I always thought that Luster Dawn wasn’t Sunburst and Starlight’s child because 1. It was never confirmed in any sense if they are a couple 2. Even if they were a couple, they both know the value of friendship. They would have made sure she would know before she goes to magic school.
Yeah, my thought process was your second argument, even if Sunburst wouldn't be much of a friendship tutor to his child, Starlight most certainly would, she was saved by the magic of friendship and was the ONLY personal student from the princess of friendship herself (until Luster Dawn appeared).
6:08 everyone mentions the Angel line but I think Spike saying “you don’t have tea with Fluttershy every week because you like tea” in the episode “the breakup break down” is much more compelling evidence ESPECIALLY since the context is Hearts and Hooves day
Seconded. The show goes to great lengths to show them falling in love from both sides, both by showing how much they care for each other, and by showing how other characters can see that they'll end up together. Random ponies in town thought they were opposites. Their friends knew they'd get married. "They took Fluttershy!? WHERE?" - To There and Back Again There are too many examples for me to bother trying to list them all.
I feel that was Spike making fun of how much time they spend together with tea parties. However Discord instantly brushes off that statement and appears to have no interest romance what so ever, even with Fluttershy
@@sparething3951TBF, Discord brushes off anything that could make him seem weak or insecure. We've seen in plenty of episodes he won't admit things, and is entirely stubborn. A huge episode to me was the Tree Hugger one. Its the only time we see relationship jealousy except for one other strange "couple"... Spike and Rarity, which is more Rarity not getting the attention she wanted. Was a really messy episode to me.... BUT, we all knew how weird that relationship was and the context. Spike is a child. Fluttershy is not, she's an adult. I view Discord and Fluttershy to be a tragic love story, and the comics perfectly showed that.
I'm kinda convinced Flim and Flam are estranged Apple Family members. They have similar coat/mane/eye colours to the Apples, plus their apple cutie marks. It just makes sense to me.
in the comics this had some parts because Granny Smith and Flim had a conversation between him regarding his brother when the two broke up due to a mare. And Granny Smith spoke about two brothers that she knew that broke up due to a different thing but one of the characters in that flashback had the same colors as Flim and Flam which had some speculation and stuff.
@@timelapse11 look at the hair of the brothers. they have somewhat a similarity to flim and flam's. the one at the right specifically i dunno if that's enough but i guess i probably misremembered
Tbh I would say that Rainbooms are a rainbow dash exclusive move. In the Sonic Rainboom episode during the library scene, Pinkie says "when a pegasus like Rainbow dash gets going so fast...... BOOM! A sonic boom and rainbow can happen all at once!" And while whenever Rainbow flies fast she has a trail that looks similar to a short version that happens with the rainboom, twilight and lightning dust also have unique trails at fast speeds. So I think while any flying creature capable of the sonic boom part, I think the rainbow version is exclusive to the flyer having a rainbow color scheme.
This is my interpretation too; unfortunately the way johnny talks about it in the vid and I think worded the survey question has it as if the question connects her mane colour to the sonic boom itself, rather than the _themeing_ of said boom, making this opinion not fit the true/false nature of the questionnaire.
@@BismuthBorealis I originally wrote a like 5 paragraph response but it got deleted so I'm gonna say it again in less words lol. I think when the OG Rainboom episode was written Rainbow was intended to be the exclusive user of the move considering supposedly she was the only person to ever do it supposedly. But later they decided to expand the idea to anyone, and as another comment mentions it looks like twilight does her version at the season 4 premiere.
I think the TwiBoom was just a special effect. Notice her horn light up just before take-off? Or was that magic used to catapult her to sonic speeds? But I'm sure with enough training to reaching such speeds and getting the angle correct, maybe even Derpy could pull off a Derpboom!😂
@@Edward256 I figured it's that she used it to increase speeds or used it to recreate the rainboom with her magic. In the same shot that her horn is glowing, she has a solid trail of color not fading colors behind her. Also out of everyone she has RD train her, the only one who's supposedly done it.
Good argument, but isn't the sonic rainboom already set up as a legendary move that dates back WAY before Rainbow Dash as even born? This means that either Dash time travels to the far past and does it (which I can't really see her desiring to do by the end of the show), or there has been a pony or 2 before her that did it first. It isn't everyday a pony with a rainbow mane is born, let alone a pegasus. The number of times a pegasus has trained their whole life to repeatedly attempt a sonic rainboom is much higher. So it would be much more plausible for the rainboom to be a move only rainbow maned pegasi have the potential to pull off.
From least canon to most canon, my degrees of canonicity go; 13)Toy packaging 12)Fanon 11)Headcanon 10)Spin-off media material created under a different team or individual 9) The first few episodes of a long-runner 8)Word of the creative voices with indirect input 7)In-text mention once 6)Spin-off media material created main team 5)Word of the Creative voices with direct input 4)Intended Subtext 3)Subtext (audience consensus) 2)Consistently In-Text 1)Whatever Is Funniest
@@daraghokane4236 McCarthy: "Twilight won't outlive her friends." Big Jim: "Sunburst and Starlight make a good couple." Also Jim: "I'm not into shipping the cast."
While the majority of my reasoning for not believing Luster Dawn is the daughter of StarBurst is because there just isn't enough solid evidence available, there is a small part of me that actually dislikes that idea. As a straight woman who's had mostly male friends her whole life, it bothers me to no end when people always try to push the idea that if two members of the opposite sex are friendly with each other, they have to start dating. As if platonic feelings between friends with compatible sexualities and genders can't exist. I love Starlight and Sunburst for being a great example in popular media of such a friendship.
i'd trust the author's word unless that word is contradicted by the content itself (which the lauren faust example is contradicted by the show having an outhouse)
That and Lauren departed from the show early, so not really the author past season 1. The opposite is also true, if something happens in the last season of a show that's inconsistent, it's retcon, and need not be treated as canon in earlier seasons. Friendship is Magic has a lot of changes throughout the series; most notably, the writers stopped worrying about anachronisms as the seasons passed, and were perfectly fine with incorporating any modern innovations or cultural aspects into the show. The show was obviously originally supposed to be mostly Victorian in culture, but it's understandable that would be destructive to the creativity. Equestria Girls didn't help to conflate the past and the present.
I can see where the Rainboom connection to haircolor argument holds water. The majority of flight effects end up tied to coat and hair color (see lightning dust). So it may be that any pegasus could perform what is in function a rainboom, but they may have a different coloration besides a rainbow. So Dash could still probably do a rainboom even if her mane was different, it just wouldnt be called a rainboom.
I like to think the sonic rainboom doesn't refer to the color of the boom itself. Like twilight's flying at the season 3 finale could be considered a rainboom.
I think most people's concensus would be calling the boom after the caster. Rainbow = Rainboom Twilight = Twiboom Derpy = Derpboom But I believe Pinkie has implied it is named after the colors. so... Rainbow = Rainboom Twilight = Purboom / Biboom? 😅 Oh dear, naming 'booms after the pride flags...
I realize I'm feeding into the discourse here, but the "no toilets" thing makes sense to me. With media like this, it can be confusing for fans to know where to draw the line between "they're animals, they would function like animals" and "they're animal-shaped people, so they would do most things like humans." But in-universe, why would they bother with toilets or putting bathrooms in every building when it's natural to go bottomless and be outside most of the time? I doubt anypony would plop one out in the middle of the road the same way an actual horse would, but they probably know to be careful when walking through the bushes.
I want to add to this too :P Horses actually don't just go somewhere randomly. If left to their own devices they typically develop favourite spots were they like to do their business. For example, at one of the farms I work at, the three horses in the horse field only go in 4 specific spots, one of them being seasonal (because it's shady) and I will only very, very rarely find a manure pile in an out-of-place part of the field (like the center for example, I haven't found a single pile in the middle of the field in over a year). The only time a horse will go somewhere "randomly" and not a favourite spot is because they can't, like when they are being ridden or are working for example.
The reason why we have toilets is not because we are embarrassed to be seen doing it but because what comes out of us does not smell good and stains/pollutes our surroundings, in equestria everything is clearly ordered and they are an intelligent species, I find it silly that an intelligent species simply agrees to smell that all day every day, It's an obvious problem and they have magic so there has to be multiple solutions, At least they have to do it outside their homes as in the Middle Ages
Haven't seen the video yet, so I don't know the context, but I wanna provide a Counterpoint: there's an outhouse at the train station in Dodge Junction (Season 2 Episode 15, "The Last Round-up"), as well as one at Sweet Apple Acres (Season 7 Episode 13, "The Perfect Pear").
The weird part about Luster Dawn's parentage is that, if you look into the behind the scenes info, the head showrunner & the writer of the episode just kinda... disagree on whether or not she's a Starburst kid?
So full disclosure that I absolutely do believe AJ and RD got together at the end if the show. But what I'm about to say is not at all why; I wasn't even aware of that picture shown in the video. But I also thought of a much stronger argument before being confronted with a flimsy one and want to steelman on principle. Ashleigh Ball may or may not have been close with the writers, but she doesn't need to have overheard the writers talking for her information to be valid. In animation, a character is a collaboration between writer and voice actor. It's true the writer has a big picture view of the story, but the VA has to get in a character's headspace to portray them. The best argument for the picture is not that Ashleigh had inside information, it's that she understands both character's emotional landscape and feels romantic tension between them, using the picture to express it. The picture would thus not be literally canon as if it were in the show, but gives us a better understanding of the characters as only someone so deeply in their head could provide, which then gives greater context to the scene in The Last Problem.
True. There’s also an interview with Jim Miller where even he said he didn’t want to make AppleDash anywhere near canon but her was overuled by the higher ups to put a pretty bow on everything. There’s also images from the games, comics and script leaks showing them together.
Ashleigh shipped herself with herself pretty early on. And M.A.Larson was onboard with it. And according to those script leaks, so was half the staff. ;)
I hadn't heard of the sonic rainboom being mane-dependent, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. The rainboom was said to be an 'old mare's tale', meaning no one else within living memory had done it, and no one else within the show had a rainbow-coloured mane. After the sonic boom itself, rainbow dash's mane forms the rainbow afterwards - if her mane wasn't rainbow-coloured, how would this work? There are also several other extremely talented fliers (e.g. lightning dust and spitfire) who have also clearly never done it, even though they probably match (or at least come very close to) rainbow dash's speed. However, it doesn't mean she was able to do a rainboom _just_ because she had that mane - it means she had the _potential_ to do it. It still required a huge amount of practice and hard work before she was capable of doing it. Similar to how top-level athletes, who have a massive amount of natural talent and potential, still need to work as hard as they can before they are able to compete in the top-level competitions.
I think I’m a little bit of column A and a bit of column B on the sonic rainboom being because of RD’s mane. Like, I think she was able to achieve it because she worked so hard on her skill at flying, but it looked the way it did was because of her mane. I think any very skilled flyer could do something similar, but I doubt that it’s a coincidence that the pony with a rainbow motif was the only one able to create a rainbow visual affect by flying.
10:38 "How much do you trust Lauren's information here on this subject?" Not at all! From the tone of her replies, I always assumed that Lauren was just having a laugh when answering questions about Equestrian lore on Twitter, and not intending to be taken seriously. If I thought she *_was_* trying to be more serious in her replies, like when Lauren responded on whether Scootaloo was disabled or an orphan, then my opinion would be different.
