Could you possible be any more judgemental? Some people go on holidays, you know. Sometimes for weeks or even months! I can't even imagine what you must think about those negligent bastards. And even if someone doesn't care about employment, school or family, so what? Just because their priorities aren't the same as yours or the majority's doesn't mean they're somehow screwed up.
Joined: 6/5/2006
Posts: 188
Location: Malmö, Sweden
So gais, Pinkie's Smile song leaves me in joyful tears whenever I hear it. <3 this show.
Even the best player is limited by the speed of his fingers, or his mind's ability to control them. But what happens when speed is not a factor, when theory becomes reality?
Dear Princess Celestia:
I learned today that by destroying people's personal property, harassing them constantly, and stalking them will turn anybody into your friend for life! It's an amazing lesson in friendship!
Party with my new friends!
Pinkie Pie
Nope, dead serious. Camping out in front of the theater for a week to see a film indicates the person has severely fucked up priorities in life and/or is neglecting employment, school, and family.
Could you possible be any more judgemental?
A lot of people use "judgmental" as a dirty word nowadays. It's not. In many instances, "judgmental" simply means "using your fucking brain, instead of turning it off, and putting blinders on for fear of offending someone".
Kyrismys wrote:
Some people go on holidays, you know. Sometimes for weeks or even months! I can't even imagine what you must think about those negligent bastards. And even if someone doesn't care about employment, school or family, so what? Just because their priorities aren't the same as yours or the majority's doesn't mean they're somehow screwed up.
You're kind of proving my point. Anyone who equates a week-long vacation (whether by themselves or with family) with camping out on the streets in front of a movie theater is fucking nuts. Unless you're a homeless bum.
Warp wrote:
I couldn't have said it better myself.
You can't just write "if you believe 2 plus 2 makes 4, then you're an idiot!" You actually have to provide a reason.
Sir VG wrote:
Dear Princess Celestia:
I learned today that by destroying people's personal property, harassing them constantly, and stalking them will turn anybody into your friend for life! It's an amazing lesson in friendship!
Party with my new friends!
Pinkie Pie
Haha. I definitely think the show would be funnier with more of a self-deprecating, ironic streak!
So gais, Pinkie's Smile song leaves me in joyful tears whenever I hear it. <3 this show.
I dunno. I thought it was one of their weakest (if not their outright weakest) "featured" songs. For starters, it just isn't my kind of music, but I don't want to focus on that. I think what really bugs me about it is that it's the first major song that doesn't advance the plot at all.
• Winter Wrap Up demonstrated what all the ponies do.
• Art of the Dress did a fantastic job of showing Rarity coming unhinged under the pressure.
• At the Gala was filled with optimism that set the mane six up for disappointment later in the episode.
• Find a Pet showed how picky Rainbow Dash is (and was just awesome anyway).
• The Flim Flam Brothers was like the Simpsons' Monorail song, winding the crowd up into senseless enthusiasm.
• The Perfect Stallion was short and sweet, showcasing the many ineligible bachelors around Ponyville.
Pinkie Pie's Smile Song? It really just tells us what we already know: Pinkie Pie is friendly to everyone and likes spreading cheer. Sure, that point ended up being the focus of the episode, but the song seemed like pure fluff.
Just for fun, I'd rank the songs:
1) Find a Pet
2) Art of the Dress
3) The Flim Flam Brothers
4) Winter Wrap Up
5) The Perfect Stallion
6) Smile Song
7) At the Gala
I was thinking about it recently and I realized that one of the things I value most in a good song is its rhyme scheme. That's why I especially like Find a Pet and Art of the Dress-- their rhymes are unexpected and keep you on your toes. At the Gala almost forgoes a rhyme scheme.
Anyway, that's all just my opinion. I'm really glad you (and lots of others) enjoyed the song. No reason not to have more songs to suit different fans' tastes.
Pinkie Pie's Smile Song? It really just tells us what we already know: Pinkie Pie is friendly to everyone and likes spreading cheer. Sure, that point ended up being the focus of the episode, but the song seemed like pure fluff.
I'd say that if the song caused emotions on someone, it succeeded in its goal perfectly. What more could a song wish for?
