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@Dan

In your Defense, you did say Pretty much Say "Meh, Whatever" as your opinion.

Which is perfectly acceptable in my opinion.

Each episode has its own strengths and weaknesses, and people react to different degrees of positive-ness to each.

Being indifferent is a perfectly legitimate view.

Hating an episode is another story… Cause there's a big difference between not enjoying an episode in its entirety, and wanting it to burn. And I see little evidence of anything that would cause the later.

….Sorry if that last part sounded aggressive, just trying to make a point for the others as well. (Since a forum is a Soap Box to stand on and all.)

Anyways… I'm also sorry for any Strife I caused. I'll go Check up on Homestuck now.

DAMMIT LONE I CAME UP WITH THE FORMER SELF THING DON'T GIVE LOCKS ANY CREDIT

Meh, whatever.

Now could you guys make an effort not to talk a lot about spoilers this week? Thank you!

I think everyone needs to calm down just a tad, and a new page is a great time to do it.
Everyone is going to have different opinions on different episodes and there is no reason to jump on one another for them.

Dan has every right to note his issues from his perspective, and to a certain extent, I agree with many of them.
I'm just going to take a guess here, but I'm thinking that a lot complaints and 'nitpicking' really come down to immersion.
When a story is being told, the writers want the audience to be immersed: emotionally invested or otherwise interested in the events to the point that they are not consciously thinking about the fact that what they are watching is not real.
These kinds of 'small' details are exactly the kinds of things that, in some circumstances, for some people, have the potential to pull a viewer out of the moment.
If it doesn't bother you at all, great! More power to you!
But saying that someone who noticed a detail that bothered them is 'wrong' for disliking an episode because of those details is unfair.

My own opinion/discussion topic:
I'm still not the biggest fan of this episode, but I have watched it a couple more times now and I will say that my opinion of it has softened considerably.
Really, I'm fine with almost all of it, right up until the ending.
The way everything wrapped up just felt very… odd to me, and more from an out-of-universe perspective actually.
The ending felt… unfinished or rushed or something.
Spitfire openly admitted to never having seen Lightning misbehave or overdo her efforts, yet she immediately kicks her out after a single complaint from Dash.
Spitfire doesn't even say anything to Lightning, nor does Lightning offer any kind of defense.
The total lack of dialogue in the middle of a pivotal scene made it seem like, for whatever reason, none was ever recorded.
Like there had been something that was supposed to happen there, but it ended up getting cut for time or something.
The fact that Meghan McCarthy (Story Editor) tweeted these shortly after the show's airing only solidified my opinion that something about the ending was weird:


Now I'm really curious to know what that extra scene would have entailed.
Anyone want to hazard any guesses?

(Could someone tell me how to make those line-break things? I often cover a lot of different topics in a single post and I'd like to be able to separate them a bit more….)

Now for some extra fun:
Who would have ever guessed that Julio Iglesias wrote the original MLP theme song?
Well, he didn't but it sure sounds like someone at Hasbro back in the 80s got quite a lot of 'inspiration' from him:

That is just freakishly similar.

And a little comedy about those people who continuously complain about the 'end of the fandom':

@Lone
I approve of your gif and offer another footwear-related pun.

@Deadparrot

I think everyone needs to calm down just a tad, and a new page is a great time to do it.
Everyone is going to have different opinions on different episodes and there is no reason to jump on one another for them.

It's okay, I apologized to Dan. I don't want to imply that the show must be perfect and completely illegible to any critique. That's certainly not how I think.

I'm just the kind of person that cant be bothered with criticizing and only concern myself with the positives. That's not a better or worse way of watching cartoons, that's just how I go about it personally. I forgot that method doesn't work for everyone

Now I’m really curious to know what that extra scene would have entailed.
Anyone want to hazard any guesses?

My guess would have been a scene where Lightning realizes what Dash had been saying about her and moves in to try and deny her claims in front of everybody with her typical hard-headed, arrogant and reckless behavior.

In doing so, Lightning inadvertently proves Dash's point that she is too selfish to be a considered a leader over her peers and Spitfire becomes convinced

AND/OR

Some of the other backgrounds characters stepped in to provide witness accounts to Dash's claims

What do you think?

(Could someone tell me how to make those line-break things? I often cover a lot of different topics in a single post and I’d like to be able to separate them a bit more….)

You mean these?

Put in three dash's, make sure there is a carriage return above and below

---

Textile does the rest

You may have too much faith in this thread to ask this of some users here. Absent-mindedness can't be helped.

OK I've watched the episode and here are my feelings:

'Twas a pretty good episode.

But let me give you some background on my tastes going into this weeks adventure:

1. I'm a huge fan of Top Gun.
2. I'm a huge fan of military aviation, to the point that I assemble model airplanes and take part in Mercenary Jet Combat Role Playing
3. I'm not the biggest fan of Rainbow Dash

So I went into this week going "ugh, Rainbow Dash fest. Let's get this over with" but ended up enjoying it immensely.

I've made note that I find Rainbow Dash's cocky personality very annoying and been berated for that so when I was watching this episode, I enjoyed the "matured" Rainbow Dash.

"Boy, I like Rainbow Dash now! She's finally learning the lessons from season 1 and 2 and not being a huge asshole. I bet the Rainbow Dash fans will be happy that their character is getting some development. I…I….I only wish Banana Hush would get some of this so people would stop picking on her…. :( "

But no, for some reason….The Rainbow Dash fans are mad that she's not more bitchy? I….huh?

Dan wrote:

One could likely compile a much more exhaustive, detailed, and clear-cut analysis explaining more concisely what makes this episode a weak one, but you guys just wouldn’t want to hear it I guess. Whatever. I really don’t care that much.

