A look back at MLP Friendship is Magic · 2:31pm Oct 19th, 2019
Hey, folks. Like most of you, I saw the series finale this past weekend. And like most of you, I've had my own issues in dealing with it, wondering what it means for the site, for the fandom, for my own stories, and for myself. So consider the following blog entry my attempt to help myself through it and sort through all my myriad thoughts and emotions.
In truth...
I haven't written anything since the finale--since my last chapter release of Nightmare Night. It’s because I knew my mental and emotional energy would be focused on the show ending, and the knowledge I was likely going to be depressed for it after. Which I was. Seeing the show end with the closing of the same book it started so many years ago by opening was... hard. It's the end of an era, and the end of something that had very great meaning to us all. For me, it was a creative boon; it sparked something deep inside me and made me want to write; want to expand on this rich and wonderful world we'd been shown full of colorful characters and interesting races.
And did I ever. I've written, count 'em, SIX full-to-double-length novels off this world, and that's actually not counting Turnabout Storm, which wasn't mine to begin with. My writing has gotten much better over the course of these past six years for it, to say nothing of the good friends I've made and fellow writers I've met over that time. For that reason alone, I consider finding MLP:FiM one of the greatest things to ever happen to me.
I mean, hey, a show about friendships made me some friendships? That says a great deal about it right there. Now if you'll indulge me, I'd like to engage in some philosophical ramblings and observations of the show.
It's been hard...
I won't lie. It's been hard seeing the show end. It's been with us for nine seasons and well over 200 episodes, and though I didn't like all of them or the general direction the show went at the end for reasons both creative and ideological, it's been a magical run full of superb stories and interesting races, wonderous worldbuilding and character development to say nothing of simple, sweet life lessons that were all wrapped up in a package that was kid-friendly but also very adult-savvy. Nevertheless, I would agree it was time for the show to end because it seemed like they were starting to recycle story ideas and rely more on the pop culture references and visual gags instead of superb storytelling and characters as they did early on.
And yet, for all that, I still felt the ending quite keenly. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was lightning in a bottle; a feat that will not easily be matched by G5 or anything else. And it's because I got so invested in this world and its characters that I got hit so hard by the ending. It wasn't even the final battle with the villains that got me so much (honestly, I thought the twist was a disappointment) as the epilogue that followed--seeing the older Mane 6 as a Celestia-like Twilight related one final--and sorely needed--lesson on friendship regarding the nature of growth and change, intended less for Luster Dawn (daughter of Starlight and Sunburst?) than the viewers themselves.
It was a superb final lesson and the epilogue episode was the perfect 10/10 ending to the series. Pitch-perfect and if you asked me to, I don't think I couldn't come up with a better ending for the show canon. Which is not to say that there weren’t things I didn't like about it. It's profoundly depressing to me to think that Twilight will outlive her friends and have nobody to rule beside. Celly needed her sister, but who does Twilight have other than Spike? Why no apparent mate for Rarity? Why no cameo from Sunset Shimmer?
On the one hand...
The finality of it means that canon has locked in certain things I don't like, such as Celestia/Luna retiring, which makes little sense to me--I mean, what do two ageless alicorns do in retirement? Then again, the way the two Princesses turned out made little sense to me in the end. I mean, seriously, if Celestia was really the way they depicted her the last couple seasons--basically a figurehead ruler who can't handle a real crisis herself--then there's no way in hell Equestria could have survived governed by her for a thousand years.
But that's where fanfiction and AU stories come in. My Celly is kind but cunning with a passion for life and living, having the power and some very hard-earned wisdom to match her station and longevity. Those of you who have read the Firefly series or The Lawyer and The Unicorn know this. Hearing they would retire at the start of season 9 was kind of a kick in the gut to me. Yes, I get why they did that--passing the torch and all--but it still feels... wrong. The initial show version of Celly was as the wise mentor and teacher, and they got completely away from that, depowering her, removing her mystique. Luna still had some, and my version of her is intense and edgy, wanting to do right by others but still groping for her proper place in a world she’s been absent from for a very long time. A motto I've used repeatedly in my war stories was "Celestia is our shield and Luna, our sword." But canon destroyed that.
Put it this way: if you reduce the Celestial sisters and their power to just a pendant or tiara that anyone can don, then you've pretty well destroyed them as useful or interesting characters, in my opinion.
The MLP Movie
Some people stopped watching the show after Twilight ascended to an Alicorn. But for me, I honestly think the point the overall MLP storyline started to go wrong when they decided to canonize the MLP movie after season 7. It was visually stunning, but it had so many gaping plot holes and violated so much existing canon that I feel it would have been better off kept set aside from it. That was mistake #1 in my view.
Put another way--if you have to patch the story and paper over those plot holes in the comics, then you did something seriously wrong to begin with (the worst violator in this regard isn't MLP--it's The Last Jedi, which I will happily rant about some other time). They then went into the School of Friendship arc and threw the Young 6 at us, which was mistake #2: you already had an alternate Mane 6 to work with in the form of the Pillars of Harmony, which we were introduced to throughout the course of season 7, culminating in an awesome finale that brought them all back. So why not focus on them instead of introducing yet another mane 6 that we have no connection to and no reason to like?
