Nine

The only one I feel really strongly about is Family Appreciation Day. I think it's waaaaay underrated. Magic Duel might be overrated, though some of that might be bias cause I don't think Trixie's all that great.

I briefly looked at it once. Seems the author was aiming to be as terrible as possible, and mission accomplished I guess.

Merge with unpopular opinions thread? heh Most of my show-watching friends think S1 and S4 are the best. I thought season 4 had a lot of strong episodes. I loved the season premieres, and Flight to the Finish, Rarity Takes Manhattan, Rainbow Falls, Maud Pie, Leap of Faith, Trade Ya, and Discord's character arc in Twilight's Kingdom were all really strong. I picked these ones specifically because the lessons learned were somewhat more nuanced than was standard fare in previous seasons. It had a few bombs though. Castle Mane-ia? Bats? Meh. And AJ was just goofy in Somepony to Watch Over Me.

A thought occurred to me today during a rewatch. Harshwhinny makes her decision to host the games in the Crystal Empire based on Peachbottom's account of the welcome given by ponies from Ponyville, who did go through a whole pre-planned spiel about how great the Crystal Empire was, even after complaining about how she never gets the real scoop from other welcome parties in other cities doing the same thing. Maaaaaybe she wouldn't have caught on to that just from listening to Ms. Peachbottom, but the fact that Twilight and her friends clearly aren't crystal ponies should have been suspect. Didn't she basically make her decision without meeting any crystal ponies, except the one doing her spa treatment? And Cadence, I guess, sorta. I don't think she even checked to make sure there were enough public washrooms. On the other hoof, in real life there's some political thought put into the process of choosing a location for the Olympics, and the Crystal Empire is historically significant, so I'm gonna go ahead and say that was the real reason. edit: oh, also when Rainbow Dash says Cloudsdale was a candidate for the games when she was a filly, wouldn't that have prevented two thirds of the population from attending? You know, clouds and all?

Dulset's question makes me think of this comic I figure the ponies have their own dispositions and overall character traits that would shine through no matter what profession they held. Talents are versatile like that. To master any specific job, when you think about it, requires a whole subset of transferable skills. I know MMC contradicts this. In that episode, Twilight's friends all ended up miserable because they weren't on track with their original destinies. I want to hand-wave that a little bit though. For one, it was the product of an incomplete spell, and besides, we already know Discord could invert their personalities with magic .. so I'm gonna chalk it up to that. My point is that in other episodes we see the mane 6 doing things that aren't their specific profession, but relate to their skill set. In Super Speedy Cider Squeezy, Twilight gets Rainbow to help press because she's athletic, and Rarity to do quality control because she can spot defects quickly, as in Look Before You Sleep, when she knows where the tree will fall when AJ's pulling it down. They all have various roles in Mare do Well, Fluttershy shows promise as a social worker when she reforms Discord, etc. So I think the metaphysics of cutie marks is debatable. Maybe they have a kind of destiny, but I want to believe it's not something set in stone, moment by moment. I think it's more of a thematic, abstract destiny. Like, if you imagine Rainbow Dash's destiny is to revolutionize flying, it could be done in a few ways. In canon, she does the sonic rainboom, but perhaps in another possible universe, her silk bodysuit helps another flyer gain the speed needed to do the same thing. You know, like how a race car or a fighter plane needs more than the driver/pilot, it also needs all the skills of the engineers that went into making those things. Anyway, I think I've talked enough. You get the idea.

Considering the 4de ones are around the same price point, I don't know why people get the build a bears at all .. If it's just for convenience, isn't a little wait for something better a good thing?

If you're a brave soul, you could buy one, and make new manes and tails for them. Wings would be difficult if only because you'd need to find the exact fabric color.