What did you think of G4.5 and G5?

G4.5: i tried watching the cartoon!! but i !!! do not like it. it is simply not for me! the pacing and general vibe isnt my thing!

G5... its complicated. i loved the movie. i think it was a step in the right direction but i do not like the rest all that much. i dislike that it is a sequel to G4, while simultaneously retconning far too much to make sense. the writing style is also geared more towards very young kids, which is totally okay! shows for kids can and should exist!! but to me, marketing it as a follow up to friendship is magic, whose fans grew up with and are now in their 20s, means that your show SHOULD also target those teens-young adults. FiM was pitched as a show that would primarily target kids, but would be enjoyable by older siblings and parents watching with them. and in my opinion, it succeeded! season 1 is a great testimony on how to write a kid's show that anyone can watch. the later seasons definitely leaned more into the older audience, and im not asking that of G5 at all.

what im asking for is a bit more consideration for the people you're half-willingly marketing to- OR stop marketing to us altogether by making a new gen that is a full reboot, made exclusively for little kids to enjoy! ive read some of the comics though, and i like what theyre doing with the lore there. oh also misty is amazing and i love that theyre finally adding more PoC representation in MLP that ARENT DIFFERENT SPECIES ALTOGETHER. G4 kinda fucked that up with the whole zebra, buffalo, changeling, etc thing

that was definitely a movie

Starlight Glimmer/Post-Secrets Of The Dragon’s Tear Thoughts

So now that Secrets of the Dragon’s Tear is finished. I can now sort of put some reflections on some of the things that I did. I did a lot to expand the lore of I Dream of Twilight Sparkle and/or give my sort of interpretation of where some characters could go after the final two-parter and tried my darndest to fit it in a way that wouldn’t be too farfetched if some details were actually canon. From Scootaloo helping out the Wonderbolts expand, Sweetie starting her music career, Dragons not having marriages, Moondancer having had a crush on Twilight, Where Spike’s egg was found and who his dragon mother was and what happened to her along with how his egg ended up in Equestria and get linked with Twilight in such a way given there was not any other Pony/Dragon companionship in the show ever. And of course all of the lore expansions that was revealed with Twilight speaking to Jennesis and Jinn, plus Applejack and family reuniting with her deceased parents (Obviously FiM is the kind of show that doesn’t let you say death. But there’s absolutely no way they’re alive judging from some of the faces and even a few subtle lines in the episode The Perfect Pear.)

But funnily enough, one huge part of the story that I didn’t quite expect to have. Was the entirety of Starlight’s part of the story. You see, Starlight Glimmer was a character I was always… kind of lukewarm towards. I could never quite get past how quick her redemption was plus from what we are told… she almost rebooted the timeline… just because her friend got a cutie mark and left (Which by that logic, Moondancer should have become a villain too. She’d probably have even connected more as a villain since at least she had a connection to Twilight. I’m not saying I would of preferred Moondancer be a villain as I like how she actually is. But having her episode where she only become a shut-in after Twilight didn’t show up at her party and moved to Ponyville sort of become detrimental to Starlight’s story that she went as far as she did after Sunburst moved). We never got any more details about that other then Starlight felt sad about that and it was somehow enough to start her turn to darkness not to mention never got an explanation for why she was so magically powerful. Even besides ridiculous stuff like turning kitchen utensils into a cake, she’s able to levitate herself without wings which we can assume is something Twilight can’t even do.

So Starlight kind of became a rather frustrating character. I never hated her per se, but it’s easy to see why she was sort of a divisive character when she’s sort of shoehorned as a recurring character with a rather weak turn-to-villainy story combined with a magic power that without the proper explanation I’m sure got her cursed out as a Mary Sue. And some of those actually had a point, unlike the people who thought Twilight getting her wings would instantly make her a Mary Sue. And even with some episodes coming up that might of promised some more Starlight backstory, it never exactly went that way. I am sort of thankful for that now, given it gave me free reign to do what I did for Starlight in the story. But stuff like Parent Map certainly only gave really small details like Starlight had a goth phase and didn’t even show a mother for her (Again thankful for that now since one of the big plot twists of the story depends on almost no one knowing who Starlight’s mother is aside from obviously her father who had a reason to keep her a secret)

When Starlight was dropped from being Twilight’s student in Season 7. That was something of a relief because the fear was that Starlight was going to become an Alicorn and she still wouldn’t enough backing to really support making her a Princess. Even if you weren’t a fan of Twilight becoming an Alicorn, there’s no denying that prior to Magical Mystery Cure we didn’t really know the ultimate goal of Celestia mentoring Twilight for. It didn’t seem right that she mentored her just to free her sister, save the world some more on occasion before, as she just spends her life with her friends. Even Lauren Faust’s vision was Twilight to succeed Celestia at some point, and in that context seems like it makes sense that Twilight became an Alicorn. Starlight becoming an Alicorn however risked being everything people feared about Magical Mystery Cure but worse since with how quick and with lack of explantation they did with adding Starlight as a recurring character that even has two-parters that star her instead of the Mane 6, that Starlight’s ascension was going to be when Twilight feels she is ready  despite having never given the audience everything we should want to know about Starlight, not to mention many of us still not quite forgiving her for nearly rebooting the timeline over… and I’ll repeat… a friend moving away.

So then, Starlight become a counselor in the school and had a few episodes involving that. And later, she is promoted to be Twilight’s successor to be Principal of the school. Which currently is how the show decided to keep as her canon role even up the more then a decade long timeskip in The Last Problem. Being a Principal of the School of Friendship is still a rather big deal. Though with the school only having been around for two seasons before the series ended it never really felt like it had too much of an impact so it kind of seemed like it gave Starlight a pretty mundane role that cools the fears of those who were afraid they were going to give a role to Starlight she doesn’t feel like she deserves without enough information about her. Though I imagine it may have been somewhat of an underwhelming choice for anybody who did like Starlight.

So Starlight’s legacy as a character goes like this: She’s Season 5’s seasonal villain that got quickly reformed in that season’s finale. Got important episodes in Season 6 and even gets to save Equestria alongside Trixie and Discord in Season 6’s finale. In Season 7 she’s stripped of being Twilight’s student to do whatever she wants. Though it was generally just slice of life with her own batch of friends whether it was Trixie, Sunburst, or Maud. And then she becomes a counselor in Season 8, promoted to Principal near the end of nine. Throughout her time on the show she’s sort of both an important protagonist throughout Seasons 6 and 7, but she never reaches quite Mane 6 or even CMC level in terms of working towards a clear goal or occupation. Other then I guess being tutored on the values of Friendship by Twilight we have no clear direction on where Starlight was supposed to go. So upon the School of Friendship, she’s free to essentially get employed under Twilight again but as a counselor throughout all of Season 8 and some of 9 until she’s given the reigns of the school after Twilight’s own promotion to sole ruler in Canterlot. So we’re left with a divisive character in the show that was never given enough to really tackle doubters, and perhaps underwhelming to her fans. So now the question becomes, is there perhaps a direction that could of been taken where Starlight could of possibly been fixed to a point where she may have worked into a more important role then she actually got that satisfies her fans that also at the same time has the backstory/information necessary to placate those skeptical of Starlight after her fast reformation?

As someone who just wrote Secret’s of the Dragon Tear where at least 7 of 32 chapters are centered around exploring something in regards to Starlight’s character and/or her family. I think I can say firmly: Yes. After writing this story, Starlight’s no longer a character I feel lukewarm/don’t care for. She quickly became… perhaps one of the biggest missed opportunities of the show. I believe now that Starlight could have been a great portion even if her turnaround was rather quick. What I did in the story I feel like provides a good baseline for not just making Starlight more sympathetic/understandable. But maybe even have it make sense that she perhaps eventually reaches an important role… even possibly becoming an Alicorn Princess in the future. Which is something of a turnaround for myself, since I would of groaned if she had been put on a path to possibly become a Princess in the show… but with what I came up with this story…. I couldn’t find it myself to stick with the idea that she only decided to stay a Principal and that’s it. Now, I’m not going to say that everything I did in the story would of had to been followed to make it work. Even just the concepts being similar or at least only a few of these being applied in some fashion could of worked to make Starlight better. So I’m going to sort of bullet point some things that come up in the story in order of which we first learn about them. Starting with…

I. Starlight’s relationship with her father/Firelight

Now obviously, Firelight is a father that loves Starlight very much. That’s obvious in the episode The Parent Map. Perhaps to the point where it’s overbearing, still calling her childish nicknames despite being grown-up. But nonetheless we can plainly see Firelight is a loving father… that said a loving father doesn’t necessarily always mean a good father. You can still have a complicated relationship with a parent that loves you. They treat you as well as you can, but perhaps they keep secrets from you. Or they’re naive to your intentions and/or what you’re doing. Even putting aside Secrets of the Dragon’s Tear for a moment, despite Firelight being so loving Starlight still became that vengeful pony that took over a town with a cult and would reboot the timeline just to get revenge on ponies for foiling her plan that she concocted all because of Sunburst’s moving away. Obviously, something went wrong if her father couldn’t have told her daughter what was right or wrong. It’s likely Firelight was just too naive to even see what his daughter was planning. Firelight should have been the first one to at least try to help Starlight out before she did anything related to that cult. But unless he was utterly complicit in Starlight’s plan, which we’re given no evidence that he was… clearly Starlight was able to hide much of her turn to darkness to her father. I have to imagine that at the very least Firelight may have had to at least see a hint of Starlight’s disgust with cutie marks, (More on that soon) But either Firelight perhaps just naively thought Starlight would eventually understand cutie marks on her own, or something about her cutie mark he knew about but he decided to attempt hiding Starlight from it as what happens in Secrets of the Dragon’s Tear.

