#like yeah this is what was missing. lets watch the mane 6 make lesson plans. fun

[colorful-horses]

The school of friendship was the worst thing to happen to mlp

[searchingff-blog]

Chapter 6: Slipping

“You’re going to stop trying to get me pregnant too.” Cassi giggled as soft kisses were being placed on her plump behind.

It was early in the morning and the couple just finished making love. Well for her it was more like sex, but for Saint he was connecting with her physically and mentally. She had a way with her body that no other female he came in contact with had. To make matters worse Cassi knew what she was doing. When it was just the two of them she made him feel godly, and like what he had between his legs was magic, black magic that sent secret messages to her brain. It was all apart of the game she played, and he had no idea about it.

“I can’t help it. The pussy be soooo gewd a nigga be forgetting I’m hitting it raw.” He chuckled,  taking an open palm to her ass.

“When I put that ass on child support you better be singing the same tune.” She laughed, letting him roll her over on her back and sliding between her legs.

“You trying to get me pregnant now and I don’t have a ring on this finger.” She raised her hand, and moved her ring finger back and forth. “How I know it’s real?”

“I don’t take care of you? I don’t treat you like a queen?” His face was more serious than his voice.

Cassi laid there quiet.

“Aight then. Better stop playing with me girl.” Her silence was the only answer he needed. They both knew what he did for her, and the pedestal she sat comfortably on. Saint leaned down, and pecked her lips. “I’m hungry.”

“You want your favorite?” She caressed his face.

“You already know I do.”

They connected lips once more, and then he rolled on his side of the bed.

Cassi slid off the bed, and grabbed her robe out of the closet. She walked out the room, and headed down the hall to the kitchen to whip up loaded french toast, eggs, and hot sausage.

TEN MINUTES LATER

The aroma from the kitchen was traveling into the room, and only made Saint hungrier. He knew that the food had to be nearly finished by now, but was going to stay in bed until she called him. It was still early, and nothing entertaining was on TV besides reruns that he didn’t feel like watching, so the TV ended up on some random movie. His undivided attention was on the movie until the bed started vibrating. At first he thought it was his phone, but when he found the rose gold IPhone he saw that it wasn’t his.  

Zeus 😄: Good morning beautiful

Zeus 😄: You miss me?

“What the fuck?” He whispered to himself.

Saint could feel his blood boiling. He knew the two of them were friends, but to text her that early in the morning as if Cassi was his girl infuriated him. The angel on his shoulder was telling him to calm down, but he couldn’t. He jumped out of bed, and glided down the hall.

“Good morning beautiful, you miss me?” His face emotionless.

“It hasn’t been that long.” She chuckled, facing the opposite direction.

“Nah, I ain’t the one missing you. It’s this nigga Zeus texting sweet shit in the fucking morning.”

The moment his name collided with her eardrum she was cursing herself out in her head. How could she be stupid enough to leave her phone in the bed? She needed to gain her composure quick.

“First calm down, and second I’m sure he meant to send that to someone else.” She turned the stove off and faced him.

“Fuck all that shit he know who he texting. Open your phone, and let me see the thread.” He offered the phone towards her.

“I’m not doing that. You don’t trust me? Really Saint?” Playing the victim was her go to plan, because what was inside that thread he wasn’t going to be able to handle.

“Open the damn phone and i’ll tell you.” He stared her down.

Most of the time it was hard for him to put his foot down with her, but he knew how Zeus operated from what Azure went through.

“You can tell me now because i’m not doing that shit.”

Cassi not opening her phone was making him more suspicious.

“What the fuck you got to hide? Something obviously with this gay ass smiley emoji next to his name. You got me fucked up Cassi.” He placed the phone down on the counter.

Saint wanted to trust her, but something wasn’t sitting right with him. If it was nothing he had no problem apologizing once she proved to him that it wasn’t nothing. Instead she let his suspicions heighten.

“The food is done asshole.” She rolled her eyes, turning back around to make plates.  

“I lost my appetite. Go feed it to the nigga that misses your ass.” He made his way back to the to the room.

