@CronoM  
They’re not, but the only indicator I can really grant that I included was one spurt of using a period after each word. But, eh. Take care. :)

@Background Pony #988D  
You DO know that caps aren’t the only indicator of getting heated right? That’s a really ridiculous argument.
 
Anyway, are we done here? Did you get that all out of your system? Cause I have no interest in this getting this conversation more heated or out of hand.

@CronoM
 
(#988D)  
I’d hoped to stay brief, but it looks like I muddled up my point as result: when ponies outside the Mane 6 refer to the Mane 6’s prior exploits as if outside looking in, it’s more often than not in reference to their world heroism. Their personal projects from the past are hardly ever spoken about during a given SOL ep unless the current ep is a direct continuation of one such project. Once Upon a Zeppelin in fact makes no real reference to prior mundane activities, for obvious reasons. This suggests to me that the more heroic aspect of their lives is more significant to those other ponies. That doesn’t mean that that’s the more significant aspect to the show nor the general audience, or else way more episodes than ~36 out of 221 (16%, give or take) would be devoted to their world heroism. As it stands, the slice of life eps predominate, so it’s not wrong to say that the show is primarily slice of life.
 
Zephyr said Fluttershy “always [was] kind of bossy” when she’d only told him he needed to get a job to live with her. S1 had spurts of her being more confrontational than in this instance, and just because he always found her bossy doesn’t guarantee she wielded the same firmness in the moment back in fillyhood as in S6. Anyway, I think his descriptor may give insight about Fluttershy. How people act can depend on their surrounds. It’s not unreasonable to think that she may act more confident around just her familiars (what that means can depend on who’s gauging the confidence- from familiar to familiar or familiar to other) than around most other ponies.
 
Now let’s look back to Fluttershy’s introduction, where she’s leading a choir of birds for the SSC. When one errs, she tells it to make the necessary adjustments. Yes, she’s more meek there than when she sets the terms of Zephyr’s living situation, but it illustrates that greater familiarity/ease of connection means less coaxing for her to speak her mind toward some pony. Zephyr is among the familiar. And look at how she gives the instruction to the bird: she resembles someone trying hard to avoid coming across as bossy. Could home life with her younger brother have played a part there? It sure is possible. Again, because of his degree of laziness, I don’t think it’s a stretch to believe that he equates insistence toward him with bossiness, wrongly or not, and his parents were less insistent on him than Fluttershy was. One can be timid but still insistent, so no, I don’t find it impossible that he’d find his big sister bossy during foal hood, and it’s not despite context.
 
By the way, unflappable means to not be easily rattled out of composure, so I’m not sure how his poise really relates to him dubbing her bossy.
 
Me providing a perspective that doesn’t conclude as yours does and considers things yours didn’t is rude? Ok, sure, whatever helped you sleep last night. But heated? You matching emotions? Man, I haven’t used all-caps once here; you’ve used all-caps 6 times since I spoke up. I’m not heated, and certainly not too much so. If you’re matching anything, it’s not my actual emotion, just what you’re reading into me.

@Background Pony #988D  
First off, they do not. Not even by a long shot. They’re personal projects are a constant subject. Very few episode writers in seasons 5-7 have anyone mention their hero status unless they directly connect to said finales. You know this just as well as I do. When the school seasons started, obviously their identity as heroes was sort of hard to ignore even if the writers would have preferred otherwise. They were in positions of unique authority after all.
 
Second, it wasn’t the case of unreliable narrator in the context of that conversation, and either way Zephry there was only a minor example of a much larger issue the later writers had. Zephry maybe a lazy bones but he is not easily flappible. When Fluttershy was giving her brother guff with development she gained during the seasons without Zephry, Zephry reacted to her attitude as “business as usual” “as it’s always been”. Do you actually think someone as unflappable as Zephry would find someone like non-confrontational S1 Fluttershy as bossy? Stop pulling my leg, that’s not even remotely likely.
 
Yes, Zephry is an easy candidate for unreliable narrator in many situations. That’s obvious to anyone with a brain cell. However the reason ANYONE could easily rule that excuse out for that particular interaction is because we can apply CONTEXT.
 
You assume he’s being an unreliable narrator DESPITE the context. You want ME to accept your flawed analysis, and that if I dont accept it, then I have a limited perspective despite me knowing all the reasons and context why it is not likely. That’s both a rude and presumptuous case you got there BP, and no one would buy that for a second.
 