But once again putting aside the story for a moment, it might of been interesting to learn what was Firelight’s role in Starlight’s past. Exploring that would have been an interesting direction for the show to take to give a little more depth to her backstory. Now it isn’t just that she turned to darkness because of Sunburst getting her cutie mark, but also she had a father that while he still loves her, didn’t quite inquire enough to try to stop her early on. Obviously the danger in that is telling to keep too much of a watch on your daughter to the point you helicopter them over all the time. But also it is imperative for a father to help out if their children are feeling some sort of resentment about something before it snowballs into something later. And without a mother (More on this soon as well), it’s possible to get to maybe Firelight’s side of the story in that being a single father was hard for him. On a side note we’re not even sure if Firelight is even aware of what Starlight did with the town or the time travel. That could of been an interesting thing alone to explore.

II. Starlight’s Cutie Mark

Seriously, we never got Starlight’s cutie mark story ever. That felt like one of the most important things to learn even if it was understandable why the staff didn’t want deal too much with family issues for Starlight (After all it took 7 seasons before we saw Applejack’s deceased parents, and even then they still had to go for a “Do not say death” sort of thing). It even seemed like Season 5 had like THE perfect set up for Season 6 once there was more Starlight episodes: Having the CMC who had just gotten a group talent of helping others with marks including Troubleshoes potentially being the big foreshadowing episode that would indicate the CMC would be capable of helping adults too with this seasonal villain who’s motivations were cutie marks.

But… we just never got it. It might be perhaps the biggest reason Season 6 mostly fell flat for me. Some say Season 8 is the worst season of the show and I can kind of understand why, but it feels like the School of Friendship actually does something by the end of the series that’s sort of worth it and the Student 6 were generally fun characters. While Season 6 fails at what should of been easy lay-ups from what Season 5 seemed to be setting up. It’s probably fair to say Season 6 had more interesting/quality episodes perhaps, but in terms of the general over-arching part of the series. Season 8 felt like it had a purpose while Season 6’s job was to endear Starlight to us after the Season 5 finale… and it feels like it failed at that for the most part. At least in my opinion, I know obviously Starlight had fans and still has them now and I don’t mean to stomp on any valid reasons for liking Starlight even back then for one reason or another. I just felt like I needed more to really understand Starlight’s role. And it took until writing this story and filling many of the holes left by Starlight’s part of the show to understand that Starlight had potential, she just never quite reached it I feel. And even fans of her I feel like may feel underwhelmed with what they overall did with her. Starlight telling how she got her cutie mark should of been the priority of the first two-parter if not the next Starlight episode after or at least near the end or even the Season 6 finale. But instead we never get it despite how relevant it feels like it would of been to find out.

The first priority of whenever the writer’s meeting were when they started pitching ideas for Season 6 should have made showing how Starlight got her cutie mark as the #1 priority. They reformed a villain who’s entire motivation for villainy was a friend who moved away because they got their mark. It’s almost hard to believe that the writer’s chose to ignore the entire time to the point that maybe behind closed doors for some reason Hasbro didn’t want Starlight’s cutie mark story for one reason or another. It should have been as clear as day that the next course of action was to share that story cause the idea of a pony who does’t like cutie mark but getting a make that perhaps refers to their high talent would have been interesting to be explored into. And potentially gives the CMC after getting their Cutie Marks their most important scene in the show in letting us understand Starlight’s motivations and/or how she felt about getting her cutie mark and even a better understanding of what she thinks it means and whether it’s dissonant from what it actually means or not. I hate to sound like the demanding fan, but it just should of came up before stuff like Starlight meeting Trixie, saving the world herself, all her new friendshipping episodes in Season 7, and her counseling/school episodes in 8 and 9. Those stuff had a right to happen but for some reason we just never got the single thing that felt like that was important to know.

So I definitely went to rectify it even if it’s rather simple and a little bit of a copycat since it’s similar to how Twilight got hers and kind of too convenient that the thing that would give her cutie mark was also with the book that would introduce Starlight down the path of her ideology on Cutie Marks. Though coincidental timing of Cutie Marks happen quite a bit so it wouldn’t be farfetched. But I understand if perhaps I have it a little too simple for someone who complains about the show never getting to it. But even if you feel I did Starlight’s cutie mark story wrongly. I wanted to at least give a good try at it that the show never took the steps to.

III. Starlight’s missing Mother / Sunset Shimmer’s role in Secrets of the Dragon’s Tear

Now, obviously the show would of never gone with the direction my story went with Sunset Shimmer being Starlight’s missing mother. Sunset had been already established in Equestria Girls, and even though arguably Sunset should be quite a bit older then Twilight if say she had went through the mirror sometime before Celestia discovered Twilight. Her being in high school would of made the issue of Sunset being Starlight’s mother… VERY, VERY, Awkward without having to explain complicated time discrepancies between portals to kids or more likely parents who may think the show is promoting teen motherhood. Luckily, the events of the Equestria Girls movies have never been canon to Genie Twilight’s universe outside of Genie Sci-Twi in a blog entirely about genie MLP characters in different universes meeting up. So it entirely freed up not just to give Sunset a role in this story, but plausibly old enough to be Starlight’s mother. I think of the Mane 6 of at least around 25 or so by the end of the series. So keeping in mind that in Secrets of the Dragon’s Tear. Sunset disappeared about 8 or so years before Celestia discovered Twilight and how Sunset was about Twilight’s current age at the time. If Sunset had been still alive in my story, she’d have been at least close to her 40’s. Plenty old enough to have been Starlight’s mother.

It really felt like an eureka moment in about October when I found out I could possibly link Sunset and Starlight in a way that’s feasible enough to make her Starlight’s mother. Cause it’s an entirely unique relation between the two. When Sunset and Starlight are in the same conversation or sentence. It’s often about which character is better in fan arguments (With Sunset generally being more popular since she’s probably the most well-liked thing about Equestria Girls where as Starlight has always been a source of divisiveness in the main show), the one time that Starlight appeared in an Equestria girls special, or… shipping… (Which I know anybody who reads my story is about to make every single art and/or fan fiction about Starlight and Sunset hooking up very, very, very, very, VERY, awkward). But Sunset being Starlight’s mother would at least give a plausible explanation for why Starlight’s so good at magic since she likely inherited the strong magic genes from  one of the few other ponies to catch Celestia’s attention enough to make them her protege. Plus, it’s fun to think of a family that decided to rhyme their last name, I naturally wrote that as something that Firelight proposed to Sunset. So that’s why at least in Genie Twi’s universe, you have Shimmer and Glimmer. In most Alt. universe fics involving Sunset being a family member of another known canon character it’s usually either she’s Celestia’s daughter, or Sunburst’s sister. I did have to make it so she is related to Sunburst, but she’s far too old to be a sibling to him in the story. And that’s when I decided to connect Sunset to Sunburst’s father… Sunspot… who was also coincidentally missing from The Parent Map. Though apologies to any Starburst shipping fans for sinking your ship in my story by making Starlight and Sunburst cousins all along.

But anyway, I’d even say if you look at Sunset and Firelight together you could kinda see why they could of made Starlight. I guess to be fair, it doesn’t really look like Starlight got any of Sunset’s physical traits. As appearance wise it definitely looks like she got a lot of her father, though maybe at the very least Sunset’s genes lightening up the purple into the pink/light-purple Starlight is. But I think at the very least there’s some similarities personality wise that worked such as their temper. Now, the Sunset in Secrets of the Dragon’s Tear was never a villain so they can’t relate in terms of feeling guilt for what they’ve done. But perhaps another trait they share is empathy, in that Starlight’s past experience allows her to personally talk to others as a sort of comfort that someone once felt like them about some things, which is probably at least part of the reason she’d made counselor. And as for Sunset, her whole flashback power from Legend of Everfree and onward is how she finds out motivations and is able to talk to them to understand them. And the EQG staff have even said that if Sunset had an element, it’d be the Element of Empathy. Obviously part of that is Sunset having her own experiences as a villain, but I still kind of applied it to SOTDT’s Sunset when she hears Starlight admit everything about her time travel incident where she’s at first quite disturbed that her daughter would do such an act, but hearing how the fact her death had such an impact on Starlight where there were quite a few things outside of Starlight’s hooves that if even one thing changed might of made it less likely she did what she did. And the cult thing is partly Sunset’s fault for leaving the cult book in the house (Even if she did kind of do good at hiding it by having it randomly behind a wall she couldn’t have known was ever going to be broken into) allowed her to understand the circumstances of Starlight’s life to get to that point of desperation.

As she says, it didn’t make what Starlight did justified but thanks to Starlight being able to come clean and willing to become a better pony is enough to get empathy, especially from a perspective of a mother to a child who would of likely been able to stop Starlight if she had been around. Everything Starlight did is now found out as an unfortunate circumstance from the rather bad luck she had in life in things she could not control. She couldn’t have prevented her mother’s death, her father refused to tell her who her mother was that would of probably gotten her to go to Celestia’s school had she known at the time she got her cutie mark thus reunited with Sunburst and having less of an issue with cutie marks when it would of turned out it was indicative of her potential in magic skill, but instead without a single mother figure and boredom of being alone in the house she accidentally discovers both the book that would indoctrinate her for years to eventually starting the Our Town cult and her mother’s spell book that would give her the cutie mark she received, thus begrudging her own moment of gaining her mark when it should of been a good day for her and with an overprotective father afraid of Starlight following a path he doesn’t want her to go on, for fear of Starlight going missing at some point too. It just deepens Starlight’s road to darkness. So instead Starlight’s raw power was set on a path to endanger Equestria, rather then potentially becoming at least a powerful ally if her father had allowed her to go to the school. Again, doesn’t make almost rebooting the timeline justified but at least made it more understandable why she fell so far to almost do it rather then it seemingly only be about the fact a friend moved away.