NO THAT'S WHAT WE WANT! You see, I want to know why a few small things like that can really rustle your jimmies, like clouds or Spitfire.

What I'm asking is to explain to me……EXPLAIN TO MEEEE! HOW IS THIS AN ARR PEE GEE ANYWAY? ALL YOU CAN UPGRADE IS STRANTH?

Pinkie's over reaction:

Am I the only one who found this hilarious?

I'm downright serious: MLP makes me smile but the jokes are clearly for children, they rarely make me laugh but I genuinely laughed at Pinkie's over the top conclusions ("It's already too late! SHE PROBABLY FORGOT WHO WE ARE!" Who the fuck thinks like that? XD ) not to mention her sitting at the mailbox opening it and closing was just sad and dawwww at the same time.

Speaking of D'Awww

Verbose wrote:

I don’t watch the show for coolness or epic scenes. Other shows, games, and movies do it so much better. I watch it for cute, colorful, and funny ponies.

I watch it for cute colorful funny ponies too but if that was the only criteria I would be buying K-On! and Lucky Star Love Pillows right now. But I hate those damn shows because they consist of nothing but cute and no substance. No cool or awesome to balance it out.

RainbowPie shipping implications:

Get your heads out of the gutter guys.

Spitfire's canon role:

Like Gigatoast says, she only had 3 lines before this episode and those were at a Gala. And besides, she's a drill instructor. YOU GOTTA BE TOUGH IN FRONT OF THE RECRUITS! RAAAWR!

For example, let's look at a noted Drill Instructor (I won't say Drill Sargent because that's WRONG AND YOU WILL BE FUCKED IN THE CORP IF YOU SAY THAT!) R. Lee Ermey of Full Metal Jacket. Let's look at him present a documentary:

Holy shit! Does this guy have an indoor voice at all?

….It hurts to see him this calm and collected :(

Also…

Dan wrote:

She’s always been sort of laid back, even seductive if all the fanart of her is any indication. Rather than break with what she’s been portrayed as being like in prior episodes, why didn’t they just get a different Wonderbolt to fill that role? She’s their Captain, and that’s a job for another rank.

Fanart has no bearing on this, otherwise Celestia is a massive rapist. :O

As for why a Captain is taking charge of the students and not a sergeant, it's due to this being the Wonderbolts Academy. Instruction at Academies like Sandhurst and West Point is taken on by Captains, not Sergeants.

Dead Parrot wrote:

The total lack of dialogue in the middle of a pivotal scene made it seem like, for whatever reason, none was ever recorded.
Like there had been something that was supposed to happen there, but it ended up getting cut for time or something.

I always just assumed that Spitfire had a little chat with Lightning off screen. It was a pretty easy blank for my mind to fill.

Dead Parrot wrote:

(Could someone tell me how to make those line-break things? I often cover a lot of different topics in a single post and I’d like to be able to separate them a bit more….)

[Empty Line]
Three dashes
[Empty Line]

is how you do it.

Dead Parrot wrote:

Now for some extra fun:
Who would have ever guessed that Julio Iglesias wrote the original MLP theme song?
Well, he didn’t but it sure sounds like someone at Hasbro back in the 80s got quite a lot of ‘inspiration’ from him:

"Psshht, Dead Parrot must be on crack Listens to music holy shit….this can't be a coincidence…."

I still don't know why everyone is nitpicking MLP so much….If I went back to my childhood with Dexter's Laboratory and Batman:TAS with a fine tooth comb, I would destroy everything I held dear.

SO now that you're all done nitpicking….IT'S MY TURN TO EXPLAIN WHY THIS EPISODE MESSED UP!

@Phoneix

Never mind the rainbowpie implications. Think about the rainbowlightning ships! They've got something new to chew on now and you know what that means

It's begins…I can sense it.

…It wont be long now

You know… Rival shipping is the hardest thing to get right, but is also the most popular. Strangely though, I get the feeling that this would be one of the easier ones to get done.

I feel that with the note the episode ended on, all it would take is a few months of Lightning learning her own lessons on being a hero rather than just a warrior… Erm… Confused the terminology there… I mean, Learning to become a protector rather than just a great flyer, as she wouldn't be admired for the later without some respect for the former.

… That in itself is difficult to portray, but its a lot less to need to get through than some of the other possibilities. And if you can get through that, you have a shot at a successful ship.

…And then you have to get through the tedious process of the shipping itself, which is awkward at the best of times, and near impossible for non-specialists to do properly without making it a subplot to a much bigger story.

I'm probably over-thinking this. But if one doesn't over-think these things, you don't get very good fan-fics do you?

Also, I think I Just entered my Nocturnal Phase again, If anyone is interested. But you probably aren't, so Posting Ponies it is.

@DeadParrot222
This may be off topic but the similarity between Manuela and the original MLP theme song
makes me laugh. The words do fit in the opening of Manuela. Do you think the other songs we've heard in G4 are similar to other songs? The only one I know that was inspired by an old song is The Gala song.

You know, I was planning to do a rant on this episode, but I've really mellowed out. Like Deadparrot, my feelings have softened. That doesn't mean my opinion of it has improved, it has really just died in intensity, and I just find it difficult to care enough to rant. Allow me to just say there were some definite problems with this episode, and something about it just felt really weird. This

is Wiseau grade awkward dialogue.

No matter how you try to explain the episode's problems, I still didn't enjoy it. Go ahead, write an essay about it.

You can't make me undislike it.

Another thing I just noticed about the episode…

This episode was out to rape the shit out of anybody's Spitfire headcanon. Fire-lightning cutie mark? Lolnope. Slutty whore….se? Nope.

Personally, any destruction of fanon to see the salting of the crushed fans' eyes is welcomed by me. Ah, to hear the lamentations! I LIVE FOR IT!

