In which Octavia is a badass. Also, the animation reminds me of this, for some reason.

I don't want to sound like I'm 'fighting' you guys. I always value your opinions and appreciate your interest.

You know, every-time I do one of these things I expect it to be shorter then the less, but so far they keep getting a little longer.

Anyway, remember that thing I did for AJ and Pinkie? Well regardless of if you did, her's Fluttershy.

Fluttershy

Discussing Fluttershy can be a rather difficult as she’s always been subject to a lot of “swing back and forth” in which her personality traits are going to stand out, how deeply her flaws still affect her, and if any of her lessons are going to stick to any major. She is far from the only one who has had this happen through the cross of the show, and there is a good argument to be made that such behavior, especially for someone like her is very realistic. I do agree with that statement to a degree, and I also having a pretty good idea why that is. A lot of people look at other ponies and how they are defined that by their special talents, but I find that people often overlook this effect on Fluttershy. If we take a look at Fluttershy from this perspective, we can understand why her character has seemed rather erratic.

We all know by know that Fluttershy is good with animals and that she spends her time taking care of both “domestic” and “wild ones (as much as such labels can be applied in the land of Equestria). Like most ponies she takes a lot of pride in her special talent, so much so that in the beginning of the series she seems to prefer the company of the animals to other ponies. This is likely because her talents give her a sense of control over things that she usually doesn’t have in social situations with ponies. Because of that she seems to only be willing to go out of her way to try things if she can some how fit them within the context of her special talent, like when she decides to take care of the Cutie Mark Crusaders in Stare Master.

It puts her behavior in Best Night Ever into a rather interesting perspective, as we see her act uncharacteristic aggressive in trying to get the animals to like her. In a sense she is being so aggressive about it because she had been able to fall back on her talent which had been her “comfort zone” for so long. I imagine if she did not have any pony friends she would be in much worse shape after that incident. It might also help explain why she seems to be more withdrawn in later episodes of season two. In Putting Your Hoof Down she is having a lot of trouble keeping the animals in line even though she shouldn’t at this point, but after what had happened at the Gala she’s probably not feeling very confident in her own talents at this point which makes her even more of a doormat then she normally is, and made Iron Will’s particular kind of assertiveness training seem even more appealing. While she was able to get back into her comfort zone at the end of Putting Your Hoof Down (we see her finally getting a handle on the animals and Angel) it was not till later in Hurricane Fluttershy that she finally starts making some real progress. This is the first time we see her involved in something that is both social and outside of her comfort zone since the episode Green Isn’t Your Color (in which case her shyness and social awkwardness was actually a selling point of her modeling work). A combination of low self-esteem for her abilities outside of her special talent, and bad childhood experiences combine with her already high social anxiety to make that probably the most difficult challenge she ever had to face (at that point). While at the end of the day she may not have been able to overcome her physical shortcomings (completely), she was able to pull through when she was needed most and gained the approval from peers that weren’t her friends for the first time. It may not have fixed all of her problems but her combined experiences in season two with this much needed boost in confidence she can now more easily step out of her comfort zone when needed (megalomaniacal stage magicians aside), and perhaps more importantly stand up for herself even in the face of doubt. That last piece will be important when she and her friends are faced with probably their most unexpected task.

There could be a whole other conversation about whether trying to reform Discord was a smart thing to do , whether if it was believable, or if Fluttershy decisions were intelligent but I’m going to ignore that and focus solely on what this means for her as a character. Oddly enough Fluttershy’s actions have their origin in the very beginning of the series. If you remember what she said in response to what she did to help the manticore, “sometimes we all just need to be shown a little kindness.” Much like the others, the “elemental” aspect of her personality was never really touched upon in the normal episodes. In this episode not only is it on display in full force but it’s also being challenged not just by the antagonist but by her friends. If this had happened before season three Fluttershy would have capitulated to her friends demands quite easily, or she would have been so fearful of Discord that she wouldn’t have tried anything in the first place. Instead she decides to stick to her guns and tries to get Discord to come around through kindness, even if it put her at odds with her friends.

After such a triumph I’m not sure where else they can take Fluttershy’s character, but whatever the creative team decides I hope they remember how far she has come, because it would be a shame to fall back to her base archetype now.