But anyway, ignoring Sunset in the story for a moment. If there was an interesting idea for Starlight’s mother it certainly would of possibly been a very interesting episode of the show. If Starlight’s mother is dead, then you have kind of have a way for Starlight to bond with Applejack over. I naturally had to have them talk about it even at the point of the story where it was still unknown who her mother was. Cause whether it was a missing or a dead mother, they both don’t have a part of their lives that their friends do. So having Starlight bond with a part of the Mane 6 other then Twilight would of certainly been interesting. Of course, if Starlight’s mother is still around. Perhaps part of Starlight’s story could of been about a messy divorce, and/or even a rather rough relationship with her mother akin to Diamond Tiara and her mother. This is of course assuming that Starlight wouldn’t have just had a normal mother that just happened to not be there for the Parent Map which might of been the way they went if they went ahead with showing who her mother was. But yes, Starlight’s mother is another part of Starlight that could of had plenty of potential to help endear her to fans. As for me… I just ended up making myself if not anybody else look awkwardly if I ever see shipping stuff between Starlight and Sunset in the future knowing that in my AU, that would be incest. Oof.

IV. Starlight as Twilight’s Student / Starlight’s Future

Now after talking about Starlight’s cutie mark and family issues. Kind of going back a little in Starlight’s first role after being reformed in becoming Twilight’s student. Naturally, this is the thing that got people worried that they were going to put Starlight on a path to become an Alicorn because naturally Twilight picking a student would have you believe that’s where things are going since that’s where Twilight ended up. Though once Season 7 rolled around, Starlight actually graduates in some fashion and is just no longer Twilight’s student. Which while it came as a relief personally, it also kind of makes the whole thing weird to just cut out Starlight’s role as Twi’s student after she was for literally only one entire season. Without the proper backstory, it just became a lose/lose situation. Either Starlight gets a role she doesn’t feel like she’s earned or her role as Student just underwhelms in comparison to the other two times we’ve seen an Alicorn teacher and a unicorn student (Whether that was Sunset which ran away from Celestia’s guidance started a spin-off series and became a well-liked character in her own right from Rainbow Rocks and onwards or Twilight naturally having earned her status over saving the world a few times and getting better at magic.) Though the former also has other problems like it’s just hard to think of how to fit Starlight in with the Princesses on her own without the proper history to back it up.

But that’s where I get back into my story, where in the epilogue. And also the post this thoughts is being linked, after having met her mother which has helped made her realize who she is. She realizes that she may have been in fact destined to be in some sort of duo with Twilight. Cause going by the timeline of events: Sunset wasn’t too far from possibly one day ascending to Princesshood, however she stepped down before then, and thus Celestia had to look elsewhere. Before she found Twilight, she concluded that perhaps Sunset’s foal (Which she noticed Sunset was probably pregnant) might inherit Sunset’s power and she can begin anew from there as it would be when that foal is grown up when her sister’s banishment would end. But in a twist, Celestia goes to Saddle Arabia and gets a dream of getting the right pony to hatch Spike’s egg. Leaving it as an exam at the school first in case there were students there that could hatch it, but if they all failed she would seek out Sunset and hope she’s willing to let whoever her child would be to try hatching the egg. But instead, Celestia discovers Twilight first. But with Starlight receiving a mark that recognizes her raw power similar to Twilight from her mother’s spell book. If she had known about her mother and/or didn’t have a grudge against cutie marks to understand what her mark means, she might have gone to the school where waiting for her would be Celestia who already had Twilight. Perhaps leading to an intense magic duel between two gifted fillies, before ultimately it’s broken up to where Celestia can’t let go of Twilight because of the dream she had. But if Celestia is aware of Starlight’s history, she would of been nice enough to keep Starlight around in respect for her former Protege, especially if Celestia had known that she was deceased or even still just missing. Thus sort of having Twilight and Starlight grow up as co-proteges under Celestia. Now from there, it’d be hard to really figure all the what ifs of Twilight and Starlight being co-students from the very beginning and whether it’d change up the whole Elements of Harmony deal. Perhaps similar to how Celestia and Luna were able to harness the Elements just being two ponies. Maybe there wouldn’t be a Mane 6 at all and Twilight & Starlight would each carry 3 of the elements. Or the Mane 6 still happen, but Starlight being the sort of junior student is not one of the Elements though she still helps however she can when Nightmare Moon returns.

But of course this is a hypothetical situation that doesn’t happen at all with many things getting in the way, but kind of thanks to the idea that Luna is retiring at the end of Season 9 too it offers a sort of opening where it seems weird that Celestia and Luna is just dropping both the Sun and Moon on Twilight’s shoulders as a sole ruler. There’s no doubt Twilight would be capable, as the Last Problem shows. But nonetheless while there was a period of 1000 years of Celestia being sole ruler after Luna was banished. It wasn’t the norm, so to go from the beginning of the sisters reign with 2, down to 1 because of banishment, back to 2, but then 1 again since both sisters were retiring may seem a bit odd. So in a scenario where perhaps Starlight feels compelled to use her strong magic for the good of Equestria alongside being able to follow in her mother’s footsteps she’d want to be the student of who’s ever going to be the reigning monarch for a long while, and while she certainly doesn’t want to force it and let Twilight decide, whether she’s a student for life or eventually is chosen to sort of be Luna’s successor in terms of being the younger Alicorn. And with Celestia and Luna both retiiring, that means falling under Twilight’s tutelage once again but a bigger scope then the one throughout Season 6. She could still be Principal even as she has the status of Twilight’s student, as we saw Twilight did plenty of things, while known as Celestia’s student. And like is pointed out, being a Principal in a school where non-ponies are allowed to attend is actually somewhat the perfect warm-up for if Starlight eventually becomes a co-ruler with Twilight. She would have basically seen what are multiple ambassadors in terms of students from other nations, their parents, or whatever guardians brings them along to attend the school.

So, it gives a legitimate reason for Starlight to perhaps become Twilight’s student once again. There’s still going to be a due diligence in Starlight learning from Twilight for a good amount of years. In fact it’s likely I won’t explicitly share the result of going back to being Twilight’s student until whenever I decide I feel it’s time for me to close down I Dream of Twilight Sparkle (I don’t know when that will be, it will probably at least go until the end of 2022 Where perhaps I’ll end it officially after what will be 10 years since the blog began. Though also may depend how G5 is). Likely for the rest of the time until then Starlight will only be a student again. I don’t think I plan on showing Starlight’s moment of ascension if it happens as I’d like to think that Twilight and Starlight both mutually agree to make sure enough time has passed and Starlight has the experience after years of being the Principal of Friendship and/or enough missions that Twilight might send her on. And while Starlight hints she’s likely not to, it’s also Twilight giving time for Starlight in case she wants to back out if say she finds herself with a feeling like her mother to instead raise a family.

Basically after going through the effort to give Starlight such a role she has in the story. It didn’t feel right to leave her as just the Principal of the School of Friendship and that’s it. Another shot at being Twilight’s student I feel makes sense in a scenario where to honor her mother’s legacy and use the magic she inherited to it’s fullest potential is to once again be a faithful student to the ruling Alicorn.

And this is a rather huge step for me since I used to just not care too much for Starlight. And some of her episodes kind of made it harder since for one or another they were sort of problematic from No Second Prances where I feel Twilight probably should of been more lenient with Trixie, To Change a Changeling where Starlight messes up but it somehow works out anyway, and then there was A Matter of Principals where Discord might have been at his most infuriating yet Starlight actually forgives him near the end. With episodes like those and with the lack of more details about Starlight’s past it’s easy to see why Starlight was divisive. Though with this story, Starlight seems to me now like a pretty mishandled character that could have worked with the right direction, but just could never meet the potential that she could of had. Obviously maybe part of it was that the staff maybe knew Starlight was sort of shoehorned so they wanted to make sure there was still plenty of space for episodes about the Mane 6 or other characters that the fans have watched since the first season, as well as whatever ideas they wanted to do for each season until they got the word that Season 9 would be the last. But even considering that it feels like it could of been plausible to replace the more slice-of-life Starlight episodes with something that explains her a little more then we got. As besides from the Season 5 finale the only things we learn about Starlight’s past is a little more of her friendship with Sunburst, where she grew up, who her father was, and she had a goth phase as a teen. If I’m missing anything else they hinted or shared about Starlight’s past let me know, but there just wasn’t a lot for a character that feels like she needed it.

