Starlight Glimmer is a bad character.

I could write a good few thousand words on Glimmer as a villain, but the issue isn't what a dumb villain Starlight is, and how her terrible backstory turned what could have been a great villain into a bad joke almost as much as a badly-written and rushed redemption removed her reason to exist in the show's setting. I could also write quite a bit about how stupid it is that she has the magical power to fight Alicorn Princess Twilight Sparkle to a standstill, the reserves to do this multiple times in a day, the knowledge to create her own spells on the spot, and so on when Twilight's supposed to be the Embodiment of the Element of Magic, a student of Princess Celestia, the strongest Unicorn alive, etc. Twilight had to face character challenges related to this. What are they worth if she's not the strongest, or even anything remotely special when compared to a pony that can tear the Cutie Marks off multiple ponies like they're stickers, screw up the timeline multiple times in a day, without the changed timeline affecting herself, fight Alicorn Princess Twilight Sparkle to a standstill multiple times in a day, brainwash the minds of five of the Mane Six in less than a few seconds, move five billion times faster than the speed of light, and slay fire demons with her magic burning katana- whoops, my eyes drifted to the feat list for the wrong Mary Sue.

Glimmer... This post-redemption Glimmer? Take away her friendship with Trixie, her edgy best friend there to make her look better. Take away the headcanons her fans have invented for her, like the belief that she was bullied by her family or hometown for not being good enough once Sunburst was gone, or that she loves Moths because they remind her of herself: "Unloved by most but beautiful in its own way". (Christ, I could barely type that dreck without throwing up) Take away her acts as a villain. Focus on what she is, right now. What is she, besides a second-rate bootleg Sunset Shimmer? Say what you will about what an idiot she was in the clusterfuck that was the first film, back when she was a villain, and feel free to miss some more points while you're at it. We're talking about post-redemption Shimmer, and how she relates to post-redemption Glimglam. Shimmer got scenes where she struggled to earn redemption, got bullied by people that didn't forgive her, earned their forgiveness, etc. Glimmer was instantly given forgiveness, brainwashed her friends when their free thought and better ideas triggered her, was given forgiveness again, and then complained to Trixie that not everypony immediately forgave her for being the worst criminal currently known to Ponykind, arguably bar Tirek. In Pony Humans: Camp Superhero Edition, Shimmer encouraged Twilight and had more than one scene where she displayed empathy and likability. What positive traits has Glimmer shown, besides the occasional scene where she akwardly fucks up something obvious like "Don't run away from an awkward situation like you just shot someone" or "Don't use brainwashing spells on your friends", endearing her to her socially-retarded potentially-mentally-retarded fantards? Lauren Faust designed the original Mane Six to, in her words, "Represent the different ways that one can be feminine", and she wanted each one to be a good role model in their own way. I'm pretty sure being a sociopathic cult leader that feels no remorse for your crimes unless prompted by the reactions of those you want to forgive you... is not what Lauren Faust would consider a good role model. Feel free to say "Well she was forgiven for all crimes, so that means she represents forgiveness and is a role model that says forgiveness is good". You'll look retarded, sure, but you'll also look retarded. Feel free to say "Lauren Faust doesn't run this show any more. This is Vogel and Jim 'Fuck the bronies, we make this show for little girls' Miller's show, deal with it! If they think it's good enough, so do I". You'll look retarded, sure, but you'll also look retarded. Feel free to say "You don't like Glimmer so you aren't qualified to talk about Glimmer". You'll look retarded, sure, but you'll also look retarded.

But of course, triggered glimglam fans, bless your heart, feel free to point and laugh at the arguments you can't refute. Show me your best /b/-tier damage control posts. Go on. Type laughter, and call your reaction to my post an argument against it. Put on your stoner voice and claim I'm thinking too hard about "A dumb pony show", while pretending the show was never once more than that. Tell me how many views the front page of our porn site or mediocre favouritist shit-tier "Official" blog gets every day, those statistics are relevant, right? Tell me the childish Glimglam fans and their tendency to lash out at critics isn't driving people away. Tell yourself those you throw excrement at should have thicker skin and more tolerance for your shit, displaying self-absorption on a whole new level! Tell me I'm "Over-analyzing" a kid's show by critiquing an episode you want to like. Tell me I totally didn't make you cry, so there! Tell me you're crying, and I should feel bad for you. Tell me that if I don't like your waifu, it means I get triggered upon seeing her. Autistically screech at me how hard you believe my review is "Autistic screeching". Project onto me. Strawman me. Tell me I'm unfairly taking away your bad argument cards before you can use them, and ask how you can possibly make an argument now. Tell me I'm treating my opinions like they're facts by stating my opinions and backing them up with logical arguments. Tell me I'm not a real brony because real bronies mindlessly love all your waifus. Hell, I've only been in this fandom since the start of S2, what do I know?