@New Ep

My score: B-

Though the episode was entertaining, I felt Rainbow Dash wasn't as cocky and reckless as I expected her to be. In fact, I expected her to be the one causing trouble, rather than Lightning Dust, and especially when RD found out she wasn't lead pony. I felt, as for a "Top Gun" – like story, Rainbow Dash didn't have enough of Maverick in her. All that rubbed off onto Dust. There were a few other things I picked at, but nothing particularly too important.

I do want to ask you guys something, and I want you all to be pretty honest. Also, I don't want to raise an alarm.

Would you say the fandom's entering total collapse?

I say this because I don't see much of the…golden age anymore around here, or some of the other sites. It's not like the way it was before, not when I first came here. I know I've had some personal stuff going on the last few months, but putting that aside, I'm noticing something lacking, but I can't put my finger on it.

Anyway, I read the letter from the animator about Twi becoming and alicorn and no more Derpy forever in the show.

One of my friends described what's going on as the fandom dying out, and Hasbro "spiting us and shunning the fandom away", to paraphrase.

A point that was brought up in the conversation was the lack of creativity in the fandom. Even with S3, people aren't paying the new things much attention, and are falling back more to other things that are now becoming 'norms'. These range from depictions of characters to ships, and assorted other things. Another point was that R34 and suggestive media is taking over, simply because 'sex sells'.

In short, the friend called bronydom "a dying and lost cause".

Do you really think so?

Do you think that this is the end? Is the situation really that hopeless, or is there something that can be done?

Tell me, what do you think?

EDIT: @Lasers below

I knew the 'collapse' wasn't the case, my friend! I just wanted to make sure you guys didn't think so.

Popper, you really want to know what I think? You reeeeeaaaaaaaallllllly want to know?

I think you need to remove that rose-tinted visor from your helmet. It's nostalgia speaking there, at least to some extent. The fandom is not dying, as it's still one of the largest on the internet. It's still producing more content than most other large fandoms combined. It's still going very strong, and growing. People are panicking as their wont to do all the fucking time. People will bitch and moan because it's the internet.

As for that 'letter from the animator', it was pretty much debunked as bullshit by anybody that had any evidence otherwise (i.e. everybody on reddit). The only thing that had any truth to it was that there was a season 4, which we knew before season 3 even started. Do you really think Hasbro is going to get rid of Derpy when she's been in a lot of season 3 episodes (despite people not seeing her flung at the screen and assuming Hasbro abandoned her), selling toys at hundreds of dollars each, etc.? Seriously, there are a few Derpy toys in production and they sell like hotcakes. Hasbro would be fucking retarded to throw her away, and they are anything but retarded.

As for the r34 taking over…

Really?

Really?

It's just because the bad shit gets noticed more than the good shit. The bad shit will stick to you, the good shit gets wiped off by the toiler paper. This is where the analogy falls apart, of course, but I think it's still sturdy enough to get the point across. R34 is not any more prevalent than it ever worse. Nor is it more prevalent in this fandom than it is any other.

Look at the video DeadParrot posted. That's basically what all the 'fandom is dying' shit boils down to. It's sort of like the 2012 apocalypse stuff.

Now that I've sufficiently ranted, I'm going to post something to show you that the fandom is, in fact, not dying.

Succumb, young PopperFett. Let the d'aw flow through you. Yes…. Yes.

Since I think I ran out of time on my last post…

Just something I wanted to leave here:

I don't think many of you know, if any, that I am interested in cults of personalities and how they function. This song, as such, is one of my favorites. And it's even better that it's a PMV!

I'm going to agree with the people who said Pinkie was hilarious in this episode. And to those who say she was being overly obsessive: Well, we've seen her be overly obsessive about her friends before. Hell, Party of One and Too Many Pinkies were entirely based around the concept of Pinkie not being able to even think about losing any moment with any of her friends.

I will also agree that the ending to this episode was very weird, and it could have been done better. Having Spitfire get further proof of Lightning Dust's reckless behavior from the other pegasi would have helped things run a little more smoothly. I also expected Rainbow to demand the leader position rather than just flat out quit.

@Popper, Fandom Collapse
As Lasers said, pretty much any 'signs' of the fandom collapsing are just doomsday illusions from people who, for whatever reason, feel the need to herald the end of all things.
There is very little reason to believe that this fandom is going anywhere any time soon.

To address a couple of your specific points:

Lack of new content:
Nope, simply an illusion of statistics really.
Early in the fandom, there was little established so every addition was significant and weighty.
Now, after three years, new concepts still emerge, they are just able to be potentially overlooked by becoming 'lost' in the massive amount of content that came before.
For analogy, imagine shoveling dirt into a pile, one scoop at a time.
At first the pile would form relatively rapidly as each scoop is a relatively large percentage of the total pile so far.
Now fast-forward.
The pile is now a mountain.
You can keep shoveling dirt onto it at the same rate but it will likely go unnoticed as it is such a small percentage of the total at that point.

R34:
Please don't try the old 'porn is taking over' thing.
People have been making that claim since forever and it is always one of the easiest to disprove.
Stats directly from Derpibooru, pretty much the largest repository of pony images on the net.
Total images: 163,098
Total images labeled as 'safe': 136701
Simple math puts that at just under 84% of all pony art being completely SFW.
This is even excluding anything labeled as 'questionable' or 'suggestive' which can include images as tame as a mid-blinking screenshot of the actual show:

Certainly not porn, but even that is being left out of the calculation of 'safe' images.

