School Daze

Lesson Zero

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>>43066782
MMC and it's not even close. Twilight becoming a princess completely changes the entire story going forward. Every event past that point has to be seen with the lens of Twilight being an immortal demigod ruler. Every time it is addressed, it cements how different things are, but every time it isn't addressed, it's just jarring.

>>43066813
This. That shit screamed BRONY PANDERING and ruined the immerse so badly. Luckily the rest of the season was good so I could disregard it until the retarded Meghan cancer finale.

>>43066782
Stop posting you retard. Stop. Pos. Ting.

>>43066782
>Season 1 & 2
>strong characters and worldbuilding
That's some thick nostalgia goggles. No, they were not. Nightmare Moon was one of the most cliche villains ever, Gilda and the teen dragons were just awfully written, Celestia was barely present to even call her a character and so on. Even the Mane Six and Spike were pretty inconsistent in their characterization. The worldbilding was also very bad with concepts that were inconsistent or only appearing just to be forgotten.

>>43066879
>That's
Those are*

>>43066827
There is one more important reason why Twilicorn was the turning point:
Hasbro did it because they thought the pony show was dead, so they split the budget and diverted their budget from ponies to barbies.
Twilicorn + barbies + relentless Hasbro shilling that they are the best thing ever were the devastating blow to the fandom.

>>43066879
Trvth Nvke.

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>>43066902
>Twilicorn + barbies + relentless Hasbro shilling that they are the best thing ever were the devastating blow to the fandom.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2010-10-10%202018-10-10&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F0czdsgs&hl=en

MLP's peak popularity was Season 4 and the first half of Season 5. It started declining second half of Season 5 and took a huge nosedive after the season. What "objectively" killed the show according to popularity metrics was not Twilicorn, if it was then the Season 4/5 popularity would not have been so high after two large hiatuses that were post-Twilicorn. And from memory those two seasons were the height of the fandom's reviews/analysis scene even if the creative scene was admittedly lower. You can make the argument that Twilicorn/EQG stopped the fandom growth (I am not personally convinced on this argument due to how growth naturally levels off with the show being fully exposed in online culture at that point, but it is certainly possible), but it absolutely did not cause an outright decline.

Honestly, I found it really cool when I saw this google trends since it matches so well with my opinions of the show, since I thought the show was great for Seasons 1-4, declined a little in 5 but stayed good, then declined a lot afterwards. Apparently dropping the show after Season 5 was not uncommon.

>>43067122
>MLP's peak popularity was Season 4
>what is the public opinion inertia?
>what is the legacy of the writers who were still there in Season 4?

>>43067122
I think the most underrated reason why MLP fell off was because of the delays between seasons. After season 3 was 10 months between it and season 4, then 11 months between 4 and 5. There was no way the fandom was going to keep growing with that level of downtime.

>>43067266
>After season 3 was 10 months between it and season 4, then 11 months between 4 and 5.
Well, new seasons would release much faster if Hasbro didn't give half of the budget to barbies.

>>43067276
Almost certainly, I'm just pointing out an effect that people often don't talk about.

>>43067276
Equestria Girls 1 and 2 were only the length of 6 FiM episodes combined and I don't think the animation quality was higher?

>>43067400
>Equestria Girls 1 and 2 were only the length of 6 FiM episodes combined
Yeah, except FiM episodes don't need to draw everything from scracth and heavily reuse Flash assets.

Bump

>>43067917
But only the first EqG movie needed to create new assets, the second one could already reuse everything, or at least most things, from the previous one.

>>43068459

>>43066782
There's also Lesson Zero, which distinctly changed the formula of the show and lessened Twilight's role since she no longer had to be in every episode and write every letter

School Daze 100%.
Completely broke a lot of cast dynamics, and the Student 6 were completely mishandled.
Seriously, *how were the mane 6 supposed to do their other jobs PLUS the school*!?
Also when the trend of bad M6 rehash lesson episodes started; you can't have them be teachers while still relearning the same damn lessons that they did in seasons prior.
Counselor Glimmer was good though, I'll give them that. Counselor Trixie is nail-in-the-forehead stupid though.

While it's been like a decade since I've seen half the show at this point, seasons 5-7 were probably my favorite (plus S2), and I distinctly remember seasons 8 & 9 just feeling rather awkward and ass-pull-y. There were *some* good elements of seasons 8 & 9, but I'd probably change more things than keep them, if given the chance.
A big one would be to get the Student 6 out and around Ponyville more, and keep them less isolated as a group. They needed to have more episodes that pair some of them with members of the existing cast.