(And no love for "you gotta share, you gotta care"?-) )
Pinkie Pie's Smile Song? It really just tells us what we already know: Pinkie Pie is friendly to everyone and likes spreading cheer. Sure, that point ended up being the focus of the episode, but the song seemed like pure fluff.
I'd say that if the song caused emotions on someone, it succeeded in its goal perfectly. What more could a song wish for?
(And no love for "you gotta share, you gotta care"?-) )
I actually had a conversation on this topic with a friend just the other night. I explained that I value experiences over emotions. From his response (and other people's tastes), I get the feeling I'm a little unusual in that regard.
The Smile Song is certainly the happiest song on the show (edging out Winter Wrap Up), but it's this sort of endless, unjustified exuberance that makes it a little creepy. I think it's unsettling for the same reason people don't like clowns-- with nothing but happiness, there's no underlying drama and it sits at the bottom of the uncanny valley. I'd have preferred another verse in The Perfect Stallion to the ending chorus in the Smile Song.
As for You Gotta Share, You Gotta Care, I excluded the Pinkie Pie songs because they're on a whole other level (and YGS, YGC is by far my favorite Pinkie Pie song). More subtle exclusions were So Many Wonders and the Cutie Mark Crusaders Song. So Many Wonders was too short for me to consider it a "full" song, plus Fluttershy is by far my favorite pony, so I didn't feel like I could fairly rate it. The Cutie Mark Crusaders Song was hilarious, but because it's so bad it's good (not unlike Pinkie Pie's songs), I didn't know where to put it on the list.
As for You Gotta Share, You Gotta Care, I excluded the Pinkie Pie songs because they're on a whole other level (and YGS, YGC is by far my favorite Pinkie Pie song).
What I really admire in that song is its pure genius: It's a believably awful song (in other words, it does not break willing suspension of disbelief that the characters listening to the performance think that it's just awful), yet it's still very catchy and well-made.
Joined: 6/5/2006
Posts: 188
Location: Malmö, Sweden
I see your point Bobo. Though I'd say that At the Gala does the exact same thing (tells us through song something we, as followers of the show, already know(they're really excited about going to the gala) as a setup for a later point), but I guess I'm not surprised you ranked that low too then^^.
I really won't put Smile! above Find a Pet, Art of the Dress or Winter Wrap Up musically. I just get this unbridled sense of warmth and joy from it.
And since Party of One, I constantly think of Pinkie's almost unnatural urge to please others as more compulsive than anything. So I can't really agree with the uncanny valley comment :P.
Even the best player is limited by the speed of his fingers, or his mind's ability to control them. But what happens when speed is not a factor, when theory becomes reality?
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
To briefly go back to a previous topic, if someone wants to spend a week of their life sitting in front of a theater, okay, sure, more power to them. Not gonna stop me from thinking, "Good grief, life is too precious to waste doing nothing in front of a theater! Go home and do something, y'know, useful!"
On the topic of songs: I haven't heard all of them, but by and large I find myself not wanting to listen. "Giggle at the Ghosties" may be infectious, but it's a bad, annoying sort of infectious. The CMC performance and You Gotta Share may have been intended to be bad, but that doesn't make up for them being bad; having characters in the show snark about how awful that was simply doesn't win me over.
Pinkie's Invitation has a decent melody, but the lyrics! Just like almost every other song in the show, the lyrics are reminiscent of something a high school senior wrote during the poetry unit in English class just to get their instructors off their back. The words and rhymes don't flow very well.
Art of the Dress is probably the best of the ones I've heard since Tabitha is a great singer and is overall very fun, but is docked points for ripping almost wholesale from other sources and including such asinine lyrics as, "I'm stitching Twilight's dress!" Um, okay?
Oddly, I find both of Pinky's songs in The Ticketmaster to be okay. Nothing good, nothing bad.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
I see your point Bobo. Though I'd say that At the Gala does the exact same thing (tells us through song something we, as followers of the show, already know(they're really excited about going to the gala) as a setup for a later point), but I guess I'm not surprised you ranked that low too then^^.
Bingo. Its biggest crime, however, is having an almost non-existent rhyme scheme.
Dragonfangs wrote:
And since Party of One, I constantly think of Pinkie's almost unnatural urge to please others as more compulsive than anything. So I can't really agree with the uncanny valley comment :P.