In fact, there are only 11,201 pictures there labeled as explicit giving an approximate ratio of about 7% of all pictures falling into that category.
(Note that this can also include violent imagery, not just sexual, so even this is an overstatement of the porn level)

Overall, stating that the R34 side of the fandom is 'taking over' in any way is just demonstrably false.

@bioniclebrony
Well, we also know that Art of the Dress is heavily based on Sonheim's Putting It Together:

@MLP NSFW Calculation.

Even 5% of anything is still a noticeable chunk though. Missing 5% of the Human Body is Like having both your hands cut off, along with a good portion of your forearm.

So 5% of this mountain of MLP Images is still quite a fair amount. But then again, compared to other fandoms, it's not much of a big deal.

Now think about it, for an archive of almost 200,000. You still end up with 10,000 NSFW images or more. Go somewhere with even more pictures and the figure will be gargantuan.

I think its virtually impossible to get through 10,000 images anyways.

… What am I trying to say?

Nothing… Just trying to put things in perspective. Specifically that there's still a lot of NSFW material, even if it doesn't swamp the fandom.

But at the same time, we should also remember that it's probably because there's this huge mountain of content, both SFW and NSFW, that the NSFW parts are so big in the first place.

…And so I'm proposing a little phrase that sounds right in my head…

5% of Everything is Porn.

Verbose wrote:

You may have too much faith in this thread to ask this of some users here. Absent-mindedness can’t be helped.

A man can dream, can't he? Right?

Speaking of reposts… This is my TF2 spray btw so thanks Verbose!

Nor is it more prevalent in this fandom than it is any other.

Yes, R34 is more prevalent in the FiM fandom than any other. You can't post statistics within a group and make comparisons between other groups with the only numbers coming from a pony site. You'd have to go and see what the percentage of R34 was for other such sites (e.g., a Homestuck image site, a Pokemon image site, etc.)

However…I did make a comparison between groups. I am confident that the Friendship is Magic fanbase creates far (no exaggeration) more R34 than any other. I've posted this a couple of times on Derpibooru, so I don't have to type it up again. Just reformat it.

I could actually make a case for the brony fandom producing more R34 than other fandoms:

On Paheal, there are three tags with more entries than “Friendship is Magic.”

• My Little Pony (3rd most)
• Touhou (2nd most)
• Pokemon (most)

“Friendship is Magic” is always with “My Little Pony,” and most of the My Little Pony images (20721, as of now) are Friendship is Magic images as well (20466).

So there can be no attributing it to the rule of Rule 34: that porn is going to be produced of everything in the same proportions. There were less than 300 images were of My Little Pony before FiM.

Touhou (32237) has been around since 2002 and Pokémon (54100) since 1996. So it follows that they’d have more images than Friendship is Magic which debuted in late 2010.

But it’s not by much considering the 8-year “head start” that Touhou had and the 15 years that Pokémon had.

In only a bit more than 2 years, Friendship is Magic has over 20,000 images. At the current pace (unless we expect the fandom to die down dramatically in the next couple of years,) FiM would have about 40,000 images.

In six years, 60,000.
In eight, 80,000. (Touhou has 32,000 in eight years)
In ten, 100,000.
In 12, 120,000…
In 14, 140,000…
In 15, 150,000. (Pokémon has 54,000 in 15 years.)

So at both comparison points, FiM has about three times as many R34 images as two other massive fandoms.

All that to say that bronies produce a ton of R34, and more than any other fandom, by far.

Now that likely won’t hold up for 15 years, because the show probably won’t last for 8 years. I expect there to be a decrease, but I think that even a conservative estimate would show that FiM ends up with more R34 per time unit.

Also, I run around on KYM causing grief by banning people and sending out threatening PM’s, but in the midst of that tyranny, I’ve noticed anecdotally that most of the images proportionally belong to MLP, especially when you consider only SFW entries. (Again, R34 doesn’t hold up, even though you do have to consider uploading bias.)

An updated count of numbers shows this:

• Pokémon: 54,774
• Touhou: 32,756
• Friendship is Magic: 21,439 (Let's say 3 years for a conservative estimate)

So on a site that houses R34 from any fandom, FiM is being uploaded at a much higher rate. Like I said above, there is a possibility that Paheal just has a lot of bronies uploading R34. But this is more evidence than saying that FiM doesn't produce much R34. In comparison, in the only data set available, FiM is producing a lot more R34 than any other fandom.
 
 
 
 
 
So…
 
Yes, bronies produce a ton of R34 and more than any other fandom at this point.

Don't even mess with a social scientist, son. You know I been doin' this for a minute.

@PopperFett's friend

The fandom is too big to tell if it's dying or not. It was dead on KYM PG for a while, it was revived, it began to get quiet again, and now it's somewhat active again.

Furthermore, unless you study the online fandom for a living, then no one probably has a good, prospective idea of the demise of certain sub-hubs of the fandom. A lot of people don't frequent Equestria Daily for pony business, so even if that hub was beginning to die (and looking at the amount of comments there for the posts and the poll results, it's just as active as ever,) it wouldn't be a good indicator of how the fandom was doing in regards to its life.
 
For me, I've made friends from the fandom so that the topic of conversation is rarely FiM anyway. I'd miss the fanart terribly, but the community on the whole isn't very important to me now. So even if the fandom was beginning to wane in its zeal or "membership," it doesn't really bother me.

@Verbose:

Well, yeah, we also produce more pictures in general than any other by a fuck-huge margin. I meant as a percentage. There's tons of r34 for any fandom, not just MLP. I'd say, relative to the amount of pictures, MLP isn't any worse in that regards than other fandoms.

I'd cite DeadParrot saying how less than 7% of the images on Derpibooru are r34. I say less because, like he said, that includes grimdark stuff, of which this fandom produces the same amount (relatively) as any other. Cupcakes being early in the fandoms life has some responsibility. But, you can't say the fandom produces a higher percentage of NSFW stuff than others *cough*DipperGoesToTacoBell*cough* without an accurate portrayal of the number of members that produce those pictures in each fandom.

