#‘rainbow dash doesn’t deserve her element’

[hoss-bonaventure]

IM ACTUALLY GONNA START BAWLING MY EYES OUT 😭 RAINBOW DASH HAS MATCHING SLIPPERS WITH TANK OF EACH OTHER’S FACES!!!!!

[sillygeesedogaystuff]

I wanted to delve deeper into my last post so here I go:

Adaine- twilight sparkle

The element of magic herself, this one is pretty obvious and self explanatory so I’ll be brief. Adaine being a wizard obviously links to twilight being a unicorn and then an alicorn (which can represent Adaine being the elvin orical.) Twilight found the true magic of friendship when moving to ponyville which translates to when Adaine met the bad kids on her first day at the Aguefort adventuring academy. Adaine and Twilight were both pitted against their older siblings (although twilight and Shining armour’s was much more light hearted) both have a pet, Owlowiscious being twilights (although I guess you could also count spike) and Boggy being Adaine’s. Both characters are the top of their respective classes and have to work hard throughout the series to gain more magical abilities. To sneak my favourite character from MLP in here too, starlight glimmer can be seen as a few different characters in fantasy high. One consideration is Kipperlily if they reformed her instead of well murdering her. Adaine HATED kettlechip Crispycream but I have no doubt they could have gotten along if the bad kids didn’t already have a track list of killing their enemies, and Adaine has strongly proven no matter what she has been put through by someone she will try her hardest to help them. Which bring me onto our favourite older sister Aelwyn. I couldn’t not mention her okay… clearly starlight is not twilights sister but she is one of the greatest unicorns in Equestria and Aelwyn is incredible at magic specifically curses (I think.) I think about that scene with Adaine and Aelwyn in the forest of the nightmare king at least twice a week and it has similar aspects to when twilight stopped trying to fight starlight and instead showed her the reality of everything and succeeded in reforming her. I won’t get into the similarities now however. After everything her sister has done to her, Adaine always knew it wasn’t all Aelwyn fault and it was her parents who were the evil ones. But back to the point at hand.  both twilight and Adaine get the most joy in being with their friends and helping them as much as they can.

Fig- Rainbow dash

As the element of loyalty this deserves a bit more consideration. Scared of what people may really think of her, Fig contains a lot of rainbow’s qualities. Let’s talk about the element of loyalty. Fig shows many times that she is loyal to her friends. I cannot give any specific examples currently (at 1am while I am writing this) but from memory fig proves countless times that her friends mean everything to her and loyalty is a massive part of her personality. NOT ONLY THIS. But fig is described multiple times as a german shepherd who are one of the most loyal and courageous dogs out there. Rainbow dash also is clearly seen to be a German shepherd often offering to go first when confronting the villains or guarding places for the other pony’s to explore. Rainbow may not have magic like fig but she is one of the strongest flyers in equestria. Fig obviously doesn’t have wings so that causes a slight bump in the road. HOWEVER. If I may bring in this little thing called equestria girls, rainbow dash plays guitar and is the lead of the band she created. Sound familiar? Fig plays bass guitar and is in the band Fig and the cig figs which she created and is the lead singer for. Now I know equestria girls isn’t cannon in the friendship is magic show however I’m counting it and I don’t care what you say <3. Rainbow and fig are both confident and outgoing however both are afraid of what their friends and everyone else thinks about them. Both have a lot hidden deep down inside of them which only their friends can help with. Fig is an only child (excluding Fabian being nearly her stepbrother) like rainbow dash. Rainbow does take scootaloo under her wing as almost an honorary sister. Although there isn’t anything cannon about fig having a similar relationship with someone (I don’t think) I see many head cannons about fig having a sisterly like relationship with a younger tiefling. These two characters have the most important thing in common though… they are both super cool.

Kristen- pinky pie

The element of laughter. Well we can know one thing for sure, Ally Beardsley is definitely the element of making all of us laugh. But seriously pinky and Kristen are very similar personality wise. Character relationships wise all I can really say is that they both have siblings. I guess a rock farm isn’t a cult buuuutttt it definitely wasn’t where pinky was meant to be just like his Kristen wasn’t meant to worship hello. The element of laughter plays a big part in why Kristen is still seen as a positive protagonist. In junior year Kristen turned slightly bitchy towards the ratgrinders but her positivity while being bitchy made the interactions very funny. Now Ally has a MASSIVE aid to why Kristen is the element of laughter. Any Nat20 rolled by them is gonna be either the funniest thing in the series or the most insane (often both) and often it’s a tricky time working out what’s Ally being Ally and what’s Kristen. It’s not hard to consider insanity throughout junior year, one example of this being spontaneously running for president and giving speeches to anyone even if they weren’t even voting AS WELL as the shrimp jump which she got fig to do in disguise. Obviously pinky pie hasn’t done these exact things however a shrimp jump doesn’t seem highly implausible for pinky to do (secretly rainbow would do it) IT ALL FITS. Annnndddd if I may remind you of the MLP episode where pinky pie duplicated herself so there were A LOT of pinky pies running around. Possibly a little bit of a stretch but K2 is a clone of Kristen. Being british and all also means she isn’t an exact replica of Kristen herself. Pinky pie is also the only character (at least out of the main six) that is self aware of being in a show by making predictions or statements only the audience know or breaking the forth wall and directly talking to the viewers. coming back once again to Equestria girls where she predicts multiple times the events in the pony world basically proving she is a psychic.

Fabian- rarity

The element of generosity is in my opinion one of the most interesting to discuss. Now I have to admit my main reasoning for this pairing is that they are both posh!!! I mean come on… Fabian is an only child (not counting unborn half baby sibling) with a pirate as a father and a mother from Fallinel and the greatest fencer in the world. While we know sweetie Belle is rarity’s younger sister and we really don’t have much information about rarity’s parents although from the clip I rewatched I got the sense that they aren’t too similar to their daughters. Fabians passion is dance whole rarity is all about the fashion. However, there is something to be said for how Fabian is around his friends. I find generosity to be much more complex than the other elements so since this is SUPPOSED to be an overview I will only touch the tip of the iceberg. Fabian represents generosity at many points throughout all three years with the bad kids.A less straightforward example is when all of the bad kids were offered a place on the owlbears even though Fabian tried extremely hard to get on the team only to fail on his first day. Now there are many instances where Fabian is generous however it’s reaching 2am and my mind is drawing a blank to specific situations. Fabian is a proud and outgoing young man looking to leave his name in the history books, Fabian is very concerned with appearances and social status, and can sometimes be very snobby. SOUND LIKE ANYONE TO YOU? rarity is proud and outgoing and if she hasn’t made a mark with her fashion brand I don’t know what could!! She admires looks but will sacrifice her perfect features for someone else buuuuttt in certainly some circumstances she can be a tad snobby.

Riz- applejack

So here we go with the element of honesty. Ironic because I have to be honest here, I already fit the others to everyone else that Riz was left with applejack BUT WE CAN MAKE THIS WORK. firstly and a pretty on the nose point: both their dads are dead!! At least we can infer applejacks dad is dead along with her mother and I KNOW Riz still has his mother. Riz is an only child while applejack has two siblings and in general a large family. Okay okay, so character relationships don’t have my back! Let’s have a look at the actual element. Honesty is a difficult trait to compare when a character isn’t specifically created with the soul idea of honesty and even then you have to find a way to create a character who follows their own morality while not sounding incredibly mean, still applejack is one of the best characters. Now Riz Is not on the same level of honesty as applejack (he lied about being in a relationship so much he lied it into existence) but he has proven he cares about his friends just as much as applejack. Riz is often concerned about fig and Kirsten’s academics since he is very academically strong like Adaine. And yet again I know applejack is on the physically stronger side but she commonly takes notice of details the others miss out on liiikkkeeee Riz being a rogue. I honestly don’t have that much to talk about for Riz without going back over all three years of fantasy high and all MLP content but i promise you it… it fits better in my head

Gorgug- Fluttershy

The element of kindness. Well this one I feel like is pretty on the nose. In many many episodes fluttershy is shown to get ANGRY when her animals or friends are treated badly. This is best shown in the pier pony episode. Her literally superpower is like the hulk, she turns into a massive strong angry… monster when angry. This couldn’t be more barbarian of her. Gorgug on the first day of freshman year, gave a flower to Fabian immediately sharing his kindness. And obviously when he get less quiet he goes into his barbarian state which he struggles do sometimes. These are very obvious points and there are hundreds of examples I could probably use. Gorgug is generally quite shy, often not speaking as much as the other bad kids especially round new people. As far as we are aware, gorgug is an only child, he doesn’t even have adopted siblings but that just gives his adoptive parents all their love and support. Fluttershy has a brother who is… well… full of him self to say the least. Her parents seem sweet and like they care very much for their children even if they can be pushed around by their son. Fluttershy will prove herself when her friends need it. There is one instant at the start of junior year where gorgug is led to believe by his friends that he was the one to trap the nightyorb to make him feel more confident proud of himself when in reality Fig secretly did it instead. Although I can’t get up an example currently, I am very sure there have been one or two times something similar to this has happened in the MPL friendship Is magic show.

I know a lot of this is just me contradicting myself and I’m sure I got plenty of things mildly incorrect but this took me quite a while to finish and If this somehow reaches anyone who has worked on fantasy high I will silently cry with happiness.

Also if anyone actually found this interesting or enjoyable to read I will happily make an even longer essay but with clips and proof going into more details about all the characters.

[kindheart525]

APRIL FOOLS!

Although I have two next gen projects well underway, I’m always coming up with new ideas for stories or tropes to explore, and some of them don’t fit in my existing projects. I know this may seem impulsive, but I’ve actually been planning this privately since November so it isn’t at all. I am proud to introduce my fourth next gen project, which for now I’m calling the Fourthverse!

*****

Twilight Sparkle is a proud single mom to two adorable twin fillies! They’re as close as can be, joined at the hip on all levels except physical. They finish each other’s sentences to the point where they almost look like they’re speaking in unison, they follow each other everywhere to the point where they’re absolutely never apart, down to sleeping together…not that anyone’s seen them sleep. Who’s the sire? Where are they? Did anypony even see Twilight pregnant? Twilight wishes ponies would stop asking all these questions, and she’s tired of seeing even her closest friends avoid eye contact with her beautiful creations…I mean children. They were created completely naturally and ethically, I promise!

Fluttershy may be good with animals, but that doesn’t mean she’s good with children. This is a lesson she learned years ago when caring her her friends’ sisters, but she forgot about it by the time she decided to have a child of her own and insisted it would be easy. If she can wrestle a bear, she can put a foal to sleep! Well, that logic obviously proved itself wrong as parenting turned out to be far more than Fluttershy was prepared for. Somewhere along the line she lost her mind, completely giving up on motherhood and throwing herself back into her role as an animal caretaker. She throws a birthday party for each and every one of her bajillion pets, all the while forgetting to care for her own foal, let alone celebrate the day she became a mother.

Pinkie Pie wants to make every foal smile, but once she had her own, she had to learn that life wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. There’s a lot of responsibility just to keep them alive. She may have figured it out for babysitting the Cake twins on occasion, but with her own foals there wasn’t a single break from responsibility. Eventually she realized that a lot of things about her own lifestyle were not suitable for raising a foal. Constant fun, constant sugar, constant energy…it was not the key to a balanced upbringing. But her parenting style became unbalanced in the opposite direction where she now gives her kids a life of constant boredom and no sweets at all. Pinkamena makes her own parents look like party clowns. It’s not the life she likes, but at least her family is safe and healthy.

Rainbow Dash is the menace of Equestria…or an icon, depending on how you want to look at it. No adult female of any species can resist her electrifying energy, the deep allure of desire that she invokes just by her mere existence. Wives have left husbands, heads of state have caused scandals, all for just a chance to taste the rainbow. Citizens are divided over whether this world savior is really a benefit to society anymore. If she still deserves to be called the Element of Loyalty. Well, to that she would say, she’s not the one encouraging creatures to betray her vows for her. She’s not making any promises she would break. They just stick to her like magnets without her even having to do anything; she can’t help being this awesome and irresistible. One thing’s for sure: she is contributing to a whole lot of population growth. This is only a fraction of it.

Applejack has fallen head over hooves for a very special stallion! Blank Sheet, a paper company executive, is the apple of her eye and nopony can convince her that he isn’t the one. Family members ask how she fell for a stallion that isn’t even a farmer, isn’t farming the core of her very being? Well, paper is made of trees so it still counts, darn it! He ain’t much into music, or athletics, or even really a conversationalist. He doesn’t smile a whole lot, if he ever has. He isn’t really a family stallion either…does he even have a family? But consarnit, Blank Sheet really does have a fascinatin’ personality once ya get to know him! It’s just that nopony but her can see it. AJ may be fighting for her life at the Friendship Council meetings every time she speaks of him, but there is no doubt in her mind that he’ll make a fine Apple one day.

Rarity feels as if the universe has put a curse upon her. All she wants is to settle down and raise a family with a good and generous stallion, but it’s like the universe pulls the rug out from under her every time she gets close to that goal. Each time she thinks she has met the love of her life, he dies tragically in some ridiculous and unbelievable way. Lost in the Everfree Forest, fallen into a pit of lava, even crushed by an anvil falling from the sky! One even died from a sprained ankle for some Celestia-foresaken reason. Rarity can never feel too safe, as tragedy can strike anywhere from early in the relationship to over a year into marriage. This poor stallion met his demise in the jaws of a bugbear, leaving Rarity to raise yet another foal alone among the many others her lost lovers have given her. Will she ever get a break?

*****

I’m really excited to start this project and introduce you all to the kids in between Auraverse and Thirdverse work. I’m excited for those verses as well ofc but I’m starting to think these are some of my best ideas yet!

[poisonedlovedarling]

My MLP Gen 5 movie review and hope for the future.

SPOILER WARNING!!!! Lol...

If you haven't seen the MLP Gen 5 movie please do so, and not just because there are spoilers ahead.

First off I can't tell you how much I love this movie. It's well made and written, the music is catchy, and the story speaks to the viewers without being preachy. Each character is relatable and loveable.

The movie was adorable, well animated and the voice actors amazing. Above all the animation was so amazing it alone carried the story where it sometimes faltered. The story was a bit generic and the plot twists weren't exactly hard to see coming. Yet it was thoughtful and each expression of each pony was carefully thought out. From the main 5 characters each having their very own mannerisms to unforgettable facial expressions.

I think they successfully brought MLP back by not only adding a male character who isn't toxic, i.e. Hitch. But by adding a girl character that isn't super feminine but also doesn't shy away from cute stuff, i.e. Zipp. A character whose love for flying is so pure it shines as bright as a rainbow.

This brings me to the characters and what I hope to see happen to each of them. As well as what Element of harmony I think each represents.

Starting with my fav and now spirit animal, Zipp!

Anyone who knows me knows I adore Rarity. She was always my fav, but I really identify with Zipp. This is amazing because my preconceptions going into this movie were that Zipp was going to be a Rainbow Dash copy, and she isn't!

We were comparing her to Rainbow dash, not only the cool style she has and her love of flying but honestly. Between Rainbow and Zipp, I like Zipp better because she's not like Rainbow. My favorite moments with Rainbow in OG series were when she wasn't all about flying, but instead, the episodes about her love of a book series were my favorite things about her.

Sure Rainbow loved flying, obnoxiously so at times which was her character. A confidant sometimes snarky character, and we love her for it. But Zipp, Zipp didn't grow up flying. Her love for it is almost pure compared to Rainbow's love.

Zipp had to learn other ways to glide, or imitate flying. Zipps pure joy at suddenly being able to fly is adorable. However with her character. I could see her spending days never touching the ground just because she'd be afraid she'd never get up again.

Zipp has insecurities that Rainbow doesn't have, and it's mostly because of how she was raised in the castle. Hiding the fact that she can't fly that she had to use wire. Her mother loved her but Zipp always comes second best to her sister. Rainbow didn't have that Rainbow was raised flying and told how good she was, that helped make her the confidant person she was.

In fact Zipps mother showed her love to her sister more than for Zipp. Who honestly seems fine with that because her joy in life is flying. Though it be nice to see in the future a mother daughter bonding about how she wants to be treated a bit better by her mother. To be listened to and not shut down. Like she had been in the movie.

Zipp knows everything about flying as shown on her calk board in the movie. Rainbow never really had that spark of passion. Zipp is more insecure in herself, so basically Zipp isn't Rainbow and I love her.

Now as for where her story may lead. The Wonderbolts! We know them we love them and Rainbow was one of them.

Zipp only knows about Wonderbolts from a photo and probably some of the history she's been told. In fact, I could see her wanting to be one just not in the same way Rainbow did. Rainbow wanted to be one to prove she was the best. Zipp doesn't have that kind of view.

Mostly because they don't exist anymore. They more than likely were disbanded or rebranded when no one could fly. I could see Zipp having a mission to start the team up herself, not because of the status or the idea that Wonderbolts are the best of the best. She'd more than likely start it make friends all in an effort to share the love of flying with everyone. I doubt all ponies who can fly will try to fly. Whether out of fear or lack of confidence in themselves. I can see Zipp using the Wonderbolts as a jumping-off point to help show what wonders the sky holds for ponies. To share her spark with them.

I hope they don't shoehorn her into just a pony that is a girl but doesn't like frills. I feel like Zipp isn't the holder of the element of Loyalty like Rainbow, but instead, she's honesty. She hated lying to people sure she'd never abandoned her new friends but she knows the value of honesty and the distrust lying can bring to a kingdom when the truth is revealed.

***

Now for our second Pony, we have the pony I think could be any of the elements of harmony but more than likely is the element of Loyalty. The ever-adorable Izzy who at first we thought would just be a mash of Rarity meets Pinky, to make up for the fact that there are only 5 mane characters. Her cutie mark being something crafty and her personality being very bubbly.

Honestly, she is adorable and you can't help but love her. If Zipp wasn't so amazing Izzy would be my fav. Although Izzy may have looked like she was going to be a fashionista or party pony. She was far from what we expected and we love her for being her own pony.

Her recycling is an amazing idea, being a crafty pony and making fun things. Is such a great idea and sets her far apart from the fashion ponies and party ponies. She is a loveable goof who is helpful without being pushy. Her pure joy in making things for friends is what we love about her.

In comparison, Rarity loved the praise her fashions got, a perfect dress for every pony, and to make them all shine was her goal. Pinky wanted to put smiles on people's faces with parties and jokes, she wanted to bring joy to every pony.

Izzy just wants to make friends and share her stuff with said friends. I could see her setting up a shop, she could sell her friendship stuff like the bracelets. But I think her joy in life will come more from sharing special moments with a small group that with love her for her. In all her shiny sparkle ways. I see her more like a pony who will start a business that will allow ponies to make their own memories rather than sell pieces already made.

Izzy is a ball of sparkles that I hope doesn't become a character that's just there for the giggles. I can see her being the element of Loyalty because once you're her friend you'll mean more to her than anything in the world.

***

Now we all love a good strong non-toxic character, big mac is a good example of this. Hitch is another. He's strong confident and yet kind in his own way. He is the ideal male character. Someone who will be the voice of reason without making others feel bad. He is compared to Fluttershy in most ways because of the animals and I do agree that he more than likely will be the holder of the element of kindness. Yet he isn't Fluttershy.

I think the fact that he loves every living thing and wants them to live happily and as equals, why he'll be the elements holder.

Hitch unlike Fluttershy isn't an animal caretaker, but a protector. He has a stronger voice than Fluttershy, he won't back down from a challenge if it means protecting anyone or any creature that is under his care. He is a welcome addition to the pony cast. Giving the little boys who love ponies a pony that isn't a girl, but also isn't just a background character.

