#especially since the fandom around it completely ignores it (unlike with sparkle)

[melina-mellow]

I know about Sparkle's.... problematic attitude towards Aventurine.

But Dr. Ratio had a similar attitude towards Aven? Obviously not as bad as Sparkle... I guess he apologized? but it was still a micro aggression towards him...

Idk I guess the fandom decides to ignore that little detail about that Aven/Ratio interaction because yaoi.

[chaoticsagi]

Fictober 2019 | Day Seven | “No, And That’s Final”

Prompt: 7 -  “No, and that’s final.”

Fandom & Ship: Community, Jeff x Annie

Summary: He hasn’t seen Annie since he graduated, so she’s probably the last person he expects a drunk call from. 

“No, and that’s final.”

“Jefffffffff....” she whines in a pitch that rings through his ears, even down the phone.

He finds it odd that of all people, of all her friends, it’s him she’s decided to drunk dial tonight. Especially considering he hasn’t spoke to her in months. Her text sit unread in his phone, and yeah, he feels bad every time he scrolls past them, but he doesn’t know what to say to her without sounding pathetic. 

“Annie, no. I don’t want to come to the bar tonight.”

He’s sick of the taste of scotch now. It was only a week or so ago that he realised his firm was definitely going to fail and he’s been indulging a little too much ever since.

“But pleeeeeeease!” she hiccups. “I want to see you.”

He tries to stand his ground, he really does. She drawls out a few more tipsy sentences, mostly consisting of please and hiccups and something about how she misses him. He decides to ignore it, even if his chest tightens a little when he hears it.

She tells him about how her work friends have left and now she’s alone in this bar, so he should join her there. 

“If you stop talking, I’ll come get you” he says down the phone, already grabbing his keys off the side table. “Where are you?”

His original intentions for the evening were to eat takeout, watch crappy tv, and fall asleep early so that the numbness would disappear, not dealing with a drunk Annie Edison. 

But he does care about her - more than he’d ever care to admit - and the thought of her being out there alone, drunk somewhere without their friends, well. He needs to protect her.

-

He finds her stood outside waiting for him, her arms across her chest.

Climbing out the car, he walks over to her, smiling slightly at her drunken stupor.

 “You ok?” He hands her a water bottle, just in case.

“I’m fine!” She says, louder than she probably intended. “Better now you’re here.”

He tries not to react, and hope in her state she doesn’t notice the little blush that spreads on his cheeks. “Let’s get you home.”

She wraps her arm around his. Her fingers grasp his bicep and she squeezes it lightly. “Ooooh” she giggles.

He ignores that too, not sure what to say to her when she’s like this. He’s never seen her this drunk before, nor is she ever so willingly flirtatious with him.

It’s a weird mixture of funny and hot. And it feels kind of wrong that he’s completely sober for it.

Reaching for the car door, he holds her up as she climbs in clumsily. 

“Thank you,” she smiles, and her eyes sparkle up at him…

He shuts the door. He can’t think her like that right now.

-

“Where are we going?”

“I’m taking you home.”

“Noooo,” she calls out, frowning. “I don’t wanna go home yet. Let’s do something!”

She’s sobered up slightly since she’s got in the car; enough so she’s not slurring her words anymore, but her eyes are still all glazed over and ___

“Like?” He sighs, and turns to look at her now that they’ve stopped at a red light. 

“Let’s go watch a movie!”

“Annie, it’s midnight,” she’s still grinning at him happily, her hand lands on his thigh, almost making him jump. “Where are we gonna watch a movie at this time?”

“Do you still have Netflix?” Her eyes are full of hope.

“Fine.”

-

When he lets her into his apartment, she stumbles her way to his couch, flopping down onto it ungracefully with an unf.

He chuckles at the sight of her, her body limp on the furniture, so unlike the prim and proper Annie he used to see at Greendale.

“You all good?” He asks as he head to the kitchen to get her a glass of water.

“Food,” she murmurs into a cushion. “Do you have any food?”

She sits up slightly, takes the glass from his hands and thanks him before gulping water down.

“Uh. I have some leftovers? Chinese?”

She nods, and he goes back to retrieve the containers of food.

“Eat all you want. I was gonna throw it out anyway.”

“Why did you order all this food?” She asks, and there’s something she’s not saying behind it. He can almost hear her mind going into overdrive, wondering why he never invited her round, or made any effort to see her at all, now he was out of Greendale.

