#mlp fandom critical

[aviaryartist1800]

So basically i wanted to say for this a while

I was watching video about "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep" its a pretty good analysis about the themes n stuff

It was great!

But, i stumbled upon this comment:

TLDR:Basically the "you can't criticize this piece of media because you haven't experienced it" deflection

This is a bad way to deflect criticism in my opinion, especially if people have valid points

It happened with Poison, where people accused you of having no media literacy and "you aren't an SA survivor, so you can't criticize this piece of media"

(and it has come to the point where the Hellaverse fandom harassed people like Limus, basically disregarding them and saying that she didn't experience SA even tho she said she did, which is disgusting behavior)

I just don't like this form of deflection, as its in the same vain as "DON'T LIKE, DON'T WATCH"

Its wrong, because it implies that this piece of media is exempt from criticism because you haven't experienced said thing

Its just, kinda dumb

[franki-lew-yo]

ALL my feelings towards Friendship is Magic could be so easily summed up as:

" -Twilight Sparkle should never have become an alicorn princess in season 3 of a series with 9 seasons - ''

She should have always had it in the books to eventually become an alicorn, but her becoming one in season 3 is where literally all (my own) problems with the show stem from and almost all of those problems are about the show in execution, NOT in theory. 

Everything about later seasons Friendship is Magic’s writing reeks of the writers trying to make their ideas, fan ideas, and Hasbro’s ideas work all at the same time with so little time. They were told to make Equestria Girls, Princess Twilight, Flurry Heart and the movie “work” while also juggling writing in Starlight and her whole arc (and the characters attached, like Sunburst), the CMC getting their cutie marks, the reformed changelings, griffons and dragons, their Starswirl the Bearded stuff; WHILE ALSO making sure Discord and the Princesses (mostly Luna) and the ‘fan fav’ characters worked on their own and come together.

In my opinion, it just didn’t.

There was always too much going on with little to no time to breathe or appreciate the characters -how far they’ve come, how much further they have to go- at all. And it made later bit of lore and characters feel frustrating. It made potentially great characters deeply unlikable. Starlight and Discord are the biggest victims.

I want to like them. I really do. I can’t though because Starlight is not only a ‘madeawittlemistake’(aka ran a cult)-villain redemption, BUT she has to share her stories with the main six. They underdeveloped her while also trying to make her important and it just made me dislike Starlight and Twilight so much. It made me get mad at Starlight for being in the way of a Twilight episode, it made me wanna scream at Twilight for getting in the way of what should be Starlight’s time to shine!

Discord now had to share his ‘redeemed baddie’ spotlight with Starlight and others meant he had no time for his development which, when it was done* (ALL of Season 4) was abysmally fast, badly paced and in my view insulting. It made Discord, even in episodes where he had a point to be there, feel useless because fundamentally was overall. Season 4 assassinated Discord’s character to me and I didn’t remotely like him. For years I thought I just didn’t like FiM simply because the show and the fandom clearly preferred Fluttercord to Dislestia and I was just butthurt. Which, to be clear, I am. My mega revelation regarding this show was realizing that, no- what I hated wasn’t Fluttercord, it was Discord himself. How he was being handled, how he was written from s4 onward (ALL THE EPISODES WHERE HE’S YANDRE TO FLUTTERSHY SHOULD HAVE BEEN BEFORE HIS BETRAYAL. ALL OF THEM. NO YOU WILL NOT CHANGE MY MIND IT’S FINAL) pissed me off so much as a person who really loved his potential character in season 2 and 3. Discord and Fluttershy being besties and possibly more could and should have been adorable...but it wasn't because the Discord we got was a horrid character. Fluttershy deserves better.

I know you guys don’t wanna hear this same old worn-out critique about FiM, but I’m sorry I have to agree: when they weren’t being crowbarred into stuff that didn’t need their stories, Starlight and Discord were both forgiven -by the show- WAAY too soon. The problem wasn’t that they had redemption arcs and/or that other characters didn’t. The problem was their redemptions were badly done. The show didn’t treat them like they had been redeemed from something hurtful, it acted like they had never done anything wrong. And that was bad because it made it so, when the three baddies at the end of the series were officially crowned "irredeemable", the show felt biased. It felt mean spirited towards Tirek, Chrysalis and Cozy when their end should have actually felt fitting and funny. It’s not about ‘morals’ or ‘punishing’ fictional cartoon horses voiced by John DeLancie for warcrimes or whatever tf Lily Orchard goes on about-- it’s about how the show FELT LIKE IT FAVORED some characters more than others. That was a thing that I loved Friendship is Magic for not doing in seasons 1-3, what made it and it’s character’s endearing and wholesome to me, and it’s why the handling of the main cast in later seasons felt so mean.

