Thrashy

Never watched Snowdrop. Well, not all of it, anyway. From the snippets I did catch, it seemed a little heavy-handed with the sorrow, like it was trying to be an Oscar-baiting tearjerker. Animation was pretty, though. Double Rainboom, while mediocre, I thought was entertaining enough. Yes, Twi and RD didn't feel like themselves, but I did think the animation was more than adequate for a fan project. Seems like people like to harp on the animation quality for no other reason than "it's not what was promised", which, in my mind, is every bit as frivolous as the argument that season 3 sucked because "it wasn't as long as we thought it would be". (Then again, I've a tendency to judge things based on the merits they have as opposed to what they could've had, and that's just me.) Dusk's Dawn, well, it really is "The Room" of pony animations. But while it's shoddy in just about every objective way imaginable - much like "The Room" - I kind of appreciate it regardless, both for the legendary awkwardness of it all and for the fact that they at least knew what they wanted to do and went for it. It really is an "A for effort" thing as far as I'm concerned; stilted and lifeless though it may be, they still got further than my silly ass could get if I were to try my hand at an animated feature. Sure, I'd like to think my writing and voice acting would outshine theirs in every respect, but anything I tried to animate would look legendarily shitty by comparison.

Now that I think about it, Pinkie does remind me a bit of Michelangelo (from just about any incarnation of TMNT); kind of airheaded, but always fun-loving and down to party. And constantly stuffing their faces. Also, Big McIntosh reminds me of Silent Bob. For obvious reasons, of course. lel gr8 b8 m8 But I guess on that note, RD kind of reminds me of Han Solo; cocky, self-absorbed, caustic tongue...and fucking amazing because of it.

Well, sure, you can justify just about any radical shift in tone with a time lapse and a pocket full of clever exposition; I'm not denying that some fics can be written well enough for such a departure to feel convincing...but whether or not the reader wants that departure to begin with is another story. My point is, when I think of ponies - any ponies, not just those specifically within the show - I'm generally jonesing for an uplifting experience. That's not to say I can't take a good dose of drama or dark-ish themes here and there, but at some point it needs to bring it back to the atmosphere I fell in love with in the first place if it expects to keep me invested. Don't get me wrong, I'm by no means a stranger to bleak, "post-apocalyptic future" settings in fiction. Seen plenty of movies and played plenty of games based in such a setting. But I tend not to share everyone else's fascination with that setting, and more often than not I tend to find the characters in such settings less sympathetic. Maybe it's a sign I've finally gone off the deep end when I somehow have more empathy for fictional horses than most human beings, but I never said my head was screwed on that tightly to begin with.

Usually not. I get that people like taking the world of Equestria to places far and beyond DHX/Hasbro's "comfort zone", and that's all well and good for them, but I find it supremely difficult to dissociate ponies from the context of the show and IDW comics. If a fic goes somewhere the show would never in a million years go, I immediately lose interest...hence why I've never been able to read more than a few lines of FO:E before noping out. The world of Fallout may be interesting as all hell, but I'm just incapable of imagining these oh-so-innocent candy colored equines being torn apart in that setting. Now, if a fic is written in such a way that it could totally fit within the context of the show (at worst it might ride the line, but never crosses it outright), then perhaps I could give it my attention. But for the large part, I'm much happier looking at fan art.

The west coast brand of General American is perhaps one of the most sterile English accents of all, so I essentially pronounce characters' names exactly as they're said in the show. Of course, BG pones whose names are never mentioned might be a different story. Whereas others might be inclined to pronounce Octavia as 'oc-TAH-vee-uh', I pronounce it with a long A as in 'snake'.

Just about any Mario game would make sense. They already present fairly bright and colorful worlds, and pones would likely fit such settings like a glove. I'd say ponify SMB 3: put Twi in place of Mario, on a quest to rescue Rarity from the clutches of a diamond dog named Rover (and his seven children), replace the tanooki tail with alicorn wings, and presto - instant classic. ...Somebody make it happen. Rite nao.