@kinghearts
so did the equestria girls portal

holy crap that looks trippy

@Niggoslav_Krawczyk
 
Oh, I loved Legend of Legaia. Haven’t heard of Dual Orb before, though. Sounds interesting. Have to look it up.
 
Also, your observation about portals reminds me about time travel back in the Marvel Transformers series. You’d think it’d be a one-off thing, but it was used several times throughout the run. It’s only when space-time got destroyed due to things like Cyclonus dying before he was even created that both factions opted to destroy their time machines. It just got too risky to use.

@WM-R Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. Precedence doesn’t work in matters of justice, but it certainly applies to literary works. It seems like every time this same scenario (minus the shipping of course, that would make it even more of a mess) comes up in a sci-fi novel, the author goes to great pains to ensure they never have to deal with their portal/gateway again, instead of using the opportunity of other worlds to build things in the alternate worlds that wouldn’t get the OK in the primary, or other similar ideas.
 
Yeah I don’t play many JRPGs for that same reason, a lot of shit gets telegraphed so far in advance that even if you liked that sort of thing you jus have to groan at it being used again. I stick to oddball off-the-main-path ones like Legend of Legaia (which, too, is cliched as hell, but the cliches it follows are those of a martial arts film, so at least the combination is a lot different.) or Dual Orb (the childhood friend and sidekick picks up a suit of demonic armour, but is not only not possessed by it but also doesn’t turn evil. He was just that badass a righteous crusader that he converted the evil armour. He shows signs through the game of possibly defecting but in the end he weathered the mental storm and defeated the curse.)

Apparently going through a magic portal is all swirly and twisting and probably can give you a seizure.  
Huh.

@Niggoslav_Krawczyk
 
Ah. So…long story short, you’ve been burned so many times that as soon as you realise you can predict what’s going to happen, you decide to abandon ship, yes?
 
That’s not a knock or anything, by the way. I felt the same way with this game called Valkyria Chronicles. Nice game, interesting gameplay, but overly cliched storyline. So cliched that when the adorable little sister character got shot, I immediately predicted how everything else was going to go and completely deleted everything to do with it. I was just too bitter that all that potential went to waste.
 
However, I think in this case it’s better to let people who enjoy it, enjoy it.
 
Also, Spider-man was the last Marvel or DC comic I followed, and I stopped after the Clone Saga. So a) yes, your disgust was shared and b) I totally agree with your hatred of clones.
 
I have to admit I’m still okay with clones as mass-produced cannon fodder, though.

@WM-R I stopped after the third, and refused to sully the imagination of another so I burned them. I’ve only done such a thing twice before, although the second time was on principle. I don’t actually follow Spiderman, but trashing his love life because you’re too much of a hack writer to make it work is just poor form. I just keep up with the previews and skim the rips as they come.  
I can’t remember exactly which Marvel comic it was from, but it was in that weird arc with Scott Summers’ family being most-integral-and-speshul-people-evr where even a member of his family (the clone of his kid Stryfe) was the ‘threaten-the-world-for-today’ villain, and it ended with such an uber-tarded aboutface that felt wholly forced, as he suddenly decided to sacrifice his own life to save everyone after a half century of being a nihilistic jerk. From that point on I swore off any comic series that attempted to do anything with clones other than as replacement bodies.  
I didn’t follow Clone Saga as I don’t follow Spiderman like I said, but I imagine my reaction was of similar disgust to those longtime readers there. The amusing thing is that DC/Marvel never get this huge a clusterfuck with alternate dimensions, they seem to nip it with a mass crossover reboot before it gets too bad. But clones? Oh hoh hoh, clooooones. Let me tell you about them cloooooones. cough
 
I mean, anyway, the reasons they keep giving for what and why they can’t do x to/with the portal is just kind of infuriating because this is always a kind of shameless way for a writer to introduce something with endless possibility and then have it used just once and never get brought up again. All of Celestia’s talk in this preview seems a setup for something permanent to happen to the travel-anywhere portal, and of course 3 or 4 arcs from now it’s going to be a really handy thing they should have kept available/not screwed up and destroyed, and a single issue conflict becomes an arc because one key item is missing. Soooo many signs I’ve seen before utilised by better sci-fi writers that led to the same disappointing conclusion are being dropped right now. Even if it’s not destroyed, something is going to make it so unstable that once they get back they may never return, lest they rend all of reality a new one.

@Niggoslav_Krawczyk
 
You seem so bitter it makes me wonder if you’re still buying the comic, and if so, why? I mean, your reasons are reminding me of why I dropped every single Marvel or DC comic I used to follow. Rather than fill me with joy or entertainment, they were making me angry or disappointed and so rather than waste my money, I just washed my hands of them.
 
I’ve been buying the MLP comics only recently, and I have to say I rather enjoy them. It’s not like the writers are acting like those a-holes over in Marvel/DC who seem to spend their time deliberately pissing their fans off.
 
