#in case you needed more proof that aj's my favorite character

[bixels]

Learning that fans hated Applejack and called her "boring" is crazyyy to me because I genuinely, unironically believe AJ's the most complex character in the main six.

Backstory-wise, she was born into a family of famers/blue collar workers who helped found the town she lives in. She grew up a habitual liar until she had the bad habit traumatized outta her. She lost both her parents and was orphaned at a young age, having to step up as her baby sister's mother figure. She's the only person in the main gang who's experienced this level of loss and grief (A Royal Problem reveals that AJ dreams about memories of being held by her parents as a baby). She moved to Manhattan to live with her wealthy family members, only to realize she'll never fit in or be accepted, even amongst her own family. The earlier seasons imply she and her family had money problems too (In The Ticket Master, AJ wants to go to the gala to earn money to buy new farm equipment and afford hip surgery for her grandma).

Personality-wise, she's a total people-pleaser/steamroller (with an occasional savior complex) who places her self worth on her independence and usefulness for other people, causing her to become a complete workaholic. In Applebuck Season, AJ stops taking care of herself because of her obsessive responsibilities for others and becomes completely dysfunctional. In Apple Family Reunion, AJ has a tearful breakdown because in she thinks she dishonored her family and tarnished her reputation as a potential leader –– an expectation and anxiety that's directly tied to her deceased parents, as shown in the episode's ending scene. In The Last Roundup, AJ abandons her family and friends out of shame because believes she failed them by not earning 1st place in a rodeo competition. She completely spirals emotionally when she isn't able to fulfill her duties toward others. Her need to be the best manifests in intense pride and competitiveness when others challenge her. And when her pride's broken, she cowers and physically hides herself.

Moreover, it's strongly implied that AJ has a deep-seated anger. The comics explore her ranting outbursts more. EQG also obviously has AJ yelling at and insulting Rarity in a jealous fit just to hurt her feelings (with a line that I could write a whole dissection on). And I'm certain I read in a post somewhere that in a Gameloft event, AJ's negative traits are listed as anger.

Subtextually, a lot of these flaws and anxieties can be (retroactively) linked to her parents' death, forcing her to grow up too quickly to become the adult/caregiver of the family (especially after her big brother becomes semiverbal). Notice how throughout the series, she's constantly acting as the "mom friend" of the group (despite everything, she manages to be the most emotionally mature of the bunch). Notice how AJ'll switch to a quieter, calmer tone when her friends are panicking and use soothing prompts and questions to talk them through their emotions/problems; something she'd definitely pick up while raising a child. Same with her stoicism and reluctance at crying or releasing emotions (something Pinkie explicitly points out). She also had a childhood relationship with Rara (which, if you were to give a queer reading, could easy be interpreted as her first 'aha' crush), who eventually left her life. (Interestingly enough, AJ also has an angry outburst with Rara for the same exact reasons as with EQG Rarity; jealous, upset that someone else is using and changing her). It's not hard to imagine an AJ with separation anxiety stemming from her mother and childhood friend/crush leaving. I'm also not above reading into AJ's relationship with her little sister (Y'all ever think about how AB never got to know her parents, even though she shares her father's colors and her mother's curly hair?).

AJ's stubbornness is a symptom of growing up too quickly as well. Who else to play with your baby sister when your brother goes nonverbal (not to discount Big Mac's role in raising AB)? Who else to wake up in the middle of the night to care for your crying baby sister when your grandma needs her rest? When you need to be 100% all the time for your family, you tend to become hard-stuck with a sense of moral superiority. You know what's best because you have to be your best because if you're aren't your best, then everything'll inevitably fall apart and it'll be your fault. And if you don't know what's best –– if you've been wrong the whole time –– that means you haven't been your best, which means you've failed the people who rely on you, which means you can't fulfill your role in the family/society, which makes you worthless . We've seen time and time again how this compulsive need to be right for the sake of others becomes self-destructive (Apple Family Reunion, Sound of Silence, all competitions against RD). We've seen in The Last Roundup how, when no longer at her best, AJ would rather remove herself from her community than confront them because she no longer feels of use to them.

But I guess it is kinda weird that AJ has "masculine" traits and isn't interested in men at all. It's totally justified that an aggressively straight, misogynistic male fandom would characterize her as a "boring background character." /s

At the time of writing this, it's 4:46AM.

[sage-nebula]

4, 7, 9 (Revolutionary), 25.

