For me, it was never a particular moment or episode. To be honest, I'm far too optimistic about the show, and I never write off an episode or concept before it airs. Seasons 1 and 2 proved that even the dumbest sounding episodes could be pulled off fantastically, so I'm always the one to argue that making Twilight and alicorn COULD be done well, and come up with an example story to prove it.
Oh, well MMC was shit, but... Okay I know Equestria Girls looks awful, but there's no reason why it HAS to be... Oh god that was the worst...
But okay, season 4 on the way, Twilight becoming a princess could actually be really revealing and important for her character! ...Wait, they did nothing??
This Rainbow Power thing looks ridiculous, but with the way the keys are shaping up on this season-wide arc, it could actually be very well executed... oh jesus that was just terrible...
Second movie, honestly can't see much good in this one, but who knows? I'm certainly willing to go in with a positive outlook and god dammit that was even worse than the first.
Sigh, season five... wait, this animatic is... really good! That writing, I can taste it, M.A. Larson is back! This could be a fantastic opening, the likes of which hasn't been seen since Return of Harmony! ...Oh, that was... very very boring. What the hell, Larson?
Same thing with the comics really, I wanted to love them and they spat in my face. I give every single episode a chance to wow me (Amending Fences came really really close too!) but the past three years simply haven't had the kind of effort put into them that the first seasons did. When you make millions of fans you never expected, well what's even the point of trying anymore? It's no one thing or one moment, everything from the underlying themes to the worldbuilding to the character motivations to the songs to the conflicts to the resolutions and much more have simply faded.

4651250
I agree with you there, Out of all the episodes in Season 5, Amending Fences was the best out of all of them, the rest of them was just.....Meh.

I feel the need to add my 2 cents, I never considered myself a brony but rather a furry, I have watched season 1-4 with a appreciation of the show and what it was trying to do and I was ok, with Hasbro trying to get more money via Movies. But were I draw the line is season five.

Season 5 has to some of the worst writing I've ever seen and I love watching power rangers. Anyway, what started out in episode 5 Tanks for the memories, which I thought was the start of the downfall of the writing for the show and I actually liked the small nods to keeping continuity from ep 1 of the show, I also like romance and I am a guy, and a fluttercord shipper, and I love seeing discord I feel that this season discord got a bad treatment and alot of the villains are now forced which you shouldn't do. I so feel like and this may be wrong to put this here but I feel like feminism is taking the focus of the show now which makes me sad, though I do hope the Megan who is returning as story editor, will put the show back on track.

4710694 You can't really put a whole lot of faith in just one writer. It's more or less a team effort with every episode. Sometimes more is less.

Room for one more?

Yeah, I'm back, and my general thoughts haven't changed much. Correction: I meant identity crisis and split personality. And compared to previous series, in which characters lacked personality, this one has the opposite problem: Their personalities are too exaggerated.

I personally liked Sisterhooves Social because it came off to me as the only episode in the whole show that I could call well-rounded, save a few nitpicks here and there (like Rarity's family barging in without warning, and Sweetie Belle nearly burning down the Carousel Boutique). Also, I don't have any issues with FiM being an action show since the pilot episodes seemed headed in that direction in the first place.

I originally wanted to stop watching at Flight To The Finish because folks like RealityCheck convinced me that disabilities are not something to be praised. Twilight Sparkle got flying lessons. Tank the tortoise got a helicopter pack. What did Scootaloo get? Nothing more than a cheap pep talk that pales in comparison, especially when we saw her demonstrate SUICIDAL BEHAVIOR IN HER BEDROOM. On top of that, they forgot to punish the bullies.

"...my big problem with message shows, is that you can't solve the world's problems in a half hour cartoon...It makes the episode look very exploitive, because you're just using the problem as an exotic background. You can't discuss the problem on any meaningful level in a 22-minute action cartoon...It's not enough...to put a band-aid on the problem...It just doesn't work."
-- Bruce Timm's thoughts for the Batman: The Animated Series episode The Forgotten, Animato Magazine interview

Originally, I wanted to stop there. But a chat with another fan reminded me that I couldn't just leave Spike in the dust, either, so I stopped after Power Ponies. I've considered catching up, but maybe I'll wait until the end of the decade, which is most likely when the show will end.

"That's just a pathetic, vile lie that's not even worth laughing at. Yeah, insulting their f***ing intelligence. Pandering bullsh**. Exposing them to infected splinters, driving their favorite characters to suicide, rehashing the most heinous stories ever told. Sanding down any quality that manages to slip through under their watch. Yeah that's really putting kids first. No, at best, they only care about the bottom f***ing line. And at worst, they're actually f***ing malicious!...When the dog sh**s on the carpet, you rub their noses on it, and show them exactly what they did wrong....If ANY of this sh** is putting kids first, I'd hate to think how kids are under your care...This honestly makes me feel like what I'm doing is completely in vain. Yeah, I know I'm not going to break through the thick skulls...but, it's the kind of moment that makes you realize that I've been shouting at a hurricane this whole time. I can yell, and scream, as loud as possible, and it won't make a f***ing difference...gonna keep making these atrocities, and keep making them worse, and considering that this is the sh** that people apparently WANT to see, who am I to complain? You'd think something would change by now, but, it's impossible. It's impossible to change anything..."
-- The Mysterious Mr. Enter, Breadwinners review

I guess we can't all be Greg Weisman. Still, just how deeply are we supposed to look into our favorite cartoons?

4729953 How deep? It really varies.

4730251 How many times do you watch an episode in order to form an opinion about it?

4730340 Usually once is enough.

4730533 Really?? Just once?

4730822 Yup. And maybe a few hours later of brainstorming. It really does not take that long.

I know this is an old thread and alot has been said but I'll add in my two cents.

A rule of writing I pieced together recently: Everything we learn about someone or somethign should make them more interesting and after season 1 most of them things I learn about Equestria or the characters don't make things more interesting.

The thing I will cite is the final revelation of Diamond Tiara's mother, for years people brainstormed and guessed at what her mother was like and in the end the answer was "an older version of Diamond Tiara who si also competitive" and to me that's the most obvious predictable mother figure of Tiara's that could have been thought up.

Not sure if I, or anyone else, have said this one yet, so

Potential repeat warning
~CHANGE! Except Not Really~

One thing I always find ironic is when bronies accuse us of hating change. Ironic why? Because... it seems like if anyone does, its the show's own writers.

Go back to Twilicorn. What was the #1 promise we all heard? That Twi would NOT change. She'd still be the same pony. Note that for most of us, that was exactly the problem, A promotion that major should come with some wide, sweeping changes, not merely be an ornament.

One reason I don't like reading comic books is because even when things change, they really don't. Oh, Bruce Wayne died? The next Batman is someone so similar that he might as well be called Wuce Brayne anyway (and then Brucey is secretly still alive). Spoony commented on this in one of his Counter Monkey videos.

