"No Second Prances" · 5:50pm May 1st, 2016
First, a moment of silence, please, for the only ship that matters.
Yes, since Starlight Glimmer is now Trixie's first friend ever, there's no longer any canonical possibility that Trixie and Maud fell in sweet, sweet love on the Pie family rock farm. And that's terrible.
(I guess that also means my stories about Trixie meeting Ditzy Doo also couldn't have happened, but pfffffffffft.)
Second, I like that Starlight Glimmer still has some rough edges. That she struggles to remember "Oh, yeah, I can't use my magic that way. That's what supervillains do."
Third, Twilight struck me as borderline out-of-character. On reflection, I think it does make sense that Twi would distrust Trixie and try to push Starlight away from her, but the episode dropped the ball in explaining why. First of all, Twi, having finally gotten the hang of being Celestia's student, and then a fellow princess, is now stumbling awkwardly through trying to be a teacher. And living up to the impossibly high standard that Celly set. Twilight did get the lesson, back in "The Crystalling", that it's good to give Starlight room to grow on her own—but it's also been established that Twi sometimes needs to learn the same lesson twice before it sinks in. (See "Lesson Zero" and "All About Time".) Second of all, this is an event with Celestia, which increases the pressure and decreases Twi's ability to think rationally about anything. Third—this is something I thought was mentioned in the episode itself, but on rereading the transcript, I can't find it—I think Twi could reasonably be worried that Starlight and Trixie might encourage each other's worst habits and hinder the reformation process. Like an addict who falls off the wagon, and in the process drags another recovering addict with them. But in that case, it would have been more helpful for Twi to also find a new, never-been-a-villain friend for Trixie as well. Chalk that shortfall up to not thinking completely rationally. Regardless of how good a teacher Celestia actually was (I know I've read some fanfics about how much Celly dropped the ball), Twilight thinks she was an absolutely perfect teacher. So "absolutely perfect" is the standard Twi is trying to live up to.
Fourth, I bet Fluttershy fainted because that manticore was a friend of hers, and she was worried that Trixie might hurt him.
Twilight did allude to the negative feedback loop a few times in the episode. (e.g. "You're wrong about Trixie. She's just like me. We have a real connection." "That's kind of what I'm afraid of.") What wasn't made clear was why Twilight still had a beef with Trixie. There was definitely some lingering sourness between the two of them beyond Twilight's concerns about Starlight.
And yes, Mauxie is sadly among the wonderful ideas that will never be. Not in the main timeline, anyway.
Why do people keep talking about this episode. There was no episode yesterday.
3910422 This, it's pretty clear that was her main issue. Also I never got a vibe that she had an issue with Trixie per se, beyond just a clashing personality types deal. Trixie still has quite the ego, and it just kind of rubs Twi the wrong way. She just had an issue with Starlight and Trixie hanging out together.
As to Fluttershy... she helped get the manticore and was playing along trying to encourage him and help his confidence in how big and scary he looked.
I felt it was pretty obvious in the episode. Twilight tasked Starlight with finding a new friend and plans on showing that friend off to Celestia. She doesn't think Trixie is a good pony to use in this role.
Ah well, stories getting shoved into AU territory, don't we all know how that feels.