I'm so off-topic lately. D:

[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.

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.

Possibly so, but I remember that the main premise of said show is to sell toys. That tends to throw continuity, logic, and suspension of disbelief right out the window, even for a kid in those unsophisticated days.

[Valerie]

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.

She made her decision while clearly not in any state to be making decisions. That's the whole point of being drugged.

If, for some reason, earlier in the story, before she was drugged, she had said something like, "Hey guys, by the way, if some dude slips something into my drink, just let me sleep it off," then sure. I would be horribly, horribly concerned about Joyce's brain, but sure, it would be her call.

As it is, it's very much not.

[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.

Possibly so, but I remember that the main premise of said show is to sell toys. That tends to throw continuity, logic, and suspension of disbelief right out the window, even for a kid in those unsophisticated days.

Hm...Sorry, disagree. A lot of the best-written cartoons of the past decades were born of such crass commercialism.

[Kamino Neko]

It's funny that you use Transformers as an example...

The TF wiki has a whole page on 'To sell toys'...when good results came from restrictions, it was due to Beast Wars' technical restrictions forcing Hasbro to be a bit hands off, instead of constantly saying 'we have a new toy, put him in the show/comic' although they still had 'we're no longer selling that toy, take him out', and 'that guy's still got a toy, don't you DARE kill him'. See, particularly 'random casting', 'limited casting', 'gimmicks', 'strange developments', and the entire 'Death' section.

Not to say that TF hasn't produced some very good fiction, but it's despite Hasbro and Takara's yoke, not because of it. (Notably, the very good Dreamwave and IDW G1-based books are pretty hands-off, aside from Hasbro asking IDW to bring in some toy-based designs in the period between the '-ations' and the ongoing.)

[Zanosuke Kurosaki]

Dangit, Kamino, I was going to say that the IDW books are some of the best TF stories ever, thanks to so much of it having pretty much no need to be toy-driven. Ya beat me to it. XD

There's an interesting reversal, of sorts, thanks to those comics and (apparently) more fans working in the industry now. Hasbro's ended up putting out Classics figures of two characters that were originally comic-only, one from the old 80's run, and one from the IDW set. And then of course there was The Fallen (and the whole movie from 2009), which originated from a story by Pat Lee (may he burn forever, the bum ), of all places. It's kind of cool, really. Now if only we could get the "TRUKK NOT MONKEY" crowd to realize that their views of G1 is mostly driven by nostalgic-tinted memories that are largely influenced by the movie, and that the original show, while fun, was not nearly as epic as they thought, and maybe more fans like me wouldn't have to supress the occasional urge to "disappear" a few of our fellow FormersFans... *twitch twitch*

[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.

She made her decision while clearly not in any state to be making decisions. That's the whole point of being drugged.

If, for some reason, earlier in the story, before she was drugged, she had said something like, "Hey guys, by the way, if some dude slips something into my drink, just let me sleep it off," then sure. I would be horribly, horribly concerned about Joyce's brain, but sure, it would be her call.

As it is, it's very much not.

She's also factoring in Billie's apparent "Command (of) a wealth of knowledge of terrible and horrific things". Billie clearly thinks that she just needs a bit of time to recover, with no particular long-term effects likely.

Hopefully she'll agree with Dorothy and have the girls keep watch over Joyce during the night, until it's clear she is alright.

Again, I agree it's not a perfect scenario--but honestly, Joyce's declaration that she did not want to go to a hospital was pretty clearly stated. It's very likely to be her view when she wakes up again. Taking that agency from her, in a fashion that would likely dramatically alter her life, would be compounding the original violation.

[Adrishiana]

One really can make the argument that Belle is a walking case-study of Stockholm Syndrome, though. And, of course, you have the further issue that the whole thing is kicked off by the most wicked witch to ever be mentioned in a movie.

Think about it. Sure, the prince was a dick. Fine, curse him, make him a beast unless he can find love in a period of time, teach him to look beyond the surface, yadda yadda yadda.

But unless you're telling me that the entire castle staff gathered around and spat on the crone for good measure (including Chip Potts, remember), then she essentially put all of their lives in the hands of their narcissistic master's ability to seduce someone while suffering from a terminal case of five o'clock shadow, for no better reason than that they happened to show up to work that day. And she walks free after it all--no punishment, no attempt to hunt her down, just a quick footnote easily forgotten. SRSLY, WTF?