…
 
I think we should stop this conversation there. Your getting way too heated about this, and I tend to match emotions during conversations, but I’d rather just walk away now that we’ve completely expressed our differing opinions and perspectives on the matter.

@Background Pony #988D  
Corrected: If they’re so open about their personal projects, why do they and most ponies talk almost exclusively of their heroism in slice-of-life episodes and only refer to any slice-of-life episode during that episode (hardly any talk of prior SOL eps during the current toward characters outside the Mane 6)?
 
Extremely. Lazy. Loafer. That’s Zephyr. It’s a safe bet that instructing/insisting that Zephyr exert effort toward anything he’d rather not do, anything that risks exciting his fear of failure, would make him assume bossiness. That’s the likely basis for his wrongness. If you have a problem with using unreliable narrators, that’s not the show’s problem. That’s your limited perspective.

@Background Pony #468D  
@CronoM  
If they’re so open about their personal projects, why do ponies almost exclusively discuss their heroism in slice-of-life episodes and only refer to slice-of-life episodes during

CronoM vv

@Background Pony #988D  
Not lying, just your lack of perspective on the situation. They would be equally well known at that point, and it’s obvious. Its that simple. For the most part, the main characters are ABSURDLY OPEN about their personal projects.
 
When characters are “wrong” there is usually a basis for their misobservation, not something 100% counterintuitive. Your argument is getting a little ridiculous. That sort of line of thinking allows that anyone can say anything about anyone for no rhyme or reason and it’s perfectly acceptable writing so long as you defend all of them saying they’re all unreliable narrators.

@CronoM  
I know you were talking about S6. So was I, despite your inevitable denial of such and accusations that I’m lying. The Mane 6’s heroism is bound to be far more familiar to family and friends than their social projects unless they write about those projects, and for at least one of the Mane 6, it’s revealed later that she doesn’t.
 
SNIP
 
What? Zephyr can’t have an opinion on a character that contrasts with what we know about them? Dude was a lazy loafer. Calling Fluttershy bossy is a probable indicator of where he was coming from. He’s allowed to be wrong. That’s not out of thin air.

@Background Pony #988D  
Were talking about S6, not S1 Einstein.
 
By Season 6, their friends and family already have a broad understanding of what they do both socially AND hero-work, and they wear all their issues on their sleaves. Them saving the world often is public knowledge after S4, which is something the writers remember during some episodes and forget during other episodes. Heck, even in terms of limited perspective, the writers often come up with stuff completely out of thin air and bs. For example, not just when Starlight’s personality was 90% rewritten off screen from S5 from a vengeful manipulative machiavellian cult leader and time terrorist to S6’w completely social skill-less Spike hug buddy Atarlight…. when Zephyr talks about Fluttershy of the past, he refers to her as the bossy one, as if the newer writers didn’t even watch the show.

@CronoM  
@CronoM  

This characterization puts emphasis on their roles as heroes and marginalizes their slice of life aspect, but that’s how a character who has no knowledge of that part of their lives would be expected to characterize them. You, I, and the fandom, however, DO have knowledge of their everyday lives, which are the focus of the bulk of the episodes. The lens of the show provides this knowledge, so the audience knows that Zephyr and Spitfire’s truths are only fragments of reality, and that the show’s truth gives a more full glimpse. To therefore pass the lens of the side characters as that of the show as a whole is ignorant at best, with the assumption that you don’t actually watch the slice of life episodes, & dishonest at worst, with the assumption that you do. Either way, it is wrong.

I think when you write essay worthy lenght post about what was always meant as an escapist slice of life with the occasional epic (apparently they save all the epic for the movie),it’s here when you lost sight of what the show was about : being comfy

@The Smiling Pony  

 
You are so very wonderfully cynical and jaded to the online experience it impresses even me.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

@The Smiling Pony  
>draw more fleetfoot  
Yes I will.
 
I have no problem with Trixie or Glimmer but I do have to take note that the enthusiasm of the fandom at large do have an influence in the show. Hell the fact that they acknowledge the fans with gags, cameo’s, inside jokes and god forbids with meme’s, I think it is fair to say that all of us have an influence even if its not direct.
 
