hip-indeed

I cry way too easily over way too many things, but with pony it's rare; then again, I tend to focus on happy/cute/lovely things when it comes to pony and kinda avoid most other stuff most the time. Though if there's one 'negative emotion' I actually like to indulge in now and then, it's sad/sappy stuff. Still, though... I dont' really go out of my way looking for sad pony stuff though once in awhile it finds me. A lot of it's given me lumps in my throat but not a whole lot has actually made me cry... except, from what I can recall: Things that've made me shed a tear, or come very VERY close to it (watery eyes etc), include: - Twi weeping halfway through Winter Wrap-Up; - Pinkie's "bubble being burst" halfway through Party of One; - Rarity tearing up and putting a hoof on Spike's mouth in Secret of My Excess (just a little, but it got me); - Fluttershy being driven to tears in Hurricane Fluttershy; - Pinkie's sad return home in Pinkie Pride; - Pinkie receiving the news that her friends don't like her sister in Maud Pie; - The ooooold old old short fanfic "Bubbles" (I haven't read many fics over the years at all, or else I'm sure there'd be more here) I feel like I'm forgetting some but for now there ya go.

From what I've seen of RR it seems to be true. Multitudes of secondary and background pones have EqG human counterparts; there's no reason to believe every single one doesn't. The question is if every NON-pony character in equestria also exists (or at least at one time existed) as a human, or SOMETHING, in EqG world, like if every dragon existed at some point as a dog, or if griffons, changelings, Discord, etc. have been around in some form or another. We know the Diamond Dogs are there as humans, so...

I completely disagree -- Tons of its NORMAL citizens are jerks, brats, rude/selfish/greedy and so on... There are griffons who seem to hate them nearby... Changelings who see them as food... A roving god of chaos who may never be as truly 'redeemed' as he'd like for them to believe... Loads of super-dangerous areas full of frightening, intimidating, and at times just plain evil denizens like the Everfree Forest and the chimera's and hydra's swamps... and let's not forget regular attacks by various evil forces that have grudges against Celestia or all ponykind, artifacts of great and terrible power and even otherwise good ponies that can have 'moments of darkness' like Luna and all of the mane 6 have been shown to, more or less. For the nature of what the cartoon is and who it's aimed at, I actually worry at times it's *TOO* imperfect, and even a bit scary.

Well, it's being renamed to Discovery Family in a couple weeks, at any rate.

There are three layers of ease, depending on how close someone is to me; If they just see me or talk to me? Impossible, unless we talk about something to which ponies or my love of them is relevant. Or if I can tell *they* like them, at which point I'll happily go on and on about them. If they come into my room? Pretty dang easy; I generally have my Hot Topic Vinyl Scratch sitting around somewhere at least fairly visible and I have hundreds of pony pics all over my computer if they see anything besides just my desktop or a game I may be playing at the time -- not to mention all the pony history and bookmarks and whatnot on my browser if they get into that... But if they open my closet and see the plush Twi and Pinkie sitting there, staring them in the face? It's game over, baby!

Probably secretly by myself with headphones on once it's on Netflix. I'd love to watch it with friends but currently I have no local pony-loving friends; I know of a brony meetup group I've been thinking of checking out but frankly I'd like to wait until AFTER RR is out of theaters, because, yeah, shamefully, I'm too embarrassed to go see a movie like that in the real theater. I know it'd be quite an experience but... I don't know if I could handle the potential eyebrow-raisings.

I think FiM will well and truly end, and I have 100% total confidence in DHX to make the finale really satisfying and wonderful. Heck, we've already had multiple episodes that I would have been satisfied as series finales; Magical Mystery Cure and Twilight's Kingdom, at least. The only thing I might be left wanting over is "whether it's the ending Faust would have had planned" but with any luck they'd consult her for ideas when the series is finally coming to a close -- even without her input whatsoever, though, I still think it'd be really great. Now, for G5 I firmly believe Hasbro's gonna want to do everything in their power to go for something that'll be as successful universally as G4, and I'd say we'll see re-imaginings of certain characters or some very similar characters, but not the exact same group or in the same universe even. It'll be all new.

It's a cartoon. For kids. Little kids, in particular. Now, it's very, very good for a cartoon for little kids, so much so that adults can and do obviously enjoy it very much, but -- it's the same series and in the "intended viewing audience" category isn't all that different from the previous gens of MLP. Look at Gen 2 or 3 and then back to Gen 4 and you'll retract that statement -- heck, compare it to *the vast majority of American cartoons* and you'll retract that statement, if only comparably. It's got its inconsistencies, but less than most. Anyway, let's not forget that jewels are also dragon food, and no one seems to mind Spike eating them whereas people'd throw a hissy fit if a dog ate even a $1 bill irl. Though at the same time Just For Sidekicks proves they are definitely of SOME value to ponies, in general it seems they're more like... fancy-looking but-not-worth-that-much baubles irl.. some people might like having them, some know they could trade it for other things but not really worth much real currency.