See, I like stories where change happens, because change makes stories meaningful. Lord of the Rings would've been completely stupid and pointless if, after all the hobbits go through, Frodo just goes home and puffs his pipe and goes all "gee I am sure glad to be home!" And look at Dune: half the reason that's such a glorious sci-fi saga is because its about the changes to a galaxy over thousands of years, up to and including the Spice--the macguffin that all life revolves around--being basically destroyed. Then we have anime like Dragonball or Neon Genesis Evangelion, or video games like Final Fantasy VI...

Now, MLP time and again has these big events that are supposed to be major changes... but then they're totally not. Discord reforms... except he's basically still evil, just he's not actively trying to conquer the world or anything now. The CMC get their cutie marks.... and their destiny is apparently to just keep doing what they were already doing. Even when we discover a new kingdom or empire, its impact is so minimal that it basically doesn't exist. Frankly, if the guys behind MLP were the ones writing Final Fantasy VI, the entire World of Ruin would be just "like the world of Balance, but the towns are in a separate place" and the heroes' reaction would amount to "Oh well, time to get back to fighting the empire!" and if they were writing Evangelion, the crap Asuka gets put through would be a momentary annoyance that she quickly gets over with a pep talk and then she goes back to slapping Shinji, instead of something that totally debilitates her and makes her suicidal.

Simply put, MLP's writers seem to have "Values" that are counter to those any GOOD writer has. Part of that is they seem to absolutely hate change. Instead they try to make us THINK they've changed things using bandaids and misdirection, but in content, we're getting the same old garbage. Season 5 is, in terms of how much of value has happened, no more advanced than Season 2. No wonder they're claiming not much time has passed.

4964769

Frodo just goes home and puffs his pipe and goes all "gee I am sure glad to be home!"

But, like, he does just that. Haven't you seen, like, the films?

4964877 If I'm late, its because I had no idea how to react to that. Those movies, man.... they shut down all rational thought process...

Bump

MLP has jumped the shark. Season 1 and Season 2 (S1 more, though) are undeniably the best seasons in my opinion because

1. The charming simplicity. The story lines were simpler to follow, but the stories were better and had some genuinely funny moments. The Cutie Mark Chronicles gave a backstory to the Mane 6, for example, and it wasn't some cliché Diamond Tiara crap. It was a story well-told. Compare to Slice of Life from the latest season.
2. You actually get to see more of the mane six bonding.
3. Pinkie wasn't flanderized into a painfully obnoxious dimwit. She was silly, yes, but Pinkie was actually a three-dimensional, good character who was fun and lovable. She became slightly flanderized in Season 2, but not enough to where she was literally painful most of the time. Then season 3. Oh, God, season 3. BLABLABLABLABLABLABLABLABLABLABLA! HEY HEY HEY HEY LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN I LIKE PIE LOL LOL. I hate to say I'm most relatable to Pinkie.
4. Twilight wasn't just a nerd. She was spunky and sarcastic, but meant well. Now she's literally like "I need to read a book about reading a book about reading a book about reading a book about reading a book..." She's too plain now.
5. The Mane 6 were given equal importance.
6. The Smile Song. 'Nuff said.

I'm not saying I'm obsessed with Lauren Faust, but without her the show generally got a lot worse, save for a few exceptions.
The only episode I actually HATE from the first two seasons is Lesson Zero. Crazy Twilight is so annoying and that was done for a cheap laugh.
Anyone have any other reasons why MLP is crap/the first two seasons were awesome?

5087759

Anyone have any other reasons why MLP is crap/the first two seasons were awesome?

Because it doesn't even try to be decent/It was daring.
Because everything feels painfully mediocre, and in some occasions, demential/Because everything felt beautifully real.
Because nobody cares about the show/Because the crew put a lot of effort in what they were doing.
Because it only serves to make toys more desirable to little girls/Because it had a reason to exist: to teach strong, valuable, useful ideals.

Firstly, I have to admit, English is not my mother language, so I feel sorry for mistakes.

I think the biggest problem is the show has given up its principles for money. The leaders of Hasbro are playing with it as if it was a little bi-bird.

I do not know how I should put my opinion...but if I had watched the episodes from the latter seasons, I would not have become a brony. I am a huge cartoon watcher so I must have followed it, but, you know, that's all.

When I talk with my brony mates about this issue. They told me, " I don't get what is your problem, man, you have too big expectations. It is only a child show. you should be happy even more, because they pay attention to bronies. If you desire for deep thought, go and watch South Park. "

This is one of my problem. The show used to have something charm, something magic. Faust was good at giving deepness to the world of the show, you know, there is something beyond the horizon. I do not say that her leave was the only source of the problem, but we and everyone ought to admit that she found the show out, she was the one who knew what she had wanted to do with this series.
Her leave was like if J.K. Rowling had written the first two books of the Harry Potter then she had to stop it for some reason, but the publisher would like to earn more money therefore they hire cheap writers to continue the series.
Because the hard-core fans will buy any bullshit anyway.
I acknowledge that Faust did not created the show by herself or anything, but it was her who led the group, brought the crew together, who synchronized them in a way that result could be our beloved cartoon.

But okay, let's play with our imaginations, hiring other writers in itself would not be a problem - except that they do not know what the original writer wanted, but she still can tell them and give some advice them from the background.

I think there is a big problem with the leading. I heard a lot of report and interview with the current writers and they said they would do more deep or even darker episodes but Hasbor does not allow them to do it.
I don't know what your opinion is, but as fas as I think, there is no better commercial then if the show in itself is great. Less is more.
Hence, they are coward. They are afraid to change it, they are afraid to touch it. Faust found out a good formula, they are trying to deal with it, but they are only too coward. They are afraid to mass it up.

I have to admit that, I watched a lot of anime, cartoons, film. I've seen a bound of fandoms. But This one was the one I felt myself the best. I knew Once everything will be over. I am fine with it. It is the rule of life. I am not angry because of it. I am angry because the show was shited all over. They did not let It be what it could be. And now they are screwing out of the last dollar form the series.

I don't like that the show has been stuffed with gags, funny complexions - just for broneis - to enable us to create another half-million meme. I think not these obligings were good in the show. They didn't used to need to use cheap tricks to get and keep the people.

I just found this community in FIMfiction. I was glad to be able to share my painful thoughts about one of favourite shows.

Mainly the whole mlp broke when Twilicorn, or however i call it happend. Castle itself wasn't THAT bad in my opinion. Then "The Cutie re-mark" broke my hearth, because Starlight was The Best Villian 0-2016! Untill that backstory thing came here. If we talk about Starlight, here is the plan: 1. Loose a friend because he discovered his talent 2. Remove everypony's talent. 3 Get your plan wrecked. 4.Become the worst protagonist ever. 5. Meet the new best antagonist. 6 change him into second worst background pony/worst protagonist/whoever shell be. / 7. Live happy live in fanfics only. The End!

I believe this song is appropriate for how much MLP has slipped so much: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av9Vk9bj8P0

4005941 When I saw that Spike turned into a dog I was like 'That is so not cool.'

5947527 And some people think he's more cuter as a dog, screw those people.

I think another reason why MLP has been heading down the tubes is because of the lack of lasting consequences for certain actions("A Canterlot Wedding" and "The Cutie Re-Mark" come to mind).

