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>>41810137
But Twilight being a powerful, skilled unicorn isn't inherently bad. She's a hard worker, she's earned her keep. But I think there's a clear division between what was granted from her hard work, and what feels like destiny/the universe/whatever just powering her the fuck up. Even her friends seemed to just slot themselves into her life and molded themselves around HER - but this can be forgiven as Faust was not permitted to spend the entirety of Season 1 on the girls becoming besties with eachother.

Do you remember how in Boat Busters, she notes that most unicorns only know a spell or two on account of their cutie marks, whilst she knows many more as her cutie mark is magic itself? In Equestria, that makes you good at basically literally almost everything. She's even learnt Rarity's signature spell on the fly, and picked all of Applejack's apples without strain. I think this on demand magical supercompetence was a bit of a mistake as plot convenient as it may be, but it can be handwoven away with a little plot fiat - got to keep the story going/get resolved. But that lends itself to a specific problem, Twilight becomes a vehicle to resolve and progress plot threads. Magic is so versatile, after all!

Is this entirely bad? Maybe not, some talents just lend themselves more to protagonism even if all ponies are as equally amazing. But is this the Twilight Show (for that, go to S3-S9) or is it Friendship is Magic? Sometimes it feels like the rest of the Mane 6 are just there to charge her up, or act as a cheering squad. In past generations, it'd make a point of utilizing multiple ponies to accomplish a task. I think the absence of that level of coordination is unfortunate.

Season 1 atleast attempts to keep her in check, even after a life of study under the best she 'only' knows thirty-six different spells (Boat Busters), is shown to struggle, fuck up spells and does have to at least sit down and study.

>2/6

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>>41810138
Not like that trend continued. And considering everything else I've shown, can you really blame them? Twilight became more than just the lenses of which the viewer sees the world from, but the main character.

Well of course she's the main character! The setup of the show made that abundantly clear, didn't it?

I personally think it was fine for Season 1 to build a scaffolding, but in Season 2 they really should've tried to lean into it being a true ensemble. It's honestly amazing that despite the pedestal Twilight's been put on, there's so much love for all the other dearly neglected characters whether they're fellow members of the Mane 6, side characters or background ponies entirely. It goes to show that there was plenty of meat on the bone that just wasn't chewed on.

As flawed as Lesson Zero may be, I have to give it credit for just one thing; allowing the other members of the Mane 6 to write friendship letters to the Princess too.

And then A Canterlot Wedding happened and Twilight was right and everypony else was retarded and they all should've just listened to her and then she has to save the Princess on her own and etc etc

Back to aggrandizing Twilight. This is further compounded at the start (and end, obviously) of Season 3 but that's out of the scope of what I wish to talk about.

I'm especially disappointed about the Canterlot Wedding thing, alicorn Cadance and mysterious new brother aside. When will any other member of the Mane 6 get to save the day on their almost-lonesome and be an ultimate representative of their cutie mark in an adventure episode? (Never, obviously. Fuck you.)

Applejack? Honesty? Being able to catch out liars with ease? Stubborn enough to stand her ground in spite of everypony telling her to shut the fuck up? I feel like that was a missed opportunity.

It's like they were so used to Twilight figuring it all out and fixing everything that they defaulted to her being the hero of the day. Which is every day, now.

>3/6

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>>41810141
Feels like there was a sort of snowball effect in regards to Twilight's prominence.

Hey, they even could've highlighted a negative aspect of Twilight's stubbornness here if they wanted to. Maybe even have her defend Cadance and by extension, her brother.

Speaking of flaws, let's examine hers. She's neurotic, very easily stressed out, judgmental and is oddly completely willing to ignore authority to do what she thinks is right. (That last one isn't entirely a flaw, but it's a notable aspect of her.) I'd regard all of those as her 'terminal flaws', as they are very important to her character and never really change, even if she does manage them. For example she does work through her easily stressed out nature via her friends, but if her friends were to not be present or such, she's back to stressing the fuck out and locking herself in the library.

I think those are pretty good, fun flaws for a character like her. Though over time it feels like they're treated less like flaws and more like funny character quirks that ultimately don't really harm her or hinder her goals in any meaningful manner.

And then there's the matter of her other flaws - her quasi-autism, arrogance and complete life inexperience. For a mare who supposedly talked to basically nobody during her youth, she's really not as autistic as you'd expect her to be. They're flaws that get rectified just by hanging out with some ponies a little while everyday, or again, are played for jokes rather than being of any significance to the plot or her concrete interactions with others.

Cumulatively, its representation in the show doesn't feel sufficient to me. I'm not saying it has to be a 1:1 ratio of good and bad to make an interesting character, but sit with me. When was the last time any one of these flaws caused an ACTUAL problem for Twilight because of HER?

Now think the same thing but for Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Applejack or Fluttershy. Now the thoughts stream with ease!

>4/6

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>>41810144
But seriously, let's think of some concrete examples.
>Winter Wrap-up
Good episode. No complaints.

>A Bird in the Hoof
Debatable.

>Lesson Zero
No punishment. If anything she got rewarded by having to do less homework now.

>It's About Time
Debatable.

>A Canterlot Wedding
Rewarded for it.

No particularly STRONG examples except for Winter Wrapup.

What's my point with ALL of this? Just a couple of things.
I think it devalues all the other ponies around her.
I think it devalues the Mane 6.
I think it devalues HER, it makes it seem like things are just falling into her lap rather than because of her hard work.
And most of all I think it devalues the spirit of the show; Friendship.

Perhaps if the stage was set differently, things could've turned out differently. It's upsetting, because I really do love ponies, and want to see the absolute best for the show. It just feels more imperfect the longer I look at it.

In my head when I think "Twilight Sparkle" my brain doesn't necessarily bring up who she is in the show, but some sort of idealized form of her. Idealized in a very specific sense - like her base archetype. I think most people do this too.

What do I mean by this? Well, here's an example, her being portrayed as some giganeet slob-ish character in fan media. Asides from it just being amusing, I feel like it's because they've picked up on what her base archetype *really* is and should've been. Honestly? I don't actually think her being a student of Celestia adds THAT much to her base nature as iconic as it is, if she was just some random NEET learning to not be retarded, I think that'd be weirdly more impactful from quite a few perspectives. Would've also been a funny contrast to Rarity, the other unicorn.

>5/6

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>>41810149
Twilight doesn't need all of this super-competency to be an incredible, loveable character. Let us assume Faust's loss was inevitable and she couldn't keep the boat steering towards something atleast vaguely sensible, then the alternative is to ensure the 'priming' for her is sufficient as to obstruct further natural snowballing of her power levels for lack of a better, succinct term.

OP's image, #6. Wouldn't that have been a cute, symbolic idea for a cutie mark? Force her to actually use her leadership abilities and direct ponies to actually do things, like in The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000.

