My Little Pony Friendship is Magic part 18: We Don't Need No Stinkin Hiatus

[Stormspark]

Still crossing my fingers for a good G5 but failing that there are a lot of comics to buy. https://mlp.fandom.com/wiki/My_Littl...Magic_(comics)

I consider myself "out" after the S8 finale (with the exception of Best Gift Ever and Rainbow Roadtrip, both of which were decent). While it may be interesting to collect the physical comics, there are so many, and it would be so expensive, that I consider it impractical. I downloaded all I want, page by page, from a high quality site, and assembled them into PDF's myself. All of the side series (except the EQG stuff which does not interest me), and the main series up to and including issue 88 which is my cutoff point. Even in the highest quality the download site I used offered, and making them into completely lossless PDF's, my entire comic directory is only 6GB...thought it would be more than that, but I guess images aren't 1080p video. I wouldn't be necessarily against getting the physical comics someday, I just don't expect to find a complete set that's even remotely affordable due to the sheer number of them, not to mention the side series which seem to be even harder to find. I don't remember the name of the site I used, I no longer have any of the bookmarks for it since I've already downloaded everything.

I have a weird relationship with the "fandom"...I've never fully been part of it (and I will not be part of a community that accepts the last season/dumpster fire "ending" that was provided - there are many more of us that reject it than you think, I'm not an anomaly, I'm just more outspoken about it because I'm not shy about calling a spade a spade). I do not consider myself an MLP fan, and FIM is like this weird exception for me (and even then, only the first 8 seasons). I do call myself a brony but I usually have to add disclaimers on it to clarify things. I LOVE FIM (the first 8 seasons), but ONLY that. Not EQG, not G5, not "the franchise", and certainly not Hasbro.

[Dontrike]

I do call myself a brony but I usually have to add disclaimers on it to clarify things. I LOVE FIM (the first 8 seasons), but ONLY that. Not EQG, not G5, not "the franchise", and certainly not Hasbro.

To be fair, most wouldn't consider themselves fans of the franchise, it really was G4 that pulled millions of people in. Before that MLp was pretty much strictly a "young girls" franchise with low production values and pretty pandering lessons and morals. There's a reason there was still a stigma to the show as MLP rocketed in popularity and it was three decades of stereotypes. G4 pulled people in thanks to the characters, animation, music, and more.

It also helped that it came at the right time. 2010 was essentially a renessaince of animation after the slump it was in the majority of the twenty oughts. People were starving for good animated shows, even if it was MLP. 2010 hit big with Adventure Time, Regular Show, Gumball, MLP, and then it kept rolling on with Gravity Falls, DC animated shows, and more. We did have some failures like Teen Titans Go and many other disappointments and the back end of the 10s were fairly meh on television.

G5 should be interesting and I look forward to it. Hopefully the G5 movie is better than the G4 one.

[Powerogue]

Now that show was an adventure. I'll still cross my fingers for one of the other shows they referenced and set up like Darkwing or Chip N' Dales Rescue Rangers to get a spinoff.

[Dontrike]

[video=youtube;A82zf9sk84M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A82zf9sk84M[/vieo]

Now that show was an adventure. I'll still cross my fingers for one of the other shows they referenced and set up like Darkwing or Chip N' Dales Rescue Rangers to get a spinoff.

I believe Chip n Dale was confirmed to have a movie coming next year and Dark Wing Duck show is being worked on. The first is going to be a mix of CG/live action so that's likely to be not great based on other cartoon characters in the real world movies.

[Powerogue]

Sorry Twilight, but there's a new Best Pony in town.

[Dontrike]

Watched a good 10 episodes of Pony Life. As a cartoon clearly in the Teen Titans Go style of "lol random" comedy it's not terrible. Compared to TTGo it's more fun to watch although every so often it gets a bit strange and an episode kind of goes nowhere. As a Go style of cartoon there's much worse out there (Powerpuff Girls 2016). In this they cranked up each of their crazy, though Rainbow Dash seems unaffected by this. The other major changes is that Applejack talks to the audience more and Fluttershy randomly grows/shrinks depending on the mood.

It's a strange show, but out of all the TTGo "lol random" shows I find it the least offensive when it comes to a random recreation of a previous property.

[AlgalonLurker]

Hello,

Stumbled into your thread by complete accident, how're you all going?

Nice to see you again Raptor, the vast universe of the internet seems a lot smaller when you see someone you recognize from somwhere else. (This is Algalon from mlpa among other places).

I've lurked in this thread(s) for longer than any other that I still visit occasionally. Lots of good memories reading here.
IIRC some of the folks here started a discord but I can't remember for sure.

Stay poni

[Dontrike]

Realized this thread alone is over 5 years old. Slowed down quite a lot.

Doubt if Gen5 will make people come back in droves, but I guess we'll see.