I'm not real good with organizing my opinions, but I found this 5 part audio essay about the show and I think it gets across all of my gripes with the show:

[Edit #2] Honestly in retrospect i think that all these years later when i gave my original post here it was filled with unnecessary ramblings and half of what i said was more "heat of the moment" rather than my collected thoughts put together. I no longer believe a good bit of what i said back then half of which was a excuse for me to vent but now that i had time to think about the show i wish to have my revised version for future people who may look through here so third times the charm.

I think now is the time for me for express how this show managed to impress me, impress me more then do nothing else but disappoint.

How i started watching this show was abit unusual which was watching a edit of the episode "sleepless in ponyille" late one night and i was won over almost immediately by its art style and its smooth animation. It was the first show that i genuinely enjoyed in years since around that time cartoon network and nickelodeon were shells of their former selves and were putting out awful shows and destroying shows that i used to love.

My little pony was the first ever show that i would become a major fan of and join its fanbase. Though i did not interact with the community much i still loved what they had to offer. I fully admit that i was blind to the problems of the show even as i watched the controversial episodes that divided the community like magical mystery cure (though to be honest i hated that episode and couldn't finish it) i still enjoyed almost every episode and i was not thinking too much about them i even took a lesson to heart because i was having trust issues with with a friend at the time.

Then fast forward to season four as it aired and i started to see problems for me personally which was the overuse of musicals in almost every episode i do know that my little pony has musical moments from its very first season but they were used sparingly it was not shoved down the viewers throat and more time was spent on the characters rather than the singing.

i slowly noticed that more characters were acting a little too obnoxious or ignorant for the sake of pushing the episodes plot forward regardless of how little sense it makes and other characters or plot threats from the previous seasons ceased to exist in the world anymore. Just to name a few where was philomena? What happened to iron will? What could have happened to pinkie pie that a mere thought of her friends not enjoying her parties makes her personality turn around dramatically is it a hidden depression? Does pinkie have multiple personality disorder?

Seriously what happened to pinkamena?

When season fours ending arrived ill admit that i was surprised and enjoyed it at first that they were going full dbz but when the fight ended with the characters literally acknowledging that all those minutes were spent wasted on eye candy and thats not including the buildup to the fight i thought that the seasons ending was basically pointless meandering and I was curious to see if anybody else shared my feelings but everyone was too busy screeching about the laser fight. That should have been my point where i started analyzing the show critically but i didn't i continued watching until season five aired

It was only after a few episodes aired into season five when i got fed up that if you break down every single episode if you remove the meager plot every episode was structured the exact same as season four. The only two episodes that i genuinely subjectively liked was the episode where applebloom has troubles with her indecisiveness and the episode where starlight debuted even then those episodes ran the same template as all the others and i was losing interest fast with each new episode that released.

I jumped ship when i saw this at the end of a episode

what the hell is that shit? i don't even think that is logically possible nor do i find that kind of pony to be believably fat given how their society runs. People can get extremely fat in the real world that much is true but the ponies are not shown to be extremely lazy they don't have advanced technology most of the machinery they use needs some force to power it and even then there were chubby ponies that were shown on screen before but they don't nearly look as awful as that. This pony was only put in to be a end joke at the end of the episode and not to be a believable addition to the show so i just stopped watching the show after that.

Frankly im glad that i stopped at that point even though my reason for stopping is tame compared to others but im still glad because the show only got much and much worse after that.

And that's not even mentioning the following that just piled up as the seasons continued:
Starlight glimmers awful redemption with a added mary sue perk.
The writers and staff going on record shitting on their own fanbase if they receive any backlash and will make episodes dedicated to shitting on their own fanbase.
The writers injecting political and social justice agendas into the show with added pandering to the twitter mobs.
The writers many contradictions and continuity failures with both their characters and their world even up until the very last episode.
The writers incessant need to pander with references and/or characters to try to get other people watching the show only because of those references.
And many more that others have covered already.

So hasbro enjoy your burning carcass you'll know full well what the problem was when you go full woke and lose all of that money and support.

6082001
In all seriousness, wut da fawk iz dat shet in the last picture?!

6082864

pure unadulterated horror that was a literal walking punchline for the end of that episode for the characters to laugh at because that pony wanted a dress but ha ha shes too abnormally chubby for one so everybody but her laughs end epsiode thats literally how it ends like they didnt even bother to give her a name or explain anything like why this pony was so abnormally large nope this pony's mere existence is to be a fat joke at the end.

6082986
The skeleton would have to be drastically mutated to fit that body shape. Ugh...

Who wants me to bring up Glimmer?

I'm bringing up Glimmer.

You know what I like about Glimmer? Her first appearance. She was smart, charismatic, and good at suckering ponies into giving up what made them who they were so they could fit her shallow definitions of equal and good. She was a villain, a brilliant, twisted, incredibly despicable villain. She thought she was right, and she outlawed free thought to keep her ideological control on her ponies crushingly tight, and she didn't see what was wrong with that. And you could argue that maybe she is right. After all, if competition and cutie marks were banned, Rainbow Dash would never get nervous about a new race or Wonderbolts show, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders wouldn't have spent their formative years wishing their formative years would end. Those are extremely small positives you'd get with some extremely big downsides, and the time travel episode proved that all Starlight's ideology can ever accomplish is weakening Equestria enough for it to suffer from and potentially get destroyed by more powerful external problems like Sombra's Crystal Empire and Changelings, but the thought was there, and that's what makes a villain really good.

Unfortunately, while that Glimmer episode was being written, someone on the writing team fell in love with this character, and it showed in all the wrong ways.

Glimmer, in her second appearance (Not counting cameos. Which I loved. Bonus props for having her Shinra Tensei out of there and come back to get revenge, it's a neat idea despite the execution)...

Glimmer decides to stop Twilight Sparkle from ever meeting her friends, and she's willing to laser blast a foal to do this. Rather than a moral about how you can't fight fate, Glimmer successfully ruins Equestria again and again, never understanding that this Equestria she created is a worse one than the original. It'd be neat if she saw the damaged Equestrias she created and repeatedly insisted that if they "Just accepted Equality into their hearts, everything would be fine", but I guess it's easier for the writers to stop Glimmer from understanding that hurting Equestria hurts Equestria until it's spelled out for her and comes with a visual aid.

But let's not talk about that. Let's talk about something I've never seen anyone mention, Glimmer fan or Glimmer hater.

Glimmer is suddenly persuasive enough to convince two bullying schoolfoals and their victim and their victim's best friend to stop bullying, make nice, forgive each other, give up on the ideals of competition, and wander off to have fun together, "Outsmarting Twilight and forcing her to defend bullying".

She pulls this off in under ten seconds, offscreen, and it just works because it's her. She does something that should be impossible, and it just works, because it's her. She has an infinity symbol as her charisma stat on her character sheet, now, so she can do things that just shouldn't be possible. And Twilight can't defend against this... because someone behind the scenes lowered Twilight's IQ to make sure she didn't make a short speech about the importance of competition or think to say to Filly Rainbow Dash "I'm you from the future and the world goes to shit if you don't pull a Sonic Rainboom off right now".