Of course, there's always the nuclear option of making her an Earth pony. I don't think that's necessary though, and that unveils an entirely different can of worms. (Let's be honest, Earth ponies got dealt a bad hand and deserved better.)

Further leaning into the rest of the ensemble, what if they shined more front and center? Applejack deserved so much better - whenever Twilight wasn't leading, she was often taking charge too. A much more calm, strategic and experienced sort of pony. There's different aspects of leadership and one may not be good at ALL of them, after all.

Twilight can still be brilliant at magic but having her always be the smartest pony in the room wasn't necessarily a good thing in my books. I personally didn't like the whole destiny-esque thing of her having some supreme ultra-corked power or whatever, I would've liked if other powerful unicorns were shown - in real life, there are many great scientists, but the age of universal geniuses are long gone and most tend to specialize. Maybe Twilight could've been more specialized in theory. Maybe she should need scrolls and books to cast spells effectively. Maybe there could've been a running gag of her having to look through her saddlebags for the right item to save the day with her friends, but ending up having to use her wits, a wilted looking apple and some useless sounding spell.

>6/6

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>>41810155
Before anyone complains about "reddit spacing", go to a text editor, paste my text and remove all the newlines. See how easy it is to read then.

That's all. Maybe I'm just being a huge faggot and over-analyzing a kids show the wrong way. Just wanted to know what all of your thoughts were on the matter, as I haven't begun watching this show until a year ago.

Apologies if this is poorly written, I just threw it together as I felt the need to get it off my chest. Do any of you feel the same way?

She could've been a much better representative. Equestria just doesn't feel harmonious when it's portrayed as it is in the show. It feels so cruel/unfair for destiny to give it all to just one pony.

This also doubles as an Unicorn Twilight images thread. Horsepussy.

I do agree that the show put itself in a tough position by making her have a grand destiny and the support of a deity from the very start. I think even if you wanted to end up in the same place, it would be a lot more compelling if they actually showed her having to work for it over the course of many seasons rather than it just sort of happening to her because she's a very special pony. Of course, that would've required them to have an actual plan in mind for the direction the show would go in and they clearly didn't.

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>>41810138
oh yeah also her element of harmony is a crown, forgot to mention that too. apologies, this "analysis" is very lackluster, i feel like i could've done a lot better but i started feeling very sleepy

when it comes to what the fuck faust must've been thinking, because she DOES seem like the sort of person who'd think about equality and all that considering her feminist tilt and things she said in general,
i believe twilight was to represent the viewer other than just being the camera lenses we view the world through. first, consider that she is obviously supposed to be the 'everyman' sort of pony, an average pony - which seems very odd when considering all the talk about destiny and magic! the whole potential thing and being selected by celestia and etc etc thus seems like a way to comment on the vast amount of potential in every single person. faustic worldbuilding is very schizophrenic, we're clearly not supposed to think much on it and this is highlighted by just the amount of repeated background mares (and yes, i'm aware it was primarily out of budget constraints)

it only breaks down once you try to actually look at it as a story, which may have been the mistakes of everyone else. and that's a fairly understandable mistake, too, but it doesn't make me feel any better on the matter
look at #4 at OP's image. yes, people require different conditions to flourish. and twilight especially needed celestia to properly flourish, otherwise all that potential would've gone to waste, as all of our potential is going to waste on account of not having a benevolent horse goddess to help us out
first of all, the shapes and yadda yadda of the elements of harmony were ambiguous before being activated. i think that is interesting. perhaps not to be analysed
second of all, i believe it is a crown just because it's a literal 'crowning element' rather than to do with royalty, as we know it wans't intended (#0)
and third the 2000 character limit is brutal

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>>41810364
illexpand on the crown thing later but basically it feels like twilight was especially focused on because it's us and because she could not flourish on her own. rarity, applejack, pinkie, etc. are all (almost) maximally flourishing on their lonesome, alongside almost every other pony, hence possible less focus on them (atleast in season 1
and >since twilight is 'us', it could be interpreted as a commentary that most people cannot really maximally flourish without a strong base of support and without friends, friendship overshadowing all the hubba bubba about destiny hence why said destiny is mostly inferred or talked about in out-of-show tweets as to push the plot forward behind the stage to generate more interesting scenarios as opposed to standing on their own as a story
equestria being a gentler world, twilight gets the support she needs. or something like that its just an anontheory, a whole lot of words to see the show as a show rather than a defining cornerstone of my life, but it helps me think through it in a more sensible and healthy way to get this word splatter out and i do hope others have similarly complex opinions (complex not necessarily being clever or insightful, as i don't think i was particularly insightful either. just complex as in one doesn't tend to bring it up in conversation as it'd derail the thread over a minor tidbit)

>>41810137
>>41810138
>>41810141
>>41810144
>>41810149
>>41810155
>>41810161
>>41810364
>>41810391
Nice cut and past twislider

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>>41810161
That was a good read, op. So, is Twilight your favorite character then?

>as I haven't begun watching this show until a year ago
I see.

Yeah, everyone has brought this stuff up before.
>Twilight's friends stopped being as important as the show went on
>she became a different character
>the core values of the show changed
All popular complaints. People left the fandom over this stuff in season 3. A Canterlot Wedding had a lot of haters too back then. Though I personally enjoyed it, I can definitely see how it negatively affected that ensemble feel that S1 had. Hell, just compare Twilight's screentime in Best Night Ever to A Canterlot Wedding and you can see the difference. In Wedding, her friends don't even want to support her when Twilight goes against Cadance, until they do. And then they're kinda just her back up. I didn't care about any of that back then though, cause I was too busy posting in different threads about how hype the Changeling fight was, lel.

I like your idea about Twilight being over prepared, in a sense, and never having the right item to save the day with her friends. She's usually a very organized pony, but they'll have her occasionally misplace a book or something for a gag. They could have expanded on that, it would have been fun to see.

I actually like that the flaws of the ponies are quirks that are mostly used for comedy, and that they don't focus on them too hard. I never took the lessons or character development of the show very seriously, not compared to some people I've talked with on this board. The FiM crew could have done more with the great setting/characters they had, and a better show very likely could have been made as a result; I can't speak on that though because that's not what FiM is to me. To me it's a Faust cartoon. I liked the characters, the humor, the setting of Equestria and the lighthearted tone of the series. I liked watching six cute, funny ponies doing things. I think that's what the show always did best and that's what I was there for, and I was willing to forgive the occasional slip in continuity or character behavior in lieu of something interesting happening in the show. I only really stopped enjoying it entirely around season 9. Some of those episodes are so fucking bad. Ironically, the episode called Daring Doubt was the one that first made me think "Maybe it's good that the show is ending..."

And, yeah, Applejack really got it bad in the series; she almost always gets forgotten by Hasbro. I wish she had been the second main character in the MLP movie rather than Pinkie because I totally agree with everything you said about her being the second leader.