Sure the stereotype of the Sherriff being a male pony is a little, overdone. Yet Hitch is a kind person who only wants to help and protect and he does things even if he knows may not look cool because it make a friend happy. Like the scene where he does the secret hand shake with Sunny. You just can't help but love Hitch and hope he isn't to be the only male in this group for the entire show. Perhaps getting a male friend probably a unicorn or another creature like a dragon to balance the main cast.

I hope in the future we get to see just how he protects not just his friends but every pony without being aggressive but by being kind. Showing people like Sprout that there is away to help without overdoing it or forcing it.

***

Then there is Princess Pipp who I think is the holder to element of generosity. She is a girly girl but also speaks to the Gen that she is aimed for. Always on social media and on her phone. She's a soft jab at how the real world is in a way. Sure she could be compared to Rarity, but her love for music and phone sets her apart. I can see her story being about who to make the world better. Showing how the effect of love and humor can altered those around her.

We know Zipp is next in line for the throne, so what does the future hold for Pipp. Perhaps a career in music or something about how no matter how famous and rich she becomes it doesn't help with her sense of completion. How her close friends are where she'll find true happiness while helping others find that same sense of belonging. Will she help those around her by giving them what they not just want but what they need. Weather they know what that was or not. That's what I hope to see in her story.

The good and the bad, the outcome of just handing people something like fame or a big break. Learning the lesson that you can fail at what you don't want and might as well take a chance at what you love. I can't wait to see what they do for our new princess.

***

Sunny...what to say about Sunny? First she's not Twilight, in any way shape of form. Sure she got an alicorn body at the end of the movie, but that doesn't make her a princess. She is a good example of the fact that this isn't gen 4.

On the subject of her new horn and wings. I doubt she'll keep that form. I wouldn't mind if she did because it's cute but it also doesn't seem fully deserved. Sure she brought magic back, but she played no more a bigger part than Izzy. If anything Izzy played a bigger part. Izzy ventured out while Sunny only took the time to change her corner of the world. Sure I love Sunny her story is amazing but I feel like she needs more fleshing out. Like the world she leaves us with so many unanswered questions.

Sure I love that she was an activist and protester, she went about trying to spread love without really being pushy. Which is nice she was amazing and you can't help but love her. Yet she seems too naïve, her gaining the abilities of someone equal to Twilight seems a bit much. In fact the only element of harmony I wouldn't give Sunny is, magic.

She's funny but the element of Laughter isn't her goal. She wants everyone to be happy but laughter isn't what she's after...lol...She's kind but Hitch is more suited for that element, just like Loyalty is Izzy.

Sure Sunny would never leave a friend behind, and Loyalty is rather close to being the element for her but she also understands after years of bullying that not everyone is her friend.

As for generosity, she isn't exactly someone to just hand things to people without thinking. She'd happily give someone a cupcake but I doubt no matter what would happen she'd never hand over her note book or father necklace to just anyone because it make them happy. As for honesty she lied to Hitch her friend without remorse, enough said about that.

Now that leaves only magic, sure her pure hope for friendship and to find a place among her kind is likely to be equal to magic. I don't think the element suits her. I think if anything Sunny is the seventh element the lost element of harmony.

The element of Acceptance.

(Also seen in MLP Equestira girls being Sunset shimmer.)

I think in the future I want to see Sunny spend her time uniting the world, making friends and helping everyone learn the new world that she has set in motion. How she will show the world that their is a value in friendship. I also hope she seeks out the truth about the past and answer the many questions movie gave us.

(Sorry for the long pose... But why don't you tell me what you think in the comments. What would you like to see in the upcoming show and what element you think each character might be.)

[i-dream-of-twilight-sparkle]

Chapter 28: Starlight’s Mother, Part 4 - The Tragedy of Starlight’s Past

The group that went to New Haven to bring back Sunburst’s father return to the room where everyone else is waiting for them.

Twilight: Welcome back, all of you! So you’re Sunburst’s father? It’s nice to finally meet you.

Sunspot: I could say the same Princess Twilight… especially after you and your son Spike’s Dragon Tear has allowed me to find some closure about Sunset. We still have yet to hear everything about what happened… but I’d still like to thank you and Spike so much for letting me see my sister again, from beyond the grave no less.

Twilight: You’re welcome! Once me and Spike discovered this and got some important information on how it all works, we needed to immediately get to the ponies we knew that would need to see any spirits whether they miss them so much like Applejack and her parents. Or as it turned out… figuring out the mysteries about Starlight’s Mother, your sister, and what happened to Sunset. Who knew they’d all connect?

Sunset: Speaking of what happened to me, while there... I had another memory jog… I still don’t know everything yet… but Sunspot brought back something that helped me remember something.

Twilight: Oh? What is this?

Sunspot brings out the jar with Sunset’s disembodied yellow horn he found while on a search at Nightmare Cliffs.

Just about the entire room gasps. Any Unicorns and both Alicorns in particular shivering at the sight. Rarity in particular just about shrieks in horror.

Rarity: I-is t-that…?!

Sunset: My disembodied horn? Yes, it is.

Rarity falls over fainting, Fluttershy catches her as she falls backward

Twilight: You lost your horn?! Was this during the confrontation with the Anarchists?

Sunset nods

Sunset: When I saw the horn, I instantly got a mental image of facing two pony shaped figures in front of me and another flying above me. Followed by a large rock that was dropped at the base of my horn, breaking it off and giving me a short concussion.

Twilight: That’s awful… I suppose that also explains how you had trouble despite the anarchists otherwise being regular ponies…

Sunset: It definitely looks like whatever happened, they took advantage of the fact I couldn’t effectively use my magic after my horn broke, and I died somehow… That’s all the new information I have, though of course a reminder that 2 of the 3 lost their lives too… so whatever happened next certainly couldn’t have been as simple as they grouped together to throw me off the cliff or something.

Starlight: Brrr… losing the horn… that’s a fear just about every unicorn has… I can’t imagine what that must of felt like…

Sunset: It was quite painful… and I definitely think I remember feeling a bit of helplessness after I recovered from the concussion.

Starlight: At least physical injuries don’t seem to have shown up permanently on your spirit. I can see your horn’s still on you right now

Twilight: Spirits show up as the last known appearance of those who summoned them. Which means Firelight’s memory likely allowed Sunset to appear as she was on the last day Firelight saw her before she left towards that fateful chase. It might be possible had Starlight summoned Sunset by herself, maybe the physical appearance of when you died would of showed up, since it defaults to just about the spirit’s age and/or last appearance when alive if the one who summoned them is somepony blood related that did not know them. Though Spirits are also capable of becoming any age/appearance they were when alive. I saw Jinn turn herself into an old mare, and a filly earlier. I wonder if the same goes for physical injuries?

Sunset closes her eyes and focuses, she only needs to go a little bit forward. Most of her horn fades away revealing a hole of a horn very much akin to Tempest Shadow’s own broken horn, a disheveled and wet mane and tail as if she was in the middle of a heavy storm, and her right eye injured with a black eye revealed as she opened her eyes

Rarity has finally recovered from her faint, but as she looks up she now sees Sunset with her injured appearance. And she faints again.

The rest of the group just look taken aback as they view Sunset’s likely appearance before she died.

Twilight: Ouch… I hope going into injured appearances doesn’t result in you feeling that pain again…

Sunset: Thankfully no, it’s only appearance-wise on us spirits. We don’t exactly… have nerves anymore. Like say if somepony who was able to touch me, hit me for some reason. It wouldn’t exactly hurt. I could still get angry and ask why they’re trying to hit me, but I don’t think Starlight, Sunburst, Princess Celestia, Fi-Fi, and my brother would ever want to.

All those who she named nod in agreement that they have no reason to want to hit Sunset. Sunset focuses again to erase the injuries and looks like how she was before again.

Meanwhile, Sunset’s brother Sunspot approaches Princess Celestia and bows before her.

Sunspot: Princess Celestia, it’s an honor to be in your presence.

Celestia actually looks sort of solemn at the bow of Sunset’s brother.

Celestia: Are you sure I deserve this bow… Sunset led a dangerous life because she was my protege… It’s indirectly my fault your beloved little sister’s life ended this way...

Celestia closing her eyes, with tears dropping. Sunset looks at her old mentor, and immediately goes to reassuring the Princess.

Sunset: Princess, you know as well as I do that I when you said you wanted to make me your personal protege, I was enthusiastic. I very much enjoyed my time as your student, if anything, I should of listened to you when you told me to take a break from watching the movement of every threat out there that I personally chose would be my prerogative. But I was so dedicated to protecting Equestria that I lost sight of having much of a personal life. And because I chose to pursue criminals at every opportunity, that only made it more difficult to establish one.

If there’s anypony to blame for what happened other then the 3 anarchists I chased that fateful day, it would be myself, for getting careless…

Celestia: I appreciate hearing that from you, Sunset… just even I kick myself for what I perceive as failures… even as I now have my sister back, it doesn’t make it any less upsetting that I didn’t stop her turn into Nightmare Moon in the first place…

Sunset just gives Princess Celestia a reassuring smile.

Sunset: Good thing you found a new student that succeeded on bringing her back to you, and now Twilight will achieve everything you hoped I would one day. And from the sounds of things, the world has gotten more and more peaceful. Actually…

Sunset turns towards Twilight.

Sunset: Is if ok if I ask for a run through on all the threats you faced in your time as Celestia’s student? I know you didn’t really start saving the world until past Adulthood, meanwhile my world-saving days started in my pre-teens. But maybe I can provide some commentary if any of them were in my list of potential threats.

Twilight: Well.. I guess I’ll start with Nightmare Moon. Where, through trials of my friends showing their elements. we discovered the Elements of Harmony and were able to banish the evil out from within Luna.

Applejack tips her hat up and winks, Pinkie Pie bounces, Rarity gracefully poses, Fluttershy smiles, and Rainbow Dash gives a smug grin as Twilight reminds them of their first triumph together.

Sunset: Mmhmm! Very nice! It was still a good two decades before Luna’s Banishment was over so I would of been in my 40’s if I had been the one to face off with Nightmare Moon. Though if I had continued on, I likely would of already ascended prior to then so I could really help bring Luna back.

Celestia: I don’t know if Sunset would of had 5 individual friends, like you did Twilight. Another option we possibly had was I use half of the elements, while Sunset used the other 3 for us together to free Luna. I probably would of used the elements of laughter, kindness, and generosity. And Sunset would be given magic, loyalty, and honesty.

Twilight: Those elements do seem to fit you, I know from experience Princess Celestia would of wielded the 3 elements she mentioned, and now that I’ve met Sunset… She was very good at magic, she was really loyal to Princess Celestia, and while this is a bit posthumously… she’s shared much of the truth of quite a few things. So that might’ve worked.

Sunset: What’d you face off with next?

Twilight: Next was… Discord. He was surely a hoof full…

Sunset: Ohhhhh yea, Discord was still trapped in his statue throughout my time. But I was aware of what crazy things he was capable of. But apparently he’s on the good side now?

Twilight: When he wants to be I guess... he’s friends with Fluttershy so he doesn’t do much to actively antagonize any of us. But he does do some things we often have to go and fix… Frankly, one good thing about being a genie… is that I’m able to fix something crazy he does faster then it otherwise normally would of been.

Sunset: It is true that becoming a genie got you powers just about on par with Discord. He does call himself the Spirit of Chaos. Given you’re at least in part Spirit, you could say you’re the Spirit of Order. *giggles*

Twilight: Wait… is Discord’s magic soul magic too?

Sunset: I’m not even sure, I think Discord has magic that fits in its own category, but it is quite powerful. It might be safer to say it’s sort of a mix between soul magic and dark magic? It’s neither powered up with good over a lifetime like soul magic is, though it’s not inherently malicious or damaging like dark magic is.

Twilight: Hmm… true. His magic often has insane or annoying results, but it’s often all for laughs and/or doesn’t purposefully harm anypony. Might be for once, something interesting to talk about to him later.

Anyhow… after we defeated Discord. Queen Chrysalis and her army of changelings invaded my brother’s and Princess Cadence’s wedding

Sunset: Ah yes… Queen Chrysalis… I did some recon of the hive back in the day. But due to that protection they have of not allowing non-changeling magic from working around or in the hive… I couldn’t really approach to attack myself, as it was too dangerous to go in alone. But they also didn’t have much power, since there was no big event for them to gather enough love to attack like the wedding your brother had. I had them listed as a low-tier present time threat that could potentially become a big threat, if a publicized event full of love to feed on happened as they invaded.

Twilight: Which happened to be my brother’s wedding… huh…?

Sunset: I guess so! And it was also another reason I had a secretive wedding with Fi-Fi, a personal protege of the princess having a public wedding may have been exactly what Chrysalis was waiting for.

Twilight: The changeling invasion was the last big event before I became a genie. Going to Saddle Arabia was in fact somewhat of a reward Celestia allowed me and Spike after defeating Chrysalis. There was no threats then, but I wonder if maybe Malakhar would of tried to genify you at some point Sunset if he had seen you?

Sunset: Possibly! Though I believe Malakhar may have only been a little colt back when I was still Celestia’s protege.

Twilight: I guess his Grandfather could of possibly done it then, if they had found out about you early enough.

Sunset: I have been to Saddle Arabia before, but I mostly accompanied Celestia during routine negotiations with the Sultan. So I was never there too long, and never really on the Streets where Malakhar’s grandfather could of approached me.

Twilight: Alright… so next… the Crystal Empire came back and so did King Sombra.

Sunset: Oof, Sombra is certainly a doozy. He’s pretty much dark magic incarnate. I think sometime ago, he discovered a way to sort of control himself in Dark Magic form if he ever was killed though at the price that if he’s defeated, he sort of gets a fate worse then death in being trapped in a void that only could escape through substantial magic, such as the Crystal Empire coming back. I think technically the first time Celestia and Luna faced him was when he “died” for the first time.

Twilight: Oh, is Sombra being controllable dark magic why he has that sort of smoky form?

Sunset: *shrugs* I only heard of Sombra through whatever the royal archives had on him, so I’ll take your word you saw that. But maybe?

Twilight: The fact he only goes to a void may have explained why he came back two more times…

Sunset: WHAT?! You had to face Sombra THREE times?! How in Equestria did that happen?

Twilight: …I did say Discord did things that we had to fix

Sunset: ….Are you sure Discord is on the good side? I would of put him back in stone for bringing back Sombra TWICE!

Twilight: Believe me when I say I sometimes feel the same way… but again, he does have a legit friendship with Fluttershy. Plus, he’s actually helped me out at least once when I was had this strange Genie Sickness. He also helped with something that i haven’t quite gotten to yet. But I still have a few more events and/or villains to talk about before then. 

Though Sombra was the last threat before I ascended to Princesshood. Though… given you were Celestia’s student before me. I hope you don’t feel like me mentioning that is sort of flaunting a status you didn’t achieve…

Sunset shakes her head horizontally

Sunset: No, staying to eventually ascend to Princesshood became the opposite of what I wanted. I wanted a family. Celestia & Luna have never been married, and the reason for that is while outliving friends, family, as well as royal staffers & guards is hard enough. It’s a whole ‘nother thing with special someponies, and your own children. Cadence has your brother, though arguably she may be the one exception being the Princess of Love. Outliving your brother is just going to have be something she faces one day.

Twilight: Yeah… though at least Spirit summoning will sort of help with that. But I picture it’ll still be rather hard for both her & me when Shining passes

Sunset: Just always remember that everypony going up there just continues to protect the planet long after they’re gone and that may make you feel better. Plus, unless you have a lot of huge dragon friends that pass you want to see, it should be safe to summon a few friends down every now and then.

Twilight nods

((Story continues after the break))

Twilight: Continuing on… my first huge test against a villain as Princess was Tirek.

Sunset: Oh yeah… Tirek would of certainly been a toughie had he gotten out with enough strength to cause havoc when I was around

Twilight: He certainly was tough, even with the combined added strength of Celestia, Luna, and Cadence coursing through my veins. Tirek had Discord’s magic powering him up... So we had a stalemate. And it took an additional power-up offered by the Tree of Harmony to send him back to Tartaurus as we just happened to have collected these sort of strange keys over the course of that year that allowed us to open a box given to us.

Sunset: Sometimes you gotta be lucky, when saving the world!

Twilight: After Tirek… was when we returned to Saddle Arabia, though this time also bringing my friends along. That was when we came face-to-face with Zathir, who controlled me with a device of his own, and if not for Spike creating his Dragon’s Tear that we’re using to see and talk with you now… the world would likely be under a Saddle Arabian empire controlled by Zathir.

Sunset: I did always have a feeling that Zathir was somepony that had some sort of plot in his mind. Though now I know what it was, his method of trying to take over the world seemed unlikely given no genies were around. And up until what he did to you, the Sultan naively trusted him.

Twilight: Perhaps the scariest part was ironically after I was freed from his control… where he stabbed Spike straight in his right eye…

Sunset: OUCH… I guess that explains Spike’s scar…

Spike: It’s thanks to Fluttershy, I didn’t end up with only one eye. Remnants of being a vampire bat pony had healing properties in her fang.

Sunset looks over to Fluttershy a bit dumbfounded

Sunset: You were a vampire?!

Fluttershy sheepishly smiles

Fluttershy: Sorta… only in regards to fruit… not blood, ehehhehheh...

Applejack: We kinda always get some pretty strange things happen t’ us, even when we’re not saving the world

Sunset: I see… well, I certainly have to be thankful for what happened after you girls defeated Zathir... not just for the usual saving the world once again... But due to that event spawning the very Dragon’s Tear allowing me to speak down here so I can see my husband again and talk to my lovely daughter for the first time. 

So… what came next?

Twilight gulps, given Sunset just mentioned talking to her lovely daughter… given her daughter was the next villain. Twilight looks over to Starlight, who gives her a sad face but still whispers as she says…

Starlight: Go ahead, Twilight. It’s best she knows much of the truth of what my life’s been like…

Twilight nods, even if she is still a little afraid of Sunset losing all good will she had for her daughter up until now.

Twilight: Well um… how can I put this… your daughter… Starlight… led a whole town under an Equalist Cult that took cutie marks away… and aimed to expand...

Sunset looks over to her daughter with a stern look, causing Starlight to lower her head. But instead of actually getting mad at Starlight, Sunset just breathes deep and sighs.

Sunset: *sigh* I knew I shouldn’t have left that manifesto in the house… even if I at least tried to hide it…

Twilight: Huh? Manifesto?

Starlight: She’s… probably referring to the other book I found when I broke the wall… it happened to be the manifesto that got me hooked on the beliefs I held over “Our Town”…

Sunset: Among many of the criminals I defeated were also those looking to start dangerous cults. I burned most copies, but usually kept one as a sort of historical account of what to look out for. It’s a shame that this one lone copy ended up in the hooves of my daughter, and she got influenced by it… so I kind of blame myself more for that one…

Sunset turns around to Firelight with a rather stern eyebrow raise at her husband

Sunset: Though I should also ask how you let her read it…

Firelight: Um… you never told me what the book looked like… I thought it was just a math book from the Equal Sign on the cover… She always looked like she was quite deeply engrossed in the book… I didn’t want to take it away from her because she always had this infectious smile on her face reading it so intently…

Sunset: You never saw what was in the book other then the Cover?! What kind of filly her age was going to be so engrossed in Math like that?!

Firelight: I’m so sorry, Shimmy! I really thought she was just yearning to be a fantastic mathematician or something!

Sunset facehoofs

Sunset: Well... at least Twilight and the others broke you out of that ideology… and you seem to be on good terms now. 

