My Little Pony discussion

[Dominic]

And, the most morbidly hilarious line from this thread is....

Even Power Rangers had 'Agony in Pink' over a decade earlier.

Oh....my.....god.....

Joking aside, those Pony fics you described sound like a list of bad fanfic cliches, complete with cannon raep. I actually considered writing a deliberately bad pony fic, just to see how people would react. It was going to involve a BW cross-over, and Fluttershy having to mercy kill Angel after he was severely injured by the stories supduper badguy, a flying tiger monster.


Dom
-more awesome than a house elf gang bang!

[Mirage]

Alright, Bronies: (and I say that in the most endearing way possible) I need your help. My daughter got the new Rarity's Carousel toy for her birthday. It's okay. It comes with Rarity... and a mystery pony. Neither the packaging nor the instructions list her name. Does she even have one? She's been dubbed "Ice Cream Pony" for the time being, though I've promised her we'll find her real name. She's a pink unicorn with a blue, pink and orange mane, and an Ice Cream stamp. She's very similar to Starbeam Twinkle, which came in the cardboard castle set with Twilight Sparkle, but has a different mark and a slightly different colored mane.

So please: Help me, help my daughter, and most of all, help poor "Ice Cream Pony" find her real name. Thank you.

[BWprowl]

Primitive moulding and engineering are traits that I normally associate with "bad toys".

Again, and I don't know if you read my previous post or not, in this case, they aren't all like that. Have you seen those Monster High things all the kids are into these days? Plenty of articulation, with swappable (customizable!) body parts and lots of intricate, unique outfits? I'd say just as much, or more, work goes into fabricating the tiny, fashionably-designed clothes on today's dolls as does into molding greebles on robot action figures.

I do however rate aesthetics highly.

How many different dolls have you actually looked at though? Like, in the last five years?

Spoiler

That's right, now not only have I gotten Dom buying Ponies in the stores, next time he'll be there comparing and contrasting different dolls in the aisle!

But, it does not look as good. I prioritize for "display" over "play".

When I was a kid and actually playing with the toys, I still wanted them to look good. My G1 Ratchet spent more time in vehicle mode than in robot mode. The robot mode looked like shit. When I finally completed a Devastator in G2, I was annoyed by how bad the merged form actually looked.

Dom, you've acknowledged before that you were a weird kid. A toy of a Transformer is going to be pretty worthless if it can't *transform*. It's like, back when Power Rangers was getting going, they had those little single-pack preposed miniatures, which were similar in function to the miniponies we're discussing, in that they were nice-looking little Power Rangers figurines. The larger action figures, by comparison, had pretty simplistic molding and looked kinda awkward. But us kids wanted those ones anyway because we could move them around to actually do cool karate shit and fight the bad guys and their heads could flip around to morph and stuff. Way more fun and desirable than static minifigures, even if they didn't look quite as good.

Likewise, if a little girl wants to have Twilight Sparkle speed her scooter down to the library to return her book on time, only to get sidetracked at Rarity's boutique because some animals got loose and are causing trouble, then the larger toys with the brushable hair (so Rarity can take everyone out for makeovers after the dust has settled) are the hands-down choice, not the little minifigures that they can't do anything with. Thus, they are better toys.

Even as a kid, if I bought a toy, it was probably because I wanted a representation of the character. G1 Ironhide looks like shit. It has a sticker for a face. It is, put simply, one of the worst toys that I have ever seen. PVC Ironhide actually looks like it is supposed to be something, even if you have never seen TF before. G1 Ironhide looks like the kind of trash that you buy in a supermarket as a last minute Christmas gift for a nephew that you hardly ever see.

I've never gotten your hate-on for G1 Ironhide. He looks like a mecha who transforms out of a van. He's got legs, arms, a place for a pilot to sit behind the windshield, and a cool little battle station. He's a cool little toy, and just because the cartoon decided to draw the toy wrong, that doesn't make him a bad toy.

I wonder if this sort of bias I have comes out of me getting Transformers toys way before I ever knew there was a cartoon. Did everyone else do it in the opposite order? Decent idea for another thread...

It was some kind of boxed set. If I recall, there was a Luna, a Celestia and maybe a Twilight in there. The Celestia was definitely a PVC, (about thrice the size of the Luna). And, the "regular" ponies like Luna were maybe 2/3 the size of the standard pony figures that most people think of.