>>41810161
>reddit spacing
go back

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>>41810161
The most logical arc S1-S2 Twilight could have had was a sine wave of how she views friendship, her friends, herself, and her own idiosyncrasies. I don't think there's inherently any problem with her being able to solve every problem presented to her with magic, like a wizard in a TTRPG. The problems should first arise where her magic can't solve everything. I don't mean someone blocks her magic, because that's not preying on her weaknesses. What would have been interesting is if later episodes in S1 or at the start of S2 present problems that need simultaneous solutions great distances apart. Twilight -wants- to solve everything, but she can't because space and time doesn't allow it.

From this, she learns the importance of her friends, but her analytical mind processes the moral incorrectly. Her friends aren't there to support her, they're there to be -used- by her. That leads into the conflict of her creating plans and schedules not -with- her friends, but -for- her friends, which is diminishing their agency. That affects their abilities to be themselves, while also suppressing their chance to shine as their respective Elements. As they get weaker because Twilight is holding them back without realizing it, Twilight herself gets weaker, which is what allows whichever Big Bad you're interested in get the upper hand.

The end result is, naturally, Twilight realizing she's messed up and mislearned what friendship is and what the purpose of friends are. This leads into the next developmental arc where she's scared to take charge because she doesn't want to misuse her friends. However, her unwillingness to take action still causes problems, and now she's getting frustrated because nothing seems to work. If she takes charge, then she hurts her friends. If she doesn't take charge, then she harms them all the same. So the final arc is learning that there's a difference between commanding and delegating. She learns from Celestia's example that she, Twilight, is a unicorn that ponies want to look up to. Since her friends admire her, they want to do right by her, which means they're going to do what they thinks is best to solve whatever problem comes their way. Twilight's role, then, isn't to tell her friends what to do. Twilight lights the way by being able to help her friends better understand themselves, and help them realize what their full potential is. After all, Twilight is near-limitless in what she can do. She has the actual, tangible capacity to show others they can be more than what they are.

Probably the best example of this is, unfortunately, when Twilight was an alicorn, when she helped Rainbow Dash study for her Wonderbolts test.

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>>41810595
>I don't think there's inherently any problem with her being able to solve every problem presented to her with magic, like a wizard in a TTRPG
nothing concrete i can say except that i somewhat dislike it nonetheless. perhaps because of all the context and the way the show actually went though, perhaps in your proposed ideal i would not be bitching
that aside, i love your take on it, that would've been fantastic and the 'lighting the way' thing especially fits with #6 at OP
>>41810447
>So, is Twilight your favorite character then?
completely, involuntarily obsessed with them. don't know why but i just absolutely adore the character. i agree with what you're saying, the comment about flaws mostly being used for comedy was mostly just to contrast with how in the case for other characters it tends to fuck them over but with twilight, not so much. but yeah it's supposed to be a silly show, so honestly not a big deal, i just wanted to pile more stuff on and say everything on my mind
i personally had gripes with the show at even season 2, but different strokes for different folks, there's quite a few concepts and ideas and plots and so on that i did like from later seasons
i'll confess i never actually watched the movie, pinkie does strike me as a very interesting character. really remarkable social intelligence that got eroded over time
>>41810263
apparently faust did have some big plan cooked up in her mind. as curious as i am, i kind of don't want to know. i'd rather live in ignorance

>>41810161
Twilight is a shitty mary sue that undermined and stole development time from her friends

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>>41810137
Interesting analysis. I'm not sure if it's what you intended but it describes why I despise the character so much. Twilight is handed great power, friends, favored by the ruler of the nation, even her own cutie mark is given to her by dumb luck. Any flaws of hers are treated as a quirk and she faces no consequences for mistakes. She has lived the most privileged life anyone could ever have. The world is morphed to cater to her every whim, she is for all intents and purposes the center of the universe. It is all made worse when she is shoved into every episode, particularly in s1, in an attempt to make us like her and see how relatable she is, it only caused the opposite effect especially when she is being judgmental towards her friends. Seeing her actually earn any of these things would definitely have made it easier to swallow. The worst part is how she is made the leader of the group setting her above her friends which devalues the message of harmony. She is even this nebulous element that can't clearly be defined like all the others. Everything about her screams special muffin.

Thank you for the write up though. I like her archetype and enjoy seeing it in other shows when used correctly. Just a few thing need to be changed to make her feel like a more natural character. Faust's heart was in the right place when she wanted to appeal to all audiences, but concepts such as the elements of harmony and supervillains are better left to a show format designed to handle that, not a slice of life.

>>41810137
>I believe that God created the world in six literal days.
>Casts light in the darkness.
Wait, so Twilight really IS Pony Jesus?!

I feel like a lot of Twilight's problems are also a problem with tracking character's capabilities across the whole show. Stuff is in wild flux, and writers kept introducing things that really would've been useful in other episodes. It wasn't just that Twilight and all unicorns got stronger as the series went on, but also the abilities available to other ponies went down. This peaks with how often they even forget that Pegasus can fly.

>>41811966
So many of the show's problems come down to the fact that they didn't coordinate things at all. They just let individual writers write individual episodes and hoped it'd all come together in the end.

>>41811972
Yeah. How hard is it to dump all the episode ideas into a spreadsheet with a list of major characters and necessary changes to continuity before story boarding? That way they could manage appearance rates for different characters, order them so they can better build on and reference each other. It's not that complex a system, but it could fix so much.

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>>41811966
yes, this is honestly the biggest crippling factor to the 'harmony factor' of equestria to me
a lot of earth pony supposed strengths are headcanon, it really does just appear to be pure agriculture
which if you're not a farmer presents a bit of a problem. thus, everything they'd do out of that field would be more in SPITE of the fact that they're an earth pony than anything else, really should've had some other general capabilities, even a grab bag of smaller "powers" would've been nice to touch on
>peak performance unicorn : twilight
very powerful!
>peak performance pegasus : rainbow dash
very powerful!
>peak performance earth pony : applejack
uhhh...
you can even see this unfortunately bleed into the fandom too. the mental caste system is unicorn > pegasus > earth pony
and even those who attempt to "resolve" it often fall into the pitfall of trying different population distributions - like unicorns only being 10% of the population whilst earth ponies are 50% or whatever
this strikes me as an incredibly inharmonious way to "balance" things if you ask me - as such things do not matter to an individual pony, insufficient harmonization!
maybe earth ponies would've been better with cog and steel machines / runes / potions because they'd have more stored energy to utilise it. maybe their persistence and endurance could've been stretched out to something really monstrous. maybe an 'earth ponies cant be killed on equestrain soil' sort of thing where nature is always on their side and they can draw life force from the fauna around them.

