Dowlphin

1 hour ago, Splashee® said:

I am trying to migrate to Windows 10 from 7, as 7 has ended as well. But nothing beats XP

Don't if you can avoid it. Win10 is a spyware enslavement nightmare, an insult. A massive step towards the customer serving the business.

The only Win10 that would be minimally tolerable from a privacy standpoint is the Corporate edition, but I don't think that's easy to get. But usability is an even greater step backwards than from WinXP to Win7.

I am currently running a Threadripper on Win7, and I cannot imagine what the future would look like. (A general thing for me, not just regarding computers.)

Anyone who has a 'fresh mind' I highly encourage to commit to Linux.

I am a confirmed case of PoVid.

44 minutes ago, powerpuff-tsubasa said:

This episode was really good to enjoy and learn a life-lesson value: giving the "lost-cause" the second chance. I was amazed to admit Starlight Glimmer had outdone herself. I never really wanted to like her after she attempted to reform herself (possibly that sob-story she shared during the 5th season finale) at first, even when she came across impulsive with her magic and problem-solving sometimes. Her speech did rang the bell towards the changelings, giving them an opportunity to help Pharynx defeat that mole-looking monster. 

I'm not a fan of Thorax. Even when he claimed he's the leader of the changelings, I felt like he came across as a wuss sometimes. 

Overall: I rate this episode 9/10. Good work Hasbro!

Her speech failing at first but having a slow effect was a classical story writing tool, but the initial comic nature of the outcome masked it so well, haha. Another lesson in there: Sometimes people need time to process something; then one must sense when it's enough and one has to back off, not letting that feel like a defeat. (Although when it does, that's probably an indication that it truly came from the heart; That's why it hurts.)

19 minutes ago, Carolina said:

I mostly thought it was a good episode aside from one glaring issue: The changelings just kind of don't transform anymore. Like, we see Pharynx disguise himself as a rock at one point and into a giant spider twice, but those were literally the only two times. I had to wonder why he didn't turn into that mole/bear thing (forget what it's called) and even thought that was where they were headed when they said that it could only be injured by itself. Hell, what if ALL the changelings turned into mole/bear things and took the threat on? I mean, I get that they are peaceful now, but why would that mean they no longer use their defining power?

Maybe because it was an expression of fear. When you cultivate love, you give up such habits/abilities and attain others that you need for the new path. And likely also for more show-practical purposes. Them changing into their new colorful shape would lose relevance if they could still just transform into virtually anything. But they retained some of that ability as portrayed, changing their basic colors between a narrow selection.

The whole Maulwurf story element was just a means for driving the Pharynx story along. In my opinion, without that  they could/would have approached the problem in a different way. (If the show hadn't aimed for a hippie clichée.) Because Pharynx didn't even bring an element of resolve to a loving approach. Instead everybody just gave him a nice farewell violence show. Sweet detailed writing though if one abstains from critical analysis.

As things one can be a fan of, nothing. But Star Citizen would be a somewhat distant second. I like it in part because, like MLP, it kinda represents a new way of doing things and a challenging of the status quo, or more simpler, it's fueled by love, which seems to always be a rebel thing, hah.

I occasionally use it because I have set it to accept cookies, so if a website makes trouble and I only need to access it once, or if a website uses Active Sucker Pages, I use IE briefly.

I would never use Chrome. I despise Google too much and it supports the most ruthless and power-hungry conqueror in the browser war. I also find it horribly user-unfriendly, but that sadly might just mean it's the spearhead of a trend that eventually afflicts almost everything. As a power user stupidity in UI design drives me nuts.

I am using Waterfox. (It's 64 bit.) I considered Firefox since it's now also offered in 64 Bit, but Waterfox does some things more respectful to the user (involving the topic of data gathering and such). I recently updated from v40 to 55 because major websites stopped working properly and it took me half a day and some more until I got everything working again as before, and (cynically not surprising) some things work less well than with the old version. Also my ancient Opera 12 (which I used until I begrudingly switched to Waterfox when Opera let itself be assimilated by the devil) would often display websites properly that the much newer Waterfox 40 couldn't.

And now Youtube does the next crazy step with their new UI which is more of the usual disrespectful sheeple-herding madness.

P.S.: Just learned this: Menu Wizard to disable fatal shortcuts and menu options is a MUST for Firefox! Otherwise any time you want to write Q or W and hit CTRL with SHIFT, all text you might have written so far can be lost with the browser closing. The person who came up with these stupid shortcuts should be shot.

The worst is, I was already using Menu Wizard to remove a dangerous menu item and wasn't aware there are still direct-access shortcuts and that those triggered a close, and it happened after I had typed a really long text in a web app with no chance of a session backup or such.

Worth watching. Adyashanti's whole channel is a gold mine, but this video is a nice summary of his basic approach. I thought this might be especially helpful to bronies, something they can relate to, are open to or in need of being open to. I found him when I was at a stage where I agreed to most of what he says from own life experience and working on myself. Very challenging times as always, and definitely the right message, getting right down to it. Sometimes it's just nice to listen and absorb, to get into a different frequency for a bit than the things that can bother us so much. A reminder. A recharge. A familiar voice. Not a guru to follow, but a human being to stand with when you stand with yourself.

