Biggest Show-Related Drama

[Stardust Live 44]

Now that the show is over, what was the biggest, most overblown or weirdest drama related to the show you can think of? Which ones overall really meant nothing, which ones were for the better despite the drama, and which ones did you forget?

(NOT INCLUDING FANDOM DRAMA like Las Vegas Pegacon or whatever it was called or creator fights, because that sort of nastiness is a whole other story and I don't want old wounds to be opened)

Here's a list of some I can remember:

- Twilight's brother suddenly appearing

- Cadence being an Alicorn and a Princess. I think if she were just a Princess (i.e. a pegasus one) it wouldn't have been such a big deal. I keep forgetting that this only happened at the start of Season 2. Season 2!!!

- Twilight ascending. *THE* drama I remember, my goodness the hysteria over this

- Derpy/Muffins. This is borderline with my no fandom rule above, but it affected the show itself so I am including it

- Flurry Heart as an Alicorn. Nowhere near as big a drama as Twilight, this fizzled pretty quick

- The show ending, and what the ending was

 

[Megas 27,699]

Twilight becoming an Alicorn, at worst it happened too early, but otherwise it wasn't the worst thing to happen to the show. Hell I can think of five things from the last few seasons worse than that

Derpy, people sent death threats to Hasbro over a fucking background character

Equestria Girls, it was a spinoff that they repeatedly said wouldn't affect the show, and guess what, it never did. Even more hilarious now since it actually proved to be quite popular(over the main show at one point), and birthed some of the franchises most popular characters like Sunset and the Dazzlings

[Will Guide 21,360]

1 hour ago, Stardust Live said:

I keep forgetting that this only happened at the start of Season 2. Season 2!!!

Cadence and Shining Armor were introduced at the END of season 2 not the beginning. it was Discord that was introduced at the beginning of season 2.

4 minutes ago, Megas said:

Equestria Girls, it was a spinoff that they repeatedly said wouldn't affect the show, and guess what, it never did

I literally join the herd about a month before the announcement for this came out. And I thought to myself "why would I want to leave the show because of this obvious spin-off that obviously wasn't going to drastically change the main show when I just got into the show?"

12 minutes ago, Bakugou is my Man said:

I remember when Twilight became an Alicorn and tons of fans just lost it. Some even stopped watching the series altogether after that which was a ridiculous reason to depart. 

That is ridiculous and I join the herd AFTER season 3 ended in February 2013. 

[Stardust Live 44]

Oh, wow, I completely forgot about the Equestria Girls drama ... It's sort-of amazing how Sunset went from pariah in the fan community to loved and accepted

[Misty Shadow 7,911]

Since it's not been mentioned yet, does Pony Life drama count, being a spin-off of the show? I feel now that most of the people overblowing how bad it was going to be were the fans who were still upset about the Grogar twist. 

[Jesse Terrence 2,968]

16 hours ago, Megas said:

Twilight becoming an Alicorn, at worst it happened too early, but otherwise it wasn't the worst thing to happen to the show. Hell I can think of five things from the last few seasons worse than that

Derpy, people sent death threats to Hasbro over a fucking background character

Equestria Girls, it was a spinoff that they repeatedly said wouldn't affect the show, and guess what, it never did. Even more hilarious now since it actually proved to be quite popular(over the main show at one point), and birthed some of the franchises most popular characters like Sunset and the Dazzlings

Except it did affect the show in meta. Eqg was one of the reasons behind Lauren's departure, and juggling both projects at the same time took a toll on FiM's execution over the years. And the final nail to the coffin of that "it never did" is the aknowledgement of it being canon to the show by the end of the show. That shimmer cameo on the last musical number might seem small, but it does imply the eqg universe is actually part of the canon of FiM, which just ruins even more the already polemic ending to the series.

And as you mention, twilicorn.

However, it destroyed a portion of the fandom and had a snowball effect on later seasons. We could call doomfags all those who quit over it, but we gotta admit they had a point. The show we loved was never the same and the quality of the writing dropped dramatically afterwards, with the filler season 4 where they didn't know what to do with the rushed princess, the awfully bad season 5 where they attempted to give an actual role to her princesshood which didn't come out quite good and had to resort to lots and lots of fandom pandering and fanservice, and the last 2 seasons which had even more executive meddling than they should (I'm looking at you inclusive agenda and school of friendship) rendering them season 3 tier at best (though longer, which is worse).

