Extended-Cutting Season 1

While it may not look like much has been happening, this last month or so has seen some truly heroic efforts on the part of my coauthor Serketry to help me put the whole of the first half of My Little Pony: Friendship into some sort of coherent logical order. This has resulted in rearranging a fair number of episodes to avoid things like one potentially world-ending event happening right after another, and the development of actual arcs and multi-episode plots and season-wide themes and things. As a result, any semblance whatsoever of the original ordering of episodes within each season has basically been destroyed and some episodes have also moved into other seasons entirely.

As such, I thought it would be a good idea to come out beforehand and offer a brief outline of what to expect from “ECeason 1” in terms of which episodes made the cut and in what form:

1. Feeling Pinkie Keen is verging on being an “Extended Cut In Name Only” in that very large portions of it have been almost entirely replaced with original content. Some EC episodes might be even more “in name only” than this in terms of being completely another story that the same title just happens to apply to, but probably only one or two. Pinkie Keen EC likely won’t focus on the majority of the same characters, and so little of the literal events of the original remain that it is probably better to describe them as references or callbacks than an actual plot. I am making an effort to approach some of the same themes as the original episode, although I think it almost goes without saying that I will be doing so from a very different direction than the original.
2. Stare Master is also going to be a very “interpretive” version of the original episode, although somewhat less so than Pinkie Keen EC. In particular, while Pinkie Keen EC likely will not feature all that much Pinkie Pie in it, Fluttershy will likely still be playing a pretty major role in Stare Master EC. That’s not the only thing that will be happening, by any means, of course…
3. Griffon the Brush-Off is going to be in a lot of respects much more faithful than the previous two even as it becomes much more expansive. It’s more character-focused, and as a result I can add an entirely new set of basic events for the character stuff to that place around without moving away from what I’d consider the core of the original episode.
4. Boast Busters continues the trend of more closely following the original episodes. While a lot of the premises behind the events in it have been altered, easily recognizable events still happen in the same order as before- although, of course, there will also be a good amount of purely new material and changes to the original premise where appropriate.
5. One Bad Apple is our first example of an episode moving into season 1 from a later season of the original show. In fact, as I was planning the season out, this episode I think had the strongest case for coming specifically to this season and not any other. Indeed, while I knew obviously that most season 1 episodes would stay in season 1 I was not more sure that any specific one would than I was that this one would be moved here for a good long time. I also already know it’s going to take a somewhat unusual approach to the source material in that the events of the original episode (or broadly similar ones) do happen, but they aren’t really what makes up the core of the story- rather, One Bad Apple EC is about how the rest of Ponyville react once the dust has settled.
6. Swarm of the Century is the first EC episode on this list to explicitly be combined with another episode entirely, namely Too Many Pinkie Pies. The end result, I think, is probably going to be more Swarm than Pinkie Pies. While the Swarm part will probably have an eventwise similarity to the original episode somewhere between Friendship is Magic EC and Boast Busters EC, Pinkie Pies will likely take the central premise of the Mirror Pool in a very different direction entirely.
7. That One Cider One With A Really Long Name I Can Never Remember is moving back into Season 1, and the Flimflam Brothers have much bigger designs than just running the Apple family out of town. Ironically those designs might not have all that much to do with cider any more, but this is probably still going to be a mostly AJ-centered episode (in addition to Twilight-centered, because all of the Season 1 episodes have a lot of Twilight in them).
8. Bridle Gossip is an episode I never really looked on fondly due to its rather blunt messaging and downright confusing resolution. Now that I’m doing EC, though, that means there’s a lot of potential to fix it with a rewrite. This is probably going to be more a “same concept and themes” rewrite than a “same events” rewrite, although large portions of the original might survive- those Poison Joke mutations could be pretty ghoulish in the right hands! That, and while the original handling left quite a bit to be desired, xenophobia and witch-hunts are still relatively weighty subjects to be broached in what was at the time very much still a kids’ cartoon about friendship lessons. A more serious (and less preachy!) treatment of those subjects is something that appeals to me, especially when it gives me a chance to further explore the relationship of Equestria to the rest of the world. I also now have a chance to throw my personal hat into the ring regarding zebra fanon/headcanon, which seems to vary wildly between authors and sometimes go in some pretty weird and uncomfortable directions. Now I can do my own small part towards combating that.
9. Dragonshy is probably going to be most similar to Griffon the Brush-Off EC in that it features some of the same general events but in a very different context. It also pulls in a very few elements from Owl’s Well that Ends Well, namely the other dragon in the Everfree Forest.
10. Castle Mane-ia is moving all the way down from Season 4. Of all the episodes in Season 1 EC this is competing with Friendship is Magic and the Season 1 finale that follows as the most faithful to the original episode, as it’s merely an “amplified” version of the same premise with some additional characters and additional context.
11. Friendship Is Magic Issues 5 – 8 will finish out the season. Yes, I am indeed including select of the IDW comics in Extended Cut, because while there are a few duds by and large I think they are of very good quality and often have more editorial freedom to include more mature content than the show. This arc is a fine example of such, was released early in the show’s run, and deals directly with the fallout of Nightmare Moon.