4.) What is your favorite genre to write for?

HURT/COMFORT, hands down and bar none. Hurt/comfort is absolutely my jam, because—listen. I am really good with angst. I am skilled at coming up with really dark, angsty scenarios, and I absolutely have a thing where I like to put my favorite characters through some degree of emotional (and sometimes physical) torment. Like, it really depends on the characters, but you know that one text post that’s like, “I want to see Character A get hurt, and Character B get really angsty about it”? That’s me, right there. I like to do that. I wrote a 100k fic of my Yu-Gi-Oh! OTP where that text post basically sums them up for the duration of the fic. (Though trust me, the one getting hurt was plenty angsty about the situation.) It’s a good (though dramatic) time. I tend to be pretty good at that.

But that said … I’m of the opinion that there needs to be some emotional payoff, and that’s where the comfort comes in. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not wholly averse to tragedies; I have a few in mind, and there are some stories that I feel truly do earn their unhappy endings. Animorphs is one of those, ultimately, though there is at least one character that makes it out all right. But with that said, when I write … if I’m going to have my readers watch characters they love suffer for a while, then I want to reward them, so to speak, with those characters getting the comfort that they also deserve at some point down the line. I might have—or rather, did write 100k of my YGO OTP suffering, but I also reunited and gave them a happy ending at the end of it all. There was a whole lot of hurt, but it was rewarded with comfort. I loooooove angst, and I’m skilled at writing it, but I also like writing that comfort as well.

(And on that note? One of my very best friends @severalbakuras helped get me through writing my masters thesis by co-writing Keitor hurt/comfort with me over Discord. Don’t get me wrong, I was steadily working on my thesis, but I’d write my thesis while I waited for her reply, take a small break to shoot a reply back at her, and then return to my thesis. Knowing that I’d have some delicious Keitor hurt/comfort to look forward to when I opened up the Discord window really spiked some joy into my heart and helped get me through the thesis writing progress, so honestly … I just really, really love hurt/comfort. It’s magnificent.)

7.) When is your preferred time to write?

That’s … a complicated question. Honestly, I would prefer to write during the hours in which I’m supposed to be awake, i.e., anywhere between 1pm and 10pm. Unfortunately, my brain only likes to be at its most creative and awake between the hours of 3am and 7am, when I should have already been asleep for hours due to the fact that I work a full time job during the day. It’s … a curse, honestly, and it all comes down to my delayed sleep phase disorder / probable ADD and just … I just want to be diurnal, man. I’d give anything to be diurnal. But I’m nocturnal, and as such my best writing happens when it’s an ungodly hour of the night / morning and I should be asleep. C u r s e d.

9.) In Revolutionary, what’s your favourite scene that you wrote?

Ooh … this one is a bit hard, because honestly, there are a few different scenes (or parts of scenes, at least) that come to mind, and I don’t … I don’t think I can pick just one. So at the risk of sounding a bit arrogant, it’s a toss-up between:

During the scene when the canon reality Paladins are on the bridge, and they’ve confronted this reality’s Paladins, they get into an argument over what Lotor and his team have decided to do with Voltron. Specifically:

“You said you needed Voltron,” he said, and once again his eyes were narrowed in Keith’s direction. Keith returned the stare in kind. “What could you possibly need Voltron for? The Galra Empire has already dominated half the universe. Zarkon’s ships are powerful enough to destroy any fleet. Why do you need Voltron at all?”

“You really are good at missing the obvious, aren’t you?” Ezor asked. Shiro glared at her.

“It’s to neutralize the threat,” Allura said, ignoring Ezor. “Zarkon wanted control of Voltron so that it could not be used against him. Now that he has it—”

“But wait,” Pidge said. “Wasn’t Zarkon obsessed with the Black Lion? He wanted it for himself. So if that’s the case, why’s he letting Keith fly it?”

“Zarkon’s not letting me do anything,” Keith said, disgusted. “We don’t answer to him, and he doesn’t have anything he didn’t already have before we found the Castle.”

Shiro looked back at Keith. “Then what are you doing with it?”

“My father and his Empire have ruled this universe for ten thousand years too long,” Lotor said. He smirked a little as all eyes turned to him. “We seek to change that via revolution.”

“Uhh, nu-uh, no way,” Lance said, and he raised one hand in a stop gesture toward Lotor. “There’s no way you can stand there and try to tell us that you’re the good guys when we’re the good guys. That’s not how this works.”