[Pendulous]

I think I said it before, but I've moved on. I barely watch anything western anymore. I blow through an anime once a week or so and follow seasonal shows. I haven't even been keeping up with Gen5 news. If they expanded on Equestria Girls, I'd be into that though. Outside of that, my time is occupied by Genshin Impact and my new Switch Lite.

[Stormspark]

My situation is pretty unique. I still like what I like, as much as I ever did, and that's not ever going to change. I still do regular rewatches (of season 1-8, the movie, Best Gift Ever, and Rainbow Roadtrip). I'm still planning on going to the next Trotcon (I live less than 3 miles from where it's held, so there is no expense other than the ticket cost - what their focus ends up being will be my litmus test to see if I still do conventions or not). I have an odd relationship with the fandom. I do NOT consider myself an MLP fan (FIM is like this weird exception for me), and I don't like Hasbro. I'm not really interested in EQG because I don't like the designs, the story, or the art (I don't consider it connected to FIM at all - it's its own independent show, that had FIM character names tacked on after the fact to try to sell it - my roommate described it best, calling it 'the Diet Coke of magical girl anime' - EQG isn't BAD, but it's not for me). I have absolutely ZERO interest in G5. And I absolutely can't STAND bandwagoners that constantly chase the next big thing.

I'm in a couple smaller like-minded communities. I'm not in any of the big "fandom servers" right though, because 1) I don't give a damn about G5 and I don't want to hear people constantly rant about it, and 2) I do not want to be part of any community that accepts the last season as canon, especially the godawful 'epilogue', which is the single worst episode of ANY show I have ever seen in my life...it's disgusting and insulting, in both "torch the franchise and run", and "completely totally misses the entire point of the show". To use an analogy, I consider that episode a tumor, and cutting it out also required cutting out anything even tangentially connected to it, which happened to be the entire last season. The first half of S9 had a nonsensical main arc anyway, but the second half got REALLY bad, REALLY fast, each episode worse than the last, so other than the 'finale' and 'epilogue' (which I saw on a leak), I didn't even bother watching the 6 previous episodes. Right click - delete on that season, and I consider Rainbow Roadtrip the finale (I know it was released in the middle of S9 but it was made earlier and is not connected to it).

If you really want to know how I feel about the last episode, ask a hardcore Doctor Who fan how they feel about The Timeless Children, and their reaction will be very similar, for a lot of the same reasons. (Objectively speaking, those two episodes are definitely in the same league, and I won't feel offended if a DW fan subjectively sees TTC as worse - I personally see TLP as worse because I am more invested in FIM than in DW.)

[Dontrike]

I think I said it before, but I've moved on. I barely watch anything western anymore. I blow through an anime once a week or so and follow seasonal shows. I haven't even been keeping up with Gen5 news.

No real news outside of a 15 second animation clip and the logo. I'm just looking forward to another thing in the thing I enjoy.

- - - Updated - - -

My situation is pretty unique. I still like what I like, as much as I ever did, and that's not ever going to change. I still do regular rewatches (of season 1-8, the movie, Best Gift Ever, and Rainbow Roadtrip). I'm still planning on going to the next Trotcon (I live less than 3 miles from where it's held, so there is no expense other than the ticket cost - what their focus ends up being will be my litmus test to see if I still do conventions or not). I have an odd relationship with the fandom. I do NOT consider myself an MLP fan (FIM is like this weird exception for me), and I don't like Hasbro. I'm not really interested in EQG because I don't like the designs, the story, or the art (I don't consider it connected to FIM at all - it's its own independent show, that had FIM character names tacked on after the fact to try to sell it - my roommate described it best, calling it 'the Diet Coke of magical girl anime' - EQG isn't BAD, but it's not for me). I have absolutely ZERO interest in G5. And I absolutely can't STAND bandwagoners that constantly chase the next big thing.

I'm in a couple smaller like-minded communities. I'm not in any of the big "fandom servers" right though, because 1) I don't give a damn about G5 and I don't want to hear people constantly rant about it, and 2) I do not want to be part of any community that accepts the last season as canon, especially the godawful 'epilogue', which is the single worst episode of ANY show I have ever seen in my life...it's disgusting and insulting, in both "torch the franchise and run", and "completely totally misses the entire point of the show". To use an analogy, I consider that episode a tumor, and cutting it out also required cutting out anything even tangentially connected to it, which happened to be the entire last season. The first half of S9 had a nonsensical main arc anyway, but the second half got REALLY bad, REALLY fast, each episode worse than the last, so other than the 'finale' and 'epilogue' (which I saw on a leak), I didn't even bother watching the 6 previous episodes. Right click - delete on that season, and I consider Rainbow Roadtrip the finale (I know it was released in the middle of S9 but it was made earlier and is not connected to it).

If you really want to know how I feel about the last episode, ask a hardcore Doctor Who fan how they feel about The Timeless Children, and their reaction will be very similar, for a lot of the same reasons. (Objectively speaking, those two episodes are definitely in the same league, and I won't feel offended if a DW fan subjectively sees TTC as worse - I personally see TLP as worse because I am more invested in FIM than in DW.)

