Batman turns 75

This is actually going to be an incredibly short post for once!  Apparently, according to the Hub Network's Facebook page, today (or perhaps yesterday) marks the 7th anniversary of Batman's first appearance in Detective Comics issue #27.

For as increasingly overrated, or rather overexposed, Batman has gotten in recent years, I still think he's every bit as awesome as everyone says he is (to a point). I COULD go in-depth as to why I think that is, or what I think of Batman as a whole, but I honestly don't feel like it right now, so instead I'll just say, congrats, Bats! ;)

Friendship is Magic season 4 blogs: For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils

So I saw For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils earlier today...  Incidentally, many say it's a reference to the Ernest Hemmingway novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, but THAT was originally a line from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, and severall steps in my Sicknes, by poet John Donne in 1624!

Anyway, the episode...  *sigh*, I just don't know...  I don't want to hate this episode, nor do I think there's anything wrong with it, but it makes me depressed.  It's mostly based on the beginning of it, and also that it kind of gets personal for me.  Not that it's anything specific from the episode, but that the concept in general is not only a cliche I've seen dozens of times, but also something I just dealt with and I'm still a bit shaken from.  As a whole, the episode made me feel depressed, and I feel bad because I want to like the good bits, but...

...Well, I guess I should probably start explaining myself.

MLP:FiM season 4 blog double whammy - Somepony to Watch Over Me and Maude Pie

Okay, missed commenting on last week's episode, so I'll briefly cover it here...  actually, I don't have to, because The Mysterious Mr. Enter pretty much said everything I would:

Video won't embed, so follow the link here.

I don't necessarily agree with EVERYTHING he has to say, but it's pretty spot-on to how I feel about the episode.  Now that we have that out of the way, moving on to this week's episode: Maud Pie!

It would seem this is another new writer, Noelle Benvenuti...  who apparently hasn't written anything, TV Show, movie, or otherwise, before this!  So what we have here is a NEW newbie!  ...And it's quite good for a first go!

Yeah, really, this was a great episode!  Well, great might be stretching it, I'm not entirely sure it hit all the right notes, but it definitely felt like a good episode, and enjoyable to watch!  Gosh, not sure where to start.  This time, I'm going to go back into in-depth mode!  How y'all are ready!

I should probably first say that this is the first episode I saw when it aired in a while, since someone at my work asked me to trade shifts with him, so I'm supposedly working later tonight.  I would have commented on this episode sooner had I not needed to drop my sister off somewhere...  Anyway, onto the episode!

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic season 4 blog: It Ain't Easy Being Breezies

Easy Breezy Beautiful Covergirl!  ...Have I made that joke already?  Well, even if I did, I hope I'm not the only one who made that joke, though I haven't been reading what people have been saying about the episode, so I wouldn't know.

But yeah, I was away last Saturday, and thus missed the episode.  I just saw it today because procrastination.  Now that I've seen it...

OMG THIS EPISODE IS SO CUTE!!!  The Breezies themselves aren't that cute, at least until they started talking!  Those high-pitched voices, ESPECIALLY coupled with that different language, plus Seabreeze's accent, like, oh man, I can't take it!  I also can't take when my recording (or maybe it happened when it aired, just in general, but whatever) starts wonking out and the audio stops working briefly in the middle.  I still got a lot of what happened, but still, that annoyed me.

Okay, so, don't feel like going over the episode chronologically, so I'll just point out stuff that stuck out in my mind...

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic season 4 blog - Twilight Time

I wan to open this by saying, in regards to Amy Keating Rogers and last week's episode, I'm greatly troubled to see how people reacted in such an extreme way towards Ms. Rogers.  Regardless of how well she writes her episodes of the characters, she did not deserve the treatment she got, nor should anyone have to go through what she did.  Because of that, I'm finally going to get a Twitter account an apologize for the actions of my fellow Bronies and give her my condolences...

HOWEVER!

I will also make it clear that, despite the extreme reaction being uncalled for, she DID poorly write Pinkie Pie in such a way that created such a reaction.  I'm not saying she had it coming, not at all, I'm saying that there's a reason for everything, and I think it's clear that a lot of people, myself included, didn't like how Pinkie Pie acted in Filli Vanilli.  Speaking only for myself, I've never been a fan of Pinkie's innocent insensitivity, but the levels in which she went to in Filli Vanilli is easily the worst I've ever seen from Pinkie Pie, even worse then my previous most-hated Pinkie moment, that being when she stalked and pestered Cranky Doodle Donkey at the end of A Friend in Deed.  And I honestly don't care if people actually found Pinkie funny, or if they can somehow justify it, the fact of the matter is I don't want to see this happen again, and I want Amy Keating Rogers to realize this and not dismiss all the criticisms at the episode as blind hatred.  What I'm getting at is, I sympathize, even empathize with her a bit, but I also want her to grow into a better, more skilled writer in the process.

