HedonismBot

Well, they don't call it the "world's oldest profession" for nothing. Though it does raise the question of whether human anatomy would be up to the task of performing that *ahem* service well enough that ponies would be inclined to pay for it.

"Between Dark and Dawn" had Celestia give Twilight some gadget enchanted with her and Luna's magic, designed to enable any unicorn to move the sun and moon. Hopefully they'd at least be available for technical support if anything were to go wrong with it. I doubt they'd ever be so heartless as to force unicorn after unicorn after unicorn to permanently lose their magic so they could avoid doing something they can do fairly easily. Though if it came to that, one would think that it'd be a simple matter to increase the size of the group (before Celestia, it was only five unicorns plus Starswirl), so that each one doesn't get over-exerted. That and/or start working on a cure, some spell or potion to recharge unicorns who get drained from sun duty.

If we are talking about humans, it's also possible Fluttershy might know that meeting their nutritional needs on a vegetarian diet is a solved problem. So in that case, she'd likely still disapprove of killing animals simply because it's tastier or more convenient than a well-balanced vegetarian diet.

After reading this thread, I'm rather surprised no one mentioned "masseuse".

You'd think so, but "She Talks to Angel" had her feeding vegan food to a snake. In real life no known snake can live off of plants of any kind, but I suppose it's possible that the ponies have found some way to take plant parts and synthesize something that would meet the nutritional needs of a snake. Though an earlier episode (I don't recall which one) had her feeding a fish to a ferret .

It certainly would have been cool to see a few scenes of Rainbow helping Scootaloo train her wings in hopes of one day flying. Also, Rainbow Dash was there when Apple Bloom tried hang gliding in "Call of the Cutie", and in "May the Best Pet Win" it was implied that she came up with the idea to get Tank his propeller backpack. If we're to assume that Scootaloo would never be able to fly on her own two wings, one would think Rainbow would have been able to help her obtain some form of assistive technology. Unfortunately, that scene at the end is the closest we'd ever get to seeing Rainbow (or anyone else) get Scootaloo the help she needs in that department.

Or it could all be epigenetics - that is, all ponies have the code for wings and horns hiding somewhere in their DNA, but only some of them have it switched on. Which would explain how the Cakes gave birth to a unicorn and a pegasus despite their family tree being mostly earth ponies, or how apparently any pony race can be upgraded to alicorn with the right magical trigger.

There's something I noticed as well - Celestia met all five of Twilight's new friends at the end of the previous episode, and was fully aware of the role they played in dealing with Nightmare Moon. Yet she only sent one extra ticket. The only logical explanation there would be that it was some sneaky test of character. Farming in real life isn't particularly lucrative - many independent farmers live near the poverty line. Selling value-added products (in AJ's case, baked goods and cider) is a good way to make more money than from selling raw crops, but there are probably better places to do so than a catered event (with what would likely be much higher quality food than AJ could produce) where guests can eat for free.

I also thought Punk Rarity was cool. Though it did slightly undermine their intended moral of "appearances aren't all that matters". It does, however, give us another moral of equal value, that of making the most of a bad situation (courtesy of Rarity's mad fashion skills and her friends' emotional support).

Wait, have we ever seen anyone native to the Equestria Girls universe step through the portal? I've watched barely any of Equestria Girls, but I only recall natives to regular Equestria go through (going from pony to human and back again). The later seasons have a fair amount of emphasis on welcoming new species (griffons, hippogriffs, dragons, changelings, yaks) to Equestria, so adding one more to the mix shouldn't be too tough. Which is good because there's no way in hell I'd want to come to a place like Equestria and not experience everything it has to offer. Get a sugar rush at Sugarcube Corner, play around in Las Pegasus, try to drink the water in Rainbow Falls, use my technical skills to help ponykind, live up to my username, and so on. Ponyville looks like a logical choice for a place to live (being roughly central to Equestria, convenient if I'd be traveling all over the place), or possibly Canterlot.

Or someone could have found him a job that would actually make proper use of his strength and shovel skills (farm work, construction, mining, etc.). Seriously, their first instinct was to try to make him a teacher despite him having no prior teaching experience nor any real knowledge of whatever it is he was supposed to be teaching. How could they have expected that to work out? Or someone could have helped him learn to control his strength so that he isn't breaking everything he touches. Or maybe one of his employers could have realized that he wouldn't be the first pony to embarrass himself at his first day on the job, and given him a chance to learn from his mistakes. For what it's worth, one of the Season 10 comics shows Rockhoof working alongside Tempest. I haven't gotten anywhere near that far with the comics, but that does look like it could be WAY more interesting than what we got out of him here.

It did seem rather obvious that the writers wanted to do a message about dealing with death, but were forbidden from mentioning actual death (see also: "The Perfect Pear" and Applejack's parents). And it delivered said message well enough that the criticism of Rainbow overreacting to Tank's hibernation felt like a minor nerd nitpick.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure this was back when the higher-ups were still pushing to "late bloomer" line. In which case their insults would be slightly closer to their usual "blank flank" chant than "Ha ha, you're crippled!", but still a good deal worse than everyday teasing. The episode's dialogue (What if I never fly?) appears to have been weaseling out of answering the question of whether Scootaloo had an actual disability, though I suppose it's possible that they were just leaving their options open at the time. Either way, that would only end up making her situation feel more tragic than if she had been established as disabled from the get-go: There were multiple instances of her yearning to fly, but there would never be any reference to anyone helping her learn to fly, or her having been to a doctor to see if there might be some treatment for whatever was keeping her from flying, or pointing her in the direction of technology (such Apple Bloom's glider from "Call of the Cutie") which would have enabled her to fly in some capacity if her own wings would never be up to the task. Though it's probably not fair to single out this episode for what was a series of sub-par decisions, seeing as it handled its message respectably.

That's basically how it always has been with every sequel, remake, or reboot ever. Even if G5 delivers on Hasbro's promises and then some, there will be a certain population of fans hating it simply by virtue of it being different. Hopefully not enough to screw up the fandom as a whole.

Speaking of changelings, the mention of rogue changelings in "Triple Threat" REALLY should have had gone somewhere other than "Oh year, we reformed them while you weren't looking". Perhaps let Pharynx's story be about dealing with them instead of that giant mole thing - he hadn't changed either, but he did sincerely care about the safety of the hive.