Yes, you've said that many times before and each time not explained it. There are worse endings to franchises than FiM from Game of Thrones to various anime, like Darling in the Franx or Soul Eater or Fullmetal Alchemist (anime), or even movies that are far worse like Wonder Woman 1984. You've kept up that rather hyperbolic viewpoint for some time. I'd call the G4 movie worse than the G4 ending. It wasn't amazing or bad, it was just an ending.

There won't be many that are fans of MLP the franchise, since gens 1-3 are really bad and made for 5 year olds, but with Gen 4 you can consider the franchise to have been restarted anew. I don't like EQG, though I should watch more of it before forming more of an opinion, Pony Life is okay for a lol random cartoon like TTGo, and the movie was incredibly subpar.

[Stormspark]

I really don't like going into detail, because that episode is disgusting and insulting...discussing MY feelings on it makes me angry, and then I feel like shit for the rest of the day. Anyway, this JUST focuses on that last episode...S9's issues go much deeper than that (although this episode is sort of a poster child, because it took everything wrong in the rest of the season, put it in a blender, and made it orders of magnitude worse). Plus, if I try to go into the rest of the season, I'll be here all day.

A friend of mine wrote what amounts to an essay on how bad that episode is. We both frequented EQD at the time (I deleted my bookmark to that site and never went back when they had an 'epilogue art contest'), this was a consolidation of points we both made in threads, and a LONG discussion we had. I'm not that great at writing, it would've probably taken me 5x the length to make all these points. There was just SO much wrong here, that it is difficult to put in one post without writing a novel, but this is as close as it comes. So I'll let him explain it better than I could. With the caveat that I see ANY inter-mane 6 shipping as inherently disgusting (we discussed this more after this post, he does sort of go into it but we elaborated on this detail in later posts). They have a type of friendship bond that makes them (in a way) honorary sisters, and "shipping" any of them invokes instant Squick in a very similar way to incest. If fanfics do it, I just say whatever...I don't read them, but shippers are going to ship. When they put garbage like this in the show, it's instant canon defilement.

Also, Celestia/Luna would never "retire" (especially Luna since she had only been back for a couple years) and yeet off into a "retirement home"...I've seen outright parodies do less ridiculous stuff than that. I see Twilight getting more "official" authority (to spread the load around a little more) and ruling from HER castle (that is the reason for it to be there). And "destroying" the tree of harmony is absolutely ludicrous, there is no way in hell that could ever happen, especially from Sombra (seriously, he's not that powerful, his power mostly lies in illusions). The tree has the power to manhandle (treehandle?) all the magic in the world at once, ffs. It's almost like they forgot that the "tree" that is seen is just a TINY outcropping, and it has roots everywhere. And the elements of harmony CANNOT just be "destroyed" (they forgot the first episode). I thought of a way to salvage things after that episode by making all of that a Sombra illusion, but knowing what comes later in the season makes that pointless...I declared discontinuity on/disavowed the entire season and say none of that happened at all.

Despiste how long this post is, it still feels like it only scratches the surface, I could probably rant for hours about things that are just horribly WRONG, but I've done my best to move on, and consider S8 + Best Gift Ever + Rainbow Roadtrip the ending of the show, and just chucked S9 into the bin where it belongs. This does at least hit on most of the important points, even if I could add a lot more detail. I am FAR from alone in this too. While my group of friends was more vocal about it (and no longer willing to consider ourselves part of a fandom that accepts it), there are a lot more people that agree with us that more silently "dropped out". The intent of the production was to Torch the Franchise and Run, and it just doesn't occur to some people that fans have the power to declare discontinuity and ignore bad stuff. As we find them, we tell them that there is still a fandom out there that disregards the bad stuff, and we've drawn a few in. It's hilarious seeing the Hasbro bootlicker reactions to that ("OMG YOU CAN'T DO THAT, YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT CANON" - "no, 'canon' can kiss my butt").

You sure are on a roll with posting, Seth. Guess it only makes sense, though - this is the end of the show that's become your job to cover and to cater to the fandom of. If there's any days you should be vigilant and active for all through, it's now.

This epilogue... I've expressed my feelings about it in my initial reaction post yesterday, and I guess I actually played my cards right there - my impression did not change much overnight. Some complaints got refined, if anything. But since this is a followup, I will still post my thoughts again - trying to cover new ground where I can instead of retreading what I said just yesterday.
If you know me from my earlier S9 posting (and that post in particular), I did not receive this ending well. Not well enough to disavow it entirely.

I'll just start with the first, initial, absolute dealbreaker. Remember the "Twilight will not outlive her friends" bit we had sworn to us after S3 by Meghan? So, that was a load of bullsh!t apparently. Promises don't count no more - or, with Meghan leaving the show itself, apparently only counted while she was around. We do get Twilight outliving her friends, very pointedly so. We do get all of the Mane girls aging and "old" but Twilight turned into a lazy Celestia palette swap, looking like they just took S1-era fan vectors of Twi-as-Celestia and animated them.