Okay, I know there was that box set back when the FiM line came out that had sound-like-the-same-size-as-this-one figures of Twilight, Applejack, Spike, and Celestia, was this like a follow-up to that set? I'm anxiously waiting for Hasbro to do minifigures of Luna and Celestia, the latter is a particular favorite of mine (don't think I haven't been tempted to grab that recently-released proper-white recolor of the electronic 'My Wings Are So Pretty!' Celestia!)

[Onslaught Six]

I wonder if this sort of bias I have comes out of me getting Transformers toys way before I ever knew there was a cartoon. Did everyone else do it in the opposite order? Decent idea for another thread...

We already had that thread. Remember? You made it. Your existential G1-isn't-that-important thread.

[BWprowl]

We already had that thread. Remember? You made it. Your existential G1-isn't-that-important thread.

Eh, slightly different in this case. Right now I'm wondering if getting Transformers toys and enjoying them as *toys* well before being exposed to the fiction results in not worrying so much about things like show accuracy/character representation, the way Dom obsesses over. Not to mention the toys being the primary arm to the franchise I care about to this day.

[Shockwave]

I can speak to this actually (and perform the oh so typical tfviews signature move in the process: The thread derail!). I had toys before I knew about the cartoon. Then I had the comic before I knew about the cartoon. And, I will say that even back then, I though Ironhide and Ratchet sucked. The toys had no head at all and Hasbro's putting a sticker on the seat just looked cheap. And it looked even worse on the box art which was trying to sell the idea that the entire windshield/chest area was supposed to function as the "head". Not to mention that they both suffered from the "brickforming" that plagued that era with poor articulation with a whopping two points, same as the seekers, Megatron, well, half the toys from the line back then. At least the other bots from '84 had actual heads and could at least look like complete bots if displayed.

And, if anything, knowing more now as an adult about the history of Transformers actually makes me appreciate them more knowing that in the original Diaclone line they weren't autonomous beings but mechsuits. Suddenly, it's ok if it doesn't have a head because as a battle suit it doesn't necessarily need one. But as an autonomous character? Sorry, I at least want head.

[Dominic]

So please: Help me, help my daughter, and most of all, help poor "Ice Cream Pony" find her real name. Thank you.

Holy crap. We have completely ignored this question. (That is hardly a very friendly thing to have done.)

How many different dolls have you actually looked at though? Like, in the last five years?

I have no answer for this. But, it *really* needs to be quoted.

A toy of a Transformer is going to be pretty worthless if it can't *transform*.

A toy that is meant to look like a character is pretty worthless if it looks nothing like the character. If I am buying a figure because I want a representation of the character, the way that the toy looks is more important than what it can do. (Action figures do not move and talk on their own like the characters, but we can all live with that, right?)

If I pick up a toy that is billed as being based on a given character, it had damned well better look like the character.

Likewise, if a little girl wants to have Twilight Sparkle speed her scooter down to the library to return her book on time, only to get sidetracked at Rarity's boutique because some animals got loose and are causing trouble, then the larger toys with the brushable hair (so Rarity can take everyone out for makeovers after the dust has settled) are the hands-down choice, not the little minifigures that they can't do anything with. Thus, they are better toys.

I dunno. Maybe this is a fundamental difference in play-pattern or something. (Is there any research on this.) Divorced from context, MLP and most toys aimed at little girls seem to be about the kid interacting *with* the toy. In contrast, when divorced from context, boys toys are more about the kid doing something to the toy or about making the toy do something to another toy.

Come to think of it, and I could be wrong, this might have something to do with why girls toys are less likely to have context associated with them to begin with, and that what context they do have tends to be much thinner.

I've never gotten your hate-on for G1 Ironhide. He looks like a mecha who transforms out of a van. He's got legs, arms, a place for a pilot to sit behind the windshield, and a cool little battle station. He's a cool little toy, and just because the cartoon decided to draw the toy wrong, that doesn't make him a bad toy.

That toy is a piece of shit. The robot mode might work as a mech suit if the damned thing came with a pilot and was not billed as being a toy of a character that looked nothing like the toy. It fails as a robot because the fucking face is a fucking sticker. That was a piss poor effort even in the late 1970s.

Okay, I know there was that box set back when the FiM line came out that had sound-like-the-same-size-as-this-one figures of Twilight, Applejack, Spike, and Celestia, was this like a follow-up to that set? I'm anxiously waiting for Hasbro to do minifigures of Luna and Celestia, the latter is a particular favorite of mine (don't think I haven't been tempted to grab that recently-released proper-white recolor of the electronic 'My Wings Are So Pretty!' Celestia!)

I am pretty sure that I saw a Princess Luna figure. I recall noticing that the Luna was a combination of pegasus and unicorn. (Granted, I once had a waking hallucination about there being a green recolour of Lio Convoy back in the day. But, I am pretty sure that I saw a Luna at Target.)

