Best Gift Ever FiM Special

[scifipony]

What happened to having Christmas specials around Christmas? Bad enough I'm seeing Christmas stuff at stores mixed in with Halloween and thanksgiving.

I'm really hoping the early airing of this episode means they'll be releasing the DVD in time for actual Christmas

[Al-1701]

Which is rather weird since lazy eye has nothing to do with mental disorders.

Ask the fans who created the fanon around her.  One of my first exposure to a person with screw eyes in media is Colombo (because Peter Faulk had a glass eye) and he was a genius.  I think it's just another case of this particular fan community being low information but acting like they're the smartest people ever.

Personally, as a person with a disability working for a company geared towards employing disabilities, why she hasn't been fired for screwing up this badly this frequently?  Because if let her keep her job despite such poor job performance out of pity, I'm personally insulted this writing staff thinks so poorly of employment for the disabled.

And before people try to pull me off the soapbox, I was sent to Washington D.C. this past summer to (unsuccessfully) advocate for the removal policy language that allows states to not work with companies that provide gainful employment to the disabled based on this very stereotype this staff thinks is funny.

The rest of the special didn't impress me.  I'm so numb to the fan pandering I can't care anymore.  The animation error just strikes a nerve because it was the staff once again being tin-eared to a subject I have personal experience with.

[Leave a Whisper]

Which is rather weird since lazy eye has nothing to do with mental disorders.

Ask the fans who created the fanon around her.  One of my first exposure to a person with screw eyes in media is Colombo (because Peter Faulk had a glass eye) and he was a genius.  I think it's just another case of this particular fan community being low information but acting like they're the smartest people ever.

Personally, as a person with a disability working for a company geared towards employing disabilities, why she hasn't been fired for screwing up this badly this frequently?  Because if let her keep her job despite such poor job performance out of pity, I'm personally insulted this writing staff thinks so poorly of employment for the disabled.

And before people try to pull me off the soapbox, I was sent to Washington D.C. this past summer to (unsuccessfully) advocate for the removal policy language that allows states to not work with companies that provide gainful employment to the disabled based on this very stereotype this staff thinks is funny.

The rest of the special didn't impress me.  I'm so numb to the fan pandering I can't care anymore.  The animation error just strikes a nerve because it was the staff once again being tin-eared to a subject I have personal experience with.

What a world we live in. 

[rosierjay]

love it. nice break from all the spooky stuff.

[TJgamer]

It was an enjoyable special. It wasn't amazing or anything, but at least it was entertaining.
I'm just surprised we've waited 8 seasons to finally get a special for this show, especially after we've had multiple TV movies and specials for the Equestria Girls franchise.

Seeing Applejack finally give Flim and Flam what they deserve was very satisfying.  >:3

I wasn't particularly fond of Spike though, and that's saying a lot coming from someone who often stands up for him.
His crush for Rarity has long passed its prime, and just the way he tries to fish Rarity's paper out of the others, only to not know what to actually get for her, really made him hard to like.

As for the whole Pony debacle, I thought it was more cute than funny (and a little weird, given how slow she acted compared to her portrayal in Slice of Life). Now while I do see Al-1701's point about it being a potentially harmful message, keep in mind that this world and its society doesn't exactly work the same way our real world does...usually.
 

[Pinkie21]

I thought this was probably my favorite Hearth’s Warming (holiday) special.  Yeah, you have some very cliche tropes in this, but...I dunno, they kind of work in this case.

Spoiler

I think the Discord/RD and Rarity gift searching were my favorite bits.  Though I loved Pinkie’s gift search, too.  As much as I’m not a fan of non-pony characters in MLP, the reindeer worked for me.  Especially the yellow/green one.  So pretty!  It was also nice seeing some interaction between Shining Armor, Cadance, and Flurry Heart as a family.  That was sweet!  Oh, and Spike’s song to Rarity was so stinkin’ adorable! 

[Khoufu]

Spoiler

Applejack actually had something to do! She'smy favorite of the mane 6, when she gets to actually do something and not be stuck in the background. Also nice to see Muffins again. I have lazy eye, too!

[MJNSEIFER]

Nobody "censored" a character with mental disorders. The reason why she didn't speak for a while is because Tabitha was given direction to voice her like a slow oaf and many people took offense to that. Tabitha tried to cover for them by saying she was told the character was a boy and that's why the voice was deep. But that was an obvious lie. She voiced her like a Downs stereotype and not a boy.

That's why Tabitha has done her differently over time. Nobody could decide what she should sound like.

She did not anything like a Downs stereotype to me.  To me she sounded like an old-timey boy, if anything.  I don't think Tabitha was covering for anyone, I honestly think that is what happened - she voiced her as a boy.

I can hear the voice coming from a from a girl as well, I guess (I didn't think of the boy thing until I read about it, but once I knew of it, it made sense to me.)  I have been around people with Downs, and "Muffins" sounded nothing like any of them - not even a joke version of them.  I do not hear it at all.

I don't think it was a lie at all, I honestly think that she was voiced as a boy, and I honestly can't hear how her voice sounds like a stereotype of anything other than "a boy from a specific era" - I don't know what era, but I can hear her voice being used for a boy from a time before this, if that makes sense.  There's just something very "old-timey" about her voice to me.

It's interesting really, because I was never under the impression that she had any disabilities or mental disorders at all, both when I saw fandom interpretations of her, and when I saw her in the show - I just thought she was a clumsy pony and that was it.  I never really saw her as slow or stupid, and I don't think I remember seeing any fanon material that portrayed her that way either.  I'm not denying it existed, but I probably missed it, as I missed a few things (e.g. "Scootabuse" was a thing for a while, but I never saw any of it - other than a fake one), so yeah - that was never my view of her, ever.

EDIT: Also, I am not saying that people with disabilities or mental disorders are stupid.  I'm just saying I don't remember ever seeing anything "slow" (however you want to interpret that) about "Muffins" during any interpretation of her, fanon or canon.  Basically, if she really was a character with disabilities or mental disorders, there would be nothing in the way she acts, in the material I have seen, that would make her look like an insult to them, in terms of how her intelligence is portrayed.

[Ponyfan]

It’s on Netflix now.


Ponyfan

[scifipony]

It’s on Netflix now.

Just rewatched it on there yesterday. My third time watching it, and I still love it. Really impressed with how much effort the show's staff obviously put into it.

[Ponyfan]

I finally watched this today. 

Spoiler

I really enjoyed it but I could see from a mile away that something was going to go wrong with the ponies trying to find the perfect gift for each other. I loved seeing Rarity’s generosity shine as I feel that the show doesn’t show her being generous  often enough. For once I didn’t find the Yaks annoying. The reindeer were cute and I like the pun on their names. I sort of expected them to have more screen time though. It  was nice to see Shining Armor, Princess Cadance and Flurry Heart again and I enjoyed watching Shining Armor and Princess Candance try to fight the enchanted pudding.

I was dissapointed with Spike putting so much effort to in to trying to get Rarity’s name and then deciding he didn’t know what to get or make her. I liked that they got names of someone that they might not have the perfect gift already in mind for.

I liked seeing Grand Pear included. Discord didn’t annoy me as much as usual although I didn’t like his plan of putting ponies in danger just so Fluttershy could feel important. I was surprised to see Flim and Flam selling Holly dolls but it was fun seeing Applejack and Fluttershy put them in their place.

Ponyfan