“Are you serious right now?”

Her response was the bedroom door being slammed.  Cassie dropped the spoonful of eggs and picked up her phone.

Cass 👅: Why the fuck would you text me that.  Saint seen that shit, and now he’s pissed. Thanks a lot asshole.

After she sent that text she erased the thread, and blocked his number. There was too much evidence in those messages. The bedroom door opened back up, and Saint came around the corner fully dressed.

“Where you going?” She questioned, looking him over.

“To go get something to eat. I need some fresh air.” He grabbed his keys off the coffee table.

“Bye.” She said carefree. Arguing with him this early in the morning wasn’t on her agenda

As much as he wanted what she cooked he needed to teach her a lesson. Hopefully she was going to get it.

——————————–

It was around two in the afternoon when Hazel pulled up to Razor Cutz, the barbershop Zeus worked at, with food and a couple things she needed to get off her chest. Zeus was like her brother, so when she needed somebody to talk to about Roman she went to him for advice. He was an unbiased and neutral ear that would tell her if she was wrong in the situation. However,  Azure was her blood sister and what happened to her the other night at the club was unacceptable. Things, women, baby mommas, hoes needed to be put in place and he was the one who needed to do it.

“Hey yall.” She waved and smiled at the other barbers in the shop. “Not you tho. We got some shit that needs to be handled and addressed.” She pointed at Zeus.

“What this clown do now?” One of the barbers joked.

“Mane, shut ya ass up.” Zeus laughed, motioning for her to come to the back with him.

The two walked to the back of the barbershop, and he closed the door behind them. He knew what she was coming to chew him out about, and even though he handled it already he was going to take it like a man.

“Curry goat, rice and peas?” He took the bag of food.

“Yeah, my momma still be looking out for you.” She rolled her eyes.

“She a saint forreal.” He opened the container, and let the aroma fill his nostrils up.

After everything that had happened between Zeus and Azure, her mom still made sure he was taken care of. They’d been together so long he had become apart of the family.

“You know who’s not a saint, Azure. You need to get your baby mother in check because shit like that can’t happen again. It won’t happen again.” Her voice was stern, and the emotion her face portrayed was severe.

“You’re right, and that’s why I took care of it already. AZ won’t have to worry about her anymore.” He said reassuringly.

“Good, because come time for my dinner I don’t need any drama to pour out onto the table.”

“What’s this big dinner for again?” He asked before stuffing his face.

“It’s a surprise.”

In reality the dinner was put in place to be the night they revealed that they were pregnant.  Hazel wanted to cancel it after the miscarriage, but Roman suggested they still did it to have a good time. It took a minute for her to agree, but she finally did. Now they were using the dinner as the time to reveal the new house. She prayed and hoped that they were on good terms that day. Things had been chaotic in their household, and she wasn’t sure how they were going to recover after this. Marriages weren’t easy and they took some fighting to stay afloat, but this seemed like it was either going to make or break them.

“Also, Azure will be there and she already said she doesn’t want no parts of you, so don’t go thinking you’re going to weasel your way back in, because it ain’t happening. Your baby mom’s fucked that up for you.” That was one of the reasons why she invited the both of them, and her plan had already failed.

“I wasn’t going to mess with her regardless. I’m just going to apologize, and keep it pushing.” He lied, knowing he planned on seeing if she’d do dinner or a movie with him.

“Nope, I’ll let her know because you stay doing other shit.” She chuckled, reaching in her black leather MK bag for her phone.

A couple weeks back Hazel started to get these weird text messages regarding her husband. The first time she didn’t pay it any mind, because she just thought somebody was playing on her phone. It didn’t become a pressing matter for her until they started sending pictures of him. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the riddle, or figure out the encoded message behind it.

“Look at this.” She pulled up a message, and handed him the phone.

Unknown Number: Is your husband as ride or die as you think? You might want to question him about some of the company he keeps.

Zeus furrowed his brows at the message. He had no idea what the person could have been talking about.

“What you think they talkin about?”

“That he’s cheating. What else could it be?”