I think however that the larger groups of the fanbase, specially those who conglomerate in brony sites have far larger indirect influence than those who are in the fringes and that is to be expected of course since the show, even if the official main target are young girls, do have to cater to its sizeable adult fanbase with nods and blatant fan-service(innocent or not).
 
I like Starlight and I am fine with Trixie, I just kind of miss the Diamond dog race as a whole really. Both them and Trixie are season 1 villain characters and though I like the show as it is, I really feel alone in my liking of those gem hunting dogs who kidnap ponies to pull gem carts. Another villain race, the Changelings, have shown far more than those season 1 underground canines and all I can say is that I feel envy that changeling fans get more love, specially since they have a waifu in that race in the form of Chrysalis. But DD dont have any waifu material and I think that non-pony husbando’s are far neglected by the writers to focus what the larger fanbases want so you cannot really blame them come to think of it. :/

@The Smiling Pony  
Oh, right. Let me append that with some ;) or XD

@Background Pony #5FDA  
Trixie was predestined by GOD MOTHER FAUST to be a major / recurring character.
 
Starlight was something DHX/writers brought up to change things up from keeping the show stale with 7 seasons (over 120 episodes) of focusing on the same 6/10 characters.
 
Believing ~bronies~ or EQD have any influence on the show outside of 1-2 gags per season is cynical absurdity.

@Alexlayer  

 
For me starlight is a villain playing hero. She’s psychotic still to a degree really evidenced by her bottling her anger.
 
You know who deserves a chance other than glimmer? The diamond dogs.
 
But lol fuck them. They’re not cute and they’re creepy. The bronies would not approve amirite? Only Sethisto character approved like Trixie and Glimmer deserve redemption. :)

@Meanlucario  
Second chance? Don’t you mean THIRD chance? Second one was after the S5 finale and it didn’t feel earned at all, and hardly does this third one since it hardly feels like she even recognizes what she did as morally wrong at all. Now, I don’t mind giving someone a second chance at all, but there’s “giving a second chance”, and then there’s being extremely naive as to trust someone with a dysfunctional sense of morality.
 
The concept of “giving a second chance” was present before and after, but most of these times it was handled better. Discord was giving a second chance, but he was practically on probation for an entire episode and even after that, it took time for him to earn everyone’s trust (though I’d warrant it’d be better if we had seen it rather than have it happen off-screen). Sunset Shimmer was given a second chance, but kept at arm’s lenght from even her close friends because of her misdoings, which was harsh but perfectly understandable. Then Discord had to be given a third chance as well which, admitedly, could have been better handled, but it at least served to cement his loyalty to the ponies from there on.
 
Bottom line, these characters were given a second chance, but still suffered substancial consequences for their transgressions. Starlight just says “I’m sorry” and gets away scot free. The writing favors her at the expense of both logic and characterization, and any other time, it shills her like she’s the bee’s knees.

@Alexlayer  
You do know that they were giving her a second chance, right? When a series is called Friendship is Magic, second chances are common, like Starlight giving Trixie a second chance after she used Starlight to get even with Twilight, Pinkie giving Gilda one, and Starlight with Chrysalis.

@Meanlucario  
I don’t count what happened in Every Little Thing She Does because, again, she got off VERY easy. Some scolding, and one apology later it’s all good like nothing’s ever happen, even though she not only mind-controlled/brain-washed/hypnotized/whatever-you-wanna-call-it the ReMane 5 and left them with painful migranes for apparently a whole day. But sure, one apology (and only after Twilight had to outright tell her that she had done wrong) and it’s all good. The easy-fixing was so reminiscent to Season 5’s finale that it made me hate the episode and pretty much lose all hope for Starlight.

@Alexlayer  
If a character does wrong, they should be punish, and a common complain everyone has on both sides (other than her backstory) is her not receiving proper punishment after what she did in the season 5 final. At least in Every Little Thing the Remaning Five scolded her for what she did to them.

@Meanlucario  
Yeah, but as far as the narrative or her fans are concerned, god forbid she actually recieves any substancial form of consequence because of said flaws and shortcomings, right?

@Alexlayer  
You do know most of us like her because of her flaws and shortcomings, right?

@Background Pony #5FDA  

 
Doesn’t that describe Starlight “From Demented-Psychopath to Can-Do-No-Wrong-To-Her-Fanbase” Glimmer just about perfectly?