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Locked@Verbose
Right off the bat, I'll just apologize for the tone of my last post.
I usually try to have better decorum than that, I had just seen too much of that situation for the day and it was wearing very thin.
Sorry for losing my cool there.
@xTSGx
Just the factual stuff first:
Meghan does live down here in L.A. along with most, if not all, of the writing staff for the show.
That's the bg reason behind why EQLA had so many writers attend; it was right in their backyards.
Basically, Lauren did all the legwork for the show from her home in California and she brought in Meghan because of their previous relationship of working together (on Foster's, I think…).
Anyway, long story short, L.A. is the town full of writers and it's the pool from which this show has and continues to pull its talent from.
Now, I haven't exactly been keeping up with my stalking since those conventions last year, but I highly doubt that she relocated her entire life to another country in order to be closer to her job, no matter how much she enjoys it.
People in the TV industry know that individual shows are often fleeting and I don't see her making that kind of shift for something that could only go on another couple of years.
All evidence points to her being quite isolated from DHX.
Yes, Lauren's major issue that caused her to leave the show was being separated from the production studio, but that was because of her intimate involvement with the whole project.
MLP was her baby and she wanted to be a part of every single thing, to the best of her ability.
Meghan does not have this same level of personal stake in the show.
Don't get me wrong, it's clear she loves what she does and she is a co-executive producer like you said, but she can't have anything close to 'absolute control' over the production after the scripts leave her hands.
I'm sure she's in the loop up there, but more for the bigger picture stuff and for something as inconsequentially tiny as this Flash thing, I'm completely able to believe that she had no clue until it was far too late to change it anyway (i.e. when she screened the final product).
The whole implication of being a co executive producer is that she should trust Jayson enough to handle the animation and VA end of things up in Canada without her direct micromanagement.
They each have their areas of expertise and they focus on those while keeping in contact to coordinate together.
Plus, she was a first-hand witness to what happens when trying to exert too much remote control over the production and I don't think she's eager to repeat that pattern.
@And the other stuff
I never intended to imply that the show, even its little piddly bits, should never be criticized or questioned, just that I did not believe this current upheaval to be justifiable in its scope or ferocity based on the initial trigger.
I'm more than happy to discuss the negative implications of Flash popping up on occasion and how that might make people wary of his potential for further involvement.
That is perfectly constructive criticism and I can't say I really disagree with any of the points you made up there.
Yeah, if they want to bring him back, he's going to need a lot of fleshing out and I think the staff more than realizes this after his initial reception in EQG.
I can completely understand the criticisms said against his characterization in that movie because… well, there were plenty of opportunities to do so.
I still don't believe that his new appearance warranted so much attention because there wasn't even an attempt to use him as anything beyond a background prop.
Had he come out and had some lines or done something of any consequence, I could definitely get behind discussing how that part improved/worsened his character as a whole and all that.
But he didn't do anything other than stand there.
For me, that's essentially a non-event on the level of Pipsqueak running by in that one scene after Nightmare Night and hardly worth anything more than an 'Oh, hey. It's that guy' (which was my actual reaction to him).
The primary stuff I take exception to are the things like that /mlp/ reaction compilation on the last page.
A bunch of incoherent profanity and flipping out doesn't present an argument that can start a conversation and is far more likely to just spawn more yelling while doing nothing toward convincing the show's staff of some higher point.
No, you should not ignore your audience, but an adult audience should also have the decency to at least try to present its concerns in a way that isn't immediately divisive or what do you expect to happen?
You see the same kind of exaggeration and hyperbole present all across our society nowadays so this is hardly an isolated incident, but I think we're doing a major disservice to everyone to just treat it like some unstoppable inevitability.
Yeah, people will always be jerks but why does there seem to be so little motivation to counteract that?
For example, I think Fifth's point is not that small details cannot be criticized, just that that criticism should be placed in an appropriate context.
It would feel like absolute crap to spend months on a project for someone to just come along, watch three seconds of it, and immediately post an inflammatory comment without ever acknowledging any other aspect of the project.
"Okay, you obviously didn't like that one little bit. Noted."
"What about the rest?"
"Good? Bad?"
… "Did you even watch it?"
It's that point when nit-picking overshadows any discussion of the work as a whole that an artist is going to start getting, in my mind, justifiably annoyed.
(To connect to above stuff, I remember the period after Vinyl's eye color was revealed when any picture, video, story, etc. that featured red eyes would be hit with 'Wrong eye color!' comments ad nauseum with no regard for anything else in the work.)
Absolutely mention the little stuff that threw you off when discussing something, but letting that little thing take over and become your only reaction to something is rarely ever constructive, helpful, or useful to an artist.
Tiny addendum:
There is also the fact that EQG actually apparently did relatively well amongst the target audience (little girls) so throwing in a reference to Flash could actually be a positive on that front.
It doesn't free them from working to improve him, but he's likely established enough interest to warrant his recurrence over his complete removal from existence.
In that light, having him appear for a second (giving little girls a hint at continuity) but not having him interact with the cast (thus avoiding some of the big things we disliked about him) could be seen as the best of both worlds.
Wow, this may be a wild comparison, but Derpy's situation could be seen as relatively similar but reversed.
She shows up again (for us) but had her most controversial element removed (her voice) to hopefully avoid most of the negative reactions she received on her first outing.
Obviously it isn't a perfect comparison as Derps had a much more significant role to play, but the parallel just popped into my head.
@The Cute Master
Let us know if you plan to set something like that up sometime.
I only ever watched EQG once so it might be interesting to go back and see it again just as a refresher.
I'm game.
In case anyone was curious about the 'Breezies' that Fluttershy ran off to visit, this is what they looked like in the last generation:
I presume that this universe's version is vastly different (since Fluttershy ain't typically too fond of ponies so I don't see her being so excited to meet what are essentially just smaller ponies), but it has me wondering what they are like.
Perhaps we'll find out someday now that they have been introduced as part of this world…
LYRA!
I-…
I've known this fact for years…
Why has no one ever used this before?!
@BSoD
"Yes! We have cut out the heart of the non-believer!"
Sorry, even animated gore (i.e., bleeding heart or labeled "grotesque" isn't allowed on the site. -Verbose
"Cutie Mark Crusader live organ harvesters!"
"Uh, Scootaloo… you don't think that was a little… extreme? He seemed nice enough…"
"Eh, maybe. Too late to worry about that now!"