Truth is, he’s not really sure what to do with them all now Greendale doesn’t tether them all together. He feels bad every time he watches his phone ring out when they call, or blanks one of their texts messages, but he’s finding being apart from them all harder than he expected, and he doesn’t want them to know how shitty his life’s been since then.

“Don’t know,” he shrugs her comment off. He’s not gonna think about that either.

She lets the silence linger between them, watching him out of the corner of her eye as she eats.

He sits down beside her, his arm draped over the back of the sofa, slightly grazing her back. He tries to ignore the way her hair tickles his skin.

“You could’ve invited us.”

“Yeah.”

Another moment passes, more silence. He doesn’t know what she’s thinking of him, whether she’s deciding if she hates him yet or not, now she sees what little effort he puts in to maintain his friendship with her. 

“Thanks for tonight,” she yawns. “I missed you.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“Don’t be a stranger,” her lips curl into a lazy smile. She looks tired now, more than drunk, and even with the hazy look on her face, Jeff can’t help but find her beautiful.

He watches her roll onto her side, snuggling into his couch cushions with ease. He thinks to himself, she must be drunk if she finds it that comfortable.

They sit in silence together, both lost in their own little worlds, comforted by the mutual silence. There wasn’t much more to say.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but when he wakes up a few hours later, neck aching from the weird position he had dozed off in, he smiles to himself.

Annie Edison always finds a way back into his heart.

[bronyinabottle]

MIRROR MAGIC (EQG SPECIAL 3/3) THOUGHTS

Once we found out what all the EQG Specials were going to be about there was no doubt it was the 3rd and final one that created the most buzz and just from two things alone:

The first of course being that at least for a brief time Sunset would return to Equestria. Something that the fandom has wanted dearly for a long time now, especially after hearing that was a subplot that was entirely cut out of Friendship Games. So many fans wanted to see the now reformed Sunset return to Equestria, and have a emotional reunion with Celestia. However though, it appears those who wanted the latter thing especially will still have to wait at least a little longer. Because the only reason Sunset really goes back is to get a new magic journal since the one she's had since Rainbow Rocks ran out of pages. Though upon going back to Equestria comes the 2nd major thing that caused buzz for this EQG special.

And that of course was the news that Starlight Glimmer would be involved in this one. And unlike the desperately wanted scene of Sunset returning to Equestria, the response to this was… mixed to say the least. As I said in the Royal Problem thoughts there was so much Starlight things going on at the time we found out about the synopsis of that episode cause we have already had 3 out of the first 4 Season 7 episodes star (no pun intended) Starlight in some way. And then we find out she's involved in one of the EQG Specials too. It isn't just the fact it seems everything seemed to have been involving Starlight all of a sudden, that was two things that fans have desperately wanted to see (A royal sister episode and Sunset returning to Equestria) that in their own minds felt like Starlight has been hijacked into. Again i take the more fair route that it's fine to include Starlight, but I do understand the frustration of those who aren't a fan of Starlight at all. When it comes to putting Starlight in those highly anticipated events it's like finally getting a long requested food only for the inside of it to have some undesired flavor that you were familiar with and didn't like before.

I guess another thing to consider that people would get worried of any canon implications of it if possible. But it's nothing that isn't that new to the EQG series. The main show is obviously canon to EQG but when you get to the other way around that's kind of sketchy. We never see the mirror, and none of the events of the EQG movies are ever referenced in the Main show. The closest we got are the Flash Sentry cameos during Season 4, but that isn't enough. It would of taken Twilight having some kind of reaction to seeing Pony flash for something like that. One situation where that could of happened was Three's a Crowd but he literally was just a guard there, Twilight completely ignores Flash in favor of being happy Cadence is there. I don't think Starlight's going to mention what happened in the EQG special either. So I think I can still stand on the belief that this is on purpose as to you can watch the show without ever seeing EQG so that EQG can be its own thing. Because the catch about making EQG really canon to the show you have to have the exposition in case people coming in watching haven't watched any of the movies. And after 4 movies, that'd be a lot of exposition to go over. I do not think Sunset will come into the main show as a result of this, so any reunion with Celestia would have to take place in an EQG involved thing. So if you're worried about Starlight's appearance at all confirming completely any canon status for EQG, based on past trends I don't think it's something to worry about much. Barring a Sunset appearance episode in the main show in a Season 7 or even Season 8 episode it shouldn't mean much.

