When was she introduced? The first time I recall seeing her was when Big Mac and Justin Bieber were hitting on her.

The main problem is that back when she was important, she had different hair. Given this show's limited options for diversifying characters, changing her hair briefly before giving her a long stay of absence and then introducing her as an important character in an entirely new context is gonna do that to a lot of people.

She had the same name, though.

But forgetting a one/two-shot (before becoming Mac's girlfriend) character is understandable.

She only had a different look until she got her Cutie Mark back.

This◊ is her calling out Starlight for not having to give up her own Cutie Mark and then here◊ she is with Night Glider and Party Favor after everypony's Cutie Marks have been restored.

I vaguely recall the Innsmouth ponies that fought Starlight, but I couldn't remember any of their names.

I think I'm kinda weird in that respect.

As a general rule, I don't forget ANYONE in this show.

Maybe it's something to do with my autism.

Of course I remember Sugar "Is your friendship ending?" Belle. The point about her hair is actually pretty good though. I find Party Favour is similar. I mostly remember him in his "BUT I DIDN'T LISTEN" mode, not with the Pinkie-esque hair.

I forget so much from most anime I watch, but not MLP. My furry heathen brain just tunes right in.

Everyone in that village had the same generic hairstyle while they were equalized. It's apparently a side effect of the cutie mark removal.

I had assumed that that was just another part of Starlight's equality obsession. People could get into fights with each other over vanity and personal appearance, ergo she's going to enforce mandatory hairstyles so that everyone looks the same in addition to acting the same.

edited 20th Jun '18 9:22:40 PM by Theriocephalus

Its a wonder Starlight didn't make them dye their coat and mane in the same color.

Come to think of it, does no one ever dye their hair?

And I agree that Twilight was definitely a jerk in those first episodes. Not just a loner, who will generally be fine with social interaction as long as it doesn't get too much, but actively hostile to social interaction. She seemed to have a pretty low opinion of other ponies in general. Especially of the kind of Sugar Bowl ponies you'd normally meet in previous MLP shows.

And it was intentional. It showed that this show would be different from the last Sugar Bowl show. It showed up the old stereotypes, which was what connected with those early bronies, who, you might remember, had exactly the same feelings about MLP characters generally as Twilight had. And then it set out to subvert all those stereotypes. It was such a brilliant deconstruction and reconstruction of the show, it is perhaps surprising that no one saw the Periphery Demographic coming.

And of course its a great idea to start your main character off as an antisocial, misanthropic jerk when your show is all about friendship and social interaction. It gives her something to learn.

Mayor Mare dyes her hair gray

Oh yeah, I forgot. Though that was just a one-off gag.

Also in "Boast Busters", when Rarity complains that green is a terrible mane color, the green-maned pony who takes offense at her comment looks identical (mane color aside) to Carrot Top. Since that green-maned mare never shows up again, I always figured she she actually was Carrot Top, who just picked the wrong day to try something different with her hair.

I mean, everyone thought it was Carrot Top/Golden Harvest. To the point where I'm pretty sure it is retroactive canon that it was her, considering she was one of the many then-background prop ponies used solely for gags (like how Lyra was stuck on that bench sitting like a dude, or stuck in Cloudsdale despite being a unicorn for no apparent reason).

The show staff said multiple times that they didn't really come to view the background ponies (aside from Derpy, who started being used halfway through Season 1) as anything other than set pieces until about mid-Season 2.

She sorta did. The Sameness effect mutes their colors in addition to flattening their manes, giving ponies the faded out coloring effect from "Return of Harmony".

Rarity would like a word.

This.

As I've said before, a fundamental requirement of a show about learning moral lessons is that your protagonists must necessarily be people in need of learning moral lessons.

Trying to make the Manes too Generic Good Guy-ish misses the point of the characters. If friendship automatically comes naturally to ponies, then the show doesn't have a reason to exist.