The Young 6
The Young 6, I noted, were barely used in the finale, which I take as an indication that they realized that they weren't catching on with viewers like they hoped. Which is fine with me; I honestly never liked them with the possible exception of Smolder, who had the most interesting personality, some real rapport with Spike and arguably the group's most meaningful moments. They just threw them in to the start of season 7 saying "here's some new characters; you will like them because they're diverse and different" even though they'd done nothing to earn our affection or respect--completely unlike the Mane 6 or Pillars we met the previous season.
They also seemed to be a vessel for pushing an agenda of multiculturalism and globalism, which are two ideologies I roundly despise. You may disagree, but that's how I took them, and quite frankly, I could barely remember their names half the time because I found them so forgettable as characters--with the sole exception of Smolder, as mentioned above.
Twilight, et al
Twilight: Twilight actually weakened as a character to me over time. I have some of the same grievances over the way Twilight turned out as Celestia, in that they nerfed her after season four both in terms of power and ability to deal with problems--something I've taken great pains to address in Unleash the Magic: Nightmare Night. By the end of the run, her episodes tended to be more about her neuroses than anything else. Gone was the Twilight who could charm an Ursa or could see through a Changeling disguise or wielded the power of all four pony princesses at once, and in her place was someone often little better, stronger or smarter than a regular pony outside of wielding the EoH. She was exceptional and they seemed to deliberately make her more unexceptional, reducing her magic to basic parlor tricks like putting herself into a music box or chalkboard.
Mane 6: As for the rest of the Mane 6, I don't have many complaints except that it REALLY never made sense to me that they had time to teach at a school in addition to all their other duties. Fluttershy developed the most over time, and AJ arguably the least. They also nerfed Pinkie in that we saw almost none of her Pinkie Space talents after season 2 even though they were quite fun and useful. RD had a steady evolution from cocky and outright arrogant to responsible adult and full-fledged Wonderbolt. She grew up nicely. And Rarity? Rarity became quite the entrepreneur, but it was criminal to not give her a mate or basically anypony but Pinkie foals.
The CMC: Loved ‘em. One of the most powerful episodes of all the series was when they got their cutie marks, and their final episode where the accidentally wished themselves adult was a throwback episode that had a very good story and a strong lesson backing it.
Spike: Spike was often the most mistreated character in the entire series, both in terms of making him act wildly out of character in his episodes and not allowing him much in the way of development... until the last couple seasons when they gave him his wings and some meatier roles. He was at his best as the straight character instead of comic relief; the voice of reason and a means to ground Twilight. I like the little guy, and I was pleased to see he turned into something of a stud in the end with a place firmly at Twilight's side.
Starlight: Starlight grew on me over time. I wasn't sure what I thought about her at first, though I did greatly enjoy that they seemed to be using her to teach a message against forced equality. She actually did the best in the finale, I thought, showing true tactical acumen and being the only one to truly hold her own, at least briefly, against the villains. I guess I could see her being named head of the school, even if I don't like the school. She also seemed to have her head screwed on straighter than Twilight's by the end, though she had to first learn that magic couldn't be used to fix everything and she'd collected some neuroses of her own. In the words of Trixie: "potted plants show desperation!"
Trixie: Speaking of Trixie--loved her, but in some ways, I thought she was a missed opportunity. She had a good look and showed a lot of potential power and depth in the first episode, and it was even thought for a while that she could be a rival for Twilight. So that's the way I wrote her in Turnabout Storm. Canon destroyed that, but once again, my AU stories can fix it. Even in Nightmare Night, which is based on show canon, I'm bending Trixie back towards the Turnabout Storm-ish version of her I thought they should have used, which would have allowed for some interesting lessons about using defeat or a rival as motivation to better yourself while not losing yourself in jealousy or envy. But even without that, I greatly enjoyed her episodes. Pairing her off with Starlight was genius as the two worked very well together, and I always loved seeing Miss Great and Powerful return in later seasons.
Discord: I likewise always looked forward to Discord episodes, because he was so much fun and was played so well. He grew from simple villain to a very quirky but useful character who could allow you do pretty much anything. And it was clear that both the writers and John DeLancie enjoyed writing and playing him.
The Races of Equestria
One of the things that made the show so good was the rich variety of races and cultures they drew upon, from ponies to griffons to Kirin, who were introduced late but made an immediate impression. Some races I could have done without, like the Yaks, who always rubbed me the wrong way. My favorite race? The Hippogrifs, as they had the holy trinity of a good look, very interesting powers, and great pride in themselves without crossing over into being outright annoying and undeserved arrogance like the Yaks. I was very disappointed in their eventual treatment of the griffons, making them greedy and selfish with few redeeming values--completely unlike my version of them, which actually came from a crossover war fic called Feathered Heart.