I’m not saying my story is the only way for Starlight to have been fixed. But just at least mentioning some key elements that would have helped. Change a few things around of the keys I laid out even if it of course it wouldn’t be the exact same or couldn’t be the exact same for obvious reasons (Most big of all Sunset who once again despite it probably making sense that she’d be old enough in the pony world if she was grown up when she went across the mirror the first time, is still a high schooler in Equestria Girls)  and either way it certain would of helped. While I’m sure there’s probably many fanfics about it already, even something as simple as turning Starlight and Sunburst’s relationship into a shipping story (Obviously not in Genie Twi’s AU though, since they’re cousins) where Starlight reuniting with Sunburst makes her rekindle a little more then just their friendship. Where it shows that perhaps Sunburst leaving was secretly a little more then just Starlight being heartbroken about her only friend leaving. Even if that’s the only change it would of helped. So in a way, I’ve come to like Starlight Glimmer much more then I used to but kind of in a way that she’s now a disappointing character if you don’t have anything to fill in the gaps and only go by what’s shown about Starlight in the show. But when those gaps ARE filled by some sort of fanon, suddenly she can actually be quite interesting and now I have a Starlight that I feel like I can get to like and shape for myself where even if she did all the same things the show Starlight did, it at least feels to me I thought of a satisfying enough reason for why it all happened. She doesn’t have to be completely forgiven about the Time Travel thing as that’s probably her biggest sin, but the important part was that Starlight could feel shame and remorse… which gets into my last category

V. Contrasting Starlight with the Villains Post-Reformation

With Starlight no longer a villain after Season 5 and on the side of good, it will come time for her to face some villains of her own. Though the first thing she faced wasn’t exactly a villain but just some dangerous winter storm that would envelop the Crystal Empire if the Crystal Heart isn’t fixed in time. Which is understandable since that episode is generally about Starlight reuniting with Sunburst after having been told him leaving was Starlight’s motivation. They again unfortunately go too deep on that, though still least shows Starlight has some kind of almost PTSD-like feeling prior to seeing him again. It wouldn’t be until the Season 6 finale before Starlight faces her first true villain with Queen Chrysalis on a revenge plan after Canterlot Wedding. I think generally Chrysalis and Starlight was a pretty good rivalry, that lasts for the entire rest of the series even after Starlight tried to have her own moment of reforming a villain in a similar reaching-out-the-hoof fashion to her own. Only for Chrysalis to just slap it away.

Though Chrysalis is actually the only one Starlight ever gets to directly fight besides of course the big final fight where there is an entire army of ponies who attack the trio of Cozy, Chrysalis, and Tirek. Starlight only gets manipulated and trapped in the ball of magic by Cozy, Starlight is one of Sombra’s hypnotized army and in the final two-parter she gets a brief fight with Chrysalis where she’s defeated by the much more powered-up Chrysalis before she’s the first one Discord tricks Tirek into freeing to help the Mane 6 escape. Perhaps it’s another disappointment in that while it was kind of still interesting to have Starlight have this rivalry with Chrysalis. Starlight didn’t have much of a connection to the others.

And this is the point I again get to a part of my story, where I actually made Cozy Glow perhaps one of the central figures of Starlight’s past being a part of the family that are responsible for the death of her mother (Even though of course they didn’t come out unscathed since Cozy’s parents both died in that confrontation too, and Cozy was sent to the future by the unpredictable effects of Sunset firing magic with a broken horn). I’ll kind of admit it is sort of stretching things to just try to tie things together as much as possible, but Cozy Glow is a character we know even less about then Starlight. And despite being a little filly, she’s treated like this ultimate evil on the level of Tirek since she’s sent to Tartaurus. Which confuses a lot of fans who are used to this show usually reforming the villains. Which is probably why it was a good idea to actually sort of make it so that she definitely did deserve the fate she got by revealing her upbringing would make it impossible for her to be reformed. Just outing her as a complete psychopath that no friendship lessons were going to change her, as unfortunately there are people in real life that just can’t be changed and the only proper answer is some kind of justice for them that discourages others from following their path. Cozy’s just a filly, but when she’s indoctrinated by those just as psychopathic, at least in the Genie Twi AU it would take outright brainwashing.

Having Cozy have a role with Starlight’s Mother’s death also sort of makes the moment Cozy seeks counsel from Starlight with more hidden sinister background to it all. It’s partly Cozy’s fault Starlight ended up doing what she did since after manipulating Sunset into believing she’s not like her parents, she drops a rock that breaks Sunset’s horn, nerfing Sunset’s ability to do much against Cozy and her mother. Cozy gets some form of comeuppance in that she gets the ultimate bad luck in being sent through time by Sunset’s blast, but injuring Sunset’s horn allows Cozy’s mother to grab Sunset and put them in a suicidal free-fall that’ll kill them both since she doesn’t have the wing power to save herself and Sunset would have to hope she’s lucky enough with her injured horn. Resulting instead of both getting exploded after Cozy’s mother tries covering the hole of Sunset’s broken horn before they even hit the water. Though Cozy is likely sent conveniently at around Season 8’s time chronologically where she probably somewhere caught wind of the School of Friendship and started her manipulation on the CMC and of course Starlight. We’re also never given an explanation for how Cozy knew what she would do would happen in the Season 8 finale except I guess we have to assume that in canon it was something she learned from Tirek. But in the Genie Twi AU, it’s also a plan that her parents wanted to do and what Sunset aimed to stop before she retired for good. As we shouldn’t forget that removing the magic from Equestria is still a devastating move, we can debate that Starlight’s time travel is arguably worse and in some ways I’d even agree with that but nonetheless has a huge impact. And in a story where it’s states that all life is Magic too through their souls, that doesn’t just make Cozy a power-crazy psychopath but a GENOCIDAL psychopath.

Cozy’s magic sucking thing can’t actually suck in soul magic since otherwise Cozy herself would fall under her own plan most likely, but without usable magic the world would quickly become unhappy and dark magic would spread everywhere. I even made it so it’s particularly related to Starlight by implying that the wasteland we saw in the Season 5 finale was if Cozy succeeded. Obviously Cozy hadn’t been met at the time of that but given we saw the futures where Chrysalis, and Tirek won. Even if at the time Cozy didn’t exist conceptually, it was the perfect thing to apply to tie Cozy into the overall arch of the series. And while Sunset sending Cozy to the future just before Season 8 may be a little forceful in trying to tie things together it does result in the idea that time travel really messes up Starlight’s life in how it brings her unknowingly face to face with one of her mother’s murderers and how she’d end up using it in her most infamous scheme. I doubt Cozy in the Genie Twi AU knew for sure that Starlight was Sunset’s daughter but it does still sort of retroactively make any meeting between Starlight and Cozy in Season 8 more sinister and/or tragic with Cozy almost sending Starlight away with wherever all that magic was going to go in the Season 8 Finale. But if Cozy were to ever escape from being in stone and found out, she’d no doubt flaunt her role in ruining Starlight’s early life. The lengths of which psychopathic people go to torture the people who get in their way knows no bounds. Cozy’s effect on Starlight’s life implied in Secrets of Dragon’s Tear making her overall the central figure responsible for what Starlight ended up doing. Cozy and her parents confrontation with Starlight’s mother caused her death and in a fashion where no pony would know what happened thus causing the domino effect of Starlight’s fall into darkness and delaying her finding her destiny of being in a duo with Twilight.

Thus many of the events of Seasons 5-7 in the Genie Twi AU are now retroactively because of Cozy’s actions, giving her a much broader effect and really outs her as actually among the most evil the ponies have ever come across even though (Alicorn ascension aside in the final two-parter) she’s really not that strong herself compared to the likes of Chrysalis and Tirek. It’s even implied that if the trio had won, there would of likely been a situation eventually where Tirek and Chrysalis would have to team-up together to fight Cozy. In a bleak situation where any remaining ponies would likely have to side with Tirek and Chrysalis for the best shot at taking Cozy down. These revelations bubble up the anger in Starlight so much, she almost decides to kill Cozy despite having been told that killing the villains is a bad idea. As for at least a brief moment, she falls under a little more darkness just because it was Cozy’s fault she fell into darkness in the first place. Twilight and Sunset manage to prevent her from doing so, but it makes Cozy more central to Starlight’s life then Chrysalis. With the benefit of both Starlight and Cozy getting an upgrade of the overall part of the timeline then they ever had in the show.

VI. Conclusion

If I may to back a bit to the teacher/student thing with Twilight. It sort of makes it that Seasons 1 through Season 4 is the tale of Twilight’s rise to becoming the Princess of Friendship. Season 5 is this transition period where it gives some of the aftermath of Twilight’s rise while introducing Starlight who does some awful things for a seemingly weak reason but actually hid something a bit deeper. While Seasons 6 through 9 if you include the events of Secrets of the Dragon’s Tear into the timeline into Starlight’s portion of her own even if that includes a few oddities related to the show’s handling of Starlight having to return to being Twilight’s student, and nothing much of importance happening aside from becoming Principal of the School of Friendship with Starlight until after the events depicted in the show. I would say that if much of the stuff that is revealed in the story was at all canon it probably would of come up sooner then they actually did so I understand that if there’s any criticism’s of the story in trying to tie things together too much is including stuff that perhaps characters would of certainly talked about them sooner then they actually did. Though to be fair much of the subject matter is something a little too dark for the show after all again it took 7 seasons before we got to see who Applejack’s deceased parents were and even then they had to kind of skate around the fact by not saying how they died, they still did a masterful way of sort of implying they were deceased without telling us how in The Perfect Pear. I’m sure that if some of my stuff hypothetically was vetted by Hasbro execs they would outright reject the whole part of Cozy Glow role in the death of Starlight’s Mother (Whether it was or was not Sunset). But as is I feel like I did a decent job at fitting in much of the lore previously established that’s exclusive to the blog with answerig many questions that were left unanswered after the show. Starlight in particular I’m glad I was sort of able to turn into a character I previously didn’t care too much about, into a pony I could root for even if that’s kind of cheating since I wrote her myself in the new direction  I had many reasons for wanting to write this story, bud I was just super surprised at just how invested I got into expanding Starlight’s part when I was steadily always having concepts thinking about when I’d eventually write in this story expecting to be mainly finally giving the Dragon’s Tear more of a purpose then just the miracle item that saves Spike and the others in Return to Saddle Arabia. I really went ambitious with this story to include as many characters as I wanted including each of the Mane 6, Starlight, and the Saddle Arabian OCs each having their own chapters that provide a direction I think they could go for after the events of the final two-parter.