Zeus laughed, and shook his head. “Women always go straight for cheating. Trust me, that man loves you and he aint fucking no other bitch.”

“I don’t know, we been at odds for a minute now.”

“About what?” He looked at her with confusion. They seemed to have the perfect relationship.

“Family stuff.”  She thought about bringing him in on the miscarriage information, but didn’t want to deal with those emotions again. Everything about the situation she was still healing from, and each time she brought it up she broke down.

“Ohhh, mane you talkin like it’s deep shit that y'all can’t get passed. You two will work it out.”

Zeus always congratulated Roman on being able to stick with one woman, and be faithful to her. He wanted that for himself, but the one he wanted didn’t want anything to do with him. When he was with Azure he had it good. She was everything that he ever wanted in a women, but he let temptation shatter it, and didn’t realize it until after jail. Jail turned him into a new man, and he wasn’t going to give up on her just yet. He had a couple things up his sleeve.

“I hope you’re right, but you good?” She asked, standing up. Hazel had some work errands to run.

“Yeah, go handle your business sis.” He assured her she was good to go.

“Alright, stay outta trouble.” She walked by him, and patted his shoulder.

“Ya know I’m a feign for it.” He laughed, finishing off the rest of the food.

———————————

Cassi’s day had been horrible, and it was all because a man got comfortable. Zeus was a good lay, but it seemed like he let that cloud his judgement this morning. She hadn’t been able to reach Saint all day, and that was something she wasn’t used to. Usually he would throw a fit,  and come home, or call her within thirty minutes. This wasn’t like him, and it made her feel uneasy. All she wanted to do was tear a hole into the side of Zeus’ face with her words of fury.  

She drove into the city just for him. Knowing him he was the last person in the shop, so interrupting his business wasn’t going to be a factor. When she pulled up she sat out front to make sure nobody else was inside. Everything looked good, so she exited the car with anger plastered on her face.

“Nigga are you dumb, or just fucking stupid?” She walked into the shop with no positive introduction.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” He looked at her, taken back by her approach.

“You know exactly what the fuck I’m talking about. Why text me some shit like that knowing damn well I have a man? You’re a pro at cheating and being a fucking side nigga so you should know the damn rules.” She wasn’t aware of how furious she actually was.

“Hold the fuck up. Don’t bring your thot ass up in here talking crazy at me, because your dumb ass was sloppy with your shit.” He was irritated.

“Thot? Who the fu-”

“You bitch, fuck else I’m talking to and go ahead and say some more reckless shit so I can hurt your feelings some more.” He stared down at her with the intent of doing so already. “You can play this shit with that scrub, but dont bring your ass in here talking to me out the side of ya neck like I won’t violate.”

“Fuck you Zeus.” She was surprised by what he was saying.

“Your hoe ass already did that. How you fix your lips to talk about anybody being a pro cheater? Your whole relationship is a fucking cheat. That nigga was the first to wife you up instead of passing you along to the next, and you too dumb to realize it, so niggas like me come and catch a nut because the pussy is decent, and the head is good. You fucked around, and let him see the message that’s on your ass. You forget the shit I did for your ass?” He paused to stare her down to let the question sink in.

“Yeah…” He voice was as tiny as a mouse.

“Yeah! I killed for your ass, and fucked up my life and didn’t snitch on you. So if I want to text you, call you, hell even pull up and tell you to bring ya ass outside I can do that. Because wasn’t nobody else gonna handle that nigga after he put you in the hospital, and almost killed ya ass.”

Cassi was the reason Juan was dead. She was dating him, and sleeping with Zeus at the same time. When she ended up in the hospital, face rearranged, in a coma, somebody had to do something and he stepped up to the plate. When she finally woke up she set him up, and instead of meeting her he met the end of Zeus’ barrel. That wasn’t his main chick, but he had a soft spot for her. There were multiple times he regretted doing what he did, but right now was the icing on the cake and it showed him that she didn’t appreciate what he did for her.

“Take ya ass the fuck home.” He waved her off, and went back to cleaning up the shop.

