I've moved on from Fimfiction. New works on AO3!
(sort of)
Hey, folks. This thing on?
So I was originally trying to write this big essay blogpost about where I've been and the future of Bookish and all that, but... it didn't pan out. So we'll do the much, much shorter version that should still tell you what's important.
Did you think it was over
...yeah, that's fair, so did I. Still need to talk about that when I'm able. Until then...
Been long enough, I guess.
Words (and explanations) soon. okay soonish i'm quickly reminded why i don't do essayblogs anymore
What, in your opinion, are Equestria's most significant locations? (i.e. Canterlot, Cloudsdale, etc.)
Please keep it to... oh, top 7, and excluding Ponyville/the Everfree Forest.
Thanks to all who answer! 
~B
Things happen. Sometimes I lie by accident.
A certain thing might have been rewatched. Copious notes might have been taken in the process.
...aaaaaand a certain Delight might have been very, very off-base during initial evaluations. Exceedingly and embarrassingly so.
Apologies to all. You deserve better than what I gave. As did the Certain Thing.
Watch this space.
But give us time.
~B
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I'm guessing this means you like it now? Hmm, maybe I should give it a second watch as well, given how I wasn't fond of the finale after my first viewing. Perhaps there was something I missed the first time I watched the episodes.
It's alright, Bookish. We all have days- nay, we often have days where we make false judgements and act in the moment. What's important is that you approached it again with a level head, and came to a more satisfying conclusion.
Though I'm still a bit conflicted personally on the episode... I think I need a fourth rewatching.
3589019
I can't say I've done a full 180 on it, mind you. But definitely a ~140. It's not the finale I wanted, but I do now firmly believe it's the finale this (rather great) season deserves.
YMMV, but I know I missed a lot of things. A lot of simple things I shouldn't have, too. But I went into my original viewing with drooling hype and a laundry list of things I wanted to see the second I heard the synopsis. When the finale did none of them, I acted... juvenile.
And for that I can only apologize. That's not how things are done around here. At least, not without tongue firmly in cheek.
3589031 Makes sense to me!
And it's all good. Some episodes do feel off at first, though they're sometimes better after thinking about them or a second viewing. While I'm still not too crazy about the finale, I do understand why you're more welcoming of it than before. It did have its interesting and funny moments, after all.
Consider me intrigued.
Also:
3589037
I NEED TO GET BACK TO WATCHING THIS SHOW IT'S SO GOOD
3589040
So basically, you decided to give it enough time? Also rosemary... sage...a little parsely...
Sorry, been listening to a lot of Scarborough Fair and other Paul Simon songs, for some reason.
3589031
Unfortunately, that more or less exactly how things are done around here if the continued popularity of RealityCheck and a few others are any indicator.
Or by "here" did you mean your blog in particular?
3589057
My blog in particular.
3589061
Well in that case I suppose my previous comment served no purpose.
For what it's worth I enjoyed both parts and the "sympathetic" backstory still nearly killed it for me. Since I had no expectations in general and currently can't get hyped for anything that isn't Star Wars, I think that says something. Some people have complained that every timeline should have been the same but I'm willing to accept "that would have been boring" as a reason that each was different. I was kind of hoping they'd run with the idea that Starlight doesn't really give a shit about equality and just wants to play Handicapper General so she can be fhe best, would have made a nice switch from the usual way they do villains in MLP.
3589077
That's just it. I honestly don't think her backstory (or subsequent "reformation") was meant to be sympathetic. I think it was to meant to show that for all her bluster and magical prowess, she was actually the meekest and the weakest villain in show history, who only got as far as she did by opportunism and subterfuge.
It's like watching a small dog cast a very large shadow. Cast the light on it and all you hear/see is powerless squeaking.
She's less sympathetic, and far more pathetic.