I honestly think Lauren’s response to the toilet thing was a troll. Not only by contradictions but also I’ve seen another time where she jokes along to the fandom.
On a general note, it's been a bit odd seeing the term 'headcanon' penetrate wider nerd cultute and be met with a degree of backlash. There's always been a degree of friction between what I've seen termed "transformative" fandom and "curative" fandom, but in the past I saw more animosity from the former while the latter seemed oblivious. Now to be honest I'm skeptical of the idea of a hard division in the first place, but seeing this backlash does make me pause. Unsurprisingly I've seen the most arguing over the subject of queerness, but I always existed in a space where saying "X is gay" is usually understood to be a reading of a character over a hard, in-text confirmation, due to the supressed nature of queer representation in media for the last however many 100 years. Seeing people get upset under the apparently sincere impression that people are arguing their readings and headcanons are textual and that they have to see it that way too, is a reminder of how there's a language to fandom informed by context, that's not immediately obvious if you've not spent time immersed in it. I admit I wouldn't be sure that they where sincere, if I hadn't seen some fans have the same reactions to encountering less "topical" headcanons, like a character's hobby or some miniscual facet of their skills. It's easy to dismiss those fans as Stick In The Mud's or Pedantic, but a lot of useful fan resources like fan wiki'd and databases are held together by people with that mindset. I guess this is where the academia and the English lit classes do come in useful in spreading knowledge on theories of literature and media analysis. That aspects of a work can exist in different levels of textuality, subtext, authorial intent, social context, copyright etc. Which is funny because I have s real bugbear with the phrase "media literacy" these days. Not the phrase itself but seeing it become used to mean 'a person's take on a narrative that I don't like'.
I generally found this topic to be really interesting. Especially the part about how we sometimes let our biases affect our opinions on media. Great video, keep up the amazing work.
Every time Johnny tells you the disclaimer, take a drink. You gotta pregame before Ponyville Ciderfest. Edit: I know I sent this as a joke, but in retrospect, it is a joke in poor taste since I had forgotten Johnny was a recovering alcoholic.
(I thought it was really funny, don't worry.) Yeah, five disclaimers is a lot, but this a spiritual successor to a video that was misunderstood to the point I received 200 hate comments, and I didn't wanna risk that again.
S4E2 twilight does a sonic rainboom but it's her cutie mark instead. This kinda says to me that rainbow dash's sonic rainboom is rainbow because of her colour scheme and same goes for other ponies. If they do a sonic boom then it would correspond to their own mane/cutie mark/colour scheme.
Oh oof. It's a totally interesting headcanon and you didn't deserve to be attacked for it, honestly. There's this anime called Precure and the currently airing season/generation has this highly popular ship between two of the main characters, and I do like that ship but I headcanon that one of them has no interest in ever having a romantic relationship due to what a certain character said in one of the episodes - The Precure fandom is pretty nice and respectful overall, but I'll still be careful where I talk about this headcanon of mine just in case.
Genuine question, wasn't bi Twilight made canon? Through a Twitter post, but nonetheless Not that I'm disregarding the aroace headcanon, makes perfect sense to me since i think of her as bi ace
This was a fun video that showed me a lot and gave me an interesting look into the fandom. It was fun taking the survey and seeing how it was used, i can't wait to see a part two for the Fan theories video. Thanks for this video!
I'm ngl, I did vote against Pinkie and Cheese theory in the finale. I hadn't watched the finale in a WHILE and I only watched it once. I was fully just in denial 😭 I'd probably vote yes now.
I believe that G1 and G4 are separate universes that can bleed into each other (partly because of nightmare moon, the pony of shadows, and the rainbow of darkness being born from the same thing is interesting but the main reason i believe this is to have an excuse to have Danny Williams interact with the cmc as they feel so similar to me). I also believe Cozy Glow was the closest to being redeemed.
I always thought of it as a spiderverse sort of situation, but with less universes, in my eye, every generation is a universe they may or may not share elements, with g4 and g5 being the two (separate) universes that are more closely linked
@@watermelon3266 that makes sense and explain why so many characters are similar in personality even if they aren't the same characters or some characters exist in multiple generations. Plus, the shows share some lore.
@@lunakingsley.7247 yes, it helps me sleep at night to know that the ponies of g4 that I spent half of my life loving didn’t royally screw everything up after the last episode
@@watermelon3266 yap. Plus, G5 is another universe Helps explore the lore of how other universes work in mlp when it comes to similarities and differences.
Vinyl and Octavia is one I never saw as a thing, especially with Fandom bits added to things like Vinyl *maybe* being interested in Neon Lights. As far as the episode showing them living together to me only shows they're roommates and have very little on screen chemistry. Head canons are fun though, and I don't think there's an actual wrong answer for anything in a video like this
I really appreciate the way you present your information and opinions. You're good at this. This might be a weird compliment, but I feel like you understand what stories are for more than the vast majority of people do. You'd make a good Pixar Theorist.
Hey Everyone 😃, it's Johnny's college roommate philosophy major! 😏Now, what did Johnny get wrong? 😅If you have an answer, you've missed the point. Luv ya, Johnny ♥
I will not die on this hill, but since twilight has her own version of the sonic rainboom in the shape of her cutiemark for some reason. I wouldn't say its impossible that the rainbow color comes from the performer's mane, magic, ect. causing variation. That would end up turning the sonic rainboom into the sonic maneboom or something else ruining the intended pun for the sake of accuracy. Nomatter what at the end of the day its going to be a pony breaking the sound barrier and creating a spectacle.
15:49 In Twilight's Kingdom pt. 2, twilight speeds past rainbow dash with her uncontrollable power, and has a very similar trail to Dash's sonic rainboom trail so I think this checks out tbh so it's a rainbow sonic boom bc she's got rainbow hair, but she still had to fly fast enough to reach like pony mach 1, which is sick asf so it doesn't matter
my theory about the sonic rainboom is that it got it's name from the rainbow mane color, but we have seen twilight perform a similar action that had a different color and the explosion was shaped like her cutiemark.
personally I have to say I love the way you script your videos, if people can't see that you're trying your utmost best to be considerate of everyones theories and opinions that, unfortunately, is on them. I love your videos and the research you do is thorough and the analysis is great! Keep up the great work ~
Hot take I think they should’ve have made the new My Little Pony show about Lester Don because she was already set up as like twilight student so why not do a show with this whole new character you introduced
Desire plays a huge part in this fandom. What they want precedes everything. Those who want a couple to be a couple because they ship it are going to see it, people who don't ship a couple are not going to see it and neither side is interested in hearing any argument opposing their viewpoint which is about as far from arguing in good faith as one can get.
i LOVE this video!! i often struggle with interacting with media, i weigh the "worth" of my interpretations against what's actually written on the page, which makes fandom less enjoyable to me as a whole. it's why i fell out of reading warrior cats. that kind of stuff bleeds into how i interact with the world as a whole, everything had to be black and white, but there's so much more nuance than that, and the nuance is so much fun to explore! at the end of the day i'm not the author, and the author can't go back and edit whats already out there so by having endless discussions, theories, and headcanons it makes it so i can make the media enjoyable forever!! its a rough habit to break but so worth it, it makes you see the entire world under a new, beautiful light
I would put a fan theory but if I had any when I first watched the show I forgot about them. I would need to jog my memory by randomly seeing what it may have been again if any.
6:30 Kind of related to the video(though mostly not), but maybe something similar to the Trixie video could be done on the kinds of characters like Angel(I'd say polarizing, but I'm not sure that's quite the impression with Angel), though most of the video would probably cover Discord
About the sonic rainboom: First of all, I don't think the show writers put a lot of thought into this topic, and that the sonic rainboom was made specifically for rainbow dash, so there isn't a 'canon' answer to this question, but that doesn't mean I won't give my own interpretation anyways! I think the colors of the sonic rainboom ARE determined by hair color, but that doesn't mean it's impossible for someone with non-rainbow hair to do a sonic rainboom. I think the name "sonic rainboom" comes from the way the rainboom looks, which is an arc of bright color - even if it doesn't contain the ROYGBIV colors, it'll still be highly reminiscent of a rainbow, so it makes sense for it to get its name from it. I mean, if you were making a rainbow that only used shades of pink, you'd probably call that a "pink rainbow", not "an arc of pink". I believe that if a pony with all-green hair were to do a rainboom, the rainboom would be colored the same shades of green as their hair rather than being rainbow, but to me, that's still a sonic rainboom - just a green rainboom. Rainbow Dash is just extra special for being able to create a "true rainbow" rainboom. It was her destiny, after all.
i agree with the last point but i also dont think theres anything wrong with theorizing about more "obvious" or surface level questions. I think theyre fun to theorize and talk about as long as you dont take them overly serious. The more deep questions are fun too but theyre a different thing that is enjoyed and discussed for different reasons i feel
wait cause i always thought rainbows whole thing was cause of her mane colors too lol. also, havent other pegasi flown fast enough to have their own trail things and theirs were based off their colors, or am i mixing up fan stuff with canon? i mean, i assume other pegasi could also achieve a rainboom/sonic boom thing too if they could also fly that fast, but dash is literally the rainbow pony yknow
6:08 i did some digging and apparently flutter shy and discord were supposed to get married but the episode ended up being cut and they couldn't find a way to make it work so it's possible it happened of screen and there are many times where flutter core was mentioned in passing that you missed but it's kinda a thing where you can't really decide either way so you just have to make your own theory based on witch opinion you like more personally i think they both wanted to get into a serious relationship but since discords practically immortal they decided against it but are still very close and have feelings for each other
I know this isn’t the main point of the video but I want to throw my two bits in about that last question: I think the other person in the Twitter argument sounds *technically* correct, but not substantively. In “Wonderbolt Academy”, you can see that both Rainbow and Lightning have visible trails even though neither goes supersonic that episode. Suppose Lightning Dust wanted to take the speed record from Rainbow Dash. In that case, I expect there would be a magical explosion effect when she broke the sound barrier, like there is with Rainbow Dash, but it would be lightning themed to match her subsonic speed trail. Only someone like Rainbow Dash can make a rainboom, but Lightning Dust could make a lightningboom, etc.
Personally… I don’t believe Applejack and Rainbow Dash are in a romantic relationship. And I do have some points to support this. 1. Just because two people live together, does not mean they are in a relationship. We can’t know for sure what is happening, and thus can’t be a complete proof they are together. 2. Throughout the whole show, applejack has been shown to be completely disinterested in romance. Either by treating everyone as part of her family, or by completely showing disinterest to someone’s advances. 3. Rainbow and AJ have never really been shown in an actual implied romantic scenario. Everything they do (and that is mostly my opinion) is easily interpreted as sibling love/rivalry. Every time they interact, it feels like they are sisters instead of a couple. It may also be my own opinion, but now that I rewatched the show I’m pretty sure AJ is aro/ace.