Cassi was shocked at the verbal abuse she received. Her body was numb and she couldnt move until he told her so. On her way out the door tears streamed down her face. She hadn’t felt this low in a long time, and didn’t think she could ever feel this way again. Her hand was shaking as she tried to place the key in the ignition. Finally, she started the car and sped off almost hitting a car coming from behind her.

The car wasn’t the only thing she missed. The man in all black who heard their entire conversation was missed as well. He’d been following her for some days now.

“Yeah, Lena I think you might have to pick up his old girl.”

[nostalgic-blood]

THAT MOVIE THO.

spoilers under the cut of course

Yeah yeah yeah pacing issues, too much cool stuff crammed into a movie with too little time to spare for many characters including AJ and Flutts who unfortunately made no friends and thus, had they not been in the movie nothing would really have affected the plot. They were there for MORAL support okay. Also my favourite gag wouldn’t have worked without Fluttershy. I wish I could watch it again to refresh my memory, but basically they were stowaways on an airship full of pirates, and the pirates find them and threaten them, like eating them or scarring them or SCARRING THEM EMOTIONALLY, and each threat is tailored to a specific pony, and the emotional one focused on Fluttershy. That was great. I loved that gag.

Also the plot was like, simple. EXTREMELY SIMPLE. bad guys show up. Run away from bad guys. search for macguffin that can defeat the bad guys. Bad guys capture good guys anyway. FRIENDSHIP IS POWER THAT CAN DEFEAT--well no, not in the giant rainbow beam smashes into bad guy kind of defeat. The bad guy actually died, and there was a lot of fighting in the climax. Huh.

Well anyway the world building was very good which I normally would never even comment on because when it comes to MLP I usually don’t give two shits about the lore. For instance in season seven they’re introducing a whole bunch of mythical legends that while might be interesting on their own, are presented in a such a way that the episode tends to be a complete bore. What do I learn about Rarity or AJ in an episode where all they do is tell campfire stories? There is no focus on a conflict or any moral lesson (except the small ones in the stories themselves) and little interaction between the main characters. I was so bored by that episode. The Daring Do episode fared even worse and somehow they shoehorned it as Pinkie’s legend (??!!?) despite Pinkie having not read any Daring Do books and having little reason to be on this adventure. (This doesn’t even begin to describe how much Daring Do being real is one of the weakest aspects of the show itself, but I digress)

The only episode that was an interesting way to depict a legend was the Fluttershy episode because figuring out who this historical healer was, was important to curing and preventing the spread of a horrible deadly illness, so that one had great and suspenseful setup with a lot of development for Fluttershy. And frankly I think in terms of legends themselves Fluttershy’s was the least interesting, but because it was framed by a really good episode about Flutters it was the best one.

Oh right I was supposed to talk about the movie.

But yeah, one thing I REALLY like and thought was a possibility in the MLP universe were sky pirates or at least sky sailors or whatever, and HERE THEY ARE, EXISTING! And BEING PIRATES! AIRSHIPS ARE A THING! They even had one in the newest MLP episode. I knew they existed for a long while (one appeared in a small moment during Rarity’s song in Sweet and Elite back in season two) but they were never really utilized until this movie. I don’t know how i feel about tons of all anthro-looking creatures though. I always assumed the world of MLP was all these quadrupedal creatures and if they did stand on two legs it was because they were hybrids with human-like pieces such as minotaurs. Or dragons, but let’s not talk about them.

But here it’s this anthro-cat, and some anthro-fishmen, and then anthro birds, and the big bad is okay because he looks like a primate of some sort, so it makes sense, but the rest of em... ehhhh. I guess since they went OUTSIDE Equestria it makes sense there are a much larger variety of creatures/races, and maybe Equestria is the just the one with the most four-legged equines, but...

