So Last Roundup is on iTunes again. But with a quite annoying change. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate PC...no?...Well I FU*muffins*G hate PC. She will always be Derpy in my heart regardless of any changes (oh how fitting this rant is in a Star Wars guild =P)

Regardless the animators seem to side with us. (also notice what game he is playing =D)

The time we have watched the episode with her speaking was definitely one of the highlights of the 'brony' side of my life, such amazing nerdgasms (in fact I didn't even know what exactly she said until I watched it for the second time). As a symbol of bronies' favour of and influence over the show it is a shame to see this change to Derpy.

I suppose the new voice is somewhat more fitting though.

I dunno why it put those glurgles around the vector. I just thought a Derpy hug pic would be appropriate. :3

I enjoyed Derpy and I hope to see her again in the show, with her old voice.

Trust me. Studio B hates this change as much as we do.

But please, do us all the favor and sign both derpy petitions. on facebook.

The petitions describes very well why we dont want em to take derpy.

can't say it will do anything. you all tried this when the issue first started and how many people ended up signing that yet it was ignored completely.

Bad things happen because good people do nothing.

It's worth a try.

Heh he's playing swtor

Wilowah wrote:

Bad things happen because good people do nothing.

It's worth a try.

1) derpy being removed doesn't really effect me as a bad thing shes a background character to me I was completely fine with the show before she had a speaking role and ill be completely fine if she never shows up again.

2) Internet petitions are almost useless... no one takes them srsly and if anything its just going to piss off customer service if you haven't realized they closed one of their customer service emails because people who want to "save derpy" are flooding the email with these stupid petition signings. Yes Hasbro knows the Brony community wants to keep Derpy but spamming them with Save Derpy emails isn't going to do anything

3) I've heard they are keeping her Derpy in everything but Itunes (how much of that is true IDK)

Applejack wrote:

1) derpy being removed doesn't really effect me as a bad thing shes a background character to me I was completely fine with the show before she had a speaking role and ill be completely fine if she never shows up again.

The character herself is not important, the issue is that the creators have been so awesome and decided to show how much they care about the community. Needless to say the people at DHX and Top Draw are as annoyed as we are.

I do agree with you on the petitions, not to mention that they are being blocked by Hasbro.

But don't take this thread too seriously, it's a bit of a personal rant anyway, I did not pick that avatar for nothing.

I hate to say it, but I don't believe that this petition (or any other action Bronies take) has any chance of working, because the fans' opinion of her was never the issue in the first place. The issue is the potential for public outrage. Can you imagine if a major network like Fox News got wind of this "controversy"? I think Hasbro is just trying to prevent a potential PR catastrophe. Let's face it, Bronies are going to keep watching the show and buying the merchandise regardless of this decision, and Hasbro probably knows this. I'm not saying I agree with Hasbro's decision in the slightest. I'd be pissed at this decision even if I wasn't a fan, as censorship should almost never be the solution to anything. I'm still signing the petitions anyway.

Pinkie Pie wrote:

I hate to say it, but I don't believe that this petition (or any other action Bronies take) has any chance of working, because the fans' opinion of her was never the issue in the first place. The issue is the potential for public outrage. Can you imagine if a major network like Fox News got wind of this "controversy"? I think Hasbro is just trying to prevent a potential PR catastrophe. Let's face it, Bronies are going to keep watching the show and buying the merchandise regardless of this decision, and Hasbro probably knows this. I'm not saying I agree with Hasbro's decision in the slightest. I'd be pissed at this decision even if I wasn't a fan, as censorship should almost never be the solution to anything. I'm still signing the petitions anyway.

Well I'm already speaking with a local Autism Center I help out with (who is also affiliated with the 3rd? Largest University in the nation), and I sincerely hope they get involved. It isn't so much that they removed Derpy's name, we'll still keep calling her that. It's they removed the very things that made her a special, positive character for disabled children and turned into an even more offensive stereotypical "dumb blonde". They had a character who could have been a role model, sending the message "it's okay to be different, there's people to help you and to be friends with" instead they took that away and replaced it with just another background pony, where there is nothing special, nothing unique about her and even worse perpetuates an even worse stereotype than before. That is the most disheartening thing about this and I hope that if and when people get involved with this it isn't for "OHNOES THEY TOOK OUR CREATION" but for the right reasons.

A friend of mine came to me with an interesting theory. It wasn't Hasbro that mandated the change, it was Itunes who did. Now I don't know how much power Itunes has over the shows that it runs, but I do know a few little features.

1) Derpy was censored in Itunes

2) Studio B said that Derpy is there to stay (At least according to EqD)

3) Hasbro did NOT take down or alter the episode on the Hub website

4) Hasbro did NOT alter the episode on the DVD

5) Hasbro has NOT issued any statements regarding altering the episode, apart from Studio B who is unhappy with the change.

