Tag: My Little Pony Friendship is Magic

Lego minifigures, why so serious?

~ Graham Milne ~ 2 Comments

spaceman

This fascinating article from last week illuminated an otherwise unnoticed fact – that over the last few decades, the faces printed on Lego minifigures have been getting steadily more angry and intense.  Those cute little plastic guys, population 4 billion and rising, who for a long time faced the world with a uniform array of sweet smiles have succumbed to the creeping angst of a 21st Century obsessed with dystopia and inner turmoil.  Is nothing sacred?  Is there no refuge from the seeming relentless push towards “dark and edgy” as the only virtues in our entertainment, no matter its form?

My first Lego set came my way when Jimmy Carter was still President; it was a Space set featuring a tiny wedge-shaped ship, controlled by a steering wheel, mounted on a launch vehicle, and it included a single red-suited spaceman, happy at the prospect of the adventures he was certain to have with me.  Shortly thereafter Lego became my toy of choice – forget Transformers, G.I. Joes or whatever else, if that wrapped Christmas present didn’t manifest the trademark rattle when shaken it was bound to be disappointment on the morning of December 25th.  With birthdays and other special occasions my armada grew to include astronauts in white and yellow, and eventually (once the line expanded) blue and black.  And darn it if those little guys weren’t always cheerful.  Even when Lego went a step further and introduced the first “bad guys” of Lego Space – Blacktron – beneath those ominous dark-shielded helmets could be found the same delightful grin.  The same went for the Town and Castle lines.

Kids grow up, of course, and Lego falls by the wayside… until 1998 and Lego Freakin’ Star Wars drops.  By then I’m handling my own discretionary spending and so set after set gets snapped up to the detriment of my income but to the benefit of recapturing childhood glee.  But the minifigures have changed.  Their faces have been customized to better suit the Star Wars characters.  Leia has eyelashes and lipstick, Han has a little wry smirk.  Luke Skywalker looks rather dour with a very even, mature expression more suited to the way Mark Hamill looks now than his A New Hope variant.  As the line prospers, pieces are refined and more and more sets are released, with the minifigures continuing to evolve alongside them, finally trading in their trademark yellow hue for tones borrowed from the actors who played the characters.  And many of them are downright grumpy.  A few of the nameless officers still sport the crescent-moon grin, as though working for the Galactic Empire or the Rebellion respectively is the most awesomest job ever, but the more famous characters are all pretty darned serious.  And this is only Star Wars – this isn’t considering Batman, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter or the Lego City lines or innumerable others where often, minifigures look pissed off, as if someone has completely ruined their wonderful little plastic day.  (We won’t get into the replacement of megaphones with blaster pistols for the Stormtroopers’ weapons, that’s another conversation).

So, is Lego driving this trend or is it merely responding to the downward (emotionally speaking, that is) trend in popular taste?  Whenever you hear about a new movie or television series being pitched, the makers’ first comment is usually that it’s “dark and edgy,” almost as a reflex response.  It’s what’s in – presumably, a “bright and sunny” film would be laughed out of the room.  We have seen countless remakes and reimaginings where otherwise optimistic tales are “darkened” for public consumption.  And yet, there is obviously an appetite for optimism that is desperate to be satisfied, growing ever hungrier every time “dark and edgy” sighs its way onto our screens again.  We saw evidence of this appetite in recent years with the brony phenomenon coming out of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, where otherwise-angst-consumed teens and adults embraced a colorful children’s cartoon that emphasized the importance of kindness in all things.  We want to feel happy, yet our entertainment producers keep shoving melancholy down our throats, and we swallow it willingly, trying to ignore the sting of the razor blade as it rattles its way down into our stomachs.

Lego is hedging their bets somewhat, as it often prints Janus-like heads with two different expressions, one serene and one more intense, that can be rotated depending on the mood of play.  Part of what made the original smiling minifigure so endearing, however, was that no matter what horrific fate might befall him – usually bisection in a spaceship crash, if we’re going by my experience – he came through it with unflappable joy and spunk, ready to be reassembled for more.  No matter what kind of day you’d had, if you’d flunked a test or been shoved into the locker again by that mean kid twice your size, when you shuffled back into your room your Lego men were always smiling at you and standing ever ready to help you explore the very limits of your imagination.  Maybe there are limits to what a bunch of little plastic guys can teach a kid, but the attitude of the classic minifigure – embracing challenge with positivity no matter what the circumstance – is worth preserving and passing along.  Let’s save the angst until high school at least.

