A Confession...

I hadn't watched most of season 8 or any of season 9 until a few weeks ago, nor any of G5 until this week, due to horrible anxiety. (Yes, anxiety about watching a tv show I want to watch. My brain is messed up.) So in no particular order, I need to get out some thoughts.

Daring Doubt is as bad as people said it was. Sweet Celestia, did the writers of that episode not watch the previous Daring Do episodes? Ahuizotl not being evil would require a massive retcon of all his previous appearances.

The Tree of Harmony nearly killing the Student Six is a weird way for it to spread harmony, unless it knew ahead of time that they would succeed, which... I guess isn't outside of possibility.

I wish I had actually watched the episodes when they came out so that I wasn't spoiled to the Cozy Glow twist. Still, she's a great villain, especially in the friendshipping episodes with her, Chrysalis and Tirek; those were amazing.

I was not fully spoiled to the twist of Grogar being Discord (I don't know how I managed that). That was... a little awkward. Yeah, he's mischievous, but he still had to straight up swallow that idiot ball for the plot to work out that way. Otherwise, the finale was pretty good.

Spike is officially acknowledged as Twilight and Shining's brother! Finally! It only took them 9 whole seasons, but better late than never.

Rainbow Roadtrip was disappointing. A mediocre episode-style plot that took up the slot for what could have been something so much more epic.

The Young Six seemed kind of underutilized; they set up this whole thing with the Treehouse of Harmony, but then they barely appear in the finale, with less screen time than the Pillars. Perhaps they were thinking about a more passing-the-torch sort of ending, but decided against it late in the process.

The more-or-less canonized ships of AppleDash and FlutterCord were appreciated, but I'm not so sure about CheesePie, and I refuse to think of adult Spike as looking like that. Oh well; that's what fanfiction is for.

The Next Generation movie was great, even though it implies an unhappy ending to Twilight's story. Sunny's big realization in the climax was a little rushed, but it was a fun ride, so I can forgive it.

The Make Your Mark episodes so far are decent, although the whole "Earth Pony magic is new" thing would imply that this isn't the exact same Equestria, because Earth Ponies were always stated to have magic before even if we rarely saw it. The new Mane 5 are fun, even if Izzy sometimes tries too hard to be Pinkie 2.0. Overall, I'm interested to see where it goes.

I hope they give a decent explanation as to what happened in the past. In particular, since the villain confirmed that Alicorns, in general, are immortal, they need to explain not only what happened to Twilight, but also Celestia, Luna, Cadance, and Flurry. (It would be a great twist if Opaline was an evil Flurry Heart, but I doubt they'd do that.)

I find Sparky ugly and his absurdly OP magic doesn't help me like him. Spike will always be best dragon.

I'm also (trying) to watch Pony Life. It's much more bearable if I pretend it's an in-universe cartoon made in Zephyr Heights from vague legends about the Mane Six, so I'm sticking with that headcanon.

I only recently got around to the rest of the Equestria Girls specials, too. I... really wish they hadn't cut them off. They had great characters, a great plot hook in the leaking portal, a reason for the characters to travel around in their band, and most of all, Sunset's arc didn't feel finished yet! The villains could have done with a little more work (apart from Wallflower (ironically), I have a hard time remembering most of the villains from the specials even just after watching them), but otherwise they really had something going. Sigh.

There are some great songs in the EQG shorts, as well. I mean, Let It Rain, come on!

Also also, that blatant RariJack tease with Ragamuffin.