Misty Shadow

The third and fourth episodes of Chapter 2 were made available just now. 

Hope that this keeps going. 

This does look easy to doctor, but if it's real, intending to cut characters from the main casts of the two most recent generations before it was scrapped, definitely feel it was for the best it was scrapped.

1 hour ago, HedonismBot said:

 

The next special is due out soon, isn't it?

It probably won't be out any time soon thanks to the biweekly schedule shift, but we'll see.

Alright, we got the return of our favorite snow leopard! Not as good as the return of our favorite Auroricorn, but this is great too!  ...Why is this comment giving me deja vu? 

The timing's interesting too. First Comet comes back, then Allura, and now we have ourselves a cliffhanger ending. I feel like plot-heavy stuff is going to happen soon. 

Last month, one of TYT's animators, Khairul Ikhwan, posted this animation reel showcasing clips of upcoming TYT episodes on LinkedIn that flew under our radar. 

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/khairul-ikhwan-18207a315_latest-animation-show-reel-2024-activity-7223525368001871872-mbiE/

Yeah, as you may have guessed, we have spoilery stuff from these spoilery clips floating around now, so be warned. However, I can at least confirm that despite Allura not appearing too frequently, we will indeed be seeing more of her in the future...

Oh, EQD, how you've not learned anything from before... 

https://www.equestriadaily.com/2024/09/the-future-of-generation-5.html

...Is it really too much trouble to hold off on making sensationalist articles before we get any kind of real evidence? 

3 hours ago, Iforgotmybrain said:

I saw Makaryo talking about this on Twitter. Honestly after the whole Equestria Daily AI story fiasco I’m taking any of these rumors with a huge grain of salt. Even if the source of a rumor has been right before.

Yeah, even though I actually like the idea of an MLP multiverse, count me in. No just listening and believing, I want concrete evidence.

BLITZY-KUN 

New short was a really funny change of pace, for sure. 

By far one of the most bemusing and strange bunk G5 criticisms I've heard is that MYM "forgot its setup with making Zipp the next queen of Zephyr Heights". Like...did we even watch the same show? Zipp's entire character arc revolves around her not wanting to be the next queen of Zephyr Heights. 

This show is indeed good, I've watched every episode of the show discounting the "minisodes". Next FiM though? ...No, not really. Not just saying that because I do not find the show as great as many say it is, it's also because this show and FiM are like night and day. Literally, the only similarity between this show and FiM is it starring a female protagonist and a good chunk of female characters. FiM's focus is the value of friendship and the wonder of unity while this show's focus is the value of family and the wonder of growing up. The crazes over the shows are different too with the FiM craze involving people being shocked that a show from a franchise that was always treated as a joke was actually good and the Bluey craze involving people being shocked that a toddler's show from Australia is actually better than a lot of other kids shows.

I've watched both of the new episodes that have come out this year and I have found both of them to be good.  I also watched and liked both of the shorts, especially the second one where the gang went to Antarctica. Watching Moxxie actually acting kind of badass for a change lately has definitely been a refresher.  

1 hour ago, North Star said:

That's like saying that G1 and G4 unicorns just sparkle those horns and 'the magic' happens. Boast Busters explained the magic a bit like a mixture of superheroes, like X Men, with their abilities, and Harry Potter, with study. That was pretty cool. In the Return of Tambelon, they had a whole ep about unicorn magic :3 

 

This might be a taste thing. If you prefer ponies lore-light, then that is fine. As for how Hasbro wanted people to enjoy the ponies, all they wanted was people buying toys   Lore was on the back of all the toys, though, so I don't think that MLP is definitively lore-light.

Posey could have had a little episode about how her attitude to her garden has altered, maybe? The plant magic comes off as random

 

Hitch is shown mastering magic a bit, and he is shown to care for animals... so it kinda fits.

 

I agree - G5, like G3, is aiming for a simple, happy vibe. For a lot of people, that is more than enough, and that's fine. I hang around people who actively dislike G4's attempt to make a pony world. On the other hoof, I am glad that FiM did what it did, and I doubt I'd be a fan if G4 hadn't tried to make a deeper world than what G5 (or G3) aimed for. 

