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No, this is not a joke/trolling thread. We don't need more filler posts asking if it is.
Remember to spoiler season 6 content, and clearly label your spoilers. |
On November 07 2011 10:20 bonifaceviii wrote:
Hey guys, sorry to interrupt the marathon stuff but I just wanted to say that s2e5 really didn't do it for me. I usually like Rarity episodes but this one was missing something.
Yeah I think this is the first episode that I actually didn't enjoy. Its probably due to the fact that I'm not a huge fan of Rarity in general but also the fact that they left my three favorite of the Mane 6 out.
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On November 08 2011 00:01 ZealotKiller wrote:
Oh god, all these essays. When I used to see these, they felt really heartfelt and like the person that wrote it felt like they had to say something. They really wanted to say it. Now, it almost feels like everyone writes them for the pony swag.
Ok, I know this aint true, what the people will write is FOR SURE heartfelt(ponies), but it doesn't bring me the same joy I had when reading the spontaneous ones. These feel kinda forced. They don't have that *magic* quality in them that the ones before had, meaning the desire to say why they loved ponies. Now they have an excuse for writing it. An excuse they never had before. An excuse to write something they have always wanted to write, but never felt the burning desire needed to write it. I want that burning desire quality back in those texts.
Sorry for the rant, carry on cause these essays are good. I just hope we can regain that *magic* quality after this contest is over and have people writing great stuff because they want to, not for some contest.
Love all you ponies, keep doing those essays, pony swag is worth it!
I've been writing like this my whole time in the fandom, whenever people ask why I love the show. I just didn't ever put every point in one place before.
And in my opinion, writing out a list of why the show is perfect without being asked is pointless, since you're just preaching to the choir.
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Just wanted to say the mare-a-thon was amazing, I saw everything up to Green Isn't Your Color until I had t bail out. You guys are awesome.
What's up with all these essays?
Edit: oh wow THIS:
+ Show Spoiler +On November 08 2011 02:15 Thundra wrote:![[image loading]](http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2011/11/4/ec143132-a0d2-408a-826f-696080f1d4e7.jpg)
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On November 08 2011 02:15 Thundra wrote:
That. Is. AWESOME!
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That is beautiful. Marine Fluttershy...just when I thoguht I'd seen everything...
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And by the power of Fluttershy none of the enemy marines are killing each other! Huzzah!
Have some Luna!
+ Show Spoiler +
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On November 08 2011 00:01 ZealotKiller wrote:
Oh god, all these essays. When I used to see these, they felt really heartfelt and like the person that wrote it felt like they had to say something. They really wanted to say it. Now, it almost feels like everyone writes them for the pony swag.
Ok, I know this aint true, what the people will write is FOR SURE heartfelt(ponies), but it doesn't bring me the same joy I had when reading the spontaneous ones. These feel kinda forced. They don't have that *magic* quality in them that the ones before had, meaning the desire to say why they loved ponies. Now they have an excuse for writing it. An excuse they never had before. An excuse to write something they have always wanted to write, but never felt the burning desire needed to write it. I want that burning desire quality back in those texts.
Sorry for the rant, carry on cause these essays are good. I just hope we can regain that *magic* quality after this contest is over and have people writing great stuff because they want to, not for some contest.
Love all you ponies, keep doing those essays, pony swag is worth it!
I'd think otherwise. Everybody feels the way that they say they do, and just now have motivation to tell people. I generally don't go around telling people why I love starcraft, I do it when asked. But the real point of the contest, as far as I see, is to get great explanations for the front page, and it is happening. All of these explanations are awesome, and will make great additions to the OP for people who wonder whether the show is worth a try. I know that had the reception in the thread (for the first 20 pages, the first time I saw it) been as positive as the people from the mare-a-thon I would have tried the show a lot earlier. So as far as I can see that's the point, and it's a good one. Also, I am sure that most of us have quite clearly expressed our feelings earlier in the thread as well (albeit mine have been spread through many posts, as opposed to my response to the contest which was most of my feelings condensed into 1 post). Now, of course you are right about the lack of "burning desire," but feelings are feelings and are all valuble, regardless of reason that they were said.
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I agree with ampson. We all have our passions, and collecting the individual stories and feelings about them in one spot like this hopefully will impress other would-be bronies and show them reasons to like this wonderful show!
As to my "essay" I will probably sit down and write it tomorrow, class has been unforgiving today >.>
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Thread seems to be slow today, so here's the Mane 6 as spiders.