I think the leaves effect is ok as long as its not all the time. Rainbow Dash has Rainbows.. Lightning Dust had lightning... Pinkie can produce confetti on demand.

As long as Coconut isn't an Alicorn I think having a dash effect is ok.

Well at least for the game I checked, both of the Java emulator links were returning 404s. The RGR plugin is some opaque msi file, so I can't help you there.

@ Mio

I'll read that asap.

@ Turtle

Like I said, only when he's highly emotive.

Oh take a drink, everyone.

So for those of you who didn't slit your own throats after playing the first one, Megapony 2 is out.

It's...just as much of a ballbuster

@Mio: Two things.

1. The analysis is pretty much spot on as usual.

2. I experienced that same length creep when I was writing my episode reviews.

@ Mio

Absolutely spot on.

@ Mio, yeah I pretty much agree with all of that. Only thing I would add is explaining her return to even more scared then normal in magic Duel, which, is easy enough to explain by what might be days of living in utter terror, AND locked away from her home and most of her animals. Since the dome wasn't large enough to reach her house I don't think. All that simply added up and put her on the edge of a nervous breakdown on her own. Her first instinct once free of the dome, was to rush home, the place she felt safe.

@J Teeth, Applelight: Thank you.

I suppose. It just feels kind of awkward when placed in the context of Fluttershy's other season three appearances. That's just my thought on that.

I think it's possible to explain it as just her being different degrees of anxious on different days.

Yeah, people can change personalities more than you'd think. Sometimes you're just tired or have a bad day.

So true.

Oh, on further reflection, I think the leafy effect may be heading to the bin. Serious doubt has been cast y'see.

Evening everypony. Anything going on?

I never said it wasn't realistic. I was just point out that it felt awkward in my opinion.

Frankly I've always been one to find the "it's realistic" response to when someone points out these sort of things to be rather dubious. Then again I'm sure some think that point that out in an episode where she isn't even a focus character to be nit-picking.

So, I'm experiencing a wierd glitch with Fimfic. It's telling me that one of my favorites updated, but when I check all I get is an empty list. Is anyone else having this problem, or is it just me?

It happens sometimes when an author edits something in an existing chapter. it'll send a notification it updated, when all that happened was he fixed a typo or two somewhere.

Megapony 2? If it has the Dr. Wily's Castle music from MM 2, I have one thing to say.

"Take a dump on the toilet! Take a dump on the toilet! It smells bad! Take a dump on the toilet! It smells so bad! Take a dump on the toilet! It smells just like rotten fish and cheese, rotten fish and cheese, PU-EY!"

Also, I am really liking the Japanese dub, even though they changed a couple things. I guess the precipice/brink/threshold joke doesn't translate too well into Japanese.

They could have used equivalent Japaneese words. I suppose the idiom would be lost, but the joke would still translate.

That's a shame, Apple, I kinda liked it.

By the by, I stumbled across these tonight: You should totally read these redesign notes. Not only the redesigns and rebooted backstories themselves pretty cool, the logic behind all of the design decisions is really good to consider and apply to your own designs. He uses a pretty solid, utilitarian style of design(ie. design for purpose) that I appreciate, but still takes into account a lot of aesthetic elements and how the audience will react to them mentally. It's a really good example of an approach to character design, and I think you'd find it interesting.

The German Dub didn't translate it too well either, mostly because the words they used besides the first one were words Spike should have been reasonably able to spell.

@ keg

Well...it's 50 50. I won't make a rash decision but my confidence with it has been knocked.

And thank you so much for the links! I'll have a look over them.

Also, still doing your request. Just still figuring it out.

Heh, no worries there.

Though I'm kinda curious, what's giving you trouble with it? I hadn't thought I'd described Erin in a way that would make her terribly difficult to draw, but I dunno.

Also what you may want to do with Coconut's mane, maybe just as a tradeoff(And possibly building to something bigger later) is have just a few idle leaves left behind never he dashes somewhere - just as a sort of 'whoosh' effect, similar to how birds in cartoons will sometimes leave behind stray feathers when they take off. The once he finds a situation to get up to full speed, the full 'trail' comes in.

edited 2nd Apr '13 5:50:56 PM by kegisak