Oct
7th
2016
Spoilergeddon: Suspend 15 · 2:47pm Oct 7th, 2016
I have seen the finale, though a few poorly executed attempts at spoiler avoidance about the Internet meant that I wasn’t able to go in completely uninformed. The blog will go up on the 23rd, as originally scheduled. After that, I’ll resume going through the comics, starting with Friends Forever and Micro-Series #2.
For those of you who haven’t chosen to take advantage of the UK’s curious scheduling decisions, best of luck. You still have more than a fortnight of spoiler avoidance ahead of you. In light of that, please use spoiler tags when appropriate in the comments of this blog; I'm trying to keep this as devoid of specific information as possible.
Oh, and if you're wondering, I mostly enjoyed it.
all i'll say is my headcanon was stretched to the point of fraying, but it pulled through without actually getting broken somehow
The Changelings all Flutterponied.
I expect we find out that Starlight Glimmer is made of chocolate.
4244534
Now I'm imagining High Queen Fluttershy in this aesthetic. Quite the look.
4244545
Come on, I asked for spoiler tags!
gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=118879&type=card
A comparison of the show's various BUY OUR TOYS moments, spoiled to absolute hell because ambiguity.
Canterlot Wedding: Princess Cadance and Shining Armor probably remain the most generally reviled example of stuff happening that we all feel totally should have been set up better, and the episode in general is just... the sheer volume of fixfics surrounding that thing speaks for itself. The 'This Day Aria' was very nice.
The Crystal Empire: Literally the best use that anyone has found for this place in any headcanon or fanon is a city-wide giant bug-zapper, or an amplification array for death lasers aimed into the sky. The crystal ponies are even more useless, and the best thing ever done with them is a joke about how they're so fundamentally useless that they regularly explode.
Alicorn Twilight: We saw the world burn over this, and then we just sort of moved on and accepted it as the new reality.
Equestria Girls: The first one sucked. It remains a joke, even after the series reached the point where we genuinely look forward to the next installment. They have a completely unique transformation and an expo of pretty outfits in every movie.
Rainbow Power: Gaudy and an unashamed deus ex machina, the mechanics of which remain unknown to this very day.
The World Turned, and Shadowmoor Became Lorwyn: Honestly, the designs suffer from a clashing color palette, but their relative simplicity compared to most of the hyper-elaborate costumes and transformations means they remain drawable without using painstakingly pre-made assets. Also, there's a certain otherworldly elegance to the Ephemerus Emperion Thorax that I find really eerie and alluring. Plus, it had some set-up, which is better than no set-up, which is what all of the others have.
King Thorax is best deerbeetle.
I loved it, but I am bitter that I had to watch it in low-res or do the spoiler dance for weeks.
And I'm extremely happy that I got my changeling chapter out the door before it happened.
Personally, I thought it was pretty terrible, but in the interest of spoiler-avoidance, I'll refrain from an in-depth review until it's the season for such things.
It's just occurred to me now as I read this: This is the only two parter, or season opener/ closer, without any songs at all. Even the pilot had giggle at the ghosties.
Not sure what I think of that.
4244646
Sorry, no amount of hourglass ants will speed it along. Or hold it back, for that matter. It's basically in the can at this point.
4244735
I cannot unsee him as the pony equivalent of a Homestuck troll. Mind you, that isn't a bad thing.
4244743
Eh, so it was a little blurry. Still fun.
4244989
Not true. "Return of Harmony" and "Princess Twilight Sparkle" didn't have any musical numbers. But you're right about this being the first finale without one.
I managed to watch the finale, but I haven't watched the new Apple episode yet. I'm going to try to catch the stream tomorrow.
I went into the finale with low expectations, so I found myself pleasantly surprised. I'm a sucker for adventure quests, so that probably made me like it better than some. I also started to come around to Starlight as she showed that she can read other ponies' emotions and show sympathy toward them. It doesn't come as easily to her as most ponies, but she demonstrated that she can learn and improve. I'd like for her to stay in Our Town and be their mayor instead of their cult leader, but the episode seemed to leave it open for her to go either way. Though it's kind of sad that everypony in the entire town seems to standing around waiting for a leader.
I'm not sure how I feel about all the Changelings metamorphosing...I still sort of can't believe I just watched that part.
And Discord stole the episode, of course.
4245029
Wait... But I thought they didn't air the Apple episode in the UK?
Was there some other leak??
4245029
PS: Also have seen the finale.