Now, the next point, I've seen some Glimmer haters bring up, but I'm going to bring it up in as much detail as possible.

Glimmer is suddenly so magically powerful that with just simple shields and lasers, some lucky dodges, and the occasional other spell, she can battle a fully-bloodlusted Alicorn Princess Twilight Sparkle to a standstill. Multiple times in one day. While levitating herself using her own magical power miles above the earth without stop because she doesn't know the Cloudwalking spell. And stopping Rainbow Dash from pulling the Sonic Rainboom off, often blasting her, meaning she can even cast multiple spells at once now. This has some interesting effects on the show this scene takes place in.

1. Everything that made Twilight's power special or notable is now moot, because this mare is just as strong as her, maybe even stronger, without being an Alicorn and without needing special rainbow powers.
2. Friendship isn't magic any more. The pony that embodies friendship and is empowered by it is losing to a villain sue only someone that hasn't noticed what I've noticed can love. That's a mean thing to say, sure, but it has yet to be proven false by a single solitary Glimmer fan. Hopefully, if I put that term like that, it'll inspire some honest intellectual open debate on that point.
3. All the "I don't want to be special/Being special is a big responsibility" stuff with Twilight is now not just moot, but openly stupid. Why was she shy about showing her Unicorn power level off when it meant absolutely nothing, and this other random Unicorn could have kicked her ass?
4. A big part Twilight's backstory is that she was trained from birth in Canterlot to have an insane power level. That's part of who she is as a person, even though it doesn't get shown that much any more. Remember when she used to put Ursa Minors to sleep and ZA WARUDO whole groups of ponies? Ah, memories. Anyway, Starlight Glimmer has no reason for having a power level close to Twilight, let alone a power level that surpasses her. And it's not like magic has been stated to be a light-side dark-side thing where embodiments of friendship are powerful because that's magic's light side but embodiments of evil and doom and death use its dark side. You could claim Sombra and Discord, one unicorn king and one chaos god we know nothing about, were implying that all along, just like I could claim Celestia is Twilight's real mother all along.
5. I'm alright with characters corrupted and empowered by an evil amulet overpowering Twilight, I'm alright with mad gods of chaos and demons powered by stolen Equestrian magic overpowering Twilight, and I'm alright with some random asshole getting one lucky shot in on Twilight, reading her jump and hitting her with an instant win attack... but that's what Starlight Glimmer is: Some random asshole. And this random asshole made Twilight look like a rank amateur without even breaking a sweat, multiple times in one day, sh*tting all over Twilight's life and timeline in the process. There's no prophecy here. There's no symbolism here. She's a random asshole and someone's favorite character. And she's just suddenly so OP, it hurts the show and its setting and everything Twilight stands for as a character. She isn't outsmarting Twilight, she isn't outsmarting the readers or any characters in the universe, she's just suddenly so OP it hurts, and there is no justification for that. This is like if Avatar Aang got his ass kicked by some random Fire Nation soldier that could also bend all four elements and time on top of that. It makes the avatar power feel cheap, it COMPLETELY ruins the powerscaling and power creep, and it introduces plot holes like "If he was this strong all along, why did he bother with what he tried to accomplish before this GMPC Poochie was forced to reveal his infinity-symbol stats?".
6. Glimmer is no longer what she was in the opener. She's no longer a smug manipulative asshole goading villagers into killing themselves and their offspring slowly but surely. She's no longer a well-intentioned threat to Equestria's stability and ability to function. She's now just yet another evil asshole throwing lasers around and being an asshole because she's an asshole. She's Frieza. Her power level is so high, she could probably kill filly Twilight, making the time travel aspect pointless. She could easily hit Twilight with a magic anti-Cutie Mark beam while in the shower or in the loo. She could travel back in time, use her uninterrupted 10 seconds before Twilight shows up to obliterate the earth, cast a breathe-in-space spell on herself, and watch Twilight implode/explode. She chooses to destroy the hero's hometown and homeworld to be a dick, because that's all she is now, a dick. A dick with infinite stats. A dick that can do whatever she wants because this is her show.

Even putting aside what Glimmer is now and what the writers have been doing with her, all the spotlight time she's gotten, all the shilling she's gotten, all the times characters lost IQ points and previous character development so Glimmy could save the day, and all the fake-screentime bad OCs got so they could create problems for Glimmer to solve... It's clear her character was derailed from "Intelligent, charismatic, manipulative, and evil but narrow-minded communist asshole that genuinely thought what she was doing was right" to "Amazingly perfect hyper-charismatic super-asshole that'll shit on Equestria and kill millions and f*ck everything up just to piss the hero off". She's gone from a great MLP villain to a bad HIE/DBZ villain.

In one episode, she went from someone cooler than Tirek to someone that made me miss Broly.

Did it surprise anyone here when she was eventually handed unearned forgiveness, allowed onto the "Side of good", and allowed to frequently indulge in her only character traits(Evil/formerly-evil wizard, doesn't respect free will or free thought, social skill levels depend on the plot, likes kites) ad nauseum without consequences? Did it surprise anyone when this "Perfect" character was turned into the show's new main character and given shallow connections to other OCs, like becoming Maud's new friend and becoming friends with Thorax because plot and becoming friends with Trixie because every shilled hero needs a shadow, removing what depth and likability Trixie could have potentially had as her own mare?

I've seen many people praise these episodes for what they TRIED to do, like "Wow, an episode where the villain learned she was wrong instead of needing it magicked into her!", and "Wow, an episode where the villain is turned good!". People want to like them more than they actually do. People like the ideas in these episodes and the promise of this character far more than they actually like these episodes and this character.

Glimmer is flawed, in the sense that she's a terrible person. A horrible, terrible, self-righteous asshole that needs to learn "Abusing your magic is bad" multiple times a month because she has no respect for individuality and no interest in changing who she is as a person. But the writers expect us to forgive her for this, even though she hasn't earned forgiveness for the cult town she ran, let alone the times she successfully destroyed Equestria and killed millions, or the time she brainwashed the Mane Six. Twilight has flaws, Rainbow Dash has flaws, Fluttershy has flaws, but when they act like assholes, they notice and work on these flaws. Glimmer just gets handed forgiveness again and again, and "You should forgive people like this" is NOT a moral the show should be teaching to kids. You shouldn't forgive bad people, not if they've hurt you and are going to keep hurting you without a second thought.

Earning... Let's talk about earning. Sunset Shimmer was a crappy villain in a bad movie, but the second movie redeemed her, and the concept of Equestria Girls itself, even if it did shoot itself in the foot with its handling of AU!Twilight later on. She tried hard to earn forgiveness but couldn't find a way to redeem herself, even though she worked for it and tried to earn it. She put up with bullying, she ended up getting a chance to be the hero, and in the end when she smirked down at the defeated Fishllar Women, it felt triumphant. F*ck yeah, the equine version of Gary Motherfucking Oak is back, and she's here to kick fishpony ass. She earned her redemption.