I voted yes on Dash being able to do the sonic rainboom because of her rainbow mane and tail. I mean isn't it obvious? A sonic rainboom is a sonic boom. It's not something any pony can do, but we see in the season 4 finale, if I remember correctly, Twilight shoots off the ground with all the princesses magic, and also does a sonic boom, and it's got her mane colours. Doing a sonic boom is rare, Rainbow also has a rare mane colour. So that's why she can do a sonic rainboom. If her dad was on the same level of flying as his daughter, I bet he could also do one.
Great video and I had a lot of fun taking your survey! I completely agree on fan theories. It’s not about a theory being right or wrong, it’s about it being open to interpretation and discussion.
For some reason I expected this video to be about that one episode where pinky multiplied herself and questioned if she was the actual original pinky... Not sure why. Anyways this was nice
Wow 6:46 is really surprising to me, same reason for what you had mentioned. I had joined the fandom fairly early on in S2 and saw SO MUCH fan art, be it music animations fanfic and just drawings, of these two being shipped together. I wonder what might have caused that to shift, general passage of time and less shared screen time perhaps?
Passage of time is one, but also it's not hard for lots of people to say 'the show doesn't make them canonically together but my works will show them together anyway!' It's why alternate ships like Flutterdash still get stuff done now. There's nothing stoping someone from just saying 'i'll do my own thing separate from the source'.
THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS VIDEO reminds me other people can think critically about the media they consume. i was actually having a discussion regarding ships the other day in a discords server with some friends and the subject of whether appledash was canon or not came up. i said that i chose the interpretation they werent simply because i dont really like the ship and dont like the idea of canonizing any mane 6 x mane 6 ship. the text does not explicitly say or show they are in a relationship. their response however was to claim i was ignorant for missing something a writer said regarding the ship and just choosing to not accept fact, even tho it isnt fact. im not going to bash anyone who agrees with the interpretation of them being in a relationship, i just personally dont agree with it. so thanks for reminding me im not crazy and ignorant lol. i wouldve preferred the conversation turned argument had more substance from their side but oh well
Do you think Marble ever got over Big mac and found her own very special somepony, after that CRUSHING💔 blink and you'll miss it moment in "Best Gift Ever"?
I love debating over such stuff even if it's little like if Rainbow is an alcoholic or not. I'm very happy that the show writers left many things open so everyone can be satisfied with their asnwers. But some are just cacon like Lyra x BonBon or Lil' Cheese is the child of Pinkie and Cheese Sandwich. On ships I even have multiple answers while having a mane couple I like. I ship Rarijack but I like to imagine that Aj and Rainbow were in a relationship at some point.
Sometimes i let my interpretations cloud my enjoyment of reaction videos, like if they don’t have the same reaction i did they're somehow wrong. Usually i can let it go and enjoy the video. EXCEPT when it comes to A Hearth's Warming Tail. Idk why but whenever i see people's reactions i almost never see them draw the same conclusion i did, and that maddens me! It feels obvious! A Hearth's Warming Tail is recontextualizing Starlight's backstory. It puts her story in the context of a Christmas story most english speaking people know, to compare the two stories and make connections to make the audience understand and empathize with starlight. It's one of my favorite episodes, becuase it made me realize that Starlight is like me! I had a bad experience in my life that snowballed into me having no friends at a point in my life. I hated the world and felt vile and aggressive, luckily i made some new friends before i became a cult leader but my point still stands. It makes me very upset when a reactor doesn't atleast point out the similarities
I definitely didn't click on this video expecting math, and now you've made me want to watch mlp I watched season 1 a few years ago but haven't found the time to watch it
One thing being ignored in this is the idea that the final episode or the later seasons should be treated as though its fluid and connected. Lots of shows throw stuff in at the end that was illogical or came out of left field, and fans just ignore it as stupid crap the writers did. Very few series outside of single seasons mini-series, and two to three season animes based on short mangas have a solid narrative through the whole thing. In the case of Friendship is Magic, it's clear the addition of Cadance as a princess and alicorn was an accretion. Then Twilight becoming and alicorn princess. Then the removal of the physical elements of harmony, Starlight Glimmer obviously, etc. Therefore, people shouldn't get too upset over different takes on the final episode. Not to mention, the finale had the terrible time skip trope that is never executed well in a series anyway. A great finale of a show is one that just comes off as a good episode that fits into the series, and opens a path for a continuing adventure. Given this series as a whole, ending on an unoriginal trope isn't surprising.
Brilliant video and survey. But here's me two cents on shipping. I think that we have two types of presenting the story. MLP might show that something is the case and imply that something is the case without showing it to be the case (Applejack's parents are dead, Appledash, Cheesepie…). Most of these situations from survey seem to fall under the latter. Now what makes things true in MLP is that they were explicitly shown to be true, so the cases of implying aren't strictly true. It's quite reasonable to believe them to be canon nonetheless, because they're implied to be canon. I guess no one would seriously say that question whether Rarity had more or less than 10 000 hairs in her maine has definite answer. Question about Appledash is similar in this manner, but the difference is that even without showing what is the case it's implied what is the case
Oh so that’s what “Death of The Author” means. I suppose that kinda makes Weird Al signing the Pinkie x Cheese Sandwich fanart with “I stole your waifu” not conclusive evidence.
I had to skim the episode for this, but no, she doesn't, it's clearly magic she did with her horn, she didn't have enough time to speed up and we have a short scene before the "rainboom" where she light's up her horn;
@@PlayerUzU Yeah I just did the same and I think you're right. I don't know why but I remember wrongly that a character stated she was going to do the sonic rainboom guess it's been too long since I've seen that episode.
I absolutely adore your more critial and introspetive discussions of our interpretations of media and the ambiguity of the relationship between viewer experience and perceived validity. It's a very refreshing lense to use while viewing MLP
The Pony of Shadows episode, that confirms the EqG is in the FiM canon, also disproves IDW comic canon sharing show canon, since the Banishment of the Sirens is different. It was a point of disappointment among the brony analysis community back in the day. After all, Starswirl rap battling the Sirens was freaking awesome!
Regarding you reading all your comments, I actually really, REALLY appreciate that you go back n read them. It sucks that sometimes people don’t have nice things to say, but there’s always gonna be a few rotten apples in the bunch, so to speak. I think your videos are awesome and I loved watching this one, too
Would "Bat Ponies are an actual Pony-kind" count as a fan theory? We have seen them multiple times in the show but we have nothing about their background or culture. They do seem to be confirmed in the chapterbook Princess Luna and the Festival of the Winter Moon as well as by statements by Lauren Faust and M.A. Larson.
Imagine these hypersensitive ponies just casually taking a dump in public while walking, not even stopping in place to "aim". You mean to tell me that the "Oh, no! I hurt my best friend's feelings!" ponies would do something so grotesque and animal like? You mean to tell me the world of "hugs, compliments and forgiveness" is also littered with mountain piles of stinking residue scattered all over the corners?
I recently found out (thanks to Scootertrix) that horses have a very high alcohol tolerance because of how their digestive system works. I still wanna pretend Apple family cider is alcoholic, so now I headcanon that it's so magically alcoholic that it could kill a human!
This reminds me of the Lion King fandom. I don't think it was ever intended to imply, quite the opposite, that Scar was the father of Zira's cubs. But when you have a lioness so completely devoted to a lion with no other info everyone took it to be a romantic thing so a lot of the fandom's relatively split on if Vitani and Nuka are scar's or not. I personally think it's a stretch to say that Scar fathered cubs two separate times months apart like that. Nuka and Vitani don't resemble him and Kovu who does was explicitly stated to not be his. Also just how lion prides work in real life has a lot of discourse about if Nala's related to Simba. Either Serafina being related to the other lionesses or mating with the king harem-style. It leads to grey areas where I believe Zira was romantically interested in Scar but that it was never returned and she had cubs elsewhere. The fluttercord thing seemed more like Angel just being his usual menace self. It's such common behavior I think it goes without mentioning. Everyone's been there where you're on the playground minding your own business and some random kid makes a comment on how you have a crush on some random other kid. Tell me that's not in Angel's personality to do that as a small act of revenge for when he's upset at Fluttershy. Also he's just a jealous spiteful creature at the best of times so it seems pretty clear he'd resent anyone Fluttershy spent time with. He'd probably hate Discord for it and because he hates him couldn't think of any reason Fluttershy would want to spend time with him unless she had a crush on him. Because he wouldn't understand being able to enjoy anyone's company but his own. I wasn't really invested enough in Yona or Sandbar as characters to notice their segment in the final episode. So that's why I wasn't sure where they stood- simply didn't care to remember. I didn't even consider that auntie lofty and holiday were romantic until the fandom told me. Two mares with the exact same coat color just made sense as sisters.. Sisters would both be Scootaloo's aunts. I still don't entirely see them being a couple as something people would understand from the show itself. This isn't at all to delve into censorship and whatnot. I already know why it is the way it is. But it's just a situation muddied by family dynamics. There's 2 different ways to get a lot of family roles. (brother in law is someone who married your spouse, or the spouse of someone who was already your sibling. Likewise your aunt is your aunt's wife or your aunts sister) Can you honestly say me assuming two yellow mares of the same age who lived together being sisters is bad faith? I get people're attracted to people who resemble them but it seemed sister-coded to me.. which seemed to be intentional anyway.. I just don't want any goodballs trying to paint this as a homophobic issue. Similarly to Appledash. I Know the reason WHY they'd never really show interest in each other during the show. But it seems weird to me they'd spend many years together through thick and thin and only get together sometime after their mid twenties(?) to their later 40's. So that's another weird grey area where I think they were supposed to be a couple, but due to meta-reasons I can't personally believe it with the information given before me. Furthermore i feel like if they WERE a couple Applejack would consider her family, and therefore give chores to Rainbow. But if Rainbow didn't live with her or wasn't a special somepony then she'd see her as a guest and refuse to give her chores. So the situation reads as "I''m a partially retired wonderbolt who has free time and wants to use it so that my stubborn friend will stop trying to break her hip doing the work of 4 ponies.(Since her brother moved out and her granny's gone there's probably a vacancy that applejack would absolutely allow Dash to fill if she was part of the family) So basically "guests don't do chores. But family does" is a reasonably strong argument to me. And furthermroe when Twilight Sparkle did a 'sonic rainboom' it also resembled her own mane and cutiemark
I find it interesting how many of the "controversial" stuff about the show are the ships lol, rainbow + applejack feels weird to me, in EQ the writers tried to make rarijack so obvious that it hurt, but then they do rainbowjack for mlp? But to be fair I think that the writing staff is different for each franchise. Also, for the comic thing, from what I heard until a certain point the comic was indeed canon to the show, but Hasbro or the writing team for the show decided to make it "sort of" canon, so yeah, most of the comic stuff isn't canon to the show, but some are.
i always felt like eqg implied a rarijack timeline, and mlp implied an appledash one, i dont think thats weird, theyre slightly different universes, with slightly different characters, and in that way, we get to see both. I dont believe in that "only one single true soulmate" bullcrap anyway, just because two characters are together in one universe, doesnt mean they have to also be in another
@@scribblecloud Weird wasn't the word I was looking for, but it's interesting to see how two look-alike universes of the same franchise pushes two different ships. But tbh during G4 I didn't see much of a push to appledash ngl, always saw them as those two hyper competitive friends. Maybe it's my rarijack brain talking but idk, don't really like the mane 6 ships (mane 6 with a mane 6 I mean).
my take on the no toilets thing: iirc we don't see the inside of the outhouse ig there could be nothing in there, and it's just a designated space for that Lauren also could've just been joking in that tweet lol
19:27 friendship and love go hand in hand, you can’t have friendship without love, you can’t have love without friendship But if you mean like lust or something, then idk I’m aroace
10:17 and that's not even mentioning that She also said that Celestia and Luna were born alicorns.. "ThE bIRtH oF aN AliCoRn iS sOMeThiNg EuQEstRa hAS nEvER sEeN" "iT's beYOnD eVEn oUr uNdeRstADinG" i know it's been memed to-death but it had to be mentioned.