+ Show Spoiler +
The internet's weird.
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Why I love MLP:FiM, and its fandom.
Before I discovered this show, I discovered something else that changed my life. Teamliquid. I simply fell in love with the forums, the people, what it stood for. And in my explorations of the site, there was this little section on the sidebar called “General.” And under this little section, there was a link that popped up quite frequently. “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic,” it read. Interesting, I thought. They actually have a thread for this on a site filled with hardcore SC2 and SCBW fans. Odd.
That is all I thought of it. Odd. There was nothing remarkable about this sentiment. I thought most of the General Forum threads were, Odd. One night though, whilst burning the midnight candle for a rather major homework assignment, my curiosity got the best of me. I clicked on the link. Then the video for “Winter Wrap Up.” Then “Dragonshy.” In spite of myself, I found myself with this huge grin on my face. This was good.
And here I am now. I am relatively newcomer to the herd. My discovery happened back towards the end of September. Two months ago, I would not even had imagined that I would be sitting at my desk, typing a rather long post on why I loved this show. But here I am now, eagerly waiting for the weekend to come so I can watch the next episode whilst scrolling through Equestria Daily and chatting on the IRC. I love this show.
I love this show because of what it stands for. To me, MLP is a beacon of light in a world that is increasingly becoming dark. Look around you. Walk into a movie theater and look at the movies that are making it at the box office. The Dark Knight, for example, which portrays both humanity and its heroes in a rather dark and almost cynical light, dominated the charts for weeks after its premier. Violence seems to be everywhere. The news seems to show more and more stories on con artists, crooked politicians and school shootings and other acts of crimes against humanity, small or large. As a teenager soon to be an adult, the one thing that everyone tells you is to grow up. Get real. Face the world for what it is. And yet “growing up” to me showed a world that seemed to be plagued by man harming fellow man in some of the most imaginative ways possible (some of the things that people can think of to hurt others takes quite an imagination, even if its rather gruesome and disgusting). The recent economic downturn just showed me some of this embedded in the very things that as a country, the United States of Americas holds. In short, I became disillusioned with society and what it stood for.
But this show, its fans, and the creators themselves have given me hope again in humanity. The messages of friendship in every episode reminded me that there were others out there that still believed in the goodness of man. The fact that a fan base of those outside the intended demographics of the show even existed, let alone with the fervor, creativity, and motivation that bronies have showed me that people in the world were willing to accept these same messages. When I learned that the show creators truly believed in what they did, and even interacted with the community reinforced this idea even more. Here was a group of people openly striving to make the world a better place by starting at the most basic of levels: how people interact with one another. Nevermind the fact that it took a show commissioned for the purpose of selling toys. What I saw was fellow human beings trying to be good for the sake of being good. Because they believed in the message that the show gave. And I fell in love with that.
But at a more basic level, a step down on the ladder up to the metaphysical realm of philosophy, I fell in love with the show for another reason. To simply put in one word: Nostalgia. I grew up watching Public Broadcasting Station channels. Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, Arthur, Reading Rainbow, were my companions after Kindergarten. Watching this show reminded me of a simpler time. A time when all I worried about was whether to put peanut butter in my sandwiches or Strawberry jam. When my most favorite activity was waiting at the door for my dad to come home. When I watch this show, I forget about the stresses of college, the pressures of the economy on my family, the sorrow and suffering that goes on in the world. Call it escapism. Call it running away from reality. Call it what you will. When I see these ponies on my screen, I am reminded that the world can be better place.
There is a song by U2. It’s called “Staring at the Sun.” The chorus states, “I’m staring at the sun/And I’m not the only one/Who’d rather go blind.”
This show is the sun. And I will stare into it for as long as it shines. Blind me. I do not care. For being blind in this sort of world isn’t such a bad thing.
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Hey guys,
I wasn't too sure if someone had posted something about an "unreleased song" from the show featuring + Show Spoiler +, but EQDaily had it, which, later, was told to remove, but the link and the song have been going around everywhere.
It's interesting because it is listed as a spoiler so it could very well end up in an episode later on, but many are saying it's just not an episode sounding song, if that makes any sense.
I don't necessarily want to link because it seems taboo for some reason, but a simple Youtube search for + Show Spoiler + will have the right results. And, yes, the song is amazing. Vintage Daniel Ingram. The man is a genius.
Edit: My apologies, didn't realize that having a certain pony name was a pretty big spoiler, too, so I tagged the parts as such. Sorry about that.
