Flexible history - plus or minus?

[Kadeda 178]

I like the legends... knowing if it ture or not isn't super important. I feel like knowing daring do was real hit the mysteriousness about her but I like her none the less. In the game League Of Legends, there is a character named Amumu you can play as. His lore is simply fairytails for children. There's actually no proof that he exists at all. I think that's pretty kool. Knowing for sure is not always necessary.

[Latecomer 438]

1 minute ago, Kadeda said:

I like the legends... knowing if it ture or not isn't super important. I feel like knowing daring do was real hit the mysteriousness about her but I like her none the less. In the game League Of Legends, there is a character named Amumu you can play as. His lore is simply fairytails for children. There's actually no proof that he exists at all. I think that's pretty kool. Knowing for sure is not always necessary.

Now Daring Do I really don't like as real - I hadn't thought that there was a relation there, but now that you mention it... 

[Sepul-Coloratura 756]

1 minute ago, Latecomer said:

Mostlu what is given id ust what is necessary for the present storu, but sometimes theu do give a bit more as an extra.

What about 7/8/9's method do uou dislike? 

• How they showed exactly how it went down when Luna turned into Nightmane Moon in season 4 premiere. Also how Starswirl is suddenly so important and real in season 7 finale, but yet has not that much depth and specificity as a character.
• Season 7 finale was about legends coming back to life, but it felt like watching (a parody of) Endgame without watching all the standalone series. Their return meant to feel big and great, but their stories itself aren't that impressive and it's not actually an all-star mashup because they just appeared and mentioned shortly. (this dissonance is parodied in the Vandicators 3 episode of Rick and Morty. There is a reason that they started with 3. It introduces a bunch of heroes that are meant to be famous and great, but it just feels very empty and inconsequential.)
• Season 8.... is a mess and also season 9. It would take a very long time to sort it out, get it out of my head, write it all down. What comes out of my head first is the return of Sombra. How the elements of harmony kept getting more and more practical. The Grogar hype. Equestria being 'diverse' as if it wasn't the founding philosophy in the first place. Starswirl turning into a joke along with the other pillars. There are too many that I have to work hard to find a pattern and make it into something that I can describe.

[Latecomer 438]

7 minutes ago, Sepul-Coloratura said:

• How they showed exactly how it went down when Luna turned into Nightmane Moon in season 4 premiere.

I didn't like that eivher at the time - it did help evolve mi NMM headcanon in the long term, which is nce, but it was still prettu extraneous.

8 minutes ago, Sepul-Coloratura said:

•  Also how Starswirl is suddenly so important and real in season 7 finale, but yet has not that much depth and specificity as a character.

Well we knew he was real from the beginning. And I think he has enough chracter to fit the plot - mainline he annoys me bi screwing with mi headcnon timeline, but that's not the show's fault.

9 minutes ago, Sepul-Coloratura said:

•  
• Season 7 finale was about legends coming back to life, but it felt like watching (a parody of) Endgame without watching all the standalone series. Their return meant to feel big and great, but their stories itself aren't that impressive and it's not actually an all-star mashup because they just appeared and mentioned shortly.

It was kind of rushed - but this has never been a series that big on arcs and foreshadowing. How do uou think it could have been improved (ideallu without making it obvious theu were coming back in advance)?

12 minutes ago, Sepul-Coloratura said:

• Season 8.... is a mess and also season 9. It would take a very long time to sort it out, get it out of my head, write it all down. What comes out of my head first is the return of Sombra. How the elements of harmony kept getting more and more practical. The Grogar hype. Equestria being 'diverse' as if it wasn't the founding philosophy in the first place. Starswirl turning into a joke along with the other pillars. There are too many that I have to work hard to find a pattern and make it into something that I can describe.

As with mi above request, feel free to PM me if uou get it together.

[Kadeda 178]

On 3/22/2020 at 3:43 PM, Goat-kun said:

In the end, it's not about unreliable tales but unreliable everything. I feel like I must stress so that no big brain analyst shall feel compelled to argue stupid shit, that this does not impede a kid show. It impedes the fans themselves since lack of lore turns all our combined fanons into a Tower of Babel. I won't let go off my version of Harmony. Others won't let go of their sunshine and rainbows. Talking lore is only gonna get more like debate pit.

 

Yeah but that's part of the fun. Even if i don't agree with something or believe the complete opposite... I like hearing why certain people think certain things. It doesn't have to be completely shown in the show. For example, I think Celestia had turned evil and into Daybreaker before. The reason why is because Luna knew who Daybreaker was at a glance and Celestia mentioned that she wont ever be real again. Someone who disagrees might mention that it was all a dream and Celestia could be mentioning again to the now existing Daybreaker. There's nothing in the show to indicate either specifically. It's just fun. Debating isn't evil.