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>peak performance earth pony :
It's Maud. Doesn't really push it much further to include her though, but if you expand on her things, I think that makes the ideal earth pony. Like perfectly controlling how things are damaged when she hits them. You kind of see this with applejack knocking the apples off of a tree when she bucks it rather than knocking the tree over.

>>41812623
>You kind of see this with applejack knocking the apples off of a tree when she bucks it rather than knocking the tree over.
The problem is that the show didn't think of that as earth pony magic so we see pegasi bucking just fine in Applebuck Season.

it ideally should not be something that's never explicitly touched on and something that we attempt to infer from reading inbetween the lines. i understand inherently an earth pony's prowess would be more subtle but my point stands and if it IS going to be subtle it should be TALKED about, otherwise you're relying too much on headcanonium. though at this rate to enjoy the base show i need to be drinking pure headcanonium because i am autistic

Speaking from a Doylist perspective on the issue, the plain fact is that earth ponies are not exotic in the eyes of either a would be audience or those that helmed the show's development. There's little reason to elaborate or develop the earth ponies in the show further when you got a unicorn right there. Or in later seasons, an alicorn.

That isn't to say that they do not have the capabilities to be interesting, but you need to develop and iterate on possible concepts and the like. While I shall freely admit I have only watched the show sporadically from S2, most of the show's focus seemed ill equipped to develop the earth pony in terms of abilities and the like further than what was strictly needed. Again, you have an alicorn right there front and center. Why bother with what is more or less just a horse that can talk fancy when you got a magic wielder and/or flyer right there? The answer, you don't. Alicorn.

While I do loathe for how Twilight turned out in lore, I can understand the reasons behind the scenes why the developers for the show took her the way they did. She's the main character for a show designed to sell toys. Nothing more, nothing less. The individuals developing the show might give a damn, but they are ultimately subordinate to the whims of selling the character so little boys, girls, and oversized manchildren, (I.E: Us.) are convinced to go out to store shelves to buy plastic miniatures for them, which it did quite well.

Compare that to Applejack. She's a farmer. She bucks apples. That's more or less it. You *could* try to develop on that further. Make make something to the effect of handling things with hooves similar to how a unicorn uses their horn, or a pegasus their wings. Maybe even add a bit of druid influence and use something like having a wreath loped around to use it enable dexterity via vine manipulation. That would have been cool.

But again, Twilight Sparkle. Alicorn. Need I say more? Seeing what the leaks from a few years back revealed in how they more or less booted Applejack from the show or altered her significantly, you could make the argument that earth ponies could be removed and not suffer much ill effect as far as the wider audience is concerned. I'd hate it, but I could believe Hasbro could have gotten away with something like that if they were so inclined for a reboot.

For my part, I mostly ignore the show and draw upon fanon and head canon alike when writing fanfiction. The show either could not, or would do the things that could have been done to "refine" it. The show did not need to, seeing as it did its job adequately of selling toys. When it comes to glorified commercials, you don't need much to sell a toy. Expecting more from the show just because of the earlier efforts was... Naive to say the least. I do not agree with the sentiment, but that's the guiding principle of the show. At least we have fanfiction to alleviate such pains, if nothing else.

twilight wall of text thread

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>>41813436
Like she would've wanted.

>>41813948
>taking turns rambling autistically about subjects with twilight
>she has no idea what the fuck you're talking about but she's still happy to listen
>her subject's just as baffling to you but the enthusiasm is infectious
Now that's a fun evening.

>>41813965
>men only want one thing and it’s fucking disgusting

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>>41810137
>Bad points
Interesting that it doesn't say "overly neurotic" unlike Twilight's description in the later seasons Bible. That's a huge part of what made pre-Haber Twilight feel more natural. Like, taking on responsibilities and having insecurities naturally aligns with being neurotic, but it's not just that. It's not just one stupid joke with wacky faces repeated dozens of times. Even Lesson Zero itself spent an episode building up to Twilight getting really unhinged. In later seasons she enters that state at the drop of a hat. Such sad flanderization, and even sadder than many people defend this and treat acting like pic related as some sort of natural core character trait for Twilight.

>>41814054
It's a lot easier to have a 'go crazy' button to press instead of having to treat your children's cartoon character as a real person with unique issues they struggle with. The latter's more compelling but much harder to write.

mlp character analysis on 4chan in the year of our lord 2025

>>41814066
Personally, I love to see it

>>41814385
Yeah me too

>>41810447
>A Canterlot Wedding had a lot of haters too back then. Though I personally enjoyed it, I can definitely see how it negatively affected that ensemble feel that S1 had.
Really? Looking back, I can never really recall any backlash when it came out. I only noticed it getting criticized retroactively after Twilicorn happened, because it introduced the idea of having more than two alicorns. Sudden brother that was never mentioned before appeared out of nowhere? Shows have been doing that for decades. I recall everyone loving it when it came out, loving the new villain and race, loving This Day Aria, with only pony analysis channels and supernerds talking about "retcons," not that I ever found out where they said Celestia and Luna were the only two.

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>>41813257
how incredibly depressing, these characters deserved so much better. and this is how they'll be remembered forever by most people. at least a few pieces of fanfic seem to vaguely feel the same way, but you first must trudge through the twilicorn or adjacent stories. such a small number though! can't help but make myself feel wrong or dumb for having such thoughts. i can only hope the real equestria to not be like so

>>41814927
No, sudden brother, third alicorn, and the worfing were huge points of contention that caused lots of hate.

I have a question: Has any fanfic ever tried to tell the story that Faust originally envisioned as best as we can understand it? And secondly, are there any fanfics that read as if they were secretly written by her using an anonymous account? Do you think that it’s at all possible that she may’ve done such a thing herself? She wouldn’t tell anyone if she had, as it might look unprofessional, but maybe she did it anyway. Is that possible? Link any fanfics that either attempt to tell her planned story or even that you think she could’ve written herself.

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>>41815309

Mmm. It is what it is, Anon. I got on the ride very early on in this show's life cycle. Not the earliest back when it started brewing upon on /co/ when some blogger criticizing the show unknowingly lit the spark for it to bloom on the site "ironically". But I was close when I first spotted this show sometime in around 2011. I was there when Luna was not even a character beyond the brief few seconds we saw, unless you count Nightmare Moon as part of her characterization as a whole. I was there when I saw the collective fandom fill the void in her backstory and character, along with the myriad of background ponies who would otherwise have gone unnoticed and without a voice to speak of at all.

It. Was. Glorious.

But yeah, I cannot say I was much a fan of the show after S3. The first warning signs for me personally started with Luna Eclipse, and whatever... That loud, boisterous pony with the same name as Luna came on to fruition. I've since warmed up to this version of the character, but it was a telling sign of things to come when it came to how the show would unfold from there. The others, such as with the Canterlot wedding with this brother and alicorn who we did not know of previously, and the Twilicorn incident that saw a good many people jump ship for other pastures. And... Equestria Girls.