And, I will say that even back then, I though Ironhide and Ratchet sucked. The toys had no head at all and Hasbro's putting a sticker on the seat just looked cheap. And it looked even worse on the box art which was trying to sell the idea that the entire windshield/chest area was supposed to function as the "head". Not to mention that they both suffered from the "brickforming" that plagued that era with poor articulation with a whopping two points,

I agree with much of this in principle. But, there are two points I disagree on.

The box art can only do so much to make the toy look good. What do you want them to do, completely redesign the character so it looks nothing like the toy like Marvel Productions did? Yeesh.

Joking aside, the brick-forming was not so offensive in the case of Ironhide and Ratchet because of the fact that the extra parts formed a substantial "other" toy/accessory. Of course, the toys were a mess otherwise....


Dom
-barely has time to shave, let alone comb a doll's hair.....

[Shockwave]

So please: Help me, help my daughter, and most of all, help poor "Ice Cream Pony" find her real name. Thank you.

Holy crap. We have completely ignored this question. (That is hardly a very friendly thing to have done.)

A toy of a Transformer is going to be pretty worthless if it can't *transform*.

A toy that is meant to look like a character is pretty worthless if it looks nothing like the character. If I am buying a figure because I want a representation of the character, the way that the toy looks is more important than what it can do. (Action figures do not move and talk on their own like the characters, but we can all live with that, right?)

If I pick up a toy that is billed as being based on a given character, it had damned well better look like the character.

I've never gotten your hate-on for G1 Ironhide. He looks like a mecha who transforms out of a van. He's got legs, arms, a place for a pilot to sit behind the windshield, and a cool little battle station. He's a cool little toy, and just because the cartoon decided to draw the toy wrong, that doesn't make him a bad toy.

That toy is a piece of shit. The robot mode might work as a mech suit if the damned thing came with a pilot and was not billed as being a toy of a character that looked nothing like the toy. It fails as a robot because the fucking face is a fucking sticker. That was a piss poor effort even in the late 1970s.

And, I will say that even back then, I though Ironhide and Ratchet sucked. The toys had no head at all and Hasbro's putting a sticker on the seat just looked cheap. And it looked even worse on the box art which was trying to sell the idea that the entire windshield/chest area was supposed to function as the "head". Not to mention that they both suffered from the "brickforming" that plagued that era with poor articulation with a whopping two points,

I agree with much of this in principle. But, there are two points I disagree on.

The box art can only do so much to make the toy look good. What do you want them to do, completely redesign the character so it looks nothing like the toy like Marvel Productions did? Yeesh.

Joking aside, the brick-forming was not so offensive in the case of Ironhide and Ratchet because of the fact that the extra parts formed a substantial "other" toy/accessory. Of course, the toys were a mess otherwise....


Dom
-barely has time to shave, let alone comb a doll's hair.....

For the ice cream pony I vote Rainbow Sherbert. Hey, if one of the main characters can be Rainbow Dash....

The thing to remember with Ironhide and Ratchet is that in Diaclone they were mechsuits and they did come with little drivers to go into the seat. And the Diaclone versions do not have a face on the sticker. That was changed by Hasbro in 84 when they repurposed them into autonomous characters. What I always wanted on the box art was for the outside of the box to match the fucking toy inside which I remember being very annoyed that Hasbro couldn't seem to pull that off. Bluestreak was the worst offender on this point, but I was also annoyed at the box art for Skywarp, Ironhide and Ratchet. In the case of Ironhide and Ratchet, you have the box art selling the idea that the windshield is the face while toy inside is selling the idea that the face is behind it. Also to consider is that the fiction was based off of the toys, not the other way around. I certainly don't fault Marvel/Sunbow for doing what they did given what they had to work with, especially with such inconsistency with the outside of the box not matching up the inside.

EDIT: Also, in the case of buying a G1 Ironhide and Ratchet (or any original TF for that matter), you're not really buying a "representation of the character" so much as you're buying the "toy the character is based on". Case in point would be Ironhide. If I want a good representation of the character I sure as shit ain't gonna buy the G1 version. I'd probably either get the Henkei, Universe, or Fansproject (or whichever 3rd party did it) version. Now, if for some reason I got nostalgic for the days when the toys were all that I knew about, THEN I'd want the G1 version.

[Dominic]

EDIT: Also, in the case of buying a G1 Ironhide and Ratchet (or any original TF for that matter), you're not really buying a "representation of the character" so much as you're buying the "toy the character is based on".