Given the reaction though, it makes Twilight even less sure about telling Sunset about what came next. She leans on over to whisper to Starlight.

Twilight: Starlight… I can skip over what happened with the time travel… I feel like she may blow a gasket if she hears about that…

Starlight looks to the side and allows Twilight to not mention it, though she has this strange sense it’d probably be important for her mother to hear it anyhow.

Twilight: Anyhow… next Queen Chrysalis came back. And managed to bottle nap me and capture many of us. A team of your daughter, Trixie, Discord, and a rogue changeling named Thorax had to come in and save Equestria

Hearing this cheers up Sunset, she grins and looks at her daughter

Sunset: No way! My daughter has saved Equestria once? Once again, the apple hasn’t fell far from the tree. I’m proud of you, Starlight!

Starlight at first blushes from her praise, but then she looks to the side sadly. And she lowers her head and closes her eyes.

Starlight: No… I don’t deserve this praise yet… maybe not even ever... and I refuse to hold any more secrets out from my family…

Sunset: Huh? What do you mean?

Starlight: There’s some context missing before I helped defeat Chrysalis the 2nd time around… it didn’t go as simply that Twilight and the others freed me from the Equalist ideology and then I was on their side from then on… I ran away and plotted a revenge plan… 

The whole room gasps as it looks like Starlight’s about to fully come clean to what she’s done to her mother who was known for making sure Equestria was safe at all costs. Starlight’s use of Time Travel arguably being one of the highest threats to Equestria as they knew it throughout Twilight and her friends’ era.

Starlight: I tried to change the past with a Time Travel spell by preventing the Elements from earning their cutie marks… It took seeing multiple timelines of bad outcomes and some soft spoken words from Twilight before I was finally convinced to get back to the present safe and sound…

Sunset just stands there distraught, and her face towards her daughter becomes even more stern.

Sunset: Starlight… An act like that… if I were the one to see you do that… I would of had the hard choice of having to turn my own daughter into stone.. or sent to Tartaurus! You don’t mess with time travel! Do you have any idea how many lives that effects?!

Starlight: I know, I know, I know! I kick myself for it everyday… I never even gave Twilight the full context of why I did it back then… I told her what put me on the path was Sunburst earning his cutie mark and leaving me in sparsely populated and friendless Sire’s Hollow…

But I left out that you disappeared 2 weeks after I was born…

I left out that when my father was at work... I was left alone at the house, not even one babysitter as a mother figure to tell me right from wrong... and a naive father… 

I left out that not only did I read a manifesto that only reinforced my beliefs about Cutie Marks… I also got my very own Cutie Mark by using a spell book you left behind in the house after an intense magical outburst… I never even mentioned back then that I couldn’t understand my mark…

Or perhaps more accurately… I didn’t want to understand it…

Thus over years of indoctrination, I eventually put it into action when I took over a small village and plotted to expand. But then I was defeated by Twilight and the other Elements of Harmony... my hypocrisy exposed as they managed to show I still had my Cutie Mark to the entire village and thus had been lying to them… I ran away, occasionally keeping up with Twilight’s movements.

Until... I finally made my move and gave in to my darkest impulses… I entered her castle and went to change the past… Battling Twilight as the timelines changed… It still took a bit of time… but seeing all those horrible futures… and Twilight speaking to me softly near the end… I finally gave in, and turned myself in fully expecting a harsh punishment for what I did… What Twilight did instead… I couldn’t have ever expected…

She extended the hoof of friendship, and put me under her wings as her student. I couldn’t believe it myself, I had done such terrible things and from all they knew, for such petty reasons as a friend moving away… Not that I wasn’t grateful for not being as harshly punished as I probably should’ve been… but another thing about being under Twilight’s wing… she sort of became the mother figure I never had in my life at that point… and this was an opportunity to finally feel how that felt like…

Starlight starts tearing up heavily

Starlight: I just didn’t have a very happy early life because you were gone, mother! I was so jealous of other ponies! I was left with almost no reason to care what happened to the world when it all seemed so unfair! 

Twilight and her friends get worldwide recognition as heroic, talented ponies not just because of their marks… but they also had lovely families and friends that loved them, were always around, and/or didn’t keep such important secrets from them! And while I never understood how I got it until now, because I had so much raw magical power... perhaps I thought it was just my destiny to change Equestria in the way I saw fit...

But then my Equality Cult was foiled in “Our Town”... I thought I would only end up rotting in jail if I allowed myself to be captured, so I gave in to my worst instincts and decided to get revenge on Twilight and her friends in the best manner possible while also proving cutie marks weren’t the be-all to end-all once-and-for-all. And Time Travel felt so enticing to that goal... 

I wanted to see Twilight’s face when she sees cutie marks don’t matter and the world would of been fine without her and her friends finding their talents. But each timeline kept backing up what Twilight was saying... Especially the one where Equestria was nothing but a cloudy, deserted wasteland!

I gave in to dark instincts prior to time traveling, but I never aimed to actually kill anypony nor end nearly all life on Equestria! I foolishly thought everypony’s lives would generally be unchanged without the Elements of Harmony finding their marks! I still cared about Equestria at large, I just refused to believe 6 Cutie Marks were so important to the world when all I had known about cutie marks was the loss of my only friend and utter confusion and disdain about my own... And never having that mother figure in my life to tell me right from wrong…

If only you had survived, Mother! *sniff* I may have never gone the path I went down!

Starlight covers her eyes with her hooves and just starts sobbing uncontrollably on the ground. Sunset now hearing the full context lowers her head, and lessens her stern look at her daughter. She sits down for a moment and stays silent. Before outstretching her hooves to call Starlight in for another hug.

Sunset: …Come here, dear. You look like you need another hug from me

Starlight sniffs, and is a little bit surprised she managed to get her mother on hugging terms after she admitted how dire her actions got. Starlight walks on over into her Mother’s hooves and continues to sob right into her mother’s shoulder. Tears again falling through the transparent spirit. Suddenly, her mother lets go of the hug and starts singing toward Starlight.

((To the tune of My Past is Not Today))

Sunset: Answers…

Was all you desired… But all that grew inside of you was the darkness you acquired…

When you began to fall And you lost the path ahead… That’s when your friends found you And they lifted you instead!

(Sunset jumps up slightly kicking her hind legs as she transforms her body from the waist down into her spirit tail and triumphantly flies around her daughter as she sings the chorus)

Like a phoenix burning bright in the skkkkkyyyyyyy! I’ll show there’s another side to you... You can’t denyyyyyyy!

I may not know what the future holds But hear me when I saaaay... That your past does not define you... ‘Cause your past is not todaaaaaay!

(Starlight feels the warmth and comfort of her mother’s singing get to her as her tears start streaming more in joy rather then from admitting everything she’s done. Though she still expresses some concerns)

Starlight: My... past is not today...? I don’t know about that... It’s certainly always felt like it’s still today... because I can’t help but always think about it... *sniff*

Sunset: Your past is what shaped you into the pony you are today, that’s all true. There’s no shame in admitting things you’ve said and done were wrong. But you also don’t have to feel like who you were in the past is still who you are now. You alone... have the power to shape yourself into the pony you want to be...

(Starlight smiles and raises her head high, as she begins to sing a verse of her own towards her mother)

Starlight: Vengeance…

Is what I belieeeeved…

Would be the only way...

to make them seeeeeee…

Because you disappeared...

And I found myself alone…

Until you came down like a comet...

And now it truly feels like hoooome!

(Starlight charges up her horn to allow her to levitate herself in the room, she used it originally before she got her cutie mark. And eventually mastered it by the time she fought with Twilight across the timelines, but is now simply using it to go in sync with her flying spirit mother in the air)

Like a phoenix burning bright

In the skkkkkyyyyyyy!

I’ll show there’s another side to me

You can’t denyyyyyyy!

I may not know what the future holds

But hear me when I saaaay...

That my past does not define me...

‘Cause my past is not todaaaaay!

(Starlight and Sunset quiet down their voices to repeat the chorus together)

Sunset & Starlight: Like a phoenix burning bright... in the sky...

Sunset/Starlight: 

I’ll show there’s another side to you/I’ll show there’s another side to me

Sunset & Starlight: You can’t deny!

Sunset & Starlight: I may not know what the future holds 

But hear me when I say…

Sunset/Starlight: 

That your past does not define you/That my past does not define me

‘Cause your past is not todaaaaaay!/’Cause my past is not todaaaaaay!

Once they float themselves back down, with Starlight deactivating her hover and Sunset reforming her spirit tail back into her hindlegs and pony tail while both of them slowly float back down to the floor. They once again embrace eachother as Sunset softens her voice as she comforts her daughter further.

Sunset: I wish I could of been there for you too, Starlight. I would of gladly told you how special Cutie Marks actually are. Both Myself and Princess Celestia thought at one point thought my mark meant I was destined to be the next Princess of the Sun. But perhaps, whether I changed my destiny or perhaps what I now hoped would actually be my true destiny was… so that one day, I’d instead simply be your sunshine… showing you the light and warmth of a loving Mother, always there for you, and supporting you on whatever path you took…

But because I was gone… you had no such sunshine. And not even a sliver of moonlight to comfort you as you fell deeper and deeper into darkness. At least you understand where you went wrong, you can say sorry, you can feel remorse, it doesn’t make what you did justified, but the fact you can actually learn and there was still hope for you to change yourself into a better pony… is probably ultimately why Twilight decided to put you under her wing as her student…

I love you, Starlight… I hope you know that…

Starlight: *sniff* I love you too, mom!

The mother-daughter hug after their song lasts a good long while, the rest of the group smiling or crying joyous tears again as Starlight came clean to her mother about what she did. And Sunset answering her daughter with the comfort of her mother she couldn’t get for her entire life until now. It’ll never erase what Starlight has done, Starlight certainly never will quite forgive herself for doing what she did.

But she’s finally gotten most of the things she’s always wanted during her life. Lots of friends, she now recognizes that her cutie mark shows her true self as the daughter of a former Celestia protege who became a student of the next one, and is for now the Principal of the School of Friendship where she’ll be helping hold up Twilight’s ideals to the next generation of both ponies and non-ponies alike, and now she has her mother back to talk to whenever she can stop by to see Spike summon her spirit back down.

They let go of the hug and stand back up, Twilight herself tears up with liquid pride for Starlight for coming clean the way she did. She wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to straight up admit what she had done right after informing Sunset of the one time Starlight saved Equestria from Queen Chrysalis. But she’s proud of Starlight for bravely going forward with admitting it, even to her Mother who dedicated her life to protecting Equestria’s way of life.

Twilight: I’m very proud of you, Starlight.

Applejack: That took guts t’ admit t’ your Mother, Starlight. Perhaps some o’ the strongest, honest feelings ah’ve ever seen. If ah could, ah’d let ya borrow the Element o’ Honesty necklace fo’ this.

Firelight: I’m happy to know that you’ve obviously inherited your mother’s singing talent too... you both sing so beautifully... *sniff*

Starlight: Thank you all…

Everyone in the room takes a small moment to smile and help comfort Starlight further. Allowing some free time before Twilight finishes her recap of what they’ve faced over the years.

UP NEXT: Chapter 29: Starlight’s Mother, Part 5 - Closure At Last

[chaptersofnow]

Twin children of Rarity

Majesty and Vanity!

bios under the cut

Name:  Majesty Nickname(s): Jes, Jessie, May, Curly (mom) Age: 24 Pronouns: she/her Identity: Cis Lesbian crush/relationship: soft on Happy Daze Parents: Rarity Siblings: Vanity (twins)

Special Talent: Crafting Jewerly Occupation: Jeweler, Store Owner, Element Location: Rarities Boutique Chapter of now (element of harmony): Symbol of Devotion Artifact: Majesty's Anklet

Likes: clean spaces, beautiful insects, a nice dinner, spending time with friends Dislikes: hurting others, show offs, rain, hikes

Bio: One of Rarity's Twin children. She and Vanity were best friends growing up, she never realized Vanity had made up this ‘competition’ in his head over who was the best sibling. Unluckily for Majesty she often fell into these schemes due to her competitive nature. she is a people pleaser, especially to her mom. she will do whatever she can to get her approval and often is the winner of the praise.

Rarity loves her kids equally and always made sure Vanity wasn’t left out, but this didn’t stop vanity from seeing Majesty’s victories and accomplishments. she was friendly and talented and had many friends.

shes dear and very close friends with pinkie and Aj’s kid Splat. despite her composed lady like nature shes also good friends with Luna’s trouble making kids Loser weep and Finders keeper. she is also close to she very nice and keeps in touch with Vanity’s only friend Cloudleap. which this annoys Vanity a good bit.

Majesty graduated from school early, annoying Vanity who was having to take summer classes. She is currently a Jeweler in Cantorlot having opened her own store there at a young age of 21, Annoying Vanity the kid who is still living with mom. And now she has been named an Chapter of Now (the new element of harmony) being named the Chapter of Devotion,, the nail in the coffin that is Vanity’s ego.

she in almost every way has followed in her mothers hoof steps and at the same time is making her own mark and name on the world.

Majesty is a good person and tries her best to be there for others. but often at a fault ends up not being able to see all the sides to how others are feeling. such as not seeing her brothers jealously. she tends to look at the positive side of things to a fault where she blind sights herself. As an Element she was there when they now Chapters of Now saved the Princess Ordomia who was turned into Queen Erroria by the Darkness hidden inside her. When they saved Ordomia they were granted the abilities to use the elements. Majesty was named the Symbol of Devotion, she is a pony who will always be there for her friends and everyone else. she will stick by peoples side and be there for all they need. she is lucky to have opened a store in cantorlot as now the Chapters of Now have been permanently moved to cantorlot to be trained to hone their skills for whatever darkness may bring their way. she has been mainly trained by Rainbow dash the old element of Loyalty while receiving visits from Flash Magnus who now runs with the cantorlot guards.

fun random fact of her character:

Once while spending the night at her friend Bunny Hop’s and Twinkle Wish house (Trixie and Starlights kids) she got gum stuck in her hair and the kids and trixie in a panicked tried to cut it out themselves, failed miserably and gave majesty a terrible hair cut.

Majesty has had a fear of cutting her hair since and has gone to only get 3 people cut her hair: her hair stylist Coco Butter, friend and fellow element Voyage, and her mother Rarity

💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Name:  Vanity Mirror Nickname(s): Age: 22 Pronouns: He/Him Identity: Nonbinary Gay man crush/relationship: mmm i mean i guess Cloudleap isn't too bad looking.. SHUT UP! Parents: Rarity Siblings: Majesty (twins)

Special Talent: Designing, sewing, drawing Occupation: Clothing designer Location: Rarities Boutique

Likes: coffee, down times with cloudleap, makeup, putting makeup on cloudleap, spa days Dislikes: 'perfect ponies', rain, perfume

Bio: One of Rarities Twin children Vanity mirror, or just Vanity as he refuses to acknowledge his full name is the son of Rarity. He's been somewhat of a brat since fillyhood but usually directing his snarky comments towards ponies who were usually deserving of it. He was best friends with his sister Majesty and Cloudleap. As they got older Majesty became the perfect daughter who opened her own jewelry store in Cantorlot, has tons of friends and is now the Element of Loyalty. While Vanity was still living with Rarity with an artist block frustrated with the work he's doing and constantly berating strangers for doing small shit like standing in line too long thinking of what their going to order or just telling him 'he looks tired'. He's grown to hate his sister and the two barely talk beyond when they have to. Which lucky for Majesty she lives a few towns over and can avoid her terrible brothers mean comments. Cloudleap and Vanity are still bestfriends as Cloudleap is the only one who seems to put up with Vanity anymore (excluding Rarity) and Cloudleap lives with his mothers in their cottage away from others so he doesn't have many friends beyond Vanity (plus not to mention that most others avoid cloudleap because of Vanity's known temper) Vanity knows he's a jerk and kinda treat it as a quirky personality, the only times he ever truely feels bad about the way he behaves is when he see's the way Cloudleap or his mom looks at him. Vanity feels like his life is a spiral downward and he struggles to look at the good things he has. He not a great person but Cloudleap is one of his biggest supporter and helps to point him in the right direction. Vanity has recently been looking into a job in Manehatten, and suddenly moving their to take on a gig as a clothing designer there. He didn't tell Cloudleap and it's kinda broken the pegasus's heart. Rarity calls often to check on him and Vanity tells her everything is great, but he's lying as he stressed up keeping up with everyone else and isnt happy with his work. He would never admit that, or that he defiantly moved her in hopes of trying to be equal to Majesty or make his mom proud. He wants to walk in Rarity's hoofsteps so bad.

[demonwriterx]

“Discord’s heroic sacrifice: An Analysis”

If you haven’t seen Season 9 of My Little Pony-EP 1 and 2, there is going to be massive spoilers below. 

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I am going to focus on the scene in episode 2 of Season 9, where the mane 6, have lost all of their confidence in trying to stop King Sombra after he destroyed the elements of Harmony. King Sombra had already taken over the minds of the ponyville citizens and infiltrated the castle in Canterlot, and had also mind controlled the guards and the Canterlot Citizens as well. So once Discord pops in to see how they are doing, the mane 6 basically beg him to help them stop King Sombra. Solely relying on Discord to take care of the problem. 

Now, Let’s just do one quick reminder on Discord’s character and growth throughout the show.

In season 2, he was manipulative, a trickster, egotistical, and overly confident because he is the literal “Lord of Chaos” who can bend reality in a single snap or thought. He is the most powerful creature in all of Equestria and in the universe. 

Sure, there is Grogar (the new big bad), the “father of monsters” but compare to Discord? he is nothing. Discord could create monsters as well with his chaotic magic but Grogar has his magic bell, his magic goat-ball and his necromancy to back him up. 

There is Tirek, who has to rely on his ability to consume magic to get bigger and stronger as seen in Season 4. If given the chance to consume magic and manages to get Discord’s power then he is unstoppable but what is the chance of that happening twice? Its pretty slim. Also consider that Discord just snapped his fingers and he was already in a jail cell and cuffed. So Tirek? Not that big of a deal.

Queen Chrysalis, the master of disguise and consumer of love. What does she really have to offer against Discord? She could easily disguise herself as Fluttershy (considering that it already been establish that Fluttershy is his weakness) and incapacitate him but for her to do it up close, to a chaos master? who can do anything? without the throne of her empire (which negates all magic) she is powerless against him. 

King Sombra (Now totally and forever deceased) “The would-be King” (Discord’s words not mine) who couldn’t even land a single shot until Discord was taken off guard (where I will get into later on in the page) and even then! that was nothing! it didn’t do any damage! nothing at all! King Sombra is just a shadow going straight through Discord. 

Cozy Glow.....is...is she really a threat? like...Discord would just basically laugh at her. 

Overall, Discord is one powerful being. Without the elements of harmony, he could take over whenever he wants. Thank goodness he is reformed but it was a process from him being an evil tyrant to a lovable and weird goofball. 

Season 2- Evil trickster and manipulator 

season 3- Trickster but secretly longing to have a friend to “understand” him

Season 4- New to friendship, he is still up to his trickster ways. 1. Pretended to be sick to ruin Twilight’s day. 2. Selfish because he betrayed Fluttershy, his only friend, to be back into power and how he thought she was replaceable. Once he realized Tirek was not his friend, he experienced regret and sorrow and admits to Fluttershy “that he would give up his magic for her” once he realized how important she and the mane 6 are. 

Season 5- Obsessive. After the events of Tirek, he is very, very close to Fluttertshy, especially to Fluttershy as he wanted to maintain his relationship with her and saw Tree Hugger as a threat and in the same season “What about Discord?” he spent time with the mane 5, excluding Twilight out but having fun with them either way. He is also very sensitive on how he is treated by them. 

