Seldon

The cafeteria scene is awesome, mainly for the song. Another great scene is the one with the Cutie Mark Crusaders as youtubers.

1. Pinkie Pie (favourite) 2. Rarity 3. Applejack 4. Fluttershy 5. Twilight 6. Rainbow Dash (still awesome) I am not certain about 4 and 5.

I think King Sombra is a very tolkienian villain: purely evil, always far or hidden, casting his shadow on the world and waiting the right moment to act. He's not even a complete character, but what matters is his mere existence. To make him more interesting they should not show him more, instead they should show other ponies talking about him as a legendary pony and stuff.

Even though the change seemed quite sudden, even though the final episode was too fast, I think they did a great job. I don't know the English expressions, but us Italians distinguish tv shows with a "Trama orizzontale" ("horizontal plot", i.e. episodes are cronologically or logically connected, like the chapters, or better the installments of a novel, and most each of them adds something to the global plot) from tv shows with a "Trama verticale" ("vertical plot", i.e. sometimes there is a global plot but each episode can be seen as an indipendent story, except maybe from few episodes that "carry the plot forward"). Of course few shows are totally horizontal or totally vertical. MLP:FiM is mainly vertical, and I think that it's very difficult to introduce a big change in such shows. Also twenty minutes is a small amount of time to make it happen. That's why I admire how they dealt with Twilicorn. I don't question why they decided to make her an alicorn: twists and turns just happen, and as a Game of Thrones viewer (and reader) I am used to big and sudden changes. Maybe if Twilight was my favourite pony or I didn't like pegasi I would care more, but I would probably think: "Twilight seems very happy about becoming an alicorn, and who wouldn't be happy to get wings? Her happyness is not just Hasbro's decision, it's a natural reaction. And if she cannot not be happy, at least I cannot be sad or angry". Yeah it's quite a long thought.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkkhbDUfGrs Sorry, I couldn't resist. Seriously? I would go gay for Star Swirl the Bearded... No, actually if I were a pony in Equestria going gay for somepony it's the last thing I would do.

It's not too girly, but if you think you would feel uncomfortable with it you shouldn't buy it. What about a cutie mark necklace? I mean something like I dunno if they sell something like this though.

Daniel Ingram's mlp soundtracks are great and full of musical quotations. Some of them gave me an idea that I want to share with you. Season 1, Episode 14, "Suited for Success": a Rarity episode. In the second fashion show scene (the one with good dresses), at the very beginning, the initial fanfare of "Also sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss is clearly quoted. This of course could be seen as a reference to Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey", which is after all the movie that made the fanfare so famous. But the connection between the fanfare and the white pony seems to be deeper. In Episode 23, "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", we can find it in Rarity's flashback, more precisely in the "damn rock" scene. Of course here the fanfare is more related to the rock itself, which somehow remembers the black monolith shown in Kubrick's movie. In any case we already have two Rarity/Kubrick scenes. The last one is more subtle. Episode 19, "A Dog and Pony Show", another Rarity episode. When the other ponies think about how she must feel in the dogs' prisons, we hear a harpsichord music. In one of that scenes there is a short quotation of Frideric Handel's "Sarabande" from the Suite in D minor, which was profusely used in Stanley Kubrick's movie "Barry Lyndon" That's all. What do you think about these quotations? Are them just coincidences or there is a real connection between Rarity and Kubrick? What do you think of Ingram's musical quotations in general? Here you a few links to the original Kubrick's scenes:

I think some haters see the show as a menace to their masculinity. What they unconsciously think is something like "if I watch the show maybe I discover that I am gay/pedophile". These are usually ignorant and insecure people. A "good" kind of hater, instead, is the goth, who dislikes the show because it's positive, colourful and cute. Arguing with them it's just fun (if they are not ignorant and insecure, of course). Some haters are just trolls. However most of the haters do hate just because they think they are supposed to do so.

Pinkie Pie is my favourite. Not only she provides the most funny moments of the show, but she's also an interesting, complex character. Her "dark side" is always there..."Party of One" is of course the best example, but please notice that in every episode her facial expressions are mainly of anger, doubt, disappointment, discouragement...remembering us that being optimistic is a hard work!

Most to least Twilight: serious student, love reading...not so anxious. Fluttershy: "I'm shy...stay out of my shed!"...love some animals...not a total doormat. Applejack: hard worker, bad liar...not athletic. Pinkie Pie: optimistic...not so outgoing Nothing significantly in common with Rarity and Rainbow Dash.