Lotor gave him a disdainful look. “I was under the impression that we were discussing a war, not a children’s game of Police and Rebels. Please feel free to rejoin the conversation when you’ve matured enough to understand that.”

[…]

“Voltron is a powerful weapon,” Keith said, feeling it best to change the subject to something Allura and the others could hopefully understand. “There are few things in the universe that can rival it, and it’s vital to taking down Zarkon. But all Voltron can do is defend and destroy, and we need to do so much—”

“Voltron is more than just a weapon,” Allura interrupted, and she glared at Keith. “It is a symbol of hope, of victory and eventual peace, and it inspires all who see it. The fact that you do not recognize that is proof enough that you do not deserve to have it.”

“While Voltron may indeed be the symbol you speak of,” Lotor said, “the fact remains, Princess Allura, that symbols do not win wars. Soldiers do. Your words are beautiful, but in the face of an Empire that has ruled for ten thousand years, they are easily crushed. And if you arm the revolution with nothing more than ideals and empty promises, then so, too, are they.”

“The promise of Voltron is not empty,” Allura said fiercely. “And giving people hope when they’ve had none for ten thousand years—giving them something to believe in when they’ve had nothing, is not—!”

“We are giving them something to believe in,” Keith said, and though she turned her scowl back to him, he didn’t back down. “Themselves. Voltron is the most powerful weapon in the universe, but it’s also only one weapon, or five if you count each Lion separately. Voltron can’t be everywhere at once. It’s not possible. While none of the Empire’s fleets can match Voltron in terms of raw strength, that won’t stop them from going back to planets we’ve brought to our side and crushing them while we’re on the other side of the universe trying to help someone else. So we’re teaching them—we’re training them so that they can defend and protect themselves. We’re giving them the strength they need to hit back against the Empire when Zarkon’s commanders come knocking on their doors. We’ll help them when we can, but we won’t always be able to. Voltron won’t always be there. They need to be able to believe in and defend themselves when the time comes.”

“That’s just an excuse to get out of helping people,” Lance said.

Fire lashed through Keith’s veins. “No, it’s not!”

I loved writing the entire scene on the bridge for a lot of reasons, not the least of which because having the canon reality Paladins confront this alternate reality where Lotor, Keith, Acxa, Zethrid, Narti, and Ezor were the Paladins of Voltron instead was a really exciting concept for me. But I really loved writing the above dialogue in particular because it reflects a lot of my feelings about the show, and the situation the characters are all in now. The counter to the idea that the canon reality Paladins are Always Right and that what they do is Always Good, the point that the freed planets being reliant on Voltron is a huge problem and leaves them vulnerable to the Empire, the idea that everyone shouldn’t rally behind a symbol instead of seeing Voltron as the weapon it is (and that said symbol can’t protect them even if they do rally behind it) and so on—being able to point that out in a way that felt natural was something I really enjoyed doing. Also, not for nothing, but I had posted a snippet of this while writing, and a friend of mine who happened to come across that post said that he read this line:

“While Voltron may indeed be the symbol you speak of, the fact remains, Princess Allura, that symbols do not win wars. Soldiers do. Your words are beautiful, but in the face of an Empire that has ruled for ten thousand years, they are easily crushed. And if you arm the revolution with nothing more than ideals and empty promises, then so, too, are they.”

in AJ LoCascio’s voice, which is honestly one of the greatest compliments I have ever received in my entire life. So I mean, that was also a huge boost, haha.

Apart from that, though, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t have a delightful time with both Keitor scenes. Again, more specifically:

The scene in the training room, both before and after Lotor shows up—I enjoyed the way I wove in both Keith’s physical actions in the present, and how he sparred with the training bot, and also how he reflected on his own thoughts and feelings with regards to the canon reality Paladins and what that said about the life he had led in this reality. (It’s also, going by post-date, the first mention we get of Revender, and oh … I can’t wait to get to that backstory fic, which might be in three-parts so that I can show Keith’s, Acxa’s, and Lotor’s perspectives on what happens on that planet.) I was proud of myself for how I managed to make that flow. But then, once Lotor does show up … I had a lot of fun with Lotor narrating Keith’s actions as a way to needle him into opening up, haha. It’s a bit flirty and ridiculous, but it’s flirty and ridiculous in a way that I feel suits them, and that was a lot of fun to write. (Oh, but also, the way their almost-kiss was interrupted? Ezor purposefully jumping between them? Keith and Acxa playing around on the sofa? Keith tossing “Fun Police Beat Cop” in Zethrid’s face when she calls them out? Yeah, I loved writing all of that, too.)