She is by far the most cartoonish of the mane six. I think she makes an outstanding supporting character but I have some trouble enjoying episodes where she's the focus. A little bit of Pinkie goes a long way.
Ferret Warlord wrote:
To briefly go back to a previous topic...
(I wouldn't encourage that...)
Ferret Warlord wrote:
... if someone wants to spend a week of their life sitting in front of a theater, okay, sure, more power to them. Not gonna stop me from thinking, "Good grief, life is too precious to waste doing nothing in front of a theater! Go home and do something, y'know, useful!"
I had a similar thought earlier tonight. I think cosplaying is an ugly waste of time but-- crucially-- I almost always keep that opinion to myself. If I run into a topic on cosplay, I just think, "Welp, it's my own damn fault for clicking on it. They're not hurting me."
Ferret Warlord wrote:
On the topic of songs: I haven't heard all of them, but by and large I find myself not wanting to listen. "Giggle at the Ghosties" may be infectious, but it's a bad, annoying sort of infectious.
I'm really impressed with the storyboarding throughout the show, but especially during the songs. Here's a link to Giggle at the Ghosties, which you can mute to spare your ears, but I'll make a few comments on the details:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tiynTPuUUM
0:15-- Cute dance.
0:18-- Butt wiggle.
0:22-- Pinkie defying gravity as usual.
0:28-- You've got to love that jumping animation (I think they've used it several times throughout the show).
0:38-- Effing adorable. My mother used to call that kind of look "Stimpy eyes", in reference to Ren and Stimpy, when Stimpy would squint by raising his lower eyelids.
0:40-- Pinkie presses into Rainbow Dash's face, much to her disapproval.
0:47-- A great, sweeping arm movement.
0:50-- This is my favorite Pinkie Pie face of all time.
The rest of the song is fairly standard with not much to note. If we were judging it just on the merits of the song alone, I'd probably agree with you.
Ferret Warlord wrote:
The CMC performance and You Gotta Share may have been intended to be bad, but that doesn't make up for them being bad; having characters in the show snark about how awful that was simply doesn't win me over.
The CMC theme song really grew on me. I'm not going to analyze it second-by-second as I did above, but I think it also has some of the best animation in the show. They really stepped up the shading and I think the framerate is even a little higher. You might try watching it while it's muted to verify this. As for You Gotta Share, You Gotta Care, I get a kick out of Pinkie Pie's naive optimism as she peeks through the curtain at the start as well as the audience's confused and repulsed looks to each other. The animation on Pinkie's bobbing hair throughout the song is outstanding.
Ferret Warlord wrote:
Pinkie's Invitation has a decent melody, but the lyrics! Just like almost every other song in the show, the lyrics are reminiscent of something a high school senior wrote during the poetry unit in English class just to get their instructors off their back. The words and rhymes don't flow very well.
I said I like my songs to advance the plot and this is one of the best Pinkie Pie songs for that purpose. I also think it's hilarious that we so rarely see Pinkie Pie exhausted, so it's kind of a treat here.
Ferret Warlord wrote:
Art of the Dress is probably the best of the ones I've heard since Tabitha is a great singer and is overall very fun, but is docked points for ripping almost wholesale from other sources and including such asinine lyrics as, "I'm stitching Twilight's dress!" Um, okay?
Erm... but Rarity's singing voice is Kazumi Evans. Don't ask me why she sounds so off in Becoming Popular (Shoot! Forgot that one! Throw it in at number 6!). I thought MLP really expanded on Putting it Together, which is all I can ask for from an homage. The MLP version is a bit more rhythmically stable and varied in its verses ("Dressmaking's easy...", "Hour by hour...", and "Piece by piece..." are all original creations, as far as I could tell). I love the exasperated way Rarity sings "Dressmaking's easy" in the second half of the song. It really reveals her emotional state. And you're absolutely right about, "I'm stitching Twilight's dress," and, "I'm sewing them together," which make me cringe a little when I hear them (they're sort of cop-out lyrics). I think the song is amazing even despite those shortcomings.
Ferret Warlord wrote:
Oddly, I find both of Pinky's songs in The Ticketmaster to be okay. Nothing good, nothing bad.
