BastementSparkle

...A Cutie Mark. I get the feeling despite it sounding girly to us, it's not considered that way to ponies. Also, that's the most stereotypical description of manly I've ever seen. Even the most "Manly" people I know don't act quite like that.

I like them both, but I consider Starlight to be the better written character for various reasons. For starters, while both their reformations happened a bit too quickly, Starlight's actually involved her making the decision to stand down, while Sunset just got Rainbow blasted. I like that Twilight had to talk Starlight down, and that it actually worked, as opposed to Sunset just getting the Elements treatment. On top of that, Sunset after reformation almost feels like a totally different character. That petty, mean, bully with a ridiculous evil plan has basically nothing in common with the incredibly empathetic Sunset of today, it's like her personally just completely turned around. About the only time they seemed kind of similar was when Sunset snapped at Sci-Twi. I guess this shouldn't be too surprising since villain Sunset didn't leave much of an impact, but still. I like post-reformation Sunset, but I almost view her as a separate entity to pre-reform Sunset. But with Starlight? Oh, she won't stop reminding me she's the same character. Using and abusing her magic without thinking through the consequences, casually controlling others without stopping to consider the morality, occasionally manipulating those around her, even her outburst in "All Bottled up"? She's clearly the same pony she was before, and I love it. She's struggled with herself more than anypony else. She's trying to be good, but it's difficult for her, she falls back onto old bad habits because she doesn't know how else to be. She's learning over time, the Starlight we've seen this season has so far been much better at it than season 6 Starlight, with a few slip-ups still, but she is improving. That's the thing here, Sunset never felt to me like she was struggling with herself much. Yes, she struggled in Rainbow Rocks to prove herself to others, because they didn't trust her, and yes she's struggled with some guilt too. But Starlight? She struggles with her bad habits, and her inclinations to do things like control others and cast dangerous spells without thinking about it. Starlight has the full support of Twilight and all the others are very forgiving of her, true. She's her own worst enemy, and she's harshest on herself as well. Not trusting herself to help out at the Sunset festival, terrified of doing something bad and feeling like she should never be in charge is one example. Also, Season 7 episode 10 Spoilers: Honestly, the complaint people have of Starlight continuously screwing up? That's a large reason why I love her, she's flawed and struggles with herself a ton. She doesn't just get a quick lesson and is all "Oh, I'm perfectly good now, Teehee!"

So, this was an interesting one. Very interesting. The Yaks don't like asking for help, they feel it damages their pride. However, they are fine with getting help when necessary, or so it seems. So, a good friend in their eyes is one who helps when necessary without having to ask if it's required...Well, it's probably a little more complicated than that but that's the general idea I got from it. I like this, it's a cool difference between Pony and Yak culture here that isn't necessarily treated as something that the Ponies need to "Fix", though it does cause a problem in this case. It's a good moral too. People will reject help they might need based off of differences in ideology, whether caused by a different culture or not. Sometimes despite your best efforts you won't be able to get someone to change their mind or agree with you, and if they really need help you might have to force it. I know I've been the yaks in situations like this before... Also, I love the return of Pinkie's drill mane from "Bats!" and her spy suit from the Season 3 premiere. Some nice little callbacks there. Overall a nice episode, I liked it. Season 7 is shaping up to be another great one for me.

There's nothing here explicitly stating that it's her "Cutie Mark" dragging her there. It could be some freak accident of magic, like a magical burst baby ponies often get...Which is highly coincidental, so perhaps unlikely. Maybe instead of her as of yet, non-existent cutie mark, it could be the Tree/Elements themselves somehow causing this? The Tree of Harmony had Twilight's Cutie Mark on it even back when Celestia and Luna found it. If the Elements have been connected in some form to the mane six even back then, who's to say they couldn't somehow pull some strings to make sure all the Mane Six are in place to end up with the "Destinies" it wants them to have to best wield the elements? Even then, that destiny obviously isn't something totally set in stone, otherwise Starlight wouldn't have been able to go back and prevent the Rainboom from happening. Time can still be altered. The Mane Six also might not be the best example, as their status of bearing the Elements might mean their "Magical Destiny" is something unique to them and doesn't apply to everypony else.

Fair enough, but then the question is just between which happens first. The mark influencing the pony, or the pony influencing the mark. I still feel it's the second one, the mark appears after a revelation of what a pony wants to do with their life, if the mark is personalized it has to take into account both what the pony is good at, and what they want. I don't think the marks influence much of anything unil they appear, and even then their influence when working properly is limited. When the system is thrown out of order, things don't work right, the incorrect mark clearly can't influence a pony to love something they don't, or to be great at something they aren't talented with. I feel there's still plenty of room for free will here.

Honestly? I still don't fully agree with you. I agree that the marks do indeed have a magical influence over the pony that can affect them, but I don't agree that the mark itself is what forces them down a certain path in life, at least not the natural marks. A Cutie Mark appears when a pony finds their "Special talent", the thing they love doing the most, or what makes them feel passionate. The mark itself is a reflection of a natural interest of theirs, it appears because of what they want and desire, and helps them achieve that, likely with a "Magical Talent boost" of sorts. So, the mark doesn't force them to do something, they choose to do it, it appears when they make a decision on what's important or worthwhile to them. The problem comes in when the mark is influenced or changed with magic, because that screws with the whole thing. When the Mane six had their marks swapped around, and their memories, they became convinced these new marks on their flanks were their true Cutie Marks, and what happened? They became miserable. They sucked at their talents, they were unhappy, they were convinced their passion was something else other than what it really was, and it didn't work out well at all. They were happy once they got their marks, their memories, and their true passions back. Season 7 Episode 10 Spoiler: A lot of these other examples are caused by outside forces too. Cutie Pox is a disease that likely doesn't function the same as a normal Cutie Mark, the Equal Signs do function similarly to a Cutie Mark in that they can effect Ponies talents, but they drain it away instead of boosting them. The Equalized ponies were also unhappy and wished for their real marks back. Troubleshoes being able to misinterpret his mark also tells me that the natural marks likely aren't forcing anypony to do anything. Basically, I think the marks do have a magical effect, they boost a ponies talent. But when functioning normally, they don't dictate what that pony does, the pony themself decides and then the mark appears as a symbol of that. When the mark is changed by magic, things malfunction. They might get the "Talent boost" effect, but they still don't enjoy their new "Talent", and if they weren't already kind of good at it before, they likely still won't be good at it even with the mark. If Cutie Marks really did function like you say, why wouldn't ponies still love and be good at their changed talents after marks get switched.

