I'm so off-topic lately. D:

[Fen]

o.O...but it sounds totally boring.

The premise is ok, I guess.(the fact that she has to wear a paper bag is oh-so-lookitmelooksdon'tmatter and I'm fairly sure no prince had to do that...).

But she challenges via wits which do not entertainingly trick or imaginatively fool the dragon. She just keeps talking until he gets tired and falls asleep? Srsly? Not even falls asleep onto a pike and dies, just falls asleep. No interesting companions, no twists, no surprises, no flamboyancies, no nothing?

And then, the happy ending is that...she gets nothing out of it? No prince, kingdom got burned down, dragon's still on the loose. I mean, the princess and the pea had her looking bad and with the prince not believing her princess-ness because she was dirty as well, but that's not really the most entertaining story, and replacing a boring conclusion with a boring anticlimatic one is just so meh.

o.O.

[Valerie]

It says she challenged the dragon to fly around the world. I took that as playing on his ego to distract him. I don't know where you're seeing the "he fell asleep" part.

Edit: No, wait, he did fall asleep, but not because she talked. It was from being tired after flying around the world twice.

[Fen]

(edit) which is literally "talked him into falling asleep".

Now! Distracting him to fly around the world and then plant something to kill him, trap him, whatever, sure. But he just falls asleep.

[Valerie]

...The way you word it is as though she just yammered on about her day until he fell asleep from boredom. That's not what the article says happened. She used his ego by challenging him to fly around the world, during which time I assume she (and what's-his-face) escaped (flying around the world would take some time and it would make less sense to wait for him to return before escaping).

Maybe someone who's actually read the book has a better understanding of it than me, though.

[Alice Macher]

Yes, not to be brusque, but it may help if you actually read the book first. The illustrations are lovely, too.

[WildfireDS]

Out of curiosity, has anyone here ever read the original Mulan story? Its a poem (actually, a song or ballad), so its pretty short. This page http://www.chinapage.com/mulan.html has a full English translation.

Yeah. She doesn't get exposed as a girl. She reveals it to her comrades...after 12 years of fooling them.

[sun tzu]

Meanwhile, Lauren Faust's My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic deliberately presented varied female protagonists in an attempt to say "there are many different ways of being a girl, and they're all valid". And then tried to make them all non-cliché. Hence the booksmart science/magic nerd who's also a take-charge leader, the athletic tomboy who's perfectly comfortable with girly stuff, the prankster who isn't inconsiderate, the artistic fashionista who's dripping with generosity...

[Valerie]

(Also, Cracked is stalking the board.)

[griffon8]

Ah, Cracked.com. One of my favorite websites these days.

How about 7 Classic Disney Movies That Taught Us Terrible Lessons? And only 4 of them involve Disney Princesses!

[unavoidablytiger]

http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/12/24/my-little-non-homophobic-non-racist-non-smart-shaming-pony-a-rebuttal/

For those of you who want to read but haven't looked it up yet.

Worth noting that this rebuttal was written by the awesome Lauren Faust, the creator of the (also awesome) show.

we do children no favours by offering them only sanitized, nicey-nicey pablum like Strawberry Shortcake or the original, 1980s My Little Pony where nothing truly negative, disturbing or, yes, even a bit scary ever happens.

Wwwwwwwhat?!
Have you ever seen that show?!
For cripes' sake, Rescue at Midnight Castle is pure nightmare fuel once you get past the first two minutes of sugar. Crunch the Rockdog had the villain turning the protagonists to stone one-by-one, on the background of the ponies getting on Wind Whistler's case for having no feelings (Wind Whistler was the Spock of the group). The Return of Tambelon told the story of an inter-dimensional city invading Dream Valley, trying to enslave the population and drag them all to the Realm of Darkness.
My Little Pony was one of the darkest cartoons of the 80s. But for some reason, people seem convinced it was a harmless, lovey-dovey show about ponies prancing around and eating cake.

I, ah, kinda review the whole thing.

OHMIGOSH!!! YOU wrote this? I love this! I found it while looking for episode summaries of the original series, and wound up reading every single review for fun! Reading your reviews before watching the original episodes again just made them so much more entertaining.

I am geeking out so hard right now.

[Valerie]

Ooh, somebody has a fa-an~

[sun tzu]

http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/12/24/my-little-non-homophobic-non-racist-non-smart-shaming-pony-a-rebuttal/

For those of you who want to read but haven't looked it up yet.