But to get back to the alicorn in the room; Twilight could have graduated or something for season 3 and then the whole show could build up to her actually outdoing Starswirl’s wrongs as she does in the pony of shadows plot. THAT could have been her ‘upgraded to alicorn princess moment’; but it didn’t. As much as I wish it were that way, it isn’t and that’s not what the writer’s did because they didn’t have the time or foresight for that. Sadly, even though lots of flaws and problems were always baked into the loaf from the start (Celestia being useless or 'sinister', ponies being racist towards everything else, bad and/or basic friendship lessons) Twilight becoming an alicorn princess, which DID ultimately change her character, her role and her presence even amongst her friends and the rest of Ponyville, was the start of all the problems.

We’re stuck with what we got and what we got was a series that -to me- only ever kept adding more and MORE until it felt overstuffed, hectic, and unfortunately mean spirited when it wasn’t trying to be. There’s nothing we can do now. Personally, I highkey am annoyed at other adult bronies saying I “didn’t get” the show and its decisions which is why I didn’t like it. No. Trust me I get “it”; the problem is that “it” wasn’t well done which is why I didn’t like “it”. “It” deserved better.

Of course, I also get some of why those bronies are so defensive. After all I was there when the whole 'Twilight becoming a Princess'-controversy happened. I remember how ugly it got and how annoying and entitled you guys were about it and Equestria Girls' existence (don't even get me started on ur #savederpy).

Something I want to make especially clear whenever I criticize writers, especially of kids shows, is that a criticism IS NOT an attack. Ever. Boycotts and callouts should be reserved for stuff that's actually morally wrong and yes they also count for stuff I like, not just stuff I want to be mad at. Lookin at you, Didney.

There was never and still is never a reason to bother, hurt or ask the writers for MLP gen 4 why they did what they did. No, not even if you're being 'friendly' about it. Leave M.A. Larson alone.

Granted, fans being entitled to creator's attention and creator's being entitled to fans' affection is it's own rabbit hole, but I truly think that FiM set an ugly standard for that with animated shows today.

Besides still being too thin skinned and not liking that a thing they've divested so much real life time into could be bad, a thing about cartoon commentary and criticism in the 2010s-2020s is they're really parasocial and demanding of writers and artists behind a show. The was always the biggest, ugliest, most uncomfortable aspect of Friendship is Magic to me: because it's creators were online and fans knew they were listening, could approve of fan's creations, and especially because they felt 'responsible' for a show's success, they were really into @ing writers about everything. When critics would call something out for being badly written it somehow always made it's way into becoming a personal accusatory thing. People were blaming writers for being human and working within time constraints and network decisions. You didn't have to be like that TinyToons guy who stalked Tress MacNeille about sexualizing Fifi in the 90s to be a harasser. You could just be an aggressively oversupporting 'stan' or angry nitpicking critic to make a writer who's just doing their job, uncomfortable

tl;dr: I disliked the writing of the later Friendship is Magic. I think it was bad because it was bad. None of that is meant as an attack on the writers who were trying their best and don't need to be roped into any fandom nonsense, positive or negative, and never should have been in the first place.

Hopefully, that's one deadhorse finally beaten.

[sprinkleonthatcriticism]

(this is in regards to the mlp fandom)

the more i look into the fandom(especially in places such as reddit)

the more i grow distant because it feels unwelcoming to people who have an opinion opposing theirs

such as when ppl call out the bad writing in season 9..

...you might get flamed for it because you are a "villain apologist" when you call out the bad writing in regards to the villains

they have favortism problems, so yeah...

It's kinda like the hazbin/helluva fandom as well as the FNAF fandom and I think undertale fandom has the same problem too, if you dare criticize something or say why you don't like a certain character then they will hunt you down. The fnaf fandom was so bad that pewdiepie ended up privating his sister location let's play videos because he said and I quote "Fnaf isn't scary anymore for me." which is a valid opinion but these rabid fans acted like he insulted them. But back to mlp, I do agree from what I saw S9's writing is pretty much bad and does not make since like.. Didn't princess celestia said in S1 (i think) that you can't learn about friendship from schools or something but then in the later season she turns around and was like "Yea actually, we need a school to teach every creature/pony about friendship." Like, hUH????