Share your thoughts.

Or don't.

In any case I'm listening.

( Totally not creepy. )

Favorite quote: "Until everything is possible, we're not even actually inquiring into what's true."

49 minutes ago, Star Petal said:

...and the whole, "feelings" thing is really depressing. They took a dark army of violent war soldiers and turned them all into colorful pacifist hippies. 

This sounds so perverted, but describes what ails our society, especially since you brought the word depression into it. Actual depression is caused by a world that doesn't care about people's feelings when people see neither fight nor flight as a feasible option to deal with that. Look at how much depression occurs in various societies and then look at their typical traits. More fear, more spreading of emotional misery. Aggression is fueled by fear. It is a short-term workaround, not a solution. It comes at a price.

The episode was maybe a bit too clichée to convey that clearly, but I would think that by now the show itself should really have made people learn those basics. Amazing how much people can still compartmentalize.

The mind always tries to control, including what it cannot, and when it has grabbed a hold of everything, it wonders why it's still missing something. "Love is peaceful. ... The horror!"

Thank God we still have some shows that nourish love. But people are tempted to turn them into just another show, more 'adjusted' to the status quo.

2 hours ago, Batbrony said:

Now would you look at that!  Regal brothers re-united!

9 hours ago, StrawCherry said:

I really liked Scootaloo's line, "Big scary dragons… or more like Spike?" too much for some reason.

Will take her a while to be confident.

9 minutes ago, PathfinderCS said:

Just so everyone knows this thread has not disappeared; it's just been moved to the bottom as it natural with the rest of the episodes.

Thank you.

In order to see this message, people would either have to have found the thread regardless or be subscribed to it, and in the latter case the thread list will go unnoticed anyway.

At first I was: Camping again?! But then it developed nicely. This was an episode where you can enjoy the foreign culture themes, and I personally especially enjoyed the Asian one; The music made me melancholic about WoW Mists of Pandaria. I feel drawn to that style.

That also gave me the thought that if you want to fully appreciate the work that background musicians do (i.e. everybody except Daniel Ingram, heh), you have to watch an episode like this in 5.1 audio and then mute the center speaker.

When Dashie got stung hard, I was thinking: OK, how many seconds before it will fully reset? And as we know our animators, her face was perfectly fine only moments later. It's not a big thing, but my activity in Star Citizen lately involuntarily made me think "Better immersion please!"

Had no other thoughts about this episode worth writing about, at least at this point. But I can hardly go for prolonged times without a pun, so here is one, heh...

Light-version of saving the day. Daylight saving if you will.

P.S.: Somehow I very often find myself wanting to rate an episode 3.5, but the poll only allows 3 or 4, neither being an accurate choice, heh.

9 minutes ago, heavens-champion said:

It seems fitting they'd poke fun at the more toxic parts of the fandom. You see a lot of those kinds of MLP fans on Equestria Daily.

That's what one can expect from the manestream media. ;-)

I wrote a blog entry about something that just happened in another fan community that reminded me so much of this recent episode:

34 minutes ago, takai said:

the potential in having dragons and ponies come together

Great potential for chaos comes to mind, heh.

17 minutes ago, Conred said:

The episode was basically "opposite attracts" and in other cartoons it is usually retold using romantic relationship. I was always wondering with which characters they would this message premise. Initially i was 100% sure it's going to be Rarity/Applejack episode, but now i see Hasbro is really into Fluttercord chemistry.

Has nothing to do with "opposites attract", if you recall how, or more importantly why, Fluttershy and Discord became friends. And in this episode specifically it was not a particular attraction due to opposites, but just that Fluttershy expects Discord to do things his way, to be authentic, and a bit of change every now and then is always nice.

13 minutes ago, StoryTail said:

I was honestly wondering when they'd make an episode on Applejack learning the difference between being blunt and being "blunt" to the point that you're actually being harsh.  It seems the day has finally come.

 

It's definitely a pretty good lesson for kids.  You can be honest, but there are definitely nice ways of presenting your opinion without hurting others.

"There's such thing as being too honest, too" - AJ

22 hours ago, AlexanderThrond said:

Come to think of it, the mane six addressing that the public harassment rather than defending themselves from criticism then giving up probably would have made me a little less displeased with the episode as well. 

Wouldn't that have been too formulaic? ;-) I think it was a bit of a surprise twist and an important message. You cannot always expect to change the whole world and your influence can be very relative. There are influences that are overwhelming for anyone and then it might be wise to just take a step back and focus on the positive energy instead. It's an episode conclusion one can meditate on and I find it beautiful. - Also, they hinted that of course they will deal with the situation - just later, after taking a breather. And we can all imagine how that might go from earlier episodes, so we don't need to see it.

9 hours ago, StoryTail said:

Kinda funny how you can predict the ending of a lot of stories...

Because they're usually following a formula. And although the beginning gave tons away, I still found this episode to develop well towards the end.

