Has Friendship is Magic impacted you in any way?

[Leave a Whisper]

I'm assuming Makaton is what some learn to help people who can't form words be understood? I remember some of those people had their own interpreters. Mostly family members or specially trained workers.

It's a sign language but unlike BSL/ASL etc, it basically has a hand sign for each word. A lot of the kids at the college who were nonverbal used it, and it wasn't as complex to learn as sign language.

Ah I see. Thanks for making that clear. I must be thinking of something different then because some of the people accompanying them could understand what they were saying verbally.

[Taffeta]

I'm assuming Makaton is what some learn to help people who can't form words be understood? I remember some of those people had their own interpreters. Mostly family members or specially trained workers.

It's a sign language but unlike BSL/ASL etc, it basically has a hand sign for each word. A lot of the kids at the college who were nonverbal used it, and it wasn't as complex to learn as sign language.

Ah I see. Thanks for making that clear. I must be thinking of something different then because some of the people accompanying them could understand what they were saying verbally.

I hadn't heard of it till I was at the college, but it just seemed like so much fun to learn and to use. I wish I could remember more of it now but it's one of those things that if you don't use it you lose it.

..But this is now well off topic. Back to FIM .

[Wardah]

You did, but you edited your post to make it less confrontational while I was typing mine, and since I am not interested in picking a fight, I edited mine to compensate.

In any case  reflecting on this, I think the issue itself is a bit of a minefield.

 I mean, I'd expect that to be the attitude of the G4 fanbase, because, as I said before, I've seen far more examples of that attitude in the brony community than here. But then on the flipside, maybe when they did that, the writer's mistakenly clocked onto the wrong element, and thought, hey, we're representing disability, that's awesome! Ratrher than thinking, hang on a minute, we're making jokes about disability. That sucks.

Sometimes that fine line of trying too hard to be inclusive backfires to being completely the wrong kind of inclusion. I am going to air this old laundry again but I still feel like the way MH attacked this idea was much less toxic, because it wasn't based on an error, or defined by the fandom. They did have a character in a wheelchair, but his being so didn't really stop him from doing anything as far as I remember. But I'll poke again at Ghoulia, who didn't communicate normally, and who didn't fit the stereotype for a zombie, but was a genius. To me that's a great character not becaise she's representing disability (although again it's a fan interpretation that she could be). But because she doesn't fit the mould. And with invisible disability, I think the best way you can sometimes feature that is to have characters that are simply different in some way from the expected.

I'll bring in Crunch the Rock Dog as well. That's absolutely not intended to depict Wind Whistler as autistic. It was the 1980s. But the whole message about judging her because she didn't throw all her emotions out there makes her super relatable to people on the spectrum. Again, not by trying to include disability, but by talking about the different ways in which people deal with stuff, it appears more inclusive.

An example from the show that actually does it better is the one where Twilight is struggling to help Rainbow Dash study for some kind of test because she learns differently. And how Twilight ends up realizing that some people need to use different methods and that it's valid. As someone who is ND I related to that a lot.

The characters that are different in FIM seem to be marginalised or singled out a lot more. I remember a lot of questions over Zecora, right back at the start, so this is a wider problem, not one associated with Muffin alone. This may be accidental, but where Muffin is concerned, she became a trope or a meme instead. The animation error may have been accidental, but they still had control over how that character was presented. I feel like they were too conscious of her 'difference' and thus they made her a joke, rather than a symbol of inclusivity. I have only seen a couple of episodes with Muffin in, and she doesn't have much of a role, so this may be not correct, but my feeling is that she is not included particularly in the 'friendship' model. She gets told off and her behaviour exasperates the others, but there's no kind of active sense of, Hey, Muffin, are you okay? How are you doing today? Let's hang out! It's more, hey, she's a klutz, she's gonna mess it up, sigh.

As someone who suffered from exclusion by NT people for being "different" it was such a lost opportunity.

[Taffeta]

@Wardah - I didn't know about that example, but that's exactly the kind of thing I mean that's more positive. And it's a shame that was only within the M6, but still important that it was included.

I guess what I want to see is normalising difference without needing to resort to awkward, obvious and often unpleasant 'signposting'. If you really want to be inclusive, it's better to just show lots of differences without drawing attention to them

[LightingElectricDream]

The positive was I let my niece Watch Rainbow Brite and began to delve into Nostalgia and came across FIM told my brother that it was like a slice of life anime and we watched it together. I bought blind bags and then started to recall my long lost 80's ponies and I basically dropped G4 like a hot patato. I still watched it with my brother and all but began to come onto the 80s community.

--

Well here is the negative..

With the exception of both my brothers.
Most bronies hate G1. I was out casted in a group for likeing G1 and they treated me as they where embarrassed for me.
The show dropped the ball.
The toy line kept releasing the same core 6 and cheap chunky plastic with hardly any gimmick to them. As the years went my the toys got worse.

Some Bronies are overly sexual and inappropriate turned mlp into porn. People made comments on my G1 shirt saying they where so sexual and I had to explain that it hasn't anything to do with hasbro. And these where the 80s ponies..sigh...

Bronies treat mlp like inappropriate anime.

--


I am happy to be in this community despite a few turns of events with things I don't wanna talk about. And this community has shown me the ugly side of collecting G1 ponies I almost quite this forum beacuse of it.


The fact is that people make things beautiful and things toxic it depends what one your concentrating on.
What you dwell in is what will bring to the table your self.

Positive vibes bring positive tribes.

And what it is to you is what it will be..so make it a good experience.