And then don't get me started with Cozy glow...

[libby1080]

pike trickfoot

[mcsm-confessions]

i can’t believe i haven’t seen mlp style fanart of mcsm characters yet, this fandom should know better!

~~~

[akascow]

another g1v3 discourse rant :/

‘g3 is too childlike now’ need i remind yall theyre 15?? thats how 15 year olds act bro😭😭 if anything g1 was way too adult

also the show is targeted towards kids ofc theyre gonna seem childlike in the eyes of an adult

and the reason the fashion was ‘dulled down’ a bit is probably bc most modern 15 year olds arent obsessed with 2010s fashion that yall so desperately crave HAHA

[skelet-bone]

fifteenth and final poll for my class.

p.s. thanks for all the results! you all have really helped me!

[virtuouswhitehatorganization]

Both White And Black Hat Would Agree On One Thing: Gabriel Can Go Suck It

Black and White Hat wouldn’t agree on everything but even they wouldn’t like what happened at the end of Miraculous. Mostly because Black Hat would think he went pussy at the end and turned face. Also White Hat would roll his eyes because Gabriel was certainly not the good father he thinks he was and again not trying to reveal himself as the villain to his son was cowardly. In the end, both wouldn’t be happy how things turned out. 

Not to mention the fact that the show redeems him while not doing anything for Chloe who got her redemption arc shut down due to the creator being petty and childish as hell. And worst of all this is only the first arc, which means they dragged this out so long with mediocre pay off. It make you wonder how many more arcs they are going to go through and it will be a nothing burger. Austic is leaving, but I don’t really have anymore hope for this waste potential of a show. 

[what-is-love-babey-dont-hurt-me]

Constantly resisting the urge to make a rainbow factory/pegasus device AU with Meta Knight

[neonnoir-ao3]

Posting my half-baked concepts in the drafts and never publishing them because I know I’ll be judged if I post them because the TikTok-originated parts of this specific fandom don’t know how fandoms work and think any content they personally don’t like is problematic.

[aviaryartist1800]

So i am going to ask this as a question to the MLP fandom here

Why do they keep bringing up real life examples of evil children when discussing about Cozy Glow and criticizing her writing?

I had never seen a fandom this defensive before since the HH/HB fandom

Like, when you question the writing behind her, you usually get slapped with "CHILDREN CAN BE EVIL", "SHE DIDN'T FEEL ANY REMORSE AND DIDN'T FEEL BAD FOR HER ACTIONS" and "SHE WAS GIVEN CHANCES"

Its weird, and they like to bring up other evil kids in media as an own to the critics, which is stupid in my opinion since the critics can bring other evil child characters who were reformed (Kevin from Ben 10 is an example, he also tried to kill Ben he was a kid too so yeah, also Zuko sorta counts)

Why is the MLP fandom this defensive to the point that it feels like the Hellaverse fandom, why is it like this?

Why are they oddly defensive towards her writing being poor?

I am asking this out of curiosity...

[libby1080]

Vexahalia

Base credited to elementbases

She’s missing something I’m not sure what though

please comment what

[idolomantises]

I think my most controversial cartoon take is that it’s not Lily Orchard’s fault that people turned on Steven Universe and I think the fandom just insists that happened because they don’t want to accept that people turned on the show years before it ended.

Like I literally remember Bismuth being the first episode that completely divided fans, and its lack of acknowledgement (among other issues such as a drop in writing and animation quality) pushing fans from the show. And that was TWO YEARS before LO’s video dropped

Lily Orchard’s video was only effective because it came out during the peak of the show’s hatedom/controversy. Season 5 was when I dropped off the show but I literally remember new episodes becoming heated debates every time they dropped and fans were so actively hostile towards criticism they genuinely thought making any sort of constructive critique was considered laughable or downright homophobic (had no issue complaining about random anime though, wonder why).

Really makes me laugh that there were dungeon meshi fans who were convinced that Lily Orchard’s negative review was going to make people turn on the show. Her LOK and Steven Universe videos were popular because they were already very controversial shows with a divisive fanbase. She also made a lot of videos heavily criticizing MLP, yet I don’t see people insisting that MLP is a terrible show undeserving of praise. It’s almost as if Lily Orchard is a deeply controversial figure in cartoon spaces and it makes no sense for one deeply unlikable person to influence the opinions of millions of people.

It’s okay to accept that people just didn’t like something, instead of looking for someone to blame.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