The Dragons were likewise depicted as somewhat one-dimensional at times, and we never did find out about Spike’s parentage. The changelings were wonderful villains who got neutered. There’s no other word for it; their ascension was cool but they completely lost their edge for it and were never as interesting afterwards. Honestly, I consider that a fault of the writing as It didn’t have to be that way.
And last but not least, I’m actually somewhat relieved they never touched on or explored the bat-ponies, who we barely saw in the show. That way, they can be whatever we like.
Lest any of you think...
I didn't enjoy the final couple seasons at all, far from it. Where the show did best even late was the simple slice of life episodes that we saw more of early on, whether it was the CMC accidentally wishing themselves adult to go to a fair or Starlight and Trixie on a road trip and getting on each other's nerves. We had what I thought were an excellent series of episodes to round out the regular run, and concluding with Big Mac's proposal and marriage to Sugar Belle was an excellent ending note for those. What I didn't enjoy were the school episodes, which seemed quite forced and involving characters I just didn't care for.
Where the series truly excelled was simply letting characters play off each other, grow and develop on their own. One of my favorite episodes in the whole series was the season 6 finale where Starlight, Trixie and Discord had to infiltrate the Changeling hive--three of the most unlikely characters imaginable doing very well together and telling an excellent story along the way (Ditto for Chrysalis, Tirek and Cozy Glow). Where it faltered was where it forgot itself and what made it special; trying to sell episodes or story arcs that were decidedly out of character or in contradiction of what came before. Trying to be too much and push stuff that it didn't need to; over-relying on sight gags and pop culture references instead of good storytelling. But the good still far outweighs the bad in my view, even with the issues I've flagged.
So if you’re worried that...
This is me announcing my departure from MLP fanfiction, fear not. My stories continue despite the show closing. I don't leave stuff undone, and all my works will be stamped complete at some point.
However, for reasons both personal and creative, I'm not going to write from show canon. Basically, my verses and story canon will ignore what I didn’t like about the last few seasons, which include the Celestial retirement, the school, and Twilight’s decline as a character. I guess I just prefer a more adult version of the world where ponies are larger, where magic is consistent and meaningful, where all the races of the world don't all have some glaring character flaw, where there's balance between them and the various pony tribes, where the Mane 6 are stronger, smarter, and less, well, quirky. The school I might actually keep, but on much different terms. I would basically redo it along with fixing the movie.
In other words, I like my verses, which aren't written for 8-year old girls like the show. I will continue to write characters like Twilight and Celestia as I envision them to be, and take the stories in the direction I want them to go regardless of show canon. So will there be new works from me? I've had plans for several, including a fix-fic for the movie and sequels to TLaTU as well as continuing the Firefly saga. For now, those plans remain intact.
Bottom line
I will stay out here and continue to generate new content as long as there's an audience for my works. I think that right now, everybody's holding their breath to see if everyone else leaves, but in the end, I don't think many will. We're too invested in this world and these characters to just up and quit, regardless of what the future or G5 may bring.
And needless to say... thank you for being my friends/following me, thank you for reading my stuff, and thank you for finishing this if you actually made it this far. I don’t expect many people will, but this was one of the things I needed to write more for myself than for others.
Nothing else to say at this point except... Keep Calm and Brony On, folks. The show may be over, but its legacy will live on for as long as we keep it.
This was an interesting blog post and it won't surprise you that I agree with you on several points. On some points mostly the frienship school and the retirement you also share views with AlexWarlorn who's the author of the Pony POV Series which is a collection of some of the best fics on this site IMO.
I agree with everything, naturally. A few thoughts:
If I might buoy your spirits a bit, Fimfiction hasn't displayed any sort of significant drop-off since the last episode. The people left behind are the true believers and will likely stick around until G5, more movies, you get the idea. We'll survive the end of G4.
For my part, I've been pretty depressed myself about the show but it's been ongoing since the start of season 8. I recovered from bottom after the last episode pretty quick.
For me, MLP picked up where World of Warcraft left off, giving me a fantasy realm to distract myself with. I never felt any desire to write in that universe at the time I was playing it because it's an MMO with specific heroes, detailed server mechanics and boundaries to what a person can and cannot do; there's very little room to add to what's going on for the End User. Events repeat as per dictate of the server and people you've never met achieve the same goals as you in the course of powering up. MMORPG's, however fascinating and immersive to play, suck in the way of personally involving yourself, in my opinion. Warcraft is a deep and established canon of lore, even if some of it has been retconned.
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was completely different while providing much of the same hook in terms of immersion. I think what makes MLP different is the sandbox nature of the first two seasons. The devil is in the details as the old American saying goes and we the fans are the demons who do his bidding crafting new lore between the gaps. The ponies fit a certain easy to understand class/race/specialization requirement for worldbuilding that when combined with the simplistic and largely undefined nature of Equestrian magic — at least initially — allows for imagination to flourish. Another big hook the ponies have is being similar to what Western people understand as normal while being twisted in an interesting way. There's a concept of universal values, public welfare being the desired outcome, egalitarian virtue despite the top-heavy unicorn power structure, and a sense of national pride.