And then, of course, the scene at the very end. I’ve mentioned it in another post elsewhere, but including all the photos on the wall in Keith’s room was done because I both wanted to show that Keith feels at home in this castle, as well as highlight the fact that he has relationships with all of the other Paladins, not just Lotor—that this alternate reality wasn’t created just so that Keith could be with Lotor, but that Keith is close with each of the girls as well. Moreover, in that scene I also got to show not only that Keith has no problems telling Lotor to get out if he feels annoyed regardless of his feelings for Lotor (like, he’s in love with Lotor, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to sit there and take being lectured about safety from someone who flies into suns, all right), but also … well, the ending scene showcased my headcanon for how they confess feelings for each other, which is basically:

“You are invaluable to me, Keith, not because of what you can do, but because of who you are,” Lotor went on, and though he had raised his voice a little to speak over Keith, Keith’s own voice died in his throat. “Your presence by my side has been instrumental in my—in oursuccess. Yes, you have aided me in battle. Your piloting abilities have natural grace few could ever dream of achieving. But I’ve come to value your companionship more than any of your skillsets. I want you by my side not only for what we can accomplish in our revolution, but also for the time we spend together outside of it.” Lotor paused, and then added more quietly, “There may be others who are capable of training the auxiliary teams or piloting the Black Lion, Keith, but they could never mean to me what you do. For that, above all else, I do not wish to lose you.”

Every nerve in Keith’s body felt electrified. His heart was bashing itself so forcefully against his ribcage that he was not only acutely aware of every rapid beat, but it was actually a little painful. He couldn’t believe what he had just heard, but—Lotor had said it. He said it. Keith did hear every word. And there were no traces of humor in his tone, there was no light of laughter in his eyes. The stare that bore into Keith’s own eyes was not only serious, but sincere. Lotor meant every word. And Keith, his hands shaking—Keith, his out of control heartrate making it a little harder to breathe—Keith—

Keith cupped Lotor’s face between his hands and pulled him down into a fervent kiss.

Lotor confesses like he’s living in a Jane Austen novel. Keith throws words out of the equation altogether and goes straight for action.

So … yes, I loved writing all of those scenes, haha. For different reasons, maybe, but they’re all my favorites. Sorry to ramble on forever, but out of them all, I really could not choose just one. ^^

25.) Have you ever cried while writing a story?

Mmm, I don’t think so. This is going to sound horrible, but even when I’m writing very tragic things, the idea that it could evoke feelings of sadness or tears from my readers makes me feel more excited to do it right and get it posted than anything else, haha. It’s my job to evoke emotion in the reader, and the thought that I could succeed at that makes me really happy (and then I’m ecstatic if I do succeed). So even when I’m writing really tragic, horrible things happening to characters I love, I don’t shed tears because I’m too focused on making sure that I execute it well enough to make others shed tears. Which, again, I know sounds horrible, but … it’s true, nonetheless.

That said, I can still recognize when the things I write are brutal, and I may still feel some pain over it (such as with the hurt/comfort that SB and I wrote over Discord together—that one got me right in the feelings at several different points), but I still don’t shed tears over it. It gets me, but not enough to make me cry.

Thanks for sending these in!

[askaceattorney]

Dear jnv11,

Only one word comes to mind in that scenario:

Poor Simon would hit a new record for the number of times he shouted that word in a single trial, and Ms. Oldbag might actually run out of breath before she’s done complaining.

Dear jnv11,

You kidding? The woman’s tough, but she’d have a heart attack in no more than five minutes. It’s been a decade since we’ve seen ’er, plus young samurai prosecutor who was suspected of killing his teacher?

Dear anon,

I think what we’ll actually do is stop answering letters that involve real-world politicians altogether, or at least ones that defame them.  Just to be clear, the answers I came up with don’t reflect my actual opinion on Donald Trump.

Apologies to anyone who was hit the wrong way by those letters.  Make no mistake, I was very uncertain about whether or not I should even bother answering them, but the “answer everything you can” part of my mind eventually won over the “avoid political topics” part.  It was all in the spirit of comedy, but, as I should’ve expected, it became more hateful than funny, so I’d say I’ve learned my lesson now.

(Previous Letter)

Dear Ethan Starbright,

..................................................Pff...

PAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Okay, I’m not sure why, but the utter randomness of that fact cracked me up for some reason.  Thanks for that.

Dear Ethan Starbright,

.............

.....I don’t get it.

(Previous Letter)

Dear 55,

Glad to hear it!  The Ace Attorney series is good at revealing the plot at just the right pace to keep you guessing about who the culprit is and/or what the motive for their crime was, but it’s just as entertaining to see Phoenix and company find the truth for themselves, even if you already happen to know some of it yourself.

Plot-wise, my favorite game was Trials and Tribulations, mostly because of how cleverly it jumped from one timeline (and main character) to another.  Throughout the game, we get to learn more about the events of the past and how they relate to the present day situation -- Mia’s first encounter with Phoenix, Godot’s true identity and history, how Winston Payne lost his hair, and so on, and every tiny bit of it makes the game more intriguing.  My favorite part was Iris’s confession about what she did for Phoenix near the end.  I’d love to see Hollywood try and come up with anything as beautifully touching as that.

It’s been a little while since I listened to the soundtracks from any of the trilogy games, but I think my favorite one comes from the first game, since it’s the most memorable for me.  I sure didn’t expect to hear those kind of fast and engaging tunes in a game about a lawyer, did you?  The other soundtracks are great too, of course, but the songs from the first game (especially the cross-examination theme) are the most fun for me to remember.

Dear Anonymous,

That’s actually happened a few times before.  I remember one letter were Maya claimed she’d never been out of the country even though PLvsAA is canon in this blog, and there was another where Apollo sounded skeptical about spirit channeling, even though he’d been born in the land of spirit mediums.  Chances are we’ll have to delete letters that point out contradictions like that, but we’ll try our best to answer them if possible.  There’s no way to tell what Capcom will come up with next, but that won’t stop us from making guesses about it in the meantime.

Dear Anonymous,

If something changes in the canon that isn’t reflected in a previous letter, it’s not important. Previous means not in the moment. Not in the moment means no one will notice unless they go far back enough. And if they comment on stuff that happened a while ago, they... no offence, kinda need a hobby.

Dear Professor Oak,

Yes.

Dear Professor Oak,

No.

(Referenced Letter)

Dear Lachtigall,

Sorry to hear that, but hey, at least they picked a different character for the idea, so your letter will still get an answer.  We both answer whatever letters we find regardless of which character they’re written to, but in answer to your question about who answered that letter...

Just kidding, it was me.

Dear guquis,

That should be fine if you’re willing to wait that long.  Just make sure to indicate that in your letter.

Dear guquis,

if you want your letter to be on a specific date, specify it somehow. And also specify if you want that info blurred so it’s not obvious. It’ll be easier for us that way.

(Previous Letter)

Dear Ender,

It wasn’t intended to look scary in any way, but whatever floats your boat.  I thought she looked kind of cute like that, actually.

Dear Ender,

Trust me, neither of them are contenders in the scary contest anymore. Have you ever met Robert? THAT, sir, is scary.

Dear SC,

ComEVENo, huh?  That almost sounds like a Native American name.

I’ve finally finished watching Hotel Dusk, but I’ll save my reaction to it for last so I can go into full detail under the cut.  That’s how much I enjoyed it.

My favorite cross-examination theme is from AJ, believe it or not.  I love how it starts out slow and mysterious, then picks up speed and volume when Apollo’s about to discover a big truth.  It’s also nice how the melody begins on the offbeat.  It almost makes me want to dance to it.

I hadn’t thought much about which cross-examination I like best, but I’d probably go with the final confrontation with Furio Tigre.  While bluffing is nothing new for Phoenix, it was fun watching him use the supposedly useless evidence that Gumshoe gave him to give his doppelganger a taste of his own medicine.  It was one of those moments where I had no idea what his strategy was until Furio opened his huge mouth.  After that, it became an “Ooooooh...” kind of moment.

I’d love to see that case ranking you’ve made.  Every case has its ups and downs, but it’s fun to explore just what it is about each one that makes it memorable and...odd.  Let’s be honest, they all have at least a tiny bit of oddness added in somewhere, am I right?

-Modthorne and Co-Mod

(Hotel Dusk spoilers below)

Oh, man..........oh, MAN!!

Seriously, I can’t remember the last time a game’s story left me this satisfied from beginning to end.  To be fair, I just watched a playthrough of it on YouTube, so I might have avoided some potential frustration by not playing it myself, but man...  I can tell the developers put some serious heart into that game.  The music was delightful, the characters were all very charming, the art and animation style were done in a clever way, and the plot...  Man, oh, man.