16:44 I'm in this fandom for fun, and it's more fun to assume everything explositly mentioned and shown is cannon. It's more difficult to prove anything that way. I like the challenge
I believe that sonic boom can be done by anyone with enough wingpower and training but that said sonic boom will depend on the performer's mane color Therefore Rainbow dash is capable of sonic RAINboom because her mane is rainbow colored.
The point of 'death of the author' is that you the viewer are welcome to interpret the art made by the artist however you like. If the author disagrees with you on what their story is about as they were trying to write it to convey a specific message, then either the author didn't do a good job of conveying that or you the viewer were not paying close enough attention. So art has value beyond what the creator intended, but ultimately only the creator can say for certain what is true in story and you as a fan should draw the line for yourself at how much of the author's story you want to take in and at what point you're satisfied.
I do think appledash is canon, but I just prefer other AJ ships! Doesn't mean I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist though I'll just make my own au's with rarijack Xd I do think a wide majority of the people in disbelief regarding appledash are prejudice, not to say every skeptic is, but a wide majority are, having unfortunately interacted with those people before
5:38 Plus, weird al literally signed a fans cheesepie fanart with "I stole your waifu" and made a post on instagram with a screenshot of cheese and pinkie from TLP saying "lately my timeline has been filled with allegations ive had sexual relations with a horse - so for the record, id just like to state thats not entirely accurate", if it wasnt already obvious enough, I think this would solidify it
As mentioned later in the episode with Ashleigh Ball (11:41), it's important to note that Weird Al did not receive any kind of writer credit for either of his appearances in the core series, and can't be considered a creator on paper for those episodes (he didn't even write his own songs). As a VA, his job was to record dialogue. But again, the point of this video was not to prove or disprove any of these ideas.
10:49 this is almost word for word how JKR told us about the wizards vanishing their poop before toilets. What happened to chamber pots Joanne?!? Also that toilets existed in the Roman empire.
About the whole rainbow dash and her hair causing her to do the sonic rainboom, i dont think that thats the case at all. Since her dad has a rainbow colored mane, and we have never seen him do the sonic rainboom, i think its all because of her practice.
Reality is subjective, as everyone sees the world differently. What is said to be reality/truth is what society decides it to be. Something is made true/real because it was determined to be.
10:35 alas, they didn't. Alphabittle poops on the ground and you can see a royal guard scooping it up. they have bathrooms but only for pampering and hygiene.
headcanons, theories, shipping and whatever is all nice and fun but having convinced all participating individuals is literally needed only if you RP with them stuff from setting and things are relevant, else it is just supposed to be fun talking about things, comparing views on topic or why you think it would be cool if things would or wouldnt be certain ways
Although it's never been directly said, tfhe idea of Applejack's parents being dead is hardly ambiguous. It's closer to all but confirmed. And it HAS been confirmed that it was Lauren Faust's intent for them to be dead. And considering that Applejack is the only one of the Mane 6 to not have their parents shown with them in the present (and by extension, Apple Bloom being the only member of the CMCs to not have their parents around, which says a lot considering that Scootaloo, the fandom's resident orphan was confirmed to have parents (which was something else Lauren Faust intended)), it's likely that AJ's parents are dead. They've ALWAYS been referred to in past tense. And in the 5th Anniversery (when the CMCs get their cutie marks), AJ says, "If ma and pa where here..." Which is something that highly suggests they're dead. On the topic of orphins, my theory is that Gallus is an orphan. Also, there's apparently a deleted scene, or at least an unused idea, that would've shown Fluttershy and Discord more of a relationship. So whether or not FlutterCord is canon, I personally think it's certainly canon that if there isn't a romantic relationship, it's at least close enough to call it a familial relationship. You can be closer than friends without it being romantic. Personally, I think that Octavia and Vinyl may actually be sisters or something. It's been hinted at for a while that Sandbar and Yona had a thing for each other. So I think there's a high probability that they could be dating. Lyra and BonBon where confirmed to be a thing. I'm surprised that the poll didn't show it being higher. I'm guessing that the 10.1% probably didn't notice the blink and you miss it moments and didn't buy into the fandom shipping them. Aunt Holiday and Auntie Lofty are, again, in a confirmed relationship. I suppose it's not as obvious as Lyra and BonBon, but the relationship is confirmed. Applejack and Rainbow Dash being a couple was intentionally left ambiguous for the fans to interpret it any way they want. It's just weird how people can automatically assume a relationship from the smallest of things. Lyra and BonBon's relationship literally began as them sitting on a bench together. RD could just be a friend trying to help out on the farm because that's what friends do. It could also be that they're arguing was evidence of them being like an "old married couple". My point is that it's something that has intentionally not been confirmed. ([NOTE] I made that comment before you pointed out the author's intent of leaving it ambiguous. But I left it in because it was my thought process and should be included.) Jack Pot being Trixie's father I think has enough evidence for it to be true. I know that in some of the expanded media, there's mention of him actually being her father, though I don't know if he's reference by name. But the description of his appearance is spot on. Why do only 88.1% think Twilight's parents are married? I suppose it's possible that they had kids had love each other but never actually got married for one reason or another. But you practically have to bend over backwards to come to the conclusion that they aren't married. I never noticed Apple Bloom was wearing Goldie's shawl. But yeah, I think it's highly likely that Granny and Goldie are dead. Why else would AJ and Apple Bloom be wearing what they were wearing? And considering how old they were before the time skip, it's reasonable to assume that age would've caught up with them. I think Goldie is enough like Pinkie Pie that it's reasonable to believe that AJ and Pinkie Pie are related. They're both farmers, and Goldie is a lot how I would picture Pinkie being at that age...But as you said, and the episode itself said, it doesn't matter. The Cake Twins are most likely Carrot's biological children and that was just for a gag. Even if they weren't, because of how biology works, they would necessarily have the same father. So the two different tribes still would require the same amount of questioning even if Carrot isn't the father. I'm on the fence about Luster Dawn being a StarBurst child. There's just simply not enough evidence for or against it. But I can see the StarBurst ship being canon though. There's at least a little more evidence for that. I could buy that the Sonic Rainboom was the color it was because of RD's mane and tail color (we do, after all, technically see Twilight do a similar thing with her colors at the end of the Season 3 Finale). But I don't think that she pulled it off because of her colors. The comic books are confirmed to be in the same continuity as the show...kinda. If a comic contradicts the show, then it's not canon. But it's been confirmed that as long as there is no conflict with the show, that the comics are supplementary canon. Some of my arguments of what I consider canon does come from the comics. Like Scootaloo's aunts, and Trixie going to the same magic school as Twilight, making her boasting have actual merit. Did you know that one of the comics that's no longer canon, the Nightmare Rarity comic, explains Luna's design change? It's a shame that the explanation was scrapped because of canon conflict. But my overall point is that the comics are SUPPLEMENTARY canon. They are canon as long as there are no conflicts, but they are not required knowledge. The thing about the difference between friendship and love is that there is no difference. Friendship is a form of love, specifically "platonic love". What we often refer to as love would be "romantic love". The FlutterCord relationship (at least my interpretation of it being more than friendship but less than romantic) would be "familial love". And Twilight's relationship with Celestia (at least at the start of the show) would be "agape" or "love for/from a deity" (NOTE: I do not consider Celestia a deity, I'm just making the comparison since agape can also be for/from a ruler in my opinion). It's a shame I didn't know about that survey before watching this video, because I would've loved to take part in it.
Ik you're not here to prove or disprove anything, but I'm just wondering if you noticed the way Pinkie leaned on and looked up at Cheese Sandwich on a giant Gummie, and Little Cheese sharing WAY more genetic similarities with both Pinkie and Cheese than Lusterdawn shares with Starlight and Sunburst. The same amount Fluttershy & her brother share with their parents as well as Applejack & Apple Bloom with their's, and Scootaloo with her's.
Does the cider in the show, which may represent alcohol, be representative of Applejack, who is named for an alcoholic drink? Is this a sign that Rainbow Dash is addicted to Applejack? /hj
I always thought that Luster Dawn wasn’t Sunburst and Starlight’s child because
1. It was never confirmed in any sense if they are a couple
2. Even if they were a couple, they both know the value of friendship. They would have made sure she would know before she goes to magic school.
Yeah, my thought process was your second argument, even if Sunburst wouldn't be much of a friendship tutor to his child, Starlight most certainly would, she was saved by the magic of friendship and was the ONLY personal student from the princess of friendship herself (until Luster Dawn appeared).
Also Spike is friend with Starlight so how would he not know who she is ?
@@miraelena8265pinkie pie and party favor have similar cutie marks, that doesn’t mean they’re related
I actually prefer the trixie sunburst pairing for parents
@@miraelena8265Just like Sweetie Belle's cutie mark is related to her family's marks, yes?
6:08 everyone mentions the Angel line but I think Spike saying “you don’t have tea with Fluttershy every week because you like tea” in the episode “the breakup break down” is much more compelling evidence ESPECIALLY since the context is Hearts and Hooves day
Seconded. The show goes to great lengths to show them falling in love from both sides, both by showing how much they care for each other, and by showing how other characters can see that they'll end up together. Random ponies in town thought they were opposites. Their friends knew they'd get married. "They took Fluttershy!? WHERE?" - To There and Back Again
There are too many examples for me to bother trying to list them all.
I feel that was Spike making fun of how much time they spend together with tea parties. However Discord instantly brushes off that statement and appears to have no interest romance what so ever, even with Fluttershy
@@Fourger14 I personally prefer "I have a Fluttershy to save!"
@@changelingkingcocoon5029 That one is pretty great.
@@sparething3951TBF, Discord brushes off anything that could make him seem weak or insecure. We've seen in plenty of episodes he won't admit things, and is entirely stubborn.
A huge episode to me was the Tree Hugger one. Its the only time we see relationship jealousy except for one other strange "couple"... Spike and Rarity, which is more Rarity not getting the attention she wanted. Was a really messy episode to me.... BUT, we all knew how weird that relationship was and the context. Spike is a child.
Fluttershy is not, she's an adult. I view Discord and Fluttershy to be a tragic love story, and the comics perfectly showed that.
I'm kinda convinced Flim and Flam are estranged Apple Family members. They have similar coat/mane/eye colours to the Apples, plus their apple cutie marks. It just makes sense to me.
in the comics this had some parts because Granny Smith and Flim had a conversation between him regarding his brother when the two broke up due to a mare. And Granny Smith spoke about two brothers that she knew that broke up due to a different thing but one of the characters in that flashback had the same colors as Flim and Flam which had some speculation and stuff.