This week in trickle-down theory

~ Graham Milne ~ 1 Comment

Mea culpa – I’m a believer in trickle-down theory.  Not as it applies to wealth, but rather, the preponderance of nonsense in the world, and in particular, that which is inflicted upon us by those who know better and do so strictly for political and/or monetary gain.  In a democracy that pretends to be educated but usually falls short, it is incumbent upon us to remain forever vigilant, and to expose such professional charlatans at all times.  That is one of the cornerstones of free speech that people tend to forget about – the responsibility to respond, to correct deliberate misinformation, and to shame those who lie blatantly.  Or, as I’ve said before, free speech may give you the right to say things that are stupid and hateful, but it also imposes upon me the duty to call you out on it and tell you you’re being a dick.  On this week’s episode of The Newsroom, Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) delivered an inspiring opening monologue whereby he apologized for the media’s failure to do just that.  With that in mind, there are a couple of items floating around the news this week that need to be called out in the same spirit.

As you may have heard, there was a shooting at a summer barbeque in Scarborough a few days ago that left two people dead and twenty-two injured.  Canada’s douchiest federal cabinet minister, Vic Toews, never one to miss an opportunity to pimp his draconian views to the nearest microphone, used it as a springboard to attack judges who had struck down mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes, a rant that I’m certain was a great comfort to the families of Joshua Yasay and Shyanne Charles.  It’s a typical reaction of a privileged white guy who has absolutely no clue what it’s like on the other side.  Toews insists that the prospect of longer mandatory prison terms would have scared the shooters straight before they drew their guns – you know, because in the heat of the moment when you’re drunk, desperate, angry and armed, the thought of jail is always just enough to arrest a murderous rampage.  Proponents of mandatory minimum sentences always miss the central reason why they’ve been an utter failure wherever they’ve been implemented, and that is, when you’re going to commit a crime, you don’t think you’re going to get caught.  Who cares if there’s a mandatory jail term?  That won’t matter, because f*** the police, you’re going to be the guy who gets away with it.  Experts the world over have declared mandatory minimums needlessly expensive and ultimately futile, but that doesn’t matter to Toews, who barely waited until the bodies were cold to throw some red meat to the equally closed-minded tools who keep electing him.  Please, Vic, just go away – go get that judgeship you’re lusting after and pass all the hanging, cat-o-nine-tails and public stoning sentences you dream of late at night when the demons come.

Speaking of red meat to rednecks, Peter Worthington and the Toronto Sun decided this week as well to give a nutcase who spews conspiracy theories on street corners a national megaphone.  A self-proclaimed “cleric” who lectures at Yonge & Dundas next to the wild-eyed weirdo mumbling about aliens and the rapture thinks that the answer to the problem of sexual assault is to legislate that women dress more conservatively.  The Sun ran his photo on the front page with a headline warning about the terrifying restrictions on your freedom that this scary man wants to impose on YOUR FAMILY – propagating Islamophobia in the name of ad revenue.  Peter Worthington even found it necessary to blather a self-righteous denunciation of this guy’s out-there rants in a featured column on Huffington Post Canada, assuring us ever so helpfully that the laws this man is advocating won’t ever happen here (although, if Vic Toews gets his way, you never know).  Thank goodness for your sage and learned wisdom, Peter, because I was under the impression based on the Sun’s coverage that this random guy who yells at passersby as they duck into Starbucks somehow had Supreme Leader-like authority over our government, our courts and public opinion, and that as a result we were one precarious step away from the imposition of sharia law across Canada.  Phew – dodged a bullet there.  Regardless, the Sun’s coverage had its intended effect, which was to stir up the blood of its core readership, spur a metric tonne of “if you don’t like it here, go home” comments, and get everybody hopped up about immigration yet again.  Instead of doing what any sane person not trying to get people to buy a fourth-rate rag of a newspaper would have done, ignore the guy.  And be thankful that we live in a country where women can dress however the hell they want, and that Neanderthal opinions that are law in other parts of the world are only the meaningless ramblings of a twit here.