Season 6- Self-conscious. He is very self-conscious on how other sees him. When he invited to by Big Mac and Spike, he thought it was because he was cool even though he didn’t want to hang out with them. He rather be with Fluttershy, because he was more comfortable with her but learning to have new friends was a challenge. Especially since Fluttershy asked Spike and Big Mac to invite him so he can learn on his own how he could have “Different friends for different things” call back to Season 5 “smooze episode. 

Season 7- Consideration and self-analyzing. He is finally noticing what is going on around him and taking other ponies’s feelings to heart. When he proposes to have the next tea party at his house, to fluttershy, he realizes that his chaotic ways might put her off. Not only that, but the “shopping” scene, he treats every pony well. He pays with large amount of bits, he saved one pony from falling, he didn’t destroy anything and he thought changing his home and look might be more appealing. He also states that he knows how “different” he is and if Fluttershy thinks about it she might not want to be his friend anymore. (totally wrong by the way lol) and at the final episode of season 7, he wanted to rescue Fluttershy, not hesitating to find out where. He is visibly angry when he finds out Chrysalis took her. He also participates in the group and also acknowledges Trixie as a great magician.  

Season 8- Selfishness but understanding. He is still learning, in the valentine episode. He follows Spike and helps Big Mac with his love problem. Even when he shows no interest, since they ask for help. He will help but with a cost. He wants something out of it, like playing a game or an apology, like what happened with Starlight Glimmer, he felt left out and had a need to express his anger in making Stalight’s job as hard as it can be but once he got the apology, he turned everything back.

Season 9- Wise to Friendship. 

Finally,we are here. From what I have seen in the first two episodes, I can conclude that Discord does in fact have an understanding on what the mane 6 is capable of. He is a goofball, yes, but not a trickster anymore. In a way. Everything he did, was to teach the mane 6 to lead in a dangerous situation, especially Twilight. He wanted them to learn how to handle a large threat without Celestia, Luna, or him. He didn’t want them to lean on him for help. Because he knew that if they did, they’ll rely on him again for the next big threat and the next and so on and so on. He didn’t want them to go that route. He wanted them to be self-sufficient and rely on each other for help and guidance. He admitted to Twilight that he “knows” she can be a good leader. That he “knows” Fluttershy will always be kind, Rainbow Dash always loyal, Applejack always honest, Rarity always generous , Pinkie always laughter and Twilight has the embodiment of magic and friendship. He knows that they are capable to do great things without the princesses and without him. He didn’t want to help because he was being selfish, he knew that he could do it. But he also knew that it will be easy and he didn’t want them to take the easy route. He respects them too much.

How did he show this? In his little self-sacrifice stunt. 

The mane 6, afraid and out of options, desperate for a quick outcome ask for Discord to help and take out Sombra. What I will do is break down the scene with captured screenshots from episode 2, leading up to the confrontation with Sombra.

We will start right after he takes out the mind-controlled guards. The mane 6 gave out their thanks and Twilight exclaims “What will we do without you?” and he gives out this face. 

He is visibly upset by that. It was a great compliment from Twilight! but Discord knew that he shouldn’t be relied on. I have two theories as to why he gave out this face. 

1. This might be a shock but, it might be because Discord plans on leaving. I don’t know, it’s just a feeling. I might be wrong but the line “What will we do without you?” followed up with this? might be foreshadowing something that we will see by the end of the season with Discord saying that he leaving or going somewhere and might not be back for a long time. In his absence, the mane 6 is on their own and he didn’t want them to feel lost. 

2. He wanted them to be confident in their own power and not on his own. I am leaning more not his one because he knows he could do anything. He could take out any big bad but he didn’t want to be the “protector of equestria” he is the spirit of chaos and wants to stay that way. He also doesn’t want the mane 6 to just rely on his powers to win in everything fight and to solve any solution. Celestia and Luna anointed the mane 6 to become leaders, not him. They can’t lead with just shoving Discord up front and asking him to solve it. What will they learn from that?

I believe it was in this moment, that Discord decided he needed to convince them to believe in himself and knew he had to “fake an injury”, to get the mane 6 to believe they can defeat Sombra with their power of Friendship. (Sounds corny but here we are). But his plan didn’t go as smooth as it did in his head. 

He goes face-to-face with Sombra and with Sombra blasting him with magic, Discord just transforms it into random things. But is it random? Did you notice it represented the mane 6?

1. Applesauce-Applejack

2. Cloud of smoke-Rainbow Dash

3. Ballons- Pinkie Pie

4. Butterflies- Fluttershy

5. Glitter-Rarity

6. Sparkles- Twilight Sparkle

Even with dispelling Sombra’s magic, he is still thinking about them. He is confident in his ability, the mane 6 is confident in his ability and Sombra is not a match. Discord showed a bit too much pride in himself but shared that with Fluttershy as he said “friendship” made him who he is today. But Fluttershy deserved all the credit. In this moment, he was sincerely telling them that Fluttershy was the one who changed him, who gave him frienship, who understood him and stood by him. That’s why she is “his favorite”. 

*note: Look at how precious this is, he is literally puttering on a pedestal and worshipping her by telling her and everyone, out loud, how she is his favorite! his favorite! her! no pony else! and look at that blush! also the mane 5 seems to be in agreement lol Fluttershy is everyone’s favorite*

What he did not expect is Sombra taking that information and targeting “her” instead of Discord. I slowed down the scene and took screenshots. Discord DID NOT planned to use Fluttershy as bait, he DID NOT planned for Sombra to target her and Discord DID NOT prepare himself for that outcome. 

The moment after Discord said that Fluttershy was “his favorite” this little jerk shadow unicorn, took her as his weakness. He knew that if he took her out first then he can get him off guard and thus take him out. Discord really wasn’t expecting that. I think it was because he thought while he was saying that to the mane 6, Sombra will take the chance to shoot at him but instead, shot at Fluttershy. He is visibly surprised as you can see below.

His brow his arched. You can see that he is actually following the beam of magic and noticed how “off” it is. 

Then realization that it isn’t coming to him but coming towards Fluttershy, you cans see the pupils of his eye, dart down, right onto where Fluttershy is standing. 

Here it is, a little bit closer. 

see? quick dart down, right where he knows Fluttershy is. 

This is where I concluded that Discord did a split second decision. He didn’t have time to snap. In fact, I don’t think he was even thinking about it. I believe he saw the beam, saw it was on Fluttershy and reacted immediately by trying to protect her. So you see him run up....

and put his arm out, to absorb the blow. He is actually gritting his teeth to take the pain. (Was there pain? maybe like a punch or a blow in the gut but nothing life-ending) but he knew it would have seriously hurt Fluttershy.

Even Twilight and the others did not react as fast as Discord did. They stood there in shock, slow to react and Discord was quick enough to make the decision to use himself as a shield. That is bold. 

Then the blow, everyone was bracing for impact. Not knowing that Fluttershy would have taken the full blow. 

Also Fluttershy was the first one to scream out his name and cry out like that. The only one! that is a lot of emotion going on right now.

Look how shocked they are! Especially Fluttershy. She was the only one crying! and she was crying hard! like really hard. She was freaking out, because she thought that he was really gone. 

*What are you doing to me, Hasbro?*

*Like seriously, Hasbro!* 

Just look at this, how she is holding him super close and hugging him tight saying “please wake up, please wake up” and freaking out. Look at Rainbow Dash! She is supporting his head to make sure if he is conscious! Fluttershy even shakes him in desperation. 

*Hasbro made everyone have heart attacks while watching this premier*

and then he wakes up. In my own opinion, I think he did got knocked out here. Just a short black out. It might have be equivalent to a sucker punch and you black out for like a few seconds before coming back around. 

Sweet relief. Awww that’s nice

*Puts it as my phone background*

alright so after he wakes up, Twilight asks him one more time to help them. And now, he takes the chance to say the speech that they don’t need him and that they have each other. They are each other’s strength and their friendship is powerful. More powerful that they realize. He took the opportunity after he got shot to say this. Again split second. Saving Fluttershy, making sure she is okay, and giving her a smile indicating that he is “fine’ and then telling them the speech. He saw the opportunity and took it. 

His “take the bullet” save is a legit “Heroic sacrifice” because 1. he did not plan for Sombra targeting Fluttershy and ran to shield her. 2. He used his sacrifice to tell the twilight and her friends that they have the power to overcome adversity and 3. Gave Twilight and her friends the confidence they needed to rely on each other to beat Sombra. 

Without Discord, they couldn’t have accomplish that on their own. This is the peak of Discord’s character growth. He actually took a step back, and believed they could do defeat Sombra without him and the princesses. He gave Twilight his respect, and he knew what their strengths are. They just need a little shove in the right direction.

[raridashdoodles]

📖 Twilight have read and graded all your stories! 📖 

However, since she's a fictional character we'll discard her opinions! I'm the one with the money, so naturally my opinions are the only one that matters.

These are ranked from best to worst and I've scored all entries based on how entertaining (or infuriating) I found them to be. If you got a good score, be very proud! I am not easy to please. If you got a bad score, then it is time for you to go sit in the corner and think about your sins. 👻

First off, the winner and best of the show:

Fic: Love, And Other Felonies Author: PatchworkPoltergeist​ Grade: A+++ Review: This is pretty much a raridash masterpiece. In my humble opinion, it far surpasses all of the fanfics the raridash community considers its cream of the crop. It has everything from great structure, wonderful characterizations and is an overall fun, creative take on the NMM-verse timeline. The world-building and lore is an added plus and a surprise (didn't expect that due to time and theme restrictions). This is an excellent romance fanfic with Raridash at the heart of its story. The two of them share close to every moment together and have to lean on each other as there is no one else to trust in this harsh dystopian world. Watching these two walk on eggshells in a society where freewill and independent thinking is punishable by death is just as entertaining as it sounds!

If I had to critic this, I'd say the story's epilogue threw me off. I feel that too much character development were lost in amnesia world and the romance aspect just didn't fit the bill anymore. Felt forced and awkward.

Runner-ups:

Fic: My Little Confession Author: Pixel Berry Grade: B Review: Very plain and simple, but it works! Story is very brief and the characters barely has any time to be introduced, but it covers the bare minimum and the characters struggles and exchanges are both endearing, cute and wholesome. Equis High seemed like an interesting place and it would've been great if you could've expand upon it. The prompt lean near the end was way too on the nose and really ruined the flow of narration! You should've kept up your integrity and make up your own ending. An epilogue for this wouldn't hurt either since the story doesn't fade out, it just kind of ends... 

Style of narration was very odd and there were several pacing issues, but I feel the creativity makes up for it! These were the kind of stories I was hoping to get out of this competition. ❤️

Fic: Zero-Sun Game Author: Undome Tinwe Grade: C+ Review: This story had some good moments, but the genres stumble over each other constantly. This isn't goofy enough to make it a good comedy and it definitely isn't serious enough to work as a good drama. There aren't any real struggles and Rainbow Dash's character is practically flawless. She knows exactly what say and how to behave in order to get Rarity under her thumb and she can predict events with 100% accuracy, averting every single conflict thrown at her with ease. The more you read, the less intrigued you become. Everything becomes dull up until the ending where everything gets weird. In a story that has references to sex, vice and regicide, giving this story such a cheesy, awkward ending just didn't feel right at all.

You should've gone full comedy and have Rainbow Dash under investigation for being a potential super villain, only for it to be revealed her actions were not a result of amorality but stupidity. Drama could’ve work too, but you'd have to lose the virtual-reality shtick as it sucks away all the tension.

Fic: The Finale Author: Mymysteriox Grade: F Review: This story is called The Finale and as promised by the title, you are indeed dropped into the climax of a big dramatic story, having no clue as to what events has lead up to that moment. Ponies are yelling and crying and then the stage play end. The main characters are real pleased with themselves for performing this amazing play, we weren't allowed to see! The problem with this fanfic is that it is barely anything but a transcript to its prompt. There's no depth, backstory or even introductions. It's an empty shell.

Fic: Every One After Author: AJtheRaven Grade: F Review: This story's attempt at entertainment revolves itself around Rarity and Rainbow Dash being as petty and shallow as possible. In short, Rainbow Dash want a trophy wife and Rarity want an obedient little pupper. These aspirations are forced to the point you wonder why the two of them are an item in the first place. Romance stories who’s conflict are the characters hating each other with the resolution of them kissing and making up in the end are by far the cheapest, dirtiest things in the world. To add on that, it completely fails to utilize the prompt in any creative manner, making this already dull story that much duller. None of the interactions carried any sincerity and every setup was predictable. 

If you had plans to write a story out of pure spite then you might as well have gone full out and write a story where Rainbow Dash struggles to dispose of Rarity's lifeless body after having strangled her to death in a fit of rage. At least that way you could’ve gotten a passing score for creativity.

Fic: The Experimental RariDash Crackfic Author: Mystic Mind Grade: F Review: Every single joke in this are like nails on a chalk board. Rarity and Rainbow Dash serves no purpose to this story and could've been replaced by literally anyone. The narrator/Pinkie Pie is obnoxious to the point you want to bludgeon her to death and the story from beginning to end is nothing but meme characters stumbling around and bumping into each other. I was surprised you didn't include a scene where Discord popped in and start twerking in front of the audience, all while promoting his fortnite centered twitch channel. There isn’t a single redeeming factor in this story... Everything is just nauseating.

This might have been a decent story if it was a straight faced drama, but with what I’ve seen from this story I kind of doubt your ability to write romance stories at all.

Fic: A Marvelous Day Author: ModdieFox Grade: F- Review: This fanfic is a big empty template that someone put a raridash sticker onto. Any character could be switched out and it wouldn't make a difference. There's no story, no build-up and nothing in this carries any weight or consequence. Everything feels hollow and manufactured. A loveless, soulless entry.

This needed to be longer (less exposition, more anticipation) and the narration should've followed either Rarity's or Rainbow's internal monologue about the ups and downs in their relationship that eventually lead them to getting married. Big pay-offs like weddings aren't satisfying if we don’t know the struggle.

Fic: Those Wedding Belle Rainbows Author: Tangerine Blast Grade: G Review: I'm at a loss for words... This is a story that relies itself on the stupidity of its characters to push itself forward. Usually I don't mind stupid characters if it's there to make them cute, but in this fanfic it exist for no other reason than to create unnecessary conflicts. The lack of common sense makes every character insufferable and every action taken and every piece of dialogue spoken are annoying and borders on infuriating. The story has no direction and spirals itself into meandering filler. The author couldn't even be bother to write an ending for this clustergack and instead he just copy&pastes a scene from Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean and calls it a day (no, I'm not joking). 

I have nothing else to say other than this is the worst raridash fanfic I've ever read in my life. This isn't your everyday kind of failure... This is advanced failure! This deserves a grade lower than F so I hereby award it with the special rating of G (standing for garbage). Kudos.

Disqualified entires:

Fic: Guiding Light Author: Gesstalt Grade: Disqualified (Doesn't follow a prompt) Review: This story tries way too hard to be poetic and mysterious, but due to its brief length it just comes off as unnecessary filler. It feels like someone opened up a book, ripped out a single page from it and presented it as a full story. Everything is vague and cryptic and you can't make sense of anything. Elements are presented with the implications that they have greater meaning but it never amounts to anything and everything just feels pointless.

Fic: Love Eternal Author: RDFan27 Grade: Disqualified (Doesn't follow a prompt) Review: In this story Rainbow Dash enters Rarity's boutique and stands still. It's a pretty ingenious concept, I gotta say! Think about it, Rainbow Dash likes sports so naturally she likes to move around, but because she likes Rarity so much she's willing to go against her nature and stand still!! It's the peak of romance!!! 

Sarcasm aside, this fanfic fails to be creative at every turn. Stories with this premise have been written over 300+ times, going back as far as 2011. I didn't like them back then and I don't like them now. This story's only redeeming factor is its ending which threw me into a laughing fit, though that wasn't a feat of writing as much as it was timing.

🌟 Those were all the stories! 🌟

Thanks to everyone who participated, hope you all had fun! Sorry if you didn't win, but not everybody have what it takes to be the best. I hope you found my critic helpful and that it'll go a long way to help improve your future stories!

If you found some of these ratings were unfair, tough cookie! This is a contest and it's not my job to hold your hand. If you don't understand the mechanics of basic story telling or just can't be bothered to write a sincere story, then you only have your own incompetence to blame. Get good or get bent, loser! 🎷

Let’s hear another round of applauses for @patchworkpoltergeist​ amazing story! 👏👏👏 Wooooo~ 

[pvrestwolff]

---- pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name; but what's puzzling you is the nature of my game.

trident’s task 000; a detailed introduction.

---- basic information

full name: ekaterina mikhailovna aliena zamolodchikova-markovy. pronunciation: yeh-kah-ti-ree-nah // mik-hail-ovna // a-lye-na // zamol-ohd-chkova // m-ah-rk-oh-fi. meaning: ekaterina ( the name ekaterina is a russian name, the meaning is ‘pure’ ), mikhailovna ( the name mikhailovna is a russian name, the meaning is ‘daughter of mikhail’ ), aliena ( the name aliena is a belarusian and latin name, the meaning is ‘foreign’ or ‘stranger’ ), zamolodchikova ( the name zamolodchikova is a russian name, the meaning is ‘bold and dashing female’ ), markovy ( the name markovy is a russian and serbian name, the meaning is ‘of Mars, the god of war’ ) reasoning: ekaterina was named for a dear friend of natallia’s, while her first middle name came from her father, and her second came from natallia’s oldest sister anastasia’s middle name, the original heir to the throne. her last names are her father’s and her mother’s respectively. nickname(s): kati, kat, nina, erica. preferred name(s): ekaterina or erica, but she does not mind certain nicknames from certain people. birth date: january 11th 1988. age: thirty. zodiac: capricorn // rabbit yang fire or tiger yin fire. gender: female. pronouns: she/her. romantic orientation: platonipandemiromantic. sexual orientation: platonipansexual. nationality: belarusian, russian. ethnicity: caucasian, ashkenazi jewish. current location: tulach island. living conditions: mediocre, living in the tulach house. title(s): crown princess of belarus, princess, belarus’ heir, grand duchess of vitebsk, the demon queen of minsk (colloquial), 

---- background

birth place: the palace of snov, minsk, belarus. hometown: minsk, belarus. social class: royalty, upper. education level: masters degree. father: mikhail zamolodchikov-markovy. mother: natallia zamolodchikova-markovy. adopted?: no. sibling(s): two younger sisters and one younger brother. birth order: eldest. children: none. pet(s): daisy (maltese shih-tzu) and jay (labrador kelpie). other important relatives: tatiana nikolaevna ( cousin ), anya nikolaevna ( cousin ), ainsley dùghlas ( cousin ), alexander romanov-nikolaevna ( uncle ), nataliya kashkanov-nikolaevna ( aunt ), gavin dùghlas ( uncle ) and anastasia markovy-dùghlas ( aunt ). ( @tatiana-nikolaevna, @anyanik, @hrhxainsley ) previous relationships: charles flanagan ( first crush, murder accomplice ), grace thomas ( ex-girlfriend ), luka rossi ( ex-lover ) and unnamed prince ( ex-lover ). ( @classiciisms, @luka-rossi )

---- skills & abilities

physical strength: exceptionally strong for her size, she’s quite good at the salmon ladder and deadlifts. teamwork: she can and will butt heads with strong personalities or stupid people, but always works to reach the goal. talents: running, swordplay, fencing, knife handling, gun-handling, hand-to-hand combat, martial arts, ballroom dancing, adaptability, interpersonal skills, sketching, linguistics, communication, cryptography, symbology, and bdsm. shortcomings: intrapersonal skills, trust issues, manipulative. language(s) spoken: belarusian ( first language ), russian ( first language ), ukrainian, english, italian, french, gaelic, yiddish, hebrew, latin. drive?: yes for a car, yes for a motorcycle. ride a bicycle?: yes. swim?: yes. play an instrument?: piano, violin. play chess?: yes. pick a lock?: yes.