Then come the weird fates of the Mane 6, and yet more heavy dealbreakers, each of which is enough for me to declare discontinuity on this ending.
Appledash - the absolute, unforgivable, cardinal sin of inter-Mane 6 shipping. It's something permissible for fans to play around with for fun and clops - but an absolute, immediate show-destroyer if put into canon. Now people will keep on trying to reinterpret all their past appearances and episodes as romantic - even though, if you really tried to do that, you could envision enough "romantic subtext" to create every single possible inter-Mane 6 pairing and say canon supports it.
Fluttercord - fan shipping made canon is bad enough by itself, but it's orders of magnitude worse after the bullsh!t the writers had in store for Discord in the immediately preceding finale. He gets to be possibly the least likeable idiot in the show so far, his years of appearances and improvement flushed down the drain - and yet still gets a "happily ever after" with a Mane girl. Yeah, pass.
Pinkie x Cheese (Cheesepie) - the only one I could have possibly seen, given that they had enough romantic leads in their first and second episode to make for a budding connection... but it all happens OFFSCREEN, making it feel entirely unearned and tell-don't-show in the extreme. That poor handling of a Mane girl's love life is by itself unforgivable, even though among the three of these it's the least terrible (and yet remains terrible). Each step up above it is just an extra order of magnitude worse.

And that's just their love life! What about their personal fates? Well, Twilight gets to be the sole undivided ruler of Equestria, and the Mane girls... just meet her every month or every year, depending on the interpretation? What a load of horsefeathers. Where is their reward for years of excellence? Where are titles, where are the boons due to heroes such as them? Nothing like it is even hinted at. They just continue their existences in almost the same way they were left in before the finale... only worse. AJ is still nothing more than a farm owner. RD is just replacement Spitfire. Fluttershy is just forever stuck in her sanctuary and the shipping dimension. Pinkie is a dutiful housewife and baker and nothing more. And Rarity... did she just MOVE TO THE FREAKING YAKS? Yona and Sandbar living in her boutique or something? What in the actual untitled goose game is even going on there? Oh, and all the parents-age ponies are apparently gone already, if the absence of Mr. and Mrs. Cake is any evidence.

So, Twilight outlives her friends, her friends are shipped among themselves offscreen, they're all "past their prime" with significant and fun things just ceasing to occur in their lives after the finale, and they aren't even really that much of a friend circle anymore - they're nostalgic about their old bond, not happily friends still, they're split apart, their fellowship shattered.
And all of that is done in by... one last gigantic round of "lol, Mane 6 are totally incompetent and suck, isn't that funny?" that has all of them ruin Twilight's coronation by being irresponsible and other weird reasons (like the Apple seal on things, that one was so bad in particular). Each of them got dragged through the mud there, each and every one - and despite the episode's confusing flashback-leaping structure later trying to suggest it was no big deal for any of them, it feels like that was a "breaking point", breakup moment that left bitterness among them, the way it's framed and contrasted against their now-split-apart lives. This is not a celebration of friendship - this is an ending to a friendship. And I dunno about you, but I don't think the end of a friendship-themed show should necessarily feature the friends drifting apart and no longer being friends - if anything, I think the opposite should be true.

This is the last, great, thematic crime of this episode. It feels like the crew was trying to make some point of "friends grow distant from one another and life takes us apart, but we'll always have memories of our past friendship to be happy about". Well, that may be "meta-related" to the show itself ending... but why should the show ending change the tone of it in-universe? FiM, if you haven't noticed, is not a cynical, dark-feels show about the unpleasant vagaries of life. Yes, it can and does touch upon some remarkably dark and complicated things sometimes, and until S8 has been doing so near-universally in a very mature way that handled things seriously but without overbearing gravitas nor with laughing it up and simplifying it, and in a lifelike manner. However, it's also an uplifting show - and its backbone plot, its backbone characters, should still have received good, celebratory, "happy" endings. This has always been a show about good things being rewarded, and bad things being atoned for or punished - not a gritty and cynical one where heroes have unhappy lives and suffer and die in vain while villains get away with fell deeds and live happily ever after. The Mane 6's friendship should never have been even implied to be sullied and broken - and the Mane 6 themselves should have, as the S9 openers themselves promised to us, ruled Equestria together. Not in the "jedi truth" way we got, where "from a certain point of view" there is some "advisory council" but in truth Twilight is the one empress and the Mane 6 are just the same or worse than they were left as. The Mane girls should have formed an actual ruling network, with each of them given boons and high responsibilities - and each of them, as it so happens, even had trustworthy ponies to help them take care of or take over their mundane life things, from AJ's family expanding with Sugar Belle to Sweetie growing up and able to help Rarity manage her franchises. Is this the only ending possible? No, not at all, they could've had other fates too - but the one we got is just disappointing and depressing, with their adventures just ending and never truly amounting to much in the long run, with them remaining static and never granted "winner prizes" for being Equestria's mightiest heroes.