The Wonderbolts finally getting their own episode? Yes please. New episode is best episode. No exceptions.

First off, due to my upbringing, I am greatly biased towards a certain branch of the Armed Forces. Burning Phoenix is a huge fan of Top Gun and military aviation? That's cute. My basement has an actual gun barrel from an F-15 mounted on the wall.

I haven't participated in discussion for a while, so here goes.

Literally my new favorite episode, and not just because of hot-damn-sexy-Spitfire, though that helped. Awesome new canon is awesome, even if it ruins each and every fan fiction written that goes into the details of Rainbow Dash getting into the Wonderbolts or involves any sort of romantic relationship between Rainbow Dash and said Wonderbolts. Awesome mountain base is awesome. Awesome runway and giant hangers for small ponies who can hover and land is awesome.

And it didn't make Dash look bad, either: she gets some really good character development. Just last week we all made comments on her shallowness, her personality being more or less limited to her athletic ability and desire to join the Wonderbolts. Here, both of those are thrown out the window. She learns that everything isn't a competition, and at the end, she realizes that there's more to life than joining the Wonderbolts. Crimson said that she'd rather see Dash demand the leadership position, but I think that would've been just a step backwards. To do so would mean that Dash still seems to think that the leadership position is a competition – sure, she may be winning on moral grounds as opposed to "pushing herself," but she still thinks she's winning. And that's no good. It's perfectly fine for her to come around when Spitfire calls her back, because by then we've seen it's not a competition anymore, so Dash accepts. Plenty of good character development for Rainbow Dash. I approve.

Pinkie Pie being hilarious, as always. I think I've figured it out: it's impossible for Pinkie Pie to act out of character. She's so spontaneous and unpredictable, she can literally do whatever she wants and get away with it. PinkieDash people probably watched the episode with hella shipping goggles on, but let's be honest, everybody is Pinkie's best friend. She'd do the same thing if the episode were about Twilight going back to Canterlot, or Applejack going to Appaloosa.

Spitfire was there, too, though I was marginally disappointed by the lack of any other Wonderbolts. Still, we get to see Spitfire as, oh, I don't know, a character with an actual personality, which is nice. Recurring characters on recurring characters, yo.

Of course, no comment on what happened to Rainbow Dash's sister while Dash was at the academy. But of all the "continuity" this show's offered, Wonderbolt Dash is the one I'd like to see followed up the most. Just leave her completely out of the next couple episodes, at the least. Next week is Applejack pony episode, so as far as I can tell Rainbow Dash has no reason to be there, but I haven't seen any spoilers so don't inform me otherwise.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to refresh FiMFiction a million times until some decent Wonderbolts fan fiction comes out.

I'll grant you that bronies may produce all art at three times the rate of any other fandom. However, that implies that 2+ year old brony fandom would have to be at least three times as big as the 15-year old Pokemon fandom, and I hesitate to make that assumption. Pokemon has been a worldwide phenomenon for its entire life. FiM doesn't seem to have that sort of worldwide influence.

I wouldn't cite DeadParrot for the reasons I said before: There is no comparison to any other groups in that statistic. There's no way to tell if 7% (an overestimate for Derpibooru: 8132 is the number of explicit images that came up when I searched) is a lot or a little.

The number of not safe images in Derpibooru is 26,397 by DeadParrot's numbers. However, Paheal has 21,439 images. And if it's on Paheal, then it's:

1. Rule 34
2. Explicit Rule 34

There's the assumption that many of the images on Derpibooru are all of the Rule 34 images available when the difference in how many Paheal (21,439) has and how many Derpibooru (8,132) has is huge.

So let's say that all 8,132 explicit images on Derpibooru have already been uploaded to Paheal.

Over 12,000 R34 images aren't on Derpibooru. Meaning that the overestimate is actually an underestimate.

That's not even considering all of the art that's on tumblr, Deviantart, e621, Furaffinity, and other smaller art sites. I know all of the art from Ask Futashy isn't on Derpibooru, so it's a poor assumption to say that it is for any tumblr.

Verbose wrote:

So on a site that houses R34 from any fandom, FiM is being uploaded at a much higher rate. Like I said above, there is a possibility that Paheal just has a lot of bronies uploading R34. But this is more evidence than saying that FiM doesn’t produce much R34. In comparison, in the only data set available, FiM is producing a lot more R34 than any other fandom.

It should be noted that Touhou and Pokemon are both Japanese properties, while obviously some of it will be found and posted on Paheal, but a lot will slip through the cracks as well.

Also, I'm just wondering if Paheal is becoming the go to site for clop? I mean, furries will most likely post to furaffinity rather than Paheal for example but Derpibooru isn't really designed to host R34 content.

And let's take the (very plausible) suggestion that Pony produces more Rule 34: We'd have to take into account what percentage of art this constitutes.

For example: If we produce 3 times as many R34 as say…Touhou. Can it mean that we produce 3 times as much SFW art and therefore have the same percentage?

Possibly.

ExudesAffluence wrote:

Burning Phoenix is a huge fan of Top Gun and military aviation? That’s cute. My basement has an actual gun barrel from an F-15 mounted on the wall.

>Possibly did not live on an airforce base
>Does not participate and write rules for Jet Fighter RP
>Does not own hardcore flight sims like Il-2 Sturmovik and DCS A-10C Warthog
>Does not collect Tamiya models
>Has only ONE barrel of a M61A1 Vulcan's 6 barrels and is somehow proud of this?

