Unpopular opinion time

@Latecomer  
Not niche enough for my taste.
 
And I’ve been trying not to mind it, but something about it rubs me the wrong way.

I don’t know. It’s just a thing created by a fan. The fact that it’s not canon makes the fan-content so much fun in a particular way. Not only it’s fun for the fan creator, it’s also fun for the people who watch that fan-content.
 
Shipping Fluttershy and Rarity? Yeah, go nuts. Starlight and Trixie? Absolutely. Chrysalis and Cadence? Of course. Starlight and Sunburst? Yeah, why not.
 
But I understand the dislike, because the only fan-content I don’t like is explicit content with minors or lolicons. I… just don’t like that.

@Spinny  
I mean Starlight was promoted as guidance counselor for a reason, but still you can’t deny that the pep talk she gave to her was pretty decent and that her knocking the book off her hooves was great.

@Myoozik  
Yeah, but it also can’t be ignored that her being right denied all of Twilight’s existing friends that chance.

@Latecomer  
I suppose, but I’m way too biased to see it that way

@Latecomer
 
I think perhaps it could’ve been more elegently written, to maybe give the Mane 6 more of a hand in it, but I really like the way Starlight went about giving her a pep talk. The way she frames it.
 
“Who cares if the school was a disaster? So am I, and you never gave up on me. So why give up on this?”

I just think it’s a worthwhile perspective and Starlight was the best person to provide it. She was basically one of Twilight’s projects herself, after all.

@Latecomer
 
-What I meant by retcons is that, in the season 2 Twilight mentioned Starswirl. And the way she talked about him suggests he was a very important wise mage hundreds of years ago. Now, he’s back with other characters and I forgot the reason, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s here just because some fans wanted Starswirl to go back to the modern era of Ponyville just for Twilight to see him. And there’s the episode Rock Solid Friendship. There’s a flashback where Maud Pie kinda helped Starlight back in season 5, probably to suggest that “Starlight wasn’t so evil, because Maud Pie was partially responsible”, which doesn’t make sense to me.
 
Oh, and there’s the redesign of the changelings. Not only it’s lame, it’s algo really ugly.
 
-The TV show has shown some self-awareness that I like. In season 7 there’s this episode, Fame and Misfortune, where the readers of Twilight’s new book have some complaints that are very similar to the complaints of some vocal fans. I like the granny pony saying “Twilight was better without wings”. That’s really funny. Or Fluttershy dressed as a tree back in season 2, addresing an inside joke about Fluttershy being a tree in the fandom, which was a line from season 1.
 
However, many times this self-awareness is selective and arbitrary. For example, every time Discord appears, everyone questions him, including the ponies that don’t know him (that pony from Discordant Harmony for example, the one who says “are you actually Fluttershy’s friend? you?”), because of his previous actions back in season 2. However, the same ponies don’t question Starlight despite her actions back in season 5 and even back in season 6. Everyone is completely superstitious about her. It’s not very consistent.
 
It reminds me of some fanservice moments from Persona 5. I love that game, but if the main characters exposed that horrible teacher because of using Ann as a sexual object, why would you then uses Ann as a sexual object not only in some scenes from the game, but also in some full animated sequences that basically say “Ann’s clothes are wet, look at her, she’s hot”? It’s hypocrite.
 
Or what about Uncharted 4? I also love that game, but Nathan is being a dickhead to everyone who loves him and, after all that, nothing happens. It’s kinda weird, because it’s from the same people who made The Last of Us.
 
-Speaking about inconsistency, I didn’t like the approach of Starlight and the cutie marks. A great thing about cutie marks is that these defines everypony’s talent, which is one of the reasons why Call of the Cutie is one of my favourite episodes in the show. It was a very personal episode for me. And the fact that we see Starlight swapping these cutie marks like nothing in Cutie Map and A royal problem makes this little detail not only less personal, but also meaningless. if it was a scepter or an amulet (like Magic Duel), I’d totally buy that. But seeing her being even more powerful than probably Celestia and Luna (who we didn’t see her swapping cutie marks like that) is very ridiculous.
 
It also didn’t make sense that she can create dark magic to manipulate everyone whenever she gets stressed. If she can do that, why didn’t we see that back in season 5? We saw ser getting angry an stressed at the end of Cutie Map. It doesn’t make sense. When she doesn’t manipulate everyone with crazy magic or control cutie marks, she wants to find things or ponies as an excuse to say she doesn’t like or want to be judged, like in No second prances, All bottled up, Rock solid friendship and Uncommon Bond.
 
Starlight and Trixie, now that she reminds me of her, have no right to say they don’t want to be judged after doing things like this…
 

 
this…
 

 
this…
 

 
and this.
 

 
It’s not something organic with a flow narrative like Steven Universe, where we saw Peridot adapting herself on Earth and trying to appreciate the importance of life and diversity that the Crystal Gems defend. She has more episodes than Starlight in season 5 before she was redeemed, but these episodes were necessary for her character arc. When she finally confronts her boss (yellow something, I don’t remember it quite well), it was a huge moment because she had to make a crucial choice. The moment she tells her “clod”, that was the moment where Peridot was a Crystal Gem.
 
Or the moment where Garnet realizes that Pearl was lying to her just because she wanted to fuse with her. We had to watch MANY episodes of Garnet ignoring Pearl until the two characters were completely vulnerable. If Garnet accepted her apologies right in the next episode, it wouldn’t feel alright. Pearl wouldn’t deserved that accepted apology that soon. We need some character arc, we need episodes, we need a progression. Starlight and Trixie don’t have that.
 