>>43066827
>Every event past that point has to be seen with the lens of Twilight being an immortal demigod ruler.
Do you REALLY have to view Pinkie being an honorary Apple through the lens of Twilight being an immortal demigod ruler? What happens if you don't view it through that lens?

>>43070344
>Do you REALLY have to view Pinkie being an honorary Apple through the lens of Twilight being an immortal demigod ruler?
Yeah, they are both ordinary mudponies whose heritage is not important and their fate is to serve their princess "friend".

>>43066782
>>43067122
I think the turning point was that one episode where all the Ponyville stallions ran the train on you OP, that was the most brutal gaping I've seen in the show, and then there was that twist ending where you enjoyed it

>>43070346
>I cannot live in the moment and enjoy life due to my massive inferiority complex
Skill issue

>>43066813
>>43066846
>>43069991
This. The only right answer. It all started with Lesson Zero

>>43066846
> Luckily the rest of the season was good
Spotted the autistic sperglord handicapped emotionally stunted manchild hypocrite double standard faggot
>Oh Twilight screaming like a retard is not alright, but Luna is! Rarity screaming like a retard at her sister is alright.
>2 fucking CMC and 2 fucking Dash episodes characterizing her like Gilda are fine.
>The boring-ass one-shot secondary character in Sweet & Elite is fine and acceptable.
>Every mane6 sitting by the side in favor of a fucking secondary character or just 1 main character is FINEEEE.
>Twilight not saying anything intelligent is fine
>Dash acting like Gilda is fine
>Fluttershy being both anxious and bitchy is fine
>Pinkie Pie being overly aggressive is FINEEEE
>Applejack getting her episode stolen by Derpy is fine.
>The Mane6 murdering the shit out of each other in AJ's episode and the Christmas episode without the excuse Discord around is fineeeee.
>Everything is fine.jpeg

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>>43066813
Eh, kind of.
By itself, the episode is really funny, people going "THAT'S NOT MY TWILIGHT!" are morons obsessed with stupid headcanons who cannot grasp a character acting differently when put into an extreme situation they haven't been before.
But I have to recognize somehting about the episode.
You can only appreciate it if you already know how stuff already works, If you're tasked with writing for the show and that's the first episode you ever watched, you've really tainted your perception of many things.
Knowing that, it would be ill-advised to assign said person to be the showrunner after season 5. *wink wink*

>>43071273
Lesson Zero was unfunny.
HotDiggedyDemon was funnier. Parody Comedy should be left in the hands of the fandom or comedy-specific teams.

>>43071263
>Characters having flaws and learning to improve them in my show revolving around friendship lessons? that's preposterous!

Most of the examples you give are either nitpicks, complaining about the characters being themselves or simply just jokes you're assuming to send a message it clearly doesn't.
Faust's MLP haters have some of the most stupid criticisms in the fandom. The moment a character or situation isn't exactly as how they made it up to be in their heads, they start whining are retards. While I disagree with many of the criticisms towards McCarthy's MLP, they usually have decent bases and expectations based on what Lauren Faust did. The criticisms people throw at season 2 are usually "My comfort character should never be mean to my other comfort character and it should only eat pudding at 7PM, NEVER at 7:01PM."

>>43071288
Lesson Zero is funny as fuck. The slow but steady build up to her breaking apart feels so appropiate and I'll never pretend it's not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk4ZUJ9EQbY

>HotDiggedyDemon was funnier
True but that doesn't Lesson Zero not fun just because.

>>43067255
>what is the legacy of the writers who were still there in Season 4?
Larson and Morrow went to work as story editor in DC Super Hero Girls, rogers got stuck working on lame Disney shows for toddlers, Polsky also got stuck working on sloppy shows and I assume the rest are just surviving in the best way they can.

>>43071319
>The slow but steady build up to her breaking apart feels so appropiate and I'll never pretend it's not.
It is objectively shit. If you want a good version of that, just watch Swarm of the Century. Twilight cooking up a plan to make a fake Ponyville 1:1 replica in 30 seconds just so Celestia won't notice the parasprites is better than an eternity of Lesson Zero.

>>43071383
>Swarm of the Century
You mean the episode where they were treated as in the wrong for not listening to Pinkie Pie, even though all Pinkie had to do the entire time was explain herself? She had ample opportunity to do so

>>43071306
You are an autistic failure at life so you project your own 1 dimensional flanderised autism onto the Mane6 as being normal.
Rewatch season 1 10 times over for 2 years and then immediately watch any post S1 episode including Return of Harmony and feel the difference hit you like a wrecking ball. Faust was smart by only reading the drafts and refusing to watch the final product for 16 years now.

