Become instant best friends... uncheck (Maud Pie)

My Little Po-Mo vol. 2 is now on sale, see the Books page in the sidebar!

My Little Po-Mo blog posts are drawing ever closer to their end. But don't despair! The Near-Apocalypse of '09 will pick up immediately after. Patreon backers can see it right away! 

Keep the Rainbow, she's here for the Rocks.

It's March 15, 2014. The top song is "Happy." It is by Pharrel Williams and not rock music. The top movie is Mr. Peabody and Sherman. I only go to movies about rocks. There is news. Sbarro's goes bankrupt. They make pizza. The best pizza ovens are made of rocks. Rockets are fired into Israel from Gaza. Rockets are not tiny rocks. I will never make that mistake again. Tasmania and South Australia have state elections. Mt. Augustine is the largest rock in the world, but it's in Western Australia. Some people say Uluru is the largest rock but they are wrong.

This episode is "Maud Pie." It was written by Noelle Benvenuti. She has no other credits in television or film. It introduces Maud Pie. She is Pinkie's sister. She always speaks in a comedic monotone. She is quite terse. She takes things literally. She is difficult for the other ponies to get along with. 

She is the most amazing thing I've ever seen (let me put it this way: I forgot this episode had Tank in it) and there's no way I could keep that up for an entire essay, nor am I so cruel--or so enamored of Maud Pie--that I would inflict it on you even if I could. 

Maud is a fascinating character, one who catapulted quickly to immense popularity after this episode, despite this being her only major speaking role to date. The reason is simple: she is hilarious, quite simply the funniest thing on the show to date. 

Analyzing humor is both notoriously difficult and somewhat dangerous: rather like mystical experience or a game of Mau, to over-explain the rules is to kill them. But the most striking thing about Maud is that there really is only one joke to her: she is extremely deadpan while saying and doing very odd things. This episode, effectively, is a series of escalating gags in which Maud does something strange while showing no apparent emotion. The excessive flatness of her affect serves to emphasize the strangeness of her behavior by contrast, and this dissonance creates the humor. 

It is interesting to compare her to another character who has extended the same joke across several entire seasons of another show, Parks and Recreation's April Ludgate. As played by Aubrey Plaza, who is an absolute master of this kind of humor, Ludgate is a cynical, angry loner who uses her deadpan comments about death, suffering, and her hatred of all humanity as a defense mechanism against engaging emotionally with the people around her. Her relationship with the goofy, childlike, playful Andy (Chris Pratt) is the key to the other side of her, the genuine emotion hidden under the snarky shell, but she still generally maintains the same way of communicating. The primary difference once Andy is in the picture is that she participates willingly in his ridiculous games, because that's how she shows that she loves him. 

The similarities to Maud are quite noticeable, with the major difference that Maud isn't a cynic (which is to say, a disappointed romantic defending against further disappointments), so she has a very different set of odd statements for her particular form of the joke. In her case, the oddity contrasted with her deadpan delivery is twofold: a passionate interest in rocks, and a unique aesthetic that values directness and simplicity--thus, wearing a dish towel as a scarf because he likes the pattern of stains on it, smashing apples instead of peeling them, or--best of all--her poetry, which consists entirely of brief declarative sentences about rocks. This distinction makes sense; after all, Equestria is a far less cynical place than Parks and Recreation's Pawnee, Indiana.

Nonetheless, it is understandable why the Mane Six (Pinkie Pie excepted, of course) don't like her: one of the few traits shared by all of them is emotional availability. All of them are quite expressive of their feelings and generally willing to talk them over with others. Maud's comedic lack of affect and tendency toward terse statements that shut down conversation are both anathema to the relational styles of the other ponies. Compound that with the way her mode of enjoyment of shared activities clashes with theirs (most obviously, that she easily beats Rainbow Dash in their competition yet does not care about winning), and a clear personality clash is afoot.

Unfortunately, that is where this episode commits its one major stumble. As I have alluded to before, I believe quite strongly that Friendship Is Magic needs to counteract the notion that friendship is therefore mandatory, because that is both a very prevalent and highly toxic notion, particularly among young girls. I want an episode that ends with a character writing, "Today I learned that sometimes two ponies will never get along, and that doesn't mean that either one of them is bad. They just don't go together, like chocolate ice cream on a pizza. It's okay to be friends with someone that doesn't get along with your other friends, as long as you make time for each of them. And it's okay to not be friends with someone the rest of your friends like." This episode comes as close as any has yet to expressing this concept, but fumbles the landing: instead of concluding that it's okay for Pinkie's Ponyville friends to not get along with Maud, so Pinkie can spend her time with Maud and then go back to her other friends, they instead abruptly decide the exact opposite, that their shared caring for Pinkie Pie ought to be enough common ground for them. In other words, after an entire episode of setup for the lesson that Friendship Is Not Transitive, they declared by fiat that no, actually, it is transitive.