@itsjustaclint8404 I have that comic I'll have to take a look when I get home
@@timelapse11 correct me though if i am wrong just in case.
@@itsjustaclint8404 I just had a look and the only ponies in Granny's flashback are Granny herself and the brother's she's talking about
@@timelapse11 look at the hair of the brothers. they have somewhat a similarity to flim and flam's. the one at the right specifically i dunno if that's enough but i guess i probably misremembered
Tbh I would say that Rainbooms are a rainbow dash exclusive move.
In the Sonic Rainboom episode during the library scene, Pinkie says "when a pegasus like Rainbow dash gets going so fast...... BOOM! A sonic boom and rainbow can happen all at once!"
And while whenever Rainbow flies fast she has a trail that looks similar to a short version that happens with the rainboom, twilight and lightning dust also have unique trails at fast speeds.
So I think while any flying creature capable of the sonic boom part, I think the rainbow version is exclusive to the flyer having a rainbow color scheme.
This is my interpretation too; unfortunately the way johnny talks about it in the vid and I think worded the survey question has it as if the question connects her mane colour to the sonic boom itself, rather than the _themeing_ of said boom, making this opinion not fit the true/false nature of the questionnaire.
@@BismuthBorealis I originally wrote a like 5 paragraph response but it got deleted so I'm gonna say it again in less words lol.
I think when the OG Rainboom episode was written Rainbow was intended to be the exclusive user of the move considering supposedly she was the only person to ever do it supposedly.
But later they decided to expand the idea to anyone, and as another comment mentions it looks like twilight does her version at the season 4 premiere.
I think the TwiBoom was just a special effect. Notice her horn light up just before take-off? Or was that magic used to catapult her to sonic speeds?
But I'm sure with enough training to reaching such speeds and getting the angle correct, maybe even Derpy could pull off a Derpboom!😂
@@Edward256 I figured it's that she used it to increase speeds or used it to recreate the rainboom with her magic.
In the same shot that her horn is glowing, she has a solid trail of color not fading colors behind her. Also out of everyone she has RD train her, the only one who's supposedly done it.
Good argument, but isn't the sonic rainboom already set up as a legendary move that dates back WAY before Rainbow Dash as even born? This means that either Dash time travels to the far past and does it (which I can't really see her desiring to do by the end of the show), or there has been a pony or 2 before her that did it first. It isn't everyday a pony with a rainbow mane is born, let alone a pegasus. The number of times a pegasus has trained their whole life to repeatedly attempt a sonic rainboom is much higher. So it would be much more plausible for the rainboom to be a move only rainbow maned pegasi have the potential to pull off.
From least canon to most canon, my degrees of canonicity go;
13)Toy packaging
12)Fanon
11)Headcanon
10)Spin-off media material created under a different team or individual
9) The first few episodes of a long-runner
8)Word of the creative voices with indirect input
7)In-text mention once
6)Spin-off media material created main team
5)Word of the Creative voices with direct input
4)Intended Subtext
3)Subtext (audience consensus)
2)Consistently In-Text
1)Whatever Is Funniest
That last one is the best reason.
(0) Twitter statements That trump's what is in the show
"They had me in the first half, not gonna lie."
@@daraghokane4236
McCarthy: "Twilight won't outlive her friends."
Big Jim: "Sunburst and Starlight make a good couple."
Also Jim: "I'm not into shipping the cast."
While the majority of my reasoning for not believing Luster Dawn is the daughter of StarBurst is because there just isn't enough solid evidence available, there is a small part of me that actually dislikes that idea. As a straight woman who's had mostly male friends her whole life, it bothers me to no end when people always try to push the idea that if two members of the opposite sex are friendly with each other, they have to start dating. As if platonic feelings between friends with compatible sexualities and genders can't exist. I love Starlight and Sunburst for being a great example in popular media of such a friendship.
Understandable.
I just think the name & color scheme fits both characters, but she could be the kid of 1 of demain & a rando.
I too prefer them to be friends instead of being a couple, much for the same reason.
you get it!! it just kinda sours the idea of starlight's history with sunburst ;;
also, like, startrix is just the infinitely better ship by a huge countrymile anyway lmao
There’s a reason the show very rarely does toilet humor, cause it reminds us that these characters are naked
Well, they're at least naturally coated. As opposed to us, monkeys with extensive hair loss.
i'd trust the author's word unless that word is contradicted by the content itself (which the lauren faust example is contradicted by the show having an outhouse)
That and Lauren departed from the show early, so not really the author past season 1. The opposite is also true, if something happens in the last season of a show that's inconsistent, it's retcon, and need not be treated as canon in earlier seasons.
Friendship is Magic has a lot of changes throughout the series; most notably, the writers stopped worrying about anachronisms as the seasons passed, and were perfectly fine with incorporating any modern innovations or cultural aspects into the show. The show was obviously originally supposed to be mostly Victorian in culture, but it's understandable that would be destructive to the creativity. Equestria Girls didn't help to conflate the past and the present.
I can see where the Rainboom connection to haircolor argument holds water. The majority of flight effects end up tied to coat and hair color (see lightning dust). So it may be that any pegasus could perform what is in function a rainboom, but they may have a different coloration besides a rainbow. So Dash could still probably do a rainboom even if her mane was different, it just wouldnt be called a rainboom.
I literally thought this was the widely-believed opinion
I like to think the sonic rainboom doesn't refer to the color of the boom itself. Like twilight's flying at the season 3 finale could be considered a rainboom.
I think most people's concensus would be calling the boom after the caster.
Rainbow = Rainboom
Twilight = Twiboom
Derpy = Derpboom
But I believe Pinkie has implied it is named after the colors. so...
Rainbow = Rainboom
Twilight = Purboom / Biboom? 😅
Oh dear, naming 'booms after the pride flags...
exactly!!
MLP fandom: "F*** you and I'll see you tomorrow!"
I realize I'm feeding into the discourse here, but the "no toilets" thing makes sense to me. With media like this, it can be confusing for fans to know where to draw the line between "they're animals, they would function like animals" and "they're animal-shaped people, so they would do most things like humans." But in-universe, why would they bother with toilets or putting bathrooms in every building when it's natural to go bottomless and be outside most of the time? I doubt anypony would plop one out in the middle of the road the same way an actual horse would, but they probably know to be careful when walking through the bushes.
Nawwww I still think that's dumb
I want to add to this too :P
Horses actually don't just go somewhere randomly. If left to their own devices they typically develop favourite spots were they like to do their business.
For example, at one of the farms I work at, the three horses in the horse field only go in 4 specific spots, one of them being seasonal (because it's shady) and I will only very, very rarely find a manure pile in an out-of-place part of the field (like the center for example, I haven't found a single pile in the middle of the field in over a year).
The only time a horse will go somewhere "randomly" and not a favourite spot is because they can't, like when they are being ridden or are working for example.
The reason why we have toilets is not because we are embarrassed to be seen doing it but because what comes out of us does not smell good and stains/pollutes our surroundings, in equestria everything is clearly ordered and they are an intelligent species, I find it silly that an intelligent species simply agrees to smell that all day every day, It's an obvious problem and they have magic so there has to be multiple solutions, At least they have to do it outside their homes as in the Middle Ages
Haven't seen the video yet, so I don't know the context, but I wanna provide a Counterpoint: there's an outhouse at the train station in Dodge Junction (Season 2 Episode 15, "The Last Round-up"), as well as one at Sweet Apple Acres (Season 7 Episode 13, "The Perfect Pear").
That's gross
The weird part about Luster Dawn's parentage is that, if you look into the behind the scenes info, the head showrunner & the writer of the episode just kinda... disagree on whether or not she's a Starburst kid?
So full disclosure that I absolutely do believe AJ and RD got together at the end if the show. But what I'm about to say is not at all why; I wasn't even aware of that picture shown in the video. But I also thought of a much stronger argument before being confronted with a flimsy one and want to steelman on principle.
Ashleigh Ball may or may not have been close with the writers, but she doesn't need to have overheard the writers talking for her information to be valid. In animation, a character is a collaboration between writer and voice actor. It's true the writer has a big picture view of the story, but the VA has to get in a character's headspace to portray them.
The best argument for the picture is not that Ashleigh had inside information, it's that she understands both character's emotional landscape and feels romantic tension between them, using the picture to express it. The picture would thus not be literally canon as if it were in the show, but gives us a better understanding of the characters as only someone so deeply in their head could provide, which then gives greater context to the scene in The Last Problem.
True. There’s also an interview with Jim Miller where even he said he didn’t want to make AppleDash anywhere near canon but her was overuled by the higher ups to put a pretty bow on everything. There’s also images from the games, comics and script leaks showing them together.
Ashleigh shipped herself with herself pretty early on. And M.A.Larson was onboard with it. And according to those script leaks, so was half the staff. ;)
100 fucking percent agree
I hadn't heard of the sonic rainboom being mane-dependent, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. The rainboom was said to be an 'old mare's tale', meaning no one else within living memory had done it, and no one else within the show had a rainbow-coloured mane. After the sonic boom itself, rainbow dash's mane forms the rainbow afterwards - if her mane wasn't rainbow-coloured, how would this work? There are also several other extremely talented fliers (e.g. lightning dust and spitfire) who have also clearly never done it, even though they probably match (or at least come very close to) rainbow dash's speed. However, it doesn't mean she was able to do a rainboom _just_ because she had that mane - it means she had the _potential_ to do it. It still required a huge amount of practice and hard work before she was capable of doing it. Similar to how top-level athletes, who have a massive amount of natural talent and potential, still need to work as hard as they can before they are able to compete in the top-level competitions.
I think I’m a little bit of column A and a bit of column B on the sonic rainboom being because of RD’s mane. Like, I think she was able to achieve it because she worked so hard on her skill at flying, but it looked the way it did was because of her mane. I think any very skilled flyer could do something similar, but I doubt that it’s a coincidence that the pony with a rainbow motif was the only one able to create a rainbow visual affect by flying.
10:38 "How much do you trust Lauren's information here on this subject?"
Not at all! From the tone of her replies, I always assumed that Lauren was just having a laugh when answering questions about Equestrian lore on Twitter, and not intending to be taken seriously.
If I thought she *_was_* trying to be more serious in her replies, like when Lauren responded on whether Scootaloo was disabled or an orphan, then my opinion would be different.
I honestly think Lauren’s response to the toilet thing was a troll. Not only by contradictions but also I’ve seen another time where she jokes along to the fandom.
On a general note, it's been a bit odd seeing the term 'headcanon' penetrate wider nerd cultute and be met with a degree of backlash.
There's always been a degree of friction between what I've seen termed "transformative" fandom and "curative" fandom, but in the past I saw more animosity from the former while the latter seemed oblivious. Now to be honest I'm skeptical of the idea of a hard division in the first place, but seeing this backlash does make me pause.
Unsurprisingly I've seen the most arguing over the subject of queerness, but I always existed in a space where saying "X is gay" is usually understood to be a reading of a character over a hard, in-text confirmation, due to the supressed nature of queer representation in media for the last however many 100 years.