Ariel gets tricked while at an emotionally vulnerable moment, and then takes responsibility for dealing with her situation. Belle starts out strong and ends up placating a violent abuser to keep from getting beaten. Neither's a great endorsement of female empowerment.

So go watch Tangled.

So very late here, my apologies, but a possible additional "WTF, sorceress" factor: depending on how you interpret certain factors, it's possible that the lady cursed a kid.

In the prologue (which you can watch here) the narrator says that the enchanted rose would bloom until his "*21st year," after which he would a little more time ("until the last petal fell") to "learn to love another, and earn her love in return" before he was doomed to be a beast forever.

Later, Lumiere says (well, sings) that they've been under the spell for ten years. ("Ten years we've been rusting/needing so much more than dusting...") If there's a single character who I'd imagine to be prone to wild exaggeration, Lumiere is probably it, but the prologue also says "as the years went by" in a way that would imply "more than 2-3," so there's that.

So, doing the math, the sorceress may have cursed someone who was somewhere between around ten to eleven years of age and their mid teens (at the very latest), depending on how strictly you interpret the script, and his entire staff, to a potential lifetime of beastdom/being animated inanimated objects. All because the prince was kind of a dick.

And this, as you said, is NEVER ADDRESSED AGAIN.

(Now, all that said, I wouldn't be surprised if this were a case of "people weren't talking to each other" or "there are unexplained factors," because in the destroyed images of the Beast pre-Beasting he looks a LITTLE older than 10-11, but.)

ETA: Just for the hell of it, I went to see if I could find the transformation scene from the midquel that was released a few years after the first film. The only version I could find was in Thai, which I don't speak, but Adam/Beast looks to be about 14-16. So, uh, I guess that's... better?

*I've always understood this to mean "21st birthday," whereas a friend theorized that they instead meant "21st year (as a beast)." I tend to think that if they meant the latter they would have said "the 21st year" and not "his 21st year," but I could see either way.

[Freemage]

And, since we're already way, way off-topic, in several directions, I give you all an amusing picture.



I shall now assume that, in my private QUILTBAG Fanon, these are available for sale in the dorm snack rooms.

[MudFlap33]

deliciousness

Damn, that's looks great, I want some LGBT!

[Adrishiana]

deliciousness

Damn, that's looks great, I want some LGBT!

*flirty eyes*

[Lia S]

Now I wonder what additional ingredients go into a QUILTBAG sandwich.

[Mr. Brightside]

To be honest, Willis being Willis, I'm not expecting Joyce to survive the night. But Sarah's no more to blame for that than Dorothy, Amber, Ron, or Billie. In fact, Billie's probably the most to blame (well, besides Ryan), more than Sarah, certainly.

[Valerie]

Freemage: Billie is drunk off her ass. The only one who was being level-headed (and even the only one in a state to be level-headed) about it was Dorothy, but the drunk girl's advice and the drugged girl's decision are what we're listening to?

To be honest, Willis being Willis, I'm not expecting Joyce to survive the night. But Sarah's no more to blame for that than Dorothy, Amber, Ron, or Billie. In fact, Billie's probably the most to blame (well, besides Ryan), more than Sarah, certainly.

I haven't read his other stuff, so I can't really say. I also don't really see how it's Billie's fault. Obviously, Ryan is the most at fault here, but Billie didn't make Joyce go. Billie even warned Joyce to keep a hand over her cup to avoid this sort of thing.

[Adrishiana]

Now I wonder what additional ingredients go into a QUILTBAG sandwich.

Quinoa, unagi, Italian sausage, lettuce, tomato, basil, avocado, green peppers?

[Zanosuke Kurosaki]

Freemage: Billie is drunk off her ass. The only one who was being level-headed (and even the only one in a state to be level-headed) about it was Dorothy, but the drunk girl's advice and the drugged girl's decision are what we're listening to?

Not sure about Joyce's decision-making skills when drugged, but I'll say this about Billie - she doesn't seem drunk anymore. Some things, like a friend being in danger, will cause people to sober up very quickly. I would imagine that Billie seeing Joyce in that state did all the work of several cups of coffee and a good shower.