#but I've seen a new mod that makes them not particularly special anymore so I might as well post them now ig

[wild-magic-oops]

🫂.

[bronyinabottle]

In a recent post on I Dream of Twilight Sparkle I said that I noticed asks that were not in my inbox the last time I decided to read through my entire ask box. So I did the same for my mod blog. And while there were some also that I didn't see before. Most are questions I feel either I feel like I may have already sufficiently answered enough with my thoughts on an episode and/or it'd be weird at this point to answer something that's obviously years after the fact.

But there is two I found that I feel like I may want to respond to. The person who sent it was someone who used to discuss the show with me almost all the time, though obviously they must no longer be on Tumblr as all their blogs are deactivated. But I still want to answer since it is sort of relevant to recent stuff. Particularly in their 2nd ask.

By the way, I'm always open to questions on the show or even non-pony topics here on my modblog. I still do love talking about G4 ponies and I wouldn't mind some questions if any of you would like to know my opinion on anything. Now that the show has been over for nearly 2 years , I can have a perspective on many topics about Friendship is Magic that I wouldn't mind sharing. Maybe some things have changed here and there, though I think I still generally have a positive attitude towards most things for certain. I stuck with the show until the very end, and was satisfied with how it ended. And I still have interest in doing more in G4's world even as G5 approaches. (Though I'm sure perhaps once that movie has aired that may be the focus of any questions sent here)

((My answer and more after the break))

For the most part, I think I still generally agree with what I said in my initial thoughts about the Season 6 finale. It's a solid episode with some great interactions between Starlight, Trixie, Discord, and Thorax. Though the way the ending is executed is a bit of a headscratcher. Maybe somewhat less so since thinking about it now, like even if Chrysalis did keep some things loyal. What would stop them from eventually seeing what Thorax's changelings did shortly after.

But I suppose I wanted to answer this mostly about Starlight. Since while the Season 6 finale made HomerJ get over some remaining feelings about Starlight. I'll admit it took literally until writing Secrets of the Dragon's Tear (A year after the show was over) to realize the sort of potential that Starlight had. The baggage from the Season 5 finale always felt like a cloud above her for the entire rest of the show's run. And I consider Season 6's largest mistake is not trying harder to endear us to Starlight. That's what that season's entire job was, to try to make us feel a little better of how rather rushed Starlight's redemption was by giving us a more expanded look into Starlight's character. And unfortunately, I feel like it failed at that in my opinion. Thus I basically disagree (Though respect the opinion of) with those who would say the Season 6 finale was when Starlight finally won them over.

Don't get me wrong, I like how Starlight is portrayed in the episode. But it would of been stronger if say the season had explained more about Starlight's past. How did Starlight get her cutie mark, and given her opinion on Cutie Marks how did she feel at the time?

Instead, we mostly just got Starlight reuniting with Sunburst that didn't exactly give any more details to her rather vague reasons for turning to darkness from him moving away other then finding out Sunburst's personality and how his side of the story went. And from there we had Starlight befriend Trixie... in an episode I still don't really like to this day.

Ironically, the character in the Hearth's Warming episode that casts Starlight as the story's version of Scrooge (Snowfall Frost) is given more reason to sympathize with then Starlight herself.

Starlight then just about disappears up until the episode that introduces Thorax. Where she doesn't do much other then be among the crowd that Spike has to convince that Thorax is not evil.

The next time we see her is Every Little Thing She Does. Which is something of a controversial ep from what I hear, though ironically despite my skepticism of Starlight at the time. I actually sort of liked that episode since it was basically Starlight's own Lesson Zero. Though I get why Starlight deciding to hypnotize all the Mane 6 besides Twilight against their will would not be approved of. Though it does feel like at the very least Twilight and the rest give her enough of a piece of their mind at the end.

And that's how things stood before the Season 6 finale happened. Even though I do think Starlight has good moments in said finale, nothing earlier in the season really dispelled many of my feelings about the Season 5 finale's ending. So despite a good showing, I could hardly care for it. I wasn't convinced yet we were given a satisfactory answer about the many questions that Starlight's sudden redemption prompted.