Seeing people get upset under the apparently sincere impression that people are arguing their readings and headcanons are textual and that they have to see it that way too, is a reminder of how there's a language to fandom informed by context, that's not immediately obvious if you've not spent time immersed in it.
I admit I wouldn't be sure that they where sincere, if I hadn't seen some fans have the same reactions to encountering less "topical" headcanons, like a character's hobby or some miniscual facet of their skills. It's easy to dismiss those fans as Stick In The Mud's or Pedantic, but a lot of useful fan resources like fan wiki'd and databases are held together by people with that mindset.
I guess this is where the academia and the English lit classes do come in useful in spreading knowledge on theories of literature and media analysis. That aspects of a work can exist in different levels of textuality, subtext, authorial intent, social context, copyright etc.
Which is funny because I have s real bugbear with the phrase "media literacy" these days. Not the phrase itself but seeing it become used to mean 'a person's take on a narrative that I don't like'.
I generally found this topic to be really interesting. Especially the part about how we sometimes let our biases affect our opinions on media. Great video, keep up the amazing work.
Every time Johnny tells you the disclaimer, take a drink.
You gotta pregame before Ponyville Ciderfest.
Edit: I know I sent this as a joke, but in retrospect, it is a joke in poor taste since I had forgotten Johnny was a recovering alcoholic.
Not to speak on his behalf but I don't personally think he'll take offense to this. Good on you for catching it and owning up to it though.
(I thought it was really funny, don't worry.) Yeah, five disclaimers is a lot, but this a spiritual successor to a video that was misunderstood to the point I received 200 hate comments, and I didn't wanna risk that again.
S4E2 twilight does a sonic rainboom but it's her cutie mark instead. This kinda says to me that rainbow dash's sonic rainboom is rainbow because of her colour scheme and same goes for other ponies. If they do a sonic boom then it would correspond to their own mane/cutie mark/colour scheme.
I headcanoned Twilight as Aroace with no absolute interest in romance, and I remember some of fandom attacking me for it lol
Oh oof. It's a totally interesting headcanon and you didn't deserve to be attacked for it, honestly.
There's this anime called Precure and the currently airing season/generation has this highly popular ship between two of the main characters, and I do like that ship but I headcanon that one of them has no interest in ever having a romantic relationship due to what a certain character said in one of the episodes - The Precure fandom is pretty nice and respectful overall, but I'll still be careful where I talk about this headcanon of mine just in case.
@@eglol I got comments like "But Twilight is bi!"
"Twilight is in love with pinkie pie!"
Do people not know what headcanons are anymore 😭
@hyurinnagata1616 I get bi Twi and is in love with pinkie is a popular headcanon but it's not my headcanon
Genuine question, wasn't bi Twilight made canon? Through a Twitter post, but nonetheless
Not that I'm disregarding the aroace headcanon, makes perfect sense to me since i think of her as bi ace
This was a fun video that showed me a lot and gave me an interesting look into the fandom. It was fun taking the survey and seeing how it was used, i can't wait to see a part two for the Fan theories video. Thanks for this video!
I'm ngl, I did vote against Pinkie and Cheese theory in the finale. I hadn't watched the finale in a WHILE and I only watched it once. I was fully just in denial 😭 I'd probably vote yes now.
I believe that G1 and G4 are separate universes that can bleed into each other (partly because of nightmare moon, the pony of shadows, and the rainbow of darkness being born from the same thing is interesting but the main reason i believe this is to have an excuse to have Danny Williams interact with the cmc as they feel so similar to me). I also believe Cozy Glow was the closest to being redeemed.
I always thought of it as a spiderverse sort of situation, but with less universes, in my eye, every generation is a universe they may or may not share elements, with g4 and g5 being the two (separate) universes that are more closely linked
@@watermelon3266 that makes sense and explain why so many characters are similar in personality even if they aren't the same characters or some characters exist in multiple generations. Plus, the shows share some lore.
@@lunakingsley.7247 yes, it helps me sleep at night to know that the ponies of g4 that I spent half of my life loving didn’t royally screw everything up after the last episode
@@watermelon3266 yap. Plus, G5 is another universe
Helps explore the lore of how other universes work in mlp when it comes to similarities and differences.
@@lunakingsley.7247 ofc ofc
Vinyl and Octavia is one I never saw as a thing, especially with Fandom bits added to things like Vinyl *maybe* being interested in Neon Lights. As far as the episode showing them living together to me only shows they're roommates and have very little on screen chemistry. Head canons are fun though, and I don't think there's an actual wrong answer for anything in a video like this
I really appreciate the way you present your information and opinions. You're good at this. This might be a weird compliment, but I feel like you understand what stories are for more than the vast majority of people do. You'd make a good Pixar Theorist.
Hey Everyone 😃, it's Johnny's college roommate philosophy major! 😏Now, what did Johnny get wrong? 😅If you have an answer, you've missed the point. Luv ya, Johnny ♥
I will not die on this hill, but since twilight has her own version of the sonic rainboom in the shape of her cutiemark for some reason. I wouldn't say its impossible that the rainbow color comes from the performer's mane, magic, ect. causing variation. That would end up turning the sonic rainboom into the sonic maneboom or something else ruining the intended pun for the sake of accuracy. Nomatter what at the end of the day its going to be a pony breaking the sound barrier and creating a spectacle.
15:49 In Twilight's Kingdom pt. 2, twilight speeds past rainbow dash with her uncontrollable power, and has a very similar trail to Dash's sonic rainboom trail so I think this checks out tbh
so it's a rainbow sonic boom bc she's got rainbow hair, but she still had to fly fast enough to reach like pony mach 1, which is sick asf so it doesn't matter
my theory about the sonic rainboom is that it got it's name from the rainbow mane color, but we have seen twilight perform a similar action that had a different color and the explosion was shaped like her cutiemark.
twilight sparkle and chrysalis are making out rn this is Canon btw
Ive seen stranger ships
why do i kinda fw this ship 😭😭 toxic yuri wins again
REAL
@@lacedupangel fluttershy x chrysalis too but not because i kin fluttershy or anything haha (im lying i would straight up do oc x canon)
personally I have to say I love the way you script your videos, if people can't see that you're trying your utmost best to be considerate of everyones theories and opinions that, unfortunately, is on them. I love your videos and the research you do is thorough and the analysis is great! Keep up the great work ~
IMO the sonic rainboom is a special variant of a sonic boom, with the latter not depending on mane color
Hot take I think they should’ve have made the new My Little Pony show about Lester Don because she was already set up as like twilight student so why not do a show with this whole new character you introduced
I just realize I spelt her name wrong
Desire plays a huge part in this fandom. What they want precedes everything. Those who want a couple to be a couple because they ship it are going to see it, people who don't ship a couple are not going to see it and neither side is interested in hearing any argument opposing their viewpoint which is about as far from arguing in good faith as one can get.
Its also fiction so you can have whatever head fanfics you want and not actually be wrong.
i LOVE this video!! i often struggle with interacting with media, i weigh the "worth" of my interpretations against what's actually written on the page, which makes fandom less enjoyable to me as a whole. it's why i fell out of reading warrior cats. that kind of stuff bleeds into how i interact with the world as a whole, everything had to be black and white, but there's so much more nuance than that, and the nuance is so much fun to explore! at the end of the day i'm not the author, and the author can't go back and edit whats already out there so by having endless discussions, theories, and headcanons it makes it so i can make the media enjoyable forever!! its a rough habit to break but so worth it, it makes you see the entire world under a new, beautiful light
Talking about your favorite media should be fun! I'm so happy you liked this, and I'm glad you can enjoy some of your favorite stuff a little more!
I appreciate how ethically and respectfully you use your platform.
I would put a fan theory but if I had any when I first watched the show I forgot about them. I would need to jog my memory by randomly seeing what it may have been again if any.
6:30 Kind of related to the video(though mostly not), but maybe something similar to the Trixie video could be done on the kinds of characters like Angel(I'd say polarizing, but I'm not sure that's quite the impression with Angel), though most of the video would probably cover Discord
About the sonic rainboom:
First of all, I don't think the show writers put a lot of thought into this topic, and that the sonic rainboom was made specifically for rainbow dash, so there isn't a 'canon' answer to this question, but that doesn't mean I won't give my own interpretation anyways!
I think the colors of the sonic rainboom ARE determined by hair color, but that doesn't mean it's impossible for someone with non-rainbow hair to do a sonic rainboom. I think the name "sonic rainboom" comes from the way the rainboom looks, which is an arc of bright color - even if it doesn't contain the ROYGBIV colors, it'll still be highly reminiscent of a rainbow, so it makes sense for it to get its name from it. I mean, if you were making a rainbow that only used shades of pink, you'd probably call that a "pink rainbow", not "an arc of pink".
I believe that if a pony with all-green hair were to do a rainboom, the rainboom would be colored the same shades of green as their hair rather than being rainbow, but to me, that's still a sonic rainboom - just a green rainboom. Rainbow Dash is just extra special for being able to create a "true rainbow" rainboom. It was her destiny, after all.
i agree with the last point but i also dont think theres anything wrong with theorizing about more "obvious" or surface level questions. I think theyre fun to theorize and talk about as long as you dont take them overly serious. The more deep questions are fun too but theyre a different thing that is enjoyed and discussed for different reasons i feel
wait cause i always thought rainbows whole thing was cause of her mane colors too lol. also, havent other pegasi flown fast enough to have their own trail things and theirs were based off their colors, or am i mixing up fan stuff with canon?
i mean, i assume other pegasi could also achieve a rainboom/sonic boom thing too if they could also fly that fast, but dash is literally the rainbow pony yknow
6:08 i did some digging and apparently flutter shy and discord were supposed to get married but the episode ended up being cut and they couldn't find a way to make it work so it's possible it happened of screen and there are many times where flutter core was mentioned in passing that you missed but it's kinda a thing where you can't really decide either way so you just have to make your own theory based on witch opinion you like more personally i think they both wanted to get into a serious relationship but since discords practically immortal they decided against it but are still very close and have feelings for each other
I know this isn’t the main point of the video but I want to throw my two bits in about that last question: I think the other person in the Twitter argument sounds *technically* correct, but not substantively. In “Wonderbolt Academy”, you can see that both Rainbow and Lightning have visible trails even though neither goes supersonic that episode. Suppose Lightning Dust wanted to take the speed record from Rainbow Dash. In that case, I expect there would be a magical explosion effect when she broke the sound barrier, like there is with Rainbow Dash, but it would be lightning themed to match her subsonic speed trail. Only someone like Rainbow Dash can make a rainboom, but Lightning Dust could make a lightningboom, etc.
Personally… I don’t believe Applejack and Rainbow Dash are in a romantic relationship.
And I do have some points to support this.
1. Just because two people live together, does not mean they are in a relationship. We can’t know for sure what is happening, and thus can’t be a complete proof they are together.
2. Throughout the whole show, applejack has been shown to be completely disinterested in romance. Either by treating everyone as part of her family, or by completely showing disinterest to someone’s advances.
3. Rainbow and AJ have never really been shown in an actual implied romantic scenario. Everything they do (and that is mostly my opinion) is easily interpreted as sibling love/rivalry. Every time they interact, it feels like they are sisters instead of a couple.