 

I think you're missing the point of what I was saying. Do you actually expect kids shows to explain to you in great detail how magically growing a plant works? Like...come on. 

The point is that none of this is meant to be complex. Boast Busters' explanation of magic was literally just saying how ordinary unicorns only have a little magic they can do that pertains to their special talents, which we know to be represented by their cutie marks, it says nothing about study. It actually disproves what you were saying earlier about how ponies can be like Twilight if they study hard enough, given that Twilight's special talent/cutie mark is linked to how she's the element of magic. And it's not "just a thing of taste". We're talking a series aimed at young kids here. Why would they not want the lore to be simple and only a minor part of the show? 

In any case, this is getting way off subject. This thread is not intended for debates about lore or calling out flaws with G5, it's about discussing bunk criticisms of the series.

13 minutes ago, North Star said:

I mean... what isn't vague about it? Are the plants summoned or were they pre-existing and augmented by the magic? Are the plants connected to the character of the pony in some way?

Fair enough, although a different point to whether the lore makes sense or not. G4, like a good fantasy, was good at weaving lore into the story. 

I think G5 aimed at equalising the different breeds of ponies with this 'plant magic' thing. Equality is a goal I strongly agree with, but you demonstrate the equal worth of ponies precisely by saying some ponies choose to strive and achieve, and others choose not to. They may end up at different places, but their responsibility for the outcome is equal. I think G4 does a good job of that. G5 feels like Disney, which has randomly-superpowered Princesses.

  There was a stab at that, yes. But even this was unearned character by character. How was control gained over the plant-magic, again? 

 

This isn't something the earth ponies have done to gain powers, which is what I think of as earning the powers.

...They put a hoof on the ground and a plant grows out of it. What more do you want? MLP is already not supposed to be lore-heavy, I don't know how many times I've had to reiterate this, and now...plants connected to character? What is this, a show for botanists? Also, no pony in G5 is what I'd call "overpowered". Even Sunny has limitations on her alicorn abilities. TYT's Neighfever also showed Dahlia needing to be taught how to use her earth pony magic and accidentally growing a flower too big that caused trouble for a whole town, so the level of power does depend on the user. I mean, could you imagine an earth pony besides Hitch being able to fight off Opaline? 

In the end, it doesn't matter though because this is a series meant for simple entertainment, not something meant to be hyper-analyzed. Debates like this are fruitless because it's all about trying to breathe complexity into something not intended to be complex to try and frame it as "having better design" when it's clear from all the inconsistencies in G4's lore that they weren't meticulously designing anything. 

On 2024-08-30 at 10:09 AM, North Star said:

I've been writing a G1 fic, and it's interesting how G1 dealt with the difference. The character that best represents this is 'Magic Star' she performs magic... with a friggin wand  The unicorns are all pretty fey and have a sparkly 'winking out' magic in their nature (which conforms to legend). You don't need to have wings or horns to be special. What you need, is drive. Anyhoof, G5's problem in terms of lore is that plant magic could have worked, but it's incredibly vague in G5, like most of G5's lore.

Compare what G5 says about magic, to what G4 does. In Boast Busters we had an idea of magic that transcends anything that G5 did: most unicorns' magic conforms to their talent, but if you try very hard you can be like Twilight, a unicorn with access to all spells! You have unicorns struggling to cast more powerful spells. In contast, G5's earth pony magic (and all magic tbh) feels unearned and random.

 

Don't even get me started on how much stuff in G4 is vague and left up for the fans to decide. I also...don't see what they could've been less vague about regarding plant magic. More details about what kind of plants only certain ponies can create, for example, does not sound to me like something that would make anything more interesting. And the whole "look at how hard unicorns had to struggle to have powerful magic like Twilight" thing...you know that a common complaint about unicorns in G4 was that there were too many "special unicorns" with overpowered magic, right? Furthermore, the very second episode of Make Your Mark was about dealing with earth ponies struggling to control their new magic. And unearned? After all that time they spent not having magical powers like the unicorns and pegasi?

On 2024-08-30 at 10:13 AM, Tacodidra said:

 There were some canon references to Earth pony strength, though they seem to have been after Faust left the show. I could only find these after a quick search, I thought there were more...