Finally, Howard Stern, struggling to stay relevant, decided to turn his sad sarcastic guns on the attendees at last week’s BronyCon, sending his staff out to interview fans of My Little Pony:  Friendship is Magic and using both ambush and out of context quotes to make them seem like creepy loners one step removed from the guy in the rusty panel van with “FREE CANDY” scrawled across the side – a line gleefully parroted by one of my colleagues the other day.  I’ve talked at length about MLP: FIM and bronies before, and why I think the show’s popularity beyond its target demographic of young girls is a wonderful thing.  When the majority of acclaimed programs on television regularly feature spurting blood, decapitations, drug overdoses, chopped up bodies and any number of variations of grisly deaths, not to mention a general attitude of “drama” being people behaving horribly to one another, why is it considered deranged that audiences are gravitating towards a show that promotes friendship, tolerance, kindness and understanding – and one that manages to do so with a clever sense of humor and without being treacly or preachy at the same time?  Honestly – in whose company would you rather spend an hour:  Walter White or Rainbow Dash?  We are living in the most cynical era of human history and it is not the slightest bit shocking that people are still turning towards hope, and a reminder of what human beings can do when they are good towards each other.  If Howard Stern wants to make fun of that, then he’s welcome to, but it just reinforces how bitter he must be deep inside.  Twilight Sparkle and friends would probably feel sorry for him, but they’d still offer him a big hug and a cherry-changa.

I’m not under any illusion that what I’ve written here will convince its subjects to change their ways, or that it will even reach their eyes.  What’s important to remember is that this is all a grand discourse, meaning that it’s not just sitting back and accepting what is shovelled in front of us, lapping it up with a grin and asking for more, please.  It’s responding to rants with reason, attacking bias with facts, countering ideology with logic and a sense of fairness.  Calling out the bullshit.  And in particular, it’s ensuring that the small minds don’t continue to set the rules, and by consequence the level on which our discourse is to take place.  We need to raise the debate, and it’s not something that you can do once and then forget about.  It’s like the lat press at the gym – the weights are always going to want to fall back into place, and you have to keep pulling down on the bar.  That’s how you get stronger.  That’s how a society gets stronger – by not letting the weakest minds continue to trickle their inanities down over everyone else’s heads without due response.  As the old saying goes, don’t tell us it’s raining.

Inspiration for a Saturday morning

~ Graham Milne

My better half and I are Disney fiends.  We try to visit at least once every couple of years.  Our favorite ride, bar none, is Soarin’ – for those of you who are unfamiliar, it’s a flight simulator where you and about a hundred other riders are hoisted into the air before a massive screen on which visions of California race toward you.  The ride pivots and dips along with the images to give you the feel of flying over these vistas, accompanied by cool breezes and the scents of pine trees and orange groves.  It’s four and a half minutes of sheer bliss – and a taste of what it must feel like to be Rainbow Dash.

The score for this experience was composed by the late film legend Jerry Goldsmith, who is alleged to have done so for free after being literally moved to tears by his first ride.  The music captures, as sublimely as any piece I’ve ever heard, the exhilaration of wandering above the clouds on gossamer wings.  I can’t hear it without being lifted, and it’s my gift to you on what promises to be a beautiful day.

Take flight.

In like a lamb

~ Graham Milne
A perfect metaphor for March 1st, 2012.

Elmore Leonard’s first rule of writing advice is, never open your book with weather.  So with apologies to Mr. Leonard and his learned wisdom, I’m starting off March with a few comments about the state of the climate.  It was not that long ago that I recall temperatures plunging to the minus twenties in the middle of February, jagged sheets of ice coating my apartment windows and blocking the view of the mountains of white beyond.  I’m not going to complain about a more modest than usual February heating bill, but this is ridiculous.  I’ve had to shovel the driveway exactly twice this entire winter.  I missed doing it so much I actually shovelled both my neighbours’ driveways just to get in the extra few minutes of cardio.  My better half’s allergies have been in overdrive all season as it never got cold enough to kill off the mould and spores of autumn rot.  And we did double-takes this morning when birds started chirping outside.  The geese have figured it out – they never flew anywhere this winter.  Think there could possibly be a relation to, well, I don’t know, um, global CO2 emissions being higher than ever before?  Nah, it’s sunspots.  We’re actually in a cooling phase.   It’s just Al Gore, Solyndra and the Islamofascisocialists trying to sell you solar panels.  Think I’ll fill my Hummer with Super-Hi-Grade and then run over a spotted owl.  Suck it, Mother Nature.  FREEDOM!!!