[Steve Piranha 29,428]

10 hours ago, Stardust Live said:

Oh, wow, I completely forgot about the Equestria Girls drama ... It's sort-of amazing how Sunset went from pariah in the fan community to loved and accepted

Don’t forget Flash “he took my waifu” Sentry . Seriously, he became one of my favorite characters as result 

Edited June 25, 2020 by Steve Piranha

[Splashee 28,564]

[Spoilers]

Let me remember...

 

• Derpy talking to Rainbow Dash.
• Princess Luna changing design.
• Twilight having a brother.
• Twilight getting Wings.
• Equestria Girls being a thing.
   

 

And the rest didn't really matter since by the time it happened, everyone had left the show.

[Megas 27,699]

9 hours ago, Jesse Terrence said:

Except it did affect the show in meta. Eqg was one of the reasons behind Lauren's departure, and juggling both projects at the same time took a toll on FiM's execution over the years. And the final nail to the coffin of that "it never did" is the aknowledgement of it being canon to the show by the end of the show. That shimmer cameo on the last musical number might seem small, but it does imply the eqg universe is actually part of the canon of FiM, which just ruins even more the already polemic ending to the series.

And as you mention, twilicorn.

However, it destroyed a portion of the fandom and had a snowball effect on later seasons. We could call doomfags all those who quit over it, but we gotta admit they had a point. The show we loved was never the same and the quality of the writing dropped dramatically afterwards, with the filler season 4 where they didn't know what to do with the rushed princess, the awfully bad season 5 where they attempted to give an actual role to her princesshood which didn't come out quite good and had to resort to lots and lots of fandom pandering and fanservice, and the last 2 seasons which had even more executive meddling than they should (I'm looking at you inclusive agenda and school of friendship) rendering them season 3 tier at best (though longer, which is worse).

I wanted to reply to this sooner since I actually have quite a lot to say about this. Thread talks about drama you thought was overblown and I still think those two fit the bill, but there's a lot of things in here I want to touch up on

9 hours ago, Jesse Terrence said:

Except it did affect the show in meta. Eqg was one of the reasons behind Lauren's departure, and juggling both projects at the same time took a toll on FiM's execution over the years. And the final nail to the coffin of that "it never did" is the aknowledgement of it being canon to the show by the end of the show. That shimmer cameo on the last musical number might seem small, but it does imply the eqg universe is actually part of the canon of FiM, which just ruins even more the already polemic ending to the series.

In regards to EQG "Juggling both projects at the same time took a toll on FiM's execution", the staff have said repeatedly that EQG did not take anything from the main show and in fact had their own team of directors and animators entirely, they only shared some of the same writers and given writers tend to work on multiple projects. As for Sunset's "blink and you'll miss it" cameos, going by the 4chan leaks, Sunset was originally meant to get a major cameo and a speaking role in the finale but was lobbied against by Jim Miller(the show by this point was littered with questionable to outright awful writing decisions for the last few seasons yet it was for this of all things he decided to grow a spine). It's such a split second moment that it really just comes off as the animators throwing Sunset fans a bone. Honestly there's so many things worse in the finale than sunset's 1 second background cameo

As for Lauren Faust, while I believe it would have been better under her than Josh Haber, I can't say I was on board with all of her ideas. As for her leaving, it's been generally accepted that it was due to creative differences with Hasbro. I doubt EQG existing played a part, I remember her husband Craig McKracken saying that was the case but I remember that being disputed, especially since she didn't react to it until it was revealed. And honestly, I can't exactly say she has any room to speak when she shits on EQG while she would go on to create DC Super Hero Girls Show(not a shot at the show, in fact I think it's pretty great, but there a sense of hypocrisy there)

With Twilicorn, I could actually see that playing a bigger part but again there's really not much else to go on. Again, I think at worst it was done too early. Heck, I wouldn't even say it was the worst thing to happen in S3, as Discord's """"Reformation"""" was much more damaging to the show as time went on

9 hours ago, Jesse Terrence said:

However, it destroyed a portion of the fandom and had a snowball effect on later seasons. We could call doomfags all those who quit over it, but we gotta admit they had a point. The show we loved was never the same and the quality of the writing dropped dramatically afterwards, with the filler season 4 where they didn't know what to do with the rushed princess, the awfully bad season 5 where they attempted to give an actual role to her princesshood which didn't come out quite good and had to resort to lots and lots of fandom pandering and fanservice, and the last 2 seasons which had even more executive meddling than they should (I'm looking at you inclusive agenda and school of friendship) rendering them season 3 tier at best (though longer, which is worse).