 

Celestia in "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 1":

On 2024-08-30 at 10:13 AM, Tacodidra said:

Without pegasi to control the weather, there will be no rain in Equestria. There is word he has gone after Earth ponies as well. Without their strength, they will not be able to tend the land.

Applejack in "Sparkle's Seven" (though it might just refer to her personal strength):

On 2024-08-30 at 10:13 AM, Tacodidra said:

I'm strong, Twilight, but not even I can buck through solid rock.

I still completely agree this criticism is nonsense – I don't see how growing plants and strength are mutually exclusive.

For the first quote, two things. First of all, context is key. Anyone Tirek drained of their magic also felt drained of their strength, not just the earth ponies. Second, the "not being able to tend the land" part could easily be referring to what their inner magic actually pertains to, thus being consistent with what Faust wanted. For the second quote, Applejack is very likely only referring to her personal strength, not earth pony strength as the part of the fandom who claims super strength is the magic power of earth ponies would see it...because part of that super strength is being able to break through solid rock the way Maud Pie can.

...But yes, most importantly, they can have "flower power" and super strength. No one ever called Superman possessing heat vision and the power to fly inconsistent. 

Time to give this thread a bump with an expansion on a rebuttal to a bunk G5 criticism that was talked about in a video I made a topic for.

https://mlpforums.com/topic/202993-spanish-speaking-mlp-fan-debunks-supposed-mlp-g4g5-lore-contradictions/#comment-6234817

This is the bunk criticism in question...

"Earth ponies being given the power to magically grow plants contradicts them having the power to be super strong."

Earth ponies being super strong as part of a secret magic power is only something the fandom came up with (it's never stated in FiM that this is true) in addition to being something that contradicts what Lauren Faust intended. 

Yes, you read that right. Not magical...but possessing a connection to the land (even though they're shown to have magic in Twilight's Kingdom, note the "not magical like" wording). So what G5 came up with was actually more in tune with what Faust wanted in the show than what the fandom came up with. 

So it looks like the Spanish-speaking side of the MLP community has its own Hawk Nightwing. 

You'll need English subtitles on in order to understand what's being said if you don't know Spanish, but this is definitely worth watching if you're tired of petty G4/G5 lore contradiction complaints regardless. The whole thing with dragons now being born with wings and ponies now being able to walk on clouds actually has a simple explanation, that being the evolution of magic, but I'm still impressed that someone took the time to do this. 

Missing the Mark, the finale to Make Your Mark Chapter 4, is widely regarded as one of the best episodes of the show and it contains one of the show's most iconic moments, the scene where Misty bursts the magic bubble Opaline has Sunny and her friends trapped in with one of the sticks by Opaline's throne, thus freeing them. Back when I first watched this scene, my favorite part about it besides Misty being awesome was how what looked like just a simple background detail actually turned out to be vital to the plot. However, this scene gets even better when you realize that it doesn't just tie back to something previously shown...but something that gets revealed later. 

Opaline's magic bubble very likely doesn't just get popped in this scene because of Misty ramming a sharp object into it, given how durable the magic bubble was shown to be. Remember that this sharp object is actually part of a Together Tree and a Together Tree being intertwined with Opaline's lair isn't revealed until the end of MYM Chapter 5. Since Together Trees get their power from the ponies uniting together, it makes perfect sense for Misty's realization of how much her friends really mean to her to give a part of a Together Tree the power to destroy a product of evil magic. This is my favorite mark of good writing in any form of entertainment, how everything in the story is connected. Not just through events being foreshadowed earlier on in the story, but those foreshadowed events then later turning out to be foreshadowing for more things you never would've anticipated.

47 minutes ago, Sparklefan1234 said:

I feel like Gen 5 is the "forgotten" MLP generation because I never see avatars of Hitch, Izzy

etc. in other places like I used to when Friendship is Magic was on TV. 

"like I used to"

Keep in mind that the internet's changed a lot since that time of new episodes of FiM airing on TV. You would probably be surprised by how much G5 fanart there is on Twitter. 