5938545 dude you are really angry at a crapy sunset clone and I love you for that

5938609 If I get banned for the post I just made, let it be known I went down when I triggered two Glimmy fans and I screened the whole thing.

5938636 I cant stane her. I hat her so much I ended up stop watching the new episodes

5938647 Same. Watching the new episodes are genuinely painful for me, a man that loves the mane six and Equestria and hates seeing them and what they're worth and what they stand for reduced and muddied all so Glimglam the Poochie will look better.

https://discord.gg/abBXhqP Join my Discord chat for Glimglam haters. I'm starting to suspect mods hate us.

5938647 Yeah, the Season 5 finale was where the show jumped the shark. Only to jump it again in "To Where and Back Again".

5938653 Why do you think that?

5938700 1. The pinkie maud glimmer episode, bro.
2. A misunderstanding with a moderator. turns out he's an ok guy and does not have a hatred for glimmer haters. i think.

5938793 I see

5938857 The s5 finale threw together a godawful finale for the sake of letting Glimglam save the world and it couldn't even do that right. She had to deus ex machina her way out of it.

The pinkie maud glimmer episode reduced what Rarity, Pinkie, and Maud are worth to shill for Glimglam.

5939286 Agreed

5939369 I like you! Join my Discord chat. https://discord.gg/abBXhqP

5939408 Thanks

5939415 Invite all the Starlight haters you know. We need to band together and keep the spirit of anti-Poochie alive!

5940159 Likewise

5938653 It is for that reason that I invoke Fanon Discontinuity after the finale of Season 4. It's actually a really great place to consider the show to be "over."

5940553 Same. I read an interesting fanon theory that suggested all the shark-jumping moments like main characters actually reaching their dreams and having nowhere to go after that because "LET'S SHOW OFF THAT WE'RE WILLING TO CHANGE THE STATUS QUO, WITHOUT PUTTING ANY THOUGHT INTO WHAT COMES NEXT!" is actually because Discord put them all in a simulated Ponyville designed to make them all as happy as possible.

5938545 You my good man, have just made my good list

5943890 Woohoo!

Hey, I made a Discord chat. https://discord.gg/abBXhqP Feel free to join!

5940717 I'll take that over all the bullshit the show and the diehard fanboys have done.

5944121 Yeah. God, what is wrong with glimfans? Why do they fanboy so hard over this shitty Mary Sue, and why are they so terrified of admitting her faults? And why can't they realize that their inability to defend her without attacking us is a pretty big sign?

Remember that Pinkie Pie episode with the Clones? Remember when fans wanted to snap Twilight's horn off for dispersing the magical energies that made up all those clones? Remember Lesson Zero? Remember when fans wanted to tear Twilight's throat out for having a mental breakdown and nonlethally sending a town into a frenzy? And remember all those fans that cried Mary Sue when they realize just how powerful Twilight is? Where are those fans now that Starlight Glimmer, a REAL Mary Sue, has done worse things and hurt more people and, for no reason at all other than "Because potatoes", has the magical power to fight ALICORN PRINCESS TWILIGHT SPARKLE AT THE TOP OF HER GAME TO A STANDSTILL MULTIPLE TIMES IN A DAY WHILE LEVITATING HERSELF IN CLOUDSDALE AND RUINING FILLY DASH'S RAINBOOM?

5945561 Most likely they don't want to admit that their happy lesbian waifu show has flaws and it has gone to shit.

5945667 Makes sense.

It sucks, because back when MLP was good, there was nothing quite like it on the air. There was no fandom quite like the brony fandom. Now, the bandwagonners have moved on to Undertail/FNAF, the rabid Glimfans are chasing haters out of the fandom, reporting Glimmer haters for "Hate Speech" and "Attacking Glimmer Fans"... it sucks.