---- physical appearance & characteristics

face claim: lyndsy fonseca. eye color: blue, with a hazel ring around the pupil. hair color: honey brown hair type/style: thin and soft but abundant, naturally curly, normally sits at shoulder length but has gone uncut since being on the island. dominant hand: right, though when she was younger attempted to become ambidextrous. height: 5′4″. weight: 135lbs, but has lost muscle and weight since being on the island. exercise habits: every other day, early morning, erica would normally go for a 5km run outside. depending on her schedule, she will also practice either her fencing, her martial arts, go to the gym for strength training. the mornings she does not run she will spend her time doing yoga. skin tone: tan/olive. tattoos: a tiger on her left middle finger, a butterfly on the back of her neck, four birds on her left forearm, a sun and two stars behind her right ear, a tree on the right of her torso and hermes wings on the outsides of both her ankles. piercings: firsts, seconds, belly button, right ear helix. marks/scars: what look like straight and accurate cuts all over her body from her training, the scars are on her arms in particular, though they have faded and are not immediately noticeable. notable features: eyes, lips, hands, legs, ass. usual expression: resting bitch face. clothing style: neat blouses, skirts, heels, vests, a jacket, comfortable pants and the heaviest boots she can find. jewelry: none. allergies: none. body temperature: her body is warmer than most, and as a result environments feel much colder for her. diet: strict vegetarian, also tends to avoid eating eggs or smoking cigarettes that use castoreum when she can. physical ailments: short-sightedness, astigmatisms.

---- psychology

mbti type: entj-t ( the commander ) or istj-t ( the logistician ). //** technically untypable due to borderline personality disorder. enneagram type: type 8w7 ( the challenger, wing is the enthusiast ). moral alignment: chaotic neutral, borders on chaotic evil at times. temperament: choleric. element: earth. primary intelligence type: linguistic, logical, kinesthetic, musical. approximate IQ: 135, superior intelligence. mental conditions/disorders: borderline personality disorder, minor depression, obsessive-compulsive tendencies and sociopathic tendencies,  sociability: usually an observer, cold until she can trust people and often uses a façade and flattery to win people over for her own benefit. emotional stability: no. obsession(s): looking after her weaponry, literature and keeping organised notes on everything in her life. compulsion(s): neatness. phobia(s): autophobia, atychiphobia, atelophobia. addiction(s): currently -- nicotine, alcohol and caffeine. previously -- cocaine and mdma. prone to violence? yes.

---- mannerisms

speech style: while speaking in languages she is fluent in, ekaterina speaks quickly and smoothly, but while speaking in english, she can converse well but not as quickly, she may pause to find the correct word or misuse idioms, sayings or phrases. accent: a mix of belarusian and russian, which has softened after staying in english speaking countries long enough. quirks: smoothing down dog-eared pages of books, running her fingers along the rim of glasses she is drinking from, hyper-focusing on work that must be done until it is finished, giving people special nicknames and standing on top of buildings to stargaze. hobbies: exercising, fencing, martial arts, reading, playing piano, exploring new places, sketching, creating/using ciphers for her journals, assassinations and murder. habits: adjusting her glasses constantly ( when she wears them ), flexing her hands, switching between languages and sharpening her knives ( when she has them ). nervous tics: running her fingers through her hair, tapping her middle finger and her thumb together and disassembling and reassembling her guns ( when she has them ). drives/motivations: power, ambition, freedom, justice, duty and loyalty. fears: rejection, failure, losing her loved ones and being totally alone. positive traits: rational, adaptable and powerful. negative traits: sadistic, manipulative and ruthless. sense of humor: dark and sarcastic. do they curse often? yes.

---- favourites

activity: swordplay and fencing. animal: tigers and bluebirds. beverage: anything alcoholic. otherwise, coffee. book: the great gatsby by f. scott fitzgerald, frankenstein by mary shelley, do androids dream of electric sheep? by philip k. dick, the elenium by david eddings, the hogfather by terry pratchett, his dark materials by philip pullman, the wizard of oz by frank l. baum, alice in wonderland by lewis carroll, the illuminae files by amie kaufman and jay kristoff, the starbound trilogy by amie kaufman and meagan spooner and inkheart by cornelia funke. color: purple and gold. food: strawberries, or any type of berry. flower: tiger lily. gem: rainbow moonstone. holiday: new year’s eve. mode of transportation: motorcycle. movie: reservoir dogs, kill bill, jeux d’enfants, indiana jones, monty python, studio ghibli, anastasia, fight club, pulp fiction and the princess bride. musical artist: stevie wonder, the four tops, the supremes, phil collins, no doubt, gwen stefani, tatu, pvris, bastille, sia, the beatles, andrew belle, the temptations and fleetwood mac. quote/saying: “we know what we are, but know not what we may be.” scenery: forests. scent: petrichor, strawberry and coffee,  sport: fencing, lacrosse and soccer. television show: she doesn’t watch tv. weather: cloudy and mild.

---- attitudes

greatest dream: denying her claim to the belarusian throne and experiencing true freedom. greatest fear: rejection, failure, losing her loved ones, being totally alone and ascending to the throne. most at ease when: drinking, smoking and reading a book. least at ease when: powerless, weak and when she does not know something she feels she should. worst possible thing that could happen: her entire family is killed because of her actions. biggest achievement ( to date ): managing to maintain a semi-normal relationship with grace and reducing crimes in belarus through deals with members of organised criminal syndicates. biggest regret: allowing charlie to disappear from her life, manipulating the two princes and ruining her first betrothal. most embarrassing moment: ekaterina does not do embarrassing things. biggest secret: she finds special pleasure in killing those who deserve it. top priorities: self-preservation, freedom, protecting loved ones.

[overlordneon]

Rainbow dash, we need a know if rainbows are in

Rainbows are ALWAYS IN, darling~TIME TO BLAB more about fashion!!! with NEON YO!!! gET HYPE FOOLS!!

Ok, to start. Rainbow is a very special case as far as colors go. With 6 different colors in her hair she’s got a wider range to match outfits with but its also a lot easier to make them very messy if you put too many colors on one outfit.  But, in general I don’t think they did her clothes THAT bad in EQG.  

First basic outfit. My biggest per peeve with each of the Humane 6′s first EQG outfits was all the damn skirts but they had the decency to give the tomboy RD a pair of short underneath hers. Thank. Its sensible. Aside from that I appreciate a lot about this outfit. They repeat the red/yellow/blue pattern of her cutie mark throughout the whole thing and kept the rest of the color choices simple: just the blue and pink.  Its casual looking enough to come off as sporty too. I’m not even that bothered by the gigantic boots in this one.  

Fall formal dress from the end of EQG1. Oh god the boot sizes are noticeable again….I think pink was a bad choice for them this time.  There isn’t any more pink on the rest of her dress, it seems like they should’ve made the shoes purple to match the belt and the sleeves.  Otherwise I think this look is pretty passable overall. 

Friendship through the ages.  I like the rocker look a lot actually. The split down the middle look is pretty interesting but I may have wanted a different color for the blue half, maybe pink so the dress could better match the shoes…  uhhhh or maybe just get rid of those shoes uhuhh. They really don’t compliment anything about anything.

Finally at my downright least favorite Rainbow Dash outfit. Rainbow Rocks. I mean…I LOVE neon (if you couldn’t tell?) but…its a real eyesore to look at that one. None of those colors work together and the zigzag pattern only draws attention to the fact that they don’t work together. just….burn it honey….you deserve better baby…..

The one look from Friendship Games I nearly forgot to put on this list because honestly its very forgetable. I think I gotta class this one as bad, not even like  “its horrible. burn it” bad just like, not very good. Its hard to describe why this one doesn’t work for me but its like there’s not really any point to focus on. Its mostly just this orange/yellow + blue green combo that just doesn’t really do anything for me.  Its a real shame because I FINALLY like the shoes on this. Maybe if the took out the green and orange and put some more focus on the teal/blue while using the yellow to accent it it might’ve worked better. At least its not a total eyesore! There’s that! 

Friendship Games motocross uniform. I don’t really hate it but it doesn’t look anything at all like a motocross uniform and that’s probably its biggest crime. Impractical. The design itself isn’t completely terrible but it could benefit from more cohesive elements. Belt and shoes match but the gloves stand out kinda weirdly against the rest of it.

Ok, I just had to include this one.  Baby Rainbow with suspenders. Ok??? Ok good. its good. thats all. Next.

Her rapper outfit is actually pretty adorable. I can’t even bring myself to hate it.  Maybe the shoes again. (seriously.. why they look like that? get help.)

These camp everfree super outfits are gonna be the death of me. I like this one better than sunsets, but only but a little bit.  

Uhhh, Crystal Gala dress.  I don’t like it- NEXT!

(ok, to elaborate. its got too much going on and just looks pretty goofy. GIANT FUCKING!!! LIGHTENING BOLTS!!!! AHHH This was the worst thing to bring back the head accessory from her first pony gala dress…It doesnt…match..anything… jus tuhhh bye.)

Dear god. dear THANK GOD. Girl, they finally gave you a nice casual outfit.  I’ve got no major complaints with this one. I think it works pretty well overall. Kinda surprised this is the first time they’ve used rainbow gradients on her but I think they turned out pretty alright.

And there. that’s my rainbow fashion rundown. thank you all for your time. Feel free to share your own thoughts . even if you’re wrOOONNG.

[charactersadvocatechimata]

Second Chances (PT.2)

First Part

Apparently, it is okay to give the crazy man the heavy tools. Ah. Desperation drives men to do illogical situation. The flat is a mess. The wiring system doesn’t know which way is up. Water damage, too. The pipes should all be replaced, some are even rotted. The heater out of everything is simply the worst off. She is Tony’s favorite. He has dubbed her Betty. And don’t think for a moment that Tony won’t fight both small Steve bubbly Bucky about it. This is mountain he will die on.

Wouldn’t be the first time.

“Home a bit early.”

“What about it Stevie?” Something bangs against the floor.

“Been fired enough times and it’s old hat, eh. What was it this time?”

“Fuck off.”

The walls are pretty thin too. Probably don’t protect much from the elements. Or sound. The sound is very clear. Insulation is always a must. But would require tearing down the walls.  

“Buck!”

“What Steve? What? I’m not the only one home early. Let’s hear it. What’s your grand reason?”

“He was a bully.”

“That’s what you always say.”

Should Tony tear down the wall? Something which is usually frowned on by most. Or he could smack the pre-serum fools heads together with a wrench. The wrench they gave Tony for emphasis. The wrench is a more satisfying solution.

“Why are you both like this? Communication is important. Communication, not squawking at each other.” Jabs a finger at the smaller brat. “Bucky got drafted. And the box is not your friend. There is always another option.” Metaphoric wrenches still count. Just not as satisfying.

Tony returns to the heater, the most sensible existence in the room.

“Drafted?”

“Fuck you.”

The door slams or it would if it wasn’t wet cardboard. But that fact should be ignored to respect the sentiment of the door slam. He was raised properly after all.

Bucky curls himself toward the couch or a mass of fabric and wood that strives to be a couch. Tony isn’t sure. Never built a couch before, but it can’t be that hard. Something plushy.

“Shouldn’t you have been the one to storm out?” Bad mouth. Don’t get involved. Not with emotions. Emotions bad.

“Things have always been a little backward between us.”

Kay~

Not how someone would usually describe their relationship but who knows what Tony would say if asked to describe his relationship with Rhodey. Or Pepper. Or the Spider-kid.

“Long as your happy.”

“He’s family.”

“No. I get that. Better than you know.”

“Speaking of which-”

Danger. Danger Will Robinson! Distract. Something. Set something on fire! No. Bad plan. Who knows if this building has sprinklers. Or a fire escape. Panic. Maybe try panic. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Panic solves nothing. But there’s nothing to fix!

“How ja know my name? Or that I was drafted?”

“I am not a stalker!”

“Nobody said you were.”

“Good. Because I have never stalked someone against their will in my life. Information is just one of those things that happen. Okay. Taste the rainbow of the future. And accept the horrifying unknown.”

The biggest problem with all Bucky’s question is that Tony has no way of knowing what sort of time traveling situation he is in. Is this the time travel where you fuck up a little thing and everything is fucked up. Or is it where all fucks up are inevitable so you might as well fuck up. On the other hand, considering the future Tony comes from everything is already fucked up. So Tony should fuck something up. Or Tony already fucked it up and that is why the future is fucked up. Master of the fuck up any variation is possible.

Then again you’d think Steve would have mentioned the whole ‘we’ve met’ thing. Unless Tony looks really different now than when they first met. Or met again. Maybe he hasn’t aged well. He doesn’t sleep much. There is also all the stress. Maybe being a silver fox was an unreachable dream. A dream dashed against Captain America's hard pecs.

“Do you think I’m ugly?”

“Now, mister, don’t try-”

“Cause I swear I used to be handsome.”

With an expression that Tony has come to expect from Pepper or Rhodey, Bucky exhales a liter of happiness. “You’re a beautiful man, Tony.”

“You mean that?”

“Yes.” And Bucky probably does. There is absolutely no reason for anyone to flatter Tony. He has nothing. He is nothing. Nothing! A normal person.

“I deserve a vacation.”

“Sure. You seem stressed.”

“Exactly. I am officially starting my first vacation.”

“First?!”

Bucky, surprisingly quickly, seemed to have reached the acceptance stage of knowing Tony Stark. The quickest after Rhodey. Rogers always seemed to be stuck between the anger and bargaining stages. Bucky’s leaning against onto the couch, hoping it would share some of his weight, and watching Tony. Yet a part of him is drawn to the door to chase after Steve. To apologize? Did Steve have that effect on people even while Skinny?

The serum makes everything more.

God. Tony could use a vacation. But everything that can be fixed, is fixed. At least by Tony’s current means. Everything else is more bulldoze the building and start from scratch. Fresh smart building with AI.

“I’m bored.”

“Already? Maybe you should try relaxing.” Bucky pats the cloth-wood pile, a gesture to incite sitting on said pile. Probably not an invite to fix or build a new couch. Or to set it on fire. He probably even attached to the pile. Tony had his couch since the MIT days.

Clearly, the only option is to lay on the floor in a starfish pattern. Staring at the ceiling Tony notices, even more, water damage. That and the feel of Bucky laying on the floor next to him. Rhodey used to that too.

“Try breathing.”

“Breathing and me, we’re no good. Maybe I started it with all the smoking but they're a dick now.”

Strange wheezing noise emits from Bucky. “Sure. What do you usually do then?”

Drugs, sex, and throwing away money have always been a bit of a lie. Fun sometimes but mostly a great excuses for self-pity. Programming and robots were his first pick when stressed for as long as he can remember. But it also work. You are not supposed to work on vacation.

“Work.”

“What about a hobby?”

“Work that benefits my friends.”

“How about something that benefits you?”

Flying. Once. “I don’t know.”

“Stevie has art.”

Aunt Peggy’s stories often came with illustrations. Pages and pages and pages of singed, dirty, stained, ink smeared and torn paper. Doodles of monkeys dancing on stages. Cartoon shorts of the Howling Commandos. Cute colored images of Aunt Peggy with a gun or punching a Nazi. Jokes about this Hydra base or the other. Tony used to relate to those colors.

“I am aware.”

“Sure. Sure. I like to dance.”

Ripped tutus scattered on the floor and a broken nose from being shoved too hard into a wall. “Stark men don’t dance.”

“Okay, Stark.”

“Don’t call me that.” Tony sits up. He can’t stand the floor. Too cold. Too hard. Losing his breath and his heart pounds too loud against his chest. Louder than thunder. Louder than a bomb. Louder than someone pounding the ivory keys of a grand piano.

“Sorry. Tony.” Bucky sitting up too. Wearing the same face his going to wearing that freezing bunker. “So I need a new job.”

“Something to occupy the hands and the mind are always good.”

“Sure. Sure. You could help. Sightsee New York while we’re at it.”

Well, can’t say Tony has ever seen 1940’s, New York. Considering he wasn’t born yet. Didn’t see much of New York at all when got shipped off to boarding school either.

“Sightseeing is a vacation thing.”

“A classic vacation thing.”

“Alright, James. Let’s find you a job.”

“James.”

“Well, I can’t right call you Bucky or Buck now can I?”

“Whatever you say, Tony.”

[marvelandponder]

Seems Like the Answer Should be No

I want to start this off by repeating something I’ve already said on my blog at various points: most of the time Rainbow Dash has terrible self-esteem. In that, she either has too much or too little. It’s kind of a problem.

So the goal, here, being healthy self-love, doesn’t necessarily mean building up kids to be a bunch of tiny ego-maniacs. If done right, I’m willing to bet it could do some good.

If for no one else, then for Rainbow Dash.

And, I mean, as a member of the generation who grew up with constant self-esteem campaigns and also has to face criticism for being too self-centered (go figure), I know teaching kids how to love themselves a healthy amount is notoriously complicated.

So, what is healthy self-love and how can Rainbow Dash finally achieve it long-term, thereby teaching the kiddos how to do the thing?

You know what time it is.

Friendship is Self-Love

Our first goal is to find a way to teach kids self-love in a nuanced, balanced way. Which... admittedly would be tricky for an adult show not to oversimplify, let alone a kids’ show that necessarily has to simplify things to some degree.

So, when I say this it’s something you’ve heard before and yes, it’s cheesy in the extreme: treat yourself like you would your best friend.

Honestly, it’s the perfect message for Friendship is Magic, for very obvious reasons. This show is all about well-developed relationships, so coming from this source, it doesn’t just mean ‘be nice and compliment yourself.’

It means develop a deep respect for yourself. It means be loving enough to build yourself up, but also be able to give yourself a reality check when you need one---be supportive. It even means to have a sense of humour about yourself where appropriate, as the girls aren’t afraid to poke some well-meaning fun at each other every now and then (but note that humour is never really mean-spirited). 

It means treat yourself how the mane six treat each other, in everything that means.

Every element that makes up harmony---Laughter, Kindness, Generosity, Loyalty, Honesty, and Friendship---is extremely useful in loving yourself to a healthy degree, and it gets more nuanced the more lessons you take from the show and reinterpret. Because, perhaps just like Friendship, self-love is just another kind of Harmony: being in harmony with yourself.

And it gets even better when you add in characters like Sunset Shimmer and Starlight, who’ve had to struggle forgive and trust themselves, respectively. And going back to the friendship metaphor, Discord, who’s had a backslide since reforming but was forgiven anyway because he recognized the error of his ways. In fact, most characters who got a second chance only deserved that second chance just because they realized how much they messed up (at the time, they hadn’t done much to earn it, and only proved that judgement right in hindsight)---which is an equally powerful lesson when it comes to forgiving yourself.

By invoking lessons from the show’s past to teach this new lesson, we get to see how complex self-love really is. It helps us see pass the cheesy sentiment to the real meaning of the phrase. Treating yourself like a best-friend comes with just as many lessons as friendship itself does.

Well, that’s a fine goal, you say, but how do you plan on achieving that self-love? That’s where Rainbow Dash comes back in.

Is Rainbow Dash Rainbow Dash Without a Big Ego?

Here’s something I kind of touched on in my recent Twilight editorial. When a character develops past their defining trait(s), well, are they still the same character?

Thankfully, we already have an answer: Fluttershy!