And yet despite what makes them like us they're largely monolithic — again, early on in the show's run. They are one race, Pony, who forged unity out of three warring sub-races and developed a common culture and racial identity. And I do say "racial" because even their cities and decorations push the horse theme to the max. Equestria is not an idea based on abstract concepts such as freedom, it's a Pony nation. Harmony springs forth from the Pony and her magic, when she's controlling the weather, when she's wrapping up winter, when she's tilling the land, when she's guiding the magical elements — even if this flow is occasionally interrupted by adverse circumstance.
Equestria reminds me in a way of Imperial China prior to their discovery by European traders.
This comparison is flawed, I know. Work with me here.
While problems flare up every now and then the Confucian philosophy grants everyone a sense of belonging in the natural order and a concept of a union of like-minded peoples. People in China aren't Cantonese, Gan, Hakka, Hubai, Jianghui, Jin, Miao, Manchu, Min — there are very many cultures and ethnicities there — they are Chinese and the ruler of China is the Emperor. Celestia's Imperial authority likewise is absolute and her mandate is recognized by everyone, even non-ponies like cows and donkeys. Her long-life and benevolent autocracy are tied in with the concept of harmony making her a religious as well a political pillar of stability.
The ponies themselves are characterized as innocent, representing children in the eyes of the writers, and overwhelmingly female. Despite being the weaker sex, they ably shoulder the burden of maintaining society and largely administrating it. It goes without saying but in reality, you'd not expect a state like Equestria where people sing and dance in the street at a point of ritual to survive for very long. So why does it? This is where the brony comes in.
How does courtship and reproduction work when almost everyone is female? Bring in the bronies!
Of course, no one would care to answer the above questions unless the ponies themselves were interesting so it all and this is a credit to the bones of the universe itself built on simple tropes and tried and tested Greek legends which Lauren Faust is quite fond of. That is the real glue that keeps our community stable, though the horse puns help!
It really has! Comparing TAS version 1.1 (The first great Firesight edit + New Chapters) with the Firefly and Unleash the Magic series you can really see the difference. We'll never achieve any sort of perfection but you've managed a great deal. In certain aspects, you've surpassed the great Kkat herself.
We were helping Demon Eyes Laharl for awhile. 2014-15 were great times. Our friends have only made the creative process more fun and helped us refine our game.
The adult-savvy part is the all-important bit. I don't think adding to the universe of Lazy Town would be as interesting as adding to MLP.
The final two-parter was the ultimate example of where the show has fallen by the wayside, even more than the obnoxious baizuo politics that took the native land of ponies and scrubbed the racial element entirely, granting harmony to all races at the expense of those who created Equestria.
They killed Grogar as a character and with it any canon which could be built around them. It's an inexplicable move for a writing staff that, whatever flaws it has, has largely acknowledged and even respected the fanfiction community since season 4 and beyond.
It's bittersweet to realize that the non-alicorn members of the Mane Six will ultimately grow old and die but relationships grow, change and ultimately they end at some point. I completely agree with the 10/10 score. It was a perfect note to end on.
And yet that's how Celestia has ruled for ages having banished her own sister to the moon. This concept alone is grist for so much speculative fiction it's been a goldmine.
Shocking fact: Only Pinkie Pie managed to produce offspring. 6 females, only one produced another generation. The morality of this writing decision fills me with dread to consider.
When we write, we write to last. We construct monuments to this thing we've fallen in love with under the assumption of its persistence through time, like a comic book reality. The sad reality is the writers wanted to cauterize the tip of their timeline such that it will never bear new stories, hence the illogical decision to throw out the original alicorns. The writers also probably wanted to create a Y-rating-friendly version of death to use on them as they've previously served the role of adults in the world of children.
As much as it hurts to say, their decision to "retire" Luna and Celestia makes sense from a meta perspective which is where the season 7-8-9 writers has their heads wrapped in.
Well it fits with how they've portrayed Twilight who is constantly doubting herself and throwing shit-fits as a plot point. I imagine she'll rule about as well as late-season Celestia if the miserable precident of those two seasons hold.
For a long time the world of MLP had many blank spaces in the lore that we happily filled in. Now that it's all filled in we percieve the disposable and utilitarian nature of what everything was building up to and we dislike it. MLP was, after all this time, just another piece of media to those who created it. Just another paycheck. It's sad because as you point out it could have served its ultimate function and still respected people like us.
Ironically this is where I pick up the fandom. I did watch the first few seasons by shady internet searching methods because I'm a penny-pinching miser but my first new episode was a dismal effort called "Rainbow Falls", one of Season 4's worst.
The MLP movie was an absolute disaster which betrayed the lengths the writers would go to recycle their own vomit. All spectacle, no story. I agree the MLP movie was where the show went from troubled but perservering giant of animated entertainment and straight into the gutter.
I will disagree with you a bit here. It was visually stunning and generally poor. The part people remember and respect was Tempest Shadow because she has a great aesthetic and much like Starlight Shimmer brings a convincing sort of edge to the universe. A shame we don't get more or her.
