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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Live Reactions & Discussion)

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A thread to discuss My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and the tie-in media.

All of the usual forum rules apply. In addition, please remember that the thread is discussing a kids' show, and it's primarily focused on the work itself, not the fanfic — in particular, we don't want to see lewdness creeping in.

     Original OP text 
I don't know WHAT the Hell happened (I blame shenanigans) but we're going to start from scratch. Post your feels for this awesome show again! Naow!

Edited by Mrph1 on Aug 26th 2024 at 10:24:26 AM

MrSeyker Since: Apr, 2011
#181001: Nov 29th 2017 at 11:55:04 AM

According to Haber, Starlight was a latch-key-kid.

I would presume her parents were so uninvolved with her that they never really recognized her magical potential so enrolling her in Celestia's school was never in the cards.

This explains somewhat why Starlight is so much of a womanchild at times. You would think this would've manifested in extreme resentment of parental figures, but instead all her issues are with authority in general and magical butt tattoos in particular.

[up] Sending Starlight to the academy fixes the fridge logic of why Sunburst and not her, but you lose Sunburst's angle of not being capable in his field, and how would you write Starlight learning to resent cutie marks in that context?

BTW, anyone gets the feeling Starlight earned her cutie mark later in life than is the norm?

edited 29th Nov '17 12:00:25 PM by MrSeyker

Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#181002: Nov 29th 2017 at 11:58:57 AM

Well, a lot of ponies in Equestria seem to be either parentless or oddly independent from parental figures. Is it any wonder so many kids get traumatized by social setbacks and run off to become bitter villains?

Equestria doesn't need more alicorns or Friendship Princesses, it needs a decent mental healthcare system. Some kind of Social Services for neglected/handicapped children would help, too.

edited 29th Nov '17 12:01:03 PM by Redmess

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#181003: Nov 29th 2017 at 12:01:12 PM

Fluttershy, Princess of Emotional Therapy!

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fredhot16 Don't want to leave but cannot pretend from Baton Rogue, Louisiana. Since: Jan, 2015 Relationship Status: Too sexy for my shirt
Don't want to leave but cannot pretend
#181004: Nov 29th 2017 at 12:03:21 PM

[up][up]I'm surprised that I'm not the only one who thinks that some ponies in Equesteria need a psychologist or therapist. I know that I'm likely not the only one who thought so but I'm "glad" that someone else is saying it.

The quote marks are because I'm not sure if I'm actually happy about it.

edited 29th Nov '17 12:04:21 PM by fredhot16

Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.
MrSeyker Since: Apr, 2011
#181005: Nov 29th 2017 at 12:10:27 PM

Eh, the only cases of that specific issue are Twilight's three expies/shadow archetypes (Trixie and Moondancer don't really count imo).

And Scootaloo, latch-key-kid extraordinaire, is very well adjusted and with a rather large support network, actual parents excluded.

Starlight was just an edgemare that never grew up and lashed out against the system.

Tempest was the edgemare that had to grow up too fast and fell with the wrong crowd to make it to adulthood.

And Sunset was the edgemare that lashed out at sunbutt mom so hard that she ran away from home into a world of hairless apes.

[up] She might need a few tries per case, but you are not wrong that Fluttershy is the mare for the job.

Discord, the Breezies, Rainbow Dash when she went full Grinch, that one Storm Guard in the movie...

edited 29th Nov '17 12:15:56 PM by MrSeyker

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#181006: Nov 29th 2017 at 12:13:52 PM

In our world, Starlight would probably be a radio host ranting about the secret alien conspiracy that killed JFK.

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fredhot16 Don't want to leave but cannot pretend from Baton Rogue, Louisiana. Since: Jan, 2015 Relationship Status: Too sexy for my shirt
Don't want to leave but cannot pretend
#181008: Nov 29th 2017 at 1:03:02 PM

[up]What is "dark magic" exactly?

Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.
KuroiTsubasaTenshi Streamer from Twitch Since: May, 2011
Streamer
#181009: Nov 29th 2017 at 1:13:39 PM

A really nebulously defined school of spells that got used in just two episodes.

FE: New Mystery Only Feet 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Umamusume Haru Arima 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi
Pannic Since: Jul, 2009
#181010: Nov 29th 2017 at 2:03:02 PM

And I return from New York. What's a funny summary of what's happened recently in thread?