Obviously Twilight and Spike still generally have the biggest portion of the story especially after the Spirit summoning gets introduced since it couldn’t happen without Spike at that current moment but Applejack also has a pretty large role in the story in that she has that heartbreaking meeting with Grand Pear at the end of Chapter 2, invites 2 of the 5 performances at the ball, somewhat debates with Twilight about the dream, bonds with Starlight over having no representation in the club of mothers meeting at the ball, and then finally having a dramatic moment to seeing her parents again and introducing her friends to them. Which then sets up a more quick way of convincing others that this spirit summoning stuff is real being she’s the element of Honesty. Twilight and Spike learning about how their paths became entwined, Starlight finding her mother who’s very identity also held the keys to her destiny, and Applejack’s lamenting the lack of her parents but eventually seeing them are perhaps the big 3 parts of the story and I’ve sort of proud of the way I sort of entwined them all together with the Spirit Summoning part which could potentially have some interesting ideas that could be explored upon with enough asks afterward. With the show over, there’s no more main source to respond to at least until G5 starts but this certainly could help not just bridge the gap till’ then but have a sort of interpretation of the events of Friendship is Magic in a unique way that I hope others enjoy. I certainly had fun writing it, and there’s enough left open to still continue on as the sprite comics return. I even went ahead on improving the Starlight sprite that I admit I sort of half-assed before, along with sprites for Sunset along with Pear Butter & Bright Mac. Jinn as well too! Thanks to anyone who read the story and/or read my thoughts out here. Seeya!

On the EVO donation drive

If you’re reading this on Tumblr and still following me you probably know that I pretty much only come around to post about EVO and then peace out a few days later. I’m not sure how many of you that is because Im not 100% on how the new dashboard works but if you are here then you know I’m around a little early. But I’m posting *about* EVO anyway so there ya go.

If you’re reading this on Facebook then I know a lot of you guys probably only have at best a passing knowledge of what EVO is but you’ve seen me post about it, particularly Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 a lot, so I’m just gonna ask if you guys have any spare money please consider donating here:

https://www.generosity.com/fundraising/evo-2017-player-vote-ultimate-marvel-vs-capcom-3

Your money goes to the Make-a-Wish foundation, and you make a guy you know personally really happy as well.

And as a final pretense before I really get into this I’m just gonna be honest this is gonna be pretty rant-y, so it might not be a super focused read and will probably contain a few expletives so just be pre-warned.

Originally I was gonna come here and I was going to break down the poll game by game, essentially breaking down why I felt like each game shouldn’t be voted for and why Marvel should. But as it stands right now the winner is going to be either Marvel or Pokken, so this is mostly going to be centered around why I think Marvel is the most deserving game, and why I feel Pokken just might be the least deserving, or at least one of the least deserving.

And every time I look at that generosity page my stomach does flips because it’s literally like a best/worst case scenario. But the funny part about this entire situation is I feel like Marvel shouldn’t even be on this poll. Marvel absolutely *should* already have its spot. Regardless of how you the individual might feel about Marvel 3 in particular, Marvel vs. Capcom has been practically synonymous with EVO. Up until only last year Marvel, be it 2, 3, or Ultimate 3, has always been sort of the penultimate game for EVO, only behind whatever Street Fighter was out at the time. I don’t know if I agree with IFC Yipes in that Marvel made EVO (mostly because I haven’t been around *that* long), but I do agree that without it EVO never would have reached the point that it has. And you look at Marvel 3 specifically, and that game has been a staple of EVO through damn near every iteration of Street Fighter 4, even lasting long enough to share the stage with Street Fighter 5, outlived who knows how many Netherrealms games, Soul Caliburs, Tekkens, Personas, you name it. And that’s not to knock (most) of those games but to make a point that not even taking into account 2, Marvel 3 specifically has been a prefixture of this event for a long ass time

And never mind the countless moments that the game has given us. Back in 2013 what was one of the top things people talked about when EVO was over? Justin’s absolutely incredible run, beating odds on favorite Chris G and going on to nearly defeat Floker to win his first Marvel 3 EVO. Then there was the following year when he clutched it out against F Champ and beat Chris G once more to finally actually do it.

Hell even last year, Chris G, despite being the odds on favorite to win several years in a row, *finally* went ahead and took the one tournament that had alluded him for years. And the year before that when KBR (even though I dont much care for him) became the first non-American to win Marvel at EVO.

People have known for a minute with MvCI on the horizon that this was probably going to be Marvel 3′s last year at EVO, and so people were gearing up for it’s proper final sendoff and now you’re telling me that Marvel might not even be *at* EVO?

And I know there’s a lot of people who agree with me on this because every where I go, even from people who voted for different games, even for people who voted for Pokken, I keep hearing the same thing: “I’m voting for Pokken, but Marvel absolutely deserves to be there”

“Marvel shouldn’t even be a part of the poll”

“There shouldn’t even be a poll, Marvel should take that 9th slot”

And don’t even get me started on how tight I am that there are not one but TWO Smash games, games that barely even qualify as fighting games, games that a good chunk of the FGC never wanted around in the first place, at EVO, but Marvel might not. Especially since y’all are a good chunk of the people pushing for Pokken (which we’ll get to trust me). If I hear one more Melee player complain about Melee being on Saturday and not Sunday while Marvel might not even *be* at EVO I honestly might lose my shit.

And I mean no disrespect to my Smash 4 community, particularly the local Nebraska scene cuz y’all know I have nothing but respect for you guys. My problem really mostly is with Melee, that relic of a game that people just cant seem to let go of. But it’s so funny to me at how often the Smash crowd, particularly Melee, talks about how much they don’t need the FGC and yet they won’t leave.

But it isn’t even really about that. I could sit here and talk shit about Melee all day long but you know whatever. They have there spot and that’s fine. But suffice to say that if it were up to me, Melee would get booted in favor of Marvel in a heartbeat.

But let’s talk about this poll for an honest minute though. If you remember the donation drive they did a while ago and compare it to this one, the last one blows this one way out of the water. Every single game on that list was at least, you know, a fighting game, with actual communities that would absolutely show up to play. I mean there was Melee and Brawl of course but again shit, at least those two games are closer to fighting games than shit like Windjammers, and Nidhogg. There wasn’t goofy meme-y shit like those two, and ARMS. And dont get me wrong I’m excited to play ARMS but THAT GAMES NOT EVEN OUT YET (and before anyone brings up “Injustice 2 isn’t out either” just know that in my book that game can go fuck itself for about the same reason. BUT EVEN THEN, that game at least has a known community that will come out and play it). We don’t even know what community, if any, is gonna come out for ARMS, by that point, since it’ll be coming out 1-3 months before EVO (I’d remind you that ARMS doesn’t even have a set release date. Just “Spring 2017″), that game isn’t even gonna have any real advanced tech discovered yet, if there even is any to discover. Not that any of those stand a chance at winning at this point but the fact that they were included kinda pisses me off. I can kind of see Windjammers since a lot of the FGC likes that game but Nidhogg? Do most of yall even remember that game? And ARMS? REally?

I know someone’s gonna be like, “Well the last donation drive had Divekick, and Fighting is Magic”. And I was one of the first people to say that FiM was probably the weakest, meme-ist option put up there but you know, that was happened because the FGC is filled with trolls. If you remember, the only games that made the donation drive were games that got at least 500 votes on the Facebook poll and I’m pretty confident that 490 of FiM’s votes were trolls being trolls. And at least in Divekick’s defense, that game was made by a dude from that community, for the community. Divekick is basically one massive FGC in joke anyway so if Divekick had made it, it basically would’ve been a big thank you to one of the FGC’s own.

But I think what makes me the most upset about the whole situation isn’t even just that Marvel might not get the proper sendoff that it deserves, but that it’s Swan Song stands a strong chance of being snatched away by Pokken. And just, let’s review Pokken for a sec.

First off, this was the game that was being removed from Japanese arcades in droves because nobody gave enough of a shit to play it. And we’re talking about a culture that loves both Pokemon AND fighting games, and they wanted absolutely nothing to do with that game.

And then, when it came stateside, those of yall that watched tournaments saw that pretty much ever ad breakthere was a little vingette for Pokken. They tried their hardest to get people to actually care about this game, and yet... you pratically had to dig through the Twitch trenches just to find Pokken tournaments. People weren’t watching, and people weren’t entering. Then it got to EVO because Nintendo money, and it had one of the lowest entrants and viewer rates of any of the games there.

Then post EVO, a lot of majors didn’t even run the game because people weren’t entering or watching. And speaking of Nintendo, I would remind you that Nintendo themselves have since dropped Pokken from their Pokemon Championship Series. So not even the parent company gives a fuck about the game at this point.

So with all that being said, never in a million years did I think that Marvel would be neck and neck with Pokken. KI, maybe. MKX, maybe. Shit I figured even Windjammers had a better shot than Pokken and yet here we are.

And you might wonder where the fuck the money is coming from if nobody gives a shit about Pokken. Simple, its coming from Smashers (and you can go check smash websites, most of them are advocating super hard for Pokken), and people who are just fans of Pokemon and will throw money at anything Pokemon. And look I love Pokemon too. It’s top 3 favorite Nintendo franchise and might be top 5 favorite franchises of all time. But I have no doubt in my mind that a lot of the people throwing money at this, barely know what EVO is, probably don’t even know the dates of EVO, and have 0 intentions of watching that game at EVO much less showing up to play the game. Case in point, Shofu is out here on Twitter advocating and donating to this game, and you would think that Shofu, who runs one of the biggest Pokemon related YouTube channels, would probably have a lot of Pokken content right? Well guess when the last time he even posted a video about the game was. I’ll save you the search, it was 6 months ago. One of these videos were, ironically enough, entitled “time to come back”. And then there were two more videos within the same time span, and he hasn’t touched the game since.