I'd say it was the result of the staff, writing team, animators, etc., constantly being shuffled or replaced than anything, remember than the last guy on the original team had two episodes in S6(Dave Polsky), and his final one(Newbie Dash) being completely buttfucked by the show's new leadership(Josh Haber). Disregarding that I actually think S4 and S5 are  great seasons(Despite an awful finale for S5. And depending on where you ask, i.e., anywhere that isn't /mlp/, those two seasons are held in pretty high regard), I won't disagree that there was a noticeable downfall of the show, in fact most people who know me will tell you where I sit at, but it didn't happen until much later(season 6). I won't deny that those two had their fair share of problems(MA Larson called out new writers for never watching previous episodes while Josh Haber straight up admitted he relied on fan wikis to get up to date), but I do think most of the show's leadership did give a shit about what they wanted to do. But of everything, this is actually the part I wanted to talk about the most

9 hours ago, Jesse Terrence said:

and the last 2 seasons which had even more executive meddling than they should (I'm looking at you inclusive agenda and school of friendship) rendering them season 3 tier at best (though longer, which is worse). 

The writers actually had a lot more freedom from Season Six onward(which is probably the worst part). A lot of the show's worst ideas from that point came entirely from the writers, from Starlight's redemption to the Changeling's redemption to the Student Six(the writers actively gloated about them on twitter repeatedly), and arguably the School of Friendship(they said it was Hasbro's idea, but the leaks showed Haber wanted to include it since S6, chances are Hasbro actually changed their minds on this and let them do it). Note all of the most toyetic choices in those seasons never even got toys or playsets, except for the school itself and the students getting blindbag appearances, which says a lot. In fact if there was one big takeaway from the leaks, it was the fact that there was such poor communication from the show's writers, Hasbro, animators, and the show's leadership at that point. From S1-5, Hasbro had pretty good control of what they wanted in the show and they and the writers were able to communicate quite well. From S6 onward a lot of complaints Hasbro or the animators had towards certain episodes would often fall on deaf ears(Jim Miller would often complain about nothing about The Crystaling working, Hasbro echoed every major complaint people made about Newbie Dash, just to name a few examples), and there seemed to be a real disconnect from the show's leadership and the writers which can be seen in certain episodes being wildly different from what they originally planned, often for the worst(see AJ's Day Off or almost every RD episode). And that's just talking about the stuff that was approved. In S6, Haber originally wanted to have the mane 6 replaced

 

If it wasn't obvious enough, I really disliked Josh Haber's tenure on the show. And I think a lot of the show's lowest points can be traced back to him rather than S3-5

Spoiler

tl;dr Most of the drama from S1-5 were overblown, most of the drama from S6 onward was justified

 

[ExplosionMare 18,065]

I’ll give you a hint:

 

ISNT IT AMAZING?!! NOW I HAVE PRINCESS WINGS

[Stardust Live 44]

On 6/25/2020 at 6:46 PM, Steve Piranha said:

Don’t forget Flash “he took my waifu” Sentry . Seriously, he became one of my favorite characters as result 

Oh heck, THAT drama ... Flash's human design always bothered me. I'm not sure why, maybe his face is so squished? Like it should be a touch longer? His hair too big in proportion? I'm not sure, but it ALWAYS felt off

(His pony design is perfectly fine)

 

EDIT: With Faust leaving, I saw all sorts of deification of her and it really annoyed me. It also annoyed me that EQG was apparently so infuriating to her. MLP is not her baby, she didn't make it entirely, she was brought on to remake a show entirely about selling toys, why is she surprised and mad that Hasbro wanted to do that very thing to cash in on Monster High's popularity? She comes across as stuck up and difficult to work with for me, and doesn't understand that she needs to compromise. She seems to constantly leave things due to 'creative differences' (i.e. a higher-up was going to make me do things I didn't want)

Edited June 28, 2020 by Stardust Live

[JMTV99 1,354]

The Derpy fiasco, Twilicorn, and Equestria Girls were the biggest ones that I remember. OMG, it was ridiculous.

