I recently read a journal by our very own Scootalux, and I have to admit in a way I agree and disagree with him, but that's nothing new as we tend to have various different opinions:P

Quite bluntly, people need to stop defending Fan animation like it's pure and perfect simply because it comes out of a place of love, a childs scribbled drawings are out of a place of love, but they need guidance to improve.

Typically the biggest fault I always find with fan animations/ fan projects is their inability to write a good story, or tell a good story...

Luna's Lullaby had a story that made no sense,it over glorified Luna's actions even though they were selfish and dangerous.

Snow Drop's story was terrible because it expected you to pity the blind character, and elevated her to a pure, innocent state, purely because of said blindness...

Dinkie's Destiny again does a similar mistake, shoving a handicap on a character to make you empathize/feel for them,... (Dinkie's Destiny also has it so that the creator essentially screwed over a voice actress, swapping them out last second without telling them but eh)

Was the animation on these projects good? You bet your flank! Luna's Lullaby had some BEAUTIFUL animation, and fluid movements, it was gorgeous...

Snow Drop was absolutely beautiful with it's near show like animation, great voice acting, and beautiful music...

Dinkie's Destiny had smooth movements, beautiful expressions and nice music.

The major flaw in all of these is that their STORIES WERE NOT GOOD. And claiming they deserve praise, admiration and nay put on a pedestal for it is not good either.

The Artists and animators did a good job, the people that put it together did a good job, but the biggest problem with ALL Mlp fan made animations is that their writing is NOT.

They focus too much on being pretty, on making references, and in general being aesthetically pleasing to the eye....but do any of us watch MLP because it's "Pretty"? Because of it's animation?

The animation is a very small fragment of a whole piece, your finest animation, your best voice acting, your most dramatic lighting, angles and shading mean absolutely nothing if the very core of your project is lacking.

The writing, at the end of the day I feel we all came together because we loved what was being said, the messages, the stories, the characters, and how they grow, we're not here because we like the colors right?

We expect writing to be good for MLP, and honestly I don't think it's asking too much for fan creations to work just as hard on their scripts and storylines as they do on animations.

This doesn't mean be cruel, this means being constructive, but it also means that if GIVEN criticism meant to help you, not screaming "THIS WAS AN ACT OF LOVE AND IT'S BEAUTIFUL AND PERFECT AND YOU'RE JUST A JERK BECAUSE YOU DON'T SEE HOW WONDERFUL THIS REALLY IS!"

You are hurting the creative process, in order for a garden to be healthy, you need to tend to it, you need to make sure every aspect of it is well taken care of, you can't neglect the roots to make sure the petals are pretty.

Well I've rambled long enough, lol had to get that off my chest