AuroraMLP

Personally, I like the old design, but I'm not one of those fans going "REEEEE!!!!" over the new one, either. I like his new design, and he definitely needed a change to fit the role of king, but I love the trope of finding beauty in unconventional things. I find good changelings quite cute, since my instinctual "beauty meter" is more tuned into character than looks. Like, Thorax before he changed, while looking pretty much identical to other changelings, was quite cute to me. So was that changeling in Slice of Life. Artists have even managed to make Chrysalis cute (Not just in the sexy way, the huggable way. And I'm not talking about chibi, either.) At the same time, King Thorax's design is a very good example of what I would think a king of the fairy horse people would be. And the changelings under him aren't bad, either. But if I were given a choice for what design I would want for reformed changelings, I would pick the original. Maybe his shiny wings, if there really had to be a visual difference. Though if there was a separate race introduced that had the new designs, that would be even better. At the same time, though, I understand the metaphor with the "metamorphosis into a beautiful butterfly." I remember liking the transformation, but then being sad that the old design was no more.

As Generation 4 comes to a close, and the show starting to run out of the main friendship lessons seen in earlier seasons, what sorts of lessons would you have liked to see? There have been quite a few surprisingly complex and mature lessons that MLP has taught, considering the target demographic. Now the show is coming to a close, and we don't know what the focus of Generation 5 is going to be. The Elements of Harmony might not even be a thing. This generation is called "Friendship is Magic," and we don't know if friendship is going to be as big in the new, rebooted show. If you were a show writer, what episodes would you have liked to see? Please, no "I really wanted a Celestia episode" and things like that. Yes, I would have loved those things too. This is a focus on the life lesson/moral. Though in your description, feel free to be detailed. Maybe you have a perfect lesson for a Celestia episode. That would be great. Discussion on the role of life lessons in MLP are also okay/encouraged. ----------- For my contribution, an episode moral I really wanted done well was about honesty. Specifically, how it can be incredibly inconvenient, and look like a bad idea. In the end, though, being honest might hurt feelings or put you in awkward situations, but in the end, it holds a friendship together. Applejack's key episode, the one with the Flim Flam tonic stuff, had the moral of "being honest when it isn't convenient, but I don't really think it was that much of a success. It seemed that the only reason she eventually decided to tell the truth was that her grandmother's life was literally in danger. And cartoons in general, including MLP, use awkward lying all the time to get out of situations. It's a writing trope. Applejack did it herself in Party of One. And think what would have happened if Applejack just told Pinkie "I'm sorry, I can't tell you." or "It's a secret." Just plain and simple. That would have defused the entire situation, since Pinkie has respect for that kind of thing. Sure, in most episodes, it's used for plot points or for comedy, but of all the lessons on friendship, honesty when it is difficult isn't really taught explicitly. And as a main Element of Harmony, that's really underrepresented. Just think of the "test" in the first episode. Applejack had no reason to lie that Twilight would be safe. And if she had explained herself with a few more words, Twilight wouldn't have panicked. If that "test" showed anything, it was just that Applejack trusted her friends enough to catch the unicorn. (As much as it sounds, I'm not a particularly huge Applejack fan. I just value honesty quite a lot, and I know how misunderstood it can be, even among well-meaning and good people.) For an episode plot, I'm thinking of something along the lines of "The One Where Pinkie Knows," except instead of just trying to hold in the great news, the struggle is with other ponies asking questions that are pretty innocent, but answering them would mean spoiling the secret. In response to these questions, the character (not sure who - probably Applejack for the biggest impact) tells little white lies - ones that seem harmless but keep the secret hidden. But also ones that other ponies might see. Applejack then has to go through efforts to make them seem true to whatever pony/ponies she's keeping the secret from. Near the end, she would be rushing all over the place, exhausted, as she tries to make sure all the different things she says on a whim both seem true to ponies, and work with each other. (Maybe elaborate means to keep ponies apart who she told different stories to or something.) And right as she thinks she can't handle the stress anymore, she sees Big Mac (who is also in on it) say in about five words something that just makes ponies leave him alone. Finally, whatever event/gift/etc. is revealed, the relevant ponies are sufficiently surprised and delighted, they shake their heads at the lengths she went to keeping that secret, and Applejack reflects on how easy things would have been if she had been brave enough to say "I can't talk about it." (Criticism of the plot is okay, but please submit your own response when doing so for other people. Also, please refrain from criticism of ideals. While I enjoy a good philosophical debate, I don't want that kind of discussion in this thread. PM people for that sort of thing. Thank you.)