And this is kind of the additude that I’m talking about. I read a tweet earlier that summed it up perfectly. About how people never want to watch or come out to support Pokken, and then want to wonder why there aren’t any Pokken tournaments. That game died forever ago. You might even argue that that game was dead on arrival but even if you don’t, then you have to agree that there hasn’t been a game that died out quicker than Pokken did. For all the shit people gave SFxT at least that game lasted a couple of years as opposed to about 3 months. And at least that game had some potential at release, instead of being booted from Japanese arcades Y’all are throwing money at this game and I have no doubt in my mind that it’s going to once again have abyssmal turnout/viewership.

And that’s to me, is the most upsetting thing. That Marvel stands a shot of being robbed by a game that people don’t actually care about, but has a fanbase that will throw money at anything with Pikachu’s face on it. If it were KI, I wouldn’t be super happy, but it would be ok. MKX, kinda upset because I hate that game but you know what, fine. Or even Skullgirls which to me would be best case scenario, if your top two games were SG and Marvel because easily and measurably those two deserve it. Skullgirls is a fantastic game with an ultra dedicated community that only got treated like shit by EVO. I have no doubt in my mind that had SG’s won the last donation drive that game would be one of the biggest in the FGC right now and might even still to this day be a mainstay at EVO. And so if *any* game was gonna be Marvel, I’d wish it to be Skullgirls. But at least I can say of any of the games I mentioned above, people would come out to play it, and support it. In the example of MKX, it would be the exact same people that would be playing Injustice but fuck, at least it’s *someone*.

And I know someone’s gonna be like “well what did you ever do for Marvel?” and yeah, I’ve never been to a major, because I don’t have money like that. But at least every time there is something local for the game, I go out and play. I took time off of work and drove an hour out one time just to get 0-2′d in Marvel on a couple of occasions, but at least I went out there. And I’m out here watching the streams, watching the VoDs; 90% of my “watch later” playlist is Marvel shit that I didn’t get to watch live.

And with that said, yeah I’ll admit that a bit of it is personal for me. Marvel is absolutely my favorite game out there right now. Without Marvel 3 I probably would not care about EVO and the FGC as a whole. But that’s why I don’t want to see it get robbed of a proper sendoff by a game that’s just gonna die out again the minute EVO is over.

Taking a risk and looking for feed back as well as opinions

Back during the time between S3 and 4 of MLP FIM, I decided to dip my toes into the realm of Fan diction writing once again. I say once again, because I wrote one YEARS back, talkin early 2000s for Command & Conquer, but it was horrible and was never posted on a C&C site due to never really being a full chapter and just plain bad. The spark of creativity hit again during Kung Fu Panda 2 & the TV show and I did post a chapter on DA to rather positive favor but never continued due to getting distracted, worried, and other things (it was a romantic fiction between a OC and Master Tigress.....don’t just me, angry women are attractive. May come back to it too...). Now fast forward back to between S3-4 I was nervous as I know alicorn ocs are unpopular due to how easily overpowered or whatever they can be, but I forge ahead because I love making a OC of each race of a fantasy/sci-fi series I really love if each race is unique and appealing. So, with my OC thuroughly thought out and a story fully formed in my head I start turning out five-ish chapters only to stop when the S4 finale blows a idea of mine, involving Discord, out the window. Anyway, seasons pass and I wish-wash between how I should proceed and make it believable, along with how closely it sticks to current show events/cannon.

Well, with the end of S6 and the more recent movie I’ve gotten the creative urge and spark again along with deciding to update it to about the current show events while possibly leaving out the changeling reform, or having it be a splinter between true changelings and abnormals. Anyway, that said, the story is about my main OC Midnight Strider, who is both the main antagonist and in the second half protagonist. I decided I wanted to make a character and a story based on whaqt Lauren Faust had planned originally for S1 and Nightmare moon. The initial concept then turned into something more Jekyl and Hyde with a more lawful villain who truly believes in what he does despite being corrupted by his foolishness in thinking dark magic is not harmful. Through that corruption believing in a balance of good and evil that has become distorted due to the overabundant and long lasting harmony and thus deciding to bring forth a age of darkness to balance things out after seeing the rate of threats, thus ensuring something far worse is prevented. That’s just part of the first half of my novel/novella-esque fan fiction, the second delves into the Jackyl & Hyde aspects that involve literal facing of own demon along with romance. I’d say who his romance interest may be, but I’m debating on if it should be one of two candidates. One has a fair bit in common with him, though may draw ire due to just who it is and how popular this mare is due to her esteemed position. The other, is VERY new and draws from my liking of angry women who can  and has beat everyone by herself. (bet you can’t guess who I’m talking of lol) With a third section involving ramifications of the first and second parts along with a possible epilogue involving a future of how everything ended, Needless to say this is a big undertaking that in total may have well over 50, more than likely even more, chapters That being said, I’m going to post the prologue of this story and would love to see the feedback of not only the idea, but the prologue and if I should proceed/ I’d especially like to hear the thoughts of those waaay better versed in such things like @ink-rose-the-hylian , @tyandaga or @looneyturtle as they are experts in matters of character consistency and the like. But they by no means need to feel obligated to even respond as I’m sure they are busy and have better things to do. With all that said, here’s the prologue. Again, only looking for opinions, this is still under altering/changing and other stuff/

Princess celestia smiled as she walked among a field of flowers with her younger sister Luna in the canterlot gardens, enjoying a moment of sisterly bonding. They laughing, reminiscing about their youth while enjoying the idealic sunny day. They soon stopped and stared in wonder as the sky turned black and a strong wind began to blow, followed by ominous shadowy storm clouds that soon filled the sky as lightning shot out of them. Malevolent sinister laughing came from nowhere, coming from every direction, as a menacing figure cloaked in thick shadows formed before the surprised princess. The only notable features of the presence before her were faded bronze-ish gold eyes that pierced through the thick black shadow that made up it's form.

"Who are you, why have you intruded upon the castle grounds?" Celestia demanded. only to be met with more laughing. As she looked on at the occurrence, the shadowy figure shot a black burst of magic into the ground causing dark figures to rise up from it. Although hard to define, Celestia was able to make out a few. To her absolute horror, she could make out the appearance of her former faithful student and her friends but they were wrong, the exact opposite of how she knew them to be. The countenance of her student turned fellow princess was all so wrong, she looked prideful, arrogant and vain, nothing like how she knew Twilight. And her friends, they looked just as wrong and cruel as Twilight did.

"No....What have YOU done?!" Celestia barked at the shadow cloaked figure, which still refused to respond. After the initial shock she looked at the malevolent figure, her mouth turning into a stern and determined frown as her eyes narrowed, glaring at the shadowed figure in front of her before shooting a magicical blast, only to have it go right through the menacing visage.

The figure seemed to not even notice or care, instead shooting it's strange beam of magic once again after a few seconds. Although believing it to be aimed at her, instead Celestia looked in horror as the beam hit Luna who she soon realized had not actually moved since the figure appeared. "Luna!" Celestia cried out, "Are you..." Celestia was cut off as the princess of the night slowly started to laugh in a all too familiar tone, one that Celestia had hoped she had heard the last of for good. As Luna began to change, her coat slowly faded from it's dark blue color to black from her hooves up, eyes turning teal and irises changing from round to more slit like as she soon became Nightmare Moon. Smirking she walked over to the figure, standing by it's side as Queen Chrysalis and King Sombra appeared on either side of them. As Celestia began to step back, eyes wide in disbelief and shock,  trying desperately to not let the sheer dismay from what was unfolding before her eyes overwhelm her.

"Luna.....no....." Celestia said softly as she looked down at the ground, heart practically shattered, slowly raising her head after a few seconds toward the figure in a look of sheer hatred and eyes that would shoot daggers if they could.  "You....I'LL SEE YOU ROT IN TARTARUS!" Celestia roared in rage at the figure that was at the center of the events as She began to fire off more spells at the shadowy figure in a mix of anguish and rage at what it had done to her sister only to see them continue to pass through. Her look of anguish and shock grew into terror as darkness began to engulf the ground, seeping from the figure as the black mass moved toward her from where it and her sister stood along with the past threats she thought were either at bay or gone forever. She stepped back more and tried to retreat only to see the darkness heading toward her not just from her front, but from behind her as well as to her left and right, surrounding her in a hopeless situation. Now starting to Panic, Celestia spread her wings to take flight as the darkness closed in on her only to have her own sister, now Nightmare moon again, swiftly close the distance between them and grab hold, preventing her from getting up off the ground as the darkness slowly started to engulf her.

"Equestria is MINE!" the figure bellowed in victorious wicked glee, laughing along with the other foes that stood with it as the darkness enveloped her completely. "NOO!" Celestia cried out. Gasping as she woke, Celestia trembled while cold sweat ran down her face.

"Princess is something wrong?!" The guards that were posted at her door asked as they burst through the door. One, a Pegasi, had his spear firmly ready in one of his wings while the other, a unicorn, had his horn glowing at the ready to attack anyone. "No, no, I'm quite alright. Just a lil bad dream, must have been that last piece of cake I had before bed." Celestia said, playing it off with a dismissive hoof. "No need to worry, I probably just need to get some walking and a lil water before trying to sleep again." The princess of the sun added as she got out of her bed.  

"Are you sure, you seem to be trembling a lil and sweating. One of us could go get you one or we could both escort you if you like." The Pegasi asked. "It's fine, isn't a grown mare allowed to have a nightmare every now and then?" Celestia said with a light giggle, "Now, you two stay here at your station while I go get some water, I'll probably stop by and see how Luna is doing as well. After that I'll be right back, promise"

"Well.....I suppose...."