...And that nicely ties into this episode and Dave Polsky.  Dave Polsky recently stated on Twitter that he's trying his hardest to get rid of his status as the most controversial writer for the show.  And as much I don't care for him as a writer, I can't really blame him, because while I outright despise his first two episode, a lot of his more recent episodes seem to be trying to be good but still somehow manage to be controversial; Too Many Pinkie Pies had a questionable method of getting rid of all the Pinkie clones, Spike At Your Service had a cliched plot that came at the expect of Spike's character, Keep Calm and Flutter On...  oy vey...  Games Ponies Play had a plot that could easily be resolved in 5 seconds tops, and a resolution that made no sense, Daring Don't made a previously thought to be fictional character "real", and Rarity Takes Manehatten had ponies not acknowledge Twilight was a princess...  Ironic, since this episode seems to be all about Twilight's princesshood.

Let me get this right off the bat: no, I didn't like the episode.  Which is not to say that it's bad, I just really didn't care for it.  See, that's the thing about me, I try to acknowledge when something is good or bad, or just not for me personally.  I'm sure from a technical standpoint, it's decent, and I'm sure many people could get some enjoyment out of it...  I didn't.  I honestly don't want to argue about it, because lord knows I've argued too much lately.  In fact, what I said at the beginning is kind of why I won't be as in-depth this time around.  I doubt I would have liked it anyway, even if the whole AKR Pinkie fiasco didn't happen, but it certainly didn't help, either.  Anyway, let's get to this...

Filli Vanilli: MLP Season 4 Being Too Gimmicky?

So I was in the middle of a discussion on a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic forum I go to, when a thought occured to me...  According to Amy Keating Rogers on Twitter, this episode was originally going to be called "The Return of Flutterguy", before it was decided that that would be too spoilery...  That had me thinking...

This season seems to be all about gimmicks, as in each episode seems to be selling itself on a single gimmick, and the episode seems to be built around it as opposed to something that makes sense in the context of the series, thinking about how the characters would react in a certain situation, or anything like that.  Castle Mane-ia was a pretty flat "spooky" episode, Daring Don't's gimmick was Daring Do, a previously thought fictional character, being real, Power Ponies was a BLATANT comic book episode that felt completely interchangeable with any other TV series, Bats! felt like an excuse to turn Fluttershy into a bat, Three's a Crowd having Discord faking being sick just because, and now this, an episode that seems to want to bring back the Flutterguy voice.

I should note that that doesn't mean this season is all that bad, or only has gimmicky episodes.  Rarity Takes Manehatten, Pinkie Apple Pie, and Simple Ways feel like episodes right out of any previous season (though in the case of Rarity Takes Manehatten, that's kind of bad, given the whole "no one notices Twilight's a princess, but that's another discussion).  Hell, even episodes that DO have something of a gimmick, Flight to the Finish being both about Scootaloo's flight problems and tying into the Equestria Games subplot, Pinkie's Pride guest starring Weird Al Yankovic, and even this very episode, managed to make the episode more meaningful using that gimmick, as opposed to the other episodes, in which the gimmick drives the whole plot.

But here's the thing about this episode...  in retrospect, I feel like this episode's gimmick was thought up before the episode.  It feels like "hey, let's make an episode where the Flutterguy voice comes back, the fans really liked that!"  Part of me feels like this is kind of a bad way to go about this, since it opens up a lot of questions...  like how come Zecora has a potion that can instantly regrow chipped teeth yet her cure for a sore throat takes more then a day, why do the ponies refer to her manly voice as Flutterguy when it was originally used as teasing nickname from Spike, why did the ponies applaud a clearly female pony that has a really deep male voice instead of laughing, etc.  Like I said, the episode manages to address the idea of loving to perform but hating performing in front of an audience spectacularly well, but I feel like you could have done that WITHOUT the gimmick of the Flutterguy voice.

Eh, this was just a thought I had, and while I feel like this might be an issue with this episode (and season 4 as a whole) I don't think it's AS bad as Pinkie's characterization in this episode.  Like I said, the episode is done really well, despite the gimmick possibly holding it back.  Here's hoping the writers get more introspective with the series as opposed to just throwing ideas out there and fitting them into the plot later on.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic season 4 blogs - Filli Vanilli

Well, this was an interesting episode!  I started out thinking I'd hate this episode, but it turned out I loved it!  It might just be one of my new favorites, despite one major, consistent problem.  Still, I can't help but adore this episode, and I'll get to why...

First let my just say, HELLO AMY KEATING ROGERS, glad to see you're back again!  ...Sort of.  I have to admit, I was never all that fond of A.K.R. as a writer, specifically sense a lot of her episodes then to leave me...  very angry or annoyed.  But hey, she won back some good will with Pinkie's Pride, so maybe she'll do well here!  Hopefully...  With any luck.  Anyway, onto the actual episode.