And Now, Sketch's Thoughts of the Day · 5:57pm Feb 20th, 2017
Below contains spoilers for Season 7 and rambly thoughts on Brotherly Bonding Time.
I'm sure by now that most of us have heard about the reveal of both Applejack's and Rainbow Dash's parents. I have interesting feelings regarding these. Obviously, I'm excited to see the episodes (unless there's some parent meet-up in one episode that leads to Apple Parent flashback, I'm assuming that there's two different episodes for AJ and RD involving parents) and then feeling relieved that I don't have to tiptoe around Mane Six family stuff, because, well, I avoid having family headcanons for the Mane Six so I don't get jossed.
Well, most of the time. I do end up slipping into ideas that would inevitably be crushed by canon. Pie Sister birth order got jossed, and now a little idea I had about the Apple Family Tree got jossed. It was mostly drawn from other folks' idea, so I'm only mildly disappointed and the Haralson Birthday Bio can be easily fixed (unless the flashback reveals too much detail on the Apple Family).
Also, I'm confused about Pear Butter. Considering Aunt and Uncle Orange, I could have sworn that one of the Apple Parents had been born an Orange. 
Lastly, I can't be the only one who thinks that the RD Parent "Bow Hot Hoof" has an awkward name.
Says the girl who literally named OCs awkward things like Kernel Grin and Jumbo Thumbo.
Before I get to my other item of business, I'm just going to say that I've been reorganizing my personal OC list yesterday, to make room for new additions and remove ponies that I really don't use in any published or in-my-head stories outside of bit parts. While doing that, I'm amazed that out of all the OCs I've made, I somehow avoided naming anyone with a name beginning with a T, save for Tomato Sandwich.
I dunno, I just think that's funny.
Okay, now on to thoughts about Brotherly Bonding Time.
With the Seaddle arc wrapped up, I think I can safely say that the July Act of the story has come to a close, with the month having changed to August in the middle of the arc. With that in mind, I oughta consider some candidates for the Top Ten Scenes in the July Segment of BBT, consisting of events that happened during Episodes 10-17 of BBT. It wouldn't be fair for me to just do the Top Ten Scenes thing with just the June Segment, after all. And maybe after the story's finished and I did the top ten of August, I could have a Top Ten list for the entire story.
The end of the story is still a ways away, but it feels so strangely close to me. August is the Act where I start wrapping up a few plot threads (I'm mad because it feels like I've ignored a couple of them (like that one about their Aunt Honeydew) when focusing on Wacky-Misadventure-Of-The-Day), and then build up to the climax of one certain big one... I'm pretty sure you can guess what that big one is.
On the note of the big one, I hate it when I overshoot my mark in giving clues that something's not right with a certain character. Ugh...
Anyway, that's all I have to say for now. Have a nice day. 
I have a terrible fear that they're giving Applejack and her siblings living parents mostly because the idea of them being orphans was too dark, and they're changing their backstory to make it lighter and fluffier. I'm also miffed because it's going to make At the Gorge AU.
Anyway, I think Applejack works better with a slightly dark backstory. Her combination of toughness and niceness are all the more awesome given that her life hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows. My Twilight Sparkle thinks of Applejack as "tough as leather and sweet as a sugarcube," and it's the fact that Applejack rose to the challenge of personal tragedy and became a very good Pony partly in consequence of that which is part of the reason I love her.
4429978 That's my fear too. The two shooting stars, Applejack telling Apple Bloom "Oh, sugarcube, if Mom and Dad were here, they'd be so proud of ya," if they have to reverse this it will be incredibly clumsy and weirdly contradictory. I'm hoping its either a flashback, or they find and revive the parents after they were petrified by a cockatrice deep in the Everfree Forest many years ago.
Having the Apple parents just have been "traveling" since the start of the show does a huge amount of damage not only to Applejack, but the entire Apple family, and a lot of Ponyville and what we know of Pony culture as a whole.
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How did possible retcon slip my mind...
Anyway, I really, really hope that the episode is a flashback, otherwise them being alive in the present brings up a lot of unfortunate implications about them.
"Well see, we just took a left turn at Albuquerque ..."
Unless it was some sort of captivity thing such as I inflicted on Landscape Carrot, AJ's True Love in the SWSV.