Finale. · 7:03pm Oct 12th, 2019
Both of my exes told me to watch the show because I was 'totally Pinkie Pie'. They were right, but not quite how they expected. They were going for me being joyful, and silly.... just like her.
I watched it on and off, until I got to Party of One. I started watching around season 2 - yes, I'm old in Brony years - and Party of One was the episode that really got to me.
I was used to aesops in shows being... trite. Predictable.
"Don't steal"
"racism is badong"
But what struck me about the moral of Party of One was its unique moral - something I hadn't seen before.
"Always expect the best of your friends."
I was - and still am - a paranoid person. I struggle to trust even people I've known for almost ten years. But seeing an episode show a character getting so bent out of shape over her own paranoia, and saying that the key to a healthy relationship with your friends is trust, it just struck me how very much I needed to hear that.
And from there, I found I was hooked. It's not as if the show became my everything - there's always been interests I had in the background, like Warframe or Borderlands or Gravity Falls or SPACELORDS (MUTHA MUTHA) or Gears of War, or Destiny, or Steven Universe.
But it was at this moment that the show became a fixture.
It was always there in my life. Always reminding me that there was this positive, uplifting, cute, happy thing in the background of my life reminding me of an escape from the things that depressed me.
Probably in part because I keep a plushie of her in my bed. Which is about eight years old. (How the shit has it held up this well)
It's changed me in a lot of ways. Ever since seeing how many times Pinkie has struggled with depression (or, probably more likely, anxiety and developmental issues) and pulled herself forwards, I've wanted to be more like her. I've tried to cosplay her and put my heart and soul into feeling more like her in said cosplay, I've enjoyed watching the show in said cosplay to get into the mood, and it just warmed my heart being accepted as one of the Pinkie Pies by Sarahndipity (If you don’t follow her on facebook, do it. She is THE Pinkie cosplayer and I love her) at the Ask A Pinkie Pie Panel at Bronycon 2019. I was all “Hi, Pinkie. I’m Pinkie, and I have a question for Pinkie!” and asked how to be more like her, how she stays so happy… I forget the other two questions I asked, but those really stuck with me.
It's not to say she has a monopoly on the relatability of MLP characters (I loved how Rarity Takes Manehattan takes such a clear stance against going into Defense Mode because you were burned once, and I love Rarity's own struggles with her confidence) but, she's the one I have a cosplay or two of, the one that's brought me my best memories, and the one I empathize with the most, so for me she's basically going to be to this show what Kamina is to TENGEN TOPPA: GURREN LAGANN.
I'm sad to see it go, but…
Well, we all know we'd rather see a satisfying conclusion where the story ends with a bang rather than a whimper, as shows that have gone on far too long *COUGH THE SIMPSONS* - sorry, I had something in my throat when I said “The Simpsons” - inevitably will.
There was a sense that in Season 8 and possibly 7 of FiM that it was slumping a bit, but I feel like by concluding the show the writers have been able to go for their A Game. They’ve been able to deliver much more final and decisive morals about how growing up is more than age and how it’s a process. How it’s okay not to know your purpose as long as you’re happy among friends, and how it’s okay to go back and change if you’ve made a wrong turn, and how - just because your lives have diverged - that doesn’t mean you can’t still value the friends you’ve made along the way, and how growing up doesn’t mean you should stop having fun. (I liked Growing Up Is Hard To Do, Going To Seed, and The Last Laugh, okay? 10/2 KNACKSTAPEECE)
And that’s very fitting.
Plus, we get to see some of our favorite ships become CANON. Pinkie Pie and Cheese are the best heterosexual ship I have ever shipped. It was easy to want to ship her with Rainbow Dash, or Fluttershy… but come on. Someone who literally shares all her interests? Someone who is so very clearly on the same wave as her?
Had to be done. Also APPLEDASH IS CANON
SUCK IT
(I mean I would’ve been happy with Applejack and Rarity, but Applejack and RD are, like Cheese and Pinkie, on the same wave. It makes sense.)
Goodbye, FiM. You'll live on in our hearts. And my cosplay wardrobe.
It’s sad to see it come to an end. But the far worse fate is that it keeps going like the simpsons. But it got a finale and soon we will get gen 5. Overall I think the future is going to be fine for the franchise as a whole.
5136836
I've said that exact thing before. The Simpsons is something that meant so much to people of the 90s and now... doesn't. FiM is a show that meant so much to me, gave me an outlet to express myself that no other show did, and will probably inform a lot of how I like to present myself at anime conventions. I'll be cosplaying Pinkie for a long time, writing Spectrum for a long time...
Maybe I'll even write something with her in it.
To see FiM end hurts me inside, but to see something that means this much turn into something like the Simpsons would kill me inside.
They say that half of the game with Friendship is Magic is the fandom. What I have always found special about G4 MLP is how, somehow, the fandom has made it so that it opens itself to any genre in writing - the volume of the stories marked with tags such as "adventure", "science-fiction", "romance" or "human" on this website is proof of that.
While I speak of my own experience here, I find it remarkable that 2019 should prove a year for so many favourite series to either be ending or beginning to end, such as the name of the MLP Season 9's debut and finale episodes states - Friendship is Magic, Bojack Horseman, The Good Place, Mister Robot, I'll even include Game of Thrones on that list.
The fact the brony community has been the only fandom I've allowed myself to be an active partipant of any sort for over the last half-decade is, I think, testament to how while there may be bad times, there are enough good times to make it feel worth it.
It says so on my profile, the destination is one thing, but that which counts is the journey.
Appledash is canon... and probably fluttercord too.
5137507
And cheesypie!
Fuckin' love that
The trouble with heterosexual ships back in... actually, back during most of the show was that there just weren't many times it'd make sense. Like, I saw one story that has Pinkie going to a dance with Pokey Pierce, and I'm like... who is that? Has he ever even interacted with her? I just was not buying it.
And then Cheese Sandwich just comes, and he seems perfect for her in every way, and I just thought "If there'll be one mare and stallion who get married by the end, please let it be these two."
5137988
I think the story you might be thinking of is CapnChrysallid's The Best Night Ever, still one of the finest stories on this site as far as I'm concerned.
Why the author chose to pair Pinkie Pie to dance a pas-de-deux with the blue stallion best known for popping balloons at parties is anyone's guess - though you can read all sorts into it - but this does lead to a very good Pinkie moment in the sequel This Platinum Crown, where when they're invited to what's suggested to be an orgy by an Evil Counterpart of Pinkie's who's got the power to trigger pheromones, Pinkie single-handedly manages to shut down this uncaring hedonism.
5138077
I don't think I am, no.
...Okay now that I gotta see