Ultimatum Disasturbator from The Wiggle Room (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#181011: Nov 29th 2017 at 2:04:36 PM

Some stuff involving ponies and [REDACTED] and also some other stuff about other things too.

edited 29th Nov '17 2:04:47 PM by Ultimatum

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Theriocephalus Amateur Veteran from gimme a map and a moment and I can tell you Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Amateur Veteran
#181012: Nov 29th 2017 at 2:12:48 PM

[up][up][up][up][up]See, something like that would have helped her backstory immensely in my opinion.

I mean, not the dark magic thing specifically, but something to reinforce her loathing of cutie marks in the decade or two or however long it was in between Sunburst going off to magic school and Starlight starting her cult. Because as it was shown, she had one unhappy incident as a kid and then, what, spent the rest of her childhood and most of her adult life single-mindedly obsessing over that one objectively minor thing that happened that one time when she must've been like ten, and that was the sole driving motivation for her monomaniacal actions in the rest of her life. That makes as much sense as somebody having moved when they were a kid and lost their friends as a result, and that incident — by itself, I want to note, not in combination with anything else — driving them to forcing everyone to never move to a new place ever.

I think I should clarify — I have no issue whatever with the Sunburst incident starting things off. That works fine in that regard, no real issue there. My problem comes form the fact that the episode didn't give anything else besides that to explain Starlight's life choices. I guess it's a question of how you want to portray your character — in that instance, the aim was pretty clearly to show her as being sympathetic, but at least from my point of view it just made her seem like an idiot with no sense of perspective.

(Honestly, I feel it might not have been a bad idea to have her reformation be driven by the consequences of her actions and then have her backstory in another episode, because the background of a major character needs more than a crammed three, four-minute flashback to be worked out. I'm not saying a whole episode, but it could have used even just four or five minutes more to show what happened afterwards.)

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#181013: Nov 29th 2017 at 2:46:05 PM

BUT SUNBURST

Basically what that boils down to. As much as Starlight gets accused of creator favoritism, I actually think Sunburst's worse about it.

  • The Cutie Re-Mark
  • The Crystalling
  • Uncommon Bond
  • Shadow Play

Every time Sunburst's been in focus, it's been under Haber's pen. Haber made Sunburst the entire motivation for Starlight Glimmer, established Sunburst as a master of arcane lore who bores Starlight with his intelligence, and then brought Sunburst to Ponyville so that he and Twilight could bond over how smart he is and he could help her set the finale in motion.

Starlight tends to be a redundant Twilight in other episodes, but when Sunburst's around, she lightswitches into being a bored Everyman rolling her eyes at Twilight and Sunburst and going, "LOL nerds amirite?"

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MetaFour AXTE INCAL AXTUCE MUN from A Place (Old Master)
AXTE INCAL AXTUCE MUN
#181014: Nov 29th 2017 at 2:46:35 PM

"The Cutie Re-Mark" didn't just screw up Starlight's motivations, it also screwed up her "power level". Look at the spells she's flinging around when she's fighting Twilight. If she had half of those spells back in "The Cutie Map", she would have won back then, and wouldn't have been run out of Our Town.

Have you fine fellows heard of the Other Sith theory? Basically, Starlight's huge change in personality and abilities makes a lot more sense if you imagine that she was working and training with some unseen Bigger Bad. And that said Bigger Bad taught her a bunch of combat magic after she fled Our Town—and at some point during "The Cutie Re-Mark", she erased all of Starlight's memories of her, leaving just a huge blank between Starlight's childhood and her taking charge of Our Town.

And there's a variation on that theory that popped up in the comment section of that blog post. You can reconcile a lot of discrepancies, without invoking some phantom menace, by supposing:

  • Starlight's cutie mark removal spell also lets her copy the powers conveyed by each mark. She just didn't start taking advantage of that until after Our Town, when she copied dozens of combat-related spells in preparation for her next fight with Twilight.
  • When Starlight connected to the Cutie Map to make it power her time travel spell, the Map fought back and erased large parts of her memory.

edited 29th Nov '17 2:47:06 PM by MetaFour

KylerThatch literary masochist Since: Jan, 2001
literary masochist
#181015: Nov 29th 2017 at 4:54:49 PM

Equestria doesn't need more alicorns or Friendship Princesses, it needs a decent mental healthcare system. Some kind of Social Services for neglected/handicapped children would help, too.
Fluttershy, Princess of Emotional Therapy!
Coincidentally, in the MLP CCG, there is a card named "Fluttershy, Guidance Counselor". It's banned from competitive play.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#181016: Nov 29th 2017 at 5:03:12 PM

In the game of friendship and helping others, Fluttershy OP plz nrf.