"Good, now you two stay here while I walk off this bad dream." Celestia stated before walking off from her room, much to the dismay and slight bewilderment of her guards. Once she was sure that she was far enough away where they could not see her, Celestia picked up the pace of her walking into more of a frantic walk as she headed to meet her sister who was watching over the surrounding area from an observation tower in the castle, making sure not to panic her sister's guards as well as she entered the base of the tower before hurriedly rushing up the stairs.

"Sister, What's wrong, You look horrible?" Luna asked in surprise as her sister charged in, causing her to turn away from looking into her telescope. "I Fear that all of equestria.....and you are in grave danger. We need to send for Twilight and her friends as well as Cadence, shining Armor, and Discord as soon as it is daybreak."

"What could be so dangerous as to require such measures, and why am I in danger?" Luna asked with a look of worry, concern filling her voice.

"I don't know yet, but I fear that we all are in grave danger if the dream I just had was not just a mere bad dream but a premonition." Celestia replied as she looked up into the night sky.

Where is the Arrival Point of Cable Asylum?

Majority of the audiophiles are agreed that one of the most critical factors in a hi-end system is the connection cables. There is no doubt about it. Different cables provide different testing and enjoyment. A good sounding cable in a system may not sound good in other system or a good sounding cable may not sound good if one of the units is replaced. Good is also relative to each person, that’s why I believe that it is not possible to pretend one cable betters then the other if both are good cables.

As a person who changed so many cables, I would like to share my own judgements with others. My aim is not to offend anybody or to break somebody’s heart but humbly contribute to the craziness of cable industry, contribute to consciousness and prevent buyers to be abused.

Some cable producers use the thinnest wires to eliminate skin effect. Some uses thicker ones to eliminate DC resistance. Some prefers silver due to open and rich sound, some finds silver sounding thin, un-natural and they use pure copper to achieve body. Some uses platinum, carbon and other stuff, some combines them or alloys them. Some producers attach importance to shielding, some are against to shielding but use braided designs. Some uses ribbons, some uses litz (various independent insulated wires). Almost all pretend their design as the best in the world.

Above list can be enlarged. This situation at least for me is the clear evidence that THERE IS NO COMPROMISE ON CABLES FROM THE ENGINEERING AND THEORY POINT OF VIEW.

Following me, the cables, particularly the interconnect cables are the most degenerated and misleading part of the audio industry. The biggest income ratio in audiophile word is generated by the cable industry. An amplifier that consist of various elements, labour, engineering, design, (consists of good silver cables too) can be purchased to 5.000 € but a poor interconnect cable costs 2.000 € or more. Most of the brands are imitation of the other. They provide various colours, thickness and nice appearance and pretend to be the best one in the world at list in their price categories. I found 137 different interconnect producers (listed below). Unfortunately the human nature of “how expensive or how big, the better is” belief, guides one to misleading. Such belief motivates the first sales, and followers continue by thought that “if the other purchasers are idiots!”

One thing should be considered that I never mean such cables are not bad sound; actually they are mostly the good ones. Problem is a % 1 better sounding cable is sold to % 1000 price of the other. After the promotion and acceptance of a very reputable cable, another one comes to market even by the same company to claim to be better and price is 3 times more. Price increase in cable industry is going geometrically by the crazy multiples.

Last year, Stereophile made feature with Caren Sumner, the president of Transparent Cable. I picked up below sentence; “Up to last year, the thickest cables and the biggest boxes on cable were on demand. If the cable was thicker or the boxes on the cable were bigger, the perception was such cables should sound better. So they sold in better quantities. But nowadays WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) is more involved in it and the wives don’t like to see bigger and bigger things corrupting home decoration. As a matter of fact, we tend to produce thinner cables and smaller boxes in future.”

At least such sentence gives clear leak that the product is not thicker or bigger due to technical aspects but due to marketing technique.

I was curious one day to break the box of my M..T interconnects to look inside. There was a very simple coil occupied only 1/10 of the box. I also broke the same brand power cord’s box and realised only two ferrite rings that sold to 50 Cents each at the electronics shop. Another story is that ; a cable producer makes actively shielded cables. If you break the solid protected shielding unit, you see one resistor and one capacitor that can be purchased to 1 $ . The price you have to pay for that unit is 420 USD. You may think it is proprietary or invention but it is not. The concept was built on the design of Pierre Lourne’s DC Polarised Shielding Technology and used in professional audio industry for years.

According to me, a cable should be listened enough and alone prior to purchasing. If the critical listening is done with other people, physiology factor will act and people would tend to choose the most reputable one. If the difference is subtle, it should be thought again. Before coming to conclusion, other audiophiles should be called for critical blind testing. Cables should be tested without knowing which one is in connection. If blind test is done, every party should make careful and realistic observations. If they don’t have clear tendency, it will not be logical to buy that cable.

One friend brought me a well known digital reference cable that sold around 1500 $ . My cable was also a reference cable but reasonably priced (Illuminations D-60). We were three people and listened both of the cables properly. The other two immediately observed that the other cable was much better. It did not make the same effect on me. Mid sounds, vocals became softer and more natural but the bass became so slow and muddy. The energy and the slam at treble were gone. So it was and exchange but not additional. I had a feeling that physiology factor was in mission. I wanted to make blind test. My aim was not to degrade the other but just to find the answer why I did not hear the same thing with them. We made a blind test. Eventually both of them were decided and agreed on D-60. The discussion was over.

* Why they had the tendency to choose the most expensive or reputable one !

* Forget about it was worse, assume that they are the same, why the other cable cost 10 times did not clearly bit the other.

* May be my system was not enough revealing to stimulate that cable but if this is the case, I would pay 1500 $ unnecessarily as agreed by my friends.

Such cable producers generally target the people that don’t have any problem with money. Such people are basically located in New York, Far East, Hong Kong, Japan and such places.

Producers also follow up, sales volumes of most expensive electronics and penetrate their cables accordingly. They assume that “a person who spends 350.000 $ for an amplifier will never use a cable of 500 $ ”

My thoughts are not to offend cable producers, if there is a demand, somebody has to supply with no doubt.

I wanted to design an interconnect cable for my own curiosity. I am not an electronic an. I used my all theoretical knowledge as a hobbyist and made a DIY interconnect cable. I pretend my cable is at the same class with the reference cables sold up to 1500 $ . It will cost you around 50$ plus the Plugs that’s all. Difficult to make but it is worthy. Hearing is believing. I shared the entire steps with you. Give it a try DiyE.htm. You must use the best available connectors and silver solder but not the budget ones. That cable cost me 200 $ together with Home Grown Audio’s LOK RCA Plugs or WBT Top Of the lines.

How come that cable worked extremely well, for me better than the others ! I had no experience, no production plant, no engineering, research and development but it works. May be the answer is hidden in somewhere else, may be the other cable producers use the same method, design, listen, if works, claim and sell

February 2004 Ozhan Atalay

LIST OF CABLE PRODUCERS

1. Accoustic Zen 2. Acoustic Research 3. Acrotec 4. Alpha Core 5. Analysis Plus 6. Apex 7. Apogee 8. Argento Audio 9. Audience 10. Audio Magic 11. Audio Note 12. Audio One 13. Audio Tekne 14. Audioquest 15. Aural Symphonic 16. Aural Thrills Audio 17. Ayre 18. Bear Labs 19. Bel The Wire 20. Better Cables 21. Black Mountain Cable 22. BMC 23. Bogdan 24. Canare 25. Cardas 26. Celtic Silver 27. Chang Lightspeed 28. Chord 29. Clarity Lab 30. Coincident 31. Concierto 32. Creative Cable Concepts 33. Crystal Clear Audio 34. DH Labs 35. Dimarzio 36. Discovery Cable 37. Dunlavy 38. Echochrome Cables 39. Ecosse 40. Elco 41. Electraglide 42. Empirical Audio 43. Ensemble 44. Esoterika 45. Fadel Art 46. FIM 47. FMS 48. Granite Audio 49. Gutwire 50. Harmonic Technology 51. Hms Cables 52. Home Grown Audio 53. Infinity Audio 54. Ixos 55. Jena Labs 56. Jm 57. JPS Labs 58. K A S Audio 59. Kharma 60. Kimber Kable 61. Krell 62. Lat International 63. Lieder Cables 64. Linn 65. Luminous Audio 66. MAC Wire 67. Madrigal Audio Labs 68. Magnan 69. Magwire 70. Marigo 71. Mas 72. MIT 73. Monster Cable 74. Moon Audio 75. Music Metre 76. Naim 77. Nbs 78. Nirvana Audio 79. Nordost 80. Oehlbach 81. Omega 82. Orbeck 83. Outlaw 84. Perpetual Technologies 85. Primo 86. Prisma Cables 87. PS Audio 88. Pure Note 89. Purist Audio Design 90. Red Rose 91. Revelation Audio Lab 92. Ridge Street Audio Designs 93. Rosinante Audio 94. Scott Nixon 95. Shunyata 96. Signal Cable 97. Silent Source 98. Siltech 99. Silver Audio 100. Silver Dragon 101. Silver Sonic 102. Silversmith Audio 103. Sonance Audio Video 104. Sonic Frontiers 105. Sonic Link 106. Stan Warren 107. Stealth Audio 108. Straight Wire 109. Synergistic research 110. T. G. Audio Labs 111. Tara Labs 112. Tekline 113. Tg Audio Lab 114. Tice 115. TMC 116. Tone Audio 117. Transparent Cables 118. Tributaries 119. Ultralink 120. Vacuum Reference 121. Vampire Wire 122. Van Den Hul 123. Vantage Audio 124. Verastarr 125. Violin by Concierto 126. Virtual Dynamics 127. Wasatch Cable 128. Wicked Cables 129. WireWorld 130. XLO 131. Yamamura 132. YBA 133. Z Cable 134. Zocore Cables 135. Z-Squared Audio 136. Zu Cable 137. Eichmann

from JournalsLINE http://journalsline.com/2017/06/29/where-is-the-arrival-point-of-cable-asylum/ from Journals LINE https://journalsline.tumblr.com/post/162387679310

About clop and the sexualizing of ponies

This is not something easy to write about. The subject I’ll be discussing is controversial, and it hits hard on an emotional level. Any attempt to discuss it usually is barred down by every kind of bias and logical fallacy in the book. Yet every time the subject is brought up, my mind screams with unspoken arguments and dialogue, and they haunt me, to the point that I’ve written and scrapped this essay many times. What follows is my best attempt to discuss this, and while it might not be perfect, I will finally be at ease sharing these words, knowing that I tried my best.