Worst part about it all is the execution, however. It's just sloppy, lazy, extremely telly and not showy. The conflict among the Mane 6 in the flashbacks feels forced - like they're being passive-aggressive and angry with one another because they're holding the conflict ball. The repeated bad attempts at humour via bathos and via character denigration feel so out of tune and tasteless for a final episode of a show that it's unbelievable this made it through vetting. The craftsmanship is questionable as well - many weaksauce faces were to be seen (one of the Dash ones is right up there in the screencaps), and it actually was physically jarring to my eyes when we switched from the classic-vector, S2-era kitchen to the overproduced and over-effected outdoors background at the coronation. Not to mention the glaringly basic, bland, un-"personalized" look of Twilight, having her turned into Purple Celestia as a simple palette swap with a different mane - entirely at odds with past practice of the show, too, as in the past all-important moments like that were always granted with personalized and unique designs and models and looks, and even less-important ones often were.

This episode definitely is The Last Problem. Except the problem is with the episode existing, for the show at large. Jimbo, in today's short question session on Twitter, kept on saying "we wanted to leave things open to the fans' imagination"... well, if you wanted that, then why wouldn't you simply not make an epilogue telling us what to imagine and what not to? Just leave things off with the finale itself, or show only the celebration and coronation of Twilight in an epilogue, without Harry Potter-esque "everyone's married each other, and their lives are mundane drudgery" parts in sight.

It's so bad, it makes me think that, despite Twitter assurances to the contrary, the production people actually intended to forestall any further fan work about "what happened next" with this epilogue - to stamp their one last final mark on the show by cauterizing it, so no further growth from it is possible and all turns to a foregone (and unsatisfying) conclusion. TVTropes (much as I dislike to invoke that site again) has a special name for that move - Torch the Franchise and Run. You may argue that it just can't be so because there'll be a comic "season 10" - but if you really think about it, it feels like an internal "screw you, it's ours and ours alone" to any future people coming to work on G4-related materials whether they are "canon" or not. With this epilogue, they try to cut off all branches possible save for a very unsatisfying one - essentially penning in the writers who'll have to observe that canon into having only one option, namely walking the path they laid out for them and showing us how we got to that unsatisfying ending. It's either that, or declaring discontinuity on the epilogue and continuing differently - essentially making an AU, and I'd be very surprised if official material would be allowed to really do that. Only we, the fans, truly have such freedom. And it would have been much, much better had we not seen ANY epilogue, and had "what happens next" left for us to imagine for ourselves, whether we want to ship Mane 6 with one another or have them all become alicorns or for the Students to take over or anything else we may want. It would have been fan- and future official material-friendly; this is the opposite of that, it's trying to impose as many long-reaching, thought-limiting ideas on everything as it can.

Frankly, this epilogue has the same energy as the Game of Thrones ending. And the entire S9, same problems as Game of Thrones's last season did as well. It's a weak, unsatisfying, hurreid and plain weird wrap-up of a decade-long franchise with a huge following, in which plotlines and important elements get forgotten, characters get bastardized and misused and thrown down the drain, and the ending is a headscratcher that "subverts expectations" as well as past promises and common sense.

... At least I'm definitely with you on the "School I still don't see the point of" bit, Seth.

P.S. In a way... the abysmal quality and idiotic moves the epilogue pulled are actually helping me deal with FiM ending. It did not depress or sadden me as much as it could have, had it been good. With it being bad, it feels more like putting it out of misery, and preventing any further corruption from taking hold, a mercy kill. And on my personal emotional front, instead of sorrow, I feel anger over the betrayal of past promises and the deplorable handling of things that needed utmost care and excellence of execution - and as Mass Effect 2 put it once, "rage is a heck of an anaesthetic".
P.P.S. What the hay happend to Twist? It's like the visuals people really hate her.

[Dontrike]

I really don't like going into detail, because that episode is disgusting and insulting...discussing MY feelings on it makes me angry, and then I feel like shit for the rest of the day.

That....may not be all that healthy. I hate Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Harry Potter and can rant about them forever, but I never get actually angry that it ruins my day.

Also, Celestia/Luna would never "retire" (especially Luna since she had only been back for a couple years) and yeet off into a "retirement home"...

You've brought this up before and while yes you can argue Luna "shouldn't" do that as she wasn't back for long, honestly them retiring isn't a big deal. They did near nothing for the entire show and we only had a couple episodes focusing on them as characters that it's hard to get attached to them for what they do or how they act.

The lack of focus on them was one of the weaker parts of the entire show as some were hoping for a bit more world building when it came to them.

And "destroying" the tree of harmony is absolutely ludicrous, there is no way in hell that could ever happen, especially from Sombra (seriously, he's not that powerful, his power mostly lies in illusions).The tree has the power to manhandle (treehandle?) all the magic in the world at once, ffs. It's almost like they forgot that the "tree" that is seen is just a TINY outcropping, and it has roots everywhere. And the elements of harmony CANNOT just be "destroyed" (they forgot the first episode). I thought of a way to salvage things after that episode by making all of that a Sombra illusion, but knowing what comes later in the season makes that pointless...I declared discontinuity on/disavowed the entire season and say none of that happened at all.