Still, it is a stumble, and one more to do with my wishes for the show than an actual flaw in the episode. Maud remains an extremely entertaining character, and the episode is still a great deal of fun. Sometimes, that's enough.

Next week: Dream on.

Kill la Kill episode 23 and Sailor Moon Crystal episode 10 liveblog chat thingies!

When Kill la Kill ends in a few episodes, I'm going to start posting Legend of Korra Season 4 vlogs. Patreon backers at $5 or higher can see them as I record them instead--the first two are done already and I'll be adding one a week! Backers at $2 or higher (including those at $5!) get to see Near-Apocalypse articles early too!

How to participate in the liveblog chat:

Option 1: Whenever you watch the episode, comment on this post as you watch with whatever responses you feel like posting!

Option 2: Go to http://webchat.freenode.net/. Enter a nickname, then for the Channels field enter ##rabbitcube, and finally fill in the Captcha and hit Connect! We'll be watching Kill la Kill and commenting there starting at 2:00 p.m. EST today. Sailor Moon Crystal will be at 2:30 EST.

Chatlog below the cut!

The creation myth of the Wannet Shapers

My Little Po-Mo vol. 2 is on sale. Check out the Books page for info!

Don't forget, Patreon backers can see The Near-Apocalypse of '09 and my Korra vlogs as I make them--everyone else has to wait until February and December, respectively!

A sacred story for one of the religions in the Dragons of Industry world. No idea if this will ever come up in the story itself--the only character I have so far who's likely to know it is Twill, and they're unlikely to tell it for reasons of their own.

Once there was All. All was everywhere and everything and the only thing, because All was all, and All was alone because there was nowhere and nothing else to be.

All had eyes and nothing to see, and a mouth and no one to speak to. All had a heart but nothing to think about, hands and nothing to Shape.

So All began to Shape themselves. They plucked out their eyes first, and made the Sun and the Moon and light to see by. Then they plucked out their lips and their tongue, and made the sky and the wind and the breath to speak with. They Shaped their bones into mountains and their blood into rivers, wove their hair into forests and stretched their skin as fields. The flesh All's hands pulled apart and Shaped and molded into the twelve thousand and twelve animals of sky and sea and soil.

At last All had made everything, and there was nothing left of All but hands. Now there were things to see but All had no more eyes, and things to feel, but All had no more heart, and things to talk about, but All had no more voice. All that was left of All were two great hands hanging over the world, stretching from end to end of the sky.

So All brought their hands together, and the two hands Shaped each other, pinching off pieces like clay, shaping them into little tiny Alls with eyes and voices and hearts and hands of their own. They could see the world and each other, speak to each other, think and Shape and dance and a thousand other things.

We are the Hands of All, the Shapers of the World and of each other. We are each All and each tiny.

Do not forget.

Do not fail to tell the mirror-story. There are many roads, but there is only one beginning and one end.*

*Note: It is traditional for Wannet stories to end with "Do not forget. Do not fail to tell the mirror-story." This and one other story are the only traditional tales which add the next sentence.

The Book of Life, super-brief review

Visually stunning, extremely cliché story, serious case of Strong Female Character Syndrome (though she gets a *tiny* bit of autonomy at the end), doesn't trust its audience, frame story/narration is annoying and adds nothing.

If forced to give it a letter grade, probably a C. It is a watchable way to pass some time, but no better than that.

The Babylon 5 that (thankfully) never was: Season 4

Continuing my series attempting to reconstruct how Babylon 5 was originally (for certain values of original) "supposed to" go. More detailed explanation and Season 1 are here, although note that since writing that original post I have gotten access to JMS' "original" treatment and am no longer working from summaries.

Known: Delenn gets pregnant with Sinclair's child. Garibaldi quits his job as Chief of Security as a result of his drinking, and begins operating as a mercenary out of B5. There is no mention of a Psycorps connection, Lise, Edgars Industries, or Zack Allen.

The Shadows would first be shown onscreen at this point, and the description of them, while vague, is consistent with how they appear in the series. They would initially present themselves as fighting to free the other races from the Vorlons, but in truth they desire to rule.

Speculation: Between the lack of a rebellion against Earth and the general slower pace of the treatment as opposed to the series, very little seems to happen this season. Perhaps G'Kar and the Narn resistance would have gotten focus episodes, or some variant on the Centauri Cartagia/rise of Londo plot might have occurred. Another possibility, given events in the treatment's version of Season 5, is that the Minbari Civil War might have started, but not been resolved, during this season.

