The Princess and the Popper · 2:20am Sep 20th, 2023
One might look at the fact that some new Make Your Mark episodes were released yesterday and assume that this relates to them, but of course one would be wrong. I'm never that on-time with anything anymore.
So let's talk about G5 #16 while I'm still feeling like myself.
Tradition demands that I present a moral--never mind that tradition hasn't been consistently observed lately--but of course that moral is nothing special. Just like in every body- or role-swap story ever, the moral is that other people's struggles are hard too, often harder than they look to a casual outside observer. (I guess it's only fair that we hit this point in the G5 comics, though, since only doing it in the G4 show, G4 comics, and G5 show would leave a notable hole in the symmetry.)
But the point that was really on my mind was the way that Pipp mismanages her parasocial relationships. It's good to be nice to your fans, but when you wake up to them knocking on your window asking for autographs it's time to work on drawing appropriate boundaries (even if they are fans with whom you have a somewhat ongoing relationship because they live in the same town as you). Not drawing appropriate boundaries is how you accidentally endorse the stalker who is sure that eventually you'll thank them for taking you to a basement where they can properly protect you.
And sure, granted, the fact that one of them is a pegasus makes it a little less weird that they're on her balcony, but it's still a secondary entrance at best, and one that she sleeps next to at that. How would you feel if you woke up to fans hammering on your home's back door and asking for autographs? Even if they were at the front door, would that feel appropriate? Because it sure doesn't seem appropriate to me. Homes, including their exteriors and associated yards, are private spaces, and should be treated as such; obviously there are some legitimate reasons to visit private spaces uninvited in accordance with social procedures (most of which involve going no father than the doorbell), but asking for autographs is clearly not one of them. Those Pippsqueaks are taking friend-level liberties, but friends don't ask you to sign their face.
And of course this spills over into other relationships involving her public persona, even those that aren't exactly parasocial. Carotang isn't wrong when he talks about needing to work hard to earn the level of attention that Pipp was born to, but obviously he's pushing their professional relationship way too far in his favor, and I think Pipp would have done better at shutting that down if she had any experience being firm about boundaries.
By the way, I do wonder whether Carotang is a reference to somebody I'd have heard of if I were more up-to-date about whatever pop or EDM or whatever that the kids are listening to these days. The name seems too weird to be original, but it doesn't sound like "Justin Bieber" and I cannot name a single other current artist with that solo-boy-band energy that the poster seems to imply. (I must confess to checking on Wikipedia whether Bieber is still making music to find out if I could name any current artists with that energy.)
The other concern I had is that it seems unlike Zipp to be so worried about messing everything up. She hates to be burdened by the responsibilities of being crown princess, but it's never been about fear or a lack of confidence. She just finds the royal stuff tedious and has other things she'd much rather be doing with her time.
I got the impression that a lot of that was Haven breathing down her neck. Plus, most of the times she's dismissed her duties, they've been theoretical as opposed to a dining room set up to accomodate every citizen of Zephyr Heights at once. (Which is its own issue. Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Demographics Edition.)
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I thought I remembered a mention of there being about 300 ponies, but flipping through the comic again I didn't see it; the seating chart though appears to show 96 seats. In theory either number should be adequate to avoid dying out due to inbreeding, if they're careful, and it would certainly resolve the question of how they can all fit in one (large) room. The only issue is that we need to ask why Zephyr Heights looks like a thriving city when it has the population of a small village, and to carefully avoid checking whether the crowd scenes for major Zephyr Heights events clearly show more than 300 ponies.
Which is to say that I hope that the return of magic and resumption of relations with other parts of Equestria helps to resolve the catastrophic population collapse that Zephyr Heights is clearly trying to hide.