To be earnest, I found further refugee in the few fanfic writers who stuck to their guns and wove their craft in a manner to push the show, the characters, and world in a way that those at the helm could not, would not be able to due to various mandates and other issues. But alas, fanfic writers are inherently dependent on the show's canon. If a poor helmsman takes the wheel, like with Star Wars, then I usually find most people will follow it hell or high water. Or even worse, attempt to retroactively "fix" their works to fit in with the new canon. I cannot say I fully understand those people, lacking so much faith in their own work and fanon to stand on its own as a time capsule for what came before. It's one thing to stay faithful to the spirit of the source material. Another to blindly follow in its footsteps, often to the detriment of the work itself. But that's a rant for another thread.

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>>41816146

Judging by how the show ended up in the last few seasons, it seems I didn't miss all that much. I've watch an episode here or there sporadically, with the occasional recap to keep up via osmosis. But there was always something that just seemed wrong whenever I popped in. If there's one thing I am absolutely positive of, it's that alicorn Twilight happened waaaaay too early in the show's life cycle. It's not something that can be blamed on the creators at the time, seeing as they were running under the impression that Season 3 would have been the final season, so it makes sense from that perspective. If it's the final season, an alicorn Twilight seems something fitting as anything to end with. But it didn't, and that put the show's creators in a tight spot in how to handle Twilight, something that seemed to cripple both her character arc and development, which by extension kneecapped her friends in comparison. It doesn't help the show's natural format and the like preclude any attempts at a much larger story focus like with Avatar: The Last Airbender, at least not as easily.

I think the most telling thing for me is that I am just apathetic for what happened to Equestria by the time G5 rolled around. It's similar for me in regards to what happened to the likes of Star Wars with the sequel trilogy and how it more or less wreaked the continuity and decades of collective investment in three fell strokes, where you would be hard pressed to find anyone under the age of twenty five giving a shit about Star Wars as a franchise due how it was handled. MLP in that regards is similar. It could have been more than a passing fad in the wind, if certain things had gone a certain direction. It would not have reached Star Wars or Pokemon peaks of popularity, but it sure came within spitting distance for a short while if nothing else. I cannot find a similar fandom beyond those I just mentioned put so much creative investment and energy into pouring out a veritable deluge of fanworks. FiM hit at the right spot and at the right time for it to happen to be sure, but it could have been more than the sum of its parts.

If nothing else, at least I have my copeium in the form of fanfiction to visit an Equestria and characters that never was nor could be in the show.

I personally don't think Twilicorn should've happened at all, but if they were going to go through with it anyway, yeah, too early in the show's lifespan.

>>41815841
None that I know of. She doesn't seem like the type to do something like that, either. Perhaps for the better. The real Equestria exists only in our heads, and it varies for each one of us. The main show being shit was a blessing, as it forced us into our heads. I think that's a good thing.

>>41810137
bump

>>41816184
Definitely jumped the shark, probably would've prevented creaturequestria otherwise

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>>41817788
I don't think there's much else to be said right now, no real reason to bump the thread unless you want to contribute an opinion of your own. I actually wanted to write a lot more but it'd probably be better to wait a year, let the thoughts stew more and write something even more comprehensive? (Also, my keyboard is half-broken.) The only meaningful reaction to any of this would be to ensure whatever pony related work you create reflects a more harmonized ideal. I'm still 'new' to this pony business, so I haven't contributed much. I do plan to make a little game that reflects these ideas and have made a harmonized lorebook for /chag/. So I hope that if you agree with my points enough, you'll do something similar.
Applejack appreciation image.

I don’t think Twilight being too overpowered and lacking struggles inherently makes her a bad character. One of her main traits early on was humility. Remember Boat Busters? Twilight doesn’t feel she deserves everything she’s been given in life, but Celestia has made sure to provide it all for her because she believes in her pupil.

Maybe if the show didn’t go to shit, Twilight might’ve chosen a lower status in life and rejected the Princess’s help and guidance, insisting that other ponies deserve it more than her. She could even try to escape her destiny, only to realize that her willingness to put others before herself is actually a big part of what makes her so great. The more she tries to lower her own status and put her friends first, the stronger her magic grows, even as she tries to resist it. Eventually she has no choice but to be the most powerful wizard Equestria has ever known, all thanks to her friendship.

Her primary character flaw and her primary strength could be two sides of the same coin: humility and insecurity. That could make her a really interesting character that teaches nuanced lessons, rather than the vapid, know-it-all cunt that she actually became.

>>41818693
I'm fine with her being exceptional. I'm fine with her being from a well-off background. I just don't like the destiny stuff. It just makes me think, "is it not possible for everypony else to reach the same level due to inherent limitations and universal preferences"? I know in the real world, it too has this sort of deterministic cruelty. I just think Equestria should be free of that sort of destiny-fuelled favouritism - Harmony shouldn't be that, in my opinion. This is more of just a personal opinion, I take equality and such very seriously for reasons out of my understanding and I detest the concept of destiny as portrayed in media. I guess Twilight does too considering her behaviour and how she treated those cupcakes at the start of Lesson Zero.

>>41818675
>and have made a harmonized lorebook for /chag/.
Thanks for this. I've given it a download but I've yet to test it out. From a quick glance I liked what you put for the Earth Ponies entry. I'm a fan of the rune magic & nature connection they have.

>>41818708
>Harmony shouldn't be that, in my opinion.
Why not? We have different roles in life. Some people are better at holding important positions than others. And as I suggested for how she could’ve been characterized, that type of responsibility can actually be a huge burden on some people. The people who want it the least really are the most deserving of it, in the real world AND in my version of the story.

Of course, I took from the friendship power thing to suggest that her humility actively literally gives her strength. That’s obviously a fantasy element, but just like how having people that you’re close with can actually help you in the real world even if you don’t shoot out lasers, there’s a basis in the real world to my idea. If you’re thinking of others before yourself, others will support you in leadership positions. There’s a reality to it.

“Now if the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.” - 1 Corinthians 15–20

Having different roles to play does not mean that anyone is more “important” than anyone else. Some people are natural leaders, others are great at making their friends laugh, or taking care of their family, or showing love to people. That’s what the message of the show was supposed to be all about. Your problem with it is that you’re putting a value on these roles, by saying “If someone had a lot of magic, that would make them more important than their friends.” That’s simply not true. We shouldn’t be telling kids that every single one of them can literally do anything they want. That’s not accurate. The beauty in the truth is that we’re all different yet every single one of us matters and has a purpose.

And I don’t know how you’ll feel about the Bible verse, it’s cool if it’s not your thing. I just think it’s important to recognize that issues like these go back forever, and the statement Paul was making there was a very thoughtful and empathetic one. We were all born different. If that weren’t the case, we wouldn’t be able to work together the way different parts of a body do. Doing that is what harmony is!