At this point it should be clear that the series as aired had gone completely off the original rails in Seasons 3 and 4. The Shadow War was resolved in early Season 4 in the series, yet is still a proxy war at the END of Season 4 in the treatment. Babylon 5 is still part of the Earth Alliance, Garibaldi never leaves the station, the entire Mars plot and associated cast is nowhere to be found, and Clark is still in charge with no resistance from Sinclair and company, despite manipulating his way into power via assassination just as in the series.

The Shadows as rebels against Vorlon manipulation is an interesting concept. It leaves open the question of whether the Shadows are one of the younger races manipulated by the Vorlons who have advanced far enough to turn against them, another race of equivalent age and power who just never bothered to get involved before, or, perhaps most interestingly, renegade Vorlons. This would cast an interesting light on the "angelic" presentation of the Vorlons, making the Shadows "fallen angels." It also seems likely that something similar to the "meeting" scene from "Z'ha'dum" would have happened in this version of the show, where someone would explain to Sinclair the Shadows' rationale for their actions. Perhaps Catherine/Caroline would have had that duty. Regardless, it seems that both the treatment and show versions give the Shadows a reasonable-sounding rationale, but belie that rationale through the destructive and manipulative behavior the Shadows have exhibited to this point. In the original plan, it seems likely that there would be a good deal of dramatic irony regarding this point, as the implication in the treatment is that the audience knows how the Shadows are manipulating Londo more or less from the start, but the human characters don't find out until the season 4/season 5 bridge.

Continued in two weeks...

Well this should be a popular opinion...

Fuck Veterans Day.

Don't get me wrong. It's not unreasonable at all to have a day of remembrance and mourning for the people who have sacrificed their lives and safety in order to protect their homes. It's just that we already have a day for that, Memorial Day.

Also, the last time the U.S. military actually did any of that was World War II. Every other military conflict of the last 150 years or so, and quite a few of the ones before that, were pure imperialist assertions of power. Even World War II was mostly an assertion that the islands of the Pacific were our imperial protectorates, not Japan's; that the alliance of empires on the other side were rather a lot more horrific than the alliance of empires on our side is mostly a happy coincidence. (Well, happy for the Allies, not so much for the people who lived in those empires. Or for Japanese-Americans. Or... well, you get the point.)

And, I mean, being a soldier is one of the few ways in which a working class or lower middle class American can get a decently paying job or an education. We should be at least as sympathetic toward them as we are toward the young people pushed into gangs by similar social pressures. Admittedly, gangs have done a lot less harm in the world than the U.S. military, but you wouldn't know it from the media, which tend to villify the former and laud the latter. It's really not their fault.

No, the problem is that Veterans Day isn't about mourning sacrifices or solemnly pondering necessary evils, it's about a jingoistic celebration of authoritarian, imperialist might. It's about speeches where our leaders try to one-up one another in their over-the-top declarations of how utterly fantabulous it is that a significant percentage of our society and economy is dedicated to the pursuit of slaughter and destruction in foreign lands. It's about the lie that spreading chaos and death makes us safer, that "we fight them there so we don't have to fight them here," as if there would be a "them" if we weren't fighting there.

So yeah. Fuck it. Have a Peace Day instead. Or move Election Day to November 11 so we can all have that off. Better yet, make it the second Monday in November or something, because holidays that don't create three-day weekends are stupid.

But that won't happen any time soon, because the U.S. is a highly aggressive imperial power, and we now exist in a state of perpetual war that our leaders have no interest in ending. But that doesn't mean we have to celebrate it.

I AM a big pony! (Somepony to Watch Over Me)

Yeah, over a day late. I suck. A few quick items:

• I got a nice bit of mainstream recognition: I was quoted and My Little Po-Mo referenced in last week's New York Magazine. 
• My Little Po-Mo vol. 2 is on sale, see the Books page.
• I'm nearing the end of My Little Po-Mo, which means I'm nearing the beginning of The Near-Apocalypse of '09. In fact, I'm already writing it, and backers of the Patreon can read it as I write it instead of waiting until February when it officially launches.

The third danger of the Fire Swamps is the
Chimera of Fairly Typical Size, Actually.

It's March 8, 2014. The top song is Pharell Williams' "Happy," which basically is what it promises, but goes on too long and suffers from the usual excess of chorus. The top movie is 300: Rise of An Empire, which I have no desire to experience enough of to form an opinion. In the news, Gravity and Frozen collect a number of well-deserved Academy Awards between them, the murder trial of Oscar Pretorius begins in South Africa, and conflict between Russia and Ukraine in Crimea continues even as Russia continues trying to pretend it's not them.