Also I think we almost had enough screentime with these new characters to like them. Almost. I was starting to like them, but it wasn’t to the point that if these characters suddenly decided to help the mane six that it’d be 100% believable. Since there wasn’t much time devoted to each of them, the fact that catman decided to side with them just because Rarity in those few precious seconds fixed the hem of his shirt was a little less realistic or believable as it could have been. I get what they were trying to do, but if more time was devoted to it, it would have had much more impact. The pirates especially I thought maybe they would blame the Mane Six for leading to the destruction of their ship, but they were actually really reasonable for pirates that when we first saw them were about to eat them. They realized straight away that the real reason their ship exploded was because their boss sucked.

I could totally believe the Princess Seapony!Hippogriff thing siding with them though. She was just lonely and wanted friends. There were no ethical issues to get in the way at all like murderous pirates or conmen. The fact that the queen did not join them made sense though, since Twilight royally fucked up.

Speaking of Twilight I see a lot of people complaining she was not very Twilight in this movie, doing things that opposed the message of friendship. It made sense to me that she fell back to her more logical, rational way of life though. As they were journeying to find the Queen of the Hippogriffs, normal singing happy friendship methods to solve problems wasn’t really working. They befriended this cat man but he actually just wanted to sell them and was using them. Then they changed the ways of the pirates, but in doing so led the enemy straight towards them. I can see how Twilight thought this wasn’t like Equestria, the land of the colourful happy pastel ponies and their usual modus operandi wasn’t gonna work here. She was desperate! But due to the amount of time they had they could not spend a lot of time emphasizing this, so it may have come off to some people that Twilight was acting a lot more malicious than she is.

Another thing is this movie is clearly not for some random person to walk into a theatre, sit down, and just start watching like they’d understand the movie if it were just a standalone thing. There isn’t much time used up at all to introduce our characters and to make a blind audience care about them. It only really works if you’re already attached to the characters and know who they are, so it really wasn’t a good movie to attract casual moviegoers or anything like that. 

I think another comment complaint is how helpless the ponies are especially when they are outside Equestria. This I thought was odd because we have Twilight who still had her magic which could basically solve anything and do anything if the plot demands in the show. Or Rainbow Dash who is supposedly faster than mach 3 or whatever, but neither of these two used their overpowered abilities effectively throughout the movie, almost like the movie forgot that Twilight could teleport or Rainbow Dash could escape.

But anyway all of that is moot. Why is all the above moot? Because we had a movie with a clear beginning, middle, and end. There were decent songs and a pretty good score. It’d otherwise just be a normal run of the mill 6-7/10.

BUT THAT IS MOOT BECAUSE PINKIE PIE WAS AMAZING IN THIS MOVIE. AND I WATCH MLP FOR PINKIE PIE. SHE IS THE NUMBER ONE REASON I AM INVESTED IN THIS FANDOM AT ALL. AND SHE HAD THE MOST FOCUS OF THE MANE SIX AFTER TWILIGHT.

The biggest issue I always had with adventure episodes which were usually the season premieres and finales of the show was that it was always heavily Twilight focused with the other five on the wayside. I did not want to watch a movie where Twilight solves the problem herself and her friends are hostages, or out of commission, nor not themselves, or otherwise not doing anything that affected the plot. They were just along for the ride. Yes unfortunately this ended up being the case for two of the Mane Six, but that’s just another side-effect of them not making this movie longer or utilizing what time they had effectively. (We could have had less new supporting characters or something, idk)

But luckily for my biased-self it was Pinkie they chose to focus on. When they don’t focus on Pinkie and she isn’t important she’s usually just the mindless comedic relief, which was always a depiction I hated of Pinkie. Equestria Girls Pinkie is exactly this, and that’s why she’s my least favourite in the EG Universe. This is fine if Pinkie’s comedy was actually good, but usually they aim for lolrandom humour when that happens. Pinkie’s comedic moments in the movie were much more often hit than miss. I didn’t really dislike any scene with Pinkie at all! At no point did she seem overly obnoxious. Maybe the time when she was trying to play I Spy, but the rest of the Mane Six were audibly exasperated with her so they were self-aware how obnoxious she can be at times, lol.

