And the season's over.

SOME SPOILERS. SKIP IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN EPISODE YET

Heh, you know the feeling, like a tingle of Deja Vu? Mixed with a sense of awesome and envy and a bit of self-righteous "but I did that!'

The finale left me feeling like that. An event to be sure, but one I felt looked familiar.

Seeing Twilight's stain glass window melt reminded me of Tiarawhy's "Friendship was Magic", the fight scene with Tirek reminded me of MrDavies' Smile HD (it didn't help that I watched the Bronies react version - it makes Sibsy's question 'Is this what fans really want to see in the show?' even more ominous). Some were nice though. The Alicorn trio singing and power transfer reminded me of Sparkle Animation Studio's "Shooting Star [animation]".

The underlying themes are something every analyst has been calling out: being a princess didn't seem to be a big deal -it was done on purpose to be addressed later. The journal replaces letters but serves no in-story purpose - bookmarks + characters unaware of rainbow connection proved it did.
People called out that the rainbow-dized toys would tie into the finale, especially since somebody said they would be relevant. A group SS seemed logical even without hindsight.

The hard part for me is the overlap. Discord's confrontation w/ Tirek was better than anything I could write... and the downside was I was trying to. Similarly Twilight's solo fight echoes the material I was planning. It's one thing to follow a tough act, it's another to follow the same act. It's not to say they're identical, just that I have an even harder decision: go along with it even though parts will be called finale rip-off or re-write and try for something new.
It's something I'll have to keep in mind as I get through the next chapters.