Worth noting that this rebuttal was written by the awesome Lauren Faust, the creator of the (also awesome) show.

we do children no favours by offering them only sanitized, nicey-nicey pablum like Strawberry Shortcake or the original, 1980s My Little Pony where nothing truly negative, disturbing or, yes, even a bit scary ever happens.

Wwwwwwwhat?!
Have you ever seen that show?!
For cripes' sake, Rescue at Midnight Castle is pure nightmare fuel once you get past the first two minutes of sugar. Crunch the Rockdog had the villain turning the protagonists to stone one-by-one, on the background of the ponies getting on Wind Whistler's case for having no feelings (Wind Whistler was the Spock of the group). The Return of Tambelon told the story of an inter-dimensional city invading Dream Valley, trying to enslave the population and drag them all to the Realm of Darkness.
My Little Pony was one of the darkest cartoons of the 80s. But for some reason, people seem convinced it was a harmless, lovey-dovey show about ponies prancing around and eating cake.

I, ah, kinda review the whole thing.

OHMIGOSH!!! YOU wrote this? I love this! I found it while looking for episode summaries of the original series, and wound up reading every single review for fun! Reading your reviews before watching the original episodes again just made them so much more entertaining.

I am geeking out so hard right now.

E-yup.
Heck, my review of the "Luna Eclipsed" episode actually had an obscure joke from this forum.

[NobodySpecial]

Wwwwwwwhat?!
Have you ever seen that show?!
For cripes' sake, Rescue at Midnight Castle is pure nightmare fuel once you get past the first two minutes of sugar. Crunch the Rockdog had the villain turning the protagonists to stone one-by-one, on the background of the ponies getting on Wind Whistler's case for having no feelings (Wind Whistler was the Spock of the group). The Return of Tambelon told the story of an inter-dimensional city invading Dream Valley, trying to enslave the population and drag them all to the Realm of Darkness.
My Little Pony was one of the darkest cartoons of the 80s. But for some reason, people seem convinced it was a harmless, lovey-dovey show about ponies prancing around and eating cake.

I, ah, kinda review the whole thing.

Well, I'm answered. That'll teach me, huh? Apparently this fortysomething dude, who was a preteen/early teen when those shows were around, has lumped them all together indiscriminately.

Well, you're not alone, because I lumped them all into the 'made to sell toys' bin and avoided them like the plague for just that reason.

[sun tzu]

Wwwwwwwhat?!
Have you ever seen that show?!
For cripes' sake, Rescue at Midnight Castle is pure nightmare fuel once you get past the first two minutes of sugar. Crunch the Rockdog had the villain turning the protagonists to stone one-by-one, on the background of the ponies getting on Wind Whistler's case for having no feelings (Wind Whistler was the Spock of the group). The Return of Tambelon told the story of an inter-dimensional city invading Dream Valley, trying to enslave the population and drag them all to the Realm of Darkness.
My Little Pony was one of the darkest cartoons of the 80s. But for some reason, people seem convinced it was a harmless, lovey-dovey show about ponies prancing around and eating cake.

I, ah, kinda review the whole thing.

Well, I'm answered. That'll teach me, huh? Apparently this fortysomething dude, who was a preteen/early teen when those shows were around, has lumped them all together indiscriminately.

Well, you're not alone, because I lumped them all into the 'made to sell toys' bin and avoided them like the plague for just that reason.

That's a shame - I've seen it convincingly argued that, precisely because, say, "Transformers" was a toy commercial, it left the writers more wriggling room when it came to the plot.

[Freemage]

Stolen/redirected from the QA thread, since it seems to go with the title. For those who missed that, it's about Dumbing of Age; Val is objecting to the character Sarah's current actions. BunnyThor is being silly.

Sarah? Why Sarah?

Because storms are brewing in her eyes.

Because she's been shown to be the level-headed one of the group, if a bit (a lot) moody. But she's like, "Nope, no hospital, let's go home."

*stops stealing Q&A thread*

I think Sarah took Joyce at her word--"Go to hospital, parents find out. Parents find out, I don't come back to school. I go back home and stay in my little fundie christian bubble forever and ever. I meet the man my parents want me to meet, marry him and have fifteen babies because I've got nothing else I've ever been taught how to do." That sort of thing is a tough call, but ultimately, it's Joyce's call, not anyone else's to make for her. And she made her decision, even if Sarah doesn't like it.