Though, I would count Fighting is Magic and Button Mash Adventures, but thankfully both of them has been restored in different ways. The former was rebranded as Them Fighting Herds. While the latter was still up on YouTube.

[Steve Piranha 29,428]

On 2020-06-24 at 7:16 PM, Stardust Live said:

Now that the show is over, what was the biggest, most overblown or weirdest drama related to the show you can think of? Which ones overall really meant nothing, which ones were for the better despite the drama, and which ones did you forget?

(NOT INCLUDING FANDOM DRAMA like Las Vegas Pegacon or whatever it was called or creator fights, because that sort of nastiness is a whole other story and I don't want old wounds to be opened)

Here's a list of some I can remember:

- Twilight's brother suddenly appearing

- Cadence being an Alicorn and a Princess. I think if she were just a Princess (i.e. a pegasus one) it wouldn't have been such a big deal. I keep forgetting that this only happened at the start of Season 2. Season 2!!!

- Twilight ascending. *THE* drama I remember, my goodness the hysteria over this

- Derpy/Muffins. This is borderline with my no fandom rule above, but it affected the show itself so I am including it

- Flurry Heart as an Alicorn. Nowhere near as big a drama as Twilight, this fizzled pretty quick

- The show ending, and what the ending was

 

Don’t forget pastel humans and Flash “he took my Waifu “ Sentry 

[Will Guide 21,360]

This is a message to everybody who watches any kind of show or film or video game series. I always see a show, video game series, or film series like a roller coaster. It has it ups and downs the viewer usually doesn't control how it would be unless the creators directly come up and ask for that kind of thing. And to me a good fan is the kind of fan who instead of demanding changes to every little thing they don't like just simply sits back, enjoy the ride and makes their opinion about whether they were pleased or not by the end of it. 

Because by the end of the day the people who made the roller coaster are a business that just trying to make something that people will pay for. Some of the money go into paying the wages of everybody who works on it and other parts of the money is used to work on other future projects within the company. And the fans are not always pleased but it's important to appreciate the fact that it takes a lot of hard work to even get the project finished let alone be able to make enough money to pay back the budget and make a profit.

All in all, I think overblown drama just simply prevents fans from enjoying the hard work the showmakers put into the thing. The fans don't have to like it at the end of the thing, but if you're going to spend all your time complaining about it while it's ongoing you're going to miss something that can potentially be good to you

[JMTV99 1,354]

1 minute ago, Will Guide said:

This is a message to everybody who watches any kind of show or film or video game series. I always see a show, video game series, or film series like a roller coaster. It has it ups and downs the viewer usually doesn't control how it would be unless the creators directly come up and ask for that kind of thing. And to me a good fan is the kind of fan who instead of demanding changes to every little thing they don't like just simply sits back, enjoy the ride and makes their opinion about whether they were pleased or not by the end of it. 

Because by the end of the day the people who made the roller coaster are a business that just trying to make something that people will pay for with. Some of the money go into pay the wages of everybody who works on it and other parts of the money is used to work on other future projects within the company.

All in all, I think overblown drama just simply prevents fans from enjoying the hard work the showmakers put into the thing. The fans don't have to like it at the end of the thing, but if you're going to spend all your time complaining about it while it's ongoing you're going to miss something that can potentially be good to you

Well said.

[Landi 600]

Now, I actually do think some of those earlier show-related dramas had some validity. For instance, Twilicorn hurt Twilights character and slightly damaged the dynamic of the mane six, and EQG did affect a few aspects of the show at the time. But the good thing is that the overall quality of the show wasn't ruined, more so just a bit dampened in my opinion. So as much as I disliked Twilight becoming an alicorn and EQG as a whole, they didn't negatively affect the show as much some of the choices that were in the later seasons (6-9).