There are a number of episodes that were preserved in some fashion, but not explicitly included here:

• Sonic Rainboom is moving into the beginning of Season 2. It and a lot of other episodes could go into Season 1, but I wanted all of the “ECeasons” to be roughly the same length and not have one be twice the length of the other. Thus, a lot of episodes that originally were part of Season 1 ended up in later seasons because they were to some degree “cursed with versatility” and had nothing or very vague things connecting them to any one particular season or arc.
• Dog And Pony Show moved all the way to season 3, being another very versatile episode not having a great deal connecting it to any one season.
• Best Night Ever is moving, in whole or in part, to Season 2.
• Luna Eclipsed kind of got broken up across the whole of ECeason 1, so it no longer really exists as a single entity. One of the main draws of of EC is that there no longer has to be just one episode dealing with Luna’s integration into modern Equestria, there’s room to include elements of that in every single episode.
• Over a Barrel moves all the way into Season 5! Unlike Sonic Rainboom and Dog and Pony Show, from almost the very beginning of my outlining process I knew with great certainty that Season 5 was the place for this one if not even later.
• Portions of The Cutie Mark Chronicles have been moved into the beginning of Season 2 even though an actual episode by that name doesn’t really exist there.
• As mentioned previously, a few parts of Owl’s Well That Ends Well make it into Dragonshy EC. I was also thinking of doing something parodic with Spike’s petulant reaction in canon versus his more grounded EC incarnation; that might end up being just a part of Dragonshy EC itself (since even mainline EC episodes are never so serious as to not be able to include humor), or even a short little piece that is actually called Owl’s Well That Ends Well EC, but certainly not a full episode.
• I might do something in a similar vein spoofing the wretched creepypasta memes that spawned out of Party of One, or I might not as I’m not even sure what’s left to say about that subject that hasn’t been said before or better than I could do it, or for that matter said before and better by me in places like the Library of the Damned Jeff Clone and Cupcakes riffs. There’s really not much I think I can do with the actual episode.

Of the remaining episodes in Season 1, I also wanted to write down some of my justification for not including them. Sometimes it’s because I thought they were bad in ways that I couldn’t really fix; sometimes it’s because I thought they were perfect the way they were and I didn’t really have anything in particular to add, and sometimes they just weren’t really set up in a way that worked with what EC is supposed to be about.

• I did, for a while, consider doing something with Ticket Master, as underneath its early-season roughness there is nothing really wrong with having Twilight’s Canterlot connections become a bone of contention among the locals just after her arrival in Ponyville. But I had a hard time coming up with ideas that would make that interesting as a stand-alone concept, and as I outlined the rest of Season 1’s EC arc the Gala became less and less prominent and the relationship between Twilight and Ponyville started to express itself in other ways not really compatible with this episode. Since this is Extended Cut a lot of the character interactions that used to take up full character-focused episodes are now happening in the background and in downtime amidst the adventure parts of the more adventure-focused episodes. As a result pure character episodes will probably be a rarity here and usually be on the more “interpretive” or “in name only” part of the spectrum.
• Applebuck Season, Winter Wrapup, and Fall Weather Friends all ended up kind of in the same boat. I, personally, would gladly have extended them and just done nothing but work through the logistics and technical side of the events depicted. However, that would be self-indulgent and profoundly boring. I have heard the term “factory tour” to describe overly expositional material like this in speculative fiction, and in some cases these episodes would turn into literal factory tours by Twilight and her friends. That actually almost also occurred in Swarm of the Century, but once it fused with Too Many Pinkie Pies it became strange and complicated enough that it made the cut. I did like the character stuff in these episodes (especially the AJ-RD dynamic in Fall Weather Friends) and tried to work it into the other episodes as much as possible, but again purely character-based ECs never really seem to come together for me when I’m outlining things. Additionally, while I have no particular actual timeline (I am fine with individual episodes taking as long as they take, determined as written), I rather doubt that Season 1 will continue all the way into fall or winter given that Friendship is Magic EC occurs in midsummer.
• Call of the Cutie and The Show Stoppers are CMC-centric episodes. While some of those turn out to be surprisingly relevant and touch on some very raw themes, there’s a lot that I just have a hard time bringing up to the level of stakes where they would be noticed by the main characters of the EC-verse. Probably my approach going forward will be that the events of these episodes definitely happen, but are strictly in the background if the main characters even notice them at all.
• Suited for Success, Green Isn’t Your Color, and other episodes dealing with Rarity’s career as a designer might appear as framing elements and background elements, but will usually end up being in-name-only episodes if they appear at all. I like Rarity’s arc in the show as she works her way up to becoming a successful and influential businessmare, and a more serious and mature take on that could certainly be done. However, a big part of writing is knowing your limits and I know that I have neither the time nor skill/experience to write that in a way that is interesting to readers. Her growing influence among Canterlot high society will certainly be an element as EC moves on into later seasons, but unless some other episode is happening simultaneously with her movements I will probably be having much of that occur “offscreen”.
• A Bird In The Hoof is also kind of a “technical” episode in that it’s mostly about Twilight trying to keep Philomena from dying by various different means. Like the factory tour episodes, I could write a more serious take on that where Twilight brings all the resources of the Royal Academy to bear on that problem, but I don’t think I could make that interesting enough to justify my time writing it or yours reading it.

