S01 E11: "Winter Wrap Up"

S01 E11: "Winter Wrap Up"

goddamn fucking musicals...

Okay, this may be the post where I piss some people off, but I can deal with that because the whole point of this is to share my actual opinions and not to walk on eggshells to avoid potential butthurt. 

What I Liked

• I liked that Spike did not give one actual fuck about Winter Wrap Up as a holiday. For a while now I've been of the viewpoint that traditions need to justify themselves every time, otherwise it's just empty ceremony. Earth Ponies may have started the tradition, but you have at least two fairly effective Unicorns in town-- Magi-kinesis that shit away and throw a party. That's what I'd do.

• The Mayor of Ponyville is back! Please let the writers remember that she exists from now on instead of having Twilight do everything when she has no authority. Or at least make Twilight deputy mayor or something. 

• "An outhouse?" More Spike snark! MOAR

• Spike just called Twilight on her bullshit and pushed her out onto a frozen lake in skates she doesn't know how to use. Nice.

• lol, Applejack was instantly skeptical of Twilight's ability to do physical work.

• Twilight body-snatched a bird! That's fucked up, lol

• God, not another musical number fuck this episode in particular-- Oh, wait, nobody sang. Good.

What I Hated

• Twilight, one of the teams has a disproportionate amount of Unicorns in the intro, and you can't figure out which one to join? This is more of the bullshit from Look Before You Sleep where she's ridiculously uninformed-- The confident, competent Twilight from Dragonshy would have at least known where to go and what to do.

• Where the fuck was autumn, exactly? And the rest of winter, for that matter...

• No. No, no, no, no. NO. NOOOOOOOO! FUCKING MUSICALS! I HATE MUSICALS! Nothing pisses me off more than finding out I'm watching a story that will be constantly interrupted by expository song and dance numbers with no warning. Musicals by their very nature fuck with my suspension of disbelief, since more often than not there is no real in-universe reason for anyone to be singing. They used to at least relegate that shit to Pinkie Pie and have everyone give her some fierce side-eye, but to actually play these tropes straight? Fuck this episode in particular and any like it to come.

• If I could throw a molotov cocktail at the idea of musical numbers, I would.

• Okay, so say all these ponies get rid of the snow and shit and wake up the animals or whatever-- what effect will this have on the rotation of the planet? It should still be cold as fuck the next day, it's not like the climate just snaps back to warm sunshine and fucking rainbows the very next day. Ugh. The world building is so inconsistent.

• Twilight, did you really just ask Rainbow Dash if you could help clear the weather in the FUCKING SKY WITH YOUR WINGLESS ASS WHY DO THEY WRITE YOU SO DUMB STOP IT

• Rarity is making bird nests? WHYYYYYYYYYY THEY DO THAT BY THEMSELVES

• Okay, Spike, I like the snark, but throwing Twilight under the bus after she followed your advice is rather dickish.

• HOW DO YOU GET TO BE FUCKING MAYOR WITHOUT ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS

Final Thoughts

Bad characterization plus musical numbers equals FUCK OFF.

See you next time for Call of the Cutie!

-Apathy Pony

S01 E10: "Swarm of the Century"

S01 E10: "Swarm of the Century"

Another blog! Yay. Episode ten, and almost halfway through the season! I'll get this first season knocked out before you know it...probably. Maybe. I hope. 


What I Liked

The backgrounds remain gorgeous! Hopefully this will be so consistent that I never have to comment on it again after this.

Zecora is back! She wasn't as off-putting for some reason this time around.

The cutaway of Princess Celestia getting assaulted by Parasprites was amusing.

Other characters are acknowledging in universe that Pinkie Pie is annoying and somewhat insane EVEN MORE. This gives me increased sympathy for her character, so any vestigial traces of hate I had for her are gone. 

"It also didn't mess itself up..." Look at you, Spike! Bein' all sassy an' shit. Keep it up.

Not everyone is cool with Twilight Sparkle, or otherwise seems to merely tolerate her, which is more realistic than her being absolutely friendly with everyp-one. Caught myself there...

I like that this background went out of it's way to show something other than cumulus clouds for once. Is it ever overcast in Ponyville, or is one of Rainbow Dash's jobs to prevent that? If it is, I hate her a little-- I like overcast days. >_>

I liked the gag with the Parasprite eyes on Spike.

Look at this little winged dickhead in the foreground with purple book! Adorbs.

Haha! Parasprites reproduce by vomiting up thier spawn like hairballs! Gross.

The fuck is this Mr. Miyagi bullshit Zecora's doing?

I like that Zecora basically just tells Twilight that Ponyville is fucked and goes about her business, lol

dat "WTF?" face on Princess Celestia tho

Ponyville better be in ruins in the next episode...who am I kidding, it won't be.