Another part of my thoughts I feel still applies is when I mentioned that Starlight's a "Diet Sunset Shimmer" (Which considering what I did to link the two for SOTDT, is a bit funny in hindsight). It took just one movie (Rainbow Rocks) for the fanbase to turn a 180 on Sunset. While an entire season with Starlight as one of the good guys goes by and she remained just as divisive as before if not more so by the end of Season 6.

Come Season 7, and Starlight appears quite a bit more often though under the assumption that the Season 6 finale was enough to warm you up to her. There were many complaints during the first half of Season 7 that she was appearing more then she should (Even in an Equestria Girls special where she got to meet the character she was so often compared to). Though another thing about Starlight in Season 7 in hindsight is besides from her meeting a few more friends like Maud. Starlight isn't actually given much to actually work towards. They dropped the whole student aspect so it's not like she was doing friendship lessons under Twilight anymore (Though I suppose on the bright side for the detractors, it lessened worries about her becoming an Alicorn). Season 8 and 9 does somewhat fix that by having Starlight employed at the school, first as a counselor and ultimately ending with her as the school's Principal as Twilight herself got promoted to sole ruler. Which I'm still unsure about if fans of her character feel that was a proper ending for her. Though probably the best that could of been done in context of not much having been done with her over time.

Still, at least for me personally it felt there was alot missing about Starlight and as time went on it became obvious I wasn't going to get the satisfactory answers about her that I wanted. So as a result, I only had lukewarm reactions when a new Starlight episode was coming up. It also didn't help that there were two episodes that raised my hopes of at least one interesting aspect that would of been cool to see. The first being the episode "All Bottled Up" which I had hoped would mean it would be an episode that's somewhat genie related. And then there was Road to Friendship where Starlight and Trixie try to travel to Saddle Arabia (which is an important location in I Dream of Twilight Sparkle)... and yet never actually get there. So even on the few times that I was hoping to be excited about a Starlight episode, it dropped the ball. Partly my fault for getting so hyped about something that wasn't promised, but I would of loved to at least SEEN canon Saddle Arabia.

I'd never say that I hated Starlight back during the show's run. But she was a frustrating character for certain back then. I couldn't hate Starlight as much as some others did, but at the same time I couldn't like her as much as others. She was in likability limbo. For every fun and or good moment that included her, it's brought right back by either lingering problems that arised from the Season 5 finale or otherwise dropping the ball in some way.

In some ways, she's still a frustrating character. Though that's just how it'll always be with the canon Starlight. It's up entirely now to fanon to give their approach on Starlight that was never done in Canon. With SOTDT, I obviously did a bit of a "Fine, I'll do it myself" when it comes to making Starlight a more satisfactory character for me. Though I'm sure there are many interpretations that are vastly different from how I approached it that can satisfy others and probably be more popular and better written then mine. (My interpretation might be understandably controversial just for Starlight being put back on a path where she'll likely become an Alicorn eventually. Something Starlight detractors feared the most. Though I think I at least try to explain as best I could that makes sense with the story, her cutie mark moment being similar to Twilight's, and the identity of her mother. And I myself sort of feared Starlight becoming an Alicorn might happen, so for me to actually write it so that it might be inevitable. That's just how much of a 180 I've taken on Starlight because of writing SOTDT)

I think I mentioned this before, but I can pretty much say that in a way that I can actually say I like Starlight now. But sort of in a "FiM's biggest missed opportunity" sort of way that it becomes sort of sad to look at how canon Starlight was done. Rather then me simply shrugging her off back when I didn't care so much about her. I also understand it's a bit cheating to say I like Starlight now after doing my own sort of fanfic that had her in a major role since that might be me tooting my own horn a bit.