Baizuo trash, all of it. And the reason I really emphasize the word 'baizuo' by repeating it here is the races created to come to Equestria are so paper-thin or personally reprehensible it comes off as a disingenous virtue grab by people who want to make themselves look enlightened to our apathetic, materialistic, cosmopolitan, and morally reprehensible elite ruling class. The ponies are intended to incoperate all these different races into the nation of horses and like it and yet were it not for the ponies this would never have happened. The ponies are the only ones who can solve their own problems and manage their own civilization without help right up until the very end of the show because they are the enlightened baizuo who know everything and stand for what's good.
Makes me sick to think about.
And screw the circle-jerk threads on this site downvoting people for pointing out issues with the show. Your groupthink sickens me.
This.
Western Civilization was founded on meritocractic idealization, regardless of whether you think race was a factor or not. This is why we fight on the same side at the end of the day. If we assume that blending all people together is a virtuous thing, cannot everyone pitch in equally? If the answer is "no" than you have an unworkable system. Yaks are by no means a desirable addition to any society so why am I being forced to watch this shit?
Twilight died when she became an alicorn. Anyone who wants to take the Jawjoe Pill with me and become based should read His epic-length blog/video on the subject. This is a link, click me.
Rarity had good development as well. Applejack never had to develop because she's always been awesome. She's stronger, sexier, and more trad than any other mare in all of Equestria. Good bless AJ and her huge... tracts of land!
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Spike is literally the only thing that improved post season 7. He was pretty good in 6 as well!
A lot of people hate Starlight Glimmer. They think she's irredeemably evil for what she did to the Mane Six in season 5. I think she's the best character in the show in how they handled her story. I could say more but my post is getting long enough and you put it well already. She's edgy, no doubt but she was a profoundly misguided person. Casting aside people for their ideology as being sinners beyond repent is an unhealthy trait that is pushing the political scene towards violence in the United States. Seeing the same sort of inflexability play out in the fandom towards Dear Leader, Starlight Stalin is saddening.
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Trixie does not belong to the show but to the bronies who made her the mare of our hearts, our Best Pony; the Unity Goddess at the heart of Meripony who got killed by a magical nuke. I named my main character in WoW Classic after Trixie because she truly is the greatest.
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I wish we got to see more of them.
The baizuo writing was strong in that Griffinstone episode. One of the earliest sign the show was going off the cliff despite season 5 being pretty good on the whole. What made Feathered Heart such a great story was got to see the good and the bad and contrast it with the world outside of the Griffon Kingdom in a balanced manner.
This will sound weird but I actually really loved Dragon Quest. It was a fantastic one-off episode about how the grass is always greener on the other side and while Spike didn't grow up a proper dragon he could still be proud of his personal achievements in the pony world. The comedy was also insanely good! It becomes a problem in hindsight when they become a recurring character in the proper canon of the show and they need to be displayed in a more serious light. The writers never really pulled it off in an enjoyable way, for me anyway.
For that I'm truly thankful. I've had a lot of fun building the headcanon for them, even if none of my stories with thestral headcanon ever took off.
I didn't enjoy the last two seasons very much. I'm not sugarcoating it, I thought they sucked. There was some good episodes in there but they were few and far between. Most of what I did find good still didn't have the dialogue behind it that gave Gen 4 its legendary reputation as a show that adults could enjoy. I think the best thing we got in the last two seasons was Fake It til You Make It in season 8 where she looks after Rarity's Manehatten dress shop. That episode was a shining star peering through the clouds on a moonless night. The joke at the end where her three alternate personalities all quit at the end of the episode might be the funniest thing we ever got in all 9 seasons.
I've locked all my writing outside of 1 seasons 1 and 2. All else doesn't matter.
Glad to hear you're going to keep going. I will do the same, though I'll probably focus more on Fallout Equestria than trying to write porn. At this point it's becoming a limitation to further developing my writing. Thanks for the blog!
Firstly. Damn you for reminding me of Feathered Heart.
As you mentioned that you'll keep writing as long as their is an audience, I expect that myself and others will keep reading as long as there are people writing.
One thing I didn't see you touch on is Season 10 in the comics. While they, almost certainly, won't go as far as even the tamer things on the site, the comics have pushed quite a bit harder than the show did more than once. I am curious about your thoughts on Comic: Season 10 and possibly beyond.
5142300
I, too, say I can agree to many thing posted in this blog and disagree too. I had issues with this or that in some episodes, like other fans, but will miss this a great deal and hope we the fandom can keep it going.
As someone who stopped watching the show after season 6 I can’t comment on the school aspect. Just the fact that we got over 200 episodes is amazing. Think about how many TV shows make it to 200 episodes. Not just kids shows, not just cartoons, but ALL TV shows. Especially nowadays, with the rapid turnaround. We were privileged to have a show that cared about its fandom.
I know for a fact that a lot of us will tune into gen 5 simply to see how in compares to gen 4. We’ll be too curious not to.