It may also be my own opinion, but now that I rewatched the show I’m pretty sure AJ is aro/ace.
I voted yes on Dash being able to do the sonic rainboom because of her rainbow mane and tail. I mean isn't it obvious? A sonic rainboom is a sonic boom. It's not something any pony can do, but we see in the season 4 finale, if I remember correctly, Twilight shoots off the ground with all the princesses magic, and also does a sonic boom, and it's got her mane colours. Doing a sonic boom is rare, Rainbow also has a rare mane colour. So that's why she can do a sonic rainboom. If her dad was on the same level of flying as his daughter, I bet he could also do one.
Great video and I had a lot of fun taking your survey! I completely agree on fan theories. It’s not about a theory being right or wrong, it’s about it being open to interpretation and discussion.
For some reason I expected this video to be about that one episode where pinky multiplied herself and questioned if she was the actual original pinky... Not sure why. Anyways this was nice
Wow 6:46 is really surprising to me, same reason for what you had mentioned. I had joined the fandom fairly early on in S2 and saw SO MUCH fan art, be it music animations fanfic and just drawings, of these two being shipped together. I wonder what might have caused that to shift, general passage of time and less shared screen time perhaps?
Passage of time is one, but also it's not hard for lots of people to say 'the show doesn't make them canonically together but my works will show them together anyway!' It's why alternate ships like Flutterdash still get stuff done now. There's nothing stoping someone from just saying 'i'll do my own thing separate from the source'.
THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS VIDEO reminds me other people can think critically about the media they consume.
i was actually having a discussion regarding ships the other day in a discords server with some friends and the subject of whether appledash was canon or not came up. i said that i chose the interpretation they werent simply because i dont really like the ship and dont like the idea of canonizing any mane 6 x mane 6 ship. the text does not explicitly say or show they are in a relationship. their response however was to claim i was ignorant for missing something a writer said regarding the ship and just choosing to not accept fact, even tho it isnt fact. im not going to bash anyone who agrees with the interpretation of them being in a relationship, i just personally dont agree with it. so thanks for reminding me im not crazy and ignorant lol. i wouldve preferred the conversation turned argument had more substance from their side but oh well
Do you think Marble ever got over Big mac and found her own very special somepony, after that CRUSHING💔 blink and you'll miss it moment in "Best Gift Ever"?
Probably, but perhaps she never was able to move on from it and never ended up having a partner in the future.
I love debating over such stuff even if it's little like if Rainbow is an alcoholic or not. I'm very happy that the show writers left many things open so everyone can be satisfied with their asnwers. But some are just cacon like Lyra x BonBon or Lil' Cheese is the child of Pinkie and Cheese Sandwich. On ships I even have multiple answers while having a mane couple I like. I ship Rarijack but I like to imagine that Aj and Rainbow were in a relationship at some point.
Sometimes i let my interpretations cloud my enjoyment of reaction videos, like if they don’t have the same reaction i did they're somehow wrong. Usually i can let it go and enjoy the video. EXCEPT when it comes to A Hearth's Warming Tail. Idk why but whenever i see people's reactions i almost never see them draw the same conclusion i did, and that maddens me! It feels obvious! A Hearth's Warming Tail is recontextualizing Starlight's backstory. It puts her story in the context of a Christmas story most english speaking people know, to compare the two stories and make connections to make the audience understand and empathize with starlight. It's one of my favorite episodes, becuase it made me realize that Starlight is like me! I had a bad experience in my life that snowballed into me having no friends at a point in my life. I hated the world and felt vile and aggressive, luckily i made some new friends before i became a cult leader but my point still stands. It makes me very upset when a reactor doesn't atleast point out the similarities
I definitely didn't click on this video expecting math, and now you've made me want to watch mlp I watched season 1 a few years ago but haven't found the time to watch it
One thing being ignored in this is the idea that the final episode or the later seasons should be treated as though its fluid and connected. Lots of shows throw stuff in at the end that was illogical or came out of left field, and fans just ignore it as stupid crap the writers did. Very few series outside of single seasons mini-series, and two to three season animes based on short mangas have a solid narrative through the whole thing. In the case of Friendship is Magic, it's clear the addition of Cadance as a princess and alicorn was an accretion. Then Twilight becoming and alicorn princess. Then the removal of the physical elements of harmony, Starlight Glimmer obviously, etc. Therefore, people shouldn't get too upset over different takes on the final episode. Not to mention, the finale had the terrible time skip trope that is never executed well in a series anyway.
A great finale of a show is one that just comes off as a good episode that fits into the series, and opens a path for a continuing adventure. Given this series as a whole, ending on an unoriginal trope isn't surprising.
Most nuanced take I've ever seen on the topic of headcanon and theorycrafting in this fandom, godspeed.
this video was super fun and interesting to watch personally and id love to see more
Brilliant video and survey. But here's me two cents on shipping. I think that we have two types of presenting the story. MLP might show that something is the case and imply that something is the case without showing it to be the case (Applejack's parents are dead, Appledash, Cheesepie…). Most of these situations from survey seem to fall under the latter. Now what makes things true in MLP is that they were explicitly shown to be true, so the cases of implying aren't strictly true. It's quite reasonable to believe them to be canon nonetheless, because they're implied to be canon. I guess no one would seriously say that question whether Rarity had more or less than 10 000 hairs in her maine has definite answer. Question about Appledash is similar in this manner, but the difference is that even without showing what is the case it's implied what is the case
Oh so that’s what “Death of The Author” means. I suppose that kinda makes Weird Al signing the Pinkie x Cheese Sandwich fanart with “I stole your waifu” not conclusive evidence.
Didn't Twilight do the sonic rainboom in season 4 episode 1 part 2
I had to skim the episode for this, but no, she doesn't, it's clearly magic she did with her horn, she didn't have enough time to speed up and we have a short scene before the "rainboom" where she light's up her horn;
@@PlayerUzU Yeah I just did the same and I think you're right. I don't know why but I remember wrongly that a character stated she was going to do the sonic rainboom guess it's been too long since I've seen that episode.
Even as someone who ships/likes Fluttercord, Vyntavia, Appledash, Starburst, I wouldn't say any of them are completely canon.
I loved the old video and i'm glad on updates
I absolutely adore your more critial and introspetive discussions of our interpretations of media and the ambiguity of the relationship between viewer experience and perceived validity. It's a very refreshing lense to use while viewing MLP
The Pony of Shadows episode, that confirms the EqG is in the FiM canon, also disproves IDW comic canon sharing show canon, since the Banishment of the Sirens is different. It was a point of disappointment among the brony analysis community back in the day. After all, Starswirl rap battling the Sirens was freaking awesome!
that theory of the sonic rainboom is the stupidest thing I've ever heard
Regarding you reading all your comments, I actually really, REALLY appreciate that you go back n read them. It sucks that sometimes people don’t have nice things to say, but there’s always gonna be a few rotten apples in the bunch, so to speak. I think your videos are awesome and I loved watching this one, too
From 19:18, it's the best part.
this video is really good and kind of re ignited some love for discussing various idea's about the show, thanks Goat : )
Would "Bat Ponies are an actual Pony-kind" count as a fan theory? We have seen them multiple times in the show but we have nothing about their background or culture. They do seem to be confirmed in the chapterbook Princess Luna and the Festival of the Winter Moon as well as by statements by Lauren Faust and M.A. Larson.
Imagine these hypersensitive ponies just casually taking a dump in public while walking, not even stopping in place to "aim".
You mean to tell me that the "Oh, no! I hurt my best friend's feelings!" ponies would do something so grotesque and animal like?
You mean to tell me the world of "hugs, compliments and forgiveness" is also littered with mountain piles of stinking residue scattered all over the corners?
I recently found out (thanks to Scootertrix) that horses have a very high alcohol tolerance because of how their digestive system works.
I still wanna pretend Apple family cider is alcoholic, so now I headcanon that it's so magically alcoholic that it could kill a human!
Based Scootertrix fan. Yeah, wouldn't it be cool if there was some kind of magical property of cider that made it crazy intoxicating?
This reminds me of the Lion King fandom. I don't think it was ever intended to imply, quite the opposite, that Scar was the father of Zira's cubs. But when you have a lioness so completely devoted to a lion with no other info everyone took it to be a romantic thing so a lot of the fandom's relatively split on if Vitani and Nuka are scar's or not. I personally think it's a stretch to say that Scar fathered cubs two separate times months apart like that. Nuka and Vitani don't resemble him and Kovu who does was explicitly stated to not be his. Also just how lion prides work in real life has a lot of discourse about if Nala's related to Simba. Either Serafina being related to the other lionesses or mating with the king harem-style. It leads to grey areas where I believe Zira was romantically interested in Scar but that it was never returned and she had cubs elsewhere.
The fluttercord thing seemed more like Angel just being his usual menace self. It's such common behavior I think it goes without mentioning. Everyone's been there where you're on the playground minding your own business and some random kid makes a comment on how you have a crush on some random other kid. Tell me that's not in Angel's personality to do that as a small act of revenge for when he's upset at Fluttershy. Also he's just a jealous spiteful creature at the best of times so it seems pretty clear he'd resent anyone Fluttershy spent time with. He'd probably hate Discord for it and because he hates him couldn't think of any reason Fluttershy would want to spend time with him unless she had a crush on him. Because he wouldn't understand being able to enjoy anyone's company but his own.
I wasn't really invested enough in Yona or Sandbar as characters to notice their segment in the final episode. So that's why I wasn't sure where they stood- simply didn't care to remember.
I didn't even consider that auntie lofty and holiday were romantic until the fandom told me. Two mares with the exact same coat color just made sense as sisters.. Sisters would both be Scootaloo's aunts. I still don't entirely see them being a couple as something people would understand from the show itself. This isn't at all to delve into censorship and whatnot. I already know why it is the way it is. But it's just a situation muddied by family dynamics. There's 2 different ways to get a lot of family roles. (brother in law is someone who married your spouse, or the spouse of someone who was already your sibling. Likewise your aunt is your aunt's wife or your aunts sister) Can you honestly say me assuming two yellow mares of the same age who lived together being sisters is bad faith? I get people're attracted to people who resemble them but it seemed sister-coded to me.. which seemed to be intentional anyway.. I just don't want any goodballs trying to paint this as a homophobic issue.
Similarly to Appledash. I Know the reason WHY they'd never really show interest in each other during the show. But it seems weird to me they'd spend many years together through thick and thin and only get together sometime after their mid twenties(?) to their later 40's. So that's another weird grey area where I think they were supposed to be a couple, but due to meta-reasons I can't personally believe it with the information given before me. Furthermore i feel like if they WERE a couple Applejack would consider her family, and therefore give chores to Rainbow. But if Rainbow didn't live with her or wasn't a special somepony then she'd see her as a guest and refuse to give her chores. So the situation reads as "I''m a partially retired wonderbolt who has free time and wants to use it so that my stubborn friend will stop trying to break her hip doing the work of 4 ponies.(Since her brother moved out and her granny's gone there's probably a vacancy that applejack would absolutely allow Dash to fill if she was part of the family)
So basically "guests don't do chores. But family does" is a reasonably strong argument to me.