No, no, she's not Mufasa. A big part of her existence is to make little girls' eyes sparkle as they gaze in wonder at the de facto Pretty Pony Princess™ of them all. She's there on the merch and as so many toys because in many ways she represents the character that many young girls would like the very most and get the most joy from seeing. Yeah, sure, she might get beat up now and then like what happened with Chrysalis but she ain't gonna die, man. At the very most I could see a flash-forward at the end of the series where Twilight has taken her place and it's IMPLIED she passed away or even just became too old eventually (I'd say even alicorns age, just at an extremely slow rate compared to everything else) but nothing in the normal time frame of the show for sure.

I've never quite liked the term 'brony', I thought it was slightly cute back when it was just what fans called each other back in the early days but by mid-2011 I was quite done with it and found it hopelessly corny -- but it had already been cemented as "the thing we were called" so alas. I've always liked "pony fan".

If you're talking what she WOULD HAVE done differently had she stayed and been able to keep major control of the show, well, we know Cadence, Shining and Chrysalis likely wouldn't have existed, neither potentially would Sombra or the Crystal Empire have, and who knows how many characters that have been introduced since S1. Some 'good' stuff and some 'bad' depending on your tastes. I think the show'd have been excellent regardless, though I'd have felt strange pangs of not ever having gotten to meet Chryssy or probably Maud Pie among others. If she actually got reinstated as exec. producer now though (funny enough to bring up such an idea when the show's possibly going to have to move to another channel with this whole Hub breaking up business... who KNOWS what'll happen!) I am very positive she'd not remove shining or cadence, nor would she 'un-princess-ify' Twi, she'd simply roll with it. But EqG stuff would definitely be completely ignored from here on out. The show would become slightly less over-the-top as it has been the last couple seasons, and there'd be more of a focus on adventure and sliiiightly more mature tones (like what she was originally gonna do with Luna et. al., though the current team has more or less instated those tones themselves with newer Luna eps, the Tirek eps and many other things... Lauren would just do it in a more... subdued way I think?)

I don't really, unless you count the thousands of saved pony pics lovingly squashed into the hard drives of my PC and laptop 'ponifying' them. I like it when other people do, though. Makes me all happy to see a pone on someone else's phone or whatever.

You're right in that it's a show targetted to young ladies and they severely need more shows like this with positive FEMALE role models while guys have plenty -- but it's also very good to have such characters as either gender in any piece of media instead of pushing it all one way or the other, so I get what you're saying. I think there are great and interesting male characters here and there throughout the series, though few are really 'role model' quality. But yeah, you got Big Mac who is basically a super strong, super dependable super good guy, Shining who despite the succubus action you mentioned (his succumbing to it wasn't really a sign of weakness imo -- most any character, especially male, would have been equally susceptible to her magic) is a good, strong big bro and husband, Flash Sentry who may be a bit over-idealized and low in the depth department but is a definite good dude and willing to stand up for those he feels should be stood up for, and though Spike screws up often his heart's in the right place. Heck, even Discord with his growth and evolution throughout the series could serve as a good role model to how fun it may be to be bad but how it's even better to be good. And then you have Fancy Pants who's one of the few rare "Rich Dudes Who's Actually A Really Good Guy", the mane 6's dad who from what little we've seen of them are good people, and so on and so forth... Maybe many of these characters haven't been really 'on screen' enough or their 'positive qualities' displayed enough for them to be truly great role models or anything, but the show's got enough guys that are good ENOUGH that I don't feel like it's being sexist or 'one-way' with the whole girl power thing and that's definitely good enough for me. I wouldn't have even minded if it had been a little MORE on the extreme-feminist side seeing as how much girls kind of deserve and need it right now as we're FINALLY as an overarching world-society starting to give them the freedom and respect they deserve, but I'm very glad that it has as much equality as it DOES have. Too much more in the other direction and it'd feel kind of off or pandery, I feel -- and part of me even worries that'll happen in the future as perhaps Hasbro banks a bit *too* much on bronies rather than what made it good to begin with, but hopefully that'll never be a problem!

Oh, my god, I had a big reply typed out and then it was all deleted because I went to click the 'b' for bold and clicked my avatar instead and it took me to my profile. Just forget it. Basically no, you shouldn't have to earn it by its very principle, but at the same time I don't think anyone misbehaving on a forum should 'hide behind it' as an excuse for behaving improperly and expecting people to 'love and tolerate'. That's the thing, it's a wonderful thing to truly live by such a term but it's something totally different to 'hide behind it' as an excuse.