Glimmer... didn't. She had it handed to her. And while they could have retconned it a little so it was always a shaky thing BECAUSE she didn't earn it, the writers seem to think their "Better Sunset" simply deserves redemption for existing. When I see smug Shimmer, I want to fist-bump her, and when I see smug Glimmer, I want my fists to bump her off. Bad attempt at a pun aside... Glimmer sometimes mentions that some ponies haven't forgiven her, but we never see a Fluttershy-style or Sunset-style scene where ponies are a dick to her. The writers don't want to write that. They don't want a Korra Alone-type episode where even the most unbearable of badly written characters can be made sympathetic through the magic of suffering. They want her to write her as this loveable tragically flawed character everyone should love and forgive for being an asshole that doesn't want to change, and they're going to keep shilling her at the show's expense because of this. The writers want you to love this character more than they want to tell a good story or respect the source material they were given, and they think if they shove Glimmer deep enough down your throat, you'll love her as much as the Glimbots. While many ponies have crazy fans, Glimmer's fanbase often seem to have the highest concentration of crazed Glimbots. I personally think it's because they identify with her, being assholes that don't want to change, and they love seeing themselves have fun in a fantasy world where nopony holds their assholery against them. I'm sure that's not why ALL Glimmer fans like her, that's just my theory as to why so many extreme assholes are attracted to her on such a massive level that criticism of this character triggers them and makes them need revenge, even if that revenge is something petty like demanding I get banned from leddit.

You don't love Starlight Glimmer, the way she is now, and you can't. Her fans love the idea of her far more than they actually love her, and while some are aware of this, most aren't. They'll praise her for what she is, saying "Wow, we finally got that seventh mane six member!" and "Wow, another main character besides the mane six I was really getting sick of!" and "Wow, another Unicorn as magical as Twilight! Now she isn't as special any more!", they never mention the execution of these ideas. As for who she is... What is she, besides a second-rate bootleg Sunset Shimmer? Her only character traits are built for a good villain, and they make for an absolutely terrible hero. Oh, and there's kites. She likes kites, I guess. This character trait feels tacked on, like when you see some single word on an OC's Character Sheet. "Likes: Having fun with her friends, good ponies, and kites. Dislikes: Being bored, mean ponies, and death". You get what I mean, right? Just yelling "You have shit opinions for liking/not liking Skub!" isn't going to get us anywhere. Same goes for "You hate Skub so you can't talk about Skub" and "You need to accept Skub exists and stop criticizing it". We need proper, mature, open discussion about this, with no fallacies or damage control or backpedalling or lying or goalpost-moving or any other Glimbot behavior.

Bonus: Let's talk about connections and character interaction, something that's supposed to be the best part about introducing a new OC. After all, while you've seen most types of character before, it's when they interact with others that they truly shine. The bonds of friendship between each member of the Mane Six and the group as a whole feel real and earned and meaningful because they are all fleshed-out characters with their own backstories, motivations, feelings, thoughts, desires, and so on. You can see ponies like Fluttershy and Rarity being friends, sure, but you can see Rarity and Applejack being friends, you can see Rainbow Dash and Twilight being friends. They all have things in common and things that contrast with one another, and they all have believable reasons for being friends beyond "We met each other and the plot wants us to be together".

Glimmer is just given characters to form connections with, as if there's a quota that needs to be filled or a group of "I want Maud and Glimmer to get an episode together!" shouters that need to be satisfied. It's not something natural, like a friendship and mutual respect forming between Rainbow Dash and Twilight because their personalities are similar yet different, with them getting closer after one teaches the other the joy of reading. These Glimmer connections to other random characters, just for the sake of having them, and they're always based on what they are, on the shallowest level possible, rather than who they are as people. It's…

Glimmer bonds with Trixie because both "Used to be evil", even though they were evil on different scales and to compare them is laughable because it's like comparing Kim Jong Un to that dick that cut me off on an intersection.
Glimmer bonds with Discord because both are new characters, and both used to be evil. Even though one's a god of chaos trapped in stone for a thousand years and one is just naturally a jerk.
Glimmer bonds with Maud because (Prepare yourself for some roundabout logic) "Both are unusual. Also, Maud likes rocks not because they're interesting, but because they treat you equally no matter how odd you act, and Glimmer is still hot for equality".
Glimmer bonds with Thorax because [Data not found. Thorax? Wasn't that the name of some plot device last season?].
Trixie and Discord antagonize each other because that Boomerang Scene of a finale needed some conflict, even if the show hates that now, and people loved when Katara kept the group together in the desert episodes so Glimmer gets to keep the bratty loser and chaos god in line through sheer force of protagonist power. Even though "Doesn't want to be a leader" is her character flaw in that finale, a flaw that goes away when forgotten about by the writers.
Glimmer bonds with Spike because both have a connection to Twilight, even though these are very different connections.

You can tell the writers want your love for these characters to rub onto the OCs in the above section, but it doesn't really work on anyone that can tell that's what's going on.

At the end of the day, Glimmer doesn't have the kind of depth necessary to be a protagonist. She's the kind of character that fades into the background and doesn't show up unless the monster of the week is so strong, she won't instantly solve the plot. I'd bring up Kishibe Rohan, but the writer used him well, only having him fight enemies that can get around his reality-overwriting bullshit power in some way.(Fighting ghosts because he can't read anything on ghosts after their death, fighting an evil parasite bound to his back, fighting and losing to an energy-drainer that removed his ability to move and write, having a gambling match with Josuke while being so rich a few thousand lost yen wouldn't matter and wanting to solve the mystery of how Josuke was cheating on his own merits(And knowing Josuke can just ignore writing, making him immune to getting Hebuns Doa'd), and then finally getting blindsided by the world's most bullshit time bomb).

Glimmer doesn't have the strength of personality to carry an episode or series of episodes by herself, which is why she constantly has to rely on other characters and cliche stock plots that'd work just as well if she wasn't there, and was replaced by Mr and Mrs Cake instead. I swear, if you replaced Glimmer and Trixie with Mr and Mrs Cake in that season finale (You know what I'm talking about), it would improve the episode. I guess you could call relying on others "Leadership" or "Delegation", but she doesn't delegate roles to others, her writers delegate the "Make Glimmer look good" role to other OCs. When your character is too strong for the situations he/she is in, adding other weaker characters to make the strong character seem less absurd is absurd and redundant, and nerfing your god mode sue so some other OC can look cool is lame.

The writers can't do with Glimmer what they did with Rohan, because they want Glimmer as the new protagonist, hoping to sell toys and win over hasdrones and appeal to them and pander to them and Glimbots constantly. It'll probably make her an alicorn, even though she doesn't deserve it and hasn't earned it. They can't do what Araki did when he made Rohan the hero of his own spinoff for a while, because Hasbro know nobody would watch or buy it. Modern MLP is scraping by on brand name recognition alone. That, and all the bronies that still watch it because they hope it'll get good again.