Edited March 25, 2020 by Kadeda

[Goat-kun 2,490]

3 hours ago, Kadeda said:

Yeah but that's part of the fun. Even if i don't agree with something or believe the complete opposite... I like hearing why certain people think certain things. It doesn't have to be completely shown in the show. For example, I think Celestia had turned evil and into Daybreaker before. The reason why is because Luna knew who Daybreaker was at a glance and Celestia mentioned that she wont ever be real again. Someone who disagrees might mention that it was all a dream and Celestia could be mentioning again to the now existing Daybreaker. There's nothing in the show to indicate either specifically. It's just fun. Debating isn't evil.

You are talking to someone who has used one simple yet plausible trick to make all canon characters, rules, and events utterly irrelevant in the grand scheme of all things while keeping them canon, inconsistencies, OOC, and all. In fact, I have to thank our glorious writers. Without the numerous inconsistencies and lack of concrete lore I wouldn't be able to port old gods into FIM with such ease.

 

See, throughout the years I have been advocating for better lore, but now I stopped giving a shit. It is foolish of us to expect H-Bro to give us all what we want and it is foolish of us to deny that there is no use for such a drastic deviation from official content. So for me, it's no longer a debate about ins and outs of FIM lore, it's about whether it should be rebooted or scrapped in its entirety.

[Kadeda 178]

18 hours ago, Goat-kun said:

You are talking to someone who has used one simple yet plausible trick to make all canon characters, rules, and events utterly irrelevant in the grand scheme of all things while keeping them canon, inconsistencies, OOC, and all. In fact, I have to thank our glorious writers. Without the numerous inconsistencies and lack of concrete lore I wouldn't be able to port old gods into FIM with such ease.

 

 

 

See, throughout the years I have been advocating for better lore, but now I stopped giving a shit. It is foolish of us to expect H-Bro to give us all what we want and it is foolish of us to deny that there is no use for such a drastic deviation from official content. So for me, it's no longer a debate about ins and outs of FIM lore, it's about whether it should be rebooted or scrapped in its entirety.

 

If you take things that extremely... you'll never have any fun.

[Goat-kun 2,490]

5 hours ago, Kadeda said:

If you take things that extremely... you'll never have any fun.

On the contrary. I'm having more fun playing by my own rules than I ever had when I was advocating for canon lore.

[Latecomer 438]

26 minutes ago, Goat-kun said:

On the contrary. I'm having more fun playing by my own rules than I ever had when I was advocating for canon lore.

 

Well in the end what matvers is that we have fun, right? Although some common canon is needed as a starting point for discussions...

[Goat-kun 2,490]

23 hours ago, Latecomer said:

Well in the end what matvers is that we have fun, right? Although some common canon is needed as a starting point for discussions...

When it comes to FIM lore specifically one should try to interpret canon without making stuff up, yes. However, most are doing what I'm doing while lying about it by concealing their own creations behind masks of canon characters. Besides, if one has to create a balanced magic system from scratch and rework fantasy creatures to make them compelling, one might as well burn the show bible.

[Latecomer 438]

2 hours ago, Goat-kun said:

When it comes to FIM lore specifically one should try to interpret canon without making stuff up, yes. However, most are doing what I'm doing while lying about it by concealing their own creations behind masks of canon characters. Besides, if one has to create a balanced magic system from scratch and rework fantasy creatures to make them compelling, one might as well burn the show bible.

 

And what is it that uou are doing that others won't admit to? Remaking things from scratch with canon as a mere inspiration? 

[Goat-kun 2,490]

2 hours ago, Latecomer said:

And what is it that uou are doing that others won't admit to? Remaking things from scratch with canon as a mere inspiration? 

The context of "Harmony is an eldritch deity" is that I'm a Lovecraft fan who is taking a piss out of spectacular flexibility of FIM lore, and everyone knows that it can never become canon despite that it cannot be disproven. Also, inventing a whole ruleset basically makes you an author, and by that point it's no longer "Twilight" but "Fifty Shades of Grey". However, the main difference is not in my approach; it's in the admission that unofficial changes can make things better for us Bronies or whatever we've become.

 

Then there are fans who like characters due to specific quirks and powers that they themselves granted to those canon characters within fanon while ignoring that the characters they are describing have morphed into their own creations. And nearly everyone has an OCs or two that cannot be canon* but they'll turn their cloak at the first whiff of mob mentality and start praising FIM lore cause I guess it's doing so much for them that they had to insert their OC from a completely different IP.

