SilverStarApple

He's known as a powerful businesspony and mage that's sort of a hero, in the sense that he's Neutral Good. He'll fight evil, but prioritize the foes he'll get the biggest reward for fighting, or have the most fun/challenge battling. He's helped many ponies fulfil their dreams for a price, though nopony can agree on what that price is. Finally, he's the type of hero that won't spare a villain if the villain can't be used or redeemed.

I'm wondering if there may be any truth to what you say. After all, perfection is a lie and anything can be improved. Then, I remember that you hate the term SJW, and begin to wonder why. Tell me why.

Spike being an eastern dragon actually makes a surprising amount of sense, and I wish I came up with this theory first. I would steal it, but I'm not Game Theory.

I remember being here a few years ago. I was legitimately shocked at how nice everypony was. I made my first real friends here. And now... they're all gone. I don't know what happened to most of them. They just stopped talking to me or replying. Now, I can count the friends I have on one hand and still have fingers left over. And this site... it's different. The debate pit is the most active part of the forum and anyone that objects to SJW crap gets banned or shadowbanned. Anyone that whines about hurt feelings in a debate gets to win it because their opponent gets a warning. The genuine love and tolerance, the people inspired by the show and its message that a beautiful world could exist... they're gone. Did they all leave after having bad experiences on Fimfic.net, where if you aren't a multi-story front-page author with a few hundred sycophants and people clamouring to write stories in your "Verse" to try and lick up some of your delicious fame, you're nothing, and will be treated as such by every bitter hack that hates your genre, OCs that aren't "Socially awkward, utterly talentless, nerdy, stupid, and unloved, this loser is you!"-brand reader stand-ins as pathetic as the reviewer, and will take a dump on you to make their own candle seem brighter? What happened? When did you all lose that spark of hope? When did you let the haters win? When did you all stop being bronies?

Yep. And those Flower Ponies... At first, they were funny, but... they just suck.

This show doesn't really have hills. More like sudden pitfalls where the writers drop the ball, it turns out to be a nuclear bomb, and they unleash an unholy abomination upon the fandom while calling it an episode. And when they carry the ball without failing, it's a great show.

There's no easy way to say this, but that episode was absolutely, completely and utterly dreadful. It was utterly awful, and a strong contender for the worst episode of this entire show. At least Boast Busters TRIED to do something somewhat original, even if it failed utterly. At least Bost Busters attempted do be something more than shameless and shallow pandering. This episode? It rips off the "Classic" (Overused) plot where two idiots give up something they love to get something to complement the thing the other would love, like giving up a pocketwatch to get a violin bow, while your GF gives up her violin and crappy bow to get a pocketwatch chain. In the end, both lost what they loved and are miserable. The moral of this story? Gifts suck. Now, there is a list of ponies in this show that need to learn some friendship. To learn what gifts are and how they work. To learn how to be a good sister. Pinkie Pie IS NOT ON THIS LIST! If there was a single pony, or any sentient creature ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET EQUESTRIA IS ON that knows how gifts work, it would be her! But of course, if you (Or rather, the writers) knew that, or bothered to read the notes the past writers left them, they wouldn't have shoehorned this stupid side-plot into a Rarity episode and made it the real plot, while shoving Rarity's Location Hunt into the dirt. A scenario like that has tons of comedy potential, IRL apartment-hunting references, and of course, the obligatory "Nowhere is perfect and everywhere is terrible. But if you work hard, you can make your own perfect patch of heaven!" message. Instead, Rarity was forced onto this plot so ridiculously cliched I remember The House Of Mouse doing this plot with Mickey and Minnie Mouse as part of a clip-show Christmas Special thing. And to wrap up loose ends, Rarity was just handed the perfect location and the fallout of the Terrible Gifts Plot is negated when Maud gets Pinkie's party cannon back. Why does this stupid episode exist? Why does it feel like it was thrown together at the last second? Because it was, and for one reason. Maud. The favourite character of everyone that likes bland one-note kuuderes with Robot-Type Hollywood Autism, happily projecting onto the blank slate whatever that loser loves most of all, whether it's "She's super calm and would say 'I do' on the altar with the same flat voice she'd use to say 'We're out of milk. You should go get some'." or "She only shows her true emotions and sensitive side around those she truly cares about. Like me, because she'd totally love me if she was real, right? Right? My personality can't be incompatible with hers if she doesn't have one!". This episode was thrown together because the executives wanted the Maud fanboys to cheer and love the new episode and eat it up despite its factory-synthesised no-effort no-logic no-work no-passion no-inspiration nature. And those fanboys did cheer. So many pointless scenes only existed to show Maud in all her Maudiness, with no world-building to explain why major cities in this world suck almost as much as human cities and only small villages have love and friendship. I remember people saying the show went downhill and jumped the shark when Alicorn Twilight was introduced, or when Episode 100 was released, or when executives forced toy sales to take priority over the show and the vision its creators had. But no. THIS is when the show went downhill like a brick falling from a window and badly damaging my faith in MLPFIM as a whole. This episode was only created to appease the Maud fanboys, and it has no substance or worth beyond that. I'm going to watch the Dragon episode now, even though it's probably going to invalidate the Dragon Ash arc I'd planned for my fanfic. And do you know what? I don't really care about that. I just hope the episode's good enough to restore my faith in MLP.