But you know what? That’s ok. It’s fine. It’s not that big of a deal.
 
Years ago I realized that the majority of my complaints about MLP Friendhip is Magic purely stand from the fact that I wanted a more character-driven story instead of what we got, because that’s infinitely more interesting to me. Besides, there’s some good stuff about it. The season 7 had some good episodes as well as the season 8, I love the MLP film, I like the fourth EG film… I like the episodes individually, not as parts of something big.
 
The season 8 had some filler episodes, but most of my complaints about the bad or boring things are not as intense as my thoughts on season 7.

@Ring Team
 

 
I don’t think that was the intention - that was most likely a one-time gag.
 

 
Most likely because most of Starlight’s actions on S5 were well away from Ponyville, and most ponies there probably only heard about them second or third hand, while Discord was right there. What Starlight did in Ponyville outside of Twilight’s castle wasn’t exactly much worse than Twilight’s antics in Lesson Zero, for example.
 
Regardless, Ourtown ponies’ reactions smack too much of South American messianism to me. it’s like, ’50 Vargas and ’73 Perón to its superficial level, and without the nuances of these cases.
 

That doesn’t make it any better, the “it was far away from Ponyville”. Because other ponies would visit that town and Ponyville, and they would hear things related to Starlight.
 
Unless she brainwashed them. xD

I do appreciate that the writers seem to realize their mistake with Starlight and took lengths to avoid giving monsters like her a get out of jail free pass again.
 
With the exception of Stygian who was possessed and not in control of his actions and tempest who’s story had already been written, almost every major antagonist was given an appropriate punishment. They all seemed to be an outright deconstruction or refutation of redemption post starlight.
 
Some Minor villains were redeemed but they were revealed (or retconed) to have been not that bad after all.

Starlight: “Hmm. I know! This’ll solve the problem! Wait, that’s wrong? Whoops. My fault.”
 
Pearl: “It’s wrong to do, and I know better, but I’m gonna do it anyway.”

@Ring Team  
Strong assumption, but no way to confirm it.

@Star Seeker  

 
Brought this back because it’s relevant again.
 
@Ring Team  
You just had to bring Persona 5 into this didn’t you?

Discord and starlight were the worst offenders. I don’t consider sunset, luna or Trixie to be as bad because they were mindfucked by magic when doing their worst deeds and not fully responsible for their actions.
 
But by sunset, I was getting sick of redemption.

@Background Pony #2BCA  
Unfortunately, the way they did it made look unfair to the unredeemed villains when the heroes didn’t try to rehabilitate them when they had plenty of opportunities to do so. It’s like they went overkill on the opposite direction after going overkill with how quickly and almost randomly they redeemed Starlight.

Our expectations were impossibly high for a show made for little children. It wasn’t meant to be an insightful character study or have consistent character development and morals.
 
It was meant to entertain and teach little girls to share, play nice and be polite. Our disappointment is our own fault.
 
We put this show on a pedestal it hasn’t earned and didn’t deserve.

@Star Seeker  
Why wouldn’t I? I love the game, but it has some minor problems.
 
And I don’t hate Starlight, I just explain why a character like her doesn’t work the way she was presented in the show.
 
I like redemption, and I want redemption (that’s why I love Crusaders of the Lost Mark and the MLP movie). But not at any cost.

@Background Pony #2BCA  
I can’t fully absolve the 3. Trixie and Sunset actively sought out the items that they mindfucked themselves with, and Luna gave in to her own jealousy.

@Ring Team  

 
Right.
 
You didn’t even acknowledge others arguing against you, like here:@DerpyFast  
Granted, this was months ago, but you ignored others multiple times.

@Star Seeker  
You’ve been trying to grab his attention so desperately with snark and quoting someone else’s comment just so you can bitch at him. He should keep ignoring you. Neither of you will change each other’s mind. Neither of you has anything to say that the other hasn’t heard a million times before.

@Background Pony #2BCA  
… I only did that with DerpyFast’s post, and I’m not bitching, I’m only pointing something out to him.
 
And to be frank, this entire forum is full of arguments with people who heard thoses arguments multiple times, don’t see what’s different here.

@Ring Team
 
After Starlight apologised to them and Twilight vouched for her, why would they overtly shit talk her to any random visitor the village gets?
 

 
It’s not just whenever she gets stressed. It’s when she gets stressed without an outlet for it. “Do you see this storm cloud? This has never happened before! All this magical energy has to go somewhere, and if I’m not using it to fight a magical duel or bend my friends’ wills to obey my every command…”

@Background Pony #3312  
Because the same ponies are still suspicious of Discord because of his previous actions. It’s not like the writers can’t do the same thing to Starlight, it’s not like it’s an impossible scenario, especially considering what she has done.
 
But I don’t think the writers are interested in making an episode or a plot about Starlight taking some responsability for her actions.

@Ring Team  
Except thoses ponies weren’t affected by Starlight’s actions, the only ones who were are the ponies from her village and thoses alternative timelines, the latter which only 3 characters know about and the former which season 6 finale partially covers.
 
Discord actions affected all of Equestria and even thought he is reformed he still pulls pranks or acts like a prick, so all ponies will have a understandable reason to be wary of him.
 
But if Starlight’s action during S6 finale are mostly unknown and her village already forgave her, why would anyone press her about them, especially considering she is trying to do better now, even when she doesn’t quite get it?