Sure, our girl’s still introverted and quiet, but shy? Not quite. I went over how I think Fluttershy’s developed extremely well in recent seasons in that link up there, and what strikes me is how much Fluttershy still feels like herself since developing, just a healthier, more mature version of herself.

She’s still a complex character with flaws, but she’s learned to be comfortable with herself and stand up for her own feelings.

And frankly, at this point I think we could have Fluttershy teach Rainbow Dash about self-love. 

The two of them have often be paired together (I mean, not just in the shipping sense) because of the obvious and stark contrasts between them. One of those contrasts being how Fluttershy valued herself so little, and Rainbow seemed to value herself too much. 

Well, seemed to. 

Before I dive down this rabbit-hole, I’d be remiss if I didn’t direct you to Azkre’s analysis of Rainbow Dash’s self-esteem, because I’m about to get to a number of the same conclusions they did, just through different means. It’s a good read, I totally recommend it.

Anyway, like I said at the top, Rainbow is a realistic portrayal of someone with an ego. It’s not just highs that are too high, but lows that are too low. It’s why I usually disagree with fans who would label Rainbow Dash as a narcissist (although, yeah, she’s close enough that I totally get the comparison). 

Mainly, what separates Dash from this particular personality disorder is 1. Her empathy (the disorder is often characterized by a lack of empathy), and 2. She has massive insecurities that she tries to cover up with her ego.

For example, from as early as Read It and Weep which I still think should’ve been called Reading Rainbow, there was a hint that Rainbow’s insecure about her intelligence. At the episode’s end, instead of saying she thought reading was boring or just for lame ponies, she tells Twilight she “thought reading was only for smart ponies, like [Twilight].” 

This comes back into play in Testing, Testing, 1,2,3, when we see this insecurity explained, as Dashie explains her show-bouty class-clowning prevented her from learning how to learn. And not only that, considering how schools normally teach and how Rainbow Dash actually learns, it seems like the school system itself gradually taught Rainbow she was “too dumb to learn anything.” 

As a total aside, it interests me to think whether the class-clowning came first or the failing grades. Was there an order, or was this always just a perpetual cycle?

She then used her natural flying ability to define herself instead---a “world-class athlete” or a “future Wonderbolt.” She had to prove herself in a different way, and you can see that insecurity still there in how she has to brag to assert her worth.

I think her ego is genuine to some extent, don’t get me wrong. She can back-up most of her big claims, so it’s not hard for her to genuinely believe she is the best flyer in Equestria or just all-around awesome.

But it goes to show what a complex character Rainbow Dash actually is. She’s not just a dreamer who simultaneously wants praise and to inspire others, she’s insecure and big-headed.

So, back to our point. How do we teach Rainbow Dash healthy self-love? Well, I think we have to attack this from both sides.

Rainbow Dash has slowly been learning humility. For example, her entrance into the Wonderbolts marked a turning point in her professional career: instead of striving to stand-out in hopes of gaining entrance to the Wonderbolts, she now has to learn how to fit-in and work with them as a team. 

She’s learning to get a healthier amount of praise and spotlight, I think, and even learning to accept praise with humility. It was legitimately exciting for me, as a Rainbow Dash fan, to see Quibble Pants and Spitfire (in Rarity Investigates) praise her, and more importantly, to see Rainbow Dash respond by accepting these compliments without going too far.

But, that’s only half of the story. 

I do believe Rainbow’s lessons in humility and focusing more on others are extremely important to her development, but I also think we have to tackle her insecurities if we’re ever going to get her to stop bragging in excess.

And here’s Fluttershy’s role. Back in Hurricane Fluttershy, Rainbow helped to boost Fluttershy up in the face of adversity and the memories of Fluttershy’s childhood bullies. Dash needs something similar from Shy. With Fluttershy’s help, she needs to learn how to stop seeking approval from external sources so much, and instead be satisfied giving that approval to herself.

Sounds like just being egotistic when I put it that way, but what I really mean is times like in 28 Pranks Later, Newbie Dash, and some of the Mysterious Mare-do-Well. 

There are times when humility is the thing that would stop her from bragging (like the first half of Mare-Do-Well, when she’s unopposed), but then there’s times like these where Rainbow Dash’s bragging and impulsive actions are to impress ponies for the sole reason of proving herself to them.

Just like Fluttershy, who developed performance anxiety because of the teasing she endured, there’s still a part of Rainbow Dash who’s that little filly trying to shout over the bullies tearing her down. To some degree, her ego is a coping mechanism.

Which is why she needs to learn to care less about what others think of her, and more about what she thinks of herself. 

Fluttershy’s had to learn this lesson for other reasons and could be a great teacher in helping Dash to learn to be her own best friend. Someone who can support herself and keep herself in check, in addition to all the other lessons I talked about before.

And you know, Rainbow Dash is capable of learning this lesson. Hell, she taught it a different version of it to Scootaloo when she had doubts. Rainbow Dash thankfully never expects Scootaloo to live up to her example, and instead teaches her to avoid comparing herself to others who can fly.

So, what does a healthy, but still complex Rainbow Dash look like? Well, Silver Quill just put out an awesome video on Rainbow’s archetype (go watch, it’s great), and among other things, he points out Rainbow’s drive to meet challenges. To overcome the impossible.

I don’t think Rainbow Dash would have to lose that drive to be a more humble, well-balanced character, and I have to think she’ll always have that confident pizzazz of hers. Just... to a healthier, less obnoxious degree. And to be clear, she still has plenty of lessons to learn (no one ever stops learning), like balancing her impulsiveness with some manner of fore-thought, so she’s not ever going to be perfect. Just more mature.

So, with any luck, maybe by the time Rainbow Dash makes Captain of the Wonderbolts, she’ll be humble, considerate, and self-assured enough for the job. Hopefully, we can learn with her.

That’s all, folks! But, I’ve done other stuff, if you liked this editorial. Here’s a link to all the editorials, and here’s the last three Year of the Pony posts, so you don’t have to look far!

Rainbow Dash Editorial, Spike Editorial, and Design and Animation Analysis

Year of the Pony

Header Image Only Possible Thanks to...

Rainbow Dash Vector by Speedox12

If you’re in need of excellent vectors Speedox12 might just have what you’re looking for! Though inactive currently, many of Speedox’s vectors are still up for use so long as you give proper credit back to the source.

Who Do You Love?

[tube-thoughts-blog]

Vol. 12

zero stars - terrible, 1/2 a star - dull, 1 star - folly, 1 1/2 stars - lacking, 2 stars - fair, 2 1/2 stars - decent, 3 stars - terrific

---------- Everything Is Terrible:

*Skittles Commercial 1989: A beach slob is out of luck at a not-so-sexy French beach in an animated skittles ad from France.* 2 stars

*The BAR-B-Q-GURU!: Basic grilling techniques (for example: use a whole bottle of lighter fluid) by a broke ass middle aged black dude.* 1 star

*Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Behind the Music: From scarfing pizza to snorting ants with Ozzy. Not really. More like a pathetic attempt by corporate America to exploit dumb kids and dumb parents.* either zero stars or close to 2 1/2 stars (for proof of said b.s.)

*Cowabunga! can do great things: Say something stupid, and feel good.* 2 1/2 stars

*Call Me Fantasy: Unintentionally awkward hardcore-phone-sex commercial.* 3 stars

------------------------

Cartoon Network Summerfest: (2002)

*Longhair and Doubledome - Good Wheel Hunting: Pre-historic odd couple.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Utica Cartoon: A bear gets in over his head in a all you can eat without paying (as long as you can eat them) hot dog bargain.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Yee Haw & Doo Dah - Bronco Breakin Boots: Yosemite Sam-esque cowboy and his talking horse are squatters in Central Park.* 2 stars

--------------

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Reinke Goes Ballooning *Over the rainbow and into the magical land of unicorns (not uniHorns) and Asian sluts.* close to 3 stars

----- Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs: Barbarella

*Drive In Totals: 14 dead bodies - 1 vicious parakeet attack - 1 Roman orgy - 1 portable brainwave detector - Shag carpeted spaceship - 2 crash landings - 1 giant rubber stingray 1 vicious biting sharp toothed doll attack - demonic children - flower eating - sea through man - flying pod attack with fireballs - 1 burning outer space city - Snowball Fu - Green Laser Fu - and finally the Famous Lovemaking Tube

*TNT NFL Sunday Night Football commercial featuring New England Patriots' then quarterback Drew Bledsoe. Seems like ages ago before Tom Brady dominated the sports news media.

*Joe Bob talks about how the two sci blockbusters of 1968 were Barbarella and 2001. He says that critics wanted to call this one "2002: a Space Idiocy." HA!

*Jane Fonda is a terrible actress. Really terrible.

*Hippie / progressive logic is vomit enducing. "Free love" in this movie is made so confusing and non-fun.

*WCW "Rage in the Cage" FallBrawl commercial featuring Jim "The Anvil" (I believe)

*Joe Bob says this movie is like "Dante's Inferno meets Disney on Ice." Ha

*Hey, 90s business professional lady, don't be afraid of new technology. Get a Nokia cell phone with car lighter adapter for only $9.99. Offer good through 9/30/97

*Joe Bob's advice to the hopeless: talk of lesbos with the very sexy Reno the Mail Girl and Joe Bob helps deliver a viewer's baby (not literally, of course).

*Jane Fonda saves the galaxy by being as silly acting as possible and having softcore, no nudity no action, sex with every humanoid alien she meets.

1 star for the movie (It's more up Joel Schumacher's and Tim Burton's campy alley than mine.) between 1 1/2 and 2 stars for the commercials and 3 stars for Joe Bob's hosting

-----------------

The Greatest American Hero: My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys *Poncho and Lefty.* 3 stars

Manimal: Scrimshaw *I am the walrus (literally).* either 1 star or between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

U.S.S. Alabama (Unaired FX network pilot) *Obviously this was gonna be Reno 911 meets Star Trek, and that's exactly what you get. Poking fun at the genre's tropes and adding the humorous element of inter-galactic govt. red tape getting in the way of space adventuring.* between 2 and 2 1/2 stars (The hit or miss ad-libbing is probably why this series never got picked up.)

----- TV CARNAGE:

*The Unfriendliest Town In America: "Can you help me out, buddy?" BAM! Knee the person asking you that in the groin.* 3 stars

*Stripping Lessons From The Insecure: You need a book about striptease allure from a lady that doesn't even feel sexy herself.* 2 1/2 stars

*Sad Sex Sillys!: Uncomfortable advice and uncomfortable laughter.* 1 star

*No More Free Blow Chobs: RICK, she's not some kind of oral sex machine. Stop coming into her dorm room and getting completely naked, while she's in the other room getting erotic candles for the two of you, you horny frat boy you.* 2 1/2 stars

*You Call This Relaxing: Neo-Nazis crucifying another Neo-Nazi* 2 stars

----------------------------------------

---Commander USA's Groovie Movies: CHUD

*For those not familiar with Commander USA, he's a tv movie host from the 80s. He looks like The Comedian from The Watchmen (he predates him, I believe) but he's more like a street wise version of Mr. Rogers. He likes to paint his right hand up with a smiley face, using ashes from his cigar butt, call it "Lefty"  and talk to it like a sidekick friend. It's weird and almost painfully unfunny at times, but this is an afternoon, if I'm correct, movie show and not something late night like Joe Bob. Though, Svengoolie uses a lot of cheesy humor on his near-late night monster movie show.*

*Carefree bubble gum commercial. "Now with more flavor than ever." Was it sort of bland before? Were they holding back on the flavor? In the ad, a lot of very active and olympic level folk were blowing bubbles while performing. I can't picture people of the 20 Tens fitness culture even chewing any kind of gum. It's probably not gluten free, anyway.*

*An awesome USA network preview commercial for "Night Flight" "Where would your weekend be without it?" 11 pm eastern 10 pm central. Cool music videos and shorts. Generation X laments for MTV's glory days, well these other cable channels' attempts at MTV style programming were just as good, if not better.*

*Christopher Lee and Joan Collins in "Dark Places" TONIGHT 8pm on USA's Saturday Nightmares I'm tearing up thinking about how good old school cable used to be. Now, they'd probably have a four hour block of a reality show or a forensic detective show or a douchebag movie featuring The Rock, and never in a million years program a horror / mystery movie block followed by late night music videos and animated short films and stand up comedy. You sat in your acid washed jeans and watched this with only your remote, a bowl of popcorn, and a Pepsi. You didn't have an iphone, snapchat, twitter, facebook, netflix, redbox new releases only (barf), hulu, game of thrones, orange is the new black, pandora, real housewives of the kardashians, kanye west butchering bohemian rhapsody. We lived in ye good ole days.*

*One of the "Wet Bandits" from Home Alone is here in the 1980s NYC running a soup kitchen for the homeless. What a difference a decade and meeting Goodfella Joe Pesci makes.*

*Kolchak the Nightstalker would be right at home in this movie's environment. In fact, they have a haggard looking, snooping reporter who's almost a version of him.*

*Commander USA is carving meats for his footlong sandwich right after the scene where the photographer / hero goes down into the underground, with his homeless pal, and checks up on the injured homeless guy's chewed up and festering leg. Ewww. Ha.*

*An 80s nerd is playing bomber pilot in the mirror as he treats his zits with Oxy 10. He's so obnoxious, he deserves leprosy. However, I do miss uncool 80s teenagers who weren't afraid to be uncool.*

*Nabisco Brands logo on a BabyRuth commercial featuring two good looking male and female models in BabyRuth logo letter jackets. One: the Nabisco logo of the 80s gave off some kind of hypnotic feel good illuminatti trance vibe. Must love this corporate brand. Two: Why do they always show chocolate being poured in its melty form? The candy bar is gonna be solid and only melted if it's in your ass pocket and you sit on it or leave it on the dash of your car. Hot, melty chocolate is so damn much better it's like crack was in the 80s. More subliminal, chocolatey, illuminatti shit.*

*A 1-800 number ad featuring feel good American craftsmanship, sportsmanship, patriotism... uh ship and other propaganda for joining the National Rifle Association of America. The 80s were conservative as fuck, motherfucker. Have your VISA or MasterCard ready for your $20 NRA member baseball cap and 10,000 dollars worth of "accidental death" insurance with the NRA. Because you will kill yourself or a loved one or a hunting buddy. It's your 2nd amendment right.*

*Commander USA parodies the scene where the little girl is traumatized after her dad gets jerked out of a phone both by a C.H.U.D. Commander USA uses a blow up doll in his own personal phonebooth to re-enact the scene. Kind of black humor on the part of the old Commander. This was a sort of family friendly afternoon movie show with a basic cable edit of the film, and here they still mix in some bleak humor. Gotta love the 80s. They would not even show this kind movie in the afternoon on basic cable anymore. Sure, SYFY shows monster movies on Saturday afternoons, but they don't show 80s monster movies. They show 2000s crapfests and Asylum mock monster horror shitfests.*

*A yuppie couple is playing their morning game of tennis. The husband is sluggish because he didn't have his Kellog's Branflakes, while the wife is running circles around him. Yes, he didn't have his morning dump, and she did. These ads were effectively satirized in the 90s when Saturday Night Live did their "Colon Blow" cereal commercials.*

*AT&T wants to help 80s, pre internet business communications, small businesses become more successful. Sure, a big corporation really just wanted money like they always would. Truth is they'd like to merge with other super corporations and make the six headed corporate dragon of the apocalypse and suck the souls out of every small business, small business owner, and slug citizen of the global economic slavepit like a high speed slurpee.

*Roger Clemens lip-syncs in a non-redneck voice and gets naked behind a towel (for 80s chicks who wanted to see that. Surprised that he was ever considered a hunk. But whatever) in a "Zestfully Clean" ad. Cheesy, and wouldn't have been my brand of soap in the 80s, but nowhere near as obnoxious and off putting as modern Old Spice soap or Axe body wash.*

*Chef Dom Deluise doesn't wanna say goodbye to his Summer vegetables, as he sings a song to them about saying goodbye, in a Ziploc freezer bag commercial. He really needed to spend less time in the kitchen singing to food. R.I.P. Dom Deluise. He's dead, right?*

*Capn Lou Albano has to be dragged off screen in his 1-800 talk wrestling phone ad. Rejects from The Village People bust into his living room and do this, for some reason. There had to be some moron to call this number and listen to Lou ramble incoherently about Luigi and Jimmy Superfly Snuka.*

*"Dream Away" overnight weight loss tablets. I'm guessing these 1980s biggest losers sweated to the oldies with Richard Simmons in their dreams and all those fat cells just  drifted away down into their waterbeds. Every moron in the 80s had a waterbed.*

*In the 80s, it took a magician named "Blackstone" and a series of motivational cassette tapes to get people to stop smoking. No one ever smoked after this and those annoying TRUTH ads featuring dying smoking victims talking out of their neckholes, that you have to hurry and look away as you flip the channel during dinner, never took place. What a wonderful alternate reality we live in.*

*C.H.U.D. and They Live would and probably has made a great double feature. Both have themes of the govt not caring about the people on the bottom level of society.*

*Another reason why this is a great movie is they're taking their sweet time to build up the tension of really getting a good look at the monsters. Sure, we've had glimpses of them. But nothing really lingers on them. It's all quick edits. When they finally show themselves to the people of New York, and the movie viewer, it will be worth the payoff. If this were a SYFY Asylum mock-monster-mock-movie we'd already had seen the shitty CGI croco-cerebus-cheetah in the first five minutes when it devours Caitlyn Jenner.*

*This movie also meets Joe Bob Briggs' rule of any good horror movie which is "Anybody can die at anytime." And they do, there, in the sewers of NYC in C.H.U.D.*

*Get Dianetics at Waldenbooks. The pseudo-psychology pseudo-religion selfhelp zeitgeist of 80s yuppies.*

*One more inspid bit of 80s propaganda by conservative Ronald Reagan America and corporate America: They would have "By Mennen" ads featuring babies and new moms with the 1950s tv mom standing over her shoulder giving her instructions on every "how to" and all the mother know how life advice she'd need. Basically saying, "Don't think for yourself. Make the 80s just like the good ole 50s."*

*"FDS Woman." Yes, ladies of the 80s used a huge aerosol can of feminine deodorant spray to keep their smelly vaginas in check, and that, coupled with their big hair, that needed to also be aerosol sprayed, is the reason that we have a hole in the ozone layer and now everyone has smelly genitals from the swamp crotch caused by a greenhouse gas oven climate that we all endure for most of the year.*

*There's no irony being noticed by anyone, here, that this movie that came out in the 80s and featured a plot about radioactive waste coming back to bite everyone in the ass is being shown on television, in the 80s, sandwiched in between all kinds of products that we have to destroy our bodies with using and our environment in making. Nope, none. Ha.*

*"Go back to sleep America. Your government is in control." -Bill Hicks*

*Nice government citywide coverup of the night of horrors and incident.*

*And a great cameo by John Goodman as a NYC cop in a greasy spoon diner, when the CHUDs show back up for the gotcha horror ending.*

*Commander USA puts on his trench coat and heads out the door after the credits roll.*

*The USA network voice over guy tells us to tune in tomorrow at noon for All American Wrestling featuring the voice talents of Mean Gene Okerlund. Can't get much more 80s than that.*

3 stars for the movie (even being on basic cable and edited) 2 1/2 stars for the Commander and finally either 1 star or close to 3 stars for the cheesy, despicable ads

----------------------------------------

---- Marc Summers' Mystery Magical Tour:

*For some reason Marc Summers is out on a stormy night, on a desolate road, after watching a movie with a group of kids, when his convertible gets a flat tire and he has no spare. One: that's just not responsible adult behavior, but what would you expect from the host of Double Dare. Two: Why is the top down when it's gonna rain? And where is this movie theater out on a winding mountain road right out of a David Lynch movie?