ExudesAffluence Wrote:

Awesome new canon is awesome, even if it ruins each and every fan fiction written that goes into the details of Rainbow Dash getting into the Wonderbolts…

My comic had a similar idea, but then the synopsis for this episode showed up…

Thankfully, I prepared in advance of this episode, and gave the story multiple timelines! One is "She became a Wonderbolt", one is that she was orphaned and was too rough for them to Discipline into a worthy cadet, so Dash didn't even Try. And the other two Timelines? … Well… One has Dash as a Freaking Cat-Monk (Long story… No, Really, I mean it) And another where she's Luna's Protege.

There's also Two Timelines that haven't even been born yet as well, and several Timelines that take place in the Futures.

All this… because of a single episode…

Oh well. It probably would have turned out convoluted anyways. Considering the crossover nature of it the comic. But now, all I need is a hundred more pages and I'll have Homestuck Levels of Convoluted.

Again, I'll grant that it's possible that FiM produces 3 times the art of Pokemon and Touhou, so the proportion is the same. But I hesitate to consider that, because I doubt (on no statistical or fact basis) that bronies have three times the amount of artists that the Pokemon fandom has (maybe Touhou) only 2 years into the development of the fandom.
 
The argument for "Bronies produce more R34 than other fandoms (proportionately)" is being doubted with alternative explanations with no evidence to them…

…whereas the argument for "Bronies do not produce more than other fandoms (proportionately)" has no statistical evidence to it at all. There is evidence saying that the proportion of sexual content is not very high, but there is no comparison to other fandoms' content.

That's why I used Paheal. It's the only site I know with R34 from all fandoms. In fact, it is notorious for it.

In more scientific terms, the null hypothesis (assumption that there is no difference between groups) should not be rejected until the alternate hypothesis is given enough evidence, so I do understand why you'd not lean towards my alternate hypothesis.
 
 
But I think the null hypothesis' best point is the fact that there have been two very large FiM art sites (and even though I've never looked before, there is no Pokémon equivalent or Touhou equivalent.)

With the existence of Ponibooru and Derpibooru where there is no such unique site for Touhou art or Pokemon, that speaks to the fact that the amount of FiM fanart surpasses other fandoms.
 
You could also say that FiM's fandom is largely based online and began in a different time. The brony fandom being new might actually take advantage of the Internet more than Touhou (when Web culture probably wasn't as big in 2003 or 2004) and most certainly more than Pokémon (which began and had it's most zealous appeal in the 1990's.) That would also be a comparison that speaks to the qualitative differences that might explain the difference in R34 images.

If Touhou or Pokemon sprung up in 2010 like FiM, then they'd have the same "advantages" as FiM. That would dismantle my argument that FiM does not produce an overall greater amount of R34 (attributing it to bronies having a greater online presence due to it being 2010/2011/2012.)

For example, One Direction may only have a large online presence compared to other boy bands, because NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys didn't come to popularity in 2011 or 2012. (Both would have a larger fandom and more fan content if they had the advantages of the Internet, I bet.)
 
 
Now those would be arguments I can't dispute, because it compares the groups in question. However, I can't accept a point until someone presents it to me (or until I see it myself.) So I'll concede based on that logic, but not because Derpibooru has less than 7% of NSFW content. There's no comparison between fandoms there.
 
 
I can't tell if I'm having to concede so often in these arguments because I'm just more willing to give up on a point or because I tend to be wrong.

My stance changed as I typed this up and as I considered other things not presented here yet, so that explains the inconsistency. I didn't want to delete what I had already typed.

Oh, I'll start up a Synchtube in about an hour (7pm Eastern) if you guys are interested. I'll post the link here at about that time.

Please look at my profile description and then come back to me after you're done crying in the outclassed corner.

BTW, AFROTC BITCH!

Wonderbolt Derpy ready for SynchTube, Ma'am

@Verbose:

I agree with the fact that Bronies benefited from entering later. While the Pokemon fandom is large, can it really be said to be as large as it was in the late 90s early 2000s? In addition, when talking about the Pokemon fandom, we also are forgetting something else:

A large part of the Poke fandom's size is small children who are constantly being introduced to it. When talking about the Brony fandom, we always discount the target audience from this number.

Much of the pokemon fandom as well consists of older people who have fond memories of their youth and are in it for nostalgia rather than anything else.

So how can we compare the size of the "adult" audience of both fandoms?

The answer is we can't…..and that is driving me crazy….

EDIT:

BadSitrep wrote:

BTW, AFROTC BITCH!

Ahh….weekend soldier then….

How I imagine you in my head:

Synchtube Link for a few minutes from now. I only have the newest episode cued, and you can add whatever episode/fan stuff you want until it gets started.

I'm trying to watch a movie so I can return it on time, so I probably won't pay that much attention to begin with, but I'll be about still.

Last episode in a nutshell:

Just needs shirtless volleyball and cute pet names.

@Verbose
I kind of lost track of where the argument went for a while there actually.
I just wanted to quickly clarify that the '7% explicit' statistic that I posted was never intended to be used as a way of saying that bronies produce less porn than other fandoms (as I obviously have no way of measuring that), but only to disprove the assertion of Popper's friend that R34 art was taking over this fandom.

I would say that I basically agree with the other mitigating circumstances that you brought up as well about the state of the internet during the rise of each subculture.
Correct me if I'm wrong though, but what was the impetus behind the creation of pony-specific image sites?
The way I had always viewed it was as a reaction to the fandom's origin on 4chan.
Bronies had been born there, attempted to live there, but were then largely told to shove off.
This led to what I like to call 'Pulling a Bender' where bronies basically said "Fine! We don't need your crummy site! We'll make out own sites! With Blackjack! And hookers!" and the process of creating entire websites devoted to ponies was born.
I contend that those other fandoms likely never experienced the same large-scale rejection from their stomping grounds and so they never felt the need to establish sites specifically devoted to themselves.
Basically, I don't really think that the mere fact that things like Derpibooru exist is enough to say that the brony fandom necessarily produces more art.
Really, I have no idea how much art is produced because I have no involvement in non-pony communities at this time.

