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Why I Stopped the Marathon.


Sovereign Leader Rarity

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As some of you may know, some time ago I claimed that I would be going through the MLP:FIM series, installment after installment giving each of them a review, going into depth with each's strengths and weaknesses and just giving my overall impressions, thoughts and opinions on the different features that each season brought to the table. I was really excited going into it and, I really wanted to contribute something something into a fan-base which, I'm sure has so many other people who are older than me and more experienced than me when it comes to the show. I haven't been a brony for nearly as long as many other people have been and combined with my love, enjoyment and enthusiasm for reviewing, debating and animation in general, it was an endeavor far too tempting not to take up.

However, off the bat, I realized that I'd perhaps bitten off more than I could chew. With 26 episodes in a Season, 7 of those seasons as well as all of the Equestria Girls movies and more, it was all just too much. I posted my Season 1 overview about 7 months ago and, I'm quite proud of it. I expressed what I wanted to and, for my first attempt at a professional review, it came out just like I wanted to. However, as time moved forwards and I started preparing my review for Season 2, which arguably as the fan-favorite season and one of the reviews that I was particularly looking forwards to, I became aware of a few...problems. And, the more and more that I pondered about these problems, more problems started coming to my attention. Too many problems for me to just go ahead and release the review regardless and, I started to realize that, perhaps my Season 1 review wasn't THAT good after all. I still have some affinity for it but...I don't know. And above all of the others, 2 problems in particular continued to irk me the more that I thought about them.

If you'll allow me to explain my primary concerns about continuing, the 1st issue that was a problem for the 1st review and, was only ever going to become more of an issue as time went on was time management. That review was extremely lengthy to watch and analyse every single episode of every single season, complete the initial draft on paper and then to copy that out digitally, it just took too much time. Overall, that review took, approximately 12 hours to complete and, it was only going to get worse from there. Look, I'm in my final year of Secondary School, my GCSE's are coming up rapidly and my entire future is riding upon them. I despise school work as much as any rational human teenager, but in these late stages I really do have to dedicate almost all of my spare time to revision, homework and making a secure future for myself. It's not optimal but, sadly it can't be helped right now. My 2nd issue was that, maybe it's my age, maybe it's just my personality but I came to discern that many of my opinions on the series in the first place came from a multitude of sources (reviewers, advice, the general opinion of of the episode among the fan-base) were fundamentally flawed. Many of my impressions on Season 1, for example, came from an experienced critic of animated shows, a man known as John Enter, known to the majority through his YouTube channel TheMysteriousMr. Enter (I believe that it's just on word ), a person who's opinion I had the utmost of faith in. But after a significant blunder of judgement on his behalf and the increase of age and knowledge opened me up to the fact that his opinion was not fact and was rather seriously flawed. And, the more that I thought about it, the more that I perceived that this same train of thought could really apply to any source of "wisdom" or "professional"input. The purpose of these reviews in the first place was to reflect ME and MY opinions about the series and, merely repeating what others said about the same entity added nothing to the fan-base that wasn't already there. I needed to become to sure about my own opinion and to realize that it was just as valid as anyone else's and that my lack of experience was irrelevant in the long run. I could do just as well as anybody else in this area. I need to return to these reviews with more confidence in myself, that's the bottom line. And, with these problems continuing to persevere, I had 3 options. To continue the series at a steady pace and for it to be a constant obstruction to my time and school work and to be completely unsure about it at the same time, ultimately possibly becoming a risk not worth taking, to half-arse it and to limp through each and every installment, making continuous delays and false promises to you all in the process, which is something that I really didn't want to do as I want these reviews to be something that I look back on with fond memories and satisfaction in the future. Or, lastly I could endeavor in a complete overhaul of the series, which is what I've ultimately decided to do.

