Let me just barge in in this thread (maybe cutting off the usual grinding of teeth)while i’m still on my high about the finale.I’m going to gush for a paragraph then i’ll let you at whatever nitpicking you are discussing
Fuck,i just got out of “The Last Problem” and i’m bawling my eyes out.I must sound like the stereotypical male brony of 2011-2012 and maybe that comment will be seen by channers as the equivalent of “in this moment i’m euphoric” but fuck it,that was beautiful.Last time i cried and shivered that much,i was a 12 year old kid watching “Stuart Little” and now i’m in my mid twenties crying harder than that.That was the level of quality Magical Mystery Cure should have reached but couldnt quite achieve due to rushed production.I’m fucking proud of those dumb plastic toys having their happily ever after,i must sound like a fucking tool or NPC or whatever term it’s popular to call people who dont hide their feelings under 20 layers of irony these days.I almost skipped it because Season 9 was inegal and lackluster despite very solid episode being found here and there (The Last Laugh for example) and because of the cameos of Sunset Whatever or What His Name from “She was Very Vocal about her disain for the spin-off girls” but in the end they were in the background,litteral background decoaration on a wallpaper where they belonged.That isnt totally their fault narratively,those 2 characters are after all because of the writers stuck in their dumb High School Musical limbo,what could they have possibly contirbuted to the final battle of E24-E25 (which i also liked even the Grogar plot twist but i’m not going to write a paragraph on that today) no in the final battle ,Tempest Shadow was here,Derpy “The Mare with a thousand names” was here,the Ponyvillians were here and a whole lot i forgotten that are infinitely more meaningful than the ersatz Monster High
There’s a temptation to reckon the attempts of artists like Lauren Faust to create entertaining and meaningful shows within the straitjacket of corporate commerce as entirely futile, hopeless. A mug’s game. But then I remember the Grand Galloping Gala in full swing. In time the techno music was blasting and a throng of kids massed together in the center of the dancefloor, dressed in cosplay pony ears and swishing tails and all sorts of homemade cartoon finery, pogoing, and suddenly it became clear that they were all chanting together.
Evan, I said. Are you hearing what they’re chanting. He’s all, What is it? It was this:
“Friendship! Friendship! Friendship!”
Let’s say you run a big public company; your rivals come up with a product you must compete with, you make a business plan and share some of the details about it in a conference call with analysts, and they publish reports anticipating earnings and make recommendations based on those. And then if all your plans succeed, there will be a solid uptick in the share price, thereby fulfilling the fiduciary responsibilities of the corporate management and board of directors. That is Commerce. But if two hundred kids in Anaheim are pogoing in a hotel conference room and shouting “Friendship!” over and over? Nobody at all knew that that was going to happen, or could possibly have anticipated it. That is Art.
-Maria Bustillos, Friendship is Complicated, Longreads.com, 2015
I almost snobbed the finale because of those factors and that would have been a mistake because it was emotional and beautiful,good old final episode goodbye send-off fluff that hit you on all the right place and it reconciled me with the series as a whole.The last song is beautiful,that was what i was the most afraid of that the song will be forgettable but it tugged the right heartstrings.Special mention of course to Twilight dropping the “oh and i used to wonder.What friendship could be” at the right moment and the final verse which i feel was sung on the same rhythm as “do you know you’re my very best friend”. I cant find the comment but i called it,the last episode did end on the same book from the premiere closing.This is weird of course i get it completely illogical and if you squint a bit,cringy as fuck to some regards ,maybe it’s a feeling you guys felt for other piece of media but honestly that’s the first time i felt happy for fictional characters,for Flash vector that dont exist having children that dont exist with a silent cameo of Weird Al or AJ.Jpeg and RDash.vector getting the LyraBon “best friends but you know what that mean treatment or finally the Element of Kindness being hinted at hitching with Chaos personnified, and i cant get enough of it.Twilight,the MC may be forgotten by the sudden barrage maybe because the first attempt was a Ken/Barbie tier disaster and was retconned of ship but i think like Celestia,she’s favoring platonic relationship and even tho it seems she’ll never have a BF ,i felt the same chill i felt when Dash and AJ were having with their (allegedly) old lesbian mares moment where she nuzzled Luster Dawn before sending to whatever adventures your fanfic will try to conjure or when her quasi adopted son Spike…well he got a throne right alongside her,he’s the unofficial Luna in this queendom
And it’s something true to pass on down
To generations, yet to come
-Ashleigh Ball as Applejack, song “How the Magic of Friendship Grows” in the episode “The Last Problem” from “My Little Pony:Friendship is Magic”,lyrics by Daniel Ingram and Josh Haber, 2019
This episode was the right moment to stop the series and this is the right moment for me to stop following the franchise,i heard that they plan a so called 10 season on comics like Buffy,Heroes or Adventure Time.Personally i dont care,for me The Last Problem is the book end they deserved.It’s the “and they lived happily ever after” at the end of the book,all that is after are irrelevant doodles on the dust jacket added by producers who want to milk the proverbial cash cow a bit more before moving to G5,and more importantly this episode made me feel like i discovered a new toy all over again like during season 1.Back in 2013, [spin-off] made me so angry,it made me feel like following that series was a waste of time and that all the staff only cared about sucking Hasbro teats but that episode showed me that despite everything there was still sme last drop of magic the folks at DHX could conjure.If i can be allowed to make a “cringe weaboo reference” “The Last Problem was MLP equivalent of All Might United States of Smash Attack on the world of animated television for little girls,the flame is going to die out but somewhere something will take the mantle.Inb4 shut up nerd.My point is Faust version may have been altered (and i argue tactlessly bastarized and disrespected because capitalism ,fuck you with [spin-off] but i’d like to thing that if it convinced you imageboard dwelling otakus (me included) to cry (and feel vaguely ashamed at your tears) at the (tele)vision of the older Mane 6 on that hill seeing Luster Dawn perpetuating the circle of Life Friendship with the other 5 unnamed characters,despite all this you guys made conventions and fanart and fanfic on a franchise that was snobbed in the 80s,irrelevant in the 90s and a cringy poison in the 2000s,maybe it started something,a “je ne sais quoi” a it factor, an extra touch of soul,the same “je ne sais quoi” that pushed Trekkies in the 60s and that same “je ne sais quoi” that maybe will push you,the eventual fanartist that is struggling to read this incoherent rambling (and wondering why you’re inflincting this to yourself),you who are cutting your teeth on fanart of Derpy Hooves to unfold its artistic wing and move to greater things.Only the future will tell us why but it’s coming ,sooner or later.Not bad for a dumb toy show plagued with an atrocious spin-off
They will race behind you, they will stumble, they will fall. But in time, they will join you in the sun[…]. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders.
Russel Crowe as Jor-El,“Man of Steel”, Screenplay by David S.Goyer and Christopher Nolan,2013
And the greatest spell you’ll know is how the magic of friendship grows