Also yes, she did ruin some moments too like a few others. And by ruin I mean, the Mane Six are trying to do something and have a perfectly good plan to do so, but one of the characters do the thing they’d always do and it’d ruin the plan. For Pinkie that was just yelling out loud in the marketplace trying to find help, this led them to being conned by the cat man and almost being captured. Then Rainbow ruined everything when she went overboard trying to turn the pirates by showing off her Sonic Rainboom, which is a very loud and flashy technique catching the bad guys’ attention and ruining their plans. Finally Twilight ruined everything when she straight up tried to steal the pearl. So at least it wasn’t ONLY Pinkie... and all of them to me seemed perfectly in-character or made sense for that specific context anyway.

A good example of an adventure episode where Pinkie isn’t very important but has great comedic moments is the season five premiere. She’s the first to notice the odd smiles and has great expressions and reaction faces to the weird town they’re in, and when the Mane Six are being brainwashed she has some great dry humour as well. Still funny when not even trying to be funny! A good example of an episode where Pinkie is not effective whatsoever at being comedic relief is the season three premiere. Pinkie’s just being really loud and screechy. Even if I did like the flugelhorn bit where she yells “FLUGELHORN” into a flugelhorn while trying to play the flugelhorn.

I think the reason why this movie gave such focus to Pinkie over the other five instead of someone else is that Pinkie is the most popular character among the target audience. All the little girls adore her. She’s definitely not the most popular among the brony community, but I’m glad the little girls have great taste! Also Twilight messes up and SHE gets captured, not all her friends at once! It is her friends who she alienated and ostracized that came to the rescue instead. I like this because even though Twilight is the Princess of Friendship now, it doesn’t mean she’s some flawless individual who is the end-all and be-all to friendship. She is the princess because she has many great friends, and they all complete her. It doesn’t make sense for a princess of friendship to not be doing things with her friends. That’s like Luna with no moon, or Cadance without a husband.

Also while Tempest whatever has a much better backstory than Starlight, I still find it a little annoying that MLP has a habit of infodumping a villain’s (that is meant to be redeemed) backstory blatantly in our face, and now we have to feel sorry for them and completely understand their motivations. I thought her villain song started out strong but fell apart when it just jumped into her backstory like that. Again, if the movie had more runtime we could have explored her backstory and motivations in either much more subtle ways, or with more depth, or not all at once. Still despite her edginess she was one of the more fleshed out new characters, so I’ll give her that. 

The movie actually reminds of two fanfics I’ve read that have sky pirates and a world outside Equestria. In one, the villain is trying to find and kidnap the protagonist for their dastardly deeds, just like in the movie trying to kidnap Twilight for power, and the cast runs across faraway lands to escape. The other just has a bunch of sky pirates. I love those sky pirates. I made a sky pirate AU for ponies once that if I weren’t so invested in my RWBY AU powered by 1000% salt I might actually attempt to write. SKY PIRATES!!1!11!!!

It’s like the movie was pandered directly to me. Good Pinkie content and sky pirates. Yay! So, with all that bias included I’d give the movie a solid 8.5/10. But that’s just me personally. If Pinkie ISN’T your favourite character or you enjoy more complicated plots with more unpredictability you might rate it a more objective 6 or 7 out of 10.

8.5 tho. Just for Pinkie. PINKIEEEEE!!

[rantsaboutponies]

Season 8 Retrospective

This... Okay, Season 8’s final W-L-T score was 0-11-15, which means that, quantitatively, it should have been the worst season yet. But...I dunno, this season just kind of...came and went. It might partially have to do with the fact that this is the eighth season of a show that should have ended with Season 3, but I think there’s a bigger factor at play here. Yes, it’s that most baffling of poor decisions, the School of Friendship!