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Sigh.
Even knowing who is going to be singing is, to me, a spoiler. There was no need to mention it at all.
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On November 08 2011 02:15 Thundra wrote:
This needs to be put into the OP desperately.
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Oh my head, still need more sleep.
Also my smile muscles is aching. XD
But I made it, 13 hours of pony, all of the 31 episodes watched!
Well except for a few minutes, my IRC kept getting errors and for some reason this made the rest of the browser freeze. Still it was easily fixed by using a different browser for chat.
The mare-a-tron was amazing so thanks to Cane, StarDragon and of course everyone who showed up.
We really should do something like this again.
Although I am really tired and not feeling good about being up until 5AM for the show to finish, and then to that a few hours to fall asleep. (Still my body refuses to sleep as long as I have ponies on my mind and after that marathon it took some time.) Also i don't know about you, being gamers I expect long nights at the computers, LAN's and perhaps for our Americans some late night watching Korean starleagues. For me at least this is not the case I need proper sleep at regular times so although I just had to do all the episodes this one time I do like something a bit shorter for next time.
Some of the highlights from the night for me, apart from the obvious PONIES and great people to watch them with.
The IRC singing: I never was much into posting the catchy lines from the show. Still the overall craziness and over the top idea of actually trying to sing along in a text chat and the mad enthusiasm that went into actually doing it just really caught me. This really do feel like something the CMC would be up to, so on that note.
-CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS IRC SINGING AT #TLPONIES YAAAY!!!
-um, what does an IRC singing cutie mark looks like anyway?
Anyway i really found this singing really hard, I remember lyrics well but only by actually singing the song up to that point, and singing past the actual video turned out to be really difficult.
Halvgud: Yes conversion stories are always great ones so this got to be here.
Really looking forward to some more on Halvgud.
There was some things that I didn't fell as great with. Having a competition and giveaway was obviously great but I did see the longer videos, realize how one could cheat, and had to check out that it worked. But not being able to participate wasn't as bad, my typing APM would put me firmly in bronze league and although I knew the answers I had to take some time to remember them so my chances of winning would have been slim.
But competitions for prizes with such obvious possibility for cheating still don't feel so good to me. But the fact that you was aware of it all the time was at least good.
something else bad ... uh ... well ... more of a mild annoyance. The toilet breaks (which is a good idea) was so good videos I didn't want to go then either. But you can't complain about that.
Anyway there was also the write up on why you like the show and fandom so here we go.
Because...I...do...!?
Nah, I just enjoy things, trying to find out the reasons for it just annoys me ... so I didn't.
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Why I Love My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
It's nearly impossible to know where to begin on a subject as broad as this one, even though it sounds very simple. I guess the easiest way to say it is I like its sheer, unbridled power. What do I mean by this? The things this show have done are nearly impossible to put into words, but I'm going to put in my best effort in spite of this fact.
What the show has done for me
I was pretty skeptical and curious at the same time when I began watching the show. I'm not going to lie, I wasn't hooked after the season 1 pilot (I watched both parts back to back). I was impressed enough to keep the show in the back of my mind, but nothing really came of it for about 3-4 whole months until I watched Dragonshy, episode 7. I wasn't sure what was happening to me, but I slowly felt myself changing as a person as I watched more and more episodes. How on earth could a simple cartoon intended for girls less than half my age be having such a profound effect on me? The show is that fucking amazing.
There were a myriad of factors that went into it. I found myself able to relate to all of the characters on varying levels and in different ways, so as I continued viewing, my attachment to the masterfully crafted and voiced characters grew. I began having the desire to subconsciously emulate the characters and the morals that the show impressed upon us every episode. I found myself being a nicer person and trying to handle situations in a similar fashion to how the characters would. I wanted to interact with real life friends more and more and become a more outgoing person, a really huge change for someone that raided over 20 hours a week in WoW for four and a half straight years. As I felt myself transforming as a human, I watched the episodes at a much quicker pace until that fateful day when I hit episode 16.
I think I had previously heard a few things about the episode and I instantly recognized the opener due to its popularity. When the episode's climax happened, I found myself on an emotional rollercoaster the likes of which I hadn't experienced in nearly an entire decade. When the episode had ended, I felt tears in my eyes. Although I was not openly crying, I hadn't gotten that emotional over anything in about ten years. It was then that I finally understood why bronies were so zealous and passionate about MLP. It was then that I considered myself among them. I knew the show was changing me and I knew that those changes were for the better. Having been cursed with emotional problems since I was a teenager, I felt that I'd finally begun my journey to correcting some of the most deep-seated problems that I've ever had.