If you want to go with anime power stuff I guess that might be true, but the tree is just a Macguffin that could kind of do anything when it called for it. It felt far less important than the elements themselves, which seemed to take a back seat as the seasons went on.

Despiste how long this post is, it still feels like it only scratches the surface, I could probably rant for hours about things that are just horribly WRONG, but I've done my best to move on, and consider S8 + Best Gift Ever + Rainbow Roadtrip the ending of the show, and just chucked S9 into the bin where it belongs. This does at least hit on most of the important points, even if I could add a lot more detail. I am FAR from alone in this too. While my group of friends was more vocal about it (and no longer willing to consider ourselves part of a fandom that accepts it), there are a lot more people that agree with us that more silently "dropped out". The intent of the production was to Torch the Franchise and Run, and it just doesn't occur to some people that fans have the power to declare discontinuity and ignore bad stuff. As we find them, we tell them that there is still a fandom out there that disregards the bad stuff, and we've drawn a few in. It's hilarious seeing the Hasbro bootlicker reactions to that ("OMG YOU CAN'T DO THAT, YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT CANON" - "no, 'canon' can kiss my butt").

I'm not telling you what to accept, but I am saying that it does seem a bit childish to go "lalala it doesn't exist" when in fact it does. Season 9 isn't great, it's easily one of the weaker seasons, which is unfortunate as it felt like an almost disrespectful send off to the show that kicked the franchise off again (Regular Show got similar treatment with how it was unceremoniously was taken off the air). Just like some of the worst episodes you have to at least acknowledge the existence of, Season 1 has one of the worst episodes. Saying it doesn't exist, but also getting so angry at its existence is a bit of a hypocritical line of thinking.

The ending didn't ruin the show, it didn't make it better. It just ended the show and that was it, and that's all I can say about it. There are far worse endings to franchises out there. FAR worse.

As for the shipping there really isn't any fanfiction going on there. AJxRD was almost too safe of a thing to do, almost insulting easy that it was guessed a decade prior. Fluttershy and Discord made sense, she spent a lot of time with him, brought him to see that he doesn't have to be chaos and have other emotions. Pinkie Pie and Cheese? Well of course that will happen off screen, the show wasn't about the 6 dating and it's not a surprise that they wouldn't show it. You weren't going to get a 200 page romantic novel or an hour long special about each of them coupling together, it wasn't going to happen and to think it would is being a little naive. Hell, even Dragonball doesn't show you how Vegeta and Bulma or Krillin and 18 got together and those are main characters.

Two of the main characters being attracted two each other isn't antithetical to their friendship or against the show, if you spend enough time with some people you grow closer and friends do get together, this is something that very much exists in real life.

So the question becomes what did you expect with them going into relationships? What characters would have been good for Fluttershy, Applejack, or Rainbow Dash?

For that matter what were you expecting for the ending? Honestly, it ending by showing they saw their dreams, lived their lives, and had their families is about what would happen for them. It was highly unlikely they would end up as anything more than that. The friendship isn't shattered and as time goes on with your other duties you spend less time with each other, that is just the way it goes.

This thread alone proves that very thing that people spread apart due to whatever, but for them they held on to that friendship and make time for each other. Even in the show they don't hang out daily, they went out and did things. Eventually the adventures would end for them and to believe that it would go on forever and they would be anime powered legends is just being unrealistic.

One is a princess, thanks to fate.
One saw her dream become reality and is still doing it by being a Wonderbolt.
One is at her farm which she was always going to do.
One is still doing what she loves with fashion.
One has a family and keeping the laughter going.
One has her own family with a sort of strange husband.

What did you think would happen? That they would fight great evils well into seniority? That they would be legends of untold power? No, they were regular people that happened to have destiny call. They live their lives as they saw fit and looked happy. Can't think of a better way for a life to me.

[Stormspark]

This is why I no longer consider myself part of "the fandom" in general. I will not accept any of that crap, it's insulting to the characters and absolutely antithetical to the premise of the show. Shipping ANY of the mane 6 with each other is disgusting. Shipping Discord with Fluttershy is also antithetical to what converted him in the first place. I stand by dumping the last season (as I said, it's not JUST that episode that made it bad, it was just that episode that made it irredeemable). The first half just had a nonsensical main plot but was otherwise "meh, ok". The second half got worse with every episode, to the point that it was obvious the writers didn't know or understand the characters at all. The last episode was the icing on the cake, so to speak. I'm not saying that S9 doesn't exist, I'm just saying I consider it bad fanfiction (which it is) and that those events never could or would happen. Anything that takes those events into account I also disregard, which is why I stopped reading the comics after issue 88.