The subject is clopping, so if you’re not willing to have a mature, adult conversation at the moment, it’s best to stop reading now. Most of you are probably well familiar with the C word, though there will always be some who aren’t, so to be brief, a long time ago on the forums of 4chan, there was a set of “rules” declared that the internet must follow. While most of these rules are forgotten (you can look them up if you want), one stands out infamously. “Rule 34: There is porn of it; no exceptions.” R34 (as it is frequently abbreviated) is very much more like the law of gravity than a rule; there is no denying it nor its implications. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is not the exception of this rule, but rather the most prominent example of it. Tens of thousands of pornographic images of MLP characters exist, and there’s so much of it that MLP probably has more porn than any other fandom in existence.

Most people’s reaction to this fact is polar. In one camp we have the audience of this porn, which takes delight in its existence, and in the other camp, we have those who don’t view it and think it’s pretty messed up. This isn’t to say there is no middle ground in between; like all dichotomies, the reality is more of a spectrum, but for the most part, people’s opinions lie on the ends of this spectrum. Either you’re glad it exists, or you’re horrified by its existence. The point of discussing clop is not to change your opinion it; after all, the response to this material is an emotional one, and people can’t ignore what their emotions tell them. Instead, we must apply logic and reason to understand the issue, and what it means for the MLP fandom.

If you’re interested in why people seek out this pornography, ShellyD provides an excellent, objective commentary on the subject. While ShellyD does a great job addressing the “why” question, his presentation doesn’t delve deeper into what this means for to the fandom. It does, however, shed light on the complicated nature of human sexuality, which is something that our species has pondered for forever yet surprisingly isn’t openly talked about in nations like the US.

While sexuality is a very large and nuanced topic, in this day and age there are two ‘rules’ that are pretty much universally upheld. Sexual behavior must be consensual among all involved parties, and it also must be safe. In most cases, as long as those two criteria are met, the sexual practice in question is considered to be okay, regardless of how other people view it. It is from this angle that most people in favor of clop justify it. As clopping only involves one individual, it is consensual, and it’s obviously just as safe as normal masturbation, so many cloppers will ask, “What’s the problem? When did clop ever harm anyone else?”

I’d like to point out here that by the above logic, consensual and safe sexual behavior at any time, at anyplace, in front of anyone, is okay, and that’s just too large of a stretch to make. In the real world, there’s a lot more rules at play: laws, morals, social norms, etc. Why such rules exist is an interesting conversation in it of itself, but there’s no denying that here context is king; having sex with your partner in your own home is very different than having sex at work, in a school, or in public. The same applies for masturbation and all other sexual activities.

So when we talk about clop, we’re talking about a very specific context, the MLP universe. As well all know, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is a show dedicated to ideas like kindness, generosity, honesty, loyalty, and laughter, all bundled up into an idyllic package. While this show means different things to different people, there’s two obvious things that we can say are true about FiM:

Its primary theme is the idea that “Friendship is Magic”

Its target audience is young girls

These two facts alone ensure that the show never is going to dive into sexuality at all, as it is not age appropriate but also not relevant to its platonic themes. This makes the show itself a bad place for porn, and I don’t think there’s anyone actually hoping for the show to include sex scenes any time soon.

What’s more controversial is whether the MLP universe is an acceptable place for porn and sexual activity. To be more definitive, the MLP universe consists not just what we see in the show, but also what we don’t see, and this is why it’s much harder to judge whether the universe is the right context. We simply don’t know everything. However, one can take context clues from the show to discern whether sexuality does exist within the universe.

The base assumption is that the show is representative of the universe like any smaller sample of a larger data set. So if sexual behavior (arousal, intercourse, etc) exists in the universe, we’d expect to see hints of it in the show. However (and perhaps strangely), there aren’t any hints of this in the show: the characters are never horny, they are never suggestive, and most don’t even experience romantic attraction with the exception of a few crushes. Even among pairings like Shining Armor and Cadence, and Mr. and Ms. Cake, their relationships aren’t different than that of close friends. The only hint towards any sexual experience like what humans have is that the opposite gendered couples have offspring. In other words, reproduction is possible, but its mechanism is unknown. We do, however, know of one canon mechanism of reproduction: parasprites reproduce asexually by vomiting their children.

Any further explanation starts making assumptions, but from what we’ve seen, it’s fair to conclude that the characters are asexual and only act in platonic ways (with an occasional burst of romance). This also aligns with Lauren Faust’s intention “to give girls a respectful interpretation of the thing they like.” Because young girls aren’t sexually aware, any world they would imagine would be platonic (perhaps with some romance) like Equestria. This all leads to the conclusion that the MLP universe isn’t the appropriate place for porn, due to the show’s design.

Rule 34 of course, states that there’s going to be porn, no matter what, so what happens when you take a platonic universe and make porn of it? The result is an act of transformation; in the original work all the characters were strictly platonic, and in the derivative work the characters all turned sexual (or hyper sexual, as pornographic works try to be as arousing as possible). As this transformation is from one extreme to the other, it’s not surprising that some fans dislike it. After all, if an individual likes a work because of its specific characteristics, removing those characteristics is a sure way to get them to dislike it.

But to look beyond the individual and their preference, what does this transformation, from platonic to sexual, mean to the fandom at large? The fandom (by definition I’d say) is a place to celebrate the show with others online and in real life, so the fandom’s goal should always be to do just that: celebrate MLP:FiM. This includes the creation of fanworks like art, music, and stories because these works typically reflect the same things we love about the show, whatever it may be. But because clop is transformative, it does not reflect the established characters and their platonic relationships.

This puts clop into a category I call non-appreciative fan works, and in it falls anything that celebrates ideas opposite to ones in the show, like blood and gore as another example. This doesn’t mean that these works are bad, evil, or shouldn’t exist, it’s just that they don’t celebrate the show like other fan works, and by using the same franchise to push the opposite message, these works can disrespect the show. How much they disrespect the show depends on the fan work itself; a long fanfiction with a well explained sexual relationship wouldn’t be disrespectful at all (it also wouldn’t be pornography), but an image showing the entire Mane6 being raped would be incredibly so. Typically, the more sexually explicit a work, and the less context provided, the more depreciative the work is, though this scale is different for every person.

The best way to handle non-appreciative fan works is the tried and true method of tagging. Works that are particularly sexual or particularly bloody probably aren’t what fans of the show are looking for because FiM isn’t either of those things. It’s also better if the tagging systems are nuanced; there’s a big difference between a work that’s sexual, and a work that’s pornographic (in case I haven’t made the distinction clear, pornographic works are sexually explicit works with the intention or effect of being as arousing as possible). The same nuance holds true for the “saucy” works; is the pony’s butt there to be arousing, or is it there because that’s just where butts anatomically go? If done properly, this ensures that no one accidentally views works that contrast what’s explored in FiM.

Part of this is also not pushing the clop agenda in the rest of the fandom. As stated earlier, the fandom’s goals should be to celebrate the show for what it is, and clop deviates from that, so promoting it beyond acknowledging that it exists is unfair to people who wish to avoid it. The same holds true for people who intentionally attack cloppers; cloppers are also allowed to celebrate MLP:FiM, and seeking them out to yell at them is worse. Discussion with the intention to understand one another is always fine, but sadly it often turns toxic (for the brave souls who wish to understand, I applaud you and hope that you don’t receive nasty comments like I have).

The other issue that should be resolved is the misunderstanding between the two most opposite sides. It’s always okay if someone judges MLP:FiM as a bad place for sex because of the context, and it’s always okay if someone likes the porn. But when a member of the fandom discovers the clop (or a clopper), and they find the sexual transformation disrespectful, how do they know the artist/person isn’t trying to be disrespectful? Short answer is that they cannot know, unless cloppers/artists try to make that clear. For example, when someone states, “I love clop,” what do they mean? Is it the image of consensual sex between two of their favorite characters that they like, or is it the image of all the show’s cast being raped that they enjoy? These are two very different things, so if cloppers don’t want people to assume the worst, they should be more specific. The statement “I love clop because I like sexual fantasies between my favorite ships” is much more descriptive of what the person actually enjoys, and it also explains their motivation. Really, any short explanation should be enough to rid people of doubt that one is trying to be disrespectful.

Now to quickly summarize everything I’ve stated above: Clop is a hard thing to discuss. The subject tends to polarize people, which likely due to how complicated sexuality is. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with clop, though the judgement is ultimately based on whether one thinks it’s appropriate given the context of My Little Pony: Freindship is magic. Because it’s a show about friendship, and because it depicts its characters platonically, many will reach the conclusion that porn of the show is not appropriate. Anyhow, clop is a transformative work, which means that it should be tagged and available, but not promoted and not hated. Misunderstanding can hopefully be cleared up by having cloppers explain to non-cloppers that they mean no offense when the two worlds do collide.

At the end of the day we still can all celebrate pony together, and diversity within the fandom can help make it a great place.