We could explain Spike's deviation from his usual character with the fact he's personally affected in this situation. It's easy (and important) to be the calm and composed friend in a stressful situation, so now we know that Spike and Twilight are like so many of us: We give advice but sometimes need others to remind us of it. Good relationship where when one is weak, the other is strong, and vice versa.

As for the Changeling "pack", it's explained in the context. They are are group who still resists serving love. They're probably roaming about. Thus, pack. (Or was it in relation to the converted ones? In any case, it makes sense to no longer call themselves a hive since they're no longer serving a queen.)

1 hour ago, Justin_Case001 said:

Oh....uh....uhhh....nothing, really, I guess.  I just thought it was funny.  Forget it.  I just meant that for me, each episode is going to have this uncertainty thing going on, where I wonder which universe it will take place in.  And of course, this whole "tangent universe" thing is just a bit, just my silly way of grumbling about what I don't like.  Pay it no mind.

To make things even more cryptic but with puns, you could express dislike by using the term "Dannie Dorko episode".

On 20/08/2017 at 5:47 PM, Battenberg said:

I liked the meta part where the show acknowledged that Starlight looks a whole lot like Twilight.

That's not meta. We see them just as differently as they see themselves. It's just Ember that has a different perception. Very different from ours. So there's nothing seemingly hidden to point out. I never thought they look similar. (Would also cause problems since ponies have few distinguishing elements due to the show's visual style. So every detail becomes a lot more relevant and present.)

27 minutes ago, Justin_Case001 said:

Holy crap.  I didn't even notice that.  That's pretty cool.

Also, I was definitely right about one thing: DWK's recap was definitely pretty spectacular.  Kinda made it all worth it for me.  I've also definitely concluded that the show now takes place in two different universes--the real FIM universe, and the Donnie Darko tangent universe that has collided with ours.  Each episode can be thought of as simultaneously existing in the real universe and the tangent universe, and only by watching the episode will we know which it is.  I'm characterizing this phenomenon as Schdrodinger's Pony.

What's even more amazing is that among all the things fans do with their OCs, different mane and tail colors is something I have never seen. (Also haven't seen styling mix yet, AFAIR, neither in show or fandom.)

What does universe/dimension/reality entanglement have to do with Schrödinger's Cat?

OK, let's see. A secretly-entertaining-two-guests story. Not sure whether we had that before. Watching it didn't leave me with enough energy to investigate.
The problem became visible quite soon, too.
In such episodes that can be difficult to watch because so formulaic, especially for a season 7 ep, the little things provide the contrast. Spike exclaiming: "Fighting! Yes!" was very funny, and also Twilight's extreme portrayal towards Ember, or the reaction to the claim she is so much like Starlight.
I just personally don't enjoy this story archetype easily.
It did advance the character stories though, so that became the main driving purpose.

I found it personally disappointing that Ponyville folk is scared of pink fire breath.  I mean, seriously, how much nicer can you make a searing wave of air? Sneezing cotton candy? ... OH HEYYYY! IDEA!

What I found really good stuff was how Muffin Murderer  - I mean Ember - had difficulty telling Twilight and Starlight apart. Might seem absurd to us, but it happens in interspecies relations or even interracial. One is being used to facial features and general appearance of one's own kind and less used to distinguishing detail of others. That might have been hinted at here. Ember has a different perception, calibrated to dragons. Although execution in detail would then leave some questions, since Ember remarks how colorful everything is in Ponyville, indicating that she does have good color perception. Hm, maybe she just has trouble distinguishing different hues of purple. Hmmmm, but Twilight has wings and Starlight hasn't. OK, forget all that, I think she just has an attention deficit.

The coffee cup scene and possibly others before in the show indicate that the sun is traveling across the sky, really making me wonder why Celestia has to raise it in the morning if it's moving on its own anyway. I think this is just inconsistency and I find it a bit sad when Equestria is assimilated too much to our world's ways instead of celebrating the differences. (Twilight or Pinkie eating flowers seemed a rare case from long time ago underlining their... ponyness? Equinity? )

The charge scene between Ember and Thorax was so ridiculously time-warped that it has to be called a parody, but it didn't quite click with me. Probably reminded me too much of Naruto, LOL.

In essence, the topic of this episode was, again, severe neurosis. Don't we love our neurotic Equestrians? (Must be something in the water, considering Ember and Thorax acted refreshingly natural.) But it also showed how focus on positive outcomes can help with that.

The whole complex of lessons that emerged is beautiful though because in order to solve the friendship problem, Spike was prompted to change himself. He experienced the cause first-hand, him being the problem. So the message is that we create a better world by bettering ourselves and that being a teacher also means being a student.
And then Ember and Thorax help each other solve their problems, so this episode towards the end severely gained 'meaty bits'. Spike then learned, which should relate him to Discord, that sometimes you can be a more passive influence, less controlling, just a catalyst for bringing about the solution through crisis. Problems are teachers and people can assume that role. That's OK, too. ... As long as you don't make it your purpose in life, right?