So, what does that mean in terms of the near future of the series? Well, on the off chance that you enjoyed the little content that I have already posted, and want to see more of it, don't worry. I DO plan on not only continuing with the series, but also, perhaps re-doing and improving the installments that I have already put out there. However, it will not happen for some time, certainly not until I finish my GCSE's, which, hopefully will be in July. Even then, I can only give a general idea, time-wise. I'm not going to make any promises that I cannot keep, so all that I'm going to say is that it WILL happen some day, hopefully not too far from now. I sincerely apologize for letting down anybody who wanted to see this series continue in the present and for not giving any sort of explanation until this moment, I was just confused and unsure about what to do, this is new for me and I want it so desperately to be of a quality that I can be proud of. As always, appreciation for your patience and concern, this is Rarity the Supreme, and have a great night.:grin:

One last thing actually. Just something that I want to make clear before coming back, is the schedule that I'm going I'm going to follow, just so there are no surprises when they eventually do come into existence. Comprising of every season, movie and more:

1) Season 1 (Yes, I will likely re-do it.)

2) Season 2 (Same story as Season 1)

3) Season 3 (Looking forward to this one.)

4) Equestria Girls (I've said it before, but I will be taking a look at the Equestria Girls series as well.)

5) Season 4 (My favorite season:grin:.)

6) Rainbow Rocks

7) Season 5 (The season that I've seen the most of.)

8) Friendship Games

9) Season 6 (Another controversial season.)

10) Legend of Everfree ( Good times with this one.)

11) Season 7 (Just a shame that it won't be new when I get to it.)

12) Equestria Girls Specials (A bit of an anomaly when it comes to the series, but I do plan on reviewing it.)

13) The Movie (The definitive installment, the one that I really want to get to.)

14) Season 8 (Because, let's be honest, by the time I get to this stage it will have definitely have released.)

15-??) Whatever lies beyond this point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image result for funny mlp memes/comics

(I thought that it was context-appropriate:grin:.)

 

 

 

  • Brohoof 1

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As a person who has been analysing and reviewing each episode since 2014 for my YouTube channel and personal record, I can fully sympathise with what you're feeling. It takes a lot of time, mental process and critical ability to push a review out, and doing so at a lightening pace trying to keep to a schedule like you've done wouldn't help matters. At the end of the day, burnout and a divergence in quality was bound to happen... hell, it happened with me, to where a break of SIX MONTHS was nessecary to ensure I could tackle Seasons 2 through 3... because I just couldn't force myself to persevere. When you see my process, it's easy to see why I took those precautions:

If I was to analyse a standard 22-minute episode, it can take me anywhere from 1 and a half - 2 hours to watch and pick the episode apart, and another HOUR on top to write up my conclusions and appropriate score. A 44-minute two-part finale or premiere could easily go up to four if there's a lot to take in, while an 175 minute Equestria Girls film can take upwards of SIX. Thanks to that type of rigours schedule and an abundance of episodes to look through over the course of many months, burnout was inevitable, and it delayed me going into Season 4 until a year after the fact. Thankfully I had Season 6 to analyse as it came out, which helped mediate and keep things consistent. It's taken nearly four years for me to even get remotely close to finishing all of them, but as of today I have eleven episodes of Season 4, all of Season 5, five of Season 7 and the feature film left to do before I can call it quits (until Season 8 comes of course). In fact, my review analysis document is 689 pages long, with over 320,000 words put to it, while the simplified version for grading, archiving and ordering is 51 pages long... AND I'M NOT EVEN DONE YET. So yeah... the life of an analyst isn't an easy task, but it's what we do. We chose to analyse this show because we love and care about its quality, that and it's fun to do so. I started my analysis as part of my University degree... and my review of the pilot became a video as part of my coursework, so that meant I could get away with bridging the divide and taking it to new levels, however, as you've noted, I wouldn't let it get in the way of your studies because outside of the video I did, it was one of the things that derailed my concentration and sent me on a downward spiral of stress that I nearly couldn't get out of... I got my degree in the end, but it was made a lot harder because of my lack of foresight... so unlike me, you're wise to nip it in the bud and do something about it before it snowballed into something worse, for the quality of your content and your studies sake.

After seeing your 'marathon' posts, and enjoying them (even though you and I disagree on some of the S1 and S2 episodes scores), I will await your return with enthusiasm. Us analysts have to stick together ya know! :)

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