6) Hasbro listens to their fans enough to create toys just for the strange male demographic that has attached its self to one of their shows.

I'm not sure if all these things correlate to Itunes mandating the change, but I am certain that Apple is run by assholes who are controlling bastards who are more frightened of something poor being said about them than something poor being said about a company or artist who might get hit hard instead. I suppose the telling feature here will be if a re-run of the show shows the edited version.

Rarity wrote:

A friend of mine came to me with an interesting theory. It wasn't Hasbro that mandated the change, it was Itunes who did. Now I don't know how much power Itunes has over the shows that it runs, but I do know a few little features.

1) Derpy was censored in Itunes

2) Studio B said that Derpy is there to stay (At least according to EqD)

3) Hasbro did NOT take down or alter the episode on the Hub website

4) Hasbro did NOT alter the episode on the DVD

5) Hasbro has NOT issued any statements regarding altering the episode, apart from Studio B who is unhappy with the change.

6) Hasbro listens to their fans enough to create toys just for the strange male demographic that has attached its self to one of their shows.

I'm not sure if all these things correlate to Itunes mandating the change, but I am certain that Apple is run by assholes who are controlling bastards who are more frightened of something poor being said about them than something poor being said about a company or artist who might get hit hard instead. I suppose the telling feature here will be if a re-run of the show shows the edited version.

I think the easiest way to tell is watch reruns of it on the Hub.

I'm finding this controversy fascinating, definitely the most interesting development since I discovered the show. As someone with multiple disabilities, I feel compelled to comment. Now, before anyone jumps down my throat there, I'll preface this by saying that I definitely support the character, and that if the only two options were keeping everything exactly as is or completely editing her out and never using her again, obviously I'm fully on the "keep her" side. That said, as with most things, it's more complex than a boolean YES or NO answer, and I reject the notion that one has to "pick a side" as it were. Anyway, to the point...

As most people in the mumble crowd know by now, I have high-functioning autism and ocular albinism. Since this is an online-community, the only one of those that's really noticeable is the former, the most obvious effect of which is that I don't talk much.

In real life, the latter is the first one most people notice, since one of my eyes is somewhat crossed, and my eyes constantly oscillate back and forth trying achieve vergence. So while I don't have full-on derp-eyes, I definitely identify with that, and caught a lot of shit on the playground over it. This actually endears the character to me, since it's not something you see a lot in a cartoon. You'd think that all that would make me chafe against mis-aligned eyes being used to convey the concept of derping, but honestly it doesn't really. I've always associated it more with what might happen if you got smacked with a 2x4 and went loopy. So really I'm mostly fine with the eyes deal and that seems to be a relatively common sentiment coming from other people in the community with ocular disabilities. That said, I just hope people in the community guard against always associating "derp eyes" with that kind of personality, especially in real life. I've been pretty impressed with the calibre of this community though, so I'm really not too worried.

The more interesting and complex issue is definitely the mental aspect. On the one hand, I hear a lot of how she's a positive role model for people with developmental disabilities, but on the other I hear that she's not developmentally disabled at all, and is instead just.. well, "derpy", since the concept of derping is orthogonal to disability. Either way is fine for a character, but it can't be both. I'll confess that when I first heard her speak, the impression I got was that the character had down syndrome or another speech impairing disability. I spent many years in special-ed around disabilities of varying degrees, and that's what it sounded like to me. I've since learned that the voice actor thought the character was male, and the combination of trying to do a male voice in ADDITION to a "derpy" voice, had that effect. Most people won't know that though. I agree that changing the voice to fall back on a dumb-blonde stereotype would be completely lame, but I think re-recording the lines with the same voice actor with the new understanding that the character is not male would fine.

Now, so what if the character DID have a disability? Honestly I think that would be great to have such a role model. However, conflating that with "derpiness" is unfortunate I think, especially since her first appearance was being a clutz and wrecking the town hall. If anything, I could see Big Mac as such a role model. His speech patterns and mannerism cold be a tick, but he's still a perfectly capable individual and well respected and liked in the community.

While normally I find "think of the children" arguments loathsome, this actually IS a children's show, regardless of how an older demographic may have latched onto it, and as such needs to be very careful with things like accidental indoctrination. Extra Credits had a great episode about this kind of problem in video games, and it's an interesting topic.

I suppose I should stop now before I completely alienate myself. :/

Dr Nicoltas Rush wrote:

I'm finding this controversy fascinating, definitely the most interesting development since I discovered the show. As someone with multiple disabilities, I feel compelled to comment. Now, before anyone jumps down my throat there, I'll preface this by saying that I definitely support the character, and that if the only two options were keeping everything exactly as is or completely editing her out and never using her again, obviously I'm fully on the "keep her" side. That said, as with most things, it's more complex than a boolean YES or NO answer, and I reject the notion that one has to "pick a side" as it were. Anyway, to the point...