The next little story arc about my personal journey with the show was the CMC episodes. When they were entering the talent show and blatantly disregarding what they were good at, using the irony that if they had stuck with what they'd known instead of mixing it up, they'd have probably gotten their cutie marks, it hit me pretty hard. Although it didn't inspire anything close to tears, it lit a different fire in me. I haven't really done anything with myself. Sure, I've explored various things that I enjoy and am talented at, but I haven't attended any post-secondary schools and I'm quickly approaching the quarter century mark. I finally realized what I want to do in the world. The CMC episodes made me look at Blizzard Entertainment and what they've done. How their games have changed lives, inspired people, and have created something great, be it esports, marriages, or starting people on careers, and how their games have influenced me as a person since 1995 or 1996. I finally realized that whatever I end up doing with my life, I want to be somebody like that. I want to create something for others to be entertained by, to be inspired by, and to have a positive influence on other people, be it with game design, writing, or media.
The next stop in the journey that's just show-driven ties into my previous paragraph. I'm talking about episode 23, the Chronicals. I'm a sucker for adorable things, so I was disarmed pretty quickly by the flashbacks. It didn't help that each one seemed to be more heartwarming than the last. When it was all tied together, I was knocked off my feet. I felt a similar emotional hit to when I'd seen episode 16 and a dash of the personal inspiration that I'd felt after episode 18. When I watched the episode during the mare-a-thon yesterday, it actually hit me even harder than it did when I saw it for the first time. I kept a tally of "bronychills", which is when I got shivers across my entire body from the episode, some were minor, some were really powerful. It totalled up to about 14 and I was choking up pretty hard by the end of it. I'm quite positive that I'd have broken down into tears if the episode didn't have constant short respites between the touching moments.
My next big moment was the season 2 pilot, the first part of it in particular. I was honestly in a constant state of bronychills the entire time and almost always experience it whenever I rewatch the episode. I came close to getting emotional over it at least a half dozen times, but it was stopped at that. The second episode's final scene was just masterful and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The final leg of the journey that's exclusively related to the show is the final episode, the fifth one of season 2. The episode didn't do anything special for me at first, as I'm an only child. As far as heartwarming episodes went, it was one of the better ones for me, and that's saying something considering I'm not able to truly relate to it. That is, until the ending. When it happened, I sat there, dumbfounded, my mouth agape like some fool as my eyes filled with tears. Again, I didn't openly cry, but boy, was I close.
To summarize, I've never been so emotionally manipulated by something in my life and I love every single second of it, from the most unlikely source. The purity, the innocence, the nostalgia, the relatibility, the deep empathy, and the sheer undistilled joy that the show brings are just overwhelming. If that's not the "power" I referred to at the start of this post, I have no clue what is. The fact that the animation is beautiful and the voice acting is superb is just icing on the cake.
What the show has done for others
I don't anticipate this being quite as long, since I'm not other people and I can only speak for them so much. I've seen this show have dramatic effects on people and boy, is it quite incredible to witness. The more basic examples is watching people such as skeptics that have come and gone in this thread, finally give an episode a spin and either see stories of them marathoning the entire series or slowly become bronies as they get sucked in and transformed in a similar way to how I was. It definitely feels like the show is quite powerful when you see somebody watching an episode and cackling to yourself, knowing what will most likely happen next.
This brings me into the more powerful stories. One such story is how someone was having a completely awful day and as he was about to snap, he decided to go outside on the balcony overlooking some mountains on a moonlit night for some fresh, cool air. He whipped out his iPod and listened to a few original fanmade compositions on repeat, which made him think of the show and the community and how wonderful it was. It brought the man to tears and made him suddenly feel better despite the shit he was going through earlier. There are countless other stories of those feeling depressed or sad, doing something pony-related, and then feeling better afterward. That's pretty damn powerful if you ask me.
To go off on a slight tangent, there's things such as the TL Mare-A-Thon. We had no legitimate reason for having one, but dammit, Cane and StarDragon felt like making one anyway. Having 60-80 people watching the entire time, with hundreds of unique views, watching the chat explode during songs or the better moments of the episodes, my constant spamming of "WINGBONER", all of it is just a miracle to witness because all of these people were brought together by a show about ponies. This is just one of a great deal of examples of how this show has brought people together and inspired them to do things that they wouldn't have ever dreamed of a year ago.