All of this is of course not final and subject to change, and it’s not like anything can really happen to me if I do change it suddenly, but I am at this point (after probably ten or twenty thousand words’ worth of outlining alone, which Serketry has been an absolute saint for putting up with) pretty convinced of it.

If everything goes well and there’s no unforeseen IRL complications that take me away from writing in the evenings, I am actually fairly confident in saying that I will have started actually writing the first of these episodes by the end of September (2020). After that, I can’t really say how long it will take before any of the results become visible, since I don’t know how long these mid-season episodes will turn out to be and I like to sit on material for a good long while to debug it before releasing it publically.

Comments

[Comickook]

Thanks very much for getting the First Season details up. Yeah, sounds like pretty good details.

Of course, "Swarm of the Century" could also have some "flashback" elements explaining how Pinkie knows about the Parasprites to greatly reduce the "Poor Communication Kills" and also provide some early family backstory for Pinkie.

As for "the Ticket Master", ALL the Mane Six could get two tickets to the Gala as a reward for helping stop Nightmare Moon. Twilight has never been to the Gala herself, but her brother has been on Gala security detail enough times for her to have a pretty good idea what it's like (in this universe, Gala security is taken MUCH more seriously; there are so many celebrities, nobles and general rich ponies all under one roof in addition to Celestia herself that it wouldn't make sense for security to NOT be a big deal [WAY too many villains who would want to try to make a quick name for themselves]). She actually TRIES to warn her new friends about what the Gala is actually like (and ALSO warns Rarity about Blueblood; having been Celestia's personal student for ALMOST a decade-and-a-half, she basically knows Blueblood JUST well enough to wish she didn't) while also trying to help them find somebody trustworthy to give their extra tickets to (she's already taking Spike, so she doesn't HAVE that problem).

"Winter Wrap Up", well, there is no hard set rule against unicorns using their magic during Winter Wrap Up (that sounds WAY too tribalist; especially since Pegasi AREN'T forbidden from using THEIR wings and weather skills) - it's just that, until Twilight came to town, there wasn't any unicorns in Ponyville powerful enough for their magic to make much of a difference. Rather, Twilight's refusal to use her magic is completely self-imposed - with her simply being determined to find a way to help WITHOUT falling back on her magic (her simply feeling she has gotten too dependent on it).

And, sorry about that. I admit I got carried away (sheepish grin) I respect that this is YOUR series.

[AdmiralSakai]

5358366
Sorry about giving me yet another chance to talk about myself? Why would you be sorry for that?

In all seriousness, don't worry about the Gala- I have big plans for Dear Bluey.

You also make a pretty good point about the tribalist undertones of the ban specifically on unicorn magic- perhaps this will be addressed in a background event?

[Comickook]

5358581
Yeah. Kind of figured you had plans for Blueblood.

And, in addition, thanks. Perhaps that COULD be addressed.

And, perhaps "Return of Harmony" could be bumped up SLIGHTLY (i.e. to the first season finale which is what Lauren Faust originally planned) with a bit more detail worked in (including a few monsters in the maze that the individual Element Bearers will have to rely completely on their courage and wits to overcome before they get to Discord's "breaking tricks" and having the three Princesses and Shining distracting Discord long enough for Twilight to get the rest of the Mane Six back to normal rather than Celestia simply trusting Discord to assume he had already won) and maybe have Discord do a few extra tricks in the final battle so the Mane Six's victory looks more well earned than because of Discord simply getting WAY TOO overconfident.

Again, I admit I let my imagination run away with me. This is YOUR series and I have to be mature enough to respect that.

[Aitchel_Xesskh]

derpicdn.net/img/view/2017/8/4/1502317__safe_classical+hippogriff_dragon_hippogriff_narwhal_g4_my+little+pony-colon-+the+movie_official_absurd+resolution_airship_appleloosa_arimaspi+territory.jpg
https://derpibooru.org/images/1553160

Will/Does your story adhere to the official Map of Equestria?
*Note: The final map lacks the following---
the Changeling hive
Whinnyapolis
Saddle Arabia
Monacolt
Prance
Maretonia
Aquastria
Mount Vehoovius
Marapore, Ponypeii, Lusitano
Abyssinia
Gargoyle & Centaurlands
and Farasi (the zebralands)

https://mlp.fandom.com/wiki/Locations

[AdmiralSakai]

5657230
I've been using a hybrid of the official map and a modified version:

derpicdn.net/img/2018/8/28/1818869/large.png

At some point, I hope to assemble a "proper" version showing all of the appropriate borders and a few changes to the structure of the continents. There's a few regions canonically mentioned but not shown on the map, and a few countries of my own invention.