>>41818751
Oh sorry, I messed up the verse attribution. It’s chapter 12, verses 15–20.

>>41818751
I do understand what you're saying, but I believe it would be better if her talents and potential were inferred rather than it being explicitly given by some greater powerful force. May write another response later.
>Corked Magical Potential
>Magic Cutiemark
I think these can be safely removed and adjusted respectively.
>Crown Element of Harmony
>Explicitly being told they're the best
More contentious, but I think these can be adjusted too.
With these simple tweaks she remains extraordinarily gifted and a natural leader, but it'll feel more like a natural extension from her rather than something external. I think this would drive in the message you're talking about better, prime the story canvas better, resolve my worries about 'destiny' and make her *feel* more like an equal too. Symbolism is important. All the while it'll still be apparent that a lot of it was from some natural aptitude, too. (Though I genuinely do believe that the potential for every person is much greater than they'd think, this all still works without accounting for such.)

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The Manga is the closest we will ever get to see pony stories the way Faust originally envisioned them.
Hell, the manga staff did it's best to avoid anything past S02 and it also ignored the comics and spinoffs except when Hasbro explicitely ordered them to reference them.

>>41816146
Finally someone else whos an actual old fag. So many people here are larpers or think joining in 2016 makes them old.
>luna
God dont remind me.
Its funny, lauren clearly had a different idea for her than the next showrunners. I think the fandom picked up on that. I really miss that characterization of her as a kind of moody and demure emo-girl.
>>41816151
Something that ive always wondered about is- why aren't early fags making their own version of g4?
There is literally so many ways to do this and avoid copyright infringment.... Its just strange to me. Especially since so many of us were so creative back then.

>>41818905
I think about this alot. Its not even something hard to do- look at tamers. He makes his own g4 thing. Yeah its mostly a literal shitpost- but the guy is constantly referencing explicitly early g4 fandom trends. And it works- love or hate him hes a constant topic.
There is literally no reason a couple of early fags couldnt get together and make their own version of g4. We made good OCs, the early fics are some of the best so we know we had good story tellers, the art is almost always better....
It just boggles me is all im getting at. We have literally a tremendous amount of resources and endless ability to avoid copyright. But we never make anything and the board goes looking for content with objectively inferior horse-toons.
Its depreasing

>>41818859
I really loved the first two tomes, and could only salute the very nice effort they did for the third one.
I hope there will be more, but I doubt so...

>>41818918
>the early fics are some of the best
I'd love to hear some of your favourites from back then

>>41818931
God, there were alot.... And alot that have been deleted
I dont remember all the titles so
>pinkie gets diabetes
>cough
>Twilight stuck in insane asylum
>background pony
>discord in a moral debate with celestia over his right to rule equestria and the genocide of draconequus
Last one was especially a favourite. Early discord lore was awesome.
Theres others....ill try to think of them. But so much of our stuff is just gone now- we only really statted to archive seriously later on.

>>41818989
>>pinkie gets diabetes
>>cough
>>Twilight stuck in insane asylum
>>background pony
Good to know I recognise each of these—even if I've only read The Cough. The one you mentioned is a mystery to me.
As for old fics, sites like fimfetch or foalfetch are pretty reliable. If they're not on there, there's always trawling through old EQD posts to find gdoc links.

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>>41818905

Considering the current cadre for those that frequent this board or other sites, there's very few here would could be considered and actual oldfag as far as the fandom is concerned. It's nice to know that there are like minded individuals who were around from back then. It's understandable why most folks don't gravitate towards that characterization of Luna these days, but I must confess I have a soft spot for that version of the character.

For those not around, she was actually far more popular than Celestia was at the time. Counting Nightmare Moon as part of her character, the zeitgeist and gestalt of the time as far as the culture back then was concerned, made it fertile breeding grounds for internet creatives to go nuts and balls to the wall with envisioning any number of things for both Luna, the other background characters, backstories for the rest of the Mane 6, the world building, you name it. The sky was the limit back then.

If you want a very spicy hot take, I think the show was better world building wise when much of it was left a mystery. The more the show filled in, the less magical it became. Perhaps it is my bias as a fanfic writer and reader alike, but I've notice certain trends over time where the more experimental and ambitious fanfics seem to have gone by the wayside. Instead, these works slowly became homogenized in terms of their depictions of Equestria and the characters within as a whole. Which no duh, of course it would trend to that as the world developed as we learned more about it. But in doing so, it became more cosmopolitan. Banal. Even generic.

One of those experimental works from before Twilight's ascension naturally dealt with the what ifs of her or even the rest of the Mane 6 becoming an alicorn or something of the like. One of the more popular concepts was her actually being the daughter of either Celestia or Luna all along, being so unusually powerful that perhaps there was more to that than meets the eye.

Of course it was not strictly within the confines of canon, only mere conjecture. But that's what made the early fandom so damn fun to watch and participate it with regards to fanfiction. The sky was the limit, and you could go balls to the wall with such ideas and take them to the limit. It didn't always result in something great, good, or even okay. But when it actually did hit, it hit hard center mass. There were a couple different takes from the ones I invested in, differing views on how Twilight would be able to take and cope with the concept of either being born with the potential to be an alicorn or becoming one via some other means, but the point is that they were varied and many with something for everyone. Or if you didn't like that, you could compartmentalize it as just being fanfiction and move on with your day.

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>>41819516
Which... Isn't possible with the show canon. If the show made a statement on something, the rest of the fandom would more or less follow in the footsteps laid down by it. That includes fanfiction, some of the already existing ones twisting themselves to the point where it hurt the consistency and quality of the works themselves. Which of course is a natural part of the life cycle, and I would be remiss if I said the fandom didn't produce anything of value going forward as the show developed. But it would have been nice to keep that gestalt of the 2011-2012 era alive in some fashion, if only for posterity's sake. It might have been possible, were there efforts to actually categorize and label said works beyond the mere dating system they used. Even something as simple as using a Season 1 tag for a site like Fimfiction would have done much to both preserve the "spirit" of that era while also allowing it to coexist peacefully with the then current canon of the day.

There was a brief period in time on Fimfiction where there existed character tags for both Twilight Sparkle and her ascended canon variant. Something that was nice to have, but apparently Knightly only did so because of the massive amount of what he considered bitching from a vocal minority, and promptly took down the tag and made it impossible to filter out the which stories used either her alicorn or unicorn version. It's his site to do with as he pleases, but I cannot say I am not a resentful of his rather dishonest handling of the situation. I would have preferred he never implemented the temporary tag system if that is what he really felt about it, rather than cultivating some measure of false hope that the old unicorn Twilight could have been preserved in some fashion. Perhaps it is too much to ask for, but Seasonal tags would have done much to at least cultivate, compartmentalize and preserve the spirit of the seasons as they were at the time. If you ask me, I don't think there would have been as much bitching for the show going forward if there was some effort made to better preserve those old efforts for future posterity. But here we are, and most of what is show on the future box is decidedly rooted in post S9 or G5. At least the old groups exist to browse through along with old favorites, but it isn't the same.