Please note I’m well aware that different people enjoy different things (e.g. the things you bring up as irritating are things I laugh off or ignore), but I simply want to know if you’re still following the comic if it agitates you so much.

@Starlight Storm Ah, welcome. It also bears mentioning most were meant for very young kids too. I mean, Batman and JLU call themselves T/YT but you know little kids were watching too because, fuck, THE GODDAMN BATMAN. Timm has mentioned numerous times that children as young as 7 would approach him speaking of TAS and Beyond, not just BATB. And Land Before Time was originally marketed in a very kid-friendly way, so obviously they thought they could handle such a thing. And The Last Starmaker episode of Courage ranks very highly with youngsters as well. Why do they think only adults can ‘handle the feels?’ It makes me hope for similar occurrences in FiM one day, and not just as flashbacks. It didn’t pan out this season, even though most of the new writers had more mature shows as backgrounds, but perhaps now that they’ve ‘earned their chops’ they will be able to change more shit up in the next season.
 
Yeah, I think based upon previous disappointments (and how wrong even veterans get the alternate universe thing* is why I’ve been ambivalent to the setups they’ve created so far. I can’t expect anything other than pure underwhelming at this point. They already screwed up by shipping Celestia, and whipping up that cockamamie ‘worlds asplode if you travel too often’ thing to limit interaction with the mirrorverse, but those are somewhat more ‘meta’ complaints than I could level at previous arcs. The starswirl stuff was mildly interesting but I can’t help but feel this is the only time it will ever come up, or they will find a way to accidentally destroy his study on the way out.  
Also I still hate all the pop culture bullshit. I feel like this particular team especially has no experience with previous generations, and it’s a damn shame they keep throwing stupid-reference-bg-pones in instead of giving facsimiles of previous gen ponies a chance at redemption. (not to mention it would force a bit of worldbuilding like that which made the first two seasons so good)

@Niggoslav_Krawczyk  
Believe me, knowing Rig he wishes that the comics WERE te animated series.  
So far my dissapointments are: Bugbutt (seriously, that arc was TERRIBLY written), Lovebutt and Shieldbutt (even though Cadance was by far the highlight, f*ck that arc), Pirates and Bookworms, and of course half the microseries, specially Moonbutt’s.  
I love your examples of animated show that actually take a break from the fun and put a little of seriousness into their stories. i for one expext and ACTUAL Princess Celestia and Luna episode, instead of that attempt of parody that pasaed as a microcomic.
 
Also, at least this arc is going on pretty nice. Let’s hope they actually pull it of smoothly.

The portal warp thing reminds me of Space dandy.

@Background Pony #3814 Ace, from the Royal Flush Gang

@Niggoslav_Krawczyk  
Whos dat ho with black and white outfit?

Oh yeah, and I forgot about Hey Arnold too. …Until a pigeon shat on my car.  
GOOOOD DAMN YOU PIGEON MAAAAAAN

@Background Pony #2134 You know what else is a cartoon?  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So yeah, when a decent show takes a very-obviously-LAZY-path I am damn sure going to fucking notice and complain about it being not up to snuff.  
Go back to fellating Hanna and Hollyweird and praying at their altar of mediocrity.

@441TheSecond  
Not when those moments are completely out of focus.

@Background Pony #2134  
Because Cartoons shouldn’t have quieter, subtle moments, no, everything has to be bouncing and loud like a Ren & Stimpy knockoff.

@Niggoslav_Krawczyk  
Jesus Christ, will you remember that this is a CARTOON??? It’s not Great literature or even great television drama. Next you’ll want to know if Celestia is eating a healthy diet like royalty should.

@Background Pony #9CA1 No I mean actual princessing duties, not some crap parody.  
Where’s the dealing with diplomacy and impending threats of invasion and dragons?  
Maybe show that Celly loses fights because she’s more a Zhuge Liang type than Sun Ce.

@Niggoslav_Krawczyk  
…….they already dide. through luna, but they did. micorseries issue 10

@441TheSecond I was intending that more on the poor writing quality than of lack of representation. Also we still don’t have bugbutt back yet but I reckon it’ll be next season.  
I have weird hopes btw that the eventual sunbutt episode totally unglamourises princesshood and shows her doing ridiculous mundane paperwork before attending events she doesn’t like (but the mane six tag along and Rarity takes to them with an incredible fervor because of her crazy fantasies over royal life)  
All these other properties basically never give princesses ruling responsibilities even if they claim the princesses do such, so having to see Equestria approving architectural designs and studying things she doesn’t know about to mediate disputes would be fun.

Luna please beat the S*** out of Celestia!

@Niggoslav_Krawczyk  
Well, you have the show.
 
At least allow one medium not let me down when it comes to Celestia please.

@441TheSecond Bugbutt and Lovebutt here so I was pretty much lost from day one.