There are yet more stories, about those that have gotten over suicidal tendencies, about those that felt they couldn't be happy or cry again, but were yet able to reacquire those abilities, and even about those that have simply felt improvements in themselves, all from watching a show about talking candy-coloured equines. Witnessing such widespread positivity among others simply because of a cartoon is quite out of this world and leads me into my final segment.
What the community has done for me
The community, where all of these stories and people come together. The amount of positivity within the community is, simply put, staggering. I had to outline what effect the show has had on others to put some perspective on the community itself, which produces a ludicrous amount of content daily. I'd say half a dozen original compositions or remixes and PMVs, two to three dozen pieces of artwork, and a score of fanfics or updates to existing fanfics is about standard. Obviously there's a lot more in the wake of a new episode.
Seeing this beautiful art, these moving stories, the fantastic music, all of it is so downright inspiring. It's spurred me on to doing things I never thought I would ever do in my life. In hopes of sharing such a wonderful thing with a great many people, I bought a Fluttershy toy and gave it and a 5-minute spiel to Day[9] himself at BlizzCon in front of a few dozen other fans patiently lining up and waiting to get his autograph and maybe a photo op. This would have not been at all possible if it weren't for the support and inspiration of the TL brony community, which is only a microcosm of the community as a whole.
In doing this, I've found that I can feed off the positive energy of the community itself. This positivity gives me confidence, inspiration, passion, and makes me look at life in a better way. From there, I'm filled with the desire to put as much of that energy back into the community in the hopes of creating a sort of infinite loop of the stuff. I felt like I was high on the drug of happiness when I walked the streets of Anaheim near the Convention Center alone last at night as I reflected upon my approach to Day[9], the speech, and the community as well as the brony encounters I had at the Con itself and the actual events in the Con, such as John's post-GSL speech.
I've also made the journey to Vancouver, a good 3-4 hours each way, just to go to a brony meetup that lasted for about 5 hours, just to get the opportunity to be around my own kind for a while in person and to swap stories and just chat about things. These real life encounters have inspired me to wear MLP shirts places and to see if ponies can be used as a conversation piece in the hopes of showing more people I meet the show. I've talked with over a dozen complete strangers about it and have likely convinced a great number of them to give the show a try. I pin all of this on the community and how great it is.
Finally, I've been inspired to pursue my creativity by the community. Thanks to the support of my friend Mike, I decided to start writing a fanfic about the show, which is pretty significant since I hadn't written anything in about 5 years. Because of those that I've shared my work with and the countless hours I've spent discussing it with a ton of different people, I've been driven to keep going with the writing. 51 thousand words later, I'm still going strong.
All of this, every last bit of it, can be traced back to a little girl's cartoon made in an animation studio in Canada. What the show has done for me, for other people, and through those other people, did even more for me, can hardly be expressed. What it has the potential to do is unpredictible. If what we've seen so far is any indication, it will only continue to grow. I'd say that the sky's the limit, but that is hardly doing it justice.
So yes, I'd say the sheer incredible power that the show possesses is why I love it so much.
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On November 08 2011 07:59 nohbrows wrote:
There is a song by U2. It’s called “Staring at the Sun.” The chorus states, “I’m staring at the sun/And I’m not the only one/Who’d rather go blind.”
This show is the sun. And I will stare into it for as long as it shines. Blind me. I do not care. For being blind in this sort of world isn’t such a bad thing.
I understand the sentiment, but I would change that. Instead of looking into the sun to be blinded, share the sun with the rest of the world. From the economic state of the globe, to your day at work work or college, there's a lot of stuff that can be discouraging, and downright depressing. If you found joy in this, share it.Try to change the world into a place that isn't so dark.
Ignorance may be bliss but it wouldn't be better if ignorance didn't have to be the only way to bliss? Don't give up on the world yet.
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So Gary wasn't able to win in one of the two quizzes in the mare-a-thon, so now he's trying in the essay contest? This might just work...
You got my vote so far Gary :D
But I expect more essays to come.
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I just wanted to note that I did my usual EQD run today... and i realized that TL mare-athon satiated my ponies needs so much, that i had 2 pages to catch up on. I missed 2 draw friends and 2 nightly write ups because I had spent so much time on the TL IRC instead 0.o.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2011/237/d/f/random_mlp_fim_princess_luna_c_by_joakaha-d47sgwk.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2011/308/c/2/my_little_jumping_spider_by_ryuukiba-d4f4oo5.jpg)