*The Addams Family's John Astin makes a cameo as a disgruntled magician, breaking the 4th wall and airing grievances, before quitting his magician job at a spooky, old dark house in the middle of nowhere.

*Guess who happens to pull in front of the house seeking help. Marc and kids.

*Of course, per requirement for a creepy mansion, no one is there to open the door and it is a case of just letting one's self in.

*It's gonna be Marc's own personal "Hotel California" as a creepy, gloved hand slides Marc's picture into the frame on the Now Appearing Act sign outside the mansion.

*Marc is proving why more game show hosts aren't asked to act. This is a labor of magician love, so he gets to star in his own pet project on Nickelodeon.*

*There's the old googly eyes behind the painting following around Marc and kids. A staple of old dark house horror.*

*Secret passageways and locked doors, spooky setting, ominous David Copperfield esque magician playing an old phonograph record using telepathy, but Are You Afraid of the Dark this ain't.*

*"Connect Four" singing faces commercial from the 1980s. Another awesome board game that caused many a sibling argument.*

*Johnny is the coolest 10 year old. He wears his jean jacket over his shoulders like a matador would wear a cape. Every kid in town has gathered to watch him take on Milton Bradley's Simon electronic guessing slap game.*

*The kids are running around without Marc who got disappeared into a skeleton in a phone booth. Now, the kids are pulling the old 3 Stooges "Knock it off" things happening behind the others backs routine.*

*Now, a maid has shown up to do a Carol Burnett mime routine. Sad and beautiful.*

*Lance Burton starts having a swashbuckling sword duel with the killer ghost character from Wes Craven's Scream.*

*The silky voiced and animated bear from the Golden Crisp commercial. Whatever became of him?*

*A Converse "Conasaur" commercial featuring pre-historic lizards from King Kong's Skull Island and the old black and white Lost World movie. Nice.*

*Tyco Dino-Riders toy commercial. Dinosaurs ruled the earth once again in the late 80s and early 90s and kids back then had awesome toys, cartoons, and movies to show for it.*

close to 2 1/2 stars for Marc, and kids, inside Lance's lunatic magician's mansion. close to 3 stars for the kid friendly retro ads

------------------------------------------

Twitch City: Killed By Cat Food *Art imitating life without merit. Without Hope. So, Curtis finally leaves the apartment  and finds Hope, again.* 3 stars

--- Found Footage Fest:

*Clean Butt: Hands free shitting experience that's very dignified.* 2 1/2 stars

*Disney World, One Kid's Opinion: Although the lines are long, it's worth it.* 1 star or 5 Mickeys according to this kid

*Exercise Awareness Week: "The Wu Tang Clan of exercise shows" featuring an 80 year old govt hating bible thumper.* 2 strange stars

*Inline Skating Is Fun: Wear a helmet or have a sweet ponytail to protect your fragile egg shell of a head.* 2 1/2 stars

*Memorial Day 2000: For the land of the free and the home of the show us your fuckin' tits!* either zero stars or close to 3 stars

---------------------------------------

Spicy City: An Eye For An Eye *Cyberspace better than the shark tank. Tragic song and dance in a chat room lounge.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Robocop the series: What Money Can't Buy *A sick kid needs the "Sultan of Detroit Swat," Robocop, to hit a homerun off of a curveball thrown by an organ snatcher.* either 1 star or between 2 and 2 1/2 stars (This show is at odds with itself. On one hand you have the clever Robocop style adult satire of society, and on the other it's a dumb, mainstream, early 90s, PG-action tv series with all the cliches and flaws of those kinds of series.)

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Reinke in Roswell, New Mexico *"All Chinese look alike just like all aliens look alike." -Stanton Friedman, UFO expert.* close to 3 stars

Casey and Friends: Episode 10 "1989" *The setting is late in the 2000s decade. Some hipster-nerd teenagers find their dad's old VHS cam-corder and set out to parody 1980s era, "cool Christian" teens television shows that they still show on Saturday afternoons on the religious channels. Unfortunately, the "too kewl for Sunday school" teens come up short on the satire and humor.* either between zero and 1/2 a star or between 1 1/2 and 2 stars

----------- Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs: The Beast Within

*Joe Bob is all for mutant-insect sex with humans as long as it produces monster horror flicks.

*Drive In Totals: 16 dead bodies... 1 dead dog... Neck munching... Embalming needle through the chest... Electrocution... Disembowling... Head rolls.. Hand rolls..

*Joe Bob will be with the viewer all night for "all the insect sex info"

*Monster/murder/rape mystery and returning to a hicksploitation town where it happened

*Joe Bob knows about deep, dark southern mysteries involving can opener / electrical chord murders

*Yep, it's a strange one. Effeminite, elderly newspaper man patting out raw hamburger and flirting with the delivery boy who turns rabid and chomps on the raw flesh of the weirdo old man, killing him. Plus, Designing Women's man's man Meschach Taylor is one of the town's deputees. Ha.

*Joe Bob is making toy grasshoppers hump and questioning the strange, sexual tension of the movie. Like the romantic strolls, with a deranged redneck's daughter, by a swamp full of body parts.

*Joe Bob wants to know why adults can't watch innards, 'cause of censors, even after the midnite hour on Turner basic cable. I agree.

*Joe Bob threatens to go on Jerry Springer and air his complaints, because he loves the violence on that show.

*Being embalmed alive has to rank pretty high on the horror movie kill list hall of fame.

*The town drunk has figured out who the killer is, but the sheriff won't listen and tells him that he looks like "The high noon of a coon dog just leaving the swamp."

*The young lead/monster of this movie looks like John C. Reilly playing a teenage Dewey Cox / Lon Chaney Jr. Wolfman

*Joe Bob exclaims how Monstervision is better than Turner Classic movies, because instead of pointing out facts about Liz Taylor getting hickeys from lovers in 1957, he talks about dead Baptist ghosts in spooky Mississippi hospitals where they film horror flicks

*Joe Bob questions the logic of turning into a cicada monster that's never explained in the movie.*

close to 3 stars for the tv edit of the movie and 3 stars for Joe Bob

------------------------------------------------

---- John Candy in "Summer Rental" on AMC (American Movie Classics)

*National Lampoons Vacation comparisons, but Candy is more endearing than Chevy. His movie family, on the other hand, terrible... so far

*Stuck in a moving station wagon with a farting dog, yet this movie still is charming and nowhere near as bad as a 2000s era awful comedy with someone like Martin Lawrence or Adam Sandler taking their families on vacation.

*AMC is airing this Summer themed movie during the Christmas holidays, and showing a commercial for their upcoming Holiday hit movies. Bill Murray's Scrooged is gonna be ran for 24 hours straight. Who started this shit? I love Scrooged, I used to love a Christmas Story, Home Alone 1 & 2, and Christmas Vacation, but I'll be damn if they did not run these movies into the ground. 24 hours straight of the same movie is insane and enough to make fans start hating their favorite movies. They play Home Alone and Christmas Vacation every other day on cable starting around Thanksgiving up until Dec. 27. ENOUGH!

*Hallmark digital Holiday cards featuring the overused Charlie Brown song and more awful insurance ads guilting family's into life insurance. They're raking in the bucks off of sentimental feelings

*Shaq is sitting by a warm fireplace attempting to read a corporate Christmas story (buy our stuff!) to a bunch of multi-cultural tv commercial kids. How, sweet.... humbug

*Renters versus Owners. A Ronald Reagan type rich yuppie gets Haiwaiin shirt wearing John Candy's table at the fancy restaurant, after Candy waited forever in line, and his lobster dinner. Basically, the rich, who can live in the vacation town all year long, against the 40plus hour a week white collar worker who can only rent a condo for a couple of weeks in the nice vacation area.

*Rip Torn is a pirate in a rundown dive bar / Captain D's

*John Candy is one of those take all kinds of crap dads on a vacation from hell.

*J.G. Wentworth sure likes bad opera singing and people yelling out windows

*Run in with the evil Ron Reagan guy while sailing. After beach hiijinks and moving in to a crappy shack on the beach after getting kicked out of their nice condo by the real owners.

*Wife and kids go to a movie during a rainstorm, while Candy is laid up cripple after a sailing accident, and mom forgot her wallet leading to John Laroquette picking up the tickets for them and hitting on mom.

*John Candy's character should just kill himself now.

*Footloose Kevin Bacon poster on the lobby wall and teen daughter is listening to Wham! on her walkman headphones. Barf on both, but 80s nostalgia nonetheless.

*Flinstones gag where Candy gets locked outside, in the rainstorm, by his dog.

*Candy is nursing a hurt leg in a kids plastic pool while his wife is on a speedboat with a douchebag like Laroquette.

*AH, his luck might have changed for the better? The bikini beach bimbo shows up on his sandy lawn... with pity

*Corporate America has no shortage of insipid holiday commercials. They even try to be clever about being aware of this in some of the commercials. Bill Hicks would note that they're going for the "hating the holidays" dollar.

*There's a nude boob scene that Candy gets to be in (not his boobs, thankfully) and I wonder since this is an 80s flick, even though I'm sure PG13, if there were actual boobs shown. Since it was the 80s, and 80s PG13 was edgier, I'm thinking maybe they did show naked boobs. AMC doesn't, however, 'cause it's the Holidays and we still have Pilgrim and Puritan overlords and Santa watches everything.

*The 80s version of Larry the Cable guy has taken over Candy's bed, and taken up with his dog, while watching the Smurfs, during a beach bum party takeover of Candy's vacation house. It happens when Candy is next door checking out the neighbor's brand new boob job.

*Rip Torn and John Candy have a drunken debate. Who's tougher? Jimmy Cagney or Sylvester Stallone

*Ron Reagan voter is signing business papers on the coffin of Candy's condo's former owner. Uh, oh, 'cause Candy has shown up in beach shorts and a white sports coat at the funeral home. Candy's being evicted. Lesson: don't rub the rich the wrong way.

*Crooked rich guy's boat is called "The Incisor."

*As per requirement for all Summer fun movies, there's a challenge thrown down between the good guys of Candy's / Rip Torn's haggard pirate beach bums and the yuppie rich sailor who happens to be Candy's evil landlord. It's a sail off. Winner takes all.

*Candy's clan wins the battle of waves.

*Whatever happened to the Laroquette and Candy's wife subplot? Who cares....

*This movie just isn't as satisfying as Chevy's Summer vacation, though it had some decent moments. Sick of Chevy's Summer vacation, however, and never need to see it again. Ever. Cable has played it so much it feels like the other 9 months of the year and not a vacation at all.

2 1/2 stars for the movie 1 1/2 stars for the ads

-----------------------------------------

Northern Exposure: Sex, Lies, and Ed's Tape *A high concept man with his head on the bar.* close to 3 stars

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Reinke in Alaska *Where one's pee turns instantly into a popsicle.* close to 3 stars

Cartoon Network Summerfest: (2002)

*Maktar: A group of kids are playing flashlight tag, on the lawn, one Summer night. The light somehow shoots through the cosmos and is received as an act of war by a planet of oddball as well as kaiju controlling aliens.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Test Drive: Some white trash teens find a Transformer type robot in a junkyard and rebuild it. A zero suit Samus chick, from the future, arrives to reclaim it, and they aid her in a smackdown to stop aliens from destroying earth.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

----------------------------

USA UP All Night with Rhonda Shear: Beach Fever & Nightmare Sisters (1992)

Host segments for Beach Fever:

*Ritzy, early 90s UP All Night has just as good an opening video as Saturday Night Live, of the same time period, had.

*Rhonda thinks Beach Fever has feminist vibes because it has bikini babes relaxing and enjoying themselves on the beach while also karate kicking dudes in the neck

*Viewer mail: A guy named Ralph wants to exchange footcream in order to see Rhonda wiggle her toes in cheesecake. Rhonda shows off her comedic chops (which would sound surprisingly good to some, and they are) when she impersonates a New Yawk advice columnist, looking like the receptionist of Ghostbusters, complete in red wig. Reading a letter from a lady whose son is wearing her panties. Ha.

*More viewer mail: Rhonda reads a letter, while stretched out in a red miniskirt on a white bed, from the president of the "foot fetish society of America."

*Rhonda writes her wishlist to Santa while the rockabilly classic "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree" plays in the background

*A viewer writes in to tell Rhonda how he and his wife, inspired by Rhonda's succulent cheesecake covered toes, took a chocolate pie to bed. Kinky weirdos, but fun anyway

*More letters rolling in prove the value of old school late night movie hosts. People are not watching for the subpar flicks, they're watching for an entertaining host. If more networks still did this, they'd get more value out of their late night tv library & ads.

*Other viewers write in to USA network wanting them to put that "space mutant" Gilbert Gotfried off of the other late night hosting spot and send him to where he belongs, "SciFi" network, instead. Ha.

Beach Fever:

*Kato Kaelin and not Jackie Chan have beach high jinks against pimps/pushers, muscleheads, and sexual zombies.*

USA UP All Night Late Night Advertisements:

*A yuppie douchebag is tired of being alone at night and having horny air bubble thoughts pop up above his empty head. So, he spends a dollar a minute to call up "Singles Connection Hotline." next thing you know, he's dry humping bimbos on the dancefloor, just like his pal.

*Lonely gals and guys call "Phone Partners" for 99 cents a minute and find friends in the same town or across the country. Social networking difficult back then. More saxophone soothing, but expensive.

*Call the "Mind Maze" for 5 bucks a minute (wow, expensive!) and get X-Files esque phone sex, I guess, with a creepy guy back lit by what I'm guessing is an alien searchlight peeping through your closed blinds. Creepy.

*TeleFriend. For 4.99 a minute, you too can have a female "friend" to talk to.

Host Segments for Nightmare Sisters:

*A viewer is mad that "Macho Man" Randy Savage touched Rhonda, on a previous night's UP All Night, and the viewer crushed his beer can, spilling suds, in a rage. Ha.

"Nightmare Sisters" starring Linnea Quigley (1988):

*Sorority Babes in Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama meets Revenge of the Nerds. This time with succubus and a decapitated genie's head, named Dukey Flyswatter, in a crystal ball.*

3 stars for Rhonda close to 2 1/2 stars the advertisements close to 2 stars for Beach Fever and close to 3 stars for Nightmare Sisters

--------------------------------------

Erwin C. Dietrich's "High Test Girls" (1980) *In a picturesque European village nestled in the mountains, six scandalous Swedish sweeties service a softcore-sex-soaked gas station / grotto. Sex antics with plenty of tongue in cheek humor.* more than 2 1/2 stars

"High Kicks" (1993) *Jean Claude Van Damme meets Tommy Wiseau, without enough awkwardness to warrant a cult following or even viewing. A toothless & bloodless attempt at rape-revenge exploitation. Shot on video at Venice Beach. A mullet hairdo sporting Patrick Swayze type zen martial artist / drifter (private pleasure sailor) helps an aerobics chick learn basic self defense to fend off a haggard gang of goofy stereotypes. One villain sounds/looks like Artie from Howard Stern's Show, another acts all Carlos Mencia, there's even a Fat Albert body double, and the required Asian kung fu gangbanger.* between 1 1/2 and 2 stars

---- Red Letter Media.com presents Best of the Worst:

*Lady Terminator: Skanky Lara Croft has her vagina possessed by a snake goddess and becomes a Lady Terminator. Makes about as much sense as Terminator Genisys.* close to 2 stars

*Lost In Dinosaur World: A kid friendly, and painfully boring, 90s Jurassic Park cash in and half assed attempt at advertising for a theme park full of barely mobile animatronic dinosaurs.* 1/2 a star

*Low Blow: A kung fu Charles Bronson wannabe, who's inept and elderly, versus a could-not-care-any-less cult leader.* 2 stars barely

Red Letter gives a tie for best between Lady T. and Low. B. Lost in Dinosaur World gets melted by a hot iron.

--------------------------------

1201Beyond.com presents Riff You A New One: Raiders of Atlantis *"I downloaded a copy of a mustache." I don't know what that means, but I think it pretty much sums up watching this flick. It's an Italian exploitation mixture of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Miami Vice, A-Team, Road Warrior, Gilligan's Island, and Fulci's Zombie.* 2 1/2 stars with riffing and between 2 and 2 1/2 stars without riffing

"Asylum For Shut Ins: Video Psychotherapy" (2004) *A twisted, beatnik(?) ventriloquist dummy screws with the viewer's head for watching clips of screaming scream queens, acts of depravity, and horror gore. Often repetitive and headache inducing.* running from close to 2 stars down to 1 star down to zero

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Goes Noodling In Oklahoma *Savoring "gettin' some!"* 2 1/2 stars

Ripley's Believe It Or Not!: Episode 1 (1985) *Jack Palance pisses up a rope.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Obscurus Lupa presents: Gymkata *The Cold War had everyone olympics caliber athletics crazed. Beating Ivan Drago, having a Miracle on Ice, or scoring high in Tetris meant something. So much that Ronald Reagan's Star Wars nuclear program depended on the C.I.A. getting a gymnast into a Soviet neighbor backwoods inbred country's Ninja Warrior obstacles of death challenge in a Eastern European forest. The winner getting one wish. Ronald Reagan used that wish to launch a laser sky cannon and crumbled the Berlin Wall.* 2 stars for the flick and 2 stars for the fun review

Forever Knight: Dying To Know You *A psychic gets a little too close to the fire trying to fly with a vampire. I miss how 70s, 80s, and 90s action dramas would always end with lite humor, despite having a heavy story to the show. In this episode, a police psychic gets killed in the line of duty, after getting personal with our hero. He broods about it during a thunderstorm, and then the episode ends with the four lead cops having a laugh about protein shakes and tofu burgers on their lunch break. Game of Thrones and others should try this. *wink* 3 stars

Hill Street Blues: I Never Promised You A Rose Marvin *This town might be more corrupt than Gotham. There's a bully SWAT team with a tank for a toy. Corrupt politicians try to cover up their crimes using corrupt high ranking police. And kooky doctors think that dangerous mental patients are just misunderstood and shouldn't be behind bars. Lucky for everyone, there are more than a few James Gordon quality cops down at the Hill Street precinct.* 3 stars

Viper: The Face *Suffers from the flaw of many movies and tv shows of the time period. Too much emphasis is placed on the comic relief and it gets in the way of the plot. That being a noble ex-con stuck between a rock and a hard place.* either 1 star or between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

"Samurai Cop" (1989) *Set in a bizarre alternate universe where Tommy Wiseau makes Tony Scott style action movies. Three things that no one would have thought would go together so sweetly: buddy action comedy, softcore porn scenes, and Japanese warrior code.* 3 stars

--- Found Footage Fest:

*Even More Proof - Swords and Blowguns: Tips on how to have unsafe fun with deadly weapons for sale from the same guy giving the tips.* 1 star

*Hair Again: A picture of someone, with hair, is worth a thousand words, but the same picture, with someone wearing a wig, is pretty much worthless.* 3 stars

*How To Be A Real Man: Banditos get loco for HeyZeus.* 3 stars

*Star Search Audition - Nick Gomez: Carlos Mencia would have gotten zero stars on Star Search.*

*Video Guide to Successful Seduction: "Plan something different." "In public." Do it in public...* 3 stars

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Max Headroom: Lessons *They're censoring Sesame Street.* 2 1/2 stars

1201Beyond.com presents Channel 32 Bloopers (1989) *Hijinks from a local t.v. station in the Midwest. It's always the businessman, who's too inept to be his own commercial spokesman, that steals the show. See also: Punch Drunk Love's "Mattress Man" plus the internet legend "Winnebago Man."*  between 2 & 2 1/2 stars

"Broadcast Babes" ---XXX--- (1985) *So, big haired (also boobed) lady, you wanna be be a glamorous news reporter mindlessly reading teleprompter info about family housefire deaths and funning it up with the weather guy? Well, first, you gotta lay it all out, on the casting couch, with Ron Jeremy's wiener cousin.* between 1 1/2 and 2 stars

Future Schlock Vol. 1 *"It literally takes you to Funky Town." "My dad lives in a downtown hotel." "Girls like guys who get high." A mixtape with just the right amount of attention deficit disorder.* 3 stars

Wizards & Warriors: The Caverns of Chaos *Trust sprouts from bitter roots.* 3 stars

Look Around You: Health *"Between you and me, I wish I had never gotten out of bed this morning." That was before meeting MediBot. A 1950s sci fi style robot & mobile surgeon.* 2 1/2 stars

---- Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs: Soylent Green w/commentary from director Fleischer

*Talk about how this was an early environmental film in a dirty decade, the 1970s.

