@ARchy4288
 
Well, she was mainly making fun of the actual trolls… And hey, she had once said that she was going to read a bunch of actual troll comments she had received at one of her convention panels, but then had the sense to decide to NOT do that. So points to her there.
 
And it’s not NEARLY bad as Twilight having a severe case of Lawful Stupid Disorder in the Cattle Rustlers arc, which was also written by her.
 
It’s weird… she’s one of those writers who tends to be hit or miss with her stuff, and I’ll admit that lately she’s been missing a lot more often.

@Jarkes  
Call me a butthurt waifu fag but here’s my opinion again. It’s like she wanted to piss celestia fans off. She made her the cause of the entire conflict, she shoved celestia out of the spotlight and worfed her in her own arc all in favor of shoehorning in black brad and then the shipping and “romance” with this disgustingly flawless and unnecessary character
 
The reflections arc could’ve been her accepting herself and becoming more confident in her abilities as a ruler by facing her own demons (ie evil mirror celestia) but what it was was just a celestia bash fest that makes me think the only real effort that was put in to this was the shipping and it was a jab at celestia fans and seeing how much she get away with.
 
The fact that she couldn’t take criticism and resorted to making fun of people who didn’t like it is even more insulting.
 
Sorry I’ll shut the fuck up now. :(

@441TheSecond
 
The problem (and I apologize in advance for replying to a four-month-old comment and heating up this drama once again) is that there ARE some actual cases where the criticism of stuff like this and Cook’s other work in the comics (ESPECIALLY Neigh Anything) really does boil down to little more than, “I don’t like it because it doesn’t match my headcanon.” And those tend to be the most vocal, so the legitimate complaints (and there ARE some, mind you) get buried under that, and people start to assume that the legitimate complaints boil down to that as well and start attacking the people making legitimate complaints.
 
It was the same deal with Equestria Girls, Flash Sentry, and most of the other dramas around here.

@Jaxed  
I actually raised that point in another thread.
 
Though it seems unlikely that is the case, since Cook would never have him have an actual flaw. He’s a textbook definition of a Gary Stu.

“This just makes King Sombra look like an incompetent idiot”
 
You know, with the original Sombra being displayed as a bit of a trap master, and potential evil genius, and this being a mirror universe, that idea almost makes a fair bit of sense. Doesn’t make him any more likable, though.

@441TheSecond  
I don’t. My reasons for disliking it are much the same as you though some of mine are out of pure selfishness and the opinion that they’d never have done this to another character.

@ARchy4288  
I’m betting you 5 bucks that people are still going to accuse me of hating Reflections because of MUH HEADCANONS or something like that.

@441TheSecond  
Thank you.

@441TheSecond  
TL;DR : Celestia’s characterization sucks, the pacing sucks, the new characters are flat and uninspired, it’s riddled with contrivances and plot holes, and it wastes an amazing concept in the name of a shitty love story.
 
TL;DR²: This comic sucks!

@ReloggingUser  
The arc is poorly paced and poorly focused. It seems confused as to which story it intends to tell.
 
The entire arc revolves around the romance between Celestia and Mirror Sombra, the romance, however, is very weak due to the poor characterization of Mirror Sombra, who comes across as a bland, generic, bidimensional Gary Stu created solely so that Celestia has somepony to pine over, as such, the relationship fails because 50% of the couple is uninteresting, 50% is very poorly characterized, and we’re not even given a proper reason as to why Celestia fell for the asshole aside from good looks.
 
The ultimate objective in the story is to put a stop to Queen Celestia, who is apparently responsible for the destruction of the Mirrorverse. However, we’re never shown why we should be afraid of her, or how she could cause such devastation, aside from “she’s evil!”. Personality wise, she’s not very different from Diamond Tiara: catty, petulant, and pointlessly mean. This just makes King Sombra look like an incompetent idiot, because not only he can’t protect his Kingdom even though he apparently specializes in protective spells, but he has also access to Discord, who in this Universe is a superhero of some sorts. Discord alone could beat Celestia and Luna singlehandedly. And in an earlier fight, the Mane Six were able to land quite a few hits on them, so it’s not like they’re super-powered in this Universe or something.
 
The arc in general is also poorly focused. Time that could be spent developing our leads is instead spent on a pointless subplot where Twilight questions if she’s truly on the right path for her future, bad jokes, and repetitive flashbacks that reinforce what we already know instead of providing new information, told by Celestia towards Luna.
 