This was an interesting blog post, and one that I agreed with for the most part. You hit it on the head what MLP got right and what it got wrong. Aside from the movie (but then again, I didn't give it the depth of thought that you clearly gave it), you basically revealed "Oh yeah, THIS is what the show is missing!"
And by the way, I came to an epiphany partway through your blog post. Please give it a look; you can find it here.
5142300
Thank you. Glad to know I'm in good company, then. I should really check out more of his stuff.
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Sorry.
I really miss it too. I'd finish it off myself if he'd let me.
I expect so too. And I sincerely hope so, as there's still plenty of stories I want to tell.
So I've heard. I regret I can't really comment on that because I haven't--at all--followed the comics, but yes, I did hear from someone that the content of them was generally a little edgier, especially early on.
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Agree or disagree, at least we can agree that we'll miss the show and do our collective best to keep its spirit alive!
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In some ways, I wish I'd stopped watching after season 6 because of what followed, though I would have missed out on some very good episodes to come.
Oddly, the biggest examples I can think of for shows that exceeded that were cartoons--Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, etc.
For the most part, yes, though there were times I thought they were more concerned with making new sell-able characters and toy sets than telling good stories. The barely-used-or-mentioned Harmony Treehouse they introduced for the Young 6 in the last season was exhibit A of that.
Oh, don't worry, I'll be among them. There should be another movie coming as well from what I've heard.
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Ah. Well, enjoy. I thought the last six episodes or so in the regular run were good to excellent. The finale? Not so much, excepting the epilogue., which was superb. I'll be interested to hear your impressions on it all.
By all means. I've missed your stuff and look forward to seeing it continue. My prereading and editing skills are at your disposal. I certainly owe you for all you've done of mine!
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I appreciate that greatly coming from you, so thank you. It's stuff I've been thinking about for a while, and I'm glad to know it resonated with you.
I skimmed it and liked it. Thank you for the shout-out in it! I'll give it a harder look and an actual response a little later.
5142319
Thank you for the old-school longpost! Let's see what you got here...
I know you're right, but that still doesn't stop me from brooding. You don't really realize how much something meant to you until it's suddenly gone, even despite all the issues we both had with it.
I'm glad. It was not so quick for me, and I'm sorry to not want to talk online lately for it.
Show me a world that expansive that's never been retconned, and I'll show you a world where mistakes were never corrected and contradictions never resolved. I've heard it's a rich world, though sadly, I've never been involved with it myself. I'm glad you're enjoying it again, though.
If that's the devil's doing, then I'll happily be his agent. Sandbox indeed; it was so rich and had so much to explain and explore that even with an army of fanfiction writers we barely began to fill in all the gaps and make sense of the world they gave us. But damned if we didn't succeed to a large extent, building AUs and new crossover verses that explained everything from the apparent gender disparity to turning ponies into new installments of other popular franchises like Fallout--though that honestly wasn't something I was interested in myself.
Before a more globalist writing team took over, anyway.
Except that Harmony was born from adverse circumstance, as described in their Hearth Warming tale, which I thought was some of the best worldbuilding we ever got. Endless peace and property weakens strong societies and makes them ripe for rotting from within and conquest from without. Racial? Perhaps. Western-oriented? Definitely, because the audience can't relate to something based in Pakistan. Though increasingly, that rationale seems to be falling by the wayside as certain shows force such things down our throat and don't get the message that we don't want them.
Interesting. Okay, convince me.
In earlier seasons, yes, though that also fell by the wayside in later seasons.
Indeed. This is exactly what fanfiction is for.
And stories like G4M or the bane of your existence--the Xenoverse.
If nothing else, we've gotten very good at generating our own horse puns for it to make our stories fit in better!
Why thank you! That's very high compliment! Can't say I've ever read her stuff but I've certainly heard enough about her from you over the years about her style and writing manner.
That may well have been the golden age of the site, and our own work, with the Gentlemanverse in full flourish and the father of the verse, DEL himself, generating plenty of new and varied content from Feathered Heart to Changeling Roan. You had a couple, and I still working on Five Star Service at that point, which remains in some ways my greatest achievement and most unique story to this day.
Probably not!
They weren't trying to grant harmony so much as equality, which the modern definition seems to be that you don't raise groups up so much as pull others down. I hate that.
Agreed. All we have is that Grogar did, in fact, exist, but turning him into a trick of Discord was subverting our expectations in a very disappointing way. I wanted that final battle and to find out what his endgame was, but we got the also-rans instead. The finale had some good moments, of course, but the overall effort wasn't worthy.
I know, but as this is a fantasy world, I'd like to keep that fantasy, you know? Remember the Mane 6 and other characters how I loved them the most, which the ending makes very difficult to do.
She did so, but not happily, and had some very rough times for it. You remember how she cried tears of joy when she got her sister back in series premiere, and my reading was that they were meant to rule together. I may address some of this when I go back into TLaTU for the revamps.
Damn, you're right. What the hell were they thinking? Maybe they're part of the population control movement here or think that ponies shouldn't breed at the expense of other races. Unfortunately, I wouldn't put that kind of thinking past them at this point.