The writers think Glimmer's "Former villain" status makes her a deep and compelling character automatically, but it doesn't work that way. She's still a villain, one that chuckles about her evil days with her villain friend. For this scenario to happen, the world of MLP would have to be so "Forgiveness is better than punishment"-ish it would probably let a serial killer walk free because he said he was sorry after the seventh kill. (And to think, I once thought a Death Note: MLP Edition fanfic was absurd for having the same premise and using it to necessitate Twilight using the Death Note).

The writers can't properly redeem Glimmer because:

1. They think she's already perfect as she is.

2. If she was redeemed properly, and became a nicer pony, she wouldn't have an excuse to screw up and create plots and conflict out of nowhere. Writers would have to try harder when thinking of episode ideas. They wouldn't be able to rely as much on "Glimmer's bad again and needs to learn abusing magic is wrong again while teaching morals to others" when they're out of their daily 'Grab a random plot from the hat of paper fragments' chances.

3. She doesn't have depth. She just objectively doesn't. Her traits are "Hates dissent, likes good things, likes kites, is OP at magic, used to be evil". You can't write much with a character like this when you physically need every episode with her in it to make her look as good as possible. You can't do what Spongebob did and squeeze multiple episodes out of his love for Jellyfishing and how often this has a negative effect on himself and others and how often this was a positive thing or just plain fun thing. They were already pushing her "Likes equality" trait with the "She befriends Maud because… um… Maud likes rocks because… um… rocks are equal and they treat you equally no matter how weird you are! Yeah!" thing. And unless they start making regular episodes about her flying kites with ponies, and this causing her to have run-ins with Flying Zapfish, they can't do a whole lot with this character when their goal is not to tell a compelling and interesting story about a flawed individual, but to get a quick payday and in the process try to please the mad director, mad storyboarder, and mad supervisor who all want as much Glimmer as possible in nu-MLP so they can say "Our characters and our vision made this show what it is" while smirking at the fans Faust and the others gave them.

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Beliebers... Suddenly, all their shitty behavior makes sense. They're still in the Belieber phase of their "adolescence".

I reckon this bond between Glimmer and Glimbot exists because seeing a loser and fundamentally shit person on the screen getting forgiven for being a loser over and over and never getting asked to change is their ultimate fantasy. They're shit, and they get to watch their shit pony get loved and shilled and "Tolerated", even on her fourth or fifth offense. They get to see themselves as a magical mega-talented super-Sue that can out-magic Twilight Sparkle the goddamn Alicorn NOBODY is allowed to critique or hate, and they love it. That's why outside of the show, nobody is allowed to critique or hate Glimmer, according to them. It ruins the fantasy that if they were teleported to Equestria, they would be Glimmer the Poochie and not someone ugly and detestable like early-show Diamond Tiara.

As for the "Shit episodes make people realize it was shit for a while" thing, it worked on most of the BBC's Sherlock fandom. God, that show was awful on every possible level.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkoGBOs5ecM

Watch this video, it's a good longform critique of the series. Just turn up the speed, the guy talks too slowly for my tastes.

His stuff on Fallout is good too, but don't watch his political stuff, he's bad at political stuff.

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I used to be like that, then I realized "All politics is dumb and not worth caring about because it makes you fight and it's divisive and unfun" is just a meme used to stop us from realizing some politicians are willing to drain the swamp that made us hate politics for decades, and others want it to stay swampy.

Also yes, the MLP subreddit has been taken over by hasdrones. The whole DK Crew* is in charge there, and they'll attack your character, reasons for posting, and tone with stupid but well-coordinated attacks while trying their damndest to turn public opinion against you and convince you they're not worth talking to so they can pretend they won, because they know they can't debate you fairly. I'd tell you the names of these members, but you've probably had at least 1/2 major members attack you or insult you in tandem with a few others, so you've probably built up a mental list of your own. Don't go to the subreddit unless it's to post normie-friendly fanart, tis a silly place.

*If you heard the DK rap and played World of Warcraft back when Death Knights were new and the game started going downhill, you'd realize how clever that "DK Crew" pun is.

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That reminds me of a scene in Ratchet Deadlocked.

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I have quite a few things that I hate about MLP:FIM. And just a heads up. There are spoilers here. Just thought I'd throw that out as a courteousy / to be nice. That said.

1) Flash Sentry: My biggest hang up with this character. Is that he's everything wrong with poorly-made (ie. most) OC's. Made purely for the sake of throwing a guy at Twilight to balance the massive amount of Ho-Yay that is in that show.

We never get the emotional build up, reasons to be attached, nor reason to care about the character. He is quite literally walking scenery, a prop with the personality of cardboard, used for when they need a gag. Seriously what does he ever do? He bumps into Twilight, they blush. He bumps into Twilight, they blush. Ad infinitum. We see (without him actually using it) him with a guitar; we see him used to "spot" doctored photos. Never mind the fact that he's just a highschooler who's trope is Jock, so if he could spot it, it makes sense for adults to do so. She had at any given time any of the Human versions of her pony friends with her.

He literally has no reason for him to exist. At all. Ever.

2) Mudbriar: ... OM fking C! I'm just going to link my blog rant on this asshole. (https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/803664/anyone-else-hate-mudbriar-minor-spoilers)

As a person who has actual Autism ... this pony makes me cringe when I say words like "actually", "especially ", or "technically" everytime now. And he fills me with blind, neigh impotent rage. Especially since he is pretty much used for the same reason Flash Sentry was. A random, horribly made OC. For the sake of OC making. To give Maud a male. And he's literally the worst aspects of Maud, Flanderized to obsurdity, then offensively structured to anyone who has Autism.

3) Starlight Glimmer: Yes ... to degree, like Pony Cancer, she has grown on me over the last few seasons. But how her ending arc was handled still feels me with blood pissing rage. We get two episodes of tossed together, mismatch of villians, for the sake of tossing them at the fandom. Get a rushed back story. Then a very, very, very, small segment ending with her being instantly forgiven. For among other things:

- Crime against nature.
- Assault on royalty.
- Mind Rape / psychological torture.
- theft of cutie marks.
- altering the minds and bodies (via said theft) of numerous individuals.
- multiple counts of destroying Equestria.
- etc.

It's never really touched upon; addressed; nor is she given any type of punishment. It's merely, "Welp! You are a worse threat to Equestria than Discord at his worst, Tirek, and Sombra combined. Hey! Perfect idea! Let's make you my friendship student, and never really address your Special Talent in Super Villainy!"

And that's another thing! We see that her ST is Super Villainy, by the fact that not only is she at her best when doing super villain level things; but when showing off her list of spells for the lolz (where she casts "Dominate" on the Mane6) is stock super villain powers.

*headdesk repeatedly*
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1) Twilight being a cunt waffle: This requires some lead up, and context.

In Boast Busted (so in a way Spike, Rarity, AJ, and RD are being Cunt Waffles here) those aforementioned beings in a Pay by Donation event heckled her, RD did her "RAAA! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! I'M IMPORTANT!!! RAAAA!" thing when she wasn't the center of attention for what? 15 seconds? Followed by Rarity vandalizing Trixie's home / place of work.