Yep, it’s gonna be one of those days.

I love the Search Engine terms tracker on the WordPress dashboard.  It is genuinely amusing to see how people find me, and I can’t help imagining the tremendous disappointment that must occasionally result.  I’ve been fortunate to get a lot of hits from people who saw The Grey and are looking for references to the “Live and die on this day” quote – that at least relates to something of substance.  I get a few from people searching for My Little Pony, The Verve, Coldplay, other search terms that happen to coincide with some of my random word strings, like “grahams wall of sound”.  But some of these other search engine terms are just plain bizarre.  The one that really made me laugh was “kesha good looking”.  Someone on the hunt for images of Kesha for what I’m certain are nothing less than the purest of purposes ended up here?  Granted some of what I write can hopefully be very thought-provoking, but those are definitely not the thoughts I’m trying to provoke.  Eeeww.  We won’t have none of that ‘ere, mate.  Keep calm and carry on.  Besides, silly rabbit, you should know that “Kesha” and “good looking” are not terms that relate.  Ooh, how catty of me.  Thanks, try the veal.

I wonder what it must feel like to have a voice that other people love to impersonate.  Do they ever listen to themselves and think, “good God, do I really sound like that?”  My own voice is quite unremarkable, so I enjoy dressing it up with different accents whenever the opportunity arises.  The other day I was watching a YouTube clip of Michael Caine doing an impression of himself, or more accurately, Michael Caine doing Peter Sellers doing Michael Caine.  It was all in good fun, of course, but how frustrating must it be that almost everyone you meet will be some wag who thinks he can “do you”?   As I’m certain even ordinary lads from Glasgow or Belfast must roll their eyes at attempts by continentals to affect their unique, history-nurtured tones.  One of the cardinal rules on whatever film set he happened to be working was that no one was allowed to impersonate Sean Connery, which I’m sure didn’t stop them from trying to slur “Missh Moneypenny” behind his back.  That is the problem, naturally – everyone thinks they can mimic Sean Connery and almost no one can pull it off.  The same goes for John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Johnny Carson and most of Rich Little’s repertoire.  Voice actors, I’m told, often start from a celebrity impersonation when they’re working up a new character.  The scratchy warbles of The Simpsons’ Moe the bartender began from what his performer Hank Azaria called a bad Al Pacino impression.  Somehow I doubt anyone will ever be accused of doing a bad Graham Milne impression – except maybe myself.

So what are my goals for this month?  Thirty-one days of possibility lie ahead, full of opportunity for both triumph and tragedy.  Gonna try to keep blogging as close to daily as I can, have a new screenplay to start working on, and, because I find that putting it out there publicly is a good way to motivate myself, I’m going to begin sending out my long-gestating novel to agents and publishers.  Hopefully the response will be as promising as that which has greeted my musings here.  If all goes well, maybe, by the 31st, I will, like the lion, have a good reason to roar.  Stay tuned!

Swimming against history

~ Graham Milne ~ 2 Comments
January 18 Wikipedia Screenshot.

Today, multiple sites across the Internet, including WordPress and the Great Encyclopedia of Earthly Knowledge (G.E.E.K., or Wikipedia) are blacking themselves out to protest two pieces of legislation moving through the United States Congress – the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), which, if passed, could potentially turn back the clock on the evolution of the Internet.  These two acts have been essentially written by lobbyists from the motion picture and recording industries, who, perhaps upset that their latest ADD blockbuster grossed only $199 million instead of $208 million, or that their hot new Auto-Tuned tone-deaf breast flaunter’s album hit #2 on the charts instead of #1, are going after any website that does anything with copyrighted content – you could find yourself subject to a lawsuit for uploading a YouTube video of your toddler shaking his booty to Beyonce’s “All the Single Ladies.”  There are lots of good articles out there summarizing the danger posed by SOPA and PIPA, and I’m not going to rehash them here.  What I can’t help thinking as I follow this story is that it all seems so terribly familiar.