On TV, newcomer Scott Sonneborn pens "Somepony to Watch Over Me," an Apple Bloom episode that mostly continues exploring the same themes as the previous week's "It Ain't Easy Being Breezy." Both stories involve a character who neither needs nor wants care (Apple Bloom here, Seabreeze last episode) having it thrust onto them by a larger, more physically and socially powerful caretaker (Applejack/Fluttershy). However, where last episode divided itself between Fluttershy and Seabreeze's points of view, this episode is strictly from Apple Bloom's. Applejack's position, while not entirely unsympathetic, is depicted as being both wrong and rather absurd, to the point of worrying that Apple Bloom doesn't know she has to open drawers in order to use their contents.

Like last episode, this is a critique of saving rather than helping. However, unlike last episode, by focusing on Apple Bloom the critique becomes less what it says about the savior, and more about what it does to the victim. Normally, when I talk about saving vs. helping I talk about the would-be savior, because they are the active party, the one who needs to be persuaded to do differently. But that does rather miss the point, which is that saving is often harmful and always disrespectful.

That's key to this episode. From Applejack's perspective, she loves her sister, cares about her, and wants to protect her. But from Apple Bloom's perspective, Applejack isn't saying, "I love you," she's saying "I don't trust you." Applejack is, in effect, repeatedly telling Apple Bloom that she isn't good enough to take care of herself, which in turn leads to Apple Bloom going to great (and rather dangerous) lengths to prove that she can actually take care of some things on her own.

In some ways, being excessively cared for can be nearly as damaging as being insufficiently cared for. In particular, it can be very damaging to one's self-worth; we need meaningful achievement in order to feel good about ourselves, but no achievement can be meaningful without the possibility of failure. If we only ever do easy things where success is guaranteed, then any adversity can seem overwhelming. Fortunately for Apple Bloom, she has often been allowed to attempt things on her own, in particular in her adventures with the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and so she is able to face down adversity in the swamps.

Interestingly, the chimera has similar issues to Apple Bloom, given its comment on having a sister always looking over its shoulder (literally, in this case). This is fairly standard "the villain is a twisted reflection of the hero" stuff, which in a sense the season has been doing all along, given its play with qlippothic shadows, but the use of a chimera for Apple Bloom's reflection is particularly interesting. As a three-headed monster, it is a reflection not just of Apple Bloom but of the Cutie Mark Crusaders as a group, three frequently bickering individuals who nonetheless form a united whole and usually act together.

The chimera is also a third instance of the episode poking gentle fun at the show's conventions. The first is the "hats and bows closet," a quick visual gag that references the common practice throughout television animation of giving characters very prominent and unchanging costume elements that they rarely or never change, thus making them more visually distinct despite the comparatively low level of detail relative to live action. The interrupted song is a slightly longer gag, poking fun at the show's ambivalence about whether musical numbers are diegetic (as, for instance, "Giggle at the Ghosties" in the series premier clearly is), extradiegetic (as most musical numbers in musicals are, and for example "Winter Wrap-Up" and "Smile" must be), or something in between or other.

The chimera pokes at a third gag, the relative harmlessness of most of the monsters. Certainly there have been monsters that posed an immediate physical threat to the heroes, such as the hydra or the Changelings, but dragons, for example, are more bullies than all-devouring forces of destruction. The chimera, given its desire to eat Apple Bloom's pies, seems at first to be another such defanged monster--but then it announces it intends to eat her as well, as a side dish.

These gags appear initially to be just that--standalone gags that don't really amount to much. The episode largely conforms to the Cutie Mark Crusader formula, with the Crusader getting in over her head, getting bailed out or set straight by the adults, and ultimately not learning any particular lesson. Which is where the fourth and best of the episode's gags comes in, because this time Apple Bloom didn't need to learn a lesson. She was in the right all along, and it's Applejack who learns her lesson--which means we finally have an episode in which Applejack needs to grow and learn, in which she actually develops as a person and as a character, and it's not even an Applejack episode!

Unfortunately, those four little gags are pretty much all this episode has to offer. True, it offers a fresh perspective on the importance of not trying to impose assistance on people who don't want it, but we just had an episode about that. Ultimately an episode about stepping back and letting the Cutie Mark Crusaders grow up must ring false, because if they grow up they cease to be the Cutie Mark Crusaders; the show cannot allow them to grow up because it would eliminate their function as characters, which is being roughly the same age and social status as the target audience. This is about as good a job as can be done with that brief; fortunately, in just a few episodes Sonneborn will get a chance to try something much more interesting and novel.

Next week: Monochrome Rocks!