And furthermroe when Twilight Sparkle did a 'sonic rainboom' it also resembled her own mane and cutiemark
SUCH a refreshing, mature and nuanced discussion, top quality content as usual Gator 👌
I find it interesting how many of the "controversial" stuff about the show are the ships lol, rainbow + applejack feels weird to me, in EQ the writers tried to make rarijack so obvious that it hurt, but then they do rainbowjack for mlp? But to be fair I think that the writing staff is different for each franchise.
Also, for the comic thing, from what I heard until a certain point the comic was indeed canon to the show, but Hasbro or the writing team for the show decided to make it "sort of" canon, so yeah, most of the comic stuff isn't canon to the show, but some are.
i always felt like eqg implied a rarijack timeline, and mlp implied an appledash one, i dont think thats weird, theyre slightly different universes, with slightly different characters, and in that way, we get to see both. I dont believe in that "only one single true soulmate" bullcrap anyway, just because two characters are together in one universe, doesnt mean they have to also be in another
@@scribblecloud Weird wasn't the word I was looking for, but it's interesting to see how two look-alike universes of the same franchise pushes two different ships.
But tbh during G4 I didn't see much of a push to appledash ngl, always saw them as those two hyper competitive friends.
Maybe it's my rarijack brain talking but idk, don't really like the mane 6 ships (mane 6 with a mane 6 I mean).
@@PlayerUzU well for g4 it was just the ending and the thing with the va, whereas for eqg it was that one episode
@@scribblecloud Fair enough, both had only an episode to develop lol
I think the sonic rainboom is rainbow because of her main color and if she had say a pink and blue main the rain boom would be pink and blue
my take on the no toilets thing:
iirc we don't see the inside of the outhouse ig there could be nothing in there, and it's just a designated space for that
Lauren also could've just been joking in that tweet lol
Fun to watch, it's always a good reminder to just enjoy the things you like without overthinking it or criticizing others
hmmmmm.... cheese
19:27 friendship and love go hand in hand, you can’t have friendship without love, you can’t have love without friendship
But if you mean like lust or something, then idk I’m aroace
Clear Evidence above assumptions cause it can be misleading
10:17 and that's not even mentioning that She also said that Celestia and Luna were born alicorns.. "ThE bIRtH oF aN AliCoRn iS sOMeThiNg EuQEstRa hAS nEvER sEeN" "iT's beYOnD eVEn oUr uNdeRstADinG" i know it's been memed to-death but it had to be mentioned.
I seriously love your videos so much. Like, I'm sending this video to my *dad* (he loves mlp).
16:44 I'm in this fandom for fun, and it's more fun to assume everything explositly mentioned and shown is cannon. It's more difficult to prove anything that way. I like the challenge
I believe that sonic boom can be done by anyone with enough wingpower and training but that said sonic boom will depend on the performer's mane color
Therefore Rainbow dash is capable of sonic RAINboom because her mane is rainbow colored.
It seems like there is a 10% buffer of respondents that do either do not remember the relevant information or did not understand the form.
The point of 'death of the author' is that you the viewer are welcome to interpret the art made by the artist however you like. If the author disagrees with you on what their story is about as they were trying to write it to convey a specific message, then either the author didn't do a good job of conveying that or you the viewer were not paying close enough attention. So art has value beyond what the creator intended, but ultimately only the creator can say for certain what is true in story and you as a fan should draw the line for yourself at how much of the author's story you want to take in and at what point you're satisfied.
I do think appledash is canon, but I just prefer other AJ ships! Doesn't mean I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist though
I'll just make my own au's with rarijack Xd
I do think a wide majority of the people in disbelief regarding appledash are prejudice, not to say every skeptic is, but a wide majority are, having unfortunately interacted with those people before
I very much believe in Death of the Author. Some writers have said some whacky stuff about the stories they wrote. The text should speak for itself.
5:38 Plus, weird al literally signed a fans cheesepie fanart with "I stole your waifu" and made a post on instagram with a screenshot of cheese and pinkie from TLP saying "lately my timeline has been filled with allegations ive had sexual relations with a horse - so for the record, id just like to state thats not entirely accurate", if it wasnt already obvious enough, I think this would solidify it
As mentioned later in the episode with Ashleigh Ball (11:41), it's important to note that Weird Al did not receive any kind of writer credit for either of his appearances in the core series, and can't be considered a creator on paper for those episodes (he didn't even write his own songs). As a VA, his job was to record dialogue. But again, the point of this video was not to prove or disprove any of these ideas.
@@gatorgoatjohnny Thats a fair point
10:49 this is almost word for word how JKR told us about the wizards vanishing their poop before toilets. What happened to chamber pots Joanne?!? Also that toilets existed in the Roman empire.
About the whole rainbow dash and her hair causing her to do the sonic rainboom, i dont think that thats the case at all. Since her dad has a rainbow colored mane, and we have never seen him do the sonic rainboom, i think its all because of her practice.
Reality is subjective, as everyone sees the world differently.
What is said to be reality/truth is what society decides it to be. Something is made true/real because it was determined to be.
10:35 alas, they didn't.
Alphabittle poops on the ground and you can see a royal guard scooping it up.
they have bathrooms but only for pampering and hygiene.
Raise your hand if you found out Octavia and DjPon3 live together through the My Little Pony app game 👋
headcanons, theories, shipping and whatever is all nice and fun but having convinced all participating individuals is literally needed only if you RP with them stuff from setting and things are relevant, else it is just supposed to be fun talking about things, comparing views on topic or why you think it would be cool if things would or wouldnt be certain ways
Although it's never been directly said, tfhe idea of Applejack's parents being dead is hardly ambiguous. It's closer to all but confirmed. And it HAS been confirmed that it was Lauren Faust's intent for them to be dead. And considering that Applejack is the only one of the Mane 6 to not have their parents shown with them in the present (and by extension, Apple Bloom being the only member of the CMCs to not have their parents around, which says a lot considering that Scootaloo, the fandom's resident orphan was confirmed to have parents (which was something else Lauren Faust intended)), it's likely that AJ's parents are dead. They've ALWAYS been referred to in past tense. And in the 5th Anniversery (when the CMCs get their cutie marks), AJ says, "If ma and pa where here..." Which is something that highly suggests they're dead.
On the topic of orphins, my theory is that Gallus is an orphan.
Also, there's apparently a deleted scene, or at least an unused idea, that would've shown Fluttershy and Discord more of a relationship. So whether or not FlutterCord is canon, I personally think it's certainly canon that if there isn't a romantic relationship, it's at least close enough to call it a familial relationship. You can be closer than friends without it being romantic.
Personally, I think that Octavia and Vinyl may actually be sisters or something. It's been hinted at for a while that Sandbar and Yona had a thing for each other. So I think there's a high probability that they could be dating.
Lyra and BonBon where confirmed to be a thing. I'm surprised that the poll didn't show it being higher. I'm guessing that the 10.1% probably didn't notice the blink and you miss it moments and didn't buy into the fandom shipping them.
Aunt Holiday and Auntie Lofty are, again, in a confirmed relationship. I suppose it's not as obvious as Lyra and BonBon, but the relationship is confirmed.
Applejack and Rainbow Dash being a couple was intentionally left ambiguous for the fans to interpret it any way they want. It's just weird how people can automatically assume a relationship from the smallest of things. Lyra and BonBon's relationship literally began as them sitting on a bench together. RD could just be a friend trying to help out on the farm because that's what friends do. It could also be that they're arguing was evidence of them being like an "old married couple". My point is that it's something that has intentionally not been confirmed.
([NOTE] I made that comment before you pointed out the author's intent of leaving it ambiguous. But I left it in because it was my thought process and should be included.)
Jack Pot being Trixie's father I think has enough evidence for it to be true. I know that in some of the expanded media, there's mention of him actually being her father, though I don't know if he's reference by name. But the description of his appearance is spot on.
Why do only 88.1% think Twilight's parents are married? I suppose it's possible that they had kids had love each other but never actually got married for one reason or another. But you practically have to bend over backwards to come to the conclusion that they aren't married.
I never noticed Apple Bloom was wearing Goldie's shawl. But yeah, I think it's highly likely that Granny and Goldie are dead. Why else would AJ and Apple Bloom be wearing what they were wearing? And considering how old they were before the time skip, it's reasonable to assume that age would've caught up with them.
I think Goldie is enough like Pinkie Pie that it's reasonable to believe that AJ and Pinkie Pie are related. They're both farmers, and Goldie is a lot how I would picture Pinkie being at that age...But as you said, and the episode itself said, it doesn't matter.
The Cake Twins are most likely Carrot's biological children and that was just for a gag. Even if they weren't, because of how biology works, they would necessarily have the same father. So the two different tribes still would require the same amount of questioning even if Carrot isn't the father.
I'm on the fence about Luster Dawn being a StarBurst child. There's just simply not enough evidence for or against it. But I can see the StarBurst ship being canon though. There's at least a little more evidence for that.
I could buy that the Sonic Rainboom was the color it was because of RD's mane and tail color (we do, after all, technically see Twilight do a similar thing with her colors at the end of the Season 3 Finale). But I don't think that she pulled it off because of her colors.
The comic books are confirmed to be in the same continuity as the show...kinda. If a comic contradicts the show, then it's not canon. But it's been confirmed that as long as there is no conflict with the show, that the comics are supplementary canon. Some of my arguments of what I consider canon does come from the comics. Like Scootaloo's aunts, and Trixie going to the same magic school as Twilight, making her boasting have actual merit. Did you know that one of the comics that's no longer canon, the Nightmare Rarity comic, explains Luna's design change? It's a shame that the explanation was scrapped because of canon conflict. But my overall point is that the comics are SUPPLEMENTARY canon. They are canon as long as there are no conflicts, but they are not required knowledge.
The thing about the difference between friendship and love is that there is no difference. Friendship is a form of love, specifically "platonic love". What we often refer to as love would be "romantic love". The FlutterCord relationship (at least my interpretation of it being more than friendship but less than romantic) would be "familial love". And Twilight's relationship with Celestia (at least at the start of the show) would be "agape" or "love for/from a deity" (NOTE: I do not consider Celestia a deity, I'm just making the comparison since agape can also be for/from a ruler in my opinion).
It's a shame I didn't know about that survey before watching this video, because I would've loved to take part in it.
Unconfirmed is still ambiguous. Thanks for providing your opinions, even if providing answers wasn't really the point of this episode.
@@gatorgoatjohnny I understand. I'm just giving the answers I would've if I had known about this survey sooner, as well as elaborating.
This is a great video :)
Ik you're not here to prove or disprove anything, but I'm just wondering if you noticed the way Pinkie leaned on and looked up at Cheese Sandwich on a giant Gummie, and Little Cheese sharing WAY more genetic similarities with both Pinkie and Cheese than Lusterdawn shares with Starlight and Sunburst. The same amount Fluttershy & her brother share with their parents as well as Applejack & Apple Bloom with their's, and Scootaloo with her's.
I did, that's why I mentioned it in the video (5:11 & 5:25).
Does the cider in the show, which may represent alcohol, be representative of Applejack, who is named for an alcoholic drink? Is this a sign that Rainbow Dash is addicted to Applejack? /hj