While "the network wants an episodic kids show, the authors want an epic dark complicated narrative" would explain A LOT about ML's problems, I'd still like to note that there are kids' shows that can do both, going full range from "mostly episodic with a sprinkle of narrative" (Kim Possible, MLP), to "heavily narrative but with episodic breather/filler episodes" (Gravity Falls, WITCH, the Owl House), with many variants in-between.

Even the transition from "fully episodic" to "more narratively-connected" that ML attempted to do can be done successfully - the aforementioned Gravity Falls and WITCH were more episodic in season 1 and more narratively driven in season 2.

However, I'd say there are a few other key problems that can be inferred from what we have:

The show tries too many things at once - as you have pointed out repeatedly. Magical girl and rom-com, single-hero, duo and team stories, wacky comedy and serious trauma, even trying to give several characters a redemption and a damnation arc at the same time (and failing with either). Apparently, it's not just TF vs writers: it's writers severely disagreeing with each other (see Thomas and Vincent's opinions on Chloe), and also trying to one-up the fans. Also, simply thinking too much of the work, which leads us to...

ML's total lack of self-awareness. Another famous case of a show that was almost entirely episodic is Phineas and Ferb. They use the same formula (the brothers build, Candace busts, Doof makes an Inator and is thwarted by Perry) over and over for four seasons. And by mid-season 1, the authors have been making fun of the structure, lampshading it, spoofing and twisting it, playing with "What if" episodes and never taking itself too seriously. When ML tries to be self-aware, it becomes either insulting to the fans (Animaestro), horrifically dark (Chat Blanc) or plain cringe (Simpleman). This is exacerbated by Astruc's arrogance and inability to ignore critics.

Is it possible to make a highly complex, genre-busting, yet kid-friendly story and succeed? Yes. But it needs to be better thought-out - if not from the start, then at the moment the network allows one to deviate from the formula.

And if all else fails and the story becomes too complicated and too repetitive at the same time... Well, self-awareness and the ability to make fun of one's own work can turn a sad mess into a hilariously fun disaster.

P. S. Love your posts as always, you are the main reason I'm still in the fandom!

Thank you for the kind words! I'm so glad that you're enjoying my stuff and I agree with all the things you brought up.

A big part of the reason that Miraculous is so fascinating to me is that there ISN'T a single cause of the issues. There are so many valid ways to discuss the show's problems. It's a masterclass in bad writing and what not to do!

It's why I'm able to run this blog. If it was as simple as, "here's the single reason why it's bad and here's how you fix that" or if the show never had any potential, then there wouldn't be much to talk about. But it did have potential and there is no single reason why it's bad. The causes are multitudinous as are the potential fixes! It feels like investigating some complex wreckage or an elaborate murder mystery in order to understand what the hell happened, which is really fun if you like talking about writing.

I find it much harder to discuss writing in an informative way if you only have good examples to draw from because that path risks stifling creativity. Just because a popular story did a thing well doesn't mean that story showed us the only way to do the things or even the best way to do the thing, but that's often the lesson people seem to learn. They see a thing that they like or even just a thing that audiences liked and want to copy it without understanding the full nuance of why they liked it.

A great example of this is Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender. He was such a well-written and popular character that all these properties started copying him even though the properties in question did NOT have a setup that worked for a Zuko. Praising Zuko won't really tell you all the ways that Zuko could have failed. Meanwhile, a case study of Chloe vs Zuko or even just a general discussion of Chloe lets you actually talk about the various styles of redemption arc and what you have to do to make them feel real. It's also far more interesting than talking how Zuko could have failed because Zuko didn't fail so why are we even talking about this? It's also far more interesting than talking about a bunch of properties that did redemption arcs well because that would require you to have seen all of those properties. But Chloe is from a single property and she did fail and people understandably have wildly different feelings about what the failure was because the writing was so bad, which means that digging into her writing is way more likely to hold your interest and teach you something.