Knowledge is freedom and power, which is why oppressive regimes since the dawn of civilization have been trying to restrict it or stamp it out.  Without venturing too far down the road of hyperbole, it’s hard not to see this latest strike at the commons as a new link in a long chain leading back to the burning of the Library of Alexandria.  But for a second, just for the sake of balance, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of the ones pushing this legislation.  They are creators of original work who are feeling that their rights are being infringed upon.  Fair enough.  As a writer myself, I can empathize with that to a degree.  I have a novel I am ready to submit for publication, and were I to discover that someone else had stolen it and was making money off it instead of me, I would probably be livid.  But it’s one thing to go after a guy selling millions of illegal bootleg copies of Mission Impossible:  Ghost Protocol, and SOPA and PIPA don’t stop there.  I’ve written here about the evolution of remix culture and how it is exemplified by the public reaction to shows like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.  Remix culture isn’t there to take money from content creators – it embraces their work and applies individual creativity to form something brand new, for the sake of joy, not profit.  And SOPA and PIPA take direct aim at remix culture like an H-bomb directed at some microbes on a hill.

The White House has announced it will not sign these bills in their current form.  Even if the President were to veto them outright, this issue isn’t going away.  Yet listening to the complaints of the MPAA and the RIAA over copyright infringement remind one of the late Jack Valenti in the early 80’s likening the VCR to the Boston Strangler.  The movie business survived the advent of Beta and VHS – it grew larger and more powerful, and gave us DVD’s and Blu-rays for our trouble.  Home theatre is a thriving industry now.  And the record companies survived mixtapes and Napster.  What happened was that the doors were thrown open to newcomers of hitherto undiscovered talent who didn’t have to supplicate to the old guard to let their creative voices be heard by millions of people.  We are seeing the ongoing democratization of creation, where what you can do is more important than who you know, and the old barriers to sharing your work are dropping away.  SOPA and PIPA are an attempt to metaphorically burn the library – but even if they pass, even if they do set us back, evolution can’t be stopped.  Creativity always finds a way – and the beliefs of the SOPA and PIPA-pushers to the contrary, the world usually doesn’t come to an end.

Ever onwards.

Two more reasons why MLP:FIM is awesome

~ Graham Milne ~ 2 Comments
Presented for your enjoyment.  All content of course the property of The Hub and the creators of the show.  In my previous post on My Little Pony:  Friendship is Magic (and don’t worry, this blog is not going to degenerate into a weekly update on all things pony) I pointed out the show’s embrace of remix culture and its extended “brony” fanbase.  Below are a couple of screengrabs from the most recent episode, taking place in a bowling alley.  Ask yourself how many tween girls would notice this – and understand the reference:
It's "The Jesus" himself! With a hairnet covering his mane and tail. But who else is lurking in the background off to the right... look a little closer now...
 
It is! The Dude, Donny and Walter! Man, that really ties the episode together!

Yes indeed – The Big Lebowski has invaded My Little Pony.  A cult movie that sits in the top ten list of the most uses of the F-word has snuck into a kid’s cartoon.  Young girls won’t get it.  Bronies will love it.  And much rejoicing and many celebratory White Russians will ensue.

It’s just like, my opinion, man, but I really dig this show.

My my, little pony

~ Graham Milne ~ 1 Comment

What kind of week has it been?  Occupy Wall Street is spreading.  The GOP presidential contenders are an increasingly madcap circus act absent only the clown noses.  Canada is about to get slammed with ridiculous “tough on crime” mandatory minimum sentencing laws that even Texas Republicans say don’t work.  Carson Kressley got voted off Dancing with the Stars.  And it’s raining so hard tonight that one half expects to spot a bearded man gathering two of every animal.  What better time to talk about… My Little Pony:  Friendship is Magic?

At first you might think that I have finally lived up to the name of this blog and gone, accordingly, crackers.  But the spread of this latest pop culture phenomenon is fascinating and worth some discussion.  Besides, I feel like I’ve gotten awfully serious in the last few posts and I, not to mention readers, could probably use a little bit of fluff to part the clouds.

Last year, HUB in the U.S., formerly Discovery Kids, began airing My Little Pony:  Friendship is Magic.  The animated series follows the exploits of studious young unicorn Twilight Sparkle and her friends:  countrified orchard keeper Applejack, posh fashion designer Rarity, tomboy speedster Rainbow Dash, sweet and timid Fluttershy and basically bonkers Pinkie Pie, learning lessons as they tangle with relationships, responsibilities and the occasional monster.  It sounded for all intents and purposes like just another girly, glorified toy commercial.