I'm not sure how I feel about all the Changelings metamorphosing
Very mixed feelings on that on my part, too..... All those fanfics that will never get written... or authors that will probably lose motivation to continue writing them... : (
Plus, *I* have two unfinished changeling stories lying around on my harddrive that probably won't be as well received after what has happened in canon. Ooops. ^_^;;
The show giveth, and the show taketh. It remains to be seen what the fandom makes of this development... : /
Plus, have you seen some of those color-schemes? GAH! Thorax! Orange on green and yellow?!! What were you THINKING?!
Also let's put a happy smilie face in here so people who don't look behind the spoilers don't think someone was finding the finale bad or something.
4245956 I assumed the UK also aired the Apple episode early. I may have been mistaken.
And yeah, not only does the Changelings' metamorphosis destroy headcanons and unfinished fanfics, but it also happened a little too fast. I thought it did make MLP-sense that if the Changelings learned to love, they would no longer need to siphon love from ponies. But I think it would have been better if only Thorax had transformed and started teaching the others that they could learn to make friends and change their feeding habits. Forming friendships usually takes some time. I thought that "Lost Treasure of Griffonstone" handled this type of societal change much better in half the run time.
I'm not sure how I feel about the Changelings' new design either. They've been Swiss cheese legs forever! They do look more like they could be made into toys for younger kids now, though.
But I still enjoyed the middle portion of the season finale.
(season 6 finale spoilers)
4246040 "Toys for kids" .... Oh Faust, that explains everything.
Yes. I mean, they just showed us a "glitter-wing" Thorax - only for him to immediately turn into something completely different. Why couldn't he just have turned into a "Changeling King", Chryssi-style?? Plus, I get the sense that the Hive they just showed us might get a make-over as well. Did you pause on that first frame of Thorax' new form? ...Neon colors and dark background don't mix. At all. .... I gotta go back and check Rarity's reaction to this.
Not that I didn't like the episode - it was awesome, the character-interactions we are going to see in fanfics are things previously never considered (Discord/Trixie, Starlight/Luna) and Starlight finally feels less like the 8th (11th counting CMC) wheel on the team
- but It feels like they gave us some cool new toys to play with, but took away some of our favourite toys in turn...And I really liked those toys... :-(
I am undecided if the "EXTREME COMPLETE REVAMP" of the changelings could work out in favor of ongoing fanfics as it could be useful to instantly distinguish any pre-s6 / post-s6 stories in just the cover-art alone -- but there's a lot of unfinished stories or ideas floating around in peoples' heads or on harddrives that will now never be published.
One of my stories is a serious fourth wall meta-story I started publishing way back when Daring Do was still only a fictional character, and in my story, she remains as such; and it works just fine considering this is explicitly stated right in the description and is essential to the story-premise, it isn't something that will take readers by complete surprise halfway through the story and ruin immersion. However, if I had this idea now instead of years ago, it'd never actually happen. And who'd want to read that? It'd be like posting a story starting with "DISCLAIMER: In this story, alicorns have the lifespan of any other pony, and alicornification isn't rare at all, and 'Celestia' and 'Luna' are just titles passed on in the royal family, and Twilight is just a really good mage but not the best and also she didn't become an alicorn yet and Cadence is her real mother and Spike is actually a changeling pretending to be a dragon". ...Nobody likes to swallow that sort of setup upfront.
4246040 4246126
I feel I should point something out: They may have made a big deal about "the changeling kingdom," but no one said it had to be the only hive in the world.
4246141 Oooooooooh.
Headcanon successfully retrieved from the depths of the ocean. Thanks!
*Le cleaning up old tabs*
Oh, this blog post.
Ah, what the hay.
Have a comic I drew related to what we were talking about here.
Comic comes complete with possible headcanon on how to justify nice black hole-riddled changelings still being around after Thorax sold out to the toy companies.
4353314
Huh. I do like the idea of the already magic-saturated throne contributing to the effect, especially if it rebroadcasts said magic to the changelings.
Also, glad to see you took my point about Chrysalis's hive not necessarily being the only one to heart.
In all, thank you very much for sharing.
4353341 Your very welcome.
Well, I was thinking of ways to reconsile your typical "friendly changeling protagonist" fanfic with the post season 6 facts. Like, for example, standart "changeling falls in love with a pony"-story. Wouldn't they already have metamorphosized instantly?
Possible headcanon to allow for both classic- and neon-changelings to coexist, regardless of their affinity towards ponies:
The metamorphosis had a limited radius and was an (unrepeatable?) one-time freak-occurance due to all the different magics involved. (Including Chrissi's throne which went boom.)
Either that or it only affected Chrissi's 'lings, every other Hive's 'ling stayed the same, including the "good" ones.
Say, how do you think the different standart changeling story-setups would play out now?
Especially, say, "X is secretly a changeling", or "X becomes a changeling".
"Would it matter, if I was... uh, now?"