Habro used the cartoon and comics (with character designs by Marvel) to push the toys. When I was kid, I generally wanted toys characters from the cartoons or the comics. And, I wanted the toys to look like the fucking characters that I liked from the cartoons and the comics. Yeah, package art is important. But, I was looking for a toy, not for packaging. (Aside, I really cannot recall Ironhide's or Ratchet's package art.)

Frankly, most G1 toys were not good enough to be worth buying on their own.

Okay, back on topic:

The blind buy pony packages have number stamping that can be used to figure out which pony is in the bag. The numbers are part of a 5 digit code on the back-flap of the baggie. The numbers are heat-pressed, but not inked. This makes them a bit more difficult to read than I would like. But, it can still be done.

The numbering works like so:

The first, and easiest, step is to figure out which series is on shelves. (There are four at the moment.) Each pony has a number, (say, 1 - 20). That number is incorporated in to the 5 digit code listed above. The first, third and fifth digit places are filler. The second and fourth digit places are the parsed pony number.

For example: The blue bag series default code is 8_2_6.
A complete code might look like 80236

80236
The second and third numbers are "0" and "3". This translates to "03".
"03" translates to Trixie in the blue bag series. (For the record, Prowl wants Trixie, so if anybody finds a Trixie, let him know.)

The blue bag series consists of metallic or sparkly ponies that would likely be chase variants in other lines. These are really no so good if you just want a representation of a given character. But, in theory, they can be good customizing fodder.

I ended up with Rainbow Dash (19) Chance-a-Lot and Twilight Sky.

I grabbed Rainbow Dash because she is one of my favourite characters. (She barely beats Twilight Sparkle, but does not quite beat Fluttershy.) At the very least, I wanted the card. On a related note, Fluttershy is consistently a recolour of Rainbow Dash. This means that there is no good toy or Fluttershy available. (The Rainbow Dash mould does not work well for Fluttershy. The pose and mane are wrong.)

Chance-a-Lot and Twilight Sky are male ponies that I picked up for customizing. Their numbers are 6, 10 and/or 17. I really did not keep track.

The glittery ponies are....eh. Despite being moulded in translucent plastic, the figures do not let much light pass through, larger for being over-saturated with glitter. (The figures almost look to be chromed like something Takara would produce.) The glitter is externally applied, which gives the figures a "gritty" feel. If anybody is planning to use these figures for customizing, it would probably be better to select for smoother "metallic" figures, rather than the glittery figures that will need to be scraped before being painted.

The cards are really not worth buying these packs for. One side of a card is a non-numbered and visual (partial) check-list of other figures in the set. The other is a picture of the included pony along with one or two sentences about them....surrounded by plenty of dead space. (Even if the card art was of "normal" Rainbow Dash, rather than of "glittery" Rainbow Dash, I would not be able to say the cards are worth getting.) It is also worth nothing that attempts at bag feeling or even clumsy number checking can bend/crease the cards. The cards I got are all fine, but I could feel creases in other cards through the packaging.


The official theme for this set is "Crystal Empire". I am really not sure how I feel about political, to say nothing of Imperial, ponies. But, apparently, this is also going to be the "thing" for the show this year. I dunno......



Dom
-has a couple of custom pony ideas....

[Shockwave]

EDIT: Also, in the case of buying a G1 Ironhide and Ratchet (or any original TF for that matter), you're not really buying a "representation of the character" so much as you're buying the "toy the character is based on".

Habro used the cartoon and comics (with character designs by Marvel) to push the toys. When I was kid, I generally wanted toys characters from the cartoons or the comics. And, I wanted the toys to look like the fucking characters that I liked from the cartoons and the comics. Yeah, package art is important. But, I was looking for a toy, not for packaging. (Aside, I really cannot recall Ironhide's or Ratchet's package art.)

Frankly, most G1 toys were not good enough to be worth buying on their own.

Yeah, we all wanted that Dom. That's why Hasbro has been trying to give us toys that resemble the animation models ever since. Action Masters, PVCs, Masterpiece, even Classics/Generations to some extent all seem specifically designed to give collectors the G1 toys that look like the animation/comic models rather than their original toy models.

But, at the end of the day, the toys came out first. So, back during G1, even if you wanted a show accurate Ironhide or Ratchet, you were screwed. You either got the one toy that the model was loosely based on or you just didn't have that character. Period. I was kind of the opposite. My exposure to TFs came in order of toys first, then the comics, then the show. So, I remember watching the show and wondering why the show didn't get the models to look more like the toys.