And most egregious of all is Celestia’s characterization. People have said that the reason why she kept pursuing a relationship with King Sombra despise Starswirl’s warnings was because she was emotionally frail due to Luna’s banishment. That’s fine, I can understand that… the problem is that a thousand years later, she’s still making the same damn mistakes. When the mirror re-opened, she immediately ran into it wanting to rekindle her relationship with Mirror Sombra. After she got beat up (presumably by Mirrorlestia), she then proceeds to tell the Mane Six to go to the mirror world to help King Sombra and… does nothing for the rest of the arc.  
It’s not even a case of wanting to go help the Mane Six but being unable to because of the contrived plot point of constant interdimensional travel made the two universes merge enough that damage to Evilestia also damages Celestia, obviously made so that the Mane Six can’t just kill that bitch and get it over with. No, she just spends the rest of the arc talking to Luna about how she used to date this totally cute boy, during which Luna’s banishment is reduced to a goddamn punchline. She essentially delegated all responsibility for her actions to the Mane Six.
 
And the ending was utter crap as well. Celestia is completely stripped of all agency in resolving the issue, Fiery Celestia is completely wasted, appearing in one panel before being halted in the next, culminating in a “heroic sacrifice” by Mirror Sombra where he uses the Elements of Harmony by himself (a minor plothole all things considered), to siphon the evil in Evilestia and Eviluna into himself (and since he’s blander than bread, what is supposed to be a shocking sad moment raises nothing but apathy from me). Because for SOME REASON, making the two Universes even more similar will somehow stop them from merging. FOR REASONS.
 
Celestia then ends the arc by asking the Mane Six to remain quiet about the whole debacle, and then grabbing a piece of the mirror so that she may remember King Sombra. Some see this as a last romantic gesture, I see it as symbolic of the ongoing narrative of the arc, namely, Celestia’s inability to move the fuck on from the mistakes of her past, and actively pining for things that benefit her, and damned be everypony else.
 
It portrays Celestia as a irresponsible, stupid, foolish teenager who can’t accept the harshness of the situation and can’t let go of a romance from her youth, even though it costed her loved one his sanity. This Celestia isn’t the Celestia that banished her sister for maybe all eternity to defend her Kingdom, this Celestia would have let Nightmare Moon bring eternal night to Equestria because it’s just sooo haaaard! The whole “Oh, this was a younger Celestia, of course she’s going to make mistakes” excuse doesn’t fly because Celestia is the same idiot at the end of the story, the thing about making mistakes in the past is that you have to overcome them in the present.
 
Fuck this storyline, it did more damage to Celestia’s character than every hatefic combined, to paraphrase a certain nerd, WHAT THE FUCK WERE THEY THINKING?
 
For shame, Katie Cook, I once considered the comics a harbor for Celestia fans, due to the excellent micros starring her. Now I’m afraid to ever open another comic again in fear of another 4 issue-long branding iron to my balls.

@ReloggingUser  
No short task, just read any thread that has it as a subject, you should get a general idea.
 
Or read it yourself, if you have that kind of time.

Can someone explain WHY this arc is bad?

@Background Pony #42E5  
Newsflash:  
I care, and several other people care, therefore, somebody cares.
 
In other stories:  
Aloof disinterest is not a signal of maturity.

Newsflash:  
No one care about Reflections just like no one care about Rainbow Dash and Trixie in Diamond dog kingdom. Is just a silly story for kids. Just like every comic and episode.

@441TheSecond  
Yeah, me too.

@ARchy4288  
Yeah, they could, but no sense blowing a gasket over it.
 
I don’t really think the writers hate Celestia, I just think they have no idea what to do with her.

@441TheSecond  
I know but they could’ve handled it better than they did ;( I’m sorry I’ll be quiet.

@ARchy4288  
Yes, I did. Dude, they have a story to tell, they can’t drop everything to make Celestia look good. I want everybody to love Celestia too, but I don’t want it forced down their throats.

@441TheSecond  
But did you read my first comment? :(

@441TheSecond  
Sorry ;(

@ARchy4288  
Ok, dude? You’re going a bit overboard there.

@441TheSecond  
So no they’re not only spitefully hateful of Celestia they’re lazy writers too.
 
And I don’t hate Cadance ;(

@441TheSecond  
She could’ve beaten chrysalis and saw the horde of Changelings about to break the shield, then sent the mane six off to gather the elements while she held her ground against chrysalis who was getting back up again with several ponies in the royal hall transforming switch to mane six fight scene then after they were overwhelmed by the changelings after the commercial break have Celestia wake up inside a cocoon.
 
It’s not really that hard but it would take some effort on their part, I honestly believe that they just wanted to see her suffer and that losing her crown bit was just adding insult to injury.

@ARchy4288  
Dude, Celestia had to be beat, if she beat Chrysalis, it would have been anti-climatic (And Hasbro would look down on them not properly advertising Princess Ice-Cream-for-Mane), and if she didn’t fight at all, people would have bitched about her being useless. As far as “shitting on Celestia” moments go, it ranks fairly low. It’s actually pretty cool that they allowed her to make a badass speech before hand. My only complaint with that scene is that Celestia got beat waaaaay too damn quick.

@441TheSecond  
And also as a display of the utter dislike they have for her… ;(