First of all, there’s the setup: Kyle’s goal in visiting Hotel Dusk (aside from getting a delivery) is established from the very beginning -- finding his former police partner and figuring out why he turned rogue and forced him to nearly kill him.  Oddly enough, he has no real proof that visiting the hotel will lead him any closer to finding him -- all he has is a hunch.

Then there’s the way he goes about gathering information.  Even as a retired cop, his detective instincts are still keen, and by snooping around the hotel (with some help from his “old buddy” Louis), solving a few puzzles, and asking the right people the right questions, he not only gains tidbits of information about Bradley, but also learns the secrets of the hotel’s residents, and how they and their stories are interconnected.  And boy, did some of those connections surprise me.

But here’s what I loved most about the gameplay (and the entire game) -- in order to get the information he needs out of people, he first has to break them down to the point where they not only can’t hide the truth, but they realize how useless it is to keep lying to themselves.  In fact, Kyle said it perfectly himself during one of these confrontations:

Whether it’s pressuring a pretend author to admit to his plagiarism, telling the spoiled son of a lawyer how dangerous his revenge scheme is, or convincing a drunk father to appreciate what he still has -- namely, his daughter -- Kyle just won’t put up with lies, even if he has to sound like the rudest person on Earth to dispel every last one of them...and he doesn’t even need the help of a Magatama!

Like every game, of course, this one isn’t without its faults -- the interactive parts are short, there’s very little challenge in picking the right dialogue options (usually just whichever is less annoying), and the language, while not terrible, could’ve been left out -- but the charm of the story and its characters more than makes up for it.  Speaking of the story, it seems I was a little off on most of the predictions I made, but at least I was right about Melissa.  She didn’t disappoint at being adorable one bit.

Oh, and one more thing -- if anyone reading this feels like playing or watching this game, which I highly recommend, be prepared for your jaw to drop at the very end.  It’s that incredible.

And with that, my gushing about this game is over.  Thank you for suggesting it, SC!

[bronyinabottle]

SCHOOL DAZE THOUGHTS

We have now reached the 8th season of the show. The 2nd to last season before things are over for good. We only have 50 episodes left after this two-parter now. Let’s hope they can make at least most of those count.

Every season opener of MLP tends to set the tone and/or set up some kind of arc throughout the season. And this season’s theme seems like it will center around this School of Friendship Twilight opens up just a day or more after the end of the Movie.

Which speaking of which, oh yeah in case there was ANY sort of doubt that the movie was going to be canon to the show or at the very least be given the Equestria Girls treatment of “Ignore it ever happened, not even a significant character name drop”. Within the FIRST TEN SECONDS they explicitly reference something that happened in the movie. About 30 seconds in, Tempest is mentioned and even told what she’s doing while also telling why she likely won’t appear much if at all this season (I suppose the real reason is they probably couldn’t afford Emily Blunt for too long but good to have something in-universe at least). Reminder that we still have not heard Sunset Shimmer get named in any episode of the main show while within the first minute of the first episode that takes place chronologically after the movie both references events and names a significant character. That’s the clear proof you need to determine a movie canon. Equestria Girls might be considered canon by the Staff and by now probably accepted as such for the most part by the fandom as well. But until something like Sunset appearing or at least mentioned in the main show, or at the very least the mirror makes a cameo appearance in the spot it does in Twilight’s castle. Then there’s going to remain that little seed of doubt of Equestria Girls may not be canon the main show. But in it’s own universe where the main show is canon to it. Even the appearance of the Sirens in the Season 7 Finale, while surely significant is hardly as confirming as what the first minute of this episode did for the MLP Movie. I’m not saying myself that EQG is non-canon, as by now I think it’s at least a little clear that it is. But they haven’t made it any easier to really say EQG has much of an impact on the main show. There’s room to doubt events of the EQG series happened, there isn’t any for the MLP movie after the first minute of this episode.