Speaking, of course, for this show and not previous gens. I haven't seen previous gens so I don't know what they were about or even whether they were lesson-based as opposed to being just big ol' fantasy world adventures starring ponies.

Come to think of it, I think some fans of this gen would actually prefer if it was just a big ol' fantasy world adventure starring ponies. Like Horse-Lady of the Rings or something.

Marespreading jerk!

Well, fans of this gen are a massive Venn Diagram with fans of adventure and story-heavy shows like anything from the Anime Boom of the late 90s-mid Oughts, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Xiaolin Showdown, Avatar: The Last Airbender and Avatar: The Legend of Korra, The DCAU, and so on, and this show (as well as a few others) gave rise to other adventure-heavy story-driven shows like Star vs. The Forces of Evil, Steven Universe, and so on.

That could have something to do with it, yes.

Fans be all, "I want to know more about the precise location and mechanics of Tartarus! What's it like? Who else is in there?"

And writers be all, "Why?! What does Tartarus have to do with the importance of sharing?!"

Oh man, now I want to have an episode about Tirek learning the value of sharing while he's chained up in Tartarus.

edited 21st Jun '18 7:34:27 AM by TobiasDrake

Post of the Day #2189

There's an awful lot of Equestrian history that's pretty overlooked. Like, the public impression of Equestrian history seems to go,

• Hearth's Warming Tale
• Star Swirl the Bearded and then Princess Celestia
• The Mare in the Moon??? Maybe? Might be myth.
• 1,000 Years of Nothing Happens
• Today

Princess Luna isn't the only thing lost to history. Nopony seems to know anything about the Crystal Empire, Discord, or Tirek until Princess Celestia drops an infodump on them. And these infodumps are usually given to Twilight "Memorized Every Book in the Library Twice" Sparkle, so if anypony would know, it's her.

In fact, Celestia openly lied to Equestria's face about Discord. "The Return of Harmony" opens with the Crusaders bickering over the precise metaphorical meaning of Discord's petrified remains. Ponies know so little about Equestria's history that Celestia was able to put the petrified body of an ancient usurper to the throne in her courtyard and have ponies squabbling over what it actually means, bruh.

Cheerilee does correct them, mind, but she corrects them with this:

• Cheerilee: Actually, in a way, you're all right. This statue represents "Discord", which means a lack of harmony between ponies. In fact, you three have demonstrated discord so well that you're each going to write me an essay explaining it.

Yeah, the official story of Discord is that Celestia has a cool statue in her courtyard that symbolically represents his goddamn name, because Celestia is nothing if not a troll.

Basically, the only history we've seen in the entire show that wasn't "1000 years ago" was in Testing, Testing, 123.

"Resembling" indeed. I'm surprised Discord didn't turn her temporarily into stone so she could experience the "resemblance" for herself.

Warning: Fic Wanking to Follow

I actually have a plot point in my current story, "Lessons in Chaos", about precisely that. The lack of information not hoof-delivered by Celestia is one of the factors that led to Alternate Twilight's paranoid rulership in the story's parallel world. At the end of a two-year war with the Changelings, Tirek showed up to the final battle, seizing the opportunity. He devoured Chrysalis's magic as she tried to flee the field, then ganked an already wounded and exhausted Celestia.

He was defeated but at the cost of Princess Celestia. Because she never had a chance to exposit about him, nopony in Equestria has any idea what the f*ck that even was about. He just emerged from the universe like a Diabolus ex Machina. Between the changelings and whatever that was, Acting Princess Twilight now sees potential threats and enemies everywhere.

edited 21st Jun '18 8:16:47 AM by TobiasDrake

Not that there's any shortage of "uncovering the secret history of Equestria" fics, but oddly enough I literally just read one. It actually stays relatively light, though (in part because it's not too long and half of that is about Twilight and pony!Timber Spruce falling in like).

I think "The Gauntlet of Fire" would make a great name for a Warhammer 40,000 campaign book.

This is actually one of my side projects.

edited 21st Jun '18 3:17:45 PM by SantosLHalper