I think her Gala Fantasy Song may be her weakest entry (maybe with the exception of her piggy song, if we're including season 2). I like Twilight is my Bestest Friend mostly thanks to Twilight's monotone interruption at every line.
In conclusion, my opinion reigns supreme and no one can question it. You are all obligated to like the same songs that I like because my arguments were ironclad. Those are my reasons for liking the songs and I hope you eventually warm up to them, but if not, you seem to enjoy the show for plenty of other reasons. Even if you don't like the songs, I think you'd have to admit they usually put a lot of effort into them.
To briefly go back to a previous topic, if someone wants to spend a week of their life sitting in front of a theater, okay, sure, more power to them. Not gonna stop me from thinking, "Good grief, life is too precious to waste doing nothing in front of a theater! Go home and do something, y'know, useful!"
They are not doing nothing. They are having social interactions with like-minded people, they are bonding, they are forming new friends, they are having fun.
Not everything has to be "useful". Watching MLP episodes is not "useful", nor is watching TAS videos (or even making them). Going to a week-long camping trip is not "useful". However, it isn't necessarily a waste of life either. Each person should use their free time to do what they like, not what others think they should do, according to some uptight preconceived norms.
To briefly go back to a previous topic, if someone wants to spend a week of their life sitting in front of a theater, okay, sure, more power to them. Not gonna stop me from thinking, "Good grief, life is too precious to waste doing nothing in front of a theater! Go home and do something, y'know, useful!"
They are not doing nothing. They are having social interactions with like-minded people, they are bonding, they are forming new friends, they are having fun.
Not everything has to be "useful". Watching MLP episodes is not "useful", nor is watching TAS videos (or even making them). Going to a week-long camping trip is not "useful". However, it isn't necessarily a waste of life either. Each person should use their free time to do what they like, not what others think they should do, according to some uptight preconceived norms.
Surely you bear your own prejudices. Hunting? Political rallies? Religious service of certain denominations? Regardless of what group (or maybe even solo) activities irk you, I don't see a problem with Ferret Warlord's view as long as he keeps it to himself.
They should be using their spare time according to the categorical imperative. I also think they should consider that there'll be potentially an almost infinite number of people/generations following them, so the importance of their own happiness should be seen in proportion to that. (Focus on making life better for the generations that follow) Even if that leads to an infinite regress and nobody would ever "live their lives to the fullest", I think it should lead to better results of overall levels of contentedness after just a few generations.
That's not to say I'd ever want to force people into that, but I'd like to see them convinced to it.
Surely you bear your own prejudices. Hunting? Political rallies? Religious service of certain denominations?
They key point is in the "harmless" part of "harmless hobby". If, for example, excessive hunting is destroying the ecosystem (and thus everybody who lives in that ecosystem), then it's not harmless. If a political rally causes, eg. hatred and violence towards some groups of people, that's not harmless.
Some people cosplaying for an anime convention does not harm anybody. (Please let's not go into excessive pedantry about what constitutes "harm" and what doesn't. I think everybody knows what I'm referring to.)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Bobo, a few notes.
You'll notice I focused mainly on the merits of the songs themselves, divorced almost entirely from the situations that they're attached to. I'm not arguing that they fail to do the job of certain things like characterizing and advancing plot. I'm just saying that they are either bad songs or good songs marred by a couple of things (Art of the Dress for seeming to be more than homage, and Invitation for having some terrible word flow; the latter was nice on the visual front, and the singer getting tired at the end was an excellent touch, but I can't get past the awkward lyrics).
Also, it should be noted I don't really watch the show. I've only ever really seen it when babysitting my young nieces. The culture and other aspects surrounding the show are certainly interesting though. Pinkie Pie voices Fluttershy? Wow, that's some talented vocal range! Hasbro finally releasing what can only be described as the Brony Set? I'm not interested in the toys except maybe Nightmare Moon, but a bunch of toys being released for a little girl's franchise at the behest of older, male fans is truly something momentous. That's the sort of thing I can't get enough of.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
I think it's unsettling for the same reason people don't like clowns-- with nothing but happiness, there's no underlying drama and it sits at the bottom of the uncanny valley.
But real clowns are sad. It's other people who laugh at them.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote: