@Ferrotter
 
And that matters to the writing team… how?
 
A scene is not an episode. What are you talking about?

@imercenary  
Known fact: Flash’s use of memory and processor space does not scale linearly with the number of objects it’s rendering. Up to a point this does not matter; the scene renders perfectly fine anywhere below a certain limit of complexity. Once that limit is approached, though, adding more objects massively increases the difficulty of rendering a scene. This is not just going to result in the scenes taking longer to render, it increases the number of animation errors and cuts the possible maximum framerate. Adobe’s own support files say this! Block objects together into blits and partial blits, and re-use objects are three of the recommended ways to allow Flash to render complex scenes acceptably on whatever hardware the system has. In other words, for a given system, Flash is hard-limited in the number of objects the animator can put in any given scene and still have it render acceptably. And they have to be able to duplicate those objects, alone and in groups, to make the scenes render. And, adding memory or processors does not fix this because the number of processors and memory chips needed grows very much faster than the number of objects. It’s fine that you didn’t know this before, but now you do. This is also why they made the movie in Toon Boom Harmony instead of Flash. This has been heavily discussed; Flash’s limitations are how Derpy got her derped eyes as well. I’m not “bashing Flash” by saying this. It’s been a great program and has given us a really beautiful show for more than 7 years now. But it has its limitations and one of the reasons the show has turned out beautiful is that the show staff, from writers to animators, know those limitations, respect them, and work within them.
 
So given that the number of characters who can be squeezed into any given scene (and therefore, any given episode) is hard-limited by Flash, a writer for this show would have to be a ||yay!||ing retard to write a scene or episode in which there are a lot of extra, non-essential, characters. Therefore, the writing of the show cannot include extraneous background characters from other episodes thrown in just to satisfy some whining fandom niche that wants to see Philomena or whoever a few more times. The writing of the show is constrained to what can be displayed by their Flash animation. That is why the writing is the way it is. That is why the writers were smart to write Philomena only into the one episode where Philomena was actually needed. And likewise for every other character that the show “terribly ignored for several seasons.” Do you see now how I was commenting on the writing?

@Ferrotter
 
Nothing you said has anything to do with the writing.
 
You’ve just been bashing Flash because… you apparently think Flash requires a lot of resources to render?

@imercenary  
Because the writing decisions aren’t made in a vacuum, and the writers, storyboard artists, and animators are intelligent enough to understand the tool they’re using. They can’t put every potentially appropriate character cameo in where it might fit, specifically because the show is made in Flash. They can’t even create a complete crowd scene because Flash can’t animate all the characters it would take. So they fill in crowd scenes with duplicates of other parts of the crowd rather than putting in different characters. Maybe recolor them (that’s easier on Flash than putting in different ponies), change their size to make them farther back or mirror them (easier still), or simply duplicate them on the far side of the crowd (very little extra memory).
 
If the show were instead animated by hand, a) Lyra would cream herself, and b) they could draw whatever background ponies and other things they want. Then, whoever was responsible for drawing Celestia in any given scene could have put Philomena on her back every now and then. But it is made in Flash. So if a scene doesn’t need Philomena for the plot of that specific scene, odds are Philomena can’t be in it, because that would knock out a character who actually had a point being in it. Same for every other character. (Especially for a character like Philomena, who can’t be duplicated to fill in a crowd. Replacing some random background pony with Philomena, in Flash, would be incredibly stupid.) So that is the reason the show has been, “terrible about introducing characters and then forgetting/ignoring them for multiple seasons.” Because if a scene doesn’t call for a specific character, they cannot spare the memory space in Flash for that character. They need it for a background pony. So the writers and storyboard artists, being intelligent, do not put that unnecessary character in, because the show is animated in Flash.
 
@Ihhh  
MLP:FiM could alternatively be titled, quite accurately, “Twilight Sparkle & Friends.” And that works very, very well for the show. It’s not “Twilight Sparkle & Whatever Pony Some Niche of the Fanbase Wants to See Today.” Nor “Every Background Pony In Great Detail.” The episodes are about Twilight Sparkle, Spike, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack. And occasionally Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo. (And now, from six seasons on, occasionally Starlight Glimmer.) Every other pony in the series, no matter how loved, is support for the stories about those ten ponies and one dragon in particular, nothing more. Otherwise it would devolve into unwatchable road apples, with so many utterly pointless subplots about this or that “fandom favorite” background pony each episode, as to lose all cohesion as a show. Or, they keep doing what works, and focus on the actual mane cast of the show, tossing in a background favorite cameo once in a while as the Flash memory space permits. Occasionally give us a new character who fulfills a specific need in a specific story about one of the mane cast, use that character only for the one story where that character was needed, then never show that character again. Even more occasionally, re-use one of them when an extension of the story or a perfectly suited new story calls for it. And just one time, give us the nod that was Episode 100.
 
Every other time it’s “Twilight Sparkle & Friends,” MLP:FiM, the show that’s actually good and that has a fandom. They’re better off just having single-use secondary ponies to drive the one story of each episode, and never be seen again; and background ponies who are deliberately somewhat vague so they can be used as actual background to the stories as intended. And we are absolutely better off with it that way. Unless one of the writers just happens to come up with another story about Philomena interacting with one of the Mane Six, and that story is one of the 22 best scripts of the season (24 if it’s really premiere/finale material), then we are much better off with Philomena being a complete non-entity to the show except in the one single episode about her interaction with Fluttershy. A show where every episode we have to see what’s going on with Lyra and Bonbon, Philomena, Cloudchaser and Flitter, Daring Do, Minuette, etc., in addition to the actual plot of the episode, would be utter unwatchable syay.

@Ferrotter  

 
Huh?

@Ferrotter
 
Why are you blaming Flash animation for a writing decision?

@Ping_chan  
The potential to have a tangled mass of secondary plots that make each episode an unwatchable competition between boredom and confusion? Because the limits of Flash animation have always made it impossible to achieve that. There are only so many characters they can put in each scene.
 
Other than we’ve never been to Saddle Arabia, or seen the Cloudsdale Cheerleaders again, I think they’ve achieved a nice balance.

@imercenary  
Alas poor MLP FiM, we will always remember the potential that you had…

Fluttershy and Twilight are forgiven for not assuming the pathetic, wrinkly, mass that Philomena was could possibly be a majestic phoenix.

@imercenary  
That’s what happens when you gotta sell toys. Just be glad Hasbro now allows characters that aren’t in the spotlight to stay alive. Never forget the character massacre in the first chunk of the Transformers movie.

@Ping_chan
 
Before that episode? Zero times.
 
After that? …maybe a cameo I’m unaware of?
 
I wouldn’t think too hard about it. When you take off the fanboy goggles, the series has always been terrible about introducing characters and then forgetting/ignoring them for multiple seasons.

Phoenix:  

 
The diseased…thing…that Philomena was:  

Just how many other times did we ever get to see Celestia with her pet?

@Background Pony #A3BE  
To be fair, even Twilight didn’t know, and she’s known Celestia for a good portion of her life.

That’s cold, but not uncalled for.
 
She’s supposed to be some kinda animal expert after all.