I just hope my little discord chat can preserve enough of the brony spirit for it to keep going.

5946500 Not helped by the lack of lasting consequences for certain actions.

5951997 Yeah. God, no wonder why her fantards love Glimmer so much. She's a selfish asshole with no concept of boundaries or what is and isn't socially acceptable, she hates free will, and she never learns from her mistakes or understands why they happened. She never grows as a person or learns to stop being shit, and the world never expects her to. Seeing themselves as a "Cute" pony getting loved and forgiven and shilled 24/7 for being cancer must be heaven to them.

6061767
I think she was supposed to be a villain, but someone on the writing team fell in love with her while writing for her. She went from being a typical Orator-Variant SJW to a supernaturally-gifted utterly-incredible megaperfect pony that can convince bullies (Offscreen, in under ten seconds) to stop being bullies and give up on the ideas of competition and superiority, real or percieved, and go play with Fluttershy like a good little boy... a pony that can fly under her own magical power for several hours and fly at the same speed as an Alicorn Princess that regularly flies with Equestria's fastest pony... a pony that can not only go toe to toe with Alicorn Princess Twilight Sparkle multiple times in one day, but fight her to a standstill AND always successfully secure her objective: Blasting the shit out of a small child to prevent the heroes from ever meeting or becoming heroes. "She runs off, refuses to be redeemed, and spitefully tries to destroy the timeline" seems to have been agreed upon early on, but the ending, where Twilight just gives her friendship to Glimmer instead of striking while she's down or convincing her she's a monster that needs to rot in some anti-magic dungeon for the world's safety... That felt like a last-minute addition because the pacing was all wrong for it.

She's Chloe, from Fairly Odd Parents. But worse. Lauren Faust wanted the Mane Six to contrast with each other and represent, in her words, "The six ways one can be feminine". She also wanted each one to represent their way positively, the nerd isn't shamed for not liking boybands and the tomboy isn't shamed for liking sports instead of fashion and the fashion lover isn't shamed for liking makeup and boys instead of wanting literally anything else. And they're made to grow, the jock realizes books can be awesome and the shy pony gets a spine (when the writing's good, which it usually isn't for her) and the fashonista can work hard on the farm and help her friends.

Starlight Glimmer is an amoral marxist sociopath with too much power in a world whose writer is letting her get away with far too much. "The douchey spellcaster" is an interesting type of character, she'd be hilarious in Rick and Morty or King Arthur's Disasters, magicking Arthur into a random animal and brainwashing Rick to mindlessly follow Morty and be his Morty, that'd be funny, but watching her Lelouch Vi Brittania Geass the ponies the show used to be about into mindless submission for the crime of triggering her by offering disagreement and better ideas when she told them what to do, that wasn't just unenjoyable, it was a visual metaphor for what this show is under the Haber-Miller-Vogel Alliance.

As for why MLP is boring now: It's the new writers' fault. They fired the real writers and kicked them into the "Write the movie and only the movie" room, then hired amateur freelancers that gave us episodes like "Gift of the Magi only nobody learns anything" and "Fuck Millennials they are selfish and have manbuns and drop out of college" and "Discussion leads to disagreement, disagreement leads to argument, and argument is bad. Never discuss or think anything the group doesn't agree on first" and "Pinkie bakes for yaks". I've seen anime filler made with more effort than this.

6062395
Hell, even some of the bad Transformers series had some good quality.

Even though Miller's favorite thing to say is "Fuck the bronies, we make this show for little girls" despite ignoring those little girls and either shitting out half-assed episodes or waifubait to pander to the degenerates that make animefans look bad, actual little girls have gotten bored with this show. My cousin thinks this show is boring now, and she's the one that gave me the Chloe comparison. I hadn't seen FOP in a while, so I was only somewhat aware of how bad things were.

6062414
Even when transformers when they try do replace the main characters, Hot Rod didn't do anything as world destroying as starlight. (Even thaw he did help in killing Optumis but that Energon is on Megatron's hands, not the point I'm trying to make)