Maybe. I can almost justify that in my head, except for the very ham-handed way they went about it and how badly the disrespected the characters over time.
I can't argue, but it still makes no sense to me overall. That's why I plan to ignore it.
Which means Equestria is pretty much doomed without their deux ex machina, which villains were increasingly finding ways around.
I know what I would have done if it was a show writer, but I'm not, just a fanfiction writer. So all I can do about it is write my works the way I think the story should have turned out.
Ugh. Yeah, that wasn't the greatest, as among other things it turned Spitfire into a total douche.
So... many... plot holes. So... much... crushed canon. The best thing I can say about it is it gave us Tempest Shadow.
So be it. I accept the correction; it wasn't generally good. The other issues were very unbalanced screen time of the Mane 6 and the absence of certain characters like Starlight, Discord, or the Pillars of Harmony.
Thank you for teaching me that word. I'll remember it.
Our elites are anything but; just virtue-signaling know-nothings that believe they alone deserve to rule and the rest of us are just deplorable gun-and-bible-clinging wife-beaters and whatever else you can think of. They're trying to foist this false utopia of globalism and at times outright communism on us in the name of the children/the planet and think they're the good guys for it. If they succeed, the results will be disastrous.
I'm happy to say there's been not much of that on my posts, perhaps because, like I suggested over Skype earlier, that my followers are a higher caliber of reader, my stories being as long and involved as they are.
Thank you.
I am second to nobody in despising the yaks. They're anything but a desirable culture or an addition to one. And Yona was my least favorite member of an already-disliked Young 6. I hated seeing her and her voice was like fingernails on a blackboard to me. And your point is taken. A melting pot only works with buy-in and a willingness to assimilate and integrate. It is NOT wrong to require that and some usable skills as a condition for entry into a society.
I don't entirely agree with that, as that opened up some interesting new avenues of storytelling, only some of which they explored. But when they wrote that episode, they weren't entirely sure that MLP would continue; there was a chance it was going to end right then and there. If so, it would have made a strong ending note. But the story continued for another six seasons, which was probably two more than it should have. I wouldn't have minded if it ended with the end of season 5 (another point they thought might be the end and wrote it that way), or season 7 (with the Pillars reborn). All would have worked for me.
You're right about Rarity. I forgot to mention her and should have. And AJ was a goddess at times, with her head often screwed on the straightest of all of them.
If you want to know why I included him and gave him something of a starring role of Nightmare Night, that's why. Thought he deserved it, even if you don't care for the content.
You're right again. That trend gravely worries me; the sense that we're edging closer to outright violence and worse, this sense that they're trying to lay the groundwork to make it okay to do so against your political adversaries by dehumanizing them and making them guilty of all sorts of base evil. If you truly believe you're saving the planet or standing up for the oppressed, then you don't have to listen to the other side or examine your own viewpoints critically. The other side is evil and that's all there is to it. Pray we come to our senses before it's too late.
Our Great and Powerful fan creation!
me too, other than their hyperactive princess. We did get one or two episodes around them in the regular run of the show, including a CMC episode that I thought was quite good where they were trying to help a young hippogrif torn between the land and the sea.
Come back, DEL! We need you to help right this wrong!
I never liked the way they portrayed the dragons, especially that last episode where the new dragon lord didn't know the first thing about how they were supposed to tend their offspring and had to be told. How the hell did they even survive????
Yeah, sorry about that.
But they'll get something of a second life in my Firefly stories, at least.
That Fake It 'Til You Make It episode was one of the all time greats, no question. There were others I liked as well, but we had some real clunkers in there, including a couple where I just had to turn them off and walk away, like that Yona shipping episode. Just... no.
But they did have a good run of episodes to end the show, I thought, and they did hold up on a second viewing for me.
I'm not quite that stringent, as I'll happily borrow concepts I like, such as the Kirin. But the season 8 and 9 storylines will be completely ignored.
You're welcome! And thank you very much for the longpost!
Hope you likewise enjoyed the reply.
Well said, Firesight. I hope to see you continue the stories of your MLP:FiM x Phoenix Wright crossover in the near future.
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I will do my best! I can't say when, but I still intend to do so. Thanks for checking in and I certainly appreciate your love for the verse--for both verses, actually.
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It's pretty cheap to get started and there's no box price to play WoW Classic. Adjusting for inflation it's sunk in cost since its inception in 2004. You can buy a month of time for 15 bucks and come check it out!
Don't feel like you're signing your life away to the Devil to play WoW; I feel like a lot of people do and they never give WoW a chance.
The most tragic aspect of MLP's timeline was the people who built the foundation of MLP went about fantasy storytelling the right way and had noble intentions. They didn't really know what they were doing half the time but they didn't have an agenda either. It's like 2014-15 AJ Aficionado versus 2016-2018 Aj Aficionado. The writing is more complex but far less likable to the masses due to a number of outside forces. Also, I still can't write a coherent story arc to save my life but I digress...
I edited that silly longpost for a solid hour and still made an obvious mistake.