But then the series hit the Internet, and like the proverbial wildfire, exploded, as a demographic beyond the dreams of the show’s creators seized upon it and began extolling its virtues on popular discussion boards like 4chan and Memebase.  Episodes were dissected, minutiae memorized.  An animator’s error crossing one of the background ponies’ eyes gave birth to a fan-fiction character, “Derpy Hooves,” with a history and personality all her own.  Teenage boys and even older fans adopted the show’s catchphrases and dubbed fellow enthusiasts “bronies” – a portmanteau for ‘brother ponies.’  It did not take long for fandom to spread beyond cyberspace – the phenomenon became so large that bronies were deemed worthy of mocking (unsurprisingly) on Fox News, Stephen Colbert gave bronies a shout-out on his show, and even President Bill Clinton was quizzed on his knowledge of Friendship is Magic on a recent radio appearance.  (For the record, No. 42 got all three questions right.)

What the hell, the unconverted might ask.  What do all these people see in a kid’s cartoon?

This, perhaps?

Firstly, it’s funny as all get out.  Series creator Lauren Faust has The Powerpuff Girls on her CV, another ostensibly “girly cartoon” that peppered its plots with enough clever pop culture references to amuse any adults who happened to be in the room half-watching along with their kids.  The humor in MLP:FIM doesn’t rely on tired allusions to worn-out zeitgeist staples like say, Family Guy might, but instead manages to find the humor in its characters, often in a wink to an awareness of its own absurdity as a world inhabited by anthromorphic ponies.  Witness an episode featuring a horse-drawn carriage, where the horse dragging the carriage stops, looks back at his fellow horse riding inside it and says “Ok, your turn to pull now.”  Secondly, despite the fantastical setting, the problems faced by the “mane six” are very real, and very relatable.  Unlike so many anime-influenced cartoons where of a twenty-two minute running time, ten of those minutes are devoted to fight scenes, six to redundant transformation sequences and the last few on actual character and plot, the ponies’ adventures often find them simply overcoming jealousy, petty rivalries, xenophobia, prejudice and ignorance, forging tighter bonds of friendship through understanding rather than a super-mega-plus-over-9000-uber-power explosion.

Thirdly, perhaps most of all, the characters are likeable and truly endearing.  Each has a charming quirk that never veers into pretense.  For Applejack, it’s her Southern drawl and her myriads of relatives all named after breeds of apples, from older brother Big Macintosh to doddering old Granny Smith.  Rainbow Dash scores for her Maverick-esque love of and need for speed.  Pinkie Pie’s unpredictable non-sequiturs and never-ending cheerfulness lead her to steal every scene she’s in.  But the most popular has turned out to be the milquetoast pegasus pony Fluttershy (seen above), whose tender voice – performed by actress Andrea Libman – and mannerisms practically dare you not to sigh “awww,” as if you were looking at your umpteenth YouTube kitten video.  Fluttershy’s most notable moment comes in an episode where Rainbow Dash is trying to teach her how to cheer, and Fluttershy can only respond with a pathetic, whispered “yay.”  Of course by the end of the episode she explodes with excitement at her friend’s triumph in achieving the fabled “sonic rainboom.”

If it all sounds awfully saccharine to you, you’re probably right.  Why then does it rate so highly with people who would otherwise dismiss it as childish nonsense?  MLP:FIM has become a shining example of what I referred to when talking about Star Wars a few posts ago, the idea of remix culture – art that is no longer the property of one but is instead shared and shaped by legions.  Indeed, the show’s creators have embraced their internet following and have even incorporated some of the fan creations into their own canon, transforming the series essentially into an interactive experience.  More than that, My Little Pony:  Friendship is Magic succeeds, I think – and why for Fox News its popularity does not compute – because it is completely devoid of cynicism and snark.  When so much of our popular culture and indeed our humor is devoted to mocking the shortcomings of others, MLP:FIM stands apart as a warm, innocent and welcome throwback to a yearning that many of us have buried inside, that our problems can indeed be solved with compassion and without tearing each other down.  Sometimes it’s good for the soul to embrace the sweetness and simply enjoy something on a visceral level without pausing to take the piss.

And if that makes us bronies, then I guess I’d just say, after Rainbow Dash, that we’re 20% cooler because of it.