But anyway, time to get to the point of the episode. Twilight is opening a friendship school that isn’t just for ponies, but also many other races/species in Equestria in an attempt to spread the ponies way of friendship to regions outside of Equestria. It’s an interesting idea, time will tell how it all goes down. There’s some execution of it that might be a little questionable by making all of the Mane 6 the only teachers in the school. Some have already brought up that obviously some of the Mane 6 already have full-time jobs of some sort. Rainbow’s a Wonderbolt who’d likely have to be called in for shows and such sometimes, Rarity owns a business so weighing that and being a teacher sounds kinda difficult, AJ works on a farm with so many chores to do, etc. Perhaps it could of been better if they had included more teachers other then the Mane 6 to have available, mainly already fully established characters. I can’t exactly speculate which ones would work as some may have the same issues of bringing in some of the Mane 6 as teachers. Another solution would be to have new characters, but that does come with the problem of character overload. There was already a lot of new characters with the students as well as the EEA’s leader. Imagine having a full slate of new characters for the purposes of teaching as well. That’d be an absolute nightmare to try to cram that all in a 44 minute special in terms of introducing both teachers and students. At least with the Mane 6 we already know them well, even if that comes to the detriment that there would be cases where the characters would be far too busy to teach. But maybe they’ll have substitutes for when they can’t come in? That could be a potential solution. Overall though we’ll just have to see how this season plays it off and maybe even how the Final Season coming up continues on with the school as things wrap up to overall determine how well they execute this idea. It has potential for some fun stuff, but it could also turn up to be a disappointment. We’ll see how things go down.

On to the EEA though, I’ll touch on a certain subject later in this thing with them. But right from the get go when Twilight is giving her presentation you can tell something’s not quite right with the committee. And that’s before we find out about something later in the episode. Besides the admittedly hilarious closeness to one of the most despised gaming companies (Or even companies in general) EA, it’s mostly old ponies giving a skeptical glare as whomever is presenting their idea. Chancellor Neighsay (Voiced by the well-renowned voice actor Maurice LaMarche, famous for being the voice of The Brain from Pinky and the Brain. Neighsay’s voice is even strikingly similar, though not exactly like The Brain’s) being the towering figure that him alone sounds like he just has that exterior about him of a really skeptical person. He skims through Twilight’s proposal, and then presumes that Twilight’s school is about protecting the ponies way of life from dangers rather then Twilight’s plan of having Ponies get to know different creatures from outside Equestria. This obviously foreshadows the big plot point with Neighsay later, but I’ll get to that when I get to that.

But anyway time to get to the new students! I’ll leave a thoughts on each of them

Sandbar: I think I need to get to know Sandbar in more episode to really know what he’s about. But he’s fine thus far. And hey for once Vincent Tong gets to voice a character that’s NOT a love interest nearly universally hated by the fandom! (In case you’ve forgotten, he’s voiced not just Flash Sentry, but also Prince Blueblood and Feather Bangs)

Gallus: Gallus seems like a neat griffon granted he’s going to be a bit jerkish being that’s what most Griffins seem to be. But he’s obviously going to be the Dash in the group of friends in terms of sticking up for them when they need him.

Yona: A clumsy Yak that has a few endearing qualities for sure, I know not everyone’s a big fan of the Yaks, but I feel Yona may have potential to be more tolerable then most of the other yaks.

Smoulder: AKA The newest ship for Spike pretty much. Maybe some people thought Ember is just a little too old for Spike. If so, then Smoulder might be their answer. She’s obviously still older then Spike but she’s still closer to his size. So might make it a bit easier to see a ship between them.

Ocellus: Well ain’t she a pretty adorable changeling. Not too bad design for a nu-changeling either. Plenty of potential of fun situations for a recurring changeling character so we could see some good things from her later too.

Silver Stream: She’s perhaps my favorite out of the multi-species six. And not just because she’s connected to the seaponies from the movie. She’s full of energy, and her excitement for mundane things like stairs is charming and meant as kind of an odd to the fish out of water tropes we saw back in The Little Mermaid when forks were called Dinglehoppers. I’m certainly excited to see more of her after this two-parter

As we progress we get the natural events of what happens when a school about making friends seem to focus more on being a boring normal school with teaching guidelines that doesn’t quite work for every one of the students. Especially the non-ponies involved. And the group we saw earlier skip out on what happens to be the most important day for Twilight to show the EEA how things are progressing. But what happens as a result when Neighsay discovers the non-pony student that is no doubt a big subject that anyone surrounding the very volatile political climate right now could see this as quite awkward.