But there do exist some old archives here and there that capture some of that spirit, if not the discussion surrounding them.

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>>41819520

>>41818931
Speaking of recommendations though, he Anon above me posted some decent recs, but there are more out there if you wish to peruse them.

https://www.deviantart.com/jlryan/gallery/36883186/ereader-ready-ponyfic-pdf-s

This user has one such set of works. As far as I know, this is one of the very few sets of works which contain the mostly unaltered original forms of the fics from the 2011-2013 era. It isn't comprehensive, but it gives a good snapshot of the works back then. It's been a while since I last re-read it, but https://www.deviantart.com/jlryan/art/Freeze-Frame-eReader-320986951 was a very solid effort that managed to eventually get an original, published version out the door somewhere back in the day.

Another would be https://www.deviantart.com/jlryan/art/An-Earth-Pony-s-Guide-to-Magic-eReader-299743873, which also does a splendid job of capturing the then fanon for some of the characters, like Pinkie's sisters. It's a decent run of an earth pony descendant of Star Swirl attempting to find her place in the world, having the same cutie mark as her ancestor. It's incomplete, but it is a nice run for what it is worth.

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/26192/mendacity is a changeling fic featuring Bon Bon, detailing some interesting head canon inspired by the more whimsical fairytales regarding the fae and the like, and also should have a group of surrounding fics in the groups listed that should have a repository of earlier works for changelings of the era.

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/54894/the-archer-and-the-smith is an excellent work from 2012. Not exactly from the earliest era, but it's a very solid work that could be considered a mini epic from start to finish in its own right. It's just the right length to burn through in an hour, but you'll remember this one from start to finish.

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>>41819526

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/2365/allegrezzahttps://www.fimfiction.net/story/2365/allegrezza is "the" fic that established the OctaScratch shipping as we know it, and in part some of the characterizations that last to the present day. Before the eye reveal, it also popularized Vinyl Scratch's eye color being pure red to contrast her jet blue mane and white coat, and Octavia's personality and mannerisms. I would not say it is the best shipping fic out there, and this is where your milage may vary depending on your enjoyment of such works. But it's a solid addition, and I like it well enough to recommend here.

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/65059/heart-of-gold-feathers-of-steel along with its two sequels are an excellent character study of Gilda from the 2012 period, along with a novel characterization of the gryphons as a species. I won't spoil it, but let's just say they are in worse straits than what was seen in canon. It's an enjoyable work, seeing Gilda grow from what we saw her in the initial appearance she made, to becoming a Royal Guard along with someone to call a partner. If you must read a Gilda fic from the era, you can't go wrong with this one. It also includes one of the last remnants of the S1 Luna that I've been able to find, albeit in a brief scene. So if you are interest in that, give it a look.

https://www.deviantart.com/jlryan/art/The-Ambassador-s-Son-eReader-299745851 is a solid enough addition with regards to the world building of the dragons, and the gryphons to a lesser extent. The work itself features a young earth pony being adopted by a dragon after their parents died. I cannot say much without spoiling this one, too. But the work has a vastly different characterization of the dragons that err towards their more mythical side of things than what was seen in the show proper. Besides that, it's a solid read to see a young colt ascend to become something greater than the sum of his parts.

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/86528/lost-to-the-sands is one hell of a doozy. It utilizes a mixture of S1 and the S2 Luna, but it also encapsulates a finer look into one version of Discord. Without spoiling it, canon pales in comparison to what this Discord is capable of in contrast. As for Celestia and Luna, I find this is one of the better works featuring them, tragic though it may be.

I have plenty more, but I shall leave that for another posting tomorrow if this thread still lives. I hope this gives at least a small sample size of what came before. There is more to come, and with videos and pictures if I can find them. But for now, enjoy these works in earnest. The thread is enjoyable so far, so I hope it shall persist for a little longer more.

>>41818919
The third tome was the one where Hasbro ordered them to reference the series' finale AND Pony Life, so of course it was the weakest of all three.

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>>41818732
Thanks anon, suggestions are always welcome. Hope it serves you well.

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>>41818918

There are a few issues here that make it a difficult proposition, Anon.

Motivation, and the fact that collaborative efforts are difficult to pull off consecutively over time. We're at a stage in the fandom's life cycle where there remains few oldfags that have not jumped ship for other pastures or are otherwise not demotivated with regards to creative pursuits. Even those that remains and are willing, putting those creative skills to use in such a way that is enjoyable regardless if you were there in the early days or are just jumping on is another matter to consider.

That, and collaborative efforts need a chemistry and synergy among those that participate in such projects. Such things are inherently vulnerable in all that it takes is one or two valuable creatives to have some form of creative differences, IRL pushing in, or the like to derail and eventually kill the project. Take a look at any would be collaborative efforts in the past fifteen years. Abridged series, voice acting, animations, game projects, whatever, and ask yourself how many of those have actually come into fruition within this fandom alone or elsewhere. To take an example from Fighting Herds, once MLP: Fighting is Magic, and see where it is now. They did decently for what they were able to achieve, but were not able to capitalize on those efforts and push out into a greater creative fandom. As a result, that project is more or less withering on the vine with no fandom support that I can see at present.

Fandom in that sense is vital to keep a given series or the like in the current collective consciousness. While not dead, FiM at present is not at a point where those said oldfags may be motivated to make something that will not fit in the current environment. That isn't to say they don't exist, such as with that recent animation with https://youtu.be/96x_FKorfQ0.

Plus, there's a smattering of smaller animators and the like out in the wild to consider as well like with SFM.

https://youtu.be/3pEIUzNv2gI

And let's not forget the proof of concept AI episode from two years back.

https://youtu.be/QLGlrY7cooY

>>41818859
Why didn't the manga blow up and become its own long running series, I thought fans were desperate for a return to Faust-like storytelling. Wasn't it the high-quality masterpiece level writing that made FiM popular?

>>41820247
The manga was hard to access for newbies, it's not exactly a surprise that it didn't take off.

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>>41820228
But such projects are the exception, not the rule as far as creative energies among multiple people are concerned. It isn't impossible, but you need a very dedicated cadre of creative people with multiple talents to bring to the table. Most folks don't have that energy, which is fine. But there needs to be an incentive in order for it to be fulfilling, even if something as small as having the satisfaction of making such a vision among multiple people come true. Right now, the environment is somewhat sterile for those efforts to say the least. You’d first need to find those people, and then you need to convince them in some way, shape or form to participate in what could be a very long term project. Most of those creatives who might have been invested in the early stuff have long since moved on and/or are also busy with IRL shit. The ones with actual talent, the ones who might have cared have probably moved on to ventures where they can actually provide themselves with an income. Considering the current economic climate, a collaborative project that you speak of is a luxury that few can afford, even if we assume that there was big Patreon bucks involved and Hasbro didn’t immediately slam it with C&Ds or the like.