 

*Random forumgoer A: My OC is actually from DC universe and is the son of Batman and Catwoman and has the power to manipulate space-time portals he obtained by eating a radioactive burger. Totes not breaking canon. Muh multiverse, bruh.

[Latecomer 438]

2 hours ago, Goat-kun said:

The context of "Harmony is an eldritch deity" is that I'm a Lovecraft fan who is taking a piss out of spectacular flexibility of FIM lore, and everyone knows that it can never become canon despite that it cannot be disproven. Also, inventing a whole ruleset basically makes you an author, and by that point it's no longer "Twilight" but "Fifty Shades of Grey". However, the main difference is not in my approach; it's in the admission that unofficial changes can make things better for us Bronies or whatever we've become.

 

Well i was getting a vaguely eldritch feeling out of Harmony somewhere in Season 8, but it probably wasn't intentional. And the line of being an author is vague - I think uou can still do it with other's world and charactrs. And it's certainlu possible vo come up with stuff that's "better than canon" sometimes, because sometimes canon can be dumb -  although returning to the topic of the thread, if canon is flexible enough actual contradiction may not be nesssesaru.

As the self-made chracters thing - well it can get fuzzi sometimes. Most of the fanon background ponies started out that way, after all - and while one can reiinterpret them more freely than chracters defined in canon, following the established grain gives a similar boost t that one gevs from making fanfiction in the first place, at least among a certain audience.

[Goat-kun 2,490]

12 hours ago, Latecomer said:

Well i was getting a vaguely eldritch feeling out of Harmony somewhere in Season 8, but it probably wasn't intentional. And the line of being an author is vague - I think uou can still do it with other's world and charactrs. And it's certainlu possible vo come up with stuff that's "better than canon" sometimes, because sometimes canon can be dumb -  although returning to the topic of the thread, if canon is flexible enough actual contradiction may not be nesssesaru.

Eldritch Harmony does have the power to explain every inconsistency and out of character moment within the show and its presence allows the transition to the new system, but I also want to be immune to C&D whenever I put some effort into something. Not that this will ever be big enough to warrant such measures. It's just a personal preference. What I've created can function without FIM just fine.

12 hours ago, Latecomer said:

As the self-made chracters thing - well it can get fuzzi sometimes. Most of the fanon background ponies started out that way, after all - and while one can reiinterpret them more freely than chracters defined in canon, following the established grain gives a similar boost t that one gevs from making fanfiction in the first place, at least among a certain audience.

How is that different from my Harmony? The only difference is that I'm prepared to talk openly about it Flexible history allows Eldritch Harmony to be just as viable as any fan version of Princess Luna. Those who like the fan-created versions of Luna don't want her spot in the limelight to be taken by a bunch of tentacles, but they can't do anything about it cause it's all so flexible.

[Steve Piranha 28,722]

On 3/22/2020 at 12:14 PM, Latecomer said:

One of the things I've always liked about the show is how it tends to present historical events in a secondhand, or even more distant, manner. A legend in a book, a traditional play, stories around a campfire... we rarely actually see events older than a poni lifespan firsthand.

Now normally, I'm the kind who loves flashbacks and prequels and the like. But this abstracted method not only fits FIM well stylistically, but is also very fandom-friendly - suggesting and inspiring without binding, it allows for numerous different takes not limited to the show's rating.

However, I recently spoke with someone who had an opposite view, considering worldbuilding which told us nothing concrete a failure. In particular, they didn't see the point in Hearth's Warming Eve when there was no wau to tell fact from fiction - reproducing part of their complaint

It wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that we have no way to know if the leaders were really that shallow, or if it's just the mane six acting. And even then we don't know if it's acting for the sake of the play, or acting because of they personally interpret the roles. Even the windigos are something we at the time couldn't tell if they were real or not. And everything else about the play becomes indicpherable because we can't tell if we're to emerse in the play actually happening or see it through the lenses of a play.

Now you see, I agree with most of what they say there - but would swap the words "so bad" for "as good". What they saw as a big minus was what I liked about it. And so I figured I'd ask - what are other people's takes on the subject. Do you like the past passed down in perhaps-unreliable tales, or revealed outright like in the Season 4 premiere flashbacks?

(mirrored from Fimfiction, because whi should they get all the fun?)

 

You know? I used to not like how flexible with history they were,  but you made a good point. Very few in our world, mostly professionals in the area, are more deeply acknowledged in the subject, the average person is only aware of a simplified version, just like ponies. Also make ourselves our take of the if we want . Like a distant land called Horserule were there are reincarnations of a hero, a former goddess, and a demon pork fighting for generations. But this one decided to take a break because we got this hero reincarnation simply delivering gems to “Twilight Princess”