As most people in the mumble crowd know by now, I have high-functioning autism and ocular albinism. Since this is an online-community, the only one of those that's really noticeable is the former, the most obvious effect of which is that I don't talk much.

In real life, the latter is the first one most people notice, since one of my eyes is somewhat crossed, and my eyes constantly oscillate back and forth trying achieve vergence. So while I don't have full-on derp-eyes, I definitely identify with that, and caught a lot of shit on the playground over it. This actually endears the character to me, since it's not something you see a lot in a cartoon. You'd think that all that would make me chafe against mis-aligned eyes being used to convey the concept of derping, but honestly it doesn't really. I've always associated it more with what might happen if you got smacked with a 2x4 and went loopy. So really I'm mostly fine with the eyes deal and that seems to be a relatively common sentiment coming from other people in the community with ocular disabilities. That said, I just hope people in the community guard against always associating "derp eyes" with that kind of personality, especially in real life. I've been pretty impressed with the calibre of this community though, so I'm really not too worried.

The more interesting and complex issue is definitely the mental aspect. On the one hand, I hear a lot of how she's a positive role model for people with developmental disabilities, but on the other I hear that she's not developmentally disabled at all, and is instead just.. well, "derpy", since the concept of derping is orthogonal to disability. Either way is fine for a character, but it can't be both. I'll confess that when I first heard her speak, the impression I got was that the character had down syndrome or another speech impairing disability. I spent many years in special-ed around disabilities of varying degrees, and that's what it sounded like to me. I've since learned that the voice actor thought the character was male, and the combination of trying to do a male voice in ADDITION to a "derpy" voice, had that effect. Most people won't know that though. I agree that changing the voice to fall back on a dumb-blonde stereotype would be completely lame, but I think re-recording the lines with the same voice actor with the new understanding that the character is not male would fine.

Now, so what if the character DID have a disability? Honestly I think that would be great to have such a role model. However, conflating that with "derpiness" is unfortunate I think, especially since her first appearance was being a clutz and wrecking the town hall. If anything, I could see Big Mac as such a role model. His speech patterns and mannerism cold be a tick, but he's still a perfectly capable individual and well respected and liked in the community.

While normally I find "think of the children" arguments loathsome, this actually IS a children's show, regardless of how an older demographic may have latched onto it, and as such needs to be very careful with things like accidental indoctrination. Extra Credits had a great episode about this kind of problem in video games, and it's an interesting topic.

I suppose I should stop now before I completely alienate myself. :/

No alienation here, good fellow. In fact, i'll go so far as to say that this is one of the most intelligent responses to the whole issue that i've seen thus far (and may not see the likes of after!). You bring up some great points based on your own experiences. I tried to find the Extra Credits episode that dealt with indoctrination, but it wasn't clear which one it was in. I watched a few to see if I could guess by the title, but to no avail.

Thank you for sharing, and I really hope that the larger issue is ultimately the one that is dealt with in regards to this whole...thing. I don't want to call it a debacle or argument, because it really isn't either of those.

~D

Thanks! When I was done it felt a bit rambly, so I'm glad the points actually came through

Anyway, this is the episode I was refering to:
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/propaganda-games
The first half is about intentional indoctrination, but the latter half deals with how it can happen accidently as the result of quick and easy design decisions.

Tells people not to take the thread too seriously, gets an essay in response

I never really though of Derpy in that way Rush, but those are very interesting points. Perhaps even more important that Hasbro or iTunes or whoever did it (I see your point Rarity) removing her because they are covering their assess.

I really only though of it the issue in the sense of taking away something so awesome (fan service) because of PR. I wasn't until your response Rush that I understood what Ahab meant originally.

On the other hand we might just be over-analysing this but that's what bronies do; over-analyse a children's show

Sorry if it came off as kindof a downer. I promise I'm not trying to rain on the thread (get it? cause derpy is a pegasus and moves rainclouds and stuff... *crickets*) And to reiterate, I do really like derpy. It's just that this whole deal has raised some interesting social and philosophical questions for me, and I've been digging deep trying to figure out what my answers are. It's more challenging than I thought it would be, so I just wanted to share what I was thinking.

And now for some silly:

Wilowah wrote:

And now for some silly:

Is that a Darth Vader NMM ?

I suppose this isn't exactly helping us but it's funny as hell (especially if you watch South Park)

It also sounds like flippy's rambling

NEW DEVELOPMENT
For those of you who do not frequent EqD, there is a nice response from the writer of the scene. The response makes it plain that there was more praise than outcry and while we ought to tolerate, personally I believe in majority rules (also known as democracy).

Warning the response is kinda long.

Make up your own mind about it.