#MyLittleBlogAlong

[kdinjenzen]

Kdin's My Little Blog Along (PART 1)

MLPFiM Eps 1 - 5

So going into things this season, I believe, is the one I thought I remembered the most and had the most memories of.

That ended up being true so far but also not true.

Celestia starts off the series gaslighting everyone by cleverly rewriting history through the acts of a children's storybook.

I really don't understand how anyone can trust her at her word since she's basically PONY GOD and can just live long enough for people to just forget about stuff and then change history herself... but maybe I'm being too meta about this.

Celestia reading the story of Nightmare Moon and then transitioning to it being Twilight Sparkle is a great way to introduce her as Celestia's student.

Then immediately Twilight begins treating everyone, especially Spike, like garbage. I legit remember Twilight being a complete jerk in the first bits of things but she's pretty trash as a person/pony. It's established that she's been ignoring everyone around her for a long time and that people keep trying but they don't know why they bother anymore.

Celestia tells Twilight to touch grass and kicks her out to Ponyville where Twilight continues to be absolutely WAY more rude than I remember to everyone she interacts with... especially Spike.

The show moves way faster than I remember and by the time we meet everyone Nightmare Moon has already shown up and the first episode ends. Celestia was supposed to be there and just kinda no-showed, we have no idea why she never showed up to the party but likely because she knew her sister was gonna be there and Celestia is very much "lol not my problem" and is making Twilight do it.

Part 2 is basically "Part 1 again, but more focused and at night" - heavily reinforcing that Twilight has problems with people and that everyone who is following her have ELEMENTS about them that make them SUPER GREAT PEOPLE/PONIES.

Pinkie's "Laughter Song" is our first proper in show song and I remember it word for word which says the song is a great earworm and easy for folks to remember. PERFECT for a kids show and Pinkie is already racing to the front as "best pony" of the bunch with her mannerisms.

We get through the trials of "Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy could have easily got everyone through these with no problems" quickly and it's time for Nightmare Moon showdown 2.

SURPRISE the ponies are the elements of harmony because of the things they literally said on the way here but also TWILIGHT is the element of "MAGIC" ... which I swore was not magic when I first watched it, but I suppose that's a "it's magic...al friendship" that happens later.

One giant mega death rainbow later, Nightmare Moon has her evil blasted away and Celestia shows up fashionably late and is like "oh good it's over, anyway apologize to me Luna" and shock - Nightmare Moon is her sister whom she banished to the fucking moon and Luna apologizes.

A THOUSAND YEARS, CELESTIA! THATS A LONG TIME TO IMPRISON YOUR SISTER ON THE MOON!

Anyway, episode ends with Celestia banishing moving Twilight to Ponyville so she can stay away from her and give Celestia some fucking piece and quiet for three seconds learn more about friendship through her new friends.

Which immediately leads into Episode 3, "The Ticket Master" in which Celestia - WHO KNOWS TWILIGHT HAS 6 FRIENDS (I'm including Spike) - sends Twilight two tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala and says to bring a friends.

I like to believe that Celestia is either doing this just to fuck with Twilight or that she assumes Twilight is so annoying to deal with that she lost most of the other pony's friendship after that whole Nightmare Moon thing.

Everyone has their "VERY GOOD REASONS" for wanting the tickets and... the reasons kinda suck, but Twilight assures the audience that they are VERY GOOD REASONS and spends the rest of the episode yelling at everyone to stop doing her favors to butter her up which becomes the main pain point the episode.

Pinkie just outright says she's doing things to get the ticket, everyone else lies about it (Fluttershy does say the truth but only after Angel, her bunny, kicks her for lying). We also get two quick not-really-full songs from Pinkie again in this one and she's maintaining her lead as "Best Pony" so far.

Everything is solved when Twilight sends the tickets back and tells Celesia "I CAN'T PICK BETWEEN MY FRIENDS" and Celestia sends back a "Lol just say you need more tickets, stop being so extra" and sends everyone a ticket. Episode 3 ends.

Episode 4 sees the intro of Big Macintosh who takes the "Best Side Pony" slot immediately by being both reasonable in explanation, reasoning, and level of directness in dealing with issues. This will change later when he gets his own episodes, but for now he's the level headed thinker and basically says Applyjack can't handle the entire Applebucking season herself after he had an injury.

Applejack burns out faster than a pre-transition "gifted child" in high school and spends the rest of the episode in a daze between asleep/awake and starts doing incredibly dangerous or downright mean things.

Eventually, after days of pressure and constant asking, Twilight convinces her to ask for help and Applejack breaks and agrees.

During the ending "Dear Princess Celestia" letter we see everyone helping and then TWILIGHT BASICALLY DOING ALL THE WORK IN ONE MAGICAL MOVE AND WHAT THE FUCK? She literally just... could do all the work herself. We'll see this "heavily relying on magic" thing bite her on the ass later but there's literally no reason that she shouldn't have just talked to Big Mac and explained things. YES that defeats the purpose of Applejack learning the lesson but also holy fuck she almost died so many times this episode. Episode 4 ends.

Episode 5 is "Griffon the Brush-off" which I thought was WAY WAY WAAAAAAY longer into the season but no, I'm wrong.

The lesson in this episode is "if your friend is hanging with someone who is an asshole there's not a lot you can do about it, but you can control your own actions and how you treat people" which is a fine lesson except Gilda the Griffon starts outright antagonistic and kinda just... awful. So Pinkie is fully right to call out this shit to Rainbow and I think the lesson here is a little off.

Pinkie is helpful and kind the entire episode, constantly giving the benefit of the doubt, and ends up treated like garbage and SHE apparently is the one to learn the lesson this episode... not Rainbow Dash.

Episode ends with Twilight learning how to prank people because of the "pranks" happening all episode between Gilda and Rainbow (who's pranks are wrongly attributed to Pinkie) - she sends Celestia invisible ink and Celestia gets pranked ... I feel like Celestia takes this personally and will be making the remaining 200+ episodes a living hell for Twilight.

ALL IN ALL... first five episodes are still great, Twilight is way more of a rude bitch than I remember and I think she gets better later on but I also don't remember her being THAT BAD over all and I was wrong.

Voice performances ACROSS THE BOARD are great, lots of wonderful visual gags, and lots of charm throughout the entire thing. The animation just looks great and aged very well.

Twilight, both in story and voice performances, is the weakest link. The performances and characters of the other Main 6 are carrying this show so far. END OF PART 1

[kdinjenzen]

Alright that MLPFiM post got the amount of notes I asked so I'll start a re-watch of the series likely next week. But some info and history before I start that:

FIRST if you'd like to follow along I'll be using the tag #MyLittleBlogAlong to keep track of everything on my blog, starting with this post.

I have seen the entire series before, but haven't looked back at it since the final episode and I fell off hard from it. Episode 100's big "fan service" thing felt a little weird and that's when my "eh okay, beginning to not be interested in this" thing happened for me. I wasn't ever really fully part of the "fandom" around it because fandom spaces often scare the bejeebuz outta me.

My favorites from the first time around were Rarity, Big Mac, and Queen Chrysalis. Meanwhile I never really liked Twilight Sparkle as a character much at all. So I'm interested to see how or if that changes with a re-watch.

I remember the music (and fan music for that matter) absolutely being killer in a lot of ways, but I only really remember a few of them at this point so I'm interested to hear them all again.

I will include the "My Little Pony: The Movie" film in this, but not Equestria Girls or My Little Pony: A New Generation as these are both kinda off-shoots and not really MLPFiM.

If you have QUESTIONS about the blog along, let me know! My inbox is always open.