During the premiere I wanted to hug her. Now I'm actually scared for her. Technically I totally called her "something screwed her up bad long ago" past in my premiere blog, but the reality was worse than I thought. Starlight wasn't broken, she was stunted from fillyhood--which is why the "punishment" some people are calling for her wouldn't work. A lawyer could actually plead insanity for her and
winhave a good case.I was initially all for having there be just one timeline as well (NMM please--which surprises no one more than me given my well-stated opinions on Princess Luna :D) but after the rewatch I actually really like all three. (I still find them to be in increasing order of fun tho. ^_^)
What's that certain thing?
3589086
That makes sense. I've half-jokingly said that in Equestria, not having friends counts as a mental disorder on the same scale as schizophrenia or severe bipolar. This actually kinds of fits with my joke/theory. Both our thoughts also explain why Starlight seems to be having a lot of success in gaining forgiveness--she's not evil, she has a condition.
I still think a lot of her actions and behaviour in her debut suggest that she wasn't drinking the Kool Aid herself, but in all fairness the evidence that she really did believe what she said was equally strong. I do hope she doesn't join the main cast, though. There are some ways they could do that that I would find interesting but all of them are too dark for this show.
3589099
...i forgot
sorry
3589031
Tell me about it. If you go into everything expeting only perfection, and a very specific version of it, you can't possibly be not disappointed.
3589106 K.
I was okay with the finale. It wasn't quite as "this is over" as the others were, but I still liked it. My main problem was that it felt very much like a regular episode, though I very much enjoyed the "what if the villains won?" scenarios.
That being said, I hope Starlight Glimmer doesn't become a regular cast member. She did some really horrible things, hurt a lot of people, and intended to hurt a lot more. That doesn't mean she shouldn't be forgiven of course, considering what kind of universe this is, but come on.
3589031
No worries, we all get that from time to time. For me the most memorable one from this show was Wonderbolts Academy. While I didn't dislike the episode on first watching, I was left vaguely disappointed because it wasn't quite the episode I was hoping it would be. Namely, I was hoping it would be an episode about Rainbow Dash chafing under the binders of someone elses legitimate authority. Remember, until that point in the series every time Dash's weather duties had come up she'd been explicitly in charge. Every. Time. From Friendship is Magic Part 1 on. Until WA we'd never seen her subordinate to anyone ever. I really wanted to see an episode where Dash had to deal with her problems with not being the boss (which I totally believe she has).
3589086
Normally I'd agree, but then Starlight goes and edits a spell written by Starswirl the Bearded to do something no one else thought was possible and repeatedly goes toe-to-toe with Twilight in magical combat. While Twilight is certainly no soldier, she's still been consistently portrayed as the single most potent magical being in Equestria without exception. Tirek being the most obvious marker of that. Twilight did have Celestia, Luna, and Cadance's magic during that fight but Tirek was implied to have the magic of every pony in all of Equestria and Discord's on top of that. Celestia and Luna together couldn't hold a candle to Discord back when they first fought him or in the modern age. And however powerful Cadance is I doubt she's as powerful as Celestia and Luna combined. Which leaves Twilight still being able to fight a monster fueled by all the magic in Equestria to a draw. And then some random unicorn named Starlight can stop her cold. Bullshit.
Despite that I still loved the finale, it was a ton of fun.
Ooh? I still don't think I liked the ending much, to be honest, but I wonder what changed your mind? :o
3589120
You're not the only one wishing Dash didn't always have the answers all the time. It's a big reason why I like Rainbow Falls and Rarity Investigates.
Re: Starlight
Honestly, Tirek's not a good example to use because Twi having all of the Princess's magic kind of invalidates that point entirely. Without that extra power, Twilight's just Twilight--a high-level mage. Princess, yes, but if there's one thing one should have learned from this episode, it's that princesses are not power-goddesses. NIGHTMARE MOON was on the lookout for magical forces more powerful than herself for crying out loud.
(Take it from someone who's been there: this show's a lot easier to get a handle on the second one stops thinking about "power levels". :D)
And now Starlight joins the uber-mage ranks, canonically. Twi flat-out declares near the end of finale that Starlight is more magically potent than her, to the point where it was impossible for Twilight to stop her by magical means.