Also of note, remember that a lot of our community's most infamous R34 producers create some of the best clean work out there too.
All of these guys have drawn a substantial amount of porn, but here are some awesome examples of their clean work.
<div class=spoiler title="John Joseco">
<div class=spoiler title="Cartoonlion">
<div class=spoiler title="Megasweet">
Wait for it. It's a gif!

<div class=spoiler title="Atryl">

It isn't really relevant to the argument about how much porn bronies produce, but for those who think it is too much, never forget that very few artists draw exclusively adult material.
Safe art is always popular and isn't going anywhere.

More cool stuff from the new episode:
Did anyone else realize that Sibsy's OC Wildfire was originally going to have a pretty prominent role in the Wonderbolt Academy?
Well, she was.
Sadly, she was recolored and rebranded into that inexplicable flower pegasus who is subjected to the Dizzitron first (Really, what kind of pegasus gets a flower cutie mark?).
However, some evidence of Wildfire's presence still remain:

That's Wildfire's cutie mark on the chalkboard, and she's paired up with the same pony who is seen with the flower pony throughout the episode.
In fact, that last screen shot is taken directly from the episode where you can see a pony of Wildfire's color scheme standing behind Lightning Dust in the exact spot where Flower Pony had been standing just before.

… In the Eternal Battle to be the Most Annoying Product… Two will Become Legends… Two Will Enter… One of Toys… One of Meat…

Only One shall Leave…

The Battle Shall be Legendary!

And the victor shall have their name Forever-more used as a phrase for things repeated Ad Nauseum!

Will the Reigning Champ Spam Win? or Will the Hopeful Newcomer Gak Win?

You Decide!

For everyone else, Here's another one of my Comic pages that ends with some version of Rainbow Dash Jumping out the Window with a Giant Katana.

Now on Deviant Art!

Sibsy's reaction to not appearing in the episode:

I just realised, they just found a way to "kill" Rainbow Dash! Metaphoricly kill her, I mean take her out of the show.
Where is RD? She is in the Wonderbolt Academy
I hopé this is just nonsense of my mind and NEVER turns out to be true!

@DeadParrot222: As long as there is a fandom, of any kind, there will be porn… No exceptions.
Also, I wonder why she was taken out. Less appealing for bronies maybe? Maybe for the same reasons we don't see Derpy anymore? Who knows.

I reallu like Cartoonlion, Megasweet and John Joseco. Wait a sec, is Cartoonlion who makes that Futashy tumblr?

@Verbose
Numbers need context and therein lies the biggest problem here. So I will try to make you think.

There are image galleries for Pokemon and Touhou here on KYM as well. Pokemon has 777 images in the gallery and Touhou 615, whereas the pony gallery has 124,415+ images. You can compare them, they are all on the same site, just like Paheal. Following your logic, you might come to the conclusion that the pony fandom is about 160 times as big as the pokemon fandom and about 200 times the size of the touhou fandom. And know you know, why you have to delete so much R34 in the pony gallery, because it is so much more popular than the others.

Do you know what the last comment on the pokemon entry is?

"Keep your Rule 34 images to yourselves, guys."
I think, I have read that somewhere else as well. And due to the image ratio of 1:160 you will have to delete 160 ponyporn images to one pokeporn.

I won't argue with this statement:
"Yes, bronies produce a ton of R34 and more than any other fandom at this point."

But bronies also produce more art in general than any other fandom at this point. Perhaps you should also consider that FiM produces more than 3 times the art of Pokemon and Touhou. Pokemon has been around far longer than pony, but pony is the first fandom of the internet and meme era. It's also a fandom that would not even exist without the meme culture on first hand.

You see it's not that easy to compare those numbers.

@Bruno
Sibsy's actual reaction:

I'm guessing the reasoning was mostly a form of cautious restraint on Hasbro's part.
They let Wild Fire (apparently, it is two words) sneak into A Canterlot Wedding, but they don't want to go so far as to make her a regular, recurring character.
Doing so would probably only increase the chances of other animators wanting to get their OCs in the show and you could potentially end up with this crazy situation where a bunch of random designs are getting featured simply because they belong to crew members.
Best to nip it in the bud and keep the self-insertion stuff to a bare minimum, a rare treat.

As for Rainbow Dash, you and me both!
They had better not use this as an excuse for her being absent, especially right after the previous week's episode.
You know, unless they find a clever way to let her be in two places at once…

This couldn't possibly go wrong!

And yes, Cartoonlion is the guy behind Futashy.

I find it funny that you only specifically mention liking three of the four artists that I mentioned.
And the one name you left out was Atryl's despite the fact that you used one of his images in your post.
He has a great cartoony style that can pull off EPIC CUTENESS to PRETTY COOL.
(Not to mention that that candle one was done for a 30 minute art challenge meaning that that entire thing was thought up, drawn, and colored in under a half hour!)

@Rainbow Dash panic
They said at the beginning of the episode that the flight academy was only gonna be a week, so at best Dash will be absent from two or three episodes, which isn't a big deal anyway because characters of the mane six have been absent from episodes for short periods of time before. The only way I can see Rainbow Dash being put on a bus because of this flight academy is if there was some sort of "second grade" to it that we for some reason were never told about before.

@DeadParrot222: Well, I didn't know that he even existed until today… But he sure makes good art!