Though I will say as much as necessary that I am very aware alot of what happens in SOTDT would have been impossible to do in canon and I don't plan on pushing what I did to expand on Starlight's backstory as gospel. It only applies to what I'm doing on the blog, I will not be making a case that my interpretation is the only correct one. I'd actually welcome seeing some different interpretations on things such as who Starlight's mother is, what they feel her past was like outside of the Sunburst leaving incident, and/or especially how Starlight originally got her cutie mark. (I've even said my personal guess is different then how I did it in SOTDT, as my guess is she got it the first time she discovered the cutie mark removal spell). Cause if nothing else, I've realized Starlight is a very interesting character that I think would be fun to explore all the possibilities with. It certainly could be something for those still on the G4 train to talk with one another about.

[scriptautistic]

Autistic people are often framed as having only a singular, heavily involved "special interest", or perhaps 2 or 3, to the absolute exclusion of anything else. While I know this is likely true for some, I can't imagine that every autistic person ever doesn't have multiple hobbies or interests pursued with varying degrees of engagement. The sense I get from the NT-written things I've encountered make autistic folk seem very one-dimensional. I'd like some help clearing this up, please!

This is one of those topics that hasn’t really been researched, as far as I can tell, so I’ll be sticking to my usual method of speaking for myself and inviting autistic followers to add their thoughts. I can in no way claim to speak for everyone, but am happy to share my perspective.

First off, let me explain how a special interest works for me with a simple metaphor: falling in love. When I first come across a new special interest, its eyes sparkle at me from across the room. I get a tiny taste of it, a fragment of information or a glimpse of a picture, and a spark flies, and a fuse lights, and a bomb of euphoria goes off in my head. This thing, this thing right here, is quite clearly the most amazing, important thing I’ve ever come across. This thing is frigging incredible, the best thing that’s ever happened, and the world needs to know.

I become obsessed. I gobble up information wherever I can find it. I learn everything there is to know as quickly as I possibly can. I become an expert on this thing in a remarkably short amount of time. This is LOVE, man. Well, more accurately, this is infatuation. Puppy love. That drug-like rush of chemicals in your brain when you feel you’ve found THE ONE. I talk about it constantly, much to the annoyance of those around me who just don’t quite understand why this thing, this one thing, is so amazingly great that I need to rant about it to the exclusion of everything else in the world. (Especially since they’ve heard it all before.) Just talking about it gives me a rush of euphoria. Sometimes I can see that those around me aren’t interested, but I just can’t stop. The words pour out of me, the excitement radiates off of me, I can’t be ignored, can’t be interrupted. This is like nothing that has ever happened before! Surely, if I can explain it well enough, everyone else will see, too, right? Right?

If you’ve never been in this kind of love, you might not have learned this lesson yet, but here it comes, folks: that kind of love doesn’t last. That euphoric high that results when your brain decides to take a bath in happy chemicals - it’s just physically impossible to sustain it. Eventually, the high, the firey passion, wears off. For me, this usually takes about a year. I’ve read and watched and learned everything I can about this thing. It’s been the center point of my life for a long time, the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. And one day, suddenly, it just… doesn’t hold the same appeal. It’s not that I don’t love it anymore! I will always love it. But the love changes. It becomes the old, familiar love that comes with time. You don’t get that high from being together anymore, but that doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy each other’s company. You no longer try to persuade the world that this one is the one, is the best thing ever. You no longer need to. This love just settles into the back of your mind, always there, always a comfort, always ready to give you a hug when you need it.

The expertise I’ve gained from all my intensive research, that stays. I will always know just about all there is to know about that thing (at least, all there was to know when I was researching it). I’ll always be able to call that knowledge to mind later on, when it’s useful. And I’ve developed quite the reputation for being a “know-it-all”. I always seem to have some random, obscure fact right on the tip of my tongue, and it’s usually debunking some common misconception that my friends would just as soon keep on having rather than feeling like they’re constantly under attack by that one girl who just HAS to know EVERYTHING.

But it doesn’t feel that way for me. A key difference I’ve noted in communication between autistic and allistic people, and the source of a large percentage of our miscommunications in life, is this: allistic people communicate to bond emotionally and to establish and display power and dominance or submission. Autistic people communicate to share information. When I correct someone, it’s because I know that if I was wrong, I would want to be given the correct information, so I could stop being wrong. But when an allistic person is corrected like that, they take it as an attack on their status, a display of power, and a denial of their feelings. The “golden rule” doesn’t always work. It’s a constant problem.