There's a very shallow but rational explanation for why there's so many S1+S2 and S1-S3 fags but no pure S1 frens.

EQD had a poll somewhere in 2011 October or September where basically it showed that 20k people joined during the summer vs the 6k or 4k that joined before the summer.
Plus there was no /mlp/ back then and EQD had recently disabled anonymous posting on their blog. All there was left was the communism that is Ponychan and I guess the comments section of Youtube that was still dogshit at filtering good posts, but at least back then there were no likes/dislikes for the comments.
And nobody went to Ponychan for good opinions. The episode and fanfiction board stayed in their own groups and fucked off after the episode aired and never shared their thoughts with anyone outside their groups.

So most of the fandom is composed of 2011 underage summerfags that couldn't make the difference between dogshit like Flapjack and good stuff like the original Teen Titans.
They didn't have time to absorb and get used to S1 as the normal season, they didn't even have time to realize Lauren had already quit, in their retarded minds they just parroted "supervisor" like the underage they are, not realizing that's a death sentence from being executive producer and creative vision.

Did I mention most of them are underage?
The fandom used to be good before the summer of 2011 before all the underage joined.

Most S1 purists had no major platform to speak on.
By the time /mlp/ had finally been created in 2012 February it was already too late to organize something.
Most S1 purists left the fandom and were grown ass adults with better things to do than argue with the underage that were born yesterday.

>>43072206
Let's also not forget the retardation that is: "The fan content is better than the official stuff". Meanwhile garbage like Past Sins and FoE exists. And stuff like Background Pony that cannot mimicry anything from S1.

Underage would call you hater, troll, baiter if you dared speak bad about anything. And then jump on the bandwagon when there were some episodes so bad not even they felt like defending and instead would readily jump ship like the disloyal underage they are for that week and call Mysterious Mare Do Well the worst thing ever and Rainbow Dash the worst character ever.

>>43072254
Fence sitters are the biggest opportunistic cunts in the world. It's why they're fence sitters.
It's also why they're so communistic. Nobody can be rightfully special, unique and deserve things on their own effort and talents. Everyone must be a retard like them.
That's why the only criticism S2 received back then besides Dash and Canterlot Wedding was "It's boring and it feels like a generic cartoon" in this case the retarded underage never watched good cartoons in their life. They didn't even know to specify "generic Canadian cartoon" they didn't dare just call it a bad cartoon cause they had already told their friends and their pet how amazing the fandom and the show is so they had to lie through their teeth. Either doubling down stubbornly or fence sitting so they may never be in the wrong. Gen-Z are miniature politicians and "expert" manipulators online ... and in real life you yell a little at them, question them properly and they start either screeching or murmuring when you grab them in a corner and they can't lie anymore without getting punched in the face or thrown out the house. That's why most of them ran away from home or are busy wagecucking. Their grades show what "great" politicians and social engineers they are, such "experts", bunch of autistic spergs acting like retarded online and when no one's looking and then when they face reality they crumble like a sheet of toilet paper, worse than a deck of cards.
These autistic spergs favourite line was "read the room" when confronted with their bullshit. That was their advice given to everyone against individuality, for you to read the room and adhere to the environment and immediately change like the wind when you feel heat coming down on you. That's why most of them ended up becoming wagecucks.

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>>43072206
So I guess season 1 purists are like the Jews who only accept the Torah and not the other books of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible?

>>43071696
I never said that it was a good episode, but if you want to see Twilight panic and start frantically thinking of new ideas to solve an unsolvable problem, you could watch Swarm of the Century and focus only on Twilight for that..

Bump

>>43073873

>>43071383
Fluttershy snapping Harry the bear's neck is iconic, shut your stupid stick in the mud ass up faggot

>>43075004
>Mindbroken

>>43075314
>nu-internet buzzwords
This immediately devalues any argument you could have, you know.

Bump

>>43075325
Episode is still shit.

>>43075814

>>43075942
why is lesson zero shit?

>>43077282
It flanderizes Twilight's character, its "humor" relies on retarded expressions, meme faces, and occasional fourth wall breaks. The moral of the story, while good, is half assed and should be executed better.
This episode is very important and crucial to the future of Equestria since it introduces the possibility of the rest of the Mane 6 writing letters to Celestia. Yet, because of the flaws mentioned earlier, it's objectively shit, and it is more detrimental because it is not a filler episode but a lore episode that expands the possibilities of the show.

>>43077282
Just look how Twilight acts while stressed in Swarm of the Century and how she acts in Lesson Zero, and you'll see how Lesson Zero turned Twilight into caricature of herself.

>>43075814