Hmm... I don't have access to statistics, but I do think that if it has gotten smaller, it isn't by much. Sure, people have left the fandom at Twilicorn, or EQG, or Season 6... but people have joined as well. Right now, I think the fandom is in kind of a lull in "new members," but I don't really think it's gotten significantly smaller. I mean, just in looking at Youtube comment avatars, I am seeing a lot more ponies, and the other commenters don't care. Brony hate still exists quite a lot, but bronies in general are less "visible" to the outside world. The Brony fandom isn't dying, but it is losing its fad status. That means that yes, a lot of people are leaving, but it leaves behind the "true" fans - the ones that didn't come because it was popular, and the ones that didn't just become momentarily obsessed with the show. The ones remaining are the reviewers, the content creators, and the people that really just like ponies, no matter what direction the show takes. For example, take Fimfiction, a site that I know the most about. The numbers of stories and authors writing them are going down steadily. But just in the past few years, there has been an increasing number of good stories. The ones that could have easily become novels or short stories in their own right, publishable if they had not been based on a copyrighted material. Nopony can really judge the "quality" of a fan, but still, I think that there are more and more people who are really invested in MLP, even as the total number goes down. And who knows? This next season could easily be good enough to attract more people. The show is far from dead. Besides, while a lot of people panicked and left over Twilight's ascension, the show was praised heavily for breaking the mold of other cartoons that remained static, ultimately resulting in more fans than before. A "new generation" of post-ascension bronies. This new character shift could do the same thing.

By deduction, I must constantly have dreams while being a pony, but I never can remember them. Since in order to remember a dream, it has to be particularly unusual. And since tend to imagine myself as a pony all day, nothing is really unusual about that. I know that I have had dreams about ponies, though, even when I don't remember my dreams. When I still hadn't told my parents that I was a Brony, I was woken up rather abruptly from deep sleep, and my mom was asking me questions. My brain was not fully restarted yet, though, and I could not form words properly. I said something about "magic" (that was all I remembered of what I said), and while I know I didn't say anything about ponies, as I was actively trying not to, I know that the "magic" I was referring to was definitely the unicorn kind. (That was one of the odd times when I was awake enough to know that I was not coherent enough to reliably keep secrets. It is a really odd feeling to panic as your thoughts are completely coherent, but your mouth is still connected primarily to your subconscious.) I had one Inception-style dream where I think I was a pony, but I might have been simultaneously a human. Dreams are odd like that.

All right. I have a few suggestions that I hope will be useful. For something with a complex and interesting plot, Rites of Ascension, by CvBrony is a great story about Twilight's ascension that was started before Season 3, and it has its own complex and detailed canon. Still, it is easy to read for vocabulary purposes. It is a very long story, though. For an interesting pony-on-Earth fic, Anthropology, by JasonTheHuman, is a good one that should be easy to read. For something more challenging, Alarm Clock, by Meta Four, is an incredibly confusing, but completely awesome fanfiction that not even I completely understood on the first reading.

Hmm... that is a good point. But that would imply that one of them was kidnapped about 8-10 hours before the other, since both bodies were present in the sky at that time, not just froze in place. Wait a minute... maybe the Tree of Harmony keeps them moving, and the Princesses give them boosts to get past the horizon..? But yeah, I think this would be the thing I would like for them to address the most. Before that episode, I liked the headcanon that after Discord's reign, the Sun and Moon were sent into degenerate orbits, the previous unicorns, and now Luna and Celestia, have to boost their orbital velocity twice a day to keep them from destroying Equus. (In this headcanon, the Sun is a smaller magical entity. Not a star. An alternative could be a slowing Equus rotation, but that makes less sense.

Hmmm... definitely an interesting question that I have wondered about. Personally, I think that, based on accounts of the group of unicorns that raised the Sun and Moon before the Princesses, it would have to be a one-time thing. Well, it is possible that moving them across the sky takes minimal effort, but I like to think of the Sun and Moon in Equestria as their own magical entities. They behave in a similar manner to clouds in Equestria. They do things on their own, but they require management to function properly.