There’s no way around it, Neighsay is pretty much a racist. As soon as he sees there are non-pony students he sees Twilight as not going by his standards that the positive teaching be meant only for Ponies. And thinks other species are not as capable of learning friendship like Ponies can. There have been episodes before that are vaguely or could be considered from a point of view a bit political. Some episodes even are hit with political controversy even if that might of not been the intention. But it feels like in this case it is very intentional, especially in this volatile political climate. This is very much the equivalent of a high-up bureaucrat shutting a school down because the school is allowing students from places that either been enemies in the past or have otherwise rejected co-operation that benefits their country more and letting them mingle with those inside the country. I wouldn’t be surprised if in many red states if their parents were watching the episode with their kids. They’d turn off the TV and tell their kids to do something else knowing very well what this episode was implying. I wouldn’t even be surprised if there are kids who are now no longer allowed to be watching the show or buying MLP toys because their parents see this episode as attacking political beliefs. It honestly makes Neighsay perhaps one of the most realistic, and because of that one of the more scarier antagonists in the show. Neighsay’s not exactly a villain, he’s not trying to take over the world but he’s nonetheless someone with beliefs that is at odds with the message of Friendship for all that the ponies often try to send. And it’s likely he’s probably not the only pony in Equestria like that if he got such a high position. Despite the ponies having dropped their racism in the past for each other’s type since Hearth’s Warming Eve. It seems to have shifted at least for some regarding non-pony species. There’s some understandable reasons why for ponies to distrust them such as Dragons terrorizing ponies, Changelings only having recently been made mostly good but the Canterlot invasion as well as kidnapping all the princesses and the rest of the Mane 6 is likely still a sore spot about them, Yaks are destructive and don’t have the best tempers, Griffons seem non-caring about a lot of things, etc. But in a society that seems to be easily forgiving, apparently there’s some ponies unwilling to give the same 2nd chance that they gave formerly evil ponies even if they did worse things then any of the non-pony species did. Looking at Starlight especially, nearly ripped the ENTIRE present timeline but is given no more then a slap on the wrist, yet we don’t see Neighsay challenge the fact she’s involved with the school. He demonstrates far more anger that they just included non-pony species into the school when those students themselves and even the older representatives that brought them there didn’t really do anything to harm Equestria. It’s this very type of hypocritical feeling that has come out in recent political firestorms.

I don’t want to get too further in this, as I’ve for the most part avoiding posting about politics on my modblog. I do not want to get into any political debates, that’s not what I use Tumblr for even though there are certainly a lot of blogs that ARE very heavy political wise on Tumblr. But that’s not why I chose to use Tumblr. I just want to have fun giving my thoughts on things I’m excited for and episodes of MLP, and making fun little sprite comics of stories I want to tell. This is a brief escape from the minefield that is today’s politics where there’s no winning no matter where you stand. I’m only mentioning this now, because it’s kind of an unavoidable subject after this episode. There’s just no sugarcoating it to the point we can deny it’s at least somewhat political.

Heading into Part 2, I did really like the scene of Twilight trying to be cheered up by her friends. It doesn’t exactly work, but it really shows how much Twilight cared about the school that not even her friends could do much to really help how down she feels that her school was closed. It’s an entertaining scene to me too. Can’t exactly pinpoint why. But it’s a good scene.

Small note, but I found it amusing Pinkie has a themed cannon for each of her friends. Even Starlight and Spike. I don’t even know why she does, but it’s funny.

A fun note to see that the throne room in Celestia’s castle (Or should we say Celestia and Luna’s) has changed to the look it has in the movie. Luna finally has her own throne again and everything. Kinda cool.

And what will undoubtedly be the meme of the episode, Silverstream’s fascination with Stairs. Although there are a few occasions that maybe Silverstream should of seen Stairs earlier. Like in the school or even earlier in the same castle they were hiding in. And I believe the Mane 6 go down a pretty huge amount of stairs to find the entrance to the sea pony kingdom. Though I think maybe the reason for that is for most of Silverstream’s life she was a sea pony. We don’t know how long the Storm King was threatening the places outside Equestria. It could very well be an entire decade. Long enough for Silverstream to mostly see things that were underwater rather then the stuff that is normal on the surface.

Speeding up a little, we know Twilight and the others find the students. And then stand up to Neighsay. (Though Maurice has already said this won’t be the last we see of him) And finally get the School put in the direction that it should be. Setting up the rest of the season with the new non-pony characters that I think at least a few will become new fan favorites. It’s a nice start to the season, some things certainly got political and that’s not going to be an easy conversation no matter what. But we got some neat new characters and the rest of the season to look forward to.

Next time is yet another Maud Pie episode. I’ll seeya then!