When I said "meekest and weakest", I meant not in terms of "power" but in terms of who she is on the inside. What powers Starlight's ambitions? What's her schtick? Opportunism, subterfuge... and tunnel vision. If she focuses herself on an objective, she's "smarter" and "more powerful" than Twi, and even "nicer" (we see a lot of this in the Cloudsdale scenes). We've seen her pull a 1984 in the premiere (by manipulating ponies who were clearly easily convinced), we see her do her best impression of David Xanatos for an episode and a half (by jacking and modifying one single-purpose spell so that it covered all the bases she wanted to)...
...and then we find out she's none of these things. She's not a mastermind, she's not a leader, she's not anything the other villains have ever been up to this point--not even Sunset Shimmer. She's a little girl who never grew up and has been (rather irrationally) crying for a friend she lost of all these years. She's hollow inside.
The second Twilight finds this out (way to cut it down to the wire there, girl), she knows exactly what needs to be done, and it's over.
And that's why she's the princess.
3589129
While Twilight having the other princess's powers does screw with things, I still see the Tirek fight as being mostly Twilight because of the aforementioned "having Discord + every pony alive" thing but I see your point as a whole. Really I'd be more fine with it if Starlight's motivation didn't come off feeling so limp. She lost one friend once and uses that to motivate herself to do the impossible, touch the untouchable, row row fight da power.
I would've rather it had been she lost numerous friends over the course of her life due to their cutie marks pushing them to do things in places Starlight couldn't or wouldn't follow and having that build up over time into the philosophy we see at the beginning of the season. Then it would feel like she had actual motivation to achieve the things she did. As is, her motivation just makes me feel like her whole creed is weak because the events that spawned it are weak (to me at least).
3589133
That's my one single gripe with Starlight's story, too. Like, the backstory's fine, the event that sets it off is fine, the reasoning is fine (crazy as she is)... but they deliberately leave out everything that happens from fillyhood to her running the town. Fuel for Season 6, I suppose, but still, it grates. The gap leaves people unfulfilled and I can see no good reason to leave that kind of detail out. We don't need a yearly diary, but even a couple flash-scenes of her being shunned or otherwise traumatized by cutie marks at the beginning of her song would have been all anyone needed, really. This isn't the first time the show's had this problem, either.
That said: as it currently stands?
She and Moondancer have a lot to talk about.
3589135
My other gripe with the season finale is that it feels like a SERIES finale. I'm seriously curious where the heck they go from here, they seem to have written Twilight into a secondary role with her taking Starlight as a student. I'm sure there's ways to have her continue to be a main character, it just feels weird at this point for that to be the case.
Glad to see you are feeling better about it.
And yeah, Starlight was definitely straight up crazy. I maintain that Twilight and Co. at the end were at least partially just distracting Starlight until the polite young stallions in the clean white coats arrived.
But you liked Friendship Games.
Kidding. Kidding!
I'm glad to see you've come around on it! It always makes me a lot happier when this show makes you happy than when it doesn't. ^_^
I, on the other hand, have very definitively not, so I'll be very interested to see how things work out when we compare notes. 8D
not that i'm waiting around to hop into action literally the second the opportunity to do so arises or anything >w>
For the record, I am way more impressed by the fact that you're willing to re-examine evidence and admit when you feel you've made a mistake than whether or not you were right/wrong on your initial or secondary impressions of the episode.
3589048
Because they are the best harmony singers to have ever lived, and Paul Simon is a folk writing genius?
I honestly think Scarborough Fair is the most beautiful song I have ever heard.
3591004
Whoa there. I said I saw the finale in a new light and understood/accepted/liked it for what it was, not that I prefer it to anything I could have thought up.
This person appears to have been (ahem) "on their own path" for years, but even that aside, I can't convince anyone to do something I can't.