7 hours ago, Iforgotmybrain said:

I think the coco training episode has been the best one by far. The dancing episode they did this week is basically just a recycle of that but with dancing instead of hot coco, which is a bit lame. Also I still struggle to remember certain characters names, I have an easier time remembering the various TYT side characters and background characters names.

There’s a lot of things I could critique about it still. But again, it’s for a much younger audience, which makes me feel silly for bringing up said critiques. Is that an excuse for its lackluster quality? I dunno. Kids might like it still. I just don't think it’s a true TYT competitor based off the quality of the show.

Everyone agrees that Coach Tilly was the best episode, but alas, no episode since then has been on par with it (especially not that painfully predictable sleepover episode that actually made no sense). I am not trying to take the show too seriously, liking something lackluster is totally fine. I'm just explaining why I'm getting bored of it like a lot of people and I wanted to at least explain why I feel the way I do so that fans of it can have a better understanding.

The recent return of Comet has made me so happy that I just had to return from my long hiatus of not making emotes to make an emote of him looking unhappy. 

On 2020-08-30 at 10:57 AM, ExplosionMare said:

The Pinkie Pie’s Party game for the DS was practically made for an hour of play, so I can beat it pretty easily.

I played that back in the day and beat it in well under a day. I also got A Maretime Bay Day Adventure done in two hours. Props to A Zephyr Heights Mystery for being the first MLP game I've played that's taken me over a day to complete. Also, long ago, when I was really into NES games, I beat The Karate Kid in just a few hours. The notion of this game being hard is definitely a misconception. 

Looks like interest in this show is quickly declining now. Hawk Nightwing's dropped out of reviewing it, the current top comment on the Equestria Daily discussion thread for the newest episode is expressing fatigue with the show, and most noteworthy, the show's views have drastically declined since the first episode's premiere. The second episode got less than half the first episode's views, and from there forward...yikes, nothing has even received one-tenth of the first episode's views. 

As someone who's watched every episode of the show...it's very easy for me to see why it's losing steam so rapidly. Every episode just feels like the same thing over and over, there's no character development with how every episode has to star Cocoa, who still has hardly any personality and has already been shown to be able to learn the same lessons she's already learned (the pilot had her learn not to jump to conclusions and Curious Cocoa recycled this exact same moral), there's no world development with me getting tired of constantly staring at the same brown dirt in the same town, the plots are derivative and lacking in imaginative twists on things we've seen done better in other shows, and the plot resolutions are never satisfying (Macaron Mare recycled the exact same solution to dealing with the story's threat as The Mane Machine with the threat literally just getting kicked and that being it).  

I, and many other people, gave this show an honest chance. But it's becoming more apparent than ever that it's complacent with just being a poor man's version of Tell Your Tale without understanding what makes Tell Your Tale work. TYT is much more fun to watch because it has an evolving world. A cast of endearing characters with depth that each bring something unique to the plot. A lot of variety with its stories that put the characters in creative situations. The knowledge of how to do something new with something that's been done before. Impactful resolutions to its plots that have been built up to well. This show has the potential to be better than average, but it just doesn't want to put forth the effort.

So yeah, for those of you who don't know, having not watched the newest TYT episode yet...what are you waiting for?!  Not only is it great, Comet's back! 

https://mlpforums.com/topic/202943-s02ep19-the-dream-team-delight/#comment-6233874

Anyone else here a Comet fan like myself who was anxiously awaiting his return? 

So yeah, sharing my thoughts on the episode now, it's awesome, who would have expected me to feel any different.  But seriously, it really is a cool episode that subverts your expectations in a good way, having Comet do a great job at running the smoothie shack despite his tendency to be klutzy.  Super sweet to see him and Sunny come together too. Interesting how Sunny's the first pony they paired Comet with and not Izzy, even as Izzy appropriately gets to be the catalyst for them resolving their issues. 

Just don't disappear on us again, Comet. 

It finally happened...the time has come to say goodbye to the "Episodes Since Comet's Last Appearance" counter...  

Because Comet is finally back!  We finally have a new episode starring him and you have no idea how happy this makes me!  Seriously, I was bushed from work and feeling super lethargic before I saw this and became WIDE AWAKE.  I'll share my thoughts on this episode soon, but for sure, this topic MUST be posted right now.