the issue of bullying, and thus feeling that Babs should have been punished more. But looking at this logically, Nightmare Moon attempted regicide and got off scot-free because Luna apologized. It's basically an unstated law of the FIM universe that one can be forgiven for practically anything as long as one is genuinely repentant. Babs apologized, so demanding a pound of flesh from her would have gone against the tone of the show.

Standard DMOS types adding bad examples. The Scrapy can only be The Scrapy if a large number of fans consider it to be. It's not just any character someone hates.

@Kegisak: Yeah, I've noticed that too. The thing that's always mystified me though is that people tend to treat Babs as being just as bad or worse that Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon despite the facts that:

1. She actually has a reason for what she does (attempting to divert the negative attention off of herself) beyond malice or amusement.

2. She only acts like that for a week or two at most.

3. She realizes that she's been an ass and decides to stop.

Granted, none of these excuse her behavior, but DT and SS have none of those mitigating factors, and they don't receive nearly the amount of ire that Babs does, even though they're demonstratively worse than she is. I understand that bullying is a sensitive subject for a lot of people, but it seems like a lot of the time they lump any bully character into the "asshole for the sake of being an asshole" group despite the fact that there's a spectrum of bullying behavior ranging from "bullying as a coping mechanism" to "sadism", and that not everyone who bullies falls into the latter end of the spectrum. I could see treating DT and SS like that, but with Babs it's like they've turned her into an irredeemable bastard because acted like a bitch for a week and then realized that was bad.

edited 6th Feb '13 11:43:41 AM by JapaneseTeeth

I also like that the CMC were depicted as not overly bitter about the situation. If anything, they think of it as something tragic and although they do try and get revenge, in the end it pretty much amounts to a relatively harmless prank. Perhaps a bit unrealistic for children not to be bitter, but it does do a good job showing the cycle of revenge in a form the target audience can understand.

You haven't seen those series of images on depribooru involving a million and one ways to kill of a DT figurine, have you?

Plus they get leather pants.

I know of those, and I know there are those who hate DT with a passion, I just think that the comparative amounts of hate for DT and Babs are massively disproportionate to what we've actually seen them do.

So I can't remove Jerk Sue but can i remove The Scrappy entry then?

Diamond Tiara in one episode was almost responsible for getting three fillies shunned and ostracized and you're implying that she gotoff lightly?

edited 6th Feb '13 11:57:10 AM by MorningStar1337

That ones probably a fair bet, yeah.

Before I go and remove The Scrappy I want to know If she was considered a Scrappy at Any point. (There is a Rescued from the Scrappy Heap entry for Babs on that page)

Nah, she'd need to be near universally reviled to qualify. IT's just another case of someone putting up a character that they personally dislike. Happens all the time.

Actually I liked it, though many people (at least in other forums) did not.

It honestly kind of mystifies me how I've seen some people defend Keep Calm and Flutter On's ending and say that One Bad Apple's was bad, or even unrealistic.

I removed the Scrappy and Rescued From The Scrappy Heap entries.

Thanks.

Sometimes, I immagine Diamond Tiara growing up to be Andrew Ryan.

So she got killed with a golf club because of her own hubris?

As Kegi said, too many people bitter about their own experences with bullies to think anything other than "bully = MUST DIE!".

I too was bullied, but I happen to be very forgiving. I'm not trying to boast. It's simply the truth. No one has ever applogised to me before I've forgiven them. My step-mother emotionally abused me to the point that I believed that my existence actively made the world worse and I was duty-bound to die in order to improve it. I don't think she recognises that she did anything wrong, but I've forgiven her. And appologised for my own misdeeds. As such, I really have no problem with OBA's ending.

I certainly have issues from when I was bullied, but I still liked that episode, and I like Babs too now that she showed that she learned her lesson and was friendly towards Apple Bloom in Apple Family Reunion. Although I'm just mainly glad that they did NOT do what I feared they might do, which was to make the Aesop be something like "bullies will go away when you ignore them and it's really easy!" which is kind of a personal Berserk Button of mine IRL. Luckily, they kind of did the opposite of that, with the whole "Bad Seed" song where the CMC were shown trying to ignore Babs and they couldn't get away from her, and the problem was definitely not solved by having the CMC ignore Babs to make her magically "go away."

It probably helps that Babs is also a victim of bullying herself, so I don't view her in the same way as someone like Diamond Tiara, who isn't given any canon reasons for her behavior, nor does she repent like Babs did.

edited 6th Feb '13 12:49:45 PM by Rainbow

The thing that I was worried about was that the CMC would go through with their revenge scheme (which seems like it would be a lot more harmful then they implied), and end up being the ones in bigger trouble. I was relieved and pleasantly surprised at what they did when they learned what happened, and yet people took this as them being villainized.

Another thing I actually liked is that we actually got to see the CMC together and not have them have a gestalt personality that is the norm.

edited 6th Feb '13 12:52:44 PM by Mio

Because all the ones that turned into piles of goo instead weren't interesting enough to write comics about. Reports, debriefings, obituaries, sure — just not comics.

Sparkle's Law.

You'd want to stay very far from that author's magnum opus story (Immortal Game) if you can't stand dark stuff, but his other story Free Salad was also incredibly silly.

edited 6th Feb '13 12:50:52 PM by Pykrete

The fact that they actually had individual takes on the situation was actually my favorite aspect of that episode.

I was kind of annoyed at them for not listening to Sweetie Belle, but hey, they're kids.

It's not that I can't read a dark fic, it's that most of the stuff I've come across is just being grim for grim's sake without a way out. Yes, fiction requires conflict to be interesting, and yes dark things happening to the characters can make the story complicated and engaging, but only if there's any light at the end of the tunnel. Otherwise, the results are predictable.