Then near the end due to Snips and Snail's parents letting them wonder into Pony Murder Forest, ends up with Trixie's livlihood being destroyed. Twilight's response, "I hope she learned her lesson." ... wow! Just, wow!

Then in Magic Duel we see that Ponyville, with Twilight and the other M!6 doing nothing to stop it (and probably helped spread it), did a smear campaign resulting in Trixie's home being repeatedly destroyed, with no Guard's helping her, or even violently ran out of towns. Since they took 0 responsibility, and pinned it all on her.

At the end, even after getting her revenge. Offers a sincere apology (Trixie does), Twilight accepts it, and offers her a hoof in friendship.

Finally the reason she's a cuntwaffle, in No Second Prances, we see that not only did Twilight make 0 effort to look up, or after Trixie. 0 effort to actually befriend her. We get this:

Every part of that still has me seething in rage at Twilight. I mean yes, Trixie is egotistical, has 0 social awareness, has no clue how to deal with ponies outside of her shows, and is kind of a twit. But after all that Twilight's seen about what ponies do when they loose / never had friendship, you'd think that she'd not ... well be a total twat.

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And let's not forget her actions to Sunset Shimmer, honestly all my gripes against how Twilight handled that, and her actions are covered in this fic.

I mean seriously, she hoists Sunset Shimmer onto the girl's whose life she spent over a year or more destroying. Returns, but when Sunset Shimmer offers her a hand in friendship, hesitates. Then turns around and takes Starlight Glimmer as her "Friendship Student", completely forgetting Sunset exists. Kind of makes you wonder why Celestia thinking calling her the "Princess of Friendship"?
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2) The Princess of Friendship: Makes absolutely no sense thematically speaking. Celestia's Special Talent is raising the sun, Luna's is things revolving around the night, and Cadance, is Love.

Twilight's Special Talent isn't friendship. It's Magic. She's proven in quite a few episodes that she's still got lots to learn about friendship. Lots to learn. Hell the "Friendship Spell" she used to ascend (for plotkai reasons) was using magic.

Which brings me to my next gripe ... and one that I sadly get into way to often in this bloody site.

3) New Magic = Alicorn is BS:
- Raising the sun is some thing that ponies did since way before Celestia.
- As we see by the fact that Unicorns controlled the sun and moon (one of the reasons that caused the events leading to Hearth's Warming). Same with raising the moon.
- Cadance got hers by having resistance to a Love Magic artifact.
- Flurry Heart got hers by being shot out of Cadance's foal hole ... that or genetics.
- SciTwi got hers by pulling a Tirek, then OD'ing on magic.

None of those involved new magic. At all. Then you have every "branch of magic" ever "established". Never resulted in new Alicorns. The first ponies to do Chronomancy (Time Magic); Alchemy; Weather Spells; etc. Any type of magic that used a new force. Or altered a force in a way that had not been done prior to it's discovery never lead to new alicorns.

So we have actual canonical evidence that Celestia was speaking pure BS. Yet for some reason when I point this out, I get into arguements on how those things "aren't new magic", or how "They must've done something different to ascend". And it's like ... "no! These ponies ascended in a way that didn't use 'New Magic', and 'New Magic' would have resulted in a greater number of Alicorn's being born.

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4) How the Show handled Sunset Shimmer: I'll be the first to admit that I actually like Equestria Girls. I think that it's an interesting take on the Multiverse, and it does seem to fit with StarSwirl the Hobo's MO of dumping things in holes and leave it to be someone else's problem.

What I don't like is how SciTwi (note: Twilight was born a Unicorn) gets to ascend to an Ali. But Sunset Shimmer who was remade in the Elements of Harmony and had finished her redemption arc. Doesn't. We get teasers in "My Past Is Not Today" of Sunset getting her wings (albeit they were made of fire), we get an adittional teaser when she has both "Wings and a Horn" in Friendship Games.

But then the writer's shaft her hard enough to "drill her" straight to Neighpon. Shimmy Shakes earned her Wings big time. SciTwi didn't do shit. And that is a huge smack in the face on my favorite, "Ex-Villain".

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5) They stopped doing Friendship Reports: I might be in the minority in saying that I did like the lessons everypony learned rather than just Twilight. But they were 9 times out of 10, great aesops. And something that I thought really added to the show. But then it stopped, and the show I think is kind of poorer for it.

Hell we had a good set up for Starlight to pick it up; instead she "graduates" in one season. WTF?

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6) ScootaDash: 2 Seasons of build up. 2 Seasons when we are given a reason to develop an emotional attachment to that sub-arc. Then they drop it for 5 seasons. Then in the episode that the Cutie Mark Crusader's get their marks, we hear Dash saying, "How much Scootaloo helped her"; "How much she helped Dash grow as a pony", "How great a sister she is", and all I can do is ask, How? And When?

We see absolutely nothing, then they drop that on us? Episodes that could've given us loads of depth, lots of character development, and we see absolutely nothing of it? Other than:

7) Cross Dressing Big Mac: My utter hatred of this isn't that Big Mac is a cross dresser. Hell we knew he was into that stuff in Season 2. No my utter rage stems from 2 things. A) It eclipsed what could've been an amazing ScootaDash episode, and B) what he was wearing.

The fact that he lives with two women, well a filly and an elderly lady makes his choice of clothing utterly unacceptable. The color scheme was atrocious for his coat color, the cut gave emphasis to the wrong parts of the body, and the make up he was wearing was definitely not something that complimented his color. And Granny Smith and Apple Bloom should be ashamed of themselves.

If he's going to have and wear woman's clothing. They owe it to themselves and everyone else that could see him, at the least looks bland, and unassuming. At most looks somewhat good on him. And he knows Rarity. I say this because those clothes were made to fit him, but was something that'd give Rares an aneurysm if she caught him wearing it.
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8) Clover the Clever: We get more information on StarSwirl, and the Pillars. Than we ever did on the Founder's of Equestria. We get no statues, no holidays, no nothing past the Hearth's Warming Play. But then it comes time when Clover the Clever was finally introduced, and not only is Clover not a she (as was popular in the fandom); but we never see anything past his coat color and the fact he wore a hooded cloak.

We get more flashback porn on Wall Flower, than we do him (well anything's bigger than 0). Hell with both the Siren's and Tirek we get some Flashback stuff with Starswirl being center stage. And we get more tales / info on four ass pulled, random ponies (the Pillars) than we do with the founders of Equestria.

(Well that and I'm pissed that in that episode not only does Sunset not have her wings. Her reunification / truly final redemption piece with Celestia begins with Celestia trolling the hell out of Sunset. That was so not cool.)
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and finally a tie between 9) Mudbriar and that Shitty MLP Movie: Seriously ... I don't know what makes me more pissed. The existence of Mudbriar, and how people could bitch about Ditzy's name to get a partial change, but this offensive walking fecal matter gets a pass. Or the movie which was every sort of atrocious there is being part of canon?

One makes me neigh impotently livid, the other makes my brain want to crawl out of my skull and kill itself. The movie's many, many, many sins include:

- Poor Animation, that was against the grain of the show in a rather shitty manner.