What I Hated

Twilight Sparkle is backsliding into self-absorbed cuntery. :(

Zecora still friggin' rhymes. STOP IT

Fluttershy really needs to learn when to kill things. This little bastard ate a whole bushel of apples-- The instant that they even hinted at going all Tribble on me, I'd have committed wholesale genocide on the spot. A friend showed me a clip out of context of Fluttershy murdering the shit out of a bear-- maybe she gets it together? Let's hope.

Where is the goddamn mayor of Ponyville?! She was a thing! Why is Twilight in charge of everything?

The name Parasprite set off no red flags? Really? REALLY?!

I'm really wondering how Rarity makes all these elaborate outfits with no opposable thumbs. Does her magi-kenesis or whatever have a limit? Or Twilight's for that matter? Seriously.

"Fluttershy knows everything about animals!" Except for what Parasprites even are in the first place. So let's ask her instead of Pinkie Pie, who identified them on sight and with a fair amount of disgust on top of that. LOGIC

You know, Pinkie Pie, all this shit could have been solved earlier if you told your friends why you needed the musical instruments to stop the Parasprites instead of acting like a nutcase.

Okay, no, for realsies-- what exactly is the limit of a Unicorn's powers? Because if Twilight Sparkle basically has access to a Heart Ring and can brainwash hundreds, no, thousands of Parasprites at once, then why. Didn't she. Use it. On. The.

FUCKING DRAGON THREE EPISODES AGO

Just sayin'.

Okay, eating the words out of the books like they were pasta might be a bit much. :|

"The mark of my deity shall scar thy DNA."

"Fillydelphia"...fuck you.

Final Thoughts

This episode was actually pretty decent! Plenty of sight gags, though the puns got a little out of control. I like the lesson-- "Listen to your friends, they might not always be full of shit!"

This is just a guess, but I feel like this is a turning point for the show finding it's voice a little better. The characters seemed more consistent for the most part compared to the last handful of episodes.

Not bad, MLP! Keep it up!

See you soon for the next episode!

-Apathy Pony

S01 E09 - "Bridle Gossip"

S01 E09 - "Bridle Gossip"

oh my god it's this fucking episode

shit

Oh, hi there! I know, right? I was wondering if this blog is still a thing too...

Just kidding. I always planned to come back, but for the last couple of months I've been bombarded with overtime. Combined with my shit commute, I was lucky to sleep when I did, which included vast swaths of weekend. Unfortunately my blogging fell by the wayside, and for that I am truly sorry. But I will put every ounce of effort into getting these out more often.

I said that before? I meant it then too but, like, life happened. And life continues to happen in a way that gives me a little more time to do these, so I'm going to take advantage of it for as long as I can. One way is to make these short, sweet, and to the point. I like the 3 part structure I had going, but it's not a good idea if the schedule becomes interrupted again like it just was.

 I don't want to be that guy, the one who releases 2/3rds of a trilogy and has people wait infinity-billion days till the next one. Single episode blogs covering what I liked, what I hated, and my thoughts going into the next episode. I figure that there's a 99% chance that anyone reading this is already a Brony and knows the episodes, so a synopsis is mostly pointless if I'm not recapping things like before. Maybe I'll do a paragraph synopsis if I can think of anything funny. 

Should be good, right?

I hope so, because that is happening right now. 

What I Liked

Okay, first of all? It's apparent from the teaser that the background quality is going to be MUCH improved over the last one or two. I hope this gets more consistent as we go, because one thing I can say I like about the show is the backgrounds. Drawing all that pretty-ass shit in Flash must take for-fucking-ever and the artists have my respect for that alone. 

Pinkie Pie, your realistic musical bullshit looks fucking ridiculous and it's hilarious. That moment alone makes me like her more.

Applebloom looks like she could be really funny or reeeeeeeeeeeeally annoying down the line. Please, PLEASE be funny.

I guess Pinkie's song really was catchy if Twilight is dreaming about it. 

Rarity looks like some kind of Lovcraftian horror post-"curse" and I love it. Wait, are those supposed to be dreadlock-- no. Nope, nevermind. 

What I Did Not Like

what the fuck is this racist zebra horseshit 

A goddamn Dreamcatcher? At least keep your stereotypes straight, GAWD

Googling "Applebloom" and seeing the next search was "applebloom r34"

Why does she speak in rhyme? That's really annoying and not at all an allusion to rap.

I randomly thought of middle-aged black ladies with MLP themed weaves and outfits and there wasn't a picture of that on the internet.

"Thank Celestia"? She's officially a Goddess now, really? Ugh.

the book metaphor is so subtle you guys, no really

Final Thoughts

You know what? This episode was alright. Some unfortunate, and I'm assuming unintentional implications aside, Zecora's not bad. I found it a bit troubling when Adam told me that she was supposed to be the MLP equivalent of Guinan fron Star Trek: The Next Generation. I thought to myself "A Magical Negro? Really MLP? Come on..." At least it (probably) wasn't on purpose.

On the whole though, not bad. This episode did not make me want to throw up in my mouth a little with every frame of animation that played. Progress!

See you soon for Swarm of the Century!

-Apathy Pony