This gif really does sum it up perfectly:

[Image description: scene from the movie Knives Out where the detective Benoit Blanc exclaims "It makes no damn sense! It compels me though" to explain his feelings on an ongoing murder mystery that he's trying to solve]

As does the old adage, "failure is the greatest teacher." Of course, no one ever said that it had to be your failure!

[ponett]

Recently, I've been looking back at MLP FIM. I was in high school when it began and was at the height of it's popularity. I was never a super fan or anything and watched a few episodes, but never every one, mainly in the first few seasons. I mostly experienced the fandom through fanart and fanfics, oddly enough. I think I stopped paying attention around the time Starlight Glimmer was introduced. It actually wasn't until a year or so after it ended in 2019 that I realized the show had finished lol

One thing that always bothered me about FIM was how it handled non-ponies and their cultures. The early fandom from what I remember, NEVER liked to talk about racism in the show. Not a surprise given it's 4chan roots. It's only fairly recently, on places like Reddit and Tumblr, that these conversations can happen.

From the early seasons, the most egregious examples were Zecora in her debut episode Bridle Gossip and the Buffalo from the episode, Over a Barrel. I have to wonder what exactly were Lauren Faust, the team at DHX and Hasbro thinking. Zecora is pretty much a magic negro stereotype and the Over a Barrel episode was offensive bothsidsing of the historical conflict between settlers and Native Americans. I could see that the writer intended a "don't judge a book by it's cover" lesson in Bridle Gossip, but that's kind of undermined when Zecora is an insensitive racially-coded stereotype.

Later on, it was nice they focused on non-pony races and diversity, but there was this weird cultural imperialism that showed up with the ponies needing to teach everybody else about friendship. Pretty much every society they visited was dysfunctional or were villains. It was like a pony version of the White Man's Burden. They even installed their own Equestria-friendly leaders. It's a good thing the Native American-coded Buffalo never came back for the Friendship School.

I can only imagine that a lack of diversity in the production crew let these things happen. I can see how the staff didn't think through the implications of the Pony's Burden stuff, but Zecora and the Buffalo are a lot less excusable imo. Lauren Faust and co in Season 1 really should've known better

Believe me when I say people have always been critical of the weird racial coding of the non-pony species in MLP, going all the way back to 2010. Especially here on Tumblr, where you'd find more progressive corners of the fandom compared to, like, /co/ or Equestria Daily or wherever. I guess there's less pushback against those criticisms now, which is good, but they aren't new. It's always been one of the show's most glaring flaws, and something that I hope future iterations of the franchise can improve upon.

[purfectprincessgirl]

Weeee, nothing like a fun art meme to start off the day, eh? lol Seeing some of my fellow mutuals filling out this "Draw a Character You Like" template, I couldn't resist giving it a go too~ ✨

NOTE: Pls refrain from any rude comments if you happen to dislike any character(s) here btw; these are just my own personal faves, so ya miiight wanna take that negativity somewhere else, thanks~✌😊

-"Current Favorite" = Ofc goes to bird daughter Octavia, 'cause aaaa poor girl deserves ALL the love rn 🥺💜

-"Comfort Character" = While not *as* prominent as some other ponies (even princess-wise), without Cadence (+her debut episode "A Canterlot Wedding"), I wouldn't have stuck with MLP for as long as I have soooo ye, a natural comfort fave Cadence has grown to be lol💗

-"By Design" = Tbh I'm not really *that* big into Rainbow High nowadays (idk a mix of general series burnout + the weird slime reboot didn't rly appeal to me-); but Bella in particular is always a fave of mine to see featured (esp doll-wise with how many Bellas I've collected atm lol) 💕

-"By Plot" = About time I *finally* made some TADC fanart, bruh lol (ever since I watched the initial pilot), and yee Pomni's just been a blast to watch throughout these recent eps ngl~ ❤️(esp in her growing empathetic side + gradually-sillier antics with her fellow circus members). Curious to see what else Gooseworx has in-store for this lil jester!👀🤞

-"Guilty Favorite" = Seems to be more commonplace nowadays to find SU a rather... "hit-or-miss" show (esp in the critical community-); but Jasper's always been an entertaining baddie imo (+the odd lil friendship she formed with Steven at the end was pretty amusing lol)

-"All Time Favorite" = Ofc... not a surprise at all to those who've known me long, DP fandom-wise lol. Idk, Sam's just always been a fun & spunky presence for me even years later, so she'll always have a special place in my heart imo~ 💚🦇