🐴 
IRL 🎠 stallion
[@Hollowfox The Worst](/forums/pony/topics/pony-venting-thread?post_id=5254380#post_5254380)
I'm having trouble making sense of your exact wording. Do you mean to say that FiM will eventually be forgotten because the quality decline may bleed over into an opinion of "actually, it always sucked"? Likewise, because G5 was controversial from the start, those who like it will continue to like it forever?
[@Background Pony \#0737](/forums/pony/topics/pony-venting-thread?post_id=5254381#post_5254381)
I forgot that Flash had a hard sunset date right around when G4 ended. No wonder the ending seemed so sudden.
IMO, with tighter writing in seasons 4–6 [leaving 1–3 intact as-is], the show could've wrapped at the end of S6. I'm glad they kept going, if only because there were a couple of strings of good episodes in S8, but 6 was the season when most of the M6 were primed and ready for their "Rainbow Dash joins the Wonderbolts and lives happily ever after" moments. Twilight's happy ending would essentially be moving her "you've grown so much" speech she gives to Starlight from the opening of S7 to the (now) series finale at the end of S6.
Quick plan for a six-season FiM (that I just thought of tonight):
* Seasons 1–3: as seen on TV, perhaps replace a notable dud or three, but don't thematically change them too much
* S4: make "WTF? What do I do now that I'm a princess?" an explicit theme of the whole season.
* Move the Tirek episodes to the season opener.
* The first Starlight episode pair would either be moved to the middle of the season (perhaps with the cliffhanger being over a mid-season break) or condensed into a single episode.
* End the season with the episodes we now know as the S5 finale. Twilight proves her worth as the Princess of Friendship with an offer of friendship.
* S5: focus on mentoring Starlight to be a better pony and learn friendship properly
* If you really must keep it in, move the Crystallising storyline to this season somewhere.
* The 100^th^ episode special & the CMC earning their cutie marks should stay here
* S6: Starlight demonstrates what she has learned, the M6+CMC wrap up their story arcs
* Dash joins the Wonderbolts
* Rarity continues to expand her business
* The episodes of Starlight & friends defeating Chrysalis are moved from the season finale to the opener. As much more epic as this pair would be as a season/series finale than the ones I am about to propose, Chrysalis rejecting the friendship offer needs to come at the start of the season to be thematically coherent.
* Much like how S9 had its season finale two-parter *before* a separate series finale goodbye episode, this S6 would have something similar to the current S7 finale with the Pony of Shadows as its season finale [but not with introducing the Legends as yet another secondary cast who are promptly forgotten about]. Crucially, Starlight insists on giving the pony possessed by the Shadow the same offer of friendship that Twilight gave her—and gives the offer anyway _even after her prior attempt at offering friendship was rejected by Chrysalis_. Not only does she make another attempt to pay Twilight's kindness forward, but she does it without cynicism after her previous offer failed.
* The series finale would be Twilight recognizing how much Starlight has grown while Celestia looks on in pride at her protégé and grand-protégé both having continued success.
That would've satisfied both character development as well as fans getting their happy ending. The only stakeholders it would disappoint would've been the execs who would've missed out on three more years of equine toy commercials [I'm ignoring the fans who would've said it ended too soon, as there were still plenty of those during the ending of S9, so that's not a meaningful difference between scenarios].
------
I was not intending to write an entire novel, the words just kept coming out as the thoughts linked themselves to one another.
------
[@Kiryu-Chan](/forums/pony/topics/pony-venting-thread?post_id=5254404#post_5254404)
Newbie Dash was the perfect springboard for an arc where she gets disillusioned and leaves the Bolts. Instead, she joins and then never does that much with them because being a "real" member of the Bolts would take her out of Ponyville too often.
> And that’s not even getting to what they originally planned for S6 with the rest of the mane 6
How am I only hearing of this now? What were the original S6 plans?
I'm having trouble making sense of your exact wording. Do you mean to say that FiM will eventually be forgotten because the quality decline may bleed over into an opinion of "actually, it always sucked"? Likewise, because G5 was controversial from the start, those who like it will continue to like it forever?
[@Background Pony \#0737](/forums/pony/topics/pony-venting-thread?post_id=5254381#post_5254381)
I forgot that Flash had a hard sunset date right around when G4 ended. No wonder the ending seemed so sudden.
IMO, with tighter writing in seasons 4–6 [leaving 1–3 intact as-is], the show could've wrapped at the end of S6. I'm glad they kept going, if only because there were a couple of strings of good episodes in S8, but 6 was the season when most of the M6 were primed and ready for their "Rainbow Dash joins the Wonderbolts and lives happily ever after" moments. Twilight's happy ending would essentially be moving her "you've grown so much" speech she gives to Starlight from the opening of S7 to the (now) series finale at the end of S6.
Quick plan for a six-season FiM (that I just thought of tonight):
* Seasons 1–3: as seen on TV, perhaps replace a notable dud or three, but don't thematically change them too much
* S4: make "WTF? What do I do now that I'm a princess?" an explicit theme of the whole season.
* Move the Tirek episodes to the season opener.
* The first Starlight episode pair would either be moved to the middle of the season (perhaps with the cliffhanger being over a mid-season break) or condensed into a single episode.
* End the season with the episodes we now know as the S5 finale. Twilight proves her worth as the Princess of Friendship with an offer of friendship.
* S5: focus on mentoring Starlight to be a better pony and learn friendship properly
* If you really must keep it in, move the Crystallising storyline to this season somewhere.
* The 100^th^ episode special & the CMC earning their cutie marks should stay here
* S6: Starlight demonstrates what she has learned, the M6+CMC wrap up their story arcs
* Dash joins the Wonderbolts
* Rarity continues to expand her business
* The episodes of Starlight & friends defeating Chrysalis are moved from the season finale to the opener. As much more epic as this pair would be as a season/series finale than the ones I am about to propose, Chrysalis rejecting the friendship offer needs to come at the start of the season to be thematically coherent.
* Much like how S9 had its season finale two-parter *before* a separate series finale goodbye episode, this S6 would have something similar to the current S7 finale with the Pony of Shadows as its season finale [but not with introducing the Legends as yet another secondary cast who are promptly forgotten about]. Crucially, Starlight insists on giving the pony possessed by the Shadow the same offer of friendship that Twilight gave her—and gives the offer anyway _even after her prior attempt at offering friendship was rejected by Chrysalis_. Not only does she make another attempt to pay Twilight's kindness forward, but she does it without cynicism after her previous offer failed.
* The series finale would be Twilight recognizing how much Starlight has grown while Celestia looks on in pride at her protégé and grand-protégé both having continued success.
That would've satisfied both character development as well as fans getting their happy ending. The only stakeholders it would disappoint would've been the execs who would've missed out on three more years of equine toy commercials [I'm ignoring the fans who would've said it ended too soon, as there were still plenty of those during the ending of S9, so that's not a meaningful difference between scenarios].
------
I was not intending to write an entire novel, the words just kept coming out as the thoughts linked themselves to one another.
------
[@Kiryu-Chan](/forums/pony/topics/pony-venting-thread?post_id=5254404#post_5254404)
Newbie Dash was the perfect springboard for an arc where she gets disillusioned and leaves the Bolts. Instead, she joins and then never does that much with them because being a "real" member of the Bolts would take her out of Ponyville too often.
> And that’s not even getting to what they originally planned for S6 with the rest of the mane 6
How am I only hearing of this now? What were the original S6 plans?