- Completely altering how Canterlot is built.

- Template Villain unicorn being Template Villain.

- The lack of Discord.

- The lack of Starlight Glimmer (never mind the fact that she's an important part of the show now. And that whole load of bull shit of a movie is canon.)

- The Storm King's existance.

- The fact that a foreign nation worked to enslave ponies and has received 0 repercussions in the local or international scene.

- The fact that a foreign nation imprisoned the princesses in stone (3 out 5), was about to destroy another, played havoc on the Ecosystem by fucking with the Sun and Moon cycle repeatedly (like Discord did ... and for some reason didn't summon him due to the chaos being caused).

- Lack of internal consistency.

- That stupid talking cat. Which is the only of it's species ever shown (hell we see armies of Diamond Dogs. We see only one talking cat trying to get ponies to be turned into slaves).

- Storm King's everything. Literally all the things that he's apart of. All of it. Is just poorly executed, poorly developed, and just horrible on all counts.

- The lack of Sunset Shimmer. Twilight has a book to their world and Sunset owes her ... kind of. If they weren't going to bring in Starlight Glimmer for whatever reason. They could've called forth the ball of fire and rage that's Sunset Shimmer.
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So yeah ... that's what I currently hate about the show. I'm reserving Judgement for Season 8.

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You will fit in nicely here.

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Thanks.

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You're complaining about the lack of Starlight Glimmer? I'm happy about the lack of her.

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Not about the lack of Starlight Glimmer. Rather the fact that they did a shit job handling her "redemption arc" (as in non-existent). She made a great villain (fun, powerful, could mess Twilight's day up, not above getting dirty), then suddenly we get a two episode, hack writing conclusion arc. That uses it as an excuse to throw a lot of villains at the past the fandom liked at us. A piss poor back story. Then instant forgiveness.

Rather than a redemption bit like Sunset Shimmer, where we see she's still paying for her actions six months after EQG. Followed by over an hour long movie where she proves herself / gains forgiveness from the school.

Glim-Glam did tons more worse crimes, tons of atrocities, but it's all swept under the rug, and was just utterly horrible in every sense. So it's not the lack of Glimmer, it's the fact that a potentially good story was handled like crap, her "student phase" was rushed and bullshit (in every sense of the word), and a really fun villain was given randomly made a good guy, then thrown at us. With no character development, no character growth, and no reason to be invested in her going good (they did the same crap writing with the Pillars / Pony of Shadows as well.).

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I can understand your point.

The thing I hate most is how a few of the episodes are creepy, and not appropriate for the target audience.

Number two is how, starting with Season 5, the show's been rather hit-and-miss. There are a lot of quality episodes. But there are a lot more not-so-quality episodes, then there were before. Then again, it's possible I became jaded about the time Session 5 came out.

There are other things I don't like, such as reformed Starlight. But I suppose those are largely extensions of the not-so-quality episode problem. Starlight's other issues would have been forgivable, if the Season 6 Starlight episodes didn't suck.

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And the writers had planned this!

The basic problem with seasons 3+ is that the writers didn't plan. Nobody planned. Lauren Faust planned seasons 1 & 2. Because she did the planning., the writers didn't--they developed a working system whereby the writers were freelancers, not (as on most shows) employees, and my understanding is that the different writers never got together to talk about they show. They didn't need to; Lauren knew what she wanted to do.

When she left unexpectedly, evidently nobody stepped in to do that planning--but they kept on using that system whereby the writers didn't know what each other were doing.

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the "bronies", the loyal fans of this show, the most open minded fandom in the world, are ok with this...they love that mutilated version of MLP more than the actual show... how is that even possible, is behiond my understanding

One words: fandom

This is the reason drooling Star Wars fans to this day cannot see anything wrong with the prequels and many still defend The Last Jedi. They're obsessed to the point of religious fanaticism and refuse to admit their golden idol is in fact cheap brass and is rusting away.

One does not necessarily have to believe in a god to create one.

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8. When A Canon Episode Is Like Something That Would Be In a Fanfic, There's Something Wrong.

In a BAD fanfic, you mean. I've seen some fanfics here rival classic literature and the best modern fantasy and sci-fi has to offer... heck, it CRUSHES virtually all the recent stuff, which isn't hard since Hollywood has apparently all but stopped trying to be smart.

I should put it this way: when a canon episode relies entirely on the laziest TV Tropes, especially when it mirrors the examples of how the trope is BADLY used... THAT'S when there something seriously wrong.

4460822 Ah Twilicorn... something that has indeed proven as pointless as the episode seemed to unintentionally imply, especially now that we have 'Puff' making alicorn babies a thing, and thus the idea that one had to earn the alicorn status is utterly abandoned in a dreadful retcon.

I recall the voice match of "Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog" to Twilight & Co. which was premiered at Bronycon in 2014, I think. When the change to 'Doctor Horrible' finally took place... and it was Twilight ascending... I laughed out loud, and so did most of the audience. I think everyone, deep down, knows the show went off the rails, but it's all they really have to cling to... which is quite pathetic.

I do this for shits and giggles.

4964769 Uhm, I kinda hated the later Dune books because they DIDN'T change anything. Hell, they kept resurrecting THE SAME DAMNED CHARACTERS OVER AND OVER using a ridiculous plot device. Newsflash: CLONES DON'T INHERIT MEMORIES!! Along that notion, why could there never be new characters? Ahhh... THE FANS (same problem with why comics never change, eh?)

And it all still revolved around the Spice, the worms, and the hissyfits between the primary power brokers.... until surprise! The Braniac machines were still there!

You know... the ones which were supposedly confined to a few planets previously and had been completely destroyed. But, gotta retcon that to keep the book sales alive! Except the later ones mostly didn't sell all that well. Yeah, they rose to #13 in some subcategory, but we're talking numbers in the few tens of thousands of books. It was a niche series for sci-fi geeks, that's about it.

Even the sequel "Dune Messiah" was critically hammered for its myriad plot holes and absurd internal logic. Herbert did much better with the 3rd book. Then after the 6th one, he died... and it should have stopped. It reaaaaally should have stopped.

6694540 I dunno about 'inappropriate'... when I was a kid we had "Watership Down" and "The Last Unicorn"... the former showed all sorts of brutal animal deaths and the latter had a harpy with 3... yes THREE... rather large boobs.

We we're pansies back in the 80's!

WE CHEWED METAL AND SPIT BULETS!!!

I think rather than 'inappropriate', I'd just stick with really poor writing trying to attempt humor the writers lacked the wits to frame in any way that didn't become uncomfortable, and having no sense of plot structure along with it.

6863042 Twilicorn, equally as pointless as Trixie and Flurry Heart

6863094
A boob is not inappropriate, unless the context makes it inapropate. A boob is just a body part. And brutal animal deaths, well, that's the kind of thing where parents need to be parents, and make a judgement call.

I don't think that's comparable to "Appleoosa's Most Wanted". The CMCs were were shown as being in the right, for hanging around a man their babysitter told them is dangerous. That's not good! Kids who pull stunts like that end up dead, or kidnapped, or something.