That isn’t to say you cannot cultivate a crop of new talent among the fandom, but then you would need to invest and convince those who grew up with the current FiM that there is something worth going back to as far as the early stuff is concerned.

Assuming any of you would be creatives are reading this, I would suggest you start small. Toy around with software like Blender or SFM. Read a couple fics from the old days, craft a scene or two and see how that works out. Doesn’t even need to be an animation to start off with. Even an animatic or still would suffice.

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>>41820272
Anyway, I come bearing more fic recommendations. I forgot to mention it last post, but do note that some fics from back in the day have two or more versions that have been updated as the show progressed to reflect the then current canon of the day. So if you wish to truly relive those work as they were originally posted, hunt for them on the likes on Equestria Daily with the fic name. Sites like Fimfiction will usually have a more refined work, but they are more likely to have been altered to fit then updated standards, such as with Past Sins to name one example. Fics published around 2011 to 2012 will be your best bet, follow by some works in 2013 before Twlight’s ascension.

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/49906/the-assumption-of-applejack-or-appletheosis follows the ascension of Applejack into an alicorn. Chosen by Harmony, she is thrusted into a life altering shift within her form, and must cope with her changing reality as she learns the origins of alicorns and the Princesses. This fic, plus many others, is illustritive of the more experimental aspects toying with the concepts of more alicorns back then, something you don't see as often if at all these days. The world building is excellent, and it would have made for a solid addition within the show's world building if canon ever chose to do so.

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/72594/the-alicorn-delusion is a similar deal, only with changelings instead of alicorns. Another experimental work from way back way that deserves a read.

Lastly for the time being, I bring https://www.fimfiction.net/story/339/progress. It's one of the first and foremost looks into Luna's character prior to her official canon appearance in S2 that does not involve overly moody brooding or the like. It's a fun little romp, albeit not to everyone's taste. Do keep in mind that the Fimfic version for this work has been updated to reflect the S2 counterpart. As far as I am aware, the version set on Equestria Daily and the deviantART repository still retain their original selves, so go there if you wish to get an idea of what that version of the character was like before canon came along to fill the void.

I must go now, dinner calls. I hope these stories bring you something as much as they did for me.

>>41818905
>lauren clearly had a different idea for her than the next showrunners
>he doesn't know
Luna Eclipsed is one of the S2 episodes Faust was most involved in. She was clearly on board with that characterisation and has talked about how Luna had essentially no character before.

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Lauren wasn't infallible. If you agree with the points made in OPs post, this is more apparent. She was just a good writer, not a goddess. It's fine to disagree with some of her decisions, or think another direction would've been better. A lot of people, for example, complain about Shining Armor's sudden appearance. But he's actually entirely Faust approved even if he wasn't meant to be a Prince.

>>41820253
That's too bad.

>>41820228
I don't see why a single person can't solo a manga/comic though. That's primarily how it's done in japan, one visionary writes and draws everything, everything is to his specific vision undiluted by coworkers.

It's only if you want to turn it into a full on animation that you bring in a team. Their job is mainly to replicate the original author's vision as close as possible in animated form, and in some cases it ends up improving it.


That's why anime is commonly considered the peak of entertainment

>>41820308
Because I'd rather work on CelestAI so I can enjoy ponies forever

>>41820308

A fair enough point. But you need to be exceedingly dedicated to the craft, and the life style of a mangaka is one that most here in the fandom would balk at for good reason. The life of a mangaka is a brutal one, demanding a strict schedule to adhere to in order to maintain regular updates, often with the hope of gaining some measure of an audience that may or may not last a single year. If you consider the possibility that any would be artist have needs to pay for, and with the uncertain proposition that such a work might produce in terms of neetbucks, it's not difficult to see why none have materialized as either comic or fanfiction.

On top of that, the landscape for such works has changed, the audience for such having long shifted to other interests, fandoms, and IRL obligations. Any such audience accrued would be a small one indeed. That isn't to say you could not update your update schedule accordingly to reflect a healthier life style, but such projects are big asks regardless. God knows I've been trying to figure out how to get my own S1-S2 inspired project off the ground, figuring out a way to make something decent that at least will gain some eyeballs. I cannot speak for anyone but myself, but I appreciate whenever I get a comment on my works, be it praise or constructive criticism. The former for the sheer vanity of it, and the latter because someone gives enough of a damn about my works to actually try to offer some measure of critique to help improve it.

I have posted a couple projects here in the past couple of years, both to this board and others. Some gained a bit of notoriety, and others were met with radio silence. If all you are doing is shouting out into the void, it's hard to figure out a reason to why bother than for the sake of the craft itself. That, and I must confess I have been stonewalled in trying to figure out certain details. Anyone can write. But not everyone can write well. But I can at least say I have the foundations set, and bits and pieces set out that need fine finishing and tuning. The issue is getting the whole picture out. Such as the logistics of the craft.

>>41820305
>She was just a good writer
Not even that, she was a good showrunner with a great vision, though. Her actual writing was mediocre.

>>41820375
Most of her Foster's episodes are pretty good but giving her writing credit for most of MLP, even in S1-2, is just silly

>>41820308
>I don't see why a single person can't solo a manga/comic though.
Because that takes a lot of time and effort, which might not even pay off because there's plenty of manga that fails and gets cancelled after 5 chapters that you never even hear about because no one bothered localizing it. The manga that you do hear about is less about an undiluted auteur vision and more about compromising on that by appealing to the market.

>>41820247
Seven Seas, the manga publisher, is just a small publisher so just creating the manga in the first place was already a huge risk for them. Plus, if you have read their manga you can already tell it was never meant to go beyond it's third volume.
It still was better than post S05 and IDW pony, though. Much, MUCH better.

>>41820305
>Shining Armor was Faust approved
Was he though? I thought Faust refused to have any participation in Canterlot Wedding because she was so opposed to Cadence and Shining Armor.

>>41820807
Just Cadence, I believe. And no, she approved the original version of the story. Cadence becoming an alicorn princess may be one of the final straws that made her leave the show; she never approved of that.

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>>41820807
>>41820816
Shining, Chryssi, and Cadance were all characters Faust & Renzetti came up with. The episode is pretty much identical to the idea they had for it, minus Cadance's wings obviously. Faust also stated that she found out about those the same time we did when the episode aired, they therefore can't be a reason she left the show.

>>41821071
Okay. So her being an alicorn is still non-canon, though. And I think being a princess at all as well.

It's so cringe how everything has to be about her starting with S3

i just didn't like the wings because i don't think they fit her character but you can overthink it too