I still cannot figure out why they thought this was such a good idea to build the entire season around. Maybe the voice actors for the Mane 6 are trying to move on from the show and are minimizing their future commitments? If it’s just trying to sell toys of the New Mane 6, they wouldn’t need to focus on them so heavily (people will buy figurines of background characters, for god’s sake), but phasing out the original Mane 6′s toyline also seems like a dumb idea. I think it’s just that corporations still haven’t gotten over the collective concept that they all seemed to have in the 1980s that kids love school and will watch anything set at a school. You know which cartoons I watched the least (or just flat out never watched) as a kid? Recess! Teacher’s Pet! Braceface! You know, the ones that spent a large chunk of time at school! School is by far the least interesting part of any child’s life! If the characters were school-age, you maybe showed a scene or two an episode just to establish that, but that’s it! A good example is Kim Possible; sure, she went to school every episode, but the majority of each episode was all the spy shit. Because no duh! (For the record, as a kid, I was also incredibly bored by any show that was just about kids doing normal shit all the time, school-related or otherwise: Doug, Rocket Power, The Weekenders, Hey Arnold!, Pepper Ann, As Told by Ginger, every single live-action laugh-track Disney sitcom...come to think of it, is that all that late-’90s to early-2000s Disney Channel and Nickelodeon shows were? Jesus Christ, I miss when Cartoon Network was fun.)

Anyway, I don’t know what kids watch these days. Maybe they don’t even watch this show; I have no idea. I haven’t kept up. Why am I even still talking about this? On with the list!

#1. “Road to Friendship”: Like I said, this one was the closest to “good” we got this season. Starlight and Trixie tend to have good dialogue together, and this was no exception. Did anyone notice that Starlight was barely in this season at all, though? They really need to deal with their constant problem of adding characters to the main cast and then not knowing what to do with them in future episodes.

#2. “Sounds of Silence”: If not for Autumn Blaze being so goddamn annoying (and the moral being fairly lame), this episode might have been better. At least I now know why I’ve been seeing kirin fanart for a few months now.

#3. “What Lies Beneath”: This was probably the only halfway decent episode involving the New Mane 6 because it actually gave us a bit of insight into their characters besides “like the Mane 6, but children”. The Tree of Harmony’s way of thinking is still super fucked-up, though.

#4. “Molt Down”: Puberty episode? Sure, why not. Still better than Big Mouth.

#5. “Father Knows Beast”: This one goes right next to the other Spike one because, like all Spike episodes, it really left little to no impact. The fact that Spike is still being written to be dumb enough to fall for some random dragon showing up and saying that he’s his father is pretty grating, though.

#6. “The Break Up Break Down”: Miscommunication storylines annoy the shit out of me, especially since Modern Family became 90% “I heard a thing and I’m going to assume the worst instead of just confirming it with the person I heard it from” episodes. At least Discord finally got a couple funny lines again.

#7. “Non-Compete Clause”: I don’t know why Applejack and Rainbow Dash thought a rehash of “Fall Weather Friends” would be a good idea if they mixed in a bit of child endangerment. Thank god the kids turned out to be smarter than them.

#8. “A Rockhoof and a Hard Place”: Still hard to believe they couldn’t find Rockhoof any digging or demolition jobs anywhere in Equestria. I do like that the ending basically acknowledged that they still don’t know exactly what the point of making Twilight a princess was or what she even does anymore.

#9 & #10. “School Daze”: I was technically right. Neighsay did return to be a villain in the season finale; he just wasn’t the real villain. The fact that they could have arrived at the solution at any time and just chose not to was really annoying. Remember, kids love storylines about legal loopholes and technicalities!

#11 & #12. “School Raze”: Yet another episode that required everyone involved to be as stupid as possible to get the plot going. Nothing like going with your first assumptions and ignoring all evidence to the contrary, eh, Twilight?

#13: “Marks for Effort”: This was just dumb. Twilight wouldn’t let the CMC into the school because they already knew enough about friendship? Yeah, sure. If anything, the episode proved just the opposite. Cozy Glow intentionally failed the test because she thought it would get them in? Uh-huh. Given her secret ultimate evil goal was to make everyone friends with her, I can only assume that she did in fact think that that plan would work, since getting them kicked out definitely wouldn’t endear her to them.

#14. “The End in Friend”: I don’t think this episode accomplished what it was attempting to. No, Rarity and Rainbow Dash don’t have anything in common. No, they don’t have to hang out together if they don’t have any activities they both enjoy. No, that doesn’t make them enemies, nor does it mean they can’t still hang out with their other friends. Sheesh.