The way it SHOULD have ended, was on a high note, with everyone looking to the future. And end it there. That is the ONLY proper way to end a show like that. Leave it open to imagination. No, Rainbow and AJ would not get involved, that's just idiotic and would never happen in a duodecillion years (for one, I see both of them as wanting kids someday). Rainbow living on a farm, lol, never happen. That's so idiotic I can't even come up with words for it. FWIW I don't see Rainbow getting involved with any of the Wonderbolts either, because that would get too awkward. Again...just leave their future husbands up to the imagination.

I don't see Discord as being interested in anything romantic at all. And, by the show's own words, it takes alicorns centuries to get to the size of Purplestia (I refuse to call that Twilight, because that is not Twilight), even assuming Twilight is immortal like that. I still somewhat subscribe to the theory that there is something different about Celestia and Luna, and that Twilight and Cadance are not immortal in the same way.

But anyway...this is why I mostly withdrew from the fandom. Because I am not going to take what those shitty people did and take part in "justifying" it for them. I will only take part in subsets of the fandom that reject it (and believe me, we are more numerous than it seems, EQD is an echo chamber). I guess I'm out of here, as I said I will not be part of a community that accepts any of that trash.

[Dontrike]

I will not accept any of that crap, it's insulting to the characters and absolutely antithetical to the premise of the show.

How is it insulting? You've never seen friends become more before? People that were friends for years suddenly hooking up happen a lot in life. You can't deny that.

Shipping Discord with Fluttershy is also antithetical to what converted him in the first place.

You mean her general kindness and accepting him? He clearly feels more for her than literally any other character throughout the show and it only grows over time. You showed a complaint that Pinkie and Cheese was done off screen, but for Fluttershy and Discord it's actually shown on screen by them actually spending time with each other rather often.

For the whole group you were only going to get characters you know of that they hook up with or randos we've never met. If they were random characters you'd likely be asking "why wasn't it someone else from the show" or "who are they? that's not who I thought they'd end up with." Mordecai at the end of Regular Show didn't end up with either of the two women he was pining after for the whole show. Nope, he ends up with a random bat woman that never showed up once while Rigby ends up with someone who he was friends with for years.

Again, who do you think was the proper partners for them and why is it any better?

I stand by dumping the last season (as I said, it's not JUST that episode that made it bad, it was just that episode that made it irredeemable). The first half just had a nonsensical main plot but was otherwise "meh, ok". The second half got worse with every episode, to the point that it was obvious the writers didn't know or understand the characters at all. The last episode was the icing on the cake, so to speak.

We saw that same thing when Twilight became an alicorn, they had no idea what Starswirl's spell did. They just wrote a thing to do a thing, nothing more. I'd call that episode far worse than some of the ones in season nine.

I'm not saying that S9 doesn't exist

You do when you say the show ends before that in your mind.

The way it SHOULD have ended, was on a high note, with everyone looking to the future. And end it there.

Okay, but you understand that's not necessarily better than what is seen where they are still happy in the future with their own lives. Neither one is better than the other.

That is the ONLY proper way to end a show like that. Leave it open to imagination. No, Rainbow and AJ would not get involved, that's just idiotic and would never happen in a duodecillion years (for one, I see both of them as wanting kids someday). Rainbow living on a farm, lol, never happen. That's so idiotic I can't even come up with words for it. FWIW I don't see Rainbow getting involved with any of the Wonderbolts either, because that would get too awkward. Again...just leave their future husbands up to the imagination.

You say it is fanfiction and yet why is your idea not fanfiction? Why is yours better? Rainbow Dash on a farm is unbelievable why? She basically lives on a cloud with nothing special about it through the show, why is a farm crazy? As for having kids, it's called adoption, and because you feel they would have kids doesn't make it so. I know I never at any point went "oh man, they should have 19 kids with that guy over there" because I never had any expectation. The most I had was thinking Rarity and Spike would have a thing and while she had a longing glance at him in song of the final episode that was it. I wasn't angry because my enjoyment of the show had nothing to do with my own headcanon.

Honestly, the only thing I can say about AJxRD is that it was too safe. It was so obvious I was sort of expecting them to go another direction, but they didn't, and it's not worse or better for it. It just is.

I don't see Discord as being interested in anything romantic at all.

Really? 'Cause his whole thing is learning to be nice and not chaotic, his feelings for Fluttershy were growing throughout the show. In fact Discord is the one thing in the finale I think they screwed up big time, and not because of romance. Had he released those three as a "I wanted to help them like you did with me" it would have changed the context to one that made a lot more sense, but in the end he's like "nah, I'm gonna screw with Twilight for two seasons because she needs to be prepared for.....something."

And, by the show's own words, it takes alicorns centuries to get to the size of Purplestia (I refuse to call that Twilight, because that is not Twilight), even assuming Twilight is immortal like that. I still somewhat subscribe to the theory that there is something different about Celestia and Luna, and that Twilight and Cadance are not immortal in the same way.