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Ultimatum Disasturbator from The Wiggle Room (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#181017: Nov 29th 2017 at 5:08:00 PM

fluttershy is not OP

Rainbow Dash is though

And Starlight glimmer

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
MetaFour AXTE INCAL AXTUCE MUN from A Place (Old Master)
AXTE INCAL AXTUCE MUN
#181018: Nov 29th 2017 at 5:37:05 PM

diplomacy is OP

devs pls nerf

marcen12 Sigh from Under The Floorboards (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Sigh
#181019: Nov 29th 2017 at 6:35:17 PM

One word, everypony. One word. No pay, no Marcen.

Thats it.

https://youtu.be/_1F5HhUvFbM?si=csgwerqELcG6615q
storyyeller More like giant cherries from Appleloosa Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: RelationshipOutOfBoundsException: 1
More like giant cherries
#181020: Nov 29th 2017 at 7:01:17 PM

I got signed out during a site update and then it wouldn't accept my password. Fortunately, I had an older e-mail address to work with.

So just in case anyone else is in a similar situation, please tell me so I can take it into account if I calculate people's posting stats in the future. I do have a list of the cases I know about (like Applelight/Justanotherbrony), but if you want your old account to be counted, you have to tell me.

So did Starlight just have shitty parents who never loved her or wanted her to achieve her potential?

"Magic is for losers. You're going to go to Buckball school and you're going to like it." - Starlight's parents, probably.

Edit: I just looked up Fluttershy, Guidance Counselor. It's so weird reading MLP cards, because it's like a normal card game except all the words are replaced with different words, presumably for legal reasons. Like "exhaust". Seriously? Why can't you just say "tap" like a normal person?

edited 29th Nov '17 7:02:49 PM by storyyeller

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play
KylerThatch literary masochist Since: Jan, 2001
literary masochist
#181021: Nov 29th 2017 at 7:14:48 PM

It is, in fact, for legal reasons. WOTC trademarked the word "tap" in reference to a card that's been spent for the turn.

Technically, you don't even turn a card on its side to mark it as exhausted, you put an exhaustion counter on it. Except me and everyone I play with "taps" the card because who wants to fiddle around with tokens when they don't have to?

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...
kegisak Element of Class Since: Feb, 2011 Relationship Status: In Lesbians with you
Element of Class
#181022: Nov 29th 2017 at 7:20:00 PM

Also who has that many little bits of stuff laying around without going out looking for them? And why bother when you could just tap them?

Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.
storyyeller More like giant cherries from Appleloosa Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: RelationshipOutOfBoundsException: 1
More like giant cherries
#181023: Nov 29th 2017 at 7:27:25 PM

The funny part is that MTG recently introduced an "exert" mechanic and they printed little paper tokens you could put on cards to keep track of the fact that they've been exerted.

edited 29th Nov '17 7:28:09 PM by storyyeller

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play
Pannic Since: Jul, 2009
#181024: Nov 29th 2017 at 7:29:40 PM

I'm gonna contest the "creator's favorite" thing on account of how the tv show writer's room works. A writer might get assigned certain stuff, but the developments and focus of said episodes is something that's mapped out in the writer's room ahead of time, generally.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#181025: Nov 29th 2017 at 7:40:17 PM

I'm gonna contest the "creator's favorite" thing on account of how the tv show writer's room works. A writer might get assigned certain stuff, but the developments and focus of said episodes is something that's mapped out in the writer's room ahead of time, generally.

Josh Haber is also the show's lead story editor in season six and most of season seven, incidentally. He's pretty much the big-wig that decides where they're going and what they're doing. While also writing the two-parters himself.

edited 29th Nov '17 7:41:22 PM by TobiasDrake

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