But enough about a few things that we could of talked about just knowing the synopsis for the thing how did the episode itself hold up? Well I've already stated that Dance Magic was my favorite of the 3, and Movie Magic was my least. So this turned out to be the middle-of-the-road one. I think the plot alone makes it more interesting and certainly some nice things make it better then the Scooby-Doo tribute Movie Magic. But obviously some things went down that the most interesting episode synopsis wise couldn't beat an episode that was just a dance competition episode for me.

For what it's worth the scenes of Starlight and Sunset together play out fine. We get to have them forge a friendship of their own between 2 characters that are often compared to each other. I don't think it's entirely unfair to compare the two because there are glaring similarities. But the differences are there that some degree of interaction could be interesting. I just don't think if this one episode could really share everything of the potential between the two because of course this isn't the only big part of the episode.

Because besides Starlight and Sunset's plot we also have Juniper seeking revenge and using that mirror. One note before I get to the episode's events for this. As the one who runs the genie blogs it is a little amusing that the mirror Juniper uses happens to be activated whenever she says something after "I Wish". I could easily make some sort of connection with genie magic in my thing. Though I decided to opt out of doing episode responses to the EQG Specials. And a magic mirror is not really something to make me do an exception. Only thing is I think if it happened where Genie Sci-Twi happened. While they were in the mirror they could of wished from Genie Sci-Twi to get themselves out soon after and then stop Juniper from there.

But anyway as for Juniper's character, I'm not really too sure how to feel. She was a Scooby-doo antagonist in the previous special but the events of that episode motivates her to doing something on par with the other characters that had to been reformed in some fashion in the EQG series. Though Sunset and Starlight both started out as villains, while Sci-Twi was only a straight-up villain when she was taken over by Midnight Sparkle. Though I suppose she is similar to Starlight in the events she does are caused by a rather petty thing. Starlight's course towards evil started with Sun Burst moving away and getting his Cutie Mark. While with Juniper, they just stopped her dreams of being the actor to play Daring Do in what would be an in-universe live action adaptation. Though Juniper's motive mostly seems she wants to be famous by any fashion and there's more ways to become an actor then decided to try to go as the starring role in your favorite book series. Sure it hurts to miss out on the role you wanted, but if Juniper wanted to be a famous actor she needs to build herself up to the role. Take auditions for other things, practice acting. They's all still high school students right? Just get as far as you can in a Drama class and sign-up for all the school plays to show your stuff. It just seems to be particularly more petty of a motive then a lot of the rest. Perhaps even more petty then Starlight's reasoning because we can understand if she had been lonely ever since Sun Burst left how that could effect her (Though it's still be nice of the show to explain that eventually). Perhaps Juniper was particularly obsessive with wanting to be Daring Do since she was such a big fan of the series, but again the mirror didn't show she just wanted to be Daring Do. It looked like she just wanted to be famous. And there are other ways Juniper could of tried to get there. If it was specifically focused on Daring Do that much, I'd think the mirror would of shown her in a Daring Do costume.

As a result of all this, Mirror Magic is a bit of a mixed bag It has some fun parts with Starlight and Sunset. But this being put in the same 22 minute plot as Juniper's thing made it incredibly hard to balance. I think this needed a little more time then it got. I'm not going to say it deserved to be the plot of EQG5 or anything, I feel making it 66 minutes would be a little too long. But I do think if it had been made a two-parter it may have gotten a much better pace then it did. Have the first 22 minutes to perhaps give a little more time of Sunset visiting Equestria and of course Starlight seeing the EQG world. And maybe a little bit of Juniper here and there. But then upon the 2nd part you could have all that time to go more into Juniper's motivations to get a more clear understanding of her character.

All-in-all it's an alright episode as is. But it being only 22 minutes does give that rushed feeling, perhaps even more so compared to some of the other endings of EQG related things. I think it's something that could of benefited with a 2nd part. I don't know if any of the specials will have anything that bodes for anything coming up for EQG unless Starlight plays a part. But I'll still be awaiting where they go next, the specials didn't really solve the cliffhanger of EQG4's ending after all.

Anyway, I don't know when Season 7 comes back. But that'll be when I share more episode thoughts. BTW I have seen the Australian releases for both Episodes 12 and 13 of the season. But I'm going by the same rule with all the others and waiting for the official US release before giving the episode response and thoughts. But I will say that of course Episode 13 of the season was no doubt a fantastic episode and can't wait to give my thoughts about. If you've seen it already yourself I think you know why. Right now all we have right now is some Summer stuff, and for me in particular I'll be going to Trotcon this weekend. So that's sure to be exciting