#15. “The Washouts”: More child endangerment! Why a dangerous stunt team was able to hire Scootaloo I still don’t know, but apparently no one in the audience had a problem with that. If the lesson was to teach children not to be so fickle about picking their role models, that’s probably a good idea.

I’m not sure there’s all that much difference between these two parts of the list, but whatever.

#16. “Fake It ‘Til You Make It”: Seriously, though, Fluttershy’s only mistake was not telling those raccoons ahead of time that she was going to be using different personae. It was working!

#17. “Grannies Gone Wild”: This episode beat out Book Club by a whole month for its message of, “Old people are people too!” The Wonderbolts are assholes, Applejack is an asshole, and everypony loses! Hooray!

#18. “The Mean 6”: At least Chrysalis was still kind of intimidating in “To Where and Back Again”. This episode just made her look like a joke who had no clue what she was doing (more than “A Canterlot Wedding” already did, I mean).

#19. “The Parent Map”: Remember “Parental Glideance”? That was last year’s, “God, my parents are so embarrassing!” episode. This is this year’s. Joy.

#20. “Friendship University”: Someone was confused that I complained about Twilight apparently hating competition, even though she was trying to shut down the Friendship University because she clearly knew that Flim and Flam were untrustworthy. This person apparently missed the fact that Twilight was upset that somepony was opening a competing friendship school BEFORE she found out it was Flim and Flam who were running it, and she in fact went to the Friendship University specifically to find something wrong with it. That’s the part I was objecting to: the fact that Twilight is still so neurotic that she can’t handle not being in control of everything. In fact, that raises an interesting point. Has there ever been an episode where Twilight has had to learn the lesson of, “Other people are capable of things, too. Not everything has to be run by you first”? It certainly wasn’t this one.

#21. “Surf and/or Turf”: Hey, another episode where the conflict made no sense! And, as an added bonus, another one where just talking to the other people involved would have resolved it instantly! Huzzah! Old El Paso managed to make “Why not both?” the lesson of a 30-second commercial. I don’t know why this took so much longer.

#22. “Horse Play”: COM-MU-NI-CA-TION. “You’re a bad actress. You can have a surprise cameo at the end of our play to make the crowd happy, but that’s it.” Jesus.

#23. “The Hearth’s Warming Club”: What exactly was the message of this episode? “Don’t lie”? No, because they never told Twilight the truth; she just happened to be standing behind them when Gallus told the other kids. “Don’t wreck shit”? No, because Gallus never faced any consequences for that. Honestly, the lesson should have been directed at teachers, and it should have been, “Don’t try this shit. It never works; it just pisses everyone off, including you.”

#24. “The Maud Couple”: Worst new character of the season. Hands down. I hope we never see him again, especially if the only way we get more Maud is if he comes along for the ride. What a prick.

#25. “A Matter of Principals”: Speaking of episodes that teach the lesson to the wrong person... Remind me again why Discord wasn’t the one who learned the lesson here? Because he’s unteachable? Because he’s “reformed” and therefore has already learned all the lessons he needs to? Also, this is a rare episode where the characters do actually communicate properly (Starlight does tell Discord to knock his shit off), and they try to pretend they didn’t! Twilight gets mad at Starlight for not talking to Discord, even though she did! You can’t do this, writers! You just can’t!

#26. “Yakity-Sax”: Talk about not knowing what fucking lesson they were trying to teach. You know what? I bet this actually happened. I bet Michael P. and/or Wil Fox were practicing their electric guitar or drums or bagpipes or whatever for days on end at all hours of the night, and all their neighbors called the cops on them. This was their way of sticking it to everyone. “No! You should let me do whatever the hell I want! It doesn’t matter if it disturbs you! Fuck the system! It’s my passion! You can’t stop me from living my dream!”

There’s a holiday special next week, and near as I can figure, it hasn’t been aired in another country ahead of time! We’ll actually get to watch this one together! Yay!