I adored this episode. While Starlight was there and played a role it's clear the characters of real importance this episode were Celestia and Luna. Most of the episode focused on them and they're the ones who learned the important lesson, and boy do I love the developments here. This episode really showed just how difficult and stressful the Royal Sisters jobs can actually be, with Celestia constantly having to work to keep up a good public appearance, and Luna having to deal with all those nightmares all on her own. Celestia put's on a nice smile, and still tries to do nice things for her sister and others despite this, but both of them are pretty exhausted by their work. I think their arguments were handled pretty well and made sense. While Celestia raised the moon in Luna's absence, I imagine that's the only aspect of her job she really did. No dreamwalking or any of that other stuff, so of course she wouldn't realize just how hard it is to do Luna's work. Both of them are tired from their jobs and stressed and so it's not too surprising that stress might lead them to arguing like this. This was some great development for both of them. As for Starlight's role...People keep saying she messed up here, and I think that's both sort of true, and yet not. People are saying she should have learned her lesson to never use magic to solve problems, but I don't feel like that's a lesson she's ever learned or ever should learn. Magic can be used as a tool to solve problems, of course it can! In "Every little thing she does" she learned that using magic isn't always the best way to solve your problems and can sometimes make them worse if used incorrectly, and in "To Where and Back again" she learned that she can solve problems without it, but that doesn't translate to "Never use it! EVER!" Magic is a tool, just like technology. In this case, her spell clearly worked out for the best and was a good solution. While she cast it impulsively, likely from the panic of seeing the royal sisters fight like that, it was ultimately the right decision. It certainly carried it's risks and I think she should have taken more time to think this over before going through with it, yes, but magic did indeed turn out to be the solution here. That map clearly knows what it's doing, and trusted her to make the right call, even if she did so in a stressed out panic. She obviously regretted her decision later, since she had the nightmare. So, yeah. Great episode for the royal sisters, and great episode for Starlight too.

As many seasons as they can get until the show and toys stop lining Hasbro's pockets with cash is the most likely answer. How many do I want? 8 sounds okay, 10 sounds better, but 12 is a nice number, and I really like the sound of 14...Really, as long as I enjoy the show and it stays of good quality I don't care how long it goes. I feel like people jump the gun a bit and get too eager to end something to avoid it "Going bad", when something can run for a long time and still stay good. If it's still going strong, why end it so early?

Do you seriously have to call Starlight names whenever you bring her up? It's a little ridiculous. Also, I doubt Mirror Magic will have any effect on FIM at all. FIM will likely keep going as normal with no references to EQG outside of Flash maybe showing up in the background to make bronies cry again. We might get some more specials involving Equestria on the EQG side though, which would be nice. They still seem to want to keep EQG/FIM sort of separate from each other.

I've known my best friend for years and I occasionally get worried about coming across as clingy despite no obvious pushback, sometimes I'll outright assume he thinks negatively about me despite no signs of such a thing. So, to me it's not too unbelievable that even after all this time he'd be worried about something like that. As Jeric pointed out though, that likely wasn't the writers intent. Fair enough. I think they've done overall a really good job with Spike the last two seasons, but I can understand the worry considering how hit or miss he was previously. Too often when the writers want to make Spike flawed they kind of go overboard with it.

That makes sense then, I didn't really think about the writing intent. I just went with it being something more innocent because the idea of Spike doing anything "Creepy" just didn't occur to me at all until it was brought up here. In that case though I'd probably prefer the loose writing, since I don't like to think Spike would outright spy on her. As for Spike's crush on her, I agree it's probably about time they address it.

I don't know, visiting someone too much is the exact kind of thing I might get embarrassed about if it was an issue, especially if it was someone I had a crush on. If I felt I was annoying them and seeming clingy by coming to visit so often it'd make me react pretty similarly, so trying to play it off as just "Passing by" makes sense. I could see Spike maybe stopping by to glance in the boutique like that, but the way people are saying it came off as creepy makes me imagine they think he was like...staring into the window and just spying, which I'd rather not jump to an assumption like that about Spike.

I dunno, I didn't really get the impression he was like...Spying on her or anything? When he said that I imagined he might have been coming to visit, but Rarity just assumed he happened to be passing by, and maybe he got nervous about it since he might have realized he visits a bit too much or something. Didn't seem very creepy to me.

Like I said, it doesn't happen every time, but I do feel like it's a thing, considering I've done it myself with shows before. I told myself I wouldn't like them for one reason or another, and had that actually end up affecting my enjoyment of them, since I was specifically looking for all the reasons I wouldn't like them and paying extra attention to those. I've seen other people do it too, especially with video games, where it seems like some people just won't let themselves enjoy something after having built up some negative feelings to it ahead of time. Maybe it's not necessarily so much when people go into something slightly worried that it happens though, and maybe more when people have prematurely decided something will be bad, and then go into it looking to be proven right.