Metaright

That's an interesting way of looking at it. This viewpoint didn't occur to me before, but I see what you mean. Depending on how you look at it, then, Rainbow Dash's pompousness could actually be hinting at a weakness, like you say. That's definitely something I'll take into consideration when writing about her in the future. And on a somewhat related note, thank you for the feedback!

I really wonder what has driven Hasbro to go so bonkers over things on YouTube. Do they realize how detrimental this is proving to be?

Over the Internet, and often in real life as well, it's incredible difficult to distinguish satire from genuine stupidity or offensiveness. Emoticons help, but then again emoticons are stupid.

What are you even talking about? Nobody's out to get you. Stop acting like any comment that isn't in emphatic agreement with you is a personal attack. You made a baseless generalization, I pointed out that this generalization wan't true. End of story. Nobody is trying to make you look bad.

That quote wasn't from the first page. It was post #25, which is far enough into the topic for you to have seen the posts that blamed their own generation. Regardless, whether or not you're aware of it doesn't change that you severely misrepresented the attitude of people that despise children today.

The problem with this is that it takes one aspect of the feature ("Use the 'Kick' feature to show that you disagree") and mixes it with another, completely unrelated aspect ("Too many kicks leads to an auto-moderation"). Basically, it makes unpopular opinions against the rules. And that's terrible.

Occasionally I attempt to affix my eyes to opposite directions, but I always get scared that I'll hurt myself somehow. As for clumsiness, there are moments when I feel like an utter klutz, but nothing too terrible.

Seems like you really missed the mark. Did you miss the countless posts in this thread in which people expressed disdain for their own generation? Anyway, I feel the same way; my generation is terrible. Sixteen-year-old here, and it's not much better from where I am. I struggle a lot with making friends and being social, so you can probably imagine how I felt when this person next to me shouted I love penis! is Spanish before receiving a hug from from some girl that thought that was hilarious. Or that time a guy in the school's library left his laptop open to use the bathroom, and people brought up images of male underwear models. They all shared high-fives, because that's apparently what passes for humor for my age group. Or those countless times the guys my age walk up behind somebody and start thrusting their hips, before sharing a high-five with the person they were thrusting at. I look at my generation as if I were a self-aware dung beetle in a colony of regular dung beetles. A significant amount of us are deserving of nothing but disdain and contempt.

If there's anything infamous in the brony community, it's the tale of Rainbow Dash's heroism gone sour. Season 2's The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well, written by Merriwether Williams, may be the episode most notorious for being disliked. The episode is notorious for having a regular placement smack at the bottom of "favorite episode" lists the world over. But what exactly about The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well rubs people the wrong way? The moral of the episode, wrapped up near the end in the show's signature letter to Celestia, is that acts of bravery and heroism are great, but they should be handled with "grace and humility". The Mane Six (sans Rainbow Dash) realized quickly that her status as Ponyville's number one heroine was quickly going to her head. Determined to set her on the path of righteousness and humility, the Mane Six concoct a plan: to pool their talents to create a hero unlike anything Ponyville has ever seen. Now outmatched by a veritable superhero, the wind is completely ripped from Rainbow Dash's sails. One huge problem with the episode is almost immediately apparent: the Mane Six's plot to put Rainbow in her place is incredibly mean-spirited. The only thing that they seem to have in mind to accomplish with their mysterious persona is to put Rainbow Dash in her place. From what they explain to Rainbow during the heartfelt conclusion, they were only trying to make her ease up on the bragging. But for a show that so emphasizes civil relations between friends, does it ever occur to the Mane Six to just talk to Rainbow about the problem? Throughout the episode, they aren't shown talking to Rainbow about their concerns even once. In this episode, the ponies are just zero-to-sixty with little to no provocation. Rainbow Dash acting pompous? Better create an elaborate superhero persona to make sure she doesn't get too confident! Their first instinct, apparently, is not to make Rainbow aware of their concerns so she can correct herself. The ponies going behind Rainbow's back to undermine her self-confidence through deceit and malice is not what fans expect nor desire to see from our normally cheerful protagonists. Does this plan even make sense, though, given Rainbow's overall nature in the show? No, not really. One of the core facets of Rainbow Dash's character is her great amount of confidence. Rainbow acting arrogant was not novel for the show, even at the time when Mare-Do-Well was first aired. This raises the question of whether or not the plot of the Mane Six is even effective in the first place. Does Mare-Do-Well begin to shake Rainbow's confidence? Yes. But does this lead Rainbow to ease up on the bragging, and to start acting with more humility? Far from it. Rainbow Dash does begin to act in cringe-inducingly pompous ways later in the episode, but this occurs as a result of Mare-Do-Well. Rainbow doesn't scour Ponyville for villainous jars of peanut butter to open (and demanding praise after the fact) until after the Mane Six begin to interfere. In effect, then, the plot of the Mane Six actually causes Rainbow to act even more arrogantly than before. For all of this trouble, is Rainbow even in the wrong for acting arrogantly in the first place? On closer inspection, her actions seem almost entirely justified given the rather unforgiving nature of Ponyville's equine denizens. Even in light of Rainbow rescuing a baby and several elderly ponies from death or grave injury, Ponyville is quick to declare her yesterday's news as soon as Mare-Do-Well shows up on the scene. They even go as far as to claim that they had "never seen such bravery" in their entire lives. They seem to forget Rainbow Dash completely, so is it any wonder that she tries to salvage her reputation? Bragging may not be the best way to go about this, but it makes sense that she would attempt to remind Ponyville that she saved lives before Mare-Do-Well even arrived on the scene. And such heroism in Ponyville is compounded given how terrifyingly frequent disasters appear to be. Even if the perils shown left and right in the episode aren't indicative in themselves, Rainbow approaches a cliff and says that "buses and baby carriages are always careening down this hill!". Even if she were exaggerating, it would seem that such events occur often, as she would have no reason to say that at all if those incidents were not at least somewhat commonplace. In light of this, it becomes even more understandable that Rainbow Dash would desire some recognition, and even more befuddling that the Mane Six would find her actions so inexcusable. This befuddlement comes to its zenith near the end of the episode, when Ponyville holds a large parade of Mare-Do-Well, which the masked heroine herself attends. Apparently being caught up in your accomplishments is okay as long as you're not Rainbow Dash. The double standard the Mane Six create is a slap in the face both to Rainbow and to the viewer. The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well does not sit in good standing with a significant portion of bronies, and it's not difficult to see why. The conflict of Rainbow becoming too pompous doesn't hold up, and the solution that the Mane Six concoct is not only arbitrary, but frighteningly out of character. It almost seems like the episode revolves around mere caricatures of the ponies we've grown to love. The Mane Six are cruel, Ponyville is unforgiving, and Rainbow Dash is singled out and pays a hefty price for daring to acknowledge her feats while simultaneously being Rainbow Dash. There are good laughs to be had in the episode, certainly, and taken on its own it's not impossible to enjoy. But when the ponies' actions and attitudes fly in the face of what we've come to expect, the experience feels more than a little disconcerting coming from a show whose fandom was almost singlehandedly created due to the characters. Merriwether Williams, your attempt is respectable and your writing is by no means terrible. Just don't expect us to invite you to any parades.

During my second trip to Disney World in Florida, I was unfortunate enough to be in the crowd during one of their signature parades. It was loud, there were thousands of people, and I almost got separated from my family. Now that was years ago, when I was a fair bit younger than I am now. Ever since then, crowds make me very tense. It's kind of amazing, considering I had no problem with crowds before. Now I just get filled with anxiety whenever I'm in a crowd.