In any case, I have always been described as someone obsessive. Someone who finds one thing (although it’s often two, three, even four things at a time) and just obsessively learns everything about it and won’t shut up about it for months and months on end. And that really does seem to be true, in a sense. I have very extreme levels of interest. Either something is amazing and I need to know everything about it, or it just doesn’t catch my interest at all. There isn’t much in between.

On the other hand, due to all the many special interests I’ve had over my more than three decades of life, I have built up quite a broad range of interests. I never lost any of them. All of those things still interest me now, and when someone brings one of them up in conversation, I still get a spark of the old obsessiveness deep inside. As a result, I now seem to have a wide range of interests, some of which I’m overtly obsessive about, and others which I keep on file, ready to pull out whenever they’re needed. When I was young, that probably wasn’t the case. It’s likely that I may have been viewed as somewhat one-dimensional as a child, obsessed with just a few things and completely uncaring about everything else. (And when my parents, trying to make me act “normal”, tried separating me from my special interests, the pain was as crushing as being forced to leave your True Love because the rest of the world doesn’t want you to be together - and only made my obsession stronger.)

What I want you to understand is that I don’t see that as a negative thing in any way. An allistic person might see that narrow range of interests and think “oh the poor thing, it’s like she lives in a tiny world and is missing so much of life!” But from my perspective, it’s allistic people who are missing out. Allistic people never seem particularly interested in anything, not by my standards. From where I’m standing, it looks like allistics just drift through life, dabbling in a little of everything but never mastering anything, never finding any real interest, never getting any real, intense joy out of any of their hobbies. An allistic person might say to me, “Yeah, I do a little crocheting, but I’m not really that into it.” And in my mind, I’ll think… then why do it at all? How horribly unsatisfying must it be to go through your entire life, never falling in love with anything you do? Never feeling that euphoria that I get to experience over and over again every time I find a new interest?

Autistic and allistic brains are specialized differently. Allistic brains are best at navigating social rules and structures and internalizing broad strokes and large categories. They look at a table for the first time and think: “That’s a table.” And that’s pretty much as far as they go. They might spend a few seconds to note the material or color or overall condition of the table, but that’s it. 

Autistic brains are specialized in details. It means we have more information to process, all those details without any mechanism for discarding the ones that aren’t important, but it also means we get to see everything about something. I see that new table and I can get lost in tracing the patterns of the grain for hours on end. Sure, it takes me longer, but I get a lot more out of it, and I get a joy from that which allistic people just don’t seem to get.

It’s similar with our interests. Allistics have broad interests, dipping their toe into the shallow ends of a thousand different pools but never really diving in. Autistics have narrow but intense interests. We absorb every detail, and in doing so experience an intense and wonderful euphoria. Honestly, sometimes I feel sorry for all the allistic people in the world who never get to experience that. The poor things… ;)

-Mod Aira

For me, I can have both special interests and normal-level interests. Just because I have stuff that I really really love and am passionate about doesn’t mean I can’t also have other interests, that I’m not quite as passionate about but that I like to dabble in from times to times or as a part of my routine. I do not feel however the urge or will to research them in more depth. There is joy that I can derive from it, but there is not the same “drive” to pursue it. I’d say that’s the main difference between a regular interest and what we call a special interest: a drive to learn about it, talk about it, read about it, build projects about it, engage with it, that is much stronger. So one person can have one or a few special interests, but I’d say it’s not always to the exclusion of everything else.

I think the intensity of special interests, their “obsessiveness” and whether or not the person likes to engage with other subjects that their special interests depends a lot from one person to the next. My special interests sound less intense than what Aira is describing, and I may have more varied non-special interests. So really I’d say this is something that depends a lot from one person to the next.

I also want to add that just because someone has a narrow range of interests doesn’t mean they’re one-dimensional: I’ve seen a special interest described as a lense through which you understand the world. The world is large, and even if you have only one such “lense”, that’s a lot of things to discover with that unique point of view.

-Mod Cat