*New York has a population, here in 2020, of 40 million people. There's mass overcrowding and a huge divide between the the have(s) and those who have not.

*Romero would take this timeless, universal notion and apply it during the Bush Jr. years in Land of the Dead.

*Total dystopia happening here.

*When society is hanging on by a thread, women become property. It always happens.

*Joe Bob loves Chuck Heston in this flick. He thinks he's nasty and tough in a harsh setting. Joe Bob hates cutesy sci fi flicks. The ugliness of this one appeals to Joe Bob as he stands in front of kitschy, skull trailer decorations.

*You know it's a heavy film when Edward G. Robinson is crying over vegetables, because he hasn't seen any since his youth due to crop shortages and world starvation.

*A lot of social barriers have had to come down, due to circumstance, in this movie's world, but still armed men have to loom over like Hendrix's song "Watchtower."

*Joe Bob tells his audience to slow down and accept the slow pace of the film.

*Poetic dinner scene where Robinson gets to introduce Heston's character to a meal that he's never had before.

*Planet of the Apes, Omega Man, this flick... Heston was the king of thought provoking mainstream 70s sci fi

*150 bucks a jar strawberry jam on a spoon, from a suspect's kitchen, retrieved by the cop character of Heston. It's part of the plot and another scary, little aspect of the flick that really needs to be noted. In our real life, the prices of certain foods are always fluctuating depending on some issue. Right now eggs have gone up because of a bird epidemic, last year it was pork for similar reasons. This film is all too real.

*Heston's character is our hero, but, as noted by the director, he's lacking some of the more noble qualities of Robinson's older character who saw more earlier brighter days. This is saying that we're preparing a world for future generations, through our ignorance and arrogance and destructive deeds, where they'll have less and less humanity.

*Joe Bob, in character maybe, is getting bored with the film and thinks it needs a lesbo orgy. Maybe he thinks this will be above the heads of most of the drunk, late night TNT crowd.

*Chuck interrupts a lounge full of sexy ladies, and bums a drink and a smoke from one of them noting, "If I had money, I would smoke 2 or 3 of these everyday." In the seventies that would be a joke for different reasons than it is now. Back then, smokes were cheap, but now, he's right, you would be lucky to afford a pack a day, and soon it will probably be the way it is in this movie.

*Noting that the female character is nothing more than sexy dressing to the scenes and the lives of the men. Like sleak 70s furniture. Kind of like the whores in Game of Thrones.

*Joe Bob points out that Chuck is a feminist because he wanted the female lead to show angst about her situation in life, before taking her to bed. Ha. Touche.

*In this next scene, the governor of New York is taking his family to see the one tree in the state in a hothouse. In current, real news, the mayor of Portland, Oregon, took his family on the parade route of the Rose Parade through downtown Portland after a vicious homeless sweep to get the homeless off the streets so they wouldn't be an ugly reminder during the pretty parade.

*The director is commenting that there is no middle class in this movie. Only the very rich and the very poor. Again, it's where we're heading as a society.

*Joe Bob points out how the police, govt, and the rich would love to use bulldozer garbage trucks to scoop protesters off the street. Wouldn't they!

*One of the first movies to tell the truth of corporations being the new evil of society.

*Another scary dilemma of society in this movie, and possibly where we're heading with governments wanting to take internet freedoms and rights to share dissent away, the small group of humanitarian people are gathered in the one remaining library to read what information that they have left and maybe get down to finding out what the Soylent corporation is truly up to. Modern corporations would love to take our ability away and make us not be able to know what they're up to.

*The euthanization sequence with the sterile setting and the pretty music and pictures. I think it says something about 21st century people and our veal calf lives of pleasure.

*A classic gloom & doom tale about global warming and corporate greed.

*And remember, Chef Boyardee is Soylent Green.

*We end with Joe Bob talking about the next flick, on Monstervision, the Legend of Boggy Creek. And how the director was meticulous about detailing the true accounts of Bigfoot in a Texas/Arkansas swamp. This film was made around the same time as Soylent Green. Again, fast forward to modern day, we have real global issues happening in the world, and corporate channels like AnimalPlanet waste time and viewers' attention on shows like "Finding Bigfoot." History will repeat itself until the apocalypse.

3 stars for Soylent (the movie, not the product) close to 3 stars for the director and actress commentary and more than 2 1/2 stars for Joe Bob

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TV CARNAGE:

*Keep on rocking forever baby boomers!: Roll on with that broken hip. You have medicare.* 2 1/2 stars

*Gullible as shit: Believe anything a trio of Asian gangbanging greasers have to tell you.* close to 2 stars

*Need my medicine: Benji, the dog, and Chuck Norris on a drug bust.* between 2 and 2 1/2

*Mighty Fine Man: You Pay TOO MUCH!* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Pay day: Don't be nervous, 'cause you're gettin' laid.* 1 1/2 stars

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Six Feet Under: The Foot *And a heavy hand. I'm once again starting not to like any of these characters (except for the cop; as a person).* close to 2 1/2 stars (biased rating not reflecting quality)

Spicy City: Sex Drive *A Sin City Marv type butts heads with his cop partner. A real crooked dame.* 3 stars

--- Everything Is Terrible:

*Milk is sweet, bro: The cream always rises to the top. So, chew your cud, bud.* 3 stars

*Vitamix - Catch the Vision!: It takes 3 seconds to grind meat and dust mite feces.* 3 stars

*Woman versus computer!: You've pushed the wrong button, bitch!* 3 stars

*BUBBLES!: "They're your friends." If you get high a lot and talk to puppets. It helps.* 2 1/2 stars

*It all ends soon!: Feral agony.* 2 1/2 stars

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"Blue Ice" ---xxx--- (1985) *Nazi exploitation mixed into a noir San Francisco setting. Spliced together with so much grit that one would believe they're back in the 70s at some 42nd St. New York grindhouse theater watching it.* close to 3 stars

---- Memory Hole:

*The power of the Dark Lord: to create zany mishaps at church.* close to 3 stars

*God bless America: that old soft shoe soul of a nation.* 2 1/2 stars

*Real men meow: it's okay to admit it and to be timid about it.* 2 1/2 stars

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Rescue 911 w/ William Shatner: EZ-Mart Hostages vs. Woman with Rifle *Shoppers, redneck cops, & even the gun wielding psycho lady are all saved by a vigilante, female impersonator.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Bad Movie Beatdown: Just Go With It *An angry British guy takes a very anal (no Adam Sandler potty humor pun intended) look at another awful Adam Sandler effort. Just go with it. Lazy, uninspired filmmaking. Just go with it. Awful, horrible people celebrated. Just go with it. Rampant product placement inside the film. Just go with it. The very opposite of funny in a comedy. Just go with it. Movie studios and ticket purchasers paying for millions of dollars exotic vacation for Adam Sandler and his friends in place of an actual movie. Just go with it. And they go.* zero stars for the movie & 2 1/2 stars for the review

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Horror of Party Beach *"The day the mudskippers fought back."* 3 stars with riffing & running from close to 2 stars to close to 2 1/2 stars without riffing

A Haunting: A Haunting In Florida *Home ownership is hair-raising anxiety. Especially on sacred swampland once belonging to Native Americans.* between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

--- Beach MTV w/ Antonio Sabato, Jr. & Daisy Fuentes (1995):

*I used to have a teenage crush on Daisy.

*Antonio is wearing overalls and a wife beater. Douchebag attire.

*Before social media, everyone loved giving shout outs, especially from the beach.

*Stupid human tricks... First is a back-hand-spring, which is stupid, according to MTV, even though gymnastics takes a lot of talent, dedication, & training.

*Promo for the 1995 MTV Movie Awards hosted by Courtney Cox & Jon Lovitz (Odd couple there) with guests - A Baldwin (not Alec), Cindy Crawford, still a druggie & not an Iron Man Robert Downey Jr., Ice T & Chris Isaak, still an A-list actor Val Kilmer, and america's sweetheart of the time Alicia Silverstone. Performances by Boyz 2 Men, Blues Traveller, TLC & More...

*MTV is sponsored by Sunkist soda, a soda to drink outside, so they claim. Plus there's Eagle Snacks "What You Feed Your Face." (That sounds like a corporate slogan from the world of Mike Judge's Idiocracy).

*A Gen-X couple are on a jungle safari with Jolly Ranchers juicy candy and end up in a jolly rancher candy controlled temple

*"Drink in the waves! Ay! Drink everyone! huh!" A Sunkist commercial with beach party animals pounding 3 liter soda in the surf and dancing around with cases of Sunkist soda. If it was that popular, why is it so obscure now, and rarely seen on store shelves or on tv ads?

*An awesomely surreal Eagle chips ad where a guy scares off his hot date, because he has a creepy, chip munching face in his kitchen cabinets.

*Nothing says "fun in the sun" like a MTV artsy station logo reminder featuring a skeletal, black bird poking blood out of a still beating x-ray of a heart with white background.

*Next week MTV becomes MJTV as Michael Jackson takes over leading up to the premier of he and Janet's Scream video. Scream sucked, but they're also gonna show Thriller. Young ones don't get how big a deal Thriller was. They only played it on special days. There was no Youtube to go watch it on like any video ever. You could maybe own a VHS copy of it, but if you were just casually interested in seeing it, you had to wait.

*"You think you've heard it all? Listen to this!" Blockbuster is holding a sale for all their cd's for $11.99 or less. Even hot & new band Hootie and the Blowfish

*"What do you want?" "BROWNIES!" Duncan Hines "Hot Stuff" Pot sold separately.

*Visa, it's everywhere you want to be. Including the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway

*Arthouse ad for Nike & supposedly the Boys & Girls Club featuring Penny Hardaway's hoop dreams and struggles.

*A year after Kurt Cobain's suicide. Gen X can't mourn forever. So, here we are in South Beach, Miami. Woooooooooo! No more rainy Seattle

*Couples challenge... where a buff Guido (the type who'd get their own MTV show a decade later) guesses that a timid beach-babe looks up to Madonna (no duh! amirite, my sistaz?!) and they are pronounced "hot" by hooting admirers and get to "hook up."

*99 cent Batman Forever collectible glasses with carved images of Jim Carey's Riddler and other characters from the Summer blockbuster are available at McDonalds

*Bass Bomb 1-3 mix cd's from THUMP Records

*MTV News break... someday MSNBC news lady, Alison Stewart, talks about Eddie Vedder having to cancel a concert. Now she's pimping Hillary instead of Eddie

*Antonio & Daisy name drop how cool Dennis Hopper is for some reason. I agree. Can't imagine modern MTV personalities namedropping a badass actor over 40 much less 50

*It's also strange to look back at the era of MTV video disc jockeys. They've gone the way of the dinosaur. Maybe some other music channels still have them, but they're gone from basic cable music channels (which I still have). If you can call them music channels.

*Now, MTV is reality tv and MTV2 (which was supposed to take over as an all music channel when MTV began running mostly shows)... MTV2 is the Wayans Bros. & Martin Lawrence sitcom marathon station. Why this channel programs like this, and is able to survive, is beyond me

*Odd juxtaposition by MTV creative as we go to break with Ice Cube & Dr. Dre's hit song Natural Born Killers booming over images of beach hotties swimming underwater

*Launch Media interactive CD-Rom ad featuring a rip off of the rambling Aussie roadie from Wayne's World

*McDonald's superhero burger. It's what vigilantes obssessed with their parents' deaths eat while crying in their car after breaking a mugger's arm in three places

*Punk show 95, in Long Beach, featuring Sublime, among others, and a lazer light show. I didn't know punks liked that sort of shit. Thought it was only hippies.

*Six Flags Hurricane Harbor water park. I wonder if guys with fake Jamaican accents ever get tired of promoting the fun of whitebread families in vacation commercials

*Someone must have flipped the channel on this tape, because there's an ad for Dr. Katz. Man, I miss Penn as the voice of Comedy Central.

*TIMM, the interactive multi-media monitor for a computer. It even comes with a remote for dummies. Seems silly, but now there's netflix, hulu, xbox live, Twitch, all these apps we pretty much use on our tv in a similar fashion. TIMM might not have caught on, but the idea eventually would.

*One of the Friends (the one with the monkey) signs up for AT&T long distance savings  and flirts, nervously, with the tele-services lady. Lame.

*John Madden is a wizard ogre who can make jocks' feet catch on fire if they don't use his foot fungus healing potion.

*A male hotbody contest followed by a Bryan Adams music video. MTV, barf inducing.

*MTV News Break talking about the upcoming Michael Jackson & Lisa Marie interview with Diane Sawyer. Strange days, indeed.

 2 1/2 stars for Daisy, 1 1/2 stars for Antonio, 1 star for MTV, zero stars for those beach goers, and close to 3 stars for the goofy commercials

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Deadpit.com presents Retro Wrestling Night: WCW Beach Blast 1993               (a review) *Just two Kentucky guys talking about wrestling, while in a bedroom, just in their socks.* 2 stars or zero stars for the zero production values and shaky camcorder recording

Predator in Mortal Kombat X (2015) *Whoda thunk that a monster/alien from an 80s action movie would endure interest for two decades? While lesser creatures from the likes of Independence Day & Battlefield Earth reside in purgatory, this ugly son of a bitch creeps through the collective horror / sci fi fan subconscious. Collecting trophy skulls from popular video game characters, like Johnny Cage, and having horror fan dream-match battles versus Jason Vorhees.* 3 stars

"The Slayer" (1982) -uncut- *Edvard Munch paints a portrait of Freddy Krueger.* 3 stars

TV Carnage: Ouch Television My Brain Hurts *"3 weeks ago I was running for president. Now I'm on t.v. with a guy in a bug suit."* close to 3 stars

Red Letter Media presents Scientist Man Explains Terminator Genisys *Marky Mark escapes the ape planet and his tardis crashlands on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during President Biff Tanner's 2017 inaugural speech. Meanwhile, in the crowd, Travis Bickle bumps into Morpheus who hands him the remote from Adam Sandler's movie Click. He uses it to pause the actors, on the set of Pineapple Express, in 2007(?),  while they're having an existential high moment. Therefore, Rise of the Planet of the Apes never happens. Or does it? Yet? Or it already has...? maybe in another timeline.* 3 stars

--- Phone Losers:

*Church calls - Fart Demon: It was a fight for survival that broke out in revival.* close to 2 stars

*Disabled Postman: Inconvenienced by the impaired.* 2 1/2 stars

*Church prank calls - sex offenders: I'm required, by law, to tell you that I'll be there, on Sunday, in your house of worship, with my parole officer.* close to 3 stars

*Food Stamp Tacos: "Thank you for not making me any."* 2 1/2 stars

*Google streetview - There goes the neighborhood: concerns of the rich.* 2 stars

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WWF Summerslam pre-show (1989) *"A one way trip to the sun" featuring Hulkster, Tiny Lister, Macho Man, Scary Sherri, Brutus the Barber, Ravishing Rick, Andre the Giant, Ultimate Warrior, Bobby the Brain, and Mean Gene. Okay, Gene looks like he'd be a better barber than Brutus would.* 3 stars

--- Everything Is Terrible:

*God's muscle: Have you payed your protection money to the Lord or are you gonna sleep with the fishes?* close to 3 stars

*Join the military!: "I knew it was awesome, but not this awesome!"* 1 star

*Don't trust adults!: Especially the Zucchini Bros. Band.* 2 1/2 stars

*Let's get flairing!: Entertain drunks by juggling.* zero stars

*Bio-magnetic touch healing sensual rubdown: "When in doubt, just touch" the sensitive areas of naked men. "Aloha."* 3 stars

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"Super Mecha Kucha Happy Fun Monkey Bash DX Part 4" *If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, dip it in wasabi and put it back in skull.* close to 3 stars

"Summer of Tears in American Gladiators" *A sketch comedy group splice themselves into a "classic" & cheesy, reality competition.* 3 stars

"Snog Marry Avoid" season 6 episode 3 *The fashion-nightmare spawn of Boy George meet a fascist, ice-queen robot in a wardrobe.* 2 stars

--- USA Up All Night w/ Rhonda Shear (1992): Summer School Teachers (1974)

*Rhonda is dressed up like a sexy cowgirl at L.A. niteclub Denim & Diamonds

*This is a country/western line dancing bar around the time that "Achy Breaky Heart" (barf) was popular.

*It's nice to see Rhonda twist her hips, though

*Rhonda flirts with some big hunky urban cowboy yuppies

*Rhonda jokingly says that Ross Perot is in Summer School Teachers

*Rhonda recommends football strategy to prevent pregnancy

*Another strong women of the 1970s sex comedy from Corman's New World Pictures.

1 star for the honky tonk 2 1/2 stars for the flick and 3 stars for Rhonda

----------------------

"Summer Beach House" (1980) ---xxx--- *The thing that stands out most in this flick is the dingy yellow color scheme. It's on everything from the walls, furniture, floral bed sheet pattern, lamp shades. Nightmarishly probably still in the never redecorated homes of cat ladies, everywhere, on Dead End St. USA. In the malaise of their nicotine stained reclusive lives, they'd pull back their gown to reveal, to a stranger, a frighteningly wiry figurative pussycat. Also, I wanna comment on old school lady massagers. So white and antiseptic. Like a suppository. Now, dildos are mostly medieval looking & hot pink.* between 1 1/2 & 2 stars

--- Joe Bob's Drive-In (1991): Fred Olen Ray's Beverly Hills Vamp (1989)

*Joe Bob pontificates on what it would have been like if Wilfred Brimley & Regis Philbin, among others, had discovered America

*Drive In Totals... 9 dead bodies.. 11 breasts..

*Jerry Lewis wannabe Eddie Deezen is on the menu for fanged vixens. Highlights: dripping with love for kitschy Hollywood. Priest, producer, secretary, and butler steal the show. Deezen sucks. Bauer seduces as usual. Britt Ecklund underused. Some scenes like with the convenience store lady & motel cleaning lady felt more like the joke was our time watching was being wasted instead of the scene being funny, like it was an injoke on the set (don't do that, Fred). Tim Conway Jr., talented somewhat.

2 1/2 stars for Joe Bob (TMC didn't give him enough time to talk) & running from 1 1/2 to between 2 & 2 1/2 stars for the flick

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--- Phone Losers:

Dead Lawn Hippies: "My free speech is no to your free speech. I'm a loose cannon and into being organic." close to 3 stars

Convenience Store Confessions: Fine line between anarchy and being an asshole for no reason.* close to zero stars

FedEx Box of Ticks: "I know no one in New Mexico and I didn't order a box full of ticks." 2 stars

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Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Reinke in Sante Fe, New Mexico and Colorado *Riding the sky snake while with dry sinuses.* 3 stars