I'll try to explain my thinking better:
I'm not suggesting that things never went wrong but the ponies always dug themselves out of their own jam because harmony was a racial trait, citing several examples of unique magical properties ponies share. The last sentence in my paragraph was badly worded and makes it look like I'm suggesting otherwise but what I was trying to say is that the ponies do sometimes argue among themselves for one reason or another.
Hearth's Warming Tale is not just one of MLPs best episodes it's one of the most uplifting stories I've ever heard anywhere. It makes me feel second-hand patriotism for these people as if they were my own. I'm left with a profound sense of respect for Equestria that far exceeds the requirements of a show for little girls. It might be the greatest episode of MLP ever made, but I need to rewatch all of them before I make that official.
I was spending this time laying out MLP as Faust did, the right way. This is when the universe worked and the humor was actually funny. It's ironic really... Ponyville was getting flattened every other episode and yet the universe was never more ordered.
I still involuntarily shudder every time you bring up Zen Badass Lyra. That PTSD is going to stay with me for life.
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I hope I haven't been too annoying about it. I just think she's a really great writer with a natural talent for narrative voice and compelling characters. She's expressed in self-deprecation in the past about her descriptions being a bit murky at times but we all have weaknesses. It doesn't mean we suck.
The writers got lost in the meta and simply stopped caring about the universe. Remember the first Quibble episode? My initial reaction was that the writers were just engaging in some light-hearted banter with the fandom for caring too much about stuff like continuity. Thinking about what's happened to the way character dialogue is handled, I'm starting to wonder if it really was contempt for the audience like some people at the time were suggesting.
Based!
There is hope for you yet! 
Twilight will rule and reign alone without even the prospect of a sister to eventually show back up. Maybe she'll rule alongside Flurry Heart? What a joke!
Baizuo is a much stronger word than SJW, in my opinion. It's more specific and I think right-wingers online would do well to use it instead. The problem with SJW is much the same with the pejorative "cuck"; it's been overused to the point it can mean anything you don't like. Hell, I'm an SJW according to some definitions!
Everyone has met a baizuo and everyone, left and right, has a visceral disgust for this person.
If the Yaks were created as a joke by the alt-right or some other brand of right-wing dissident for the sake of satire they would be indistinguishable from the way the MLP writers created them. Let that sink in... Yaks are the platonic form of Poe's Law, a blackface mockery of a fictional race whose only redeeming quality is that they're so overweight they can shake the ground when they jump up and down. And the biggest insult is that they're only barely worse than dragons and griffons! If I wrote something like these people I'd be laughed off the internet!
I guess we just disagree on MMC. To elaborate, I don't think Twilight's fall as a valuable character doomed the show. By this point, it had so many interesting characters it could soldier on without her. Season 5 was a very good season, the equal of season 2 in a lot of ways with a powerful opening volley and a crushing finale broadside. More advanced storytelling mechanics improved some things but also brought us some major clunkers. Season Five's strengths were Twilight's supprting cast that picked up the slack. There are excuses for season 4 being underperforming, but that's all they are, excuses and I don't think you'd argue that apost-s4 Twilight just isn't as good as season 1-3 Twilight.
I really liked that episode. Bronies were asking for seaponies for years and at least on that point the writers delivered the goods in a tuna-safe net!
That episode was soooo baaaaaaaaaaaad!
Remember how they wrote Fluttershy in that one? The Day of The Glue Factory couldn't come soon enough!
One of the show's most pitiful showings, 1/10 for sure.
I had to go to work that day. Best eight hours of work I've ever put in!
You poor man having to sit through that.
The Kirin as a concept are outstanding. I'm thinking that in your universe they can be an offshoot of one of the two great races of pony who migrated west out of China and East and South out of North America. The Kirin would be like an offshoot of the Chineighse who sailed to North America and migrated to the tropics of Central America to escape the Maregolians and harpies.
I did! Thank you.
I feel like Luna really got the short end of the stick from the retirement stuff there.
She didn't get to rule for much long(heck, she just got her own freaking throne). It gets worse with apparently she has to give up what's her freaking destiny with raising the moon(and dreamguarding) due to retiring, despite she didn't enjoy her destiny for much long compared to Celestia raising the sun.
Along with apparently living with a bunch of old ponies(Silver Shoals) along with well.. how things were handled for the sisters in the finale. All of this made the retirement worse.
The retirement stuff really isn't a good sendoff for Luna's character and the Royal Sisters got a pretty terrible sendoff in general honestly.
Them making the movie canon sure had a scar on the Royal Sisters too.
Like what happened in the movie left a huge stain of failure on their images. Like the sisters got taken out infront of all of Equestria to see and failed to protect Equestria from a actual invading military force that actually took over Equestria for 3 days. This failure is the worst of all the shortcomings so far the sisters had suffered through. Whats worse is how this got brushed aside. There's no way in heck neither sister(especially Luna) would feel fine afterwards.
It hurts so much for Luna's case honestly. Like really..
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Honestly the retirement stuff is a awful sendoff to Luna's character there..