AND IS GOING TO END IN FRYDAY!!! MFW:

Not that I believe in that, but is going to be one fun day!

Wouldn't they mean by a week an ACTUAL week in real time?
The amount of time from the previous episode to the next episode?

That actually sounds clever, huh? If the week they were talking about in the episode would contribute into real time, which goes from last Saturday to this upcoming Saturday.
Unless the time goes the way you said it would. Then okay.

SO ANYWAYS, I never got to ask this yet:
Is the finale a two-parter or just one episode?

Damn, I haven't been in this thread in forever.

I've liked Season 3 so far. My favorite episode has been Magic Duel. Guess why.

@Trollkeeper: Well, it's obvious:

So I will try to make you think?

That came across poorly, but I don't think you intended that.

As for the KYM image gallery, there is a known, large, and active brony community on KYM that doesn't exist on Paheal. This is the uploading bias I was talking about: KYM has a pipeline of brony content, because there are so many uploaders who siphon in FiM fan content on a regular basis. There is no structured Touhou or Pokemon community here, so that would account for the massive difference without speaking to the actual amount of fan content among the three communities.

To my knowledge, there is no comparable brony community on Paheal. Although similar in that the sites house images from different fandoms, the two are different in regard to how the images are uploaded. The fandom image galleries aren't comparable on KYM. Apples to oranges: there is a large qualitative factor that accounts for the difference in images.
 
As for deleting Rule 34, that wasn't a problem at the beginning. I'll direct you to the FiM gallery, but sorted from the oldest to the newest. You'll rarely find an image that was NSFW or had to be tagged as such (especially compared to uploaders today).

However, that just indicates a change in what people uploaded. That switch to more R34 could be apparent in any fandom over time.

As for the 3 times as much content, I don't think you read my last post (but I'll grant that it was large and probably not conducive to scanning):

Correct me if I’m wrong though, but what was the impetus behind the creation of pony-specific image sites?

The way I had always viewed it was as a reaction to the fandom’s origin on 4chan.

In response to DeadParrot above as well, Ponychan was the main site to house "refugee bronies" from 4chan (FIMchan was another but allows for R34.) I first began to post on Ponychan, but began to post here more often. I still have a tripcode there, although I don't remember the password.

I don't think Ponibooru or Derpibooru was meant to house people so much as images. And again, there's no equivalent in for the Pokemon fandom or Touhou fandom that isn't under the large Danbooru/Gelbooru "Overbooru" sites. That could be attributed to the timing of the "boom" of the three fandoms though, like we've acknowledged. Perhaps Pokémon would have a "Pokébooru" the size (if not larger) than Derpibooru had it came about in the same context as the FiM fandom.
 
So Whitishcollar, I've already conceded that I don't have enough information to make the claim that bronies produce proportionately more R34 than other fandoms,) so I'm not going to try to defend that point anymore. My last point was saying that I disagreed with some of the reasons on the "other argument" (i.e., bronies don't produce more R34) too.

I don't always take sides nor will I stick with one if I think the arguments for a side begins to appear weak.

I have little faith in either argument at this point. We can't know for sure one way or another (even your claim that bronies produce more art cannot be backed by evidence that I haven't already presented. It is assumed at best that bronies produce more fanart overall.)

@burning phoenix

Projected result for discussion if current course is maintained:

I say we end this like mentlegen and leave it be.

I seem to keep bringing up a variant of this question… But nobody says much on it…

In the case of Tall Buildings, is it Reasonable that Pegasi would use Windows like they would Doors? To the point that leaving and entering their apartment through the window is a common sight?

Eh…

Anyways, I'd love to see more Pony in more urban environments like Manehatten. Although it seems to be a mostly Earth Pony place, I find the thought of Urban living for Pegasi and Unicorns to be a fascinating mental image.

…Although that could be because Unicorns are always seen hanging around in places that are more "High culture", and that Pegasi are for some reason seen in somewhere with more open space.

But seriously, there needs to be a fan comic about Ponies living in the equivalent of modern day Tokyo.

Tokyo Image for reference.

And also the most Urban Japanese looking version of Twilight Sparkle I could find… Cooincidently, My Headcanon is that Twilight Sparkle is Equestria's Version of Japanese.

…Now I hope someone got their brain juices flowing today.

Oh sorry that really came across poorly then. I didn't want to offend you Verbose, just well the last time Paheal was mentioned (Derpy Vasquez posted a comparison 100 pages ago) there was some discussion about that ponies are taking over the site and that the image gallery has similar issues like KYM. Okay I have never been to Paheal and I don't really want to go there, so my information relies on other users who mentioned changes in the upload behaviour.

And yes I read your post and the part about your uncertainty concerning the "three times as much content". I just wanted to state my own view and see if you would resume the thought. I know that it wasn't completely fair, but that point seemed to disappear a bit under all the different thoughts.

So here I got a hug for you:

Best hug ever!

BTW: If you see some weird grammar or bad choice of words, please feel free to correct me. You don't need to highlight every sentence now, only if you see something sticking out.

Dash and Scootaloo? Best hug ever?

>:[

Now I know you're just screwing with me.

Hey guise, I don't know if anyone talked about this before, but…
How old do you think the Mane 6 are? I suppose they're around 16-18, and Celestia calls Fluttershy a "child", but heck, she's like 1000 years old.
Anyways, what'cha think?

ERRY ONE RUN IZ MECHA LYRA

For your Twilight anime headcanon
Sailor Twilight

And for your cosplay headcanon

If they're not at least 18, most of us are in trouble.

Seriously though, I think they are young, but definitely not children. Most of them live in their own houses for crying out loud. I'm gonna say they're 18.

Oh wait, Fluttershy said she was a year older than Pinkie Pie, so that would make her 19.