When did they say it takes 1,000s of years to grow like that? Which episode was that? Unfortunately the world building is lacking in Gen4 and we'll never find the answers, until then it's all fanfiction, no matter what we'd like to believe, as there's not even really hints about how an alicorn is created. Flurry was born, Twilight was made by a poorly written deus ex machina, and the other two are just there. Unless it's in an info book I don't remember that showing up ever in the show.

But anyway...this is why I mostly withdrew from the fandom. Because I am not going to take what those shitty people did and take part in "justifying" it for them. I will only take part in subsets of the fandom that reject it (and believe me, we are more numerous than it seems, EQD is an echo chamber). I guess I'm out of here, as I said I will not be part of a community that accepts any of that trash.

You understand you can enjoy something without being part of the fandom, right? You can talk about what you do and do not enjoy about a thing with others. I don't like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, watched it all, but I can talk about it. I like Steven Universe, but I'm not a part of the fandom. I was able to watch Rick & Morty, but that doesn't mean I want to storm a McDonald's over a BBQ sauce while REEE-ing on the floor screaming "I'm Pickle Rick!"

[Very Tired]

Posting this here because I really don't know where else to take this. I found this website I don't want to link because I don't want to seem like a bot, but it has every movie and TV show you could possibly think of available for streaming for free... even keeps up with new episodes of current TV shows. Despite all that, it's not very well known at all, almost shady. No comments in the disqus below each video, not many Google results even talking about it.

I'm just wondering what the heck is going on, or what is the catch here, how did this website even come to exist? It's not even nearly as shady as the certain popular site I stream all my anime from. (No Norton popups if you are tricked into clicking a link) But I can't argue with being to keep up with all the shows I would need to subscribe to a hundred streaming services to watch.

[Dontrike]

Posting this here because I really don't know where else to take this. I found this website I don't want to link because I don't want to seem like a bot, but it has every movie and TV show you could possibly think of available for streaming for free... even keeps up with new episodes of current TV shows. Despite all that, it's not very well known at all, almost shady. No comments in the disqus below each video, not many Google results even talking about it.

I'm just wondering what the heck is going on, or what is the catch here, how did this website even come to exist? It's not even nearly as shady as the certain popular site I stream all my anime from. (No Norton popups if you are tricked into clicking a link) But I can't argue with being to keep up with all the shows I would need to subscribe to a hundred streaming services to watch.

Sounds like it's too good to be true, at least when it comes to the safety of a site like that.

- - - Updated - - -

Yet again another small animation clip that really only gives us these two screenshots. I can't tell if the second one is female or not.

[CastletonSnob]

Just found out my new computer doesn't have a rear exhaust fan.

[Powerogue]

Sounds like it's too good to be true, at least when it comes to the safety of a site like that.

- - - Updated - - -

Yet again another small animation clip that really only gives us these two screenshots. I can't tell if the second one is female or not.

[IMG]https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JYoXFLy8IQ4/YHB9SqPB64I/AAAAAAADdI8/Z4omWZ_jC6kij2SJqfceHIv0opvSZLehQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2740/MLP%2BPipp%2BCharacter%2BReveal.jpg[IMG]
[IMG]https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V8xTC2gW5kw/YHB9SjSR46I/AAAAAAADdJA/GVIULnh4WfwTlXNkTPjvslthvFnfB5RiACLcBGAsYHQ/s2740/MLP%2BZipp%2BStorm%2BCharacter%2BReveal.jpg[IMG]

Still iffy, I'd need to see them in motion for at least a few minute clip to see if they can pull off the expressiveness and comedy I'm hoping they still bring to
the table. I do kind of like that there seems to be different types of wings. Notice how one's more fluffy vs the other with the multiple colors, variety in character
design is a good sign.

Infinity Train Book 4 just released so that's my "you absolutely must watch this" recommendation as of now. I've just removed my Youtube bookmark due to the track record of "start watching something good, Youtube clips in my recommendation due to watching the trailer spoil the entire thing."

So anyway here's the trailer. :P

[Dontrike]

Still iffy, I'd need to see them in motion for at least a few minute clip to see if they can pull off the expressiveness and comedy I'm hoping they still bring to
the table. I do kind of like that there seems to be different types of wings. Notice how one's more fluffy vs the other with the multiple colors, variety in character
design is a good sign.

Infinity Train Book 4 just released so that's my "you absolutely must watch this" recommendation as of now. I've just removed my Youtube bookmark due to the track record of "start watching something good, Youtube clips in my recommendation due to watching the trailer spoil the entire thing."

So anyway here's the trailer. :P
[video=youtube;T_eiKWvQxZ8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_eiKWvQxZ8[/vieo]

Sooner or later I'll have to bite the bullet and get into streaming services to watch stuff like that. I doubt they'll put the other seasons of She-Ra on DVD and I would like to see what happens after Season 3, besides the obvious lesbian kiss at the end, because that was obvious even before I saw a small spoiler.